2019-11-19 - Two Worlds

By the time Alexander parks in front of the Firefly Club, he would know, judging by the flushed faces that pile into the vehicle, that some manner of craziness has occurred. Through the alcoholic haze and chatter exchanged between Isabella and Erin as he drives the latter to her residence, he would have learned a few confusing things:

1) There was some kind of fight, though neither of the women appear to be injured.
2) The two of them are laughing about a boat called the Poseidon's Chariot teeming with perverts and nudists.
3) Criminal amounts of tequila have been consumed, though compared to Erin and Lilith, Isabella has somehow managed to keep some of her wits about her, and judging by the way she's looking at him, he knows precisely why.

At some point during the drive, both brunettes have managed to break out into a song. Back in their middle and high school years, as the investigator would probably remember, Britney Spears was still the reigning Queen of Pop, and some squiggly and ridiculous sitting dance moves have commenced while You Drive Me Crazy fills his ears as he maneuvers the blazing red vehicle very carefully through the darkened streets of Gray Harbor. He also finds out, distressingly, that another piece of Isabella's cache of secret shames has fallen on his lap, because his classy, Jazz-loving girlfriend also seems to know all the lyrics to this song.

She even tries to get him to sign along with them. She tries.

The moon is full and bright by the time they return to her houseboat, its pale reflection highlighting the dark waves that softly rush against the docks and spill into the beachhead in the throes of the high tide, white froth barely glimpsed. The fact that the archaeologist can still walk on those dangerous, man-killing heels is a miracle in itself, laughing softly amidst her chatter as she spins lazy circles on the way to her front door, interspersed with the occasional trots. She barely needs any help, but that wouldn't be surprising to him - she was a mover, and one with terrifying if not broken potential, and even in her present state of inebriation, she manages to playfully skitter out of the way of obstacles, as if pulled by sixth sense alone to avoid any danger of collapsing right on her face, or falling directly into the water. With only some minor struggling, she stumbles into her abode, still laughing.

"I shouldn't be allowed to play drinking games," she tells him, stripping off her blazer jacket and tossing it on the couch, before following it, collapsing on the cushions. "Oh, god, I know I'm going to regret this in the morning. It'll be like those text messages all over again."

And then, she reaches out, extending her leg, in an attempt to reach her shoe. She doesn't quite make it, and she twists around in an effort to get it off her foot, and it looks absolutely helpless and pathetic.

Alexander is a mostly silent chauffeur during all of this - watching and listening with the air of an anthropologist who's just discovered a completely new and unknown branch of human civilization. Which, to be honest, he sort of has: his life has not been filled with much in the way of girls' nights out, or drunken camaraderie of any sort; even his college debauches were more the 'pseudo-philosophy sprawled on couches in smoke filled rooms' sort than the dancing and clubbing sort. He doesn't know the words to the song, but hums along indulgently, mouthing the chorus at her prompting. He makes sure Erin gets to her door without incident, then does the same for Isabella, just touching lightly to steer her away from any obstacles her sixth sense doesn't quite catch. Once she's inside, he locks the door, and follows her to where she sprawls.

For a moment, he just watches her twist on the couch, warm good humor in his dark eyes, enjoying the show. Then, at last, he bends to run his fingers down her leg and to her foot, and slowly take off the shoe. As he follows with the other, he says, "You look like you had a great time."

She's squinting one-eyed at her leg, tongue trapped between her teeth as she attempts to reach the straps of her shoes, rolling around like a hard-boiled egg set loose on a countertop and completely oblivious to the fact that his prodigious memory is taking a snapshot, or recording this moment until his taller, broader shadow falls upon her on the cushions. Isabella looks up, her smile breaking out in the darkness of her living room, bright enough to put the spray of stars and the moon outside to shame; it reaches her eyes, at the moment sporting the color and clarity of faded emerald glass, reminiscent of shades that remain in old gothic cathedrals. A shaft of light from the outside world spills over them, caressing over their twin reflections.

"Too much of a great time, I think, but I've been sworn to secrecy as far as Erin's and Lilith's shenanigans are concerned," she tells him, finally easing back against the couch and her foot cradled in his palms, her knee bent. In his capable, sober state, he's able to slide the dangerous shoe off her, followed by the other, the quiet thump-thumps of them falling into the darkness unnoticed because she's looking at him and is unable to focus on much else. The smile lingers, expression carrying the white-hot threads of intense, almost obsessive desire - but not just that.

"But after a..." And she laughs. "...steady stream of ridiculous confessions, I wonder maybe I should come clean on some of them." Her grin chases out that errant dimple on her left cheek. "The ones involving you anyway."

"You're alive, not in jail, and haven't yet screwed anyone you'll regret in the morning," Alexander says, with a smile. "Sounds like just enough of a great time to me." He's careful to note where the shoes fall, and after a moment, kneels down to scoop them up and then arrange them neatly to one side of the couch. Weapons like those, it's best to treat with respect. Then he lifts her legs and slides in on the couch under her, resting her legs back over his thighs. His hands find one foot, and he starts massaging, figuring she might need it after dancing in those shoes for a while.

His eyebrows go up at the rest. "Mm. I suppose I can restrain my curiosity when it comes to Miss Addington and Miss Winslow. But you should definitely distract me. Drunken confessions are fine." His hands are calloused, warm, and firm on her skin.

"There was a Dream, in there," Isabella murmurs, blissfully floating in that mid-point between stone cold sobriety and messily intoxicated. "The moment I realized it, I thought it was going to be something terrible and deadly, and I was really glad I chose those shoes just in case, but..." She presses her cheek against the back of the couch, her laughter in her eyes and trapped within her expressive mouth. "...oh god, Alexander. It was full of dancing, stretchy rubber men and I haven't laughed so hard in ages." It probably makes no sense, that description, but chances are considering how many weird things they've encountered lately, it probably isn't all that surprising, either.

Her toes wiggle against his fingers, and there are times when her leg would twitch, and she would laugh softly, squirming faintly whenever a thumb would brush too lightly on a delicate spot that leaves her giggling (giggling, she never giggles) when he accidentally tickles her. But for a moment, she watches him, silent and appreciative as he does the work in unwinding the soreness of those delicate appendages. Her eyes never once leave his face, willingly drowning herself in his near-black stare.

"I must have that visit to Anne's house in the brain, still," she tells him with that drifting lilt, as if caught in a waking delusion. "When she asked me how long you and I have been involved. I told her I couldn't give her an exact date. So after a considerable amount of tequila, maybe I was subconsciously still trying to figure out just when we started. I said sometime during the summer, so I started thinking about the summer. I don't think I told you, but a couple of days after meeting me and a day after my mother died, the Captain invited me to the range. To ask me a few questions, I thought. It was the only reason why I agreed to see him, until I realized he was seeing to my well-being also, and I wasn't...great. Understandably so, I think. I was deprived a chance to repair my relationship with her, and I..." A wry twist curls on her mouth. "I had just walked out of your hospital room."

Her lashes lid heavily over her eyes. "He was trying to teach me how to adjust my aim mid-shot, and when he put his hands on me for a few wild, crazy seconds, I wanted to ask him to burn the pain away. But I didn't. Couldn't, because you were in my head, unable to get you out of it. Even then, despite the fact that I knew that I didn't have a reason, or expectation. I didn't even know what it meant, at the time. I just..."

The quality of her smile softens the look of her. "You wreck me, Alexander. You have been, even before I knew you were."

Alexander's hands go still when she mentions a Dream, his shoulders hunching. Obviously, she's alive and not bleeding, but he still gets tense and unhappy, even as she elaborates. His eyes scan her body, less appreciative and more assessing for wounds he didn't see on first pass. Gradually, he does relax, and start the massage again. While he doesn't deliberately set out to tickle her, his expression warms at her giggles, and his murmured apology doesn't really have a lot of strength to it.

"Anne?" A pause. "Miss Washburn. Ah, yes. You two are getting along, then? You seemed to be having fun at the Society." As she goes on, though, he grows silent. Thoughtful. There's a twitch upwards of his eyebrows at the confession, but no real surprise. If there's a flicker of unease? Well, there always is when she professes the depth of her desire for him, or anything like devotion. "It wasn't my intention," he murmurs. Then smiles. "But I remain glad that you gave me another chance after I was an asshole to you."

She has said it time and again; she is a creature who knows what she wants when she finds it, and is very decisive about it.

That flicker of unease is rote by now, but Isabella doesn't address it because that is an explanation that she doesn't want to force out of him (and she would rather be drawn and quartered by wild horses than admit that she holds her own apprehensions on what causes it), her toes absently wiggling, still, against the rolling ministrations of his fingers. The pressure points he aggravates lessens the tension stringing her calf muscles taut, unable to be hidden due to the way snakeskin clings to her shape. She practically melts against the couch.

"We are, we're similar, but different, too. She's dead set on remaining in this town until the day she dies. Too many mysteries beguile her," she says of her friend. "Lots of shared interests. She has corgis - brothers, named after Lord of the Rings characters, and they're both equally adorable." She's an unapologetic dog person who really can't own a dog, so is routinely forced to live vicariously through others.

His smile draws her own. "Honestly, I thought I burned it, not you. Whatever chance we had." Her lashes flutter closed, brushing against her cheeks. "It was part of the reason why I was so angry, that you wouldn't just tell me to get out and exorcise whatever was there. I wasn't exactly easy to live with at the time, and I constantly defied you."

"Corgis are adorable. And Gray Harbor exercises its own compulsions on people," Alexander ruefully acknowledges, as someone who also doesn't see himself ever leaving the dangerous little town, whatever he might daydream about. He lightly pinches those wiggly toes, shaking each one playfully for a moment before returning to his massage, gradually letting his hands slide up to the snakeskin and start working on her calves.

"Of course you defied me," he points out, practically. "I was keeping you prisoner in your house. I won't say I regret it, or that I don't feel I had good reasons for it, but," he snorts, "even Javier thought I'd kidnapped you and was probably planning to do something terrible to you." He sighs. "I should have talked. I didn't. I didn't...know how to. It was all too much, and it hurt too much to worry about you all. It was never your fault."

There's a laugh, and one that leaves her bottom lip caught between her teeth to suppress uninhibited laughter when he tugs playfully on her toes, before she follows the wake of his palms. That long, slender limb extends slightly to let his hands slide over textured leather, fingernails generating a faint sound when it finds a creak or two. Isabella rolls her head back slightly so she could examine his profile, and the way shadow and light play over his features. Moonlit nights such as these, when it's especially clear, suit him the best, she thinks privately, reminiscent of the glassine stars and lightning-scathed landscape inside of his mind.

"I believed you," she points out, quietly. "When you told me that you didn't want to hurt me." Her voice grows absent, but steeped in aching memory. "You put yourself at risk for me, the day before that. Not just lighting yourself up, or even wrestling the gun away from me. The world was threatening to come down around your head, and you weren't exactly unafraid, but you wouldn't let go. In retrospect, I should have remembered all of those things. That should have warranted you some forgiveness immediately." Her smile returns, rueful as it is. "But I have a temper."

Her eyes meet his through the dark, holding there. And then, with a cheeky grin: "I think those first four truffles definitely sealed the deal, though."

Alexander snorts, and lightly pinches the underside of her calf. "No. Being nice in one instance doesn't make up for being an asshole in another, Isabella. Don't ever let me get away with that shit, or I'll get lazy," he tells her, solemn but with a twinkle of humor in his eyes. "And I like your temper." A pause. "Okay. Less liked it when I thought you were going to break the boat with us both inside. But I got to see you consumed by something, and it was...interesting." His smile widens to a grin. "I like interesting people."

A laugh. "See? Even for those who prefer their sweets more fiery than not, chocolate is apparently a reliable way to the heart." He pauses, looks down. "Do you know, I really didn't know what you intended, when you invited me over that time. I thought that I was just being creepy and over-hopeful when I thought it might be something like a date. That I was being stupid. You were obviously too beautiful, and smart, and interesting to actually be attracted to me."

"I said some forgiveness, not all." Isabella sniffs and flashes him a look that hints at all the heat and brass simmering, always, within the secret pathways of her, stitched under her skin - these parts of her that render her so expressive and eloquent without saying much at all; handy, that, when she's normally so recalcitrant in expressing her emotions verbally unless alcohol is in her system. "Precision, remember?" And, of course, unable to help but jab him with the pointed end of her wit, mischief brewing within the emerald-gold storms in each unwavering iris. His widening grin brings her back, however, answering it with her own, refreshing his portrait within the Escheresque galleries of her and how these expressions take the years off his face, making him look almost boyish.

When he looks down though, his own confession filling the darkness between them, the young woman shifts. Long legs ease off his lap so she could replace their absence with her weight instead, settling upon him in a loose straddle so she could look down at his face. Hands lift to cup both his cheeks and gently, so gently, she attempts to tip his head back to look at the way the color of his eyes transition in the dark. She knows what they look like under the right sunlight, and now she intends to discover how they change under the whims of the moon.

"I didn't think you were interested in me, that way," she says quietly, her thumb gently tracing the shape of his lower lip, fingertips reveling in the coarse grain of his stubble, feeling electricity - their undeniable, breathtaking chemistry - thrum over alcohol-soaked nerves and banishing the lull within them. "Do you want to know why I asked you to spend the afternoon with me that day?"

"Ah. Of course." Alexander bends his head in mock chastisement, although the look he throws her is not entirely meek or apologetic. He straightens hastily as she shifts, his hands sliding up her thighs as his gaze slides up her body to meet her eyes. His palms, rough and warm, come to rest on the curve of her hips, fingers curling around towards her rear, and he doesn't resist her hands tilting back his head. His eyes are dark in the faint light, hardly brown at all, although the warmth of his smile has robbed them of that snake-like impassivity that sometimes plagues them. Wide, black pupils straining in the moonlight for detail don't help chase away that impression of blackness.

"How could I not be? You can speak of witch burnings and Macedonia with intelligence and wit." It's only half-joking. But his response to her question probably doesn't come as a surprise, since it's the same answer whenever the question begins with do you want to know: "Yes."

Dark like the deepest ocean trenches, past the Sunlight Zone. Dark enough to lose herself.

Dark enough to drown in.

The warm, gentle weight of her settles flush against him, anchored there by his broad, roughened grip. Tension strings taut like a hyper-electrified wire, these heady, buzzing moments before he kisses her, or she kisses him. Her face hovers close enough that her breath touches his skin, chasing away the chill, and so close to the ocean, there's much of it. His body provides a balm to it through his clothes, radiating heat. A set of fingers, restless in their attempts to chart a new course through the battered, hardy cartography he exhibits, slides up the angle of his jaw to luxuriate in the half-curls at the back of his head, rolling soothing circles there. He expresses his preferences so rarely in the sense that he hardly has them at all, but this is one of the few that is his and she gravitates towards it like iron to magnets.

"Because you hardly knew me," she ripostes with an answering, if not somewhat absent smile. "And you're wary of strangers."

Her head tilts forward to rest it against his own, eyes slipping shut at their changed proximity. "I asked you to spend the afternoon with me because I wanted to know," she murmurs.

"I wanted to know if there was more of what you said to me the first night in here." She gently strokes his hair in emphasis. "Wanted to know what other brilliant things you would say if I prodded you into them. I wanted to know what you looked like revived and resuscitated from your persistent survival mode that you mentioned to me in your texts. I wanted to know why you kept texting me, despite not knowing me. I wanted to know how it would sound like, if I got you to laugh and just kept laughing, because you said that was rare, and I was up for the challenge. I wanted..." And he'd feel her grin, the shape of it in the air within the millimeters that separate them. "...to suddenly push us both off a cliff when you least suspected, and into the water, what your first instinct would be when the ground was suddenly yanked from under you, and wanted to see what you looked like wet, and what was under your clothes when you removed them because of our accident."

Her voice grows softer as she continues: "I wanted to know who you were, past the reputation I grew up with."

Her thumb moves to absently trace the shape of his cheek. "I wanted to know if I was crazy for wanting to know." Lower, still, and barely a breath. "For wanting, in general."

"And most of all, I wanted to know why you said yes to me."

"That made you a mystery," Alexander points out, his smile fond and lazy. It ticks downward at the reminder of his wariness, but he doesn't dispute it. He murmurs, "You didn't make fun of me, and you treated me like I had something to say that was worth listening to." He leans forward to place a kiss just at the underside of her jaw. "I won't say it made you safe. You're many things, Isabella Reede, but never safe. But it made you intriguing."

Then he leans back again, to stop distracting her while he listens. Mostly stop distracting her: his fingers make restless motions over the skin-tight pants, up to her waist, playing with the hemline. He doesn't even seem aware he's doing it. "I enjoyed talking to you," he says, at last. "If you were still curious about the texting. Somehow, it doesn't surprise me that you wanted to knock me over into the water, though. You're trouble, Miss Reede." But apparently he likes trouble.

"You probably are a little crazy. For wanting to get to know me. For putting up with me." His eyes half close as he leans into her caress. "I said yes because you were interesting." A pause. "And because Easton said I'd be actually insane if I did not agree to go on a date with a hot woman who mentioned yoga."

"I treated you like that because you did," Isabella replies quietly. "Have something to say that was worth listening to. You always do, Alexander. I thought so, the night we met, and a few months later, that hasn't changed." Eyes lid at the warmth of his mouth against her skin, a soft, pleased murmur escaping her - the lean only opens up the trap, when her arms slide further over his shoulders to curl around him while he does. There's a tilt of her head, to make room for his own, green-gold eyes reluctantly diverting from his own to find the ceiling, instead, savoring languid, subsumed desire and affection present in that single kiss.

"I don't think I ever will be." Not with the sea in her blood, the jagged ruins of her psyche and its myriad secrets, and the dragon guarding its gates. "Safe. But I match you there, so in that regard, I don't find it a flaw." She smiles down at him again, shifting while he touches her, drinks in every pass of his restless fingers. "You're dangerous, also."

But when he calls her crazy, she grins, laughter spooling from the back of her throat when he reveals that Easton may have had a hand in all of this. "I changed my mind. We really should send him some alcohol," she teases, though her expression sobers again, absently tracing his features with tender butterfly touches from her digits. "But somehow, I'm alright with that. Being mad for you. After what happened that afternoon, if anyone ever locked me up for it, I know from past experience you'd come and get me."

She leans forward, pressing her mouth on his. "Still want to help me with these?" She pushes into his restless fingers in emphasis, the snakeskin waistband dragging against them.

"He likes Knob Creek," Alexander says, because data is important, although his voice is a bit distracted, because maybe some data - like the woman straddling him right now - is maybe a bit more important than the exact sort of alcohol that a friend, even a good friend, prefers. "And I don't mind that you're not safe." Although his gaze slides away a little as she points out that he, too, is dangerous.

He returns to her when she laughs, and her laughter ignites his own. "I would," he says, and it has the ring of a promise to it. Then he leans forward, his fingers sliding towards the fastening of her pants. He doesn't answer in words, only in the motions of his fingers, the light burning in his eyes, and the connection he makes with her mind, the fevered heat of those stars, showing her reflections of all the things they've done, and all the things they might yet do.

Her arms band tighter at his lean forward, a brief hitch of her body when fingers find what they're looking for and whatever sounds Isabella makes muffled by his mouth. Somewhere in her mind, sensing him reach for her, the heavy gates lift in full, with nothing held back, letting him pass unencumbered. As his stars collect within these private expanses of her, she closes her eyes and unleashes herself, bathing his senses with all her wildfires and hurricanes and pulls him in deep; the better to be electrified by his own terrifying intensity, and leave her breathless while she whispers his name.

It's the violence of the storm raging outside that wakes her up a few hours later, suddenly pulled from her dreams about his reflective stars, gale force winds causing aftershocks of pressure over her one-way windows, angry clouds blanketing the moon and leaving the outside world impossibly dark. She never wakes up with a start, her forays back into the world of the living often gradual affairs. But her heart is ticking rapidly at the side of her throat when she sits up, hopelessly tangled hair spilling in waves down her back and shoulder, and green-gold eyes clotted with sleep turn towards the doors leading to the front deck, watching forks of lightning slash through the night, the loud boom rolling over the roof like a furious, charging chariot.

"...where the hell did that come from..." she murmurs, lifting a hand to rub the corner of her right eye, before she jerks it away from her face to stare at it.

And the ribbons of pure white light dancing from her fingers.

Alexander isn't sleeping.

Of course, he's rarely sleeping when he's staying over. A nap of an hour or two, but he always wakes himself up before the nightmares start, and when she wakes in the night, he can often be found propped up and thinking, or roaming around the houseboat, talking quietly to himself about whatever's on his mind. In this particular case, it's the former; he's propped up in the bed, the sheet loosely gathered around his hips, and his head leaning back, listening to the storm with a smile on his face.

He hears her start, and his hand comes out to gently touch her hair, caressing without tangling it further, and his murmur is a low, content rumble as he says, "Started a little while ago." His eyes open as she sits up, so that he can watch her in the darkness. Which, rather abruptly, isn't all that dark any more. He sits up straighter himself, blinking. "Isabella. Are you...uh. Are you trying to do that?"

"I was dreaming about your stars." Isabella's voice is hoarse, smoky with sleep, turning her body immediately towards his touch when his fingers find her hair, leaving those dark strands tangled loosely within his grasp. But her eyes aren't on his, not when she would usually meet them. They're on her fingers, instead, brain working in a valiant effort to catch up, pushing back the cotton and driving it to the back of her mind so she could focus. Her heart is still racing, the taste of power at the back of her throat and threatening to pull her back in, reminding her of how it feels - the sweetest poison and unbridled obsession crystallizing somewhere within her bones, leaving her terrified and exhilarated all at once.

She swallows thickly as fragments of distant memory fall into place. Turning towards him, the falls of her hair spilling down her shoulders and blankets pooling around her hips, she pushes her palms together, fingers curled slightly. Threads of light gather in the space in between, adding faint illumination in the darkened depths of her bedroom and banishing some of the shadows off his face. It's so easy, too easy to remember how to do this and despite having been so long divorced from the more advanced use of her gifts, to watch her do this now would fool anyone that those ten years haven't passed at all when she does it so naturally. An extension of her. A part of her.

The accumulation condenses into a single shard floating between her fingers, spinning gently - a brighter facsimile of what she sees inside of his head. "Beacons," she whispers. "I haven't...not in years...not since I was..."

She turns around then, reaching for him, to coil her arms around his neck, excited and fearful eyes finding the wall behind his head. "It's healing." The words are pressed somewhere by his ear. "But I can't..." Hope too hard. Be inured to its use. Be allowed to sink into it again. She doesn't know. They pile up behind her lips but she smothers them all in favor of thought, of trying to organize facts and opinions within her skull. Nothing focuses her faster than the act of thinking about a problem.

Alexander reaches for her, draws a hand gently up her spine, although the intent seems more to comfort than arouse. He leans forward, watching the light dance on her fingers. "It's beautiful," he tells her, softly. His gaze is resting on the light as it condenses, although then she's in his arms, and he's holding her tightly, murmuring soothing nonsense against her neck. "And yes, it seems to be healing," he adds, even as he moves to pull her closer. "You've accepted some pieces of yourself that you had locked away for a while, Isabella. I think you're letting yourself heal. I don't know that you'll ever be as strong as you were. But it's better to heal than remain with the quiet, open wound. Even if there are scars."

He gathers her up and while he does it, he'd feel it; steel-cable coils of tension worming down her spine at this attempt at comfort, an inexplicable bracing - it wouldn't be apparent as to what Isabella is bracing against, perhaps wounds dealt to her pride at the quick and sudden realization as to how easily she could depend on him in moments like these, to be soothing and to know what to say; to break down what is happening into easily understandable chunks. But ultimately, she can't resist him when he wraps himself around her and blankets all of her physical senses with the rest of him - his warmth, the hard, unyielding breadth of his chest and the way his breath stirs her hair, the low sounds he makes and that pleasing, pleasant baritone filling her skull. She doesn't let go of him when her slim, bare body entangles against his - holding onto him is more acceptable a vulnerability than the expression she wears, the look in her eyes.

"I don't know if I want to go back there," she confesses softly. "But I think I have to. I have to, now." She presses her face into the crook of his shoulder. "I was told if we wanted to find out why this is all happening, why this place is the way it is, we won't find our answers here. Not on this side." And that could only mean one thing.

"Easton had an encounter, the other day. He told me about it when I stopped by to tell him about what happened at the Paranormal Society meeting. He's the only other one I know connected personally to the Asylum, so I told him what I saw and heard to give him a head's up."

"We," Alexander says, softly, but with steel underneath it. "You don't have to do it alone, Isabella. Whatever you have to face, I'll be there with you. You have friends who will walk beside you." He laughs, softly, and nuzzles her hair as his fingers play up and down her back. "I know that doesn't make it great, but whatever you have to do, at least you won't have to do it alone." His whole body moves with his deep breath, and heavy sigh. He always knew that would be the case - whatever's wrong with this town, it probably came from the place with managers who were severed feet, and worms that ate your brains and tried to turn into copies of you. Just a hunch, but a solid one.

"We need to start making excursions over there," Alexander muses, quietly. "We need to find the Asylum, if people are being released. We need to know if they're dangerous, and who they might be, and why Megan and Alice are working together on this. Or anything." His grip on her tightens. "Frustrating."

"I know," is all Isabella says after a while, the two words brushing over his skin, drawn back against him. One long leg shifts under the sheets, easing against him and tilting sideways to guide them both back down - or at least in a state where he remains half-propped, and her cradled by his side and her head pillowed against his shoulder. Dark lengths of her hair remain tangled somewhere behind her, leaving jagged streaks of jet in the darkness, cutting over the white of her linens. One arm moves to drape over him, fingers finding his chest and the subtle traces of the old burn there - she has not asked where it had come from, though he can probably sense that she's tempted to, when her thumb absently traces its shape.

"I'm going tomorrow," she tells him quietly. "My first one in its open areas in a while, with Anne and August. Gray Pond's always been active, so I trust we'll examine that area first and work our way into the Park, chart the differences between here and there. The more I learn of the terrain, the better I'll be able to plan. Anne and August are good comrades at arms to have there - she knows the Veil, and August is an experienced outdoorsman. I think we'll be alright." She tilts her head up so she could meet his eyes in the dark. "Easton said he came across a woman in Safeway that gave off strange vibes, but no one else noticed but him. He described it as a strange feeling in his chest, and somehow he knew that if he signaled her in some way - like a whistle - she would respond in kind. But the encounter felt hazy to him, like a Dream, but not. He couldn't remember the details of her face, or the car she drove - but she was a woman. I told him that Mom used to tell me that people like us can feel it, sometimes, if a person was touched by Them, but Easton's the only one I've encountered so far who even matches what my mother's described to me before. So I told him to perform a small experiment and let me know what the results are. But I told him about the doors being opened and Megan and Alice."

She turns her face to kiss his shoulder. "Easton's having his uncle's Key read tonight. He said he'll let me know if it turns up anything."

Alexander is content, as he often is, to be guided, and his pillows are already in a conveniently supportive position, so he reclines back, head coming to rest on the backboard, and his fingers playing with those dark strands. His chest rises and falls in a steady rhythm; there are several overlapping burn scars on his chest, the textures subtly different, although it's obvious even visually. He doesn't shy away from her hand's explorations.

His mind is caught up in what she's saying, and he can't help the frown at the idea that she's going tomorrow. He tenses, biting down on his urge to fret at her, to protest that he trusts August, but doesn't really know this Anne, and maybe the trip should be postponed, or maybe he should come with them. The words rattle around in his skull, and for long minutes he can't say anything at all, because if he opens his mouth, that's what'll come out. But, eventually, they're locked back up in the worry vaults, and he manages to say, "That sounds like an interesting trip. Be careful with the Park. I don't trust that carousel as far as I can throw it." He makes a joke of it, his finger slipping through her hair to lightly flick her ear. "And keep an eye on August, hmm? The Shadows have been riding him pretty hard, of late."

And then there's kisses, which makes the frown lessen just a bit. "I...who is he having read it?" he asks, and tries his best not to sound indignant. It only sort of works.

The patterns are absent and haphazard, the tips of her index and middle fingers moving to explore the network engraved on his chest and committing it to memory - he can practically feel it in the ghostly threads of their earlier connection, how ink continues to add more detail in the mental map she keeps of him, the more she does this; a faded echo, now, compared to the blazing, intensely terrifying passion and heat that bound them tightly to one another earlier. Her hair slips through his fingers easily, like midnight water spilling from them.

She had already extended an invitation to him and he had declined, and the tension Isabella feels from his skin is replied to by her hand tucking into his opposite side, to anchor herself there as she gives him a squeeze, though she doesn't address the worries rattling in his skull that she could sense - at least, not out loud, left to be settled by the tender mercies of her affection. "We'll look out for one another," she promises in reply, though he'd feel her smile at the flick on her ear. Still, his comment on August has her tilting her head back, her mouth gently finding the line of his jaw. "What happened to August?" she murmurs in the midst of her nuzzling.

As for who the reader is? "Javier," she identifies. "Those two have a kinship and Easton agrees about spreading the risk. He thinks you and August take on a lot already, and he probably doesn't feel comfortable approaching Ronnie after what he did to him when they were younger."

Alexander continues to grumble, in his mind if not out loud, even as he relaxes into her touch and her presence. "He's just had to deal with a lot. He and Itzhak, both. It'd be nice if I could force the world to give them a goddamned break for a week or two." He sighs. "But I can't. So, just. Yeah. Take care of each other."

There's a grunt when she identifies the reader. "They're Marines. There's a bond." A pause. "It's fine." The lights don't have to be on to pick up the hint of petulance in Alexander's voice. It's not really fine, but at least he seems to recognize that openly inflicting his baseless insecurities on others is not particularly sexy. "I have plenty to keep me occupied," he mutters, under his breath.

Okay. He mostly seems to recognize that. Mostly.

"Maybe we could, if we knew more about Dreams." Isabella's tone suggests, however, that somewhere within her skull, she was already toying with possibilities, outcomes and new avenues with which to seek information. "And their connection to the Veil. I know they occur in a part of it but it would be helpful to analyze conclusively once and for all whether it's possible to draw someone in consciously. It stands to reason that if a person like us can, then maybe the reverse is also true." Push people out of it, before anything exhausting or traumatic can occur. "It's worth looking into - difficult, probably dangerous, but the benefits would be enormous." She looks up to observe his profile. "And then maybe you wouldn't have to worry so much about getting lost."

There's a skeptical look when he tries to convince himself that it is fine and her fingers pinch his side lightly.

"You only say something is fine when it's not," she says. She knows how much he hates the word - if nothing else her case with the Ring had caused this developed aversion. "Are you pouting because Easton didn't ask you?"

"That is an interesting research topic," Alexander admits. "Ever since the actors, I've wanted to look into it. But it has seemed too dangerous to ask anyone to help, and," an exasperated breath, "I lack the gift necessary to open a door to the other side. Which, I would assume, plays some part in...whatever this is. But being able to create a Dream? One that answered to our hand, and not that of the Shadows?" His eyes gleam in the faint, reflected light. "That would be interesting. And presumably, useful."

He ignores any talk of his own worries. And, for that matter, her (very accurate) observation on his use of the word 'fine'. Instead, he grumbles, "I'm almost forty years old, Isabella. I do not pout." He is totally pouting. He's also pushing - pushing her over onto her back so that he plant his knees to either side of her thighs and his hands by her head, bending down to kiss her with a gentle, but insistent, enthusiasm. "Have I mentioned that your fingers lighting up is incredibly sexy, Miss Reede?"

There's a thoughtful cast to her eyes, threading over the tone of her voice, when Alexander fields the possibility of creating Dreams and her fingers relinquish their pinching hold on his side, letting the tips of them splay in a loose array over where his heart beats the strongest. In the dark, nothing breaks the silence for several long minutes, punctuated as it is by the meteorological concert rising in a crescendo outside.

When she speaks, the cadence of her words is blanketed by a soft inflection that belies the sharpness of her creativity - that imagination that she uses to turn problems over in the library inside her mind. "I don't know how possible that is without being absurdly advanced in all three aspects that we know of," Isabella confides. "To have the knowledge base to craft convincing illusions, the ability to move objects and to be able to build and break down matter...you need all of those disciplines to clone the experiences we have in Dreams that aren't in our control. If we are right about our abilities being intangible muscles that need potential and exercise in which to cultivate strength and skill, a person would almost need to dedicate most of his life learning, depending on when he starts, and I don't know anyone living like that."

She abandons her academic reverie at the sound of his grumble, green-gold eyes staring up at him once she follows the lean of his body. Sheets already rumpled from their earlier, vigorous exertions tangle around them further, her spine concaving slightly at the mattress against it. Her soft mouth finds his kiss. "You haven't until just now," she murmurs, the shape of her smile imprinted against his questing lips. "But you're also trying to distract me from the fact that your nearly forty year old self is pouting."

Her teeth nip gently at his bottom lip, her hand shifting to lift by the side of their heads, fingers out. "Here," she offers softly. "I'll show you something." Another kiss, her words teasing his mouth. "Hover your fingers over mine and call up your sparks."

"And yet, it has been done. The actors did it; crafted a Dream to their specifications, drew us in. Perhaps it was the Shadows who helped them, but," Alexander makes a low and thoughtful noise, "that doesn't mean it's impossible without them." His heart beats steady and strong beneath her hand. "And I'm not sure that's true, that the abilities are needed to directly craft the Dream and its containers. I've been thinking about that. I don't know if each Dream is actually...custom designed, or if it's just primed and filled with...stuff...that reacts to our own fears and nightmares. Sometimes I feel like we are already creating our own Dreams. Just in a theatre that They have designed for us."

He lowers himself until their bodies are just lightly skimming each other, and his eyes turn mischievous. "Is it working?" he asks, all fake innocence, and squeezes her thighs lightly with his knees. "I can try harder, if it's not." But at least he doesn't further deny the pouting. Just try to make her forget. But her distraction is a reliable distraction from HIS distraction, and he gives a wistful sigh. "I thought we were working on quite admirable sparks otherwise..." but he shifts so that he can obey her instructions. It's less visual, immediately, because he's not going to use his full power this close to her head. It's more a feel - staticky and hot - than a flashy display, with the sharp scent of ozone.

"I didn't know that." New data; Isabella had been living overseas the time that the drama troupe had rolled into town and had she been a direct witness, she probably would have made many observations of her own. But she has to rely on Alexander's brilliance here and a more contemplative hum escapes the back of her throat. "Alright, let's look into it and add it to the list. We'll keep an eye out on this first expedition and maybe I'll come up with some ideas as to how to hunt down for answers. I just need to take a look at the lay of the land first." She swallows quietly, her green-gold eyes shifting over his shoulder - she can't see it physically but she knows where it is, the bottle of pills that she obtained to help with her anxiety.

His body lowers closer to her own, a light brush and her grin flashes in the dark, her very own lightning teasing his senses. Her free arm lifts, to curl around the broadness of his shoulders in an attempt to tug him in closer. "I don't know," she murmurs, her nose rubbing against the bold arch of his own. "I think you need to be closer..." Her mischief grows more overt under the shadows he casts over her features. "...maybe add a little more friction..."

Static crackles next to her head, and she turns her face just a little to watch. "Until it's visible," she murmurs. "Trust me." And whenever she sees those thin arcs of electricity curling up along his digits, he would see it, faint but growing more prominent in the dark. Whatever she is doing brushes over his senses, teases the fine hairs at the back of his knuckles as these visible flashes of his tiny storms bend as she manipulates invisible ether, of a kind, to prod them into shape - interfere with their normal trajectory, plucking them in points. Motes of light collect into the center, coalescing into a pulsing core as lightning twists around the orb when she pushes it between their palms.

"It has no heat," she murmurs, her delicate features illuminated by what they create together. "But I'm certain that your sparks will still sting. This was how we practiced finesse, back when I was young." Her eyes shift away to meet his own through the dark, teasing and impish, brows waggling playfully. "Maybe you complete me after all, Mister Clayton."

"Mmm," Alexander agrees, softly. "Just remember to come back." He bends down enough to place a kiss on her forehead. And Isabella doesn't have to tug much harder at all to have Alexander exploring both how close he can get, and the friction that can be applied. Enough that - although it was his intention to distract her - he's the one who has to spend some time remembering to focus on the lightning, on adding power until the sparks visibly appear.

He draws in a breath as the lightning bends and pools together. His eyes widen and there's the touch of his mind on hers, wordlessly sharing his pleasure and wonder at watching what they can do together. "It's beautiful." Then he lets the lightning die out, and kisses her again. "You're beautiful. And complete in and of yourself. I like who you are," he whispers between kisses.

Just remember to come back.

Possibly the only things he deigns to say that would hint at whatever worries he harbors in her trip over there without him, and with two people he is just starting to get to know.

"You're here," Isabella replies softly, holding his gaze from where she lies underneath him, determination lighting up her emerald-gold eyes. "Why wouldn't I come back? Besides, if I didn't want to be found..." Her smile curls up visibly. "...I would have thrown my lot in with someone other than an investigator."

Tugged lower and closer, with her own power dying away and that single orb of light fading into darkness again, her silhouette mirrors the actions of her body, splashed against the far wall like ink as she wraps both arms and a leg around him, fingers burying in his hair. The touch of his mind is one she welcomes and hungers for, supping on it greedily once he connects with her again, and dives into the fires and storms of her to share his own wonder.

She returns kiss after kiss, replying whenever he lets her, whispers caressing his face. He knows better than that - he's seen what's in her, but she doesn't find it in her to protest when he's being so insistent and adoring. "So are you. I wouldn't change a damn thing about you. And try not to worry too much," she tells him, passions returned, teasing his mind as she fills him in the ways he seems to prefer. "And try to keep out of trouble. And if I'm gone for too long, come and get me?"

"No promises on the trouble," Alexander murmurs, speaking the words right against her skin, "But believe me, Isabella Reede. If you are gone too long, I will burn down two worlds if I have to, to reach you again." He kisses her nose, and then her mouth. And then her chin, and then her neck. It doesn't take a Ph.D. candidate to realize the trend here, and recognize that he fully intends to see that they spend the storm doing more immediately interesting things than practicing magic.

"You'll only need to burn one."

Isabella's mouth meets his, her palm cradling the back of his head, the meandering route of his kisses drifting lower in increments. She turns her face to bury it into his hair, letting their shared intensity consume her on both fronts. Against her throat, he'd feel her heart racing wildly against his lips.

"Because I fully intend to meet you in the middle."