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Familiarity breeds a certain kind of intimacy, one that Alina can’t exactly pinpoint in words. And it’s not just physical intimacy: his hand immediately finding hers in the middle of a crowd, her head falling on his shoulder when she’s tired to her bones, his arms cradling her when it’s cold and she’s overheating yet again. It’s not that. They have a silent language, something only they know.
Alina keeps it close to her heart.
Even when Mal dates girl after girl, comes back home in the early morning—Alina tolerates it, knowing they’ll never have what she and Mal have, this acute understanding of being orphans with no home but each other.
They built that home together. Nobody’s going to tear it apart. Not even her. Which is why even when Alina can’t help but imagine herself as one of those pretty girls Mal ends up with, she’ll never instigate something between them even if she desperately wants to.
“Alina,” says Mal, placing his hands on her hips. She doesn’t startle. Instead, she revels in his touch and leans against his back. She’s already finished with her breakfast burrito but Mal leaves his to the wayside. “What time are we leaving?”
“Half-past eight.” They’ve got about half an hour before they leave to go to the animal shelter. And even though they’ve been talking about wanting to get a dog for ages, Alina just wants to stay in this moment for a little while longer. For a second, she can pretend. It’s almost second nature to do it, no matter how pathetic it makes her sound. “And I’m not going to adopt the saddest dog I see. I know you’re thinking of it.”
Mal laughs and she feels it reverberate against her own body. “Uh-huh.”
“Don’t mock me.” Alina turns around and Mal sticks his tongue out at her. His arms are still around her, a nice weight. “I’m not.”
“Okay, now look at Maradi and look back at me and look back at Maradi and tell me you don’t have a complex.” Maradi is her favorite plant, named after the patron saint of impossible love. She’s a little on the nose, but Mal never questioned her. Maradi’s a bamboo palm Alina found on one of her trips back to Os Alta to hang out with Genya and the others. Someone put it near the rubbish and its remaining leaves were browning, the whole plant was drooping. Even now after countless hours of talking to it and pruning it and giving it a new home and watering it, Maradi still looks barren and sad in the corner of the window sill. Well, Mal can’t talk. He waters and talks to Maradi, too.
“She’s growing,” Alina defends her, admittedly, pathetic plant.
Mal just presses his lips to her forehead, not a kiss per se, but it sends warmth down her spine regardless. “You are so getting the saddest dog. It’ll probably cry near you and you’ll form a pack bond within the second.”
She, kindly, reaches over, takes the rest of his breakfast burrito, and shoves it in her mouth.
Mal sighs. Waits for her to finish chewing.
Then, he throws her over his shoulder and drops her on the sofa. She lets out an audible oof.
Alina might be in love with him but, Saints, he is such a boy.
#
Alina comes across an older black husky-retriever mix who is obviously a little malnourished and needs a good bath. He whines when she pulls her hand away from behind his cute ears.
Across from her, Mal is sitting on his knees while a tiny, aggressive terrier-poodle mix tries to bite his fingers off. He shushes her, rubs his large thumb between her ears. She quiets down. Mal’s always been unbearably good with animals.
They adopt them both.
Alina should’ve figured they’d come home with more than one. They both have soft spots for orphans.
#
Alina and Mal live on the outskirts of Ravka, in Keramzin, away from the bustle of the city. They tried their hand at living in the city, living away from each other. It didn’t stick, obviously. In the year they left their orphanage, Mal went up north close to Fjerda with his friends, found a job delivering imports. Alina worked in a little coffee shop near the Little Palace where she met Genya.
It was good. It was even fun. But only calling Mal once a week, texting him every stray thought that he would appreciate—which is all of them, if she’s being honest—wasn’t enough. Mal sent her postcards from wherever he was. She couldn’t send any back because he was probably in a different country before she could write a single response.
They spent about two years away from each other before Mal finally came over to her tiny flat. It was so unexpected that, when she opened up the door and found him on the other side, she tackled him to the ground.
“Fuck,” said Mal, laughing a little breathlessly. “I miss you too, brat.”
“Saints, Mal, you’re here.” Alina couldn’t help the grin that spread across her face. She poked at the back of his head, feeling for a bump. When she found nothing, she stayed there sitting on his stomach. “I can’t believe it took you this long to visit me.”
“Well, I can’t believe you went to Os Alta.” He rolled his eyes and threaded his fingers behind his head, staring up at the ceiling. “And you could’ve come with me. I went to Ketterdam—it was so cramped, you’d hate it.”
Alina sighed and sat up, holding out her hand to pull him up as well. She pretended to struggle, heaving dramatically.
“Saints,” Mal muttered, “you’ve gotten more obnoxious with time and distance.”
She pulled him in by taking his hand, saying, “And you still missed me.”
Mal shut the door behind him with his foot and swung her up in the biggest hug, twirling her around. “Of course, Alina.”
She breathes him in, feeling at home for the first time in two years.
The next day, she and Mal decide to move back to Keramzin and get their own place.
(All her friends who have heard her talk about Mal extensively for two years didn’t even blink when she said that she was going to move.)
Sometimes, it’s just as simple as that.
#
When Alina first sleeps in Mal’s bed, it’s totally because of the new additions to their family.
Juris, the older dog Alina picked, and Marya, the younger dog Mal picked, formed a bond to make their lives . . . interesting, to say the least.
“Well,” Mal starts, surveying the damage they inflicted on her bed. It’s a wonder that everything else is perfectly intact. Juris, probably by Marya’s influence, ripped up her sheets and completely wrecked her mattress. Bits of fluff are still stuck on Marya’s claws. The cute, little demon. “At least they left the rest of your stuff alone.”
Alina sighs and rubs Juris’ head. “I’m not getting paid until next week. And my check isn’t covering a bed, especially this month.”
Mal picks up Marya, who stops barking at Alina when she’s in his arms, and presses kisses to her head. “Just sleep in my bed. We can share.”
She just raises her brow. You don’t mind?
Who do you think I am? Mal rolls his eyes. He clicks his tongue loudly and Juris comes to his call. He butts his head against Mal’s leg, wanting his attention. Alina can relate.
“Thanks,” she says aloud.
Mal just brushes his fingers against hers and leaves to take them out on their daily walk. Alina turns back to face the damage and blows a noisy breath from her mouth.
Time to clean.
#
It doesn’t hit Alina that she’s sleeping with Mal until she’s all done with her nightly routine and her limbs are stiff as she’s standing next to Mal’s bed.
He’s in the bathroom, brushing his teeth, when he says, “You can pick any side, I don’t mind.”
And, listen, they’ve essentially lived together since they were children, but they have never slept in the same bed together. Ana Kuya was quite rigid when it came to that kind of stuff. If Alina remembers it correctly it’s because I don’t want you all making more children to put in this place. Which, in hindsight, was extremely rude.
Alina slept in the same tent with him when they went camping, but she had her own sleeping bag separate from him. Now, she’ll be under the covers.
With Mal.
The boy she’s been in love with for as long as she can remember.
Easy. She can do this in her sleep.
“You okay?” asks Mal, scratching at his navel absentmindedly.
Alina’s mouth dries up. Saints, help her. She’s seen him half-naked, of course. But there’s something about him smiling that soft smile with his hair curling at the nape of his neck that makes her insides burn.
“Yeah,” she says. “Just tired.”
Mal slides under the covers with an ease and Alina follows suit, trying to act as nonchalant as he is right now. This isn’t new to him, Alina tells herself, he’s been in bed with so many women.
He turns on his side to face her and she mirrors him.
“Hi,” she says, her free hand coming up to fix the piece of hair that’s falling in his eyes.
Mal smiles, all crooked and sleepy and beautiful. “Hi,” he says back, softer.
“If you see me in your dreams,” Alina says, “take me to your favorite place and I’ll do the same.”
His eyes flutter shut. He hums his agreement. He murmurs, “Don’t need to dream that.”
“Why?” she whispers.
“Because you’re my favorite place.”
Alina stops breathing. Mal . . .
She’s about to say You’re my favorite place too—the closest she can get to saying what she really wants to say—but when she finally draws up the courage, Mal is fast asleep.
Alina lets her free hand run over the scar on his open palm. Almost the same one that matches hers. She leans in, quietly, softly, tenderly, and kisses it.
“Goodnight, Mal,” she whispers for a final time.
In Alina’s dreams, daylight shimmers through her fingers, travels up her arms, and twirls around her. She’s in her favorite place: back in the meadow, surrounded by Mal’s embrace.
She’s home.
#
Somehow, over the course of the night, Alina wakes up and finds that she has splayed all her limbs over him. She’s still a little sleep-dazed and warm that it doesn’t really register in her mind.
But then she can feel Mal’s breath change, can hear that deep rumble in his chest as he tries to walk up. And suddenly Alina is all too aware that she is laying atop of him like an octopus.
She freezes.
Mal says, voice croaky from disuse. “Morning, beautiful.”
Alina wants to scream. Is he imagining he has some other girl in his bed? This is mortifying. She moves off of him and his eyes snap open.
“Alina, what’re you doing?” he says, but it sounds more like linawhatroudoing because it’s early enough where he can slur his words. “So early.”
“Uh,” is all she can say. “I . . . have to pee.”
He throws his arm over his eyes and says, “Hurry up, you’re like a heater and it’s cold.”
Alina covers a laugh with a barely disguised cough. She’s not lying. She does need to go to the bathroom, but she just needs a little space from . . . all of that.
From Mal, from everything she’s ever truly wanted but isn’t strong enough to take it with her own hands. Fear of losing Mal has kept her like this, in this limbo of domestic bliss without that romantic undertone.
It’s making her insane.
She takes a few minutes to start her morning routine. Alina always wakes up earlier than Mal—rising with the sun, winding down with the moon—and it doesn’t take her long for her imagination to catch up with her. Waking up tucked up against Mal, kissing him awake, staying in bed all day except going out to eat and taking care of their little demons.
Mal stumbles in after her, grabbing his toothbrush, and Alina squirts some toothpaste on his without a second thought.
He stays attached to her, shivering in only his pyjamas.
Alina swishes water and spits it out in the sink. “You know you’d be a lot warmer if you wore a shirt.”
Mal pokes her side and copies her movements. He looks at her through her reflection in the mirror and shoots her a cock-sure grin. Sometimes she forgets that he’s not the same boy who ran after her in the meadow, all unkempt and brash. He’s grown now, more handsome than ever.
But he is still that same boy in his heart, she knows it.
Alina turns and stands on the tips of her toes to kiss his jaw.
He blinks. “What’s that for?”
“Just,” says Alina, shrugging, “good morning.”
She leaves the bathroom and gives him a wry smile over her shoulder. “Beautiful.”
Mal laughs, her favorite sound.
Yeah, it’s a great morning.
#
They settle into a routine that feels like it’s been a long time coming. A week passes by, and another, and without even knowing a month flies by and she still hasn’t gotten a new bed even though she saved up enough to get a new one. Her room became her own little art studio, especially after she and Mal moved the broken remains of her bed into the rubbish.
Mal hasn’t said anything about her getting a new bed or thrown her out to be on the sofa and Alina pointedly hasn’t mentioned it.
They’re walking carefully around the topic.
Alina even thinks that Mal likes sleeping with her. In the, you know, completely platonic sense of the word. He never said it exactly, but Mal isn’t one to mince his words. When she was casually dating Prince Nikolai for a month and he was getting busy with his royal duties, Mal told her she should be with someone who put her first, that he should deserve her.
And Mal was right. She didn’t want royal duties, she wanted someone who was like . . . Mal. Not that she’d ever mention it to him.
Alina told Nikolai this and they mutually agreed to break up.
“You ready?” asks Mal, holding Juris and Mayra’s leashes in his hands.
“Yup.”
They decided this morning to take them on a long walk, visiting the meadow they always ran around in when they were younger. It’s not that far off, just a little ways behind the orphanage.
Juris walks alongside Alina, ambling quietly, while Mayra’s barking excitedly, running when Mal finds a stick to throw at her. Alina weaves her arm through Mal’s elbow and leans against him.
“Remember when Ana Kuya tried to get you to catch a rabbit for dinner,” she says once they reach the orphanage. It’s more dilapidated than she’s seen it but she can still hear some kids laughing in the back.
“Yeah,” says Mal, running a hand through his hair. “I pretended it escaped. Saints, I ate cold bread and cheese that whole week. Ana Kuya was so mad. And you ate it with me in solidarity.”
“Of course. Couldn’t let a hero fight his battles alone.”
He snorts. “I can’t believe I’ve known you for so long.”
“Hey,” she says, hip-checking him gently. “You’re going to know me for much longer than that.”
“Obviously.” Mal looks down at her, smiling. “You’re not going to get rid of me.”
The meadow’s a little barren, autumn coming and sweeping away all the green, but it’s still perfect to her. Alina takes off the leash and lets them roam around, even mild-mannered Juris is chasing Mayra, his tongue hanging out of his mouth.
And in the cold daylight, with her dogs, in her favorite place in the world, Alina turns around. Mal catches her gaze and tilts his head in question.
She wants her dream to be a reality. She wants it so much it aches.
Her fingers reach out and they’re shaking. They grab onto the lapels of Mal’s coat. With the softest touch, his own hands cover hers. They’re trembling too, she thinks.
Mal doesn’t say anything, just watches her with wide eyes, like he knows. He knows.
“I—” Alina starts, but her words die on her tongue. “Mal, I . . .”
There are a million things she can say: I want to kiss you, I want to be one of those girls you take to bed, I want to be yours, I love you, I have loved you for as long as I can remember, I love you, I love you, I love you.
His hands reach up to grab hers.
“Mal, you’re my best friend in the entire world. My favorite friend, my favorite place. And I . . .” Saints’ sake, just say it, Alina. “I want to be with you. Forever.”
She gazes deep into his eyes, willing him to understand.
“You’re all I’ve ever wanted,” says Mal, so earnest it hurts. Alina’s hands still tremble in his. “You are the whole of my heart.”
“Mal . . .” she starts, but can’t say anything but his name. But here’s the thing about knowing someone for years, knowing them so well you know them better than yourself: sometimes, they already know what you’re saying before the words leave your lips. It’s a silent language, one that belongs just to them. A smile breaks across his face, all boyish and sweet, and, Saints help her, she has never been more in love in her entire life.
He leans down and presses his forehead against hers. They’re breathing in the same air, she realises with weirdly giddy delight.
“Mal,” she says again, this time just to say his name. Just to watch him tuck a strand of her hair behind her ear. I love you, Mal.
“Alina,” he says back. And with that, she knows. They say so much with so little. It’s a wonder they took so long for this to happen. She hears it just when he says her name: I love you too, Alina.
They both lean in at the same time. Their lips graze each other, a soft thing. And then Alina puts her arms around his neck, his wrapping around her waist, pulling her up into him.
They kiss and kiss and kiss until they can’t breathe. Still, they kiss each other breathless. An outpour of everything they haven’t said to each other culminating into this one moment.
Juris and Mayra are winding down, coming between their legs and Alina breaks apart from Mal, giggling. This is her family, her home. Everything she’s ever wanted.
It’s absolutely perfect.