More Than She Wanted To Know

Participants:

alexander_icon.gif helena_icon.gif

Scene Title More Than She Wanted To Know
Synopsis Alex updates Helena on his love life. Her brain goes TILT.
Date January 22, 2009

Old Dispensary - Basement


Helena is antsy. Antsy with Helena generally means tricky weather, and for once, neither gardening nor cooking seems to provide the answer, so she resorts to her new tertiary favorite: Beat On Things. Maybe it'll quell her urge to instantly want to assault Ethan when she sees him.

It sure helps AL. Who is heartbroken. And thus he's taking out his ire fist to punching bag. No finesse, no delicacy, just slugging away like the sack of canvas is everyone who's ever hurt him, hurt his friends, insulted him. Happily, he's just using his mere hands, rather than his power - Al in full-on Sith rage is not a pretty picture. His teeth are bared a little, in anger, and he's got the tranced out expression of someone very much absorbed in his work.

Helena blinks when she sees him, as if she's looking at a ghost. "Alex?" she queries tenatively. He looks so furious, and it makes her back off a little.

He puts out a hand to make the bag cease its motion, a gesture of surprising delicacy. Al doesn't round on Helena, but turns slowly. "Hey, Helena," he says, gently. "Hey. How're you?"

"Nervous." she admits. "I'm meeting with Ethan tonight. Apparently he's going turncoat, but I'm having a hard time not wanting to just figure out a way to go for his throat. If he's genuine, the information he could be giving us is would be highly valuable. Where've you been?" The question comes out furtively.

"At home. Little lost in personal stuff. I'm sorry," he says, with genuine contrition. IT's no time for his personal angst, not really. "So. He says he wants to betray his boss? Why the change of heart?" he wonders, heading over to her, leaving the heavy bag to swing gently.

"Eileen." Helena says. "Apparently he views her like a daughter, and I don't imagine that when Kazimir found out she betrayed him, he gave her cookies and milk."

Alexander grunts. That's apparently a cause genuine enough for him to believe. "Interesting. So, she did betray him." No help from Al there. He's sweaty from the workout, white shirt soaked with it. "You need me along as backup?"

Helena considers a moment, then shakes her head. "Conrad's going to go with me." she says. "Will your personal stuff keep you away from the meeting tomorrow?" A pause. "That came out wrong. Sorry."

He frowns at her, as if uncertain how to take that, exactly. "No," he says, quietly. "It won't. I'll be there."

Helena nods. "Cool." She cocks her head to the side. "You okay? You're really giving that bag a sound whooping."

Al looks weary at that, shaking his head. Not just in the way that bruising his hands on the canvas will explain. "Teo and I. It's never clear," he says. "Never right. He said he loves me, but now he doesn't," His tone is confused and hurt….and oddly innocent. This stuff is supposed to be simple.

Helena blinks. "Oh…oh." she says, completely taken off guard. "I didn't know you guys were still sorting that out. Teo hasn't mentioned it to me, he - " she frowns. "I see him more than I've seen you, but he really doesn't talk much. I've been kind of selfish. He said he didn't love you, then?"

"He did, but then….I guess he changed his mind, or got over it. It's complicated," Al says, suddenly uncertain what to do with his hands. "Like, he made a pass at me, and I was…perfectly willing. But he bolted off and found some cop to fuck, instead, I don't know why."

Helena just keeps blinking some more. "He's…he's fucking a cop? A guy cop?" Just for clarification. The only chick cop she knows is Elisabeth.

"He was. I don't know - he says it was just a one night thing." Al looks lost, still. "I don't know the guy's name, but it's not one of ours, apprently."

Helena seems to be in a perpetual state of blinking confusion. "I'm not sure I understand the problem." she admits. "If you two are keen on each other, why don't you just go for it? It certainly seems like less bother than all this dancing around."
Al flings up his hands in a gesture that's more theatrical than he usually permits himself. "Fuck if I know! That's my question. I mean, I got involved with someone too, but it's pretty damn casual. I may not be real bright, but I know the difference between love and being the evening's rough trade."

Helena blinks. "So wait, now you're involved with someone too? Another guy?" Seriously, she thought her love life was a complete shambles. It's not so much schadenfreude she's experiencing as a bizarre sense of relief.

"No. I….it's Teo's aunt," Al confesses, color climbing up from his shirt collar.

Blink. Blink blink. "You're…fucking his aunt, and you wonder why he might be saying he doesn't love you anymore?" she asks. Abruptly she starts to giggle. "Christ, Alex. You make my shit seem so simple."

"But when he said he did, he fucking bailed on me. I'd ….I'd've been happy to be with him. And then he scatters off and finds some cop. So I figured he didn't care," Al says, miserably. "I know. I don't know how it got so fucked up."

"Possibly around the time when you started screwing his aunt." Helena says, somewhat disbelievingly.

Alexander notes, more quietly, "I didn't end up with her until after he'd gotten involved with this cop. I said yes when he asked me, I don't know why that made him flip out. I mean, if you like someone, and you try to get in bed with them, and they're happy about it, where's the sticking point? I mean, I got some scars from Iraq, but nothing really fucked up. Nothing he ain't seen before."

"There are whole levels of screwed up to this that I am simply not psychologically prepared for." says Helena, caught somewhere between amusement and dismay.

Al levels a look at her that would be amused, himself. "Tell me a-fucking-bout it. And man, if you saw his aunt….she's the most beautiful woman I've ever seen in my life."

Helena can't help but grin a little. "I'll have to meet her sometime."


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January 22nd: Have A Little Faith In Me
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January 22nd: Round And Round We Go
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