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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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If it was easy, Alex would have found it already.
Besides, there's a damned good possibility that something is going to happen in the night--that Warren is going to do something and the last thing that Alex wants is for her to sleep through it or for him to need to take the time in order to wake her.
Shifting in his arms so that they're no longer spooning, but so that they're face to face and eye to eye (well, as much as the two of them can be considering the differences in their heights) Alex just reaches out and brushes her hand along his face, feeling the stubble from the day there. Her thumb just brushes along the corner of his lip, marveling that somehow, she got to do this before the world ended.
There were days where Alex definitely didn't think that they would.
"Just holding me sounds nice. It doesn't make the frustration go away but." Then she kisses him again, softly and gently, gingerly like she's learning his mouth in a way that she can never forget. When Alex pulls away from the kiss, she just speaks against his lips. "But it will go away. We're going to stop him and fix this."
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"That's the Alex I know." He held her, "The same person who just wouldn't let me go. 11 phonecalls."
His voice is hoarse, "Nobody's ever called me that much. Wanted me that much."
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Because she missed him. Honestly, because it seemed like she was never going to stop missing him when he was gone.
Her eyes just close for a moment, and Alex keeps her forehead pressed against his. "I didn't want to lose you. I still don't." Which is true, even if in a way she had lost the Richard who was for the Richard who is. The Richard who is here, and who is a hybrid, but who's staying and holding her so tightly.
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His shoulders shake slightly, "I'm sorry I made it seem like you were the reason I...did what I did. It was wrong to..." To what? To not fight harder?
"I never-"
He swallows, "I love you Alex. My stupid mistakes are never your fault. And no matter what. I promise I will always answer your calls."
"We'll kill him. We'll kill him and save all of them and then we can...spend the rest of our lives together."
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Abandonment is something that Alex has always felt very keenly, which is one of the reasons that all of the times Richard had just disappeared on her had hurt so badly.
"It's okay. It's... I can't imagine how hard it was to fight for so long. I can't imagine what it's like to both gain and lose yourself like that." And then there's Simon, and everyone else who is going to die in their path. "We're going to leave for Geneva in the morning. I mean there's no point in pretending that we're not doing it. At least that way he won't put anyone else in our path."
Alex just kisses him again, but there's a little bit of desperation in it, because Alex wants to believe that's true. The believer in their little tragedy is having a small crisis of faith, and she doesn't know quite how to handle it.
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"I'm not leaving you again."
He cradlers her, "Ever again."
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Or maybe it's because of all of that honestly. Probably.
But she moves, kissing him more deeply, moving so that she's on top of him while she does it, and her fingers are moving down the buttons of his pajamas. "Make love to me, Richard. Please." Alex's voice is little, smaller than she'd like it to be, and her cheeks color brightly as her eyes search his. Normally, Alex wouldn't have a problem saying that, but considering how many highs and lows the two of them had, how many times they'd come close to going over this line, but never actually doing it...
Well, it's a leap of faith. Maybe that's all that it always was.
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She wants this and so he moves to roll her beneath him, kissing her deeply, hard as his hand pulls at her shirt, hand circling to her breast. As he does that, his other hand tugs at his cheap tourist shirt - tugging his shirt off to reveal his body underneath.
He sits pack to pull her shirt off, silent all the while.
"...I want this."
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That he wants her as much as she wants him.
Her voice is low, and one hand moves to capture the one around her breast, holding it still and in place against the warmth of her stomach when she asks: "are you sure, Richard? Really? That you want this and that you want me? It's okay if you don't."
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He kisses her hard, "...Alex I would go to the moon for you."
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“I want you.” There’s a little bit of a huffy laugh herself in Alex as she kisses him in return. “I’ve always wanted you, Richard.” Which isn’t a lie in the slightest. The two of them had been dancing around this and then falling back behind their walls of Coralee and her journalist integrity and Alex has never been able to place the words to it until now.
“I want you.” The words come again as she kisses her way across the scruff on his face, down over his jaw to his neck and collarbone.
“I’ve just been waiting for you to want me too.”
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They pull before running gently behind her shoulders, turning his kisses down her neck. The world may end tomorrow.
This at least he remembers, and he's never felt more human.
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Lifting her hips so that she can wiggle out of the hotel pajamas, Alex just reaches forward and slides his own pants down, her hand curling around him and cupping him with a long slow stroke before she kisses him again, even or more deeply.
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He gently, gently thrusts against her, continuing to kiss at her chest, teeth gently nibbling at the soft skin.
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"God, Richard," Alex just breathes again, and her hands move from his length into his hair again, up the lines of his back as he kisses her skin. "I love you so much."
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Pulling himself free of her he pauses, "...Do you want this. I just need to hear you say it. Please oh please."
"I love you."
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And she's sorry that it'd taken this long and literally it being almost the end of the world for them to actually get anywhere closer to this than her being tucked underneath his arm while they watched a movie and he told her about Star Trek.
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He inserts himself into her gently, slowly easing himself into her before taking her in his arms and rolling her on top of him.
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Her hands rest on his chest, using him for balance as she sets a slow and easy pace, not gentle exactly, but as soft and loving as the moment is around them. Alex Reagan is claiming this moment for them with her softness, with the fact that she's not starting frenzied.
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"I like looking up at you." his laugh is breathless, "You are so beautiful."
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"Yeah? I'm going to need to remember that, love." There's a promise in those words, because god damn it, this isn't going to be the only time that the two of them ended up doing this. It just isn't, Alex isn't going to let it be just like she's not going let Thomas Warren win.
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"When we've survived. When we've beaten this bastard. I want to do this every day." He bucks his hips again, trying to move against her, trying to give her something.
"We'll go to Ireland like you...like you said."
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"Every day, huh? I'm going to hold you to that." Then Alex moved just right and gave a soft but very emphatic: "fuck." Doing that again with a roll of her hips, Alex groaned again, louder this time.
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Shifting inside her he lets out a low groan.
"...sorry I just. Needed a better angle."
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Letting out a keening cry, she just pressed her slick forehead against his own. "I'm close, love."
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