( his mind goes back to their first kiss immediately upon her speaking about climbing roses. it's a helpless association. whenever he smells roses, whenever he sees them now, hears about them, his mind is brought back to that moment - the parts of themselves they unleashed there in their desire for one another, which had not been properly expressed up until that moment.
he didn't know if she would answer this question especially given how much more dangerous it was, but she does give him an honest answer here, a raw answer, a difficult answer. he's aware. )
I didn't know you tended to horses in your home nor that your mother had a singing voice worthy of being missed.
[ the horses did not belong to them. nothing, she feels, has ever truly belonged to her. but she tended to them dutifully, sweetly even, and then swallowed back the bile whenever she saw the true masters ride them. an ugly resentment, that led to ugly things.
the words that follow his pause are a bitter reminder of them, and she has no defense.
unlike him, she is without good armor. ]
I am sorry, Maks. [ it doesn't change anything. it doesn't absolve her. but she really and truly is. ]
( it's another piece slotting into place. she loved the horses enough to miss them, but they were not hers and they did not technically live at her home. she took care of them, and it must have made her want more, want horses of her own, horses she could ride.
her apology though takes him by surprise. it makes him pause. here in this nebulous state, he can tell she means it. it doesn't stop the questions rattling through him, doesn't absolve nor heal the hurt of the wreckage of it all.
doesn't extinguish the anger entirely, but it does give him pause. )
They found out about you?
( is that why- he came across her, the corpse, and he knows now how dangerous the runes on her are, how many people would want to use them for their own gain. she may be a liar, but she's no cold-blooded murderer, he's certain of that. )
[ a bitterness takes over her features, and she looks away from him for a brief moment. ]
Someone in your family must have hired a private investigator. It's what the man implied, in any case.
[ before the scuffle ensued and her powers manifested once more.
his family had every reason to have suspicions about her, it's true, but even if they hadn't, she would have not been embraced so warmly, welcomed into the fold. she's not good enough for maksym, has neither the pedigree nor the education.
for someone who very much wants money and power, she doesn't actually like rich people. ]
( a pause though, because he finds it important for her to know like it would have been a betrayal from him otherwise. as if she hadn't already betrayed him again and again. they both had their secrets. he can understand her keeping the runes a secret like he had his own secrets, it was the rest that- )
I did not know they were going to do so. I would have told them no.
( he swallows thick as he looks at her - her face as beautiful as the first time they kissed, more revealing in this moment where she allows her bitterness to show. damn if he doesn't find that beautiful as well, striking in this lighting. his jaw clenches despite himself with some emotion he keeps held at bay though it is difficult. his heart is too tied into this, into her, tangled up. )
[ her eyes sting with tears, treacherous heart close to soaring. she doesn't deserve his consideration, much less his protection, but she hadn't wanted to believe he was a part of the investigation. she still feels so stupid for not having anticipated it.
her own swallow is thick, rough. ]
I don't know.
[ and that's the truth.
she wanted to trust him. to think that she could, that their marriage could become something real, even if it began with so many lies. yet every time there was an opening, she could be seized by panic, fear. ] I was told to never tell a soul. It's what kept us all safe. [ not just her, but her parents, her siblings. they'd made so many sacrifices for her already. ]
( maksym's voice is quiet, because he sees the tears in her eyes, hears the thickness of her swallow as if she is wrestling with emotions of her own at the moment. it can become easy to convince oneself of certain things without evidence otherwise. she was not there to give it, and all he had was the information of the reason behind why she married him. there was the rune aspect as well, but after researching it- )
I understand why you would never have told a soul.
But I would have- ( kept her safe, done all he could to keep her safe. if anyone would understand that, it is him - born fragile in more ways than one, having to take precaution after precaution.
he can understand writing that into her marrow and never letting another person see. )
[ the one and only time she trusted someone with her secret out of some longing to be understood, she lived to dearly regret it. trusting the wrong person forced her parents' hand, forced them to work out an arrangement with alira's parents so that she would be taken in by them, so that she could hide in plain sight. elisaveta was never fooled though, not even by their kindness.
she's always known where she stood, what she could and could not afford to do, the lines she was not to cross. and she skirted everything deftly, of course, until she didn't. until he came along and she decided that she wanted more.
he didn't deserve that — her callousness, her carelessness. his understanding is harder to confront than his anger, because she's well aware she doesn't deserve this, either. his grace. ]
There's not a small part of you that's curious what you could do with me?
[ inventors, scholars, wizards. cerebral men like him, she was warned of them the most. she could be the engine of a strong heart. could make him healthy and whole. she has thought of that, now that she knows his own secret. ]
( the response comes sharply, suddenly as it rushes up through his chest. there's a tightness in his voice, his jaw locked, worry over what she may assume about him if she thinks that any part of him might - )
No.
( within his research on this rune aspect of her, within all the reading he did, he read countless examples of exactly what terrible men have done to the rare few that are born with this ability. he's read about how they've used up that power until there's none of them left.
this was part of his worry, part of his need to find her hidden underneath his anger at all that happened and the divorce papers he brought with him. he worried she had been discovered again or that the investigator had somehow gotten word out to someone else before they were killed, and she was on the run, but the idea that she may have been running out of fear for what he would do is difficult to stomach, to swallow through. if she truly believes that, perhaps her feelings were not real after all, and he was foolish to believe in them. he still feels foolish some of the time. most of the time. )
No. I did not. I would not - as if you were an object to be used- ( his voice cuts off again before he finds the steadiness within his words: )
No. Is that why you ran without an idea of how to follow you? You feared what I would do to you?
[ the sharp emotion that rises up in him draws a similar response from her, one she feels right in the center of her chest, tight and white-hot. the person she has loved most in the world and who has loved her, prior to ever meeting him was alira, and even she could treat her in this manner. like her favorite possession, something she wasn't to share with anyone else. he may well be different, but —
was she truly to gamble on that? particularly with the viper that stands behind him so steadfastly? ]
I feared your grandmother. Don't pretend as though it isn't a real fear. I couldn't know if he went to her first, if she knows, and even if she doesn't, was I to stick around and be tried for murder?
[ she operated on instinct. she operated on past information. every time something like this has happened, they've moved away, because returning was never safe. it might never be safe to return to him if his grandmother knows, and that does break her heart.
that is a loss to her, in more ways than he can imagine. ]
( maksym starts to erase whatever distance exists between them in this nebulous place. is he without his possessiveness? no. he would hate to think of her mouth on anyone else's. he would hate and loathe to think of her hands upon anyone else's body, but that is not the thought that set his denial alight inside of him with such a fierceness that it strikes through his core.
it's the thought that she could think of him as she thought of all those scientists, investigators, horror stories that she likely heard about growing up among her family. )
Did I ask you that? Did I say anywhere in that conversation that I thought your fear wasn't real? That I didn't understand why you ran especially with a dead body in your wake.
( his grandmother is a terrifying woman, and she would come relentlessly for her - no matter how much that would destroy him. maksym. it wouldn't matter to her. it wouldn't make her stop. )
[ elisaveta wants to protest that she did answer the question, albeit haphazardly, but the space between them both figuratively and literally shrinks to nothing, and it's different to confront him like this — when he's right in front of her and the sight of him is a welt to her gut.
she swallows, regroups. thinks of his question even with the tightness in her chest that grows. ]
No, that's not why I ran. But I — I thought you would hate me for what I did.
[ and if he does hate her, why would she think that he would help her? that he would want to?
so she may not have feared what he would do with her secret, even if she very much does fear what his grandmother will, but she did fear what his anger might lead to, because she's never been under any delusion he doesn't have a host of reasons to be angry. ]
Don't you? [ she asks this so much quieter. doesn't he hate her? ]
( elisaveta asks the question so quietly that it's difficult to continue the escalation that he'd been on - the sharpness of the anger, the intensity of his denial that she might fear him. it's the quietness of her question followed with his own utter relief that that is not why she ran, she did not think he would use her like a science experiment against her will. that he might try to utilize that power for his own gain regardless of harm to her.
so he deflates some even as he stands in the aftermath of that question. all of this anger that he does have, all the traveling he was prepared to do far from the house that he's stayed in to protect himself for as- for as long as he can remember. he wouldn't leave it for hate alone. he wouldn't leave it out of anger alone.
it was far more than that, which would drive him away. )
I hate a great deal many of the things you did, Elisaveta. I hate that you left even if I understand it. I hate the reason you married me to begin with. I hate I was left with a body to clean up on my own. ( he hates that he was left alone in that big house, prison of his own making.
his hand lifts - fingertips brush across her cheekbone for the first time since she left so abruptly, but they're here in this raw and vulnerable place when all of that is left splayed out in the open one way or another. )
[ moisture gathers in her eyes the very moment that his fingertips brush against her skin, disarmed so entirely by it. her expression becomes so bare in return that she isn't able to hide the wince that follows at the reminder he was left with the body.
she wasn't thinking about that, about the mess she would leave in her wake for him to fix. she didn't think. the panic was so visceral, so immediate, that her legs were already making the choice for her. magic soon followed, magic that she has never properly understood, and resented for the vulnerability it brings her. but in that moment it aided her, and she was gone.
and she has hated every awful moment that has followed. the uncertainty, the hiding. his absence. she had not anticipated it, how much she would love their life, tucked away from the rest of the world. how much she would love being his wife.
him. how much she would love him.
she shakes her head like she doesn't understand — she doesn't, not truly. she would hate herself in his place. she hasn't asked for the forgiveness she desperately wishes for because... because how can she? after everything. ] I don't ... what does that mean, Maksym?
( no one has ever made him feel the way she manages to do with the touch of his fingertips against her skin alone, with the way she looks at him like some part of her may have been unleashed with only his touch too. to have it back in the moment that he touches her again, it cracks something open inside of him that he fears revealing. it wasn't only his house that became a prison of his own making, but himself too. he learned better than to be too revealing especially around his grandmother who was so discerning, so sharp and sudden. her love is nearly as brutal as her hatred.
what he experienced with her, what they experienced together, he'd never had before. to have it ripped away in the middle of the night along with a shattering realization that it may have all been a lie- an illusion, and then the crashing reality of how much he might prefer the illusion to a reality that him bearing the brunt of her absence for the remainder of his life, a terrible thing for a scholar like him to feel. all the dark nights he spent thinking- ♪
he swallows thick, meets her gaze as he traces along the edge of her face across her cheekbone along her jawline. his thumb dares to trace the path of her bottom lip, and it draws a tremble through the rest of his body. )
I don't know. ( he releases a shudder of a breath as his gaze drops ) I believe that's why we must see. Together.
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no subject
he didn't know if she would answer this question especially given how much more dangerous it was, but she does give him an honest answer here, a raw answer, a difficult answer. he's aware. )
I didn't know you tended to horses in your home nor that your mother had a singing voice worthy of being missed.
( a pause ) There was a great deal I didn't know.
no subject
[ the horses did not belong to them. nothing, she feels, has ever truly belonged to her. but she tended to them dutifully, sweetly even, and then swallowed back the bile whenever she saw the true masters ride them. an ugly resentment, that led to ugly things.
the words that follow his pause are a bitter reminder of them, and she has no defense.
unlike him, she is without good armor. ]
I am sorry, Maks. [ it doesn't change anything. it doesn't absolve her. but she really and truly is. ]
no subject
her apology though takes him by surprise. it makes him pause. here in this nebulous state, he can tell she means it. it doesn't stop the questions rattling through him, doesn't absolve nor heal the hurt of the wreckage of it all.
doesn't extinguish the anger entirely, but it does give him pause. )
They found out about you?
( is that why- he came across her, the corpse, and he knows now how dangerous the runes on her are, how many people would want to use them for their own gain. she may be a liar, but she's no cold-blooded murderer, he's certain of that. )
no subject
Someone in your family must have hired a private investigator. It's what the man implied, in any case.
[ before the scuffle ensued and her powers manifested once more.
his family had every reason to have suspicions about her, it's true, but even if they hadn't, she would have not been embraced so warmly, welcomed into the fold. she's not good enough for maksym, has neither the pedigree nor the education.
for someone who very much wants money and power, she doesn't actually like rich people. ]
no subject
( a pause though, because he finds it important for her to know like it would have been a betrayal from him otherwise. as if she hadn't already betrayed him again and again. they both had their secrets. he can understand her keeping the runes a secret like he had his own secrets, it was the rest that- )
I did not know they were going to do so. I would have told them no.
( he swallows thick as he looks at her - her face as beautiful as the first time they kissed, more revealing in this moment where she allows her bitterness to show. damn if he doesn't find that beautiful as well, striking in this lighting. his jaw clenches despite himself with some emotion he keeps held at bay though it is difficult. his heart is too tied into this, into her, tangled up. )
Would you have told me yourself?
no subject
her own swallow is thick, rough. ]
I don't know.
[ and that's the truth.
she wanted to trust him. to think that she could, that their marriage could become something real, even if it began with so many lies. yet every time there was an opening, she could be seized by panic, fear. ] I was told to never tell a soul. It's what kept us all safe. [ not just her, but her parents, her siblings. they'd made so many sacrifices for her already. ]
no subject
( maksym's voice is quiet, because he sees the tears in her eyes, hears the thickness of her swallow as if she is wrestling with emotions of her own at the moment. it can become easy to convince oneself of certain things without evidence otherwise. she was not there to give it, and all he had was the information of the reason behind why she married him. there was the rune aspect as well, but after researching it- )
I understand why you would never have told a soul.
But I would have- ( kept her safe, done all he could to keep her safe. if anyone would understand that, it is him - born fragile in more ways than one, having to take precaution after precaution.
he can understand writing that into her marrow and never letting another person see. )
no subject
she's always known where she stood, what she could and could not afford to do, the lines she was not to cross. and she skirted everything deftly, of course, until she didn't. until he came along and she decided that she wanted more.
he didn't deserve that — her callousness, her carelessness. his understanding is harder to confront than his anger, because she's well aware she doesn't deserve this, either. his grace. ]
There's not a small part of you that's curious what you could do with me?
[ inventors, scholars, wizards. cerebral men like him, she was warned of them the most. she could be the engine of a strong heart. could make him healthy and whole. she has thought of that, now that she knows his own secret. ]
no subject
No.
( within his research on this rune aspect of her, within all the reading he did, he read countless examples of exactly what terrible men have done to the rare few that are born with this ability. he's read about how they've used up that power until there's none of them left.
this was part of his worry, part of his need to find her hidden underneath his anger at all that happened and the divorce papers he brought with him. he worried she had been discovered again or that the investigator had somehow gotten word out to someone else before they were killed, and she was on the run, but the idea that she may have been running out of fear for what he would do is difficult to stomach, to swallow through. if she truly believes that, perhaps her feelings were not real after all, and he was foolish to believe in them. he still feels foolish some of the time. most of the time. )
No. I did not. I would not - as if you were an object to be used- ( his voice cuts off again before he finds the steadiness within his words: )
No. Is that why you ran without an idea of how to follow you? You feared what I would do to you?
no subject
was she truly to gamble on that? particularly with the viper that stands behind him so steadfastly? ]
I feared your grandmother. Don't pretend as though it isn't a real fear. I couldn't know if he went to her first, if she knows, and even if she doesn't, was I to stick around and be tried for murder?
[ she operated on instinct. she operated on past information. every time something like this has happened, they've moved away, because returning was never safe. it might never be safe to return to him if his grandmother knows, and that does break her heart.
that is a loss to her, in more ways than he can imagine. ]
no subject
it's the thought that she could think of him as she thought of all those scientists, investigators, horror stories that she likely heard about growing up among her family. )
Did I ask you that? Did I say anywhere in that conversation that I thought your fear wasn't real? That I didn't understand why you ran especially with a dead body in your wake.
( his grandmother is a terrifying woman, and she would come relentlessly for her - no matter how much that would destroy him. maksym. it wouldn't matter to her. it wouldn't make her stop. )
That wasn't the question I asked.
no subject
she swallows, regroups. thinks of his question even with the tightness in her chest that grows. ]
No, that's not why I ran. But I — I thought you would hate me for what I did.
[ and if he does hate her, why would she think that he would help her? that he would want to?
so she may not have feared what he would do with her secret, even if she very much does fear what his grandmother will, but she did fear what his anger might lead to, because she's never been under any delusion he doesn't have a host of reasons to be angry. ]
Don't you? [ she asks this so much quieter. doesn't he hate her? ]
no subject
so he deflates some even as he stands in the aftermath of that question. all of this anger that he does have, all the traveling he was prepared to do far from the house that he's stayed in to protect himself for as- for as long as he can remember. he wouldn't leave it for hate alone. he wouldn't leave it out of anger alone.
it was far more than that, which would drive him away. )
I hate a great deal many of the things you did, Elisaveta. I hate that you left even if I understand it. I hate the reason you married me to begin with. I hate I was left with a body to clean up on my own. ( he hates that he was left alone in that big house, prison of his own making.
his hand lifts - fingertips brush across her cheekbone for the first time since she left so abruptly, but they're here in this raw and vulnerable place when all of that is left splayed out in the open one way or another. )
But no. I don't hate you.
no subject
she wasn't thinking about that, about the mess she would leave in her wake for him to fix. she didn't think. the panic was so visceral, so immediate, that her legs were already making the choice for her. magic soon followed, magic that she has never properly understood, and resented for the vulnerability it brings her. but in that moment it aided her, and she was gone.
and she has hated every awful moment that has followed. the uncertainty, the hiding. his absence. she had not anticipated it, how much she would love their life, tucked away from the rest of the world. how much she would love being his wife.
him. how much she would love him.
she shakes her head like she doesn't understand — she doesn't, not truly. she would hate herself in his place. she hasn't asked for the forgiveness she desperately wishes for because... because how can she? after everything. ] I don't ... what does that mean, Maksym?
[ for them. ]
no subject
what he experienced with her, what they experienced together, he'd never had before. to have it ripped away in the middle of the night along with a shattering realization that it may have all been a lie- an illusion, and then the crashing reality of how much he might prefer the illusion to a reality that him bearing the brunt of her absence for the remainder of his life, a terrible thing for a scholar like him to feel. all the dark nights he spent thinking- ♪
he swallows thick, meets her gaze as he traces along the edge of her face across her cheekbone along her jawline. his thumb dares to trace the path of her bottom lip, and it draws a tremble through the rest of his body. )
I don't know. ( he releases a shudder of a breath as his gaze drops ) I believe that's why we must see. Together.