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'Will I ever get this song off my lips' is what you said
We were at each other's buttons and zips
In the blossom shed...
-- 'buttons and zips,' elbow
It's getting better. There are days when Shift opens his eyes knowing exactly who he's supposed to be, and those are the good days.
And then there are the other mornings. The bad ones, when he wakes up and doesn't remember who he is. Well-- to be more accurate, he doesn't remember who he isn't. Sometimes he still thinks he's Rex, the guy who has a history and a life and a family. He thinks his headful of mixed-up quasi-memories actually mean something. Until they don't any more. Usually it's something he touches that reminds him. The soft weave of the sheets, the seductive pull of hardwood floors. Rex Mason can't absorb those elements. Shift can. So that's one thing he's got.
The best thing to do, Shift figured-- the first step after getting a new name-- was to make new memories. Memories of stuff Rex Mason wouldn't have done. Because, fighting stupid supervillians who all still dress the same way they did back when it was 'Batman and the Outsiders?' Not cutting it.
So he goes out on the town with Indigo. She's cute, and she doesn't have any expectations. It's freeing. She's so totally random sometimes, and what better way to make new memories, unencumbered by whatever Rex Mason would've done? So they've got kind of a regular thing. They catch old movies. They go bowling. They toss sticks off the Brooklyn Bridge, do a lot of laundry and some watercolor painting.
And one night, they're walking through the park on the way back to her apartment. She's got her arm in his and her head leaning on his shoulder, and he realizes that he's... interested. He's got a stirring, a kind of an awareness that's been sleeping since the rest of him woke up.
And it's all centered on Indigo, her slick soft skin and her twinklechime voice and her big pink rabbit eyes. And every inch of her body that touches his is amplifying the feeling. The same as when he feels something new and just meshes with it, absorbs it. Pulls it in and becomes one. Yeah, it's like that, he tells himself, shivering a little in the cold night air.
Except it's not. It's cruder, jumpier, more thrilling. They pass under a streetlight, and into the dark again, heading down the path towards the lake. God, how could he have forgotten how good it feels? Just to touch. To want, if nothing else. Her arm is shifting against his, her hip occasionally bumping him as they walk, and Shift wants to touch her so bad. He feels like a teenager. He never was a teenager.
Indigo cocks her head as they reach the lake. "We should have brought food. For the swans."
"Next time, maybe," he says, trying to be present, trying not to think about heading home and jerking off or... or... can he even jerk off? Will he lose this feeling if he shifts into some other form? Is he going to have to walk all the way back to his own apartment like this? Is it gonna be all tension, no release? All the possibilities are kind of freaking him out... which is why it feels like he's a bell being rung by God when Indigo turns to him and plants her hands flat on the curve of his ribs, just above the snap of the jeans he forms as part of his body every morning. And she goes up on her toes and presses her soft pink mouth against his.
"Oh, my God." She tastes like an ice cold lemon-lime slushie on a hot summer day, sour-cold-sweet, such a shock, so right, and she just fits in his arms. "Indigo. Indy. Wait."
She leans back, her eyes fluttering left, then right. Indigo doesn't fidget, so the look of her now, lips parted and gaze uncertain, is damn endearing.
"What brought this on?" He cups her face, lifting her chin so she can see him smile.
Slowly, she smiles back. "I felt it was the right moment." Which isn't an answer that means anything-- what makes this the right moment? Has she been thinking about this for a long time? She looks hopeful. "Does it matter?"
He has to consider that, stroking his hand over her hair as he thinks. It feels just as soft as it looks. There's a lot of things they don't know about each other. There's things they don't know about themselves. Her hands are moving on his chest, carefully following the little whorls and swirls that shift and blur in his skin every time he reforms himself. It feels so fucking good he thinks he might die.
"Indy," he says, and pulls her close, kissing her again, and this time she leans her head back, opening her mouth a little for his tongue. That feeling, that need is spreading in him. He doesn't remember what sex used to feel like for Rex Mason, when he was human, and he doesn't remember what it felt like after Rex's transformation, either. Maybe he should've asked, although that conversation could've gotten a little awkward. 'So does it feel like every fucking cell in your body is going 'oh mama' at the same time? No? Just me then?' It's so good. He feels like he's shifting into pure pleasure, and all they're doing is kissing.
Okay, kissing and humping a little. Sort of. He's just swaying his body into hers, loving the slow blur of her skin against his, the rich blue ocean of her complex molecular makeup, the silver ringing of the metallic elements in her body. Everything in her calls out to him. He skims his hands down her back, pulling her t-shirt up and sliding his palm over the even, methodical bumps of her spinal column. She shudders, and he does it again, pressing harder. Smiling when she jerks her head away to gasp. "Oh-- Sh-shift! Do that again!"
He looks around, instead. His body's thrumming, so attuned to every pulse in Indigo's that it's like he's got a real heart and it's pounding right along with hers. "C'mon," he says, and pulls her off the path, up a small hill and past a couple of trees. There's a clearing, and a grassy spot just big enough for the two of them tucked between two enormous oak trees that almost blot out the stars. "In here."
Indigo says nothing. It'd be dark if her eyes weren't glowing, palest sweetest pink. He kisses her hairline, lingering for a moment, breathing in the soft strawberry scent of her hair. He honestly doesn't remember what real human skin tastes like. What human women smell like when they're not being superheroes, which mostly means they smell like sweat, smoke and Kevlar. If Indigo is any different from the women Rex was with in the past, Shift doesn't care. Because that wasn't him. That was another life. And Indigo tastes as beautiful as she is-- original, sweet and strange. Not just human. Not familiar. Better.
"So sweet," he says helplessly, and kisses her again, leaning back against the oak tree. She leans forward, half-lying against him, and he pushes his knee between her legs. Her gasp turns into a low, broken sound as he shifts against her. "You like that?"
"I-it is a new. Sensation." She shifts awkwardly, clutching him, arching her back. Feeling her way. "I am-- I was theoretically familiar with the four primary stages of female sexual response-- oh-hh." She coos like a pigeon, throaty and low, when he works his thigh up against her and rubs the bumps of her spine at the same time. "Ohhhh. Shift."
"Indy," he says, and they don't talk any more. She works her hands against his shoulders and his belly, clutching and twitching and making breathy little sounds for him. Every move calls for a response from his body. Every sound pulls him in. Her body chemistry alters, her temperature heats up and she's drawing him in, changing him. Touching him, and he shifts in response, lifting her up and back with a hand on her hip as she rides his thigh. He's riding the lightning right along with her, shifting like water. Making his calluses a little rougher, his body a little hotter, mouth a little softer. Loving every pulse and twitch that comes to him through her shaking hands, the impulses scattering through the trembling kiss neither one of them can seem to hold for more than a few seconds.
Her lips spell everything, her eyes spilling pink light down her flushed cheeks. He doesn't know which one of them is speeding this along, urging it faster, harder. Whose hands are fumbling faster and who's being carried along, drowning, careless. Loving every second. She's gasping like a hissing pipe as he works his thigh hard between her legs, pushing and grinding, and she's working right back up against him, hips jerking like a sputtering engine, working, almost, almost. And he's right there with her, pushing, being pushed, and when she comes her head snaps back, mouth wide open in shock, and Shift groans as it jolts through him, too, knotting him up tight. His jaw locks open, and his head knocks back against the tree and the light is all through him, a hard squeeze right there and. Yeah. Oh yeah.
"Oh god." He slides down to the ground, Indigo's legs still tangled with his. So good. He hasn't felt this relaxed in... Hell, he doesn't think he's ever felt this relaxed. Indy lifts her head from his chest. She's grinning, and her eyes are so bright they're nearly pure white, with just a bare edge of pink. He thought he saw them flicker-flicker-flash like a camera when she came. He smiles and brushes his thumb over her lips. "That was... damn. I think I saw the mothership."
She blinks at him.
He considers. "I guess I say stupid things when I'm post-coital."
She blinks and smiles. "As a motive force I had formerly suspected sex of being overrated."
"Then you weren't doing it right." Shift grins.
"I was not doing it at all," Indigo says earnestly. "You are the first person for whom I have felt this desire for... for exploration of complexity. Motion in opposition." Her eyes crinkle. "In the vernacular..."
"Oooh, the vernacular."
"I... like you, like you." she says tentatively. "Have I phrased it correctly?"
Shift grins crookedly and takes her by the waist, scooting her up so he can kiss her nose. "You got it right," he says. "And... I'm all for more of that. Exploration. Motion. Like you, like you..." He really is babbling. Damn. "I like you. Too."