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2006-10-22
| Dreams |
| Realms |
Retired
| Reality Fault |
General Info
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What Happens in Vegas Stays in Vegas
Tahoe passes in a bit of a dream for Jason, and soon the huge Airstream is rolling down the highway en route to Las Vegas. Diana is terribly curious as to what the city is like, considering the vague attempts at describing it from Mike. She grins excitedly at Jason, "So, have you ever been there?"
Jason smiles apologetically. "To be honest? No... I never had any desire. From everything I've ever heard, it would seem to be the epitome of style over substance. Sound and fury, signifying nothing. Oh, I mean... I'll gamble now and then with friends. But it's less about the money, and more about the game."
Mike chuckles quietly as he drives. Diana looks curious, "How do you mean? What game?"
Jason shakes his head. "Las Vegas is a money sink, filled with people either trying to get rich quick... or taking advantage of folks trying to get rich quick." He hmms? and then adds, "Well, there's a number of games that can include gambling... but the one I was thinking of was poker. Ever heard of it?"
Diana nods, "Oh, sure. I don't play it any more, in fact, because we decided my being able to taste the happiness of someone with a good hand wasn't fair." She grins ruefully, "But it helped us build our first grub stake for our first building."
Jason blinks and nods thoughtfully. "Hunh. That would... actually make a lot of sense. Was this, er... the birth of Dante's?" he queries. "Matter of fact, how long has Dante's been around? Has it existed in one form or another since you came to California?"
Diana nods cheerfully, "Yup! Mother and I initially just needed a place to put the saloon and house the fancy girls. As morality changed we changed along with it, making sure we still had access to lots of excited men. The name keeps changing, but the locale's pretty much the same."
Jason nods wryly, imagining that. "Men are pretty much the same too," he murmurs ruefully. He looks at Mike then. "Is there a plan, Stan? I mean, I'll be happy to join you wherever you decide to visit... but I was wondering if you had a specific place in mind to visit... or friends to look up."
Mike shakes his head, his eyes staying on the dusty desert highway stretching ahead of the Airstream, "I'm thinking someplace as full of excited folks as Vegas should have a supernatural there already, right? So... I was wondering if we could maybe wander around and see if we spotted anyone who was marked, and try asking them where the supernatural is and if we could talk to them." He grins, glancing back at the other two, "Not heavily plotted out, but good for starting brainstorm maybe?"
Jason nods thoughtfully, taking a moment then to re-acquire notice of Diana's silver cord... taking the compass he'd purchased from a local store on the way back from the church, he tries to get a reading on where the cord is going. "Sounds like a good idea to me..." he calls back. The highway heads roughly south-southeast. Diana's silver cord, however, fades out a short distance away from her in a more eastward direction.
Jason hnhs as he makes note of this, and gets out the big atlas they had bought at the beginning of their journey. It's been a long time since he's done any map work with the boy scouts, but he takes a moment to get their relative position on the interstate, and then takes careful note of the direction, drawing a line on the map with a pen to try and get a better visual idea of where it's going. Mike's plan for going to Vegas to find a supernatural contact is still a good one -- it's important to remember they have more than one goal in mind. But neither should they ignore the information they are given.
The soft, rather nebulous silver cord isn't easy to see in the daylight, and trying to set a compass off it isn't easy... which means almost the entire southwest of the United States might be where it leads to. About the only thing Jason can say with certainty is it's not heading due west!
Jason scratches his chin as he looks over his impromptu cartography. "Who do you think that old woman was, anyway?" he asks of anyone within hearing range, his brow knitting a little as he remembers the ominous message on the church sign... 'hell is gone' -- perhaps it meant nothing... perhaps it was just gibberish. A coincidence. Coincidences happen all the time. "But I don't trust coincidences," he mutters to himself.
Diana tilts her head at Jason from where she's sitting on the couch and reading, and smiles a bit, "What was that, lollipop?"
Jason looks back up. "I was just wondering... who that woman was. A sorceress maybe. Or the Crone herself, for all we know. She was an odd one," he replies.
Diana thinks a bit, then says slowly, "You know what I've always wondered, lollipop? I've always wondered why christianity on the whole seemed to really hate anyone who was happy. Has it seemed that way to you too?"
Jason blinks at the change in topic, and then shrugs a little as he thinks it over. "I guess so... it depends on the church, but... yeah, the overall message seems to have gotten very far away from what the Bible itself said Christ taught. Assuming the man existed. I don't know why that is... maybe the church thought that happy people would have no need for God."
Diana says curiously, "But from what I've read, lots and lots of happy people are still interested in worshipping other deities, including female ones. Why, even the Catholic Church has female saints and whatsername, Mary, that people worship -- and the Church seems to really hate that too." Slowly she adds, "So... maybe that was a supernatural that used to be more important or something there? Maybe to the Indians that used to live there?"
Jason blinks, his brow knitting. "Are you suggesting... she was a pagan god?" he muses.
"Um... well, I don't know. Could she be? There are more than one, right?"
Jason purses his lips. "Sure. Dozens. Maybe even more than we know, considering the only thing we have to work with is written history. Huh." He chews on that for a moment, wondering if the old gods really were gods... or just notable supernaturals, like Diana or Phil. And if they're not... then what are they? He had to admit... what she did to him was awful complex. Not simply inducing a prophetic dream, like Di was able to do. She actually drew him out of his body. Made him experience some sort of... vision quest. The idea of it takes his breath away. "Golly," he murmurs.
Diana looks worried, "Lollipop? What?"
Jason shakes his head. "Nothing, sweetie, just... thinking," he replies. He wishes he had the courage to ask her about herself... but then, she didn't seem to want to talk, and he didn't want to disrespect that. Or disrespect the insight she provided. "Maybe someday we'll come back and find out her story," he muses, stroking Diana's hair. Diana smiles, curling her arms around Jason and nibbling on his ear. It's... quite distracting!
It takes a few days to get to Las Vegas, since Mike's not really hustling. The Airstream is comfortable, elegant, and spacious, an interesting counterpart to the often deliberately countrified or corny and touristy RV parks. The weather is hot, even at dusk when they usually emerge, and the countryside is dusty, arid, and rocky. However, as the road dips down into the basin of the Mojave Desert, the surrounding mountains provide a colorful horizon, ranging from soft sunrise pink through dark rusty red, all the way to dark slate gray. Cactus are about all that sticks up from the desert basin floor, at least as far as non-man-made items.
In the Airstream, the little thermometer informs them the temperature outside often rises above 100 degrees, and Mike nods a touch grimly the first time he notices, murmuring, "That's why we're not hurrying... don't want engine troubles out here." Diana watches silently from the windows as the desert rolls smoothly by. Her expression is sometimes fascinated, sometimes drawn.
Jason shakes his head. "No arguments from me. Besides... can't really hurry when we don't know where we're going next. We may be on a quest, but it's one where we don't know where Mordor actually is," he drawls.
Mike gives a bark of laughter at that, causing Diana to look up with a smile. A touch ruefully she says, "I... remember the countryside more than actual locations, if that makes sense? I mean... I remember crossing what seemed like endless desert. We traveled with a bunch of folks with long Conestoga wagons and lots of horses and oxen and mules." She sighs, adding, "The animals didn't like us much, except for Croaker. He was very popular 'cause he could handle any of them that were kicking up a ruckus. That was a part of the journey where we needed him as much or more than he needed us, I think..." Her voice trails off as she turns her head to stare back out the window, and for a moment her eyes look frighteningly old in her lovely, young face.
Jason looks at Mike with a faintly worried expression. "What... what does it feel like, Di? I mean... you're so long lived. All of you. Do those days feel like just yesterday, to you?" he queries, getting up from his seat.
Diana looks up with a faint smile that doesn't really reach her eyes, "Just like yesterday? No, not really... but I think it does for Mother and Croaker sometimes. It's like they have to always be prepared, just in case hard times come again. I know they sheltered me from a lot, as best they could, and I think one of the reasons Mother put up with truly unpleasant men was because the alternative was starving... and both Croaker and I depended on her. Oh, we tried our best to help out by bringing more men to her, but still... I think it was really hard on her sometimes."
Jason nods thoughtfully as Diana speaks, coming to her side... he knows that physical contact often makes her feel better, and he massages her shoulders comfortingly. "I guess so. I hope they're able to shed those old ghosts," he murmurs. "But I promise as long as Mike and I are around... you'll never have to go through that," he says firmly. He does not hurry to remind her that they will not always be around. That they are mortal, and she is not... but that's a long way off, isn't it? She will get new pets... they would see to that.
Diana smiles more sincerely at that, curling one hand around one of Jason's hands on her shoulder, and leaning her head back against him with her eyes closed. Her voice is very soft, "Thank you, lollipop..." Jason smiles then and kisses her hairline, and just keeps kneading at her shoulders, trying to relax her. Diana does relax eventually, although she's particularly arousing and needy that night. The three of them spend a day lazily recovering from that, resuming their travels once they all feel up to it again.
Finally, late one evening the big Airstream rolls into Las Vegas. It is startlingly bright even from some distance away: a brilliant, lurid, colorful glow on the horizon, rather like some of the old movies about aliens landing. Diana's face is still and pale in the dim dashboard light, her eyes glowing scarlet as she stares ahead, transfixed and lips slightly parted. Mike has the radio on, humming softly along with the musical counterpart to the weird view:
Listen as the wind blows
From across the great divide
Voices trapped in yearning
Memories trapped in time
The night is my companion
And solitude my guide
Would I spend forever here
And not be satisfied...
The Airstream slows down dramatically due to the crowds as it enters the city, and Mike rolls down the windows so everyone can hear what it's like. The Strip is packed on this lovely night, so bright it might as well be daylight. Flashing, spinning lights in every color of the rainbow illuminate innumerable signs; on one side there's laughter and screaming around at an outside show with an erupting volcano; further along they see a glistening golden pyramid rising above the city; there's another outside show with lovely, half-naked girls dancing and an avidly staring audience. People are bustling about, their faces almost blank, chattering loudly...
Diana gasps, her eyes widening, and stutters, "The... the life, there's so much -- so much energy here...!" She swallows slowly, her eyes half closing, and gets an almost ecstatic look on her face as the Airstream stops for a light next to the showgirl act.
Jason is startled by Diana's words, blinking and seeming awfully surprised. "Really? I mean... there's... lots of happy people here?" he queries, bemused at this idea. Of course that might be his own prejudices speaking... but it doesn't change the fact that it would seem to him that Vegas would be as much a place of despair as joy... perhaps even more the first than the other. "What, er... what do you mean? Can you be more specific?" he queries, looking at Mike, wondering if he can get a handle on what Diana is experiencing.
Diana purrs lazily, "There's sooo... much... lust here...!" At Jason's query she grins, her eyes shining with a creepily scarlet glow, like that of a wild animal, "Suuure, lollipop..." She loops an arm around Jason's neck, drawing his head to her breast and leaning down to first slowly lick his throat with her long, forked tongue... then languorously closing her sharp teeth on one of his ears, deliberately sexually provoking him the way she knows he most enjoys.
Jason was trying to think about this, but that quickly goes out the window, her teeth on his ear making him gasp and melt against her right rapidly, arms encircling her instinctively. "Oh, now that... that's not fair, love..." he laughs weakly, letting out a small giggle, followed by another gasp as she nibbles. "But yeah... I guess lust makes sense..." he murmurs.
Mike raises an amused eyebrow, glancing over, then grins and laconically murmuring, "Guess I better put the windows back up..." Diana is obviously somewhat... overwhelmed by the emotional tenor of the area -- she pulls Jason unceremoniously to the carpet, then literally tears his shirt off. A moment later she's running both her nails and short, sharp, deliciously tingly bites across every inch of exposed skin, growling softly to herself and concentrating on the spots that make Jason gasp and forget how to think!
For the most part she succeeds... she knows him too well now, knows exactly what buttons to push, where to touch, to kiss, to bite. His hands clutch at her, hardly able to think of anything but her... but somewhere in his head he manages a coherent thought and gives it voice, "Not that I don't want to, Diana... I do, I so very do... but we might want to think about -- ohghod... uhm... about how to try and... get used to the outside input of lust... or we'll never get anything useful done here..." he groans, and then shivers as she... oh yes, right there.
It is some time later before Jason comes to his senses. Diana's lying sprawled across him, her mane of hair silky-soft over one of his arms, her legs tangled with his and her head resting on his chest, purring softly. Jason can feel he's not wearing much in the way of clothing, and there's a few ragged bits of cloth visible from where he's lying. Diana's pretty much nude too, from what he can feel, and he can smell... bacon?! Mike is singing in quiet happiness to himself, standing by the stove as he cooks dinner,
And I would be the one
To hold you down
Kiss you so hard
I'll take your breath away
And after I'd wipe away the tears
Just close your eyes, dear...
He glances over, then smiles when he notices Jason's watching. "Hey there. Figured if she was that hungry, you'd be hungry too when she was done. Want some bacon 'n clam chowder?" It smells... delicious -- Jason is ravenous!
Jason smiles brightly. "I could kiss you," he tells Mike bluntly. "And would, if I thought I could get up. You know how Di is about not wanting her pillow to get away," he tells Mike contentedly, fingers absently stroking over her skin, as he contemplates the appropriateness of that song. He tilts his head. "Didn't feel left out, did you?"
Mike chuckles quietly, "Actually I've been carefully not looking, since I knew full well cops don't like folks parking in the street -- even if it is for amazing sex!" He starts to spoon chowder into a bowl, adding, "I was tempted, I admit... but then I remembered the time last week where we were so tired after a day of love-making that we had no energy, and Diana didn't know how to cook and was almost in tears about not knowing what to get for us... and I thought, hey, it's not like we're in a rush! She'll do the same with me at some point, and I'll be glad you were around to cook something for me too." He settles down cross-legged next to Jason, gently stuffing pillows behind him until Jason is propped up a bit and can accept the (amazingly delicious smelling!) bowl of chowder from Mike.
Jason's laughter is like a waterfall... it's moments like this that make him deliriously happy that he did not run screaming from Diana that first night, never to return. "What a very practical idea... you're a darling, Mike," Jason purrs, fingers caressing over Mike's all the way to his wrist, before accepting the soup. He is, after all, still basking in the afterglow, and that makes him more than a little affectionate... even coy. "Thank you," he says warmly, eagerly spooning the delicious chowder into his mouth. Mike smiles, then leans over to lightly kiss Jason's forehead, careful not to get in the way of Jason's eating. Then he settles back, gently stroking one large hand along Diana's smooth, reddish back, causing her tail to flick slightly and her purr to increase.
Jason is quiet for a moment, feeding his rumbling belly. "You know... now that we know how Di reacts to this place... it seems like it must be a natural home for a supernatural." His brow creases. "Well, maybe... I suppose it all depends on how they're nourished. Di and Beatrice would certainly be at home here."
Mike nods thoughtfully, "Good point; I hadn't considered that. Wonder what kind it'll be?" He continues stroking Diana's back, then curiously says, "Hey, are these new?" He's gently running his fingers around two symmetrically placed spots on Diana's back that are a darker red than the rest of her back, and obviously harder or bony.
Jason leans over, trying to get a look. "Huh. Yeah, that's sure not status quo," he murmurs, putting the bowl aside for a moment as he reaches one hand over to touch. "From the placement... maybe it's her wings? They're finally coming in?" he muses.
Mike nods thoughtfully again, "Could be. From the way she's purring when we rub lightly there, and the amounts of just plain sex we've been having the last few weeks..." he looks up at Jason and grins, "I'd say it's a good bet?" He looks back at Diana, musing quietly, "Wonder if they'll be the same bat wings as Beatrice has?"
Jason hnhs. "Got me. She already looks different on account of the fact that she's half human. Well, or maybe her body type means nothing... we have no idea how many succubi there are and how different they can look." He picks up his bowl again, his growling stomach reminding him that he's hungry. "Means we're going to have to make alterations to her clothes," he prophesizes. "It's an interesting idea, though, that new growths require, er... more nourishment. Rather like being pregnant." His brow furrows. "You know, we might also want to call Beatrice at some point; find out how we know if a succubus is pregnant. If that dream I had is any indication..."
Mike's eyes widen a bit, and then he slowly nods, "That... is a dangerously good point, Jase." He refills Jason's bowl, then pulls his cell phone and calls Dante's. It's late and the bar will be full, but hopefully Beatrice will be able to take the call for at least a bit. As Jason eats, Mike chats with someone on the other end -- Jason's not sure if it's Joe or someone else, but it's obviously someone who knows the supernaturals, as at one point Mike laughs and explains Diana's snoozing comfortably on Jason after an extremely passionate bout of love-making.
Jason smiles to himself, eating hungrily... and absently remembers that his dream also told him something else... specifically, about Diana's wings-to-be. By way of that, they looked more like big, blue-black, feathered ravens' wings -- the same color as her hair. This makes him wonder. Could her heritage have something to do with that? or, alternately... because she is not a true succubus, with her form denoted as having to conform to specific human expectations, could it be that she is different because she is free of those constraints? A creation not of the human psyche, but of something else. The concept is fascinating. Further more, he goes on to wonder... if there are succubae, could there be angels, too? And what, unfortunately, would they do if they happened across one?
Diana sighs contentedly, stretching her long legs like a big cat. A moment later she wraps her arms snugly around Jason, and her teeth close gently on the nipple over his heart. It's rather like getting an electric shock -- except Jason can almost feel the electricity (or whatever it is) flowing through him still from where Diana's biting. She growls softly and contentedly, a rumble he can feel against his chest where her throat presses.
Jason hisses, hand burrowing into her hair. "Mmm-hmmmhmmmhmm. Yes, love, I'm yours," he whispers honestly. "And I think you're all charged up... I'm getting some of the overflow." Diana doesn't seem to register Jason's words -- it's his touch that makes her shiver and purr more, and he can feel that odd 'flowing' sensation again, as if she were pouring something into him.
If Jason were in his right mind he would have remembered his concerns earlier, about the aura of lust Vegas seems to exude having an effect on her that was of concern. But that kind of worry is beyond him right now... as Diana nibbles and purrs at him possessively, all he can think of is her... of pleasing her and giving her what she craves. That's all he wants... all he ever wants. A consummation devoutly to be wished... forever...
Mike's rumbly voice chatting on the phone, the aromatic scent of bacon, the taste of Diana, the silky sweep of hair tangled in his hands and the weight of her across his chest... everything blurs into a visually smeary, sensuous pastiche, and the last thing he senses is himself drowning in pleasure... forever Diana's, forever with Mike, forever...