Heroes Fic: Ten Songs to the Same Theme
Note: About a month or so ago, I stumbled on a me!me!, in which the author is supposed to listen to ten random tracks from their music collection and write a ficlet for each of them. The catch? You only have until your track finishes to write each piece, or at least the outline of each piece, with at polish the end. So here's my stab at it; ten random tracks inspired ten drabble-ish ficlets.
Title: Ten Songs to the Same Theme
Fandom: Heroes
Rating / Genre: PG-13, Gen. Bits of it are a bit violent.
Words: 2330
Spoilers: 2.11 Powerless (new Heroes characters, non-specific plot)
Disclaimer: Heroes belongs to Tim Kring and NBC.
Playlist: Ten Songs to the Same Theme: Music for Sharing
Summary: "Dance like nobody's watching; love like you've never been hurt. Sing like nobody's listening; live like it's heaven on earth."
~~~
1. Shine
One, two, buckle my shoe, three, four, knock on the door--
The sun is high as Monica runs through the park, the beat of the music playing from the Company's iPod so strong and determined she can forget for a time where it came from. For now, there's just the rhythm, her feet and the soft dirt path beneath them.
The baseline kicks up a notch as she runs under the shade of the trees, her pace and the rhymes in her head picking up with it.
- five, six, pick up sticks-
Monica ran fast as a child. Before Micah came to stay, she'd forgotten that running could be anything else than an act of fear, heading to a stadium, fleeing the howl of a storm; for all the good it did them.
- pick up sticks, pick up the pieces, piece of my heart, rest in peace-
Enough.
Without even looking, to see who might be watching her, Monica launches herself into a high and fierce gymnastic tumble of handsprings and back flips, forcing her newly awakened muscles to remember their new tricks, pushing the old memories back down into childhood.
Let the storms come, she thinks, as she lands the last twist and picks up her running without breaking stride; this time I'll howl back.
~~~
2. C'est Magnifique
Hiro can't dance.
To be blunt, he's the epic opposite of dance, every beat moved out of time, every spin making him dizzy. He hasn't stepped on her foot yet, but that's only because Charlie can dance.
They haven't had long together and Hiro knows even as Charlie laughs with delight as he twists her under his less than rhythmical arm that they haven't got a future. Tomorrow is promised to no-one, no matter how many paper cranes they can make or how hard they wish.
This will be his last attempt, he's decided. If he can't save her this time, then he will accept that maybe, the universe doesn't want her to be saved. Stupid universe.
In less than a minute the song will end. Hiro will take Charlie outside and ask her to go with him, not to Japan this time, or Austin for the Samurai film festival, or any of the other places he's suggested in the days and weeks he's been living this scene over and over again. This time, Charlie gets to pick. And then, wherever she chooses, he'll tell her to close her eyes, make a wish and he'll kiss her, hoping it's not goodbye.
It has to be the last time.
Probably.
They spin faster, closer, each precious second of time slipping by them like fine silk.
Next time. Next time will be the last.
~~~
3. Never Can Say Goodbye.
Years and years after that first fateful press conference, Nathan Petrelli finally steps into the White House as President of the United States.
It took the longest time for him to realise that it wasn't enough to want to be the man behind the desk. He had to need to be.
Still, even with the public's gradual acceptance that maybe, just maybe there could be something in Suresh's evolutionary theories, there wasn't a political party that would touch him. So he started his own. That's when they found out just how many of them there were.
Millions of people, everywhere. Just, everywhere; every city in every country on every continent. Healers, pyrokinetics, telekinetics, remote viewers, fliers like him and a whole host of new abilities that don't have neat names yet but which the comic book industry are trying their damnedest to create.
He's an old man now, and times have changed. The existence of people with abilities took a while to be acknowledged and even now the weird science behind it all is still not fully understood. But as far as Nathan's concerned, he's just glad it's out there and people aren't calling him crazy anymore.
"There are more of us than I could have ever imagined," he'd said back then. "And we're not a threat. And we're not superior. We're just lucky."
He looks around the Oval Office, still amazed at how much bigger the room seems now that it officially belongs to him, for the next four years, at least.
Whatever Monty and Simon are doing now, Nathan hopes that at least some small part of them is proud of their father. And as for his brother?
He just wishes Peter were alive to see it.
~~~
4. Nobody Does It Better.
When Sylar finally gets a second chance to draw his finger slowly across Peter's forehead, it's not through dominance, through a final battle lost or won, but because he volunteered.
After Sylar took Adam's power, the rules changed and after a more than a half century of fighting each other they found themselves, well, not. When everything in the world changes yet they stay the same, morality, good versus evil and all that stuff just seemed so… pointless.
So here they are; two guys and a girl. Peter, Claire and Gabriel (it's Gabriel again, Sylar died with Adam). Just the three of them, locked in an eternal game of chicken.
How many stories can you jump from and knit yourself back together?
How much blood can you lose?
How little food is too little? (They got bored of that one, Gabriel was taking forever to die and Claire was impatient for her turn again.)
How long with a knife in your cerebral cortex is too long?
There's a few they won't try- chemical burns are too painful and messy, decapitation seems to kind of be asking for it and radiation affects too many bystanders and the lingering sickness makes the worst hangover seem like a fresh summer's day.
"How you doing there, Peter?" Gabriel asks the blood begins to flow in a smooth trickle down his friend's forehead.
"You're milking it man," Peter says, struggling involuntarily as the slice moves through the bone and pain kicks up beyond excruciating and into the stratosphere, "Just take it already."
"Your wish is my command," Gabriel says with a sly smile and flicks his hand up.
There's a sudden rush of air and suddenly Peter can feel the light spots of rain falling on to his mind, each drop like the beat of a hammer assaulting his senses.
It's hard to concentrate with the inside of your skull exposed to the elements, but even through his clouding vision, Peter can definitely tell that Claire's staring at him with a grim curiosity the like of which he hasn't seen since Gabriel stepped out on to the third rail and the smell of their friend cooking put them both off hamburgers for months.
"Oh, gross," she says, reaching out to touch Peter's newly exposed brain.
"Don't even think about it," says Peter, staggering and falling to the floor. "God, the rush- I can feel everything-"
"-Should I put it back?" asks Gabriel, now looking more concerned than Peter can recall right now.
"… Jeez, don't look so worried, Gabriel," Peter says in a slur, "It's all okay."
"Maybe he should," Claire questions, looking down on him. "You don't look so good."
Peter just smiles up at her, as his body kicks into automatic pilot and he feels the comforting warmth of her power running through him, the slow itch of a new body part building itself.
"Trust me," he murmurs, even as his world goes from grey to white, "You're gonna love it."
~~~
5. Blister in the Sun
Nathan wakes up like does every night, frightened, eyes screaming at the radiant intensity of Peter as his brother burns bright, hot and fierce. In an ideal world or even just an overdramatic one, he'd sit bolt upright and heave for breath. Unfortunately he's living in this one, where his skin is ravaged and his lungs don't work like they used to, so he'll settle for lying on an unfriendly bed, listening to those lungs wheeze as they sicken and moulder in the blackened cavity of his chest instead.
Through photophobic eyes, he looks around the clinical quietness of the room, wishing there was someone to wake up to.
Claude watches Nathan from the shadows. If Peter's alive he'll come back here sooner or later. And if not, then this poor sod's been through enough to deserve having someone to watch out for him, and visitors for the newly elected and Congressman are surprisingly thin on the ground. He's not seen the wife in weeks. There's something about the Petrellis that makes him want to shake them furiously, but any man deserves better than that.
Nathan's eyes close again and he settles back into another fitful and lonely sleep.
"Don't worry mate," Claude whispers softly from the corner. "I'll wake you."
~~~
6. Casual Viewin'
The most ironic thing of all, is that Claire thinks as she watches her toe grows back, nail over skin over blood over bone, she might have done this to herself.
Twelve years old, before cheerleading replaced gymnastics as her after school activity of choice, she spent every day after school pushing her body to its limits until a mistimed leap on the asymmetric bars breaks her wrist, cracks her head and puts her out of the interstate finals.
Walking around with a bruised ego and an arm that was completely useless in its cast even though it didn't even hurt anymore goddamn it, Claire remembers wishing that she could never get hurt again.
Now as she sees West's face at the window, she can't help thinking she should have wished she could turn invisible instead.
Yeah. And hindsight is twenty twenty.
~~~
7. Near Wild Heaven
No matter what crazy things are going on in their life (and these days, there's always something crazy going on), there's always one thing they find the time for. This time it’s Peter who shows up outside Nathan's window. Literally shows up; he teleports into view right in front of Nathan watches the world go by from his tiniest of balconies.
"Hey, Wendy. Want a trip to Never Never Land?"
"Jeez, Pete, you nearly gave me a heart attack," Nathan says, looking forlornly at his half-eaten breakfast bagel that now lies cream cheese side down at his feet. "Crap, that was my last one."
"I'll buy you breakfast," Peter replies with a smile in his voice, as he shimmers in and out of sight. "In Nunavut."
Nathan smiles. "You're such a show off."
"Come on, it's a beautiful out. Sun's warm, sky's blue, what more could you want?"
"Right now, I want my bagel back." Nathan says, a smile spreading across his face as he glances up into the blue. "But I'll settle for whipping your butt," and he soars into the sky, Peter's indignant "Hey!" disappearing into echoes below him.
Peter might be able to bend himself into time and space, or hold a sunburst in the palm of his hand, but Nathan could always outrun him and in the straight out race to the stratosphere, older brother beats younger brother every time.
By the time Peter catches him up, Nathan is hanging there as if suspended in a sky hammock, his eyes closed, floating contentedly on the air tide.
"I'm never going to get tired of this," cries Peter to Nathan and he loops round and backwards, letting the thermals flutter across his skin.
"You say that now; wait until Matt Parkman asks you for a ride."
Peter laughs so hard he drops clear one hundred feet before Nathan has time to blink.
~~~
8. Lineman of the County
It occurs to Matt that these days he could make his cheating ex-scumbag of a partner decide he was gay. Or a cross dresser. Or make Janice think he smells like asparagus pee.
But he won't.
Matt's decided if he can't be a dad to Janice's child, he won't become like any father he ever had.
~~~
9. Pink Moon
Claude never has gone in search of a definitive scientific reason behind his ability to become invisible, but it doesn't take a genius to realise it's got something to do with light. Bending it, reflecting it, combined with something else, something different. Something wrong.
The most likely explanation he's drawn to lately is that his skin contains some kind of photophores, creating a unique kind of bioluminescence, like a deep sea jellyfish or horrific looking squid. Given that these days he keeps to the dark shadows and feels the weight of the world on his shoulders, the irony of the analogy is not lost on him.
Claude occasionally wonders if it's a psychic projection; that he's not invisible at all, he just convinces the world he can't be seen and so he is isn't. Freud would have a field day with that one, he reckons. With all the freaks and geeks like him.
Sometimes he can't remember if he's invisible or not and has to look down and check. Other times he wonders if it even matters.
One thing Claude does know; the sunset never feels so good when the sun can't see him back.
~~~
10. Wonderful World
Odessa, Texas doesn’t have a whole lot to recommend it to Noah Bennet, but this hidden patch of meadow just off the meteor crater nature trail is one of them.
There's every chance Claude's around here somewhere, he knows, keeping an eye on his new partner. Fine. That's just fine with him.
Come on then, friend, he thinks, as he lies down with Sandra in the long grass. Watch this.
~~~
Title: Ten Songs to the Same Theme
Fandom: Heroes
Rating / Genre: PG-13, Gen. Bits of it are a bit violent.
Words: 2330
Spoilers: 2.11 Powerless (new Heroes characters, non-specific plot)
Disclaimer: Heroes belongs to Tim Kring and NBC.
Playlist: Ten Songs to the Same Theme: Music for Sharing
Summary: "Dance like nobody's watching; love like you've never been hurt. Sing like nobody's listening; live like it's heaven on earth."
~~~
1. Shine
One, two, buckle my shoe, three, four, knock on the door--
The sun is high as Monica runs through the park, the beat of the music playing from the Company's iPod so strong and determined she can forget for a time where it came from. For now, there's just the rhythm, her feet and the soft dirt path beneath them.
The baseline kicks up a notch as she runs under the shade of the trees, her pace and the rhymes in her head picking up with it.
- five, six, pick up sticks-
Monica ran fast as a child. Before Micah came to stay, she'd forgotten that running could be anything else than an act of fear, heading to a stadium, fleeing the howl of a storm; for all the good it did them.
- pick up sticks, pick up the pieces, piece of my heart, rest in peace-
Enough.
Without even looking, to see who might be watching her, Monica launches herself into a high and fierce gymnastic tumble of handsprings and back flips, forcing her newly awakened muscles to remember their new tricks, pushing the old memories back down into childhood.
Let the storms come, she thinks, as she lands the last twist and picks up her running without breaking stride; this time I'll howl back.
~~~
2. C'est Magnifique
Hiro can't dance.
To be blunt, he's the epic opposite of dance, every beat moved out of time, every spin making him dizzy. He hasn't stepped on her foot yet, but that's only because Charlie can dance.
They haven't had long together and Hiro knows even as Charlie laughs with delight as he twists her under his less than rhythmical arm that they haven't got a future. Tomorrow is promised to no-one, no matter how many paper cranes they can make or how hard they wish.
This will be his last attempt, he's decided. If he can't save her this time, then he will accept that maybe, the universe doesn't want her to be saved. Stupid universe.
In less than a minute the song will end. Hiro will take Charlie outside and ask her to go with him, not to Japan this time, or Austin for the Samurai film festival, or any of the other places he's suggested in the days and weeks he's been living this scene over and over again. This time, Charlie gets to pick. And then, wherever she chooses, he'll tell her to close her eyes, make a wish and he'll kiss her, hoping it's not goodbye.
It has to be the last time.
Probably.
They spin faster, closer, each precious second of time slipping by them like fine silk.
Next time. Next time will be the last.
~~~
3. Never Can Say Goodbye.
Years and years after that first fateful press conference, Nathan Petrelli finally steps into the White House as President of the United States.
It took the longest time for him to realise that it wasn't enough to want to be the man behind the desk. He had to need to be.
Still, even with the public's gradual acceptance that maybe, just maybe there could be something in Suresh's evolutionary theories, there wasn't a political party that would touch him. So he started his own. That's when they found out just how many of them there were.
Millions of people, everywhere. Just, everywhere; every city in every country on every continent. Healers, pyrokinetics, telekinetics, remote viewers, fliers like him and a whole host of new abilities that don't have neat names yet but which the comic book industry are trying their damnedest to create.
He's an old man now, and times have changed. The existence of people with abilities took a while to be acknowledged and even now the weird science behind it all is still not fully understood. But as far as Nathan's concerned, he's just glad it's out there and people aren't calling him crazy anymore.
"There are more of us than I could have ever imagined," he'd said back then. "And we're not a threat. And we're not superior. We're just lucky."
He looks around the Oval Office, still amazed at how much bigger the room seems now that it officially belongs to him, for the next four years, at least.
Whatever Monty and Simon are doing now, Nathan hopes that at least some small part of them is proud of their father. And as for his brother?
He just wishes Peter were alive to see it.
~~~
4. Nobody Does It Better.
When Sylar finally gets a second chance to draw his finger slowly across Peter's forehead, it's not through dominance, through a final battle lost or won, but because he volunteered.
After Sylar took Adam's power, the rules changed and after a more than a half century of fighting each other they found themselves, well, not. When everything in the world changes yet they stay the same, morality, good versus evil and all that stuff just seemed so… pointless.
So here they are; two guys and a girl. Peter, Claire and Gabriel (it's Gabriel again, Sylar died with Adam). Just the three of them, locked in an eternal game of chicken.
How many stories can you jump from and knit yourself back together?
How much blood can you lose?
How little food is too little? (They got bored of that one, Gabriel was taking forever to die and Claire was impatient for her turn again.)
How long with a knife in your cerebral cortex is too long?
There's a few they won't try- chemical burns are too painful and messy, decapitation seems to kind of be asking for it and radiation affects too many bystanders and the lingering sickness makes the worst hangover seem like a fresh summer's day.
"How you doing there, Peter?" Gabriel asks the blood begins to flow in a smooth trickle down his friend's forehead.
"You're milking it man," Peter says, struggling involuntarily as the slice moves through the bone and pain kicks up beyond excruciating and into the stratosphere, "Just take it already."
"Your wish is my command," Gabriel says with a sly smile and flicks his hand up.
There's a sudden rush of air and suddenly Peter can feel the light spots of rain falling on to his mind, each drop like the beat of a hammer assaulting his senses.
It's hard to concentrate with the inside of your skull exposed to the elements, but even through his clouding vision, Peter can definitely tell that Claire's staring at him with a grim curiosity the like of which he hasn't seen since Gabriel stepped out on to the third rail and the smell of their friend cooking put them both off hamburgers for months.
"Oh, gross," she says, reaching out to touch Peter's newly exposed brain.
"Don't even think about it," says Peter, staggering and falling to the floor. "God, the rush- I can feel everything-"
"-Should I put it back?" asks Gabriel, now looking more concerned than Peter can recall right now.
"… Jeez, don't look so worried, Gabriel," Peter says in a slur, "It's all okay."
"Maybe he should," Claire questions, looking down on him. "You don't look so good."
Peter just smiles up at her, as his body kicks into automatic pilot and he feels the comforting warmth of her power running through him, the slow itch of a new body part building itself.
"Trust me," he murmurs, even as his world goes from grey to white, "You're gonna love it."
~~~
5. Blister in the Sun
Nathan wakes up like does every night, frightened, eyes screaming at the radiant intensity of Peter as his brother burns bright, hot and fierce. In an ideal world or even just an overdramatic one, he'd sit bolt upright and heave for breath. Unfortunately he's living in this one, where his skin is ravaged and his lungs don't work like they used to, so he'll settle for lying on an unfriendly bed, listening to those lungs wheeze as they sicken and moulder in the blackened cavity of his chest instead.
Through photophobic eyes, he looks around the clinical quietness of the room, wishing there was someone to wake up to.
Claude watches Nathan from the shadows. If Peter's alive he'll come back here sooner or later. And if not, then this poor sod's been through enough to deserve having someone to watch out for him, and visitors for the newly elected and Congressman are surprisingly thin on the ground. He's not seen the wife in weeks. There's something about the Petrellis that makes him want to shake them furiously, but any man deserves better than that.
Nathan's eyes close again and he settles back into another fitful and lonely sleep.
"Don't worry mate," Claude whispers softly from the corner. "I'll wake you."
~~~
6. Casual Viewin'
The most ironic thing of all, is that Claire thinks as she watches her toe grows back, nail over skin over blood over bone, she might have done this to herself.
Twelve years old, before cheerleading replaced gymnastics as her after school activity of choice, she spent every day after school pushing her body to its limits until a mistimed leap on the asymmetric bars breaks her wrist, cracks her head and puts her out of the interstate finals.
Walking around with a bruised ego and an arm that was completely useless in its cast even though it didn't even hurt anymore goddamn it, Claire remembers wishing that she could never get hurt again.
Now as she sees West's face at the window, she can't help thinking she should have wished she could turn invisible instead.
Yeah. And hindsight is twenty twenty.
~~~
7. Near Wild Heaven
No matter what crazy things are going on in their life (and these days, there's always something crazy going on), there's always one thing they find the time for. This time it’s Peter who shows up outside Nathan's window. Literally shows up; he teleports into view right in front of Nathan watches the world go by from his tiniest of balconies.
"Hey, Wendy. Want a trip to Never Never Land?"
"Jeez, Pete, you nearly gave me a heart attack," Nathan says, looking forlornly at his half-eaten breakfast bagel that now lies cream cheese side down at his feet. "Crap, that was my last one."
"I'll buy you breakfast," Peter replies with a smile in his voice, as he shimmers in and out of sight. "In Nunavut."
Nathan smiles. "You're such a show off."
"Come on, it's a beautiful out. Sun's warm, sky's blue, what more could you want?"
"Right now, I want my bagel back." Nathan says, a smile spreading across his face as he glances up into the blue. "But I'll settle for whipping your butt," and he soars into the sky, Peter's indignant "Hey!" disappearing into echoes below him.
Peter might be able to bend himself into time and space, or hold a sunburst in the palm of his hand, but Nathan could always outrun him and in the straight out race to the stratosphere, older brother beats younger brother every time.
By the time Peter catches him up, Nathan is hanging there as if suspended in a sky hammock, his eyes closed, floating contentedly on the air tide.
"I'm never going to get tired of this," cries Peter to Nathan and he loops round and backwards, letting the thermals flutter across his skin.
"You say that now; wait until Matt Parkman asks you for a ride."
Peter laughs so hard he drops clear one hundred feet before Nathan has time to blink.
~~~
8. Lineman of the County
It occurs to Matt that these days he could make his cheating ex-scumbag of a partner decide he was gay. Or a cross dresser. Or make Janice think he smells like asparagus pee.
But he won't.
Matt's decided if he can't be a dad to Janice's child, he won't become like any father he ever had.
~~~
9. Pink Moon
Claude never has gone in search of a definitive scientific reason behind his ability to become invisible, but it doesn't take a genius to realise it's got something to do with light. Bending it, reflecting it, combined with something else, something different. Something wrong.
The most likely explanation he's drawn to lately is that his skin contains some kind of photophores, creating a unique kind of bioluminescence, like a deep sea jellyfish or horrific looking squid. Given that these days he keeps to the dark shadows and feels the weight of the world on his shoulders, the irony of the analogy is not lost on him.
Claude occasionally wonders if it's a psychic projection; that he's not invisible at all, he just convinces the world he can't be seen and so he is isn't. Freud would have a field day with that one, he reckons. With all the freaks and geeks like him.
Sometimes he can't remember if he's invisible or not and has to look down and check. Other times he wonders if it even matters.
One thing Claude does know; the sunset never feels so good when the sun can't see him back.
~~~
10. Wonderful World
Odessa, Texas doesn’t have a whole lot to recommend it to Noah Bennet, but this hidden patch of meadow just off the meteor crater nature trail is one of them.
There's every chance Claude's around here somewhere, he knows, keeping an eye on his new partner. Fine. That's just fine with him.
Come on then, friend, he thinks, as he lies down with Sandra in the long grass. Watch this.
~~~