What are you doing New Year's Eve?

[takecourage]

They step off the tram and walk up to the lodge together and Alex...really hadn't been prepared for how beautiful it all is. She's glad she went with the fancier dress now, velvet, off the shoulder, cut below the knee and paired with spike black heels with straps that wrap around her ankles. She'd have felt underdresssed in anything else.

She blows out a breath and, for a moment, she almost shrinks behind Darlington, trusting him to protect her from the unknown.

"I...don't think I'm going to fit in here," she says.

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[takecourage]

Alex has seen a version of this routine before, after her first ritual at Aurelian, when she'd been so frightened and fucked up so badly. Then, his cold fury had, at least in part, been directed at her whereas now she can just stand back and watch it happen. It occurs to her to feel guilty, for a moment - it's not Arnold's fault, obviously, but she's just so pathetically grateful. And, honestly, Daniel Tabor Arlington V in full flow is something to be admired. She stands silent at his side and, when he finally wheels her towards the elevator, she lets out a shaky breath. She manages to hold herself together until the elevator doors close and then she all but collapses into a heap of slightly hysterical giggles.

"Holy shit."

[more_magic]

The doors close and Alex breaks, sagging against him as she laughs, and Darlington's not far behind, his shoulders shaking with the force of his own relieved and delighted mirth. "Christ, I'm an awful person, Stern," he sighs, leaning against the back wall of the elevator. "Remind me to leave a tip or something for that poor kid before we go."

For as bad as he feels, his relief that it had worked more than makes up for it. They're one step closer to someplace smaller and safer, more easily warded for the night with the supplies they'd brought with them. Though it won't be the same as the bright and festive party still in full swing downstairs, it'll be theirs.

They exit the elevator when it stops and find their room, large and a little rustic, with what promises to be a gorgeous view of the mountain peak just outside when the morning comes. It's lovely, but Darlington only takes a moment to admire it before he turns his focus back to Alex. "I'll just put up something temporary for the night," he says, faint concern still present behind his eyes as he looks at her. "Though equally as safe."

[takecourage]

"You're fucking terrible," she says. "I mean, I've been on the receiving of you being pissed off, but that...that was something else." She straightens up, smoothing her hair back into place with her fingers, straightening the line of her dress. When she walks into the room, Alex lets out a low whistle. She's literally never been in a hotel room like this in her life. She wanders over to the window, staring out at the mountain, then looking down to the patio below, the grays so numerous that, from above, they look like a flood.

She glances back over her shoulder.

"Yes, please," she says. Until she started spending time in warded places, she didn't realise how noisy her life was most of the time.

[more_magic]

She stands there, her hair flowing dark and straight over the pale curve of her shoulder, and the sight is more striking than he ever could have imagined. "Right away," he murmurs, taking one of the chalks of ash he'd bought a few days ago out of his jacket pocket as he turns towards the door.

He draws the usual marks of protection along the jamb and lintel, strengthening them with scatterings of grave dirt from the vials they'd brought, then does the same to the window. They'll wipe them away in the morning, clean up the traces like they always had at home, but for tonight they'll be safe within their bounds. As he works, he can't help glancing occasionally at Alex, hoping to see some kind of relaxation in the tense line of her posture.

[takecourage]

Alex's watches him work on the door in the reflection in the window, shifting out of the way when he needs to get to the full width of the window. As he works, the grays that had followed them in leak out of the room until it's entirely quiet, entirely still. Alex kicks off her shoes and sits down on the bed, her legs tucked to one side of her. She lets out a long, slow breath. It's so quiet. It feels like being bathed in golden light.

[more_magic]

Darlington draws the last sigil, shakes out the last little pile of dirt into the corner of the windowsill, and then it's done. Though he's not affected by their protection in the same way, and would never have cause to be, even he can feel his pulse slow a fraction and the faint tightness in his chest ease to nothing. Putting the nub of chalk back in his pocket, he goes to where Alex is curled on the bed, the skirt of her dress spread out around her.

For a moment, he almost reaches out--to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, or curve his hand along her cheek, or to do something else entirely.

"Better?" he asks instead, settling into a slightly overstuffed armchair nearby, his eyes still on her as she takes those slow and steady breaths.

[takecourage]

Alex nods, her ink dark eyes wide and watchful for a long moment before she smiles. She's not sure that anyone has ever looked at her in the particular way that Darlington does; she's not sure that she always likes feeling so seen.

"I'm sorry," she says. "I know this...isn't how you planned New Year's going."

[more_magic]

"Don't apologize, Alex," he says, shaking his head faintly to underscore the words. "A night like this, a party like the one downstairs...it's everything we both know they love." They'd done their best with what they had, brought supplies and tried to stay on alert; though they'd needed to make a hastier retreat than Darlington, at least, had assumed, he doesn't see it as a defeat in any terms.

"Besides," he adds, "we can still manage a few of the things we'd planned, even in here. That dance I'd promised you, for one, and--" There's a knock at the door, and he stops talking for a moment, looking towards the sound. His smile brightens into something closer to a grin.

"And champagne, for another."

[takecourage]

"I'd like that," she says, talking about the dancing, the champagne, all of it. He looks handsome in his dark suit and she just leans back against the mound of white pillows, watching as he moves to the door, opening it and tipping the guy who bought it like it's the most natural thing in the world.

"You look like you were made for a place like this."

[more_magic]

There's a faintly nervous-looking bellhop on the other side of the door, and Darlington has to swallow back an odd mixture of guilt and amusement. If he had to guess, he'd say Arnold had forewarned his colleague.

He takes the ice bucket and pair of flutes from the kid, handing him a folded twenty in exchange--along with a hastily-sealed envelope from the hotel stationery in the desk drawer, containing a pair of fifties and Arnold's name scrawled on the front. "Can you make sure he gets this?" he asks, nodding his thanks as the bellhop turns away. "Happy New Year." Nudging the door shut with his heel, Darlington picks up the champagne and threads the thin stems of the glasses through his fingers, carrying them over to Alex.

"I don't know that I can dispute that, entirely," he admits, handing Alex one of the flutes and setting the other down on the bedside table before starting to unwrap the foil from the top of the champagne bottle. "Even if I thought you'd believe me if I did." At times, the ease he projects feels as much like something he's learned as piano and Mandarin and boxing had when he was younger; a thing to practice at until he'd understood it as thoroughly as he can. He doesn't know how to explain that to someone like Alex, for whom challenge must have always held a different and darker meaning entirely. It's not the same.

The cork gives with an audible pop, and Darlington fills Alex's glass and then his own, before settling on the edge of the bed.

[takecourage]

Her pours her a glass of champagne and then all but perches on the side of the bed. Alex shifts, stretching out her leg so that she can nudge him with stocking clad toes.

"Please tell me you're going to get more comfortable than that?"

[more_magic]

Somehow, maybe at some point in the stretch of time that separates them both, Alex has learned how to bring him out of the pensive whirl his thoughts can become with just the touch of her hand. Or in this case, her foot. He looks over, down at the line of it in those sheer stockings, the delicate knobble of her ankle bone and the slight chips in the nail polish on her toes. He thinks about reaching out, taking hold of her, but all he does is nod.

"I was just taking a moment, Stern." It only strikes him as an odd thing to say once it's out.

Darlington looks away, standing back up to take off his jacket and lay it at the foot of the bed. Maybe it's just because Alex had already kicked off her heels, but he toes out of his dress shoes as well, leaving them at the side of the bed before he comes back to sit next to Alex, his back against the carved wood headboard and his long legs stretched out atop the sheets. "Does this meet with your exacting approval?"

[takecourage]

She takes a moment to study him, mostly pretending, but actually letting herself linger for a moment - on his profile, the swoop of dark hair across his forehead, the crisp lines of him under his shirt and dress pants. She wishes Caleb hadn't said anything, about butterflies, about any of it but, now he has, she can't stop noticing it.

"You'll do for now, I guess," she says, sipping her champagne.

[more_magic]

He'd been flip in asking the question, but in the wake of it Alex looks him over with something unreadable in her eyes, and Darlington can't shake the sense he's being somehow assessed. Nor the sense, a moment later, that he wants so badly to measure up. He could say something, but doesn't, once again left at a slight and unexplainable loss for words; a feeling he's coming to find so familiar where Alex is concerned.

Whatever that look is, whatever odd tension settles between them, it's put aside as Alex looks away once more and murmurs her assessment--one just as dismissive and dry as the query it's responding to. That's how they are with each other, after all.

"Generous of you," he says in return, reaching for his own glass.

[takecourage]

"What can I say?" says Alex, smirking now, squirming around a little to her herself more comfortable on the bed. "You bring it out in me."

[more_magic]

Darlington breathes out a laugh, watching her burrow and settle further next to him, the pillows plush and white at both of their backs. "I am meant to be a good influence on you, Dante," he says, tapping his glass against hers in a toast. "Glad to see it's finally had an effect."

There's voices in the corridor outside then, laughing and drunkenly boisterous; curious, Darlington looks at his watch. "Half an hour to midnight," he says. "We've almost made it."

[takecourage]

"You make it sound like it's something to be got through," she says, raising her dark eyebrows. "This isn't Manuscript, Darlington. You can relax."

[more_magic]

"I know it's not Manuscript," he says, a faint flush touching his cheeks at the reminder of that night. What he could recall of it, more accurately, the bits of reality and fantasy and desire all still too knotted together for him to pick apart cleanly. He'd wanted her then--and there, and here, his world dividing that night without his awareness--in a way he'd never desired anything, something so sudden and strong he barely had words for it even now. "Thank god for that."

He takes another swallow of champagne. "I wasn't thinking of it as something to be got through, either," he admits. "More like a..." He exhales, making a vague gesture with his free hand. "The closing of one book, maybe, and approaching the start of something new."

[takecourage]

"That sounds better, at least," says Alex, draining the rest of her champagne and teaching forward to refill her glass. "I have literally never been I'm a place this nice. Other than Il Bastogne. Remind me to take a bath or something before I leave."

[more_magic]

"It is lovely," he agrees. "Not in the same way, of course, but...beautiful for what it is."

Alex leans forward, over him a little as she reaches for the bottle, her dress making a soft sound against the sheets as she moves. Maybe it's because it had just been on his mind, but for a moment Darlington has a flash of his vision from before, of kneeling at her feet as that dark silk dress slid from her body. This isn't that, as they'd already established; tonight's a night as different as it could ever be from the havoc Manuscript played with him on Halloween. Still, he thinks of it anyway.

He blinks, trying to make the action seem as natural as he can, taking the bottle from her and topping up his own glass once she's finished and sitting back once more.

"And I doubt you'll forget, Stern," he says, a faint smile on his lips as he raises his glass to take a drink. "Even if it can't be as nice as that tub at Il Bastone."

[takecourage]

"I remember thinking," she says, her dark eyes sparkling with barely repressed laughter as she sips her champagne, "that I couldn't imagine you sinking into a bubble bath to relax."

And, just like that, she's picturing him, suds and all that bare skin, and she takes another swig of champagne.

[more_magic]

Darlington laughs at that, unguarded and entirely without pretense, even as his face warms a couple degrees in a way he doubts he can blame on the champagne. Why she'd be imagining it in the first place, he couldn't say. Likely, it had been something from early on, maybe during the tour he'd given her that first day; a thought tinted with that hard-edged scorn she'd had for him up until only a few months ago. "Not very broadminded of you," he murmurs after a moment. "I'm disappointed."

He turns to look at her, taking in the shine of her dark eyes and the curl of her fingers around the stem of her glass, the line of her throat as she tips her head back to take another drink. Some sudden impulse makes him turn, setting his glass back down on the side table before leaning to pick up his jacket from the foot of the bed. His phone is in the inner pocket, and he pulls it out, calling up the music app.

"I realize I owe you a dance, Stern," he says, getting off the bed and holding his other hand out to her. "If you'd still care to collect."

[takecourage]

"I think I just couldn't imagine you relaxing."

Literally nobody has ever asked her to dance and, for a moment, Alex isn't sure what to say. She knocks back the rest of her champagne, feeling her head give a dizzy little flicker and then she sets down the glasses and she takes his hand.

"I'd love to."

[more_magic]

He's seen surprise on her face before, and wonder, but each time it happens he's struck anew by the way something about her seems to open; some secret and vulnerable heart revealed beneath the armor she carries so close. If he thought she'd tolerate it, he might even have said it was beautiful.

Alex's silence in the wake of his question stretches on a beat longer than he expected, and he nearly moves to sit back on the bed, content to dismiss the ridiculous impulse that had made him get up in the first place. But then she's gulping back her champagne, the motion just on the edge of reckless, and her hand is in his, and Darlington's glad once more that he'd heeded whatever had spurred him to this moment. He cues up a song, something slow that requires little thought to move along with, turning up the volume on his phone as he sets it down on the side table. Their ill-gotten room is large enough that there's plenty of open space, a makeshift dance floor of sorts between the bed and the wide window along one wall.

One hand still in hers, his other goes to her back, the velvet of her dress soft beneath his palm. "You were right, by the way," he says, his mouth ticking up in a smile. "I did take lessons. Now we'll see how much I remember."

He pauses a moment, listening for the beat, then starts to move them in a careful, easy box step.

[takecourage]

When he'd asked her to dance, Alex hadn't been expecting the fucking waltz and, at the same time, she has no idea why she's surprised. Because of course they're dancing like this. Because it's him. Automatically, she goes up onto her tiptoes, letting him lead her in the dance, her fingers threading with his after a moment. She's intensely aware of the weight of his hand on her back.

"How old were you?" she asks. "When you took the lessons?"