Lapis searched Connor’s eyes for a moment. She hadn’t told anyone since they picked up Hematite. The Pack knew, but they were the only ones. She liked it that way. She didn’t tell people about what had happened to her. She never wanted the pity in their eyes. Still, as she looked into those green eyes, something in her heart softened.
“I couldn’t control my powers when I was born. You haven’t seen what I can do, but I make others feel whatever I want them to. Pleasure, joy… pain. And when I was young, I couldn’t control it. I was born like this, so my parents, they. They put me in a room and they kept me there. For twelve years.”
Her voice trailed off slowly and her grey eyes, looking very much like liquid silver as they began to shine, fell to the table. She was quiet for a moment before she continued. “The foster system wasn’t any better. People were afraid of me because I had no control. I could make you feel the happiest you’ve ever been. I could pull from you sorrow like you’ve never known. And I could break you with pain the likes of which you’d never experience again. No one would touch me. People didn’t want me around.”
Her smile finally faltered and she swallowed softly as she withdrew her hand from his. “Except for this one kid, when I came to the family I would eventually stay with for the last two years. He was the family’s biological son, and he. I don’t want to talk about him, but he was worse than everyone else, because he wanted me to stay. He wanted to– it doesn’t matter now. He broke me. And then Ethan found me, when I finally ran away from the home, and he took me in. They taught me how to control my powers, and then how to use them.”
She looked back up, and her eyes shimmered with unspent tears, tears she refused to allow to fall. “I know what it’s like for people to think you’re a monster. I know what it’s like for people to hate you for what you are.”
Connor kept her hand squeezed in his own and kept her gaze capture by his eyes as she spoke, he listened, carefully, to every word. Only when she stopped did he take a moment to think.
That explained what her powers were, Connor knew she was a meta, but this was the first time she had mentioned them. She could control how people felt, that did give Connor pause for a moment. Had she done that to him? Is that why he couldn't seem to control himself when they met? He quickly dismissed this notion, he knew his own mind, and looking at her, knowing her... he was assured she would never do that.
Then came the anger, he shook slightly and his jaw clenched as he spoke "If I was there, I would have torn them all apart, if I was there that never would have happened, if I was there..." Connor took a breath "But I wasn't, and you survived... because you are strong, stronger than the fiercest predator... and now you're with me and... you're safe with me, and I feel safe with you, and..." Connor gently squeezed her hand again. "I'm not afraid to touch you."
Those words rang out in the air and resonated through Lapis like a chiming bell. She felt the words settle somewhere deep inside her just as the first tear began to fall. Why was she crying? Why was that affecting her so much? Was it just because no one else, no one except for Ethan, had ever said that to her? Or was it something much deeper, some part of her she thought long dead crying in relief that someone could bear to touch her. Someone who wouldn’t hurt her the way that–
She pulled herself from the thought and realized she was fully crying. God, she was happy her normal brand of eyeliner and mascara were both waterproof and didn’t budge. She swallowed and carefully wiped her eyes. “Th-thank you. Thank you for… that.”
What else was she supposed to say to that? “I feel safe with you too, and it makes me uncomfortable?” That was harsh and admitted that she felt something, and she would never admit that. So instead she stayed silent for a time, and then, finally, she looked back up at him. Her voice was soft but had a hint of humor to it as she said, “So we’re both monsters. What now?”
Lapis smiled in return and tucked into her food. She was quiet for a minute as she ate. She didn’t know how to follow up that kind of a statement. It was still leaving her slightly offset. There were still occasional tears trying to slip out. She continued to wipe them away and drank her soda while she tried to think of something, anything to say. In the end, she made it through the entire first dish before she looked back up at him.
“How did you get that scar?” She watched his face, hoping she was about to get some kind of crazy traveling story and not something else that was traumatic. Anything that got them out of the current situation they were in.
Connor paused just after ripping a hunk of meat and swallowing it whole, he'd went right to eating with his hands and tearing into the steaks like an animal. The idea that Lapis might find it off-putting didn't even occur to him. Lapis likely didn't think her question was delving deeper into the dark topics of their conversation, and Connor figured it might be best not to dwell on such things.
"An enemy gave it to me," Connor said. "It's not a pleasant story, it can wait, if you'd rather talk about something else."
There was a small pause, and then Lapis sighed dramatically and let her head fall back. Of course, it would be something unpleasant. She huffed and tilted her head back forward. Then, she did the only thing she could do.
She laughed.
Lapis laughed as she realized that this had locked them in, into a personal intimacy that made her uncomfortable. She wanted to run. She wanted to run far away and pretend like this had never happened, like she had never opened up to this giant of a man. But it was too late for that. She coil;d feel something in her that resisted the thought of running. She could feel something in her that wanted to soften and just exist.
“Maybe we save that for next time. I don’t know what people normal talk about on dates. I don’t do these.”
Connor couldn't help but laugh with her, the sound was infectious, and filled him with warmth. It was a tad ridiculous, the whole of it, that they couldn't share barely a piece of themselves without sharing the pain too. Yet he found he didn't mind that, he wanted it, wanted to tell her everything that had happened to him. And he wanted to take all her pain in turn.
He took her direction to move past it, though her last comment struck with him. She didn't do normal dates. But Lapis did do a normal date with him, was he different? Was he her first? Connor put those thoughts to the side, as he could tell he would start obsessing if he allowed himself to.
"This is my first time doing this too... maybe you can tell me what you do, I mean, for fun, when you have free time, do you have... hobbies?"
With a bit of a nod, Lapis started to think. She rubbed the back of her neck as she did. After a moment she leaned forward in her chair and continued to eat while she answered. “I like sewing. I make my own clothes because nothing is ever just right. I go to a lot of concerts. I like to go shooting and swimming. I’m not sure that I do all that much else. I mostly spend my time working at Crystals.”
A small smile came over her face as she mentioned the charity organization she helped run. It was one of her biggest passions, the charity. She felt strongly for the young metas and abused women that they helped there. While she hated most humans, she had a soft spot for the women at the shelters. They deserved softness. They deserved her best.
Without her consent and as if it existed to haunt her, a face flashed through her mind. She shut her eyes and her smile faded for a moment as she banished the face of Jacob Blackwood from her mind. She wasn’t going to think about her days in foster care. She wasn’t going to think about that. That wasn’t going to happen. Instead, she opened her eyes and smiled at Connor.
“What about you, puppy? What do you do?”
The rest of dinner passed with soft conversation, and dessert passed equally calm and pleasant. Lapis had been determined to keep things light and surface level after that moment of too much intimacy. And she mostly managed that without issue. They had laughed a few times, and as much as she didn’t want to admit it, Lapis found herself having a good time. Something in her chest seemed to flutter in his presence. It wasn’t a bad feeling. But she didn’t want it. She didn’t want to like him enough to keep him around.
On the drive home, she looked at him in the passenger seat and, her voice taking on a subtly suggestive tone, asked, “How do you feel about going back to the cabin instead of me heading straight home, hmm?”
Connor could listen to her ttalk all day, her voice, the way her lips moved, how she got animated and louder about the things she was excited about. When she laughed he wanted to capture the sound somehow so he could have it with him forever. He blushed red when she called him 'puppy.' He shouldn't like that, why did he love that so much?
"Oh, uhm, besides hunting which I need to do I read a lot, books are such a comfort to me."
Hours past without him so much as noticing, he could have remained there all day. A warmth grew in his chest, a yearning, a hunger, but it wasn't the savage need Connor had felt the first night he'd met Lapis. This was something more, a settling, Lapis nestling her way into Connor into a hole he didn't know was there. It was frightening, he'd felt something like this before, only once. And that had left him tasting only blood and fury, yet strangely in these moments with Lapis's eyes glowing like small moons in the dim light. Connor could think of nothing else but remaining near her.
When asked asked him about heading back to the cabin he knew what that mean, but he didn't immediately jump to the offer full of desire and need like he had so many times before. No a playful smile grew on Connor's face an mirth shined in his eyes.
"I'd like that, but how will we spend the rest of the night, little gem?"
