Hiding did little good—that was a fact of the matter, irrefutable, clear as glass. At any point in his life when things turned out differently from how he wanted, he had run and hid away. Although always quick to stand up and fight anyone that dared to look at him sideways, the true demons that haunted him were creatures that he was never able to muster up the courage to take on. So, he ran. He ran, he hid, and then the cycle would repeat itself over and over again; it was a vicious cycle, giving no one any peace of mind, nor allowing him to truly heal. The wounds were left to fester and poison him, driving him to things that only ever made matters all the worse.

Maybe it was time to stop hiding.

Before he even realised where he was or what he was doing, Alexander was loitering around the outskirts of a place he never thought he would return to. A place that, despite housing family, did not feel like home—but home was not always something absolute, it didn’t always strike someone with immediate feelings of awe and belonging. In a true home, those things developed over time, and they oftentimes grew stronger than anything that came immediately—and he wanted that strength, that place in the world—

—he wanted to belong for once in his life.

So he called for them, for whomever might listen.

When she came she brought silence, not a single sound to greet him by. His ears slid back, stuck to his crown like glue, his own weariness unmasked. He could hear the steady thumping of his heart, as deafening as it was, all other sounds of the world around them drowned out. You see, Alexander had not planned out what was supposed to come next. What should he say? What should he do? He couldn’t answer his own questions, not when his being there was derived from an impulse—for as much as he sought to belong, it was from a moment of absent mind that his being there was bred. Per usual, he had not thought about her or Laurel, what either of them might want, or if either would even give him the time of day. But despite everything, despite all that he had done or didn’t do…

There she was.

He lowered his head and averted his gaze, struggling to formulate even just one word. There was so much that he still wanted to say but he didn’t think now was the time; to unleash his own personal hell without warning seemed selfish, to say the least. But… “Indra, we need to talk.” And no sooner did he speak did his sister then appear, closing the distance with ease and carrying herself closer yet.

“I never told you I was coming,” he told her, yet his eyes were still trained on Indra and pleading silently. He didn’t want to look away, believing that doing so might result in her disappearing but, eventually, he had to; Valette wanted to speak and he could nor ignore her, just as he could not speak his ugly truth with her being there. So he did what he had to and turned to look at her, answering with, “I’m not.” The question stood as to whether or not he had ever been well, honestly. “But I’m trying to get there,” he ended. Trying—but not necessarily succeeding.

Xan did not immediately noticed Laurel in the background. His mind was preoccupied, as were his eyes as they drifted steadily between his sister and Indra. He wanted so desperately to speak with the latter, to spill his guts in a manner that he was not familiar with, but he doubted how capable he was of doing so with Valette there; they were siblings but, despite having shared a womb so long ago, they were not that close. But he could see how he hurt her by being so dismissive and his ears flattened further against his head, nervous and uncertain. He had not meant to hurt her by trying to mend things with another but it seemed that, that was what he had done in the end (he wasn’t so sure that he enjoyed being exposed—he certainly wasn’t a fan of perceiving the feelings of others over his own). But, hey, it was hard to learn and grow when the better portion of your life was spent being a self-centered jackass.

“I—” Was it a trick? Was he allowed to talk to Indra over her, outside of her own home? “Can I… am I allowed to talk to her…?” Uncertainty was not something that he wore very well; the churning of his stomach and the increased pounding within his chest were things that he would never get used to, not in a million years. It made him feel terrible, like he should turn and run and hide just to get it all to stop—but wasn’t that what created this mess, to begin with? He couldn’t do it again.

“I want to talk to you both,” he added moments later. “Just... not together? Okay?” He couldn’t bring himself to do it. There were too many eyes on him, too many listening at once. No matter how he tried to form the words they just would not come, frightened off by the sheer fact that there were two of them—

—and then two turned to three as his eyes slid past the both of them, catching sight of Laurel in the distance. Her presence alone froze him right to the core and he felt something akin to a hunk of ice drop into his stomach. Suddenly, his throat felt dry and he swallowed a few times, trying to collect himself but it was to no avail. “I don’t know what I’m doing…” he murmured whilst averting his gaze to the ground, officially stuck. This wasn’t something that he knew how to do.

By being there, he knew things could go wrong and they could go wrong quickly. But everything? All at once? That he had neither expected nor planned for, and it left him struggling to decide what he should next do. Laurel would not come closer and Indra would not speak to him beyond instructing him on what to do—but that had been his intention all along, to try and make things right. To expose and explain himself, let them hear his side to things. But Desna just wasn’t willing to let that happen. And perhaps she didn’t even realise exactly what it was that she was doing, that she was hindering his ability to speak freely; he couldn’t blame her for being unaware but, in the back of his head, a tiny voice insisted that he should. She would not leave so that he could speak to Indra, she would not even move away. All she did was suggest that an apology be issued—but didn’t she know just how many times he’d apologised already? Why didn’t she know?

Alexander’s expression steeled and his body stiffened. She didn’t know—she didn’t know anything and he wasn’t about to enlighten her. “I did,” was his reply. “I apologised to Indra already. I apologised to her for everything.” For everything that he had done, knowingly and unknowingly. But he hadn’t apologised to the one person that he knew he should, the one that he had hurt the most. Would she even allow him to? He looked past the both of them—his gaze lingered on Indra for a second longer than on his sister, a pleading look briefly flickering across his face—and towards Laurel, expression softening. “If you won’t let me talk to Indra, let me talk to her,” he said next, gaze never leaving the mother of his children. There was a moment where he nearly sprung forward to close the distance between them but he resisted the urge—for the time being. What good would it do, after all, when Desna would still be there to stop him.

Why was nothing ever easy?

Again and again, she stood in his way whereas Indra encouraged him; the mixture of the two was frustrating, at best, but downright confusing overall. One said go and another said stay but only one held power there, it seemed, and she wasn’t willing to budge. But what she pointed out wasn’t entirely wrong—wouldn’t Laurel have had approached, had she any interest in speaking with him? The truth was painfully obvious but not something that he chose to acknowledge; a part of him had prolonged the inevitable for too long already, and he wasn’t willing to let anything, or anyone, else do the same.

“I want to talk to Laurel,” he repeated through gritted teeth. It wouldn’t be difficult, he thought, to just barrel past her. He did not doubt his own physical capabilities but he was hesitant yet. His sister had an entire pack at her beck and call, a pack that he did not know the quantity of, whereas he was but one, individual being. His options were limited—but not necessarily limited to the options that she had given him.

Alexander brought his attention back to Laurel and looked to her pleadingly before calling out, “Laurel!” Please answer. He did not forget his sister’s being there, no. But he also did not glance her way, not again, not when she refused to help him. And although he did not look her way, he did tell her, “I don’t want to talk to you, you can’t help anything. I want to talk to Laurel and I’m not leaving until I do or I hear her say that she doesn’t want to talk to me.” As he spoke, however, he wondered if he could uphold his own word—if Laurel did choose to dismiss him, would he even be able to leave? Could he honour his word? The answer to that question is a tricky one, undecided and undecidable. “I want to make things better, Desna,” he muttered. “But you’re not letting me even try.” Why was everyone always so unwilling to just give him a chance? Why couldn’t he find peace, too?

Words fell on deaf ears, eyes trained on the one that would not approach. He stared past everyone else, unwilling to spare them even a glance now—now that he could see her, he didn’t want to look away. It’d been so long now since they’d last spoken, since his search to find them had begun. He didn’t want to look away, visibly worried that doing so would only result in losing her again. If he looked away now, she’d disappear and he’d be lost, aimless, defeated—

What was once an expression of hope quickly soured, ripened fruit rotting and withering away. His entire posture fell, stricken down by just a few words and a harsh reality check: she didn’t want to see him. Alexander stood there as stiff as a corpse, staring off after her, trembling with the sheer overload of emotions that he was made to experience. The approach of the other male went unnoticed and all sounds unheard, unable to pull himself out of the state he’d slipped and fallen into.

She didn’t want to see him.

She didn’t want to speak to him.

Why was he still there?

“I can’t leave again…” he whispered, answering himself. He couldn’t get his body to listen to him, couldn’t move an inch. Everything suddenly felt heavy, like lead, threatening to drag him down and crush him entirely. His mouth opened and then closed, struggling to form anything coherent enough to actually leave his lips. Did Indra feel the same way? Did she want him gone? He stole a fleeting glance in her direction, searching for anything that might tell him otherwise, but it wasn’t long before his head whipped back to the opposite side, eyeing his sister. And what did she think? Now also demanding that he leave—what had he done?

“Desna, please,” he begged, nearly choking on his own words. “Please let me stay. Let me—let me fix this. I want to be better. Please.” The trembling did not cease, further encouraged by the fear and rejection he felt; the fear that he would always be stuck reliving his mistakes, never to find peace. He didn’t want that, he couldn’t live like that. He’d spent so long being angry, so long feeling rejected, unwanted, dirty—he couldn’t do it anymore.