After a short while Alex took the initiative, snaking one hand toward Luke. He didn't hesitate, catching the fingers of Alex's hand with his own. Quietly, they held hands as the evening started to draw in and the sky turned as black as the sea in the night.
They talked a little, Alex offering a soft apology for losing control, for demanding of Luke what he said he could never do himself. Luke, for his part, accepted the apology with a small smile, leaning in for a kiss, both men laughing as a crack of electricity sparked between them, sapphire blue in the dark. Alex relaxed, breathing deeply of the salty air, the boom and whoosh of waves a percussion he measured his heartbeat by until finally he was able to open his connection to Luke and to share the peace inside him.
They sat for a long time. When Alex realized the calm he was feeling, centering himself with Luke, was being bent, pushed, skewed, he pulled himself away from Luke, away from the calm, sudden emotions of fear skittering down his spine. There was a spreading burst of energy through the carvings on his back and Alex realized Luke would feel this as motions coursing into him from Alex's hands. Some kind of connection, a vision, a phase? Something wasn't right.
"Alex?" Luke said quickly, and Alex could see him wondering if he should let go of Alex's hand. He started to pull away himself, fear inside him as sharp as a knife, but Luke tightened his grip, screwing his eyes tightly shut.
"I don't see anything," Alex said. Something was blocking his sight, casting a cloak of grays over his visions, and there was nothing more than fear and danger and run the fuck now.
"Alex?" Luke sounded panicked, and Alex couldn't stop himself from absorbing the panic.
"I feel danger." Abruptly Alex dropped his hold on Luke's hands and scrambled to stand, Luke quickly standing too, confusion a stifling net around them both. "We are not getting off this island, Luke, they won't let us leave."
"Who won't let us leave?" Luke couldn't be aware that he was shouting, demanding answers based on instinct alone.
"I don't know, I can't see. I want to see." Alex twisted hands into his long hair, closing his eyes, as if concentrating could pull out the answers. So many images jumbled in his head but all with only the one word. Seth.
Alex tried to shift his focus to shouts from inside the house, loud and raucous. He turned, torn between protecting Luke and finding out what was happening. He moved, quickly, before Luke could even comprehend how Alex and his visions translated to chaos in the house on the beach. Alex could sense Luke trying to see past Alex, who had moved to stand between Luke and the villa.
"The painted man?" The voice that spoke was full of wonder and Alex felt tension across his shoulders as Luke moved to gain line of sight, past the stiff-backed Alex to the door into the kitchen. A man stood there in the doorway in jeans and a shirt, short-statured, dark-haired, and olive-skinned with a gun in his hand and nothing but a frightening silence behind him where Samuels and Thanos had been.
"I'm sorry?" Alex asked, playing the innocence card, hands spread wide. Alex thought the words "stay behind me" at Luke.
They stood in a face-off with the gun wielding intruder, until a taller man pushed past the shorter, his skin lighter, exposing himself to a moon-drenched night, revealing a face Alex and Luke both recognized for different reasons. Luke saw a benefactor to the university and the man who had invited him to the British Museum, the man who made him feel like a bought and paid-for trained monkey; Alex saw the man who thought Edward could do better than a hick from California. Lord Arriseth.
Arriseth stood silent and watchful for a few seconds before stepping onto the decked area and nodding, a feral smile twisting his smooth urbane features. He didn't look that much different from the night at the British Museum, dressed just as immaculately, but this time in a light-colored suit, a maroon tie knotted with precision at his throat. His hair was smooth to his head, slicked back from a high forehead, and he was clean-shaven, everything an English lord should be.
"Sheridan. Professor MacKinnon. It is good we have you together at last," he said. Standing to one side and suggesting with a wave of his hand that both Luke and Alex should enter the house, he waited patiently until the subtle gesture of his colleague's gun made both Alex and Luke finally move.
As they entered the bright light of the kitchen Alex casually swung his hand in brief contact with Luke, hoping the small touch would transmit calm to his visibly shocked lover. Alex noted every small detail; Samuels was sitting on one of the chairs, a third man with a gun at his head. Thanos was next to him looking incredibly calm.
"Please sit," Arriseth said. Luke did as was instructed, Alex following him until all four men were arranged in a parody of the early morning discussion over coffee.
"What is this about?" Luke asked, his thigh knocking Alex's under the table, the spark of warmth there between them. Alex sensed that Luke was thinking about Alex phasing, could see it as clear as day, focused and intent, could follow his thought process as if it were being spoken to him.
"I don't think we need to waste time on a question and answer session, Professor, I want to know what you have discovered. What paths are on this man's body that will lead us to the Oracle?"
Alex tried to hide his startled reaction to Arriseth's words. The Oracle? The tattoos? How the hell was the Englishman involved in this whole freaking mess? He sensed that same shock in Luke and caught Samuels's gaze, one of concern and bemusement. Luke blinked owlishly, playing on his absent-minded professor personality just a slight bit more than normal.
"I haven't discovered anything—" Luke's words stopped as the man from the door used the gun in his hand to smash down at Samuels's temple, the skin splitting and blood starting to collect and trickle down the side of Samuels's face. He grunted in pain, tried to pull back, and Alex willed Samuels not to move, not to react, and not to give these people any ammunition to fight.
Arriseth spoke with disappointment. "Don't play games here, Professor. Do not, for one minute, think that I am stupid. There is a reason you're together. You can read him. So, tell me. Where. Is. The. Oracle?"
Alex looked at Samuels, wincing as blood curved around his eyelid and collected on his lashes. Samuels returned his gaze steadily. He showed no sign of emotion and no guess as to what to say. Finally, Luke sighed.
"We have numbers," Alex heard Luke say over the confusion of noise in his head. "We believe they're coordinates, a map of sorts, to the Oracle, to where the Oracle is, but we have nothing more." Shit.
Arriseth gave a charming smile, and after taking the gun from his companion, he released the safety—obviously intending to clear the room of what he didn't need or what could be a problem to him—so quickly Luke couldn't react fast enough. A single shot to Thanos's head, another to Samuels's chest, the blood in their exit wounds taking life, both men slumping forward.
"Let's go."
* * * *
Alex couldn't help Thanos. Whatever was blocking his sight meant a delay in learning Arriseth's intent, it was only as Arriseth relieved one of his companions of a gun that Alex knew what his intentions were. Thanos was too close, the brain too dense. Alex couldn't change the trajectory of the bullet in time, couldn't control it, his fragile self almost cracking in two as the bullet exploded inside the older man's head, killing him as carelessly as a breath.
With Samuels it was different, with that millisecond of notice, Alex was able to guide the bullet as a through shot, slowing down the trajectory, avoiding the heart, the arteries, the bones. He sighed inwardly as the bullet carved an path of heat and came out Samuels's back, burying deep in the chair. He sensed the shock within Samuels and pushed the need to fall to the table, to feign death. "Stay still". For his part Samuels had no choice, his body going into immediate shock.
Alex saw Luke was horrified, could touch the words caught in his lover's head at the blood that sprayed from Samuels onto his shirt. Luke lurched to stand, pushing back and away, clashing with the man with the gun, who simply forced him back until he fell to his knees. Alex reached to help him up. "Luke, stop, stop!"
"Why. Why kill them?"
Arriseth cut him off with a dismissive wave of his hand. "I only need one thing, Professor, and that is the Oracle. I don't want or need the extra baggage."
Luke just stared back at Arriseth, horror still in his eyes, unable to look over at Samuels. Alex wanted to say that the man Luke had started to call friend was going to be okay but he couldn't reach through the fear in Luke. He was desperately trying to calm himself, to think rationally. Luke had convinced Arriseth they had a location, so now they needed a location. Alex could feel Luke sifting through memories as fast as he could, even as he accepted Alex's hand and stood. Alex dropped the hand immediately. No sense in showing all their cards until they needed to.
* * * *
Luke pulled himself up as straight as he could. Arriseth said he didn't want Samuels, didn't want army. This led to only one conclusion in Luke's head. Arriseth was part of this nebulous group called Xanos. He filed this away for thinking about when he could talk to Alex. Sudden fear hit him, what if Arriseth thought they didn't need Alex? What if they saw him as nothing more than a walking canvas, not a human?
"I still need to do more research. I still need Alex," Luke blurted out, trying to settle the worry in him, trying to appear rational and calm. Arriseth moved the gun, pointed it directly between Alex's eyes.
"We have the tattoos, what else can he give us?"
Alex didn't move and stared back at him, blinking steadily.
"He has dreams," Luke said, "pointers to what we are looking for." Shit, Arriseth was not going to go for this, and Luke tensed every muscle in his body, ready for fight. It was a standoff, Alex still and quiet, Luke feeling that at any moment a single bullet would kill, and Arriseth looking thoughtful.
With calm, measured movements he handed the gun back to the man who was standing dispassionately with his hand on Alex's arm and nodded his head.
"We go," he said, walking to the door.
"My research is here," Luke said. He looked down at Samuels, focusing on a tiny movement of his lashes. Was the man alive? They couldn't leave Samuels if there was any chance.
"No, Professor," Arriseth said, "it isn't."