Fic: Lines - Nine
Title: Lines
Pairing: Peter/Claire
Disclaimer: Um, nope, don’t own them!
Beta: Provided by the most awesome
gidget_zb!
Rating: NC-17 (sex, language, adult themes)
Warnings: Canon incest, and, um, a whole lot of angst?
Timeline: AU as of S1 finale, a good four years into the future, because, yep, I’m obsessed.
Teaser: Claire finally gets sick of pretending, Peter finally gets a clue.
So, no Paire this chapter (and Peter was once again being annoying, so it's short and slightly weak) but we're finally getting to a needed boot in the ass for Peter from a surprising (or maybe not) source; after this, it's Paris, or as my girl Gidget says, "Ah, Paris... Land of french bread, berets and debauchery. Vive le debauche!" See, that? That is why I love my girl.
Peter knows he’s dreaming.
But it’s a dream that really happened, so he doesn’t fight against it.
It had already been awkward between them when Claire lost the Bennets, and he’d already been ducking her.
But when he gets the call past midnight from Matt Parkman with the horrible news, he doesn’t think, fear forgotten, washed away in his desperation to help her. It’s almost instinctual and so he just goes to her, heart stuttering in his chest as she raises her head to stare at him, golden hair tinted red falling around a too-pale face.
And there’s a knot of horrible guilt in his middle as she stares up at him, when she hesitates because he’s been ducking her, dodging her, trying to ignore her any way he can-
And again, he doesn’t think- can’t.
He doesn’t even manage to get his arms completely open before she’s twisting upwards into them, uncoiling herself from the chair to curl up against him, face mashing into his shirt as fingers knot into his back. She clings to him, beginning to pant into his shoulder, small body shuddering from emotion as he cradles the back of her skull and holds her tightly as she begins to come undone in a way that makes everything else around him fade.
There’s only Claire sobbing in his arms, and she’s all there is, bloodied and falling apart.
When she begins to bend, to buckle, to sink down as her sobs become hoarse hysterical cries, he just moves with her, bends and allows her to pool into his hold as the last little bit of her strength leaves her. Keeps a steady hold on her and doesn’t move even though the position is beginning to make his back ache when she shifts upward and clings to him and his shirt’s already soaked but he doesn’t care.
Claire’s grief is tangible, visceral, and he can’t fight and doesn’t even want to because it’s Claire’s.
Peter wakes up with a jolt of awareness, heart tight in his chest as his eyes flare open to take in a darkened bedroom that isn’t his, inhaling a scent that slides through him like liquid heat. It’s more than sexual (more than any one thing he’s ever felt before in his life) and it leaves him feeling wired and drowsy at the same time.
He wants to breathe it in deeply, savor it-
It finally sinks in a few seconds after that, the rush of realization that he’s curled up in his niece’s bed.
He tries to bring up disgust, tries to bring up revulsion but he feels too safe where he is, wrapped up in Claire’s bed and even though there’s nothing of Clare in the room itself, her scent is overwhelming and devastating to his control. It curls inside him and settles there like everything else she’s ever given him, and he closes his eyes for a moment, weak-willed.
Then he wonders where Claire is, and he’s awake after that, worried as he glances at the dark sky outside the window.
He strains his ears, picks on everyone but her in the mansion, so he struggles out from under the covers, staggers to his feet and hesitates, swallowing, feeling chilled now that he’s away from her scent. Then he reaches up to scratch his cheek and swallows when it floods him again, now clinging to his sleeve, a heady mixture of his own and hers- mingling into something else entirely.
Something that takes his breath away, something that leaves him feeling dizzy with how aware he is of it.
But Peter doesn’t know where Claire is and he’s tense from memories of a broken girl in a hospital, muffled sobs on his shoulder so he firmly drops his arm and tries not to breathe too deeply. Slips out of her bedroom and moves carefully down the hall, finding the mansion impossibly quiet around him.
Claire isn’t there (cuts into him like glass under his skin) and he feels it even as he listens for her, feels the hollow quality that now permeates his life when she’s not somewhere near him, not close enough that he can easily touch her if he wants, if he would ever let himself without holding back in any way.
He steps into the front room and rocks back on his heels as his mother glances up from her reading to stare at him, that unnerving stare he’s always been so utterly shaken by, a steady look that snares him and keeps him still. He still doesn’t know what his mother does, almost doesn’t care anymore (cares about nothing but Claire) and doesn’t know what the information would be useful for anyway.
But Peter’s always had his suspicion, and he’s reminded of that suspicion as she glances at him now, studies him.
“What?”
“Have a good sleep?” and she’s smiling slightly, that little smile that used to comfort him when he was young (because it meant she knew how to handle anything that popped up) and now leaves him feeling unnerved because it means that she knows things she shouldn’t know. When he doesn’t say anything, couldn’t even if he wanted to, she shakes her head and smiles more broadly as if she finds him amusing.
Peter still can’t say anything because he knows he’s rumpled and is carrying Claire’s scent and even though his mother is all the way across the room, he’s certain that she must pick up on it, be aware of it the way she is of everything so he just stands there, feeling like some kind of small animal, helpless-
“You look like an idiot,” she tells him then with her familiar blunt grace and he jerks in a quick breath, realizing he hasn’t filled his lungs in too many heartbeats, frozen as he is by his mother’s guileless gaze. She shifts the letter she’s writing, makes a slight face as she crosses something out and writes something new. “You really should be careful about looking like a deer in the headlights, Peter; makes a person want to put their foot on the gas.”
It’s an old joke just between them, and it wrenches his heart in his chest because he hasn’t heard it in years…
Because there’s something dark under the joke now, something that he doesn’t like to think about.
Peter swallows, trying to regain his balance, but he can’t because now she’s staring at him with a (sincere) smile that cuts him and deep eyes that pin him where he stands. He watches her lace her fingers and flex her knuckles, watches her arch her neck and tighten her shoulders in that same slow stretch that Nathan does so often when he’s stressed, the habit neither he nor Claire seem to have inherited.
“Claire went out a little while ago,” she sighs as she drops her gaze back to whatever it is she’s working on, taps her pen against the table absently. “Called Nathan about an hour ago, and told him your plans,” she adds, and flicks a glance up at him, that same little smile as before, the one that overwhelms him so badly. “Leaving for your little vacation so soon, dear?”
“Yeah…” and then he doesn’t say anything else because he can’t think of anything else to say.
“Are you really this selfish, Peter?”
Startled, dazed, he jerks in another breath and tries to tear his eyes from hers, tries to look anywhere but at her. But he can only stand there and stare at her helplessly, his sharp-voiced mother with her clear eyes and her secret smile, staring at him as if he’s the most tragic thing she’s ever seen, as if he’s breaking whatever is left of her heart.
“I’m not-” he manages, but she shakes her head again, smiles with a sad kind of humor.
“You could never lie to me- Claire can, when she has to, but not you, never you,” she says, blunt again but still soft, whatever it was she was writing forgotten, back straight and eyes clear. “According to Claire, and told to me through your brother, you two are heading to Paris within the next several days. I’m curious, though… will you be staying for several weeks?”
Peter can’t speak, so he nods dumbly, blankly.
“And will you be coming back?”
“I don’t understand-” he starts but he fumbles over the words, finds them tangling in his throat (like his fingers in Claire’s hair) and he staggers toward his mother, remembering how good she had always been at making him feel better, helping him make sense of things. “Ma, I don’t know what to do-” and he clamps his mouth shut, bites his tongue because he can’t trust his mother, not anymore.
“You will never know how much I have done to keep this family together,” she tells him flatly, and he stops, swallows, feeling dull inside. “I held onto your father as long as I could,” she continues softly, quietly, “and when he stopped holding on, Peter…” and it’s brutal, the sudden emotion in her eyes when she stares at him.
“Ma-”
But his mother changes suddenly, pushes back her chair and twists to her feet with grace even young people rarely possess, smoothing her fingers across the letter as she folds it up, stares at him with a tiny brittle grin that breaks his heart. “There are some lines that you cannot straddle, Peter, and there are always going to be sacrifices when you make the important choices- no matter what you choose, there will always be sacrifices.”
“Maybe-”
“It’s never a maybe, not for anyone but especially not people like us-”
Again the words tangle in his throat, leave him speechless as he struggles to defend himself, to deny things that he still can’t deal with, shifts on his feet and gasps in short breaths that burn his lungs. “Ma, you don’t-”
“Don’t wait too long,” she sighs tiredly, arching slightly to plant a quick kiss on his forehead and smoothes her fingers across his cheek in a way she hasn’t since he was ten years old. “For once in your life, honey, take your mother’s advice,” and then she’s gone, slipping past him and up the stairs with the letter in her hands, and he doesn’t go after her, can’t make his feet move.
He stands there for a long time, dazed, feeling wired and exhausted at the same time.
That night when he falls asleep in his own bed, he still smells like Claire; when he falls asleep, he dreams of his brother telling him to hurry up and cross the street already so they could all move on, and Claire’s on the other side, staring at him as if he’s the most tragic thing she’s ever seen, as if he’s breaking her heart.
Peter starts packing the next morning, and starts counting down the days.
Pairing: Peter/Claire
Disclaimer: Um, nope, don’t own them!
Beta: Provided by the most awesome
gidget_zb!
Rating: NC-17 (sex, language, adult themes)
Warnings: Canon incest, and, um, a whole lot of angst?
Timeline: AU as of S1 finale, a good four years into the future, because, yep, I’m obsessed.
Teaser: Claire finally gets sick of pretending, Peter finally gets a clue.
So, no Paire this chapter (and Peter was once again being annoying, so it's short and slightly weak) but we're finally getting to a needed boot in the ass for Peter from a surprising (or maybe not) source; after this, it's Paris, or as my girl Gidget says, "Ah, Paris... Land of french bread, berets and debauchery. Vive le debauche!" See, that? That is why I love my girl.
Peter knows he’s dreaming.
But it’s a dream that really happened, so he doesn’t fight against it.
It had already been awkward between them when Claire lost the Bennets, and he’d already been ducking her.
But when he gets the call past midnight from Matt Parkman with the horrible news, he doesn’t think, fear forgotten, washed away in his desperation to help her. It’s almost instinctual and so he just goes to her, heart stuttering in his chest as she raises her head to stare at him, golden hair tinted red falling around a too-pale face.
And there’s a knot of horrible guilt in his middle as she stares up at him, when she hesitates because he’s been ducking her, dodging her, trying to ignore her any way he can-
And again, he doesn’t think- can’t.
He doesn’t even manage to get his arms completely open before she’s twisting upwards into them, uncoiling herself from the chair to curl up against him, face mashing into his shirt as fingers knot into his back. She clings to him, beginning to pant into his shoulder, small body shuddering from emotion as he cradles the back of her skull and holds her tightly as she begins to come undone in a way that makes everything else around him fade.
There’s only Claire sobbing in his arms, and she’s all there is, bloodied and falling apart.
When she begins to bend, to buckle, to sink down as her sobs become hoarse hysterical cries, he just moves with her, bends and allows her to pool into his hold as the last little bit of her strength leaves her. Keeps a steady hold on her and doesn’t move even though the position is beginning to make his back ache when she shifts upward and clings to him and his shirt’s already soaked but he doesn’t care.
Claire’s grief is tangible, visceral, and he can’t fight and doesn’t even want to because it’s Claire’s.
Peter wakes up with a jolt of awareness, heart tight in his chest as his eyes flare open to take in a darkened bedroom that isn’t his, inhaling a scent that slides through him like liquid heat. It’s more than sexual (more than any one thing he’s ever felt before in his life) and it leaves him feeling wired and drowsy at the same time.
He wants to breathe it in deeply, savor it-
It finally sinks in a few seconds after that, the rush of realization that he’s curled up in his niece’s bed.
He tries to bring up disgust, tries to bring up revulsion but he feels too safe where he is, wrapped up in Claire’s bed and even though there’s nothing of Clare in the room itself, her scent is overwhelming and devastating to his control. It curls inside him and settles there like everything else she’s ever given him, and he closes his eyes for a moment, weak-willed.
Then he wonders where Claire is, and he’s awake after that, worried as he glances at the dark sky outside the window.
He strains his ears, picks on everyone but her in the mansion, so he struggles out from under the covers, staggers to his feet and hesitates, swallowing, feeling chilled now that he’s away from her scent. Then he reaches up to scratch his cheek and swallows when it floods him again, now clinging to his sleeve, a heady mixture of his own and hers- mingling into something else entirely.
Something that takes his breath away, something that leaves him feeling dizzy with how aware he is of it.
But Peter doesn’t know where Claire is and he’s tense from memories of a broken girl in a hospital, muffled sobs on his shoulder so he firmly drops his arm and tries not to breathe too deeply. Slips out of her bedroom and moves carefully down the hall, finding the mansion impossibly quiet around him.
Claire isn’t there (cuts into him like glass under his skin) and he feels it even as he listens for her, feels the hollow quality that now permeates his life when she’s not somewhere near him, not close enough that he can easily touch her if he wants, if he would ever let himself without holding back in any way.
He steps into the front room and rocks back on his heels as his mother glances up from her reading to stare at him, that unnerving stare he’s always been so utterly shaken by, a steady look that snares him and keeps him still. He still doesn’t know what his mother does, almost doesn’t care anymore (cares about nothing but Claire) and doesn’t know what the information would be useful for anyway.
But Peter’s always had his suspicion, and he’s reminded of that suspicion as she glances at him now, studies him.
“What?”
“Have a good sleep?” and she’s smiling slightly, that little smile that used to comfort him when he was young (because it meant she knew how to handle anything that popped up) and now leaves him feeling unnerved because it means that she knows things she shouldn’t know. When he doesn’t say anything, couldn’t even if he wanted to, she shakes her head and smiles more broadly as if she finds him amusing.
Peter still can’t say anything because he knows he’s rumpled and is carrying Claire’s scent and even though his mother is all the way across the room, he’s certain that she must pick up on it, be aware of it the way she is of everything so he just stands there, feeling like some kind of small animal, helpless-
“You look like an idiot,” she tells him then with her familiar blunt grace and he jerks in a quick breath, realizing he hasn’t filled his lungs in too many heartbeats, frozen as he is by his mother’s guileless gaze. She shifts the letter she’s writing, makes a slight face as she crosses something out and writes something new. “You really should be careful about looking like a deer in the headlights, Peter; makes a person want to put their foot on the gas.”
It’s an old joke just between them, and it wrenches his heart in his chest because he hasn’t heard it in years…
Because there’s something dark under the joke now, something that he doesn’t like to think about.
Peter swallows, trying to regain his balance, but he can’t because now she’s staring at him with a (sincere) smile that cuts him and deep eyes that pin him where he stands. He watches her lace her fingers and flex her knuckles, watches her arch her neck and tighten her shoulders in that same slow stretch that Nathan does so often when he’s stressed, the habit neither he nor Claire seem to have inherited.
“Claire went out a little while ago,” she sighs as she drops her gaze back to whatever it is she’s working on, taps her pen against the table absently. “Called Nathan about an hour ago, and told him your plans,” she adds, and flicks a glance up at him, that same little smile as before, the one that overwhelms him so badly. “Leaving for your little vacation so soon, dear?”
“Yeah…” and then he doesn’t say anything else because he can’t think of anything else to say.
“Are you really this selfish, Peter?”
Startled, dazed, he jerks in another breath and tries to tear his eyes from hers, tries to look anywhere but at her. But he can only stand there and stare at her helplessly, his sharp-voiced mother with her clear eyes and her secret smile, staring at him as if he’s the most tragic thing she’s ever seen, as if he’s breaking whatever is left of her heart.
“I’m not-” he manages, but she shakes her head again, smiles with a sad kind of humor.
“You could never lie to me- Claire can, when she has to, but not you, never you,” she says, blunt again but still soft, whatever it was she was writing forgotten, back straight and eyes clear. “According to Claire, and told to me through your brother, you two are heading to Paris within the next several days. I’m curious, though… will you be staying for several weeks?”
Peter can’t speak, so he nods dumbly, blankly.
“And will you be coming back?”
“I don’t understand-” he starts but he fumbles over the words, finds them tangling in his throat (like his fingers in Claire’s hair) and he staggers toward his mother, remembering how good she had always been at making him feel better, helping him make sense of things. “Ma, I don’t know what to do-” and he clamps his mouth shut, bites his tongue because he can’t trust his mother, not anymore.
“You will never know how much I have done to keep this family together,” she tells him flatly, and he stops, swallows, feeling dull inside. “I held onto your father as long as I could,” she continues softly, quietly, “and when he stopped holding on, Peter…” and it’s brutal, the sudden emotion in her eyes when she stares at him.
“Ma-”
But his mother changes suddenly, pushes back her chair and twists to her feet with grace even young people rarely possess, smoothing her fingers across the letter as she folds it up, stares at him with a tiny brittle grin that breaks his heart. “There are some lines that you cannot straddle, Peter, and there are always going to be sacrifices when you make the important choices- no matter what you choose, there will always be sacrifices.”
“Maybe-”
“It’s never a maybe, not for anyone but especially not people like us-”
Again the words tangle in his throat, leave him speechless as he struggles to defend himself, to deny things that he still can’t deal with, shifts on his feet and gasps in short breaths that burn his lungs. “Ma, you don’t-”
“Don’t wait too long,” she sighs tiredly, arching slightly to plant a quick kiss on his forehead and smoothes her fingers across his cheek in a way she hasn’t since he was ten years old. “For once in your life, honey, take your mother’s advice,” and then she’s gone, slipping past him and up the stairs with the letter in her hands, and he doesn’t go after her, can’t make his feet move.
He stands there for a long time, dazed, feeling wired and exhausted at the same time.
That night when he falls asleep in his own bed, he still smells like Claire; when he falls asleep, he dreams of his brother telling him to hurry up and cross the street already so they could all move on, and Claire’s on the other side, staring at him as if he’s the most tragic thing she’s ever seen, as if he’s breaking her heart.
Peter starts packing the next morning, and starts counting down the days.