thepainted_lady | JMM 37.10 Defying Gravity [For hadtobeahero and <lj site="livejou

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JMM 37.10 Defying Gravity [For hadtobeahero and <lj site="livejou

Something has changed within me
Something is not the same
I'm through with playing by the rules
Of someone else's game

The music was loud and the crowd was already drunk at noon, as Lydia made her way through the press of their too-hot bodies. She’d killed a girl heading this way and taken her clothes--her own far too ripped and bloody from her run through the woods--and boots (since she’d run off without any shoes) and felt like she fit in fairly well, though she was still occasioning quite a bit of comment.

Then again, women in leather miniskirts, corset tops and boots tended to do that anywhere. She felt a hand on her ass and let it pass. It was a grope, sure, but a quick sense from the touch...he wouldn’t take it farther if she complained. Not what she was looking for, then. She wanted her usual prey, but she needed a lot of them, or their kin. People the world wouldn’t miss, people she could use and still face herself in the morning.

Edgar had mentioned this place as somewhere to avoid, last time they passed through the area. She saw why when her attention was caught by the group in the corner.

Unfortunately for Edgar’s peace of mind, she had no intention of avoiding them today.

* * *

A half hour later, she was on the back of the bike of their leader, his blood singing in her veins--not enough to incapacitate him, but enough to give her compulsion an iron-clad hold. She’d tasted the others, too, for the same reason, and killed one more so she would be at her strongest and now they were winging their way back to Füssen. She locked down her emotions tight, letting herself go numb for the moment to give no signal of her approach. If she was right...Samuel wouldn’t be able to feel the bond between her and Sylar as sire and progeny, and if her emotions were shut down...he wouldn’t pick up on anything empathically, either.

Besides, she needed to be cold to face Peter again.

“Stay here,” she told the men, sliding off the back of the bike and pointing to an abandoned warehouse. John was down here somewhere, she was sure of it. “Don’t make any noise, don’t get into trouble. Sleep, until I call you.” She took one of their cell phones and waved it at the leader. “When I call...you’ll come immediately to me, understood?”

He nodded, looking at her a little glassily.

“Good boy.”

* * *

She visited a shop she’d found a couple of weeks before, filled with teas from all over the world, and smiled at the woman, who recognized her despite the somewhat...drastic change in her appearance.

“Everything’s at the cleaners,” Lydia said, making a face at her clothes. “All I had left was the costume I wore to a party on Halloween...”

The woman laughed, then, and they discussed the silliness of men and costumes and the things they forced themselves into, and yes, of course, she had exactly what Lydia needed, and she handed it over. Lydia shuddered a little bit, though she hid it, and was careful not to let any of it touch her skin.

“Could you mix some up for me, straight, in a to-go cup, and then another batch....blended in with something to mask it? My boyfriend hates the taste of the herb, but it’s the only thing that helps with his headaches, and he’s got such an awful one today...” She gave the woman an appealing little smile, tucking the pure herb away in a bag.

Another smile, and five minutes later, Lydia walked out of the store with one hot cup of vervain tea in her hand, ready to be poured down the throat of one Peter Petrelli, forcibly if necessary, and a neatly wrapped up tea bag, just waiting to be brewed.

Some people’s habits were, after all, just a little too predictable.

Now to find Peter, and change the rules of this game to hers.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Yeah, just -- "

He curled his fingers into a fist and pressed the back of his hand to his mouth, trying to fight back another wave of nausea as it hit him. It, like so much else this evening, seemed to be an exercise in futility, however, and he pulled his hand away, moving it to the wall for support, and was violently physically ill. He didn't stop until there was nothing left in his stomach to rid himself of, and when he finished, he stared down at the sick red smear on the pavement for a long time, swiping his fingers over his mouth and trying to catch his breath, before finally turning back to her. He couldn't quite bring himself to look at her, however.

"I think ... " Pausing, he shook his head, then started his head, ashamed but willing to own up to what he'd done. Or what he'd been forced to do. "I know where John is. He's -- I've -- I think he's dying."

Her fingers curled into a fist, nails biting into her palm, but she nodded, a flicker of relief that she'd been right, that he knew where he was running through her, and another of terror that they'd be too late following on its heels.

She pulled out the wrapped packet of loose sprigs of vervain, passing it over.

"Put this somewhere on you. In your pockets, in your belt, in your shoes--wherever. It'll keep you from being compelled again. By anyone." Including her. Though it wouldn't break the one she'd laid, which is why she'd had to break Samuel's. She didn't mention that, of course. She held out the teacup a bit, too.

"When you think you can stomach it, drink this. It's vervain tea. It'll help if he finds the herb on you. Second line of defense." Also poisoned blood, but she didn't say that out loud. Peter knew that. She figured he'd also get it was her way of saying she wasn't taking more of his blood tonight, or whatever. She'd get to the tea for Samuel after they'd gotten to John.

"Take me to John."

He took the packet from her, careful not to touch her, ashamed and afraid of making things worse somehow if he did, and looked down at it for a moment, trying to decide what to do with it. Eventually, he decided that putting it in one of his shoes seemed the best idea -- less a chance of it falling out or being found accidentally -- and he leaned down, hiking up his jeans to slip it in the heel of his sneakers. He shifted from one foot to the other, just to make sure it was secure, then sighed, reaching to take the cup from her without looking directly at her.

He stared down at it, not sure if he could stomach the tea right now, but he had to try. Had to force himself to keep it down for Sylar's sake. For all of theirs. And that in mind he took a deep breath to steady himself before taking a sip. Thankfully his stomach only protested weakly, and he chanced another sip before gesturing back down the way he'd come.

"There's a warehouse down that way. Third one on the left. I ... I moved him there last time you guys went looking for him." It made sense now why Sylar hadn't called him out when he'd lied about it. Not that that particularly mattered right now. He sighed, reaching into his pocket for John's ring, and held it out to her. "You might want to take him this."

Her nightmare crashed down around her again, the feel of the late afternoon sun suddenly too bright and she hissed something wordless, reaching out to take it, fingers barely brushing his skin, like he might burn her, or worse, if she dared more contact again, despite having just drunk a good couple pints of his blood.

Her fingers curled around the ring tightly, and she nodded, not daring to speak for a moment. When she managed to trust her voice again, she rethought her original request. He'd told her, that was good enough. better he didn't go.

She fished out the second packet.

"This is more tea. When you've finished yours...go back. This one's..." She smiled, though it was bitter, and her voice had an odd note, thick with some sort of unspoken emotion. "Samuel's favorite. It's laced with vervain. It won't kill him, but it will incapacitate him. We'll need that. Make sure you get plenty in him, then get out. I don't want him taking control of you again. Meet me back here. I'll...after I get John somewhere safe, I'll come for you. We'll fix this."

God willing, John would know how.

He took that packet from her too, tucking this one away into safety in his pocket, and nodded, curling both hands back around his tea. He took another sip of the drink and glanced in the direction of the Gasthaus almost nervously. "I think I'm gonna start heading back. I can finish the tea on the way and lose the cup before I get there."

While he was no coward, he knew that John wouldn't be happy if and when Lydia got him back on his feet. He didn't want to be anywhere nearby when that happened.

"Just ... do me a favor?" Not that he had a right to ask for one after what he'd apparently done to them all. Not that what he was about to ask for would make any bit of difference. Regardless, though, he had to ask, had to make sure it was said, and he meant every word of it. "Tell him I'm sorry. I didn't mean to ... "

Lydia nodded slightly, taking a couple of steps back away from him, now that she had her hands free again save for John's ring, which she kept a tight grip on. The cell phone she didn't go for, not yet, just watching Peter, as impassive as she knew how to be.

"I'll tell him."

"Thanks."

He chanced a glance up at her finally, meeting her eyes for an instant, trying to let her know that his apology extended to her, too. He couldn't quite say it, afraid of damaging their relationship, whatever remained of it, further, but he hadn't meant what he'd said. Hopefully she'd get that, and if not, hopefully he'd find the power to say it before too long had passed. And that done, he turned, heading back towards the Gasthaus, his teacup clutched tightly against his chest.

She watched him go, not really willing to accept apologies in looks, even if he hadn't been himself, had been compelled by a ghost who hated her beyond all reasoning. It still stung, cut a bit, but she turned away, reaching for the cell phone she held and called the bikers she'd brought, moving to the warehouse Peter had indicated, and giving them the address.

It wasn't far from where she'd left them--little was in this town. If they made some noise in arriving...well. So be it. No one was going to come to investigate with so many, not without serious backup the police in this town didn't have right now. And they weren't going to bother for an abandoned place.

She gave them all sweet smiles, and led them inside, catching the scent of blood, John's blood, as soon as they stepped inside. It was all she could do not to cry out, to fall when she saw him, and when one of the bikers started to make a joke, she nearly ripped out his throat.

Instead, she hissed a scathing order, and they all froze like marionettes, as she moved to where John was hanging and bound, and gently, but quickly started freeing him, ready to catch him when he fell.

He collapsed into her arms, not bothering to try and soften the weight of his fall, not able to, and whimpered. He could smell blood -- wanted it, needed it -- but everything still hurt. At his point he was hysterically certain that he couldn't eat even if he wanted to, his jaw all but paralyzed, and even if he could, that would require moving and that would hurt more and God, all he wanted was for the pain to stop. Maybe Lydia would be merciful and put him out of his misery, if she was here at all and not some hopeful hallucination brought on by the coming of the end.

Lydia caught him as gently as she could, and if she was crying, she didn't realize it, not fully. Lowering him to the ground, she cradled him there, brushing fingers over his face, and murmuring some sort of comforting nonsense about how sorry she was, that she hadn't realized who he was, that it was her fault, and she was sorry, but she was going to fix it now. She gestured for one of the bikers blindly, but they were bound tight enough to come and drop beside them both, and she didn't even hesitate, but snagged the man's wrist and near slashed it with her teeth, before holding it up to John's lips.

She could feel his pain, running through her, not able to keep her walls up around him, and her murmurs turned coaxing. He didn't have to open his mouth, not far, just part his lips. The blood was right here, just take a small sip, just a little, and the pain would ease, please, just a bit, for her, he could do that, right?

He barely managed even that, choking on a sob as he tried, but he did manage, blood flowing from the wound and into his mouth through gravity rather than any great act of will or want. Regardless of how it happened, however, the effect it had on him was near immediate, some of the pain subsiding, the steel wiring that had bound his jaw shut shrinking back a little. It still hurt, God, did it hurt, but he wasn't praying for a swift death anymore. There was a chance he could make it out of this alive now, and the predator in him pounced on that, snarling.

Trembling and weak, he reached to curl his fingers around the biker's arm, tugging his bleeding wrist closer to him and making a show of holding him there, even if he didn't have the strength for it. He looked up at Lydia briefly, his eyes black and startlingly mindless, animal instinct taking over, but still somehow grateful, and then buried his face in the other man's skin, drinking greedily, messily, feeling his life slip away and into him as his heartbeat slowed then stopped. While the blood helped, however, he was no where near whole again, his flesh still near-mummified and just barely starting to try and fix what time and Peter had done to him.

He looked up at her, head tilted to one side almost curiously, still more monster than man, and then slid his eyes to the other bikers, licking his lips. He'd had a taste, a tease, of what he needed and now he was ravenous. If he'd had more strength, he might have rocketed across the room and attacked the first man he fell on for how out of control he was in that moment.

Lydia gave him a little smile, and cradled his cheek, even as she beckoned for the second biker to come to them. Despite the fate of their comrade, they didn't seem to concerned, which sort of impressed her with the whole thrall thing. "Don't worry. I brought more," she assured him, in case he couldn't quite tell there were several over there.

If he was still hungry after, they could go hunting, but she figured they'd make a good start to getting him back on the road to recovery.

The second biker knelt beside him, and Lydia went through the same process, not wanting him to have to strain, biting the man's wrist before handing his arm over, holding it if he needed her to, still cradling John as gently as she could.

John didn't hesitate this time, nor did he make a sound, need overriding whatever pain he was still in at the moment, and reaching out, he dragged the man's wrist down to his mouth and sealed it over the wound, draining him dry as quickly as he had the first. He pushed him away with a bit more strength than he had shown before, letting him fall on top of the first one, and shivered, actually feeling a fraction of the rush that came with taking a life this time where he had barely registered it before. It felt good, he was starting to feel better, and it showed on his face, something nearer to sanity filtering back in even as his skin worked to fix itself in earnest.

He still needed more, though, and he shifted a bit, trying to sit up, to get at them, ever hungry. He stopped halfway, hissing, the bite of the bullets still in his shoulder and back racing through him.

Lydia hadn't been aware of the other pain, lesser to the hunger, but there as well, but she felt it now that his hunger had eased enough for him to be hampered by them as well as the other.

"Here..." She helped him shift to sitting, imperiously beckoning a third over to kneel beside him as she moved around behind. He seemed strong enough to deal with the biting now, and feeding would be a distraction. "Eat. I'll...get these out."

She didn't have to tell him it would hurt, but it would be so much better once the poisonous wood was gone, and the ugly wounds could close. Biting her lip, she waited for him to grab the biker while she contemplated the wounds. She had no instruments, but at least sterilization wasn't an issue. It would have to be just fingers then, quick, fast and dirty, but then over. She steeled herself to get it done.

Had he been in his right mind, John might have suggested she borrow a knife from one of the bikers and cut the bullets out; as it was, he just looked back at her suspiciously, not truly grasping what was going on, then decided she wasn't important. There was blood to be had and he could smell the biker kneeling beside him.

Wetting his lips with his tongue again, he turned away from her and tugged the biker's arm over to him. He flashed him a ravenous smile, the expression at least partially covered by his wrist, already at John's mouth, and then he bit down, happily ignoring Lydia in favor of feeling more and more alive again.

She'd been about to go for the first bullet when a glint on the biker's belt caught her attention. Quick as a flash, she had the knife off of him, and in her hand, even as he whimpered, headed to death. Rather than keeping calling them over, she snapped out an order for the rest of them to just line up and wait their turn, and they, quite obligingly, did.

Then, with a muttered apology, and hoping he'd be distracted by the blood that she'd so nicely brought and not turn around when he got his strength back and send her flying or stake her or something before he realized she was trying to help, she went after the first bullet. To her credit--enhanced-speed, dexterity, eyesight and reflexes made her very fast about it?

Even so, he cried out, twisting away from her though not intentionally, and tightened his grip on the biker's arm. While the other man echoed his pain, however, he did not pull away, staying obediently still. John, on the other hand, did move, throwing a snarl and a look over his shoulder even though the pain was already gone, one bullet already out of him. It occurred to him then, belatedly, what she was doing, and he huffed, still not happy but at least not ready to put her through a wall, and turned back to his meal, trying not to think that there were several more that needed to come out now that he could think at all.

"I'm sorry," she murmured again, silent tears streaming down her face, some of the icy resolve she'd built up fracturing a bit more. She'd need to pull it back together, but it was so hard, seeing him hurting like this, seeing what they'd done to him, and feeling the weight of it bearing down.

"I have to...or you won't heal..." She touched his back lightly, but the one wound was already healing with the bullet out, and that gave her the resolve to go after the others with the same determination, though she felt something in her break a little every time she hurt him, after he'd been through so much.

He hissed pain with every bullet that came out, but he did not turn back to her again, nor did he try to get away from her. Instead, he focused himself solely on the remaining bikers, finishing off the queue one at a time until she was done and there were none left. He sat in silence for a moment afterward, his eyes closed as if that would somehow help hasten his body's healing or his efforts to put his thoughts in order, and then, finally he sighed.

"Thank you," he managed, still exhausted in spite of the handful of lives he'd claimed.

Lydia was working on stopping her tears, not wanting to put that burden on him, after all he'd already been through on her behalf, and she swallowed them back in an attempt to find her voice.

"I'm sorry I didn't come sooner," she said softly. "I've been looking. I tried a locator spell, but...I couldn't get more exact than the neighborhood, and he..." That was the night, she was pretty sure, and her stomach twisted again, thinking about it. She forced it down. "You were gone already, when I found where you'd been."

"That you came at all is something. I was beginning to lose hope," he told her, reaching up to rub at his eyes. He felt as though he could sleep for years, though he doubted he would be able to. There was work to be done and he darkened at the thought of it and of Peter. "If that greedy little child would dare to hurt me, I could only guess what he'd done to you. For all I knew, he'd killed you both."

Lydia blinked, then stared at him, shock rolling through her. He didn't...he'd been...he thought...? But why wouldn't he? He didn't know Peter. The thought that Peter could hurt John wasn't something she and Sylar could even contemplate, because they knew him, but John didn't. If they'd followed the right clues, they could have figured it out sooner, but...they couldn't conceive of it, because, well. Peter...wouldn't. She knew that, logically, no matter how much her heart hurt at the moment.

And, hell, until this morning, she'd believed it was just them, too, turning on her, for whatever reason.

"John..." she reached for his hand. "It wasn't...he wasn't..." She took a breath and tried again. "It wasn't Peter. I mean, I know it looked like him? But when he was so sick, when you left...after what had happened to me...it was Samuel. He took control of him, somehow. Possession or whatever. Peter, as himself, would never have done this. Samuel...he was trying to hurt me. So he hurt you. And he used Peter, and then, when Sylar found out..." Her voice cracked, and she took another breath. "He's got Sylar now. He's taken him over, and he's been compelling Peter for days. Both of them..." She closed her eyes, a little shudder running over her skin, and then she looked at him.

"I broke his hold on Peter right before I came here. He's the one who told me where you were. He was...devastated. I sent him to watch Sylar. Samuel. With vervain in his system, so he can't be compelled again."

"I see," he said, watching her with sharp eyes. "You'll have to forgive me for not having the presence of mind for deductive reasoning while I was wounded, starving and bled."

Though honestly, chances were he would have still laid the blame with Peter and not made the leap to possession even if he had been in his right mind. Where Lydia would have rationalized it as him simply not knowing Peter, however, that was not the case. Quite the opposite, actually. In following Sylar, he'd seen much of Peter over the years -- hell, he'd even turned his focus on the boy for a few weeks when he'd lost sight of the killer when he'd been detained at the Company -- and he knew that he had a dark streak. He tempered it very well, yes, but it was still there and what was the difference between shooting your own brother or taking a nail gun to your mortal enemy and torturing the man who had technically killed your best friend and, quite possibly, others, too.

He didn't say that, though, flashing her a semi-apologetic look instead. He hadn't meant to snap at her, if what he'd said could be considered scathing at all, but he was rapidly growing more and more irritated. With Peter. With Samuel. With all of them, all of this, except perhaps for her and Sylar. And it was apparently showing and it wasn't over yet.

He reached up, scrubbing a hand over his eyes, and then moved to get to his feet, wincing, expecting pain where there had been pain for a week now, and sighing in relief when it did not come. "Regardless, though, we should go find them. If he has my boy, chances are it won't take him long to realize that Peter's lurking about, and I'd like to take care of this before any of us suffer any further."

Well, truthfully, he could care less whether or not Samuel found Peter and bled him dry. After all the boy had done to him, he rather thought he deserved it. What concerned him more was the fact that Peter's blood was poisoned, and if Samuel drank from him ... well, he didn't want that.

She shook her head a little. "No...I...I didn't figure it out until this morning, and I was right there with them, so..." She looked away, shame heating her cheeks for a moment, before she swallowed it back and focused back on him.

"I hid the herbs you brought back. We found them in the clearing. They're at the Gasthaus, but even Sylar doesn't know where they are, so Samuel won't."

She rose fairly fluidly, emotions back locked down, and held out her hand to him. "I don't know anything about ghost banishing, and I spent most of the week on trying to find you, not realizing that's what I should still have been researching. What do you need me to do?"

He reached for her hand, lacing his fingers with hers when he could, and moved towards the stairs, half-leaning on her, though not out of any want to maintain his usual illusion of infirmity. "I couldn't tell you right now, my dear. I need to see the state of things -- particularly how bad off my boy is -- before I can decide how far I need to take this."

So much depended on how far Samuel's hooks extended into Sylar. If he was still at least partially aware, it would be easier -- he could even potentially help them get Samuel out of him. If Samuel had forced him into some dark corner of his mind and trapped him there, though, things would be more difficult. Either way, getting Samuel out would still be possible, if not highly unpleasant for Sylar and potentially him, too, if Samuel could manipulate the bond he had with the killer, but how much it would take would depend on Sylar himself.

JMM 37.10 Defying Gravity [For hadtobeahero and <lj site="livejou

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