For Alyosha

[john_ofdarkness]

Due to the playing-timeline not quite matching the in-game timeline, the typist has simply collapsed things such that this morning occurs after the timeline goes fractal. The best thing about timelines going fractal is, they allow typist to cut out awkward temporal gaps. :D

John has got muffins and bread, for no greater price than Alyosha's labor and his own writing. That Alyosha is absent this morning, he doesn't find particularly alarming; he can think of a dozen innocent excuses without actual effort, and so he sees no reason to be perturbed. Instead, he's sitting at his desk by the window, attempting to outline a muffin tragedy on bits of salvaged paper. There is a small smile on his face, and a slice of bread half-eaten by his elbow.

Comments

[tinylittleonion.livejournal.com]

Alyosha can't help but smile from fondness, though he's pale and tired-looking, gentlyquietly closing the door behind him -- all at once he would like nothing more than to go over and kiss John on the forehead, to ask him in a cheerful voice what it is he's working on, and listen playing with his hair. But he lingers by the door instead, watching, with a stillness that might be mistaken for calm.

[john-ofdarkness.livejournal.com]

He looks up, a smile caught for a moment on his face. "Had a bit of an adventure, duck?"

[tinylittleonion.livejournal.com]

Ee. Alyosha loves it when John smiles like that, when he doesn't tense at being caught happy. "I was ensorcelled, I think ... forgive me for not coming home, I ..." He looks down, bites his lip. "Forgive me."

[john-ofdarkness.livejournal.com]

"Not something we can particularly help, is it." He motions for Alyosha to come nearer. "Embarrassing ensorcellment, I take it?"

[tinylittleonion.livejournal.com]

He goes to stand by him, anxious, but reaching to take John's hand and steady himself. "It's all vague, now, like a dream ... I thought I was from your time, but I didn't remember you, or anything that happened here ... and even my home, even the Russia I remembered, was a very different Russia. Some of the things you said would happen in my future had happened already, and some things that never would happen. But it was that way for Edgar, too -- he thought he was from another time, too, and we met again, without knowing each other."

[john-ofdarkness.livejournal.com]

"Edgar--one of the boys who works on your church?" He's frowning a little, in part because that reminds him of a dream that he had; he was from a different time ... but more than this, he frowns because there are familiar signs written over Alyosha, in manner and habit and scent.

[tinylittleonion.livejournal.com]

He nods. Softly, without lingering any longer, without making excuses, "I lay with him. I'm sorry.."

[john-ofdarkness.livejournal.com]

"Well." He sits back in his chair, crossing ankle over knee. "Welcome to being a gay man. I'd bake you a cake, but we're on wartime rations--have a muffin instead." He offers one.

[tinylittleonion.livejournal.com]

Well. He's not going to refuse a muffin, but he is going to look confused while holding it. "I'm not sure I understand."

[john-ofdarkness.livejournal.com]

"You don't honestly think that you're the first lover I've had who's fucked around behind my back, do you? You did read the damned play, didn't you?" He has to laugh. "And you can't be naive enough to think that I've never done it, myself."

[tinylittleonion.livejournal.com]

Expression crumpling rather, "But that's not what I wanted. If I'd known, if I'd remembered, I would never have done it ... I ..."

[john-ofdarkness.livejournal.com]

"Still harbor dreams of monogamy, two people joined forever in holy matrimony?" John regards Alyosha over his glasses, then takes them off and folds them on the desk. "Don't do it again, then. That's rather simple, isn't it?"

[tinylittleonion.livejournal.com]

Nngh. Somuchconfusionandhurt. But, quietly, "All right."

[john-ofdarkness.livejournal.com]

He draws Alyosha close, embracing him, cheek pressed against his hip. "You're making too much of it."

[tinylittleonion.livejournal.com]

He looks down at him, terribly lovingly, running a a rough, scarred hand through his hair. "Perhaps I am. I don't know what I should be making of it ... I don't know what's fair ..."

[john-ofdarkness.livejournal.com]

Smirking a little at that tender expression, "I think it's crushingly unfair that you haven't told me what it was like."

[tinylittleonion.livejournal.com]

You were wondering when he would start blushing, weren't you. And he can't help laughing, reddening, "You know, I did wonder whether you would say something like that."

[john-ofdarkness.livejournal.com]

"Which means that you have a reply ready-made, waiting to be delivered." He lets go, settling back in his chair again, clearly attentive.

[tinylittleonion.livejournal.com]

"I didn't think of a reply ... ! I only thought of how in-character it would have been for you to ask," with a smile in spite of everything, "and that it's a shame I wouldn't be able to tell you very much."

[john-ofdarkness.livejournal.com]

Grinning, "Don't be modest. I've seen you in nearly every indelicate position I can name, and a few I can't."

[tinylittleonion.livejournal.com]

Bluuush. "That's true."

[john-ofdarkness.livejournal.com]

"And yet you're still, at your core, a blushing virgin."

[tinylittleonion.livejournal.com]

He sits on the floor, and rests his head against John's knee. "I was that way when I was enchanted, too ... almost embarrassingly so ... but Edgar was very tender, and very patient with me. Like you've been with me."

[john-ofdarkness.livejournal.com]

His fingers curl into Alyosha's hair, slow and soft and meditative. "It wouldn't destroy me, you know, if you wanted to keep on with him."

[tinylittleonion.livejournal.com]

"I don't know what I should do. He said he regretted that it came about this way, if it had to come about at all ... but he wanted this before, and I didn't realize it. He's perhaps my dearest friend, and I didn't understand him, I didn't even try to ... even after he told me, I don't think I understood ..."