eyemind | event } ya gotta be a dolphin

Entry tags:

event } ya gotta be a dolphin

WHO: All the little fishies!
WHAT: An underwater adventure
WHERE: Kupra City, or you can stay on Navi if ya want
WHEN: Dec. 20-Jan. 2 16
WARNINGS: Use ‘em in your threads if needed! And if you end up taking an extended dip in the big drink, please report it on the death page.

[Hello, passengers! Hope you're all ready for an announcement, 'cause Navi's voice is getting beamed into your head right about ... now.]

Attention, passengers.
We'll be landing soon on the planet Umora, at Kupra City.
We'll be docked for two weeks, local time.
Please stand by for atmospheric entry.

[Is it just your imagination, or does Navi sound more tired than normal? Either way, it's now time to BUCKLE IN, CHAPS. It's not a particularly rough landing, just your standard amount of turbulence, though it may seem a little jarring to those who aren't used to space travel.

Upon docking underwater and disembarking, passengers will find a bank counter just past the terminal, where your new windfall of Navigems can be exchanged for credits (the universal currency).

Have fun! And do try not to drown … ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"I've been there. Several times actually, over the last few months that I was at home." And she'd seen Richard and Ruby put it back together and make it livable as Strand had moved into the PNW because that's where all of Coralee's disappearances had come from. She probably doesn't need to say it, but she does anyway as she tries to buy some time around the question that he'd blatantly asked her.

She knows that Strand had pushed on her boundaries around demons back when he'd showed her the exorcism of Jessica Wheldon, and she doesn't know if they'd had the conversation about how much Alex hated demons or not. Sometimes all of the things that they'd discussed, particularly in the early days all ran together. But he definitely doesn't know about all of the ways that this had just devoured her whole and Alex has a choice to make: she could lie or she could tell him the truth and Alex really hates to lie.

But that doesn't mean that Alex can't talk around it, and she does. "A lot has happened, and the Exorcist was always the thing that scared me the most when I was a kid. And I mean..." Alex just swallows, and for a moment panic threatens to well up in her before she slams back the bourbon because she can't help it and if she thinks of the nightmare that was shared here, she's going to go entirely insane. So, she just pours herself a shot and does it.

He won't deny that there is a spark, a brief spark, in his heart of vindication. Good. Coralee broke him. He had sobbed his way through news cast after news cast. This young woman was an avatar for his grief and...

And he finds himself wanting to do a shot in solidarity.

"Hit me hard. Go on."

If Alex hadn't had been drinking, then she probably would have never asked him this. Even when the two of them had spoken about their shared history within the confines of working on the tapes that last night that they were alone, neither of them had mentioned it. There had been too much going on, and Alex needed to cling to whatever professionality she'd managed to hold onto after all of the things that she'd done during especially the last few months that they were working together.

But he told her to hit him hard, and she doesn't want to poke him anymore about his history. So, instead what Alex chooses to hit him on is their own shared history, his and hers. Taking a sip of her bourbon for either courage or just because she can't believe that she's doing it, Alex follows up with the question that she's been wondering about for over two years now. "You were flirting me that first day in your office, weren't you?"

Gut punch.

Was he?

"Can you blame me?" Coralee explained her previous affair, folding her hands, "I at least am honest, Richard. You like women."

"I-well yes but-"

"You like flirting with women." For the first time since they'd begun talking she looked gently amused, "You're a possessive bastard when you marry one, or at least date one, but you yourself have a wandering eye dear."

He takes a long swig of burbon and sets the glass aside calmly, trying not to think of how soft Alex was when she hugged him.

"Do you think I'm attractive?"

The words are out before he can think and he sits crosslegged. This is absurd. I'm not a boy with a note for a girl in my class. She's younger than Charlie. Who she knows about, she's dug into my whole life and I barely know anything about her.

"And do you regret asking about me? I mean my history?"

"I'm guessing that you didn't listen to the first episode when I sent it before it aired." Because she'd not wanted it to go out without him knowing what she was thinking of for a direction of the show. It wasn't until episode three and before Keith Dabbic that they'd ended up talking about how he had been married and how Alex hadn't been going to divulge that unless he'd approved. He had, and Alex has often wondered since then if that was something that he regretted. She probably would have regretted it in his situation.

And of course speaking of regret, Alex just sighs and lifts up the bottle, despite knowing that she should really stop drinking. Splashing a smaller out into the glass, she sips it before she speaks. "Yes, I find you attractive, it was right there in how I'd described you for our audience. 'Dr. Richard Strand is a tall man, good looking, confident, with a perpetual wry smile and cool blue eyes that betray a sharp intelligence. He's a man who doesn't like to waste time or words. And he just looks like he knows something that the rest of us can't quite understand.'" Yes, she knows it by heart and no she's not sorry about it.

"And yes, I regret a lot of things over the last year when it comes to the search for Coralee." But she's not going to go into specifics.

I flirt with people when I'm nervous He doesn't say You're as persistent as I am when I want something and I've never met anyone like that, not even my ex wife.

But she speaks with such conviction and he can't help but chuckle, "Cool blue eyes and sharply intelligent. You were the one flirting with me."

Searching for Coralee makes him pause, and he swirls the liquor in his glass. Her hug remains on his mind - sex is a need, not a pleasure (it hasn't been since Coralee) and the company of a woman is a pleasure and he hasn't needed that because-

The Burbon swirls into his chest, "This is good alcohol. And since you like facts about me I will tell you that I have my mother's eyes. But both my sister and I have our father's hair and general...appearance."

Charlie got nothing of the Strand side of the family save for his tendency to be a know-it-all (as she had said) and his intelligence. Thank god for that.

"Which one of your parents do you look like?"

“Hey I didn’t say it to you, Richard. I said it to the audience. You I got up and ignored when you were giving me the canned spiel about the wonders of the universe.” The words aren’t angry! They’re nothing more than a light tease coming with a broad grin.

A grin that falters a bit. “I...I don’t know actually. I was adopted when I was five and I don’t remember my birth mother. And there’s not photos in her records. She didn’t put who my biological father was on the birth certificate. She’d died before I turned eighteen and could talk to her.”

Ah.

"The wonders of the universe are very real Alex Reagan. I stand by that speech because honestly if people stopped wasting time - see this- I can believe all of this that we're on a space ship much easier than ghosts or demons or any of that nonsense." He waves a hand but swallows because-

"I apologize. About your mother and that question." He pours himself a pity shot before downing it quickly, his hand a little unsteady, This really is good liquor. "I confess I assumed a bit of a negative relationship between you and your parents the way you hyperfixated on me. I was wrong."

Alex looks more than a little bit amused in that instance, and she just bites her lip around the grin that's twisting up in the corner of her lips in an effort to look more stern than she ever actually is able to manage. Alex Reagan doesn't do stern--or any other sorts of similar emotions really--particularly well. And even if she was able to do them on her face, she wasn't able to keep the amusement from her voice when she just asks point blank and more than a little bit tipsy: "Are you implying that I've got Daddy issues, Dr. Strand?"

"-Daddy issues? I-" Does he look embarrassed? Yes he does. Is he blushing? Yes he is, "Daddy is actually a term of endearment sexually - It - a number of sexual therapists believe that it's a term of warmth and endearment."

He inhales, "Daddy issues or the Electra complex is Freudian in nature and while I tend to think of myself as Freudian as -" he harrumphs, "As a father I-It opens up your mind." There. There's his emotion. There's his academic focus.

"Alex, you're a good person and you should know people associate so called "Daddy Issues" with minimizing female needs. A real man doesn't "daddy" a woman unless she asks"

After babbling it out he rubs at his face, "Fuck."

In the last six months, never mind the last two years Alex Reagan has had some exceptionally surreal moments. There was Strand’s hiding in his office and Gloria Cohen and her trying to make Alex say demon names. There was everything around Maddie Franks and Simon Reese bilocating into her bedroom. There was Strand’s not sleeping and her own and the Empress and Cheryl’s tape and Bobby Maimes and Coralee being alive and both Alex herself and Strand being kidnapped and yet somehow—somehow—this left all of them squarely in the dust.

For a moment Alex can’t help but to idly wonder if this is some new form of showing up naked to class nightmare but from the way Alex not-so-subtly presses the thumb on her left hand into webbing between her thumb and forefinger on her right (an age old test for her to check and see if she’s awake or asleep in her nightmares because it wouldn’t hurt if she was asleep) and it causes her to wince there’s no way to think that she’s asleep. If she’s not asleep then this is really happening and oh my god.

Alex skips any polite shade of pink and flushes immediately into a shade of bright crimson as she mutters “oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god.” For someone who normally has an excellent vocabulary and is rarely at a loss for words, the fact that those three are the only ones that she can say for a moment is a truly terrible sign.

When the broken record of Alex’s thought process finally tricks its way out of the grove of that she can’t help but to ask because what is a filter between her brain and her mouth on the best of days? “Really, Richard?! You think that a thirty-one year old woman who grew up in the age of the internet and who only dates older partners doesn’t know what daddy issues are?! Of course I do!”

And then because why only want to mostly crawl under the table when you can want to crawl into a black hole and drag the universe inside after you, Alex can’t help but to ask: “wait does that mean that you like being called ‘daddy?!’”

Wait does this mean that you like being called daddy-

How to respond to this. His first impulse is to run because that is his response to discomfort and shame but he is also an adult and she is younger than he is. He can discuss this. When he was studying for his psychology degree he heard worse.

Inhaling, he moves to pour himself another drink and his hand is unsteadier than it was. The alcohol is clearly working.

"...Since you asked." He inhaled, the burbon is at that pleasant phase where it's warm and you can taste it instead of the burning that comes with alcohol, "I..."

Damn.

"How much detail do you want me to get into...?"

Alex’s response is immediate when he asks her the question. Even as her cheeks refuse to lighten up in away from the blush she’d already had on her face, Alex can’t help but to ask, “what do you want to tell me, Richard. You want to ask me something to make it easier then go ahead.”

Richard stares at her agape.

He can think of several things to ask - where she likes to be touched, what she wants him to tell her, where she likes to be kissed, what she-

Swallowing, he presses his lips together and moves to grab the bottle to drink it, pouring and sloshing some over the side beforeh e grabs it.

"I am not nearly drunk enough to violate the reporter subject privilege."

Well fuck. If Alex was wise, she would simply send him off to bed to pass out and sleep this off rather than to keep engaging in what seems to be more and more of a game of tmi chicken. But he had started this by choosing the field of battle, and he'd started it with Daddy issues and Alex had started it by bringing up their flirting in the first place.

But now, here they were and quite toasted and Alex knows that. She should probably let Richard Strand get away with that rather sensible thing, but Alex never does the sensible thing, and when she's drunk, she always does the stupidest thing. Case in point, Alex just says: "I don't think that's a thing with us anymore. I mean, not where we are anyway. We're on a space ship and have no idea where so. If you want to say something or ask whatever you should."

Edited 2021-01-10 08:10 (UTC)

"...What is your erogenous zone besides outside of your vagina-" Nope. Nope. He licks his lips, frowning, "We need more alcohol. I need a drink. I need something strong do you know what-whiskey. Can we get whiskey?"

His eyes slide to her chest and he looks away, "...Jesus. Alex Reagan I am old enough to be your father. Charlie is older than you are you..."

Fuck. He downs the burbon in his glass, "...You can't possibly want me."

Okay so they were in fact going for this. Before she manages to come up with an answer for him, Alex opens one of the drawers of her dresser and takes out a very large bottle of tequila. The seal around the cork hadn’t even been broken so Alex has no way of knowing that it’s way stronger than normal tequila when she sets it on the table and pours a heavy amount into the glasses. Giving him one, Alex takes her own and sits on the top of the table before she speaks.

“Yeah, you are old enough to be my father. And yeah I know Charlie is older than I am too. But that doesn’t mean that I can’t find you attractive you know. Cause I do and have done so even when you’d had a unabomber beard and wore unbuttoned flannel over a t-shirt. This attraction didn’t go anywhere even when you were being a giant dick. So. It’s probably sticking around.”

Taking a sip of the tequila, Alex chokes a little bit before she says; “my neck, by the way. Behind my ears.”

"A beard?" He rubbed at his chin, "And a unabomber flannel." His head swims, "Do I look good with a beard and a unabomber flannel? I had a beard years...years ago when I was in school..."

He licks his lips and belches, "Pass the tequila." He swallows, "I want to get hammered because you are ...I..." boldly he reaches forward before he drops his hands to the ground, "No. No I am a gentleman because even if you are soft and you feel good to hold no. No-"

He tries to stagger to his feet before slumping down, staring at her from the floor, "Can't hold my liquor as much as I...As much as I want to."

"You are very soft and when you hugged me I..." Damn.

“I always think you look good, but you looked vastly better with your suits. I was really glad when you shaved and started wearing them again.” Alex is drunk and there’s no denying it. Not in the slightest. But Richard is on the floor and there’s no way that she could lift him up even if she was sober so instead Alex just walks (well, half walks and half stumbles) to her bed. Grabbing the blanket and pillows, she comes back and drops one pillow and the blanket on top of him before she lays down boneless on the floor with a little giggle.

“I think you wanted to kiss me then, you know. I think you still do.”

Was there ever a moment this cute with Coralee?

Was there ever something like this? No it was passive. They sat beside each other and read occasionally with her leaning on his shoulder. Nothing like this. Nothing like something that felt like it was from the moves.

His hands hover.

"...You're interviewing me. I don't want to ruin you." He pulls off his glasses and rolls over on his back, "...It's just an infatuation. It'll pass."

She's better than this.

For a moment, there was just perfect peace between them, and it would have been so easy for Alex to just to drift off to sleep. But then again, like so many other moments before it, Richard Strand had to open his big damn mouth and put his foot inside of it. Sitting up so quickly that Alex can feel her head spin, she just stares at him entirely aghast, her mouth wide open as she just whispers "what?" like the calm before the storm.

"Seriously, Richard? Wow." Scoffing quickly, Alex just shakes her head. "'Ruin me?'" Yes, she actually makes the finger quotes. "'Just an infatuation?' You fucking condescending asshole. If there's one thing that you should know about it's that I'm the one who makes my own choices, and I know my own fucking mind. You can go fuck yourself." Alex moves to wobbly stand on her feet. "Keep my floor, I'll go find somewhere else to pass out." And then, because Alex Reagan can occasionally be just as much of an asshole as Richard Strand can, she adds: "I'm sure Jon won't mind if I crash in his cabin." On the floor, not that Alex is going to add that.

Richard stirs at that, "...Sims? The one talking about the Vast or whatever? He seems nice."

But there's an edge to his voice. It felt so nice to have her beside him.

"I thought you had better taste than someone babbling about ridiculously strange...who the hell knows." He waves a hand and slumps on her floor, "We didn't finish our game but go."

He snorts, tequila on his breath as he makes a grab for the liquor, "Chicken."

“Excuse me?” Alex is fucking infuriated by him calling her a chicken. That’s one thing that no one would have ever called her before because if there was one thing that she’s not is any kind of coward, not like the man who is on her floor with the rest of her booze.

Stomping over to try and wrench the bottle from his hand. “I’m not you, Richard. I’m not the one who runs away every time you fucking don’t get your way or your feelings get hurt or whatever. I’m not the one that who runs. That’s all you. Your drunk ass may still be laying on the floor but we both know that you’re the one running and you’re so desperate to make it my fault. Then you can just be superior with how right you are about people and never actually admit to yourself that the one common factor here is you.”

"Because people ran from me!"

He tugs it back before letting it go, shouting it out, "My wife, my daughter, and now you! Everyone I care about always leaves and I'm tired and it's just easier to go."

Real emotion cracks through his voice, "But go. Because I'm not Jon Sims who apparently is perfect!"

He curls over and moves to swig straight from the bottle, "Run. Fucking run. I don't need you I don't need anybody you're the last damn good thing I have met and I..." Ugh.

He just curls over.

"No! No. You don't get to turn this into me needing to fucking comfort you! You can't have it both ways, Richard. I'm either the 'last damn good thing you met' or I'm being 'ruined' by you and you're an 'infatuation that'll pass.' I have spent the last two years being jerked around by you, and just when I think that maybe, just maybe we'll finally be on the same and even playing field you pull this."

Alex isn't normally an angry crier, but her eyes are filled with tears at this moment, thanks to the last two years of not sleeping and of Richard Strand playing hot and cold with her in turn just like he's doing now.

But more than that, Alex is fucking furious because it's working. Because she wants to comfort him and make everything better, as much as she can. She wants to chase the hurt from his voice and assure him that she won't leave but honestly she can't do that. "Fuck." Alex just says the word softly, and shakes her head as she rapidly blinks to try and stop the tears from coming.

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