the siren |peter parker x siren!oc|

Serenity: Part 18

Dying to meet you? What an odd phrase.

That was all Lena had time to think before she was engulfed in Aunt May's arms, in a hug that felt like home. Her energy was open and readable, radiating a warmth that Lena had never felt before. May Parker could be easily manipulated, but the sweetness of her smile made it practically impossible for Lena to even consider that (she also could not picture a scenario where that would be necessary, but that was besides the point). She could feel where Peter got his kindness and compassion; it was radiating off May's fingertips and thrusting into the air like a perfume made of joy. Likewise, she smelled sweet, the way she pictures the flowers in The Wizard of Oz smelling.

"It is nice to meet you," Lena smiled out of a new found happiness that she had never felt before, and she could feel Peter becoming elated with tenderness behind her. It was the same way he had felt when she was being introduced to Ned, as if his heart was sitting on a cloud.

They spoke for a while, which was difficult, but Lena navigated her way through it. By the time May announced she would be making dinner, she felt like she was in mental overload, having formulated so many words at once, so Peter showed her to his room, notifying her that he would be making the top bunk for her.

It was a bed with two levels, smaller than what she was used to. To her left was a desk, cluttered with a large computer, and gadgets scattered across the top. To her right sat a disorganized bookshelf, and clothes were littered across the floor. Peter's name was written all over the organized chaos that was his bedroom.

They sat on his bed, listening to the ruckus that May was creating in the kitchen. Lena's head was resting on his leg, and his fingers were weaving their way through her hair, winding through it like they were stuck in a maze. By this point, they were able to communicate quickly and smoothly through both thought and spoken word. Anyone attempting to listen in would be confused by words being skipped over and spoken fragments of sentences.

"What's it like?" he asked after a brief moment of silence. Living in the ocean.

Her eyes went misty, clouding over with the memories of what once was. Five months ago she was swimming aimlessly through the Atlantic, without any hope for anything in her life. Nothing had meaning, and nothing had purpose. She wished with her whole being that she could say that it was all perfect. In her time away from the sea, she had romanticized what it used to be like. The nightmares that accompanied her sleep were stark reminders that she never could return.

"It was..." she was contemplating, needing to say precisely how it felt, terribly wonderful.

He did not reply. She felt the words reverberating off of the walls of his head. She could tell he knew she purposefully chose an oxymoron, but he was trying to figure out why.

A set of chills went down the back of her spine as his fingers brushed through her scalp.

"There is no place like the sea," she whispered, Its endless depths and smooth waters could be heavenly if it were not home to...

"To them."

If she closed her eyes for too long, she could see them. The creatures that haunted her nightmares, the creatures that destroyed her from the inside out, her tormentors. Her...

She could not call them sisters.

You have betrayed us.

She flinched, physically jerking, her legs wanting to cling to her chest. On the crook of her arm she felt Peter's hand touch her gently, longing to know if she was all right. The memories of those times were so painful that they never wanted to leave her, aggressively hitting her at random. It had been five months and she still could not shake her abusers from plaguing her brain. She had started to wonder if this was a part of their curse.