fic: come around (heroes)
peter/adam, pg-13, ~1300
beta'd by rtwofan, canon through s2
After, Peter grieves stubbornly, determinedly. (for heroes_exchange)
His French is rough.
One of his poor attempts at teenage mutiny has always been a refusal to embrace the trips his mother sent him on between the ages of twelve and eighteen. His rebellions have always been few and far between but this is one act of defiance he clings to every time his mother takes him on a trip.
His mother looks unimpressed.
Peter does it anyway.
A month after he buries a man alive, Hiro promises, “Things can be changed” one time and touches his arm and looks too young to understand what he’s even trying to say. “You will do great things for a very long time,” he adds and looks away, and Peter wonders how far he went ahead to look so dazed.
Skulls are opened, thoughts are read and futures are prevented. His brother circles, slides too close to the line until Peter pulls him back and promises to do better next time until he slides again. His mother says once, “you’ll learn” and presses her lips together, and Nathan wavers, clings and then pushes away.
After, Peter grieves stubbornly, determinedly.
Lingers tenaciously as Mr. Morrison’s liver spots spread to cover her hands.
“They never learned from the benefit of my experience,” Adam says years after Peter stops being dragged around Europe but still stubbornly garbles his French, when he sits in his scrubs like the day is over and refuses to touch the drink in front of him because he’s never really been a drinker. “These others, they won’t be any different. Well, not all of them but most of them. You can’t teach them anything and the other ones already know, figured it out on their own. These things don’t change.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Fine.” He leans across the table and presses his arm sympathetically to Peter’s, smiles softly and acts like he’s sharing a grand truth that he hasn’t offered several dozen times before. “Maybe I don’t.”
Things are invented. Some are never used and others improve the world at the cost of some of the others living in it. (“That’s how it’s always been,” Adam assures him, irritated at having to teach this lesson too many times, curling fingers into his arm in an attempt to brand this into his skin like it will ever sink in.) There are fires and floods, plans that he unravels with a little less fear each time.
He discovers that Sylar adapts and Claire breaks apart only to knit back together, body more durable and mind more resilient each time for what lies ahead. They slide across the line and slide back by themselves as Peter struggles to catch up, to not move ahead, to be where he should be instead of where he is.
He takes care of bodies (people) that shut down piece by piece on one coast and then another, uses an eighty-three year old man’s power to replace old electronic records with new ones but never changes his first name.
If he touches their hands after each life winds down peacefully, his fingers finding skin that cools under his touch and feels like a foreign thing lost and never found, nobody has to know but him.
Adam likes wearing blue and black, says it’s because it brings out his eyes and suits his coloring but really because his bruises don’t survive him, offer no testimony. He drinks alcohol that Peter hates on principle alone because he knows Peter hates it, and doesn’t shut up until Peter breaks and starts listening.
“You only have to turn it off, then…” A knee presses to his under the table, flesh warm through cloth and too easily replaceable. “I could tell you it’s not a big deal but I wouldn’t know.”
When he’s lived long enough to see his great-grandniece be disconnected from her machines: “You could do it for me.” Let it become a battle, give it meaning, give me something.
“No.” I’m keeping you as long as I can, Adam doesn’t add. You’ve lasted longer than the others, you amuse me, you delight me. Watching you is interesting and you just keep going even though-
Peter pushes his drink away, gets to his feet. “I have to get to work.”
Hiro comes to him young and unformed, the first Peter’s seen him since he looked like this.
“You have kept the people safe,” he announces in his still-thick English, and Peter remembers this man before and after the fall but cannot find one in the other unless he looks more than he wants to and he doesn’t. Because the future isn’t set in stone, and he tells himself the past isn’t either.
It can’t be, it can’t work like this.
“When is this?”
“A few years.” Two hundred and eighty-five, too many for candles on a cake he obsessively buys himself every year before Adam can do it. (Adam buys him a cake every year anyway, leaves it in a box outside his door with twenty-nine candles and a box of matches and waits for their next dinner date.) “You shouldn’t be here.”
“I needed to see, I did not expect…” To come this far.
Peter needs to get to work, there are always people dying, people being afraid to do it alone, but he slips before the boy (he looks like a boy digging his own grave) is gone. “I’ve got a few years on you, things can be changed, just… learn from my experience, huh?”
“I will,” Hiro swears but he didn’t.
“You’re not built for this,” Sylar informs him like he’s trying to explain the truth to a child but Peter knows this already, feels the push and pull of things that cannot coexist and revolts even as it loses its meaning.
They follow the script not because it’s important any longer but because Sylar pities him enough to give it to him until he grows bored and turns away, brings the walls down on their heads because it’s a quick and easy way to close this act. He dusts himself off and walks away untouched but Peter digs himself out instead of simply teleporting or phasing, cuts his fingers all to hell on shattered rock the entire time.
Adam lights a handful of candles and Peter blows them out, steals the corner with the rose for himself only to draw designs in purple and yellow and green icing with the tongs of his fork.
“I think I miss trans fat,” he admits and hears a chuckle as Adam eats the icing off his own piece and then picks at the rest of the cake, mixing the colors together until Peter can’t tell a difference. The rose is ruined, smeared into nothing so Peter puts his plate down without touching the cake under it- but Adam steals it on principle alone, scoops the color back onto the rest of the cake.
“I’ll see what I can do for next year,” Adam promises, and lets Peter steal some of the icing for himself right off the cake, the taste muted and the enjoyment fragile enough that he has to cling to it. “When do I get a cake?”
“I’m not getting you a cake.” Next year he’ll have roses painted in blue and yellow along the lines of the cake because black feels tacky for a birthday color theme. “When’s your birthday?”
“Hell if I know anymore. Just pick something for me.”
When they first spoke through the wall between their boxes, Peter decides and that’s that, he has almost a year to wait. He eats too much icing and no cake at all but bears no ill side effects when he goes to work eight hours later because people are dying and they’re afraid to do it alone.
He still garbles his French, and Adam always looks unimpressed (and too amused).
Peter does it anyway.
beta'd by rtwofan, canon through s2
After, Peter grieves stubbornly, determinedly. (for heroes_exchange)
His French is rough.
One of his poor attempts at teenage mutiny has always been a refusal to embrace the trips his mother sent him on between the ages of twelve and eighteen. His rebellions have always been few and far between but this is one act of defiance he clings to every time his mother takes him on a trip.
His mother looks unimpressed.
Peter does it anyway.
A month after he buries a man alive, Hiro promises, “Things can be changed” one time and touches his arm and looks too young to understand what he’s even trying to say. “You will do great things for a very long time,” he adds and looks away, and Peter wonders how far he went ahead to look so dazed.
Skulls are opened, thoughts are read and futures are prevented. His brother circles, slides too close to the line until Peter pulls him back and promises to do better next time until he slides again. His mother says once, “you’ll learn” and presses her lips together, and Nathan wavers, clings and then pushes away.
After, Peter grieves stubbornly, determinedly.
Lingers tenaciously as Mr. Morrison’s liver spots spread to cover her hands.
“They never learned from the benefit of my experience,” Adam says years after Peter stops being dragged around Europe but still stubbornly garbles his French, when he sits in his scrubs like the day is over and refuses to touch the drink in front of him because he’s never really been a drinker. “These others, they won’t be any different. Well, not all of them but most of them. You can’t teach them anything and the other ones already know, figured it out on their own. These things don’t change.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Fine.” He leans across the table and presses his arm sympathetically to Peter’s, smiles softly and acts like he’s sharing a grand truth that he hasn’t offered several dozen times before. “Maybe I don’t.”
Things are invented. Some are never used and others improve the world at the cost of some of the others living in it. (“That’s how it’s always been,” Adam assures him, irritated at having to teach this lesson too many times, curling fingers into his arm in an attempt to brand this into his skin like it will ever sink in.) There are fires and floods, plans that he unravels with a little less fear each time.
He discovers that Sylar adapts and Claire breaks apart only to knit back together, body more durable and mind more resilient each time for what lies ahead. They slide across the line and slide back by themselves as Peter struggles to catch up, to not move ahead, to be where he should be instead of where he is.
He takes care of bodies (people) that shut down piece by piece on one coast and then another, uses an eighty-three year old man’s power to replace old electronic records with new ones but never changes his first name.
If he touches their hands after each life winds down peacefully, his fingers finding skin that cools under his touch and feels like a foreign thing lost and never found, nobody has to know but him.
Adam likes wearing blue and black, says it’s because it brings out his eyes and suits his coloring but really because his bruises don’t survive him, offer no testimony. He drinks alcohol that Peter hates on principle alone because he knows Peter hates it, and doesn’t shut up until Peter breaks and starts listening.
“You only have to turn it off, then…” A knee presses to his under the table, flesh warm through cloth and too easily replaceable. “I could tell you it’s not a big deal but I wouldn’t know.”
When he’s lived long enough to see his great-grandniece be disconnected from her machines: “You could do it for me.” Let it become a battle, give it meaning, give me something.
“No.” I’m keeping you as long as I can, Adam doesn’t add. You’ve lasted longer than the others, you amuse me, you delight me. Watching you is interesting and you just keep going even though-
Peter pushes his drink away, gets to his feet. “I have to get to work.”
Hiro comes to him young and unformed, the first Peter’s seen him since he looked like this.
“You have kept the people safe,” he announces in his still-thick English, and Peter remembers this man before and after the fall but cannot find one in the other unless he looks more than he wants to and he doesn’t. Because the future isn’t set in stone, and he tells himself the past isn’t either.
It can’t be, it can’t work like this.
“When is this?”
“A few years.” Two hundred and eighty-five, too many for candles on a cake he obsessively buys himself every year before Adam can do it. (Adam buys him a cake every year anyway, leaves it in a box outside his door with twenty-nine candles and a box of matches and waits for their next dinner date.) “You shouldn’t be here.”
“I needed to see, I did not expect…” To come this far.
Peter needs to get to work, there are always people dying, people being afraid to do it alone, but he slips before the boy (he looks like a boy digging his own grave) is gone. “I’ve got a few years on you, things can be changed, just… learn from my experience, huh?”
“I will,” Hiro swears but he didn’t.
“You’re not built for this,” Sylar informs him like he’s trying to explain the truth to a child but Peter knows this already, feels the push and pull of things that cannot coexist and revolts even as it loses its meaning.
They follow the script not because it’s important any longer but because Sylar pities him enough to give it to him until he grows bored and turns away, brings the walls down on their heads because it’s a quick and easy way to close this act. He dusts himself off and walks away untouched but Peter digs himself out instead of simply teleporting or phasing, cuts his fingers all to hell on shattered rock the entire time.
Adam lights a handful of candles and Peter blows them out, steals the corner with the rose for himself only to draw designs in purple and yellow and green icing with the tongs of his fork.
“I think I miss trans fat,” he admits and hears a chuckle as Adam eats the icing off his own piece and then picks at the rest of the cake, mixing the colors together until Peter can’t tell a difference. The rose is ruined, smeared into nothing so Peter puts his plate down without touching the cake under it- but Adam steals it on principle alone, scoops the color back onto the rest of the cake.
“I’ll see what I can do for next year,” Adam promises, and lets Peter steal some of the icing for himself right off the cake, the taste muted and the enjoyment fragile enough that he has to cling to it. “When do I get a cake?”
“I’m not getting you a cake.” Next year he’ll have roses painted in blue and yellow along the lines of the cake because black feels tacky for a birthday color theme. “When’s your birthday?”
“Hell if I know anymore. Just pick something for me.”
When they first spoke through the wall between their boxes, Peter decides and that’s that, he has almost a year to wait. He eats too much icing and no cake at all but bears no ill side effects when he goes to work eight hours later because people are dying and they’re afraid to do it alone.
He still garbles his French, and Adam always looks unimpressed (and too amused).
Peter does it anyway.