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[takecourage]

She really doesn't know why they bother having two apartments at all, not when they're both much happier when they're in the same one. They cook together, they eat together, they sprawl on one sofa watching movies. They took the time to ward both places, with Bramford being as deeply haunted as it as. Riddled with grays. Alex feels them wash over her the minute she steps into the hallway but, in either of the apartments, she trusts him to keep her safe.

"What are you even doing?" she asks.

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[takecourage]

She doesn't let her get this close to people, to men, very often but, somehow, Darlington is different. He's safe, in a way that she's never really known before. He'd never let anything happen to her - not if he could get in the way of it first.

"What are you in the mood for?"

[more_magic]

He doesn't think often about what lies in his future, that dark basement in Rosenfeld and the way he'll apparently end there, the victim of another mystery that not even Alex knows whether they solve at the new moon. But when he does, when he lets himself stray down that path, he comes away almost grateful it ends up being him, instead of her.

It's no valiant sacrifice, no defending sword in hand, but perhaps not everything has to be.

"Maybe a movie, if there's a good one on?" he says, back in the here and now where things are warm and light and comfortable; where they're together just like this, and safe. "Something easy to follow, since..." He inclines his head towards the wine bottle, already less than half-full. "And dinner's not even here yet."

[takecourage]

"It's good wine, Brent," says Alex absently as she clicks through the channels, shifting her weight against him to get a little bit more comfortable. One of the channels is showing Dirty Dancing and she leaves that on, the sound turned down low.

[more_magic]

He smiles--and, yes, rolls his eyes a bit--at the reference. "That it is." Good enough that he bought another bottle during his last grocery run. Not that they strictly need it tonight, but it's there--for another evening just like this, maybe.

They've caught the movie only a little ways into its run, and as she gets more comfortable beside him, Darlington watches the screen, already only half-paying attention.

[takecourage]

Alex hasn't seen this movie for a while, since she was a kid, maybe, and it's easy to get wrapped up in, sipping her wine, curled up against Darlington's side. He smells both good and familiar, like soap and wine and whatever he uses in the shower.

It's so good.

[more_magic]

The delivery guy calls a short time later, and Darlington gets up to buzz him in, grabbing money from both his wallet and Alex's to make up the charge. He shuffles back and forth, getting plates and silverware, laying out the foil-wrapped packet of naan and the plastic tubs of curries and rice on the coffee table. A few times, he glances at Alex, watching her as she takes in the action onscreen, somehow more relaxed in this moment than he's ever seen.

He likes the way it looks, that quiet bit of happiness.

Settling down again, he grabs the wine, dividing the last traces of it between their glasses before starting to fill up one of the plates for himself. "This place is always so good," he says, passing Alex the rice, their fingertips bumping gently in the transfer.

[takecourage]

If it had been anyone else it might have seemed like a smooth move, that brush of fingers against hers. But Darlington just doesn't work like that. Alex loads her own plate before she leans back on the sofa.

"Second best place in town."

[more_magic]

"Yeah?" he says, looking back at her as she shifts position. With their plates, they can't remain as comfortably pressed together as they'd been, but they still stay close. It seems they both want that tonight. "What do you class as the first, then?"

It'll be the place near the boardwalk, he's almost certain, but Darlington finds himself curious to hear the answer.

[takecourage]

"Boardwalk place, obviously," she says, tearing up naan bread into pieces before she starts to eat. "I have literally never had better seafood in my life. But this place is pretty solid, too. Though I do kind of miss Yorkside Pizza, not going to lie."

[more_magic]

"None of the pizza places here really compare, do they?" he says. "They're good, but they're not Yorkside."

For a moment Darlington wishes they were there, rather than here; splitting a pizza, maybe, or devouring bowls of Yorkside's signature avgolemono soup on a cold winter night. Talking and laughing, long after the meal was over and the dishes cleared away. Just being together, like they are now. The thought of it makes him smile as he lifts his wineglass to his lips and takes a drink.

"Good thing they'll be around forever, no matter what else changes."

[takecourage]

"That's Lethe, right?" she says, sipping her own wine. "We did that." Maybe the only person that she's ever been this comfortable on her own with is Hellie, and look how that turned out. But maybe they were always going to be a disaster, the two of them - burning too bright from both ends?

[more_magic]

"We did," he says, only slightly wry. "One of the benefits of all that power."

That, and a restaurant owner more savvy than all the Houses of the Veil had anticipated. Maybe it was strange to be proud of that man, holding his own against a long-ago Lethe delegate trying their best to explain and compel away the presence of a living dead girl in a pizza oven, but Darlington was a local and devoted son of New Haven long before he was ever a shepherd of Lethe.

He looks over at Alex again, seeing the quieter expression on her face. He'd never call it softness--not where she can hear him, at least--but there's something easier in it all the same. "Enjoying yourself, Stern?"

[takecourage]

"You know what? I am," she says, stamping on the little flicker of defensiveness she feels before she's ever really thought about it. Darlington doesn't mean it as a criticism, and she knows it. She scoops up a bit more of her food, popping it into her mouth. "Good food, classic cinema. So-so company. What's not to like?"

[more_magic]

"So-so?" he laughs. "My standing's improved, it seems." The wine's already made him a little warmer and loose, more expansive; it's easy to lean into her slightly, just for a moment before he shifts to reach for another piece of naan.

"I'm glad you're having a good night. Honestly."

[takecourage]

"What about you?" she asks, distracted, for a moment, by the way his shirt rides up to reveal a sliver of skin at the small of his back as he leans. "Are you having a good time?"

[more_magic]

He doesn't entirely expect the pair of questions, the way she asks them, and the slight surprise of it makes him go quiet and thoughtful. "Yeah," he says, the word honest in its simplicity. "I am. Second-best food in town, decent wine, better than usual company." He smiles at the faint echo of Alex's own list. "I like that we've started doing this here. Nights like this."

[takecourage]

"Yeah," she says, shocked by just how much she feels it. "Me too. Maybe it would have been like this back home, too. If we'd got the chance. It kind of was...a few times. Remember that time when we got soaked?"

[more_magic]

He'd been about to say the same thing, express some gratitude for what feels like being granted a second chance at this. He'd held back instead, on some level fearing that making even the faintest reference to why this kind of thing hadn't been possible might bring on that stark and stricken look he's seen from her before.

The one he hates, every single time.

Alex brings it up instead, chasing it with a reminder of happier times, and somehow that's easier to take. "I like to think it would've been," he says, the wine--he thinks it's the wine--loosening his tongue a bit, keeping him in this moment of more genuine honesty. He calls up that memory of the rainstorm, the way they'd sat in the drive at Black Elm, debating whether to wait it out in the car before Alex declared she was just going to run for it. It was Darlington who had the keys to the house, so what else could he do but follow her?

"I do remember that," he says, swirling the wine in his glass a bit as he talks, the motion idle and thoughtless. "Lying by the fire, music on the stereo. Finding a bucket, when I realized the roof had sprung another leak."

[takecourage]

She's flustered, for a moment, by the memory of his bare feet. It still feels absurd (especially here, where she's used to him padding around the apartment without shoes and socks) but it had felt almost as intimate as seeing him naked, at the time.

"All those fucking leaks," she says, eating the last bite of her food and then setting down the plate, settling more comfortable into the curve of the sofa with her wine glass.

[more_magic]

"It's a constant process," he says, though there's more fondness than exasperation in the complaint. Black Elm was his, for good or ill, and most days he wouldn't have it any other way.

Alex moves and settles, something odd and unreadable on her face for a moment that he's almost moved to ask about, until it passes away again. His own plate set down, he stretches his arm back along the cushions of the sofa once more. With the way she's sitting, his fingertips are close enough to brush against a few strands of her hair.

[takecourage]

He touches her hair and Alex has to ride out the dizzying urge to lean into his touch. She nudges him with her toe.

"It did suit you, being there."

[more_magic]

"Rattling around in my ancestral manse, fighting the ravages of time, you mean?" He has to say it, make that joke, because it pushes aside the inexplicable thought he had when she nudged him with her foot; to move his hand, curving it around that slim ankle. Not for power or control, just to hold her. Just to be in contact that little bit more.

He doesn't understand it at all--and understands it perfectly at the same time.

"I'm flattered, Alex."

[takecourage]

She loves it - when he says her name like that, not Stern, but Alex. The name she christened herself with.

"You're welcome, Danny," she says, draining the last of her wine, pouting just a little bit.

[more_magic]

He's hardly ever Danny to anyone, not since the death of his grandfather, but to hear it from Alex sounds quite nearly perfect. All he can do is grin, and so he does; something slow and pleased, comfortable in the same way the whole evening has been so far. Alex finishes her glass, the corners of her mouth turning down, and the sight moves him to speech before he's even thought about what to say.

"There's more, if you want."

[takecourage]

He smiles like that and Alex almost forgets how to breathe for a minute. She holds out her glass to him and, this time, their fingers definitely brush.

"Let's do it."