Fic: Ritual (31): Montreal
Title: Ritual (31): Montreal
Pairing/Characters: Peter/Adam, implied Peter/Nathan, Elle
Rating: NC-17
Spoilers: through 2.11, "Powerless"
Word Count: about 6000
Warnings: explicit slash, implied consensual incest, language
Summary: After seeing Nathan in the hospital and taking some unplanned trips through time and space, Peter's psyche fractures further, and Adam is eager to pick up the pieces. Continuance of the "truth" story arc from Rituals 29 and 30.
Previous rituals:
(1) :: (2) :: (3) :: (4) :: (5) :: (6) :: (7) :: (8) :: (9) :: (10) :: (11) :: (12) :: (13) :: (14) :: (15) :: (16) :: (17) :: (18) :: (19) :: (20) :: (21) :: (22) :: (23) :: (24) :: (25) :: (26) :: (27) :: (28) :: (29) :: (30)
Heroes is the property of NBC/Universal and Tailwinds Production. This is a work of fan fiction and no claim of ownership is implied for the characters or storylines. Contains dialogue and situations from "Four Months Ago..." written by Tim Kring and "Truth & Consequences" written by Jesse Alexander, excerpted and remixed.
LATE FEBURARY 2007, NEW YORK CITY
Nathan lay on his hospital bed like a slab of cooked, basted meat, breathing noisily through his mouth despite the respirator tube leading from his nose.
Peter couldn't move for a moment after he came into the room. No. Just no. Once, in nursing school, he had seen a burn victim almost as bad as this, and he had run for the nearest trash bin and vomited up lunch and breakfast and probably last night's dinner, too. It had been that moment which made him decide that he would go into hospice nursing; old, dying people and their runny rectums and drool and dementia were a thousand times more bearable than this kind of horror. He had prayed that he would never have to see anything like that again. And here it was, but worse, and it was Nathan, barely recognizable, stinking of rot and isopropyl alcohol and ozone and the horrible roasted-meat smell of burned flesh that still clung to him, three months later. A disgusting object.
But Nathan was still a person, still alive. Still Peter's best beloved. Peter thought toward him, tried to grasp the silken invisible threads of Nathan's thoughts. Nathan was unconscious, not dreaming, no images or words in his mind, just a low-level electrical hum, like the sound of utility wires on a rainy night. Peter felt sick, and ashamed of himself; he had been hoping that Nathan would be dreaming of him. But Peter didn't deserve such devotion. He was a monster, and this was all his fault.
Adam bustled in behind Peter, practical and unsentimental. He'd been busy all day, and he wasn't about to stop now. He said something about their plane tickets, passports, money; Peter couldn't really hear him. He just stared down at his brother's half-melted, grossly swollen, disfigured face, trying to remember Nathan's beauty, trying to remind himself that it was underneath there somewhere, and it would emerge again, but he just couldn't believe it at this point. There was no way to repair such extensive damage. "I'm so sorry, Nathan," he whispered.
Adam grabbed an empty syringe, jammed it into his arm, and drew up 30 cc's of his blood.
"How long til it starts working," Peter said, his voice quiet and dull. He wished he was dead.
"We don't have time to find out," Adam replied, inserting the syringe's needle into Nathan's IV bag, and releasing a swirling cloud of his blood into the fluid. "They're going to assume that you'd come to see your brother; this'll be the first place they'll look." He finished the transfer and came around the bed. "Come on."
He began to hustle Peter toward the door, but Peter, who hadn't taken his eyes off Nathan for a second since coming into the room, noticed that the edges of the scabbed, pus-covered burns on Nathan's chest had begun to move and squirm. "Look! Look! Look!" Peter burst out excitedly, amazed at it, even though he'd seen damage to his own tissues healing just as rapidly - but he hadn't dared to hope. The skin was clearing, healing itself, the burns shrinking, the wet scabs dissipating into smooth, ordinary flesh, leaving no scar.
"Good," said Adam, and sounded like he meant it. "Come on. Come on." He took Peter by the shoulders, but Peter didn't budge, so Adam dropped his arms and strode toward the door.
Peter looked at the mantelpiece where flowers and photographs had been set up at Nathan's eye level. Heidi, Peter and Nathan and their mother, and... one of those silly posed photographs from Nathan's wedding with Peter and Nathan in their tuxedos, both of them giddy out of their minds (and extremely drunk, too - hair of the dog had been necessary after their wild time at Nathan's stag party the night before, and they'd passed a flask of grappa between the two of them all morning like runners passing a baton in a race). That photo was right up front.
Right up front. Yes. Nathan still loved him. Peter still came first.
He grabbed the picture, frame and all, and ran out after Adam. Adam was already at the end of the hall, and Peter had to run to catch up with him. They went down the back stairs. Adam glared at Peter. "What the fuck'd you grab that for?" he said.
"I need something," Peter said. "A keepsake. I don't know when I'll see him again. I have to have something to keep us together 'til then."
Adam rolled his eyes. "They'll know you were there," he said.
"He's healed," Peter pointed out. "They're gonna know, anyway. I don't care. I want him to know I was there." They came out of the back entrance of the hospital, out onto the snowy sidewalk, heading toward the parking lot. "That was incredible," Peter enthused, wanting to hug and kiss Adam for what he'd done, for having thought of it in the first place. For having the ability he had, for sharing it.
Adam's reponse was crisp. "He'll be as good as new by the time he wakes up. Here." Adam handed Peter his travel documents. "Passport. Ticket. Here's the plan."
"You disappointed me, Peter," came an unforgettable voice from around the corner. A feminine, petulant voice full of thinly veiled threat. "Just when I thought we were getting to know each other..."
Fuck. It was Elle. She did not look happy. And she had the Haitian with her, and he didn't look particularly happy either. Peter felt his stomach drop inside him and began to sweat. No, not this, not right now. Not when Adam and I are getting somewhere.
Adam didn't miss a beat. "There's a warehouse in Montreal," he said quietly. "One-twenty-one, Rue St. Jacques. Meet there." He swiftly turned away, and Peter moved into action just as quick, splitting off and running in the opposite direction.
Adam moved fast, but he couldn't elude a blast of lightning as thick as a man's leg that Elle shot toward him. He flew up and smacked into the wall and fell, and Peter wished he hadn't seen that. He had to remind himself that Adam would be all right, that at one point Elle had raked Adam's entire body with lightning like that for five minutes, burning him down to a pile of blackened bones, and it had only taken Adam a day to be back up and snarking like nothing had happened.
Still.
It slowed him for a second, just enough for Elle to send a similar bolt at him; Peter turned half aside, but the bolt caught his newly-acquired silk shirt, which burst instantly into flames. Peter spilled down some stairs, picked himself back up, and wondered at the irony; now maybe he'd be burned alive, too, and he'd understand that much better what Nathan had been through.
That was the last thing that he could remember. Even later, even after he was able to remember everything else, he couldn't remember what happened after he caught fire. The Haitian hadn't taken that. That was Peter's very own, home-grown, self-crafted, trauma-induced amnesia. A memory had never been formed, so there was nothing to get back.
***
MARCH 2007, CORK
Sometimes, when no one was looking, Peter pulled out the photograph of himself and that other man, both of them all dressed up like they were at an awards show or a wedding; they looked so happy, so close to each other, that Peter wondered for a moment if it was his own wedding picture, and somewhere in some past reality, he was sorta-kinda married to this guy. Peter had never had any rings on, just that weird greenish pendant on a leather cord, and his fingers showed no signs that he had ever worn rings. Even gay guys who had committment ceremonies did the ring thing, he figured, so it probably wasn't that.
At least the other guy was handsome, wearing a big, shiny, polished grin, full of blindingly white, even teeth. He looked like a movie star, or a politician, or maybe the best car salesman in the world. Loosened up, tie undone, but Peter still buttoned up and proper, grinning too, looking proud and a little silly.
Peter couldn't remember anything about it. He didn't want to, either, even though he couldn't quite stop thinking about the photo, no matter how hard he tried. He wanted to just chill out and be with Caitlin and figure out his purpose, which, so far, seemed to be to love her, and help out in the place that he was. He was pretty good at both.
And when Ricky was suddenly killed, charred to a crisp from head to toe, Peter found that he was very good at feeling rage like an arrowhead, and his body the arrow, shooting fast at a target that he couldn't see. All he knew was that he was heading toward something and he'd hit it and strike deep.
But something about Ricky had reminded him of something. Some other person who had been killed like that. It wasn't a natural death; of this he was certain. It was murder. And someone in particular liked to char people she didn't like to a crisp, and she'd love to do it to Peter. He almost remembered. A little blond girl, they'd said.
Looking for him.
All he knew was that this was all his fault, and he had to do something.
***
MARCH 17 2007
"It's me. Adam."
The first man.
"Don't you remember? Together we're going to change history."
It was like he knew.
What Peter had to do. What his mother - his remembered mother - had told him that he must do. It had to be right. Something, somewhere had to be right. But Peter couldn't piece the threads together. His head was whirling, and he felt like he was about to puke. Traveling through time made him nauseated, like the big vertical drop on a rollercoaster, and he didn't remember having ever ridden a rollercoaster, but he knew the feeling... he knew the feeling...
This guy. This guy with the short-cropped blond hair and the smirk and the black overcoat, talking to Peter like they were old friends and Peter was kind of a screwup and they both knew that and were comfortable with it. Loose threads, tangled in Peter's hands. Cat's cradle. Play. Did they play...? "I'm sorry, I don't..." Peter mumbled. No. The bodies. All those bodies and they were on his hands. How the fuck. Don't wish for an answer; that's what happened to you and Caitlin. You wished. Stop it.
The blond guy, Adam, gave a knowing sigh. "So the Haitian's taken liberties with your mind."
"Haitian...?" Peter echoed faintly. The room was spinning. Was he going to jump through time again? Or just vomit? Peter wanted desperately to lie down.
Adam didn't seem to notice Peter's dizziness, and he didn't seem worried that Peter was going to puke or blip out of time. "That explains why you fell off the face of the earth..." He wiped the back of his hand against his mouth thoughtfully. "See if you can get back your memory. I know how."
"How?" Peter said desperately.
"Healing. You can do what I can do. Which means the mind has to repair itself."
Okay, that was as clear as mud. Peter was losing his patience. Adam was just being way too mellow; didn't he understand the hell that Peter was going through right now? Didn't he care? "How do you suggest I go about doing that?" Peter snapped.
Adam shrugged, unfazed. "Think about what matters most to you. Do you know what that is?"
How the hell am I supposed to know? Peter thought, angry and helpless for a second. He reached into his pocket, wondering if he still had that picture of him and the guy in their tuxes, wondering why he'd have that, and no other photo, not even a scrap of paper with a phone number on it. It had to be important.
Peter unfolded the photo and looked at it. Adam gave a knowing sigh. "Nathan," he said, his English accent adding a wistful softness to the word.
"Nathan," Peter echoed, his eyes travelling over the contours of the guy's face. So that was his name. Nathan. In a tux, at a wedding, the two of them together, the chafe of the stiff collar, the penguin suit, the taste of the grappa, so disgusting, he totally threw up that night, after champagne and wedding cake and too many gorgonzola puffs, and a chick grabbed his ass, and he swung around and said For God's sake, woman, can't you see that I'm a married man? and then ended up on his knees in the bathroom but not the way he wanted to, and Heidi was so beautiful in her dress, and Mom and Dad were so happy, and he was happy too, seeing Nathan so happy, getting what he wanted, and both of them winking at each other, remembering last night, last night, last night... oh, God, last night. Ankles in the air and Nathan's cock deep inside him, and their souls together, always, always, always.
"Nathan!"
Yes... You've got all of me I can spare... It's never over between us... Kiss me... You're mine... I'm sorry I can't be there for you... You've got to get your grades up... Dad's dead... Stay?... I love it when you do that... Is Mom into roses or irises right now?... Yeah, right there, oh God!... I'm proud of you, kid... Oh, what am I gonna do with you, bad boy?... I love you, Peter. Are you ready?
"I remember," Peter said. "I remember everything." The whole world slotted into place in between moments lost in Nathan's eyes, found in Nathan's arms. Everything. He'd always been everything.
"Good then," Adam replied pleasantly. "Shall we save the world?"
***
Peter wavered on his feet, and had to put his hand out to catch himself or he was going to collapse again. His head was screaming at him, and he was certain now that he was going to throw up; it had become a matter of when, not if. "I really need to lay down for a minute," he said gruffly. "Before we do anything else."
"Yes, come. I've got a place where you can rest. You deserve it." Adam put his arm around Peter's shoulders, and guided him back out of the warehouse. The sharp cold wind blasted against Peter's face, and brought him around, forcing him to concentrate on the immediacy of trying to stay warm. He was only in a hoodie and track pants, no coat, no hat. Adam hardly seemed bothered by the temperature. He led Peter to a black Barracuda parked at the edge of the street. It was a pretty nice classic car, in excellent shape. Peter figured Adam's car had been in a garage all this time, all thirty years. Peter wondered idly for a second who had been paying to have it stored, then bent double and retched. Nothing came up; he hadn't eaten since... God, when? Yesterday? What should he consider yesterday? He retched again, though, for good measure. Adam watched him sympathetically. "All right then? Get in the car; it's freezing out here."
Inside the car was almost balmy in contrast. Adam started the engine and turned the heat on full blast as he began driving. Peter fastened his seat belt and lay there shuddering. He felt like he had the flu - or like he was absorbing powers faster than his body could keep up. But he wasn't. Maybe it was just remembering them in context, and more than a dozen abilities were all competing with each other for blood sugar so they could get stronger.
Adam grinned, oblivious to Peter's discomfort. "I never doubted that you'd come back," he enthused. "I'm not close to being done with you yet." Peter looked over and tried to smile, but it didn't feel convincing, even to him. Adam's expression softened. "You are the punching bag of fate," he said, and took his hand off the gear shift for a moment to gently pet Peter's thigh. "It's quite remarkable. I'll take care of you, though. You've done enough for tonight."
Adam took Peter to a pleasant little apartment that occupied the top floor of a three-story house, an old-fashioned radiator cranking out waves of heat, layers of thick soft carpets on the floor, crammed with dark, shabby antique furniture. Adam seated Peter on the sofa in the living room, explaining softly, "I'm squatting here. The owners are in Morocco until the twenty-fifth, and they're the sort of trusting fools who leave their spare key underneath the flowerpot." Peter said nothing, shuddering, shaking without being able to stop. He had started shivering outside and it just kept going, feeding back on itself. "I'll get you something to drink." Adam petted Peter's leg again, and went into the other room. Peter closed his eyes.
Nathan, healing like bacon cooking in reverse. Ricky's charcoal body and Caitlin's horrified screams. The stacks of human bodies. Nathan. His mother's smile and the tears in her eyes. The cold. Charles Deveaux's gentle words: "In the end, all that matters is love." Claire. Nathan's hands, Nathan's tongue, Nathan's scars. Nathan.
"...Peter." Adam's clear soft voice broke the chain of memory. "Come here, into the kitchen."
Peter did as he was told. Adam had set the little table there with a small bowl of steaming reddish-orange soup, two slices of coarse toast on a plate, and an empty cup with a strainer full of blackish leaves over it. Peter watched as Adam poured hot water through the leaves, then added a heavy dash of whiskey and a dropperful of something. Peter picked up the toast first, took a bite, filled his mouth, then took a drink from the cup. He recognized a strange flavor underneath the serene tang of the tea and the bittersweet whiskey. "Valerian?" he asked softly.
"You should relax," Adam explained. He poured his own cup of tea, and added whiskey to it. "You should sleep if you can. The brain needs sleep, I read. I've done a lot of reading while you were away. Research. The world has changed a lot since I last saw it." He watched Peter eat the rest of the slice of toast, tentatively sip the soup, then pick up the bowl and begin to drink it straight down. Homemade tomato soup. Peter hadn't had fresh-made tomato soup in what felt like a lifetime. "Your friends are safe. Your brother is fine. You did it, Peter. You saved them. We can do this. You don't have to do this alone anymore. I'm here. We'll help each other."
"Because of me, Ricky's dead," Peter said. "Because of me, Caitlin's gonna die."
"Some things we can't fix, Peter. That's one of the hardest things to accept. But some things, we can. We are the only beings alive who can actually shape destiny. Create history. Prevent catastrophe. But sometimes, we lose a person. An innocent. Sometimes innocent people die, Peter. And that's not your fault. But we have to try. We have to take care of ourselves, so we can try."
Peter used his last piece of toast to wipe the soup bowl clean, and drank to the bottom of his cup. He had stopped shaking and the nausea was gone, but he still felt disoriented, and now, sleepy. He wanted to tell Adam that he was wrong about something he said, but he couldn't remember what it was, exactly. He yawned. Adam stood up and poured more whiskey into Peter's cup, and to his own. "You should get in bed," Adam said. "Come with me."
He led Peter to the small bedroom, mostly taken up with a queen-sized bed heaped with comforters, quilts, afghans and pillows of all sizes. He turned down the covers, then wrapped his arms around Peter's waist, and brought their mouths together in a gentle kiss. He kissed down Peter's chin, over Peter's cheeks. "Beautiful Ganymede," Adam whispered. "Here you are again. In my arms. As it should be. I did worry. A little. But I believe in you." Adam unzipped Peter's hoodie, and slid it from Peter's unmoving shoulders. He pressed his chest against Peter's, and Peter heard in Adam's mind, Lovely, lovable boy, fall in love with me. Oh do. Lovely boy, love me.
Peter sighed, and kissed Adam's thin, curved lips again. He missed Adam's mouth. It was a good part of him. His mouth and his cock. He missed it and he hadn't even remembered it existed, this strange sensation, this elegant mouth with the stubble grown in sharp under the lower lip, the way Adam liked to nibble on the drooping side of Peter's lower lip. He wasn't a tonguer, like Nathan. Oh, like Nathan. Peter remembered that too, and kissed harder, sliding his tongue into Adam's mouth. Adam received, and moaned a little, fingers clenching Peter's T-shirt. Then Adam gently pushed him away. "Lie down," he insisted, and added breathily, "before you fall."
Peter lay down, and Adam pulled off Peter's shoes and track bottoms, sliding his hands up Peter's legs, pausing for a moment to strip off his clothes and toss them on the floor. He lay next to Peter, pulling the covers over them, kissing Peter's neck above the collar of the T-shirt. He wasn't demanding or forceful; all his movements were feather-light, caressing, comforting. Peter held up his lips for more kisses, and Adam gave them.
But not too many. Adam didn't take off any more of Peter's clothes, and he whispered, "I'll give you a story, so you can sleep." He stroked Peter's hair and kissed his ear. "Ganymede was ageless, like unto the gods. Ageless. Beloved and beautiful for all time. The god Zeus kept him nearby, to pour the gilded wine. Beloved and beautiful. You. My beautiful creature. Close your eyes. Dream of flight and eagles' down. Dream of peace eternal. Sleep. They're safe. You're safe, here with me."
He enfolded Peter in his arms, gave one last kiss. "Thank you," Peter whispered, thinking how fucked it was that he almost missed the time when he was imprisoned, because at least then he knew what was going on. Who he was. Who he belonged to.
***
When Peter opened his eyes, it was still dark, the little bedroom lit by a single candle, burning on top of the bureau half-shoved into the closet. He was wide awake, completely refreshed, felt fine. Felt Adam's hand between his legs, stroking his inner thigh, heard Adam's ragged breathing. He looked at Adam, lying beside him, completely naked; Peter was naked too, now.
"That's totally rude," Peter said, shifting comfortably, opening his legs a little. "I was asleep. I can't give consent when I'm asleep."
Adam smiled. "Molestation," he said. "Fiddling about. One of the many services we provide."
"Where'd you learn that joke?" Peter smiled back. His lower body was tingling, all the way between his navel and his knees, his body alive, throbbing gently with his heartbeat, driving blood into his pelvic region. His penis brushed against the bedcovers and the sensation made him hiss. So he was hard. No surprise there. He wanted a kiss. Or he wanted to get out of here, and to fly to Nathan, to... Oh. Adam pinched Peter's nipple between his fingers.
"I learned how to use the internet," Adam said.
"Oh, shit, we're all fucked now," Peter replied, grabbing Adam's hand below, and putting it onto his cock, giving Adam a challenging glare.
Adam looked delighted. "Oh, yes," he purred, squeezing Peter, pulling on him, "we are. All. Fucked. Now."
He grabbed both of Peter's wrists and attempted to pin him to the surface of the bed, but nobody was going to best Peter at his own game. Nobody besides Nathan, who had taught him, and even Nathan would fall to him now, because Peter was vastly, preternaturally stronger. It required no effort whatsoever to flip Adam over and pin him down, to leave a trail of sharp bite marks down his neck and chest. "I surrender, I surrender," Adam gasped. Peter let him go, vaguely embarrassed, but Adam laughed. "I do like your new aggressive side."
"I've always had it," Peter said, kissing Adam's mouth, tonguing him. Adam rose against him, rubbing his own hardness against Peter's belly, then relaxing again, letting Peter grab it and manipulate the stiff flesh in his hand. "I just..." He wanted. He kicked the covers aside, slid down, brought Adam's cock to his mouth, and sucked it in. Just as marvelous as Peter remembered. Adam had a cock that was fun to suck. Not that Nathan's wasn't fun... but that was more of a driven compulsion... he had to... whereas this was entirely his choice. it was like Adam had told him - he was his own man, and he could fuck who he wanted to fuck. Or... Peter lay his head against Adam's belly, and took some deep breaths. Maybe he was in over his head here. Acting without thinking. Was it instinct, or just stupidity?
"You do seem to have gotten your second wind," Adam said, not seeming to mind, immediately taking hold of his cock and pumping it in his fist. Peter was afraid to watch, afraid to want to suck it again. It just looked so good. Maybe he was like this after all. Maybe it wasn't girls that he was meant for. But... "It's three-thirty in the morning. You slept like the dead for four hours-" Adam broke off with a gasp as Peter lost his struggle against himself, and began tonguing the cock again, between Adam's fingers. "Oh, sweet boy... God. Are you ready? Shall we take this to another level? I think you're ready."
"I don't know," Peter replied, his mouth too wet, having to lick his lips or he'd drool. Like his body was remembering how Adam liked to fuck his mouth, and getting ready for it already. "One step at a time."
"Yes, yes, all in good time. I've got something that might help," Adam said, rising from the bed.
"Whiskey?" Peter asked half-kidding, lying back, grinning at the ceiling. Pure hedonism. Nihilistic hedonism. Nothing matters; might as well get off. But everything mattered; everything. He'd done all this for a reason, would keep doing it for a reason... but God, he needed something for himself now and again, damn it. He wasn't a squeaky-clean good guy, all about self-denial. He never had been. Oh, Nathan, are you thinking of me? I am thinking of you. Kind of.
Adam returned to bed with a small white cylinder that looked almost like a short candle. "Turn over," he said to Peter, and when Peter obliged, Adam set the cylinder onto the pillow next to Peter's face, dipping his fingers into it. Peter looked over and caught a faint, rich, tropical scent. A small glass jar, full of a smooth white substance. "Is that coconut oil?" he asked.
Adam hummed his assent, grasping Peter's buttocks in his hands, spreading him apart. Peter sighed and squirmed at the experience of one of his very favorite sensations in the world. Hugs; kisses; getting his ass cheeks spread. He laughed, and the laugh turned into a deep sigh at the touch of Adam's cool, greasy fingers, coating him thoroughly, all over his asshole and perineum and balls and buttocks. Yes, he was like that. This was who he was. "I used to love this in the seventies," Adam said, and began to lick it all off.
Peter tried hard to stay still, but he couldn't; almost ticklish. Not quite. He moaned desperately, clenching the pillow to his mouth. Biting the soft cotton pillowcase when Adam finished his balls, and began eating his ass, not just licking or kissing, but chewing, too, applying the barest pressure of his teeth to every bit that wasn't absolutely flush with the surface of the skin. The man was dedicated. Shoving his fingers in, pulling them out, sucking them, shoving them back in, licking balls more, adding fingers, fiercely gripping Peter's buttock with fingernails. Adding fingers. How many, now? Peter couldn't tell. He couldn't stop moaning, even to catch his breath.
Then, Adam paused, drawing in a deep breath, as if reminding Peter how to do so. Peter appreciated the reminder. "Can I tell you something?" Peter said, while he could.
"Of course," Adam said. He gently kissed Peter's lower back.
"If I tap on the bed with two fingers, that means it's too much. I use that instead of a safe word - in case there's something in my mouth."
"What the fuck are you talking about?" Adam didn't sound like he was joking at all. "There's no such thing as too much. Not for us." He laughed, a distant, cold sound. He pulled his fingers out, and grabbed another thick handful of coconut oil, and buttered Peter up again. "I could fist you," Adam whispered, "no problem. You're not ready for it, but that's no problem. It's not like it's going to damage you. Whatever I do to you, whatever you'll do to me, we'll heal, almost instantaneously, and relish the stinging while it happens. I can eat your ass all I like. I can fuck you using your own blood for lubricant. And it doesn't matter. We have no limits, Peter. None." And with that, he gave Peter four of his small, slender, pointed fingers, tucked his thumb into his palm and - more - and Peter almost cried at how easy it was - he wasn't ready, no, but he was. He was capable of this - he always had been - and it felt so wrong but so right, and Adam whispered, "Oh, yes, yes yes yes yes," because it was right for him, too. "Let no thought of danger enter your mind. For there is none. Oh, yes."
"I don't want to be doing this," Peter groaned. It was a lie, but it was true. He didn't want to be the person who wanted this. He wanted to be... but he had always been like this, hadn't he? Hadn't he begged Nathan for it, but Nathan wouldn't... because he hadn't always been ready, always been capable? Once upon a time, Peter had had limits. Or Nathan did, and imposed them, and Peter had to accept them. But that was before. Nathan wasn't in charge anymore.
Adam didn't go further, but he didn't pull his fingers out, either. He had never clenched his hand, had left it pointed and narrow and focused in. Hadn't made good on his threat, or promise, or... Peter couldn't think, only desire and react. "No? What would you rather? Shall I put my cock into you? Please, Peter? Pretty please?"
"Yes, please," Peter whispered shakily.
"We're so polite," Adam said with a laugh. "Is it because I'm English? Might I please bugger you, my dear chap? Can I fuck you, old thing? Eh, what? Jolly good." He pulled his fingers out and sucked them, then rubbed the soft-solid oil onto his cock. "Ripping." He held Peter's head down with one hand - Peter grimaced with annoyance at that - and guided his cock in with the other. It was so easy after the fingerbang that Peter barely even sighed, at least until the head of Adam's cock pressed right into his prostate. Then he screamed, shuddered, pleasure coursing through his veins. Adam laughed. "Bit of bother," he purred happily, thrusting slow and smooth and deep. He kept pressing Peter's face into the pillow, hard, as he thrust faster and faster. Now his cock wasn't quite bumping the gland; it wasn't like Nathan's... in this position, the head of Nathan's cock went past it, Nathan went deeper... god, he missed Nathan's cock inside him... but Adam was nearly just right...
Peter clamped his eyes shut and bit down hard on the pillowcase. Nathan wasn't there. If he had been, Peter would be underneath him. But he wasn't. He was under Adam, getting his ass plowed by Adam (faster, now, faster), Adam's cock inside him, different, good too. Great. Utterly mindblowingly wonderfully fantastic. Nathan wasn't there, and this was right now, and everything was different, and Peter wasn't the same, and Nathan wasn't the same. And maybe he'd see Nathan soon, and then they could learn each other again. If Nathan forgave him, that is. If he even told Nathan the truth. Maybe he'd just lie about it, and it wouldn't even have to come up.
The worst part was, he didn't even feel bad about not feeling bad.
You fucking whore, Adam thought, and Peter moaned.
"Turn over," Adam said, pulling out, letting up on the pressure on Peter's head. "I want to watch your face as you come."
Peter gratefully gasped for breath and flopped over onto his back, to be rewarded with another one of Adam's gentle, loving kisses, incongruous with what he'd just done. Five-finger fuck me, and then kiss me like I'm a princess. The hell. I think I might love him. He didn't feel guilty about not feeling guilty. Adam looked radiant - or maybe that was just coconut oil on his cheeks. But his eyes were gorgeously soft and adoring, and he couldn't stop smiling. "As you come on it?" Peter teased.
"Want me to?" Adam whispered, kissing him again.
"I won't stop you, if you want," Peter murmured.
"I'll think about it," said Adam, pushing Peter's knees up, entering him again.
And that was perfect. Absolutely perfect. Right on the prostate, again and again, causing tides of semen to spurt from Peter's cock and coat his belly. He wasn't having orgasms every time, just ejaculations, but that felt good, too, cleansing and messy and animal pure. Adam liked to conclude every thrust with a little snap, a little shake, and that just made it more intense. Peter wept and laughed and babbled nonsense, and Adam just smiled down at him, pausing now and again to spasm and shudder, filling Peter, overflowing him.
They did it like that for a long time, coming and coming, their bodies obeying their wills and not the other way around. Well, more or less. Peter gripped Adam's ass with his hands, and the last time that he had an actual orgasm, he felt his hands light up, and he felt, transmitted against their wet skins, that he'd put out an electrical shock. Adam shouted, but not exactly in pain; his body spasmed violently in an answering orgasm. "Fuck, Peter! Fuck! Oh my sweet God! Fuck!" He quivered like a plucked violin string, eyes squeezed shut, baring his teeth in a savage grimace. It was beautiful; Peter had never seen Adam lose self-control like that, and he loved it.
For the first time, Peter kind of understood Elle.
Momentarily, they lay still, breathing hard. "I'm sorry," Peter said. "I didn't mean to do that."
Adam just grinned and kept his eyes closed. "I'll let you know a secret about me," he said. "A little secret known only by me and a certain bratty little girl. I do like it. I do like electricity. I love it. Whenever you want to, whenever you can't help it... I'll take it."
"You're a fuckin' freak," Peter whispered, smiling. And I'm a fuckin' whore.
"Yeah," Adam nodded. He pulled out, still hard - still! - and lay back, and Peter mounted him, sinking down, impaling himself painlessly, both of them as wet as if they'd been wading. They moaned with one voice. "You're very good," Adam panted.
"I'm pretty good at this," Peter agreed, sniffling. Neither of them had bothered to wipe his tears away, and now he could barely see and his face and hair were wet, too. But at last he could feel Adam's erection ebbing away inside him, and he reluctantly climbed off and lay back down onto the now soaking-wet bedsheets.
Suddenly, Peter was cold. He wanted to wrap himself in the blankets and cry. He ought to have felt good, but now he felt empty and wrong. Nathan, oh, God. I'm sorry. Caitlin, I'm sorry. Nathan, I thought of you... does that count?
Adam nudged him with his knee. "Come on," he said softly, getting up. Peter got up too, and Adam stripped off the bedclothes, substituting them with a fresh set of sheets and a new heap of heavy blankets. Then he went to the bureau, then to the window seat. Peter grabbed one of the blankets and wrapped it around his now-chilly body. Again, Adam didn't seem to mind the cold. He sat down, cracked the window a centimeter, and then lit a cigarette. He had set his teacup at the windowsill hours before, and now he sipped whiskey from it, and gazed out the window.
Peter leaned his head against Adam's knee, and Adam petted him distractedly, occasionally handing down the cigarette for Peter to take a drag. Peter had never smoked before in his life, but right now it was glorious. No coughing or anything unglamorous like that. Just the dry, sweet smoke coasting down his throat, and the soft swishing sound of blood in Adam's veins. The blood to which Peter owed everything.
TO BE CONTINUED...
A/N: More hijacking of the shooting script! Whee!... I am not 100% sure that Adam's car is a Barracuda, but I'm about 95% sure - I wasn't able to find out. Google, you've failed me... Peter's empathy is on very full display here; I hope it's clear that that's what's happening. There's a reason why Peter doesn't know who he is... This story in particular - and Adam in general - bears a lot of similarities to characters and situations from my vampire fiction, which is probably why I love Adam as much as I do. Hey, they started it. It's nice that Kring & Co.'s ideas and mine mesh almost seamlessly well. Hope you enjoy the results. It'll be a little while before Ritual 32 drops (I've begun it, but I have the feeling it will be writing a whole lot and then cutting mercilessly) so be patient, and feel free to leave suggestions for what you'd like to see. (Primatech! Peter! Nathan! Adam! Parkman! Hiro...? Who knows? All you need to know is that it takes place in the secret Primatech Vault o' Virus Etc., and then the hours afterward. And maybe before, too. Don't know yet.)
Thanks for reading.
Pairing/Characters: Peter/Adam, implied Peter/Nathan, Elle
Rating: NC-17
Spoilers: through 2.11, "Powerless"
Word Count: about 6000
Warnings: explicit slash, implied consensual incest, language
Summary: After seeing Nathan in the hospital and taking some unplanned trips through time and space, Peter's psyche fractures further, and Adam is eager to pick up the pieces. Continuance of the "truth" story arc from Rituals 29 and 30.
Previous rituals:
(1) :: (2) :: (3) :: (4) :: (5) :: (6) :: (7) :: (8) :: (9) :: (10) :: (11) :: (12) :: (13) :: (14) :: (15) :: (16) :: (17) :: (18) :: (19) :: (20) :: (21) :: (22) :: (23) :: (24) :: (25) :: (26) :: (27) :: (28) :: (29) :: (30)
Heroes is the property of NBC/Universal and Tailwinds Production. This is a work of fan fiction and no claim of ownership is implied for the characters or storylines. Contains dialogue and situations from "Four Months Ago..." written by Tim Kring and "Truth & Consequences" written by Jesse Alexander, excerpted and remixed.
LATE FEBURARY 2007, NEW YORK CITY
Nathan lay on his hospital bed like a slab of cooked, basted meat, breathing noisily through his mouth despite the respirator tube leading from his nose.
Peter couldn't move for a moment after he came into the room. No. Just no. Once, in nursing school, he had seen a burn victim almost as bad as this, and he had run for the nearest trash bin and vomited up lunch and breakfast and probably last night's dinner, too. It had been that moment which made him decide that he would go into hospice nursing; old, dying people and their runny rectums and drool and dementia were a thousand times more bearable than this kind of horror. He had prayed that he would never have to see anything like that again. And here it was, but worse, and it was Nathan, barely recognizable, stinking of rot and isopropyl alcohol and ozone and the horrible roasted-meat smell of burned flesh that still clung to him, three months later. A disgusting object.
But Nathan was still a person, still alive. Still Peter's best beloved. Peter thought toward him, tried to grasp the silken invisible threads of Nathan's thoughts. Nathan was unconscious, not dreaming, no images or words in his mind, just a low-level electrical hum, like the sound of utility wires on a rainy night. Peter felt sick, and ashamed of himself; he had been hoping that Nathan would be dreaming of him. But Peter didn't deserve such devotion. He was a monster, and this was all his fault.
Adam bustled in behind Peter, practical and unsentimental. He'd been busy all day, and he wasn't about to stop now. He said something about their plane tickets, passports, money; Peter couldn't really hear him. He just stared down at his brother's half-melted, grossly swollen, disfigured face, trying to remember Nathan's beauty, trying to remind himself that it was underneath there somewhere, and it would emerge again, but he just couldn't believe it at this point. There was no way to repair such extensive damage. "I'm so sorry, Nathan," he whispered.
Adam grabbed an empty syringe, jammed it into his arm, and drew up 30 cc's of his blood.
"How long til it starts working," Peter said, his voice quiet and dull. He wished he was dead.
"We don't have time to find out," Adam replied, inserting the syringe's needle into Nathan's IV bag, and releasing a swirling cloud of his blood into the fluid. "They're going to assume that you'd come to see your brother; this'll be the first place they'll look." He finished the transfer and came around the bed. "Come on."
He began to hustle Peter toward the door, but Peter, who hadn't taken his eyes off Nathan for a second since coming into the room, noticed that the edges of the scabbed, pus-covered burns on Nathan's chest had begun to move and squirm. "Look! Look! Look!" Peter burst out excitedly, amazed at it, even though he'd seen damage to his own tissues healing just as rapidly - but he hadn't dared to hope. The skin was clearing, healing itself, the burns shrinking, the wet scabs dissipating into smooth, ordinary flesh, leaving no scar.
"Good," said Adam, and sounded like he meant it. "Come on. Come on." He took Peter by the shoulders, but Peter didn't budge, so Adam dropped his arms and strode toward the door.
Peter looked at the mantelpiece where flowers and photographs had been set up at Nathan's eye level. Heidi, Peter and Nathan and their mother, and... one of those silly posed photographs from Nathan's wedding with Peter and Nathan in their tuxedos, both of them giddy out of their minds (and extremely drunk, too - hair of the dog had been necessary after their wild time at Nathan's stag party the night before, and they'd passed a flask of grappa between the two of them all morning like runners passing a baton in a race). That photo was right up front.
Right up front. Yes. Nathan still loved him. Peter still came first.
He grabbed the picture, frame and all, and ran out after Adam. Adam was already at the end of the hall, and Peter had to run to catch up with him. They went down the back stairs. Adam glared at Peter. "What the fuck'd you grab that for?" he said.
"I need something," Peter said. "A keepsake. I don't know when I'll see him again. I have to have something to keep us together 'til then."
Adam rolled his eyes. "They'll know you were there," he said.
"He's healed," Peter pointed out. "They're gonna know, anyway. I don't care. I want him to know I was there." They came out of the back entrance of the hospital, out onto the snowy sidewalk, heading toward the parking lot. "That was incredible," Peter enthused, wanting to hug and kiss Adam for what he'd done, for having thought of it in the first place. For having the ability he had, for sharing it.
Adam's reponse was crisp. "He'll be as good as new by the time he wakes up. Here." Adam handed Peter his travel documents. "Passport. Ticket. Here's the plan."
"You disappointed me, Peter," came an unforgettable voice from around the corner. A feminine, petulant voice full of thinly veiled threat. "Just when I thought we were getting to know each other..."
Fuck. It was Elle. She did not look happy. And she had the Haitian with her, and he didn't look particularly happy either. Peter felt his stomach drop inside him and began to sweat. No, not this, not right now. Not when Adam and I are getting somewhere.
Adam didn't miss a beat. "There's a warehouse in Montreal," he said quietly. "One-twenty-one, Rue St. Jacques. Meet there." He swiftly turned away, and Peter moved into action just as quick, splitting off and running in the opposite direction.
Adam moved fast, but he couldn't elude a blast of lightning as thick as a man's leg that Elle shot toward him. He flew up and smacked into the wall and fell, and Peter wished he hadn't seen that. He had to remind himself that Adam would be all right, that at one point Elle had raked Adam's entire body with lightning like that for five minutes, burning him down to a pile of blackened bones, and it had only taken Adam a day to be back up and snarking like nothing had happened.
Still.
It slowed him for a second, just enough for Elle to send a similar bolt at him; Peter turned half aside, but the bolt caught his newly-acquired silk shirt, which burst instantly into flames. Peter spilled down some stairs, picked himself back up, and wondered at the irony; now maybe he'd be burned alive, too, and he'd understand that much better what Nathan had been through.
That was the last thing that he could remember. Even later, even after he was able to remember everything else, he couldn't remember what happened after he caught fire. The Haitian hadn't taken that. That was Peter's very own, home-grown, self-crafted, trauma-induced amnesia. A memory had never been formed, so there was nothing to get back.
***
MARCH 2007, CORK
Sometimes, when no one was looking, Peter pulled out the photograph of himself and that other man, both of them all dressed up like they were at an awards show or a wedding; they looked so happy, so close to each other, that Peter wondered for a moment if it was his own wedding picture, and somewhere in some past reality, he was sorta-kinda married to this guy. Peter had never had any rings on, just that weird greenish pendant on a leather cord, and his fingers showed no signs that he had ever worn rings. Even gay guys who had committment ceremonies did the ring thing, he figured, so it probably wasn't that.
At least the other guy was handsome, wearing a big, shiny, polished grin, full of blindingly white, even teeth. He looked like a movie star, or a politician, or maybe the best car salesman in the world. Loosened up, tie undone, but Peter still buttoned up and proper, grinning too, looking proud and a little silly.
Peter couldn't remember anything about it. He didn't want to, either, even though he couldn't quite stop thinking about the photo, no matter how hard he tried. He wanted to just chill out and be with Caitlin and figure out his purpose, which, so far, seemed to be to love her, and help out in the place that he was. He was pretty good at both.
And when Ricky was suddenly killed, charred to a crisp from head to toe, Peter found that he was very good at feeling rage like an arrowhead, and his body the arrow, shooting fast at a target that he couldn't see. All he knew was that he was heading toward something and he'd hit it and strike deep.
But something about Ricky had reminded him of something. Some other person who had been killed like that. It wasn't a natural death; of this he was certain. It was murder. And someone in particular liked to char people she didn't like to a crisp, and she'd love to do it to Peter. He almost remembered. A little blond girl, they'd said.
Looking for him.
All he knew was that this was all his fault, and he had to do something.
***
MARCH 17 2007
"It's me. Adam."
The first man.
"Don't you remember? Together we're going to change history."
It was like he knew.
What Peter had to do. What his mother - his remembered mother - had told him that he must do. It had to be right. Something, somewhere had to be right. But Peter couldn't piece the threads together. His head was whirling, and he felt like he was about to puke. Traveling through time made him nauseated, like the big vertical drop on a rollercoaster, and he didn't remember having ever ridden a rollercoaster, but he knew the feeling... he knew the feeling...
This guy. This guy with the short-cropped blond hair and the smirk and the black overcoat, talking to Peter like they were old friends and Peter was kind of a screwup and they both knew that and were comfortable with it. Loose threads, tangled in Peter's hands. Cat's cradle. Play. Did they play...? "I'm sorry, I don't..." Peter mumbled. No. The bodies. All those bodies and they were on his hands. How the fuck. Don't wish for an answer; that's what happened to you and Caitlin. You wished. Stop it.
The blond guy, Adam, gave a knowing sigh. "So the Haitian's taken liberties with your mind."
"Haitian...?" Peter echoed faintly. The room was spinning. Was he going to jump through time again? Or just vomit? Peter wanted desperately to lie down.
Adam didn't seem to notice Peter's dizziness, and he didn't seem worried that Peter was going to puke or blip out of time. "That explains why you fell off the face of the earth..." He wiped the back of his hand against his mouth thoughtfully. "See if you can get back your memory. I know how."
"How?" Peter said desperately.
"Healing. You can do what I can do. Which means the mind has to repair itself."
Okay, that was as clear as mud. Peter was losing his patience. Adam was just being way too mellow; didn't he understand the hell that Peter was going through right now? Didn't he care? "How do you suggest I go about doing that?" Peter snapped.
Adam shrugged, unfazed. "Think about what matters most to you. Do you know what that is?"
How the hell am I supposed to know? Peter thought, angry and helpless for a second. He reached into his pocket, wondering if he still had that picture of him and the guy in their tuxes, wondering why he'd have that, and no other photo, not even a scrap of paper with a phone number on it. It had to be important.
Peter unfolded the photo and looked at it. Adam gave a knowing sigh. "Nathan," he said, his English accent adding a wistful softness to the word.
"Nathan," Peter echoed, his eyes travelling over the contours of the guy's face. So that was his name. Nathan. In a tux, at a wedding, the two of them together, the chafe of the stiff collar, the penguin suit, the taste of the grappa, so disgusting, he totally threw up that night, after champagne and wedding cake and too many gorgonzola puffs, and a chick grabbed his ass, and he swung around and said For God's sake, woman, can't you see that I'm a married man? and then ended up on his knees in the bathroom but not the way he wanted to, and Heidi was so beautiful in her dress, and Mom and Dad were so happy, and he was happy too, seeing Nathan so happy, getting what he wanted, and both of them winking at each other, remembering last night, last night, last night... oh, God, last night. Ankles in the air and Nathan's cock deep inside him, and their souls together, always, always, always.
"Nathan!"
Yes... You've got all of me I can spare... It's never over between us... Kiss me... You're mine... I'm sorry I can't be there for you... You've got to get your grades up... Dad's dead... Stay?... I love it when you do that... Is Mom into roses or irises right now?... Yeah, right there, oh God!... I'm proud of you, kid... Oh, what am I gonna do with you, bad boy?... I love you, Peter. Are you ready?
"I remember," Peter said. "I remember everything." The whole world slotted into place in between moments lost in Nathan's eyes, found in Nathan's arms. Everything. He'd always been everything.
"Good then," Adam replied pleasantly. "Shall we save the world?"
***
Peter wavered on his feet, and had to put his hand out to catch himself or he was going to collapse again. His head was screaming at him, and he was certain now that he was going to throw up; it had become a matter of when, not if. "I really need to lay down for a minute," he said gruffly. "Before we do anything else."
"Yes, come. I've got a place where you can rest. You deserve it." Adam put his arm around Peter's shoulders, and guided him back out of the warehouse. The sharp cold wind blasted against Peter's face, and brought him around, forcing him to concentrate on the immediacy of trying to stay warm. He was only in a hoodie and track pants, no coat, no hat. Adam hardly seemed bothered by the temperature. He led Peter to a black Barracuda parked at the edge of the street. It was a pretty nice classic car, in excellent shape. Peter figured Adam's car had been in a garage all this time, all thirty years. Peter wondered idly for a second who had been paying to have it stored, then bent double and retched. Nothing came up; he hadn't eaten since... God, when? Yesterday? What should he consider yesterday? He retched again, though, for good measure. Adam watched him sympathetically. "All right then? Get in the car; it's freezing out here."
Inside the car was almost balmy in contrast. Adam started the engine and turned the heat on full blast as he began driving. Peter fastened his seat belt and lay there shuddering. He felt like he had the flu - or like he was absorbing powers faster than his body could keep up. But he wasn't. Maybe it was just remembering them in context, and more than a dozen abilities were all competing with each other for blood sugar so they could get stronger.
Adam grinned, oblivious to Peter's discomfort. "I never doubted that you'd come back," he enthused. "I'm not close to being done with you yet." Peter looked over and tried to smile, but it didn't feel convincing, even to him. Adam's expression softened. "You are the punching bag of fate," he said, and took his hand off the gear shift for a moment to gently pet Peter's thigh. "It's quite remarkable. I'll take care of you, though. You've done enough for tonight."
Adam took Peter to a pleasant little apartment that occupied the top floor of a three-story house, an old-fashioned radiator cranking out waves of heat, layers of thick soft carpets on the floor, crammed with dark, shabby antique furniture. Adam seated Peter on the sofa in the living room, explaining softly, "I'm squatting here. The owners are in Morocco until the twenty-fifth, and they're the sort of trusting fools who leave their spare key underneath the flowerpot." Peter said nothing, shuddering, shaking without being able to stop. He had started shivering outside and it just kept going, feeding back on itself. "I'll get you something to drink." Adam petted Peter's leg again, and went into the other room. Peter closed his eyes.
Nathan, healing like bacon cooking in reverse. Ricky's charcoal body and Caitlin's horrified screams. The stacks of human bodies. Nathan. His mother's smile and the tears in her eyes. The cold. Charles Deveaux's gentle words: "In the end, all that matters is love." Claire. Nathan's hands, Nathan's tongue, Nathan's scars. Nathan.
"...Peter." Adam's clear soft voice broke the chain of memory. "Come here, into the kitchen."
Peter did as he was told. Adam had set the little table there with a small bowl of steaming reddish-orange soup, two slices of coarse toast on a plate, and an empty cup with a strainer full of blackish leaves over it. Peter watched as Adam poured hot water through the leaves, then added a heavy dash of whiskey and a dropperful of something. Peter picked up the toast first, took a bite, filled his mouth, then took a drink from the cup. He recognized a strange flavor underneath the serene tang of the tea and the bittersweet whiskey. "Valerian?" he asked softly.
"You should relax," Adam explained. He poured his own cup of tea, and added whiskey to it. "You should sleep if you can. The brain needs sleep, I read. I've done a lot of reading while you were away. Research. The world has changed a lot since I last saw it." He watched Peter eat the rest of the slice of toast, tentatively sip the soup, then pick up the bowl and begin to drink it straight down. Homemade tomato soup. Peter hadn't had fresh-made tomato soup in what felt like a lifetime. "Your friends are safe. Your brother is fine. You did it, Peter. You saved them. We can do this. You don't have to do this alone anymore. I'm here. We'll help each other."
"Because of me, Ricky's dead," Peter said. "Because of me, Caitlin's gonna die."
"Some things we can't fix, Peter. That's one of the hardest things to accept. But some things, we can. We are the only beings alive who can actually shape destiny. Create history. Prevent catastrophe. But sometimes, we lose a person. An innocent. Sometimes innocent people die, Peter. And that's not your fault. But we have to try. We have to take care of ourselves, so we can try."
Peter used his last piece of toast to wipe the soup bowl clean, and drank to the bottom of his cup. He had stopped shaking and the nausea was gone, but he still felt disoriented, and now, sleepy. He wanted to tell Adam that he was wrong about something he said, but he couldn't remember what it was, exactly. He yawned. Adam stood up and poured more whiskey into Peter's cup, and to his own. "You should get in bed," Adam said. "Come with me."
He led Peter to the small bedroom, mostly taken up with a queen-sized bed heaped with comforters, quilts, afghans and pillows of all sizes. He turned down the covers, then wrapped his arms around Peter's waist, and brought their mouths together in a gentle kiss. He kissed down Peter's chin, over Peter's cheeks. "Beautiful Ganymede," Adam whispered. "Here you are again. In my arms. As it should be. I did worry. A little. But I believe in you." Adam unzipped Peter's hoodie, and slid it from Peter's unmoving shoulders. He pressed his chest against Peter's, and Peter heard in Adam's mind, Lovely, lovable boy, fall in love with me. Oh do. Lovely boy, love me.
Peter sighed, and kissed Adam's thin, curved lips again. He missed Adam's mouth. It was a good part of him. His mouth and his cock. He missed it and he hadn't even remembered it existed, this strange sensation, this elegant mouth with the stubble grown in sharp under the lower lip, the way Adam liked to nibble on the drooping side of Peter's lower lip. He wasn't a tonguer, like Nathan. Oh, like Nathan. Peter remembered that too, and kissed harder, sliding his tongue into Adam's mouth. Adam received, and moaned a little, fingers clenching Peter's T-shirt. Then Adam gently pushed him away. "Lie down," he insisted, and added breathily, "before you fall."
Peter lay down, and Adam pulled off Peter's shoes and track bottoms, sliding his hands up Peter's legs, pausing for a moment to strip off his clothes and toss them on the floor. He lay next to Peter, pulling the covers over them, kissing Peter's neck above the collar of the T-shirt. He wasn't demanding or forceful; all his movements were feather-light, caressing, comforting. Peter held up his lips for more kisses, and Adam gave them.
But not too many. Adam didn't take off any more of Peter's clothes, and he whispered, "I'll give you a story, so you can sleep." He stroked Peter's hair and kissed his ear. "Ganymede was ageless, like unto the gods. Ageless. Beloved and beautiful for all time. The god Zeus kept him nearby, to pour the gilded wine. Beloved and beautiful. You. My beautiful creature. Close your eyes. Dream of flight and eagles' down. Dream of peace eternal. Sleep. They're safe. You're safe, here with me."
He enfolded Peter in his arms, gave one last kiss. "Thank you," Peter whispered, thinking how fucked it was that he almost missed the time when he was imprisoned, because at least then he knew what was going on. Who he was. Who he belonged to.
***
When Peter opened his eyes, it was still dark, the little bedroom lit by a single candle, burning on top of the bureau half-shoved into the closet. He was wide awake, completely refreshed, felt fine. Felt Adam's hand between his legs, stroking his inner thigh, heard Adam's ragged breathing. He looked at Adam, lying beside him, completely naked; Peter was naked too, now.
"That's totally rude," Peter said, shifting comfortably, opening his legs a little. "I was asleep. I can't give consent when I'm asleep."
Adam smiled. "Molestation," he said. "Fiddling about. One of the many services we provide."
"Where'd you learn that joke?" Peter smiled back. His lower body was tingling, all the way between his navel and his knees, his body alive, throbbing gently with his heartbeat, driving blood into his pelvic region. His penis brushed against the bedcovers and the sensation made him hiss. So he was hard. No surprise there. He wanted a kiss. Or he wanted to get out of here, and to fly to Nathan, to... Oh. Adam pinched Peter's nipple between his fingers.
"I learned how to use the internet," Adam said.
"Oh, shit, we're all fucked now," Peter replied, grabbing Adam's hand below, and putting it onto his cock, giving Adam a challenging glare.
Adam looked delighted. "Oh, yes," he purred, squeezing Peter, pulling on him, "we are. All. Fucked. Now."
He grabbed both of Peter's wrists and attempted to pin him to the surface of the bed, but nobody was going to best Peter at his own game. Nobody besides Nathan, who had taught him, and even Nathan would fall to him now, because Peter was vastly, preternaturally stronger. It required no effort whatsoever to flip Adam over and pin him down, to leave a trail of sharp bite marks down his neck and chest. "I surrender, I surrender," Adam gasped. Peter let him go, vaguely embarrassed, but Adam laughed. "I do like your new aggressive side."
"I've always had it," Peter said, kissing Adam's mouth, tonguing him. Adam rose against him, rubbing his own hardness against Peter's belly, then relaxing again, letting Peter grab it and manipulate the stiff flesh in his hand. "I just..." He wanted. He kicked the covers aside, slid down, brought Adam's cock to his mouth, and sucked it in. Just as marvelous as Peter remembered. Adam had a cock that was fun to suck. Not that Nathan's wasn't fun... but that was more of a driven compulsion... he had to... whereas this was entirely his choice. it was like Adam had told him - he was his own man, and he could fuck who he wanted to fuck. Or... Peter lay his head against Adam's belly, and took some deep breaths. Maybe he was in over his head here. Acting without thinking. Was it instinct, or just stupidity?
"You do seem to have gotten your second wind," Adam said, not seeming to mind, immediately taking hold of his cock and pumping it in his fist. Peter was afraid to watch, afraid to want to suck it again. It just looked so good. Maybe he was like this after all. Maybe it wasn't girls that he was meant for. But... "It's three-thirty in the morning. You slept like the dead for four hours-" Adam broke off with a gasp as Peter lost his struggle against himself, and began tonguing the cock again, between Adam's fingers. "Oh, sweet boy... God. Are you ready? Shall we take this to another level? I think you're ready."
"I don't know," Peter replied, his mouth too wet, having to lick his lips or he'd drool. Like his body was remembering how Adam liked to fuck his mouth, and getting ready for it already. "One step at a time."
"Yes, yes, all in good time. I've got something that might help," Adam said, rising from the bed.
"Whiskey?" Peter asked half-kidding, lying back, grinning at the ceiling. Pure hedonism. Nihilistic hedonism. Nothing matters; might as well get off. But everything mattered; everything. He'd done all this for a reason, would keep doing it for a reason... but God, he needed something for himself now and again, damn it. He wasn't a squeaky-clean good guy, all about self-denial. He never had been. Oh, Nathan, are you thinking of me? I am thinking of you. Kind of.
Adam returned to bed with a small white cylinder that looked almost like a short candle. "Turn over," he said to Peter, and when Peter obliged, Adam set the cylinder onto the pillow next to Peter's face, dipping his fingers into it. Peter looked over and caught a faint, rich, tropical scent. A small glass jar, full of a smooth white substance. "Is that coconut oil?" he asked.
Adam hummed his assent, grasping Peter's buttocks in his hands, spreading him apart. Peter sighed and squirmed at the experience of one of his very favorite sensations in the world. Hugs; kisses; getting his ass cheeks spread. He laughed, and the laugh turned into a deep sigh at the touch of Adam's cool, greasy fingers, coating him thoroughly, all over his asshole and perineum and balls and buttocks. Yes, he was like that. This was who he was. "I used to love this in the seventies," Adam said, and began to lick it all off.
Peter tried hard to stay still, but he couldn't; almost ticklish. Not quite. He moaned desperately, clenching the pillow to his mouth. Biting the soft cotton pillowcase when Adam finished his balls, and began eating his ass, not just licking or kissing, but chewing, too, applying the barest pressure of his teeth to every bit that wasn't absolutely flush with the surface of the skin. The man was dedicated. Shoving his fingers in, pulling them out, sucking them, shoving them back in, licking balls more, adding fingers, fiercely gripping Peter's buttock with fingernails. Adding fingers. How many, now? Peter couldn't tell. He couldn't stop moaning, even to catch his breath.
Then, Adam paused, drawing in a deep breath, as if reminding Peter how to do so. Peter appreciated the reminder. "Can I tell you something?" Peter said, while he could.
"Of course," Adam said. He gently kissed Peter's lower back.
"If I tap on the bed with two fingers, that means it's too much. I use that instead of a safe word - in case there's something in my mouth."
"What the fuck are you talking about?" Adam didn't sound like he was joking at all. "There's no such thing as too much. Not for us." He laughed, a distant, cold sound. He pulled his fingers out, and grabbed another thick handful of coconut oil, and buttered Peter up again. "I could fist you," Adam whispered, "no problem. You're not ready for it, but that's no problem. It's not like it's going to damage you. Whatever I do to you, whatever you'll do to me, we'll heal, almost instantaneously, and relish the stinging while it happens. I can eat your ass all I like. I can fuck you using your own blood for lubricant. And it doesn't matter. We have no limits, Peter. None." And with that, he gave Peter four of his small, slender, pointed fingers, tucked his thumb into his palm and - more - and Peter almost cried at how easy it was - he wasn't ready, no, but he was. He was capable of this - he always had been - and it felt so wrong but so right, and Adam whispered, "Oh, yes, yes yes yes yes," because it was right for him, too. "Let no thought of danger enter your mind. For there is none. Oh, yes."
"I don't want to be doing this," Peter groaned. It was a lie, but it was true. He didn't want to be the person who wanted this. He wanted to be... but he had always been like this, hadn't he? Hadn't he begged Nathan for it, but Nathan wouldn't... because he hadn't always been ready, always been capable? Once upon a time, Peter had had limits. Or Nathan did, and imposed them, and Peter had to accept them. But that was before. Nathan wasn't in charge anymore.
Adam didn't go further, but he didn't pull his fingers out, either. He had never clenched his hand, had left it pointed and narrow and focused in. Hadn't made good on his threat, or promise, or... Peter couldn't think, only desire and react. "No? What would you rather? Shall I put my cock into you? Please, Peter? Pretty please?"
"Yes, please," Peter whispered shakily.
"We're so polite," Adam said with a laugh. "Is it because I'm English? Might I please bugger you, my dear chap? Can I fuck you, old thing? Eh, what? Jolly good." He pulled his fingers out and sucked them, then rubbed the soft-solid oil onto his cock. "Ripping." He held Peter's head down with one hand - Peter grimaced with annoyance at that - and guided his cock in with the other. It was so easy after the fingerbang that Peter barely even sighed, at least until the head of Adam's cock pressed right into his prostate. Then he screamed, shuddered, pleasure coursing through his veins. Adam laughed. "Bit of bother," he purred happily, thrusting slow and smooth and deep. He kept pressing Peter's face into the pillow, hard, as he thrust faster and faster. Now his cock wasn't quite bumping the gland; it wasn't like Nathan's... in this position, the head of Nathan's cock went past it, Nathan went deeper... god, he missed Nathan's cock inside him... but Adam was nearly just right...
Peter clamped his eyes shut and bit down hard on the pillowcase. Nathan wasn't there. If he had been, Peter would be underneath him. But he wasn't. He was under Adam, getting his ass plowed by Adam (faster, now, faster), Adam's cock inside him, different, good too. Great. Utterly mindblowingly wonderfully fantastic. Nathan wasn't there, and this was right now, and everything was different, and Peter wasn't the same, and Nathan wasn't the same. And maybe he'd see Nathan soon, and then they could learn each other again. If Nathan forgave him, that is. If he even told Nathan the truth. Maybe he'd just lie about it, and it wouldn't even have to come up.
The worst part was, he didn't even feel bad about not feeling bad.
You fucking whore, Adam thought, and Peter moaned.
"Turn over," Adam said, pulling out, letting up on the pressure on Peter's head. "I want to watch your face as you come."
Peter gratefully gasped for breath and flopped over onto his back, to be rewarded with another one of Adam's gentle, loving kisses, incongruous with what he'd just done. Five-finger fuck me, and then kiss me like I'm a princess. The hell. I think I might love him. He didn't feel guilty about not feeling guilty. Adam looked radiant - or maybe that was just coconut oil on his cheeks. But his eyes were gorgeously soft and adoring, and he couldn't stop smiling. "As you come on it?" Peter teased.
"Want me to?" Adam whispered, kissing him again.
"I won't stop you, if you want," Peter murmured.
"I'll think about it," said Adam, pushing Peter's knees up, entering him again.
And that was perfect. Absolutely perfect. Right on the prostate, again and again, causing tides of semen to spurt from Peter's cock and coat his belly. He wasn't having orgasms every time, just ejaculations, but that felt good, too, cleansing and messy and animal pure. Adam liked to conclude every thrust with a little snap, a little shake, and that just made it more intense. Peter wept and laughed and babbled nonsense, and Adam just smiled down at him, pausing now and again to spasm and shudder, filling Peter, overflowing him.
They did it like that for a long time, coming and coming, their bodies obeying their wills and not the other way around. Well, more or less. Peter gripped Adam's ass with his hands, and the last time that he had an actual orgasm, he felt his hands light up, and he felt, transmitted against their wet skins, that he'd put out an electrical shock. Adam shouted, but not exactly in pain; his body spasmed violently in an answering orgasm. "Fuck, Peter! Fuck! Oh my sweet God! Fuck!" He quivered like a plucked violin string, eyes squeezed shut, baring his teeth in a savage grimace. It was beautiful; Peter had never seen Adam lose self-control like that, and he loved it.
For the first time, Peter kind of understood Elle.
Momentarily, they lay still, breathing hard. "I'm sorry," Peter said. "I didn't mean to do that."
Adam just grinned and kept his eyes closed. "I'll let you know a secret about me," he said. "A little secret known only by me and a certain bratty little girl. I do like it. I do like electricity. I love it. Whenever you want to, whenever you can't help it... I'll take it."
"You're a fuckin' freak," Peter whispered, smiling. And I'm a fuckin' whore.
"Yeah," Adam nodded. He pulled out, still hard - still! - and lay back, and Peter mounted him, sinking down, impaling himself painlessly, both of them as wet as if they'd been wading. They moaned with one voice. "You're very good," Adam panted.
"I'm pretty good at this," Peter agreed, sniffling. Neither of them had bothered to wipe his tears away, and now he could barely see and his face and hair were wet, too. But at last he could feel Adam's erection ebbing away inside him, and he reluctantly climbed off and lay back down onto the now soaking-wet bedsheets.
Suddenly, Peter was cold. He wanted to wrap himself in the blankets and cry. He ought to have felt good, but now he felt empty and wrong. Nathan, oh, God. I'm sorry. Caitlin, I'm sorry. Nathan, I thought of you... does that count?
Adam nudged him with his knee. "Come on," he said softly, getting up. Peter got up too, and Adam stripped off the bedclothes, substituting them with a fresh set of sheets and a new heap of heavy blankets. Then he went to the bureau, then to the window seat. Peter grabbed one of the blankets and wrapped it around his now-chilly body. Again, Adam didn't seem to mind the cold. He sat down, cracked the window a centimeter, and then lit a cigarette. He had set his teacup at the windowsill hours before, and now he sipped whiskey from it, and gazed out the window.
Peter leaned his head against Adam's knee, and Adam petted him distractedly, occasionally handing down the cigarette for Peter to take a drag. Peter had never smoked before in his life, but right now it was glorious. No coughing or anything unglamorous like that. Just the dry, sweet smoke coasting down his throat, and the soft swishing sound of blood in Adam's veins. The blood to which Peter owed everything.
TO BE CONTINUED...
A/N: More hijacking of the shooting script! Whee!... I am not 100% sure that Adam's car is a Barracuda, but I'm about 95% sure - I wasn't able to find out. Google, you've failed me... Peter's empathy is on very full display here; I hope it's clear that that's what's happening. There's a reason why Peter doesn't know who he is... This story in particular - and Adam in general - bears a lot of similarities to characters and situations from my vampire fiction, which is probably why I love Adam as much as I do. Hey, they started it. It's nice that Kring & Co.'s ideas and mine mesh almost seamlessly well. Hope you enjoy the results. It'll be a little while before Ritual 32 drops (I've begun it, but I have the feeling it will be writing a whole lot and then cutting mercilessly) so be patient, and feel free to leave suggestions for what you'd like to see. (Primatech! Peter! Nathan! Adam! Parkman! Hiro...? Who knows? All you need to know is that it takes place in the secret Primatech Vault o' Virus Etc., and then the hours afterward. And maybe before, too. Don't know yet.)
Thanks for reading.