"Oh, for the love of Jesus Christ and all his little children." Claude heaved out a huge sigh, actually having to walk away from Peter to calm himself down. Impossible. This was literally impossible. It was like beating a plastic spoon against the Hoover Dam and hoping to make a crack.
Returning to Peter, Claude rubbed his face with one hand and snorted a laugh. "Right. Okay. Let's start at the bloody beginning. Empaths don't just sympathize with people, Peter. They feel. They're psychically linked to the people around them. The more you care about a person, the closer you get to them, the more their moods affect you. Sure, you have your own feelings, too, but with someone as powerful as you, it all gets muddled up in your mind," he reached forward and tapped Peter's forehead sharply with one finger.
"You don't know how to control that. Takes time and effort and you've not put that in. But more importantly, you don't understand that. Listen, Peter, you keep thinking about your powers in terms of the individual things
( ... )
Oh, crap. My heart rate had to have gone up by about a thousand beats a minute. Forcing my breathing to remain steady, I briefly closed my eyes, reveling in the feel of him right behind me, his breath tickling my hair. I almost relaxed back into him, stopping myself just in time.
Apparently this was 'Torture Rachel' time. Great. Checking the chicken, I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye.
"No," I disagreed. "You're just amazing." One corner of my mouth went up slightly and I darted a look over at Claude. The man was watching us out of half-closed eyes, lying back on the couch with his arms behind his head. "Besides, if that was true, I don't think I would have helped you." I returned my gaze to the chicken, salting it a little, more for something to do than out of any culinary need.
Oh, Turn Claude. I turned my head enough to give Peter a soft kiss on the corner of his mouth. "I'm really proud of you."
If Rachel was going disagree, then Peter was going to disagree right back.
Sometimes it was hard to believe that a woman like Rachel apparently thought so little of herself. Peter wanted to stand her in front of a mirror and list her good properties, over and over, until she actually believed it. He didn't immediately speak up, simply smiling softly at the kiss and watching Rachel cook.
"Back when I had just discovered that I could do stuff like flying, I didn't exactly have the right idea about it." Peter paused briefly to tuck his chin more securely on Rachel's shoulder, enjoying the warmth that came from being so close to another human being. "I didn't know I could hold on to the abilities - I thought I was only something when other special people were around." He did have a point here. "Honestly, even though I've learned, I think that's still the case," he grinned, giving Rachel a quick kiss on the cheek
( ... )
Reappearing from changing, Peter practically threw himself into a chair, grinning at Rachel. "This looks good," he commented, eagerly picking up a fork and digging into the food. If Rachel kept up this caliber of cooking, Peter was going to have to reconsider his status as a good cook.
Shoveling food into his mouth, Peter glanced up at Claude, and absently wondered when the man had actually eaten decently. Living as Claude did probably didn't lend itself to eating hot meals, unless he wandered into restaurants and stole them.
"When was the last time you ate something decent and healthy?" Peter asked suddenly, eyeing Claude in concern. There were some serious physical drawbacks to not eating properly!
Rolling his eyes at Peter's concern, Claude ripped off a piece of his bread and used it to sop up some sauce. "Oh, mommy Peter's going to make sure the poor, helpless invisible man gets his veggies eaten, yeah? Going to follow me around and knit me a sweater, too?"
Claude ducked as Rachel flicked a piece of tomato at him, chewing his mouthful around a large grin. "Don't worry yourself, Petrelli, amazingly enough I can take care of myself just fine. Don't need you or your little girlfriend to make sure my belly's full or I've got a place to sleep. Whole lifetime of practice, and never once needed a keeper."
"Ivy and I had a deal," Rachel said abruptly, apparently sick of Claude's monologuing. "She'd go grocery shopping and I'd cook dinner." She paused, then grinned a little, fork halfway to her mouth. "Well, that had less to do with my cooking skills and more with the death threat that made it slightly difficult for me to leave the house. But still. Lots of experience in making meals. I like it. It's soothing."
"A lifetime of practice, huh? I didn't know you'd been living on the streets since birth," Peter replied mildly, sure that 'a lifetime' was an exaggeration. If it wasn't, he was going to feel pretty bad.
Despite his words, Peter still alternated between looking at his food and looking at Claude in concern. He couldn't help it, Claude was someone that mattered to him, and therefore someone he worried over. If he felt Claude needed sweaters, he probably would try to knit.
Wait, what. "Death threats?" Peter raised his eyebrows at Rachel. "Why did you have death threats? Do you still have death threats?"
"Oh, growing a backbone, this one," Claude smirked, pausing in his non-stop eating. "No, math wiz, not since birth. But I have been able to wipe my ass without help for quite some time now, so I'll thank you to stop giving me those cow eyes of yours so I can eat in peace
( ... )
He didn't have cow eyes, did he? Peter almost wanted to go look into a mirror and check. "I'm just concerned, there's no need to insult me," he muttered, stabbing his fork into his pasta.
And he supposed the death threats were understandable, in Rachel's line of work. That they were 'mostly' back where she came from made Peter frown, but he didn't pursue it - she looked unhappy enough even talking about it. Great, he was stuck a table with two decidely unwilling to be emotional people. Not that he didn't appreciate it when Rachel reached out, but seriously, all of this non-emotional lack of contact was going to drive him insane.
"Thanks," Peter mumbled, grabbing some bread and dropping it on to his plate. He could probably eat enough for four - must have been all that energy he'd burnt during the work out.
"Don't need to," Claude agreed. "'S more of a stress reliever, really."
Oh, crap, now everyone was being all pissy. And after Peter and I had been doing so well. I was blaming it on Claude. Stupid human.
Nudging Peter's leg with my foot I shot him a quick smile, mentally searching for a topic. Something that had nothing to do with death threats or cows - which for me was actually way harder than it sounded.
Fork frozen halfway to his mouth, Peter raised an eyebrow and stared at Rachel. "You can? ...Huh," Peter said, clearly baffled, mostly from the complete randomness of the topic change.
Turning into an animal would be quite handy, he assumed. Maybe something awesome, like a crocodile. Or a lion. Or a T-Rex. Temporarily drawn off into dream land about which animal would be cool to turn into, Peter stared down at his pasta, frowning in thought.
Claude choked back a snort. "Can you also carry on normal conversation? Because that would be a trick and a half. Or maybe you could wear clothes that didn't charge by the half hour." Shoveling another forkful of pasta into his mouth, he gestured his fork at me. I, for my part, just stared at him, slightly stunned as he went on. "We get it, we do, you're a big bad witch who screws her way out of emotional entanglements. And you're trying to make Peter, here, feel all warm and tingly by having nice meaningful conversation, only you're too bloody damaged, so you throw out random tidbits and call it sodding intimacy. But the only intimacy you know is the kind with spread legs, isn't it? Not that I'd mind, but Peter here gets hives when he thinks about it. At least, where you're concerned. So you might as well stop trying
( ... )
Damn. Dream land about cool animals had been so much better than the present reality.
Shocked, Peter stared after Rachel as she left the table, and then promptly turned that same look on Claude, with an edge of accusation. "Claude!" He sputtered, appalled. "That was- you- you didn't need to say that!"
He thought about going after Rachel and trying to talk to her, tell her that Claude didn't mean what he said (which was probably a lie). But he knew Rachel was too stubborn, and Claude had effectively pushed her past the point where kind words would work. With a low grown, Peter pushed his plate away and dropped his forehead onto the table.
"I'm not training any more today," he said to the table. And, as afterthought, added, "I'm surrounded by crazy people."
"Was one word I said not true?" Claude looked at Peter, eyebrows raised. "Anything in there you disagree with?" He smirked, standing up. "I'll take the fact you're not running after her with hugs and touchy-feely crap to mean that you agree. She's not worth it, friend, make no mistake, and you're better off realizing it now. So get your head out of the clouds and your bangs out of your face and let's go."
He paused, then his face fell into its usual scowl. "And you're done training when I say you are. Not going to get anywhere if you mope about like a kicked puppy when everyone isn't getting along. Besides, I'm going to try and show you how to stop being a giant mirror and actually figure out what voice in your head is you and what's just you picking up on other people. Got to get your head on straight or else you'll just go mad."
"She is worth it, so stop talking about her like that," Peter scowled into the table. But, with a rather uncomfortable silence, Peter had to admit that Claude was right. Not in the derogatory sense that he had worded it, and not that she wasn't worth it, but the base idea. That she preferred sex over emotional intimacy - which, Peter knew, derived from her own opinion that she wasn't good enough for a long-term relationship, and that everybody would leave her.
Christ. Was that why Rachel liked making innuendo at him and touching him whenever possible? Because she would much rather sleep with him than get to know him?
Peter sighed hopelessly and considered smashing his head into the table so many times that it would take a few hours for his brain to heal. It seemed like a better alternative than thinking about anything.
"Great, tell me how that goes, then. I'll be the guy that's passed out as soon as I try and use anything more," Peter replied. "Good luck with that." Couldn't Claude wait until tomorrow, at least?
Claude smirked, watching it all sink in. "Ah, so now he gets it. Go to the front of the class." Stealing another piece of bread, he propped one hip on the table and pointed the crust at him. "Now, if you were a smart man, which I have my doubts about, you'd run in the opposite direction. But since I know you're not, I'll give you this advice - you're not speaking her language. Also, you're asking the wrong question. It's 'why'. You want to know 'why'."
Lesson on people - a subject Claude considered himself an expert on - done, he shoved the rest of the bread into his mouth and hopped back up. "Stop whining or I'll get out my stick," he grinned savagely. "You're not going to be using anything but your brain. Most underused muscle in your body, and that's saying something." Nudging back Peter's chair with one foot, Claude led the way back into the training room. "Besides, if we're lucky, your girlfriend will slink out while we're busy and we won't have to see her again."
Returning to Peter, Claude rubbed his face with one hand and snorted a laugh. "Right. Okay. Let's start at the bloody beginning. Empaths don't just sympathize with people, Peter. They feel. They're psychically linked to the people around them. The more you care about a person, the closer you get to them, the more their moods affect you. Sure, you have your own feelings, too, but with someone as powerful as you, it all gets muddled up in your mind," he reached forward and tapped Peter's forehead sharply with one finger.
"You don't know how to control that. Takes time and effort and you've not put that in. But more importantly, you don't understand that. Listen, Peter, you keep thinking about your powers in terms of the individual things ( ... )
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Apparently this was 'Torture Rachel' time. Great. Checking the chicken, I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye.
"No," I disagreed. "You're just amazing." One corner of my mouth went up slightly and I darted a look over at Claude. The man was watching us out of half-closed eyes, lying back on the couch with his arms behind his head. "Besides, if that was true, I don't think I would have helped you." I returned my gaze to the chicken, salting it a little, more for something to do than out of any culinary need.
Oh, Turn Claude. I turned my head enough to give Peter a soft kiss on the corner of his mouth. "I'm really proud of you."
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Sometimes it was hard to believe that a woman like Rachel apparently thought so little of herself. Peter wanted to stand her in front of a mirror and list her good properties, over and over, until she actually believed it. He didn't immediately speak up, simply smiling softly at the kiss and watching Rachel cook.
"Back when I had just discovered that I could do stuff like flying, I didn't exactly have the right idea about it." Peter paused briefly to tuck his chin more securely on Rachel's shoulder, enjoying the warmth that came from being so close to another human being. "I didn't know I could hold on to the abilities - I thought I was only something when other special people were around." He did have a point here. "Honestly, even though I've learned, I think that's still the case," he grinned, giving Rachel a quick kiss on the cheek ( ... )
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Shoveling food into his mouth, Peter glanced up at Claude, and absently wondered when the man had actually eaten decently. Living as Claude did probably didn't lend itself to eating hot meals, unless he wandered into restaurants and stole them.
"When was the last time you ate something decent and healthy?" Peter asked suddenly, eyeing Claude in concern. There were some serious physical drawbacks to not eating properly!
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Claude ducked as Rachel flicked a piece of tomato at him, chewing his mouthful around a large grin. "Don't worry yourself, Petrelli, amazingly enough I can take care of myself just fine. Don't need you or your little girlfriend to make sure my belly's full or I've got a place to sleep. Whole lifetime of practice, and never once needed a keeper."
"Ivy and I had a deal," Rachel said abruptly, apparently sick of Claude's monologuing. "She'd go grocery shopping and I'd cook dinner." She paused, then grinned a little, fork halfway to her mouth. "Well, that had less to do with my cooking skills and more with the death threat that made it slightly difficult for me to leave the house. But still. Lots of experience in making meals. I like it. It's soothing."
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Despite his words, Peter still alternated between looking at his food and looking at Claude in concern. He couldn't help it, Claude was someone that mattered to him, and therefore someone he worried over. If he felt Claude needed sweaters, he probably would try to knit.
Wait, what. "Death threats?" Peter raised his eyebrows at Rachel. "Why did you have death threats? Do you still have death threats?"
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And he supposed the death threats were understandable, in Rachel's line of work. That they were 'mostly' back where she came from made Peter frown, but he didn't pursue it - she looked unhappy enough even talking about it. Great, he was stuck a table with two decidely unwilling to be emotional people. Not that he didn't appreciate it when Rachel reached out, but seriously, all of this non-emotional lack of contact was going to drive him insane.
"Thanks," Peter mumbled, grabbing some bread and dropping it on to his plate. He could probably eat enough for four - must have been all that energy he'd burnt during the work out.
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Oh, crap, now everyone was being all pissy. And after Peter and I had been doing so well. I was blaming it on Claude. Stupid human.
Nudging Peter's leg with my foot I shot him a quick smile, mentally searching for a topic. Something that had nothing to do with death threats or cows - which for me was actually way harder than it sounded.
"Did I ever tell you I can turn into a mink?"
I was so the queen of random.
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Fork frozen halfway to his mouth, Peter raised an eyebrow and stared at Rachel. "You can? ...Huh," Peter said, clearly baffled, mostly from the complete randomness of the topic change.
Turning into an animal would be quite handy, he assumed. Maybe something awesome, like a crocodile. Or a lion. Or a T-Rex. Temporarily drawn off into dream land about which animal would be cool to turn into, Peter stared down at his pasta, frowning in thought.
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Shocked, Peter stared after Rachel as she left the table, and then promptly turned that same look on Claude, with an edge of accusation. "Claude!" He sputtered, appalled. "That was- you- you didn't need to say that!"
He thought about going after Rachel and trying to talk to her, tell her that Claude didn't mean what he said (which was probably a lie). But he knew Rachel was too stubborn, and Claude had effectively pushed her past the point where kind words would work. With a low grown, Peter pushed his plate away and dropped his forehead onto the table.
"I'm not training any more today," he said to the table. And, as afterthought, added, "I'm surrounded by crazy people."
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He paused, then his face fell into its usual scowl. "And you're done training when I say you are. Not going to get anywhere if you mope about like a kicked puppy when everyone isn't getting along. Besides, I'm going to try and show you how to stop being a giant mirror and actually figure out what voice in your head is you and what's just you picking up on other people. Got to get your head on straight or else you'll just go mad."
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Christ. Was that why Rachel liked making innuendo at him and touching him whenever possible? Because she would much rather sleep with him than get to know him?
Peter sighed hopelessly and considered smashing his head into the table so many times that it would take a few hours for his brain to heal. It seemed like a better alternative than thinking about anything.
"Great, tell me how that goes, then. I'll be the guy that's passed out as soon as I try and use anything more," Peter replied. "Good luck with that." Couldn't Claude wait until tomorrow, at least?
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Lesson on people - a subject Claude considered himself an expert on - done, he shoved the rest of the bread into his mouth and hopped back up. "Stop whining or I'll get out my stick," he grinned savagely. "You're not going to be using anything but your brain. Most underused muscle in your body, and that's saying something." Nudging back Peter's chair with one foot, Claude led the way back into the training room. "Besides, if we're lucky, your girlfriend will slink out while we're busy and we won't have to see her again."
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