tampered | LOG; ongoing

LOG; ongoing

When; Oct 16, early morning
Rating; PG
Characters; Lux

totallyyourhero
Summary; Totally my hero.
Log;

Her parents would have been horrified to know that a male member of the species was coming to pick her up in the wee hours of the morning. Mom would have totally freaked. Then again, mom would have totally freaked if she knew that Lux smoked (about a pack a day), or that Lux was no virgin (as if that word can ever be put in one sentence with her name), or that Lux never cared about all that religion stuff. Would she have totally freaked when she found out all her girls were no more? There was a possibility the answer was no.

Funny, Lux always thought there would be no more moving on after death.

She hated moving on. It was a pain to move on after Ceel. It was horrible that it was an even worse trying to move on after Trip (not that she ever did, maybe). Now, it was another moving on time, but what was there to move on to?

Lux laid back on the cold concrete, blowing foggy clouds out of her mouth. There were goosebumps on her bare arms, but she did not mind the cold. Her feet felt like lead. The back of her head ached from the hardness of the concrete. At least in a coffin, she would have had a pillow under her head.

More than ever she wanted a smoke.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Peter knew that this was probably a crazy idea, going out in the middle of the night to get some strange girl who had just killed herself so that she could live with him. His mother would probably... well she would probably just roll her eyes and realize there would be no arguing him out of this and just be incredibly passive aggressive towards Lux. But still, Peter couldn't just let her stay on the street.

He was there fairly quickly, practicing his teleportation to an alley that was somewhat close to the carousel. There was no mistaking who he was looking for though. She looked absolutely freezing though and he hurried up to move to where she was.

"Lux?" he asked as he approached, already taking off his coat and handing it to the cold girl.

Lux responded to him slowly, as if his words reached her ears with a delay, like an international call from one continent to the other. She turned to him, then smiled wanly. "Hello, Peter Petrelli."

She propped herself up on both elbows, heaving a sigh before actually sitting up and taking the man's coat without a word of gratitude; as if it was all deserved anyway. She flung the coat over her shoulders as if it always belonged to her. With the coat over her, Lux shivered briefly, skipping in place to keep herself warm.

"Is this what you do everyday, Mr. Superhero?" She asked with a smile, genuinely. "Rescue one lonely lost girl per day?"

"Yeah," he said, giving her one of his lopsided smiles. "Usually I have to go get one lost just so I can rescue her but fortunately you showed up."

Peter noticed that Lux was pretty (because he was a guy and how could you not notice that?) and seemed a bit... odd? Or at least dazed when she first responded to him. At least she wasn't rude and she did seem to genuinely need help.

"Are you hungry at all or do you want head right back to the apartment?" he asked.

Lux grinned one of her crowded smiles, showing all her teeth. "Glad to help."

She looked down on herself, noting that she was wearing the exact same thing she wore when last she remembered. Maybe this was all a dream, one of those things people get on the verge of dying. So maybe she was not really dead yet.

Maybe it was like in A Christmas Carol, where she would get to wake up and realize that, yay, she had another chance to make everything right. She would tell her mom she loved her, her dad she loved him even more, her sisters that she would stop being selfish, Ceel that she was ready for goodbye, Trip that she was so very totally over him.

Hah! Fat chance.

"I'm starving for some burgers, or any of those national foods of ours. Anything with a whole bottle of ketchup over it." Lux leaned sideways on one leg, putting her hands into the pockets of the coat. "Think you can get me some?"

"I think burgers even at this hour can be managed," he assured her.

That was one thing that was nice about the City, places never closed around here because a portion of the population was nocturnal. Of course, that might mean that those places served mostly blood, but there had to be a few open that weren't just for that.

"I was just thinking I could use a late night snack anyways."

Lux looked at him, really looked at him, trying to pick at his motivations. She found none that could alarm her anyway. "You're awfully nice, you know that?"

She walked away a few steps, haltingly because of the loose wooden clogs she wore. Yet even her staggers had a sense of being intentional, that despite the situation, she was not the one being helped. "Don't worry, I know." Lux looked over her shoulder with a faint trace of a smile, "I'll pay for my stay, and for everything else you do for me."

She turned to her feet, fixing the clogs, then walked a few more steps. "So lead the way, Mister."

"Yeah, I've been told I'm too nice sometimes and that it's going to get me in trouble," he said with a bit of a smirk. "Lucky for you I'm not too bright either. And you don't have to worry about paying. I'm sure someone helped me when I first got here."

Not that Peter could remember it. He was lucky in that he had been here before and his previous self had left him an apartment and some money.

"Alright, I think I remember a cafe that's just up the street on the way to the apartment."

Lux chuckled. "You already are in trouble." She winked, indicating exactly who the bringer of the trouble was.

She replied to him with a nod, keeping quiet and shuffling along for awhile. Occasionally, she puffed out a foggy breath, like a smoke. She still did not know what she was supposed to think, how she was supposed to feel. She went along with it like it was just a dream, skimming through the surface and waiting patiently for the time to wake up.

Finally she broke the heavy silence, "tell me about yourself."

My name is Peter Petrelli and I almost blew up New York and nearly killed my brother.

Alright, maybe that wouldn't be the best ice breaker, or the way to define himself. He wasn't powers out of control, that's not who Peter was. He was someone who helped people, someone who had been destined to do great things.

"I'm a hospice nurse back home," he said, watching the girl's odd way of walking that was somehow rather charming and quirky. "My dad was a lawyer and my brother is a Congressman for New York. Or at least he won the election, I don't know if he actually got to be the Congressman."

She let out a whistle, "no wonder you're proud of the Petrelli name."

She thought about it for awhile, then said, "you must really be the odd one out, not trying to be a doctor and all." She shrugged her shoulders, "You could've done it if you wanted."

He was certainly nice, but he was hardly the typical nice guy she expected. She was scared of him, a little, he seemed to her to be more than normal. He was hiding something, or, a lot of things. She would never pry so she hoped they were things irrelevant to her. Anyhow, nothing could get worse for her. He could do nothing to ruin her life (death?) more than she has ruined it herself.

"Yeah, I've always been more of the type to think big thoughts than do big things," he said. "My mom and my brother always tell me to quit dreaming and get my head out of the clouds..."

Peter paused for a moment to consider the irony of that, seeing as he could now fly and dream the future it was maybe an accurate concern.

"And I guess I like working with people directly," he admitted. "Doctors treat people but nurses make them feel, I don't know, looked after."

Biting her lower lip, she stifled a too-wide smile. "I like dreamers, my sis was one too." Although she did not like that particular sister that much, really. She was a bit weird.

"And I don't like doctors," she said. "They think they can just fix everyone, patch 'em up nice and new." Lux stopped in her tracks, fixing one of her clogs that fell away. Funny, her feet were not so swollen now. She looked up and around before walking again. "But that's not true." Lux shrugged carelessly.

"Yeah?" Peter said, arching his eyebrow at her. "Did she ever do anything with her dreams? I just recently started... acting on my dreams."

Of course, that was after his dreams had been visions of the future, but still, he had started to do things, things that he felt were important in the grand scheme of things and it had felt good. He had saved Claire and saved the world.

"Yeah, doctors are like that," he said. "Sometimes they forget that there's an actual person there that needs to be helped, not fixed. I guess that's why I liked doing hospice, because those patients are already terminal and you're just... trying to make their last days as good as you can."

Lux laughed, for awhile, loud and careless. When she calmed down, she had the trace of a smile on her lips but none in her eyes. "She thought she was a mayfly," she explained, gesturing to the air, "so she tried to fly."

Spinning on her heels, she turned to face him with a mischievous smile. "She really did."

"Anyway." Lux turned away again. She considered his words for a moment. He seemed like one of those altruistic souls who would willingly give everything for the sake of another. She always thought he was the stuff of movies, but turns out not. Still she wondered if he really meant it. If he did, then he must have thought her the most selfish being in the world. When so many wanted life, even just an inch of it, she threw her own away like it was of no value.

"Do you think me stupid?"

Peter winced at the mention of her sister trying to fly, both because it sounded very tragic and because of how close it resonated to home. Peter had tried to fly once and it had almost killed him. If it hadn't been for Nathan... How many times did Nathan have to keep saving his life?

"Why would I think you stupid?" he asked, his face contorting a bit in confusion. "I just met you, I've hardly gotten to know you enough to think much of anything of you."

"You could tell a lot from the first time you meet someone," Lux stated, kicking an innocent pebble away from her. "I think you're cute," she started, looking up in a thoughtful gesture. "I know you're kind, and you try to be good, but... maybe being great doesn't have to mean doing the most good to the largest number of people, you know?"

She twirled around on her heel again, stopping and facing him. "What do you think of me then?"

Peter glanced away sheepishly at her mention of him being cute. It was an odd comment the way she said it, less like she was flirting with him and more like she was just stating a fact.

"I think I was meant to help a lot of people," he said. "I know it sounds stupid but I think I'm supposed to save the world."

Technically, he already had, hadn't he? And he realized that he just sounded a bit insane saying that and should probably drop it.

"I think you're pretty," he said. For a moment he thought about trying to read her mind but decided that was a bit invasive for something so casual. "I think you're really relieved that you're not back home anymore. And I think you like being different. Being quirky."

Oh, she knew now what made him tick. It filled her with glee, but she suppressed it out of guilt. "One person at a time, you'll get to it."

She grinned, listening to his answer. She nodded slowly in affirmation of each of them, but she ignored the second one like he never said it. "I had to be different. Even then, they still thought of us as the Lisbon girls, no matter how many there were of us. I was just one of the Lisbon girls, the third one."

"Well, now you're the only Lisbon girl here," he said with a bit of a smile. He could completely understand what that was like. He only had one brother but he was always Nathan Petrelli's younger brother. The only thing that made it bearable was the fact that Peter admired and respected his brother so much.

"And now you're Lux Lisbon of the City, about to get a burger with Peter Petrelli of the City."

"Until my sisters come," Lux added with a shrug. She wondered, too, how she would feel when they do come, or how she should feel at this moment, really. All her life, she had never spent a day apart from them. It must feel strange, at least, it could get quite lonely.

"We should have a race to see who can finish their burger first," she challenged him. "I bet I'll win."

"Somehow I doubt you'll have a problem being seen as your own person here," Peter commented as he held the door open to the cafe for her, a pleasant blast of warm air coming from inside the building.

"Alright, we can race. What does the winner get?"

"You think so?" Lux skipped her way inside, rubbing her hands together to warm them up after the cold. She quickly headed towards a table for two, right beside a window looking to the streets. Taking off the coat, she handed it back to Peter before dropping herself on the seat.

"I don't have much to lose at all, but I can think of a lot of things you can get me if I win." She grinned, too widely.

"Alright then," Peter said as he slid into the booth with Lux. "If I win I get bragging rights and if you win..."

Peter thought for a moment about that. He could be her easily. When you could slow down time then an eating contest wasn't really much of a contest. That seemed kind of a cheap use of his powers thought. Besides, she could probably stand to win a few things that she didn't have to pay back at a later date.

"Well what would you want to win?" he asked.

Lux grinned. That was exactly what she wanted him to ask. "I want a kiss," she offered smugly. Of course, there were a lot of things to consider before she should even make that offer, like if he had a particular someone or not, or if it was appropriate for one she had just met, or if he was willing at all. The thought occurred to her, of course, but Lux did not care.

"I leave it up to you to grant it or not~"

Peter gave Lux a very puzzled glance. He had definitely been right about at least one of his earlier observations, she was a very odd girl. She could have asked for anything and she wanted a kiss? A change of clothes was probably more practical.

"Alright, but just remember this when you wake up tomorrow morning and realize you've just got the clothes you showed up in to wear," he told her as he waved over a waiter. "What do you want on yours?"

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