Work Text
Zdravstvuyte, Alina.
It’s what he tells her when she comes back to him. She’ll always come back to him, but right now she is thirty-thousand feet and cruising with no plans to descend. Blown pupils and open mouth, she stands in the teeming mass, a unicellular amoeba glittering in under the desert moon. Prehistoric, precedential, pre-chronological. She’s always been here, she’s always been dancing. Layered in her field of vision, an impossible shape that she can’t shake out of her hair - an experience she has been waiting for her whole life, a memory quaking just under her feet.The zenith of the zeitgeist as her friends pull her into frame, cheeks smashed together, over and over and over to get the right angle, the right shot. Flicking thumbs across phone screens, skimming through lists of likes on Insta just to see who’s been paying attention, who wishes they could have come. (Smugness, shy but stretching, puffing like a soaked sponge; the fact that she’s here and everyone else is not. The idea that she can take part, take place, full stop.)Visuals on jumbotrons all around that morph and shift, pulling and pulsing in her trachea. A yell, paresthesia in her throat as the lights span down across the crowd; fog machines aimed above their heads mingling with the pungent clouds in pockets all around. And when the music starts - she’s alive, and she’s real, and she can’t take another minute on this godforsaken planet without becoming a part of this song. Her stomach - yawning with greed for a different kind of sustenance that satisfies a different kind of hunger. Stripes on her face, eyeliner drawn in geodesic spirals that bleed into the salt. Crop tops and jean shorts and combat boots and he loves her, he loves her. It’s her favorite song. She’s been waiting to hear this song, screams with the rest of the rolling crowd at the heavy bass and the expanding beat. She can’t stop moving, won’t stop bounding like she’s gliding between craters on the moon, can’t even feel her hands unless she’s got them in the air. A bubble between her shoulder blades; pulsing beats that she can feel in her the very marrow of her bones. A nose on her neck. Much colder than it has any business to be in Indio. A nose on her neck, and she reaches for him. “Beautiful, Alina,” directly into her ear. He moves around her; the eye of the storm and she’s been swallowed whole. The look on his face. Proprietorial acquisitional dominative, diminutive is Sasha. Sometimes he’s Aleksander and sometimes he’s Mr. Morozova and then between the rafters of his ceiling where she floats he’s Sasha . “It’s my favorite song,” she tells him, and he already knows. He’s always been here, he’s always been watching her dance. His hands on her waist, his face in her neck. Sensations that she has no language to describe; words on the tip of her tongue that spiral outwards. He’s wrapped around her, dots in her vision, a pattern of interstellar morse code. She is safe in his arms with the stars in her eyes. A climax - so sensual it’s sexual. She’s floating–buoyant, effervescent, the bubbles at the top of the champagne bottle. The music is cresting, and the crowd is whistling for an encore, and she can’t take her eyes off him. They’re all looking forward and she’s looking back.
For Aleksander, the best part is after. They go to a lot of festivals. South by Southwest, Bonnaroo, Bumbershoot, Sasquatch. Coachella is the most raucous-more than a tenth of a million people, give or take, all in the same place at the same time to see the same people on the same stage.He loves live music, certainly, he has made a career out of its production. Loves even more that she loves it; loves to indulge her in her favorite things; to surround her with pretty things and pretty people and take her to pretty places where they can take pretty pictures. For his part, he indulges himself in rituals, in patterns that replicate themselves in reassuring spirals across the expanse of time. He rents the same houses, wears the same cologne, year after year. Aleksander doesn’t really partake in the ritual of drug consumption at these festivals. He’s older than Alina and her friends–not by that much–but by enough that his days of experimenting with substances like molly and acid and coke are behind him. “I did enough of that back in the early two thousands, Alina,” he’d told her when she’d asked the first time if he would join her on the trip she was planning to take.(It’s not that he’s old. Just older. An important distinction. Besides, if he gets high, too, who will take care of her?)Alina is dirty today. They’re both dirty. Indio is a distinctly dusty place, a dust that rises up under the feet of thousands of gladiator sandals and Sperrys and Docs to settle on their clothes and in their crevices. They’d need to wash anyways, but this particular ritual is the most important one, to Aleksander. Alina leans on him as she wiggles out of her tight shorts, her tiny top. He sets her down next to the lip of the tub, her body curling in on itself in a kind of absent modesty. He runs the tap–not too hot, it’s hot enough in the Salton Sea in late April that lukewarm water is more than sufficient. Besides, with Alina’s sunburnt skin–the thought of her suppressed wince as she sinks into a scalding hot bath–No. Lukewarm it is. Aleksander unbuttons his white linen shirt. It’s not entirely white anymore; the woven lines are muddled with dirt, which is a shame. Alina had found this for him and it’s one of his favorites. It’ll have to be dry cleaned when they get home. His pants are next. Dark denim, clean, simple lines. Aleksander is not the type of man to indulge in adornments, an irony given Alina’s penchant for accessories. He’d had to unwrap her neck from a truly humorous number of chokers a few minutes ago; had pulled her hair out of two bundles midway up the back of her head (“Space buns, honestly?” she had laughed at his false recognition that morning, one of her hands finding his cheek. “It’s not 2013 and I’m not Miley Cyrus, Sasha.”).There’s soft music, a gentle remix floating in from the portable speaker in the bedroom. Aleksander’s logic was that it would be more difficult to become sober in total silence, since they’d been listening to music all day. He’d wanted to soften Alina’s transition, sort of like how frozen food should only be dethawed in cold water.“I like this song,” she says quietly, almost to herself, and he can’t help but smile in the mirror. He knows her taste in music - clean beats, melodious synth, enough reverb to make her wiggle. At home: dirty white Audio-Technica headphones half-on as she bobs her head side-to-side, tracing circles in the air with her nose, swaying with closed eyes. Aleksander turns to the counter now, where their toiletries are stacked in neat lines. He picks out the green container of Drunk Elephant (“Really, Sasha, Neutrogena is just fine, this is excessive–”), unscrewing the top and portioning a dollop onto his fingertips. Alina is huddled next to the bathtub, in the same place he’d left her. Her shoulders are hunched, her eyes closed tightly over the headache between her temples. “Alina, darling.”Her head tilts up, though her eyes remain shut. Her right eye is closed tighter than the left.“Time to get clean, darling.” Alina grunts, an acknowledgment. Aleksander takes that as permission to begin rubbing the buttery balm into her skin, where black lines are drawn around her eyes in curls and swirls. This morning, she’d spent nearly an hour in here with Zoya and Genya just after they’d dropped, giggling over felt-tipped eyeliners and pots of ColourPop eyeshadows, taking advantage of the enormously long mirror above the counter. “Sasha.”“Yes, Alina?” “Can we get in the bath now?”“Almost.” Aleksander finds a cloth from under the sink and wets it before wiping at Alina’s face. Black makeup smears across her skin; he turns the towel over to the other side to swipe it away. Alina cracks her eyes open: one at a time, testing her vision with rapid blinks and raised eyebrows. She’s definitely on the comedown now, her sclera tinged with red, her pupils an appropriate size, her gaze focused on him instead of wildly clearing the space around them. “How do you feel?” he murmurs, thumbs on her cheekbones. He insists on a proper skincare routine, something she’d derided at first, but had come to quietly appreciate after seeing how the deposits under her eyes had practically dissolved after a few weeks. “Fine,” she says softly, trying to smile, rubbing at her face. “Alina.” “It was a good day, don’t you think?”“Very good.” “Did you have a good time, Sasha?”“Of course,” he says, retrieving the hairbrush from the counter. He pulls at her tendrils of black hair, stopping at the puffs of snarls to work them over gently. Alina watches him, her gaze softly guarded as though she half expects to be reprimanded for letting it become tangled. Aleksander says nothing. As he piles her newly-smooth hair onto her head in a spiraled bun, he feels somewhere in his chest, a twinge of–not happiness exactly, but satisfaction, a preening that’s quietly thrilled with the evidence of how much Alina has enjoyed herself today; dirtied herself so thoroughly with her friends, because now it means he can take care of her, can restore her back to factory-new condition. Aleksander sets down the hairbrush, offering a hand to Alina to draw her up into his arms. He balances his hand between her shoulder blades, his palm flat between the bones, his other arm securely around her waist. Alina is fiercely unfettered, but every now and again he catches her in a still moment like this. As much as he admires her steadfastness, he’s able to admit to himself that he likes this dependence in equal measure. It’s the highest honor, a bestowing of ultimate trust, coming from her. They sink down into the roomy bathtub together. The water fast becomes tinted, swirls of desert patina loosening in the scented oil. Aleksander lifts her limbs gingerly, one at a time, to pass the bar of soap across her skin. He’s thorough, as he is in all his work, taking time to acknowledge the freckles and blemishes and marks that he knows so well. He favors the bespoke. Running the Cote d’Azur up around her collarbones, she turns to look at him. She’s really back now, really here in this dimension, no longer passing through the liminal space held open by the wide arms of the MDMA. Her eyes are swollen with tears, likely the result of her headache and the sudden rush of emotions she must be feeling. It can be a terribly frightening experience, he knows. There’s a price to be paid for such height. His Alina, too– a tenderer heart there is not. Privately, Aleksander has had reservations about her decision to engage with substances at festivals, solely because he knows firsthand how thin the line is separating a good trip from a catastrophically bad one. But he’s kept quiet, kept his concerns to himself for multiple reasons, chief among them being the knowledge that he’d be there the whole time. Alina twists to look at him, her face soft. She doesn’t say anything, and she doesn’t need to. “Zdravstvuyte, Alina,” he greets her softly, and she kisses her gratitude into his mouth.
She feels clean sheets, pressed starch against her face, the faint scent of butterfly jasmine on her own skin. Sleep, hot and heavy in her waterline, crushed against the warmth of his chest. Brighter is the sunlight, and she stirs, smears of tears leaking on his skin as she blinks lightly. “Good morning.” Alina stretches, shifting off of Aleksander and onto her side of the bed where she can turn to look him in the eyes. “Were you watching me sleep?” she asks with a bit of a rasp, twisting her wrists front and back. Small pops in her joints; tiny bursts of fluid relief. He smiles, unashamed. “Only for a minute.” Alina chooses to ignore this, seeking the glass of water on the table behind her instead. She’s thirsty, and her jaw hurts from working in her sleep, her teeth stiff as she bites against them. Pain spiderwebs its way down the back of her neck. Far and away her least favorite side effect of molly, the teeth grinding, the jaw clenching. “Breakfast?’Alina finishes the glass, returning it to the thoughtfully-placed coaster. “Mm, not yet. Let’s stay in bed for a bit.” “Alright,” he murmurs, drawing her back into him, their bodies stacking against each other in a familiar slide. There’s the pitch and yaw of her head as she settles into the pillow, making herself as comfortable as possible despite the soreness in the backs of her thighs, the soles of her feet, the undersides of her arms. All her major muscle groups sting with a kind of satisfied pain that reminds her where she’s been, what she’s been doing, and she can’t help the mirroring satisfaction making itself known in her chest. There were years that were marked only by loneliness, a wide berth of solitude that left her convinced she’d never feel much else. Growing up in foster care, shuttled from home to home–it’s not that she was a stranger to kindness and kind gestures. There were the do-gooders at Christmas, pressing factory-fresh Barbies into her hands with vampy smiles; the foster parents who took the time to bring her to Girl Scouts and Mathletes after school; the teachers who sought her out to make conversation in the cafeteria at lunchtime. Later, in college, there were awkward hookups and friendships that fizzled like cigarettes smoked to the filter. Alina wouldn’t call herself jaded, necessarily. It was all a learning experience; a way for her to become the person she is now, the person that he loves. His hand skims along her stomach, her breasts, his fingers plucking a nipple absentmindedly. “Sasha.” He huffs a laugh into her neck before doing it again. Alina feels the drop, falling in a line from her stomach down between her legs, and when he tugs lightly on the other nipple, she can’t help the little slip of exhale that escapes her. “What time is our flight?” Alina mutters from where she’s turned her head into the pillow, her eyes clamped shut as his hand works over her chest. She’s still tired, it’s early yet, and she could sleep more, but–“Not till three,” says Aleksander, his mouth on the tip of her shoulder, laying a path of kisses inwards towards the spot between bones. Alina’s forearms lie limp in front of her, her fingers curling in on themselves until she can feel the scrape of nails on her palms. “That feels good,” she whispers, floating somewhere between lucidities. Suspended, weightless, the type of height that used to make her anxious at the prospect of the fall.He laughs, rich like coffee, smooth like ice. Says nothing, his left arm tucked underneath her neck, his right hand floating between her breasts, calm fingers, steady, steady. Sometimes it infuriates her, how he can drive her to the edge pressed between his thumb and forefinger, finesse that’s so glossy that it sets her teeth chattering, even here in Southern California in the spring. Aleksander hooks his arm across her chest, pulling her closer off her pillow with an authority that has her squeaking softly, helpless to do anything but fall open for him, her legs butterflying apart. Likewise, his hand falls between her thighs, bracketing her pussy with two fingers, running a third up the seam of her and finding her wet already. “Alina,” groans Aleksander into her neck. His middle finger traces circles around her clit, faint enough that she strains to feel them. She pushes her hips forward onto his fingers so that he chuckles again at her eagerness. Aleksander has seen her: all sides, all angles. He knows what she wants just as well as she does; knows how to make her feel good, and the morning after such an intense high she doesn’t feel like waiting. “Sasha,” she says, partially as a warning, partially as a request. He obliges, sinking a finger inside her, then after a minute, another. Alina exhales, expelling the air in her lungs to make room for him in her body. She loves this part; loves that he likes to take his time with her. She turns her head to the side, asking for a kiss with her open mouth, and again he obliges, this time with a smile. “Gorgeous, gorgeous girl,” he breathes, and Alina absorbs it, fills her pores with it: the way Aleksander looks at her, and the fact that he looks at no one else like this. She sways a little, feels the rhythm he’s built inside her cunt; the way his fingers stretch her. When Alina and Aleksander first started dating, before she’d given him so much as a handjob, she’d taken him out to a bar for a supposedly casual meet-and-greet with her friends. She’d done her best to ensure they’d be on good behavior, and not wheedle at him incessantly like they’d done with the last guy, and for the most part, they were well-behaved. But Alina knew Aleksander heard Zoya whisper “He looks like he fucks good” when he’d gotten up from the table to get another round. Aleksander moves to the spot between her open legs, keeping his mouth on hers, his hand on the side of her neck, and frees his cock from his sleep shorts. He lines himself up, sliding inside, and Alina feels him in her core, in the funny spot that’s just this side of too big, too much, too happy.Inhalation, and he goes a little farther; exhalation, and he inches back out. Alina lets her head fall on the pillow as Aleksander hikes her torso up, tilting her pelvis so that it’s a straight shot, her legs resting in the crooks of his elbows so that he can build a more solid pace. Her inhales bounce as fucks her, developing a little shudder as she feels it all, takes it all. “Fuck, baby,” Aleksander says, and she knows, and she feels it too. Aleksander pauses to lick the tip on his thumb before setting it at the very top of her clit, rubbing faintly so the friction puts her orgasm just out of reach. She knows this is intentional on his part, that he’s staving off her release until he decides it’s time. He’s a control freak like that, and even though she’s impatient today, Alina won’t pick a fight she knows she won’t win. Instead, she’ll take what she can get, all of it, greedily. “Good, baby,” he says when her eyes glaze over, and he grabs the back of her calves, pushing her legs towards the bed and pinning her in half. Alina makes little happy noises as his cock finds her G-spot like this, and Aleksander smiles and bends forward to kiss her again, happy with how pliable he’s made her. He fucks her a little harder now, still soft compared to the far end of their lovemaking spectrum, but roughly enough that she can feel the tension build in stripes behind her belly. It’s not like Zoya wasn’t right. Aleksander did fuck good, better than she’d ever had, in fact. But their sex was so much more than technically enjoyable. It was where their compatibility became wholly evident; the physical manifestation of what made them work so well together. It’s the place where Alina learned that there could be benefits to trusting another person so deeply. Aleksander watches her face closely, and her heart feels a little swollen. “I love you,” she whispers, because it’s true. He smiles. “Good girl, Alina, good girl.” Her toes curl. “You can come, baby.” His thumb finds her clit again, and she’s gone. By the time they get home, it’s late. Aleksander keys into the apartment, and it’s dark in the kitchen, save for the light coming from the coffeemaker and the stove. Alina pulls her suitcase in behind her, dropping her computer bag on the floor and kicking it into the closet. She has some emails to respond to, but she can do that in the morning before work. Even though they’ve been gone less than a week, she takes a moment to look in on the plants in the living room, checking the moisture level with her reader. Aleksander insists on a housesitter, because of course he does, but even still, Alina is very particular about her plants. She adjusts the position of her prayer plant in the window and the fiddle fig on the ground, rotating their pots an even ninety degrees before joining Aleksander in the bedroom. “Put your dirty clothes on the dresser,” he says absently, focusing on organizing the contents of his suitcase in their proper drawers. “I’ll take them to the cleaner tomorrow.”Alina resists rolling her eyes. “I wore spandex the whole festival, Sasha, I can wash it here.” He nods, his attention on his sock drawer, so he doesn’t notice Alina’s approach until she’s behind him, wrapping her arms around him, her cheek on his back. “Thank you,” she says quietly. He doesn’t need to ask her what for, just turns to fold her up in his embrace. “Love you, darling,” he says, and she knows it’s true.