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rietveldbrothers · 6 months

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If I can't have love, I want power

a/n: me elisha and tiff wrote the most unhinged au our combined chaos could come up with for @grishaversebigbang 2023. make sure to check out the stunning art from our materialki below

Materialki: @iri-lynx (x) @hagnoart (x) and @mfrov95 (x)

Ethrealki: @dregstrash @wafflesandkruge

Summary:

Zoya didn’t need anyone. It was a lesson that had been burned into her after she’d let Nikolai into her life four years ago, and he’d responded by sabotaging her chances at Top Gun. When the best of the best are called back to North Island for a dangerous mission, Zoya and Nikolai must set aside the past and work together once again. But the heart is a tricky thing, and Zoya isn’t sure if she’s ready to let go of her grudges just yet…

AKA the love square meets top gun au with lots of pining, angst, and loaded history.

Read on AO3 or Chapter 1 below the cut

Nikolai’s breath came in short, harsh pants as his hands clenched around the controls of his plane. All he could see was the black fighter in front of him, desperately dodging and weaving to try to avoid him. He was good, Nikolai would give him that. But he was better.

“Come on, come on,” he muttered as he watched his computer track the other plane, the target never quite steadying. The fighter dived into the canyon below and Nikolai followed, still not able to get a missile lock. The canyon walls seemed to narrow around his plane, one small misstep sure to end with him dying in a fiery wreck. Nikolai’s breathing quickened.

“Nik, need some help here!” Dominik gasped on the radio. Nikolai jerked his head up and saw two planes streaking across the sky, Dominik pursued by another enemy fighter. His heart stopped.

“Genya!” he yelled. “Help Domino!”

The fighter he was pursuing swerved suddenly, and Nikolai cursed as he struggled to follow. The enemy planes were infinitely more maneuverable than theirs, if a little slower. But he was so goddamn close, he could taste it.

“Can’t!” Genya responded, her heavy breathing making the line crackle. “Two on my tail.”

“Nikolai!”

Fuck. Nikolai was getting too far from his teammates. The world seemed to slow as he stared at the fighter in front of him, seemingly getting further and further away from him with every second. Dominik could handle himself for a few more seconds. If he stayed, he could chalk his first kill. He could scratch that tally mark into the side of his plane.

And Dominik would be dead.

Damn it all.

He pulled up and out of the valley, the familiar crushing force settling back onto his body.

“I’m coming,” he gasped, praying Dominik could hear him. “Hang on.”

The sky was a brilliant, unforgiving blue as he climbed higher, the air thinning. He looked around wildly.

“Talk to me, Dom. Where are you?”

“On your left! Break right, break right!”

Nikolai obeyed blindly, his body jerking against the seat’s restraints as the plane went perpendicular with the ground. To his right, he saw Genya’s plane scream past. She was giving the two on her tail a run for their money. Dominik passed by overhead with a roar, smoke trailing from his plane. Another enemy fighter followed him.

Nikolai cursed and struggled to right his plane, but it was too goddamn slow. Time seemed to stretch out, each second an hour as Dominik got further and further from him.

“I’m almost there, Dom. Hang on,” he panted as he pushed the jet to go faster. The engine let out a warning screech.

“Nikolai!” Dominik screamed.

“I’m coming, I’m coming—” His cockpit felt like it was burning up, the heat of a thousand suns piercing through his uniform and searing his skin, his bones—

“Nikolai!”

Nikolai bolts awake, sheets twisted around his sweat-sticky body. Dominik’s screams echo in his ear. His heart pounds in staccato rhythm, his mind still locked in a battle long past, long survived.

“You good?”

Nikolai blinks and the figure crouched beside his bunk comes into focus. Mal Oretsev’s face is twisted in concern, one hand still stretched toward Nikolai. Nikolai bats it aside. He forces one breath after another into his constricted lungs, and slowly, the panic subsides. He isn’t in the sky, he isn’t flying, and the ground beneath him is as solid as it would ever be.

“Yeah,” he says breathlessly. He clears his throat and tries again, this time with a fake smile. “Never better.”

Mal doesn’t look convinced, but thankfully, doesn’t dig. He’s used to Nikolai’s idiosyncrasies by now. He tosses a shirt at Nikolai. “You better get your ass ready then. They called us back to Top Gun.”

Nikolai’s heart stutters at the name. Memories of bright blue eyes, desert that stretched to the horizon, and words he regretted more than anything rise unbidden to his mind. He hasn’t been back since what had happened almost four years ago, and he had intended to keep it that way for the rest of his hopefully long career. But he supposes he was never that lucky of a guy, anyway. He keeps his voice carefully level as he pulls the shirt on and kicks off his sheets.

“For what?”

Mal leans against his dresser, the very picture of nonchalance as Nikolai pulls on the first pair of pants he can find on his floor. But Nikolai has been with him long enough to read the tension in his jaw and that look he gets when he’s thinking about the past. He isn’t the only one with a messy story, after all.

“Special detachment. They wouldn’t tell me more than that. But they only invited the best of the best.”

There’s only one pilot other than himself that Nikolai would ever think of as the best. He’s spent so long trying to forget her that the thought of seeing her again is like the sight of water for a man dying of thirst. His heart gives a little skip, the ink on his forearm aches.

Don’t even start, Lantsov. Zoya’s not in the business of second chances.

Nikolai shoves the thought of her out of his mind and gives Mal his best asshole-smile.

“Guess you’re in charge of the squadron while I’m gone then.”

Mal rolls his eyes and chuffs Nikolai on the shoulder. “Fuck off, asshole. Be ready to leave in an hour or I’m leaving you behind.”

Nikolai clutches his heart in mock-hurt. “You would do that to your wingman? Your dearest fling? Your most convenient friend with bene—”

Mal throws a pillow at his face and stalks out of the room.

—

Top Gun is somehow just as Nikolai remembers it, and a completely different beast at the same time. As soon as he steps onto the tarmac, the balmy San Diego air kisses his skin and makes him crave an ice-cold drink. Beside him, Mal slides on a pair of aviators and squints at the midday sun.

“That was the worst flight I’ve ever been on.”

“Mmmm, I don’t know,” Nikolai drawls. He grabs his bag from the ground and starts walking toward the building where all the brass have their offices. “I’ve been in your backseat before. It was a pretty harrowing experience. Almost made me want to change careers.”

“I’m hanging you out to dry on our next hop,” Mal threatens, but Nikolai knows it’s an empty threat. Mal has never left him behind. Not when it counted.

The two of them check in with Juris, the grizzled Top Gun Air Boss who’s been stationed there for as long as Nikolai can remember, then take a meandering route to their assigned housing. They don’t see a single pilot other than themselves as they roam the halls, the sky quiet without the familiar roar of fighters overhead. It’s like walking through a ghost town.

By nightfall, the two of them end up at Genya’s seaside bar on an unspoken agreement. Nikolai convinces himself he’s there to scope out the competition, but it’s a pretty flimsy excuse when he knows exactly whom from the competition he wants to see. Mal eyes him as he takes another swig from his beer, and Nikolai ignores his stare. Mal really isn’t one to judge. Pot, kettle, black, however the saying goes.

Speaking of competition—there’s plenty of it packed into the space. Pilots fill every available space, wings of gold gleaming in the dim lights. Nikolai recognizes a few he’s flown with before, and some from his Top Gun class. The Bataar twins are over at the dartboard, arguing over the points from the last round. Nadia Zhabin sips at a brightly colored drink, her pale eyes sharp and focused as she scans the room. Even the elusive Alina Starkov is there, forever a bright star that would much rather be a wallflower. She ignores the small wave he sends her way, almost as resolutely as Mal refuses to acknowledge the whole side of the room where she’s seated. Not for the first time, Nikolai wonders what exactly they did to each other.

Nikolai flags Genya’s attention from across the bar where she’d been serving another group of uniformed pilots. His former squadron-mate is as beautiful as ever with her flame-red hair and glowing smile. Her one amber eye is narrowed in amusement, a black eye patch embroidered with seagulls covering where the other should have been. A familiar twinge of guilt tickles the bottom of Nikolai’s stomach, but he ignores it as he grins at Genya.

“Another beer, please. And put it on Oretsev’s tab.”

“Absolutely not,” Mal interjects. “Put it on his own tab. We all know he can afford it.”

Genya laughs, and Nikolai catches a lovestruck look from David, her fiance, from across the room. Genya has always said her career had been worth both a successful business and a fiancee, but it’s the first time Nikolai has been able to believe her. He hides his smile behind the new bottle Genya hands him.

“I think he’s got you there, Nicky.” She leans in closer. “Zoya hasn’t shown up yet. Thought I’d save you a few minutes of looking around like a lost puppy.”

Nikolai takes a measured sip of beer. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh look, it’s Nazyalensky,” Mal deadpans. Nikolai’s head whips around so fast that it hurts. And sure enough, Zoya Nazyalensky is walking through the front doors. Nikolai feels like he’s suddenly been ejected from his jet, just miles of empty sky beneath him and no parachute to slow his fall.

Where to begin with Zoya Nazyalensky? She had been in and out of life like a summer hurricane, one summer there and then gone as quickly as she’d arrived with a path of destruction left behind her. Nikolai watches sullenly as the entire room’s attention seems to shift toward her. She looks better than ever in her pressed khakis, her dark hair pulled back into an elegant twist. Her eyes scan the room in disinterest before they pause in Nikolai’s vicinity. He swears his heart stops as she pauses a few steps away from him.

“Oretsev.” Her voice is just the same as he remembers.

“Nazyalensky.”

Nikolai’s grip on his bottle tightens as Mal hops off his stool and slides an arm around Zoya’s waist. Genya sighs from behind the bar.

Nikolai isn’t stupid. He knows about Mal and Zoya. But seeing is different from knowing. He watches as the two of them head for an empty pool table, then turns back to Genya. She has a distinctly sympathetic look that makes him feel pretty fucking pathetic.

“You got anything stronger?”

“On the house.”

—

“I think I can take it from here, Oretsev.” Nikolai says as he grabs the pool stick from his friend’s hands.

Mal raises his eyebrows in shock, a million questions dancing in his eyes, but he takes one glance to where Nikolai was actually looking and decides to relinquish his hold.

He shakes his head then sighs, “More and more convinced you have a death wish, Charming.”

Nikolai rolls his eyes, “Prince Charming. C’mon man, we’ve been working together for how long now?”

Mal didn’t say anything. He just took his lukewarm glass of beer and went to join Alina at the other side of the bar.

“Lieutenant Nazyalensky.” He gives her his best grin, he knows it won’t work. “Good to see you”

“Lantsov, I should have known you’d be here.” Zoya’s voice was as frigid as always.

“You look good.” He said as he pocketed two of the solid pool balls on the right pocket.

“I am good. I’m very good.” She scoffed then scanned the table for her next move. “Nice to see my sloppy seconds can enjoy one another.”

Nikolai grinned, their toxic little love square they had going on, well, Mal was a good distraction, and he wasn’t sensitive enough, about that at least, to be bothered. He didn’t even mind that her shot had knocked two of his pieces in different directions and had one of her striped balls landing in another pocket.

He took his time looking at the table, but he was really looking for an excuse. An excuse to round the corner and stand toe-to-toe with her. His hands not-so-casually resting on either side of her on the sleek wood of the pool table. She didn’t need to tilt that much to meet his gaze, and he tried not to think that from this distance, it would be easy to just kiss her senseless.

It also didn’t help that she didn’t take a step back either.

Oh, the familiar smell of her was making his head light. His hands twitched on his pool stick, like they were considering actually just taking her face and press his lips to hers. He could have actually done more than kiss her in the middle of this bar. But he saw just how tense her shoulders were under that bravado. Or maybe he was just projecting because he could feel the rigidity in his own spine.

Their last conversation hadn’t been a pleasant one. Their parting even colder. And seeing her under these familiar yellow lights was making Nikolai way more aware of just how far she felt. Just how big the barrier between them was that made her that much more untouchable.

That didn’t mean he wasn’t going to push his luck, anyway.

He moved away and deliberately stepped around her so that his shoulder brushed hers. It was a cheap shot at getting the upper hand.

It was a pathetic excuse to touch her.

He lined up his shot and managed to tie their score.

But Zoya wasn’t looking at the game. Her dark blue eyes picked him apart.

He wondered what she saw. If she could read just how tense he was with her around. If she could see how badly he still wanted her. If she could feel how terrified he was to see her here, at the start of an assignment that smelled too much like a suicide mission.

“Your shot.” He said.

It was loud in Genya’s bar. The evening crowd on a warm summer night created a symphony of bursts of laughter, stories being yelled over the music, and servicemen and women trading war tales. There was no reason for Nikolai to have heard Zoya say, “It was my shot.” But he did hear her, and their game of pool suddenly felt so small and insignificant.

She turned away from him then. She marched back to Mal who was suspiciously alone and shoved the stick into his hands before storming out of the bar.

Mal came over, and Nikolai forced a smile that he knew that his friend didn’t buy.

“Came back to get your ass kicked?” He winked. Then threw his arm around his broad shoulders. “Maybe something more?”

Mal didn’t take the bait. He chugged the rest of his drink, and started to reset the table.

“We both have enough problems, Lantsov. Let’s try not to make things worse.”

Nikolai shrugged, trying to ignore the feeling of Zoya’s eyes still on him.

“Hasn’t stopped you before.” He tried again.

His friend shot him a look, “Maybe I should have.” He glanced behind him to the direction Zoya had gone. “Maybe we both should have known when to stop.”

Nikolai felt his gut plummet as his past started to creep out of the locked box he kept all of his worst memories. And he finished his drink to shove them all down.

He forced a laugh as he broke the triangle of pool balls to start their game.

“Can we table this wildly depressing line of conversation until after I beat you? It wouldn’t be Top Gun without me smoking you. Right, Pocketknife?”

Mal rolled his eyes, but Nikolai still noted just how tense his friend was. He didn’t know quite what happened between Mal and Alina, but based on his last…encounter…with her it didn’t seem good.

He was almost tempted to accuse him of being an idiot who wasn’t brave enough to get what he actually wanted. But pots shouldn’t be calling kettles black.

Nikolai couldn’t help but glance at the door. He turned around and caught Zoya’s hand brush against Alina’s platinum blonde hair. He hesitated to call it affectionate, but it was…something. She leaned closer to the other girl, her lips just brushing the corner of Alina’s jaw.

A flare of jealousy that was unfounded went through Nikolai, and was only abated when Alina met Zoya’s eyes in a sad kind of resignation. She shook her head and squeezed her hand in sympathy.

Zoya seemed to roll her eyes and walk off with her head shaking slightly. Nikolai wondered what that was about. Then he reminded himself that it wasn’t any of his business. Instead, he focused back on Mal. He focused on ignoring the empty ache that was more present with the absence of the flare of jealousy.

So, they just played the night away and then when that wasn’t enough, Nikolai took to the keys with Mal drunk and singing off key next to him. Both of them ignoring the burn of old heartaches, and the chill of an uncertain future.

#gvbb23 #gvbb23fic #gang 1 #zoya nazyalensky #nikolai lantsov #zoyalai #top gun au #shadow and bone fic

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rietveldbrothers · 11 months

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to hold or to break

(or, 5 times Zoya almost said "I love you" and 1 time she did)

5 + 1 zoyalai fic for the @grishaversebigbang mini-bang event!!

read on ao3 here

materialki: @jmie-draws, who created this amazing art piece, and @soupdreamer, who created this amazing art piece!!!

Summary: Zoya is usually excellent at speaking her mind. Except, apparently, when it comes to telling Nikolai she loves him.

full fic under the cut!! angst/pining with a cute fluffy ending, 1966 words

-------------

Zoya is not going to think about how much she hates this. Because if she thinks about it, then she won't let it happen. She'll call the whole plan off, and that would be a disaster. She knows it would be a disaster. Nikolai has to get married, for the good of Ravka. He needs to make a strong alliance, especially with Fjerda threatening war. Especially with the demon as an ever present threat to his stability.

Knowing all of that doesn't stop her from hating it, though, so she writes up a list of all the people he should consider marrying, and brings it to him in his office. The quicker she gets this done, the less she has to think about it.

He's quick to veto half the names on her list (not because she deliberately picked outlandish suggestions, of course), but she stays firm on the others. However much she wants to forget about the list.

"You just don't want to go along with this," she tells him, and he shrugs in acknowledgement.

"Of course I don't."

So don't, then.

But he would never want her instead, even if he didn't need to marry for the good of Ravka. So she says nothing except: "You have to."

He shrugs again. "I'm aware. That doesn't mean I have to like it."

She nods. Both of them know the sacrifices that need to be made for a country. For Ravka.

He is sacrificing his freedom to marry the person of his choosing. In return, in that moment, she gives up her childish dream of him returning her secret love. Not that she's in love with him. There isn't any point. Not when he's agreed to court the remaining few women on her list.

-------------

She realizes that her plan to ignore her growing feelings for him has failed about a week into their journey across Ravka.

As she watches him charm some duke of some country town - she's stopped keeping track, at this point, because really, who can be bothered to learn the names of dozens of idiot men who hold a title simply because of their birth - and wishes, just for a second, that he would turn a fraction of that charm, just an inch of his dazzling grin, on her.

She pushes that down quickly enough, but it's the next morning that she stops being able to.

It's nothing special. They're sitting together, in a room of the duke's mansion (yes, a mansion, when the people living in this town have just had their third failed harvest in a row and are struggling to feed themselves). They're doing paperwork together, just as they always do. Nothing special.

So why does the way he catches her eye across a particularly tedious piece of legislation make it impossible for her to ignore the fluttering feeling in her stomach?

Honestly. Fluttering. She might as well be a teenager again, infatuated with the first man who paid her the slightest bit of attention.

But it's impossible to deny that she feels something for Nikolai, as futile as it is.

-------------

The night before Nikolai is due to attempt the obisbaya.

She almost says it, then.

She doesn't, though. Because if he survives, then he will still need to marry for the good of Ravka. And if he doesn't survive…

She's not thinking about what happens if he doesn't survive the ritual. There's a lot she's not thinking about. The list keeps building up, and she keeps pushing all her inconvenient, unwanted thoughts down. It never works for long, but she can hope.

Besides, in 24 hours she won't have to worry about whether Nikolai will survive the obisbaya. Either he will have survived, or he won't have. Whatever the outcome, there's nothing Zoya can do about it, so there's no point worrying.

That doesn't mean she doesn't want to say the words she's been pushing down for so long, though. As Elizaveta seals her in amber, she desperately wants to tell him that she has complete faith in him. Not just because she is a general and he is her king, but because she knows him. (Possibly better than anybody else does.) Because she knows that if anybody could survive a deadly ritual and not only that, but come out of it with his clothes uncreased and that damned crooked grin on his face - well, if anybody could manage that, it's Nikolai.

She doesn't say anything, in the end. She lets herself be sealed in amber for the final time, and watches as Nikolai begins the ritual.

-------------

Zoya looks out of the window of the carriage, trying to ignore the man sitting beside her. Why did she agree to this, again? She wishes Alina were less self-sacrificing. Then she wouldn't have to transport the Darkling across the country.

Her second cross-country trip in as many months. Except this time she's on her own. (Well, she has the Soldat Sol, but they hardly count as company.) No Tamar to spar with at rest stops, no Tolya to share comfortable silences with. No Nikolai.

No Nikolai this time, because he's at Genya and David's wedding. She should be there too, smiling up at her two closest friends from the front row of seats. But Ravka comes first. It always does. It has to.

So here she is, travelling across the country with the one person she hates more than anybody else, trying not to think about the boy she left behind in Os Alta.

-------------

Zoya is a fool. She knows this. Why had she said nothing?

(Because of Ravka. Because he wouldn't have said what he had said, if he'd known how miserably fucked-up she is. Because he undoubtedly regrets it now, so it's too late.)

The moment Nikolai leaves, she wants to curl up into a ball on the floor of the airship and sob like a heartbroken teenage girl. But she hasn't been one of those for six years now, and she doesn't intend to go back to the person she had been.

She runs through the list of reasons in her mind why he shouldn't choose her. He needs to marry for the good of Ravka. He deserves somebody who can love him wholly, not Zoya, scarred and afraid, who can barely admit that she does love him.

Saints, she loves him.

More than she has ever loved anybody, she loves him. More than she thought herself capable of loving anybody. She loves him in a way that makes her want to tear down the walls surrounding her heart and give it to him, to hold or to break. Like she had let him into her garden, she wants to let him into her heart, let him see all of her - the good, the bad, the horrifying, even the part of her that has not quite hardened into a soldier yet. (The part of her that is nine years old at the altar, thirteen years old and bleeding in the snow, nineteen years old frantically searching Novokribrisk for Liliyana, twenty-three years old standing at David's grave.)

And that is exactly why he can never know that he has even the slightest effect on her, because she is a general and he is her king, and she cannot afford to be acting like a lovesick teenager when Ravka is on the brink of war.

She certainly can't tell him that she loves him. Especially not now that she knows he loves her. She knows him well enough to guess that if he knew the truth, he would gladly damn Ravka for a singular promise of her love. So one of them has to be responsible about this.

She will let her heart shatter silently a hundred times over before she lets even a single crack appear in Ravka for her sake.

-------------

Zoya is fairly certain that the last twenty-four hours have been a dream. Something she hallucinated.

Since the early hours of the morning, she has: defeated the Fjerdan navy, rescued and reconciled with Nina Zenik, seen the Apparat almost torn to pieces by corpses, turned into a dragon, been hailed as a Saint by Ravkans and Fjerdans alike, seen Nikolai Lantsov give up his throne, become Queen herself, and perhaps most unbelievably, she has confessed her love to him and the world has not ended yet.

Quite the opposite, in fact. If she were one for grand romantic declarations, she might say that it feels as if her world is only just beginning.

It is six o'clock in the morning, and the sun is not even close to rising. Ordinarily, she would already be up at this hour. (So would Nikolai, not that she pays close attention to his daily routine - except no, now she can freely admit to doing so. He would probably find it endearing.)

But she is not up. She is not washed and dressed, or getting in some early-morning training before breakfast. She is not taking this excellent opportunity to work on the stacks of paperwork that are undoubtedly waiting for her.

Instead, she is still lying in bed, debating whether or not to wake Nikolai up. On one hand, they have things to be doing and he probably should be awake by now. On the other hand, she could stay here and watch his face, at peace for once, for ever.

This is why she hadn't wanted to confess her love for him - because her own greed to have as many moments of peace and domesticity with him would outweigh her sense of duty. Now that it's actually happening, though, she finds she doesn't mind in the slightest.

He takes the decision out of her hands, though, by waking up himself. The moment his eyes open, they land on her face and he breaks into a smile.

"I thought I might have dreamed you," he admits, and she has to laugh.

"Dreamt up my entire existence? Don't be ridiculous."

"You know what I meant," he says, his eyes never once leaving hers. (And she is not looking into his eyes, because that really would prevent any sort of productivity this morning.)

"I do, yes. You're fun to tease, though," she tells him just to see his cheeks turn faintly pink.

"So yesterday really happened?"

"Of course it did," she says. "Unless we both had the same very vivid dream, you did give me your throne and I did turn into a dragon."

"Good," he says, still smiling. "Because I nearly died yesterday. Three times, in fact. And yet it was still the best day of my life."

Her heart races. "You're being sentimental, Nikolai."

"Am I not allowed to be?"

"No, I'll allow it. If you must be."

"Indeed I must. And I have about three years' worth of sentimentality to get out, so prepare yourself."

She pretends to groan, but secretly, once again, she finds she doesn't mind at all.

"By all means continue to flatter me," she says. "In fact, if you must know, I welcome your sentimentality. However impractical it may be."

"I suspected as much," he says, now grinning that damned crooked smile of his. "Then may I continue?"

"You may," she says, heart beating even faster in anticipation of what he might say next.

"In which case: Zoya, are you aware that I am completely head-over-heels in love with you?"

She can't help smiling softly. "Yes, I was aware."

He pauses, raising an eyebrow at her. She knows what he wants to hear. Is this the moment she finally says it?

Yes, it must be. And now that the moment has arrived, the words feel less like an insurmountable obstacle, and more like the words she has been searching for her whole life.

"I love you too, Nikolai."

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