All the People We Used to Know, Part 2/12
Title: All the People We Used to Know (2/12)
Sequel to: The Price of a Memory
Pairings: Peter/Claude
Rating: R
Warnings: slash, AU, loosely holiday-related, starts out on the fluffy side but doesn’t stay that way, liberties taken with the Season Two timeline of events
Spoilers: AU after the end of Season One, but through Season Two just to be safe.
Summary: Six months after the events of The Price of a Memory, Claude finds himself participating under protest in a Petrelli family gathering. But more is going on than meets the eye and soon Claude and Peter are faced with a difficult decision.
Disclaimer: Heroes and the associated characters don’t belong to me.
All the People We Used to Know, Part 2/12
“So, are the two of you sleeping together yet or not?”
Back when he’d been training Peter the first time around, Claude had often taunted the boy for being a slow learner. It had, after all, taken days of severe beatings with a large wooden stick before Peter thought to access his powers and fight back. In Claude’s experience, it just didn’t get much slower than that. But when it came to Matt Parkman, the utter indignation on his face as he nearly choked on a mouthful of after-dinner beer made Claude think that there were those who were even worse off than Peter had been back then. Six months of these weekly pseudo-family dinners at Suresh’s place, none of which had passed without Claude randomly inserting some version of this same question into one of the many conversational lulls--the man really should have known better by now. But while Suresh had long since grown immune to Claude’s jibes, Parkman continued to be blind-sided each and every time.
“I’m married,” Parkman said, shooting a nervous glance at Suresh and Molly, who were washing the dishes in the next room.
“You’re separated,” Claude said, glancing through a magazine he’d swiped from the coffee table. Some boring thing on the latest in computer technology, only marginally preferable to the slightly outdated issues of Popular Science that also sat among Suresh’s collection. “Not the same thing, is it?”
“I have a kid,” Parkman said.
“Maybe,” Claude said. “Even if you did, it wouldn’t prove anything other than your ability to fulfill basic biological imperatives such as the perpetuation of the human race.” He flipped a page.
Meanwhile, Parkman blinked, utterly flummoxed. “You are seriously the most cracked person I have ever met,” he said. “I haven’t, like, the slightest clue how Peter tolerates you day in and day out. The guy must be a saint or something.”
“Could be,” Claude said, still not looking up. “But if you ask me, no saint would be as good as he is at--”
“That’s okay,” Parkman said, holding a hand to forestall him. “I realize I kind of walked right into that one, but the less I know about your private bedroom stuff, the better off I’ll probably be. Like, for the rest of my life.”
“Why’s that? Afraid you’ll get ideas?” Claude replied.
It wasn’t that Claude liked to think of Parkman and Suresh together like that--never mind that Peter had once accused him, to his complete and utter horror, of trying to play matchmaker with the two. It was just that Parkman was amazingly easy to wind up. So easy it almost wasn’t worth the effort, but if they were going to be stuck alone in a room together while Suresh played housewife in the kitchen, Claude wasn’t about to rely solely on Parkman’s conversational skills to carry them through.
At the very least, it served to draw attention away from the fact that the flat was totally decked out for the holiday season, complete with blinking colored lights and a fake Christmas tree covered in copious and unnecessary amounts of silver tinsel. This wasn’t Molly’s first Christmas without her family, but it was the first one since she’d been able to settle into some kind of life after Sylar had murdered her parents. Predictably enough, Suresh and Parkman had wanted to make things as cheerful for her as possible, despite their own ambiguous religious affiliations. For her part, Molly humored their clear sense of overkill well enough but every time Claude came over, it seemed more had been added to the nightmarish wonderland. Holiday films were stacked in ever-growing piles next to the television. Festive music played quietly in the background for no apparent reason. It made the place feel like an overdone department store.
“Don’t get me wrong,” Claude continued when Parkman failed to change the subject as any other man of reasonable intelligence would have at that point, “the only reason I ask is because Peter’s been trying to decide what to get the two of you for Christmas presents.” He closed the magazine and tossed it onto the table. “He was thinking ‘His’ and ‘Hers’ bath towels, but don’t worry--I stuck up for you. I said Elvis salt and pepper shakers were the way to go. Tacky, maybe, but less presumptuous.” He tapped his fingers on the arms of the chair. “Although now I suppose I’ve ruined the surprise for you. Guess he’ll just have to think of something else. Shame.”
“You miss him,” Parkman said suddenly. “He’s only been gone, what? Twelve hours?”
Claude suddenly remembered why it was he’d never liked mind readers. They were the kind of people who tended to compensate for their obvious lack of social skills by using a person’s stray thoughts against them.
“Aye, well, I’ve gotten used to having him around, haven’t I?” he said, trying to block from Parkman thoughts of the marginally sentimental good-bye he and Peter had shared at the train station that morning, all the while openly broadcasting what he could remember of the more entertaining farewell that had taken place in their bedroom before that, complete with the passionate shower scene at the end.
“Okay, okay, I give,” Parkman said, trying to hide his reddening cheeks by setting his nearly empty bottle of beer on the table, using Claude’s magazine as a coaster despite the numerous telltale rings and other etchings marking the table’s scarred history. “Jesus, you’re shameless.”
Claude lifted his shoulders, offering no defense or apology.
A pause passed between them in which Claude wondered exactly how clean the dishes really needed to be. The faster Molly and Suresh finished, the faster Claude could say his good nights and be on his way. On his way to what, he didn’t know considering the flat was officially empty but for him for the next few days. But anything was better than this.
“Can I ask you something?” Parkman asked suddenly, breaking into Claude’s wandering thoughts, less literally this time than before.
“Tab A goes into Slot B,” Claude said. “Really not that hard to figure out.”
Parkman narrowed his eyes. “I’m being serious,” he said.
Claude sighed. “Yeah, all right,” he said. “If you insist.”
Parkman shifted in his seat, throwing another nervous glance toward the kitchen. Seeing that Suresh and Molly were still sufficiently distracted, he leaned forward and spoke in an undertone. “I just want to make it clear that what I’m about to tell you…well, there’s going to be a lot of room for you to…” He hesitated.
“Take the piss?” Claude supplied.
“Whatever,” Parkman said. “The thing is, I’m fully aware of how much the things I’m about to say are going to make me sound like my ex-wife back in the days when we were seeing the marriage counselor. But I really need you to hear me out. Okay?”
“Turns out I’m not actually incapable of acting like an adult from time to time,” Claude replied dryly.
Parkman gave him a skeptical look. “Fair enough,” he said. He pressed his lips together uncertainly before his next words burst out of him in a rush. “I’m worried about Mohinder.”
“Okay.” It was all Claude could think to say after his promise not to make any lewd jokes.
“He’s been on this lecture tour thing off and on for the past couple of months, right? He goes and talks about genetics stuff and the existence of special abilities in human beings…the virus that attacked Molly.”
“Right,” Claude said. He’d been aware of Suresh’s various, poorly-attended speaking engagements for some time but he’d never known the specifics of what he’d been talking about at such events. He wasn’t surprised to hear that Suresh was making an ass of himself by trying to out the “special abilities community” to the general public but he was intrigued to hear he’d gone so far as to share details of Molly’s ailment.
“Well, he’s also been having all these super secret hushed phone conversations with this guy named Bennet,” Parkman said. Something flashed in Claude’s mind, the mental equivalent of an alarm bell or a red flag and Parkman immediately perked up. “You’ve heard of Bennet?”
“We’ve met,” Claude acknowledged.
“Yeah, well, I’ve met him too. Personally, I think the guy’s a little shady,” Parkman said, speaking now like their shared negative opinion of a mutual acquaintance somehow served to make them allies. “Anyway, Mohinder’s gotten pretty good at blocking me out from things he doesn’t want me knowing, but I’ve been able to catch a quick thought here and there and from what I have heard, I get the idea that he and Bennet are planning something. Something dangerous. And whatever it is they’re doing, these lectures are somehow a part of it.”
Claude remembered suddenly what Peter had said about Bennet needing to spend time in New York before traveling back to Washington to be with Claire and her biological family. If Parkman was right about the connection between Suresh and Bennet, was it possible that Suresh was the reason for Bennet’s side trip? Somehow, Claude didn’t doubt it.
“You think I’m right,” Parkman said, no doubt skimming the surface of Claude’s mind to find that conclusion. “So what do we do about it?”
Claude opened his mouth but was saved from having to form an actual answer by the phone ringing, which startled him into cutting himself off. Everyone seemed to freeze at once.
It wasn’t that the sound of a phone inside Suresh’s flat was an entirely novel experience. Both Suresh and Parkman owned mobiles that had a tendency to go off from time to time--Suresh’s playing the same tinny ring tone the phone had probably come with, Parkman’s a shrill rendition of Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” which Peter had programmed onto it one day when the other man hadn’t been looking and then later blamed on Claude. Peter also had one, but ever since Claude had figured out how to make it play some embarrassingly girlish pop song every time it rang, he’d made a habit of keeping it set to silent or vibrate.
But the ringing of the actual telephone--an ancient model with a cord that attached the receiver to the cradle and everything--was something new indeed and if they all exchanged shocked, apprehensive looks between the second and third ring, there was a good reason for it: no one ever called on the landline. Claude doubted anyone even knew the number.
“Probably just a sales guy,” Parkman offered as the phone rang a fourth time. No one moved. “Or a wrong number.”
It was Molly who moved toward the phone first. Drying her hands on a paper towel, she made her way over step by step, throwing a glance over her shoulder at Suresh, as if he might pull her away from it at any second the same way he might pull her out of the street just as a bus came hurtling around the corner. But he only nodded at her as she reached for the thing, the look in his eyes clearly instructing her that if it was some psycho killer on the other end, to immediately hand the phone to him or Parkman.
“Hello?” Molly whispered, picking up the phone on the fifth ring.
The room was so tensely quiet that Claude could hear the voice on the other end even from where he sat, practically on the other side of the flat. “Is this Molly?”
Everyone breathed a collective sigh of relief as Molly’s face lit up. “Peter!” she exclaimed.
“Peter?” Suresh said, turning the faucet off in the sink. He gave Claude a questioning look. “Why would Peter be calling here?”
Claude could only shrug helplessly, even as several possibilities suggested themselves to him. Peter had learned to compensate for many of the more annoying aspects of his memory problems by using, for example, the ability he’d inherited from Molly to locate people by thinking of them in order to keep himself from getting lost. Still, it was difficult at times not to picture Peter as the star of that story they told schoolchildren about the little boy who gets lost at the market and must learn that it’s better to stay put and let himself be found by a trustworthy adult rather than wander off and run the risk of straying even further from safety. This was why, in addition to embarrassing ring tones, Peter’s mobile had also come with an astonishingly large capacity for storing and categorizing the contact numbers for just about every person he knew.
“No, we just ate,” Molly was saying, apparently in response to Peter asking if he’d interrupted dinner. Claude rolled his eyes. The danger couldn’t be too great if they had time to discuss Parkman’s cooking skills. “Matt made grilled cheese. It was really good. Even Claude liked it.’
“Wow,” they could all hear Peter say. “Is Claude still there?”
Suresh and Parkman both raised their eyebrows, shooting looks at Claude as if he’d somehow put Peter up to this, the way some people asked their friends to call with imaginary emergencies in the middle of bad blind dates.
“He’s here,” Molly said, twirling the phone cord between her fingers. “Do you want to talk to him?” Peter said something in reply, lost in a clatter of dishes as Suresh, deciding the crisis had passed, went back to his unfinished after-dinner task. “Okay.” Suddenly, Molly blushed violently. “Love you, too. Bye.”
She held the phone out to Claude wordlessly.
“You do realize how closely flirting with eleven year old girls borders on the illegal, don’t you?” Claude said by way of greeting. “As Molly’s legal guardian, Suresh could have you strung up for something like that.”
“They have labels on the cabinets.”
Claude waited a beat in case the urgent statement made more sense upon re-examination. It didn’t. “Sorry?”
“They have labels on the cabinets,” the boy said more deliberately now, as if this was supposed to be some sort of pre-arranged coded message--a kind of distress signal from afar.
“I’m lost,” Claude said.
Peter sighed, a rush of air that came over the phone line as he struggled for words. “They stuck labels on all the cabinets and drawers. Like, little laminated guides telling you what’s in them. They even have one on the medicine cabinet in the guest bathroom and, by the way, the only thing that’s in there is a bottle of aspirin and a box of band-aids. But there’s room on the paper for me to add more if I put anything in there myself.”
“Ah,” Claude said, reading between the lines. “Your brother’s treating you like an invalid again, is that it?”
“Him or Heidi or someone, I have no idea,” Peter said. “They even put this book of special ‘memory improving’ crossword puzzles for old people in the room where I’m staying.”
“You’re rubbish with those,” Claude said.
“I know!” Peter agreed, forgetting to be indignant.
A pause passed between them. Now Claude was the one twirling the phone cord between his fingers like some gossiping schoolgirl. He dropped it promptly, even as he envisioned the glory days back before he’d saddled himself with the utter, emasculating indignity of what some might call a boyfriend. Peter’s memory lapses alone--and the reasons behind them--should have been enough to send Claude running in the opposite direction, and there were times when he still got the urge to walk out the door and not come back. To set up shop in a new city and resume the anonymous solitude he’d so enjoyed until a floppy-haired boy had come into his life, nattering on about trivialities like the coming apocalypse. But he’d already done that once, the first time around. If he didn’t do it now, it was because he knew better what he stood to lose. Which was small comfort in times like these when he thought to himself how the person he’d been a year and a half ago would probably disown the person he was now for even thinking the thoughts that were currently going through his head.
“Claude?”
But Parkman had said Bennet was up to something and that Suresh was involved. Claude didn’t like that. True, he could stay in the city and wait for Bennet to drop in on Suresh but Parkman was here to monitor that particular situation. If Claude was going to confront his former partner, he had to corner the man alone. Or as alone as he could possibly be at a painfully awkward Petrelli family mini-reunion.
He was really going to hate himself for this in the morning.
“Claude? Are you there?”
From his tone, Claude could tell Peter honestly thought Claude would hang up on him and mentally patted himself on the back for at least holding on to that small scrap of his former ability to intimidate the boy with his abruptness.
“Fine, but if I get there and find there’s no labels and that this was all some ploy on your part to get me down there against my will, I will make your life a living hell. Do you understand?”
A bewildered pause. “I understand.”
“Good,” Claude said. “I’ll be there by morning.”
Part Three