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Alex Reagan is fairly certain that this just happens to be the smallest elevator in existence. She’s been a lot of places in the world, but the one at the Usher Foundation that leads to the archive is the smallest modern one for sure. It’s barely big enough for three people honestly and that normally doesn’t bother her in the slightest. While Alex has a fair amount of fear for the things that she’d discovered over the last few months (the hunt for example is the one that sticks out the most considering it’s why she’s here) but the Buried wasn’t one of them. Alex was the sort of person who turned her bed into swaddling nests and burrowed into them. Honestly that buried blanket nest is where she felt the safest.

No. The elevator itself wasn’t the issue here. Alex Reagan has ridden it more than a few times since she’d started working in the archives a month or so ago. While she would rather be out there being a reporter, Alex had blown out all of the credibility that she’d ever had when she’d told people that the things that went bump in the night were real. In the end Tannis Braun was right about how her skills would be valuable here investigating the validity of the statements. In some ways it was almost freeing—when she was working for Usher, Alex didn’t need to worry about pesky things like journalism ethics. Instead she could lie and make someone believe whatever they wanted in order to get their story from them.

In a way it was all kind of freeing.

So if it wasn’t the elevator itself, and it wasn’t the confined space that bothered her what didn’t bother her exactly was the man who she was currently sharing the elevator with. His size in it, with the foot of height that he had on her, the more bulk that he’d had on his frame (not that Alex was calling him fat by any means) instead it was just the way that he loomed over her and seemed far larger in the space than he actually was. And the fact that he was attractive and god was he attractive. Alex has said hello when she’d gotten into the elevator with him, and saw that he’d already pushed the floor for the sub basement level archives.

But the problem was that somewhere between the archives and the first floor, the elevator had just decided to stop. Not just stopping which would be bad enough, but stopping and losing all power. Normally the dark wouldn’t have been a thing, because Alex would have just pulled out her phone and turned on the flashlight app or call someone even if her phone didn’t have great service here. That was part of the reason it was still plugged in at her desk. Artifact storage was only three elevator stops away, and Alex was delivering some information she’d had on a statement. But now here they were in the small and dark with the extremely attractive man she doesn’t know.

This is fine. This is all fine.

But Alex just gives a grin that she knows that he wouldn’t be able to see in the pitch blackness so deep that it feels like she could hold it in her hands like dirt. “Well, I guess this is one way to avoid that meeting with my boss.” There isn’t fear in her, just the bad joking tone that Alex makes to lighten a situation. The meeting with Tannis was supposed to be in half an hour and she was supposed to be meeting someone important to the Foundation.

The fact that it could be the person in the elevator never even crosses Alex’s mind. After all, that man had been described to her as being ‘Old Man Strand’ and this man definitely wasn’t old in the slightest.

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Alex isn’t terrified, not exactly but she can feel it. She can feel the change in the air and it reminds her of the way that the elevator felt when she had first met him and how the two of them had talked in there. How it had dropped.

There’s confusion on her face, but she doesn’t run screaming or anything. Instead she just stands near him and asks in a voice that is very serious. “What’s going on?”

"Nothing." He smiles, but his features look a little drained, "I just had to take care of something I..."

He pauses, "I'm not feeling well. I'll be all right but sometimes it just hits you. Has that ever happened to you?"

Leading her into the kitchen, Alex might note there's a soda cup on the counter.

"Just sudden fatigue. I think making something might help."

Alex’s expression just shifts into concern for him, even as she can feel the oppressive air slipping and pressing around her. It’s still present, but a manageable annoyance like a seam at the wrong angle on a sock that’s twisted in your shoe.

“Okay. If you’re sure I mean. We can always just get some sleep if you’re tired. You did just fly like halfway around the world a few hours ago. It’s probably the jet lag and stuff just catching up with you.” Compounded by the fact that they’d had some fairly energetic sex back in her office at the foundation too.

"I-" His hands flutter, "...Yes. Perhaps you're right."

He frowns. Even his hands appear pale, staring down at them she might see fear cross his features. Fear and shame. It's gone in an instant.

"...I'm not used to having people take care of me. My ex-wife was not..."

He shrugs, "She wasn't. Are you all right with that? Not hungry?"

Alex just frowns when she catches the fear and shame, and she can't help but wonder if it's because of her. Had she done something? Was he regretting this? She hopes not. But honestly she's so focused on him that she misses the soda glass that's there in the kitchen with them. Focusing on a person she cares about is always something that Alex has done to the exclusion of everything else--she's got singlemindedness when it comes to some things like people and stories. Richard Strand right now isn't an exception to this point at all.

"I'm okay with that if you are, love." Her voice is soft, and she just cups his cheek with her hand once more, brushing her thumb against the line of his lip there in slow but reassuring circles.

"There's always breakfast, you know."

"...Now I make delicious omelets." Perhaps that's what they need to do. Sliding an arm around her waist and pulling her close, he gestures, "Let me take you to where I - tend to sleep even though my bedroom is upstairs."

His secret can wait. She's being so kind to him. Leading her out of the kitchen and down a level, she'll find them in a warm room room. It's comforting and clearly lived in, smelling of sandalwood and wet earth but there are no windows or exteriors.

"...I don't think you'll mind." He chuckles, "But I sleep naked. When you try the bed you'll see why. Oh! And come and look at this."

Gesturing for her to follow she'll find a bathroom surrounded by candles, a huge stone tub with plants.

"...It's big enough for two."

Honestly this just makes a hell of a lot more sense than the room upstairs and Alex is half tempted to go and grab her bag and bring it down to the place where Richard actually sleeps. The room feels like it could be an underground cave—a den almost honestly and it feels very homely and comfortable. Much like Richard himself does. She follows him into the bathroom and her eyes go wide below and around the rims of her glasses as she stares at that stone tub.

“I think you can fit the bedroom of my apartment in that tub, actually. I’m not surprised it fits two.” Honestly it’s half of a bad joke, but Alex’s brain is definitely spinning as it creates the conspiracy board in her head. Red strings are woven together, drawing along points and plots to their logical conclusion—at least for Alex.

She remembers meeting him in the elevator and how many Buried things are downstairs in the archives. She remembers the way that he’s put her office down there as well. How he feels more comfortable in places that would smother people. How interested Richard was in the Buried person that she’d found in the peat moss and the Buried ritual. That’s not even counting the box of dirt in his bedroom (or rather the place that he calls his bedroom) or this room, or the stone of the tub.

All of these things draw together to make one large picture and Alex just gasps as she stares at him. Without thinking about it—Alex Reagan lacks a filter even in the best of times never mind around something like this—she just blurts and asks him straight out. “You’re an avatar of the Buried, aren’t you? It’s why you’ve been having me look into so much Buried stuff in the statements along with the Eye.”

Edited 2020-12-20 04:04 (UTC)

You're an avatar of the buried aren't you.

It's said so cavalierly his tie drops out of his hand. Was I so damned obvious? Or did he want to be caught?

He's aware of how pale his hands are, how his features are gaunt. Alex is staring at him and he turns to face her with his features sincere.

"Why would you say something like that?"

He thinks. He thinks of Elias and of the other avatars. Of the Buried's plan. Of his goal and final form and-

"...What would change if I was?"

For a very long moment (which seems even longer when it comes to Alex, because Alex is never quiet) she doesn't know what to say in response to him and his question. He doesn't deny it, and Alex knows that she's right. Dr. Richard Strand; her lover, her boss, the chief patron of the Usher Foundation which is intended to be something that stops things from happening is an Avatar of the Buried. God, what's worse is that Alex loves him, and she shouldn't. The knowing that she shouldn't isn't exactly new--Alex has known that since the first time that they were flirting, the first time that he'd asked her if he could kiss her--but she also knows that this should make her feel different. It should make her run for the hills and away from this and him.

But she doesn't. Instead, she just stays there, a bit frozen as her dark eyes move over his blue ones, as they trace the gauntness in his cheekbones and in his face. Fuck, she still loves him. Fuck, Alex still thinks that he cares about her, that he may love her even. Alex Reagan's moral code has always been considered flexible at best, and now it seems to have abandoned her in it's entirety.

So, for the first thing that Alex says, it's a question, which one shouldn't be surprised about considering how many questions she'd already asked of him since they'd started working together. "Are you planning on killing me? Sacrificing me?"

"No."

It's firm and serious and focused. His eyes crack with emotion as he stands up straight, "No. Never. You're not- Trust me you are in absolutely no danger from me."

He says as he looks sick, pale and gaunt, "...Never in a million years alex I love you."

Well, that's something at least. And there's no small amount of Alex that hates herself in that she is both relieved by that and yet she doesn't immediately demand that he not kill anyone else. Alex's entire life she'd thought that she'd be the sort of person who would have always stood up for other people, but here faced with this... she's not. She should be running out the door and away from this man who feeds people to the fear that he serves. It doesn't take a genius for her to figure out that was why he'd just sent her upstairs, that's what the call was about. He'd buried someone here in this house while she was here. Yes, Alex feels more than a little guilty and more than a little responsible about it.

And even more so that she's not immediately charging in to find whoever it was and help.

"Shit." Alex just sighs the word softly as she goes and sits on the side of his bed, her eyes on him as she wraps her arms around herself. "I love you too, Richard." There's a little pause before she adds, "I don't know what to do with this. Because I love you and I've never fallen in love with someone this quickly before and I know that I don't want to lose you."

Sending her to London seems even more prudent at this point because better an Avatar than a human prone to moments like this. Instead he sits, moving to pull a chair seemingly from nowhere to sit and study her.

"You...don't have to do anything. It's not like I'm not capable you've seen that. Or that I'm some sort of...freakish being." For now. Or ever. Truthfully ever.

"But I know those things don't stop you so. I'd imagine you have questions." He inhales, then, "Let me get the first two out of the way. Yes. I have killed people and enjoyed it. Yes. I know it's wrong. There are extinuating circumstances here Alex Reagan, but I unlike a lot of other predators out in the world will not lie to you about them. I haven't lied about this, it's just never come up."

The last few lines are desperate, more pleading than he's used to sounding.

"Now that those are out of the way, feel free to ask me anything else."

Does Alex Reagan have questions? Of course she has questions! More of them than she can count honestly. They spiral and spool in Alex’s brain, each one laying itself out from the need to Know that’s been present in her for longer than Alex can even express—definitely longer than she’s been working so closely aligned to the Eye and the Buried.

But all of those questions go out the window with the plea in his voice. The desperation in his tone twists a razorwire around the knife that it em plants in her chest and Alex is on her feet without realizing it. Her hand presses to his face, her palm cupping it like she has done so many times before. Following the touch with a light kiss that she hopes is going to chase away some of that sadness in him she just softly whispers to him a single promise. “I love you and I’m not going to leave.”

His kiss is hungry, ethereal and hungry and he has to pull away shaking because he was grasping and scratching and dragging and-

"...You're-"

His hand cups her cheek, "...Christ you're warm." He frowns, "You're so beautiful and so good and..." He lowers his head and breathes, "...Since you're not bothered. I need to go and."

How do you do this. How do you share this with anyone? Avatars are solitary creatures. Temporary relationships.

"I need to feed."

"Please don't say I'm good, Richard. I'm definitely not." If she was good she wouldn't be kissing him, she would be trying to find some way to stop him, and she's not doing that either. Good people don't let other people become dinner for their lovers. Honestly, maybe Alex Reagan's goodness was only the idea of being good rather than being good itself. Clearly when the chips were down, she's choosing herself, and her love for Richard over the lives of other people.

"You have to kill to feed." Her voice is soft, and it's not a question; it's a statement of fact. Even if Alex isn't entirely sure of that, there's been enough evidence in the statements that she's read aloud that she knows that the people who get away from their experiences are the ones who are lucky, and definitely aren't the norm. "And there's already someone downstairs, right?"

"Yes."

His eyes narrow and the warmth, the hope isn't gone but it's muted, "He's nothing. It won't take me long. It-"

He doesn't rise, "I'm not letting him go."

"I'm not asking you too." It's only once Alex finishes saying that does she realize how truthful she's being with it. She's not asking him to stop or to let the man go or anything else. Jesus, what would Amalia say about her now? "I'm just asking questions." Even if there was only one of them really in what she'd just said.

But Alex can see how the hope in them is muted, and she just leans over and presses her lips gently to his once more, like blowing on dying embers in an attempt to make them spark life once more.

"I'll be here. When you're done, I mean."

Richard's hand cups her cheek. Delicately.

Turning, he leaves. The killing room is a peat bog of his own, a mush of human remains and bones. The fear in this room is palpable, savory, and he inhales and sits casually beside the man whose face is exposed in the dirt, whimpering and crying.

"Ssh." He wipes a tear from the man's cheek, "ssh shss. Don't cry. I want to extend this, but I may make it quick Peter. can I call you Peter?"

He sniffs and Richard sighs, "See Peter. I've met someone. Someone human and I want her to be like me, but I want her to keep her humanity. Have you ever had that? I'm not the kind of man to settle down. My last partner was...well."

He chuckles.

"...So I have to chose. Do I be myself? Or do I try and be more human to preserve her...essence? What do you think?"

Peter whimpered.

"Please. Please let me go."

Richard studied him for a long time before standing up to pick up a rock to set on the other man's chest.

And then another.
---

Returning to Alex he looks pink and sweet, pulling off his shirt to take her hands.

"...I don't want you to be scared with me."

Alex stays in the room while she waits for him to come back. Much of the time was spent pacing as she both tries to argue herself into and yet also out of staying here or going and trying to help the person in the basement. If she was a better person, then Alex Reagan would have saved the nameless person who she in some ways had condemned to death almost as much as Richard does. But in the end, Alex doesn't do either. Maybe she's a coward despite always thinking she was brave, or an idiot instead of always thinking that she was smart.

Whatever she is, Alex is also a woman who is desperately in love with someone who is the very definition of being a monster, and somehow she can't find it in herself to leave. If he had pushed her to watch this one, she might have. At least that's what Alex tells herself. That would have been a bridge too far--something that she wasn't ready for. But it also makes Alex think that someday there might be something that she is ready for, and that scares her.

She'd returned to sitting on the edge of the bed when Richard comes back in, and Alex's lips automatically turn upwards into a smile to see him. "I'm not." The words come quickly, and then she just lets out a little chuckle and shakes her head. "Scared of you, I mean, Richard. I wasn't even scared of you in the elevator when you were my boss and I'd called you 'Old Man Strand.' I just didn't expect this you know?"

It hits him then that this may be the eye.

This lack of humanity. That the light he had been drawn to might already be snuffing out. It had been a hell of a situation, the worst dilemma he'd ever experienced in his life. Dare he destroy something he adored? But he couldn't let her go.

Staring at her he frowns, "...Didn't expect what? Being all right with me being like this? Or with the situation.

How do you feel about the situation?"

He is overly clinical, focused on her, "...Accepting?"

“The situation. I wouldn’t say I’m alright with this. Not really. I mean.” Alex sighs softly and she just bites on her lip as she fidgets beneath that gaze of his. She takes a deep breath before raising her eyes to him once more, and Alex looks terribly sad and a little bit haunted—she can’t help the feeling despite not wanting to hurt him and that’s there in her expression as well. Alex Reagan was always too expensive for her own good.

“I love you. And that doesn’t change with this. Maybe if I were a better person it would have. I always thought that I was the sort of person who would have like. I don’t know run screaming from something like this or whatever.” Right up until the minute that she’d figured it out honestly. Right up until the minute she understood what he was. “But I’m not running away. I didn’t. I’m still here and I still love you.”

God of only this was that simple.

Toeing off her ballet flats, Alex just draws her knees up to her chest and wraps her arms tightly around them, her fingers braiding together.

“I don’t know if accepting it is the right word or not. I do know that I don’t want to lose you, Richard. And that’s what’s hard about all of this. I know you wouldn’t hurt me. I believe you about that. I just... It’s hard to think about the fact that I just let you kill someone while I was standing right here and I didn’t do anything to stop you and I don’t know how to sit with that.”

"It's me?"

He sounds confused briefly, looking at her - before he takes her hands gently and holds them over her knees.

"You mean that don't you. My god you really do mean that."

The words are mumbled and soft before he kisses her fingers gently.

Kill it.

"...You're not worried about the man? I could tell you about him. I would relish telling you about him I don't want to but I always have. I killed my first person when I was 7 alex."

"I don't want you to tell me about the man I just helped you kill!" Alex just shakes her head quickly. "If I know I'm not going to be able to stop thinking about him--about who he was and who's missing him and everything else. I already don't think I'm already going to be thinking about him enough." Which is true, and it makes something like panic crawl up into her throat. There's no small part of her that wants to scream, but she doesn't. Even when she's her most scared, Alex doesn't scream. This isn't a situation based in fear, not really. It's something else that Alex isn't really sure how to describe.

She swallows and she looks at him, then down at him holding her hands but she doesn't pull away when she looks at him in the face once more. "Your sister." It's not a question, not when she thinks back on all of those things that she knows both about him and about the Buried things that she'd discovered from the statements that she'd read. And from the pearls that are in the room upstairs and it makes Alex wonder if Richard was keeping her upstairs for a reason.

"It was because of the being an avatar thing?" That is a question, because she's putting together how Buried avatars happened to be created. More than one of them went into the ground but only one came out. "Becoming one?"

He remembers...

He remembers a cold night where his sister and he had been digging holes. It was a compulsion with them. Playing archeologist. Building things out of the dirt. Castles and other things.

He remembers...

A short sharp shove. His hands flail and he screams a name Cheryl!

It's raining. He remembers the rain, he remembers a blank eyed girl with pigtails staring at him smiling, a shovel raised. There's blood on his head and his hands as she drops dirt right on him. So much dirt. He screams and swallows sand and rocks and he...

Breathes.

Through the dust, through the dirt and the sand. It's like there's a warm comforting blanket around him and he claws his way up out of it breathing in the muck and mud and grime. Refreshed. It felt bad to leave the earth. His good sweet earth...

Cheryl is screaming as he shoves her down, hitting her head with the shovel just hard enough to knock her out but keep her awake as the dirt drips from his body. He can taste it. He can taste her fear, it's sickly sweet and thick.

It's delicious.

"...In my defense." He doesn't look away but his eyes film over with gray, "It was self defense. She killed me first."

He whispers, "...She buried me alive."

Alex is watching him, and she's watching him as his eyes go gray, and something like a sharp pain slips between her ribs and slices upwards towards her heart. Her eyes are closed for a moment, but then they slam open. Where his hands had been wrapped around hers, Alex lets them go, and instead she cups his cheek as gently as she has since the first time that he'd kissed her. There's no moment of hesitancy or of pulling away--instead it's just present and there and as warm as it always is. The difference that does happen is that her heart is breaking for him in sympathy.

"Oh my god, Richard." Her voice is soft and the concern for him colors every single note of her words. Leaning forward, Alex presses her arms around his neck, wrapping him in a warm embrace that she holds on so tightly too. Hell, it's probably too tightly for someone who just mentioned being buried alive, but she doesn't think about that right now.

"I'm so sorry. God, my love I'm just so sorry that you had to deal with that." In many ways, Alex wishes she could take it away from him, but she can't; there's no time machine she has access to, no way to undo it. All she can do is help him carry it in her love for him.