The Deep End 3: Day After
Word count: 2,500 on the nose.
Characters: Peter, Claude.
Rating: soft R, for angst and language, though not in the same league as the previous installment.
Warning: Contains one oblique reference to 9/11, and dark themes.
Spoilers: Up to 1.17 ("Company Man").
A/N: This takes place somewhere in the vicinity of 1.14 ("Distractions"), and is the sequel to One and Two. This chapter is a lot slower. It's about dealing, about what happens after the big stuff is over.
Disclaimer: None of this is mine but the words.
Summary: Peter and Claude try to come to terms with what happened at the pool.
Peter wakes before the alarm from a dream in which the sign said WALK but, because he was invisible, the cabs and trucks kept running him over anyway.
For a moment, he thinks it might be Christmas. There's an unfamiliar tugging in his gut, something close to excitement. No, not Christmas. Something's wrong, but it's something so out of the ordinary as to be in some way special. Unique. Terrible?
The world briefly transformed in a grotesque parody of excitement; the recurring pangs of awareness about what it means to live in interesting times. Burning towers and falling bodies.
It takes a few seconds to resolve, and when it does, it's not Christmas and it's not - that. At least, not yet.
I tried to kill myself yesterday.
He tastes the thought, experimenting with it, trying it out. It feels weird, like it's somebody else's. Like he's just borrowed it.
He knows this isn't something he's ever going to be able to talk about with Nathan or his mom. Not ever. He can just imagine Nathan freaking out over the poll ratings, but - Mom. Can't begin to think about her. The fresh truth of his father's suicide flares again, recent scar tissue quick to inflame, and he pushes it away. I'm not like Dad. Slouches in bed, chin tucked into his chest, wondering if that's really true.
He's not sure why, but what happened last night doesn't actually seem to matter as much as it should. He knows, on some level, that it's a big fucking deal. But he doesn't really care. Maybe I'm in denial. Nah. The thought evokes a quick, dry snort, and he's reminded suddenly of Charles. Charles had a wicked streak, dug Peter's dark humour. Wouldn't tolerate euphemism or pity. I miss you, man.
The phone interrupts his train of thought. He lets it ring and ring until whoever it is gives up; he's pretty sure it's Nathan. He wonders if his cell will start ringing, too, but then remembers that he turned it off.
Peter doesn't want to be found, right now.
Lying in bed, if he leans right over towards the window and tips his head back, he can look at the sky. It's a bright, breezy day, and at altitude, fluffy clouds race across the sky, tumbling over each other in their hurry to be someplace else. He watches their jumbled procession and imagines flying up through them, joining their race to anywhere but here. Wonders if it's cold up there, whether you can see ice-crystals forming from the vapour.
He feels - it's like a door has opened for him, somewhere.
And then he really does hear a door opening - his front door.
Shit!
He half rolls, half falls, onto the floor, wondering whether to hide, whether the noise was enough to give him away.
Claude pokes his head around the bedroom doorway. "Imagine if you could turn invisible. That'd be handy, wouldn't it?"
Peter peers up at him from the behind the bed, hoping he doesn't look as dumb as he feels. "Shit, man - I thought you were Nathan." He frowns at Claude. "How the hell did you get in, anyway?"
Claude shrugs. "Sorry, mate - I'm not your brother, and I haven't brought you your breakfast on a silver tray. Put some clothes on - we're going out." And he disappears into the kitchen; Peter hears the fridge door opening.
He throws on a fresh tee and a grabs a pair of jeans. The knot in his stomach is still there, but the feeling of hope, of possibility, lingers.
He thinks he catches Claude looking sideways at him once or twice, but the invisible man merely meets his eyes then looks away again, and Peter isn't so sure.
*
He'd wondered about leaving the kid alone overnight; by the time they got back to Peter's apartment, the boy was withdrawn, silent. Claude shoved him indoors, threw a duvet over him and told the boy he'd be back in the morning. He couldn't get out of the apartment quickly enough. Suffocating from things unsaid.
I killed him. I didn't mean-
Claude's killed a few people in his time. Some of them deserved it; some of them probably didn't. Not one of them got back up, afterwards. It chills him, this, and he wonders whether it's some sick joke, the universe taunting him with remorse for the one body he doesn't have on his conscience.
Leaning his head back against the chipped paintwork by Peter's front door, he doesn't need to close his eyes to see it again. A flicker, and Peter is suddenly there, and Claude can't react fast enough. He watches in horror as the stick twists and penetrates flesh. Life and breath torn from the boy; an obscene violation, swift, ugly mistake.
He doesn't do that; doesn't make mistakes. Doesn't understand how the boy suddenly went from there to here. Terrified that he misjudged; that he's gone soft, got lazy. Mistakes like this will get him killed - he should be leaving now-
-Load of crap. Training the boy has sharpened him, if anything. Claude's felt more alive these past two days than he has for years.
Alive and exhausted. Not that he'd ever let on.
So the boy finally did something, and Claude killed him for it. Great bloody teacher, I am.
But a niggling doubt pecks at him, won't let him be as he turns it over in his mind, prodding it, working through it, unpicking. Another Company legacy. It fidgets impatiently in the back of his mind and he knows to trust it, knows that this is instinct and without it he would be dead a dozen times over. Something in the way the boy looked at him. Or rather, didn't look.
Claude knows a thing or two about eye-contact.
It wasn't a mistake. He meant to do it.
Claude has pushed the boy 'til he snapped, and isn't that nice. He spares a bitter thought for the Company, who taught him so very well.
The kid's a mess. A bloody mess, but he wouldn't be the first to crack under the weight of such talents.
An' I'm supposed to help him sort it out, am I?
The universe doesn't answer. Not that he expected it to.
Fan-fucking-tastic.
He spends the night right there, outside the boy's apartment. Sleepless, alert to every small noise within.
*
Training is hard. Claude wants him to do some of the exercises blindfolded - but there isn't anything to use as a blindfold, so Peter just has to close his eyes. Which is OK, except that every time he scuffs against anything with his feet, he can't help opening his eyes to check he's not about to pitch off the roof or something. He's not unaware of the irony.
Every time he opens his eyes - every time - Claude catches him. And every time, he gets a stinging slap across the head from a switch of bamboo Claude pulled out from behind a drainpipe.
After a couple of hours, his scalp stings and his ears are burning. But he's not really tired; by this time yesterday, he was flat-out exhausted.
A suspicion begins to form in his mind, and he doesn't much care for it. "You going easy on me?"
Claude snorts. "Don't be stupid. I go easy on you, and New York gets served over easy. Egg on both our faces, mate."
But Claude doesn't quite meet his eyes.
They take a break, Claude fiddling with a broken door-hinge on one of the empty pigeon coops. Peter sprawls, rests his head back against interlaced fingers; the stone is faintly warm from the late autumn sun, and he can watch the clouds scudding top to bottom across his field of view, disappearing behind the roof of the Deveaux building. He thinks again about what it would be like to fly, really fly, up there.
"Wished I was dead, once." Claude's voice imposes on his daydream.
It catches Peter completely unawares, and for a moment he freezes, unsure how to react. "Wh-What d'you mean?" The stammer involuntary, and - fuck - now he's given himself away. He pushes himself up on his elbows, tries to project a bit of attitude.
"You're a rubbish liar, mate." Claude sits down opposite him, leaning back against the heavy stone.
Peter doesn't say anything else. Doesn't know what to say. Claude eyes him, thoughtfully.
Uncomfortable with the scrutiny, Peter changes the subject. "So what happened to you?"
"Don't want to talk about it."
"But you said-"
"I know what I said. But this isn't about me - it's about Peter Petrelli and his very special talents. Want to tell me what happened last night, or do I have to break into your apartment and read your secret diary?"
What happened last night.
Time slows and freezes, leaving poolwater locked in static, turquoise fire, quicksilver reflections on the low ceiling paused in sympathy. He steps sideways, expecting that it will break the moment and that everything will move with him. Yet it doesn't, and he finds himself the only blur in a perfect, crisp freeze-frame, a Kodak moment that only he will ever know.
Claude is arrested in mid-lunge, feral and calculating. Soaked through, his shirt is plastered to his chest, and droplets of poolwater fall, motionless, from the hem and sleeves as he jabs a long, jagged stick in Peter's direction. The lethal torsion of his wrist interrupted by nothing more than a thought, Peter's thought, of Hiro.
There's blood on the end of the stick.
"Well?"
Claude is still looking at him, expecting an answer, and he realises in a too-sudden rush that he's not ready to talk about it, not yet. Apparently there's some denial going on after all. He looks away, jaw clenching, willing the tears not to fall. Ashamed of himself for being ashamed.
Claude sits forward a bit, mouth twisting slightly under the beard. "You're alright, mate."
Jeez, now Claude's being kind to him.
And somehow, that's much worse. He wouldn't mind indifference - expected it, really. He wouldn't mind Claude being angry, wouldn't even mind being hit. Being hit by Claude is real and it's solid. It's a language he's beginning to understand.
Pity, though. Pity from the invisible man is a lot harder to take.
"Fuck you, man." But the tears won't stop.
*
For a while, Claude thought he was dead. Maybe he was in hell, or at least in limbo. Everything was dark and there was a pain in his chest and back that felt pretty fucking Biblical. Must be dead, then.
But then it became apparent that he wasn't dead. Just very, very close to it. Unsure whether blood-loss or dehydration was going to kill him first. Brilliant.
Bennet ... one thought in the darkness, and he clung to it. Probably kept me alive, you son of a bitch. And how's that for ironic.
Wanting to die - that came later. For a while, he was preoccupied with the pain of recovery. And it was painful, trying not to cough or sneeze or laugh while his ribs knitted slowly back together.
At least there wasn't much to laugh about. The bitterness grew and festered.
As the physical pain faded to jagged pink scars, it seemed straightforward to exchange it for how he felt about the Company. About Bennet. He realised that he didn't know where Bennet ended and the Company began. Maybe Bennet didn't know, either.
It didn't matter; he hated them both.
Claude wasn't much for introspection or self-pity. It surprised him, then, to find himself standing, pointing a gun at his own head, having a moment of fucking clarity. I'm going to die. And he didn't care.
He'd been in the middle of a three-day bender at some crappy little roadside place in New Mexico that didn't ever seem to close. The beer was cheap; not that Claude had paid for most of it. He and some redneck, who was every bit as shit-faced as he was, thought it'd be a gas to play Russian roulette.
Claude went first, pulled the trigger. Click.
The other guy wasn't so lucky, and ended up with a nice hole in his head. Claude had another moment of clarity, then, and got the hell out of town.
He stayed in the sticks for a while longer after that, but he could feel the cities tugging him back. Reeling him in. He'd spent quite enough Company time in shitty, dusty little towns, thanks very much, and he wanted a decent steak au poivre and a proper newspaper. The desire to know, to be informed, pulled at him; necessity become habit.
And so he stayed. Watching, listening. Always ready to move on again. Always looking over his shoulder for Bennet.
The boy doesn't know. He wasn't there. Doesn't know about the Company, what they do. Doesn't need to. For now.
What Peter does need is to be tougher. Claude needs him to be tougher.
That thought bothers him.
*
After a while, Peter rests his head on the cool stone, feeling the muscles around his ribcage relax as his breathing slows. His face feels heavy and hot.
I - I almost -
"Are you done?" Claude is in his face, but it's not exactly aggressive, just part of the man's relentless need to push him, drive him forward, make something of his miserable ass.
"Look - there isn't time for this. You've got to get a handle on yourself. There's eight million people down there who'll thank you for it. Well, actually, they won't - but that's probably not reason enough to blow them all to bits."
Just when he thinks he's got the man figured out.
Claude is still talking. "You can't - ever - let them win. An' if you decide that it's all a bit much for you and you'd be happier pushing up daisies, then they've won."
Peter lifts a tired head. "Who's they?"
And Claude wonders how he came to give so much of himself away.
"Never mind that. Don't give up. If you do, I can't help your sorry arse - you're on your own. So whatever it is, deal with it." He watches Peter close his eyes again, nod. "Now tell me what happened."
"It was Hiro. He can stop time. I was thinking about him, and-"
"-And there you were. Having a fucking moment. And did you think for one second that maybe your little Joan of Arc stunt was actually going to make things worse for everyone? No. Because you're a bloody idiot."
Peter blinks. "Joan of Arc got burnt at the stake."
Claude fixes him with cold eyes. "Don't think I don't know that, mate. And don't change the bloody subject. Now get up off your pampered little arse - we've got work to do."
And Peter can't really explain why spending the rest of the afternoon getting the crap beaten out of him leaves him feeling almost happy.
x-posted to
heroes_claude,
heroes_peter,
heroes_fic and
peterandclaude, with apologies for spamming your friends-page.
Characters: Peter, Claude.
Rating: soft R, for angst and language, though not in the same league as the previous installment.
Warning: Contains one oblique reference to 9/11, and dark themes.
Spoilers: Up to 1.17 ("Company Man").
A/N: This takes place somewhere in the vicinity of 1.14 ("Distractions"), and is the sequel to One and Two. This chapter is a lot slower. It's about dealing, about what happens after the big stuff is over.
Disclaimer: None of this is mine but the words.
Summary: Peter and Claude try to come to terms with what happened at the pool.
Peter wakes before the alarm from a dream in which the sign said WALK but, because he was invisible, the cabs and trucks kept running him over anyway.
For a moment, he thinks it might be Christmas. There's an unfamiliar tugging in his gut, something close to excitement. No, not Christmas. Something's wrong, but it's something so out of the ordinary as to be in some way special. Unique. Terrible?
The world briefly transformed in a grotesque parody of excitement; the recurring pangs of awareness about what it means to live in interesting times. Burning towers and falling bodies.
It takes a few seconds to resolve, and when it does, it's not Christmas and it's not - that. At least, not yet.
I tried to kill myself yesterday.
He tastes the thought, experimenting with it, trying it out. It feels weird, like it's somebody else's. Like he's just borrowed it.
He knows this isn't something he's ever going to be able to talk about with Nathan or his mom. Not ever. He can just imagine Nathan freaking out over the poll ratings, but - Mom. Can't begin to think about her. The fresh truth of his father's suicide flares again, recent scar tissue quick to inflame, and he pushes it away. I'm not like Dad. Slouches in bed, chin tucked into his chest, wondering if that's really true.
He's not sure why, but what happened last night doesn't actually seem to matter as much as it should. He knows, on some level, that it's a big fucking deal. But he doesn't really care. Maybe I'm in denial. Nah. The thought evokes a quick, dry snort, and he's reminded suddenly of Charles. Charles had a wicked streak, dug Peter's dark humour. Wouldn't tolerate euphemism or pity. I miss you, man.
The phone interrupts his train of thought. He lets it ring and ring until whoever it is gives up; he's pretty sure it's Nathan. He wonders if his cell will start ringing, too, but then remembers that he turned it off.
Peter doesn't want to be found, right now.
Lying in bed, if he leans right over towards the window and tips his head back, he can look at the sky. It's a bright, breezy day, and at altitude, fluffy clouds race across the sky, tumbling over each other in their hurry to be someplace else. He watches their jumbled procession and imagines flying up through them, joining their race to anywhere but here. Wonders if it's cold up there, whether you can see ice-crystals forming from the vapour.
He feels - it's like a door has opened for him, somewhere.
And then he really does hear a door opening - his front door.
Shit!
He half rolls, half falls, onto the floor, wondering whether to hide, whether the noise was enough to give him away.
Claude pokes his head around the bedroom doorway. "Imagine if you could turn invisible. That'd be handy, wouldn't it?"
Peter peers up at him from the behind the bed, hoping he doesn't look as dumb as he feels. "Shit, man - I thought you were Nathan." He frowns at Claude. "How the hell did you get in, anyway?"
Claude shrugs. "Sorry, mate - I'm not your brother, and I haven't brought you your breakfast on a silver tray. Put some clothes on - we're going out." And he disappears into the kitchen; Peter hears the fridge door opening.
He throws on a fresh tee and a grabs a pair of jeans. The knot in his stomach is still there, but the feeling of hope, of possibility, lingers.
He thinks he catches Claude looking sideways at him once or twice, but the invisible man merely meets his eyes then looks away again, and Peter isn't so sure.
*
He'd wondered about leaving the kid alone overnight; by the time they got back to Peter's apartment, the boy was withdrawn, silent. Claude shoved him indoors, threw a duvet over him and told the boy he'd be back in the morning. He couldn't get out of the apartment quickly enough. Suffocating from things unsaid.
I killed him. I didn't mean-
Claude's killed a few people in his time. Some of them deserved it; some of them probably didn't. Not one of them got back up, afterwards. It chills him, this, and he wonders whether it's some sick joke, the universe taunting him with remorse for the one body he doesn't have on his conscience.
Leaning his head back against the chipped paintwork by Peter's front door, he doesn't need to close his eyes to see it again. A flicker, and Peter is suddenly there, and Claude can't react fast enough. He watches in horror as the stick twists and penetrates flesh. Life and breath torn from the boy; an obscene violation, swift, ugly mistake.
He doesn't do that; doesn't make mistakes. Doesn't understand how the boy suddenly went from there to here. Terrified that he misjudged; that he's gone soft, got lazy. Mistakes like this will get him killed - he should be leaving now-
-Load of crap. Training the boy has sharpened him, if anything. Claude's felt more alive these past two days than he has for years.
Alive and exhausted. Not that he'd ever let on.
So the boy finally did something, and Claude killed him for it. Great bloody teacher, I am.
But a niggling doubt pecks at him, won't let him be as he turns it over in his mind, prodding it, working through it, unpicking. Another Company legacy. It fidgets impatiently in the back of his mind and he knows to trust it, knows that this is instinct and without it he would be dead a dozen times over. Something in the way the boy looked at him. Or rather, didn't look.
Claude knows a thing or two about eye-contact.
It wasn't a mistake. He meant to do it.
Claude has pushed the boy 'til he snapped, and isn't that nice. He spares a bitter thought for the Company, who taught him so very well.
The kid's a mess. A bloody mess, but he wouldn't be the first to crack under the weight of such talents.
An' I'm supposed to help him sort it out, am I?
The universe doesn't answer. Not that he expected it to.
Fan-fucking-tastic.
He spends the night right there, outside the boy's apartment. Sleepless, alert to every small noise within.
*
Training is hard. Claude wants him to do some of the exercises blindfolded - but there isn't anything to use as a blindfold, so Peter just has to close his eyes. Which is OK, except that every time he scuffs against anything with his feet, he can't help opening his eyes to check he's not about to pitch off the roof or something. He's not unaware of the irony.
Every time he opens his eyes - every time - Claude catches him. And every time, he gets a stinging slap across the head from a switch of bamboo Claude pulled out from behind a drainpipe.
After a couple of hours, his scalp stings and his ears are burning. But he's not really tired; by this time yesterday, he was flat-out exhausted.
A suspicion begins to form in his mind, and he doesn't much care for it. "You going easy on me?"
Claude snorts. "Don't be stupid. I go easy on you, and New York gets served over easy. Egg on both our faces, mate."
But Claude doesn't quite meet his eyes.
They take a break, Claude fiddling with a broken door-hinge on one of the empty pigeon coops. Peter sprawls, rests his head back against interlaced fingers; the stone is faintly warm from the late autumn sun, and he can watch the clouds scudding top to bottom across his field of view, disappearing behind the roof of the Deveaux building. He thinks again about what it would be like to fly, really fly, up there.
"Wished I was dead, once." Claude's voice imposes on his daydream.
It catches Peter completely unawares, and for a moment he freezes, unsure how to react. "Wh-What d'you mean?" The stammer involuntary, and - fuck - now he's given himself away. He pushes himself up on his elbows, tries to project a bit of attitude.
"You're a rubbish liar, mate." Claude sits down opposite him, leaning back against the heavy stone.
Peter doesn't say anything else. Doesn't know what to say. Claude eyes him, thoughtfully.
Uncomfortable with the scrutiny, Peter changes the subject. "So what happened to you?"
"Don't want to talk about it."
"But you said-"
"I know what I said. But this isn't about me - it's about Peter Petrelli and his very special talents. Want to tell me what happened last night, or do I have to break into your apartment and read your secret diary?"
What happened last night.
Time slows and freezes, leaving poolwater locked in static, turquoise fire, quicksilver reflections on the low ceiling paused in sympathy. He steps sideways, expecting that it will break the moment and that everything will move with him. Yet it doesn't, and he finds himself the only blur in a perfect, crisp freeze-frame, a Kodak moment that only he will ever know.
Claude is arrested in mid-lunge, feral and calculating. Soaked through, his shirt is plastered to his chest, and droplets of poolwater fall, motionless, from the hem and sleeves as he jabs a long, jagged stick in Peter's direction. The lethal torsion of his wrist interrupted by nothing more than a thought, Peter's thought, of Hiro.
There's blood on the end of the stick.
"Well?"
Claude is still looking at him, expecting an answer, and he realises in a too-sudden rush that he's not ready to talk about it, not yet. Apparently there's some denial going on after all. He looks away, jaw clenching, willing the tears not to fall. Ashamed of himself for being ashamed.
Claude sits forward a bit, mouth twisting slightly under the beard. "You're alright, mate."
Jeez, now Claude's being kind to him.
And somehow, that's much worse. He wouldn't mind indifference - expected it, really. He wouldn't mind Claude being angry, wouldn't even mind being hit. Being hit by Claude is real and it's solid. It's a language he's beginning to understand.
Pity, though. Pity from the invisible man is a lot harder to take.
"Fuck you, man." But the tears won't stop.
*
For a while, Claude thought he was dead. Maybe he was in hell, or at least in limbo. Everything was dark and there was a pain in his chest and back that felt pretty fucking Biblical. Must be dead, then.
But then it became apparent that he wasn't dead. Just very, very close to it. Unsure whether blood-loss or dehydration was going to kill him first. Brilliant.
Bennet ... one thought in the darkness, and he clung to it. Probably kept me alive, you son of a bitch. And how's that for ironic.
Wanting to die - that came later. For a while, he was preoccupied with the pain of recovery. And it was painful, trying not to cough or sneeze or laugh while his ribs knitted slowly back together.
At least there wasn't much to laugh about. The bitterness grew and festered.
As the physical pain faded to jagged pink scars, it seemed straightforward to exchange it for how he felt about the Company. About Bennet. He realised that he didn't know where Bennet ended and the Company began. Maybe Bennet didn't know, either.
It didn't matter; he hated them both.
Claude wasn't much for introspection or self-pity. It surprised him, then, to find himself standing, pointing a gun at his own head, having a moment of fucking clarity. I'm going to die. And he didn't care.
He'd been in the middle of a three-day bender at some crappy little roadside place in New Mexico that didn't ever seem to close. The beer was cheap; not that Claude had paid for most of it. He and some redneck, who was every bit as shit-faced as he was, thought it'd be a gas to play Russian roulette.
Claude went first, pulled the trigger. Click.
The other guy wasn't so lucky, and ended up with a nice hole in his head. Claude had another moment of clarity, then, and got the hell out of town.
He stayed in the sticks for a while longer after that, but he could feel the cities tugging him back. Reeling him in. He'd spent quite enough Company time in shitty, dusty little towns, thanks very much, and he wanted a decent steak au poivre and a proper newspaper. The desire to know, to be informed, pulled at him; necessity become habit.
And so he stayed. Watching, listening. Always ready to move on again. Always looking over his shoulder for Bennet.
The boy doesn't know. He wasn't there. Doesn't know about the Company, what they do. Doesn't need to. For now.
What Peter does need is to be tougher. Claude needs him to be tougher.
That thought bothers him.
*
After a while, Peter rests his head on the cool stone, feeling the muscles around his ribcage relax as his breathing slows. His face feels heavy and hot.
I - I almost -
"Are you done?" Claude is in his face, but it's not exactly aggressive, just part of the man's relentless need to push him, drive him forward, make something of his miserable ass.
"Look - there isn't time for this. You've got to get a handle on yourself. There's eight million people down there who'll thank you for it. Well, actually, they won't - but that's probably not reason enough to blow them all to bits."
Just when he thinks he's got the man figured out.
Claude is still talking. "You can't - ever - let them win. An' if you decide that it's all a bit much for you and you'd be happier pushing up daisies, then they've won."
Peter lifts a tired head. "Who's they?"
And Claude wonders how he came to give so much of himself away.
"Never mind that. Don't give up. If you do, I can't help your sorry arse - you're on your own. So whatever it is, deal with it." He watches Peter close his eyes again, nod. "Now tell me what happened."
"It was Hiro. He can stop time. I was thinking about him, and-"
"-And there you were. Having a fucking moment. And did you think for one second that maybe your little Joan of Arc stunt was actually going to make things worse for everyone? No. Because you're a bloody idiot."
Peter blinks. "Joan of Arc got burnt at the stake."
Claude fixes him with cold eyes. "Don't think I don't know that, mate. And don't change the bloody subject. Now get up off your pampered little arse - we've got work to do."
And Peter can't really explain why spending the rest of the afternoon getting the crap beaten out of him leaves him feeling almost happy.
x-posted to
heroes_claude,
heroes_peter,
heroes_fic and
peterandclaude, with apologies for spamming your friends-page.