Chapter Text
There is something spinning around in his stomach.
Something that has been there in various forms and shapes since the first morning he woke and found Alina curled into his side. Had been warm and pleasant then, taken him by surprise. Kidnapped a shaking little American, fully prepared to return her the next day. Changed his mind in a matter of minutes, warm and pleasant and the need to take and keep and keep her full overpowering everything else. Floating thoughts easily chased away in the first hours and then – lingering behind his teeth, a tart lemon cake making his mouth water, clamping down to keep words from slipping away to places not wanted.
The pain of a toothache but mostly pure pleasure.
Constant satisfaction only dulled by a ticking clock and a waiting plane. Watched her leave and the thing in his stomach had no longer been warm.
Not cold either.
A grey dull March morning in the south, indescribable in its plainness, filthy asphalt and naked trees stretching towards a sky clogged with fumes, every last one of Aleksander’s most hated things.
It’s different now, the pain in his stomach not from regret and a missed life, but the feeling of a rope against his neck, pressing against his Adam’s apple, there no matter how many times he scratches at the skin, still there like a boot on his chest, the weight of a man and a million, a schoolyard bully pressing down without remorse or pity. Sits and scratches at it throughout the night, wrapped in a blanket on the deck, Kaisa already handed over to Max, nothing to tell time by except for a sun that refuses to disappear. A relief when he sees the plane appear in the sky.
Finds a message waiting for him when he gets in his car, one eye on the road, the other on Alina’s face pressed into a tiny circle–safe flight–tries his best to think about her instead of the need to be sick as he parks the car. The need to call her as he makes his way through the terminal, clutching at the garment bag in his right hand, reminding himself that he is a grown man, capable of getting on a plane without the voice of his twelve years younger girlfriend in his ear. Tries to sleep on the flight to Tromsø, dips off, shaken awake a minute later by the Americans sitting behind him, accents he can’t place but too loud for the smallness of the space. Each shrill word burrowing itself deeper into his ear than the last, the man next to him flickering through Aftenposten without seemingly a care in the world and Aleksander wonders as he has so many times before if the people behind him actually are loud or if he is yet again being a freak about it.
Puts his headphones on to block them out, lasts five minutes before he takes them off again, the silence they bring the wrong kind and everything around him is atrociously wrong even as he knows everything is perfectly fine and normal. Fiddles with his phone for the reminder of the flight, does his best to focus on his breathing–useless of course–head bursting with sound and smell and the crammed seat and it is only the vague sensation that he might murder someone if he doesn’t get a break locked alone in a room with a lock that makes him get off the plane when they finally land that makes him get off it instead of staying put until they go back.
Gets two hours to himself in his hotel room before Ulla shows up, a familiar knock that quiets the snarled get lost before it can escape his throat. Doesn’t invite her in, no need to, remains in the doorway as he inspects the knife she’s brought, Alina’s friends’ names engraved at the top of the blade near the hilt, the wedding date three days away, unused steel sharp enough that he can use it to shave the hairs on his arm.
“Do you think it’s stupid?”
Back to being eight and ten, the entire class invited to his birthday and only three boys showing up and Ulla teaching him about the safety of small groups.
“No, Alina said they’re hikers and even if they weren’t it’s a good gift,” waits until he’s slipped the knife into the leather sheath and put the box away before she gives him a hug, almost as tall as he is, barely any need to bend. Grinning when she steps away, mischief and teenage dread. “By the way, mum is knitting her a blanket.”
“Please say you’re joking.”
“Not at all.”
“Alina’s not even pregnant.”
Yet.
The final word waiting behind his molars, waiting, ready for his tongue to pick it up and press it along and he’s not discussing it or any of the other words waiting there with his sister.
“I’ve told her this repeatedly, okay, once, but she almost broke my ankle with her cane and I love you but not enough to risk it.”
“You wound me.”
“Yeah, yeah,” a small packet showed into his hand, flips it around, Ulla’s name on a medication label. “For your flight tomorrow.”
“What is it?”
“Sleeping pills.”
“I don’t need–“
“Except you are going to need them, I know you. You’re barely going survive the flight to Oslo, flying straight to New York afterwards is a suicide mission for you. So take a pill and then stretch out in that nice business seat I know your girlfriend has booked for you and sleep through it.”
Bites the inside of his cheek, doesn’t answer even though he knows she’s right, that it is the probably the best possible solution to a problem he’s been ignoring for months. Ulla’s arms around him before he can force himself to say thanks and he manages to relax slightly, hugs her back as best as he can, knife in one hand, pills in the other, glad the hallway is empty and quiet.
“Say hi to the kids for me?”
“Of course. I’m probably sending them to you before school starts for a week or two.”
“As long as they’re fine with camping outside.”
Smiling when she releases him, faint laugh lines and the beginning of crow’s feet by her eyes, his own face staring back at him and a child’s wish that she would come with him.
“You know they’ll love that. Now, promise me you’re gonna have some fun while you’re gone.”
Grimaces, the idea of it implausible.
“I’ll have fun when it’s over.”
“Mm, that I’m sure of.”
Waves her goodbyes, leaves him to another restless night, twists and misses his cabin, misses Kaisa, the silence and the waves swelling across the bay, mountains towering in the background and the fact that there are mountains just outside the hotel door doesn’t help, the wrong shape and taste and smell.
A numbness when he checks out in the morning, doesn’t know if he’s lucky or infectious, a row to himself and fellow tired dragged faces, the nausea at a bare minimum and he spends the time staring out the window, fiddles with his chain. Lands and once more he wants to stay put, make them take him home. Makes himself function instead, rubs sleep from his eyes, runs a hand through his hair and follows the slow moving queue out of the plane.
The hours before the next flight passing in a blink, collapses into his seat, everything muddled and the smiling flight attendant gives him a bottle of water almost before he can talk. Manages to read the directions on the sleeping pills before he takes one, half asleep through takeoff, and he doesn’t remember stretching out his seat into a poor facsimile of a bed.
An endless mass of inconsequential people, background characters providing static noise, the slow buzz of his grandfather’s old tv, black and white crackle and an odd fuzz when bringing his fingers to the screen. All of it fading when he finally sees her, standing by herself a little away from the thickest part of the crowd. Sees her before she sees him, gifted the sight of watching the smile appear on her face and Aleksander has no recollection crossing the arrival hall. Watching her from afar one second and in his arms the next.
Presses his forehead to hers, the ocean swallowing him, pulling him into its comforting silence and Aleksander can breathe again for the first time since he got in his car. Heaves for air, for her scent, little cool fingers tracing his cheekbones and he isn’t sure if it will ever be enough, if there will ever be a time where she can lift her touch away from him without needing to steal it back, break open his ribs and tuck her inside and keep her with him always.
“I missed you.”
A whispered confession that will never be enough and he wonders if he will ever be able to explain to her the feelings she creates in him.
“I missed you too,” pulls away from him slightly and Aleksander amazes himself by managing to choke back the pathetic protest of a noise threatening to fly out of his throat. “I honestly wasn’t sure that you would come.”
“You wanted me to.”
And it’s worth it, everything made worth it when she rises and kisses him, just a short thing, sweet and familiar and there is barely time to kiss her back before she disappears, hand holding his and he has no idea where they’re going, follows through a never ending parking lot and only reluctantly lets go when they make it to her car. His bag next to hers, two garment bags carefully hung. Settles into the passenger seat, Alina laughing when he immediately finds the button to move it as far back as it goes.
Looks at her and it is easy to cup her cheek, pull her into a kiss, a proper one this time, the kind he feels in his stomach as Alina whimpers into his mouth, fingers clutching at his arm, cock stirring and he’s not fucking her until he’s washed off the grime of other people even though he regrets pulling away the moment he does it.
“Mean.”
They don’t really speak during the drive, Alina humming along to the radio, Aleksander looking out the window, not tired but achy, unused to travelling like this. Grateful when they finally make it to the little hotel, even more grateful at the lack of a reception.
“Where is everyone?”
Alina fluttering around the room they’ve been given, inspecting the closets and he probably shouldn’t find her as fascinating as he does.
“Out for dinner,” starts pulling the clothes out of his bag and he wants to tell her that that is one thing she really doesn’t need to do. Lets her nevertheless, the ache turning into exhaustion and he’s unsure if he wants to go for a run or take a nap. “So you’re lucking out on socializing but we are getting drinks with Genya and David in about three hours.”
“That’s fine,” settles, neither nap nor run. “I’m gonna take a shower, you should be naked when I get out.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yes.”
Leaves her to follow his orders, lingers under the water for longer than he needs, a soothing relief even if he does not understand why the shower head is fucking mounted to the wall.
Finds Alina blessedly naked when he gets out, laying on her stomach, typing on her phone. Gets on the bed with her, presses a kiss to her shoulder, to her neck, a shudder running through her and he takes the opportunity to take her phone, shuts it off before putting it on the nightstand.
“I was talking with my lawyer.”
“You can talk with her later.”
“It was important.”
Rolls her over on her back, spreads her legs so he can settle properly between them. Cunt wet when he strokes a finger through her folds.
“You haven’t been fucked for three months, that is more important.”
Presses into her before she can answer, a slow push, every inch met with a squirming little whimper. Shushes her, strokes her hair as he kisses her cheek.
“Did you do what I told you to?”
Patience fraying, the need to move, the need to get all his wants confirmed.
“Of course I did Sasha, of course I did.”
Everything he has always wanted devastatingly close to reach, Alina’s eyes shining as she takes his hand, lifts it to her bicep, the little grain that’s been giving him a headache since the first night no longer there, an uncontrolled snap of his hips before he forces himself to freeze.
“Are you sure about this?”
“I am.”
“Are you? I know you love your apartment, your life in New York.”
“I do,” hand laced with his, tightly clutched. “And I love you. I love you so much more and I want a life with you, a family with you and you would never survive living in New York.”
“So?”
Kisses his palm, each knuckle, presses it to her chest.
“So we go home Sasha. You, me and our baby, we all go home.”