(no subject)
Title: Carve Us As Instruments.
Rating: PG-13.
Genre: Angst, future!fic.
Chaarcters/Pairings: Peter/Claire, Nathan, Arthur, Noah.
Word count: 3,092.
Warnings: SPOILERS up to 3x11, to be safe.
Summary: Things aren't always as they seem.
Notes: Written for pairechallenge. Thanks to ladyanne525 for reading this over for me!
When Peter's in elementary school, he breaks so many bones and takes so many days off sick that his guidance counsellor gets worried enough to call his parents in for a talk. Now, she doesn't come right out and accuse anyone of anything - this is, after all, one of the most expensive private schools in Manhattan, and they understand what it is to be discreet - but she does express concern.
Concern that his mom dismisses out of hand as 'normal for a boy his age', but the counsellor remains unconvinced - after all, there's a world of difference between leaping off the kitchen counter when you're three because you've just got back from seeing Superman III and your brother refuses to let you attempt flight from your bedroom window on the third floor, and purposefully cutting the brakes on your new bike when you're nine and cycling down a steep hill because you're sure you'll fly like Elliot and ET.
Words like 'fantasist' are thrown around, and at home his father tells him, in that calm, quiet manner that he has, that he's causing the family problems and that there will be consequences if he doesn't sort himself out.
*
You have an inside voice, and an outside voice, Nathan tells him, all tall and grown up and about to leave for Naval Academy. You can be as crazy as you like, he says, just don't tell anyone.
So he stops talking about being able to fly, because this is what Nathan told him to do, and his big brother always knows what's best.
He takes to sneaking around the mansion, bored now that Nathan's away most of the time. There are so many secrets held in this place that he won't know for years and years, but he discovers one single thing that turns his whole world view upside down.
Outside his dad's office way past his bedtime, he peers around the door at where his parents and Nathan stand. He can't see his parents faces, but he sees Nathan's.
“-fire,” he catches Mom saying, and with a jolt he's realises that Nathan is crying. He doesn't make a sound, or wipe embarrassedly at the wet trails like Peter does when he scrapes his knees - Nathan just stands there, tears running down his cheeks, and their parents don't even try to comfort him.
And the thing is, neither does Peter. One part of him wants to run in and hug him, but the other, bigger, part of him is too shocked, too awkward, too embarrassed to make a move. And maybe he is a Petrelli after all, because he hides behind his closed door later that night and hears his brother throw things at his bedroom wall, and the next day he sits at the breakfast table with the rest of them and eats his toast and ignores the deep dark circles under Nathan's eyes and he hugs him goodbye like nothing's happened when Nathan slinks back to the Naval Academy.
And he doesn't mention it for another seventeen years.
*
He's never liked his father, the two of them just never fit together right, not like Nathan did, and he thinks maybe that was inevitable - Nathan had a ten year start - but mostly he thinks that his dad should just love him; every stupid thing he does and every stupid thing he says. He should love that about Peter.
Claire's dad loves her in a way that she doesn't appreciate and that Peter cannot fully grasp; the enormity of a love that challenges the very core of who you are and pushes you beyond the edge of what you thought you were capable of - he hasn't experienced it, given or received. Love comes easily to Peter, but it's the shallow, pretty love of a shallow, pretty boy, and like his mom always said, it's a new thing every week with him. A new toy, a new best friend, a new girl - and maybe his power reflects that, he thinks. He can't settle for just one thing.
*
Claire is the queen of a world she doesn't want. She's predisposed to it, perhaps; raised by a company man, the blood of the ultimate alpha family in her veins, and she gets it now, that this is Destiny with a big 'D' - they tried tried tried to change the future and it couldn't be done, and sometimes she can believe like Nathan does; that a world where everyone can have a power is the first step to... peace on earth and goodwill to all men or something. But if she closes her eyes, all she can hear is Arthur's voice coming out of Nathan's mouth, so she always keeps them wide open.
She reports directly to Arthur now, however much Nathan might take her aside and with soft eyes and a soft voice tell her that she can come to him any time, his grip steady and warm on her arm. She likes Arthur for his cold efficiency, because it doesn't stir any memories like Nathan and his hair that's in need of a cut in the front does. She's a killer, like her daddy, and like him, it's just a job - she gets no joy from it, and less and less sorrow as the years tick by. She doesn't need personal time, or mental health days, or comforting talks by the fireside. All she needs is to get her assignment, do her assignment, and go home. She didn't like her peas touching her mashed potatoes when she was a child, and she doesn't like her work touching her personal life now.
Though, sometimes, what she wants is not what's best for Pinehearst, and Pinehearst always wins out in the end.
*
Primatech is all but gone now, the Texas branch destroyed by explosives created by Peter's own hands after Pinehearst had taken it by force. There were ten people in the building at the time; nine of them died and one walked away unscathed. Since then every facility has been victim of a 'hostile takeover' and Primatech lives on only in the handful of members that haven't defected or died. Angela, Noah and the Haitian join Peter, Matt, Daphne, Hiro and Ando, teach them how to fire weapons and make bombs and sacrifice the few to save the many. The phrase 'for the greater good' is uttered like an absolution and sometimes Peter honestly can't tell them apart from the other side.
“Your aim is shit, Peter,” Noah says when they practice with silencers on in the backyard of a safehouse and years of playing arcade games have made Hiro an expert shot.
Noah's hands are on his arms, his legs; positioning him like a doll until he's just right. “Maybe that's on purpose,” he mutters, and then louder, “maybe I don't want to shoot anyone, Noah.”
Noah looks at him with the same blank expression that Claire turns on him every time they meet now. “Then go home, Peter. We don't need anyone who isn't one hundred percent committed.”
“I don't have a home. Dad took that from me.”
Life trickles into Noah's features, and he passes Peter a newly loaded gun. “Your father took a lot of things from a lot of people. You just hold on to that, okay?”
*
Primatech is like an itch that can't quite be satisfied; every time you think it's gone, there it is again, gnawing at you. Their little protests and attacks do nothing but win them the title of 'terrorist', but they persist, and Claire's always the favourite for the clean up. Arthur likes to test the people around him, push their buttons and find where their cracks are; break them down and build them back up, and she knows that he's just waiting for hers to show.
They find Matt in Kansas at Christmas. Even terrorists get the holidays off, she guesses.
“How quaint,” she mutters as she crosses the field, Knox on one side, Flint on the other. “Try not to fuck anything up,” she snaps curtly to Flint as the door of the farmhouse opens. A man blocks the doorway, holding a shotgun, and even from a distance she can tell that it isn't Matt. The gun click-clicks and the butt is swung towards them.
“Stay right there,” the man yells, and Flint readies a flame.
She holds her palm up. “Cool it,” she whispers, and then, “Mr Millbrook, that gun isn't going to be much use to you, you can't stop us. Why don't you just put it down and stand aside? We don't want to hurt you.”
“What makes you think I'm trying to stop you?” he replies, and glances behind him as the door around the side slams open and a blur of colour zooms out.
“Fuck!” she hisses, “Daphne's gone. Get in there, you idiots!”
Millbrook steps back, doesn't even try to fight them as Flint blasts their way through and the wooden railing catches light in the display. Toys and wrapping paper litter the floor of the lounge, and Claire glances at the tree for a second, taking in the homemade decorations that could have been the ones that her mom probably still puts on the tree every year - though she's the only one to enjoy them now. Knox and Flint have already moved through the house to thumps and shouts and yells.
“Claire!” Flint hollers as she watches Daphne's father escape through the front door. No point chasing him, she thinks, it would just waste time. “Come 'ere an' see what we found! Hit the jackpot!”
In the kitchen, Matt has been pinned to the floor by Flint, on his stomach, his arms wrenched back, and in the corner, caught like a deer in the headlights, is Peter. He holds a gun on Knox, but his gaze flickers when he sees her and the other man easily gets him in a headlock.
“Looky here, then,” Flint says, whistling low. “We're gonna be boss man's favourite today.”
Knox kicks the gun away from Peter and drags him up, and she wonders for a second why he doesn't use one of his powers, flying or super strength or invisibility; he's quite capable of besting them, and then she gets it - he's scared, terrified. As he's pulled out of the room towards their van, he looks at her, angrily, pleadingly maybe - she'd know if she was brave enough to meet his eyes. She looks at the fridge instead, the collage of family pictures, of Matt, Daphne and their daughter, and she hopes, suddenly, that Daphne's speed will always be enough to protect them.
*
When Peter was eight, he climbed a tree in the backyard of their house upstate. It must have been ten, twenty feet high, and he got all the way to the top, wrapping one arm around a branch to steady himself. From up there he was able to see all the tops of all the other houses; their swimming pools, their tennis courts, kids playing with water guns, parents keeping well out of the way. Peter wondered when his parents would be back from-- wherever they were as his foot slipped and he lost his balance, heard a snapsnapsnap as his arm twisted around unnaturally and he screamed and screamed until Nathan ran out of the house and in minutes climbed the tree that had taken Peter over half an hour to scale.
He had to stay in the hospital overnight, because it was broken in three places, they said, (snapsnapsnap) and they had to put pins in his arms like Frankenstein. Peter cried before they wheeled him into the theatre, and Nathan came all the way to the swinging doors where the nurses told him to wait, and he said Mom and Dad will be here when you wake up, okay, buddy? But they weren't, and Nathan spent the night in his room on a scuffed white plastic chair.
There's still a scar today, near his elbow, a white line and a series of dots on either side, and he remembers Nathan saying chicks dig scars when the cast came off, and then he watches that same brother stand at the door of his cell, his stiff shiny shoes catching the sliver of light coming from the partially open door.
“I'd give you a hug, but...” Peter holds his arms up from where he sits on the floor, and the chains attached to the cuffs around his arms jangle. Nathan grimaces.
“Pete,” he says, and then sighs. “I'm glad you're safe.”
“They broke my arm, you know,” he replies, holding it out. It's healed now, of course, but somehow he can still feel the bite and ache hours later. “Remember that time I fell out of that tree and you carried me all the way to the car? Still got the scar.”
“I remember that,” Nathan murmurs.
“Dad said I'd have to stay with Grandma when you guys went upstate after that. I don't suppose he's coming to see me, is he?”
Nathan shuffles, and he's the president of the United States, but he's unable to find the words to reply to his kid brother. “I'm glad you're safe,” he repeats, and his hand grips the edge of the door. “I'll come back to see you later, okay? You won't be here for long, Peter, don't worry.”
*
He doesn't come back though, not for days and days, and food is brought by nameless drones and injections are given by a silent, almost unrecognisable, Mohinder. Inhibitors, he guesses, judging by the red pin prick marks left by the needles, and the rub of the cuffs around his wrists.
The food is tasteless, the chains are too short to allow him to stand upright, and they only free him once a day to drag him to the bathroom. And he doesn't see his father once.
The room has no windows, so time passes like one long night broken up occasionally by the deliveries of bland food, and he can only chart it by the yells and screams that go on and on and then stop abruptly. He doesn't yell, doesn't want to draw attention to himself, doesn't want the door to ever open again - thinks that, just maybe, his father might forget all about him like he did with school plays and recitals.
“Peter?” The whisper is almost drowned out about the creak of the door opening. Peter starts awake, curls in on himself as he squints up.
“Peter?” Footsteps echo as they approach, and then the light's blocked out as the person kneels down in front of him. A small hand presses against his cheek, and he focuses on the face close to his.
“Claire. I-”
She shakes her head, cutting him off. “Peter. Peter, I'm so sorry that you're here. I'm so sorry that-” Her voice breaks, and he turns his face into her palm as her thumb caresses his cheek. “C'mon,” she whispers, pulling her hands away. “We're getting out of here.”
“Huh?” he mumbles as the cuff on his left wrist clicks open.
“We're going,” she repeats, the other cuff falling away. “Don't worry, I turned the cameras off and there's no one around at this time. Come on, come on.”
She pulls him up, steadying him, and leads him out into the softly lit hall.
*
She straddles him lightly, hands gliding around his waist and up his chest, and he shivers as she leans in. Her dark hair is free of its tie, a reluctant curl beginning to twist strands into loose ringlets, and she lets them brush against his skin the way he likes, so that he closes his eyes and smiles.
She doesn't smile, moving slowly on top of him, fingers digging not quite hard enough to leave bruises on his now vulnerable skin. He arches his back into her, biting his lip and whining quietly as she lets herself enjoy for a moment the shudder that passes through her. She leans in again, pressing a kiss to his forehead, his lips, his chin, both cheeks; each one a sorry that he doesn't accept or reject because he doesn't recognise them as such.
He smiles like a man sated; in love, and murmurs something, never once opening his eyes to the sight of her traitorous face. She scoots down, laying her head against his chest, the steady thump of his heart beneath her ear.
“Love you,” he breathes, walking the line between sleep and wakefulness.
“Yeah,” she sighs, as his arms encircle her.
*
“As hard as it is to believe,” Arthur said, tracing the often walked path in front of his desk, “I don't want my son dead. I love him.”
“Yeah,” Claire replied, hands clasped behind her back against the wall by the door - the place she always felt safest, where she could escape the quickest. “Very few deserve a Petrellis' love.”
Arthur inclined his head. “Perhaps. But all I want, Claire, is for him to be neutralised. I don't want him to locked in that cell for the rest of his life. I'm not an ogre.”
“Then take his powers again, it worked pretty well for you last time.”
“Until he got his hands on the drug. No, he's too obsessed, he won't just give up. He needs something else to obsess over. He trusts you, Claire.”
She shifted, leaning the upper half of her body towards the closed door. “I captured him, why would he trust me?”
Arthur smiled, brushed it off. “He's a very trusting boy. Claire, you understand what I'm telling you to do, don't you? I hear that he was quite obsessed with 'the cheerleader' all those years ago. Perhaps there was something...?”
“Nathan,” she snapped to her silent father standing in the middle of the room with his hands in his pockets. He flinched. “Do you agree with this?”
“I-” He shook his head, allowing a glance for his own father before turning to her. “He'll be safe this way.”
“We'll give you the inhibitor to grind up and mix in with his food,” Arthur said briskly, sliding a key off the desk. “For his cuffs.”
She palmed the cold metal, closing her fingers around it tightly. “Whatever you say, boss man,” she replied, quirking her mouth into a sneer, the consummate company girl.
Rating: PG-13.
Genre: Angst, future!fic.
Chaarcters/Pairings: Peter/Claire, Nathan, Arthur, Noah.
Word count: 3,092.
Warnings: SPOILERS up to 3x11, to be safe.
Summary: Things aren't always as they seem.
Notes: Written for pairechallenge. Thanks to ladyanne525 for reading this over for me!
When Peter's in elementary school, he breaks so many bones and takes so many days off sick that his guidance counsellor gets worried enough to call his parents in for a talk. Now, she doesn't come right out and accuse anyone of anything - this is, after all, one of the most expensive private schools in Manhattan, and they understand what it is to be discreet - but she does express concern.
Concern that his mom dismisses out of hand as 'normal for a boy his age', but the counsellor remains unconvinced - after all, there's a world of difference between leaping off the kitchen counter when you're three because you've just got back from seeing Superman III and your brother refuses to let you attempt flight from your bedroom window on the third floor, and purposefully cutting the brakes on your new bike when you're nine and cycling down a steep hill because you're sure you'll fly like Elliot and ET.
Words like 'fantasist' are thrown around, and at home his father tells him, in that calm, quiet manner that he has, that he's causing the family problems and that there will be consequences if he doesn't sort himself out.
*
You have an inside voice, and an outside voice, Nathan tells him, all tall and grown up and about to leave for Naval Academy. You can be as crazy as you like, he says, just don't tell anyone.
So he stops talking about being able to fly, because this is what Nathan told him to do, and his big brother always knows what's best.
He takes to sneaking around the mansion, bored now that Nathan's away most of the time. There are so many secrets held in this place that he won't know for years and years, but he discovers one single thing that turns his whole world view upside down.
Outside his dad's office way past his bedtime, he peers around the door at where his parents and Nathan stand. He can't see his parents faces, but he sees Nathan's.
“-fire,” he catches Mom saying, and with a jolt he's realises that Nathan is crying. He doesn't make a sound, or wipe embarrassedly at the wet trails like Peter does when he scrapes his knees - Nathan just stands there, tears running down his cheeks, and their parents don't even try to comfort him.
And the thing is, neither does Peter. One part of him wants to run in and hug him, but the other, bigger, part of him is too shocked, too awkward, too embarrassed to make a move. And maybe he is a Petrelli after all, because he hides behind his closed door later that night and hears his brother throw things at his bedroom wall, and the next day he sits at the breakfast table with the rest of them and eats his toast and ignores the deep dark circles under Nathan's eyes and he hugs him goodbye like nothing's happened when Nathan slinks back to the Naval Academy.
And he doesn't mention it for another seventeen years.
*
He's never liked his father, the two of them just never fit together right, not like Nathan did, and he thinks maybe that was inevitable - Nathan had a ten year start - but mostly he thinks that his dad should just love him; every stupid thing he does and every stupid thing he says. He should love that about Peter.
Claire's dad loves her in a way that she doesn't appreciate and that Peter cannot fully grasp; the enormity of a love that challenges the very core of who you are and pushes you beyond the edge of what you thought you were capable of - he hasn't experienced it, given or received. Love comes easily to Peter, but it's the shallow, pretty love of a shallow, pretty boy, and like his mom always said, it's a new thing every week with him. A new toy, a new best friend, a new girl - and maybe his power reflects that, he thinks. He can't settle for just one thing.
*
Claire is the queen of a world she doesn't want. She's predisposed to it, perhaps; raised by a company man, the blood of the ultimate alpha family in her veins, and she gets it now, that this is Destiny with a big 'D' - they tried tried tried to change the future and it couldn't be done, and sometimes she can believe like Nathan does; that a world where everyone can have a power is the first step to... peace on earth and goodwill to all men or something. But if she closes her eyes, all she can hear is Arthur's voice coming out of Nathan's mouth, so she always keeps them wide open.
She reports directly to Arthur now, however much Nathan might take her aside and with soft eyes and a soft voice tell her that she can come to him any time, his grip steady and warm on her arm. She likes Arthur for his cold efficiency, because it doesn't stir any memories like Nathan and his hair that's in need of a cut in the front does. She's a killer, like her daddy, and like him, it's just a job - she gets no joy from it, and less and less sorrow as the years tick by. She doesn't need personal time, or mental health days, or comforting talks by the fireside. All she needs is to get her assignment, do her assignment, and go home. She didn't like her peas touching her mashed potatoes when she was a child, and she doesn't like her work touching her personal life now.
Though, sometimes, what she wants is not what's best for Pinehearst, and Pinehearst always wins out in the end.
*
Primatech is all but gone now, the Texas branch destroyed by explosives created by Peter's own hands after Pinehearst had taken it by force. There were ten people in the building at the time; nine of them died and one walked away unscathed. Since then every facility has been victim of a 'hostile takeover' and Primatech lives on only in the handful of members that haven't defected or died. Angela, Noah and the Haitian join Peter, Matt, Daphne, Hiro and Ando, teach them how to fire weapons and make bombs and sacrifice the few to save the many. The phrase 'for the greater good' is uttered like an absolution and sometimes Peter honestly can't tell them apart from the other side.
“Your aim is shit, Peter,” Noah says when they practice with silencers on in the backyard of a safehouse and years of playing arcade games have made Hiro an expert shot.
Noah's hands are on his arms, his legs; positioning him like a doll until he's just right. “Maybe that's on purpose,” he mutters, and then louder, “maybe I don't want to shoot anyone, Noah.”
Noah looks at him with the same blank expression that Claire turns on him every time they meet now. “Then go home, Peter. We don't need anyone who isn't one hundred percent committed.”
“I don't have a home. Dad took that from me.”
Life trickles into Noah's features, and he passes Peter a newly loaded gun. “Your father took a lot of things from a lot of people. You just hold on to that, okay?”
*
Primatech is like an itch that can't quite be satisfied; every time you think it's gone, there it is again, gnawing at you. Their little protests and attacks do nothing but win them the title of 'terrorist', but they persist, and Claire's always the favourite for the clean up. Arthur likes to test the people around him, push their buttons and find where their cracks are; break them down and build them back up, and she knows that he's just waiting for hers to show.
They find Matt in Kansas at Christmas. Even terrorists get the holidays off, she guesses.
“How quaint,” she mutters as she crosses the field, Knox on one side, Flint on the other. “Try not to fuck anything up,” she snaps curtly to Flint as the door of the farmhouse opens. A man blocks the doorway, holding a shotgun, and even from a distance she can tell that it isn't Matt. The gun click-clicks and the butt is swung towards them.
“Stay right there,” the man yells, and Flint readies a flame.
She holds her palm up. “Cool it,” she whispers, and then, “Mr Millbrook, that gun isn't going to be much use to you, you can't stop us. Why don't you just put it down and stand aside? We don't want to hurt you.”
“What makes you think I'm trying to stop you?” he replies, and glances behind him as the door around the side slams open and a blur of colour zooms out.
“Fuck!” she hisses, “Daphne's gone. Get in there, you idiots!”
Millbrook steps back, doesn't even try to fight them as Flint blasts their way through and the wooden railing catches light in the display. Toys and wrapping paper litter the floor of the lounge, and Claire glances at the tree for a second, taking in the homemade decorations that could have been the ones that her mom probably still puts on the tree every year - though she's the only one to enjoy them now. Knox and Flint have already moved through the house to thumps and shouts and yells.
“Claire!” Flint hollers as she watches Daphne's father escape through the front door. No point chasing him, she thinks, it would just waste time. “Come 'ere an' see what we found! Hit the jackpot!”
In the kitchen, Matt has been pinned to the floor by Flint, on his stomach, his arms wrenched back, and in the corner, caught like a deer in the headlights, is Peter. He holds a gun on Knox, but his gaze flickers when he sees her and the other man easily gets him in a headlock.
“Looky here, then,” Flint says, whistling low. “We're gonna be boss man's favourite today.”
Knox kicks the gun away from Peter and drags him up, and she wonders for a second why he doesn't use one of his powers, flying or super strength or invisibility; he's quite capable of besting them, and then she gets it - he's scared, terrified. As he's pulled out of the room towards their van, he looks at her, angrily, pleadingly maybe - she'd know if she was brave enough to meet his eyes. She looks at the fridge instead, the collage of family pictures, of Matt, Daphne and their daughter, and she hopes, suddenly, that Daphne's speed will always be enough to protect them.
*
When Peter was eight, he climbed a tree in the backyard of their house upstate. It must have been ten, twenty feet high, and he got all the way to the top, wrapping one arm around a branch to steady himself. From up there he was able to see all the tops of all the other houses; their swimming pools, their tennis courts, kids playing with water guns, parents keeping well out of the way. Peter wondered when his parents would be back from-- wherever they were as his foot slipped and he lost his balance, heard a snapsnapsnap as his arm twisted around unnaturally and he screamed and screamed until Nathan ran out of the house and in minutes climbed the tree that had taken Peter over half an hour to scale.
He had to stay in the hospital overnight, because it was broken in three places, they said, (snapsnapsnap) and they had to put pins in his arms like Frankenstein. Peter cried before they wheeled him into the theatre, and Nathan came all the way to the swinging doors where the nurses told him to wait, and he said Mom and Dad will be here when you wake up, okay, buddy? But they weren't, and Nathan spent the night in his room on a scuffed white plastic chair.
There's still a scar today, near his elbow, a white line and a series of dots on either side, and he remembers Nathan saying chicks dig scars when the cast came off, and then he watches that same brother stand at the door of his cell, his stiff shiny shoes catching the sliver of light coming from the partially open door.
“I'd give you a hug, but...” Peter holds his arms up from where he sits on the floor, and the chains attached to the cuffs around his arms jangle. Nathan grimaces.
“Pete,” he says, and then sighs. “I'm glad you're safe.”
“They broke my arm, you know,” he replies, holding it out. It's healed now, of course, but somehow he can still feel the bite and ache hours later. “Remember that time I fell out of that tree and you carried me all the way to the car? Still got the scar.”
“I remember that,” Nathan murmurs.
“Dad said I'd have to stay with Grandma when you guys went upstate after that. I don't suppose he's coming to see me, is he?”
Nathan shuffles, and he's the president of the United States, but he's unable to find the words to reply to his kid brother. “I'm glad you're safe,” he repeats, and his hand grips the edge of the door. “I'll come back to see you later, okay? You won't be here for long, Peter, don't worry.”
*
He doesn't come back though, not for days and days, and food is brought by nameless drones and injections are given by a silent, almost unrecognisable, Mohinder. Inhibitors, he guesses, judging by the red pin prick marks left by the needles, and the rub of the cuffs around his wrists.
The food is tasteless, the chains are too short to allow him to stand upright, and they only free him once a day to drag him to the bathroom. And he doesn't see his father once.
The room has no windows, so time passes like one long night broken up occasionally by the deliveries of bland food, and he can only chart it by the yells and screams that go on and on and then stop abruptly. He doesn't yell, doesn't want to draw attention to himself, doesn't want the door to ever open again - thinks that, just maybe, his father might forget all about him like he did with school plays and recitals.
“Peter?” The whisper is almost drowned out about the creak of the door opening. Peter starts awake, curls in on himself as he squints up.
“Peter?” Footsteps echo as they approach, and then the light's blocked out as the person kneels down in front of him. A small hand presses against his cheek, and he focuses on the face close to his.
“Claire. I-”
She shakes her head, cutting him off. “Peter. Peter, I'm so sorry that you're here. I'm so sorry that-” Her voice breaks, and he turns his face into her palm as her thumb caresses his cheek. “C'mon,” she whispers, pulling her hands away. “We're getting out of here.”
“Huh?” he mumbles as the cuff on his left wrist clicks open.
“We're going,” she repeats, the other cuff falling away. “Don't worry, I turned the cameras off and there's no one around at this time. Come on, come on.”
She pulls him up, steadying him, and leads him out into the softly lit hall.
*
She straddles him lightly, hands gliding around his waist and up his chest, and he shivers as she leans in. Her dark hair is free of its tie, a reluctant curl beginning to twist strands into loose ringlets, and she lets them brush against his skin the way he likes, so that he closes his eyes and smiles.
She doesn't smile, moving slowly on top of him, fingers digging not quite hard enough to leave bruises on his now vulnerable skin. He arches his back into her, biting his lip and whining quietly as she lets herself enjoy for a moment the shudder that passes through her. She leans in again, pressing a kiss to his forehead, his lips, his chin, both cheeks; each one a sorry that he doesn't accept or reject because he doesn't recognise them as such.
He smiles like a man sated; in love, and murmurs something, never once opening his eyes to the sight of her traitorous face. She scoots down, laying her head against his chest, the steady thump of his heart beneath her ear.
“Love you,” he breathes, walking the line between sleep and wakefulness.
“Yeah,” she sighs, as his arms encircle her.
*
“As hard as it is to believe,” Arthur said, tracing the often walked path in front of his desk, “I don't want my son dead. I love him.”
“Yeah,” Claire replied, hands clasped behind her back against the wall by the door - the place she always felt safest, where she could escape the quickest. “Very few deserve a Petrellis' love.”
Arthur inclined his head. “Perhaps. But all I want, Claire, is for him to be neutralised. I don't want him to locked in that cell for the rest of his life. I'm not an ogre.”
“Then take his powers again, it worked pretty well for you last time.”
“Until he got his hands on the drug. No, he's too obsessed, he won't just give up. He needs something else to obsess over. He trusts you, Claire.”
She shifted, leaning the upper half of her body towards the closed door. “I captured him, why would he trust me?”
Arthur smiled, brushed it off. “He's a very trusting boy. Claire, you understand what I'm telling you to do, don't you? I hear that he was quite obsessed with 'the cheerleader' all those years ago. Perhaps there was something...?”
“Nathan,” she snapped to her silent father standing in the middle of the room with his hands in his pockets. He flinched. “Do you agree with this?”
“I-” He shook his head, allowing a glance for his own father before turning to her. “He'll be safe this way.”
“We'll give you the inhibitor to grind up and mix in with his food,” Arthur said briskly, sliding a key off the desk. “For his cuffs.”
She palmed the cold metal, closing her fingers around it tightly. “Whatever you say, boss man,” she replied, quirking her mouth into a sneer, the consummate company girl.