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

[takecourage]

"We could fit a really fucking big bed in here," she says, her fingers still linked with his, drawing him further into the room. "And enough closets for both of us." She looks up at him. "I know this is your house, in your bones, but...I've never had anywhere I could think of as mine before I got here. Never bought paint or whatever."

[more_magic]

"We could," he agrees as she pulls him further into the room, picturing it all easily. "There was a four-poster in here before, and...a vanity just there, by the windows." He huffs a laugh through his nose, leaning his head a bit to one side. "That is, until I sold it after a pipe burst up on the third floor. It was Mackmurdo, so I knew I'd get more than enough to cover the repairs and pay the water bill."

He looks around the room, already sketching out possibilities in his head. They couldn't find exactly the same styles and eras, exactly the right furniture makers; even the Darrow contemporaries would cost more than either he or Alex could afford, unless they found supremely undervalued pieces and took advantage. He's not sure if he could do it, remembering his own experiences early on, in those lean years back home. The thought of being on the other side now turns his stomach more than a little.

Alex keeps talking, hesitant and careful, and it's enough to cease his thoughts and nascent plans almost entirely. She's right, everything she says is right; Black Elm was his home, his heart, the thing he'd fought hardest to keep. At times, it felt like the only anchor he had when everything else was on the verge of swallowing him up. The thought of changing anything sits heavy and unpleasant within him. But he'd always had it, this place that had been unquestioningly his from his very first memory--and despite his discomfort, he knows it's past time to share that with someone else who'd never had the chance to be so fortunate.

"There's a lot to restore here," he says. "A lot of rooms, a lot of repairs. Hell, even the landscaping needs maintenance. But we can...when you want to make this our home, together, we should make it ours." He looks around the room again, a small smile on his lips. "I want you to feel at home here too."

[takecourage]

"Like I said downstairs -- it might be good for you to have to start over. A clean slate. For you, as well as us." She wraps her arms around him again, one hand finding its way under the hem of his shirt to press against warm skin. "I'd...You don't have to make everything as close to how it used to be as you can. Not if you don't want to. You can make it anything you want it to be."

[more_magic]

Darlington lets out a deep, slow breath when her hand presses against his skin. "There are things I want to restore," he admits. "Rooms I want back, things I remember and miss. But...I want this to be more than a monument, or memorial. I want it to be a home." He puts an arm around her waist, holding her just as she's holding him. "Black Elm hasn't truly felt alive, completely alive, in years. I think we should change that."

He pauses, considering his next words, wanting to get them right. "I'll be letting go of my place in Dimera at the end of the month, I think," he says. "As long as I can get enough furniture here to make it livable. But I think you should keep the Bramford apartment. We can keep splitting the rent, make sure we have a warded place in town, but...that was your home before it was ever ours, and I'm not going to take that from you."

[takecourage]

"That sounds sensible," she says, nodding, her cheek rubbing against his shirt over his heart. "So we'll still have somewhere to crash in town if we need it, but we can be out here most of the time." She strokes her thumb against his side. "Which bits do you want back?"

[more_magic]

He nods, smiling at the rub of her cheek and the slow up and down of her thumb along his side. It's close, intimate in the way they've relearned to be over the last few weeks, and all of it somehow fitting. Today, and here, and looking towards the future. "Whenever you're ready to move in, Stern, I'l be happy to have you."

It's been him who's set most of the boundaries here, but this last one seems to him a choice Alex needs to make--and an invitation it's his to extend.

Darlington doesn't need to consider his answer to her question, or rather, the answer is as immediately clear to him as he thinks it ought to be. "I always loved the kitchen," he says. "Bernadette's collection of Le Creuset, aside from the one I ruined, the copper pots over the stove and...the tile and the cabinetry are already there, but they're nothing I want to give up. The library here on the second floor, albeit with a collection tailored more to my interests rather than my grandfather's." He laughs. "No need for the collected works of Donald Grant Mitchell or the kind of popular history books collected by suburban family patriarchs."

He looks up towards the ceiling, aware of what lies only a floor above their heads. "It won't be the same, but I also want to...keep my old room for myself in some fashion," he says. "Probably as an office, someplace for research if the museum hires me on full-time after graduation."

[takecourage]

"We're going to at least need to get a mattress first," she says, tilting her head to look up at him. "And a couch. I've got some cash socked away from the last few weeks at work so I can cover some of it." She nods. "All of that sounds good. Will you at least let me paint with some brighter colours?"

[more_magic]

"You mean you're not going to tell me Aunt Eileen promised to spring for a new couch again?" he says, teasing, grinning at her before he nods. "I'd appreciate that. We can split the cost on both." It's as important to her as it is a practical consideration for him, and if they're committed to making Black Elm a home for both of them--and to making everything else work too, where they're concerned--it's the kind of decision that matters.

His grin doesn't fade at what she asks next. "Absolutely. Wallpaper, too, if you'd like. The woodwork should be refinished, rather than painted, but for the areas that need it..." He sighs. "We're going to have quite the project, Stern."

[takecourage]

"I'm up for that if you are," says Alex and then she leans up and kisses his jaw. "It'll be fucking amazing when we've finished it."

[more_magic]

"If we ever do," he says, making a quiet, contented sound when she kisses him. Standing here with her, it seems like far more of a possibility that he will. That they will, in this place and thanks to each other. It might not be the former glory it could have been back home, the Gilded Age splendor of when it was new and fresh, flush with the first infusion of what would become the Arlington fortune, but it'll be theirs to treasure.

"I'd have worked on it alone," he says, "but I'm genuinely glad I don't have to." It's easy then to turn, to press forward and kiss her more fully.

[takecourage]

Alex doesn't say anything to that, just curls her arm around his neck and presses the kiss deeper. They've been making out like teenagers the last couple of days, messing around, but they've still been careful with each other. She's glad that they're on their way back.

[more_magic]

She deepens the kiss, and Darlington follows, his hand sliding up her back to hold her tight, fingers resting between the narrow lines of her shoulder blades. There's no question in his mind of pulling away, or calling a halt.

[takecourage]

Alex makes a soft sound against his mouth, pressing against him, trying to get as close as she possibly can. She never doesn't want him; the last few weeks have been driving her crazy. It's nothing she doesn't deserve, but that doesn't mean it's been easy.

[more_magic]

Darlington groans, equally soft, responding to the quiet noise that spills out against his lips. The further press of her body elicits a response of its own, heat flooding through him as he feels his cock stir in his jeans. He's wanted her more and more as they came back to each other--and really, he never stopped--and this is just another, further step forward.

The longer they kiss, the more it feels like the last step he needs.

[takecourage]

Both of her hands are shoved up under his shirt now, stroking over the firm muscles of his side, around to his back, her thumbs tugging just under his waistband, tugging his hips in tight against hers.

"Okay?" she asks, breathless.

[more_magic]

Her hands are warm against his skin, under his shirt, hooking beneath the top of his jeans to pull his hips almost flush with hers. "Yes," he says, leaning until their foreheads touch, his eyes looking into hers. The heat there isn't a surprise--not at all, when Darlington's sure she can see something similar in his. "More than okay."

[takecourage]

"Good," says Alex, nudging him backward a step until his back is against the wall. "Because this feels really fucking good."

[more_magic]

"No disagreement there," he says, letting her nudge him backwards, happy to be guided rather than the guide. Their offices had been one thing; this sometimes feels like their true dynamic, something not even Lethe's algorithms and their centuries of knowledge could have understood. "None at all."

His breath comes out in a quiet huff as his back hits the wall, another spike of heat racing through him. "What do you want?" he murmurs. "And don't say me, that's a given." He smiles, his hands going to her waist so he can slip fine-boned fingers beneath her shirt, against the heat of her skin.

[takecourage]

She rolls her eyes at him, shifting her body to rock into his hands a little.

"I want to fuck you," she says. "I don't know if that's allowed yet, but it's pretty much the only thing I can think about at the moment."

[more_magic]

He takes the rock of her body as an invitation, his hands starting to move upwards along her sides as the fabric of her shirt gathers against his wrists.

"It's allowed," he says. It's not giving in, or permission; just simple, plain desire. "Wanted. God, Alex, so much."

[takecourage]

"Okay, good," she says, pushing against him and then leaning back and raising her arms so that he can peel her shirt off if he wants to. "Because that's literally all I can think about right now."

[more_magic]

"You'll forgive me if I had a few other things on my mind, given the circumstances," he says as he strips her shirt off. He'd noticed earlier in an oblique sort of way that she hadn't bothered with a bra, but the bare skin beneath the cotton of her shirt still manages to surprise him. "But they are rapidly lessening in importance."

He pulls her back in, kissing her hard, one hand going to her tit as his thumb grazes her nipple.

[takecourage]

"I bet they are," says Alex, starting to unbutton his shirt, revealing the smooth skin of his chest. She tugs him with her, towards the center of the room. "Bed right here?"

[more_magic]

Darlington follows her again, pulled easily where she wants him to go, shedding his shirt once she has it unbuttoned all the way. "That seems perfect to me," he says, sparing just the briefest look around before his eyes return to her face. "We'll get the morning light and the view once we wake up. Not that I expect us to be paying much attention at all."

[takecourage]

"No?" she says, dropping her hands to his belt and starting to unbuckle him. "What do you think we'll be doing instead?"