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

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

more_magic

Beyond the crime scene photos and autopsy reports in her file, there'd been precious little about the small-time drug dealer that had styled himself as Alex's boyfriend in life. Hearing Alex make that small and all-too-casual confession, though, lowers Darlington's already low opinion of Leonard Beacon a few additional degrees.

"Glad to have been the first," he murmurs, easily setting aside that brief darker turn of his thoughts. None of it mattered now; not here, not tonight. "And if we're on the topic of New Year's, that was the first time anyone gave me a blowjob quite like that."

From:

takecourage

"You've been hanging around with the wrong sort of girls, Danny," she says, with a broad grin, still rocking idly in his lap. She smooths her hands down his chest, unbuttoning the first couple of buttons on his shirt, tracing her thumb against bare skin.

From:

more_magic

"So it seems." She keeps moving against him, teasing and squirming, and he can't help a soft smile at the gentle stroke of her thumb against his skin. His own hands leave her tits, running along the slim planes of her back.

From:

takecourage

She arches under the touch, her fingers still working on his buttons.

"What else haven't you done that you want to try?" She asks.

From:

more_magic

For all that he wants to keep kissing her, to map every curve and swell of her with his hands and his mouth--and all the more so now, with the magic of the address moths broken at last--Darlington can't deny that there's something equally heady in what they're doing now. Alex presses into his touch, continues opening up his shirt, and all of it is more perfect than he could have expected.

"Happy to take suggestions, Stern," he says, running the nails of one hand lightly down the column of her spine as he speaks. "If there's anything in particular you want to try. But for myself..." He bites his lip, the flush on his cheeks darkening a shade. "Manuscript had its own agenda, and that part I don't wish to repeat, but there was something oddly alluring about putting myself in your sway."

From:

takecourage

Alex raises her eyebrow, a bright delighted grin spreading across her face as she finishes opening his shirt, rubbing both hands down over firm muscles.

"You think you'd like taking orders from me, Danny?"

From:

more_magic

"Our friend the frat boy certainly did tonight," he says, the almost-fondling rub of her hands against his chest sending a shiver down his spine. "And maybe, possibly, I was jealous of that."

His stomach flips a little in admitting to that, letting go of another small bit of his control. Somehow, he doesn't entirely mind it.

From:

takecourage

"Huh," says Alex, but she's still grinning when she says it. "Sometimes that routine gets more extreme. You caught the tamer version."

From:

more_magic

"Dare I ask what you mean by that?"

The question is light enough, said with the kind of heated, teasing edge they've both been employing almost since the moment Alex slid into his lap here on the couch. Even so, something about more extreme makes him think for a moment of that first routine he'd seen of hers the week before; of Kavinsky throwing her about, the final dismissive insult of the way he'd spat on her as she writhed on the floor of the stage. Something unsteady and uncertain flickers across his face for a moment, then is gone again.

From:

takecourage

"Restraints," she says, scraping the edge of her nail lightly across his nipple. "A blindfold. A little bit harder with the crop." She shrugs. "Making them get friendly with my heels."

From:

more_magic

Darlington groans, as much at the things she says as the short, sharp scrape of her nail against his nipple. He swallows hard. "Sounds like quite the performance."

After a pause, riding out a sudden and strong wave of arousal at the question that comes almost immediately to mind, he speaks again. "How much of that would you want to do with me?"

From:

takecourage

She keeps up that teasing, scraping touch against his nipple and leans in so that her mouth is close to his ear.

"How much of it do you want me to do to you?"

From:

more_magic

Alex's voice is low in his ear, something in her tone making his head spin wildly. Combined with the continued rough touch to his nipple, it's effective enough that he answers without thought.

"All of it." He stutters out a shaky laugh, surprised by the naked honesty of it. "Not onstage, not that part, but...the rest."

From:

takecourage

She can feel how hard he is, can feel the faint tremble in his hands. She pinches his nipple, a little harder.

"I can do that for you," she says, her voice still low. "Tell me how you picture it starting."

From:

more_magic

The groan he lets out is more of a moan this time, as he arches into the hard pinch of her fingers. He doesn't even consider trying to deny having thought about it, nor about picturing it now.

"You like me on my knees, so may as well start there," he says, and he can hear the tremor in his voice, the need there. The sound of it only makes him harder. "Blindfold on, hands restrained. Behind my back, or in front, whatever your preference."

From:

takecourage

She likes the moan and she pinches his other nipple, just as hard.

"Then what do I do to you?"

From:

more_magic

Darlington moans again, his eyes closing and his lips parting slightly. His breath shivers out of him. "That depends on how you choose to employ the crop," he says. "First thing that comes to mind, though, is you pushing my pants down and laying a couple strikes across my ass."

Alex is still moving against him, the roll of her hips steady and nearly maddening. He squirms beneath her, that coil of need within him growing all the more tense.

From:

takecourage

This time it's Alex's turn to shiver.

"Is this just a fantasy, Danny?" She asks, her body pressed against his.

From:

more_magic

Alex presses close, that shiver running through her, and his fingers tighten for a moment along her back. "Only in that I haven't done anything like it before," he murmurs, his lips finding the fluttering pulse point at the crook of her neck. Almost reverently, he kisses her there, firm and wanting, sucking up a faint mark.

"But it doesn't have to stay that way. I don't know that I want it to."

From:

takecourage

"I can make it happen for you if you want, Danny," she says, her head spinning with how much she wants to. "You just have to ask for it."

From:

more_magic

He lets out another shaky breath and nods. "Please, Alex," he says. "It doesn't have to be tonight, but...sometime soon, treat me like that. Blindfolded, restrained, hit with the crop."

Eyes still closed, eyelashes fluttering, he grins against the soft skin of her shoulder. "Show me how powerful doing this makes you feel."

From:

takecourage

Her cunt throbs at the thought of doing that to him.

"Do you want me to make you get on all fours and her friendly with my heels too?"

From:

more_magic

"That's never something I thought I'd do," he admits. He takes a moment, thinking it over, weighing the idea of it. "Imagine you'd have to give me a lot of direction, at least the first time. Since I'd want to do it right."

Opening his eyes, Danny pulls away enough to look at her again. He nods. "Whenever you want it, Alex."

From:

takecourage

"God, I want that so fucking much," she says, leaning back so that she can start unbuckling his belt. "All of it."

From:

more_magic

As Alex leans back, his hands drop to her ass, as much to hold her steady as to feel the soft curve of her. He grins, squeezing firmly as she undoes his belt with a faint snap of leather.

"And what do you want now?"