Vanessa & Lex | Tuesday Afternoon

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Vanessa and Lex meet up at Harry's in an attempt to be friends. It starts awkward, gets playful, and then settles somewhere they can both work from.

Vanessa sat in a booth in a back corner of Harry's considering her pint thoughtfully. Loose hair hung down in a curtain around her. This was probably not the best idea ever. She had told Lex that she'd like to maintain their friendship, but it seemed like poor timing to resume that. The metamorph sipped her Anchor Steam and took stock of the past month. She'd broken up with Lex, started sleeping with Warren, made out with a woman she'd barely spoken to before, took home a stranger with Jean-Paul who they were sharing and then there was Wade. She actually felt guilty sitting here because she felt sort of crappy over the situation with Wade and it was hitting her more than her break up with Lex had. The truth was she had left her relationship with Lex long before she had broken up with him. But she still felt like she should feel worse about it now than she did. This was going to be a disaster.

Lex stood outside the door to Harry's thinking about what he was doing. He wanted to talk to Vanessa, to see how she was, and hopefully salvage their friendship, but he had no idea what that meant. Could he really just talk to her without remembering the fact that he was in love with her, or was he setting himself up for another broken heart? "Be a man," he said to himself, then he pushed the door open. He was walking in perfect military march without realizing it, head held high and shoulders back. He could handle anything that she could dish out.

Then he saw her, sitting in a corner booth, and his heart stopped momentarily. He was an idiot for thinking he could just waltz in and continue where they'd left off, to be comfortable just being her friend. It was too late to turn around and walk out, as it was clear she'd seen him, so he walked up and slid into the booth opposite her. "Hey, Vee. How's life been treating you?" Waste no time, he cautioned, assess the situation and retreat if necessary. Without realizing it he'd turned their meeting into a battle, one where his mind and heart were at opposition with one another.

Whatever expression she had been wearing while mentally tallying her sexual and romantic body count, it was gone when she caught sight of Lex coming into the bar. A perfectly composed expression slid onto herself in its place and she smiled at him. Not even someone who knew her as well as Lex did would catch that it was just another mask, a shadow play to cover up everything that. She also tried to not cringe at being called Vee. Adrienne had started that, then Lex had adopted it and Vanessa just couldn't stand the damn name anymore for inexplicable reasons. "Hey. Life's been life. Work, sleep, work more. You know how it is. How've you been?" A light note of concern touched her voice as she inquired after him, but Vanessa otherwise remained placid and pleasant from her expression to her body language.

"Getting by, to be honest. My birthday raised my spirits a great deal: it is nice to see people enjoying themselves and to know that I was the cause of that." He hadn't meant it as a jab, but he realized that she could easily misinterpret it that way. Without giving her time to react to the statement he covered it with, "I haven't made dinner for anyone in a month and I thought I might have lost my talent. Thankfully it is like riding a bicycle, you never truly lose the skills once they have become muscle memory." Way to be an ass, he chided himself, Do you want to kill your friendship here and now? He didn't have an answer, so he simply looked at her with a sincere smile on his face. Seeing her made him happy, even if he was conflicted about every action that he was taking.

Vanessa hadn't taken the initial comment as a jab. She didn't tend to look much past the surface of what people said unless there was a reason for it and dissecting everything Lex said the first time they'd seen each other since the break up just seemed like a plan that would cause more problems than it was worth. "Until you get to be old and feeble, anyway. Then you'll forget the recipes and burn water and possibly set the kitchen on fire," she told him with a grin. "Muscle memory only does so much if your actual brain memory has fled." She knew that all too well from her many nights of take out or going out for food with Jean-Paul who had once made about a dozen venison dishes from a deer she had killed.

"Ah, that may be true, but I'm not sure I'm going to live long enough to have to worry about that. Then again, now that I'm not staring down a hail of bullets on a daily basis it might be more likely than I would once have thought." He laughed a little, not at his comment, but just to relieve the tension in his chest. Vee seemed much more comfortable than he was, which didn't bother him at all. She had told him that it was over, made it very clear that she felt nothing for him after his long absence. This was just a way for him to figure out if there was enough emotion left between them to be something more than dependable acquaintances. He didn't know what else to say so he simply waited for the waitress to bring his usual and looked at Vanessa with an honest inquisitive expression.

He was giving her that expectant look. She hated that look. It put all the responsibility for propelling this forward on her. It was his idea, shouldn't he have that responsibility? Then again, she broke up with him so maybe it landed squarely on her because of that. Damn it. "Any luck on figuring out your powers stuff yet?" She figured that was a safe topic. Lex had been struggling with his powers for the better part of a year. It was something personal, which implied she cared, but not something tied to their relationship so it wasn't likely to dredge up anything she'd rather avoid.

"Huge progress," he beamed. He hadn't thought she'd ask him about it but he realized that it was a great topic as it was something relatively light that he was extremely excited about. "I have more control now than I ever have, plus I'm learning to manipulate visual effects of it as well - like lightning - and I can make it dance around and take shapes. They aren't anything extravagant yet, but I think I might actually be able to create an electrokinetic familiar if I practice long enough, though that will probably take me years to perfect." He was so close to bouncing in the booth he couldn't believe it. He'd achieved so much in the past few weeks, not having to worry about how Vee perceived him. Being alone had freed him from the fear of hurting her, and now that he was sure that he could control it - even while intoxicated - he felt light and carefree. "I'm no longer afraid of using it for fear of hurting you... I mean people."

Her eyebrows darted upward. "Me? You're saying your powers vanished from overexertion and you couldn't make them work again because of me? You Disappeared on me for months trying to figure out how to make them work again and why they weren't and all I needed to do was break up with you for them to work?" There was a harsh, bitter edge in her voice that she couldn't help. Vanessa was being told that the reason she had lost her boyfriend in the first place was because of her in some twisted roundabout way. "Well then, I suppose you're welcome, since you should be thanking me for breaking up with you now."

"Please do not get angry, it's true I didn't use my powers as much while we were together. However, that's not why they remained unpredictable." Under any other circumstances he would have gotten extremely apologetic or defensive, at this time he simply knew that if he wanted to keep her as a friend then he would have to check her anger immediately. "The problem was mine, with the way I was trying to fix my problems. It was partially due to physical inability, and partially because I was trying to force them into place without letting them reintegrate with my being." He thought about telling her how much he cared about her but decided that it would only end up like the moment he told her he loved her, which had been a big mistake because she obviously didn't love him back.

Reintegrate them with his being? Had Lex always been some hokey, new age-y weirdo and she just hadn't realized it? "Your mutation is biological," she pointed out, some of the harshness leaving her voice despite the bluntness of her words. "I don't think it cares much about your being or your feelings. It's there unless you figure out a way to cut the X-gene out of your DNA. I'm pretty sure you haven't managed that. So either you put up a mental block and aren't acknowledging it or something else happened but I don't think reintegrating something that never could have left is really what was up."

"It is physically there, but I do not solely generate the electricity. I see electricity as a system, separate within the world, and I can manipulate those systems any way I choose. When I say reintegrate I mean that I had to remember how to connect the mental parts to the physical ones: just like riding a bike to be honest." He sighed and then took a deep swig of his beer. "If you can't accept that explanation then I don't know what else to say on the matter. I can't explain it scientifically because I don't know the science behind it." He was failing to curb her anger and he simply wouldn't let himself be pulled into another round of emotional chaos. He stayed because he wanted to be her friend, to make it work, but he was starting to wonder if he was the one who was a wreck or if she was doing a great job of hiding it.

"That makes more sense." She needed so much more beer for this. Vanessa took a long pull from her pint. Lex's power issues honestly weren't that interesting to her, but she wasn't exactly fixated on him that much either. She felt guilty for that and more guilty for not feeling worse about being with him now. She had to focus to keep her attention on Lex rather than Wade, honestly. Vanessa hated herself just a little bit for letting stuff with Wade get to her like it was. "So you've got more control now. What does that mean other than making pretty lightning shows?"

"It means that I am ready to join the X-men full-time. I am going to apply next week to be a full member, it's been too damn long... especially since I was going to do it after India if I hadn't completely fucked myself up there." It had been almost a year and a half since he'd joined the team, back when Scott was keeping him in check. Looking her over, reading her her body language, Lex realized that Vee was extremely distracted and wondered if he should just pick up the tab and leave. Instead, he decided to give her one more chance.

"You know, you seem like you're not really here... if I'm perfectly honest - very distracted, if you will." He narrowed his eyes, something was definitely different and he couldn't tell if it was just the tension between them or if something deeper was bothering her. He was determined to find out. "Is everything all right? I mean I can just pick up the tab and leave if you have something else you need to be doing."

I hate you, she thought, though she wasn't sure if that was directed to herself or Wade. Bloody half century old mercenaries bent on making her be a girl. Vanessa hated being a girl about stuff. "I don't have anything else I should be doing." She redoubled her efforts to keep her mask carefully in place. Her expression relaxed into placidity again, losing the thoughtfulness around her eyes that her distraction had given her along with the small downward tilt of her mouth. "I'm a little distracted, yeah. It's just work." Liar. "And some stuff with a mate. That's all." Technically that was true.

"Of course," he said, her transformation - which is all he could think to call it - was something he wouldn't have recognized if not for the past month and a half. "I hope it's nothing too serious, and I'm sure it'll all work out." He felt hollow for a moment, realizing that he felt like she was talking about someone she was interested in. He didn't feel jealousy, nor pain, simply a small emptiness that vanished when he realized that she might be happy. A smile grew across his face and he sat back drinking his beer. Such is life, right? You live, you love, you lose and then you move on; every moment of pain leads to another of growth eventually, he thought as loud as he could, What horse shit.

The smile slid away into his beer, and he was left contentedly open.

Vanessa watched the way emotions seemed to chase one another off his face. There was a vacant, almost fallen look beginning when he smiled and then the smile was gone and he just sort of looked optimistically neutral. She had no idea what to make of that. "You're a very strange man." It was all she could think to say after watching that. Another pull from her beer and Vanessa shifted on her bench. She put her back to the wall because it meant she could lean back and relax more. She looked more natural like that than she had been this whole time so far.

"Yeah, I suppose I am." He was glad to see that she looked relaxed and the smile crept back onto his face. It was good to think of her being happy, especially since he knew how angry she'd been the last time he'd seen her face to face. "It doesn't stop me from doing what I need to do, though, so I am ok with it. You seem a little low, you want me to fill you up?" He said, tilting his glass towards hers.

"Aye, thanks." She emptied her glass which had't had much left in it and then slid it over to him. Vanessa had no idea what she was supposed to talk to Lex about. So much of what she'd been doing lately involved people she was sleeping with and she didn't want anything near that subject broached with her ex. Other than that she had work and work was only so interesting to talk to people about. Vanessa did have her shiny new Barrett M82, but she didn't think Lex would really appreciate the gun as much as others could. So she sat there and fiddled with her bracelet while he went off to the bar for refills.

Lex came back with their drinks and sat across from Vee. He didn't know what to say to her, she seemed tight lipped an he didn't want to dig where he obviously wasn't welcome. He had noticed her playing with the bracelet he'd given her and his heart had fluttered for a moment before he realized that he was reading way too much into it. "You know, we probably should have tried to do something active rather than just sit around talking for our first time seeing one another in a month. At least then we would be able to cover up the fact that there's so much that we're avoiding talking about that the list of safe topics is like the government's approved list of mutant occupations." It was a pathetic attempt at a joke, but it was all he had. He really wasn't funny, and he knew it would probably not go over well, but he thought it better to provoke her with a benign comment than to sit in silence or say something of any depth. She looked like she wouldn't respond well to anything substantive that he might have to say. A pity, really, as that was going to be the only way for them to reconcile whatever walls stood between them.

He really wasn't a funny guy in general, but the comment drew an amused noise from her and caused a smile to spread across her lips. "Do you reckon they'd be cool with mutant mercenary? It doesn't seem PC enough for them to back. Or whore. Or even teacher for that matter. What am I approved to do?" She leaned forward to grab her pint and took a drink with a smile. "Maybe it doesn't matter since I live in a ghetto." Another drink then, apropos of nothing, she said, "Hey, wanna go ice skating? There's not really lakes and stuff left, but there's still ice rinks indoors. You. Me. Sharp metal blades on our feet. Unforgiving ice. There's no way this isn't awesome, right?"

"Well, I'm sure there are senators who wouldn't mind that second one, the rest would be too public for them to support." He laughed wholeheartedly for the first time. "You could simply become an assassin, they aren't allowed to be in the military but there's nothing that says the CIA can't off any heads of state using mutants. Well, except maybe that they aren't supposed to off heads of state." The thought of Vee taking someone out, and then ruling her own dictatorship amused Lex to no end. It would have to become very civilized or else she would completely overhaul it. "As for ice skating, I'm perfectly fine with attaching some blades to my feet. I can't guarantee that I will stay on my feet, but I'll make sure they do."

"Oooh," her eyes lit up. "I've never taken out a head of state. More minor government officials and heads of militaries, sure, but never a head of state." Vanessa genuinely looked like she had just been handed a shiny, new present. She probably should have worried what he would think of her for it, but she had never lied about the fact that she had been a mercenary. She'd never gone into detail about it with Lex, but she had told him. "Also, I am a fantastic whore. Can you keep said blades from slicing me up when you fall on your ass? It's sort of deal breaker if you can't."

"Yes," he said simply. The comment about killing didn't bother him at all, but the one about being a fantastic whore ate at him. For a split second his composure slipped, and he had to mask it by drinking his beer. I won't even let myself consider that could be the limit to how much she truly felt for me, though her actions do make it seem like there wasn't anything below the surface now. By the time he'd drained his drink he was able to smile and laugh, "Mmm, let's hit the rink. I think it's been some 20 odd years since I've put on a pair of skates. We'll see if getting old really does make you lose muscle memory."

"Your muscle memory is nonexistent, then," she told him after another long pull from her pint. "If you were, like, a tiny Lex last time you had on skates you don't even have the same muscles to memorize shit. I promise to take no more than six pictures of you on your ass on the ice." Vanessa gave him her best I'm-so-innocent-and-well-intentioned smile. "Aye, and I won't ever leave you more than half a rink behind. Do I need to hold your hand? Oh, I could get you a leash!"

Lex was standing by the time she got to the last bit and he thought about trapping her in the booth and tickling her while he told her that she didn't own him; however, that was something he would have done if they were together and they clearly weren't. "No, but you may need to get yourself a head start if you're going to talk like that. Otherwise, the kamikaze tickling soldier is going to chase you around and make sure he takes you down, come hell or high water." He could still leave it as a possibility though, that wouldn't get him slapped or bring up intense sexual feelings. It would be purely hypothetical.

"Pfft." Vanessa waved a hand dismissively and slid out of the booth. She took a step up to Lex, then shuffled a bit more forward until they were nearly nose-to-nose. "Kamikaze soldier doesn't scare me." A finger poked Lex in the chest. "I know his weaknesses. If I go down then he goes down with me. In hell and high water and all that." Vanessa nudged him in the direction of the door. "C'mon, soldier boy, march."

He had to tilt his head back slightly to see into her eyes, putting him in a perfect position to kiss her. He almost did, his head moving forward unconsciously before he remembered all that had happened. He stopped himself an inch short and slid around to her ear. "Oh, not afraid, we'll just have to see about that," he whispered, breathing gently into her ear in an attempt to excite her. He turned on his heals and swaggered out, in a beautiful performance that was anything but marching. That was too difficult, he admitted to himself, I can't let that happen again if I'm going to be able to survive a friendship with her.

All she really needed was that whisper in her ear to be suddenly reminded of how intense her attraction to him had always been. She had checked out of their relationship during the months when he was absent, but the guy knew how to push her buttons if nothing else. Vanessa took a moment, lower lip caught in the grip of her teeth, and watched his swagger. Yeah, that was a nice sight. He was barely out the door when Vanessa took off after him in a sprint and quite literally leapt onto his back. He could either catch her or go down, either option was fine by her.

It took all of his strength to keep on his feet, he was so off balance. "Oh hell," he yelled as he stumbled forward. He aimed for the grass and pulled Vee around to his front as he fell to make sure that she wouldn't end up getting crushed between him and the ground. The ground was hard and he didn't brace himself at all, too worried about protecting her, so he didn't realize that he'd twisted completely around, with her ending up on his chest rather than his shoulders. "I thought I was the Kamikaze soldier," it was all he could do to keep himself from pulling her into him and kissing her. If she does this with all her friends when she's single then I'm screwed.

Vanessa wasn't sure how she had wound up on top of him with him on his back. Time had compressed too much for her to have kept track. He'd lost his balance and there were hands on her and that's about all she could process in proper sequence. But there they were, him on the ground and her almost completely on top of him. So what did she do? She grinned. And then she started giggling. "Aye, apparently you are, love. If you didn't wanna go down you would've been working on your balance with all that swagger."

"Yeah, but what I want has nothing to do with the situation. I'm hard enough without you landing on top of me." Lex didn't try to move for a moment, knowing that anything he did would probably lead him to try and kiss her passionately. The way things were going he didn't know how long this friendship was going to last. It would either explode into passionate sex or end with him having to raze the world around him as he tried to keep himself sane. He wasn't looking forward to either option at the moment, as much as he wanted the former.

An eyebrow quirked and Vanessa's legs parted so they could slid off either side of him. Presumably she was doing it to get off him, but as her knees slipped over the ground and then planted a smirk came onto her face that made it wholly obvious she had no intention of going anywhere. "Are you now?" Her hands braced against the ground just over Lex's shoulders so she could push herself up a bit, forcing her hips down as she wiggled them side to side. Vanessa was well aware in the back of her head that it was entirely mean of her. She also knew that he had to understand what she was like with friends. They'd been friends before they had dated but she had always been attracted to him so a lot of her playfulness had been reigned in on the flirtation side. It was also possible that Vanessa just didn't know how to be around him when she wasn't with him anymore and the impulse to tease him came from both sides of the problem.

"Yes, I am," he said, realizing that he'd slipped in his last statement. It hadn't been intentional but now he could at least make his feelings known. He slid his hand up her chin until it was gently through her loose hair. He pulled himself up, which was extremely difficult with her riding him like she was, and brought himself face to face with her. "I'm going to make this clear, once, because I can't do this sort of friendship. I care about you, I'm attracted to you almost enough to make me lose all sense and take you right here in public. If you want to be my friend, then we have to set boundaries, if you want to be more then you need to tell me what's going on and think about what I mean to you. Either way, you need to know what you want before I'll be of any worth to you." He gently brought his lips to hers, and pressed into her with his entire body. It wasn't nice of him to do, but it was the only action he felt truly communicated all of his emotions at once.

If she wasn't a bit busy being thoroughly distracted by his lips. Her hips had stopped wiggling about the time his hand made contact with her face because she had recognized the seriousness on his face. It was a week for shooting herself in the foot, clearly. But Vanessa couldn't make herself pull away from that kiss either. When Lex broke the kiss, Vanessa spoke in a very quiet voice. "I can't be in a relationship with you right now. As a friend I am a tease and a flirt and playful. I will tease you about saying you're hard, I am full of innuendo and I will tackle you for the hell of it. You need to understand that. I use friends as pillows and invite them into my bed for platonic sleeping. At this exact moment in time, I can't do serious. I fuck it up a lot when I do serious lately. Actually, I seem to fuck it up when I do playful, too. I'm not sure what that leaves me, but there you have it. I can try to treat you differently than everyone else, but do you really want that?"

Vanessa took a deep breath and then let it out slowly. "And you shouldn't kiss me or next time I might not let you stop. And you shouldn't say you're tempted to take me right here in public but it makes me want you to. I can't be your girlfriend anymore. But that doesn't change my attraction to you. It doesn't mean I've forgotten what we're like together in bed. It doesn't mean I don't miss you at night or in the mornings. It means I can't be with you in a relationship. And nothing short of that is good enough for you." She finally, and very carefully, extricated herself from him and stood. Vanessa held a hand out to help him up. "So you can be my friend the way pretty much everyone else is or you can have that quiet, awkward, distracted girl in the booth. Or you can kiss me and no there's no promise of anything beyond it. Those are your choices, love. They may suck but that's all there is." It was almost easier with Sam. He went a little nuts and she didn't really ever talk to him again. Suddenly she longed for that simplicity.

Lex knew what she was saying and he didn't have too much of a problem with it; he couldn't have a problem with it after all that had happened between them. "Then I choose to be your friend, because I want to be with you... but that is not an option," he paused to breathe a moment and then continued, "I'm not some clingy man who can't move on, and I realize that I really don't want anything more than you, as you are. Being near you makes me happy, but it's clearly not enough for me to be happy. I want you to be happy. So, if you find someone who makes you happy - as you've made me - then I can't help but support you in that."

He stepped up close to her, gently rested his hand on her cheek and stood as tall as he could. "I said this once before, and it probably isn't the right time now either, but I'm going to say it again to get it out there. Vanessa, I love you." With that he kissed her forehead and let his lips linger for a moment before taking a step back.

"I choose you, in whatever way you'll let me be with you. Now, let's go ice skating and enjoy the rest of this beautiful day." He smiled and held out his hand for her to take. "We don't have to think about what to do with this now."

For all the reasons why being with him wasn't a good idea and wouldn't work, this was exactly why she did want to be with him. It was exactly why she loved him. It occurred to Vanessa that he might not actually realize she loved him. She liked to think actions spoke louder than words, but when she used the same actions to say eight different things the message probably got sort of blurry.

She could have said something about him making her happy, or her likely having fucked up with someone else that made her happy or just that she did still want him. But none of those things seemed like a good idea so Vanessa reached out and took his hand. "Not thinking works for me. It's what I've got left that works." She gave him a rueful smile and leaned into his side. Quietly, Vanessa told him, "I love you, too, you know."

"I do," he said, barely audible. He held her hand and let her lean against him as they walked to the jeep. And that is what makes this whole thing so damn hard for me.