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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Alex didn't want to get on anything that belonged to Daeva Corp, she didn't want to deal with any of this but she couldn't leave him and she couldn't make him stay. In the end, she'd packed her clothing, and she grabbed some of the things from her jewlery box before she'd left a note for Nic, or whoever to find. It was both a lie and it wasn't, just three words hastily scribed on a paper and signed underneath with her A: "Geneva with Strand." Or at the very least with the body of Richard Strand.

Even as he was gone.

She didn't protest as he hustled her onto the plane, or say as the plane left Seattle behind them and Richard ignored her for however long it was. In her purse there was a notebook, one that only had a few pages left in it. Once, Alex had used it for notes when she was interviewing people, when she was interviewing him but right now she was using it for another purpose entirely. Sitting in the plush seat with her legs tucked underneath her, Alex Reagan wrote the narration for a story that would never be finished, never be recorded, for a show that never should have been.

For a long moment, she just ignores the way that he's staring at her, and then Alex doesn't even look up when she just says, "what? Am I supposed to do tricks too?"

"...Do you not want to go to Geneva? Do you really not to?"

It's his voice, it's Richard's voice but hoarse, "...Something really bad will happen if we go. I've known that. But I...don't want it to." His voice is hushed, hoarse.

"I don't want bad things to happen." He breathes, hard and heavy, "I don't want people to get hurt. So I have to know because I'm...I don't want that."

He moves to reach for her, "But I can't die so I don't sense danger anymore and you are a human and you can sense danger. So. Do you sense that?"

Alex just stares at him for a very long moment, watching him as she puts down the notepad. Honestly she kind of wishes that she’d had a spare recorder that she could have grabbed. Recording at the end of the world seems like the right thing to do. And Jesus he sounds like Richard. He sounds like Richard so much that it hurts inside of her chest. Memory sits, painful and sharp against her ribs and her heart as she listens to him say that he doesn’t want to hurt anyone. It’s harder than one would have expected to hear.

Which may be why Alex doesn’t pull away when Richard reaches for her. She lets him take her hands in his and Alex just looks into his eyes for a long moment before she responds.

“Yes. I sense danger. Thomas Warren is a danger and has been for god knows how long. He’s wanted to hurt me for a long time, I think and you bringing me to him practically with a bow is just going to make it easier for him. And you being there is just going to make it easier for him to damn everyone else as well.”

Edited 2020-07-28 00:50 (UTC)

The thing wearing Richard Strand's skin is not Richard. Richard would never have brought her here.

It is not Azazel, who would kill her and happily fly to Geneva like the General he was.

Somewhere Richard Strand smiles and Azazel screams as Richard rises and nods.

"If you have lied to me I swear to you I will hurt you." He points a hand at her before he strides to the cockpit. The pilot is a clean cut military man who turns and stares up at him.

"Doctor Strand sir?"

Yes. Yes. He was Doctor Strand. Richard Strand.

"Turn the plane toward Gilliard France." he pauses, Obey me. Turn the plane around and land it. Than kill yourself.

Outwardly there's a dip and the plan turns, tilting to the side clearly deviating from it's path as Richard braces himself against the wall of the cockpit.

When the plane has righted itself he rises, striding back to Alex and sitting in front of her.

"We're going to Gilliard France." He stares at his shoes, "...This is wrong. We're going to France. But bad things won't happen in France."

When he goes to the cockpit after threatening her, Alex just swallows. She knows that he could threaten her, that he already did but given that she was here with him, she had thought that would be the end of it. It's a moot point because Alex isn't lying about it, and wouldn't be: Thomas Warren is a danger to herself and to the fucking planet. But it is a reminder to her about who--what really--that Alex is dealing with here.

When he comes back, Alex just watches him for a moment, and she looks from him to the file that he'd been looking at before. "What is Thomas Warren doing in Geneva? What is in that file that they gave you when we got on the plane?" She had wanted to get up and look at it before, but it didn't seem like a good idea, which meant that maybe Alex Reagan was actually learning something from this whole experience, or, more likely she was saving it all up for doing something really stupid.

Definitely really stupid.

"Why Gilliard? Why not Paris or something?"

His eyes narrow at her and he stares at the folder, "...Plans." His hands flex, "Never mind. Gilliard is close to Geneva. We're close to it and the pilot will land at the nearest air base and then kill himself to cover our tracks."

He stares at his shoes before looking at her, "Then I can only assume we...stop Warren. Somehow. I do not know how. I am supposed to lead armies. Not destroy them."

Alex blanches a bit at the fact that the pilot is going to kill himself after they land. She can't help it, and she just swallows before she looks towards the cockpit door and then back to Richard again. She wants to argue with him about this, but Alex knows that if the pilot is loyal to Warren (and considering this is a Daeva Corp plan, he probably is) then there's every intention that he would sell them out.

It doesn't mean that Alex likes it.

"If those plans are Thomas Warren's then isn't it a good idea to let me in on what they are so I can help stop him? I mean if you're not taking me there because it's a danger to me, and we need to stop him, I should know what you do. And maybe I might have an idea on how to destroy them if I knew what we're up against."

Richard

That bastard.

Richard had to have known. Somehow. Somehow in some way he had to have known that if he surrendered it would do this. And instead of anger there is only a profound sense of loss because this is a new thing here sitting before her.

Rising, he crosses to the cabin, picks up the papers in a stumbling jerky motion before striding back to her...and holding them tight.

"...I don't want to do this."

Richard Strand's voice is here again, "I don't want to do this I shouldn't want to do this but something has gone wrong. Very wrong."

He offers her the folder but it has to be pulled out of his hands and he sits, staring at her like a lost dog.

"...You'll know...How to make my heart stop hurting. And how to make this pain at the thought of hurting human beings go away?"

Alex Reagan is rarely someone who doesn’t know what to say. She’s rarely someone who doesn’t have words for a situation; someone who stays quiet. But right now, what he says shocks Alex into absolute silence. Staring at him as she just pulls the papers away from his hand gently, Alex looks into his eyes.

Something has gone wrong, he says. What does that mean? What has gone wrong and why is he looking at her like he’s a lost puppy dog and she’s got his bone or like she can just fix everything. Alex Reagan is, on her best days, a natural disaster of the highest order: she looks before she leaps, she doesn’t know the meaning of caution, she always jumps to the worst conclusions as evident by god knows how many fights she’s had with Richard Strand.

And now Alex has to tell him how to make it not hurt when she doesn’t even know herself.

But what she does do is reach out and touch his cheek again, resting her palm against it and cupping her fingers around it like she had in the clearing before Richard had gone.

And then she just asks softly, and kindly, the concern in her voice: “can you tell me what went wrong? Please?”

Edited 2020-07-28 03:14 (UTC)

Richard leans into her for a moment before pulling back, "...I'm not...Richard. But I'm not...Azazel because that monster made something new."

He licks his lips and reaches for her hands to squeeze them. He is trembling.

"There is no Richard or Azazel there's just...me and I-" The plane shifts and it's landing and he stands up straight, dropping her hands, "Warren knows we changed course."

Alex just blinks, she can't help it. She wants to think that it's a trick, that he's just doing this fuck with her, but her gut is telling her that he isn't. He's telling her the truth and Alex has no idea what to do with it. How to reconcile it with what's happening and what has happened over the last twelve hours.

But Alex also know if there's someone who would be stubborn enough to do something that messes up a demon, then it would be Richard Strand.

Alex hates to fly and she just shoved her notebook into her bag along with the file and then looks to him again. "So, we need to hide right? Somewhere we can get our bearings." But. "Can he just like... find you? Wherever you are? Because you said he'd summoned you."

"I think I can stop him." His hands clench, "I think I can block him. I think -" The plane stumbles and he falls - catching himself on one knee with a yelp before he pulls himself to his feet. The plane is coasting to a halt as he looks back at her, adjusting his glasses, "I think I can at least lie to him. For a moment. For two. for three."

The plane is still coasting and he looks back at her, staring down at his knee before his eyes fade to black. Electricity crackles in the air around him but it uncurls.

"I don't know."

He slumps and when the plane stops the pilot kills the engine and steps out of the plane. Staggering out, wooden with glassy white eyes, he has a gun drawn in his hands. One foot and than another, one foot and than another before he presses the barrel to his temple.

What can he do? What can he honestly do? What-

"Stop." Richard's voice is cold and commanding, "Stop. Freeze and stand still. Stand there." His chest heaves and he looks back at her.

"What if...what if I send him back? And tell him to lie?"

"Send him to Geneva. Tell him that we're still on the plane, make him believe that we are." Alex can't believe she's doing this, she can't believe she's telling Richard to mess with someone's mind, but it's better than having the pilot's brains spread all over the planes interior. And all over them.

"We needed to make an emergency landing because of..." Alex just thinks quickly. "A faulty fuel gauge. But it's fine now. We never got off the plane. We weren't here long enough too." Which means. Well fuck. After going back to her apartment and packing things and bringing them along...

"It needs to be true. The plane can't be here for more than a few minutes, and our luggage needs to stay on it. Because Warren needs to believe that you're still coming." She doesn't mention bringing her because she's pretty sure that Warren would have vastly preferred that he didn't bring Alex along with him.

Standing, tie and features askew, suit rumpled and out of place - Richard Strand presses his hands to the other man's forehead and holds him there.

The plane drops several degrees. There's a smell of ozone and electricity and the pilot gasps before Richard withdraws his hands before turning to the plane door to tug at it, pulling, frantic, he tugs and tugs on it before tearing at it like an animal.

Out.

He wants out.

"Richard!" Alex says it quickly, moving next to him, trying to get him out of the way. She doesn't even realize that she's called him that at all as she moves to try and make the door work before he does damage to it so that the plane can't end up taking off. Which would undo all of the work that he'd just done and whatever had caused him to lose it like this.

"Let me do it. Hey. Hey." Her hand touches his arm, holding onto it. "Richard. I'll get you out but you have to let me!" She's trying not to yell, but she wouldn't be Alex if her voice didn't raise a little as she tries to stop him.

Get your shit together. He pulls back, staggering and wrapping his arms around himself, Get your shit together. Protect her. Because...

Because we should kill her. We should rape her and take her apart piece by piece...

No. No it's Alex. The man waited for her to get the door open before shoving her aside and throwing himself down the stairs. Three steps above the ground he trips, rolling over himself to splat on the floor and hold himself there because he has deviated.

He's a general damn it. And a scientist. A scholar. He can hold himself together.

He'll be over here trying to stagger to his feet despite scrapes on his hands and arms. His suit is torn and there's a scrape across his head but he - heedless of Alex - heedless of anyone.

Alex doesn't know about the fighting that's going on inside of his head, and she just follows him down the steps of the plane and into the small hanger. Clearly something is wrong, but she doesn't understand what it is or how bad it is. Only that it's bad, Alex knows that it's bad. It's not quite the level of danger that he'd demanded her telling about before, but it's also not something that makes her feel exceptionally safe.

Alex Reagan is pretty sure that safety was a lifetime, three years and eleven calls ago.

Swallowing as she reaches out for him, Alex is trying to help him onto his feet, because they need to get going. Already the crew is moving the portable staircase from the plane and it's ready to take off again. Only a few minutes, that's what this was supposed to be and she doesn't understand what's happening with him right now.

She feels so good beside him. One of Richard's memories - where she sat beside him warm and soft and small. His head aches, it feels like something is pounding against his skill and his brain is twisting into knots.

And his arms hurt. And his legs hurt.

"...If you can get me to a car I can hotwire it, and we can take it...somewhere I..."

His eyes fill with tears as he looks at Alex, "...What am I?" she wouldn't know. And he does. He is the ultimate goal of the experiment. The fusion of a human and a demon. Richard had kicked the process into completion.

All he wants to do is sleep. Instead he squeezes at her, "There's a car around the corner we can take."

She doesn't know what to say to that, but her hand brushes his cheek again, trying to understand maybe? Alex doesn't know what he is anymore than he does, but she can take a guess because he's definitely not the demon, especially if something was broken in the way that it happened. But being here isn't the bless place for them to be talking about it.

"Okay." Alex just tucks herself underneath his arm, and she can't do very much to keep him up considering the difference in their heights, but she can get him to the car if nothing else. Honestly, Alex wants to get her hands on a map because what they really need is a place where the two of them can get their bearings and get a handle on what the hell is happening here.

Guiding Richard to the car, Alex just leans in close to whisper to him so they don't attract any more attention. "Can you hotwire it from the passenger seat? You're in no condition to drive."

He presses his hands to car's interior and there's a jolt of electricity through the car. The engine purrs and he curls himself inward, leaning his head against the glass trying to pull his pieces together.

He is not Azazel, but he has Azazel's memories and Azazel's powers. The ability to manipulate humanity, to influence the world around him, to read minds, to transform if needed.

He is not Richard but he has Richard's psychic power, his ability to find things, his skills, his intelligence, his genius intellect and his human memories.

He is something new and his mind feels like he's cracking. Alex has been driving for awhile when he speaks.

"We need to pull over. I need to sleep."

Alex has been using the car's GPS to navigate the unfamiliar roads, considering the fact that she'd lost her phone even before they'd gotten on the plane and with the state that Richard is in, she doesn't want to ask for his. There's an anticipation in the car that Alex can't describe, and she just keeps driving in the direction as far away from Geneva as she can.

At least until she knew what the two of them were walking into, even if Richard already did from the plans and everything else that was a part of it.

Looking at him and how green he appeared, she just nodded. "There's a small hotel three minutes up the road, can you wait that long or do you want me to pull off to the side of the road?"

"I can wait."

His voice is soft, staring at nothing, "...I am trying to heal myself but I can't. This body is damaged and it will heal...like a human's."

He swallows, "I'm also hungry and thirsty." It's offensive but honestly all he wants is a steak. Or a hamburger. Or samosas. Or...

"...What am I?"

"I don't know." Alex was starting to have some theories though, because Richard was smart, and she wondered if perhaps what he'd done was to bind the demon into his own body as a way of stopping him. Losing the battle, but winning a war in the way. Even if he lost the war anyway because he wasn't here.

"The hotel should have food and water. And I have advil in my bag that will help. Hopefully anyway. I mean, it should if you're experiencing having a body like a human does anyway."

Alex pulled into the tiny hotel with the restaurant in it, and she looked to him for a moment. "Stay here, I'm going to go check us in, alright? I don't want them to think that something's wrong." Even if so many things were. Then she adds, because she remembers: "I'm not leaving. I'm just going to make it easier to get you into the room."

"I want to go with you."

He sets his features in a stubborn arrangement, "You're not leaving me."

Memories assault him. Coralee at Big Sur, other hotels, a hotel clerk flirting with him in - Prague? Yes. Prague. Richard doesn't freeze, instead he straightens despite a slight limp, "Then I'll sleep and eat. it feels like I haven't ever done that."

Because he hadn't.

That thought hits him and he adjusts his glasses. One of the lenses slightly cracked.

"...Lead the way." He will be snooty and fussy and commanding to the end.

Alex just sighs and shakes her head at him before she just walks next to him, trying to make sure that he's not going to fall over on her. Still, her voice is soft when she just says half below her breath. "You look..." Once she might have sugarcoated it for Richard Strand, but right now she's not inclined to do that considering he didn't even trust her to go and check them into a hotel when he's got their transportation. "You look like hell."

But then Alex fixed a grin onto her face as she opened the door, and she spoke quickly in her Canadian French, working to be her most charming self so that she didn't need to fork over a credit card to pay for the room. It was something that Richard looked as bad as he did, and at least that was helpful as Alex explained to the older couple that Richard was her husband and that they'd been mugged in the city that they'd landed in. When she explained about the credit cards and how they might not be working, and then she offered her grandmother's watch (but not the one that Richard had pressed into her hand before he'd sent her out into the night) as collateral. The woman refused to take it because Alex Reagan was charming and brilliant and people wanted to like her.

She asked for dinner to be sent up to the room, and then Alex helped him up the stairs and into the room with it's large bed. Once they were inside, Alex just steered him to the bed. "Sit here. I'm going to grab you some water from the bathroom."

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