Perpetuum Mobile
It's about not arriving, it's about the journey.
Rating: PG 13
A/N: Peter/Claire post S1, Peter takes Claire away for safekeeping.
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Time gets distorted in this small space of car. She rolls down the window and tries to count the days since they left New York for this perpetuum mobile.
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Chapter 1: Timeless
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Their latest and worst quarrel ends in an enduring silence, interrupted by curt replies to inevitable remarks. He's mad and she's hurt. Neither feels guilty enough.
He pulls over at the next gas station. Not so much for fuel as to breathe. He needs to get away from this, her. She gets some cash and buys junk food. She'll spend the next few hours chewing the gum as loudly as she can, blowing red raspberry scented bubbles. He pops one without lifting his hands from the wheel. She glares, picking the gooey red stuff out of her hair.
- - -
She disappears for the night. He could use his powers to bring her back, but there is no point in it. She'll come back when she's better.
He's still angry as he flips the channels, angry with himself. Maybe, this is a bad idea after all.
- - -
At midnight.
She climbs on the rumpled motel linen, filling the void to his left. It is unclear whether he has slept at all, but he looks at her now. Wordlessly, she wraps her arms around his waist, her hot humid breath against his T-shirted shoulder.
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
She whimpers a few hot puffs, burning into his shoulder, sounding exactly her age – something she works so hard not to be, something he knows she is.
There is something to this admission that makes his heart sink into a hollow deeper than his insides. He pities her, but then again, that is the point. Maybe, she is looking to fill the same formula, after Noah and the traces of her old family have disappeared, since Nathan is nowhere near to fitting to that role.
He could never be her father. He hates being her uncle. He could cope being her older brother, her closest friend, her confidant, her protector. But this, this is too vague. Unlike his nephews, she is a full-grown woman, nestling against him as if she'd just burnt down her home all over again.
"You need to sleep," he mutters, sliding a warm hand over her back, a gesture of comfort and peace. She sighs, the whiff of air grazing his neck and hair. He holds back an involuntary shiver. It makes him think of the last time he lay like this and he concludes it was with Simone – and not like this at all.
Claire breathes softly, rhythmically.
"You're right."
And she flips around, presses her back, soft and snug, against him, curling her knees close to her chest, and adjusts the covers to meet her waistline.
He watches dumbfounded, as she nuzzles by his side without any hesitation or permission, holding his hand still close to her. He is trapped and slightly amused. Her blond curls tickling his nose, he inhales, considering.
This is definitely far from appropriate – spooning together with your niece in a cheap motel bed – does not really leave much for further interpretation. But there's no one here to find them and no one to care. And he doesn't want to fight any more.
- - -
In his dreams, she's still wearing the red and white uniform. A piece of her fading past. They never talk about the future. And they avoid the past.
- - -
He sleeps remarkably well. When he wakes, there's Claire grinning at him, sprawled on her stomach, facing him with her too visible cleavage the first thing he sees.
"G' morning, Sleepy."
He smiles goofily to hide his discomfort at this mock-intimacy and is relieved to see her giddy and joking.
"You slept well." It's a statement and he assumes she's been watching him.
"Yeah, and you?"
"You snored a bit." She's teasing, but he ends it quickly.
"Well, your bed is right over there."
She looks hurt and it's yesterday all over again. He bites his tongue.
- - -
Time gets distorted in this small space of car. She rolls down the window and tries counting days since they left New York for this perpetuum mobile. She yawns lazily and looks at Peter. His elbow is resting on the window and his T-shirt is brilliantly white in the sun.
She skims his hair and settles on eight weeks.
- - -
"Are you sure you know what you're doing?"
Chops of dark hair spill on the towel, dark as her father's. Her real father's.
"Relax."
Her tongue appears in the corner of her mouth as she drives the scissors along the nape of his neck.
"Keep still."
It proves hard. The scrape of cold metal in contrast to her warm fingers, she's raking them through his hair possessively, assessing her work, and it seems she is rather pleased so far or simply amused with the outcome.
"You need to start trusting me."
- - -
It's noon. It's 96 F and the air conditioner is on full blast. He's discarded his sweat stained shirt and lies on his bed, apparently half-dead.
Claire endures it better. The room is still stuffy, but outside, it is even worse.
Peter is sound asleep. She bends over him, studies his face. She knows she's creeping him out when she does that, but then she flashes one of her girly smiles and he discards the uneasiness as his own issue.
This time he doesn't wake up. Suddenly, a thought crosses her mind and she blushes. But he keeps on sleeping. She draws closer, lips against his, her heart pounding that he might wake up. She wants to know. That's all.
With a jolt of terror she discovers that his eyes are open. That he, fully aware all the time, was just pretending to be asleep.
I'm just curious.
And he lets her, for this one time's sake.
- - -
The night has cooled the intolerable blaze and she sighs into the wind as it tousles, rustles in her hair and she sticks her head into the warm summer dusk. Her voice is lighter, too light, he notices.
Something has become brittle, as if a few layers have rubbed off, worn thin.
He doesn't mention the strange burn in his bowels and she disregards her shaky hands. They always heal, eventually.