Participants:
Scene Title | It Can Wait |
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Synopsis | Peter returns home to find Goldilocks in his bed, sound asleep. |
Date | June 23, 2010 |
Le Rivage: Peter's Room
After Peter left, and Abby embarrassed herself, the two women watched the movie Melissa brought and ate Chinese, while Mel enjoyed a couple of Screwdrivers, and Abby remained sober. But like all good things, even that had to end at some point. Which, in this case, means retreating to bed. Before someone got drunk enough to embarrass herself. Namely Melissa.
Though Abby had mentioned Melissa sleeping in the third bedroom, Mel refused. Peter had offered his bed, and she was going to take it, no matter what Abby said, best friend or not. Even if he wasn't going to be in it, she was going to take the offer. So she picked up her shoes and bag, and went in search of the promised bed. It had taken one wrong peek into that spare bedroom, before she found it, but it's not exactly difficult to find a room in an apartment this size.
Seeing it neat got her smiling, though the emptiness of it made her sad. And made her wonder why he had nothing of himself in here. Why it was all hidden in the Howland Hook Facility. Still, it was his, and she was here, and it was certainly better than a spare bed. This is Abby and Peter's apartment. She can't just pass on a spare bed! A couch, yes. A floor? Certainly. But not a spare bed. Her bag was left against the wall, her shoes neatly in front of it. And there are clothes on top of it, along with the sling. In the darkness it's hard to tell precisely what, but that is definitely the pair of pants that Melissa was wearing when he left. Uh oh.
And there on the bed, is Sleeping Beauty herself. She's tucked beneath the covers, laying on her side facing the center of the bed - and the door, incidentally. Perhaps she's paranoid even in her sleep? Her hair is spread out over the pillow, the white patch hidden beneath the blonde and black. In sleep her face is peaceful, the scars on her forehead and under her chin hidden by her hair, a little smile on her lips, as if she's having pleasant dreams, rather than dreams of Moab or the horrors facing them.
With the covers pulled about halfway up her torso, it's easy enough to see that she's wearing the same black tee-shirt she was wearing before. She didn't come expecting to stay the night, of course, so didn't bring anything extra to sleep in. And that could be why she's raided his dresser, and is also sleeping in a pair of his boxers.
They're more comfortable to sleep in than jeans. Honest.
The sun is going to be rising soon, given that it's just past four in the morning in the summertime. That Peter Petrelli does not creak doors or floorboards on his return trip to what passes for one of his homes is because of his current state of being, or unbeing as the case is now. He is invisible amidst the other shadows in the darkened bedroom, a spill of inky darkness that filters beneath the door in paper-thin sheet, rises up along the wall as if someone were casting it, and then appears as though walking through the room, coming to linger beside the bed.
The shadow ducks, as though a man were crouching by the bedside, lingers in the way it is cast across Melissa, before sliding down silently to the floor. From the darkness, Peter rises up slowly, piece by piece materializing from shadow as if emerging from the surface of water, looming there in his long and dark jacket, scarf wound loosely around his throat.
Dark eyes stare down at Melissa, and as Peter turns his head towards the curtained window of his bedroom, Venetian blinds drawn shut to keep out even daylight, he seems pensive. Turning back to Melissa, Peter's brows crease and he briefly regards the door. Maybe he should go, maybe he should stay? Something in the back of his mind tells him otherwise, a third option that is silenced by a subconscious voice, a serpent's hiss in the back of his mind that hides the truth.
Whatever his true feelings are, Peter can't feel them as he opts to crouch down and then slowly sit on the side of the bed. Dark eyes drift up and down Melissa and his bare fingers brush along her forehead, drawing blonde hair up and over one finger as he tucks it behind her ear. "Hey…" he whispers hushed to her, as gentle a greeting as he can muster.
It may be a quiet greeting, but Melissa is a light sleeper, and her mind knows that voice all too well. Perhaps the light touch had her beginning to stir. She makes a small sound in her throat, but her eyes don't open, not immediately. However, she doesn't need to see to speak, or to lift a hand from the pillow to reach for his hand.
"Mmm…Peter? You coming to bed?" she murmurs softly as she lets her hand trail up his arm, then down so her arm slides loosely around his waist. "I can behave." Though even half-asleep, she isn't so certain of that. But she can certainly try.
Peter tenses up, throat tightening and brows furrowing, dark eyes cast aside at the arms around his waist. With a faint smile, Peter's hand falls away from Melissa's brow, coming to rest down on her forearm and gently pry one of her arms from around his waist. "No I…" the hesitation in his voice is palpable, it makes every part of him feel tense and uncertain, like someone walking in unfamiliar shoes. "I just wanted to see how you were feeling, after…" he motions with a tip of his nose to the white patch on her hair. "It's still a new ability, I'm… getting the kinks out of it. It takes a while for me to really get the hang of things."
Even if that seems to be his intention, Peter's heart seems to be a difficult thing to read. Once he's moved Melissa's arms from around himself gently, he reaches up to take off his jacket, unshouldering it and pulling the length out from beneath where he sits, letting the thin coat fall to the floor with a rustle of cloth. The scarf unwinds, but he keeps it balled up in his hands, for lack of anything better to do with them— or perhaps fear of what he would do with them.
When her arm is pulled from him Melissa works at getting her eyes open, blinking a few times until she can see him as well as possible in the dark. "Peter?" She yawns as she sits up a little, the blankets falling down and revealing, if he dares look, that she raided his dresser for something to sleep in. "What's wrong?" she asks, concerned, watching him, his face especially.
Her tongue slides over dry lips, while she tries to get her mind working at something resembling normal. A hand is extended, to rest lightly over his. "It's what you said the other day, isn't it? About being conflicted?" she asks softly. "You know I want you, I won't deny that, but I won't push you. We can just…sleep." It's not the easiest concession she's ever made, but she's afraid that to move too soon, too bold, will scare him off, at least when he's like this.
"It's not that…" Peter admits in a hushed tone of voice, looking down to Melissa's hand on his, and it's odd to him not feeling the constant tingle of her power in that contact. Losing Wendy Hunter's ability has deadened some of the electricity that once crackled between them, blunted what was once exhilarating with every contact. Peter's eyes only then lift up from the hand to Melissa's, then quickly avert. "Have you ever felt like… you're forgetting something?" Peter's fingers curl against his palm slowly.
"Feel like… you're forgetting something important, something you were supposed to do, or say to someone?" When dark eyes come back up to Melissa, there's a distantly conflicted look on Peter's face, and he seems for all his worth to be much like a lost puppy. "I can't… I don't know, I keep getting this feeling like there's something I should be telling you, but right when I find the words they just…"
Peter's lips purse together, as if trying to say something, but nothing comes but silence and the shake of his head. "I don't think I'm getting enough sleep…" is his dismissive answer.
"If it's important, it'll come to you. Don't worry about it right now though. I'm a big girl, and you…are a man who is going to run himself ragged." Melissa reaches for the scarf, trying to pull it gently from his hand while she wakes up more and more with each passing moment. Serious conversation can do that. Ominous conversation does it faster, and he certainly has her worried, though she hides it. "C'mon hon. Take off the shoes and shirt, and lay down. I know what you're doing is important, but if you don't take care of yourself, you'll crash. I'm not going to let you crash," she promises softly.
"If nothing else, just lay down and rest. We can talk, if you want, or I can go out onto the couch. But you're not leaving this bed until you've had a couple hours of sleep." She smiles a little, lifting the hand not trying to get the scarf to rest lightly against his cheek as she did a few days ago. "Please? If not for yourself, then for me?"
Breathing in a sharp breath, something Melissa says looks to elicit a memory from Peter, or perhaps he just needed time to remember. But when Peter opens his mouth, he looks lost again, eyes searching from side to side and brows slowly furrowing, as if whatever he was just about to say was stolen from his lips. There's a crease at his forehead, his expression shifts into a smile, and Peter slowly loses that doe-eyed look as he lifts a hand to Melissa's cheek, thumb stroking gently beneath her eye.
"Okay," is not what he wanted to say originally, but it's what he says as an alternative. Leaning forward, Peter presses his lips softly to Melissa's, wrapping one arm around her waist to give a gentle squeeze much as she had to his as his eyes fall shut. "For you," seems playfully coy, as if mocking her choice of words gently.
When his hand touches her cheek, Melissa smiles warmly at him. She can't help with his memory, isn't sure she wants to, but there are other ways to help. But as much as she's wanted another kiss from him, it surprises her. Pleasantly, of course, and it's returned. His playful words have her laughing softly, before she gives a little tug, trying to get him to lay down. It has a purpose though, beyond her own wants. Once he's laying down, it's easy enough to half-lean, half-lay over him to get his shoes off.
The shirt, for now, is left where it is, and Melissa simply curls into him, an arm sliding around him before her cheek comes to rest lightly on his shoulder. She doesn't speak, though she smiles. She's letting him decide whether he wants to talk, sleep or otherwise. For now she's content to simply be close, holding him while she's held in return.
Silent for a time with Melissa by his side, Peter watches her with a distant, searching expression. Maybe he's searching her, maybe he's searching himself, neither possibility is answered by his expression. But it isn't as though Melissa is left hanging for an answer to her own question, and it's wordlessly that Peter lifts a hand up to brush knuckles gently across her cheek again, then lean slowly inwards to press a soft, warm kiss to her lips, his eyes closed and weight shifted towards her.
Peter needn't really say anything, a touch is all it takes sometimes to convey the most complex of meanings. He shifts again, closer to her, leaning Melissa onto her back and rises up onto one arm, pressing another kiss to the side of her throat, lips plucking at the warm and vulnerable skin he finds there, before his hand moves from the side of her face, coming to find one of her hands and draw it away from herself, fingers lacing together, hand pinned down to the bed.
Leaning there over Melissa, Peter's eyes open and he watches her in the dark with more visual acuity than most people should have in this instance of low lighting. "I'm not tired yet…" is a hushed explanation for how he feels about the situation, now that his mind seems to have settled into the proper direction. He had something important to say…
But it can wait.