(no subject)

[takecourage]

Alex has never really understood Valentine's day but she's gone and got herself a boyfriend who's deeply, ridiculously romantic. For a few weeks now, she's been planning a response to Darlington's confession about wanting to be the one up on the stage.

She's sitting on the couch, wearing a pair of shorts and her corset, a pair of sleek black heels with ribbons wrapped around her ankles and up towards her knees. There's a riding crop across her thighs.

She waits.

Comments

[more_magic]

"I wouldn't want it every time either," he confirms, letting the tug to his hair draw him up the bed until he's lying along her side. "But it's something I do want to revisit. Maybe find other things we can try, as long as we're both interested."

His face is still a mess, his ass still aching from the way she'd struck him with the crop, but the kiss he drops to her shoulder contains nothing but tenderness. "I'd do just about anything with you."

[takecourage]

"Same," she says, leaning in to brush the end of her nose against his. "Even...if it's things that I've tried before and hated. With...You know. I think I'd be happy to try them again with you."

[more_magic]

He feels the same stab of loathing for Leonard Beacon as he always does at any mention of him, but right now, with Alex safe and secure beside him, it's something much fainter; easier to push aside and smile at the soft brush of Alex's nose against his instead.

"And if they're still not enjoyable," he says, his hand smoothing along her hip, "then we'll discard them outright. And immediately."

[takecourage]

"I know that," says Alex, nodding, her nose brushing his again. "I don't think I've ever trusted anyone like I trust you. It's...worth a lot."

[more_magic]

"I'm glad," he says, and means it. If he thinks about how differently things turn out back home, that rift that forms between them and sends him an ocean away, it's only for a moment. That isn't happening here; in Darrow, they have a chance to make something new.

"It's...something I want to live up to," he adds, his eyes searching hers for a moment. "That trust. Your trust." Said aloud, it sounds romantic and sentimental, something he half-expects her to laugh at, and rightfully so. None of that makes it any less true.