Chapter Text
Aleksander doesn’t sleep with Grisha often.
Truthfully, he doesn’t sleep with many people.
Only occasionally otkazat’sya, because the centuries have made him wary, usually unwilling to be in any sense vulnerable with them. There are some he has trusted enough to join them in their bed (always theirs, never his), but not many.
Never one of his oprichniki, because it is important that their loyalty is not compromised by anything as trivial as jealousy or a fallout if they start to see what ought to be casual as something more.
Rarely one of his Grisha. As with his oprichniki, he doesn’t want to compromise their loyalty.
More than that, though, he does not want to reveal that he is a human amplifier.
He remembers his childhood. The girl he thought was his friend, the icy lake, the near-death experience.
As much loyalty and devotion as his Grisha have for him, Aleksander knows there are those who would covet his bones.
He wears gloves often, and he can control his amplification enough that few Grisha would notice it if he touched them skin to skin.
Sex is different, though. Intimate, and with a certain loss of control. Not only would it reveal his status as a human amplifier, it could also cause his partner’s Small Science to flare, and that could be dangerous.
Anyway, he finds he can detach himself from the messiness of raging desire and romantic longing most of the time. He hasn’t felt strongly for anyone since Luda.
But then …
Alina comes along, and everything he thought he could suppress spills over.
There is no hope for it, no world in which he would not wish to have her stand by his side for eternity.
His desire for her nearly overwhelms him, and he knows he cannot fight it.
So, it comes to pass.
There are no more trysts with otkazat’sya. There is no need to be careful if he beds one of his Grisha.
There is only Alina – who comes to know all his secrets eventually – and her bright, beautiful sunlight.
And if that means that everyone in the Little Palace knows exactly when they are both caught in the moment – because the sunlight and the shadows spill into the corridors around their room, although everyone attributes it simply to a loss of control because of desire rather than amplification – then he’s certainly happy to take Ivan’s eye rolls and hear the whispered innuendo.
Alina is more than worth it.