stepsonbutterflies | Now you're right beneath my feet, but still within my reach

Entry tags:

Now you're right beneath my feet, but still within my reach

He wanted an escape, an exit, a way out. Peter had screwed up everything so thoroughly that he couldn’t muddle his way out, at least not now. He needed a break from string theory, consequences, reactions and responsibilities. He couldn’t go back to before he’d messed things up, not until he had a solution because the potential for screwing things up further was too high. He needed to go somewhere fresh, somewhere he hadn’t touched to focus on how he could fix his timeline. Peter took a deep breath, closed his eyes and used Hiro’s teleportation.

When he opened his eyes, he had no idea where he was. It felt different from what he was accustomed to. It looked different and it certainly wasn’t torn up from a virus or an explosion. That was an improvement in and of itself. He took a step forward, glancing around for clues to where he was. Honestly, he didn’t really care where he was. It was a case of ‘anywhere but there’. This wasn’t there. It worked for him.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Sassy was on patrol, sort of, well, patrolling. As one does, when one is on patrol. Look, she didn't make up the word, okay?

Anypoodle, Sassy was on patrol and she was bored. The kind of bored that made her think it would be a good idea to try and find vampires instead of letting the vampires come to her. Maybe it had been just a bad day for burials or something, but she hadn't seen any hands inexplicably shooting through the dirt so she was bored. Mindbendingly, painfully, inexhaustibly bored.

Except she was bored and she had a cross bow and, as her inherent need for violence hadn't yet been fulfilled, a rather itchy trigger fingers, so when a dude randomly appeared out of no where right in front of him, well...

"Holy shit!" Luckily, the cross bow shot went wide, like really wide, but still. "Wow, person man thing, hey you're kinda cute. Look! You really shouldn't just show up outta no where in the middle of the night 'cause I could have shot you and that would be bad, I would need therapy, it would become a thing, you should look into a warning system with that magic trick."

It wouldn't have been the end of the world, or even the night, if Sassy had shot him. She would've had to land the shot at the base of his skull up into his brain for that to stop him. He was accustomed enough to people hunting him that he did phase when she pulled the trigger on the crossbow. It didn't really affect his appearance, just his solidity. Had the arrow hit him, it would have gone through him. Once the shot misses, he goes solid again, watching her with a confused expression on his face.

"Why are you in a graveyard with a crossbow?"

Yes he was going to ignore the ramble because he doesn't entirely understand the words she just said. "I'll consider a bell."

He won't.

"Why are you in a graveyard, period?" Sassy retorted, as she pointed the crossbow down. It was probably rude to just leave it there pointing at him. Although, that really was his probably, appearing out of nowhere in the middle of a cemetery.

With no bell.

Peter furrowed his brow, glancing around then shook his head. "This isn't where I intended to end up."

He'd sort of been aiming for Ireland and this...

"This isn't Ireland. Is it?"

In that case, it was possible his power was entirely screwed up or something bigger than him thought he needed to be here.

"Nope. Manhattan, bucko. Welcome to the concrete jungle." Sassy looked something less than impressed with his directional skills. New York was pretty far from Ireland, even with the influx of immigrants that still stuck to their old Gangs of New York neighborhoods.

Looking at him for a moment, she started walking again. She still had to patrol. "Walk with me, pretty."

"Yeah...I live in Manhattan back home." Which probably sounded a bit like a weird answer. At least he'd defaulted to his usual city of origin.

He hesitated and then shrugged. If he was here, he might as well figure out what was going on. He stepped up to walk beside her.

"Okay. Weirdo."

As they walked, Sassy kept the crossbow pointed down, dangling next to her leg. She was surprisingly relaxed in a cemetery with a weapon and a stranger, a lot more relaxed than anyone else would be. But then again, Sassy was just generally more relaxed with violence in cemeteries in general. The cute stranger was an added bonus.

"Vampires," she finally said. "That's why I'm in a graveyard with a crossbow."

Peter noticed that she was reasonably relaxed and he was concentrating very hard on not reading her mind, because that was considered rude, or something.

She got a double take though when she finally told him why she was in the graveyard. He just sort of stared at her and gave up trying to read her mind.

Yup.

Vampires.

It was possible she needed psychiatric help.

"Don't look at me like that!" Sassy protested, mouth curving down into an annoyed pout. "You just showed up out of the middle of nowhere and you're looking at me like I'm crazy? Wow. You are the actual rudest."

Sassy stomped off. She didn't go far, just far enough to find a decent sized stone to hop up on. She set the bow in her lap and crossed her arms. He was cute, but rude. No go.

Peter smirked and walked over to her. "Yeah, but I've never heard of vampires outside of movies and books."

Even with all the evolving that humans have done in his world, he hadn't heard of vampires.

"So what's going on?"

"Well, I've never heard of teleporting outside of X-Men, so we're pretty much even." She paused a moment, her grumpy expression lightening with some curiosity. "That's what you did, right? The whole appearing out of no where thing was teleporting? Actually Cas does that on Supernatural."

Don't judge her, that shit was hard to escape, even if she'd stopped watching it when she moved back to New York from Searchlight and wasn't subjected to weekly viewing parties.

"You read X-Men?" Because Peter was a comic book nerd at heart (a nerd in general) and a girl who knew who the X-Men were was a priority. "Sort of. I manipulated space and time. I can stop it, go forward in it and backwards as well as teleport from place to place."

She got a bit of a blank look at the Supernatural bit. "Sorry, I don't know who Cas is. Or Supernatural."

No judging if she won't judge him for Battlestar Galactica or Doctor Who or comic books.

"Manipulated space and time...?" She repeated it, looking a little dubious, choosing to ignore the rest of everything else. Cas and Supernatural were unimportant, whether she read comics was unimportant.

"You can do that but you judged me for vampires?" WOW. Like really, wow. Her eyebrows arched in an expression that reiterated her previous indignation. W O W.

Edited (omg one tense would be swell wouldn't it?) 2013-08-19 15:32 (UTC)

He nodded in response. She'd gotten to the heart of things. He watched her, bottom lip tucked between his teeth, waiting to see what sort of reaction she would have about it. It could tell him a lot, from what kind of world he'd teleported into to what her mind set on the whole thing was.

Apparently he needn't have worried she was going to freak out on him.

"I don't remember there being any judging. There was just...surprised observation."

Sort of.

"I felt judged." She didn't care though, pushing herself off the gravestone to tip toe over until she was standing right in front of him, a soft breeze or a deep breath would be enough to close the distance. She looked up, brown eyes curious and bright. "That whole nervous biting your lip thing is really cute."

Obviously she didn't care. In fact, he wasn't sure it was possible for her to appear as if she cared less. He looked down at her, a surprised expression coming over his face. His eyes widened and he stopped doing that cute lip biting thing. He did a mental check. He wasn't glamoring the scar away to look like his younger, more innocent self.

"Cute isn't something I usually get called."

Scary, intense and dangerous, yes, but not cute.

Lifting her hand, slowly so he would see it coming and move if he wanted, she traced a finger across the scar, right over his sort of crooked nose that made her wonder how many times he had been punched in the face. "Trust me, I'm an authority on cute. I'm Sassy."

Her head tipped to the side a little as her hand fell away from his face and a soft smile lit up her features like sunshine. "My name, not an adjective."

He starts to flinch and pull away, but hesitates just enough for her to initiate the touch. He swallows hard, struggling to remember the last time someone touched him like that and found that he couldn't remember it. As for how many times his nose had been broken, that was a number he could count. At least he could count the number of times it had been broken and left to heal on it's own: One. It had happened the same way the scar had happened. Someone had dampened his abilities then hurt him. He'd had to heal the old fashioned way.

He seems entranced by the touch, holding his breath until her hand drops and trying so very hard not to lean into that touch. Once her hand fell away, he recovered, a crooked slight smile coming to his face.

"Sassy. I'm Peter and if you're an authority, I'll have to take your word for it."

"You will." She nodded like it was decided, and her hand twitched again like she wanted to touch the scar again. It was fascinating, in the way that you keep constantly running your tongue over the hole where teeth used to be.

Instead she tugged at the hem of her shirt, stepping back to display a swath of perfectly tan skin marred by a huge puckered scar just under her rib cage that seemed to resemble what the aftermath of being impaled would look like. Arching her eyebrows, the shirt shifts higher, exposing the lime green lace of her bra and the ten inch scar on her chest from her heart surgery when she was a baby. "Scars aren't so bad."

Edited 2013-10-18 19:59 (UTC)

Peter's brow furrowed, puckering the scar slightly as he takes a step closer to her. He got distracted momentarily by the lime green, lace bra, but returns to the scar on her chest. As a nurse, he'd seen enough of those scars to know what it was from. His eyes drifted back down to the scar below her ribcage more out of politeness than anything. His fingers reached out of their own accord, tracing the scar there lightly.

"It depends on how you got the scar."

"I was impaled by my own stake." She didn't seem to bothered by the idea though, as if she had just accepted it long ago. Which was true -- it had been almost ten years since she was called. She leaned in, forcing Peter touch the scar, and her, more firmly. Her deep brown eyes sparkled. "Do you want to do know a secret, Peter?" Mm, she liked his name, the way it rolled off her tongue like raindrops slipping between her fingers.

Edited 2013-10-18 22:23 (UTC)

"You...were impaled by your own stake." It wasn't a question, just a reconfirmation of her words. That had to have a story behind it, but it probably wasn't a pretty one. She leaned toward him, his fingers prodding at the scar until his entire palm is covering it.

At her words, he met her eyes. His lips parted and he wanted to tell her that he wanted to know all of her secrets if only she'd keep looking at him like that, letting him touch her, letting him listen to the way her voice slid across his name. Instead, he simply nodded. Yes, he wanted to know a secret.

Sassy leaned in closer, arm lifting to curl around his neck to tug him down a little so her melodic voice could whisper in his ear. His hand on her skin was so warm and firm, capable, it made goosebumps sprout of her arms. "That was the first time I died."

His first instinct was to pull away when she leaned into him and curled her arm around his neck, but she was warm and sweet and surely it couldn't hurt anything, right? He allowed her to tug him down, goosebumps racing over his own skin at the sensation of her breath against his ear. At first, her words didn't even register, he was still caught up in the smell and the feel of her. When they finally did, he huffed out a little sort of chuckle.

"Most people only do it once."

Except that he'd died countless times, over and over again only to come back to life. He knew a now brunette that wanted him dead that had died more times than anyone could count. If they were both possible then didn't it stand to reason that Sassy was as well?

"I get bored a lot." As if that were the reason she died, often. Gently, she released him from her grasp, but she didn't pull away, standing there on her tip toes, pressed against his chest. He was solid. Warm and firm, he smells like spices and sweat. It made her a little dizzy after a moment and she unceremoniously dropped off her toes, stumbling back a bit.

He looked down at her, unwilling to move away but not sure what was going on. "You need another hobby."

His voice was quiet when he said it, more like he was offering rather than suggesting.

Sent from my Kindle Fire

Technically she had another hobby -- a job actually, but she was CEO, so she didn't actually do anything. Kind of like a tiny, early twenties, immortal Tony Stark. Who was also a slayer...

Vaguely similar.

But she was still willing to go with it, lips sliding into a small smirk. "What kind of hobby?" And before he could even answer, she added: "Do you want to come home with me? I'm making spaghetti and by making I mean I'm opening a can of spaghetti-o's and eating it right out of the can. But this place is pretty dead, so..."

As far as comparisons go, it was a good one and a good job to have.

He'd been going to suggest the first thing that had come to his head like gardening or volunteer work or knitting, but she'd sidetracked him by asking him to come home with her.

"Do you often invite strange men you meet in cemeteries home?"

That was a yes. In case she was wondering.

"Usually they're dead." Her smirk deepened with humor, turning it back into a smile as she closed the tiny space between him and her small hand lifted to take his. "So no, you're pretty special."

"I can see how I'd hold a certain appeal then," he smirked in response, continuing the rather macabre humor. He puts his hand in hers, uncertain even why he's doing it.

"In that case, I'd love to be taken home."

"Good." She nodded firmly, happy with his answer, and started to lead the way out of the cometary and toward the street.

He followed her without any real idea of why he was following her. He wasn't usually so trusting, so willing to put himself out there, but Sassy was very persuasive.

"Is it far?"

Shaking her head no, she stops a few feet outside the gates of the cometary and points to the building (a hotel) across the street. "It's right there."

Easy access to baby vamps, the bar scene for better vamps, and a hospital with a blood bank for savvy vamps. Sassy had them all within walking distance. She also had housekeeping and laundry services and access to the pool and gym, so the hotel's penthouse suite was pretty much the best apartment ever.

"My dad used to take me to stay here when I was little so when I moved out on my own, I... Moved there." And crossing the street now! She does look both ways, but luckily there is a lull in traffic on the relatively calm evening, so they don't need to play frogger to make it to the other side.

Peter looks up at the hotel. It reminds him very much of something Nathan would arrange for him to live in. His brother paid for his apartment for years and Peter had allowed it because he figured his family owed him.

"Convenient," he says with a soft, wry sort of smirk.

Oh good. Being the frog hurts. Peter doesn't want to go through that and he'd rather not have to worry about her going through it either.

"It reminds me of him." She drags him in through the doors, nodding to the doorman who seems surprised that a man is trailing behind Sassy. She drags him all the way past the elevators and shoves open the door to the stairwell.

Yeah, she's a slayer, twelve flights of stairs is nothing. Keep up, Peter!

Peter catches the whole surprised doorman bit. It comforts him really. He allows himself to be dragged along by the tiny brunette, happy enough to take the stairs.

He's keeping up! Mostly.

"You just like taking stairs?"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Now you're right beneath my feet, but still within my reach

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

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject