Warnings: Slash (Colt/Punk), AU setting, Profanity.
"Heyman... Paul." Phil presses himself back against the wall, desperately trying to appear nonthreatening, trying to reason with Heyman and his shattered mind. 'Don't do this, Mr Heyman. You don't want to do this, please.' Heyman's eyes narrow, the smirk on his face growing wider, stretching into an insane grin.
"Philip... My dear, dear, Philip... You need to learn a little lesson." There's a horrid pulse in Phil's mind, a throb of something brutally painful. 'You don't mess with people who are better than you.' Phil's not sure what Heyman's done, but he can hear, feel, every mind of the drone guards left in the warehouse. He can see through their eyes, can feel Scott's talent forcing them to stop, reducing them to living statues, stopping them from turning their guns on him and the other talents. The fact that they have guns is alarming, he'd not thought they were armed, but they all have small easily concealed pistols. The two that are dead are lying staring up at the roof, riddled with bullet holes, and Phil wonders briefly if Scott made their allies shoot them, or if it was just being caught in the cross fire. Phil stares at Heyman. His mind feeling fragile, he's never been stretched this far before, never had this experience before, and it hurts. 'Good luck, Mr Brooks.' Heyman kisses him on the forehead, and there's nothing but blinding pain. Every mind Heyman had linked him to dies suddenly. Phil knows what being trapped in one dying mind is like, but trapped in twenty-odd is like trying to outrun a tornado. He tries to pull himself back to his own mind, tries to cower behind his own shoddily built shields, but it's too late. There's nowhere to go, he can't find the path back and there's so little brain activity left in the dying minds of the men, that he's no idea what to do.
'Gotcha.' Phil can feel the familiar presence of Scott, and he clings to his mind like the lifeline it is, the path back to his own form is foggy, the twitching sparks of brain activity from the dead guards, like muted fireflies lighting a dim path, each one snuffing out as more time passes. 'You okay?'
'No... I need you to find me.' Phil wonders if Scott realises that Phil's tagging along in his brain, as opposed to being himself.
'Find you? I don't... Where? Show me.' Scott seems to understand the need to hurry, but Phil has no idea how he can show him, the only mind near his body is Heyman, and Phil's no idea if he'll be able to breach Heyman's shields. They might be compromised, but he doubts they're shattered. He tries, and almost recoils; Heyman's brain is a mess. It seems he's not much better off for his attack on Phil, than Phil himself. His mind might still be where it should be, but it's in no shape to be of any use to him or Phil.
'I can't... It's near the back, keep going.' Phil watches out of Scott's eyes, trying to see through the smoke, but it's getting worse, getting harder and harder to see anything other than thick grey smoke and bright flames.
"Fuck..." Scott scrambles through the window as soon as he finds it, glancing at Lesnar's body briefly, and kicking Heyman's motionless form out of the way. He grabs Phil's shoulders, and Phil considers the problem of getting himself back where he should be. "Phil, Punkers... C'mon, open your eyes for me, c'monc'monc'mon. Wake up! Don't you fucking be dead! You're not allowed to be fucking dead!" He's screaming at Phil's body, shaking it vigorously before holding it close, tears in his eyes, whispering don't be dead against Phil's hair.
'I'm not dead, not yet... Just stuck here.' Phil says softly, and Scott holds Phil's body out at arm's length.
'You're in my head?' He sounds confused, and Phil can feel the confusion as if it were his own. 'Fuck... Okay, so well here we are, one Punkers' body, you can go back now?'
'Ah... Ha... I can't find a path.' Phil wants to be able to feel the gentle strokes Scott's giving his forehead, he wants to be able to feel the small kiss Scott just laid there.
"You're a mess." He says softly, and Phil's sure he's working on fixing the mess Heyman made of Phil's brain. The moment it's fixed, the moment Scott's repaired whatever damage Heyman did, the path back is clear, and Phil follows it. The first breathe he takes with his own lungs has him coughing and slumping in Scott's arms. "Don't do that again." Scott's voice sounds dangerously close to breaking, and Phil throws himself at him, his arms wrapping around Scott tightly.
'I won't, fuck I promise I won't.' He has less than no intention of ever doing anything even close to that again. It was the single most terrifying thing that's ever happened to him.
'Good... I don't... I can't lose you, not yet, not ever.' Scott holds him close, taking deep shuddering breaths, the link blazing with love. From the spot Scott had kicked him to, Heyman groans, his hand coming to rub his forehead. Phil pulls away from Scott, and stands, his legs a little shaky, but he's stable enough to stalk over to Heyman.
"I have a present for you, Mr Heyman." Phil sneers at him as he squats in front of the slumped man. "I think you'll like it." He smirks, and rests his hands on either side of Heyman's sweating face, squeezing slightly. 'I know it's rude to give a second hand gift, but think of me as UPS.' It's surprisingly intuitive giving Heyman the kid's horrible memories. The rush of vicious darkness has the side effect of shredding Heyman's shields leaving his mind unprotected against the brutal onslaught, and Phil's own prying mind. It's rude, so very rude, but there's no way Phil's not stealing everything that he can from Heyman, feeling it like an unwrapped present in the corner of his mind behind the shield Scott built to hold the kid's dark memories. Phil stands and watches Heyman as the man twitches, his mind roiling like a ship in a storm. It almost makes Phil feel sorry for him, but he did just try and kill Phil, so that sympathy might be misplaced. He's not a good person, and bad people deserve they're comeuppance. The only problem is Phil's beginning to think that maybe he's not that good a person either, he killed Lesnar, has fucked up Heyman's brain, let Amy get possessed, let Scott probably kill people, and didn't save the kids, not hallmarks of an eponymous hero.
"C'mere." Scott's arms are around him before he can protest it, his lips on Phil's swiftly, and Phil relaxes against him until there's another explosion. A quick check finds a new mind, a new shielded mind, but not shields like Piper's or Heyman's. Their shields were smooth and glassy, this shield is a living thing, like electricity, and Phil quickly throws up the invisible man trick on him and Scott. He doesn't think this person is a telepath, so he's fairly confident the trick will work.
'We need out of here.' He whispers over the link, trying very hard to not make too much noise. There's a spike of worry from Scott, he'd clearly sensed someone new as well.
'Well there's a big old hole right here, but the car's out the front.' Scott glances at Heyman, and takes Phil's hand, leading him towards the hole. The new arrival vaults through the broken window, swearing into the cell phone in their hand.
"No, he's not dead... Just fucked up. I'm guessing the target escaped or died. We'll send a cleanup team to check the corpses. The assets are secured, the drone served her purpose. You want her dead? Really, well she's pretty strong so I don't blame you. Yeah, yeah, whatever. Say hi to the old man for me, I'm heading South after this, got a job down there. Really? Wow, well I'll consider this a favour for an old friend." The man laughs, and toes at Heyman. A little spark of electricity leaves the man's finger and runs through Heyman, making him twitch and judder, before passing out. "The target did quite a number on the Walrus." The man laughs, and Phil gives into Scott's tugging, following him through the hole in the wall and out into the night.
There's several sleek black cars parked in front of the burning warehouse, several people dressed in sharp black suits milling around. Scott's car is being guarded by a man with a rifle, and Phil has no idea what to do. Every one of these people's minds is shielded with the same living, electric shield as the man who'd electrocuted Heyman.
"Alright people, you're on your own now." The man comes striding out of the burning warehouse, Heyman slung over his shoulder. The moment he says that, the electric shields are dropped and there's a brief moment before every mind is shielded once more by something that feels mechanical. That brief moment has Phil staring at the gather group. The old man's gonna be pissed. That was the one thought Phil caught when the gathered people were unshielded. This old man keeps cropping up, again, and again. He can answer his suspicions now though, he has Heyman's brain, as much of it as he could grab at least, sitting waiting for him to sort through it.
'What're we gonna do?' Scott's arms are around Phil's waist, and Phil shrugs. He's got no idea, but watching what's happening is important, it'll provide them with valuable information, probably at least. Piper's beat up car pulls up, the man is out of it and striding up to the men in suits before it's fully parked, Hacksaw getting out more slowly, casting his eyes about, clearly looking for something.
"What the fuck happened? Where the fuck is the target? And what the fuck happened to the assets?" His screaming voice carries easily, he sounds furious, and worried, strangely, painfully worried.
"We believe the target to be dead, and the assets are no longer here." One of the suit wearing men says coolly, and Piper swears loudly, and storms into the warehouse, Hacksaw following along behind him.
'We gonna let him know we're okay?' Scott asks softly, squeezing Phil tightly, and he shakes his head. It's not a good idea to let Piper know just yet. Phil wants to scan through the information he got from Heyman first. He knows these people in black aren't trust worthy, he's just interested to see how trustworthy Piper is, he might have been wrong about him all along. There's something going on, something Phil has the feeling Piper knows all about, or is completely clueless towards, and he's not sure which would be better.
'Let's get out of here... It's not safe.' Phil starts walking, sticking to the shadows, his mind reeling. The kids are somewhere, where that is he's not sure, they're not with Heyman, but they might be with the people he works for, and these people he's beginning to suspect more and more are the same people Piper works for
'Punkers... Where are we going to go?' Scott says suddenly, and Phil freezes. He's no idea where to go. They can't go back to Scott's, it'll be too obvious, finding out where he lives won't be hard if they run the license plate. They can't go to Phil's either, his parents will be equally easy to find. They're on their own right now. "Punkers?" Scott squeezes Phil's hand and he turns to look at him.
"I don't know..." He whispers softly, and Scott sighs, pulling him close, wrapping his arms around Phil tightly.
'Hotel? You feeling up to playing a trick on some clerk?' Phil nods at Scott's suggestion, and starts walking again, trying to find the nearest hotel by checking the minds of the few people walking the streets.
'So what're we going to do?' Scott's thumb is moving slowly over the back of Phil's hand, it's soothing in a softly gentle way, and Phil shrugs.
'I fucked up.' He tells Scott, getting a vague noise from him. 'I'll tell you when we're somewhere. There should be a place down here.'
They end up in a crappy little hotel that's probably used by hookers, but there's running water and all Phil wants is to get the smell of smoke out of his hair. The clerk had been easy to trick into believing they'd paid, he was used to seeing two males showing up and paying in cash so it hadn't taken too much work for Phil. Once they're both showered, Phil curls up in Scott's arms, feeling bone-weary and like he never wants to leave the safety Scott provides.
"So... We fucked up, huh?" Scott sighs, his hand stroking down Phil's back. They might both be naked, but there's nothing sexual about this moment, it's solely about comfort.
"Spectacularly." Phil mutters, nuzzling against Scott's neck. He wants to hide there for a good long time, feeling nothing but the soft warmth of Scott's love over the link.
"What happened?" Scott's voice breaks the comfortable silence once more, and Phil sighs, he's not sure how to put what happened into words, it's all too messed up and confusing.
"Amy was... Possessed, I think. She wasn't in control of herself anyways, and led the kids to somewhere, but I've no idea where. So the one thing we were there to do, I fucked up." Phil pulls away from Scott and lies staring up at the ceiling. "I should have shielded her better, I've been working on shielding myself better, I think they're pretty strong now... Not as good as the ones I gave you though." Phil turns to Scott with a smile, and he brushes a finger over Phil's forehead.
"There, I amped up the bit of your brain in charge of shields. You should be plenty safe now." Scott moves to lie beside Phil, taking his hand, holding it tightly. "So, Amy and the kids are gone?"
"Yup... I fucked up, sorry." Phil closes his eyes, resolutely ignoring the frustrated tears building behind his eyelids. "I'm sorry you killed those guys." He says softly, hoping Scott didn't hear him, but Scott clearly did, a soft snort coming from him.
"I didn't kill them." He squeezes Phil's hand, and sighs. "The other guards shot them, I had them stand as shields for the other kids, but the drones just shot right through them." He shakes his head, and Phil turns to lie on his side, pulling Scott close. 'I thought they wouldn't kill their own, but I was wrong.' He makes something like a choked sob, and Phil holds him tighter, stroking his skin slowly.
"I killed Lesnar..." Phil mutters softly, against Scott's hair. "It drove Heyman kind of mad... That's why he attacked me, I almost got myself killed, but I did steal everything I could from his brain. This whole thing was a cluster fuck."
"Wait! You dropped Lesnar? I thought I did that..." Scott pulls back, staring at Phil, his eyes wide and confused. Phil stares back at him, feeling just as confused.
"We both killed him?" Phil supposes that would make sense, he'd tried to shut down Lesnar's brain, Scott would have been shutting down his body, the way the man died makes more sense if it was a combination of both of them working together. "Hold on, why were you trying to kill Lesnar." Scott's fingers wrap around Phil's throat, not squeezing just resting there, and there's a ghost of the feeling of Lesnar's huge paw choking the life from him.
"He was trying to kill you." Scott says calmly, a slight smile on his face. 'That's better.' He takes his hand away, and his smile gets bigger. "Whatever I have to do to keep you safe, I will." Phil touches his throat, the slight tenderness of the bruises that had been there is gone; he doesn't doubt Scott speeded up his body's healing process.
"You don-"
"Whatever I have to, Punkers." Scott interrupts him, a fiercely determined look in his eyes, conviction and love fill the link and Phil closes his eyes, unwilling to argue against what seems to be Scott's natural instincts. The truth is he'd undoubtedly kill for Scott, so he shouldn't try and talk Scott out of being willing to kill for him. "So you have Heyman's memories?"
"I do... I want to find out what they are before we decide what to do next... We've got options, and I wanna make sure we've got a better plan this time." Phil sighs and squirms slightly, making himself more comfortable. "This was a cluster fuck because we had a goal, but a shitty plan... From now on, we concentrate on the how more than the why." Scott kisses his hair, and Phil nuzzles against him, enjoying the stillness of the moment, enjoying the warmth of the emotion coming over the link.
"They're going to be looking for us... They'll have found my parents by now." Scott sighs, and Phil closes his eyes, skimming through the city, finding Hacksaw and checking to see what he knows about the situation relating to Scott and himself. By the man's thoughts, they're going to send someone to the Colton's tomorrow. There's so many corpses in the warehouse, and Piper no matter how hard he tries, he can't find his princess, so that has to mean that both he and the knight in shining armour are dead. Hacksaw's worried about Piper, he's stretching himself too thin trying to find even a trace of the princess, he's too old for this sort of shit, and those kids had been too young for it. It's not Piper's fault. It's not the princess' fault. It's just something shitty that happened, and sometimes, shit happens. Phil pulls back from Hack's mind and frowns. He feels almost guilty about Piper, but there are still Heyman's memories to check through, once he's finished that, if Piper isn't damned by them, he'll apologise to the old man, not before then though.
"They're going to tell your parents we're dead tomorrow." Phil says softly, and Scott nods, swallowing heavily.
"We should do it. You can convince whoever they send that it was them that did it, but I want... I want to see them before I'm dead." Scott laughs, and closes his eyes, tears running down the side of his face. Phil nods against his shoulder.
"I wanna say goodbye too." He says softly. He truly does want to say goodbye to Scott's family. They might have never met him, but they loved what they did meet of him, and he wants to see them one last time. "We'll go in the morning."
"Yeah..." Scott reaches up and flicks out the light, the cheap curtains barely blocking the streetlights, leaving the room only slight less bright than it was before. "What about your parents?" Scott asks, and Phil tenses in his arms. He already knows his parents won't give a shit.
"I don't care about them... They don't care about me. There will be few fucks given." Phil hopes his tone dissuades Scott from pursuing this topic further. If there's one good thing about being dead, it's not having to deal with the people related to him ever again. Scott kisses his hair, and is quiet for a long time, his thumb stroking Phil's bare shoulder.
"I guess, seeing as Phil and Scott are dead, we're gonna need new names." He almost sounds amused, and Phil looks at him, a wry smile on his lips, grateful he's let the matter of Phil's parents drop.
"I kind of like Punk..." 'I especially like Punkers from you.' He kisses Scott softly, the kiss deepens slightly, but neither of them are in the mood, not tonight, so it never progresses into something else.
"Well, Punkers, I guess Colt is pretty cool sounding." Punk smiles up at him, and nods.
"Damn right it is! I only choose the best names." Colt laughs, and squeezes Punk tightly.
"It's gonna be damn weird not being Scott anymore." Colt sounds slightly remorseful, as though mourning the easy life they're walking away from, a life where their concerns were smaller, because right now, Punk is certain that their concerns are huge.
"We're not gonna graduate high school, all that time I wasted on math down the drain." Punk sighs, and Colt laughs at him, kissing his hair. 'C'mon, go to sleep, Colt... We've an early start tomorrow.'
'Yeah... Punkers?' The link is filled with something close to fear, and Punk knows he's bleeding the same emotion, he's just as afraid, just as worried, but knows that they have to do this, there's no other option, not right now at least.
'Uh-huh?' Colt's hands cup his face, and his lips press against his in a chaste, almost reverent kiss.
'I love you.' The link is brimming with love, and Punk feels slightly overwhelmed by just how much Colt still means that, just how much he's loved. A block falls into place, and the rest of the World is shut out, leaving only the link and the warmth of their love over it.
"I love you too, Colt." Punk smiles at him, and settles down to sleep, Colt's hand slowly carding though his hair.
"Dead?" Scott's mother stares at him, or at least at the Police officer she thinks Punk is. "I can't..." She starts sobbing, Scott's father wrapping an arm around her, holding her close as she wails for her baby.
"I'm sorry." Punk says softly. This wasn't perhaps something they needed to do, but Scott deserved to say goodbye to his parents, and in honesty, Phil had wanted to as well.
"It'll be okay." Colt tells the woman quietly, his fingers twitching, and she grabs his hand, clinging to it.
"My baby is dead! How can this be okay?" She turns back to her husband, weeping and sobbing. The man's mind is stoically ignoring everything, stalling on the fact his youngest son had gone from alive and happy to dead over night.
'I could... Make her forget?' Punk offers, and over the link there's a burst of surprise, a burst of something almost willing to let Punk do just that, but it's squashed down quickly.
'It'd cause too many problems... They'd know we're alive. Who else would make my mom forget me?' Colt makes a good point, and Punk pats the woman on the shoulder, watching Colt blink rapidly, trying to keep tears from falling.
"It was quick... He didn't suffer, Mrs Colton." The woman's wails don't get any quieter, and Punk straightens up, nodding towards the door. Scott's brother stands, his face ashen and pale.
"I'll show you out, Officers." He mutters, his mind is darkly focussed on the last time he saw his brother, on him holding his girlfriend's hand and looking happy. He's going to miss his baby brother once this all sinks in.
"We're sorry..." Colt starts, and pulls him into a hug. "For your loss." Punk nods, and moves to stand outside the door, hearing it close behind him once Colt steps out. He looks over at Punk as they stand on the porch. It hurts leaving the one place Phil's ever truly felt happy, only ever truly felt like he was loved. The fractured, shattered, sobbing mind of Scott's mother makes him want to go back and comfort her, but it's too dangerous, for her and for Punk. Going back isn't an option, not anymore.
'We should go.' Colt says firmly, his eyes downcast, his hand holding Punk's tightly. 'Find somewhere to hide out whilst you sort through what's in your head.' He kisses Punk's temple softly, and Punk nods. It's an important thing to do, especially now that Scott and Phil are dead. Colt and Punk need information so they can come up with a plan on what to do next.
Many thanks to the ladies and gentlemen who reviewed:
InYourHonour,
littleone1389, shiki94, Rebellecherry, and Brokenspell77.
And we are done here ladies and gentlemen. First arc all completed! Phil and Scott are dead, and Punk and Colt are looking to take centre stage. The kids are somewhere, Heyman's fucked up, Lesnar's dead, and Piper might be working for the same guy as Heyman, the mysterious Old Man. Some answers will be forthcoming when I start the second arc - Stipe. We hope to see you there! :)
As ever trepidation haunts me with this fic... as such: Please leave a review, even if it's just "Hey, that didn't suck", I'd be so far and beyond grateful. Heck even if you thought it did suck, tell me too, something is better than nothing after all. :D