2020-01-10 - Tortilla Soup For the Soul

Opt For Magnificence The Way The Kitchen Gods Demand (a NPC) rolls 4 (6 5 4 3 2 2) vs Oh God Do You Even Know How To Make A Proper Sandwich (a NPC)'s 4 (8 6 4 2 2 1) Marginal Victory for Oh God Do You Even Know How To Make A Proper Sandwich. (Rolled by: Isabella)

Stoned Enough To Eat It (a NPC) rolls 4 (6 4 3 3 3 3) vs Bellasandwich Cannot Be Defeated (a NPC)'s 4 (8 7 5 5 3 1) Marginal Victory for Bellasandwich Cannot Be Defeated. (Rolled by: James)

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For some reason the cold day has felt like an endless slog in spite of a lengthy to-do list that only seems to grow more numerous the longer she stays in Gray Harbor; the outside world is blanketed in gray, cold coalescing into mist that seems to linger from the ground and leaving a ghostly film on Elm Street's surrounding shapes. It is nothing that rain can slice through, though it does try its damndest to do so - sheets of water patter against the windows and flood the constantly poor state of the avenue's sewers, but the frost and the fog remain, worsened by the flickering lights of the street lamps outside of Alexander's residence.

Despite the hour, well into supper, Isabella somehow makes it back first, eyes casting, first, to the couch in an effort to divine whether Isolde has returned from whatever trip she is on - she has not, judging by the fact that her books and other texts remain on the coffee table where her origami would be. She makes a mental note to pack them away just as she reaches for the thermostat and turns it down to more human temperatures. Now that the hole in her foot is almost healed, and her hearing has for the most part returned save for a slight muffling, so, too, does the unnatural chill in her blood abate. It still lingers, but at this stage, there's no sense in making Alexander suffer with her - she can withstand a few degrees of cold.

No takeout for dinner today; she doesn't feel like it. Instead, she takes out the frozen tupperware that contains a sizable portion of Ruiz's homemade tortilla soup, uncovering it only slightly to let it vent and popping it in the microwave oven, in case Alexander does show up for dinner, and does her absolute level best to make a couple of sandwiches, because they are the only things in the world she can consistently make that won't run the risk of poisoning anyone. And she must be having an off day because the moment one is constructed, she takes an experimental bite, and grows somewhat green at the gills. "Oh my god," she groans, spitting out the bite in the nearby trash can. "This is ridiculous, how is honey mustard and malt vinegar not a winning combination? It worked just fine in that place with the pretzel bites!" They were in separate containers, Isabella.

"Miaow?" Blue Bell contributes, hopping on the counter and peering at her with her large, blue eyes.

"You agree, don't you, Blue Bell?" The young woman picks up the plate, and offers it to the cat, who takes one dainty sniff...

...before she hisses at it and leaps off the surface, scrambling towards the living room and leaving the green-eyed brunette staring off after her. She's never seen that cat hiss before.

"...wow. Okay. Never do that again."

As Blue Bell scrambles through the living room, the front door rattles as Alexander puts the key in the lock, and opens the door, letting in a cold draft of air. It doesn't make the cat stop in her flight, obviously. Luigi in his cage sings out a welcome, though, and once he has the door closed, the bird dive bombs his hair, landing on the top of his head and calling out until Alexander reaches up a hand and lets him step up. He coos softly to the bird and tickles Luigi's neck feathers until the bird wiggles with pleasure, then flies back to his cage. Sniffing the air, he turns towards the kitchen, and smiles at Isabella. "Hey."

He move into the kitchen and if she allows, reaches out to pull her into a warm, cuddly embrace. "You look beautiful, Isabella. How are you doing?" He's moving stiffly because of the back injury, and he's careful of her wounds as he tries to cuddle.

Alexander's sudden arrival has her looking up from her concentrated frowning on the Fail Sandwich and the platter which holds it. "Hey," Isabella greets, her earlier expression abandoned in favor of a small smile. "You're just in time to witness the unveiling of the next weapon of mass destruction, by the way." She gestures to the innocuous looking sandwich that she has left on the counter. "I think Vishnu still said it best in the Bhagavad Gita, though: Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds." A quote more famously attributed to the father of the Atomic Age, but trust an archaeologist to accurately identify the true source behind the words.

There's no resistance from her, never one to reject any tokens of his affection. Her arms wind around his shoulders, though she is careful not to touch the open strip torn open on his back, or wherever it could be under his layers of clothing. But she does give him a warm squeeze, her head finding the crook where his shoulder meets his neck and lets her lashes drift shut. "Are you trying to make me feel better about the sandwich?" she quips quietly. "I've never been so vehemently rejected by anything before." Her mouth finds his cheek, before pulling back just enough to look at him. Concern fills her eyes as her hands slip away, but only so she could cup his face within both.

"I'm tired, but I'm fine, and I really should be asking you that," she tells him. "How are you, darling?"

Alexander pauses, and peers at the sandwich on the plate. "It...doesn't look too bad," he says, after a moment. He continues to cuddle for a moment or two, then slips away to grab a knife so that he can cut the sandwich into two, triangular halves. He picks up one half and sniffs at it, curiously. Then blinks at the unexpectedly sharp sensation. "What's...in this, Isabella?"

He smiles, although there's some sadness lurking in his eyes. And, of course, she would know that he's hardly slept at all. "I'm okay. I've gotten some things done. Byron asked me over to pick up a thing he found at a murder scene, and then August gave me the book he had, and I've got some stuff to give to Yule. It was a," he stops to yawn, "productive day. I even swung by the police department and had coffee with Bennie." He leans against the counter and blinks slowly at her. "Byron had a couple of questions. Unsurprisingly."

"Uh..." Isabella hesitates. "....if you really want to try it, I won't stop you, but I'm not telling you what's in it. Take some good advice from someone who loves you very much that the cat's survival instincts are probably on point. Luckily, we still have some of Javier's soup left." Her smile takes on a more sheepish bent before she moves towards the microwave to don some pot holders and remove the tupperware within. She sets it on the counter, and proceeds to retrieve two bowls, busying herself with fixing the both of them something to eat - she seems even more adamant about taking care of him in the foreseeable future.

"You mean the book that August may have retrieved from the Asylum? Have you..." Her expression reflects that familiar conflict; he is one of the best readers she knows, but ever since the incident in her family home, she can't help but worry there, also. Still, he would know her meaning, just by her face alone. She pours some soup into both bowls, and slips some spoons in. "And Byron took something from a murder scene? What stuff for Yule? How's Bennie doing?"

It's the last bit that has her pausing from her plethora of questions. She walks over to him to carefully hand him a bowl. "What did you tell him?" she asks quietly, her green eyes searching his darker own.

Alexander loves Isabella. And because he loves her, he wants to eat the things she's cooked - or at least assembled, and tell her how good it is. He raises the sandwich half to his mouth, and opens his lips. The sour/sharp scent wafts up to his nose. He stops. His mouth closes, and he clears his throat before gently putting it back down on the plate. "I think I'll bow to your wisdom on this one," he admits. "But I thank you for trying." He leans and places a kiss on her nose. "Soup sounds lovely." He watches her divide out the soup with a smile.

"Yeah. It's another romance novel. About a knight or something. And yeah. I read it on the way home." He takes a breath. "Violet is dead. I assume Alejandro is, too. But I still need to get Javier's book, and figure out what happened. As much as possible. I'll go by there tonight after he's off duty, if he lets me." A simple nod at the question about Byron, although he goes on to say, "August's medical records. He wants to compare MRIs - see if the Asylum gave us brain damage or something. And Bennie's...good. She's tired and headachey. But she says she and Easton are working on things, and I think she's in a better place than she was."

He takes the bowl with a murmur of thanks. A tilt of his head towards the couch, inviting her to grab her own soup and walk with him to sit down. "I told him the truth. I didn't go through the whole, gory thing. He mostly wanted to know what happened to Zachary in the end. So, I told him."

She laughs when he gives it the good old college try, her old mischief surfacing visibly as she watches him fail to even put it in his mouth. Isabella reaches out to help save him from himself, depositing the sandwich in the trash - at least it was just one. Her nose twitches under his kiss, leaving the line of her mouth touched with that palpable degree of tenderness that she affords exclusively for him. "I'm not offended, I promise. Honestly, I don't know why I keep trying." But she always will, she doesn't know when to quit.

She picks up her own bowl and pauses when he drops the bomb about Violet's death. "Wait, what?" The last word is sharper than she intends, but the sudden bad news is so surprising that she's unable to control her pitch. "Alexander, I'm..." The hits just keep on coming, don't they? Teeth clip tight between closed lips, her jaw clenches at the sensitive hinge where it meets her neck. Her stomach twists - and while she didn't know Violet, she is familiar with just how much her friendship meant to Alexander. The rest of it, the MRIs and Bennie, she tables them for now, though chances are she has things to say on both.

The young woman moves, finally, to take up a space next to him on the couch and eases down on the cushions, taking a quiet sip of her soup. Marks of her traveling are on her, whenever she has a bowl in her hands. She sips from the edge, ignoring the spoon, cradling it between her hands. "...are you sure?" she asks quietly, her eyes on his hard, but handsome profile. "I know we already talked about how emotional impressions make it difficult to fake memories on objects but...things tend to get warped on the other side, also. I didn't know you already read The Flame and the Flower, what did both books have? Maybe I can help pick it apart. I'll get back to the MRIs and Bennie in a minute, but..are you okay? She was your friend."

A quiet nod, regarding Byron's questions about Zachary. "I knew he wanted to ask," she tells him. "Of course he would, and it was always your story to tell, I just..." She hesitates, but only briefly. "...I just hate the fact that you had to relive it outside of your head." So much that it rendered her physically ill. So much that she had to remove herself from his house so he wouldn't feel it.

"Because you're brilliant and beautiful and never give up if you know you can do something," Alexander says, and although his voice is light and teasing, the light in his eyes says that every word is sincere. He looks away at her reaction, taking some time to sample the tortilla soup. "...mm. It tastes like Javier is very happy to have somewhere with a kitchen again." He looks a little wistful. "I've got to start practicing the cooking again. It's important to be able to make things like this for the people I like."

He sobers, then, and says, "I knew. That she was dead. She's been over there so long, and she left Blue Bell. But...yes, this is confirmation. But not what killed her. According to what I read off the books, she found Alice in the Asylum. They were together. But then there was," a frown, "something bad. Screaming, pain, torture." He breathes out. "And then in August's book, I saw Violet dead. Alice weeping over her body, and then running. I still made a promise. If I can locate Alice, and if she's...able to be helped, then I have to help her."

There are a few bites of the soup before he answers the rest. "I know you do," he says, softly. "And I appreciate that. But I suppose I wasn't surprised. As I started having more friends, people I care about, I've been thinking about Zachary, and the Church, a lot more. Both just...remembering them, and what I felt there. And wondering how many of my friends would stay my friends, if they knew what I had done. How many of them would look at me with horror, or pity." He shrugs. "With that being so often in my mind, I guess it was inevitable that the Shadows would use it."

"Are you sure you're not describing yourself when you say that?" Isabella banters back, her good humor resurfacing as she returns her own fire, shooting him a look over her bowl before taking another sip of hers. "This is the first thing I've ever tasted of Javier's," she tells him. "I knew he taught you how to make eggplant lasagna, so it wasn't as if I was unaware of his skills in the kitchen, but this soup..." She takes a deep, appreciative breath of it. "It's perfect for this weather," she murmurs, green-gold eyes gravitating to the window for the moment, watching the gray outside; the film that matches the interior of her skull, blanketing over...

...over...

"...the kitchen is there for you to use," she tells him in a soft, but encouraging fashion, nudging his shoulder with her own. "I think I rarely ever see you happier outside of learning new skills. You always put everything you are into the attempt." In that, at least, they are very much alike.

His further recounting about the books and the Asylum has her staring down at the bowl, and he'd be able to sense it - the words on her lips, that perhaps they should abandon this specific quest. But his reiteration of his promise to a confirmed dead friend prevents her from saying it; would he be swayed, especially after that? And she knows just how much he values his own friendships, how he gives so much of himself to perfect strangers. Her verdant stare lifts, golden flecks mottling his twin reflections, that familiar, signature defiance tightening the lines of her face. "Okay," she tells him quietly. "If I can help you help her, I will. Let me know when you manage to get the book from Javier, piece together what happened. And then...we'll go hunt for a secret room. See if we can find any more there."

A what?

Her expression is a strange one, when she says it. Resolute, but confused, her eyes drifting far away for a moment. She finishes the rest of her bowl and sets it down on the coffee table; the better to focus on him and whatever he could need, turning sideways so she could regard him fully. "I didn't know you were reflecting on that part of your life lately," she replies gently. "Now that you've explained it, it's understandable." Her attention drifts towards his hands, the fingers and knuckles she has grown to love, and how riddled they are with the faint scars of his tumultuous life. "I can't promise you that they won't be horrified, or that they won't feel pity. I can only tell you how I feel about it, and I have. But...I think if they knew, and if they abandoned you after learning it...it would hurt, and I..." She chuckles hoarsely. "Would probably be ludicrously pissed on your behalf, but if nothing else, you would know if what's there is real. And...I can't claim to know them as well as you do, but who I do got to know, I trust. I trust them to realize that nobody is perfect and that none of them would cast the first stone. Relationships require a little bit of faith, too, Alexander....especially there."

Alexander laughs, rough but genuine. "Flatterer. Just take the compliment," he demands playfully, and uses one foot to nudge her leg, since his hands are full of soup. Which he's clearly enjoying. "It's very good. August has been helping me learn to cook, as well. Between the two of them, I can almost say that I can manage NOT to burn things a good...twenty percent of the time." A flash of a grin, and when she nudges his shoulder, he bumps hers back.

He studies her expression. "You know, we don't have to go back to the Asylum. We know she's not there," he points out, quietly. "She got out, somehow. Released others. That's what that one inmate was saying, right? I'm not really looking to go back to a place that I can't remember," he adds, his voice dry. Although what she says does make him pause, and study her with a dark and thoughtful interest. "Why would you think there's a secret room to find?"

"And...of course it would hurt. It always hurts, Isabella. Friendship pretty much always hurts," he points out, wry and fond. "But I wouldn't blame them. If they didn't want to be around me. I mean, I'm the guy who pulled a knife on people at my birthday party." A huff of self-mocking laughter. "At this point, probably nobody'd be surprised at what I used to do. Which doesn't mean I'm going to go around just...telling people. I don't want them to have to deal with that sort of burden. And I don't want to have to tell that story a thousand times." He shrugs. "But if it comes out, then I guess it comes out."

"Never!" Isabella laughs, all playful defiance as she regards him sidelong. "Not all of us managed to catch up to our rugged good looks in later life as you did, you know." She picks at the fabric of her leggings. "Sometimes I look in the mirror and still see the lanky fourteen year old girl with the horrific braces." And she eyeballs him there, because she knows he read her father's coat and the incident she's talking about. It wouldn't be like her to willingly remind him of her tarnished dignity, not like he would ever forget that story, but if it gets him to laugh, or smile, it is well worth the dent in her pride and the underlying presence of the Ugly Duckling Syndrome.

Her humor fades, and there's relief in her features, the noises he makes suggestive enough that he means what he had told her before; all he is interested in is Alice's welfare. "If something was after her and her twin while they were in the Asylum together, it might've been the reason why she released the other inmates. Steve said that she and Megan released some of them, but I don't think he actually said that Alice and Megan released them together. He could have been talking about two separate incidents. Or maybe it was Megan who was coming - if she's Their agent, that's bad enough to warrant at least some horror." She turns at that, easing her body against the back of the couch, rolling her head back to look at the ceiling.

"I wouldn't blame them either," she tells him, regarding the pain friendships tend to bring. "I'll still get mad about it though, if it happens. And that...what happened at your birthday party was on me. It isn't as if you hadn't warned me about your feelings about surprises. At the same time, I know how important it is to you to engage in normal social things, so in the end I picked the latter over the former. I know you feel like you misstepped, but so did I. I made the decision to execute it that way, and you got triggered." There's enough guilt to weigh those shoulders down, but she turns her head and looks him right in the eye when she says it. Her expression gentles further, after that. "It's your story," she repeats. "You don't have to tell anyone anything even if it does come out. But I know it hurts, and I know you'll carry the pain of it for as long as you live, so...I hope that.." Her jaw works in an attempt to find the words, and posits, haltingly, "...whatever makes it hurt less, I hope you'll let me know. So I could try."

After a long silence, she addresses the bit about the secret room: "I remember a clock," she tells him quietly. "When we came back...I kept hearing it. I think...I did something, before we left the Asylum. Because ever since then it would just..." She gestures to the back of her head. "Anyway, I ended up digging it out. I remember three words on its face, for three places. Three locations, but only one which is accessible to us, and has connections to not just the current matter, but what happened over....over the summer that I can trace. The only bar around tended by the Psychiatrist's nephew, and once hosted the ghost of Billy Gohl. And I thought it was ridiculous, at first, because as far as I know, Two If By Sea doesn't have a basement. I spend enough time there...but...I don't think I'm wrong about this one, Alexander. I think there's a basement hidden in the building that's somehow connected to all of it. I told Easton and he said I'm welcome to go look for it and see what's in it, since he's been busy with some other things and repairing his relationship with Bennie. I'll probably drop by closing time at some point and investigate."

Alexander's eyes sparkle at that look from Isabella, and it's very clear that in that moment, he's remembering another man's memory, seeing that lanky girl and her experiments. His smile turns teasing. "You know, we really ought to see how that young man is doing, these days. Maybe invite him for lunch, or something..." He's not serious, that much is obvious, but he does enjoy the times when she's flustered and outraged and filled with life.

"And I don't know. It's possible, but it seems like searching for zebras. If he said X and Y were freeing people, assuming he means at different times seems to unnecessarily complicate matters. And I don't know that Alice isn't their agent, now. There was a suggestion that she was stalking people in town before Violet even left, and something wearing her presence attacked Violet in a Dream. I don't know if that was truly her. Violet insisted that she couldn't. And the woman in the memories of the books didn't seem to have any malice in her towards her sister."

He falls silent, then. Studying her and her fierce protectiveness. He reaches out to caress one side of her face with a calloused hand. "I love you," he says, simply. Then his lips quirk upwards. "Mind you, I'm pretty sure a nice, quiet birthday dinner with friends is also a normal social thing, and doesn't have to involve scaring me out of my brain." He tweaks her nose, lightly. "But it was nice. And I know you'll help anyway you can, Isabella."

The other, though? It brings back that sharpness to his features, the spark of interest in a mystery. "Then we should find it." He doesn't doubt her, or how she remembered this one thing from the Asylum; his trust in her is complete, at least in that regard. "Will you take me, when you go? I'd rather you not go alone, considering all the weirdness around the Asylum."

Her experiments. Isabella is immediately wary of that sparkly-eyed look and when the idea of tracking down her class' former high school mascot is placed on the table, her eyes narrow at him. It's still playfully done, but the threat behind it is as visible as anything real: "Don't you dare!" she exclaims, youthful outrage and barely suppressed laughter coloring the words, and makes a big, exaggerated show of attempting to steal his bowl and deprive him of the rest of Ruiz's delicious food. No soup for you!

She falls quiet, then, listening intently as Alexander, as he usually does, fill in the gaps of her knowledge. "Then whatever is working with Megan must be wearing Alice's face, if that's the case. Taking on her form for whatever reason," she replies. "It's the simplest explanation I could think of, if the chronology doesn't parse. If Alice's image was already stalking people in the city before Violet disappeared, and the Alice in the books' memories didn't hold the same kind of malice...chances are maybe the Alice that Steve knows of might not have been her at all. Either way, you're right about her no longer being in the Asylum...unless the worst happened. Hopefully Javier's book has some more of the missing pieces."

She is on the verge of saying more when his hand finds her face, and she gravitates immediately to the roughness and warmth of it, the cup fitting against a smooth, sunkissed cheek. Her eyes hood, irises nothing but evergreen slits, turning into it until she closes her eyes and basks in the way his low and pleasant baritone enunciates the three words that form one of the most difficult and celebrated phrases in the English language. Lips purse against the heel of his palm, before she looks up at his beloved features and smiles. "I love you," she replies, softly. "And it was your fortieth birthday. That only happens once, I thought that it should be a bit of a production to commemorate the occasion. But I'm glad you thought it was nice, I need to track down Nicole for pictures of Joey in the Marilyn Monroe dress, that moment needs to be immortalized."

Her hand reaches up, fingertips gently sliding between the tender spaces between the knuckles of that cupping hand, but the absent, drifting touch stops moving at his request. He would find it there, if only briefly - the way she hesitates. It isn't because she particularly wants to go alone, but considering the toils he has endured in the last few weeks, her own worry resting in a hard, unforgiving knot somewhere in her stomach, she doesn't want to place more weight upon the cracks. But his dark eyes look so intent and alive, determination stitched over his expression, that the thought burns away almost immediately.

He isn't a child, and this was his task. He had a promise to keep, and if the secret basement somehow led to answers regarding Alice...

"Okay, we'll go," she tells him quietly. "The two of us'll go look for it after you try and convince Javier to read his book. We might need what's in there." She doesn't like that either, but she at the very least trusts his abilities there, nevermind the adamant cry of frustration that she still remembers the day after she read her mother's murder: That's why I'm here, damn it!

After a quiet exhale, she switches tracks, now that a decision and a next step has been made and decided upon. "You said August wanted to compare MRIs to take a look at whatever damage our brains might have endured after our visit there?" she prompts. "Did he get his done? What did it say?"

"Hey! That's my soup!" Alexander doesn't really resist having his bowl of soup stolen, but he makes an exaggerated expression of loss and sorrow when she denies him the delicious food. "So cold. So cruel!" And then, because his hands are free and hers aren't? He reaches down and lightly tickles her sides as revenge. It means he's still smiling, even as the subject shifts back to more serious matters. "Maybe. Or something happened at the Asylum that turned Alice. I don't know that 'time' works the same way Over There as it does here. I'm still keeping an open mind on all of that."

He laughs, again, softly at the reminder about Joey. "I still don't know how you got Kelly to do that. I assume a large amount of money was involved." A shake of his head, his thumb caressing her skin. He sees the hesitation, and something flickers in his eyes. His hand withdraws, and he sits back, watching her warily until she says that she'll let him come along. "All right. Just let me know when works for you, and we'll go find a secret room." He's terribly excited about that idea, even knowing it might be something gruesome or dark behind it.

"And yeah, August got some done. I'm taking them to Yule - I'm not a doctor. While I know enough to read the average medical chart or autopsy report - mostly autopsy reports - , for something like this, I think we'd definitely need someone who has actually attended med school." He grins. "But I'll do that soon enough." He slouches back into the embrace of the old, worn couch, and yawns. "I can't wait for winter to be over. It's cold, it's wet, and people drive like assholes."

The look he gets in return when she manages to wrest the (mostly empty) bowl away from him is a smug and triumphant one, but then he reaches with tickling fingers and she sets it on the coffee table next to hers immediately before he makes contact. She laughs when he finds her ribs, and playfully bats at his uninjured shoulder with her hand. "That is a fight you do not want to start!" Isabella threatens, cheeks flushing - it's rare for her to be embarrassed, but the reminder that she, too, is helplessly ticklish never fails to bring it out of her. She knows he is the same, however, and that knowledge is one that she will attempt to exploit when she fights back - though not with her usual uninhibited vengeance. He's injured, and stiff, and she doesn't want him to keep hurting.

But his observations about how Time seems to work differently Over There are noted, and taken into account - and she does know that, if not just because of what she experienced the last time she was trapped in the Veil for a prolonged period. There's a quick nod, a softening of her features that sharpens once again, letting out another laugh. "Honestly?" she says. "I bid on his lap dance at the charity auction, I was going to use it as his 'audition' for the cake jumping, see just how far he's willing to go for the sake of a friend. I didn't win it, mind, and uh...honestly I wouldn't know what to do if I did win it, because I've never really had a lap dance given to me before ever." She might not have thought that through when she tossed the money in the pot, and thus the world finds itself deprived of a possibly panicked and flailing Isabella, who has never been in a strip club's champagne room, or anything similar (and chances are that would have been hilarious, but alas!). "But I was helping Erin hose Jell-O out of the gym after the event and he was still there organizing the books, so while I was inviting him to come to the resort, I remembered his Amateur Night antics and just asked him."

His withdrawal has her missing his warmth almost immediately, unable to help the lingering smile at his excitement - she is, too. She's never found a secret room before, in her entire career as an archaeologist. At least, not this way. "Sure," she tells him. "We'll go as soon as you finish talking to Javier." If nothing else, she wants him armed with as much information as possible. Again, this quest was his.

Mention of Yule and MRIs have her pausing again. "It'd be good. I saw him today, actually. Yule. He wanted me to stop by his office." She watches him slouch against the couch next to her, before she slowly tilts sideways, to rest her cheek against the curve of his uninjured shoulder. Minutes pass in silence and when she speaks, again, her voice is quiet. "He's been trying to look for markers, I don't know if I mentioned - remember all those theories we exchanged about how we developed....this?" She gestures vaguely to her temple. "So I volunteered some of my blood to compare to his. He sent them off to a lab, for genetic testing but...he showed me a letter today and the samples were....I don't know what other word to use but commandeered. By FCN, Inc. Something about how the lab he originally sent it to was inundated by requests, so they sent them over to the same outfit who produced the Veil-chicken soup and the plastic coin in my pocket."

"You're the one who started it. You stole my dinner. My very tasty dinner. That sort of slight cannot go unanswered," Alexander responds, his tone solemn but eyes laughing. He doesn't tickle too much - he's not the only one injured, after all, and he's careful not to try and disturb her into something painful. His eyebrows dance upwards at the talk of the lap dance. "Do you want one?" he asks, amused and serious all at the same time. "I'm sure it can be arranged. I've been by the Platinum a couple of times for work, and there've been one or two women there, so -- it wouldn't be hard to get someone willing. Probably a woman, though. I don't think they have any male dancers. But," his grin is lazy, almost challenging, "if your heart is set on Joseph Kelly, I guess I could talk to him."

Maybe he's looking for revenge for that surprise party after all.

When she tilts sideways, his arms settle around her, warm again, stroking her arms (careful of her wound) as if he might push heat into her and chase away the lingering remnants of the cold. His brow furrows with concern. "...should have expected that," he says, after a few moments of thought. "It's like when you tried to call the state offices for records, and we got diverted back to Veil City Hall. Something watches. And apparently intervenes, when we start asking too many questions where the wider world might hear and become curious." Another pause. "I don't really like the idea of that corporation having a sample of your blood. But there's nothing to be done about it now. I did warn him."

"My heart is set on someone who doesn't dance," Isabella points out with a sniff. "So to claim that it would be on any of the lovely ladies or willing men affiliated with the Cabaret would be a gross exaggeration I would never countenance." She even breaks out the polished diction when she says it, turning her nose up and flashing him the most haughty, Downton Abbey-esque expression that she could muster, though it's all clearly done in jest - those eyes are glittering with humor. "Though that does remind me to ask you why you don't, is it because you think it's embarrassing?" Curiosity there, always whenever he's concerned, watching his dark eyes for just a moment. There has been no offense, not really, during the Gatsby Ball, and there were plenty enough willing partners, but she is inquisitive enough to ask him about his denials, if not just for future reference.

This is comforting, too, at least. With his arms draping around her on the couch, she tilts into him further until they can slide lengthwise on the couch together, a leg draped loosely on his and half her face buried at the juncture where his shoulder meets the side of his chest. "I posited to Yule that maybe it was the Addingtons or some watcher affiliated with the family. They seem to view themselves as the custodians of the city's more...complicated secrets," she murmurs, lashes lidding partially over her eyes, listening to the strength and cadence of his steady, beating heart. "And neither do I, about my blood - now that we can suspect at the very least that The Vivisectionist has some connection to it, and we know just what sorts of experiments she runs. The domain between e-mail addresses are different, though...but that doesn't mean anything. There's clearly a connection because she sent us the soup made by FCN. Could be that she's Veil-based, and FCN is here-based. Either way, Yule thinks you or I should do some mundane research and see if we can find anything more about the outfit, and he's determined to build his lab. We brainstormed over some ideas regarding financing, but considering that we can't exactly trust that this won't happen again, getting his own equipment seems to be his priority. I suggested renting them to start, from brokers....it's more affordable, especially for testing machines that he doesn't intend to use regularly. I can't blame him for being careful, especially after this, because once he decides who to rent from, he wants to get it himself. I offered to help him out."

She turns her face, pressing a soft kiss against his jaw. "Only way out is through, like you're so fond of saying," she reminds him with a faint smile. "And while FCN's got bits of me and Yule, it's not like we don't have bits of them in turn. I have the soup, and the coin. I told Yule I'd give him a packet, see if he can figure out how they put healing capabilities in an object. If he can parse out the how, maybe he can reverse-engineer the methodology...use it for other things."

Alexander blinks at the question. "Yeah," he says, after a moment. "I've never been good at it, and, um, not a lot of opportunities when I was younger. It makes me feel uncomfortable and exposed." A soft laugh, before he presses a kiss on her hair. "I think Bennie and August got me to dance, once. But I was very drunk. And it was more like...swaying in place while listening to people talk. That's the only time in years upon years. But if you want to ply me with liquor and proposition me somewhere private, I'd probably say yes."

He stretches out languidly beneath her, his hands stroking lightly over her body, as if reassuring himself of her solidity. "Dunno. I know Margaret seems to see herself that way, but it doesn't really feel like she's shared much of anything with the rest of them. Erin and Hyacinth clearly didn't know any more than we did. Patrick," Alexander falls silent for a bit, thinking, "maybe. He wouldn't let on if he did, I suspect. I looked into the corporation when we got the soup, actually. Nothing really came up except a website for a corporation that seems unaffiliated with anything strange. I can look into it again, of course."

There's a pleased sound at the kiss on the jaw. "Mm. Just be careful. We know that all of this protects itself. The more you poke at it, the more likely it is to want to poke back."

"...was that the night before you woke up a sudden polyglot?" Isabella wonders, as always quick to remember the various details involving him, no matter how quickly the months have passed, no matter how long the line between the Then and the Now. "I think I remember you mentioning it the last time we walked on the beach." Her cheek tilts further into his chest, lashes drifting fully shut and immersing herself in the staccato rhythm of his heart, burrowing further when his hands start to roam over the layers of clothing she still wears. It's getting easier, there's some comfort in the warmth he provides - these days, it actually permeates through the unnatural chill, signifying her slow, but steady recovery. Her smile returns at the kiss on her hair.

He may very well be right about the Addingtons, and a thoughtful glance absently follows Blue Bell's wake when she returns to the living room to tackle the terrible scarf she attempted to make for him, a bundle of yarn suddenly come alive in blue and black, rolling across the floor in a lazy loop. "The older generations, anyway," she says thoughtfully. "Thomas is definitely in the know, and it might very well be that Erin's parents knew something - not like we could ask them, now." She falls quiet as she thinks further on it. "You'd think Patrick would be more interested, though you and Anne would know better than I do. His siblings were victims over the summer, also. But I can't blame him for not wanting to know. Anne did say that whatever Margaret says, he does. If she told him to can it, he would. But if you're going to look into it, you be careful. I suggested that maybe we find a hacker or something to see what they could find in the domain server, but Yule doesn't think he could trust anybody with that endeavor."

The sentiment returned in kind, she tilts her face up to look at him, soft eyes tracing over the planes and angles she can glimpse of him while tucked against his chest. "You know me and my propensity to kick down doors." And sometimes it's the only way to trigger something. "But I'll do my best to be careful. Though truthfully, some of this is well out of my depth. While I'm no stranger to lab work and analysis, I'm not a scientist. Ideas are all I'm good for." Her grin turns wry, broad enough for her covert dimple to manifest on her left cheek. "And the occasional burst of intellectual inspiration."

Her fingertips rest gently on his sternum, drawing down gently as she traces absent, abstract patterns. "I was thinking of looking into a few things while I'm across the pond for my defense," she murmurs. "Yule wanted me to do some snooping around a geological collection at a museum while there, and I was thinking of tracking down a thin point I heard about. All after my defense, mind. Though speaking of a few things, we ought to talk about your yellow lily friend once everyone else is done recovering from the cold and the holidays. I'm starting to feel bad about the stress I'm putting on your thermostat."

"Yeah. Which is still the best possible thing I've ever gotten out of all of," Alexander taps his temple, "this. The only unblemished good. I understand things now that I didn't before, and that's amazing." It can be heard in his voice, too - that creeping, clinging wonder that he still feels whenever someone speaks and he understands them, no matter the language they use. His hands stay warm and slow, playing over fabric and skin as if to memorize every inch of it.

"That's only reasonable, really," Alexander points out, with a sigh. "Margaret's proven that her punishment of deviation is swift. I even told Erin, before the funeral and all of it, that if she really meant to stand in defiance of Margaret, that she needed to have a plan, and she needed to be prepared for retaliation. But I don't think she really believed the Old Lady would cut her out of the family." A pause. "I'm actually sort of surprised, myself. I don't know the game Margaret is playing, long-term. She could have stopped us. She could have helped us find a different way. She chose to do neither. But I don't think she's a fool." His tone turns rueful. "For the first time in my life, I wish I were a telepath, a real one, so that I could know what the hell she's thinking. I keep expecting to find my rental contract canceled, or to be quietly blacklisted from what few lists I'm on."

A finger slips up to poke gently at that dimple that forms. "Don't sell yourself short. The kind of 'scientist' we need doesn't really exist. Not on this side of things, anyway. Yule hasn't got any better clue than the rest of us, and we're all just using the tools we have at our disposal to try and figure things out." His hands still when she mentions the trip back to England. There's a deep breath that shifts her against his chest, before he lets it out in a sigh. "Be careful, Isabella. You won't have any support structure, there. And you might not remember much. But remember to be careful. And yes, we should. He's been quiet, of late, but I don't think that means he's gone."

"Rub it in, why don't you?" Isabella grumbles, though it's good-naturedly done. Still, could anyone blame her for being a touch jealous about being able to do that? To listen to words in any language spoken to her, and being able to understand them? Nevermind being able to speak it back, but to be able to hear it, read it, comprehend it? It would be tremendously helpful to her work, where so much of the old languages have been lost to the annals of Time, having to dig them out from the dirt, or unearth them from the ocean floor, to examine and rediscover. But the way his palms track over the slim, slender lines of her are soothing, and warm, and while he might not intend for it, it draws her into a content and drowsy state, an absent nuzzle of gratitude deposited somewhere by the side of his throat, and smiling faintly at the coarseness of his stubble.

"I tease. I love the fact that you love it, that you're so boyish about it." Her arm bands over his chest, a breath winding out of her, but he can practically hear her think, the chambers and gauges of her library tilting on their axis, turning over multiple problems at once and viewing them under the lens of her telescope.

He fills in some of the blanks; he's good at it, and she is constantly in awe of his willingness to share information. He draws her attention immediately when he speaks of Erin, and the brief snap of her displeasure fills the air as they dive into the topic of Gray Harbor's grande dame, and whatever long game she might be playing. "I don't know if anyone could ever plan for something like that," she begins. "And Erin is young...younger than me, even, and Margaret's always loved her. If I had been in her position, I would've taken it on faith, also. Some lessons need to be learned the hard way." As she is very much aware. "As for why she did what she did...maybe she knows less than what she has us willing to believe," she remarks after a brief, but silent contemplation. "Why else would someone like her, with most of the cards, let us keep...going on how we are, if not because she's hoping for some trickle down of the information we collect? And it isn't as if she's unfamiliar of the lengths any of us are willing to go for answers. She came to the funeral. I don't think she was just there to yell at us."

She smiles at the touch on her dimple, turning her face so she could nip at his fingertip with the barest brush of her teeth. "I'll try not to," she tells him. "Sell myself short, at this rate I'm going to need all the bluster I'm capable of." And she's capable of so much of it, regardless of whether it's honest or genuine. Though when his hands stop moving, she turns her head up to look at him, the question in her eyes - almost like a cat wondering why her human decided to stop petting her.

Her features soften. "I don't intend to go through alone," she murmurs in an attempt to be reassuring. "If I do find it. I was thinking of turning to other archival resources first and once I collect those and whatever findings Yule might find useful, I'll come back and report on it." Her smile tilts upwards. "And hopefully with good news. You know, with the way the man operates, I was half-expecting that something else would happen when people were celebrating the New Year. I wonder if he's keeping low because you managed to stumble into his Eden." What with the snakes and flowers and everything.

"But we speak the same languages, you and I, and that's something worth remembering," Alexander replies, in Latin. "Which, although we haven't had need to use it as such, I often like to think of it as a secret language for just the two of us." His hand finds her hair, and he strokes her head as she nuzzles his neck.

"Would you have?" Alexander murmurs, his eyebrows going up. "I suppose if it had been your father, you'd be right to. I don't see him easily abandoning someone he loves, no matter the situation. But I suspect the Old Lady has a different take on the definition of family. And I think she holds us, and what we did, in deep contempt. We, ah, spoke during the funeral. Briefly. It wasn't a pleasant discussion." He frowns. "A part of me wants to understand her. Not just because it's good to understand people, but because she's dangerous. She's a player in a game we barely know the rules to, and while things from the Veil can terrorize and kill us, the Addingtons can drive us out of town with barely a word. I don't particularly want to make her an enemy, if she doesn't force it." He sighs. "I would have been relatively happy to spend my entire life never coming face to face with her, or giving her a reason to know my name."

A low chuckle at the brush of her teeth, and his finger pulls back for a moment, before daring to skate the curves of her lower lip, playfully. "As long as you're careful. And I can't imagine so. He had me...utterly helpless." His body tenses, remembering it, and where her head is tucked, she can feel the way his pulse accelerates. "He could have killed me whenever he wanted. If he was truly apprehensive about being discovered, he could have resolved it immediately."

And as usual, he makes a good point, regarding the languages, forever the first to re-center her recklessness into something she could understand and relate to. It might be due to the fact that he is older, and exceedingly patient when it comes to her more youthful whims. Still, it's a thought that she visibly appreciates by the quiet, pleased murmur that escapes her. "Should I be writing you love letters in Ancient Greek then?" Isabella wonders, her voice low and languid when he speaks to her in Latin, laughing softly. "Might be a good exercise if I'm going to be without you for a little over a week." The thought of it sobers her levity, her eyes finding the breadth of his chest - and suddenly reminded of the hopes he harbors for her, eventually finding a life outside of Gray Harbor and never returning.

It's a thought that she pushes away in favor of what the man says about her father. "...under certain circumstances, I don't know if I have the courage to test that," she confesses quietly after a pause. "My mother knew, about what actually happened to Sid. But I don't know whether she had told my father...and my part in it. I haven't..." I didn't have the stomach to ask, is what she means to say, but she has never been as honest as he is regarding her vulnerabilities, and the notion of admitting the fact that she was afraid is one that she shies away from sharply, as if burned. But he's able to pull her out of that mire rather easily when she looks up at him, startled. "You talked to Margaret Addington?" she wonders, furrowing her brows. "What did she say?" Concern slips through her surprise, because the following observations are practical ones. "She hasn't yet," she says, finally, after her wordless observance of him. "And honestly, you didn't...there was no way you could have known chasing that particular trouble would lead us right into the Addington household. By all rights, the feud between them and the Baxters was more legend than actual history until we started digging into it. Besides, I think despite the funeral and the contemptuous way she addressed the group that she doesn't particularly think we're worth the trouble. Stupid kids way over their heads who're ungrateful for everything she and her generation have done for this town. Unless...she said something to you that makes you think differently?"

As long as she's careful. Dormant synapses find new life under his touch and instead of nipping him again, her mouth purses to kiss his callused fingertip instead, looking up at him with half-lid eyes. With how he tenses up underneath her, the arm curled around him winds tighter, as if she can find some way to gather up his bigger, broader, heavier frame as she senses the uptick of his heartbeat, hears it pulse faster within his chest. She has her own tension, but one borne out of her ferocious protectiveness. "...it's not exactly comforting, either," she begins after a long silence. "...to dwell on the idea that he finds you interesting enough to let you go." After a moment, she tips her head back in an attempt to find his dark eyes. "Do you need me to go back to the boat?" she asks. "You mentioned he wanted to talk to me." Byron and August have already protested the idea, but she's clearly interested in what he thinks.

The thought makes Alexander smile. "Let's just say that I wouldn't turn down a love letter written in Ancient Greek by you, my dear. And it would be nice to hear from you, when you're away." His hands are heavier on her for a moment, without even thinking of it, like he could keep her here, keep her close. But they lighten up in the next moment. "And send pictures. I want to see the things you see." A pause. "And if you happen across any interesting documents on British serial killers..." Some people want to know about scones and Beefeaters. Alexander wants to know about murder.

"What happened to your brother wasn't your fault, Isabella. I think your father would understand that. But," his fingers find the back of her neck, massage gently, "I can understand fearing that he wouldn't." There's a shake of his head. "Mostly just what you surmise. We're stupid children who don't understand what we're doing, we're ruining everything, and so forth. I did ask for clarification, but she was not interested in providing it." He shrugs.

His eyes widen, slightly. "No." It's immediate. "I'm not okay with deliberately using you as bait. I can't stop you, if you want to do it - but I'll ask that you allow us to try and protect you, as best we can, if you do. He's dangerous. And while you are fascinating, I'm not sure why he's so intrigued by you." A pause. "Did I tell you that Mister Carver found out information on him? Or someone very like him. He or his predecessors might be the inspiration for Dr. Faustus."

The pressure is welcome and he'd find her pupils shrink visibly in pleasure at his heavier grip and how it draws her tighter against him. It spurs her to lift the hand of the arm curled over his chest, shifting until she's slightly elevated so she could look down at his face, light, cool fingertips brushing over the high arch of his left cheek, her thumb describing its shape and committing it to memory. For a while, she does nothing but look at him, etching and re-etching his well-loved features into the portraits of him that the last few months have painted into the walls of her internal galleries. Dark hair spills on one side of the couch, tangling over her shoulder. "The time difference is ridiculous," she tells him, though she's still watching his eyes with that soft, but stormy look swirling within the virid-gold depths of her own. "Nine hours. But I know you hardly sleep and I trust I won't be sleeping so well, either, while I'm there. I'll text you every day, to see how you're doing. And I'll write you letters, send you pictures." After a moment, mischief falls over her mien. "There's a True Crime museum I can visit for you, but I think you'd be more interested in the Black Museum that Scotland Yard keeps. It's not open to the public, and it's actually used to train their officers and detectives. But I know a couple of people who work for the Yard through a variety of Oxford-run functions and activities, they can get me in by appointment."

His words about Isidore are kind, as usual, and there's a brief flicker that passes over her features there. She manages to smile for him faintly, however, eyes nearly slipping shut when his thumb finds a pressure point at the back of her neck. "I'll never understand why she wouldn't..." She sighs, exasperated. "It's not like we'd be able to learn anything without said clarification. We might be stupid kids in over our heads but it's not as if she's facilitating the means for us to correct that, either, and cause less headaches if that's the aim."

Lips part, but his immediate response stops her short. She leans in, instead, her mouth finding his in a gentle brush, before she pulls back enough to look him in the eye. "I think I've been through enough trouble the last weeks to want to take a break from it," she observes, dryly. "And I'm not going to deliberately throw you, August and Byron into a den of horror just for the sake of springing a trap that might not work given the lack of information we have. If we're desperate to get anywhere, we can consider it then, but if you're against it, then I won't." She is surprisingly deferential, there, but unlike Alexander and the rest, she has never had a full conversation with the man they want to bring down. She doesn't know what she's facing, other than what she can glean from her first ordeal - and that's honestly enough to encourage her to tread carefully.

"I'm not certain, either. But I don't think I'm the only one that interests him. When I found the flower, it was in front of a picture of me, Sid and Byron, and he was there in the Church, also. And he seems to be doing his best to touch base with everyone else who was in the Church that day - Javier, you, August and Eleanor. And then he struck at the hospital where Erin sometimes still works as a nurse. Byron was the one who discovered my boat was nullified and...he must know I'm not a reader. I was unconscious for god knows how long, he could have..." Broken into me. She blanches now that she thinks about it, because he must have.

After a long silence, she nods. "Your e-mail to the group," she murmurs. "And if that's true, it would explain the showmanship, maybe? I don't think the legend of Dr. Faustus would've become so well-known if Christopher Marlowe hadn't turned it into a play."

"That would be lovely," Alexander says, softly, returning her stare with his own. There's a bit of skepticism there, because his emotions are difficult to hide; the awareness that when people leave Gray Harbor, especially the farther away they go, the less likely they are to remember what happened, or who it happened with. He lifts his head just enough to press his lips briefly against hers, the kiss spicy from the soup.

Once he lowers his head again, Alexander smiles. "I'm glad you're feeling cautious. And I suppose that's true. That he could be interested in all of us. In which case," he frowns, "Javier might be the next peripheral target. Or Byron. He's already hit August and Eleanor and Erin and you, and I sort of threw myself at him. Those two have stay--ah, wait. You said Ruiz sought him out in the mindscape, right? And no," his voice shades dry, "he never volunteered anything about that. So it probably did affect him badly, in some way."

"It would. Although I'm not sure you have to explain showmanship, as much." Alexander grins. "Some people are just dramatic. By nature." A pause, before he confesses, "I liked him. I enjoyed talking to him. I'm still going to kill him, but he seems...interesting. Intelligent, thoughtful, determined." None of Alexander's criteria for liking a person have ever included 'good'.

She doesn't miss his skepticism, and after his brief kiss, she returns to watching him with that soft-eyed look, though her fingers drift lower to trace the lower curve of his mouth with the edge of her thumb. "I'll be back before you know it," Isabella murmurs in tender reassurance. It would be understandable, where she in his place - he hasn't left the town for over a decade. Meanwhile she has been away, knows very well how the distance can affect memory, but despite all that time, she hasn't managed to forget most of the important things - and all under the umbrella of deliberately trying to forget. Gray Harbor wouldn't let go, no matter how hard she actually tried.

"Probably Byron," she says after a thought. "Javier did tell me about talking to him, but he never told me what they actually talked about." It does remind her, though, of their last conversation, and her attention drifts back down to his dark eyes. "Hopefully he'll learn how to share, he doesn't have to talk about how vulnerable he might've felt during it, just...details. If we only knew some background, maybe we would know how to approach this better. Did he tell you anything about himself when he..." And her grip on him tightens, as if by instinct, remembering how he almost died - how he believed he was going to die. "...had...you?" Even saying the words out loud is difficult, the look on her features especially aggrieved.

She watches his grin flare out, and then fade; her thumb continues its absent exploration, finding the sturdy line of his jaw and feeling the short bristles of the hairs there scrape over more sensitive skin, electrifying her nerves. "So you think he's just dramatic? I suppose if he's going to crash a wedding, he might as well make a production out of it." Her observation is done sharply - she's not all too pleased about it. But the quiet confession has her falling silent. "I'd tease you about interesting being the highest compliment in Alexander Clayton's daily vernacular, but I know that's not true," she tells him lightly, though it doesn't last and her expression fades into seriousness once more. "...I'd be more worried about the two of us seriously talking about killing someone, but he won't stop, and more people might die if he isn't." She is a commander's daughter; this wouldn't be the first time a man she loves decides to end lives for the good of the whole.

"...if he's determined, there must be a reason. I wish we knew more about who he actually was."

And now it's Alexander's turn to playfully nip her finger as it traces the curve of his mouth. "I hope so." When she agrees that Byron might be the next target, he makes a face, and closes his eyes, briefly. "Ironic that the one member of this little...whatever it is, who can afford bodyguards is the one who is absolutely resistant to having them follow him around unless he's pushed. We should warn him, but you know he won't take precautions. I could follow him, but it's hard to keep tabs on someone with his resources without sticking a tracker on his car or something." A pause. "Which I would go ahead and do, except he'd probably be pissed if he found it."

He just chuckles at the idea of Ruiz learning how to share. "I don't know if it's protecting himself as much as trying to protect us. I'm sure that if he had the option, he'd do exactly what I did and try to go off and get rid of Peregrine on his own. For the same reasons, too. Some of them." His brow furrows as he thinks. "I was...scared. But, yes, a little. Nothing directly helpful; he's dramatic, but too smart to be the monologue type. He said that there's one person alive who still cares about him. Nothing about how he feels about that person. And that he wouldn't be as effective at his work if he hadn't once had hope, too." A pause. "He left my knife on me. Either he's just that damned confident or...well, I'd say and I still get the feeling that he wants someone to kill him. He's not going to let them, but when I was thinking about going for him, in the moment after he let me go, he was...eager. I don't know if it was just for a fight, or what."

He opens his eyes to look at her. "Not just. I'm sure he has reasons. I just think that those reasons are influenced by the fact that he likes the drama. The narrative. And 'interesting' is almost the highest compliment in my vernacular." He sighs. "But, yeah. I don't think there's a prison made that could hold me, unless it was far away from here. And we can't prove he's done anything wrong. The only real options are to get him to agree to stop, or to kill him. And I do, too."

There's a hint of smothered laughter when Alexander nips her finger, though it doesn't deter her from committing the shape of his mouth to memory. The same exploring appendage slips back up the side of his face to brush gently over his eyelashes also, when he shutters them against his cheeks. "Just because Byron can afford to do or have something doesn't mean he'll tolerate its presence, especially when he deems it an impediment to his independence," Isabella tells him quietly. "I've known him almost all my life, he's always been the self-sufficient sort. If we did warn him, and we should, he'd take precautions his own way - without involving anyone else." Amusement and concern wage visible battle on her features, however, because the investigator isn't wrong about the investor's reaction if he ever discovered he was being surveilled.

When they leave the subject of Byron to touch on Javier, she hesitates. "He's an extremely private person," she says. "Though I'm certain I don't need to tell you that, the two of you are closer than he and I are." At least, by her accounting - she has never been in Javier's mindspace, not that the option was one that she exercised frequently; the only other person she willingly bridged with was Easton, and that had been out of necessity. "And he would - he's a hunter by nature. And of men." The most dangerous game. "Like you, he would've tried it alone, also, if he was equipped to track him down the way you did. I...don't know if he won't, even if we discuss it as a group." Her expression tightens visibly at Alexander's confession, her lips pressing against his forehead; with the way her arm drops from his face to curl around him again, tightening her grip - the gesture is fiercer than she intends, feeling the growing maw within herself, threatening to swallow her whole, less than confident in her ability to soothe or lessen the tension there, but she tries.

"...I don't know how I'll be able to stop myself from going after him, myself, if he circles back to you again," she says softly against his hair.

Still, she listens intently - only one that is still alive. She draws back to look down at his eyes. "...it sounds like he thrives on conflict, if he let you keep the knife, which probably parses with what little we know of people who might be in league with the Dolorphage. It could be confidence, also, but you're the empath between us. You'd have more of an insight than I would. If it was just a question of strength..." Alexander would take him easily, but there are abilities to consider, and experience, and he'd already ensnared the investigator once before. "I wonder who that person was. If we knew, we could at least ask him or her what he or she knows about...Peregrine." Clearly not his real name.

His list of reasons for murdering a man are pragmatic ones, and for a while, her green eyes cast to a point somewhere beyond his head. She's never killed anyone before, at least, nobody human, though whether the man actually is was an open question. She's never conspired to murder, also, but at least there's no hesitation, as always decisive even when the choices are difficult ones. "So, we get together, we disseminate what Mister Carver managed to find out about him, and then we can go from there. That seems like viable first steps enough. At some point, we'll have to go basement hunting, also. I'll let Easton know that you and I are going to poke around his bar."

"He's difficult." It's curt, although not without its fondness, from Alexander. His lips curl upwards. "Thorne and the Captain are both difficult. It's one of the things that make them interesting." He yawns, and stretches under her, letting out a pained groan as his back stretches as well. It doesn't make him stop, though, and he loops his arms around her to hold her close throughout, returning fierceness with fierceness. "But we'll do what we can to channel them into less suicidal paths."

He reaches up and caresses her face. "Don't be stupid like me, Isabella. Be smart. No matter what happens with him, work together with the rest, and be sharp. If we let him tempt us all into going after him one by one, it'll just make it easy for him."

"I'm an empath, but I didn't read him. I'm not exactly...subtle, and he made it very clear when he felt me trying to take control of the snakes that it wasn't a thing that would be accepted. And I wonder, too. If there's a real person who's alive, then he can't be that old. Unless he's been making and maintaining relationships. Which would seem odd. But without clues, it's hard to tell who that person is. Or if it's even a person at all. For all we know, it's a talking tree in the Veil somewhere that's five hundred years old."

He lets out a little huff of air - it's frustrated and excited all at once, the sound of a bloodhound who's lost the scent, but knows that it can be picked up somewhere if he just tries hard enough. Her last remark does make him grin. "Well, at least Easton knows I won't take the opportunity to drain him dry."

"You're all difficult," Isabella points out, and that, too, is laden with affection, though the way she looks at him suggests that she counts him among the august and frustrating company of those he just mentioned. But his content yawn earns him a quirked little grin, her breath squeezed out of her - bigger, stronger than her, he's able to wring her of air, easily, at his returned ferocity but it's one that she savors. He may not like it, the prospect of hurting her has always been a sticking point throughout their nearly year-long acquaintance, but she has never shied away from his more vehement expressions of affection. "Though you needn't worry about Byron, there. He's attached to his life and happiness, and being with Lilith again after all these years has rejuvenated him, I think. He's always been driven, he and I are a lot alike there. Javier, though...I was never sure." She hesitates; her worry is palpable for a moment or two. "...but apparently with his discovery of a daughter he didn't know he had and...whatever's going on with him and Itzhak, his new year is starting off...really new. New house, new family, new relationships? It's...nice. To see and hear of him being less solitary."

With his broad hand reaching for her, her earlier fond expression intensifies, equal parts passion and adoration as she looks down at him, lashes drifting partially closed when she turns her delicate face into the coarser skin of his palm and depositing a kiss in the middle of his life line. "I'll try," she says; she isn't being cheeky, nor is it driven to worry him, but rather an open acknowledgment of her flaws and limitations. "You know how my temper is." And how reckless she is, when seized in the grip of high emotion.

His own lack of subtlety has her eyes gleaming at him mischievously. "Battering ram," she murmurs, and not without heat - but also a teasing callback to one of their conversations over the summer. "Well, there's always an attempt to try and look for the hospital that August saw in his vision. Maybe he is a doctor....or a patient. Once a patient. It could go either way, but you did say earlier that he's familiar with hope and either sides of that coin would put him in a position to wax poetic about it. Would explain how he...knows about the transplant process, too. Have you talked to hospital folks about that? I mean, they're no five hundred year old sentient trees from the Veil, but they could be just as useful."

His half-frustrated/half-excited look that has her smiling, leaning in to press a kiss on his mouth. "You're a hunter too," she tells him. "Just for completely different things than Javier is. And hey, I'll have you know that Easton is always happy to take my money every time I come and see him." Worry for him filters into her face. "How's your back? Do you need me to take a look at it?"

"Yes," Alexander agrees, quietly. He's not a good enough liar to even try to pretend that 'difficult' doesn't describe him very well. He smiles. "I'll always worry about the people I care about, Isabella. I might not be able to do anything to stop them from being them in the worst ways as well as the best, but I'll always worry." And Ruiz worries him more than most, by the way his expression tightens when the Captain's new life is mentioned. But he doesn't spend any more time talking about that.

Instead, he reaches for her with both hands, and pulls her down into a longer, deeper kiss. "Don't," he murmurs, afterwards. "Temper or no. You're brighter and more brilliant than me, and I cannot bear to see you hurt."

His hands then slide down her body at the 'battering ram' comment, a slow light kindling in his eyes. "Mm. An interesting suggestion, Miss Reede. Certainly something to take our minds off all the various trials and tribulations we face wouldn't go entirely amiss." He shakes his head. "I've talked to Yule, mostly. I'm not keen on hospitals or their staff, I admit. But given what August saw, some affiliation with a hospital - mental or otherwise - is likely. And he had the manner of a doctor...but frequent patients can pick up those mannerisms, too." He smiles at her reassurances, and her kiss, returning it with interest. "Somehow, I feel like your concern for my back is just a way of getting my shirt off. Which, for the record, I don't mind - but I insist on reciprocation." Then he frowns, the teasing turning to concern. "Unless you're still feeling too cold?"

"All that worrying you do won't help your turning silver before your time," Isabella says, her fingers lifting to trace the growing gray close to his temples, fiddling with a few strands between her thumb and forefinger. "But luckily for you, I like color." Her mischief grows there, visible and evident. That moment of cheerful humor, however, abates at the touch of conflict on his face when he thinks of Javier. After searching his eyes for a moment, her lips part; there's a question on her tongue.

It's one that he's able to make her forget, ultimately; her palm presses flat on his chest, though to rest there, and not to resist him, her mouth slanting over his as her eyes shutter and she spends a few minutes softly, ardently fighting him for the privilege of draining the breath from his body. "You and I will have to try a little harder to compromise on that point," she whispers, once they break, her hand lifting to stroke his cheek. After a moment: "I won't abide by anyone or anything hurting you, Alexander."

His hold shifts, and so does she, to twine herself further into him more fully - there isn't much room on the couch, but that's never stopped them before and the languid, smoldering way he looks at her drives the relentless engine housed within her bones to race faster. It's galling, how he can affect so intensely with a single look but she's learned to embrace and even relish it when it happens. "I'm glad the two of you are talking more, Yule and I get along well, and he's intelligent - a good person to have watching your back if you're going to continue at the rate you're going," she points out quietly, before the rest is muffled by another kiss.

His teasing leaves her laughing, but quietly, drawing back to look him in the eye. "Why not both, is what I would say to that," she tells him playfully. "My concern is both legitimate and unapologetically opportunistic, if you must know. I'll never not try to find an excuse to get you in some state of undress, seraglio or no seraglio. As for reciprocation..." She turns her face, a more insistent edge to her kiss. "It is cold," she murmurs honestly, quietly.

She pulls away, but not far enough not to taste his breath every time he exhales. "And it's fading by the day," she continues softly, her hand sliding down his center line to splay flat against his abdomen. "But I'll always want you." After a pause, she confesses, lowly, "..it's one of the reasons why I'm dreading leaving you, in March." A few days, over a week, but she's unable to help it.

"I think I look quite dashing gray," Alexander says, eyes half lidded as her fingers thread through his hair. It's always one of his favorite things, although every touch from Isabella is a cherished treasure - he's hungry for contact, for affection, and love from her, and every touch conveys that. "I will try to not let people hurt me, if you try not to run off and get hurt. No promises, from either of us, mind you - I think we're both too ourselves for that." He smiles. "But I like everything you are, even the reckless parts. Never doubt it, my love."

"Yule is nice," he agrees, lazily. "I enjoy his company. He's...calming. Steady. Intelligent. Interesting. I hope he survives his curiosity."

And then there are more interesting things to contemplate, and his lazy up and down her body suggests Alexander is considering them at length. "I suppose I can forgive a little opportunism. And I'll even do my best to warm you up." He moves to slide a hand under her top, letting his warm, calloused palm find her skin and caress. His eyes glimmer with amusement. "A whole week without me," he teases. "How will you survive, Isabella?" But then he turns more serious, and says, quietly, "I'll miss you, too. Never doubt it."

"You are quite dashing gray, and I would never, ever want you to dye it," Isabella agrees, and quite firmly at that, the tips of her fingers watching the way the lighter color sifts with black. His enjoyment of her touch is just as exhilarating as whenever he returns it in kind; an intangible aphrodisiac, in a way, a psychological accelerant for any intimate endeavor that they decide to engage in. "Your hair's getting long again, though..." she observes, watching it sift underneath her hold. "We'll take care of that in the next couple of days." She'll probably cut it the same way again. "Though I do like the way the longer strands just flop over your forehead..." The remark is absent, an almost dreamy quality touching her tone.

She must sense that hunger, because as her face hovers above his own, her more vibrant irises meeting his darker ones, he'd sense it, the way she lowers her defenses and clears the path for his mental encroachment, the light of her potential and the heat of her intense, obsessive passion beckoning his stars to bathe within them again. She distantly notes his agreement regarding Yule, but should he accept the path she makes for him, he'd find that there's no room for anything else but him and everything he deigns to give her in the next few moments. Her love, the burning, nuclear intensity of it, can be a terrifying thing - he is well familiar with the wildfires and hurricanes that rampage within the seat of her soul; she could never blame him for pulling back, for running away, but he never fails to return to the eye of them, and ride the storms.

A whole week without him. His reminder inspires an expression that is legitimately pained, but one that embraces the simple, uncomplicated ecstasy that plucks her strings when his skin finds her own and she is unable to resist the turn of her face to restlessly part his lips with hers; a passionate, concentrated attempt to fit his broken edges with hers. He'd practically feel her shiver the moment his hand finds her, drawing goosebumps and forcing her heart to leap, but not, and never, from the cold. Her leg shifts forward, to further pull her on top of him, leveraged upward by a smooth, limber movement.

"Honestly?" she begins. "I don't know how, but know that I'll do my level best to endure your absence, Mister Clayton." He'd feel her smile against his mouth, that fades at the face of his solemn declaration. He'd feel it then, the ache - bittersweet and real, twisting up what remains of her sundered heart.

"It won't be easy," she says, at last, meeting his eyes from the scant distance between their faces, her words gentle and soft - young and strangely vulnerable, when she's so new to this kind of connection. "I trust it'll hurt...is it strange that I'm so willing to carry it with me, regardless? That I'm glad for it, if it's for this reason?"

"As long as you don't dye it green or try and give me a mohawk, you can do anything with my hair you want," Alexander assures her, with perfect sincerity. Heaven knows when left to his own devices, he hasn't managed anything half so stylish as what she did with a single afternoon.

When that silent permission is given, Alexander is quick to take advantage of it. His mind doesn't bluster or invade, but rather it unfolds around and within her, embracing that wild, fierce passion even as his body embraces her own. Like this, he's even more open than usual, and she can feel his love for her, his fear for her, and yes - a bit of fear of that deep, untameable desire that she feels for him. It's humbling in its strength, and he dreads not managing to live up to it, as broken and unstable as he sees himself to be. And yet, at the same time, he revels in it, and shares that, too - the way his own desire leaps to meet hers.

Alexander thinks about it. Then says, "Yes. That's strange." It's matter-of-factly stated, although there's humor deep in his eyes. "But it'll be good for you, Isabella. You should see your friends who aren't neck deep in insanity. Recalibrate. And, of course, defend that thesis until they fall on their knees and beg you to accept the title of Dr."

"Well, I like looking at you, so if it's alright with you, I'll keep to what looks great on you," Isabella teases, her smile a quick and fleeting thing that fades the moment he steps into the mental path she provides.

There's nothing sedate about her reaction when he makes his presence known, and when his skies blanket the firestorms of her own mind and heart, she gives herself over to his physical and psychic embrace with furious and wholehearted abandon, gladly submerging herself within them as one arm wraps around him, another kiss exchanged. It feels a bit like falling upward, defying the laws of gravity and soaring in reverse. He can practically hear the way her heart races as he busily fills the torn, empty spaces her twin's presence had left behind, temporarily making them so that they don't seem so vast and hollow. His love is different from what had been there before, clouded as it is with self-doubt, but she drinks deeply from that well, too, because it tastes, and smells, and feels like him, and her grip on him tightens. Unbridled want bleeds through their link, and always reaching for more - more of his love, and concern, and desire...the lightning burn of his own intensity, so willing to scorch herself with it if it only meant that she could keep this. If it only meant that he would stay.

There's always that moment of clarity, somewhere within, especially when he responds so hungrily - that he might view himself as broken and unstable, but she finds beauty and fascination, regardless, in his imperfections. Enjoys them, embraces them, the syllables of his name sang softly, but confidently, by her rarely heard mental voice over the cyclones they're generating together....as if the only word she knows anymore. The only one she wants to know, in this specific moment, colored by the whispering threads of her own fears...that she wasn't enough. Could never be.

That she doesn't deserve him. That there was no way that she does, but would keep bashing herself against existing obstacles anyway, just for the chance to try, and keep trying.

"I don't know," she says quietly, seriously, withdrawing from him, but only briefly, fingers finding the hem of his shirt and drawing her palm over his skin, reaching further as fabric pulls so she could splay her fingers over the center of his chest, where his heart beats the strongest and reminds her as to how unfailingly alive he is at the moment, emerald eyes as bright as lanterns and inscribed with breathless promises. She doesn't break the lock of their gazes when she says, with absolutely no shame, every word uttered low and hoarse with her ardor, "...when you're like this, I feel like falling on mine, instead."

"It's alright with me," Alexander assures her, oh so solemn. His eyes have closed again, better to concentrate on the connection between them, enjoying the feel of her mind in all its powerful, passionate glory. There's a hungry curiosity within him that responds to the baring of her emotions with a desire for more, not to devour, but to see and to understand. He notes the fears, and soothing reassurance flows from him to her - she is more than enough. A simple message, but transmitted with stark sincerity.

He growls a little when her hand slips under his shirt and makes its way up the line of his body, pleasure and encouragement there. "Don't," he says, again, simply. "You were never meant for that, Isabella. Although," a wicked little smile, "I suppose if we move to the bedroom, we can try out some other positions, and see if there's one that suits us both better." A playful waggle of his eyebrows.

The moment her fingers find his skin and the elevated pace of his heartbeat, his famished curiosity of these inner parts of her would be fed by these emotional fragments and all descriptive of how he affects her in these moments. How the soft growl tickles her senses, how soothing she finds his heartbeat, and how quickly her own desire escalates feeling the play of muscles under his skin. How she is constantly fascinated by the scars she is caressing blindly, followed by a girlish and almost innocent wondering as to the stories behind each one - quite possibly the only way Isabella can ever be so innocent, and mean it. How much she appreciates the reassurances that he trickles into her, because she needs that more than she is capable of admitting, of actually saying to him. As he dives deeper into their tightening connection, she follows him unerringly, leaving streamers of fire at her wake and twining his stars with them, making them look like comets in the darkness of his skies.

His dread is a mutual thing, albeit of a completely different character than her own. And while her own self doubt remains - ones she can't keep from him here no matter how hard she tries - the stormy brush over his reaching senses makes it clear that he has nothing to worry about whether he could ever live up to the terrifying depths of her passion; he already has and more. It is just a question as to whether they can endure and survive it, and there is the exhilarating, addicting, breathless hope that they can.

"I wouldn't say you're wrong," she murmurs against his mouth; every kiss feeds shocks of fire and electricity into her, fueling her spirit - intensifying all that she is, and she surrenders these shards to him without fear or shame, for his perusal and examination if not his consumption. Within her own mind, she is more confident, too, perpetually hungry for this kind of connection because it is what she has lived with and lost, and could never reclaim again save for these glorious moments of complete, boundless intimacy with him. Transient as they are, she could lose herself in him forever until her bones are dust and her name is forgotten.

"Since Isolde hasn't bought us a strange looking chair yet, I suppose we'll just have to get even more creative," she breathes against his ear, nuzzling against it and burying her fingers into his hair. "Take me there?" And by her tone, she doesn't mean to confine the verb to just one meaning.

It's hard to put into words the thrumming contentment that runs through Alexander when he's given a chance to form this sort of connection with another person. Particularly with Isabella, who knows his darker secrets, and allows the carefully curated walls on those places he tries not to think about to thin, if not fall, offering ghosts and shadows in the reflections of her fire and his stars. His mind twines around hers, seeking and soothing and hoping with her. Each kiss they share sets off sparks and fire deep within him, and as open and connected as they are, it's no surprise when her words, prompt him to sit up and gather her into his arms and rise to his feet. There's a spike of pain like forking lightning in the distance, but he ignores it, in favor of the far more pleasant sensations of having her close to him.

"Your wish is my command, Miss Reede," he says, with a grin. Then moves them towards the bedroom, nearly tripping over the cat - who promptly gets locked out of the bedroom for what follows. Some things do not require a feline audience.