Fic: Yen, 9/12
Yen
By kalimyre
Pairing: Kensei/Hiro, Adam/Hiro
Rating: Adult
Summary: In which the fairy tale does have a happy ending, but not the one you were expecting.
Notes: As always, thank you to my fabulous betas: powered_otaku and soulpeddler.
Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three | Chapter Four | Chapter Five | Chapter Six | Chapter Seven | Chapter Eight
~~~
Part 9
The call came on their third day in Vegas.
Hiro was napping in the afternoon heat, sprawled across the bed and visible only as a tuft of spiky black hair and one hand, curled palm up on a pillow. Adam had been lounging beside him, wondering if Hiro could possibly be talked into the hot tub again. There were limits after all; Hiro had grown exasperated (and a little envious) with him and his near instant recovery time by the second day.
He didn’t recognize the little electronic chime at all the first time, but then it repeated and Hiro made a protesting sound and tugged a pillow over his head.
Adam traced the sound to the phone in Hiro’s pocket, his pants slung over the back of a chair. He opened the phone, stared at it blankly for a moment, and then pushed all the buttons until the noise stopped.
The voice was tinny and distant until he brought it to his ear, and then he said, cautiously, “Hello?”
“Hiro?”
“No, Adam,” he replied. “Who is this?”
“Nathan Petrelli. Is Hiro with you? Where are you?”
“Out of town,” Adam replied. “I remember you-from the hospital, right?”
A brief pause, and then, “Right. Look, I’m sorry, but I need to talk to Hiro.”
“He’s busy,” Adam replied evenly. “And he’ll just tell me anything you have to say anyway, so you may as well tell me yourself.”
Nathan sighed audibly. “All right, but this is important. I need his help to get to Peter.”
“Peter?”
“My brother.”
“Ah,” Adam said. “The one who nearly destroyed the city?”
There was a faint click, as if Nathan had just snapped his mouth shut on a reply. “Yes,” he said, “and also the only one of us who is anywhere near powerful enough to face Sylar. I found out where he is, but it’s deep in some compound. I can’t get in.”
“But Hiro can,” Adam finished. “How did you find him?”
“Long story,” Nathan replied.
“I’m listening,” Adam said, not entirely sure why he was being so difficult. Maybe it had to do with the way Hiro had lit up when he saw Nathan healed.
There was a pause, and for a moment Adam was sure Nathan would either demand Hiro or stop talking completely, but clearly this was a man who knew a few things about playing smart and when to smooth the waters, because he said, calmly, “I’m not trying to shut you out-I’m just in a hurry to get Peter. I’ll tell you everything if you and Hiro could meet me. I’m in New York, let me get you the address.”
So Adam listened and scribbled it down and promised to tell Hiro, and even though it would mean the end of their peaceful time in Vegas, part of him was glad. Better to get this business over and done with, and get on with their lives.
Hiro was, predictably, very excited.
“Did he say where Peter Petrelli is?” Hiro asked, in between stuffing clothes into a pack.
“No,” Adam replied, “just that he needs your help to get him out.”
Hiro beamed, bouncing a little, then sobered. “What about Sylar? Is there a plan, do they know where he is?”
“Not that he told me,” Adam said. “I think your flying man is more concerned with his brother than anything else.”
“They’re family,” Hiro said dismissively, and Adam nodded, because he always did when Hiro said something he knew nothing about.
“We’re supposed to meet them in New York,” Adam said, watching as Hiro looked under the beds and in the drawers. “Lose something?” he added.
“I had more underwear,” Hiro muttered, frowning.
Adam glanced around, then smiled. “There,” he said, pointing to the ceiling fan.
Hiro looked up, snickered, and turned the fan on, flinging them against the wall. “That’s your fault,” he said, scooping them up.
“Completely,” Adam replied, smug.
Hiro gave him a playful shove, then picked his glasses up off the bedside table and slipped them on. “I think that’s everything. Ready?”
Adam shrugged gamely and said nothing, and Hiro took it as a yes-a habit of his, Adam had noticed. One breath of nothing later and they were back in New York, on a rooftop overlooking the city. Behind them was a small, glass walled garden and a stack of cages, pigeons landing on them and getting in as the night drew down. In Vegas it had been sunlit gold sand and baking wind; here the sun was nearly down, the air had a damp bite, and the constant noise of the city rushed up to meet them.
“Is this it?” Hiro asked, looking around the deserted space.
“I think so,” Adam said. “I don’t see anyone, though.”
Then he caught a flicker of movement from the corner of his eye, and a moment later, a man landed on the roof, skidding a couple steps and walking the rest toward them.
Hiro grinned and threw his arms in the air. “Flying man!”
Nathan smiled and scrubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “Hiro, Adam. Thank you for coming.”
“Of course,” Hiro said. “You have a plan to defeat Sylar?”
“Something like that.” Nathan jerked a thumb over his shoulder, and added, “Come inside, we’ll talk.”
Inside turned out to be an empty apartment, finely furnished but covered with a layer of dust and the air of abandonment. They sat in the kitchen on stools and Nathan propped his hands against the counter and regarded them evenly. “First, you need to know some things about Bob, and his company.”
Adam nodded; nothing he hadn’t expected.
“What is it?” Hiro asked.
“I was never entirely sure Bob was on the right side,” Nathan said. “And when I found out he was hiding Peter, keeping him locked up...”
Hiro’s eyes widened. “So he is alive?”
“Yes,” Nathan said, a relieved smile slipping through his grave expression for a moment. “Not that Bob parted with that information voluntarily.”
“Then how did he?” Adam asked. “Part with it, I mean.”
“Suresh has some interesting friends,” Nathan replied. “One of them, Matt Parkman, has quite a knack for picking up little secrets.”
“Does he know you found out?” Adam asked.
Nathan shook his head. “No, and it’s a good thing he doesn’t-he’d move Peter first thing. From what Matt could pick up, they’ve got him neutralized somehow, without his powers.”
“But why? He could help us defeat Sylar,” Hiro said.
“He’s too powerful,” Nathan replied. “And too difficult to control. That makes him a threat, not an asset as far as the company is concerned.”
“And is he a threat?” Adam asked. At Nathan’s sharp look, he held up his hands. “No harm meant, but he did nearly take out the city, didn’t he?”
Nathan’s lips pressed into a thin line. “I don’t know. Only Peter can tell us if he’s in control, but to do that, we need to get to him. That’s where you come in,” he added to Hiro. “If I could get you a general location, could you get us close?”
Hiro nodded. “Yes, and as long as we can see into his room, I can take us inside.”
“Okay.” Nathan looked at them for a moment, measuring, and then pulled a bag out from under the counter. Reaching inside, he placed three small handguns on the counter in a row.
Hiro looked troubled and shook his head, pulling back. Nathan nodded, unsurprised, and raised an eyebrow at Adam.
Adam looked at the gun; it was a blunt, ugly thing compared to the elegance of a sword, but he’d seen what they could do. What one had done to Hiro. Crude, but effective, and better than being helpless. He picked the gun up, felt his hand mold around the shape of it, the weight and cold metal, ran his fingertip around the trigger guard and sighted down the barrel across the room.
“Adam,” Hiro said, plainly unhappy.
“I told you,” Adam said. “I’m not watching you die again.”
Hiro crossed his arms tightly over his chest and hunched his shoulders. Nathan looked between them, then asked Adam, “You know how to use that?”
Adam nodded. “I’m not used to one this small, but it’s the same machine it always was. I’ll work it out.”
Nathan tucked his own gun into his waistband, and offered Hiro a pat on the shoulder. “Just in case,” he said. “I’m hoping we won’t need to use them at all.”
“Okay,” Hiro said, although he looked unconvinced.
“Good man,” Nathan said. He outlined their destination, and Hiro picked it up readily enough, and soon they were standing in the middle of the room, Adam and Nathan facing out, Hiro with a hand on each of them. Adam had time to wonder how Hiro could find a place he’d never been, never seen, based only on a vague description, and then they were there.
It was a flat, concrete building, square hallways and glaring florescent light and blank gray walls. Nobody was in sight, but the place felt occupied; it smelled of stale coffee and recycled air, and there was the distant murmur of a television somewhere around the corner.
“Now what?” Hiro asked.
“Now we find Peter,” Nathan replied, picking a direction. They moved together as a group, peeking in doorways and windows, and soon enough they found the cells. Each had a metal framed bed, a toilet and sink, a small table and chair. Adam had seen enough prisons to recognize this one.
“Peter,” Nathan called in a stage whisper. “Peter, you here?”
Footsteps approached, and they flattened themselves against the wall, Adam at the front corner. He saw the man’s shadow first, then his foot making the turn, and the gun was in his hand before he could think about it. It was a guard of some kind, a belt of weapons around his waist that he never got to touch, his eyes going hazy and mouth slack as Adam hit him hard on the back of the head with the butt of the gun. He collapsed in a quiet heap, slumping against the wall.
“They’ll notice him gone sooner rather than later, I’m afraid,” Adam said softly. “Come on.”
They pulled the guard (still breathing, Adam noticed, a little relieved that he hadn’t killed in front of Hiro) into one of the empty cells and left him, then padded down the hall, ducking in a cell themselves to avoid another guard, walking with someone dressed like a doctor, white coat and glasses. Adam didn’t think he was a doctor, though. Most doctors he’d seen didn’t move like that, with the wary purpose of a soldier.
It was Hiro who found him, and he waved Adam and Nathan over quickly, pointing. Peter looked a lot like his brother, Adam thought. He was sitting on the bed, back against the wall, staring blankly at the opposite wall, dressed in some hospital scrubs. Dark eyes, dark hair, scruff of unshaven beard on his chin, expression that said his mind was a million miles away.
“Peter,” Nathan said, tapping on the door. Peter started and turned, his eyes wide, and he came to them, the door handle rattling, locked.
“Nathan?” he asked, shock and disbelief and hope all rolled together in his voice.
“Yeah, it’s me,” Nathan replied. He added to the side, “Hiro, you mind?”
Hiro put a hand on both of them, and then they were in the room behind Peter, who spun, gaping at them. He took a step toward Nathan, then paused, shaking his head. “You’re not burned? How...?”
“Long story,” Nathan said, then grinned and took a deep breath. He hugged his brother, brushed a kiss on the side of his head, and murmured, “Good to see ya.”
“Yeah,” Peter replied numbly, closing his eyes tight for a long moment. “How did you find me?”
“I’ll explain later,” Nathan said. “We need to get out of here.”
Peter took a step back, shaking his head. “I can’t,” he said.
Nathan stared at him. “Why not?”
“They put me here to help me,” Peter explained, waving at the small, confined room. “To cure me.”
“Cure you,” Nathan replied flatly. “Of what?”
“I nearly blew up New York,” Peter said. “Nearly killed millions of people, not to mention what I did to you.”
“But you have it under control now,” Adam pointed out, and Peter gave him a distracted look.
“Because of the medication,” Peter said. “It keeps me under control. If I leave...”
“You’re not a patient, friend,” Adam said. “You’re a prisoner.”
“Look, I don’t even know you,” Peter snapped at him. “I’m here because I have to be, because I can’t let anything like that happen again.” He cast a guilty glance at Nathan, at his smooth, unscarred skin.
“If anything happens, I will stop time,” Hiro said. “I will take you far away. But for now, please, you must return. We need your help to fight Sylar.”
Peter stiffened, his hands clenching at his sides. “Sylar is dead.”
“No,” Hiro said grimly. “He’s back.”
“How?”
Hiro spread his hands, shrugging. “I don’t know, but he is. I saw him myself.”
Peter nodded slowly, taking a deep breath. “All right,” he said. “But you stay nearby,” he added to Hiro. “If anything starts to happen-”
“I will stop it,” Hiro finished. “I promise. Please, hurry, before they find us here.”
They gathered around him in a clump, Nathan with one hand on the back of his brother’s neck, Adam eager to be out of this tight and windowless place, and then it was the airless beat of black nothing and the empty apartment again, Hiro’s refused gun still sitting on the counter.
Peter looked around, then cocked his brother a skeptical eyebrow. “Here?”
“Last place they’d look,” Nathan said, spreading his hands. “Although we shouldn’t stay anywhere for long. Bob isn’t going to be thrilled that we took you.”
“Bob?” Peter echoed. “Bald guy, glasses, in charge?”
Nathan nodded. “He was hiding you from us all along. He’s the one running the company now, from what we can tell. It was Linderman for a while but he’s out of the picture.”
“He said he was helping me,” Peter said.
“A man like that is only interested in helping himself,” Adam said, and Peter turned to him.
“Who are you, anyway?”
“Adam Monroe,” he said, sticking out a hand, which Peter shook automatically. “Good to meet you.”
“He’s the one who healed me,” Nathan said, and Peter’s demeanor softened.
“Thank you,” Peter said, and Adam shrugged, aware of Hiro beside him, smiling proudly.
“So do we have a plan?” Peter asked, straddling one of the kitchen chairs, arms propped on the back rest.
Nathan nodded, sitting across from him, Adam and Hiro joining them around the table. “It will be a little tricky, flying under the company radar, but I think we can pull together a team,” Nathan said. “You, me, Hiro, Adam, Nikki-maybe that blonde that hangs around Suresh, with the electricity thing.”
“Elle?” Peter asked. “I know her, she brought me my medication every day.”
Nathan’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “Probably not her, then. She seems pretty tight with Bob and the company.”
Peter gave a thin laugh and nodded. “You could say that. What about finding Sylar?”
“The girl can do that,” Hiro said. “Suresh’s little girl.”
“Molly,” Nathan said. “She can find anyone-she’s the key. With her, we can surprise him, take the fight to him. We want to do it somewhere unpopulated, where he can’t cause a lot of collateral damage.”
“And then what?” Peter asked. “He’s not easy to kill.”
“No kidding,” Nathan snorted, “but you’ve got everything he does, and you can heal. With the rest of us backing you...” He trailed off when Peter shook his head. “What?”
“That’s what I’ve been telling you,” Peter said. “I don’t have any powers right now; the medication suppresses them. I’ve got nothing.”
There was a heavy pause as they digested that, and then Adam said, “It should come back. I mean, if the medicine stops your power, once your system is clean of it, your power should come back.”
“Maybe,” Peter said. “But if it doesn’t...”
“I guess we’ll find out,” Nathan said. “Give it a few days, and try it again.”
“And until then?” Hiro asked.
Nathan shook his head. “We hope Sylar stays quiet. He has so far... that we know about, anyway.”
“Have you been tracking him with the girl?” Adam asked.
“No,” Nathan sighed. “Suresh won’t allow it. She can find him once, and only once, when we’re ready. Constantly having her think about him, focus on him, it’s too much for her.”
“So he could be anywhere,” Peter said.
“Cheery thought,” Adam said dryly, and Hiro bumped their knees together under the table, shooting him a sideways glance; Adam wasn’t sure if was meant to be reassuring or scolding. Possibly both.
“You should stay nearby,” Peter said to Hiro. “Just in case.”
“Do you really think you’re in danger of losing control?” Nathan asked him.
Peter shrugged. “I think that’s a chance I don’t want to take.”
Adam tilted his head to the side, considering. “Stop me if I’m wrong, but from what Hiro’s told me, you pick up powers from others. Absorb them into yourself, and learn how to use them, right?”
“Yeah, so?”
“So maybe now that you’ve done it once, fully ran up that bomb power, you’ve got a grip on it. Maybe it won’t overwhelm you again,” Adam said. “After all, you managed to reel it back in after that night, right?”
“That’s a big gamble for a maybe,” Peter pointed out. “But yeah, once it happened, I did feel like... like I could see the shape of it now, get a grip on it. Put it away.”
“Even so,” Hiro said. “I will be here in a second if you call.”
One corner of Peter’s mouth tugged into a smile. “I know. You’re all about saving the world.”
Hiro looked down at his hands. “But I didn’t. That was you,” he said, nodding at Nathan.
“You talked me into it,” Nathan said. “That day by my car, when you tried to warn me, and I blew you off. You called me a villain.”
Hiro shifted uncomfortably. “I’m sorry.”
“You were right,” Nathan said. “And if I hadn’t listened to you... well. You saw that future, didn’t you.”
“Yes,” Hiro said. “It was very bad. But that will not happen now.”
“Right,” Nathan said. “We shouldn’t stay in a group, it makes us too appealing of a target. Just stay in touch, keep those phones on you, and if Bob calls and asks about Peter, be surprised.”
“He’s bound to put the pieces together eventually,” Adam said.
Nathan nodded. “Probably. I don’t know what his agenda is-I don’t think he wants Sylar out there any more than we do, but I’m not planning to let him run the show.”
No, Adam thought, you’ve chosen that role for yourself.
~~~
Hiro was reluctant to leave Peter to his own devices; not after he’d promised to stop him if he started to lose control. But Nathan assured him it would be all right, he’d be the first one they called, and Peter backed him up (Hiro had the feeling he did so out of long, ingrained habit of following his brother’s lead) and Adam clearly did not want to spend the next however many days sleeping on the Petrelli’s couch, so they left.
Back to Tokyo first, to touch base with Ando. Hiro felt bad for leaving him out so much of the time, although Ando didn’t seem to mind. Three’s a crowd, he’d said, offering Hiro a leer and a wink that made Hiro smother a giggle in his hands.
Hiro knew he should probably see his father too, but couldn’t quite work up the nerve. Should he bring Adam? Leave him behind? What if his father asked? He knew he had no chance of lying convincingly. And rationally, yes, he was probably making too big a deal of it, but still. Spend your whole life being intimidated by someone, see how quickly you get over it.
Then, because Adam was making wistful comments about how long it had been since he’d seen the ocean, and purring in Hiro’s ear about lying on the beach, waves washing over them, and trying so very earnestly to be charming and distracting and keep his mind of Sylar, Hiro took them to the beach.
As it turned out, when he didn’t give his mind a specific destination other than beach, they landed in Mexico, on the edge of some little town Hiro couldn’t pronounce, wrapped by a long, golden, utterly abandoned stretch of sand and water and sky.
Adam surprised him by speaking perfect Spanish.
“How many languages do you speak, anyway?” Hiro asked, after Adam had managed to negotiate a meal and a drink of some clear, indefinable, incredibly strong liquor from a local bar.
“Enough,” Adam said, swallowing some of the drink, his whole body shuddering at the taste, and he grinned.
“Don’t,” Hiro said, taking the drink from his hands.
Adam rolled his eyes and surrendered the glass, but pointed out, “It doesn’t really affect me, you know. I just have to think about not being drunk, and I’m not.”
“Really,” Hiro said, flat and skeptical.
“It’s disappointing,” Adam mused sadly. “All that time and effort in getting entirely legless, gone in a second.”
“I don’t know why you’d want to be,” Hiro argued, and sniffed cautiously at the liquid. It burned his nose just being near it; he didn’t want to think about what it must taste like.
“Oh, Hiro,” Adam said, somehow exasperated and chiding and fond all together. “It’s easy enough for you-you spend most of your time with your head in the clouds as it is. The rest of us like to get away sometimes.”
Hiro shrugged, not sure how to respond to that. He’d tried actually getting drunk once or twice; there had been his twenty-first birthday, when Ando had insisted it was tradition, that time when the girl he’d met in an X-Men online role player had broken up with him (Ando also insisted it was tradition in such situations), and the time his sister had talked him into going to a party and he’d had no idea that the fruity green drink would make his legs stop working unexpectedly.
Each time he felt sick, unhappy, and disconnected. He really didn’t get the appeal.
So instead, he said, “How do you think it works? You healing from alcohol, I mean.”
“No idea,” Adam replied, sneaking another swallow. “It just does.”
Hiro poked at his tamales and rice, and watched Adam, the particular fixed look in his eyes and the flush starting to rise on his face, the way his mouth went soft at the edges. “What are you trying to get away from?” he asked.
Adam’s expression was, for a bare moment, completely unguarded and Hiro saw... what? Fear, he thought, and weariness, and a certain resignation, and then it was gone and Adam smiled winningly. “Eat,” he said. “You’ll need your strength for later.”
So Hiro let it go, and let him finish the drink, and the next one. Because Adam would certainly never tell him the answer without it.
By the time they slid out of the bar, the sun was low and red over the ocean, the wind carrying them the flat tang of saltwater and the faint, rhythmic sound of the waves. Adam was walking, but just barely, his movements carrying that deliberate gait of someone who must think very carefully about each step.
They meandered toward the beach, Adam watching his feet carry him, Hiro watching Adam. How much of it, he wondered, was an act? How much was the alcohol and how much was Adam, pretending, so he had an excuse for saying things he wouldn’t otherwise? The way Adam slung his arms around Hiro’s waist, murmured to him, kissed his face as they walked-how much of that was what Adam wanted to do anyway?
And given what Adam had said, about the alcohol not affecting him unless he let it, it could all be an act. So when they sat together on the beach, the sand still holding the day’s heat beneath them, and Adam leaned over and kissed him and formed words against his mouth, Hiro chose to believe it was him talking, and not the liquor.
They kissed for a while as the daylight faded, slow and lazy, Adam tasting bitter and sharp, but his mouth pliant, welcoming, eager. They lay in the sand and watched the stars come out and Adam said, apropos of nothing, “What comes next?”
Hiro glanced at him out of the corner of his eye, but Adam was looking up, one hand drowsily sifting through the sand, his eyes unfocused, pale blue in the moonlight. “Next?” he asked.
“After we save the world,” Adam replied, twirling one hand. “Defeat the villain, win the fair lady... no wait, scratch that last one. I’ve already won my princess.”
Hiro’s mouth opened and closed a few times before he managed, “I’m not your princess.”
“No?” And Adam managed to sound like he was pouting, of all things. “Does that make me the princess? I suppose I’m fair of skin and hair and all that, but really, I don’t think...” he trailed off, biting thoughtfully at a thumbnail. “Maybe. But no dresses.”
Hiro chortled and shook his head. “Never mind the princess. What are you asking?”
For a long stretch there was nothing, as if Adam hadn’t heard him, and Hiro went back to looking at the stars, trying to find the constellations he knew, but here on the other side of the world, they were all different.
Then, again, “I mean, what’s next, is the thing,” Adam said.
“After we defeat Sylar?” Hiro replied.
“Right, that.” Adam turned on his side, resting his head on Hiro’s shoulder, and stroked his hand slowly over Hiro’s chest, methodically, as if he were counting each pass.
“I don’t know,” Hiro said, after thinking a while. “I guess... I go back home. Go back to work.”
Adam huffed dubiously. “Go back to that labyrinth?”
“Labyrinth?” Hiro echoed, and then he laughed softly, nodding. “It does look that way. I don’t really want to, but...” He shrugged.
“And me?” Adam asked quietly.
Hiro looked at him, tried to meet his eyes, but Adam was curled, facing away, his fingertips still trailing Hiro’s shirt like a child with a security blanket. “You’ll be with me,” Hiro said, putting a hand on Adam’s back.
“Will I,” Adam said, and the words were a question, but his voice wasn’t. “For how long?”
Hiro hesitated; the first answer that came to him, forever, sounded both implausible and bad-romance-novel trite in his head. Adam’s hand tightened on his shirt, and he felt Adam’s back tense under his palm and Hiro knew, then, that he wasn’t even a little bit drunk. That he probably never had been.
“As long as you want,” Hiro settled on, eventually.
He felt Adam’s nod against his shoulder, the ghost warmth through his shirt as Adam exhaled. “No,” Adam said, after a moment. “It won’t be.”
“Oh?” Hiro replied, his voice coming out thin and pinched. “Why not?”
Adam turned, kissed his neck, his jaw, nuzzled below his ear. “Because,” he said, his voice a low rumble against Hiro’s throat, “you won’t live forever.”
Hiro closed his eyes, feeling Adam’s arms tighten around him, Adam’s shirt clutched in his fist, and he went willingly when Adam turned them, kissing him, filling his belly with fire until the warmth pushed up through the ache in his chest and his throat loosened and he could take a breath.
“Kensei,” he said, cupping a hand around the back of his neck, their faces close enough for him to feel eyelashes flutter fast against his cheek.
“Carp,” Adam replied, and Hiro thought if that was as far as Adam could go, as close as he could get to actually saying it, then it was enough.
~~~
Thanks for reading! Comments are, of course, love. ♥
Chapter Ten
By kalimyre
Pairing: Kensei/Hiro, Adam/Hiro
Rating: Adult
Summary: In which the fairy tale does have a happy ending, but not the one you were expecting.
Notes: As always, thank you to my fabulous betas: powered_otaku and soulpeddler.
Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three | Chapter Four | Chapter Five | Chapter Six | Chapter Seven | Chapter Eight
~~~
Part 9
The call came on their third day in Vegas.
Hiro was napping in the afternoon heat, sprawled across the bed and visible only as a tuft of spiky black hair and one hand, curled palm up on a pillow. Adam had been lounging beside him, wondering if Hiro could possibly be talked into the hot tub again. There were limits after all; Hiro had grown exasperated (and a little envious) with him and his near instant recovery time by the second day.
He didn’t recognize the little electronic chime at all the first time, but then it repeated and Hiro made a protesting sound and tugged a pillow over his head.
Adam traced the sound to the phone in Hiro’s pocket, his pants slung over the back of a chair. He opened the phone, stared at it blankly for a moment, and then pushed all the buttons until the noise stopped.
The voice was tinny and distant until he brought it to his ear, and then he said, cautiously, “Hello?”
“Hiro?”
“No, Adam,” he replied. “Who is this?”
“Nathan Petrelli. Is Hiro with you? Where are you?”
“Out of town,” Adam replied. “I remember you-from the hospital, right?”
A brief pause, and then, “Right. Look, I’m sorry, but I need to talk to Hiro.”
“He’s busy,” Adam replied evenly. “And he’ll just tell me anything you have to say anyway, so you may as well tell me yourself.”
Nathan sighed audibly. “All right, but this is important. I need his help to get to Peter.”
“Peter?”
“My brother.”
“Ah,” Adam said. “The one who nearly destroyed the city?”
There was a faint click, as if Nathan had just snapped his mouth shut on a reply. “Yes,” he said, “and also the only one of us who is anywhere near powerful enough to face Sylar. I found out where he is, but it’s deep in some compound. I can’t get in.”
“But Hiro can,” Adam finished. “How did you find him?”
“Long story,” Nathan replied.
“I’m listening,” Adam said, not entirely sure why he was being so difficult. Maybe it had to do with the way Hiro had lit up when he saw Nathan healed.
There was a pause, and for a moment Adam was sure Nathan would either demand Hiro or stop talking completely, but clearly this was a man who knew a few things about playing smart and when to smooth the waters, because he said, calmly, “I’m not trying to shut you out-I’m just in a hurry to get Peter. I’ll tell you everything if you and Hiro could meet me. I’m in New York, let me get you the address.”
So Adam listened and scribbled it down and promised to tell Hiro, and even though it would mean the end of their peaceful time in Vegas, part of him was glad. Better to get this business over and done with, and get on with their lives.
Hiro was, predictably, very excited.
“Did he say where Peter Petrelli is?” Hiro asked, in between stuffing clothes into a pack.
“No,” Adam replied, “just that he needs your help to get him out.”
Hiro beamed, bouncing a little, then sobered. “What about Sylar? Is there a plan, do they know where he is?”
“Not that he told me,” Adam said. “I think your flying man is more concerned with his brother than anything else.”
“They’re family,” Hiro said dismissively, and Adam nodded, because he always did when Hiro said something he knew nothing about.
“We’re supposed to meet them in New York,” Adam said, watching as Hiro looked under the beds and in the drawers. “Lose something?” he added.
“I had more underwear,” Hiro muttered, frowning.
Adam glanced around, then smiled. “There,” he said, pointing to the ceiling fan.
Hiro looked up, snickered, and turned the fan on, flinging them against the wall. “That’s your fault,” he said, scooping them up.
“Completely,” Adam replied, smug.
Hiro gave him a playful shove, then picked his glasses up off the bedside table and slipped them on. “I think that’s everything. Ready?”
Adam shrugged gamely and said nothing, and Hiro took it as a yes-a habit of his, Adam had noticed. One breath of nothing later and they were back in New York, on a rooftop overlooking the city. Behind them was a small, glass walled garden and a stack of cages, pigeons landing on them and getting in as the night drew down. In Vegas it had been sunlit gold sand and baking wind; here the sun was nearly down, the air had a damp bite, and the constant noise of the city rushed up to meet them.
“Is this it?” Hiro asked, looking around the deserted space.
“I think so,” Adam said. “I don’t see anyone, though.”
Then he caught a flicker of movement from the corner of his eye, and a moment later, a man landed on the roof, skidding a couple steps and walking the rest toward them.
Hiro grinned and threw his arms in the air. “Flying man!”
Nathan smiled and scrubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “Hiro, Adam. Thank you for coming.”
“Of course,” Hiro said. “You have a plan to defeat Sylar?”
“Something like that.” Nathan jerked a thumb over his shoulder, and added, “Come inside, we’ll talk.”
Inside turned out to be an empty apartment, finely furnished but covered with a layer of dust and the air of abandonment. They sat in the kitchen on stools and Nathan propped his hands against the counter and regarded them evenly. “First, you need to know some things about Bob, and his company.”
Adam nodded; nothing he hadn’t expected.
“What is it?” Hiro asked.
“I was never entirely sure Bob was on the right side,” Nathan said. “And when I found out he was hiding Peter, keeping him locked up...”
Hiro’s eyes widened. “So he is alive?”
“Yes,” Nathan said, a relieved smile slipping through his grave expression for a moment. “Not that Bob parted with that information voluntarily.”
“Then how did he?” Adam asked. “Part with it, I mean.”
“Suresh has some interesting friends,” Nathan replied. “One of them, Matt Parkman, has quite a knack for picking up little secrets.”
“Does he know you found out?” Adam asked.
Nathan shook his head. “No, and it’s a good thing he doesn’t-he’d move Peter first thing. From what Matt could pick up, they’ve got him neutralized somehow, without his powers.”
“But why? He could help us defeat Sylar,” Hiro said.
“He’s too powerful,” Nathan replied. “And too difficult to control. That makes him a threat, not an asset as far as the company is concerned.”
“And is he a threat?” Adam asked. At Nathan’s sharp look, he held up his hands. “No harm meant, but he did nearly take out the city, didn’t he?”
Nathan’s lips pressed into a thin line. “I don’t know. Only Peter can tell us if he’s in control, but to do that, we need to get to him. That’s where you come in,” he added to Hiro. “If I could get you a general location, could you get us close?”
Hiro nodded. “Yes, and as long as we can see into his room, I can take us inside.”
“Okay.” Nathan looked at them for a moment, measuring, and then pulled a bag out from under the counter. Reaching inside, he placed three small handguns on the counter in a row.
Hiro looked troubled and shook his head, pulling back. Nathan nodded, unsurprised, and raised an eyebrow at Adam.
Adam looked at the gun; it was a blunt, ugly thing compared to the elegance of a sword, but he’d seen what they could do. What one had done to Hiro. Crude, but effective, and better than being helpless. He picked the gun up, felt his hand mold around the shape of it, the weight and cold metal, ran his fingertip around the trigger guard and sighted down the barrel across the room.
“Adam,” Hiro said, plainly unhappy.
“I told you,” Adam said. “I’m not watching you die again.”
Hiro crossed his arms tightly over his chest and hunched his shoulders. Nathan looked between them, then asked Adam, “You know how to use that?”
Adam nodded. “I’m not used to one this small, but it’s the same machine it always was. I’ll work it out.”
Nathan tucked his own gun into his waistband, and offered Hiro a pat on the shoulder. “Just in case,” he said. “I’m hoping we won’t need to use them at all.”
“Okay,” Hiro said, although he looked unconvinced.
“Good man,” Nathan said. He outlined their destination, and Hiro picked it up readily enough, and soon they were standing in the middle of the room, Adam and Nathan facing out, Hiro with a hand on each of them. Adam had time to wonder how Hiro could find a place he’d never been, never seen, based only on a vague description, and then they were there.
It was a flat, concrete building, square hallways and glaring florescent light and blank gray walls. Nobody was in sight, but the place felt occupied; it smelled of stale coffee and recycled air, and there was the distant murmur of a television somewhere around the corner.
“Now what?” Hiro asked.
“Now we find Peter,” Nathan replied, picking a direction. They moved together as a group, peeking in doorways and windows, and soon enough they found the cells. Each had a metal framed bed, a toilet and sink, a small table and chair. Adam had seen enough prisons to recognize this one.
“Peter,” Nathan called in a stage whisper. “Peter, you here?”
Footsteps approached, and they flattened themselves against the wall, Adam at the front corner. He saw the man’s shadow first, then his foot making the turn, and the gun was in his hand before he could think about it. It was a guard of some kind, a belt of weapons around his waist that he never got to touch, his eyes going hazy and mouth slack as Adam hit him hard on the back of the head with the butt of the gun. He collapsed in a quiet heap, slumping against the wall.
“They’ll notice him gone sooner rather than later, I’m afraid,” Adam said softly. “Come on.”
They pulled the guard (still breathing, Adam noticed, a little relieved that he hadn’t killed in front of Hiro) into one of the empty cells and left him, then padded down the hall, ducking in a cell themselves to avoid another guard, walking with someone dressed like a doctor, white coat and glasses. Adam didn’t think he was a doctor, though. Most doctors he’d seen didn’t move like that, with the wary purpose of a soldier.
It was Hiro who found him, and he waved Adam and Nathan over quickly, pointing. Peter looked a lot like his brother, Adam thought. He was sitting on the bed, back against the wall, staring blankly at the opposite wall, dressed in some hospital scrubs. Dark eyes, dark hair, scruff of unshaven beard on his chin, expression that said his mind was a million miles away.
“Peter,” Nathan said, tapping on the door. Peter started and turned, his eyes wide, and he came to them, the door handle rattling, locked.
“Nathan?” he asked, shock and disbelief and hope all rolled together in his voice.
“Yeah, it’s me,” Nathan replied. He added to the side, “Hiro, you mind?”
Hiro put a hand on both of them, and then they were in the room behind Peter, who spun, gaping at them. He took a step toward Nathan, then paused, shaking his head. “You’re not burned? How...?”
“Long story,” Nathan said, then grinned and took a deep breath. He hugged his brother, brushed a kiss on the side of his head, and murmured, “Good to see ya.”
“Yeah,” Peter replied numbly, closing his eyes tight for a long moment. “How did you find me?”
“I’ll explain later,” Nathan said. “We need to get out of here.”
Peter took a step back, shaking his head. “I can’t,” he said.
Nathan stared at him. “Why not?”
“They put me here to help me,” Peter explained, waving at the small, confined room. “To cure me.”
“Cure you,” Nathan replied flatly. “Of what?”
“I nearly blew up New York,” Peter said. “Nearly killed millions of people, not to mention what I did to you.”
“But you have it under control now,” Adam pointed out, and Peter gave him a distracted look.
“Because of the medication,” Peter said. “It keeps me under control. If I leave...”
“You’re not a patient, friend,” Adam said. “You’re a prisoner.”
“Look, I don’t even know you,” Peter snapped at him. “I’m here because I have to be, because I can’t let anything like that happen again.” He cast a guilty glance at Nathan, at his smooth, unscarred skin.
“If anything happens, I will stop time,” Hiro said. “I will take you far away. But for now, please, you must return. We need your help to fight Sylar.”
Peter stiffened, his hands clenching at his sides. “Sylar is dead.”
“No,” Hiro said grimly. “He’s back.”
“How?”
Hiro spread his hands, shrugging. “I don’t know, but he is. I saw him myself.”
Peter nodded slowly, taking a deep breath. “All right,” he said. “But you stay nearby,” he added to Hiro. “If anything starts to happen-”
“I will stop it,” Hiro finished. “I promise. Please, hurry, before they find us here.”
They gathered around him in a clump, Nathan with one hand on the back of his brother’s neck, Adam eager to be out of this tight and windowless place, and then it was the airless beat of black nothing and the empty apartment again, Hiro’s refused gun still sitting on the counter.
Peter looked around, then cocked his brother a skeptical eyebrow. “Here?”
“Last place they’d look,” Nathan said, spreading his hands. “Although we shouldn’t stay anywhere for long. Bob isn’t going to be thrilled that we took you.”
“Bob?” Peter echoed. “Bald guy, glasses, in charge?”
Nathan nodded. “He was hiding you from us all along. He’s the one running the company now, from what we can tell. It was Linderman for a while but he’s out of the picture.”
“He said he was helping me,” Peter said.
“A man like that is only interested in helping himself,” Adam said, and Peter turned to him.
“Who are you, anyway?”
“Adam Monroe,” he said, sticking out a hand, which Peter shook automatically. “Good to meet you.”
“He’s the one who healed me,” Nathan said, and Peter’s demeanor softened.
“Thank you,” Peter said, and Adam shrugged, aware of Hiro beside him, smiling proudly.
“So do we have a plan?” Peter asked, straddling one of the kitchen chairs, arms propped on the back rest.
Nathan nodded, sitting across from him, Adam and Hiro joining them around the table. “It will be a little tricky, flying under the company radar, but I think we can pull together a team,” Nathan said. “You, me, Hiro, Adam, Nikki-maybe that blonde that hangs around Suresh, with the electricity thing.”
“Elle?” Peter asked. “I know her, she brought me my medication every day.”
Nathan’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “Probably not her, then. She seems pretty tight with Bob and the company.”
Peter gave a thin laugh and nodded. “You could say that. What about finding Sylar?”
“The girl can do that,” Hiro said. “Suresh’s little girl.”
“Molly,” Nathan said. “She can find anyone-she’s the key. With her, we can surprise him, take the fight to him. We want to do it somewhere unpopulated, where he can’t cause a lot of collateral damage.”
“And then what?” Peter asked. “He’s not easy to kill.”
“No kidding,” Nathan snorted, “but you’ve got everything he does, and you can heal. With the rest of us backing you...” He trailed off when Peter shook his head. “What?”
“That’s what I’ve been telling you,” Peter said. “I don’t have any powers right now; the medication suppresses them. I’ve got nothing.”
There was a heavy pause as they digested that, and then Adam said, “It should come back. I mean, if the medicine stops your power, once your system is clean of it, your power should come back.”
“Maybe,” Peter said. “But if it doesn’t...”
“I guess we’ll find out,” Nathan said. “Give it a few days, and try it again.”
“And until then?” Hiro asked.
Nathan shook his head. “We hope Sylar stays quiet. He has so far... that we know about, anyway.”
“Have you been tracking him with the girl?” Adam asked.
“No,” Nathan sighed. “Suresh won’t allow it. She can find him once, and only once, when we’re ready. Constantly having her think about him, focus on him, it’s too much for her.”
“So he could be anywhere,” Peter said.
“Cheery thought,” Adam said dryly, and Hiro bumped their knees together under the table, shooting him a sideways glance; Adam wasn’t sure if was meant to be reassuring or scolding. Possibly both.
“You should stay nearby,” Peter said to Hiro. “Just in case.”
“Do you really think you’re in danger of losing control?” Nathan asked him.
Peter shrugged. “I think that’s a chance I don’t want to take.”
Adam tilted his head to the side, considering. “Stop me if I’m wrong, but from what Hiro’s told me, you pick up powers from others. Absorb them into yourself, and learn how to use them, right?”
“Yeah, so?”
“So maybe now that you’ve done it once, fully ran up that bomb power, you’ve got a grip on it. Maybe it won’t overwhelm you again,” Adam said. “After all, you managed to reel it back in after that night, right?”
“That’s a big gamble for a maybe,” Peter pointed out. “But yeah, once it happened, I did feel like... like I could see the shape of it now, get a grip on it. Put it away.”
“Even so,” Hiro said. “I will be here in a second if you call.”
One corner of Peter’s mouth tugged into a smile. “I know. You’re all about saving the world.”
Hiro looked down at his hands. “But I didn’t. That was you,” he said, nodding at Nathan.
“You talked me into it,” Nathan said. “That day by my car, when you tried to warn me, and I blew you off. You called me a villain.”
Hiro shifted uncomfortably. “I’m sorry.”
“You were right,” Nathan said. “And if I hadn’t listened to you... well. You saw that future, didn’t you.”
“Yes,” Hiro said. “It was very bad. But that will not happen now.”
“Right,” Nathan said. “We shouldn’t stay in a group, it makes us too appealing of a target. Just stay in touch, keep those phones on you, and if Bob calls and asks about Peter, be surprised.”
“He’s bound to put the pieces together eventually,” Adam said.
Nathan nodded. “Probably. I don’t know what his agenda is-I don’t think he wants Sylar out there any more than we do, but I’m not planning to let him run the show.”
No, Adam thought, you’ve chosen that role for yourself.
~~~
Hiro was reluctant to leave Peter to his own devices; not after he’d promised to stop him if he started to lose control. But Nathan assured him it would be all right, he’d be the first one they called, and Peter backed him up (Hiro had the feeling he did so out of long, ingrained habit of following his brother’s lead) and Adam clearly did not want to spend the next however many days sleeping on the Petrelli’s couch, so they left.
Back to Tokyo first, to touch base with Ando. Hiro felt bad for leaving him out so much of the time, although Ando didn’t seem to mind. Three’s a crowd, he’d said, offering Hiro a leer and a wink that made Hiro smother a giggle in his hands.
Hiro knew he should probably see his father too, but couldn’t quite work up the nerve. Should he bring Adam? Leave him behind? What if his father asked? He knew he had no chance of lying convincingly. And rationally, yes, he was probably making too big a deal of it, but still. Spend your whole life being intimidated by someone, see how quickly you get over it.
Then, because Adam was making wistful comments about how long it had been since he’d seen the ocean, and purring in Hiro’s ear about lying on the beach, waves washing over them, and trying so very earnestly to be charming and distracting and keep his mind of Sylar, Hiro took them to the beach.
As it turned out, when he didn’t give his mind a specific destination other than beach, they landed in Mexico, on the edge of some little town Hiro couldn’t pronounce, wrapped by a long, golden, utterly abandoned stretch of sand and water and sky.
Adam surprised him by speaking perfect Spanish.
“How many languages do you speak, anyway?” Hiro asked, after Adam had managed to negotiate a meal and a drink of some clear, indefinable, incredibly strong liquor from a local bar.
“Enough,” Adam said, swallowing some of the drink, his whole body shuddering at the taste, and he grinned.
“Don’t,” Hiro said, taking the drink from his hands.
Adam rolled his eyes and surrendered the glass, but pointed out, “It doesn’t really affect me, you know. I just have to think about not being drunk, and I’m not.”
“Really,” Hiro said, flat and skeptical.
“It’s disappointing,” Adam mused sadly. “All that time and effort in getting entirely legless, gone in a second.”
“I don’t know why you’d want to be,” Hiro argued, and sniffed cautiously at the liquid. It burned his nose just being near it; he didn’t want to think about what it must taste like.
“Oh, Hiro,” Adam said, somehow exasperated and chiding and fond all together. “It’s easy enough for you-you spend most of your time with your head in the clouds as it is. The rest of us like to get away sometimes.”
Hiro shrugged, not sure how to respond to that. He’d tried actually getting drunk once or twice; there had been his twenty-first birthday, when Ando had insisted it was tradition, that time when the girl he’d met in an X-Men online role player had broken up with him (Ando also insisted it was tradition in such situations), and the time his sister had talked him into going to a party and he’d had no idea that the fruity green drink would make his legs stop working unexpectedly.
Each time he felt sick, unhappy, and disconnected. He really didn’t get the appeal.
So instead, he said, “How do you think it works? You healing from alcohol, I mean.”
“No idea,” Adam replied, sneaking another swallow. “It just does.”
Hiro poked at his tamales and rice, and watched Adam, the particular fixed look in his eyes and the flush starting to rise on his face, the way his mouth went soft at the edges. “What are you trying to get away from?” he asked.
Adam’s expression was, for a bare moment, completely unguarded and Hiro saw... what? Fear, he thought, and weariness, and a certain resignation, and then it was gone and Adam smiled winningly. “Eat,” he said. “You’ll need your strength for later.”
So Hiro let it go, and let him finish the drink, and the next one. Because Adam would certainly never tell him the answer without it.
By the time they slid out of the bar, the sun was low and red over the ocean, the wind carrying them the flat tang of saltwater and the faint, rhythmic sound of the waves. Adam was walking, but just barely, his movements carrying that deliberate gait of someone who must think very carefully about each step.
They meandered toward the beach, Adam watching his feet carry him, Hiro watching Adam. How much of it, he wondered, was an act? How much was the alcohol and how much was Adam, pretending, so he had an excuse for saying things he wouldn’t otherwise? The way Adam slung his arms around Hiro’s waist, murmured to him, kissed his face as they walked-how much of that was what Adam wanted to do anyway?
And given what Adam had said, about the alcohol not affecting him unless he let it, it could all be an act. So when they sat together on the beach, the sand still holding the day’s heat beneath them, and Adam leaned over and kissed him and formed words against his mouth, Hiro chose to believe it was him talking, and not the liquor.
They kissed for a while as the daylight faded, slow and lazy, Adam tasting bitter and sharp, but his mouth pliant, welcoming, eager. They lay in the sand and watched the stars come out and Adam said, apropos of nothing, “What comes next?”
Hiro glanced at him out of the corner of his eye, but Adam was looking up, one hand drowsily sifting through the sand, his eyes unfocused, pale blue in the moonlight. “Next?” he asked.
“After we save the world,” Adam replied, twirling one hand. “Defeat the villain, win the fair lady... no wait, scratch that last one. I’ve already won my princess.”
Hiro’s mouth opened and closed a few times before he managed, “I’m not your princess.”
“No?” And Adam managed to sound like he was pouting, of all things. “Does that make me the princess? I suppose I’m fair of skin and hair and all that, but really, I don’t think...” he trailed off, biting thoughtfully at a thumbnail. “Maybe. But no dresses.”
Hiro chortled and shook his head. “Never mind the princess. What are you asking?”
For a long stretch there was nothing, as if Adam hadn’t heard him, and Hiro went back to looking at the stars, trying to find the constellations he knew, but here on the other side of the world, they were all different.
Then, again, “I mean, what’s next, is the thing,” Adam said.
“After we defeat Sylar?” Hiro replied.
“Right, that.” Adam turned on his side, resting his head on Hiro’s shoulder, and stroked his hand slowly over Hiro’s chest, methodically, as if he were counting each pass.
“I don’t know,” Hiro said, after thinking a while. “I guess... I go back home. Go back to work.”
Adam huffed dubiously. “Go back to that labyrinth?”
“Labyrinth?” Hiro echoed, and then he laughed softly, nodding. “It does look that way. I don’t really want to, but...” He shrugged.
“And me?” Adam asked quietly.
Hiro looked at him, tried to meet his eyes, but Adam was curled, facing away, his fingertips still trailing Hiro’s shirt like a child with a security blanket. “You’ll be with me,” Hiro said, putting a hand on Adam’s back.
“Will I,” Adam said, and the words were a question, but his voice wasn’t. “For how long?”
Hiro hesitated; the first answer that came to him, forever, sounded both implausible and bad-romance-novel trite in his head. Adam’s hand tightened on his shirt, and he felt Adam’s back tense under his palm and Hiro knew, then, that he wasn’t even a little bit drunk. That he probably never had been.
“As long as you want,” Hiro settled on, eventually.
He felt Adam’s nod against his shoulder, the ghost warmth through his shirt as Adam exhaled. “No,” Adam said, after a moment. “It won’t be.”
“Oh?” Hiro replied, his voice coming out thin and pinched. “Why not?”
Adam turned, kissed his neck, his jaw, nuzzled below his ear. “Because,” he said, his voice a low rumble against Hiro’s throat, “you won’t live forever.”
Hiro closed his eyes, feeling Adam’s arms tighten around him, Adam’s shirt clutched in his fist, and he went willingly when Adam turned them, kissing him, filling his belly with fire until the warmth pushed up through the ache in his chest and his throat loosened and he could take a breath.
“Kensei,” he said, cupping a hand around the back of his neck, their faces close enough for him to feel eyelashes flutter fast against his cheek.
“Carp,” Adam replied, and Hiro thought if that was as far as Adam could go, as close as he could get to actually saying it, then it was enough.
~~~
Thanks for reading! Comments are, of course, love. ♥
Chapter Ten