Chapter Text
Alex was rooting through the armory again, which was to say, Alex had made a mess of the armory again. Darlington wished that he could say he was surprised, but he wasn’t. It was true that she had grown so much that there were moments when he barely recognized her. More often than he cared to admit, he had to look twice and remind himself that it was really her, that she had exceeded every expectation he’d had of her, that he was no longer needed. Yet at the end of the day, Alex Stern was still Alex Stern, bound to leave a trail of chaos behind her everywhere she went. That she was more than worth the trouble she caused didn’t change the fact that there was going to be a mess.
The least that Darlington could do was clean up after her. Or, in cases where the mess was literal, make sure that she cleaned up after herself. And if she didn’t necessarily need him to do that either? It wasn’t like he had anything better to do.
“What are you doing in here, anyway?” he asked, eyeing the chest of books that she was currently in the process of putting back into order after having haphazardly emptied them out. He would say that he hoped she hadn’t damaged any of them, but he trusted that she hadn’t. It was a surreal feeling.
“Looking around,” Alex said, head buried in the chest as she sorted through its insides. Darlington’s chest warmed with something akin to pride at the thought that she might actually be organizing it. “We have a collection of wonders. Wouldn’t it be irresponsible of me not to take the opportunity to learn everything I can about them?”
“A collection of wonders.” The corner of his mouth turned up. “You sound like me now.”
Alex pulled her head out off the chest to raise an eyebrow at him. “Is that a bad thing?”
“I would have expected you to take it as an insult.”
Alex wrinkled her nose. “I may have lost my mind a little while you were gone.” She set another book back in the chest. This time, she only took a moment to make sure it was in the right position before turning back to him. “It’s a way to kill time that you can’t judge me for.”
“Stern, I can find a way to judge you about anything I set my mind to.” He looked away from the responding scowl that came a little too strongly and too late, biting the inside of his cheek before the traitorous twitch of his lips could become anything worse. His gaze landed on a cabinet that had been partially emptied, its contents laid down on the ground before it. “That one next.”
Alex let out a groan when she saw what he was referring to. “That thing is too tall. I already would have put everything back if it hadn’t been so hard to get into it in the first place.”
Darlington narrowed his eyes at her. “I assume you levitated to reach the top shelf.”
“If it helps you sleep at night.”
“Alex.”
“Daniel.”
Darlington ignored the alien tingle that ran through him at the sound of her using that name. It became easier when he considered the impudent, challenging tone. “Don’t climb on the cabinets.”
Alex set the last of the books back in the chest with a thud. She brushed her hands off as she rose to her feet. “Get cabinets that weren’t made for giants and I won’t have to.”
“You could have gotten a stool.”
“Don’t know where I’d find one.”
“There’s one in the–” Darlington cut himself off at the sight of Alex walking over to the bookshelf pressed against the left wall, where she picked up the small wooden stepstool pressed up against its side. He watched with what should have been a stronger sense of irritation as she carried it over to the cabinet that had supposedly given him so much trouble. “You turn irritating people into an artform.”
She crouched down to collect the items that had been scattered across the hobby. “Only you. It’s a specialized sport.”
“I’m sure Detective Turner would disagree.”
“Pissing Turner off is a hobby. I’m aiming for the gold medal in giving you gray hairs.”
Darlington ran a hand through his hair. He wondered if Alex had noticed the rare specks of gray that had come to mar it in the wake of hell. “At least I’ll know who to blame if my hairline starts receding prematurely.”
“I’ll take the blame for that with pr–”
Darlington hadn’t noticed himself starting drifting closer to Alex. All he knew was that one minute, she was on solid ground, and the next, she was wobbling precariously on the stepstool. One of her arms flared out in an instinctive attempt to maintain balance, a small silver tin clasped tightly in her hand. The way he laid a hand on her waist to keep her from tumbling off the stool was just as instinctual.
If it hadn’t been, if he had taken the time to think, then maybe he would have noticed what the tin in her hand was. Maybe he would have gotten out of the way before it tumbled out of her hand, spilling glittering silver powder on his head.
He realized what it was, what had happened, in the same moment that the world became simultaneously less and more.
Human reasoning fell to the wayside, overpowered by a wave of emotion. By a wave of desire. In a blink, Darlington became acutely aware of everything he wanted and more. He hadn’t realized it before, but he was a little hungry. He wanted to race to the kitchen, rip the refrigerator door off its hinges, and stuff his face with the first delectable thing to catch his interest. His loafers were uncomfortable, new and yet to be broken in. He wanted to throw them out and replace the pair of worn, comfortable sneakers that he knew were too scuffed up to ever wear in public.
Alex was staring at him with blatant, terrified concern. He wanted to banish that look with a kiss so deep and ferocious that it would take her breath away.
He wanted so much, and all of it was wrong.
His realization of what had happened came as an insidious, sneaking thing. There was no noticing his desires, for noticing implied that he could ignore them in the first place. They were simply there, all-consuming and all but impossible to deny. But it did take him a moment to process them, and another to clamp his self-control around them before anything catastrophic could happen. After that came the awareness of the weight on his head. He started to raise his hand, only to jerk it back down before his fingers could come in contact with the horns he knew he’d find there.
Finally, he dropped his eyes down to the silvery powder scattered across the hard-wood floor and realized exactly what had happened.
“Stern,” he growled, a scolding and warning rolled into one. Whether it was for her or himself was unbeknownst to him. That sort of awareness was buried somewhere in the depths of his being, beneath the pressure of his clenched jaw and the urge to pull Alex into his arms. Surely if he did that, if he buried his face in her neck and showed her the extent to which his world revolved around her, she’d stop looking at him like that.
Surely if he gave into those urges, he’d never be able to show his face around her again.
He forced himself to look away at the same time that the floor creaked with her step forward. “Darlington? Are you okay?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Am I?” he ground out.
He could swear that he felt Alex crossing her arms. The hole she was glaring into the side of his head drilled deep enough to break through the hedonism threatening to consume him and plant a ridiculous sense of shame. “If you feel good enough to act like an ass, I’m going to assume that the answer is yes.”
Darlington looked back over to her – she was wearing the exact stubborn expression that he knew she would be, an expression that he should not be finding beautiful right then – and reminded himself that this was her mess. Literally. If either of them should have been feeling ashamed, it was her. Yet in the wake of want, he found that he had to fight to keep self-consciousness from spilling into his tone as he said, “You spilled veritas powder. It’s enchanted to dispel illusions and bring out the true form of anything that inhales it.”
Illusions. Was that all his human self was now, an illusion? A charming lie meant to distract from the monster that lurked beneath his skin?
He crossed his arms as Alex unfolded hers, the stance of a disapproving Virgil. Except no Virgil was meant to have claws, and he was acutely aware of the spots of pressure where the sharp tips were digging into his skin.
“How long does it last?” Alex asked.
Her eyes seemed to glow. Worry had returned in the furrow of her brow, but there was also curiosity, a desire to learn more about the phenomenon that had turned man into a monster. The sight made his chest go warm. If it weren’t so tight, that warmth may have been enough to overcome the anger that coursed through him as he fought to recall what he knew about his latest source of strife.
“It varies from individual to individual. At worst, it will be about a week,” he said, the answer coming far slower than it should have.
“Huh.” Alex took a shuffling step forward. “So you won’t be able to lie for a week?”
Darlington took a sharp step back. “Can you lie, Stern?” he asked, not quite as harshly as he meant to be.
It was enough. Alex’s worry was replaced by a sour glare. “You’re the sweetest person I’ve ever met,” she flatly said.
Darlington snorted, because of course. Her words may have been one of the most patently false things that he had ever heard, but her body wasn’t lying. She was just lucky enough to still be human. She was so blessed that her humanity was the truth, rather than the hellish flames that consumed her when she embraced her power as a Wheelwalker.
Of course it was. For all her mistakes and flaws, for all that he may call her monstrous, Alex Stern wasn’t a monster. Not in the same way that he was. Not in any sense that couldn’t be understood or forgiven.
God, she was beautiful.
He needed to get away from her.
No sooner had the thought crossed his mind than she took another step toward him. He could feel her, the gravity of her presence calling to him like a siren’s song. It bade him to come closer as she reached a hand out to brush her fingers against his arm, her touch gentle despite the aromatic fear that radiated from her. “I mean it. Are you okay?”
Pulling away from her was like trying to fight against the ocean’s current. “I’m fine,” he said, the lie sharp and biting with the ferocity with which he forced it out. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go to my room until this wears out.”
Alex frowned. “You just said it’s going to last for a week.”
“It might last for a week.”
“What if it doesn’t?”
“Then I’ll figure it out.”
“Look, I’m sorry. You don’t have to–”
“I don’t have to do anything. I don’t want to continue this conversation. Believe it or not, I’m not exactly happy with you right now.”
That got her to back off. There was a part of Darlington that reveled in the hurt that flashed across her face. He wanted to cup the guilt radiating from her in his hands and drink deep. There was another part of him, a part that he’d rather not hear from at the moment, given the circumstances, that wanted to wash it away. It had been an accident, after all, one that probably wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t been so impulsive.
She shouldn’t be treating the armory as her personal playground, he reminded himself.
He shouldn’t enjoy her discomfort, even if he was angry at her. Should be angry at her.
“Fine,” she said, looking off to the side. “Just don’t turn into a hermit if it takes too long. This is your house too, you know.”
“Try to finish cleaning up without knocking anything else over,” was his only response.
It was the only one that he said out loud, at least. Alex didn’t follow him out to hear it, but the lock of his Virgil bedroom’s door felt like the real answer.