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fembuckAuthor: Janine
Fandom: Jennifer’s Body
Pairing: Jennifer/Needy
Rating: R
Disclaimer: I don’t own them.
Summary: Needy has no intention of allowing the demon inside Jennifer to stay there, but banishing a demon isn't exactly easy and Needy and Jennifer are running out of time.
Note: This is a sequel/continuation of my story Not Quite Aces
( Part 1 - How the West Was Won )
( Part 2 - Another One Bites the Dust )
xxx
PART III
Two Weeks Later
Fourteen days and two cities later they still had nothing, and Needy was starting to get desperate. There were too many books in the world and not nearly enough time for her to find, let alone read all of the ones on demonic possession and succubus'.
And, as if the sheer scope of their quest wasn't problem enough, Jennifer's assessment of how long she had before she started getting ravenously hungry was turning out to be far too generous.
Jennifer wasn't in nearly as bad shape as she had been before Madison, but she wasn't rosy, fresh and chipper anymore either. She was getting hungry and Needy was panicking at the idea of her killing again. Necessary or not, Uncle Molester or not, the death of that man in Madison was weighing heavily on Needy and she did not want anyone else's death hanging over her head. She needed to get that demon out of Jennifer and she only had a week, if that, to do it before some dirty trucker ended up a cheerleader buffet on the floor of some grody gas station washroom.
She was running out of time and she was running out of options, which is now Needy fould herself walking into a store dedicated to the occult in the industrial part of the city while Jennifer slept in their motel room on the outskirts of town.
The store looked like one of the Haunted Shacks she had seen on Scooby-Doo reruns when she was in elementary school, and smelt like old people and moth balls, but an internet search at the Front St. Public Library had told her that the store had the best collection of occult paraphernalia in the region. That meant that Needy had no choice but to clutch her mini-bottle of Purell tightly in her hand and enter, all the while praying that while the place looked like something out of Deliverence that she wouldn't end up squealing like pig a few minutes later.
She kept her head down as she walked inside and stayed close to the stacks to make herself as inconspicuous as possible. She needn't have bothered trying to remain hidden however since the shop was the size of her mother's living room and she was the only one in it, other than the clerk.
Spotting a shelf of books on the back wall, Needy quickly made her way over to them, expecting to the shelf to open up into a larger area with more books. However, when she arrived in front of the shelf, she saw that it was just a shelf, just one measly little shelf and she squeezed her eyes shut and dropped her chin down to her chest as tears burned her eyes. Her fingers curled into a fist and she pressed her arm tightly against the side of her body as she began to shake faintly.
The store was worthless. The write-up she had seen on it was more promising than any on the East Coast, and it was worthless. Their selection was smaller than the discount tables at Borders.
It wasn't fair.
Needy felt tears begin to sting her eyes.
It wasn't fair, goddammit!
This place was supposed to be her Holy Grail. It was supposed to have the answers. It was supposed to save Jennifer! She was going to get her best-friend back, her Jennifer back, and they were going to go back to Devil's Kettle and grovel at their parents feet for forgiveness. They were going to tell them some bullshit story about how they took off on the road to have some Kerouacian adventure that they could tell their future grandkids about one day.
This place was supposed to be the end; the end of the madness, the end of the pain and horror and the fear. Jennifer was supposed to get her body back, and she was supposed to get back her life.
But the place was … it was … shit! The place was shit, just like all of the libraries and bookstores and cities before it had been shit. She was never going to find what she needed. They were going to continue wandering the country leaving a trail of bodies behind them until one day they hit an empty stretch of land that went on for a bit too long when Jennifer was a bit too hungry and she was going to end up a Sante Fe Needy Wrap.
She was delusional to think that she was going to be able to outsmart the forces of Satan. She was just a girl, a girl at the end of her rope. It was all just too much, she couldn't possibly hope to …
Needy's mental rant halted as her eyes locked on the spine of one of the book in front of her. It was Atrum Creatura, the book of dark creatures. She knew that book. She had seen the name before in …
Needy blinked rapidly as her heart-rate began to increase. She shifted her gaze to the side and began to read the titles around Atrum Creatura. Her eyes moved from one spine to the next, to the next, and slowly a smile started to creep onto her lips. She knew these titles. She had read about all of these books. They were the one she was looking for! These were the books that had solutions instead of simply outlining the facts. The store wasn't worthless and it wasn't shit. It smelt like a bowling alley in a hospital, but it was a beautiful, wonderful, miraculous place.
"Can I help you?"
Needy jumped at the sound of the clerk's voice. She'd been so caught up in her thought that she hadn't heard his approach.
"I'm fine," Needy responded hoarsely as she discreetly lifted her hand to her eyes to wipe away the tears she hadn't realized had begun to leak from them. "I'm fine," she repeated a moment later in a stronger tone of voice.
"That so?" the clerk asked, watching Needy with an unnerving intensity.
"Yeah," Needy replied carefully. Her back straightened as she spoke and she let her eyes track to the side for a moment to plot her escape route should she need one. The store was the promise land the internet had told her it would be, but it was also scary as hell, and the R. Lee Emory clone standing in front of her staring at her like she was a juicy T-bone steak wasn't putting her at ease. "Everything's fine."
"Well then," the clerk drawled, stretching the words out as long as humanly possible, "I'll jes' leave ya to it then. But, 'fore I go, might I jes' make one little suggestion?"
Needy nodded.
"Try this one. I think it's jes' what you'll need."
The clerk reached out and picked up a book off the shelf, then handed it to Needy. The blonde girl accepted the book hesitantly, but her curiosity overwhelmed her, and as much as she wanted to keep her eyes on the clerk to make sure he didn't make any sudden moves, she found her eyes drifting down to the book in her hand.
Needy's eyebrows lifted high on her forehead when she got a look at the title, and her eyes tracked up to meet the clerks.
He had handed her the seminal – and therefore virtually impossible to find – book on Incubai and Succubai, Animus Edo.
"Why did you give this book to me?" Needy asked, watching him closely.
The clerk smiled patronizingly at her, and then shook his head and used his hand to gesture at her.
"Unusually pale skin, dark circles under your eyes, the limp … the turtleneck sweater," the clerk chuckled softly to himself and shook his head again. "A girl like you in a place like this equals jes' one thing," he continued, and then he reached out with a dirty fingernail and tapped it against the book in Needy's hand.
Needy stared at him blankly for a second, and then forced a smile onto her face.
"Oh no, I'm just … it's not … I'm working on a term paper. For school. It's just research. That I'm doing. For my paper."
The clerk was still for a moment, and then his lips curved up into a super creepifying smile.
"Sure it is," he drawled condescendingly. "Research," he parroted disbelievingly.
His eyes dropped down to Needy's neck and she had to fight the urge to reach up and touch her throat.
"If he's started to bite, it means the demon's gaining more purchase," the clerk said, holding Needy's eyes, his tone and expression sober and serious. "You won't be safe much longer, no matter how much that boy of yours loves ya. What you've been doin'," his eyes dropped to Needy's leg, and her skin flushed though she reminded silent. Not only had the clerk noticed her slight limp, but he seemed to know exactly what she had been doing to get it, "is like puttin' a band aid on an axe wound. It ain't gon' keep the demon content let alone 'appy fer much longer. Buy the book, or one day real soon you gon' end up a pizza pocket for your pookie."
Needy clutched the book tightly, squeezing until her knuckles turned snow white. Jennifer had started to bite. It wasn't much, not enough to even hurt really, but she had started to nip at Needy's skin with they were together. She had started to lick, and suck and tease the skin of Needy's neck with her teeth, and she was doing it more and more frequently, and with an increasing ardor. The night before Jennifer had actually broken the skin, which was why Needy had had to break out her turtleneck in weather way too warm for it. The bite hadn't been really bad, it was just a little wound on her neck, but when Jennifer had moved to kiss her after the bite, Needy had tasted her own blood on the brunette's lips, and a shiver had run through her. Jennifer had tasted her, and even as she parted her legs, making room for Jennifer's hand, Needy had known that the bites would get harder, and Jennifer would take more and more of her blood until she ended up lasagna with teeth, just like Jonas, Colin, and Uncle Chester from the library.
"How much?" Needy asked, focusing on the clerk once more.
If she could afford it, she'd pay it, but if she couldn't, she and Jennifer would come back to the store after closing and Jennifer could work her X-Men shit. She had been raised to follow the rules and be a good girl, and Needy didn't want to commit any crimes. Becoming a felon wasn't on her list of things to do before she turned thirty, but she was tired of life on the road and she wasn't going to let another person die on her watch. She needed that book, and would have that book, and if crime was the only way to do it then that's what would be done.
xxx
The price wasn't exactly right, but it wasn't exactly wrong either, and though it really ate into what was left of their cash, when Needy returned to the motel that evening she had the cure to Jennifer's problem safely tucked away in her bag.
The motel room was dark when Needy arrived outside the door, so she opened the door with caution, not wanting to wake Jennifer if her girlfriend was already asleep. Though Jennifer was always tired those days, she didn't actually sleep much. She tossed and turned and whimpered and jerked awake before lying down again, only to repeat the same process over and over again throughout the night.
Needy needn't have worried so much however, for shortly after she stepped into the dark motel room and closed the door, a flickering flame snapped to life in the air, and pale fingers were stained orange as Jennifer reached out and brought the lighter in her hand to the wick of a nearby candle, repeating the motion five other times until the room was illuminated by candle light.
"Cheesecake Factory," Jennifer declared, smiling widely as she waved her hands at the table, presenting it to Needy.
The table, which was now lit by flickering flames, was set for two, all of the plastic cutlery in the right place around the neatly arranged paper plates, and in the center of the table was a red rose in a vase.
"Checkers," Needy choked out, lifting her hand to her heart. "It's beautiful," Needy gushed, dropping her bag to the ground before shuffling her way towards Jennifer, her attention torn between Jennifer's face and the dinner spread on the table.
"You like it?" Jennifer asked, chewing on her bottom lip as Needy came to a stop before her. "I didn't have much time to …"
"I love it," Needy said, smiling dopily up at Jennifer. "Really, it's super," she continued, still smiling as she reached out for Jennifer and grasped her hips before she tugged Jennifer closer to her body. "Thank you," Needy breathed out, and tired as she looked, the smile that Jennifer gave Needy reached her eyes, and Needy's heart jumped up into her throat when Jennifer's cool lips met hers.
Needy pulled away from Jennifer's lips, gasping for breath as her fingers fisted Jennifer's shirt, holding onto Jennifer tightly. She didn't know why exactly, considering that she had found the answer to Jennifer's problems and that Jennifer had surprised her with the most romantic date ever, but as Needy gazed up at Jennifer's hauntingly beautiful face, she felt tears welling up inside of her and before she knew it tears were streaming down her face. Immediately after she started crying, strange sobbing sounds began to emerge from her, and then Jennifer was gathering her up in her arms and squeezing her tightly, whispering things into Needy's ear that she couldn't comprehend as she wept.
"…I'm so sorry," Jennifer was whispering as Needy's crying ceased enough that she started to become aware of her surrounding again. "I know it like sucks ass to be around me right now," Jennifer continued as she gently stroked Needy's hair. "Not only do you have to worry about me eating you, but I'm not even eye-candy anymore. You look so sad all of the time," Jennifer sighed. "I hate it when you're sad. It makes me want to kick things, but I can't kick myself. It blows being around me, but I love you, Needs. Really, I do. I promise you, I'll like fucking chew my own arm off before I hurt you. And … and I'll try not to sex you up as much, cause I know you're tired. You say you're not and you still come like geyser, but I know ..."
"Jen," Needy sighed, sniffling slightly as she reached for Jennifer's hands again. "I like it when you sex me up," she breathed out before leaning forward to press her lips gently against Jennifer's. "And it's not really that I've been sad, I've just been really, really scared for you. I love you too you know," Needy whispered, pushing her glasses up on her nose. "I didn't want to let you down."
"You're the only person who hasn't," Jennifer responded, regarding Needy seriously. "You're the only one I know I can always trust. I knew you'd figure it out. You always have really good ideas when it comes to nerd stuff," Jennifer continued, smiling at Needy proudly before she ducked her head down and kissed Needy again, a little bit longer than before this time. "But if you're not all depressed and junk then why were crying?" Jennifer asked a long while later when she finally pulled away from Needy's lips.
Needy thought for a moment and then smiled wetly up at Jennifer. "I … I think I'm happy," she whispered sounding delighted, but confused. "I think that just after a long, long time barely holding on, that I'm happy and my body just couldn't handle it."
Jennifer took Needy's hand into her face and smoothed her thumbs over her cheeks as she started into Needy's eyes.
"You really like The Cheesecake Factory, huh?" Jennifer breathed out, the corner of her lip twitching up just the tiniest bit.
"I do," Needy said, smiling a bit shyly, "but that's not why I'm so happy," she continued, reaching up to take Jennifer's hands into her own. "I found it, Checkers!" Needy said virtually vibrating with excitement as she clutched Jennifer's hands. "I found the book. We can figure out how to get you back to normal again!" Needy declared, bringing their joined hands up to her lips so that she could press them against the back of Jennifer's hands. "You'll be warm again, and full. And we can do sex without you wanting to eat me like a breakfast sausage. We can go home, Jen! We can see our mom's again!"
"Normal," Jennifer breathed out slowly. "Home," she repeated in the same foggy way. "Really?" she asked, blinking quickly before focusing her gaze on Needy again. "We can fer real fix this? Like no guff?"
"No guffing at all," Needy declared happily. "The answer is in my bag. All we have to do is open it up and read!"
Jennifer grinned at her, and then swooped in and drew Needy into a heated kiss. She was hungry, but not for the Baja Chicken Tacos that awaited her on the table. At that moment she wasn't even hungry for meat, red and stringy and dripping and so good in her mouth that she just had to have more. No, she just wanted Needy.
At that moment, Jennifer wanted Needy like she had before they'd ever gone to see those losers from Low Shoulder perform.
She wanted Needy like she had before the demon, when they would kiss for hours, feeling up each other's tits over their clothes until they were both throbbing between their legs.
She wanted Needy like she had that night when Needy modeled the first pieces of lingerie she had ever bought – or worn for that matter – for Jennifer. Needy's whole body had blushed as she had turned around for Jennifer to see the whole outfit, and she had looked so so good that Jennifer hadn't been able to stay seated. She'd gotten up and she'd embraced Needy, and kissed her shoulders and her neck as her hands wandered all over the tantalizing flesh Needy's outfit left on display. She'd gone down on Needy in the middle of the bedroom that night, looking up at Needy's face as she kneeled before her, her eyes trained on Needy's face, watching the way it responded to all of the things she did with her tongue. And when Jennifer was still licking Needy's come off of her lips, Needy had lowered herself to the ground, pushed Jennifer onto her back and had two fingers inside of her before Jennifer could moan.
She wanted Needy like she had back when she was Jennifer Check, just Jennifer Check. No super-strength, or cannibalism, or the ability to heal like she was fucking Wolverine or some shit ... just plain ol' gorgeous and amazing – in a completely human way – Jennifer Check.
"I wanna do you," Jennifer whispered against Needy's lips as she kissed her with messy desperation. "I wanna touch you all over so bad, Needy. I swear, my mouths watering for you," Jennifer panted, squeezing Needy's butt. "Other parts of me are getting pretty wet, too."
"But you got dinner …" Needy started to say.
"Want you," Jennifer huffed before nuzzling into Needy's neck. "We'll break into the back office and nuke it later, okay? But right now, I wanna make love to you until you squirt."
"Ew," Needy moaned as Jennifer wiggled her hand between Needy's legs, "but okay," she sighed as Jennifer began to lay kisses along her throat.
Jennifer moaned and cupped Needy possessively with her hand.
"Damn," Jennifer sighed as she brought her lips down to meet Needy's, the hand she had between Needy's legs slowly beginning to rub. "I really want to give it to you. I wish we had a strap-on."
Needy laughed softly as she tugged Jennifer towards the bed.
"We can buy one on the way home," Needy said as she smiled up at Jennifer. "Then, you can take me from behind in your own bed … because you'll be you again, and the boys of Devil's Kettle will be safe again, and you'll be home, and … and at night you can use your strap-on on me because even though you say you don't care, you like it on top," Needy continued grinning.
"You bet I do," Jennifer smiled against Needy's lips. "Let me show you how much," she breathed out, grinning wickedly as she tugged on Needy's pants.
xxx
After an hour and a half rolling around on the bed and the floor, they'd pulled on t-shirts and dragged their butts over to the table to have cold Cheesecake Factory chicken tacos and stuffed chicken tortillas. Needy heard Jennifer laugh for the first time in days as she told Jennifer about the creepy little store where she'd found the book, and the inbred-Chester who'd worked there who had freaked her out, even though he had turned out to actually be really helpful.
Halfway through dinner, Jennifer crept off to a corner of the room and a minute later produced a bottle of Zinfandel, which they poured into two plastic cups and made short work of.
They kissed some more when the wine and food were gone and then they stumbled back over to the bed.
Jennifer's hands began to roam again Needy but Needy stopped her, saying, "We need to read that book."
Jennifer had groaned and mumbled, "Gonna go to sleep now," before burying her face in one of the pillows, and Needy smiled and shook her head before slipping off of the bed and moving towards her bag.
Grabbing the book, Needy walked into the bathroom and flipped on the light before closing the door and settling herself down on the closed toilet lid. Jennifer had actually decided to go to sleep, and she didn't want the light she needed to read to disturb Jennifer. The rest she got after they made love was some of the only fitful sleep Jennifer got, and Needy wanted her to get as much of it as she could.
So, with a plastic cup full of water resting on the sink beside her, Needy opened up the cover of Animus Edo and began to read.
xxx
An hour later Needy closed the book with a sigh, picked up her cup of water, and drained it. It didn't really surprise her to learn that the way to get Jennifer back would be as gruesome as the way Jennifer was lost, but the knowledge sat heavily in Needy's stomach, and after closing the book she poured herself another glass of water, and drank that down as if it actually stood a chance washing away the bad taste that what she had read left in her mouth.
Really, the ritual to free Jennifer from the demon wasn't all that complicated. All they needed was a pack of matches, a mess of raw meat, a crescent moon, a few drops of Jennifer's blood, some pictures of the members of Low Shoulder, and the book resting in Needy's lap which contained the incantation that they would need to recite at the spot where Jennifer had been sacrificed.
Supplies and location were not the problem, however. It was what would happen after they performed the ritual that was making Needy queasy.
The members of Low Shoulder were low life douchebags who deserved to suffer for their sins, but for Jennifer to come back they would have to die – in an excruciatingly grisly manner – and that made Needy's stomach all sorts of upset.
After they performed the ritual and the demon left Jennifer's body, it would divide itself into pieces and inhabit the members of Low Shoulder. The demon wouldn't be able to survive forever in pieces however, so it would have an insatiable urge to make itself whole again by making the members of band consume each other until there was only one left. When that one died from the injuries sustained fighting for his life against his fellow band-members the demon would be banished back to hell where it would stay until some other whiny, emo, wanna-be-rockstars downloaded instructions on how to free it from the internet so that they could too could be as awesome as Maroon 5.
xxx
It was well after midnight when Needy crawled into bed with Jennifer, and when Jennifer sighed softly and turned towards her, Needy gratefully wrapped her arms around Jennifer and held her close. It was a rare opportunity for Needy, holding Jennifer like that. Jennifer usually liked to be big spoon, and when Jennifer was feeling well they had actually gotten into wrestling matches – which Needy always lost – over who got to spoon who. When Jennifer was sleepy however, she was far more accommodating, and under those conditions Needy was sometimes able to wrap herself around Jennifer.
Jennifer normally had a personality that could fill up a room, but her body was small and fragile and Needy felt very protective of her as she held her in her arms. Jennifer was just a girl, she was a young girl who had been scared out of her mind and preyed upon by merciless predators who had taken her out into the woods and gleefully harmonized as they stabbed her.
Jennifer was her family, she was her girlfriend, and her best friend, and her confidant. Jennifer was her everything. Jennifer had been brutalized by the members of Low Shoulder. She had been terrorized and butchered all so that they could get a recording contract. Low Shoulder had sacrificed Jennifer for fame, and it was only fair that they reap the sorrows of their actions as well as the rewards.
Needy didn't want any more lives to be taken, but if the demon stayed in Jennifer more men would die and Needy would lose Jennifer forever – because no matter how much they tried to deny it, they both knew Jennifer was getting worse and that soon Needy wouldn't be safe around her.
If the demon stayed in Jennifer, Needy would pay, and Jennifer would pay, and untold numbers of innocent men would pay, but Low Shoulder wouldn't pay, and that didn't seem copacetic to Needy at all.
If Low Shoulder was made to pay for their crimes, then people would die too. Low Shoulder would die, but they would have brought the fate upon themselves. Low Shoulder's death would free Jennifer, and it would save innocent lives, not to mention allowing Needy to go back to hers.
Needy hugged Jennifer, and pressed a kiss to her shoulder, then closed her eyes. She pictured the last band photo she had seen of Low Shoulder, and as she pressed herself up against Jennifer's back, she sighed and crossed Low Shoulder out.
To be continued …
