Adam Monroe

Title: The Man Who Sold The World
Author: Bria - ladyofbrileith
Fandom: Heroes
Pairing: Adam/Peter, Mohinder/Sylar
Rating/Warnings: PG-13, m/m relationships-but no graphic sex, spoilers for S2 and part of S3.

Words: 15,520

Summary: In a world where over 99% of the population has died, decimated by the release of the Shanti virus, Adam has worked hard to build an outpost of civilization for survivors in a paradise, a new Garden of Eden, where humanity can be shaped into the image of his choosing. But while most of the survivors have resigned themselves to this new world and struggle to find their own place and build lives within it, Peter refuses to do so. Despite the feelings he and Adam share, Peter won't rest until he manages to undo what was done, no matter the cost, and Adam must find a way to stop him before it's too late, and his perfect apocalypse is destroyed.

Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6
Notes: Thank you to my wonderful betas: kirsteena, risingfire and keep_them_safe

FANMIX to accompany: by entwashian - The Future Never Happened

This is potentially the most ridiculous question ever asked. My partner's family...god. My partner's family, you see, turns out to be my family. Or, no, not turns out to be, because...I knew it was a possibility when I started falling in love with him. I knew there was a chance...

And, no, before anyone asks, he and I are not related. There's no blood or DNA we share.

But the situation is...complicated, and it always will be complicated, and I cannot change that. I cannot change what I am, that I am a man who does not age, who moves through time without having it touch me, that I have loved before, and that I loved...that once upon a time I loved his mother. That maybe there is a substantial part of me that still does. I'm not someone who stops loving when I have fallen. We had a child, she and I--his half brother. We have grandchildren--his nieces and nephews. The secrets are out, now, and everyone knows. He has to live with the fact that he's dating his mother's ex, and his brother's father, and "complicated" is actually a very mild word.

Add in the fact that his mother and I haven't exactly had the most...stellar of records for honesty in the past, and that there are more wounds there, and some days I have no idea what the fucking hell he's doing with me. Shall we review, in brief, how I get along with his family? See if it counts as "good terms"?

His mother: We were lovers for near on 14 years. I count her, still, as one of the loves of my life. We plotted to destroy the world together, for purposes we still believe were good ones, though we may have come to disagree on the level of destruction necessary to achieve our purposes. I may have tried to kill her with my pet telepath. She may have told our son how to kill me and that he should do so. I still love her. I'm fairly certain part of her still loves me. I chose him. She accepts that fact. We're speaking. We all got along well for the holidays. On the other hand, I bought her a necklace that cost more than a small house, so I say that might have been a bit over the top, but...all right, all in all, on good terms?

His elder brother: Hated me for ages for using Peter. Threw a few punches. Exchanged more than a few insults. Found out I was his father. Wasn't overly pleased at that at first. Seems to be coming around to the idea, though, and wanting to spend time with me, and lets me see his children and be in their lives, so...I think we're getting there?

His twin: My BFF. Probably feels as uncomfortable as a new member of the family structure as I do, as we were both cast out of it for decades, but, we're coming to terms with it, and though he was royally pissed at me lately for certain...actions I took that weren't all that advisable, we seem to have made up.

His niece: My granddaughter. My protege. She's never really had a problem with me, despite everyone trying to turn her against me for a while. She was the first to realize what we were to each other, to accept me as part of the family, and we've been close for a while, bonded by our mutual ability, one no one else fully grasps, even the others who have acquired them. There's something to it, when it's just yours, when it is what you were born with, and it bonds us.

His nephews: Monty seems to adore me. Ninja swords and pirate stories work well for that. Simon, I'm less certain of, but I don't think he dislikes me...

His nephew-in-law and one of his best friends: Oh dear god, don't get me started. My first love who married my granddaughter; who betrayed me for another; who built me up into believing I was something special to him, then took it away; who buried me alive and left me there to go mad...Honestly, I have no idea what terms we are on from day to day. I have...forgiven as best I am able, and I believe he has, as well, and sometimes I see the glimmer of the friends we once were, but then he married Claire, and now...I do not know again. I can't think about it.

So. It's complicated, but honestly, it isn't so much his family I worry nearly as much about as it is him. How he will take my entanglement in his family's life, the more he thinks about it. If he ever realizes how much his mother meant, and still means, to me. I gave her up, I chose him, and I've no regret there. She and I hurt each other too deeply to ever go back to what we were, before, but what we were...I don't think he knows, and I worry if he ever understands, ever grasps it, ever fully understands it. He's taken so much from me, put up with so much, forgiven so much...

Sometimes I wonder when enough will be enough, and what will be the final straw.

Enough was enough. He was tired of watching them hurt each other. He was tired of standing back and trying to act like he was disinterested beyond being Claire's roommate and mentor. Nathan was his son. Claire was his granddaughter. They were the only blood relations he had in the fucking world, the only ones he'd had in centuries, and he was tired of seeing them hurt when they had a chance at something so much more.

He'd never asserted any authority with Claire, treating her like an adult, free to do as she pleased, and while he tried to guide her toward better decisions, he'd never laid down the law or rules at the house or anything else. He'd been there when she needed him, tried to show her she could trust him. But this time he'd let his annoyance and worry override that, and, half to his surprise, she'd listened.

Angela had arranged the Nathan side of things, and now he was pacing her living room, waiting for the younger generations to arrive. He wasn't quite certain what to say, but, well.

It was time someone took this family in hand, and if no one else was going to step up to bat to do it, then he damn well would. They were hurting, ripping apart at the seams, all of them, and he couldn't let it continue. He knew they both wanted to fix it, so hopefully there wouldn't be any difficulty, especially after his discussion with Nathan the other night. Hopefully that desire, with some sort of forcing them to face the issues and not retreating would be enough.

Somehow they had to get it right. They deserved that, instead of continuing to suffer for the mistakes of their elders. He had to find a way to make it right, no matter what it cost him.

[ooc: Sylar is heroslayer, Peter is youngerpetrelli and Claire is girl_ofsecrets and all are used with the kind permission of their muns. Mohinder is witnessof_fate and Sark is elementof_risk and both are mine to use and abuse as I please for purposes of the prompt. ;-)]

"My home is not a place, it is people." - Lois McMaster Bujold

Sark had chosen the restaurant after Adam insisted--repeatedly--that he didn't care where they ate, and that it had been Sark's choice was frighteningly obvious. Dear god, but his puppy had expensive and extravagant tastes. But they had his favorite wine, though the sommelier tried to tell them that they didn't until Sark either dropped a name or a threat and then they suddenly had not just one bottle of the 1982 Château Pétrus Bordeaux, but two, and Adam had to chuckle at just how smug the puppy looked, the frightening chill in his blue eyes melting away as it it had never been. He insisted on pouring for everyone even Claire, and the restaurant was the sort not to have to worry about their liquor license, or whatever Sark had murmured either kept the eyebrows from being raised, at least.

Adam had worried, a little, about this first gathering in such an intimate setting. True, they'd all been at the party, but this was Peter and Sylar and Claire and Mohinder all at the same dinner table, with blood under it, metaphorically, between them, soaking their history together, all of them with their pasts. He'd done his best to assure Claire she was safe, and it was a testament to her trust in him that she'd come, that she seemed to be enjoying herself. That she was here meant more to him than he could say, more than he had said to any of the rest of them--their little secret. Sylar knew and Peter knew what the girl was to them, of course, but what she was to him they kept between the two of them for fear of how Peter would react. Secret upon secret laced tighter inside of the blood between them all, but it bound them, too. They weren't just his friends, then. They were his family, too. And that, he was finding, was a precious thing.

If things started out somewhat awkward, with glances back and forth like everyone was waiting to see if someone would lunge for a steak knife and slit someone's throat, a few dry comments from Sark and a couple of well aimed shots back from Mohinder, the two outside the familial bonds, yet pulled back in by their own ties and twisted up in their own ways, eased it and by the time the waitress cleared the salads, they had eased into a few cautious stories being told around the table. By the time they opened the second bottle of wine and started on their entrees there was even teasing, and by the time dessert was served, outright laughter had broken out more than once. Adam was feeling very warm, and he didn't think it was the wine.

Going back to the flat instead of parting ways seemed almost natural, and looking around, seeing his four favorite people--and Suresh who, really, he had nothing against--Adam couldn't stop the grin. Thirty birthdays passed in cold, sterile rooms with an occasional visit by Elle if she remembered the date and could get past security as the only thing to hope for, and then this...for a moment it didn't compute. It did not seem possible that life could change this drastically in one year, that anything could change this much, could be this different, could be this right.

He was shaken from the reverie by a glass of wine being thrust into his hands along with a pair of sunglasses.

"Sunglasses, puppy?" he asked, arching an eyebrow at Sark.

"Oh, I believe they are de riguer," Sark replied with a smirk, before moving and handing them out.

Sylar was busy rooting through the box with a grin, setting things up and bickering with Peter over the drum set, and Adam watched for a moment to make sure they weren't going to hurl each other across the room and start the blood bath he'd half expected when the evening had been proposed, but Peter finally threw his hands up and shrugged. Mohinder had retreated to the chair with a glass of wine, staying far out of the way, but Sark thrust sunglasses at him as well. "Everybody plays, Suresh."

"I don't sing..."

"Yes, you do," Sylar corrected him.

"Not for this!" Mohinder protested. The two of them held each others' gaze and Adam got the sense there was some sort of silent communication going on--a sense heightened by Peter's sudden blush, and he had to smirk. Sark was watching them, too, before suddenly getting very busy with the Wii. He wandered to join him.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing. You're singing to start."

"I do better on keyboard..."

"There isn't a keyboard. It's Guitar Hero...and you need to learn it first, so...singing for first round, because you can sing... Most of these you're going to have to learn, because they're a bit after your time being out but this..." He cast Adam a smirk, put on his sunglasses and picked up the guitar. "Peter, you're up next with Suresh and Claire. Bad guys against the good guys should work I think, yes?"

Adam laughed, shaking his head. "What are we playing?"

Sark flicked on the TV, and flicked on the game. "Just listen and keep up..."

"Sweet Home Alabama"--very loud--filled the room and Adam grinned, waiting for his cue, and forgot about looking silly, pretending to be a rock star with as much abandon as he could muster.

"Big wheels keep on turning
Carry me home to see my kin..."

Peter was gone. The thought kept echoing around and around in Adam's head. He didn't believe in him. He thought him a monster, like his mother before him had, and where she had helped lock him in a cell, the son had just tossed him aside. The promise to come back, the anguish in the boy's eyes, the emotion he knew he felt coming back at him, all of it meant nothing in the face of the desertion. It was as much a betrayal as those who had locked him up thirty one years before.

Reaching forward, he poured himself a glass of whiskey, a bottle such as he had sent Nathan for Christmas, anonymously. The world was not ending--again--he told himself. Elle was with child, and faithful by his side. Eden was strong, prospering, rising from the ashes like the phoenix, like he himself had. Even with the girl, with Suresh....even with what he had done, Nathan had not actually attacked. He'd tried diplomacy, as Adam would have, and not anything that would topple Adam's fledgling kingdom.

But now he had Peter, and Adam did not. Peter who was the one person who could stop him, the one person who could make him fall, make him crawl. If Peter decided he was right, that Adam was the monster of his nightmares instead of the hero of his dreams, would he act? Would he fight to bring Adam down, or would he just turn away, his back to him for eternity, blocking him without an outright attack. Was Peter capable of such an attack? Did he fully recognize what he could do with those powers at his command? A moment, a thought...Chills ran up and down Adam's spine, a flicker of fear amidst the pain and wretchedness of dashed dreams and haunted hopes.

No time to mourn the person he had allowed Peter to bring out in him, to grieve for talks by fires, soft promises of friendship given, hints of more awakening with a brush of fingertips. No time to grieve for what could have been. It was possible it could be, a small voice still whispered. Peter had said he would come back, maybe to stay, that voice insisted. Don't do anything rash, anything to give credence to his beliefs. Other than them being true? he thought, bitter and sardonic. His brave new world just might cost him the one thing he hadn't wanted to pay.

But he had learned long ago that getting everything you wanted was rare, and that sometimes you simply had to settle for almost everything.

He had to protect himself. With Peter on his side, if Nathan chose to launch an offensive, Adam would be hard pressed to defend himself, no matter Elle and Hiro and Eden--Sarah--and Candice's powers. They weren't a match for Peter who had them all at his command, and he couldn't be certain that they would stand against Peter anyway, if the choice came to it. It was pathetic how you couldn't trust people these days. Everyone was a potential snake in the grass, a knife in your back. If Peter could turn, any of them could.

Adam's fingers curled around the heavy glass and he stared into it for a long moment. There was only one answer that made strategic sense. One person who he wouldn't think to look to for loyalty, really, but one person, at the same time, who he could trust never to take the Petrelli's side. He couldn't kill Peter--Adam wouldn't allow it--but he could keep Adam safe if need be. He took a sip, then hurled the glass against the wall, watching it shatter, the liquid that remained flying everywhere.

He didn't like the choice. Hiro would have a fit, and he'd have to calm him down, but Hiro...he thought he could manage his loyalty, at least. He was the one always going on about Adam needing better security, and Adam had always pointed at Peter and asked who would dare come against him. Well, with Peter gone, Adam needed someone to fill that position, and his carp would just have to accept it.

With a grimace, he reached for the phone, dialing Eden--Sarah's--extension. He closed his eyes when she answered, taking a breath as he knew he was crossing a line he'd have to fight to hold on to.

"Get me Sylar."