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

[takecourage]

Alex hops up to sit on the edge of the counter while the coffee brews, idly drumming her heels back against a cupboard door as she watches him read through the packet.

"Exactly like that, right?" She says. "It's the weirdest fucking thing I've ever seen."

And they both know the kinds of things that Alex has seen.

"And it's crawling with Grays. They're everywhere."

[more_magic]

At home, it might have sounded like crass hyperbole, worthy only of a roll of Darlington's eyes. After tonight, calling it the weirdest fucking thing almost seems inadequate. "There has to be some account of it," he murmurs, mostly to himself, already grabbing onto the idea of this place like a project; something to delve into and map, full of questions in need of answers. Just like New Haven. "A history, something."

He looks up from the map when Alex mentions the Grays, that concern from before back in his expression. "How bad has it been?"

[takecourage]

A smile tugs at the corner of his mouth when she catches a glimpse of the boy she saw evidence of in the crowded room at Black Elm. When he asks the next question, she rolls her skinny shoulder in a shrug.

"Hasn't been the best week of my life," she says. "Pretty much just like being back in L.A."

[more_magic]

All he can do is nod at that, any words he might have thought to say likely to be mocked--and deservedly so--by Alex as nothing but empty, polite platitudes. He'd read her file. Despite the dismissiveness of that rolling shrug, it's not the kind of comparison Darlington thinks she'd make lightly.

"The ones I put up should hold," he says, and it feels like an apology. He'd tried to teach her, that night he'd gone by Vanderbilt under the guise of helping her study, but her roommates had come bounding in just as he'd put up the last of the wards and they'd had to fall back on their flimsy excuse for the next hour. "Strengthen them with the usual things, when you can, but you'll have some quiet now."

Darlington pauses, putting everything but the map back into the envelope and setting it on the counter again. "I'll ward my place too, when I know where it is," he says quietly. "Have an extra key made. If you'd want it."

After his conduct, he wouldn't blame her if she simply rebuffed him, but maybe this can serve as enough of an olive branch to keep that from happening.

[takecourage]

"I'd like that," she says, finally. The coffee clicks off and she reaches for the pot, pouring them both generous mugs full and nudging his in his general direction. "You don't have to sleep on the couch. You're going to need good sleep and you'll wake up with a horrible headache. I'll take the couch. The bed is actually ridiculously comfortable."

[more_magic]

It's nearly absurd how quickly and completely something lightens in his chest when she says that, agreeing so readily to what he'd offered.

"I'm not kicking you out of your own bed, Stern," he argues, reaching for the mug as she passes it to him. "The couch will be fine." His long fingers wrap around the mug, the warmth of it just as comforting as the liquid inside. "I'm tired enough, I could sleep almost anywhere."

[takecourage]

"You're too tall for the couch," she says, getting down off the counter and walking in the direction of her bedroom like she expects him to just follow her.

[more_magic]

She tosses the observation off and saunters away, and all Darlington can do is laugh. "I'm sorry the pocket universe didn't foresee that you'd be hosting your still-baffled and reasonably tall Virgil for a night," he calls, before pushing up out of his slouch and following her down the hallway. "We'll have to have a talk with it."

[takecourage]

"In the morning, maybe," she says, leading him into her bedroom, which is relatively neat, thank god. "It's big enough for both of us. Neither of us have to sleep on the crappy couch."

[more_magic]

"Definitely in the morning," Darlington says, just before he yawns wide enough that he can hear the faint crack of his jaw. "No energy for it now."

He stops in the doorway to her room, taking in the surprising neatness, the lack of even those few perfunctory bits of decor that had adorned her side of the room back at Yale. Of course, she'd only been here for a week--a long and wearying one, from what she'd said before--and with far more immediate concerns. Buying another copy of that ridiculous Leighton painting had to have been vanishingly low on her list.

The uncertainty and embarrassment he thought he'd managed to banish come back to the fore when Alex moves to turn down the covers. She's right, and he knows it; the bed's large enough to fit them both, and far more inviting than the thought of folding himself into the couch with his coat for a blanket and one of the cushions for a pillow, but the memory of those visions he still can't entirely separate from reality is still fresh enough to give him pause. He sips his coffee, knowing it's little more than another kind of delay.

"I'm not kicking you out of your own bed," he repeats, his cheeks going faintly pink. "But I don't want you to feel obligated. To share, after..." He makes a vague gesture with his free hand, absurdly at a loss for words. "After."

[takecourage]

The yawn is hugely ridiculous and Alex laughs a little at him, finishing turning down the bed.

"I don't have anything for you to sleep in," she says, frowning. "Maybe a t-shirt that'll be big enough, but my sweats definitely aren't going to fit, are they?" She functionally ignores the rest of what he's said for a moment, until it feels like she can't, anymore. She looks at him, standing there in the middle of her bedroom, holding his coffee cup, blushing gently in a way she'd only really seen once back in New Haven. It takes a lot to break down Darlington's composure like this.

"When have you ever known me to do anything I felt obligated to do?" asks Alex, ignoring how hard she'd fought to keep her chin above water in New Haven for no other reason that it had been expected of her. "I know that wasn't you, okay? I know you're not going to grope me through choice. And I wasn't exactly fighting you off." Now it's her turn to blush, faintly. "It'll be okay, Darlington, okay? I'm glad you're here. I don't want you to sleep on the couch."

[more_magic]

Alex looks at him, something firm and challenging in her dark eyes that he's seen from her so many times before. That first day at Il Bastone, he'd thought of it as foolishness or recklessness, how willingly she'd put herself in his hands in a way he hadn't expected of her at all. Now, he wonders if he hadn't been mistaken in that, too; if what he'd seen then, sees now, is something more like trust.

Darlington still doesn't know if he's earned it, but he'll accept it anyway.

"It wasn't me." He ignores the small voice at the back of his mind that suggests that's not quite true, that he'd seen those flashes of reality--the couch, the room, Alex in her sweats--and had felt that deep desire for her even then. "Manuscript probably thought it was hilarious. Assholes."

He doesn't know what to say to the rest, how to answer the soft flush on Alex's cheeks, but maybe just for tonight he can let that part of it go. "Okay," he says, looking over at the bed and realizing just how exhausted he is. "No couch for either of us tonight, and if you have a t-shirt that'll fit, that should work well enough." There's still a slight warmth on his face, the knowledge that he's still blushing, but the smile he gives her is genuine.

"I'm glad I'm here too, Alex."

[takecourage]

"They really did," she says, forgetting that she hasn't explained the whole mess of timelines to him. Once she realises what she's said, she hopes it slides past him, for now, at least. Gives her long enough to figure out how to avoid telling him that he was already gone by the time she found herself here. She digs through the drawer where she's keeping her meagre collection of t-shirts and produces one that she'd found in a thrift store for some Darrow punk band, the logo worn and faded in a way that she really liked.

"Here. This one ought to fit..." She hands it over and then sits down on the bed, her knees drawn up.

Unbidden, she remembers that night with the moths at Il Bastogne, when she'd told him not to get Dawes and just stripped off her shirt.

"Or...I can go. If you want."

[more_magic]

The shirt she finds is soft and worn, the name of a band he doesn't recognize decorating the front, and Darlington takes it from her with another quiet smile. "Thanks." If he wonders a bit at her earlier response, the way she'd seemed so sure of what Mike and Kate and the rest of them thought of his disgrace, it's only at the back of his already-overwhelmed mind.

All he'd known was the vision. Anything could have occurred beyond that dulling, dizzying fog.

He takes his coat off, draping it over the back of Alex's desk chair, looking over at her again when she speaks in that halting and uncertain tone. "You don't need to go," he says, and knows he means it. "Not tonight."

[takecourage]

"Okay," she says, feeling suddenly young and vulnerable and weirdly close to tears just to have him in her space. She cradles her coffee cup and then takes a sip.

"Come on. Get comfortable."

[more_magic]

"Gladly, Alex," he says. Even so, he stays exactly as he is for a beat, something about the curled vulnerability he sees in her making his heart ache with an echo of that wanting from before. It's not the sword he'd envisioned while he was there on his knees, but something duller and sweeter.

He blinks, shaking his head faintly, then sits to pull off his boots and socks before standing again to undress the rest of the way, undoing his belt and unbuttoning his shirt, pushing his dark jeans down. He's aware of Alex, there on the bed--of course he is--but after everything her presence is more a comfort than an embarrassment. Down to his boxers, he pulls the t-shirt over his head and pads over to the vacant side of the bed.

"Think all this will make any more sense in the morning?"

[takecourage]

Alex might stare, fairly unashamedly, as Darlington undresses in front of her. Academically, she knows how much time he spends in the training room back in New Haven, but she's never seen him our of clothes before. His body is just as beautiful as his face, hard muscle and lean lines. Alex's eyes drop down to the right curve of his ass through the thin fabric of his boxers but she's looking at her coffee again by the time he turns around.

"I'll do my best," she says. "We can go and buy you some things, too."

[more_magic]

"We'll need to, won't we?" he says, his dark eyebrows ticking up as the fact of it dawns on him. Trapped here, far from home, all he has is what he arrived with. He nods, setting his coffee mug down on the nightstand before he climbs into bed, his long legs sliding beneath Alex's soft sheets.

"We'll go to that station you mentioned and get the packet, then go shopping. As good a plan as any." Another memory of those first sweltering days of their acquaintance occurs to him then, and he grins. "I imagine it's too much to hope Aunt Eileen is here to bankroll everything."

[takecourage]

Alex definitely does not look at Darlington's bare legs as they slide under the covers.

"'Fraid not," she says, setting down her coffee cup and lying down on her side facing him. "You do get an allowance from the city though. And if you've got plastic on you, it should still work."

[more_magic]

"Convenient," he says. "Thanks to the same people who put those packets together, I imagine."

The mention of an allowance makes him think about those lonely, lean years in the wake of his grandfather's death: the stack of bills filed away within the pages of 1776 growing thinner and thinner; coming home exhausted after a shift at the luncheonette or spreading manure at the park; afternoons at the library looking up auction catalogs and records in the hopes he wouldn't be cheated out of the value of whatever piece from the attic he planned to sell next.

He'd done it then. He could do it now, and this time, he wouldn't be alone.

Alex shifts, and Darlington's struck with the brief urge to brush her dark hair back behind her ear. Instead, he moves to lie back himself, pulling the covers so they settle easily around their shoulders. "Tomorrow's a new day. A new lot of things, come to think."

[takecourage]

"Mhmm" says Alex, fighting the urge to curl up into the warmth of him, just watching his face instead.

"There's a University. Lots of businesses and things. I need to go out and get a job. Don't know if I'm cut out for classes here."

[more_magic]

The corner of Darlington's mouth turns down just slightly when she says that, dismisses her own capabilities, because he doesn't think it's true--and because, at one time not long ago at all, he had.

"Of course you are," he says. "If you want to sign up, you should."

[takecourage]

Alex rolls one shoulder in a shrug. "I don't even know what I'd study. I don't know whether you'll be able transfer your credits or whatever." She stifles a yawn and rubs the tip of her nose against her pillow. "I'm just...really glad you're here."

[more_magic]

"I'll go by the campus and talk to someone," he says, an odd, warm ember sparking to life in his chest as he sees the way she nuzzles sleepily at the pillow. "If as many people as you say wind up here from elsewhere, they have to have a...protocol in place. Something."

He pushes up onto one elbow, looking down at her for a moment. "As am I," he says. "If we have to be trapped in a pocket universe, I'd rather it be together." He gives her a smile, then turns away to switch off the light on his side of the bed. "Sleep well, Stern."

[takecourage]

"You too, Darlington," she says, rolling onto her side and snapping off the light. Later, when his breathing has gone slow and shallow, she rolls over again, just watching his face while he sleeps, a few slow, silent tears slipping into the pillow.

It's a long time before she manages to fall asleep.