fic: Today, yesterday & tomorrow (1/3, R, Paire)

[nmidian]

Title: Today, yesterday & tomorrow (1/3)
Author: nmidian - Nick Midian Rating: Hard-R (?) (Sex and violence, but nothing terribly explicit, gratuitous use of swearing.)
Pairings & Characters: Paire (Peter/Claire). Canon.
Spoilers: Set sometime after S1.
Summary: The destruction of his present leads Peter so find some unexpected truths about his past, in order to gain his future.
Feedback: Oh yes, please. I need it, like bad.
Disclaimer: Peter, Claire and Co. are not mine. They’re Kring’s and NBC’s. Song quotes belong to their respective authors.
Author's Note: Not betaed. I *really* need one… any offers>? Posted at paire_love and paire_fiction.

TODAY, YESTERDAY & TOMORROW

by Nick Midian


Part I: All that we have is today

Today is the greatest day I have ever known
Can’t wait for tomorrow, I might not have that long

The Smashing Pumpkins, “Today”

The day he lost his Claire forever couldn’t have started better for Peter Petrelli.

He was awaken by the morning’s earliest sunshine filtering through the window of his bedroom, and came to consciousness not with the familiar hollow within his heart and soul that had been constant companion to his life for as long as he could remember, but with a sense of completion and joy that filled him to the point of being nearly overwhelming.

All because he didn’t wake up alone. All because of the young woman lying next to him, enveloped by his arms. All because of Claire Bennet.

Yes, Claire. His niece. His lover. His salvation.

He couldn’t believe there had been a time he thought his feelings impure, his love for this petite - yet so strong - woman, a product of a twisted and corrupted lust. He couldn’t even remember the reasons that had kept him at bay; that had prevented him from accepting what was so plainly obvious now.

They were made for each other. They were soulmates.

Even though Peter didn’t believe in pre-ordained fate, he did believe in destiny. With a passion, he was sure there had been powers beyond his comprehension that that once decided, long ago, these two lost souls belonged with each other.

Most of the time, he considered that the fact of them being blood-related - closely blood-related, to be honest - was a painful joke played on them by those mysterious faceless gods. But sometimes, when he was especially introspective, he dared to believe it was actually a test. A trial to find out if their love was strong enough to endure the cruelest of separations and break through the strongest of barriers.

In mornings like that one, as Claire stirred between his arms and the fragance of her golden curls invaded his lungs, he was positively sure they had succeeded.

Peter tightened his grasp on the lovely young woman, and sank his face if her glorious hair. He placed a tender kiss on the nape of her neck, feeling her heart beating against his chest, in perfect synchrony with his.

“Mmm, Peter...” she softly moaned; still riding the frontier between the realms of sleep and wakefulness.

Of course, he could sing praise to the ethereal beauty and virginal purity of the love they shared. He could spend entire hours lyrically describing the tiny little details of her body and her spirit that shone light into the darkest corners of his troubled soul. But, as she wiggled her perfect little derriere against his lap while snuggling into the comfort of his embrace, and his morning erection settled itself between the tender cheeks of her bum, the brunette man was painfully reminded that there was an entire different dimension to their attraction.

A dimension that was neither pure, nor ethereal. And, at this point in their relationship, everything but virginal.

The excited groan that escaped his lips as he instinctively grinded his crotch against her, woke Claire fully up. She also came back to the world of the living with a smile on her lips, but where Peter’s had been a dreamy one, hers was twitching with naughtiness.

“Mmm, my, oh my, Mr. Petrelli...” she whispered softly, her voice still hoarse with the cobwebs of sleep, but already intensifying the contact of their bodies. “Are we feeling naughty this morning? Don’t you think it’s too early?”

“Sssh, go back to sleep, Claire,” he hushed her, sneaking a hand under her t-shirt and lying it flat on her taught stomach so he could bring her even closer against him. “I’ll be quick, I promise. You won’t feel a thing.”

The playful tone of his words made her chuckle, and she turned around in his arms. “Oh, now that’s what I call being considerate.”

“Anything for you, babe,” he grinned as their lips met.

They kissed lazily, letting their legs entangle and rub together as they mutually held each other. Their tongues explored the moist havens of their mouths at a slow, tender pace. Their hands roamed over their smooth backs with such delicate attention it was like them both wanted to memorize the other.

There was no frenzy as Peter finally tugged at the hem of Claire’s t-shirt - and old one of his she loved to sleep in - and gently freed her of it. She chuckled at his hungry eyes as she was finally naked in his arms, and like she always did, marveled at the desire in his gaze. It didn’t seem that long ago that those brown pools were tinted with shame when they looked at her. It hadn’t been long since she was able to turn the guilt in them into loving adoration.

They spun under the covers, Peter getting rid of his boxers as he settled himself between her parted thighs. They were kissing all the while, touching each other in the gentlest, most reverent of ways. Like they were still afraid the other would vanish in a puff of smoke if any of them dared to probe too hard.

Claire found herself already wet and ready for him, and the tall dark-haired young man had no trouble sliding himself into her. The moan ripped from the very bottom of her throat by his invasion was lost in the cavern of his mouth. Her hands slid down his back, gently teasing his skin with the sharp fingernails without really scratching him until she took ahold of his - she had to admit - steel-hard ass. She encouraged him to go deeper into her, as much as he could go. She wished he could disappear within herself.

Peter growled a low, rumbling animalistic sound as he started to rock softly, making love to the gorgeous blonde at a leisurely slow rhythm. He half-supported his own weight so he would not crush her, but also leaned a bit on her, so there would be the maximum possible contact between their bodies.

No hardcore sex this morning, no señor. This was just two lovers saluting dawn, celebrating their love and what they hoped it would be the first day of the rest of their lives together.

And what a special day this one was. Really, the first of their new lives.

Their lugagge waited in the living room of Peter’s apartment. The Air France tickets to Paris were carefully kept in the drawer of his bedside table. Yesterday, they were Peter Petrelli and Claire Bennet-Petrelli, long-lost daughter of his brother. Tomorrow, they’d just be Peter and Claire, two young lovers living their lives in the most romantic of cities.

Today... well, today was kind of a grey area, but then, hadn’t they always existed somewhere akin to that?

They didn’t need much effort or encouragement to reach their climax together. It was neither explosive, nor bone-marrow-melting. Like their lovemaking this morning, it was gentle and sweet. She tightened around him and whispered his name as her arms did the same around his body. He sank his face in the crook of her neck and breathed her fragrance deeply as his body was shaken by the pleasure of their shared orgasm.

Peter came within her and, as the stars shinning behind his closed eyelids started to subside and he regained some of his logical process of thought, he started entertaining wild ideas. He knew she was on the pill, but for a second he considered the possibility of the contraception failing. The chance that he might be creating life inside her in this very moment.

He couldn’t fathom a bigger joy.

Still, joined in the most intimate of ways, they kissed again. Softly. Gently. Lovingly.

“I love you,” he murmured, pecking the tip of her nose, her eyelids, her lips. “I can’t remember a time I didn’t.”

Claire smiled, wiping the loose bangs off his face. Letting her fingers get lost into his messy bed hair, she brought his face to hers and kissed him back, deeply.

“I love you too,” she sighed when they parted, they noses still nuzzling playfully. “Always had, always will.”

***

They showered together, as usual.

It was an experience erotic in its simplicity. There was nothing openly sexual in their touches as they scrubbed and rinsed each other. It was just the sensuality of their soapy hands running over each other, the - for the lack of a better word - couple-liness of it all. This was something normal people did everyday without guilt or shame. This was something they had finally allowed themselves to be.

Normal.

No remorse, no regret. Just two young people in love.

They only kissed once, just as Peter finished rinsing the soap off Claire’s golden mane, and then the tall man helped his lover off the shower. Both of them laughed when she slipped and was about to fall on her way out. She was so accident-prone, it was truly a gift she could heal every physical injury. It didn’t matter anymore now, though, for he was there to catch her fall.

He would always be there, he promised.

He couldn’t know he was lying.

Peter modestly wrapped himself waist down with a medium-sized towel and used his largest one to envelope Claire. By this point, and being a child of sunny and hot Texas, she was shivering, so he carefully took her in his arms and started drying her vigorously.

She chuckled, looking at him form behind wet golden bangs. “You’re such a mother.”

‘Better than being an uncle,’ he thought, although he didn’t voice that thought aloud. “Don’t want you to catch a cold. It wouldn’t be funny sitting on a plane next to you for five hours while you have a running nose and sneeze all over the place.”

“I don’t get sick,” she reminded him. “Super-powers, remember?”

“Okay, I admit it, I don’t want you driping on my carpet,” he said playfully.

She gave him a small smile, her sad one, and he halted his actions for a moment. “What?”

“We don’t need to do this,” she said carefully. “We don’t need to run away.”

Peter took her in his arms, letting her head rest on his chest. More than anything, he did it so he wouldn’t have to look in her eyes while speaking. He could get so easily lost in them. “I thought we had already discussed this.”

“But Peter,” she insisted. “I can’t help feeling guilty. You are giving up so much...”

Claire didn’t need to say exactly what he was giving up by running away with her to France, it was plainly obvious for the two of them. Nathan, his family... once they were away, once they were out of the proverbial closet... There would be no way back. It wasn’t one of those things that could be forgiven and forgotten and turned into the subject of an innocent dinner conversation.

‘Hey Peter, do you remember when you snatched your ten-years-younger niece to another continent so you could live in sin with her? Gawd, those were the days...’

“It’s not like you’re not giving your fair share up, baby.”

She felt a shiver down her spine, not caused by the cold but by the intimate way in which the word ‘baby’ rolled off his tongue. Anyway, she knew that he knew it was not quite like the same, although she was grateful of his attempt to make her feel better.

No doubt that her father - Noah Bennet - would be disappointed by the way in which things were developing, and angry as well. But she also knew the bespectacled man’s love for her was unconditional and that her family would come around their confusion and shock at her actions to keep on supporting her.

But she doubted very much the Petrelli’s could even entertain the idea of just being happy with their happiness.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Peter whispered, separating her from him just so he could cup her face in his tender hands. This time, he dared to look at her straight in the eye. “I told you, there is nothing I wouldn’t give up, nothing I wouldn’t do, nowhere I wouldn’t go for this. For you.”

“I don’t want you waking up one day and thinking you’ve made a mistake,” there were unshed tears in her green eyes. Peter leaned forward to kiss them dry. “I don’t want you to stop loving me, Peter.”

His smile was a radiant one. “Nobody can stop destiny, Claire. Nobody.”

***

Their flight was not departing till noon, so Peter left his lover blow-drying her hair and went to the grocery store across the street to get them something for breakfast.

He was deep in thought all the way down, once in the shop and all the way up the stairs back to his apartment.

By common agreement, they had decided they would tell no one about what they were doing until they would be in Paris, the same way that they had kept their relationship secret for the past months. But, once again, he felt tempted to call Nathan and just spill the damn beans.

Give his brother the chance to surprise him and say something along the lines of ‘we can work this out, don’t run away, we will love you both whatever the choices you make.’

It was a naïve thought, and he knew that. Nathan’s temper regarding all things Claire was nothing but volatile. They had a truly complicated relationship where both tried to keep the other at arm’s length and at the same time they demanded some sort of connection.

He knew it had been especially troublesome and psycologically demanding for Claire to try to establish a bridge with her biological father while she had feelings for her uncle. At the end, the chain had broken at the weakest link, as it was usual, and she had made her choice of one over the other. Because she couldn’t have both things.

And neither could Peter.

It didn’t make it easier to accept though.

He loved his brother, loved his family, secrets and betrayals notwithstanding.

He just had to accept he loved Claire even more.

Peter opened the door of his apartment, holding a paper bag full of freshly baked croissants under his arm. He planned to joke around them, tell Claire she needed to get used to le French cuisine. But he never got the chance.

“Where is IT!?!?” Claire’s stressedly yelled as soon as he was across the threshold. She was already fully dressed - jeans and sweater - and rummaging though her open luggage, frantically tossing clothes and personal hygiene items aside.

“Where is what?” he frowned, leaving the bag on the kitchen table.

“My fucking passport! Where is it?” she stabbed him with blazing eyes, like he was responsible for the misplacement of the aforementioned passport.

One thing that immensely disturbed Peter was to recognize the Petrelli temper showing up in his lover’s gaze. But he had ages of experience dealing with Nathan’s so he simply sighed and tried to remain collected. He also made a point of ignoring her use of the f-word, something he usually would chastise her for.

“Where did you see it for the last time?” he asked, starting to carefully gather the pieces of clothing she was discarding around and neatly folding them in a tidy pile.

“I put it in my purse, I swear!” she said, distressed. Her eyes were clouded with misplaced anger. “I’ve been carrying it around for two days, since we got the plane tickets!”

“Well, have you checked the purse...” she shot a murderous look at him and Peter rushed to raise a hand before she could lash at him. “I mean, you have more than one purse,” like any woman, she actually had several, “isn’t it possible that you have changed them at some point during these two days, and forgot it in the old one?”

< How can you be so fucking calm and collected? > her thoughts assaulted him, so intense they pierced through the barrier he always had erected to respect the privacy of her mind. < Can’t you see this is a major problem? >

“No, it is not. We can sort it out with little effort if you just calm down,” he sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose and trying to prevent the incoming headache before it presented. When she was angry, Claire thought so loud it always managed to give him a hell of a migraine. It was one of those things that, as a couple, he had simply had to learn to live with.

They loved each other so much they were ready to defy the conventions of nature and society, but that didn’t mean everything was roses and puppies between them all the time. They fought as any other couple, sometimes even more intensely. It went with the territory, he guessed.

And make up sex was just...

“Don’t read my thoughts,” she hissed at him through clenched teeth.

“Well, don’t yell them inside my head,” he retorted. He didn’t want to go all mature, older-and-wiser on Claire. That was a trap he didn’t want to fall in, and frankly, today was so not the day to have a huge quarrel with his lover. “Look, I just want you to cool down and think about it calmly. If after you do so, you tell me that you’re 100% sure that you had your passport with you when you came here last night, I won’t question it at all. We will go through every and each square inch of this apartment and we will find it. However, if there’s the small chance that you might - and I say might -accidentally have forgotten it at Nathan’s…”

Claire crossed her arms over her chest and looked at him with a defiant, stubborn expression. Nevertheless, her mind didn’t shout anymore expletives directly into his brain and she seemed to deflate by the second until all that escaped her lips was a sigh of acceptance. “Damnit, Peter, you must think I’m the most stupid person in the world right now.”

“Hey, c’mon, don’t say that,” he smiled softly, opening his arms to take her in a comforting embrace that she accepted without any reluctance. “Nobody puts my baby down, okay? Not even you.”

They kissed tenderly on the lips, and then he kissed the top of her blonde head as she tucked herself under his chin. She fitted him so perfectly that sometimes Peter felt they had been made together and then she had just been chipped off him.

“What do you say, do we tear this place apart?” he whispered against the crown of her head.

Claire giggled, her face still buried in his chest. When she lifted her eyes to look at him, there was a devious gleam in them. “You remember the last time you said that?”

He did. “Oh yeah, but I’m keeping my clothes on this time around.”

***

Nevertheless and no matter how hard they looked for it - indeed tearing Peter’s tiny apartment apart in the process - Claire’s passport was nowhere to be found. Not in her belongings, not in his, not in any drawer, behind any cushion, fallen under any sofa, bed or even carpet. Not in the bedroom, not in the living room, not in the kitchen. For some only-God-knows-why reason, they even looked in the bathroom, but still, it wasn’t there.

“Holy crap,” a frustrated Claire kicked a fallen cushion, whose course Peter had to telekinetically alter so it wouldn’t actually hit him. “It’s not here! I can’t believe it’s not here!!”

The young man checked his wristwatch, his own mood also tainted with frustration. “Time’s running late,” he sighed. “We’ll be losing the flight if we don’t hurry up.”

“Oh yeah, we should hurry up and get to the airport, so you can get the plane and I get stuck with.NO.DAMN.PASSPORT!!” she exclaimed, going from sarcastic to enraged in a split second. Peter didn’t want to think about how damn similar her character was to Nathan’s sometimes.

“Claire…” he was about to sound admonishing, and once again, stopped himself from falling into that in the last split second. “Let’s do one thing, you go to the airport with the luggage, and I’ll go to Nathan’s to look for it. I bet it’s just on your bedside table or something.”

The blonde girl sighed, rubbing his temples. “No… you wouldn’t even know where to start looking. Plus, what if Nathan or anyone catches you going through my stuff, how are you going to explain it?”

“I’ll improvise something,” he shrugged.

She slit her eyes at him, “Oh yeah, I totally can see that: ‘gee Nathan, I was just, uh, you know, getting Claire’s, uh, morning-after pills, ‘cause, uh, I really pumped her full last night, y’know.’”

“Thank you for making me sound like a retarded yokel,” Peter said deadpan. “Not to mention, for turning last night’s lovemaking into an image I want to scrap off the back of my eyes with a blowtorch. What do you propose, then?”

“I’ll go get it,” she sighed, her eyes already turning softer and apologizing for her outburst. “I know where to look, and if Nathan or anyone sees me, I’ll just tell them I forgot my mobile or something. It’ll be more credible if I am the one getting caught while going through my underwear drawer.”

“Yeah, we don’t want to repeat that particular scene,” Peter agreed wholeheartedly, his eyes going wide.

Claire couldn’t help but to chuckle and, once again, she went in search for refuge and solace in her boyfriend’s arms. “It is gonna be alright, isn’t it?”

Peter held her tight. “Of course it will, baby. I promised, remember?”

***

They called for a couple of cabs, one to take her to the Petrelli mansion and another one to take him to the airport. Claire got the first one that arrived and quickly pecked him in the lips before getting inside it.

“I’ll text you as soon as I find it,” she promised him through the taxi’s open window. “Don’t go anywhere without me!”

“How could I?” Peter answered, although he was pretty sure she never heard his words, as the yellow car was already driving her away from him. So, he simply smiled and waved goodbye at her, as she got lost into the busy New York morning traffic.

That would be the last time he ever saw his Claire, but Peter didn’t know it yet.

***

The international JFK terminal was a madhouse, as usual. However, as he sat waiting in the checking area, Peter could hardly notice the people coming and going around him. All of them seemed to move too fast for him to follow, while the tiny bubble of air around him seemed to be stuck at an impasse.

In any case, he just couldn’t care about them. All that mattered to him was tiny piece of plastic and silicon that he held between his fingers. His cell phone, and the reason why it wasn’t ringing.

“C’mon, Claire, where are you?” he wondered aloud, gazing at the flights display over his head.

AF356 - CDG - PARIS - NOW BOARDING

Claire had sent him her promised text message just as his cab was arriving to the airport terminal. The simple ‘GOT IT!’ was enough to fill him with relief and he had quickly hit her back with a ‘Now come back to me.’

That had been more than an hour and a half earlier. And, since then, there hadn’t been any sign of his blonde girlfriend.

‘Stuck in traffic?’ was the next text message he had sent her as check-in started and she was still a no-show. ‘Claire? Where are you?’ was the next one, fifteen minutes later as relief was washed away by a new wave of worry.

When this got no answer either he had waited only ten more minutes before starting to call her directly. But no one had picked the call, neither that time, nor the the following three times.

Peter had already gone through all the excuses he could find for her lack of communication. No battery left on her own cell, going through a tunnel, playing with his mind, whatever. None made any sense.

The only option he was being left with was that she had come across somebody when leaving the Petrelli mansion after retrieving her passport, that her explanations hadn’t been believed and that she was now being retained by Nathan, or whoever, and the beans about them had already been spilled. But if so, why hadn’t she called him to tell him what was going on?

Peter’s eyes went back to the flights panel, just as an impersonal female voice could be heard through the PA system. “Mr. Peter Petrelli. Miss Claire Bennet. All passengers boarding flight AF357, with destination to Charles DeGaulle airport, Paris, please report to door number 24. Ten minutes left for embarakation. Thank you. Monsieur Peter Petrelli...”

“Fuck,” he growled under his breath, standing up. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”

He knew why he was still waiting without doing anything more, like teleporting himself straight to the mansion and look for Claire. He was a goddamn coward. They were out of the closet, their incestuous affair had been revealed and he was simply too scared to face the music. Wasn’t that really why they were on the run, anyway? Because he didn’t have the balls to look his brother in the eye and tell him he loved Claire and that he would risk, give up anything in his life - his own life even - for her?

But there were no more options left. Like a trapped mouse, he was against the wall.

He hit speed dial one last time and, after that, he told himself, he was going right into the lion’s cave. Whatever the cost would be.

“Hello? Peter, is that you?” Nathan’s voice answered the call straight away.

Peter was rendered so shocked, he couldn’t answer straight away. The mere sound of his brother’s voice was like somebody had injected ice cold water in his veins. He was conscious that his mouth was opening and closing like the one of a fish out of water, but no sound was escaping his lips.

“Peter? Hello?” Nathan repeated, something akin to impatience in his voice.

“Nathan?” he was finally able to croack. “Where is Claire?”

“Claire?” Was that confusion on his older brother’s voice. “Who the hell is Claire? I heard a phone ringing in the guest bedroom and I picked it up. Your name was on the screen so I answered. Is that your girlfriend or something? Peter...” now there was sincere annoyance. “Have you brought a girl to the mansion when you have your own apartment? What were you trying to do, impress her or something?”

Peter took his phone away from his ear and looked at it as if it was some kind of weird animal he had just gotten his hands on. He finally answered, “Nathan... I don’t know what’s going on, but this is not funny. I know you must be very upset right now, but please, put Claire on the phone. Now.”

There was a moment of silence. “I told you, Peter. She’s not here. I don’t know any Claire.”

“She’s your DAUGHTER, you sick fuck!!” Peter exploded, gathering the stares of those around him. Noticing this, and with his blood starting to boil in his veins, he began to stride towards the security gate. He left the suitcases behind, he didn’t care about them. He didn’t care about anything else that was not getting to a hidden place where he could jump to the mansion without being noticed. He hissed, “Look, I know we screwed it up, but I’m not going to discuss it through the phone, okay? You just tell me she is alright and I’ll be there in a minute. We’ll talk this face to face.”

“Peter... I...” Nathan seemed aghast, and this really bothered his younger brother. The confusion in his voice was so real, that it sent a freezing chill up his spine. “Peter, are you high?”

The youngest Petrelli sibling stopped dead in his tracks. He was right in front of the security gate and something, a deep feeling born in his innermost core, told him to stop. He raised his eyes.

And then he saw him.

“Pete,” Nathan continued, genuinely - now Peter was absolutely sure - concerned, “I’m not sure what’s wrong, alright? But we can fix it, just tell me where you are and I’ll send a car to pick you up. We can sort this out, together. But you need to start thinking clearly. I don’t have any daughters.”

“Yes, you do,” Peter whispered, his throat constricted and his mouth as dry as sandpaper. “You’ve just forgotten you have.”

At the other side of the gate, cool and collected as always, the Haitian was waiting for him.

Peter disconnected the call, without waiting for his brother’s answer.

He had all the answers he needed, anyway.

The phone slipped from his fingers as his eyes filled with tears. It hit the floor at his feet, shattering in many pieces.

But not nearly as many as his heart did at that very instant.

***

To be continued...

nmidian - Nick Midian