After 400 Years
Title: After 400 Years
Pairing: Adam/Peter
Rating: NC-17
Spoilers: Through 2.08 “Four Months Ago…”
Disclaimer: Not mine!
Dedication: For zelda_zee…a very, very, very belated birthday present. Love you, babe! I hope you like it.
A/N: This is the first fic I've written in about three months and for some craaazy reason I decided that I'd get back in the saddle with two characters I've never ever tackled before. Makes sense, right? :\ Apologies if I'm rusty but hopefully I'll have the opportunity to write more other fic soon. :)
The world passes by outside his window and it all seems so bright, so alive. Peter’s brow furrows and his eyes grow dark, cloudy. His fist tightens involuntarily as if he’s trying to hold onto something that simply doesn’t want to be held.
He feels Adam’s glances and he senses the other man considering his words before he actually speaks.
“It’s not going to do any good, you know.”
Peter shoots him a sideways look.
“What?”
“This pensive, brooding attitude that you seem to be so bent upon.” Adam adjusts his hands on the steering wheel. His eyes are hidden by a sleek pair of dark sunglasses and from his calm and collected tone, Peter can’t get a read on what precisely he means to imply by this statement. “I mean, please don’t misunderstand me. I’m terribly sorry about your girlfriend but there are simply more pressing matters to attend to. You must understand that.”
“What I don’t understand is why I can’t go back - or forward, or whatever the hell it is - to find her. I don’t understand why we’re in this stupid car driving to New York when I could fly. And I don’t understand how we’re going to save the world.” Out of habit he goes to push his hair out of his eyes and winds up merely running his hand over his short buzz cut. Adam heaves a put upon sigh.
“Well firstly, Peter, you hardly have control over your powers, do you? You could very well attempt to save your dear…Caitlin, was it?” Peter glares at Adam now but Adam’s unaffected. “And end up god knows where. As for the flying, you’re free to try. But I’m not going with you on your trial run, you see, and it’s going to be bloody well hard to save the world without me, now isn’t it?”
“I have the same power as you. I could just-“
“You also have about twenty or so other powers, don’t you? If the virus gets out and they use your blood, you’d have a bigger situation than you having a meltdown, my friend. The whole damned world would be nuclear and going to pieces.”
Peter actually huffs and his petulance makes Adam smirk. Peter sits up straight, his forehead creasing in determination.
“Well, considering the fact that the both of us can’t get hurt, don’t you think it’s a little, I don’t know, stupid, to be worried if I crash and burn? We could at least get there faster if I-”
“We can’t die, but I’d have to point out that it does hurt. Perhaps you don’t quite remember. Falling from the sky or being run through with a blade is not exactly a slightly unpleasant tingly sensation as when your leg falls asleep.” Adam smirks slightly once again and Peter’s fingers clench into a fist. It takes everything he has not to knock that expression off of Adam’s face. He wonders if he’s done it before and just doesn’t remember it quite yet, because the feeling seems familiar.
“Could you not talk down to me please? I’m not a freaking idiot.” Peter snaps, his glare growing more intense. He shifts in his seat uncomfortably. He would like nothing more than to be somewhere else, anywhere else, doing something. He’s learning very quickly that Adam has a unique ability far apart from his immortality. Adam can get under his skin faster than anyone he’s ever known. “And who the hell stabbed you?”
“Peter, I’ve been around 400 years. You get stabbed once or twice,” Adam replies off hand, flashing Peter a grin. Peter tries not to be amused. He doesn’t know why, but he doesn’t want to like this guy. His first instinct after regaining his memory was to race headlong into the fray and stop this global pandemic, not carefully strategize his next move; he’s not sure if Adam is helping him or hindering him.
“Do people do that often?” Peter asks with a small smirk of his own.
“Do what?”
“Try to kill you.”
“Every now and again.” Adam shrugs. “Don’t tell me no one’s ever tried to take your life.” The fact that Adam scoffs at the very idea of living so innocently makes Peter feel unsettled. Partly because it underlines the subtle sense of danger that races through his blood whenever Adam smiles at him, but mostly because it’s true. He thinks of Colin’s blackened body lying charred on the pub floor. He thinks of Sylar’s dark eyes boring into him like he could see the very machinations of his mind. He thinks of the first time he fell to the ground, how on the way down he really thought it would be the end.
His silence answers Adam’s question, though he knows Adam didn’t really need or expect a reply. Adam already knows all the answers, to everything, and Peter hates it almost as much as he likes it. This feeling of confusion, quickly growing all too common, prompts him to quickly press forward with the simpler matters on his mind. The things he can figure out.
“When we get to New York, I want to find Nathan. Before we do anything. He should be a part of this.” He tugs on the folds of denim of his jeans, thinking of how good it will feel to have someone to depend on rather than the constant uncertainty he feels with Adam.
Adam abruptly pulls to the side of the road with no warning. Brakes screech and horns honk but he doesn’t pay them any mind.
“What the hell are you doing?” Peter barks, his voice breaking. He turns in his seat to face Adam, wide-eyed with fright and anger.
“Do you want to do this your way, Peter? Because if you do, perhaps you should just get out of the car right now, fly yourself to New York and save the world on your own.” Adam takes off his sunglasses and his blue eyes challenge Peter, cold and uncompromising. His lips settle into a crooked frown. Peter glowers, tempted to do just that, but he can’t seem to find the gumption to find the door handle and get out. Deep down he knows he can’t do this alone.
Adam waits a long time for Peter to say something in response but Peter merely folds his arms over his chest and sulks deeper into his seat. Adam contemplates him quietly for a moment longer and then purses his lips, puts his sunglasses back on. “Fine then. Shall we be on our way?”
He pulls back out onto the road. Peter squints out into the bright sunlight and wonders what exactly it is about Adam that makes his soul twist and turn, makes him feel both right and wrong at the same time.
“There’s someone else like you, you know.” Peter mutters. Adam doesn’t react. “I could find her again. I wouldn’t need you. I could do this on my own.”
Adam doesn’t even look at him when he replies and his words are quiet but confident.
“Yes, you could. But you don’t want to.”
Again, Peter has to reluctantly admit that Adam is right.
*******
Peter holds his hand a few centimeters from the fabric of the couch, watching as he generates a tiny buzz of electricity. It makes the fuzz of lint covering its surface stretch up toward his fingers, desperate to cling.
“Could you possibly stop that, please?” Adam has a way of asking for things that sounds nothing at all like a request, but a coolly polite demand. The words clip from his tongue like chips of ice from a block. Peter sends one last jolt - this one large enough to singe - just to piss him off, but then stops. Adam turns back to the paperwork laid out before him on the table.
Peter pushes up from the couch and walks over to him. He sits down at the table and looks at his hands, considering them.
“You’re beginning to be as bad as her, you know,” Adam warns him as he crosses a t in his notes with harsh finality.
“Not even close,” Peter scoffs. “I’m only interested in what I can do.”
“You can do a lot, Peter, let’s leave it at that, hm?”
Peter studies Adam as he goes back to work; when he lets out a snort, Adam looks up, raising an eyebrow.
“What’d she do to you, anyway?”
“Excuse me?” Adam asks absently, not really listening all that closely to what Peter is saying.
“Elle. Six years ago. What’d she do.”
Adam sets down his pen carefully and leans back in his chair.
“Let’s just say that being locked up for so long makes a man a bit…stir crazy. I was, for lack of a better term, growing desperate, and she was eighteen. I, of course, lived to regret it, as I am wont to do.” He cracks a small smile and Peter gives him one in return.
“She told me she’d never had a date,” Peter draws out the conversation further, wanting Adam to keep talking.
“I was locked up, exactly where was I supposed to take her?” Adam retorts, picking his pen back up.
“I didn’t exactly mean-“
“My intentions were far from honorable. I wasn’t looking to get to know her, Peter. I merely needed a release.”
“That’s a little cold, don’t you think?” He sets a hand on the table and his fingers play with the edges of some of Adam’s papers.
“Well don’t you worry about me getting my due, Peter. I believe I paid plenty.”
“Oh yeah? How so.”
“Let’s just say…there are places where a young lady such as Elle should not be allowed to put her hands.”
Peter makes a face of pure pain, his groin hurting at just the thought of it.
“With a little practice, maybe it could have become a pleasurable experience of sorts, but at that time the young lady was a tad inexperienced. Willing, but inexperienced.”
“More than willing,” Peter shakes his head “I don’t think I’ve ever had a girl climb all over me like that before.”
“Well one can hardly blame her.” It takes a moment for Peter to contemplate the implications of his statement but by that time Adam has moved on. “In a way she’s been as much as prisoner as we once were.”
“Wait, are you feeling sorry for her?”
Adam looks at him in surprise.
“Why Peter, I heard tell that you were the bleeding heart around here. Are you telling me you don’t?” He teases.
“Must have checked my compassion at the door.” Peter responds lowly jerking his head toward the door of the apartment. Adam smirks and then picks up the manila folder in front of him, turning it on the tabletop and flipping it open. He slides it toward Peter.
“Tomorrow we move.”
Peter looks at Bob’s picture and nods.
“If we get him, you really think the Company will collapse?”
“I do.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
“Then we keep working.”
“The virus-“
“If we bring the Company down, you know there will be no virus. Not anymore,” Adam assures him. He takes the folder back and closes it. “I know what you saw in the future, Peter, but we can stop it.”
“And if we can’t?”
“There’s always my blood. I am the antidote. This girl, your niece…Claire.” He taps another file, assumedly hers. “She is an antidote as well.”
“You don’t know that for sure.”
“Well let’s hope we never have to find out,” Adam states. “Like I said. Tomorrow.”
“And when can I see Nathan?”
“Soon.”
“I’m getting damn sick of being bossed around-“ His voice borders on petulant and he sits upright in his chair, jabbing an accusing finger at Adam for emphasis.
“Then stop asking me for permission.” The words snap, Adam's mouth pulling taut with annoyance. He pauses, taps his finger against the table once, and lets out a long breath. “Look, Peter,” Adam starts calmly. “I went with you to find Caitlin, did I not? We found her, we saved her, we brought her back.”
“And she doesn’t want anything to do with me,” Peter mumbles, sitting back in a defeated posture but still seething with stubborn anger. Adam holds up his hand and shrugs.
“Hardly my fault. But clearly I am a man of my word, and I ask you to trust me. I feel I’ve at least earned that from you.” He focuses his gaze on Peter intently, imploring him to show him this is in fact true. Peter sighs. He can hear the clock ticking in the kitchen, the echo of the television he left on in the living room. Adam stares at him. “Haven’t I?”
Peter dredges up the answer he needs.
“Yes.” He fidgets, the uneasy half-truth sounding mostly like a lie. “It’s just…”
“Just what?” Adam presses.
“There’re two people in this room and only one of us has done this before.”
“Done what?”
“Save the world.”
Adam grinds his teeth in a tight frown as he lays his hands on the edge of the table.
“It doesn’t work. Doing it alone.” Peter cuts in before Adam can say anything. “The more people we have on our side-“
“The more dangerous it gets. This isn’t about finding clues and piecing together a puzzle, Peter. It is not to our benefit to have everyone involved. The Company is everywhere. Trust no one.”
“Then why trust me?”
Adam falls silent and slowly stacks up the files in front of him, organizing them slowly.
“A friend betrayed me once. I’ve had four centuries to learn from my mistakes. I trust you because you’re the one to be trusted.”
The air between them is tense. They are playing chess, maneuvering about one another and trying not to get pinned in a corner. Peter considers his next move carefully before he makes it, wanting to make sure he won’t be blindly attempting something without considering the full repercussions down the line.
“I’m going to see Nathan.” Peter holds up his hand to stop Adam’s protest. “I won’t talk to him. He won’t know I’m there. I just want to make sure he’s okay.”
Adam pauses and his eyes narrow a little; he’s turning something over in his brain.
“You’ve re-mastered your invisibility then.” Instead of nodding, Peter disappears from sight, his chair left empty. A moment later he reemerges from nowhere behind Adam. Adam turns to look at him.
“Guess I have.” He doesn’t know why he does it, but he reaches out and runs his hand over Adam’s closely cropped hair, his fingers emitting small electric sparks. The air crackles with electricity. Adam looks up at him questioningly as he slowly withdraws his touch.
They lock into one another’s gaze, their look lasting too long to be meaningless. Abruptly, Peter snaps out of it and turns away, heading for the door.
“I’ll be back.” He tosses shortly over his shoulder before grabbing his jacket. He closes the door a little too hard when he leaves.
Adam flexes and clenches his fingers once or twice and tries to stop himself from trembling. The electricity still runs through his veins.
*******
Peter yawns as he enters the dark apartment, pulling off his black overcoat and tossing it haphazardly onto one of the living room chairs. Stretching with his eyes tightly closed, he then readjusts his dark gray t-shirt and the waistband of his jeans.
“Your brother still alive then?”
Peter jumps a mile at the sound of Adam’s voice and whirls around, his heart leaping into his throat.
“Jesus Christ, Adam, you scared the shit out of me. How about a warning?”
“What kind of warning would you have liked?” Adam asks smoothly, smirking as he sets his glass of wine back down on the kitchen counter. Peter’s shoulders slump, his fight-or-flight response settling even if his pulse is still racing. “Seriously however. I assume your brother is well?”
“He’s fine, from what I can tell.”
“Didn’t perhaps catch him staring longingly at your photograph?” Peter looks at him questioningly. “I merely wondered if it was a family trait.”
“You wouldn’t mock me if there were someone you cared about more than yourself.” Adam picks up his glass of wine and takes a delicate sip, pondering Peter’s harsh words as if they were no more than a subtle observation.
“Peter, I outlive every person I meet. You don’t suppose I grow attached to all of them, do you?” His eyebrow quirks upward and he pauses for a beat. “What you imply as selfishness, I see as necessary self-preservation.” He picks up the bottle of wine and tilts it toward Peter. “Would you like a drink?”
“No thanks,” Peter mutters. “I’m going to go to bed.”
“Suit yourself.” Adam re-fills his glass with a shrug. Peter stands motionless in the center of the living room, watching him. Struggle plays out across his dark features until finally something collapses within him.
“Fine,” He snaps and stalks into the kitchen like Adam has badgered him into acquiescing. Peter moves past Adam and pulls open the fridge, grabbing out a beer. He pops off the cap with his thumb and takes a long swig.
“How very manly.” Adam chuckles, leaning back against the counter and crossing one arm over his waist, the other hand holding up his glass. He crosses his bare ankles one over the other. Peter feels cold looking at him dressed only in a pale blue tee and gray boxers.
“Shut up.” Peter glares at him and leans against the counter on the opposite side of the small kitchen, mimicking his posture unconsciously. “Tell me this. Do you want to save the world to save everyone in it, or simply because no matter what happens, you’re going to have to live through it?”
“Cannot these two concepts exist simultaneously?” Adam posits challengingly. Peter contemplates this. “I take it you have no personal stake whatsoever in saving the world, then? No need to survive?”
“I was ready to give my life before, I’d give it again.”
“Powerful words coming from someone who can’t die,” Adam taunts. “How noble the sacrifice.”
“That’s not the point.”
“Then what is the point?” Adam’s voice grows louder, sharper. He stands up straight and sets his glass down on the countertop. Peter meets his gaze but sets his jaw, not having an answer for him but unwilling to back down. “Tell me, Peter. What exactly is it that you are just longing for me to say?”
Peter’s stare falters momentarily.
“I don’t know.” He admits. Adam lets out a light laugh of disbelief. “I don’t know.”
“Everyone has their reasons, Peter. No one saves the world for all of mankind. I save it for myself, you save it for your brother, for your family. There’s nothing wrong with that. The world still gets saved, does it not?”
“It’s different.” Peter mumbles. Adam fixes him with a cool hard look and then polishes off his wine as he crosses to the sink. He deposits his glass there and picks up the bottle instead.
“No, Peter. It’s not.” He murmurs, stepping closer to him as the words hang in the air. Peter instinctively draws in a deep breath, his senses growing hyper-aware of Adam’s closeness. In the next moment Adam moves away and Peter closes his eyes, trying to block that inexplicable surge of emotion that sometimes rises within him whenever Adam is near. It feels like when he lost control of his powers, when something else took control of his entire body.
His eyes blink open and without thinking he reaches out and grabs Adam’s wrist, stopping him. Adam halts and turns back to face him, surprise showing for the first time on his usually impassive face.
“I want you to care. I want you to do this for the right reasons.” His words waver and break easily. Adam looks from Peter’s face down to his fingers that still clasp his wrist tightly. “I want to be able to trust you.”
Adam suddenly winces and Peter lets his arm go. The burnt imprint of his hand quickly heals, disappearing from Adam’s skin. Adam brushes off the pain with a shake of his fingers and then rubs his freshly healed wrist.
“You feel everything too much, Peter.” He walks from the kitchen.
“Better than not feeling anything at all.” Peter shouts after him weakly. Adam disappears into his bedroom without looking back. Peter stares at his closed door for a long time before pouring his half-empty beer down the drain.
*******
The clock taunts him from its place on the bedside table. Minutes tick by like hours and he wonders if he could possibly find a way to make them go by faster, to close his eyes and will them to pass. But for some reason nothing seems to work. Frustration seems to foster inability and the more he can’t function, the more frustrated he gets.
Finally Peter gives up and throws off the covers that feel like they’re smothering him. He lies there, still, for a moment and then sits up suddenly, swinging his feet off the bed to the floor. The mattress squeaks loudly as he gets up.
Adam’s door is half open and in the darkness he can make out his dark form lying in bed. Peter pushes the door open all the way and takes one tentative step inside.
“Adam? You awake?”
He doesn’t shift, he doesn’t stir. Peter considers rousing him but decides he shouldn’t. He has no reason to apart from some vague need for the silence to stop. He can only imagine the look on Adam’s face if he tries to explain that to him.
Backing out of Adam’s room, Peter sits down on the couch with a sigh. He turns on the television and flickering light fills the room along with the comforting murmur of a late night infomercial. Peter tosses aside the remote and sinks back into the cushions of the couch, defeated.
“Are you all right, Peter?” Adam’s voice is softer when drowsy, his name tripping off his tongue liltingly without a trace of vinegar bite. Sometimes it sounds like a curse, coming from him. Sometimes, like now, it sounds like a prayer.
Peter tilts his head to find Adam standing in the doorway, blinking sleepy eyes and running his hand over his short blonde hair.
“I’m fine,” Peter lies as Adam slowly saunters over to the couch. He circles around to its front lazily and sits down next to Peter. He eyes the television skeptically.
“What ever are you watching?”
“I don’t know. Whatever’s on.”
“I see.” Adam picks up the discarded remote and hits the mute button. “I could’ve sworn that you were in my bedroom not a few minutes ago.”
“I just wanted to see if you were awake.” Peter explains quietly. He stares straight ahead at the TV, avoiding Adam’s questioning gaze.
“I am awake,” Adam states. He shifts, pulling one leg up onto the couch as he turns to face Peter. “Is there something you wish to speak to me about?”
“No.”
“You’re sure.”
“Positive.” He coughs and shifts slightly away from Adam.
“Are you nervous about tomorrow?” Adam props his elbow on the back of the couch and rests his head against his hand. He levels Peter with a plaintive look that is positively innocent in comparison to his usual expression. It makes Peter think that he is mocking him.
“Why are you such an asshole?” Peter starts to get up and this time it is Adam’s hand that finds his wrist, stopping him.
“It was only a question.” He states evenly. “I meant it honestly.”
Peter visibly relents.
“I’m sorry. I just…” He sighs as Adam lets go of his wrist. He takes two steps away and two steps back, frustrated. “Something doesn’t feel right.”
“About the plan?” Adam rubs just above his eyebrow, staring at Peter critically, trying to understand what precisely the problem might be.
“No. Yes.” Peter looks more confused than he sounds.
“Which is it?” Adam’s face twists in amusement but Peter can see a spark of something dangerous and impatient in his icy eyes.
“Nothing makes any sense. You were so gung-ho about saving the world but we’ve been here for three days and have nothing to show for it. Just research and stakeouts and-“
“Perhaps I have the unfair advantage, Peter. With all my time, I’ve developed a sense of patience.” Adam eyes him critically. “Is it that you don’t think I know what I’m doing? Because I guarantee you, I do. I don’t do anything halfway, Peter. I mean what I say and I mean what I do.”
“Do you?”
“I do.” Adam states calmly, determinedly. His pale lips form a tight frown. He puts a hand on the arm of the couch and pushes himself up to stand. His height leaves him inches taller than Peter and he looks down into the other man’s dark brown eyes, urging him to believe again. “I most certainly do.”
Peter stares at him for what would seem like an eternity to anyone but him. His gaze flicks from Adam’s eyes to his lips and then back over his face. Adam catches a glint of something strange, heated, in Peter’s countenance; a glassy sheen in his eyes, a flush in his cheeks.
“Believe me,” Adam whispers. He sets a hand on Peter’s shoulder firmly. Peter nods slightly, almost imperceptibly.
“I do,” he whispers back before leaning forward, crushing his lips to Adam’s. Adam lets out a choked noise of surprise but deep down it’s not a shock of what or who but when. He hadn’t expected this now. This conflict of expectations ripples his serene surface and brings the dark waters underneath bubbling upward, upsetting his balance. He pries Peter’s searching lips from his and Peter’s clinging hands from his hips.
“Peter, you do this…it’s something you’re going to have to live with for a long time.” Adam tries to sound firm and constant but his voice trembles, his breath catches. Peter is already reaching for him again.
“I know.”
“Forever.”
“I know,” Peter retorts with a hint of a frustrated whine, though his voice drops lower into a more primal, guttural octave. One of his hands goes to the back of Adam’s head and pulls him back down into his kiss. Peter forces Adam’s mouth open, his kiss demanding. Something had broke loose within him, as if this is the answer he’d been searching for all along but couldn’t quite find.
Even as he kisses Adam, Peter still doesn’t understand what he’s doing or why he’s doing it. He simply needs to. It’s something unspoken, a distinct feeling deep in the pit of his stomach like he felt when he first knew he was special, that he could fly.
He’d never tried to deny his abilities. But he’d tried to deny this, this…whatever this is he’s doing…and that’s why his whole world had fallen sideways. He wonders if that was how Nathan felt when he refused to admit he could fly, or how Claire felt when she insisted on being normal. He wonders if when they finally admitted the truth, they felt this freedom he’s feeling now as he slides his tongue against Adam’s and tastes him, breathes him in.
Impatient, overwhelmed, Peter tears at Adam’s clothes, at his own. In his daze he finally realizes that Adam is kissing him back with equal passion; he hadn’t stopped to consider the hard fact that Adam was reacting, was welcoming.
The fabric of Adam’s shirt rips as easily as paper in his grasp and his hands are all over Adam’s pale skin, perfect and smooth. Not a bruise, not a scratch. He presses his fingers harder against Adam’s hips, knowing that no matter what he does, it doesn’t matter.
His heart is pounding so loudly that he can hear it; it takes him a moment to realize that it’s not his.
“I can hear your heart beating so fast,” he whispers against Adam’s lips breathlessly, almost in awe. The side of Adam’s mouth quirks upward before Peter reclaims his kiss.
“That’s a new one,” he remarks, pressing Peter a step backward. Peter doesn’t know when his shirt came off, but Adam’s palm sears hot down his back. “Where’d you pick that one up?”
“I don’t know,” Peter mumbles. He still doesn’t trust that he remembers it all, though he assumes that the powers he doesn’t recall getting most likely came from Sylar. He shuts the thought out; the last thing he needs now is to think of that evil. He kisses Adam hard and for as long as he can before he pulls back with a heady groan. “Oh, fuck.”
Without contemplation, Peter drops to his knees and strips down Adam’s boxers. His head spins with desire; every noise Adam makes is a small victory that sends heat rushing through his veins. He’d felt conquered for days; by the situation, by Adam, by his own confusion. Now he has control.
He tastes Adam on tongue and feels the weight of him in his mouth. Adam’s hands are in his hair and his hips thrust forward with insistent force. Peter takes it willingly, eagerly. They both know what their bounds are: they both know they have none.
Adam is moaning and panting above him in the half-light, cursing and pleading, and it isn’t until he hears Adam simultaneously begging to fuck him and grunting out tersely for Peter to make him come that Peter realizes that Adam’s exuberance was in fact silence. He had been hearing Adam’s thoughts, reading him like an open book, and Adam was unaware.
Peter stops what he’s doing and rests his face against Adam’s thigh. He breathes heavily, the smell of sex in the air, and tries to regain his balance when the world starts whirling around him. His fingers cling to Adam’s sweaty skin and he brushes his lips softly and unconsciously over Adam’s trembling stomach.
“Peter, what is it?” Adam’s voice shakes and Peter glances upward. Adam bites his lip, holding back.
Peter holds Adam’s stare and for the first time sees the mask begin to crumble, the exterior start to wear. There’s passion there in his cool eyes, melting ice with fire.
He doesn’t know if he makes Adam do it or not, but he knows he thought it, demanded it, inside his mind. Only a moment after he internally cried out for Adam to fuck him, to do it hard, Adam pushes him back sharply. He falls back onto the floor and his back hits the front of the couch with a thud. Peter winces but Adam doesn’t hesitate before stripping off the last of his clothes.
“On your knees,” Adam orders, his voice so smooth and dark that it makes Peter think of rich melted chocolate pouring hot and thick. Adam makes him feel like liquid, shaped and formed in whatever way he pleases. Yet he knows this is a domination he created, he allowed…he desired. After Adam pushes inside of him, he doesn’t stop until Peter cries his name aloud. Sweaty and hot Peter begs for Adam to fuck him harder, even as Adam slams into him with punishing force. It feels so good; it feels like something real that he’ll still feel even after his body has long forgotten it.
Adam grunts with exertion and slides one hand up Peter’s spine, leaning forward as he pushes deeper, hitting that spot that makes Peter scared he might be losing control of his powers all over again. Peter pounds his fist into the ground and splinters the hardwood floor, sending shards everywhere. His eyes turn white as he comes violently.
Peter hears Adam’s body wind up before it happens, hears the blood rush and his control snap; he swears he even hears Adam’s heart skip a beat as he thrusts one last time, throbbing hard inside him.
There is silence in the aftermath as they lay in a tangle of arms and legs in the narrow gap between the coffee table and the couch. Peter tries not to listen to Adam’s thoughts, knowing he shouldn’t.
“Did I make you do that?” Peter finally asks, the question of conscience happening all too late. Adam chuckles.
“No, you certainly didn’t,” Adam responds. He disentangles himself from Peter’s body and sits up. He runs his hand over his short hair. “Did I hurt you?”
“If you did, I can’t feel it now,” Peter replies. Adam nods and Peter can see even in the darkness that his eyes have gone empty. “Hey.” He leans forward and kisses Adam soundly. He lets a small spark fly as he pulls away, causing Adam to wince and rub his lips. He glances away.
“We should get some sleep, don’t you think?” Adam starts to get up from the floor. “Big day tomorrow.”
Peter stares up at him, wondering if the abrupt change in attitude is his fault or Adam’s. Adam looks back at him and upon realizing Peter’s clearly upset expression, rolls his eyes.
“Peter, we’ve got all eternity to talk about whatever the hell that was and tomorrow to take care of Bob. Prioritize.” Adam gestures for Peter to get up but Peter doesn’t budge. He considers having this fight now, hashing out with Adam and with himself exactly what had led to them fucking on the living room floor, but he knows he’ll get no answers. He tries to give up. Peter’s frown slips into a small, amused grin. He leans back on his elbows, watching as Adam walks naked toward his bedroom.
“So how do I rate?”
“Excuse me?” Adam turns back to him, arching an eyebrow.
“400 years…I doubt that’s the first time you’ve done it.” Peter raises an eyebrow in return. “So how do I rate?”
Adam pauses, casting his gaze downward and having a small laugh before finishing the walk to his bedroom.
“Maybe someday I’ll tell you,” he replies. He leaves Peter in the darkness alone, where he can’t see Peter’s smile fade. Adam leaves his door open but Peter goes back to his own room, part of him wishing he hadn’t done this, asked himself yet another question when there were still so many other things left unanswered.
He doesn’t know if Adam is worth figuring out.
He doesn’t know if he’s made the right decision.
He could go back and change it, but somehow he knows he’d still end up right back here - not this time, this place, but here. Caught between right and wrong and not knowing which side is which. Knowing whom he wants but not whom he can trust.
All the time in the world won’t change that.