A 5 + 1
Tic: Five Times Peter and Sylar Were Interrupted and One Time They Weren't.
Rating: Rish.
Characters/pairings: Peter, Sylar/Gabriel, eventual Sylar/Peter, Emma, Hesam, Claire, Gretchen, Claire/Gretchen, Matt, mentions of others, some characters I invented.
Summary: Read the title.
Warnings: Spoilers for all of Heroes ever, unbeta'd, gay, slashy, whatever. Some romance, some angst, some hunor. I dunno.
Notes: I should be studying, good Lord, but the plot bunnies got to me. Forgive me, college!
5. They were standing in Matt Parkman's driveway, covered in dust and looking haggard, both still a little lethargic from their "nap". Sylar is watching Peter's every move with more interest than the empath ever thought possible.
"So what's the plan?" Peter asks, mostly to stop everything from being a tad awkward. Sylar shrugs.
"We fly to New York? It'll be easiest."
Peter nods his head, once, reaching his hand out to grab at the taller man's, and he squeezes, trying his hardest to find the emotional connection he needs to replicate the power. He thinks about how the immense hatred when they first met continued to radiate through him in Kirby Plaza; How grateful he was that the other man saved him at Primatech; Even the strange, unfamiliar feeling of forgiveness that coursed through him in the nightmare.
That last one seems to do the trick and the familiar warm glow burns through his hand, reminding him what he was doing. He makes to move his hand away, but Gabriel moves his hand around until their fingers are laced together.
"Peter," he says, and his voice just sounds so desperate, so hopeful, that the empath has to look up, which was instantly a mistake. He looks and there is just the most broken look in the other man's eyes. For a split second, Peter wishes he hadn't given up the telepathy, just so he can see what the other man is thinking.
He's leaning forward before he even realizes what he's doing, and their lips are practically touching when a loud voice booms out behind them.
"Get the fuck off my driveway!"
They both turn, spooked, and see Matt, glaring at them from behind his glass front door. They share a look before launching into the sky, and don't mention the incident again until after the day is saved.
4. A little while later, after the carnival incident, Sylar begrudgingly agrees to move in with Peter, if only until he can find someplace to stay. When Christmas comes around, there's a Christmas party at the hospital, and Peter manages to convince Sylar to come with him.
Surprisingly, the other man actually gets along well with Peter's colleagues. He chats it up with some ICU nurses, plays some Guitar Hero with a few paramedics, and even gets some more egg nog for Emma's mom.
Peter's impressed and happy that his friend is getting along just fine, especially after so long by himself. He smiles and doesn't even notice how he's zoned out until Emma pats him on the shoulder.
"How long have you known him?" she asks, and Peter turns his head so she can get a better look at his mouth.
"A long time. Something like..." Here, he pauses, as if trying to decide if he's going to count the five years in their minds. "...Something like seven or eight years."
She smiles, stealing a glance at Sylar, who's trying to get out of another rendition of "Free Bird", despite the way Josh, Hesam, and Linda, Peter's fellow medics, are begging him. Peter's smiling again before he even realizes it, and when he turns back to Emma, she's just giving him an extremely knowing look.
"What?"
She shakes her head, a pleased smile gracing her lips.
"Nothing."
She disappears in the crowd, probably looking for her mom, and Peter surveys the scene for a moment before deciding he needs a break from the action. He wanders off down the hall, looking for someplace to be alone with his thoughts. Passing a few quiet nurses stations, he smiles at the people he sees, waving a quiet hello as he passes. This time of night, only the late shift people are about. Everyone else is sleeping, far from the hustle of the party going on in the rec room.
When Peter gets to an empty room that the on call nurses use to catch some shut eye, he sighs and leans against the wall in the entry way, closing his eyes for a moment.
He hears a soft scuffle of shoes and opens his eyes just in time to see Sylar walking down the hallway towards him. He smiles, tiredly, and earns a smile in return.
"You okay?"
Peter nods.
"Yeah, just needed some time away from the noise."
Sylar nods, as if he understands, and makes to turn away, but Peter grabs his wrist and he stays put, leaning on the opposite side of the doorway.
They watch each other for a while, just enjoying the silence and the company, when Sylar says, softly, "I think I'm going to go back to Gabriel," and Peter, who notices at this moment that he still hasn't moved his hand from the other man's wrist, squeezes.
"I love your real name," he says, before he can stop himself, and Gabriel flushes just a little bit before reaching his free hand up to run through his hair.
"Thank you." He pauses, as if trying to decide if he wants to say what's on his mind, before adding, "I think our names go very well together, what with them both being Biblical and all..."
Peter takes a step closer.
"Or like Peter Gabriel the singer," he teases, and Gabriel laughs, low and soft, and Peter's heart skips a beat. They stand there for several seconds more, and then Gabriel tilts his head up, prompting Peter to do the same.
In the space between them, hanging from the doorway, is a very festive sprig of mistletoe.
Peter's lunged forward before Gabriel can even speak the joke that's forming on his lips. He puts them to better use, anyway.
Gabriel pushes him back against the doorframe, one hand on the wall and the other in a firm grasp of his hair. Peter tries to tug him impossibly closer, and they're kissing and really getting into it, and he's five seconds away from asking if they should sneak into a supply closet ala Grey's Anatomy when Gabriel moves the hand that was leaning against the wall to grab at Peter's ass.
The empath groans and pushes his hips forward, and he really is about to ask about the closet thing, when-
"Good Lord!"
They stop, but don't necessarily push away, and turn to look at Josh, one of Peter's colleagues. His eyes are wide and the grip he has on his cup of egg nog is faltering.
"Hi...Josh..." Peter says, struggling to come up with an explanation. "We were just, uh..."
"Mistletoe," Gabriel finishes, and Josh raises an eyebrow.
"You're only supposed to kiss under it, not get to second base. Geez."
They all stand there awkwardly until Gabriel angles his best glare in Josh's direction and he flushes and disappears. Unfortunately, by then they realize the moment is ruined and they regrettably return to the party.
3. This time, Peter is straddling Gabriel's hips, sitting up on his knees so that there's space between their bodies, albeit not that much.
Currently, Gabriel has two fingers knuckle deep inside of him and is moving them in and out with a slow, measured intensity. Peter cants his hips.
"Fuck, hurry up," he groans, earning a deep chuckle from the man underneath him.
"Good things come to those who wait," Gabriel gently chides, but Peter just rolls his eyes and pushes back against his fingers, breathing in sharply when fingers come in contact with his prostate.
The fingers pull out and Peter does NOT whine, thank you very much. They return a few seconds later, a little slicker and with one more added. This time, Peter leans down and bites down hard on Gabriel's shoulder, prompting the other man to shove his fingers in deeper and twist.
Okay, so maybe this time Peter does make a noise.
"Please," he finally manages to say, "Just hurry up and fuck me."
Gabriel uses his free hand to tilt Peter's face closer, and kisses him, a harsh kiss that makes Peter wonder if his lips will be swollen later. Finally, the fingers are removed for the final time and after some shifting, Peter can feel the blunt head of Gabriel's cock nudging against him. Anticipation builds in his chest, and even though they've probably done this a handful of times before, he still gets butterflies.
He's about to take the initiative and sink down when a very loud bang interrupts them.
"Peter!" a voice calls, and the man in question tenses and immediately climbs off of Gabriel, who looks at him questioningly.
"It's my mom," he whispers, and goes to tug on some pajama pants that he discarded in the corner earlier. Gabriel sighs and flops back down on the bed, clearly upset at being interrupted.
When Peter comes back, after quickly talking something over with his mom and sending her away (ignoring how fucking amused she looked), he finds Gabriel asleep on the bed. He sighs.
He wasn't talking to her for that long. Jesus.
2. They were talking on the phone, during Peter's lunch break, and as Peter listed off the groceries he needed the other man to pick up, he couldn't help but smile at the sheer normalcy of it all.
They have been living together for something like seven months, and sleeping together for five of those. They've fought, made up, thrown Emma a birthday party, went to the Hamptons and all in all, have had a great time- Although to be honest, Peter wasn't exactly sure where they stood with each other.
Relationship-wise, he means.
He stares at the wall opposite where he's leaning and takes a breath.
"So, uh...I was wondering if you wanted to make this Facebook official."
There is a beat of silence, during which the medic swears he can hear a cricket chirp.
"I don't have a Facebook account, Peter." Pause. "But if I did- we could -Change our single statuses to in a relationship."
The phrasing is awkward, but Peter knows exactly what the other man is trying to say and his hand goes up to cover his mouth, a reflex that he's developed after years of trying to hide his smile.
"I would like that very much, Gabe."
He hears a soft laugh on the other end and can just imagine the way that the other man is leaning against the kitchen counter, the phone in one hand and a mug of tea in the other. Affection warms his chest and he finds himself saying, "Gabriel, I lo-"
His confession is cut off by the sound of his phone turning itself off. Frowning, he looks down at it and only just remembers his battery was dying. He groans and thunks his head against the wall.
On the other end of the line, Gabriel stares puzzled at the phone before shrugging and setting it down.
1. Peter had made sure to tell Gabriel exactly what he was going to tell him before his phone died, and was completely ecstatic to hear the other man felt the same. They continued their little experiment in domesticity and things were going pretty well. The world was nuts, as always, but for once, it wasn't anything they couldn't handle.
Peter is currently sprawled against Gabriel, his heated skin touching the other man's at the hip and shoulder, and he's half asleep, coming down from the high he experienced a few minutes earlier.
Initially, Gabriel didn't like fooling around when Peter had just gotten off shift, but when he realized that it was a form of stress relief for the other man, he more than happily obliged.
Which is how they ended up that particular day, sprawled together and blissful. In fact, they were in many ways happy, and Gabriel was scared. He never had anything like this before, and now that he has it...he's afraid he'll lose it.
But, with Peter...Peter makes him want to take that risk. He remembers seeing an ad in the paper just that morning for a sale on engagement rings, and while a part of him was scoffing at how their "sale" meant a whole $100 off a $4,500 ring, another part of him...
Well, it wondered.
That's how he found himself staring at Peter, trying to decide if he saw a future with him. And the scariest part? Gabriel absolutely saw a future...in fact, he could not imagine a future that did not have Peter in it.
Taking a breath, he says, "Peter, I've been thinking, and maybe we should...well, what I mean is that I was wondering if you would-" He pauses, takes a breath, and waits until the other man is looking him in the eye.
"Peter, will you ma-"
Peter's cell phone rings and interrupts his thought, and the ring tone is the one Peter uses for work. Apologetically, the medic grabs the phone and answers it, saying a few things and listening before saying, "Okay, I'll be right there" and hanging up.
"There's been a huge pile up downtown, they need all the help they can get." He makes to get up, but stops and turns to Gabriel.
"What were you going to say?"
Gabriel smiles, a sad smile, and shakes his head.
"Nothing important."
Peter is already dressed and on his way out the door before he realizes he should have said something.
0. Claire and her girlfriend, Gretchen, have come down to visit for the holidays, only to get snowed in by the freakish weather. Since Gabriel was off doing something important and quite secret, Peter had no problems telling the girls that they could stay at his apartment for the night, offering his bedroom for them to stay in.
(Luckily, Gabriel had just changed the sheets before he left, so Peter didn't feel TOO weird about this.)
The freakish storm carries on, and the girls continue to stay, and Peter doesn't mind until he tries to call Gabriel's phone and gets no answer. He doesn't panic at first, but when Gabriel doesn't answer any calls or texts and he still hasn't come home three days after he said he would, Peter is beside himself with worry.
Claire doesn't know about him and Gabriel, mostly because Peter was afraid his niece would get so offended she'd never speak to him again, so when he starts to get fidgety, she raises an eyebrow.
"Something wrong, Peter?" she asks, and he turns to look at his niece and Gretchen, seated next to each other on the couch and drinking some hot chocolate.
"Just...have something on my mind. That's all."
He excuses himself to make a call in the kitchen and practically whisper yells Noah Bennett's ear off, trying to see if he's heard anything. Noah claims with absolute calm that he doesn't know about it. The same can be said for Matt, Mohinder, Hiro, Emma- Even Angela just scoffs and hangs up.
On the fourth day, the storm is starting to clear up and Claire mentions going back up to Virginia the next day.
Peter debates taking up smoking to calm his nerves and ultimately decides against it.
Late that night, after Claire and Gretchen have gone to bed, Peter sits in the kitchen, drinking coffee and staring at the fridge. He's probably more wired than he should be at the hour, but he doesn't care. He's thinking of making another cup of coffee when he hears the faint click of a key being turned in the lock. He's out of his chair before the door opens all the way and he enveloping the other man in a hug before he's even all the way inside.
Somehow, Gabriel manages to close the door behind him before Peter wraps his arms around the other man's neck and promptly showers him with kisses. Seeming to forget the hour or how loud he's being, he can't help but admonish the other man as he continues to kiss him.
"You stupid," Kiss, "Fucking," Kiss, "Idiot," Kiss. "Do you know," Kiss, "How worried I've been?"
Gabriel has wrapped his arms around him, pulling him close, and Peter stops kissing his face long enough to seal their lips together. They're still kissing, slowly and sensually, when they both stop at the same time and pull apart, suddenly aware they're not alone. They turn and look and standing there, in the living room, is a bedheaded Claire, looking absolutely horrified.
Gretchen, for the most part, just looks incredibly amused.
"Please tell me he's drugged you, or brainwashed you," Claire pleads, and Peter stares.
"Uh..."
"Is he holding you hostage? Blink twice for yes!"
She's beginning to sound hysterical, and Peter just stares at her some more, making sure not to blink.
The color rushes from her face, leaving her looking drained and on the verge of fainting, and Gretchen actually reaches out to grab her arm.
"Oh God, don't tell me you're actually in love," she groans, and when neither of the two men say anything, she promptly lets out a string of choice expletives and disappears into the bedroom, where her mumblings can still be heard, even through the French doors.
"She'll get over it by morning," Gretchen shrugs, turning to head over to comfort her girlfriend. "I'll see if I can't get her to shut up long enough to go to sleep."
Before she gets to the doorway, she tries to turn back around to add "You guys have fun," only to see that they were already back to their previous activity, too involved with each other to care. She laughs and shuts the door behind her.
Rating: Rish.
Characters/pairings: Peter, Sylar/Gabriel, eventual Sylar/Peter, Emma, Hesam, Claire, Gretchen, Claire/Gretchen, Matt, mentions of others, some characters I invented.
Summary: Read the title.
Warnings: Spoilers for all of Heroes ever, unbeta'd, gay, slashy, whatever. Some romance, some angst, some hunor. I dunno.
Notes: I should be studying, good Lord, but the plot bunnies got to me. Forgive me, college!
5. They were standing in Matt Parkman's driveway, covered in dust and looking haggard, both still a little lethargic from their "nap". Sylar is watching Peter's every move with more interest than the empath ever thought possible.
"So what's the plan?" Peter asks, mostly to stop everything from being a tad awkward. Sylar shrugs.
"We fly to New York? It'll be easiest."
Peter nods his head, once, reaching his hand out to grab at the taller man's, and he squeezes, trying his hardest to find the emotional connection he needs to replicate the power. He thinks about how the immense hatred when they first met continued to radiate through him in Kirby Plaza; How grateful he was that the other man saved him at Primatech; Even the strange, unfamiliar feeling of forgiveness that coursed through him in the nightmare.
That last one seems to do the trick and the familiar warm glow burns through his hand, reminding him what he was doing. He makes to move his hand away, but Gabriel moves his hand around until their fingers are laced together.
"Peter," he says, and his voice just sounds so desperate, so hopeful, that the empath has to look up, which was instantly a mistake. He looks and there is just the most broken look in the other man's eyes. For a split second, Peter wishes he hadn't given up the telepathy, just so he can see what the other man is thinking.
He's leaning forward before he even realizes what he's doing, and their lips are practically touching when a loud voice booms out behind them.
"Get the fuck off my driveway!"
They both turn, spooked, and see Matt, glaring at them from behind his glass front door. They share a look before launching into the sky, and don't mention the incident again until after the day is saved.
4. A little while later, after the carnival incident, Sylar begrudgingly agrees to move in with Peter, if only until he can find someplace to stay. When Christmas comes around, there's a Christmas party at the hospital, and Peter manages to convince Sylar to come with him.
Surprisingly, the other man actually gets along well with Peter's colleagues. He chats it up with some ICU nurses, plays some Guitar Hero with a few paramedics, and even gets some more egg nog for Emma's mom.
Peter's impressed and happy that his friend is getting along just fine, especially after so long by himself. He smiles and doesn't even notice how he's zoned out until Emma pats him on the shoulder.
"How long have you known him?" she asks, and Peter turns his head so she can get a better look at his mouth.
"A long time. Something like..." Here, he pauses, as if trying to decide if he's going to count the five years in their minds. "...Something like seven or eight years."
She smiles, stealing a glance at Sylar, who's trying to get out of another rendition of "Free Bird", despite the way Josh, Hesam, and Linda, Peter's fellow medics, are begging him. Peter's smiling again before he even realizes it, and when he turns back to Emma, she's just giving him an extremely knowing look.
"What?"
She shakes her head, a pleased smile gracing her lips.
"Nothing."
She disappears in the crowd, probably looking for her mom, and Peter surveys the scene for a moment before deciding he needs a break from the action. He wanders off down the hall, looking for someplace to be alone with his thoughts. Passing a few quiet nurses stations, he smiles at the people he sees, waving a quiet hello as he passes. This time of night, only the late shift people are about. Everyone else is sleeping, far from the hustle of the party going on in the rec room.
When Peter gets to an empty room that the on call nurses use to catch some shut eye, he sighs and leans against the wall in the entry way, closing his eyes for a moment.
He hears a soft scuffle of shoes and opens his eyes just in time to see Sylar walking down the hallway towards him. He smiles, tiredly, and earns a smile in return.
"You okay?"
Peter nods.
"Yeah, just needed some time away from the noise."
Sylar nods, as if he understands, and makes to turn away, but Peter grabs his wrist and he stays put, leaning on the opposite side of the doorway.
They watch each other for a while, just enjoying the silence and the company, when Sylar says, softly, "I think I'm going to go back to Gabriel," and Peter, who notices at this moment that he still hasn't moved his hand from the other man's wrist, squeezes.
"I love your real name," he says, before he can stop himself, and Gabriel flushes just a little bit before reaching his free hand up to run through his hair.
"Thank you." He pauses, as if trying to decide if he wants to say what's on his mind, before adding, "I think our names go very well together, what with them both being Biblical and all..."
Peter takes a step closer.
"Or like Peter Gabriel the singer," he teases, and Gabriel laughs, low and soft, and Peter's heart skips a beat. They stand there for several seconds more, and then Gabriel tilts his head up, prompting Peter to do the same.
In the space between them, hanging from the doorway, is a very festive sprig of mistletoe.
Peter's lunged forward before Gabriel can even speak the joke that's forming on his lips. He puts them to better use, anyway.
Gabriel pushes him back against the doorframe, one hand on the wall and the other in a firm grasp of his hair. Peter tries to tug him impossibly closer, and they're kissing and really getting into it, and he's five seconds away from asking if they should sneak into a supply closet ala Grey's Anatomy when Gabriel moves the hand that was leaning against the wall to grab at Peter's ass.
The empath groans and pushes his hips forward, and he really is about to ask about the closet thing, when-
"Good Lord!"
They stop, but don't necessarily push away, and turn to look at Josh, one of Peter's colleagues. His eyes are wide and the grip he has on his cup of egg nog is faltering.
"Hi...Josh..." Peter says, struggling to come up with an explanation. "We were just, uh..."
"Mistletoe," Gabriel finishes, and Josh raises an eyebrow.
"You're only supposed to kiss under it, not get to second base. Geez."
They all stand there awkwardly until Gabriel angles his best glare in Josh's direction and he flushes and disappears. Unfortunately, by then they realize the moment is ruined and they regrettably return to the party.
3. This time, Peter is straddling Gabriel's hips, sitting up on his knees so that there's space between their bodies, albeit not that much.
Currently, Gabriel has two fingers knuckle deep inside of him and is moving them in and out with a slow, measured intensity. Peter cants his hips.
"Fuck, hurry up," he groans, earning a deep chuckle from the man underneath him.
"Good things come to those who wait," Gabriel gently chides, but Peter just rolls his eyes and pushes back against his fingers, breathing in sharply when fingers come in contact with his prostate.
The fingers pull out and Peter does NOT whine, thank you very much. They return a few seconds later, a little slicker and with one more added. This time, Peter leans down and bites down hard on Gabriel's shoulder, prompting the other man to shove his fingers in deeper and twist.
Okay, so maybe this time Peter does make a noise.
"Please," he finally manages to say, "Just hurry up and fuck me."
Gabriel uses his free hand to tilt Peter's face closer, and kisses him, a harsh kiss that makes Peter wonder if his lips will be swollen later. Finally, the fingers are removed for the final time and after some shifting, Peter can feel the blunt head of Gabriel's cock nudging against him. Anticipation builds in his chest, and even though they've probably done this a handful of times before, he still gets butterflies.
He's about to take the initiative and sink down when a very loud bang interrupts them.
"Peter!" a voice calls, and the man in question tenses and immediately climbs off of Gabriel, who looks at him questioningly.
"It's my mom," he whispers, and goes to tug on some pajama pants that he discarded in the corner earlier. Gabriel sighs and flops back down on the bed, clearly upset at being interrupted.
When Peter comes back, after quickly talking something over with his mom and sending her away (ignoring how fucking amused she looked), he finds Gabriel asleep on the bed. He sighs.
He wasn't talking to her for that long. Jesus.
2. They were talking on the phone, during Peter's lunch break, and as Peter listed off the groceries he needed the other man to pick up, he couldn't help but smile at the sheer normalcy of it all.
They have been living together for something like seven months, and sleeping together for five of those. They've fought, made up, thrown Emma a birthday party, went to the Hamptons and all in all, have had a great time- Although to be honest, Peter wasn't exactly sure where they stood with each other.
Relationship-wise, he means.
He stares at the wall opposite where he's leaning and takes a breath.
"So, uh...I was wondering if you wanted to make this Facebook official."
There is a beat of silence, during which the medic swears he can hear a cricket chirp.
"I don't have a Facebook account, Peter." Pause. "But if I did- we could -Change our single statuses to in a relationship."
The phrasing is awkward, but Peter knows exactly what the other man is trying to say and his hand goes up to cover his mouth, a reflex that he's developed after years of trying to hide his smile.
"I would like that very much, Gabe."
He hears a soft laugh on the other end and can just imagine the way that the other man is leaning against the kitchen counter, the phone in one hand and a mug of tea in the other. Affection warms his chest and he finds himself saying, "Gabriel, I lo-"
His confession is cut off by the sound of his phone turning itself off. Frowning, he looks down at it and only just remembers his battery was dying. He groans and thunks his head against the wall.
On the other end of the line, Gabriel stares puzzled at the phone before shrugging and setting it down.
1. Peter had made sure to tell Gabriel exactly what he was going to tell him before his phone died, and was completely ecstatic to hear the other man felt the same. They continued their little experiment in domesticity and things were going pretty well. The world was nuts, as always, but for once, it wasn't anything they couldn't handle.
Peter is currently sprawled against Gabriel, his heated skin touching the other man's at the hip and shoulder, and he's half asleep, coming down from the high he experienced a few minutes earlier.
Initially, Gabriel didn't like fooling around when Peter had just gotten off shift, but when he realized that it was a form of stress relief for the other man, he more than happily obliged.
Which is how they ended up that particular day, sprawled together and blissful. In fact, they were in many ways happy, and Gabriel was scared. He never had anything like this before, and now that he has it...he's afraid he'll lose it.
But, with Peter...Peter makes him want to take that risk. He remembers seeing an ad in the paper just that morning for a sale on engagement rings, and while a part of him was scoffing at how their "sale" meant a whole $100 off a $4,500 ring, another part of him...
Well, it wondered.
That's how he found himself staring at Peter, trying to decide if he saw a future with him. And the scariest part? Gabriel absolutely saw a future...in fact, he could not imagine a future that did not have Peter in it.
Taking a breath, he says, "Peter, I've been thinking, and maybe we should...well, what I mean is that I was wondering if you would-" He pauses, takes a breath, and waits until the other man is looking him in the eye.
"Peter, will you ma-"
Peter's cell phone rings and interrupts his thought, and the ring tone is the one Peter uses for work. Apologetically, the medic grabs the phone and answers it, saying a few things and listening before saying, "Okay, I'll be right there" and hanging up.
"There's been a huge pile up downtown, they need all the help they can get." He makes to get up, but stops and turns to Gabriel.
"What were you going to say?"
Gabriel smiles, a sad smile, and shakes his head.
"Nothing important."
Peter is already dressed and on his way out the door before he realizes he should have said something.
0. Claire and her girlfriend, Gretchen, have come down to visit for the holidays, only to get snowed in by the freakish weather. Since Gabriel was off doing something important and quite secret, Peter had no problems telling the girls that they could stay at his apartment for the night, offering his bedroom for them to stay in.
(Luckily, Gabriel had just changed the sheets before he left, so Peter didn't feel TOO weird about this.)
The freakish storm carries on, and the girls continue to stay, and Peter doesn't mind until he tries to call Gabriel's phone and gets no answer. He doesn't panic at first, but when Gabriel doesn't answer any calls or texts and he still hasn't come home three days after he said he would, Peter is beside himself with worry.
Claire doesn't know about him and Gabriel, mostly because Peter was afraid his niece would get so offended she'd never speak to him again, so when he starts to get fidgety, she raises an eyebrow.
"Something wrong, Peter?" she asks, and he turns to look at his niece and Gretchen, seated next to each other on the couch and drinking some hot chocolate.
"Just...have something on my mind. That's all."
He excuses himself to make a call in the kitchen and practically whisper yells Noah Bennett's ear off, trying to see if he's heard anything. Noah claims with absolute calm that he doesn't know about it. The same can be said for Matt, Mohinder, Hiro, Emma- Even Angela just scoffs and hangs up.
On the fourth day, the storm is starting to clear up and Claire mentions going back up to Virginia the next day.
Peter debates taking up smoking to calm his nerves and ultimately decides against it.
Late that night, after Claire and Gretchen have gone to bed, Peter sits in the kitchen, drinking coffee and staring at the fridge. He's probably more wired than he should be at the hour, but he doesn't care. He's thinking of making another cup of coffee when he hears the faint click of a key being turned in the lock. He's out of his chair before the door opens all the way and he enveloping the other man in a hug before he's even all the way inside.
Somehow, Gabriel manages to close the door behind him before Peter wraps his arms around the other man's neck and promptly showers him with kisses. Seeming to forget the hour or how loud he's being, he can't help but admonish the other man as he continues to kiss him.
"You stupid," Kiss, "Fucking," Kiss, "Idiot," Kiss. "Do you know," Kiss, "How worried I've been?"
Gabriel has wrapped his arms around him, pulling him close, and Peter stops kissing his face long enough to seal their lips together. They're still kissing, slowly and sensually, when they both stop at the same time and pull apart, suddenly aware they're not alone. They turn and look and standing there, in the living room, is a bedheaded Claire, looking absolutely horrified.
Gretchen, for the most part, just looks incredibly amused.
"Please tell me he's drugged you, or brainwashed you," Claire pleads, and Peter stares.
"Uh..."
"Is he holding you hostage? Blink twice for yes!"
She's beginning to sound hysterical, and Peter just stares at her some more, making sure not to blink.
The color rushes from her face, leaving her looking drained and on the verge of fainting, and Gretchen actually reaches out to grab her arm.
"Oh God, don't tell me you're actually in love," she groans, and when neither of the two men say anything, she promptly lets out a string of choice expletives and disappears into the bedroom, where her mumblings can still be heard, even through the French doors.
"She'll get over it by morning," Gretchen shrugs, turning to head over to comfort her girlfriend. "I'll see if I can't get her to shut up long enough to go to sleep."
Before she gets to the doorway, she tries to turn back around to add "You guys have fun," only to see that they were already back to their previous activity, too involved with each other to care. She laughs and shuts the door behind her.