2019-07-20 - Tree Leeches

You know what Alex has? A whole big family full of perfectly normal people. They call each other sometimes, and he's been known to wander around the house, doing little errands and things while he has what invariably wind up being terminally long conversations, 'cause the phone keeps getting passed around to whoever happens to be present. Every other week, give or take. Most of the conversations are in Spanish, though he and his siblings have conversations in Spanglish as often as not. He's been on the phone the better part of an hour now, and has made his way out into the back garden by now, having fixed the hummingbird feeder while he made noises at his parents about something or another.

Finally, after a few more rounds of telling everyone he loves them, promising to come visit soon, he takes the phone from his ear and hangs it up, shaking his head with fond tolerance. "At least they serve to remind me that the rest of the world is very normal." As opposed to the ghost-serial-killings plaguing the city he just happened to decide was the perfect place to relocate to.

Wow, Alex, way to shove your huge family of perfectly normal people who love you in Violet's face. But seriously, Violet tends to love these moments even if she's not involved (has he even told his family about her?), and she never really gets in his way as much as she sort of loiters around the edges of the moment, not really interfering or trying to inject herself into the situation, but just to linger and listen. It helps immerse her in the language for one .. but also? In some strange way it makes her feel normal. Or at least that she's in love with someone who's still partially normal. It makes her feel a little warm and fuzzy on the inside. So while Alex was outside in the garden, Violet's in her favorite place - under the pergola, curled up on her chair, reading a book. Or, well, pretending to read a book while she listens to Alex's end of the conversation.

"Hmm?" oh, she heard him, but remember. She's pretending that she doesn't listen. She dog-ears the page and twists to prop her chin up on the back of the chair, her blue eyes soft as they settle on him. "Was it a good conversation?"

Alex is insensitive like that. With the happy family that doesn't have a bunch of crazies living in the imaginary funny farm that no one can find. What's worse, he's almost definitely made Violet talk to his people before - though never the people that pretend they don't speak English (so just siblings, not parents).

Anyway. "It was. They would really like," while he eases himself down onto the seat next to Violet, pocketing the phone, "for us to come to Thanksgiving. I would really like to say we're all coming." Where 'all' refers to him and Sophia and Violet, hence the questioning brow-lift she gets. Sign up for normal family holidays!

Wow, really? Alex is truly an asshole. I bet she even likes talking to his siblings. Ugh.

Violet shifts as he comes to sit down on the seat beside her, putting her book aside before she blink-blinks back to him. "Oh," is not an answer to the brow-lift, but it's clearly taken her aback. "They.. you.. want me to come, too?" Yes, Violet, that's what he just said. She scrapes her teeth over her bottom lip, trying to downplay the smile that's threatening to take over. But alas, alack, it's too hard to keep under control. Watch out, Alex! She's practically beaming.

"I would love to go," she enthuses. "I've never been to the east coast before, does your mom make a turkey?" You know, like most normal families do. "It's been a really long time since I've had Thanksgiving dinner, I usually just go to the diner. Not that the diner food is bad, but I bet your mom's dinner would be even better," she was going to keep rambling. Somebody stop her.

Man, it would be amazing if he was like 'lol kidding just me and sophia bye!!!!' Instead, Alex nods at her contained excitement, reaching over to smudge his thumb at the corner of the smile she's not doing the best job of keeping under wraps. "Mhm," for the turkey. "And tres leches, actual roasted chestnuts, sweet potatoes, invariably some sort of pasta dish that seems very out of place, it's a lot of food." He manages not to ramble; learn from a pro, Violet, it's not that hard. "We'll have fun," he concludes decisively, like it's within his power to command it to be so! Quick kiss and then he's turning the cover of the book to eye it with idle curiosity; "What are we reading?"

"That sounds..." Wait for it. "Amazing." Violet was already practically melting into a puddle in her chair at the thought. The kiss helps with the melting process, and she breathes a contented sigh into him. It's easy to forget the things that are bothering her in moments like these, where she can look forward to something in the future .. and at the thing immediately in front of her. Which happens to be him. "We will have fun. Maybe we can make a trip to see the Liberty bell," she considers as she shifts to tuck herself against him, brows hiking when he asks of her book. "Hmm? Oh, just a history book," she shrugs. Was he expecting something weird? Prepare to be disappointed. It's a book about Rome. "I've read it a couple of times before, but I always seem to find something new and fascinating whenever I go through it again." But don't ask what new and fascinating thing she's learned this time, because IDK. "I saw Alexander yesterday," she adds casually, there at the end.

This, "Mhm," is sort of fake-excited. About the Liberty Bell. Alex is not good at the fake excitement, so Violet should at least be aware that the excitement is fake. He still folds an arm across Violet's shoulders when she tucks in, even if he's not actually keen to go do touristy shit in his hometown. And even if he's a little disappointed that her book turned out to be mundane. He was totally about to ask what new and fascinating thing she learned this time, even if the meta told him not to, but the tack-on is more interesting so okay, he'll bite.

Er, in the sense that he tilts his head and waits for her to proceed with more of the story regarding her having seen Alexander yesterday. Go on, he's listening?

Violet's been living here long enough to know when Alex is faking it. Not that he ever fakes it when it's important, but you know what I mean. "I guess it's not as exciting a thing when you've lived there most of your life," she admits of the Liberty Bell. "Did you go see it a lot for field trips? The only places they ever took us to was to the carousel," which was pretty lame in comparison. "Or, well, I started refusing to go on the trips to the Ferris wheel when I learned about what happened." She shrugs. But that's enough about the life of baby Violet! There's more things to discuss.

She gives him a quick peck on the lips before she settles in again, nodding about Alexander. "He.. He thinks that my sister's hospital might not be ...here," she frowns, the brightness of the moment quickly dimming as she talks of more somber things. "He thinks it might be over there. Wherever we go, when we're Dreaming. Except.. I think it's different? Because of what happened, when Doctor Glass came to see you, and you weren't Dreaming but she was there and she was here. I feel like they've changed the rules all over again."

The mental gear-shifting required to go from 'field trips!' to 'insane asylum in the hell-place' leaves Alex in his quiet place for a moment, the one where he puts all his thoughts in order before any of them are allowed to coalesce as actual words. Once he gets back up to speed... First: "I feel like people keep using the word 'rules' wrong."

Frowning, he adds, "It's still disconcerting to think that there's a dead psychiatrist in some alternate version of my office chair. I'd really like to find this place." Erm. "For Alice's sake." Not just for the sake of getting rid of the corpse in his fake-office.

See, this is where Alex could learn a thing or two from Violet. It's easy to switch gears from 'field trips!' to 'insane asylum in a hell-place!' when you're not exactly normal. Get weird, bro. "I'm not using it wrong," she insists with a frown. "It's been the same way forever. You can't go there by choice. You can't take anything back. Now all of a sudden, we're bringing back boxes of bones and .. I don't know," her shoulders sag as she sighs out, "I don't understand any of this. Even the things I thought I understood, I don't." Which just frustrates her.

BUT! He says the magic words. Finding this place, for Alice's sake. She shows him a soft smile, lifting to kiss him gingerly. "Thank you," she murmurs appreciatively. "If it is over there, if we can actually go there? I need to. To help her," she doesn't try to explain further. "I asked Alexander if he would go with me. He said that he would."

This is where Alex just sits and looks at Violet quietly, without arguing, and doesn't even try to pretend that he still believes he's right about the rules-thing and she's just wrong and proving his whole point for him. It's a lot to convey wordlessly, but his patient expression beneath the lifted brows should suffice. So is she still gonna want to give him that little smile-and-kiss routine after he sat there being the smartest person in the room?

"To what end?" About Alexander, he means.

The answer to that question is yes, because Alex's smartest person in the room bit is his thing, and she's pretty much used to it by now. So he gets the kiss, and the faint smile that fades away immediately, her gaze lowering as she casts it to her lap. "If we can get there, on purpose? Maybe we could find her," she says quietly. "Maybe there's.. a door, you know? And we could get through, just to see if we could find more information. Find something, anything, about where she might be, about what's going on."

Okay good, then Alex is happy to have been kissed even while he still thinks everyone is using that word wrong except him. It still leaves him in the same confused place afterward, brows pulled while he listens to the explanation that doesn't do anything to alleviate his own frown. "I understand that." Her intentions. "I'm still confused as to why you would want to bring Alexander Clayton on this particular adventure, though." God, this subject is still so fucking delicate; "You're bringing someone who is very probably mentally unstable on a trek to find an insane asylum. Which, by all accounts, may be torturing its inmates."

Maybe it's the frown that makes Violet wilt. There's a moment where she looks very much ashamed, her focus kept on her hands. She isn't about to argue that Alexander Clayton is unstable, there's been enough questionable moments for even someone like Violet to recognize that the man isn't wholly .. sane. "I didn't think of that," she admits. "I don't want him to go anywhere near the.. the hospital," that's a firm statement, but she opts not to use the words 'insane asylum'. "I don't want him to get hurt, I told him I would make sure that didn't happen. But I can't go alone and he.. he has a knack of finding about things, and I.." she swallows hard, shakes her head. "You're right. It was very.. selfish of me, to ask him to come."

"I don't want you to go anywhere near the hospital." Alex managed to get out the implication about Alexander and the insanity, but there's no way to delicately suggest that Violet is in exactly the same kind of danger without it becoming a fight. So the best he can do is to tip her chin up with his fingertips, look her squarely in the eyes, and explain, "I understand why you have to do this, but I don't understand why you have to do this. If you find this place, and it is as bad as it seems to be... Violet, I love you, and I don't want to lose you to some mental institution that no one can ever find." Frustrated and sad, the tight tone and searching expression.

It's endearing, his concern, even if there's the not-so-subtle underlay that he thinks she's at risk because she's mentally unstable. "I don't.." her bottom lip trembles as he tips up her chin and she looks into those sad eyes of his, and it actually manages to catch her off-guard, her heart jumping up into her throat. She hesitates in the moment, because the normal argument doesn't seem to fit here, not with those eyes staring down at her. "I don't know anybody I can trust, Alex. Not anybody that.. that I would risk," her blue eyes start to swim with the threat of tears, but in the moment, she keeps them contained. "If you don't want me to go, help me find someone to send. Someone.. someone that would help her, that would get her out of there."

Gosh, Violet. Just ask for the impossible, why don't you.

Alex continues looking at her for a long spell of silence after that ask - help her find someone. It ends when he breathes out through his nose, the small sound of irritation, and he's left with nothing useful to offer to actually solve this problem. So he just leans toward her, kisses her softly, and says no more words about the mission to find the asylum that no one can ever find so why is he even worried? At least the kiss is appropriately communicative? With the worry for her, the 'plz dont lose his violet in the hell-place.'

It was a plea of her own, those words. Those big watery blue eyes, that stare up at him after those words are spoken. Because the truth was, Violet didn't want to go herself; she didn't want to get lost, not when she's found so much. But really, who else could they send? They would be asking someone to do the impossible, put themselves at risk for someone they don't know. They don't care about. No one sane would do such a thing. And anyone crazy enough to agree would just be bait for Them. So the silence that drags, and the sound of irritation that follows, is understandable. As is the sorrowful, wholly apologetic look that Violet conveys in those eyes of hers, and in the kiss that she lays upon his lips. She takes his worry and presents her own, while her lips fit with his; the kiss rather quickly turns into something desperate and needy, something that can easily get carried away.

Perhaps that's why she leans her head back after a heated second, her breath shallow and quickened. "Wait," she swallows, the apologetic look that she gives him then one for something entirely different. "Alexander.. needs us to help him. He asked me for a favor. Err -- us, he asked us for a favor," he just asked through her. "There was an attack. On a child, and a dog. He .. he has a stick, covered in blood. He gave it to me, to see if you would.. do some tests, at the hospital. See if there's anything you can find."

Okay, listen. Alex has been extremely patient about this whole Alexander thing. The guy is walking around with the front half of Alex's name, fucking up the highlights on Alex's player's client, going on some sort of excursion with Alex's girlfriend into the hell-place, and Alex has been perfectly accepting and accommodating. But now a kiss that should be going somewhere gets derailed because what-now? He sits there, looking at Violet confusedly while she's rambling things about favors and children and dogs and sticks covered in blood.

At least five seconds pass after Violet finishes talking before Alex thinks of anything to say that doesn't involve a string of expletives.

Y'know what? Let's make that ten seconds.

"Yes."

Listen, Alex gets somewhere at least once a day. Sometimes even twice, or three times in one day! So this was just a temporary thing, a brief pause on the path to somewhere so she doesn't forget. She waits through the silence, all ten ticks of it, before he agrees so very succinctly. His agreeableness makes her smile, at least a little bit. "Thank you," she murmurs, leaning back into him to cup his cheeks. Her eyes stay on his, big and bright (and threatening tears, but for different reasons). "You're a good man, Alex Reyes. The best man I know," she says genuinely, tenderly. "I love you so much. And I'm so proud to call you mine." She briefly tips her forehead to touch his, nuzzling his nose with her own.

And then she kisses him again, full on the lips, absolutely intent on resuming what she temporarily delayed to talk about bloody sticks.

It's nice that Violet can't read Alex's mind. It really works out in his favor a lot. Like right now, it means she's all saying gooey-nice-things at him after he was all . o O ( I HOPE HER FRIEND GETS KILLED AND BURNED AND EATEN ) except in Spanish.

Anyway, he doesn't tell her that's what he was thinking because he's not a stupid moron. Instead, he just lets her go on believing he's the best man she knows, saying quietly, "I'm glad," and nothing else. They're under the pergola, and Violet likes it here, and Alex likes when Violet likes things, so they can stay out here a while.

Eventually, they can go inside and look at this bloody stick she's on about. You know, for pillow-talk.