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Tweak says, "D to the A to the M to the IEN"

Alex Millar is now free to look how she wants (stucklikethis) wrote in wariscoming,
@ 2013-04-10 13:25:00

Entry tags:

alex millar, hal yorke

WHO: Alex Millar and Hal Yorke
WHAT: They need to talk, so they're going for a walk.
WHEN: After Tony's post.
WHERE: Someplace quiet so no one sees Hal talking to 'himself'!
RATING: TBD, but Alex does have a foul mouth at times, so swearing at the very least.
STATUS: In progress
[Cut tag lyrics from FFH: Undone, aka the song that almost defines Halex for me!]

Sometimes Hal could be an absolute idiot. But then what did that make her? The dead girl in love with the man tangentially involved in her death. She'd tried, so damn hard, to not love him, to keep reminding herself what he was capable of, to remember what Lord Harry had said and done, but the fact was, she couldn't turn off the way she felt. Alex wished she still had the ability to really headdesk.

She'd settled into something of a routine since being in Lawrence. Since she didn't sleep she would be awake all night, reading books and yes, sometimes watching porn because it was both hysterically funny and a harsh reminder of what she couldn't have any more. Sometimes she could just sit a while, eyes closed, trying to remember how it felt to dream. But that was often when the bad memories came. The Men with sticks and rope, trying to come for her, to drag her to hell. Hatch and the trapping her in her own grave, where she had faced the very real chance of being stuck there for eternity, until even the Sun exploded and she was still there as some fucking screaming wreck and floating in some kind of arse end limbo. Cutler, and the pain as he had cut open her throat and drained her blood into a cup, and fucking monologued about his entire grand plan, and really, who in their right fucking mind did that?

And every morning, just before Hal woke up, and she could time it perfectly every day because he was just so set in his ways, Alex made him tea, rentaghosting it into his room and placing the mug by his bedside and disappearing before he could even wake up. She never said anything about it, and neither did he.

She tried not to be jealous of Katherine. Gorgeous Katherine, from the same era as him, another vampire who could understand the bloodlust, who could truly be touched, who had the kind of beauty that didn't ever seem quite real because people shouldn't really look like that, definitely bloody didn't where Alex came from. Katherine was the kind of woman someone like Hal would end up with. Seductive, dangerous, intelligent. Not a crude, dead Scottish girl who could tell more fart jokes than most boys and knew the offside rule by heart.

But then, whenever Alex thought she could lock her feelings away in a little box in her ghostly heart, Hal did stupid stuff. Like complain about her trying to kiss an RDJ face. Talk of being inappropriate and deserving more, when really all Alex wanted to hear was that he didn't want her to kiss anyone else. And then she mentally kicked herself for wanting that and why couldn't he just drop the subject? Urgh. Men.

But a walk. He wanted a walk and she agreed, and was waiting by the front door for him. Because fuck it, if they were going to talk she did not want any of the supervamp hearing to pick up what she said.

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needstheroutine
2013-04-10 01:19 pm UTC (link)

He wasn't entirely obtuse. He knew full well that she felt something for him. 500 years of women, 500 years of knowing just what to say to make them fall for him and then of course just how to destroy them, it had left him wary of letting anyone that close to him. The things he'd done in his life, he hadn't just killed those who had caught his eye, he'd usually left the death to the others, that was never quite where the thrill was.

But how was he supposed to explain that to Alex. That his greatest fear had always been that he would one day hurt her and that fear had come true in Cutler's actions.

He shook the thoughts out of his mind deciding to focus on Alex, focus on everything he needed to put into words and remembering what she'd told him before, about how he'd slipped and not asked for help, about how all he had to do was reach out and he'd have it. It wasn't an easy ask of someone like him. Far from it. But for her, he'd really just have to try.

"Alex" he began, simple really, that part.

"We'll go as far as you like, pick somewhere, bring us there, whatever you want."

God he really didn't want to have this conversation but there it was all the same ready to be had

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stucklikethis
2013-04-10 01:29 pm UTC (link)

Sometimes there was a massive advantage in Hal not being a living thing. It meant transport was easy. There were some woods nearby, Alex had discovered them on one of her wanderings, quiet, away from people. Some place they could just walk and not be discovered. So she offered him an awkward half smile as she held out her hand, slipping her fingers through his and using the movement to tug him closer, placing her other hand on his shoulder. She'd never quite figured out how much contact she needed with him in order to teleport with him, but using both hands seemed to do the trick well enough.

Closing her eyes, concentrating for a moment, picturing the woods in her mind, she could feel the shift in the air as she pulled them from one place to the other. Instantly the world changed, the soft carpets and warm air of the house changing to a breeze outside, the sounds of birds in the trees.

"I will never get tired of doing that," she tried to lighten the mood a little by joking. Every time she felt a flash of thrill and nerves when she did it, something she kind of hoped never went away. That little part of her that always wondered just what happened in between there and here, if one day it would go wrong, if the men would come for her, if something would happen. That was the thing about dying, you learned not to take things for granted.

"So," she turned to face him, leaning against a tree slightly with her arms folded. "You wanted to talk in person."

Okay, so she had been the one being all avoiding, but that didn't mean she was going to do the brave thing and go first.

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needstheroutine
2013-04-10 01:50 pm UTC (link)

Rentaghosting. Even if it was a dammed stupid name for the thing was useful. And it had gotten them out of earshot. Alone with Alex once again Hal would have been more than happy to clam up and avoid the questions that he knew he had to answer now they were here and now it was all just laid out before them. God but it was messy already.

Though it didn't take Alex long to turn the topic to where it needed to be. She was braver than him by far, but then he had known that since he'd really begun to know her, locked away in that room with her body. She'd dealt with things better than he thought he ever could have done.

"I do care, you know that yes?" he said in more of a hurry to get the words out than anything else. But it made them no less true. "The thing is well, when I do, when I let myself actually care about someone they wind up hurt, I say hurt not dead because well, we've been there and passed by haven't we? But death is not the only thing you have to fear from me, from Him."

For all their wonderful talk about staking him when it came to it, Hal knew he could easily talk her out of it long enough to escape. He'd done it before after all, with so many. With Lady Catherine of all people.

"I have not missed it you know, the way you are around me, the morning tea. I just didn't quite know how to say it without leading to this conversation and all the hurt that actually letting yourself care for me that deeply will bring you."

He let out an unneeded breath, pausing to look around at the scenery, letting that overtake his mind just for a moment or two. Just long enough.

"But stubborn as you are, you won't give up on me though you really really ought to."

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stucklikethis
2013-04-10 02:15 pm UTC (link)

He never got less infuriating. Alex's jaw clenched slightly as she listened to him, and okay, maybe he wasn't quite as obtuse as all that, maybe he did have a clue and had been trying to gently ignore it, the way she felt about him, all of it.

"Okay, fine," she half nodded, looking away, around, at the ground, anywhere but at him. "So you maybe have noticed stuff, but you think this is easy for me? You think I haven't tried to not... care about you?" Yes, there was a pause there, a pause as she so nearly said 'love', catching herself just in time before she humiliated herself further. "I nearly lost you before I came here, and you think I don't remember every single fucking day here that it could happen all over again and how much easier my life.... my death would be if I could just poof away from you and all of that, and yet I can't, I just can't, I apparently can't so much that I sassed the fucking Devil here because the idea of him hurting you just hurt me that fucking much and...." She trailed off and began pacing around, frustrated beyond belief.

"But you, you with the mixed messages and driving me fucking crazy." Pausing in the pacing, gesturing like mad at him with the look of irritation on her face. "You say one minute that you don't want me to care about you like that, that I should walk away, but then you get so urgh over a fucking joke of a kiss that wouldn't even mean anything to anyone and start going on about inappropriate when you should know by now that I am fucking inappropriate and I'm sorry I can't be all proper the way you think women should be, like you thought Lady Mary was, like Katherine so obviously is and fucking hell, Hal."

She closed the distance between them, stepping up closer until she had to raise her head to look Hal in the eyes. "You want to know what the easy option was? You really want to know? You didn't need to go on about appropriate or what I do or don't deserve, you just needed to say you didn't want me to kiss anyone else. Because I can't do this any more. Either you let me try to kiss Sherlock fucking Holmes or you tell me you don't want me kissing someone else, anyone else and stop giving me these fucking mixed messages."

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needstheroutine
2013-04-11 09:36 am UTC (link)

He didn't want her to kiss anyone else. Ever. In fact the very thought had made him want to find that actor and anyone who shared his face and ensure they were unable to do anything like that again. But that was the problem of course, wanting that for her, wanting her to be his. It opened doors that were better left shut.

"It would be so much easier without me. You could go and see things, travel, do your unfinished business and pass on, content. Or in fact no, you wouldn't because you wouldn't have died would you, it was only through knowing me that you came to be as you are. So tell me, why should I ask you to care about someone such as I when all I ever bring to people's lives is death and misery. You know him, the other me, do you really, has he ever done the things to you that he has to so many before, and will again, because you know its futile, this...whatever it is we have, if it is allowed to happen, it will be fleeting. It always is, every time I try to let myself have something good it falls apart."

Though god, he thought she wasn't good enough, because she wasn't proper, because she wasn't a 'Lady'

"Its not you, its..."

No, no he would not be that needlessly cliche to her, she deserved better than that, by far. "Alex, I'm terrified, don't you see that. I'm so fucking scared that I'll hurt you, no I can't kill you, but if you believe that's all I could do then you really don't know him. And I could and would quite hapilly kill every last person in this town and laugh about it. I need you to see that its saving you from that, its not that I don't care. Of course I care. Quite deeply as it happens."

He shook his head.

"I don't want you kissing other men. But I can't hold you back from it either. I'm not sure what I'm trying to say to you now only that I am truly sorry that I'm not worthy of you. You deserve better than me.

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stucklikethis
2013-04-11 10:40 am UTC (link)

Sometimes he really could just break her fucking heart. Alex honestly wasn't sure if she wanted to slap him or kiss him. Or both. Probably both. Both seemed fitting.

But as it was, she did neither. Just stood there, trying to keep some sort of composure. "You think I don't know how much easier my life, or death, or what-the-fuck-ever would be without you? You think I haven't tried to turn off how I feel? Because I have, I really fucking have, here, at home, all of it. Fuck, talk about dysfunctional, because I don't think it gets much more fucking dysfunctional than me, being all this for the guy involved in my death." Wow, talk about messed up.

"I'm terrified too." Her voice became quiet at the admission because really, she hated it. She hated being weak. "I'm terrified of so many fucking things. I'm terrified of my door showing up and me being done. I'm terrified that it'll never be here and I'll be stuck forever. I'm terrified of the devil, both devils, and I'm terrified of losing you in some fucked up way. Because you die or because you turn into him. I'm terrified of what he's capable of." Because he did know how to hurt her. Okay, so physical pain was off the menu now, but Lord Harry knew what to say, how to stab in the metaphorical heart.

What Alex wanted to do was grab him and kiss him anyway. And what she wanted to do was run and never look back. Which would probably be stupid because without Hal, without that connection, would she just drift away? Like smoke on the wind? Add that to the terrified list. Would she have to just stick around, watch him move on, maybe with Katherine, someone he'd be able to touch properly, someone he'd be able to fuck. Not like Alex, in the same damn dress, and fucking boots and sexy bra that wasn't exactly comfortable.

"I don't know what we're supposed to do now." She eventually admitted. "Whatever this is with us, it's not going away, is it. How I feel about you, and what we are. You're still going to be all brooding and fucking emo, and okay with reasons and all, I get that, but still, and I'm still a ghost. So what do we do now?"

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needstheroutine
2013-04-11 11:43 am UTC (link)

What did she want him to say? That he didn't care? That it would be easier if they could just turn it off. He'd said it, and the only way those feelings would go away for him was a choice he was not willing to make. The blood. "Alex..." he started, stopping almost as soon as he had. There were no words.

And she expected he would one day be with Katherine? Oh he couldn't deny she was his type. She was precicely the kind of woman he'd normally go for without a seconds hesitation. And she was stunning, and understood him. And yes, he could be intimate with her if it came to it. But was that what he needed right now?

"I don't know either. 500 years and I have less answers it seems then I started out with. I don't believe the feelings will go away and you remember more than I do. I know, I looked into it and I know I kissed you, though I was hardly myself at the time. We can't be together as you want, you know that, and you know why. You know the risks. Its not possible, but..."

But what? The kiss he'd never experianced, the kiss that it seemed had been tainted with blood. She deserved a better memory than that, a real kiss. He owed her that at least.

He hesitated for just a moment before leaning in to kiss her, properly, free of the blood, free of anything that might mean he didn't want to do this. He wasn't sure what it meant or if it would lead to more complications. It didn't mean they were together, it couldn't. But she deserved it. Pulling away after a few seconds, his expression shifted back to as calm as he could make it. He was good at that, good at hiding his emotions. Always had been.

But he'd had to give her something good before the inevitible befell them

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stucklikethis
2013-04-11 12:22 pm UTC (link)

No, they couldn't be together as she wanted. Because she was dead. They could never have Sunday mornings lounging in bed, eating bacon or fucking waffles, drinking coffee, having every kind of sex imaginable. Weekends where he'd have to deal with her PMSing, or using up all the hot water because she was taking forever in the bloody shower. Normal stuff. A life. Like any couple in love, and she'd never have that with anyone. Because she was dead. A lingering memory that couldn't quite let go of the world.

But then he was kissing her, and it was good. It was as though she could actually feel the heat of his skin, the pressure of his lips against hers, and it was so much better than the kiss they'd had at home, when he'd been high on the blood again. And it was all over far too quickly.

"Hal..." Kisses shouldn't hurt, right? Shouldn't cause that stabbing pain in a heart that wasn't beating any more. Alex closed her eyes, trying to stop herself from shaking slightly, as her tongue slipped out briefly to lick her over lips as though she could somehow taste any lingering trace of him.

"Sometimes you can be such a bastard." A few moments more and she opened her eyes to look at him. And she took some deep breaths, even though they were so far from needed.

"I'm not going to beg. I don't fucking beg, I'm not going to stand here and tell you that we should be together, that we should try, that maybe we have a chance even with all the fucking odds stacked against us, even though that's how I feel." She had way too much pride to stand there and plead with him to give them a chance.

"I think.... maybe...." she paused, drawing each word out as she thought of them, not wanting to actually say it out loud. "I think maybe I should stay somewhere else. Because this isn't fair. Whatever this is, it's not fair on either of us. And you deserve the chance to be happy, Hal, you really do. I believe in you, I know you can do this, just maybe all the guilt fucking angst that comes with me being nearby, maybe that's just making this worse for you. And god, that's the last thing I ever want for you."

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needstheroutine
2013-04-11 12:42 pm UTC (link)

He knew she'd be upset with him, he supposed in many ways what he'd done just now was a crueller response than most things he could have done in the situation. But he'd had to. She deserved one memory where it was good, and right and how it should have been. And god help him he wanted to do it again. It had been everything he could have imagined it would be too.

"Yes" he replied to her pronouncement that he was a bastard. He wasn't going to hide away from the truth. "Sometimes I probably can be."

There was no probably about it though.

His mouth set in a thin line as she refused to fight for what could never be. It was all he could do, let her heart break now so he didn't break it further later. Let everything fall apart now so that he didn't destroy what was left of her later. He wasn't going to be begged at either. It was unbecoming of her, and she really truly was better than that.

But then came the part he hadn't been expecting.

"You don't have to do that, god Alex you should be around people that know you. People that can see you, you need contact with those around you or you'll lose your mind. And I won't have that happen on my account. Mitchell's doing better, a lot better and I can still come and check on him even without being there. I'll go. You stay where you are. Because its not you, its not anything you have done. I promise you that. I just know how this will end. How it always ends. That's the thing you see Alex. I'm a coward. You got it right when you first got here. So many times, so many chances and every time, every single one, he has destroyed any happiness I've managed to build."

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stucklikethis
2013-04-11 12:55 pm UTC (link)

The taste of what could have been. Yes, it was cruel. That one taste and him stating it wouldn't happen any more. Ghosts could still cry. It was fucking unfair, but they could. And it was taking all of Alex's self control to hold herself together.

Though the movement of the leaves and branches around them had nothing to do with the wind. And it took restraint not to tear the very trees from their roots too. Poltergeist. Sometimes she wondered if she was one.

"It's not just about Mitchell doing better though, it's you too. You need that sort of environment. And Mitchell. And," she paused and swallowed, just for a split second. "Katherine." The house of redeeming vampires. "I think maybe they're your best chance at holding him back. They get it, restraining the blood lust, being vampires, all that shite." They understood him in ways she couldn't, as much as she hated that.

"There are other people around who can see me. Like Cas, or the witches. And I can still talk to people online. Not like I'm going to be stuck on my own forever." And ever. And ever. Bollocks.

"You're not a coward, Hal. You're a fucking moron and a complete bastard at times, but you're not a coward. He is, but you're one of the strongest men I've ever met."

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needstheroutine
2013-04-11 01:23 pm UTC (link)

Strong?

Oh no she was so very wrong about that, he was weak. He always had been. They all thought it was so easy, they all thought all he had to do was fight the bloodlust. But there was a futility to it that Mitchell didn't have. One day he would fail. One day as it always happened, he'd fail, he'd drink and he'd destroy everyone here that had tried to care about him. And yet Alex was still angry at him, rightly so probably, the breeze in the trees, growing stronger.

"Alex, calm" he told her, reaching out a hand to rest at her arm though he knew better of the action. He was just getting so used to being able to calm her when she was upset. But he supposed this time he was the very worst one to do something like that.

"You shouldn't have to go when you've done nothing wrong. Not really ever in fact, I'm the one with the history of torment and cruelty, why should I have the things you deserve. I want only good things for you and you know as well as I do, good things don't come from me."

How did she do it? How did she make him feel like a good man just by saying that he was, saying he was strong. It was a nice fantasy, but ultimately untrue.

"Please, this is hard enough as it is?"

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stucklikethis
2013-04-11 02:39 pm UTC (link)

Really, it was a good thing they were outside, and not some place like the kitchen, with glass and crockery that could be smashing into a million pieces as Alex's efforts to keep her expressions calm and her fists by her side resulted in more movement among the trees, branches creaking against the pressure she was pushing against them, as much as she tried not to.

Hal's touch on her arm did momentarily calm her. Like muscle memory or something, some ingrained reaction that he could just calm her down. But then there was the fact that he was the one upsetting her, and that made her wrench her arm away angrily, causing a small rock to fly up from the ground and hurtle several feet through the air before it smacked against a tree.

Okay, so maybe calming down would be a good thing.

Alex stepped back a moment, taking some deep breaths and trying to pull whatever energy it was that ghosts were made of back into herself.

"Say what you want, I still think you deserve good stuff, and I think Katherine and Mitchell are your best chances at getting that. You need help too, Hal. So don't do the pulling away thing, because that is exactly what got you into trouble before. If Lucifer's going to poke at you, I need to know you're around people who can handle that. Please." Even if that someone was the gorgeousness of Katherine.

She laughed, a harsh sound that caught in her throat. "Shit, why do I feel like I'm getting fucking dumped here when we're not even in some sort of relationship? This is so extremely beyond fucked up."

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needstheroutine
2013-04-19 11:18 pm UTC (link)

He had to be cold with her. He knew what he'd done. How much worse he'd made it by that kiss, but god, he couldn't not. Not when she'd looked at him like she had and simply because she deserved a kiss that was real, that meant something, even if only once. So he'd given her that and now he had to break his heart. Because he knew Alex, and he knew very well she couldn't stake him even if she wanted to. She didn't have it in her to end his life and he wouldn't put her in that danger.

"I have to be safe. You know as well as I what the consequences of anything else are. And you know why this can't ever be. If I pull away its because I have to, not because I..."

He cut off, it was such a stupid statement really, because he had to, not wanted to. It made so little sense and he by all accounts should just have walked away and left her to move on with her life, or her existence really. It had been so different with Pearl, usually she hated him, or was irritated by him. Or traumatised but that had only happened a few times and he'd given the Kia Ora back. And written a very nice apology to the miniature circus if he did say so himself.

Pearl and Leo had kept him grounded. But Tom and Annie, and now Alex, they all seemed stuck on this fanciful idea that he could be better than he was. It was ludicrous. And so coldness would have to prevail here.

"You aren't being dumped. As you say, we were never together, we never can be. If you won't let me leave Katherine's then I expect we will have to adjust to things. It will take time I'm sure, these things always do, but you're strong willed, and a good woman. You'll be fine."

If she didn't hurl a tree at his head.

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