Title: Owner of a Lonely Heart
Author: Yugure
Rated: PG-13
Genre: Supernatural/Drama/Angst/Romance
Disclaimer: If you think Slayers et al belongs to me… please run, not walk, to your nearest mental health facility.
Author Notes: Can you believe it? An update! An actual, honest-to-goodness update! You can put down your brass knuckles, nightsticks, and other instruments of bodily harm, now. Please.
Chapter 6Lina locked up the restaurant, dropped the keys into her pocket, and turned, pasting a smile on her face for the motionless vampire standing a little ways away. In truth, Lina was nervous as hell. She wasn't really sure what made her do the things she did, especially agree to be walked home by a member of the living dead. It's for safety, of course, she kept saying to herself, although a small sliver of her mind also kept asking, But how safe are you with a VAMPIRE?
"Ready?" Zelgadis asked, extending his arm to Lina.
"Yeah! Sure thing!" she exclaimed, eyeing the limb as though it were going to bite her. She hesitated a moment, then slipped her arm through his, her heart beating like a drum in her chest.
"You don't have to be afraid, Lina. Calm down. Please." Zelgadis cleared his throat and continued, sounding a bit embarrassed. "I can hear the pounding of the… blood… in you and it's… well… it's setting me on edge…"
"Oh, sorry," Lina grimaced, and in spite of his words her heart sped up. She really didn't want to think what happened if and when he went over the edge. She took a deep breath and tried to steady herself. "It's just, you know… you, vampire; me, beautiful innocent virgin young woman…" She laughed feebly. Zelgadis only smiled in return.
Their walk for the next several minutes was silent except for the faraway sounds of car alarms, police cars, and thumping loud clubs. A few times they crossed paths with individuals that would likely have been trouble if Lina had been alone, but one look from Zelgadis and they scurried away like the rats they were.
"Boy, you should walk me home every night!" Lina crowed, gaining confidence every minute. "I'd never have to carry mace or remember karate lessons again!"
"If you were to take me up on my offer, you'd be able to walk these streets in dark, alone, and not fear a single thing."
Lina was silent for a long time, since the offer he had given her weighed heavily in her mind and was not something she could take lightly."
"Become a 'creature of the night', as you put it, huh?" she finally chuckled. "It sounds so ridiculous… And, look, I bet you're a great guy, but I don't really know you, and I can't see myself handing over my eternal soul just to be with you… no offense."
"None taken." Lina glanced at Zelgadis, thinking she'd see disappointment or even anger, but his face was a blank mask.
"Sure, eternal beauty and youth sounds fabulous, but who cares after a few hundred years, right? Sounds really boring and lonely, if you ask me… Oh… sorry…" This time a flicker of emotion did show on Zelgadis's face, and Lina cringed a bit. "That was uncalled for."
"But it's true." Zelgadis shrugged. "The eternal undead life does have its ups and downs…"
"Like what?"
"The ability to go anywhere, do anything, be anyone. Haven't you always wanted to travel? To go on adventures?"
A fire lit itself inside of Lina. Yes, she had always wanted something more than the life she had. Not that it was bad, per se, but it was dull and uneventful. Up until recently, that is. Go anywhere? Do anything? Lina desired these things more than anything else in the world.
"You don't need money," Zelgadis continued, oblivious to Lina's fomenting mind. "You have nothing to fear. You are your own law, you make your own rules. There are, I should clarify, certain codes of behavior that my kind follows. But generally, you're on your own."
"There are… more of you?" Lina asked.
"Of course. Although, generally, we're solitary creatures and do not 'hang out', as you might say, in large groups."
"And you want me, of all people, to join you."
"It can only be you."
"Because I'm descended from Olivia, right?"
"Correct."
"So… did you… that is…you must've met my mom at some point?"
"Correct."
Lina slowed to a stop. Zelgadis halted next to her. When he stopped moving, it almost seemed as though he wasn't there at all. It was unnerving, the way he blended into the darkness and the shadows.
"What…" Lina swallowed hard and tried again. "What was she like?"
Lina never properly met her mother. Shortly after Lina was born, Mrs. Inverse was in a car accident. The wounds she sustained were fatal, and she passed away. Lina was then raised by an eternally bereaved father.
"She was… beautiful," Zelgadis answered. He paused for a long time, obviously lost in thought, but he did not share his thoughts with Lina. "Confident, gracious, kind… You look just like her."
"So I've heard." Lina's voice was a mere whisper. There was an uncomfortable silence that wrapped around the two figures until Lina started walking again. "I wish I had gotten to meet her."
"She was a wonderful woman," Zelgadis replied, as though a way of agreement, keeping pace.
"It's kind of weird, thinking that you're asking me the same questions that you asked my mom… Actually, it's not just weird but kind of gross…" Lina's face screwed up as the thoughts filled her mind, and she was grateful for something to make her feel any emotion other than depressing sadness. "So were you in love with my mom, too? That's like an 8 on the Ick Factor scale… Wait, but you said you've been watching my family since the beginning? So you were after my grandma, too? Way, way weird…"
"It's not like that," Zelgadis replied, sounding a bit exasperated. "No, I wasn't 'in love' with every single female member of your lineage. As a matter of fact, your great-great-grandmother was quite a bitch, and I would have left her alone completely if I hadn't been desperate for companionship… No offense meant, Lina."
"None taken. I didn't know the woman. So… were you in love with my mom?"
"Lina, 'love' means so many different things, I can't just –"
"So you
WERE in love with her."
"No, no I wasn't."
"Why not? What was wrong with my mom? I thought you said she was wonderful."
They lapsed into silence again. Lina, who was purposely winding Zelgadis up, peeked out the corner of her eye to see his reaction. His face was immaculately void of emotion, which made it all the more obvious that he was hiding something.
"So were you in love with anyone?" Lina persisted. "In my family? I mean, you must've been, at some point, right? I think so. You can't live without loving. Oh, sorry. I didn't mean that in a vicious way. I just mean, you can't exist and not fall I love. I think you're lying to me, that maybe you did love my mom, and my grandma, and maybe even that bitch of a great-great-grandma. I just don't think it's possible to do what you're doing and not fall in love."
"I think, Lina, that you have overlooked a crucial bit of information: If what you are saying is true, then I must been in love with you. And how, may I ask, does it feel to know that I love you?"
This time the silence was stunned. So stunned, in fact, that it sat on its haunches, cocked its head, and then slipped off into the darkness to ponder.
"There's something else I should tell you." Zelgadis filled the night with his voice, sensing that Lina was in some sort of emotional shock. "I don't actually know what will happen if you join me. It may be that you'll become a vampire, like me, and we will continue to exist as I have existed for many years. It may, however mean something very different…
"We vampires pretend to know what we are, but in truth, none of us does. We don't know why we exist, we don't understand our biology, and we don't if vampirism is magic or if it's a sickness, something rooted in reality. Some speculate that there is a cure for what we have. Others say this is a punishment from God. There are a few that say it is a part of nature; not UN-natural, but SUPER-natural.
"I can't know for sure what will happen when I find someone who agrees to become a vampire for my sake. I have some theories, and none of them are happy…"
"Hey," Lina quietly interrupted. They had reached her apartment. Lina turned her body to face Zelgadis but kept her eyes averted from his face. "I don't want to talk about this anymore tonight. I just want to go to bed now."
"Fine," Zelgadis said after a long pause. Lina detected a hint of frustration in his voice, but she didn't care. Not now. Not when she had so much information to digest. "Then I will see you tomorrow?
"I don't work tomorrow. It's my day off."
"Then I will keep in touch. Goodnight, Lina."
"'Night."
Lina let herself into her apartment. She tossed her keys onto the kitchen table and slumped into one of the chairs.
"Why is my life so complicated? Is it because I didn't go to college? Because I didn't get a good education and land a fabulous job and husband and have 2.5 children and a dog named Spot? Dammit, why me?"
Lina thumped her head on the table, not noticing a dark figure detach itself from the shadows of her living room and creep quietly toward her.