Time Listens to None

[Alexis Lannister]

Prompt List

• 1
• 2
• Anger
• 4
• 5
• 6
• Vengeance
• 8
• 9
• 10

[Alexis Lannister]

A N G E R

Alexis paced around the kitchen, heels clicking against the tile. She ignored the cat, who had come through for hope of pets and possible treats, but after winding through her legs moved on to the scratching post, and then to the stairs to go hunt the evil quilt with a loose thread. It wasn't like her to ignore the animal, something who usually held both her attention and affection for hours - to the point Chad had joked it was secretly a changeling cat and they were old friends.

"I don't think we can be together anymore," she had said, which lead to the pacing and Chad lingering just at the edge of the tile, unwilling to come any closer to her at the moment. "I can't - she's in my fucking head," she hissed. "She finds me and says the most fucked up shit to me. It's like - she was so far inside you that she knows you more than I ever can. And she's told me - oh boy, has she told me, all of the things you hid from me. You lied to me about so much, and I know, I know," she continued, voice breaking as she began to cry, "in my heart of hearts, I know you did it to protect me, but I just - it's so much and she's fucking everywhere." She stopped talking, choking back a sob.

Alexis hadn't really told him about any of this happening, which was why it felt more like a blitz attack. She'd never been good at expressing emotion right away, preferring to bottle it up so she didn't appear so "Fae" to him. His best friend fucking hated her, and all of her kind, and she'd given up trying to win his approval, but she tried for the sake of Chadwick to appear "normal", and thus she'd developed some very poor human habits of holding things back. And so, when Deja would come to her, whispering that Chad could never love her because of her nature, she didn't tell him. It wasn't true, of course, Deja was full of shit, but she said things like that constantly and they began to erode Alexis' confidence and sense of self, and - well, here they were.

"You're holding something back, Lex, I can feel it. Please, Buttercup," he begged, using the pet name he'd given her the day they'd met (the Princess Bride, naturally). "Please tell me so I can help you."

"I just don't know," she murmured, hands on her hips, now. "I just - I can't. I need to leave. I need to go." But she stood, rooted to the spot, unable to commit. She gripped the keys to her Mercedes tightly in her hand, then dropped them on the counter suddenly with a loud crash when she cut herself on the edge of a bauble that hung on her key chain. "Fuck," she hissed, rushing for the sink. Chad instinctively went to help her, and they got into a tugging match with a fresh kitchen towel, him insisting that he could help her and her not wanting his help. Finally, he lost his patience.

"Alexis, STOP," he commanded, using her sudden shock to wrap the towel around her hand before she could react. "You're so mad about something that happened to me. Something that I cannot help. You're not even verging on victim blaming territory, you've conquered it and built a fortress in it," he spat. Yeah, he was angry. "I was attacked. I was manipulated." He paused, taking a shaky breath. "I was the one who was violated."

"No - no, I know," Alexis said, holding her hands up. Her fists clenched as she squeezed her eyes shut, lowering her arms to her sides. "I know, Chad. I know, and I'm sorry. I understand that this happened to you, and I wish it hadn't. I really do. I know that you're in pain and I know that -" she broke off, moving closer to place a hand on his chest. "I know that this took a chunk out of you. I do."

He placed his hand over hers, feeling relief - like he was finally getting through to her. This was why it was so complicated to have relationships with the Fae; they were so emotionally different from everyone else. "Then please, just, let me move on. Let us move on," he said softly.

He felt her hand stiffen under his, and let go of it as she slid it back to herself. When she took a step back from him, he closed his eyes. He knew this was the end.

"I want to, Chad. But I can't. I can't - I have so much anger, and it's everywhere - I know you don't deserve it, and it gets on you anyways, even if I try not to direct it at you. I know it's my fault. It is, it's me. It's who I am, it's how I am."

"Buttercup, we can - "

He stopped talking as she shook her head. "No. No," she muttered. "I can't get past this."

"You can!" he exclaimed. "Lex, this is what I do. Let me help you. I can move on, and you can move on with me." He hated that he was pleading with her, but in the back of his head, he knew he was losing control, and it was making him stupid with anxiety. He couldn't lose her, regardless of how unstable she happened to be, she was a point of stability to him. They'd been together for five years. It wasn't long in terms of immortals, but it was long enough for him. "Alexis, I love you, and I know you love me. I can get through this. We can."

She pressed her lips together, inhaling through her nostrils, feeling the air skipping in her chest as she shook. Every cell in her body was awake and attentive, humming with nerves. Chad wasn't the only one with anxiety, that was for sure. She closed her eyes and opened them again, and they were wet with tears.

"Oh, no," Chad said. He backed up a few steps, bumping into the kitchen table. That's right, this was a kitchen argument. He knew what came next.

"The only way that I could forget about this, is if it never happened," she said. She was actually crying, something Chad had almost never seen. "The only way is to make it unhappen, and I can't. That's not possible. Nobody controls time." She was full on sobbing, now. Instinctively, she wanted to go to him, but instead she turned on her heel, grabbing her bag from the counter where she'd set it.

As she exited through the door that led to the garage, Chad realized that she'd never taken off her shoes or coat when she came in. It had been his first clue that she wouldn't be staying. Numbly, he sat down in the chair at the table he'd bumped, arms dropping to the surface of said table with a thump.

Five years. He shook his head. For the first time in a long time, he felt bitterness rise into his chest, and while he knew that it would feel good - damn good, in fact - to let it flow out and feel all of the negative, cathartic things that came with it, he couldn't do it. He wouldn't. He was in this situation because he had his control taken from him, and it would give him no pleasure to take it away from himself. He refused to be self destructive.

[Alexis Lannister]

V E N G E A N C E

Scott and Tucker had enlisted the help of Hudson to try and figure out what they might do about Mandy's condition, as it was getting far, far worse than they could cope with. She was vomiting black ichor, scratching at herself, and her veins were dark throughout her body. It was like she was slowly changing into a Deadite from the Evil Dead series, which Hudson had observed before Scott had told him that visiting time was over.

Despite his demeanor, Hudson did want to help, and so he'd enlisted his hunting partner in this, feeling it was more her wheelhouse. And it was - Alexis was Seelie Fae, and came from Faewild. As Hudson understood it, she wasn't royalty, but her family was part of the court, thus giving her tenure in her homeland as well as advanced knowledge of things that most Seelie Faelings didn't educate themselves on.

"This... is a thing straight from Fae fairytales," Alexis was saying, having seen Mandy for about thirty seconds before coming to her conclusions about what was inside of her. "It's - ah - like our version of a Boogeyman," she explained.

Scott frowned. "Like that dude with the guns?" he asked, confused. The only Boogeyman he knew was some mythic hunter who didn't seem to die, and he only knew about it because he'd heard enough rumours to suspect there was truth to it.

"No," Alexis said, rolling her eyes. Why was her accent always so much more harsh when she was irritated? "This man doesn't use guns, or any weapons mortals have crafted," she said, rubbing the bridge of her nose. "He's - he's like - "

"Like the fucking boogeyman," Tucker said. "The boogeyman doesn't need an introduction, guys, come on. Imagine the worst fears you have, imagine the most scared you've ever been. That's this. Right?"

Alexis nodded, fingers playing idly with a diamond tennis bracelet she had slipped off her wrist. She needed something with a little sparkle to distract her from thinking about the Dark Man. Once, as a child, she thought she saw living shadow under her bed, and she'd screamed for hours after that, insisting she sleep with her parents. She would never forget it.

"He controls the darkness. He is the darkness. He has a form that we can comprehend, but he can also take other forms, forms that you, as humans - or you, as a shifter, Hudson - cannot. He's not Eldritch, but he's probably got origins from there. Perhaps a lost Fae was taken by Old Ones, and this was the resulting union. I don't know," she confessed. "But what I do know, is that whatever is in that girl, it belongs to him, and he will come for it. You need to move her to a safe house, something where there's a lot of iron," she added.

Just as she said that, there was noise from above them. Mandy had begun to scream and thrash about, and though the guys felt it was another episode, Alexis could have sworn she saw a shadow glide across the wall, her ears tuned to a soft chitter, chatter as it did so. She pushed Hudson out of the way and ran up the stairs, entering Mandy's room. Behind her, the door slammed shut, trapping the men on the other side of it.

She nearly collapsed by what she saw. Mandy was enveloped in black, coils wrapping around her, steadying her. One shadow was in her mouth, causing her to gag and wretch as it, along with the others, began to recess into the ground. She fell, weak from the experience, only for the man behind the shadow grab her arm and catch her.

"Hello, pet," he said, and his smile was too wide, his eyes too blue. "Look, we have a guest," he said, jerking her until she looked at Alexis.

Mandy went from her quiet, tortured grunts and groans to outright roaring. She began reaching out for Alexis, struggling against Taranis, and Alexis knew that she only struggled because he allowed it. She was screaming, crying, and begging, hands swiping out like claws to Alexis. "You can see me!" she screamed. "You can SEE me! PULL ME OUT! PULL! ME! OUT!" she wailed.

Alexis looked from Mandy to Taranis, the Dark Man, the thing she'd been told would be the ruin of all Faewild. "They told you when you were but a little Fae that I was the monster under your bed," Taranis whispered to her. "And I was."

She swallowed, unable to stop the tremble as it took her body. She was no match for him, and she knew it. Her eyes watered, but tears did not fall; she was simply overwhelmed by the whole of this. Behind her, she could hear clamoring in the hall as the men ran up the stairs after her. They were calling her name, calling Mandy's name. It was a mess. There was so much terror wracked in the house that it hung in the air like a thick pea-soup of fog, tangible and with a certain taste of bitterness.

"What can I offer to have her returned to me, whole of mind and body?" Alexis asked, her words very careful. She neither stepped forward nor back, and this impressed Taranis.

"Ah, so the little Fae has grown up and into her own," he said. His voice was like black velvet, wrapping around her in a neat bow of pressure that she felt at the center of her chest. "But I can't fathom why you'd want this wretched creature back." He gave Mandy a shake as he referred to her, and she yelped, still crying and begging, though not as loudly. "Be still," he commanded.

"Yes, yes I want her back. Please, Dark Man, what can I offer you? What do you desire?"

He snorted. "Don't try that Succubus charm on me, child. I'm not anywhere near your sphere of influence. Not if you were the Seelie Queen, and certainly not as you are now. I say again, what would you want this urchin back for? Do you know, she is the iron rod in your back?"

Alexis started at his words, ignoring the shame she felt. Succubi couldn't take rejection well, in any form, and she'd need to scrub herself in the tub with bleach after offering her services to the Lord of the UnderFae and being rebuffed. "I don't understand."

"Tell her what you did," Taranis commanded, giving Mandy a yank. "Tell her how you attempted to burn that Triste from the inside out. Go on, tell her," he urged, voice light and encouraging. When she wouldn't comply, he grabbed her by the hair, forcing her to look at Alexis. His other hand shot down to her mouth, working her jaw like a dummy.

"Alexis," he said, imitating her voice, "I tried to kill your boyfriend. I apologize." He dropped her on the ground, where she lay in a heap. "Now, was that so hard? Honestly, Mandy." He looked back at Alexis, a brow raised. "So, do you still want her back? If so, I'm sure we could strike a bargain. You do have access to artifacts I'd like from the Seelie palace. Not as though I can just waltz in and get them. Well, I suppose I could, but, ah, it's better to get more people involved." He smiled. "Cannon fodder."

The door flung open finally, having been sealed shut by Taranis' magic. Into the room poured Scott, Hudson, and Tucker, all of them behind Alexis as she stared at Taranis. They, however, could not see him. Or Mandy. He had concealed himself by stepping just out of their reality and into Faeworld, and only stronger Fae could see beyond the barrier. "Alexis, are you okay? Where's Mandy?" they were shouting.

As Mandy realized her brother and Tucker had come into the room, she leapt up and began shrieking, the absolute banshee coming out of her lungs. She amped herself with her own power, springing forward like an animal and beating on that solid window that separated her. "I'M HERE!" she screamed. "SCOTT, I'M HERE!"

"Alexis, what do you see? Is it here? Is it in the room?" Tucker demanded, grabbing her by the arm. Her arm moved, but her upper body did not, and she stared straight ahead for a long moment.

"I don't see anything," she said softly.

"Where did she GO!" screamed Scott. He picked up a book from the desk and threw it across the room, and it sailed right through the space, smacking the closet behind it. "God DAMNIT!" he yelled, sinking to the floor and covering his face.

Mandy was still screaming, still begging. "Alexis! ALEXIS, PLEASE, DON'T LET HIM TAKE ME!" But Taranis just gave Alexis a nod, one she returned every so slightly before turning her back on them. The scene behind her closed, barrier raising back up and separating the two realms fully again.

Hudson had knelt by Scott on the floor, gently patting him and talking softly, reassuring him that they'd find her, they'd find her and bring her home. Alexis wanted to feel bad, she really did. But another part of her wanted to tell them that they'd never find her, and she was never coming home. Because when the Dark Man took a Fae, they were gone forever, their names practically erased from history, and she had no doubt that he would do the same for Mandy. Much like Tucker, now Alexis was forced to hold in the thing she could never unsee. Once you had seen Taranis, he had seen you. And the Dark Man, well, he knew her name, now.

"Come on," she said softly. "Let's call Stav. And Irulan, I think," eyes glancing up to Tucker at the mention of the guild psychologist's name. He said something agreeable to her suggestion, and the group went back down the stairs.

Tucker was the last out of the room, throwing a glance over his shoulder at where Mandy had been. It was like he could still feel her. He shook his head, then closed the door behind him.