2019-07-21 - What About Byron?

The evening is pleasant enough, with overcast skies and warm breezes. It is a much-needed respite from the heat in the last two days.

The Summer's Moon is visible, though, casting its waning light down on the docks where more and more vessels are anchored; tourist season is upon Gray Harbor and the last few days have seen a steady influx of activity in the bay. The distant sound of a dozen conversations pervades the air, as well as the scent of cooking meat and vegetables from various dockside grills. The city's denizens appear to be determined to enjoy the season, by and large taking advantage of the fact that most of them aren't in the know - the abated darkness that blankets the sleepy port town like a miasma fails to touch these weekend revelers.

Inside the Reede Houseboat, there is some attempt by its primary occupant to get back to work; Isabella has largely been out of sight for most of the day, cloistered in her room, though Alexander would be assured that there have been no attempts, so far, at escape. He would hear her voice, talking to a gentleman who sounds English through the webconferencing capabilities of her laptop, and footsteps shuffling on hardwood, the rustle of papers and the sound of books being opened and leafed through.

When she finally does show herself, she looks simultaneously better but worse; her pride manages to keep her presentable in the day, clad in a soft, long-sleeved shirt, sleeves that come up to mid-palms, with a wide enough collar that it droops off one shoulder, exposing the deep crimson strap of what is undoubtedly something small and expensive, a pair of jeans shorts that appears to have started out its life as a pair of actual jeans, its legs torn off by wear and tear. Long legs, bare feet, thick, dark chocolate hair that spills down her back in tousled waves cross the threshold of her bedroom towards the main living space, restless, feverish energy marking her every movement. Her body recognizes the need to eat, but her state of mind remains undecisive about it.

The moonstone pendant brushes against the fabric of her shirt, motes of vibrant color playing against the surface.

There's music playing; it isn't Jazz this time, but something more frenetic and Latin in beat, possibly inspired by far away memories of Mexico now that it has become fresh on her memories since Captain Ruiz's unexpected visit. Bamboleo by the Gipsy Kings fills the room, low enough to sound distant.

Alexander has been trying to give Isabella her space, consciously staying out of her way to let her work. He HAS done his best to remove any materials she has that reference the ring, and occasionally she will hear him stop outside her room, assessing her with a brush of his mind and the more mundane tactic of eavesdropping. There will also be the occasional quiet encouragement to eat. Alexander cannot cook, but he can heat up canned things! In fact, that's what he's doing when she emerges - because even if she doesn't need to eat, he does. Some sort of canned soup unearthed from the cupboards is heating on the stove while he stares down into it.

He looks...worried. And rumpled. He's still wearing the same outfit he was before, although he's managed to sneak showers and naps here and there, he fits in the houseboat like a foot in a shoe that is slightly the wrong size; never quite comfortable, with a constant, low irritation to his desire for familiarity and stability. He's been quiet all day, aside from some soft curses at one point, and text message sounds going off rapidly at a couple of different times. No objections have been made to her choice of music.

When she opens the door and emerges, he looks up, assessing her thoughtfully. "You should eat." It's quiet. "And I would like to pick your brain about something. If I can."

The fact that he's been relatively hands-off despite having assigned himself the unenviable task of being her warden is one that Isabella is grateful over, though she hasn't had much of a chance to show her gratitude with regard to it. The smell of soup being heated up registers in her nostrils, drawing a reaction she can't help - her stomach makes a distinct little noise in reaction - but it doesn't register on her features. Her eyes do move towards it, though, when he encourages her to eat, but it is his concerned expression that ultimately brings flicker of expression through that defiant, stubborn veneer. "I'll try," she reassures him, a smile tilted in his direction; it's faint, nothing like those solar flares that unreservedly please him, but the fact that she is still capable of those expressions is hopefully comforting.

And I would like to pick your brain about something. If I can.

"I'll try with that, too," she returns, some of her good humor resurfacing. She doesn't begrudge Alexander the need, and responsibility, to care for her - a show of some degree of generosity in her part, when she so notoriously hates being coddled. Permission, perhaps, or allowance - an acknowledgment or recognition of a man who presently feels helpless when he so desperately needs to feel like he's getting somewhere, or helping somehow. Her expertise is in long-lost secrets, certainly, but human ones, and were she asked, she would be the first to say that Archaeology, in the end, is ultimately about people and the way they led their lives.

Her slender form sinks into the sleeper couch, bare legs pulling up and her be-ringed toes curling on the edge of the cushions, presently folded back into its usual state. He's been here long enough that the upholstery is starting to smell like him - of coffee, paper and ink. Green eyes find his dark ones.

"How are you doing?" she asks.

"Good. Thank you." That seems to cover both requests. And as the soup is starting to bubble - sadly, a fairly pedestrian selection of vegetable beef, he starts serving it into two prepared bowls. Alexander's fastidious and careful in the kitchen, wiping off a couple of spilled drops almost immediately. He sets the bowls on the counter before the stools, putting a spoon into each one. While he rarely minds eating on his couch at home, there's a stiffness, a formality to his movements that suggest he's aware that he's a guest, and one trying to respect that privilege.

Her flicker of good humor sparks a brief warmth in his eyes, but his face remains in that blank, resting state that he favors when he's concentrating on something. As if thinking through problems and being human both required too much cognitive space to accomplish both at once. He walks around to the other side of the island after checking to make sure all the eyes are off and rinsing the pot off in the sink, and sits himself down. "I'm f--" Wait, no. He's starting to hate that word. It turns into, "I'm functional. Thank you for asking." Distracted, distant. Thinking. "I need your best assessment on the personality and behavior of Byron Thorne."

The sleeper couch creaks when Alexander's more significant weight sinks next to her, and her hands reach up in readiness to retrieve one of the soup bowls. Lips part to close over the spoon, to clean it, before resting it in the coffee table before them. She cradles the ceramic receptacle in her hands soon after, bringing her mouth to the rim and takes an experimental sip. Vegetable and beef seems fine with her and she nurses her meal as if she's in the midst of one of her travels - there are parts of the world where it isn't customary to wield utensils while eating, and while the investigator insists on standing at ceremony because he's a guest, Isabella has no such qualms showing a more casual side of her, imbued with that unshakable confidence that allows her to always be comfortable in her own skin.

Functional, he describes himself.

"You're tired and you're worried." As usual, she doesn't let him get away with anything. "But something tells me that's the usual." Her smile curves further upwards at that, eyes riveted on his face from above the turned-up lip of her bowl; it obscures the bottom half of her face, when she's drinking her soup this way.

His question, though, gives her pause. "....what about Byron?" she asks, lowering her dinner. "I mean, I heard the question, I understand it, but I don't...I can't parse what that has to do with anything we're dealing with at the moment."

There's a blink when she ignores the spoon in favor of sipping from the bowl, Alexander's brow furrowing just briefly as he settles down beside her. He doesn't follow suit. Instead, he balances the bowl on his knees, steadying it with one hand, while the other wields the spoon. Honestly, with her having a bowl of hot soup, and him trying not to make a mess on her furniture, if she WANTED to lunge for freedom, it'd be a pretty good opening.

"Mm. Not usually this worried. But always tired," he agrees, with a careless shrug of his shoulders. His fatigue is irrelevant, that roll of muscles suggests, to be ignored until it can't be. "There are a few things. I've asked him to come and exchange places with me for a little while, as I attempt to handle something so that this mess can be resolved." He dances around the topic of the ring, of Lilith. "But my text messages with him have included elements that I consider uncharacteristic. Of him. But I don't really know him, and I don't want to leap to conclusions and do unwarranted damage to our," a thoughtful silence - 'friendship' isn't accurate, perhaps even 'relationship' is overstating the case - "association. I need more data." A gesture to her with the spoon in between sips. "You're my closest source."

Not usually this worried.

She can read between the lines. "You're sweet," Isabella says, unabashedly, that mischievous spark flaring briefly in those viridian depths, taking another gauging sip of her soup. She is not usually a delicate eater, not when she tends to savour food with gusto, as always appreciative of the finer experiences in life. But she isn't even certain that she wants to eat, and so takes up the activity with the careful assessment reflective of that uncertainty.

Sharp as ever, when forced to consider a problem, that brief hesitation on the way he describes his 'association' with Byron Thorne earns him a sideways glance, though she says very little to that in comment. She knows precisely how Byron feels about Alexander, but not the other way around. She doesn't ask, however - the way they've interacted around her before speaks, if nothing else, of an arrangement built largely out of mutual benefit than friendship or even respect. "I can tell you how he was when we were younger," she says at last, after a contemplative pause. "But you'll have to base your conclusions on that historical blueprint, I think...I told you before, didn't I? People change. They never really stop changing. And it's been eleven years. I'd like to think I still know him, despite a decade and change of no contact, but I recognize the fact that what I think might not be so accurate now."

There's a flicker there on that expressive face, and something that touches reluctantly deep; Byron Thorne is tied, simultaneously, to her best and worst memories of Gray Harbor.

Alexander just looks confused at the compliment, shaking his head slightly. "Not typically." He eats...mechanically, really. There's no savoring of the rich, if over salted, base of the soup, or enjoyment of the simple, comforting heat of it. Just whenever he has a moment between breathing and talking, he takes a neat bite, chews, swallows, and moves on. Efficient, and perhaps a bit soulless from the outside.

He inclines his head, accepting the limitations. "You're still working with more recent data than I. Before running into him a couple of months ago, the last time I'd seen him was at the detective's funeral, and then...I believe he was six, maybe seven. We did not speak much." Still, there's the slightest of smiles, not an uncomplicated expression, but one touched with sadness, regret, and even a bit of fondness. Then it's gone. "Anything helps, Miss Reede. I don't see any circumstances where he'd give me permission to read him, and reading him without his permission would be...difficult, and likely to have consequences I'd like to avoid."

And then he sees that flicker, and his head drops. A wince. "I'm sorry. This was inappropriate to ask. Never mind. You don't have to."

There's a slight incline of her head when he calls her Miss Reede, twigging too, on this strange ping-ponging between formal and familiar address, and in an indecipherable pattern to boot - it can't be influenced by company, when he addressed her so informally in front of Ruiz just a day ago. That, too, is uncommented upon.

After another sip of her soup, Isabella puts it to the side, folding her arms around her drawn-up knees and tilting her head back. The dark-chocolate fall of her hair swirls on the couch's upholstery in haphazard patterns, and she closes her eyes briefly; an attempt to gather her thoughts, wrestling between memories of a boy she liked enough to want to dance with and the glinting amethyst with its ancient scaraboei.

"It's fine," the archaeologist says at last, opening her eyes and tilting her face to look over at him next to her. "You think he's in trouble, otherwise you wouldn't be asking. He..." She falls quiet, open conflict on her features. "Even after all these years, he'd help me out on anything, no matter what I said. I'd be an awful friend if I didn't do the same and between him and me, I've more to make up to him than he does me."

With his head dropped, she shifts, nudging her shoulder against his to get him to look up and at her. "What about these texts to him made you suspicious enough that you had to ask me?"

"Just that," Alexander says, quietly. "Miss Winslow is missing. When he informed me, I asked if he was looking for her, and he said that he'd 'ask around'. He has been...more concerned, before. I pointed out that I believed their association to be closer than that, and he was," a pause, "dismissive of it. At first. Then seemed to correct himself. It could be nothing. It could be that he is stressed - there is a lot going on for him. He could just be a bit of a douchebag under pressure." This last with a hint of dry humor. "But I wanted to know if, in your estimation, I was overreacting to his underreac--"

And then his text message chime goes off. He sets the bowl off to the side, grabs for the phone, checks it. "Speak of the devil and he shall appear," he mutters, not without a certain humor. There's an text exchange and the humor is gone. Low cursing erupts, and keys are smashed with unnecessary force.

Lilith Winslow, Alexander states. And Byron's overt lack of concern.

Isabella falls quiet at that, her bare legs slipping off onto the edge of the couch, fingers lifting to absently toy with the moonstone hanging against the chain; its cold bite, like a knife cutting through flesh, assists with keeping her mind focused on where it needs to be, but even without a deep consideration of what he has asked her, she already knows the answer to it - as clear as crystal no matter what she had said earlier about people changing. Because no matter how much time has passed, some things remain constant. Some things endure.

Byron Thorne's connection to his first love is one of them.

The acerbic truth of it twists at her stomach, unable to help a twinge of envy; it has little to do with the things that could have happened, but never did, and more to do with the fact that she once had that kind of deep connection with someone else, and while Byron managed to reclaim his on some degree, hers is lost forever, having spent the last decade functioning as half a person. Other men, other relationships, have come and gone - fiery, passionate, all-consuming, but overall brief affairs that in the end burned out like the wicks of overspent candles. Burdened, in the end, by either too much or too little, and all her fault.

"No," she says, about his overreaction to her childhood friend's underreaction. The word is uttered quietly, decisively - is she ever anything else? "When it comes to Lilith, Byron would move mountains."

There's a glance when his text goes active, and she says nothing more than that until it's over, picking up her bowl and doing her level best to keep eating.

Alexander nods. Her words are a confirmation, not a surprise. A check on the consensus of reality with others, when his own judgement feels cloudy or his conclusions suspect. He doesn't look up from the text conversation, his brow furrowed and his expression exasperated, irritated - and under it all, worried. "The PI was attacked by two unknown thugs and almost shot. And the pawn shop has been attacked." His breath comes out in a rush.

"Now, of course, he wants to go running off after her. Dr. Glass is, hopefully, going to come to look after you. And I will go with him. Unless he is about to do something deeply stupid and ghost me to go get himself fucking shot by running off alone." Alexander's anger is sudden and hot, a flash of pent up frustration and helplessness transmuted into rage. It dies, almost immediately, and he just looks tired again.

"Wait. Which PI?" This town seems teeming with them. Isabella's brows furrows, wracking her tired brain for who he could mean - but in the end, there's only one conclusion she could make. She had met the woman recently, after all, another friend of Byron's from school. "Magnolia Jones?" She manages to look somewhat alarmed despite her present state.

Though when Alexander tells her that Byron intends to go after what appears to be the missing Lilith Winslow, and the prospect of him going with her childhood friend to prevent him from getting shot, Isabella's already attempting to get off the couch, her expression tight but grimly determined. He should expect this; they haven't known each other long, but they've had enough exposure to another that what follows after can't be a surprise.

"I'm not staying here if he's in trouble and you're running straight at bullets," she says, her old spirit suddenly resurging with the force of a Pacific tempest. "I'm going with you."

"Yes. That one." Alexander does, in fact, look briefly surprised when she starts to get off the couch. Then just exasperated. "No, you're not." He stands as she does, sliding into a defensive posture, the phone tossed briefly aside. "You aren't going to help. If Miss Winslow is in the thrall of the object, if /Thorne/ is in the thrall of the object, then adding another person who is in that thrall is not going to help any part of this situation." Not that Alexander has any idea how he is going to be able to put down two fit, adult humans in the throes of supernatural compulsion, if it becomes necessary. But that is a problem for Future Alexander.

Present Alexander is sizing up the need to put down one fit, adult human, his hands flexing. "If you go, you may end up murdering your friend. For a piece of jewelry. Is that really what you want to do, Isabella? Think beyond the lure - is that truly how you wish this to end?"

Didn't she tell him before? Isabella can be stupidly stubborn.

Defiance is writ in every bone and sinew of her, and as a veteran operator in all things weird, Alexander can at least smell when there's trouble brewing over the horizon. She doesn't seem to notice, nor care that he's risen the same time as she, her body turning to square off against him. Her jaw is set, green eyes hardened into determined marbles, every instinct presently warring within her and torn between two prevailing urges; to help defend her friends versus knowing that an acquaintance has the thing she desires above everything else and if they were looking for Lilith, who has it, then it poses a great opportunity to obtain it. There's no way Isabella would elect staying behind. In her opinion, she has to come along.

As always, Alexander Clayton insists on getting in the way.

His logical assessment of her ill-fitness to be involved is sound and were she in her right mind, it would be enough of a sobering reality to get her to see reason. But the dull roar of her ignited blood deafens her from it and she takes a deep breath. Outwardly, she is calm when she replies: "If you go to where Lilith is, you're going to expose yourself to it, too," she tells him, surprisingly able to keep the edge from her voice. "And if you think you're going to be somehow exempt from that, it's a tremendously conceited view to have. I underestimated the god damn thing and I'm paying the price for it. After everything you've seen, are you going to do the same? Maybe chaos is exactly what this equation needs to resolve everything."

Her green eyes bore right into his face, lips pressing together, but perhaps recognizing the same unyielding spirit in him, she makes a small, frustrated noise, spinning away from him. "Fine," she murmurs. "I'm going back to work."

She takes a step, and another, towards the hallway leading into her room.

...and in a surprising show of speed, she pivots around and launches herself over the coffee table. She blazes past him, leaving Alexander on the dangerous brink of losing her altogether, reaching for the door of the houseboat.

Alexander's eyes narrow as hers harden, his jaw setting in an equally stubborn line. He is not calm. There is nothing at all chill about the way he responds to the accusation. "Of course I don't think I'm immune," he snaps. "That thing fucking terrifies me. I don't want anything to do with it! This is not my problem, but I'll be damned if I watch you all wander off to get killed or disappeared and not try to do something about it!"

He doesn't relax when she turns away. It might be the only thing that keeps him from losing her entirely, because there's a large part of him that is just resigned when she pivots herself about. His body leaps into action, face a mask of grim determination, and he's right on her heels as she sprints for the door, reaching out to grab her trailing arm and then dig in his heels and pivot, trying to use her own momentum against her to send her back, at least momentarily, towards the center of the room. He doesn't speak. Or advance. He just watches her in a position of coiled readiness to see what her next move is.

She nearly screams in frustration when he manages to grab her by the wrist, though when he tries to hurl her back, she manages to dig her heels in; Isabella has had enough training, at least, to do that much, and she learns quickly. She still remembers the time Alexander had tackled her bodily and with her flat on her back, he had managed to overpower her. She is determined to stay on her feet this time.

But his grip remains strong; like a bear trap, it digs into flesh, and diminished as she is, she is clearly not at her best. But the fight in her is endless as Isabella keeps trying to wrench herself free, lips parted, hints of her teeth visible. The look in her face is utterly ferocious, the fever taking over; slowly but surely, she forgets why she wants to leave in the first place, her active thoughts becoming more and more fixated on the ring that Lilith Winslow has in her possession. Emerald embers threaten to reduce the investigator to dust as she looks at him with those eyes, the half-gilded tempest of her raging within - a hurricane crammed in an ill-fitting human shell. Objects in the room react to her agitation, rattling dangerously, from the bowls on the coffee table, to the knife holder next to the coffee maker - still a warning, psychic air raid sirens screaming through the room.

"You're right," she whispers lowly, heatedly, limb locked with his, expression filled with fire and fury. "This has nothing to do with you, so why the hell do you care? You wear yourself out, losing sleep, breaking yourself over and over again on hills other people are meant to die on, like you've got something to make up for that nobody else can understand. So why? Why? Just exactly what the hell do you get out of this?"

You know, it's a really good point.

And Alexander is TEMPTED. To just let her wrist go. Let this woman he barely even knows go storming out into the night and chase her obsession. Go back to his own home, his own bed, and try to solve problems that at least have a tangential connection to something he actually has a stake in. Let this group of much younger people rise or fall in Gray Harbor's madness all on their own. As he was left to do. But the frantic rattling of objects around the cabin, instead of heightening that urge, have him gritting his teeth and reeling her in, inch by painful inch, with her strength and training fighting him every step of the way.

"Don't. Ask. Stupid. Questions," he bites out, the words coming out between harsh exhalations. His eyes are hard, anger and a steel-edged concern at war in them. "Just snap out of it, Isabella. I know you can." The rough words are punctuated with a hard shake, as if he could rattle the obsession out of her.

It's a temptation she wants to fan the flames of. Something flares in Isabella's eyes; like a shark in bloody water, she senses weakness.

But something rallies him; she doesn't know what it is, can't quite determine it in the heat of the moment, but as he reels her in, she fights him with the frantic desperation of one determined to free herself from the trap he represents. There's a frustrated cry when inch by painful inch, she's yanked closer to his chest. Panic she can't describe, fueled by her supernatural obsession and deep, volatile things she can never give voice to, fountains up from within her chest, a torrential geyser that runs the risk of drowning them both. No! Why?! He can't...she can't...

Seized, her forearms come up, hands balled into fists, pressed flat against his chest in a last ditch effort to barricade herself away from him as he shakes her bodily, as if he could physically banish the curse away from her spirit. "They can't be so stupid that you won't answer them!" she hurls back at him, her voice rising in a shriek. "Let me go. Let me go! This has nothing to do with you! NOTHING!"

The fight drains out of her in increments, her body twisting against his. "You don't understand," she chokes, breaths leaving in ragged pants; her half-starved and half-sleepless state is starting to take a toll, remains of the Xanax in her system ravaging her blood. "You don't....you can't...I have to...I need...oh god, it hurts. It hurts..."

Alexander pulls her in close, wraps his arms around her. It could be mistaken for an embrace, perhaps, especially as the fight starts to drain out of her. If you didn't look too closely, and see the way his muscles strain against her twisting, the way he lifts her just enough to keep her feet scrabbling for balance on the floor as he half-carries, half-drags her towards the sleeper bed. "I'm just a stupid motherfucker," he mutters against her hair. It's hard to say if it's an actual answer to the question, or if it's just a general commentary on himself.

As she chokes and pleads, his voice softens, even if his grip doesn't. "Shhhh. Shhhh. I know it hurts. But you're strong enough to resist it. I know you are. Just fight that instead of fighting me. It's the asshole that's got its teeth in you."

She doesn't weep, but traitorous, frustrated heat stings from underneath her lashes - even now, Isabella is too prideful a creature to cry. Half-lifted from the floor to prevent disaster from happening, dragged towards the couch, certain comparisons can be made about being trapped between a rock and a hard place. The breadth of Alexander's chest, for the moment, seems almost insurmountable to her, the cage his arms make around her a wiry, frightening thing that prevents her from the freedom she craves and the trap she doesn't want to fall further in. His breath stirs her hair, hot and labored, and her insides twist at the sensation, sharp enough to be felt through the haze of poison pulsing through her senses.

You're strong enough to resist it.

She shakes her head vehemently, nails bunching up in front of his shirt, raking through fabric and digging faintly into his pectorals. Her cheek presses into him, grinding hard in an effort to center herself. Her quiet breathlessness spills into his open collar, lips parted in effort. "Alexander..." she grates.

Fight that, he cajoles. Fight that instead of him. She squeezes her eyes shut. She tries. "I..." She sounds suffocated, drowning as he sinks her further into himself. "I don't know how..." To ask her not to fight anyone or anything no matter what the situation is downright anathema to her. Her teeth clip into his collarbone through his shirt, hard enough to be felt, though she stops short of drawing blood.

"I need it," she tells him, labored exhalations scalding him through fabric, her face tilting up, crushed into where his neck meets his shoulder. "I need..."

"You don't need it," Alexander responds, bluntly. With absolute conviction. He drags her to the sleeper sofa, hissing as her fingernails are felt through the shirt. "And don't fucking tell me you don't know how to fight anything, Isabella Reede. I barely know you, and I know that's a lie. You say you're tough. Prove it. Fight it." The words are curt, punctuated by a harsh curse as her teeth bite into his collarbone.

He moves to pull them both down, half sitting, half-lying on the sleeper sofa so that he can try to get a better grip to restrain her.

Someone, everyone knows who, said that Vivian's assistance was needed, and asked if she could stop by the houseboat. Of course she went, once more dressed in more casual clothes, with the same messenger bag over her shoulder. When she arrives she boards the boat without even asking for permission to come aboard, because proper boating protocol she doesn't know.

"Hello!" She does at least call out to announce her presence. "Anyone home?" She wonders, going for the door to see if it happens to be open.

Yes I do, she wants to scream. Eyes grow bright when he tips them over on the couch, the room shaking as that internal thought scourges through open veins. Limbs entangled, the present struggle devolves into a test of endurance on Alexander's part. Back on her back, Isabella's smaller, more slender form pushes against his, a leg bending with a knee up in an effort to put some distance between them. She cries out, again, frustration and barely smothered rage evident in the sound.

In the end, this is how Vivian finds them, whenever Alexander calls for her to come in. It looks absurdly questionable, the two of them tangled up this way, but the psychiatrist is a professional, and by the look in the archaeologist's eyes - feverish and frantic - she could probably guess that someone just attempted a jailbreak.

"The door is open!" Alexander calls it out, frustration and strain clearly audible in the harshness of his voice. To the woman underneath him, he snaps, "Don't you DARE sink this goddamned boat," as the room shakes around them once again. He doesn't try to change her position further, mostly just using his heavier weight and the fact that while he is sleep deprived, HE has been eating, and SHE has not. So he just hangs on grim-faced, countering leg with leg, his thigh coming down hard on her knee as he rolls to try and force it down with his weight and leverage, and waits for her to tire herself out.

And, yeah, it looks all sorts of problematic when the door opens. Alexander can't see behind him, but at least he recognized the voice. "Dr. Glass! Some assistance, please!"

"Mister Clayton...Isabella." Vivian greets once she's through the door, her brows lifting upwards fractionally before she rather firmly shuts the door, and turns the lock. Jailbreaks just got a little more problematic, didn't they? She doesn't even question the situation, or the positions. If the situation were different she might be wondering something else entirely, but knowing what she knows and seeing what she can see, there's not any hesitation.

The last time she didn't put anything she brought with her to use but the food, but this time she flips the bag open, pulling out two glass vials, checking the labels before she then pulls out a syringe. It's all very carefully done, ripping the wrapper, sliding the needle into the tops of the bottles and making sure that she's got the two at the right amounts before she heads for the couch, "Just hold tight..."

Assistance. Sedatives. Isabella has enough grasp on her mental faculties, even as they slowly unravel in the heat of her desperation, to know just precisely what is happening.

Her struggles become all the more frantic at the sight of the needle, hurt and fury filling her eyes when they turn up to the man hovering above her and pinning her down. How did Vivian even know how to come? She thought Alexander was talking to Byron earlier, not Vivian! Her body corkscrews sideways in an effort to gain leverage - a cagey proposition, considering one of her legs is pinned down, but she still has one and she attempts to plant the flat of her foot on Alexander's ribcage, in an attempt to push him off.

But he's determined, and unlike her, he is not physically diminished. For all of her words, earlier, she seems to be able to fight just fine, especially when she has a clear impetus to do so. The room reacts to her panic; bowls crack, objects fly from one end to another, and the knife holder slowly rattles closer to the edge of the counter, threatening to spill its contents on the floor.

Alexander has officially Lost His Fucking Patience. This time it doesn't lead to shouting or temper tantrums, although he flinches and cries out in mingled anger and fear as things start flying. "Quickly, Doctor!" he shouts, but the rattling of those knives, the knowledge of what this could become if Isabella's panic and obsession drives her to focus her powers...he's officially done with the Easy Way.

And yes, the Easy Way was physical. Because this, in the end, may be considered a deeper violation than anything he might do to her body. Alexander's face goes frighteningly blank above her, and for those who shine like he does, they may feel the gathering power around him, the sudden oppressive weight of the emotion he throws onto her, like a smothering blanket that sinks past skin and begins to burrow towards the heart of her, fighting against her own, powerful will to dominate and force her into a calm, lethargic state. It won't last, and sweat beads on his skin as he struggles to overcome her defenses, but his is a frighteningly powerful ability, when he chooses to use it, and he's unleashing it now.

It might cover things up, because as soon as Vivian gets within stabbing distance she sticks the needle in. Yes, it's not the best shot in the world, probably will leave a bruise, and really just sucks all the way around. If she had time she'd be very nice about the entire thing, but now isn't the time to be nice.

Stab, and she pushes that plunger down before she backs up fast. A broken needle is the last thing anyone needs, though, "What set her off this time?"

When down to the bolts and nuts of it, Alexander's potential is just as potent as hers - and years of fighting the darkness of Gray Harbor has proved him far above her in terms of practical experience.

But Isabella doesn't make it easy - a proclivity that he has already been warned against. If nothing else, her desperation only fuels the endless capacity to battle inside of herself, and as he attempts to smother her with the blanket of his abilities, he'd feel her pushing back. There's nothing blank about her when she does this, lashing out by instinct while uncomprehending of what is truly happening. All she knows is that these people are in her way, and she needs to get them out before she can't. She is fully capable of taking the fight into realms beyond the physical.

Inch by painful inch, that resistance starts to give, and Alexander will find it easier once the end of the needle finds its way into malleable flesh. Nails digging into the man's forearm slowly grow slack, the investigator's mental command working in conjunction with Vivian's pharmaceutical expertise. Burning green eyes gradually grow glassy, and her hold on Alexander starts to slip until her arms drop limply on the couch. Her breathing is labored, deepening in increments, staring up at both of them. Seeing, but not really, expression half-obscured by the haphazard drape of long dark hair during her struggling against her warden.

She says nothing; she can't, restrained in ways more complete than any pair of handcuffs Alexander can ask from Captain de la Vega.

Alexander rolls off of her when that grip loosens, and her body finally starts to go slack beneath him. There are nearly a dozen half-moons pressed into his arm - a couple have broken the skin, and it's probably going to look quite impressive later. He looks a bit like he's been through a war as he staggers to his feet to face Vivian. "I needed some information." His eyes skip to the door. "Thorne's not here." It's not a question, and it doesn't sound like he's surprised. There's a weary sigh. "Let me guess. He's gone to find Miss Winslow."

"Thorne is not here, but he did say he'd meet me here." Vivian tucks the cap onto the needle so that it can be properly discarded later, finding a place to set it and her bag. "If he's gone to find Miss Winslow he didn't say so when I was heading here." It doesn't sound like she disbelieves that could be where he went, either, just resigned to whatever is the current situation being what it is. "You need to wash those, human bites get infected."

Alexander studies Vivian with a flat expression. He refuses to look at Isabella, for the moment, although his hands rub at the nailmarks she's left on his arms. "You're calling him Thorne now. That's a bad sign." Just the slightest flash of humor, quickly drowned by everything else going on. "I'll wash them a bit later. Based on recent events, I would say that it's a fairly decent chance that Thorne is not as unaffected by the ring as I had hoped. Would you agree with that assessment, Doctor?" He glances at her supplies. "And can you prep another syringe for a man of his weight?"

Vivian laughs at that, shaking her head, "No, just for you." She assures Alexander, reaching for the bag to start rifling through it, pulling out a pack of alcohol wipes that she holds out towards him, "Are you asking me to prep a syringe so that you can ambush Byron, knock him out, and put him in handcuffs as well?" She wonders, glancing towards Isabella, "Or rope...or...whatever you happen to have handy, like last time."

Alexander looks a touch confused. "You don't have to call him Thorne for me, Doctor. His name doesn't make me uncomfortable." There's a pause. "Usually. Right now, it's making me a little irate. Not gonna lie." He rubs at the back of his neck. "Yes. That is what I was thinking." A pause. "Is that an irrational response right now, Doctor?" It's an actual, honest question, and he awaits her pronouncement with an open face filled with worry and doubt.

"No, it's not an irrational response." Vivian replies as she reaches into the bag, pulling out a second syringe, "If Byron is..." She pauses, glancing towards Isabella, "If he's having as much trouble with this as she is, just less...violent, then I don't think it is an irrational response at all. I don't wish to knock him out, I don't wish to knock her out...or you, or Miss Winslow, or myself, or anyone else that might come under the sway of whatever this is. But I will." She finds herself a place to sit, frowning, "What I want is the solution to the problem, so that I don't have to continue drugging everyone in my life."

Alexander takes the offered wipes, belatedly. He swipes them down his arms - and then curses extensively, because Alexander is a total baby about pain. He inspects his arms, then sneaks a peek at Isabella. "That woman is tenacious." It's grump and admiration in equal measure. He tosses the wipe aside. "I have no idea what the solution to this problem is," he admits, bluntly. "I don't know how we're supposed to destroy something we can't look at without becoming enthralled to it. I'm afraid to even look at pictures of the damned thing. The only thing I know to do next is to try and find Thorne, find Miss Winslow, and quarantine them both until the next step emerges." His shoulders droop. "It's my only play here." A pause. "Could I borrow your car?"

"My car?" Vivian looks curious at that, a brow lifting upwards momentarily before she starts to prep two syringes, pausing at the second one, "How much would you say Miss Winslow weighs?" She wonders, then glances towards Isabella, like she's considering just prepping the same dosage willy-nilly. "The keys are in my bag, it's the gray Aston Martin Vantage parked a little down the way."

"Your car," Alexander repeats, patiently. "I don't have one, and tracking him down is going to take...quite a while if I have to do it on foot." When she elaborates, he gives a jerk of a nod, and a mumbled thanks. But there's this twisty bit of his face, like it's one of those times when he's reminded that he's out of his weight class in so, so many ways. He fumbles through her purse until he finds the keys, stuffs them in his pocket. "Maybe one twenty? I honestly don't know, but she seemed fairly slender." An apologetic grimace.

"Okay." Vivian preps the second syringe, then puts the caps carefully back on them before she looks through her bag, finding a stack of red sticker dots, often used for yard sells. She pulls one off, tucking it onto one of the syringes, "This is Byron's. Try not to mix them up....it won't kill anyone to do it, but it just means that he might not drop as easily as with the proper dose." She then carefully holds them out towards Alexander, "Don't let him hurt himself."

Alexander stares at the syringes. He ASKED for them. But the reality of them, and the weight of Vivian's words, send a shudder down his spine. His lips press tight around the protests that suddenly want to claw their way out. His nostrils flare as he takes a deep breath. Then bows his head, as if bending to a command. "I'll do my best, Doctor." He takes the two slender syringes. The bag he brought to this date originally is retrieved, a pair of leather gloves withdrawn from it, and the syringes settled into it. It's not perfect, but he really never expected to end up needing to sedate anyone. He pulls on the gloves, closes his eyes.

"Alexander..." The intonation of his name is low and hoarse.

She's not fully awake, but it's a testament to her formidable mind that despite the drugs in her system, Isabella has some semblance of awareness as to what's going on around her. The voices are jumbled, muddled, but certain snippets are crystal clear to her - Vivian's presence, some manner of valkyrie sent from Valhalla with that pharmaceutical-induced glow around her, hovering nearby, and the intention of the investigator to go haring off and stave off disaster. Forever out of his depth, the full, exasperated awareness that he is, but determined to go anyway.

They can't be any more different than night and day, but that? That, they have in common.

Should he turn, he'd find her, arm slung across her torso, glassy eyes glinting like mirrors, carrying his image within them. Lips quirk up faintly, a corner hooking upwards. Lush and expressive even in her reluctant ruin. After a few moments, as if following the demands of gravity, her lashes slip closed over her cheeks.

"Don't die."

"I believe in you." No pressure, right? Vivian has nothing else to say to Alexander, just that. But it's Isabella's comment that causes her to look over with a small frown, jaw clenching just a moment before she looks at Alexander, "I'll take care of her, you just go get the rest."

Alexander freezes when Isabella's voice says his name. He looks at her, stricken with guilt, waiting for condemnation, fire. He moves to her side. Not touching, but leaning over to better hear whatever she has to say. Those two final, simple words? They make him recoil. They make him laugh, and they almost make him cry. All at the same time. "Get some rest, Isabella," he says, his voice wavering, just a little.

And then Vivian no-pressures him, and he rubs at his face with a gloved hand. "Right. Yes. That's the plan." And then he turns away, heading for the door in quick steps so that no one can see his face. No goodbyes, just a fumbling of the lock, and then he disappears out into the night.