eyemind | Closed.

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Who: Alex Reagan and Simon Reese.
What: Alex knows that Simon was there listening to her conversation with Strand and she’s calling him out.
When: Immediately following Alex and Strand talking.
Warnings: Stalking, demons, children in danger from demons, murder, the end of the world and everything else TBT-y in nature.

The conversation with Strand had felt like a small battle in a long war that he’d been in with Alex since he’d arrived here. While Alex wants to be hopeful about things getting easier once he actually listens to the show and the two of them are on the same page, right now she doesn’t have a lot of faith in it. Richard Strand, after all, can be famously contrary to her, and she knows that it’s only something that’s more likely to increase once he knows everything and realizes just how much she knows and how she discovered it. Frankly, Alex is aware of the fact that giving him the entire show is a quite good way for him to end up with ammunition to use against her just as much as he seems to now, but he deserves to know. More than that, if Richard Strand wants to condemn her for something, Alex would vastly prefer that he does it for her actual actions and not just what he perceives her transgressions to be for knowing what she does about him.

It’s a lot and Alex is just hoping that it doesn’t increase the animosity between Strand and Simon that he’d mentioned before. Strand has never been Simon’s favorite person and Alex is aware of that and since he’s been here, she’s also becoming more aware of the fact that he thinks that he needs to defend her or whatever. Being a grown ass woman, the thought that someone feels like he needs to defend and protect her chafes a bit, but Simon is the one who has all of the answers and he has been for a long time. What Alex wishes that Strand would understand is that she gets how much it sucks that you can only understand some things from your future from what the person ahead of you knows. The difference, Alex supposes is that Strand has trained himself not to believe in anything (even her, some tortuous part of her brain reminds her. It’s a familiar pain that’s leaned upon like a bruise but in the end it’s an old one and she knows how to deal with it.) and Alex can’t help but to believe.

Alex Reagan is a believer and she always has been. She always will be.

Because Alex is a believer, and because she knows Simon, as soon as she steps into the hallway that both Strand’s cabin and her own open onto, she just sighs and says. “Alright, Simon, come out. I know you were listening.”

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For a moment, Alex just considers that and him possibly being able to find it. There's a little thought in her head, Richard when she'd first heard about the Horn. ' Believe me. I've had just about enough of the Horn of Tiamat to last me a lifetime. But it looks like it's back.' Jesus, she can only imagine how much Strand's not going to want to know how important it is. But Alex isn't very inclined to worry about his feelings right now--Strand can listen or not, but she's not ever going to be able to stop wanting to know these things about all of this.

So, Alex just asks: "did Thomas Warren find it at the dig in Hillah, Iraq like Strand suspected that he had?" There were a few (more than a few) things that Alex regrets not asking Thomas Warren when she and Strand had met with him following Coralee and one of them definitely had been that. Another of course had been if he really was the Advocate. But given the way that Strand had wanted to leave (and Alex doesn't blame him for that, she'd have wanted to do the same thing if their roles were reversed) they'd not had the chance and Alex doesn't think that they're likely to get it again considering everything that Coralee had told Strand about not doing it.

Do as I say and not as I do indeed, Richard.

"Where has it been this whole time? Does it have to do with Strand being the Mantle of the Dragon or something?"

Oh, if anyone's going to find it it'd be Simon. Who else had perfected bilocating down to the artform he had? Of course that didn't mean it was easy to do, mind, but he was damned good at it. Strand's going to hate it, Simon's also not going to let Strand near it but he's not telling Alex that much.

"No," Fortunately he did not. Because if Warren had it he wasn't about to let it out of his grasp. Simon wouldn't be able to secure it then, Warren still wants it. If Alex thinks that's the last she's seen of Warren, well... That definitely wasn't the end of him.

Simon's quiet for a while, mulling over how to answer, or maybe just thinking about his brain killing him one or the other. Or both! "The Vatican," He's located it, he just has to go get it. The specifics are still a little fuzzy but once he has his hands on it he'll know for sure. "I was on my way to retrieve it when I found myself here." As for the Mantle of the Dragon thing... he's not answering. And that alone should be enough for her.

Alex is definitely relieved at the fact that Warren didn't have it, but the relief is short lived. If Warren doesn't have the Horn, then it's likely that when he offered Strand all the funding he could ever want, it was a bribe so that he could gets the Mantle under his thumb. Something that she's pretty sure would be a terrible idea and she's really glad that Strand is too pig headed to let it happen. Hopefully. Probably. All of the other things that her and Simon were discussing means that... Well, she doesn't quite know what it might mean but she does know that whatever it is probably wouldn't be great for her.

Sometimes being genre savvy really sucks.

"You're going to bilocate into the Vatican to get the Horn of Tiamat? Isn't that... I don't know, dangerous?" It seems like it would be given everything else about the Catholic Church but then again, all of their demons definitely have had far more to do with Sumerian than Christian mythology. She knows that if Simon isn't saying no, then it means that it does have to do with Strand being the Mantle.

"Oh." It's a soft sound that she makes, and it matches with her frown.

Of course it was a bribe. Fortunately that was one of those times when Richard's bull-headed stubbornness worked in everyone's favor. Warren hadn't even been subtle, surely he knew Richard wouldn't comply. Or, maybe he thought he would on the basis of Howard Strand.

Simon's still functioning on Borne Identity and Meet Cute rules, to be fair. They might not be in the genre they expect.

"What about any of this hasn't been dangerous, Alex?" Simon asked, completely sliding right on past having to openly admit to the bilocating they both know he can do. Finally feeling a little less dead he moved to push himself up, grabbing one of his pillows to wrap himself around so he could sit up to give her an incredulous look. She has noticed that she's not researching geocaching right?

Of course, he also neatly sidestepped admitting that it was directly dangerous to him because it absolutely was. Yes the mythology they were dealing with was more Sumerian than Christian, but all of the Abrahamic religions borrowed heavily from Sumerian did they not? It was dangerous and a terrible idea. He's still doing it.

"He doesn't want to face his part in all this." And therein lies the root of all that conflict. Strand doesn't want to believe.

For a moment, Alex can't say anything. She can't even think of something to say which almost feels a bit like some sort of mental crisis when they were talking about this. But the sensation of being punched in the stomach doesn't go away when Alex wraps her arms around herself and studies him. It would be easier if it did go away, but nothing about this has ever been easy and Alex Reagan knows that nothing about it ever will be. It can't be when you look at all of the moving parts and people who are involved with it.

Her voice is soft when she replies: "he never wants to believe, Simon. Would you if like you were him? I don't think I would want to believe either. Hell, I'm not even the Mantle and I don't want to believe this. I mean I do," which is where the difference between Alex and Strand happened to be, Alex does believe and Strand religiously and devoutly refuses to believe in it, no matter what happens.

But before Simon can be snide about Strand (there's never not enough time to be snide about Strand when it comes to Simon Reese though) Alex focuses onto something else. "How come he's psychic here where as he could block it back home." Alex isn't saying that this is some newly found power; she knows that this ability was one that Strand has had the entire time and he'd been too frightened to use.

There were still pieces missing from what Alex knew, some of which Simon could fill in, but others he was still waiting on her to uncover the links to in the show. Regardless of that he knew full well how far-reaching this all was. How much danger she and Strand have been in all this time. They were everywhere, absolutely everywhere, and had far too much influence to easily evade.

"You accept the evidence in front of you," Simon does manage to squeeze in at least one counter against Strand. Richard stubbornly covers his eyes and sweeps it all away with "apophenia" and never has to look any deeper than that. Alex was never satisfied with easy answers. Simon wasn't satisfied with lies. Simon will be polite and refrain from being excessively snide about Strand to Alex. He's not going to talk shit that isn't the truth.

Just... often the truth was also talking shit. To a degree.

"He always has been, Alex, but you knew that already," A little snide, as Simon does. "I imagine it has something to do with this place. The connection to Navi amplifies things. And then there's the other one." Back to being cryptic thank you Simon.

While Alex isn't psychic herself, Alex can still practically hear all of the things that are following what Simon said about evidence. More than almost anyone else, Alex is aware of just how much Strand hides things and shoves them under the whole 'apophenia' umbrella. It's something that has driven her completely insane in the past, and it's not likely to be something that gets any better as time goes on. It just isn't. Strand has to be himself, just like Alex does and just like Simon does. All three of them are who they are down to their cores and none of them are likely to change easily. Or, you know at all.

"I know has been. I also know he's been blocking it back home, Simon." An understatement for the denial that Strand sat on an island in the middle of like it was going to be something that would protect him when all it does in the long run is to hurt everything that is around him. Including Alex if she's not careful.

"The other one what, Simon?"

They are all very resistant to change. Although... Alex might come to be surprised by Strand in the future. Not that Simon's going to point it out right now. Not unless she asks. He does, eventually, start to at least accept something is going on. Even if he staunchly refuses to accept any suggestion of the paranormal. That wasn't the important part of their conversation right now anyway.

"The painful one. He's too... bright. Too loud. Too many eyes."

He's talking about the angel.

For a moment, Alex just blinks at Simon. Someone having too many eyes isn't hard to piece out considering how Murmur had been when she'd asked him for help when she was having trouble sleeping here. What he did for her had kept the better part of her nightmares away until Alex had vanished for that month to Xanadu. Now, however, it wasn't working as well but Alex is fairly certain it's because of the nightmares that she's unconsciously choosing to bring in: basically the things that have long dogged her reality that have been all kicked up once more thanks to Strand and Simon himself being aboard.

Alex also remembers the how and the whys and the reasons that Fred Barnes had called the show: Simon attacking Trent. It had been in the back of her mind that the reasons that Simon was attacking Trent was because he'd been praying but that's not something that she'd considered here. Feeling foolish because of it, Alex just frowns for a long moment as she considers. "Is there something that I can ask him to do that doesn't hurt you, Simon? I don't think that he would want to hurt you if he could avoid it." But that's not all of course, considering their conversation. "How is Murmur stopping Strand from blocking his abilities, Simon?"

The specifics about how blessings and the such worked would probably be better explained by the angel in question who provided them. That kind of thing was subtle, and required some help from the person receiving the blessing for full effectiveness. Simon and Richard's presence probably weren't helping matters at all in the restful sleep department, even if Simon wasn't actively trying to make things worse for her.

Simon just shook his head, actually for a moment looking briefly distraught at the very idea of Alex asking that entity to do anything for him. He'd really just rather stay out of view and avoid him entirely. He soon went back to that usual intense stare because it was back to Simon explaining things in strange metaphors time. "Before, his door was open just a crack. Just enough to peek through. That... Murmur is like the sun itself passing by. Now that Richard has seen that for himself, it opened the door for him. Once the door's been opened there is no closing it."

He's used door metaphors before, when talking about bilocating, and when telling her about what happened to him. For Simon his door was opened by his parents and whatever demon they called up for him to serve.

Alex frowns, the concern in her expression intensifying as an entirely unfamiliar look passes across Simon's face. Now, she's not seen Simon Reese very often and before they'd been aboard here it had only been the once when Simon was fully intent on manipulating her and whatever but way Simon looked of being distraught almost makes her heart drop. Simon Reese has been a lot of things in this story other than the only person who was telling her the whole truth, and Alex for the most part considers him kind of a Cheshire Cat with his appearances and disappearances. It had been easy for Alex to forget sometimes that Strand was a man, and it was even easier for her to forget that for all intents and purposes, Simon Reese is still a kid. He may be eighteen (nineteen now? Twenty?) but he's still a kid to her considering how much of his life he'd missed. It rips part of her heart out whenever she realizes it, and Alex just frowns when he forges himself once more into an enigma.

"Alright Simon, I won't mention it." And Alex wouldn't because she doesn't want to make things worse for him when things are already so hard, but she can't keep the look of empathy from her face. But if he wants to focus on Strand, Alex can force herself to do the same. "Just being around an angel did that to him? That's a little worrisome." Or a lot worrisome if it means that more might come through that now open door. There is a reason that Warren was after things in Strand's familial line, and there's a reason why Howard had exchanged messages about 'The Mantle of the Dragon' and it's a scary thought. Oh, she's not scared of Strand, but right now she's definitely scared for him.

While Simon would absolutely contest the idea that he's still a child, in reality she wasn't terribly off the mark. He spent most of his major developmental years in a psychiatric institution, and those before then being indoctrinated by chaos goddess demon summoning parents. None of these things made for a particularly well adjusted adult. He was, however, very practiced at keeping his emotions and motivations largely secret. Thus, back into the shadows that temporary glimpse of genuine emotion gone once more.

He nodded, glad she wasn't going to push the issue. Better just to not touch that, he felt. "The rules are different here. Back home, I don't think it would have been possible." Did angels even exist? Simon wasn't sure, he certainly hadn't seen any evidence of them. Demons aplenty, no angels. "My door was opened when I was young enough to learn to adjust." Suggesting, then, that Strand hasn't had that time or practice to realize his potential. Nor how to control it.

Alex doesn't believe in angels back home. In all of the research she's done around the story, there has never been a mention one other than Lucifer making the backdoor into heaven when it came to the unsound. Demons of course were always on the menu but they weren't the sort that ended up being Christian in nature. Honestly, given everything at this point, Alex just thinks that the Christian mythos was just based on the Sumerian stuff at it's core that it had stolen. Tiamat and the end of the world had existed before Christ had even been born (if any of that was real, Alex doesn't know what she believes in anymore when it comes to that) and things like the Order of the Cenophus and The Brothers of the Mount had just like fused the two together. It's complicated and Alex is well aware of the fact that Murmur isn't from his world even if he had blessed her and it had worked.

But there's a more important problem that Simon has placed at Alex Reagan's feet, and it's a problem that both of them know Alex is going to attempt to tackle: how Richard Strand was going to adjust to his new abilities considering he's fifty-five and not five. There's something more than a little bit worrisome about the whole Mantle of the Dragon thing suddenly being in the forefront of things rather than a hanging thread that runs through the background of the story without any resolution.

"So how do we get Strand to adjust to it, Simon?" Because clearly it's going to be a group effort. Was there any doubt that Alex would put herself in the situation to help? Of course not because Alex Reagan is Alex and at her core she cares for Strand no matter how many times she's tried to tell herself not to even back home. It's something that never works which is how Alex's found herself stumbling into the middle of things with her and Strand practically being rubber bands that stretch and in the end always come back together no matter how much they may not want it.

If angels do exist back home, they're remarkably unhelpful and standoffish. They certainly haven't been around to try to stop the end of everything, maybe they don't care. As he'd never seen any evidence himself, Simon couldn't say one way or the other with certainty. He could confirm the demons, as that's all they've seen. Far, far too much of. The blessing probably worked because regardless of where he was, the angel still had his own power independent of the individual universe.

Losing the firm grasp of his unreadable nature Simon did let out a quiet little sigh, something a bit long suffering and defeated. He knew Alex was going to try to tackle that problem, which meant he'd have to help tackle that problem. Granted, it wasn't like he had anything better to do but offering to help Richard of all people...

He balled a hand into a fist to lean his cheek on, looking dreadfully tired all of the sudden. "...I can teach him." He doesn't exactly want to, but Simon would do anything for Alex. He's not sure she realizes that.

For a moment, Alex just watches Simon. If so much of their interaction hadn't happened over the phone, then she would be better to read the language of Simon Reese. In some ways that was the real work that she'd needed to do when it came to the show and all of the players within it: very rarely did someone actually say what it was that they were meaning to, and Alex always needed to find the thread and tease out what was at the core of it. With Strand, it was something that had become second nature--the silences between his words had needed a Rosetta stone since the beginning, never mind his sighs and the things that he'd left out. In a non-romantic way, Alex too had learned to read his body language so she knew just how far and how hard to push. With Simon, the Rosetta stone had only ever had the cryptic way that he'd spoken about things and the phrasing in it.

Alex hadn't ever thought that she would end up being able to learn the physical parts of his language as well. Being good at reading people is one of the things that has made Alex good at her job, but with the way that he looks now, nearly anyone would be able to see the reluctance in him. It makes her sigh softly, and Alex bites her lip for a moment. While she's not aware that Simon would do anything for her (and she never would want that for him either. Not at all. She doesn't want people who are willing to do anything for her even if that's what Alex herself does.) she does know that he equates her with the sunsets that he loves, which means that he thinks that she's going to be the one to stop this. It's not a comfortable thought, but at this point Alex knows that comfortable thoughts aren't exactly on the table for her.

"Simon..." Alex starts and then she stops, her voice low because she knows that he doesn't want to teach Strand. "What can I do to make this easier for you?" Because someone needs to teach him so he doesn't end up... however this would mess him up, and the only person who gets what he's going through, for better or worse, is Simon himself. "Would it help if I were there when you needed to teach him?"

In a lot of ways, as Alex might easily surmise, that was the way Simon preferred it. That distance, the relative safety behind facelessness. He could control his tone easily enough, and had enough practice playing so many different variations of insane at the hospital that he was hard enough to read on average. Alex, however, was more perceptive than most gave her credit for. Somehow he doubts he's going to be able to keep up the façade now that he's, for one, not being actively mute anymore. His major line of defense was gone now.

The reluctance, however, he wasn't exactly putting a lot of effort into hiding. She'd know anyway, there wasn't much point in pretending that he wasn't exactly thrilled about the idea of having to deal with Richard Strand. He met her eyes when she said his name, saying nothing while he waited for her to give voice to her thought.

Silently he considered her offer for a while, taking another bite of sandwich in the meantime. What would make dealing with Strand easier? Mostly he'll need to cooperate, but honestly that's up to Richard he'll have to make the decision to do that when Simon makes the offer.

But maybe there is something. "...He think of me as a deranged murderer. He doesn't understand." Maybe Alex could soften that edge for him? It might make the man more tolerable.

Even at the beginning of this, when Alex had still had doubts about the nature of the things that the show was uncovering, she'd never thought that Simon was a deranged murderer. When Nic had showed her the video of Simon being interviewed by the psychologist, she'd had far more empathy for the eleven year old who claimed to murder his parents than she'd had for the man who was being paid to try and help him. Despite the way that Simon had been an asshole to her when she'd interviewed him after he'd gotten himself drawn to the attention of Alex and her show, she'd not thought that he was a deranged killer. While she didn't know quite what to believe with what had happened with him and Trent (even if she did know that the things that Strand had tried to use to explain what had happened was bullshit) she didn't think that he was evil or something.

As the murders had piled up, as she'd fallen deeper and deeper under the spell of the spiderweb of a story around her, Alex Reagan still hadn't thought that Simon was nothing more than a deranged murderer. He was doing it to protect kids like him (like them really, which isn't a thought that sits comfortably in Alex's stomach and she doesn't think it ever will) and to stop the manipulations to end the world. Someone needed to do it, and Alex is aware of it, even if she's not a violent person herself. Of course there's the uncomfortable way that she knows that Simon has been using her show as at least some of the way to find more parts of the conspiracy (like Maddie Franks) but she's not going to examine that too hard right now.

If the Strand here was the one who had been from the same place in the timeline as Alex was (or Simon himself of course) she's pretty sure that it would be easier to convince the skeptic that Simon wasn't deranged. Of course she may not have been able to convince him completely, but there might have at least have been a better chance for it. Alex Reagan, at least has never met a challenge that she's said no too, so she's not about to let this notion of Strand's go uninterrogated. "I will do everything that I can to make him see you as more than that, Simon. I promise." And then because Alex is Alex, she also adds a bad joke. "Even if I need to sit in on your sessions with a spray bottle and spray him every time he's an asshole."

Strand's unfounded explanations were often as wild as the tales of the supernatural he was trying to debunk. More so, given he was willing to make his own wild leaps of logic based on flimsy evidence at best when the evidence presented to him otherwise was much stronger. It was a large part of why Simon wrote him off so early. Richard Strand wasn't going to help, not on his own, but Alex Reagan, well... she could be reached. She would help him preserve sunsets.

He knew she understood. All the way back to Maddie Franks he knew, deep down she knew he was right. What he was doing was necessary. Alex understood and that's why he could trust her, not only with this but in general. She wasn't judging him the way others would and did. She understood that he didn't do what he did out of some sick pleasure, only necessity.

He didn't want their world to be lost. Neither did Alex.

Her agreement was met with a faint, tired smile. "I know you will," Alex was good on her word like that. "He might protest, I think that's a great idea." Something of a bigger grin crossed his features at that. Simon thought Alex's bad jokes were great.

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