11calls | (no subject)

[He's a little thrown by Warren. Whoever this woman was...it looks like he loves her. He knows what love looks like.

It throws him enough he strokes a gentle hand down her back and mumble to himself.]

...Alex if I...If I let you sit up can you sit okay? Do I need...Do I need to help you?

[Alex just looks very confused even with the gentle hand on her back, and she wonders if she's done something wrong. She can't help but to wonder if she'd done something wrong. Feeling wrong-footed, and uncertain Alex just swallows and stretches her legs out--a single strike of a crop isn't going to do anything permanent but it buys her a little bit of time before she needs to respond. And then she doesn't respond. Instead of saying anything she just gives him a little shake of her head as she starts to slide off of the table and onto the heels, and then she is able to see past him.

With her eyes going wide, she just says softly:]

Oh my god.

Do you think he has a wife?

[Richard's touch is gentle.] Is that her? Has she been following the two of us?

[Is that it? Do women just...initiate men into this cult? Did he initiate her? He stares at her, worried.]

Did I hurt you?

If they're married, it's nothing legal. We would have found that already. I mean, a long term girlfriend or partner or something is possible though. But yeah, I've seen her before. In Charlesworth. In Seattle after Maddie...

[And then Alex just goes extremely pale and drops down onto the bench of the booth, both hands pressing against her face for a moment, because she knows where else she'd seen the woman. A place where at that point, Nic didn't even know where she was. She'd been too angry with him to even speak about where she was going after they'd forced her on vacation.]

She was there at the dinner in Forks. When I was away on my vacation. I thought I was losing my mind. No one knew where I was, not even my mother. But she was there.

[Richard lets Alex talk because looking at this woman he can ...well. He can't explain it. He's seen her but she feels ...She feels.

Fuck.

Across the room the woman looks up sharply and Richard's eyes go wide.]

Can you walk? We need to leave. Now.

[She knows we're here.] is...a moot damn point.

Alex was just watching as well. There seemed to be no reason to hide it. There was something about the woman that almost seemed to beg for them to watch her in ways that Alex can’t describe. It’s like being unable to watch a beautiful sunset over the sea. Or a millipede crawling across your ceiling. It’s beautiful and dangerous and some thing about it makes Alex’s brain just twitch. When the woman looks at them, really LOOKS, Alex can’t look away even if she’s not the focus of the gaze. There’s no point in trying to be covert as Warren just follows the woman’s gaze and gives the two of them the laziest but most please smile.

Alex’s voice is soft when she speaks. Despite the prey instincts telling her to flee, (maybe she does have a sense of self preservation after all) her brain is saying something else too. “They’re not going to be able to attack us in a crowded club, right? But if they get us outside we’re easier prey.”

Up close he knows that her eyes change color. Sometimes green sometimes blue sometimes purple sometimes black. All black and dark and beautiful.

He's gone totally rigid. He should have known. after Geneva he should have known. He should have known she'd find them and that Alex...

His breath hitches in his throat as his grip tightens on Alex's hand. She's looking at them now and...

"We have to get away from them."

Or you should come to me. Surely you must know what I want. Surely you must know.

His gaze is absolutely rigid. He says this but he doesn't move. Sitting back, relaxing.

The woman may be magnetic, attention drawing, street stopping. She seems to have drawn the eye of everyone in the club who is around them now that her attention isn’t focused on Warren. But for Alex there is a greater focus: and that is the man who is sitting relaxed next to her despite his words, despite the way that his eyes are.

Alex has seen his eyes like that before; the grimness, the determination. She has been at the focus of that look more than a few times. Right now with the difference in his posture it’s unsettling and without thinking, Alex just puts her hand on his cheek and turns that focus towards her and away from the woman. “Hey. Let’s go, yeah? Come on.”

There’s worry and care in her expression that Alex can’t help and she just frowns at him. “Richard. Please.”

He's not sure he could move. He wants to. He wants to go with Alex, but the woman - up close she is everything. She fills his gaze before turning her attention to Alex, to the two of them.

Richard turns to look at Alex panicked.

The woman is in a slinky purple dress that looks to be patterned like scales. Now red, now purple, now black, now glowing in the light.

"Alex."

The woman's voice is sea foam and rocks. It's the sound of crashing waves. Her nod is gracious and her smile is the world but Richard...

Richard's throat works and the woman slowly saunters to him before her hand slides around his neck. Pulling him into a kiss that's deep. When she pulls back she says something in a language - a dead language - there are very few people who actually speak ancient Sumarian.

But Richard responds in kind and Tiamat laughs. She sits beside him, staring at Alex with a purr.

Two women on either side of a man who's staring dazed, eyes glassy.

"Imagine my surprise and absolute luck Alex Reagan. I missed you two in Geneva, but then I, roaming my world, find my vessel waiting for me. He has a weakness for strong women. For wanting to measure up. It's all because he was waiting for me."

She settled in as Richard stared. His gaze flicked back to Alex, frozen. Tiamat putting a possessive hand on his thigh.

"I ought to thank Warren for putting you in his path...There is something about you...something that intrigues me."

Jealousy. Alex Reagan has never been particularly good at not being jealous. She’d been jealous of Coralee’s memory even before she’d been proven right in that the woman was alive. She’d been jealous in the fact that Richard had been working with a mysterious ‘she’. Alex had definitely been jealous when Coralee had shown up in that van. Alex is jealous now, she can’t help it as Tiamat kisses him like he’d just kissed Alex. Especially with that possessive hand on his thigh.

While Alex is definitely afraid, seeing this: talking to a Goddess the jealousy is still there and Alex finds herself responding to Tiamat in the same way that she’d responded to Thomas Warren about the Horn. Her Horn.

Alex Reagan’s sense of self preservation is definitely on the otherwise of the world with Nic.

“I don’t think his ‘wanting to measure up’” Alex’s air quotes are audible. “Has anything to do with you at all, actually. I think the blame for them actually rests with Howard Strand.” Without looking away, Alex just wraps her fingers through Richard’s giving them a squeeze of reassurance.

“And I really don’t think he appreciates your hand on his thigh.” It’s said mostly mildly with an arch of her eyebrow but there is an unspoken: ‘so take your hand off’ within it.

"Howard." She smiles, "Poor Howard. Poor sweet Howard. He does love his son you know. And his son loves his father. Or at least. Loved."

It's a sign of how hard Richard is fighting that he doesn't let go of Alex's hands, or push her away. His features flicker at her but he leans toward Tiamat and kisses her.

Tiamat turns her attention back to Alex, pulling Richard's hand off.

"You don't understand. Alex Reagan. So I will explain. Richard wants this. He was bred to want it. He was born to want it. It's written into his DNA. Coralee was sent to prepare him for it, WArren was sent to pave his way and he will be...righteously rewarded for it."

Something flickers across the Goddess's face and time seems to slow as the bar patrons...stop.

"But you have brought him here. To me. And I am not ungenerous. Indeed I am not without ...compassion. Especially to those who are loyal to me. You want Richard."

She reached across the table, "One way or another you cannot undo this. I have held this vessel for over a thousand years."

Her hands clutch at her wrists, "It is dying. I am coming into my own and I am paving my way and Richard..."

She looked back at Richard who manages to squeeze Alex's fingers. Barely a flicker.

Tiamat looks angry. Than.

"...I am not without compassion. You cannot stop me taking Richard for my own. For the two of us becoming one. But perhaps. We could come to an...arrangement."

Alex just tries not to get swept up in the woman’s dark eyes. They’re bright and deep and Alex can almost swear that she sees the stars that Murdak wove her body into reflected there. Her grip feels cold. Alex feels cold and she just shivers for a moment. But Richard’s touch is a lifeline. It’s a reassurance that he’s still in there, and that this isn’t what he wants.

“You say that he wants this. That he wants you. But it seems to me like you’re exerting a hell of a lot of power over him right now trying to make him do that. If you want me to believe he wants this, then stop touching him. Stop trying to influence his mind. Leave us alone so he can tell me what he wants.”

Edited 2020-05-18 19:19 (UTC)

"Why? Howard kept him from me for years. He beat skepticism into him like a dog." She moves to stroke his cheek, "I have waited over 50 years for him. I have endured Coralee's pawing and his daughter's abandonment. I want him to be happy. And no matter how he feels now..."

She leans against his chest and Richard's grip relaxes a hair. The world around them stops.

"He is beginning to unbend. Moment by moment, every muscle, every fiber of who he is knows what I am. Yearns for me. You should be grateful I am offering you this piece of mercy because you amuse me...Alex."

She leans forward, "There is something about you. Something familiar. It's like I've seen you before and it makes me wonder what and why and where...but as I said."

She clenched her first, "I am forced to rely on technology and human power and resources because this body is weak."

She slides off of Richard, inches away, "Richard am I keeping you here?"

Doctor Richard Strand is a million miles away but when she pulls away from him he's thrust back into the club - the wind roaring through his ears.

He is totally at ease around Tiamat, he knows her now. And he knows why he is here and what she wants. He's craved her fire for years but Alex...Alex is humanity. His humanity.

But there's something now, as he looks at her that he sees and that's...strange. There is something about her. It's fascinating in a way he's never seen before and he wants to understand it.

"...Alex."

His voice is raw.

"Alex. I want..." I want you. I want....

Do you want both of us Richard? You can have both of us. You can have anything you want.

He is in a room, there are just the two of them. Tiamat and he in the darkness, in the caves beneath the waves.

Do you want us both Richard? You can have us. I know you want me but I know you care for her. I am a just and merciful God. You have been waiting to believe in one such as I.

"yes."

You have wanted to believe for so very long. You have been waiting for me haven't you?

"...Alex..."

I'll make you a gift of her.

"Alex."

His features crease and he looks at her, "...Stay with me."

When the world stops around her, Alex's heart races. Everything that she'd seen in the past three years, everything that had scared her and kept her up at night, every time she'd woken up screaming or crying seems like nothing in comparison to this sudden stoppage of the world. Alex looks, her gaze moving around the club and everyone inside of it, including Thomas Warren is still as if someone has just pressed pause on a DVD. For a moment, Alex just wonders if Amalia is okay, but she can't dwell on fear for her friend, not when fear is right here and talking about there being something about Alex herself.

She just looks confused by both the Goddess and Richard staring at her like that, and Alex's colors because it's almost like she's got something on her face. "I'm just me." The words are quick and a little defensive in the same surprised way that happened after Turkey when Richard had said that she was at the center of things with him. Honestly, it makes Alex wonder if this was what he meant and he didn't even know it.

Her mouth opens and closes and for a moment when they're both silent Alex feels like she's alone in a world that's just holding it's breath and waiting for an answer. Maybe more than one answer, both Richard's and the one that Alex is choosing. The rawness of his saying her name echoes in her head for a moment, and she doesn't know what to say.

Alex knows what he wants to say, it's evident in her eyes, in the way that her fingers flex over Richard's when she addresses Tiamat. "What happens to the world. If... If I say yes?"

She loves you.

I know.

You will give yourself to me just to save her.

Yes.

Even if there is a voice that says you want to. You won't do it for you. I want you for you Richard.

You want the world.

So do you.

Looking at her it's like looking into the mirror. Like seeing a part of him that he lost - no. Like he's in two places at once.

"We're together." When he looks at Alex his gaze is sad and also triumphant, "...I don't know why I hesitated Alex, I don't know why I ever did come with us."

She brought him here.

She can't forget that. She brought him here for her love for him. He slides away from Tiamat to take her hands.

"Come with me."

His eyes are Tiamat's eyes. Blue as the waves. Blue as clear water. They shine unnaturally.

Alex wants to say yes. She wants to. There's no way for her to deny that she wants too. There's always something about the darkness that has called to Alex, something that has made her need to look inside of it. To look side of it and to know what was there. It was something that had continued even through the darker side of the tapes and when Alex really should have known better.

Honestly, Alex knows that she should know better now, even as Richard takes her hands and her fingers slide easily around his own once more.

For a moment, Alex just loses herself in the unnatural shining of his eyes. She swears that she can hear the sea around them: the wind and the waves crashing against coarse sand and Alex just swallows as the club that they were in just seems so fucking distant right now she almost doesn't seem to know quite where she is. Where they are.

But, and there's so often a but with Alex Reagan, she holds onto the question she'd asked, but that the two of them didn't answer. "What happens to the world, Richard? What happens if I say yes."

"We take it."

His eyes are like ice but for one flickering moment he looks desperate. He looks panicked. It's a flicker, only someone who knows him so well could see it. His hands warm gently as he takes her fingers.

"...But instead."

"We'll show you." Tiamat puts a hand on his shoulder and he looks at her, adoringly, "In fact-"

It's instant. The club is gone and in it's place is the most elegant and rich room ever. Everything is silk, satin, done in shades of black and gold and red. Warm red.

It's just Richard and Alex too, which Richard staring at nothing. I have to get out. I have to get out I have to leave. Please. Alex please, please please...

He rises, taking off his coat. His whole body trembles but he can't tell if it's because Tiamat isn't here or if it's because he's scared of her.

"...Alex." He looks - left and right, "...Alex?"

He should dress. Relax. This is his room. He knwos that much.

Disappearing in one place and reappearing in another is disorientating and Alex just takes a moment for closing her eyes and breathing slowly through her nose and out through her mouth. The world is warm and red and it's brighter than the club where they were, and the sudden absence of background noise is deafening to her. 'We take it.' Echoes in the places where the sound had been, and Richard's desperate and panicked eyes in her memory force her to open them now.

"I'm here." Her voice is soft, and she reaches out for him when he starts to take his coat off. "I'm here, even if I don't know exactly where here is right now." It reminds Alex a little like some sort of womb, and she needs to tamp down on that thought, and she needs to just focus on him. Her eyes peer into his desperately and she just reaches out and touches his cheek, trying to see if he's still himself or the combination of himself and Tiamat.

"Richard?" She just asks softly, Alex's voice is concerned, and her dark eyes are wide with fear, with not understanding. "Are you, you know yourself?" And not Tiamat, she means.

Edited 2020-05-18 21:19 (UTC)

Richard knows this room. Technically it's his room, but his heart is warm. This is home...

But he realizes Alex is touching his jaw. Home.

"...I think so." Richard holds her hand, "You're so warm and I feel...I feel I feel strange." He moves to hold her, "It feels like I'm floating. you're grounding me."

He swallows, "Where's...Where's..." pause, "Tiamat."

When he moves to hold her, there's no way that Alex doesn't respond by wrapping her arms around him entirely, holding him to her in a hug. She doesn't know what to say for a long moment, instead glancing around the room. She knows that Richard's not acting right, but she doesn't know what to do about all of this.

Some of the color just leeches from her cheeks and she just adds softly: "I don't know. I think..." She pauses, and Alex wonders for a moment if it even makes any sense that she's trying to put logical assumptions to a Chaotic goddess, but here she is trying to do it anyway. "I think she did what I asked that she do, give us some time to talk about this without her, to make sure that this is actually want you want."

Just in case the goddess is listening, Alex keeps her voice low and near his ear. "But what she said about being born for her and bred for her and everything else doesn't mean that you have to become her vessel, Richard. You're allowed to have a choice in this. Everyone seems to forget it, but you do. Is this a choice you're making because you want what she's offering to you? Or is this a choice you're making because you don't think you have another option?"

He inhales her scent. She feels so good. Small and soft against him and he feels taller and more alive than he ever has and...

He stares at her before kissing her, hungrily. His hands slide beneath her top and he holds it there. His eyes swim. They're blue stars.

"...It's hard to think. I don't know if I can...I don't know if I can go far from her."

He clenches her shoulders, tight and angry for a moment. IT may cause her pain, "That's not right. I know that's not right. I'm still me. I'm Richie. I'm sitll Richie I'm Richard I'm...I'm..."

His star blue eyes fill with tears before he clings to her.

"I don't know if I can leave. You should go."

When he kisses her like that, Alex is surprised but she kisses him back. For all of their playacting kisses before at the Club, this feels different. There's some sort of element in it that feels almost like a hello and a goodbye all at once. It makes her want to cry and Alex is speechless for a moment as she just stares into the blue of his eyes. Letting out a small sound when he grips her so tightly, she doesn't know what to do.

What does one do when someone you love is entirely invaded by his enemy and he both seems to want it but also to not want it? Alex doesn't know: there's no playbook for this, nothing written out anywhere and there's no experience that she can ever compare it to. But her eyes well up when he speaks, she can't help it. Alex just cries without making a noise, the lines of her makeup unwavering thanks to the type that Amalia had used.

"Richard," her hand just strokes across his face and her eyes don't slip from the looking of the starry blue of his eyes. "I'm not going to leave you here."

Edited 2020-05-19 15:00 (UTC)

"Why should you?"

Tiamat is dressed in flowing white and Richard rises, pulling away from Alex to her. His feet freeze and Tiamat flinches - visibly hurt by his reluctance.

Something seems to set in her face and she turns her full attention on Alex, pacing to her slowly. Richard doesn't fade but he does move to the closet that is surprisingly full of male clothing, removing his shirt and undressing.

"Alex."

Tiamat's voice.

"He'll be right back Alex. He's just going to shower. Don't panic. Come." Tiamat is unnaturally warm as she reaches her hand for the reporter, "Come on. Let's talk. God to Girl. So to speak."

She meets her gaze and looks decidedly human.

"I think you think, that I am a jealous and vengeful god. and you'd be right." her laugh is high and clear, "But I am not above rewarding those who are loyal to me. And you have protected Richard. I've been watching you Alex Reagan. Simon..."

She chuckles.

"...simon. That poor sweet boy."

Alex Reagan has always had a weakness for charismatic (and of course enigmatic) people. Tiamat has both of them in spades. So she finds herself being pulled towards the woman and her outstretched hand. She looks to Richard in the closet over her shoulder before she lets the Goddess takes her hand and for a moment Alex is uncharacteristically silent just watching the Goddess. She wonders if Tiamat is going to smite her. She wonders if the Goddess wants too.

If she does want to, Alex knows why she won’t: Richard wouldn’t let her. For all of everything between Alex and Richard that may or may not have changed tonight, Alex knows that Richard cares for her at least. And because he cares about her, killing her is dangerous. Both Alex and Tiamat know what Richard Strand is like when he loses someone he cares for and it wouldn’t be beneficial to the Goddess or her plans for him to be wounded in that way.

But what she says about Simon makes Alex frown and she breaks her silence at last, meeting the woman’s (the Goddess’) sea and star eyes. “Simon? What about Simon? What do you mean?”

"Alex...what do you think my plan is specifically?"

The Goddess leans back, "What do you really think I intend to do when I take my new vessel. Honestly?"

There are two glasses of wine then. One in her hand and one in Alex's even if she didn't want it. The sound of a shower running can be heard and Tiamat purrs.

"I have taken children, I have given them power. I have made power...what do you think comes of this? Simon is a loyal ...loyal servant."