11calls | IC Contact

[Alex can take it. And she could have (would have more honestly, wanted to) take it even before he'd bit her and it was the like the flood gates opened inside of her mind. She can feel how beautiful he finds her. She can feel just how good it is for him to say that she's his and mean it and know beyond measure that it's true. Because it is true and has been for longer than Alex Reagan would ever admit to, even if someone was holding a gun to her head.

Even longer than Alex would ever admit to herself.

Alex just screams for a moment, her entire core going molten and liquid, and hot around him as the climax hits her, and her nails dig more cruelly into his shoulders, because he can take it too. Just a few more marks to go with the one that she'd already made at his neck.]

[11 calls. Who the hell calls someone 11 times?

Someone who's really really interested in you.

He'd glared, staring at his phone and cursing Diana with every fiber of his being. Some idiot reporter. There was always a damn idiot reporter.

When her claws dig into him he comes. Panic grips him because he should pull out but instead he holds her close against him because that was soon but also Oh god and also can he let go? He doesn't think he can. But he does grip her before letting out a little rumble in his chest, leaning against her careful to balance his weight but holding her as tightly as he can.

Alex, Alex. My Persephone. Dragging him up while he dragged her down. When he speaks his voice is a whisper.]

Persephone.

[Alex, he told you to fuck off. What the hell is your obsession with this guy? He just goes, doesn't contact you, ignores the calls of everyone connected with you and now you're willing to just fly to Chicago on your own dime to 'make sure he's okay?' Why can't you just let Strand go?'

I don't know, Nic. But I can't. If it's that big of a deal, fire me.

Alex, you know I wouldn't do that! We wouldn't do that!

Good. Then I'll be back when I can be.

Alex... At least get good audio, alright?

Alex just holds onto him tightly, not wanting to let him go any more than he wants to relax his grip on her. But she kisses him gently, less wildly than before, the sort of kiss that probably would have been more likely to be their first one if it wasn't all of this. If it was just the two of them in his father's house or her office or wherever it ended up happening. But it's a kiss that has more than the aspects of the pack in it: it has all of the pieces of Alex's heart that it can't touch there and offered to him.]

[He slides off her, sated - (and god he hates that word.) but it's the only one he can think of as he adjusts his arm to hold her against him. In the remains of this moment, these bonds, he feels a little more...human. When he speaks he sounds almost normal.]

...I wanted that but I wanted it to be special.

Dinner. Maybe a little theater. I would have even allowed you to put on some kind of a movie but nothing like...that.

[The closest thing I've ever had to that is Coralee. He pulls her close in a cuddle despite how wrong it feels. He has mastery over his emotions damn it.]

I'm such a fuck up. My father was right.

[Alex cuddles up to him gladly, resting her face against his chest and turning it up to him. Her contented smile (and it definitely was very Alex despite everything going on) slips. Concern and the frown it brings colors Alex’s face and gently she just reaches up and cups his cheek again. It’s a soft movement, her thumb moving in slow circles before she speaks softly.]

No he wasn’t, Richard. This wasn’t your fault. And we’re going to have plenty of time for theatre or movies and dinner. Plenty of time for slow and romantic and learning all of the ways that make one another tick like that.

[Alex just lifts herself onto one shoulder, leaning over and pressing her lips to his gently, sealing the promise in there.]

Listen, my Hades. My Richard. This doesn’t mean the end of anything. It’s a beginning and we get to craft how we want the story of us to go from here. Howard Strand doesn’t have a fucking thing to say about it.

[Christ.

She's right. She's always right in her own way. He leans into her before frowning as his muscles stretch.]

So you don't feel different? I mean physically maybe because...

[This is embarrassing.]

I'm not normally this broad.

[He is, broad and muscular and very cut. Ripped, as the children would say.]

I am definitely not this soft...

[Alex gestures to her stomach, the curve of her breasts, the way that her arms have lost most of their tone.]

I actually do like run and work out. Not as much as you normally do, but I do. I'm assuming whatever the hell is going on is causing it. But I guess I don't really mind, you know...

[Alex just kissed his jaw tenderly.]

But I'd definitely rather have you as you.

[Her kiss has him hard almost instantly and he kisses her back before gently, gently pulling away.]

That's what concerns me.

[HE bares his teeth.]

Here's what we're going to do...You're going to spend the night in my apartment. Until this ends. And I...am going to go get condoms. And you...we're going to ride this out. And then when this is done we are going to have a...a discussion because...

[He turns to catch her lips slowly.]

We're going to hit the streets.

[Fuck.] Fuck! I accepted tea with fucking - That Simms guy. WE're going to have to go. I don't want you out of my sight.

[There is a part of Alex that wants to protest that they're already in her room and isn't it comfortable and like a nest and Richard's apartment is far less comfortable than his but she doesn't. Instead she just gives him a little nod, before adding softly:]

I have an IUD. I mean I should have one anyway. I do back home. Kids definitely aren't something that I've ever wanted, so...

[So Alex had made long term plans because she is a grown ass woman, and if she's going to be having sex she wants to make sure that she's not bringing a child into the ongoing insanity that is her life back home, never mind here.]

Jonathan Sims? You met him? I met him too. We were exploring.

[He leans against her.]

...Kids are a handful that is true.

[He pulls her gently into his lap, looking down at her because he could do that and she is curvy. She's practically glowing and he...and he misses that same challenging look in her eyes.]

I'll still pick them up. Just to be...on the safe side.

[A pause.]

He can't stand me.

[Though it may be a bit muted, the challenging look is still there when she scoffs in his lap her eyes amused as hell for it.]

Someone having an interpersonal conflict with you? You've got to be kidding. I'm entirely surprised by it. So surprised that I'm having a heart attack.

[But it's said with a grin on her face.]

Should I be ready to make sure that he doesn't punch you in the face or something?

[This is not the first or hundred time Alex has needed to smooth out things with people they interviewed when Strand was being his most dickish.]

What scares me about this stuff, about whatever's happening to us, is I'd fight and I don't know if I could be restrained.

[His voice is soft, stroking her hair.]

So I'll behave myself. We should try and work with them. Even if they're idiots who think supernatural things are real.

[Richard wanted old Alex and the challenge in her eye and that would be a good way of getting her to do that. She just settles up a little bit straighter and stares at him before she just asks:

What? Richard we are in some sort of world different than our own, our bodies have changed, we're connected in a way that we weren't before, we spent the afternoon as fucking teenagers and now you're trying to say that supernatural things aren't real? Even with everything from home aside, you can't seriously think you're like... imagining putting on several points of muscle or that I've lost mine.

That you wanted to dominate me and mate with me out of no where. None of these things are things that are normally possible with our laws of science, but maybe theirs are different!

There are always explanations. Always. You should have known that by now. You should be aware because you swore to me that we would pursue logic and reason!

[What Richard doesn't realize is that he's not just shouting. He's up on his feet roaring. That he's loud and that he's practically baring his teeth. Climbing off the bed he paces in a circle and he's close to leaving but he can't. He can't leave.

He doesn't want to go anywhere. He doesn't want to leave but she is being so stubborn.

He wonders if he could even leave physically. Instead he settles for swiping at a table and knocking it over. The moment he does however he stops and stares because...

He is 8 years old and his father is shouting at his mother, about him. Again. He had tried to hide and he had knocked something over. His father's antique went down, breaking into a million pieces. He had dragged Richard out of the cupboard crying and screaming...

Staring at the things he knocked over Richard is back to himself - the motion dragging him back out of the power that he'd been swimming in. Looking at Alex, he stares at it, and then back at her, and then back at Alex.]

....I am so sorry I don't know what -

[He wiped his mouth.]

...Alex. I am so...so sorry I...

[And he goes to look for something to clean it up, picking up things, not looking at her but once it's collected into piles he looks up at her lost before sitting down.]

I don't know what came over me.

[For a moment, Alex is entirely too shocked to reply. She'd seen him get angry before of course, had him be furious at her even if it was over the phone but she'd never seen him like this. So... out of control.

Alex just gets smaller in the bed. She draws her legs up to her chest and wraps her arms around them at first before she tucks her chin on top of them. Feeling very naked and very exposed and then she just jumped trembling. This was bad. This is bad on so many levels.

Without her glasses, Alex's doe eyes look even larger in her fear, and she feels more than a little bit at risk right now. Without thinking about it, she hums softly. There's something in her biology she knows that's supposed to keep people safe.

Alex wants to keep him safe too.

So she hums again, her eyes glassy with tears that slip from the corners and draw lines down her cheeks. The wetness gathers the makeup that the women had applied, sending her eyelashes in to clumped spiders and letting the drops turn silver and ink.

When he's done, when he apologizes, Alex is still trembling, and she's sweeping the tear stains away with angry movements of her fingers.

Her voice is soft, small and dangerously hurt:]

Don't you ever do that to me again.

[Make her that frightened--that worried.]

No. No I won't. I promise.

[That rage burns in him again. Sitting on the floor he puts his head in his hands because he wants to go over and comfort her. He wants to go hold her but he doesn't trust himself.

A hand drags across his face.]

I did that once. On accident. My father beat me senseless. I broke some stupid artifact from Iraq? Maybe China? I don't remember.

[His voice goes dead.]

He claimed it was valuable. That it had some kind of supernatural power. [His tone is angry.] It was just clay and dirt and stone. That's all anything is at the end.

[Staring at his hands before looking back at her he swallows. He is still emotional.]

If this is supernatural, what's happened to us? What does that mean for anything else? For...the end of our world? For Nic and Amalia? ...For my daughter?

For you?

[For me. Me. All the things in life. He stares at his hands before rising.]

I can't think of this now. I can't. I just - You know I'd never hurt you right?

[With him sitting on the floor like that, Alex just slips from the bed. Her movements are more graceful than they otherwise would be, stepping easily between the piles of things that he'd made. Normally it would have been far more of an issue, but Alex walked like it as though it was the parting of the sea.

Naked and not caring about it, or the stupid flowers that were now a tangled and matted mess in her hair, she just kneels down in front of him.

Carefully, gently, Alex reaches out and captures his chin, holding it and forcing him to look at her. The wreckage of the makeup is still present and there, but her eyes are calm. They're serene almost and when she wraps her arms around him, there's a calming hum to her tone. Just soft, just enough to soothe out some of his edges before she speaks, the same melodic notes there in her tone.]

I know you wouldn't, Richard. I know you wouldn't. And everything else can wait until you're you know, more you again.

[Later, much later, he will thank her for this. For that calming notion. Now he dimly registers that this isn't normal. That her voice should not be this calm, but it is, she is, and when she holds him he leans into her and purrs. It feels like a natural noise to make as he catches her hand against his.]

I meant what I said.

I wanted us to be together. I just didn't expect it to be so...grr.

[He offers that familiar soft chuckle but he squeezes her fingers.]

Listen while we ride this out I'm going to make decisions, but I need you to ...I need you to be my conscience okay? Behind...something something is a strong woman and that's you. That's not me. I'm not my father. I'm not Coralee. I don't like feeling this...this out of control.

[He kisses her knuckles.]

Okay. I’ll help. I promise. But that means that you need to listen to me, yes? You always need to listen.

[The melodic calm is in her voice, and she just rubs her thumb along the inside of his palm slowly and gently, the calm there too as she just hums softly again, reenforcing it.]

Listen, my Hades and know that I’m yours and have been from before we ended up here. Listen and know I’m yours and that I’m safe and that you’re safe when I am with you. Whatever else happens I’m here. I’ll help. We’re going to get dressed, go to this tea and calmly talk to Jon. You can disagree with him all you want as long as you’re you know you about it and not what just happened.

I don’t know what his world is like, but he’s seen some things, Richard. And he’s covered in scars and you’re going to be calm when you argue with him.

And I will be there holding your hand while you do it. Because I know you’re not going to scare me like that again when you’re holding my hand.

[Yes.

Yes.

His hand reaches for hers and he squeezes it before leaning against her.]

Persephone.

[He chuckles] In the myth she also pleaded to prevent Hades from hurting people. She was also capable of incredible acts of wrath herself though. Turning the nympth Minthe into the mint plant.

We really will need each other here. And I am not letting you go. Even after all this ends.

Good. [The word comes with a soft laugh and Alex just kisses him gently.] Because I am pretty hard to get rid of. I went to Chicago to make sure you were okay and to drag you back to the world of the living. I’d do it again here you know. And I’d brave whatever monsters there are to do it.

And while I may lack the powers to turn someone into a plant, I am feisty and scrappy and will fight for you so don’t get any ideas, mister.

[He stares at her, tilting his head before leaning against her.]

Get dressed we're going over to my place.

[Because even in the worst moments, he's still - made of terrible decisions. Including leaving this warm space.]

...Please. Pack a bag.

[Yeah. Yeah. He rises and runs a hand through his hair.]

Okay.

[Alex just leans over and presses a kiss to the top of his head as she stands up slowly. It makes sense that he would want her in his space, but hers is... Well, better but she's not going to open things up to such a terrible argument when the wreckage of the last is still around her.

But she does pack a bag, even if her normal clothing feels really odd to her. Frowning at it as she throws button downs and blazers and jeans into the bag, she just looks to him, confusion warring with annoyance through their bond.]

You know. I think I have to go to the market, Richard. None of these things feel right and I don't like it. This is what I wear. It's what I've worn forever and...

[She just rubbed the mark on her neck absently, before letting a brightly colored shirt just drop onto the bed.]

[What disturbs him the most is that he's tempted to let her go naked. Andgo naked himself.

Damn this place because it doesn't look right to him either. Agreed. But he can't say that and he won't. Agreed Agreed Agreed...

Baring his teeth, he fights down another urge I don't want you going out, I'll buy what you need. - but instead he looks at her and reaches for his shirt.]

Alright.

what will you wear in the meantime? While we get you a few nice dresses.

I... I don’t know really.

[Alex just frowns down at her clothing until she finds a white shirt that’s longer than the rest and puts it on. It doesn’t escape her notice that she doesn’t button it all the way.

That she kind of really can’t button it all the way right now. Her shirts were brought when she had more of a flat chest and she frowns.

But when she looks at him, Alex gets an idea.]

I could wear your shirt. And it’s a double bonus because it smells like you too.

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