and the name of the game is just the living

[more_magic]

They keep Alex at the hospital for a few days, as much for observation as for treatment. Darlington stays as much as he can, calling out of work and finding someone to take care of Kirby, making quick trips home to change and shower before he's back again. When they talk, it's stilted and hesitant, inconsequential things that only emphasize the enormity of what they're both avoiding.

It could go on like this. Maybe it'd be better if it did. But Darlington knows neither of them can ignore it forever.

He's there when she's discharged, the removal of all the tubes and wires from her slim frame only serving to emphasize how thin she is, and how unsteady. He hands her the change of clothes he'd brought, loose, comfortable things, going out into the hallway while she dresses. The cab ride from the hospital back to the Bramford is a silent thing, both of them looking out of opposite windows, their hands resting on the seat between them with fingers just barely touching.

Kirby jumps off the couch when they come in, nearly losing his mind with simple canine joy as he snuffles first at Alex, then Darlington, then Alex again, his tail practically a dark blur as it whips back and forth. "Down," he says, but there's no force in it. Alex goes to the couch, Kirby following, and Darlington scrubs a hand through his hair.

"I'll run you a bath," he offers. "If you'd like, and then...I think we should talk. Finally."

Comments

[takecourage]

"You don't have to go."

She can't imagine ever feeling self conscious in front of him, even if she didn't take her clothes off for a living. She strips out of her robe, pale and skinnier than she'd been two weeks ago, and steps into the water. He's run it almost hot enough to be painful. It's perfect.

[more_magic]

Darlington's the one who nods this time, holding out a hand for her robe when she takes it off and hanging it on the hook at the back of the door. He can see each line of her ribs with more clarity than he had before, and even the faint bump of each knob of her spine. She's always been thin, but never like this. Not since Van Nuys--but that's been the case for far too many other things in the last two weeks.

Once she's settled, the water steaming around her, he takes a seat on the closed lid of the toilet, for a moment unsure where they go from here. "I think there are a lot of places we could start," he says at last. "And a lot of things that need discussing."

[takecourage]

Alex sinks down in the water, knees bent, head resting against the enamelled edge of the tub. Her eyes are ink-dark and watchful.

"So start," she says, her voice raw but soft.

[more_magic]

"Would you ever have told me?" The question slips out, not the one he'd expected out of the many he'd been considering, but once it's said Darlington knows the answer will form much of what comes next. "If it'd been entirely in your control, instead of Darrow forcing the issue. Would there have been a point you trusted me enough to tell me the truth?"

[takecourage]

"Honestly?" asks Alex, lightly stirring her fingers through the water, watching him for a moment. "Probably not? I didn't...I knew what you'd think, Danny. I knew how you'd look at me. I didn't...I still don't..." She shakes her head. "Probably not. But it's not because I didn't trust you. Maybe back home, it was. I thought you'd throw me under the bus with Sandow. But it wasn't about that here, babe. You have to know that."

[more_magic]

Darlington takes that on, silent as he feels the weight of it, the truth he wishes he could deny backing every word. Whatever rapport they'd built here, it hadn't existed yet back in New Haven. Maybe it never would, another thing stolen from them by that night at St. Elmo's old tomb.

"I couldn't have kept it from Sandow," he says. "You're right, and it...I want to tell you it wouldn't have been throwing you under the bus, but if I had, if he knew and the board knew, it wouldn't have been possible for you to continue at Lethe. So in that light, it would have been." All of it feels like excuses, a manifestation of the loyalty he still can't shake, even in a world where that faithfulness means nothing at all. He takes a long, measured breath. "And I'm sorry for that. I'm sorry I...brought that into all of this."

He watches her, the ripples caused by the stir of her fingers in the water making the inked koi on her arm look for a moment like it's moving. "You still don't what?"

[takecourage]

"Want you to ever look at me like that," she says, quietly, sunk down in the water until her chin is submerged. "Like all your worst suspicions about me just got confirmed."

[more_magic]

"Right." It comes out with an edge of hoarseness, and he clears his throat. He can't deny this, either, no matter how much he wants to; can't call it responsibility, or duty, or blame it on the fact he knows she can be better than she believes herself to be. It's just the colder side of the golden boy of Lethe, the thing that's played a part in so many of their arguments.

"I shouldn't have. I know I shouldn't. But god, Alex, you let Hellie in. And you survived it, and you didn't..." He looks up at the tiled wall above her head, trying to choose his next words with care and precision, ones that won't break the fragile thread still building itself again between them. "I have always known you were extraordinary. I just didn't know the depth of it until..." He shakes his head. "I don't think I need to finish that sentence."

[takecourage]

"I let her in," she says, quietly. "I loved her and I let her in and I let her use me to get revenge on them for what they did to her." She studied him for a moment. "Do you hate me because of that or because I did it and I didn't go mad afterwards? Like you hated me when you realised I see grays in colour..."

[more_magic]

The look in her eyes then isn't the flat, flinty hardness he's seen when she's furious, or the sharper obsidian that happens when she really means to wound. This is both guarded and searching, wary and injured, and though it's all another sharp stab in his heart Darlington doesn't let himself turn away. He doesn't deserve to.

"No," he says, the word almost a breath. He can feel the way his shoulders sink. "Not because of it. Not because you loved her. I hated that I didn't know how you managed to do it and not go insane. Not that I wanted you to, I never want that. I've read the reports, the other candidates who...it's not a fate I'd wish on anyone. I know what's supposed to happen, and hearing that it didn't for you, of course I want to know how. For your sake as well as everyone else's. As well as mine."

He moves to the floor, sitting on the bathmat and letting himself be a little closer to her. His arm rests on the edge of the tub, fingers curved along the slight lip there. "I hated that you lied. I understand your reasons. I deserve all of that, I'm not saying I don't." Darlington looks up at her, finding her eyes the same way she'd sought out his a moment before. "I'm not saying that you have to tell me everything, but Alex, you have to tell me the things that matter."

[takecourage]

He puts his hand there and, a moment later, Alex lifts her hand out of the water, lightly brushing her fingers against the lengths of his. It's not much, but it's a point of contact.

She nods.

"Lying's just...it's how I've kept myself safe, Danny."

[more_magic]

He hadn't been asking for touch, hadn't even expected it, but when it comes something unlatches slightly in his chest. Her fingers are warm and damp against his, and he catches them there for a moment, a brief hook of his fingers on hers.

"Because no one else would." He remembers the sound of plates smashing in their sink, holding her in bed afterwards as she talked about Goleta and butterflies and things she shouldn't have experienced. Not at thirteen. Not ever. "I even did a piss-poor job of it. Not that it's about me."

[takecourage]

"What are you talking about?" she says, her voice husky, leaving her fingers curled together with his. "Being with you is the safest I've ever fucking felt. This apartment. Kirby. You."

[more_magic]

"But I've still made you feel as though you're nothing more to me than the worst thing you've ever done." Darlington can feel the prickle of tears as they start to build, and he blinks them back. "Even if it was only for a moment, it's a moment too long."

He shifts his hand, running his thumb lightly along the side of her hand just above the line of the water. "I don't know where we go from here," he says, quiet and low. "What this has to be going forward between us. But I want to try."

[takecourage]

She nods.

"We'll figure it out," she says, because she has to believe that. She has to. She closes her eyes, psyching herself up for a moment. "I have to...I have to tell you about what I...did. When we were broken up. If we're going to start with everything out in the open."

[more_magic]

He could tell her it doesn't matter, but they both know that's a lie. There's something unreadable that crosses her face between the time she closes her eyes and they open again, like a steeling of herself against something. In this moment, it probably is. He nods, keeping his fingers in hers.

"Wherever you want to start."

[takecourage]

"You know about how bad the drugs got," she says, a flicker of something like shame crossing her face. "That was fentanyl. But I was high every day. Weed. Coke. Molly. Anything I could get my hands on."

[more_magic]

"Christ, Alex." It comes out like a reflex, more an expression of horror than an admonition. The wards should have been enough to keep out the Greys, to keep things quiet--but it wasn't about that this time, and he knows that as well as she does. His thumb keeps up that slow, gentle sweep against her skin.

"Who'd you get it from?" He has a suspicion, something vindictive and petty, but he's not certain it isn't also correct. She may not answer. It may not matter. He asks anyway.

[takecourage]

"Kavinsky," she says, her eyes narrowing. "But you can't go after him for it, Danny. Promise me. He wasn't...He'd never want to hurt me. I needed to get out of my head. Out of my skin. He helped, with that."

[more_magic]

"Of course it fucking was." Darlington tries to temper his surge of anger, the way it mixes with a sick sense of triumph at being right, at knowing for certain that his initial instincts where Kavinsky was concerned had been the correct ones. Alex says promise me, and he hears it, but the look he gives her is still sharply incredulous.

"You'd really let him get away with it? After everything? Who's to say the person he helps next is going to be as fortunate as you were?"

[takecourage]

She takes her hand away from his, bone weary suddenly, his anger making her feel vulnerable in a way she doesn't like, and covers her face with her hands.

"He only gave me what I asked for, Danny. Anything I did, I did it to myself. And if he hadn't sold it to me, I'd have got it from someone who's product I trust a lot less."

[more_magic]

"Purity is not an argument for leniency."

There's a precinct not far from the museum. He could go there tomorrow. He could do it on his lunch break, and then it'd be done--but Alex pulls away and puts her face in her hands, and that tells him all he needs to know about this particular decision. He hates it, this sense of someone getting away with something they shouldn't, and once again it's someone who wouldn't be too far out of place in Manuscript if they were at home. But he'll do it.

He takes a breath, letting the last of his anger flow out on the exhale. "Okay. I promise. I won't go after him. If that's what you're asking, I'll do it."

[takecourage]

"There's more," she says, a faint touch of colour touching her cheekbones. "And either I need to get dressed or we both need to be naked for the next bit."

She can't talk about the rest feeling this fucking vulnerable.

[more_magic]

"I think we'll overflow the tub if I get in," he says, and even though he offers her a faint, gentle smile, it's not enough to dispel the uncertainty that settles heavy in his gut. Of course there would be more. And whatever it is, it's something she can't face up to right now.

"Want me to wash your hair, and then you can get dressed? We can...have a reprieve for a minute. If that'll help what comes next."

[takecourage]

The idea of him washing her hair for jet actually sounds amazing right then and Alex nods, shifting her position in the tub to lean forward slightly.

"Yes, please."