A/N: I just want to say it gets quite graphic in this chapter, so please be aware of the warning! I'll speak to you on the other side – enjoy!
No Matter What
Pain clawed at Peter's back and shoulders, disrupting his concentration. He half zoned back into reality from the inner workings of his mind, just enough to clamber to his feet to descend again upon his target.
He didn't care about what had happened to interrupt him, he only cared about where he was heading. Dull pain faded and he zeroed into the light at the end of the tunnel, irritated by everything that popped up in his way to distract him: such as the voice that started shouting into his hair and the hands that suddenly wouldn't stop grabbing at him.
"Peter! Peter, stop it!"
Getting angry again, the empath struggled against the resolute figure that was holding him back. He could see the prize in his mind's eye already, had it marked on his vision as a pinprick of light against fuzzy shapes all around him... Information. The truth. Understanding. Knowledge. And knowledge was power.
"I need to – I have to – let me just-!"
"No, you need to trust me! Stop! Trust me!" Peter scuffled again with his captor, his powers roaring like angry lions watching their cub be harassed, but he couldn't draw on them without losing his concentration. Reluctantly, he let go the fading tendril of focus to grab for an ability, finding himself held back by a unrelenting arms around his waist. "Listen to me, Peter, you don't want to do this! You have to fight it! You can!"
Suddenly the arms were gone, a figure stepped into his vision and two scalding hands appeared on Peter's shoulders, holding him in place. He scowled, blinking rapidly into the figure's eyes. Sylar's eyes. Dark and rich and round and framed with long, thick lashes. Suddenly he knew exactly how many eyelashes there were, and even how many particles had conspired to create the amber hues in those irises.
"Trust me... trust me..."
The taller man kept saying it, until it stopped being annoying and Peter realised sincerely that yes, he did trust him. And that Sylar was right. And that Peter actually didn't want to do what he'd been doing. Not really.
( )
Sylar knew the other man couldn't help himself, even before he'd gotten a good look at his face. He knew the sensation far too intimately. Still, his heart only resumed its beating when he caught the first spark of awareness flash in the distance of the empath's blown pupils.
"It's okay!" Sylar said breathlessly. He squeezed Peter's shoulders in what he hoped was an encouraging manner and not as desperate as he felt. "It's fading. It's fading." He was unable to tear his attention from the horror on that face, even to apologise on his behalf as a newly freed Hesam scampered away into the depths of the hospital. It might have been kinder to let this easily bruised man flounder in a haze forever rather than rouse him to face his actions, but Sylar couldn't do that to him. He couldn't just leave him in there to disappear – he couldn't lose him like this.
Peter gasped as Sylar pulled him to the surface out of the tranquility of his power, splashing and shivering into awareness. Only then did the watchmaker let go of him, but kept his hands hovering nearby just in case.
Sylar's chest compressed when the truth of the matter found its home within Peter. His face paled of colour instantly and he swept both hands into his hair, making fists in it. "Where's Hesam?!" He span wildly on the spot, frantically searching the empty ambulance bay.
"You didn't hurt him." Sylar quickly supplied. Thankfully it was true – he'd managed to intervene before any blood was spilled. However, he neglected to mention that the other paramedic was likely in dire need of a clean change of pants. And that he might not be the only one.
"N-no, but I... oh god..." Peter gasped in tiny hitches of air as if he couldn't catch a breath. He let go of his hair and dropped both hands to cover his face, peering shining eyes over his fingers at Sylar. Neither man drew the courage to say aloud what they were both thinking.
( )
How could Peter have been so stupid? So unimaginably selfish and blind in wanting only to further his own desires without even considering the fallout of his actions?! Not once – not once – in all the times he had dreamed of restoring his powers had he considered reawakening the Hunger. He'd only held this power for hours, before. Not long enough that it had a chance to sink in and feel part of him. He'd even actually forgotten about it, although he couldn't comprehend how that was possible of a device that caused him so much anguish once upon a time.
Later, he would crucify himself over this. But for now, when his balance was wavering and control was slipping in and out of his grasp, for once in his life Peter Petrelli was too distracted to punish himself.
( )
"What do we do now?" Peter's hands fell into fists by his side and he gazed up at Sylar as if he should magically have all the answers. Perhaps he should, usually priding himself in being the brains of this partnership, but at the moment Sylar felt about as useful as a sledgehammer that couldn't even make a dent in a brick wall.
He knew what Peter was going through right now. He knew the temptation. He knew the sensation of craving more. He knew perfectly well – far too well – how dangerous a possessed specimen could be when nothing else mattered but the goal at the end of the blood-soaked road.
"We go home." He reached for the other man with the intention of carrying him away if he wasn't going anywhere on his own two feet. But his hand only reached right through Peter and closed on thin air.
Both men stared, perplexed, at the phenonemon. Then feeling drained from Sylar's body while it visibly channelled into Peter's. ...Fuck... It had to have been the shock of the Hunger that had set him off, for suddenly the empath's too many superhuman abilities infused the air like an aura, rolling over him in turn to bask in the limelight after so many years in the dark...
"No!" Peter yelped in realisation, but it was too late. "No, no, no, no!"
"Peter!" Sylar gasped, but the empath just stared at him like a rabbit caught in the headlights, standing there on feeble legs gasping for air. He was bewitched, transfixed, shuddering and shaking and splintering out of control so brightly that he was almost painful to look at. "You have to stop it!"
"I'm trying!"The hair on Sylar's neck and arms rose as the other man's mouth fell open and his eyes clouded over white. "Oh..." He exhaled the faintest breath that somehow rebounded around the ambulance bay. Then he was shimmering in and out of sight; fresh veins of electricity drew patterns down the length of his body while a dancing, fiery cocoon of blue fire consumed him; a fiersome display to which he remained impervous, untouched and unburned at the centre of it all.
Despite the very real danger of it, the display was grotesquely mesmerizing. It was all Sylar could do to watch, to be here, to be useless while his friend endured the excruciating process over and over again.
"Sylar, I...! Oh my god..." Peter reached out and, speechless, Sylar tried again to grab for him, but all he gained were burns on his skin and deeper cracks in his foundations.
Holy shit. Fuck. He had never seen anything like this, not ever, not even after encountering hundreds of abilities in his lifetime! He had to do something! But what could he do when he couldn't even touch the guy or hope to contian his power...? Sylar couldn't remember ever feeling so humbled by abilities until now: the first time he killed a man? That was nothing. The East River? Miniscule. But this...? This he couldn't understand, and to a man who could usually understand everything, that was one of the most unnerving sensations imaginable.
His throat closed and his eyes itched. Please no! He broke him! He broke Peter! He must have touched a faulty wire or cut the wrong thread somewhere inside that head, and even though he was sure he'd done it right he obviously hadn't because this wasn't supposed to happen!
Just barely managing to keep it together, the watchmaker managed to channel his thoughts enough to consciously be aware that they couldn't stay here. They had to keep going, even if Sylar had no plan and no idea how the hell he was supposed to pull it off, he had to do something.
If only Peter could teleport them out it would be so much easier! That was what today had been all about, right? Why they had broken so many principles and rules in the first place...? What a joke. Because of course it couldn't actually work out for them, and they had been foolish to believe it could even once...
"Can you walk?" Sylar called over the rusty voices of the flames. He watched, with a touch of hope, as Peter groaned in exertion, the flames around him subsided to a simmer and the mist in his eyes dissipated enough for rich hazel to shine through. Thank god. At least it was something.
Peter didn't do anything other than just gaze at Sylar in desperation, but the reformed man took it as confirmation anyway. He guided his companion to the exit as best he could without touch, struggling past the suffocating fingers of fear in his windpipe to focus on the most important issue for now, right now. Getting this unprecedented superhuman as far from temptation as possible, getting him somewhere safe.
Then, and only then, they could freak out.
( )( )( )
People. All around. They writhed at every angle and pressed in on all sides.
Sylar had forgotten what was currently underway on the streets of New York City. Protesters encircled every inch of Mercy Heights Hospital like a living, thriving moat around a castle; a stagnant crowd of offenders and offendees; an evo's best friend and worst nightmare in one. The mob bustled beneath a heavy, overcast sky, one that cast rich blues and purples over the world as if just to match Sylar's mood. The air was clammy, hot although damp, and Sylar couldn't be sure if that was due to the weather, the continued proximity with the energy that was still roiling inside Peter, or being packed in by a thousand of the civilians the pair had sacrificed so much to protect.
A thousand lives. A thousand witnesses. A thousand different ways to cue game over.
Sylar knew they couldn't fly away if he couldn't carry Peter, and they couldn't cross the crowd with Peter in this state and not draw attention. But there was no other way out and nothing else for it except to try and blend in, for as long as they possibly could.
Keeping his head down, trying to zone everything else out, Sylar pushed his way through the swaying entity of the crowd, shepherding Peter along like a bodyguard and his fragile charge. Said charge followed Sylar's direction without complaint, tripping along ahead in a panicked stupor. The only signs he was alert at all were winces that accompanied more rogue cracklesof electricity and flame, ones that singed the jacket sleeves of pedestrians who brushed past too closely.
Slowly but surely, a disquieted murmuring rippled through the nearby civilians as they became aware of the intruders in their midst. First doubt, then confusion, then recognition infested the chorus of protests like blood in the water, a savage gash right through the centre of the crowd that couldn't have been more subtle than a spotlight.
The first few screams quickly bloomed into a deafening cluster of panic as the crowd began to flee from two of the country's most wanted vigilantes. The passionate mob descended into hysteria, a stampeding tornado that kept Peter and Sylar at its pinnacle. But it felt far too surreal to believe they were responsible for such uproar. It was like a movie, or a dream, like watching it all unfold through glass that was so thick that sounds became muted.
Sylar just picked up the pace and practically shoved Peter onward whenever his telekinesis could find a solid anchor. It might have been better to lead the way and try to shield the flickering empath more from view, but Sylar would rather keep an eye on him than accidentally lose such a powerful, loaded gun in the midst of all these people.
Not far now. Just keep going. They were almost out... almost free...
( )
Peter gasped as he squeezed past stranger after stranger after stranger, the friction against his hyper-sensitive skin scalding like a burn that sent more electrical sparks flaring inward. He had about two dozen senses on the go and all of them had gone crazy simultaneously. It was too much force, too much stimulation grating on raw nerve endings and he didn't even know where to begin to regain his footing.
Shit, it ached, but he couldn't close the internal floodgates now that they had burst open all at once without his consent. Like trying to hold in a sneeze, unbridled power swarmed over Peter again and again until he was literally shaking beneath the pressure of trying to contain it.
It had to be noticeable. It definitely was. People were already backing away from him as much as the tightly compacted crowd would allow, and he couldn't even blame them! He wanted them to run. To save themselves. He wanted to shout to the heavens that he wasn't going to hurt anyone, although he couldn't even be sure of that himself.
But mostly he just wanted to be home, safe and sound, and hide from the nightmare reality that he had unwittingly brought upon himself.
Frantic, Peter ran as fast as his trembling legs would carry him. Another fracture broke his heart with each person who recoiled from this power-crazed evo terrorist who could level them with one thought. The idea chilled him to the core. There were familes here... children... everyone had gathered to fight, in one way or the other, for better treatment and human rights. And an accident wouldn't only end lives here, but provide the perfect example for the anti-evo argument worldwide.
The barrier around Peter's ablities continued to buckle against the rising crest of panic, only splitting further at the seams the more stressed he became. He tried to fight the urge to give in, but he was just tiny beneath the height of his abilities and he couldn't let one break free without them all tumbling down upon him, not while adrenaline was sweeping him along and fanning the flames below him until the burn became almost unbearable...
Hadn't he been swimming against the tide of the crowd for hours already? Shouldn't the end at least be in sight by now...?
Normally being surrounded by as many people as this would be too much too handle. It was a fear Peter was still yet to conquer after breaking out of Matt's basement – even just an hour ago he'd never have imagined he'd be able to submerge himself in a collection of angry, raucous people the way he was now.
But everything had changed since then. This wasn't just an overwhelming puddle of people he'd take the long way around to avoid at the store. This was an ocean and Peter was drowning in it, but he was too busy desperately making his way to the surface to even care where he was.
Despite the regenerating blood that coursed through his veins, he felt physically ill. His head was pounding, his vision wasn't focusing, he was running hot and cold like a fever and he could feel sweat beading along his skin. The writhing mob of protesters seemed to stretch on for a hundred miles, with every jostle or shove upping the mileage just out of spite. Peter tried to be brave and keep his consciousness grounded in the present, but he just couldn't catch a breath while his ribcage was being flattened by what felt like the entire population of New York City.
Everything was a mess inside and everything was conspiring against him. All he could do was remember to breathe, trust the guiding force of Sylar to get him home in one piece, and cling onto the ever fading precipice of control with his fingernails if need be.
( )
Sylar's heart was thudding so painfully he suspected it might have been visible through his chest. The pair broke into a run when the path ahead cleared enough to allow it, when civilians and their poster boards parted like opposing tides in the ocean. They shoved back as far as the restraints of the mob would allow, too many faces flickering with the type of fear Sylar had hoped never to be on the receiving end of again.
Although, this time, he wasn't.
When Peter glanced back at him for reassurance, Sylar put a lifetime of faking it until he made it to work in holding back the full extent of horror from his face.
The other man looked like hell. Beneath constant, renewing bursts of his abilities his skin was as pale as ivory, his eyes frantic in the middle of two shadows that framed those orbs like bruises. He was glistening with perspiration and even his lips had just about drained of colour, and all in the few minutes it had taken to get here from the ambulance bay? The sight only further frazzled Sylar's failing grasp of understanding.
This shouldn't happen. Peter shouldn't be able to get sick anymore – he could heal now! He was supposed to be immortal, like Sylar! The former killer remembered exactly how terrified he'd been to maybe find his companion laying on a stretcher back at the East River, and he remembered the exact moment he'd decided cutting into the man's head would be worth the trauma to spare that kind of fear ever again. His great sacrifice was supposed to have protected Peter. Not condemn him to a fate worse than hell.
"Just keep going." Sylar commanded, his voice just barely cracking. Peter's face turned away as he ran but the afterimage remained seared into Sylar's vision, and probably would for a long, long time.
( )
At last the crowd came to an end, and Peter fell gratefully into an open space. He slowed for a second to catch his breath, but before he could even think to get his bearings –
Whoosh!
Something heavy came swinging at his face out of nowhere. He didn't have time to dodge or even consciosuly react. But within just that sliver of hesitation, his body exploited this and assumed full control, phasing him through the impact.
With a guttural gasp Peter stopped in his tracks, meanwhile Sylar ran right through him as if he were a ghost. Then he just stood there. Helpless. Lost. Out of strength and out of hope, because the reigns had finally slipped free from his hands and he could feel chaos tumbling into play inside him. Oh no. Oh shit. Oh god.
( )
What the...?! Sylar stumbled to a stop. Why had Peter frozen when they were finally free?! He hurried to process his surroundings, then promptly wished he hadn't. It didn't take long for him to locate an approaching line of riot officers nearby, armoured head to toe, nor the one at arm's reach who was scrambling to pick up the baton that he had evidently just launched through Peter.
Sylar snarled involuntarily, and threw the assailant back with a not so gentle twitch of his fingers. Then second guessed himself when the rest of the officers lofted their shields and clicked their weapons, an unmistakable prelude to a fight.
Fuck this. Far beyond keeping his cool, Sylar turned his attention from the little burning man at his side and squared himself off for the battle that had been forced upon him. He had not come all this way just to be stopped at the final, well-armoured hurdle! The evo stormed towards the line of riot officers, arming himself with trusty (and non-fatal) telekinesis, because if he could stop a wall of ice and the whole fucking river in mid air he sure as hell could hold off a few bullets!
But then Peter called for him, and he never even got the chance to try. Sylar's rage instantly shattered upon hearing the strangled sound from behind him, a desperate cry that was halfway between a scream and a whimper.
"Sylar!"
His blood ran cold without needing any more information. He turned just in time to see Peter emerging, unscathed, from the depths of his powers: the flames subsiding at last and electricity settling around his once more solid form. It should have been a relief, but it wasn't. Sylar should have been grateful, but somehow he couldn't get behind the idea.
Because even before anything happened, somehow he knew what was coming. No...
The ground fell away from under him and everything outside the two evolved humans faded away into nonexistence. Grunting with effort, Peter fell to his knees on the cold ground. He was gasping so much that he couldn't even catch a breath. And when he lifted his eyes to Sylar's, they were alight with two blazing rings of fire.
Then he started to glow.
Without hesitating, Sylar dropped his planned defense tactic and instead just threw the approaching riot officers as far back as he could muster. Then he ran to Peter with his mind chewing on static and his breath catching sharply in his chest. Despite hundreds of greedy onlookers, he dropped heavily to his knees opposite his companion and took hold of his red-hot hands, uncaring of the burns that struggled to heal on his palms.
Hyperventilating, the taut form of Peter Petrelli began to shine so intensely that he blurred at the edges. Pure white light emanated from him, so bright it caught his bones and projected the delicate mapping of veins onto his skin. Sylar was horrified. Sylar was hypnotised.
"Peter... don't." He breathed, although it was supposed to sound authoritive. But he had no voice, had no plan and no courage to do what must be done.
( )
"Sylar. Help me." Peter's words cracked like dry earth, gravelling low in hitches of fear.
It was happening again. His biggest regret. His reoccurring nightmare. Only, now it was happening for real, and he was just as helpless to stop it as he was in his dreams.
All sense fell by the wayside. His skin was on fire and every single pore was aflame. Everything was too loud, too bright, too overwhelming and gutting and blinding and deafening and power thrashed him around at a force that made even his near death experience in the river seem tame. The force of this most dreaded of abilities span and rotated like a wheel that never began to slow inside him. On and on and on, round and round and round, until Peter wanted to scream at the top of his lungs, but he couldn't because even his voice was a weapon.
"Stop me... please..." He shuddered from head to foot, so overcome with fright that he couldn't shout anymore, couldn't even move on his own. He could barely see past the brilliant glare eminating from his own body, pooling flames into his vision like a crackling filter of red and gold that rippled across Sylar's face. He wished he didn't recognise the sight. That he didn't know what it foretold.
Trembling uncontrollably, he squeezed Sylar's hands because he needed something to ground him. Even though he could feel the damage he was already inflicting upon the man's regenerating skin, he physically couldn't let go and endure his fate alone.
This was the last moment he could change it. The last few seconds where he could be brave or strong enough to form a different outcome than the one etched into his splintering bones.
The moment came and went as quickly as it had the last time.
( )
"Sylar! Please!" Peter begged breathlessly, through chattering teeth and fiery, welling eyes, as close a thing to inconsolable as he could be without collapsing.
By now, almost the entire crowd had seen what was happening.
Petrified, Sylar looked numbly around for anything to assist him, but all he saw were too many flashing cameras immortalising this moment, and the same expressions of terror and disappointment mirrored a few hundreds times over. Rarely had he felt so out of his depth, because he knew in his gut that he couldn't do a thing to help Peter.
He could barely even hear himself over the racket of the protesters and the chatter of the entire world, so how the hell was Peter supposed to? Still, he couldn't not try.
"You have to control it!" He instructed as forcibly as he could, trying in vain to drain the ability out of Peter through his touch alone. All he wanted was to wash the pain away and make it stop, to take it upon himself – not to wield as a trophy, but to soothe the other man in sharing the burden between them. But he could feel fear preventing his empathy from doing its job, marring the path that had to be unburdened for the ability to work.
"I can't."
"You can!" Sylar insisted, desperately trying to convince himself of this as much as Peter.
Somehow the younger man was moving as if in slow motion. He just shook his head, his hair swishing entrancingly across his face. "Sylar, all these people..." He wheezed. "You have to save them, please. I can't do this. I can't... can't hurt them." The guy should have been sobbing or screaming blue murder about now, but somehow he was barely speaking in more than a whisper. Somehow his eyes were huge and ablaze, but dry.
Sylar knew what he wanted him to do, but he was also done bending over backwards for this man's demands.
He couldn't put Peter down. Not again. The guy looked almost exactly the same today as he had so many years ago in Kirby Plaza; like death warmed up to a radioactive level. Only he was flushed with more hysteria this time around, his fear only enhanced by experience because he knew what had to come next.
So did Sylar.
Finally, he rasped out some semblance of a voice, as choked as it was. "Don't you dare ask me to kill you, Peter, 'cause I won't."
There might have been someone shouting at them, instructions eerily distorted through a megaphone, but Sylar's heartbeat was pounding so loudly in his ears that everything else played nearly in mute. He stared, numb to the core, as Peter Petrelli was consumed further by a twinkling brightness that was as pure as his soul used to be. A purity that had to be protected.
"...But I can still save them." Sylar promised.
He was only just able to make out the other man beneath those blinding shafts of light. Peter's lower lip trembled ever so slightly, a concession that touched that face for a second of tenderness through the panic.
"Do you trust me?" Sylar asked. Another slip of time kindled and burned in the air between the men. Then Peter closed his eyes, and nodded.
Surprising even himself with his cool-headedness, the watchmaker gripped his companion's hands tighter and stood, pulling Peter to his feet with difficulty. The smaller man mewled at the motion and Sylar grit his teeth against the fizzing, nuclear pain that gnawed deep into his body, but he didn't desist until he had his friend gripped tightly against his own body and kicked off into the sky.
( )
One moment there was ground beneath his boots and people hustling all around, and the next Peter was weightless as wind roared in his ears and tugged at his hair.
He kept his eyes shut against the truth. He didn't want to see it happen or witness the moment he was to blame all over again. The only thing he was aware of beyond radioactive power crucifying his veins was Sylar's body embracing his own, firm and steady and strong enough to carry him as his brother's had once been before.
Peter held onto Sylar and fought the clutches of his ability with everything he had, but the explosion was inevitable. There was no stopping it. He was going to die again, in the most painful way he knew how. He was going to kill his only friend, ravish him with light until he burned alive, just like he nearly had with Nathan so long ago...
He buried his face into Sylar's shirt when he felt it become too late. Like a match striking the wick on a stick of dynamite, Peter started to incinerate from the inside out.
( )
"Let go!" Peter yelped into Sylar, even his vocal chords charred and disfigured.
"No!"
"Sylar, let GO!"
"NO!"
Sylar didn't let go, even when his regeneration couldn't keep up with his burns anymore. Instead he held onto the latest victim of his meddling and flew up higher than he'd ever gone before. The intertwined pair soared through clouds that only evaporated upon proximity, burning from the inside and blistering in the heat that radiated off Peter in waves.
Fear was long past. Terror had been minutes ago. It might have been the rush of flight, the thrill of sparing all those lives on the ground, or maybe it was the resignation that came with facing certain death, but up here Sylar cherished the tranquility that enveloped him whole.
No, he couldn't prevent Peter from blowing up like a bomb. But he could prevent him from killing more people than one. The explosion wouldn't destroy him, he would survive, but the man Sylar knew would never come back from wiping out a city and condemning the fate of the world.
It might be questionable of his morals, but while Sylar of course did want to save the people far below, that wasn't the reason he would willingly endure such a demise. At heart, it was a selfish one. And maybe Sylar would always be a little bit selfish even if he did someday become a true hero, because he didn't even feel bad about wanting more to preserve Peter's goodness from the inky blackness of mass murder than spare countless lives from ending...
( )
Finally Peter started to scream.
It happened against his will but it happened all the same; a gut-wrenching, heart-stopping sound that would send shivers over his own skin if it wasn't peeling away and flying into the air as ash.
There was no sound in the world that could capture the pain he was feeling, both inside and out. His soul cried for his latest grand mistake, while his body was ripped apart by a white hot heat that didn't just burn – it obliterated.
It was impossible to keep struggling, so Peter just had to cling on tighter to Sylar, relenting to the fire that consumed every cell of his being. He must have been hurting the other man by how firmly he was holding on, but it was nothing compared to the neuclear heat that was blasting them apart like cinders.
( )
Not long after Peter succumbed, a tortured yell erupted from Sylar's throat also. It joined his companion's in a raw, interlaced plea for release that couldn't hope to do justice to what they were going through together.
This was more pain than Sylar had ever experienced, and he couldn't control himself at all other than to keep flying. Or was he even still flying? He couldn't tell anymore. He could have been falling for all he knew, because the sensible part of his mind had been one of the first to burn away into the sky behind him like fluttering strips of paper.
Sylar squeezed Peter tighter than ever as the crest of agony overtook them both at once and he physically couldn't make another sound. Neuclear heat cooked them alive, fused their bodies together and became far too bright to see past even if Sylar's eyes had still been working. All he could hear was Peter's grating cry of agony; all he could see was the core of the blast searing through his eyelids; and all he could feel was himself tearing apart at the hands of the only person he had tried so hard to protect.
A shooting star streaked across the sky miles above the city. A white hot blast coloured the heavens and split the clouds apart. Peter Petrelli and Sylar exploded together, dying in the exact same moment.
And then there was nothing.
( )( )( )
The city scrolled past the window in the usual, bland fashion. Countless buildings and packed traffic and bustling civilians – it was the same in every state. Sadly, Claire no longer experienced that pure rush of excitement upon approaching New York City! as she had the first few times. Everywhere felt the same when all you got to see of it was streets, TV studios and hotel rooms.
It had been another long day of travelling and it would be another long week of TV appearances and guest spots ahead. Claire could barely even remember what her life had used to be like before a constant press tour had wiped everything else from existence.
She stared languidly through the tinted window of the limo – another commodity that had lost the sparkle of rarity months ago. Danielle, her publicist, chattered as rapidly as ever on the seat beside her, schmoozing and signing Claire's days away without so much as taking a breath. Sheesh. It sounded like another designer was trying to arrange a collaboration, but all Claire really wanted right now was to cuddle up in bed in her pyjamas with some chocolate milk and a black and white movie. But gone were the good ol' days.
Just as Claire's thoughts strayed to her old family home in Odessa, and she toyed with the idea of calling her mother for a catch up, a blinding white light pierced her eyes despite the darkened pane of glass before her. What the hell...?
The teenager winced and shielded her eyes, dazzled into confusion. By the time the spots on her vision began to clear, the limo had stopped, the pedestrians outside were all staring up at the sky, and even Danielle's voice had tapered out distractedly. But Claire didn't spare one thought to such a phenomenon.
Not when her blood ran cold, her regenerating heart threatened to stop beating and she recognised, without a shadow of a doubt, the neuclear blast rippling stains of heat through the clouds. It was pristine, a perfect re-enactment of a memory brought to life. And she just couldn't look away as it twinkled between the highest tips of untouched skyscrapers.
"Holy sh..."
A/N: Thank you so much for reading if you made it this far! I know there were tough chapters to write, and I can't blame you if they were tough to read, particularly the end here. But thank you for sticking with me and the boys anyway 3 Don't worry – THIS IS NOT THE END! We know they can survive such an explosion, but that does not mean it won't have repercussions that affect the rest of the story X)
I absolutely cannot wait to share the upcoming chapters with you! And if you hate me now for what our favourite guys just had to go through (I hate myself a bit too hehe) I hope the fallout of this will make up for that with a sh*t ton of emotion, angst and drama X) Please stay tuned!
(P.S. - go look back at my Volume 6 poster and the "sun" might have a different meaning now...)
