Erasure and Affirmation (Hypernaturals 11)

Sweeter Than Honey

I found Vera sitting on the landing at the foot of the stairs up to the apartment that will be Simi and Tobey's for a while whenever they decide to start working on their family.

I won't say Vera looks dejected exactly, but she is sitting there picking up tiny limestone gravel bits and trying to skip them across the crushed limestone part of the drive like pebbles on a lake. I glanced at her car. No flats. No evidence it had been in the garage on the lift either: Parked exactly where it was when I left to take Helen to the airport hours ago.

When Vera and I were together, she could be moody, but that had always been part of her general Siren induced discontent. It often presaged another time she and I were going to be apart while she tried to find something or someone else that made her happier. Whatever it is that was missing from our relationship, that to her Siren sensibilities seemed like it might be 'out there'. When Shakespeare wrote that 'Now is the winter of our discontent', Vera was his muse. A tiny succubus-Siren sitting on his shoulder going 'Hey! Maybe that would be more fun over there.'

I knew nothing about Sirens then. To me, it was weird that, back then when I was human and we did not know what she is, that half the time Vera would be this amazing, passionate person, and half the time she would be unhappy about something. Usually me. I had the wrong response to her unhappiness: I tried to treat her better. Not what she was after. She wanted me to tie her up or something. She wanted to be wanted so much that I would take from her my heart's desire. That is not who I am. That is why Angel is who Vera needs. They finally got together when Angel took what she wanted.

Since she and Angel got together, I have never seen Vera like this. Angel can read Vera's needs and fill them as required. If it's a sexual issue, such as the fact that Vera, being heterosexual, wants male companionship, Angel gets it for her. It isn't even as simple as that. For happy loving, there is Kevin. For rough and hard or to be held by the neck while being pounded or whatever the weird need of the day might be, there is Johnny. Leslie still shares Johnny. If it is Vera wants some strange, they have my bar, Holly's, to go hunting at. Angel can even ask Denise where she last found a good human, and go there since Denise hunts at least twice a month.

Vera is surrounded by a one-woman love machine. A person devoted to her loves needs. A woman that fills a need and can call BS on stupid shit. Vera needs that too.

Vera looked up as I came over and sat next to her, and she tried to skip another bit of gravel to the same effect. She is mostly moving the gravel from near her to farther away from her.

"Good afternoon, bright eyes." I greeted as I sat. Vera is anything but that, so she should get my obvious prompt to talk about what is bugging her.

"Good afternoon, Vampire-boy."

Another small white unevenly shaped bit of limestone went skittering away. It evoked a memory. After I became Vampire and figured out Vera is a female Siren, I called her. She thought it was a booty call. Her unrestored, crappy Buick crunching to a stop on this same gravel and her getting out. My seeing her for the first time since I turned, and kissing her to taste her and verify she is in fact what I thought she is: Siren. I looked over at her sparkling, now perfectly maintained car. Upgraded and restored by Morgan and Jessica, and gifted back to their new friend.

It made me smile.

Vera noticed I am looking at her car and smiling. "Yeah. That is amazing."

I assumed Vera referred to the day Morgan and Jessica presented her with the car.

"You never did a thing to that car before. Now I see you out there working on it with Nakoma, Morgan, and Jessica all the time. We broke up over that car, and now it is your baby. Now you are getting married. You have changed."