Darling's Day Off

[Samantha Santos]

 The movie had been horrible. It was probably the worst one, yet, actually. Samantha stood in line at the concession stand, her large popcorn nearly empty in her hands, squirming uncomfortably. She had to pee. She looked down at Alex (yes, down), and finally with a grunt thrust the trough-sized bucket at his face. "Here," she commanded. "I have to go to the bathroom right now or I'm going to piss on the floor. No butter," she warned him, her accented voice a touch lower than one would expect from a woman who looked like she could be an underwear model.

She turned and raced across the floor, moving with unexplained ease in her ridiculously high-heeled boots as Alex called after her, "If I even get to the counter before you get back!"

She crashed into her bathroom stall, literally, scaring whoever was in the stall next to her. She didn't care. She'd had an entire diet Dr. Pepper before the movie had been even ten minutes in, and between she and Alex the popcorn hadn't lasted much longer. She struggled to get her skinny jeans down far enough in the stall, simultaneously sitting down on the toilet and nearly falling over. Her jeans bunched at her knees, creating more issues because of her boots - and then of course there was the fact that the stall was designed for someone who was three feet tall and six inches wide. After another full three minutes dedicated to trying to pry the toilet paper ply by ply off of the roll in order to get a sufficient amount to wipe, she was at the sink, washing her hands.

"So do you throw up your food, or just not eat?"

Samantha turned, startled by the question of the fourteen year old midget that stood next to her. She was so surprised that she kept pumping soap, pooling it on the counter before she realized what she was doing. A flick of her blue-green eyes sized the situation up - the girl, one of those hair puffy, eyeshadow too blue, baby fat still present, jeans too tight types, was obviously trying to make a rude remark about Samantha's weight.

"You know, only in America can people judge you for not being fat enough. You fit right in here, yes?" she asked, laying her accent on incredibly thick and grinning broadly as though she'd just told the girl she liked her shoes. Which, she didn't. "As for how I lose weight, it's lots of s--"

The door to the bathroom banged open and Alex walked in, spilling popcorn everywhere. The girl screamed, and Samantha looked up.

"This is the girls bathroom, you know," she said dryly, her arms working as she dried her hands with the meager paper towel supplied by the staff.

"No shit. Hey, I hate to break up the bonding moment, but uh, we gotta jam," he said. He held up his phone - the work phone - and shook it a little.

"So does this mean I'll never know what happens to the blue cat people?" she asked, her face mocking disappointment.

"They all die," he said firmly.

[Alexander Darling]

Sitting through the movie with the blue cat people made Alexander wonder why the hell he wasn't at home, taking advantage of the chance to sleep dreamlessly for as many hours as he could, but he also had to admit that on some level, he was enjoying himself.  The movie itself may have been more pleasant for him if he wasn't with Samantha and could just absorb it on his own, but the fact that he had her sitting next to him, making remarks that he had to respond to in kind, meant that there was no way he could possibly take it seriously.  They'd made snarky comments until they'd run out of popcorn, and then they'd both elected to go get it, which was where he'd been left in line by the stork that he called his friend and hunting partner.

Yes, the stork.  Samantha was gorgeous and tall in this model kind of way, and then she'd open her mouth and you just couldn't hear her and think 'model' at the same time.  Her way of saying that she was in dire need of a restroom was a perfect example, but Alexander was so used to it by this point that he didn't even bat an eye over it, except to shoot back at her about how unlikely it was that he'd make it to the counter before she got finished pissing. 

As it turned out, he did make it.

An almost-hesitant tap on the shoulder while their popcorn bucket was filled had him turning around, cocking an eyebrow up at the guy who'd sought out his attention, and frankly, he couldn't help looking the guy over and utterly dismissing him as both unimportant and uninteresting -- except for the fact that he'd made his presence known and stopped Alexander from completely failing to even notice him.  For as observant as he could be, the hunter was also very good at dismissing uninteresting non-threats from his mind, and this man was one of them. 

He didn't even respond other than to offer the questioning gesture, and that was actually enough, since the other guy made his thoughts known a second later.  "Dude, is that your girlfriend?  She's like half a foot taller than you, and hot, how'd that happen?"

There was also laughter involved.

It would have been just a little less funny for the other guy if he wasn't over six feet tall, but Alexander really didn't give a damn about height (usually, because he DID mention Samantha's ridiculous heels essentially every time she wore them and she wore them just because he mentioned them and it was more of a joke than a serious concern by now).  He knew everywhere to hit this guy to put him on his face without ever actually touching his face.

"You probably wouldn't know this personally," Alexander said calmly, glancing the man over in an obviously distasteful fashion (he was damn good at showing disgust with just a glance), "but it's stamina, not size, that women appreciate.  Given the look on your girlfriend's face, I'm thinking that blatantly ignoring her for other women is just one of your many shortcomings.  Sweetheart, I promise, most men last longer than five minutes."

He managed to turn that distasteful look into something sympathetic when he looked at the girl with the unhappy look to the side and slightly behind the taller man, and yes, there was a chance he was wrong; he wasn't.  She cracked a smile and her boyfriend's eyes bugged out, while Alexander's phone rang at just the right time.  "Excuse me."

He took the popcorn from the kid behind the counter, giving a silent eye roll over having been given shit for his height and his 'girlfriend' while out with Samantha again, and yanked his work phone out of his pocket.  That was even better, hearing Tuff's cover of 'Sixteen Tons' growling out of the little device to let him know that whoever was calling was all about work.  He'd taken to using different ringtones for different people, but that was typically on his personal phone, just for simplicity's sake.  Having a song at all on his work phone was unusual for him, since it was usually a more professional, non-descript ring, but he'd thought it was time for something a little different.

Apparently, so did Midnight, since the message that was quickly passed along to him made that ridiculously clear.  He confirmed that he and Samantha were together, negating the necessity to call her, too, and that they'd be in as soon as possible.  On his day off, naturally.  Why couldn't Midnight flip their shit at the beginning of his week?  It was Sunday for shit's sake!

He hit the door to the ladies' room at a brisk walk, ignoring the popcorn that spilled as he did it, and found Samantha apparently putting some shrieky girl in unflattering jeans in her place, which he normally could have appreciated if not for the situation at hand.  "This is the girls bathroom, you know."

"No shit. Hey, I hate to break up the bonding moment, but uh, we gotta jam," he said. He held up his phone - the work phone - and shook it a little.  Yep, because he gave a damn whether it was the men's or women's room.  A bathroom was a bathroom.

"So does this mean I'll never know what happens to the blue cat people?"

"They all die," he said firmly, nodding wisely.  He could have gone on about how humans would have brought diseases that the cat people had no immunity to and wiped them out (he wouldn't verbalize the fact that he didn't feel like he knew that from reading a book), but it really wasn't the time for playing around.  Samantha, other than her feigned disappointment, hadn't stalled around, so when he pushed her popcorn into her hands and fished his keys out of his pocket, he was already glancing around the theater with a renewed sense of caution.  The game had gotten more serious, and if they didn't want to go the way of the blue cat people, they needed to be careful.  He also needed to warn Samantha, but he wouldn't do it in a crowd like this.  They had to make the car, first.

"Be alert, I'll explain in a few," he told her, knowing that it would be enough for the time being.  It had to be.

[Samantha Santos]

"So it is like Fern Gully!" she exclaimed, her eyes widening as he both threw the popcorn at her while he grabbed her arm and yanked her out of the bathroom. She stumbled like a baby giraffe, because he had a habit of locking elbows with her and just tugging - and that meant he tugged downward and across, which usually sent her wobbling around for a few seconds, all crooked-kneed, until she could regain her footing. Samantha wasn't and had never been clumsy, but Alex managed to run her into a lot of shit as a general rule when he tried to drag her anywhere.

"Be alert. I'll explain in a few," was all she had to go on, although about thirty seconds after her outburst he paused, turned on his heel, and exclaimed, "What? Wait, what?" He waved his hands and squinted his eyes, as though to stop the entire scene they were standing in. "All the fairies in Fern Gully don't die!"

Samantha nearly plowed into him, the popcorn making a loud sound as it was jarred around again. She reached out and picked a piece that now made its home at the top of the slim pocket of his button-down shirt, and squirreled it into her mouth with a quickness. Samantha had also been known to top-surf the trash and eat things she found on the floor, so this was not the most disgusting thing she'd done that day.

"In my version, they do," she informed him. He answered her with a sound of obvious disgust and then began returning to his usual warpath-like hunting mode. Samantha was happy to follow along, and when she got to his car, she set the bucket of popcorn down and grinned at him.

"So, what's the problem?" she asked. She was almost glib, and as if to solidify the matter, she shoved popcorn into her mouth and raised her eyebrows, as though she were ready to hear some long tale of woe. "Should I put on my shitty 3D glasses first?" She made a face not unlike :D at him.

[Alexander Darling]

He'd almost let her comment about Fern Gully go while he dragged her along.  Denying that he got just a little enjoyment and satisfaction out of her clumsy, unsteady stumbling whenever he locked elbows with her and pulled would have just been an outright lie, but since he'd been known to be dishonest on occasion (especially for the sake of humor), that wasn't an issue for him.  She was just too damn tall and her legs were too long, which was something she never minded pointing out when she was picking on him for being shorter, so why wouldn't he find it entertaining that she looked like a newborn foal trying to figure out how walking worked whenever he gave her a yank?  Since she'd also elected to wear ridiculous heels to ensure she was even taller, she was getting no sympathy or slack.

Still, he didn't end up missing the Fern Gully reference, and even if it took him 30 seconds to register exactly what she'd said, he did notice.  He was slow because he was so focused on not dying, he'd swear it.  "What?  Wait, what?  All the fairies in Fern Gully don't die!" he snapped at her, letting her go as he gestured and squinted at her, wondering what the hell movie she'd seen, because he wasn't remembering wrong.  Not about that. 

She almost put him on his ass when she kept moving (that's what he got for being human and hanging out with a fucking python), but other than maintaining his balance and making a disgusted sound at her response about the fairies (the popcorn trick was ignored because he just didn't think it was gross; picking out of the trash, however, was in this day and age).  He didn't really see how any response he could offer would mean anything after she pulled something like that, so he just resumed his path to the car and his attempts at watching their surroundings.  'Warpath-like hunting mode' wasn't actually a bad description, though if there was one person to keep him from getting too serious and snap him out of it, it was her. 

Samantha's apparent inability to take the situation seriously was almost endearing, and he was willing to deal with it as long as it didn't impede their progress, which it didn't.  They got to the car and she dug into the popcorn, joked and generally prompted even the smallest amount of amusement out of him.  "I don't know if the 3D glasses will do you any good, but I dare you to wear them into the guildhouse," he told her with a quirk of his lips, the image totally inappropriate with how he imagined the guild looking and still something hilarious.  "Rafael said that Midnight flipped its shit, they're aggressively targeting all hunters and their families.  We're to report to Onyx immediately so that we can join the chaos."

[Samantha Santos]

Samantha inhaled on her popcorn right about the time he bomb-dropped on her, and ended up hacking wet yellow gobs of it onto the side of the car he couldn't see.

He paused, and gave her a flat look. "Did you just throw that up on my car?"

She pulled a dirty tissue out of the black Marc Jacobs bag she had slung over her shoulder and wiped absently at the door, below his line of sight. "No," she lied. "Targeting friends and families? You don't say - my parents are dead and I'm an only child. Aside from that, good luck finding anyone in Sao Paolo this time of year. All the people from up north go there for winter. Like birds," she added. She'd finished wiping the frothy bits of popcorn off of his door, and wadded up the tissue in her largish hands before throwing it absently over her shoulder. Yeah, Samantha was not the classy lady she seemed to be. At all.

She tugged on the door handle until he could unlock it during an interval where she didn't yank down, and she slid inside the car, setting her purse between her ridiculously long legs. Even with the seat scooted all the way back, she was wedged into the vehicle like some sort of joke. Unacceptable.

"I will not wear the glasses in, but only because nobody there knows anything about me except you, and I don't think they'd know what to make of it if I chose today of all the days to just walk in wearing them," she reasoned, though she knew he would simply call her a chicken and move on.

"Do you have any idea what we're actually going to be doing? I mean, search and rescue, or recon, or?" She immediately grimaced at the idea they'd have to go to All Hallows to pick the strippers up on the Ho Bus and take them to their respective homes, but she assumed that by now someone had already gotten that far.

[Alexander Darling]

Having her choke on the popcorn was almost worth her coughing it up on his car, especially since he chose to pretend that he didn't see her with the tissue and that he wasn't positive that it was an already dirty tissue she was wiping at his paint with.  Awesome.  It was surprising that she lied about it, but he let her, instead attempting to address her questions while simultaneously fighting with her to unlock her door.  This was a regular occurrence because she was just too damn rammy to wait for him to unlock it for her, so it wasn't like he was bothered by it at all, but after about six failed attempts, he stopped, stared at her, flicked the lock as she AGAIN pulled on the handle, and then hit it again quickly after for a win.

Finally.

"Personally?  I think today is a great day to show your true colors.  Nobody will have the presence of mind to make a big deal out of it, because there's too much going on," he told her, tone surprisingly light for what they were actually driving into in the next few minutes.  Stressing about it just seemed ridiculous, and though he didn't quite understand why, it took way too much to ruffle his proverbial feathers.  Alexander just didn't stress much, especially not visibly.

That, and seeing her walking around with the glasses at the guild would have been worth faking a lighter tone to convince her.  Still, business.  "From what I gathered during the brief conversation, phones aren't safe, so plans aren't being discussed except in person," he offered with a shrug, though it made him wonder exactly what had given the guilds that impression.  He was betting someone had learned the hard way, and that someone was probably dead.  It also made him wonder just how wide the blast zone on this was, considering the police and that mess with Rafael and Gabriel Sullivan, from the NYPD.  If this move on Midnight's part had anything to do with the battered state that those two had been released in, then were the police in danger?  How broad was their reach?  Alexander didn't have any family that he knew of, just friends, and most of them were either police or hunters.  Would his police friends be targeted because of him, or were they already targets?  He didn't want Felicia and Blair in trouble because of him, but calling them would only draw attention to them in the event that they weren't already targets. 

"Probably search and rescue, though.  Could you see Crimson rushing in for a snatch and grab operation or Frost not fucking it up and killing everyone?" he offered, smirking just a little.  No, he didn't think the other guilds were that stupid and he wasn't particularly partial to any of them except that he was employed by Onyx, but they all seemed to crack on each other (much like military branches did).  It helped diffuse some of the tension, and his rationale made sense.  If it were his strategies and battle plans, Crimson would be attacking in quick, quiet bursts and Frost would be taking buildings and vehicles out while Onyx busted in to scoop up non-combatants.  He couldn't imagine that the guild leaders wouldn't have thought that way, too.

[Samantha Santos]

"Maybe," she agreed. "If they're that distracted, we should switch clothes. I want to wear your short man-pants!" she exclaimed, clapping her hands as she laughed. Once, and only once, had she tried on his slacks. They came up to her shins, and she'd hiked them up so high that -- she'd made him take a photo, and called them something derogatory ever since, like boy-clothing - or man-pants, apparently, as that had now become part of the rotation.

She leaned down to go through her purse for something suddenly, popcorn spilling all over the fresh leather seat in his BMW. She ignored it in typical fashion as he tried to steer and frantically brush the oily kernals off of the leather before they stained something. He wasn't a neat freak, but god-damn, it was a month old.

"Hey, you're spilling shit everywhere!" he finally yelped, slamming on the brakes before he almost rammed his car up the ass-end of a Nissan Armada at a light. Samantha cracked her head on the dash and the popcorn bucket shot forward, wedging itself precariously between the bottom of the dash and the seat. She turned her head to the left to look at it, and then slowly snaked her hand to the top, to pull some out of it. She could see Alex glaring daggers at her between the small space the bucket and the dash had between them, and so she finally removed the entire container in favor of the floorboard.

When she did reach down to scoop the fallen pieces (and no doubt eat them), she came across something else. "Oh, a jellybean!" she exclaimed. She popped it in her mouth before Alex could say anything, and only after did he regard her with a shocked, "I HAVE NEVER HAD JELLYBEANS IN THIS CAR!" She replied, "Well, it was still good," much to his utter horror, and seemed content to fiddle with the radio while he tried to slap her hand away.

Driving with Samantha was ALWAYS like driving a 5 year old anywhere. If she could have been restrained in a child seat, he'd have found a way to do it by now. As it was, the only reason he didn't have her in snake form was because she would no doubt attempt to test the dexterity of his interior with her crushing ability, and he really didn't think 'snake' was covered in his warranty for causes of damage.

"You know, I tend to think we are getting shafted on this one," she said openly. "But it could be because I think we're going to have to do a lot of the knelling." She looked over at him, having stopped moving around for once the entire trip. Her right arm was crooked against the window, hand propped against her face, and she turned slightly to him to allow her blue-green eyes to take his facial expression in.

The two of them were very expressive. So much so, in fact, that they said a lot more with their faces than with anything else, although he by far was easier to read (when he wanted to be). For Samantha, it was her face, but more her eyes, and right now they were a little worried. She was right to feel like they were going to get the raw end of the deal here, because Midnight had killed a lot of people so far, and they were inevitably going to find homes where there were no survivors. But could she have said that at Onyx in the presence of the other hunters? Absolutely not. This was why she valued Alexander as a partner - she could tell him the truth about important things and he wouldn't judge her for them. Hell, he might even agree.

"Or we could get lucky and they'll just stop after a day or two," she added with a shrug. She doubted the shit out of that.

[Alexander Darling]

He actually laughed at her suggestion and the mention of his 'man-pants' (boy-clothing made sense, but he was a man and they were pants, so that one was just funny wording on her part instead of really being a crack at his height), shaking his head all the while.  "No, no, no, don't even go there!  I said your true colors, not mine, and there's nothing about mine that would make it appropriate for me to cross-dress, especially badly.  Besides, I don't think there's enough distraction in the world for an entire guild of hunters missing me walking in wearing jeans, especially women's skinny jeans that don't fit.  Nice try, though," he told her, and it was true, she deserved credit for that one.  It was a hysterical image, just never, ever happening.  Ever.  Nobody could threaten or bribe him enough to cross-dress.

The good humor, as brief as it was, was destroyed father suddenly when she started spilling popcorn all over the inside of his brand-new BMW.  No, he wasn't a total neat-freak, but he liked keeping things in proper order and he'd only had the damn thing for like a month.  Popcorn stains might have been a hazard of working with Samantha, but they weren't a hazard he was allowing this soon in the poor car's life.  Not happening. 

Oh, God, and she was eating it off the floor.  That was fantastic.  And what was that?  A fucking jellybean?  FAN.  TASTIC.  Where had it even come from?  He didn't even have the ability to SAY anything about it before she'd popped it in her mouth, and then it was like a bottle rocket shooting off into the sky, sudden and loud.

She needed a car seat, seriously, like little kids had.  He was going to have to wipe down the entire interior when she got out, and he was certain that he wouldn't have time to that night.  That, and stopping at a gas station to use the vacuum would probably be a good idea, to get any random jellybeans and popcorn pieces out.  Christ. 

Personally, he'd have been content to continue stewing in how much she was doing to the car in his brain, but she had to take it deeper.  Fortunately for her, he was probably the best person to be that frank with.  He glanced at her, all signs of amusement and even irritation washed away, and he flicked his eyes back to the road with a grim, unhappy expression.  It was true that they were both expressive and that he was much easier to read when he wasn't deliberately blanking his expressions, but he didn't blank with her.  "I don't disagree.  The body count is going to be high when this is done, and if they've planned things the way I would have, Onyx will be the bearers of bad news through this.  We'll just all have to be as quick as we can."

It was why he was currently breaking a number of speeding and general rules of the road. 

[Samantha Santos]

"It's not very time efficient if we have to go all the way to Onyx to get instructions. Do they think the phones are tapped or something?" She dug around in her purse, the popcorn forgotten, and pulled out her phone. She examined it, and then looked back at him. "Have you made any important calls in the last few days? I haven't, but only because I've not had much going on during the week. Paperwork, mostly. I need an assistant I have so much of it," she complained.

Samantha's problem with having too much paperwork was entirely her own fault. Her files lined her apartment - literally. She had, at one point, had a kitchen table, but it had long since been buried by Manila folders stuffed to the brim with assignments that were completed. She had finally, at the insistence of Alexander, gotten a cork board to put current cases on, but it had actually fallen off of the wall when she'd tried to put too many thumbtacks worth of paper on it. She acted like she didn't know it had a weight limit, and Alex spent an afternoon helping her repair the holes in her wall. The worst part? She had all of the same information on a USB drive that she kept in her room, but she still insisted on keeping the paper copies.

"I wonder where they'll send us first," she mused, scratching her long fingers against her chin as she looked out the window. They were really flying - she realized that they were already almost there.

[Alexander Darling]

He remained silent, eyes flicking about the road in front of him and a muscle clenching for just a few seconds the only real indication that he was furiously going over the little they knew about the situation in his brain, trying to meet her questions with the absolute best guesses he could, and he didn't really want to tell her.  In the same way that she appreciated that she could speak plainly with him without him judging her, he appreciated that he could speak his mind her without mincing words or worrying himself with tact, but that still didn't mean he wanted to be telling her just how bad he thought this had to be.  He was still hoping he was wrong.

He didn't think he was.

"Only work calls, guild and police," he told her, back to thinking about Felicia, Blair and all of the other people that he very well might have put on a list because he'd been in contact with them and might have almost considered them friends.  He didn't really have much of a social life outside of Samantha, Devraj and Indrani, or sometimes joining Raven with her books (he had a talent for languages, he'd found), so it wasn't like he had a girlfriend to endanger.  Just people that were utterly innocent and just trying to do a job.  Damn it. 

He scoffed at her mention of an assistant, something that might have made him laugh just a little if the rest of the conversation weren't so grim, but he still couldn't resist pointing out the obvious in the situation, and that was that she did NOT need an assistant.  "You need a maid and a haz-mat suit, not an assistant.  Really, consider it, if only for my health," he told her, and though he wasn't laughing and teasing like he might have, it still held that mixture of truth and banter that was familiar and usual with them.  He wasn't kidding when he said she needed a maid (and he was considering hiring one himself for her for Christmas this year, though perhaps without the haz-mat suit), and Victor Batten had started treating him after the third time he'd gotten a virus inside of a month at the insistence of the Rashanas (Batten seemed to hate dealing with illnesses, but he had a good mind for them); the man had told him that he had the immune system of a toddler entering daycare for the first time (he'd also called children 'plague rats' in the same conversation, which had probably endeared him to Alexander more than it should have).  While he was obviously gaining immunity with each new illness he was exposed to (and Batten's attention to detail where vaccines were concerned was certainly helping), he caught basically every virus that passed through the police station or guildhouse; he really didn't need to be exposed to whatever was running rampant in Samantha's home. 

Truly, continuing to tease her about her mess would have suited him just fine, but there was the issue of the phones, and that was what he was still mulling over.  He didn't want to give her false information, and he didn't have enough on his own, but he had plenty of ideas.  "Rafael was adamant about not discussing plans and locations on the phone, so they must have come to the conclusion that the phones are tapped.  Really, that likely means that the GPS makes us easy to track as well, but the only alternative is turning the phones off and hoping that we don't miss any vital, last-second communications," he explained, shrugging because it was a lose-lose situation there.  "If they think the phones are tapped, then they either have an inside source that says they're tapped, they caught someone and made them talk, or the wrong information was passed through an insecure line and someone got into trouble over it.  I would be willing to bet that if it's the latter, whoever suffered for that mistake is very dead right now."

Glancing at her again, he fixed her with a level, serious look.  For once, he was very worried about her.  She was so capable  and certainly more durable than he was, so he didn't often worry that she'd be seriously hurt or killed when they went into a job.  Of course, he still took chances that he probably shouldn't because he wasn't afraid of dying on those assignments, but he didn't really think that she'd be in trouble or be unable to handle what came at them.  Tonight, it was very likely that neither of them would be able to handle it, though he had an advantage that made him uncomfortable in her case. 

[Samantha Santos]

Samantha blew off his comment about her apartment. "If you get me that for Christmas and not the tickets to Six Flags I told you I wanted, I will beat your face in," she told him severely, her head jerking over at him as her eyes narrowed. She'd been looking forward to the massive amusement park all year. She'd just throw everything in the garbage if she had to - and she would. She only had one cleaning mode - she called it 'putting it in the T file'. T. For trash. It was true she never threw anything away, but once she did, it all got rounded up and burned.

"I'm sure the police can handle themselves," she said, leaning back and returning her gaze to the quickly-passing scenery. She didn't know if she really believed it, but they weren't her obligation. She didn't say that, though.

When they got to Onyx, Samantha was sliding off her fashionable peacoat and silver scarf as they walked down the hall, her bag at her forearm as she walked. She looked incredibly out of place among all of the other, shorter people, but Alexander walking alongside her in his well-dressed way made her look more at home. They complemented eachother more than just mentally. One always seemed to tether the other, in some fashion or another.

"Is Lucien even here?" she asked, crooking her head sideways to Alexander as she casually slid between the thinning crowd. "This guild is empty - incredibly empty. Where have Zaine and Lily and Quinn gone?" She had no idea about the club, or any other nonsense.

[Alexander Darling]

It was actually kind of scary how well the two of them knew each other and their thoughts sometimes, and when she not only called him on his Christmas plans (a muscle in his jaw had tightened, but he hadn't said anything or even looked at her to give himself away), but also went and mentioned the police and his concern for them, he couldn't help but shoot her a sharp look.  She might have thought that the police could handle themselves (and he didn't actually think she believed it anymore than he did), but he wasn't so sure.  If they didn't know what was going on, they were going to be spread out trying to deal with the ridiculous number of calls they would probably have.  That would leave the non-combatants alone and unprotected.

Still, he didn't respond, figuring it was better not to discuss it and give his worries more life, and he was still silent as they entered the guildhouse.  It wasn't as empty as she made it out to be, but he absolutely understood what she meant when she said it; there were people, but they were all lower level hunters.  All of the big guns were missing, and he was hoping that it was because they were assembled somewhere trying to deal with this, or because they were out doing their jobs.  He had no way of knowing who had and hadn't checked in to say they were alive.

"Someone has to be here," he pointed out, because there was no chance that none of the heavy hitters had shown up alive and they wouldn't have all left the guild with no leader.  Someone was here, it was just a matter of who.  Honestly, after glancing at his phone and seeing the calls he'd missed when they were in the movie, he was betting he knew who was there.  "Dev and Indrani are here somewhere, they called while we were in the movie.  Dev will know what the plan is."

Yep, that was his goal.  Find Dev, see what was happening and where they were supposed to be, and go do it.  Pretty simple.

[Samantha Santos]

Samantha spotted Indrani before she saw Devraj, mainly because the woman was too exquisite to miss. The woman had dressed comfortably and in black, much to Samantha's enjoyment. Her hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail, making her eyes appear even more feline than they normally were, what with that exotic green-gray hue. She was standing by the door of one of the offices, papers in her hand and a phone in her other. She was speaking to Daniel Watkins, one of the medics at Onyx, and she looked up as he glanced over her shoulder to the approaching duo.

"Ah, Alexander," she said, her accented voice like a spring song amid the thrum of chaos that swirled around them. "Daniel, your mother will be at Frost for the remainder of the evening. I pray that you can keep up here. Doctor Batten is still off of the grid. I fear the worst, but Devraj has assured me that we would be more likely to know of his death than of his survival."

When Daniel left, she gave her attention fully to Alexander and Samantha. "I assume you've both heard. Alexander, I know this is your night off, so I imagine you are without a doubt thrilled. Come, Devraj has had to take over since everyone else is gone." And with a turn and swish of her long ebony mane, she lead them to her husband.

"That's okay, this just means I don't have to sit through any more blue sparkly cat people. I felt like I was watching a Hello Kitty Pixar movie," Samantha sniped. She heard Indrani suppress a laugh and marveled - had nobody liked that stupid movie? Why was it still in the theatres if everyone she met had that reaction? She looked pointedly at Alex, who glanced back at her as if to say, 'Don't say it.'

"Where's Lucien?" she asked. She set her purse down in a chair and thrust her hands into her pockets as they were brought to Dev, and leaned against a doorframe casually. Not that she objected to Dev being in charge. She was a Serpiente, and Lucien was supposedly the leader - Samantha didn't have loyalty like some people did, though. It wasn't blind, and she certainly didn't feel obligated because of a title.

[Alexander Darling]

Alexander would have agreed with Samantha calling Indrani 'exquisite' because it was absolutely true, but there was the usual rush of pleasant comfort that came to him with the woman's presence and his relief at seeing her safe to go along appreciation of the image the woman cut.  There was also the fact that if Indrani was here, Devraj couldn't be far, and that was important and a relief in itself.  Alexander respected that man enough to follow any order that could leave his mouth, just as he loved Indrani enough to do the same for her.  Actually, if Alexander ever remembered enough to remember Verity and the effect she had on the people who worked for her, he'd probably think that Indrani and she had the same kind of deal going on; people did as they wanted because they loved them.  Alexander hadn't loved Verity the way so many others had, but he'd been fond of her from the time he met her, and always treated her with respect.  Indrani was entirely different, and he'd die at her word.

"Indrani," he greeted with a nod as she said his name, and realistically, he'd never admit just how much he liked these women saying his name in their lovely accents, but he did.  It was fine, because they all knew it rolled off of their tongues well, and what man wouldn't like that?  The news about Doctor Batten was unpleasant, but Alexander agreed with her and chose not to worry too much over the ordeal; if Victor Batten was dead, what with as close to the guilds and Connor Batten as the man was, Niall would have him strung up somewhere public for everyone to find.  The new Master of Midnight wasn't a man to be trifled with.  She turned to them fully once she'd sent Daniel off to go brave the infirmary without his mother, and Alexander shrugged slightly at her mention of it being his night off, drawling off a response that might have sounded serious if one didn't know how he made his dual schedule work without falling flat.  Indrani did.  "Oh, it's fine.  Sleep is for the weak, so I didn't need the day off, anyway."

In all honesty, he really didn't mind dissing on Avatar with Samantha, but he hadn't disliked it as much as she seemed to.  He didn't tend to have serious issues with many movies, though.  Really, he went in and enjoyed them on a very simple level, didn't often pick them apart, and was fine afterwards.  It was what made Samantha going on about this one so funny, and at a time like this, so worthy of his 'don't even say it' stern look.  Fortunately, it worked, but she went on to ask where Lucien was, and that didn't seem to be much of an improvement.

"We don't know.  Zaine made contact with him when all of this first started, and that's the last anyone heard of him," Dev responded, glancing up from the lists and various building plans he had in front of him.  He hated sending teams of two out as rescue, but with as many people as were unaccounted for, there really wasn't much choice.  They wouldn't get very far with larger teams, so he had to trust that the people he sent out could take care of themselves.  "Alexander, what do you think Midnight would do if they had him?"

Dev had his own ideas, but he wanted to know what Alexander had to say.  The hunter might not have known that he knew Niall, Verity, Justinian and Iloquil, but Raven had found plenty of rumors and reports in her research of the vampire Alexander being involved with all of them.  Frankly, Dev was a little nervous about Alexander going out there against Midnight and Niall because of that history he didn't remember, but he had to be confident about it; fate had given Alexander to them for a reason, so why would it snap him back up when they needed him most?  Indrani's faith in the younger hunter was also something he trusted, and so he had faith, as well.

Alexander flicked his eyes to Indrani when Dev asked him, and the best he could offer was exactly what he'd thought about Victor Batten.  "If Midnight has anyone high profile or important of ours, they're going to make it known.  Niall will either kill him and display him publicly, or he'll keep him alive for some purpose and be in contact fairly soon."  He didn't know why he suddenly thought of castle walls with heads on spikes and proud men driven to their knees, but it seemed too true to dispute.  He had no doubt that Niall was the sort, and he didn't even have the full details as to what had happened with Gabriel Sullivan and Rafael.

[Samantha Santos]

Alexander was surrounded by lovely women saying his name, indeed. He had yet to meet the baby-faced fox from Crimson who'd come in recently, but Samantha guaranteed she'd have to hold him down before he chased after her. Alexander wasn't a dog, by any stretch of the imagination, but when it came to foreign women...  He'd tried to go out with an American once, and it had been a date that he'd have to use their 'escape code'... "Samantha? What? I'm sorry Wren, I've got to run! My partner had a flat and she's in the ghetto. You understand, right?"

If Samantha only knew that Wren hadn't had a successful date in.. well, ever.

At the prospect of Lucien being taken by Midnight, Samantha's brain came back down to earth. "Wait, what?" she barked, blinking rapidly. "He's not stupid enough to get caught, is he?" Samantha didn't bother watching her words - it was no secret Onyx had nearly had a coup earlier that week, but the tension hadn't yet been broken completely. Still, Samantha didn't trip over what she said for anyone, be Dev the person currently in charge or otherwise. What would they do, bump her to another guild? Fat chance. Alexander wouldn't have it. Though, she spoke her mind because she spoke her mind, not because she was aiming to be a bitch.

She thought it was odd that they asked Alexander about it specifically, but she didn't say anything aside from an obviously interested glance in his direction. "So, how do we find out? Or will someone just find a hand in their mailbox tomorrow?" She looked from Indrani to Dev to Alex and back again. Indrani gave her an admonishing look, but said nothing, and Samantha shrugged. "Well!" she protested.