takecourage | (no subject)

Living with Darlington is a very different experience to living with anyone else that Alex has ever shared space with. With Mira, there was all kinds of attempts at rules and structure that never really worked out, while Ground Zero had been chaos of the ugliest kind. Her dorm room had been nice, the girls there for company, the sound of Mercy breathing at night. She'd never really had a chance to sleep at il Bastogne.

But here they are.

They haven't really done anything all day, just slept late and then lazed around in each other's company. She'd even managed to talk Darlington out of going for a run. Now, they're lying on the couch, their legs tangled together comfortably. Darlington's reading and Alex is idly flipping through cable channels. She nudges him with her heel against his thigh.

"Your turn to cook," she says, glancing at him.

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From:

more_magic

Though he's yet to break the lease on his assigned apartment--if nothing else, it's good to have another secure, warded place elsewhere in the city--ever since things had shifted and solidified between them at the end of January, Darlington's been spending nearly all his time at Alex's place in the Bramford. Most of his clothes have migrated over, a few stacks of his books, and bit by bit, they're combining their lives in a way he'd never done with anyone before.

He wouldn't, he thinks, want to do it with anyone else.

Alex's foot presses against his thigh, and Darlington looks up, his blue eyes amused behind the rims of his glasses. "It's about that time, isn't it?" he says, slotting his bookmark back into place. "Any particular requests?"

From:

takecourage

She loves it when he looks at her like that, when he wears his glasses, looks ruffled and relaxed in a way that she'd never seen him before Darrow, not even that evening that they stretched out on the floor of Black Elm after the rain.

"I don't know?" she says, stretching one arm over her head. "Something nice."

From:

more_magic

"I can do nice," he says, watching the way she stretches, the sleeve of the sweater she's wearing--one of his--riding up along her arm and exposing the swirl of her tattoos. He's seen Alex in so many different outfits and in nothing at all, but the sight of her in his clothes is one of his favorites. "I think there's still some chicken in the fridge, I'll come up with something."

Disentangling himself from their pile of blankets, Darlington gets up from the couch, barefoot and casual in his own pair of sweats and a longsleeved t-shirt. "Want anything to drink before I start? I'll probably have to open a bottle of wine for the recipe anyway."

From:

takecourage

He stands up and Alex is, as always, distracted by the outline of his cock through sweats. Of she could persuade him to be constantly naked at home, she definitely would.

"Hmmm?"

From:

more_magic

"I asked if you wanted something to drink, Stern," he says, grinning as he notes the line of her gaze. He stays exactly where he is, standing within arm's reach of her with his sweats just slightly low on his hips. "Hadn't meant to pull your focus elsewhere."

From:

takecourage

"It's been like, four hours since we had sex," says Alex, like that explains everything. She grins, looking up at his face. "Wine would be good. And, like...a soda too? Please."

From:

more_magic

"One of the longer reprieves you've given me." Alex looks up at him, that bright happiness written in every line of her features, and Darlington bends to kiss her, his hand tucking a strand of her hair behind her ear as he does so. "Wine and a soda it is."

He goes to the kitchen, taking a bottle of white wine from the fridge along with a can of soda, then finding glasses for both. With both drinks poured, he brings them back to the living room and sets them on the coffee table where Alex can reach.

From:

takecourage

"You love it," says Alex, pushing up onto one elbow and reaching for her soda first, taking a long swallow before she sets it down and reaches for her wine. "And you know it."

From:

more_magic

"All too well," he says, quiet and fond as he grins down at her. Even swaddled in blankets and that loose sweater of his, she's gorgeous. She always is, to him. "Dinner shouldn't take more than an hour to throw together, if that."

As he turns towards the kitchen, he adds, almost conversationally, "There should be about half an hour where everything's just in the oven."

From:

takecourage

"Well, that's definitely interesting information." Alex sits up a little more, taking a sip of her wine. "Given anymore though to anything else you'd like to try?"

From:

more_magic

He's been enjoying the ease and laziness with which they've approached the day--in all its facets--but he can't deny the slight flip his stomach does when she asks him that. "A bit," he admits, looking through the pantry and the fridge for the ingredients he needs and laying everything out on the counter. "What about you? Any clever ideas?"

From:

takecourage

They'd had sex that morning, all lazy kisses and slow movements, but this is something else. Alex glances at him over the rim of her wine glass, moving around in the kitchen, just casually objectifying him for a minute.

"I don't think it really ought to be up to me, babe."

From:

more_magic

Even from here, Darlington can feel how Alex watches him, something possessive in the flash of her eyes when they glance his way. It's almost become commonplace.

"We're both in this together," he reminds her, unwrapping the chicken and starting to season it with a blend of salt and pepper. "Making sure we're each okay with what we want to try. You get a choice in this too, Stern."

From:

takecourage

"We are," she says, and there's something very comforting in that. She gets more comfortable so that she's not craning her neck to look at him. "But it's more about something that you're figuring out about yourself, Danny. I'm into it, I promise. And if I'm not, I'm a big enough girl to tell you."

From:

more_magic

"All of that's true," he says, adding oil to a skillet and setting it on the stove to heat. His experience, up to now, hadn't included much of anything like their push and pull of obedience and control--at least not consciously. But he wouldn't have trusted any of his prior partners with it the way he does Alex. He knows the truth of that, too. "And god knows there's been plenty to figure out."

When the oil is shimmering in the pan, Darlington starts adding the chicken, the skin sizzling as it begins to brown. Though he's focused and quiet, he hasn't stopped considering Alex's question. "Would you tie me down?" he asks after a moment, one corner of his mouth tilting up as he looks over at her. "Or up. I've thought about both."

From:

takecourage

Alex thinks about that for a moment. She hates the idea of being tied up or down herself, but only because it was something that Len had wanted to try a couple of times and it hadn't turned out particularly fun for her - like so many things Len had wanted to try.

Eventually, though, she nods.

"Yeah. I'd do that for you."

From:

more_magic

He waits as she thinks it through, giving her that space to consider and knowing instinctively that he'll accept whatever the answer turns out to be. It doesn't work any other way. When she nods, he smiles.

"Okay. Thank you, Alex."

From:

takecourage

"What do you want me to do to you once I've got you tied down?" she asks, shifting her hips under the blanket, working hard to ignore the flicker of warmth between her thighs as she watches him, what he's doing with his hands completely incongruous with the conversation that they're having.

From:

more_magic

"I'd be a little at your mercy, wouldn't I?" he asks, trying to ignore the shiver of need that goes through him at the thought. He turns the chicken over, starting it browning on the other side. "Could do just about anything."

It's not an answer, and not even the kind of evasion he wants to give. Darlington cooks for another few minutes in silence, thinking. "Toy with me," he says, and though his voice is a little low, he knows Alex will be listening for every word. "Pull my hair, play with my nipples, stroke me until I'm hard and on the edge. But make sure I know I'm not allowed to come, until you say."

From:

takecourage

"You would," says Alex. She takes another sip of her wine, her mouth suddenly gone dry at the thought of it, especially when he starts listing what she could do to him while he's like that. "Would be a good time to play with things that hurt you, too. If you wanted."

From:

more_magic

He nods, not trusting himself to speak--not trusting himself to drop it entirely, given the sudden images that spring to his mind--as he slides the skillet with the chicken into the oven to finish roasting. "Nothing new, I don't think," he says at last. "At least at first. Only ways you've hurt me before."

He washes his hands, then sets the dial on the kitchen timer and finds a knife in the block by the stove. "You could ignore me almost entirely, come to think," he says, striving for that conversational tone from before even as the need that settled in his belly grows a little stronger. "Tie me down, then get yourself off while all I can do is watch." He'd washed some new potatoes at the start of his dinner prep; now, he halves the ones that are a little too big to roast whole, adding them to a bowl along with some spears of asparagus.

From:

takecourage

"That does sound like it would be fun," says Alex, shifting her weight so that she can turn to look at him properly, watching him as he moves around in the kitchen. "But not as much fun as getting to play with you would be."

From:

more_magic

"Can't argue with that," he says, tossing the potatoes and asparagus with some olive oil and a sprinkling of the flaky sea salt he'd picked up at a gourmet shop downtown the week before, then spreading them all out on a pan and adding it to the oven to roast. "What if you combined the two? Played with me, and...used me, for your own pleasure?"

Darlington sets the items he's dirtied already in the sink, aware as he moves that he's already started to grow hard. He bites his lip, adjusting his sweats. "Tie me down. Sit on my face. Whatever you'd like."

From:

takecourage

"Now that sounds like something that would be really fun," she says, with a broad grin. She watches the way he adjusts him, sweats doing nothing to disguise the hard line of his cock. "Use the crop on you too?"

From:

more_magic

He groans at that, low and immediate. "I think I could permit that."

There's more he could do while the chicken and the vegetables cook, things he could prepare for the pan sauce, but he goes back out to the living room--to Alex--instead. "Don't know if we could manage any of that right now," he says, "but there's twenty minutes to go until I have to take everything out of the oven."