[It isn’t fair, not at all, because Alia is lying, is offering what she cannot with every tearful inhale, is giving herself when she has never belonged to herself. She is a knife in the shape of a woman, and she will die buried beneath the ribs of Paul’s enemies, and she will live every moment until then serving the vision of Muad’Dib. Anything else is impossible, is a desert mirage born of thirst and desperation and sand in her eyes and spice in her mouth, a melange of lies that will crumble back to the dunes once it’s placed in the light. Alia cannot offer Alina anything, ever, and she knows it and she hates it and she does it anyway.
Because it’s also not fair that Alina is crying, that there are tears on her face like the tears Alia herself had never wept as an infant, slipping free of her mother quiet and solemn and fully self-possessed, never a child, never a girl, always and ever Reverend Mother and Bene Gesserit and Saint. She rises, knees wobbly, face reddened, hair loose and golden as she leans down, rests her forehead to Alina’s and reaches shaky hands to wipe away her tears.]
I won’t tell. [Soft, sweet, palms flat along the smooth shape of freckled cheekbones, settling to cradle a face that no design of mothers past could’ve created. There are stars in Alina’s tearful, reddened eyes, ones that drip over her lush lashes, and Alia ducks to kiss them, one two three, because to waste moisture is unthinkable. She breathes in the smell of sweat and sleep and girl, and her arms slip around Alina, like a child, reckless and bold and demanding, embracing without ever accepting the possibility of rejection.] Be just-Alina, and let me be just-Alia and I won’t tell anyone otherwise.
[Another lie, another promise she cannot keep, one hand petting over the tangle of Alina’s hair and kissing her eyes and her nose and whispering:] Please, don’t cry, Alina. I won’t tell anyone.
( alina's resistance crumbles in an instant, bones gone melty and buttery in alia's grip. weak, in a way she hasn't been allowed to be, knowing what it would mean for her survival in ravka — drawing attention the way a wounded deer draws hungry, exploitative glances. sagging forward, she hides her vulnerability away in the cave of alia's throat, as though the burden of keeping herself upright is too much weight to carry.
that, too, feels selfish. forcing alia to steady her, stealing whatever comfort she can while she clings to the gauzy fabric of alia's night dress like a child clutching at a soft blanket. like alia is the only safe thing she knows, and not another monster that could borrow into alina's skull, a worm devouring an apple core. pretending, maybe, that it pains her to wriggle through alina's insides.
it's unfair to even think it when alia looks so brittle, worn down by the ripple of pain she had caused, as if she lived the agony of alina's memories herself. still, the thought sends her into a fresh shudder, all spasming breaths like she's choking on seawater, airways clogged by the salty moisture of her own tears. for some time, it's the only evidence of alina's outburst at all, condemning herself to suffering quietly — until she untangles herself from alia's grip, to find the strap of her nightgown is soaked with tears and snot. alina starkov's unfortunate used tissue.
sheepishly, alina stares at the damp patch, too ashamed to let her eyes settle on alia's face. )
Sorry. ( the soft rasp almost seems too loud in the room, wedging itself into the silence. ) You can borrow one of mine.
( exhausted, she drags herself to the drawers in a corner. there's no point in feigning casualness now, after alia has seen her at her most fragile — but alina still tries, still clears her dry throat, as she plucks a cloud-soft nightgown of blue free. )
It's getting late. I think it's time I slept for the next century or so. ( i don't want to be alone. stay. ) But you could stay, if you wanted.
[Perhaps it means more because it’s so strange – Alina’s tears, Alia’s comfort, both zealously (selfishly) guarded in the worlds they come from. A knife cannot embrace, cannot stroke through the tangles of dark hair, cannot banish the monsters with a tuneless, near-inaudible hum of old, old songs. And, of course there are unknown reasons that Alina does not let her tears fall, and Alia can feel them in the room alongside her own ghosts, side by side, like sentinels, like soldiers in formation. Waiting and watching.
Let them. Let them be silent and dead and gone, banished with the steady dampening of her shoulder, with the shiver of Alina in her arms, a raw, tender, vulnerable thing that few have ever seen. Alia is selfish to her core, because she craves that, as painful and wrenching as each sob is, because they are given to her, only to her, all the agony that Alina sees as ugly like handfuls of gems, like water in the desert, weighty teardrops spilled onto outstretched, hungry hands.
When Alina pulls away, Alia is dry-eyed, but oddly sedate, like the nearness, the embrace has sated something in her she didn’t know was starving. The glance at her shoulder is echoed, some words about the gift of moisture given so freely building in her throat, then dying away at the rustle of blue fabric as it’s drawn out of the drawer. Alia customarily avoids color, sticks to white and grey and beige, the colors of sand and bones and sunbleached skies.
Blue is for water, for warm sunlight and cool ponds, for life and growing things. Without her conscious consent, Alia reaches out, touches the soft hem of the nightgown, smiles.] I’d like to stay. [Soft, to the fabric first, pooling cornflower-blue in Alina’s hands, rubbed gently between two fingertips. Then, eyes nearly the same shade, lifting up, hopeful and a touch shy.] I want to stay. With you. Can I?
( slowly, alina's eyes trip over the landmarks of alia's face. the shyness is all wrong, alina thinks, like — finding a freckle that hadn't been there before, new and unaccounted for, despite her dedication to counting every mole in the constellation atreides, tracing her own little star chart of alia and paul. it's just off enough that it gives alina pause, forced to recalibrate what she knows of paul's baby sister, softer than she'd given her credit for.
or maybe not soft at all. maybe this is just what alina does, what she can't stop herself from doing lately, wearing down even the strongest people she's known, wrongly thinking even the toughest stone won't erode, no matter how many times she batters her body against it. she's nostalgic, suddenly, for what's missing — alia's unbroken confidence, powerful even as she had pretended to play the part of a penitent. the daring knife-edge of her smile, showing herself to be untameable, even as she had come to heel between alina's legs. submitting, but not without the privileged right of a woman that belonged there.
anything that might prove to her that nothing has changed. she searches for a heartbeat longer, before she lets the silky nightgown pool into alia's palms, like water cupped in her open hands. )
I won't be good company.
( a hoarse murmur, if not a warning. wanting her to stay. wanting to hide away before she looks closer to realize alina's bright, sunny happiness has blinded both her and paul from the uglier truths of who, exactly, she is. she pads a quiet path to the bed, peeling back the sheets in invitation, peeking back at alia. )
But I wouldn't turn you away, if you chose to stay.
( alia's choice. alina doesn't watch her for long, in the end, on the chance she changes her mind — so she doesn't have to see the moment where she decides it isn't worth staying. instead, she slinks into the bed, already making herself a silky cocoon from the blankets, and looks into the empty space beside her. waits, her heart beating a slow, anxious drum in her chest. )
[Being with you is enough. That’s what Alia wants to say, wants to find the words to reach out through the cautious wariness in Alina’s tear-streaked face, to banish it like a handful of spice on a high wind, dispersed into air, into nothingness. It isn’t enough to chase away the grief, the darkness she’d caught a glimpse of in Alina’s mind, lurking like a great, rumbling beast beneath the surface – Alia wants to rend it to pieces, wants to destroy it with her teeth and her rage and her love, all of it bloody, all of it messy, all of it monstrous.
For now, though, she watches Alina cross back to the bed, slip beneath the covers in her soft, silky nightgown, eyes bright in the darkness, tucked beneath the blankets and staring at the still-empty sheets. The way she braces herself, takes slow breaths, the way her pulse beats in the air – she knows disappointment, she knows loneliness, and the steeling of her slender body is an oft-repeated act. Alina anticipates the worst, so she won’t be as hurt, as thoroughly destroyed when it happens.
Suddenly Alia can’t pull her tear-stained nightgown off fast enough, hair tumbling around her shoulders as she does, as she leaves the white fabric bunched and crumpled on the ground. The blue nightgown is pulled on – backwards, at first, Alia distracted by stumbling after Alina to the bed, wrenching the fabric around and shoving her arms through the sleeves even as she flops down onto the empty sheets. Slightly breathless, flushed, seeking out the warmth of Alina’s body that haunts her own like a ghost, both arms slipping out and seeking to tug the other girl close once more.]
Thank you. [Soft, snuggled close, knees bumping Alina’s beneath the cocoon of covers.] I’m – I want to stay. [Alia reaches up, smooths back the tangle of dark hair, pets it, like soothing a fearful pet, a tearful child, spooked by a thunderstorm – there, there, you’re safe, you’re okay, I’m here, I’m here.] You can sleep, I won’t go anywhere.
( shamefully, her stomach twists into cramping knots. she had thought the worst of what alia might do is leave her in this too-big bed in this too-big room with alina's too-big thoughts, giving her what she had wanted in the worst way — time spent inside the attic of her mind, alone to sort through the cobwebs and memories she's shoved into compartments. now, she sees herself splayed out vulnerably beside the same girl that had trespassed on it, sees herself made soft and defenseless by the promise sleep. sees the hinges of her mind cracked temptingly open, enough room for alia to slip inside as aleksander had, at night, an undetected shadow prowling in her head.
her throat squeezes around her swallowed fear, trying to digest it, as she reaches to cinch her fingers at the hem of alia's (alina's) rumpled nightgown. she hadn't intended it to be a test — but she thinks, maybe, she's designed it that way. set alia up to prove not all second chances are wasted. or — maybe she's just exposing herself to it like mithridatism, ingesting small doses of betrayal, so she can get used to the bitter taste of it in the back of her throat. so the symptoms are less and less potent, less effective at corroding her insides, over time.
even knowing the danger of laying beside her, alina can't stop herself from leaning into her like night-blooming jasmine, both craving and repelled by the threat of the sun. silent, she nods, afraid of what words will push past her mouth if she speaks. the fingers that hold fast to alia's hem slip beneath, innocently skirting up the slim line of alia's thigh, past her hip. they fan out against the notches of alia's spine, feeling the distant vibrations of alia's heart thump an echo against alina's palm. skin-to-skin contact, the way babies only stop their fussing once they're tucked into that warmth.
alina's sniffles dry up in the quiet of the room, too, small body slinking down in the sheets until she can nose between alia's breast. rise, fall. in, out. eventually, alina's breath peters out to the same pattern, comforting herself to sleep to the lullaby of alia's inhales and exhales. )
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no subject
Because it’s also not fair that Alina is crying, that there are tears on her face like the tears Alia herself had never wept as an infant, slipping free of her mother quiet and solemn and fully self-possessed, never a child, never a girl, always and ever Reverend Mother and Bene Gesserit and Saint. She rises, knees wobbly, face reddened, hair loose and golden as she leans down, rests her forehead to Alina’s and reaches shaky hands to wipe away her tears.]
I won’t tell. [Soft, sweet, palms flat along the smooth shape of freckled cheekbones, settling to cradle a face that no design of mothers past could’ve created. There are stars in Alina’s tearful, reddened eyes, ones that drip over her lush lashes, and Alia ducks to kiss them, one two three, because to waste moisture is unthinkable. She breathes in the smell of sweat and sleep and girl, and her arms slip around Alina, like a child, reckless and bold and demanding, embracing without ever accepting the possibility of rejection.] Be just-Alina, and let me be just-Alia and I won’t tell anyone otherwise.
[Another lie, another promise she cannot keep, one hand petting over the tangle of Alina’s hair and kissing her eyes and her nose and whispering:] Please, don’t cry, Alina. I won’t tell anyone.
no subject
that, too, feels selfish. forcing alia to steady her, stealing whatever comfort she can while she clings to the gauzy fabric of alia's night dress like a child clutching at a soft blanket. like alia is the only safe thing she knows, and not another monster that could borrow into alina's skull, a worm devouring an apple core. pretending, maybe, that it pains her to wriggle through alina's insides.
it's unfair to even think it when alia looks so brittle, worn down by the ripple of pain she had caused, as if she lived the agony of alina's memories herself. still, the thought sends her into a fresh shudder, all spasming breaths like she's choking on seawater, airways clogged by the salty moisture of her own tears. for some time, it's the only evidence of alina's outburst at all, condemning herself to suffering quietly — until she untangles herself from alia's grip, to find the strap of her nightgown is soaked with tears and snot. alina starkov's unfortunate used tissue.
sheepishly, alina stares at the damp patch, too ashamed to let her eyes settle on alia's face. )
Sorry. ( the soft rasp almost seems too loud in the room, wedging itself into the silence. ) You can borrow one of mine.
( exhausted, she drags herself to the drawers in a corner. there's no point in feigning casualness now, after alia has seen her at her most fragile — but alina still tries, still clears her dry throat, as she plucks a cloud-soft nightgown of blue free. )
It's getting late. I think it's time I slept for the next century or so. ( i don't want to be alone. stay. ) But you could stay, if you wanted.
no subject
Let them. Let them be silent and dead and gone, banished with the steady dampening of her shoulder, with the shiver of Alina in her arms, a raw, tender, vulnerable thing that few have ever seen. Alia is selfish to her core, because she craves that, as painful and wrenching as each sob is, because they are given to her, only to her, all the agony that Alina sees as ugly like handfuls of gems, like water in the desert, weighty teardrops spilled onto outstretched, hungry hands.
When Alina pulls away, Alia is dry-eyed, but oddly sedate, like the nearness, the embrace has sated something in her she didn’t know was starving. The glance at her shoulder is echoed, some words about the gift of moisture given so freely building in her throat, then dying away at the rustle of blue fabric as it’s drawn out of the drawer. Alia customarily avoids color, sticks to white and grey and beige, the colors of sand and bones and sunbleached skies.
Blue is for water, for warm sunlight and cool ponds, for life and growing things. Without her conscious consent, Alia reaches out, touches the soft hem of the nightgown, smiles.] I’d like to stay. [Soft, to the fabric first, pooling cornflower-blue in Alina’s hands, rubbed gently between two fingertips. Then, eyes nearly the same shade, lifting up, hopeful and a touch shy.] I want to stay. With you. Can I?
no subject
or maybe not soft at all. maybe this is just what alina does, what she can't stop herself from doing lately, wearing down even the strongest people she's known, wrongly thinking even the toughest stone won't erode, no matter how many times she batters her body against it. she's nostalgic, suddenly, for what's missing — alia's unbroken confidence, powerful even as she had pretended to play the part of a penitent. the daring knife-edge of her smile, showing herself to be untameable, even as she had come to heel between alina's legs. submitting, but not without the privileged right of a woman that belonged there.
anything that might prove to her that nothing has changed. she searches for a heartbeat longer, before she lets the silky nightgown pool into alia's palms, like water cupped in her open hands. )
I won't be good company.
( a hoarse murmur, if not a warning. wanting her to stay. wanting to hide away before she looks closer to realize alina's bright, sunny happiness has blinded both her and paul from the uglier truths of who, exactly, she is. she pads a quiet path to the bed, peeling back the sheets in invitation, peeking back at alia. )
But I wouldn't turn you away, if you chose to stay.
( alia's choice. alina doesn't watch her for long, in the end, on the chance she changes her mind — so she doesn't have to see the moment where she decides it isn't worth staying. instead, she slinks into the bed, already making herself a silky cocoon from the blankets, and looks into the empty space beside her. waits, her heart beating a slow, anxious drum in her chest. )
no subject
For now, though, she watches Alina cross back to the bed, slip beneath the covers in her soft, silky nightgown, eyes bright in the darkness, tucked beneath the blankets and staring at the still-empty sheets. The way she braces herself, takes slow breaths, the way her pulse beats in the air – she knows disappointment, she knows loneliness, and the steeling of her slender body is an oft-repeated act. Alina anticipates the worst, so she won’t be as hurt, as thoroughly destroyed when it happens.
Suddenly Alia can’t pull her tear-stained nightgown off fast enough, hair tumbling around her shoulders as she does, as she leaves the white fabric bunched and crumpled on the ground. The blue nightgown is pulled on – backwards, at first, Alia distracted by stumbling after Alina to the bed, wrenching the fabric around and shoving her arms through the sleeves even as she flops down onto the empty sheets. Slightly breathless, flushed, seeking out the warmth of Alina’s body that haunts her own like a ghost, both arms slipping out and seeking to tug the other girl close once more.]
Thank you. [Soft, snuggled close, knees bumping Alina’s beneath the cocoon of covers.] I’m – I want to stay. [Alia reaches up, smooths back the tangle of dark hair, pets it, like soothing a fearful pet, a tearful child, spooked by a thunderstorm – there, there, you’re safe, you’re okay, I’m here, I’m here.] You can sleep, I won’t go anywhere.
no subject
her throat squeezes around her swallowed fear, trying to digest it, as she reaches to cinch her fingers at the hem of alia's (alina's) rumpled nightgown. she hadn't intended it to be a test — but she thinks, maybe, she's designed it that way. set alia up to prove not all second chances are wasted. or — maybe she's just exposing herself to it like mithridatism, ingesting small doses of betrayal, so she can get used to the bitter taste of it in the back of her throat. so the symptoms are less and less potent, less effective at corroding her insides, over time.
even knowing the danger of laying beside her, alina can't stop herself from leaning into her like night-blooming jasmine, both craving and repelled by the threat of the sun. silent, she nods, afraid of what words will push past her mouth if she speaks. the fingers that hold fast to alia's hem slip beneath, innocently skirting up the slim line of alia's thigh, past her hip. they fan out against the notches of alia's spine, feeling the distant vibrations of alia's heart thump an echo against alina's palm. skin-to-skin contact, the way babies only stop their fussing once they're tucked into that warmth.
alina's sniffles dry up in the quiet of the room, too, small body slinking down in the sheets until she can nose between alia's breast. rise, fall. in, out. eventually, alina's breath peters out to the same pattern, comforting herself to sleep to the lullaby of alia's inhales and exhales. )