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There was a sense of anticipation in the air that Alex doesn't like one damned bit. It feels too familiar to her, too similar to the way that the world felt after Coralee and Warren, after they'd learned about the Axis Mundae. It had been days since she'd seen Strand, it feels like and Alex missed him. After their fight when she'd gotten back from Turkey, things had been better. Or at least they'd seem better to Alex once he'd gotten his anger out of his system, once he'd used Coralee's name and the nature of his relationship with her as a blunt weapon that was swung whenever the two of them had become too close.

But the thing of it was that Alex hadn't done anything this time. There'd been no fights, nothing that had caused him to pick up his toys and stomp off home as he had so many times before. There was nothing wrong other than the fact that Richard was gone. Her calls were sent to voicemail, her texts and emails went unanswered and even calling Ruby wasn't helpful in the slightest. Not that it ever really was when Alex needed to deal with his broad punk wall of an assistant.

So, she just tried to continue on as normal, as if he was just taking a break outside the room. Throwing herself into her work is second nature for Alex, but Nic had decreed that the studio needed to be empty by ten in order for Alex to get some sleep. It never worked for her of course--Alex just took the work home and spread it on her coffee table. A fresh brewed cup of coffee from her french press had been made and Alex was still sitting on the floor with her back to her couch as she went over everything that she had with a pen in her hand and a heavily filled notebook at her side.

Granted, due to the fact that she was home, Alex was wearing comfortable pajamas: an old and well-loved pnws shirt that had been hers since she’d been an intern (complete with a hole on the collar) and a pair of old boxer shorts that had never belonged to anyone but her—they fit her too well for that. With the heavy makeup that Alex normally wore to hide the dark circle under her eyes, they’re prominent and so is the smattering of freckles across her face. Her hair is still damp from the shower, and tied up into a messy bun at the base of her neck. With Nic gone in Russia and all of her friends having been pushed away due to work, Alex wasn’t expecting company. She definitely wasn’t expecting Richard considering she always went to his father’s house or came to the studio. Oh, she knows he knows where she lives (Alex has pointed out her apartment building more than once) but him coming to her seems entirely laughable at this point.

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He can still hear Coralee practically taunting him with this is a lure, she's a lure and Warren will use her to hurt you...

It solidifies something. That he has to sacrifice himself. That he can't let Warren take any of them and Tiamat...Tiamat.

The smell of the water and thunder is strong. Join with me and save her. Join with me and open the door and you can be with her forever, she'll be safe. I've waited for you Richard, for so very long...

He pulls her into a kiss. It's gentle and tentative and he holds her tightly then, across the table, elbow of his suit dragging into his brownie.

"...I love you too Alex Reagan."

There. It's out in the open. Professional ethics be damned. It's like there's a click in his head.

There's a new voice too. Take her with you. This will be fun.

"...I need a drink." Fuck he should have brought up the scotch, "And I think...we should...order Chinese. No. Sushi. I want sushi."

Alex doesn't know (can't know) what's going on inside of his head. She doesn't know about the voice of the goddess or whatever this other voice is or Coralee or anything else. But what she does know is that she loves him, and that he loves her and finally finally they've gotten out of their own ways to admit that. She kisses kisses him back with gentleness, but there's nothing tentative about it. Alex Reagan has always let her heart lead her rather than her head and this is just another case of it. She's not worried about ethics or anything else.

For the first time in a long time, not even the end of the world. Because Alex believes in him, and she believes that the two of them together can stop whatever Warren has planning, because they're a good team and she's too stubborn to let the world end now that they've finally gotten this piece of it sorted out.

Alex just kisses him once more before she draws back with a grin. "I don't have scotch, but I do have wine. Or vodka if you want something hard. Do you want the normal for sushi?" Because of course she's got a sushi place in her favorites on grubhub and she's got what his order is down and has for ages. Pulling out her phone from her pocket, she opens it up, leaning her head against his shoulder for a second as she does so.

It's so simple. It's so adorable.

"I have cheap scotch in the car, but I'll take wine." He leaned against her hair, kissing her hair, "For now."

He strokes her hair. He was always doing that. Coralee's hair was always so soft. Alex's is too - he missed being able to do this. Try not to think ahead. Try not to plan in advance. Try not to...Try not to do that Richard just be in the moment.

"...We do make a good team." He runs the other hand through his own hair and pulls away, "I'm moving to the couch. My back hurts."

Edited 2020-04-13 00:56 (UTC)

Alex just beams up at him, her eyes alight as she just grins with practically her whole body. Is she tempted to take him just down into her bedroom? Of course she is. She's a grown ass woman who knows what she wants, and she wants him. And she's wanted him since the moment where she'd walked into his office, god all those years ago. But for now, Alex just lets him good and pads into the kitchen, placing their normal order as she does so. She doesn't want him to make the decision to have sex with her when he's soaked with scotch, which is why Alex is glad that he'd picked the wine.

She's got a good bottle of red that she'd been saving for a special occasion in the rack on her counter, and if anything qualifies as a special occasion, Alex muses, the night where Richard Strand said that he loved her back definitely is one of them. Using her electric corkscrew (Alex drinks a fair amount of wine and it's way easier than trying to find to find the manual one when she's already had part of a bottle) Alex opens the bottle and then comes back into the living room, holding two glasses by the stems in one hand, and the bottle in the other. "I hope a Cabernet Sauvignon is okay? It's local, I grabbed it from the farmer's market actually." Because even though Alex isn't a wine snob like he is she knows that the wines from Washington are on the up and up.

Be in the moment.

Tiamat hisses in his head and Richard Strand closes his eyes and smiles, "I...am going to get you some very good wine as a gift." He smiles, "But this is perfect. Local and perfect."

He inhales, "Normally though wine is for events." his shirt is still buttoned, sweat beading at his collar and temple. Moving to her couch he slumps, realizing the couch is...really terrible.

"I'm also buying you a new couch." He squirms, "This is - is this my college couch? It could be that old."

It's so weird. The age difference - and briefly. Looking up at her he swallows.

"Alex I don't want to be a burden to you. It doesn't bother you? I'm almost 60."

Sitting next to him on the couch, resting on one knee so that she's facing him while she sits and Alex just takes a sip of her wine with a little bit of a laugh. "Well, this wine is just normally for when I need wine." A pause, and Alex shrugs. "As for the couch, it's not really like I normally spend a lot of time here, Richard. I'm pretty sure I've spent almost twice the amount of time in your living room than mine."

Which isn't a lie, because Alex definitely has been more on his couch than hers, and normally when she works late it's in her bedroom. But that's not here or there.

But then she just shakes her head quickly. "Your age never would bother me, Richard. I don't fall in love with someone's age. I fall in love with who a person is. I always have." Even if her type has definitely normally been older partners. Even Amalia is older than Alex is, even if the distance between their ages is smaller. But she was still a graduate student when Alex was a sophomore so. "I love you, and I don't care about anything else."

He feels...wild. Crazy. Like he could do anything. Like he's capable of anything and Coralee and Charlie and Tiamat fade from his mind as he puts out an arm. Good God what does this say about me?

"You deserve...good things though. Nice things." He pauses, "That's insulting I'm sorry your taste is fine. I'm just...crotchety. I guess. That's how Charlie would put it."

Alex just leans in without thinking about it, balancing on her knees while she does so. She just shakes her head for a moment before she reaches out with one hand, brushing it along his cheek again. "Hey, it's okay Richard. Listen you've had a rough day. Anyone would consider any part of this a rough day." Which is probably an understatement given well, what he'd told her, what she knows now and what he does as well.

"And when we back from Geneva you can insult my taste all you want. I won't mind. I mean, I've had the same couch since I was an intern anyway." A pause, and Alex is just going to go with the idea of them beating all of this and then coming home to a normal life. Because that's what she needs to have hope for. That it's not something they've done and that can't be stopped. But she'd put money on the two of them together. Always. Especially now that they're being honest with one another finally.

Even if she doesn't know about the rest of it. And then she just leans in and kisses him slowly, lightly, but lingeringly. It's a very Alex sort of kiss all told. Something that she wants to practice until it's made perfect with him.

Later, much later, he will acknowledge that he is still, despite everything, a manipulative piece of shit because he feels protective and fatherly towards her - and there is always a sense of lesser and more in those situations. He is more sure of himself then she is, and she is...a good person but it's hard to turn off that protective mode.

To see her as a romantic partner. Especially with the stigma it carried. She's young enough to be my daughter, she's young enough to be one of my students... Fuck it. As long as you acknowledge it you can take care of it Richard.

It was hard not to admit it was a little intriguing. A little wild, stoking the flames in his mind. The fire in his loins.

Cupping her cheek, he kisses her back, practiced kisses, commanding ones, one hand sliding down her back before he...pulls back and breathes.

"...I don't know if I have the stamina for that yet." He laughed weakly, "I'm sorry. I really am verging on drunk. I was hoping to quiet the thoughts of others. Speaking of which, the delivery boy is downstairs."

Edited 2020-04-13 02:02 (UTC)

Alex just colors quickly, and shakes her head with a laugh because that... "Yeah, I wasn't going to suggest that we just start having wild sex on my really uncomfortable couch, Richard." She's reassured, but she does sit back on her bare heels. "I was just kissing you. I'm definitely not inclined to have sex with you for the first time when I've got an empty stomach and knowing you," Alex just gestures to him quickly, because if there's one thing that she's seen more than a few times it's how he forgets to eat when he gets involved with things. Especially when his mental state isn't the best and it wasn't when he showed up here. "You probably haven't eaten either."

And it probably went without saying that she doesn't sleep with people who might be too drunk to actually consent to sleeping with her, because that's not Alex's style by any means. She wants people who want her because they want her, and not because the amount of liquor within their bloodstream tells them that it's what they want.

"Stay here, I'll grab it." Alex just raises onto her feet and toes herself into her ballet flats. Flipping he bolt so that she doesn't end up looking herself out, she can't help but to give him a broad and teasing grin: "if I was intent on seducing you, Richard. You'd definitely know it. I'll be right back." And then her feet just thundered down the steps behind her.

She doesn't know anything about him, beyond the basics. Beyond his most intimate details and dark secrets. But the rest of it? He has kept it hidden.

When she returns with the sushi he ignores the curl in his stomach that she found out all the wrong stuff before the right stuff in his mind."

"Favorite color, Favorite Movie, and Favorite...Item."

He spreads a hand over her apartment, smiling.

Alex just hands him his food and a pair of chopsticks and leans next to him on the couch as she digs into her own order of food. “Red. Always has been since I was a kid. Used to drive my mom crazy because I wanted a red bedroom. When I painted the bedroom in my first apartment she almost had a heart attack. Turns out she was actually right and it was a little intense for sleeping. And that was even before I was as bad as I have been.” Taking a bite of sushi and chewing it she just considers. “For a movie it’s probably a tie between like Superman and His Girl Friday. I have always been very into movies with women reporters in them. I used to really want to be Lois Lane honestly. Only without so much of a damsel in distress. That’s not so much my style.”

Which is probably an understatement considering how trouble Alex gets herself into on a regular basis. But she normally tends to get herself out of it too.

“As for item...” Alex just pauses and her nose twitches a bit. “Is it cheating to say my French press? Because it probably is my French press honestly. One of the few things I can’t live without but.” She knows that’s not why he’s asking. “There’s a painting that my grandpa did of my grandma in my bedroom. I really love it. He was someone who wanted to be an artist when he was younger but his parents made him go into something more practical. He still loved to do it though, and my grandma was always his favorite subject. She’s holding me really soon after my parents first adopted me.”

Edited 2020-04-13 02:42 (UTC)

It's so adorable. It's fascinating. Like watching a TV show. Sitting and eating sushi he feels like a grad student again.

He resists that though. He's old and he has to deal with that. He's apparently dealing with an ancient demonic god. He's psychic. Swallowing his sushi he considers the answers to his questions - reversed, because that's the way the game is played.

"Blue Green. My mother had these blue green eyes. It was a strange color. My father always said my eyes were an...aberration. He had brown eyes. Cheryl has brown eyes. I'm the only blue eyed one in my family."

It pleased him. Richard remembered that. His father was pleased with him, with his intelligence and his unnatural colored eyes. He wanted nothing to do with his father's attempts at family bonding.

"Favorite movie is easy. Alphaville by Jean Luc Godard. A profound exploration of the individual. It's perfect." he smiles, and then his smile softens, "I have Charlie's old baby blanket in my office." She left it behind when she had moved with her grandparents.

He shrugs, "...It's preserved but it's one of the few things I have of hers. Now you ask me three questions."

"A Godard movie would be your favorite." Alex just says it without censure, but with no little amount of amusement. Because of course it would be. To have it be something different wouldn't have it be Richard, and Alex knows it. But she is a little surprised that it's his scifi though, she would have pegged him as someone who preferred Godard's satire. But her amusement softens at the mention of Charlie's baby blanket, and she just gives his arm a squeeze before she takes another bite of her sushi.

Three questions, but not the questions that Alex would have asked him under different circumstances. Work boundaries have fortified walls wrapped around them, because she knows that this isn't what it's about. So, instead she too goes with the sort of thing that one might ask on a first date, because isn't this what really is in it's own way? For all of the times that they'd had meals before, and meals definitely peppered with Alex's questions, this is most assuredly a first date for two people who were already in love.

So, simplicity. "Favorite song, the comfort food that you'd have if you could have anything else in the world, and favorite number." The corners of Alex's smile turn up a bit though when she adds: "but if you say Pi to like a hundred places I will definitely steal your mochi."

For a person who has been trying to be an individual for years, sci-fi about a human finding a sense of individuality and breaking free from conceived notions? It's timely, he realizes sitting beside her. He has always wanted freedom. To cut loose, to be on edge.

"Song is a toss up." He chews thoughtfully, "It's either Beethoven's Erocia - or. It's Manhattan by Ella Fitzgerald." He takes a sip of wine, "...Comfort food is easy. Chocolate covered almonds. And number is probably 11."

It slips out, and he's completely heedless, "It's a perfect number. One denotes positivity and optimism. It's authoritative, and represents the authority. Having it appear in your life as an angelic number means things are out of balance and it's time to address unequal forces in your life. It signifies great change. There are 11 things supposed to be witnessed by John the Baptist in conjunction with the end of the world."

He smiles, then looks at her nonplussed, "...So. Now you. And then follow it up with Book, class in school, and...Oh pick something you want to know about me."

The wine is kicking in, making the alcohol worse as he smiles at her lazily. He could sit like this for hours."

"Um, if you tell Nic I'm going to lose so many cool girl points, so you can't, but I really love Yellow by Coldplay. I know, I know, but there's something about it that just really makes me happy. And Killer Queen by Queen too. I used to go nuts singing it and trying to be entirely too bad ass about it." Alex's tongue is a little loosened by the wine, but not much. Instead, she's just letting herself talk about who she is rather than in relationship to the story that she's supposed to be telling, it's nice and refreshing in a way.

"Comfort food is easy for me too, but it's a tossup. For like an actual sort of meal thing, mac and cheese. The homemade kind with like the crunchy breadcrumbs on the top. And Ben and Jerry's Half Baked. Even when I have nothing else in my freezer, I've got it and coffee. Because some days you just need to eat a pint of ice cream and call it dinner." More often than she would like to, but not enough to care about it.

"My favorite number is twenty-three. Probably because it's my birthday rather than any other pretentious sort of meaning attached to it." It's teasing, of course, but it's light. "Book varies based on mood, but one of the ones that I always find myself rereading when I can is A Tale of Two Cities. Even if Dickens was writing by the word and definitely needs an editor like crazy. I like The Moonstone too, and Emma by Austen. Subject in school was easy, English of course. I'm really terrible at math." And then she just goes easy, but also very important: "Favorite ice cream flavor? Because if it's Half Baked it might be fisticuffs at dawn over the last pint."

"Dickens." He offers that soft chuff that Alex may be familiar with by now, "You have very good taste in books."

When she mentions mac and cheese however he smiled, "I know you saw I was asked to be on the Chopped! podcast. What I do not know is if you ever saw the recipe I submitted to the food network when they asked for guest submissions."

He pulls out his phone and passes it to her. She'll note that his lock screen and home screen are generic, but the recipe is On the webpage.

His grin is cocky, "I make my own bread. Garlic bread? I crush my own garlic butter with it. It's delicious."

He smiles, "I could get used to ice cream.

He won't have time to. But he lets that slide, leaning against her, "You didn't ask me questions."

Alex just snuggles back up against him, tucking herself under his shoulder when she hands him his phone back before she speaks with a mock-scowl. "I'm a little insulted that you haven't made me your 'Killer Mac and Cheese with Bacon' mac and cheese, Richard. And bread either." She tsks lightly at him, but there's no heat in it, just a state of being content that spreads out from her, like a kitten who'd been fed and was now resting in a spare bit of sunshine.

"So you're going to need to do that when we get back." But that was it for the mentions of where they were going and what they were going to do. Instead she just bites at her lower lip for a second, considering what to ask next. But first a caveat: "So you know I can't cook so the only thing that I'm going to be able to say is coffee and nanaimo bars, but top three things to cook, top restaurant that you'd love to go to again, and your favorite date idea."

Which is important because Alex knows that she wants to know so that she can take notes, celebratory things and all of that when it's all over.

Date idea

An idea trickles into his mind. Like he's a child again, a teenager again, I could look into her mind. I could pick something she'd really want- but the notion is instantly dismissed. Even if Alex weren't Alex, it would be a violation the likes of which he would never be comfortable with.

That would take some getting used to. So he sits and thinks.

"My mother taught me how to make brioche. Quinoa and rice pilaf. And Ruby says I make a mean quesadilla."

Restaurant he'd love to go to again...

"Richard I'm afraid you're going to have to roll me back to the hotel." Coralee mimed flopping over in her chair. Music drifted in through the open windows and if they had taken the window table they could have seen the beach spread out beneath them, "That. Was delicious."

"Too busy rolling myself home." He moved to take her hands, "Come darling. Italy awaits us!"

"...There's a very fancy hole in the wall restaurant in Chicago that makes some of the best deep dish I've ever had. I'll go with that. But cooking is an art Alex. It's something truly special. When you find something that you like that you want in person. Anyone can make a pizza. If I tell you that I want to eat somewhere again, trust me. It's a good restaurant I'll come back to."

Oh god. And Date idea.

"...I haven't dated in a long time Alex..."

Just sexual encounters over work.

"Okay, so you definitely need to make me brioche. And then use it to make french toast." Alex just says with a grin, and she offers without any sort of question on his part, feeling more at ease with the game. "I kind of love breakfast foods? Even if I don't actually eat them at breakfast. I'm a brunch girl because if I ate french toast and then tried to go to work, I'd just be napping in my office. But definitely more pancakes and french toast than eggs. I love bacon more than sausage and orange juice." And coffee, but it goes without saying, but it ties back to her question. "There was this little mom and pop place by my parents house. They made all their own breads and baked goods and sausage even. Best pancakes I'd ever had. I'd like to take you there I think. Someday."

But not for a while. Obviously. "And definitely deep dish pizza in Chicago too." But then it comes around to the whole dating thing, and Alex isn't surprised. She also wouldn't be surprised to hear about him sleeping with people at conferences or whatever. Richard Strand may have loved (may love) his wife, but he's also a sensual man in the way that he likes good things for his senses: his suits, his food, his tea, his wine. What is sex but something else that does that? And sex can definitely just be sex--it's what her and Amalia was last year before she just decamped to Nic because Nic was more fun to play with and was still half-in love with her.

Alex was more than half in love with someone else.

"I know, and that's okay. I just thought that there was something that you may have... I don't know. Thought of. Around me, I mean."

He has always meticulously planned his dates. It drove Coralee nuts, it drove Amber (Charlie's mother) absolutely bonkers, but it provides a degree of control he'd never admit he likes. It's a trait he saw in his father, planning his mother's time and his son and daughter's time to the last detail. He hated when he caught Charlie doing it, and he had lived so long with himself so strictly regimented that it was ridiculous.

But then. Along came Alex. Who just...did. Who did not plan. And she did plan...

I just thought that there was something you might have...I don't know. Thought of. Around me, I mean.

"Aren't all of our excursions dates?"

His smile doesn't fade, but his eyes go soft, "I'd cook you dinner. At my house." His home in Chicago swims into mind, "At my house in Chicago. The space that's mine."

That hands for a moment before he brushes it off, "Dinner or breakfast. Then we'd sight see. Millennium park, Buckingham Fountain. Then towards the end of the day there's this hole in the wall bookshop. I swear the guy has been there since time began. I found it years ago when I went prowling around the city with a group of friends and they left me there for a day. I was totally content. I stop in, buy books, you stop in, you possibly help me carry books home. And then we sit. Like this or not, and I read and you watch TV or whatever you...want to do in the evenings. But my bookshop is special to me, and I would...like you to see it one day."

Oh his mind is cracking. Just take it moment by moment Richard. His heart hurts, Better she lives. Better she gets to go to all those places..

Alex just laughs softly, and she nuzzles her cheek against his chest as she looks up at him. This has definitely moved directly into cuddling and of course Alex would be the one to do it first because Alex is bad about boundaries and she's bad about a lot of things, but she's good about loving him, that's for sure. Loving him is one of the easiest things that she can do without thinking, and it'd make sense that cuddling becomes that too.

"We can always have breakfast for dinner," Alex suggests as a compromise, even though she does think breakfast AND dinner because if she's going to Chicago it's definitely not a day trip sort of plan. But it's easy for Alex to see it, the sites that her and Nic didn't when the two of them were there to interview both Emily Dumond and Richard himself. Alex traveled a lot, but the places that she went to weren't ones where she had the time or ability to just wander in the way that he was suggestion.

Alex has an active imagination, and it's easy for her to picture the date in her mind: the bookshop, carrying one book rather than a stack, and then ending up on his sofa like this. Well, not exactly like this, more like with her using his thigh as a pillow as he plays with her hair and they both read. Or he reads to her. She really should read more novels. But... "That sounds like a perfect date for the two of us, Richard. I'd love to see your bookstore. And your actual house, the one you chose and not..." Well, not Howard's obviously. "I didn't get a chance to before. Maybe that's what we should do: fly to Chicago instead of back here."

After, of course because everything is after.

"And honestly that sounds like the perfect date too. Well, with me it wouldn't be cooking because I don't think you'd like to meet the faces of my neighbors when I try and cook and burn something. But just you and me..." Alex gives him a grin. "On a better sofa I guess. Just having pizza from the place down by Pike's Place and having a wine and talking and just being us without you know..." All of the trappings of the show.

He allows the wine to take affect and pulls her a little closer, gently, "Just the two of us. Seattle, Chicago, we could fly back and forth. I'll go on speaking engagements and come home with stories about stupid silly people trying to swindle people out of their deepest beliefs and you'll report on it, or you'll report on something. Or you'll write. You're a wonderful storyteller.

Maybe we rent a boat. Or I'll sell my father's house and move the institute back to Chicago. Or I sell my house and move here. His house...would be better if you were there more. And you and I could argue and I could try to hopelessly entice you to the theater and read to you from other Dickens books and the Brontes and poetry and I can pretend for a little while that I haven't dragged you into the hell that's been my life for seven years old. We could go to Italy. Visit Charlie."

He paused, "...She approved of you."

He's not a bad storyteller himself--Richard never has been. Of course all of his stories normally ended with some sort of variation on a theme about how it wasn't real and she couldn't actually believe that it was true, but this was a different sort of story that he was spinning, and it was one that Alex does want to believe in, more than she'd ever wanted to believe in tales of the supernatural or demons. Alex wants to believe in this possible future, because it was a possible future, something that they just needed to battle through the rest of to get.

But she does tilt her head for a bit, with a smile. "She does? I'm really glad to hear it. It was something I worried about. Most people who call the studio to tell me to fuck off I can brush aside but when it's Charlie..." For a few reasons, and only one of them was because she was Richard's daughter.

"You know," Alex says softly, and she touches his cheek again, sitting up so that it's easier for her dark eyes to find his blue ones. "We can go wherever you want, do whatever you want. I know that for most of your life you haven't had a lot of choices Richard and when this is done I want you to have that option. If you want to get a boat and sail around the world, I'd like that. If you want me to come to Chicago, I'd like that too. And if you want to stay here it's fine. We're going to make it work no matter what happens. Because I'm not going anywhere. The only thing that's important to me, the only thing that matters is that when all of this bullshit with Warren is done, you and I are together, however that means." She means it, because of course Alex does.

She's so assured. She sounds so damn sure but she was also so young and...and he brushed that aside. Staring at her. What it says to him is accept yourself. If he wants to stop Warren?

"...Can I try something? With you? Just an experiment." He pauses, "I want you to think. Of a place we can go. Just. Stay with me and think of that place and I'm going to...find out what it is."

This could go a lot more places, he realizes, but for now.

"Whatever this is, if we're going up against warren I need to know how to use it."