Safe - Chapter 6
Characters: Ensemble
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 1,200ish
Spoilers: AU, but let's say through 1.17 ("Company Man"). And there's one tiny, tiny spoiler for 1.23 ("How To Stop An Exploding Man"), but it's not plot-related and it's all over the internets by now anyway.
A/N: Inspired by the
heroes_flashfic Somewhen Over The Rainbow challenge. ( Previous chapters)
Disclaimer: Nothing is mine but the words.
Peter's wondering whether he really knows Claude, after all.
Claude, Peter thinks, is, for the most part, kind to him, except when he thinks Peter is being an idiot. Claude is occasionally bad-tempered. Definitely stubborn. Unreasonably fond of Schopenhauer, whose writing Peter hates, makes his head fracture into thousands of poorly-interlocking triangles. But Claude understands Peter, and Peter is reasonably certain that he understands what makes Claude tick. Knows who Claude is.
Claude is not, as far as Peter knows, an uncle.
So it is somewhat surprising that when they get to Noah Bennetti's house, following close behind him to squeeze through the door, after Claude removes his hand from Peter's and they become visible once more, that Claude is assaulted by a fourteen-year-old girl.
"Uncle Claude!" She throws herself at him, blonde pigtails flying.
Claude looks embarrassed, but also grudgingly pleased.
Peter gapes. "What-?"
Claude shoots him a sharp, wary glance. Not now.
The girl turns out to be Bennetti's daughter, Clara, and he also introduces them to his wife, Sandrine. Introduces Peter, because evidently Claude and Sandrine have already met.
He wonders why Claude has never mentioned any of them before.
*
"Who was the telegram for?"
They are invisible now; Claude will brook no argument, and Peter is shaken enough by the morning's events not to press him on it. Hurrying down the street, fingers clasped tightly together.
"Someone I used to work with."
"What did it say?"
"That he needs to take his wife and daughter and get out."
"They're like us?" Peter is intrigued.
Nobody's like us, thinks Claude. Nobody's like you-
He stops, suddenly, difficult emotions twisting beneath the surface. "Pete ... "
The boy looks up at him earnestly, mistaking hesitation for worry. "We'll be alright. I know we will. We'll go somewhere safe - haven't we always said we'll go and live in the mountains?"
Perpetual optimist, and Claude can't prevent a smile. But this is too important, and he tries again. "Look - I wasn't always a bookseller."
"What does it matter?" Peter is smiling up at him. "We can ... keep goats or something. I'll milk them, and you can make cheese."
What does it matter? Long nights of not sleeping, unable to keep the memories at bay. Indelibly stained conscience, and no way to cleanse it, put things right.
For a long time, it was the only thing that mattered.
And of late, he's been lying awake again, nights, watching Peter sleep. Wondering if his past is finally catching up with him. Expecting at any moment to hear glass breaking. Dogs. Guns. Some twisted justice for the harm he's done, and who's to say he doesn't deserve it?
But not Peter. The boy deserves a chance; he's still so young.
It's a conversation they're going to need to have. But perhaps not yet, though he knows this thought is born of cowardice. Please, not yet.
They are still moving, Claude steering them through cobbled streets. Peter frowns. "I thought we were going back to the apartment?"
"Yeah, well."
*
The building, when eventually they reach it, is abandoned, almost a ruin, set well away from the snaking gravel road and almost entirely hidden by trees. Claude leads him through overgrown thickets and around to the back of the house.
"Claude, what-?"
"I just need to get some things." And Peter will have to be satisfied with that, though of course he isn't. A million questions drumming like rain against his head.
They enter through a splintered, rotting door on rusted hinges. The floor of the house is awash with dead leaves, tufts of grass still vivid green here even this late in the year. The upper floor of the building has rotted completely away, and Peter looks up at what remains of the roof between patches of blue-grey sky.
He starts at a sudden fluttering to his left, alarmed wingbeats quickly fading as birds race up and out through an upstairs window. Pigeons.
Claude moves quickly to a grating in the floor. Lifts it - a quick groan of metal followed by a muffled thud as iron meets grass. He reaches down inside and pulls out a sack.
What ... ?
A twig snaps somewhere outside, and Claude's head whips around, hands frozen on damp hessian, listening. All Peter can hear is his own heart pounding in the silence. Someone's here!
One swift movement, and Claude has risen and stepped towards him, put a hand on his shoulder. A warning look.
The battered wooden door creaks open on its hinges and a man steps through. Tall, middle-aged, bespectacled. Cautious, and Peter is horrified to see that he is aiming a gun.
-Claude!-
The man takes a few careful paces into the room. Notices the sack.
"I know you're here, Claude."
Peter blanches. How does he-?
Perhaps he flinches under Claude's hand, because the invisible man grips his shoulder a little tighter, eyes still focused on the man in the centre of the room.
"I got your telegram." the man says, evenly. "Thought you might still be here."
That's him-?
And Claude flickers into view, taking Peter with him. No!
The man catches the motion and spins, pointing the gun at Claude, though Peter can see those eyes darting towards him, too, measuring him up. He stands very still.
"Wouldn't do that, if I were you," Claude says, removing his hand from Peter's shoulder.
The man looks at Claude for a long moment, and then puts the gun away with a dry smile. "It's been a while," he says, conversationally; but he doesn't move to shake hands. Neither does Claude.
Claude half turns towards him, still keeping an eye on the other man. "Peter, this is Noah Bennetti."
Peter hesitates for a moment, but then steps forward. "Good to meet you, sir." Bennetti's handshake is unexpectedly warm and firm.
Bennetti looks at Claude. "So, you're leaving?"
"Yeah, and so will you if you've any sense." Claude picks up the sack and swings it over his shoulder.
A pause. "She doesn't know, Claude."
"You didn't tell her?"
"We were hoping she might not ..." Bennetti shrugs, an oddly helpless gesture between capable shoulders.
"D'you think that'll matter to them?" Claude's tone is abrasive, but there's a hint of something that might be fear. "D'you think they'll just sit around waitin'-"
"-That's enough." Peter sees Bennetti's suspicious glance. Whatever this is about, Bennetti doesn't trust him with it yet.
He's uncomfortably aware that Claude hasn't trusted him with it either. Whatever it is.
He steps backwards, but the edge of an old, rotten plank catches against his lower leg, and pain flares, sharp and mean. "Ow!"
Peter hitches up his trouser leg. Above the top of his boot, bite-marks rage in sickly purple, the skin around them puffy and red.
Claude frowns, but it's Bennetti who speaks. "That's a nasty wound. Why don't you both come back to the house with me, and Sandrine will take a look at it."
Peter starts to say something, but Claude interrupts. "Thanks, but we need to be going."
The tiniest raise of an eyebrow. "You're going to need to move quickly, and you can't do that if he's hurt." Such reasonable tones.
Claude frowns and sighs, but Peter sees him glance again at the wound. "Fine, then."
Invisible, they follow Bennetti out.
( Next chapter)
x-posted to
heroes_fic and
peterandclaude
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 1,200ish
Spoilers: AU, but let's say through 1.17 ("Company Man"). And there's one tiny, tiny spoiler for 1.23 ("How To Stop An Exploding Man"), but it's not plot-related and it's all over the internets by now anyway.
A/N: Inspired by the
heroes_flashfic Somewhen Over The Rainbow challenge. ( Previous chapters)
Disclaimer: Nothing is mine but the words.
Peter's wondering whether he really knows Claude, after all.
Claude, Peter thinks, is, for the most part, kind to him, except when he thinks Peter is being an idiot. Claude is occasionally bad-tempered. Definitely stubborn. Unreasonably fond of Schopenhauer, whose writing Peter hates, makes his head fracture into thousands of poorly-interlocking triangles. But Claude understands Peter, and Peter is reasonably certain that he understands what makes Claude tick. Knows who Claude is.
Claude is not, as far as Peter knows, an uncle.
So it is somewhat surprising that when they get to Noah Bennetti's house, following close behind him to squeeze through the door, after Claude removes his hand from Peter's and they become visible once more, that Claude is assaulted by a fourteen-year-old girl.
"Uncle Claude!" She throws herself at him, blonde pigtails flying.
Claude looks embarrassed, but also grudgingly pleased.
Peter gapes. "What-?"
Claude shoots him a sharp, wary glance. Not now.
The girl turns out to be Bennetti's daughter, Clara, and he also introduces them to his wife, Sandrine. Introduces Peter, because evidently Claude and Sandrine have already met.
He wonders why Claude has never mentioned any of them before.
*
"Who was the telegram for?"
They are invisible now; Claude will brook no argument, and Peter is shaken enough by the morning's events not to press him on it. Hurrying down the street, fingers clasped tightly together.
"Someone I used to work with."
"What did it say?"
"That he needs to take his wife and daughter and get out."
"They're like us?" Peter is intrigued.
Nobody's like us, thinks Claude. Nobody's like you-
He stops, suddenly, difficult emotions twisting beneath the surface. "Pete ... "
The boy looks up at him earnestly, mistaking hesitation for worry. "We'll be alright. I know we will. We'll go somewhere safe - haven't we always said we'll go and live in the mountains?"
Perpetual optimist, and Claude can't prevent a smile. But this is too important, and he tries again. "Look - I wasn't always a bookseller."
"What does it matter?" Peter is smiling up at him. "We can ... keep goats or something. I'll milk them, and you can make cheese."
What does it matter? Long nights of not sleeping, unable to keep the memories at bay. Indelibly stained conscience, and no way to cleanse it, put things right.
For a long time, it was the only thing that mattered.
And of late, he's been lying awake again, nights, watching Peter sleep. Wondering if his past is finally catching up with him. Expecting at any moment to hear glass breaking. Dogs. Guns. Some twisted justice for the harm he's done, and who's to say he doesn't deserve it?
But not Peter. The boy deserves a chance; he's still so young.
It's a conversation they're going to need to have. But perhaps not yet, though he knows this thought is born of cowardice. Please, not yet.
They are still moving, Claude steering them through cobbled streets. Peter frowns. "I thought we were going back to the apartment?"
"Yeah, well."
*
The building, when eventually they reach it, is abandoned, almost a ruin, set well away from the snaking gravel road and almost entirely hidden by trees. Claude leads him through overgrown thickets and around to the back of the house.
"Claude, what-?"
"I just need to get some things." And Peter will have to be satisfied with that, though of course he isn't. A million questions drumming like rain against his head.
They enter through a splintered, rotting door on rusted hinges. The floor of the house is awash with dead leaves, tufts of grass still vivid green here even this late in the year. The upper floor of the building has rotted completely away, and Peter looks up at what remains of the roof between patches of blue-grey sky.
He starts at a sudden fluttering to his left, alarmed wingbeats quickly fading as birds race up and out through an upstairs window. Pigeons.
Claude moves quickly to a grating in the floor. Lifts it - a quick groan of metal followed by a muffled thud as iron meets grass. He reaches down inside and pulls out a sack.
What ... ?
A twig snaps somewhere outside, and Claude's head whips around, hands frozen on damp hessian, listening. All Peter can hear is his own heart pounding in the silence. Someone's here!
One swift movement, and Claude has risen and stepped towards him, put a hand on his shoulder. A warning look.
The battered wooden door creaks open on its hinges and a man steps through. Tall, middle-aged, bespectacled. Cautious, and Peter is horrified to see that he is aiming a gun.
-Claude!-
The man takes a few careful paces into the room. Notices the sack.
"I know you're here, Claude."
Peter blanches. How does he-?
Perhaps he flinches under Claude's hand, because the invisible man grips his shoulder a little tighter, eyes still focused on the man in the centre of the room.
"I got your telegram." the man says, evenly. "Thought you might still be here."
That's him-?
And Claude flickers into view, taking Peter with him. No!
The man catches the motion and spins, pointing the gun at Claude, though Peter can see those eyes darting towards him, too, measuring him up. He stands very still.
"Wouldn't do that, if I were you," Claude says, removing his hand from Peter's shoulder.
The man looks at Claude for a long moment, and then puts the gun away with a dry smile. "It's been a while," he says, conversationally; but he doesn't move to shake hands. Neither does Claude.
Claude half turns towards him, still keeping an eye on the other man. "Peter, this is Noah Bennetti."
Peter hesitates for a moment, but then steps forward. "Good to meet you, sir." Bennetti's handshake is unexpectedly warm and firm.
Bennetti looks at Claude. "So, you're leaving?"
"Yeah, and so will you if you've any sense." Claude picks up the sack and swings it over his shoulder.
A pause. "She doesn't know, Claude."
"You didn't tell her?"
"We were hoping she might not ..." Bennetti shrugs, an oddly helpless gesture between capable shoulders.
"D'you think that'll matter to them?" Claude's tone is abrasive, but there's a hint of something that might be fear. "D'you think they'll just sit around waitin'-"
"-That's enough." Peter sees Bennetti's suspicious glance. Whatever this is about, Bennetti doesn't trust him with it yet.
He's uncomfortably aware that Claude hasn't trusted him with it either. Whatever it is.
He steps backwards, but the edge of an old, rotten plank catches against his lower leg, and pain flares, sharp and mean. "Ow!"
Peter hitches up his trouser leg. Above the top of his boot, bite-marks rage in sickly purple, the skin around them puffy and red.
Claude frowns, but it's Bennetti who speaks. "That's a nasty wound. Why don't you both come back to the house with me, and Sandrine will take a look at it."
Peter starts to say something, but Claude interrupts. "Thanks, but we need to be going."
The tiniest raise of an eyebrow. "You're going to need to move quickly, and you can't do that if he's hurt." Such reasonable tones.
Claude frowns and sighs, but Peter sees him glance again at the wound. "Fine, then."
Invisible, they follow Bennetti out.
( Next chapter)
x-posted to
heroes_fic and
peterandclaude