hey, it is a job, it pays a lot; is it disservicing someone?

[more_magic]

That he waits until the end of the week isn't delaying or reluctance--or, frankly, a resistance to the absurdity of taking romantic advice from a high schooler--merely a desire, after having done so much wrong, to finally get one thing right. He knows he's behaved abominably, said things that he never thought himself capable of, and even after Caleb's assurances, Darlington's not sure forgiveness is a thing that Alex will be able to find where he's concerned.

He holds onto the hope of it, along with his memories of that first week he'd spent in Darrow; their easy intimacy, growing close in a way that they'd only begun to manage back in New Haven, and the surprising and utterly wanted course their night had taken up at Kagura. Thinks, too, of the certainty in Caleb's voice as he'd said You make her feel the butterflies. He wants, more than anything, not to be wrong about this.

He'd agreed to work this month's Final Friday evening program at the museum, and by the time he's finished helping the other front-of-house staff clean up and pack everything away, it's already past ten. If Alex is working tonight, it's more than likely that she's gone already, but after a brief stop at his own apartment, Darlington's on his way to the Bramford. He knocks on her door, using his key when there's no answer, finding the apartment empty and dark.

There's a moment where he thinks about waiting, about being there once more when she gets home just like he had been the night he'd come to work on the wards. It is, he knows, some kind of a coward's choice; the easy way out of a situation that he should have been strong enough to face up to well before now. Breathing out a long sigh, he leaves the bag he'd brought by the side of her couch and heads back into the cold, hailing a cab and giving the driver an address that gains him a winking look in the rearview mirror that he tries to ignore.

Only a week ago, he'd sworn he'd never go back, that there was no place for him here even if Alex was hellbent on making it hers. Even now, he'd rather be anywhere else. But there's no other place Darlington knows he should be tonight if he's going to make some attempt at fixing even a fraction of what he alone had broken.

They pull up outside the club on Paper, and after paying the driver and going through the ritual of cover and ID with the bouncer at the door, Darlington goes inside. The music is just as loud and grinding as before, the crowds around the stage just as vulgar, the drinks from the bar just as watered down; once again, it fills him with displeasure and unease and has him glancing towards the exit. He stays instead, choosing a table that's neither fully lit by the stage nor completely hidden in the shadows and setting down his drink.

This may only break things further between them, bring about an assumption or an argument that will sever the thin threads that still remain of their tie to one another. Darlington can only hope, with the kind of surrendering faith that he's reserved for few other things in his life--and once before for Alex, on a Halloween that turned into nothing he could have anticipated--that it'll be something altogether different.

Comments

[takecourage]

She's dancing on her own tonight, Kavinsky off for the evening, and there's a routine that she definitely prefers when it's just hers. She stalks out onto the stage dressed in black: a corset, skin tight skirt split to her hip, high boots. She's holding a riding crop in her hand, tapping it against the polished leather of her boot.

She spots him almost immediately, her heart stuttering weirdly, but she doesn't miss a step.

[more_magic]

The music kicks on, a low bass thud that almost matches the beat of his heart, and once again when the curtain parts Darlington knows almost immediately that it's Alex stepping onstage. That's the only thing that's the same from when he was here before. This Alex is nothing like the one Kavinsky had thrown about onstage, the victim he'd seen fighting and struggling for the pleasure of an audience. He doesn't know what to make of it, entirely.

He watches her stalk the stage, tapping the crop to the beat of the music, both unable and unwilling to look away.

[takecourage]

She loves this routine because every inch of it makes her feel powerful, makes her feel in control. The bass throbbing like a heartbeat she stalks over to the edge of the stage, studying the crowd. A few regulars have shifted to the skirt of the stage because they know that what she needs for this routine is a volunteer. She always picks someone who reminds her of Blake Keely: handsome frat boy types who look like they need their asses handed to them in the public.

[more_magic]

A few people from the audience creep closer, full of a laughing, leering kind of bravado, but Darlington stays where he is. That concern he'd felt for her before--always has, even through the bitter anger of the last month--is still present, a tense coil at the base of his stomach, but it's faint enough to ignore. Oddly, he's almost curious to see what's about to happen.

One of the men at the edge of the stage, blond and broad-jawed, carrying himself with the kind of entitlement that's familiar to Darlington after a lifetime in New Haven, fishes out a folded pair of singles from his jeans pocket and holds them up to Alex with a smirk.

[takecourage]

He holds two singles out to her and Alex pretends to appraise him, running the pad of her crop from the front of jeans up to the point of his chin and then beckoning him up on stage. Once he's there, she pushes her fingers into his hair, forcing him to bend over the back of a chair.

[more_magic]

To the whoops and hollers of his friends, the guy scrambles up onstage with Alex, lets her push him down over the seat of the chair until his ass is up high, his blond hair tumbling over his forehead. Laughing, he wiggles his hips a little, a parody of the dancing he's already seen onstage. It's an absurd display, and Darlington can't help quirking one eyebrow as he takes a sip of his drink. He still doesn't look away.

[takecourage]

Tucking her crop into the top of her boot, Alex moves behind him, pressing her hips snuggly against him and grinding against his ass as she reaches around him to unbuckle his belt. Once his pants are loosened, she shoves them down around his knees, revealing white briefs.

The crowd whoops and hollers and Alex makes a big show of making him kiss the crop before she slaps his ass with it.

[more_magic]

It's the guy who's stripped this time, made vulnerable at Alex's hands, and Darlington's not too proud to admit that his mouth goes slightly dry, if only for a moment. He takes another drink, the glass rattling a little against the table as he sets it back down.

This routine's nothing like the other, he can concede that, but some part of him still looks for that evidence he'd convinced himself he was seeking the last time. A sign of obligation, maybe, of expectations needing to be met or managed; something that suggests the choices here are as much an illusion as anything Manuscript might have conjured back home.

[takecourage]

There are some variations; sometimes she spanks them, sometimes she unbuttons shirts so that she can slap the pad of the crop against exposed nipples. She makes him hold the crop between his teeth while she slips out of her skirt and corset, leaving her in the boots and skimpy panties and a barely there bra.

[more_magic]

The guy onstage holds the crop between his straight, white teeth, a megawatt smile turned into an oddly blissful grimace while his hips shift a little against the chair. Alex all but ignores him, peeling down her tight skirt and undoing each fastening on her corset, each move seemingly a calculus between teasing and control.

Darlington swallows hard, before he entirely knows he's doing so.

[takecourage]

This routine always ends the same way - the guy on his knees, her fingers in his hair to hold his head while she grinds her panty clad cunt against his face. Her track finishes and she lets him clamber down, laughing and straightening his clothes, and Alex gathers up her clothes and her tips.

She's about to step off the stage when she sees him.

For a moment all that she can do is square.

[more_magic]

Alex puts the guy through his paces, such as it is, leaves him at her mercy in one position or another. Maybe it's just because Darlington's so focused on that, still looking keenly for things he can use to bolster his side of the debate that's been raging between them--the one he's here to end, or at least to change to something more civil--but the thought that he might be noticed doesn't even cross his mind until it's happening. Alex freezes, staring at him, and he meets her oil-dark eyes with his. His stomach flips, and if asked, he's not sure he'd be able to explain the reason why.

He doesn't know how to ask her to come over, or if he should go to her, meet her at the side of the stage. Both of them stay where they are, the tension growing, until Darlington raises one shoulder in a shrug. I'm here, it says. I'm not going anywhere.

[takecourage]

She disappears off stage, ignoring the fine shake on her hands as she counts her tips and changes, pulling on short shorts and pouring herself back into her corset before she steps out onto the floor. A few regulars try to catch her eye, but her attention is solely focused on him.

"What are you doing here?" She asks, sitting down at his table.

[more_magic]

Alex is the one to break whatever's passing between them, turning away and disappearing offstage, and when she does Darlington lets out a breath that's shakier than he could have anticipated. He doesn't know if that's the end, if he's made another wrong choice, but he stays at his table, taking another swallow of a drink that he wishes was stronger and more fortifying than it is.

A door at the side of the stage opens a few minutes later, Alex stepping out, and Darlington watches as she rebuffs table after table, weaving her way towards him. Over the last few minutes--and days, and weeks, the entire month--he's thought up and discarded all manner of things he might say, explanations he might give, but when she pulls out the chair opposite and sits down, he can't recall any of them for a moment.

"Because you are, Alex," he says at last, looking over at her, his eyes meeting hers once more. "I went to the--to your apartment and you weren't there, so I came here."

[takecourage]

She draws in a deep, shivering breath, feeling the bind of her corset across her tits as she stares at him. Her stomach churns and she thinks of Caleb and butterflies.

"So now what?" She asks, and she reaches out and picks up his glass, taking a sip of his drink.

[more_magic]

"It's more water than liquor," he mutters as she reaches for his glass, an inane warning. "Someone should really have a talk with the bartender."

He's deflecting, and he knows it, trying to buy himself as much time as possible. Her eyes are so dark, staring back at him; unbidden, a shiver runs down his back. "I don't know," he admits. "I came to apologize, to tell you...a lot of things. I was wrong. I shouldn't have...it's neither my right nor my purview to tell you what choices to make, even if I don't want you to ever feel the need to make them." He takes a breath, and lets go of the vital part of himself that he'd been holding back for far too long and for reasons he doesn't even believe in any longer.

"I'm sorry, Alex. What I did, what I said, it was...I was unforgivable. Have been, in one way or another, since we woke up at Kagura."

[takecourage]

It's all she's been wanting to hear, everything she'd started to doubt would ever be forthcoming. She takes another sip of her drink and stands up, her fingers brushing against his hand on the table.

"Now you've seen me work," she says, walking around the table. "Do you still think it makes me a whore?"

[more_magic]

He deserves it, and more, but the question still hits him like a blow. Something wounded flashes in his eyes, soothed only by the glide of her fingers against the back of his hand as she gets up and crosses to his side of the table. He looks up, looks her in the eye.

"I never did, Alex. And to have implied otherwise is the thing I regret most of all."

[takecourage]

"But you said it," she says, her hips picking up the rhythm of the music that's playing. "Or close enough, anyway. And then you threw me out of your apartment like I wasn't good enough for you."

[more_magic]

"I said it," he says, because he can't deny that he had. Not in so many words, maybe, but close enough for the implication to be clear; close enough that Darlington knew, all along, the kind of thing he'd been implying. "Out of anger. And out of jealousy." Once again, saying it, admitting to it, feels like giving something up he should have let go a long while ago.

He watches as she starts to move to the music, the roll of her hips making his face flush in a way he hopes is obscured by the dim gloom in this area of the club. He looks back up, the reflected stage lights picking out the lines of her face, his next breath containing a little more of a shiver than the one that had preceded it. "I wasn't trying to throw you out," he says. "Just letting you know you could--no. That's not...I wanted you to leave, and wanted you to stay, and I didn't know how to say either."

[takecourage]

She listens to all of that, her fingers ghosting up over the fabric of the corset to brush over the curve of her tits and the back down, barely brushing between her legs. She hadn't intended to start dancing for him, not really, but the look on her face is too good for her to stop.

"Still jealous?" She asks, leaning in so that her body presses against his, her mouth close to his ear.

[more_magic]

His eyes start tracking the movement of her hands before he even knows he's doing it--and when he realizes, it takes more effort than he might have anticipated to look away. When she presses against him, the husky woodwind of her voice low in his ear, it's enough to have him swallowing hard before he's able to speak again.

"Of who, Stern?" Another deflection, of a kind; he recognizes that. "Not that frat boy you hauled up on stage tonight."

[takecourage]

"So not jealous that that's the first thing you came up with," she says, her lips brushing against the shell of his ear before she shifts, sliding into his lap, straddling him, her hands on her shoulders. "What are we even doing here, Darlingotn? What do you even...what do you want out of this?"

[more_magic]

She can read him better than anyone else he's known in his life, and they both know it. He just barely suppresses the urge to roll his eyes--though the impulse is cleared away rather neatly only a moment later anyway, as she slides into his lap. "Alex, for God's sake," he mutters, sighing out another faintly shaky breath.

The weight of her hands on his shoulders is barely anything at all, but he's aware of every inch of contact. He tilts his head up, reminded of all the other times he'd seen her from an angle much like this: at Kagura, in the haze of the Manuscript party, on the floor of her apartment the day before Christmas. His lips part slightly, and for a moment he's lost again for words.

"I want--" he starts, then stops again. "I want your forgiveness, more than anything else. To start with. And only if I've earned it. After that, I want to know what to be to you here. There's no cause for me to be your Virgil, and being either just your friend or nothing at all isn't something I think I could tolerate."

It feels like revealing far too much, exposing the hopeful, secret heart he'd learned to keep quiet after so many years in the lonely halls of Black Elm. His stomach twists, his mouth gone dry. "So tell me what to be here, Alex, and I'll do it."

[takecourage]

He says that and her head spins with the power of it - tell me what to be here. Her lips graze against his skin and she arches her back, the curve of her tits brushing against him. Hips still moving with the rhythm of the music, she pushes her fingers into his hair, pulling his head down so that his lips just brush against the bare skin of her cleavage.

"I don't think I want to be just your friend either, Danny."