Fic: Settling Down (Part I)
Title: Settling Down
Fandom: Heroes
Characters: Claude, Abby, Lee, Sarah, Peter
Word Count: ~2000
Summary: Well, there's a wedding, and some people discuss things.
Rating: PG13
A/N: Mostly motivated by my long-standing desire to see Claude walk Abby down the aisle, I do not care if it is sappy and ridiculous and random, I love it.
He knocked cautiously at the door.
“Can I come in?”
“Dunno, can you?” her voice sounded higher than normal, and there was the obvious sound of pacing.
He turned the door handle. “It’s locked.”
A hysterical laugh that’s cut short by a cough. “Like that’s ever stopped you.”
Fair enough. He hadn’t anything to pick the lock with, but there were always other options. None that he had to employ, because there was the telltale click and the door drifted open.
She was leaning against what appeared to be a very femininely inclined desk, with a vast lighted mirror. She looked pale, exhausted, dressed (still, or possibly again) in a ragged jumper and old jeans. Her make-up had probably been immaculate a half hour ago, and strands of her hair seemed to be fleeing the elaborate mass of curls and buns and god knows what else was going on there.
“You all right, then?” he asked, somewhat pointlessly, and the glare she fixed on him would’ve sent better men running from the room. Her gaze was only interrupted when she coughed again, and that’s what it took for him to notice just why she’d apparently left the window open, despite it being a typically wet and cool morning. “Since when do you smoke?”
“Since I took these from your pocket,” she said, tossing the pack onto the desk. “Not worth it.”
“No, day like today’s probably not the best to start that kind of habit.”
She shrugged. Her eyes were wide and terrified for a moment, when she seemed to have heard someone coming up the stairs, but then she crossed her arms and stuck out her bottom lip.
“Well?”
“Well what?”
“You’ve come to talk me into something, have you?”
He shrugged. “’s up to you, love.”
She laughed, less hysterical, but just barely. “Me, and assorted family members, and all of the people out there, just waitin’ to…”
“You don’t want to do this?”
“I don’t-“
“Come on then,” he walked over to her, grabbed her arm, and guided her toward the window. She yanked her arm away, but let herself be shepherded over. “Out the window, down the trellis, and I can keep you invisible for most of it, then put you in a taxi to the airport.”
“Lee-“
“I’ll pull him away for a minute and let him in on the plan. The two of you can go off, stay out of the way for a bit, come back when everything’s blown over. Go back to livin’ in sin like the rest of us.”
She made a face, even as she gave a surreptitious glance out the window and down said trellis.
“Everything’s paid for-“
“Not by you.”
“Lee will-“
“Keep moonin’ after you like he always has.”
“His mum already hates me-“
“No, she doesn’t,” he pointed out, and she sighed. She knew that much was true at least, and that was the problem, really. The woman was a shallow, simple busybody, but for reasons beyond anyone’s understanding, she adored Abby.
“I…” she took a breath and dropped her gaze to the thick carpet. “I don’t think I can do this.”
“Do you want to?”
She opened her mouth, and then closed it. Wrung her hands together, then through her hair, then pulled at the sleeves of her jumper. In a quiet, young voice, she said, “Yes.”
“Then you can,” he said, quietly as well, and she swallowed. Raised her head, squared her shoulders, and looked prepared to take down anyone and whoever’s army that tried to stop her.
“Just a straight walk down an aisle, right?”
“Right,” he offered, cheerily, as if he had any idea.
“Will you keep me from falling over?”
He hadn’t been aware that was a risk, but it seemed easy enough to reassure her. “Do my best.”
She chuckled, lightly, to herself, and turned around to catch a glimpse of her reflection.
“Oh, bloody hell,” she said, more exasperated than despairing. “Give me a mo’.”
*
About fifteen minutes passed before the door opened again, to the rustle of too much fabric and the awkward tread of heels.
And it wasn’t as though she was unrecognizable; in fact she looked more like herself now, with her hair loose over her shoulders and most of the make-up gone, than she had earlier.
But it was a herself he wasn’t entirely familiar with. A young woman, certainly. An adult. A bride in her wedding gown, one she hadn’t picked out for herself but deferred to wear in the interest of compromise and at least some approval from more interested parties. She held her head high, and didn’t fidget.
There’d always been hints of her, this person in front of him. Times when her stubbornness had seemed less teenaged petulance and arrogance and more of what others would have called strength of character. Moments when her sharp tongue had been employed productively, to shape and prod instead of scorch earth.
He’d barely gotten to know the girl, and now he had another bloody adult to deal with, and he should’ve resented that more. She made a face at him, annoyed at his staring, and he smiled: the girl was still in there.
He offered her his arm. She took it, demurely, but not without giving him a pinch first. They proceeded down the stairs with a careful gait; she leaned most of her weight against him, and he glanced over.
“Heels,” she grimaced, by explanation, and he nodded.
The bottom of the staircase came with a breath of relief, and not just because of the force of red-haired exasperation waiting for them there, in a deeply purple dress that through fate or magic or incredibly good luck managed to flatter her despite having been chosen with only a cursory knowledge of what she actually looked like.
“We all right?”
He shrugged. Abby nodded. Sarah gave them both a narrow-eyed look. Darted in close enough to adjust the veil, and run a practiced hand through the dark hair.
“Your hair looks-“ she caught his eye, and smiled, suddenly, not terribly convincingly. “Lovely.”
Abby didn’t seem to have noticed the change in track. She forced a smile of her own, and gripped his arm a little more tightly.
“I’ll go tell everyone you’re on your way, then?” Sarah said, hesitantly, and Claude nodded, because Abby didn’t seem capable of it, what with staring straight ahead and taking deep breaths.
Sarah walked off, with one last look at the two of them. He took a moment, looked around the staircase and the corridor they’d be walking down any second. Empty.
He detached his arm from her grip, which was surprisingly difficult, and that seemed to snap her back to the present. His mind churned with possibilities of what to say, and came to the not entirely surprising realization that he had nothing.
But he took her face in his hands anyway, and she looked up at him with blinking confusion.
“It’s your life,” he said, stating the obvious.
“At the moment, yeah.”
“You think you’re makin’ it his.”
“Kind of the point, I think.”
“You’re not. No more than it’s been already. It’s a bloody piece of paper and a coupla words said by someone else. Nothin’ to do with you.”
“Nothing to-“
“Listen to me. This is your choice. He’d spend the rest of his life with you anyway, as long as you’d let him, so screw the rest.”
She let out a breathless laugh, and ducked her head. He let her. “We’re talking about Lee, here?”
He frowned, and when she looked back up at him, she grinned, obviously pleased with herself. “Right. Let’s go.”
They went.
There was music, and the stationary stampede of more people than he understood the necessity of standing up, and then it was somehow over: Abby had leaned up to kiss his cheek, Lee had shaken his hand, and Peter, who he hadn’t seen all morning, had winked at him before returning his attention to his very important duty of standing next to Lee and looking serious.
Claude slid into a pew. Nodded at Sarah, who gave him a discrete thumbs up from her post by Abby’s side.
The words began. He mostly tuned those out.
*
And then there'd been dancing, which he wished he’d been able to tune out.
Well, not all of it. Watching the two of them, swaying to something ridiculously predictable and maudlin, was a bit of a revelation: Lee seemed actually capable of graceful movement, all previous evidence to the contrary, and Abby seemed willing enough to let herself be led around without resorting to kicking anyone in the shins.
And then there was him and Abby to something unrecognizable but pleasant enough, moving vaguely enough to pantomime dance, if looked at from a far enough distance. They did their best to avoid Lee and his mother, who had made several circuitous rounds around the dance floor, and Abby’s lips quirked into a smirk as he gave the mother/son duo a perplexed glance.
“Better watch out, I think she’s coming for you next,” she said, quietly, with a big, bright grin on her face.
“Fantastic,” he groaned, and she laughed, squeezing his hand.
“I’d find another partner if I were you,” her eyes twinkled, and she nodded to her right, where Peter was discussing something apparently hilarious with Sarah, who had the tell-tale flush of just enough red wine to guarantee that someone’s arse was getting grabbed later.
“Too bad I haven’t got an ability tailor made for avoidin’ people, isn’t it?”
“Very sad,” she said, still beaming, and it was nice to know she was capable of it.
The music stopped. He leaned in to return her kiss from earlier, and felt her arms wrap around him tightly. An undeniable wetness against his neck but when she pulled back, she was still grinning, and her eyes were only slightly red.
“Go on then,” she said. “Drinks to steal, people to avoid, coats to rifle through. Time’s a-wastin’.”
He grinned, and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “You’re a good-woman.”
“Christ, I hope not,” she grabbed his hand again and squeezed, before going to find her husband and wrench him away from her mother-in-law.
The walk back to his table was done quickly. He dropped onto the chair next to Peter’s, looking forward to at least a few moments of peace, but once he was settled, Peter stopped talking, turned, grabbed at his tie, and pulled him into a kiss.
His body reacted automatically, cupping the back of Peter’s head and opening his mouth to the familiar incursion of Peter’s tongue.
And then he heard the clapping, and the hooting, and the wolf-whistle, which he was pretty sure was Sarah, and he jerked his head back. Peter grinned, and kept running his fingers up and down Claude’s tie, and stayed close enough that when he went to lick his lips, his tongue grazed Claude’s as well.
That earned them another round of drunken cheers, and he struggled with the impulse to pull away and the fact that Peter still had a pretty decisive hold on him. It was the bloody tie, he’d know that was a mistake.
Peter chuckled, and leaned his forehead against Claude’s neck. “You’re blushing,” he murmured, warm and fond and so damn pleased with himself that Claude could practically feel him glowing. It was an enjoyable enough a sensation that he only glared around at the other occupants of the table, who all became thoroughly entranced by their wine glasses.
Except for Sarah, who’d probably been entranced enough by wine glasses thus far. She kept grinning, and mouthed something along the lines of lucky sod at him. He made an appropriately rude gesture in her direction, and she gave a loud, sharp laugh.
He would’ve done more, but Peter kissed his neck, lightly, before straightening. Claude watched him, as he propped an elbow on the table and apparently continued whatever conversation he’d been having with one of Sarah’s old school mates, the one that, he was fairly sure, had convinced her to shave half her head when they were both fourteen.
Mother of two, now. Married to a doctor for fifteen years. Christ, must’ve been twenty years since he’d last seen her. He grabbed the glass in front of him, and downed whatever it was.
Water, just his luck, and he was about to continue down another vein of disgruntled nostalgia as he watched Sarah flirting outrageously with a waiter who, to his credit, seemed thoroughly interested in just how fitted her dress was, when he felt something brush against the side of his hand.
He turned it over with a smile. Peter, without any word, without even a glance in his direction, pressed their palms together and slipped his fingers between Claude’s.
*
Fandom: Heroes
Characters: Claude, Abby, Lee, Sarah, Peter
Word Count: ~2000
Summary: Well, there's a wedding, and some people discuss things.
Rating: PG13
A/N: Mostly motivated by my long-standing desire to see Claude walk Abby down the aisle, I do not care if it is sappy and ridiculous and random, I love it.
He knocked cautiously at the door.
“Can I come in?”
“Dunno, can you?” her voice sounded higher than normal, and there was the obvious sound of pacing.
He turned the door handle. “It’s locked.”
A hysterical laugh that’s cut short by a cough. “Like that’s ever stopped you.”
Fair enough. He hadn’t anything to pick the lock with, but there were always other options. None that he had to employ, because there was the telltale click and the door drifted open.
She was leaning against what appeared to be a very femininely inclined desk, with a vast lighted mirror. She looked pale, exhausted, dressed (still, or possibly again) in a ragged jumper and old jeans. Her make-up had probably been immaculate a half hour ago, and strands of her hair seemed to be fleeing the elaborate mass of curls and buns and god knows what else was going on there.
“You all right, then?” he asked, somewhat pointlessly, and the glare she fixed on him would’ve sent better men running from the room. Her gaze was only interrupted when she coughed again, and that’s what it took for him to notice just why she’d apparently left the window open, despite it being a typically wet and cool morning. “Since when do you smoke?”
“Since I took these from your pocket,” she said, tossing the pack onto the desk. “Not worth it.”
“No, day like today’s probably not the best to start that kind of habit.”
She shrugged. Her eyes were wide and terrified for a moment, when she seemed to have heard someone coming up the stairs, but then she crossed her arms and stuck out her bottom lip.
“Well?”
“Well what?”
“You’ve come to talk me into something, have you?”
He shrugged. “’s up to you, love.”
She laughed, less hysterical, but just barely. “Me, and assorted family members, and all of the people out there, just waitin’ to…”
“You don’t want to do this?”
“I don’t-“
“Come on then,” he walked over to her, grabbed her arm, and guided her toward the window. She yanked her arm away, but let herself be shepherded over. “Out the window, down the trellis, and I can keep you invisible for most of it, then put you in a taxi to the airport.”
“Lee-“
“I’ll pull him away for a minute and let him in on the plan. The two of you can go off, stay out of the way for a bit, come back when everything’s blown over. Go back to livin’ in sin like the rest of us.”
She made a face, even as she gave a surreptitious glance out the window and down said trellis.
“Everything’s paid for-“
“Not by you.”
“Lee will-“
“Keep moonin’ after you like he always has.”
“His mum already hates me-“
“No, she doesn’t,” he pointed out, and she sighed. She knew that much was true at least, and that was the problem, really. The woman was a shallow, simple busybody, but for reasons beyond anyone’s understanding, she adored Abby.
“I…” she took a breath and dropped her gaze to the thick carpet. “I don’t think I can do this.”
“Do you want to?”
She opened her mouth, and then closed it. Wrung her hands together, then through her hair, then pulled at the sleeves of her jumper. In a quiet, young voice, she said, “Yes.”
“Then you can,” he said, quietly as well, and she swallowed. Raised her head, squared her shoulders, and looked prepared to take down anyone and whoever’s army that tried to stop her.
“Just a straight walk down an aisle, right?”
“Right,” he offered, cheerily, as if he had any idea.
“Will you keep me from falling over?”
He hadn’t been aware that was a risk, but it seemed easy enough to reassure her. “Do my best.”
She chuckled, lightly, to herself, and turned around to catch a glimpse of her reflection.
“Oh, bloody hell,” she said, more exasperated than despairing. “Give me a mo’.”
*
About fifteen minutes passed before the door opened again, to the rustle of too much fabric and the awkward tread of heels.
And it wasn’t as though she was unrecognizable; in fact she looked more like herself now, with her hair loose over her shoulders and most of the make-up gone, than she had earlier.
But it was a herself he wasn’t entirely familiar with. A young woman, certainly. An adult. A bride in her wedding gown, one she hadn’t picked out for herself but deferred to wear in the interest of compromise and at least some approval from more interested parties. She held her head high, and didn’t fidget.
There’d always been hints of her, this person in front of him. Times when her stubbornness had seemed less teenaged petulance and arrogance and more of what others would have called strength of character. Moments when her sharp tongue had been employed productively, to shape and prod instead of scorch earth.
He’d barely gotten to know the girl, and now he had another bloody adult to deal with, and he should’ve resented that more. She made a face at him, annoyed at his staring, and he smiled: the girl was still in there.
He offered her his arm. She took it, demurely, but not without giving him a pinch first. They proceeded down the stairs with a careful gait; she leaned most of her weight against him, and he glanced over.
“Heels,” she grimaced, by explanation, and he nodded.
The bottom of the staircase came with a breath of relief, and not just because of the force of red-haired exasperation waiting for them there, in a deeply purple dress that through fate or magic or incredibly good luck managed to flatter her despite having been chosen with only a cursory knowledge of what she actually looked like.
“We all right?”
He shrugged. Abby nodded. Sarah gave them both a narrow-eyed look. Darted in close enough to adjust the veil, and run a practiced hand through the dark hair.
“Your hair looks-“ she caught his eye, and smiled, suddenly, not terribly convincingly. “Lovely.”
Abby didn’t seem to have noticed the change in track. She forced a smile of her own, and gripped his arm a little more tightly.
“I’ll go tell everyone you’re on your way, then?” Sarah said, hesitantly, and Claude nodded, because Abby didn’t seem capable of it, what with staring straight ahead and taking deep breaths.
Sarah walked off, with one last look at the two of them. He took a moment, looked around the staircase and the corridor they’d be walking down any second. Empty.
He detached his arm from her grip, which was surprisingly difficult, and that seemed to snap her back to the present. His mind churned with possibilities of what to say, and came to the not entirely surprising realization that he had nothing.
But he took her face in his hands anyway, and she looked up at him with blinking confusion.
“It’s your life,” he said, stating the obvious.
“At the moment, yeah.”
“You think you’re makin’ it his.”
“Kind of the point, I think.”
“You’re not. No more than it’s been already. It’s a bloody piece of paper and a coupla words said by someone else. Nothin’ to do with you.”
“Nothing to-“
“Listen to me. This is your choice. He’d spend the rest of his life with you anyway, as long as you’d let him, so screw the rest.”
She let out a breathless laugh, and ducked her head. He let her. “We’re talking about Lee, here?”
He frowned, and when she looked back up at him, she grinned, obviously pleased with herself. “Right. Let’s go.”
They went.
There was music, and the stationary stampede of more people than he understood the necessity of standing up, and then it was somehow over: Abby had leaned up to kiss his cheek, Lee had shaken his hand, and Peter, who he hadn’t seen all morning, had winked at him before returning his attention to his very important duty of standing next to Lee and looking serious.
Claude slid into a pew. Nodded at Sarah, who gave him a discrete thumbs up from her post by Abby’s side.
The words began. He mostly tuned those out.
*
And then there'd been dancing, which he wished he’d been able to tune out.
Well, not all of it. Watching the two of them, swaying to something ridiculously predictable and maudlin, was a bit of a revelation: Lee seemed actually capable of graceful movement, all previous evidence to the contrary, and Abby seemed willing enough to let herself be led around without resorting to kicking anyone in the shins.
And then there was him and Abby to something unrecognizable but pleasant enough, moving vaguely enough to pantomime dance, if looked at from a far enough distance. They did their best to avoid Lee and his mother, who had made several circuitous rounds around the dance floor, and Abby’s lips quirked into a smirk as he gave the mother/son duo a perplexed glance.
“Better watch out, I think she’s coming for you next,” she said, quietly, with a big, bright grin on her face.
“Fantastic,” he groaned, and she laughed, squeezing his hand.
“I’d find another partner if I were you,” her eyes twinkled, and she nodded to her right, where Peter was discussing something apparently hilarious with Sarah, who had the tell-tale flush of just enough red wine to guarantee that someone’s arse was getting grabbed later.
“Too bad I haven’t got an ability tailor made for avoidin’ people, isn’t it?”
“Very sad,” she said, still beaming, and it was nice to know she was capable of it.
The music stopped. He leaned in to return her kiss from earlier, and felt her arms wrap around him tightly. An undeniable wetness against his neck but when she pulled back, she was still grinning, and her eyes were only slightly red.
“Go on then,” she said. “Drinks to steal, people to avoid, coats to rifle through. Time’s a-wastin’.”
He grinned, and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “You’re a good-woman.”
“Christ, I hope not,” she grabbed his hand again and squeezed, before going to find her husband and wrench him away from her mother-in-law.
The walk back to his table was done quickly. He dropped onto the chair next to Peter’s, looking forward to at least a few moments of peace, but once he was settled, Peter stopped talking, turned, grabbed at his tie, and pulled him into a kiss.
His body reacted automatically, cupping the back of Peter’s head and opening his mouth to the familiar incursion of Peter’s tongue.
And then he heard the clapping, and the hooting, and the wolf-whistle, which he was pretty sure was Sarah, and he jerked his head back. Peter grinned, and kept running his fingers up and down Claude’s tie, and stayed close enough that when he went to lick his lips, his tongue grazed Claude’s as well.
That earned them another round of drunken cheers, and he struggled with the impulse to pull away and the fact that Peter still had a pretty decisive hold on him. It was the bloody tie, he’d know that was a mistake.
Peter chuckled, and leaned his forehead against Claude’s neck. “You’re blushing,” he murmured, warm and fond and so damn pleased with himself that Claude could practically feel him glowing. It was an enjoyable enough a sensation that he only glared around at the other occupants of the table, who all became thoroughly entranced by their wine glasses.
Except for Sarah, who’d probably been entranced enough by wine glasses thus far. She kept grinning, and mouthed something along the lines of lucky sod at him. He made an appropriately rude gesture in her direction, and she gave a loud, sharp laugh.
He would’ve done more, but Peter kissed his neck, lightly, before straightening. Claude watched him, as he propped an elbow on the table and apparently continued whatever conversation he’d been having with one of Sarah’s old school mates, the one that, he was fairly sure, had convinced her to shave half her head when they were both fourteen.
Mother of two, now. Married to a doctor for fifteen years. Christ, must’ve been twenty years since he’d last seen her. He grabbed the glass in front of him, and downed whatever it was.
Water, just his luck, and he was about to continue down another vein of disgruntled nostalgia as he watched Sarah flirting outrageously with a waiter who, to his credit, seemed thoroughly interested in just how fitted her dress was, when he felt something brush against the side of his hand.
He turned it over with a smile. Peter, without any word, without even a glance in his direction, pressed their palms together and slipped his fingers between Claude’s.
*