undergrounds | March open post

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March open post

I. The Department Store [OPEN]
Waltham Forest, Morning

A relaxed morning in bed with a cup of tea had turned into a trip to the store to buy a new set of sheets. The mattress was dry now, at least, even if it would probably smell like tea forever, but she'd somehow managed to scrub a hole right through one of the sheets so she'd need a new set of those. The new sheets came with new pillowcases, and she decided she might as well get new blankets too, because her blankets had also fallen victim to the tea disaster, and before she knew it the three hundred pounds she had left in the world became less than two hundred and fifty.

Loaded down with new linens, she headed for the cafe and bought a sandwich and a cup of coffee, ruefully counting out her change. She was so preoccupied with that, hoping that maybe the barista had miscalculated and maybe coffee and a sandwich wasn't really that expensive, that she failed to notice when she nearly walked right into someone, only barely stopping herself spilling coffee all over them.

"I'm so sorry," she said quickly, immediately readjusting her grip on the coffee.

II. The Mansion [OPEN]
Westminster, Night

Alex needed the money. Badly. And it wasn't like she was robbing an orphanage or a bunch of nuns or something. She did research. The guy whose house she was breaking into in the middle of the night was filthy rich and not very nice, and if the contents of his safe happened to go missing, well, that sucked for him. Getting into the mansion was easy, and cracking the safe wasn't much harder. There was some cash and a small bag of diamonds, which she took, and a lot of papers, which she left.

Before tonight, she'd figured out how many guards there were, and had so, so carefully avoided all of them. So it came as a huge surprise when she heard a floorboard creak and whirled around to find a guard pointing his gun at her.

A short fight later, Alex was running full speed towards the outside fence. She'd been shot in the shoulder and her hands were slick with blood from digging the bullet out, which made climbing the fence a lot more difficult. Some other guard must have heard the gunshot, because as her hand finally gripped the top of the fence, all the outside lights turned on, lighting the yard up as bright as day. She felt someone grabbing at her ankle, kicked out as hard as she could, and hauled herself over the fence onto the sidewalk. She almost landed square on somebody's head.

III. The Bus Stop [OPEN]
City of London, Early Afternoon

The bus was late. This bus was always late, and Alex knew its exact schedule because Edith rode this bus every week. She had to buy cat food, and it had to be specialty cat food from a specialty store in the City. Alex hadn't believed that at first, because an 85 year old werewolf who was obsessed with cats didn't seem like it could possibly be real. And yet, here she was, carrying around a thirty pound bag of cat food for Edith for the third week in a row.

She didn't hate it as much as she thought she would have. Cleaning dentures was gross, and doing the dishes and laundry and changing beds was tedious. But helping the elderly members of the pack generally felt kind of... good. Which was a weird feeling.

Alex was snapped out of her reverie by someone barreling past her, snatching Edith's purse as he went. Alex did the first thing that came to mind: she hurled the bag of cat food at the thief. It hit him square in the back, broke, and sent its contents showering over a near passerby. She ran over, picked Edith's purse up, and kicked the thief onto his back. He was out cold.

"Are you okay?" she demanded of the passerby.

IV. The Diner [CLOSED to Illya] (backdated to a couple weeks ago)
Camden, Evening

Three weeks to the day that Illya made his deal, Alex waited for him in a small diner near the British Museum. She'd scraped together a few thousand pounds and had it converted to rubles, so she would be able to buy weapons and transportation once she got into Russia. She'd mapped Pinksy Forest, partially from memory and partially by bothering immigrants in Little Russia, and she had some ideas of where the pack's new den might be. All she needed was a way into the country, and Illya, she hoped, would have one for her.

She was too excited to eat. If this worked out, she might be only weeks or even days away from going... not home, exactly, Russia wasn't home anymore. Back to where she started. To finally get closure for everything that had happened to her in the past six years. But she ordered some eggs and sausage for the appearance and sat, picking at them while she watched the minutes tick away on her phone, waiting for him to show.

V. The Confrontation [CLOSED to Kyle] (backdated to late February)

After Lupercalia, Alex spent days worrying that she had ruined whatever relationship she had with Kyle and wondering whether it would be easier to simply pretend she had never met him and move on. But he was a hunter, or at least somehow involved with the supernatural. And even if he'd never directly lied to her, he'd concealed the truth, and in her eyes that was just as bad. She wanted an explanation. Before long, she had worked up enough anger to storm all the way to his place with every intention of confronting him.

There were no obvious signs of life there. Maybe he was out. She raised her hand to bang on the door when she remembered that even if Kyle was a liar, his aunt and uncle might be clueless and innocent, and she didn't want to get them involved. If they came to the door, she would have to exchange pleasantries and possibly pretend to be there for some innocuous reason when all she wanted to do was shout at Kyle.

Instead of knocking, she yanked out her phone and called him. If he didn't answer, then she'd knock.

VI. Choose Your Own Adventure! [OPEN]
Anywhere, Any Time

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As soon as Kyle saw the gun, he dropped Alex's hand and took a step back, confused as to whether he should be surrendering or preparing to fight. After a moment, he slowly caught on that she was making him aware of it in case he needed it, but there was still a giant middle ground she had leapt over to get there.

"What the hell, Alex? You have a gun?" That would be unusual enough in America. In England, it was more than a rarity. "Why do you have a gun? Is that the only one?"

Alex immediately held the gun up flat between them, the barrel pointed at the ceiling. She wasn't trying to frighten him at all and she wanted to make that clear.

"To protect myself," she snapped. "And yeah, it's the only one." She released the clip and held it up so he could see the wooden tips on the bullets. "They work great against vampires, but they'll hurt the wolf as much as a regular bullet." Which wasn't much, but it was better than nothing.

Kyle frowned at her, finding himself a little envious of her possession while simultaneously worried for her having it. He made a mental note to work on his own arsenal, or lack thereof, in the near future. Apparently he was a part of this world whether he wanted to be or not.

"Protect yourself from who? Or what?" He understood in the general sense, wanting protection. He'd started carrying a stake around with him most of the time. But a gun meant business, and was usually reserved for people either professionally trained or absolutely terrified, or both. The memory of her attacking him in the grocery store flashed through his mind.

"Vampires." Once again, that was only a partial truth. Alex hated lying to him, but she knew the truth would put him in danger, and explaining that she was very well-trained in firearms meant she'd have to explain her history with Nikita. He probably wouldn't approve of some of the things she'd done. Their relationship was already rocky enough.

"You know how it is, vampires and werewolves, mortal enemies." She tried to play it off somewhat lightly.

She slammed the clip back into the gun and stuck the gun back under the hood.

He wasn't really the type to pry generally. There was a reason he hadn't tried asking about her training and her past again, hadn't tried finding out more about why she didn't seem certain about wanting a moon necklace or how she'd found the pack so quickly after moving here from America. But he had a hard time when he felt like people were lying to his face without understanding why they might do that.

"Yeah," he replied tersely. Abigail had told him about some kind of political alliance and James Memon was angry about the information in a way that made it seem secretive but true. And Kyle didn't really care that much in general, except that it made Alex's excuse sound like a blatant lie. At least it quashed his desire to kiss her.

Maybe, in hindsight, whipping out the gun had been a bad idea. Alex knew she had upset him somehow but not exactly what she'd done.

"What, you're pissed at me for having a gun?" She didn't think that was it, but she couldn't figure out what else it would be. "My life isn't safe, Kyle!"

"I'm not pissed at you for having a gun," he replied immediately, holding up a hand to try to stop her before she got too far down the line of defensive reasoning. The irritation returned to his voice, more upset with the fact that they were already fighting again than with the idea of her lying to him. He didn't know what he was thinking, coming over here, pretending they could work. As much as he wanted it, he was too damn broken and she was too damn secretive and the easy parts that were so easy were punctuated by fights that were hard and stressful.

Kyle ran a hand through his hair before leaning back against the counter, arms crossed. If he skipped over the whole relationship delusion, this wasn't so bad. So he forced a smile as he looked at her again, erasing all signs of anger. "Promise me you won't get arrested for illegal possession."

"Then what? You're obviously pissed about something." She said it at the same time that he spoke again, and she tilted her head at him, jaw locking in frustration. She didn't want to just pretend everything was okay when it obviously wasn't. Being with him made her happier than she'd felt in a long time, but when he got like this it was frustrating as hell.

She knew it would be a bad idea to start anything romantic with him, but how could they even be friends if he wouldn't talk to her? "Whatever it is, just tell me!"

"I don't have all the information." He shrugged as if it didn't matter. Which it did, or he wouldn't have shrugged like that. "Look, I get that you have secrets and you don't want to tell me about whatever it is. That's fine with me. Really. I just didn't take you for someone to be packing heat. I mean, you're hot, but different kind of heat."

Still trying to make things lighter, still trying to keep things from devolving into anxiety again. Kyle's grin faded to a light smile, equal parts genuine and active effort.

For a moment, Alex had to look away, upset and frustrated with both him and with all the things she couldn't tell him, and all the things she'd done that she didn't want to tell him. Finally, she looked back, shaking her head in response to his smile. She kind of loved that he could smile like that even at a time like this, but she couldn't.

"I can't tell you," she said helplessly. "It has nothing to do with what I want. If I told you, you'd be in danger." She really wanted him to understand that most of her secrets she was keeping for his safety. Almost all of her secrets. All but the handful that she was keeping out of shame for what she'd done, and Nikita, who she simply wasn't ready to talk about. "You knew I had training. Having a gun doesn't change anything about me."

"Okay," he conceded about her protecting him, even though it was a crock of shit. He was always in danger, more than she knew, and he hated the idea of her coddling him or thinking he couldn't handle himself. But hey, she knew shit that he didn't and maybe, just maybe, she was right. Right or wrong, it was obvious she believed that to be the truth and so, for now, he wouldn't push her on it. At the latter, however, his smile faltered and he fell back into annoyance.

"It means your training isn't some distant part of your past that you don't want to talk about. It's here and now. It's- Are you a hunter?" Hunter. He'd been called one several times, in spite of not exactly being one, including by Alex herself. It was easy enough to understand the concept, even if he had only met a couple in passing and never asked the details of their professions.

The leap from her owning a gun to her being a hunter was one she didn't quite follow. "No, I'm not a hunter." This was perilously close to telling him exactly what she couldn't tell him.

"I was trained to kill vampires. Other werewolves, if I have to. Anything supernatural. I was never a hunter, though. I never--" She frowned at him. She felt she was watching their relationship fall apart and she wasn't even entirely sure why.

"Do you trust me?" Less than twenty-four hours ago, he'd told her, completely unprompted, that he did. She was getting the impression that that had changed.

"Of course I trust you." The reply was without pause or hesitation, as if she was asking if the sky was blue. She could lie to his face right now, with him absolutely knowing it to be true, and he'd still trust her. That didn't prevent him from being annoyed though, or from wanting to know why she had a gun in her apartment. The fact that she seemed to think it was normal spoke more to her character than even having the weapon, not that he thought as much on that. "This has nothing to do with whether I trust you or not."

It wasn't all that far removed from his military unit, in a way. Absolute trust, regardless of circumstances, unless unequivocally proven otherwise. But they sure as hell fought and argued within that, as much as they could while following the chain of command and sometimes even beyond. There was no commanding officer here and he knew Alex wasn't a brother-in-arms, but he learned to separate trust from disagreements.

Alex breathed out a sigh of relief. The speed with which he answered made it clear that he really did still trust her. She wanted to be worthy of that trust.

"I would never hurt you. I don't want to hurt anybody innocent. Everything that's happened to me, it's complicated, and it doesn't--"

That was when the oven beeped loudly, announcing that it had reached the right temperature. Alex turned away from Kyle to shut it off, too frustrated and upset at the moment to want to make brownies. She turned back to him. What she was about to say might destroy whatever they had, but even if she had to keep secrets, she didn't want to lie to him anymore. She took a breath and blurted it out. "Not everything I told you about me is true, and it's killing me that I lied to you, but I swear, it was to protect you. I really do care about you."

"I know. I know.." He replied quietly as she began, before the oven interrupted the rhythm of their conversation with its nagging nuisance. Kyle paused when Alex did, watching her turn it off and feeling some inexplicable sense of relief at the gesture. It wasn't until she turned around and blurted out the rest that his expression warped into one of confusion and he crossed his arms again, feeling oddly defensive all of a sudden.

"Wait, what?" He was too busy being confused to even be upset by it. Until his mind caught up. "Alex. Tell me or don't tell me. I meant what I said about understanding the need for secrets. But don't give me this shit about it protecting me, even if you believe that."

"What am I supposed to do? You want me to tell you? It could ruin your life, Kyle. It could get you killed." Alex was emphasizing the fact that she'd been trying to protect him because it made her feel less guilty about lying. Of course she wouldn't have told him the truth at first, not when they'd just met and he was still practically a stranger. But he wasn't a stranger anymore.

She wanted one honest relationship in her life, one real thing. And maybe all of this, this whole fight and trying to tell him the truth without really telling him anything, maybe it was just to make herself feel better, to win him over, because she wanted that honest relationship. Maybe it really was just to protect him. Maybe it was her clumsy way of trying to hurt him as little as possible in the long run. Most likely, it was some combination of the three.

She pressed her lips together in a thin line. "I am protecting you," she said softly. "I just-- I don't want to lie anymore."

Kyle wordlessly threw up his hands in frustration, staring at her expectantly. He meant what he said. She could tell him or not, but the justifications and excuses drove him crazy. Ignorance was bliss and Kyle was a fan of not knowing what he didn't know when it came to things like this, though he preferred knowing the full story if given the option. It was the in between he didn't like.

"I'm not going to guilt you into telling me shit you don't want to tell me- or can't tell me, whatever. So don't. Don't tell me." He said after a beat, shaking his head. He straightened from the counter, grabbing the spare key she set out for him and moving as if to leave, though he paused and turned to face her again less than halfway there. "It doesn't mean I trust you any less."

Alex thought he would want to at least know where the boundaries were and what she hadn't been honest about, even if he was alright not knowing the whole truth. Apparently that just made him more frustrated.

As he started to leave, Alex stood on the spot, her back to him, not turning around even when he stopped. She could feel moisture starting to well up in the corners of her eyes, which frustrated her all the more.

"Fine. Okay." He could leave if he wanted to. She couldn't think of a way to fix everything, so they might as well just leave it there.

Kyle frowned at the back of her, watching in silence and waiting for her to turn around. When she didn't, he pocketed the key and waited some more. Eventually he sighed, tone more weary than angry when he spoke again.

"If you didn't want the brownies, you could have just said so." An intentional dig, a joke meant to force her to either yell at him or break down or lighten up or something. He refused to leave it there, especially since he might not see her again until the full moon and had every intention of showing up in her apartment that next morning.

"I don't care about the brownies," Alex said miserably. They were a nice perk, but really they were just an excuse for him to hang out. She took a breath, swallowing hard and gritting her teeth to make sure she was absolutely not going to cry before she turned around.

"I know this is complicated, and if you wanna go, I get it." It was completely sincere, not meant to guilt him or be passive aggressive. She did get it. She wasn't sure herself whether she wanted him to go or stay.

Edited 2016-03-21 07:33 (UTC)

She took the comment literally, but at least it was a response. He crossed his arms as he waited silently for the follow up, hoping there would be one. Just when he was about to consider he may have been wrong, she finally turned around and he intentionally loosened up, dropping his arms to his sides.

He shook his head at her words. Kyle had decided he liked Alex, which meant he was in it for the long haul, for better or worse. Unless she flat out told him to go away, he would be here. He might leave, but he would return. Right now, he wanted a hell of a lot more to stay and maybe hear some genuine explanations - or, hell, to make some damn brownies - rather than to leave with the same angry knot in his stomach and tension in his shoulders.

"I don't want to. I will, if you tell me to, but I don't want to." He took a couple steps forward to emphasize the point, bringing him to the end of the counter. "I want you to tell me what you want to tell me, and not tell me what you don't want to tell me. I don't like that you feel guilty because of me and I sure as hell don't want to coerce you in any way. But I'll listen, if you want to talk."

Alex shook her head slowly, taking another shaky breath in as she felt the knot in pit of her stomach start to fade. "Then don't go."

It seemed strange that he was so willing to put up with her secrecy, but she was more grateful for it than she knew how to express. He frustrated her, and worried her, and sometimes they argued over the pettiest things, but when he came back her stomach did a flip that had nothing to do with guilt or frustration or fear.

"I want to tell you. I will tell you," she promised. "Some of it I just... need time."

"Okay, I won't." He couldn't help but smile at the repetition and the stubbornness between them. Now that the tension was mostly fading, it seemed easier. Kyle ignored the part of him that wanted to pull her into his arms and comfort her, knowing it was all more complicated than that now.

"Then take time." This time, his shrug was genuine. It was that simple to him. It didn't really matter what her past was, only her present and only what related to him. Kyle had a sense that even some of that was hidden, but it was worth it- she was worth it. Nearly as much because of how few friends he had in London as because of how much he cared about her specifically. "Let's try to avoid any more nine millimeter surprises though."

One corner of Alex's mouth twitched upwards. She was still upset, but the fact that he could move on so quickly helped a lot. "That's the only one."

Her only qualm about telling him her real identity was the danger it would put him in. She could even talk about her parents' deaths fairly easily. Everything else was harder, and there were a few things she couldn't imagine ever telling him, but maybe, given time, she'd tell him some of it. She was glad he seemed content to let her have that time.

"We should make the brownies or put the stuff in the fridge," she said, trying to find something to focus on besides him. They weren't arguing anymore, but she was still a little tense. She moved to put the eggs in the fridge.

Edited 2016-03-22 02:36 (UTC)

He tilted his head, acquiescing that it was probably a good idea. Kyle grabbed the oil and box to set aside on the counter instead of in the middle of everything, watching as she put the eggs away. It was confusing, the conflicting ideas in his mind: he was as nervous about her pulling a gun on him as he was eager to press her against the counter and kiss her again.

"Want to watch a movie?" He asked as a way of distracting the both of them, glancing about at the apartment and realizing that he didn't recall seeing a television. Though, worst case, he supposed they could watch something on her laptop. If she had one.

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