Fanfic: Heroes, Love Doesn't Come Here.
Love Doesn't Come Here
Fandom: Heroes
Pairing: Gabriel/Peter. Some Gabriel/Claire. Implied Gabriel/HRG and Peter/Nathan (and a little implied Gabriel/Angela)
Rating: R. At the least.
Spoilers: Up to 305.
Warnings: Character Death. Incest. Necrophilia. Non-con.
Disclaimer: I don't own Heroes or Love is Like Clock Law by Gary Numan.
"How do we make love stay?"
Kill it.
So it can never, ever leave.
(I cried, don't leave me. Don't leave me.)
* * *
His phone is ringing.
The thought of this startles him out of his daze more than the sound itself does.
He answers his phone with a tiny click.
One- two.
"Hello?"
Peter, he thinks quickly, thoughts turning into something even darker than they had been moments before. Peter...
Three- four.
"G- Gabriel, are you there?"
He can hear Peter's heart beating, even through the static of the phone.
One- "Gabriel?"- two.
It sounds magnificent.
"...Yes, I'm here. Peter."
One- two. Three- four.
Peter's voice filters in and out of his head, coming and going in waves. It's all he can do. It's the only thing he can do and all he can truly hear is Peter's heart beating the same rhythm as always, so familiar to him by now.
One- two.
All he can see are the possibilities stretching out before him. Peter's heart beating in his chest, lungs filling with air, quiet breaths underneath him as he breathes out and he... and he wants those pieces. All of the pieces.
All for himself.
Three- four.
Only for himself.
One- two.
"Gabriel!"
Three- four.
"What... did you say?" he asks in something like innocence, as close as he can manage. Which isn't very much at all. But he can't have Peter know. Not yet, not now.
It isn't time.
One- two.
Peter sighs in frustration and he grins as he hears Peter angrily run a hand through his hair.
"I've been having these dreams lately-"
Three- four.
His own heart almost stops even as Peter's continues along.
"-And... I don't- I don't even really know what they're trying to tell me, but I keep having this feeling. Just- Is... our mother-"
One- two.
His own heart stops then, he's sure of it. Peter's heart beating nearly in time with his until-
Three- One- four-
"-Is she all right?"
Peter has no idea.
One- Two.
"Of course she is," he answers smoothly, brushing Peter off easily. He has no idea at all. "Honestly, Peter, do you really think I would let anything happen to her?"
There's a pause as he waits for Peter to answer.
Three- four.
But the almost-silence is welcome to him. He prefers Peter like this: voice silent, but life still apparent with heartbeats and breaths. For now he does, anyway.
One-
"No, I... guess you wouldn't. I- Goodbye. Gabriel."
Two.
Nothing.
The heartbeat vanishes as dial tone greets his ears.
-
He turns off the phone.
Stares into the cool abyss that is the Company morgue.
Almost no one comes here, to the morgue.
Not even the dead.
He stares at the corpse that is his mother and brushes a strand of hair from out of her eyes.
It was the only place to put the body.
He closes the drawer, melts the lock and twists it with telekinesis.
He'll be the only one able to open it now.
He thinks, I need my own freezer as he leaves.
* * *
Noah is incredibly easy to kill. He doesn't even have to do it himself.
Not exactly.
He only has to wait for the right person, the right power they're going after this week. Put himself in danger. (Even after all this time, no forgiveness, and Noah doesn't even bother to help him.)
Wait for the person to use their power on him. (Red and black energy flowing from their fingertips.)
And then... redirect it.
-
The burst of red and black goes from him to Noah in a jerky start. (And the three heartbeats in the near empty alley quickly turn into two.)
The girl whom they'd been chasing stares at him in confusion, or horror. He isn't sure which or whether or not it's from her own power being used to kill someone or from him killing his own partner. Maybe it's both.
He doesn't really care either way as he slams her into the brick wall, a sharp crack filling the alley and his ears.
(And two heartbeats fade into one within the crack.)
The temptation is still there as he stares at the body sliding down the wall, a trail of blood following with it. He could take the power, use it as he pleases. But- and he thinks, that isn't what I want anymore.
He walks over to Noah instead.
Kneels down beside him.
I just wanted you to forgive me, he thinks bitterly, I just wanted you to love me. But he shoves the second thought down quickly and tries not to think anymore.
Anything not to feel... anything not to- anything...
-
Anything? he thinks, but then he wonders when he's ever really been able to stop himself.
Control himself.
And he can't stop himself- he can't- he can't (he doesn't want to) and it feels- it just feels-
* * *
The funeral is awful.
He stands beside Nathan at it, Peter next to him, Claire between Peter and her mother.
No one knows, but no one questions where Angela is or why she isn't there. But mostly everyone is just thankful they're getting a funeral at all.
Gabriel can briefly feel Nathan's eyes boring into him before they turn away. But he doesn't know... and no one else looks at him or questions what happened that night.
After all...
He's been good.
-
Nathan comes to visit him shortly after the funeral.
"Whatever you've done-"
"And what exactly have I done, brother?" he asks. He's sitting at his mother's desk.
Nathan glares at him, but only slightly. Quietly, in a way. Cold anger burning underneath. If there's only one thing he loves about this brother of his it's the way he can hate.
"I have no idea what you're doing, but you need to stop. And where is my mother?"
"Our mother is dealing with... her own problems at the moment. No one's concern but her own."
Nathan stares at him, eyes narrowing even as he turns away and heads toward the door.
Something in him aches then and he opens his mouth before he can stop himself.
"And if I were doing... something, would you really do anything to stop me?"
Nathan pauses right outside the door, but continues on and he can hear the fast pace of his footsteps match the rhythm in his heart.
"I guess I have my answer," he says to the empty room, but the only thing he feels is the same ache in his chest growing dimmer and a quick feeling of disappoint.
Before that starts to fade too.
* * *
Claire stays at the grave for six days.
On the seventh she leaves, her mother and brother finally dragging her away.
That's the night he starts digging.
* * *
He doesn't want this.
Claire doesn't taste sweet under his lips as he kisses her.
He wants to stop.
He thinks she should taste like cherries.
He is going to stop.
Strawberries.
He is.
If he pretends long enough she does and that's enough for him.
Really.
He kisses her again.
-
Claire has a knife gripped in her hand as she backs away from him.
We've been here before, he thinks, as she backs further away, into a desk. One hand quickly pulling open drawers to find the gun that he had already destroyed within it. Not that a gun could hurt him now.
"I knew it, I knew it," Claire cries, but it's filled with something closer to sadness than the anger he would've thought should've been there. "I knew you couldn't change."
He stops moving toward her then, eyes catching his own reflection in the mirror above.
"I'm sorry," he says. "For everything."
Her face goes pale, shocked, as realization hits her.
"You killed him."
Shock quickly turns to rage and she screams in fury, blindly running at him with the knife, the search for a gun that was never there in the first place abandoned.
Then everything falls silent, except for his own heartbeat, of course.
Claire collapses and falls to the floor at his feet, a shard from the now broken mirror protruding from out of the back of her head. She hadn't even heard the mirror break.
He kneels down beside her and turns her over.
Vacant eyes stare into his own and he thinks- he thinks-
I don't want this as he kisses her.
* * *
Click.
Dial tone.
One- two.
"Gabriel... it's three. In the morning."
Three- four.
"I know, I'm sorry, but I need..."
One- two- three-
"I need your help."
Four.
* * *
He watches in the shadows as Peter enters the warehouse, an uneasy look on his face.
"Gabriel, are you in here?" Peter shouts, but the sound is nearly swallowed up by the door slamming behind him. Peter jumps slightly at the sound and he grins, even as the echoes in the building cause his ears to feel as if they're about to burst.
He ignores the pain, though, and looks for something deeper within the echoes. Something so familiar to him.
He smiles when he finds it, footsteps quickly adding to it as Peter wanders further into the warehouse, searching for him.
It won't take him long, he thinks, he only has one path to follow.
Peter opens another door and walks through it, going down the set of stairs there and heading deeper and deeper into the maze of the building.
Gabriel follows behind silently.
-
Peter follows the path just the way he should: down all the stairs, down the long hallway, turning right and following the new hallway all the way to the end.
The door there is cracked open slightly, just enough. Just enough for him to know that it's open.
Just enough for Peter to know it's the only way he should be going. The only way to go.
He watches Peter pause, eying the door even more wearily than he had the warehouse. He moves past Peter then, moving through the crack in the door to get to the room beyond.
From inside the room Peter looks heavenly, he really does. The blue light from inside doesn't reach Peter where he stands and he seems to glow from the dim yellow-white lights behind him.
He can hear Peter breath out, a shaky kind of breath that says here goes nothing as he steps forward and pushes the door open.
He moves further away from Peter as he steps into the room, but he's still close enough to see him shiver in the cold. The blue light somehow makes him look even more angelic than the yellow-white.
He pushes the door closed with a telekinetic burst, but he doesn't think Peter hears it as he moves further into the room.
Into the freezer.
* * *
He can hear Peter's heart beating madly in his chest even as Peter breathes out a quiet "Oh god..." that seems to fill the entire room.
A quick onetwothreefour echoing in his ears.
"Oh god."
Peter's voice sounds sick.
"What- what have you..."
He chooses that moment to appear before Peter, blocking his view of their frozen mother behind him.
"Done?" he asks softly, taking Peter's hand into his own. "Do you like it?"
Peter follows him obediently (numbly) as he drags him past their mother to the center of the room. He follows him like he's the only one in his entire world. Like he's the only one there at all.
And in a way... he is, but Gabriel knows the real reason. A fast thought of he's in shock only to be shoved down violently.
"Don't you like it?" he asks again.
From here, in the center of the room, Peter can see all the hard work he's done.
And Peter just stares, quiet breaths, heart beating in the same insane rhythm as he looks at the frozen figures surrounding them.
Their mother to their right. Noah opposite her, to their left. Claire in front of them.
All frozen.
All his horrible and beautiful work.
Peter jerks away then, pulling his hand out of his grasp and backs away, moving toward the door. His eyes are filled with so many emotions that it takes him longer than it should to see how all the pieces are fitting together now.
A soft burst of telekinesis is flung at him and they both know that all it is is Peter testing to see if it will even work, but they both know the answer when he extinguishes it with barely even a thought.
Peter then closes his eyes and he loves the look of concentration on his face. The growing horror when Peter's eyes snap open and he realizes he can't teleport out either.
That none of his powers work.
"How long..." Peter swallows and he can hear his heart slow from the fast pace it had been before. Tiny, little pieces of Peter giving in. Giving in to him, but even then he knows that isn't really true. It's just... what else can Peter do?
He watches as Peter swallows once again. "Just- how long?"
He doesn't know what to answer.
One- how long have they been dead? Two- how long have you had the power to stop me?
Three- how long has this been going on? Four- how long have you been this way?
One- how long? Two. Three- four.
He doesn't know what to answer at all so instead he pulls Peter away from the door, telekinesis moving him quickly back to the center of the room, pressed up against him.
He kisses Peter harshly, fast, and Peter doesn't protest. Not even a little, doesn't move away from him at all. The only movement his eyelids fluttering shut.
Just stays exactly as he is and Gabriel- pretends- needs to pretend that it isn't because of his telekinesis holding Peter in place. Pretends it's because Peter wants this, and he does. Doesn't he?
Of course he does.
There's a strangled sort of noise in the back of Peter's throat, but he ignores it until he remembers that Peter needs to breathe more than he does now. He pulls away, and Peter still can't move, still doesn't open his eyes and in that moment he looks at him.
Really looks at him.
Sees all the pieces of Peter fitting together. All the shards of the person that had been shattered then mended slowly back together again, not the same as before but still there. All the little scars in Peter's soul and pieces worn down and frayed with time.
They fit so beautifully together.
They both fit so beautifully together. With each other.
Not perfectly. (Not anymore)
But beautifully still.
Horribly.
It's enough and it's all he's ever going to have, so it's enough.
But he can feel other pieces there- in the background- ones that don't fit together with him, but fit with other people. Fit with all the (dead) people in the room and the ones that fit with the only (alive) one who is absent.
He wants to rip those pieces out and smash them until they have no chance of ever being repaired again.
Not even by him.
Peter's eyes open slowly at that thought, almost as if he's heard him. But he couldn't have, his powers won't work. He hasn't allowed them to. But even without abilities- his ability Peter still manages to see him somehow.
Still manages to see all of his own pieces.
"Don't you see?" he asks, kissing Peter just as harshly as before, and Peter doesn't close his eyes this time. "You do, don't you?"
But when he pulls away he can see the anger and worry apparent in Peter's face and he can hear it in his heart.
A tiny sound there of: One- Nathan. Two- You haven't killed him? Three- Have you? And the fourth sound is even smaller, pieces cracking and breaking as it beats with despair.
Have you?
He growls, backhanding Peter with a mix of his own strength and telekinesis so that he falls to the floor.
Peter groans, trying to pick himself up, but he's faster. Slamming him back down again and pinning him with only the use his weight. Peter struggles briefly, but it's a lost cause and they both know it, and he finally stops resisting.
Submits.
"Don't you see at all?" he asks softly, looking into Peter's eyes, searching for something in them there. Some kind of recognition. But Peter only looks... tired.
"No- I don't-" the words come out in choked gasps and it's only then that he realizes his hands are wrapped around Peter's neck. Squeezing. Suffocating. Killing him.
He starts, relaxes his grip so Peter can breath.
"Can't you see us?"
But Peter just looks the same. Sadder, even, in the blue light now.
"No, I can't."
Peter doesn't say anything more, but he can feel it. Hear it.
See it in the way Peter turns his head slightly from him. The wheels in Peter's head turning as he thinks, you took that away from me. But I never wanted to be able to in the first place. Not really. Not like that.
"You'll never fit together with anyone the way you do with me." He moves a hand to run his fingers through Peter's hair.
"I don't..."
"Not as perfectly."
Peter moves his head to look back at him then and he knows. He knows, but he doesn't want to believe.
Doesn't want to accept Peter's thought of, yes, I will.
But he can't help to hear it and the soft grip of his fingers in Peter's hair turns into something harder. Darker.
He screams in frustration, pulling Peter closer to his face before slamming his head back down to the concrete. A loud smack filling the air along with a moan from Peter, but he doesn't care. He doesn't care at all. He just wants Peter to hurt.
And not even that, he thinks, staring into Peter's unfocused eyes. More than that. I want to hurt him.
He slams Peter's head back down again. And again.
And again and again and again until blood starts to pool all around them and the only thing he can hear in the room is the sound of his harsh breathing and his own, singular heartbeat.
* * *
Peter is breathtaking, even as a corpse.
Gabriel kisses him softly, gently. Taking as long as he needs. As long as he wants, moving so slowly. He runs his fingers through Peter's hair, blood coating both of his hands.
He pulls away and moves them both back a little, dragging Peter's lifeless body, a trail of blood that's starting to freeze left in their wake.
He leans back down, cups Peter's face in his hands.
Smears a trail of blood on his cheek, fingers coming to a stop when they reach his lips.
Lazily painting them dark red with blood.
Peter still looks so beautiful, even like this. Especially like this.
All mine, he thinks almost happily. Only almost because he isn't even sure what happy means anymore. Isn't even sure if he ever knew at all. But... this must be it. This must be... isn't it? he thinks to himself.
But his mind is a dark, blank hole and offers him no reply and so he kisses Peter instead, just as slowly as before and he tastes like blood. And ice.
Only blood and ice, but he doesn't stop.
It doesn't stop him at all.
He kisses Peter again, this time more desperate. More needy, and he pulls away. Looks into Peter's eyes, still searching for something in them. Anything at all. But the only thing he finds is... nothing.
Nothing at all.
He kisses him once more and something sounds in the back of his throat.
This is what he wants- everything in this room. Peter beneath him and he'll stay with him. Exactly this way, forever and ever, and this is what he really wants. Isn't it? Isn't it?
Isn't it?
But there's nothing in Peter's eyes and when he kisses him again he lets go of his own power momentarily. Just long enough to let Peter regain his own powers. Long enough to regain the ability to heal... enough.
For one last time.
* * *
The only sound in the room is that of his own heart, and he can't hear Peter. Can't hear bones and ruined flesh knitting themselves back together again. Can't hear the heartbeat that he longs to.
For a moment he's... terrified? He doesn't know, isn't sure and he thinks-
He thinks, don't die. Not yet.
Not yet.
Please.
Just come back this once.
But there's nothing.
No sound, no sign of life at all coming from Peter and he lets out something between a wail and a sob.
Just come back this one time, pleasepleaseplease please and his thoughts are starting to break into pieces, unraveling at the ends and coming undone. And the only thing more horrible than the knowledge that Peter will never come back to him, at least for a moment (and a moment he has to steal at that), is being able to see himself.
Knowing that he's broken and breaking and being able to see all the tiny cracks growing larger and larger until they shatter onto the ground and-
one.
He lets out a sigh.
It's a tiny sound, barely noticeable, even for all of his power. But it's still there. A sluggish one... two... three... four... beating as Peter's body slowly starts to heal itself.
One... two... Three- four-
The sound increases and he couldn't even begin to want to stop himself as it grows stronger and stronger as Peter's body does. He bites into Peter's neck, enjoying the feeling of warm blood under his tongue even as the wound heals over.
He licks a red trail up to Peter's lips and kisses him urgently. He can hear- feel Peter's heart pounding in his ears beneath him, under his skin. He can picture it.
Taste it.
ONETWOTHREEFOUR thrumming along with his own heart as Peter surges against him, finally coming to life. There's a blinding white behind the dark of his eyelids as Peter's powers also fully return and he can feel hands protesting.
Pushing against his arms, trying to stop him. He crushes the power quickly, though, bright white turning to black as Peter's struggles grow sluggish before they stop altogether.
It's only then that he breaks the kiss.
Peter looks at him darkly when he pulls away, eyes only half-open. Blood is matted in his hair, covering his face and cheeks, red smeared all over his lips.
Red- blood all on their lips, their faces.
He looks into Peter's eyes then, and he can see his own reflection within them now.
They could almost look the same.
He sighs and rests his forehead against Peter's cheek and he can hear Peter shift underneath him. He doesn't want to- but he can always see the pieces. But this time he dosen't understand the way he should at all. He doesn't understand.
"Why did you bring me back?"
Peter's voice is only a vibration beneath his skin and there's silence for such a long, long time. Or perhaps it's only an almost-silence for a little while.
"We should fit together," he finally whispers, more to himself than to Peter, but Peter is so close and of course he can hear him.
"No," Peter states, although his voice is closer to a whisper and doesn't sound as strong as it actually feels. "We shouldn't."
He pulls away from him then and when he looks at Peter his own eyes are dark and the light in the room is not bright enough to see his reflection within them again.
"I'm going to kill you."
Peter makes a move to turn his head at his words, but stops and looks him straight in the eye instead. A part of him crumbles away at the look and if he were another person maybe it would be-
Maybe...
He leans back down and rubs his forehead against Peter's chin and makes a small noise in the back of his throat, and he can feel Peter make the same. He moves, kissing his way up toward Peter's lips before drawing him into a slow, gentle kiss.
Peter almost, almost returns it.
They're- he's so close.
"I could," he whispers in between kisses, but the feeling of Peter's hand rubbing slow circles on his arm makes him stop. "I-"
"It wouldn't be life."
He pulls away once again and slides a hand behind Peter's neck, gripping it and looking into his eyes, but they're dark just like his own and neither of their reflections are in either of them.
"You'd choose death," he asks, but it isn't even a question. He doesn't want it to be one, because he always knows this answer.
"You would."
Peter turns away from him and he does know.
He always knows, and Peter is right.
He leans back down for the last time and kisses Peter as he breaks his neck, one hand becoming entangled in Peter's hair as the other moves toward his belt and Peter tastes like ice.
Just like ice.
* * *
He doesn't know how much time passes, or if any does at all. Ice coats his skin and clothes, his hair. The blood on the floor has long since frozen and Peter is just a bloody figure in front of him.
Surrounding him with Noah and Claire and his mother, just frozen statues.
Just a frozen statue.
And he knows- he knows-
He should feel cold.
But instead he just feels...
Nothing.
Fandom: Heroes
Pairing: Gabriel/Peter. Some Gabriel/Claire. Implied Gabriel/HRG and Peter/Nathan (and a little implied Gabriel/Angela)
Rating: R. At the least.
Spoilers: Up to 305.
Warnings: Character Death. Incest. Necrophilia. Non-con.
Disclaimer: I don't own Heroes or Love is Like Clock Law by Gary Numan.
"How do we make love stay?"
Kill it.
So it can never, ever leave.
(I cried, don't leave me. Don't leave me.)
* * *
His phone is ringing.
The thought of this startles him out of his daze more than the sound itself does.
He answers his phone with a tiny click.
One- two.
"Hello?"
Peter, he thinks quickly, thoughts turning into something even darker than they had been moments before. Peter...
Three- four.
"G- Gabriel, are you there?"
He can hear Peter's heart beating, even through the static of the phone.
One- "Gabriel?"- two.
It sounds magnificent.
"...Yes, I'm here. Peter."
One- two. Three- four.
Peter's voice filters in and out of his head, coming and going in waves. It's all he can do. It's the only thing he can do and all he can truly hear is Peter's heart beating the same rhythm as always, so familiar to him by now.
One- two.
All he can see are the possibilities stretching out before him. Peter's heart beating in his chest, lungs filling with air, quiet breaths underneath him as he breathes out and he... and he wants those pieces. All of the pieces.
All for himself.
Three- four.
Only for himself.
One- two.
"Gabriel!"
Three- four.
"What... did you say?" he asks in something like innocence, as close as he can manage. Which isn't very much at all. But he can't have Peter know. Not yet, not now.
It isn't time.
One- two.
Peter sighs in frustration and he grins as he hears Peter angrily run a hand through his hair.
"I've been having these dreams lately-"
Three- four.
His own heart almost stops even as Peter's continues along.
"-And... I don't- I don't even really know what they're trying to tell me, but I keep having this feeling. Just- Is... our mother-"
One- two.
His own heart stops then, he's sure of it. Peter's heart beating nearly in time with his until-
Three- One- four-
"-Is she all right?"
Peter has no idea.
One- Two.
"Of course she is," he answers smoothly, brushing Peter off easily. He has no idea at all. "Honestly, Peter, do you really think I would let anything happen to her?"
There's a pause as he waits for Peter to answer.
Three- four.
But the almost-silence is welcome to him. He prefers Peter like this: voice silent, but life still apparent with heartbeats and breaths. For now he does, anyway.
One-
"No, I... guess you wouldn't. I- Goodbye. Gabriel."
Two.
Nothing.
The heartbeat vanishes as dial tone greets his ears.
-
He turns off the phone.
Stares into the cool abyss that is the Company morgue.
Almost no one comes here, to the morgue.
Not even the dead.
He stares at the corpse that is his mother and brushes a strand of hair from out of her eyes.
It was the only place to put the body.
He closes the drawer, melts the lock and twists it with telekinesis.
He'll be the only one able to open it now.
He thinks, I need my own freezer as he leaves.
* * *
Noah is incredibly easy to kill. He doesn't even have to do it himself.
Not exactly.
He only has to wait for the right person, the right power they're going after this week. Put himself in danger. (Even after all this time, no forgiveness, and Noah doesn't even bother to help him.)
Wait for the person to use their power on him. (Red and black energy flowing from their fingertips.)
And then... redirect it.
-
The burst of red and black goes from him to Noah in a jerky start. (And the three heartbeats in the near empty alley quickly turn into two.)
The girl whom they'd been chasing stares at him in confusion, or horror. He isn't sure which or whether or not it's from her own power being used to kill someone or from him killing his own partner. Maybe it's both.
He doesn't really care either way as he slams her into the brick wall, a sharp crack filling the alley and his ears.
(And two heartbeats fade into one within the crack.)
The temptation is still there as he stares at the body sliding down the wall, a trail of blood following with it. He could take the power, use it as he pleases. But- and he thinks, that isn't what I want anymore.
He walks over to Noah instead.
Kneels down beside him.
I just wanted you to forgive me, he thinks bitterly, I just wanted you to love me. But he shoves the second thought down quickly and tries not to think anymore.
Anything not to feel... anything not to- anything...
-
Anything? he thinks, but then he wonders when he's ever really been able to stop himself.
Control himself.
And he can't stop himself- he can't- he can't (he doesn't want to) and it feels- it just feels-
* * *
The funeral is awful.
He stands beside Nathan at it, Peter next to him, Claire between Peter and her mother.
No one knows, but no one questions where Angela is or why she isn't there. But mostly everyone is just thankful they're getting a funeral at all.
Gabriel can briefly feel Nathan's eyes boring into him before they turn away. But he doesn't know... and no one else looks at him or questions what happened that night.
After all...
He's been good.
-
Nathan comes to visit him shortly after the funeral.
"Whatever you've done-"
"And what exactly have I done, brother?" he asks. He's sitting at his mother's desk.
Nathan glares at him, but only slightly. Quietly, in a way. Cold anger burning underneath. If there's only one thing he loves about this brother of his it's the way he can hate.
"I have no idea what you're doing, but you need to stop. And where is my mother?"
"Our mother is dealing with... her own problems at the moment. No one's concern but her own."
Nathan stares at him, eyes narrowing even as he turns away and heads toward the door.
Something in him aches then and he opens his mouth before he can stop himself.
"And if I were doing... something, would you really do anything to stop me?"
Nathan pauses right outside the door, but continues on and he can hear the fast pace of his footsteps match the rhythm in his heart.
"I guess I have my answer," he says to the empty room, but the only thing he feels is the same ache in his chest growing dimmer and a quick feeling of disappoint.
Before that starts to fade too.
* * *
Claire stays at the grave for six days.
On the seventh she leaves, her mother and brother finally dragging her away.
That's the night he starts digging.
* * *
He doesn't want this.
Claire doesn't taste sweet under his lips as he kisses her.
He wants to stop.
He thinks she should taste like cherries.
He is going to stop.
Strawberries.
He is.
If he pretends long enough she does and that's enough for him.
Really.
He kisses her again.
-
Claire has a knife gripped in her hand as she backs away from him.
We've been here before, he thinks, as she backs further away, into a desk. One hand quickly pulling open drawers to find the gun that he had already destroyed within it. Not that a gun could hurt him now.
"I knew it, I knew it," Claire cries, but it's filled with something closer to sadness than the anger he would've thought should've been there. "I knew you couldn't change."
He stops moving toward her then, eyes catching his own reflection in the mirror above.
"I'm sorry," he says. "For everything."
Her face goes pale, shocked, as realization hits her.
"You killed him."
Shock quickly turns to rage and she screams in fury, blindly running at him with the knife, the search for a gun that was never there in the first place abandoned.
Then everything falls silent, except for his own heartbeat, of course.
Claire collapses and falls to the floor at his feet, a shard from the now broken mirror protruding from out of the back of her head. She hadn't even heard the mirror break.
He kneels down beside her and turns her over.
Vacant eyes stare into his own and he thinks- he thinks-
I don't want this as he kisses her.
* * *
Click.
Dial tone.
One- two.
"Gabriel... it's three. In the morning."
Three- four.
"I know, I'm sorry, but I need..."
One- two- three-
"I need your help."
Four.
* * *
He watches in the shadows as Peter enters the warehouse, an uneasy look on his face.
"Gabriel, are you in here?" Peter shouts, but the sound is nearly swallowed up by the door slamming behind him. Peter jumps slightly at the sound and he grins, even as the echoes in the building cause his ears to feel as if they're about to burst.
He ignores the pain, though, and looks for something deeper within the echoes. Something so familiar to him.
He smiles when he finds it, footsteps quickly adding to it as Peter wanders further into the warehouse, searching for him.
It won't take him long, he thinks, he only has one path to follow.
Peter opens another door and walks through it, going down the set of stairs there and heading deeper and deeper into the maze of the building.
Gabriel follows behind silently.
-
Peter follows the path just the way he should: down all the stairs, down the long hallway, turning right and following the new hallway all the way to the end.
The door there is cracked open slightly, just enough. Just enough for him to know that it's open.
Just enough for Peter to know it's the only way he should be going. The only way to go.
He watches Peter pause, eying the door even more wearily than he had the warehouse. He moves past Peter then, moving through the crack in the door to get to the room beyond.
From inside the room Peter looks heavenly, he really does. The blue light from inside doesn't reach Peter where he stands and he seems to glow from the dim yellow-white lights behind him.
He can hear Peter breath out, a shaky kind of breath that says here goes nothing as he steps forward and pushes the door open.
He moves further away from Peter as he steps into the room, but he's still close enough to see him shiver in the cold. The blue light somehow makes him look even more angelic than the yellow-white.
He pushes the door closed with a telekinetic burst, but he doesn't think Peter hears it as he moves further into the room.
Into the freezer.
* * *
He can hear Peter's heart beating madly in his chest even as Peter breathes out a quiet "Oh god..." that seems to fill the entire room.
A quick onetwothreefour echoing in his ears.
"Oh god."
Peter's voice sounds sick.
"What- what have you..."
He chooses that moment to appear before Peter, blocking his view of their frozen mother behind him.
"Done?" he asks softly, taking Peter's hand into his own. "Do you like it?"
Peter follows him obediently (numbly) as he drags him past their mother to the center of the room. He follows him like he's the only one in his entire world. Like he's the only one there at all.
And in a way... he is, but Gabriel knows the real reason. A fast thought of he's in shock only to be shoved down violently.
"Don't you like it?" he asks again.
From here, in the center of the room, Peter can see all the hard work he's done.
And Peter just stares, quiet breaths, heart beating in the same insane rhythm as he looks at the frozen figures surrounding them.
Their mother to their right. Noah opposite her, to their left. Claire in front of them.
All frozen.
All his horrible and beautiful work.
Peter jerks away then, pulling his hand out of his grasp and backs away, moving toward the door. His eyes are filled with so many emotions that it takes him longer than it should to see how all the pieces are fitting together now.
A soft burst of telekinesis is flung at him and they both know that all it is is Peter testing to see if it will even work, but they both know the answer when he extinguishes it with barely even a thought.
Peter then closes his eyes and he loves the look of concentration on his face. The growing horror when Peter's eyes snap open and he realizes he can't teleport out either.
That none of his powers work.
"How long..." Peter swallows and he can hear his heart slow from the fast pace it had been before. Tiny, little pieces of Peter giving in. Giving in to him, but even then he knows that isn't really true. It's just... what else can Peter do?
He watches as Peter swallows once again. "Just- how long?"
He doesn't know what to answer.
One- how long have they been dead? Two- how long have you had the power to stop me?
Three- how long has this been going on? Four- how long have you been this way?
One- how long? Two. Three- four.
He doesn't know what to answer at all so instead he pulls Peter away from the door, telekinesis moving him quickly back to the center of the room, pressed up against him.
He kisses Peter harshly, fast, and Peter doesn't protest. Not even a little, doesn't move away from him at all. The only movement his eyelids fluttering shut.
Just stays exactly as he is and Gabriel- pretends- needs to pretend that it isn't because of his telekinesis holding Peter in place. Pretends it's because Peter wants this, and he does. Doesn't he?
Of course he does.
There's a strangled sort of noise in the back of Peter's throat, but he ignores it until he remembers that Peter needs to breathe more than he does now. He pulls away, and Peter still can't move, still doesn't open his eyes and in that moment he looks at him.
Really looks at him.
Sees all the pieces of Peter fitting together. All the shards of the person that had been shattered then mended slowly back together again, not the same as before but still there. All the little scars in Peter's soul and pieces worn down and frayed with time.
They fit so beautifully together.
They both fit so beautifully together. With each other.
Not perfectly. (Not anymore)
But beautifully still.
Horribly.
It's enough and it's all he's ever going to have, so it's enough.
But he can feel other pieces there- in the background- ones that don't fit together with him, but fit with other people. Fit with all the (dead) people in the room and the ones that fit with the only (alive) one who is absent.
He wants to rip those pieces out and smash them until they have no chance of ever being repaired again.
Not even by him.
Peter's eyes open slowly at that thought, almost as if he's heard him. But he couldn't have, his powers won't work. He hasn't allowed them to. But even without abilities- his ability Peter still manages to see him somehow.
Still manages to see all of his own pieces.
"Don't you see?" he asks, kissing Peter just as harshly as before, and Peter doesn't close his eyes this time. "You do, don't you?"
But when he pulls away he can see the anger and worry apparent in Peter's face and he can hear it in his heart.
A tiny sound there of: One- Nathan. Two- You haven't killed him? Three- Have you? And the fourth sound is even smaller, pieces cracking and breaking as it beats with despair.
Have you?
He growls, backhanding Peter with a mix of his own strength and telekinesis so that he falls to the floor.
Peter groans, trying to pick himself up, but he's faster. Slamming him back down again and pinning him with only the use his weight. Peter struggles briefly, but it's a lost cause and they both know it, and he finally stops resisting.
Submits.
"Don't you see at all?" he asks softly, looking into Peter's eyes, searching for something in them there. Some kind of recognition. But Peter only looks... tired.
"No- I don't-" the words come out in choked gasps and it's only then that he realizes his hands are wrapped around Peter's neck. Squeezing. Suffocating. Killing him.
He starts, relaxes his grip so Peter can breath.
"Can't you see us?"
But Peter just looks the same. Sadder, even, in the blue light now.
"No, I can't."
Peter doesn't say anything more, but he can feel it. Hear it.
See it in the way Peter turns his head slightly from him. The wheels in Peter's head turning as he thinks, you took that away from me. But I never wanted to be able to in the first place. Not really. Not like that.
"You'll never fit together with anyone the way you do with me." He moves a hand to run his fingers through Peter's hair.
"I don't..."
"Not as perfectly."
Peter moves his head to look back at him then and he knows. He knows, but he doesn't want to believe.
Doesn't want to accept Peter's thought of, yes, I will.
But he can't help to hear it and the soft grip of his fingers in Peter's hair turns into something harder. Darker.
He screams in frustration, pulling Peter closer to his face before slamming his head back down to the concrete. A loud smack filling the air along with a moan from Peter, but he doesn't care. He doesn't care at all. He just wants Peter to hurt.
And not even that, he thinks, staring into Peter's unfocused eyes. More than that. I want to hurt him.
He slams Peter's head back down again. And again.
And again and again and again until blood starts to pool all around them and the only thing he can hear in the room is the sound of his harsh breathing and his own, singular heartbeat.
* * *
Peter is breathtaking, even as a corpse.
Gabriel kisses him softly, gently. Taking as long as he needs. As long as he wants, moving so slowly. He runs his fingers through Peter's hair, blood coating both of his hands.
He pulls away and moves them both back a little, dragging Peter's lifeless body, a trail of blood that's starting to freeze left in their wake.
He leans back down, cups Peter's face in his hands.
Smears a trail of blood on his cheek, fingers coming to a stop when they reach his lips.
Lazily painting them dark red with blood.
Peter still looks so beautiful, even like this. Especially like this.
All mine, he thinks almost happily. Only almost because he isn't even sure what happy means anymore. Isn't even sure if he ever knew at all. But... this must be it. This must be... isn't it? he thinks to himself.
But his mind is a dark, blank hole and offers him no reply and so he kisses Peter instead, just as slowly as before and he tastes like blood. And ice.
Only blood and ice, but he doesn't stop.
It doesn't stop him at all.
He kisses Peter again, this time more desperate. More needy, and he pulls away. Looks into Peter's eyes, still searching for something in them. Anything at all. But the only thing he finds is... nothing.
Nothing at all.
He kisses him once more and something sounds in the back of his throat.
This is what he wants- everything in this room. Peter beneath him and he'll stay with him. Exactly this way, forever and ever, and this is what he really wants. Isn't it? Isn't it?
Isn't it?
But there's nothing in Peter's eyes and when he kisses him again he lets go of his own power momentarily. Just long enough to let Peter regain his own powers. Long enough to regain the ability to heal... enough.
For one last time.
* * *
The only sound in the room is that of his own heart, and he can't hear Peter. Can't hear bones and ruined flesh knitting themselves back together again. Can't hear the heartbeat that he longs to.
For a moment he's... terrified? He doesn't know, isn't sure and he thinks-
He thinks, don't die. Not yet.
Not yet.
Please.
Just come back this once.
But there's nothing.
No sound, no sign of life at all coming from Peter and he lets out something between a wail and a sob.
Just come back this one time, pleasepleaseplease please and his thoughts are starting to break into pieces, unraveling at the ends and coming undone. And the only thing more horrible than the knowledge that Peter will never come back to him, at least for a moment (and a moment he has to steal at that), is being able to see himself.
Knowing that he's broken and breaking and being able to see all the tiny cracks growing larger and larger until they shatter onto the ground and-
one.
He lets out a sigh.
It's a tiny sound, barely noticeable, even for all of his power. But it's still there. A sluggish one... two... three... four... beating as Peter's body slowly starts to heal itself.
One... two... Three- four-
The sound increases and he couldn't even begin to want to stop himself as it grows stronger and stronger as Peter's body does. He bites into Peter's neck, enjoying the feeling of warm blood under his tongue even as the wound heals over.
He licks a red trail up to Peter's lips and kisses him urgently. He can hear- feel Peter's heart pounding in his ears beneath him, under his skin. He can picture it.
Taste it.
ONETWOTHREEFOUR thrumming along with his own heart as Peter surges against him, finally coming to life. There's a blinding white behind the dark of his eyelids as Peter's powers also fully return and he can feel hands protesting.
Pushing against his arms, trying to stop him. He crushes the power quickly, though, bright white turning to black as Peter's struggles grow sluggish before they stop altogether.
It's only then that he breaks the kiss.
Peter looks at him darkly when he pulls away, eyes only half-open. Blood is matted in his hair, covering his face and cheeks, red smeared all over his lips.
Red- blood all on their lips, their faces.
He looks into Peter's eyes then, and he can see his own reflection within them now.
They could almost look the same.
He sighs and rests his forehead against Peter's cheek and he can hear Peter shift underneath him. He doesn't want to- but he can always see the pieces. But this time he dosen't understand the way he should at all. He doesn't understand.
"Why did you bring me back?"
Peter's voice is only a vibration beneath his skin and there's silence for such a long, long time. Or perhaps it's only an almost-silence for a little while.
"We should fit together," he finally whispers, more to himself than to Peter, but Peter is so close and of course he can hear him.
"No," Peter states, although his voice is closer to a whisper and doesn't sound as strong as it actually feels. "We shouldn't."
He pulls away from him then and when he looks at Peter his own eyes are dark and the light in the room is not bright enough to see his reflection within them again.
"I'm going to kill you."
Peter makes a move to turn his head at his words, but stops and looks him straight in the eye instead. A part of him crumbles away at the look and if he were another person maybe it would be-
Maybe...
He leans back down and rubs his forehead against Peter's chin and makes a small noise in the back of his throat, and he can feel Peter make the same. He moves, kissing his way up toward Peter's lips before drawing him into a slow, gentle kiss.
Peter almost, almost returns it.
They're- he's so close.
"I could," he whispers in between kisses, but the feeling of Peter's hand rubbing slow circles on his arm makes him stop. "I-"
"It wouldn't be life."
He pulls away once again and slides a hand behind Peter's neck, gripping it and looking into his eyes, but they're dark just like his own and neither of their reflections are in either of them.
"You'd choose death," he asks, but it isn't even a question. He doesn't want it to be one, because he always knows this answer.
"You would."
Peter turns away from him and he does know.
He always knows, and Peter is right.
He leans back down for the last time and kisses Peter as he breaks his neck, one hand becoming entangled in Peter's hair as the other moves toward his belt and Peter tastes like ice.
Just like ice.
* * *
He doesn't know how much time passes, or if any does at all. Ice coats his skin and clothes, his hair. The blood on the floor has long since frozen and Peter is just a bloody figure in front of him.
Surrounding him with Noah and Claire and his mother, just frozen statues.
Just a frozen statue.
And he knows- he knows-
He should feel cold.
But instead he just feels...
Nothing.