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“I can’t do this.” Alex and Darlington were alone at Il Bastone, Dawes having temporarily, reluctantly, left her roost in the parlor for the shabby comfort of her grad dorm. The room was darkening, the last vestiges of dusk making their way through the curtained windows, threading the air with dying golden beams the color of honey, the color of Darlington’s servitude to Alex.
“And if I wish to serve you in this way?” Darlington turned from where he had been standing in profile, watching the sunset, to look at Alex, sitting as she was on the couch, Life of Lethe fallen open on her lap.
Alex sighed. “Is it truly service if I neither want nor need it?”
“You and I seem to have differing definitions of ‘want’ and ‘need’.”
“And what do you want, Darlington? If you and I have such ‘differing definitions’, then, what do you want?”
“I have said it previously. I wish only to serve you ‘til the end of days.” He took a step, two steps closer, looming. Gold flashed in his eyes.
“You can serve me in ways other than this. And, you’re deflecting. I asked Darlington, the man, not the demon.” Alex shifted, placing Life of Lethe on the low table to the right of the couch and folding her legs underneath her, raising herself up to closer to Darlington’s height, daring him to come closer, to do something.
“What if the man wants the same as the demon?” He was a foot away from her now, but his expression, shadowed from lack of sunlight, flickered, coloring briefly with something closer to doubt, uncertainty.
Alex scoffed. “Then I don’t believe him.”
“Why?” That singular word was more of a growl than speech.
“Because you’re not called ‘Darlington’ for no reason. Hell, you’re not called the ‘Gentleman Demon’ for no reason. ‘Golden boy of Lethe’. ‘Gentleman of Lethe’. Aren’t these your names?”
Alex, feeling as though she ought to do something supremely stupid now (but then again, when had she ever not?), such as letting her guard drop before a demon — albeit, a demon bound to serve her — gave into the ache in her neck and relaxed backward into the couch cushions. Why did he have to be so tall? Unfair.
“They are. So, why do my names convince you so greatly that I must not want this?”
“Names have power. They speak to a part of you, or all of you. You wouldn’t be called by them if they weren’t true.”
“Nice subjunctive.” He appeared genuine, not as if he were making fun of her.
Alex laughed. “Gentleman scholar. That’s another one.”
Darlington’s face was now very close to hers, almost uncomfortably so. “What if I tell you that I don’t want to be a gentleman anymore? That my hunger for you, my desire for you, grows so great that I burn with the urge to lay you down on that couch and finally, finally, worship you like the acolyte I am?”
“Then I’d say that that is the demon talking, not the man who was once a neglected boy and who now has only the rotting remnants of the past to call his own, outdated manners included.”
Alex tried to move away, out of the range of his reach, an unbidden thrill running down her spine at the very thought of Darlington doing just what he had said, but he placed his hands on the back of the couch, bracketing her in place, his face mere inches away from hers. Ocean blue eyes, nearly black in the three-quarter darkness, bore into her, windows to the soul, portals to what-probably-never-should-have-been.
“I can’t be the only one who thinks daily, near constantly, of the Manuscript party.” Darlington whispered, confessing it as if it were a Lenten sin.
“You’re not. But I’ve been forced to do things that I didn’t necessarily want, either at the time or afterward. You were dosed with a date-rape drug, Darlington. Look me in the eyes right now and tell me that you had those same desires before Manuscript took away your control.”
His eyes finally, thankfully, left her face, focusing on a bit of detailed paneling on the wall behind her. “I can’t. But that doesn’t make this any less real.”
Alex laughed for the second time. “Darlington, what is real? I can fucking see ghosts, touch them, be possessed by them; you survived a jaunt into Hell of all fucking places and came back a demon of all fucking things, so what is fucking real?”
He turned back to her, an intense emotion, not rage, not lust, but something else, something perhaps in-between, something perhaps not-fully-human, in his expression, in his eyes. “This is fucking real, Stern.”
Without warning, his hot mouth was on hers, his arms sliding down the couch cushions to around her back, crushing her against his — admittedly nice and firm — chest. She didn’t know whose mouth slanted first, who deepened the kiss, but her hands wandered across the planes of his body as if of their own volition, one tangling into his hair, searching as if for the horns that weren’t currently there, the other gripping his ass. Either his tongue was in her mouth, or her tongue was in his, or perhaps it was both, but all she could focus on was a large, warm hand working its way up under her shirt, grasping at the clasp to her bra at her back.
A memory came to her, more than a year past: Darlington in the Beinecke, Hiram’s elixir coating his throat, profanity slipping past his lips. I class profanity with declarations of love. Best used sparingly and only when wholeheartedly meant.
She broke away from him, pressing herself back, away from him, bringing her hands around to his chest. His head moved as if to follow her lips, eyes fractionally open, before he registered the resistance of her arms and shifted his weight, resting on his haunches.
She was the first to speak, half-croaking, “I-I don’t think we should do this. You’re … my mentor; doesn’t this violate Lethe rules and guidelines?”
His face was fully hidden in darkness now. “Now you care about violating regulations?” He moved back a bit farther. “Or, do you not want to do this with me?” His voice was still deeper than usual, a throaty quality to it that was never there before his trip to Spain.
Alex felt indignation welling up in her, bubbling over. “What? No. Get back, please. I need some space.”
Darlington stood fully, his marks glinting at his wrists and throat, generating a light of their own. “You want space from me?” He looked pained.
Alex stood, deliberately staying a few feet away from him, out of arms’ reach. “Not from you, never from you. I didn’t open a gate to Hell, twice, and hold your soul next to mine just to stay away from you. I just … I think it’s best to … to take things more slowly. We … both of us, we’re not used to anything close to a healthy, well-adjusted relationship; I don’t even think either of us could be considered healthy and well-adjusted. We probably both have some sort of ptsd from that little research trip to Spain, most definitely each have childhood ptsd … who the fuck neglects a child for the sake of wealth and a legacy; at least my mother cared enough to attempt to fix me even if she didn’t, doesn’t, know what’s wrong, and…” She realized she had begun to ramble and trailed off, no longer certain of what she was saying or how he would perceive it.
Darlington took a breath, another, the planes of his chest rising and falling with the effort. His marks slowly faded, which Alex hoped was a sign that he was calming down. Minutes passed before he spoke. “I … I see. I can feel that the demon is not fully satisfied, but if this is the way in which you wish for me to serve you, and if it allows for me to better serve you in the future, I will accept it. We can… go slowly.”
Alex smiled, even though he probably couldn’t see it in the dark. “Good. Join me on the couch? Just to sit, not like I’m gonna jump your demon bones.”
She sat again and was gratified when Darlington joined her. Her head slowly found its way to his shoulder, his arm coming up to wrap around her back.
“Hey, Darlington?”
“Yes, Stern?” From the placement of her head, she could hear his voice reverberate through his chest.
“Do you think we’re friends yet?”
Darlington barked out a laugh. “God, Stern. You held my soul, and now you ask that?”