Fic: "Gravity" (Nathan/Peter, NC-17)
For the vote_petrelli Nathan ficathon for alexandriabrown. I fudged on the timeline--there are vague spoilers for "Six Months Ago"--and I don't know if the ending is unhappy or just wistful. And somehow, Peter dominated the narrative. But it's about Nathan, and that's what counts (I hope!), so here it is.
Title: Gravity
Rating: Hard R/NC-17
Pairing: Nathan/Peter
Prompt: Petrellicest (which does not have to be graphic), Peter in a suit, and drinking things
Warnings: Consensual, adult incest. Language.
Spoilers: "Six Months Ago".
Wordcount: 1839
hey love
I am a constant satellite
of your blazing sun
my love
I obey your law of gravity
this is the fate you've carved on me
- “Gravity” by Vienna Teng.
The hospital smells like Lysol, aggressive disinfectant that’s a sensory assault disguised as pine, only covering up the smells that always linger in hospital: blood and fear and vomit. Nathan doesn’t smell like those things. There’s just that lingering hint of pine over the smell of his (expensive) cologne and his (expensive) soap, that one top note that tells Peter clearly where he’s been. As if Peter could forget. As if he could look at his brother and think Nathan has been anywhere but at the hospital (Montefiore Medical Center was the only reason Nathan would even go to the Bronx, except campaigning, and that’s new enough that Peter doesn’t think about it yet) or at the office. There’s a smudge of ink along his jaw, and it’s oddly endearing. It makes him human, even though the shadows across his face are entirely too human, entirely too mortal and weary and drawn. He’s not Superman, Peter thinks. He should be. He thought Nathan was when they were kids. He thought Nathan was perfect and larger-than-life and able to fix everything. Now, though. Now’s different. Peter doesn’t know what he thinks about now anymore.
“Why are you even wearing that?” Nathan asks, tugging on Peter’s tie, the one he picked out, a silvery grey silk that Peter would never have chosen for himself. It’s all wrong, wearing clothes that suit Nathan better than him, wearing Nathan’s armor. He’s nothing like his brother, but his mother keeps trying to push him in the role, like the clothes might make Nathan wear off on him. It just makes him want to get away, more than usual. He can’t wear Nathan’s costume with any grace. Nathan’s voice yanks him hard out of his thoughts as he finishes: “Mom drag you out somewhere decent for once?”
“Something like that,” Peter says, shrugging off the churlish tones in his brother’s voice and he just refills Nathan’s glass. Nathan’s half-drunk, maybe most of the way there and it doesn’t matter, there’s no-one to see. The house is cavernous and empty, the boys off in Connecticut with Heidi’s sister and the staff down to skeleton (no sense in cleaning an empty house), so there’s no sense in worrying about anyone stumbling across them. The lights aren’t even on in the room, the shadows thick like paint laid on a canvas, impenetrable. They weigh on his brother, pushing him down into the dark armchair that wants to swallow him whole. It puts a sort of distance between them that Peter aches to ease, to bridge. It’s normal, though, that need. He’s always the one running to Nathan, running and running and running, filling the empty holes in his life with his brother. And after a while, it turned into something else entirely. Something desperate and dark and needy that they never talk about, except for Nathan making him swear on his immortal soul never, ever to tell. They don’t talk about so many things. Peter can live with that if it means keeping pieces of Nathan with him, too.
“I should be at the hospital,” Nathan says after a minute. “Should be there with her.”
“You haven’t slept in days, Nathan,” Peter tells him. “You look like hell and you need to rest, too. You’ll burn yourself out.” The nurse said that she’d never seen anyone so intent on burning his candle at both ends, and if he wasn’t careful, all they’d have left of him was a puddle of wax. This she’d murmured to Peter, not to Nathan (because there was no telling Nathan these things, not when he was worked up with guilt and stress and anxiety, curling it in on himself). Peter was forever the confidant, after all.
Nathan shakes his head, taking a generous drink of Scotch. “No, I won’t. She needs me there.”
“No,” Peter insists. “She needs you healthy and rested and sane. Let me take care of you.”
The words hang in the air for a moment, heavy with intention, double meanings, almost as heavy as Nathan’s gaze as it slides over him, slow (like music, like the draw of a bow across strings or the passing of a wave). There’s no sound, nothing except the soft patter of spring rain somewhere outside of the orbit they have around each other. “What kind of care do you mean, Pete? The kind we can tell Mom about, or the kind we can’t?”
“Whatever kind you need.”
Nathan exhales, pulling off his own tie and it looks like surrender, somehow, the red silk a white flag in his hand. Peter takes that as invitation, and he slides to the floor, looking up at his brother as he kneels in front of him. Nathan looks down at him, dropping the tie to the floor. “What are you doing?” he asks, and he sounds so exhausted it twists Peter’s heart in his chest. “We said we were going to stop, going to try to...”
“Shh. I’m making you feel good,” Peter whispers soothingly, reaching for his fly, not giving him much time to argue, though it’s Nathan, Peter knows he’ll argue with the Angel of Death on principle or something like that.
“Peter,” Nathan says, the word a sigh, but Peter doesn’t stop. He hasn’t been asked to stop. Nathan’s clear when he doesn’t want something, and the protests feel perfunctory, something he does so he can tell himself he tried. Peter understands those things without having to ask anymore. He just undoes the button and tugs the zipper down, pulling Nathan’s cock free. He’s hard, and Peter wonders if it’s from knowing he’s going to get blown or just from the illicit thrill that he feels himself every time. This is wrong, and dirty, and shameful, and they shouldn’t do it. That doesn’t stop Peter from licking at the head, making Nathan muffle a groan.
“I want to hear you,” Peter whispers hotly between licks. “There’s not another person here, I want to hear you, need to.” Nathan gives in, hissing and moaning his pleasure as Peter sucks the head in his mouth. Nathan’s skin is hot and velvety, and now there’s no more scent of Lysol or hospitals or any of it, just the salt and musk of his brother, a touch of soap that’s sort of green and crisp (he’s sure it matches Nathan’s cologne, that’s just like him and it smells like how happiness smells). It’s perfection right there on his tongue and Peter sucks for all he’s worth, determined to make Nathan happy, to give him something like peace for just a minute or two. It’s what he can do, what he can give Nathan that no-one else can right now. He knows Nathan’s body like an extension of his own, blood of his blood, flesh of his flesh, a part of him and he’s a part of Nathan, and when they’re together like this, it’s the only time Peter feels whole, complete. It’s wrong and it’s the only thing that makes him feel right anymore. Nathan sinks his hand into Peter’s hair, tugging hard as his hips rock up into Peter’s mouth, as if trying to bury himself there and Peter doesn’t mind. He likes it, likes the sting when Nathan pulls hard, likes feeling Nathan’s hands on him. Nathan radiates exhaustion and tension and need, and this balm, this is what Peter can give him. He’s always wanted to give him so much, but there was never a good way until this, until they found the way they fit together. It was then that Peter knew he’d be in Nathan’s world for good, cemented there with blood and come and sweat. He has to be there, always, always, always. It’s the only place he fits, it’s where he feels safe. And it’s where he knows he can make things better for Nathan (if Nathan just lets him).
Nathan chokes out a rough cry as his hips buck one last time, and Peter just swallows, drinking down Nathan’s pleasure and release. It’s salty and bitter and perfect, and he presses little kisses along his length that make Nathan’s cock twitch with each one and earn little whimpering exhales Peter’s certain no-one else is allowed to hear (he doesn’t think about Heidi, he can’t think about Heidi, there’s too much guilt here for him to drown in it now). “Better?” Peter asks, smiling.
“God, who wouldn’t be?” Nathan breathes, staring up at the ceiling. He’s relaxed now, and the shadows just seem to hold him instead of swallow him whole. It’s the best he can do.
“Good. Now you can sleep,” Peter says, getting to his feet.
“I should go back to the hospital. Or the office. Something,” Nathan protests, that churlish tone creeping back.
“No,” Peter insists. “You’re staying here. And I’ll stay here. How long has it been since that could happen? C’mon. Just stay, Nate. Just stay.”
There’s a moment where Peter doesn’t know what Nathan’s going to do; it’s pregnant and heavy and uncomfortable, the sense that it’s not enough, this thing isn’t enough to keep them together, that he can’t help Nathan anymore, all of it comes creeping over him like cold water sliding down his spine. When Nathan finally nods and gets up with a groan, Peter feels like he can breathe again. This thing isn’t healthy, it isn’t right. He just doesn’t know who he’d be without it.
Peter pours Nathan into bed, rolling him this way and that to strip him down gently, every movement a caress. Nathan smiles at him, clear and brilliant, none of his sharks’ teeth evident at all, and it makes Peter’s heart stop with joy. These are the moments he craves. Not the sex. This. He slithers out of his clothes and into bed, pressing his chest to Nathan’s back, holding him close. “Don’t move, not until morning,” Peter whispers against the soft spot behind his ear. Don’t leave me is the unspoken coda, and it hangs there, unfinished.
“Won’t,” Nathan says with a ring like a promise, settling out, his breathing starting to match Peter’s. “Thanks.”
Peter smiles, kissing that soft spot tenderly, and for a long time, he just watches Nathan sleep in the stillness, listening to nothing more than his breathing and the sound of the rain against the window. Nathan’s here, and his, and it’s all he has. So he clings, stealing moments where he has to and tells himself it’ll work out in the end, that Nathan loves him, that this isn’t as wrong as he knows it is. He tells himself he’s important to Nathan. He tells himself things are okay. He tells himself he’s loved over and over and over until he falls asleep, bleeding need and adoration in equal parts into his brother’s skin.
Title: Gravity
Rating: Hard R/NC-17
Pairing: Nathan/Peter
Prompt: Petrellicest (which does not have to be graphic), Peter in a suit, and drinking things
Warnings: Consensual, adult incest. Language.
Spoilers: "Six Months Ago".
Wordcount: 1839
hey love
I am a constant satellite
of your blazing sun
my love
I obey your law of gravity
this is the fate you've carved on me
- “Gravity” by Vienna Teng.
The hospital smells like Lysol, aggressive disinfectant that’s a sensory assault disguised as pine, only covering up the smells that always linger in hospital: blood and fear and vomit. Nathan doesn’t smell like those things. There’s just that lingering hint of pine over the smell of his (expensive) cologne and his (expensive) soap, that one top note that tells Peter clearly where he’s been. As if Peter could forget. As if he could look at his brother and think Nathan has been anywhere but at the hospital (Montefiore Medical Center was the only reason Nathan would even go to the Bronx, except campaigning, and that’s new enough that Peter doesn’t think about it yet) or at the office. There’s a smudge of ink along his jaw, and it’s oddly endearing. It makes him human, even though the shadows across his face are entirely too human, entirely too mortal and weary and drawn. He’s not Superman, Peter thinks. He should be. He thought Nathan was when they were kids. He thought Nathan was perfect and larger-than-life and able to fix everything. Now, though. Now’s different. Peter doesn’t know what he thinks about now anymore.
“Why are you even wearing that?” Nathan asks, tugging on Peter’s tie, the one he picked out, a silvery grey silk that Peter would never have chosen for himself. It’s all wrong, wearing clothes that suit Nathan better than him, wearing Nathan’s armor. He’s nothing like his brother, but his mother keeps trying to push him in the role, like the clothes might make Nathan wear off on him. It just makes him want to get away, more than usual. He can’t wear Nathan’s costume with any grace. Nathan’s voice yanks him hard out of his thoughts as he finishes: “Mom drag you out somewhere decent for once?”
“Something like that,” Peter says, shrugging off the churlish tones in his brother’s voice and he just refills Nathan’s glass. Nathan’s half-drunk, maybe most of the way there and it doesn’t matter, there’s no-one to see. The house is cavernous and empty, the boys off in Connecticut with Heidi’s sister and the staff down to skeleton (no sense in cleaning an empty house), so there’s no sense in worrying about anyone stumbling across them. The lights aren’t even on in the room, the shadows thick like paint laid on a canvas, impenetrable. They weigh on his brother, pushing him down into the dark armchair that wants to swallow him whole. It puts a sort of distance between them that Peter aches to ease, to bridge. It’s normal, though, that need. He’s always the one running to Nathan, running and running and running, filling the empty holes in his life with his brother. And after a while, it turned into something else entirely. Something desperate and dark and needy that they never talk about, except for Nathan making him swear on his immortal soul never, ever to tell. They don’t talk about so many things. Peter can live with that if it means keeping pieces of Nathan with him, too.
“I should be at the hospital,” Nathan says after a minute. “Should be there with her.”
“You haven’t slept in days, Nathan,” Peter tells him. “You look like hell and you need to rest, too. You’ll burn yourself out.” The nurse said that she’d never seen anyone so intent on burning his candle at both ends, and if he wasn’t careful, all they’d have left of him was a puddle of wax. This she’d murmured to Peter, not to Nathan (because there was no telling Nathan these things, not when he was worked up with guilt and stress and anxiety, curling it in on himself). Peter was forever the confidant, after all.
Nathan shakes his head, taking a generous drink of Scotch. “No, I won’t. She needs me there.”
“No,” Peter insists. “She needs you healthy and rested and sane. Let me take care of you.”
The words hang in the air for a moment, heavy with intention, double meanings, almost as heavy as Nathan’s gaze as it slides over him, slow (like music, like the draw of a bow across strings or the passing of a wave). There’s no sound, nothing except the soft patter of spring rain somewhere outside of the orbit they have around each other. “What kind of care do you mean, Pete? The kind we can tell Mom about, or the kind we can’t?”
“Whatever kind you need.”
Nathan exhales, pulling off his own tie and it looks like surrender, somehow, the red silk a white flag in his hand. Peter takes that as invitation, and he slides to the floor, looking up at his brother as he kneels in front of him. Nathan looks down at him, dropping the tie to the floor. “What are you doing?” he asks, and he sounds so exhausted it twists Peter’s heart in his chest. “We said we were going to stop, going to try to...”
“Shh. I’m making you feel good,” Peter whispers soothingly, reaching for his fly, not giving him much time to argue, though it’s Nathan, Peter knows he’ll argue with the Angel of Death on principle or something like that.
“Peter,” Nathan says, the word a sigh, but Peter doesn’t stop. He hasn’t been asked to stop. Nathan’s clear when he doesn’t want something, and the protests feel perfunctory, something he does so he can tell himself he tried. Peter understands those things without having to ask anymore. He just undoes the button and tugs the zipper down, pulling Nathan’s cock free. He’s hard, and Peter wonders if it’s from knowing he’s going to get blown or just from the illicit thrill that he feels himself every time. This is wrong, and dirty, and shameful, and they shouldn’t do it. That doesn’t stop Peter from licking at the head, making Nathan muffle a groan.
“I want to hear you,” Peter whispers hotly between licks. “There’s not another person here, I want to hear you, need to.” Nathan gives in, hissing and moaning his pleasure as Peter sucks the head in his mouth. Nathan’s skin is hot and velvety, and now there’s no more scent of Lysol or hospitals or any of it, just the salt and musk of his brother, a touch of soap that’s sort of green and crisp (he’s sure it matches Nathan’s cologne, that’s just like him and it smells like how happiness smells). It’s perfection right there on his tongue and Peter sucks for all he’s worth, determined to make Nathan happy, to give him something like peace for just a minute or two. It’s what he can do, what he can give Nathan that no-one else can right now. He knows Nathan’s body like an extension of his own, blood of his blood, flesh of his flesh, a part of him and he’s a part of Nathan, and when they’re together like this, it’s the only time Peter feels whole, complete. It’s wrong and it’s the only thing that makes him feel right anymore. Nathan sinks his hand into Peter’s hair, tugging hard as his hips rock up into Peter’s mouth, as if trying to bury himself there and Peter doesn’t mind. He likes it, likes the sting when Nathan pulls hard, likes feeling Nathan’s hands on him. Nathan radiates exhaustion and tension and need, and this balm, this is what Peter can give him. He’s always wanted to give him so much, but there was never a good way until this, until they found the way they fit together. It was then that Peter knew he’d be in Nathan’s world for good, cemented there with blood and come and sweat. He has to be there, always, always, always. It’s the only place he fits, it’s where he feels safe. And it’s where he knows he can make things better for Nathan (if Nathan just lets him).
Nathan chokes out a rough cry as his hips buck one last time, and Peter just swallows, drinking down Nathan’s pleasure and release. It’s salty and bitter and perfect, and he presses little kisses along his length that make Nathan’s cock twitch with each one and earn little whimpering exhales Peter’s certain no-one else is allowed to hear (he doesn’t think about Heidi, he can’t think about Heidi, there’s too much guilt here for him to drown in it now). “Better?” Peter asks, smiling.
“God, who wouldn’t be?” Nathan breathes, staring up at the ceiling. He’s relaxed now, and the shadows just seem to hold him instead of swallow him whole. It’s the best he can do.
“Good. Now you can sleep,” Peter says, getting to his feet.
“I should go back to the hospital. Or the office. Something,” Nathan protests, that churlish tone creeping back.
“No,” Peter insists. “You’re staying here. And I’ll stay here. How long has it been since that could happen? C’mon. Just stay, Nate. Just stay.”
There’s a moment where Peter doesn’t know what Nathan’s going to do; it’s pregnant and heavy and uncomfortable, the sense that it’s not enough, this thing isn’t enough to keep them together, that he can’t help Nathan anymore, all of it comes creeping over him like cold water sliding down his spine. When Nathan finally nods and gets up with a groan, Peter feels like he can breathe again. This thing isn’t healthy, it isn’t right. He just doesn’t know who he’d be without it.
Peter pours Nathan into bed, rolling him this way and that to strip him down gently, every movement a caress. Nathan smiles at him, clear and brilliant, none of his sharks’ teeth evident at all, and it makes Peter’s heart stop with joy. These are the moments he craves. Not the sex. This. He slithers out of his clothes and into bed, pressing his chest to Nathan’s back, holding him close. “Don’t move, not until morning,” Peter whispers against the soft spot behind his ear. Don’t leave me is the unspoken coda, and it hangs there, unfinished.
“Won’t,” Nathan says with a ring like a promise, settling out, his breathing starting to match Peter’s. “Thanks.”
Peter smiles, kissing that soft spot tenderly, and for a long time, he just watches Nathan sleep in the stillness, listening to nothing more than his breathing and the sound of the rain against the window. Nathan’s here, and his, and it’s all he has. So he clings, stealing moments where he has to and tells himself it’ll work out in the end, that Nathan loves him, that this isn’t as wrong as he knows it is. He tells himself he’s important to Nathan. He tells himself things are okay. He tells himself he’s loved over and over and over until he falls asleep, bleeding need and adoration in equal parts into his brother’s skin.