Lem Collier (littlelem) wrote in shadows_rpg, @ 2018-04-24 20:12:00 |
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Entry tags: | #october 2017, lem, lem x nic, nic |
Who: Nic and Lem
When: Thursday, Oct 19, early early AM
Where: their yards
Status: Complete
Lem loved the nighttime, especially when it wasn’t too cold out. She loved being in the shadows and the quiet, and feeling like she was the only living person in the world. A lot of girls were scared of being out in the dark, but Lem had decided a long time ago that she had nothing to be afraid of. Instead, she would become one of the scary things. Vex had said this town was evil and there were monsters everywhere in it, and maybe that was true. Maybe that was why it was starting to feel more and more like home.
They had electricity now, but she left the back porch light off when she stepped outside, clad in just her panties and a tank top. She didn’t always smoke, Lem seemed to be one of those strange people who could pick and choose when they wanted to, but she wanted to now. It felt good outside, the breeze lifting goosebumps on her bare legs. There was a storm coming, she could smell it in the air. Lem lit up her cigarette and padded down the porch steps and onto the grass. She walked out into the back yard -- trimmed down now, thanks to her efforts and Zan’s weed eater -- liking how the grass felt on her bare feet.
Lem tilted her face up to the sky and took in a deep breath. The air was so much cleaner here than in Baltimore, and the streetlights barely penetrated the dark overhead, so she could see so many more stars than she was used to. Lem wondered idly if they were the right stars, and she spread her arms out and started to turn in a slow circle so the sky looked like it was revolving around her.
Nic could feel the storm coming deep in his bones, the thunder and the lightning invigorating even miles away. If it wasn’t too cold, he would stand in it, spin in it, let it soak him to the bone. Even if it left him shivering, it was worth it, refreshing in a way that nothing else ever was. The anticipation left him jittery, eager for it arrive and unable to sleep. Zania pounding away on the piano wasn’t exactly helping either. He could hear the noise even after he stepped out on the back porch, though it was muffled a bit, the only disturbance in the night.
It was cool out and likely to get colder with the rain, but he didn’t bother with shoes. He slipped his hand into the pocket of his hoodie and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. It was a bad habit, as his sister was always quick to remind him, but it would calm him down a little, and he was pretty sure it wasn’t going to kill him. Something else would have that honor. Putting the cigarette between his lips, he snapped his fingers, lighting it with a little flame before shaking it off his hand. No one was around to notice a little magic in the middle of the night.
Or was there? Movement in the yard next door caught his attention and he stepped out into the grass to get a better look. He’d heard they had new neighbors, but had only seen them come and go, or heard them through the poorly insulated walls. His eyes fell on the girl and he couldn’t pull them away. If he was chilly, she must be freezing.
Lem was cold, but she didn’t care. She’d been cold before, much worse than that, and it was kind of fitting, looking up into the void and being cold. Sometimes she thought about what it might be like up there, beyond of the pull of the earth and free-floating through infinity. Realistically, she knew she wouldn’t survive for a minute out there, but the idea of being surrounded by all that expanse tripped her out in a good way. Everything that existed, cradled in silence.
On one of her lazy rotations, a change in the shadows in the yard next door caught her attention. There was a new silhouette against the lights from the house with its eyes on her. She could feel them even if she couldn’t see well. Lem stopped spinning and dropped her arms, staring at this knew shadow. She lifted her cigarette to her lips for a drag. It might be a neighbor, it might be worse, it might not even be there. Lem wasn’t positive either way, so she didn’t say anything yet.
Nic smirked and brought his cigarette to his lips, mirroring her only a few seconds behind. She could see him, but didn’t seem bothered by it, their eyes meeting in the darkness. When he exhaled, he took a few steps down off the porch, slowly making his way towards the fence. If they were going to hang out in the dark, in the cold, he figured he might as well say hello. “Evening,” he said, leaning against the fence and taking another drag off his cigarette.
There was a face in that brief orange glow, that was a good sign. Lem didn’t move from her spot until the smoking shadow got closer and clearer without the house lights backing him. “I think it’s morning now,” she commented after a beat to let his voice sink in. Curious, she walked in toward the fence herself, unmindful of how undressed she was. She could handle him if he tried anything; she was still the scariest thing in the yard, with plenty more scary inside, just a scream away. “Are you Nic?” Lem almost said his full prophet name, but Zan had said he hated it, and she hated her own, so she could be nice.
“Sometime in between,” Nic said, a line from a poem suddenly sticking out in his head. Between the idea and the reality, falls the shadow. He wondered what it meant thinking of it right then, right there, with this half naked girl in the yard next door. Woman, he thought, correcting himself mentally. She was more than a girl, but still young. “I am,” he said, giving her a little smile. “You must be Lem.” She had to be, based on Zania’s description. Short hair, petite, and living next door. He wondered where Vex was. “Aren’t you cold?”
A paranoid part of Lem bristled in the back of her mind that he knew her name, but she’d known his too, so maybe that was only fair. Zan must have told him about her. Lem had an idea sometimes that she was pretty invisible, just humming along in the background of most people’s worlds, sort of transparent because she had a foot on the other side of a veil, like nobody talked about them unless they were making noise. But they had neighbors now, whom she’d already borrowed something from, so she figured she would have to get used to being on some radars. She stopped about a foot away from the fence, one eye squinting as she looked up at him and took another drag off her cigarette. He was tall. “Yes,” she answered reasonably. “But not cold enough to go in yet. Are you?”
“Same,” Nic said, though he was wearing pajama pants and a hoodie. He could handle the cold. He could handle the ice and snow, too, if it came to it, but he wouldn’t be all that happy about it. He watched as she took another drag and itched to the do the same. “A storm’s coming,” he said, eyes rising towards the sky. He wondered if she could feel it at all, the static in the air, the taste of water on the tip of his tongue. “I wanted to be here for the rain.” Most people would’ve wanted to watch from inside the house, but that had always felt too far away. He was the lunatic standing in the storm, usually with his sister shouting from inside to get his ass in.
Lem looked up again too. She’d been so lost in the stars that she hadn’t really noticed the clouds rolling in, but they were definitely on the move, a blanket of lighter black being pulled over the sky. “Mm, the air’s alive and twitchy,” she murmured, her gaze coming back to Nic’s face again. “I love that smell.” Lem knew it would be a cold rain, and that was unfortunate. She enjoyed being out in it too, all that water crashing down around her and the wind whipping it in different directions. Lem hoped it stormed; she slept better with thunder, so she hoped it was loud. “Do you stay out in it? It’s better than being inside. Nothing washes off your soul like rain.”
Nic laughed softly and nodded, not really caring if he sounded crazy. Most people already thought he was, at least on some level. “I do. As long as I can stand it,” he smiled. He knew it was going to be cold this time, and that he’d likely need a hot shower to follow. He always crashed hard after a storm, sleeping in late and little could wake him. But when he woke he felt amazing. “It’s like a cleansing and a-- a recharging.” He took another drag off his cigarette, considering her for a second. “Not all souls like water though.”
She had spent a lot of time around the more extreme ends of crazy, so Lem’s basis of comparison was pretty different than most people. It sounded perfectly reasonable to her that Nic would like to be out in the storm. Lem liked to get soaked and then go in to take a hot bath when she had the luxury of a tub and warm water, and pretend that the earth had flooded as she hung out submerged for as long as she could hold her breath. “They should, we all come from water,” she said matter of factly. “From that void --” she pointed upward at the sky, craning her neck to look up again, “-- to the ocean void, to the air void in the middle. I’m not sure which we go back to, but I hope it’s up.” Lem turned her face into the breeze and closed her eyes for a brief moment. “You’re a water soul,” she murmured.
“I dunno. I wouldn’t mind the ocean void,” Nic said thoughtfully. He knew the darkest pit of the ocean scared some people, but he’d always thought it would be serene. Dark and cold, perhaps, but it seemed better than the fiery pits of hell. If they existed, that’s likely where he was going. If not, he wanted to go back to the water. “I am,” he agreed. “In all ways. Cancer. Ruled by the moon. But by water first and foremost.” It always felt obvious to him, but he knew it wasn’t to everyone. Most people didn’t believe in it. They also couldn’t see their hand in front of their face. “You… You’re a mix. I can’t tell,” he said, lips quirking up. He wanted a peek at her aura, but couldn’t this close up. His eyes would give him away and he didn’t need her thinking he was some kind of demon.
If Lem couldn’t have the void of space, the void of the ocean would do. Anywhere peaceful and quiet and big, because they were all such tiny things, but they could expand and diffuse until they were part of the universe again. Nic sounded like he was talking about astrology things, which she didn’t know much about, but if it fit, then she was right, and Lem always liked to be right. “I don’t know,” she admitted, looking at him again. Lem took another drag from her cigarette, then rubbed the cherry out of it against the fence before she flicked the butt away. “I’m full of teeth and shadows and smoke, hard to pin down.” She offered Nic a lopsided smile, one cheek dimpling.
Nic translated his skills to astrology because it was what most people knew, and he couldn’t usually tell them up front how water ruled his life. He knew it wasn’t everything, that it didn’t always fit. Zania had always been ruled by the fire, yet they’d been born under the same moon. He sometimes thought that that’s why she was the way she was, in permanent conflict with herself. Nic at least could find peace, even though it rarely happened. While he couldn’t see Lem’s aura, her answer was telling in its own way and he grinned back at her. “Are you now?” he said, leaning on the fence, his cigarette burning down close to his fingers. “Should I be worried?”
Lem stepped a bit closer to the fence, tilting her head slightly as she looked at him. “I dunno,” she said again, squinting one eye at him in exaggerated thoughtfulness. “Are you a monster? Monsters should be worried, we’re here to fuck up their day. But if you’re not a monster, you should be okay.” Lem was tempted to ask Nic then if he was a prophet, like she and Vex had mused about, but she wasn’t sure yet he would know what that meant, and it felt too much like showing their hand too soon. Just because a water soul lived next door and loved rain too didn’t make him trustworthy.
“Some think so,” Nic answered, eyes on hers as he looked down at her. She was tiny, but he knew that didn’t mean anything. But even if she could fuck with him, he could do the same to her. Still, he didn’t think he was the type of monster she was talking about. “But no. I’m not. Just different.” Which she’d probably gathered by now. She was too, he’d decided. Probably not a witch, but maybe on the radar somewhere. He’d have to ask Zania and see what she thought.
The first part didn’t faze Lem much. Some people thought she was a monster too. They were wrong, but there was no controlling what other people thought about anything. “That’s what I thought,” she murmured, staring back up at Nic. He and his sister were both pretty obviously Different. At least it was obvious to Lem. As long as they weren’t the evil kind of Different, she didn’t care. She preferred Different people, everyone else was made of cardboard and static, not fully real. They lacked a dimension. Lem thought Nic had it though, even if he didn’t truly know what it was. “We’re not monsters either, but some think so. Just remember that.”
Nic hadn’t been thrilled to hear that they had new neighbors, since it usually meant they had to be more careful, but Lem was beginning to grow on him. Even if she wasn’t really a monster, he kind of liked the idea of the monster girl next door. “I will,” he told her with a little smile, and stubbed out his dying cigarette on the fence post. “Your friend, is he like you?” He didn’t know if friend was the right word, but he’d let her correct him. He didn’t want to make assumptions about a guy he’d yet to meet, but he kind of hoped he was just as interesting as Lem.
‘Friend’ didn’t begin cover what Vex was to Lem, but there wasn’t a single word to do that. He was her friend, really the only one she had, but he was so much more than that too. Friend, confidant, lover, spirit guide, prophet, protector, partner in crime, pet, punching bag, soulmate, the list went on. Nobody ever understood them though, they only looked on the outside, so Lem didn’t bother to try to explain to this new person. He would see, or he wouldn’t, it wouldn’t change anything. “He’s Different too,” Lem answered. “But he’s a different Different than me. He can see more than I can. You understand though, right? Your sister, she’s not a water soul, you’re the same but different.” Lem couldn’t say how she knew that, she just did.
Nic nodded, getting that completely. Most people didn’t understand. He was twenty-six and lived with his twin sister. Worked with her, too. The two of them were so close that some people made assumptions that there was more to it, to which he generally told them to fuck off. It wasn’t like that, but they couldn’t comprehend how their souls were so intertwined without adding in another element. What they were missing was the magic, the balance they brought to each other. “She burns hotter than I do,” he said, glancing towards the house. The piano had gone quiet, the living room dark, but he could see a soft glow coming from upstairs that told him she’d lit a fire. She would be cold. “She’s not one to dance in the rain. Not unless it’s summer. It’s always been more my thing. But yeah, the same, but different. Like two sides of a coin.”
Lem smiled then, bright in the dark. Two sides of a coin, that was exactly what it was. Similar, but different. Inextricable. You couldn’t cut a coin in half without destroying it, and the same went for Lem and Vex. And Nic and Zan, apparently. He would get no such judgement from Lem, she completely understood. She and Vex both burned, but their fires were different colors. Starting to shiver a bit now that she’d been out there a while and not moving, Lem crossed her arms over her small chest, cold hands in her armpits, but she didn’t seem eager to leave this conversation over the fence. “You dance, too? I’d like to see that. I like to run in it. I can feel it wearing me away cell by cell, like the sphinx. The sphinx is weathered the way it is because it used to rain there, did you know that? Maybe someday this will all be desert too.” She glanced around them, able to imagine all the trees gone, disintegrated into sand. Lem liked it better how it was now.
When she crossed her arms, his eyes were drawn to her chest, the way the piercings pressed against the thin material of her shirt. He quickly raised his eyes again, not wanting to be caught staring, but it was hard to focus when he was thinking how cold that must be. “I do dance,” he laughed softly. “You should join me sometime.” It wouldn’t be the same with an outsider, the water couldn’t dance with him, but he suspected it would still be fun. “I didn’t know that. I wonder why it stopped.” It was hard to imagine it raining in the desert. He’d always thought it was the blowing sand that weathered the buildings. “I hope not,” he said, giving a quick look around. “I like the trees. They give us life as much as water does. And create mystery. And shadows.”
Lem saw where Nic’s eyes went, staring at him like she was, but she didn’t mind it. She never wore a bra, there was no reason to, and men looked at her tits pretty often. Some of them she didn’t like, some of them she didn’t care, but she felt a tiny bit of amusement with Nic. He could look, as long as he didn’t start grabbing at her. Lem found it endearing that he admitted to rain-dancing, because a lot of dudes would puff up and pretend they didn’t do such a thing. It was nice not to have to roll her eyes through that. “Everything is changing all the time,” she said by way of explanation about the rain in the desert. “But I hope not too, I like trees. There weren’t a lot in Baltimore, not like here. Even with monsters, they’re beautiful.” Lem smirked. “Maybe I’ll beat you out here and you should join me sometime,” she added.
“Maybe they’re beautiful because of the monsters,” Nic theorized. After all, you could not appreciate the light without the darkness. It occurred to him that they were casually talking about the monsters around Point Pleasant as if it were a common fact, rather than something that only a fraction of the population even believed in. It wasn’t something he’d have brought up on his own, but it was a nice change. “I will then,” he smiled. “Since you offered.” He might have thought he’d be infringing otherwise. And if he did join her, maybe she’d be in for a show. Maybe the water could dance with them.
“Maybe so,” she murmured, looking off at the trees behind their yard for a moment. On the other side of the fence, it was unspeakably nice to be talking to someone who apparently knew about the monsters. So many people looked at her funny whenever she started talking about stuff like that, the Reality of Things. She took it as another good sign that living in Aunt Sarah’s house was going to be good for them. They had Different people next door, perhaps Nic and Zan could become allies somehow. Maybe even friends. Not that Lem was going to hold her breath, she and Vex seemed incapable of making friends with other people, but who knew, right? Lem refocused on Nic and gave him a bright smile. “Good!” Who knew what kind of mood she would be in when the time came, but for now the idea pleased her. “I’m freezing my tits off though, so I’m gonna go in now,” she added, still bright and cheerful.
Nic laughed aloud and nodded, surprised she’d lasted this long. He was cold and he was wearing twice as much clothes as she was. “Go get warm,” he grinned. “We’ll dance later.” Or maybe not, but it was nice to think about. He’d enjoy having someone to share the storm with when he couldn’t coax his sister out into the rain. Lightning struck and thunder rolled across the sky. It wouldn’t be long now, perhaps another ten minutes, perhaps another hour or two. No matter how late it was, he’d be out in it, soaked down to the bone and freezing his ass off. There was no place he’d rather be, even in bed.
The thunder and lightning gave Lem a little thrill, like she could feel the electricity crackling against her bare skin. As uncomfortable as shivering was, she did kind of like that feeling combined with the numbness from being outside mostly undressed for so long. Still grinning at Nic, she backed up a few paces away from the fence, then tugged the front of her tank top up to flash him instead of saying goodnight. Lem just had the impulse, and she was nothing if not impulsive. It was quick, and then she was turning to run back to the back porch, giggling the whole way. Living here -- and maybe dying here, who knew -- was going to be fun.