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[Alex is entirely taken back by the idea that she’s got him like that. Even though she knows that she really shouldn’t be. The two of them had always had something that made Nic more than a little bit nervous, even going back to the time when he kicked her out of his office during that first interview.

They’d been professionally flirting that had more than occasionally crossed the line into real flirting. They’d had a connection. They’ve been jealous of other people who had come in and out of their lives. They were friends at the end of the day, or at the very least Alex had hoped they were. But there had always been tension underneath it and she knew it.

The tension underneath it feels different now. It rolls and swells with the beating of her heart and she just finds herself pressing closer to him now. When he touches her cheek she inclined into it with an unexpected little whine.

Yes, she should get food for them even though she’s a miserable failure for not being able to cook. But she can order pizza. There’s always pizza.]

Come in. I’ll order us something, Richard.

Good.

[He licks his lips, commanding, feeling powerful in a way that he has never felt powerful before. He's never considered it, relished it. Wrapping an arm possessively around her waist he leaned in close and breathed in her scent.]

The flowers do look good on you. And the dress. You should do it more often. Dress like...that...because...

Does your head feel like it's packed in cotton too? Like...Like this is right but there should be...something...

[Feelings. Fucking feelings. That was for lesser betas and other beings. That was for her. growling to himself he let go of her waist and stalked into the kitchen before pulling off his glasses and rubbing at his eyes. Ugh.]

I got that teaching job.

[That felt, that feels entirely too good with his arm around her, with him inhaling her scent and having his own just waft around her like that. She blushes from the tips of her ears down to that impressive bodice of her dress, and there is a little sound of disappointment when he lets go of her like that. She doesn't want him to. She really doesn't want him to in a way that's like not wanting gravity to let go of her.

Still for a moment, Alex just swallows. She tries to be like she'd normally be but there's something else there, and it doesn't feel like cotton to her. No, to Alex it feels like magnets being pulled to it's polar opposite, something harder to deny when she watches him. Maybe it's a little bit like fog though, brought in by the rushing of her blood.

She could swear that it almost feels it calling his name.]

There's something going on. I'm not sure what, honestly. I... Today was weird after I lost you in the market. I don't know how to explain it.

Hallucinations.

[His voice is sharper then he intended it to be.] That's all this was. It has to be hallucinations because people don't spontaneously de-age Alex you know better then that.

[Still.

Watching her move about the kitchen his smile is kind and possessive. A King watching a queen about the dance floor. He rubs at the back of his neck before looking up at her.]

Speaking of knowing. I was invited to tea and you're coming. I want you...by me. At all times

[Good God. Did he? No. He valued his privacy and he loved spending time with Alex but he was very sure she would agree. How all of this felt, feeling so right and so wrong...]

His name's Martin Blackwood. He and Jonathan Sims are in the same line of work we are. With the same sort of relationship I think.

[This was a violation of everything that he believed in. Of all of Alex's journalist ethics. Not that she hadn't tossed them out the window anyway the moment she met him. As an Omega nobody should have been listening to her anyway...

His head shot up at that.]

Alex if I tell you the term Omega and Alpha what does that mean to you?

[biological shifts right? That's what he thinks it means. That's what it feels like it means.]

[Alex frowns at him tightly, and in that moment she understands the feeling of cotton, because it's like most of her that would have responded angrily to that simply just is too hard to find through that heavy banting that surrounded it. The sharpness in her tongue, the rolling of her eyes that would come feels a little bit impossible.

But she knows that she likes him watching her like this. She knows that she likes that possessiveness in him. Alex knows that he's strong and that he'd be a good mate. A good care giver, someone who would protect her always, and she needs protection because she's most definitely too weak to...

She should be at his side. It's where she should be and she nods before she adds:]

I've met Jon. We were exploring. Taking about the Wastes. And you actually.

[And she doesn't know what to say about Omega and Alpha other than.]

The women told me I was one. That my scent was good and that I would find a strong mate there. But I was already thinking of you. Which...

Those people in the market? Giving out clothing and trinkets?

[He had been pacing by grateful that ...strange illusion had passed. One of them had caught his tattoo and - strangely - commented on it. You look like a man who needs to take control of his life. And she'd presented him with a pair of iron bracelets. They obscured Tiamat - to his joy - but ever since wearing them...

Staring at them, he rolls up his sleeves over them but doesn't take them off because he had been putting them on and seen her...]

You'll never be the last of anything Alex Reagan.

[He had watched her walk away, stunned by her beauty. Of course the cotton was her how could he have been so stupid? How could he have been so...

One day he will be grateful to Howard Strand for instilling in him a sense of iron control because Richard was sure - staring at this woman - that he had to have her here and now because she was beautiful and wholly his and he could protect her in a way he had never protected Coralee. In a way he had never protected Charlie or anyone else.

Taking her hand he kissed her fingers.]

you will never be the last of anything. You look like Persephone. All bright and shining and beautiful...

[I can have this right? If I am good? If I'm good and if I swear that I won't do anything else? It doesn't feel wrong, but it doesn't feel the way he wanted it to when he allowed his mind to dance around seeing her more often. When shame and concern for their positions, for their ages, ran through his mind. He wanted it to be special. He didn't want to take it.

Leaning down and pressing his face to hers he closed his eyes before speaking in a husky voice.]

You're my persephone. You always have been.

[Oh god. He pulled back and it was the most difficult thing he'd ever done.]

...Alex there is...something going on.

[Alex is definitely entranced by all of him. It's there in the way that he smells, the way that he's touching her, the way that his voice sounds. To Alex Reagan the first draw of Richard Strand had always been his voice. Voices were sort of her thing and he had the best one that he'd ever heard. To hear it go husky and deeper in that way makes the bottom of her world drop out, along with her will.

Funny how that happens, considering how strong her will normally is. But she doesn't want to resist this, not when it feels just so damned right to her. Everything about this seems as it should be, as it always should have been: the two of them together, her and him. Weren't they already bound together and tied with strings and all of that? Weren't the two of them connected? Hadn't he been the one who had expressed that first?

'You're my Persephone. You always have been.'

That was true in a way wasn't it? Each black tape had been a pip of pomegranate, keeping her inside of his world. Recreating it in some way. It was the best metaphor for what was between them that there ever was.

He pulled back, and she could hear the panic in his voice about there being something going on but Alex just stepped forward once more, and she touched his cheek before she whispered softly that warm and tender tone in her voice once again. It was an invitation, laying herself bare.]

I've always been your Persephone, Richard. And you've always been my Hades.

[His chest is heaving, fingers shaking against her. This isn't right. Persephone. She really was in her own way. He had led her astray. She didn't sleep. She whispered demons names in her sleep, possessed and pained and hurt. But she is his, he has won her over with his tapes and his reason and his logic.

His fingers up her cheek and he kisses her hard, hungry on her mouth before wrenching away from her.]

...Alex. Alex this isn't how I wanted to this to happen something is wrong you're not normally this...

[good]

...subservient.

You shouldn't be. You should be. You should be to me, only to me because you are mine do you understand that you are mine and I want you by my side through the end of the world Alex Reagan because you are my Persephone but I want...I want a partner. I -

[A mate. Fuck it. He moves to kiss her again, unnatural strength filling his limbs as he holds her against him.]

[Alex knows that he's right on some level: that she's not normally this subservient. It's true. The only times that she ever has been have been when she'd chosen to be so but it had never been as reflexive and instinctive as this felt like it was. It was never this easy, and when the hell has Alex ever had easy in her life when it came to anything never mind to one Richard Strand? He was infuriating at the best of times, impossible at the worst, but that had never stopped her connection to him. That had never actually severed their bond. Bent it, twisted it, pressed it to almost snapping but it had never broken it.

Alex had told Amalia once that it felt like the two of them were like an elastic: they could push and pull and draw to the limits of the material but in the end it always snapped them back into place together. Maybe if she'd not had that thought before, she would have been more something about this. More headstrong maybe, more dismissive of whatever the hell was happening with the two of them. But she had. They were a rubber band, and had always been in one another's orbit.

Hades and Persephone, spending six months apart forced there by the need of the seasons.

So she just kisses him back, just as harshly, just as fiercely, because as submissive as Alex is, this isn't something that this is just happening to. Kissing Richard is something that Alex wants to be an active participant in even if it's not how she'd ever imagined that would happen in any way close to this.

Her fingers wrap around the back of his neck, holding him to her. Her strength isn't unnatural, it's not caused by the 'pack shift' or whatever else is happening. No, it just comes from Alex being Alex and how bad she is at letting go of anything (or anyone) that she cares about it.

She even sounds exactly like herself when she says:]

We've always been partners, Richard. We've just been really terrible at it. We don't need to be now. And yes. I'm yours. Yes.

[He is almost sixty years old and he is a fit man, a very fit man but he manages to lift her into his arms with ease to keep kissing her, to keep holding her close because if he lets her go...

...Then what. They always come back and forth. They always come back she always ends up back in his orbit and no matter how hard he pushes her away because he does not deserve this friendship,caring, love, affection.

He doesn't. He is a demon. No better then one, he does not deserve this spring beside him but he can feel his soul curled around hers. She lifts easily in his arms and tangles his hands in her hair.

Fuck.

He gently, gently sets her down.]

I want...you.

[He inhales.]

I want you sexually Alex but I do not think that now is...is the best time. But my god...

[His skin grazes her neck gently. Not biting. Never biting but he has to wrench back.]

My lovely Persephone..

[Alex Reagan is not innocent in this. She'd never consider herself innocent in the clusterfuck that their relationship had been over the last few months. Bad decision after bad decision had been piled onto things, forcing against their friendship and whatever it was. The two of them could hardly be in the same room sometimes because if they were it was going to end up in biting, blinding angry and needing to retreat from one another so that they could have the room to lick the wounds that they'd caused one another in private.

Yes, she came back, but she'd also dragged him back. It might not quite have been kicking and screaming but Alex knows that it might as well have been close to it at points. Whatever reason there had been for her pressing against his boundaries, whatever was below the surface with the two of them Alex had done it. She'd done it willing, occasionally gleefully almost as she treated the tortured parts of his history like a gotcha moment. Alex had apologized for it the last time that they'd been together before their world had been shifted and whatever their normal had been had been torn into pieces by the appearance of men with guns.

And by his not dead wife. She couldn't forget that.

Even with all of that, Alex had been attracted to him. She had cared for him. She'd cared about him to a level that made her best friend nervous. And yes, Alex Reagan had most definitely wanted him sexually. It's not just thing between them that this place is making her want him.

She'd always wanted that. So with his skin against her neck, and with his words in her ears, Alex just whispers something that is most definitely, absurdly, and completely true.]

I want you, Richard. And whatever the hell is going on here in this place? It's not something that's new. It's not something that I just woke up with this morning with. It's been... a hell of a lot longer than that.

[His gaze searches hers, finding truth. Maybe this was always building to this.

He wondered if they were both dead. If maybe this was some sort of strange take on heaven and hell that they were trapped in. If the world had ended. He feels wild and free and hungry for the first time in his life. Uncuffed. Unlocked.

His breathing slows. She wants this and she made mention of the times before. This stupid stubborn foolish girl. Cupping her cheek he takes off his glasses slowly, nosing at her. Then he lifts her easily in his arms. He's much more carved then he would be normally. He takes care of himself but now every muscle stands beneath his shirt.

Her bed is there and he throws her against the bed - as gently as he can before ripping his shirt off in one single movement, chest heaving, staring down at her.

His chest rises and falls, looking down at her before growling, pacing in a short circle before the bed leaning down to nose against her leg, lifting up her slowly, inches by inches. He is good at this. He has to be. His beard running across her skin.]

[Alex has never blinked away from his gaze, and she doesn't start now. The world would really be ending if she did blink from his gaze. Maybe they even would really be dead. She knows that this is different what it otherwise might have been, what it otherwise would be but Alex isn't bothered by it enough to care. Despite knowing how Strand normally looks below his shirts (in some ways, he did after all spend a good chunk of the last few months in unbuttoned flannel over t-shirts so it's not as if she doesn't have a basis for comparison) she most assuredly doesn't mind that he's stronger. Stronger and harder than he otherwise had been.

It makes him a better mate. Just like how her softness makes him a better mate for him too. They balance one another out now rather than being a madness that can combine in a volatile way.

When he takes off his shirt, Alex just grabs her glasses and drops them against her nightstand. That growl almost seems to slither along her veins and she just lets out a low and needful whine in response. Her breathing comes in a more harsh sound as he runs his beard against her skin. His name is just a long, pleading sigh:]

Richard.

[His lips slide against her skin. Spreading her legs he reaches for her underwear before sitting up and undoing his belt, pulling himself out roughly before bending back to slide her underwear off. He moved between her legs, leaning up over her to kiss her. His kiss is hard and rough before he rips at her dress bending to kiss her nipples, sliding back down her as his hands work her underwear off.

His smell increases as he spreads her legs and smiles at her wickedly.]

I'm very good at this. And I can tell you're very ready.

[Bending between her legs he starts to slowly tongue at her clit, beard rubbing against the soft skin of her inner thigh.]

[Despite living in a city that is chronically full of hipsters with beard in an assorted variety, she'd actually not had a man who had a beard go down on her before. She was already whimpering and ready, the rightness of this just seemingly flooding every one of her senses as the smell of him rises around her once more. Alex doesn't care about the loss of the dress, or mourn it other than anything beyond how Richard had looked at her while she was wearing it.

Him looking at her like this is better anyway.

Her fingers move to grapple against his hair for a moment, weaving over and into it as Alex just lifted her hips to him, pressing them to him in quick, eager movements as she just moans softly, the sounds rounding out to his name.]

Yes, oh god, Richard, yes.

[When he and Charlie's mother had been together they had been like two monkeys trying to figure out where everything went which had led to accidents. When Coralee and he had been together they had torn at each other like wild animals. He could list off his sexual partners but Alex...

He can't process this and that hurts more then how she's acting and how cotton-y his head feels. He doesn't like not being able to think. But this doesn't need thinking. what he needs is for her to be wet and she is. He can taste her and she tastes delicious she tastes like his ready to bear his seed and-

What the fuck

No. Absolutely not but he's not stopping and he doesn't want to. Not as he draws himself out, still bent over - thinking about how his back would hurt like hell in these moments but he feels fine. good.

He's already stiff and it doesn't take any stroking for him to get harder before he slowly raises his gaze, grinning wickedly. No words. Just those same slow kisses, hot breath across her skin before he moves to insert himself. He's well sized. She'd notice as his hand twists gently against her breast.]

...I've dreamed about this.

[Alex just groans loudly, the sound mixing with a whimper as she feels him inside of her. There’s been nothing that has ever felt this right before. Alex’s not a virgin, far from it and she’s had lovers of different genders and sizes and toys and been madly in love with almost all of them in one way or another even if it was just them doing this. But Richard entering her like this just blows all of those past experiences entirely out of the water.

Her hands grip at him, wildly, madly, moving down his sides and up along the curve of his spine. Her fingers leave light marks in his skin. Nothing drawing blood, nothing painful but they’re frantic nonetheless. Without thinking about it, she brings her head up, kissing along his jaw line before she whispers into his ear. It’s more truth that’s certain because there’s no way that a lie could stand the intensity of what is flowing between them.]

I did too.

[Alex fully intends to do nothing more than to kiss and graze her teeth over his neck, but after her tongue makes contact she can’t help herself from biting roughly down.]

[He roars at that. There's a connection that curls between the two of them and his eyes brighten. His hips jerk against her as he feels himself swell in her before holding her against him to thrust harder. His own teeth sink into her neck and he holds her there, hair matting with sweat, body slick with fluids. Any thought of gentleness is gone.

She can take it.

His hips tighten.]

Christ you're beautiful. and you are mine.

[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.

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