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Alina drummed her fingers against the dashboard. Beyond the windscreen a flurry of snow had begun to fall, the windscreen wipers knocking them away at a rhythm discordant with the playing song. They were driving on a highway, and as far as the eye could see was traffic and snow. At least, she would admit, they were moving. Black wheels turning and turning as they drove further and further away from the warm coast.
“I shouldn’t be going,” Alina said, not for the first time. Matthias groaned and rolled his eyes dramatically which was disturbing mostly because he was driving, Alina didn’t expect him to sympathise with her.
“It’s fine,” Nina promised, reaching past the centre console to rest her hand on Alina’s arm, “You don’t even need to talk to anyone, it’s a funeral.”
“Yeah, just stick to a corner and be miserable while we mingle,” Matthias agreed happily.
“My friend is dead,” Alina seethed at him, “I’m allowed to be sad.”
This Matthias waved off, and Alina foresaw him once again lecturing her about how Genya couldn’t have been that good of a friend if Alina hadn’t spoken to her in five years. Fortunately Nina cut in before it could go there once again.
“Is that the giant bear statue? I want a photo with it!” She pointed up off the highway, a giant black smudge amongst all the white. Matthias violently jerked the car onto the exit lamp like his life depended on it or like he knew he’d never get laid again if he didn’t. It was the first stop off of many on the way.
Back when they were research students Alina and Genya had been put on the same project. Fifteen-hour days locked in a room no bigger than a closet as they laboured over gene mutations to unlock the secrets of, essentially, immortality. In retrospect Alina could see t was one of Grisha University’s least funded biggest long shot projects. It had been labour intensive and although Alina herself had found a few interesting genetic anomalies in the animal kingdom that hadn’t yet been mapped when the university– no when He had personally asked her to stay on the project Alina, who had started to wonder about the things she might have been missing out on, had taken the first job across the country at Kaz Research. Genya on the other hand had remained and the last Alina had seen she was head of the same project, at least the published papers always had Genya’s name on them and Alina knew how scientists and academics hoarded their discoveries.
So she’d run away and even though she’d sent job offers back to Genya for the labs she’d taken residence in and it had been Genya who never replied, she still felt like she’d somehow abandoned her friend. And now Genya was dead and Alina was in the car with an old sorority sister and her high school sweetheart driving across the country to attend a funeral Alina desperately wanted to attend and was terrified to in equal measures. If it hadn’t been for Nina, Alina knows she would have been debating the pros and cons until it was too late to make it. But Nina had known Genya as well, always coming into their closet to try and distract them or entice them with boys. It had never worked, Genya was in love with one of the other research assistants and Alina, well Alina had her own complications.
Alina felt more and more stressed at every stop off the drive and there were many, Nina deciding each and every time she spotted some interesting sign or a tall landmark would insist they rug up, get out of the heated car, and look at it. Alina would be dragged out and look at it, smiling when specifically addressed and crawling back into herself when left alone.
It wasn’t that she wasn’t sad Genya was dead, Alina had cried and hugged Inej (who had borne with the remarkably and promised her that she was always allowed to hug her but if anyone else tried she’d slip a dagger between their ribs) and cried some more. There were conversations they’d never have again, laughs they wouldn’t share, the possibility of reunion lost to the ravages of time. It’s just that once it was decided they would go mixed into that sadness was something bigger that left her numb.
In the end it was the storm that made them miss the funeral, certainly the constant sight-seeing hadn’t helped, but it was on the last night as they slept that a storm blew in and the roads were submerged under a thick layer of snow.
Alina had stood outside their road side hotel door wrapped in a blanket, hair spilling over her shoulders, and nursing her coffee while she watched the blinking lights of the snow ploughs as they cleared the roads for travel. The entire time she thought about time passing by, the ticks of the clock. When the time for the funeral began, Alina thought about the things she’d have said at Genya’s funeral, if she’d spoken. Genya’s brilliant research into giving new life to old cells, into her quest for beauty and immortality. They’d talked over it quietly some nights when no-one else was around, the cleaners had come and gone, and the research building silent except for the buzz of fluorescent bulbs.
Alina sipped her coffee and thought about driving across the country to say goodbye to a friend she hadn’t spoken to in years only to miss the opportunity because of a storm. A part of her was relieved and she felt guilty about that too.
When the roads were clear, much later in the day, Matthias and Nina insisted on attended the wake.
“Why? We didn’t even go to the funeral,” Alina had tried to argue, but Matthias said a lot of his frat brothers were going to be there, and Nina said they’d come this far they may as well ‘catch up’ with everyone else.
Alina had tried to beg off, but where the car went she had to go or she’d be abandoned in some roadside motel that could have been the setting of a horror movie.
“I’ve changed my mind,” Alina said the moment they pulled up at the wake. She’d known the neighbourhood as they approached, known the street as they slowed down, but she had kept hoping they were at least going to another house. When they stopped just a little down from Aleksander’s house and it became obvious that that was where the crowd was going Alina lost all her courage.
“You’re such a baby,” Matthias grumbled as he turned the car off.
Nina turned to look at her with a slight frown, “I don’t know why you’re being difficult about this,” she began, “but you’ve come this far you might as well come in.”
“Leave her be, she can freeze in the car if it’s that important to her,” Matthias grumbled. It was times like this Alina wished she’d learnt to drive. At least then she could beg the keys off Matthias (if you were the right kind of nice to him it was always easy to get him to do what you wanted, it’s just no-one but Nina could be bothered putting in that kind of effort) and drive somewhere else - a dinner, a truck stop - anywhere but here. But Alina didn’t, and now just like at the hotel there wasn’t really a choice. Even if she didn’t freeze in the car someone from the wake would eventually see her and come knocking on the window.
Determined she tied her long hair back and set off with her friends.
Alek’s house was full of flowers, specifically blue irises but there were other flowers mixed in amongst them, giving contrast and diversity, drawing away from the blatant thing he’d done. Alina couldn’t help touching the one on the hallstand as she walked through the door. Alek’s house was also warm and loud. There were a lot of people all milling about eating potluck dressed in drab greys and blacks in a proper show of mourning for the dead. Genya hated greys and blacks, and Alina had tried to honour her friend by wearing a touch of blue and gold to offset it, but she felt in the midst of the room she blended it. She touched at the blue silk scarf and just as she did another hand reached out and touched it as well. The touch landed by her collar bone and she looked up as his fingers closed over hers.
He was still warm.
“It looks beautiful, cousin,” Aleksander smiled at her as if she’d brought him a gift, as if her presence alone made the world brighten for him. Alina’s breath caught. It had been five years, five years of crying and mourning the loss of the most dangerous thing she had ever done. Five years of acceptance and bargaining, five years of telling herself she was okay. Five years of dust compared to the curve of his smile, the brightness of his eyes, the way his fingers touched with as much propriety as promise. “I’d hoped you would come, Genya wouldn’t have wanted anything else.”
Alina felt herself leaning into his touch, felt her heart melting of the ice she’d built up around it and pulled herself back, slipping out from under his fingers. She adjusted the scarf and looked about the room. She didn’t know everyone but it was obvious she knew many of the people there from her university days and before. “The flowers are a nice touch,” she said for lack of anything else to say.
“I knew you’d like them,” he kept smiling, eyes only for her until Zoya stepped around him, her hand curled around his arm possessively as she smiled viciously at Alina.
“Alina, I see you managed to drag yourself out from your research on, what is it again? Making houses warm?” Zoya asked, but Alina looked instead at the way Alek curved his hand over Zoya’s as if to hold her to his arm. As if he wanted her there. It took effort to tear her eyes up to meet Zoya’s but she did it.
“Reflective light principles in solar energy,” she summarised rather than citing the whole principle. It would be a waste of time to explain it in detail to Zoya who thought anything outside of her own research was beneath her attention.
“Alina’s research is going to revolutionise how we generate, store, and consume power. It will change the world,” Alek told Zoya without mockery, “what were you researching again? Theoretical mathematics?” His smile was friendly, but there was danger there too and Alina wasn’t the only one who saw it, Zoya’s expression shuttered then became pouty. She lent further into Aleksander’s arm and Alina decided she’d been subjected to enough.
“I think I see your mother,” she said, and ducked past the couple.
Baghra was in the kitchen which was separated from the living room where all the guests stood by a big marble bench. The first thing Alina noticed was how much older Baghra looked. It wasn’t that she was that much older, five years only pushed her into her early 70’s, but the distance made Alina better able to see the age for what it was. She wasn’t slow though, or in any way enfeebled.
She was putting things in the oven, heating up and cooking for the guests and when Alina walked in she turned saying, “You’re back,” but by her expression immediately realised she wasn’t talking to the person she expected to see. Her shock and disappointment at the sight of Alina standing in Alek’s kitchen told Alina what she’d always suspected: Baghra knew, maybe had always known.
“Aunty,” she greeted the woman with a kiss on the cheek that was easily accepted, but Baghra had eyes only for the room of guests over the kitchen bench.
“Has,” she scooted Alina into a more concealed corner. The kitchen was full of boxes and bags and it wasn’t hard to angle her out of sight. “Has Aleksander seen you’re here?” she asked hurriedly.
Alina smiled a little fleetingly and nodded. At once Baghra seemed to give up.
“Very well then so it is,” she decided. “I have to do the rounds if you want to help,” she motioned to the plates of food she had been working on, “this business has been terrible. Genya was a bright young woman and I’d thought with the way Aleksander took her under his wing he might one day propose, but she had to fall off that boat-”
“Yeah,” Alina agreed. The story had been terrible, something about a boat party that had gone haywire and when they’d done the headcount Genya was missing. Her body had washed up on the shore a day later. She’d drowned, they’d said, no signs of foul play and everyone was able to get on with the mourning they’d already half started.
Baghra busied herself picking up a selection of trays and disappeared into the crowd. Like she’d never left at all Alina went to do as her aunty bid, but when she turned around to leave Aleksander was in the doorway blocking her in.
In the light of the kitchen Alina got her first good look at him in a long time. He was dressed in a black suit, fancy clothes for a subordinate’s funeral, a funeral he was hosting the wake for, and it looked good on him. Suits had always looked good on him, but seeing the tailored cut, the fine material and the way it made him look better than anything else he wore made her flushed her pulse racing. He didn’t look to have aged. When she’d left he’d been thirty-five, now he was closer to forty but everything about him was the same. Dressed up in his suit, beard clipped close, and hair styled back the way he’d always worn it. If there was one thing Aleksander Morozova was, it was timeless. Look at him, seeing him outside of the dim light of his own hallway Alina was reminded of how he looked the first time he’d kissed her, when things had started to change- when she’d wanted them to. It had been a surprise but not unwelcome, even if it had been her first kiss and she hadn’t really known what to do, she’d still wanted it so much. She looked away, flustered despite herself.
People were in the lounge room, down the hall, and probably spilling into the garden as well, the music was loud enough to blend with the murmur of conversations and Alina felt isolated in the kitchen, in full view of anyone looking but divorced from them as well. From in here, she knew, they wouldn’t be able to hear anything Alek said to her or she said back to him.
“You haven’t returned my calls, or texts,” he begun stepping in and taking the tray from her hands to set it on the bench. She went to move around him, so he caged her in. Her eyes jumped to the crowd and no-one looked at them.
“I doubt you’ve missed me too much,” Alina bit back. A loud laugh in the lounge room had her look again, he didn’t move from her space.
“Is that jealousy, little spark?” he teased, and below the counter, where no-one could see unless the stepped into the room itself, his hand settled against her hip, long fingers curling around to bracket the top of her backside. Then so quietly that even she barely heard him he whispered, “My wife shouldn’t be jealous.”
The word sent her heart racing, the reminder, the weight. He’d waited, he’d waited watching her all the while and she’d trembled under his looks knowing what he wanted. It hadn’t been two months after she turned eighteen that he had pulled her into a church two states over where it was legal and she’d signed her name next to his. It had been thrilling and romantic and nothing that had happened since compared to that one weekend. Except they were cousins, except he was eighteen years older than her, except then he’d been her university instructor and dean, and then her employer as a research student. Except none of it mattered to her, because when he kissed her she wanted to be kissed, and when he put that ring on her finger she’d known what forever was going to feel like. Except then he’d started telling her she had to stop talking to Mal, that her friends were bad influences, that she shouldn’t stay out late at night, she should trust him to take care of everything- all she had to do was stay with him and continue her research and that had been too much.
She hadn’t been wrong, she knew that. Nothing she had done from that first impetuous kiss at sixteen until she’d boarded the bus to take her away had been wrong. It had all been important in making her her, and she liked who she was. But looking at him again, alive and well, barely changed, and focused on her and only her, Alina felt a swell of regret for opportunities lost.
“I’m not jealous,” she lied with false bravado wrapping her fingers around his arm exactly where Zoya’s had been. “I already know you better than she ever could, you haven’t changed, but I have Aleksander. I’ve learnt so many things without you.” Two things she had learnt outside of his watchful eyes was how to lie and how to brazen her way through the lie. She had always been brazen to a degree or she never would have married her cousin when she knew every reason not to, but she had never been brazen enough to fold to her knees before her a man with a room full of mourners who could see them if they just stood up and looked.
Without waiting for permission, too scared he’d take it away or find a reason to stop her, Alina unfastened his pressed suit pants running her fingers over the thick material before reaching inside. His hand came up, but not to stop her like she anticipated, but to twist into her long hair. He hissed at the first contact said, “Wait we shouldn’t-” and the noise of the mourners drowned it out.
The first taste of him bombarded her sense memory, exactly the same as it had been five years ago. By the second she wasn’t overwhelmed and she took to the task with eager hungry licks and kisses - he had always liked to be worshiped after all there was no changing that. Over her stood ramrod straight, eyes jumping between the doorway and the window through which the guests sad. The music kept playing, skipping to a new song, and the room sounded more like a party than a wake. Alina refamiliarizing herself with his cock didn’t think it felt like a wake at all.
A part of her expected him to stop her, for all that he’d called her his wife, for all that they’d signed the papers years ago they hadn’t spoken in five of those years. A part of her expected he’d remember that she’d broken his heart and he’d moved on. So when he stopped her she bitterly thought ‘Of course,’ but when instead of pulling her to her feet he pulled her hair until her body scooted backwards, and backwards slotting her under that breakfast bench between a pile of boxes and a bag she realised this wasn’t going to stop. This madness would continue. Where anyone could walk in on them, hear them, where Zoya could find them and then everyone would know and his career would be ruined, and his relationship too, and she’d never be able to show her face again and really what did she care? She’d never wanted to come back here as it was. Baghra was her only family aside from Alek now and she’ already knew. So she kept going.
Above her he lent against the counter, face turned to the crowd. Probably a little red, probably straining to seem proper. Viciously she licked him once tongue thick and pressing hard against the curve of him, and then without warning she took him into her mouth and straight down her throat.
Above her something broke, and like that someone was moving over, checking if Alek was okay.
“Fine,” she heard him lie trying wave them off so she hummed quietly around the pressure of him in her throat and felt the muscles of his thighs twitch. As she pulled back to breath he pulled his hips back, then just as quickly pushed them forward for more.
Alina thrilled and took him again, not as deep the second time, but enough to please him, enough to surprise him still. The feel of his zipper on her chin each time she took him as deep as she could, the flutter on folds of his suit’s material against her check, the white shirt she had to duck her head under felt decadent and proper, like a blowjob never should. She’d always loved him in suits, always found that when he put one on she couldn’t help wanting to take them off him, and maybe that was a part of all this. The flowers, the suit, the way the music was too loud for a wake, but not too loud to conceal conversations - or sex.
But it also thrilled her to think of the people realising what was happening, to see him mussed and distracted. To think of someone walking into the kitchen and seeing her small feet bracketing his legs because he’d moved so much closer, because there was no room to tuck herself away. It thrilled her to know that anyone could find them, strangers or family or friends. She would do it again she knew, for this thrill, for the pleasure that spiked down into her core and made her want to climb up Alek’s body and drop herself on him. The idea of that too, shamelessly fucking on the breakfast bench while everyone looked on had squeeze her legs together rhythmically, trying to eke out the friction the thought provoked.
He reached down to touch her while she showed him exactly what she could do, first her lips where they spread wide around him, feeling the strain of her mouth as she took the bulk of him, then along her cheeks which were hallowed out as she sucked on the outstroke. After that though his hand went higher tracing the curve of her ear, the tendrils of long hair that had slipped forward as she leant forward to a better angle, then below her eyes, the curve where when she was tired would turn a darker colour. But it was her forehead he stopped at, thumb rubbing across the sweat beading there, tracing the edge of her hair as he buried fingers into it, feeling her skin and stroking like he’s got nothing else to do. It’s tender and affectionate and it hurts Alina’s heart because she knows this is a one-time thing. She betrayed him too much, abandoned him instead of talking out her concerns and addressing them like a couple. She knew that when she was finished he’d tuck himself away and return to the other guests. No matter how nice the flowers were, no matter how well he’d dressed, no matter the look in his eyes when he stared at her she could not lie to herself about what was happening.
It had been stupid to do it, stupid to come here, but Alina could help wanting him to want more. Needing him to want her. She’d dreamt of him every night. Dreamt of coming back, apologising, begging his forgiveness, and then dreamt of him locking her up, chaining her to a wall and never letting her leave again. As many dreams as nightmares, and here she was as he lost his rhythm, hips jolting forwards in hard thrusts until she caught him and held him back, until she dragged herself off him with one languid pull that sent him over the edge and spilling into her mouth.
Even over the noise of the mourners Alina could hear his shuddery little sigh at the end and all at once tears started to drip from her eyes. The music played on, the scent of him intermingled with the perfume of all the flowers he had filled the house with, and she knew tomorrow she would get back in a car and disappear from here forever. It wasn’t fair, she thought wiping angrily at the tears, it wasn’t fair to be in so in love and know she shouldn’t be. It wasn’t fair that he could have Zoya hanging off his arm and not be thinking about her.
The fingers still brushing her skin moved down again, and desperate to hide the tears she couldn’t control Alina tried to pull back, but the motion was too fast, to violent and before she could push her way out for the little nook she’d been crammed into Alek was on his knee in front of her eyes wide with panic. His wiped at her tears while he held her head still, then when that did nothing to slow their flow he lent and kissed the path they fell down. Alina’s breath held at the action, so he did it again, then again until she forgot why she was crying in the ecstasy of her confusion.
“Don’t kiss me, Aleksander,” she begged.
“Why not?” He asked and titled her face to kiss her other cheek, hunting out the salty trail of tears. “Can I not kiss my wife?”
“You shouldn’t call me that,” she said in a small voice, and he pulled back so that she could see his face intense and determined.
“Until the day I die, Alina Morozova you are my wife, and that means you will be my wife forever,” he promised as if he could promise such a thing.
“I never took your name,” Alina protested, flattered and hopeful despite herself. Then because she could not bear it if this shattered unless she was swinging the hammer, “and I wouldn’t destroy any relationship you’ve built since I’ve been gone. I’m the one who ran away.”
She meant it as a benevolent gesture, a way for him to step back and return to whatever he had built for himself, instead his hold tightened around her and his grin because predatory.
“If I have to tell you this every day for the rest of our lives I will, my love. I asked too much of you, and you showed me I was wrong. I knew I had to let you stay away, but you’ve come back. If you think I’ll let you go again, if you think I won’t chase you this time you are mad.” He kissed her swollen mouth, luxuriating in the slide of skin on skin. Not even the sound of people moving too close could pull them apart. “There is nothing you can do Alina that will stop me loving you, and I am bound by your side by word and heart for eternity. I hope you’re ready for that.”
“I think I am,” she said at last feeling for the first time like she was ready to come home.
The next day Alina woke up in bed with Aleksander for the first time in five years they took full advantage of the quiet empty house to relearn each other’s bodies completely in the early morning light. Alina found scars on his arms she’s never seen before, and he found a more confident lover who demanded as much as she gave.
She didn’t return with Matthias and Nina even though Nina tried to take her aside and talk to her personally. Instead she called her boss and arranged a longer holiday, “A time to reconnect with old friends while we mourn,” she’d said and Aleksander had caught her around the middle and nearly set her into a laughing fit before she managed to hang up with some dignity.
When the casseroles were finally passed their used by date, when the house had been cleaned of any trace that guests had been and the irises had begun to wilt Aleksander took her to a laboratory she’d never been too before.
“When I said we would live forever,” he tells her happily kissing her fingers even though she can feel cameras following them down the corridors, “I wasn’t lying.”
“What? Alek, you can’t live forever.” She argued, amused by his romanticism and moved by it no matter how ridiculous it was.
“Science,” he demurred, “is an ever-expanding world of exploration. Every day we learn new things-”
“Yes I know,” she interrupted, “but immortality? Even if it were possible we’re decades from it.”
His smile told her he didn’t agree and she was ready to engage him, debate and learn the way they always did, but then he finished typing in the code and opened the next door.
At once Alina fell silent, the room had twenty rats, all running about in a maze of clear plastic corridors. It wasn’t a lab, there was no testing purpose, it was a playground. Alina was reminded then of Genya and the way she’d snuck rats out of the lab when the testing rounds were over, how she’d struggle not the name them.
Alina stepped into the room with Alek and the door locked behind them.
“What’s this?” Alina asked, distracted when one of the white rats ran up to the cage edge nearest her standing on its hind legs to twitch curious whiskers at her.
“These,” said a familiar voice that had Alina spinning on her heel to meet, “are my pets.”
Alina stared, and then stared some more, and then- because the why didn’t matter -threw herself at Genya in a desperate hug that made Genya stumble a foot backwards. “You’re alive!” Alina cried, clutching tightly to her. She had the idea that if she let go the Genya she was holding onto would disappear but the longer she held, the more awkwardly Genya patted her back, the more Alina realised that this was real, that Genya was in the room with her.
At once she pulled back her confused eyes jumping between her husband and her friend, and said, “But you’re dead, they found your body, I was just at your wake.”
It was Genya who explained because Alek’s smile was too big to speak around, but before explaining she addressed what she considered the greatest sin, “I can’t believe you missed my funeral.”
“There was a snow storm!” Alina protested.
“I also can’t believe you married your hot older cousin and didn’t tell me,” Genya accused and Alina blushed horribly. As far as Alina knew this was the first time anyone, aside from themselves and a few government officials, knew. “Please, I made a pass at him, and he turned me down flat so I did some digging.”
“You are terrifying,” Alina confessed, “and also dead?” Which was probably the bigger issue.
“Well as dead as I can ever be now,” Genya agreed. It was not at all comforting.
Behind her Alek laid his hands on her shoulders and explained, “Genya’s research has been progressing faster than anticipated, and her accident gave us the opportunity to run an experiment we’d only run on her rats before. As you can see it was a success.”
Alina understood something important suddenly, “When you said forever you meant this.” His fingers squeezed her shoulders in confirmation. “You think we can live forever, people won’t let us Aleksander, the world won’t let us.”
“When we’re finished here, Alina, the world will be ours to do with what we want.”