Lem Collier (littlelem) wrote in shadows_rpg, @ 2022-03-04 21:14:00 |
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Entry tags: | #june 2018, lem, lem x vex, vex |
Who: Vex and Lem
When: Sunday afternoon, 6/24
Where: carnival!
Status: complete
When Lem had seen the ferris wheel earlier that day while she was out doing errands, she’d screamed. It had been a scream full of delight, and she’d rushed back home to pounce on Vex and demand to know if he’d seen the carnival that had rolled into town. Lem had no idea how long they’d been there, she so often didn’t pay enough attention to notice things. But the point was, she knew now, and now Vex knew, and that of course meant they had to go check it out!
Lem was practically bouncing with excitement in the passenger seat of the van as Vex took them toward the marina. “Do you think they’ll have animals?” she asked. Her hands dipped into the front pocket of her hoodie, where Izzy the Lizard was curled into a little skeletal ball. Lem had a little leash around her neck and it was tied to her belt-loop just in case Izzy fell out of her pocket. She probably shouldn’t have brought the bone-pet along, but they were almost inseparable these days, and Lem would take good care of her. “I know they live a shitty life in circuses, but I like, haven’t seen an elephant in so long.”
"I don't know," Vex drawled, already worried that getting a parking space might suck, it looked busy out there and with a carnival in town it was bound to be worse than it usually was at the marina. "But I bet it's haunted though," he added, though he didn't sound at all bothered by the thought. If anything he was excited by it, maybe because a haunted carnival sounded so far away from the normal horrors he was so used to by now, it was like a vacation horror. "Cursed or something. There's gonna be clowns. We're going on all the rides. Even the boring ones, right, Lem? Maybe they'll let us ride an elephant." He might not sound very excited, but he was, his leg bouncing and his mouth itching to suck on something, a lollipop or a cigarette - hopefully they had some good snacks.
“Oh yeah, it’s for sure haunted,” Lem agreed with no hesitation. Everything in this town was weird on some level, but they themselves were weird on lots of levels, so who cared? This was their home now, they belonged here. “And duh, of course, even the boring ones. Gotta try everything, that’s the whole point.” She wanted to ride every ride, sample every snack, play every rigged game for a twenty-year-old stuffed animal. Maybe even the prizes would be cursed! It was sort of a freeing feeling, not worrying about stuff like that. Point Pleasant had already done the worst thing to her it could possibly do -- as long as Vex or Nic didn’t disappear again, she wasn’t scared. Lem bounced a little herself as Vex turned into the parking lot and started hunting for a spot. “Wow, there’s a lot of people here,” she commented, peering around at all the cars.
Spending months in a literal hell had humbled Vex and taken away some of his bravado but only for a little while. It was all coming back now that he'd spent some time on this side with his pack of incredibly powerful people, witnessing magic and feeling his abilities ramp up. He didn't quite feel untouchable but he'd survived hell and befriended an actual werewolf, there wasn't much that really scared him anymore. Reality was also a slippery thing, a carnival didn't feel real, the haunting there was like a fun house, it'd go away when the carnival did, he was sure. "Too many people," he agreed and their monster of a van wasn't exactly the easiest thing to park in crowded places but there was a nice big parking space for the handicapped available and hell, he'd take the ticket rather than drive around all night. The thought of someone trying to tow their van was kind of funny too and with the carnival in town, was anyone willing to work? He didn't think so. "We should get a motorbike before we come back." he huffed as he turned off the engine. "Or a cab. I guess that'd make more sense." But the cabs were probably busy as hell so a bike made just as much sense really! "I'll try everything with you today," he promised. "Every single thing."
Lem hardly even noticed that they parked where they weren’t supposed to, too eager to hop out and get the carnival party started. “Oh man, a motorbike would be dope!” she declared, undoing her seatbelt and reaching to pop the door open. Carnival or no carnival, having a less clunky way to scoot around would be awesome, especially during the summer when the weather was nice. “You damn well better!” Lem flashed him a bright grin before she exited the van. One hand in her hoodie pocket to keep Izzy secure, Lem bounced over to hook arms with Vex once he was out too, hurrying them along toward the carnival entrance. “I wanna do the ferris wheel but only after we’re drunk, and that big spinny one and bumper cars and oooh, do you think they’ve got like a fun house kind of thing?” They were going to do all of it, Vex had just said so, but Lem was excited and she tended to run off at the mouth when she was fired up.
"If it's a carnival worth a damn, they'll have funny mirrors and a little horror house," Vex said with a grin as they rushed toward the entrance. He didn't remember this carnival ever being in town before and it looked old as shit. Was that weird? His radar-of-weird was kind of wonky so it was hard to say and either way he didn't really care. "I really like the aesthetic," he pointed out as they got closer. "Maybe we're time traveling. Maybe the carnival is time traveling." He liked both ideas and wondered if he could push a vision forward inside a hall of mirrors. That'd be trippy! "Hey you! You got a little mirror room?" he shouted out to a pale looking carnie and the man only pointed so he assumed that was a yes. "Where do you wanna start, firecracker?" he asked, not really noticing how strangely dull everyone working there seemed, that was how most 'normal' people looked to him anyway.
“A fast ride!” Lem declared as they reached the ticket booth line. Thankfully it moved quickly, and Lem didn’t pay a single bit of attention to the flat stare of the man behind the counter who sold the tickets to Vex. She liked the aesthetic too, all of that vintage stuff that looked like it belonged in a movie. She got more excited as they walked through the entrance, wide eyes moving everywhere, trying to drink in everything while she grinned like a loon. It wasn’t the biggest carnival in the world, probably, but Point Pleasant wasn’t the biggest town in the world either. It was more Here than any other carnival, so she was going to enjoy it. Lem grabbed Vex’s hand and started pulling him toward where she could see the ride that spun you around in super fast circles. Lem wanted to get her adrenaline going as soon as possible.
Vex could already hear the screaming coming from that particular ride so that was promising and he let Lem drag him toward it, grinning faintly. "You're not gonna puke, are you?" he teased though he suspected Lem had a stronger stomach than he did. She was younger and tough as nails so she might have him at a disadvantage. Thankfully Vex liked things that went fast but it had been a while since he went on an actual carnival ride. Leave it to Lem to make him feel young again. The line wasn't too long so they only had to wait for the current ride to end and for that he was grateful, waiting in line was not a fun carnival activity and he knew that for bigger places like this they might have to wait for ages.
Lem just snorted and rolled her eyes playfully at that question. She did have a strong stomach for things like this, and she hadn’t eaten a bunch that day anyway, so there wasn’t much to puke up. During their brief wait, she stroked the bony lizard in her front pocket. “Hang on tight,” she murmured down to Izzy, and felt the little bone claws dig into her hoodie. Lem was glad she’d thought ahead and tied her down. Practically vibrating with eager energy, she climbed into the ride with Vex when it was their turn, finding a good spot to settle in and ride. Lem grinned brightly at him and bounced on her toes before it all started, then gave a happy little squeal when the ride began to move. After that it was a matter of holding on tight and screaming with delight as the G forces pushed against her body and all of her insides clenched up in such a fun way.
Vex felt awful and amazing all at once. It was almost like an out of body experience, but it also made him feel so connected to his body in a grounding kind of way. He didn't scream, but he laughed and groaned a little and enjoyed watching the other people on the ride squealing and curling up as they spun faster and faster. He didn't know any of them but for a few seconds he could have sworn one of them was his aunt Sarah, calmer than the rest of them as she clung to her safety harness and smirked over at him. It didn't really faze him, he wasn't wearing his glasses so everyone was a little blurry, but for those few seconds he couldn't help but think an old lady like that shouldn't be on such a crazy ride but she seemed to be smiling - and then he remembered she was dead. That didn't really faze him either, if anything he was sure she was on this ride with him, taking advantage of these few minutes of pure chaos to let him know she was okay. So he just smiled back at her before glancing over at Lem to see if she could see Sarah too. When he looked back it was someone else; a young woman whose screeches of terror might have been a concern if not for the laughter between them.
Lem was unaware that Vex saw anyone but the people already on the ride with them, all the crazy sensations in her body demanding more of her attention than their psychic connection. Her eyes were squeezed shut as she shrieked with joy too, so she missed Vex’s glance. Lem wouldn’t have been able to focus on anything else anyway, she was having so much dizzy fun -- it was so rare to be in a circumstance where she could scream as much as she wanted and it was totally okay. At some point she had to let go of the grip bars to slip one hand into her hoodie to make sure Izzy was still there, relieved that the little bone lizard was still clinging securely and hadn’t gone flying. Too soon, the ride began to slow down and finally came to a stop, and Lem laughed breathlessly as she took a reeling step forward and had to grab for Vex to stay upright. “Ohmygod, we’re doing this one again!” she declared. “Later, I mean, but yeah!”
Vex thought he could spend an hour on a ride like this one and he very nearly suggested they go straight back in line for another go - but there were other things at the carnival he wanted to try and maybe something else was even more fun. "Definitely coming back for this one," he agreed and braced himself to hold them both upright, slinging his arm around Lem's shoulder protectively. He wanted to find all the little cracks in this carnival, its ghosts and ghouls, its secrets and, yes, its elephants. For Lem. "What's next?" he murmured as he looked around. "Funhouse? Maze of Mirrors?" He had no doubt they'd try everything, he just didn't know what order he wanted to do them in. All at once preferably!
Lem wished they could just glut themselves with fun and do everything at once too. She wanted to hit up every ride and game and then do it all a hundred more times, until she was just sick of it all ... which she already knew would take a while. She also already knew that she would be dragging Nic here to also have fun at the first opportunity. “Ummmm,” Lem said as they exited the ride and looked around. She spotted something and gasped, gripping Vex’s hand tight. “Bumper cars!” she cried, pulling him off in that direction. She did want to do the Ferris wheel and the funhouses and everything, but her adrenaline was pumping now, and she wanted to keep that feeling going with action, as much as possible.
"Bumper cars!" Vex echoed in a roaring yell of a declaration and he felt very lucky that despite his age, he could match her energy levels as they all but ran to the next line. That one was thankfully a short one and before long they were racing around, crashing into each other and perfect strangers. Bumper cars were such perfect chaos, it was one of the few places in civilized society where terrorizing people - even kids - and violently smashing into them wasn't frowned up. Hell no, it was fun and they stayed there for a while, flailing around in the tiny toy cars. "I wanna see the mirror place," Vex told her when they'd stopped briefly for some drinks and some overpriced candy. "I want to try a vision in there, it'll be wild." Most people would probably think it'd be confusing and awful but Vex had a hankering for those sorts of things and if he was being honest, he kind of hoped he'd see something more interesting than just some random person lounging around in their home.
Lem had a blast in her bumper car, shrieking with laughter at almost every impact, and chasing one kid in particular around the rink. It was all in good fun, and she felt happily jostled and lightly bruised when their time was up. It was a good time for refreshments, and Lem nodded eagerly to Vex’s suggestion. “That would be so cool,” she agreed, fully in support of trying anything anywhere that had potential to be mind-bendy. Would Vex’s visions have a reflection she could see? Would there be anything else weird to see while they were in there? She was game to find out! Lem emptied her candy bag into her mouth to quickly chew while they walked toward the mirror house, and finished off her soda.
It was pretty neat to be able to summon up a vision whenever he wanted to now, though Vex could only hope he'd still get unplanned ones when something very important happened. He sure as hell didn't know when to look and he hadn't mastered where to look yet. He had the same thoughts as Lem, wondering about reflections and how such a distorted space might impact what he saw. On some level he kind of hoped it might enhance the vision, that he'd catch something else in the mirrors that he wouldn't otherwise. There was so much superstition surrounding mirrors and Vex had always been fascinated by it all. Of course he could trust Lem to be enthusiastic about the same thing but he was still glad to hear she was game. He just hoped he would see something fun and not something boring or possibly upsetting but at least he could shut that down fast enough, a plus to his newfound control. A small group of kids ran past them with loud shrieks and Vex veered out of his path to avoid a crash, tittering softly as he tossed away his now empty drink container and headed inside. He loved places like this one, the atmosphere was already strange enough with the lighting and sounds, the mirrors just added to the sense of bizarreness and made something in his chest clutch together pleasantly. "So many Lems and Vexes," he drawled as they walked in the first hall. It wasn't often that he actually saw the two of them together and it made for a somewhat funny sight. She was so small compared to him, and yet they looked so right together.
Lem loved any place that was Weird, and mirror mazes were definitely weird. She tended to look at their reflections a lot whenever she was cutting or bleaching Vex’s hair, but he was never standing up when that happened, and they usually weren’t wearing as many clothes, so she got the same feeling of novelty to see them as they were right at that moment. She stopped in the mirror hallway and made some faces at herself, lifting her arms up to wave around and looking at the two of them stretching off into infinity on either side. Lem tittered and leaned in close to check her teeth. “I wonder if they can see us like we can see them,” she pondered idly as she straightened up again. She started doing some poses, her little body just full of hyped up energy.
Vex turned to face another mirror. He tilted his head to the side, then bent at the waist to follow the movement until he had gone as his lanky body would let him, staring at his reflection like he was seeing it for the first time. Were there millions and millions of Vex shaped people out there in the multiverse? At some point he might have yearned to meet at least one of them, to find someone who truly understood him. Now he had Lem so he didn't feel that keen sense of loneliness anymore. There were at least a hundred Vexes in here with them today, and hundreds of Lems to go with them. It tickled him. "They're probably asking themselves the exact same question," he speculated. "Maybe we're the reflection in their world." He turned again to grin at her in the mirror she was currently looking into, then another, then another. Oh he liked this place. "We should have a mirror room in the house."
“Yes!” Lem agreed emphatically, her eyes widening with glee at Vex’s reflection. Or was it Vex himself? The longer they were in there, the harder it was to tell. She made a few more fun body shapes and spun around, giggling, then grabbed for Vex’s hand. “C’mon, this is just the first hallway,” she pointed out, amused. “Don’t get stuck, there’s more Vexes to see!” This whole place was supposed to be a maze, after all, and so far they’d only gone about twenty feet into it, so Lem was eager to explore. As she pulled Vex out of the endless-Vex-and-Lem hallway and into the mirror maze itself, she tittered madly and stuck her free hand out to try not to run into anything. Lem’s head was on a constant swivel as she moved, looking at herself reflected from all different directions.
Vex had thought that a good strategy for this maze was to just walk wherever there wasn't another Vex but the mirrors were everywhere and it was hard to tell the distance between him and them so he ended up fumbling around too, laughing with Lem. He started changing his expression every now and then so that every Vex he ran into wasn't the same. Some looked angry, some surprised, some had their mouths open wide, others clamped shut in a thin line. Most of them were laughing though, it was hard to keep that back. He wasn't sure how far they'd made it when he thought he saw a shadow flicker speedily behind one of his reflections and paused, narrowing his eyes and looking around to try to get a glimpse of it behind him or in another mirror. It didn't really startle him, it wasn't unusual for things to appear out of the blue and this was a creepy little mirror maze and a strange little carnival.
The laughter was so good, both to hear and to project, and Lem wasn’t even sure if the distant laughs she could hear were echoes of them or other people having fun in the maze ahead of them. Behind them? Who could tell? Once she caught on to the faces Vex was making, she joined in, looking like a monstrous Lem in one mirror and then a goofy cross-eyed mess in the next. She didn’t see the shadow that Vex saw, but a split second afterward, she did think she caught a glimpse of a shadowy figure lurking around a corner, right before she walked into one of the mirror walls. “Fuck!” Lem said, giggling as she bounced off of it. “Ow.” Rubbing her forehead, she looked for the dark head and shoulders she’d thought she’d seen, but it was gone. “Did you see that?”
Vex tittered and rubbed her shoulder, as if he could make her feel better with a little physical touch. "I think there's something in here with us," he said and put his hand out to find a safe place to step, watching the reflections distort a little once he moved. He wasn't scared, more intrigued and feeling vindicated because he'd suspected there would be something off in this place and he loved being right. "Or they've put special effects in the mirrors," he added with a hint of disappointment at the thought alone. "Did you see a face? I only saw a shadow." It was early yet, he was sure that whether this was a trick or something real, they'd get to see some more before their journey was over.
Lem snagged a couple of fingers through one of Vex’s belt loops to hang onto him and stay close. “Yeah me too, just a shadow peeking around that corner,” she said, pointing. At least she thought that was the right corner, it was so hard to tell now. It didn’t surprise or scare her that there was something Else in there with them -- places like this had to attract spirits like magnets. Not just the mirror maze, but the whole carnival. It was like she could almost feel the spooky crackle in the air. “Do you think it’s in the mirrors?” she asked Vex, glancing up at him as he led the way. “Or in the maze with us?” Lem glanced over her shoulder, but there were just more Lems looking back at her. Cute, but not otherworldly.
Vex was quiet for a beat, looking around slowly as he tried to get a glimpse again but like so many spooky things, this particular one was only to be seen when it wanted to be seen. "I don't know," he finally said, drawing out the words a bit as if the not-knowing itself was a curious thing. It was hard to be afraid of a shadow in a carnival after the things he had seen on the other side; after being marked by a giant beast and flung across otherworldly borders. This carnival might take some lives but he doubted there would be a lot so he doubted it'd be them. Unless it planned on devouring the whole town, that was certainly a possibility. The only thing that should bother him about it was that Lem would get hurt but even that seemed so unlikely. "There could be hundreds of them, just like there are hundreds of us. Let's keep moving, it'll either follow or find someone else to spook."
“We are unspookable!” Lem declared to the mirror maze, like the monster might be listening. Maybe that was a dumb thing to say to mysterious entities, but she didn’t give a shit. Vex had seen much more than she had, but Lem still felt like she’d been with him in some way, and all the things she’d seen in their shared visions had left her feeling pretty fearless in general. She moved with Vex deeper into the maze, her gaze still moving all around. She thought she spotted a moving shadow again once or twice, but it seemed far away and not threatening, so Lem wasn’t too worried about it. Let it scare the normies. “Are you gonna try to vision while we’re in here?” she asked Vex instead.
Vex felt proud of her, she didn't say she wasn't afraid in that way most people did, where you could hear the fear underneath. Vex believed she was unspookable, the only times he'd seen her truly afraid was when someone else was in danger but she was like him, their own safety was oftentimes irrelevant. It was probably different for 'normies', especially people who had kids. Lem and Vex just had each other and their witches, if something dragged them to hell then that was just another venture. He stopped when she asked about the visions, looking around at the dimly lit room and all the fragments of Lems and Vexes around them. "Yes," he said, reaching for her hand and tangling their fingers together. He didn't need her physical touch for this, but it felt right.
He reached out, tried to think of a specific person because that was something he still hadn't mastered, the visions were still as erratic as ever. He chose Jane this time, he hadn't seen her in a vision since before they first met in person and she was the first to come to mind. It felt like trying to balance two different trays, focusing on a vision and focusing on a person and in the end he let go of Jane and only focused on that feeling he was growing so used to. The mirror maze around them shifted, becoming more brightly lit as shelves of groceries rippled into view. Shane was there just a few feet away, talking animatedly to a dark haired woman though Vex couldn't hear either of them. They reflected endlessly in the maze around them, sometimes seemingly colliding with Vex and Lem's own reflections, glitching through them like ghosts.
Lem held Vex’s hand firmly, but she kept her own eyes open, scanning all the mirrors around them for anything but their reflected selves. She wondered if Vex flexing his powers would draw in the mirror-shadows, or repel them, or nothing them. Her eyes watered a bit when the vision bloomed into life, there was just so much to see in combination with all the mirrors. She recognized Shane immediately though, and grinned brightly. Lem hadn’t talked to him much directly, but he’d seemed like fun. The lady he was chatting with was pretty, but Lem didn’t know her. She was just ridiculously proud of Vex for being able to do this at will now, and Lem bounced a little bit on her toes. “It’s in the mirrors too, so cool!” she declared, but quietly, so as not to interrupt his flow.
There was limited space in there to explore the area Shane was standing in and Vex could only see a fragment of the store he was standing in though it looked like a large area with all its reflections playing their optical illusion tricks. He guessed he was glad he didn't need to see more, it wasn't an interesting vision with potentially valuable information and he wasn't sure what he would have done if he felt like he was missing something important. This time it was just him, forcing himself to see a random person and not the universe sending him a message. If he hadn't summoned his gift, he might wonder if this stranger Shane was talking to was a potential foe or friend but it was just a glimpse into another place so he pushed those thoughts aside for now, though he wouldn't forget her face. He let the vision fade, blinking as he got used to the dim lights again, some annoying glare still dancing in his vision.
It had been a little while now since Vex had been back, but Lem was still delighted and impressed with his newfound control over his power. It was going to come in very handy for them someday, she already knew it. Lem squeezed his hand as the vision faded away, then brought it up to kiss and gently gnaw on one of his knuckles. “It’s just so cool, every time,” she told him, though she didn’t doubt that he already knew it. She blinked away her own afterimages and made a couple of silly faces at herself in the mirror, silently daring the shadow people to show up again. If they knew anything at all though, they should know not to bother the two of them. “Can we do the Ferris wheel next?” Lem asked, her hyperactive brain already moving on from the mirror maze they were still standing in. She wanted to be up high now! “Oh! Or the funhouse we saw? I think there’s a ball pit!”
"Both," Vex replied with a smirk and right now it seemed likely that whichever was closer would be their first pick. He didn't love heights but they didn't scare him today. He didn't think his destiny was to die crumpled up underneath a ferris wheel. "A vision up high could be trippy," he drawled, grabbing Lem by the shoulders and steering her forward before letting her take the lead and choose which way to go. That way he could look around to see if he caught a glimpse of that shadow again. He was curious about it just as he was curious about all the other dimension Vexes and Lems but half his attention was now on envisioning the ferris wheel ride. In his mind a vision would be so much clearer up there, as if they could ascend above the clouds and get a perfect white canvas to view it on.
Lem put her small hands out and started feeling their way through the rest of the maze. She giggled a bit as she touched her own fingers over and over. “You should try to vision on everything,” she said, thinking specifically of the big spinny ride. How disorienting would that be? She already knew she would be coming back to this carnival before it left town, so they would have all kinds of time to experiment all over the place. Point Pleasant was cool all on its own, but it was extra awesome to have something like this to explore and play around in, and the timing so soon after Vex returned felt serendipitous. This carnival was for them, and she couldn’t wait to see more of it.