alex argent's getting tired of this crap (alexargent) wrote in blackpoint, @ 2014-03-18 21:17:00 |
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Entry tags: | alex argent, isla lahey |
WHO: Isla Lahey and Alex Argent
WHEN: March 17th, 2014
WHERE: NYC, Isla's apartment
WHAT: Isla and Alex watch Teen Wolf expecting one thing, and getting something else entirely. SPOILERS for 3x23.
RATING: PG
Isla hadn’t slept the night before. Really, she hadn’t slept well in weeks, not since she’d realized just how apparent it was that Isaac would be the one to die. Their version of things ran so closely parallel to what was on the show that the idea that she might die was terrifying for her. It left her feeling so lost, so unimportant in the world that she could be considered expendable. She knew how angry it made her that they’d treated Erica and Boyd like an afterthought, and the idea that she’d be the same weighted heavily on her. So as Monday had rolled around, she’d been an absolute mess internally. The party over the weekend had been what she needed to distract herself, but it still left Saturday and Sunday to think and let her anxiety grow, and that’s exactly what it’d done.
She was a nervous wreck through the show, and leaned solidly against Alex for support because she simply couldn’t have watched any other way. She clung to his hand so tightly that she had to remind herself to ease up so that she didn’t hurt him. And they counted each commercial break, each segment leading her to believe more and more that it’d be her. There was the moment in the car. Those moments never were a good sign. By the last commercial break, though, she had hope. Maybe it wouldn’t happen. Maybe it wouldn’t be her after all, maybe it’d be the twins or something. And then the battle had started. She’d not realized she wasn’t breathing as she watched Isaac be slashed, all signs leading to this is it. And then Allison had shot her arrow and saved him. Everything seemed okay.
And then it wasn’t.
She’d cried out, stunned, horrified, aghast. Heartbroken. And she’d watched in shock as the show had ended, breathing a pained no over-and-over as she waited for it not to be true. When it was over, she turned to face him, and couldn’t help the sobbed gasp that escaped her. “I’m so sorry,” she breathed, pulling even closer to him and bringing her other hand to the side of his face, needing to be as close in contact as she could to reassure herself that he was there. “I’m so sorry. I-- this can’t have happened. How could he-- how could this happen-- it was me. It was going to be me. It was supposed to be me.”
Like Isla, Alex had been laboring under the dread that Isla’s fate was sealed. The concern had started a few weeks ago when he’d stumbled upon some spoilers in Russian, and after they had caught on, most assumed that Isaac’s actor was leaving due to having been hired in another project. Leaving - now that was a euphemism. Alex had lost too many people to take the possibility of losing Isla remotely well; although they were a fairly new couple he was already terribly attached. He gave her his heart and protection without hesitation, so when they agreed to see the first part of the season finale together, he inwardly steeled himself to not appear to worry - a resolution that swiftly dissolved as the episode went from bad to worse.
Toward the end of the episode, as Isla’s fingers were entwined in his so fiercely that it was almost - almost - too much, Alex’s hopes began to sink. They were clearly leading up to something - between Lydia’s assurances that someone would die, to the Nogistune’s pleasure at their arrival. When the Oni began to slash Isaac, Alex was torn between leaning forward and recoiling altogether. “C’mon,” he muttered, angry that the camera seemed to revel in the violence, seemed to slow and linger over every connection that the sword made. He only felt relief when Allison’s arrow struck home, destroying the Oni that had been poised to take Isaac’s head off ---
--- and then that hope withered strangely, abruptly, when he noticed the sword that had been thrust through Allison’s chest.
Outside of a few fears that he may have been possessed by the Nogitsune, Alex hadn’t given much thought to the fact that he might be the one to die - an oversight, he saw now, as Allison fell on the screen onto the concrete, as Scott scooped her up and pleaded, as she murmured about her father and her hand twitched and was still and the credits rolled. Alex didn’t move - there had to be more than that, right? There had to be some way to bring her back. But as the commercials began to blare to chirpy pop music he suddenly realized that Isla was tugging at him, was fairly wrapped around him, her face against his neck and he brought his arms up to her blearily. Alex suddenly knew that there wasn’t going to be a last-minute deus ex machina for any Argent. The knowledge was as solid as a stone moving down his throat.
There wasn’t much that Isla felt would’ve been worse than dying. She wasn’t as concerned about losing Scott, because Scott was the lead character in the show and it wouldn’t make sense for him to go. He was the Teen Wolf, even if this season had focused on Stiles infinitely more. And while she was absolutely on edge over the prospect and seeming inevitability of Isaac’s death on the show and what that likely meant for her at home, she’d have much rather that had happened than what had actually transpired. Allison had her father, had Lydia, the others... Allison had so much more that she needed to live for.
There was a part of her that reminded her that, while certain elements were the same as their timeline back home, there were still some major differences. Maybe that meant that Alex was alright back home, that he’d grow into adulthood and be amazing like she knew he would be, but that part couldn’t compete with the utter grief and devastating shock and helpless anger she felt. She wanted to make Jeff Davis pay.
She lifted her head to look at him, staying close and not daring to move away. “I’m so sorry,” she said again.
“It’s okay,” he heard himself saying, and wondered why he was saying it. It wasn’t okay; it wouldn’t have been okay had Isaac been the one to fall. But comforting her was something to do, and Alex threw himself into the project with the same zest he did for everything. “It’s fine, it’s okay, it’s okay,” he repeated, then with a shudder he realized that he was parroting back the words that had come from Allison’s dying breath: assurances, however useless, but no-less heartfelt.
The realization snapped him out of the fog of shock. Although there were differences between the worlds, they were closer than most. Everything that had happened tonight on the television might have feasibly happened in their world - might still happen, of course, if the portal felt like sending them back.
The expression that had ripped across Chris Argent’s face - so like his mother’s - rippled in his mind. Alex’s hand reached his mouth. She was alone, now. File that one under another thing that wasn’t ‘okay’ despite his reassurances.
“Hey,” he said, forcing his voice to be light. It was like throwing an elephant up the stairs. “It’s not us. We’re okay. We’re here. And people, they don’t go back.”
It most certainly was not okay, and Isla knew that he was only saying so to try to comfort her. She was trying to comfort him as well, even though she had no concept of how to properly do so. She had no idea how to make any of this any better, and it wasn’t as easy for her to turn off her emotions when they’d been uncovered. She was so sleep-deprived and on edge anyway, and every moment that passed since the end of the show felt like sandpaper across her already raw nerves. Hearing him say those words made a sob course through her, which she tried to hold back but couldn’t completely.
There was a great deal of shock, but Isla was still too surprised and full of emotion to settle into the numbness that would likely come. For now, she couldn’t really focus on anything, because there was too much flooding through her and between them.
She saw his hand cover his mouth, and more tears fell from her eyes, the hand still tangled in his clenching just a little more tightly.
“It’s not us,” she agreed, for both of their sakes. “It’s not okay. But we’re not there. We’re not.” She had to pause, her breathing a trembling mess. “I’m not letting them take you back there. I won’t let them.”
His own eyes weren’t entirely dry. Alex kissed the side of her throat as much as to hide the fact as to offer comfort; he wasn’t embarrassed by his freaking out so much as he didn’t think that it would be particularly comforting. Isla was agreeing that they had their own world here, and that was a good step forward, and then she moved on to an ominous them. “The portal?” he asked a little stupidly; blinking rapidly as he tried to pull out of shock and keep up with the leaps her mind was making. “They… we’ll be okay here. There aren’t even any oni.”
Alex was somewhat sure that oni could be summoned, but he wasn’t going to mention it. His arms once more met behind Isla’s back, his eyes closing. She was tall, sure, and slender, but she felt very solid despite the overflow of emotion that they were sharing. Her heart was beating very quickly; Alex was sure his was even louder to her thanks to her werewolf hearing.
Werewolf…
“Oh god, Lyle,” Alex said, disentangling himself from her only enough to grab his phone from the table, otherwise he remained wrapped up in Isla. “He usually watches, he--” But there were four text messages already from his best friend, culminating in a brief “OMW” sent a few minutes before. Alex didn’t know why he hadn’t heard the phone go off. Maye he had really been that far away for the last five minutes after the episode.
Isla wasn’t entirely sure she could be comforted, and that was likely why it was hard for her to be terribly comforting herself. But the kiss was yet another solid reminder that Alex was still with her, and that they both were still alive and as healthy as they’d been an hour before. It helped, if only a little. His question brought a nod. “The portal. The oni. Jeff Davis,” she said, her anger pushing through now as well. She wanted Jeff Davis to pay. “Anyone.”
She fell against him again, though, when his arms closed around her, her head on his chest where she could hear the beating of his heart even more surely. The echoes were as reassuring as they were painful.
She lifted up again at his words, letting him untangle as much as he needed to. She brought a trembling hand to her mouth at the thought of Lyle, her heart aching so much more in her chest that she had to bring her other hand to cover it. “I think the door’s unlocked,” she said quietly, rather sure that Lyle would arrive any second. “And if it’s not, he can just break it. I don’t care.”
Alex was pretty certain he’d get angry later. His fury at his father’s death had taken a little while to gain momentum, but once it flared it had been all he had, bright and forceful. He barely remembered that hazy time that he now regretted: attacking Derica’s pack, refusing Scottie’s persistent help.
But unlike Isla, he couldn’t get angry yet. It was still too strange a juxtaposition between the cold tragedy back in Beacon Hills and the safe insular cocoon they were in now here in New York. “We’ll figure out what to do,” he answered, exhaling with such violence that it felt like he had no energy left. “Even if that involves a field trip to L.A.”
He’d barely finished that vague threat when he heard a small commotion outside the room: Lyle was here. Alex gave Isla’s hand a squeeze as soon as he recognized his best friend’s voice, and this time he wasn’t comforting her, but taking comfort.
He had a feeling he was going to need it in the next few days.