Who: Bo and Vex What: Discussions Where: Scrapyard at Bobby's When: Midway through camp Rating: F for Fae :p Status: Complete
The camp bored the hell out of him. Oh he figured there was a point and all, fighting the big bad evils and whatnot, but he could just hold them with a mesmer and finish them off quick and easy. Voicing that to Bobby though had not gone down well and Vex had finished out the evenings lessons out in the scrapyard with a beer. He wasn’t good with authority, never had been. Him and Evony had always had....understandings. Sure she was the Morrigan and he generally had even respected that. But she’d never tried to make him do anything. She knew better than that what he was capable of.
And then there had been Hale. Vex still wasn’t sure about him, but choices had been made, sides had been chosen and Evony’d never seen it coming But there still had been respect for the power he had. Bloody humans he was forced to listen to here didn't’ get it at all.
He’d kept a beer for Bo too figuring the succubus would wander out eventually. Though if eventually didn’t happen soon he might well drink it. Her loss and all that.
It hadn’t taken Bo very long to follow Vex out to the scrapyard, but then again, she was a little more adaptable than the irascible mesmer. She’d had to learn to be adaptable very early on and, for someone who’d been born knowing he was fae and knowing the extent of his abilities, Bo really didn’t blame him for the attitude he was constantly throwing at just about anything that would stand still long enough for Vex to focus on it. That didn’t make him interacting with the humans around them any easier, of course, but she didn’t blame him for it.
It was going to take a little bit of adaptation on everyone’s part to get through this camp (not to mentioned through this apocalypse), but the unfortunate fact of the matter was that none of the parties involved seemed at all interested in playing nice long enough to get to the point where they agreed on anything. The humans wanted things their way, because it was the only way they knew. Vex… well, he was Vex, and if his name didn’t clue you into his personality, then you clearly weren’t paying attention.
Tracking the mesmer through the growing dark was no challenge for Bo and she stopped a good thirty feet from him when she found him, crossing her arms before her and leaning one hip against the shell of an old junker. “You know, I’m pretty certain I could get us something better than Pabst Blue Ribbon,” she said, grinning wryly.
“If you can get us whiskey, succubus, I might actually worship you. I mean not in any real way, I’d mock you less, which I feel should count. He found himself remembering what Kenzi had said about actually using her name and not just going with succubus all the time but he’d gotten sort of used to it. Bo might actually wonder if he wanted something.
Though he didn’t mind the Pabst. Okay it wasn’t the best. But nothing they had in the States had ever really grabbed his fancy the way the stuff back in London did. “Anyway till you can do that we’ll go with this crap. Need to be drunk, too many bloody humans trying to tell me how to live. And the wolf, did you notice there was a wolf. If he sheds on the rug I’m saying I told you so. ...Though what am I saying of course you noticed there was a wolf. Try not to jump into bed with this one, yeah?”
Vex didn’t have a whole lot of standards even by his own admission. But that was one of them. So between that and the humans telling him how to live his life, he wasn’t dealing hugely well with the whole camp thing. And it was still only day one.
“Honestly though, how do you put up with it, the grumpy one really doesn’t like me but I figure making him dance the cha cha might get me booted out and being able to hunt the stuff here might actually help me keep my sanity.”
Bo ignored the werewolf jibe. Thanks to a couple of visits to some of her new friends, she was fairly well-fed at the moment so she was more easily able to let the snips and snaps not bother her. The hunger always ratcheted her temper up a few hundred degrees, but she was being very careful not to let it get that bad. Especially not here. And if it got bad enough, she had options for feeding. None of them were ideal, but this wasn’t exactly an ideal situation to begin with.
She closed the distance between them, leaning against the car Vex was nearest before grabbing one of his beers. “Knowing that I could kill them all without thinking twice about it helps keep the old temper in check,” she said honestly, popping the top open. “The fact that I really do not want to do that goes a long way too, but it’s a fine line to walk.”
Bo took a drink, scrunching up her nose as the fizz hit it. “We don’t have to be here all that long, but you might want to think about being not quite so abrasive. The time will go by quicker if you’re not miserable.”
He sometimes really didn’t get why she was unaligned. It had to be hard for her, being what she was without the backing of the courts and succubi were hard to manage at the best of times. But then he’d spent that time with her and Kenzi when he’d been without his powers, when he’d basically been good as human. And he’d hated every single second of feeling powerless but part of him had relied on the weirdly co dependent twosome. Which meant that here, he’d look out for her.
“You’re feeding, you’re getting on with things, its impressive considering you were never properly trained or anything. But then you’re more used to this world than me, not this specific apocalypse bull, but the human world, how they are. Sad fact is, this is me trying not to be abrasive. I’m fairly sure this is nice as I get.”
He knew the idea was to play their game, learn what he needed to learn and get out. But she was right, he wasn’t very good at this whole ‘being nice’ thing unless there was something in it for him. And aside from some weak beers and taunting the wolf, he hadn’t figured out what that was yet.
“So go on then, how can I be nicer to the humans. I already promised only to mesmer them if they offend me.”
“Maybe try not mesmerizing them at all?” Bo suggested, the look on her face clearly pointing out that she felt that was the first, last, and best option. She took another drink and sighed, hopping up to sit on the heap she was leaning against. “It’s not easy to not use what you can against them. Things would be a lot easier in my life if I was able to make everyone around me do what I want them to do, but just because I can do it, it doesn’t mean I should.”
And that was the crux of it. So many fae, maybe even Vex included, were so used to feeling superior to humans and using their abilities against them, they had no idea what it was like to be that level of powerless and vulnerable. Bo, however, did. It wasn’t easy being a young woman, period, much less one driven to murder by a hunger she didn’t understand and couldn’t control. It gave her a unique perspective and that, more than anything, was what allowed her to exist on the fringes. She’d always been there, after all. She wasn’t human, she wasn’t Light Fae, and she wasn’t Dark Fae. She was just Bo and that was going to have to be enough.
“You can play nice when you put your mind to it,” she said, nudging him. “I’ve seen you do it.”
Had that been a compliment? He honestly wasn’t sure he knew what to do with one of those from her. But then maybe she had a point, he’d managed to live with them for a while with only one little attempted betrayal. Which he liked to think was some kind of record actually. And he hadn’t hated it, much as he’d grumbled. And complained, and made insinuations about the things she might have left behind on that couch. Bo and her human had grown on him.
“Yeah okay, but if I’m nice to them, then what? I’m not human, never will be, sure I was powerless for a while but I was never anything other than I am. I can play nice with humans, have to, given the line of work I’m in. But treating them like equals, the ones here, the ones that know I’m fae? Not sure I know how to do that and mean it? Course I could lie, or is that not gonna be enough for you and Kenzi.”
Why he cared about what the crazy little human thought of him he still wasn’t sure. But it had been her that had convinced him not to betray them. Had she done the same to Bo? Just gotten into her life and under her skin and stayed there?
“But whatever, alright, I’ll be all gentlemanly and whatnot. It’ll be a riot. Till then can we just get you drunk enough that you succubus someone out of their very old and very fancy whiskey then get drunk off your very fine tits with me for the rest of the night? I’ll start playing nice with the humans tomorrow. But so we’re clear, I make no such promises about the wolves, alright?”
“You don’t have to treat them like equals,” Bo said, chuckling slightly at the way capitulated. Of course he couldn’t just agree like a normal person. “Just try not to actively look down on them.”
The longer she knew him, the more Bo was convinced that Vex wasn’t a truly bad person. A little power drunk and selfish, definitely, and probably in need of a good lay, but not bad. The remark about the wolves confused her, though. “What is it about the werewolves that you don’t like?” she asked, pushing herself back further so her back could rest against the car’s windshield.
“They’re basically dogs. And dogs shouldn’t be allowed on the furniture.” he commented. Honestly he wasn’t sure when the dislike of werewolves had begun. It predated his dealings with Dyson anyway. But the cop didn’t help. Police, Light Fae, annoying. He ticked all the boxes. “You don’t worry he’d shed everywhere no?”
That said he’d been horribly bigoted about humans all of his life. Not in their world, in their world he followed their laws running his club, treated them like people. But he knew he was better than them like Bo had said. He still was better than them. But of course then there was Kenzi. Whatever that little human had done to wind herself into all their lives he wasn’t sure but she was there, to the point he lent her one of his most prized possessions before skipping town to find himself.
“Now really, enough deep and philosophical talk about why wolves are ridiculous. You have some whiskey to find us, succubus.”