[PRP] Just Trying to Eat Here [Alexis/Fox]

[Daekie]

"Metaphorical magic Kool Aid," Alexis shrugged, "I didn't grow up with magic, what the ******** do I know." Fox's comment about them looking healthy made them laugh, though. "Healthy? Seriously? I'm a hundred and twenty soaking wet and I can't breathe if it gets hot, I'm half-blind on one side, and the only reason I don't live on fast food is I live with a cook. Wouldn't call that healthy, Officer."

They scrutinized her for a few seconds and then looked away with a sigh. "Figured you wouldn't get it. Nah. 's not a metaphor, but that doesn't matter, right? I'm used to magic ruinin' my life already."

demon_pachabel

 

[demon_pachabel]

"I've seen much worse," sure, Alexis wasn't going to be winning any marathons anytime soon, but they were walking of their on volition and had something resembling meat on their bones. Certainly underweight for their height, but still. Fox was trying to see the positive for them.

"But you make a fair point, I won't invalidate that you are right and I know very little," Fox also wasn't going to bully her way into being right.

"I don't know what you mean. I certainly can't argue for or against what your truth is vs what my truth is. They're both truths and I won't simply let you be bulldozed over because as far as I'm concerned, you do matter." Positivity Police.

Daekie

 

[Daekie]

"I haven't been to jail n' I don't mean to start," Alexis grumbled, but kept quiet as they walked, scuffing their shoes along the pavement -- they kicked a rock here and there, watching it tumble, watching it go.

"...you're one of the most understandin' cops I've ever met. Or, like -- the only one that doesn't look at me like I'm gonna bite their fingers off." Again. They'd only tried (and failed) to do it to Jeremiah Mercer, according to their file, but that was still more fingers than anyone would normally bite. "Ashdown PD change their interview guy?"

demon_pachabel

 

[demon_pachabel]

She wiggled her fingers then shrugged. "I'd probably be OK if you did decide to. I can live with a few missing fingers," Fox said jokingly. "But in all seriousness, I learned the gun-to-my-face way that just because you understand something on paper doesn't mean you understand it in person." Fox shoved one hand in her pocket idly as they walked.

"I can read your file as many times as I want but that doesn't mean I understand you at all." Her logic was pretty clear to herself, but she could see how that could be misunderstood. "I dunno. Maybe they did? I'd hate to think that my breed of cop is the exception rather than the rule...." she trailed off as Curtis' reactions to the whole incident came to mind and tried to not sigh.

"But I also know what they say about magic users and Ashdown in general in other cities, so maybe I'm less surprised." she didn't sound pleased about it.

Daekie

 

[Daekie]

"Fingers crunch," Alexis murmured, under their breath -- they were unhappy about it, but it wasn't a question, it was a statement. They knew what it felt like, and they didn't want to think about it any more than they absolutely had to - less than that, actually. (Rill crying out Alois' name in pain and terror, Ezra's name, any name she could think of - it would haunt them for a very long time. What they could remember of it.)

"I like t'think I answer questions pretty good. 'Least when it comes to talking about what my magic can do." They shrugged. "But you already know that, so. N' by the way - yes, it's the anxiety aura freaking you out, no I can't turn it off, etc."

demon_pachabel

 

[demon_pachabel]

Fox paused.

"Is that what that is?" she asked. While she'd known something was hiking up her nerves and she'd suspected it was something about Alexis, it hadn't struck her that it was magic of any sort. "That....that actually is a little bit relieving to know." She pat her chest. Thank goodness. Here she was worried that for easing herself back out onto the street she was just rigged to be nervous the whole time now.

"So what is your repertoire? If you don't mind telling me?"

Daekie

 

[Daekie]

Alexis clicked their tongue. "I can track, I can mimic you," (and for 'you' they slipped into a almost-perfect replica of Fox's voice, down to the cadence,) "teeth, gills, eyes, water control, I find knives wherever I want, and I can." There was a brief moment of annoyance, and then a light breeze ruffled Fox's hair. "Do something with breezes. It's dumb, whatever, ******** it, magic is s**t. N' probably some other stuff I haven't discovered yet." They'd rattled it all off as easily as they would a phone number; second-nature, really.

demon_pachabel

 

[demon_pachabel]

At no point in time did it seem as though Fox was taking notes. She nodded along, seeming genuinely interested, but there was no consideration of somehow using this information to her benefit.

"That's quite the skill set. I'm impressed," Fox nodded. "I will admit that I hope some of those require less use than the others, though." Namely ones that would probably result in panicked calls she would have to pick up. Though from her impression of Alexis, they likely would like the same.

Daekie

 

[Daekie]

"Get arrested n' put on magic probation," Alexis grumped, "you'll see how useful it is, they had to waterproof half the station." (They'd noticed, when they went to talk to Jeremiah, when they had to check in every so often. Little things. Different materials; strange to their fingers. Not that they'd spent too much time in the Ashdown police station before everything, but -- enough to know the fabric was different, some of the doors reinforced, little things. Probably more, in holding areas. They didn't want to go back to check, not when they were trying to do better.)

demon_pachabel

 

[demon_pachabel]

Fox pursed her lips. "Is that why the station is that way?" Fox had spent enough time between two separate departments to know that the way Ashdown PD had their building set up was just a little (okay, a lot) strange by comparison to Boston. A whole one person was responsible for that, hmmm?

"I'm actually kind of impressed." Sure it wasn't a good thing, but it said something about how seriously the department took Alexis to Fox.

Daekie

 

[Daekie]

"They ain't exactly about to tell me thanks for the free building renovation, are they? 'Sides --" Alexis' face shuttered closed abruptly, their lips tight - "I used to not want this. Most'v it. I can do a lot of damage with blunt force, and before I learned any real way t'control it, it --"

Their knuckles were white in fists. "It didn't listen to me. That's all." (Their fingertips were striped with pale scars running through their fingerprints, rents in the skin that'd mark them for a very long time. Too tiny and unprecise to be anything but so many scarred-over toothmarks. With teeth like Alexis had, it was easy to do damage by accident in anxiety.)

demon_pachabel

 

[demon_pachabel]

Fox wanted to reach out to pat Alexis’ shoulder, but had taken it to heart earlier when she’d been informed she’d overstepped her bounds and to seriously keep her hands to herself. “I understand,” she said simply. “I don’t need you to defend yourself to me. I believe you.” As much as her lack of circumstance could handle, at least. Some things were retranslated to fit her understanding, but the bottom line was clear enough: Nothing had been on purpose. That was all she needed to know.

Being of a complexion labelled ‘Not White’, Fox had definitely been a different level of ‘there’ before (no end to the ‘Go back to your own country’ and ‘terrorist’ jokes there, unfortunately).

Daekie

 

[Daekie]

It was on purpose enough, Alexis wanted to say, or; I'll hurt people anyways, does it matter if I want to, because even if they weren't the Alexis she'd read up on and oversight-known they still knew their own desires -- dig your nails in and make them bleed when they take anything from you, latch on until they pry you off with tooth and claw and blade -- but they said nothing, quiet, just the sound of their footsteps against the concrete. I'll rip my own heart out and feed it to you and watch you choke, maybe. Someone had said that to them once. (Was it Alois? They couldn't remember what he'd told them. It didn't seem like their family, any of their family, to say something so viscerally hands-between-ribs; or Autumn or Zac, or anyone at all.)

Their left wrist spasmed, briefly, and their shoulders tensed - it was only a small twitch, where their fingers clenched without wanting, but their arm shivered and then laid still as the pain subsided.

demon_pachabel

 

[demon_pachabel]

Annnnnd Alexis got quiet. Had Fox said something? She didn't say anything for a few minutes, just watching them carefully with a small frown of concern.

"Can I do anything?" she asked, seemingly out of the blue, perhaps out of her concern.

Daekie

Weep I'm sorry for the smoll potato post.

 

[Daekie]

"No," Alexis said, almost before Fox had finished speaking; and again, "No, 's fine." Their eyes scanned the horizon for something, anything, that they couldn't put a name for. "Don't you gotta get back to work, though? And I've got a shift in an hour." They gritted their nails into the soft meat of their palms, knowing there'd be marks when they looked.

They would have said more to her, but even as kind as she was, Fox was still a cop and Alexis couldn't trust her. Jeremiah was different, because he knew, he'd known them when they were less than this (or more than this? less pared-down, a blunt object, a baseball bat with nails but no knife no stiletto blade no force of nature) and he'd seen them dead. He bled too. They knew. And Shiloh -- and Preacher -- a kindred spirit was a kindred spirit, deep down, when all that mattered was --

They had no shift in an hour, but it didn't matter. They would be heading to the otherworld, anyways, and maybe they'd look for Kiel and maybe they'd break and break things until the urge went away and they felt safe to be around, safe to be. Or maybe they could just listen.

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