[There's no sugar coating or placation. There's no way he would do that at this point. He'd told her to take it down or private it. She'd refused to listen or even discuss it. She'd merely dismissed him as if he didn't matter in all of this, as if he shouldn't care about it or shouldn't be hurt by her actions, by locking him out of this almost entirely.
Part of him wondered if she would have even come to him if something hadn't gone wrong. He doubted she would, which hurt all the more. Not that he would be willing to express or entertain the emotional state. Anger was far more comfortable to deal with. Hurt and a feeling of betrayal were far too deep to manage, especially when the object of those feelings was standing in front of him.]
I know.
[Maybe she felt bad, and maybe she'd apologized, but she never once listened. Never once thought about the fact that he'd been there so, so many times. When he was a child, with Bobbie Mames, and the one she should have known best, with Coralee and everything that had been happening. Still, she'd ignored everything, choosing instead to turn to complete strangers. Even admitting that she was turning to complete strangers instead of him. Believing that they would help her more than he could, more than the network of people that she trusted could.]
[It said something that this was the first time in three years when the three of them had a fight that Alex was outright apologizing for something she did. To him. On the same day she'd done it. There was still something of the disconnect between fighting with Strand and fighting with Richard because it was easier to fight with Strand when things weren't so personal. Like they were now.
And because they were personal, Alex just counted to ten before she responded, because while Strand would never show hurt, she knew him too well to know that he didn't feel it. After all, that's what things like his armor were for, so that no one would ever know that they'd gotten under his skin, and Alex had. Especially with something like this, especially given what he'd said about not letting him work on it first.
But she also knew him, and she knew how he was and she knew there was no way he was going to admit what was actually on that tape, any more than he would have admitted when they were on his own.
Still, she was going to try, and her voice was little.]
I know. I do know, Richard. I just...
[She took a deep breath and stepped closer, making sure the door was shut and locked behind her. After all, this was a fight for them and not for the rest of the people in the university.]
I was thinking of how much we both wanted answers here, and how we might have been able to find them so that we didn't even...
[Need to entertain going to Geneva, but she can't even get it out. Instead she adds:]
[He wanted to pinch the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger, and before he could not, he'd already done it. It was as if no one seemed to think he was capable of making choices. Coralee, and now Alex was doing it. Running to strangers instead of coming to him with things that concerned him.]
You didn't think that might be something we should have discussed?
[There's a pause before he adds.]
Before you chose to discuss this with the entirety of Riverview; without even thinking of asking my thoughts.
[Alex takes a deep breath, because she knows him well enough to know that yes, he's angry, but he's also hurt. And she'd be too if the situations were reversed.
So she just stepped forward closer to him, looking, for Alex Reagan anyway, rather contrite.]
I admit it, alright, I acted in anger by posting it after... And I am sorry. Richard, it's not that I don't want your thoughts, and I definitely wasn't trying to cut you out or anything like that. I should have come to you first I just.
[Alex sighed softly again.]
I thought that it might give us answers, in one way or another. Like if it was a super high tech forgery, or from people whose worlds deal with this sort of thing all the time.
[and then there was time for a little more honesty and she couldn't look at him for a second.]
I know whatever I find you're not going to believe. And I know you don't think I care about your privacy but I do. I just don't think you know how worried I am about losing you to all of this.
[A part of him wanted to point out that she already had done those things. It wasn't trying, it was. She'd cut him out of the discussion entirely and ran off on her own with the entirety of Riverview.
This was just presenting the evidence, and they both knew it.
Which was what made this so complicated, there was nothing that could be done about the past, no matter how recent it was, and he was already starting to wonder what else she'd done with the people of this place in his absence. How many other Jeffs there were out there that she'd told three years of his life story to. Said that he was this 'key to open the door to Armageddon.'
And yet, he'd forgiven Coralee for what she'd done, hadn't he? And wasn't this similar, almost the same thing. Coralee had stayed away, allowed people to continue to believe he'd killed her, to protect him from Warren. She'd let him spend twenty years fruitlessly searching for her for the same reason. Alex was doing the same thing in her own way. She'd exposed herself and cut him out of the whole discussion. Seeing him now, only when he was angry enough to disappear, only when the 'evidence' was ready to be presented. All in the name of protecting him. Something he'd never once asked anyone to do for him.
He hated it, but there wasn't much that he could do. The same important feeling that he'd felt for years creeping back into his body. He shouldn't have done this again. Shouldn't have allowed himself to have these feelings again.]
I've already answered that worry.
[He crossed his arms over his chest, closing himself off until she finished. He wasn't a part of this, she'd said it herself. Even if, as she said now, she'd done it all for him.]
[Alex took a deep breath and shook her head quickly when he said that he'd covered that worry. Without even thinking about it, Alex moved across the room towards him with his crossed arms over his chest. Standing directly in front of him, Alex reached out and took one of his hands, refusing to let him stay as closed off and stoic as he otherwise would have been.
Her voice was very soft, and this wasn't her show voice. This was the voice she used when she'd asked him to run away with her, when she talked to him in the middle of the night in bed after one of them had a nightmare. This was her just for him voice, whether he knew it or admitted it or not.]
Richard, I'm not worried about us like that. [The words come with a sigh and she shakes her head quickly.] I mean, at least I wasn't. [She does have some worry now with how badly she'd hurt him.]
Richard, I know you love me. And I know I love you. But love doesn't stop bullets. Love doesn't stop cultists from coming and taking you and forcing you to go to Geneva,or them following through with their threat and coming and taking me. [Because that's what she knows it to be a now, or at least things it to be: a threat against her, that they can get to her if they want her. And she also expects that if she had been the one who had called from Geneva, Richard would have already been there.] And love doesn't stop the money that Thomas Warren has that he can use on us if he wants too.
I'm trying to find something we can use as protection, because I'm honestly worried that no matter where we go or how fast we get there, the two of us are going to end up in Geneva one way or another. I want a weapon or something that I can use to save you from this. That's why I didn't wait, I think. You won't believe what you see, and you'll think it's just Warren but other people won't. I know you think I'm trying to shut you out, but I'm not. Richard, I told you before I wanted to make sure you had a choice. I'm trying to do that still. I may have gone about it the wrong way, but that's what I want for you. All I want for you to have a choice in where you go and where you end up and who you love. This is about so much more than just us being at the center of this damned thing.
[As she's talking, taking his hand as if that's some cold comfort for her actions, his eyes drop, watching the floor at her feet. He'd thought they'd been over this that night. A night that suddenly felt like centuries ago now that Alex had exposed her tape.
Without having ever spoken it, he knew what was going to happen. Even if he agreed, if he wanted to run away with Alex - something he very much wanted to do, there were too many questions, too much he needed to know. He'd told her that. He'd told her he wouldn't die, and he wouldn't. He was too stubborn for Warren to kill, too important to the man's delusional plan to be killed. And no matter where they went, it would end up in Geneva. He knew that from the moment he'd gotten that phone call.
And yet she acted now as if he wasn't aware of all of this. Wasn't aware of what was waiting for them when they returned. A return to a world where nothing here would be remembered. He knew that for a fact. He'd spent time with her since the moment she'd told him that she had left and it had been an Alex that had been no different than the one that had been there previously. Nothing they learned here would change anything in their world.]
You're right.
[His voice was quiet, thoughtful. Even if Alex didn't believe it, if she thought that he lived in a fanciful world where none of this was real, that the Helvation was just some myth and that he wasn't some essential cog in a delusional man's hope to end the world, he'd thought this over. Looked into every possible idea that he could with the time he'd had, thought over every scenario, all but the one she'd offered. And there was nothing here that was going to change the inevitable. Except for this.]
Thomas Warren's greatest asset is this.
[For the first time in their conversation his eyes moved to hers, searching for an understanding of what he meant. For Alex to understand that he meant them, not her, not him, but them. Warren had spent so much time alienating him, making sure that he was utterly alone, and this, he and Alex together, was something the man could never have planned for.]
To rip it apart from the inside with fear. It's the only thing that could get him what he wants.
Edited (I hit post before I finished. Also, sorry about the word vomit) Date: 2018-07-16 05:21 am (UTC)
[At a different time that seems like years ago now, lifetimes even, Alex had told Nic that she always thought that Strand would be the one telling her that Santa wasn't real, not him. But in some ways, it was that same sort of belief in giving him that choice, giving him that option that she might save him from whatever the hell Warren had planned for him. She hadn't wanted to know what he'd chose, she'd told him not to tell her when she remembered, but there had been the part of Alex that thrived on hope and on belief that maybe just maybe they weren't walking into that trap that Warren had left for them.
It was something that she'd definitely been holding onto here, as tightly as she could. That maybe if she could give up her story and her life, he could too. Despite what Simon had said when he showed up, despite what she knew he thought without saying (that of course they were going to get back and get right on that plane to Geneva) she was still hoping that what was going to be a terrible thing wasn't coming.
Now, it was clear that it was coming and Alex's face just fell a bit, and she chewed on her lip for a second. Despite that she didn't think anyone could plan for her, or for her loving him, or his loving her, maybe she had been. Maybe she was important and maybe she was playing directly into Warren's plans now with this. For a long moment, Alex couldn't say anything, and then when she did it was just:]
Oh. [A beat and she added:] Okay. I..
[A pause and Alex just traced her tongue over her lips for a moment before she added:]
I just wanted to make sure you had a choice in something, Richard. In not going. I mean, I even came over here to offer you the option of not going home. Of just... staying here. Because he can't get to us here. But I get it now. We're going to Geneva, because there's no way in hell I'm letting you go alone.
[A pause.]
And I'm not going to let him get in the middle of us with demons or fear or breaking into my house or whatever. I mean, even with all of this, even with believing it's real, Richard? It doesn't make me think I shouldn't go with you. It makes me think even more that my place is right by your side in the middle of this.
[He knew the look, the almost tremble in Alex's voice and on her face. He knew that he'd broken something inside her, and Richard honestly was sorry for it, but the fact was that he had no other choice now. She seemed to have this, notion, which she could and would save him. That she alone could. The truth was that, in a way, she was. By being by his side, loving him and giving him support she was doing more than she could ever know. She was giving him a reason to fight against it.
That didn't mean that he wanted to. ]
I never said I wanted to go.
[He meant here, but it could also mean Geneva. He knew that, like her, he needed to know. Except there was the odd factor that they could be here and at home at the same time. Alex had been in both places. She'd been here while he had been with her back home; which meant that in the most literal of senses, they were already choosing to go or not, even while they were here.]
[Alex's voice was soft, and she didn't just mean here, she meant Geneva, because just given answers and everything else where else could they go. What else could they be other than themselves. She knew him, after all, even if she didn't think about the things that she knew all that often. No where near as often as she should. But then again if she did, then she wouldn't be her, and they wouldn't be them.
Taking a deep breath, Alex just pulled her hand away from his and wrapped her arms around herself. She was counting as she walked, but it wasn't away. No, she was counting and walking away to take the chair in the desk across from him like she had so many times before. Like she had at the beginning.]
So. [Alex's voice was soft.] What do we do now? Not about the post or what it showed, Richard? What do we do about us?
[Because the two of them had fights as a couple of course (the one about him sleeping in the chair when she was injured came to mind) but it was nothing like this. Nothing with this level of hurt and anger and pain that the two of them would just not talk for months or weeks over. That wasn't who they were now, and if they wanted a relationship, it wasn't who they could be.]
[Richard's breath held as she crossed to the chair. It wasn't the same, not the same office or the same situations, but he could tell easily what she was doing. She was starting over from the beginning, and that wasn't something either of them could do. Not since that first moment that she came into his office looking for a story.
When she sat, he let out a heavy breath, crossing to rest against the desk, across from her with no boundary between them. To Richard, this was just a fight. No different than any other fight they had. Of course, it was full of pain and anger. She'd done something stupid and dangerous, again. And she'd probably continue to do stupid and dangerous things. Probably continue to do them without telling him, all while cutting him from the situation without realizing what she was doing. The only difference was how similar it had been to what Coralee would and had done. The difference though, was that Alex hadn't left. Alex had come and at least was willing to present her evidence before him. That meant more than Coralee's contacting him once the podcast was running.
Alex, of course, was running rings around her own brain. Running to extremes before she'd even thought about it being anything less. It was a fact that their fights were extreme. That, it was possible, that one or both of them might disappear, but Richard also knew that no matter what happened or how far they separated, somehow, they'd end up right back here, in front of one another and continuing to move forward.]
What do you want to do?
[He kept his tone even, questioning slightly what he already knew, what she ought to know as well. This didn't change them. No matter how much she might hurt him, he would always offer himself to her now. But that didn't mean he had to be sweet about it or treat her with any softer gloves than he had before. He was Richard after all, and she was Alex, and that was how their relationship would always be.]
[It was well known when it came to Alex that she didn't take steps of logic, she took giant, olympic sized leaps into the worst possible scenario. Like she was now, like she always did. Maybe that's why she was trying to go back to when fights between them were easier to control, and when they didn't hurt so badly. Oh, Alex would deny that they had hurt back in the earlier parts of their relationship, like when he told her that she was basically being a tabloid journalist, but his words had stung. They always did.
Richard Strand found a personal way under her skin in many cases, normally now it was in good ones, but back then his barbs were sharper than her armor. This was one of those barbs, and Alex was having a difficult time taking it out without retreating to lick her wounds in private. But leaving would be acting further like Coralee, and Alex wasn't going to do that. She couldn't. Alex had fucked up, and she was here to deal with it, even if this was annoyingly new with the two of them.
So she just looked up at him as he was next to her and sighed softly.]
I don't want to fight with you anymore. I hate fighting with you. [Her voice sounded small and tired, but there was no bite in it.] I do love you, Richard, and I am sorry. And I'd say I wouldn't do it again, and I'll try not to but... [A beat.] I'm me. And I'm going to keep trying to protect you from this whole thing if I can.
I've told you before; you're doing more than you know.
[More than she would ever admit to in fact. Alex's presence in his life was crucial now. She'd made it so with smooth strokes and strides into every inch of it. And yet, she refused to acknowledge how important she was, something he would never tell her directly.
But this was the center of her part of the argument. He needed to be protected and rescued. He didn't, and especially not here. He didn't need her exposing either of them for the world to see just to try and 'save him'. He was neither lost nor in a state of distrss. And he needed her to understand that if she was going to proceed forward.]
There's no reason to keep pushing for some magical evidence that'll tie Warren's hands, and even if something like that existed, it wouldn't be here. I need you to trust me on that.
It doesn't feel like I am though. I mean back home...
[Back home Alex was useful and Alex was fearless, going to straight up ask Thomas Warren things. Meeting with the woman who had been Howard's Watcher before he'd been taken. Diving into every bit of mythology and history and everything else that she could in order to untangle the gorgon knot that they were in. But here, she couldn't do that. There was nothing new to uncover other than the actual evidence of her black tape when it showed up. Maybe that was one of the reasons that she dove into it with such vigor.
Letting out a soft sigh, she just nodded for a minute. Granted, she had advantages and skills that Richard didn't, especially back home, but maybe he was right in that something like that didn't exist. Alex wanted it to exist so badly she could taste it. She wanted a fucking giant dues ex machina to be able to save them from wandering into certain doom. But maybe in the end he was right and there wasn't one.
Maybe the two of them being together, something that Warren couldn't have planned on? Maybe that was it. So Alex just said what she had before, only this time more firmly, and without the anger that had been present.]
I am with you in this, Richard. You and me at the center together. I mean it. I mean. I'm here, right?
[He leans down, letting his hands run down her forearms until they reach her hands. Once there, his fingers curl around hers. It had become an intimate gesture since they'd started being them, and it was the best way to explain to her that he wasn't angry anymore. Especially since he knew she was assuming that they weren't going to be them anymore.]
[Alex just watched him for a second, because yes, she definitely was thinking that there wasn't going to be a them. Or at least wasn't going to be a them without a three month break where one of them lived in their office or whatever. But she did let out a sigh of relief, and most of the tension slipped out of her sloped shoulders when she squeezed his fingers in return.
But then she just laughed softly, because if this was his idea of a vacation, then clearly his priorities were more skewed than hers. Honestly, however, Alex knew what he was doing. He was trying to reassure her and she appreciated it.]
So, if it's a vacation, does that mean we're going to the Hot Springs for your birthday?
[She's Alex. She has to try, and she's the more optimistic of the two of them.]
[He rolls his eyes at her. Why does she always need to go to the most annoying things? At least she didn't try scuba diving or something else. All the same, he was curious as to why she would think up something like that. Why would he want to go to a hot spring when there were perfectly good hotels with restaurants to go to?]
Well, I was going to say the beach, but you're you know. You.
[Alex was still slightly off kilter, but she was making an effort to put herself right now that they were. So, bad jokes and grins it was for the moment.]
Also, I was thinking that if we were alone then no one else would ever know it was your birthday. I mean, I haven't missed it yet, my Richard. I'm not going to start now. Even if I expect Ruby ended up with the Edible Arrangements rather than you.
[Or at least maybe it'd been something other than a protein bar for food before she'd showed up to drag him for real food and to be a person again.]
[He's joking, or being sarcastic or something like that. After all, going to a hot spring or beach was very not him. He'd rather be actually alone with her if that was what she wanted to do with him.]
[Wrapping his arms around her waist he raises an eyebrow. The fact that his birthday wasn't until December didn't seem to bother her, and he was only slightly curious about what she was planning on getting him. That would change as he forgot about it entirely though.]
Is it a promise to consult me before telling anyone in Riverview about our or my past?
[Just because they weren't fighting didn't mean everything had been pushed under the bridge or that he wasn't still mad. He was still mad about Turkey after all, but that didn't stop them from being what they were.]
[Alex knew of course, because of everything, but it also didn't mean that she hadn't found something entirely perfect to give to him anyway. And probably would because Alex was excitable and well... everything Alex.
But she nodded slowly.]
Yes. But there are a few conversations from this that I want to finish about demons from other worlds, and one I should finish because I sort of...
[Alex sighs a bit.]
Told a kid to fuck off. Well, a teeanger. He's... had some terrible experiences back home and I didn't respond well at all.
[For a minute, Alex just sighed again before she pulls out her device, but she doesn't actually open the message. Instead, she's just holding onto it.]
In my defense, I didn't know he did until after I'd already told him to fuck off. But he asked me if I'd brought it back with me, and then he said it could go inside of me and like hide I guess? [Alex looks a bit sick at that, because well, you know the whole possession not sleeping thing.]
He seemed to miss the fact that someone else was recording me sleeping, and was angry that I didn't do it. I didn't mention the whole sleepnotes or anything like that. He told me I was fucked unless I figured it out, which is when I got the pictures from Skye and I kind of lost it.
[Alex frowned and she knows how pissed he's going to be about her admitting it.]
I told him that I knew it was a demon because I'd been investigating them for three years, but I didn't tell him anything about the investigation itself. But I did tell him that the man who was recording me slept sent it as a threat to show how close they can get to me.
[A beat, and she just says:]
I know you don't believe, Richard. Not really, but even if it's an extremely elaborate hoax, that's why Warren would have sent it to me and to Nic.
[A beat.]
I told him I was trying to stop it, and that it was bigger than just this video, but I didn't say how, and then he told me that his friend sacrificed himself to save the kid from a demon, and to kill it. He told me I had to kill it, and that's where I left it.
But I told you, no mentions of you or Simon or specifics. I'm not going to do that to you.
[Or tell him she told Jeff that she thought he hated her, that's not this.]
[With that he started to scroll through the conversations. ALL of the conversations. So Skye, a girl he'd never met, Victor, and Jeff know. Jeff, of course, knew the most, practically all of it from the look of things. He and Alex would have to discuss that, later.
The fact that she had been previously medicated for her insomnia wasn't surprising really. It had been bad enough that he'd been forced to notice it back home after all.
Then came the boy that she had been talking about. The biggest surprise was how quickly Alex had taken to snapping at him. The conversation wasn't that long at all before she started, although, given what he knew it made some sense. And he was sure that their argument hadn't been helping.
Before answering though he hit edit and changed the parameters to private.] It's not a demon, and we're not going to be sacrificing anyone.
[It was simple but factual. Even if it was a demon the only person who was allowed to die in this idiotic delusion was Thomas Warren.]
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2018-07-12 08:08 pm (UTC)Part of him wondered if she would have even come to him if something hadn't gone wrong. He doubted she would, which hurt all the more. Not that he would be willing to express or entertain the emotional state. Anger was far more comfortable to deal with. Hurt and a feeling of betrayal were far too deep to manage, especially when the object of those feelings was standing in front of him.]
I know.
[Maybe she felt bad, and maybe she'd apologized, but she never once listened. Never once thought about the fact that he'd been there so, so many times. When he was a child, with Bobbie Mames, and the one she should have known best, with Coralee and everything that had been happening. Still, she'd ignored everything, choosing instead to turn to complete strangers. Even admitting that she was turning to complete strangers instead of him. Believing that they would help her more than he could, more than the network of people that she trusted could.]
You should have listened. For one.
no subject
Date: 2018-07-12 08:28 pm (UTC)And because they were personal, Alex just counted to ten before she responded, because while Strand would never show hurt, she knew him too well to know that he didn't feel it. After all, that's what things like his armor were for, so that no one would ever know that they'd gotten under his skin, and Alex had. Especially with something like this, especially given what he'd said about not letting him work on it first.
But she also knew him, and she knew how he was and she knew there was no way he was going to admit what was actually on that tape, any more than he would have admitted when they were on his own.
Still, she was going to try, and her voice was little.]
I know. I do know, Richard. I just...
[She took a deep breath and stepped closer, making sure the door was shut and locked behind her. After all, this was a fight for them and not for the rest of the people in the university.]
I was thinking of how much we both wanted answers here, and how we might have been able to find them so that we didn't even...
[Need to entertain going to Geneva, but she can't even get it out. Instead she adds:]
And that we'd have something on Warren.
no subject
Date: 2018-07-13 01:10 am (UTC)You didn't think that might be something we should have discussed?
[There's a pause before he adds.]
Before you chose to discuss this with the entirety of Riverview; without even thinking of asking my thoughts.
no subject
Date: 2018-07-13 01:25 am (UTC)So she just stepped forward closer to him, looking, for Alex Reagan anyway, rather contrite.]
I admit it, alright, I acted in anger by posting it after... And I am sorry. Richard, it's not that I don't want your thoughts, and I definitely wasn't trying to cut you out or anything like that. I should have come to you first I just.
[Alex sighed softly again.]
I thought that it might give us answers, in one way or another. Like if it was a super high tech forgery, or from people whose worlds deal with this sort of thing all the time.
[and then there was time for a little more honesty and she couldn't look at him for a second.]
I know whatever I find you're not going to believe. And I know you don't think I care about your privacy but I do. I just don't think you know how worried I am about losing you to all of this.
no subject
Date: 2018-07-15 06:00 am (UTC)This was just presenting the evidence, and they both knew it.
Which was what made this so complicated, there was nothing that could be done about the past, no matter how recent it was, and he was already starting to wonder what else she'd done with the people of this place in his absence. How many other Jeffs there were out there that she'd told three years of his life story to. Said that he was this 'key to open the door to Armageddon.'
And yet, he'd forgiven Coralee for what she'd done, hadn't he? And wasn't this similar, almost the same thing. Coralee had stayed away, allowed people to continue to believe he'd killed her, to protect him from Warren. She'd let him spend twenty years fruitlessly searching for her for the same reason. Alex was doing the same thing in her own way. She'd exposed herself and cut him out of the whole discussion. Seeing him now, only when he was angry enough to disappear, only when the 'evidence' was ready to be presented. All in the name of protecting him. Something he'd never once asked anyone to do for him.
He hated it, but there wasn't much that he could do. The same important feeling that he'd felt for years creeping back into his body. He shouldn't have done this again. Shouldn't have allowed himself to have these feelings again.]
I've already answered that worry.
[He crossed his arms over his chest, closing himself off until she finished. He wasn't a part of this, she'd said it herself. Even if, as she said now, she'd done it all for him.]
no subject
Date: 2018-07-16 12:14 am (UTC)Her voice was very soft, and this wasn't her show voice. This was the voice she used when she'd asked him to run away with her, when she talked to him in the middle of the night in bed after one of them had a nightmare. This was her just for him voice, whether he knew it or admitted it or not.]
Richard, I'm not worried about us like that. [The words come with a sigh and she shakes her head quickly.] I mean, at least I wasn't. [She does have some worry now with how badly she'd hurt him.]
Richard, I know you love me. And I know I love you. But love doesn't stop bullets. Love doesn't stop cultists from coming and taking you and forcing you to go to Geneva,or them following through with their threat and coming and taking me. [Because that's what she knows it to be a now, or at least things it to be: a threat against her, that they can get to her if they want her. And she also expects that if she had been the one who had called from Geneva, Richard would have already been there.] And love doesn't stop the money that Thomas Warren has that he can use on us if he wants too.
I'm trying to find something we can use as protection, because I'm honestly worried that no matter where we go or how fast we get there, the two of us are going to end up in Geneva one way or another. I want a weapon or something that I can use to save you from this. That's why I didn't wait, I think. You won't believe what you see, and you'll think it's just Warren but other people won't. I know you think I'm trying to shut you out, but I'm not. Richard, I told you before I wanted to make sure you had a choice. I'm trying to do that still. I may have gone about it the wrong way, but that's what I want for you. All I want for you to have a choice in where you go and where you end up and who you love. This is about so much more than just us being at the center of this damned thing.
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Date: 2018-07-16 05:05 am (UTC)Without having ever spoken it, he knew what was going to happen. Even if he agreed, if he wanted to run away with Alex - something he very much wanted to do, there were too many questions, too much he needed to know. He'd told her that. He'd told her he wouldn't die, and he wouldn't. He was too stubborn for Warren to kill, too important to the man's delusional plan to be killed. And no matter where they went, it would end up in Geneva. He knew that from the moment he'd gotten that phone call.
And yet she acted now as if he wasn't aware of all of this. Wasn't aware of what was waiting for them when they returned. A return to a world where nothing here would be remembered. He knew that for a fact. He'd spent time with her since the moment she'd told him that she had left and it had been an Alex that had been no different than the one that had been there previously. Nothing they learned here would change anything in their world.]
You're right.
[His voice was quiet, thoughtful. Even if Alex didn't believe it, if she thought that he lived in a fanciful world where none of this was real, that the Helvation was just some myth and that he wasn't some essential cog in a delusional man's hope to end the world, he'd thought this over. Looked into every possible idea that he could with the time he'd had, thought over every scenario, all but the one she'd offered. And there was nothing here that was going to change the inevitable. Except for this.]
Thomas Warren's greatest asset is this.
[For the first time in their conversation his eyes moved to hers, searching for an understanding of what he meant. For Alex to understand that he meant them, not her, not him, but them. Warren had spent so much time alienating him, making sure that he was utterly alone, and this, he and Alex together, was something the man could never have planned for.]
To rip it apart from the inside with fear. It's the only thing that could get him what he wants.
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Date: 2018-07-16 08:35 pm (UTC)It was something that she'd definitely been holding onto here, as tightly as she could. That maybe if she could give up her story and her life, he could too. Despite what Simon had said when he showed up, despite what she knew he thought without saying (that of course they were going to get back and get right on that plane to Geneva) she was still hoping that what was going to be a terrible thing wasn't coming.
Now, it was clear that it was coming and Alex's face just fell a bit, and she chewed on her lip for a second. Despite that she didn't think anyone could plan for her, or for her loving him, or his loving her, maybe she had been. Maybe she was important and maybe she was playing directly into Warren's plans now with this. For a long moment, Alex couldn't say anything, and then when she did it was just:]
Oh. [A beat and she added:] Okay. I..
[A pause and Alex just traced her tongue over her lips for a moment before she added:]
I just wanted to make sure you had a choice in something, Richard. In not going. I mean, I even came over here to offer you the option of not going home. Of just... staying here. Because he can't get to us here. But I get it now. We're going to Geneva, because there's no way in hell I'm letting you go alone.
[A pause.]
And I'm not going to let him get in the middle of us with demons or fear or breaking into my house or whatever. I mean, even with all of this, even with believing it's real, Richard? It doesn't make me think I shouldn't go with you. It makes me think even more that my place is right by your side in the middle of this.
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Date: 2018-07-16 09:29 pm (UTC)That didn't mean that he wanted to. ]
I never said I wanted to go.
[He meant here, but it could also mean Geneva. He knew that, like her, he needed to know. Except there was the odd factor that they could be here and at home at the same time. Alex had been in both places. She'd been here while he had been with her back home; which meant that in the most literal of senses, they were already choosing to go or not, even while they were here.]
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Date: 2018-07-17 12:37 am (UTC)[Alex's voice was soft, and she didn't just mean here, she meant Geneva, because just given answers and everything else where else could they go. What else could they be other than themselves. She knew him, after all, even if she didn't think about the things that she knew all that often. No where near as often as she should. But then again if she did, then she wouldn't be her, and they wouldn't be them.
Taking a deep breath, Alex just pulled her hand away from his and wrapped her arms around herself. She was counting as she walked, but it wasn't away. No, she was counting and walking away to take the chair in the desk across from him like she had so many times before. Like she had at the beginning.]
So. [Alex's voice was soft.] What do we do now? Not about the post or what it showed, Richard? What do we do about us?
[Because the two of them had fights as a couple of course (the one about him sleeping in the chair when she was injured came to mind) but it was nothing like this. Nothing with this level of hurt and anger and pain that the two of them would just not talk for months or weeks over. That wasn't who they were now, and if they wanted a relationship, it wasn't who they could be.]
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Date: 2018-07-17 04:37 am (UTC)When she sat, he let out a heavy breath, crossing to rest against the desk, across from her with no boundary between them. To Richard, this was just a fight. No different than any other fight they had. Of course, it was full of pain and anger. She'd done something stupid and dangerous, again. And she'd probably continue to do stupid and dangerous things. Probably continue to do them without telling him, all while cutting him from the situation without realizing what she was doing. The only difference was how similar it had been to what Coralee would and had done. The difference though, was that Alex hadn't left. Alex had come and at least was willing to present her evidence before him. That meant more than Coralee's contacting him once the podcast was running.
Alex, of course, was running rings around her own brain. Running to extremes before she'd even thought about it being anything less. It was a fact that their fights were extreme. That, it was possible, that one or both of them might disappear, but Richard also knew that no matter what happened or how far they separated, somehow, they'd end up right back here, in front of one another and continuing to move forward.]
What do you want to do?
[He kept his tone even, questioning slightly what he already knew, what she ought to know as well. This didn't change them. No matter how much she might hurt him, he would always offer himself to her now. But that didn't mean he had to be sweet about it or treat her with any softer gloves than he had before. He was Richard after all, and she was Alex, and that was how their relationship would always be.]
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Date: 2018-07-17 05:08 am (UTC)Richard Strand found a personal way under her skin in many cases, normally now it was in good ones, but back then his barbs were sharper than her armor. This was one of those barbs, and Alex was having a difficult time taking it out without retreating to lick her wounds in private. But leaving would be acting further like Coralee, and Alex wasn't going to do that. She couldn't. Alex had fucked up, and she was here to deal with it, even if this was annoyingly new with the two of them.
So she just looked up at him as he was next to her and sighed softly.]
I don't want to fight with you anymore. I hate fighting with you. [Her voice sounded small and tired, but there was no bite in it.] I do love you, Richard, and I am sorry. And I'd say I wouldn't do it again, and I'll try not to but... [A beat.] I'm me. And I'm going to keep trying to protect you from this whole thing if I can.
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Date: 2018-07-18 04:59 am (UTC)[More than she would ever admit to in fact. Alex's presence in his life was crucial now. She'd made it so with smooth strokes and strides into every inch of it. And yet, she refused to acknowledge how important she was, something he would never tell her directly.
But this was the center of her part of the argument. He needed to be protected and rescued. He didn't, and especially not here. He didn't need her exposing either of them for the world to see just to try and 'save him'. He was neither lost nor in a state of distrss. And he needed her to understand that if she was going to proceed forward.]
There's no reason to keep pushing for some magical evidence that'll tie Warren's hands, and even if something like that existed, it wouldn't be here. I need you to trust me on that.
[There was a pause.]
And be in this with me. Together.
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Date: 2018-07-18 05:16 am (UTC)[Back home Alex was useful and Alex was fearless, going to straight up ask Thomas Warren things. Meeting with the woman who had been Howard's Watcher before he'd been taken. Diving into every bit of mythology and history and everything else that she could in order to untangle the gorgon knot that they were in. But here, she couldn't do that. There was nothing new to uncover other than the actual evidence of her black tape when it showed up. Maybe that was one of the reasons that she dove into it with such vigor.
Letting out a soft sigh, she just nodded for a minute. Granted, she had advantages and skills that Richard didn't, especially back home, but maybe he was right in that something like that didn't exist. Alex wanted it to exist so badly she could taste it. She wanted a fucking giant dues ex machina to be able to save them from wandering into certain doom. But maybe in the end he was right and there wasn't one.
Maybe the two of them being together, something that Warren couldn't have planned on? Maybe that was it. So Alex just said what she had before, only this time more firmly, and without the anger that had been present.]
I am with you in this, Richard. You and me at the center together. I mean it. I mean. I'm here, right?
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Date: 2018-07-18 10:59 pm (UTC)Think of it as a vacation. One we both need.
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Date: 2018-07-19 12:23 am (UTC)But then she just laughed softly, because if this was his idea of a vacation, then clearly his priorities were more skewed than hers. Honestly, however, Alex knew what he was doing. He was trying to reassure her and she appreciated it.]
So, if it's a vacation, does that mean we're going to the Hot Springs for your birthday?
[She's Alex. She has to try, and she's the more optimistic of the two of them.]
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Date: 2018-07-19 01:08 am (UTC)No. Why?
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Date: 2018-07-19 01:16 am (UTC)[Alex was still slightly off kilter, but she was making an effort to put herself right now that they were. So, bad jokes and grins it was for the moment.]
Also, I was thinking that if we were alone then no one else would ever know it was your birthday. I mean, I haven't missed it yet, my Richard. I'm not going to start now. Even if I expect Ruby ended up with the Edible Arrangements rather than you.
[Or at least maybe it'd been something other than a protein bar for food before she'd showed up to drag him for real food and to be a person again.]
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Date: 2018-07-19 01:24 am (UTC)I was looking forward to your traditional gift.
[He's joking, or being sarcastic or something like that. After all, going to a hot spring or beach was very not him. He'd rather be actually alone with her if that was what she wanted to do with him.]
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Date: 2018-07-19 01:30 am (UTC)[Does she look smug? Well, maybe a little bit. Either way, she's standing up to wrap her arms around his neck.]
It's going to surprise you, I think.
[And it's locked up at her office.]
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Date: 2018-07-20 12:59 am (UTC)Is it a promise to consult me before telling anyone in Riverview about our or my past?
[Just because they weren't fighting didn't mean everything had been pushed under the bridge or that he wasn't still mad. He was still mad about Turkey after all, but that didn't stop them from being what they were.]
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Date: 2018-07-20 01:25 am (UTC)But she nodded slowly.]
Yes. But there are a few conversations from this that I want to finish about demons from other worlds, and one I should finish because I sort of...
[Alex sighs a bit.]
Told a kid to fuck off. Well, a teeanger. He's... had some terrible experiences back home and I didn't respond well at all.
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Date: 2018-07-20 01:45 am (UTC)Tell me about it.
[After all, that's something that she should have done in the first place.]
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Date: 2018-07-20 02:03 am (UTC)In my defense, I didn't know he did until after I'd already told him to fuck off. But he asked me if I'd brought it back with me, and then he said it could go inside of me and like hide I guess? [Alex looks a bit sick at that, because well, you know the whole possession not sleeping thing.]
He seemed to miss the fact that someone else was recording me sleeping, and was angry that I didn't do it. I didn't mention the whole sleepnotes or anything like that. He told me I was fucked unless I figured it out, which is when I got the pictures from Skye and I kind of lost it.
[Alex frowned and she knows how pissed he's going to be about her admitting it.]
I told him that I knew it was a demon because I'd been investigating them for three years, but I didn't tell him anything about the investigation itself. But I did tell him that the man who was recording me slept sent it as a threat to show how close they can get to me.
[A beat, and she just says:]
I know you don't believe, Richard. Not really, but even if it's an extremely elaborate hoax, that's why Warren would have sent it to me and to Nic.
[A beat.]
I told him I was trying to stop it, and that it was bigger than just this video, but I didn't say how, and then he told me that his friend sacrificed himself to save the kid from a demon, and to kill it. He told me I had to kill it, and that's where I left it.
But I told you, no mentions of you or Simon or specifics. I'm not going to do that to you.
[Or tell him she told Jeff that she thought he hated her, that's not this.]
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Date: 2018-07-20 03:37 am (UTC)I'll keep that in mind.
[With that he started to scroll through the conversations. ALL of the conversations. So Skye, a girl he'd never met, Victor, and Jeff know. Jeff, of course, knew the most, practically all of it from the look of things. He and Alex would have to discuss that, later.
The fact that she had been previously medicated for her insomnia wasn't surprising really. It had been bad enough that he'd been forced to notice it back home after all.
Then came the boy that she had been talking about. The biggest surprise was how quickly Alex had taken to snapping at him. The conversation wasn't that long at all before she started, although, given what he knew it made some sense. And he was sure that their argument hadn't been helping.
Before answering though he hit edit and changed the parameters to private.]
It's not a demon, and we're not going to be sacrificing anyone.
[It was simple but factual. Even if it was a demon the only person who was allowed to die in this idiotic delusion was Thomas Warren.]
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