could've had a nice life, I can't even fake a smile

[more_magic]

Everything Darlington had ever read suggested that January was meant to be a time of new beginnings. Of starting afresh, of stepping through a doorway--the month named, after all, for Janus--and becoming somehow better than one had been in the year just past. There were rites, and rituals, and spells to recite; if he'd been a Roman, he might have given a tribute of figs and honey, or salt and coin, depending on how much one trusted Ovid's account. Regardless, things at the start of a new year were meant to be different.

In looking over the ruin of his January, Darlington wishes he'd been more specific about the kind of new beginning he'd been seeking.

He could ask how, or why, or when things went so spectacularly wrong, but in his heart he knows the answer. Knows, too, the only person there is to blame for it. He'd made a litany of wrong choices, flung himself down a path that he'd built stone by stone out of his own rigidity and judgement and anger. Whether awake or asleep, he's been plagued by flashes of his own regrettable memories: the smear of glitter on Alex's cheek, that full moon night; the tight set of his own jaw as he hid in the squalid shadows of the club and watched her gyrate on stage only a few days ago; the sound of that mug shattering against the wall beside his head; the sneer of his voice as he said one unforgivable thing after another. If he could begin again, walk through the doorway of the new year once more and be wiped clean, he would. He'd give anything to do it. But he can't.

With his one Monday class cancelled, he's agreed to take on an additional shift at work today, coupling his usual morning shift at the museum with another in the afternoon. It felt good to work, to sink into the repetition of selling tickets and directing guests, pointing the way to the restrooms or the temporary exhibit hall and taking down yet another complaint that the touchscreens in the Human Bodies gallery were malfunctioning. It doesn't quite keep him from dwelling--nothing, really, ever could--but it's enough to let him forget for small stretches of time.

The gap between the end of one shift and the start of the next means he's managed to swing a full hour and a half for lunch. After using his staff discount to buy a sandwich and a bottled juice from the cafe in the museum courtyard, he looks around for a place to sit. There's some tour group from one of the high schools here, a chattering tangle of adolescents picking at their own sack lunches and sprawling across the benches, and as he makes his way to a vacant table at the other end of the seating area, Darlington affords them a slightly wide berth.

Comments

[more_magic]

"No, please, take a seat," Darlington mutters as the kid pulls the chair opposite out from the table. That he's just her friend, whoever he is, comes as more of a relief than he can entirely admit to himself. Given how dismally she'd been treated by the one she had from home--and how badly he wanted to be more, something that seemed even further out of reach now than it ever had--Alex deserved far better.

"Of course I know I hurt her," he says once the kid's sitting down. He's still glaring, but at least he no longer looks quite like he's about to haul off and punch him. Darlington rubs at his temple, his eyes closing for a moment as he tries to come up with some kind of answer to the question. It was a valid one. He hadn't listened, and should have. After everything, he'd owed her that much. "Do I dare assume she's told you the specifics of what we've been arguing about?" he says at last, looking up at him with his head still resting against one hand. He doesn't wait for an answer; given Alex's lack of caution even on the best of days, he thinks he knows what it might be anyway. "I didn't listen because...because she's capable of far more than that. She could be better."

He swallows back the rest of it, the deeper explanation of his own worries and fears for Alex's safety, the way it had felt to see her with unshed tears in her eyes as she stormed out of his apartment for the last time. Let this boy, this better friend, think him heartless. It hardly mattered now.

[greatamazingfeelingsboy]

"Okay, first of all, it's not your place to decide what's better or not," he says. "She chose her job, and she likes it, especially now that she's got a partner there. And second of all, you didn't even want to listen when she tried to tell you how she got her ink back!"

His voice is raising, and if he's not careful, he's going to draw even more attention than he already has. He rubs his hands together, shaking his head.

"She's not a fucking whore," he adds, more of a mutter. "And it's fucked up that you even thought that."

[more_magic]

"Neither is it entirely your place to come bellowing at me in the middle of my lunch hour, and yet here we are," Darlington shoots back. "It seems we all have our crosses to bear." Beneath the sharp prickle of his own irritation, the way he's trying so hard to keep his own feelings in check, he knows the boy is right. If this had been New Haven, if he'd still had the excuse of their offices and their obligations to Lethe and the other Houses, he might have had firmer ground upon which to build his protests. But here, there's nothing but the two of them.

And now Darlington doesn't even have that.

"She could have chosen any other job. Hell, she could have actually worked as a bartender. It would've been the same late nights, the same raucous environment full of a desperate pretense, but it wouldn't have been..." Darlington cuts himself off, his chest tight with regret and shame and the sudden, unbidden memory of how Alex had looked up there onstage, dancing for people who wouldn't ever see her the way he did. "I never called her a whore," he says, his voice low and his jaw tense. "Came near enough, in my anger, and I regret that more than you could ever know."

[greatamazingfeelingsboy]

"I know exactly how much you regret it," Caleb says truthfully. "That doesn't make it okay, especially when you haven't even apologized." He glances back towards Clint and the others when they try to get his attention, but he's too focused, now. Fuck the field trip. Alex is his friend, and this asshole hurt her feelings.

"Do you even realize how much she cares about you?" he asks. He tries, hard, not to drop the L word, because that's not his place — and even Alex hasn't accepted that, he doesn't think. Not yet. "Like, maybe she would've listened to your opinion if you hadn't been such a giant dick about it. It's her life, and it's her body, and she gets to choose what she does. She's not doing anything wrong, and you're worse than her worst clients if you think she is."

[more_magic]

When the kid looks back, Darlington does too, almost relieved to see the rest of the school group starting to pack up. But the sight doesn't spur the boy to move, doesn't have him getting up to join them, and for a moment, Darlington has to admire his fortitude--or stubbornness. Either way, it's a more loyal act than anything he'd done since New Year's.

"What would you have had me say?" he asks, and though there's still a chill to his voice, the lingering traces of his confusion and annoyance, the question is genuine. "That she could make two hundred dollars in a night or two million, and it wouldn't be worth it if it meant she came to harm? That she shouldn't feel as though she has to go back to this, has to live her life in any way that's similar to the one she led in California, when I'd be happy to help her? Because I would. Regardless of what you might think, given what she's clearly said to you about the way I've acted."

He passes a hand over his face, long fingers pinching the bridge of his nose, only letting himself focus for a moment on the thought of Alex caring about him even now. It feels far too much like hope, like a possibility that all of this could turn around, for him to dwell on it overlong.

"The things we were to one another back at Yale, the...offices we held, none of that matters here. I can't be that to her any longer. And whatever you might think, I doubt she wants me to be anything else now."

[greatamazingfeelingsboy]

"Why do you automatically assume she's going to get hurt?" he argues. "She's a big girl, she can take care of herself. Also, she has a dance partner now, so it's fine."

"Yo, Caleb."

Caleb looks up at Clint's soft voice to see him standing just a few feet away. He looks nervous, which is an odd look on his broad body.

"We gotta go, Dude," he says, gesturing with one hand over his shoulder. But Caleb isn't done.

"Cover for me?" he asks. He can feel and see Clint about to argue, so he tried the puppy dog eyes. He should feel bad for taking advantage of Clint's crush on him, but he doesn't. Not this time.

Clint sighs. "Fuuuuuck," he groans, then nods and jogs back to the others. Caleb relaxes minutely, but turns back to Darlington.

"She didn't sleep with anyone," he says bluntly. "That's not how she got her tattoos back."

[more_magic]

"I don't assume she will, I worry that she might," he says. "There is a distinction there. And I'm well aware of that dance partner of hers. Karensky." Darlington knows he's gotten the name wrong, and doesn't care. Again, unbidden, he thinks of going to that club; of watching Alex and Kavinsky perform a routine that was less dance than live sex show, something harsh and degrading and exactly what he'd expected from the minute the truth of her job had come out.

He might have said more, but then there's another person from the tour group coming over. To Darlington's great relief, this one at least looks shy and hesitant rather than set on taking a swing at him. As he tries to draw the kid--Caleb, apparently--away, he settles his own features into something a bit more neutral. He hadn't expected whoever this is to succeed in getting Caleb up from the table, and when the other boy caves in with that groaned profanity, Darlington merely raises one eyebrow for a moment before Caleb turns around to face him again.

"Yes, I've come to understand my initial impression wasn't correct," he says, huffing out a sigh. When he still thought that was the case, it had stung, the hot flash of a jealousy he knows he has no right to feel, but at least it had been easier to tolerate than the truth. He almost wishes it had been an accident in the throes, rather than something foisted upon her for the titillation of a crowd that had no respect for her beyond the physical--and even that, just barely.

[greatamazingfeelingsboy]

Caleb is quiet for a moment, eyes going a bit distant as he works through the different feelings. There's a lot. Darlington cares about Alex, a lot. He really does believe she deserves better than the club. He really is worried about her. He really does regret their fight.

Caleb shakes his head. He owes Dr. Bright, like, so many apologies.

"Listen, you're being fucking stupid," he says. "Her job is a job. D'you think the people behind the counter at any fucking retail store actually give a shit about your day, or if you checked your eggs for cracks? They're fucking faking it. Alex is doing a job that she likes, that she's good at, and she's doing it with a gay dude who is also good at it."

He doesn't know this from experience. He's not old enough to go to the club, and he'd already decided he didn't want to feel the clientele there. They'd probably feel really gross. But he's listened to Alex talk about work, and she really doesn't hate it.

"It's not like it used to be," he adds.

[more_magic]

"This doesn't seem at all comparable to a job at a supermarket, Caleb," he says, even as he knows he'll sound like the insufferable prig he's been all too often in recent days. Darlington sighs, waving a hand in a vague gesture of concession, if only for the sake of the fragile détente that's settled between them. "But I take your point. Or points, since I'll also admit to having been fucking stupid." He smiles faintly.

Darlington straightens up again, looking without real aim or purpose at the far wall of the courtyard and lost in his own quiet thoughts for a moment. None at this point are unfamiliar to him; the same litany of guilt and recrimination, reminders of the regrettable things he's done and said. He's still not sure how much of it he'll be able to repair, but he's willing to try.

"There were a lot of people who failed her back home," he says, looking back at Caleb. "Including me. I shouldn't have done so again here."

[greatamazingfeelingsboy]

"Good," Caleb says, feeling his shoulders fully unwind. "But don't tell me. Tell Alex. Bring her a blanket that's as soft as the scarf you gave her, and tell her you're sorry, and that you support her, and, and fucking kiss her."

He huffs, because as far as his ability is concerned, that's all that needs to be done. Alex is angry, but she still loves him. If he apologizes, she'll listen.

He thinks. He's pretty sure, anyway. Darlington hurt her, but it wouldn't have hurt so much if she didn't care so much.

[more_magic]

He does laugh then, an almost involuntary reaction but one with no real malice in it. "Is that what you do, then?" he says. "Go around in full-throated defense of your friends, dispensing romantic advice and profanity in equal measure?"

The solution Caleb proposes is somehow utterly simple and completely insurmountable, all at once. It's the kind of thing that might have worked for the short-term, superfluous things his other relationships had been--ones with girls who were nothing at all like Alex Stern--but there's a part of him that can't keep the doubt that it'll function this time at bay. The words he'd said had been too harsh for even the softest blanket to soothe them--and a kiss had been exactly what had started this entire mess in the first place.

It's a challenge, but Darlington has rarely, if ever, backed down from one before.

"I'll try."

[greatamazingfeelingsboy]

"It'll work," Caleb says, feeling Darlington's doubt like slowly cracking ice. "She likes soft things. And she likes you. You make her feel the butterflies."

He feels stupid for saying it, and also like he's just betrayed something of Alex's, but he needs to chase that doubt away. He needs to make sure Darlington does this, fixes this.

"I know, because every time she thinks about you, I feel them, too." He wants to darkly, playfully, add that he doesn't know why, but he can feel that they're not there yet.

[more_magic]

"She does," he says, carefully trying not to make it sound as much like the question it still is at the back of his mind. "And I...despite any evidence she may now have to the contrary, I like her too. Have for a while, to be entirely honest."

You make her feel butterflies is worlds away from You're being a giant dick, and for a moment Darlington is simply baffled, given how recently Caleb had looked ready to beat him into a fine paste. But there's an easing in the tense line of his shoulders now, a letting go of the anger that had fueled his march towards Darlington's table, and maybe the two of them have turned some kind of corner here too. Oddly, he finds himself hoping they have.

Caleb's comment about also feeling those metaphorical butterflies piques his curiosity, and the glance Darlington offers him in response is a little sharper and more studying. "Why do I get the sense you don't mean that figuratively?"

[greatamazingfeelingsboy]

He sort of rolls his eyes at that. "I mean it literally," he says. "The same way I know you're not actually an asshole, you were just hurt and jealous, and you really do regret hurting her. The same way I know you like her, too, and the same way I know you're scared this isn't going to fix things between you."

It doesn't feel scary telling Darlington about his empathy, because he knows, thanks to Alex, that Darlington has some ability, too. Magic, probably, and therefore completely different, but he's a safe space to share his secret.

"I'm not, like, a mind reader or anything. I'm an empath. I can feel people's feelings. Yours, Alex's, my classmates'. Everyone's."

[more_magic]

There's satisfaction in knowing he was right, that his guess had struck true, but as always when faced with some new aspect of the uncanny Darlington mostly feels that same sense of wonder he first experienced at eleven on Lighthouse Point. The sweeping sense that the world's cracked open just a little bit more, another of its mysteries revealed. Caleb rolls his eyes at him, but all Darlington does is smile.

"Never met an empath before," he says, pitching his voice a little lower than it had been previously. If it's a secret, something entrusted to him even despite the fact Caleb had been so upset with him only minutes ago, Darlington's not going to be the one to reveal it. "Never knew I would, to be honest."

[greatamazingfeelingsboy]

"Yeah, well," Caleb says lamely, then offers the weakest, most sarcastic jazz-hands the world has ever seen. "Surprise." His phone chimes and he pulls it out of his pocket. It's Clint.

Dude, where r u?? Dammers is sending staff into the bathroom to make sure ur not dead!

"Fuck," he says when he reads it, and shoots back a few texts (one of which scolds Clint for telling Dammers he was in the bathroom). "I gotta go." He pushes the chair back, then tucks it in once he's stood. He hesitates, looking at Darlington. "Just... be good to Alex, okay?"

[more_magic]

"I deserved that," he says dryly, smirking at Caleb's half-hearted gesture. He could ask more questions--wants to, as unable to turn off his drive to be the one with all the answers as it seems Caleb is his ability to intuit everyone else's feelings--but then the kid's phone trills out an alert and the moment, such as it is, is lost.

Darlington waits, letting him tap out that flurry of messages, and when he stands again, he gives him a brief nod. "I will," he says, as genuinely as he can manage. "You're a good friend to her, Caleb. I'm glad. And...hang on."

He turns, getting his satchel from where he'd draped it along the back of his chair. Opening it, he pulls out a museum brochure, glossy and bright, a stock photo splashed across the front. "If your teacher asks, you had questions about the summer teen docent program," he says, handing it over. "Happy to help."