2019-12-17 - Love Made Me

"Love Made Me."
-- Inscribed above the Gates of Hell in Dante's Inferno

---

The sound of rushing water is nearly drowned out by the rain by the time Byron and August leave Alexander Clayton's residence at 13 Elm. The rolling, booming thunderstorm that marked the earlier evening hours seems to have faded into the horizon, though it seems to be clinging stubbornly, still, in the outer fringes; flashes of light can be glimpsed towards the Pacific, on occasion. The wind, too, has ceased, leaving rain to fall steadily from the heavens, soaking Gray Harbor's urban jungle in freezing sheets.

Thanks to the Combat Botanist's direction, dinner was more than edible, silence descending on what was an active space. Isabella is stooped slightly over the kitchen sink, running hot water into the basin, the rubber stopper wedged at the bottom so dishes can soak. Foam has risen from the water line and while the plates in the residence are cheap, she handles them with care, sliding them into the hot bath she's made with those long academic's fingers. She works in silence, applying onto the task the same razor-sharp focus she gives the most complicated endeavors. At some point in the evening, she's found a pen to secure her hair at the back of her head, kept in place by some feminine witchcraft that people with long hair everywhere seems to have mastered.

One leg is bent at the knee, the ball of her foot tapping absently on the floor, that restless energy manifesting in other ways even while she's standing still. Eyes draw up to the kitchen window now and then at every flash of lightning and the distant thunder that follows. For now, it seems to be moving away.

Alexander...hovers. He's been uneasy all evening, unsurprisingly, and once the other two men are gone, it's no different. Not particularly accustomed to having people in his space, he made tentative overtures towards doing the dishes himself, but the razor sharp focus that Isabella is exhibiting has him backing off, and slinking into the living room. He sits himself on one end of the couch, and clucks his tongue quietly.

Almost instantly, there's a cat in his lap, and Luigi has crawled out of his open cage door, and flown to land in the man's hair, and then walk himself down to his shoulder. A kissing sound from the bird as he starts kissing Alexander's ear in quick, anxious little motions. Blue Bell, on the other hand, turns around in his lap, finds a good place to settle, then starts kneading at his inner thigh, blissfully ignoring his hisses of discomfort.

He can't exactly be blamed for that; Isabella has the kind of volatility that tends to affect the physical space that surrounds her, her emotions running as hot and thick as molten magma whenever roused that people can't help but feel it, with or without abilities. The fact that nothing is breaking is testament to the fact, however, that whatever eruptions there are remain internal. That may or may not be a good thing.

When she arrives at the living room with those long-legged strides, a single, slender limb comes up to sweep her texts off the table to dump them into the waiting bag on the side of the couch. She knows she doesn't have to, Alexander has told her to make herself at home, but she largely does this for his sake if nothing else - he likes keeping a neat and orderly home and so she packs up her materials every night to keep the coffee table clear. This, too, is worked with that same, diamond-sharp focus and when she finally sets it aside, she finally fixes her stare on her uneasy lover.

"It was hard enough to hear about what happened," she tells him through clenched teeth and the moment the words come out, heat stings under her lashes again and she hates it. She has never been a crier and this is the second time within days that she finds herself about to lose it all over again. "But to hear you put it that way. Like you can wave it away, like it was nothing. I don't know if it's because our concern doesn't matter, or worse, you don't think you matter enough but I thought..." She takes a breath. "I thought there would at least be some fucking awareness that what we do together or apart is dangerous enough that we owe it to ourselves and each other not to hasten the worst case scenario!"

And there go the animals, being as they are both smarter than Alexander. As soon as the books start tumbling into the bag, Luigi takes off with a shriek, and Blue Bell rises to her feet and skitters towards the bedroom to hide under the bed. Alexander, on the other hand, watches her with a blank face, and his jaw sets when her stare fixes on him. There's a burst of outrage, of guilt, of the clear desire to just run the heck away when she starts to talk, but he makes himself sit, and listen, his eyes fixed on hers.

"I...wasn't...hastening anything," he says, at last, his voice quiet and brittle. "I wasn't trying to. I thought...I thought I could fix things. Before anyone else got hurt. Before someone like August had to kill someone in anger, and think about that for the rest of his fucking life. Because he would. And it would hurt him."

"What happened was you benefited from an incredibly unlikely outcome!" Isabella cries, her temper snapping under the weight of it. And she must feel his outrage because she rounds on him, her fingers balling into fists, heat rising to stain her cheeks. "What if you hadn't?! Were you just going to let the rest of us fall asleep that night and wake up the next morning to find you broken or worse?! He had you, Alexander! If he had been less...obliging..." The word is spat out, venomous and sharp. "...what then? What then?!" Her voice rises in a pitch.

"Why would you even..." Her voice breaks at the last, turning her face away from him as her expression twists. "...that isn't a situation where you ought to be fighting fair. Not if you want to win. Not if you want to come back alive. I don't think anyone is in the situations we're in because we want to be safe, or even protected from whatever consequences we think we're prepared to swallow. But you can't help or protect anyone if you're dead."

"Then I would have died," Alexander says, simply. He takes a deep, shuddery breath, but he's still holding onto his own temper by the skin of his teeth, so his voice stays low and even as he says, "Do you think that I don't know that, Isabella? I thought I was going to die. I sat in that chair, feeling those snakes slither across my skin, and the only thing I was thinking was to try and draw it out long enough to get useful information that I could try and send to you or someone else when he finally got tired of playing with his food. It takes about five to seven minutes to suffocate, give or take a couple of minutes and of course, the onset of unconsciousness, but that's forever if you can establish a link to someone." His voice is low, rambling. "I knew I fucked up. I don't need anyone to tell me that. But what you're talking about? Waking up and finding me broken, or dead, or just gone? That can happen any night. I've lived with that since I was eight years old. Any night I can be dragged off to somewhere, and the Shadows finally get tired of playing with me, and that's it. Just another Gray Harbor disappearance."

He looks down at his hands. "I don't want you to ever experience that. But I can't stop it. All I can do is try to do things that matter until it happens, until I lose a fight that I can't afford to lose. I'm sorry. I wish I could offer you more. I wish I could offer anyone more. But I can't."

"I know that!" That particular truth hurts, but she lives with it every day. Isabella's youth leaves her blind to a lot of things, but never about the perils of a dangerous profession - he has one, she has one, she was raised in a military household. But hearing it anyway leaves her eyes bright with unshed moisture; fury and terror has her tightened body lurching forward, dropping on her knees in front of him on the couch, hands coming up in an attempt to grab either sides of his collar and should she get it in his grip, gives him a hard shake.

"Our time is limited enough, so why are you in a hurry to get there?!" Her teeth grit visibly from parted lips, face twisting in agony and misery. "You didn't have to go alone! You could have taken me. Taken someone. You could have..."

Her head lowers in an effort to hide it, unable to push any other words from her mouth without incriminating herself further. Her fingers ease away from him and if he allows, her arms twine around his hunched shoulders fiercely, furiously.

"I don't understand..." she chokes, her strained inflection sounding helpless, and young. "...you're smarter than that. You're..."

Alexander doesn't resist being grabbed by the collar and shaken. He's loose and unhappy under her hands, letting her do as she likes. "I'm not," his teeth click with the shake, narrowly missing his tongue, "I'm not in a hurry. I'm not, Isabella." And then his expression hardens. "But I'm also not a child. And while I'm aware that it worried you, and it worried August, and you both feel the need to tell me at length how stupid it was, and how hurt you are...nobody has once bothered to ask me if maybe I'm not okay with having almost died!" The last is a whipcrack of sound. "If maybe that was fucking terrifying, and I could have used...a hug. Or, or something, instead of lectures and recriminations. If maybe someone might, just might, have thought, 'Alexander is a reasonably intelligent man, maybe he doesn't need his mistakes rubbed into his face like a dog having done a mess on the goddamned carpet, and maybe he might be scared out of his fucking mind, and just trying not to make a big deal out of it, because everyone else is freaking out and treating him like a child who needs to be sat in the corner until we're all sure he's really sorry!" He makes a noise. "If this is what having people care about you is like, maybe I'm better off without it."

When her fingers ease away from him, he stands up abruptly, avoiding the attempt at wrapping her arms around him. He retreats, then, towards his interior garden and the soothing scents there. A finger reaches out to touch one of the plants. "I thought I was going to die, Isabella. Not 'might' die. Not 'would die if I didn't manage to do everything right'. I thought I was going to die. And I know that if I had taken others with me, then maybe we could have actually gotten the drop on him and ended this. Instead, our best lead is probably completely gone. And that's all my fault. Because I was impulsive, and stupid, and unstable. I fucked it up for everyone, and the only reason I can live to regret it is because a mass murderer decided to be nice about things. And more people, innocent people, are probably going to die, and more people are going to have their hopes broken and their loved ones taken away from them, and that's all on me. I know that, Isabella. And I hate it. And I hate myself. I don't need you, or anyone else, to tell me how I've screwed up, or how people are going to be hurt by that, because I find it really hard to think about," his voice cracks, "anything else."

Fury drains away in a flash when it all comes tumbling out. Isabella grows white as sheet, green-gold eyes riveted on his face until he vacates the couch and heads for the inner garden and for a while, she doesn't follow him. She keeps staring at the space he vacated, silent as a grave.

But her immobility doesn't last. It never does. She pushes off on her feet and turns so she could follow him towards where he keeps his plants, but she doesn't try to touch him. She wants to, especially when his voice cracks, when he confesses that he lost their lead and how much he hates himself for going off on a tear without considering the costs, but she doesn't. Her eyes find his back, follow the gestures he makes with his plants.

"I'm sorry," she says quietly, finally, after the minutes stretch on endlessly after his last words. "You're right."

After another long moment of silence, she continues. "I wasn't just worried, when I heard. I was terrified for you. I don't know where August would be coming from, I can't speak for him, but I was also confused, because you are a very intelligent man, so why you would just go off like that was...I didn't get angry because I wanted you chastized and reflect on what you've done. If that was the impression I gave you, that wasn't..." She swallows. "...that wasn't what I intended. I got angry because I didn't understand why. I should have just asked, instead of...."

She takes several steps forward, somewhere behind him, stopping a few feet away. "I wish you told me that from the beginning," she murmurs. "The moment I got angry, the moment I opened my stupid, reckless mouth. Just whirl on me and lash out in front of August and Byron, if necessary. Tell me to back off, or if I'm stepping out of line, or if I'm not giving you what you need at that moment, because you have every right to do that. Every right to ask that of me. It wouldn't have been any more than I deserved, for not seeing past my own fright, when I ought to be doubling the effort to do so, wherever you're concerned. Alexander..." She pauses. "....you're not the one taking away people's hopes. You're not the one tainting organs or causing car accidents. You're not the reason why this man exists, or doing the things he does. None of that is on you, and the city is fortunate that you're even making the attempt to stop all of it. You don't have to do it. You don't have to do any of it, but you are, anyway. I don't think anyone is blaming you for losing the chance to end it. I'm not. I don't think August is, either. That would be beyond the pale, if we did. Nobody is blaming you." Save, perhaps, Alexander himself.

She tilts her head back and fixes her eyes right into the back of his head. "I should have pulled you away," she whispers. "The moment I saw your face at the party. I should have just taken you away and held you. But it's..." She forces the words from around the lump around her throat. "...it's hard to anticipate, also, when, whenever I ask, you keep telling me that you're fine. And when I do challenge you on it, you tell me you don't want to talk about it right now."

Alexander takes a slow, shivering breath. "I didn't...I didn't take anyone, Isabella, because I was planning to kill that man, if I could. And I wasn't certain I would be," he wets his lips, "kind. About it. Efficient. And I didn't want anyone to see that. Especially not you. But not anyone. Dying would have been better than seeing my friends look at me like I was...a bad thing." He shrugs. "And I don't want Thorne, or August, or you, or anyone to be in the position where they have to kill someone. That's a terrible thing, Isabella. If I can spare people that, I will."

A muscle in his jaw twitches. "I don't want to do that. Lash out at you. Not in front of other people. Not at all. That's not...that's not the person I want to be. I'm trying to be better. I wanted to go to that party so that I could try and be," he rubs at his face, the next few words mumbles, "reliable. Normal. Show up, not embarrass you, or myself, not do anything that makes people laugh at me. Not punch anyone, or get scared and run away. I wanted to prove that I could pass for normal, with you, among people like that. So I didn't want to talk about it there. I just wanted to have a, a nice evening." Then he laughs, shakily. "Of course, this damned town makes sure that's not in the cards. But I did okay? I wasn't the weirdest or most fucked up thing there."

He turns around, his hands going to the pockets of the baggy sweats, his eyes fixed somewhere around her collarbone. "I don't mean to be difficult, Isabella. I just am. I'm sorry. I don't mean to hurt you, or scare you, or make you feel bad. I know that I do, anyway, but it's not...I'm not trying. I promise that, at least."

"It's not..." Isabella quiets, lowering her eyes to the floor and drumming her fingers against her pockets, brows drawing down in an attempt to put thoughts into words. It would be easier, if linking was something that came naturally to her without help - but as it is, these days it requires Alexander to initiate, to help her psychic invalidity along and her jaw sets at the thought of it, hit right when she needs it most.

The hard way it is, then, she thinks, bitterly.

"I know that souls are meant to have boundaries," she says quietly. She knows on some level that as much as she lauded the arrangement she had with her twin, anyone outside of it would find it unnatural. "But I never wanted to be shielded from the worst parts of you, either. I don't think I'd be able to help you get to where you need to be, want to be, if I didn't know what you were capable of. What you're willing to risk...and...." She takes a breath and lifts her head to fix her eyes directly into his, once he has turned around to look at her. "...it's not as if I didn't know. That this is all new to you, too." A smile plays up her lips, faintly. "People being all up in your business. You didn't have to consider anyone but yourself, before and...for all I know, somewhere down the line, after everything you've seen, maybe you decided that you'd rather risk our feelings than any other part of us."

She takes a few more steps closer until they're standing toe to toe. A hand lifts to brush the back of her index's knuckles against his right cheek. "I wish I knew what to do, or say, to convince you that none of the people who love you think that you're a bad thing. You're human and you're flawed and you've endured things that not many can boast or bemoan. You're not some creature pulled from the abyss. I acknowledge that..." She swallows at the knot in her throat. "...that has to come from you. That you're the one who has to come to terms with that, that you're the one who has to reflect and accept that, eventually, if you so choose. But that doesn't mean that I don't wish I was capable of making that easier." She draws a breath and lets it wind out of her slowly. "You did just fine at the party - more than okay, really, and I don't think anyone else thought something was amiss, and...while I know now that you wanted to prove something during it..." Because she hadn't, she had thought he only agreed to go because she asked and he doesn't usually refuse her anything. "...I hope you know that I just wanted to spend the time. With you. I wasn't really...thinking beyond that. I wasn't trying to...parade you around."

His apology has her shaking her head. "My temper can be a lot, although I'm slowly starting to discover that it's a good route to take to have you excavate what's deep within you when I hammer at all the red zones," she observes, a touch dryly, but it's gentle, also. "But I can weather your own storms just fine, I think." Her hand lowers slowly. "I'm sorry, too. For coming at you all fire and fury without realizing that you needed other things first. I failed you tonight....and knowing me, I'll probably hold onto that forever, there are no excuses for it." Her lips quirk upwards ruefully though it's not quite a smile. "I don't want you to apologize for being difficult though. I'm fond of it. To me, that's no flaw."

He watches her approach, his gaze rising naturally as she steps closer. And whatever he might be feeling, he leans into the touch, the brush of her knuckles on his cheek. He rests his hands on her hips, lightly. "You have to let me figure it out, Isabella," he says, gently. "And I never thought you wanted to parade me around. It wasn't...it wasn't about you. It was about me, and about what I wanted to do. For myself." His smile is lopsided. "That's why I didn't say anything. You would have said that you didn't care about that, and that you weren't asking me to do that, and I know both of those things. But I do. Care."

Then he reaches out and...gently grabs her nose between two of his fingers. "Stop that. You didn't fail me. I accept your apology. And I'm sorry for running off and doing something stupid without letting you know about it, first. It'll probably happen again," he admits. "And you'll probably yell at me again, and I'll feel bad about it, and we'll do this again. People don't really change. But that's okay. I still love you."

"If nothing else, I ought to be grateful. I don't think I know anyone else who takes self-improvement as seriously as you do." Isabella's more open smile flashes, brief like a signal flare, over her lips. "But I know that, too. It's just difficult...not to meddle." A faintly resigned look falls over her. "One of our few but significant commonalities, I think." After a brief pause, she utters, "It's great though. That you're making the strides, even if it's just some soiree ran by Patrick Addington, of all people. Wanting to do it for yourself." Her grin manifests, brilliant and blazing. "I'm so proud of you. And I hope that you're proud of you, too."

Her eyes fall to where his fingers bracket her hips, though they do lift again when he grabs at her nose. She makes a face, it leaves it twitching once under his grip.

His dispensation of an immutable truth has her loosening a sudden laugh; it does wonders alleviating the pressure threatening to burst from her chest. "You drive me crazy," she tells him simply. "But I don't think I'd love you so intensely if you didn't. I just wish..." She pauses. "I just wish I knew the right way to love you well, too."

She closes the distance with a step, her arms sliding underneath his, if he lets her - tightening her grip when she gets there. Her cheek rests against his chest, savors his reassuring, solid vitality. The remembered terror rises, but let it not be said that she doesn't learn quickly, especially after a painful, savage burn. She puts a boot in it, her words muffled, keeping her face hidden: "I'm sorry that you felt that you had to go at it alone. Sometimes you're too generous for your own good, but you wouldn't be you if you weren't. And I'm glad...so glad...." Paltry words for it, but it's all she has. "...that you're still alive. It's not okay, to have gone through what you did, much less by yourself, and if...we weren't sympathetic enough, empathetic enough, to dispense the comfort and care when you really needed it, that's on us. It is."

Alexander snorts, although his expression softens at that brilliant grin. There's a moment when he struggles with his response to it; the praise for doing something he sees as very normal feels condescending, even though he knows that she doesn't mean it that way, but he's a prickly and prideful person in his own way, and the different emotions play out on his features. Finally, he says, a bit awkwardly, "Yes. Well. That's a thing that happened, and it went okay, aside from almost drowning or freezing to death in a giant snow globe, so let's just let it be that." He leans in, releasing her nose so that he can kiss her forehead. "It's nice to have someone in my corner. And there's no 'right' way to love me, Isabella. You just be you, and I'll be me, and we'll either go forward from there, or we won't."

He doesn't pull away from the intended embrace, this time. He relaxes into it, his own return grip more gentle as it settles on her shoulders, then her back. His heart beats beneath her cheek, steady and strong. He laughs, softly, the rumble of it felt in his chest. "You're doing me too much credit. It was selfish. And it was stupid. And I'm glad I'm still alive, too. And I don't want you to beat yourself up over any of it. It wasn't your decision, and I'm just feeling a little raw. Okay? So let's just...recognize that I'm alive, and I did a stupid thing, and I know that, and I'm very sorry that it scared and hurt you, and all the relevant information has been exchanged, so we don't have to talk about it at length any further." His voice has a hopeful lilt to it.

The look she gives him is a prompting one as conflict wars over his expression, Isabella falling quiet as she waits for him to elucidate what's in his skull. When he doesn't, she can't help but sigh, that familiar frustration stirring somewhere within her stomach, eyes turning towards the hollow of his throat. It's only the way his shadow moves that enables her to anticipate the warmth of his lips pressing on her forehead, lashes drifting shut at the wake of it. Perhaps she's about to say something else, but wary about doing any further damage tonight, she shuts her jaw with a click.

Instead, at his words that there's no 'right' way, she says, quietly: "Yeah, well, that not what the Marriage & Relationships aisle in the bookstore implies at all," she grumbles, before she pauses, and quickly adds, "Not that I've been browsing or anything..." As she makes a mental note to find some way to silence Easton Marshall. "...but it's not as if I'd have any concept to...it's...I haven't done this before." The last said, faint and helplessly. Not that he already doesn't know, and once again she can't help but wonder how she ended up here when she's obviously terrible at feelings.

"Well, don't get me wrong," she mutters, her familiar petulance surfacing a touch. "It was selfish and stupid, too, but it was done out of the desire to spare us from....more bad. More worse. I can tell you a thousand times that a few of us don't necessarily want to be, but that's something you have to figure out and accept, also, in your own time. And I don't think....I don't, at least. I never thought your heart was in the wrong place during any of it. It rarely ever is."

She tilts her head back to meet his eyes, her face set in that faintly stubborn guise, fingers settling lightly against the back of his sweater. "I hurt you, too," she reminds, making it very clear that beating herself up over at least some of it is something that he probably can't stop. "And I was selfish, too. If you don't want to discuss it any further, it's...fine." She forces herself to say the word. "But if I'm ever...again. If I'm not giving you something that you need and I'm being stupid and insensitive, I hope you'd just tell me. Right away. Not to say we won't have it out anyway, but that's very helpful information to have."

"The Marriage and Relationships aisle probably doesn't account for pain-eating monsters from another dimension, angels who kiss you on the nose and make it all better, or having to have a discussion about why your lover went off to murder someone without asking you to come along." Alexander's voice is very dry. "I wouldn't put much stock in what they have to say about how to handle our specific points of conflict."

He tilts his head further down, to try and kiss her mouth, gently and briefly. "I haven't done this before, either. We're both just throwing things at the wall, Isabella. I love your drive, and your passion, and your absolute determination to do this right, but it's okay to not pounce on everything immediately, too. As bad as I am at it, sometimes patience is a virtue." A low chuckle as he sees her stubborn, beloved features. "Fine. We're both selfish fuck-ups. We're both very sorry. And that's okay. And I'll...try, but I'm not...I don't particularly want to argue with you in public, my dear. I don't want to put either of us in that position. I will try to be better about bringing things up, at the right place and the right time. If you will try to recognize that there are some things I don't really want to hash out in front of God and everybody. Deal?"

"You'd think someone from here would have thought to publish something like that already," Isabella tells him, her irrepressible mischief resurfacing as her colorful imagination grabs onto the idea and takes off with it. "Love In the Time of the Veil Flu. Maybe one of us should pitch it to Iggy de Santos, the advice column writer?" She doesn't really know if Alexander pays all that close attention to that part of the Gazette but as far as she knows, he reads newspapers religiously. "Then again most publishing houses would just ship it off to the Contemporary Fiction aisle."

She'd say more, her pliant mouth having undertaken a direct reflection of her more unyielding self, but his kiss softens the line of it and she returns it with a tender pursing; a delicate, almost fragile thing that runs counter to how her passions normally rush. "I'm not doing it right at all if I'm not doing right by you, is the thing," she tells him. And he knows very well that she is an impatient creature also, and having that pointed out puts a sheepishly girlish air upon her. "It's been a....busy month." Emotionally, on top of everything else - an uneasy state of affairs for one who constantly believes she's allergic to feelings and tends to default to the familiar ones (especially anger). "And I didn't mean...always. Maybe I should have said immediately and not right away. I just wanted to illustrate earlier that I would have been fine with that, if you had felt the need. But I meant that...even when I rounded on you in the living room, it took me punching at you before you even unleashed yourself. I don't exactly like doing that either, I don't relish...flailing at you verbally, or physically, to get you to tell me things that I need to know. With that said, it's a deal. I'll try to...be less confrontational, and pushy, in the open air." Judging by her expression, she is fully aware of that tendency also, and not just with him - she had rounded on Byron, too, in the hospital while Erin was on her recovery bed and other people had been in the room.

"They might have. And then they probably got eaten. Maybe by their book," Alexander says, with a low chuckle. "But I like the idea, and maybe someone should. His column is interesting." His hands squeeze her against him, once more, briefly, before he lets her go.

"It has been a very busy month. And we're both pretty stressed. So, we'll try to be more, um, communicative and all of that, and it'll be okay." He smiles at her. "We'll be okay."

Then, his eyes glimmer with sudden enthusiasm. "Mister Carver gave me a null box. Would you be interested in seeing it? Well. He claims it is a null box. I can't test it without using up its mojo or whatever. So he might just be playing me. But either way, it's fairly interesting. Ah, and Yule has been trying to design luminol for ability usage. Think about that!"

"We will." She squeezes him back, and tightly, but she doesn't press it when he lets her go. "And I am. In your corner." She meets his eyes then to stress the following words. "Always...no matter what happens."

Instead of fumbling for something to fiddle with in her usual restless manner, however, she elects to tuck her fingers in her pocket, and absently tug at the moonstone pendant around her neck. The shadows in her eyes remain, but that, too, can't be helped - she's difficult with others, but she is always the harshest with herself; another to add onto the pile of personal failures, and always, always, when they matter most.

The sudden spark of boyish excitement takes Isabella aback, a little - what he says next is quite possibly the last thing she had expected after all of that. "...a null box? So like a null room, only it does...what?" Too small to fit a person inside, unless the 'box' is a coffin and for a moment, there's a sudden and terribly skeptical look as to the kind of gifts this Alistair Carver gives his associates. Still, she can't help but be curious, so easily baited especially when artifacts are in play. "I'd love to see it," she tells him genuinely. "You think something like that could be recreated? It could be useful, depending on what it does. And...he is?" Another mention of Yule, and her smile returns. "You've been talking to him more and more, it sounds like. Your old classmate. Did the two of you ever interact significantly in high school? Um..." A strange twisting falls over her features, aware that she's about to sound like an ignoramus, or out herself as a forensics novice because anyone who follows police procedural shows would be familiar with the term. "...what's...luminol?"

"I know, Isabella," Alexander says, with a soft smile.

But his excitement cannot be contained. "Hold on." He holds up a finger, then dashes into his office, nearly tripping over Blue Bell, who seems to have recognized that the yelling and/or crying part of the evening is over with for now, and has returned to the room of the humans to take her rightful due of affection. He opens one of his filing cabinets to receive a small safe, and quickly opens it, to bring out a box. Definitely not coffin sized. Once he returns, pausing for a moment to let the cat throw herself at his ankles, and give her a long pet, he returns to Isabella. The box is a lovely little thing of cloudy glass and filigree, easily contained in a palm. "I told him about Peregrine, and he said this might help. I'm not entirely sure...how, but I figure having more tools never goes amiss. It will apparently null one thing from Over There." A pause. "And I don't know. But he claims it was made from human souls. So maybe we shouldn't experiment."

A shake of his head at the question about Yule. "I mean...I knew him? He wasn't cruel. But we didn't have much to say to each other." The question brightens his features. "Luminol is interesting. It's a substance which is soluble in a specific solution, that tends to have a strong, visual reaction to exposure to the iron in hemoglobin. In practical terms, this means you can spray it on stuff, and if there's any old blood...or other bodily fluids...then it'll show up, even if someone's tried to wash the blood away. Now, it's not perfect, and there are things you can do to fool it, but most people don't put that much thought into covering up their crimes." He grins. "So, luminol for abilities would detect if an ability has been used on a place, person, or thing."

He nearly trips and she jerks forward with a start, a hand up, but thankfully he doesn't actually sprawl and dashes away to vanish into his office. Curious eyes follow his wake into that part of the house, but eventually slips past towards the locked door that she hasn't been through, and she only manages to prevent herself from following, forcing herself to stay where she is. It's with some effort that Isabella pries her attention away from that direction, muttering something to herself as she wanders around amidst the plants, a hand reaching out for one of the leaves to slide her pinky along the fragile veins she finds there. It tingles, faintly, stirrings of life energy twisting over her skin and she slowly lets her touch drop.

She turns towards him when he returns, her gaze magnetized to the excitement that bursts like fireworks all over his face, the fine lines on her own softening visibly and drawing the return of her smile before she looks down at the object in his hand. Seeing it sharpens the clarity of her irises, taking several steps closer so she could inspect it lying there. "It's beautiful," she murmurs, knees bending so she could inspect it in on eye-level. "...and old," she adds contemplatively. "It's fascinating." Despite herself, stirrings of delight start to worm their way out of that disbelieving veneer now that she's actually seeing it. Straightening up, both hands reach forward, palms up. "May I?" After inspecting it some more, whether it remains in his hand or not, her gaze lifts to Alexander. "You mentioned Peregrine had a pocketwatch?"

Human souls, though? She doesn't seem all that perturbed; if anything, it only heightens her visible interest. "What did you say Alistair Carver does again?" she wonders. "You know there are cultures out there that believe spirits can be trapped in glass. Wonder if it's the same principle. It stands to reason that if legends can be inspired by things that come from the Veil, other things that have been incorporated in other belief systems could have been, also."

That same knot of discovery starts to tighten at the tail-end of Alexander's explanation, listening - always learning. Wonder plays over her features after that, staring at him openly, because the possibilities of its use are already engaging those complicated gauges and tumblers in her brain. "That's interesting, I didn't know police had such things in their disposal," she muses. "So even if blood and bits were scrubbed with bleach, or anything, it would still show up? And if Yule's developing something like that, but for our abilities, I wonder how effective it would be in a place or thing that's been mentally wiped, like other sundry that we've come across over the summer. And if you had something like that, you'd know almost immediately if an incident was mundane or not. Did he tell you or did you detect what aspects he's proficient in? Yule, I mean."

Alexander hands over the box without hesitation. "Yeah. He kept checking it throughout everything. I never got a chance to see the face of it, but the face didn't reflect properly in his glasses. Or, uh, at all." He shakes his head. "Mind you, he didn't do anything with it. So I don't know what it does, or might indicate." A huff of exasperation for himself. "I wish I'd gotten off a read on anything over there - but my gifts are more 'bull in china shop' than 'delicate touch'." It's wry.

Her question about Carver makes him laugh, softly. "I have no idea. He seems to be more, uh, successfully self-employed than I am. And it very well could be. I admit that I'm interested in trying it out, but I don't want to waste it on something trivial. I just...also don't want to trust it."

A grin and a nod as she gets it. "Indeed. Well, bleach is a pain, but it takes a lot of repeated cleanings with bleach to completely kill the reaction. And even then, once the bleach dries enough - usually about half a day or a day - then the reaction can often be picked up again, even if it's faint. So, yeah. Those are all good questions. So far, he's gotten it to sort of work, but only for a couple of minutes, and it sort of...destroys whatever he sprays." A shrug. "I suggested that we might go over to the Other Side, and try the construction there. See if it 'sticks' better. And I think he's a healer? I don't really ask unless people volunteer, unless I need to, but it would make sense. I can't imagine being able to change chemical compositions with my abilities, or even with psychokinetics."

"I don't know," Isabella says, casually. "Sometimes, I prefer blunt instruments." Wryness colors her trickster's smile as she angles it towards him, before she presses her mouth against the hollow of his cheek. The box retrieved from his hands, she moves over to set it, carefully, on the sturdiest, most stable place she can find in the room. "I wish I had gloves," she murmurs. "Or my examiner's kit, but they're in the boat..."

Her touch is light when she starts to do a cursory inspection on the lid and its angles. "Have you tried opening it?" she asks, her voice absent, half-focused in the now when the bulk of her focus is on the artifact. She shifts so she could look at it sideways, green-gold eyes following the metal framing the glass. Instead of touching it any further to point things out, though, she steps away for just a moment to rummage around for a pencil, before returning to the table. "Anyway, all that is sound and I think some basic knowledge of chemistry would be necessary in order to do that, even with the mending aspect. Your friend sounds very smart." She looks over her shoulder at him. "I bidded on a variety of things during Joey Kelly's Jell-O event and I somehow won a dinner with him. I'll pester him about his experiments, but that's a good idea - if he's successfully altering things here with his abilities to undertake a function it didn't have, instead of simply recreating what had been there before, like what menders typically do, maybe it takes a specific kind of atmosphere to be able to maintain it and render it stable. If I don't end up coming with you, let me know how it goes? I'm very interested."

She lightly touches the tip of the pencil against the box. "Look at this," she murmurs. "I can't date it, not precisely, but like the Lover's Jewel, it appears to be another amalgam. Tool marks...here, and here. The worksmanship is crude, I'd say Bronze Age or thereabouts, if it wasn't for the metal. The filigree's indeterminable, though I won't be able to say for sure without a full metallurgical analysis."

She sets the pencil down and slowly gets on her knees in the floor so she can be on eye-level with the box. "Alexander, I'm going to..." She taps her temple with a finger. "I won't break it, I promise. Analysis only. And I won't read it."

Alexander chuckles. "Flatterer." He moves with her, gesturing to the coffee table by the couch as a place of examination. He sits down on the couch nearby, and leans forward, his eyes gleaming with interest as she looks it over. "I would assume he is; he was a medical examiner in New York, so I think he's had a lot of opportunity to hone his craft." His grin is brief. "Still not smart enough to stay the hell out of Gray Harbor, though." He laughs when she mentions winning the dinner. "That's delightful. I think you'll get along; he's curious but restrained. A good conversationalist. I somehow won a scooter tour and dinner with his little sister, despite not bidding on anything," he says, with a bewildered shake of his head. "I assume Miss Castro is to blame, since she indicated she intended to bid on something in my name."

He goes quiet as she starts speaking about the box; he leans forward, but careful to stay out of her light. "Interesting. Fascinating, really. I'd really sort of assumed he'd just picked it up off a Veil junk pile somewhere and was tossing it at me." He's only half-joking. His eyebrows go up as she indicates she wants to use her abilities, but he nods, slowly. "I'm curious, too. Just...be careful. And I should read it, at some point. Certainly before we try to use it on anything."

"A scooter tour with his sister?" Isabella looks up, grinning at him. "That actually sounds kind of fun, and at least it's still the Fall. Better get it in before it gets too cold. And if nothing else, I'm sure Yule and I will have plenty to talk about - dinner won't be boring, at the very least." There's a sudden thought, there, before she smirks. "Maybe we'll go to a Chinese restaurant, if we're going to live in interesting times." Quoting the old Eastern curse. "If we're going to remain here for a bit, we might as well embrace it."

Still, the more she hears about Alistair Carver and the objects he might be using from the Veil sparks that growing curiosity; one day, she's going to have to have a full conversation with the man, too. But today is not that day, not when she has an artifact to examine. "I'd honestly rather take this to a preservation and analysis laboratory," she confesses. "But if this thing is from the Veil, I'm going to have to..." She grimaces, but in spite of her reluctance to using her gifts, she is undeterred. If she can't use it to fight, or do much of anything with it, she can at least do this - to gather and analyze data.

"I'll try to be careful," she murmurs, before extending her hands slowly, curling her fingers into the air close to the box on either sides of it. Her eyes drift shut. He'd feel it in the air, the splash of heat that suddenly washes across his own sensitivities; the dragon stirs from its shackles, its half-blind head lifting as it shuffles out of its torpor. He'd hear her take a breath...and open the blast doors.

It's the first time she's ever tried to leave herself open in an effort to detect, casting a wide net with not just one aspect, but all three that she is capable of to focus on the box. And the deluge of impressions that she collects at such a short time is so overwhelming that it shortens her breath and causes humidity to push out from under her pores, leaving her skin slick and luminous. A bead of perspiration runs down her temple, her expression contorting as if in pain. But she holds onto the threads that are unspooling around her, snatching them with psychic fingers, collecting them. She speaks while she's doing this, her voice soft and absent. As if she's stepped out of her body. He's heard it before.

"It reverses what you would normally expect," she tells him. "If you tried to detect it with a mover's power, it won't show you where it is, but where it isn't. You have to flip those instincts the other way and look for where there's nothing instead. And if you try the mending aspect...it won't budge. You can't do anything with it, not build it up, or break it down, or..." Teeth dig into the cushion of her lower lip. "But it...Alexander, I think this is the strangest part. The nullifcation, it's not like...it's not as if someone managed to discover how to make it permanent and stick it in a confined space. It's the box's. It's not pulling it from some invisible gateway, nor does it come from an external source. It's the source of it." And depending on where one is standing, it is either great or terrifying. How can a box have abilities just like theirs? "...and it's not constant. It's...moving. Fluctuating."

She slowly lets it go, and reaches out to gently brush her fingertips across the lid...

...she suddenly jerks backwards as if burned, a visceral reaction that has her dropping violently on her rear and her heels scrambling backwards to gain some quick distance from it. Her complexion loses color, growing almost gray, wide eyes and dilated pupils fixed on the container. Her heart is in her throat, pounding savagely against it.

"No," she manages to whisper. The hand that touched it so briefly shakes with spasmodic tremors; as if that single brush and accidental application - something that she hadn't managed to get a handle on, just yet, given her inexperience with it, seems to have triggered that base lizard-brain that every human being has, that spike of indeterminable fear that drives into the base of her skull. She hadn't even seen anything, felt anything, but here she is, somehow managing not to scream. "Don't read it." She swallows, looking up at Alexander on the couch. "I'm serious, Alexander. I've never tried to prevent you from reading before, I've accepted that it's what you're good at, but if there's ever an exception to the rule, it's this one. Please don't read it."

"I'm hoping that it will be. I'm at least...open to the idea. So we'll see what happens." With that, Alexander settles back so that he doesn't distract her as she examines the box. His lips quirk upwards as she indicates that she'd like to take it to a lab, but she clearly knows the problems with that, so he doesn't speak. Instead, he watches with fascination. He's mostly worked with his abilities on his own, with only occasional companions, and watching other people use their powers has never quite lost its appeal - even if he grumbles about the trouble they attract on themselves by doing so. He drinks in the information in rapt silence.

And then she goes pale and scrambles backwards, and he lunges forward, putting himself between the box and her. "Isabella! Are you okay?" His fist is raised over the box, as if he is about to smash the hell out of it if it does anything suspicious. "What did it do? I can destroy it? And then go PUNCH that Brit."

The sudden movements by Alexander rouses her from her place on the ground, her lighter body pushing upwards by her heels. "No, wait!" She reaches out to try and grab his wrist, to stay him before he can drive it into the box and rip open his hand in the process, or worse - do that and accidentally unleash what other torments it could be holding directly into his mind. "...you've been through enough, the last couple of days," Isabella reminds, quietly, if she makes contact. If she does, she'll try to ease his hand back down. Glancing down at the floor, she can't help but smile faintly. "Besides, blood's tricky to get out of carpets."

Her jaw works as she looks at the box, trying to parse what she had experienced through the thick film of incomprehensible terror clawing down her spine. She attempts to repress a shudder. After a breath, and some struggling to calm her wildly beating heart, she continues: "...I wasn't trying to read it. Maybe it was because I was active with all the other ones and maybe because I can't control that as well just yet, but...it's a warning. Like..." Her tongue touches on her bottom lip, struggling to find the words. "Distilled, concentrated terror that triggers a visceral reaction if you even try to read it. And that it's probably a ludicrously bad idea to try."

After a moment, she shakes her head in an attempt to clear it, looking over at him, expression softening visibly. "I think it's fine to keep it, and I think it would be useful, now that we know how it works and its other oddities, just...try not to be too curious about its origins."

Alexander stops immediately at the touch of her hand. "I wasn't going to smash it," he says, mildly. "Unless it hurt you. Then I was gonna smash it." He winks at her, but puts his fist down, and watches her with clear concern. "All right. I did mention that it was supposed to made with souls. I can't imagine the process of that was...pleasant. And that could explain what you felt from the way it seemed to sort of have abilities? Maybe the parts of whoever that create the abilities were stripped out and integrated into the creation." He reaches for the box, picking it up and turning it carefully around and over.

"A terror response like that could be an interesting form of intellectual property protection. Keep anyone from finding out the secret of how to make more," he muses. "If it has a 'warning' attached with it. The psychic equivalent of those pillow tags that warn you about federal prosecution if you tear them off." He considers her last response, then grins. "Yeah," its a drawl, "you know that's not even remotely possible for me. I'm pretty much made of curiosity and awkward, with occasional bursts of rage. But I'll try not to get TOO nosy about it." He sobers. "But you're okay?"

"Alexander...." The tightness of Isabella's facial lines softens at what he says, followed by the wink. There's faint exasperation, but very little, subsumed almost entirely by affection and the clear, visible fact that she can't help but be endeared (and be conflicted by the fact that she is when it wars against her prickly pride - did we mention she's terrible with feelings?). "As for whether or not it was constructed out of souls, it's...unclear. Even with the other two aspects brought to bear, I can't tell you with any certainty that it was. It might very well be that the only way to do that is to use your unique expertise, but as I already stated, it's an incredibly bad idea."

She grimaces openly when he goes at length about terror responses, unable to help but feel embarrassed at being caught off-guard that way. Though when her lover reiterates, again, one of his best and most frustrating qualities, she angles him a very long look. "Well," she says. "Apparently I like that combination, and I'm sure that's absolutely telling, but this is me. Not giving a shit." The rare curse. This time, it's her that winks.

His returned sobriety reflects her own. "I'm okay," she reassures quietly, searching his face. "What about you?" And she doesn't mean physically, or even regarding the situation with the box.

Alexander blinks at her, appearing genuinely confused for a moment. "I wasn't the one who read the terror box," he says, mildly. "Oh. The rest. If you're okay, then I'm okay, Isabella. I'm not jumping for joy or anything, and I've got more nightmare fuel for the rest of my life, but what else is new." He flashes her a smile. "I also have a CD of Christmas carols as covered by metal bands. Wanna share headphones and blow out our eardrums with holiday cheer?" Sometimes emotional instabilities can be a blessing; his moods might be fierce, but they rarely last long.

"I didn't read the terror box," Isabella grumps and it may be that she will hold a grudge on that ability for the rest of her life. "The box simply warned me not to even try, there's a difference." It's a very important distinction.

If you're okay, then I'm okay.

Skepticism returns on her features, attempting to parse that statement with some accuracy - how does one quantify his mood through the state of another?
She presses her lips together, her concern remaining (with no small amount of self-castigation), and mention of more nightmare fuel only reminds her of his repository of traumas.

"We're two different people, Alexander," she tells him softly. "You don't have to..." Her voice trails off and she doesn't continue it. She's done enough damage today.

His invitation has her blinking once at him, clearly attempting to wrap her head around the idea of metalheads screaming Christmas cheer through high-quality speakers, possibly peppered with random profanity, before she chuckles. "Sure," she says, simply. "It sounds fun. Besides, I'm very curious about your music set up in your bedroom, anyway. We don't exactly listen to a lot of music while we're in there." And then, more slyly. "We make it."