2019-10-21 - Sinners

Alexander reiterated sometime in their trip to Seattle that when they return, they ought to have the talk they promised one another several months ago and at least, with everything and anything that involves him, Isabella is a woman of her word.

By the time he arrives at her houseboat for dinner, the skies are clear and the Autumn moon hangs fat and silver on their darkened canopies, framed by a glittering spray of stars that lead in infinite directions. Nights like these tend to reflect much of his mindscape, with the absence of the storms that generally pervade it and hint at his intensity - always lingering in the shadows, ready to strike. There is no such thing within the fabric of reality that surrounds The Surprise, though; it is peaceful, the overall silence broken up occasionally by waves rushing to the shore, carrying away bits and pieces of Gray Harbor's corporeal self, to get lost in the deep, never to be reclaimed.

There is some chaos when he steps inside the doors, texts from his lover having indicated that she had left it open for him and he could just come in - there is smoke everywhere and he'd find Isabella squawking a rare, blistering stream of invectives, armed with a fire extinguisher and spraying it right on a cast-iron pan that contains what would be generously termed as Cajun-style vegetables, charred beyond recognition. While she has barely managed to save her abode from exploding, at least, and sinking into the depths of the Pacific, she looks harried while doing so.

She is dressed as casually as ever, though a touch more warmly in deference to the growing chill of the weather - a soft, dove-gray cashmere sweater with a wide neck that droops off the shoulder to show off the bright red strap of whatever lacey, expensive thing she wears underneath, a pair of jeans shorts and black, thigh-high knit socks. Her hair is loose, in one of those few occasions where she's glimpsed with her hair unbound and untreated by heat, leaving it in its dark and naturally wavy state, tousled around her face and curling on the ends. It's grown long since the summer, spilling down in a torrent to her mid-back, its bronze and copper hints catching the light of her houseboat's interior.

There's also an apron on her, because when one is cooking, they need one, right? Except that this apron is clearly made for a man - it's large, and she's had to double-tie it around her waist. Big bold lettering is on the front: I LIKE MY BUTT RUBBED AND MY PORK PULLED. Clearly a masculine barbecuing joke, and this is still technically Captain Reede's houseboat, but beggars can't be choosers - it was the only one she had on hand.

His arrival has her blinking wide eyes at him, pausing from her frenetic blitzing of fire retardant into her stove, frozen as if he had caught her doing something illegal. "...hi! Wow, is it time already? Ha ha ha ha...I was just..." Her elbow hooks into the edge of the pan and gives it a casual shove into her sink, letting it fall somewhere at the bottom of the basin with a loud CLANG!, charcoal vegetables and all. "Um. ...they're just sides, we don't...we won't starve, I promise. I think. The casserole is in the oven, still."

After a few heartbeats of simply watching his face, she huffs and looks away, grousing under her breath - her expression is half-exasperated, but also absolutely embarrassed, and some part of her is probably hoping that the ground would cooperate for once, and open up so it could swallow her. Were she more practiced, or if she were aggravated, considering her particular specialty there, the possibility is less remote than anyone thinks, but thankfully she isn't so stressed that the Talent doesn't act willy-nilly. "Listen, I've never really tried cooking for anyone before and...you made me breakfast once so...I thought it was my turn. You told me before that you like bacon, so..."

Through the faint film of smoke that permeates the interior of her houseboat, he can smell it. Bacon sizzling in the oven - there's a spare package of it on the granite island, still, as well as the leftover potatoes that were probably thanking their little spudly stars that they managed to survive whatever ferocious culling happened in this room, a half-empty carton of eggs and strings of cheese that she grated herself on a chopping board. God knows what sort of gooey monstrosity is waiting for the two of them within the heated confines of the seemingly still-unmolested part of her cooking appliance, but it actually smells...okay?

Still, it doesn't exactly make it less mortifying and she seems to just remember the apron that's not hers. She hurriedly strips it off her, and tosses it somewhere to the side. It flutters to land on the armrest of the couch with BUTT RUB facing upwards towards the light.

She groans.

Alexander shows up at the appointed time; he's usually punctual, even though he walks everywhere - it might surprise some people how much time he spends planning out routes to get to where he needs to go as efficiently as possible and without getting splatted by cars. For example, in this case, his route took him by a candy store, which is probably why he has a small paper bag in one hand as he approaches the houseboat. He's dressed up, a little - at least the sweater he's wearing is in the right size, for once, and it's an unoffensive and unfaded shade of black that flatters the triangle of wide shoulders to narrow hips, and his jeans are a bit less faded than most of his. The stompy workboots are, alas, the same.

He pauses outside the houseboat for a moment to take a few deep, calming breaths. He wanted this to be so that he could go inside without a shred of the anxiety within him showing on his face. Instead, he breathes the subtle scent of smoke, and - hey, if there's worry on his face as he hurries inside, at least it's not internal matters that are causing him concern. "Isabella?" he calls out as the smoke streams past him to escape out the open door. He plunges inside, heading for the kitchen.

Then coming to a startled stop at what he sees. He stares. Openly and without a thought to politeness. And then? Alexander, her lovely and considerate lover, doubles over with the spasms of laughter that shake him. It explodes out of him in deep belly laughs. And then he starts coughing, because those laughs need air, and the air is full of smoke. Still, he's grinning even as he wheezes and gasps. Even as he assures her, "It's fine, it's fine. Are you hurt?" and makes his way over to the kitchen to lean against the island and...laugh some more. "Hi, Isabella." His eyes go to the apron as it's being pulled off and then he's off again, taken by mirth.

This might take a few moments.

He comes sweeping in for the rescue, only to find what he does. As he doubles over in laughter, Isabella glowers at him from where she stands, fingers bracketing on the flare of her hips as she watches him keel over on the granite counter in fits and starts of laughter. There's amusement, as palpable and scented in the air as the smoke, but she's trying to best her look her most aggrieved self, but this pause enables her to appreciate what she sees with her eyes - he really looks good in the simplest things so long as they fit - and hears; a relatively trained singer, his voice is a pleasant one and his laugh leaves her warm, the electric thrill of experiencing it coruscating up her spine and shooting right into the base of her brain, an irresistible dopamine hit.

"Judas!" is the first thing that comes out of her as he continues laughing helplessly, traitorously. "Ohhhhh, you're lucky you're cute, otherwise this wouldn't be tolerated at all!"

Revenge is swift and immediate. A few quick steps take her over to his vicinity, fingers reaching out to find his most vulnerable spots - she doesn't actually know if he's ticklish, but she tries, poking at his waist and wiggling those long appendages while he's gripped by this mirthsome spell. It isn't long until her mouth finds his, if not just to shut him up, over and over again until passion overtakes everything else and she moves so she can wind her arms around him, a hand burying into his hair.

"Just for that, you're helping clean up a little and watching the casserole." Words murmured against his mouth. There's a timer on the stove - she knows how to use that at least. "I need to take her out into the water."

No running away. No escaping. It isn't just for his benefit, but also for hers.

Alexander makes a surprised noise as she approaches and her fingers skitter along his ribs. The laughter takes on an involuntary quality, and he squirms helplessly in shock - why yes, it seems that he is ticklish. He's quick to respond, though, taking her hands in his and holding them sternly as he returns kiss for kiss until they're both breathless, and his eyes have gone half-lidded and thoughtful, like he's totally considering dumping this whole 'conversation' business, and dragging her off to the bedroom until the casserole burns.

And then she gives him WORK to do! He sighs, and bends his head to nuzzle her neck, nibbling lightly at her skin. "I suppose I could. Although it seems unfair that I have to clean up what you burnt." There's a low chuckle. "But then, I can't actually drive your boat, so." He gives her another slow kiss, smiles against her mouth. "So, command me as you will, Captain."

And yet. He's not good at hiding his feelings, so the moment it sinks in that they're really doing this, that spark of anxiety returns to him. He gently disentangles himself, picks up the candy bag from where it was dropped in all the shenanigans, and puts it on the counter. "These are for you. I met Alistair Carver, for the first time, and something he said reminded me of them. They're cinnamon shells, but there's raspberry liquour inside. Thought you might enjoy them." The bag has about a dozen smallish balls that look like polished, red tigerseye gems. He slips away towards the sink. Cleaning is something he knows how to do, and physical activity is good for his anxiety, so he starts scraping at the veggies and preparing a soak right away. His shoulders are a little hunched.

Oh no. He's ticklish. Affection and enjoyment emanate from her in waves and wakes, swept away by the current he encourages as minutes tick by - a delay to the inevitable - and heat is exchanged for heat. He'd feel the same from her, feel the same from her, Isabella's eyes darting over his shoulder on occasion towards the location of her bed, or any convenient surface, perpetually starved for everything that he is. And she almost suggests it, as always a creature of youthful impulses and instincts, and one who relishes and savors every foray into the physical world she loves. He does not make the decision not to any easier, her head tilting back when his mouth finds her throat, her fingers tightening on his sweater and tugging once. She's already picturing what he looks like underneath.

"It's a ship, Mister Clayton, and in such a vessel, everyone has to do their part. Though I suppose I can teach you one day if you would li-- " Words truncated by his mouth finding hers again, her own yielding against his and all thoughts of talking leave her again. There must be something wrong with her if she's electing to favor a conversation instead of letting him fill her in all the ways that matter. "You're not being very fair," she whispers to him, instead, when they break away, lashes lowered, white heat imbued within the velvet color of her eyes.

Mention of Carver and the bag has her reaching out for it, curiosity on her features for both, though when she sees what is within, she can't help but smile. "Tiger's eyes," she murmurs. "And they're candy?" She fishes one out and pushes it between her teeth, her gaze finding his broad shoulders and the muscular line of his back when he gets to the sink. Cinnamon enlivens her tastebuds, and she closes her eyes to sink into the pleasant burn and semi-sweetness. "Tell me about him when I get back? Why did you need to talk to him?"

She's already moving, because they, too. have that in common - work calms her, re-centers her mind and keeps her focused. So as she leaves him to clean up the vestigial remains of her dinner preparations, he'd hear the low rumble of The Surprise growling to life, pulling away from the dock to head for the cove. The timer beeps also, as he's scraping at the cast-iron pan, indicating that the casserole is ready. There are potholders by the stove.

She drops anchor somewhere in the cove - he would find it familiar; it was the same spot she took them when they had to speak to Erin Addington about her grandmother and great-uncle and incidentally the place where he first embraced and kissed her (albeit on the forehead) on his own accord. He'd hear her footsteps clambering down from the top deck, before she re-enters her mobile abode. There's a smile in his direction.

"You keep saying 'fair'," Alexander says, with a quick grin. "I'm never fair. Just effective."

He turns to watch her sample the candy, then bobs his head to acknowledge that yes, they'll talk about that when she gets back. While she's gone, he scrubs. Cleaning is something he's good at, and the food is all freshly burnt, so although some of it is hard going, by the time she anchors down in the cove, the only casualty of the evening thus far is his sense of amusement. The closer they get to anchoring down, the more tense Alexander becomes, and he interrupts cleaning with the occasional bout of pacing. He even steals one of the candies, crunching into it without pleasure. It's just something to do.

But the dishes ARE clean when she comes down, and dry, and put away. The casserole has been checked, as well, and it's bubbling merrily and not smelling at all bad. "This looks good," he tells her, loyally when he turns to see her enter. Her smile is met with a smaller, tighter one of his. "I imagine it'll be done shortly." A pause. "How...how did you want to do this?"

He is effective, and if nothing else, it only enhances his appeal.

She had left the door open on their venture out into the cove, so once she arrives again, the living area is clear of smoke, and heat replaced by the cooler climes of the Autumn, already sporting the leavings of frozen Northern tundras. The latch of the main entryway clicks shut, and Isabella's long-legged strides take her to where he is, peering over his shoulder at the oven and where the casserole bubbles. There's cheese in it, eggs and potatoes, something breakfasty for dinner. "I think it's about right," she murmurs, pressing her lips against his cheek. "I'll set the counter, you bring it out?"

His question doesn't even bring a pause to her steps, though her back is to him so he wouldn't be able to see her face. She's already gathering two plates and some utensils. "First, we eat dinner, and you can tell me about your day, and I'll tell you about mine." A quick smile over her shoulder. "And then after that, we'll sit down and have a drink. Sound good?"

"Sounds good to me," Alexander says. He hunts around for her oven mitts, and brings out the casserole. It may look messy, but he sniffs appreciatively over the top of it, and makes sure there are potholders down where he puts it to rest. He helps with the rest, as well - grabbing glasses from a counter and serving them up drinks based on their preferences. Whenever she's not looking, his expression falls into those tense, wary lines - but he makes an effort to smile when she glances his way.

Once everything is ready and they sit down, he says, "To answer your question - a client asked me to track him down. So I did. He's an interesting sort of fellow. Seems friendly enough, maybe a bit too friendly with stuff Over There. He knows a lot, but I don't know that I would rely on him in a crisis. Still, he said I could ask him things if I needed to, so I'll take him up on that. See how things go." He takes a bite of the casserole once it's served, and his eyebrows go up. "This is delicious. And the murder investigation progresses. One of the detectives thanked me," he adds, with a quick smile. It's nice to be thanked.

"What about you, my dear? How goes the thesis and your research?"

For now, it's just cold juice for her drink - there's plenty in the fridge, and possibly the only sweet thing Isabella indulges in on the regular. Fruit is good for the body, after all.

She joins him at the counter, though there'd be signs of her own restlessness. She shifts in her seat, adjusts her position once every few moments, but green eyes don't leave his face, letting him and everything about him carry the moment and leave them in an extremely rare state of simple domesticity - neither of them are built for it, and the fact that they're capable of it isn't short of surprising to her. These are thoughts she keeps to herself, not when there's so many other interesting things to accompany their dinner and his polite compliments on her casserole are those that earn him a quick grin. "It's simple though I think I put in too much cheese, and I don't think I completely peeled the potatoes..." Luckily they're reds, and can be eaten with skin on. She might not be handy in the kitchen, but she's an able strategic planner.

"I'm glad he's willing to consult," she says. "When it comes to things past the Veil. Nobody really knows the rules there, so...I don't know how I feel about him being too comfortable with the things found there, though." It only reminds her of her side of their inevitable conversation and she swallows, looking down at her plate. "I'm also happy to hear that your profile's rising up in the PD, regardless." She moves on to more mundane matters determinedly, lifting her gaze to his, a warm hand reaching out to touch his cheek, expression softening. "Beating them in their own game. I'm proud of you," she teases. "Keep me posted? I'm curious - I think I'll reach out to Andy in a couple of days, see if he managed to find out anything from the Nation. I'll let you know what I heard once I've talked to him."

Research talk brightens her expression. "It's going well. I'm on the home stretch of my thesis writing, I think. It should give me time to revise it a couple of times before I'm called for my viva voce early next year. If anything, the submission is the easy part." Apprehension slips over her expressive mien. "Three hours of oral defense. I'd probably have to be there for a few days, to prepare and face my would-be peers. Whoever came up with that system is a sadist."

~ * ~

The rest of the casserole packed away - it's decent and edible, and there's no way that combination of food would be terrible anyway - and dishes stored in the dishwasher, the young archaeologist activates the electric fireplace mounted under the main mantle of the houseboat, leaving its subtle heat to banish the accumulating cold permeating through steel and fiberglass. She's also managed to fetch a couple of glasses and a bottle of scotch, which she places on the coffee table before sinking on the couch with him.

She says nothing for a long while, eyes on the flames in the hearth and her fingers toying with the moonstone pendant hanging in front of her sweater, before she clears her throat and attempts to put a boot into her rapidly escalating heartbeat. They're alone, it's quiet but for the sound of the ocean and they're far enough away from the shore that there'll be no interruptions. Dinner is over. There's nothing for it now.

With a breath, she reaches into her pocket and produces a coin between her fingers. She holds it up to him. "Fate can decide who goes first," she suggests quietly. "Call it?"

"I like cheese," Alexander puts in, quietly. "It was delicious. And I'll keep you in the loop. One of the detectives is going to let me know if the cops aren't able to get into the casino and if they think there might be something useful there." The 'so I can break in' is left hanging, rather than spoken. A little touch of excitement comes to his features as she talks about her thesis. "Good. You're going to be magnificent, Isabella. There is no challenge you can't rise to, and I know you can defend your work. You're fierce." There's a world of fondness in the way he says that.

He busies himself with helping to clean up, of course, before retreating back to the couch. He settles in, but doesn't do what he might normally do and slide close to her. There's a deliberate distance he sets between them, some internal barriers being brought back up as she brings out the coin. "Heads," he says, quietly. His eyes are locked on the coin, rather than her face. It's easier to look at the object than the person.

She doesn't feel fierce at the moment.

Isabella watches him settle on the other side of the couch, already missing his absence - but she doesn't force it and she rolls the coin between her fingers before she tosses it in the air. Light catches it in that aerial spin before it drops, bounces off the table and lands on the floor somewhere in the midst of them. The familiar eagle on one side of an ordinary U.S. minted quarter winks at them from where it has landed.

Despite being relieved of the responsibility of going first, her expression tightens. They really are about to do this.

Reaching for the bottle, she pours them both two scotches, though she only leaves them with a shot each. She is determined to do this sober, as always a woman of extremes - all in, or nothing at all. She hands him one of the tumblers, her attention fixed on his profile, firelight and night carved over his handsome features, leaving his eyes highlighted with most of him bathed in darkness. The sight of him in this moment puts a cramp somewhere within her chest, twisting viciously.

She almost doesn't ask it - the question she posed to him so easily the first night he had ever stayed with her feels clotted and trapped at the back of her throat. But ever determined, the words leave her in a whisper.

"What hurt you?"

There's a huff of air, like a small punch to the gut, when he looks at the coin. All right, then. The resignation is deep on his face. He takes the tumbler when she offers it. Empties it in a couple of swallows, then makes a hideous grimace, and puts it down. He doesn't ask for a refill, but the burn helps, a little. He doesn't look at her. And when she asks that question, he stands up, abruptly, and moves away. Always at his most active when he's nervous or thinking, now is no exception to that rule. "Wrong question," he says, quietly. "It was always the wrong question, Isabella. What hurt me is irrelevant. But who I hurt? That's always been the issue."

A slight glance in her direction, brief before his eyes skitter away again. He can't look at her as he speaks, his voice rapid but still clear. He's careful to make himself understood, even though it's clear that what he wants to do is...well, possibly what he wants to do is fling himself over the railing and swim to shore. "After college, I wandered. I didn't want to come back here. But I didn't have anywhere else to go. No real plan. I was lost, in a lot of ways. I did odd jobs in small towns; I stayed away from cities, for the most part. Too many people, too much--" he shivers. "Just too much."

"I came to a town where there was a tent revival being held. Old fashioned setup, with a 'faith healer' as the preacher. I went because," he pauses, his gaze far away, "I figured it'd be a charlatan, and I never liked charlatans." A flicker of a smile - there's as much fondness there as there is pain and anger, and there's a lot of the latter two. "He wasn't. I knew it when I saw him. He stood out like no one I'd ever seen before, certainly no one outside of Gray Harbor. And he was...beautiful. His words were fire, and I couldn't help but touch his mind. It was the most amazing thing I've ever witnessed. Even now, I've never seen something so beautiful. Like a diamond. No fear, no doubt, no rage or sorrow. Just clarity of purpose, joy, intelligence, and confidence." A soft laugh. "Of course, I wouldn't realize until later that I also hadn't seen love, or mercy, or compassion, and that a certain amount of doubt is required. I was young. I was probably in love with him before his sermon was over. And, of course, he was a healer. A strong enough one that being outside the Harbor didn't slow him down much. I left with the rest. Or tried to. He came after me." His smile blooms with the remembered emotions of that meeting. "He'd seen me, known me. He'd never met someone like me, and he wanted to know more. He asked me to stay."

"I said yes."

Alexander cleared his throat. "His group was the Church of the Healing Light, and he'd put it together after leaving his home. We didn't talk about our pasts, much. Either of us. But we talked about everything else. His plans. He believed that people like us were touched by God, that we'd been given a purpose and a mission to create a world where no one had to suffer, or feel alone. He had utter faith in it - and I had utter faith in him. He was my best friend - possibly the only person in my entire life who has ever known me completely and found nothing to fear there. I was his right hand man. I was also," his expression flickers, "protective. Some stupid townie harassed him, tried to start a fight when we were buying supplies. I broke his arm. I didn't think about it, I just did it. He healed the guy, and we went back to pray. I thought he was going to turn me away, but he said," a breath, "he said that God wouldn't have touched me if I was bad. It just mean that I had a different purpose. I wasn't a shepherd of men, I was a lion, protecting the flock from wolves." His shoulders hunched. "I...liked that. I wanted to be that. I didn't...like hurting people, but purpose? That was good. And they were bad people, at first. With my abilities and the things that people would tell a preacher, even a traveling preacher, we found the wolves in the towns we passed, and I...corrected them." A humorless laugh. "I beat the shit out of them, and then I fucked up their minds so they didn't quite know what had happened or who had done it to them."

"Eventually, the Church put together enough money to buy some property. Just a little farm with a compound on it. We had a couple dozen hardcore adherents, and we added a few more from junkies and prostitutes - the lost and the lonely. We took them in, we got them clean, we gave them purpose. And it was good, for a while." He sighs. "It really was good. I was happy. We practiced with our abilities, Zachary and I - he was a healer, but only a healer. He was fascinated by what I could do. We experimented. He learned that he didn't have to heal. That he could," a blink, "unheal, as well. God wouldn't have given him that ability if He hadn't meant for him to use it. He started correcting people." A soft noise. "No. He started torturing people. It was fine when it was me. He could have done anything to me, and I would have loved him anyway. But it was harder, with the others. They didn't understand what was happening, when their flesh split open, or he started playing with their nerves, their bones." His expression goes blank. "I helped, of course. Restrained them when necessary. Afterwards, kept them from leaving. Played with their emotions, made them doubt that it'd happened at all, or made them 'realize' that they'd deserved it, that it was just God's will and that through suffering, they would find redemption. Being a healer means you never leave marks unless you want to, and none of them stood out. It was easy to keep them weak and confused."

"I thought that he hated it as much as I did, but that he felt called to do it." Another humorless laugh. "Until someone died. He cut an artery during a correction. The blood went everywhere. I told him to seal her back up, but he just watched her bleed out with this...expression. I touched his mind. I hoped to find horror or shock. But he was enjoying it. That same joy that he brought to everything, he brought to murder - and I knew that now that he'd tasted this, he wouldn't stop. Maybe I'd always known that, but now I couldn't ignore it. He told me to go get something to clean up the mess. I went." A pause. "And I grabbed every mind I could, unleashed every bit of rage that I'd been repressing in them, turned the whole Church on him, made them murderous. Then I set the compound on fire, called the cops...and ran away. All the way back to Gray Harbor. To hide." His smile is crooked. "A coward to the very last."

He turns to look at Isabella, eyes dull. "That's who I am, Isabella. I'm a torturer, a violator, a coward, and a fool."

There'd be no surprise when he tells her that her query is the wrong thing to ask; their early days together had been defined by this vague trauma about hurting anyone, why he dislikes it even if it had been said out of jest. She remembers his pleading when he held her down on a bed while she fought him, the pain in his eyes when she teased him about it afterwards. What he tells her colors those past moments now, memories that remain fresh and vibrant, if not just because they all involved him, and her remembrances can extend quite far so long as Alexander Clayton is involved, and bathes them in fire and blood.

It is horrific, to say the least - her expression does not hide any of it, because for as much as words often fail her when they matter the most, her face and eyes are simply too honest to hide them, especially when she's bombarded by a story as intense as this. All of it creeps into her sunkissed features, the sadness and melancholy by the rejection he had felt in college, what ultimately led him to the tent that would change his life - lost and alone and unwilling to return to the place that has only tormented him since he was a boy. Her fingers ball tightly on her lap at the descriptions of the almost casual way he dispatched naysayers in defense of his best friend, for the sake of him and whatever justice he was dispensing against the wolves, whoever they were.

She can piece it together - her mind, everything else about her, is very much like a honed blade, bright and sharp. She's able to cut through the threads, most days, and read between the lines and the moment he tells her that Zachary discovered that he could un-heal is around the time that her face grows ashen, her nails burying into the flesh of her palm. Horror - there's plenty of that when they get to the subject of correction, and his complicity with the man's designs, and no small measure of fury. It licks white-hot at her face, leaves her eyes like virid lanterns in the dimness of her living room, her heart beating rapidly in her chest as she feels the sleeping dragons within herself stir from their torpor...and she doesn't know who, or what to get furious at, to levy the brunt of her impotent ferocity against. Alexander, for not knowing any better, for hating all of it but doing it anyway. This Zachary person, if he was still alive, for preying on someone so vulnerable. And he had to know, had to. He surrounded himself with people, sensed life energies and manipulated them. There was no excuse.

His dull eyes find hers, and her own drops down from them and to his hands. Restrained them, he said. Kept them weak and confused. She watches those fingers and says nothing for so long that he can't be blamed for harboring the suspicion that she's left her body, exited this conversation completely, leaving an empty physical shell behind to keep him company. Those rough, callused digits that have spent so many hours fighting whatever he came back home to, have dug into the filth of other people's lives after he has extended them to them, with no thought for himself. The hands that spent hours holding her, touching her, loving and unraveling her in ways that have been unfamiliar to her until very recently.

Many would be quick to push all of that aside out of affection. She is not many.

"You were that," she tells him at last, her voice quiet and steady and her eyes lifting to meet his, directly, alive and burning with the vitality and volatility of her. "A torturer, a violator, a coward and a fool. I can't even begin to imagine how those people felt, unable to parse what was truly happening to them. If I had been one of them, if I had started to remember...if I even had one iota of an idea, I would probably hate you forever. To have physical freedom and the mental capacity to make decisions stripped away completely, at the mercy of forces I can't comprehend or understand and shackled further by this man's charisma and unwillingness to let anyone go. That's Hell, Alexander. Hell on Earth and worse, in a way, than what we have here if not just because it was designed by humans. And you were part of it."

Her lips press together. "No wonder you can't forgive yourself. No wonder you loathe yourself."

Her shoulders droop, and she takes a swallow of her scotch. "But you were young then, too," she continues. "You were alone, plagued by the other things you experienced here, rejected by whatever conflicts drove you away from where you were before. I couldn't blame you for wanting never to return, I'd be the last person in the world to judge that, but compounded by everything, I'm not...you were vulnerable. Everyone desires a purpose. Everyone desires belonging. There's no way your best friend..." There is jealousy there, pure and unbridled, but fury and loathing as well because he was the catalyst for almost everything that Alexander hates about himself. "...wouldn't have known that, if he was experienced in driving a congregation. He saw what was in you and he used you. He preyed on you."

The last words are forced out of her tightly clenched teeth. Her fingers grip her tumbler, cracks webbing over fine crystal. It doesn't shatter in her grip, not yet.

Her eyes move away from him to fix on the other side of the wall. "There aren't any easy answers," she tells him, quietly. "Not for this. I can't exactly profess myself as an expert in the human condition. But all I know is that I can't..." A breath winds out of her, laden with anger and sorrow. "...I know there isn't anything I wouldn't do for someone I love, no matter how abhorrent. No matter how vile. I would do anything. I would..." Her grip tightens on her glass. "I know I would."

That fiery green look returns to him. "So yes. You were that, but I don't think you are that. Not now. Not when you hated it, not when everything else encouraged you to believe that all of that was necessary, or even right. To say that all of it wasn't any of your fault wouldn't be justified at all, because you made a choice to follow him, and you did. You also tried to fix it after, yes, setting your former captives free, and I won't lie to you - the method was appalling. But you were young, and felt betrayed, and by that point you were so inured of mentally manipulating others and violence that I don't know if you were capable of thinking of any other way or method...and he was dangerous. Maybe he would've let you go, but I don't think he would've." The thought of the Reverend sets her teeth on edge and some part of her is glad that he seems to have met his demise at the hands of his victims. That was at least what he deserved.

"So...no. No easy answers. And honestly, I don't know if you'll ever find them either." She glances down at her glass, her following words muted and soft. "In the end, all I really know is that you're doing what you can to make up for the things you've done, and probably will continue to do so until your bones are dust and there's no more blood for your veins to carry...and that I love you enough to try, and keep trying."

No wonder you can't forgive yourself. No wonder you loathe yourself.

He doesn't deny those words. In fact, Alexander jerks his head in a single, almost relieved nod. And there is relief in talking about it, something that he's never spoken of to any person, not so directly, not in detail. Whether she hates him from this moment on or not, there's still a terrible relief in just saying the words. He accepts her reply, the understanding of the terrible nature of the things that he did, without much emotion other than relief - this blunt summary of the harm he's done is more of a balm to him than any amount of denial or defense would be.

But there's a flicker of resistance when she speaks of Zachary. Despite everything, his expression tightens in an instinctive, defensive measure. "He...we used each other, Isabella." It's quiet, but firm. "If he'd never met me, he probably wouldn't have...turned into that. And if I had stood up for myself, held him accountable when things started to get bad, maybe things would have been different. But I let him make all the decisions, take all the responsibility. I was content to be a follower, even when I should have been a friend, instead. Don't...it was a complex situation, and we were both...very bad things, to use Isolde's words. We helped each other become worse than we would have been alone."

His eyes go to the tumbler. "Isabella. The glass," he warns, gently. At another time, he might have approached her to try and take it out of her hand before it broke, but he's keeping his distance, his posture back to the wary, almost submissive hunch he reserves for strangers and potential threats. He takes a deep breath at her last words, lets out slowly. His hands ball into fists, then relax, bit by bit. "You might...change your mind. Eventually. And that's okay. But it's nice...that you want to try. I love you, too, you know." Words he wouldn't say while she didn't know who he was, or what he'd done, and words that are said quickly, now, as if they might slip through and away without comment.

There's no attempt to rejoin her at the couch, but Alexander studies her with dark eyes. "I," a long pause, "I understand. If you'd rather not share. After that. But if you still want to tell me what happened, and why you're so afraid of your own abilities, I want to know. And help. If I can."

She is unapologetic - Zachary may be a ghost now but he has earned her enmity a thousand times over, and by the way she sits there, radiating fire and fury on the couch, he would know it. Isabella was many things - a know-it-all, perpetually dishonest about the state of her confidence, temperamental and reckless but like him, she is loyal, too, and painfully devoted to those she considers her own upon pain of terror and death. If any of her talents could enable her to travel back in time and remove the Reverend from his place in the stream, she would without hesitation. But what's done is done, and there's nowhere for her anger to go but her glass and how it cracks under her grip, on the verge of cutting flesh. She doesn't seem to notice.

He does, though, and after a lengthy pause, she sets it down quietly once it's been emptied.

"I might," she allows. "Change my mind. But if I ever left you, it wouldn't be because I didn't love you." She seems confident there, at least, lifting her eyes to meet his own smiling faintly. "You might be one of those ones, Alexander. The ones they sing about in your rock ballads. Maybe I can't live without you, but maybe I can't live with you, either." Also the best U2 song ever composed, in her opinion, but she's not about to say that at the moment.

I love you, too, you know.

Her fingers tug on her moonstone pendant, feeling its familiar cold bite. "You might change your mind, too - and I'll probably be less alright with it than you are, but...I love you enough to let you go, too. If it would make you happy. I'm terrified of a lot of things, but not that. Never that." Rejection. Pain - physical or emotional. That, at least, she can face no problem.

When he turns the questions back on her, she reaches out to pluck the coin from the floor and examines it carefully. "I'm not telling you until you sit next to me," she tells him simply, that stubborn, defiant line of her jaw tilting upwards. "We're in it together, now. There's...." Apprehension curdles her blood, tugs at her stomach. "...there's no going back."

Her hand rests on her thigh, but it slowly turns upwards.

"I don't think I'm going to change my mind on that, Isabella. Not tonight," Alexander says, quietly. "I'm not a young man, nor a naive one. I know that feelings, whatever they are, don't make things work like magic, and they don't make up for other problems, and," a shrug, "over time, they may change. You will change. I may change. But here and now, I love you. And I don't think that's going to change tonight." The movement of his lips can't properly be called a smile, but there's endless affection in it.

He looks at the space beside her, then nods. Drifting over to the couch, and sitting gingerly, like he might scare her to be so close. Or like he's scaring himself. He watches that hand, and slowly, giving her plenty of time to reject the touch, moves to place his own on top of hers. "We're in it together. And I'm here. To listen."

She can't help but feel the thrill when he reiterates what he said, when it could be so easily lost in the white noise of everything else that weighs the air between them - if not just to reinforce the idea that she wasn't actually dreaming, or that it wasn't a fluke of the imagination because they are words that she's never said to anyone else, and words she's never heard from anyone else outside of family. "You know you didn't have to tell me that, right?" she asks him softly. "This isn't....what I feel. For you. It's not in any way transactional. You could've sat on that forever, and I wouldn't have felt cheated."

There's a bracing, too - his empathy wouldn't be able to miss it, how there's something within her that girds her, a buckling of a kind; wondering, perhaps, whether what she had just heard would trigger something within herself that would have her recoiling away from his touch despite her best efforts or intentions. Knowing that he had held people down while they were cut open, all of it.

He'd feel the twitch in her fingers, hear her take a breath, the tic on the delicate hinge where her jaw meets the side of her throat and her hand grips his own tightly. Wordlessly, Isabella slowly draws it further on her lap, to cup his knuckles with her other hand. A thumb traces over one of his more faded scars.

There's a worrying of her bottom lip. She doesn't know where to start, and so elects to start at the beginning. "When I was young, I never feared it. It was my birthright, me and Sid's. We knew we had it from almost as long as I could remember. We left the womb together, we explored it together. We weren't just connected, we were...we didn't just finish one another's sentences, we didn't just communicate mind to mind, we didn't just share everything. We had...a room, inside us. This deep, constant connection where everything that he is fills me, and everything that I am fills him. The first half of my life, I never knew what it was like without that, to have another person living inside me, knowing his thoughts, his feelings - what he does every day...and what hurts him, too. It felt like...being part of a whole."

She doesn't look at him, sinking further and further within herself, the absent quality that overtakes her whenever she remembers her brother and the things they used to do. "We did everything together. Most days we hardly cared about whether other people existed, so long as we had each other. There were only a few that managed to breach that - Byron, really. We experimented together, we found the Doors together. We explored the world beyond the Doors together, and we even...we even Dreamed together. All the time. We had separate bedrooms in the house, but the walls might as well not be there. I was less enamored - back then I thought the Veil was a wondrous place, filled with strange things but I was just as equally fascinated of the world we lived in. Sid didn't share that - exploration was in the blood, but he wanted to learn more about the other side. Always more. Always. Even now I can still remember how hungry he was. Of learning more, of knowing more - about it, about our gifts. He kept slipping through more and more often, to the point where I made him promise never to go without me - I knew it was dangerous. My mother warned me all of our lives. But I didn't care. As long as we were together, I didn't care."

She turns his hand over on her own, quietly examining the lines crossing his palm. "The older we became, the more obsessed he got. The hunger...it felt like teeth, digging into me...until it became a part of me too. The tendency. The proclivity. He used, more and more, documented his findings. We would spend hours talking about it in this space we shared, this ephemeral vault we built together. And the more he used, the more I used. And I liked it, Alexander. It was exhilarating, it was exciting, and it was mine, to have and hold and wield however I chose." The stirring resurfaces, igniting her blood and even just talking about it openly, he can practically taste the potency of that old addiction and how tightly it ensnared her - as she continues to talk about it, she becomes less hesitant, less terrified and more melancholy, more dreamy, contralto beset by a forbidden sort of longing.

"I believed I could do anything...with the power."

"I know that," Alexander says, quietly. "I said it because I want to. The only reason I didn't before is because it didn't feel," his lips twitch with the ghost of humor, "fair. To put that on you, when you hadn't had the chance to make an...informed decision. I didn't want you to be worried about hurting my feelings, if you decided it was all too much. And I don't want you to be tied down by them. I want you to have the best life, Isabella. That's all."

It's quietly stated, but there's steel to it, too. Conviction. And he's very careful about that touch, ready to pull back at the slightest rejection - he, of course, is terrified of rejection, but also accustomed to it. Prepared for it, in a way. It's the acceptance that bewilders him, and he stares at the hand that she squeezes with a form of disbelief, his breath hitching in his throat. He refocuses on her. And listens.

It would be impossible to say that Alexander understands everything Isabella tells him. He's a man who's spent most of his life alone, both physically and emotionally. What she describes is an alien sort of arrangement, and he's as fascinated by it as he is by any impenetrable mystery. As she goes on, though, there's an odd commonality there, although it might not be one she'd be pleased to have brought up. He and Zachary, too, had spent hours talking about their abilities, exploring their limits, experimenting and fascinated with the power. Feeling empowered by it, in more ways than one. His voice is quiet, rough. "That's a...exhilarating belief. Especially when you're young."

"Well, unfortunately for you, I'm the ride or die type," Isabella tells him, her lips twitching faintly in the corners. "Even if my life took me elsewhere, I always will and I may never recover from this, if I lost you...if I had to lose you, but this is me not giving a shit about that, either. Caveat emptor, my darling."

I would rather have this than not at all.

The belief is exhilarating and there's a bitter twist to her mouth following that, her eyes fixed on his fingers. "It was that. I think what's insidious about it is because in some ways, it's true."

She falls quiet for a long moment, and when she continues, her voice is barely audible.

"The night he disappeared, I felt it. I felt him start to fade, or just...try to go to a place where I can't follow. And I couldn't...I couldn't. I broke down his door in my haste to get to him. It was empty, but not. I don't know what happened, or how it got there - maybe because we kept Dreaming between the walls, kept breaching them with our minds, but beyond my brother's door was a Door and I felt it and I knew that was where he went. I didn't even hesitate, I reached out..." She's unable to keep herself from re-enacting it, one hand disengaging to lift into the air. "I felt it ripple and give and then I was there. I was lost. And I kept calling for him, reached out for him. He was faded but not gone, so I followed. I didn't care what I was leaving behind, but I saw the path to the woods and I ran. As fast as I could."

Her teeth gnaws on her bottom lip, so hard that she nearly splits it and draws blood. "I don't know how long I'd been gone here. Maybe half an hour. I don't know, but through the tear in my house, it felt like years, my fear and desperation and anger that he would go without me just kept growing. I wanted...I needed him back. I...don't know how many things I destroyed, how many times I got so furious at some poor denizen that couldn't tell me where he was. Some of them played me, mocked me, when I tried to ask for directions and I just...I didn't care who or what I hurt. I didn't care what I destroyed. I didn't care, Alexander, so long as I found him. So long as I could reclaim him, but the deeper I went, the more lost I became."

"The air started to tell me to stay, after that. I heard it everywhere. I heard them tell me that I was home. I was home and I shouldn't leave and I should love it the way I loved him. But I was mired, and desperate and..." She laughs breathlessly. "Halfway mad, because it felt like fifteen or twenty or thirty years chasing after a carrot dangled in front of me. I'm sure I was. When I found myself trapped again by leaves and trees and directions that don't make sense, I unleashed everything I had. I dug into the wells within myself and let loose and while I was drowning in it, I heard the world crumple, the trees split, and things scream and I demanded that they give him back to me and I laughed, and laughed, and laughed because I was unstoppable and what could they ever do to me?"

She falls quiet for a long moment, swallowing hard. "And then They came." Her voice lowers further. "They fed."

The archaeologist grips his hand tighter to the point of pain. "I think I might've tried to end it, because I kept hearing the wind telling me I was home, that I could sleep. I split the trees, the rocks. I lifted everything, high in the air, watched this hurricane I created and wondered what it would be like if I let go and let all of it bury me. And then..."

Her composure starts to break. She stares hard at his hand. "My brother came. He was there. In the end, I didn't find him, he found me and the state I was in - he was suddenly back and through his eyes I saw the state I was in and it was..." Moisture starts to fall, dropping into his open palm. "Oh god, Alexander. Whatever desperation I felt, his was..."

She grits her teeth, squeezing her eyes shut. "He turned to Them and said not to take me. He said to take him, instead."

Alexander doesn't complain about the pain of her grip. In fact, his other hand comes over and he holds hers between both of his, watching her with dark, fathomless eyes. All of that pain that she's wrapped up in, he can feel it beating at him. Not because of his abilities, but just because it's so raw on her face, her voice. If he could kill the source of it, it would. The desire to do so, to find what's hurting her and tear it apart, is clear in his rigid muscles and the set of his mouth.

But it's all in the past, and as he well knows, you can't kill memories. Or the pain they cause. The only thing he can do is be there. His voice is soft, as he says, "And they did, didn't they." Because of course they did - the Shadows feed on pain, and what better way to cause maximum pain than to tear the two apart, and leave one bereft and shattered while the other remains with them.

His query earns naught but silence, Isabella unable to look at him, entrenched in the memories of that moment, reliving what she had lost - what her brother had done to save her, and at great expense to himself.

"...I wanted to protect him." But he protected me, instead. All these failures, her brother first, and then her mother. So much effort expended and coming to little or no fruition. Her attention falls to how he grips her hand, senses the tension emanating from him, wondering when it would be his turn to go, next. How this place would construct the design of a new nightmare, where she would be forced to watch herself fail again - when it counts. When it absolutely matters.

How much of that terror she had truly kept from him when his life rushed out of his throat to stain her fingers.

"I tried to stop it. I rushed at him, I tried to get him to stay. My hands were at his throat, and I was trying to make him understand. And he let me. He needed to watch...he needed me to hurt him, to feel me betray him, to transfer their attention." Lashes rapidly blink back the tears. "And then he put his hands on my face and sundered us. He was always the better reader, always. He could do things...things I could only dream of, and he didn't want me following again so he tore us apart and it..." Her eyes close and her body sags against the couch. "I can't even describe how it felt. He's normally so delicate, so precise, but the situation was severe and he didn't have the time so he..." Her voice drifts again. "...tore."

Silence returns, save for the humming of the fireplace, the quiet lapping of water against the vessel. She doesn't know for how long she remains, licking at the wounds of her grief, the guilt that remains - intense and potent that liable to swallow her whole.

"...I haven't been the same, since," is what she finally says. "Not just...all of it. But up here, also." Her spare hand lifts to tap at her temple. "Nobody's been in there that deeply since...that. That time. So I don't know...I don't know."

Finally, she turns her head to watch his dark ones, to take in his expression and the set of his jaw. "I don't know if he's still alive," she tells him. "But when Byron asked me whether I believed he was truly gone, and when you said we might be able to find him...he could be dead. He could be gone. But if he's not gone, it's been over a decade. A decade with Them. Gone is preferrable. Gone is..."

Her expression twists in brutal, unforgiving agony. "Gone means not having to do what I would have to, if he isn't."

If she allows, when Isabella falls silent for a moment in that slump, Alexander tries to draw her gently into his arms and embrace her. He doesn't interrupt. He just tries to hold her, provide what support he can for her with his body and his warmth.

Finally, he speaks, when her expression twists in agony. "God, Isabella. No wonder." His voice is hesitant, unsure. "I don't...I can't know what that kind of loss is like. I know what it's like to want to protect someone and fail. But never someone as deeply entwined with me as he was with you. There was nothing more you could have done; but I know you know that. And what that did to your abilities," he takes a deep breath, lets it out in a shaky sigh. "I can't even imagine."

She is boneless when he draws her in his arms, a marionette with her strings cut, left exhausted by the horrific revelations he has communicated to her of the things that shattered him, and the halting description of the incident that left her split in two. Isabella turns her head and buries it against his shoulder, breathing in his familiar scents - of the dinner they just ate, the detergent in his black sweater, the traces of paper and ink and ozone. But for all that she's managed to shed a few tears already, she doesn't sob and nor does she crumple in his arms in a pitiable heap. Instead, her arms band round him, a set of fingers burying in the dark hair that she loves and holds on for dear life.

"Don't pity me," she whispers by his ear - it isn't a statement or a conclusion about what he might be feeling, in turn, but a request, and the words are worked painfully from around the knot wedged tightly in her throat. "I can handle a lot, but I can't handle...I can't handle that. Never that." She squeezes him then, eyes shutting tight.

"I wish I had your control. I wish I could reach in without fear again, because I miss it. I miss it, Alexander. And I can't help but be jealous of the people who can. But I'm terrified, too, so I don't know." Her head sinks further into his shoulder. "...if you're a coward, then so am I."

"Pity you?" Alexander sounds surprised. His arms tighten around her, and he buries his face in her hair for a moment, just experiencing her. Then moves to place his chin on the top of her head. "I find nothing pitiable about you, Isabella. Not then. Not now. You were how old, then? Thirteen? Fourteen? And you plunged into an alien world to try and save someone you love, and you fought with everything you had. There is more courage in that than in most things I've seen." He does sort of wish her twin was alive, so that he could strangle the man for endangering her in the first place, but that's a sentiment he keeps locked up tight. It's not something she needs now, and the grief and guilt is so raw that it almost chokes him.

He keeps his voice as level as he can. "You were shattered, Isabella. There are going to be scars from that. Hell." He breathes out. "From the way you talk about it, you might as well have lost a limb. Ask Easton how easy rehab is. How easy it would be with no one to help you through it, and no idea of how to proceed. You're scared. It's natural to be scared. You want to be able to use what you once had, and you're jealous of people who never lost the way you did." A pause. "That's not cowardice. That's human. And if I can help, I will. You are the bravest woman I know."

"Sixteen." If not just to defer to his absolute investment in precision, but his reassurances are fine enough and Isabella can't help but choke on how heavy the air is, how intense these emotions are. To find herself in the arms of a once-torturer and tormentor and find comfort in it - they say that Love is blind, but in her case, it is far from the truth. She knows who he is, what he is, what he has done - what he has allowed into the world. She is not ignorant coming in, and that is, perhaps, a greater sin.

She savors it, the way he breathes in her hair, the traces of saltwater and strawberries on strand and skin, and she pulls away, but only for a scant distance, to fix her vision on the hollow of his throat. "I'm not...I'm not brave," she tells him, green eyes shot with gold lifting to find his fathomless own, as dark as midnight and reminiscent of the endless mental starscapes of him. "What I am is selfish. What I am..." A smile, however faint, plays on her mouth. "Is clingy, when I'm unable to let go of anything."

Ultimately, she lets him, falls right into the look in those dark eyes. "You were broken, too," she observes, quietly. "Not just then, but since before - when you were a child being hunted by the things that linger here, and then preyed on by more human monsters out there - the ones that know that they can do anything to you, so long as you loved them, so long as you trusted them." Her hands slip away, but only so she could cup his face with both of them. "And you're still here." There's relief, there - odd that she has managed to keep herself from sobbing earlier, and upon remembrance of his struggles and torments and not-insignificant sins, she actually looks like she's about to break. "You fight, and you endure, and that's admirable, too. Maybe there's a special place in Hell for me, consigned there by others who think that by loving you, I'm absolving you of the things you've done. And I'm not. I'm not, but I'm going to do it anyway. If it's Hell, so be it. I'll burn in it, with you."

"Sixteen," Alexander agrees, quietly, accepting the correction without demur. When she pulls away, he smiles at her, and bend in to press a kiss on her forehead. "Selfish and clingy aren't the worst things to be," he says, quietly.

When she goes on, his expression tightens. His hands slide up to rest over hers where they cup his face. "I am broken, Isabella. Not were. It doesn't excuse anything that I've done. I wasn't a child." Seeing that sorrow well up in her, he reaches out to stroke his thumb gently under her eyes, as if to wipe away any tears that might escape her self-control. "If you're going to be damned to Hell for loving me, though, I'd really rather you stopped. That's no place for you. You deserve all the good things."

"Oh, good." Regarding her selfishness and clinginess. "Because you don't have a choice." Isabella closes her eyes then, when he presses his mouth on her forehead.

His tight expression only earns him her stubborn own, her chin tilting in defiance of his touch and her tears, nevermind that she knows she's crying. But there's no hesitation when she locks gazes with him, when his thumbs pull the streaks against her skin and leaves it glistening faintly under fitful firelight. "You are," Isabella confirms his correction. "But not all broken things are terrible. Not all broken things are bad and meant to be discarded. Most of the time, there's value there if not just to remember what came before and what we can learn from it, and sometimes, they can be beautiful that way too." Of course she would say that, she's an archaeologist. "You're like...kintsugi, to me."

She should have expected that's what he would say, but the moment the words start leaving his mouth, she shakes her head within his grasp. "If I deserve all the good things, then leave me this. What we have is a good thing. It is." She swallows hard. "You're intelligent and extremely dangerous, and anyone who doesn't recognize the fact is an idiot, but I never wanted to be safe in the first place. There are risks worth taking and you might not believe you're one of them, but I do. I do. I want you, Alexander. And I don't just mean in the fiery, carnal, naughty sense, but in the everything sense. All of it...the good, the bad, the terrible, the wonderful."

Her eyes lower to rest on where his heart beats. "It might sound stupid and naive, and I can't discount the fact that I'm young, and impulsive, and utterly infatuated, but none of that make what I said any less true."

There's a soft laugh. "All right. All right, Isabella. I'm not going to do anything noble and self-sacrificing like trying to drive you away for your own good; I'm too much of a selfish bastard for that, and it'd only make you more adamant about it, anyway." Alexander caresses her face with soft touches of rough fingers. "I won't try to talk you out of it. I'm more grateful than I've ever been that you're selfish and clingy enough to want to stay with me, even knowing the kind of man I really am. We'll see where it goes. But know this - there's a lot I regret in my life." And now she knows the bulk of it. "But I don't regret any moment I've spent with you. And I don't see that changing."

His laugh doesn't soften that determined face. "You're a sinner." Isabella's whisper is a quiet, fierce and vehement thing, though she doesn't enumerate the reasons why she thinks that. If that was the kind of man he still was - willing to hurt, to enslave minds weaker than his, he would still be doing it now on his own accord. She has spent the entire evening, thus far, free of those dangers and manipulations. The last few weeks have been spent watching him struggle in the isolation of August's cabin, unable to be with him, reliving the impulses that drove him to his worst nightmares.

"But you're mine. And that matters, too."

Her eyes lid when his hands caress her face, and she leans forward, her mouth finding his. Her kiss is as humid as it always is, hot and open and immersed in the intense, fiery quality of her restless spirit, ever-wanting and ever-hungry for these pieces of him, however bloody and bitter and dark. But nothing is left behind when she throws her entire self into it, offering him whatever remains of her sundered heart, and willing to invade him if he lets her, to sink further into his depths and drown in it.

"Yeah." Alexander doesn't shrink from the word 'sinner', although there's a flash of pain in his eyes. He just accepts it as his due. And there's a soft sigh when she adds 'mine' to the adjectives that apply to him. He leans into the kiss, as passionate as she is, as hungry as she is - although maybe some of that hunger comes from a different place, and it has a desperate quality to it, as if he might erase the taste of the words he's had to speak and replace it with the taste of her. The feel of her. He moves closer, and his hands rove. Ungraceful but with that same hunger to touch her, to feel her and drown in her as much as she will allow.

They both are.

They all are. There are hardly any saints in Gray Harbor.

His hands are bloodier than most, and she is not so sanctified that she believes that the act of being with her would be able to purify him and somehow leave his nights restful and dreamless. But all she can really do is to give him her acceptance of his flaws and bleed from his jagged edges whenever she brushes against them; to freely poison herself with his darkness in hopes that if two bodies carried it, then the burden wouldn't be so cumbersome, wouldn't feel so heavy and all-consuming. As he moves closer, her arms open, to let him fall into the circle she provides. His hands find the gentle, feminine lines of her under her clothes and her nails bite into his shoulders in an effort to drag him further against her.

She drowns in his desperation, suffocates herself with the experience of him as kisses deepen in an effort to draw his pain further within herself, to temporarily house it until it's time to take it back. It leaves her breaths shortened and she holds him so tightly that it's painful, as if adrift with nothing else to hold onto but him. But she can't let go. She can't. It's impossible, now.

"I need you," Isabella confesses against his mouth, her voice breaking in the midst of it, sacrificing this last scrap of her pride and heavy with the implication that it isn't just inspired by what they've done together, what they're about to do together. Her fingers tangle into his hair. "I need you."

Alexander tumbles on the couch with her, over her, holding the bulk of his weight off of her while they burn together. A shudder runs through him at her quiet words; they're frankly terrifying, and rather than answer them in kind, he tries to slake the need in other ways, with his mouth, his hands, his body. All of that tension and fear coming out in passion, as if to bury the fears that he can't possibly be what she needs, what anyone needs. But there are words he doesn't mind saying, now and multiple times through what follows.

"I love you."