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 rolls onto her side to look at him, so close that she could almost brush the tip of her nose against his. "You could sit," she says. "Lean back against the headboard?" She tilts her head against the pillow. "Depends on the view you want, I suppose."

[more_magic]

"Against the headboard it is, then," he says, but rather than move he stays just as he is for a moment, the two of them curled close enough that he can feel the soft heat of her breath on every exhale. In a way, it reminds him of that first week in Darrow, the two of them in one another's spaces and sharing each other's beds and convinced that all of it was somehow platonic.

It never was. He sees that now, better than he ever could have before.

He runs a hand down her side as she lies there, his touch light, before he shifts to sit up once again. Leaning back against the headboard of Alex's bed, he curls his fingers around his cock, stroking slowly.

[takecourage]

Alex doesn't move immediately. He's so beautiful like that, leaning back, his fingers curled around his cock, stroking slowly. She watches for a moment, and then she pushes up onto her elbow and leans in to press a kiss to the bare skin tight over the jut of his hipbone. "You've got a beautiful cock," she says. "I shouldn't be surprised, but..."

[more_magic]

"Never a compliment I expected to hear from you," he says, groaning a little as he keeps stroking himself. When Alex presses that kiss to his hip, Darlington can't help smiling. "Not that I'm complaining."

[takecourage]

"You must have heard that before, though," she says, sitting up and then shifting her weight so that she can straddle his thighs. "I literally cannot be the first girl to say that to you."

[more_magic]

"There's an egotism to admitting I've heard it before," he counters, watching Alex sit up. The blanket slides to pool at her waist, and for once, he doesn't think of his vision on Halloween. The reality, after all, is far better. "But no, Alex, you're not the first girl to tell me I have a beautiful cock."

His head tilts back slightly as Alex moves to straddle him, and the sight of her there--the slender lines of her body and the dark spill of her hair--is one he's not sure he'll ever get tired of.

[takecourage]

She reaches between them, her fingers brushing over his for a moment before she nudges them out of the way, curling her fingers around the length of his cock so that she can guide him into place, so that she can start to slide down onto his cock.

[more_magic]

Darlington lets her move his hand away, lets her replace it with her own as she guides him between her thighs and sinks down. There's still nothing between them, the slick heat of her enveloping him, and he groans. His eyes flutter half-closed for a moment, but he makes himself open them again, wanting to see her like this.

[takecourage]

With him sitting, rather than lying, they're much closer than they might be as she slides down onto his cock, and and it's the easiest thing in the world to lean forward and kiss him.

"Good as you imagined?" she asks, one hand braced against his chest, the other curled around the bedframe as she starts to move.

[more_magic]

His hand slides along the curve of her hip as she leans in, the kiss she gives him somehow all the sweeter for the position they're in. "Better," he says as she begins to ride him, her hips rolling in a way that pulls another soft groan out of him. "Which I might have expected."

[takecourage]

"Never know until you try," she says, keeping up the slow, steady roll of her hips. She doesn't want to rush either of them towards the edge too quickly. "Is this your favourite? Position, I mean..."

[more_magic]

"Not that I've run the gamut of the Kama Sutra by any means," he says, biting his lip as she maintains that slow, steady rhythm, "but I've always liked this, yes." He watches her move, almost marveling at the sheer fact that--after everything, here and back in New Haven--they've gotten to this point at all.

"What's yours?"

[takecourage]

Sex with Len had run the gamut between pornograpic and mundane and, looking back, Alex doesn't really think of anything fondly. She shakes her head, the blunt ends of her hair whispering against her bare shoulders.

"I don't have one yet."

[more_magic]

There's a possibility in that yet that Darlington hadn't known he'd been looking to hear. He doesn't tease, doesn't hide behind his usual deflections or dismissals; just nods, thoughtful and understanding.

"Something to find out together, then."

[takecourage]

"This is pretty high on the list so far," she says, rocking in his lap, still taking it as slowly as she can, wanting it to last. She curls both arms around his neck but doesn't push herself too close so that she can watch his face. "What else do you think we ought to try? Talk to me about it?"

[more_magic]

He traces an idle finger along the small of her back as she wraps her arms around him, just appreciating the contact of it, of being bared to each other and pressed close, of taking their time with one another. Because they can. Whatever happens at home, it hasn't touched them here, and may never need to.

"Ultimately, Alex," he says, pushing past the sense of embarrassing sentimentality he feels even thinking it, "I just want the chance to be good to you. Whatever we do, or try."

[takecourage]

It's unbearably sweet and Alex can't help but sway in and press a kiss against the corner of her mouth. "That wasn't what I asked you," she says. "And you know it."

[more_magic]

"Doesn't make it any less true," he counters, grinning against her mouth once the kiss is over. The slow build of the way Alex is rocking in his lap doesn't entirely make thinking of an additional answer to her question easy, but he does the best he can.

"There's plenty I haven't done," he says at last, "much as I'm sure that shocks you. I think for now...for now, I'm interested in that fantasy from earlier, in putting myself under your sway this time because I've chosen to." A shiver runs down his back, faint but difficult to ignore. "I'd like to know how powerful I can make you feel."

[takecourage]

"I'd like that too," she says, nodding, pressing a kiss to his mouth, as she rocks. "Tell me about the positions you want to fuck me in. And touch me while you do it. Please."

[more_magic]

Much as he'd like to say he doesn't require the direction--such as it is--what she asks for is clear enough, simple enough, to provide him with a kind of focus. "Yes," he says, the word almost a moan against her mouth as he kisses her. The hand at her back slides up, pulling her a little closer.

"I want you like this again," he says, his other hand going to where they're already pressed as close as they can get, starting to rub at her clit in time with the still-slow rock of her hips. "As often as possible. And to lie you back, on my bed or yours, to feel you come beneath me. To find places all over the apartment, yours and mine, both of them, to...christen, in a manner of speaking." He groans, his free hand moving to fondle her tits as she rides him, his fingers playing with her nipple. "The couch, of course. Pressing you against the wall of the shower. On the kitchen counter. Hell, up against the front door if you'd want it." They're more locations than positions, but it's a start.

[takecourage]

"I want you everywhere I can get you," says Alex, her voice a breathy moan at the way he's touching her, the way his cock feels inside her. "However you want to fuck me, that's how I want it."

[more_magic]

There's a thready note in her voice he's not sure he's heard since New Year's--or possibly at all. The need in it, the desire that's so strong the word barely seems adequate, makes him dizzy and gets his fingers moving faster against her clit.

"That's what I want too," he says, his hips rolling to meet hers, the pace of their movements increasing. "Everywhere I can get you, every position I can put you in. On top, beneath me, on all fours..." The vulgarity of all of it tumbles out of him, and he can't bring himself to care. "I'll get a car and we'll fuck like teenagers in the backseat, go back to Kagura for a weekend and never leave the room. It'll be perfect."

[takecourage]

"It sounds perfect," she says, her hips snapping down, skin slapping on skin as she all but bounces on his cock, her arms still wrapped tight around his neck, her nipples brushing against his chest with every rise and fall of her body.

[more_magic]

"Yes," he says again, somehow unwilling to disturb the moment between them with more words than that. For a time, the only sounds in the room are their panting breaths, the noise of skin on skin and a few scattered cries and groans. It's beautiful.

[takecourage]

It happens almost without her realising that it's starting - her orgasm breaks over her like a wave, and her back arches, her thighs tightening around him, her arms tight around him, and her breath sobbing out of her.

"Oh, Jesus Christ."