Private corners of the mind 🔞 ✔️

Part 6

So we stayed in, watched a film, ate and drank, cuddled and talked. It wasn't our first movie night, but lots had changed that day.

We had some fun naming the most unlikely Legend couples and he said "Caustic and Wattson", but I argued that if anyone would actually stop and give him enough attention for a moment, they'd realize what an attractive man he really was, which made him laugh and kiss me.

"We're not that unlikely," I went on proving my point. "Everyone's noticed we tend to gravitate towards each other. And we can't be the only two people out there that don't care about age."

"Everyone?" he lifted his eyebrows. "Damn. I'll have to work on my poker face."

"Well, I think the most prominent moment was during the big heist*," I reminded him. "Renee** told me how you nearly broke Loba's neck when she brushed off my injuries. She's been careful around me since then, always making sure I'm well equipped and not lagging behind too much. I think she's actually afraid of what you'd do to her if she let me get hurt again."

"I would lock her up in a room with one of my gas grenades for company," he growled darkly. "She's right to be afraid."

"Don't do that," I shook my head, voice pleading. "She's just not invested in me. She's also not my keeper. I can take care of myself now. On most occasions, anyway."

He sighed and took me by my hand.

„Doesn't mean she's free to just leave you hanging if you happen to need help. If she gets you killed for real, Nat, I'm not making any promises. I won't just roll over, I will make her pay.

I considered trying to talk him out of it, but the stubbornness in his expression dissuaded me. He was just wired that way, I suppose. There wasn't much he cared about, but what he had, he protected, violently. And he liked watching people suffer the effects of his science. There was beauty to it, as he said. I couldn't really share his sentiments on this, but I did see electricity as beautiful, too – maybe it was similar, in a way. The only difference was that I was able to revive people with what I do... he could only hurt them.

The fascination with death was not exactly his redeeming quality, I knew that. But at least here, in the arena, he never really killed anyone, not for good. As long as his experiments didn't cost lives or health, I could live with them, too.

I fell silent during my musings, but he kept watching my face. He must have seen some doubt in my expression; he took my hand and squeezed lightly. I watched him do it, admiring the craftsmanship on his robotic fingers. He was missing two of his own, a ring finger and a pinky, and replaced them with artificial ones that looked almost real.

"You've never told me what happened to your hand°," I said softly, stroking said limb.

He sighed and turned to face the TV again.

"And I never will," he grunted. "It's in the past now, it doesn't matter."

"Are you sure?" I gave him a doubtful look. "You seem to want to hide from it quite frantically. How can it not matter?"

"It shouldn't be of any interest to you," he elaborated. "I am who I am now. You can't be with the old me just by knowing what I've done."

"And what have you done?" I asked right away, catching his unfortunately phrased words. He gave me an exasperated sigh.

"That's not what I meant to say, Natalie. I've done a lot. So have you and everybody else. But that life... I can't go back to it. This is me now."

"Not even to be with your mother for the last few years she has left?" I uttered softly, knowing there's some pain deep in his massive chest, pain he'd been hiding since he had to leave home—for some reason. Alexander groaned and hid his face with the palm of his hand.

"Please, don't make this harder, Natalie."

"I don't really have to, you've done a great job at that yourself, docteur," I sighed.

Something about him changed at that moment. He seemed to have forgotten about the topic of our conversation, focusing on something else. The evaluating gaze he graced me with made me shiver.

"I want to hear you call me by my first name, Natalie," he said. His voice was low, gentle, but there was a command in it, not fully masked. I blinked at him.

"I did," I said defensively, but I was struggling to recall if that was true or not. His jaw tightened.

"You didn't," he argued dryly. "Not even once. Why?"

I guess that was the last straw I was holding onto. The last thing that made me feel like we haven't completely eroded the friendship we've been nurturing since papa's death. The last shield saving me from having to admit what a dirty little whore I'd been in the last few hours.

The worst thing about this uncharted territory I've walked into today was that I used to think Alexander was the substitute for my father. Seeing him in a romantic and sexual way made it all seem twisted. And now that he'd made me aware of what I was hiding from, panic slowly creeped back into my chest.

I tried to keep my expression steady, but his eyes were studying me closely, as if I was one of his experiments. I had to give up.

"Remember how you said this was wrong?" I whispered, my voice small and strangled. Alexander frowned, but I could see that he knew what I was referring to. "Why did you feel that way?"

"You are... so much younger," he fumbled. "Innocent, unlike me. Impressionable, easily exploitable when emotionally invested. I thought you might even be willing to accommodate my needs at your own expense, feeling the shame only when it was way too late. I was worried I'd leave you hollowed out, cold and empty. Plus I was dying. Getting you involved with me just to abandon you so soon after... I couldn't do that to you."

No mention of him seeing me as his own child in any way. Was it really just that, or did he decide to leave it out? I had to know.

"Did you ever see me as... your daughter?" I swallowed hard.

__________________________________________

* The Broken Ghost lore plot.

** Wraith. She seems to be a close and loyal friend to Wattson.

° It's all in the lore now, so I can let you guys in on it: Caustic used to be a scientist, but he wanted to experiment on living subjects, getting bolder in his pursuit of a perfect substance, which met some resistance. So he killed his boss and his colleagues in a staged accident (we don't know if it was really him or a coincidence, but it looked like he would profit from it and he had a cunning plan of escape). He cut off the two of his fingers himself and left them at the scene, effectively faking his own death and disappearing. He re-emerged in the arena under a fake name (Dr. Caustic), hiding from his crimes, having fun testing his gasses on living tissue and pretty much waiting to die from cancer. But he met Wattson and found himself fond of her.