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[reznikolai]

@volkvolny NIKOLAI LANTSOV

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[reznikolai]

Counterargument: one might find your question careless, considering that you're the one who elected to leave.

[solmate]

One might find your lies careless, but that would require you to think of something other than your own ego.

[reznikolai]

[After a long pause, in which he begins half a dozen replies and deletes them all.]

I miss the way we argued before.

[When the words weren't wielded like knives, and it eventually ended in laughter and kisses.]

[solmate]

I miss more than just that.

[reznikolai]

Nobody calls me Kolya anymore.

[Which is to say that he agrees.]

[solmate]

Do you want them to?

[reznikolai]

No. It wouldn't be the same coming from anybody else.

[solmate]

I miss the way you call me Alinochka.

[reznikolai]

So where does that leave us?

[Both alone, both missing each other, but with all these broken pieces between them.]

[solmate]

Is it really that different from where we started?

There's something you should know.
Before you think you want me.

[reznikolai]

[Where did they start? From the vantage point of the present, the beginning is blurred with distance.

There's nothing you could say that could stop me from wanting you, he wants to write. But he's already made her too many promises he could never keep, not really. So he settles for the unvarnished:]

What is it?

[solmate]

[ Three words that slip between her rib cage like an impossibly sharp knife. A wound delivered so fast and so deadly she never knew it was coming. She's staring down at it now, a dam for her blood holding her together.

Should it be that surprising that was his response? Conditional. Everything anyone has ever wanted has been conditional. That was the whole point of this exchange wasn't it? It's like she's run her thumb along the edge of the blade and is surprised she's bleeding now. No one will know you like I do, no one will want you like I do, the shadows seem to croon and taunt across her dark bedroom walls. ]

You'll think I'm horrible. Or crazy. Or both.
Probably both.

I'm not very good at being a saint.
I'm not even good at pretending to be one.

I went to him.

[reznikolai]

[He doesn't need to ask who. She calls me when she is lonely. Words like knives that, despite his efforts to become impenetrable to the Darkling, have slashed through his thoughts every now and then. And now they return to bury to the hilt inside his heart.]

You know, when he told me, I didn't believe him. I thought he was just trying to get under my skin.

Maybe I don't know you as well as I assumed I did.

Were you lonely, Alina? When you were with me?

1/2

[solmate]

He told you?

[ Yes, she talks to Aleksander Morozova more than she should (which is any) but she does not expect Nikolai to talk to him. Maybe she doesn't know Nikolai Lanstov as well as she assumed she did. ]

It wasn't

[ She pauses, inhaling a deep breath through her nose to steady herself. It doesn't work. ]

It's nothing like we had.
You made me feel loved.

[ She should leave it at that. That's all he needs to know. But it's half a story, and how many of those has she been told only to choked by the truth later on. ]

[solmate]

There are parts of me I thought you wouldn't love.
Parts of me that I thought I could ignore.

But he's like a virus.
And I couldn't forget them.

[reznikolai]

[A dozen questions bleed like fresh lacerations from the dark of his mind. When did you go to him? Was it only once? Twice? More? What does he give you that I couldn't? How does he touch you? How can you stand to touch him?

Not all of them are fair. Nikolai had found new shapes of comfort and happiness and forgiveness in the arms of other partners even when he was still with Alina; it didn't mean that she lacked, only that they had something to give too. And he had found the Darkling's touch tolerable enough, the same hands that fractured him with these scars. But here in the dead of night, his thoughts are untamed beasts.]

Tell me. What wouldn't I love? What's so horrible that it would make me turn away from you after everything?

There are parts of me I thought you couldn't ever love. But I showed them to you anyway. I let you see all of me, like you asked.

You were angry at me because I kept the truth from you. Because I chose for you. Haven't you done the same to me?

[solmate]

What do you want me to say Nikolai?
I hate him. That's the truth. I loathe him. I haven't forgotten what he's done. To me. To you. To Genya. To all of Ravka.

But part of me understands him too.
And I hate that too.
I hate that I don't know what I would be if I wasn't a solution to a problem.
That even though I'm a so called saint people still mob me and want to wear my bones.
That if I couldn't be a saint, I don't know how long would I be tolerated.
That I want more power than any Grisha should have.
That it was a relief to think I died in the fold because it meant I didn't have to contend with being the savior any longer.
That a happy ending with my power ripped from me sounds more like a punishment than a reward.
That I'm never sure if you wanted me or what I could do for you.
That I'm never sure if you love me or just the idea that you could have me.
Those are the ugly parts of me.

Do you love that Alina?
Or are you in love with a story you told yourself about her.

[reznikolai]

I think I could.

Just about every doubt you have about being a Saint, I've had about being king.

Who am I without a problem to solve? What good am I if I can't fix what's broken in Ravka? How could our people continue to respect me, to love me, if they knew the monster I hide inside myself? If they knew that I'm starting to think I don't want to give up my claws and wings anymore?

I hate how easily I fell in love with the life I'm allowed to have here. How easily I fell in love with you.

I hate that everything I do ultimately serves me most of all. I hate that you doubt my love, but I hate even more that I've given you every reason to doubt.

Truthfully, I don't know. Did I want to make you happy because you deserve it after all you've endured, or because I can't stand being alone? Did I fall in love with you because you're YOU, or because you represent everything I can't have and desperately want?

I wish I could say the right thing. But I don't even know what that would be right now.

[solmate]

You think you could.

But you don't know.

I don't know either.

Goodnight Nikolai.

[reznikolai]

Saints dammit, Alina.

Do you want honesty, or do you want horseshit? You ask me to be honest, and then as soon as I deny you the answer you hope for, you cut me loose. You close up.

Where would Ravka be if I gave up on it every time I didn't get the results I wanted?

Love is messy, Alina. I'm not perfect, you're not perfect. Our feelings aren't perfect. It's a big damned mess. But you won't even give us a chance to sort through it.

[And to be sure to provoke an answer from her, he adds:]

By the way, I fucked him too. At least I waited until our relationship was in the grave.

[solmate]

How sacrificial and noble of you.
Am I supposed to like the answer just because it's honest?
What is there even to save.
Our futures are written.
I'm not a saint. You're not even a king.
Or has he not told you that yet either.

[reznikolai]

He told me, but I find it funny that you never breathed a word about it. Any other secrets I should know?

Why did you even message me? What, did you want me to cry to you about how lonely I am? To reassure you that I'm thinking about you when I'm fucking someone else? And then would you tell me that there's nothing worth salvaging between us?

You're as selfish as I am.

[solmate]

Because you have so much room to talk about keeping secrets.

I messaged you because I missed you. Because I'm lonely. Because I'm weak. Because you're right, I'm selfish. Because I'm stupid and stay up thinking about what it would have been like to be your wife, to have your stupid little pretty babies, and live a stupid little pretty life.

This was a bad idea from the start.

[reznikolai]

[It's the specter of the children they'd never have together that hollows out his anger again. All it is is a battered shield around the unabating ache in his chest.]

You know I've always been overfond of bad ideas.

I can't give you that life, as much as everything in me wants to. I can't go back to a year ago and do it all differently. Apparently, I can't even take away your loneliness. Couldn't make you feel loved enough. So what do you want from me?

[solmate]

I don't know.

It's probably no comfort, but being with him only made me feel more lonely in the end.

I'm not sure that's something anyone can solve for me.