Lem Collier (littlelem) wrote in shadows_rpg, @ 2020-05-20 12:30:00 |
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Entry tags: | #group scene, #january 2018, lem, nic, vex |
Who: Lem & Vex & Nic
Where: Ludlow
When: Sunday morning, 01/21
Status: complete
None of Vex's visions had ever been as clear as this sudden knowledge that had filled him up last night. He wanted to deny it, of course he did, but the certainty was so strong, it was like it had been downloaded into him directly from his god. He didn't even know one of the names so it wasn't like his brain was playing tricks on him, but he knew Jules Cooper was real because everything and everyone was online these days. A pretty little perky cheerleader. It didn't make any goddamn sense. But she was a part of a conspiracy to end him, she and people he had until now trusted, three men he'd confided in and even helped. Carson Durand, Nic Castell and Neil Wainscott. Vex was pretty sure he hadn't even known that last name before last night, but now he did.
The worst of it was Nic, Vex saw him as a friend, they'd been allies in this madness and now Nic wanted to hurt him. Vex considered his options. One of them was fucking sniping the guy the next time he went out. Vex had good guns, not a sniper rifle but shooting someone from his bedroom window wouldn't require much. He imagined it, calculated his odds and came to the conclusion that Nic probably had some crazy witch protection that was an unknown in his formula. It'd also send him straight to jail and Lem might never forgive him and despite everything, he didn't really want to kill Nic. He just wanted him to back the fuck off.
How to make people back the fuck off? Vex knew some ways but this wasn't like anything he'd ever dealt with. He spent hours in the basement with his white board, erasing a lot of things and trying to understand this new information he'd been dealt and in the end the only conclusion he could come to was that he needed to run. How many of the protections on his house were actually traps? Nic had set them up, who knew what was lurking in this building, ready to maim him.
He started packing up at three AM, starting with the weapons because that felt the most important. He could hole up in a motel room, fortify everything, set up an escape route, traps, something until he figured out what to do next. At five in the morning he went to wake Lem up, crawling up on her bed and kneeling by her side and whispering her name.
Completely oblivious to everything happening downstairs, Lem was sleeping soundly in bed. As soundly as she could with weird, chaotic dreams, at least. She was mostly used to that, but she was just so tired all the time now, she’d been sleeping more and more. Lem had felt rather zombie-ish most of the day before, and when Nic said he had somewhere else to be that night, she’d been relieved he hadn’t asked her to go. Not that she didn’t want to see him, but she was so sleepy. Lem was happy that they’d taken care of the demon problem, and she’d told Nic as much when he gave her the news, but that was about all the energy she could muster.
She’d been sleeping since Saturday afternoon, but Lem’s consciousness still didn’t want to surface, even when she heard Vex softly calling for her. She frowned without opening her eyes and tried to roll away from the intrusion, tugging her blanket tighter around her in the Lem burrito she’d become. “No,” she mumbled fuzzily. That one little word applied to everything at the moment. Just no.
Vex frowned, reaching for her to shake her awake. "The instruments of darkness tell us truths, win us with honest trifles, to betray us in deepest consequence," he said, a quote that for some reason had stuck with him from a play and now seemed ever so appropriate. "Can you feel it, Lem? We are betrayed and we must run. C'mon, firecracker. We gotta shoot away and fortify." How did you fortify against a witch anyway? Maybe it was folly but he had to try, couldn't stay here like a sitting duck, waiting for Nic and Carson and the others to make their move.
Lem made a whiny sound of protest at the shaking, pushing at his arms while her brow knit in confusion. Vex’s thought trains were sometimes difficult to follow even for her, but she really had no idea what he was on about this time. Betrayed? Shoot away and fortify? “The fuck’re you talking about?” she muttered unhappily, finally forcing her eyes open. God, it felt like so much effort to do even that. The light in the window said it was very early morning, and that was too early for anything but sleeping. There was a manicness to Vex’s eyes that she’d seen many times before, and often shared in, but Lem really didn’t want to deal with it right then. Even though she’d been sleeping a long time, her body was just so tired.
"I was really hoping you knew," Vex sighed and now how was he going to tell her this? They were special, different, probably a little crazy so he'd never thought he'd have to worry about her not following him but... Nic had his claws in her, maybe that was part of the plan all along. "Nic is going to hurt us," he said. "If we don't get the fuck out now. So you need to wake the fuck up, Lem." The words were harsh but his voice was gentle, he knew damn well he was delivering devastating news and her relationship with Nic was so much more intimate - yet clearly also based on lies.
Lem’s face reflected nothing but more confusion. Most of the time she was pretty quick to wake up in the morning -- or afternoon, more often -- even if she wasn’t the cheeriest person before a couple of cups of coffee. But today her brain felt sluggish and cloudy, like she could barely keep up with the words coming out of Vex’s mouth. She just wanted to sleep. “What?” she mumbled. “Nic ... what?” Had he said Nic was going to hurt them? Lem had plenty of paranoia of her own, but that was one thing she’d never worried about. Nic cared about her, about both of them, and he and Zania were part of their pack, not just neighbors. “What happened?”
"Nic, Carson and Neil are all involved in some plot to hurt us," Vex replied with certainty. "They've teamed up with this teenage girl and they're up to something bad. You and me, we gotta get out of this house, his magic is all over it." He drummed a quick rhythm on her thigh with his hands before getting up. "We need to go go go, Lem. You gotta trust me. I already packed our weapons and some food so grab what you need, I wanna be out of here before six." Really, he wanted to be out of there already, but his body was still human and had its limits and time was not a terribly flexible concept.
The more he talked, the less sense it made. Which wasn’t unusual for Vex, but Lem was usually right there with him to some degree. Maybe it was just something wrong with her this morning, but she wasn’t getting it. With great effort, she pushed herself up into a sitting position and rubbed her hand over her buzzed head. “Doesn’t sound right,” she said, looking at Vex with a brow furrowed. She didn’t feel up to going down the hall, much less go-go-go-ing out of the house. “I trust you, just ... how do you know? Was it a vision?” Lem rubbed at her eyes, trying to clear the bleariness from them. Every cell in her body was begging her to lie back down and go back to sleep.
To be fair he had no idea how he knew. There had been no vision, no dream, no whispers - just a Knowing. "It was uploaded onto me from god itself, like a data package," he told her, emphatically waving his arms as he spoke. "I was meant to know this now and I do, with all the certainty I can muster. As clear as I can see your lazy ass still in bed. You gotta trust me, Lem, you gotta trust me and get moving." He hadn't even considered the possibility she might not want to come. His Lem always followed, he was the prophet, she was the conduit, he couldn't imagine leaving without her so it hadn't even occurred to him to try. Her reluctance now was driving him insane, like an itch inside his skull, and he wondered if he could knock her out and take her with him if she said no. They had a tranquilizer in the basement but that would kill her because it was a fucking werewolf dose. Hitting her over the head could do permanent damage. No, she had to agree, she had to come willingly.
The ‘lazy’ comment made her frown deeper -- a much more subdued response than he would’ve gotten if she’d been feeling herself. It wasn’t laziness, she was obviously sick or something. Her head was stuffed full of cotton, her limbs weighed a million pounds, she just wanted to be left alone to sleep it off. “I trust you,” she repeated. “I’m just ... sick, I think. I don’t feel good. And that can’t be right, Nic is on our side, Vex ...” It was a weak-sounding protest, but it was all Lem could muster at the moment. He looked upset and manic and normally that would’ve had her own adrenaline pumping hard, but Lem didn’t feel that now, she just felt drained and apathetic. Whatever he was on about would surely sort itself out. “Here, lemme ... call him ...” she murmured, standing to look around for her phone.
"No, are you nuts?" Vex exclaimed, stepping forward to physically stop her from finding her phone. "I just told you he's a traitor who wants to hurt us and you're going to call him, are you even awake yet? We need to go. I thought he was on our side too, I thought they all were, but this whole fucking thing goes so much deeper than I thought." He was pacing now, running his fingers through his unruly hair. "Get your things, here, I'll help you." He yanked open her dresser and started flinging clothes onto the bed. What did she need anyway? He had no idea so if it was up to him he'd just shove everything into a suitcase and run.
Feeling helpless and still dizzy with exhaustion, Lem put her hands to the sides of her head, her expression getting more distraught with every passing second. “Vex, no,” she said, reaching to grab some of her clothes as if she could just hold onto everything and stop him. “This isn’t ... it’s not right. We can talk about this, we can’t -- I can’t go, please ...” Lem hated feeling so weak, and there were tears starting to fill her eyes and a hard lump in her throat. Being upset was making her feel even more tired, and her hands were weak as they clutched onto one of her t-shirts. “I’m sick, we can’t do this now ...”
"We can talk when we get to the motel," Vex told her. "Or you can sleep all you want and I'll take care of it all but we can't stay here just 'cause you're tired." He couldn't spot a suitcase anywhere near and her reluctance to help was making him too stressed to think straight so he grabbed one of her pillows and stripped it off its pillow case, it'd make an okay makeshift bag for now and he shoved some of her clothes in there. "I won't let anything happen to you," he promised, the stuffed pillow case in one hand as he grabbed Lem's arm with his other. "So we gotta go, come on."
Lem felt light years beyond ‘tired,’ but she didn’t know how to make him understand that, especially when he was in this kind of state. She watched with helpless dismay as he stuffed her clothes into a pillowcase. It wasn’t all her clothes, and there were other things she wanted to take if they were fleeing, but Lem didn’t feel like she could even protest anymore. Vex’s grip on her arm felt like it happened too fast and it was too tight and it hurt more than it should have. Lem tried to tug her arm out of it, but only succeeded in pulling like a feeble kitten while tears streaked down her cheeks. “No, Vex, I can’t,” she said, the distress making her feel even more useless and weak.
This was taking too long, she wasn't grasping the weight of the situation, she was too tired to understand and Vex felt himself get more frantic and stressed. It was almost morning, their neighbors would be awake soon, the world would be awake and it might be too late to run by then. Nic might already know that Vex knew, they were after all both involved in something so much bigger than them, whatever was on Nic's side might have warned him too. "I'm not leaving you here," he said sharply and he'd never before realized just how handy it was how small Lem was. She was easy to pick up, weighed next to nothing on his shoulder and holding her there only required one arm so he could still grab some other stuff too. So that was what he did. He didn't like that she was crying or that she seemed afraid, but she would understand after she had some rest, she could sleep in the car or at the motel, like he'd told her.
Being picked up didn’t feel good with the lowkey body aches she was having, but not being listened to felt even worse. Vex was bodily forcing her to do something she didn’t want to, and Lem didn’t have the strength to fight it. Of all the feelings she’d ever felt, she hated that feeling the most. Reacting to that feeling was what had gotten her arrested. Lem had no fire in her now though, no fight. She couldn’t even cling to Vex very hard to fight against the sense that she was going to fall. All she could do was keep leaking tears and try to breathe with his bony shoulder shoved against her stomach. Lem might have been more on the same page of this sudden paranoia if she wasn’t so physically drained and miserable, but as it was she just longed for whatever was happening to be over.
"It's gonna be okay," Vex told her as he carried her downstairs, and at the very least he was careful not to jostle her too much or bump her into things. He'd settle her down in the car and come back for her shoes. It should be fine if he ran, he decided. She'd be safe in the car for a few minutes. "I've got you and I won't let anything happen to you." He opened the front door, wincing at the cold air. She wasn't dressed for this weather, he'd have to tuck her in once he had her in the car so he grabbed an old coat from the foyeur, bundling it against his chest as he rushed outside and toward the car.
The cold air on her exposed skin hurt in a feverish way, but it woke her up a little more. Lem pushed against Vex’s back to lift her head as much as she could. She’d been so sure for so long that she would follow him anywhere, ride or die no matter what, but Lem did not want to go this time. She couldn’t believe that what he was saying was true, he was just ... confused. Something wasn’t right, and it hadn’t been right for a while. Lem waited until they were close to the car and Vex had taken her off his shoulder so she could get a deeper breath, then she screamed as loud as she could. It came out thin and reedy, but there was at least some volume behind it. “No! Nic! Help!” Her cheeks streaked with tears, she pushed at Vex’s arms and hoped it was enough.
Her scream pierced his heart and Vex felt a surge of panic and confusion. "No, no, no, Lem, no it's okay," he said hurriedly. "Why are you screaming, please stop." He almost covered her mouth on some instinct to keep her quiet but even in his current manic state he realized that was over the top. He'd only carried her because she was so tired and reluctant to move, screaming was a completely different ballgame. "You'll be warm in the car, c'mon," he pleaded, concerned now that she was on her bare feet in the snow. None of this was going the way he wanted it to, she was supposed to follow without question, like she always did because she understood him.
Nic had been restless since Jules reached out to them, unable to really sleep under the current circumstances. Until now it felt like they’d had time to figure things out, to observe those that had been injured in the fog without drawing too much attention to themselves. That time had passed. Something made those injured see them as a threat and Nic wondered if it was the same something that had attacked them in their dreams. There were forces at work that he didn’t understand, sending cryptic messages that he couldn’t decode as quickly as he needed to. And now he’d run out of time. Of all the people he had to worry about, Vex was at the top of his list, because with Vex came Lem. He knew something was going to happen and was dreading it, but he didn’t expect it before dawn.
If he’d been asleep, Nic might have missed Lem calling out for him. Luckily, he was standing barefoot in the kitchen, making a pot of coffee. He stopped what he was doing and rushed to the front door, then ran out into the snow when he saw Vex carrying Lem towards the car. “What’re you doing? What’s going on? Is Lem okay?” She didn’t look okay. Not at all. Lem didn’t cry over nothing. And she’d been tired a lot lately. He’d thought maybe she had a cold or something, but seeing Vex carrying her was alarming.
The shock from the cold snow on her feet almost made Lem’s knees buckle, but she managed to stay upright. Not that she was steady -- she was holding onto Vex for balance even as she was looking past him. Nic was coming. He’d heard her and he would straighten this out and it would be okay and she could go back to bed. She’d never wanted anything in her life so viscerally. Every cell was screaming for rest, and she just kept having to exert energy. Lem reached out one hand toward Nic, even though her arm weighed a thousand pounds, her expression desperate. “Nic, I can’t go, don’t make me,” she implored, her voice raw.
The change in Vex's mood when he realized Nic was coming out nearly gave him a whiplash, from fretting about Lem and trying to talk her down to going into a defensive rage. He held up his own arm but in a completely different gesture, warning him off, keeping him at bay. "You stay the fuck away from us," he snarled. "Judas, Brutus, Quisling. Worming your way in, earning our trust, only to turn around and shove a knife in my back." He was half covering Lem now and while he didn't pull out his gun, he felt its comforting weight on his hip, ready to pull it if Nic got too close. "I see you clearly, Nic Castell," he tacked on, narrowing his eyes at the witch.
Even with Jules’s warning, Nic wasn’t prepared for the way Vex reacted to him, like some kind of villain hellbent on harming him and Lem. He froze in his tracks, eyes wide, but did his best to maintain his calm despite the rising need to panic. He was freezing, wearing far too little to be out in the snow, and if he was cold then Lem had to be mildly hypothermic. “I’m not gonna hurt you,” he said, both hands up to show he was unarmed, though it was more a gesture of goodwill. If he wanted to hurt Vex, he didn’t need a weapon. His hands could be empty. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?” he asked Lem, hoping she could give him a more sane response. “Where is he taking you?”
Lem was still reaching around Vex, though her arm fell a little lower as he positioned himself between her and Nic even further. He was skinny, yeah, but she was tiny and felt completely drained and defeated. There were still hot tears streaming down her cheeks, though they were turning cold halfway down now. Everything ached, and the pounding in her head increased as she shook it in answer to one of those -- no, she wasn’t okay. “I can’t go,” she repeated, hoarse and meek, her eyes begging him to understand. They ticked up to the man she’d trusted for so long now. “Please, Vex, it’s okay, I want to stay. Nic’s ... okay, please ...” The words weren’t coming out very well, Lem’s brain struggling just to keep the rest of her going. She felt like a tiny helpless child and she hated it, but somebody had to help her and put a stop to this.
Nic's declaration infuriated Vex even more because to him it was a blatant lie. Not going to hurt you, yes he was, he was out to get him, Nic and his little friends. Vex was torn between them, not wanting to take his eyes off Nic even if he wouldn't have the first clue how to - or if he even could - dodge magic. "You are so full of shit," he said, voice verging on yelling. "I know all about the four of you, plotting away, planning something big. You want me dead? After everything? I've faced scarier things than you, Nic and I'm not afraid to die but you leave Lem out of it, you two-faced piece of shit!" She should be in the car already but she didn't understand, her denial was so strong. Vex wished she would get the same clarity as he did, he'd never felt so out of sync with her before.
That he knew about the four of them was alarming, though everything else beyond that he had wrong and Nic shook his head, physically disagreeing with every word until Vex gave him a chance to speak. “I don’t want you dead,” Nic said, his voice rising. “I want to help you! Something’s wrong, Vex, can’t you see that? You’re all wound up over nothing and Lem-- She’s sick. She needs help. Please, let’s go inside and we can talk about this.” Nic inched closer, Lem’s condition fueling his panic. He knew she’d been tired, but this seemed extreme, like she was weak beyond what he’d expect from a cold or even the flu. She needed a doctor or at least some kind of magical remedy. And if this had anything to do with Vex, if he was the reason she was as weak as she was, then this was the last place she should be. It felt like a betrayal to even think it, but once it was in his mind he couldn’t let it go.
"You can't argue with what's in here," Vex snapped at him, tapping a finger against his own temple meaningfully. "I know, Nic. I know all about you and the others... Stay the fuck back!" The last he shouted because Nic was getting closer and that was the last thing he needed. He also knew Nic didn't need to get close to hurt him but maybe he didn't want him dead, maybe he just wanted him incapacitated so he could do something sinister, something worse. Vex ignored Lem's weak pawing at his back and if Nic wasn't there he'd have her in the car already, warming her up. Nic was making it all worse. He got his gun out, pressing back against Lem to create more space between them. Was Nic's magic faster than a bullet, he wondered, ignoring the trigger safety of keeping his finger off the trigger because with a witch it was probably a matter of split seconds. "Jules Cooper, Carson Durand, Neil Wainscott and you. I know, Nic. I just don't know how long it's been going on, if you were in on it from the moment we met or if you were recruited. That doesn't matter. I'm getting Lem away from you." That part was trickier because she didn't want to go and Vex couldn't understand it. Was it because she was sick? Had Nic already done something to her mind? It was tempting to shoot him right then, the thought of him hurting Lem more than he could bear.
“Of course you know! I told you, remember?” Nic said, his volume rising to match Vex’s. “We’ve been having dreams for months. Weird, fucked up dreams. But we’re not planning anything.” Not yet, at least. They didn’t know what to plan, though they knew something was coming. Nic just hadn’t wanted to believe that the something they should fear included Vex, but when Vex pulled out a gun the whole game changed. He froze, perfectly still, though his heart was pounding in his chest as his mind moved at lightning speed. Was it possible to freeze a gun to keep it from firing? He couldn’t risk trying and have it fail. He could make ice spike from it, but that would most likely hurt Vex and only fuel the belief that he was out to get him. Every out he could think of required possible injury, so he stood as still as possible, trying to appear non-threatening. “I don’t want to hurt you,” he said softly. “I don’t want to hurt Lem, either. Look at her, Vex. She’s sick. Something’s wrong. Please.”
They were yelling, and it was so loud and so tiring. Lem squeezed her eyes shut, numbness spreading through her. There was the cold kind from her extremities, but mostly it was inside. It was all just too much. She couldn’t cry anymore, she didn’t have the strength. Things got quieter and that was nice, but Vex having a gun out was Bad, and Lem tried to tug at his arm. “Vex, no,” she mumbled. “I want Nic ...” Her dark lashes fluttered and she wobbled on her feet, unable to keep from leaning against him. She’d spent the little energy she’d had left, and now there wasn’t much she could do but try to stay conscious. She’d lost feeling in her feet and ankles already, so when one slipped out from under her, she didn’t know it was about to go until her knee buckled. Lem couldn’t stop herself from slumping down around the back of Vex’s legs, another soft and toneless ‘no’ coming out of her.
Vex's mind was full of noise now, too many thoughts, variations, equations, possibilities, all crammed in there and loudly arguing on what to do next. He ignored the one that said shoot Nic because despite everything, that wasn't what he wanted to do. That would have been plan one from the start if that was the case. The loudest voice was worrying about Lem because she was now kneeling in the snow and he was keenly aware of her bare feet and how fucking cold it was out. Her words broke his heart. He'd always suspected the day might come where she'd move on, she was so much younger than he was and shouldn't be stuck at his side forever, but maybe he hoped that wouldn't actually happen. He certainly hadn't expected it to happen like this, with a traitor who wanted to hurt him. He glared at Nic as he dropped the pillowcase with her clothes in it and reached around to run his fingers through her hair instead.
"She'd be in the car already if you hadn't come out," he said, making sure Nic knew that part was his fault and not Vex's. But what was he going to do? Somehow pick Lem up and drag her to the car against her will? He'd be vulnerable to an attack and Lem had already said she wanted Nic instead so she'd probably just run away when she regained her strength. It made him want to shoot the gun, not necessarily at Nic but at anything, just to let off steam. Instead he pulled away from Lem, walked backwards toward the car. "You hurt her, I'll come back and slaughter you, you hear me?" he said through clenched teeth. It went against every instinct he had but the alternative wasn't really an option right now. He could come back for her when her mind was clear again. She could call him. She was just sick right now he reminded himself though her choice felt like a betrayal of the worst sort. She was just sick.
The only thing stopping Nic from running to Lem was the gun Vex held on him and when she crumpled into the snow even that wasn’t enough. If Vex shot him, so be it, he couldn’t just leave her there, so it was a good thing Vex had decided to leave without her. Nic knew how upset she was going to be, it had never been his intention to separate them, but he couldn’t stand by and do nothing when she was in pain. “I’m not the one dropping her in the snow,” he growled, but it was mostly to himself, aware that provoking Vex wasn’t in anyone’s best interest at this point. He scooped Lem up into his arms and held her against him, stopping only to grab the pillow case of clothes before heading back to the house with her as quickly as he could. He didn’t like turning his back to Vex, but getting Lem inside mattered more than anything else.
Lem didn’t have much strength to hold onto Nic, but she still tried as he picked her up. Her tears had stopped, even though her freezing cheeks were still wet. She just didn’t have the energy anymore. She turned her head to look at Vex and the van, wanting to reach for him too. All of her emotions felt dim, but she wanted all of them to be together and okay. Her brain still couldn’t wrap her head around what had gone so wrong so fast. Lem didn’t want Vex to leave, but if he had to, she couldn’t go with him. After a few seconds it was too much effort to keep looking, and she let her head fall against Nic’s shoulder and her eyes closed. She would be warm again soon, and Nic would let her sleep, and those things were a relief.
Nic's back would have made for such a good target if not for the precious cargo in his arms. Vex still aimed his gun at him as he walked away. He wasn't wearing his glasses yet so he couldn't fully read Lem's expression when she looked at him but his mind supplied him with a few possible expressions, none of them good. Was she desperate for him to actually take her away and trying to convey that with her eyes? Despite her words, she might be under a spell. Was she disgusted by him? Was there hate in her dark eyes before she closed them? Vex felt like screaming and he couldn't stop imagining driving the van into a brick wall somewhere on purpose. He lowered the gun but didn't get in the car until Nic was already entering the house. Was he damning Lem to hell in a witch's cottage? He'd be back for her, he decided. He'd call her and make sure she was okay.