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The thing that got her was that she’d just started thinking everything was perfect.
It took her a month for the thought to whisper in the back of her mind. A month of worrying that Steph was going to realize that her place was on the road and start hating Alex for keeping her from it. A month of endless news of how much a mining company could hide. Of hoping Ryan didn’t hate her for putting his father away.
But while Ryan had pulled away for a while, it was because he felt guilty that he hadn’t been able to see who his father really was. A week after the meeting, after Ryan has begged his father to admit what he’d done, they talked everything over and cried together. Alex got assured that her apartment was hers, that no matter what Ryan ended up doing with the bar, he’d make sure it was hers.
The news about Typhon stopped mattering after a while. Every day it was something else, but Alex’s part was done. The cause of Gabe’s death was out now, and she’d even found the cause of her father’s. None of the increasing list of dark deeds that Typhon had done was about her. She was glad they were out in the open, glad that they couldn’t keep killing people with their carelessness anymore, but nothing else they’ve done compared to Gabe.
And Steph…
Alex has dated before, and maybe that’s why her guard is up at the beginning. People can change when romance became involved. Not that she really thought Steph would. Not when she saw the golden hue overtake her, just from Alex speaking to her or how her thoughts had run together while she waited desperately to see if Alex would kiss her on the rooftop.
The worry lingers even as it grows smaller and smaller as time works its power. Steph doesn’t pressure her into anything, dates or drinks or sex and tries her hardest to make sure Alex knows that her choice matters. She doesn’t flare red with jealousy when she sees Alex talking or joking with others and never minds when Alex accidentally picks up something off her emotions or has to step away to calm down.
Alex’s part-time job at the record store is filled with dancing and laughing and sometimes when Steph looks at her, Alex has to look away because her aura is shining so brightly, all white and gold. She loosens. Let’s herself break some of her self opposed rules as her guard lowers and everything stays the same.
That’s what makes it much worse when there suddenly is a problem.
In a little over a month, she’s more comfortable around Steph, around Haven, than anywhere she’s even been. Enough that when Alex has a rough shift at the Black Lantern all she wants is to be with her girlfriend.
That’s when the problem starts, though Alex doesn’t realize it until everything settles.
Because Steph had the next day off and thought Alex wouldn’t get off work till much later. She’s not drunk, not yet, but she’s tipsy and tells Alex that when she calls. Tells her that as much as Steph wants to hang out that it might be a bad idea for her to cross town a couple drinks in, but Alex is welcome to come over. If she’s comfortable about it, of course.
They’ve only hanged out at Alex’s before, apparently because of the pure convenience of it, but Alex doesn’t mind the short walk. Not when Steph is in her ear the entire time.
When Steph opens the door, her aura is gold and white and Alex can’t see her own, but she knows it would be red with some purple thrown in. Her girlfriend welcomes her inside and only grows brighter when Alex says she thinks the minis on her shelf are cool and asks about the band posters on the wall.
Alex is tired and still a little annoyed, but Steph is beautiful, mixing her a non-alcoholic drink when she turns down something stronger and reacts in all the right places when Alex bitches about her night.
It’s then, when Steph laughed and Alex caught her ‘this girl is amazing’ thought in a tone close to awe, that Alex let her guard down completely. She doesn’t want to be annoyed anymore because her outstanding girlfriend is sitting next to her. Alex has weird powers but maybe one upside is this, where she gets to share what Steph is feeling, and fully sharing this moment with her.
And the next hour is fun and light and filled with more than a little flirting. Steph always reacts so cute to her being bold. Like she can’t believe Alex wants her. She ends up blushing a lot and trying to recover as smoothly as possible. Sometimes she does and sometimes she doesn’t, but either way it’s fun.
Dark pink starts creeping in on Steph’s gold aura at the edges and Alex lets herself feel that too.
She used to hate that color. Honestly, she might have hated it more than red. Having someone else’s lust wash over her wasn’t ever something she found pleasant. Not when it overrides everything you might feel about having sex with them. Anger has gotten her into trouble before, but lust was a more intimate struggle.
But Steph hadn’t said a word about how Alex took things kind of slow and when they did finally have sex, her aura never lost all its gold color. It was almost overtaken by pink but it was always there at the core of her aura. Between that and the ridiculously sweet thoughts she picked up and Alex was even more smitten.
Alex is feeling pretty smitten now with Steph above her. They’ve been kissing for a little while, enough that Steph leaned her back so they were laying on the couch instead of sitting. Besides Alex having a firm handful of Steph’s ass, they’re still tame. All clothes were still on, though Steph’s hand was wandering a bit.
And sincerely? It’s pretty damn perfect.
Steph lends up for a moment and looks down at her. A familiar smirk is on her face, the one that she flashes whenever she’s flirting and Alex finds it charming, even if she likes the flustered look more. When she speaks, her voice is just a little rough around the edges and low.
“You didn’t come over just to talk, did you?”
Her question isn’t one meant to be answered and Steph ends it with a little laugh before she lends back down to kiss along Alex’s jaw. Because Steph was flirting. Filling in the mostly silent living room where the only sounds are a tv they turned the volume down on a while ago and them.
And Alex laughs the same little laugh that Steph did and lends her head back because that gold and pink aura is flowing around her. Inside her. Sharing emotions like this isn’t new, but the fact its positive is and she thinks she likes it even more than the sex.
Yet in the back of her mind something sours a little. Because she’s heard that question before and it had been asked with a smirk but one infinitely less charming. But that’s far below the surface and Steph’s emotions are unknowingly overpowering any bad thoughts about an old ex that hadn’t been as sweet as her.
When Steph moves to kiss her again, Alex has two responses.
Her stronger one is that just that she likes it. Because Steph loves kissing and she loves Alex and her mind might be a little tipsy right now but that’s only making her all the happier to enjoy the feeling of Alex’s lips under her own and the taste of her mouth when the kiss gets heavy.
With Alex’s walls so low and the way they are pressed so tight together, that’s almost all Alex feels. But under it, far under the gold and pink, Alex doesn’t enjoy it. At all.
Because suddenly the taste in Steph’s mouth isn’t her anymore. The glass of wine that Steph has been sipping on for the past hour, because it was all she had after Riley left it here, was abruptly overwhelming. The feeling of a body above her wasn’t comforting, and she just wanted- she needed to slow down for a moment.
But that was buried under gold and pink. Instead of pulling back like she wanted, her hands clenched tighter and her mouth kept the kiss going.
The emotions that felt so easy a few minutes ago now felt suppressing and controlling. They were overpowering everything else, and Alex couldn’t stop them. She never could before. This wasn’t any different.
For a moment she was somewhere else, under someone else. There wasn’t any gold, just pure dark pink and thoughts that made her feel like a piece of meat. Smirks and wine and all that external lust suppressing everything Alex felt. Locked under and forced to act it out.
Alex panicked.
“Ow, Holy shit!”
Steph fell off the couch with a loud yep, banging her head on the coffee table. Her girlfriend, who she loved and who bought her flowers and was the sweetest person she’d ever met, was looking at her in shock, bewilderment and hurt.
Because that’s how anyone would react when the girl who was just kissing them shoved them as hard as they could.
Alex’s control over her powers was better than before and in her panic, she slams down her walls. The feelings of love and lust that had been crushing her were gone, but Steph’s aura was still there and now darkened to purples and blues.
They stared at each other.
“Alex?” Steph asks gently. She inches forward until she’s only a foot away, but stays on the floor on her knees. “What’s wrong?”
And Alex can’t say anything because her heart is still beating too fast, and she’s still trying to remember that it has been Steph above her the entire time.
“Alex,” she repeats. Alex doesn’t need her powers to know she’s worried. It’s dripping from her voice. “I’m sorry,” Steph raises a hand to Alex’s knee but stops short with something close to a flinch.
The misplaced guilt makes Alex’s brain run again, and that’s easier to manage. She grabs Steph’s hand tight. “Don’t- You did nothing wrong. I’m the one who’s sorry! It’s all me ok? I didn’t mean- “
Her words are a mess and she can’t look at Steph. Seeing that aura turn purple and blue because of her makes her feel horrible and only reminds her that Steph deserves someone that doesn’t have these kinds of hang-ups.
“Alex, it’s ok,” Steph places her other hand on her knee. “I’m sorry for whatever I did that made you so scared.”
“You didn’t do anything,” she repeats. “I always do this,” and her words get a little choked, but she forces them out. “I get overwhelmed and I freak out and hurt people.”
Steph says nothing for a moment and holds her hand, rubs a small circle with her thumb with hand on Alex’s knee.
“You don’t have to force yourself,” she finally says. Her voice is stronger now and reminds her of a different day months ago when Steph stood in her doorway and declared that Alex didn’t have to keep it together. “I don’t want to ever make you feel you have- “
“Steph, stop, please.” Alex chokes out. Because she knows that already. She knows Steph takes consent seriously and always makes sure Alex isn’t pressured by anything.
She takes a deep breath and tries to explain. “It wasn’t you. I just- it was like I got lost in my mind. For a moment, the person on top of me wasn’t you anymore, and I lashed out.”
“Ok,” Steph whispered. She brought the hand she was holding up to place a light kiss on her knuckles. “Do you know what the trigger was? You don’t have to explain if you don’t want to, but I want to make sure I don’t do it again.”
“Wait, can you get up here first?” Alex asked. She was still off balance and felt a need to be surrounded by her girlfriend’s arms. The need for comfort was still new to her, but it was something she was getting used to asking for.
“Yeah, of course.”
Steph’s couch was longer than Alex’s and they could lie on it without bending their necks or legs over the armrest. Not that comfortable, but she was laying enough on her girlfriend that it didn’t matter. Steph liked to joke that Alex’s chest was better used as a pillow than hers, but this was better, in her humble opinion. This let her have an ear on Steph’s heartbeat and two brawny arms around her.
She said nothing for a while and neither did Steph. The purple in her girlfriend’s aura had faded almost to nothing, and the blue was gone. The white gold was there just like always.
“There isn’t really anything for you to avoid. I was connected to you so deep that I forgot I was,” Alex starts. “When I came over, I was annoyed and pissy, but you weren’t, so I just- let it happen. I love what you feel when I’m with you and nothing makes me feel better than getting to feel it like that.”
Steph brushes a hand through her hair before resting it where Alex’s undercut is shortest and stays quiet.
“When you joked about me not coming over to talk it…” she falters but continues. “Freaked me out. I knew you were joking, and I just wanted to slow down, but I was so connected to you that I couldn’t say anything.”
“Alex,” gets whispered into her hair before Steph presses a kiss to the top of her head. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s not- “
“I know, but that doesn’t mean I don’t feel sorry about you having to deal with something like this.”
Alex tightens her hold and presses her own kiss to the warm skin under her. “I didn’t use to snap out of it. I’ve done some stupid shit because I couldn’t control myself.”
Steph nods. She’s heard some stories from Alex already. “Like Mac.”
“Yeah, like Mac.” Alex sighed.
Her powers were a part of her and she was getting used to liking them. Seeing Ryan’s aura when he talks about his job or Charlotte when Ethane is around is so so nice. Getting to literally see Steph glow when they’re together isn’t something she’d trade away. Even if it comes with the cost of moments like this.
“That’s what really freaked me out,” Alex says. “I thought I lost control of myself and suddenly it like I was back there about to have sex I didn’t want because of some else’s emotions.”
“Then I’m glad you shoved me.” Steph’s voice is choked, and it doesn’t get much better when she tries to clear it. “I’ll take a knot on the head over pushing you like that. Any day.”
“I know. Like I said, it’s my fault.”
“It’s no one's fault,” she argued quietly. “Your powers didn’t come with a rule book and you can’t control the way trauma fucks you up.”
“I still feel bad, it’s just- I have all these hang ups- “
Steph scoffed softly. “Considering all the shit that you’ve dealt with? Alex, you are ridiculously well-adjusted. I mean, even if you weren’t, I’d love you anyway. But please, don’t feel bad about this kind of thing. Ok?”
After Alex nodded, Steph kissed her hair again. “Good,” she said. “Trauma fucking sucks, but we’ll figure it out.”
Alex felt a smile creep up. “You have such a way with words.”
Steph chuckled and squeezed her around the shoulder. “That’s why I write the music and you do the lyrics.”
“Your rpg stuff is so good though!”
“Listen, I can totally write us some sick lore about overcoming all the stupid shit life has thrown at us, but I don’t think that would help all that much.”
“You help,” Alex says. She feels better, lighter, than she has in a long time. “You always help.”