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

[thepainted_lady]

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.

Comments

[of-highdegree.livejournal.com]

John woke up in agony. Not that this was anything new these days.

He hadn't eaten in nearly a week, and while this normally wouldn't be a problem, his body at his age only demanding he feed once every few days, the bullets still lodged in his shoulder, back and legs were a poison. They kept bleeding, unable to heal, and between that and the fact that the boy kept taking more blood, more than he would ever give a pet in the best of times, he was most assuredly starving and it was taking its toll on him. He didn't dare move, didn't try to escape, too weak for it, each little movement like a firebrand against skin that more than showed every last one of his four hundred and some years. Staying still was almost just as bad and his jaw ached, the pain too great to even think about trying to open his mouth far enough to feed, let alone rip out the boy's throat on the off chance he could muster the strength to escape his bonds in the first place.

It was hell. Worse than whatever sickness he'd endured as a human. Worse than the vervain Richard had poisoned him with after he'd killed Anna. And worse than that, he could faintly make out the door opening upstairs and someone descending the steps to where he was hidden away. The boy was back.

A week ago, he would have threatened him -- he had threatened him. Now he just watched him with hollow eyes, not entirely able to focus on him from the starvation and not particularly wanting to. The boy said something to him, though he couldn't understand him, brambles of pain catching in his ability to reason and tearing his thoughts to shreds and moved over to him, fingers going to the rope at his wrists. He undid one side, pulling his arm down from the board it had been pinned to, and John whimpered, the edges of his vision bleeding black from the agony that gentle a movement was. His eyes fluttered closed, but not before he saw Peter lean into his wrist, his teeth sharpened to fine points.

Fangs. It hadn't even been a week, and the boy had fangs already. If he could have screamed when the pull of blood started, he would have.

Eventually, finally, mercifully, the boy pulled back, and John sagged back against the wood behind him, sobbing soundlessly, sure for a moment that he would be sick. Peter rebound his arm and stepped back, as if he was expecting the same, but nothing came and eventually the boy grew tired of watching him, moving away and back up the stairs, though the pain barely let him track him that far. He prayed that, where ever Peter was going, someone would put him out of his misery or that someone would arrive to put him out of his own, and then he was slipping back under into unconsciousness, spared more agony from overload on this slice of torment.

And Peter, breathing hard and high on blood, moved out of the warehouse and back towards the Gasthaus, hoping with a sort of insane fervor that Sylar (Samuel) had something for him to do.