ALEX + RAYNA // help
Who: Rayna & Alex
When: October 17th.
Where: The Hour.
Rating & Warnings: PG
It was hard for her to admit, but work was slowly driving her insane. Alex hadn't been kidding when he said that compulsion, though a curious side-effect, was part of the change. If she couldn't feel the shape of whatever small objects she was counting, it was easier to ignore, but the urge was still there, niggling. Ink drops, fibers in fabric, stars... Rayna could force herself not to care about how numerous they were. But then she spent so much time looking at the stars that the compulsion came anyway.
As she waited for Alex in her office, she tapped her pen. One-hundred and eighty-two, eighty-three. With a wince, she stopped herself. Being turned hadn't somehow made her less selfish; the stress of learning how to be what she now was bothered her more than anything. Duncan would get used to it. Cita knows the boys would never care. But adapting to a new life with new rules was getting to her.
Rayna hummed to set herself at ease. She didn't want to seem like some frayed mess when Alex came round. She wasn't some frayed mess. She didn't even mind that she was now an 'Other', whatever that was. It was just sensory overload. And, well, it was quite annoying to be stared at whenever she went out in the daylight because her veins and capillaries stood out. People really ought to have more compassion for someone with a medical condition.
As the circumstances under which he had made his first visit to Rayna's office were unkind, Alex had to ask a passerby to point him in the right direction. The first had no idea, the second similar, but luck was with him on the third and soon he was at a door that should have been familiar but looked to him like all the others.
A subtle sense of unease twisted in his stomach. He ignored it.
"Rayna," he called, rapping his knuckles against the wood three times. "It's Alex."
She waited a moment to take her pen-tapping count to an even four-hundred, then called, "Come in." Rayna turned in her chair and stood to receive her guest.
What was he going to teach her? Could he even teach her anything? It was so ugly to have these expectations of a friend who had only tried to help her, but... still, she couldn't help but want him to pull an instruction manual from his back-pocket.
He let himself in, eyes lingering on the closing door before finally turning to rest on Rayna after it clicked into the socket with a soft click. "You look bushed," he said, the corners of his lips rising into a hesitant, apologetic smile. He took a seat at the edge of her couch, hands lying on his thighs. "Have you eaten recently?"
There was, as it was previously, the presence of a different sort of pull to Rayna, not unlike the love he had for Amelia or the love he had for his brothers and sisters, but different all the same. It was the bond created by turning her, he knew, but it was still a bit puzzling to realize that how you perceive someone is altered after the fact. Alex hadn't known how strong it would be and, truthfully, still didn't know. Was it something static or did it grow? Did Rayna feel it, too? He'd have to ask her, once he answered her questions as best as he could.
Bushed? As little as cared about her appearance, Rayna still put a hand to her cheek and frowned thoughtfully. Well, she'd eaten that night of- Oh. She shook her head. "No, not recently." Would it always be so easy to forget?
Rayna offered Alex the extra chair. "I realize you don't know how this works any more than I do," she said, heading for her seat. The expectation that he'd make everything better was still there. How childish. "But... I didn't want to do any of this alone. I need someone to push me out of the nest to see if I can fly, in a manner of speaking..." Cita, it wasn't even a manner of speaking. Rayna smiled slightly. "Test me?"
There was a subtle shift in his expression when Rayna answered his question, a crease in the corner of his eyes, a short tightening of his lips. Rayna looked nowhere near losing herself to hunger, but the fear and self-disgust of having done so and feeding on Ravindra to satiate himself manifested itself in a very real concern that Rayna might let herself do the same. He hadn't known that it was possible for him -- no, he hadn't thought it was possible at all. Rayna probably didn't think she could get that bad, either.
Or was it, perhaps, a weakness of his own, and not an attribute of his vampirism?
His fingers dug into the fabric of his pants.
"You need to make sure you're properly feeding yourself first," said Alex, his tone amiable, contradicting the turmoil simmering inside of him. "People-- Most people," he corrected, thinking of Amelia and her reaction to what he was. His smile faltered a bit. "Most people will be afraid of you if they find out what you are. It's best not to give them a logical reason for it."
She sucked in a quick breath and nodded. Being feared, well, that was what scared her most of all. Her boys shared her enthusiasm for meeting new and interesting Others. Now that she was one, however, she worried that they were only going through a phase. Would they one day be afraid of her as well? Rayna nodded again and smiled. "Of course. There's always pigeons and stray dogs."
Her smile curdled a bit, but she held onto it. A moment later, she leaned forward, eyebrows knit together, to ask, "Can we get sick? Sensibly speaking, it would be best to eat things that are of no use to anyone else."
There were so many myths about vampires that she hadn't known she'd subscribed to. But she wouldn't hate herself. She'd keep her head up. This was just a transitional period, a passing feeling.
Her smile may have soured, but the ease in which she mentioned pigeons and dogs was a relief to hear. Not that it was a pretty or nice thing to consider, but it was necessary and practical.
Alex looked up to the ceiling, wondering about her question. Could they get sick? "I don't...know," he said, returning his attention to her with a half-shrug. "I--" fed on a cat once. It was the circumstances under which that had happened more than the animal that caused him to falter. "Fed on an alleycat, once. I didn't suffer any ill effects."
The edge of his index finger scratched lazily into the material of his pants as he continued. "You can hypnotize them -- other creatures -- it's what I do since they're so skittish around me now. The trick is getting close enough to them to catch their eye before they bolt." Another pause as he recalled Rayna's disgust of bats. "I've found being a bat works well for that," he said, smiling a little apologetically.
She started fiddling with her hair as he answered. Oh, the idea of eating the offal of the city made her scowl without meaning to. Still, she believed what she'd said, as little as she wanted to go through with it. She'd be a preternatural exterminator instead of a monster. She could make due with that.
"Does it?" she half-smiled, then looked away. He'd brought up bats. "Shit."
Rayna scowled, thinking of their smidgen noses and beady eyes and strange thumbs. "Tried to forget about that bit," she said softly, looking away from Alex. "How do you do it? Don't turn into a bat. Just tell me how to, please? I might swat you with something if I can't follow suit."
Wow, she really didn't like bats. Alex looked away, successfully ashamed of himself, and made a mental note never to bring them up again if he could help it.
"I..." he trailed off, shrugging with a wince, "just tell myself, 'well, now I'd like to be a bat,' and then I'm...a bat. It's the same when I want to turn back." He ventured a look at her. "I heal quickly," he continued, eager to move away from the subject of flying mammals, "and I can't cross running water. Or step on consecrated ground."
He paused, one brow rising thoughtfully. "I can't do a lot of things, actually. I need an invitation to enter a home. If it has mustard seeds on it, no dice." He started extending a finger for each thing, for his check list of no-no's of sorts. "Garlic will keep me away, too, and that's a crying shame. All sorts of mundane things will hurt me -- holy water, hawthorn, the branch of a wild rose--" He was on his other hand, now. He closed it into a loose fist, then began with a counter list. "But on the bright side, only four things will kill me."
Well. He was going to begin with a counter list, but now he reconsidered, wondering if that was, perhaps, not the best thing to bring up right now. Then again, it was imperative that Rayna know what threatened her life. Unlife. "Staking." Index. "Decapitation." Middle. "Being set completely on fire." Ring, and a wince. "And drowning." Pinky.
After a short pause, he uncurled his thumb and added, "And starving, I suppose."
That particular ability was probably beyond her. Thinking 'well, now I'd like to be a bat' and genuinely meaning it was like thinking 'i'd like to become the most disgusting creature I can conceive of.'
Rayna narrowed her eyes curiously, leaning in a bit. "How did you learn all of that? You said before that you just knew, but you simply couldn't know... well, all of it." Or she couldn't stand to seem so ignorant. "I don't feel much of anything. I feel different, of course, but I don't sense any of these weaknesses or abilities."
She took a sharp breath through her nose at the list of things that could kill her. They would kill most anybody, but if she was to stay around for her boys, she needed to know if she was like Alexander. Rayna couldn't exactly pat down her pockets for some wild rose to press against her skin. She knew that she could heal, as that was what had saved her life, but the rest... She'd find some running water later.
Looking up at Alexander, she grinned. Ever since she'd been turned, she'd felt so cold. He brought a little warmth. "Staking, decapitation, fire, drowning, starvation. All things I knew to avoid before," Rayna said, then cut her quiet laugh off. "Thank you."
There was a gap in reply, then he grinned sheepishly. "You're right." Somehow, he hadn't thought of it that way.
He inhaled deeply through his nose, thinking of how to explain his apparent innate knowledge to her in a simple way that wasn't just 'I know.' "Have you ever raised chickens?" he asked, cocking his head to the side. "They're quite interesting to watch. They know instinctively what to avoid eating." A pause -- it was obvious he was pulling this from his memory. "Well," he amended with a shrug. "The smarter ones."
She blinked a few times, unsure of where his analogy was going, but finally found herself nodding. "I do, actually. We had them in Tartessos." They'd been her charge. She was too impatient and harsh to look after the sheep, and, well, the ducks did what they liked.
Rayna smiled. "I suppose I'm one of the dim ones. I'll eat everything in sight and see what kills me. Metaphorically speaking."
"Ah--" Shit. He'd just indirectly called her stupid. "No, well, that's not what I meant--"
"No, I know," she started. Her hackles had raised for only a second. Rayna rubbed her hands together absently and shrugged. "It's silly. I keep expecting you to be able to-" she paused- "Fix everything for me. I've never felt that about anyone. And, of course, I'm not your responsibility, and I don't want to be."
Rayna squinted and clasped her hands. "Is it only me? Or is this feeling something to do with changing?" Oh, she would most definitely hate herself if becoming an Other meant that she also became some helpless little woman.
Fix? He straightened his neck, looking at Rayna in puzzlement. Fix her?
"There's nothing to fix," he replied simply. "You're no longer only a human..." He scratched the bottom of his chin lightly, growing thoughtful. "Perhaps it's the different circumstances under which we turned into vampires? Or..." Another pause. "You're..."
The raw thought unhindered by social structure and ethics that night when he gave Rayna his blood.
Mine.
Alex leaned back, frowning. "I don't want to say you're my child because you most certainly aren't, but..." He made some vague back and forth motions between him and her with his hands. "There's a connection that wasn't there before. I think that's what you're feeling. I feel it, too."
"Well, there's that, then," she said, smiling a bit. "One mystery solved."
It was a strange feeling, to be sure. Perhaps it was best not to define it, but Rayna knew herself well enough not to deny that she'd probably lie awake picking it apart, trying to understand what it meant. Not a child, but... pieces of each other? Rayna frowned and pushed the thought out of her head. She'd have time enough to think about it.
"I'll try to become a bat later. I shouldn't ignore any aspect of what I am. Thank you... for speaking with me." Nodding, she quirked a brow. "I might need a glass of brandy before trying to become a bat, though."
The corner of his lips quirked. "Don't force yourself. It'll come in time. And in the meantime, I'll help you." There was still the issue of her having not fed. He wasn't going to leave without remedying that.
He rose from his seat. "I'll get you something to eat. Drink." A dismissive wave. "Did you want to come? Or shall we save that for a later date?" Either option was fine with him. Just because he had woken up a-okay with what he had become, Alex didn't expect Rayna to feel the same. Especially not now, after their major differences had been brought to light.
"Oh," she said, looking uncomfortable, but thankful. She had to do these things for herself. She had to do everything for herself, it felt like sometimes, but she didn't know if she could stand to kill a creature yet, not even a pigeon. Rayna nodded and said, "If you could, that would probably be for the best. Rome wasn't built in a day, as you said. Shouldn't force it."
Oh, nervous rambling. Even though she'd told Alex that she felt like he had a way of fixing things for her, dependence wasn't an option. "I'll work up to it. Thank you."
He smiled in sympathy, then reached out to clap her softly on the side of her arm. "I'll be back in an hour or two," he said, then straightened and left. She had said pigeons and strays, but the truth was they weren't the most pleasant thing to feed on. He'd get her something from the woods instead...
When: October 17th.
Where: The Hour.
Rating & Warnings: PG
It was hard for her to admit, but work was slowly driving her insane. Alex hadn't been kidding when he said that compulsion, though a curious side-effect, was part of the change. If she couldn't feel the shape of whatever small objects she was counting, it was easier to ignore, but the urge was still there, niggling. Ink drops, fibers in fabric, stars... Rayna could force herself not to care about how numerous they were. But then she spent so much time looking at the stars that the compulsion came anyway.
As she waited for Alex in her office, she tapped her pen. One-hundred and eighty-two, eighty-three. With a wince, she stopped herself. Being turned hadn't somehow made her less selfish; the stress of learning how to be what she now was bothered her more than anything. Duncan would get used to it. Cita knows the boys would never care. But adapting to a new life with new rules was getting to her.
Rayna hummed to set herself at ease. She didn't want to seem like some frayed mess when Alex came round. She wasn't some frayed mess. She didn't even mind that she was now an 'Other', whatever that was. It was just sensory overload. And, well, it was quite annoying to be stared at whenever she went out in the daylight because her veins and capillaries stood out. People really ought to have more compassion for someone with a medical condition.
As the circumstances under which he had made his first visit to Rayna's office were unkind, Alex had to ask a passerby to point him in the right direction. The first had no idea, the second similar, but luck was with him on the third and soon he was at a door that should have been familiar but looked to him like all the others.
A subtle sense of unease twisted in his stomach. He ignored it.
"Rayna," he called, rapping his knuckles against the wood three times. "It's Alex."
She waited a moment to take her pen-tapping count to an even four-hundred, then called, "Come in." Rayna turned in her chair and stood to receive her guest.
What was he going to teach her? Could he even teach her anything? It was so ugly to have these expectations of a friend who had only tried to help her, but... still, she couldn't help but want him to pull an instruction manual from his back-pocket.
He let himself in, eyes lingering on the closing door before finally turning to rest on Rayna after it clicked into the socket with a soft click. "You look bushed," he said, the corners of his lips rising into a hesitant, apologetic smile. He took a seat at the edge of her couch, hands lying on his thighs. "Have you eaten recently?"
There was, as it was previously, the presence of a different sort of pull to Rayna, not unlike the love he had for Amelia or the love he had for his brothers and sisters, but different all the same. It was the bond created by turning her, he knew, but it was still a bit puzzling to realize that how you perceive someone is altered after the fact. Alex hadn't known how strong it would be and, truthfully, still didn't know. Was it something static or did it grow? Did Rayna feel it, too? He'd have to ask her, once he answered her questions as best as he could.
Bushed? As little as cared about her appearance, Rayna still put a hand to her cheek and frowned thoughtfully. Well, she'd eaten that night of- Oh. She shook her head. "No, not recently." Would it always be so easy to forget?
Rayna offered Alex the extra chair. "I realize you don't know how this works any more than I do," she said, heading for her seat. The expectation that he'd make everything better was still there. How childish. "But... I didn't want to do any of this alone. I need someone to push me out of the nest to see if I can fly, in a manner of speaking..." Cita, it wasn't even a manner of speaking. Rayna smiled slightly. "Test me?"
There was a subtle shift in his expression when Rayna answered his question, a crease in the corner of his eyes, a short tightening of his lips. Rayna looked nowhere near losing herself to hunger, but the fear and self-disgust of having done so and feeding on Ravindra to satiate himself manifested itself in a very real concern that Rayna might let herself do the same. He hadn't known that it was possible for him -- no, he hadn't thought it was possible at all. Rayna probably didn't think she could get that bad, either.
Or was it, perhaps, a weakness of his own, and not an attribute of his vampirism?
His fingers dug into the fabric of his pants.
"You need to make sure you're properly feeding yourself first," said Alex, his tone amiable, contradicting the turmoil simmering inside of him. "People-- Most people," he corrected, thinking of Amelia and her reaction to what he was. His smile faltered a bit. "Most people will be afraid of you if they find out what you are. It's best not to give them a logical reason for it."
She sucked in a quick breath and nodded. Being feared, well, that was what scared her most of all. Her boys shared her enthusiasm for meeting new and interesting Others. Now that she was one, however, she worried that they were only going through a phase. Would they one day be afraid of her as well? Rayna nodded again and smiled. "Of course. There's always pigeons and stray dogs."
Her smile curdled a bit, but she held onto it. A moment later, she leaned forward, eyebrows knit together, to ask, "Can we get sick? Sensibly speaking, it would be best to eat things that are of no use to anyone else."
There were so many myths about vampires that she hadn't known she'd subscribed to. But she wouldn't hate herself. She'd keep her head up. This was just a transitional period, a passing feeling.
Her smile may have soured, but the ease in which she mentioned pigeons and dogs was a relief to hear. Not that it was a pretty or nice thing to consider, but it was necessary and practical.
Alex looked up to the ceiling, wondering about her question. Could they get sick? "I don't...know," he said, returning his attention to her with a half-shrug. "I--" fed on a cat once. It was the circumstances under which that had happened more than the animal that caused him to falter. "Fed on an alleycat, once. I didn't suffer any ill effects."
The edge of his index finger scratched lazily into the material of his pants as he continued. "You can hypnotize them -- other creatures -- it's what I do since they're so skittish around me now. The trick is getting close enough to them to catch their eye before they bolt." Another pause as he recalled Rayna's disgust of bats. "I've found being a bat works well for that," he said, smiling a little apologetically.
She started fiddling with her hair as he answered. Oh, the idea of eating the offal of the city made her scowl without meaning to. Still, she believed what she'd said, as little as she wanted to go through with it. She'd be a preternatural exterminator instead of a monster. She could make due with that.
"Does it?" she half-smiled, then looked away. He'd brought up bats. "Shit."
Rayna scowled, thinking of their smidgen noses and beady eyes and strange thumbs. "Tried to forget about that bit," she said softly, looking away from Alex. "How do you do it? Don't turn into a bat. Just tell me how to, please? I might swat you with something if I can't follow suit."
Wow, she really didn't like bats. Alex looked away, successfully ashamed of himself, and made a mental note never to bring them up again if he could help it.
"I..." he trailed off, shrugging with a wince, "just tell myself, 'well, now I'd like to be a bat,' and then I'm...a bat. It's the same when I want to turn back." He ventured a look at her. "I heal quickly," he continued, eager to move away from the subject of flying mammals, "and I can't cross running water. Or step on consecrated ground."
He paused, one brow rising thoughtfully. "I can't do a lot of things, actually. I need an invitation to enter a home. If it has mustard seeds on it, no dice." He started extending a finger for each thing, for his check list of no-no's of sorts. "Garlic will keep me away, too, and that's a crying shame. All sorts of mundane things will hurt me -- holy water, hawthorn, the branch of a wild rose--" He was on his other hand, now. He closed it into a loose fist, then began with a counter list. "But on the bright side, only four things will kill me."
Well. He was going to begin with a counter list, but now he reconsidered, wondering if that was, perhaps, not the best thing to bring up right now. Then again, it was imperative that Rayna know what threatened her life. Unlife. "Staking." Index. "Decapitation." Middle. "Being set completely on fire." Ring, and a wince. "And drowning." Pinky.
After a short pause, he uncurled his thumb and added, "And starving, I suppose."
That particular ability was probably beyond her. Thinking 'well, now I'd like to be a bat' and genuinely meaning it was like thinking 'i'd like to become the most disgusting creature I can conceive of.'
Rayna narrowed her eyes curiously, leaning in a bit. "How did you learn all of that? You said before that you just knew, but you simply couldn't know... well, all of it." Or she couldn't stand to seem so ignorant. "I don't feel much of anything. I feel different, of course, but I don't sense any of these weaknesses or abilities."
She took a sharp breath through her nose at the list of things that could kill her. They would kill most anybody, but if she was to stay around for her boys, she needed to know if she was like Alexander. Rayna couldn't exactly pat down her pockets for some wild rose to press against her skin. She knew that she could heal, as that was what had saved her life, but the rest... She'd find some running water later.
Looking up at Alexander, she grinned. Ever since she'd been turned, she'd felt so cold. He brought a little warmth. "Staking, decapitation, fire, drowning, starvation. All things I knew to avoid before," Rayna said, then cut her quiet laugh off. "Thank you."
There was a gap in reply, then he grinned sheepishly. "You're right." Somehow, he hadn't thought of it that way.
He inhaled deeply through his nose, thinking of how to explain his apparent innate knowledge to her in a simple way that wasn't just 'I know.' "Have you ever raised chickens?" he asked, cocking his head to the side. "They're quite interesting to watch. They know instinctively what to avoid eating." A pause -- it was obvious he was pulling this from his memory. "Well," he amended with a shrug. "The smarter ones."
She blinked a few times, unsure of where his analogy was going, but finally found herself nodding. "I do, actually. We had them in Tartessos." They'd been her charge. She was too impatient and harsh to look after the sheep, and, well, the ducks did what they liked.
Rayna smiled. "I suppose I'm one of the dim ones. I'll eat everything in sight and see what kills me. Metaphorically speaking."
"Ah--" Shit. He'd just indirectly called her stupid. "No, well, that's not what I meant--"
"No, I know," she started. Her hackles had raised for only a second. Rayna rubbed her hands together absently and shrugged. "It's silly. I keep expecting you to be able to-" she paused- "Fix everything for me. I've never felt that about anyone. And, of course, I'm not your responsibility, and I don't want to be."
Rayna squinted and clasped her hands. "Is it only me? Or is this feeling something to do with changing?" Oh, she would most definitely hate herself if becoming an Other meant that she also became some helpless little woman.
Fix? He straightened his neck, looking at Rayna in puzzlement. Fix her?
"There's nothing to fix," he replied simply. "You're no longer only a human..." He scratched the bottom of his chin lightly, growing thoughtful. "Perhaps it's the different circumstances under which we turned into vampires? Or..." Another pause. "You're..."
The raw thought unhindered by social structure and ethics that night when he gave Rayna his blood.
Mine.
Alex leaned back, frowning. "I don't want to say you're my child because you most certainly aren't, but..." He made some vague back and forth motions between him and her with his hands. "There's a connection that wasn't there before. I think that's what you're feeling. I feel it, too."
"Well, there's that, then," she said, smiling a bit. "One mystery solved."
It was a strange feeling, to be sure. Perhaps it was best not to define it, but Rayna knew herself well enough not to deny that she'd probably lie awake picking it apart, trying to understand what it meant. Not a child, but... pieces of each other? Rayna frowned and pushed the thought out of her head. She'd have time enough to think about it.
"I'll try to become a bat later. I shouldn't ignore any aspect of what I am. Thank you... for speaking with me." Nodding, she quirked a brow. "I might need a glass of brandy before trying to become a bat, though."
The corner of his lips quirked. "Don't force yourself. It'll come in time. And in the meantime, I'll help you." There was still the issue of her having not fed. He wasn't going to leave without remedying that.
He rose from his seat. "I'll get you something to eat. Drink." A dismissive wave. "Did you want to come? Or shall we save that for a later date?" Either option was fine with him. Just because he had woken up a-okay with what he had become, Alex didn't expect Rayna to feel the same. Especially not now, after their major differences had been brought to light.
"Oh," she said, looking uncomfortable, but thankful. She had to do these things for herself. She had to do everything for herself, it felt like sometimes, but she didn't know if she could stand to kill a creature yet, not even a pigeon. Rayna nodded and said, "If you could, that would probably be for the best. Rome wasn't built in a day, as you said. Shouldn't force it."
Oh, nervous rambling. Even though she'd told Alex that she felt like he had a way of fixing things for her, dependence wasn't an option. "I'll work up to it. Thank you."
He smiled in sympathy, then reached out to clap her softly on the side of her arm. "I'll be back in an hour or two," he said, then straightened and left. She had said pigeons and strays, but the truth was they weren't the most pleasant thing to feed on. He'd get her something from the woods instead...