Shattered Salvation - The Biggest Heroes Story Ever Told
(Drop me a line if you know of a longer Heroes story.)
A Beginner's Guide to Shattered Salvation
It's a big story. Here's what it's about.
Find the story here: 1,053,626 words, 393 chapters
[Story Overview]
Title: Shattered Salvation (Shattered Identity / Salvation of Acceptance / Continuation Scenes, and all Bonus Features and Mature Scenes)
Rating: NC-17. There are long stretches that are T/PG-13.
Characters: Peter, Gabriel, Angela Petrelli, Heidi Petrelli, Maury Parkman, Emma Coolidge, Noah Bennet, Arthur Petrelli, various others for cameos.
Pairings: Peter/Gabriel, Gabriel/Heidi, Peter/Emma, Angela/Maury, Claire/Gretchen, Micah/Abigail, mentions of other pairings (Peter/Nathan, Nathan/Heidi, Matt/Mohinder, Micah/Molly, original characters with canon characters, etc.)
Spoilers: Follows canon until The Fifth Stage, departs after that. Posits a pre-existing slash relationship between Peter and Nathan.
Warnings: Explicit sexual content, domestic violence (several times in the context of Peter/Gabriel, once in the context of Gabriel/Heidi), several instances of non-consensual sex (chapter 36, "Peter's First"; chapter 322, "Green Eyed Monster part 2"; there is also a very non-consensual nightmare in chapter 305, "Nightmare"; sex of dubious consent in chapter 351, "Sylar on Sylar"; outright rape in chapter 352, "Date Rape"), pseudo-incest (Gabriel, as Nathan, with Peter), moderate violence, one incident of graphic violence (chapter 252, "The Last of the Airbender"), some gore, a variety of powers used in conjunction with sexual activity (including using shape shifting to simulate various people you might have rather not imagined having sex), swear words, permanent death of non-main characters, temporary death of main characters, off-screen death of Matt Parkman
Length: A little over 1.05 million words. Complete.
Summary: This is a love story that emerges between Peter and Gabriel, although it does not start that way and takes a while to develop. There are different supportive relationships between Peter and Emma, and Gabriel and Heidi that occur over the course of the story. "Gabriel" is Sylar whose mind was fractured a second time by Matt Parkman in an attempt to entirely subjugate Sylar's personality and recover Nathan's. The job was botched and the person who emerged initially had personality traits of both. The first major story arc, which was originally published as Shattered Identity, tracks Gabriel coming to terms with his new life and eventually opposing Arthur Petrelli's plan to cause another eclipse and artificially spawn people with abilities. The next major arc was published as Salvation of Acceptance. It is Peter's effort to stop an OC named Lilith who was backing Arthur and continues his efforts after he is defeated at the end of Shattered Identity. The next major arc is the Continuation Scenes after Salvation of Acceptance, as Peter and Gabriel strengthen and solidify their relationships with each other and their spouses, creating a polyamorous marriage.
All scenes originally published in separate stories as Bonus Features or Mature Edition have been integrated into the story, arranged chronologically, so you can read the whole thing start to finish in a single story. I have included a few chapters from other stories in the same AU, though I am not including longer works like the Adventures of Matt Parkman.
Please be kind for the early chapters. I had not yet settled on what kind of story I was going to tell and I had no idea it would become as involved as it did. I didn't even intend to have it be slash at first.
[A Guide to Story Arcs]
A Guide to Story Arcs
First, it helps to understand how the story was written. It started as a one-shot (which you'll see as chapter 2, because chapter 1 on FFN is the overview), then I added a different point of view on the same scene as the one-shot (chapter 3). Then I added what came after that one-shot (chapters 4-19). Then I wrote some slashy porn that was I wildly insecure about, but enjoyed the heck out of writing (chapters 36-42). Eventually, I decided that if I just wrote a few linking chapters (chapters 20-35), I could publish my porn on the end of my other stuff. Then the characters truly took on a life of their own as I introduced a villain, let some villainy happen, and then had the characters triumph (chapters 43-90, which is the core of “Shattered Identity”, although I tend to call chapters 2-90 “Shattered Identity”). I enjoyed that so much, that I introduced another villain and wrote a new, bigger story with Peter as the central character instead of Sythan/Gabriel (chapters 91-175, “Salvation of Acceptance”). By the end of it, I was very fired up and wrote a whole bunch of porn where the guys banged each other relentlessly and angsted over all sorts of things (chapters 176-393, “Continuation Scenes”). Early on, I intended the Continuation Scenes to be mostly disconnected sex scenes and maybe a bit of drama here and there. Then I started writing little plot arcs of five or six chapters, then bigger ones until they all sort of flowed together.
As a weird feature, I initially published the stories of Shattered Identity and Salvation of Acceptance using solely the chapters that had Gabriel in them for Shattered Identity and Peter in them for Salvation of Acceptance. I was writing each as a single point-of-view story and wanted to keep it that way. However, I wrote lots of other material on what the other characters were doing - Angela, Maury, Claire, etc. - as well as what Peter or Gabriel were doing out of the sight of the other. I originally published these as “Bonus Features” with little notes telling people where they fit in the main story.
If that's not enough, all of the sex scenes were originally published separate from the main story, in a story called “Mature Scenes”. I did this so that the main stories were PG and conformed to FFN's ratings guideline. I figured if they caught me publishing porn, that maybe they'd only shut down the one story and leave the other. Again, there were little author's notes directing people on where to look for the juicy bits, which were sometimes excised right out of the middle of chapters.
So there were initially five different 'stories', all chronologically mismatched, and to read everything that was going on, you had to jump from one to another. Eventually I gave up on that, deleted all SS material, and reposted in one huge, chronologically-ordered story on FFN (which is how it is now). However, this means that you'll read twenty-eight chapters of Gabriel's point of view, then suddenly have three chapters of Angela, Rene, and Maury, then go back to Gabriel. Or you'll have a single chapter out of the blue about an adventure of Hesam's, or Claire's. There's not much in the way of transition. I'm sorry about that, but if you know why it's that way going in, maybe that will help.
Shattered Identity - Chapters 2-90
[Other Fics Set in the Same Verse]
Other Fics Set in the Same Verse
Peter/Nathan stuff:
[Frequently Asked Questions]
Frequently Asked Questions
With thanks to DD3, who posed most of these questions and gave me permission to reprint my answers.
Now as far as your SS, I haven't read enough of it to really understand your dynamic. It seems like Sylar and Peter are secretly a couple? And maybe only Heidi knows about them? I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts about what you did with SS and why.
In the beginning of SS, Sythan was in a snit about how everything had turned out and decided that if everyone and their fucking dog wanted him to be Nathan, then FINE! he'd be Nathan. ::insert angry snarl here:: He showed up to Heidi's house and ... had something of an attack of conscience. Because Heidi hadn't had anything to do with anything and when Nathan was being a putz, she'd dumped him like she should have, and stayed apart from him the whole time, being (as far as he knew) a good mother to the kids. Whom he sort of felt like were his kids, because he was suffering some identity confusion with Nathan. But he still wanted a place in the world, money, and protection from the ravages of the Petrellis (both Angela *and* Peter had arranged mental rapes for him at this point). So he knocked. After some tense stuff, he told Heidi about powers and abilities. He explained to her what the fuck had been up with Nathan all that time. He was pretending to be wholly Nathan, too. He told the story from a different perspective - that Nathan had been set up and sold out by his mother, then had the memories of a serial killer crammed into his brain in some whacked out plan to give him multiple powers and make him president. And that Nathan wanted nothing to do with it, so he faked his death and ran off and hid for a while. But now he'd decided to come clean and here he was. Heidi, who'd never liked Peter and never trusted Angela or Arthur, was down with this. (I am greatly simplifying.)
Months pass. They date. They fuck. Sythan moves in full time. He gets a working relationship going with Angela so that at least she's not trying to kill him or anything. Heidi becomes pregnant. During all this time, Peter hates him. At a social function of Angela's, Sythan finally succeeds in being solicitously friendly to Peter. He tells him about the little baby growing within Heidi and how it makes him feel to know that he's brought life into the world and love into a family. Peter's heart finally melts.
Speaking of Peter, during this year, he's been dating Emma and working for the Company. One of his jobs is keeping tabs on Sythan, who isn't doing anything nefarious so Peter's as sure as he can be that the guy is ... well, sort of okay. And Peter thinks that Sythan seriously and actually believes he's Nathan. He's Nathan 24/7, works at Nathan's job, sleeps with Nathan's wife, takes Nathan's kids to ball games, goes to Nathan's church, etc. But he doesn't drink, philander, or have stupid, world-screwing plots going on. He's like a perfect version of Nathan.
Emma breaks up with Peter for a while. He calls up 'Nathan'. (This is after the party where Peter decided 'Nathan' is ... well, maybe he's just misguided. Maybe the memory alteration took and he's been treating him wrong all this time.) They get together. Peter points out that he and Nathan had an intermittent, no-strings-attached (at least, NSA for Nathan, but Peter always wanted more) sexual relationship in the past. Nathan indicates he's up for whatever Peter wants. They fuck; Peter tops. They meet up a couple weeks later. Nathan tops and his Hunger almost gets the best of him, turning a slightly dominant sex scene into what amounts to rape. Nathan freaks out and flees. Peter actually handles it better than Nathan, but Nathan won't talk to him or get near him for two months.
Peter gets back with Emma, but doesn't tell her that he effectively had sex with his brother twice while they were broken up. Heidi doesn't know that Nathan has been (recently) with Peter twice, although she has always suspected they fucked in the past when Nathan was on the outs with her. After a frightening speech from Angela about the rate of miscarriage among the Petrellis and some indications of mild fetal distress, Heidi stops having/allowing sex. Since she did not do oral or anal, that left Nathan with hand jobs, which he found frustrating and unsatisfactory, but didn't tell her (not that telling her would have helped).
Peter isn't willing to leave things where they are, and after the couple months pass, invites/coerces Nathan over to Peter's apartment, where he tries to talk about what happened. He's concerned that Nathan has Sylar's Hunger and can't handle it. They hang out. They talk. They engage in light sex play.
Nathan begins having horrible nightmares that Heidi and her baby are going to be killed by Arthur. He doesn't feel like he can confide in anyone and starts to freak out. He finally breaks down and tells Peter, who tells him he'll be there for him. Then he tells Peter that he's actually Gabriel and Nathan is just a role he plays, but will Peter still be there for him? Peter is uncertain, but reluctantly agrees. The thing in France unfolds - Heidi actually is kidnapped by Arthur, she and the baby are killed, Gabriel abandons Nathan's persona in full, and saves them. Gabriel confesses the other side of his identity to Heidi, who now has the ability to detect lies and judge a person's character. Gabriel gives her the option of dumping him if she wants, but given that she's deeply traumatized by the kidnapping and murder, she wants him to stick around. Gabriel's sacrifice convinces Peter that he really is an okay guy (Heidi can also tell he's okay). Peter and Gabe fuck a few times and Peter feels himself seriously falling for the guy. He babysits little Noah while Gabriel takes Heidi out on a Valentine's Day date. Heidi proposes to Gabriel (technically she's still married to Nathan, but she can tell for sure now that he's different). He accepts.
Sometime during this, Emma finds out that Peter is fucking his brother and she freaks out and dumps him. He tries to explain to her that it's really Sylar, a serial killer, which comes out all wrong, and he's still dumped.
Heidi suspects that Gabriel is seeing Peter. She asks him straight out. Knowing he can't lie and cringing from the reaction he expects, he confesses. She asks him if he truly loves Peter. He says yes (true) and that he loves her (which she's also sure is true). She tells him she'll think about it and that what she needs from him is protection from Arthur (who's still out there) and emotional support. He pledges both. She does not call off the wedding. Neither does he.
Gabriel and Peter fuck a lot. They win against Arthur. They win against Arthur's cronies. Peter gets zapped by an ability that makes his emotions haywire. Before he goes haywire very much, Gabriel knocks him unconscious and blackmails the emotional haywire-guy to change Peter's emotions again, to make him love him again. Gabriel thinks of this as setting things back to the way they were. Peter thinks of it as having an ability used on him to force him to love someone. He says he needs some space to figure out what he really wants. They break up. Peter tries to get back with Emma, but she doesn't want to have anything to do with him. Peter goes off and has adventures that put him at odds with the Company, whom Gabriel is now working with. The Company captures Peter and Gabriel releases him immediately. Gabriel sees that Peter is wearing a Sylar watch he gave him and takes it as an engagement/promise/commitment ring. That's not how Peter meant it (mostly, he just needed a watch and it was available), but he sees how much Gabriel loves him. Peter thanks him and dashes off to finish his adventures.
After his father tells him he's driving everyone away from himself, Peter goes to visit Emma and hopefully mend fences. This turns into passionate make-up sex. Later, Peter beats the villain, Gabriel swoops in to save him from the clutches of the villain's angry henchman, and Peter and Gabe have wild make-up sex, too. Gabriel tells him that Heidi knows about them and it's okay as long as he doesn't rub her nose in it. Peter feels really guilty about things with Emma and goes to apologize to her. Peter proposes to Emma, but she won't answer him. Gabriel and Heidi wed (which is dressed up as Nathan and Heidi renewing their vows). Emma finds out she's pregnant and grudgingly accepts Peter's proposal, knowing that one of the conditions is that he's not leaving Gabriel for her. Peter takes permanent vows with Gabriel in a private ceremony and starts calling him his husband.
There are several flare-ups of jealousy and arguments over who is spending how much time with whom. Eventually, they all sit down in a room and work out a schedule. They agree on ground rules and communication. There are several more mini-adventures that put these resolutions to the test, but the group learn to rely on each other and trust each other. Emma and Heidi become great friends, but they aren't lovers as neither of them are interested in women. While Emma would be thrilled to have Gabriel and Peter in bed with her (once she got comfortable with things), Heidi won't share Gabriel with her and that's that. Heidi still doesn't like Peter very much, but she trusts him enormously, so she's not getting in bed with him, either.
Heidi is married to Gabriel who is married to Peter who is married to Emma. That's how it is. Fricking big soap opera to get there, but that's why the story is so freaking long!
Why I ended up with a poly arrangement in SS -
Initially, I wanted to show the sort of husband Nathan could have, should have, been. And I had no intentions of Petlar in the story (or Petriel). So I put Heidi and Sythan together. Then my love of Peter/Nathan got the better of me and I wrote a bunch of porny soap opera chapters of wank material where Peter and Sythan took advantage of each other in deliciously hot, dark ways, and then angsted about it. After a while, it occurred to me that with only minimal linking, I could connect the Heidi/Sythan stuff to the Peter/Nathan stuff and it told one larger story. So I did.
Then I started wondering how Peter would handle the realization that he was fooling himself/being fooled in thinking this was Nathan he was getting cozy with. Then I started wondering how Heidi would deal with the realization that her oh-so-loyal-and-perfect husband was boning her brother-in-law. The story got all dramatic and awesome and I decided that if she could really judge people's character, she'd know that her choice was between losing Gabriel right when she was most in need of him, or accepting that he was going to bone Peter on the side. I decided that she was a practical woman and would go with the acceptance side, figuring that if Gabriel couldn't balance it, she could always choose to lose him later, when she wasn't so desperately needy. Then, just because I love to torture my characters, I threw Emma in there as a distraction for Peter so he could go through his own adultery drama. Then I was kind of trapped, because I despise stories where the females are introduced as plot devices and then thrown away so the two guys can experience their twu luv for each other without any guilt over the nasty shrewish harridans they cast aside. I didn't see Heidi or Emma as deserving of rejection, so I worked it out so they could all get what they wanted.
Also, I found that when writing the really wrenching emotional arcs, especially for Gabriel, it was incredibly helpful for him to have a loving relationship to retreat to, whether that be Peter or Heidi. He could run off to the other for care and support if things went sour with the first. It gave him a place to be and stability in his life and gave him some breathing room. Also, Heidi and Peter started talking about how to manage Gabriel and soon made common cause. They were okay with Gabriel taking temporary refuge as needed, but in agreement that once the storm had passed, they would join forces in having a family sit-down to work through the issues. Emma, too, was a great fan of working things out, because she wasn't interested in sticking around if it was just a big clusterfuck all the time.
I didn't set out to write something supportive of poly arrangements. In fact, nearly all of it was written before I had ever knowingly met a poly family. The real chain of events is that I wrote the story and got to chatting with a reviewer about the relationships I'd written, and he directed me to kink events so I could research it better.
Why is Peter with Emma?
He started the story dating her because that's how it was in canon, and in the early chapters of the story, I didn't intend to have slash. Once the slashery started, I didn't want to just “forget” about the woman or have her conveniently killed off or turn out to be a hidden bitch in order to pave the way for hot guy sex. So … there she was. I tried to have her and Peter have a realistic, messy relationship. When he proposed, he was trying to get his friends back and be something other than this shiftless rebel being hunted by the Company. He'd been through that before and didn't like it, so when the opportunity to make peace came up, he jumped at it. And when he made up with her, he proposed, meaning it completely because he couldn't see how he could ever have a lasting relationship with Gabriel. She didn't accept right away. It was only after she found she was pregnant with his kid that she made up her mind. Other factors for Peter's decision: he's a Petrelli and there's a lot of stress for him to marry a woman and raise a family. Doing so helps shield Gabriel (who is still posing publicly as Nathan) from the inappropriateness of gay incest. Yeah, she's a beard, but that doesn't make her less of a person, or take away her reasons for accepting his proposal.
Why is Emma with Peter?
Less touched on in Shattered Salvation is the weird past of Emma's family. Chris Coolidge is Emma's mother's brother. He's her uncle. Heroes wiki says of Chris that his “primary intimate relationship appears to have been with his sister". I'm not making this shit up! Who is Emma's father? Heroes wiki lists him as “unknown” and if you do the math, during the time of Emma's conception, Chris and his sister were cohabitating. So … well. I said this was an incestuous relationship and that Emma's uncle and father were the same person. She grew up with this semi-secret shame, compounded by being disabled and feeling responsible for the death of her nephew (also named Chris). All of this leads to some fucked-upedness for Emma's ability to form relationships. We saw in canon that social skills were not her forte and that she had beautiful chemistry with Peter. Peter's handsome, younger, exciting, caring, heroic, powerful, rich, interested in her, great in bed, shares an interest in the medical field, is someone her mother approves of, understands about abilities, and works with her. A more perfect match could not be made. Then she discovers that Peter, also, lives with a 'secret shame' of incest in his family, though in his case it's between him and Nathan. At first she's very upset and angry about this, but later she tries to accept it as she tries to mend fences with her mother and come to understand and accept her past.
Why is Gabriel with Heidi?
Because he loves her. He wants to be her husband and make her happy. He's grateful that she was the first to see him as he was and welcome him into her heart, her bed, and her home, not just once, but even after discovering he wasn't the man she thought he was. She's the mother of his sons and he wants to have an active role in raising them.
Why is Heidi with Gabriel?
Initially, she thought he was Nathan and he came clean to her for the first time in his life - telling her the truth about abilities and so much more. She's with him because he was honest with her and those deceits that he made, she could understand, even if they were profound. She thinks he's adorable, reliable, and so much better than Nathan ever was.
Are Peter and Sylar with the women just to have kids?
No. Peter has social/family pressure/expectation reasons as well. He *does* love Emma dearly, although it is more like a very good friend, which is the level of feeling she has for him. Gabriel is thrilled to have kids, but if Noah had not been conceived, he would have been with Heidi anyway (partly due to Simon and Monty, partly due to loving Heidi).
Why didn't Peter and Sylar just get together and leave the women?
In the beginning, Peter hated Sythan. There was no way for them to really 'get together' until Peter saw that Sythan truly loved both Heidi and their unborn baby. Before that, Peter thought Sythan was a charlatan and just Sylar lurking/hiding under the mask of Nathan's persona. Which was actually kind of true, but Peter had misjudged Sylar.
(I'm sure by now you're seeing why my long-time SS readers insist that Peter's an asshole. I see it, too, but I'm too much in his head to see his behavior as 'wrong' when it's so understandable to me. Also, I don't get why Peter's not 'allowed' to be a full character and have some asshole qualities. People cheer when Sylar's an asshole, but Peter gets stuck on a pedestal for some reason.)
By the time Peter and Sythan were getting it on, Sythan was in love with Heidi and didn't want to leave her, even while he wanted to continue banging Peter. For one thing, Peter initially insisted that he wasn't going to be exclusive and he reserved the right to date other people. He didn't change his mind on that until after he was dating Emma again.
Why you have them both having relationships with other people when they're in love with each other. Does is it have to do with your Sylar being straight?
Not really. Although if Sylar hadn't been straight, then the wouldn't have fallen in love with Heidi. I've never seen love as a 'one man, one woman' sort of thing, because very clearly for the majority of humanity, it isn't. At the very least, we fall in love with different people in succession, but I've felt love for my first boyfriend while I was getting together with the man I married, so ... well, it just doesn't seem either/or to me. I love both of my kids. I love both of my parents. I love my kids *and* my parents. It would be nuts for someone to tell me that I can only love one child at a time.
That said, Peter's relationship with Emma is one of duty and friendship. Gabriel's with Heidi is one of love and affection. Peter's with Gabriel is one of love and support. Gabe's with Peter is one of passion and love. Emma has affection for and wants support from Peter (which he's giving); Heidi returns love and support to Gabriel.
And then there's the feminist angle. It's so weird for me to see you writing women okay with being cheated on. I must know what's going on in your head!
It's only cheating when one party doesn't agree to it or is unaware that it's going on. While there was duplicity on both men's parts to their respective partners, it was confessed and (eventually) accepted. I read a study that said the main thing women who were cheated on were angry about was the deceit, not the cheating itself. Also, absent other factors, a confessed affair was not a statistically significant reason for relationships ending. Once you start looking at the numbers, known and forgiven affairs are very common. So when I put myself in Heidi and Emma's head, the main thing was to think about what they wanted out of the relationship and in neither case was sexual fidelity the deciding factor.
Both women are getting what they want out of the relationship. Neither would be able to handle all of their man's problems and baggage by themselves. For example, if Sythan and Heidi hadn't had Peter's help, the incident with Arthur likely would have torn them apart, because a lot of Heidi's ability to accept Gabriel in the aftermath of that event came from how Angela and Peter both accepted him. I think the women helped Gabriel and Peter's relationship with each other work. The four of them are a team by the end of the story.
Neither woman was okay with getting cheated on. Both had their reasons for accepting it. They are not paragons of feminist power, but they made their decisions based on what I thought was best for each of them and the perilous, bizarre world of Heroes that they found themselves in - complete with weird powers, crazy carnies giving cellos, time traveling Japanese guys in hospitals, mysterious Arthur Petrellis, world-spanning plots that endanger your life and kids, etc. Knowing the Petrellis is dangerous. Heidi had two of their kids. It wasn't like she could divorce her past. Emma had a different choice to make and she made it, choosing to join with them.
What might be going on in my head is that I lived with and tried to make a workable marriage with my abusive asshole of a husband for about a decade after he raped me. I made a lot of decisions based on keeping the family together and trying to salvage things, trying to stay in love, trying to figure out what I could do to get back the funny, engaging, charming man I married who was so impressed with me and was always telling me what great things I was capable of. It didn't work out for me. But it did for Heidi and Emma.
I knew you had Sylar as having a split personality, but I didn't realize it was full blown with other personalities and that Gabe didn't know what Sylar did.
Gabriel Gray had dissociative identity disorder as a normal adult, a condition stemming from seeing Samson murder people, being sold by Samson, seeing his mother killed, being physically and mentally abused by Virginia, and being sexually abused by Martin. He was functional (most are). When presented with the overwhelming temptation of abilities, Sylar emerged. After getting his mind thoroughly screwed up by Matt Parkman (in canon and, in SS, a second time a few weeks after the first), all of his alters got mixed together along with Nathan's memories. He put himself back together over the course of a year as a single person (although that was a single person who pretended to be Nathan to Heidi and her kids). Then Arthur Petrelli showed him how to voluntarily split his personality and after a while, the temptation to kill someone and take an ability became too powerful. He did it, recreating the primary alters he had before, along with "Sylar", who was pretty much S1 bad/evil Sylar. Sylar refused to admit he was married to Peter. After a lot of regret and angst over murdering someone for power, and realizing that mentally fracturing himself wasn't necessary, Gabriel reintegrated his personalities and hopefully put that awkward chapter behind him (at least, until he got cloning and started playing around with it, but it at least comes with an off switch of sorts - the clone/alters end when he stops using the ability).
But then how did Gabe relate Syko to Peter if he doesn't know what Sylar does? I'm guessing I will find the answers in chapters 100-350 ish?
When he reformed his personality the first time, he reintegrated all the memories and knew his entire past. However, once he split personalities again, the different personalities didn't talk to each other, so they didn't know what was going on with the other personalities (although he kept a journal and would investigate gaps in his past by using psychometry on himself to see what his alter had done). However, all the alters from the second time around had possession of the memories of their full past from before the second split.
Sooo, Peter is married to Gabriel, not Sylar? And Sylar is a bad guy still? The salvation is of Gabriel, not Sylar?
Yes, Yes, and mostly yes. During Salvation of Acceptance part of the story arc, Sylar does not exist.
I would love a short answer to these - And Gabriel is still Nathan? The only time Gabriel is himself is when he is alone with Peter in Peter's apartment? Since Monty and Simon think he's Nathan, right? And he's Nathan when he's with Heidi? I've read the part where he has trouble stabilizing as Nathan, so I thought that lasted and that he was living as Gabriel, but I guess not.
Nathan is dead. However, Nathan's memories are in Gabriel and Gabriel remembers himself as having two pasts - one as Gabriel Gray and one as Nathan Petrelli. He does not regard either as more "him" than the other. As far as a public life goes, Gabriel still wears Nathan's face when he's at Heidi's house, when he's at the law firm, when he's at Petrelli family functions, and when he's out in public in any family capacity. Heidi calls him Nathan until the very end of the story. When he's with Peter, working for the Company, or trying to be discreet without being really incognito, he looks like Gabriel (ZQ).
Just out of curiosity, are there any chapters that are fun and light hearted (that do not involve Heidi or Emma)? Like with some Petlar romance, sweetness, or sex where both guys enjoy it the whole time?
They fuck over and over and over again: https://www.fanfiction.net/story/story_preview.php?storyid=6757575&chapter=185/
Then they fuck some more: https://www.fanfiction.net/story/story_preview.php?storyid=6757575&chapter=186/
Gabriel cops a feel in a hallway: https://www.fanfiction.net/story/story_preview.php?storyid=6757575&chapter=209/
The boys are working out and Gabriel wants some action: https://www.fanfiction.net/story/story_preview.php?storyid=6757575&chapter=210/
Gabriel uses a blindfold and breath play on a submissive Peter: https://www.fanfiction.net/story/story_preview.php?storyid=6757575&chapter=212/
Gabriel officially proposes to Peter: https://www.fanfiction.net/story/story_preview.php?storyid=6757575&chapter=237/
Peter officially accepts and they have wild honeymoon sex: https://www.fanfiction.net/story/story_preview.php?storyid=6757575&chapter=238/
They consecrate the new bed and Peter wakes Gabriel from some bad dreams and comforts him: https://www.fanfiction.net/story/story_preview.php?storyid=6757575&chapter=247/
Sylar fucks the bejeesus out of a tied-up Peter: https://www.fanfiction.net/story/story_preview.php?storyid=6757575&chapter=262/
Peter and Gabriel have rough sex and enjoy the hell out of it: https://www.fanfiction.net/story/story_preview.php?storyid=6757575&chapter=295/
More rough sex that is thoroughly enjoyed: https://www.fanfiction.net/story/story_preview.php?storyid=6757575&chapter=383/
There's lots more sex scenes, but these are the ones that are relatively free of plot, angst, and females.
A Beginner's Guide to Shattered Salvation
It's a big story. Here's what it's about.
Find the story here: 1,053,626 words, 393 chapters
[Story Overview]
Title: Shattered Salvation (Shattered Identity / Salvation of Acceptance / Continuation Scenes, and all Bonus Features and Mature Scenes)
Rating: NC-17. There are long stretches that are T/PG-13.
Characters: Peter, Gabriel, Angela Petrelli, Heidi Petrelli, Maury Parkman, Emma Coolidge, Noah Bennet, Arthur Petrelli, various others for cameos.
Pairings: Peter/Gabriel, Gabriel/Heidi, Peter/Emma, Angela/Maury, Claire/Gretchen, Micah/Abigail, mentions of other pairings (Peter/Nathan, Nathan/Heidi, Matt/Mohinder, Micah/Molly, original characters with canon characters, etc.)
Spoilers: Follows canon until The Fifth Stage, departs after that. Posits a pre-existing slash relationship between Peter and Nathan.
Warnings: Explicit sexual content, domestic violence (several times in the context of Peter/Gabriel, once in the context of Gabriel/Heidi), several instances of non-consensual sex (chapter 36, "Peter's First"; chapter 322, "Green Eyed Monster part 2"; there is also a very non-consensual nightmare in chapter 305, "Nightmare"; sex of dubious consent in chapter 351, "Sylar on Sylar"; outright rape in chapter 352, "Date Rape"), pseudo-incest (Gabriel, as Nathan, with Peter), moderate violence, one incident of graphic violence (chapter 252, "The Last of the Airbender"), some gore, a variety of powers used in conjunction with sexual activity (including using shape shifting to simulate various people you might have rather not imagined having sex), swear words, permanent death of non-main characters, temporary death of main characters, off-screen death of Matt Parkman
Length: A little over 1.05 million words. Complete.
Summary: This is a love story that emerges between Peter and Gabriel, although it does not start that way and takes a while to develop. There are different supportive relationships between Peter and Emma, and Gabriel and Heidi that occur over the course of the story. "Gabriel" is Sylar whose mind was fractured a second time by Matt Parkman in an attempt to entirely subjugate Sylar's personality and recover Nathan's. The job was botched and the person who emerged initially had personality traits of both. The first major story arc, which was originally published as Shattered Identity, tracks Gabriel coming to terms with his new life and eventually opposing Arthur Petrelli's plan to cause another eclipse and artificially spawn people with abilities. The next major arc was published as Salvation of Acceptance. It is Peter's effort to stop an OC named Lilith who was backing Arthur and continues his efforts after he is defeated at the end of Shattered Identity. The next major arc is the Continuation Scenes after Salvation of Acceptance, as Peter and Gabriel strengthen and solidify their relationships with each other and their spouses, creating a polyamorous marriage.
All scenes originally published in separate stories as Bonus Features or Mature Edition have been integrated into the story, arranged chronologically, so you can read the whole thing start to finish in a single story. I have included a few chapters from other stories in the same AU, though I am not including longer works like the Adventures of Matt Parkman.
Please be kind for the early chapters. I had not yet settled on what kind of story I was going to tell and I had no idea it would become as involved as it did. I didn't even intend to have it be slash at first.
[A Guide to Story Arcs]
A Guide to Story Arcs
First, it helps to understand how the story was written. It started as a one-shot (which you'll see as chapter 2, because chapter 1 on FFN is the overview), then I added a different point of view on the same scene as the one-shot (chapter 3). Then I added what came after that one-shot (chapters 4-19). Then I wrote some slashy porn that was I wildly insecure about, but enjoyed the heck out of writing (chapters 36-42). Eventually, I decided that if I just wrote a few linking chapters (chapters 20-35), I could publish my porn on the end of my other stuff. Then the characters truly took on a life of their own as I introduced a villain, let some villainy happen, and then had the characters triumph (chapters 43-90, which is the core of “Shattered Identity”, although I tend to call chapters 2-90 “Shattered Identity”). I enjoyed that so much, that I introduced another villain and wrote a new, bigger story with Peter as the central character instead of Sythan/Gabriel (chapters 91-175, “Salvation of Acceptance”). By the end of it, I was very fired up and wrote a whole bunch of porn where the guys banged each other relentlessly and angsted over all sorts of things (chapters 176-393, “Continuation Scenes”). Early on, I intended the Continuation Scenes to be mostly disconnected sex scenes and maybe a bit of drama here and there. Then I started writing little plot arcs of five or six chapters, then bigger ones until they all sort of flowed together.
As a weird feature, I initially published the stories of Shattered Identity and Salvation of Acceptance using solely the chapters that had Gabriel in them for Shattered Identity and Peter in them for Salvation of Acceptance. I was writing each as a single point-of-view story and wanted to keep it that way. However, I wrote lots of other material on what the other characters were doing - Angela, Maury, Claire, etc. - as well as what Peter or Gabriel were doing out of the sight of the other. I originally published these as “Bonus Features” with little notes telling people where they fit in the main story.
If that's not enough, all of the sex scenes were originally published separate from the main story, in a story called “Mature Scenes”. I did this so that the main stories were PG and conformed to FFN's ratings guideline. I figured if they caught me publishing porn, that maybe they'd only shut down the one story and leave the other. Again, there were little author's notes directing people on where to look for the juicy bits, which were sometimes excised right out of the middle of chapters.
So there were initially five different 'stories', all chronologically mismatched, and to read everything that was going on, you had to jump from one to another. Eventually I gave up on that, deleted all SS material, and reposted in one huge, chronologically-ordered story on FFN (which is how it is now). However, this means that you'll read twenty-eight chapters of Gabriel's point of view, then suddenly have three chapters of Angela, Rene, and Maury, then go back to Gabriel. Or you'll have a single chapter out of the blue about an adventure of Hesam's, or Claire's. There's not much in the way of transition. I'm sorry about that, but if you know why it's that way going in, maybe that will help.
Shattered Identity - Chapters 2-90
- Sythan's Survival/Escape - Chapters 2-19
- Sythan Joins the Company - Chapters 20-33
- Petrellicest Porn - Chapters 34-42
- Dark, Angsty, Dramatic France stuff - Chapters 43-57
- Peter and Gabriel Gang Up Against Arthur - Chapters 58-90
- Setup for Salvation of Acceptance - Chapters 91-109
- Takeover of Halo - Chapters 110-124
- Peter Joins the Rebellion - Chapters 125-154
- My Favorite Chapter, “Watchmen” - Chapter 155
- They Take Out Lilith and Deal with the Fallout - Chapters 156-175
- A Whole Bunch of Sex - Chapters 176-210
- Peter Overuses Healing - Chapters 211-236
- My Second Favorite Chapter, “Watch Me” - Chapter 237
- More Sex - Chapters 238-248
- The Hunger Gets the Better of Gabriel - Chapters 249-273
- Gabriel Goes To Therapy - Chapters 274-281
- Molly Tries to Have Gabriel Killed, Peter Flips Out - Chapters 282-320
- Green-Eyed Monster (Peter's Protectiveness/Jealousy Issues) - Chapters 321-349
- Syko (Gabriel Tells About Sylar and Danko) - Chapters 350-363
- A Bunch of Miscellaneous Stuff - Chapters 364-384
- Halloween and Thanksgiving Stories - Chapters 385-389
- Double Duty Series - Chapters 390-392
- The End (Beginnings, aka A Lot of Backstory) - Chapter 393
[Other Fics Set in the Same Verse]
Other Fics Set in the Same Verse
Peter/Nathan stuff:
- Parallelism
- Reminiscences
- Light Up
- Back in the Day
- Terminal Velocity
- Scored
- Big Ben
- Social Niceties
- Ten Bucks
- The Adventures of Matt Parkman (Matt Parkman, Maury Parkman, an original character named Patty who later shows up in Shattered Salvation)
- Best Victim/Worst Punishment (Adam Monroe, Eric Thompson)
- My Sweet Cherry Pie and Eight Surgeries Later (Adam Monroe)
- But It's a Good Pain (Daniel Linderman)
- Damned Either Way (Emile Danko)
- Oubliette (Peter)
- End of the World (Peter, Hesam)
- Invalid Reality (Hesam, Eli)
- My Fanon For Noah Bennet (Noah Bennet)
- The First Step (Sandra Bennet)
- The Diary of Lyle Bennet (Lyle Bennet)
- The Nameless (the Analyst)
- Trial by Fire (Meredith, Sylar)
- Faithful Friend (Gabriel)
[Frequently Asked Questions]
Frequently Asked Questions
With thanks to DD3, who posed most of these questions and gave me permission to reprint my answers.
Now as far as your SS, I haven't read enough of it to really understand your dynamic. It seems like Sylar and Peter are secretly a couple? And maybe only Heidi knows about them? I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts about what you did with SS and why.
In the beginning of SS, Sythan was in a snit about how everything had turned out and decided that if everyone and their fucking dog wanted him to be Nathan, then FINE! he'd be Nathan. ::insert angry snarl here:: He showed up to Heidi's house and ... had something of an attack of conscience. Because Heidi hadn't had anything to do with anything and when Nathan was being a putz, she'd dumped him like she should have, and stayed apart from him the whole time, being (as far as he knew) a good mother to the kids. Whom he sort of felt like were his kids, because he was suffering some identity confusion with Nathan. But he still wanted a place in the world, money, and protection from the ravages of the Petrellis (both Angela *and* Peter had arranged mental rapes for him at this point). So he knocked. After some tense stuff, he told Heidi about powers and abilities. He explained to her what the fuck had been up with Nathan all that time. He was pretending to be wholly Nathan, too. He told the story from a different perspective - that Nathan had been set up and sold out by his mother, then had the memories of a serial killer crammed into his brain in some whacked out plan to give him multiple powers and make him president. And that Nathan wanted nothing to do with it, so he faked his death and ran off and hid for a while. But now he'd decided to come clean and here he was. Heidi, who'd never liked Peter and never trusted Angela or Arthur, was down with this. (I am greatly simplifying.)
Months pass. They date. They fuck. Sythan moves in full time. He gets a working relationship going with Angela so that at least she's not trying to kill him or anything. Heidi becomes pregnant. During all this time, Peter hates him. At a social function of Angela's, Sythan finally succeeds in being solicitously friendly to Peter. He tells him about the little baby growing within Heidi and how it makes him feel to know that he's brought life into the world and love into a family. Peter's heart finally melts.
Speaking of Peter, during this year, he's been dating Emma and working for the Company. One of his jobs is keeping tabs on Sythan, who isn't doing anything nefarious so Peter's as sure as he can be that the guy is ... well, sort of okay. And Peter thinks that Sythan seriously and actually believes he's Nathan. He's Nathan 24/7, works at Nathan's job, sleeps with Nathan's wife, takes Nathan's kids to ball games, goes to Nathan's church, etc. But he doesn't drink, philander, or have stupid, world-screwing plots going on. He's like a perfect version of Nathan.
Emma breaks up with Peter for a while. He calls up 'Nathan'. (This is after the party where Peter decided 'Nathan' is ... well, maybe he's just misguided. Maybe the memory alteration took and he's been treating him wrong all this time.) They get together. Peter points out that he and Nathan had an intermittent, no-strings-attached (at least, NSA for Nathan, but Peter always wanted more) sexual relationship in the past. Nathan indicates he's up for whatever Peter wants. They fuck; Peter tops. They meet up a couple weeks later. Nathan tops and his Hunger almost gets the best of him, turning a slightly dominant sex scene into what amounts to rape. Nathan freaks out and flees. Peter actually handles it better than Nathan, but Nathan won't talk to him or get near him for two months.
Peter gets back with Emma, but doesn't tell her that he effectively had sex with his brother twice while they were broken up. Heidi doesn't know that Nathan has been (recently) with Peter twice, although she has always suspected they fucked in the past when Nathan was on the outs with her. After a frightening speech from Angela about the rate of miscarriage among the Petrellis and some indications of mild fetal distress, Heidi stops having/allowing sex. Since she did not do oral or anal, that left Nathan with hand jobs, which he found frustrating and unsatisfactory, but didn't tell her (not that telling her would have helped).
Peter isn't willing to leave things where they are, and after the couple months pass, invites/coerces Nathan over to Peter's apartment, where he tries to talk about what happened. He's concerned that Nathan has Sylar's Hunger and can't handle it. They hang out. They talk. They engage in light sex play.
Nathan begins having horrible nightmares that Heidi and her baby are going to be killed by Arthur. He doesn't feel like he can confide in anyone and starts to freak out. He finally breaks down and tells Peter, who tells him he'll be there for him. Then he tells Peter that he's actually Gabriel and Nathan is just a role he plays, but will Peter still be there for him? Peter is uncertain, but reluctantly agrees. The thing in France unfolds - Heidi actually is kidnapped by Arthur, she and the baby are killed, Gabriel abandons Nathan's persona in full, and saves them. Gabriel confesses the other side of his identity to Heidi, who now has the ability to detect lies and judge a person's character. Gabriel gives her the option of dumping him if she wants, but given that she's deeply traumatized by the kidnapping and murder, she wants him to stick around. Gabriel's sacrifice convinces Peter that he really is an okay guy (Heidi can also tell he's okay). Peter and Gabe fuck a few times and Peter feels himself seriously falling for the guy. He babysits little Noah while Gabriel takes Heidi out on a Valentine's Day date. Heidi proposes to Gabriel (technically she's still married to Nathan, but she can tell for sure now that he's different). He accepts.
Sometime during this, Emma finds out that Peter is fucking his brother and she freaks out and dumps him. He tries to explain to her that it's really Sylar, a serial killer, which comes out all wrong, and he's still dumped.
Heidi suspects that Gabriel is seeing Peter. She asks him straight out. Knowing he can't lie and cringing from the reaction he expects, he confesses. She asks him if he truly loves Peter. He says yes (true) and that he loves her (which she's also sure is true). She tells him she'll think about it and that what she needs from him is protection from Arthur (who's still out there) and emotional support. He pledges both. She does not call off the wedding. Neither does he.
Gabriel and Peter fuck a lot. They win against Arthur. They win against Arthur's cronies. Peter gets zapped by an ability that makes his emotions haywire. Before he goes haywire very much, Gabriel knocks him unconscious and blackmails the emotional haywire-guy to change Peter's emotions again, to make him love him again. Gabriel thinks of this as setting things back to the way they were. Peter thinks of it as having an ability used on him to force him to love someone. He says he needs some space to figure out what he really wants. They break up. Peter tries to get back with Emma, but she doesn't want to have anything to do with him. Peter goes off and has adventures that put him at odds with the Company, whom Gabriel is now working with. The Company captures Peter and Gabriel releases him immediately. Gabriel sees that Peter is wearing a Sylar watch he gave him and takes it as an engagement/promise/commitment ring. That's not how Peter meant it (mostly, he just needed a watch and it was available), but he sees how much Gabriel loves him. Peter thanks him and dashes off to finish his adventures.
After his father tells him he's driving everyone away from himself, Peter goes to visit Emma and hopefully mend fences. This turns into passionate make-up sex. Later, Peter beats the villain, Gabriel swoops in to save him from the clutches of the villain's angry henchman, and Peter and Gabe have wild make-up sex, too. Gabriel tells him that Heidi knows about them and it's okay as long as he doesn't rub her nose in it. Peter feels really guilty about things with Emma and goes to apologize to her. Peter proposes to Emma, but she won't answer him. Gabriel and Heidi wed (which is dressed up as Nathan and Heidi renewing their vows). Emma finds out she's pregnant and grudgingly accepts Peter's proposal, knowing that one of the conditions is that he's not leaving Gabriel for her. Peter takes permanent vows with Gabriel in a private ceremony and starts calling him his husband.
There are several flare-ups of jealousy and arguments over who is spending how much time with whom. Eventually, they all sit down in a room and work out a schedule. They agree on ground rules and communication. There are several more mini-adventures that put these resolutions to the test, but the group learn to rely on each other and trust each other. Emma and Heidi become great friends, but they aren't lovers as neither of them are interested in women. While Emma would be thrilled to have Gabriel and Peter in bed with her (once she got comfortable with things), Heidi won't share Gabriel with her and that's that. Heidi still doesn't like Peter very much, but she trusts him enormously, so she's not getting in bed with him, either.
Heidi is married to Gabriel who is married to Peter who is married to Emma. That's how it is. Fricking big soap opera to get there, but that's why the story is so freaking long!
Why I ended up with a poly arrangement in SS -
Initially, I wanted to show the sort of husband Nathan could have, should have, been. And I had no intentions of Petlar in the story (or Petriel). So I put Heidi and Sythan together. Then my love of Peter/Nathan got the better of me and I wrote a bunch of porny soap opera chapters of wank material where Peter and Sythan took advantage of each other in deliciously hot, dark ways, and then angsted about it. After a while, it occurred to me that with only minimal linking, I could connect the Heidi/Sythan stuff to the Peter/Nathan stuff and it told one larger story. So I did.
Then I started wondering how Peter would handle the realization that he was fooling himself/being fooled in thinking this was Nathan he was getting cozy with. Then I started wondering how Heidi would deal with the realization that her oh-so-loyal-and-perfect husband was boning her brother-in-law. The story got all dramatic and awesome and I decided that if she could really judge people's character, she'd know that her choice was between losing Gabriel right when she was most in need of him, or accepting that he was going to bone Peter on the side. I decided that she was a practical woman and would go with the acceptance side, figuring that if Gabriel couldn't balance it, she could always choose to lose him later, when she wasn't so desperately needy. Then, just because I love to torture my characters, I threw Emma in there as a distraction for Peter so he could go through his own adultery drama. Then I was kind of trapped, because I despise stories where the females are introduced as plot devices and then thrown away so the two guys can experience their twu luv for each other without any guilt over the nasty shrewish harridans they cast aside. I didn't see Heidi or Emma as deserving of rejection, so I worked it out so they could all get what they wanted.
Also, I found that when writing the really wrenching emotional arcs, especially for Gabriel, it was incredibly helpful for him to have a loving relationship to retreat to, whether that be Peter or Heidi. He could run off to the other for care and support if things went sour with the first. It gave him a place to be and stability in his life and gave him some breathing room. Also, Heidi and Peter started talking about how to manage Gabriel and soon made common cause. They were okay with Gabriel taking temporary refuge as needed, but in agreement that once the storm had passed, they would join forces in having a family sit-down to work through the issues. Emma, too, was a great fan of working things out, because she wasn't interested in sticking around if it was just a big clusterfuck all the time.
I didn't set out to write something supportive of poly arrangements. In fact, nearly all of it was written before I had ever knowingly met a poly family. The real chain of events is that I wrote the story and got to chatting with a reviewer about the relationships I'd written, and he directed me to kink events so I could research it better.
Why is Peter with Emma?
He started the story dating her because that's how it was in canon, and in the early chapters of the story, I didn't intend to have slash. Once the slashery started, I didn't want to just “forget” about the woman or have her conveniently killed off or turn out to be a hidden bitch in order to pave the way for hot guy sex. So … there she was. I tried to have her and Peter have a realistic, messy relationship. When he proposed, he was trying to get his friends back and be something other than this shiftless rebel being hunted by the Company. He'd been through that before and didn't like it, so when the opportunity to make peace came up, he jumped at it. And when he made up with her, he proposed, meaning it completely because he couldn't see how he could ever have a lasting relationship with Gabriel. She didn't accept right away. It was only after she found she was pregnant with his kid that she made up her mind. Other factors for Peter's decision: he's a Petrelli and there's a lot of stress for him to marry a woman and raise a family. Doing so helps shield Gabriel (who is still posing publicly as Nathan) from the inappropriateness of gay incest. Yeah, she's a beard, but that doesn't make her less of a person, or take away her reasons for accepting his proposal.
Why is Emma with Peter?
Less touched on in Shattered Salvation is the weird past of Emma's family. Chris Coolidge is Emma's mother's brother. He's her uncle. Heroes wiki says of Chris that his “primary intimate relationship appears to have been with his sister". I'm not making this shit up! Who is Emma's father? Heroes wiki lists him as “unknown” and if you do the math, during the time of Emma's conception, Chris and his sister were cohabitating. So … well. I said this was an incestuous relationship and that Emma's uncle and father were the same person. She grew up with this semi-secret shame, compounded by being disabled and feeling responsible for the death of her nephew (also named Chris). All of this leads to some fucked-upedness for Emma's ability to form relationships. We saw in canon that social skills were not her forte and that she had beautiful chemistry with Peter. Peter's handsome, younger, exciting, caring, heroic, powerful, rich, interested in her, great in bed, shares an interest in the medical field, is someone her mother approves of, understands about abilities, and works with her. A more perfect match could not be made. Then she discovers that Peter, also, lives with a 'secret shame' of incest in his family, though in his case it's between him and Nathan. At first she's very upset and angry about this, but later she tries to accept it as she tries to mend fences with her mother and come to understand and accept her past.
Why is Gabriel with Heidi?
Because he loves her. He wants to be her husband and make her happy. He's grateful that she was the first to see him as he was and welcome him into her heart, her bed, and her home, not just once, but even after discovering he wasn't the man she thought he was. She's the mother of his sons and he wants to have an active role in raising them.
Why is Heidi with Gabriel?
Initially, she thought he was Nathan and he came clean to her for the first time in his life - telling her the truth about abilities and so much more. She's with him because he was honest with her and those deceits that he made, she could understand, even if they were profound. She thinks he's adorable, reliable, and so much better than Nathan ever was.
Are Peter and Sylar with the women just to have kids?
No. Peter has social/family pressure/expectation reasons as well. He *does* love Emma dearly, although it is more like a very good friend, which is the level of feeling she has for him. Gabriel is thrilled to have kids, but if Noah had not been conceived, he would have been with Heidi anyway (partly due to Simon and Monty, partly due to loving Heidi).
Why didn't Peter and Sylar just get together and leave the women?
In the beginning, Peter hated Sythan. There was no way for them to really 'get together' until Peter saw that Sythan truly loved both Heidi and their unborn baby. Before that, Peter thought Sythan was a charlatan and just Sylar lurking/hiding under the mask of Nathan's persona. Which was actually kind of true, but Peter had misjudged Sylar.
(I'm sure by now you're seeing why my long-time SS readers insist that Peter's an asshole. I see it, too, but I'm too much in his head to see his behavior as 'wrong' when it's so understandable to me. Also, I don't get why Peter's not 'allowed' to be a full character and have some asshole qualities. People cheer when Sylar's an asshole, but Peter gets stuck on a pedestal for some reason.)
By the time Peter and Sythan were getting it on, Sythan was in love with Heidi and didn't want to leave her, even while he wanted to continue banging Peter. For one thing, Peter initially insisted that he wasn't going to be exclusive and he reserved the right to date other people. He didn't change his mind on that until after he was dating Emma again.
Why you have them both having relationships with other people when they're in love with each other. Does is it have to do with your Sylar being straight?
Not really. Although if Sylar hadn't been straight, then the wouldn't have fallen in love with Heidi. I've never seen love as a 'one man, one woman' sort of thing, because very clearly for the majority of humanity, it isn't. At the very least, we fall in love with different people in succession, but I've felt love for my first boyfriend while I was getting together with the man I married, so ... well, it just doesn't seem either/or to me. I love both of my kids. I love both of my parents. I love my kids *and* my parents. It would be nuts for someone to tell me that I can only love one child at a time.
That said, Peter's relationship with Emma is one of duty and friendship. Gabriel's with Heidi is one of love and affection. Peter's with Gabriel is one of love and support. Gabe's with Peter is one of passion and love. Emma has affection for and wants support from Peter (which he's giving); Heidi returns love and support to Gabriel.
And then there's the feminist angle. It's so weird for me to see you writing women okay with being cheated on. I must know what's going on in your head!
It's only cheating when one party doesn't agree to it or is unaware that it's going on. While there was duplicity on both men's parts to their respective partners, it was confessed and (eventually) accepted. I read a study that said the main thing women who were cheated on were angry about was the deceit, not the cheating itself. Also, absent other factors, a confessed affair was not a statistically significant reason for relationships ending. Once you start looking at the numbers, known and forgiven affairs are very common. So when I put myself in Heidi and Emma's head, the main thing was to think about what they wanted out of the relationship and in neither case was sexual fidelity the deciding factor.
Both women are getting what they want out of the relationship. Neither would be able to handle all of their man's problems and baggage by themselves. For example, if Sythan and Heidi hadn't had Peter's help, the incident with Arthur likely would have torn them apart, because a lot of Heidi's ability to accept Gabriel in the aftermath of that event came from how Angela and Peter both accepted him. I think the women helped Gabriel and Peter's relationship with each other work. The four of them are a team by the end of the story.
Neither woman was okay with getting cheated on. Both had their reasons for accepting it. They are not paragons of feminist power, but they made their decisions based on what I thought was best for each of them and the perilous, bizarre world of Heroes that they found themselves in - complete with weird powers, crazy carnies giving cellos, time traveling Japanese guys in hospitals, mysterious Arthur Petrellis, world-spanning plots that endanger your life and kids, etc. Knowing the Petrellis is dangerous. Heidi had two of their kids. It wasn't like she could divorce her past. Emma had a different choice to make and she made it, choosing to join with them.
What might be going on in my head is that I lived with and tried to make a workable marriage with my abusive asshole of a husband for about a decade after he raped me. I made a lot of decisions based on keeping the family together and trying to salvage things, trying to stay in love, trying to figure out what I could do to get back the funny, engaging, charming man I married who was so impressed with me and was always telling me what great things I was capable of. It didn't work out for me. But it did for Heidi and Emma.
I knew you had Sylar as having a split personality, but I didn't realize it was full blown with other personalities and that Gabe didn't know what Sylar did.
Gabriel Gray had dissociative identity disorder as a normal adult, a condition stemming from seeing Samson murder people, being sold by Samson, seeing his mother killed, being physically and mentally abused by Virginia, and being sexually abused by Martin. He was functional (most are). When presented with the overwhelming temptation of abilities, Sylar emerged. After getting his mind thoroughly screwed up by Matt Parkman (in canon and, in SS, a second time a few weeks after the first), all of his alters got mixed together along with Nathan's memories. He put himself back together over the course of a year as a single person (although that was a single person who pretended to be Nathan to Heidi and her kids). Then Arthur Petrelli showed him how to voluntarily split his personality and after a while, the temptation to kill someone and take an ability became too powerful. He did it, recreating the primary alters he had before, along with "Sylar", who was pretty much S1 bad/evil Sylar. Sylar refused to admit he was married to Peter. After a lot of regret and angst over murdering someone for power, and realizing that mentally fracturing himself wasn't necessary, Gabriel reintegrated his personalities and hopefully put that awkward chapter behind him (at least, until he got cloning and started playing around with it, but it at least comes with an off switch of sorts - the clone/alters end when he stops using the ability).
But then how did Gabe relate Syko to Peter if he doesn't know what Sylar does? I'm guessing I will find the answers in chapters 100-350 ish?
When he reformed his personality the first time, he reintegrated all the memories and knew his entire past. However, once he split personalities again, the different personalities didn't talk to each other, so they didn't know what was going on with the other personalities (although he kept a journal and would investigate gaps in his past by using psychometry on himself to see what his alter had done). However, all the alters from the second time around had possession of the memories of their full past from before the second split.
Sooo, Peter is married to Gabriel, not Sylar? And Sylar is a bad guy still? The salvation is of Gabriel, not Sylar?
Yes, Yes, and mostly yes. During Salvation of Acceptance part of the story arc, Sylar does not exist.
I would love a short answer to these - And Gabriel is still Nathan? The only time Gabriel is himself is when he is alone with Peter in Peter's apartment? Since Monty and Simon think he's Nathan, right? And he's Nathan when he's with Heidi? I've read the part where he has trouble stabilizing as Nathan, so I thought that lasted and that he was living as Gabriel, but I guess not.
Nathan is dead. However, Nathan's memories are in Gabriel and Gabriel remembers himself as having two pasts - one as Gabriel Gray and one as Nathan Petrelli. He does not regard either as more "him" than the other. As far as a public life goes, Gabriel still wears Nathan's face when he's at Heidi's house, when he's at the law firm, when he's at Petrelli family functions, and when he's out in public in any family capacity. Heidi calls him Nathan until the very end of the story. When he's with Peter, working for the Company, or trying to be discreet without being really incognito, he looks like Gabriel (ZQ).
Just out of curiosity, are there any chapters that are fun and light hearted (that do not involve Heidi or Emma)? Like with some Petlar romance, sweetness, or sex where both guys enjoy it the whole time?
They fuck over and over and over again: https://www.fanfiction.net/story/story_preview.php?storyid=6757575&chapter=185/
Then they fuck some more: https://www.fanfiction.net/story/story_preview.php?storyid=6757575&chapter=186/
Gabriel cops a feel in a hallway: https://www.fanfiction.net/story/story_preview.php?storyid=6757575&chapter=209/
The boys are working out and Gabriel wants some action: https://www.fanfiction.net/story/story_preview.php?storyid=6757575&chapter=210/
Gabriel uses a blindfold and breath play on a submissive Peter: https://www.fanfiction.net/story/story_preview.php?storyid=6757575&chapter=212/
Gabriel officially proposes to Peter: https://www.fanfiction.net/story/story_preview.php?storyid=6757575&chapter=237/
Peter officially accepts and they have wild honeymoon sex: https://www.fanfiction.net/story/story_preview.php?storyid=6757575&chapter=238/
They consecrate the new bed and Peter wakes Gabriel from some bad dreams and comforts him: https://www.fanfiction.net/story/story_preview.php?storyid=6757575&chapter=247/
Sylar fucks the bejeesus out of a tied-up Peter: https://www.fanfiction.net/story/story_preview.php?storyid=6757575&chapter=262/
Peter and Gabriel have rough sex and enjoy the hell out of it: https://www.fanfiction.net/story/story_preview.php?storyid=6757575&chapter=295/
More rough sex that is thoroughly enjoyed: https://www.fanfiction.net/story/story_preview.php?storyid=6757575&chapter=383/
There's lots more sex scenes, but these are the ones that are relatively free of plot, angst, and females.