bakerstreet | I let her steal into my melancholy heart

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I let her steal into my melancholy heart

Darkness Loves Light

No matter how the darkness looms around you - how much you've become the darkness - there's one bright spot in your life - a person who makes everything worthwhile.

It doesn't really matter how they came to you. What does is that they stay. Whether you admit it or not, you seek comfort from them...and, perhaps, them from you, if you're in the same situation.

So, whether you push them away, treat them right, or go so far as to worship them and put them on a pedestal, you don't want them to go now. You crave being with them, or at least being in their presence. Don't ruin this for yourself. After all, what would you do without your little ray of light? You'll do anything to keep them happy and loved. Anything.

Respond to the meme with your character, canon, preferences, and, if you'd like, what position you're character will be in.
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It's not that he doesn't want her there, or even that he does. Either way, he isn't admitting it to her. That would give her something over him that she'd never let go. It'd be annoying and insufferable. Never cute. No, not in the least.

Either way, they were here. In another hotel room thousands of miles from where they called their respective living areas. It wasn't that he minded. Alex was, arguably, the person he'd most rather be around. Again, not something he was willing to let on. No reason to give the girl any more fodder for her incessant attempts at teasing him.

When he was silent for a while, Alex looked up from the papers of his father's that she was reading. There was a smudge of ink on her face from where she had been holding the pen, because more than occasionally, Howard Strand's writing could be more than a little bit... Well, it could be completely insane, and while Alex spoke fluent crazy, there was some levels of crazy that even she didn't reach. At least not yet. Give her a few more weeks of not sleeping and she might just reach it.

But for now she just focused on him, the concern evident in her expression. Alex could be very bad at keeping her feelings out of her voice when it came to people that she cared for, and whether Richard Strand wanted to admit it or not, he was counted among that number. "Are you okay? We can always order up more coffee from roomservice." The look of concern lifted into a bit of a smile. "Though they might think we're really pushing this 'unlimited coffee' to the limits."

He reaches his hands into his pockets, pressing them deep inside the emptiness inside them. What were they doing here? Really, what? Were they searching more 'ghosts'? They had more than enough of those back in the states. More than enough mysteries that she could hunt after and harass him about. More than enough tapes - reasons for them to spend time together; alone with one another.

None of these thoughts were things that he would ever want her to know. The fact that he actually enjoyed these moments. This time of quiet as he watched her pour over his father's notes and the things that he'd just rather not deal with alone.

Instead, his eyes flick from the window to her, and then to the phone by the window. "Our coffee intake is the least of their worries." Housekeeping's gossip is louder when you're taking an early morning walk for more, you guessed it, coffee. Gossip which Richard seemed to find entertaining by the tone of his voice and slight upturn of his lips. "You should take a break." They both should, but really, could either of their minds stop thinking about any of this? Probably not.

Gossip was something that Alex tended to ignore. After being a woman who worked both in radio and then in podcasting, it was something that she'd had more than her fair share of. Things like memes about people shipping her and Nic or her and Strand had been filling her inbox and twitter feed for the last two years and more than one person whom they'd met in real life had assumed they were together.

Alex had never told Strand that her mother had called her after listening to an episode and asked if they were 'dating.' Where dating here actually meant 'was she having sex with her source' and she'd needed to assure the woman who was constantly on her about getting married that she wasn't involved with Richard like that. Her mother didn't buy it, and Alex was pretty sure that Amalia and Nic really didn't either anymore, even if it was still the truth.

Ethics. She had them. Or at least she had some somewhere. Even if they were harder to find when he almost smiled like that. "You know," she countered, "you should take a break too, Richard. We've been at this," Consulting her watch, Alex just groaned. "Five and a half hours. I swear I've read greek easier than I've read this."

"Some of it is Greek." He countered, eyes glancing back at her, almost appraisingly. If he weren't a man of logic, he could almost think she was reading his mind, but she wasn't. Mind reading wasn't real, and if it were somehow inside the realm of possibilities, he doubted that she'd be able to read his.

Hope and cheerfulness in the face of the bizarre wrapped up in licorice shoelaces didn't mix well with cynicism and a black expanse of cold hard facts.

As he turned, he bent to pick up a few stray pieces of paper. "And Latin, and Sanskrit." The more he spoke and the more he collected the stray papers, the closer he moved toward his hope and sunshine filled target. "How you've managed, this long might be a minor miracle." He kept collecting papers into a pile in his hand. Carefully and meticulously until he reached for the one, she was currently holding. "If I believed in miracles, that is." And there was the smirk, full on and up close. He might be toying with her. He was toying with her, but it was fun. It'd become a habit to do so, like smoking or hard liquor; and he was fairly certain she knew it. "We should go out."

Alex wasn't a mind reader, not at all. As he would say 'there's no such thing as a mind reader Alex'. But after two years of being close to him and trips like this where they ran all over on this black tape case or that, Alex Reagan considered herself something of an amature expert on Dr. Richard Strand and his PhD in condescension from Yale. So, she was well aware that she was on the entertainment menu now that he was bored.

Wasn't the first time, and it wouldn't be the last, and there was a little glance of amusement for a minute before she gestured to her phone and the translator app that was open on it. "Well, thankfully for your lack of faith in miracles," the smile was evident in her voice even if she kept it off her face for the moment. "The rational explanation is good old fashioned technology." If she was going to be toyed with, Alex was most definitely teasing him back.

But he had her attention now, and she hit the close button on the phone with an audible click before she dropped her chin into her hand and studied him from above the line of her glasses. "Where are we going?"

It was easy to tell that she was doing her best to keep up with his game. It wouldn't be nearly as fun if she didn't at least try. Besides, her reactions, that glance of curiosity and challenge that she gave him over the lines of her glasses; it wasn't a look he got from anyone but her. It offered an excitement that could easily become an addiction. Had become an addiction. Alex Reagan and her unguarded emotions had become Richard's addiction, and he was fairly sure most of her listeners knew it. At least the ones that could read between the lines of their verbal microexpressions.

"Poveglia Island." That was it. No explanation, no exposition as to why. Just the name before he set the papers down, waiting for her to do the rest herself. She was always so good at believing she knew his reasoning and thoughts. It was fun to watch the wheels work as she figured it out.

"Poveglia Island?" The words were parroted back to him, and Alex checked to make sure that the recorder was turned on. It automatically did it when one of them started talking now to make sure that they saved space on the drive. It just made the most sense. And if the two of them were going to have a conversation about going some place, then it would make it at least into the editing bay, unless they had a fight about her turning it off. Which thankfully wasn't something that they had right now.

He wanted to see the wheels spinning, and he would be treated to a show for it at the moment, as Alex was clearly thinking, trying to remember what she'd heard about this place. "As in 'the most haunted place in Italy off the coast of Venice where thousands of people died of the plague and then where they built an insane asylum on top of it?'" The mention of 'insane asylum' earned an upward movement of her eyebrows because if there were words that Alex Reagan hated just as much as 'demons' now it was most definitely 'insane asylum.' Especially when one put them together in context with 'haunted.' Because of course it would be. Let's be honest here, when did anyone other than Strand say that they weren't.

"So I'm guessing you have contacts in the Italian government? Because I'm pretty sure it's illegal to go there, and I'd rather not get deported from Italy. I like it here."

The wheels and faces and expressions that the realizations elicited did not disappoint. Alex was a buffet of emotions that Richard enjoyed on a now almost daily basis. Daily, since the past few incidents. Incidents which were now taking them to a remote and 'ghost' infested island.

"I wouldn't suggest it otherwise." He wasn't the type to go breaking into places that would get him deported from a place he might want to go at a later date.

He stood, apparently satisfied with the show she'd already given him. Besides, if they were going, then they'd both need their coats. The spring air was still brisk, even if it was also pleasant against the skin.

"Or would you prefer gelato instead." He knew her feelings on these places. On going to 'the scene of the crime' as it were. So he couldn't help tossing another light tournament over his shoulder as he put on his coat. The ghost of a smile hidden by his positioning away from her.

Slipping into her red jacket was second nature, as was gathering the recorder from the desk and slipping it off so that it didn't end up with nothing but a mass of static from being in the front of her pocket. Oh, she could carry it, but that tended to make people nervous and considering all the attention they were already receiving for being the two of them here in the hotel, Alex would rather not do so so no one thought that the two of them were recording a porno or something here.

The thought bought a little bit of red to the top of her ears before she flicked her hair over her collar and threw the bag with the rest of her equipment and extra chargers and the like over her shoulder. She was shorter than he was by a fair amount, but she lingered in the doorway with her eyebrow headed towards her hairline. "Something tells me that feeding me gelato is just a ploy so that we end up on the island when it's starting to get dark."

Because that is totally something that he's likely to do. Blah blah blah the science of the scene and it being more quiet and blah blah blah Strandisms.

He noticed. Her face was reflected in the mirror and just in sight. He let his thoughts ruminate on what she was thinking. Of course, she was. Alex was a person who stood like an open book to everyone. It was a strange kind of refreshing, and knowing what she was probably thinking, what the hotel staff was already talking about, brought the smile a bit wider.

Then there was the comment about the gelato. She wasn't wrong. Either way, it would take time to get there, and he'd planned things out so they'd have time before the sun went down to arrive and do a cursory search of the island. What she had yet to be told was that they'd be staying overnight. "Are you starting to be afraid of the dark?" He turned back, one brow arched as he opened the door.

Alex just rolled her eyes at the question, and she shook her head. "Nope. Not afraid of the dark. But abandoned plague islands with mental hospitals and burnt bones that keep washing up? Yeah, that sounds like a great place to visit when it's dark. So of course that's when you'd want to be there, Richard." The look that she gave him telegraphed her thoughts easily, and Alex didn't even try to hide the 'of course that's what you'd do' look. And someone was going to be just a little more than furious when she found out that they were going to be spending the night on a place that was only accessible by boat.

If it wasn't demons it was fucking mental hospitals and just once she'd like the thing to be haunted to be a spa. Or a theatre, or at this point a halfway decent restaurant that would feed them before they started in the ghost hunting stuff. If nothing else, it'd be a welcome change of pace. Looking down at her outfit, Alex frowned a bit before she asked: "do I need to change?" She probably didn't, but if she was going to need to be in hiking boots rather than the flats she was wearing, she'd rather know it now before they were stuck on an island that people who were smarter than they were wouldn't set foot on.

Edited (it's abandoned not abandon, self.) 2018-04-06 06:03 (UTC)

"You're fine." He'd already taken care of the arrangements and was going to take a perverse pleasure in her realization that he'd packed for her. Enough to stay warm, dry and keep from breaking any bones. At least by traditional methods. What they were looking for would never be considered 'safe' by any conventional standards.

Then again, what they were looking for didn't exist. Demons, the bringing about of the Apocalypse, the unnote. None of these had any scientific basis in fact. Eventually, they'd find a logical reason - no matter what his intrepid reporter said.

He slipped the 'PLEASE DON'T CLEAN' sign into the card slot, leaning against the way to watch. Waiting for her to finish getting ready. Absently, he debated with himself on whether she would notice the gesture. If she'd realize the weight of it and what it meant.

It wasn't that she didn't believe that he thought she was fine; it was more like Alex sort of assumed that he thought she would actually be fine. This was, after all a man who had chosen to go hiking to a remote cabin wearing a suit and a tie and a pair of loafers. So flats probably would have been fine for him, but the last thing Alex wanted was to be stuck on a ~~probably~~ possibly haunted island with a twisted ankle and a melodramatic sigh from him.

That said, she was about to protest and go back in and put her boots on, but instead she did see him put the sign over the door handle. After all, Alex was an intrepid reporter, and at the moment Strand was the only subject of her focus that mattered. Her brows went up again in both surprise and a question before she moved to put her arm out to block the hallway. Gesturing to the sign with a jut of her chin, she just looked up at him, her dark eyes searching his own blue ones.

"Tell me," she began with a long, soft and drawn out sigh. (Nic called it 'The Strand Sigh' in the editing bay, because it was exclusive to being around him. Or talking about him, or thinking about him.) "That this doesn't mean what I think it does, Richard."

He raised a brow, knowing precisely what she thought it meant. It wasn't hard to read an open book after all. Then again, it was possible that she didn't actually have figured out exactly what it meant. Improbable, but possible. Alex was rather brilliant, but also quite nieve.

"That depends." He kept his smirk hidden. Non-existant to the world and her, but internally he was enjoying this far too much. That frustrated sigh a bonus to the rest of what her reaction might be. A sigh that, while he'd never tell her, he relished. After all, there wasn't much in this world that was exclusively for him.

Alex was quite good at silently swearing, after spending eight years on the radio. She could swear like a sailor in traffic or what not, but when it came to the show (and being around Strand tended to count as being on the show) Alex rarely verbalized it. So, her lips moved in a long silent fuck even though the sounds didn't come out. Instead, the hand not blocking the doorway moved to reside against her hip, and she drew herself up to her comparatively smaller full height.

"Tell me," she said quickly, using the 'please don't be such an ass voice' that was also a Strand staple, especially as of late. "That you weren't going to get me onto an island so messed up that they don't let people on it and then tell me we were staying the night." There was a flair of anger in her dark eyes, and Alex didn't bother to try and keep it hidden now. Once, earlier in their working relationship, she might have tried to keep her cool more, but given the last two years and everything else, her guard around him had relaxed substantially.

That look. That fire behind her eyes that was reserved only for him. He lived for that look, or he didn't live for it. He couldn't, not really. Admitting there was more there, even to himself for longer then an instant would ruin him. There was too much broken within him, too much still alight in her for anything more than this to ever work.

He couldn't take her down with him.

And yet he had, hadn't he? He'd pulled her down this rabbit hole of insanity right along with him. And still, he regretted very little of it. In fact, he was almost relieved to have her there, by his side through all this insanity. It was selfish of him, but no one would ever call him a selfless man. Not even Alex.

A brow raised as he kept his smirk internal. "How else would we conduct a thorough investigation?" The words made it sound like the idea was obvious. Of course they would have to spend the night. It was a whole 12 hours that they would lose if they didn't do it.

Alex definitely wouldn't call him a selfless man, but she also wouldn't call him what the rest of the paranormal investigators of the world would call him, something along the lines of the man without a heart. No, she'd seen it in him too much, and she'd seen it shatter after Coralee had gotten into a van and drove off again. It was one of the reasons that she cared for him so deeply, not that she would ever admit it. Alex Reagan's superpower, for better or worse was empathy, and in her eyes, he'd earned all of it and more.

Of course the more was the thing that would tend to get her into trouble. Half of their listeners were already certain that the two of them had already been hooking up for quite some time, and Alex had no intention of becoming any more of a laughing stock than her sleepnotes had already made her.

Still, it was something that she needed to remind herself of more often than she would have liked, especially when he looked at her like this and she had to struggle against the urge to either kiss him or slap him. Both things would be terrible for their relationship, and Alex was fairly certain that they would send him disappearing again for another three months. It was funny, for someone who knew how terrible it could be for the people who were left behind, Strand sure did it often enough.

Letting out a long sigh that ended with an overly dramatic puff of her hair from her face, Alex's anger faded to resignation. Instead she just rolled her eyes at him, but countered as she so often did with a terrible joke. "Well, if I die, I am going to haunt you through sheer force of will and you can give the million dollars to my heirs." Like she had heirs. Heirs for her were her parents and Nic basically.

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I let her steal into my melancholy heart

Testing him. Be gentle.

I'm always gentle!

Except on occasion ...

Gentle but enthusiastic!

Better then rough and sarcastic

Well, I suppose that depends!

On the tape?

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