Newton's First Law (Alexia x Root)

They were all aiming for him. They were all going to kill him. He could tell. The way they looked at him when he passed by. They weren't fooling him with their sleepy, droopy look. Everyone. Everyone was trying to kill him. They were all traitors. Mariko. Even his precious Mariko was gunning after him. But he couldn't let himself die. He had to live up to his promises to his family. He promised too much and he couldn’t let it all end now. He ran through the park, up all the way to the top of something and pulled open the door, slamming it behind him.

He was breathing hard against the door, and slowly slipped to the ground as he realized how illogical he was acting. He couldn’t let his delusions get the best of him. 'Fine then, we'll just kill Mariko.' No, no the voices weren't real. He grabbed his head and squeezed slightly to try to root himself to reality. Slowly the voices began fading away. Oh thank that asshole who his father believed ruled over the universe. They were all fake, just like he thought.

Root took a deep breath before realizing that he wasn't alone. His vision was slightly blurry but he could make whoever it was out pretty easily. She might've heard him come in, seeing how he slammed the door, but it took a moment for him to realize where he had run to. Shit. He could heard the rushing water from the log's trip. He knew exactly where he was, and he didn't like it. No, no, he could survive this, as long as he didn't get in that log. "Alexia." Root's breathing had returned to a normal pace, even as his heart thumped against his chest a little too rapidly. He cleared his throat and stood straight up. "What brings you here?"

Shit. She noticed. Of course, it was stupid for him to even hope that she wouldn't notice his odd behavior. Root took a deep breath and prepared the already prepared excuse in case anyone walked in while he was talking to a vision or himself at any point, and luckily he could still remember it… well, at least mostly he remembered it.

"Haha!" Root placed his hands on his waist and threw his head back to laugh, "That was merely a test to see how you would react. You failed. What if something were actually chasing me? You might be dead right now along with me." Well, at least it was an excuse. Root's face immediately fell to the usual disinterested expression he wore. Root was studying Alexia, for if he paid too much attention to his surroundings, he'd be paralyzed with fear because of the water that would fuel a log's trip down into a huge pool of water where he could easily drown.

However, just because Root could be a jerk, didn't mean that Root was a heartless being either. Alexia obviously was shaken up by the events, despite being a police officer… she'd have to learn how to deal with this stuff eventually. "Things are… difficult right now, Alexia." Root avoided allowing his expression to change to one of cringing at her name this time now that he was fully calmed down (or at least more calmed down). The reason of course would have to deal with the fact his name was Alexander, and her name was awfully close to the name that only three people in the entire world had ever had permission to call him. "But life moves on, yes? We can't let them win. And the best way to show them we aren't going to fold is to just have fun, live the life we're given and keeping going no matter what life throws at us."

The fact of the matter was Root was not a bad guy when it came down to his barest self. He might dislike people, but his parents raised him to not be a jerk at heart. However, it would ruin his reputation if he was actually nice to people all the time, and then people could be trying to climb all over him, asking him for favors, trying to get him to go out to dinner or bowling or something else stupid with them, distracting him from his very important work. At least, like with his sister, there were a few who realized the importance of his work and he liked as well.

"Of course I'm right," Root laughed patting her back before clearing his throat. Of course, it seemed she saw through his ruse, but it wasn't like he was going to admit to her he was lying. No, his reputation was at stake. He couldn't seem weak or someone might actually come after him. It didn't help the way he was already acting, especially with all the sleep he was missing out on causing his brain to work incorrectly.

"Of course it was a test. What else could it be? If it were real, of course, I would have closed the door. But that was a sign that it was a test, yet you did not notice that. You assume it must all be in my head, but it's not. It was a test," Root insisted. He rather not people think he was delusional, seeing and hearing things, mostly hearing things at this point, because well then people wouldn't trust him anymore. Of course, people probably didn't trust him a whole lot, but they seemed to trust him more than they did Taro at least.

"N-No, everything is fine," Root said quickly, because apparently she had caught on to the fact he did not want to be here. "Why wouldn't everything be fine?"

Oh yes, why wouldn't he be fine? He was being chased by delusions in his mind he was sure were real in the moment, and sometimes even had a hard time differentiating afterwards if they were real or not. He'd dealt with the occasional hallucination throughout his life, and so he was fairly used to seeing things that weren't really there. Sleep deprivation was just making it worse. And harder to focus enough to differentiate real and not real. However, this time, he was positive the voices weren't real. So at least there was that. And he knew that the voices weren't going to kill Mariko. Hopefully.

She was… annoying, Root told himself, Alexia was, poking and prodding at him to try to reveal his reaction. Then again, that was probably the police officer in her. Trust her. Ha. Trust the police to get anything done, and you wait forever. Then again, he wouldn't trust her to get something done, but rather with something he had revealed to no one ever before, not his mom or dad or sister. Ha. Ha. No.

"Trust you? You could be one of the traitors here. How am I to know? Everyone is going to claim they aren't. How could I ever trust anyone here?" Okay, there was one person in here he trusted, and he would trust her with his life. "Oh yeah, I'm just going to waltz in and tell you how I'm afraid of water, of drowning because I can't swim. Oh I know the theory, I know all sorts of things, but my body just cannot deal with water because it would give out not long after attempting because my body just fucking sucks?"

Wait. Shit. He just revealed what he was saying he wasn't going to reveal. "Fuck." Root looked away and began to rapidly write in his notebook. "Now that she knows, I'm fucked, fuck me. She could use it against me. Throw me in some water, and let me drown." He was muttering to himself.

Psychologically he wasn't doing well. He was having a hard time coping. He was currently in the stage of paranoia and anxiety, though he wouldn't always be in this phase. Usually, by this point he would be heading off to sleep because he knew that he needed to sleep. But he couldn't. And he just needed to get over this hump so he could go insane other ways. He needed to calm down, even if the water wasn't helping in that area. And of course the officer said she wouldn't use it against him, but he knew better. She was trying to get him to drown by making him go down the log flume. No. He wasn't going to die. He had to live, he had to fix the problems he caused to those he cared about and then he would be just fine.

However, he couldn't let her know the panicked thoughts that were going through his head, he couldn't let her think he was crazy. Of course he felt like he was going crazy but usually he would just sleep on it and he would be back to normal. He told himself he just needed to calm down and put on his confident face and everything would be alright.

It was either what Alexia said, or the movement of reaching out to him or a combination of both that reminded Root a little bit of his mother. No, no, she was nothing compared to his mother. He needed to stop drawing comparisons because in the end, comparing someone to his mom or his sister could only end with them disappointing him and not actually being the one he wanted them to be.

"Did… you not hear me? I can't swim. I can't trust you not to just let me die in the water. Going down that… with you would be putting more trust in you than I have put in anyone else because everything would be out of my hands, and I… I have to be able to control life." Root wasn't being paranoid when he said this. For once, he was actually meaning what he said to a relative stranger. Probably because his mind was still trying to find something, anything that would connect her to his mom, because he really just needed his family right now.

Root stared at the wall behind Alexia as she hugged him, his eyes wide open. Oh god. What did he do? Why did he make her cry? Was it him refusing to go down the stupid ride with her? He wasn't good with crying people. Well, usually when he made people cry it was on purpose. But he didn't mean to make her cry. And oh god, she was acting like his mom again. His mom was always the sort of person who would try not to cry in front of anyone, not even his dad. If he saw his mom cry, he knew something was wrong, because she always tried to seem tough and put together for everyone. He knew she had problems, but she was always so cheery it was easy to ignore that, and just believe that she was happy, even if he knew better.

Alexia was putting on a show for him, he knew when she broke away and her stammer afterwards. He continued to stare at her wondering what could possibly have caused it. She couldn't have felt… bad for him, could she? No, and ever then it could still be an act. No one felt sorry for Alexander Root. He was a beacon of confidence and sarcasm. He was the perfect jerk. And yet, here he was staring at a girl who had just hugged him after he was so panicked about going on a water ride with her. About possibly losing control over whether he lived or died because of the water. Root continued to stare as he thought of possible solutions. He wasn't an actual jerk beneath it all. But he didn't want people to know that. Otherwise they'd want to be his friend and they'd be annoying or whatever else. Either way it'd be annoying and he'd prefer to be alone than surrounded by stupid people.

Root quickly looked away. "If you really want, I can go on the ride with you," Root said quickly, then looking back at Alexia. "Only once." Just the thought of it made his heart beat a little faster with fear, but Alexander Root was at least brave enough to do it, as long as it made her stop crying. And hopefully she wouldn't hug him again and would leave him alone about it, and maybe think he'd conquered that fear (that was the jerk side justifying his action, at least).

Root stared at Alexia slightly surprised at her reaction. He was sure that she would be happier if he just agreed, like it was a guilt trip, manipulation of a sort, and he was just going to go along with it so she would just stop crying. His mom wasn’t this emotional, but then again, he never saw his mom this tired, and with her emotions so out of whack. God damn it. He needed to stop the comparison, because in the end he would only be disappointed and then become angry at Alexia for not being like his mom. So he needed to stop it. He needed to treat her like just a normal person. A normal idiot. But the tears, the begging, it made him feel bad, mostly because he really didn’t do anything wrong himself.

She was going insane from the lack of sleep. Just like he was. He was having paranoid delusions, which were what brought him here. He knew what she was going through, as he was going through it too, and he didn’t really want anyone to go through the insanity that he went through. No, he couldn’t be sympathetic towards her. Not outwardly at least. He had to maintain that he was a jerk and that she had to hate him. He had to insult her somehow.

“Police Officers aren’t there to help people. They’re there to enforce the laws of the leading power. Tell me, Alexia, the laws here are simple. Are you not supposed to enforce them? Make sure we kill one another, make sure we all follow the rules? Otherwise, we don’t need you. You’re useless and –”

Root stopped and looked away quickly, his hard look changing to one of worry. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to hurt you, I’m just – I know we’re all stuck here, and there’s some of us who betrayed the rest of us, and I was getting paranoid and – You’re trying to help conquer the fear, or whatever, and I was having no part of it and… I didn’t want to make you cry.”

Shit. He was going all emotional again. He had to be a jerk. She couldn’t like him. Root smiled an evil sort of grin. “Regardless, it was fun making you cry.” Fuck. Now he felt bad. What the hell was wrong with him.

“No it wasn’t. Damn it. I’m going insane. That’s what this is. I need to sleep. I need to sleep.” Root sat down and curled himself into a ball and began to rock himself back and forth. “No sleep. No sleep. You need it, but you can’t. But you want it. It would be so easy to just go to sleep. No, if you sleep you die, Alex. Alex you die. You don’t want to die, do you? I don’t, but I need it, so badly. Its almost worse than death. Alex, you can do it, can’t you?”