(no subject)

[11calls]

Following this

[It's honestly probably a very good thing that Alex had her phone in her hand otherwise there's no way in hell that she would have been able to hear it ring. When it does she just stares at it before she shouts over the din of the loud tech music:]

Hold on.

[There's the sound of her moving through the club, and finally out the door of it where the background noise fades to something more like crowd noise. Alex moves past that before she speaks, and she sounds a little drunk but not shitfaced.]

How the hell do you even know where Excessus is? And yes, Amalia is fine. Trust me, she's a very good Domme who is much in demand. I am fine. And Warren didn't even know I was there!

Comments

[imarealistnotacynic]

It was still reckless.

[Never mind how he knows. He's just going there.] I can use google like anyone else Alex.

[But he does slow.]

...So you and she are okay? I...

I'm halfway there anyway. Maybe I could meet you still.

[But he sounds winded, out of breath and tired. And still, Warren is there.]

[11calls]

No re-admittance.

[Alex just sighs. Amalia is going to kill her. Like really kill her, and she's wearing Amalia's dress which costs almost what her rent does. But she's listening to how he sounds, and just frowns before she carefully leans against a building.]

Yes, we're fine. Sorry, I shouldn't have been drunk texting you. You can head home, I'll call an uber and head home myself.

[imarealistnotacynic]

Don't be ridiculous. I'll come and get you. It's my fault you left.

And if you want to stay then we'll go in.

Alex when it comes down to it I can play the spoiled older rich man with a young...ingenue. Especially if you-

IF I interrupted something.

[He sounds uncomfortable.]

Just give me a moment. I can help you get back to her.

[11calls]

[Alex is torn for a moment, because honestly part of her wants to go back in. Part of her knows that she should honestly, so Amalia doesn't worry when she's done playing the scene that she's involved in. There is also no small part of her (the drunk part that has her already normally low inhibitions already dropped down ever lower) is more than a little intrigued at the idea of Dr. Richard Strand, Dom.

She really needs to stop thinking like that.

But also there's the fact that he just sounds so uncomfortable, and that's not what she wants. The two of them have been better lately, but Alex knows that when their dynamic is out of balance, it's really out of balance and she doesn't want him to freak out and run off because of this. Alex doesn't want this for a whole hell of a lot of reasons, and one of them is definitely because she doesn't want to have to explain it to anyone, not even herself.]

Richard...

[But Alex leaves off until she sees him in the valet parking line, and she moves over to him on heels the likes of which she'd never normally wear. The entire outfit is the likes of which she'd never worn around him. Honestly, she doesn't think she's ever even worn a skirt, never mind a dress made of leather that barely brushes mid thigh. Or stockings. Or crimson lipstick which is currently matching the blush that's covering her face to the deep v of her cleavage.]

[imarealistnotacynic]

[So Alex and Amalia are at a club. With Warren. Amalia is a domm. The thing that Richard has always known is how to move through the world with a dominating presence. He walks into classrooms on bad days and students cower. He walks into symposiums and lectures and people tuck their tails between their legs.

He is a very sensitive man, with her, but with anyone else...

When he stands out of the car he is in his three piece suit, but instead of looking like he's spent a day in the office he carries himself like a baron of industry, like a captain, like he's walking into a lecture hall and stares down at the Valet.

It takes all of his composure not to break when he sees her because she is...gorgeous. Amalia has great taste. It's pure raw animal power as he moves close to her, moving to kiss her. If she accepts it it'll be a rough hard powerful kiss before he straightens up to look at the door, whispering in her ear.]

I told you I can get you in.

[His hand slides down to the small of her back.]

You should have told me you wanted to stalk Warren. I'm not happy.

[11calls]

Alex tries not to feel self-conscious as she's shown to a suite on the same floor, and she's still not sure where they are. She can make guesses, of course: within Seattle, probably in the Daeva Corp building, but she can't be certain. The suite doesn't have windows, and it's done in shades of white and gold. Honestly, it just makes Alex wonder how many suites there are here, and what the hell Tiamat had use for them? It's probably stupid of her to think of, but if she spends time thinking of what Richard and Tiamat are doing, she's going to go even more insane than she already is.

So, in the end she showers, leaving her stockings just on the bathroom floor, because it's the only bit of clothing that she's left. Alex wishes that she'd had her glasses, but she doesn't so instead she just flushes her eyes with cool water after she removes her make up. Wrapped in a fluffy towel, with another around her head, Alex considers opening the door and demanding that someone give her a phone. She should call Nic. She should warn someone about what she'd done. What she's doing. But with the bruise on her collarbone, Alex knows that she can't.

Besides, it's not like she can call the cavalry. Warren is still Warren and she's still trapped somewhere he is. Alex knows it'd be really easy to claim that Alex had gotten seriously injured or killed in an escape attempt. Richard would riot, but without her in his ear, Alex is sure that Tiamat would be able to calm him down. So, instead she just puts clothing on so that if something does happen, she's not dying fucking naked. The clothing is old fashioned, and it's far too girlish and earth mother like for Alex's tastes (why is it always dresses?) but at least she's wearing something and shoes as she just paces the room, waiting for the sun to rise or whatever the hell Tiamat is waiting for.

[imarealistnotacynic]

How to describe what happens next?

It doesn't happen in words. Tiamat is like looking at his arm, looking at his hand. Like looking at something in the mirror. How had his father denied him this? It...

He's still naked and now she is beside him, "This doesn't feel real. It feels..." his hands seem strange and heavy, "...Wrong. Will I still be me?" he stares down at her, "Have I always been you? My father beat me to try and ...escape you. I think."

"He kept you from your power." She murmurs against his collarbone, "You feel it now don't you? And you and I...you feel me with you? Beside you? I am you. So this body...this personality...it is...a shell. I am little more than an essence without my worshippers. Without my army."

Her eyes are filled with tears, "so you...take on my power. And you will open the door and We will have the world. It is different for each person. But you should be a king. You have no need of these trappings."

She plucks his glasses off and he feels a pang, reaching for them like a scared child, like a little boy.

"Tiamat..."

"Hushhh."

His heart thuds as she pushes her hands gently, ever so gently, over his eyes. That is where the pain begins and Richard Strand realizes his father's behavior was to try and protect him.
--

There is a knock in the middle of the night - or what amounts to it, close to it, Richard strides into the room with a scarf wrapped over his face.

"Alex. Alex where are you?"

There is something wrong with his voice. It's still deep, it's still rough."

"Alex?"

[11calls]

Alex Reagan doesn't sleep under the best of times, never mind at times like now, and when she hears the knock on her door, Alex had grabbed the only thing that amounted to a weapon in the room: one of heavy metal candlesticks just in case it was Warren. But then it wasn't, at least she doesn't think so. "Richard?" Alex's voice is soft, and it's laced with concern when she sees him with the scarf over his face, when there's something wrong with the voice that she's loved so since before she'd even met him.

The grip on the candlestick loosens a bit, becoming less white knuckled as Alex just moves closer to him, but she doesn't let it go. Not yet. She has to be sure that it's not Warren first, because the last thing she's going to do is die in a stupid long dress like this.

But still, her eyes are wide as she stares at him, and the worry is etched into every single bit of her when she just asks softly: "what is it? What's wrong?" Because something needs to be. He wouldn't come in here looking like this and sounding like this if it wasn't.

[imarealistnotacynic]

"We have to get out here."

He keeps the scarf over his face. He can see her (he could see through anything) but he can see her and he wants nothing more than to be held. Except now. Now that could never happen again..

"Come on. I have to get you out of here so you don't come with us tomorrow. I have to...get your clothes. Get something warmer to wear. When we get out there'll be...there'll be a car. I think I got through to Nic you just - we have to go now."

[11calls]

"What? Richard I gave my word." Alex just frowns at him, and she sets down the candlestick as she steps closer to him, a frown on her face. "There aren't any warmer clothes in here. Everything is like this." Alex just gestures to the flowing and flimsy green dress she was wearing. "It's like she bought out every bit of 'Mother Goddess' like clothing that she could. Besides..." He had torn the laces out of the dress that she had been wearing, and it's not they could get put back together.

"What are you talking about? If I break my word, do you think that Tiamat isn't going to have Warren start hunting me down? He'd love to get the chance to kill me during an escape attempt. All it takes is a misfired bullet. Plausible deniability." It's probably no surprise to Richard that Alex has spent the time thinking of the worst case scenarios for what may happen, but she didn't realize that Richard would be the one who was telling her to get the hell out of there.

Then she just stares him down: "why are you wearing that scarf? Is this some sort of trick Warren is playing? Some sort of test that he or Tiamat have come up with or something? How did you get in touch with Nic? And why do you sound like that? What happened?"

On the way to the temple of Tiamat, Days Later

[imarealistnotacynic]

There is a resistance, and Nic Silver is a part of it.

It's not intentional. Days ago he was just a fucking producer on a goddamn podcast and now he was trying to save his best friend's boyfriend from becoming some sort of demonic monster. That had been Simon Reese's order - and taking orders from a noted murderer aside he was happy to at least try to stop it. Whatever the cost.

Reese watches. He doesn't trust him but he does trust Richard Strand - or the thing that was Richard Strand who is commanding him to keep Alex safe but somehow subtly sending signals as to where they need to go. From Seattle to Geneva to battle the forces of darkness and the end of the world.

They can't teleport - like apparently Alex said Richard could - but he stirs and looks over at his seatmate.

"...Sorry. I don't think I meant to fall asleep." he yawns, "This is just...a lot. Are you okay?"

She had been diving into research. Sleeping somehow even less than usual.

"I'll knock you out if I have to. We're not good to him, to the planet apparently, if we're passing out on the steps of this stupid temple."

[11calls]

"I can't sleep." Alex knows that she sounds exhausted, that she looks exhausted, and that she looks like some sort of refugee from her life dressed in Nic's sweatshirt and Simon's pants and a pair of kid's shoes. At least Nic managed to grab her spare glasses when he was at work, because she doesn't think that she could have handled contacts for this many days when her eyes are so dry and tired from her lack of sleep. "And knocking me out would be a bad idea," the words are a caution as Alex just closes the notebook that had been Strand's, and she holds it to her chest almost like a Teddy Bear.

"When I dream, Tiamat finds me. It's dangerous for me to sleep, for all of us, okay?" Alex's voice is sharply defensive, far more than she wants it to be and it makes her sigh. She doesn't want to go into what Tiamat does or say when she manages to find Alex sleeping, how she can command the darkness and the demons to find them and try and stop them on their quest. Tiamat won't kill her, at least not before she's standing in front of the Goddess and Alex knows it, but Simon and Nic have no such assurances, at least not now.

Alex tries not to think very hard about how if she had kept her word, they would have been protected even if the world wasn't.

But Tiamat promises Alex's safety in the dreams. She promises love, both of herself and Richard. She promises Alex her share of the world if she would just stop this. Alex won't stop, she can't stop, because she can't let Richard down. Alex Reagan has promised Richard Strand that she would save him, and she means it.

Instead, she just shifts in her seat to look at Simon. "I think it's time you tell me what you've been avoiding for days. Why Richard sent me to you."

[imarealistnotacynic]

Simon comes and goes as he pleases. Reappearing in different seats or beside different people and it hurts - somehow it hurts that Alex is no longer shocked by this.

But he is fulfilling his purpose before the queen calls him to the chessboard and he folds his hands.

"Marduk."

He had seen Richard. Richard had summoned him, commanded him and he had gone with horror and fear. Seeing the good Doctor as he had been, as he was now...

He didn't tell Alex. He didn't dare.

"Marduk. The legend of he who slayed Tiamat. The one I was trying to summon. It's funny how the universe ends up working things out right? Absolutely wild."

Nic glares at him, "She asked you a question."

"Shut up."

He bares his teeth at the producer before he turns back to alex, "...Marduk is the only way to stop her. To rescatter her body and spirit."

[11calls]

Alex had read the Enûma Elish more times than she can count at this point, and she doesn't know if she would count Marduk as a hero. Maybe it's just the way she could feel Tiamat's lips linger on her own or the sadness in her, but it's hard to reconcile the two. Of course it's easier now when she remembers what Tiamat had done to her Richard. He's always hidden from her in those dreams Tiamat sends her, and she suspects that it's for a reason.

But she frowns, and she shifts in her seat, pulling her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around them with a soft sigh. Alex can feel the exhaustion slipping deeper into her bones as if someone was sucking the life out of them. "Marduk was a storm god who made the other gods name him King of the Gods if he did it. He's kind of an asshole. Also gods are really stupid, because none of this would have started in the first place if Abzu hadn't planned to kill the younger gods, so they killed him and Tiamat wanted vengeance."

And then there had been the monsters that Tiamat was already summoning into the world. Monsters they'd already barely escaped from once.

"So how do we get Marduk to come in and do it then? And how do we protect Richard from him? It's not exactly as if he's a nice guy or something."

[imarealistnotacynic]

Simon stares at her, before staring at Simon with a sad little sigh before he gestures, "There's a sword we're going to go and uh...steal. Well I'm going to steal it. You're going to collect it."

Nic's eyes go wide, "Wait what?"

"It's fine." Simon waved a hand, "Once we get the sword I'm told everything will be explained, at least that's what my reading has demonstrated."

He pauses, "You need to think about what Richard may want Alex."

There may as well only be the two of them in the world at this point, simon's eyes boring into hers, "...He's a genetically perfect vessel for Tiamat and I think he's thinking of Charlie - as well as you. If they don't take him, they may take her."

[11calls]

Even after they get off the plane, there's still driving to do in order to get from the airport to the cottage that she'd rented. It'd been a choice that Alex had made, because she knows that the sea is probably not the best thing that they can be near, so instead it's closer to the mountains and the towns get smaller and smaller as they drive through them following the GPS on the dashboard.

Before they even hit the town that is the closest to them, Alex just pulls into a supermarket and they grab the essentials so at least it's something bigger than the small one stop shop that's actually in the town that they can get to easily. The entire thing seems like something out of a fairy land as the green hills just surround them. Even Alex who hasn't really been around places that aren't so green can't help but to stare at them.

Pulling along a dirt drive, the cottage comes into view, with it's thatched roof and the ivy crawling up over the stone and the cheerful shutters being the brightest spot in the house. There's a garden out back, Alex knows because she made sure there was, and a small shed that contains all of the tools. They'll need to make more trips to gather things, but at least the house is furnished, and they have their food and clothing.

Still, as Alex pulls alongside the little gate that stands in front of the arch to the front door, she just raises an eyebrow to him and softly says: "well, I'm pretty sure this is haunted, Richard."

[imarealistnotacynic]

It's taken a few days but he's starting to feel like a human being again. Largely it has taken Alex - sleeping beside him, holding him and letting him hold her, to make him feel like a man again and not some kind of monster. He can look at himself in the mirror thanks to her. She abandoned everything for him and the deep well of love and emotion that filled his chest every time he thought of it was warm and gentle and good, good most of all.

Sliding out of his pea coat he tilts his head because yes he can sense something but he's not sure.

It seems like his abilities are more along the lines of finding things, being led to things and then going there and Alex...

There it is.

"...I'm not sensing anything." He frowns, "Just vague...emotions but I thought that was you."

[11calls]

For a moment, Alex just blinks at that and then she looks to the cottage again. She doesn’t feel anything other than the vague sort of sensation of being watched. It’s not a great thing after all they’ve been through but it’s not something that Alex can’t handle either.

She can handle anything as long as Richard is with her.

Speaking of, she just moved onto her toes and presses her lips against his. It’s an instinct that Alex has had for a long time and now she can act on it whenever she wants. She’s most certainly finding that whenever she wants is more often than not and that’s okay.

“Well, if you thought they were from me than I’m going to assume they’re not like murderous or anything. I don’t think we need to exchange Eldritch horror for gothic, do you? Besides I’m pretty sure I don’t have any dresses with me long enough to go wandering around the moors or whatever.”

The last bit is said with a grin of course—it can’t not be.

[imarealistnotacynic]

"No, but I like the idea of wearing shorter dresses." He grins wickedly. He's smiling more and more now, the sting of every betrayal he's suffered slowly fading away, "For either one of us."

She's seeing the real him but there it is, that feeling of being watched, "...I'll look around tonight. See what I can find."

The cottage has two rooms, along with a living room slash dining room and an adorable kitchen that makes him smile. The back door opens to a green world that makes him feel grounded. There's even a bookcase full of books.

That gives him pause, but also interest. Staring at the door for a moment he - in a moment of goofy interest - smiles at her.

"Do you want me to carry you over the threshold?"

[11calls]

That makes Alex laugh, she can't help it, and her eyes just sparkle at him. Dresses aren't really her thing normally, but she wasn't the one who'd gone shopping to replace the wardrobe back in Seattle, and she knows who ever was in charge of that had made sure that there were more than a few in the luggage that they'd brought along with them. So, it's a wish that Alex actually can manage to fulfill for him. The heels however, will be left behind.

What's the point of so much green if you can't walk with it underfoot? (Or so at least Alex thinks, the first time she steps on a rock, her normal flats are coming back out.)

"Do you want to carry me over the threshold, Richard?" It's a teasing and goofy question, her eyes sparkling when they meet his own. It's such a little thing, being able to tease him and she loves doing it in her own way. The gentle and kind way, of course.

Bad end AU.

[11calls]

Alex can feel the moment when Tiamat makes her decision. Watching as she takes Richard’s glasses, Alex wants to beg and plead for her not to do it but something holds her quiet and still. She fights against it when the scream rips from his lips and it’s all Alex can do to press her hands to her lips so that she doesn’t make one that joins him. Tears fall silently from her eyes and she blames them for not understanding what she sees at first.

There’s a heat, wavering and almost alive and Alex watches his skin shift and change. It’s like it’s burning but it’s not. Where she expects to see blackened flesh, there are instead scales born. Red and gold and green bursts in the wake of the fire and Alex is so confused and concerned for him that she doesn’t realize the danger that she’s in until it’s too late.

The fire moves along her right arm, the parts are the closest to him and Alex just screams. It doesn’t leave the same sort of scales that his does though. Instead hers are midnight blue, crackling like they were being struck by lightning in pattens of lighter blue and purple and silver. They are not the solid sheet of scales that Richard has: instead they are a pattern made haphazardly and sunk into her skin. It swirls upwards, across her chest, framing the bite on her collarbone with a smaller circle of scales.

The pattern continues up the side of her neck, her face and Alex screams as she rips out the contacts that she’s wearing. Her eyes are still large. They’re still liquid but the dark brown of them is gone and replaced with a burnished golden color.

“What are you doing to us?” Alex just screams the words out quickly. “Tiamat please!”

[imarealistnotacynic]

She was always beautiful and to Richard somehow she's even more beautiful, those luminous eyes, those glorious scales, she is every inch a dragon, she always has been and whatever hope humanity had slips away as he takes her hands in his clawed ones.

"Just let it come." How could he have been so blind? Tried to stop this, not embraced this strength? "Just let it come I'm here. I'm here...Everything being born suffers pain."

His thumb strokes her cheek.

"I love you, just hold on. It hurts and there is-"

Run Alex, run for godsake forget me forget-

He shudders and Tiamat spreads her hands. Her voice is like a bell in his head.

Are you not pleased?

Does it have to cause her pain?

All things feel pain when becoming something new.

He knows, now is the time for learning because this power is his by birthright. So he stands back, attentative-

Before moving forward to hold Alex though for the life of him he couldn't tell if it was to keep her from escaping or to comfort her in her moment of pain.

It is Tiamat who takes Alex's hands.

"Listen to Richard. I'm so happy you came to me."

The mother of chaos kissed her fingers, "It's almost done my love." You are so beautiful."

[11calls]

The scales ornament Alex like gleaming jewels, haphazardly placed over her skin and she just whimpers for a moment when he holds her hands. The pattern continues down over her right hand, swirling around her wrist before forming a spiral over the back of her hand to her fingers. Alex doesn't get true claws, but the fingernails on that hand darken and blacken, drawing to a length that practical as hell Alex Reagan never would have had.

She just whimpers, and for all the way her eyes have the reptilian cast, they still look human in her face, expressive as Alex always has been. She's burning and she doesn't know what to do. It's like lightening, electricity, like a thousand shocks delivered all at once.

Alex doesn't scream as Richard moves to hold her, and she just looks to Tiamat, her eyes wide as Alex can feel the swirling pattern burst into the mishmash of ornamental scales along her side, curling around her hip and across her belly like a belt before it works around her back and then down over one side of her leg. The scales are varying sizes, and the way that the skies and stars swirl in them changes depending upon the way that the light his them, and after it curls about her ankle and then spreads over her right foot almost like a sandal, it just stops.

The fresh burning does, anyway. Her nerves are still alight and then Alex does something she'd never been able to do before. She thinks rather than says aloud to them.

I hurt. Is it done?

[imarealistnotacynic]

Richard doesn't want to let her go.

Tomorrow however he will hold his consort all he wants and Tiamat, his other half moves to take Alex in her arms and cup her face.

You are so beautiful. The term of endearment is in ancient sumerian. You have risen. You and Richard and I will be together forever.

She presses her forehead to Alex's before smiling a fangy smile and looking to Richard.

What passes between the two of them is a mystery but Richard kisses her hard, his own blue and black scales shimmer before he reaches for Alex's hand.

You get used to talking like this. Does it still burn?

[11calls]

For a moment, Alex just frowns. She knows that she shouldn't be able to understand that, that she hadn't been able to understand it before when the rest of them were speaking it, but now she does. Wondering if she can speak it too, Alex just thinks: Yes. It's in Ancient Sumerian even if it's not entirely clear what the response is to when it comes to the questions that she was asked.

I just feel...

Words are always what Alex has been good at, but right now they seem incredibly far away. She knows that it's shock or something like it, but she's so fixated on the weirdness inside of herself that she doesn't really notice what happened between Richard and Tiamat. While Alex's heart still feels like it's pounding within her chest, she realizes that it doesn't burn anymore. It doesn't burn but she can feel the scales moving with her, and that solidifies the fact that they're a part of her now.

I feel odd.

It's an understatement. Alex Reagan feels electric. She can feel power moving through her, over her, around her in ways that she never could before. For her entire life, Alex has been under the assumption that she's just perfectly normal but now she knows that's a lie that she'd been telling herself however unintentionally. Alex has never been normal, she has always been this. It's more than a little jarring as she wraps her hand carefully around his own, needing the reminder of the fact that she does in fact have a body, and that this is hers.

"I'm okay." Alex says it aloud, because she needs to hear her own voice, in her own language and she needs to know that with everything else, she's still her at her core. She's Their consort, willingly stayed, but she's also herself too.