toblameforit | (no subject)

"I helped to test it. It's amazing. Spells just can't take hold."

She nods to Tony. "And you should listen to your brother on that last part."

He quirks a smile as he accepts it.

"Duly noted."

Tony shakes his head.

"Screw it," he announces, breezing out the door and ruffling Sherlock's hair along the way, "I'm going to sleep."

"Sleep well," Alyce calls out to Tony as he leaves.

Then she turns to Sherlock. She should probably change out of the pajamas and back into her red dress, but she's not about to leave the room.

"So you should have breakfast. I had a little already, but I'll stay and keep you company."

"Kind of you," he says a little absently, running his fingers down the sleeve of the coat.

When he looks up, it's with a wry little smile.

"Not such a grand adventure anymore," he confesses. "Tony must be worried. He does his best work under pressure, and this is exemplary."

"I'm worried, too," Alyce says.

"I'm rested and less terrified, but this is far from over. I need to tell you, god, so much. I mean, I have information about the other coven members, things Tom does, things he might try, weaknesses we might be able to use against him. I'm- I want to make things right, if I can, and I want to keep us safe. I want to keep you safe."

She's kicking herself for flouncing off last night. She should have done something stealthy to stay within the coven and protect him from her position there. She's never been good with plotting.

"Thank you."

"You don't need to thank me," she scoffs, fidgeting with her sleeve again.

"If it wasn't for me and my stupid friends, you wouldn't have to deal with any of this."

"I rather think I brought it on myself," he says dryly. "Challenging Riddle seemed like a good idea at the time."

Anyone who wants to provoke an irrational response in Sherlock need only say something to malign his independence. He will immediately set out to prove them wrong as thoroughly as possible.

"Maybe," she says, and she tries not to smile. Sherlock does enjoy a challenge, she's learned.

"Okay, so there were five of us until last night. Tom, Trixi, and I were part of the coven since they first started things, as I mentioned. But as members died or moved away, new ones came in. Dolph Lestrade is the other warlock in the coven, but - and this is really important - his brother, Bastian, is a member, too, and he has no magic at all. He's, um, a lookout? Kind of a bodyguard, too. The Lestrades are an old magical family, so he knows about magic, but Tom thought it would be smart to have someone to act as muscle should we need it."

She gives him their descriptions.

"You fought off a demon, so I'm not particularly worried about Bastian. He's strong, but he's really, really dumb, too. He wrestles in school, though - he's your year - so just, you know, be aware. But they're the only ones you don't know about, unless Trixi's recruited someone new already. I doubt it, since she won't be in Sunnydale much longer. Waiting them out could be a strategy."

Even though she isn't positively sure Tom is leaving when Trixi does.

"We must assume that Riddle will know you are telling me all of this. Fortunately there is not much of it he can change."

Laying the coat down on the same chair Tony took it from, he starts to pace around the kitchen. His path is much more regular and his steps more precise than Tony's were a few minutes ago.

"Data," he mutters, "data, data. I cannot know what he'll do without knowing what he wants."

"Let me tell you more, then."

Alyce picks up her coffee cup and takes it to the sink, both to stay out of the way of the pacing and to have something to do with her fidgeting hands. With each word she speaks, she's furthering herself from her friends, her old life, and the ways she's known for years. It's frightening. She is a traitor, and that's one of the worst things you can ever be.

"Trixi, she can-" Alyce takes a deep breath and starts rinsing out the cup. "She's an empath. She knows when people lie to her, to us. She can read your emotions and sense magical abilities. She moved here when we were in 8th grade. Alec and I knew Tom since he came here in 6th grade. We were, um, not friends exactly? But we talked at school, and we both liked him. He kept a distance from everyone. None of us knew about how we could use our magic until Trixi got here."

She hasn't turned back around, but she does stop rinsing out the cup. It's very clean by now.

"I don't know what Tom wants. I know he's cruel. He likes to hurt and cause trouble. He loves power and control over others. But I don't know what he wants - rule the world, bring on an armageddon? He talks about it sometimes, but we never did anything that big.

Tom was, um- After prom this year, another of our coven, Luke Malloy, got turned into a vampire. He and Tom hated each other, but we needed him for what we did. Luke, um, he planned to turn us all, to create his own vampire version of the coven, while Tom watched, saving him for last. He captured Tom to lure us to him, but Trixi figured it out. We saved him and killed the vampires.

It couldn't have happened if Tom hadn't been - he met this guy at prom, which - he's never had a boyfriend or anything like that before. He's cold, and he'll take what he wants, and that's kind of super hot, but relationships? No way. So anyway, he had this fling, apparently, and I think he was super distracted. I also think- I think that Tom was hurt by Luke. I mean, like, 'tortured and traumatized by vampires' hurt. But we were sent away right after, so I don't know."

She turns around now, leaning back against the counter, her eyes on the floor.

"There are a lot of things I don't know, because I was never a confidante. Not like Trixi. I'm just a minion. Which, you know, whatever. Anyway, Tom hasn't been the same since prom; that's my point. The guy he was with isn't here anymore, and I don't know if that matters or not. I think it might."

She gives a half-hearted shrug and goes back to twisting her hair around her finger.

"I don't- I'm not telling you this to make you feel sorry for him, or because I want to destroy him. I want to make him stop, but- He never treated me or the other coven members like friends, but he was my leader. He did his best to keep us all safe, and we did amazing magic together. The coven was all I had after Alec died, and, really, it was all we had before, since we weren't exactly normal, fit-in types. They're- they were my family, and, well, families aren't perfect."

As he paces, as he listens to her, he starts to make breakfast. Waffles. Waffles are simple, comparatively speaking.

Although he hardly looks at her directly, it would be safe to assume that he is taking in every word and every gesture.

"I do not intend to destroy him," he says quietly, shutting the waffle maker on the first batch. "I hardly know what I intend to do, but the last thing I want out of this is any further destruction."

(A half-formed thought turns over and over in the back of his mind. He ignores it for the moment.)

Hesitantly, he crosses the room to stand beside her and put a hand on her shoulder.

Alyce doesn't move for a moment. She's conflicted, but it's more because she's letting go of her past with no clue as to what her future will be like.

It was easier to not have him watching her, to be honest. That way she could speak and not have to think.

She puts her hand over his.

"I'll tell you all the spells he prefers when he's after someone. They're usually pesky or painful as opposed to being truly destructive. He likes to play with people first. I, um, I'd actually like for you to wear the coat and let me a try a few, just to make sure they'll have no effect. And I can tell you how he thinks. He's a little bit like you. He wants all the information he can find, and then he makes a plan on his own. Of course, then he tells us what to do, and we do it. He doesn't act alone. We summon the demons or call on the gods or the lower powers. We do the dirty work, so he isn't indebted to anything that might have power over him. So if he's on his own, he probably won't try anything but elemental magic."

Sherlock lets out a soft huff of laughter.

"It seems we are a lot alike, Riddle and I. Perhaps I was not too far off the mark when I compared him to Moriarty." He turns his hand palm-up to wrap his fingers around hers. "I can hope, however, that this story will not end quite like that one."

She pulls their entwined hands down from her shoulder, and she steps in to close the space between them, resting her head on his shoulder.

"I don't know that ending," she admits, chagrin audible in her voice. "I never read the books. I'm sorry."

She saw an old movie once, but she only remembers something about scary dogs on the moors. Whatever moors are. The fictional Sherlock Holmes is a vague cultural icon; the one holding her hand is real. What he does and how he reacts to the world is fresh and new to her.

"Dear Sir Arthur wanted to be rid of his fictional detective, so he invented Professor Moriarty as a worthy nemesis and had them fall off a cliff together. Some years later he relented and brought Sherlock Holmes back to life, leaving Moriarty at the bottom of the waterfall."

She wrinkles her nose. "No, let's not go there. I don't want you falling off any cliffs."

"Neither do I, you may be assured." He grins. "Though I do wonder whether Riddle would take a reference to Reichenbach Falls as a compliment or a threat."

"He reads a lot. So maybe?"

She steps back, but doesn't let go of his hand quite yet.

"You should have your breakfast."

The waffle maker pings. He laughs. "Excellent timing," he says, and lets go of her hand to fetch himself a plate.

"What else can I tell you? Like I said when you were teaching me, I might not know what's important to look for."

He thinks about it while he extracts four thick, palm-sized waffles from the waffle maker. (They are kind of adorable.)

"You said that he likes to play with people. How?" he asks, pouring in the batter for a second batch and closing the machine. "I expect he does not usually start with summoning a demon."

Carrying plate and fork, he resumes his pacing.

She shifts from one foot to the other, and her eyes go back to the floor. This is the part that implicates her.

"He tests their weaknesses, makes them paranoid, worries them. With plain people, that's all we did. I mean, it's hardly worth the effort to summon a demon for plain people. There's no contest. It's too easy."

This will indicate to Sherlock that he has not been considered a "plain person". He's been a special case from the first.

"But tormenting stupid jocks with nightmare visions, stabbing pains, that sort of thing..." She uncuffs and then recuffs one sleeve. "That was fun."

Tom isn't the only one who enjoys power and control over others.

"If it was a magic user, though, we'd start with a demon. We'd summon it, send it on its errand, and then destroy it when it came back for payment. No one ever got away before. We used demons because so many people get killed by them here, and no one questions it. Except maybe the Slayer, and we've stayed way under her radar."

The implication that he is being treated on the same level as a magic user brings a dry little smile to his face. He eats quickly and neatly, always listening, always in motion.

"Hardly fair to the demons," he comments between bites. "I suppose I saved you a bit of trouble, then, killing the one you sent after me."

The bruise on his face is still quite visible, but he hardly seems to think about it, even now.