Having Maze so close by was, well - convenient, let’s just put it that way. Like she’d recently told Alex, she hadn’t shared a bed with anyone since James and that relationship had ended quite a while ago. There was a degree of freedom she felt in Vallo now that they weren’t hard-pressed with problems caused by her brother’s narcissism and sociopathic tendencies, and what difference did it make on all their moods. Lena could relieve stress and try a few things out without the threat of judgment or scandal, and she certainly planned on taking advantage of that.
Take tonight, for example. It wasn’t her bed that she was in but Mazikeen’s - probably better that way to avoid a sudden visit from one or both of the Danvers sisters across the hall, and it meant she was free to leave whenever. Lena was succinct with boundaries. Sleeping over wasn’t necessary, neither were cuddles.
Talks were fine, though. She wasn’t opposed to being friends with people she slept with, if that was a route they wanted to take. Maze didn’t seem to despise her.
“Out of curiosity and in the pursuit to expand knowledge,” she started, the blankets strewn over her exceptionally not clothed body. Lena’s hair was mussed up, apple-red lipstick smeared off her lips an hour ago, and she’d have to hunt for her clothes in a bit but that could wait. She was currently comfortable resting on her stomach and toying with the ends of a pillowcase. “Is hell all fire and brimstone?”
Considering the woman she currently had relations with was a demon, how could she not have a few inquiries begging for answers?
"Hardly," Maze replied, arching an eyebrow as she turned toward Lena. She'd enjoyed the other woman's company previously, enough for an encore, and she wasn't opposed to keeping this arrangement going.
But she also wasn't going to hold back on her depiction of hell, either. "It's far more personalized, because humans send themselves there with their guilt that they can't forgive themselves of. So imagine you did something that you couldn't forget, you couldn't escape, that haunted you the rest of your life until the day you died. Then, for all eternity you're stuck in this loop that never changes, where you relive that memory again and again and the only way out is to let it go." There was a faint smirk on her face as she added, "Never happens."
Or if Sabrina showed up to free them, but Maze was decidedly not thinking about that.
The demon stretched, restlessly. "My job was finding ways to enhance that punishment, really. Make it more fun. For me, at least. There's room for the fire and brimstone, and all sorts of pure physical torture, but those people always got boring really fast."
She considered Lena for a moment. "Why? Planning a trip?"
Ah, so hell was mostly psychological. Made sense, she supposed. Lena had encountered plenty of odd beings throughout her life - some of her closest friends were aliens - but she had never met one quite like Maze. A literal demon from literal hell. There should probably be some conflict of ethics there for her but she didn’t plan to overthink it much.
“I hope not,” she answered with a light shrug, kicking her legs up into the air. Lena did have guilt, plenty of it, though the scientist in her never bought into the concept of an afterlife. It was difficult to deny the possibilities of it now that she was stranded on some endless island imbued with all sorts of magic new to her. “You’re not really what my mind conjures up when I think of a demon but I guess this is - what, a form to blend in with the rest of us mortals?”
Lena watched her, striking eyes narrowed as she studied her and the smile on her lips was a wry one. It was just a guess. Demons couldn’t usually be this attractive, could they?
That question elicited another look from the demon, and Maze pondered Lena before turning her head back to where she was staring at the ceiling. "It's almost my true form," she said, considering whether or not she was willing to reveal the truth of her face if asked.
"Why, what were you expecting?"
Lena clucked her tongue, tilting her head to the side. “Something a bit more terrifying,” she confessed. There was a sharpness to Maze that could be intimidating, yes, and she was devilishly attractive but she wasn’t some reflection of a hellish horror or anything. “Pointer teeth, horns maybe. Though now that I’ve said that out loud I must apologize for stereotyping.”
"Do you like being scared?" Maze asked, still searching Lena out. It would be terribly inconvenient to show off her true face, only to put the woman off. Not when they had a convenient arrangement that they both seemed to understand for what it was and nothing more.
Ah, so she was considering showing it. Lena understood that look and stopped toying with the pillow case, freeing a hand to tuck some of her own stray hair behind her ear. “Not particularly,” she responded with a chuckle. “But I have seen some terrifying things that haven’t made me run the opposite direction. I have the stomach for it, I can promise you that.”
That may have been true, but Maze shrugged, deciding against it. "I'll wait until you've pissed me off or something," she said, nonchalantly. This insecurity around people was one of the unfortunate byproducts of spending so much time amidst humanity. There had been a time where Maze wouldn't have thought twice about it, forming no attachments so not caring what anyone thought.
How things had changed.
It wasn’t in Lena to push. If Maze wasn’t up for it, then she wasn’t up for it. “I do try to actively avoid pissing off my friends,” she tsked, leaning over to playfully press a finger against her nose - a bop, if you will. Assuming that there was some kind of friendship between them was safe, though she was more than welcome to correct her on it. “But that’s fine. Do you - miss it? Living in hell and all.”
"Friends?" Maze asked, eyeing Lena suspiciously, between that and the weird nose touching thing that seemed unnecessary. She shrugged. "I live in hell here, this apartment is just so I don't have to worry about wards or putting people off."
Sure, it wasn't the same thing. "I don't know. Humans have started to grow on me after all these years. I blame Lucifer." A pause. "Why are you so inquisitive today?"
Perhaps the friends was a wrong word to use. Lena noted that look - didn’t hurt her feelings one bit. It wasn’t as if she agreed to this for the sake of friendship in the end, but if that had developed naturally throughout she wouldn’t be against it. “I’m a scientist,” she shrugged and languidly shifted to sit up. “We tend to ask a lot of questions when we want to know something.”
Leaning over, she reached to scrabble at the floor and picked up the first item of clothing at her reach - a bra. She worked on putting that back on. “You’re always welcome to tell me to shut up.”
"When I want you to shut up, I'll make you shut up," Maze said, a smirk spreading across her face. And then, for whatever reason, maybe it was the word friends, she decided to answer the other woman's early inquiry, her face transforming to its half demonic state.
"Look at me," she said, voice suddenly chilled and demanding.
They'd see about friends then. But if this scientist who promised she had the stomach for the image Mazikeen was now presenting could not live up to her words, it was better to find that out now rather than later.
So feisty. Lena smirked, right in the middle of working on her bra clasps until Maze’s demand broke through and - what. Her plans for the next minute involved gathering her clothes and getting dressed, not stare right into the actual face of a demon. She had let go of that notion.
And, yes, goosebumps did rise across her bare skin and her eyes did indeed go wide at the sight of her, but it wasn’t as if she screamed and fled the apartment due to terror. She didn’t lose her cool that easily even if Maze’s face looked half-rotted. “So,” she swallowed and squinted at her. “No horns?”
Maze let out a slight laugh and allowed her face to return to its more human form. "No horns. Sorry to disappoint."
She wasn't sure what to do now, so she just laid back down on the bed, staring at the ceiling. "You asked for it." The words came out slightly accusatory, as Maze refused to accept the fact that she felt rather vulnerable in the aftermath, second guessing that decision though she questioned why it would even bother her if Lena never spoke to her again. It wasn't as if she even knew her. "Anyway, you were leaving?"
These tiny, knotted bundles of fear dissolved as quickly as they formed. Lena had seen several kinds of faces throughout her years - the existence of aliens living on Earth, trying to acclimate to society helped diversify her expectations but none were as chilling as Maze’s. “I did,” she chuckled, mouth quirked into a smile. “It was - fascinating, in a slightly terrifying way, I’m not sugarcoating that. But I’m not scared of you.”
It felt important to make that distinction. If Maze wanted to cause her harm she’d have done it by now, and it wasn’t as if she showed much interest in anything else with Lena besides getting off. She continued on with her bra until the clasps met, then went on to work with the rest of her clothes. “I’m leaving, I’m leaving. Text me if you want to do this a third time?”
Maze raised a brow at that though she was still staring at the ceiling. She hadn't turned Lena off then. That was something. A win even, given the sense of unease Maze had felt since leaving the Forest of Torment.
"I'm looking forward to it," she replied. "Let me know if you ever want to make things more exciting." She didn't elaborate, leaving the possibilities open. As long as the future continued along the same terms, because anything more like friends opened up her to being more vulnerable.
And she'd had enough of that lately.
Lena laughed at that. “More exciting,” she echoed, slipping into her heels (she had gotten herself some nice ones since her arrival but, god, she missed the ones back home). “Sure. Let me know what your ideas are on what exciting is going to entail and I promise I’ll think about it.”
There was an elastic band on the nightstand she snatched up. It was what held her hair up before their, ah, rumble and tumble in the bed sheets - she intended to pull that messy hair back again. She thought about what to say next, something like thanks for showing me your face resting at the tip of her tongue but that’s where it also died. The last thing she wanted to do was have Maze feel weird about it.
Instead, she settled with a casual, “I’ll see you.” It was punctuated by a smug blow of a kiss before she let herself out.