[WM] 64.6 - Terror
Nov. 24th, 2008 02:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
changehistoryAt first he's too stunned by the sight before him to feel much more than shock. Of all the things he expected to see, Arthur Petrelli lying in a bed, hooked up to a half dozen machines with a tube in his throat had not even made the list. Confusion follows shock, rapidly followed by understanding. Something happened beyond what Bob told him, beyond the rumors that rolled down quiet corridors to be whispered through grates and murmured against skin. No heart attack, no suicicde, but something else. Another secret buried under a bed of lies, and one that even the Company doesn't know about if he's hidden away in this place in New Jersey, away from Pinehearst and Angela's reach. And now he needs Adam's blood to be healed, to be made whole once more from whatever they've done to him.
Well, anger and vengeance might be something he wants, but with the man's henchmen surrounding him, Adam's hardly in a position to argue. Besides, Arthur was always one of his most faithful, and if he's here...with these resources...away from the others, away from Bob, then it's possible gratitude might sway him back to Adam's side, and with the two of them...well. He's lost Peter, but he could use Arthur's assistance getting back on his feet, so. He'll give him his blood without a fight.
There's a flicker, though, in the other man's eyes, and a link, a thought, and in a moment, in a heartbeat, in a breath, Adam knows that it isn't his blood that Arthur is after. Why? It screams in his head, as his pulse accelerates, and he backs away from that bed of death. His blood is all he needs, his blood is all Arthur ever asked before. Years, decades, and it was all he took, when he could have reached out his hand and taken so much more. Eternal youth, eternal life was right there for his asking before he became this man in this bed, and he never came for it.
"Oh, believe me, if they could find a way to kill me, they would."
They'd had it, but Arthur had never reached for him that way, and Adam had counted it some lingering affection, some belief in each other, in their shared purpose, a vision for the world. So why now? He needs healing, Adam understands that, and he'll give it, give it willingly, let him rise up from this bed and aid him in whatever purpose he wants to bring to the world, but not this. Please, god, no, not this...
He thought he knew fear in that coffin. Death closed in around him tight and dark and cutting off light and sound and air. He died of suffocation, died of starvation, died of thirst, died of exposure, died again and again and again, let it claim him and pull him under, but every time Death knocked he knew he would rise once more, as he always had. His one fear had been that no one would come, that this was to be his fate, slowly going mad in a prison so small he could barely move, screaming his throat raw and letting it heal to do it again knowing the futility of the sounds even as he made them.
That fear was nothing compared to this.
The way out is blocked and Arthur's eyes are all he can see as they drag him back to the bed. Words fall from his lips, but Adam doesn't know what they are, what he says. It isn't what he would want, how he would want it, he is sure. There should be a quip, something cold and snaky to toss in Arthur's face. Something defiant about revenge. A hope to cling to that someone--Hiro or Peter, perhaps--will care enough to try and right this wrong, but nothing comes. Arthur's hand closes around his wrist, god, but it hurts, hurts worse than the arrow that pierced his heart and there is more despair in it than then. He thought, then, that it was time, meant to be, a scoundrel's life, held far too cheaply, doomed to end. He'd been trying to end it, truth be told, despite the cheap fighting tricks, meandering through life, making a name for himself doing nothing whilst he drank his past into the ground and meant to follow his ghosts there.
He wonders if they are waiting as he feels energy pulling out of him, watches with horror as the skin under Arthur's hand seems to change, wrinkling, aging with a rapidity he cannot process, that nevertheless seems to take on some macabre slow motion, as he realizes it is truly happening. It is moments and forever. Not like this, please, he begs any gods, any one who is listening. A sword to the neck, a death in battle, a bullet to the brain in some glorious assassination plot at the hands of an enemy, but not this, not some sick old man in a bed who once he'd called friend, brother, reaching out and stripping that from him that was his when he would have given him the life he so desperately craved if only he asked...
The room grows dim, dark, fast, breathing near to impossible, as if he is back in the coffin again, and he sees a glitter in the other man's eyes that he still cannot understand. There is a rushing darkness closing in on him from all around the edges, blocking out his senses until all that exists is Arthur's gaze and that pernicious pull and Adam feels a burning tugging at him, and wonders if it is Hell's fires reaching to pull him under. He opens his mouth to scream, but he has no mouth left, and then there is nothing left at all, except the echoing thought that seems to reverberate in the darkness.
Why?
Well, anger and vengeance might be something he wants, but with the man's henchmen surrounding him, Adam's hardly in a position to argue. Besides, Arthur was always one of his most faithful, and if he's here...with these resources...away from the others, away from Bob, then it's possible gratitude might sway him back to Adam's side, and with the two of them...well. He's lost Peter, but he could use Arthur's assistance getting back on his feet, so. He'll give him his blood without a fight.
There's a flicker, though, in the other man's eyes, and a link, a thought, and in a moment, in a heartbeat, in a breath, Adam knows that it isn't his blood that Arthur is after. Why? It screams in his head, as his pulse accelerates, and he backs away from that bed of death. His blood is all he needs, his blood is all Arthur ever asked before. Years, decades, and it was all he took, when he could have reached out his hand and taken so much more. Eternal youth, eternal life was right there for his asking before he became this man in this bed, and he never came for it.
"Oh, believe me, if they could find a way to kill me, they would."
They'd had it, but Arthur had never reached for him that way, and Adam had counted it some lingering affection, some belief in each other, in their shared purpose, a vision for the world. So why now? He needs healing, Adam understands that, and he'll give it, give it willingly, let him rise up from this bed and aid him in whatever purpose he wants to bring to the world, but not this. Please, god, no, not this...
He thought he knew fear in that coffin. Death closed in around him tight and dark and cutting off light and sound and air. He died of suffocation, died of starvation, died of thirst, died of exposure, died again and again and again, let it claim him and pull him under, but every time Death knocked he knew he would rise once more, as he always had. His one fear had been that no one would come, that this was to be his fate, slowly going mad in a prison so small he could barely move, screaming his throat raw and letting it heal to do it again knowing the futility of the sounds even as he made them.
That fear was nothing compared to this.
The way out is blocked and Arthur's eyes are all he can see as they drag him back to the bed. Words fall from his lips, but Adam doesn't know what they are, what he says. It isn't what he would want, how he would want it, he is sure. There should be a quip, something cold and snaky to toss in Arthur's face. Something defiant about revenge. A hope to cling to that someone--Hiro or Peter, perhaps--will care enough to try and right this wrong, but nothing comes. Arthur's hand closes around his wrist, god, but it hurts, hurts worse than the arrow that pierced his heart and there is more despair in it than then. He thought, then, that it was time, meant to be, a scoundrel's life, held far too cheaply, doomed to end. He'd been trying to end it, truth be told, despite the cheap fighting tricks, meandering through life, making a name for himself doing nothing whilst he drank his past into the ground and meant to follow his ghosts there.
He wonders if they are waiting as he feels energy pulling out of him, watches with horror as the skin under Arthur's hand seems to change, wrinkling, aging with a rapidity he cannot process, that nevertheless seems to take on some macabre slow motion, as he realizes it is truly happening. It is moments and forever. Not like this, please, he begs any gods, any one who is listening. A sword to the neck, a death in battle, a bullet to the brain in some glorious assassination plot at the hands of an enemy, but not this, not some sick old man in a bed who once he'd called friend, brother, reaching out and stripping that from him that was his when he would have given him the life he so desperately craved if only he asked...
The room grows dim, dark, fast, breathing near to impossible, as if he is back in the coffin again, and he sees a glitter in the other man's eyes that he still cannot understand. There is a rushing darkness closing in on him from all around the edges, blocking out his senses until all that exists is Arthur's gaze and that pernicious pull and Adam feels a burning tugging at him, and wonders if it is Hell's fires reaching to pull him under. He opens his mouth to scream, but he has no mouth left, and then there is nothing left at all, except the echoing thought that seems to reverberate in the darkness.
Why?
