Authors: Palladian
Suddenly, Lex turned her head as she heard Casey's raised voice nearby. Lex saw her friend arguing with Vinnie, so she stopped dancing with an apologetic look at Brian and grabbed Casey's sleeve to get her attention.
“What's going on?” Lex asked, the concern in her voice audible.
Casey turned, her expression annoyed and edgy. “He says he wants me to dance with him. I’ve told him no, but he’s not listening,” she said, and then belatedly realized Lex stood half in the arms of someone she didn't recognize. “Who's this?”
Lex smiled, moving fully back into Brian's arms. “This is Brian. Brian, this is my friend, Casey.”
He nodded and smiled in response. Casey looked surprised and slightly uncomfortable.
“Why don't you dance with him, Casey?” Lex asked as she and Brian began to move again, trying to show by example that everything was OK. “It's only one dance, after all.”
Lex glanced back after a few minutes to see that Vinnie and Casey had begun dancing. Vinnie looked thrilled and even Casey appeared to be enjoying herself, despite her earlier reluctance. Lex smiled at Brian then and put her head on his shoulder as they danced. She felt acutely aware of his warm hands on her back, due to the low cut of the dress, and she smiled as she breathed in the scent of cedar wood. Despite everything that had happened that day, for the moment Lex felt happy and lucky and resolved to enjoy it, even though she knew it would be temporary.
It seemed the music ended too soon, changing to another fast song, so she reluctantly backed away from Brian. He held onto her waist for a moment longer, and then let her go.
“Thanks,” she said with a smile. “You're a great dancer.”
“You, too. You still have my card?”
“Yes,” Lex replied, her smile brightening.
“OK. I won't repeat what I said earlier, but I hope you'll call me sometime later.”
He didn't wait for an answer but walked across the dance floor, looking back with a smile to see Lex watching him go. She continued to smile in return, and then turned as Casey approached.
“Come on, let's get another drink,” she said with a frown, her tone clipped.
“What's wrong?” Lex asked, worried that maybe she’d given Casey bad advice.
Casey grumbled and scowled for a moment before responding. “Well, after the dance, Vinnie asked me out. I told him I already had someone, but then he got all persistent and wanted me to take his number.”
“Did you?”
“Yes, but I'm not going to call him,” Casey groused, frowning more deeply.
Lex laughed as they reached the bar. “Oh, come on, it didn't look like you weren't having any fun.”
Casey continued to complain, but good-naturedly, as they ordered more drinks. She lifted an eyebrow as Lex ordered a ginger ale. “You haven’t been drinking all night, have you?”
Lex looked up at her a little guiltily. “Unfortunately, alcohol seems to give me migraines.”
Looking startled, Casey replied, “Sorry to hear it. I had an aunt who got those once a month or so. They seem terrible.”
Shrugging in return, Lex said, “Mine aren’t really that bad. I can usually function during them, they’re just painful.”
They went back upstairs after their drinks came and sat at the same table as before. Lex watched with interest as Casey sat very carefully in the metal chair. “What?” her friend asked as she noticed Lex watching. “I weigh about half as much as a small car. Not all furniture can stand up to that.”
Lex’s eyes widened. “I guess not,” she replied, now wondering if most of the furniture at headquarters was specially made.
After a little while of quietly watching the dance floor, Lex craned her neck and stretched over the balcony railing, the bite of ginger fresh on her tongue as she sipped her drink.
“Isn't that Serena over there?” Lex asked, pointing to the opposite side of the club, where their friend stood under an overhead light.
Casey leaned over the railing, looking in the direction Lex had pointed. She smirked and said, “It looks like she's talking to some guy down there. I bet she won't be going home with us tonight.”
“Sorry, that's not a bet I'll take,” said Lex, with a smile, her thoughts suddenly traveling to the past. “So, tell me about the first time you danced with a boy.”
Casey smiled. “Bobby Dorsey asked me to homecoming during my senior year in high school. I usually didn't go to things like that because most of the boys in school were a lot shorter than me, so they never asked me to dance. But Bobby lived a few farms away from us, and he was almost as tall as me. He wasn't the smartest guy in the world but he was completely fearless. We had a great time.”
“So, what happened to him?”
“Well, he ended up marrying a girl who graduated a few classes behind ours, and the last I heard, he's still working on the family farm.” Casey sighed. “I did like him a lot, but he wasn't really…like me. I think it’s something that runs in my family, but I also think I got a lot bigger than anyone else ever did. I remember my mom telling me to be sure to marry someone big and strong like me, but that's the closest we ever came to talking about it.” She sighed again, then shook her head momentarily and turned to Lex. “So, how about you?”
Lex went on to tell the story about her high school sophomore experience at the Sadie Hawkins dance, an event where the girls would ask the boys to attend, and the two had begun swapping stories about their first boyfriends by the time Serena arrived. Lex and Casey looked up at the couple in front of them with interest. The man had long, dark hair hanging loose over his shoulders, tight black jeans, a dark t-shirt printed with a red dragon that wound all over it, and a long, black leather trenchcoat. His face looked chiseled and model-perfect, set off by a collection of heavy looking metal rings in his ears and one through his nose, like a bull. Lex grinned at Serena as their eyes met, and Serena smirked back.
“Hey, ladies,” Serena said, “I'm going to let you find your own way home. Dan and I are taking off now.”
“Don't worry about us, we'll get a cab. Have fun, you two,” Lex replied, still grinning, while Casey nodded.
Lex and Casey continued to study the pair as they walked back to the stairs, at which point Lex took a look at Casey's watch and gasped. “It's nearly two! Do you mind if we go back home so that we can get some sleep for tomorrow?”
“Sure,” said Casey, taking a final drink of her beer. “That's fine by me. Let's get going.”
Lex found herself watching the streetlights and cars go by as the cab drove through the city. As they neared headquarters, the other cars and lights became less and less frequent, until the cab pulled up into the nearly dark street that passed by the M Agency. The squat grey building had been lit brightly enough to illuminate the sidewalk beyond, however. Lex paid the driver off, then got out and crossed over to the other side of the cab to open the door. Casey had dozed off, and Lex leaned down to her friend’s ear to call her name. Casey stirred and looked up at Lex, then smiled tiredly.
They made their way inside and up the stairs. As they each headed to their own rooms, Lex turned back to Casey. “Thanks for coming out tonight. I had a great time, and I’m glad you came.”
Casey smiled tiredly and waved goodnight as she looked back at Lex. “Anytime. I had fun, too.”
Lex felt a true weariness hit her as she stepped into her room. Carefully undressing, to protect Serena’s things, Lex quickly got ready for bed and set her alarm with plenty of time to get ready the next morning and get over to Kurt's condo before noon. She felt a stab of sadness hit her as she thought of what she had to do the next day, but once she snuggled into bed and turned out the light, everything ebbed away as sleep washed over her like a tide.
Lex woke too early the following morning and lay in bed for a few moments, blinking eyes full of grit. She tried rolling over and getting back to sleep, coughing at the taste of dust in her mouth, but after lying awake for a while, she knew sleep wouldn't return. A heavy blanket of sadness and reluctance had fallen over her during endless dreams in which she searched for something she couldn’t find, and she didn't want to get up or go to Kurt's condo.
But I do want my things back
, Lex thought to herself. Sighing, she got out of bed and dressed in workout clothes.
As she quietly made her way down several flights of stairs, Lex saw no one else up and about. She went to the martial arts studio and faced her opponent, the heavy bag, for a moment. After a mental note that she couldn't tire herself out here, Lex began working through some of her lighter forms. She started out making choppy and spastic movements, but eventually her breathing evened out and her limbs moved smoothly. By the time she touched her forehead and felt a sheen of sweat, Lex decided to stop for the day, her deep breathing seeming to underscore that call. After a long set of stretches, she headed back upstairs to shower and change before breakfast.
Later at the kitchen island, she munched cereal that she couldn’t really taste as she tried to distract her thoughts. Lex considered the fact that she'd need to get a bookshelf now without dwelling on where the books would be coming from. She tried to ignore the lump pushing itself up in her chest to turn her throat into a tight knot as she made a travel cup of tea for herself, breathing in the grassy scent of the green tea she’d chosen, trying to calm herself. After drinking her first cup and staring at the wall for a while, Lex felt a wave of relief wash through her when Casey joined her in the kitchen, dressed casually in a t-shirt and jeans.
Casey looked at Lex for a moment, and then put a big hand on her shoulder as she went to get some cereal out of a nearby cabinet. Lex swallowed with difficulty and asked, “Can I make you some tea?”
“Sure, thanks,” Casey responded, looking at Lex again, carefully. “So, how long have you been moping down here?”
“I woke up early and couldn't get back to sleep, so I hit the heavy bag for a while.” Lex busied herself by looking in one of the cabinets, feeling sad and a little guilty.
“Hmmm…well, let me finish eating, and then let’s go upstairs to see if Serena still wants to go with us. She may need some reminding,” Casey said, scratching behind her ear and grinning. “I don’t think she’s up yet.”
Lex smiled in return and felt herself start to cheer up a bit as she and Casey rehashed the previous evening, discussing the dinner (excellent), the club (a little weird, but fun), the men at the club (mostly gorgeous and mostly shameless), and the dancing. Lex liked the variety of music they had played, but Casey hadn't recognized a lot of it.
“I guess that just shows how long it’s been since I went to a club,” Lex sighed. “Most of the music I recognized was kind of out of date.”
“At least you recognized some of it,” Casey snorted out a laugh as she loaded her dishes into the dishwasher. “Come on, let's go find out about Serena.”
The hall upstairs stood silent until they knocked on Serena's door, the noise seeming to set off a commotion in the room beyond. The two of them heard something that sounded like a muffled request to wait and then Serena was standing in the doorway. Her hair was down, wild around her shoulders, with the little braids unraveling. She wore a short teal silk robe and looked a little tired still, but she smiled to see Lex and Casey, cocked her head in curiosity, and waited. Casey looked at her and then away with a slightly embarrassed expression as Lex returned the smile.
“Do you still want to come with us today?” Lex asked.
Serena’s eyes widened in alarm before she shook her head, looking annoyed with herself. “I didn't realize it was so late already. Can I meet you at the van in say, fifteen minutes?”
“Sure, that's fine,” Lex agreed.
Twenty minutes later, Serena appeared and stepped into the white van they’d been lent, getting into the back seat behind Lex and Casey. Dressed in perfectly fitting jeans and a tight black t-shirt, Serena had pulled her hair back in a ponytail. Neither of the other two women said anything as Lex started the engine, although Lex saw Casey turn her head to give Serena a hard look.
“Sorry, guys,” Serena mumbled. “I think my alarm clock fell off the nightstand.”
Lex and Casey exchanged a knowing smile, but when Lex looked in the rearview mirror to make sure Serena hadn’t thought they were mocking her, she saw that the other woman had lain back in the bench seat and closed her eyes. Lex smiled to herself and continued to carefully navigate the city streets, full of traffic on a Saturday afternoon.
Slightly after noon, Lex pulled into the loading dock behind Kurt's condo. She parked with the back of the van to the building and got out, her stomach clenching as she surveyed the familiar surroundings. Casey jumped out on the other side, then looked back at Serena and frowned.
“Do you think we should leave her here while we get things started?” she asked Lex quietly, looking doubtfully in the back of the van.
In response, Lex heard a noise inside the van. “I'm not that asleep, you know,” Serena said, sitting up slowly.
“Sorry,” Casey replied with a shrug and a sheepish look. “I didn't mean anything by it.”
“I know. Let's go on in.”
The three went up to the fifth floor by freight elevator. The closer they got to Kurt’s door the shakier Lex felt, but she took some deep breaths to steady herself once they arrived and got her keys out to open the locks. Her arms started trembling again a moment later when she realized that the locks looked different. Even though she knew they wouldn't work, she tried her keys, feeling her blood running alternately hot and cold in her veins with each failure. She stood there afterwards, her face turned down, burning with humiliation as hot anger pounded through her chest.
“Son of a bitch,” Lex heard Casey say behind her. “He changed the locks on you?”
She turned around, feeling half stuck in place as she struggled to think of what to do next. “I don't have a lot of things, but I would like to keep the few I have,” she said, feeling stupid and now wishing she’d taken more than her underwear.
Casey stepped forward and moved gently past her. Lex watched her pull the hem of her shirt out of her jeans to cover the doorknob with it. As she turned the knob, Casey leaned on the door. With a wrenching sound and a pop, the door gave way.