[Once inside, he sets the any-tool down on the first available surface he finds, which is the desk piled with sketchbooks and strewn with pencils and paints. He drapes his coat over the back of the chair. His attention returns to Alina like a loyal dog to its master. She frets and fusses, making herself small against the door, baring herself to him, daring him to leave. As if he could ever go back. His answer flies out at once:]
I want to, Alina.
[I want you. The words hang precariously on his tongue, so ready to fall off that he must gulp them back down with a slow, steady breath. The same dream that spins through her thoughts dances tauntingly before him too, a dream Nikolai has revisited dozens of times in hours sleeping and waking. Drawing his gaze over her, drawing closer to her, he can't help but imagine her belly swollen with child underneath those achingly plump breasts. Can't help but remember all the lovely plans his dream-self has sketched, ignorant to reality and dwelling only in Nikolai's deepest desires. We need at least two, so the first has a friend to play with, the fool had reasoned. And if a third should come along, then a fourth is only reasonable, so that nobody feels left out. So many little feet pattering across palace floors, so much laughter rising up to the vaulted ceilings, no longer the lonely haunt of his own childhood.
All of it so palpable in this room, the impossibility of it so heavy against his heart.
Nikolai gently plucks her hands from the door, soothing her by tracing with his thumbs the ridges of her knuckles. The kiss he presses to her lips is strangely solemn, like a vigil held for that which will never be.]
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I want to, Alina.
[I want you. The words hang precariously on his tongue, so ready to fall off that he must gulp them back down with a slow, steady breath. The same dream that spins through her thoughts dances tauntingly before him too, a dream Nikolai has revisited dozens of times in hours sleeping and waking. Drawing his gaze over her, drawing closer to her, he can't help but imagine her belly swollen with child underneath those achingly plump breasts. Can't help but remember all the lovely plans his dream-self has sketched, ignorant to reality and dwelling only in Nikolai's deepest desires. We need at least two, so the first has a friend to play with, the fool had reasoned. And if a third should come along, then a fourth is only reasonable, so that nobody feels left out. So many little feet pattering across palace floors, so much laughter rising up to the vaulted ceilings, no longer the lonely haunt of his own childhood.
All of it so palpable in this room, the impossibility of it so heavy against his heart.
Nikolai gently plucks her hands from the door, soothing her by tracing with his thumbs the ridges of her knuckles. The kiss he presses to her lips is strangely solemn, like a vigil held for that which will never be.]