Log: Alex and Darlington WHO: Darlington and Alex Stern WHAT: A reunion! WHEN: 8 September WHERE: The walk from the DOA to Black Elm WARNINGS: Spoilers for Hell Bent, talk of demonic control
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“what’s up nerd. come pick me up.”
Alex pressed ‘send’ on the network device that had just been handed to her and pocketed it before losing her nerve and sending something that sounded less like an asshole. Okay. Vallo. Again. Weirdly, she remembered her first time here - which apparently wasn’t a given. Alex was fine with it though - god knew she’d had enough blackout nights in her past that she wasn’t looking to add to their number.
She stood by the door and tried not to look as nervy as she felt. Chances were, she probably just looked pissed. She wore an extremely bright pink sundress, a dour expression, a demeanor that inspired sales girls to follow her discreetly in stores. The first time in Vallo, she’d been waiting for the other shoe to drop. What dimension gifted you with a phone and an apartment first thing? But the second time around, she barely paid attention to the standard new arrivals speech. Her brain just kept repeating one thing and one thing only: Darlington Darlington Darlington.
He was there as quickly as he could manage it. First he had to nearly drop his phone in shock, then he had to place a bookmark and put on shoes, and then he was out the door like a shot. A short walk and a waypoint later and there he was, coming to the DOA in a reversal of their first meeting in Vallo. It had a narrative consistency that Darlington appreciated, especially since it gave him something to think about besides everything about Alex and where she’d been and if she was all right.
Once he saw the bright pink sundress, then Darlington was right back to worrying about if Alex was all right.
“Stern.” He nodded to her as though he was going to be cool and professional about all this and hadn’t been devastated by her absence. “It’s about time you got back.”
Alex’s face flashed something like relief as she saw him - yup, there he was, looking like a sad rich boy Tumblr moodboard - and then it was gone. She’d known intellectually that Darlington was here - the DOA had told her he was - but she lost him once already. Fuck, she was bad at this, but several months in Barbie World and a shit-ton of character development back home compelled her to walk toward him and try to give him a hug.
It was extremely awkward. Alex was not a hugging person, and neither was Darlington. They were both, in fact, the result of a dearth of hugs in their childhoods. Alex concluded the wretched expression of affection with a truly dire pat on the back and assumed her typical glower. “How long? Couple of months?” God, what would she even do if he answered ‘years’?
“Close enough,” Darlington replied. He wished he were better at hugs. He wished he were better at expressing literally any feeling at all. Better still would be if he could sort out where the line between feelings and demonic urges was drawn–he still couldn’t be sure if it was him or the eternally bound demon that so desperately wanted to sweep Alex into his arms and kiss her.
“Nice dress,” he said instead.
Right. The pink dress. Alex had almost forgotten she was wearing it. Sundresses weren’t her thing even in her preferred color of black, but pink ones were definitely out of her wheelhouse. Wearing bright colors was law in Barbie World, though, and Alex was nothing if not a survivor.
She almost explained it, but decided it’d be more fun (for her, not him) if she didn’t address it yet. “Thanks. You still at the Library?” She hated how she said it with a capital L. The Library.
“Yes,” Darlington answered, and though he wanted more than anything for Alex to explain herself, he hesitated. He didn’t want to crack first. He hated losing to her. But he was lost a long time ago, so he asked. “Are you all right?”
“I’m good,” she answered simply, and took a step back, indicated the world outside with an inclination of her chin. Alex was good. Time off (and Barbie World) had been… soothing, in a weird sort of way. Not much had been expected of her and everyone had been supportive. She knew Darlington was making sure she wasn’t traumatized into wearing a pink sundress, or some sort of pod Alex. Or demon Alex, for that matter, considering their past history with doppelgangers. “I remember everything. Are you good?” she asked pointedly. It wasn’t as if she was the only one with Baggage-with-a-capital-B in this conversation. Darlington looked okay, but he usually did, even with horns.
I missed you, he thought.
“I’m fine,” he said. He started toward the outside as she suggested. “You missed a massive flood, a dinner party, and attacking elementals. So, business as usual in Vallo, of course.”
Of course. She walked outside into the mild fall sunshine, squinting into the light, hesitating a little as she tried to remember which direction she needed to head. She wanted to follow Darlington straight back to his place. She wanted her hands in his hair, yanking. She’d missed---
“Sounds like I missed a lot of usual.” Alex bit her lip, and turned back to him. “Barbie World.” At his expression: “That’s where I was. Barbie World. Land of pink and believing in yourself.”
Darlington almost stopped in his tracks from the shock. Ever capable in a crisis, he managed to confine his reaction to a tilt of his head.
“You’re joking,” he said flatly, and he didn’t seem to find the joke very funny. He was not in the mood for any of Alex’s fuckery, not after two months of thinking she was gone forever.
She regarded him with a patient expression, her mouth quirking to the side. “I’m not,” she said simply, and added: “Not every Barbie wears pink. Or, not all the time.” She paused, as if considering adding more detail.
“Ask me what Barbie I was.” Darlington was compelled to do what she asked, but Alex would never use it. This, though, she knew he would have done anyway. Darlington was simply not built to resist satiating his curiosity.
“What Barbie were you?” Darlington asked, because of course he had to know. He wasn’t terribly aware of types of Barbies; he just knew the doll had held every career under the sun at some point or another. He couldn’t imagine that there was a Ghost Hunter Barbie. He also couldn’t imagine Alex Stern in a world of sunshine and pink furniture without significant effort, though. Maybe Barbie World, like most others, held wonders beyond the petty human imagination of Daniel Arlington III.
She'd been too aggressive for service-based roles. She looked weird in most outfits. But there was one role that was open in which she clearly shined:
“I was Halloween Barbie.” Alex waggled her fingers demonstratively. “Pink, black, and orange look pretty decent together.”
“Halloween Barbie.” Darlington leveled a look at her that suggesting she’d better not be fucking with him, but he was pretty sure she wasn’t. She had honestly gone to Barbie World to be Halloween Barbie, and he was sure that in a few minutes the mere idea of that would stop giving him a headache.
“What does Halloween Barbie do for two months of summer?” he asked. The role seemed awfully seasonal, after all.
Alex squinted at him, feigning confusion. “She embodies Halloween,” she answered, with a note of ‘duh’ in her tone. “It’s a full-time job, even out of season.”
She figured discussing the Barbie economy could wait. When you didn’t really eat or have a water bill, money was kind of pointless outside of use as a symbolic prop. “How are things here?”
“Fine, more or less,” Darlington replied with an elegant shrug. A long pause ensued while his dignity warred with the urge to be honest. In the end, he decided she needed to know at least this much: “The demon is harder to control when you’re not here, but I managed.”
She absorbed the blow of honesty like a well-fortified tower, her eyes on the sunny afternoon of Vallo’s Main Street, her mouth thin. Alex had wondered. Barbieland had been a whimsical distraction, but her mind had crept back to Darlington, back to the furtive shadows of hell at night. It wasn’t exactly her fault that Darlington was - had - was a demon, just like she wasn’t exactly blameless. If she’d known more. If she’d been faster.
If, if, if.
“I missed you.” The words slipped out before she could stop them. She cleared her throat, and spoke more firmly. “I tried to figure out how to get back. But Barbieland… it only connected to a human world. Not this one.”
“I missed you, too,” Darlington admitted at last. “Not only because of the demon. I missed you.”
He thought that was true, at least. It was so hard to pull the two apart now. What feelings came from him, and which came from the demon that was bound to Alex until the end of days? Was there even a difference between the two? Did it even matter? Darlington had been awake more nights than he would ever admit trying to sort those questions out.
A muscle worked in Alex’s jaw. She didn’t know how to untangle this, and so she didn’t. Darlington was the overthinker between them. Alex navigated strangeness with the delicacy of an iron hammer and hoped that consequences stayed oily, avoidable things.
She turned slightly, eyeing him. “Of course you did,” she said flatly. “I’m awesome.”
Her hand reached for his, fingers sliding between his.
They hadn’t been people who held hands, before. Darlington had never really been a person who held hands with anyone. Despite the urge to stop still in surprise at this turn of events, he kept walking. He let his hand settle in hers, and it was…comfortable.
The only trouble was the demon within. He wanted things. He was desperate to pull her closer, press against her, devour her. It took every bit of his self-control to sublimate all those urges into simply squeezing Alex’s hand.
Alex wasn’t exactly a hand-holding person either; it implied reliance and trust and all the things she was notoriously bad at imbuing, as a feral cat in a person suit. It didn’t escape her notice that Darlington felt rather-- tense? Was that the appropriate word for it? Granted, Darlington had never been the picture of ease, but this was a different kind of stress. One that she could guess at the source.
Well. That sounded like an issue for future Alex.
“Do I still have an apartment or are you going to be sleeping on the couch?”
“I don’t know, but I’ll sleep on the couch tonight,” Darlington replied. He wanted her at Black Elm, where he could see her, know she was safe, serve her, protect her—
That was the demon talking, and he knew it, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. He’d feel better with Alex in easy reach, at least for this first night, and if that meant spending the night on the sofa, so be it.
Alex had always known that Darlington’s irrepressible inner gentleman would triumph, and he’d offer her the comfortable place while he squatted on the couch. And it wasn’t as if they hadn’t shared a bed before, although it was as chaste an occurrence as it could have possibly been after the Manuscript party in which Darlington had been drugged. Back when she’d thought they’d have forever to figure out this little dance.
She didn’t really think that now.
“I want the bed,” she confirmed, because honestly fuck being a gentleman (gentlelady?), “but I won’t kick you out of it.” She shrugged as they neared the lane where Black Elm loomed. It always loomed. “If you wiggle too much I’ll smother you. Okay?”
A refusal sat on the tip of Darlington’s tongue. Sharing a bed with her and keeping his hands to himself would be torture, the most stringent test his ability to control his demonic urges had yet faced. What if he failed?
On the other hand, what if she didn’t want him to keep his hands to himself?
Darlington paused, and he looked to her as his hand tightened almost imperceptibly around hers. “And if you need to use the leash, you will,” he said. It wasn’t a question.
She knew what he was asking. Alex returned the eye contact. “I trust you,” she answered, and because she knew that wasn’t enough, she added: “And yes. If I need to, I will. I’m still an asshole when I need to be.” Barbieland hadn’t changed that. She truly trusted Darlington, but how much of what had come back from hell was him?
She trusted him. But he didn’t trust himself, and she didn’t know him as well as she once did. There was a thin line between truth and making him feel better, and Alex was fine with straddling it.
That actually got a faint smile out of Darlington. “Good,” he said, relieved that her time as a doll hadn’t changed Alex too much. She was prickly and difficult (damned near impossible), but he wouldn’t have her any other way.
They’d reached Black Elm’s doorstep, and of course Darlington opened the door for her. “Welcome back to the Halloween Barbie Dream House.”
Alex stepped inside, peering at its interior. It was still grandly shabby, still eerie, but something about it seemed less... tense… than the last time she’d been here back home. Granted, she wasn’t fighting demons from hell and she was more confident in the Darlington by her side, but nonetheless, the vibe shift was an improvement.
“I’m going to take a shower,” she announced, and turned back to Darlington. “I’ve been using make-believe water for four fucking months now, and it ends today. After…” she bit her lip, but said it: “Make some tea. We’re going to talk.”
It was both a promise and a threat.
“As you command,” Darlington wryly replied. He’d have done it even without the chains that bound him to Alex, but he was incapable of ignoring a direct order from her now. It was funny, yet tragic, and he supposed that was part of what they were going to talk about.
Alex shot him an expression perfectly between amusement and do-not-fucking-joke-about that, and headed down the hall. She'd spent enough time at Black Elm to know where everything for a hot shower was.
It would take more, perhaps, to figure out where she belonged.