Chapter Text
In all the two years Alina had known Aleksander Morozova - and she used the term ‘known’ loosely - she had never been able to picture him as a child or really as any age younger than he was. Which was absurd, because she knew he had to have been a child at one point just like everyone else. But he didn’t seem like it. Not once.
Not when he had her up against a wall, lips on her neck. Not when he was laying beside her, chest rising and falling heavily but not saying a word.
“Was I your first?” He’d once asked Alina.
She’d turned to him, cheeks and chest flushed, her white hair like a halo around her head as the sun broke over the horizon behind her. When she talked all she could think about was her swollen lips and how they’d gotten to be that way. “No.” Her tone was light.
She felt more than noticed him stiffen before he spoke, resuming a casual air. “Then who?”
“Mmm, we’re not having this conversation.” She had flopped down on her back, noticing in her slowly fading haze, that he was careful not to touch her anymore; his arms against his sides, his legs stuck straight out.
“Why not.”
“Because I always tell you everything, and you give me nothing in return.”
Between one blink and the next, Aleksander had been hovering over top of her, dark hair hanging down around his eyes, and she’d been tempted to reach up that small distance between them and place her lips on his pale neck. But Alina had stayed where she was, forcing her eyes to stay focused on the gray ones boring into hers.
“I can get it out of you,” he’d said.
She rolled her eyes. “Why do you care ?”
“I’m not sure, but it seems to be all I’ve been doing when it comes to you, Alina.” And he’d kissed her. Fiercely. So hard she was positive she would have bruises on her lips.
She thought about that a lot. Thought and thought about it until the words were senseless mush in her head and she was convinced by them. But lately she wasn’t so sure - because what better way, her best friend had said, to get a girl (four years younger than you, no less) into your bed than to say you cared about her? It would be hook, line, and sinker every time he said he cared because that was only a leap away from love. And when it came to love, Alina was starved, and, like a child, would take whatever scraps were thrown to her.
So while Alina could never even conceive of Aleksander as a child, he certainly could conceive of her as one.