numenviscera (numenviscera) wrote in shadows_rpg, @ 2018-04-04 03:29:00 |
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Entry tags: | #flashback, lem, lem x vex, vex |
Who: Lem & Vex
Where: A motel somewhere in Virginia
When: Wee hours, July 9th, 2017
Status: Complete
Warning: NSFW
The bleach burned his scalp and the chemical smell was affecting the taste of the lollipop in his mouth. Vex liked it but then Vex liked a lot of things he probably shouldn't like. The latex gloves rubbing at his hair as Lem added more chemicals. He had no idea what she was doing, really. He didn't care. Maybe she'd dye his hair pink, it didn't matter. His attention was currently on the woman he was seeing on the floor, her throat and arm torn to shreds, lifeless eyes fixed on nothing. There was a beast too, a hulking form that Vex could only describe as a werewolf. It wasn't crazier than anything else he'd seen in the last twenty years but this one was a little more upsetting. Because he knew the woman. It was his aunt Sarah.
He didn't really feel sad about her being dead. It was a tragedy, sure, but he was currently feeling numb and dissociated from everything so watching her he felt more analytical and questioning than sad. Her body started fading away, as did the beast that was slowly nudging at her lifeless body. Vex blinked then slowly tilted his head back to look at Lem. She was really there, he could feel her fingers smearing chemicals in his hair and it was grounding comfortably uncomfortable thing. "My aunt's dead," he muttered. "The beast got her. I think we have to go hunting."
The vent-fan overhead was roaring along in the cheap motel bathroom, but Lem had turned the music up loud too, so it didn’t annoy her too much. At least this one had a fan. She was sitting on the tank of the toilet, her bare feet braced on Vex’s splayed thighs while she worked the bleach into his hair. He was going to look fucking badass with white hair, especially when she shaved and cleaned up the sides of it for him. White mohawk, fuck yeah.
She’d been concentrating on what she was doing when he moved to look at her. Before she registered the words, she idly thought some more white in his beard would look good too. Then Lem gave a vague frown. “Oh,” she said. It came out a little flat, but that was sort of a shock. Lem had never talked to Aunt Sarah, but she’d heard of her after riding around with Vex for months now. She studied his eyes, then pressed a kiss against his forehead. “Let’s go fuck it up. Hold still.” Lem tilted his head back down with her fingers to keep working.
Vex made a soft growling sound in the back of his throat as she moved his head but he did as he was told and held still. "How the fuck do you kill something like that," he muttered more to himself than to Lem as he stared at the spot by the doorway where he'd seen his aunt's corpse. "You ever seen a werewolf?" That was that was, he was sure, but he only had human imagination to count on for that. Popular media had all sorts of werewolves depicted and that beast had looked vaguely like some of them. "Large and ugly with no intelligence in its eyes at all, I guess that's a good thing if we want to hunt it." He needed to start keeping tabs on Point Pleasant, see if her death made the local news at all. Poor Sarah, she really was the only relative he gave a shit about and he supposed he should feel sad. Maybe he did, somewhere underneath all the fog.
“Don’t think so,” Lem answered in a musing sort of way as she finished up applying the bleach. “But I guess you wouldn’t know what you were looking at unless it was that time of the month, so maybe.” She reached for the cheap plastic shower cap and placed it over Vex’s head, tucking it behind his ears so he didn’t have to deal with that annoying rustle. She pulled the gloves off her hands, tossed them into the sink, and picked up her phone from the edge of the counter to check the time. “Hunt it as a person would be easier than hunt it as a monster,” she added thoughtfully. Lem set her phone down and eyed the back of Vex’s head, then massaged at his shoulders for a moment. “Least she’s free now.”
That was one way to look at it but Vex was more preoccupied with the thought that the beast might be part human. He'd only said werewolf because that's what it looked like but what if it really was a person? It wasn't the same putting a bullet into a person's head as it was a monster's and as he had noted, there had been no intelligence in that creature’s eyes. "I wonder if it is a person," he mused, unsure what he'd call that thing if not -a were-. It wouldn't be the first thing he'd seen that he couldn't name and things didn't really need names in order to die. Some did, but that was mostly folklore. "It would be harder in some ways to hunt a person, not just because people babble a lot when they're about to die but they leave a trace and they bring cops. Have to smart about it."
Lem wasn’t really in the mood to talk about hunting some monster-maybe-human down, but bad news never cared what mood you were in. She pulled one leg up and pivoted on the ceramic to slide off of the toilet. Lem sauntered into the motel room proper to grab the bottle of vodka that was sitting on the cheap table. She sloshed some of it into one of the plastic cups they’d been using, not caring whose it belonged to the night before. She was tempted to grab a cigarette too, but Vex always bitched when she smoked in the rooms. She carried the cup back to the bathroom, taking a swallow as she went, then offered it out to Vex from the bathroom doorway. “What exactly did it look like?” she asked mildly. Lem was not opposed to killing anything that slaughtered humans, especially family, but if it was that dangerous, knowing what they were up against would be helpful.
Vex took the cup and took a sip before he replied, thinking about it as he swallowed the strong alcohol. "Like a werewolf," he muttered then because he didn't know how else to describe it in that moment. A second later he was trying though, looking up at nothing as he moved his hands around as if he was a blind man touching the creature. "Big, dark fur, blank yellow eyes, not really dog-shaped, but not really human shaped either. It had these big fuck-off claws and it loomed over her, standing on its hind legs, claws hanging down like dripping molten gold. It had pieces of her in its mouth and paws but it didn't really look like it knew what it was doing." He trailed off and then gulped down the rest of his vodka. "Like a fucking werewolf."
She smirked faintly at his first words, knowing he would start describing it anyway if she gave him a second. “Sounds like a werewolf all right,” Lem agreed. That was pretty much how every werewolf she’d ever seen depicted seemed to look, anyway. Lem hadn’t known that real werewolves looked like that, but then again she’d never much thought about real werewolves out there running around. Not until Vex came along and her world expanded. Beasts were everywhere. “We’ll need some silver, then?” Lem wasn’t sure what she ought to be contributing to this conversation, if anything. Sometimes Vex was talking to himself more than he was talking to her, but that was all right.
Vex pulled a face because he really didn't know anything about werewolves. "We'll need a big ass shotgun at least," he muttered and if that meant talking to some connections in Baltimore than he could do that. He didn't want to go buy one legally, fuck that noise. Registrations and the system watching every move? No way. "We have to research," he added then. "With beasts running around there are bound to be people who know how to deal with them. Unless they're all dead. I can't imagine even a werewolf surviving decapitation or a hollow point slug..." He wasn't going to risk Lem's life with guesswork so research was their first step. Research and acquiring weapons.
Something sparkled a little brighter in Lem’s soul at the suggestion of a big ass shotgun. More and bigger weapons could be fun, for sure. “When in doubt, cut its fucking head off,” she sing-songed, leaning over to snag the empty cup from Vex. Lem bounced on her toes and turned to go get a refill, for herself this time. “We rinse in thirty minutes! Find out all you can about werewolves before then.” Holding her drink aloft, Lem hopped onto the bed, squeaking the springs more than was strictly necessary, and pulled the little cheap laptop she’d insisted they needed onto the mattress. She crossed her legs in front of her and opened it up.
Thirty minutes sounded way too long with the way it felt like she was burning his hair off. Vex supposed he'd just be bald then, it could be worse. He hummed his agreement as he followed her into the room, grabbing the other cup to get a refill of himself. She was so full of energy, it always amazed him, like a firecracker whooshing around. He drank more then picked up his phone and switched to camera to take a picture of himself with his magnificent plastic shower cap on. He looked ridiculous so he smirked in his photo and then put a caption on it - ' The things I do for crazy little fawns' - and saved it for later.
Lem opened up three or four tabs, checking her email before she started doing werewolf searches. She knew trying to look up the news would be useless -- everything Vex saw was happening now, so poor Aunt Sarah was probably still getting gnawed on by a beast. All Lem could feel about that was the vague hope that she had died quickly. She sipped on her vodka and tapped away at keys, glancing up at Vex every now and then. Lem had no idea if the information she was getting was good or not, but she always felt in her gut that the old, text-only message boards in the weird corners of the internet were more legit than any fancy site.
There was a lot of fiction out there masquerading as truth and then there was truth masquerading as fiction. Vex had run into a man who had clearly seen the truth and painted it with precision that was almost upsetting but that man had refused to acknowledge it was anything but a figment of his imagination. Vex resented him to this day but the guy was just an artist and if he wasn't ready to speak about the truth then Vex wasn't going to push him. Or at least he wasn't going to push him more than he already had a few years ago, though he did keep tabs on him online because maybe one day he'd dare to speak out.
Vex ended up flopping down on the bed next to Lem, stretching long legs up against the wall. He was still wearing his boots but he didn't really care if he got the wall dirty. "You know where to look?" he asked, one arm under his neck to keep his head up and the shower cap in place.
“Does anyone, truly?” Lem countered mildly, hunching over a bit to look at the screen while she scrolled with her fingertips. As she nursed her drink and browsed message boards for a while, she read things off to him. Supposed werewolf lore, precautions, weaknesses, even a very long post about their genitalia and how they might mate in werewolf-form and what kind of hellish offspring could come from such a union. Lem couldn’t get through that one with a straight face. She drained what was left in her cup with some muffled giggles, then set it aside and flopped over, squirming around until she was lying at an angle to Vex’s body, her head settled on his ribs where she could look at his face. Lem lazily moved her fingers to toy with a bit of his beard. “Are you sad?” she asked.
"Nah," Vex murmured. "It is what it is." It wasn't fair, but life wasn't fair. It was chaos and blood with only one inevitable ending. "I just don't know if I'm supposed to kill that thing or save it. Maybe both are the same thing. I need clarity. I need the pegasus." His visions were not always helpful but sometimes he knew exactly what they meant and what he was supposed to do next. It was all in the interpretation and he had no guarantee that his was correct, but the certainty felt good and he craved that now. "Do you want to go back to Baltimore with me?" he asked, ruffling her hair a little. He knew she didn't like it back there, but he also knew she was his now and she would go with him if he went back.
It was what it was. Sometimes Lem thought that was a stupid phrase, sometimes she completely understood it. They were microscopic specks of dust floating in the void, they had no control over anything, it was all just happening to be experienced. She screwed her face up into an unhappy expression at Vex’s question, turning her head to hide in his shirt for a second as she gave a whine, then sighed and looked at him again. “Fine,” she murmured, tugging a little at his beard. A second later Lem sat up and bounced her way over to throw a leg over Vex’s hips and straddle him. “But we have to eat at Kooper’s when we go, I’m dying for a burger and poutine, okay?” Lem drummed out a little rhythm on Vex’s chest. Once they were there, the pegasus could show Vex the way after they’d stuffed their bellies.
"Anything you want, fawn," Vex muttered, patting her legs lightly in a similar drumming rhythm. It seemed only fair he take her to her favorite burger joint if he was going to be dragging her back to their city in the first place. He glanced up as if he could see his hairline. "Are you burning my hair off?" It was a fair question, he thought. It definitely felt like the chemicals were damaging something up there but then he wasn't keeping track of time and she seemed to know what she was doing.
Lem smirked down at him. “Yes, all of it, that was my plan all along,” she deadpanned, bracing one hand on his chest to lean forward and reach for the shower cap. She took a peek under it, then glanced at the clock. “It’s about time, c’mon. Let’s see the damage.” Thumping him a couple of firm times on the chest, she climbed off of him and got off the bed to lead the way into the bathroom again. Lem turned the water on and left it running into the tub, then stepped back and pointed at it. “Rinse,” she commanded.
That bossy nature of hers was the reason he showered more often these days. Lem was never afraid of telling him he smelled bad or needed to brush his teeth and she got feisty about it too if he didn't listen. He tugged off the shower cap and crouched next to the tub, getting the bleach out with mixed feelings. Yes it hurt, but he liked hurt. Maybe not this kind of hurt but it was close enough. It smelled foul and unnatural but even that was a kick in a weird way. Sometimes he just liked things that he shouldn't like.
Always meddlesome, after a moment Lem perched on the edge of the tub and leaned over to help get the water to the back of his head, too. In spite of Vex’s worries, none of it seemed to be coming out or breaking off, so his hair was fine. It was just turning out to be the snowy white she wanted, and she grinned. Once he was rinsed, Lem grabbed a towel to dry his head off, then made him sit still on the toilet again while she took the clippers to the sides of his head to shave the sides of his hair down and shape it how she’d envisioned when she demanded control over his hair. Once she was done, Lem grinned at her handiwork, fluffing the top up some more. “There. Hot. Have a look,” she said, moving back so he could get to the mirror.
Vex got up and moseyed to the mirror, staring for a few seconds with a very neutral expression before grinning. "This is awesome," he muttered. He'd thought he'd just look old but he just looked... crazy. Punk. It felt like being a teenager again, doing stupid shit with his hair and not caring. He turned to look at her over his shoulder, cocking a brow. There was something about this look that felt right, like he could communicate with his visions now, like maybe they'd let him. "You're a god damned genius."
Lem grinned in that way that made her dimples look miles deep and let out a happy little squeal. She knew she would like what she had in mind for his hair, but she hadn’t been entirely sure that Vex would be on board. He was hard to read sometimes. But he was right, it suited the fuck out of him. And she felt stupidly accomplished every time she made him happy with anything. Lem grabbed Vex’s belt and tug-pushed at his hip a little as she bounced on her toes. “Fuck yeah I am,” she agreed, still beaming. Lem reached up to pat the bleach job again. “Be sure to use conditioner when you wash it later. So it doesn’t dry out too bad.”
She made him happy pretty often, considering his temperament. It all started when she saw the Truth and he could stop denying it but then she was also a crazy hurricane in his otherwise stale existence and she made him feel alive again. It was probably terribly cliche in some typical midlife crisis kind of way but he couldn't care when he was in the midst of the storm. "Conditioner," he muttered both to remind himself and let her know he'd heard her. "Your hair is getting long," he added then, ruffling her hair gently. Long was probably not the word for it, but he was so used to her having a buzzcut that anything more than that seemed long.
“Yeah,” she agreed, peering around Vex’s chest to look in the mirror at herself. Lem curled her lip in a couple of different ways just to make faces, fluffing her own hair a bit. It was much more fun to experiment on the heads of others, especially when Vex didn’t seem to mind anything she did to him. He knew how little anything mattered, just like she did, so why not fuck around however you wanted? Lem turned her head to peer at how her hair was getting shaggy around her ears, tugging at it a little before she looked at him. “Wanna buzz it for me?” She figured she might as well, so they were both clean-cut for their new adventure. Matching hotness.
Vex couldn't resist resting his arm on top of her head while she peered around him, she was so small, but only for a second before she was pulling back. "Yeah, let's get rid of that," he muttered even if he liked it when her hair was fluffy; it made her look like a little pixie and it was cute. He also knew she seemed happier when he'd just given her a buzzcut. He could understand in a way, it did feel good and light to get rid of hair and every little bit helped. He had a feeling it was also the damage done. His girl liked destroying things and what better than to buzz away that thing that was supposed to be her pride and joy if feminine advice was to be believed. He still remembered one of the nurses back at the ward they'd met in and how she'd cooed at Lem about how beautiful she would be if she grew her hair out. He also remembered Lem's reaction to that and it made him grin a little. "You don't wanna bleach yours too?"
Sometimes, especially in the early days, when Lem got frustrated and angry enough at everything but there was nothing smashable nearby, she took the clippers to her own head. Vex always ended up having to clean it up for her, so she’d just started having him do it all the time. It was soothing, the noise and the gentle way he moved her head around and folded her ears down to get the tricky bits. She shook her head as she hopped up onto the counter to make herself easier to reach, pulling her shirt off so it wouldn’t get little hairs all over it. “I look like shit as a blonde,” she said as she adjusted her bra straps. “You look like some kind of badass cyberpunk wizard. I just look dead.”
"Badass cyberpunk wizard," Vex repeated slowly as if tasting the words in his mouth. He could live with that, he'd been called a lot of things but this one was actually kind of nice. He always pictured wizards as old guys but he supposed he was getting up there now, especially to someone as young as Lem. "You would make a beautiful corpse," he said then and meant she wouldn't look that bad if she looked dead. It was probably a good thing she knew him as well as she did or that might have upset her. He didn't even think about it, grabbing the clippers from where she'd left them and ruffling her hair again. "How much? Same as usual?"
Lem actually felt a little flattered that Vex thought she would make a pretty corpse. She knew what he meant, of course, but a compliment was a compliment. “Yeah, gimme the usual,” she answered, getting a bit of squirming and head-bobbing out of her system before Vex got started. “I plan to make a pretty corpse,” she told him. “I’ll probably go young, so. ... but probably not quietly, so maybe not. I’ll either be the prettiest dead girl at the ball, or you won’t even be able to tell it was me.” She felt satisfied with that. Go big or go home, right? Lem liked to think her end would come with fiery explosions or being ripped to shreds or something.
"If you go before I do I'll take your picture and then burn you before you turn into rotten meat," Vex said as he adjusted the clippers to the length she wanted. Lem rotting would be a travesty but that's how they all ended up if they didn't burn. Weirdly enough he didn't mind if he rotted but then he didn't have a pretty face with great big doe-eyes like Lem did. "I'd prefer to go first though," he added, tilted his head as he looked at her with narrowed eyes. "So try not to die."
“Yessir,” Lem singsonged and gave him a little salute. She wouldn’t try to die, but if it happened, it happened. As long as she didn’t go out like some kind of chump, she would be happy with it. And chumping out seemed unlikely with Vex leading their way. “And thanks, you’re a real pal.” Lem tittered, tucking one ankle up under the other knee comfortably. Rotting was gross, sure, but it did feed the planet ... but it was super gross, so Lem was torn. Burning was probably better. Especially since nobody would try to track Vex down for murder like they would if her body got found.
Vex hummed and started on her hair finally, short locks dropping down on her shoulders as he worked. "If I go first you don't worry 'bout me," he told her. "Just leave me where I drop, okay? I'll be taken care of." It was a morbid conversation to have but it was all a part of being alive as organic matter in a chaotic universe. If nature had its way he would go before she did but then if nature had its way they'd grow old and start rotting before they even died. He wasn't sure he wanted that either.
“Uh, no,” Lem said, opening her eyes to give him a disapproving look. “If I can, I’m totally gonna give you a burnin’ too. It’s only fair.” That was a pretty big If though. Vex was rather bigger and denser than she was, and even though Lem was strong, deadweight and gravity might win out. Regardless, she would find a way to do right by him wherever he landed, even if that meant burning an effigy later or something. Maybe it wouldn’t matter, maybe Vex would already be long gone, but maybe not. Maybe it would matter in whatever came next, if anything did.
"You burn, I rot," Vex muttered. "I didn't make the rules." There were no rules but it felt right as he talked about it, like it was some universal truth he was obliging instead of making it up as he went. "If we get a say in it." They might well die in a crash or get ripped apart together by a werewolf but Vex was going to try and make sure it didn't come to that. Research. Weapons. "You're fire, I'm earth, it's only right we return to our elements."
In spite of her protest a moment ago, that sounded about right to Lem too. She was fire, but she’d always thought of Vex more as air than earth. Flighty and ephemeral and with the line between him and the universe blurry and hard to define. But if he said he was earth, she believed him. She believed pretty much anything he told her, because she could See it. “If we get a say in it,” she echoed in a murmur. Keeping her head still for him, Lem lifted a hand to hook two fingers through his belt loop, which was as much as she could cling to him for a moment. As ready as she was to leave this mortal coil behind whenever the universe and chance deemed it time, she didn’t like the idea of being separated from Vex.
Vex worked slowly and thoroughly as doing this was something he enjoyed. He liked the sound and vibration of the clippers and the way Lem's short locks kept falling like black rain on her shoulders. He might have agreed with her on the element of air if she had told him, nowhere near as steadfast in his ways as she sometimes liked to believe. "We should stop in New York City," he muttered after a long while of silently working. "Find something fun to do. It's been a while since we went to a good club." It felt like a ritual sometimes, going out, getting fucked up and dancing all night. Lem certainly had the energy to burn and Vex liked the kind of crazy he sometimes felt in that noisy, crowded place where everyone moved to the same beat. Especially if it was something dark and heavy. He had made her tilt her head forward as he worked but now that he was nearly done he slipped his fingers under her chin to raise her head and pressed a little kiss on her forehead. "I don't think there will be any clubs like that in Point Pleasant."
”Yes,” Lem had said immediately and emphatically to the idea of going to a club in New York. She loved places like that, where people were throwing caution and their social training to the wind and just acting however the fuck they wanted. That was her jam, and it always felt good to be there with Vex, like she was protected while they both cut loose. It was always a crazy good time. Lem let him kiss her forehead, a little smile crossing her face, then reached up to grab hold of the beard under his chin. She tugged his face down further to kiss him properly, then grinned and bopped their noses together before she let Vex go and nudged him away so she could stand up. Her head felt light and free again, and she rubbed her hands over it before moving to the shower to turn it on. That was the only way to get rid of all those annoying little hairs. “Sounds like the kind of place we’ll have to make our own fun in,” she said, shooting him a grin as she unsnapped her bra.
"I don't think that's gonna be a problem," Vex said with some amusement. Lem was a handful, he'd had enough on his plate just keeping her out of trouble - or bailing her out when that failed - to know all about her definition of fun. They'd also be busy with their research and hunting, but that didn't mean there wouldn't be time for other things. He watched her undress and leaned against the sink. He'd join her if she asked him to and fuck her if she asked him to but he never initiated anything with her and he wasn't about to start now. "We might not stay there long," he muttered. "If we find that thing and kill it we can leave whenever we want, go back to New York, somewhere else, wherever they lead us." They being his visions which he often thought of as entities of their own.
Lem pushed her leggings and panties down and stepped out of them, never having had any qualms about stripping in front of Vex. It was something she rather liked to do, even though she knew it didn’t really entice him at all. Maybe that was part of why she liked to do it so much -- there was a sense of power in safety. And she knew Vex would be accomodating if she decided she did want something from him. She turned the water on and adjusted the temperature, looking over her shoulder at him with a grin. “I dunno, small town life might be fun for a while. Change of pace. Different vibe.” She shrugged and paused in the middle of stepping into the shower to smirk and cock an eyebrow at him. “You coming?”
Vex slinked away from the sink, loosening his belt. He could probably use a shower himself and she did tell him to use a conditioner soon so why not now. "Small towns are a hassle," he muttered. "And Point Pleasant isn't all that pleasant." Or maybe he just had bad memories from there. There was time missing from his memory and his parents had been pretty shit. It was only his aunt Sarah who made that place tolerable and now she was gone. He should feel sad about that and maybe he would later, but right now he felt nothing. He peeled the tight jeans off along with his socks, then joined Lem in the shower.
In spite of the age difference between them, Lem had always been pretty satisfied with their balance. Vex led the way in some things, she led the way in others. And bossing him around whenever they were alone together had yet to even begin to get old. It was something she’d never had, strong influence over another person, but it still felt perfect and right regardless. Like she’d been born for it. Lem had gotten under the water to rinse her head and shoulders off, and she pulled Vex in closer as soon as he was in reach. Other twenty-one year olds -- or Vex himself -- might not get it, but she thought he was hot. “We’ll make it pleasant for us,” she said with a little grin and ran her tongue along her teeth.
"When you say pleasant," Vex murmured. "You don't mean on fire, do you?" He was joking for the most part and yet... Lem did like watching the world burn, maybe not literally but definite metaphorically. She had a lot of rage and he could only guess as to where it had come from since they never talked about the details of their lives. He wound his arms around her and made the effort to give her a little grin. There was no judgment there. If she wanted the world to burn, he'd carry the cans of kerosene for her.
Lem laughed, her dimples making her look even younger than she normally did, something she hated when she was conscious of it. It was another reason to keep her head buzzed. Lem generally didn’t give a fuck what anybody thought about anything, but her babyface did make people treat her differently, and she couldn’t stand that. “Maybe not right away,” she said with an eyeroll and a grin. Lem rose up on her toes, one hand moving to cup the back of Vex’s neck to pull him down into a kiss, this one lingering longer and deeper.
Vex very rarely craved physical intimacy but that didn't mean he didn't enjoy it. Lack of lust did not render him immune to pleasure and Lem tended to hit just the right spots. He had turned her down the first time because he didn't know her motivation and for all he knew she was just some damaged kid looking to self destruct. With time that became less of a concern, it was easier to self destruct with strangers than with someone you bonded with through shared visions and time spent together. These days Vex had no problem with giving her what she needed when she needed it - most times.
It had taken Lem a while to convince Vex to fuck her, and it had ended up being worth the wait. The fact that he’d put her off first had been reassuring, like it wasn’t all just a ploy to get in her pants, like it might have been with some other man. If she’d gotten any sense of that, she would’ve gotten a couple of orgasms out of the deal and then ditched him at some point. But it wasn’t like that, what they had was different. Cosmic. Fated. He’d handed the reins over to her when it came to sex, and that was perfect because they were perfectly matched. She felt that self-assurance again in the moment while she kissed him, nipping progressively harder at his lips. Lem had figured out what he liked, and pain was up there on the list.
That was how she'd gotten him in the end, by letting him have his fix of pain without judging him for it. Vex grunted quietly against her lips as her teeth sent a stinging pain through his lip and while he was always more partial to being hit and kicked, that bite felt good too. Different pain for different occasions, he suspected she wanted more from him tonight based on that kiss so he indulged, running long fingers down her stomach, slow enough that she could stop him if he had it all wrong.
Lem knew his preferences, but she had some of her own that he’d never complained about, and biting was one of those. She’d had a boyfriend once intensely explain to her the difference between a sexy nibble and a painful bite, and she’d just nodded her way through that until she could bite him again. Vex though, he liked it, and that just made Lem like it even more. He made the best noises. She leaned her chest against his, running hands over his shoulders and back and doing absolutely nothing to stop him. She dragged her short nails down his back to his ass instead.
She was so damn small, he needed to lean down to reach her cunt but it wasn't that big of a deal. He was used to it by now though he usually preferred having her on his lap when he did this. It was the easiest way to get her off, with one hand down her pants and the other up her shirt. They hadn't really washed off the little hairs yet but he didn't mind a little tickling, more focused on slipping his fingers between her thighs to rub her clit, her piercing like a little beacon directing him where to touch her.
The good thing about hotels was how long the hot water lasted. Lem liked fucking in the shower, everybody was already naked and it was warm and nice and she was light and flexible. She pulled away from the kiss enough to gasp in a breath as Vex’s fingers found their mark, and Lem lifted one leg up to prop her foot on the edge of the tub to give him all the room he needed. That made it harder to stay on her toes though, so she dropped back down and kissed at Vex’s neck and collarbone instead, leaving bites here and there. She brought one hand around to wrap around his cock, thumb stroking against the underside.
He wasn't hard when she started stroking him but that touch and her biting got him there pretty fast. He thought he did pretty good at getting her off considering how little experience he had with women before her but that was in large part thanks to how demanding and vocal she was about what she liked. "Do you want me to fuck you?" he growled in her ear, lightly scraping his teeth against her skin.
Lem hadn’t exactly thought that far ahead, sometimes she just liked to get him hard while he played with her just to feel it in her hand. She liked knowing that she could just get off herself and leave him hanging and he wouldn’t really care. The sense of control was incredible. But Vex’s voice and the hardness of teeth made up her mind for her. Lem let out a little moan and scraped her teeth over her bottom lip. “Yeah, in a minute,” she murmured back, her free hand moving to cover his. “More, first.”
He was happy to oblige and not really surprised she wanted to wait. They'd barely gotten started. Sometimes she did want it fast and hard and immediate but then there were times when she just wanted his fingers and that was fine by him. He took care of her needs and when he needed to block out the world, she'd kick him in the crotch and leave him spinning. It was a good arrangement. He was holding onto her a little too tightly, his hand just fit so nicely against her back while his other moved slowly to rub at her clit. "Tell me what to do."
The firm grip felt good, secure and maybe a little needy in a way that she really liked. He didn’t need her for this, she knew that, but he still needed her. Nobody had ever put effort into making her happy before, especially not a man. But Vex did. He was her everything now. “Harder,” she whispered, pressing her fingers against his for a firmer touch as he rubbed at her, her breath feeling heavier in her lungs. That tingling pleasure in her core grew warmer and spread, and her folds swelled and got slicker. Lem stroked his cock a few times, but kept getting distracted by sensation. “Fuck, that’s so good,” she moaned. After a moment longer she pressed on his middle two knuckles. “Put your fingers in me.”
Vex was more than okay with doing it roughly when she wanted him to. She looked fragile and small but she was anything but and he'd come to know that by now. He did as she asked - or told - him to do and moved to finger fuck her deep and fast. He could understand the appeal of sex and he did like the way it all felt, he just rarely felt the need to actually do it. It was a physical urge that he could take care of himself and normally women just bored him. Why Lem was different was anyone's guess, but she was and he could feel it as his fingers slid inside her velvety warm wetness and she made those pretty little sounds every time he touched her right.
Those sounds got louder and more frequent as his fingers really went to work on her. Maybe she was all backwards, but Lem wanted it rough more often than not. They sometimes had a lazy, hungover morning fuck, but sex tended to make her feel full of tense energy that bordered on aggressive. Luckily Vex never seemed to mind it. She gripped his wrist as he fingerfucked her, her face buried in his neck as she just enjoyed it for a while, the heat building in her body. Lem suddenly hit the point of wanting more, and pulled back a bit. “You’re gonna fuck me now,” she told him breathlessly. Lem pushed the shower curtain out of the way and stepped up onto the edge of the tub, turning her back to him. She held onto the curtain rod above her with one hand and leaned forward a bit, bending her knees to put herself at the right height.
Sometimes he just picked her up and fucked her that way but this was a clear sign she wanted it rough tonight. Vex didn't waste any time on niceties if that was what she was after, she was already wet and ready so he wound his arms around her and thrust his cock inside her. She wasn't as into pain as he was but this was different, even the most mundane people sometimes liked rough sex and he knew by now her pussy could take a pounding. It would probably have been easier on the bed but she had a thing for showers and she was in charge.
It was perfect, exactly what Lem wanted, and she gave a throaty cry as Vex pushed into her. There were a lot of positions she liked to have him fuck her in, but there was always something extra delicious about taking it from behind. Maybe it was some animal thing, or knowing no one was watching her face, or just the extra depth, or something else, she didn’t know. It was just good, and she made sure to be vocal about it.
Jerking off was easier but that didn't mean this didn't feel good and Vex wasn't only doing it for her - even if it was mostly. She felt nice and tight around his cock and he closed his eyes as he clutched her hips and thrust in deep and fast. She could take of herself if she needed clitoral stimulation, he wasn't worried about that right now.
Taking care of herself was never a problem, whether that came in the form of bossing Vex around or rubbing her own clit while he fucked her or getting herself off completely if he didn’t want to. She may have always been in charge when it came to sex and knew where all Vex’s physical buttons were, but she never ignored a ‘no’ from him. That was the one thing she never wanted to do to him -- ambivalence and resistance were two very different things. He seemed on board with her now though, and Lem got happily caught up in the hard rhythm of it, rocking herself to bounce off his body even more, addicted to the way his cock dragged inside of her with every stroke. She let herself just enjoy that for a while before she slipped her free hand between her legs to do some of that self-care, flicking at the bit of metal in her flesh, her breathy cries getting louder and harsher as she edged closer.
He knew better than to change up his pace when she was getting this close even if he wouldn't last long at this speed. He'd never really practiced lasting since jerking off was just taking care of a need, like eating if he was hungry. He did enjoy some of it but mostly he had always just wanted to get it over with. It was different with another person involved, especially since he gave a shit about her.
Lem’s sexual needs weren’t usually very complex, and this was just an impulsive quickie anyway, so she didn’t expect some long drawn out performance. She rubbed herself vigorously as the pleasure spiraled upward and then exploded like a firework, curses intermingling with her wordless cries. Her body clenched and pulsed around Vex’s cock, everything else shaky and deliciously unsteady. It was like flying for a minute or two, her back arching and rolling with waves of pleasure.
He held her steady while she climaxed, knowing she was in no position to keep her balance or watch her step. He couldn't help but grin at how intense she always was, her body jerking against him, light and slippery. It helped him along, the way she tightened around him and her climax meant he could move however suited him best. He went for shorter thrusts, staying deep within her as he came, quietly grunting. She knew how to keep him from coming when she was on top but tonight she had given up control so he didn't bother trying to give her more than that one orgasm. At least not by fucking her, there were always fingers and mouth if she was still starving for it.
There was usually something about the feeling of a man coming inside of her that squicked Lem out. She didn’t often stop it, because being squicked was part of her existence and who gave a shit, but that didn’t mean she liked it. It felt different with Vex though, Lem welcomed it. She liked to Give to him, and orgasms were gifts ... tiny ones, to him, maybe, but still. She took care of him in other ways, more savage ways. As soon as he was done, she pulled away and used his arm to step back down in the shower, her legs a little wobbly. She dimpled up at him and pulled him down for another kiss. “Thank you,” she murmured, as always, like you did for gifts. Lem let him go and grinned, giving Vex’s ass an ungentle slap. “You’re in for a beating later.”
Vex hummed softly, amused at her little thanks. "I'll make sure to collect," he murmured, moving back under the flow of water to wash himself. It was weirdly soothing to get beaten up, it let his mind go quiet for a little while, brought him to a state of euphoria. He couldn't always allow himself that luxury but when he could, Lem was good about delivering. She enjoyed it too and he suspected it was a release for her in a way. If nothing else it kept her in good fighting shape.
Lem had always had a violent streak in the first place, and living the life she’d lived had only made it wider. It had been a surprise to discover that she enjoyed it even when the recipient was willing. More than willing even, Vex enjoyed it. Not all the time, it took a certain craving mindset and a free night to put the time into it, but she found it immensely satisfying in her own way. Weirdly, it made her feel closer to him too, like she was fulfilling a need just like he did for her. It was balance for them. Once Vex was clean, Lem slipped under the water to do the same, always glad to get rid of that drippy feeling between her legs. She liked it when he came in her, she just hated the part after that. It had bad memories attached to it.
Vex kissed the top of her head before stepping out of the shower to start toweling off. He got a small shock when he looked in the mirror again but it was a change he actually liked. "I be the prophet, slay me then we'll cross it," he murmured to himself, tilting his head as he let that song play in his head. It fit. He was a prophet and now he looked more like one instead of just a retired cop from Baltimore. He dried himself off slowly, glancing back at Lem. "What does that make you, fawn?"
Lem had had her head under the water until just before the last part, and Vex was being quiet anyway, so she missed the context. Clean finally, she turned the water off and shoved the curtain all the way out of the way again. Shaking off her hands before she reached for a towel, she lifted her brows at him. “What does what make me fawn?” she asked as she started drying off. Now she was hungry and ready to curl up in bed. “You made me fawn. No fawn without Vex.” Lem rubbed the towel over her shorn head longer than was necessary just because it felt neat.
"Damn straight," Vex muttered since he didn't really need her answer to make sense in context. She was right. "And I'm the prophet." He looked in the mirror again and yes, that sounded right. "I'm the motherfucking prophet." He ran his fingers through his hair, softer now that he'd put conditioner in it. What did that make Lem? Whatever she was, she clearly kept him going and made sure he didn't forget the mundane shit of the physical realm when his head was swept up in the malstrom of visions.
She grinned at him from the shower. “Goddamned right you are,” she agreed wholeheartedly. Lem quickly finished wiping herself down -- she liked to mostly air dry -- and stepped in front of Vex to look at herself in the mirror too. She wasn’t even tall enough to block his view, so it worked out. She made some faces at the mirror, then looked up at Vex behind her, one hand reaching up to run fingers through his beard. “The prophet and his fawn. Tamed from the wild. Rawr.” She bared her teeth and then giggled a bit. “Vice prophet? I see some things too, you know ...”
"Yeah you do," Vex murmured, hooking one arm around her, right above her breasts. "The conduit." She was more than a sidekick. If anything, he felt like her sidekick but he had more visions than she did and he seemed to be the one who chose where to go next. He grinned at her in the mirror and then pressed another little kiss on the top of her head.
“Conduit. I dig it.” Lem grinned back at him, thinking they looked perfect together. Sometimes they got stares because Vex looked old enough to be her dad to some people, but Lem didn’t give a fuck. They knew what they were and that was all that mattered. She dipped her head to give his arm a gentle gnaw, right below his elbow, then kissed the spot. “C’mon,” she said, patting at his arm then. “Come feed me Skittles in bed. Let’s make fun of TV.”
Feeding Lem skittles in bed while watching TV probably meant they'd sprawl out together head to toe and Vex would throw skittles at her open mouth. It would be fun and Vex could use the practice. His throwing aim had definitely gotten better after he met her. "You only want skittles?" he asked as he followed her to the bed. "We've still got some leftovers in the cooler."
“I ate earlier, just refined sugar, please,” Lem said lightly as she bounced onto the bed. It was all messy from when they’d slept in it last, and she rolled around in the blankets for a second before she got back up on her knees and started to straighten everything out again so they could both lie sideways and see the TV. They mocked everything from the news to old sitcoms to infomercials, it just depended on how late it was and the range of channels the motel had. It was weirdly soothing, and often put her to sleep. She always ended up snuggling up to Vex in the night though.
It had become one of Vex's favorite pastimes, both mocking the TV and also muting it and making up their own dialogue. It certainly made a lot of movies much more interesting and the nonsense they could come up with was amazing. It was like he was reliving some silly part of his childhood he'd never really gotten to enjoy. Better late than never. He didn't bother with clothes for now, dumping the towel on the floor before flopping on the bed naked and tugging a blanket over himself. This would be a good break from the planning he was currently doing in his head. It was late and he could figure out where to go next in the morning.