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Solutions

A/n kinda a blurb that took me FOREVER bc my ADHD has been really bad today but people have been wanting more General Kirigan/Darkling x reader and someone requesting some the Darkling x reader angst so here it is :)

Summary: The Darkling comes to visit you while you’re half asleep

Warnings: implications of teasing if you squint but it doesn’t really go anywhere 

Something small in me registers the sound of the wooden door opening, the rest of me is too lost in sleep to react. The even footsteps are measured, deliberately soft. I can’t bring myself to stir, not even when I feel the duvet I’m covered with pulled down just enough to expose my face slightly. I’m still as soft fingers touch the side of my face that I’m not sleeping on. At first the touch is cautious and tactful, meant to be reserved, but then the touch brushes against my skin slowly. The touch feels so much like silk I can’t help but groggily incline towards it. He adheres to my silent request, adjusting his hand beneath my jaw and chin, patiently trailing his thumb up and down my skin. 

“You’re awake.” The accusation comes softly, lacking any kind of bite. 

I let out a long exhale. “No.” 

“Do you always have to disagree with me?” There’s an unusual graveness to his light scolding. 

I squint my eyes open slowly just so that I can glare at him. Always so dramatic. When my vision adjusts to the darkness of the room, I see that my instinctual analysis on his tone had been correct. He always seems to be touched by darkness, like the cost of controlling the shadows is something that can be physically seen. But there’s an extra edge to the gloom that clings to him, an exhaustion. It’s visible in the bags beneath his eyes and the way his pupils swallow the bit of moonlight that dares peer into the room. 

“Only when you’re being disagreeable.” My voice is drowsy, which is good because it masks my concern. He moves his hand off my cheek, I instinctually frown at the loss of contact but he’s quick to brush his fingers along my collar. “I don’t think you’re being disagreeable right now, though.” 

Something soft threatens to break across his expression. “No?” He keeps his motions tactful, tracing the outline of my shoulder and collar. “You seemed to think differently earlier.” 

He has such a talent for distracting me. “Why are you here, Aleksander?” 

At that, the corners of his lips pull upwards as he presses them together. The expression is so genuine something warm begins to flood my chest. His name on my lips alone is all it takes to crack the hard exterior he’s spent lifetimes curating. In an odd way it feels like a power, to be able to stir emotion in someone with a desire to be cold. 

He squeezes my shoulder lightly before placing one hand on the duvet that covers me. I say nothing when he pulls the blanket back entirely. “Say my name again,” he breathes, moving to sit on my bed so casually I almost doubt the oddness of it. “Please,” his voice reveals more than his words ever will. “I need to hear it.” 

I should not want to provide him any type of comfort, and yet my heart yearns to. “Aleksander.” 

He breathes out easily, relaxing like the name is physical contact. “I’m tired.” 

“Me too.” 

Aleksander turns, resting his back against a pillow. I should tell him to leave, I should send him away. He’s clearly not someone that should be trusted. Instead of doing that, I find myself rolling onto my back to give him the room he needs to lay down. What am I doing? Aleksander says nothing, he only turns over to lay on his stomach before stretching an arm out lazily, hand settling on the hem of my nightgown. 

“What are you doing?” 

He brushes his hand upwards, testing the waters as he hints at pushing up my nightgown. “Do you think me a monster without redemption?”

The question is so sudden and genuine it’s practically a blow to the chest. “No.” I answered too quickly, a part of me desperate for him to understand how much I mean my answer. “Sometimes I wish I did.” 

The unnecessary addition leaves his eyes burning. I won’t elaborate no matter what he does. I can’t. To explain to him the extent of my attachment would be to let him see the way he’s burrowed himself into my heart despite my desire to loathe him. 

Aleksander must know that I have no intentions to explain my words because instead of replying immediately, he moves his hand up and down my upper thigh gently. It takes all of my concentration to not let my breathing hitch. “What do you mean, Little Dove?” 

He keeps his voice patient as he continues to trace his fingers across my skin in what is meant to seem like a thoughtless pattern. However, I know his motions are calculated because with each second of silence his fingers edge closer to the inside of my thigh. 

“If I could convince myself you were some kind of irredeemable monster,” when I stall, his fingers continue to inch towards my inner thigh, forcing me to inhale sharply, “I’d be able to walk away from you.” He pauses. “But I can’t.” 

“I am what I am because I have to be.” Those words are all it takes for his typical exterior to return. 

I press my lips together. “If you’re going to be the way you are with everyone else than leave, I’m too tired to deal with that right now.” 

Aleksander draws his eyebrows together. The look he gives me is so pained with conflict I have to stop myself from reaching for him. I close my eyes, hoping that he’ll take it as a sign to do anything but continue this conversation. My desperation to not hold onto the way I see him is a testament to my attachment. It’s naive. 

I hear his motions and a part of me longs to ask him not to leave. The bed dips, his warm breath is on the side of my face, near my ear.“Sometimes I think I may be a monster and then I see you at my side.” His whispers leave goosebumps across my skin. “And I think someone as good as you would never be at the side of a true monster.” 

The words chip away at the last of my resolve. A skeptical part of me wonders if his words are meant to manipulate me the way he manipulates so many others. But his voice had been so raw, so desperate--I don’t think anyone could manufacture such feeling into words. 

“Aleks I don’t think I could leave your side if I wanted to.” He moves his hand easily, never losing contact with my skin as he settles his palm on my hip. “But I can’t support what you want to do.” 

The silence is a thick fog in the air that will never sit right in my lungs. “Then just stay.” 

We have not reached a solution. Perhaps a solution cannot be reached when the problem is...what? Infatuation? Adoration? Love? Yes. There is no resolution for any of those things because emotions rooted in care are much more dangerous than feelings rooted in hatred. 

“Yes,” I whisper, placing a hand on his back, “I’ll just stay.”

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