Power Play - 4 - Dropping the Mask
Title: Dropping the Mask
Author: jaune_chat
Fandom: Heroes
Characters/Pairing: Noah Bennet/Nathan Petrelli
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 1,976
Spoilers: Up through 3x23 “1961”
Warnings: Slash
Disclaimer: Heroes is owned by Tim Kring, NBC, et al.
Notes: This is a sequel to Letting Go, though it works as a stand-alone.
Summary: Noah Bennet is having a difficult day.
Nathan waited until the sound of Peter’s footsteps had faded before heading back to where Noah was standing, apparently sorting through stacks of yellowed files in the back of Alice’s bunker.
“Pete went to give that film reel to Mohinder. I don’t think we’ll see him for a while,” Nathan said, crossing his arms and leaning slightly against the shelves. “Suresh will talk your ear off, given half a chance.”
“I know,” Noah said shortly. He continued to flick through the files, as if diligently looking for something, but Nathan seriously doubted that the names of people fifty years dead were going to help the current situation. Noah had been… Well, Nathan wanted to say Noah had been acting strangely ever since he’d gotten to Coyote Sands, but that would be a lie.
Noah Bennet had been like he’d always been, unflappable, unstoppable, unflinchingly accepting Claire’s stinging but true accusations while trying to protect everyone. Whatever reasons he’d had for leaving D.C. he’d been keeping behind his teeth, and Nathan was determined to hear them. He just wasn’t sure how to pry them loose. The rhythm they’d had a few months ago was now out of sync. There were no more secrets to keep, no more lies to tell, just dust, and death, and truth.
“What happened with Danko?” Nathan asked after a moment. “Did you take a leave of absence?”
That wasn’t possible, and they both knew it. Even if Noah had been the sort of man to take a vacation (and he wasn’t), he couldn’t have possibly justified leaving a few days after Nathan had been disgraced. That would have been a tantamount declaration that he’d known about Nathan’s ability all along, and an invitation to get himself imprisoned or shot.
“No, I did not.”
Nathan sighed. “I don’t know my own Ma as well as I think I did, but I don’t think we’re going to get out of this without having to go back to D.C. If she doesn’t dream it, then I’m going to go back anyway. This is my fault, and it doesn’t matter whether it’s destiny or not. I need to step up.”
Noah remained silent, but he stopped pretending to look through the files.
“Because if I don’t, Claire is going to stab me with a few more words until I feel about five years old,” Nathan added, raising an eyebrow. What Claire had said today, about how she’d used to dream about being a doctor being eclipsed by wanting to be an agent, had cut Nathan to the quick. To Noah, it had to have been worse. Nathan had never known her as a toddler, as a wobbly-kneed bundle of joy that drove you to distraction. He couldn’t imagine Simon or Monty making a similar declaration. He hoped to God they’d never have to.
“She learned that from the best,” Noah said dryly. Nathan shook his head, and walked back to sit on Alice’s bed.
“You’re feeling particularly truthful today, Nathan?”
“This is the first time I’ve had to dig up children’s skeletons,” Nathan said flatly. Noah came from around the corner, looking haunted. Sighing, he crossed to the bed and sat down next to Nathan, setting his elbows on his knees.
“Sylar is a shapeshifter now,” Noah said suddenly. “I spent two days trying to help Danko’s team track down a shapeshifter, and at the end of that hunt, Sylar’s body turned up with a knife in its head.”
Nathan felt blood draining from his face. “It wasn’t him?”
“Danko’s out of his depth. When you left, Sylar moved in. I think he made Danko an offer he couldn’t refuse. Sylar’s always wanted to be someone else. This was too much of a temptation for him to resist.”
Noah’s voice was flat, distant, his eyes staring at the floor, his hands clenched into fists. For the first time since Nathan had known him, Noah Bennet looked haunted, beaten, and if he was showing that weakness to Nathan, then all hell must have broken loose.
“What the hell happened?” Nathan demanded.
“I shot an innocent man, because I thought he was Sylar. I watched him bleed out. I might have been wrong and someone lost their life because of it.”
That wasn’t it either. Noah didn’t lack a conscience, but he wouldn’t get this morose over the death of someone he didn’t know. Fear prickled along Nathan’s skin as a horrible thought occurred to him.
“If Sylar has shapeshifting, how do I know you’re you?”
“You’re wearing my old clothes,” Noah said, looking at Nathan sideways and raising an eyebrow.
Nathan relaxed marginally. “What else? Was that it?” It couldn’t be it, and Nathan knew it. Noah wouldn’t have shot someone unless he had a damn good reason, a solid and immutable belief that he was right.
“No.”
Noah’s voice sounded small all of a sudden, and Nathan saw his shoulders slump. Fear started to freeze Nathan’s insides, and he reached out to put a warm hand on the back of Noah’s neck.
“I threatened my wife,” he said suddenly.
Nathan was absolutely certain he’d heard that wrong. “What?”
“I threatened Sandra. I put a gun to her head and pinned her to a table.”
“Jesus,” Nathan whispered.
“He looked like her. That monster looked like my wife. He came to my apartment… he had divorce papers. He sounded just like her, said what she could have said. What I’d hoped she’d never say.”
Nathan could see, in his mind’s eye, the papers that had been on his desk when he’d taken the Senator’s position. The ones from Heidi’s lawyer, the divorce papers, the custody papers, none of which he’d try to fight. He’d lost her over a year ago because he hadn’t been able to deal with her accident. Even if he’d never gotten his ability, he’d been a bad husband, a neglectful father. That’s why he’d tried too hard with Claire. But Noah… Noah had been the one person out of all of them that had had that normalcy.
Jesus.
“When I double-checked the signatures, they were wrong. I went to confront him… but it was her, it was really Sandra, and I didn’t believe her. I didn’t believe my own wife, and he won. He won, Nathan. He’s out there with a face I won’t be able to track, able to be anyone, anywhere, and I can’t protect my family. They don’t want me to protect them.” Noah’s voice was toneless, blank, his eyes closed, and his breathing coming in shuddering sighs.
Nathan slung his arm around Noah, like he had with Peter back when things had been better. When they’d been friends as well as brothers, instead of barely-forgiven enemies.
“Claire would. She’d let you,” Nathan said. “You were trying; she’d understand.”
“I haven’t told Claire yet.”
“She knows about Sylar. We all know about Sylar. He just wants this to happen. He wants you doubting yourself. I’ve been down that road already.” Nathan paused, and shook his head. “Too many times to count, actually.”
“Ah, the ‘I can’t let the bad guys win,’ speech. Do you need a podium?” Noah asked, a hint of acid in his voice.
“I lost podium-rights when Danko shoved me out that window.”
Noah was silent for another three heartbeats. “I threatened my wife,” he repeated.
Podium rights and bad trips to Mexico don’t stand up to that, Nathan realized. He’d crawled into a bottle when Peter had disappeared, had managed to alienate everyone that could have been his ally other than Noah when he’d started this new program, and had lost his family, all for selfish, self-destructive, egotistical reasons. It was a family curse.
But Noah didn’t have that kind of ego. He’d never looked one of his family in the face and threaten them with death to assuage his sense of self. He didn’t do that, wasn’t that person. Never had been. He’d always been the solid rock, and had just destroyed his own base.
And he’d been keeping it together throughout all of the Petrelli family drama without so much as a hint of what he’d been keeping inside.
Shit, Nathan thought. He couldn’t fix this, couldn’t even begin to think how to fix it. That had always been Noah’s job. Nathan was just the front man, the idea guy, the shiny distraction used to keep people’s attention focused elsewhere while the real work was done. That’s why they worked so well together.
Nathan pulled his arm away and pulled Noah’s head up to look at him. He wasn’t crying, wouldn’t let himself go that far even in front of Nathan, but Noah’s pale eyes were dark, echoing the bruise-colored circles below. No one had noticed it in the bright desert light, but here, in the yellow light of the bunker, it was painfully obvious.
He didn’t stop to give Noah more time to think, just leaned in and kissed him, soft, easy, but insistent. It wasn’t the battle-hardened kiss Noah had given him to stiffen his spine and make him wake up, but a more thorough, welcoming touch, licking into his mouth and tasting his tongue. Noah didn’t need more anger, more passion. He didn’t need a wake-up call or slap to the head. Noah could do all of that for himself. He needed what Peter had generously given Nathan, forgiveness. Compassion. Just one moment where he could drop his mask.
Noah was passive for several long moments before he moved, turning into Nathan’s embrace and pulling them together. One hand lay loosely on Nathan’s neck, and Nathan took that tacit invitation to lean in harder, kiss deeper, feeling the rasp of Noah’s smoother cheeks against his own stubble. Noah’s mouth was bitter with lingering coffee, his lips dusty and dry from the desert air, and all of him tentatively open to Nathan’s exploration. This wasn’t like last time, with Noah permitting Nathan to take a measure of what he wanted. This was an actual acceptance.
Nathan pressed a hand to Noah’s chest, feeling the heat of his skin through the cotton of his shirt. Muscle and bone shuddered under his touch in halting breaths, and Nathan drifted his hand down. Things had always been as visceral between them as intellectual, never truly caring, and Nathan didn’t want to screw things up. Noah had just lost Sandra. This couldn’t be cheating, couldn’t be affection, it had to be release.
His fingers worked quickly at Noah’s belt, feeling his mouth get a little harder, more aggressive, when Nathan worked the button and zipper open, slipping his hand inside. Noah hardened under his grasp, a strangled sound caught in his chest as Nathan pulled him free, stroking fast and hard, pausing only long enough to slick his hand with saliva and run his thumb over the sensitive ridge under the head.
Noah’s grasp on him began to get bruising the harder Nathan worked him, his breathing faster, their tongues pushing against each other, painful and needful and necessary all at once. Nathan started as Noah actually cried out his release into their kiss, his orgasm taking them both by surprise as his spending covered Nathan’s hand.
“Fuck… Nathan,” Noah breathed, his voice very soft. “Yes.”
Gasping, Nathan pulled away, bending down to suck down every trace of Noah’s passion from their skin, putting everything to rights before looking up at him again. By the time he was done, any trace of the tears he’d felt between their faces was also cleaned away.
“Peter’s coming back,” Noah said suddenly, and Nathan straightened up, now hearing the faint crunch of returning footsteps. “We’re going to have to go back to the others and figure out what we’re going to be able to do.”
“Do you have some ideas?” Nathan asked.
Noah smiled, very slightly. “I do now.”
----------------
Previous Part: Letting Go
Author: jaune_chat
Fandom: Heroes
Characters/Pairing: Noah Bennet/Nathan Petrelli
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 1,976
Spoilers: Up through 3x23 “1961”
Warnings: Slash
Disclaimer: Heroes is owned by Tim Kring, NBC, et al.
Notes: This is a sequel to Letting Go, though it works as a stand-alone.
Summary: Noah Bennet is having a difficult day.
Nathan waited until the sound of Peter’s footsteps had faded before heading back to where Noah was standing, apparently sorting through stacks of yellowed files in the back of Alice’s bunker.
“Pete went to give that film reel to Mohinder. I don’t think we’ll see him for a while,” Nathan said, crossing his arms and leaning slightly against the shelves. “Suresh will talk your ear off, given half a chance.”
“I know,” Noah said shortly. He continued to flick through the files, as if diligently looking for something, but Nathan seriously doubted that the names of people fifty years dead were going to help the current situation. Noah had been… Well, Nathan wanted to say Noah had been acting strangely ever since he’d gotten to Coyote Sands, but that would be a lie.
Noah Bennet had been like he’d always been, unflappable, unstoppable, unflinchingly accepting Claire’s stinging but true accusations while trying to protect everyone. Whatever reasons he’d had for leaving D.C. he’d been keeping behind his teeth, and Nathan was determined to hear them. He just wasn’t sure how to pry them loose. The rhythm they’d had a few months ago was now out of sync. There were no more secrets to keep, no more lies to tell, just dust, and death, and truth.
“What happened with Danko?” Nathan asked after a moment. “Did you take a leave of absence?”
That wasn’t possible, and they both knew it. Even if Noah had been the sort of man to take a vacation (and he wasn’t), he couldn’t have possibly justified leaving a few days after Nathan had been disgraced. That would have been a tantamount declaration that he’d known about Nathan’s ability all along, and an invitation to get himself imprisoned or shot.
“No, I did not.”
Nathan sighed. “I don’t know my own Ma as well as I think I did, but I don’t think we’re going to get out of this without having to go back to D.C. If she doesn’t dream it, then I’m going to go back anyway. This is my fault, and it doesn’t matter whether it’s destiny or not. I need to step up.”
Noah remained silent, but he stopped pretending to look through the files.
“Because if I don’t, Claire is going to stab me with a few more words until I feel about five years old,” Nathan added, raising an eyebrow. What Claire had said today, about how she’d used to dream about being a doctor being eclipsed by wanting to be an agent, had cut Nathan to the quick. To Noah, it had to have been worse. Nathan had never known her as a toddler, as a wobbly-kneed bundle of joy that drove you to distraction. He couldn’t imagine Simon or Monty making a similar declaration. He hoped to God they’d never have to.
“She learned that from the best,” Noah said dryly. Nathan shook his head, and walked back to sit on Alice’s bed.
“You’re feeling particularly truthful today, Nathan?”
“This is the first time I’ve had to dig up children’s skeletons,” Nathan said flatly. Noah came from around the corner, looking haunted. Sighing, he crossed to the bed and sat down next to Nathan, setting his elbows on his knees.
“Sylar is a shapeshifter now,” Noah said suddenly. “I spent two days trying to help Danko’s team track down a shapeshifter, and at the end of that hunt, Sylar’s body turned up with a knife in its head.”
Nathan felt blood draining from his face. “It wasn’t him?”
“Danko’s out of his depth. When you left, Sylar moved in. I think he made Danko an offer he couldn’t refuse. Sylar’s always wanted to be someone else. This was too much of a temptation for him to resist.”
Noah’s voice was flat, distant, his eyes staring at the floor, his hands clenched into fists. For the first time since Nathan had known him, Noah Bennet looked haunted, beaten, and if he was showing that weakness to Nathan, then all hell must have broken loose.
“What the hell happened?” Nathan demanded.
“I shot an innocent man, because I thought he was Sylar. I watched him bleed out. I might have been wrong and someone lost their life because of it.”
That wasn’t it either. Noah didn’t lack a conscience, but he wouldn’t get this morose over the death of someone he didn’t know. Fear prickled along Nathan’s skin as a horrible thought occurred to him.
“If Sylar has shapeshifting, how do I know you’re you?”
“You’re wearing my old clothes,” Noah said, looking at Nathan sideways and raising an eyebrow.
Nathan relaxed marginally. “What else? Was that it?” It couldn’t be it, and Nathan knew it. Noah wouldn’t have shot someone unless he had a damn good reason, a solid and immutable belief that he was right.
“No.”
Noah’s voice sounded small all of a sudden, and Nathan saw his shoulders slump. Fear started to freeze Nathan’s insides, and he reached out to put a warm hand on the back of Noah’s neck.
“I threatened my wife,” he said suddenly.
Nathan was absolutely certain he’d heard that wrong. “What?”
“I threatened Sandra. I put a gun to her head and pinned her to a table.”
“Jesus,” Nathan whispered.
“He looked like her. That monster looked like my wife. He came to my apartment… he had divorce papers. He sounded just like her, said what she could have said. What I’d hoped she’d never say.”
Nathan could see, in his mind’s eye, the papers that had been on his desk when he’d taken the Senator’s position. The ones from Heidi’s lawyer, the divorce papers, the custody papers, none of which he’d try to fight. He’d lost her over a year ago because he hadn’t been able to deal with her accident. Even if he’d never gotten his ability, he’d been a bad husband, a neglectful father. That’s why he’d tried too hard with Claire. But Noah… Noah had been the one person out of all of them that had had that normalcy.
Jesus.
“When I double-checked the signatures, they were wrong. I went to confront him… but it was her, it was really Sandra, and I didn’t believe her. I didn’t believe my own wife, and he won. He won, Nathan. He’s out there with a face I won’t be able to track, able to be anyone, anywhere, and I can’t protect my family. They don’t want me to protect them.” Noah’s voice was toneless, blank, his eyes closed, and his breathing coming in shuddering sighs.
Nathan slung his arm around Noah, like he had with Peter back when things had been better. When they’d been friends as well as brothers, instead of barely-forgiven enemies.
“Claire would. She’d let you,” Nathan said. “You were trying; she’d understand.”
“I haven’t told Claire yet.”
“She knows about Sylar. We all know about Sylar. He just wants this to happen. He wants you doubting yourself. I’ve been down that road already.” Nathan paused, and shook his head. “Too many times to count, actually.”
“Ah, the ‘I can’t let the bad guys win,’ speech. Do you need a podium?” Noah asked, a hint of acid in his voice.
“I lost podium-rights when Danko shoved me out that window.”
Noah was silent for another three heartbeats. “I threatened my wife,” he repeated.
Podium rights and bad trips to Mexico don’t stand up to that, Nathan realized. He’d crawled into a bottle when Peter had disappeared, had managed to alienate everyone that could have been his ally other than Noah when he’d started this new program, and had lost his family, all for selfish, self-destructive, egotistical reasons. It was a family curse.
But Noah didn’t have that kind of ego. He’d never looked one of his family in the face and threaten them with death to assuage his sense of self. He didn’t do that, wasn’t that person. Never had been. He’d always been the solid rock, and had just destroyed his own base.
And he’d been keeping it together throughout all of the Petrelli family drama without so much as a hint of what he’d been keeping inside.
Shit, Nathan thought. He couldn’t fix this, couldn’t even begin to think how to fix it. That had always been Noah’s job. Nathan was just the front man, the idea guy, the shiny distraction used to keep people’s attention focused elsewhere while the real work was done. That’s why they worked so well together.
Nathan pulled his arm away and pulled Noah’s head up to look at him. He wasn’t crying, wouldn’t let himself go that far even in front of Nathan, but Noah’s pale eyes were dark, echoing the bruise-colored circles below. No one had noticed it in the bright desert light, but here, in the yellow light of the bunker, it was painfully obvious.
He didn’t stop to give Noah more time to think, just leaned in and kissed him, soft, easy, but insistent. It wasn’t the battle-hardened kiss Noah had given him to stiffen his spine and make him wake up, but a more thorough, welcoming touch, licking into his mouth and tasting his tongue. Noah didn’t need more anger, more passion. He didn’t need a wake-up call or slap to the head. Noah could do all of that for himself. He needed what Peter had generously given Nathan, forgiveness. Compassion. Just one moment where he could drop his mask.
Noah was passive for several long moments before he moved, turning into Nathan’s embrace and pulling them together. One hand lay loosely on Nathan’s neck, and Nathan took that tacit invitation to lean in harder, kiss deeper, feeling the rasp of Noah’s smoother cheeks against his own stubble. Noah’s mouth was bitter with lingering coffee, his lips dusty and dry from the desert air, and all of him tentatively open to Nathan’s exploration. This wasn’t like last time, with Noah permitting Nathan to take a measure of what he wanted. This was an actual acceptance.
Nathan pressed a hand to Noah’s chest, feeling the heat of his skin through the cotton of his shirt. Muscle and bone shuddered under his touch in halting breaths, and Nathan drifted his hand down. Things had always been as visceral between them as intellectual, never truly caring, and Nathan didn’t want to screw things up. Noah had just lost Sandra. This couldn’t be cheating, couldn’t be affection, it had to be release.
His fingers worked quickly at Noah’s belt, feeling his mouth get a little harder, more aggressive, when Nathan worked the button and zipper open, slipping his hand inside. Noah hardened under his grasp, a strangled sound caught in his chest as Nathan pulled him free, stroking fast and hard, pausing only long enough to slick his hand with saliva and run his thumb over the sensitive ridge under the head.
Noah’s grasp on him began to get bruising the harder Nathan worked him, his breathing faster, their tongues pushing against each other, painful and needful and necessary all at once. Nathan started as Noah actually cried out his release into their kiss, his orgasm taking them both by surprise as his spending covered Nathan’s hand.
“Fuck… Nathan,” Noah breathed, his voice very soft. “Yes.”
Gasping, Nathan pulled away, bending down to suck down every trace of Noah’s passion from their skin, putting everything to rights before looking up at him again. By the time he was done, any trace of the tears he’d felt between their faces was also cleaned away.
“Peter’s coming back,” Noah said suddenly, and Nathan straightened up, now hearing the faint crunch of returning footsteps. “We’re going to have to go back to the others and figure out what we’re going to be able to do.”
“Do you have some ideas?” Nathan asked.
Noah smiled, very slightly. “I do now.”
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Previous Part: Letting Go