it was all so strange and so surreal

[more_magic]

“I just want to know if Jodie Foster is here,” said Alex, and Darlington didn’t bother trying to suppress the flicker of irritation that bubbled up within him. They’d seen wonders tonight; the Arcadian peace of that vast forest, the glories of a Parrish painting come to life, reckless sacreligious hedonism in a flower-filled cathedral. And yet all she wanted was to celebrity-watch. Typical.

The fireflies lighting the room swarmed around them, the green-gold flash of their light almost pulsing with the beat of his heart. “For all you know,” he said, the words coming out thick and sluggish. His head reeled; he blinked hard, once, twice. “For all you know, that was Jodie Foster.” The room shimmered, the air suddenly heavy and cloying. They should keep going, finish their journey down; do the job they’d been set to at the start of the night. Before he could say anything, do anything, chivvy Alex along and out of the suffocation of the fifth level of Manuscript’s tomb, Lan Caihe turned back to face them, that enigmatic smile still on her face and the vast mirror of power churning behind her.

Descend.

He shouldn’t have heard her, not from this distance, but the word was as loud as if she’d been standing by his side.

Descend.

It passed through him like a shudder, and the world gave way along with it. He fell--he descended--landing on his feet in the middle of a cavern, the walls slick with moisture and the scent of tilled soil in the air. Someone was humming, something was humming, the sound reverberating straight to the center of him like it was the only thing that mattered. Darlington looked around for the source, his head taking an age to turn from one side to the other, until--

The mirror, that vault of power. It was here, bolted to the wall of the cave, the magic contained within swirling in eddies and whorls for a moment before slowly parting. Something was wrong here, gravely wrong, and he had to look away. But why would he? He’d wanted these glimpses of the uncanny, chased them and dreamed them and craved them, driven by his need to know everything he could about a world he’d only ever been given small tastes of. He could drink his fill now, granted this glorious opportunity by a goddess in celadon robes, and so he stared as the mist parted and the mirror cleared.

It was the room he’d just left, the banquet table still laden, the guests still crowded around the feast now rotted and spoiled, flies swarming around the goblets and maggots squirming in the cheese; everyone there aged and frail, using the last of their strength to lift a cup to their lips or bite into the desiccated husk of what might once have been a peach. Above them all stood Caihe, still youthful, lit by fire and glowing with power, her face changing with every breath: high priestess, hermit, hierophant, king and empress and fool. Darlington stared, shaking, at the face of his grandfather until the next exhalation whisked the sight away. His upper lip was wet; he lifted fingers to his face and saw them come away bloody.

“Darlington?” Someone was saying his name, a voice he knew, one he’d thought of as a broken woodwind when in fact it was the richest tone he’d ever heard, a symphony contained in the three syllables of his name. No, not his name. Not his name, any more than Alex was hers; they’d both christened themselves something new. He looked away from the crimson smear on his fingertips and back to the mirror. Like Caihe, she was unchanged, that Queen Mab crown still on her head and starlight still spangling her skin, her dress a dark flow of fabric along the lines of her body--but no, now she was Mab, a true Queen of the Night, beautiful and breathtaking, the points of a wheel or a crown seeming to turn behind her. Her mouth was lush and red, constellations he didn’t recognize reflected in the pooling blackness of her eyes, so much power coursing through her that it ought to be terrifying.

“What are you?” he heard himself ask, his voice soft with awe. No answer came, but that didn’t matter; he knelt anyway, putting himself at her feet and in her hands. He could see himself in the mirror, not as he was but as he wished to be: a knight with sword in hand, his fealty pledged to the creature before him if only she would choose to accept it. There was an ache in his chest from the wanting of it, another sword plunged into his back, piercing his heart; he felt the tears spill down his cheeks, mingling with the blood, the taste of copper and salt in his mouth.

“An acolyte at heart,” said Caihe, and Darlington knew she spoke truth. Choose me, he thought, he begged, staring up at Alex. She was not what she had seemed, nothing like what he’d assumed her to be, this girl who’d done nothing to earn the gift she’d been granted. She was his queen, and he would serve her until the end of his days, if only she would…

“Darlington,” she said again, one slim hand reaching for him, fingertips brushing the side of his face, cupping his chin. He closed his eyes, and dared to hope.

Comments

[more_magic]

Darlington turns into the touch, his eyes closing as they had before. He dares enough, wants enough, that it urges him to press the lightest of kisses against the skin of her palm. It's more than desire, what he feels, something he doesn't know the name of and a discovery yet to be made.

"I'm here," he repeats, the words a dreamlike murmur, unguarded and truthful, freed of that rigid control he's spent his life building. "For you, to be your...what Caihe said. An acolyte. A knight."

[takecourage]

She ought to shake some sense into him, she knows that, but then his lips graze her palm, and she can let herself enjoy this for a minute, can't she? She can let herself have this, before the world comes crashing in.

Somehow, it feels like being forgiven.

"I don't need you to be any of that, Darlington," she says, gently. "I just need you to be here with me."

[more_magic]

"Of course," he says, because he'd give her anything she asked. He stays there, eyes closed, leaning into the touch of her hand, and just lets himself breathe.

Somewhere, a more sensible part of him is reawakening, realizing simultaneously that they ought to keep moving and that his world has shifted once more. It's still distant for now, buried underneath Manuscript's manufactured haze.

[takecourage]

She combs the fingers of her free hand through his dark hair, smoothing it back from his face. She's never, in the time she's known him, touched him this much. She remembers the press of his body against hers, the morning after the first time, the hard line of his cock, his hand on her tits. She remembers dreaming about it afterwards. I will serve you to the end of days.

"I'm just so glad you're here," she murmurs, her lips brushing against the curve of his cheek. "It's been so fucking shitty without you."

[more_magic]

He hears the words, but doesn't understand them. How long had he stayed in that cave? How long had he drunk as deeply of the uncanny as those wizened revelers at the feast had their cups of wine? It had felt like forever, and no time at all.

Darlington wonders if it matters, when her hands are in his hair and her lips are close, so close. His need is a living thing, coiled around the sword he can still feel in his heart, and he trembles with it.

"I won't leave again," he vows. "I'll stay."

[takecourage]

Alex nods at that, her forehead nudging against his, she's so close. Her hand is still on his face, in his hair. She ought to snap him out of this, she ought to be the responsible one, but they'll never be this close again, and she can't, she can't, she can't.

"That's it," she murmurs, her voice raw in her throat. "That's what I want you to promise me."

[more_magic]

Like Caihe's, her form seems to shift, going from memory to vision to a reality he hasn't yet recognized as such. Darlington blinks, and she's his queen, sheathed in night and surrounded by a galaxy of pinwheeling stars; again, and she's a girl in soft sweats and a thin t-shirt, holding him close; she's Undine, she's Mab, she's his Dante with moths fluttering at her elbow and the points of her collarbone.

And always, never the thing he assumed she would be. He'd been so wrong, so mistaken, so quick to judge. Forgive me, he thinks, another plea to the entity he'd seen in the mirror and the one holding him fast now. Choose me, and forgive me.

For the space of a heartbeat--his or hers or both of theirs together--he stays like that, staring at her, lips parted and eyes still dazed. Once again, it feels like a prelude. "I promise," he says at last, a stray tear running down his cheek.

[takecourage]

A tear rolls down his cheek and Alex feels some resolve inside her tear in two. It's wrong, she knows it is, but, just for a moment, she lets herself have it anyway. She rocks forward and kisses him on the mouth, their lips edged with salt from tears.

[more_magic]

Alex's lips touch his and it feels like a gift he hadn't sought, something that tastes of both sweetness and the sea. He hears a low, soft cry, realizing a moment later that it had come from his own mouth. The noise breaks that tight-wound need inside him and Darlington loses himself to it a little bit more, pushing the kiss deeper as he chases another wave of visions.

His hand is at her back, sliding beneath the thin cotton of her shirt. He's on his knees, a sword in that same hand, watching as dark silk slides from her shoulders to reveal the bare lines of her body. Both of them are bared to each other, coupling beneath a vast silver disc that could be a mirror or could be the moon.

Darlington's head spins, the different sights blending into one then separating just as quickly. Which is the reality and which the illusion, he doesn't know, or if it even matters.

[takecourage]

It's wrong and she knows it, probably no better than dosing him with merity and taking advantage, but his hands are on her and his mouth is in her, and Alex never thought she'd see him again so who can blame her for wanting to exist in this moment for just a little while longer?

She makes a soft sound against his mouth, half aroused, half sheerly, purely grateful, and leans back on the couch, tugging him with her.

[more_magic]

Alex pulls him and he follows, lacking a bit of his usual grace as he gets up from where he'd been kneeling, there on the floor at her feet. They lie back--on a couch, on a bed, on the stone floor of that Manuscript banquet hall--Alex's hair a dark spill against the cushions and Darlington above her, pressed close as they keep kissing.

She makes that soft sound and he answers it with a moan of his own, his hand moving to her side, still beneath her shirt. His fingertips ghost each ridge of her ribcage, his touch light and reverent as he moves further and further up.

[takecourage]

He slots between her thighs like he was made to go there and the last guy she had sex with, the last man she had this close, was Len and this is worlds apart from that. She can feel the hard line or Darlington's cock pressed against her through his jeans, her sweats and, shamelessly, she grinds up against him, arching her back to press herself into his hands, kissing him like she's starving for it.

She comforts herself with the memory of him pressed close the morning after back in New Haven. There isn't anything happening that both of them don't want, somewhere inside.

[more_magic]

She undulates beneath him, arching and pressing into his touch as their mouths crush and clash, low sounds of need coming from them both. His hips move in counterpoint to hers, the motion something primal and shameless that Darlington can only think of as rutting, aware of the hard throb of his cock somewhere beneath the swirl of images and fantasies still filling his head.

It's just the two of them: awash in a sea of night, entangled on a plain sofa he's never seen before, surrounded by masked and glittering faces avidly taking in the sight of their desire. All of these and none of these, at the same time.

His hands continue that slow upward path beneath her shirt, his long fingers mapping the soft swell of her breasts, fingertips brushing the points of her nipples. "Alex," he murmurs, her name the only thing he can think to say.

[takecourage]

His hands are up under her shirt, every brush of his fingers over her nipples sending an electric pulse to her cunt, and nobody has ever said her name like that before, so soft and and reverent, so content to be hers.

It's addictive.

[more_magic]

There's a growing sense of something wrong here, a stronger awareness as the control he'd been placed under starts to wane, but Darlington's still lost enough that it's an easy thing to keep ignoring. The fabric of her shirt gathers around his wrists, exposing the bare flat of her belly, and he just barely stops himself from pulling it off the rest of the way.

"Alex, I..." he says, then stops, falling silent as he simply looks at her. She's beautiful, she's always been; he just hadn't seen it until now. But tonight was a night for the seers and the seen--he'd told her as much, as they pushed their way through the crush of the party. What better time could there have been to know her like this?

[takecourage]

She's got her mouth open to respond, and then a flicker of movement catches her eye and she turns her head. The apartment is crawling with Grays, which makes sense - salt, desire, blood. Alex's eyes widen. She doesn't have any grave dirt in his pocket.

"Darlington.. " she says, starting to squirm out from under him.

[more_magic]

Darlington's vaguely aware of the way she tenses beneath him, her head turning to one side and something startled in her dark eyes. He looks, but sees nothing but more of their hazy surroundings, shifting and changing like everything else. The tendrils of magic still threaded around his brain sink his better judgement once more, and all he can see is the fine-boned lines of her face and the wanting arch of her body.

"I'm here," he says again, leaning down to brush kisses along the edge of her jaw, his hands still roaming beneath her shirt. "Won't leave again, wherever I went."

[takecourage]

"Darlington!" One of the Grays reaches out and Alex feels it's fingers brush her cheek and that's it. That's all that she can take. Her hand lashes out, viper quick, and catches Darlington across the face.

"Daniel," she hisses. "Come on. Pull yourself the fuck together."

[more_magic]

The pain of it is a clarifying shock, the force hard enough that his head jerks briefly to the side. He yelps, his eyes as wide and startled as Alex's own, the reality of his surroundings crashing over him in full at last. So too, the position they're both in. "Oh, Christ," he says, suddenly awash in humiliation. He pulls his hands from beneath her shirt as though he's been burned and scrambles backwards so quickly he almost goes sprawling off the couch.

He doesn't remember a couch like that in the banquet hall. He doesn't remember seeing any of the things around him, even, in that clean-lined midcentury tomb. For a moment, he even thinks he sees the Golden Bowl.

"What..." he starts, forcing himself to look back at her even though all he wants is to cringe away. "The mist. That...by the stairs, the...where are we?"

[takecourage]

How quickly he recoils isn't exactly flattering, but that's something she can think about later.

"I will explain all that later, I promise," she says. "But first..." She straightens her shirt, backing up against the couch cushions. "Do you have any gravedirt on you?"

[more_magic]

"It was a culling, not a rite," he reminds her, even as he's feeling in the pockets of his coat for one of the vials from the armory. "There wasn't a need, the lower levels of Manuscript are warded." They're all excuses, explanations whose only use is to lead him back to what passes for equilibrium right now, and it takes him a moment to comprehend why she must be asking.

Feeling like a fool, like the worst sort of betrayer, he shakes his head. The room spins for a moment, then settles. "How many?"

[takecourage]

"You're blowing my image of you as an always surprised fucking boy scout," she says, still scooting. "Five? That I can see. They look pissed."

[more_magic]

"I'm not going to take things I have a reasonable expectation I won't need," he says, almost appreciating the normalcy of the annoyance he feels after everything that's just happened. Is still happening, now that they're in a strange room and surrounded by Grays.

Alex's explanation, when it comes, better be an exceptionally good one.

He swallows hard, some fuzzy, lingering aftertaste of whatever Manuscript dosed him with still coating his mouth. "It'll have to be the words, then," he says, thinking as quickly as he can. He can see her there, still cringing away, and his heart stutters a bit in his chest. "You have to do that, and I'll...I'll find a way to put up some wards."

[takecourage]

"Words," says Alex, groping for them in her panic. "Take courage," she snaps. "No one is immortal."

The Grays stop coming at her, but they don't dissapate."

[more_magic]

"Good," he says, though without the Bullet he has no idea what's happening. For a moment, he remembers the shaky sound of her voice on Aurelian's night, the way she'd sung those words of beautiful Ladino. The thought is a distraction, and just from the look of her Darlington knows Alex can't afford that right now. "Keep going."

Getting unsteadily to his feet, he stumbles towards the small kitchen he can see through a doorway in the far wall. He doesn't have their usual chalk on him either, so to draw up the wards, he'll need magnets. The ones he finds stuck to the refrigerator are the cheap kinds handed out by local businesses, brightly colored and shaped like a car and some kind of insect, but he grabs them anyway. "Any port," he mutters, going back to the living room.