But He Was Lex

How they'd managed to get lost out there was beyond Bridget's realm of understanding.

"The ground's covered with snow, our boots leave footprints, therefore we should've had an easy way back to the castle by now," she grumbled.

"Yeah, but it's still snowing," Lex pointed out. "Our footprints are filled up and covered by now."

Bridget cursed herself for overlooking such an important detail. Red-faced, she turned to glare at her companion.

"Thanks for making me look like an idiot!"

"You're already an idiot for not taking the damn map," Lex retorted. "You and your stupid 'pirate's sense'. We'll be dead by morning. Worm food. Skeletons by the time anyone finds us."

"Would you stop that?!" Bridget grabbed his shoulders and shook him roughly. "Look, if we can find a place to hide for the night, we'll be fine. I haven't seen any enemy soldiers or bandits in these parts, and we have food and water and probably a blanket or two in our packs."

Lex sighed, feeling rather stupid now. He was the man, and in situations like these it was the man who kept a calm head and reassured the sobbing, panicking woman.

Then again, Bridget wasn't your typical woman.

"Fine," he grumbled. "So where's the nearest cave? Your pirate sense picking anything up?" Bridget snorted, scanning the area.

"There's one just up ahead. If there's no wild animals lurking about, we're set."

And so they plodded on, against the wind and the falling snow.

*

The cave was barren of any wild animals. Unfortunately, the scraps of firewood they'd found were too small and wet to make a single spark.

"Great," Lex muttered. "So now we freeze to death instead of being eaten by animals or stabbed by enemies?" Bridget threw her hands up in irritation.

"Didn't I tell you to stop that?! Jeez, for such a cocky guy you're sure being a whiner right now," she said. "Something you wanna tell me?"

Lex looked at her as if she'd grown another head. What, could her pirate's sense supposedly detect feelings now? Not that there was anything to detect, of course. Just because his dad was an evil traitor and they were on the run and now lost didn't mean he was depressed or anything like that. He was pissed off, that's what it was. People like Azel and Tiltyu got "depressed", but he was Lex, he didn't do things like "sad" or "depressed" or "afraid".

"Fine. You're the pirate, you tell me what we've gotta do to stay alive," he said. "Is there anything else we can use to make a fire?"

"Nope. Rocks are too wet and I dunno about you, but I don't have any matches," Bridget said.

"I don't, either. Maybe I should've taken Azel's offer to lend me his beat-up Fire tome," Lex laughed. "So what's our other option?"

"Blankets." Bridget dug through her pack and pulled out a well-worn gray wool blanket. Lex dug through his pack and found...nothing.

"Well, at least one of us'll be warm," he said. Bridget frowned.

"We're sharing. Last thing we need is an argument over a blanket," she insisted. Then, with a grin, "The experts say you've also gotta take off all your wet clothes and press your bodies real close to stay warm."

Any other man would've fainted or gasped in shock at her suggestion, but he was Lex, and he grinned right back at her.

"If you're not scared to let a guy see you naked," he teased. She stuck her tongue out and began to strip her clothes off. Yeah, it was getting hotter in here already. His clothing joined hers, and they silently huddled under the blanket, side by side, not looking at each other. This was a means of keeping themselves alive, and nothing more.

*

Hours passed. Neither of them slept, but they still didn't look at one another. They exchanged words from time to time, but they were of very little importance.

Unfortunately, the silence was making Lex think about what had him so depressed-no, pissed off, he reminded himself.

He'd never gotten along with his dad, and the man had always been a bit of a power-hungry jerk. This turn of events didn't surprise him one bit. And if we've gotta kill him to stop him, fine by me!

Except it wasn't. Not really. Sure, Langbolt was an ass who treated his youngest son like an attachment instead of a person, but he was the only father Lex had, and it was pretty evil to hate your own father enough to wish for his death. Right?

He wasn't like Tiltyu. He didn't care if Dozel's people saw him as a traitor, or what anyone in the army thought of him. Well, maybe Ayra. But she was engaged to that guy Arden now, so it didn't really matter.

Ayra and Arden, he thought with an ironic chuckle. How did a girl like her fall for a sap like that anyway?

But he was Lex. Just because his father was an asshole and the girl he had a crush on was gonna marry some other guy was no reason to be-

...okay, fine, he was depressed. Maybe a little, he admitted to himself. The whole situation sucked hairy goat balls. If goats had hairy balls.

Lex laughed and shook his head. Why was he thinking about goat anatomy of all things right now? Then again, maybe it'd keep his mind off everything else and he could stop moping like an idiot. So he thought of goat balls and laughed.

Unfortunately, he'd almost forgotten about the naked woman beside him.

"What the hell's so funny?"

"Uhh...nothing, just something Azel said the other day about...something, yeah!" he barked. "Yeah, he's kinda..." he trailed off. Bridget smirked.

"You're full of it, kid."

"I'm no kid," Lex snorted. "I'm only two years younger than you."

"Whatever, you're still full of it!"

A pause. Silence. Then...

"Really sucks being related to a killer," Bridget said at length. Lex's stomach lurched and he shot her an astonished look.

"Say that again?"

"My brother," she said, and he bit back a sigh of relief. "He killed our father, now he's the one responsible for Mahnya's death. I barely remember him as being more than a baby, but Edain tells me how innocent and sweet he was...what could've happened to turn him all psycho killer on us?"

Lex saw an unfamiliar vulnerability in the pirate's expression that made him want to reach out to her. This was his chance to be the man, comfort the woman in distress.

"At least you probably knew your dad was capable of this all along," she said, and his face hardened.

"You don't know anything," he growled, and she held up her hands in self defense.

"Woah, easy there! Didn't think you actually cared about the guy!"

"I don't. I'm saying you don't know how fucking right you were," Lex said. "We always hated each other, he wanted me to be like Danan, I wanted my own life, I didn't agree with his political opinions, and now he's trying to have us all killed just so he can stuff his fat mouth with more power, the asshole."

He turned away from her.

"And dammit, I guess I am evil because I'd be glad if we had to kill him right here and now."

Bridget put a hand on his shoulder and made him look at her.

"I feel the same about Andrei."

Dammit, this wasn't supposed to happen. He was Lex, he didn't do big emotional confrontations like this. At least not with some mannish pirate woman he barely knew, anyway. Only Azel was ever gifted with Lex's vulnerable side, and even that was a rarity.

"Not sure why I'm telling you this," they both muttered.

"So you're a woman after all, huh? With emotions and softness and everything," Lex teased half-heartedly.

"If being emotional's for women, you might wanna check to see if you're missing anything, know what I mean?"

Okay, that ruined the moment. No, wait, it was a good thing she said that, now they could be themselves again.

"If it's gone, you probably stole it," he shot back.

"Go ahead and look for it, then. I dare ya!"

And suddenly they were a tangle of arms and legs, lips locked in a bruising kiss. He grasped a breast in his hand, squeezing, caressing, flicking his thumb roughly over the nipple. She pressed her lips and teeth into his shoulder, dug her nails into his back as they fought for the dominant position. While still sitting up.

"Wait," he gasped, "what are we doing?"

"Who cares?" She straddled him, her breasts obscured by her limp locks of hair hanging down. Damn. He slipped a hand between her legs, she was very wet and hot.

"Think you can handle me?" he asked. She pushed his hand away and rubbed that hot wetness against the head of his cock.

"Do your worst."

He thrust his hips upwards to enter her, and she closed the distance by bringing herself down.

It was energetic, she decided. Not amazing, not deep and passionate, but there was a spark there and they both knew it. It was a sort of primal urge that drove them to just keep moving, no stopping until they were exhausted and dripping with sweat. When release came, it was a fierce explosion.

*

"Guess that's one way to do it," Bridget laughed as they lay wrapped in each other's arms and the blanket.

"You really are a woman," Lex yawned. "Some kinda woman."

"And you're...some kinda man."

She fell asleep, but he stayed up, thinking as he absently played with her now-messy hair. She was a lot like Ayra, he realized, but not in a replacement kind of way. Maybe I just have a thing for ballbusters, he thought. So what happens now? We were barely friends to start with, but after this... Things would get awkward, he was pretty sure of this. Should they forget it happened? Should he forget? Most men would.

But he was Lex, and he liked to think he was better than that.