(no subject)
Claude hurries down the street now, faster… faster. He knows he can be cruel but he hadn’t meant to be gone so long. It is truly a testament to his worthlessness that New York is still whole. Placing his hand on the door, he knows something is out of place. He shrugs and enters, ever-grateful for the cloak of invisibility that surrounds him.
Peter. A beat, Claude struggles to take a breath. Is that blood?
“You know what it is,” Peter hisses, and Claude starts, happy his boy is okay even as he winces at his words. He takes a cautious step forward, and Peter moans; shifts. This is all my fault.
Of course it is, you evil bastard. But Peter says nothing, his face a determined line of obstinance. He’s curled in on himself, facing away from Claude on the hardwood floor.
Claude comes closer still. Peter flinches.
“Haven’t you already done enough damage?” Peter’s voice is rough and cracking with emotion. He won’t cry, not for a serial murderer who had just raped him.
“Who did this to you?” Claude exhales, kneeling down next to Peter now, brushing the boy’s hair away from his eyes. And is it just him, or is there less of it?
What a stupid question, Peter thinks bitterly, turning his head to meet too grey eyes. He blinks. No, not too grey; just the right amount of grey. “Claude?” the question bubbles up in his through like bile, and he chokes down a sob of pure grief, burying his head in the older man’s lap.
Claude frowns; stroking the empath’s ears and banishing away his thoughts of can’t feel this and shouldn’t do this. “Who did this to you?” he repeats with more urgency, slipping in a little bit of well-placed anger.
“You did,” Peter whispers, and then the tears are coming.
Claude takes in the scene around him: Peter’s clothes strewn carelessly about his prone form, small pools of dried blood under and around the empath. The invisible man inhales sharply, mottling bruises mapped along Peter’s thighs, hips, face… He removes his jacket, realizing that Peter is shivering. He brings the tattered thing around the boy’s neck, huddling him close for warmth. The heat appears to have been shut off days ago.
Peter is crying, his entire body racked with aguish. Is Claude even really here?
“I’m ‘ere, Pete,” Claude vows, running his hand along Peter’s back and arms to warm him. Peter wonders idly when Claude got the ability to read minds, and a small smile graces his thin lips as the tears finally stop.
“You came back,” Peter muses, propping himself up on Claude’s knee. He wants to see the man, but he also has to keep confirming that those eyes are grey; that they stay grey. He pushes himself up off the ground just enough to be eye-level with the older man, capturing his lips in a chaste kiss before Claude can protest.
Claude makes a startled noise in the back of his throat, but when Peter tries to pull away his large, steadying hands rest on either shoulder, keeping the ragged coat firmly about the slight frame. He deepens the kiss, pulling the smaller man to his chest protectively, lips healing what words cannot.
I came back, Claude echoes, knowing Peter will hear.
Illusion of Love: part one