Follow the Tracks - Peter

[st_x5_494]

It was 4:30 A.M. in the morning and Alec was already up and dressed. He glanced out of his room to the horizon that wasn't quite yet hinting at the sunrise, but it would be soon. He walked into the other room where Peter slept and crossed his arms over his chest while he watched the teenage boy sleep - it must be nice to sleep so easily sometimes.

He shifted, moving about the room silently as he gathered the needed material and then he suddenly through a set of clothing at Peter's face. "Rise and shine, sunshine. We need to get moving."

Comments

[st_arkintern]

Peter lets out a tremendous yawn and shoves out of bed. "Miss our chance for what?" He gropes blindly for his shirt from the pile.

[st_x5_494]

"Be superheroes" Alec mostly just said that in case it woke him up. Internally he eye-rolled at himself.

"Something's been killing deer at night. It keeps getting closer to the inn. Figure maybe we go out and find it before it gets too close and hurts someone."

[st_arkintern]

"Oh," Peter says, groggily, pulling off his nightshirt and pulling on his regular one. He stands, puts on some slacks, pulls on some socks and somehow manages to get on some shoes. All that movement wakes him up a little, and he's finally able to pull words together.

"You don't think it's anything like those creatures that attacked us earlier this year, do you?"

[st_x5_494]

"I don't think so. It looks animal, but with this place?" He shrugged. He was a little impressed by how quickly was getting up. "Whatever it is, it's not eating a lot of the deer so I don't think its doing it for nourishment."

[st_arkintern]

"So chances are it's not just some normal wild animal." Peter can't recall any animal who wholesale attacked for the fun of it. There were always exceptions to the rule, but here it was far more likely to be something abnormal than something normal.

Peter slips on his web-slingers. "Ready?"

[st_x5_494]

"I was ready have an hour ago. I was letting you sleep in." He turned and headed for the hallway. Soon they were out in the cool air of the very early morning - they weren't awake before, they probably would be now. "How much tracking you ever do?"

[st_arkintern]

"The only tracking I've done is with one of my suit's trackers," Peter admits. "Are you gonna show me?"

[st_x5_494]

"Tracking with technology is different." A lot easier, though, if he had a choice. He looked at Peter as they headed toward the woods. He had his small black pack slung on one shoulder. He reached into a side pocket and tossed Peter a flashlight. While Alec could see in the dark, he figured Peter couldn't.

"Yeah, I'll show you. Might be without your suit sometime."

[st_arkintern]

Peter catches the light and turns it on.

"You can't teach me now?" he asks. Not that he could really see much more with the light than he could without it.

[st_x5_494]

"I can teach you when we find it's trail. Useless looking now. The last time I found it, it was in the woods." The woods were a little way off now. "You up for this?" Just in case things got 'intense'.

[st_arkintern]

Peter shoots Alec a curious look. Why wouldn't he be?

"Yeah, yeah, of course."

[st_x5_494]

He looked at Peter with a bit of a look as if he wasn't buying it. "And if we have to put this thing down?"

[st_arkintern]

"If it's to keep everyone safe, I'll do it."

There's no hesitation in Peter's voice, his choice of words deliberate. No us or we. Alec knows he'll do it. Peter knows Alec will do it. Alec needs to know that he'll do it too if it calls for it.

[st_x5_494]

"Alright." He wasn't entirely sure if this was true, but Alec was willing to give Peter the benefit of the doubt.

Soon they found themselves in the forest. It was darker here, but Alec found it familiar. "You feeling any better after all that stuff that happened lately?"

[st_arkintern]

"Yeah, it wasn't really great for a few days, but Annie came over and we kinda talked it out." There'd been a lot they hadn't talked about; Tony had separated Annie from the group and she'd gone to sleep after her chat with the man. "She knows now that she's probably not my daughter."

[st_x5_494]

Somehow this made Alec feel even more awkward about the girl... like he had to really, really watch what he had to say now. "And you're... happy about this? Sad? Disappointed?"

Up head, there seemed to be some sort of lump on the ground. It wasn't moving and as they got closer, it was definitely a dead deer.

[st_arkintern]

"I don't know," Peter says. He runs the flashlight over the deer's corpse. Peter understood the circle of life well enough, but it felt purposeless for this deer to die for nothing.

"I guess sad really. I don't know, there's a chance she might be my daughter, but Tony seems convinced she isn't."

[st_x5_494]

Alec crouched by the deer, surveying the claw marks and the blood. "You know, the other X5s. Max always called them her brothers and sisters. We're not actually related, of course. But to her and some of the others, that's what they are." Of course, the duplicated back in Manticore had a lot of 'reprogramming' when their other halves went AWOL. It was hard for Alec to truly forgive Ben - especially since he was a special case which meant even more reprogramming to be 'on the safe side'.

He looked around and then stood up. "Okay. So you want to look around for things like either broken branches, footprints, blood, or anything else that seems out of the ordinary."

[st_arkintern]

Peter runs the flashlight along the ground, trying to spot anything that might be awry.

"Did you consider them your siblings?"

[st_x5_494]

"For a long time I considered them traitors. And then Max came and I considered her a pain in my ass." And he had sold her out on at least one occasion before.

"I'm not close to most of them, but..." He shrugged. "I guess maybe Max... and Joshua." Assuming they'd let him be part of their circle.

[st_arkintern]

"So do you consider them your family?" Peter stops searching the ground and looks over at Alec.

[st_x5_494]

He looked back at Peter and paused. Did he? He gave a bit of a shrug. "Yeah, I guess." Did they him though? Probably not.

[st_arkintern]

Peter turns his attention back to the surroundings and as he moves his flashlight upwards, catches sight of a few broken branches, the ends dangling limply.

"Alec!" Peter says in a whisper. He casts the light up on the branches. "That's what we're looking for, right?"

[st_x5_494]

He nodded, his voice lowering to be quiet too. "Yeah. Looks like it's heading away, too." He gestured to the way the branches were bent, explaining briefly how you can tell it was going rather than coming.

He gestured quietly for Peter to take the lead and headed down the trail. It was definitely big, but Alec wasn't sure what it was, exactly.

[st_arkintern]

Peter moves ahead, treading with care, his flashlight pointed at the path in front of them, then up in search of more broken branches. A few had bent enough to break off completely.

"You don't think it's one of those creatures that attacked the inn before, do you?"