Lydia

1. We both had lives before. We all have them, I guess. But for me, it's just that. Before. There's a strict line of demarcation there--my life before, and my life after. Again--I guess we can all say that--before we left our old lives, before we found this home, this family. But that's not it for me, not really. Yes, there was a renewal the moment I stepped through the gates, there was a feeling of coming home, of finding what I'd been looking for. But all of that faded into the background the next morning, because the moment life truly began again for me was the first time you touched my hand.

2. You're the only thing in my life I've ever depended on, and the only person I think I'll ever fully trust. I just wish that was enough.

3. Thank you for coming back for me. I'll make sure you never regret it. However it started, whatever we had to go through, it's all made me certain of one indisputable fact: I love you.

4. I would have given you anything. I did give you everything. There's part of me that still wishes I'd never woken up, because there's a pain that I can't seem to shake that I live with every day. There are days I can't breathe for it. But I'm not that girl anymore. I see you now, with all the blinders off. I may be alive, but you killed something precious that day. Things still hurt, but I'm stronger now, and I don't care what I feel--it's over.

5. I never wanted to let you down or hurt you, but I know I keep doing it again and again. All my best efforts seem to do nothing but backfire, when all I ever wanted was for you to be safe and loved and have a chance at everything I never did. I love you. I would do anything for you. And I hope some day you can forgive me.

6. Sometimes I wonder if things could have been different, but I'm glad you're happy now.

7. You're the most confusing person I've ever met. Normally I know exactly what someone wants from me, but no matter how hard I try, even though I can read you just fine, I can't figure you out. ...It's kind of exciting.

8. I don't think there are enough words to say, "thank you." Everything you've done, you didn't have to. I can't imagine how much we've turned your life upside down and what we've put you through, but I want you to know I'm grateful--to you and for you.

9. Sometimes I don't think it's fair to you, to be trying to build something with me, when I know I'm shattered into so many pieces I still feel them cutting at me all the time. There's so much you don't know, and that scares me. But you make me feel safe, and you make me smile, and you make me feel...hope for the first time in so long I can't remember. I'm terrified of falling for you, but I think it might be too late.

10. I didn't want to like you, but I couldn't help it. I didn't think I could forgive you, but it wasn't really that hard. I never thought I'd love you, but now I can't imagine how I ever couldn't.

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"Passion makes the world go round. Love just makes it a safer place." -- Ice T

Passion was something she knew, and knew well. It was her stock in trade, in some ways, or at least the illusion of it, the lure of it. Every inch of skin bared, every look, every smile was meant to be an enticement into paying for more, and if that more wasn't exactly what they'd thought--well. They got to touch her, in some way, and she saw into their souls and gave them some insight into their dreams.

Some of them got more than that, true enough, on nights she didn't feel like being alone, and the family tended to turn a blind eye, no one minding too much what she did on her own time. That was passion. Edgar made sure no one got too rough and that they left when she wanted them to go. That was love, and never did she let the two meet for fear of ruining the one with the shadows of the other.

If she thought perhaps one day they would in Samuel...well, time had proven her so very wrong in that, and reminded her just how very off her own judgment could be, hadn't it?

Sylar had changed that, at least partly. What started out as passion had deepened into something else, despite her best efforts to keep it as the one thing she was good at, good for. It was terrifying, and it was thrilling, and it left her shaken to the core at first, but she'd come to depend on it, somewhere along the way. He was her shelter, the one place she felt safe, the one person she could cling to through life's storms, and if anyone else thought it strange that she'd found safety and home in the arms of a former serial killer turned vampire, well...that was their problem. Maybe, really, it was the only thing she could have done.

Only now there was another, and she was shaken again, maybe even more than before. Shaken and excited and pleased and breathless and all the things she never let herself feel, those little sparks that she remembered from long ago, before life intervened and steered her on a far more destructive course. Peter loved her. He'd said it, and she'd felt it, and she couldn't deny the answering warmth that heated inside her. She didn't know how he could, how someone like him could love someone like her. They might be living the same life now, but they'd come from worlds apart, and she felt it sometimes--moreso when Angela was around, no matter how nice she was to her. She wasn't the sort of girl men like him fell in love with. But he had. He was. He did.

And the more she thought about it, the more the trickle of warmth inside her grew until she was nearly burning with it, and recognized the answering feeling behind it. Peter loved her. And, it seemed she loved him, too. Who would have guessed that could happen, considering she'd pretty much just wanted to rip his throat out most days the whole first few weeks of their acquaintance? She had to give a wry smile, now, remembering.

Passion she understood. Love mingled with it was new. It explained some of the tentativeness of the last few months, though, the desperate wanting to make sure things worked out, that feelings weren't hurt, the possessiveness--things they'd put down to just blood had perhaps been sliding through to something else. It made her smile to think of it now, even as she shivered a little through the warmth with residual fear at the idea of the new level to their triad, wondering what change, if any it would bring. Balance had been so delicately and deliberately achieved...she didn't want to throw it out again.

But the warm glow wouldn't go away, and she was humming as she went about the new morning routine of getting Amanda up and fed and delivered to Edgar to be taken to school (though she insisted she could get there alone), before drifting upstairs and snuggling down in the big bed for the day. For the first time all week, sleep actually came easy, and she was smiling a little with the memory of the night before as she drifted off. Trusting in the best outcome was easier, for once, and despite the possible minefields, and the terrifying spinning her emotions were doing, she still felt...safe.

"Love is the difficult realization that something other than oneself is real." ~ Iris Murdoch

She was going to die.

This wasn't exactly news, given it had happened once already, but the follow up was one she hadn't really considered, even though she'd seen proof of it in her trailer that night she didn't like to dwell on.

He wasn't.

The two sentences rolled around in her head as she stood in the kitchen mixing up batter for muffins because she couldn't stand to just sit staring out the window at the cold winter waves beating on the empty shoreline anymore. She was going to die. He wasn't. It could be strung together as one sentence and the horrible implications became all the more clear. She was going to die, and he wasn't.

After the cold reaches of the darkness she liked to dwell on even less than that night, she would have thought the contemplation of her own mortality would be the far more upsetting of those two propositions. He'd expected her to hate him for it, or feared she would grow to, but when she thought about it, all she felt was this ache that caught at her throat and twisted up around inside of her making it hard to breathe.

She was going to die, and he wasn't. Someday, someway, despite all of her promises, and no matter how hard she tried not to...she was going to leave him, just like everyone else had. Her own body would betray her, and him, and she'd simply...cease to be, and he'd be alone. The little fears and vanities that reared their heads in the back of her mind, the will-he-still-want-me-when-I'm-not-as-young-and-pretties and the how-could-he-stay-if-I-get-old-and-sick-at-the-ends, faded under the lines of pain at that.

She didn't want to leave him alone, didn't want to leave him to watch the centuries stretch out in front of him in a string of loss or loneliness. The fact that Claire might be there was hardly a consolation, and one she dismissed. The fact that he might fall in love again...to what end? To lose love again, as well? That hurt, too, both personally, and for him.

She was crying again, as she had the night before, though it wasn't for the same reasons this time. The fear that had lingered wasn't really gone, but it wasn't at the forefront of her mind. Pain for him, for what he'd go through without her, for knowing that he had to live with that everyday...it left her gasping a little for air, and clinging to the counter until her knuckles were white.

She was going to die, and he wasn't. That meant she had to find a way to make every day he did have with her count, so he'd never doubt in all those years to come that he'd been loved. No matter what anyone else had done, or would do, no matter what happened or what he faced after she was gone...she wanted him to know that and have that as a surety. For as long as she had, he'd be loved, he'd have a home. They'd have a life, and by god, it would be a good one. No regrets. No looking back. No doubts. No second-guessing. No more what-might-have-beens.

She wiped her tears and gave the batter a vicious punch with the spoon. She wasn't exactly sure where to start, but making muffins to rival Mrs. Comey's waffles seemed to be as good as anywhere, even if she was still figuring out the cooking things after years of not. If she was going to die, and he wasn't, she didn't want to waste any more of their precious time on tears.

[ooc: Sylar is heroslayer and Peter is hadtobeahero and both are used with love and permission. Based on RP with them and offering_hope. John is of_highdegree.]

Words wouldn't come. In truth, Lydia was afraid if she opened her mouth she'd start screaming again. The host of the Gasthaus had come running, pounding on the door, sure they were all being murdered in their sleep, and Sylar's assurances that she'd only had a nightmare had barely reassured the man when he'd seen how distraught she was. Only having seen them always happy together probably gave his conscience any ease to leave. If she started screaming again...?

A nightmare.

The word seemed too vague, too ephemeral for such a visceral experience. She was used to nightmares. Life had been a constant one for three years, a time when, honestly, sleep had been a semi-escape, but one from which she could be awakened at any time by searching hands wanting things that made her heat with shame for giving, sure she was damning them both to Hell, and God was going to punish her for the Devil living in her like he must. After waking life improved, sleep was less of a haven, and she got as little of it as necessary, as the monsters from her childhood returned in her dreams to torment her still. She learned some tricks, found some teas that helped, figured out if she were utterly exhausted physically, sometimes he didn't come...she lived her life to avoid the dreams as best she could.

Joseph told her she wasn't damned, and she tried to believe him. She stopped believing in God. Mostly.

Dreams of a bullet, of a kiss, of a cold place (that might have been Hell), a gasping return...they'd intermingled in the last year, and no wonder. She slept lightly, woke frequently, and mustered on as best she could. Sylar returned and she let him provide any comfort he could, even if it was to push her into oblivion, when she was too tired to dream, and that was a sweetness and no burden at all.

Last night...

( No, to call it a nightmare was to call those other dreams some sort of unpleasant reveries. )

[ooc: Sylar is heroslayer and used with much love and permission.]

She still had a reflection. That wasn’t particularly a surprise--he had one, after all. She could see it there in the corner of the mirror that caught the edge of the bed. At the moment, however, she was studying her own as intently as she’d been captured by the lights and music of the boardwalk. The dress she’d been wearing when he did it lay abandoned on the floor behind her, and she stared in the mirror at her naked image with a curious tilt of her head. Now and then she shifted, turning slowly, hands lifting her hair out of the way to see her back, before she twisted the other way. The loss of her tan had been coming along slowly, and its absence now she’d expected, though she’d never been this pale in her life. The vividness of her eyes, too--she’d noticed it in his. But the biggest change...the one to that which had defined her for so long...Perhaps she should have expected it. They came out of her, of who she was, roadmaps built on what was inside of her. If that had changed in a fundamental way...so, too would they.

But she hadn’t expected it, and she continued to stand there, twisting slowly every now and then, staring at herself even as dawn broke and stretched toward noon and her body begged for sleep to finish recuperating from the changes it had undergone. Of all of them, though, she found these too fascinating to look away from.

The earthy ochre vines and leaves linking coral and yellow flowers all along her skin were gone, vanishing with the life that he’d taken with a snap of bone. Midnight vines encircled alabaster skin, instead, twisting their way around her neck, along her back, across her stomach, and trailing down her legs. Crimson roses bloomed amidst dangerous looking ebony thorns. Sharp beaked, shadowy ravens hunting the night, foretelling the future and protecting their secrets had replaced the swallows who once stood guard over her soul and pointed the way home. The butterfly remained, but its wings were honed to razor points from which fell rose petals reminiscent of droplets of blood. A woman stood where the mermaid had lounged, skirts swirling out like the fin once had to wrap around her arm. Nothing so clear as horns perched on her head or fangs extended from her blood red lips, but the cruel sensuality of her mouth hinted at pleasures far darker than the mermaid had dreamed.

Her fingertips lightly traced the new patterns, watching her reflection do the same. A shiver ran over her skin and settled deep in her stomach. For a moment, she closed her eyes, running a mental check, but her ability seemed to be working fine. The new tattoos functioned as the old ones had, though she felt their sharper, darker, bloodier edges feeding the hunger that had been growing inside since the first time he’d sliced his skin open for her. Interesting. She wasn’t sure, yet, how the two were linked, but she could feel the connection, see the outward manifestation of the inner change. A few months ago, it would have frightened her. Now she opened her eyes to find her lips curved into a smile mirroring that of the new woman decorating her arm.

Arms extended overhead as she stretched and finally tore her gaze away from the mirror, pivoting gracefully in the opposite direction, satisfied for now. The same little smile still on her lips, she practically prowled toward the bed where Sylar had been watching her, switching between concern and amusement.

"Done?" he asked.

"For now."

"You really should sleep," he pointed out, apparently attempting to be a responsible sire for a moment, as she put one knee on the bed on one side of him, then followed suit on the other, perching over him and reaching for the buttons of his shirt.

"In a bit." After all, having given the boardwalk and the beach and herself such a thorough examination and found things so enthralling, she really felt the need to do the same to him, even if it took until the sun set again.

"There is fate, but it only takes you so far because once you're there, it's up to you to make it happen." ~ Can't Hardly Wait

The smell of the sea air was familiar enough that she could almost lose it out here on the Boardwalk. Caramel apples, cotton candy, popcorn and deep fried treats wafted their scents in the air, drowning out the salty tang unless you searched for it.

She wasn't searching tonight.

Leaning against a lamppost, she munched on popcorn and watched the crowd milling about under the bright lights. She closed her eyes, reaching out with her senses, along the fragile bonds of connectivity she'd forged that grew a little stronger with each passing week. Amanda was in the arcade down the way. A rather handsome young man handed out the prizes there, and Lydia was willing to lay odds Amanda was trying to get his attention. She reached out a bit further, until she found Sylar down on the beach, lurking under the wooden slats that supported the pier that held a practical carnival all around her.

After ascertaining their whereabouts, Lydia drew those emotional tendrils back into herself, contained once more, though she kept her eyes closed. The sounds of girls screaming in joy on one ride, the music pounding from another, the call of the barkers reeling people in for games swept over her, and her fingers curled into a fist in the popcorn bag, her other hand near crushing it at the punch of pain that hit hard enough she couldn't breathe.

Sometimes it was more vicious than others. Tonight, she felt tears well, a wordless grief for everything lost, but it ebbed as she took a breath, then another and another, pushing past the tightness in her chest and the lump in her throat. Bad memories eased back, and she let the sense of home wrap around her instead, reveling in the sense of familiarity in a world gone upside down.

( The warm arms that slid around her waist helped, and, with a sigh, she leaned back against Sylar's chest. )

Muse: Lydia
Fandom: Heroes
Words: 1360
Notes: Sylar is heroslayer and used with love and permission.

Either slipped into his trailer/or left on their kitchen table, in a brightly wrapped package, because somewhere in all the chaos they've gone through his must've gotten lost, and she well knows how he likes things to be:

The larger box, holds a sturdy leather toiletry case, suitable for traveling. In the smaller, is a 7-piece straight razor shaving kit, including an ebony handled razor and a pure badger shaving brush.

Note in Carnivale:

Happy birthday. I hope, whatever comes, that this will be a good memory you can hold on to. Know that you're always family, no matter what, no matter who you choose to be--you have a place in this world, and people who care about you. You don't have to be alone anymore.

Love,
Lydia

Note in their verse:

Happy birthday, Sylar. The first of many we'll spend together, I hope. I don't think anything could ever balance the second chance you've given me, but I hope you like these anyway. I've got breakfast waiting down on the beach, whenever you'd like to join me. ;-)

Love,
Lydia

Note in Four Quartets: (only the shaving kit, 'cause, well. she hasn't slept with him there? idk. lol)

Happy birthday and welcome to the family. I got the sense you might be missing something like this, and thought it would make a nice welcome and birthday gift at the same time. I hope you are settling in well, and look forward to celebrating many more birthdays with you.

Lydia

For the first time in her life, Lydia was learning what it was like for other people being around her. She'd spent years reading others with a touch, seeing into their souls as they were laid bare before her, all while keeping herself just a little apart, a bastion of reserve wrapped around her heart. Her secrets were her own, intimate and inviolate, and no one gained entrance to them unless she gave them permission, and then only to the extent she chose to share.

Now Sylar had her ability, had her perception, had her gift and had her number. She couldn't hide from him behind those carefully constructed walls, couldn't lie and pretend all was well--doubly so considering the man knew when anyone was lying to him even without her gift. She'd never known how much she relied on being the enigma, the mysterious one, the girl apart until he was there, in her soul and under her skin as much as she was used to being with others. It brought a breathless sort of intimacy to some things, easy to get lost in, but there were days she wished to hell he'd never acquired her skill.

( Today was one of them. )