notfaking_it | (no subject)

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eleanor

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She's taken over one of the smaller studios for the evening, dragged in one of the portable stereos they have lying around and rarely tend to use, especially this close to an actual show. Their artistic director prefers to have a pianist on hand almost always now, so Lily doesn't think anyone will miss it.

She's never taught before, never even really considered it, but it's something she wants to do for Eleanor. In all her years of dating, she's never actually bothered to try this hard either and she chooses to not think about that, pressing it back where it's less of a concern. As far as anyone knows, she's just taking some time out to teach some of the basics of ballet to a friend.

There are only three people who probably know it's more than just that; Delta, Eleanor and herself.

Still, she isn't nervous. She's excited, looking forward to having a chance to get to know Eleanor better and she's pleased that she's interested in ballet at all. There are plenty of people who aren't, which she's fine with, but when she finds someone who is interested, she's more than happy to share her love.

Once she has the studio ready, she heads back outside to wait for Eleanor, knowing how easy it is to get lost in the twists and turns of the halls inside.

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I can't help but laugh as I mirror the next position. Because that's the strange part, isn't it? Had the terrible things we've suffered never happened, there would never have been any love there. Real or otherwise. The fact that we remain together, despite everything, is the strangest part of all.

"You can ask me, you know." She is becoming family, isn't she? She should know more about us, or at least about me, what I can do. She's already seen part of it and I'm beginning to think perhaps we need more people to know. In case something happens.

"Whatever you and he are comfortable with telling me, I think that's all I can expect," she answers, which isn't something she's used to feeling. Lily's always enjoyed making people uncomfortable, just a little, but things have been changing for some time now. She can't drift in and out like she's used to. "I know he has a lot of scars and I have ideas where they've come from." But they've talked about it so little and she can understand that it's hard for him.

"When I was very young someone did something to me. Something very bad. They did bad things to Father, too. We were both changed. And now, we are different again, but by our own choice. You know I can do things, right? Things other people cannot?" I move through the steps again, as smoothly as I can, although I'm nervous as I'm sure you can imagine. Someone else should know what's inside me. Just in case, that's only prudent, isn't it?

Lily cocks her head slightly, watching Eleanor. "I have some ideas, but I meant what I said, I haven't asked many questions. I know Delta was responsible for protecting you while you collected something. But that's it." Eleanor is making it sound like there's much more, things Lily will never understand.

Or maybe she can. Given time.

"There was a substance, it's created by an animal. People discovered it could give them power, heal them and it was sold." I drop the form, looking down at my feet. It's hard talking about this. I didn't think it would be. But I stand by my thoughts, Father, someone else should know.

"But the creatures are fragile and they do not create much. The scientists discovered that if they were implanted in a human, they could control production and even... recycle the substance from the dead bodies of users. The ideal host was children. Girls. Little ones, like me." Taking a deep breath, I reach for Lily's hand, planning on placing it on my stomach so she could feel the slug inside me. "Father was bound to me to protect me from those that wanted the substance I could carry and create inside me."

It's so beyond anything Lily has ever really known, but she listens, really listens to what Eleanor is telling her, trying to understand it. She lets Eleanor take her hand, a frown crossing her features briefly. "They put something inside you? Inside all these little girls?"

She's always known what's been done to them is awful, but she doesn't know if she really understood. "Completely against your will. Against his. Jesus Christ."

I nod. "And they programmed Father to protect me. We'd never met until then. Once we were bonded, he was all I had. Then Mother took him away and we had to fight to get back together and now here we are." I know it's a simplification of what happened, Father, but I don't know how else to say it without going into all of it. The angels, the Sisters, Big and Little, Mother, Sinclair, your death and resurrection, there's just so much and I don't know that anyone who isn't us could ever understand it.

"I still have the animal inside of me, that's why I can do the things I can do. I don't get ill, I heal quickly, and by recycling all the ADAM I have, I've retained a number of what you'd call superpowers."

Delta hasn't mentioned anything like that to her and Lily's head tips slightly as she looks at Eleanor curiously. "What sorts of things?" she asks. The story she's told, it's difficult and not because she doesn't believe it, but because of what it means people have done to Eleanor and Delta. Lily, whose moral compass tends to swing on a rather wide range to begin with, has a hard time swallowing that.

It's not right. And it's not fair.

Instead of telling her, I decide to show her, disappearing in a haze and reappearing on the other side of the room. With the wave of a hand, I create a fireball and let it dissipate and I use my telekinesis to pull my gym bag to me. Once it settles at my feet I jump, high enough that I can brush the ceiling and I land where I started. "I can heal a broken bone in moments, which isn't always a good thing, but useful in a fight. And I can, fight I mean."

I can't look at her, Father, not yet, and so I just watch my feet for a moment. "And if I wanted, I could harvest the drug inside of me, give it to others. Or... it could be taken. But I can't get rid of the creature or I'll die."

Lily, who's lived on a strange island for two years before Darrow, has never seen anything like it and it takes her a very long moment to even register what Eleanor has done. "Jesus Christ," she breathes, amazed. She knows she should say something, she can see that Eleanor isn't looking at her, but she has no idea what to say or where to begin.

"That's incredible," she says finally. "The things you can do are incredible."

Edited 2013-11-18 16:17 (UTC)

I look up, worried. "You don't... you don't think I'm a freak? You're not frightened?" It's my worst nightmare, I think. To finally reveal what I am to someone so normal.... Others who had powers like me, or are different in some way, some of them know, but one one normal. I want to fit in so badly, and I don't want Lily to turn away from you because of me.

"Having power doesn't mean a person uses it to hurt others, right?" Lily asks in return. "You're no more likely to hurt me now than you were five minutes ago when I didn't know, so... no, I don't think you're a freak. And I'm not frightened." It's a lot of information to digest and she knows it hasn't all sunk in yet, that she's still processing it, but she is sure that she's not afraid.

"Do you remember what it was like to not be able to do these things?" she asks curiously. "Or was it all too long ago?"

"I remember being a little girl, the things Mother taught me. She was a very... powerful woman with very strong ideas. I was her experiment." Shrugging, I move back through the positions Lily showed me. More for something to do I think, rather than for the practice. This conversation is hard and having something to do is somehow making it easier. "Although I continued to be her experiment after, only it was a different kind. So I can't really say I had a normal childhood, but for the first years of my life I was just as human as you."

Lily isn't sure what she expected, but to hear that Eleanor's mother is responsible makes her pause, frowning deeply. Her own relationship with her parents is sound enough -- or was before she ended up on the island -- and although she's never felt any maternal instinct of her own, the idea of a mother turning her child into an experiment makes her feel ill.

"You're still human," she says. "There's just something else inside of you now."

"You really think I'm human?" It's been so long, Father, since I've seen myself as anything but a Sister, or a failed experiment, or a freak, that it takes me by surprise when someone who knows what's inside me, what I can do, still looks at me like I'm... normal. A regular girl. Like I've always wanted to be. Like you want me to be.

Lily frowns again before she says, "Of course." The idea that someone else out there might consider Eleanor something other than human is so strange to her and maybe that's partly due to having never really been exposed to anything like this, but she hopes that's not entirely it. "I know what you can do and what's happened to you is... exceptional, but there are so many people with so many things about them that don't fit some kind of mold. It doesn't make them less human."

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