eyemind | you've got to choose between your faces

Entry tags:

you've got to choose between your faces

WHO: OPEN to all passengers.
WHAT: General mingle log for the first part of the month, including new partner pairing stuff.
WHERE: Navi, all over.
WHEN: Now until the next event (through May 23).
WARNINGS: If things get messy and/or upsetting, please put warnings in your comment subject lines! And if you absolutely can't keep from strangling your new partner, please report it on the death page.

Hello, passengers! Today begins just like normal, but it’s far from an ordinary day. On this fine point in space-time, passengers will notice a little something different when it comes to the glyphs marked on the backs of their hands.

They're glowing. The light is a deep shade of blue, and it's slowly blinking on and off. Maybe it's searching for something? It's entirely possible, because affected passengers will also feel a gentle tugging sensation that stops once they've come face to face with their partners. The glyph will switch to glowing a steady blue once partners are synced with each other, and they'll be able to communicate telepathically with each other, too.

Have fun getting to know each other a little better! Or, you know. Yelling at each other. Just try to keep the murder to a minimum, OK?

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"You're a journalist. I thought it would interest you." He sat, "You're being irrational. Are you all right?"

Something pings in him and pangs, it feels like his lungs are squeezed, "You knew the area and the location. I really did think it would interest you. You - the other you from my timeline I suppose? Seemed interested. You're engaging when you're intrigued."

She's easy to use when she's intrigued.

"So."

Dr. Bernier hadn’t been at all useful in teaching Alex to sleep. Every technique that she’d given Alex had failed for one reason or another but that wasn’t the only thing that she’d learned in therapy. Alex had learned how to calm herself down from a panic attack, she’d learned how to identify when she was on the edge of one and perhaps most importantly for this conversation, Dr. Bernier had given Alex a toolbox to use when it came to get anger. Right now, at being called irrational, Alex’s anger threatens to bubble up to the surface just like she knows that Strand wants. Giving him what he wants is a terrible idea so Alex isn’t going to do it. Instead she counts to ten and then she counts to ten again, breathing evenly in a controlled fashion as she did. Alex can’t control Strand (never could really) but what she can control is her reactions to him. Most of the time anyway. So far this time it seems to be working at least.

But there’s no denying the flat, sharp tone in which Alex delivers her question to him. “So now you’re thinking you’re from some sort of parallel universe to mine? Really?” There’s some doubt that Strand would, but it’s mixed in with the manipulative way he’s talking to her.

There's a point where Richard's psychological degree kicks in - watching her breathe he recognizes some kind of technique. She's never done that before which makes him frown. She's reacting like she's having a panic attack.

His conversation with Mur rings in his head. She deserves better than this.

A muscle in his jaw twitches, "Before I answer please do one more - breathing exercise. You never had to do that before. I would draw an assumption of an alternate reality because you have...never had to do that before."

Master of distraction and manipulation and he hates the sense of confusion.

"I know you're from farther down the timeline then I am. Do you prefer that?" He sighs, "And as for the tape I meant it. I thought you'd find it interesting."

There was more there.

The darkness in Alex's eyes goes even harder when he acts like he knows what she's doing that and more than that when he tells her to do it again. Pointedly not doing it, because she doesn't do what Strand says especially when he's gaslighting her, she just settles back more in her chair, the band of her arms across her chest tightening in anger. An anger that Alex is fairly certain that she can see in Strand because she's not dancing to the same tune he plays that she might have before.

"I have needed to do it before, actually. Many times but it's not some sort of new and different phenom just because you haven't seen it before. I've definitely done it like when I was on the phone with you and you were so dismissive and patronizing and condescending to me before I hung up." It's honestly the only way that Alex had ended that phone call without actually giving into the urge that she had even then to call him an asshole. The urge has only grown, and it's there now as he keeps talking.

"Yes, I prefer that I'm from later in the timeline than you are, and that Simon is further along than I am to the thought that somehow we're from a different universe where you weren't manipulating me from that call to use me and the show in order to flush out your missing wife and Warren and all the things that you'd been doing." Yes, there's some anger in the way that she has a problem with not saying that but it doesn't matter because it's the truth and Alex has spent a week going through the show and drawing all of the pieces out of it for evidence of his manipulation

He's a fairly good researcher on his own right- even though he's had Ruby to do it for years. He's rusty however and he'd gotten used to Ruby but he can pull it out of nowhere to see when people were following him. Men in the background of his lecture halls in dark hooded coats or with scarves wrapped around their faces.

They increase. And the normal trickle of calls swells to a deluge and he wonders, he has to wonder if there might be something here he can use. Or is he paranoid? Perhaps they're not following him. Perhaps it's nothing.

But he's been followed for years. That he does know. And Coralee would get nervous.

"It's very rich for you to accuse me of manipulation when you're the one telling me that you know about my wife - which I shared with no one. Looking me up, spying on me? For stories?"

Alex scowls. The expression is definitely not something that she's able to keep off her face, even in the idea that it would be something that might be neutral. Alex Reagan's expressions both in her face and in her voice are always projected as loudly as they could be even when she didn't want them to be. It would have been much easier for her to do this if she could keep herself cold and as emotionless as Strand was. But when Strand went cold, Alex goes hot and she's fighting to keep herself from going there.

But she can't keep her temper under wraps right now, and she just glares at him and shakes her head. "You are such a fucking asshole!" Well, as many times as Alex has wanted to say that to him, she normally wouldn't allow it to get voiced. "You know about the show, you remember about the show and the tape that you came to me for. And as for the rest of it, if you got your head out of your ass and just listened to the damn show, we wouldn't keep going around and around on this argument. I'm exhausted from having it. Aren't you?"

Yes. Infinitely and she is stubborn and he should just leave. She was a mistake from the beginning, returning those phone calls. He had better things to do. Like sit at home writing books that piss people off and don't sell. Ruby says bluntly, Like moping.

A muscle in his jaw twitches as he stares at her before taking off his glasses and rising from the table.

"Despite what you may think." His voice is ice cold, "I am a reasonable man and despite the...circumstances I have not given your evidence, your truth, your tapes, their fair point." Rescuing the tape of the show he holds it in his hands, "I apologize. Being kidnapped by space aliens that somehow triggered psychic abilities has affected me. It's no excuse for denying potential information."

The coldness in his voice only increases the heat her own, and she scoffs audibly and rolls her eyes at the idea of him being a reasonable man because in her experience, especially since Strand has come aboard, he's been everything but reasonable. They've been fighting over how unreasonable he was actually, considering how he'd been refusing the one simple thing that Richard Strand had always demanded when it came down to things: evidence. There was evidence that he'd been refusing to see no many times she'd tried and trying just isn't something that Alex is willing to keep doing. Yes, she's angry and yes she wants those answers at how he's manipulated her, but she's so exhausted from having this fight over and over.

Even when it seems like he's being reasonable, Alex finds herself bracing for the other shoe to drop when it comes to Strand. There always seems to be a manipulation behind a manipulation, and Alex hates that she falls for it every single time: letting him construct the narrative around them here when she would have refused to do it back home. Without the push of the story keeping her honest, Alex had allowed him to get away with far more than she'd ever had before. But here it almost seems like she's letting him do it again with how his admitting that he's psychic just completely causes her brain to almost trip over itself.

"What?" The question is quick, and Alex doesn't know what he means, because there's something that apparently Simon hadn't mentioned when he'd brought up the things that Strand had done back home. "You're psychic here? That doesn't make sense if you weren't back home." It's not an accusation--it's a level headed question.

His dark and terrible secret is open in his head and he debates being honest because Oh well didn't you know?

"There's no other explanation I have for it beyond a sudden...mutation? An awakening? I'm just as confused as you are. None of what happened with Bobby happened. I was obsessed. I'm not gifted in any capacity at home."

He thinks.

"I'm not. If you know about Bobby and Coralee and the rest of my life then I will tell you I was motivated by pain and trying to help my mother recover. And that in my desperation when Coralee was lost I leaned on whatever gift I thought I had until here when I go back to how I was as a child and..."

Try and quiet the voices in his head. Try and just, absorb and bury. None of it was real.

How to ask for help.

"This isn't about me." Pause, "this is about your evidence and I haven't given it a fair investigation like any piece of information I bring to my institute. I will do that. This..."

He gestures vaguely at his head, "I'm sure that it will...go away. The angel helped. Perhaps I'm just unfortunate or I caught something on one of these planets but it is..." He shakes his head before pulling off his glasses, "The worst instance of apophenia that I have ever dealt with."

Alex isn't sure what to say to any of that. Back home it wasn't a familiar feeling but the longer both of them have been here aboard Navi it feels like something that she is left speechless more often than not even if it's just a momentary blip in the normal Alex Reagan software as it were. Well at least when it came to Strand and Alex needed to juggle the different points that they were at with how they treated one another. It was too easy for her to retreat back into the sharp and angry person that she had been during the season when she was not sleeping and everything felt like a lot. But there was more than that: trying to balance the peace that his honesty had brought between them back home (even if she knows that he’s going to leave her again) and the relationship that she’d had with him back when the show began and she’d not found information on Coralee.

When she finally speaks its soft and there’s a carefulness in it that almost surprises Alex. There’s no small part of her that wants to argue about how that’s not logical considering everything else here: her tall Paul, Simon and all of it, but for right now she doesn’t. Instead what Alex says is: “apophenia can go both ways, Richard.” It’s the first time that she’d said his name in a long time, especially in that kindly fashion. “You want so hard to believe that it’s not the truth that you refuse to see the actual connections between it.” Her hands finally wrap around her tea and she takes a sip before softly adding while she placed her hand on his: “I’m sorry.”

Her touch startles him but he doesn't move. It's like a moth landing on his fingers and he's always thought of himself as a gentle creature. Despite being big and awkward he liked protecting things.

She's protecting him now and he inhales, "Yes. I suppose it can."

Silence.

"I knew you were coming." His voice is soft, "I could hear it like a storm in my head."

For a moment, Alex doesn’t know what to say to that. It’s weird enough to have Strand not denying the fact that he’s Psychic never mind the fact that he could hear her coming. There is a hint of apprehension in her mind now because yes, even though she’s had five different people in her mind none of them have been Richard Strand. Richard Strand who has at times (especially lately) has felt like an enemy and also (before) definitely had felt like something that she’s not going to allow herself to think of. It’s complicated on a level that’s a hundred times worse than it had been back home and now it feels like it might be a thousand times more complicated.

Realizing that her hand is still on his own, Alex draws it away and uses it to pick up her tea and taking a sip. While it’s not coffee, it’s not exactly bad and it buys her some time to think about what to say to him about that.

In the end, Alex goes with what she does best in order to defuse awkward situations: she makes a bad joke. “Well, I guess that’s the PNW girl in me: all the rain has to come from somewhere.” Even if Seattle didn’t really have thunderstorms like how Alex is imagining that she might be in his head.

"Calm yourself down next time. It was frightening - and it might hurt it makes me wonder if this is how Tannis feels or felt or..." He sighs, "I apologize. I don't want you to hurt yourself."

He stares at his hands, "In any case. I have not given your information enough of a look and I will." He sighs, "It is...difficult. You said you know everything about me, so you surely know about my history. It's safer to be skeptical."

For me but he does not say it.

Edited 2021-06-08 17:01 (UTC)

It's a struggle in Alex to not say something then, even though she wants to. There's a little bit of her (perhaps slightly more than a little bit) that wants to tell him to fuck off with telling her how to feel and to calm down when she's angry. Alex Reagan has had enough of Strand and Nic playing off her emotions as something that she should control and that they're somehow both more intense and less rational than theirs are because she's a woman. If she wasn't trying to smooth things out, she would have been more apt to sharpen her words into something about that and telling him to fuck off, but instead, for the moment, Alex just counts down from twenty before she speaks.

It's a very calm voice for Alex, but there's the simmering of heat below it. "I'm allowed to be angry with you, Richard. Just because you don't like it doesn't mean that I'm not allowed to feel it especially considering how long and how much you'd been manipulating me. And it happened way before where I'm from in the timeline. You started doing it when you first returned my calls, and then continued it when you called me back with the Unsound tape. Which means that it's actually you manipulating me and not some like...nebulas version of you that happens because of our time together. I get that this is a lot. I get that being a skeptic has protected you. But it doesn't protect me and it never did."

Which frankly is the truth, because if his being a skeptic protected her, then Alex wouldn't have turned into the haunted, unsleeping person that she is who is being both attacked by demonic dreams and actual people using the show to terrify the hell out of her and make her seem like she's losing her mind.

"So, don't tell me to calm down. I have a right to my anger. And I have a right to being upset with you. You were using me this entire time to flush out your wife and the people who were responsible for her going missing. That changes everything from the past two years. Even that night you finally told me at least some of what was going on. I thought it meant..." She thought that it meant that the two of them were connected and that she wasn't just imagining things and that... "Well, it doesn't matter what I think. What I thought it was wasn't real. It was just you not telling me the whole truth again."

He takes a breath and then another and resists the urge to get angry because he doesn't need to be psychic to know it's Simon that did this but he'd have words with him later. That said when Alex says I thought it meant...

What did she think? What did he think?

"You had a platform and a position and you were interested in me." He pauses, "No one...is interested in my work outside of it being sensationalist and wanting to win a million dollars. You're the first person in a very long time who has thought that I'm worth anything. And I thought that...I could use you to fix things for me. And I'm sorry."

Can you blame me he thinks You used me too. You found everything. Am-Am I at fault here? Or...

"Then you found out everything about me and wore through my defenses. I'm sorry I manipulated you, it clearly backfired." His throat works, "And you found out more about me than I intended."

Is there an edge to that. Yes. Yes there is.

"You are...tenacious and stubborn and very good at what you do and I..." He harrumphs, "...Well."

Edited 2021-06-09 01:07 (UTC)

For a moment, Alex doesn't know what to say. The part of her that's been on edge with him since he'd first arrived and they've gotten drunk in her canon wants to snap at him like a reflex and assume that he's lying. The Alex from back home and who remembers how he was that night wants to believe him. And right now the two Alex's with their two very different relationships with the man in front of her at this point. But if there's one thing that neither Strand has ever been very good at is apologizing to her. An apology from Richard Strand is an occurrence that Alex can count on one hand without the use of her entire fingers. This one brings the grand total of them up to three, and she's sure that the first one was just another part of the manipulation game that Strand had been playing with her when he'd wanted to come back.

The edge though isn't unexpected, but it feels like there's always one between them right now--Alex is starting to think that they don't know how not to be sharp to one another. It's sad and it settles into her stomach around that and she just closes her eyes and counts so that she doesn't end up snapping back. It's not going to help anything, and it never did. Maybe it never well, considering things.

He leaves again. Even if Strand comes back he still leaves again, and Alex instinctively knows that what happened after her arrival probably is very bad indeed. Bad enough that she would have wanted him there. Well, at least until he'd admitted to her that he'd manipulated her anyway.

"You what?" The question is quick, and she meets his eyes. "Well, isn't an answer, Richard." Alex adds before he can brush her off.

He runs from conflict like this. He wants to run now. He wants to run because it's easier if he leaves than anyone else does. When he leaves first, no one can leave him. Not like Coralee. Not like Charlie. Fool me once shame on me. Fool me twice...

Pulling off his glasses and setting them down on the table he stares at them. He's clearly struggling to bolt. He clearly wants to run. The ghost of Howard Strand hangs in the air in front of him always. Are you surprised? It's a good thing that she's seeing through your bullshit. You are a rotten little liar boy. his hands slightly tremble but it is a testament to the man's iron will that he doesn't break his cool.

He stays.

"I don't...I don't know what you want me to say." His throat works, "I don't know why you wanted to talk to me. You left eleven phone calls...no one has ever done that. I wanted to keep you engaged, I got overly ambitious because no one cares. I'm a bastard and a liar but you...you wanted to know."

Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale. When he's reached something that feels like calm, and the ice in his gaze has cracks in it. It's still there when he meets her gaze. It's just broken. Just hurt.

Then it's gone.

Inhale, exhale.

"...There. That's it. I deserve whatever vitriol is thrown at me from you and from ..." His lip curls, "Simon. I deserve it."

It feels like he's going to explode, "If that's not the answer you want I don't have any others to give you. I will listen to this and I will re-adjust my conclusions. I give you my word."

In many ways, this reminds Alex of that night back at Howard's house after they'd driven around for a while following Coralee's leaving again. There's the same sort of sense of him being torn down and ripped into ribbons only last time she'd been the one who was dealing with the fall out rather than the one who'd caused all of this. She doesn't like feeling like the one who's caused all of this; the sensation of it settles down into an iron weight at the core of her stomach chilling her from within.

Despite knowing that she shouldn't feel guilty for this, because she'd stood up for herself in ways that she should have ages before, Alex can't help but to do it. Maybe there was a difference between this Strand and the one who had kept the façade of everything up for so long, reinforcing the manipulation each time he'd made a selection from his collection of tapes. He'd curated her experiences, relating each tape into some part of the mystery of his wife and then lying about their connections even when she'd been able to spot them directly. But Strand was still Strand for all of the wishing on his behalf that this was some sort of different universe that they were from. She knows that if he'd brought her that first tape, that he'd bring the others, that he'd manipulate her and leave and come back and all of that.

Strand saying that he doesn't know why Alex wanted to talk to him makes her think on why she had wanted to. There'd been a reason that she'd called him eleven times and that she'd gone to his publisher. At the time, not even Alex had thought that it was a good reason, but that didn't mean that she didn't make those phone calls, that she didn't go find him in Chicago when he'd been a half-mad recluse, that she wouldn't still be waiting for him even when he'd left her again. "I did want to know." The words are soft in both sound and manner, and she finds herself reaching out to rest one of her hands on his again. "I called you because as soon as I heard your name, as soon as I looked you up and heard you talk, I felt like I'd had to call you. Every time someone brought you up to me again, it only made me feel like I had to do it even more. It's the same reason why I even listened to your message again in the first place."

But there's more. There's more and Alex feels the brokenness in him in the same way that she had that night when he'd offered her a drink. Maybe it's madness or stupidity, but Alex knows that she's not going to run away from him in the same ways that he'd always done it from her. "I never didn't care. Even when I was at my most angry, even here it wasn't because I didn't care. I don't know how not to care actually. It would have been easier if I didn't care because I would have just stopped calling or let you be. But I didn't do that. I wouldn't." And that's truth too, she wouldn't leave him in this alone, even when it was smarter to do it. Alex Reagan had never made the smart choice and she wasn't about to do it now.

He is a psychologist. He knows that this is not healthy, and neither of them are healthy but when her hand touches his and she talks he doesn't start.

"...I hate to ruin your impression of me but I'm something of a pariah in my communities." He means to be snarky and self-deprecating but instead he sounds sad and regretful, "...Alex." His heart flutters, "Don't hurt yourself because of me. No one should."

He puts his larger hand over hers and inhales again, "No one should over anyone."

It's not healthy, it never has been and Alex knows it. It's not healthy for reasons that Strand doesn't even know about yet (well, probably, she doesn't remember all that much of the time that they'd gotten drunk after he'd arrived) and there's that to consider. If she was smarter, no if she were wiser because Alex is smart but wisdom isn't something that anyone would ever accuse her of having then she would have just let him stay gone after he'd left when she'd discovered proof of Coralee being alive and who Sexy James Bond actually was.

But she didn't, anymore than she really could have left him alone for an extended period of time when they were both aboard the ship. Letting out a little breath, Alex is trying to fight the urge to argue with him because it isn't help anything to keep doing that. "I know. I know how they all cursed your name. It's one of the things that definitely caught my attention." One of, but she doesn't know how to qualify the rest.

What Alex does know is that she doesn't like what he's implying there. "I'm not hurting myself because of you, Richard. At least not entirely." She doesn't pull away from his hand over hers. "There's a lot more to this. Things that you..." Alex breathes slowly and closes her eyes for a moment before she brokers a subject that she'd not wanted to. "Do you remember how there was the thing that broke onto the network about sharing dreams?"

"I tried to avoid it. It gave me a really bad headache but I don't think it affected me."

It feels nice, being here holding her hand. He'll just settle in with that. Willing himself to be silent and not teach or talk or do anything else, "Why? Did you get some kind of idea?"

"No." Alex just sighs softly, and she just bites her lip as she tries to find a way to put this into something that actually makes sense. It hits her then that she didn't tell even Simon about this, so if he's listening (and she really hopes that he's not) then he's probably not going to be very happy about it. Well, given everything Simon's probably not very happy with Strand in general, so at least this would be one thing that's not the good doctor's fault. Probably anyway. At least Alex doesn't think so.

"We had a thing before, where we were sharing dreams. That's what the creepy thing was referencing. But I had it happen to me." This is more difficult than Alex realizes to say, and she just finds herself absently stroking her fingers against his for a bit of comfort while she works up to it. "When I was a kid, I was adopted. Like pretty young, honestly. My parents started being my foster parents when I was five and I don't remember a lot from before then." There's a pause, and Alex just laughs with a bit of bitterness. "I don't remember anything from before my parents actually. Just some sorts of generalized impressions on how not great it was. My bio mother abandoned me when I was three, and I have no idea who my bio father was. It wasn't on my birth certificate. I spent two years in foster care."

Another deep breath. "In my dream I could remember. Well, maybe it was because other people could interact with it that I could. But in them I had a best friend who would protect me from how bad things were. A best friend who I called Paul."

Richard's hand gripping hers is unintentional. He doesn't let it go because - thinking of these psychic abilities, "...Like Sebastian Torres." It doesn't seem enough to say but he says it anyway. His thumb rubs along her hand, "What happened? What do you remember?"

“Like Sebastian Torres,” Alex agrees. “Like Katie Yi.” There’s a pause and while Alex wants to mention others she doesn’t know if they were called Paul or not. She doesn’t want to go down that road though.

“I only remember the dream. But…” A deep breath in, a deep breath out. “He kept me warm after my mother left. I think he was the reason I was found actually. And he kept me safe in various foster homes. He stole food for me when they didn’t feed the kids. He…” Alex takes another deep breath. “Hurt people who hurt me. Kids and stuff. They were scared of me. And in my last foster home before my mom and dad’s I’m pretty sure he killed the foster father. I didn’t realize what it meant at the time but I do now. In my dream Paul was trying to protect me from this woman who was here sharing the dream with me. And he’s the one who told me I would be safe with the Reagans.”

He's not sure he can let go mostly because this is delusional but here she is and here he is and he's psychic and he's terrified of what it would be if he looked inside her head. If he even could. If whatever this is is connected to Torres...

He squeezes her fingers gently.

"Are you saying that those things might be...good? Or are you saying that you're tied into them?"

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