A/N: I've been really into non-human characters recently. Also it's an excuse to write monster smut. I think the backstory I came up with is pretty good, but don't go looking for holes or you might find them haha :) Title comes from a quote by John Greenleaf Whittier. Enjoy~
Bolting down the alley, she slows her breathing until it's almost imperceptible. She flattens herself against the side of a rusted dumpster. The only thumping she hears is of her own heart, not footsteps on her trail. She sat there for what felt like hours, but was likely only minutes.
I was lucky. It was foolish to expose myself like that.
She was too reckless, everyone said so. The doctors, the other prisoners, even her roommates from the home. Long before her arrival in California, she was taken care of by some nice people. They hadn't done everything perfectly, that was true, but it was better than what awaited her.
Lucy finally calms her racing heart, exhaling a long breath through her nose. She'd wandered into the nicer part of town where there were too many eyes, both mechanical and natural. She was almost spotted. Almost. She should have been more careful, but she hadn't realized where she was until it was too late.
Though a long lucky streak was just behind her, she feared it would soon wither. She felt the urge to return home, but sprinted in the opposite direction. To avoid leading them home, she needed a cleaning run, something complex to make sure no one was following. She'd spend the next hour wandering about in premeditated patterns in the hope that she would lose whoever she may or may not have picked up.
Her luck had run out, she concludes, glowering distastefully into the blue eyes of her second-greatest enemy. He'd done a botch job at being subtle and drew her attention to himself, standing awkwardly at his apartment door, pretending to lock up his residence while ogling her form. He doesn't even have his key in the hole, just in his hand nearby. Wide eyes scrutinize her from her hair to her toes, like his slimy gaze is reaching out and pawing her physically. Every extra second of his perusal is like torture to her. She worries he'll recall her if he stares too long and she hates feeling objectified.
At the end of the hallway stands a man she could never forgive. His close-cropped hair needs a wash. His sweat coats him, staining the collar of his shirt. She reigns in the sneer that threatens to form at the sight of Eddie Brock, a failure and a feckless worm. The world would be a more perfect place without him in it, she thinks.
She swallowed the angry screams she wanted to lob at him, returning her scowl to the soiled carpet to stare daggers at the cut pile, trampled and cemented in place from decades of heavy traffic. Letting her straight, black hair obscure her face, she prayed that he would sweep by and leave her undisturbed. Her black hooded jacket didn't fully obscure her face.
He shouldn't be able to recognize her. It had been fifteen years since he saw her face, but his gaze seems drawn to her form.
Fumbling with her keys, she focuses her eyes on her door while her mind remains on the man walking toward her. She shoves the key into the lock, roughly turning it counter-clockwise. The door opens a crack and she slips inside, slamming it sharply before the reporter gets too close.
Of course he would be her next door neighbor. The rent and the location had been too good to be true, and now she understood why. The universe saw fit make her suffer, clearly, because she'd signed a lease that lasted two months. It was the shortest lease they had. She hadn't thought to ask about the neighbors and now she's cursing her lack of forethought.
Flopping onto a cardboard box, Lucy ran a hand over her face. She would have to be extra careful from now on. The reporter had proven unscrupulous in the past and she couldn't risk the chance that he'd alert the authorities about had destroyed what life a mutant like her could ever have.
After that, her world had never been the same. She didn't deserve that, and Eddie Brock doesn't deserve the wealth and status he gained from ripping into Baxter's Academy for Gifted Youths (BAGY). It wasn't perfect, but it was home. Then it was taken away from her, stripped from her for someone else's gain, and that someone is her new hallmate.
She'll find a different apartment in two month's time, but until then, Lucy is stuck. Stuck in this town, stuck in this apartment, stuck in this situation. She wishes there was some way out, but there isn't one. That crackhead reporter screwed her life up with one episode and she was left picking up the pieces for the rest of her life. She was sold to the highest bidder, but they'd called it adoption since she was 16. There was an underground auction and everything, all for her special ability.
Lucille Lamb wasn't afraid of dying. What she she was afraid of was being forced back into the arms of her buyer by the long arm of the law. She'd rather die than go back, so she resolved to stay away from Brock at all costs. That would be difficult, though, considering that she's sharing a hall with him.
Lucy heard a lot of muffled conversations coming from Brock's apartment for a single bachelor. Living alone like her, she thought he'd be quieter.
Though the outer walls were brick, she isn't as fortunate with the others. The thin, fragile thing lets sound carry between apartments. This unit only has limited floorspace, thankfully, so she only has to deal with one lousy next door neighbor. She hears him talking to himself, singing songs in the shower, even moaning in his bed late at night. She hasn't thought about it until that moment, when she realized it was him making those sounds, Eddie Brock.
She always wakes up at odd hours of the night, generally because of a vivid dream or nightmare. Sometimes it's because of her paranoid nature, built up over years of running from her pursuers. She hasn't always been like that, and she wouldn't keep doing it if she had a choice. To return to her childhood, when she could relax and give over the reins to someone else, someone she could trust, would soften her pain, but those are just fantasies now.
Alas, she's a grown woman now, one that's supposed to be unwavering and competent, among other things. Lucy brushes the back of her neck, a slight tingling appearing there.
She hates that feeling, like someone is watching her, even with every curtain drawn and every door locked. It has been getting worse for a few days, always at night and lasting until the early morning.
It had started the night after she moved in and she doesn't believe in coincidences. The only big change is her habitat, that has to mean something, so she searched the entire apartment, top to bottom, looking for anything that could explain the feeling. A hole in the wall big enough to peek through, a camera embedded in an everyday object, anything.
This proves pretty easy considering how few the things she had are. Everything she owns is boxed in cardboard and the only other things were necessities like a bedroll and a coffee maker. Being on the run means packing light, a rule she took more seriously in the beginning of it all. The fact her pursuers are finally losing her trail, however, means that she can gather a few more things. Extra clothes, toiletries, and the like now that she has a place to store them. Too bad it was next to a mule of a human being holed up in the studio at the end of the hall.
She was a tough nut to crack, she knew that, and it made her chances of remaining undetected even better. She'd lay low, keep in the apartment as much as possible, and only leave at night. She'll probably take the fire escape around the back of the building, too, just to be safe.
Her first escapade takes her to a little Chinese drugstore.
The coffee machine beeps, signaling the end of its brewing cycle. She'd rather have it cold, but there isn't enough time to keep it in the fridge overnight, not if she wanted it now. the single serve coffee maker only makes a single cup, but that's exactly what she needs in that moment
She was tired. So tired she could barely make it across the room. She needed something, just in order to make it to bed. She didn't want another fainting episode or another giant bruise on her face that make her look like an abuse victim.
Her mutation, one she's had since birth, allows her to turn her emotions into raw power, like a hamster on a wheel. The more genuinely and vibrantly she felt those emotions, the more static she built up. When it had nowhere to go, it became painful and it would suddenly erupt when she was pushed too far, another thing she didn't want to risk.
That energy, once it was at a certain level, had no choice but to explode into anything close by. Sometimes it would jump to people or wires meters away from her. She had to maintain her body to avoid this, and that's where the batteries came in handy. She had to offload all the energy in her body before she burst, and it had to go somewhere. If she let it go, it could cause any number of problems, same as a sparking breaker box or lightning strike could. The risk was too high. A fire would draw attention to her location and it was hard to hide lightning strikes.
Either way, she had no choice but to continue as normal. She sipped on the hot, dark liquid, letting it warm her shivering veins from the inside out, thinking about her prospects.
She tried to stay afloat through legal means, she really did, but it just isn't feasible for her. Under-the-table work could only get her so far, especially in Southern California. Most of the regulations scared people enough to make them go through more above board channels, but Lucy can't afford to have her name on the books. She always uses a fake name. Something believable, usually with the same first name since it's a common one.
She scrapes by, rich enough to have a hobby at least. Propping her hip on the countertop, she takes another sip.
With some difficulty, she hobbles to the mattress, falling into its soft embrace.
"I'm sorry, we're not looking for anybody right now," Lucy says in a high-pitched voice, mocking the manager that turned her down just moments ago. She scoffs, brushing a hank of black hair behind her ear. "Then why put up a hiring sign?"
Maybe it was her demeanor, or the bright blue of her eyes that put people on edge. If only they knew the truth. Here eyes used to be brown, before she started exhibiting the effects of her mutation. The first time she lost control, her eyes turned an almost neon blue, same shade as her electric waves. It was dark out and her watch read nine 'o'clock, so she winds around the safer areas of town before making her way home, having a few tasks to get done, one of them loading up a battery.
She stalks past a newspaper stand, wrapping her jacket tighter to block out the wind. She does a double take at the image on today's paper. She walks back to the stand, handing off a quarter to the man behind the counter and snatching up the black-and-white paper. She speed walked to the next street corner, hanging a left and mounting the rusted old fire escape up to her window. Once inside the dark room, she extracts the paper from under her coat.
Eyes flicking around the front page, she reads it critically. "That distant cathedral is all I see, fractured angel the other part of me..." Lucy trails off, reading the bold, black letters of the paper's front page. Cletus Kasady's distinct pale visage stares out from the pages like a ghost. They roomed in the same hallway at St. Estes, back before she was moved to BAGY. There were a ton of stories the faculty traded about the unfortunate boy.
She was treated well at BAGY. She knew she was lucky she wasn't particularly dangerous at that time. She was forced to wear insulated clothing and gloves, and she was watched like a hawk, but she knew joy. She knew the feeling of sunlight on her face and grass in her toes. Children like Kasady didn't get that chance.
If her life could've stayed that way forever, that would have been fine. Instead, it was stolen away by one Eddie Brock. The same man wrote the article featured on the front page. She knew the man was a serial killer, yet she couldn't help but feel sympathy for the inmate having his life ruined by Brock. Maybe that was just the victim in her, the patient of every horrible asylum and home for the mutated that wanted to see herself in others. She hopes she's wrong.
After skimming the inner page, she throws down the newsprint rag on the kitchen counter. That bastard was spinning the same drivel as always. The rage brimming in the back of her throat tickles, then starts to burn like a shot of high-grade whiskey. That feeling means that her emotions are charging her veins with tons of volts.
Pleasure or pain, rain or shine, her emotions always end up making things harder for her. She wonders if it will ever end. The chase, the hunt. She needs to get control, whether over her emotions or over her situation. That, and more empty batteries.
Taking a depleted cell from a moving box, she returns to the kitchen swiftly, retrieving a wooden spoon from a drawer. Her teeth fit perfectly into the bite marks she left there three days ago. Each passing week, she needed this more often, but she tries not to let it get to her. Focusing intently on her center, she pushes out every ounce of power she can, forcing it into the power cell. Pained whimpers leave her mouth, her teeth clenching on the spoon as she shudders hard.
An almost orgasmic amount of energy leaves her and her limbs droop, eyelids and gaze falling low from exhaustion. She drops the battery on the counter, disposing of it in her haste. She needed to get to the mattress before she went down, but everything was moving in slow motion. She'd procrastinated too long on offloading the static.
Four steady knocks land on her door, followed by three quick ones. Fuck. She thought she had until tomorrow, but she'd recognize that pattern anywhere. It was the man she payed to keep her out of the rumor mill and the police books, Jason Foley, and he must have moved up her deadline. Protection services, her ass.
She leans on the wall, drawing in a deep breath and trying to push off. She just couldn't find any strength, her lungs pumping air into her blood as fast as they could. What horrible timing, she thinks.
Evidently she isn't quick enough to answer because a metallic smash rings out, her door swinging open wildly. The blonde man she hired steps through the loose door, its lock now inoperable. There goes her deposit, she thinks blithely. Jason peers around the door, looking out for an ambush as she slides down the wall, energy depleted.
"What... do you want?" Lucy forces out, watching him approach with an oversized wrench in his hand. He whirls it around, catching it easily.
"Turns out the price on your head is so much more than you could ever pay. I like to side with winners." He looms over her, looking like he couldn't care whether she lived or died. He only cared because he needed the bounty on her head, and she bet it was only for a living quarry.
"You bastard. How-" she tries taunting, but is shut down quickly by a strike to her face. She falls to the side with the force of it.
"Shut up," he orders venomously. "Now I'm gonna get my money's worth out of you, since you won't be able to pay tomorrow's dues. It's about the same as what I'd spend on a hooker, anyway."
"Don't do that." She desperately tries to swat at the criminal, but her arms barely move. She has no strength and gravity alone is too much for her to fight. "Stay away from me," Lucy warns, fear bubbling in her throat.
"It'll only hurt forever." He dodges her slow moves, gathering up her long skirts around her hips.
She opens her mouth wide to scream, but a bundled up cloth blocks her. She attempts a loud groan, but the volume is heavily dulled. No one would hear her. He grasps one of her wrists, then catches the other when she tries to hit him.
She screws her eyes shut, afraid of what she'll see if she opens them. Then, with the accent of a loud 'CRUNCH', she's splattered with a warm, thick substance. He couldn't have finished that quickly, she thinks, but it worries her enough that she pries her eyelids apart.
In front of her, Jason's headless corpse stands on two lifeless feet. It falls within seconds, revealing the massive black figure that seemed to be at fault for Lucy's literal blood bath.