Participants:
| Scene Title | The Best Intentions |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Peter comes for Sasha's ability. |
| Date | April 26, 2010 |
Staten Island: Anonymous Safehouse
If anyone tells you that flying through the storm is easier than driving through it, they may be slightly mistaken. Sure, it's faster.
But it's that much more fucking colder.
Through the door of the safe house that Sasha's being kept in the basement of, with warning from Abigail that they were coming, bursts said blonde, using a hip to give the door a push when the knob is turned. Face red from the cold and starting to go numb. bundled against the winter and a couple layers of heavy wool socks over her one foot. It opens, giving way to the EMT and the guy behind her soon to be identified as the baby brother of the president. She hadn't stated really where they were going till they had been up in the air. Only way really to loose the two agents who had stuck like glue to her in the wake of the discovery of Francois and the trip to the hospital.
What she had said, showing up on his figurative doorstoop in crutches and clothes that she'd been crawling around in blood on, was that she needed him, needed him right now to copy an ability and help Francois or her friend was good as dead. The words somewhere along the line of 'anything you want in return' had sprung up too before directing him to Staten Island. After that, it was scoop and fly, no time for much explanation until they had landed discreetly not far from the house and made their way in.
"eo's with him. I don't know how much they can do for him. They hung him, wire. There was blood everywhere. You had said you wanted to find him, copy his ability. I'm sorry I didn't tell you before that he was here, but Sasha's.. Sasha's in the basement. They caught him and have been holding him. You need to borrow it Peter, and we need to get to the hospital and fix Francois." Thump, shuffle, in she goes.
"But I want you to heal Sasha first. I want to see you use it on him, practice on him before you do it on Francois" She lays down the condition, not even looking behind her, just heading straight for the door that will lead them down to the man being kept below.
"Practice." Peter states through his teeth, both from the cold and from his attitude at the moment. Red scarf wound around his mouth, he starts fingering at the corners with gloved hands, pulling the ratty crimson fabric down to tuck under his chin. "I had somewhere I needed to be tonight…" Peter murmurs, turning to look over his shoulder at Abby, then the open door. Brows furrowing, Peter offers the door a cross look and it slams shut, dark brown eyes settling on Abby again.
There's a moment of silence, and a moment of callous demeanor that seems so unlike Peter right up until he breathes out a sigh and lets his shoulders fall slack. "I'm not even going to ask why you haven't turned him over to agent Kershner yet," Peter murmurs, looking around the empty safehouse, dark brows furrowed and jaw set crooked, "because if you've had him as long as you say, any intelligence about where Dreyfus would be is completely worthless by now."
Those dark eyes affix on Abby again, one brow lifted. "Where is he."
"Peter Petrelli! You will not use that tone with me. If it was up to me, then I would have turned him over to Matthew and to Sarisa long ago. As it stands, if I didn't come and take care of his wounds, he'd be a dead and distant memory" She rounds on Peter, gloved hand up and forefinger pointing and jabbing at his chest.
"If it wasn't for me, he'd be cold and dead down there. I make sure he's got food and clothes and blankets, and took care of his fever when would rather have let him rot. So don't you give me that lecture. You don't want to do this, then you turn around and walk away and I'll go find… I'll go find Gabriel and have him do what he does, but I will not stand by and watch Francois die. It will kill Teo and it will kill me. It will kill Kershner, do you understand. If you don't want to talk to me after this, because I showed up and dragged you back into this life, then fine, I accept that, but I can't Peter, I can't sit and watch him suffer, when there's a solution. One that you wanted to use to fix me. Fix Francois, enough that he won't be at deaths door. That all I'm asking Peter. I'll give you anything you want in exchange."
There's a pleading look in her eyes, red rimmed from crying. "Anything"
Dark eyes level on Abby, brows furrow and Peter's expression softens some. Head tilting down, he tilts his head to the side nervously, then looks back up to Abby in silence. "I won't let Francois die either," and it sounds hard for him to say, given the subconscious desire to let the Frenchman bleed out on cold tile, "I promise."
Reaching out with a gloved hand to gently take Abby's by her wrist, Peter's other hand raises to lay on her shoulder. "Take me to him," Peter urges in quiet order, gently lowering Abby's hand and using the grip on her shoulder to turn the blonde around. "We'll figure out what to do with him after everything else is done." There's a furrow of his brows, and Peter nods his head to the blonde, squeezing her shoulder carefully before giving her a gentle, but reassuring nudge forward. "Let's hurry."
Somehow, she knows that doing this, it's quite likely the place will be raided, a call from Peter to Sarisa or Matthew and Sasha is good as caught, turned in. She doesn't care. The nudging is taken, the help turning and pinwheeling on a crutch and a heel, towards the door the pair go so that she can reach for the door that will lead down the stairs to the chained Russian.
"Sasha?" She calls ahead, one crutch left up top to make it easier to get down the stairs and come into view of the Russian, see how half a day has changed him. There is no hot chocolate this time. Not that he drank it either last time.
Ten days of being chained to a radiator in a dimly lit basement with only a bucket and the pervading chill for company changes a man. The affect that it has on him depends on the individual; in Sasha's case, it's reverted him to a more primitive version of himself with blue eyes that are more animal than human and feral all the way through. His back is to the stairs as Abby and Peter descent, both blanket and wife beater discarded, skin covered in a greasy sheen of sweat that plasters curls of light brown hair to the nape of his muscular neck and carves glistening paths through the dirt and grime caked to his bare shoulders and long, naked arms.
He doesn't lift his head from where it's resting against the side of the radiator when he hears Abby's voice or the accompanying sound of footsteps, but he does turn it to keep their approach in his peripheral vision, a shudder passing through his lean frame the next time he draws in a slow, rasping breath.
Immediately there's a look to Abby at the conditions Sasha is kept in, and Peter's brows furrow. The withering look is only briefly afforded before he turns back to the Russian, "I would've shot him." Peter offers in a cold quality, stepping down onto the concrete floor, there's a grinding sound of the scuffed soles of Peter's shoes. Brown eyes scan the room, and for the barest of moments it feels like his eyes should be blue, all surroundings considered. "But, I guess we're lucky it wasn't up to me…"
Slowly approaching Sasha the way someone would a wounded wild animal, Peter lets his head tilt to the side and one brow raise slowly. "How many other people stay here?" It's a question for Abby, not Sasha, even though brown eyes are leveled on the shirtless, sweaty husk of a man, "is it just Sasha?"
As he walks, Peter's darkly clad figure carries some of that same slow and measured cadence that once possessed Kazimir Volken. It isn't an intentional bid to scare Sasha, it's simple imprinting; when you carry something like that in you as long as Peter did and survive, there is damage done. It's only when he starts tugging off one of his black, leather gloves that the similarities become more tangible.
"Well, they're not you. I've tried to help him, he's got the Evolved Flu" Which might explain why without a mask, she's not straying close yet. "But it's just him down here. He's keeping fluids down now, I've left my painkillers for him to be given, but that just started last night. He broke his wrist, cut it clean to the bone. They sedated him, we switched it to the other hand and I took care of it but.."
It's clear to Peter when he looks at Abby that she doesn't approve of how he's being kept. Even in Staten Island in the shipping crate cages, she'd been better taken care of in a way. "I'm.. i"m tempted to just.. turn him over Peter, if I thought I could get him out of here without him killing me."
Abby starts making her way forward though, head down and to the side to try and look Sasha in the eye, one hand out in a peaceful and placating gesture. "Sasha. I need to ask a favor. Please. I have a friend, and he's really hurt. Really really hurt and I don't want to see him die. I need to borrow you're healing. If you'd find it in your heart to let me do that" Ask first, if he says no, then.. then she'll just let Peter take it. "If you do, I promise that you'll be healed. Peter knows how to use your healing. He can fix your wrist"
The muscles in Sasha's back and shoulders abruptly grow tense beneath the already taut surface of his skin. Peter Petrelli isn't Kazimir Volken; his eyes are too dark, his face too soft, but even in his feverish state he recognizes the similarities the old man's ability imparted on him, and it's impossible not to feel a cold stab of fear in his gut when that glove comes off.
Although he's only half-listening to Abigail, ears tuned instead to the gentle sound of leather being peeled off Peter's skin, he's lucid enough to isolate what parts of her entreaty are important. "It never worked," he answers in a low voice both wet and raw. "Even the best intentions. Not good enough."
It isn't a no, but— "Death is sometimes kinder."
"Sometimes." Is the flat agreement Peter offers before he raises his gloved hand and changes the direction of down for Sasha, throwing the Russian onto his back with a clatter of a nearby tin tray that had been used to serve him food. There's no room allowed for Sasha to consider things like yes, or no, Peter knows him as a rapist, a murderer and a torturer and the conflict brewing inside of Peter against subconsciously imprinted desires that go against a more heroic grain.
Slipping down onto one knee with that thrumm of gravitokinetic pressure humming around him, Peter reaches out to grasp one bare hand at Sasha's right wrist, squeezing against where it had been so grievously cut with a press of his thumb as memories of watching Sasha's personal atrocities bubble up in the back of his mind, little scraps and glimpses, tattered shreds of memory about the horror that Kazimir allowed this man to perform. It's like it's his guilt, but nothing he can ever apologize for or make amends for. It would figure, for Peter, that what he took away from Kazimir was not useful things, like a smattering of Portugese or German, but only the sodden weight of guilt.
White light begins to glow out from Peter's bare hand, between the skin to skin contact, like someone pressed a lightbulb paper thin and it's trying to squeeze its illumination out wherever it can. Soon Peter's skin begins to glow at his palm, a warmer yellow light, mottled with amber shades that swirl around the darker outline of veins. The light comes with no warmth, just the glow and also the abrupt disappearance of gravity's pull.
"Sometimes Sasha, you have to try. I don't want to take it, without you being willing, but.. there are no other options and I'm desperate enough, that I'll let him do it against your will. You can see the blood on my clothes. You've stalked me. You know me enough Sasha. I came to your hospital room and offered you shelter and help if you wanted it, before I even knew that you were part of them and if I had to do it all over again, I'd still offer it." A little closer Abigail comes, easing down awkwardly with her foot out to the side, getting just within range.
"I don't like how they're treating you down here. I'm the one that brought blankets, and clothing, and food, and I've been trying to tend your hurts. You were hallucinating Sasha and when no one else will come near you, I have. Stupid, foolish, you can call it whatever, but a man, you are, and you deserve at least, what I was given when I was locked up in Russia. Please Sasha. I have to try."
But peter has other idea's and anger flares in the blonde's face and hands go out as if that might stop Peter. "Peter!" Scuttling forward to grab at his arm and yank back. Too late, power has transferred, gravity retakes Sasha and she's furious. "Peter Petrelli!" Nearly yelling at him, yanking him away from Sasha.
That's the thing about wounded animals. Their only predictable characteristic is that they're not. Sasha hits the concrete with enough force to slam the breath from his lungs and leave him reeling on his back, spine twisted above the waist and neck craned. One foot braces against the coils of the radiator as though straightening his leg might allow him to pop the attached cuff off his hand using the leverage, or tear the chain from the pipe to which it is affixed.
It doesn't work, of course, but Sasha's anger isn't directed at his restraints.
It's leveled with Peter.
All his energy drawn from the last of his body's reserves is thrown behind the act of launching himself at the other man before Abigail can pull him away. Grimy fingers close around fistfuls of dark brown hair and pull Peter's head down, cracking his nose against Sasha's forehead to stun him before he wrenches him around and hooks his free arm around the mimic's throat.
With a snarl, Sasha draws Peter into him in a backwards embrace and crushes him against his chest, bearing down on his windpipe with his forearm while driving his knee up into the small of his back.
Ten days. Ten days he's been waiting for an opportunity like this.
It's an amazing thing, what shock and fear can do to someone. Vision isn't even coming back into Peter's blinded sight before he feels himself being yanked up into a chokehold, a knee at his back, gloved hands scrabbling at the floor. What he wouldn't give for that gravity back, he can feel how heavy he is now, how weighted he feels and how much the ache of that knee feels against his back. Peter's bare hand reaches up, paws feverishly at Sasha's arm, helplessly, he's at the disadvantage here.
Mostly.
The croaking sound Peter makes is an attempt at saying he's sorry, but it's not an apology about what's going to happen, but an apology for some vestigial emotional responsibility for turning Sasha Kozlow into the man he is. Perhaps it's not surprising when the skin at Sasha's arm near where Peter's hand touches it is turning a sooty black, veins spidering out from beneath that seemingly necrotic touch, hair turning chalk white on his arm where Peter's bare fingers paw at it.
It's an amazing thing, what shock and fear can do to an ability.
It is both revolting and magnificent all in the same, the way Abby's wish comes true. She'd wanted Peter to test Sasha's power on him, to refine it for use on Francois. Sasha's power isn't simply something like healing, it's rooted deeper in the psyche, in the subconsciousness. Sasha Kozlow's ability is ugly and twisted because that is what he is on the inside, a twisted, ugly person. What then, does the ability say for Peter Petrelli, when the healing he inflicts on Sasha's arm, his body, his sickened form shows purple-black and gray beneath his fingers.
It comes from the throat too, against Sasha's forearm, like the bitter sting of Kazimir Volken, the guilt comes to the surface in Peter's touch like an infection, a hideous black thing that slithers beneath the skin while it heals, like some rotting parasite doing his work for him. Windpipe clenched beneath Sasha's arm, the pain of Peter's form of medicine is tainted by what's inside.
Sasha's Kozlow's power is only as twisted as the people that use it.
Unfortunately Peter isn't without his kinks.
Violence begets violence and really, this isn't and shouldn't be all that unexpected. Sasha and Peter tussle, the healing in all it's horrific display goes on and fixes wounded flesh as the Russian uses him much like a shield. Any and all yanks to Peter's leg are fruitless as she comes to realize soon enough and she can't use the taser stuck in her purse, not without hitting Peter.
"Sasha!" Her hand goes to the bucket used by Sasha, heaving it's contents towards the two men to hopefully get Sasha to at least falter and in it's wake, bring the bucket down crashing on Sasha's head.
If there was any question in Abigail's mind about whether Sasha wants to live or die, she receives the answer in the form of a gargled hiss, pain bubbling up from the very core of him as Peter's healing works its serpentine way through his veins and scorches them black. Beneath the gauze bandages wrapped around his mangled wrist and the bullet wound in his thigh, dying muscle tissue is given new life as sinewy threads come together into a dense and bloody weave that leaks fluid the colour of India ink and stains the dressings the same.
When it's over, Sasha turns his head against the side of Peter's neck and releases a deep whuff of air through both his nose and mouth, and there's a moment where his grip on the younger man tightens, blunt fingernails biting down on what skin is exposed as he angles his face closer and—
Ends up with a shallow bucket's worth of pale liquid that smells strongly of urea and leaves a bitter taste on his lips when he curls them back to expose his teeth in a display of disgust, but it isn't until the bucket connects with his skull that the arms cinched around Peter are growing slack.
Of all the things in the world to happen, this had to be the single most disgusting for both Peter and Sasha. With the lives they've lived, it says a lot.
The moment Sasha's arm slacks around Peter's throat, there's a frantic slam of an elbow against the Russian's abdomen, a tug away, hands just flailing around wildly, trying to both wipe at his face, spray breath away and kick the Russian off of him. Hissing horrified breaths, Peter gags against the stench, landing on his side and crawling across the floor, one gloved hand covering his mouth as he scrambles away from Sasha on his hands and knees, gets up to his feet, makes it four steps and then vomits all over the floor of the basement.
There's a choking, wet breath, Peter's whole body is trembling and he leans forward with a dry choking heave, but nothing comes out. Gagging, Peter staggers forward again, something wet running thorugh his hair and down the bridge of his nose and there he goes again, choking up a few drooling spatters of bile as he hobbles up two steps, leaving a drizzling trail of human waste behind him.
He can't really be mad at Abby right now, he's too busy trying not to wish himself to death.
Down comes the bucket again, intention to knock out Sasha, not because she's afraid he'll lunge after her, but so that someone can clean him up before she comes back for him. Intentions clear in her mind. Abigail throws her weight behind the bucket, "Sorry" falling from her lips and then tosses to the side, limping back and away from the mess as she does her best to not imitate peter and throw up. Not that there's anything in her stomach to do so.
Sasha is in the process of splaying his fingers to support his weight as, elbow bent, he pushes himself up off the floor, only to sink back down again when the bucket comes down again and sends him plummeting into unconsciousness. He hits the cement with muffled sound that's entirely involuntary and has more to do with stale air leaving his lungs than it does a conscious choice.
Breathing out a shuddering exhalation of breath, Peter just stays motionless on the stairs, gloved hands trembling and shoulders shuddering as he tries to get everything under control. Shaking his head rapidly from side to side, there's a spray of unfortunate everything spattered across the walls from now slicked hair. Turning to look over his shoulder, ghostly pale, Peter just stares at Abby with wide, wide eyes. There's really nothing at all he can say about this, no way he can explain what just happened.
"I swear… to God," Peter breathes out in a hushed tone of voice, "if you tell me… that— that there is no running water here…" he dare not awallow, the thought makes his stomach turn, "I will— " he can't even come up with a threat that fits what he'd do. The look on Peter's face is somewhere between revolted and mortified, trying not to think about this situation at all.
"Now— I need clothes." There's a hitch of Peter's voice as he threatens a gag, "and a shower," once more, "before I go see— anyone. This— this is not negotiable."
"There's water, upstairs. Buckets, I don't know about a shower" She needs some things too, like clean clothes herself, painkillers for her foot of which, really, her doctor's going to throw a hissy fit over. Her lone crutch picked up and switched to the appropriate arm, she heads towards the stairs and Peter. There will be no apologies for what she did. None at all. "Lets get you cleaned up, get you to the hospital so you can see to Francois" She needs some vicodin and maybe a finger or two of something hard to drink.
Both of them will need the latter, she's sure.