Rating: Probably an R.
Pairing: Claude/Peter, implied Adam/Peter, Nathan/Peter and Sylar/Peter.
Summary: Follow-up of sorts to The Thrall of a Madman. Very different from 'Thrall of a Madman' I think, so people might be disappointed.
Warnings: Dark themes, implied dub/non-con, insanity. More frigging Claude angst. Sorry Claude.



It should have been the most gratifying experience imaginable to have Peter Petrelli in his arms and his bed after months of pursuing the puppy. In many ways it was. Claude had been with many men and women over the years but none so beautiful as Peter.

The boy was without guile, his emotions on display to anyone and everyone. At first Claude had called it a bad thing, back when they fought on rooftops and occupied their time with picking each other’s personalities apart. After a time though, he began to consider Peter’s openness a good thing. Feeling so strongly about the world that he couldn’t hide it was what made him Peter.

But now it was a bad thing again. Nathan Petrelli’s name would crop up on the news and Peter’s gaze would drop to the floor, as if the pain in his brown eyes was weighing his head down. On those nights Claude would take him to bed and Peter would be so soft, so close and so eager to give everything. It was the Empath at his most intimate and it hurt to know that the one he was reaching out to connect with wasn’t Claude, not really. Claude was just the man who was there at the time, being firm, allowing the intimacy, trying to imagine how Nathan Petrelli would have his little brother.

Because Claude had agreed to this. Not verbally, not officially, but just by being there. By taking Peter away from a pool of blood - Petrelli blood - and holding him back. By taking hold of everything Peter had left and treating it with reverence. These weren’t fragments of sanity in his hands, they were Peter. Peter who still felt too much for all the wrong people.

Mentions of doom, a sufficient supply of alcohol, or even a stealthy swipe of goods from someone who wouldn’t miss them, brought something else out in Peter. His eyes wouldn’t drop heavy with tears then. They would light up with something dazzling, something pure and wrong that should never have been put there. Adam Monroe had never had much respect for innocence. On nights when Peter got that gleam in his eye, Claude was pushed to his limit trying to give Peter what was asked for as the Empath rode him like they were invincible. Bit him and scratched him and begged him. Because Adam’s soft words and gentle touches had worn thin quickly and exposed Peter to the raw, bleeding edge inside the man. A creature like Peter hadn’t stood a chance and it broke Claude’s heart sometimes to know that he watched instead of intervening.

He had done what he thought was best. That’s what he tells himself when Peter is sprawled across the mattress like a broken plaything, the blood stains less disturbing than the delusions of grandeur he won’t stop parroting back. Sometimes on those nights Claude puts a hand over Peter’s lips, which are really too pretty to be spouting off Adam’s mad gospel.

There were other mood swings, ones Claude didn’t really understand. A string of gruesome murders reported on the news sent Peter into a frenzy of submission, but it barely felt consensual. He didn’t enjoy it like he did when pretending to be Adam’s broken toy or Nathan’s favourite slave. On those nights Claude would leave Peter trembling in his sleep and go back to watch the news coverage of these mysterious murders. Whoever the ‘brain thief’ was, he had hurt Peter much more literally and directly than the boy’s other masters.

It was tiring work, but he had told himself not to complain this time. He had left Peter unguarded back then. The job was only as difficult as he had let it become. Claude found himself brooding almost as much as he did in the invisible years, but deeper this time because he finally gave a damn about something and it hurt like hell.

Then Peter would shyly offer him a coffee or a beer. There would be no apology and Claude wouldn’t want one if there was. The pup would be all squeaky clean from his shower and he would sit with Claude on the sofa and they would watch tv. Sometimes Peter would snuggle under his arm. Claude would insult something, Peter would defend it whether he liked it or not, and life would assume a veneer of cosy domesticity that Claude always eyed with suspicion.

They didn’t train anymore. What would be the point? Peter relinquished control as easily as he took off his trousers. Too late now for the lad to be fixed. So many Empaths went this way that Claude recognised the point of no return. Lucky for them that Peter seemed to be the first of the lot to experience violent mood swings without losing control of all his powers in a spectacular rainbow of insane brutality. The person Peter hurt the most with his madness was himself, and Claude worked very hard to try and act as a buffer between the boy that Peter was and the wreck he had become. The trick now was to keep him away from…well, anyone really. If Peter had noticed their lack of social activity for the past few months he hadn’t said anything. Maybe he just expected solitude with Claude, knowing the older man’s tendency towards the hermit lifestyle.

Or maybe Claude did such a good job switching from role to role that Peter hadn’t realised he was sleeping with one man. It certainly seemed that way some nights, when the puppy closed his eyes so tightly that Claude wanted to say, “Who am I?” just to see whose name he’d hear.

“Claude?”

He almost jumped, so lost in thought that Peter’s body sitting beside him failed to register.

He looked down into soft brown eyes. “Yeah?”

“It’s getting late. You coming to bed?”

Claude smiled, all the warmer when he saw Peter’s lips curve up to match. Empaths, happy to make people happy. “Yeah, ‘bout time we got to sleep.” He raised his eyebrows on the last word, making Peter snicker slightly.

“Mm-hm, sleep. That’s what we’re doing,” Peter replied with the falsest innocence he could manage.

Claude flicked off the telly and let Peter pull him up from the sofa before following the young man into the bedroom. Tonight there would be no pretending. There would be no blood. No brooding once Peter had exhausted his demons. Tonight was one of those nights when they were themselves again.

Claude knew he wasn’t the perfect partner for Peter Petrelli. But as he treated the Empath to such simple pleasures, watched the lad writhe in such genuine enjoyment, he couldn’t help but feel he was the best of a bad bunch in many, many ways.

And since that was all it took to make Peter cry out, “Oh god Claude, I love you”, he figured it was something to be proud of.



x-posted to heroes_slash, peter_otp, and peterandclaude.