Part Four: Almost Christmas, 1996
So now that LJ is back and we can stop rocking back and forth with our knees up to our chins... *suddenly has meaning in her life again*
All of you that have made icons, oh dear god, we want to name our firstborns after you. THANK YOU. You keep making me all weepy, honestly.
Part Four
December 20th, 1996
One (1) Christmas Party Invitation; retrieved from a Petrelli waste basket the eve of the 22nd.
There are few days that Peter would consider the best in his short life so far.
Three days ago was one such day.
It is the sort of joyous occasion the Petrelli family rallies together for - and, indeed, they have, but not simply because of that occasion alone - and even Peter finds it to be a cause to rally for.
Nathan has come home for Christmas
It is the day before Winter Break - the last three days have been a special sort of hell, not just having to endure being in school while his brother is back home, his mere existence there a pronounced miracle, but having acquired his own personal stalker now, too - and once again his mother has brought together the family at the Petrelli mansion for Christmas and celebrating Nathan.
It's not so bad this time around, the whole house a bustle of people again, his cousin Freddie now sporting a distinctive baby-bump that's led to its fair share of hushed whispers, both good and bad.
Nathan's been there, though, and that makes all the difference. Even if Peter feels a rather distinctive knot in his stomach when he hears the doorbell and his mother calling for Nathan, seeing his brother reemerge from the entrance hall, a leggy blonde on his arm, not even she can ruin the fact that Nathan is back for him.
When a tray of appletinis and bite-sized sandwiches passes by him, though, he makes a face and grabs a sandwich. He chews maybe five times and swallows, the pieces still rough and hard and not at all chewy, and he can feel them all the way down.
***
Gabriel Gray can sense the doom that is about to hit him before he even rounds the corner.
Deep, deep down in the recesses of his conscience, he's known that doom was coming for him the moment he saw that Death was watching him from around the corner, using the payphone to call his mom. It's always that way with the last day of school, what with him missing the bus somewhat deliberately only to call his mom and ask for a ride home, along with some help to bring home the bassoon.
He wonders, then, whether Degrees Of Geekitude are determined by size of the instrument when it comes to Orch Dorks and Band Geeks. Fitting into the latter category, and, indeed, playing the biggest woodwind instrument there is, Gabriel Gray has long learned not to flaunt his bassoon unless entirely necessary, like in Band class. Even if it means letting his mom pick him up.
But now, about to round the corner to the lockers for the transfer students (a ham sandwich in the dark recesses of his backpack is weeping), he knows suddenly for certain that Death has been planning certain doom for him.
There are quite a few students, much like or unlike, Gabriel Gray, who would, in this predicament, be almost overwhelmed with curiosity as to what will await them when they round the corner. Perhaps, just a touch of curiosity. An inkling. A great need to at least peek.
Gabriel Gray is not, and has never been, one of those students.
He stops right before he turns - followed closely by his mother, tsk-ing about the occasional piece of chewed gum on the lockers, or a smudge on the wall - and takes a deep breath.
"What are you stopping for? You could get contaminated here if we stay too long - it’s a miracle you haven't gotten the flu, honestly, you're so prone to colds, and-"
"Mom, shhh. Someone's been here before us," Gabriel warns, bright red now.
"What are you talking about, that's nonsense," she brushes off, and walks right by him.
He comes forward, desperate to pull her back, but he sees what damage has been done, what havoc wreaked, his eyes wide and scared suddenly as he stares at his locker.
A large black-text-on-white-paper sign taped on his locker reads, DROP YOUR PANTS HERE AND YOU WILL RECEIVE PROMPT ATTENTION.
He is pretty sure, at this moment in time, that the fact that his mother hasn't said anything, all the color drained from her face, is far, far worse than if she were tsk-ing or yelling or ranting or anything, in fact.
For the first time in his life, Gabriel Gray would have even preferred vomit.
A strange sensation stirs in his stomach, and he forces it back.
Her voice is cracked, dry, like her lips when she speaks again, far too steady and quiet and slow for his liking. "Gabriel Thomas Gray. I suggest you grab your things. And then we leave. Now."
His fingers are shaking as he fumbles with the lock, and he gets it wrong at least four times before he hears a faint click - 41-16-23 turn one full rotation clockwise…- and then he's in.
He wonders, briefly, whether it's worse being in than it was being out.
The pornographic pictures lining the inside of his locker door are not helping matters, and neither is the Very Horrifying Picture taped inside his top locker.
"Grab. Things. Go."
His mother sounds strangled, and there is a slight tingling sensation in his feet when he realizes that all of the blood has slowly trickled down and drained from his face to pool in his feet. It feels funny.
He is almost thankful when he can feel his limbs begin moving of his own accord.
***
Peter loses sight of Nathan when the leggy blonde arrives, content to munch on bite-sized sort of things and overhear the new family rumors, something about cousin Freddie and "nasty things" and "she's not even engaged yet!" and "oh, how awful and uncouth!" and Peter doesn't really know what they're talking about, but Nathan is gone and he doesn't feel nearly as comfortable as he did before, and when he bumps into Nameless Cousin No. Twenty-three, mumbling something about "…Nathan" and "headphones," he actually gets an answer, an obnoxious sort of shout, "I saw Nathan going up the stairs with that girl!!" he says, a toy squirt-gun in his hands and giggling before running off.
A part of Peter wants to kick at the kid, but now he has something new to busy himself with, and he slinks off to the stairs, and up them, and past all the screaming children, making sure his mom doesn't catch him in the act because he really does not want to be social at the moment, and before he knows it, he is victorious and he's just a few feet away from Nathan's bedroom.
There are noises, distinctive ones, and Peter cranes his neck so he maybe see where they're coming from.
Notnathannotnathannotnathannotnathannotnathan.
He closes his eyes, hard, when he has to stop in front of Nathan's room, and takes a deep breath. The door is sort of open, and he leans forward, afraid to actually take a full step, because that would be stepping over the line for sure, and he remembered all the Christmas nights when Nathan would take him, little as he was, to the door and tell him to peek like this, not quite, but quite enough, and sure enough, he could see things.
Peter's eyes are wide and childlike and wondersome and he almost feels detached from the scene for a moment as he watches. It's sort of clumsy, and Nathan looks sweaty, and like he's fumbling with clothes and - why does that girl have her legs wrapped around Nathan? - and it just doesn't seem like A Very Nice Thing To Be Doing, and Peter sort of tilts his head and watches for a moment more, and Nathan sort of seems to be going "oh!" and Peter wonders whether or not he is in pain or not, but he's naked and no one seems to be trying to help him if he's wounded, especially not that girl, and it just seems like The Sort Of Thing He Should Go Talk To Mom About.
So he does.
***
These are the sort of maddening silent stretches of time that Gabriel Gray wants to fill with words, words, words for fear of death.
On a good day, where the traffic isn't quite maddening, the drive from school in Manhattan takes thirty-seven minutes and thirteen seconds. Gabriel knows this because he has paid close attention to the Sylar watch every single day on his way home from school since he's started at Lee Kirby High School, having had Nothing Better To Do.
Today, this stretch of time seems to take especially long.
He's never thought that he would say this, but the overwhelming sort of noise that goes on in a school bus in the background is almost - almost - comforting in a paranoid sort of sense, and now that there is nothing at all except for the noise of the engine as the golden station wagon sputters along (sput, sput, sput), alongside a fear that has nothing to do with the fact that he is afraid that if his mother doesn't turn the heating on soon they will all freeze to death, and everything to do with the fact that if he doesn't die tonight, then he has a whole Winter Break to look forward to dying, Gabriel Gray fears for his loins.
The worst part is that his mother will probably never believe him that none of that was even his fault, and he feels himself sort of shrivel in his seat.
Like a raisin.
Like a prune.
Like a strange assortment of dried fruit.
His stomach churns uncomfortably at the thought, and he prays for noise.
A heavenly choir (of sorts!) starts coming to life in his head, and he dares to hum along. That is, he thinks, one of the fringe benefits of the backseat.
His mother flails all motherly-like. He should have expected it, really, he thinks, and frowns. "Do you think what you did to your locker was amusing? Is that it? Is that why you're singing despite your obvious perversion and damnation into the realm of depravity? Is that it???" she snaps at him, and he wonders briefly if silence would have been better.
Tuna for Thanksgiving is perversion and depravity. Don't even get me started on the ham, he really wants to say, instead lapsing into an uncomfortable sort of coughing fit and turning very red again. Spontaneous combustion looms nigh! "I, um, er. I sing because I'm in pain?" he attempts, doing his best to look very pained, which really is not all that difficult.
"As you should be!" his mother yells back, and he briefly fears for New York's prolonged existence from the way his mother looks, all orange and red and livid and such. "Anyone who takes the path of evil will surely feel hell's fiery wrath!"
He'd always known the backseat of this car was hell. It was no wonder, really, what with her always sticking him back there, "so what if you're seventeen, children go in the back seat!, it might as well just have been her trying to train him for the inevitable damnation he undoubtedly faces. Now, there is no longer any doubt of such.
He sort of adjusts his glasses nervously, almost obsessively, wondering whether putting them on a certain way could potentially keep him from seeing certain death approaching. Because he does. It's sort of speeding towards him. "I don't! It wasn't mine! I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHERE THEY SELL THAT STUFF!" There's flailing and some sort of desperation on his part now, and his mother whips around in her seat and nearly crashes into another car.
"DON'T YOU DARE RAISE YOUR VOICE ON ME, YOUNG MAN! Does that mean you have looked?? Is that how you don't know??"
Gabriel Gray wonders whether he only received this haircut so that his mother could auction him off to neuters, and sighs somewhat dramatically. "No. No!" There is more flailing, and he wonders if he could possibly be going mad. "I swear, a janitor… Death! Death, who stands above me ominously pointing his mop at me and removes Caution: Wet Floor signs in my wake and, and, and, he has the combination to my locker and I swear the one time he replaced my ham with silly putty and I ate it and my life! It flashes before my eyes whenever I see him!"
He's said all this very fast, and Gabriel realizes that he is becoming somewhat hysterical, but if there is any time that is the worst time for becoming somewhat hysterical, or even very hysterical, it is now.
They're at a red light (death! death! death!) and his mother's eyes are wide and red, or so he thinks, and she gives him the sort of look that says "you, young man, are possessed by unnatural forces, and I will break you to God's will - and my will! - if it means the death of me!" Gabriel quivers in his seat. His mother's eye twitches. Once, twice. "I knew I should have enrolled you in a seminary."
"No one there would have the sort of hair I like!" he says before he can stop himself, sort of frenzied by now.
She sort of stares at him, damnation written clearly across her not-so-kind features, and then the light turns green, and he sort of gestures towards it (it's really more like flailing), eyes wide, and contemplates jumping out the window.
That plan would have worked perfectly well had the janitor not been standing there.
"YOU! STOP YOUR LOOMING!" he sort of faintly shouts, flailing at the closed window before realizing that it has no effect, and turns back to his mother.
"Your father will handle this," she snaps, her tone clipped, and she turns back to stare out the windshield.
The rest of the car ride will be silence, and, resigning himself to that certain Death, Gabriel stares out the window.
One moment later, and he realizes that he truly, in all respects, is Cursed. With a capital C.
There is one good thing about the backseat, he decides rather quietly, opening his backpack and realizing that for the first time in his life, the polaroid he has in there will come in handy.
Four (4) photographs, courtesy of Gabriel Gray, later stowed away in the Cursed Evidence File
***
The house is, of course, perfect. Or, well, almost perfect, but that's hardly a point to nitpick on.
Angela has foreseen it all, and, well, as long as everything appears to be perfect, that's fine and good and people can remain as ignorant as they want to be. There's kids running around, but they're not her kids, and the mess won't be hers to clean up when all of this almost perfect event will be over.
"I saw Nathan disappear upstairs with-"
"Yeah, I know," she says, pursing her lips and taking a cocktail from a passing-by tray.
Her husband heaves a great sigh and shakes his head. "Well, at least it seems to be going well."
"It's going perfectly, dear." Almost. "Really, there's no use trying to reign him in. He is his father's son," she says, more tenderly this time, giving just a ghost of a smile.
"Yes, but that doesn't mean-"
"Mom!"
It's Peter, of course, running with big, dreamy eyes, wide and confused as they were even ten years ago, and Angela smiles down at him and tilts her head as if to ask, "what is it now?"
She doesn't have to, Peter's already talking. "Mom, I saw Nathan in his room, and he's naked, and there's that girl that's been with him today and there was this nasty noise and it looked overall rather nasty, actually, and Nathan made this o-face and looked like he might be in pain?"
It sounds more like a statement than a question to Angela, really, but he sounds like he is genuinely unsure about most - if not all - of what he's just said, so she just nods him off - I'll take care of Nathan, dear - and turns back to her husband.
"What did Peter want?"
She ignores the question. "Nathan really is his father's son."
"What is he doing now?"
"The Nasty," she says, and walks over to the front door when she heard the bell ring, snatching an hors d'oeuvre on her way.
***
"Nathan."
It's all she really has to say - his mother's voice reverberates throughout the room, whether there is no one else inside, or fifty other people. This time it's the latter, but even she pulls him aside, and he says something about "why don't you go and mingle with the family," and "I shouldn't be more than a couple of minutes," and the girl is already off, giggling about something and flashing him a toothy grin. He almost has to suppress the urge to roll his eyes. "What is it ma?"
"There is a time," she starts, and he notices the wrinkles around her lips clearer than ever just for a moment, "in a boys life when he turns to someone he can look up to… to talk about things."
"Like what things, ma?" he's almost afraid to ask. However, almost is a moot point in the Petrelli household.
"Oh, you know, the usual. Like Doing The Nasty. I think seeing Freddie like this might have sparked a few questions in his head, don't you?"
Nathan stands completely still for a moment. His mother looks so very calm that it is maddening, and he isn't sure what brought this up, he just knows that Freddie did not. "Ma, you know I'm careful and-"
"I know that Nathan. And that's exactly why you should talk to him about this."
She's gone without another word, and something about that look on his mother's face said Meredith, and he frowns. He can practically hear her voice chiming after him, "oh yes, so very careful… that worked out so well with that girl in Texas, too, didn't it?" and he wants to kick at something.
In the Navy they say no excuse when there is no excuse the solider has for whatever has been done. In the Petrelli household it more so means, you're not getting out of this one, sucker.
No excuse.
***
"That's a really silly thing of you to say," Claire says and makes a face at Zach.
"Yeah, well, at least my snow fortress can keep enmies out!"
They still struggle with some words, and the parents passing by the Bennet frontyard can't help but smile at the two of them.
"You wanna know what I think?" asks Claire, the argument forgotten as soon as a sheltie puppy trots by with his owner and she is temporarily distracted.
"What?"
"We could make the best fotrass ever if we had bettar buckets!"
It's Zach's turn to make a face. "Did someone steal your bucket??" When she doesn't answer, he forgets the question and asks, "where will we get betta buckets?"
"My parent's room of course!" Claire says a bit too excited than she had meant to initially, her arms up in the air before she gets up and brushes as much snow from the sandbox off of her checkered dress, feeling very prim and proper and ladylike. "I'm a lady, see Zach?" she says, proud, her fits firmly planted on her hips as she turns for him in the snow.
"Buckets!" he says, and she remembers, and they run inside, Zach grabbing his plastic toy camera on the way.
"Where are your para-pera-pareh-mom and dad?"
"They said they were napping and not to deterb them, or whatever it is," she says, scratching a particularly itchy patch of skin over her left ear. "I don't think they'll mind, though."
It's a convincing enough argument for Zach, and they run up the stairs, "okay!"
"Look, the door is open!" Claire whispers excitedly, pressing a finger to her lips to show Zach to be Very, Very Quiet as they walk on tiptoes.
"What's that noise, Claire?"
"What noise, Zach?"
"That noise!"
They're closer now, and Zach is right - there is an awful smacking and slurping noise coming from in there. "What if it's a snake, Zach?" she asks, looking back, eyes wide, suddenly scared.
"I don't think it's a snake, Claire, I think-" he lowers his voice even more, which is hard, because they were barely above a hushed whisper before. "I think it's one of those zoomby things! I was watching a doocomentary on them earlier, and we all know doocomomentaries are real! My mum said so!"
"What is a zoomby?" Claire asks very slowly, and Zach takes a deep breath.
"They," they can barely hear each other now, "eat people."
"What if that person was a friend? Would they eat a friend?"
"Yes!"
"Friends don't let friends eat other friends," Claire pouts, crossing her arms resolutely. "I won't let you be eated, no matter what happens, Zach." She closes her eyes then, her lips drawn tight, and she nods, feeling resolute.
They move closer yet, Claire's nose crinkling when the noise gets louder. "Nasty!" she whispers, and Zach nods avidly, right behind her, throwing a glance at his toy camera. "Nasty!" he echoes, and Claire let's the door creak open as they both slip inside.
One moment things are Nasty, and the next, everything freezes.
Claire grabs onto Zach's arm the moment time freezes, and the curtains stir - how dare they stir in this Very Frozen Important moment! - and two sets of very large, very wide, very shocked, very Zoomby-like eyes google back at them.
"Claire," a whisper comes from her left, and she feels her arm stir.
"Claire!" she hears again, another tub on her thick coat sleeve.
"Claire!!" he urges, his face contorted in a pained expression. "Zoombies! Run before they eat us!" he says, and then things break, and the both turn and run down the stairs, stopping at the bottom, rather out-of-breath from all this excitement. "That was close!"
"Blanket zombies, I think!"
Zach nods, looking scared.
"What if they come after us?"
"I think we might have to run again, Zach," Claire says slowly, afraid to break the news to him. Things are Very Grave Indeed.
"You know," starts Zach, and he holds onto her tiny hand very tightly, "I would share my last animal cracker with you."
Things have surpassed Very Grave Indeed, and Claire mouths a silent "oh!" before staring at Zach for a moment.
It takes less than a minute for Zach to be enveloped in a very big hug, and Zach doesn't let go. "I think if we stay together like this, the zoombies won't try to eat us!"
It's not a very good argument, but Claire nods avidly. "You're my bestest friend Zach!"
"In the whole world?"
"In the whole world!"
"…kids?"
***
Nathan feels like his mother.
"Peter."
He wonders if he, too, has wrinkles around his lips like she does when she says their names like that, and then discards the thought. It's not the sort of thing to be thinking about in such a very horrifying situation.
"Can I come in?" he adds, feeling rather like a five-year-old peeking inside his parents room, doing something he shouldn't be doing.
"Sure you can."
It's already awkward. The awkward is like chocolate in the air, the people who don't care about it thinking it quite delicious while the people who do care don't really want it there at all then.
He realizes that that is the worst metaphor he has ever come up with in his whole life, and sits down on Peter's bed.
"I'm not making any sense, am I?"
"Well, that depends on what you're going to say, really."
"Huh?"
"You haven't said anything for it not to make sense, Nathan."
"Right, right." There is a palpable pause in the air as both boys shift uncomfortably on Peter's navy-blue twin bed, the shooting stars all over it seemingly anxious for him to say something.
Out of the corner of his eye, one of them twitches, and he looks up at Peter. "Um, I don't know what brought this on, but, er, did mom talk to you about anything?"
He shakes his head. No excuse.
"Well, um, she wanted me to tell you this because of, um, Freddie - you saw her right?"
Nod, nod.
"Yes, well, there, um. Hm. I… How to put this. There is, er, this Special Hug, of sorts, Pete, and, um, when a man and a woman really love each other…" he trails off, before realizing his mistake. "Oh, er, I mean, um, two people. People. Because, er, two women… or two men… sometimes can do the Special Hug, too. And sometimes three of them. Er."
This is not at all how he was expecting this conversation to go.
Nathan makes an uncomfortable, strangled sort of noise, and takes a deep breath. "Any questions?"
No answer. "I mean, er, I understand that's not enough, I… um… you'll have to help me out a bit here, Pete, I mean, what do you know about sex?"
And now that he's said The Word, New York will surely cease to exist as they know it.
"Nothing," Peter says, licking his lips and looking pathetic.
Nathan runs a shaking head through his hair. "Right then. Well, um. A woman has something called a vagina and a man has a, er, Penis. And, well-look, Pete, it's not all that difficult of a concept, really, it's sort of Insert Tab A Into Slot B, I mean, get naked with someone and it sort of makes sense."
Peter nods wordlessly, and Nathan wonders if his mother really hasn't said anything to him before that. He looks traumatized. Stoic. Placid.
"Yes, well, er, that's that, and, um…other than surprise buttsex you really don't have anything to worry about, ah ha ha."
A suited body flees the room without another glance backwards, looking harried and frightened beyond words.
***
"The only safe way to learn about all that nonsense is by reading the Bible! Oh, tell him Frank!"
"Your mother says the only safe way to learn about all of this nonsense is by reading the Bible."
"Oh, that's not what I meant!" she says, flinging her arms into the air and nearly ending a snow globe's life.
"Mom, I swear I'm not possess-"
"I saw your locker, young man!" The waggling, looming finger of Doom is back, and he is reminded of death and janitors, and janitor-induced death. "Don't think you'll get away with desecrating and defiling God's name like that just because it's not under my roof!"
"Virginia-" his father says, looking tired and worse for wear than ever.
"What?" she snaps, and there is a lot of hushed and muffled talking going, the occasional arm in the air and the occasional flailing and gesturing motions that could successfully put more snow globes in danger, and most of it is done by his mother. There's Ignorance! and perhaps the Devil is worse to those who Do Not Know! and never let him see what he needs to protect himself from! you didn't see, did you? It was nasty beyond what I can even articulate! and unless we interfere immediately and give him some safe, good knowledge, I fear for his soul, Frank! and Gabriel feels his soul shrivel up and die, which is probably better, given that it was cursed and doomed for all eternity already.
"All right, here," she turns and hands him two books; the Bible, which he instantly recognizes, and a worn, old-looking paperback entitled, Fearfully and Wonderfully Made: A Christian Health and Puberty Guide for Preteen Boys and Girls. "Your nighttime reading for today. And tomorrow. And the day after that."
"I'm not a prete-"
She makes another strangled sort of noise, more arms flailing, and turns back to his father. "It's not my place to dwell on The Nasty! Talk to your son!" she says with certain conviction - the earth trembles - before marching out of the room, her arms a great spectacle indeed.
"The Nasty, you say? Hm." His father is silent - he usually is - which is comforting, but then for some reason he feels the need to talk again he fidgets in his seat.
"I don't partake in activity that from pictorial evidence proves a certain degree of nastiness! IT WAS ON MY LOCKER. ALL OVER MY LOCKER."
"Do you feel bad for what you did?"
"I didn't do it!"
"That doesn't matter - do you feel bad for it?"
"Er." Gabriel thinks. "Sure," he says finally, after a couple of moments, looking up at his father expectantly, surprised that he is even talking to him.
"Well then, off with you, I've done my job here."
Gabriel watches his father walk out of the room as well, sighs, puts the books down, frowning particularly at the paperback and feeling rather like a ham sandwich as he does so, before heading out the door, intent on finding Peter Petrelli's home.
***
"Claire-bear, can I talk to you in private?"
It may seem like an innocent question, but when Zach the super-human avenger is there to protect you from Zoombies, it's not at all innocent.
"You will do no such thing! Step back Zoomby!" His arms splayed out on either side of him in a protective stance, Claire grins at him, and he flashes her one back, risking a quick turn to see if she is still all right.
"Zach, I'm afraid you're going to just have to let me talk to Claire. Please?"
"Do not want!" Claire says, and pouts, crossing her arms over her chest.
Noah sighs. "You'll be back to normal by tonight, Claire?" she nods. "Well, I guess I'll settle for that, then. You're only six anyway, it's not like it'll leave that great of an impression on you, and-"
"Vivitation hours are up!" Zach says and winks at her, something about how he had to go to visit his gramma in the hospital the week before in the forefront of her mind.
When her father turns and walks back up the stairs in his bathrobe ("It's his evil-Zoomby cape, I bet!" Zach had said), Claire leaps forward to wrap her arms around him from behind. "That was very brave of you!"
"Thank you!" he beams back.
"You really would share your last animal cracker with me!" Claire says, suddenly astonished.
He bolsters himself up, looking proud. "Not just that!" he says, his fists on his waist, his chin out in defiance, "I would give you the whole thing!"
***
Feeling awkward and recovering from Awkward are two very different things, Peter realizes a bit later, still on the same bed, his left leg still falling asleep, still feeling rather hollow and empty from The Incident before.
The girl went home and most of his family is still here - they'll be here the whole rest of the weekend, he realizes with a groan as he launches himself face-forward onto his mattress - and there is something to be said about the daily beatings continuing until his morale improves.
Maybe that is why Nathan is so tough and so proud and so strong and so far beyond a human sort of Amazing - because the Navy actually did give him daily beatings until his morale improved - and then Peter frowns at the thought and wants to have that conversation again because it could have gone so much, much better and he could have not been a total dolt through it, and he still has a ton of questions and nothing is making sense right now anyway.
"PETER! THERE'S SOMEONE AT THE DOOR HERE FOR YOU!"
No one ever visits him, Peter thinks somberly as he gets up and realizes that he's lost his left leg entirely now and begins to hobble into the hallway and down the stairs until the pinpricks arrive and he gnashes his teeth as he walks. "Who is it?" he asks, gritting his teeth and wondering if amputation will do, because this must be what gangrene feels like.
"He says his name is Gabriel Gray, and he's a friend of yours from school."
Peter works his mouth for a bit, eyes wide, trying to figure out what to say as he stands halfway down the stairs, and the next thing he knows is that a bowl-haired, bespectacled, sweatervest-wearing someone just sort of walks into his house and up the stairs, "sorry to be bursting in like this, I've had an awful day, and you don't even know the half of it." He pauses, just past Peter, turning to him. "You don't mind, do you?"
"Er. Not at all?" Peter blinks owlishly at him, still stunned for a couple of moments, before daring to ask, "how on earth do you know where I live?"
"Petrellis aren't common, and I knew the district and I felt rather like Clark Kent being in a phonebooth like that, anyway. He was right - it really isn't the most comfortable place in the world, but when in a hurry and having to change identities or, well, look up new frien-"
"Yes, yes, that's fine, I was just, er, on the computer."
"Oh, that's okay. I don't mind."
"Er, all right. I guess."
Gabriel nods. Peter shivers. It isn't cold. "Which one's your roo-oh, I see, first door on the right."
This scares Peter more than he wants to admit.
"I had a problem starting it up last time, something with the tangle of cables down there," he says when they're in his room, and things feel more awkward than they did before, which is saying something about Gabriel, certainly.
"I can fix it. I sort of know how things like that go together. How they work. Got it from my dad - he works with watches," he mutters, and Peter awkwardly scratches the back of his head, his elbow all up and pointy and weird, and Gabriel is already on the floor and has crawled under his desk, rummaging about with the cables. "You can go ahead and take a seat, Peter."
Peter looks at the Gabriel-lump on the floor and doesn't think of Heffalumps at all, instead heaving a great sigh and sitting down.
Awkward, he realizes suddenly, looking down just as Gabriel turns around, hits his head on the extendable keyboard under his desk - "OW!" - and looks up at him, his head immediately between Peter's legs.
His gaze moves down, his eyes wide, and then he flails and scrambles, knocking something over - it might have been Peter for all he knew - and then they are both on the floor and Peter's head hurts.
"I'm going to get up now," he says Awkwardly, looking down at Gabriel and feeling some of the Fidgety rubbing off on him, and he fairly flails before getting up and straightening himself out again. "Well, er, thank you for, er, helping! That was very nice!"
Gabriel nods and gets up.
"I'll see you at school?" Peter offers, opening the door for him and sighing. "Oh great god," he says to no one but himself.
All of you that have made icons, oh dear god, we want to name our firstborns after you. THANK YOU. You keep making me all weepy, honestly.
Part Four
December 20th, 1996
One (1) Christmas Party Invitation; retrieved from a Petrelli waste basket the eve of the 22nd.
There are few days that Peter would consider the best in his short life so far.
Three days ago was one such day.
It is the sort of joyous occasion the Petrelli family rallies together for - and, indeed, they have, but not simply because of that occasion alone - and even Peter finds it to be a cause to rally for.
Nathan has come home for Christmas
It is the day before Winter Break - the last three days have been a special sort of hell, not just having to endure being in school while his brother is back home, his mere existence there a pronounced miracle, but having acquired his own personal stalker now, too - and once again his mother has brought together the family at the Petrelli mansion for Christmas and celebrating Nathan.
It's not so bad this time around, the whole house a bustle of people again, his cousin Freddie now sporting a distinctive baby-bump that's led to its fair share of hushed whispers, both good and bad.
Nathan's been there, though, and that makes all the difference. Even if Peter feels a rather distinctive knot in his stomach when he hears the doorbell and his mother calling for Nathan, seeing his brother reemerge from the entrance hall, a leggy blonde on his arm, not even she can ruin the fact that Nathan is back for him.
When a tray of appletinis and bite-sized sandwiches passes by him, though, he makes a face and grabs a sandwich. He chews maybe five times and swallows, the pieces still rough and hard and not at all chewy, and he can feel them all the way down.
***
Gabriel Gray can sense the doom that is about to hit him before he even rounds the corner.
Deep, deep down in the recesses of his conscience, he's known that doom was coming for him the moment he saw that Death was watching him from around the corner, using the payphone to call his mom. It's always that way with the last day of school, what with him missing the bus somewhat deliberately only to call his mom and ask for a ride home, along with some help to bring home the bassoon.
He wonders, then, whether Degrees Of Geekitude are determined by size of the instrument when it comes to Orch Dorks and Band Geeks. Fitting into the latter category, and, indeed, playing the biggest woodwind instrument there is, Gabriel Gray has long learned not to flaunt his bassoon unless entirely necessary, like in Band class. Even if it means letting his mom pick him up.
But now, about to round the corner to the lockers for the transfer students (a ham sandwich in the dark recesses of his backpack is weeping), he knows suddenly for certain that Death has been planning certain doom for him.
There are quite a few students, much like or unlike, Gabriel Gray, who would, in this predicament, be almost overwhelmed with curiosity as to what will await them when they round the corner. Perhaps, just a touch of curiosity. An inkling. A great need to at least peek.
Gabriel Gray is not, and has never been, one of those students.
He stops right before he turns - followed closely by his mother, tsk-ing about the occasional piece of chewed gum on the lockers, or a smudge on the wall - and takes a deep breath.
"What are you stopping for? You could get contaminated here if we stay too long - it’s a miracle you haven't gotten the flu, honestly, you're so prone to colds, and-"
"Mom, shhh. Someone's been here before us," Gabriel warns, bright red now.
"What are you talking about, that's nonsense," she brushes off, and walks right by him.
He comes forward, desperate to pull her back, but he sees what damage has been done, what havoc wreaked, his eyes wide and scared suddenly as he stares at his locker.
A large black-text-on-white-paper sign taped on his locker reads, DROP YOUR PANTS HERE AND YOU WILL RECEIVE PROMPT ATTENTION.
He is pretty sure, at this moment in time, that the fact that his mother hasn't said anything, all the color drained from her face, is far, far worse than if she were tsk-ing or yelling or ranting or anything, in fact.
For the first time in his life, Gabriel Gray would have even preferred vomit.
A strange sensation stirs in his stomach, and he forces it back.
Her voice is cracked, dry, like her lips when she speaks again, far too steady and quiet and slow for his liking. "Gabriel Thomas Gray. I suggest you grab your things. And then we leave. Now."
His fingers are shaking as he fumbles with the lock, and he gets it wrong at least four times before he hears a faint click - 41-16-23 turn one full rotation clockwise…- and then he's in.
He wonders, briefly, whether it's worse being in than it was being out.
The pornographic pictures lining the inside of his locker door are not helping matters, and neither is the Very Horrifying Picture taped inside his top locker.
"Grab. Things. Go."
His mother sounds strangled, and there is a slight tingling sensation in his feet when he realizes that all of the blood has slowly trickled down and drained from his face to pool in his feet. It feels funny.
He is almost thankful when he can feel his limbs begin moving of his own accord.
***
Peter loses sight of Nathan when the leggy blonde arrives, content to munch on bite-sized sort of things and overhear the new family rumors, something about cousin Freddie and "nasty things" and "she's not even engaged yet!" and "oh, how awful and uncouth!" and Peter doesn't really know what they're talking about, but Nathan is gone and he doesn't feel nearly as comfortable as he did before, and when he bumps into Nameless Cousin No. Twenty-three, mumbling something about "…Nathan" and "headphones," he actually gets an answer, an obnoxious sort of shout, "I saw Nathan going up the stairs with that girl!!" he says, a toy squirt-gun in his hands and giggling before running off.
A part of Peter wants to kick at the kid, but now he has something new to busy himself with, and he slinks off to the stairs, and up them, and past all the screaming children, making sure his mom doesn't catch him in the act because he really does not want to be social at the moment, and before he knows it, he is victorious and he's just a few feet away from Nathan's bedroom.
There are noises, distinctive ones, and Peter cranes his neck so he maybe see where they're coming from.
Notnathannotnathannotnathannotnathannotnathan.
He closes his eyes, hard, when he has to stop in front of Nathan's room, and takes a deep breath. The door is sort of open, and he leans forward, afraid to actually take a full step, because that would be stepping over the line for sure, and he remembered all the Christmas nights when Nathan would take him, little as he was, to the door and tell him to peek like this, not quite, but quite enough, and sure enough, he could see things.
Peter's eyes are wide and childlike and wondersome and he almost feels detached from the scene for a moment as he watches. It's sort of clumsy, and Nathan looks sweaty, and like he's fumbling with clothes and - why does that girl have her legs wrapped around Nathan? - and it just doesn't seem like A Very Nice Thing To Be Doing, and Peter sort of tilts his head and watches for a moment more, and Nathan sort of seems to be going "oh!" and Peter wonders whether or not he is in pain or not, but he's naked and no one seems to be trying to help him if he's wounded, especially not that girl, and it just seems like The Sort Of Thing He Should Go Talk To Mom About.
So he does.
***
These are the sort of maddening silent stretches of time that Gabriel Gray wants to fill with words, words, words for fear of death.
On a good day, where the traffic isn't quite maddening, the drive from school in Manhattan takes thirty-seven minutes and thirteen seconds. Gabriel knows this because he has paid close attention to the Sylar watch every single day on his way home from school since he's started at Lee Kirby High School, having had Nothing Better To Do.
Today, this stretch of time seems to take especially long.
He's never thought that he would say this, but the overwhelming sort of noise that goes on in a school bus in the background is almost - almost - comforting in a paranoid sort of sense, and now that there is nothing at all except for the noise of the engine as the golden station wagon sputters along (sput, sput, sput), alongside a fear that has nothing to do with the fact that he is afraid that if his mother doesn't turn the heating on soon they will all freeze to death, and everything to do with the fact that if he doesn't die tonight, then he has a whole Winter Break to look forward to dying, Gabriel Gray fears for his loins.
The worst part is that his mother will probably never believe him that none of that was even his fault, and he feels himself sort of shrivel in his seat.
Like a raisin.
Like a prune.
Like a strange assortment of dried fruit.
His stomach churns uncomfortably at the thought, and he prays for noise.
A heavenly choir (of sorts!) starts coming to life in his head, and he dares to hum along. That is, he thinks, one of the fringe benefits of the backseat.
His mother flails all motherly-like. He should have expected it, really, he thinks, and frowns. "Do you think what you did to your locker was amusing? Is that it? Is that why you're singing despite your obvious perversion and damnation into the realm of depravity? Is that it???" she snaps at him, and he wonders briefly if silence would have been better.
Tuna for Thanksgiving is perversion and depravity. Don't even get me started on the ham, he really wants to say, instead lapsing into an uncomfortable sort of coughing fit and turning very red again. Spontaneous combustion looms nigh! "I, um, er. I sing because I'm in pain?" he attempts, doing his best to look very pained, which really is not all that difficult.
"As you should be!" his mother yells back, and he briefly fears for New York's prolonged existence from the way his mother looks, all orange and red and livid and such. "Anyone who takes the path of evil will surely feel hell's fiery wrath!"
He'd always known the backseat of this car was hell. It was no wonder, really, what with her always sticking him back there, "so what if you're seventeen, children go in the back seat!, it might as well just have been her trying to train him for the inevitable damnation he undoubtedly faces. Now, there is no longer any doubt of such.
He sort of adjusts his glasses nervously, almost obsessively, wondering whether putting them on a certain way could potentially keep him from seeing certain death approaching. Because he does. It's sort of speeding towards him. "I don't! It wasn't mine! I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHERE THEY SELL THAT STUFF!" There's flailing and some sort of desperation on his part now, and his mother whips around in her seat and nearly crashes into another car.
"DON'T YOU DARE RAISE YOUR VOICE ON ME, YOUNG MAN! Does that mean you have looked?? Is that how you don't know??"
Gabriel Gray wonders whether he only received this haircut so that his mother could auction him off to neuters, and sighs somewhat dramatically. "No. No!" There is more flailing, and he wonders if he could possibly be going mad. "I swear, a janitor… Death! Death, who stands above me ominously pointing his mop at me and removes Caution: Wet Floor signs in my wake and, and, and, he has the combination to my locker and I swear the one time he replaced my ham with silly putty and I ate it and my life! It flashes before my eyes whenever I see him!"
He's said all this very fast, and Gabriel realizes that he is becoming somewhat hysterical, but if there is any time that is the worst time for becoming somewhat hysterical, or even very hysterical, it is now.
They're at a red light (death! death! death!) and his mother's eyes are wide and red, or so he thinks, and she gives him the sort of look that says "you, young man, are possessed by unnatural forces, and I will break you to God's will - and my will! - if it means the death of me!" Gabriel quivers in his seat. His mother's eye twitches. Once, twice. "I knew I should have enrolled you in a seminary."
"No one there would have the sort of hair I like!" he says before he can stop himself, sort of frenzied by now.
She sort of stares at him, damnation written clearly across her not-so-kind features, and then the light turns green, and he sort of gestures towards it (it's really more like flailing), eyes wide, and contemplates jumping out the window.
That plan would have worked perfectly well had the janitor not been standing there.
"YOU! STOP YOUR LOOMING!" he sort of faintly shouts, flailing at the closed window before realizing that it has no effect, and turns back to his mother.
"Your father will handle this," she snaps, her tone clipped, and she turns back to stare out the windshield.
The rest of the car ride will be silence, and, resigning himself to that certain Death, Gabriel stares out the window.
One moment later, and he realizes that he truly, in all respects, is Cursed. With a capital C.
There is one good thing about the backseat, he decides rather quietly, opening his backpack and realizing that for the first time in his life, the polaroid he has in there will come in handy.
Four (4) photographs, courtesy of Gabriel Gray, later stowed away in the Cursed Evidence File
***
The house is, of course, perfect. Or, well, almost perfect, but that's hardly a point to nitpick on.
Angela has foreseen it all, and, well, as long as everything appears to be perfect, that's fine and good and people can remain as ignorant as they want to be. There's kids running around, but they're not her kids, and the mess won't be hers to clean up when all of this almost perfect event will be over.
"I saw Nathan disappear upstairs with-"
"Yeah, I know," she says, pursing her lips and taking a cocktail from a passing-by tray.
Her husband heaves a great sigh and shakes his head. "Well, at least it seems to be going well."
"It's going perfectly, dear." Almost. "Really, there's no use trying to reign him in. He is his father's son," she says, more tenderly this time, giving just a ghost of a smile.
"Yes, but that doesn't mean-"
"Mom!"
It's Peter, of course, running with big, dreamy eyes, wide and confused as they were even ten years ago, and Angela smiles down at him and tilts her head as if to ask, "what is it now?"
She doesn't have to, Peter's already talking. "Mom, I saw Nathan in his room, and he's naked, and there's that girl that's been with him today and there was this nasty noise and it looked overall rather nasty, actually, and Nathan made this o-face and looked like he might be in pain?"
It sounds more like a statement than a question to Angela, really, but he sounds like he is genuinely unsure about most - if not all - of what he's just said, so she just nods him off - I'll take care of Nathan, dear - and turns back to her husband.
"What did Peter want?"
She ignores the question. "Nathan really is his father's son."
"What is he doing now?"
"The Nasty," she says, and walks over to the front door when she heard the bell ring, snatching an hors d'oeuvre on her way.
***
"Nathan."
It's all she really has to say - his mother's voice reverberates throughout the room, whether there is no one else inside, or fifty other people. This time it's the latter, but even she pulls him aside, and he says something about "why don't you go and mingle with the family," and "I shouldn't be more than a couple of minutes," and the girl is already off, giggling about something and flashing him a toothy grin. He almost has to suppress the urge to roll his eyes. "What is it ma?"
"There is a time," she starts, and he notices the wrinkles around her lips clearer than ever just for a moment, "in a boys life when he turns to someone he can look up to… to talk about things."
"Like what things, ma?" he's almost afraid to ask. However, almost is a moot point in the Petrelli household.
"Oh, you know, the usual. Like Doing The Nasty. I think seeing Freddie like this might have sparked a few questions in his head, don't you?"
Nathan stands completely still for a moment. His mother looks so very calm that it is maddening, and he isn't sure what brought this up, he just knows that Freddie did not. "Ma, you know I'm careful and-"
"I know that Nathan. And that's exactly why you should talk to him about this."
She's gone without another word, and something about that look on his mother's face said Meredith, and he frowns. He can practically hear her voice chiming after him, "oh yes, so very careful… that worked out so well with that girl in Texas, too, didn't it?" and he wants to kick at something.
In the Navy they say no excuse when there is no excuse the solider has for whatever has been done. In the Petrelli household it more so means, you're not getting out of this one, sucker.
No excuse.
***
"That's a really silly thing of you to say," Claire says and makes a face at Zach.
"Yeah, well, at least my snow fortress can keep enmies out!"
They still struggle with some words, and the parents passing by the Bennet frontyard can't help but smile at the two of them.
"You wanna know what I think?" asks Claire, the argument forgotten as soon as a sheltie puppy trots by with his owner and she is temporarily distracted.
"What?"
"We could make the best fotrass ever if we had bettar buckets!"
It's Zach's turn to make a face. "Did someone steal your bucket??" When she doesn't answer, he forgets the question and asks, "where will we get betta buckets?"
"My parent's room of course!" Claire says a bit too excited than she had meant to initially, her arms up in the air before she gets up and brushes as much snow from the sandbox off of her checkered dress, feeling very prim and proper and ladylike. "I'm a lady, see Zach?" she says, proud, her fits firmly planted on her hips as she turns for him in the snow.
"Buckets!" he says, and she remembers, and they run inside, Zach grabbing his plastic toy camera on the way.
"Where are your para-pera-pareh-mom and dad?"
"They said they were napping and not to deterb them, or whatever it is," she says, scratching a particularly itchy patch of skin over her left ear. "I don't think they'll mind, though."
It's a convincing enough argument for Zach, and they run up the stairs, "okay!"
"Look, the door is open!" Claire whispers excitedly, pressing a finger to her lips to show Zach to be Very, Very Quiet as they walk on tiptoes.
"What's that noise, Claire?"
"What noise, Zach?"
"That noise!"
They're closer now, and Zach is right - there is an awful smacking and slurping noise coming from in there. "What if it's a snake, Zach?" she asks, looking back, eyes wide, suddenly scared.
"I don't think it's a snake, Claire, I think-" he lowers his voice even more, which is hard, because they were barely above a hushed whisper before. "I think it's one of those zoomby things! I was watching a doocomentary on them earlier, and we all know doocomomentaries are real! My mum said so!"
"What is a zoomby?" Claire asks very slowly, and Zach takes a deep breath.
"They," they can barely hear each other now, "eat people."
"What if that person was a friend? Would they eat a friend?"
"Yes!"
"Friends don't let friends eat other friends," Claire pouts, crossing her arms resolutely. "I won't let you be eated, no matter what happens, Zach." She closes her eyes then, her lips drawn tight, and she nods, feeling resolute.
They move closer yet, Claire's nose crinkling when the noise gets louder. "Nasty!" she whispers, and Zach nods avidly, right behind her, throwing a glance at his toy camera. "Nasty!" he echoes, and Claire let's the door creak open as they both slip inside.
One moment things are Nasty, and the next, everything freezes.
Claire grabs onto Zach's arm the moment time freezes, and the curtains stir - how dare they stir in this Very Frozen Important moment! - and two sets of very large, very wide, very shocked, very Zoomby-like eyes google back at them.
"Claire," a whisper comes from her left, and she feels her arm stir.
"Claire!" she hears again, another tub on her thick coat sleeve.
"Claire!!" he urges, his face contorted in a pained expression. "Zoombies! Run before they eat us!" he says, and then things break, and the both turn and run down the stairs, stopping at the bottom, rather out-of-breath from all this excitement. "That was close!"
"Blanket zombies, I think!"
Zach nods, looking scared.
"What if they come after us?"
"I think we might have to run again, Zach," Claire says slowly, afraid to break the news to him. Things are Very Grave Indeed.
"You know," starts Zach, and he holds onto her tiny hand very tightly, "I would share my last animal cracker with you."
Things have surpassed Very Grave Indeed, and Claire mouths a silent "oh!" before staring at Zach for a moment.
It takes less than a minute for Zach to be enveloped in a very big hug, and Zach doesn't let go. "I think if we stay together like this, the zoombies won't try to eat us!"
It's not a very good argument, but Claire nods avidly. "You're my bestest friend Zach!"
"In the whole world?"
"In the whole world!"
"…kids?"
***
Nathan feels like his mother.
"Peter."
He wonders if he, too, has wrinkles around his lips like she does when she says their names like that, and then discards the thought. It's not the sort of thing to be thinking about in such a very horrifying situation.
"Can I come in?" he adds, feeling rather like a five-year-old peeking inside his parents room, doing something he shouldn't be doing.
"Sure you can."
It's already awkward. The awkward is like chocolate in the air, the people who don't care about it thinking it quite delicious while the people who do care don't really want it there at all then.
He realizes that that is the worst metaphor he has ever come up with in his whole life, and sits down on Peter's bed.
"I'm not making any sense, am I?"
"Well, that depends on what you're going to say, really."
"Huh?"
"You haven't said anything for it not to make sense, Nathan."
"Right, right." There is a palpable pause in the air as both boys shift uncomfortably on Peter's navy-blue twin bed, the shooting stars all over it seemingly anxious for him to say something.
Out of the corner of his eye, one of them twitches, and he looks up at Peter. "Um, I don't know what brought this on, but, er, did mom talk to you about anything?"
He shakes his head. No excuse.
"Well, um, she wanted me to tell you this because of, um, Freddie - you saw her right?"
Nod, nod.
"Yes, well, there, um. Hm. I… How to put this. There is, er, this Special Hug, of sorts, Pete, and, um, when a man and a woman really love each other…" he trails off, before realizing his mistake. "Oh, er, I mean, um, two people. People. Because, er, two women… or two men… sometimes can do the Special Hug, too. And sometimes three of them. Er."
This is not at all how he was expecting this conversation to go.
Nathan makes an uncomfortable, strangled sort of noise, and takes a deep breath. "Any questions?"
No answer. "I mean, er, I understand that's not enough, I… um… you'll have to help me out a bit here, Pete, I mean, what do you know about sex?"
And now that he's said The Word, New York will surely cease to exist as they know it.
"Nothing," Peter says, licking his lips and looking pathetic.
Nathan runs a shaking head through his hair. "Right then. Well, um. A woman has something called a vagina and a man has a, er, Penis. And, well-look, Pete, it's not all that difficult of a concept, really, it's sort of Insert Tab A Into Slot B, I mean, get naked with someone and it sort of makes sense."
Peter nods wordlessly, and Nathan wonders if his mother really hasn't said anything to him before that. He looks traumatized. Stoic. Placid.
"Yes, well, er, that's that, and, um…other than surprise buttsex you really don't have anything to worry about, ah ha ha."
A suited body flees the room without another glance backwards, looking harried and frightened beyond words.
***
"The only safe way to learn about all that nonsense is by reading the Bible! Oh, tell him Frank!"
"Your mother says the only safe way to learn about all of this nonsense is by reading the Bible."
"Oh, that's not what I meant!" she says, flinging her arms into the air and nearly ending a snow globe's life.
"Mom, I swear I'm not possess-"
"I saw your locker, young man!" The waggling, looming finger of Doom is back, and he is reminded of death and janitors, and janitor-induced death. "Don't think you'll get away with desecrating and defiling God's name like that just because it's not under my roof!"
"Virginia-" his father says, looking tired and worse for wear than ever.
"What?" she snaps, and there is a lot of hushed and muffled talking going, the occasional arm in the air and the occasional flailing and gesturing motions that could successfully put more snow globes in danger, and most of it is done by his mother. There's Ignorance! and perhaps the Devil is worse to those who Do Not Know! and never let him see what he needs to protect himself from! you didn't see, did you? It was nasty beyond what I can even articulate! and unless we interfere immediately and give him some safe, good knowledge, I fear for his soul, Frank! and Gabriel feels his soul shrivel up and die, which is probably better, given that it was cursed and doomed for all eternity already.
"All right, here," she turns and hands him two books; the Bible, which he instantly recognizes, and a worn, old-looking paperback entitled, Fearfully and Wonderfully Made: A Christian Health and Puberty Guide for Preteen Boys and Girls. "Your nighttime reading for today. And tomorrow. And the day after that."
"I'm not a prete-"
She makes another strangled sort of noise, more arms flailing, and turns back to his father. "It's not my place to dwell on The Nasty! Talk to your son!" she says with certain conviction - the earth trembles - before marching out of the room, her arms a great spectacle indeed.
"The Nasty, you say? Hm." His father is silent - he usually is - which is comforting, but then for some reason he feels the need to talk again he fidgets in his seat.
"I don't partake in activity that from pictorial evidence proves a certain degree of nastiness! IT WAS ON MY LOCKER. ALL OVER MY LOCKER."
"Do you feel bad for what you did?"
"I didn't do it!"
"That doesn't matter - do you feel bad for it?"
"Er." Gabriel thinks. "Sure," he says finally, after a couple of moments, looking up at his father expectantly, surprised that he is even talking to him.
"Well then, off with you, I've done my job here."
Gabriel watches his father walk out of the room as well, sighs, puts the books down, frowning particularly at the paperback and feeling rather like a ham sandwich as he does so, before heading out the door, intent on finding Peter Petrelli's home.
***
"Claire-bear, can I talk to you in private?"
It may seem like an innocent question, but when Zach the super-human avenger is there to protect you from Zoombies, it's not at all innocent.
"You will do no such thing! Step back Zoomby!" His arms splayed out on either side of him in a protective stance, Claire grins at him, and he flashes her one back, risking a quick turn to see if she is still all right.
"Zach, I'm afraid you're going to just have to let me talk to Claire. Please?"
"Do not want!" Claire says, and pouts, crossing her arms over her chest.
Noah sighs. "You'll be back to normal by tonight, Claire?" she nods. "Well, I guess I'll settle for that, then. You're only six anyway, it's not like it'll leave that great of an impression on you, and-"
"Vivitation hours are up!" Zach says and winks at her, something about how he had to go to visit his gramma in the hospital the week before in the forefront of her mind.
When her father turns and walks back up the stairs in his bathrobe ("It's his evil-Zoomby cape, I bet!" Zach had said), Claire leaps forward to wrap her arms around him from behind. "That was very brave of you!"
"Thank you!" he beams back.
"You really would share your last animal cracker with me!" Claire says, suddenly astonished.
He bolsters himself up, looking proud. "Not just that!" he says, his fists on his waist, his chin out in defiance, "I would give you the whole thing!"
***
Feeling awkward and recovering from Awkward are two very different things, Peter realizes a bit later, still on the same bed, his left leg still falling asleep, still feeling rather hollow and empty from The Incident before.
The girl went home and most of his family is still here - they'll be here the whole rest of the weekend, he realizes with a groan as he launches himself face-forward onto his mattress - and there is something to be said about the daily beatings continuing until his morale improves.
Maybe that is why Nathan is so tough and so proud and so strong and so far beyond a human sort of Amazing - because the Navy actually did give him daily beatings until his morale improved - and then Peter frowns at the thought and wants to have that conversation again because it could have gone so much, much better and he could have not been a total dolt through it, and he still has a ton of questions and nothing is making sense right now anyway.
"PETER! THERE'S SOMEONE AT THE DOOR HERE FOR YOU!"
No one ever visits him, Peter thinks somberly as he gets up and realizes that he's lost his left leg entirely now and begins to hobble into the hallway and down the stairs until the pinpricks arrive and he gnashes his teeth as he walks. "Who is it?" he asks, gritting his teeth and wondering if amputation will do, because this must be what gangrene feels like.
"He says his name is Gabriel Gray, and he's a friend of yours from school."
Peter works his mouth for a bit, eyes wide, trying to figure out what to say as he stands halfway down the stairs, and the next thing he knows is that a bowl-haired, bespectacled, sweatervest-wearing someone just sort of walks into his house and up the stairs, "sorry to be bursting in like this, I've had an awful day, and you don't even know the half of it." He pauses, just past Peter, turning to him. "You don't mind, do you?"
"Er. Not at all?" Peter blinks owlishly at him, still stunned for a couple of moments, before daring to ask, "how on earth do you know where I live?"
"Petrellis aren't common, and I knew the district and I felt rather like Clark Kent being in a phonebooth like that, anyway. He was right - it really isn't the most comfortable place in the world, but when in a hurry and having to change identities or, well, look up new frien-"
"Yes, yes, that's fine, I was just, er, on the computer."
"Oh, that's okay. I don't mind."
"Er, all right. I guess."
Gabriel nods. Peter shivers. It isn't cold. "Which one's your roo-oh, I see, first door on the right."
This scares Peter more than he wants to admit.
"I had a problem starting it up last time, something with the tangle of cables down there," he says when they're in his room, and things feel more awkward than they did before, which is saying something about Gabriel, certainly.
"I can fix it. I sort of know how things like that go together. How they work. Got it from my dad - he works with watches," he mutters, and Peter awkwardly scratches the back of his head, his elbow all up and pointy and weird, and Gabriel is already on the floor and has crawled under his desk, rummaging about with the cables. "You can go ahead and take a seat, Peter."
Peter looks at the Gabriel-lump on the floor and doesn't think of Heffalumps at all, instead heaving a great sigh and sitting down.
Awkward, he realizes suddenly, looking down just as Gabriel turns around, hits his head on the extendable keyboard under his desk - "OW!" - and looks up at him, his head immediately between Peter's legs.
His gaze moves down, his eyes wide, and then he flails and scrambles, knocking something over - it might have been Peter for all he knew - and then they are both on the floor and Peter's head hurts.
"I'm going to get up now," he says Awkwardly, looking down at Gabriel and feeling some of the Fidgety rubbing off on him, and he fairly flails before getting up and straightening himself out again. "Well, er, thank you for, er, helping! That was very nice!"
Gabriel nods and gets up.
"I'll see you at school?" Peter offers, opening the door for him and sighing. "Oh great god," he says to no one but himself.