wooden floors, walls and window sills, tables and chairs worn by all of the dust

[more_magic]

The calls haven't been coming at a rate Darlington might call constant, but come they have over the last week or so, steady enough to be suspicious. Always the same two numbers, the same two voices--one bright and chipper, the other almost oily in its overconfidence--and the same message, the thing he cannot parse. They call about investment opportunities, about return potential and competitive markets, and the only thing keeping him from passing it all off as an unfortunate run of wrong numbers is the fact that they call him by name, every single time.

There's something in all of it that reminds him of his childhood, the Layabouts and their infrequent visits that grew more urgent the sicker his grandfather got, until they'd become a temporary constant there at the end. His mother's bizarre health foods displacing Bernadette's casseroles in the fridge, his father wandering from room to room downstairs talking about assessing Black Elm like it was a specimen in a lab, a body on a table just waiting for the autopsy. To them, he supposes, it had been. They'd wanted him to sell, demanded it and bullied him the same as they had his grandfather, and their anger when he'd rebuffed them was still as clear now as it had been at fifteen, that day in his room.

This house is worthless, Danny. Worse than worthless. Only the land is valuable.

The profits can be shared. You can come to New York, take advantage of all the opportunities that will open for you there.

Do you really think you'll be some Lord of Black Elm, Daniel? You don't rule this place. It rules you.

There's no way this can be that, but it's on his mind anyway as he lounges on the couch reading, looking over at his phone when it starts to buzz. Seeing one of those now-familiar numbers, his thumb hovers over the Reject icon on the screen before shifting, tapping Accept instead. "Tell me why you keep calling me."

The conversation that follows is short, and unbelievable, and ends with him scribbling down an address on the flyleaf of his book. "You're going to lose this number," he says, just before ending the call. "I will never be interested in any offer you think up." He's out the door a minute later, hailing a cab outside Dimera. He nearly bungles the address; memory taking over for a moment, guiding his tongue to the more familiar cadences of his old one in Westville.

It can't be possible, but he'll never forgive himself if he doesn't check.

Darlington recognizes it from the moment they pull up to the drive; the gravel, the gentle curve, the stone columns flanking either side and the lamps dotting the pathways just beyond. The trees are in full leaf, green rather than the mottled oranges and yellows he remembers, but each of them is as familiar to him as they've ever been before. He pays the driver, his hand already trembling when he pulls the door handle to get out of the car and a hope he doesn't want to acknowledge fizzing in his chest.

It only gets stronger as he walks up the drive, the stones crunching beneath his feet. When the house comes into view--stone and crumbling towers, the solid wood of the door and the dark slate of the steps, each window glinting in the late afternoon light--he stops right where he is and stares. This was his home, his anchor, and the lack of it over the last seven months had been a loss too painful for him to acknowledge. Not until now, with it restored to him at last.

He fumbles his phone out of his pocket, pulling up Alex's number, texting her the address and a photograph he takes with shaking hands. Tell me I'm not hallucinating again, Stern. Get here and tell me this is real.

Comments

[more_magic]

Neither of them require this to be whole, he doesn't think--but now that they have it again, it's hard not to feel like some equilibrium's been achieved once again. His breath shakes at the kiss, the feeling of her around him and in his arms, everywhere. Her eyes get bright, the ink of them shining for a moment before she buries her face in his neck, and all he can do is hold her as she starts to move.

[takecourage]

It's a few minutes of her hips rocking slowly before she can pull back and look him in the eyes. "I love you," she says, leaning in to press another kiss against his mouth.

[more_magic]

The love he sees in her expression when she pulls back, the gratitude and almost disbelief that they're right back where they'd started--no, they're someplace better. They both know that now, on a level neither of them, Danny thinks, could have contemplated earlier this year. Let alone back home, where they never had the chance to find out.

"I love you too," he says, returning her kiss, holding her hips as they continue to rock. "Beyond all surpassing."

[takecourage]

I will serve you 'til the end of days. She hears it, murmured behind her in the dark, and she whimpers, softly, her hips squirming in his hands as she fucks him. "Talk to me," she says. "Please."

[more_magic]

"Yes," he says when she asks him, moving to meet each roll of her hips, letting her decide the pace. "I want to wake up with you here every morning. I've missed doing that. God, I've missed that so much."

He kisses her again, firm and heated. "Second only to this. I've missed this, too."

[takecourage]

"I've missed this too," she says, smudging the words against his mouth, her hips still rocking smoothly, cradled as she is in his lap. "I want to come home to you after work every night. Right here."

[more_magic]

"You can." He runs a hand up her back again, her skin warm and slightly damp under his palm from the heat of the day. "I meant it, earlier. This is your home now too. You're the only person I want to share it with."

He let so few people know the secrets and charms of Black Elm. Only the ones who understood the hold it had on his heart, the love he carried for a place that had been his refuge. Out of all of them, it's still only Alex that he'd ever want day to day within its halls.

[takecourage]

She groans softly, dropping one hand to reach for his, bringing it around to press it between her thighs as they move together. "I never want to be with anyone else," she says, her mouth still against his, and then spilling lower, kissing against his jaw. "I fucking love you."

[more_magic]

Darlington had released the last of his doubts on that long ago, forgiven her for everything that happened while they'd been apart. He loved her too much, too deeply and completely, to hold it over her for long. Still, there's a kind of gratitude that runs through him to hear her say it now, and confirm it so completely.

"I love you," he says, his fingers moving against her clit when she pulls his hand down and his head tipping up as her mouth works over his jaw. "Only ever you, Alex, you extraordinary, unexpected girl."

[takecourage]

Her eyes sting again, and she can't keep looking at him. She presses her face against the crook of his neck again, drawing in a shivering breath as she rocks in his lap, between his cock and his fingers.

[more_magic]

He keeps touching her, holding her while she buries her face in his neck again, knowing that it's everything he needs to do right now. Her tits brush his chest as she moves, and he groans softly.

[takecourage]

She comes to the edge quicker than she thought she was going to, her face still pressed against him as she starts to shake, starts to come on his cock for the first time in weeks. She groans softly, her nails digging into his shoulder, fingers pulling in his hair.

[more_magic]

Alex comes, shivering and groaning in his lap, her fingers tight in his hair and against the bare curve of his shoulder. He moves with her, fucking her through it, his fingers on her clit until she's done. It only takes another few hard, rolling thrusts until he's coming too, his breath rough and ragged.

[takecourage]

He comes inside her and that's when Alex finally feels tears spill. She stays pressed against him, as close as she can get, riding out the aftershocks.

"Danny..."

[more_magic]

"Hey," he says gently when he feels the dampness against his skin, the warmth of her tears and the hitch in her breathing. He just holds her, dropping a kiss into her dark hair as best he can as he works through his own wave of emotion, not long in coming after hers. He'd had her, and nearly lost her, and now he has her back again--along with this place, his home, a home they can turn into something beautiful.

He doesn't have the right to be so lucky, but Darlington knows he'll hang on to all of this for as long as he can.

[takecourage]

"Hey," she says, pulling back from him, wiping her face with her hands before she presses a kiss against the corner of his mouth. "Shit. Sorry. That was...kind of intense."

[more_magic]

"Intense is okay," he says, smiling into the kiss and returning it a moment later, equally gentle and full of feeling. "Necessary, even, after everything."

He cups her cheek, his thumb wiping away a stray tear that starts to fall. "I'm sorry it took us so long to get back here. That I took so long."

[takecourage]

She shakes her head. He doesn't need to apologise for that. She doesn't know how to tell him that, yet, but he doesn't. She turns her head and presses a kiss against the heel of his hand.

[more_magic]

There's answer enough in that shake of her head and the kiss she presses to his hand, something that settles warm within him. He stays just as he is, holding her, still inside her, the two of them as close as they can get after so many weeks of being apart. They should move; find their scattered clothes and start figuring out how they're going to start turning Black Elm into something livable again, but not quite yet.

There's time for that later.