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

Entry tags:

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

Lydia looked up at him when he came in, and his emotions battened into hers, and she almost whimpered, but held the sound in, biting down on her lip. When he sat, she gave in to the tiny need for some comfort from the storm, and leaned into him a little. He was safe, he was...a week ago, he'd been the one she'd trusted to end it all, and he had, but he'd suffered along the way, along with everyone else, and she didn't know how to make up for that.

That he was offering her a key to his home, that he wanted her there, after all of that...so much that he was willing to take Peter as well, and not just for Sylar...sort of stunned her. She took the key, looking at him a little blankly, not understanding how any of them could want her around after all of this, but she nodded.

"I'll bring him, once he's able to travel..." She didn't know when that would be, hadn't heard him stirring, didn't know if he'd ever recover, though if Peter had, surely Sylar would too? Her eyes slid away, down to the key, fingers tracing the ancient metal. "I'm sorry."

"Give him the night," he suggested, shifting a bit to lean back against her. "You'll likely want to find somewhere else to spend it -- and I'd be willing to give you the key to my flat here, too, if you think one of you has the strength to carry him there -- but he'll be fine in a few hours. Starved, I'm certain, but fine."

He paused again once that was out of the way, pulling away from her to look down at her, frowning. "For what, love?"

Lydia felt sick again at the mere idea of staying here for the night. "Peter's got a room upstairs," she remembered, "But I could carry him..." Though she wasn't sure she could...on a different level if she didn't have to.

She looked away. "For causing all of this."

"I'd suggest taking that, then -- far less work for the lot of you," he said. In spite of that, though, he reached for his keys again, unhooking another one to pass to her. "If you should change your mind, though ... it's on the far end of town, just before the woods. Very old, very hard to miss."

He dropped his hands into his lap. "And as for all of this ... if I plan on blaming anyone, it'll be your human friend or, barring him, myself. I hadn't actually been expecting anything to happen that night in the clearing -- powerful as I must seem to you, I'd been trying for centuries without much luck. If I'd known it was possible and not just the whimsy of an old man, I would have thought to get my hands on some Hawthorn then, and not just to prevent anything else from slipping in."

Considering that the last words he had spoken to Anna had been part of a heated argument, it was a miracle she hadn't been hostile towards him. Hawthorn would have kept her from doing the same to him as Samuel had done to them, on the chance that she was, as well as keeping Samuel from coming over in the first place.

She took the key on the off chance that she needed a place away from them. One room, filled with Peter's scent, especially...she wasn't sure how much she'd sleep, and she needed it. Sylar needed food, though, and she would, too, eventually, even if the idea was not at all appealing right now.

"I'm the one who attracted his attention, though," she said softly. "I went..heedlessly off in search of something I'd no right to, and then once it all started..." She shook her head. "I couldn't tell. He had them, toturing them in their own minds, and I...couldn't even tell. I was as blinded to him as I was when human for so long. And what he did to you? That was..."

Peter and Sylar had, admittedly, earned his ire on their own, as much as to hurt her, with thwarting his plans and Sylar's part in his death, but John. "He did that just to hurt me. You were hurt because of me."

"Yet you didn't do so intentionally, dear," he told her patiently. "It was a mistake. They happen. I still make them, even at my age, and you'll probably have made plenty by the time you get as old as me. I doubt they'll all be as bad as this, but ... no one is infallible. Not even us."

He glanced back towards the door, his eyes equal parts distant and unhappy. "And really, I should have known. There was something wrong the day I came to you, after you'd had your nightmare. I felt it on some level, but I couldn't put my finger on it, and so I dismissed it. I imagine I was to concerned with other things to put much thought to it. I had the same feeling when Peter came to me outside the Gasthaus the day I disappeared."

He looked back to her, offering her a wan, wry smile. "You think after four hundred and three years, I'd have learned to trust my gut reactions."

She tucked her knees up against her chest--a little less comfortably than normal--and if she looked unconvinced by his logic, she was at least listening.

"He's gone now, though, right?" she asked, leaving aside the issue of fault.

He considered that for a moment, reaching out mentally for whatever he had felt that first day in the room. It was thankfully gone, however -- not that he was expecting it not to be, but it didn't hurt to look -- and he nodded. "He is."

She leaned back against the tub, closing her eyes, and letting the relief shiver through her. "Thank you," she said softly, after a moment, opening her eyes to look back at him.

"I really am so sorry my...mistake got you hurt, but...thank you for helping me put it right." Or as right as they could.

"I'm alive, girl." Or, well, as alive as any of them could be considered, at any rate. He didn't bother putting that addendum in there, though, not wanting to upset or traumatize her any worse than she already had been. Especially not with something that would have been a fairly innocent comment. "And largely thanks to you. I'd say that counts for something and that we can put this all behind us."

Long story short? Apology accepted and she was very welcome.

Lydia nodded a little bit more, glad he wasn't particularly angry with her, or blaming her for it all. She probably wouldn't stop blaming herself for a while, but it helped to know he didn't.

"I shouldn't keep you, if you want to make your train..." He needed to go home. She understood that. Part of her wanted to, too, but she didn't really have one of those anymore. Samuel had destroyed that along with everything else.

Nodding, he got to his feet slowly and with some small measure of difficulty, and glanced to the door. He looked back at her very seriously, his next words less a polite request and more an order. "I expect to see you in London in a day or two."

Lydia heard the order in the words and nodded obediently, even if she wasn't quite sure why he'd really want them there. "We'll be there."

"Good girl." He flashed her a thin, tired, smile, and then he turned, heading out of the bathroom, exhaustion apparent in his every step.

Lydia sat on the floor for a few more minutes, gathering her own strength--more emotional than physical--to go back in the room and face the two people in there. The night wasn't really over, yet, and she didn't want to stay here any longer than they had to for Sylar to wake up and be on his feet.

Finally pushing to her feet, she moved to the door, hovering there, the bravado and determination she'd had all night starting to drain, even as she clung to it, wrapping it around her like armor to get through what still needed to be done.

Still on the floor, still hovering over Sylar even though there was very little he could actually do for him, Peter looked up when she entered. He frowned at her for a moment, then looked away, fidgeting a bit as his eyes fell on some indeterminate spot on Sylar's chest. A moment of hesitation followed, and then, "His pulse is still slow, even for what's normal for you guys, but ... "

He had no idea where he was going with that, honestly. If Sylar had still been human, he could have said for sure what condition the other man was in, but he knew nothing about vampire physiology or how long the vervain would affect him, so the words had been more to fill space rather than to actually assess his condition.

"John said he'll be okay in a bit, but will need to rest," she said, making herself come forward into the room more.

"I don't know if we should wait until he comes to, or move him now, but...I don't think any of us needs to be in here longer than necessary. We could go to your room, or John gave me a key to his place in town."

They were things to do, things to say, and she kept going through saying them, before she felt herself need to collapse again.

"I think I can carry him, if you wanna go somewhere else," he said, still studying Sylar's chest intently, "but it's up to you. I mean ... "

He shrugged, not bothering to finish. They both knew why she might want to get away from the Gasthaus; there was no need for more words to fight the silence.

Lydia nodded a little bit, rubbing her hands over the leather coating her arms for a moment. "Yeah, I think...we should go to John's place. I can help carry him..." She was pretty strong, after all, stronger than Peter, really.

There was their stuff, too, that would need to be moved, but Sylar was more important. They could get the stuff later, or Peter could maybe get that, or...something. "I just...I'd rather..." Not try and sleep here, but she figured that was something she didn't need to say aloud.

"Yeah, I get it," he murmured, reaching up to run his fingers through his hair.

A sigh followed, and then he was reaching for one of Sylar's arms tug him up onto his shoulders. He got to his feet slowly, hovering up off the ground just a bit in order to cheat gravity and the extra dead weight, and chanced her a glance. Sure, he could bear his weight to where ever they were headed, but ...

"You want to -- I mean, I could just get our stuff so we don't have to come back, if you could carry him."

Lydia glanced at him measuringly, considering the options. More than anything, she wanted out of here, and not to come back, never ever to come back to all the memories caught here. Swallowing, she nodded slightly, and moved forward to slide her arms around Sylar and take his weight off of Peter, lifting him easily enough.

"I can carry him. Get our stuff."

Peter let her take his weight, touching back down when it was gone from his shoulders, and shifted to look around the room. Their things -- Lydia's, Sylar's, some of his own that he hadn't collected when he'd been kicked out of the room -- were spread far and wide. Some of it was in neater piles, where Sylar had been compelled to put things in some state of order before Samuel had taken, but this had been their living space for a good long while and none of it was in any real order for packing.

He made a face, moving to grab one of Sylar's bags off of the luggage stand where he'd left it, and looked towards the window. "This is gonna take a couple of minutes, so ... if you wanna take him downstairs and wait for me?" He wouldn't blame her, really.

Edited 2011-03-03 20:47 (UTC)

Waiting downstairs with an unconscious Sylar, she couldn't see how that wouldn't raise questions she didn't really want to answer. Sure, she could just compel anyone not to notice, but that was a lot of people to compel, and she was tired after doing so all day.

Another idea occurred to her, and she shook her head. "Why don't I go on ahead and you just bring the stuff?" She gave Peter the directions John had given her to his house. "We can come back and officially check out and settle up tomorrow, after we've rested."

In all honesty, he'd been expecting her to go out the window and wait with Sylar down in the alley, maybe see if she couldn't rouse him into consciousness and find him something to eat to flush out the poison he'd fed him. He supposed that her idea made just as much sense, though, and even if he hadn't, he was too tired to argue, so he simply shrugged, repeating the directions Lydia have given him over and over again in an effort to memorize them on the fly.

"Okay." He reached up to comb his fingers through his hair, then haltingly, as if he half-expected to go to the house and find it empty, he asked, "I guess I'll see you there in a little while?"

As tired as she was, somehow the option to just wait in the alley hadn't occurred to her. It did now, catching the bit of the thought from his head, and as well as she'd fed, she flushed a little, but didn't quite meet his eyes for a moment.

She read the uncertainty in his voice, though, and in his thoughts, and glanced back up at him with a vague frown and nodded. "We'll be there." It wasn't easy to have to reassure him, but she tried to sound as reassuring as she could. Whatever had gone on, she wasn't just going to abandon him.

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

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject