we kept our hearts from view, this time we're problem solving

[more_magic]

To say they get back to normal wouldn't be true. There's enough that's changed, that's needed to change, that whatever they'd been before isn't a place they can return to now. Darlington moves his things out of the Bramford and back to their apartment in Dimera, paying the exorbitant repair costs the landlord quoted him for the bedroom door just so he won't have to look at the splintered frame and all it represents. He and Alex talk, sometimes more deeply than he thinks they ever had before, other times about absolutely nothing at all. He still takes Kirby for a run in the morning, and he's still over there for dinner almost every night.

Day by day, over the next few weeks, it starts to feel like something's building out of the ashes.

When they'd first begun, Alex had said it could be like dating, starting fresh in a way they hadn't really taken the chance to do before. So far, it's felt like that; slow, and careful, and a little cautious as they feel out the edges of these new boundaries. Almost normal, when so little in their life--here or at home--had been that way for years.

Darlington brings up the idea, dinner out instead of in, one day when they're just sitting on the couch with Kirby. An actual date, maybe, to mark another step forward in the thing growing between them. He picks one of their favorites, a place downtown that's upscale and intimate, making the reservation for an evening Alex has off of work. That night, he showers and dresses, calling a cab and asking the driver to wait outside the Bramford while he goes to the second floor and knocks on Alex's door.

He still has a key, just as she has one to Dimera, but tonight he wants to do everything right.

Comments

[more_magic]

Darlington laughs, reminded suddenly of the impromptu tour he'd given her, New Haven rolling past the windows of the old Mercedes; the Brutalist monoliths on State Street, and Alex saying It does feel like they're ganging up on you. He'd corrected her, but she hadn't been wrong, and in some strange way her disgust now feels equally as untutored and exact.

"Mess is in the name for a reason," he says, his grin warm and fond. "It's berries, merengue, and cream, mixed together. It's not bad, despite appearances, and...I was thinking of suggesting the chocolate torte, down at the bottom of the list? It might go well with that."

[takecourage]

"That actually sounds fucking delicious," says Alex setting the menu down. "Let's get that and the chocolate." Under the table, her hand finds its way back to his thigh.

[more_magic]

"Perfect." Her hand slides back onto his thigh, warm even through the fabric of his trousers; even though he's going back to the Bramford with her tonight, and staying, he does his best not to think of it as some kind of prelude. It's more difficult than he might have assumed at the start of the night.

The waiter takes their order, and it's not long before he returns, setting both desserts and a pair of spoons at the center of the table.

[takecourage]

Alex picks up a spoon and takes some of the Eton Mess first, her eyes widening at the creamy sweetness with the edge od sharp berries.

"Oh, fuck," she says. "That is good."

[more_magic]

There's pure enjoyment on her face, surprise and wonder as she savors the taste of it, and it's beautiful. Darlington picks up the other spoon, cutting smoothly through the dense chocolate of the torte to scoop up a piece along with a bit of the honeyed mascarpone accompanying it alongside.

"This might be even better," he says after a moment, his own surprised, pleased smile growing on his face. "God, we picked well."

[takecourage]

"We're fucking amazing," says Alex, sucking the spoon clean before she scoops up a bite of the chocolate torte. Her eyes slip closed as she chews.

"Oh, fuck," she murmurs. "I think I just came."

[more_magic]

Darlington's seen that look on her face before, usually behind closed doors, and in combination with the continued light pressure of her hand along his thigh it's enough to send a little more heat through him.

"Descriptive as always, Stern," he says, reaching over without thinking to clean a bit of chocolate from the full corner of her mouth. "But somehow it's not an exaggeration."

[takecourage]

They make short work of the desserts and, once the plates are cleared, Alex reaches for her purse.

"You still have some casual stuff at Bramford, right?"

[more_magic]

"I do," he says, getting his wallet out of his jacket pocket when Alex reaches for her purse. "The things I knew you were going to miss if you couldn't borrow them any longer." It's light, gently teasing, and most of all it feels so much easier than it had before.

The waiter brings the check, and they split the cost of the dinner almost directly down the middle. It's important to Alex, and he knows it. As they get up to leave, Darlington takes Alex's hand.

[takecourage]

They stay hand in hand for the duration of the cab ride and then, suddenly, they're standing in front of the Bramford and Alex feels this really weird flutter of nerves.

"This is legitimately the first time I've ever done this," she says, tilting her head back to look at him. Right then, she wants to kiss him so much that she can't breathe. "But do you want to come up?"

He's already agreed that he's going to stay, but it feels like part of the ritual that they're working through.

[more_magic]

They stand there hand in hand on the sidewalk, just outside the Bramford, and when Alex tilts her head up and smiles like that, Darlington's lost for a moment in how beautiful she looks. He smiles at the question, the way it feels both legitimate and like another part of how they're pretending all of this is new again. New for the first time, because in a way, it is.

"I'd love to."

[takecourage]

So they go up, hand in hand, and Alex lets them into the apartment. Once they're through the door, Alex immediately steps out of her shoes.

"I'm going to put coffee on and change," she says, leaning up to press a kiss to the corner of his mouth, which is as close as they've come to kissing since they started doing this. "Do you want to get out of your suit?"

[more_magic]

Kirby greets them both at the door with a volley of booming, happy barks, tail wagging as fast as possible. "Hey boy, hey buddy," Darlington says, crouching to ruffle his ears as Alex kicks off her shoes. "Did you miss us?"

Alex moves to kiss him once he straightens back up, just that soft touch of her lips to the corner of his mouth, and he has to resist the urge to deepen it. Things are more solid, more sure, but Darlington knows it's due to how carefully they've treated one another in the weeks since Alex came home from the hospital. It doesn't stop the faint regret that settles in his chest once she pulls away.

"Coffee sounds great," he says. "And, I think I do." He smiles a little, a flicker of uncertainty, maybe even nerves, running through him for a moment. "Do you want me to wait until you're done? Or change in the bathroom?" He doesn't entirely expect her to demand either--even now, they're not so self-conscious around one another--but he wants to make the overture.

[takecourage]

"You can get changed in the bedroom, Danny," she says, as close to gentle as she can manage. Gentle has never exactly come naturally. "It's not like we've never done it before, and it's just...skin, right? I mean, I take my clothes off for a living."

[more_magic]

"Okay," he says, hearing the effort Alex puts into making it gentle. It's not easy for her, after so many years of walls and barriers and never letting anyone see too far behind them, but he knows she's trying. For him, she's still trying, which is the most astonishing part of all. "You know I had to ask."

As she goes to start the coffee, Darlington gives Kirby one final scratch behind the ears, then turns towards the bedroom. He'd left a pair of sweatpants here, along with a few t-shirts; they're still neatly folded in what he still thinks of as his dresser in the bureau, and he takes them out, putting them on the bed before starting to undress.

[takecourage]

The coffee is brewing and Alex wanders down the hallway towards the bedroom, their bedroom, feeling like she's doing something illicit. She stands in the doorway just in time to watch him shrug out of his shirt. She's seen him shirtless since they've been taking things slower, but that doesn't mean it's not a sight she likes to savour.

"Is this okay?" she asks, finally.

[more_magic]

Saying that she catches him isn't right; makes it sound more sordid than it is, or more than they want it to be right now. He's changed here before, showered after a run or brought his museum blazer and a pair of trousers with him when they're spending the day together before his evening shift at work. It's been as normal as anything else, everything they've done while taking things slow.

But she comes down the hallway now, and stops at the door just as he takes off his shirt, and it feels for a moment like it's the very first time.

"Yeah," he says, looking over at her. "This is okay."

[takecourage]

"Okay, good," says Alex, padding into the room in her bare feet and going to her drawers to grab a t-shirt and a pair of slouchy jersey shorts.

She turns her back on him, more out of consideration for him than anything.

[more_magic]

He watches her go to the bureau and get her own things, soft and comfortable, then turn away after she's shut the drawer again. It's careful, and considerate, and another sign that she's trying just as hard as he is to make sure everything goes right. Darlington stays there, standing half-dressed for another moment longer, looking at the dark line of her back in the dress and the black spill of her hair over her shoulders.

"Do you need help with the zipper, or can you manage?" he asks. Just as he had at the restaurant, with her hand warm on his thigh and the sight of her blissful expression over dessert, Darlington does his best not to think of the question as another kind of prelude.

[takecourage]

"It would actually be really fucking helpful if you unzipped me," she says. "I can do it myself, but... It takes some contorting.

[more_magic]

"Fair point," he says, laughing softly. It only takes a second to cross the brief distance between them, for him to step up behind her, moving her hair gently aside as he finds the tab of the zipper there at the top of the dress. The cut of the dress had left her shoulders bare, and standing behind her like this, he can better see the way it also dips a little low in the back. He can still notice things like that, about her, even now.

He pulls the zipper, revealing the pale skin beneath, the band of her bra, the faint lace edge of her panties once it's down all the way. "There you go," he says, and if his fingers brush the small of her back for a moment before he steps away, it could easily have been an accident.

[takecourage]

Alex rides out the pulse between her thighs the brush of his fingers and steps out of her dress, reaching behind her to unhook her bra and dropping it before she pulls on her T-shirt. She leaves her panties on, reaching for the shorts.

[more_magic]

Darlington finishes changing, swapping his trousers for sweatpants and pulling a t-shirt on over his head. He glances over at Alex once, maybe twice, and brief as they are those glimpses seem more illicit, more furtive, than they ought to.

"So," he says, once they're both changed. "Coffee, and then...we can talk?" If she can't do it tonight--or ever--he'll understand. It's something he should have asked earlier, knowledge that might have staved off the worst of their fight and its aftermath, and there's a possibility his chance had passed with that. But if she talks, he'll listen.

[takecourage]

"We can talk," she says, nodding, as she pads out of the bedroom, pulling her hair back into a knot on top of her head. "Do you want to do it in here or on the couch?"

[more_magic]

"Couch?" he suggests, following her out and down the hallway, Kirby trotting up to sniff at him again when they're back in the living room. The bed would be its own kind of security--but even though he's agreed to stay over, after the odd and sudden charge of their getting changed it feels like a little too far. "Under your beloved throw blanket, both of us...and Kirby."

He'd tried for about a week to keep him off the couch when they'd first adopted him, but that was a battle Darlington had always known he was going to lose.