January 3.4 You’re the best friend I ever had.
"Say that one more time, love. You’re a what?"
Lydia supposed that complete disbelief was better than some of the alternatives--namely incoherent rage--but she wasn’t ruling that one out when it had sunk in. Glancing down at the tea Edgar had gotten her when she’d arrived at his apartment, she stared in the depths wishing she had some ability to read leaves and see any possible way this was going to end well.
"A vampire."
At the silence from the other side of the table, Lydia glanced back up, meeting Edgar’s gaze that questioned if she had gone mad, or were playing some sort of joke, or had wandered into the realm of a world he hadn’t dreamed existed. She willed him to believe her, though was careful not to put any compulsion behind her words when she spoke. Not yet.
“I’m serious, Edgar. I know it sounds...crazy, but.” She took a breath. “Vampires are real. One found Sylar and turned him a while back. He...couldn’t stay in New York, and he came and found me. After a while, he made me one, too.”
“Why?”
Lydia blinked. It was a perfect question, really, one that gave her the opening she needed to defend Sylar without even having to be seeming to, but somehow she hadn’t expected it.
“I asked him to.”
“You wanted...this?”
“Yes.” One word wasn’t going to do it, she could tell. He didn’t even fully believe her, yet. Some part of him was just...humoring her. Some part of him was in denial. She sighed, taking a sip of tea. She could flash her fangs and prove it to him in the most bloody of ways, but that wasn’t exactly the image she wanted to sear into his brain before she asked for her daughter back. “I...died. And it was...cold, and terrifying, and lonely. I woke up alone, too, for all that Claire was there, and ever since...I felt like something was trying to pull me back. Like I wasn’t supposed to be here anymore. It scared me. This...I was tired of being afraid. Tired of being helpless. Tired of waiting to die.”
Edgar winced, and she felt a flicker of remorse, but she pushed on. “So, yes. I asked him to make me like him. Stronger, more powerful. Immortal. I don’t have to be afraid anymore.”
That was a lie, and it flickered a little at the edges of memory and conscience. Samuel had proven that fear could still haunt her steps, and she still woke trembling from ghosts that walked in her dreams. But Edgar didn’t need to know that, and the fear like this was far less than it ever had been when she’d been just a girl.
“But you’re...dead anyway, aren’t you?” Edgar asked. “If you are what you say...”
Lydia shook her head vehemently. She didn’t care what Sylar or John said, or believed. She had her own theories, and she was sticking to them. “Not dead. Just...changed.” She moved to kneel by his chair, reaching for his hand and placing it at her throat. “I still have a heartbeat, Edgar. I still breathe. I still...feel and love and want and dream. I still have my ability. I’m still me in all the ways that matter. Just...with a few more abilities and different nutritional needs.”
His hand was so warm against her skin it almost seemed to burn. Despite feeding on humans every night, she’d forgotten how warm just a simple touch could be, and he kept his fingers there, tracing one fingertip along the line of the sharper, darker tattoos.
“And these...?”
“I guess they reflect some of the changes. They were like that when I woke up...”
“As a vampire. Not from when Claire healed you, like you implied before.”
“Yeah.”
“That’s why the sunglasses, and why you were so skittish.”
Lydia nodded, not wanting to admit out loud how very hard it had been not to bite him. He still smelled really, really tempting, but she was better at control than she’d been those months ago. It probably was a miracle she’d managed not to give the game away then.
“Did he hurt you?”
Lydia blinked, trying to figure out who he meant, and when she gleaned they were still talking about Sylar and he hadn’t guessed anything about Samuel, she almost laughed.
“No. God, no. He loves me. And I love him.”
That clearly didn’t set well with Edgar. “What’s with Petrelli, then?”
Lydia sighed, running a hand through her hair. “It’s...he’s ours, now, too. It’s a long story.”
“He’s like you.”
Lydia nodded.
“You weren’t enough, so he had to go and change him, too?”
Lydia gave Edgar an exasperated look. “Actually, I was the first one to give Peter blood and we both changed him.”
“Why?”
“Like I said, it’s a long story.”
“I’ve got time.”
Lydia gave him a frustrated look which he returned implacably until she stood, swishing her skirt and got up, pacing. She really didn’t want to tell him about Samuel--not that they’d broken him out of prison, not that they’d killed him, not that she’d accidentally brought his ghost back, none of it. But she...owed him for letting him think she was dead, and keeping this from him, and so she laid the story out, bare bones, ending with Peter’s addiction and the need to either let him suffer for the rest of time, or turn him.
Edgar was watching her almost warily by the end of it, as if seeing a side of her he might rather have not, and Lydia shivered a bit. “The...he was Sylar’s best friend. He missed him. And we’ve...gotten close.”
“Sounds like it,” Edgar said dryly.
Lydia made a face at him, tempted to stick her tongue out, but she knew this had to hurt on some level so she refrained, just moving to his window, looking out at the snowstorm she, for once, hadn’t caused. He was warm behind her, solid and reassuring, though when he touched her again, she could feel all the turmoil underneath the surface. Leaning back with a sigh, she let him wrap his arms around her, knowing he needed that reassurance as much as she--that she was still her, still there.
“Why are you telling me this now?”
“I missed you. And Amanda. And I couldn’t have you in my life and keep lying. You’d notice something, eventually, and...I didn’t want to lie to you.”
“Again?”
“Again,” she acknowledged, ducking her head to let her hair cover her face.
“What do you want, Lydia?”
“I want my daughter. I can’t...I don’t want to be without her. We’re...sort of settled in London, now. I want her to come back with me, if she wants that, too. If she can...accept this.”
“She’s got a life here...”
Lydia tensed. “She’s my daughter.”
“Who you were perfectly content to let think you were dead while you did...God knows what. Now you’ve figured everything out and you want her back? She’s not a stray kitten, Lydia. She’s a child--one who’s lost you twice already. If you change your mind...”
Lydia pulled back and spun around preternaturally fast, staring at him, stricken. “I won’t change my mind. Not a day has gone by I haven’t missed her, not for sixteen years...”
“Yeah, well. You broke that little girl’s heart when you didn’t immediately let her know you were alive. You sure your ability’s working, that you didn’t catch that when you were here? And then just a package at Christmas? A few postcards?”
“You don’t understand,” Lydia protested. “It wasn’t safe. I wasn’t safe. Peter wasn’t safe. I had to go away until I learned how to control it, and then we had to stay away until Peter got more control, but now we’re both good. We’ve learned, and she won’t be in any danger...”
“You could’ve explained that instead of lying.”
Lydia dashed at a couple of tears. “I know. I fucked up. I just...I was...I didn’t know how either of you would react. I didn’t want you to think I was a monster, and then everything happened with Samuel and we were all...just a mess. It wasn’t a good environment for her, and I knew you were taking better care of her than I could.”
“But now you think you’ll just take her away from me. And then what? Make her like you?”
“No! Of course not! She’s sixteen!” Lydia glared at him. “She’ll go to school. College. If she wants this when she’s an adult, we can talk about it, but no one’s touching her until then.”
“One human girl in a house of vampires...”
“She’ll be fine. I won’t let anything happen to her.”
Edgar snorted, then was silent for a long moment, as if trying to decide how much he believed that, watching her with eyes she couldn’t read anything behind, making her skin twitch a bit with the way they seemed to see her in ways he wasn’t supposed to be able to. “And what about you, love?”
The abrupt change of subject threw her. Lydia frowned. “What about me?”
“Who’s going to take care of you?” He reached out, brushing her hair back.
“Sylar and Peter...though part of this was to make sure I don’t need to be taken care of anymore.”
“What happened with Samuel...”
“Wasn’t their fault and won’t happen again.”
“Are you certain they’ll be there? Eternity’s a long time, and you haven’t even been with them a full year...”
“You can’t understand what it’s like, to be bonded the way we are...”
“That’s all well and good, love, but I’m talking about unselfish, unconditional love and knowing someone better than they know themselves that goes beyond any mystical bond--something human and built up around perfection and imperfection and falling down and getting back up...”
Lydia shifted a little, frowning. “We’ll get that...”
“Turn me.”
Of all the things he could have said, that was the last she’d expected. “...What?”
“Turn me. Make me like you. Then I can be there, protect you and Amanda, no matter what happens, no matter when.”
Lydia shook her head a little, trying to play it off. “You’d be tempted to eat Amanda for months, which is hardly helpful.”
“I’ll stay away until I’m not,” he said softly, moving closer. “I’m not...I’m not trying to mess up what you’ve found, what you’ve built, Lydia. If you’re happy...”
“I am,” she said insistently.
“That’s all I ever wanted.” He was lying, she knew, but there was enough truth in it that she didn’t call him on it. “But I can’t let you and her just...waltz off and out of my life without doing all I can to make sure you’re safe and looked after.”
“So...your solution is to become a vampire.”
Edgar shrugged. “One way to make sure you’ve always got someone, no matter what. I know I’m not going anywhere.”
“Neither are they.”
Edgar just shrugged again, the look on his face saying volumes with its sheer impassivity and making her swallow back a slew of retorts.
“I’m not just going to...change you into a vampire.” Lydia huffed, pushing her hair back.
“Why not?”
“You just found out they existed today!”
“So?”
“So...you have to think about it. You’re giving up mortality. And humanity. And the chance to have a normal life, with kids and someone to marry and grow old with...”
“Already lost out on that, love.”
Lydia stopped, then, her breath catching and her eyes filling a bit with tears, before she reached to brush fingers down his cheek. “Edgar...”
He cleared his throat. “So, I’ll take this.”
“Think about it.”
“Don’t need to.”
“Think about it,” she said a bit more insistently.
“You’re willing to change her when she’s an adult, but not listening to my opinion, and me a man grown?” He gave her a disbelieving look.
“I’m willing to change her after she’s had years to grow up around us, to see what our life is like and to weigh her options and make a choice. I’m not saying no to you, Edgar. I’m saying...come to London if you want. Help me keep her safe. We can go out in the sun, but a lot of times we don’t, and she’ll want that, and I’ll feel better knowing she’s got a daytime guardian there, someone she knows. Watch us. Come hunting with me, maybe, even. See what it is you’re really asking for. Then...if you still want it...”
“I will,” he said, jaw setting stubbornly.
Lydia nodded a little. “If you do, I’ll do it.”
He nodded in turn. “This is really all real?”
A laugh that was almost a sob broke free from her lips. “Oh yeah. It’s real.”
“Like fangs and all?”
Lydia tilted her head at him, watching him, then shifted into her leopard form, and wandered toward him. To his credit, Edgar held his ground as she wound around his legs before shifting back into a girl, much closer, eyes darker, fangs extended.
“Fangs and all.”
“Fuck.”
She tried to swallow back the hunger from her little display, but his heart was beating faster with fear or alarm or excitement or something and that kept her predatory interest up. It took control, but she stepped back, until his arm snaked out, lightning fast, to grab her upper arm.
“Show me.”
“What?”
He swallowed, making his Adam’s apple bob. “If I’m gonna be like you, I should...know what it’s like. And you should...eat before Amanda gets home from school.”
Her eyebrows went up. “I ate before I came over, Edgar...”
“Yeah, well...you’re looking pretty hungry now...”
She wasn’t, exactly, but she was getting there with the wanting, which hadn’t been part of the plan. And if he was offering so nicely...John would probably be cranky that she’d gone and munched on her best friend, but she knew how to stop now, and she wasn’t starving or anything. And if he really wanted to be one of them...better he got an idea of it now.
Amanda would be home, soon, and then she’d have to tell her, and go through this all over again, and hope that her daughter didn’t think she thought she was a stray kitten, and wanted to come to London. The thought that she might not want to hadn’t even occurred to Lydia before Edgar’s protests. It would really be better to be fortified for that.
She was getting very good at rationalization.
Edgar hissed a bit in pain, but she made sure it faded quickly, and by the time she was done, she was pretty sure she was going to have her family back together instead of scattered across the ocean sooner rather than later, and then maybe this restless, yearning feeling inside of her would finally go away.
Muse: Lydia
Fandom: Heroes
Words: 2477
Notes: Set in AU Xover with the book canon of The Vampire Diaries. Sylar and Peter mentioned are heroslayer and hadtobeahero respectively. Edgar is watchesover_her and mine for purposes of the fic
Lydia supposed that complete disbelief was better than some of the alternatives--namely incoherent rage--but she wasn’t ruling that one out when it had sunk in. Glancing down at the tea Edgar had gotten her when she’d arrived at his apartment, she stared in the depths wishing she had some ability to read leaves and see any possible way this was going to end well.
"A vampire."
At the silence from the other side of the table, Lydia glanced back up, meeting Edgar’s gaze that questioned if she had gone mad, or were playing some sort of joke, or had wandered into the realm of a world he hadn’t dreamed existed. She willed him to believe her, though was careful not to put any compulsion behind her words when she spoke. Not yet.
“I’m serious, Edgar. I know it sounds...crazy, but.” She took a breath. “Vampires are real. One found Sylar and turned him a while back. He...couldn’t stay in New York, and he came and found me. After a while, he made me one, too.”
“Why?”
Lydia blinked. It was a perfect question, really, one that gave her the opening she needed to defend Sylar without even having to be seeming to, but somehow she hadn’t expected it.
“I asked him to.”
“You wanted...this?”
“Yes.” One word wasn’t going to do it, she could tell. He didn’t even fully believe her, yet. Some part of him was just...humoring her. Some part of him was in denial. She sighed, taking a sip of tea. She could flash her fangs and prove it to him in the most bloody of ways, but that wasn’t exactly the image she wanted to sear into his brain before she asked for her daughter back. “I...died. And it was...cold, and terrifying, and lonely. I woke up alone, too, for all that Claire was there, and ever since...I felt like something was trying to pull me back. Like I wasn’t supposed to be here anymore. It scared me. This...I was tired of being afraid. Tired of being helpless. Tired of waiting to die.”
Edgar winced, and she felt a flicker of remorse, but she pushed on. “So, yes. I asked him to make me like him. Stronger, more powerful. Immortal. I don’t have to be afraid anymore.”
That was a lie, and it flickered a little at the edges of memory and conscience. Samuel had proven that fear could still haunt her steps, and she still woke trembling from ghosts that walked in her dreams. But Edgar didn’t need to know that, and the fear like this was far less than it ever had been when she’d been just a girl.
“But you’re...dead anyway, aren’t you?” Edgar asked. “If you are what you say...”
Lydia shook her head vehemently. She didn’t care what Sylar or John said, or believed. She had her own theories, and she was sticking to them. “Not dead. Just...changed.” She moved to kneel by his chair, reaching for his hand and placing it at her throat. “I still have a heartbeat, Edgar. I still breathe. I still...feel and love and want and dream. I still have my ability. I’m still me in all the ways that matter. Just...with a few more abilities and different nutritional needs.”
His hand was so warm against her skin it almost seemed to burn. Despite feeding on humans every night, she’d forgotten how warm just a simple touch could be, and he kept his fingers there, tracing one fingertip along the line of the sharper, darker tattoos.
“And these...?”
“I guess they reflect some of the changes. They were like that when I woke up...”
“As a vampire. Not from when Claire healed you, like you implied before.”
“Yeah.”
“That’s why the sunglasses, and why you were so skittish.”
Lydia nodded, not wanting to admit out loud how very hard it had been not to bite him. He still smelled really, really tempting, but she was better at control than she’d been those months ago. It probably was a miracle she’d managed not to give the game away then.
“Did he hurt you?”
Lydia blinked, trying to figure out who he meant, and when she gleaned they were still talking about Sylar and he hadn’t guessed anything about Samuel, she almost laughed.
“No. God, no. He loves me. And I love him.”
That clearly didn’t set well with Edgar. “What’s with Petrelli, then?”
Lydia sighed, running a hand through her hair. “It’s...he’s ours, now, too. It’s a long story.”
“He’s like you.”
Lydia nodded.
“You weren’t enough, so he had to go and change him, too?”
Lydia gave Edgar an exasperated look. “Actually, I was the first one to give Peter blood and we both changed him.”
“Why?”
“Like I said, it’s a long story.”
“I’ve got time.”
Lydia gave him a frustrated look which he returned implacably until she stood, swishing her skirt and got up, pacing. She really didn’t want to tell him about Samuel--not that they’d broken him out of prison, not that they’d killed him, not that she’d accidentally brought his ghost back, none of it. But she...owed him for letting him think she was dead, and keeping this from him, and so she laid the story out, bare bones, ending with Peter’s addiction and the need to either let him suffer for the rest of time, or turn him.
Edgar was watching her almost warily by the end of it, as if seeing a side of her he might rather have not, and Lydia shivered a bit. “The...he was Sylar’s best friend. He missed him. And we’ve...gotten close.”
“Sounds like it,” Edgar said dryly.
Lydia made a face at him, tempted to stick her tongue out, but she knew this had to hurt on some level so she refrained, just moving to his window, looking out at the snowstorm she, for once, hadn’t caused. He was warm behind her, solid and reassuring, though when he touched her again, she could feel all the turmoil underneath the surface. Leaning back with a sigh, she let him wrap his arms around her, knowing he needed that reassurance as much as she--that she was still her, still there.
“Why are you telling me this now?”
“I missed you. And Amanda. And I couldn’t have you in my life and keep lying. You’d notice something, eventually, and...I didn’t want to lie to you.”
“Again?”
“Again,” she acknowledged, ducking her head to let her hair cover her face.
“What do you want, Lydia?”
“I want my daughter. I can’t...I don’t want to be without her. We’re...sort of settled in London, now. I want her to come back with me, if she wants that, too. If she can...accept this.”
“She’s got a life here...”
Lydia tensed. “She’s my daughter.”
“Who you were perfectly content to let think you were dead while you did...God knows what. Now you’ve figured everything out and you want her back? She’s not a stray kitten, Lydia. She’s a child--one who’s lost you twice already. If you change your mind...”
Lydia pulled back and spun around preternaturally fast, staring at him, stricken. “I won’t change my mind. Not a day has gone by I haven’t missed her, not for sixteen years...”
“Yeah, well. You broke that little girl’s heart when you didn’t immediately let her know you were alive. You sure your ability’s working, that you didn’t catch that when you were here? And then just a package at Christmas? A few postcards?”
“You don’t understand,” Lydia protested. “It wasn’t safe. I wasn’t safe. Peter wasn’t safe. I had to go away until I learned how to control it, and then we had to stay away until Peter got more control, but now we’re both good. We’ve learned, and she won’t be in any danger...”
“You could’ve explained that instead of lying.”
Lydia dashed at a couple of tears. “I know. I fucked up. I just...I was...I didn’t know how either of you would react. I didn’t want you to think I was a monster, and then everything happened with Samuel and we were all...just a mess. It wasn’t a good environment for her, and I knew you were taking better care of her than I could.”
“But now you think you’ll just take her away from me. And then what? Make her like you?”
“No! Of course not! She’s sixteen!” Lydia glared at him. “She’ll go to school. College. If she wants this when she’s an adult, we can talk about it, but no one’s touching her until then.”
“One human girl in a house of vampires...”
“She’ll be fine. I won’t let anything happen to her.”
Edgar snorted, then was silent for a long moment, as if trying to decide how much he believed that, watching her with eyes she couldn’t read anything behind, making her skin twitch a bit with the way they seemed to see her in ways he wasn’t supposed to be able to. “And what about you, love?”
The abrupt change of subject threw her. Lydia frowned. “What about me?”
“Who’s going to take care of you?” He reached out, brushing her hair back.
“Sylar and Peter...though part of this was to make sure I don’t need to be taken care of anymore.”
“What happened with Samuel...”
“Wasn’t their fault and won’t happen again.”
“Are you certain they’ll be there? Eternity’s a long time, and you haven’t even been with them a full year...”
“You can’t understand what it’s like, to be bonded the way we are...”
“That’s all well and good, love, but I’m talking about unselfish, unconditional love and knowing someone better than they know themselves that goes beyond any mystical bond--something human and built up around perfection and imperfection and falling down and getting back up...”
Lydia shifted a little, frowning. “We’ll get that...”
“Turn me.”
Of all the things he could have said, that was the last she’d expected. “...What?”
“Turn me. Make me like you. Then I can be there, protect you and Amanda, no matter what happens, no matter when.”
Lydia shook her head a little, trying to play it off. “You’d be tempted to eat Amanda for months, which is hardly helpful.”
“I’ll stay away until I’m not,” he said softly, moving closer. “I’m not...I’m not trying to mess up what you’ve found, what you’ve built, Lydia. If you’re happy...”
“I am,” she said insistently.
“That’s all I ever wanted.” He was lying, she knew, but there was enough truth in it that she didn’t call him on it. “But I can’t let you and her just...waltz off and out of my life without doing all I can to make sure you’re safe and looked after.”
“So...your solution is to become a vampire.”
Edgar shrugged. “One way to make sure you’ve always got someone, no matter what. I know I’m not going anywhere.”
“Neither are they.”
Edgar just shrugged again, the look on his face saying volumes with its sheer impassivity and making her swallow back a slew of retorts.
“I’m not just going to...change you into a vampire.” Lydia huffed, pushing her hair back.
“Why not?”
“You just found out they existed today!”
“So?”
“So...you have to think about it. You’re giving up mortality. And humanity. And the chance to have a normal life, with kids and someone to marry and grow old with...”
“Already lost out on that, love.”
Lydia stopped, then, her breath catching and her eyes filling a bit with tears, before she reached to brush fingers down his cheek. “Edgar...”
He cleared his throat. “So, I’ll take this.”
“Think about it.”
“Don’t need to.”
“Think about it,” she said a bit more insistently.
“You’re willing to change her when she’s an adult, but not listening to my opinion, and me a man grown?” He gave her a disbelieving look.
“I’m willing to change her after she’s had years to grow up around us, to see what our life is like and to weigh her options and make a choice. I’m not saying no to you, Edgar. I’m saying...come to London if you want. Help me keep her safe. We can go out in the sun, but a lot of times we don’t, and she’ll want that, and I’ll feel better knowing she’s got a daytime guardian there, someone she knows. Watch us. Come hunting with me, maybe, even. See what it is you’re really asking for. Then...if you still want it...”
“I will,” he said, jaw setting stubbornly.
Lydia nodded a little. “If you do, I’ll do it.”
He nodded in turn. “This is really all real?”
A laugh that was almost a sob broke free from her lips. “Oh yeah. It’s real.”
“Like fangs and all?”
Lydia tilted her head at him, watching him, then shifted into her leopard form, and wandered toward him. To his credit, Edgar held his ground as she wound around his legs before shifting back into a girl, much closer, eyes darker, fangs extended.
“Fangs and all.”
“Fuck.”
She tried to swallow back the hunger from her little display, but his heart was beating faster with fear or alarm or excitement or something and that kept her predatory interest up. It took control, but she stepped back, until his arm snaked out, lightning fast, to grab her upper arm.
“Show me.”
“What?”
He swallowed, making his Adam’s apple bob. “If I’m gonna be like you, I should...know what it’s like. And you should...eat before Amanda gets home from school.”
Her eyebrows went up. “I ate before I came over, Edgar...”
“Yeah, well...you’re looking pretty hungry now...”
She wasn’t, exactly, but she was getting there with the wanting, which hadn’t been part of the plan. And if he was offering so nicely...John would probably be cranky that she’d gone and munched on her best friend, but she knew how to stop now, and she wasn’t starving or anything. And if he really wanted to be one of them...better he got an idea of it now.
Amanda would be home, soon, and then she’d have to tell her, and go through this all over again, and hope that her daughter didn’t think she thought she was a stray kitten, and wanted to come to London. The thought that she might not want to hadn’t even occurred to Lydia before Edgar’s protests. It would really be better to be fortified for that.
She was getting very good at rationalization.
Edgar hissed a bit in pain, but she made sure it faded quickly, and by the time she was done, she was pretty sure she was going to have her family back together instead of scattered across the ocean sooner rather than later, and then maybe this restless, yearning feeling inside of her would finally go away.
Muse: Lydia
Fandom: Heroes
Words: 2477
Notes: Set in AU Xover with the book canon of The Vampire Diaries. Sylar and Peter mentioned are heroslayer and hadtobeahero respectively. Edgar is watchesover_her and mine for purposes of the fic