Kamikaze

A/N: Hello again. So... my muse took a bit of an interesting turn with this one, as you can probably guess by the title. This is simply my muse examining a certain part of Peter's ambition/risk complex and how it goes one step too far...

As a sidenote, I would just like to thank everyone that has been reading or following my work. You guys are wonderful and your reviews have been so kind :) Also a huge thanks to ab89us who has been reading my work pre-posting and giving me such lovely feedback.

Disclaimer: I own nothing except the medium for my muse's madness.

There are a thousand ways to die.

Peter Bishop knows this, and with a gun poised at his temple he curses himself for choosing the messiest one. For choosing to have his brain and guts splattered over the pavement in a violent mural. It's the absolute last way that he wants to die.

But as they say, winners can't be choosers.

He's never chosen much, but then again he's never won much either and this certainly didn't show up in the fine print for the lottery.

The man holding the gun is nothing short of ugly; hair unkempt, teeth yellowed like corn kernels and eyebrows cruising across the better portion of his forehead. Peter winces slightly when the man gets too close and he can smell the beer and cigarettes tainting his breath.

"Now," he says with a devilish smirk, "Who've we got here?"

Peter says nothing and tries to shift away from the gun, but the man presses forward, the barrel of the gun crushing against his temple. He sees the man look down to the hem of his jacket, to where his FBI tag is.

"Well, well, well," he says with a bit too much delight for Peter's liking, but he can't do a thing with the barrel of a gun glaring at him.

The man plucks the tag off the hem of his shirt, his gnarly fingers clamping down on the card:

"Ain't this somethin' fancy? I think this will make a fine addition to my collection," he says.

Peter's eyebrows knit together. At first he has no idea what the man means, but the thick knot in his stomach induces a heavy nausea and he knows that's never a good sign. He watches the man walk over to another wall, his gun still trained on Peter and then he sees it. It's a simple cork board, the kind people use for pinning pictures, tickets and little souvenirs to.

This is where he finds the man's 'collection'.

It's an array of tags, photos and other forms of identification tacked to the board. Peter counts dozens, maybe more than a hundred and that's what scares him the most.

This man's done this routine before, and that notion curdles Peter's blood.

"Now," he says as he releases the safety on the gun. "What to do with you?"

Peter curses that he didn't know the safety was on until now; he would've made a run for it ages ago if he'd known. After the fleeting burst of anger there's only fear; cold and icy like rain that falls in the strange limbo between fall and winter.

It's a different kind of limbo altogether that Peter's caught in. He can feel the sweat beading on his face and in the palms of his hands. His lips are dry and every muscle in his body is wound and corded like a spring waiting to recoil.

"Maybe you should ask yourself what to do with that gun instead," he says tentatively.

The man brings the gun closer to himself, placing his other hand on the barrel; almost protecting it, "Oh no, this little treasure is mine," he pauses and admires the weapon, his dark eyes gleaming in the sinister light. "She's done wonders for me."

Peter shudders at the man's words. If there were ever a way to measure insanity he's sure that this guy would be off the scale. He curses himself at this moment, him and his damn ambitious pride. He's always known that he has an invincibility complex and now it's decided to backfire. He came to this warehouse at the most un-godly hour one could think of; just to try and save Olivia a few hours of work, a few moments of stress.

Olivia... he thinks, wondering where she is and how much he wants to be there with her.

"This little beauty," the man continues, "Helped me with all the others," he says with a nod to the board. He looks back at Peter, a sick smile twisting over his face,

"And now it's gonna help me with you."

Peter gulps, "Listen to me," he says as he holds up a hand. "Think about this for a moment, what you're doing."

"Oh there's nothing to think about, I stopped doing that a long time ago."

Peter's heart is pounding in his chest, blood screaming through his veins as he tries to gulp down the fear, tries to quell the doom filling his throat like bile.

This is where it falls. He sees Olivia in his mind, the deep emerald whorl of her eyes a passionate inferno blazing in his memories. He remembers her face, and how she's been watching over him all this time. He remembers the galaxy of freckles that spiral over her skin into patterns he's sure that only he knows.

As the man moves the gun closer to Peter, he remembers her words: You belong with me.

This is where it's supposed to end, and he's desperately trying to grab onto something, anything to keep himself from the edge. He's clawing through the proverbial soil of his consciousness, digging up memories that slip through his fingers a moment later.

He doesn't want it to end here. He wants a thousand more mornings waking up with his arms curled around Olivia, the sunlight dancing over her skin. He wants a million more moments with her, if only he knew that he had that many. But with the barrel of a gun staring at him, ominous and dark like obsidian the prospects are anything but promising. He's shaking, but he tries to hide it as he presses his palms against the wall and thinks,

I'm so sorry Livia.

He knows that it will come any moment now. And that after there are two possibilities: one of infinite light or one of infinite darkness. He's not sure which one is more likely, but he's certain on which one is preferable.

He closes his eyes and waits, hoping for the mercy of brevity in this instance. He pictures her green eyes, drawing him into their embrace and wrapping him in an emerald serenity.

Then there's a bang, less like a gun shot and more like the loud crash of a door. But Peter still ducks away anyways.

"FBI, freeze!" The voice is achingly familiar to him, and the relief floods him when he hears it.

He hears footsteps, then the snap of a gunshot and then silence. He opens his eyes and looks around. The man is lying some distance away on the floor, with some dark substance curling around his body that Peter doesn't want to think about.

"Peter?"

He looks up and there she is, offering her hand to him from his crouched position. He takes her hand, appreciating now more than ever the sensation of her hand in his and the pressure of her soft skin against his own. She wraps her arms around him after he stands, hands cupping the arches of his shoulder blades as he gently moves a hand into her hair and brings her head to rest on his shoulder. His other hand is on her back, tracing out faint patterns, almost constellations. He presses his lips against her forehead and whispers:

"I'm okay."

He feels her sigh against him and then whisper.

"I'm not."

He stops the motions on her back as she pushes away from him; she looks up at him and he sees the crinkles of concern around her eyes, the way her lips droop slightly at the corners. The emerald in her eyes is dark, splashed with hints of onyx.

"Peter you were almost killed," she pauses, nipping at her lower lip. "I almost lost you."

He knows that she's right, and that's what kills him the most. He went out to do something good for her and ended up almost throwing her into a tumultuous hurricane. It's what he usually gets for these kinds of attempts, but he hadn't been expecting the man with the gun.

He tries to speak but she holds up a hand, her voice falling to a soft whisper as more agents come in to inspect the scene. She takes both of Peter's hands in her own and says.

"You see this?" she says as she caresses his hands gently with the pads of her thumbs, "All the time I was driving here; racing here because I knew that you would do something like this, put your ass on the line like this," she pauses. "And the entire time I was driving here I couldn't stop thinking about how I may never get to do this again," she runs her thumb over his hand.

It's a small gesture, but Peter knows that she means a lot more. Her eyes scream the words she wants to say but can't, she has too much professionalism for that. He doesn't have to ask to know that she's furious and terrified at the same time because of what he did in that moment of impetuous ambition.

"Livia," he answers and she looks from their joined hands to his face, eyes soft and shy.

"I'm here now," he says. "And I don't plan on going anywhere else."

A small smile glances over her face as she motions towards the door.

"Come on, let's get outta here. Broyles is probably going to give you hell for this anyways."

Peter rolls his eyes slightly. "Oh joy, really I always wanted to know what it'd be like to piss off the head of the Fringe team."

She quirks an eyebrow at him. "Well now you'll get to find out, and in person too."

He smirks lightly and adds with a heavy dash of sarcasm. "Uh huh, and that makes this so much better."

She chuckles for a moment, a more confident smile creasing the blush on her face as she heads towards the door. "Come on Peter."

He's about to follow her when he remembers a certain item that was taken from his person earlier and plastered on a tacky board of images; the portraits of ghosts both young and old. Peter really wants his tag back, as he has no intention of joining the ranks of the missing and the haunted.

He starts walking back to the memory board and hears Olivia call. "Peter?"

He walks to the board, reaching up and plucking his tag from the board as a red-tipped tack tumbles to the floor in front of him. He turns to Olivia, holding up his tag and says:

"Almost forgot this."

She looks to the board and then to the tag clutched between his fingers and he sees her eyebrows scrunch together in a melancholic swirl of realisation and disgust. He pockets the tag and follows her out the door.

He doesn't look back at that board; the dark page of a man twisted by the hands of malice and greed. He doesn't think about the board again that night and never does again.

He belongs on no one's memorabilia board.

Fin

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Also... if you are looking for my muse after reading this... *points at a far away location* they went that way! ;P