11calls | It's where my demons hide, oh it's where my demons hide.

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It's where my demons hide, oh it's where my demons hide.

In the end it had been Simon. Alex had been aware that Simon was…watching her which sounded a hell of a lot better than stalking her since she’d heard their conversation when she’d recorded her sleep note. What Alex hadn’t realized then is just how much Simon had been protecting her or whatever and how often he’d been around. Sure, joking with Nic about Simon watching was one thing—what else is one supposed to do when you’ve got a dark sense of humor and a creepy bilocating kid with an obsession—but finding out that he’d actually been there and overheard those conversations was another thing entirely.

But in an effort to convince Alex to go to Turkey to meet him and the Horn of Tiamat, he’d come clean. Well, it was as clean as Simon had known how to come given all of his cryptic bullshit but she’d gotten the gist of it nonetheless. Alex had gotten the gist of it, and then she’d tried to hide from it, pulling the blankets over her head for a day and calling in sick and wondering if it could possibly be fucking true. That Strand was a demon and had been the entire time and that she had been friends with a demon, that she’d flirted with a demon, that she’d defended a demon and that Alex had bought into the lies and manipulations of a demon who was using her and her entire show for some untoward purpose that probably was the end of the world.

Honestly it was enough to make anyone take to their beds—even Alex Reagan with all of her bravery.

But it was only for one day, even if Alex did call out of work. Nic was more than happy to give her the time off considering it was Alex asking for it, and calls, texts and emails from Strand went entirely unanswered. The most important thing Alex knew from her investigation was that she needed two things in order to figure this out; to prove it: information and evidence. While Alex may not have been very good at collecting evidence of things (though now she can’t help but to wonder how much Strand and to a lesser extent Simon had sabotaged her efforts toward it) one thing that Alex was excellent at was collecting information and getting people to talk to her. Especially people with whom she’d already had a prior connection too.

Alex didn’t know if it was something in her voice or if it was just a case of it being the right moment but this time when she reached out to Charlie Strand, Charlie did agree to talk to her. Off the record, and Alex didn’t record it but it wasn’t about that. This had gone well past a story to the truth and Charlie told her how when they’d been out looking for Coralee, Strand had changed. It was what Charlie had meant by her not having a father anymore because the man who came back from those woods wasn’t her Dad. There had been moments in Charlie’s childhood where the man masquerading as her father had seemed to come out, but Coralee always managed to fix him. Without her stepmother, there was no hope in turning Richard Strand back into who he had been which was why Charlie was working at the Vatican hoping to find something that would work. So far? She hasn’t.

There was no way for Alex to get in touch with Coralee but there was another person who knew him, and Alex called her and begged in a way that she hadn’t when she’d talked to Cheryl before. Richard had moments of weirdness when they were children, but Howard had beaten it out of Richard. That was until Richie had gone looking for the body of Bobby Maimes that he’d seen within his dreams and came back entirely different.

It had taken a week to try and track these things down, and then Alex couldn’t sit on them anymore. She couldn’t keep pacing and waiting and worrying and talking to herself wondering if who she was actually talking to was Simon. In the end, it’s late when Alex drives to Howard’s house in the middle of a rainstorm. Knocking on his door, Alex just holds her breath not sure who—or what—was going to answer the door.

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Richard Strand is 7 years old and he dreams.

He dreams of an impossibly tall creature stalking his sister. He dreams of it standing at his bedside. He dreams of it wrapping it's hands around his throat and it's cracked and creaking face inches away from him. The cracks rub together and it's impossibly white lidless eyes bore into his and...and...

And the thing has a name. It's name is Azazel the scapegoat, Azazel the fallen, and 7 year old Richard was told to sit still and stay quiet.

He has never sat still.

For all of Howard's faults, he taught both his children - intentionally or otherwise - to never sit still and Azazel...

Azazel was impressed. A naturally psychic child who stood up to a hellish creature? Richard was not impressed. Richard was scared and his father had beaten him and called upon God and Azazel had laughed through him and Richard had begged...and begged...

She's on her way.

Richard is dressed immaculately. Dark gray jacket, dark black tie, white shirt. His hands are gripping his chair as he writes. The same word over and over again.

"I know." Alex.

Alex was the first person since Coralee to break though his defenses. Alex, Alex, Alex. The first person he hadn't used, the first person he hadn't murdered.

No more we?

"We haven't been we for a long time." Richard's voice was soft, "I'm a realist. I won't lie to myself." He stood, adjusting his cuffs, "There's me. And there's you. And we've blended together enough that if we were to be split we each would carry parts of each other."

And you hate that Richard. You hate that I've left clawmarks on you and that I took your humanity-

"I hate you!-"

The doorbell rang and Richard turned abruptly. Alex.

Alex. Azazel murmured, When we raise Tiamat, when we knock the pretender and bastard from the heavens we could take her and lay her at our feet-

"Stop it."

Are you fighting me because of her?

"I said - stop it"-

The door opens and there is Richard. He is immaculately dressed, polished, the image of an attractive mysterious figure.

"...Alex. You haven't been answering my calls." He smirks, "It's painful. Being on the other side of that. I'll give you that much."

Alex doesn't know what she expected to see when he opened the door. She doesn't know if she expected horns or red eyes or a long shadow that happened to have it's eyes where it mouth should be and its mouth where its eyes should be. For some reason Alex thought when she looked at him and knew the truth that she would see some sort of outward sign of it: some strangeness or something that she had missed before but she could point towards it later and be like 'that's how I should have known.' But there isn't anything. Instead Richard looks like how he'd always looked and Alex hates it and it's not fair.

But she swallows when she looks up at him. Lying isn't something that Alex is normally naturally very good at: she normally needs to lie by omission or talk about it later with someone else (Nic) but right now Nic is in Russia investigating his murder forests and it's just Alex here as she considers what to say to him about it. "I was sick." It's the same lie that she'd given to the studio, and to Nic when he Skyped and to anyone else who might have asked. Her hands twist over one another, and it's not exactly a lie; she was sick, it just wasn't something that was physical other than the way that her stomach had twisted in knots.

Richard looks normal, and Alex looks normal too: he's got a uniform and so does she. She's in her normal jeans, button down and blazer. Alex even has her bag over her arm, but her recorder is already running. It's already running because she doesn't trust him anymore (God, how had she trusted him?!) and she keeps her voice calm and steady. "Can I come in?"

He opens the door without a word. There's no bow, but there's an air of unease about the place. An unusual sense of disarray - papers scattered here and there that weren't there before.

"You should have told me. I could have brought you something." He pauses, "You don't have anyone to look after you and I thought-"

Yes Richard. What did you think? What did you think when she didn't call you?

His hand hangs by the doorframe, the night air blowing inside cold. It's Halloween season. His birthday is coming up.

He wonders what she'd do if he told her the truth right now. If he told her about how he knew Simon Reese because in his own way he was him, a rare success built on pureblind dumb luck and the blessing of the Strand blood. Mostly because the way she looks and the tense set of her shoulders...

You want to care. You want her to smile at you. Azazel's voice has been his own ID for so long he feels like screaming Idiot.

"Let me make you some coffee. I found some information about Warren that you should double check. Maybe we could get Nic to look at it as well." he passes her, hesitating before he loosens his tie, "About the so-called "demon machines" and the geometry that "powers" them."

He pours contempt into every word as he heads into the kitchen to the french press she loves, "There's another tape connected to it, if you can believe it. Let me make you coffee and we can go downstairs and I'll show you."

Alex's birthday is coming up too, the 23rd, just a few days before Halloween and a few days after actual Thanksgiving (the Canadian one). The chill in the air seems all the more pronounced the way that it takes him a little while to close the door. With her back to him, Alex just swallows over the lump that's carved itself into her throat. When she'd imagined confronting him about this she'd thought it would have felt easier, that it would have given Alex some sort of flaming conviction that had worked itself up inside of her. The speech that Alex had written about it had been one that she'd gone over and over as she paced the floor of her apartment, but right now she finds that she can't keep the narration that she'd wanted inside of her head.

Instead, it's just something that almost wants to scream at him that he's a liar like she might have when she was a little kid. Alex wants to grab him by the smooth lapels of his coat and just shake him and ask how he could have been lying to her for so long. Lying is a part of who Richard Strand is, Alex has known that for a very long time but she'd never imagined that he'd have lied about something like this. Maybe she should have--if he could lie about Coralee and everything else then why not being a demon.

Pausing in the entry way of his kitchen, the familiar sites and smells of it making it seem like it was any other day and Alex didn't know that he was a fucking demon. The contempt, his words, everything else was like something from a memory and it was sharp. "Nic's in Russia," her lips form the words without really thinking about it, an automatic response. "He's not going to be back for another two weeks." God, why did she say that to him? What is she thinking?

"What kind of tape?" Alex lets herself slip into the automatic sort of mechanical questions again. "I mean, why didn't you remember it before?"

"It was a small detail. I was going over one of my exorcism tapes one by one. I think that's the key - whatever Warren is doing involves a sort of...reverse exorcism perhaps. Or some sort of psychological experiment on the children involved."

Is that what you're calling it now? Azazel's voice is soft,Oh Richard. Richie my dear boy.

He has a poker face cultivated through years of lying to himself and others. Licking his lips, he moves to get her favorite mug - or at least the one he's seen her use most often.

"I'm leaning more towards psychological experiment."

You're lying

"Because no matter what supernatural forces are involved."

To someone you care about.

"...It would do a number on a child's psyche. To confront those things."

To see the fingers in the dark. See the shadow reaching out at you. Scream and hide under your blanket and pray, pray it goes away before the thing pulls it down and tugs it back and you see it's face.

The mug shatters on the floor.

"Damn it." there's ceramic everywhere. It hits him the mug was one of his mother's - painted with sunflowers, "Stay back. I'll clean this up I-"

Reaching back to the cupboard he pulls out a second mug - plain blue and gold, "...Help yourself to coffee."

Alex is shivering. She's shivering as he describes this, as he says it like it's the truth. This doesn't make any sense and it's... Maybe Charlie was wrong and whatever change that had come over Strand wasn't one that was permanent. That it wasn't one that left him with an actual demon. Maybe it was something as simple as a personality disorder (if such a thing could be called simple when Alex knows that it's anything but) and not anything as supernaturally involved as a demonic possession.

But he says the words. He says the words and the cup hits the floor and Alex just jumps practically out of her skin. There's probably some sort of irony involved in something (Alex doesn't know if there is a god or not, but if there is one it's got a sense of humor) that her favorite mug got broken on the same day that she's here twisting with the truth that had shattered her trust in Richard Strand.

"No." Alex says the word softly, but it's firm and she doesn't fill the coffee up. She doesn't fill the coffee up and she just takes a step forward because he'd told her to stay back. Because she couldn't handle the lying anymore. "Stop it, Strand. Just stop it. I know, okay? I know everything. Don't pretend with me anymore. Don't lie. I'm so sick of lying."

"What?"

He looks up from the pieces of the mug, confused, hair hanging in her eyes, "Alex what are you talking about."

He begins to pick up the pieces. Maybe I could fix it. She'd sit there, hands wrapped around it listening to him like a student. Maybe I could glue it back together...

You could fix it. We could fix it.

Something passes over his face - something inhuman. It's barely a flicker and he looks away.

"You're being ridiculous. I didn't tell you the truth about Coralee. It was my business that you dug into without my permission or consent."

He stands, tossing the pieces in the sink hearing them break further.

"I'd hardly call that lying are you seriously still stuck on that while we're so close to finding out how to stop Warren?"

"You don't want to stop Warren. Or if you do it's not for altruistic reasons. And this doesn't have to do with Coralee. Not really." Well, in as far as anything about Richard Strand doesn't have something to do with his wife and the twisted whatever it was that had happened between them. Charlie's words about Coralee being able to draw him back echo in Alex's head and she wonders if maybe that's why Richard had...

No. No. Alex needs to stop those thoughts because he's not Richard anymore. He's Strand and he's a liar and a demon and Alex doesn't miss the look on his face. She can't miss it when she's watching him so deeply for a sign that she'd missed before. How many times had Alex assumed that what had passed over his face like that before was something as simple as irritation or anger when it was actually that Richard Strand had a demon inside of him.

"I talked to Charlie this week." Alex says, but it's not quite a gotcha, more of an explanation. "And Cheryl." And then perhaps most damning: "And Simon."

Oh.

Simon Reese. That whiny little bastard. Simon, that bloody little shit who was sticking his nose in business that didn't belong. Simon, fighting every step of the way when You just accepted it after awhile Richard. Didn't you

His hands flex, "...Simon showed himself? You should have told me."
His voice deepens and he looks angry, but nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing strange. At least to him.

Outwardly however he sounds threatened because he had sensed something and...

Remember what I told you about Tiamat. How she'll destroy the world and you will be her loyal servant? General of her armies? You can lay Alex at your feet. The first of your concubines-

"Stop it." He glares at Alex, speaking to them both...before he leans close and pulls off his glasses. Slowly, "...Alex you're starting to scare me."

Those blue eyes meet hers.

Glamour her. Reach into her mind-

And there. There's a tendril of something in her mind. A little line of ice. I'm innocent. You know I'm innocent Alex. Simon lies.

That's my boy.

"No. I shouldn't have." Alex says quickly and firmly. "Not until I had proof. Not until I talked to Charlie and Cheryl. Not until Charlie told me what she'd meant when she'd said that she didn't have a father anymore." Alex says the words quickly, enunciating them very purposefully as she meets his eyes as she has so many times before. Well, perhaps not quite as she had so many times before, because Alex hadn't looked at him with real fear before. She hadn't had that wide, startled doe look in them before.

But the fear doesn't last very long as she can feel him doing something to her mind.

Innocent. You know I'm innocent.

The thought slithers almost, and it's cold it winds itself over her break like the first stirrings of a nightmare. "No!" Alex cries out quickly, and she shakes her head, taking a step back and ripping her eyes away from his. "Don't try fuck with my head, Richard." Saying Richard was an instinct and a reflex that she really doesn't want to explain. "I know that you're a demon!" Saying it aloud hurts, but it also feels true, perhaps the most truth ever uttered in this kitchen.

In some ways it's a relief.

He steps back in shock and the Azazel part of him that long ago fused to a part of his soul feels...vindicated? Joyous? No more lies he's free.

In another part of him that was still Richard Strand, stupid dedicated difficult to deal with Richard Strand, his heart is breaking. Alex.

He shakes his head at her before laughing.

"Do you know how you sound? You sound insane. I can legally commit you. I'm a psychologist Alex." He studies her, hands folded, "Why would you think something so ridiculous?"

His hands twitch and he turns away. Running a hand through his hair before rubbing it over his mouth.

"I didn't think that it was going to go like this...that you'd be so pushed by my work. It's...it's clear I made an error."

Alex just shakes her head at him, and she glares, her eyes fire and anger and yes, hurt, because she is hurt and she can't help but to be despite how she wants to shove it away, she is hurt. And his threats just hurt worse and make her even angrier.

"Stop it! I'm not crazy. We both know that I'm not, Richard. You've been lying to me this entire time. Stop lying to me now for once in your fucking life!"

But Alex knows that he is a psychologist, and she knows that her history on the show hasn't exactly been stable. Especially not with something like this. So, she just takes a step back and shakes her head. "This was a mistake. All of it." He was a mistake is what Alex actually means. "Just stay the hell out of my life."

"After telling me that you think I'm some sort of monster? I'm not sure I can let you leave."

He frowns.

"Let's talk about this. What makes you think I'm a demon? What did Cheryl and Charlie tell you?"

Cheryl was screaming for their father and their mother and that thing was inside him. Their father appeared just as his mind was invaded. He'd puked up black bile and sick and his father had carried him out of the house to...

to do what?

Had it been this house?

"What did they tell you Alex. Let me help you find the truth."

"I'm leaving." Alex says it more firmly. "I don't want to talk about this with you." Which isn't something that Alex can ever recall saying to him over the course of how long they'd been working with one another.

"Especially considering you're trying to do something to my mind!" Despite knowing how crazy it sounds, Alex knows that he is, especially with the way that he'd keep reiterating the truth. She can hear something else in his tone and Alex just shakes her head, making a faulty and perhaps foolish attempt to clear it.

She probably should have booked it already.

Alex Reagan was probably never going to survive a horror movie.

"Charlie told me what had happened the day that you tried to find Coralee. That Coralee had always been able to bring you back." Alex still isn't quite sure about what the 'you' was there, but Charlie had believed in it so Alex did too. "Cheryl told me about when you found Bobby Maimes."

Richard? Richard- Azazel
Coralee had both his hands, I can teach you Richard. I know you're scared but I can teach you. This is a gift...what you've become. What you've been. Don't fight it.

Don't fight it.

Had he and Azazel always been this fused? No. He was aware of himself enough to know that Coralee had made it worse, had pushed the two of them together, had buried any hope of truly being rid of the thing that swam beneath his skin.

"Coralee."

His voice was hard.

"And Cheryl. Coralee and Cheryl and you had the nerve the absolute unmitigated damn gall to come and accuse me of being some kind of monster when faced with my ex-wife who abandoned me, and my sister who also abandoned me, and my daughter-"

He had held out hope for her.

He had worked with Coralee for her.

"Have you ever thought they might be lying to you Alex?" His voice was deadly soft, "That they might have ulterior motives against me?"

Don't do this. Let her go. For the love of God let her go.
Don't pretend this will turn out well for you or for her. Azazel murmurs in his mind.

"And what - for that matter - does Cheryl fucking know?"

It had come for him. In the dark. It had come for him and she had screamed for help but had she stopped it? Had she done something? Anything?

She was a child!
We've had this argument before. You could have offered her.
That's a lie. You're lying.

"She's jealous. Ask her about how she tried to fight me over our father's will." Because he'd left him everything, trying to facilitate his rise to power, "Ask her about how she tried to take Charlie away from me!"

That had been an awakening moment. That had made him want to fight.

His hands grip the counter and he's not looking at her. He can't because he's quite sure that if he looked, if he met her gaze, there would be something, some sign that he was no longer wholly human.

Edited 2020-07-26 06:02 (UTC)

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