"Hex." His dimpled, half-cocked smirk spread across his face. He snatched the bottle from the hood of the car. One may think it was insane to drink and drive, but unlike most, he was a better driver when he had a buzz going. Sober is when she should've worried.

There were a whole lot of things that should have concerned her and didn't. Such is the recklessness of youth. "Hex," echoing the name, Saila rolled it experimentally over her tongue, trying it out. A moment later there was a quick nod, a resurfacing of the hazardous grin. "Good name."

Fingers with thick, blank silver rings clinked softly as he gripped onto the lever of the door, tugging it open, and stepped closer to the opening of the driver's seat. One booted foot rested on the floor of the car, one arm rested on the roof of the hearse. He looked at her, "You look like the kind of girl that -regardless of your hair.... You hate being called 'Purple'." So what else you want me to call you?"

Easing mostly soundlessly around the front of the car to the passenger side, then, the girl met his gaze across the roof of the hearse, her free hand poised on the door handle without having manipulated it yet. His words brought a spill of laughter, a brightening to her unusual eyes. "See... I knew I was going to like you. It's Saila, but...most everybody ends up renaming me, so, y'know. Whatever moves you." Gesturing with the mostly-empty bottle, the girl tugs the door open with her other hand. "But no. Not Purple."

He offered her a coy smirk before sliding into his seat, nestling his bottle in a custom cup holder that would fit standard liquor bottles. "Need more booze...." He started, jutting his thumb behind the seat where there was a box of various liquor bottles, a bit of every kind. Hex was a man who liked variety, on more accounts than just booze.

He took one long finishing drag from his cigarette then pinched it between a middle finger and a thumb, flicking it out the window. "Well, if everyone keeps renaming you, then I'm going to call you Saila. I don't like doing the same **** as everyone else." He said with a bit of a sinister chuckle, his fingers grasped the key in the ignition, twisting to start up the engine.

When the car roared to life, well, it roared to life. It sounded more like a Camaro than a damn hearse. Violet underglow lights flicked on when the engine started, along with the inside of his car. The windows were tinted black so they couldn't be seen or dubbed illegal, which he didn't think they'd have to worry about in RhyDin, so he left the windows down.

Hanging on to the doorframe with one hand, Saila lowered herself into the passenger seat and hauled the door closed behind her. Long coltish limbs pulled up into the seat with her, the girl had a way of folding them that fell somewhere between yoga and origami, and she twisted her torso around in the chair to glance at the offerings in the backseat. "Oh good," she said with a flash of a grin. "So we don't have to stop anywhere, because this one's almost dead." With a mournful shake of the bottle in hand, Saila lifted it to her lips and killed it, because it seemed like the right thing to do.

"And Saila's perfect. M'losin' track of all my goddamn nicknames, anyway." The engine growled to life then, and she practically purred. "Mm. Yum." The lights were cool, too -- she'd get to them. But that roar had most of her attention right now.

"Running out of booze isn't something you gotta worry about around me. My stashes have stashes." He snickered. Oh no, he wasn't an alcoholic. Pfft. Yes, yes he was. His hand rested on the stick shift, an elegant devil's skull that was a lustrous ebony was where many would put an 8-ball, which Hex just found to be tacky. The skull would match the artwork on the side of the hearse.

He shifted into gear, only his hearse being an automatic instead of a manual. His foot hit the gas petal and the ride smoothly started, though he nearly gunned it down the street. Unlike many village idiots out there, he never did a burn out. Bad for the tires, that was a no no. And one way to frack up your engine real good. He snickered at the thought, and pressed one finger to a button that ejected an LCD touch screen stereo that ejected like a CD then flipped up.

Hex waved his hand to the screen. "Let's see what you got." He offered the screen to her, there were thousands upon thousands of artists, songs, of just about any genre imaginable in that harddrive. "See if you can impress me." He smirked, side glancing at her as he cut the wheel, turning a corner. Was he challenging her? He might've been.

A snicker slipping past her teeth, Saila shoved the empty bottle into the bag that hung mostly forgotten at her side. Like a lot of things in Rhydin, the bag didn't look like a full sized whiskey bottle would fit in it, and yet it did. Propping her right arm on the door ledge, fingers shoved at another escaped violet lock absently as the car picked up speed.

Cocking a brow at him when he gave her the musical reins, there was amusement written all over those pale features. "Trusting me with all the buttons, huh? That's ballsy." Rubbing her hand against the tattered denim along her thigh, she ran her fingers along the top and side edges of the touchscreen display first. Lifting her hand away with a little flare of her fingers, she went to work then, scrolling through the various load screens. "Disco, coming up," murmured the girl with a teasing glint to her expression.

What she actually pulled up turned out to be Tool. It was one of the older albums, Undertow. Letting it play from the top, mostly she was just pleased with herself for getting the damn thing to work and, y'know, not breaking anything.

A single brow raised over the aviators, leaning back against the seat. A slow grin spread across his fingers, revealing his dimples. "Not baaaad, Saila. Not bad. If you had played Britney Spears or the Backstreet Boys, I was going to throw you out of the moving car." He teased, or was he? Who knew with Hex.

He grabbed his smokes from the dash, tugging one from the pack with his teeth and lit it with his zippo, which displayed some art of a naked pin up girl. Surprise, surprise. Holding the cigarette between his lips, he leaned an elbow on the middle console, extending the pack to her. "Hm?" He offered, keeping his eyes on the winding road. He had no destination, only driving, picking the roads as they came. Who knew where they'd end up.

But you lie, cheat and steal... you lie, cheat and steal... Hm... seems the girl actually even knows the words, like maybe she picked the album because she liked it and not just in hopes of impressing the hot guy whose car she found herself currently riding shotgun. Singing under her breath, she settled back into the seat with an answering grin.

"...So you keep those choices on your stereo because you're not-so-secretly hoping you get to throw random girls out of moving vehicles, then?" Shot back at him in a light tone, amusement glittering in her strange eyes. Turning her body at a quarter angle in the seat so she could watch the driver as much or more than the road, Saila threw a quick glance out the windshield for ... all the good it did her. Somewhat notoriously directionally challenged, it had been said she could get lost crossing the street. Somehow, though, she always got where she wanted to go.

When the pack was offered, the muse contemplated it for a split second before she nodded with a shrug. Screw it, why not. That was kind of her mantra. Leaning forward then, she plucked a cigarette from the pack, rolling it thoughtfully between two fingers.

He tossed the pack into his lap afterwards, extending his zippo if she needed a lighter afterwards. His voice held a thick cover of sarcasm as he said, "Me? Oh, I would never do that." It was always hard for people to tell if Hex was joking or not. And either way, it wasn't hard for people to see him doing either. Not throw them out of the moving car? Doing so? Would he really care? Probably not.

His reputation with those he knew was not a good one, but his friends weren't here. So who knew what he would be up to in RhyDin? He could start anew, or his reputation could follow him. He could get a better reputation, or make himself a worse one. It was all left up to chance at this point. Though, his naturally spiteful nature and his aggressive mannerisms pointed towards bad reputation. Hex wasn't good for changing. What was the point? Out of the corner of his eye, which from her angle she could possibly catch between the space of his glasses and face, the small window of opportunity, his glance dancing over her tall frame, lingering on her legs before turning back to the road.

"Luckily, for you, you don't have to find out." He offered her a half-cocked grin before bringing his cigarette to his lips, his cheeks indenting slightly at the strong drag.

Fitting the cigarette between her lips when the zippo was extended, she claimed it from his hand, her fingers close lightly over his right along with it as the car swayed through a tight curve. Plucking it free, she took a moment to examine that naked pinup - a smirk stealing into one corner of her mouth at that- before flipping the lid back.

Dragging slowly to get it lit, Saila clicked the zippo closed once she was successful, looking back up at him just in time to catch that fleeting glimpse of at least one of the eyes behind the shades. Interesting. Turning the zippo over in one hand, she doesn't immediately move to give it back though she isn't trying to steal it. More just that she's running her thumb over the hinge.

"..Yet, you mean." Saila amended for him with an irreverent smirk, plucking the cigarette from her lips with the other hand as she exhaled. "...Guy who's that into the prospect of maybe throwing people out of moving cars probably has more than one test." Seemed spiteful and aggressive suited her fine.

If that was the case, then she'd love the next comment to fall out of his mouth just fine, too. "Aha. Regardless of the hair, you're not a ditz." He snickered, a sly smile as he kept his eyes on the road. Another drag was given to the cigarette at hand before he answered.

"Maybe, but I prefer pop quizzes. Can't have you thinking on it before I give you a test. Ruin the fun. I prefer spontaneous.... just about everything." And that was the truth, for good or bad. If it was spontaneous, it may catch him off guard. Which was getting harder and harder to do these days. People tend to become predictable, and once they become boring, they become irrelevant. Once irrelevant, they're tossed aside. Hex despised being bored.

"So. A girl who will jump into a hearse with a guy who probably looks like trouble without hesitation. Is she stupid or fearless? That's a better question."

I am not innocent, you are not innocent, no one is innocent... Mouthing the final lines of one song as she listened to her current chauffeur, there's a drumroll of slender fingers along the side of one thigh, a shifting of her shoulders as the next song kicks in. Tipping her head curiously, amusement has taken up permanent residence in her eyes, and there's a reflexive way her fingers curl against her leg.

"...Ditz," she echoed -- there's maybe a reason at least one person calls her Echo -- Saila shook her head. "No, pretty sure I'm not a ditz." Taking another drag off the cigarette, it's only her second but she smokes like a professional already, holding acrid smoke in her lungs while she answers his better question. "Some of both, probably. I'm told that all fearlessness is rooted in stupidity, which I guess makes me a dumb mother****."

So there's an answer? "My whole personal philosophy is '...**** it, why not,' so... you decide." Turning her face back towards the open window, she exhales, taking in the passing scenery for a moment. "Mm. Gonna need more booze if we've reached the interview stage, though," said suddenly with a smirk, she's lifting herself out of the seat to fill the space above the console, getting a better look at what all's available back there with the cancerstick caught between her teeth.

Aware that the car had slowed, the girl spent a little time trying to sort out where they were going. It didn't really matter to her--there wasn't anything in the radius of driving they'd done she hadn't already explored either on purpose or by accident, but still she wondered whether she'd recognize it. Ah, the lake.

In context, his comment made more sense, a slow smile crawling across her lips. "It is... not warm," observed as she took another healthy sip of bourbon, watching him peel his shirt off once the car was stopped. "But **** it. Why not." She caught his shirt in the chest, closing one hand around it with a short laugh.

Letting herself out of the passenger door, Saila untangled those long limbs, rising. Unshouldering the bag first, she set it and his shirt on the passenger seat. Hands lifting behind her head, she caught the hoodie by its hood, pulling it up and off her body. The long sleeved shirt followed suit, and this is where Saila might have had a surprise for him.

The pale skin underneath those layers was heavily -- heavily decorated. From hips to throat to the base of her thumbs, the girl with the purple hair was covered in a series of intricate, interlocking patterns, kaleidoscopic swirls of color that were lurid bright in the pale moonlight. Hardly a centimeter of milk white flesh was unmarked.

The other surprise, a hair anticlimactic in the face of all that artwork, was that her underwear was incongruously, unexpectedly neon in contrast to her unrelentingly black wardrobe. The bra, for instance, was a florid shade of green best suited to hi-lighters.

Pulling both garments free, she'd also managed to pull a couple of her clips loose, and ribbons of bright purple spilled down her back to her waist. Well, nothing for it then but to pull the rest of them free, shaking out a waterfall of loosely curling locks. Swiping the bourbon bottle last, Saila shoved the door closed with a deft twist of her hip and moved to follow him. "...Still ain't scared, Hex." Oh, look at that grin.

His gaze danced over her, taking in the patterned tattoos, the neon undergarments and to top it off, the violet hair. His grin spread slightly, curling at the corners at the sight. Not bad, Purple. It's hard to catch me off guard. But she had. He wasn't expecting the artwork she had hidden beneath that sweatshirt of hers.

Thanks to his own tattoos and it being nighttime, he doubted she would notice his lack of a bellybutton on his torso. The cigarette dangling between his lips were tapped with the movement of his lips, dropping ash on the ground. He pinched the cigarette between scissored fingers to take a swig from his bottle.

He turned around and started heading toward the water, the clicking of his belt being removed as he walked, tugging it through the belt loops before tossing it aside. He went for his pants next, wiggling his hips slightly to get them to slide to his feet before kicking them aside. Walking closer to the water in his boxers, he found a picnic table to set his booze onto, waiting for her there while he was finishing up his cigarette.

Though it was impossible to see the expression in his eyes for the sunglasses, there was something in the curve of his smile that brought an answering grin to her face. Apparently I'm not boring.

With fingers wrapped around her own whiskey bottle, Saila killed the distance between them. She hadn't stripped down any further by the time she reached the picnic table, but that didn't mean she wouldn't. Arriving, her strange gaze travelled not at all subtly over his body, appreciating the view, so to speak. Easy on the eyes, that one.

A smile lingering in the corners of her mouth, she set her bottle next to his and took a seat on the picnic table's bench, because removing the bottom half of her clothes required unlacing those knee-high boots first. "So," started conversationally, "...being from Hell and all, are you one of those types whose body temperature is like... crazy warm?" Because Saila wasn't.

"I've been called a furnace from time to time, but I wouldn't say that I was crazy warm." He snickered. Granted, with his higher than a human's temperature, he was thankful he didn't sweat. "High enough at least where Hell's temperature is comfortable." Though it could be his adaptability. Frankly, it was cold as **** to him outside, and he was sure the water was going to be even colder. But that wasn't going to stop him, he wasn't the kind to back down.

"...Good," she said with a grin, of his body heat. Saila's closest friends were a werewolf and a warlock respectively, both of whom ran considerably hotter than the average person. It could maybe be said that Saila was a heat-seeking creature at heart, like a snake but cuddlier.

Hex took a finishing drag from his cigarette, stubbing the filter out on the coffee table. He wasn't one for respecting furniture either, clearly.

Amber hues currently hidden by aviators glanced over at her boots. "You going to swim in those?" He was teasing her, though he couldn't reject the fact they looked good on her. The situation made them impractical regardless of how he enjoyed knee-high boots on women. Thigh-highs even better, especially heels.

Saila wore those a lot, too. And yeah, the boots were sexy but highly impractical, particularly for situations like these. Still, she'd gotten unlacing them down to a practiced science, and it wasn't all that long before she was wedging the toe of one against the heel of the other to pull her foot free. A foot adorned in a sock that was luridly pink with happy faced skeletons all over it. She had to use both hands to pull the second one loose, and that sock matched, which didn't always happen with her.

"Nah. I've tried swimming in them before, ruined 'em. Not doing that again." Peeling off her socks next, Saila cast her unusual eyes out over the lake. The first time she'd been swimming in this particular lake had been in late December. Surely it was warmer now? One could hope.

Standing, then, her fingers went to the waistband of her jeans. Unbuttoning them, she hooked her thumbs in the fabric and shucked them off with a deft twist of her hips. Kicking first one leg and then the other to step out of them, the jeans were cast aside on the picnic table. As could be expected, the panties that remained were also neon yellow, and there was a ouija board printed on the butt.

The artwork on her skin seemed to stop in an almost but not quite uniform line across her lower pelvis, ending about an inch above the pubic bone across the front, halfway down the tailbone on the back.

She snagged her liquor bottle and took a healthy swig, more defense against frostbite. "Ready to do this?" Her grin was half a challenge, both lazy and expectant.

He had expected more tattoos considering the amount on her torso, but her legs were empty of ink. Again, caught off guard. He wouldn't complain though, he relatively preferred the lower half on a woman. Legs and rears were his preference and where he tended to look first. Face was last, as that could be remedied with a pillow. He snickered at the thought, taking note that she had a cute face to boot.

His thoughts were quieted by her challenging words, a sly grin turning to a devious smile as he tilted his head back, swigging a good chunk of his scotch. Setting it back down, he ran his fingers through his already slicked back hair. "Here's to hoping I don't become a woman from this."

He gave here a joking, aha! face, mouth open and grinning before heading towards the water. He skipped dipping toes and testing the waters, heading down the dock that was close by and shaking his head as he looked down at the water.

"That would be most inconvenient." agreed the purple haired girl as she followed him down the dock. It was a good vantage point, honestly -- there were worse views in the world than a lake under the full moon, fires from the gypsy campsite off in the distance to the right, and Hex mostly undressed in front of her. With a catlike grin of amusement, the girl trailed after him.

You're an idiot, Hex. He took a deep breath, exhaling hard and rough before pressing his hands together in a divers pose and leaping forward into the water.

It was easier to be confident about it since she wasn't going first? That nonchalance would fade, some, when it was her turn to dive. Peering down at the water, Saila shifted her weight from one foot to the other, waiting for a clue of where he'd ended up before she followed him in.

Hex resurfaced a good fifteen feet away from the dock, and had somehow managed to keep his aviators on his face regardless of the dive. Once she'd located him, she squeezed her eyes shut tight and dove in after him with her breath held and her heart racing.

Did he have them ****' glued on his face? No, but he knew ways around taking them off. He had a valid reason for wearing them. His breathing was a bit ragged when he came up top. Okay, it was still a bit colder than he anticipated but he could manage. He almost felt bad for Saila, almost.

"Phew, that's one hell of a way to wake up." He lingered there, waiting for her to surface, before swimming toward the more shallow parts of the lake so he could at least stand. Made things a bit easier, and the shallower parts were a bit warmer. He wasn't going to wuss out, hell no. But he didn't want to shrivel to a raisin in the cold either, and he wouldn't talk **** about her doing the same.

If it weren't for the fact that she'd ended up in the ocean earlier this week, the lake would have been even worse than it was. Even so, it was not unlike diving into a bucket of ice. It shocked the breath out of her, stealing the air from her lungs and causing her heart to skyrocket. "...Holy ****", the girl exclaimed with a gasp when she surfaced, her breath uneven in her chest.

"...This... is decidedly not warm." Her heart threatening to leap out of her chest, Saila swam to meet him near the shallower end, still shoulder deep but at least able to stand. Except, remember the part about being heat seeking? Yeah. With zero hesitation, the girl closed the gap between them, her hands pressing flush to his chest.

"Oh you are warm. Good." If he let her, she'd probably end up wrapping herself around him. Because yeah. Not warm was an understatement.

"I found that one out the hard way." It might've slipped his mind that their winter may have ended not too long ago and it was just the beginning of spring. Oops. Sorry for not being sorry? Though probably unlikely.

He laughed at her exclamation, though he didn't disagree with it. Nor did he object when she nearly clung to him. Though the coldness of the lake had killed a good portion of his buzz. Man, he wished he had brought the bottle with him. But the fact he had a mostly naked woman pressed
against him held him there in the water. "Back at ya." If she stuck there for a while, he might be able to feel his **** again, which had possibly nearly sucked into his body.

Oh, she wasn't planning on unfastening herself. Both of her arms encircled the man's neck, and without even thinking about it (or maybe thinking about it a little), she'd wrapped long legs around his hips, too. Hey, despite her height the girl was a waif, she didn't weigh much, and a guy with that much muscle could surely handle it. And anyway the water transferred and displaced a lot of it to begin with. It kept the frostbite at bay, but wasn't entirely enough to keep her teeth from chattering.

Mismatched eyes glittering like ice and fire under the moonlight, Saila laughed suddenly, possibly because the implications of her current velcro cling had only just occurred to her. "...Uh. Hi?"

He knew what she meant, but he couldn't help but tease her. "I don't think it would be very professional of him to teach like this, unless of course you have the teacher/student fetish. Then maybe..."

He laughed, it was more of a rumbling cackle, both sinister and with just a touch of spite that rarely left his laughter, even if he wasn't being spiteful at all. The laughter was shortly cut off by the gentle touch and he couldn't help but think, better not get too attached, girly. Won't end well for you. I'm not the type to get attached to.

Distracted from her touch by her words, Hex wondered how they hell they were that similar. Something was off about her, she didn't necessarily feel human, but she didn't feel non-human at the same time. It was a strange energy that he wasn't accustomed to, nor had discovered. He didn't think about it until then, with their closeness. Instead, he shrugged it off for now.

When she tapped the bottom of his aviators, that's when he sighed. It usually came up with most women, and though he wasn't really irritated by answering, he just felt like a broken record at this point. "One of the traits that leans me towards incubus are the eyes. The color, the pull. What most think of the vampires, though sure, they can do it to an extent, is more incubi and succubi. We have a natural pull, but can mesmerize with our eyes."

Though he was serious, he let go of his arm around her back, bringing one hand out of the water to wiggle his fingers, raising his brows as he said, "Oooooo." As if he was some lame magician or just trying to mock his own words. "Sounds like something out of a ****in' pathetic romance novel for teenagers, but it's true, it's obnoxious and it's easy. Where's the challenge when I can just make eye contact and get a girl to jump in bed? So I keep these ****ers on at all times." He used that hand to tap the side of his glasses before slipping his arm back in the water and around her back. "I don't want that noise."

Saila snickered. "Even if I did, I'm not his type. Pretty sure he and his lover see me as the stray that followed them home?" Brows quirking in amusement. Her touch was largely experimental, and though she'd tapped the glasses she made no attempt to remove them, her hand sliding away as he began to explain. "I .. know a little something about having particularly powerful eyes," commented the girl whose eyes seemed completely alien to one another, and unlike any others she'd encountered.

When he did his magician thing, Saila laughed lightly, giving a little shake of her head. "And now I'm insanely curious whether these magic eyes of yours will work on me, but... " Trailing off, a glimmer of a smirk touched pale lips.

Saila was a whole lot of things, but shy wasn't one of them. She was considered bold, or brave, or to some people crazy, but the truth was the girl had zero inhibitions, didn't know what they were for or why she should have them. "Well," she shrugged, "to be honest I kinda felt like ****ing you anyway, so I don't know how much difference it'd make now?"

Though she didn't discern if she had the fetish or not, he couldn't help but snicker at her retort. "I've known plenty of strays, taken a few in, was one myself. Could possibly be considered one right now. I don't know, that's something you'd have to ask Kitra." He had noticed her eyes, and it wasn't often he knew someone with different colored eyes, much less as drastic of a difference as hers. "I see that... Suits you, though. Full of all kinds of surprises."

He smirked, a sly smile turned quickly into genuine, lacking spiteful, boisterous laughter at her bluntness. He was so used to subtle tricks, perhaps sometimes manipulation, and/or slutty flirting that her outright honesty completely caught him off guard. His laughter remaining deep and rough, rumbled through his chest to where nearly his entire torso shook. "Ah, ****ing hell, girl. I can respect that kind of honesty. Phew." He shook his head, his laughter cutting back to a low chuckle as he grinned at her.

"Though, if you're still considering it, we're going to have to get out of the water. One, water is horrible lube. Two, I may have to find my **** again. I think I may have lost it in this cold ****ing water." He teased her, clearly not afraid to make fun of himself.

"As for the glasses...." Though the smile remained on his face, he was quiet for a second, watching her. "It's easy to tell if it works or not. When people say they feel the sexual tension in a room, well. I can literally feel sexual tension. I can tell who wants to **** who and how badly by looking at them or being near them. It's an energy sort of thing, their aura. If I take off my glasses, you start acting like a mesmerized drone and it spikes, well, that's pretty easy to figure out." One of the few things that he was glad about, if he broke the eye contact, or put the glasses back on, they could snap out of it. Side effects varied.

Saila hadn't the first clue who Kitra might be, though an image swam to the surface of her mind when he said the name. It worked like that more often than not -- whatever he was thinking about right that second transferred first. "You're a stray, too? Oh good. More things we have in common." Her tone was light, though it was interesting how many parallels she'd uncovered so far.

And then he was laughing, and that made the purple haired girl smile. The way his chest vibrated rattled right on into hers, and that was a pleasant feeling that generally reinforced the direction of her thoughts anyway. "...Well, you did say you hate to be bored. At least I'm not boring?"

Her smile was an easy one, still. Where being met with that kind of laughter might have made some people insecure, Saila recognized it for what it seemed to be - genuine delight. Seemed like a thing this literal Hellion didn't get a lot of. "I'm down for getting out of the water. S'long as I don't actually have to move?" Her grin turned sly then, mismatched eyes watching him with interest. Mostly to see what he'd do.

"I'm not going to princess carry you, that's for damn sure. But I'm not liking the idea of taking your tits off me so I guess I'll meet you in the middle." He snickered at her, turning toward the shore as his slow footsteps edged them out of the water. Besides, he was in dire need of nicotine and alcohol at that point, his buzz nearly completely lost, maybe along with ****, in the cold ass water.

Saila's nose wrinkled. "...M'not a ****in' princess. Just ..kinda enjoying where I'm at and not interested in freezing to death on the way back?" There was a crooked grin, then. And he agreed to it, so much the better! Yay for warm.

"You...feel.. energy. Just sexual energy or all energy?" If his claim was true then, assuming that part of him wasn't frozen and/or hiding, too, he probably noticed that hers was gradually increasing. Finding common ground when you were used to thinking of yourself as an army of one could do that.

It seemed they had much more in common than he had anticipated. That he wasn't expecting. But so far, she had a way of doing that to him. Catching him off guard. Not something he was used to, and he wasn't sure if he liked it or not. Maybe it was spending too much time in Hell that it made him a little paranoid and set off a hundred red flags at once, but he shrugged them off. He considered this a vacation from Hell, her, and the **** involving everyone in Hell, so he wasn't going to waste it being paranoid of the people here.

He had waited a bit on answering her question, not eluding it on purpose, to more or less think on it. He usually focused so much on the sexual energy, he didn't think much about the others. He didn't answer her until he managed to get back to the picnic table, carrying her the entire time.

He didn't feel much of a difference in carrying her in the water than out of it. She still felt light as a feather, regardless. He held her up with one arm, hand reaching for the scotch bottle before bringing it to his lips for a swig. Finally, after swishing the liquor around his mouth and swallowing it, he answered. "No, actually. Though I tend to pick up better on negative energies. And I have a bit of a tick." He paused for a moment, another swig before offering the bottle to her.

"If a spiteful comment is made around me, I instinctively laugh. I guess you could say I'm picking up on it? I don't really know how to explain it." He offered a light shrug, but that was it. He would have to test it out and get back to her on the energy subject.

Carried, the girl kinda couldn't help grinning. It was a whole lot colder out of the water than in as the air prickled damp flesh into waves of goosebumps that had her cringing closer, more tightly against him. She shivered once, and was all too happy to claim the scotch bottle when it was offered. It was her second favorite booze, after bourbon.

Lifting it to her lips, Saila took a long swallow. Watching him, she made no particular move to get down, since he hadn't made a move to put her down. "That is really interesting." It was, too. Saila took another swallow before she continued. "...Earlier you said you would decide how much or little information you wanted. D'y'wanna know why I asked that?"

Hex pulled his hand from her thigh, long enough to grasp the bottle of scotch and take a long swig while looking her over. It was a pleasant view from where he sat, not complaining about her position on his lap. He polished off the bottle, considering there wasn't much left, and tossed it in the back. He leaned forward, stubbing out his cigarette in the ashtray.

Retracting his arm, but staying pressed against her in his leaned-up position, he looked downwards for a moment. His fingers found the metal bar that held the aviators behind his ears, and tugged them off his face. She had already said she wanted to try it before, and he was curious to see if they were going to work on her or not. He was hoping the latter, not that it would stop him any even if they did. He tossed them aside into the passenger seat, his face tilting back up to her.

His arms had found their way around her hips, and once his face had reached hers, nearly luminescent amber hues that held brighter flecks of yellow near the irises gazed up into her mismatched hues. "You said you wanted to see them, right?"

His tone was a bit more sultry than it had been the rest of the night. Deep, rumbling, a bit raspy and breathy. It was borderline growling the words, a hint of danger mixed with seduction that should've been illegal. The pads of his fingertips found her spine and danced along the ridges, teasingly so. His devious smile was just as dangerous as the various tones in his voice.

It took her all of ten seconds to figure out what he was up to, and when she did her own smile blossomed in anticipation. Catching the pale swell of her lower lip in her teeth, Saila waited, her curiosity piqued. She felt his arms first, her fingers spider-crawling over them to rest lightly on his shoulders. The sound of his voice was next, and it was like someone had turned the bass on him all the way up, the way it seemed to reverberate through her body all the way to her core.

With a subtle intake of breath, Saila locked her strange eyes on his. The magnetic pull he'd warned her about, the sudden total loss of thought, the hormonal spike that shot straight down her belly.. all of those things happened at once, hitting her like a freight train. "...god damn," the girl breathed. "I see what you mean."

But then a strange, unexpected thing happened. A phosphorescent glow lit up somewhere underneath her chin, racing down the length of her chest in a swirling zigzag that followed a particular path down the elaborate network of tattoos. It paused a split second here and there, lighting up particular patterns for a fraction of an instant before moving on. No sooner had the light disappeared than it happened again, this time chasing a different set of interwoven lines down her chest.

Saila grinned, shaking her head once. "...That's intense." She said then, her voice thick. "But s'not gonna turn me into a zombie. M'....relatively sure I can still say no, if I wanted to. Which... I don't."

He waited for her eyes to catch his, a moment's hesitation as he watched her. Sure enough, there was the spike, the look on her face as his gaze pulled her in. He managed to think, ah for ****'s sake, here we go, before he caught the strange light that swirled through her tattoos.

One brow raised as he watched them, out of his peripheral, taking care not to break eye contact, to see if she could resist it. But he watched it, from her chin to her waist, the intricate lines of light like electricity striking down a telephone wire. He didn't know what to make of that, calling it strange would be an understatement but curiously so.

He would possibly have to ask questions later, but what brought the smirk back to his face was that she managed to speak her own mind and resist it to at least an extent. Whatever the lights in her tattoos had done, it had turned the tables so to speak, not on him but to where she could take the eye contact, the voice, even the touch in stride without turning into a pretty little drone for him to play with as he pleased. He was over that scene, he preferred them to have a mind of their own. It was much more pleasing that way.

His grin widened as he looked back up at her, his hands finding their way up to her shoulder blades. Her remark about being able to say no if she wanted to, but not actually wanting to was exactly what he was hoping for.

The thick coils of his arms wrapped around her tighter as his chest met her stomach, his lips soon finding her neck. She might've expected a kiss, but that was not his style, exactly. He instead gave a little nip to her neck, soft and playful as he chuckled, his usual sinister laugh as his voice lightened on the pull. "Now..... that's what I like to hear."

It was a struggle at first. She'd reacted to him the way she did every potentially hostile source, pulling the energy into herself to assimilate as fast as she could. Finding the balance between pulling enough to think mostly clearly and not pulling so hard as to cause different problems, Saila took a few seconds to just acclimate and adjust. Her fingers tightened on his shoulders when he bit into her neck like that, her back arching subtly in response.

The girl swallowed, fingers sliding from his shoulders over his neck into his hair. "Mm. You...are the right kind of trouble." Her nails gliding gently over his scalp, she rocked once on his lap, her body weight shifting meaningfully. Man. "Your eyes are gorgeous, though," she said a moment later, her breath just that tiniest bit uneven. "...even without their extra talents."

He snickered lightly against the flesh of her neck, her comment about his eyes amused him for some reason. Probably because he'd never really heard it before. The one person that had seen him without his aviators on semi-regularly had the exact same eyes, and she didn't really comment on it, just as he never commented on hers. They were normal for them. With his arms clasped around her, he tugged her forward as he leaned back in the seat. Looking up at her, he smirked. "Yours are more impressive. Both of mine are the same color."

Venturing fingers found their way to the back of her bra, smoothing over the clasp at the back. His mouth soon found her ear and with a teasing tone, "Though one thing I've noticed. You're talking too much."

____

From live play with Hex, obvs. Seemed appropriate to post their first interaction, all things considered. Thanks for reading!

He didn't notice the fading of her tattoos: Hex wasn't that attentive most of the time. Add the fact that when he had seen them, it was at night and he was wearing sunglasses. The chances of him noticing were rather slim.

When she stretched, his eyes followed, tilting his head slightly when she lifted her leg for balance. Nice view. He blinked when she called his name and said she had found something. Well, that got his attention quickly. He finished off the last swig of the beer, walking toward her as he dropped the stub of his cigarette into the bottle. With a flick of his wrist, he tossed it into the dumpster about 30 feet away, near the building. It landed with a thud on a bag of trash.

His wide gait brought him to her side in less than three steps, leaning over the grill to see what she had found. He placed his hand on the side of the car as he stretched himself over the front. Granted, it wasn't hard for him thanks to his height. "What did you find?" He was skeptical, sure. Pessimistic? Sometimes. But even Hellions could hope.

"Here," the girl had worked one hand free, and she caught one of his with it to guide him down to where the other one was still buried. There wasn't enough room for all three so she let him go, twisting her body towards him to make more room beside her. "Find my fingers. There, see?" Her fingers brushing his, she pushed his towards the jagged notch she'd located in one of the pipes. "Feel that? Something she ran over tore that hole, but this thing," she tapped some other part that was close by, "is why you can't see it from underneath. Can you fix that?"

Leaning towards her as he looked away, clearly in the zone and focused, perhaps picturing what he was feeling with his fingers in his mind considering he couldn't see what he was touching. But he had just about every inch of the parts to a car memorized. "Ah, ****. Just what I was hoping wasn't the case. Punctured the fuel line where it connects. Probably flooded the engine. Who knows what else is going on in there."

He sighed, pulling his hand away, fingers covered in fuel and motor oil. Looked like he just got done fingering a robot. He stood up from where he was leaning across, tugging the already stained shirt from his back pocket as he wiped off his hands. He hung it over the grill, just in case she wanted to use it to wipe off her hands, not that it would help much. It was caked and would probably just smudge more on her. But he offered nonetheless.

Hex stood there for a moment, looking her over with amusement. "Nice catch. It probably would've taken me forever. ****, I've been at it all morning. You caught it in five minutes." He laughed then, shaking his head. Girl had a **** ton of tricks up her sleeve it seemed. "Stop doing that." He glared at her, though it wasn't intimidating considering the smirk on his face.

Pulling her own hand free, she nodded. The things he was saying tracked with what she'd 'heard', and a pleased smile splashed over her face. Saila was always stoked when one of her 'tricks' proved useful. Straightening up, the girl examined her filthy hands, glancing doubtfully at the wrecked wife beater he'd offered as a rag. Well, at least he'd offered.

"Thanks," said the girl, tossing her head in a vain attempt to clear deep purple tendrils from her jaw where they were trying to invade the corner of her mouth. She wiped her hands on the shirt, but as predicted it really just kinda. ...smeared. "Glad I could help." Her smirk spreading, she met his eyes again directly, brows arched curiously. "Stop doing what?"

"Surprising me. I'm not used to that." From the grin on his face, he was clearly just teasing her. With the shirt moved, he decided to put this project away for a bit. He needed a break, and would need to order parts later that afternoon to fix her up anyways. One hand on the open hood to hold it in place, he unhooked the support rod and lightly set it down, holding the edge of the hood as he pulled it down. With a quick motion, he shut the hood with a thud and click, making sure it latched properly with a jostle before turning towards her.

"Come on inside and you can get that **** off your hands." As a man who frequently worked on cars, he had some heavy duty soap that would remove engine grease and motor oil. Though as filthy as he was, he was probably going to need a shower to wash himself free of it. Granted, he wasn't demanding it of her, but he doubted she wanted to run around with gunk all over her hands. So, he assumed.

Saila answered his grin with one of her own, shrugging her shoulders helplessly. "I mean, I can try to be less interesting?" Her strange eyes glittering with amusement, she stepped out of the way so he could close up the hood. "Thanks," she said when he offered to let her come in and clean up. It was a good assumption on his part, and she moved to join him, nudging his shoulder lightly, playfully, with her own.

"Oh hell no. Don't do that. No, no." He shook his head, not so teasing this time before his shoulder was nudged. He grinned at her, matching her playfulness with a sloppy lick to the side of her cheek. Not so smooth, but he was in a good mood now, thanks to her. She figured out what was wrong with Baby and he could get her fixed up. So his playfulness was a bit unorthodox.

When he had licked her cheek, it was ridiculous. Nose scrunched, brows furrowed, and mouth wide open like a lion roaring. Slow and sloppy, his tongue had made its way up the length of her cheek. He wasn't sorry in the least. He pulled away and began striding towards the apartment building, head pulled back as a rough, sinister laughter left his mouth. He grinned at her over his shoulder. "C'mon then, I need a smoke but don't want to get engine grease all over my mouth."


Her peculiar eyes went wide when he licked her. "I...cannot believe you just did that," she said, only just barely preventing herself from making it considerably worse by trying to wipe off the slobber with her hand. Her forearms, too, were black to her elbows. ****.

Angling her head to wipe her face awkwardly on her bicep, Saila wrinkled her nose when it only kind of worked. "I have been slimed," the girl lamented woefully as she followed him towards the building. "And I can think of so much better places for your tongue..." Grumbling mock-resentfully as she followed him inside, there was a grin on her face all the same. Clearly she didn't mind nearly as much as she was pretending to.

"Just like I could think of a few better things you can do with your mouth than whining about where I lick you."

One hell of a cheesy grin spread across his face, brows waggling at her.

Then her expression was all faux innocence. "Oh yeah? Like what?" A knowing grin spilled across her features, ruining the innocent facade, but she didn't seem all that upset about it.

"I would say sorry for not being sorry, but I'd still be lying about the first one." He cackled, then slowed his pace to match his speed with hers. He reached into his pocket, reaching for his cigarettes. His clothes were going to need a serious washing after all was said and done. Or possibly just get tossed in general.

His fingers managed to find the box of cowboy killers and his zippo. Pulling back the top of the box, he used his mouth to pull a stick from it, managing to not touch his cigarette with his greasy hands. It was incredible that he didn't set his arms on fire when he lit his cigarette with his zippo; clearly he was used to doing such things. What to expect from a car junkie who can't go more than fifteen minutes without his nicotine?

Her answering smile was an easy one. "I would never ask you to be something you're not, darlin'," came the reply as her stride matched his. Watching him maneuver his cigarettes, the girl shook her head, impressed. "What an interesting set of skills you have, Hex," said with a smirk, she glanced down at her own clothes, which though black also bore grease stains. "Well, this outfit's trashed."

Saila was doing much the same, washing her hands and then washing them again and then washing them again. Trying to get it out of the lines of her palms, her knuckles, out from under her nails. She was, also, trying to figure out how the hell she was going to get it off her arms without making an even bigger mess than she already had.

Frowning, the girl dried her hands, at least, tugging her sleeves back down over her mostly dirty arms so at least she was less of a walking disaster. Making her way back into the kitchen, the muse trailed her fingers lightly over the wall as she moved back over to him. "I'm gonna need like four showers to get all this off me," Saila commented with a smile. "You better be able to fix that car perfectly, and then I wanna ride."

He smirked at that. He was proud of Baby, as he should be. A lot of time, money and effort was spent on making that car into what it was. She was simple, not filled with all the installments that his hearse was, but for a muscle car from 1965, she purred like a kitten and could out speed just about any modern sports car with few exceptions like Lamborghini's or the like.

"Dig convertibles, do ya?" He had managed to clean up most of the water and ice from the floor by the time she had come back to the kitchen, and he decided to let the rest of the damp dry on its own.

He was still filthy, though, and he wasn't a shy man by any means. As she came to the kitchen, he was passing by. He had already kicked off his boots by the door and was in the midst of unbuckling his belt and unzipping his pants as he passed by her. "Feel free to help yourself to whatever's in the fridge if you're hanging around, TV's in the living room, I'm sure you can find something to amuse yourself with. I need a shower."

He slid around the corner of the hallway, kicking off his jeans as he went. The bathroom door was shoved open, and it wasn't long before the sound of running water could be heard from the hallway. He didn't give a damn about closing the door.

"Oh that's not fair. You get all the way clean and I don't? Lame." Saila watched him kick off his pants as he walked away. She'd seen it before, of course, but it was dark then and she just kinda felt like looking. Chuckling a little at the way he'd phrased that, the girl checked out the rest of his apartment on a cursory level and then followed him into the bathroom.

The shower curtain was a milky clear plastic, though it blurred the sight of him, it was easy to see the contours of his body through it. Muscles, the black marks that etched over various parts of his body and the majority of his torso. He was currently working on scrubbing the engine grease from his chest, his arms free of the gunk finally.

Hex knew, not only by the movement he could see through the curtain, but even if he had his back turned, her energy would make it clear that she had entered the room. He looked up from the effort he was making on his chest, arm reaching out to curl his fingers around the edge of the curtain before sliding it open. Standing there in full naked glory, arm leaning on the shower wall beneath the showerhead spout.

His almost piercing golden yellow gaze was on her like honey to a bee. "I was wondering when you were going to come in." The sly grin on his face might've implied he was hoping she was going to do it without invitation. He liked his women bold, surely she had learned that by now.

Saila smirked, lifting one shoulder in a shrug. "I figured that not showing up was the wrong kind of surprise, but I kinda wanted you to wonder about it a little." Her boots had mostly been unlaced already, so she stepped out of them one at a time, shedding the rest of her filthy layers before she joined him. "...hi."

"Not gonna lie. I was starting to wonder." He watched her as she slipped into the shower with him, taking a step back to give her room. It was a good sized shower with a relatively huge tub. He might be a bit sneaky, but he was confident in his actions, sure of what he was doing.

It honestly helped that she wasn't that much shorter than him, though it was unusual for him. He was used to short women, it was a nice change to not have to crane his neck down or contort himself to their height. He slipped his arm around her waist, seeming to be pulling her toward him for perhaps a kiss? Nope. Change of plans.

With a mischievous smirk, arm around her waist, he gently guided her toward him. Her back would be pressed against his chest, and he would grab the industrial soap, and her arm. He was well trained on how to efficiently get the engine grease off skin without scrubbing the flesh raw or having to do it multiple times.

Saila knew enough about him not to expect the obvious, so she wasn't terribly surprised to find herself turned away from him, her body fitting itself into the hard lines of his with an uncanny ease. She let the incubus do what he would, both because she wasn't worried about it and because once his skin met hers, she generally knew what was most immediate on his mind, anyway.

The girl grinned, watching the grease disappear underneath his expert ministrations. "I'm gonna have to learn how to do that, if I'm gonna hang out with you."

"Considering my favorite hobbies involves getting dirty, it would probably be in your best interest." He let the meaning of that be taken however she liked. His fingers moved in small circular motions, rubbing out the grease from her skin and massaging at the same time.

He repeated this process over any spots that were covered in grease, regardless of where they may be. Though pressed firmly against her back, he made no other move other than being pressed there and helping her remove the grease. He moved her arms into the fall of the water, letting it rinse off the loosened oil.

His hands moved over her arms, making sure the oil was gone from her skin. She may not be human, but leaving engine grease and motor oil on your skin for extended periods of time wasn't healthy for it. "There, filth gone." He chuckled lowly, his hands moving from her arms to her hips as he rested there for a moment, letting the hot water run over the both of them.

Enjoying the feel of his hands on her skin, not to mention the warmth of his body against hers, Saila was content to lean against him, her head tipped back against his shoulder, her peculiar eyes fluttering closed for several lazy, luxurious moments. "You're very thorough," she said with a grin when he was finished, his hands at her hips. "Thank you."

He shrugged lightly with one shoulder. "It was either that, or you rub your skin raw trying to get it off." His hands moved to hers, lifting them lightly to make a point. They were a bit red from what he assumed was her scrubbing multiple times with the soap. "It's industrial, scrub too much, it will wear down the skin." He pulled his hands from hers, thick coils of muscular arms moving around her waist. He lightly nipped at the curve of her ear. "You going to fall asleep on me?"

Lifting her head to look down at their hands, Saila conceded his point with a nod. "It'll grow back, I'm sure," she replied with a smirk, wet strands of deep violet--that never ran, strangely, because it wasn't actually dyed--plastering themselves to her face, her neck, her ribs. Probably his, too--girl had a whole lot of hair. At his question, she laughed, his teeth at her ear bringing a shiver to her spine. "Mmm, no. Sleeping is definitely...not...on my mind."

He raised a brow from behind her that she probably couldn't see, though the curl of the corner of his mouth could most likely be noted from the tone of his voice. "So what is on your mind?"

She wasn't wrong about having a whole lot of hair. He could feel it pressed against his stomach and chest, even his ribs. He didn't mind though, it wasn't an unpleasant feeling. His voice was light, and he held back the pull in it. He wanted to know what was actually on her mind, not because his natural pull caused her think particular thoughts. No swaying, nothing. Just genuinely curious. She tended to have very amusing thoughts that caught him off guard.

Saila snickered. She couldn't see his expression, not even in profile when she glanced at him sidelong, but she could definitely hear the amusement in his voice. "Oh, lots of things. I was thinking about ...how warm you are, and how human guys are sorta. ..weird and cold by comparison."

Okay, so she'd only been with one human, actually, but that was her assessment. They weren't as bright to her, either. "I was thinking about how nice your hands are, and also all the stuff I just learned about cars. Mostly though, I was thinking about your tongue." And then she turned her head suddenly, licking his cheek exactly the way he'd done it to her just a little while before.

He let out a light scoffing laugh, mouth against her shoulder as the words fell from her lips, then a raised brow at her gesture. This grin she probably could see as he was watching her while it spread across his face. His hands gripped her hips, fingers lightly massaging into the tissue.

"Oh, really now? And just what thoughts are you having about my tongue?" His words came out a bit sultry this time, but she had already broken the seal by mentioning it. He could feel her pheromone count, almost taste it. Hm..... taste.

He did turn her around then, though he was enjoying the view from behind her, directly down the line of her chest. He wanted to actually see what she said next, and the frontal view was even better than his previous one.

Oh, the purple girl was really very sure he already knew what thoughts she was having about his tongue, but she wasn't particularly shy either, and not at all inhibited. The drag of her tongue over his cheek was every bit as slow and deliberate as his had been, and the grin on his face brought an answering one to hers. Yeah, speaking of taste indeed.

Saila licked her lips as she pivoted on the balls of her feet at his insistence, repositioning her feet once she was facing him, her gaze traveling once over his body before the space between them evaporated again. "I was thinking it's probably...not bad."

Using the moment of her passing the cigarette to him to stub it out in the ashtray to answer her question, Hex maneuvered slightly as he brought his arm up after taking it from her, squishing it amongst the others. "I'm four hundred years old, but still considered the baby compared to my sisters." He said it matter-of-factly, as if four centuries weren't much of anything.

Granted, compared to the people he knew, it wasn't. Most of his associations were with people thousands of years old. Hell, his stepmother was Lilith, the first human on Earth.

Relaxing back against the pillow, putting his arm back behind his head, he looked over at her with a quirked brow. "You think you could handle thirty six hours?" He was questioning her, not so much doubting as curious. She had surprised him at nearly every turn so far, he was beginning to learn not to underestimate her.

Four hundred years old. Saila couldn't help the snicker that spilled from her lips then, amusement flaring in her eyes. Shaking her head, though she didn't elaborate as to what was so funny, Saila was still laughing quietly as she uncurled her position, slid closer -- the longer she cooled off, the colder she was beginning to feel-- laid her head on his chest once she'd swept the cigarettes out of the way and settled down again. Mm. Warm. That was better.

"I do," answered the girl with zero hesitation. "...Well, with you I could, anyway." Honest to a fault, she amended her bold statement just a little. "I guess it's no secret now that I don't just see energy, huh?" Tipping her head back to peer up at him from where she'd nestled herself into his side, there was a lazy, well-****ed smile on her face.

"Your stores run deeper than most, especially since we can trade back and forth. I mean... I'm not sure how deep the well goes on either one of us, but assuming it doesn't run out? Pretty sure we could go ...****. Months?" A hoarse laugh.

He didn't know what the snicker was about and he didn't bother to ask. Though a single brow raised as she brought herself closer to him and nestled herself onto his chest. He hesitated for a moment, readjusting after several seconds to move his arm from where it was tucked between their bodies.

What had made her laugh was that she'd realized all at once that she was probably the youngest person he knew, both by approximate physical age and --by a long shot-- by actual time spent sentient. It wasn't information she would volunteer, though, not unless he asked. He didn't really think to ask, though. It was common knowledge to him to never ask a woman her age.

He didn't move to hold her, but he didn't move her either. Instead, he had just slipped it through the nook between her shoulder and neck, letting it rest on the mattress beside her. He wasn't much of the cuddling type, but that was about the best he could do.

It wasn't so much cuddling as heat seeking, though the end result was kind of the same? In any case the girl wasn't expecting him to hold her. It was a bit of a surprise, even, that he moved his arm to accommodate her at all, but she readjusted when he did and settled there with a contented sigh.

"No, I'm pretty sure the cat's out of the bag with that one." A soft snicker left his lips as he glanced down at her. He had felt that tug on his energy, then the tug of war throughout their multiple hours of ****. "I've only **** one person that could play tug of war with me like that, I don't **** my own kind. None of us really do."

There had been one exception, but she wasn't exactly a succubus. She was like him, Nephilim with sexual energy feeding and golden eyes. "Months. Ha." He couldn't help but offer a raspy chuckle at that one. "Energy well might not dry out, but that sounds like a whole lot of chafing."

"I'm not like you," answered Saila, almost as though to reassure him. "Well. Not biologically. I absorb energy, life source, magic. It's what sustains me, so we're similar in that sense. It comes easiest during sex --" She smirked suddenly, realizing she'd accidentally been funny, "--ha, comes--but I can do it anytime, with any kind of power." The girl didn't need to eat, or drink. She could do both, but drinking didn't affect her and food frankly tasted kind of gross.

Unless it was bloody, but that was something else altogether.

"Chafing..." Echoing him, Saila drew a fingertip across his chest lightly. It read like an affectionate thing, and it wasn't that it wasn't? But more to the point it gave her a definition for the word. "Ah. Well? I guess it depends. The body would have to give out eventually, I think, but I bet I could renew it a whole bunch more times before it did."

"It's not overly uncommon, at least not with the people I know," He shrugged one shoulder. "To know someone who could feed from energy of all kinds. But to absorb them like you do... That's completely new to me." He used his other hand to hold her wrist between his middle finger and thumb, looking at her tattoos. Her little joke did get a light chuckle from him, though. Ha, puns.

Letting him capture her wrist and examine it, Saila was placid. "Less than ten people know about that," she said softly, tipping her head to indicate the designs that still pulsed and undulated like living things if you watched them long enough and paid attention. It was the kind of movement that seemed like it wasn't there until you blinked and suddenly a spiral seemed looser, tighter, maybe angled a little differently than it had previously. It was a living network of art that sprawled over the top half of her body, seemed almost to breathe.

"...Six months ago, none of these were here," the muse chose her words carefully, trying to explain herself without giving away things she was relatively sure he didn't want to know. Twisting her torso away from him for a moment, Saila freed her lower hand, letting him hang on to the higher one, to tap her own chest at the very point that the breast first began to swell, just above her heart. "This was the first one that appeared. Then a few days later, this one," her fingertip moved lower, indicating another design that seemed like so much interlocking linework, but was its own complete drawing, too.

Settling against him again, she shrugged. "The more energy I pull, the more of them appear. That light show I put on a couple hours ago?" A faint twist of an irreverent smirk touched her face then, no sense in acting like it hadn't happened, "... means there's probably a new one somewhere I haven't found yet." One that would have been formed by his energy specifically. She laughed. "...Knowing you, s'probably on my ass."

A brow raised at that, he teased a bit, though lightly. "Well don't I feel special." He snickered. There was something about her that he couldn't bring himself to be a total jerk to. She reminded him of a friend of his, someone who taught him that he could play nice if he really wanted to, that he'd find a way.

They acted nothing alike, but they had a touch of.... innocence. Something that he didn't want to ruin, but wanted to ruin at the same time. It was a conflicting thought and he swiped it away with a light shake of his head.

Listening to her explain her tattoos, he did seem interested. It was strange, something he hadn't encountered and though he didn't seem like the type, Hex liked learning new things. He was so used to the same song and dance for so long, going to the same parties, being around the same people, doing nearly the same thing every day. Drink, ****, cars, drink some more, go to a party, **** some more. He needed a change, something that wasn't as poisonous as the life he'd left behind.

He barked out a laugh, starting to wonder if she was getting to know him too well. Possibly. But he couldn't help it, he lifted himself on propped elbows, letting go of her wrist as he moved. "On your ass, huh?" He leaned on one elbow as he reached for her with the other hand, grasping her hip and pulling her forward to inspect that possibility of a new ass tattoo. His curiosity could get the best of him sometimes, a brow raised as he looked at her. Then tapped his fingers on a spot just behind her left hip. Whether or not he was messing with her would be told by her own inspection.

"You should," came the response, answering his teasing with casual confidence. She wasn't being arrogant, but she wasn't exactly teasing either. Maybe she'd learned a lot about Hex but then Hex had also learned a lot about her. Things less than six people knew. A smile touching her face then as her expression went soft again, Saila shook her head. "Don't worry, though. Th'only one that has ever created that mind-link thing is the wolf phone." The purple haired girl shook her left wrist once to indicate what she meant. **** kittens and nuns.

It was phrased lightly, teasing him, but it was also meant to reassure. If and when a new mark painted itself onto her body because of him, it didn't mean anything to him, likely wouldn't affect him. It didn't give her access to his power or his mind, didn't bind or obligate them to one another in any way. It was just a thing that happened to her sometimes, affected and shaped the overall network of her abilities.

Even without the skills she hadn't yet revealed, you didn't spend most of a day **** the same person and not pick up on certain tendencies. That's where the comment about it being on her ass had come from, and she was just starting to laugh about it when he pulled her over to check it out for himself. Snickering about that instead, Saila balanced herself on her elbows to see what he found. When he touched her hip, her brows furrowed. "...****, seriously? Already? Is it yellow? I bet it's yellow."

((The events below take place between this post and this one.))


05.04.2016
Carnaval Interlude

Day Two working the booth at the Carnival had been a challenge. Until today, the girl really didn't appreciate how fortunate she'd been in her choice of people to make out with so far. Oh Sal. Saila had no idea how she'd get him back for this, but she would. Of that there could be no doubt.

The other problem she was having was that it meant three straight days of extreme crowds, which was something of an issue for a girl who tended to avoid them. She was feeling like a toddler on a sugar buzz, so keyed up she might come apart. Dancing in her seat, the muse had a hard time sitting still. She was downright twitchy.

And so she'd texted the incubus. What are you into tonight? I get off at 2...

Two a.m. was only a few minutes away. This wasn't a super well thought out plan so much as a sudden impulse. But then, her impulses rarely did her wrong.

The incubus wasn't doing much of **** that night. In fact, he was taking a lax night in his apartment. The energy of Beltane had been enough for him already, and when he left with Saila that particular evening, he didn't complain in the least at their disappearance. In fact, he was practically grateful to get away from the lingering sexual energy that seemed to roll through those hills.

As such, Hex was relatively spent when it came to crowds. He had heard of the Carnival, but the 'Family Friendly' atmosphere put him off. Hex and 'Family Friendly' anything didn't mix well. Normally he wouldn't care about shaking up the people of RhyDin, but he had found out that Saila was running a booth and didn't want to cause trouble for her. Yet another thing that had been on his mind as of late, another questioning thought. He was absolutely sure that he wasn't developing feelings for her, but she had a tick about her that he had only discovered in two other people that would make him feel guilty for causing trouble for her.

So instead of roughing up RhyDin, he was behaving himself and having a cold beer on his couch, watching some ridiculous late night show that he wasn't really paying attention to. His phone vibrated in his pocket and he leaned to the side to tug it out of the front pocket of his jeans. Bringing the mouth of the bottle to his own lips, he took a swig that was paused by a curling smirk at seeing the name pop up on his screen. He clicked the reply button, snickering as he responded.

Jack ****. You get off at 2 or you want to get off at 2? He gave a roll of his eyes at his own lame joke, and a small grimace that his mind had immediately gone towards **** her. He finished off the text with a half-*** offer, taking another swig of beer. Need a ride?
May 4, 2016 12:37 AM

Saila was using her text conversation to avoid the latest wave of customers who had come at the Spaniard's insistence. She'd done everything she could to avoid the worst of them throughout the day, but even so she'd had her fair share of unpleasant experiences. "I'm on the phone..." was her excuse to turn her back on some hopeful candidate.

A smile tucked itself into the swell of her lower lip as she read the response, shaking her head a little. Oh man. That was cheesy even for Hex. Yes please. To ... all of that, actually. Her smile spread into a smirk. I mean. If you think you're up for it...

By 2:01, the purple haired girl was standing on the curb outside the fair's entrance. She was wearing a long sleeved black shirt, like always. She was also wearing sleek, figure hugging black shorts and black thigh highs, like always. This particular pair had geometric designs cut out along the shins. There were a couple of stand out differences, though -- the purple and blue flower crown that adorned vibrant violet locks that spilled loose nearly to her hips in gently curling waves, for instance. Perhaps even more notable, though, was the absence of the trademark knee high boots. Instead, she wore black platform heels, a single thin strap around the ankles, which made her even more impressively tall than usual.

He was on his way to the trash can to toss the now empty beer bottle away when his phone went off again. Well, at least she didn't seem to be bothered by his pathetic excuse of a joke. In fact, seemed to welcome it. He wasn't accustomed to someone not ragging on him if he turned up with a horrible comeback or joke. It was a nice change of pace for once.

Typing out a short response, a grin on his face as the beer bottle fell to the bottom of the trash can with a clink amongst the cemetery of empty bottles. Ha. Up for it. I'll see you when you get out. A soft smirk curled one corner of his mouth for the second time in a couple minutes, shaking his head lightly.

She wouldn't be standing there long before the rumbling purr of his Coupe deVille would pull up in front of her, headlights sweeping her as he turned outward to get a better angle to pull out of the lot. It wasn't hard to figure out it was him, she'd seen the car plenty before, was elbow deep in its engine just those few days ago. He had planned this for the next time he saw her, and tonight was turning out to work perfectly.

Instead of waiting for her to hop in, a large hand tugged the lever for the door. Shoving open the heavy door with his forearm as he slid out of the driver's seat. Leaving the car door open, he walked around the front end, giving an appreciative look at her attire. "Well, hey there good lookin'."

Hex was dressed in his usual, a wife beater that was grey this time, well fitted dark blue jeans that hugged his hips and accessorized with a belt. Biker boots, hair slicked back; the only thing that's changed was the fact that his aviators were pushed on top of his slicked back hair and there was a loose-fitting leather jacket open over the wife beater.

He sauntered his way up to her, standing practically eye to eye with her in those heels. Not that he minded in the least, just made it easier for a hand to press to the middle of her back and tug her forward for a kiss, lips sliding open to flick a beer/cigarette/Hex flavored tongue against hers.

Hard to say whether Saila recognized the sound of the engine or the pull of his energy first, but in any case she was looking for the car for at least a block before it showed. There was a smile on her face as she watched him approach, and she was headed towards the passenger door when the other side popped open.

"Hey you," said the girl, lingering there on the sidewalk when he got out. Her strange mismatched eyes made an appraising sweep of his outfit, her greeting grin notching wider by degrees.

Face to face, and for once eye to eye, Saila was pleasantly surprised to notice the absence of the glasses, the way he went immediately for that kiss. Arms slid around his shoulders in a heartbeat, her kiss warm and even eager in response. Her tongue lapped almost hungrily at his. When it broke at last, she rested her forehead against its like for just a moment. "Oh ****, finally. I desperately needed that."

The car ran smooth as it turned corners, and the wheels spun over the pavement. One thing Hex loved about Baby, she ran smoother even than most of the cars that he drove. She was definitely a cruiser, great for a relaxing drive, his go-to when he needed to hit the road.

Saila's speed didn't effect him as her motions assured him that she seemed to know what she was doing, her own lax posture helped him keep calm as well. Having lit a cigarette, he let it rest between scissored fingers now resting comfortably on the top frame of the door. His extended arm on the back of the seat remained touching her neck, her shoulder, just a slight touch, a brush of fingertip against flesh. He kept that hand in contact with her as he finally reached forward with cigarette in hand to fiddle with the old radio, finding a station that would suit them both and offer some background noise.

Her question brought a glance her way, a light curve of mouth, hinting at a smirk as he leaned back when he was done fiddling with the radio. "Wherever you want to go. I'm not all that familiar with the area."

Though he had gone cruising quite a few times since his arrival in RhyDin, he didn't really notice where he was going most of the time. It was the one place he could go, and his mind would shut down and he let his hands take him somewhere. The fact that he remembered that lake they had gone to on their first encounter was an off-chance. "We can just cruise around, we can go back to my place, we can go somewhere you like to go. Name it."

He offered a few suggestions, not really caring where they ended up. He wasn't much of a homebody unless someone was there with him. A social creature to a fault, Hex could only handle being alone with his own thoughts for so long, and hanging with Kitra hadn't piqued his interest that night. Who knew where Lenore was, probably scampering through town. So the distraction from his mind he was appreciating.

The car was an absolute dream to drive. She was going fast but wasn't being reckless with it or testing its limits. She wasn't trying to show off or impress him any. The girl was just enjoying the drive, the fact that he'd trusted her with his Baby. Reveling in the engine's response, the way the road spooled out in front of them, seemingly forever.

Looking away from the street on a straightaway, she turned that lingering smile on Hex for a second. It was getting harder and harder not to tell him, but now didn't exactly seem the time. Instead she lifted a brow at him curiously. "Trusting me to drive your car and get you lost. Very brave, Hex. I like it."

These were the hours Saila usually spent alone. Since she almost never needed sleep and everyone else did, this was the time of night that she usually spent wandering the streets on her own, though she'd never done it before in a car. With no real idea where to go, the girl cheated a little, borrowing locations from Quinn's mind. Ah ha. There.

Setting herself a course, the hardest part of it was keeping both feet on the floor, honestly. Fighting the urge to tuck her legs underneath her, when she realized that's what she was doing, made her laugh softly. The silence, for her, was comfortable, so she didn't feel an overwhelming need to fill it. Then again, he was filling it for her since his hand was still on her neck.

He loved riding just slightly less than he loved driving, but it was still highly enjoyable for him. As long as he was on the road, he was in his comfort zone. He was surprised at how relaxed he was becoming with someone else behind the wheel of his Baby, her proving that she could handle it, he allowed himself to settle against the seat. A harsh drag was taken from the cowboy killer at his lips, exhaling a plume of smoke that swirled around the curve of his face and left a trail of grey behind them.

A grin of his own was returned to her smile, his brows lifted in quick succession twice as he watched her. "But getting lost is half the fun." And it was a rule of the road he lived by: He rarely hit the pavement with any clue of where he was going, just rolled with it wherever he ended up. By that logic, he had been just about everywhere on Earth when it came to Europe, the States, Australia, and other countries alike. His 'road trips' tended to last for months, taking a left here, a right there, hit the highway, and keep going on whim with no directions.

The last pull was taken from his cigarette, pinching the filter between two fingers before flicking it far enough over the door and away from the car, leaving a splash of cherry as it hit the road and exploded in a rain of cindering ash, quickly left behind as they went. He didn't know where she was headed to, and frankly he didn't care.

Saila laughed softly, though it would seem like for no good reason. It actually had to do with the thought about months-long roadtrips, and how appealing that sounded. With covering the urge to answer a comment that hadn't been voiced. Focus, the girl reminded herself, parsing what had been said from what hadn't so she knew which part it was safe to answer with a subtle furrowing of her brows.

"You sure about that?" Queried with a playful grin, once she'd sorted it out. "I'm super good at getting lost. You'll be stuck with me 'till we figure out where the hell we ended up." Her grin spreading into a full blown smirk, she took a turn that came up on the left, because going left seemed like the right thing to do.

There was a twitch to the corner of his mouth that tugged into a full blown smirk. His eyes danced over her, taking in the profile of her thin, long frame. "You say that like it's a bad thing. But the more important point to be made is you'll be stuck with me. So maybe the question should be reversed." He let out a rumbling chuckle that broke into a bit of a cackle near the end.

Turning those strange eyes up at him briefly, Saila shook her head at the way he'd answered that, a smile tugging at one corner of her mouth. "Ain't scared," answered the girl, echoing what she'd said to him at least a half dozen times since they met. Whether it was getting in a car with a stranger, jumping in a frigid lake or being alone with Hex, apparently the muse was down with it.

Her claim of not being scared amused him, as it always seemed to. His fingers tugged gently at the lobe of her ear, playfully as he gave her a smirk. Just like she had told him her line a dozen times, he responded as he always did, "You're probably going to regret that some day."

His gaze shifted from her to the road, then back to her every few moments. He was relatively impressed how well she was driving Baby, proving she could be trusted behind the wheel and would possibly prove to be useful for future moments if she wished to drive her.

"So I'm guessing that dark blue is your favorite color?"

"Midnight blue, specifically. When it's dark enough you can't tell if it's blue or black except in the right light." He gave a nod, he was relatively precise on his color of blue that he favored. He tended to not like most blues, not a fan of bright colors for himself as they didn't suit him.

She already knew the specific shade he had in mind, of course, not least because it was now imprinted on her body. There were a lot of different blues on her extensively decorated skin, of course, but none that were exactly like that one. Mostly she'd just wanted to hear him explain it. "Mm. Like the car. And your shirt the other night. And... me." A soft laugh. "Why that specific shade? Any particular reason?"

Though it was a simple question, the answer wasn't quite so simple. Hex wasn't one for being poetic, so he just vaguely stated, "I don't know, I just like it." What went through his head was a list of reasons why he loved the color. It reminds me of the calm before the storm, that peaceful moment just after dusk when it's moments away from turning to night, where the sky shifts to that color of blue. A hand lifted to his slicked-back hair, fingers trailing through and slicking back any possible locks that had slipped free from the hair product that kept it in place.

Whatever song it was that had come on had that lithe frame moving a little in time to the beat. Her mismatched eyes glittered brightly for just a second -- like they'd genuinely lit up from within, because perhaps they had -- but the glow faded a moment later, and she took another left when the opportunity presented itself, because why not.

Somewhere along the drive, the roads had begun to get steeper, the car making a gradual ascent as it looped mostly deserted pavement in the wee hours of the night. Saila was paying more attention to the road than to him at the moment, but it made her no less aware of him. His energy surrounded and engulfed her; his thoughts pouring unfettered into her consciousness by that lightest of contacts across the back of her neck, the top of her shoulder, and now, her ear lobe.

A shiver stealing across narrow shoulders, she took another left, this one sharp as the road doubled back to begin its ascent in earnest. Saila shrugged, flashing him a half smile. "Isn't that a risk you take every time you talk to someone?" Her question echoed back to before, when he warned her for the dozenth time that she would come to regret not being afraid of him. A brow arched curiously, but her eyes were still on the road.

"In general, maybe. For me, definitely." He barked a laugh, shaking his head at that. He had a way of making enemies much faster than friends. With every friend he made, he acquired five to ten enemies. But the hate only fueled him further. Even if they hate me, they're still thinking of me, and it's probably going to piss them the **** off. Thus, I still win.

The back of his head fell back lightly against the seat as he slumped, enjoying the drive. The conversation was light, both seeming comfortable with each other. The brisk air that whipped over the windshield, curling around them. That one arm remained across the back of the seats, fingers resting lazily as her shoulder, just the slightest of touches. His other arm hung over the door of the deVille, tapping lightly against the frame to the beat of the current song playing on the radio.

It was possibly the most relaxed he had been in the past few months, no scrutiny of recent events, the sound of the wind curling around the car as they tore through the streets, the sway of the vehicle as it turned corners. He would never say so, but he would remember this drive as one of his 'happy place' moments.

He wouldn't have to say so. The change in him was palpable, and it brought a light smile to her lips. Guess you're gonna have to go find yourself half a dozen more enemies, darlin'.

The turns got tighter and tighter as the climb got steeper. By the time they neared the top, she'd downshifted enough that the car still purred happily despite the effort. Her pale brows furrowed a little, her lips pursing as she double checked the passing scenery against her memory of it.

One final turn and she'd found what she was looking for, the summit of one of the lower mountains that rose on the outskirts of Rhydin. It wasn't huge, but the view it afforded of the city below, the distant reflection of that city off the water, it was one of the most serene, quiet places Saila had found in this place. She eased off the road at the scenic pull out, downshifting the car the rest of the way into park, though she didn't immediately kill the engine, in case he didn't want to stay.

"This is one of my favorite places to just... get away from everybody else," she said after a moment. "It's quiet here. There's almost never any other cars. Gives me room to just...breathe."

He was content, though studying the scenery as it passed by, noting the climb, he more or less accepted the direction they were heading instead of questioning it. When they reached the top and she shifted into park, his head slowly lifted from the maroon seat it was rested against. He gave a glance around, absorbing the view, and he sat there in silence for a moment, taking everything in.

"I can see why," he responded to her admission. "It's.... alright." A damn nice change of pace, actually. He understood the need to breathe, the energy he could sense could take his breath away sometimes.

Pheromones had a different scent depending on every person; some weren't pleasant, others were a bit too welcoming, but the collision of the multiple scents could give him a headache. And there were a lot more.... frisky.... people in RhyDin than he had been expecting. He could sense a person's riled energy half a block away, it getting stronger the more accustomed he became to the scent. But living directly in a city, especially in an apartment building with a lot of people, it could become overwhelming. For the first time in a couple weeks, he could take a breath without it hitting him like a ton of bricks. The only scent/energy that he could sense was Saila's, and it was one that he really didn't mind.

He made no suggestions of leaving, or even hinted that he wanted to. Instead, his eyes were locked on the sight ahead, though fully aware of the woman beside him while his fingers lightly brushed against her shoulder.

Saila smiled and then immediately shook her head, rubbing one hand over her face lightly. ****. With the car in park, she let her hands fall away from the steering wheel completely, and she pulled one socked foot up into the seat with her, her knee bent between her body and the wheel once she'd slouched back in the seat some herself.

For the science experiment, the Nephilim beside her was something of a floodlight, but he had virtually nothing to compete with up here. It turned her world from a psychedelic kaleidoscope to a dark room with really just the one light, and that was exactly what she needed. True to her word, her proximity to and familiarity with him had intensified her ability to feel his presence exponentially, but up here it didn't matter.

After a moment, the girl shifted closer. Not much, not enough to close the distance by any stretch. Just enough to comfortably reach him, to turn herself sideways in the seat to face him. With the music low and his warmth beside her, Saila breathed for really the first time today, letting the madness of the carnival go. "...Just alright, huh?"

___

Adapted from writing with Hex, of course!

A pleased sound vibrated through his chest, somewhere in between a hum and a growl. With that writhing energy so close to him, the physical contact was almost a high in itself. Her energy pulled him in and set his skin on fire, yet at the same time was like a cool autumn breeze.

It was difficult for him to explain the sensation that washed over him when her energy brushed against him, but it lowered heavy lids, looking up at her through lazy slits as a hand slid to the middle of her back, pulling her tight against him.

His head turned to the side and tilted backward to catch her lips with his, his free hand lifting to slide between flesh and hair, wrapping around the back of her neck to deepen the kiss. "Mmm..." He mumbled an inaudible sound, the taste of her energy was nearly intoxicating as he gave just a test run to that pure energy she was offering, pulling some from her lips as his tongue slipped between them.

And for once there was no challenge in her, not in that deeper level. Though hardly limp in his arms, as responsive as ever, she didn't pull back on him any, either. The energy the roiled inside and over her was intense and raw, a heady and powerful mix that blended strangely.

She'd spent hours trying to control it when the answer was right there in front of her all along.

Her hands lifting to his face, she cupped his jaw in splayed fingers, kissing him hungrily, almost needfully. That soft rumble growl of his brought a purr of appreciation from her that was smeared on his lips as she refused to break away.

The lust driven desire that she summoned from him with her energy was almost stifling. It pulled a feral need from him, not just of her energy but of the woman herself. The steady trickle of energies that intermingled between the two set his skin on hyper-drive, her fingers at his jaw sent jolts down his neck.

He had never experienced, or fed from an entity like her. He didn't know how to take the feeling that washed over him like volts of soothing electricity, to call it a high would be an understatement. Who the hell is this girl? The thought only faintly flashed through his mind before another crashing wave hit him and pulled him under.

Lips greedily pressed against each other's, his hands shifted to her waist while he brought himself to an upright standing position. His fingers wrapped around her before lifting her with ease, seemingly weightless in his hands and setting her onto the table he had been leaning against. He nudged his way between her legs, head tilted down as his mouth refused to leave hers. The energy he was lightly feeding from was better than any drug or booze he'd consumed thus far, and he was quickly being swept into the buzz.

The more energy he took from her, the more control she had over what was left, the more like herself she began to feel. There was still an enormous amount to go, however; it took a whole hell of a lot to overwhelm the little power house.

It had never been quite like this for Saila before, either; she'd never been quite so acutely aware of the way the energy compressed and converted to raw lust, exploding out of her in a way that made all of her senses tingle, the little hairs on the back of her neck stand straight up. Her nerves, too, felt like they'd been set aflame. Far from recoiling from the sensation, the girl wrapped herself instinctively around his body when he lifted her, loathe to let him go even as she found herself sitting on the table's smooth surface. Fingers finding their way over his chest, she traced the rippled expanse of his stomach with her thumbs.

Taking a deep breath through her nose in a vain attempt at steadying herself, laughter spilled between them at how miserably that particular attempt had failed since it only seemed to take her higher. Seriously, all this explosive energy from a kiss? This would probably shatter all her previous definitions of 'intense'.

She wasn't the only one who found it ridiculous just how intense a simple, or not so simple, kiss could be. Maybe it was her energy alone, maybe it was the pent up lust that had been building in him, maybe it was both. The party boy was used to sleeping with multiple women a day, spending a good portion of the day **** and being hammered.

Since his arrival in RhyDin, though, his party boy lifestyle had slowed significantly. The drastic change had sent his incubus nature off the wires and more than mildly confused as to why the hell it wasn't being sated nearly as often as it had been before. The damage that woman had done to him was extensive, clearly.

Regardless of where it came from, laughter was met with a scoffing chuckle, not quite sure what she was laughing about but lost in the crashing waves of desire that were threatening to shift him into overdrive.

***

Acutely aware of when and how he siphoned the energy off of her, it was a heady, squirmy feeling, both because it felt incredible and because it made her feel exposed and vulnerable. No one but Hex had ever succeeded in drawing on her energy before, and never before had Hex done it without her pulling right back on his. The urge to retaliate was strong, and deliberately forcing herself to ignore it was no small feat, either. It made her nerve endings seem that much more alive and tingly, her skin that much more hypersensitive to his every touch.

***

Apparently unable to form a complete thought much less sentence, the girl held up one hand with her thumb, index and pinkie fingers extended and the middle two folded down. Universal devil horns symbol for **** yeah. Tipping her head back against his shoulder much like she had in the shower that day, the girl gave a lazy smile and a deep sigh, breathing deeply for maybe the first time since she'd arrived. She still had way too much energy, but a lot of it was his now, and that she knew how to assimilate. No longer did she feel like she was about to spontaneously combust.

...possibly because she already had.

Uniquely suited to pretty much keep him on an energy high indefinitely without any particular damage to herself, Saila had never yet seen the 'bear' side of the 'teddy'. She was infinitely more familiar with his chuckle than his cackle, his smile than his smirk. It wasn't that she wasn't aware of that other side of him, just that it pretty much never applied to her.

Curling her nails into the back of his scalp and then down his neck as he bit into her skin, the girl snickered in response, a little purr escaping her throat. "A double dare is serious business, Hex. Y'sure you're ready for this?" Her grin was a wild one, reckless, born of the thrill of committing to herself to such a marathon. Who knew if either one of them would survive it? The fun part would be finding out.

All she got in return was a raised brow and an expression saying nothing less than pfft, do you not know who or what I am? before he shook his head and went back to her neck.

Oh, she knew exactly who and what he was, better than he did actually, but the urge to play with him, to tease and challenge and double dare, was almost irresistible even at the most passive of times. Saila couldn't help it, and the scoff he gave her only made her snicker all the more.

But still, there was that voice in her head, the nagging one, the one that twisted her stomach uncomfortably in the face of a lie, the one that demanded she say something. Saila had been ignoring it for more than a week, but it got progressively harder the longer she knew him. Brows furrowing a little, the girl took a light breath.

Well, **** it.

"There's a ...thing ...I should tell you, though." Realizing how that must have sounded, she was quick to add, "...don't freak out. It's nothing bad. It's just a thing you haven't asked about yet."

It wasn't until she said something that really caught his attention, and the way she worded it made him pull back and look at her. Leaning on his elbow, head tilted to rest on his shoulder as he watched her for a moment with that one dark brow lifted questioningly. "You say it's not bad... But you also say it like it might be something I'm going to need a cigarette for."

With that being said, he gave a bit of a grunt while he flopped onto his back again. Snatching his pack of Marlboros, he promptly retrieved one from its package and lit it with the only lighter he owns, his pin-up Zippo. It wasn't until he settled, taking a drag of his cigarette and speaking with a mouth-and-lungful of smoke. He gave a bit of a sigh, possibly expecting the worst as he knew better than to not to, hands curling in a come here motion while he offered his request. "Alright, then. Spill the beans, what's up?"

Then he was rolling onto his back and reaching for his cigarettes. The girl figured that was probably a good thing, considering, as she steeled herself for the admission that just... never really got any easier to make no matter how many times she explained it. The words were more familiar, sure, but the tendril of adrenaline that spiraled down into her belly was the same every time.

Beckoned closer, Saila was a touch surprised by that but came anyway, rolling onto her side to fit her body against his under the drape of his arm. She trailed a fingertip lightly over his chest as she gathered the words. "You never asked me how I knew how to fix your car."

She wasn't the type who would stop here and wait for him to ask the question, it was just the best lead in she could think of other than hey have you noticed yet that every time you start thinking about what you want me to do, I do it? That part she thought he might be able to figure out on his own, once he got over the initial surprise of it.

Lifting one hand off his chest, she curled her fingers at him in something like a little wave. "I have... another skill." She began, her gaze on his chest and not his face. "I can learn almost anything about anything through physical touch. It's strongest in my hands, but it's not limited to them. Any contact, even incidental, can be... highly educational for me, depending on what -- or who-- I'm touching."

Saila paused then, and instead of stealing his cigarette like she usually did, the girl reached across Hex for the pack, her body flush against his as she worked one cigarette loose, pushed it into her mouth and then claimed his Zippo to get it lit. That set back on the table, she retracted herself back to his side, scissoring the cancerstick between two fingers for an exhale, and to continue.

"...Baby told me what was wrong with her. Every part I touched told me what it was called, what it did, and whether it was doing it correctly. I just kept touching things until I found the one that said 'ow'."

He blinked at her. Completely silent the entire time she explained, staring.. blinking.. and taking hit after hit off the cigarette every few seconds while she talked. It took him a few minutes to register what she had said, thinking about how she had touched Baby, how this girl that didn't look much like the type to be a mechanic figured it out faster than he had when he had been at it all day. Then the thought came, and he couldn't stop the muscles in his shoulders and neck from tensing. ****, she knows about Charlie...

Even though she already knew everything that popped into his head the second it flashed through, considering the position they were lying in. He considered moving away, but rethought it. What good would it do? She already knew everything but hadn't acted any differently towards him, she didn't try to throw him a pity party like the people who didn't hear his thoughts, and she didn't treat him like some damaged toy that needed to be fixed like so many women had an obsession of doing.

But images of everything he had said, remembering some of the things he had thought while he had been touching her replayed for him now in vivid detail, and he couldn't help but feel a bit embarrassed.

And like any other time Hex gets into a slightly uncomfortable situation where he doesn't know how to react, sarcasm was his go to. "So much for my tough guy persona, huh?"

He snickered, though he wasn't looking her in the eyes at the moment. It wasn't out of shame, or irritation. He was being unusually calm for someone just finding out that the woman laying next to him could read his every thought. He was intelligent and was figuring things out as quickly as possible in his head, which surprisingly he hadn't pulled away from her in order to do so. What's the point? She's going to learn them soon enough anyways.

Sure, there were some things that he wished she didn't know, wished no one knew. He thought she was someone who hadn't seen what happened that night, or the nights later. The endless nights where he practically drowned himself in alcohol, drugs and women. Acted like an idiot. Was reckless, borderline sociopathic in the fact that he stopped caring. The things he said to those that tried to "comfort" him about Charlie and the things he said to them to get them to leave him alone. Stop thinking about it, you ******* idiot. But the funny thing about telling yourself to not think about something, you're going to think about it.

His head was nearly spinning with the thoughts that were going through his mind and he shut his eyes, letting out a sigh before taking that final drag of his cigarette. Blindly finding the ashtray like he knew exactly where it was, he stubbed it out. I'm going to need another. And that's exactly what he went for next.

Saila watched, felt, heard him work it out for himself, silent. She could feel him tense, both physically and mentally, as he came to certain realizations, and here she nodded wordlessly, acknowledging that yeah, I know about that, too. The girl gave him a dim smile, grateful, every time he thought about moving away from her and didn't.

Though her body was still pressed flush against his along its side, she made no effort to touch him with her hands, not yet. Instead she smoked her cigarette, trying to keep her breathing even, periodically reaching across him to ash it.

"Oh, you're still plenty tough, Hex," she answered his sarcasm softly, gently, and it was the first time she'd spoken in the long silence that stretched between them as he waded his way through it. Silence that, for her, wasn't even a little bit silent.

"Some things you should know," she said then, while he reached for another cigarette. "One --" Saila counted off on her fingers around the cigarette that burned between them. "I keep secrets like a goddamn champion. You don't have to worry about me spilling any of the things I know to anyone, ever. Two--you're right. I've known about ...all of that... from the beginning. You're handling it.. really ******* well, actually... but when I eventually leave and you get to thinking about it without me here, I want you to remember what you just figured out yourself -- I've known it from the beginning and it hasn't changed the way I am with you. Three--" and here a grin surfaced, finally, "...I want you to think of some of the things that maybe crossed your mind while we were ******* and... well. Let's just say I follow directions well, hm?"

He had snickered lightly at her reassuring him of his 'tough guy' reputation. He went through the process of retrieving, lighting and taking a hit from his cigarette while she named off three things, most easing his mind. It didn't make the fact that she knew more about him, those deep and personal thoughts that he had thought he knew alone, any easier. But the fact that she wouldn't tell anyone relaxed some of the muscles that were clenched tighter than Donald Trump's *** at Election Day.

By the time she got to number three, the corner of his mouth curled upward in a bit of a smirk. When he opened his eyes, his head turned to look at her. Then it dawned on him. No matter what **** comes out of my mouth, she'll know I didn't mean it. He knew there would be a time when he would be a complete ***** to her, it was inevitable. He had already gotten away with murder with her in avoiding his spiteful nature, but he knew there would at least be one time where he couldn't find a way around it.

Maybe he had spent far too much time in Hell with the biggest **** in a sea of ****. Hex had expected the worst at the fact that she knew his thoughts. What did he expect? That she would tell him the truth that she could read his mind and then say, ha ha you're a ****' wimp. Get over the **** already. Yeah, his expectations of life and people.... He probably could use some work on that.

Finally, after putting as much as he could together in his head, he spoke. But not before letting his arm lazily rest along the curve of her back, his thumb pressed lightly against her lower back where he seemed to enjoy touching.

Taking a hefty drag from his cigarette, "So, you can hear just about any thought that pops into my head when you're touching me. Could be worse." You could be a conniving **** who'd tell people, but.... thank you... for keeping my thoughts between us.

He let out a sigh, eyes turning towards the ceiling before closing. A slight smile spread across his face, along with a chuckle coming from his lips. For once, he could voice his thoughts. He didn't think someone reading his mind could be such a relief, even if there were a few downfalls.

At some point Saila reached across him again to put the cigarette out. The incubus had all of her attention as he relaxed into some things and still got hung up on others. She was patient, though, letting him come to terms with it in his own way, at least until he hit on the realization she'd been waiting on and hoping for from the minute she'd resolved to tell him.

"Yes," she said suddenly, tapping his chest gently with her finger tips to accentuate his epiphany. "That. I understand you. Which, in your case, is not at all the same as hearing you." A faint smile touched her face as she looked up at him then, meeting his gaze.

Her strange eyes were earnest, honest; the gift of truly understanding, of knowing who someone really was and what made them the way they are, of knowing what they meant regardless of what they said, it was the most powerful, generous gift she could give anyone.

Hex had it from her already.

It was a little thing, the way he consciously wrapped that one arm around her. It was no different than the way he'd done it a dozen other times, but at the same time it couldn't have been more different. He knew, now, what touching her would do. What proximity meant. So many people altered the way they interacted with her physically once they knew -- in that moment she was so relieved she couldn't speak.

Letting out the breath she didn't really know she'd been holding, Saila lowered her head to lay it on his shoulder, nuzzling into his chest. Now this, this was probably actually cuddling. And as much as he wasn't a fan of that, well, in this one instance Hex was just going to have to deal. "Yes, and you're welcome. I can't help what I hear, but... it stays with me. I swear."

And it was at that point that he realized she had been just as tense about telling him as he had been about hearing it. He was quiet for a moment, thinking about being in those shoes. He might've half expected her to laugh at the **** that went through his head, the **** he had been dealing with and maybe even the situation with Charlie.

But she had probably expected him to turn away from her, kick her out or not want anything to do with her. With that in his mind, he didn't shrug away from the 'cuddling'. Not to say he didn't mumble something along the lines of, "damn cuddler", under his breath regardless. You win that one, Saila.

Hoping that it would ease some of the tension between them both, even though she probably heard it before the words left his lips, it didn't matter. "Don't think you're off the hook just because you momentarily distracted me. You've been double dared." The grin that had spread across his face was turned towards her when he looked down at the top of her head, his arm tightening around her as he reached for the hip she wasn't lying on and giving it a squeeze.

Yeah, it would take some getting used to, and she could probably anticipate some future moments of ****. She probably heard that from time to time, but he'd get over it. At least someone understood he wasn't as much of an **** as his mouth portrayed him to be. So far, she was the only one who actually understood instead of shrugging it off as "he can't help it".

Saila laughed softly at his grumbling, and, since she was winning anyway, stretched her shoulders so she could lay a light kiss along the side of his throat. None of the usual sexual tension in it, this was just a kiss, a gesture of affection and gratitude. Hex could have reacted any number of ways; and the one he'd actually chosen was the best of all possible outcomes.

A wild grin broke across her features when he brought up the fact that there was a challenge between them. This time the way her lips smeared over his chest did turn into a bite, a grazing of pearlescent teeth that snapped together playfully. "It's true, I have," Saila conceded, the tension and gravity of the moment prior seeming to evaporate all at once. "What do I get if I win?"

"What do you want?" He said through gritted teeth from the bite, giving her a light playful growl before pulling his hand back then sent it falling against her rear. Since his arm was already stuck beneath her, he tried to tug her on top him. Granted, he could manipulate her body considering his strength, but that took the fun out of it. Instead, he tried to guide her to where he was aiming for.

The girl squirmed when he smacked her, snickering, but she redirected herself over his body anyway. Lifting herself up on her fists with a transfer of her knees, she eased herself across his hips. Sitting on her knees, Saila straddled the incubus, her hair still crimped and curly from the braid it had been in spilling almost all the way to her hips, tickling lightly against his button-less belly when she leaned forward. Her expression nonchalant, the girl draped herself over his chest, crossing her arms there to pillow her chin as she studied him, a grin like a Cheshire cat curling into her lips. "...What are you willing to give?"

His fingers snaked through those crinkled locks, stroking across her scalp as he watched her with a single brow quirked. Lying beneath her, he raised one arm and slid it beneath his head to prop himself into a position where he could easily look back at her. "I'm sure you can guess my limits if you've seen what's in my head."

He snickered, though there was a challenge there, completely curious as to what she would come up with. If she managed to break his record of thirty six hours with him, he would probably let her pick her poison with few exceptions.

Saila's grin spread its legs, peeling back from her teeth. Her expression catlike, she tipped her head into his touch, lashes fluttering lightly as he scritched her scalp. "Mm, true. I haven't explored every corner of your head yet --four centuries is a whole bunch to dig through, yo-- but I'm sure I can come up with something."

Rocking herself forward on her knees and elbows, the girl caught the lobe of his ear in her teeth, dragging back playfully before replacing that bite with a suckling kiss. "So when does our time clock start, hm?"

"Mmm. You'll have plenty of time to come up with something" His lids lowered when she latched onto his earlobe, his fingers leaving her hair to trail down her naked back. Just a brush of the tips as they made their way down, then squeezing. He turned his head slightly and took a side glance at the alarm clock beside the bed, noting the time.

A curling grin spread across his cheeks large enough to present his dimples. With hands gripping her rear, the muscles of his thighs tensed as he lifted his hips to grind against her straddling frame on top of him. "Hope you didn't have plans, though if you did... I don't really care." And that... wasn't a lie.

With a turn of his head, tugging his ear from her mouth before catching her lips with his own.

Saila grinned as his hands found their way down her body. Though this was hardly a new thing at this point, this time promised to be different. For one thing, they had a record to beat. For another, he knew, now, that she could hear the things he didn't say as well -- and sometimes better -- than she heard the things he did, and she fully expected him to take advantage of that.

Anticipation forming a tight knot low in her belly, the girl kissed one of those dimples affectionately, snapping teasingly at his nose when he said he didn't care whether she had plans or not. Truth was, she didn't. Her gaze went to the clock, briefly, and with a lightly whispered "Game on," she kissed him back.

Her re-positioning against him didn't faze him much, Hex only maneuvered to make it more comfortable for the both of them. His arm fell to rest across her stomach, but it was still Hex. Therefore, that hand was eased beneath her shirt to rest against the flesh. He didn't care much for touching clothing.

He was slightly surprised at how well he could tolerate it, but it only confused him further as to why. Luckily, his thoughts didn't linger and turn against him due to her distracting question. "Pretty much. Get into some sketchy ****. I mostly focus on the comedy parts of it." Partially because the two of them reminded him of himself and Beelzebub, the similarities tended to make him laugh. Right down to their verbal banter.

Saila laughed, too, because she was pressed up against him and could see the things he was remembering. Seemed not all of Hell was strictly terrible, though she could also see all too clearly why he'd left it.

Settled comfortably against him, Saila watched the movie for a time in silence, enjoying the fact that this, whatever it was, seemed to be working. The sex was a blast and she definitely wasn't turning it down, but like the other night when they'd gone out for a drive, it was nice to just be with him, too.

Fingers brushed across the flesh of her stomach as he relaxed there, tucked into the cushions of the couch and Saila's frame. He gave her a bit of a nuzzle of his nose to her violet hair, testing things here and there to see what he could get away with. So far, he didn't snap on her. He might be abusing it a bit, enjoying the fact that the spiteful beast inside him was currently sated or dormant for the time being.

A ripple of goosebumps breaking out over her skin, Saila giggled softly, cringing into him. Hex's touch still had the power to affect her even when he wasn't using his power, maybe even more so specifically because he wasn't. Cringing into him, her mismatched eyes pulled away from the screen to look up at his face for a long moment, but eventually she laid her head on his chest again, silent.

Though he hadn't been using his powers behind the touch, the slight spike was unmistakable. He could sense any sensual spike coming from the lithe body leaned against him. The opposite corner of his mouth turned upwards. Golden hues glanced down when she looked away, no more than a second or two afterwards. His grin turned slightly playful, a rumbling growl in his chest was his only warning before his grip on her tightened, his head leaning down quickly and going straight for her neck to gnaw on it. He wasn't aiming for anything sexual, more of a tickling gesture with his teeth as the sounds coming from his mouth were nothing more than playful.

The thing about Saila's ability is that she knew what he was up to. The thing about Hex was that it didn't matter in the slightest that she knew what was coming. If anything, the knowing made it a million times worse. His teeth at her neck, his breath spilling over her throat, the girl was suddenly feeling crazy-ticklish, though her instincts were off. Scrambling into his lap instead of away from him like a sane person would have, really she only put herself in a worse predicament if he didn't let up. Squeaking, she snickered, pushing at him lightly as though to dislodge him.

To be fair, though, there was next to no force in it. She was trying to push him off, sure, but she wasn't trying that hard.

It's no surprise she saw it coming when she did, but it was more pleasing to him that she went along with it anyways. Her maneuvering did make it worse for her, with her sitting in his lap, it only made it easier for him to lock his arms around her and keep at her neck. A light playful growling made against the flesh as he loosely kept his grip firm on her. Fingers sought out her sides to get her more, the corner of his mouth curving upward in a grin that was nothing less than ****-eating at this point. Seems she fell into the trap he hadn't really set for her. The light pushing didn't do much, between his hold (even if it was loose and he wasn't trying too hard) and her not trying that hard to push him away.

It wasn't until a few moments had passed that he finally stopped gnawing and tickling at her neck.... to lap the flat of his tongue up her cheek. Letting go of her and falling back against the cushions of the couch, dimples exposed as he let out a small cackle then just sat there, slouched against the couch while he looked up at her with a grin.

Saila shivered, squirming against him as she fought totally ineffectually to free herself from his grasp. Yep. Totally helpless, that one. Just can't seem to manage to defend herself. Alas. He tickled her, and she squealed again, shoving at him a little harder now but still inconsequentially.

Just when she was considering fighting him over it for real, he stopped, licking her cheek instead. That super heated tongue left a red flush on her skin that tingled pleasantly. The muse shuddered. "Mm. No fair using the tongue against me." Her strange eyes glassy, Saila let her spine collapse against the far end of the couch, her body basically draped across the Nephilim's lap, prone. She lifted one hand, fitting a delicate fingertip into one of his dimples. "You have the most dangerous smile."

A faint snap at her finger when it sunk into his dimple, though no contact was made to the flesh, only to the air near it. His arms flopped across her rear and back of the thighs where she laid.

"Dangerous? Unlikely. Kind of ruins the whole look I've got goin' on." He snickered, remembering the amount of times those dimples got him teased when he was playing intimidator. Luckily for Hex, he wasn't just a meat sack and could back up the poison on his loose tongue.

He grunted faintly as his torso leaned forward over her prone body, half slapping and half snatching up his handy dandy pack of smokes that he always kept on the coffee table. Prepared, that one. Promptly lighting one of the sticks, he then craned his head down and gave a bite to her right ass cheek. "I use what I got. If I gotta use the tongue, I'm going to." He gave her a half-cocked smirk before slumping back against the couch cushions.

"No, see, that's just it," protested Saila, jerking her hand away on reflex, though a smile of amusement lingered on her face. "See, this smile of yours is so innocent that it's completely disarming. It's the boyish, 'aw shucks, I ain't so bad, honest I ain't...' smile that makes suckers out of women everywhere." Hex might have gotten **** for his dimpled grin, but the girl in his lap saw it only as an asset, an added bonus to his already pretty impressive arsenal of weapons.

Suddenly he was reaching across her for his cigarettes, and Saila felt herself compacted, her spine arching as his body closed over hers in the lean. As he retreated, he bit her ass again, and the girl wiggled teasingly. Arching her spine even more drastically, she kissed him full on the lips before he could get that cigarette into play. Because she could, mostly.

He snickered, about to open his mouth to speak before her lips closed in on his. "Mmm..." Was all that could be verbalized while his free hand shifted to slide behind her neck, keeping her there. Riiiiight, innocent. She could shut up his mouth, but not his thoughts. His smile was probably the only thing that remotely looked innocent about him. Perhaps the gleam in his eye that matched the boyish dimpled grin, but no one saw that one. Well, no one until lately. Saila had probably seen it plenty of times by now.

Fingers ran through her violet locks, she had changed his tune real quick. Keeping lips locked, he reached over her one more time, holding onto her as he shifted to stub out the cigarette. **** that **** cigarette. Huh. Well that was a new one. With another hand free, it went straight to her hip, giving it a squeeze.

Saila opened her mouth to his when he responded, kissing her back, letting him in. "Mmm," she purred back at him, agreeing, lapping at his tongue with the velvet tip of her own. His thoughts made her snicker, but not hard enough to break the kiss. She knew that look, the one that no one but her seemed to have seen, and maybe that's what was appealing about it to her. This secret side of Hex, this understanding of his real self that seemed to be hers alone.

Her hip squeezed, her back arched as she sat up in his lap, pressing her chest meaningfully against his. Thick fingers were in her hair and she moaned against his lips, her free hand curling around his shoulder.

His lips followed hers when she shifted positions, hands remaining where they were until she settled into his lap. Fingers maneuvered from her hip to her back when her chest was pressed to his, hand pressing to her back to bring her even closer. When she had opened her mouth, he took the opportunity to slip his tongue between her lips, toying and teasing the tip of her tongue.

To call it a secret side of Hex was relatively accurate, as even Kitra and Saji knew nothing of this side. Hell, even his 'being nice' to those like Jynx and Mynardi wasn't all that nice. The closest who knew was Jill, and it took her a long time to get there. Saila somehow managed to slither her way right into his soft spot, where he couldn't bring himself to be anything other than what he was towards her now. Whether or not it was that touch of innocence about her that he didn't want to ruin, he didn't know and he couldn't seem to figure it out.

Sealing what little distance remained between them, Saila wrapped her arms around his neck, fingers crawling deftly over his scalp, through black strands made sticky with mousse. Rolling her hips intentionally, the girl rocked her pelvis against his. It wasn't really that the sex mattered most, though it was certainly a prominent feature of their entanglement. She loved **** Hex, but she was also really digging the man himself, and she'd sorted out enough about him to know that the more she turned him on of her own volition, the easier time he had breathing, fighting the angry part of his nature.

It was a careful balance, then, trying to draw his real personality out from between his twin conflicting natures, tightrope walking her way between the spite and the lust. Saila was proving to be a professional at it, but it didn't mean she didn't wobble one way or the other from time to time.

That name, Jill, the purple haired girl kept running up against it in the corridors of the Nephilim's mind. Jill seemed like a good person to remind him of, except that Saila didn't particularly want to stop **** him. Could it be done? Time would tell. In the meantime she kissed him hard, and with feeling.

The moment her arms wrapped around his neck, his thickly corded arms locked tighter around her lithe frame. Though sticky with mousse, it was somehow soft at the same time. If not for the mousse, he had his father's hair and it would just linger, thick and full around his face. It didn't suit him, not a bit. At least not with the style of clothing he had chosen. Having the biker look didn't look right when your hair tended to be thick and wavy, making it look more like a shorter version of Van Helsing or some ****. Her hips rocking against his, muscular legs tensed as he rocked back.

One thing he had mastered during his long life of being an incubus was how to control the lust, it didn't overwhelm him so he couldn't recover from it. He could go full scale, or keep it at a lingering pace. And he kept it to a minimum, enjoying the simple intimacy and interaction between the two without heading straight for the bedroom. Her mouth pressed firmly to his, his head tilted to the side only deepening the kiss further. It was the one time he could allow himself such a luxury of actual intimacy, you'd bet he was going to take advantage of it. And somehow, Saila knew how to make it all the more easier for him to do so.

As for finding his personality, that was the tricky part though not impossible. Spite and Lust were merely a mask of the true Hex, and he was somewhere in between. As if the two traits were mixed as an ocean, and he himself was the island in the center. What inhabited the island was someone hardly anyone knew, and if they did, it was only a fleeting glance before the fog settled in around the island, rendering it unknown.

He had no clue Jill was who Saila reminded him of, completely oblivious to the fact, but whatever it was, he didn't think too much on it. Because some thoughts could ruin moments, and though if it came to light that it was Jill... Well, she had similar properties, but Saila was something new and foreign to him altogether, and for the moment he was fully enjoying the adventure of discovering who this long-legged, violet-haired woman was who pulled a new side of him to the surface.

05.12.2016
Saila is Totally Useful

Out the norm for Hex though not that much, he was sprawled across the hood of his Baby. Currently parked in a field just a bit away from the road, somewhere in between the city and the Glen. He had a case of beer set on the ground beside the front right tire. He had the stereo in the trunk playing a tracklist of songs that he wasn't really listening to, but keeping the silence away. His thoughts seemed so much louder in the silence. His head was propped on a bent arm, staring up at the sky.

Not much of the philosophical type, but he could appreciate a clear night sky instead of the smoldering ash and heat of Hell. He had been tired of sitting at home, having ordered all the parts he needed and now it was just time to wait for their arrival. He'd made a few appearances at various social areas in the city, but decided socializing wasn't something he felt like doing, either. With that, he drove and drove for a couple hours, until eventually he ended up here.

One of the two places Saila "lived" was in the Glen, among the gypsies. She had an RV that was allegedly, technically hers, but that she pretty much never spent all that much time in. Except lately, what with the whole impending doom thing happening. Lately, she'd been hanging closer to camp when she wasn't with Hex.

And speaking of the incubus, well.. his energy called to her like a bright flame in the night. Given the marathon tug of war matches, her ability to pick up his presence ranged over quite a distance, now: she could detect him farther away than pretty much anyone but Quinn. It was that flare of radiant light that drew her eyes away from the campfire; a spark in the distant dark that snagged and diverted her attention.

Making her excuses to the Barlow crew, Saila picked up a couple of beers for the road and melted into the woods. Using him like a beacon, the girl paid little attention where she was going, her stroll a casual one as she sipped her beer. It was only a few minutes' walk before she broke through the clearing, approaching the car and the Nephilim alike. "...What," she called teasingly. "You get most of the way to see me and give up when you're so close?"

Having been somewhere between lost in a song that managed to snag his attention and his own thoughts, he had been in the midst of taking a swig of his beer when he heard the familiar voice snapping him back to reality. Unfortunately, he had been too lost in his head to recognize the voice at first.

...And managing to get the jump on the incubus, he shot up like a rocket, movements much quicker than would be expected of such a large man as he slid down the hood and to his feet. Fists clenched as his head turned toward her, the sight of the purple haired woman came into focus. Man, he had to have been completely lost in his mind. He exhaled roughly through his teeth, slowly unclenching his fists and subtly shaking off the tension in his shoulders.

"Jesus, woman. You tryin' to get hit? .... Wait, what?" It took him a moment for her question to register in his memory, blinking molten gold hues at her. With another rough exhale, cheeks puffing out like a chipmunk as a hand came up to scratch the back of his neck. "Who said I was coming to see you?" The spiteful words spilled out of his mouth like vinegar, his jaw clenched, muscle visibly taut as he wanted to swallow those **** words. Not to her, ****stick. Stop.

"I ...wasn't being particularly subtle," said the girl evenly, her smile a casual one. She maybe felt a little bad for surprising him, but she closed the rest of the distance despite his tense stance, the harsh words that spilled from his mouth. "..It was a joke, Hex. Nobody ever comes looking for me out here." Her tone, her expression, both showed that she was unfazed. She lifted her free hand to his chest, holding her beer out to her side away from her as she closed the space between them. "Maybe we try this again. Hi?"

When her hand met his chest, he shut his eyes. He let out the breath of air he didn't realize he had been holding, eyelids lowering as he leaned into her until they closed. It seemed to be taking a while for the tension in his jaw to relax, thankful for these times that she wasn't all that much shorter than him so it made it easier for him to bring his forehead to hers.

"Hi..." I'm sorry... bit jumpy lately I guess... Though that was a bit of an understatement. He tended to spend most of his time at home, not only for the fact of being antisocial, but the longer he stayed in RhyDin, the longer he grew paranoid that someone would find him there. Kitra said he wouldn't tell.... but that's like putting your head in an alligator's mouth after it promises not to bite you. Demons were demons.

Slowly, his muscles relaxed the longer she touched him. Somehow, she had a knack for calming the beast. Unlike most people, his beast was on the outside, caging him inside of his head. "So.... you live around here, huh?" Now that he was relaxing and her touch was calming him, it was easier to swallow the spiteful tone in his voice.

Saila could feel him relaxing, both mentally and physically, with her hand on his chest. Which is why she set the beer bottle aside on the hood of his car -- gently, of course-- and then, once her hand was free, slid her other arm around his hips. Forehead to forehead, the girl stood with him quietly for a long moment, just sharing his space, breathing in his heat, helping him chill.

When the last of the tension unfurled from his shoulders, the girl lifted her chin, kissing him lightly on the mouth in greeting. "Hi yourself," said Saila with a grin, her strange eyes fixed on his. "Yeah, sometimes." Lifting the one hand off his chest, she hooked a thumb over her shoulder. "Can you see the fire over there, in the distance? That's the gypsy camp where I stay sometimes."

Lips met and were released seemingly too quickly before he opened his eyes, forehead pulling away from hers to look over her shoulder to where she was pointing. His brows furrowed for a moment, "Huh, I guess I hadn't noticed..." He couldn't remember if that had been there when he pulled up or not, questioning just how far he had delved into his own head. Not a good idea, to be so oblivious to his surroundings.

His eyes pulled away from the area in the distance where the gypsy camp was, moving away for a moment to grab another beer from the cooler. In the midst of his jumping, it seemed he had flung his beer somewhere, luckily no where on himself. Using the palm of his hand, he popped the cap off the bottle. His feet lead him back to the hood of the car, settling back against the hood with his feet planted on the ground, legs straight to keep himself from sliding off. A healthy swig of his beer took care of the rest of the tension in his jawline, and he looked around then back at her with a faint smirk on his face.

"Daddy Wolf not lurking in the tree-line, ready to tear my throat out, is he?" He snickered lightly, though the glint in his eyes were a clear indication he was just teasing her.

The kiss was fleeting, but it was meant to be. Hex pulled away and she let him, hooking her fingers into her back pockets as she watched him stretch and move, restlessly. When he planted himself on the hood, Saila stayed where she was, reclaiming the beer from the roof of the car. A glance was tossed over her shoulder in the direction of the camp, and then she settled her elbows on Baby's roof, leaning lightly against her side.

At his question, Saila shook her head with a faint smile that was almost apologetic. "Nope. He's getting laid, just at present." The bond worked both ways, after all. Her warlock mentor had taught Saila how to keep Quinn out of her head, but there was no way at all to keep herself out of his. With her chin propped on her forearms, her mismatched eyes studied him curiously. "...What's got you this off, hm?"

When she settled herself, he did the same. Leaning on his side, the impulse to be close to her was there so he propped himself up on a bent elbow. He watched her for a moment, taking a swig of beer before settling it in his other hand, the one propping himself on the hood. "Been one of those days, I guess." He gave her a bit of a shrug, the words in his thoughts not wanting to leave his lips.

He ran his fingers through already slicked back hair, only flattening it more to the contours of his scalp. His gaze fell on her, almost like he was contemplating something. He reached a hand out, cupping her chin and stroking her lips with his thumb. "Don't worry about it, nothing I can't handle." He pushed away any thoughts threatening to surface. Not only did he not want to worry her, but he didn't want to stop touching her either, so those thoughts were pushed as far back as possible into the recesses of his mind.

The relative silence she felt when he reached out to touch her was strange, her mismatched eyes said as much. Still she let him, her lips parting against his thumb, kissing it once. It was affectionate, and she followed it up with a playful graze of her teeth to make up for it. The distance he'd put up, Saila could have bridged but she didn't, choosing not to press him on this anymore than she did on anything else. It would come, with time, or it wouldn't.

One shoulder rose and fell in a shrug, then. "Okay, so I won't." Giving the Nephilim a dim smile, she straightened up, then, shifting herself off the passenger door to stand on her own again. "Y'seemed pretty ...absorbed, though. I didn't mean to startle you. I can let you be? I just... felt you from back there and got curious." It wasn't exactly apologetic, but Saila was definitely giving him the option to tell her to get lost without having to be an **** about it.

The corners of his mouth turned downward at that. By far what he didn't want. Even though she moved away, he didn't. Doing much the opposite, he slid off the hood and maneuvered around the car. They had made great progress over the past few days, and he wasn't about to **** it up now. He approached her, setting aside his beer on the hood upon passing. When he reached her, hands moved to her hips and around her back. His neck craned only slightly as his lips came to hers, a soft brush at first. "Does this answer your question?" He nuzzled her cheek lightly with his nose.

He knew he was being slightly distant at the moment, and was forcing it back. He didn't want her to think it was because of her in the least. Just... paranoid of being found. He vaguely voiced his concern through his thoughts, his jaw tensing slightly at the admission. It wasn't fear, it was just... an ordeal he didn't want to deal with considering the only ones who would be adamant on trying to find him would be his sisters. But it wouldn't do any good to shut Saila out now... Now after the good day they'd just recently had.

Ready to slip away into the night, Saila felt him moving closer before she saw it. She looked up just in time to have his arms slide around her, his mouth just barely grazing hers. A smile found her then, and yeah, the contact was reassuring. She nodded, her hands crawling between them to ease over his chest once more.

Being found. The thought echoed in her skull, accompanied by a handful of disjointed image fragments. He was trying to share without giving her the whole picture, and the fact that he was trying at all melted whatever hesitation she'd been feeling. Her arms slid around his neck, fingers in his hair, her mouth still just brushing his though she'd not yet committed to a kiss.

His eyelids lowered slightly like a cat being petted when he felt her fingers in his hair, possibly one of his weaknesses. His forehead pressed to hers, lightly brushing her lips with his own now and then, though not fully committed to a kiss himself. Instead, he was enjoying the closeness for the moment. His thumbs rubbed against her sides, a slightly affectionate gesture. I'm... glad you're here... And that wasn't a lie. His mind had been threatening to swallow him whole before she showed up, and she was turning out to be his favorite distraction. Another thought he brushed to the side.

A smile slid her lips apart at the expression on his face. Her nails grazed his scalp, and Saila shifted her weight just a little bit to press herself forward, her body making full contact with his from chest to hips. The proximity was nice, a thing that was nearly as rare for her as it was for him.

She nodded. "So'm I." Answering the thing he hadn't said out loud, the muse closed her eyes, letting the intensity of his life force envelop her for a minute. "It's... not a thing I get to do much, either," the confession came because it seemed only fair - she knew how much he struggled with these simplest of gestures, and as much as she didn't want to say too much and cause him panic, neither did she want him to think he was the only one in new territory. "Most people tend to avoid me, either unconsciously or deliberately, once they know."

Latin was practically Hell 101, and Hex was fluent. In order to summon him through any spell, Latin was a must. As were most of the summoning spells. At least if you wanted to be proper with it.

Well that would be super useful if she ever needed to actually "summon" him as opposed to just... texting him or showing up at his house. Hey, you never know if she ever got kidnapped and had the tools to summon him without her phone. Ha.

He smiled warmly, that boyish smile returning to his features, dimples and all. "Yes, you are." With a low chuckle, he pressed his face to her chest, directly between her breasts. Arms wrapped around her waist, lifting her (yes, the thing that happens a lot) as he nuzzled her chest. His demeanor had definitely changed, luckily for the better this time. She had a way of bringing him back to life from the worst of his negative moods.

And there was that smile, the one that made her weak-kneed, so it was a good thing he picked her up at virtually the same time. Impossibly long legs wrapped around his waist, Saila grinned, arching her back so he could do this thing a little better, pressing her chest up into him, encouraging. "That's what they'll put on my tombstone when my dumbass decisions eventually kill me. "Here lies Saila. She was totally useful." "

He moved over to the hood of his Baby, snatching up his beer with one hand while keeping her propped up with the other. Pressing a kiss to where her encouraging chest was presented to him, he smiled softly at that. Having managed to bring the two of them to the front of the car, he carefully leaned down to sit on the hood, glad that her legs were higher up on his waist so he doubted it would be any trouble at all for their new position. He looked up at her, "Totally." He snickered, giving her jawline a light nuzzle before taking a swig of beer that was thankfully still a bit carbonated.

Carried, Saila smirked, her hands wrapped lightly around the back of his neck. When he sat down, she settled in his lap without folding her legs back behind or underneath her, but she at least unhooked them in case he was planning on laying back.

While he was drinking his beer, Saila smirked, her violently vibrant hair a mess of vivid tangles spilling all around her, and him for that matter. When he was finished with his swallow, she lifted the bottle out of his hands, mostly to help herself to some of its contents. Hey, she stole his cigarettes all the time, why not his beer, too?

Her gaze falling on his, the girl studied him curiously, half a smile still imprinted on her face. "M'glad you think so."

Normally, it wouldn't be wise to steal the man's beer, but he seemed to allow Saila to just about get away with murder around him. The only offering he gave her when she took his beer was a snickering laugh, with both hands free they wrapped around her. His lips met her collar bone, giving a light nuzzle to the soft flesh right beneath it. He wondered if he lit a cigarette, was she going to steal it, too? Probably. Which only made him chuckle, as if he actually minded...

Hex pulled back, their gazes meeting as he watched her. "Normally by now I'd be bored." But somehow, not with you. He leaned back for a moment, twisting at the waist as he reached his hand back toward the windshield where he had his pack of cowboy killers nestled in the dip between the hood and windshield, propped on windshield wipers. Turning back around, having kept his hand at her back so she didn't fall or slide off his lap. He used one hand to open the pack with his thumb, his lips to tug a stick from the package and the familiar click, tsh, click of his infamous Zippo. He took a drag from the cigarette and gave her a cheeky grin, borderline smart-ass as he held it out to her. Muahahaha! Hard to steal it when he offers it!

Saila wasn't well known for making wise decisions. The girl was smart - it wasn't that she was an idiot despite what some people thought. She just gave virtually no **** how most things turned out, and that lack of expectations afforded her a freedom that most people called reckless.

Still, she grinned when he seemed to allow it without reprisal, her torso pulled up close again as his mouth found her collar bone. It was only around Hex and a handful of others that she wore the kind of clothes that even exposed her decorated collar bones, much less any kind of cleavage. This particular shirt was doing a good job of showcasing both, a ribbed tanktop with a small slit cut in the center where the fabric peeled back in triangles, showing off her tits.

"I'm much too weird to be boring," her response was a playful one, her smile a twist of an irreverent smirk. Though he kept one hand around her for support when Hex maneuvered to retrieve his cigarettes, there was also a clear moment when her abdominal muscles would engage to keep her upright, riding the movement of his body smoothly and without trouble. When he turned back towards her, Saila was grinning.

The cigarette was offered out and her grin spread wider. "...Oh, that's cheating," she snickered, but took the offer anyway. Pressing it to her lips for a long inhale, she handed it back a couple of moments later with a knowing nod. "Tastes better that way, anyway." For him or her? She didn't clarify.

"Yes, you are, Saila..." But the tone in his voice made it clear that he enjoyed the fact that she was 'weird'. Weird where he came from was good, it was new and fun. When she gave back the cigarette, he took it between scissored fingers, bringing it to his lips for a deep drag. Her accusing him of cheating brought a coy smirk to his features, exhaling to the side so the plume didn't hit her in the face before he playfully nuzzled the revealed cleavage thanks to the low-cut top she was wearing. Giving one a light nip before he sought the nicotine of the stick again, he grinned up at her. I have to get the upper hand every NOW and then. He gave her chin a light bump with his nose, a half-assed nuzzle.

He felt comfortable around her, in their own little secluded world where he didn't worry about being ridiculed for the things he did towards her, or people teasing about him being a tough guy seeming to just be a big teddy bear. He could be cuddly, even affectionate toward Saila, and the more time that passed between the two, the easier it got. There was still plenty that would send shooting pain through his gut, but progress was being made. What it meant, he still didn't have the faintest idea.

Saila tipped her head back, exhaling into the sky. Her strange eyes flickered with amusement as he nuzzled himself right up into her cleavage, and she slid her nails over his scalp to the back of his neck, neither pushing him closer nor pulling him away. She shivered when his teeth made contact, a little hum of approval sounding low in her throat.

Arching a brow with a spreading smile, Saila tipped her chin down to look at him about the time he was kinda sorta nuzzling. "...get the upper hand every now and then?" Echoed the muse, tipping her head curiously with a little laugh. "Aren't you pretty much always in charge?"

It was surprisingly comfortable. Maybe it was the fact that she knew an enormous number of werewolves, but to Saila 'tough' and 'cuddly' weren't at all incompatible. Nobody ever accused a rottweiler of being a pansy just because he liked belly rubs and wagged his tail.

Perhaps it was what he knew, or where he was from that changed their views on that. Personally, just because he liked to be enveloped in a woman's arms or act like a playful pup now and then didn't mean he couldn't beat some ass when he needed to. But to show your 'soft' side meant showing weakness in Hell, and all weaknesses were exploited. Cold and distant was the way to go, not only for you but whomever you were associated with. No matter who you knew, they could be used against you later if you showed care towards that person.

"Being in charge doesn't mean it's the upper hand." You give me the upper hand by allowing it. He chuckled, shaking his head. "Something that I've learned from a dude wayyy into BDSM...It's the submissive that has control, able to take it back just as quickly and easily as they give it." He quoted a fellow demon amongst his crew, out of curiosity as to why he liked it so much one day. And it made sense to Hex, at least on some level. But thank you for giving me that control... It makes... this.... easier. He didn't really know how else to say it. The fact that she allowed him to get away with as much as he did, considering the amount of dominating women he knew... It was pleasant.

Saila couldn't argue that point, really. She was built as a weapon and had no real use for authority, but it was no secret that she served -- in whatever capacity she happened to be serving -- at her own discretion. She took instruction well and was generally happy to let other people lead, but it never for a second meant she couldn't reassert control if she got bored.

"It's true," she said, grinning brightly. "...Plus being in charge means having all kinds of extra responsibility, and **** that." There was something in her eyes that went visibly softer at the undercurrent of his thoughts, and Saila leaned in then, pressing an affectionate kiss to his nose. "...Anytime, babe."

He went still for a moment, between her affectionate action and the word spoken. When the kiss was pressed to his nose, the ridiculousness of his eyes crossing to watch her completely contrasted the expression on his face. Babe... He was silent for a moment, not sure how to take the term of endearment. He didn't know the meaning behind it or if it was spoken casually, so he didn't really know how to react. To some, babe meant... more. To some... it could be spoken to a stranger on the street. His thoughts went a mile a minute, arm rising to get a pull off his cigarette as he contemplated and situated his own thoughts around it all.

Snickering lightly at the way his eyes crossed, the girl traced the line of his cheek with one fingertip thoughtfully, her strange eyes narrowing just a little. Confirming what she thought was going on there, Saila shook her head, her hand moving away from his face to rake her nails through purple tresses, shaking them loose a moment to get the movement off her neck.

"Breathe, Hex," she said gently. "Here and now, remember?" Yes, it was a term of endearment, but then she'd made no secret of the fact that she liked him and enjoyed his company. But for her the word wasn't a loaded weapon, it didn't carry the weight of expectation.

He shook his head, the laughter spilling out of him, slow and steady. Ah, hell. He couldn't help it though. He felt so ridiculous. His hand moved up to cup her cheek, his eyes filled with amusement. No, it's... it's okay. I'm just not.... used... to someone calling me babe without irony or mocking behind it.

Then the words that he wanted to say out loud, he forced out without thinking about it, because thinking about it meant doubting it. "I liked it." That twinge of pain returned and he winced slightly, but swallowed it down with a swig of beer and a pull of his Marlboro. Squeezing his eyes shut, waiting for the pain subside. Worth it... He muttered in his head, not particularly to her, or to himself. Just in general.

Saila just watched him for a long moment, trying to reconcile the expression on his face with the things he was conveying. She lifted one hand to gently cup the back of his, lightly holding it there against her jaw. Her expression turned thoughtful, lips pursing unconsciously as she caught the inside of the right corner of her lips between her back teeth. There was empathy in her eyes as a thought occurred to her, one she'd been on the verge of saying before she remembered that it wasn't a thing he was necessarily ready to know.

Shaking her head, the girl's smile resurfaced, and even as she watched his features contract in pain, she leaned forward, tipping her head to the side to kiss him lightly on the mouth, as if maybe she could kiss the hurt better. "Good." She said softly, her voice a hushed whisper that spilled over his lips. "I liked it, too."

His eyes having been closed, he missed the contemplating look, the pursing lips and the empathy in her eyes. But he felt when her lips pressed to his, even if only for a moment. Not caring for the cigarette in his hand at the moment, he pinched it between his thumb and middle finger, dropping it into the empty beer bottle beside him. His eyes slowly opened, though stayed have lidded as he looked up at her.

The progress seemed fast to him, but for some reason, Saila made him want to try to get past his nature. She made him want to try harder and he didn't care about the pain, not really. He had been through worse, hell he had had his ass handed to him more times than he could count by Abaddon. The thought flickered in his head and he pushed them away quickly, not wanting her to see the mess that destructive woman had left him in. His gaze flicked away from hers for a moment, he didn't think she had seen anything, having pushed it away as soon as it appeared.

She wasn't wrong, at least. Though it didn't literally take away the pain, it made it more tolerable. The smile that fell across his lips was genuine, soft and warm before he tilted his head up, catching her lips with his, the entire time having kept his hand to her cheek. His thumb brushing across her delicate cheekbones, and once again he lost himself in her kiss.

Those were things that only she saw. He didn't, but he didn't spend all day looking at himself, and didn't think the same way. Nor did he find men appealing, so he probably wouldn't know much about those opinions. Even though her expression was clearly daring, he didn't. For once.

His curling devilish smile shone through, a faint wiggling of brows. "Forty-eight it is next time." He snickered, amused that she was willing to go for another marathon at some point. Most women would've shuddered at that, especially if they had partaken in one of those marathons. He dug it, the fact that she was unafraid, even more so that she could handle it. He wasn't scared of breaking her anymore, though he still kept relatively gentle with her. Assuming he was physically stronger than her, he didn't want to cause her harm.

And he probably would've chased after her; seeing that bulky man-bear booking it as fast as he could would've just been hilarious and equally ridiculous, but he would've given chase. Perhaps they could play tag later, ha. His brows skyrocketed then, not expecting her to leap at him like a damn flying squirrel. He managed to utter, "****," softly before unhooking his thumbs from his jeans and catching her against him. It didn't knock him down, but he took a stumbling step back from the impact. Large, corded muscle wrapped around her while he laughed, now realizing what she was up to. "So I take it I'm going to have some luggage to carry on my trip then."

Saila grinned when he caught her. She was completely prepared, mind you, for him to sidestep instead, but it was nice that he didn't. Snickering, she wrapped her arms around his broad shoulders, hauling herself up higher on his body as she coiled powerful long legs around his waist. She nodded. "...'Fraid so, darlin'. It's totally for your own good, though. In the name of endurance, and all."

"Right, my benefit. Doesn't have anything to do with being carted around town." He nodded, as if in agreement, though the hint of sarcasm in his voice said otherwise. This sort of thing really does seem to happen... a lot. With her arms around his shoulders, legs wrapped around his waist, one arm tucked half around her back, half beneath her rear to keep her up and against him; he used his other hand to rummage in his pockets for his cigarettes and lighter. Strolls made him smoke more, he'd noticed.

His long legs carried the both of them off down the street while he tucked a cigarette between his lips then lit it. He was going in a random direction, down the opposite way from which he had come. "Anything in particular in mind, or we just roaming blindly?" Frankly, he didn't mind either way, his thoughts clearly stated so.

With more than enough lower body strength to keep herself locked to his body and upright, Saila's grasp on his shoulders was light. She had one arm looped around them, and the other she brought back down between them, giving him a little more room to find his cigarettes and get one lit without setting himself or the girl on his chest on fire. An easy grin rode comfortably on her mouth. "Hey. We're talking about you right now. I mean, I could walk, but I'm making this sacrifice for you because I'm just awesome like that."

Snickering, the incubus started walking and that made her laugh all the more. "Oh, this is cool. I get to watch the whole world go backwards for a bit. Um... have you been out Dockside way, yet?"

"Yes, I'm sure been carried around town is suuuuch a drag. Straight up ****' hassle. Gawd." He teased her, the last sounding like a whining teenage girl. His curling grin made it evident he was only teasing and not mocking her, tilting his head forward while he pulled her closer for a moment to nuzzle her cheek before loosening his grip and pulling back some. The Marlboro found his lips, taking a deep drag that indented his cheeks.

His brows furrowed as he thought about it for a moment. "Hm... Dockside... No... I don't think so. I've been around the Red Dragon, near the fountain in the marketplace and checked out those stalls, but not there. I tend to go more toward the Glen way." He shrugged faintly, she knew his driving habits. He wasn't one to drive around the city. "Anything good out that way?"

"Oh, yeah. It's difficult, I'm telling you." Nodnod. "So difficult." She made an effort to look put upon, really she did, but... Saila can't lie, so even just pretending to came out ridiculous. When he pulled her closer and nuzzled her cheek, she closed her lips lightly over the rim of his ear, nipping it playfully with a light tug.

"I like it, yeah. My friend Cane's shop is there - Panacea - and he sells, uh. Pretty much everything. S'where I get my suckers." She said, of the paper stick that was still tucked in the corner of her mouth, though the candy on it was all but gone. "And there's a couple other stores and bars and stuff, this total **** hole called the Salty Dog, and all the big ships. It's pretty in a run down, kinda seedy way." Twisting her torso to check her bearings, she tipped her head to her left, his right. "S'that way."

He gave her a playful growl and snap of his teeth at her jawline, though didn't make any contact to her flesh when she went for his ear. His playful grin still evident on his face.

He listened as she talked about the shops and how rundown the Docks looked. "Can't be any worse than Detroit." He snickered, having been all over the place. When she nodded her head in a direction, he nodded. "To the Docks we go then." He turned toward that direction, carrying her on his chest effortlessly as he walked, taking drags off his cigarette. He smirked lightly, finally retaliating at her for making the sexual comment from earlier. "I've got something you can suck on." He laughed under his breath, taking another drag from the cowboy killer.

"S'true, you do." Saila replied evenly, pulling the now empty white paper stick from her mouth. Her tongue was blue, almost but not quite that midnight blue shade he liked so much. Stuffing the stick into her bag for safe keeping, she seemed totally unfazed by his sexual comment, or its implications. "...I started to say 'but that won't get me high', and then it occurred to me that it kind of does? Less of a headache, too."

Saila grinned, resting her free hand loosely against his chest for safe keeping while she clung to him like a baby monkey with the rest of her limbs. She occasionally gave directions, leading them closer and closer to the water. "What's Detroit?"

His brows danced behind his aviators, the cheesy playful smirk on his face. "Nothin'll get you higher, baby." He teased, snickering lightly. He noticed her blue tongue as she spoke, laughing a bit at it. Her tongue was now his favorite color, how teasing. He quieted his devious thoughts with a drag of his cigarette, focusing on the directions she was giving him. Later, stop thinking with your ****, dude.

When she asked about Detroit, he gave a faint sigh. "It used be alright, I guess. It's a city in America, on Earth. Probably one of the worst cities in the States now. Pretty much crime on every corner, good luck owning an apartment without it getting broken into. You're more likely to get mugged or shot on the street. I've been there plenty, and I never stay long. It's just... a drag." He wrinkled his nose.

Even though most of his life outside of RhyDin involved a gang, they weren't just a crew of thugs wanting to be Vikings, raping and pillaging everything in sight. They fought with other gangs in L.A. and ran the city. They leaned more toward mobsters than an actual gang, having the city in their pocket.

Attached to him as she was, Saila had no trouble picking up on his thoughts. It hadn't occurred to her that her tongue would be stained deep blue, much less how that might affect him, until he admonished himself to keep his head out of the gutter. Silent on that point, she just grinned. **** Hex was great fun, but so was just hanging out with him. She slipped the arm that was wrapped around his neck a little to the side so she could bite playfully into his shoulder, a grin still on her face.

Hey, they weren't trying to have sex right this second, but ... Saila's a little bit stoned. You'll just have to forgive her.

Listening to his description of Detroit, Salia pressed her hand flat against the side of his neck, helping herself to some reference images for what he was saying. "So it does kinda sound like Dockside, then. I've never run into any trouble there, but I guess there were a bunch of fights and fires and stuff awhile back."

Dammit, woman. That's not helping! He growled at her, though his thoughts didn't hold any form of anger in the least. How could it when he was trying not to laugh. She was such a little **** sometimes, but he dug it. When she bit his shoulder, he turned and gave a playful nip to the side of her neck, threatening her in his head. Don't make me tickle you again. His devious grin grew wide, a clear indication that he would do it.

Though it was only a half-assed threat, because the things popping into his head made it clear he didn't mind what she was doing. He was a grown man and could very well control himself. In fact, he was enjoying this because it was a challenge to not just pin her against a wall and **** her. Her energy was relatively addicting. So the longer they went through the day, the more satisfied he felt with himself and his will power to fight off the sexual thoughts. Even if she was making it all the more difficult.

When she mentioned that the Dockside was similar, he gave a light shrug and pulled away from her neck. "Not something we gotta worry about." And it was true, something told him she could probably take care of herself, but regardless he wouldn't let anything happen to her. Not only did he pack a gun in the back of his jeans when he was outside of his apartment, but he was a weapon himself. Shoot if necessary, but he preferred to fight with fists, being a brawler-type. If the fact that he had adamantium plated knuckles didn't say enough about it. He wouldn't have gone through the trouble and pain otherwise, but brass knuckles had gotten to a point of them being obnoxious to cart around and get thick fingers into.

His growl delighted her, because he was reacting and that was all she was really after. The answering nip pulled a shivery little moan from her lips, which were conveniently right up against his ear at the time. Muahaha. Mismatched eyes widened behind her sunglasses when he threatened to tickle her again, and the girl basically froze where she was. Nope. No tickling. See how well behaved she suddenly is?

"I wasn't worried," Saila nuzzled his jaw playfully with the tip of her nose. "I feel bad for anybody who walks up on us." She could feel the hilt of the gun under her calf, and she sometimes played with his hands because she liked the way the adamantium felt. Hex was a force to be reckoned with, and the girl in his arms was literally a war machine. Trying to fight either one of them was a terrible idea, much less both of them together.

Still, it made her smile to know that he would look out for her. It was another byproduct of how much time she spent around wolves -- a certain degree of protectiveness made her feel good. It was only when it went overboard that she got annoyed. "...Might be fun, actually."

Flicking his finished cigarette in front of him, casually stepping on it as he passed, he laughed softly at her reaction. Though not without biting his lip at her moan in his ear. Muahahaha, indeed. I lied. He teased about saying he would tickle her before licking the side of her neck with his boyish smile.

The amused look on her face when she mentioned how it would be funny if someone tried to jump them. He didn't know about the war machine part of her, but fighting was never something he was opposed to. He had partaken in Kitra's little underground fight club now and then for **** and giggles. "They'd probably just leave RhyDin all together at that point." Confident, not cocky, that's his story and he was sticking to it.

Even though the adamantium was beneath the skin, plated over the bone, it was relatively easy to feel the difference and notice that it wasn't bone. The skin over his knuckles would shift much smoother, you couldn't feel the tendons of the knuckle, just a rounded plate of metal. And probably if you tapped his knuckle with something, it would make a different sound. At least it did when he hit something... If they survived... A fleeting thought before he shoved that away. You're not a Saint here, Hex. This isn't L.A.

He nuzzled his nose into her shoulder, with his hand free of the cigarette he could now wrap it around her back. He glanced over her shoulder through the dark shades, looking around at the rundown-Detroit-resembling street. "This it?" He mumbled against her shoulder.

Saila didn't know the true extent of it, either. Just that it had never yet gone well for anyone who tried to hit her. There was a switch that got flipped somewhere in the deep recesses of her brain, an automaton response that belied extensive combat training. It wasn't something she could access or control on purpose - someone had to attack her first. But once triggered, she was virtually impossible to stop. This is why she doesn't spar for fun anymore.

Licked, the girl squirmed in his arms, her chest pressing into his. "...I has been slimed!" She proclaimed as though distressed, lifting herself higher in his arms with a sudden lean forward -- girl was attempting to wipe her neck off on his cheek. She giggled, either because she was successful or because she wasn't, didn't make much a difference to her.

"Hm. We could totally start a business just like... being intimidating. Just stand around looking scary so people leave town." Snickering again, Saila watched in reverse as the scenery around them gradually changed, looking older and more run down, the shadows longer between the buildings. "Yeah, this is it. The docks themselves are a coupla' blocks that way--" she pointed down a ways. "...And Panacea's on the corner over there." Twisting the other way, Saila squinted down a street. "Few blocks that way is Kabuki Street. I haven't explored it much, we could go check it out?"

Hex hesitated a moment before opening up to her. He may have seemed collected and fine but, you weren't the only one feeling overwhelmed, don't mention it. He took a drag from his cigarette before stubbing it out on the arm of the bench, then tossing the extinguished filter into a close trashcan.

With her legs unhooked, he leaned back against the bench, letting her fall back with him if she wanted to. His fingers brushed along her jawline. They were there to have fun, and their heads throbbing from the overwhelming surge of energies wasn't all that fun. So it was best that they had left the area. He didn't mind where they were now, not in the least. It was calm, quiet, and the atmosphere here was much more relaxed than the busy street. It helped that there were maybe only one or two lingering bodies around the small park, but they seemed to be getting ready to leave.

It was all the more so touching, really; not only had he put the effort into soothing her, but he'd done so while feeling hugely uncomfortable himself. Nodding to indicate that she'd heard him, Saila leaned in, kissing him lightly on the mouth before settling herself on his chest once more. Her feet were planted flat on the bench to either side of his thighs with her knees bent in towards his ribs, and she was leaned forward between them to lay her head on his chest.

"Getting a good workout?" she asked after a moment, drawing random patterns on his chest with one of her fingertips. There was a dim smile on her face that he might have been able to feel.

He felt her lips against his and it was a fleeting moment, kissing her back before she pulled away. When her head met his chest again, his hand came to the back of her head, his fingers lightly brushing across the soft locks that were held back by braids. He chuckled softly, head tilting forward to lazily rest his lips against the top of her head.

"Honestly... You weigh about the same as a feather to me. But the walk was alright." He had forgotten about their little training idea in the beginning, he had actually turned out to enjoy carting her around town. The looks given were amusing, and having her legs wrapped around him always felt good no matter the context. He offered a light smile of his own. "Because I'm sure it was brutal to let me carry you around like that." He teased.

His hand felt nice against her scalp, and she leaned into it a little, long lashes fluttering in contentment. The air was cool but not cold, just breezy enough that it might have been uncomfortable had she not been wrapped around an unnaturally warm Hellion. She could hear the last couple of people milling about the park in the distance, but they seemed to be retreating, and that suited her just fine.

Still, Saila traced designs on his chest. Random spiral patterns with no particular rhyme or reason to them as she drew in long, measured breaths. "...Actually, I was totally just thinking this is my new favorite mode of transportation. I should go...everywhere like this."

He laughed then, chest shaking at the throaty sound. He glanced down at her. "That gives a whole new meaning to chauffeur." He shook his head, gently kissing the top of her head where his lips rested. His fingers continued to stroke her soft violet hair, eyes driving half-way closed in comfortable contentment. He was feeling much more comfortable now that they were away from the abundance of energy on the street, even better when the lingering people had left the park.

He smirked, teasing her a bit. "But that would require me to be around all the time, eventually you'd start chaffing. Or I'd just end up being a major pain in your ass."

Saila, too, was fully recovered from the initial over stimulation, but that didn't put her in any particular hurry to move. The kiss brought a light smile to her face, and she slipped her hand down from his chest, tugging the hem of his t-shirt out from under where she'd apparently been sitting on it and then slipping her fingers underneath to press against his skin.

His comment drew a smirk from her lips, and she nuzzled into his chest with her cheek affectionately. "I dunno. I feel like the pain in the ass and the chaffing are related issues? But I can think of worse things."

That one brought a laugh from him that caused him to pull his lips away from the top of her head. "Could definitely think of worse things." His hand moved from her hair to her back, fingers tracing along the ridges of her spine before he looked down at her. He felt her hands on his skin, and the corner of his mouth quirked upward, enjoying the touch. Flesh on flesh was much better, he had to admit. His other arm wrapped around the leg pressed to his left ribs, his hand curling around her upper thigh, thumb lightly caressing where it landed.

"Feeling better?" He asked, his voice soft as he watched her. She seemed to be from the relaxed nature of her posture, even though her position didn't look all that comfortable. It could've just been his perspective, but he was thick and bulky, and not that flexible. He had his limits. Pretzel was one of them.

Saila was surprised at how easily that one had passed. He hadn't reacted to it or tensed up at all. Possibly (probably) because of the sexual innuendo that preceded it. Well, good to know. She lifted her head to look up at him, mismatched eyes alert but not hectically bright. She nodded. "Much, thank you. What about you?" Freeing one hand to tuck a few strands of purple behind a multi-pierced ear, and she traced that same set of fingers lightly over the edge of his jaw. The girl was a pretzel, alright. her limbs inhumanly bendy, but she seemed like she was perfectly comfortable.

Fine now.... comfortable. He admitted, offering a light smile. Hex hadn't even noticed when that one slipped, really. Whether it was progress or the fact that his nerves were still calming from the energy burst that had hit him on the street, it was debatable. He nipped lightly at the tips of her fingers after they traced over his jaw, giving her a faint smirk. His fingers traveled up her spine to her neck, wrapping around the back of her neck and giving it a light massage with his thumb and middle finger. He tilted his head forward and gave her a brushing of lips, not just yet committing to a full kiss.

"Good." When he snapped at her fingers, she pressed them gently to his mouth for just a moment, her thumb sweeping the lower swell lightly. And then he was leaning into her, the gentle pressure of his hand on the back of her neck, and then his mouth ever so lightly against hers...

Saila laughed softly, closing the distance to press her lips more firmly against his. Her nose brushed his lightly, and though it wasn't officially a kiss yet, it was almost getting there. Her voice was a playful purr, reacting to the tease of the not-kiss. "...Mm. C'mon. Please?"

The curl of his lips held a large touch of amusement with a slight growl. Damn you for knowing my weakness. And that's precisely what it was. When came to this context, anything of this nature, asking him please was nearly a guarantee he was going to do it. Mind you, he wasn't objecting to kissing her in the least. The grumbling at her was clearly teasing in his head, or at least she caught the teasing. It was hard to project tones with your thoughts.

But then a devious grin nearly split his face in two as he wrapped the arm around her leg tighter, around her to her back. His hand flattened around the back of her neck, cradling instead of massaging as he laid one on her. Passionate, firm yet soft, as he shifted sideways, aiming to take her with him. Probably more than what she asked for, but now that he wasn't overwhelmed by a horde of energies, his playfulness was coming back. With her legs positioned as they were, he leaned to the side as if they had been dancing, and he had cradled her in a dip at the end of a song.

Saying please or saying his name. She'd hold back saying please AND his name for a really intense moment, hahahaha. Grinning into his kiss as she was pulled closer, Saila returned it, one hand still buried under his shirt and the other cradling his face.

He slid sideways and there was no argument from her -- no tensing of her muscles to object or refuse. She seemed perfectly at ease, comfortable in his arms and confident in the knowledge that he wouldn't drop her. So as she dropped back, so she left her hands where they were, her mind still firmly on the kiss.

Lawdy, lawdy. That would just be a devastating effect on him, in the most effective way. Ha!

Though he wasn't expecting such a reaction, it pleased him that she seemed to trust him, yet bothered him at the same time. The conflicting emotions was slightly distracting, but he just delved deeper into the kiss to distract himself. His fingers pressed into her back to pull her closer, while his tongue ran across that soft bottom lip. Hex didn't care about 'PDA' in the least, and would just laugh if someone got offended by their little display.

Continuing to lower her, he kept one hand behind her neck and the base of her skull for support, the other behind her back. Hex maneuvered Saila onto her back on the bench, adjusting his legs more comfortably so he could lean over her. His weight supported on the arm cradling her neck when she was lying down, he smirked down at her while muttering against her lips. "Definitely feeling better." And he wasn't aiming for much, but their intimate moments made him feel better, Not just about things like that crowd, but she helped him forget his problems, she had a way of being his favorite distraction.

Saila could feel him getting distracted, which probably explained why she curled her nails into his chest underneath his shirt, trying to drag him back away from it. He seemed to have the same thought, kissing her ever harder as she found herself on her back on the seat of the bench with a Nephilim poised above her. Grinning against his lips, her tongue swabbed out over his lower lip in kind, and she slid her free hand from his face into his hair.

The distraction was successful, a pleased noise offered when he felt her tongue on his lip until his own flicked out to taste her. He smirked at her, arm freeing itself from her back with a light wiggle so he could brush his finger tips just under the hem of her shirt, to her hip. He sighed contentedly, the touch of her flesh and her lips giving him the peace of mind he was seeking. Her fingers in his hair was a nice touch as well, he paused in kissing her, leaning his forehead against hers with his eyes closed. You're kind of... intoxicating. Possibly addictive.

Chasing his tongue with her own, the girl stretched one leg out flat on the park bench, the other still hugged tight against Hex's side. His sigh brought a smile to her lips, and then his forehead was pressed flush to hers and she slid the hand that was under his shirt around his back to find purchase in his shoulder blade. The words had her looking up at him again with a little grin, carefully pulling his sunglasses off so she could actually look at him and not just her own reflection. "...What's that thing you always say... I'm sorry I'm not sorry...?"

Saila wrinkled up her nose, kittenish, giving her head a little shake. "...Grossss", she intoned, but there was that grin, and it made her a little more weak-kneed than she strictly wanted to admit. Grinning back at him, the muse tapped his mouth lightly with an index finger decorated in three different rings, one on either side of each knuckle. "...Jerk."

He was feeling better, though, so she followed up her comment by closing the distance between them, pressing her mouth to his.

When she tapped his mouth, Hex opened his mouth wide like he was going to bite at it. Nose crinkled, which hurt like a ****, but he kept with it before snapping his jaws, just a few millimeters away from her fingers.

He was about to open his mouth to say something about her calling him a jerk before her mouth was pressed to his, and all he could manage was, "Mmm...". The sound escaped more like a purr than anything else, the arm curled around her pulled her closer to him. Well, that's one way to shut him up!

Snickering at the way he snapped at her, Saila nodded. Mhm. You're very vicious, her strange eyes seemed to confirm before the distance between them was sealed, mouth to mouth. Moving her hand to gently cup his neck since it didn't seem to hurt, at least, her long lashes fluttered a couple of times as they kissed, happy. The purr made her smile against his lips, though she seemed unwilling to let it pull her away from kissing. Making out with Hex was up there among her favorite activities.

It seemed to happen a lot lately, but he wasn't going to complain any. His previous... well, he can't even call them relationships... He couldn't just lay on the couch and make out like high school kids. Hell, he rarely even kissed the one night stands he had **** with.

Hex could let himself be like that alone with Saila, where there would be no judgments or teasing like he would get anywhere else. The arm not being used for a pillow shifted to wrap around her waist loosely. It was strangely satisfying just lying there, making out with her without expectations of it going anywhere, but just letting it be what it was.

Lesson Six. The kissing felt good, moreso because she knew in a way that didn't need explaining that this was as novel an experience for him as it was for her. Even in the one relationship she had been in, the wolf had been much too restless to just lay there for any real length of time unless he was asleep. The relative innocence of it was something Saila had never known -- she'd skipped straight from 0 to 200 miles an hour where sex and physical affection were concerned.

Her fingers sliding back over his chest, she ran the backs of her knuckles gently over the smooth expanse of his stomach, tracing the outlines of the rigidly defined muscle structures there.

Hex and Charlie hadn't been the affectionate type. There was rarely any kissing, and when there was, it was rough, aggressive and probably after one of them had punched the other. And it never lasted long before it turned into rough and painful sex. To claim their relationship was practically domestic violence... you wouldn't be that far off. Except Charlie liked it. He... wasn't much into it, but the chick had a knack for pissing him off to the point of violence.

This... this was a much better change of pace for him. It was a rare instance for him to even be around a woman that was nice to him, never mind be gentle or affectionate toward him. Mothers don't count. Quistas was gentle and nice to almost every one.

When her knuckles brushed across his stomach, his hand maneuvered beneath her shirt. He didn't go for a straight grope, instead he merely traced his fingers along her side, enjoying of the feel of her flesh beneath them.

Hex'd never yet given her a reason not to be nice to him, which was apparently also pretty strange, but she didn't see it. The surface of him -- all that surliness, the bad temper, the **** -- somehow Saila had jumped straight past that warren of layers to the island in the middle. Saila had a strange habit of doing that. Getting past his barriers, right past the hard exterior and hitting him right in the soft spots.

After what felt like hours kissing him, Saila broke away at last with a grin, nudging his jaw lightly with her still damp nose. Her strange eyes glittering happily, she nudged him again, and then unceremoniously licked him. Chin, mouth, nose, as high as she could reach.

When she broke away from the kiss, his eyes slowly opened and he smirked down at her. Her nudges didn't bother him much: it was the part of the bone that dislocated that was the most sore, the hinge right in front of the ears. So her nose against his jaw didn't faze him ... aaand then the lick. He scrunched his face up, nose crinkling and brows furrowing. When she reached the bridge of his nose, he turned away and wiped his face with his hand.

"Eeew. Groooossss." He teased her, mimicking her voice when she had licked him, though exaggerating greatly. Then his head turned towards hers, he leaned forward quickly and lapped the flat of his tongue with his mouth wide and nose crinkled to get as much tongue as he could all the way up her cheek.

Saila squeaked in protest, but did a particularly bad job of dodging that tongue. "Oh man. I'm contaminated," she exclaimed when he was done, those bizarre eyes twinkling in amusement. "Is it possible to die from incubus spit because I feel like I -- actually, scratch that. I might already be dead."

He snickered, looking appalled as his hand went to his chest. "I resent that statement! Incubus spit isn't contagious..." He grinned at her. "It's the Nephilim spit you have to worry about." Oh now he was just teasing the **** out of her. "Are you aware that Pestilence, the horseman, is a Nephilim?" He raised his brows at her, giving her an expression that said nothing less than think about that one.

"...Pretty sure they're both contagious," said Saila skeptically, tipping her head forward to kiss him lightly on the mouth again. Her tongue swiped a quick taste of his bottom lip as she pulled away, as though to prove that she still wasn't scared. "I'mma take my chances with both," grinning, the girl shook her head lightly. "I'm not real sure I'm aware of horsemen, honestly." Though obviously she could see the requisite images, since he was thinking about it.

"Be thankful of that. They don't show up here. It's not their place. Their domain is on Earth." He nodded, having grinned when she made her little point of not fearing him. His fingers moved along her back, tracing the ridges of her spine. The arm beneath her head reached over the couch, turning awkwardly as he scrounged for his pack of smokes on the end table, having to lean toward her a little bit before he found them. Hex reached over her head to tug one out of the package and put it in his mouth before lighting it. He dropped the pack lazily on the floor afterwards, within reach. If she wanted one, she knew where they were. Though chances were, if she wanted some, she would just steal his. He was prepared for it.

Light her own cigarette? Yeah, right. The thought made her laugh, and she nipped playfully at his chest when he leaned in closer to her in pursuit of them. Kissing the place she'd bitten into as though to make amends, Saila laid her head there, settling with a content sigh while he smoked.

It was the kind of moment, and they seemed to have rather a lot of them, that you kinda wanted to acknowledge as special and at the same time absolutely did not want to draw attention to for fear of jinxing. Saila curled her hand along his ribs, her fingers gently tracing the curvature of each underneath those layers of skin and muscle.

"You feel good," she said softly, then, perhaps an explanation for why she frequently found herself wrapped like a spider monkey around Hex. She'd turned her hands over so that their backs were pressed into his front, fingers curling just underneath her chin.

Hex was nearly a pro at the master flick of ash into a distant receptacle, having a few lazy moments where he didn't want to go get the ashtray. And though he wouldn't admit it, he didn't want to disturb her position against him to get it, either. The only time he really shifted was to drop the finished cigarette into the empty beer bottle on the floor close by. He settled again, his pillow-arm curling to tangle into her purple locks, his chin sitting to rest on the top of her head.

Her comment made him snort a light laugh, he couldn't help it. "Do I now?" See, smoothed over with a perverse thought so he didn't get freaked out by it. His other arm rested lazily across the small indent at her waist, fingers lightly playing at the flesh and tracing random designs. His eyelids drooped some, not in any form of being tired, but in being content. The corner of his mouth lifted in a smirk, nuzzling the top of her head lightly.

"Mhm," it had been carefully phrased to avoid a freak out, her words chosen specifically so that they could be both innocuous and innuendo-laden, but the fact remained that it was true. A smile touched her mouth at the way he laughed, and she smoothed her hand over his chest again, soothing. "You can add 'pillow' to your list of useful skills. Maybe right behind 'taxi'."

Those strange eyes had fluttered closed sometime back while he was smoking, and if the movement either to ash the cigarette or to put it out had bothered her, neither had it dislodged her from her chosen spot pressed against his body. Letting out a long sigh of contentment, she nuzzled closer still, seeking warmth, perhaps, or more proximity. Saila rarely slept and never on purpose, but if she could actively choose a time and place to rest, it would probably look a lot like this one.

A curling smirk spread across his lips. "Furniture or vehicle. Could think of worse." He snickered lightly, teasing her with a soft tone. He was surprisingly comfortable there, and if it wasn't for the fact that he wasn't tired, he probably would've fallen asleep on her.... again. His fingers stroked through her hair before wrapping around her shoulder, that other hand curling a bit more around her waist. He offered a little content sigh, muscles relaxing and he let his eyes close, just enjoying the moment. It wasn't a moment he'd ever really had before, and he didn't know until just now what he had missed all this time.

A grin found her face and lingered there. Her fingers fit into the spaces between his, not exactly curling over but certainly interlocking. Saila tipped her head, wading her way through the flashes of imagery he was presenting her. "Looks like fun," she commented, tipping her head back against the seat behind her. She said 'looks' because she actually saw it, not heard it. His verbal hint 'it involves sand', well that wasn't actually all that helpful.

"You're getting really good at that already, by the way," Saila commented, letting her neck roll to the side so she could look at him, or at least his profile, without having to lift her head. The figuring out what to convey to her, and how to do it expediently, choosing specific thoughts or pieces of them to direct. Most of the people who knew about her skill did some of that, but none had picked it up so quickly, so naturally as Hex.

His hand left the steering wheel for a moment, bringing the cigarette to his lips for a long pull. When he did so, it was replaced with his knee to the bottom to keep control of the wheel. It was a fluid motion, as he'd been driving that way plenty of times. Hex figured the verbal hint of sand wouldn't be much, so the images he gave her, that was it. But it wasn't all of it.

Molten gaze pulled away from the road to glance at her, offering a small curl of a smile. "I've been practicing... Kind of comes with the territory. Ambition and all that." He gave a light shrug of his shoulder, bringing his hand back to take another pull of the Marlboro.

What he didn't mention was the motive for the practicing. He had done some awful things in his life, things he didn't want her to see. Whatever she thought of him, Hex didn't want to ruin that by her seeing something in him that the influence of Hell had pulled out of him. Or what he did with the gang. He wouldn't stop touching her, or pull away from her physically. But he could try to control what she saw in his mind, what he would allow her to see, and what he wouldn't. Some things... some things he wished he hadn't seen.

It was entirely possible that Saila had already seen a lot of the things he was trying to conceal, and then again it was possible that she hadn't. Four hundred years was a lot to sort through, much less retain. Could be she'd seen it already and forgotten about it because it wasn't relevant to her at the time, or didn't have enough context to make it make sense. Whatever the answer there was, Saila clearly didn't think badly of him.

She nodded when he mentioned that he'd been practicing. "It shows," the girl said with a light smile. "I'm impressed." After a long moment, she leaned forward, lifting her hand off of his to - you guessed it - snag his cigarette from him. Pressing it to her lips for a slow drag, she scissored it between two fingers and held it back in front of his mouth for the taking.

It probably helped that she didn't comment or ask him about it. Some things she had probably seen, whether it was a lingering flash or memory during the times they had just lounged around watching T.V., and something triggered a memory of the things he'd done with Beel, Kitra, or others. But even if he was delusional in hoping that the worst of the things she hadn't seen, he held onto that.

When she offered back the stolen cigarette --something he'd grown used to and didn't faze him in the least-- Hex merely leaned forward and wrapped his lips around the filter. His hand soon followed to scissor it between two fingers, to take it back before that hand met the steering wheel just in time to turn off the paved road, heading towards a place he had passed on his late night drives-about.

His speed slowed so the ride wouldn't be so bumpy and he didn't damage the underside of his Baby. The knuckles of his fingers brushed along the inside of her leg in unison with his thumb, the radio having turned to some 80s rock that he wasn't really paying much attention to, and he kept driving on that now dirt road to a reclusive part of a beach that he doubted would be anyone's private property. There were no signs, and no houses within a few miles to hint that it belonged to someone. But it was nice, and he had spent a couple late nights there after discovering it.

That gentle, barely there caress of her thigh was distracting, causing the muscles in her lower belly to contract pleasantly. She pulled the far leg into the seat with her, hugging her knee to her chest, but left that one precisely where it was under his fingers. Her hand settled on top of his once more as she exhaled smoke.

When he turned off the road, Saila's gaze swept the horizon in both directions, trying to figure out whether she knew where she was or not. She lived on the beach part time, but this stretch of it wasn't anywhere near that house. A smile curved her lips, then -- she'd shown him one of her favorite quiet places, maybe he was going to show her one of his? Tipping her head to look over at him again, that smile lingered. "You found a private stretch of beach that doesn't belong to anyone? Nice."

"By complete accident, too. Wasn't really paying attention where I was going, just sort of... autopiloted the turn. And found..." They broke through a stretch of trees, the lingering sunset littered the ground with hues of orange, red and yellow across the untouched sand. It was a good expanse of beach, probably a mile long if not more, and a little over a quarter mile from the treeline to the water's edge. The car pulled to a halt at the edge of the road before the wheels hit the sand. Muscle cars weren't meant to drive on beaches. And he doubted anyone would be coming up to park behind him, as many times as he'd been there in the past couple weeks, he had been the only visitor. The only wheel marks were his, same with the sunken holes that his feet had made that weren't as deep now that wind and rain had smoothed them over. "...This."

He took a finishing drag from the cigarette, stubbing it out in the built-in ashtray beneath the radio. He let out the plume of smoke from his lungs in one rush of air before leaning over to her with a smirk, giving her a light peck on the cheek. "C'mon." A final squeeze to her knee before he pulled his hand away to get out of the car. A minimal squeak as he opened the driver's door, eased out and closed it behind him. Instead of walking away, he turned to face her, hands held out to her with a smirk. "Taxi service?"

Saila smiled, taking in the beach as it came into view. "Wow. This is gorgeous," murmured the girl, scanning it out of habit for signs of life. The squeeze to her knee had her tearing her eyes away to look over at him, and she tilted her cheek into his kiss. "Nice find, Hex."

He was getting out, and she started to get out too when she saw the way he held his hand out. Her grin split wide then, drawing back from pearlescent rows of crest kid whites. "...Best taxi service ever." It didn't take much effort to slide across the rest of the bench seat, lifting herself up on her knees to get a foothold on the door jamb. From there it was easy work to lift herself up into his arms, wrapping herself securely around the Nephilim.

I was hoping you'd like it. He spoke with his mind as he did his part for helping her wrap herself around him. His arms wrapped around her back and her legs, his grin as wide as hers when she said he was the best taxi service. Hey, nothin' wrong with stroking egos. Perhaps he had a bit of an ulterior motive behind her being wrapped the way she was. Using his newly practiced talent of hiding his thoughts from her as best as he could, he kept her pressed to his chest with one arm as he moved toward the trunk of the deVille. His knees bent so he could reach the lever of the trunk with his fingers, giving it a tug, the trunk swung open. "No peeking." His hands grabbed something behind her in the trunk, trying to keep it behind her and out of sight as he used his elbow to slam the trunk closed. His grin was devious, maybe even devilish as he began to walk toward the beach.

"I do," came the answer, a smile in her voice. Well now, this was interesting. No peeking? Saila did her best not to delve too deeply into his mind. She propped her chin on his shoulder to make it that much harder for her to see whatever it was behind her, even. "Nobody ever surprises me," Saila observed with a short laugh. "It happens sometimes, but it's usually highly convoluted. I like surprises, if only because they're so rare."

Tipping her face into the column of his neck, she nuzzled it with the tip of her nose, her teeth grazing the skin playfully. "You're like... vibrating. More reasons you're the best taxi ever." And now her smile is just as devilish.

Hex focused his mind on her instead of what he was doing. Shutting out the thoughts, he replaced them with the feel of her teeth on his skin giving shivers down his spine, the feel of her legs wrapped around his waist and her pressed against his chest. He was glad he had chosen to wear a simple pair of cargo shorts that went a couple inches below his knees, a pair of audio sneakers and a black wife-beater tank top. Made it easier to walk through the sand that threatened to swallow his feet. But he still carried the two of them with little effort across the expanse of sand, mentally calculating the tide and stopping his steps where he estimated would be a safe area. Dropping whatever was in his hand to the ground lightly so it didn't make much noise to give her hints of what it was.

Being ever-so-sneaky, he kept the items at her back and walked backwards and sideways to a hefty boulder set in the sand. There was a part of the surface that was flat and would make a good seat. His grin was everlasting, it seemed, as he edged around the circumference of the rock and slowly began to lower her onto the rock. "Taxi needs to make a pit stop. Still, don't peek." He mumbled against her neck as he nuzzled and nipped at the skin there in retaliation for her previous assault.

"Oh, nicely done, Hex," the girl whispered, as his mind started to mirror back at her images of herself, right here, right now. There was a note of laughter in her voice, her lips smearing playfully over his ear lobe. It was maddening, trying not to guess or peek or sort it out on her own, but she was trying really, really hard.

When he set her down on the boulder, Saila relinquished her hold on him, if somewhat reluctantly. Pushing her lower lip out in a playful pout, it dissolved into a grin a moment later, and she wrapped her arms around her legs. "Okay, but hurry." Pleading playfully, she shivered when he kissed her neck, and then laid her forehead against her knees. To keep herself from peeking.

The muscles of his calves clenched as Hex skidded to a halt, his heels making a deep indent in the sand as he stared at her with raised brows. He had expected her to be fast, but that was fast. His gaze narrowed as a lazy smile sprawled across his face. I've asked myself this a million times, but what the **** is she? He blinked, looking down at his crotch, where she had groped to 'tag' him. "Oh haillll nah!" He called out, drawling like a sassy woman if that woman had a deep raspy voice.

Watching her dancing away in the different direction, he crouched low to the ground into a stance much like that of a professional sprinter. The muscles of his back rippled beneath tattooed flesh as the devilish grin spread even wider, he stared at her through dark brows and lashes for only a second or two before the fingers that were planted in the sand pulled away. His eyes seemed to flash from a molten amber to an almost luminescent yellow as he built up his own reserved energy, pushing his body to its limit as he broke into his full speed.

Granted, he still wasn't as fast as Saila, but dammit he tried! Arms moving at his sides to give him the momentum needed as his legs carried him faster than any man of his size should've been able to move. "Oh, Saila!" he called, his tone playful as could be, that boyishly dimpled smile in complete contrast with the hulking mass that was currently booking it after her.

Saila was faster today than she would be tomorrow, and faster tomorrow than she would be the day after. It was an ebb and flow cycle tied to the moon, much like the tide pulling on the waves out there beside them. Gradually the extra strength and speed would leech out of her -- unless she helped herself to some directly, which happened sometimes -- into the new moon, and from there it would start building up again until the full. She was a girl constantly in flux.

Still, as she danced away from him, she wasn't moving as fast as she had to catch him. Because half the fun was the being caught, right? It was still fast -- she wasn't trying to make it easy on him, just attainable-- but even so the purple haired girl was a little surprised at how fast he caught up. Turning to face him, she ran backwards for a minute -- slowing down even further though not so much that it wasn't fast. "Yeeeees?" Answering him in an ever so innocent sing song, he was wearing that smile that made her a little weak kneed, put butterflies in her belly and made her want to stop running altogether. "No fair using the cute smile on me..."

He gradually caught up to her, little by little until she was within reach. "Fair trade for the grope." He kept up the smile, though wrinkled his nose a bit at the 'cute' part of her comment. When she was within arms' distance, he used another burst of his reserved energy, considering he hadn't been using much of it these days due to his laziness, there was enough to spare. The molten amber of his eyes shifted, the flicker of energy as the boost lurched him forward and he reached out his arms. He aimed to grab her around the waist, tucking his torso low to sweep her up over his shoulder.

If he was successful, he would slow his speed gradually instead of skidding to a halt and end in a walk, probably adding, "Gotcha" with that jubilant grin of his.

Oh, he was successful. If only because she was too busy watching the change in his eyes to really pay attention to its implications. Caught, she gave a squeal of surprise, ending up over his shoulder again with a breathless giggle. This, then, was how you 'caught' your favorite incubus -- make him catch you. Saila was still laughing.

Essentially hanging upside down from her hips, the girl stretched her arms out as far as they would go so she could grab his ass, which she did with both hands and another friendly squeeze. "Yep. You got me. But I also got you, so... I'm calling this even."

He gave a playful growl and nip along her side where her shirt had lifted from his grabbing her and slinging her over his shoulder. That was for the ass-grab. Then he swung her around a couple times before eventually letting her slide off his shoulder to his chest, though he still didn't let go of her. More or less, he'd pin her pelvis against his chest and look up at her with that cheesy, young smile that nearly tore his face in half. "That was fun."

The only times he had really played around like that was when Lenore was a little girl, but obviously, this was a completely different kind of playfulness. "Even... I can deal with that. For now." His grin was hazardous, the twinkle in his eye was more a promise than a threat. He liked times like this with Saila. Having fun without guns and havoc to wreak. Good-hearted fun. That wasn't something he got to experience all that often being the Hellion he was.

The girl squirmed, inching away from him where he bit into her, snickering. Righting herself when he slid her down a ways, her hands were planted on his broad shoulders to help keep herself balanced since the angle prevented her from anchoring herself with her legs.

He was still wearing that gorgeous smile, prompting her to lift one hand free, to run her thumb along the full swell of his lower lip. "That was fun," Saila agreed with a laugh. "...It's also... exactly what I was going to do if you chose cardio the other day." Dropping one set of lashes in a playful wink, the girl tugged lightly, playfully on one of his ear lobes, rubbing it between her fingers. "...But I think I like the endurance part better."

"There's nothing wrong with working on both." He winked back at her, his biceps tensing to slowly lower her down his chest to his waist. His hands would move when he assumed she would wrap her legs around him, retracting so his hands on her ass would be what was holding her up. And, of course, he would give a few squeezes. After all, she had groped his crotch and his rear. It was only fair, after all.

Having her face within reach of his, his lips sought out hers, a faint brushing before they made their target, his tongue flicking out to taste her bottom lip. "Watch yourself." He gave her a couple second warning before he slid one arm to tuck around her back, maneuvering his arm as best as he could to sweep her hips and turn her, that arm sliding along the back of her thighs to the crease behind her knees. Was he really princess carrying her? Well, he was going to try. Easier to see where he was going, yup! That's it. His legs began to carry them back to the blanket next to the fire.

Grinning brightly, Saila did in fact wrap her legs around him when the opportunity to do so presented itself. Kept him from having to do all the work, since she could hold herself up with the pretzeling of her lower limbs. His hands on her ass had her wiggling her hips playfully, though she understood the logic behind 'fair's fair'.

His mouth on hers, Saila chased the kiss with a sweep of her tongue, a little noise of complaint when he pulled away. It was short lived, though, when he transferred her smoothly into a full on princess carry -- exactly what he'd told her that first night he would never, ever do. Crossing her legs at the thigh, then, the girl leaned herself into his chest, nuzzling her cheek into his shoulder. "..Yup," reiterating. "Best taxi ever."

Hex pressed a light kiss to the top of her head. Rules were meant to be broken right? And he did what she had suggested many, many a time before. To live in the moment and stop thinking too hard about things. He had plenty of what one would call 'dumb blond' moments, he had a problem of not being able to understand or catch onto simple endeavors. He had a problem of not seeing things right there in his face, and over analyzing things. He didn't know how to deal with things that weren't complicated.

But nothing about their situation or Saila herself was simple. The entire ordeal was complicated: he tended to make the situations even more complicated all by himself. But he didn't think about it. He tried to stop thinking in general unless he needed to. Because thoughts could ruin moments, and he didn't want tonight to be ruined.

Long legs carried the two of them over to the blanket, and unfortunately, the taxi service wasn't as long lived as Saila may have hoped. Instead of sitting down with her, he knelt down to set her onto the blanket, slipping his arms out from under her and then stood to his feet, but not before planting a kiss to her cheek.

"I'll be right back." He offered, moving over to the bonfire and the stack of wood he had prepared days ago during one of his visits. His hands wrapped around a good amount of drift wood and sticks grabbed from the tree-line. He moved them around, situating them and poked the cinders around to keep the fire going.

Saila smiled, enjoying the ride for however long it lasted. Pressing an answering kiss to his collar bone, she ran the backs of her knuckles lightly over his chest, willing him not to overthink or overanalyze. Hex was smart, smarter than he gave himself credit for, and that smart sometimes got him in trouble when his thoughts started trying to cannibalize themselves. The girl did what she could to pull him out of it when possible.

Settled on the blanket, the muse propped herself up on her elbows again, watching him tend to the fire. After a moment she sat up, reaching for the scotch bottle he'd abandoned in the sand. It took her a second to pry it open, but when she did she held it to her lips, drinking a healthy swallow with a quick sweep of her tongue over the corner of her mouth afterwards. "Hurry baaaack," she called after him in a teasing voice, and once she'd set the bottle back down in the sand, she started unlacing her boots.

Finishing up with the fire, he stood back and gave a sweeping brush of palms against each other, then on his pants to get rid of any soot or sand from the wood. Her call to him brought a smirk to his face, and he teased back, making sure to keep it lighthearted. "Okay, needy. I'm back."

He winked at her, making it clear he was joking. With a few long strides, he made it back to the blanket, moving up behind where she was sitting up. His knees bent and his rear plopped onto the blanket directly behind her. He stretched out his long legs on either side of her slender frame, leaning forward to press a kiss to her back while he reached for the bottle of scotch as she unlaced her boots.

"Feel free to not stop at the boots," he teased, grinning from ear to ear. Hex gave that cheesy brow wiggle before the bottle of scotch met his lips. After a few good gulps, his extended arms fell to meet slightly arched knees, his feet planted on the blanket for leverage.

Saila stuck her tongue out at him. Needy, huh? She kicked off first one boot and then the other, setting them aside in the sand. The big teddy bear (shhh) had situated himself around her, so she leaned back against him, her hands sliding up over his thighs to curl around his knees, her back against his chest, her head on his shoulder. "Mm. Best pillow ever, too."

When she leaned back against him, his head tilted forward, pressing his lips to the nook where neck met shoulder. He gave a light bite before pulling his teeth back in order for a swig of scotch to be taken. "So there's two things I'm best at. Let's see how much I can keep that train going." He snickered lightly, though he didn't aim for anything specific at the moment. Instead, he enjoyed them sitting there, the sounds of the waves crashing against the beach, the crackling of the flames in the bonfire.

And... he might've enjoyed her neck a bit, too. Offerings of his lips and grazing teeth given to the flesh along the side of her neck and behind her ear. His mouth mumbled against her flesh, "Are you enjoying yourself tonight?"

Saila shivered pleasantly at the light pressure of his teeth on her neck, giving a little smile at his words. So far Hex was proving to be 'the best' at rather a lot of things, but it wouldn't do to tell him so. Her smile lingering in the corners of her mouth, the girl turned her head to smear a light kiss along the edge of his jaw before she stole the scotch bottle from him. "You excel at all kinds of things, babe," said the muse softly as she settled back against his chest, helping herself to a healthy swallow.

Her gaze returning to the fire, Saila held the liquor bottle where he could reach it, her grip loose. Content to just sit with him in comfortable silence for a time, she was enjoying the warmth of his body coupled with the warmth of the fire, the way it contrasted with the cool breeze coming in off the rolling tide.

When he asked her that question, Saila nodded readily, reflecting on how much thought and effort the incubus had put into this. Remembering, then, the last time he'd put effort into something for a girl, she tipped her head to the side again to look up at him, her strange eyes fixing on his profile. "...Yeah," she said quietly, willing him to understand that she got it, how much it meant to her without making him uncomfortable by actually saying it. "I really am. This is fantastic."

His nose wrinkled a bit at the mention of glitter. "Glitter is a bitch to get off... don't ask how I know that." Hex let out a cackling laugh, shaking his head.

Saila laughed easily. "Man, everybody's got a problem with glitter but me an' Dris," she mumbled, pretending to be sad about it though obviously she wasn't. "It's so pretty and sparkly!" She thought about the way Cane reacted to it, and Quinn for that matter, and it made her laugh all over again. "It does end up in some strange places, though."

"And you can never get glitter off you. Ten years down the road, guarantee you'll find a speck of it somewhere." He snickered, nipping playfully at her ear lobe. His hands remained over her abdomen, staying where he was.

Shivering a little, Saila leaned into the nuzzling, tipping her face towards him to smudge his cheek in more kisses. It was pretty amazing how far they'd come in a month's time, from no cuddling to this near constant contact. She craved it, though, gorging herself on the physical affection she got from him to hold herself over as she walked among seas of people she couldn't or shouldn't touch.

It was strange. It was completely new to the beast that she had somehow turned into a teddy bear. The closest affectionate contact he had managed with anyone else was Jynx, and that was maybe having his arm around her shoulders or giving her a hug. Her pull didn't affect him and vice versa, so they remained unmoved by the physical contact. Even so, they weren't the cuddly type. Or the forced hug he had to give Kokabiel, made to do by his father, Asmodai to spite him when he fought too much with her. Which he would still just end up half squeezing the life out of her for satisfaction for being made to give his least liked sister a hug.

But other than that... this kind of affection was completely foreign to him. It was a pleasant surprise. It ended up being something that he'd longed for without ever knowing he'd wanted it.

She might have turned Hex into a teddy bear, but as far as she could tell that applied exclusively to her -- girl just couldn't see the Nephilim suddenly being all snuggly as a default setting. There was something fitting, perhaps, about the way they got to explore that snuggliness together -- the one who usually couldn't and the one who didn't know how.

He wasn't cuddly with anyone else, that was for sure. These days, he didn't associate much with anybody besides her, Kitra or Baby. Every time he thought about playing socialite, the only place he could think of to go was the Inn or something of the like, and he wasn't feeling up for it much these days. Whether it was because of still being in a funk, though he wasn't depressed anymore, or because he just didn't want to deal with the sexual energy of the patrons of RhyDin was hard to say.

Hex was taking a break, however long that may be, from his party boy days. And he was enjoying the quiet for now. As much as could be allowed living with the psychotic Russian across the hall.

He glanced down over her shoulder at the one she was pointing at when Saila mentioned his tattoos. Sorry to say, there wasn't any real story to any of his tattoos in specific, but there was one in general.

"I don't have a story for any of them, actually... though the day I got them all is a story in itself." He barked a light laugh, going for the bottle of scotch finally. Hex eased it out of her hand for a gulp, then replaced it when he was done with it. "It took days to do, with few breaks in between to get all of them. There was a human chick named Becca that Beel had plucked from a zombie apocalypse. Found the fight in her amusing or some ****t, I dunno." He offered a light shrug, shaking his head. He was in story-telling mode.

"Anyways.. She's a tattoo artist from a city on Earth called Los Angeles. I was a clean canvas before she showed up, and she made some remark about how 'a greaser needs tattoos, and an empty canvas is ****'. So, I let her give me tattoos. All of them. Made her sit there the entire time and just do tattoo after tattoo." He snickered, and that one he didn't really feel sorry for. Becca... to say the least... was a ****.

Grinning, she relinquished her hold on the scotch bottle easily; when it was offered back she took a sip herself and then planted the bottle on the blanket between her legs. Settling back against him to listen to his story, the purple haired girl arched a brow quizzically when he was finished. "So you didn't tell her what to do, just to do it?"

He offered a bit of a shrug, then smirked at her. "In my defense, I was relatively drunk most of the time then. Even more so than now... I didn't have the patience or time to come up with tattoos for as much as I wanted covered. She told me I needed tattoos, so I told her to give me tattoos. Luckily, she didn't do too bad. I might be a greaser, but I'm pretty sure she was born in the wrong era. Chick looked like she belonged in the '80s. Leather jacket, purple velvet leggings and biker boots. Only thing missing was the frizzy ass hair. Though..." His molten hues narrowed. "I don't trust her to not have hidden a **** somewhere in one of the tattoos. Found out later that she likes to hide **** among the designs."

Smiling a little, she ran her fingers over his arm, peering down at the tattoos there as though searching for hidden objects. The ink was really too old for her to catch an impression of its artist, embedded as it was in Hex's skin and thus overpowered by his own natural energy. But she could look, anyway.

"So in a sense, your art is kinda like mine, then," said Saila, tipping her head back to look up at him once more. "In that... you didn't know what it was going to be until it was already there." His had all come at once, it seemed, and from the same person, but still. The parallel was there.

He thought about it for a moment, then nodded after. "Yeah. Kinda just like that. Except mine was with a needle and ink not energy transference." He smirked faintly, nuzzling his nose into the side of her neck. Her fingers running over his arm left traces of warm energy and gooseflesh on his skin. Hex let a rumbling escape through his chest to his throat. "It was kind of a pain in the ass though. For her at least, I didn't mind. But her hand kept cramping."

Chuckling at the memory, Hex deliberately let it slip through so she could see the cussing and fits Becca had thrown when her hand kept cramping after hours of tattooing. Luckily, Beel was an angel, and with a touch to her hand, it had subsided. At least until it happened again and she threw another fit.

As the memory in question filtered through her mind's eye, Saila laughed, and then her eyes widened, her grin spreading. "oh my god. I wonder if any of my art has **** in it?!" ...Surely Cane would have told her?

At her exclamation, he couldn't help but bark out a cackling laugh, his head tilted back from the force of it. When it had died down enough for him to speak, he smirked cheekily. "Do you want me to inspect you? You never know, the one I left on your ass might have a **** on it somewhere."

Saila's snickered spilled over as he laughed, and she dislodged one of her arms to elbow him playfully, lightly, in the stomach. "You're probably right about that," the muse grumbled good-naturedly, a smile still painting her lips despite her forced scowl. "...if there's a **** on me somewhere, it'd pretty much have to be yours..."

He grunted softly at the elbow, though it didn't jolt him any. It was more a surprised grunt, too busy laughing to see it coming. Though that smirk didn't leave his face, if anything it widened at her reaction. "Well.... let's see..." He tilted his head forward, that cheeky grin still plastered on his face as a hand removed itself from her stomach to reach for the hem of her tank top at her chest. He pulled it outward, looking down her shirt at the... tattoos... yup, definitely just the tattoos... right... that scattered across her chest. "No **** there."

Saila snickered as he peered down her shirt, but she also tipped her head back against his shoulder to make real sure he could get the best possible view. Had to make sure there were no errant penises, you know. Not that she had any idea what she'd do about it if he actually found any. Considering that, the girl shook her head, looking up at the darkening sky. "...I just realized that I have no idea whether or how any of these can come off. Like... you can get tattoos removed, right? Something with lasers? I don't think lasers will do it for me..."

Not that she was really in any hurry to remove them. She had a charm spell she could do to hide them, and that seemed good enough so long as she didn't get overwhelmed with other energies while she was using it.

"I don't have the faintest idea. Yeah, there's laser removal for regular tattoos. It's a tedious process. I'd just as soon shave the skin off and let it heal." Hex snickered, though he wasn't really joking. He could do that and be just fine, but he had no want to remove any of his tattoos. If he found any **** subliminally etched into one of his pieces, he'd probably just deck Becca then make an everlasting joke about his **** tattoo.

"Do you have any you want to remove?" He was curious if she had any regrets about marks left on her. Hell, he wouldn't be surprised if he had tattoos on him that he didn't even know about. When Becca put the ink on him, he didn't really pay much attention to it. Just put his shirt on and called it good.

There was only a faint curl of his mouth on the side that was turned away from her. He poked his finger lightly to her chest near the right, squinting as he tilted his head forward, as if he was trying to make something out. "Oh ****... what's that?..." Acting as if he had found something along the lines of a **** tattoo.

"I don't know yet. Depends what all they do." The girl replied with an easy shrug, her shoulders lifting to her ears. There was one in particular that Cane would like to see her have removed--the one that bound her to Quinn-- but mostly Saila found the bond more useful than not. She had the means of breaking the attachment now if she had to, and anyway the design itself was pretty.

"Like... if it turns out that one of them, I don't know... sets people I like on fire? I would probably need to find a way to do something about that." A faint smirk curled her lips, though her expression turned slightly more serious then. "I'm pretty sure one of these," Saila gestured her exposed belly, "...prevents me from getting pregnant, but I don't know which one. I guess maybe one day I might feel like getting rid of that, but for now it's super useful."

And then he was examining her chest, pretending like he'd found a **** on her tits. Saila snickered, shaking her head, and elbowed him lightly in the stomach again. "Uh huh. Your tone is super convincing there, Hex."

He grunted again at the elbow to the stomach, letting out a light snicker. "It was worth a shot." He smirked, then waggled his brows all cheesy-like at her. "I will get you one day." He gave a playful bite to her neck that was light and aimed to tickle, but it didn't last long as he pulled away.

He chortled a bit. "Yeah... I'm an incubus, we can reproduce. I don't think you want to have a massive Nephilim kid tearing you in half, do you? Probably not a bad thing to have right now." He poked her sides gently, then reached for the bottle of scotch, taking a healthy swig. "Wait... you're not supposed to set your friends on fire?" His brows rose, and he acted like he was shocked by this news before he broke out into a grin. "I should probably inform the Hell tabloids."

06.02.2016
A Week Apart

(This takes place five days after their first public appearance together at the Pool Party)

After a long night of drinking, the Nephilim was passed out on his bed. In his boxers, having managed to strip down at least before flopping belly-down over the comforter. He was out like a light by the time his mass had settled from bouncing on the bed. Long limbs were sprawled across the mattress, and he was currently half laying on, half cuddling one of his pillows with the other arm flopped over the side of the bed. There was probably a soft snoring from the ol' man-bear.

What a bizarre night it had been. Saila wasn't asleep, but then Saila almost never was. With the prime vitality of two different werewolves coursing through her body, the girl had spent most of the dawn hours running herself ragged, feeling a little like King Kong on cocaine. When she finally felt like she could hold still for more than ten seconds at a time, her run became less haphazard, more directed, steps carrying her to a familiar apartment.

She climbed the stairs, trailed her fingers along the wall as she walked the hallway. The Nephilim was home, alone, and... sleeping. Saila considered leaving him be, but only very fleetingly. The truth was she hadn't seen the big guy in a couple of days and she was missing him. It put her a little on edge when she realized that, but now that she could feel his energy close by there was no way she would turn back.

Running her fingers over the door, Saila found it unlocked, which made her smile. Hadn't he told her a half dozen times already that he didn't understand why she bothered to knock? This time the girl didn't, letting herself in as soundlessly as possible. She closed the door behind her, slipped down the hallway to his bedroom, and stood there just a moment, watching him sleep.

Hex was asleep, but had been for enough hours that he had passed by the deep-sleep phase. He was a cautious sleeper, and if it wasn't for his subconscious recognizing her energy, he probably would've woken up and swung a gun around. But instead, his fingers twitched as he felt her familiar energy close by. There was a slight shifting in the corded muscles of his back before they began to ripple under that tattooed flesh while he maneuvered and rolled onto his back, slowly and sleepily.

He groaned lightly, like a grumpy bear waking from hibernation, though he was far from grumpy. He had missed her too over the past few days, though he mentally swatted that thought away. It didn't stop him from muttering a sleepy, "Morning," and peeping one of those molten amber orbs at her. The lasting sleepiness refusing to let his eyes fully open, his hands came up to cup and rub it away from his face before stretching his long body and then flopping there. He was a lazy ass when he first woke up, it took him a minute to get moving. Especially after a rough night of drinking.

She smiled when he rolled over, watching him move through the stages of trying to wake up. "Hey you," Saila said softly. The girl was dressed in black as always, but her eyes had that phosphorescent glow to them that indicated she was carrying an excess of energy.

And she was pretty much covered in glitter.

Lifting herself up off the wall, Saila moved towards him with a grin, crawling onto the bed next to him. Since he was on his back, she fit her lank frame into his side, laying her head on his shoulder as one arm circled his waist. "Have a fun night?"

He had been working like a mother**** to get his eyes to open, and had managed to get them about half-way there just in time to see her crawling onto the bed with him. A grin broke free from the sleepyface he had going on, his arm snaking around her when she laid next to him and curled herself around him. "Hm.." He hummed, nuzzling into the top of her purple locks.

He looked down at her through the slit-opening of his eyelids and he quirked a brow. He lifted his hand, that was now covered in glitter and he crinkled his nose. Ugh. Glitter. "Did you get gang-banged by an arts and crafts store?" He chuckled, flicking his fingers to try to get it off before giving up and just laying his arm back around her. That was going to be a **** to get off later. Right now, he was just too glad to see her to care about being sparkly. At least he wasn't a vampire... No Cullen jokes. No no.

He grunted when she asked him if he had a fun night. He still smelled like scotch. "Little too fun I guess. Went a bit past my limit." He faintly remembered the drive home, stumbling into his apartment and making it to his bed before crashing. Fact : Don't challenge a dead Russian to a drinking contest. You'll lose. Miserably. Except maybe Saila.

The teenager snickered, watching him try to shake the glitter off like a cat with tape on its paw. She nuzzled closer, and it was something like jumping into a swimming pool. Burying herself in the warm familiarity of his presence, it soothed and swallowed some of all the jangling in her head. Saila took a deep breath, letting it out slowly as she relaxed into him.

It was a colorful image, being gang-banged by a craft store - Saila only really knew what he meant because she had her arm around him - and the girl laughed again. "No. I went to a straight strip club with a bunch of gay werewolves. It was... an educational experience."

His brows shot up, an amused expression crossed his face as he looked down at her. "A strip club... with a bunch of gay werewolves..." He barked out a laugh, his chest rocking just slightly with the shift of air intake. "Yeah... that does sound like an educational experience..." He shook his head, giving her side a light squeeze with his hand and the top of her head a bit of a nuzzle. Yeah, definitely missed her.

He laid there for a few seconds, enjoying the feel of her wrapped around him until he sighed softly. Hate to cut the cuddle fest short, but I need coffee... He pressed his lips to the top of her head, though he woke up in a much better mood than he normally did thanks to the surprise visit of that long-legged woman, he didn't want to push his luck by turning into a grumpy douche from lack of caffeine. And... he might've had to piss. Like previously said, he drank a lot last night.

"Mm. Coffee. Coffee is an amazing idea," the girl agreed, rolling onto her back on his bed as she stretched, arching her spine in a luxurious roll of muscles still humming with way too much kinetic energy.

Saila tipped her chin back, tugging at him lightly to get him to kiss her. "...You smell like booze," she said with a little laugh, though it wasn't meant to be insulting. Booze was basically her favorite thing besides coffee, sex and glitter.

"So who won, anyway?" She just kind of assumed that if Hex was this hung over, he must have been drinking with Kitra.

"I thought you'd like that idea." He snickered, a curling grin erupting as she tugged at him to get him to kiss her. His spiteful nature egged him on to do the opposite, to just get up and walk off, but he fought it. Rolling onto his side, then lifting himself onto hands and knees above her. Each palm propped on either side of her head, one leg had wiggled its way between hers and the other propped his knee on the mattress by her hip. Rippling muscles of his back tensed as his shoulder blades shifted closer to each other, arms bending to lower his lips to hers.

Though it wasn't meant to be insulting, she wasn't wrong. He reeked of liquor, almost like he had drowned himself in Scotch. That wasn't too far off either as much as he put down last night. Her mind-reading power was useful in more ways than one, the fact that they could keep up conversation while using their lips for better things, like kissing. As he kissed her, he spoke to her mentally. Well, Glitter Queen, you can always join me in the shower.

Hex chuckled against her lips, head turning to deepen the kiss. Oh yeah, he'd missed her. He sighed softly as he "said" the next part. He won. In Hex's defense, Kitra was already dead, unlike the living Nephilim propped over Saila. So it took Kitra a whole lot more to get drunk, but Hex never turned down a challenge. Chances are, they probably drank the bar out of liquor last night in the attempt.

"Can I help?" Saila asked of the process, grinning as she watched the clear delight move across his face at actually finding intact cigarettes in that crumpled pack.

She moved past him on her way to the kitchen, turning to look back at him when the note of concern in his voice snagged her attention. Strange mismatched eyes lifting to his face, her smile was a soft one. Oh god, he's worried about me. That liquid smile spreading, the girl moved back to him, wrapping her hands around his hips with a gentle shake of her head.

"Not even a little. They're just humans. I'm literally the ace in the hole here." The girl had a little bit of arrogance where humans were concerned, it's true. But then she was used to subduing werewolves with a single touch, had killed demons and rapists alike with her hands. She had no self preservation instinct and no concept of failure even against things that really were bigger, badder and stronger than she. A pack of gypsy thugs? Please.

"Sure you can." Hex grinned, clearly enjoying the idea of teaching her the tricks of how to build a car from the frame up. The fact that she seemed so excited about it made him grin even wider.

When her hands found his hips, he turned to her. The look of concern eased and smoothed out the crinkled flesh between his brows. He nodded, his hand moving to squeeze her hip and his chin tucked down to lean his forehead against hers. He could've verbalized, but it wasn't something he liked to mention out loud. Trust wasn't something he came across often, and he didn't trust anyone to not be listening in. So he said it with inner monologue directed to her only, Hexius.

He paused, letting out a soft sigh, as he hadn't told anyone his full name in a long time. You ever come across trouble, call that name. I'll come looking. His eyes were on hers the whole time he told her this important information, having a feeling she would understand the weight of knowing someone of his caliber's full name. He also had a feeling she could easily take care of herself, but it didn't change the fact that he wanted her to call for him if she needed help. No matter what it is.

Saila was quiet for a long moment, her strange eyes on his, absorbing the magnitude of the information he was giving her. The girl lifted her hands to his chest, spreading her fingers across the flat planes of his muscles, her thumbs drawing light circles there. It felt huge because it was, so much bigger than admissions of missing each other or wanting to be close.

Eventually, she nodded, her hands sliding to his then, squeezing them gently. "Thank you," said Saila softly, and she meant it. Not just for his concern, but his trust. "It's beautiful, by the way." His name. Hexius.

When her hands met his chest, his eyes closed for a moment at the touch. He had missed her touch, if anything because she seemed to calm the beast writhing inside him that kept trying to get out. There were other reasons, too, but he was in denial. Hex exhaled softly through his nose, the tension in his neck and shoulders relaxing as they stood there. When his eyes opened again, the worry had visibly eased as did the tension in his muscles.

When her hands sought his, he ticked the cigarette away from her to make sure she didn't get nicked with the cherry. He nodded when she thanked him, his forehead turning against hers before sliding away to plant a kiss to her cheek then her neck, a light scoff was made at the mention of his name being beautiful. His nose scrunched and he nipped at the softness of her throat gently.

"Alright, let's go get that coffee." He wasn't dismissing her compliment, making sure to express that with his tone, but he didn't want his nature to ruin the morning, cutting it off before it could arise. He gave her hands a bit of a squeeze back, pulling his lips away from her neck to look at her, a grin resting on his features now as he looked at her. He lightly bumped his nose to hers and took a step back, bringing the cigarette to his lips for a drag.

He maneuvered around her, reluctant fingers slid from hers as he made his way toward the bathroom to take that morning piss.

It was a heady thing, the way his body visibly relaxed under her hands. Being able to feel and pinpoint the exact moment that the spitefulness that roiled just underneath the surface abated, temporarily soothed. Her smile was a gentle thing, her tummy somewhat distressingly full of butterflies as he leaned in to kiss her cheek

Saila tipped her head to the side, granting him better access to her neck where his lips seemed to take up permanent residence when they were alone together. She felt him tense up, that venom escalating again when she complimented him, and grinned a little when he held it back on his own.

"Coffee. Right. I can do coffee." She could, too; having been entrusted with the secret recipe and method for The Best Coffee Ever. Turning from him when he headed for the bathroom, the girl flipped on the lights as she stalked into his kitchen for to make the coffee happen.

He was learning. It was a process and took a lot of focus sometimes, but he was getting better with it. Because Kitra didn't care enough to sit there teasing him forever like the rest would, he had been working on it on the down low with him. Kitra making comments, which wasn't hard for the Russian, that would challenge him to make fun of him for, or be spiteful about. Teaching himself control to hold in the comments, to cage the beast before it spilled out of his mouth. Kitra had been one of the easier candidates, even more than Saila only for the fact that he didn't really care too greatly if he slipped in a spiteful comment to Kitra. It was hard as hell to insult that guy, as long as you didn't touch the topic of Russia.

Saila taught him other ways to control it, and she herself could get past it to the meaning behind the words, but the less he spoke them or the possibility of saying them, the better. Just like his new project with the car, it was a work in progress.

It didn't take him long to come out of the bathroom though his boxers were now replaced with a towel. He wanted to shower to get rid of the stench of last night's liquor, but the smell of coffee was drawing him in. He hummed, a sound much like a purr as he approached the kitchen, nostrils flaring. "That smells good."

"My friend Sal taught me how to make it." She said over her shoulder with a grin, "...which is a little weird, because he's only ever taught one other person and I'm not sure Sal would call us friends." A shrug rolled over her shoulders then. Whatever Sal's motivation had been, she sure wasn't about to complain. "This is commonly held to be The Best Coffee ever. People go a little nuts for it when he or Cane make it in the Inn."

She pulled the cups down, pouring coffee into each of them before she turned to face him, offering one of them out. "Just so you know, it's considered sacrilege to add sugar or milk or anything to it, so .. if that's your thing, at least try it without, first."

Once he took the mug from her hand, she wrapped her fingers around the remaining one, blowing on the surface once before she took a sip. Her mismatched eyes moved slowly over his body in that towel, noticing the shimmery flecks of glitter here and there that had transferred from her to him in their cuddling. Saila grinned. "Mm. Mostly naked Nephilim in the morning. I can get used to that."

He somewhat remembered who she was talking about. He'd seen them around the Inn, remembered seeing her with them for a little while at Beltane. But he hadn't really talked to them. Frankly, he didn't even know which was which. "Best Coffee Ever, huh? I've had a looooot of coffee in my day. I guess we'll see about that." He grinned, head tilted as he was admiring the backside-view of the purple haired woman. When she'd turn around, she'd probably catch the fact he had been biting his lip as he was a bit slow on the draw to bring his eyes upward. He grinned at her, making it clear that --nope-- he wasn't hiding the fact he was checking her out.

When the cup was offered, he took it. He looked at the cup, gaze darting toward hers for a moment before nodding. "Alright." He'd give it a shot. He wasn't big on creamer, but he put a spoon or two in his coffee most of the time. He brought the hot cup up to his lips, not bothering to blow on it as he took a sip. Acting like he was genuinely grading the coffee in his mouth as he swished it on his tongue, eyes were lifted to the ceiling and everything. He nodded, swallowing the liquid in his mouth before taking another "testing" sip. "Alright, you got me. That's probably the best coffee I've ever had." He smirked at her, and he wasn't kidding, that was made clear when his mouth met the cup to take a big gulp of the hot coffee.

Yeah, chances are he'd find random specks of glitter on him for the next couple weeks. Because whatever anyone says, glitter will always find its way back to you. In the most random of places, at that. Persistent bastards.

His grin was half-cocked at her words. "Really now?.." He nearly purred the words as he took a step toward her, taking a sip of the coffee in a nonchalant manner as he approached her. "A mostly naked Saila would be better, though. You've got better legs than I do." He teased, chuckling as he set his coffee aside on the counter for now. It was good enough to drink cold so it wouldn't really go to waste. His palms met the counter behind her, one arm on each side of her as he leaned forward. There was enough distance between them where she fit comfortably there, even with her coffee in front of her.

Saila caught him looking alright, and a grin stole across her lips around the mouth of her own coffee mug. She took a sip, her long lashes fluttering once. Coffee was one of the few consumable things the girl genuinely enjoyed, and Sal's coffee was probably the best thing she'd ever tasted, period.

Watching him assess the coffee, the girl smirked. Hex was old enough that if coffee existed that was better than Sal's, he might actually know about it. Though she was super skeptical that such a mythical thing existed in the first place, it was gratifying to have it confirmed. Her smile grew brighter. "Pretty incredible, isn't it? I now know for sure that it doesn't have crack in it, but... y'coulda fooled me."

Hex moved closer, and that made her smile stretch even wider, drawing back from the pearlescent glint of her teeth. Lifting her chin as he approached, boxing her in there against the counter, the girl nudged his jaw playfully with the tip of her nose. "Think so?" Saila glanced down at her legs as though she might be skeptical on that point. "They are pretty great," she conceded playfully. "Maybe I should take that shower with you, make sure we get all the glitter off?"

...Or, you know, get it everywhere, one.

06.03.2016
Learning About Cars

True to his word, it had been an Extremely Thorough Inspection. So thorough it had lasted until the water ran frigid, and then the Nephilim had carried her into the bedroom to continue the search. Dawn gave way to day faded into night became dawn again. It was early evening of the following day when they broke from each other at last, approaching something like sated -- on a temporary basis, anyway -- and both, predictably -- still dotted here and there with specks of glitter.

You couldn't hardly see the glitter anymore except where the sun filtering through the seam of light at the edge of the window where the curtain had been just a little bit dislodged reflected off the tiny metal scraps, creating micro solar flares across her ribs, his shoulder, the corner of her eye.

Saila giggled, trying unsuccessfully to peel a fleck off Hex's collar bone while he lit a cigarette. "Okay. You're right. This stuff never comes off."

Hex knew all too well about the downfalls of glitter. Being in a crowd full of party boys, always going to strip clubs, parties and throwing plenty of their own, glitter was something they'd become accustomed to but it didn't mean they liked it. He had been very thorough indeed, checking nearly every inch of her in various ways to get the glitter off. For a while, only succeeding in getting more glitter on himself, but he wasn't going to complain in the least.

Feeling a bit more like a man instead of a ravenous beast out for Saila's body, he snickered. Liquid gold orbs peered at her attempt to remove one of the remaining flecks of glitter from him. "I told you... We'll be finding rogue glitter weeks from now." He barked a laugh, tilting his head to snap his teeth at her fingers, but changed his mind at the last minute, giving them a kiss instead. After going so long without nicotine, he nearly sucked down the cigarette to its damn filter, though he had the common courtesy to give her a drag here and there.

When finished with it and stubbing it out, he rolled onto his side and tugged her to him. Planting kisses along her jawline, neck and shoulder. After holding out for close to a week, the lustful bear was now replaced with a teddy as he wrapped his arms around her. Giving a contented sigh, "I don't know about you, but I feel better now." A light chuckle as he nuzzled her sternum, his kisses having trailed to that area.

Pleasantly sore and feeling much more even, Saila was laying on her belly next to him, periodically stealing that cigarette. Well-**** and smiling, the girl giggled when he snapped at her fingers only to kiss them, wiggling delicate digits lightly against his mouth.

She shifted onto her side next to him when he rolled closer, giggling in a pretty way as his mouth spilled over her body. The urgency was gone from his kisses; these were the affectionate, playful ones that were so rare and so completely adorable. The cool rush of his breath on her skin made her squirm against him, worming closer. "Mm. Much. I sorta feel like we should ... I dunno. Do something productive?"

His mouth pulled away from that soft flesh of her chest, hues shifting up for a glance to the face that he'd grown rather fond of looking at, no matter how much he might deny it. A fleeting kiss was brushed across the top of her breast before he tilted his head back and relaxed against the comforter and pillow.

One of those large hands raised to brush a stray lock of purple from her face and tucked it behind her ear. "Hm... do you have anything in mind?" The hand pulled away from her hair to brush along her shoulder and farther still until it sought refuge on her waist.

Long lashes fluttered once as his mouth moved over her chest, an easy, indolent smile on her face. His hand slipped down her torso to rest on her waist, and she lifted her arm in kind, fingers curling across the broad expanse of his shoulder.

The girl shrugged. "I dunno. You can show me the car you're building, maybe. Or we can play tag again." A little smirk. "I mean, we could also totally just stay here and have another one of our marathons, but ..." The marathons were great, but actually hanging out with him had turned out to be a blast, too.

There was a contented sigh released when he felt her touch on his shoulder, a twitch of a smile as he watched her.

Then, a grin spread out at her suggestions. "All of those sound good..." He hummed, something resembling a purr set deep in his chest at the ideas. "Let's hold off on the marathon, I don't want to wear you out too quickly." He smirked, somewhat teasingly. He tilted his head forward and brushed his lips across hers. "Tag is always fun..." Another brush of lips. "Buuuut, I did promise to show you the new project. I should probably check on it anyways... I can't trust the psycho across the hall not to **** with it just to piss me off." He snickered, giving her nose a light nuzzling bump. "Up for learning something new today?" He grinned at her, waggling his brows. There was a glimmer of excitement in his eyes.

Saila's brows quirked skeptically, a smile of amusement coiling over her lips, her mismatched eyes sparkling. "Wear me out?" She challenged him teasingly, her nails sliding lightly over the tattoos of his arm.

Kissed and then kissed again, the girl nudged his nose with the tip of her own, her tongue stealing a taste from his lower lip. The boyish excitement in his eyes brought a grin to her face, and she nodded. "Definitely. I love learning new things, and I wanna see what you've been up to."

He barked a small laugh when she repeated him. Okay, before you wear ME out. He teased lightly, giving her waist a squeeze with his hand. Yeah, chances are he'd end up getting worn out before she would. Sprawled and passed out on the bed. That seemed far more legit.

Those two dents showed up on each cheek, the boyish excitement turning into a boyish grin. Had he had a tail, it would probably be wagging. Instead, he gave her a final kiss before groaning himself into a sitting position. Long sessions like that with Saila left him both drained and pumped at the same time. Like he wanted to sprint a marathon but take a nap at the same time. It was a strange high, but he was growing more and more attached to the feeling.

Like she was a drug, and he an addict.

At least that's what he kept telling himself. His hand finally slipped from her waist and he pushed himself to his feet, stretching his long, bulky frame before he went to the closet to his dresser drawers, seeking out some fresh clothes. "So much for the shower." He barked another laugh, smirking over his shoulder at her. "Trade in glitter for engine grease."

A Cheshire cat smile pulled at the corners of her mouth at his admission, and the girl gave a little nod. That was more like it.

Saila leaned in, pressing a kiss to the center of his forehead before he sat up, affectionate, and then started to sit up herself. He was so excited by the prospect, so eager to show it to her, that she couldn't help being excited about it, too. Raking her fingers through long purple tangles -- one of these days she'd actually stop to brush her damn hair after the shower before it dried, the girl pulled it up in a knot, twisting the long rope of violet around her wrist a half dozen times before looping the tail through to catch it fast.

Easing off the edge of the bed, she dropped to a crouch on the bedroom floor, digging through her bag for new clothes. Glancing up at him over her shoulder, Saila snickered. "...Engine grease is kinda what got us into the showering together thing in the first place, though..."

When the press of a kiss had been made to his forehead, he scrunched up his face, mostly his nose. A playful gesture, not one made out of disapproval or disgust. The smirk afterwards would make that clear.

Turning around with a fresh shirt, pair of boxers and jeans in hand, his head tilted to the side as he blatantly checked out her crouched position. Namely, her ass. There was a tug of a smirk at the corner of his mouth as he bent to put on his boxers, slipping one leg through then the other. Pulled up to his hips. Rinse and repeat with his pants. "Does that mean there will be round two?" He barked a laugh while shoving his arms through the t-shirt, giving her a wink before it was pulled over his head. He tugged at the hem to set it in place, turning to the mirror on the dresser to run his comb through his hair. His hand reached for the mousse.

A grin split her delicate features, and she shifted herself forward on his body so she could kiss his cheek again. The angle was awkward, so really the girl ended up kissing the skin just in front of his ear, but close enough. "Thanks." For the compliment, and the shades. She certainly felt cool wearing them, which... probably meant she looked like an idiot.

"Oh, cool. You get to get in some more endurance training today, then," snickering, her voice is a playful singsong, referencing the fact that he's carrying her down the street a ways. She'd been wondering about that, honestly-- where it was that one went about building a car. Seemed she'd get to find out here soon. "Would he really **** with your new project, though? I mean... I guess I get the whole... playing pranks thing," she kind of did, anyway, though it was still confusing. "But that just seems... mean?"

He grunted when she thanked him, a... sort of? ... response? But there was a plain grin on his face. And even if she did look like an idiot in them, she'd just manage to pull off adorable. Though, luckily she didn't look like an idiot, at least not to Hex.

"It's not tag... but it's something." He chuckled, letting her monkey cling to his back. Fingers brushed across her thigh through her jeans, all the while his legs carried them closer and closer to the garage. He had to rent it out as there wasn't any space to build it at the apartment. There was only a parking lot, no garage and no proper storage. He didn't trust the neighborhood enough to build it in the parking lot, then it would be fair game for Kitra to attack it, or just about anybody to steal the expensive parts. He was a city boy, and you didn't leave valuables lying around, that much he knew. "Tch... Kitra? You kidding me?" Though it was a rhetorical question and by no means teasing toward her. "He's in the top five biggest **** I know." He barked a small laugh, shaking his head. "If he thought it could piss me off, yeah. He would."

Saila just shook her head. She didn't really understand the concept of 'friends' who were deliberately out to hurt each other or piss each other off, but then Saila hadn't been around all that long yet. With a wry smile, the girl drew one hand lightly over the back of his neck, unlacing it from the other since she felt stable in her perch. "Maybe I should challenge this dude to a drinking contest."

As they walked, she was studying the buildings they were passing. Mostly because she'd never really paid attention to them before, and she wondered whether she'd recognize a garage if she saw one.

His eyes narrowed lazily as he felt her hand at the back of his head, letting out a little hum at the touch. "Mhn.... Maybe you should. I don't think the drunk Russian would know what to do with himself if you out drink him." He barked a laugh, a small smirk etching along his features at the thought. Be lost, that's what he'd do.

Snickering lightly, she ran her nails up and down the back of his neck gently, teasing. "It's happened before. I even warn people that I can't get drunk and no one ever believes me."

There were visible shivers than ran down his spine as her nails grazed his neck, a slight tuck to his lip as he bit it and smirked. "Well, don't tell Kitra that before you drink with him." He snickered lightly.

When he rounded a corner, they passed about four buildings before there was a somewhat older man that seemed to be in his fifties standing outside of a rinky dink garage. "Hey, Garrison." Hex nodded his chin to the older man, even though he wasn't older than him, Hex treated him so. The old man gave a greasy wave and wiped his hands off on a rag before giving Hex a sly grin. "Lady friend of yours?" Though at least the old guy didn't creep on Saila, instead he gave her a friendly wave.

Hex snickered lightly, grinning to Garrison. "You could say that. This is Saila." He gave a little wiggle to Saila, trying to see if she'd step down off his back. He didn't mind in the least that Garrison had seen her on his back, making it clear with his thoughts, but he didn't want to trip on something and send them both flying into dangerous parts. "This is Garrison," offered to Saila, "he's letting me rent out half of his garage to work on the new project."

Saila's strange gaze lowered to Garrison, a friendly smile on her face. She waved, her head tilting to grin at Hex when he laughed at the question. "Nice to meet you, Garrison," said the purple haired muse, releasing her arms as she straightened her legs so that she landed lightly on booted feet. Her gaze was curious as she studied the man. She knew rather a lot of people with impressively large ages -- Hex and Robert chief among them, but also Cane and to a lesser extent Quinn. This might have been the first person she encountered who actually looked old, though. Naturally, the girl found that fascinating.

He didn't feel shy around Garrison, the old man wouldn't tease him for it and Hex felt comfortable. He had become a good friend of Hex's over the past week, like the wise old geezer that could call him out on his **** and **** around with him. Hex respected his views and the old man's love for cars, the fact that he practically had to force the money in the guy's hands because he had been reluctant to even take the money for rent. He was going to let Hex just use his garage for free, but Hex had persuaded him otherwise, convincing him it was bad for business if he kept letting him use the space for free.

Hex leaned in to press a kiss to Saila's cheek, "I'll be right back." He gave her a reassuring nod, then one to Garrison as he walked over to the garage and went inside to press the big red button to let the huge garage door swing up. There was a dull, sanded down frame of a '70 Chevy Nova SS, a few tarps laid around it with scattered parts including the doors, bumper, engine, transmission, and everything in between. It was all systematically laid out in order, ready to either be built or put into the car. Right now, the engine was held up on hooks and chains, set up by a metal frame and ready to be finished.