"The Same, Different Life After," Claire/Nathan, PG-13
Title - The Same, Different Life After
Rating - Heavy PG-13; mild sexuality
Pairing - Nathan/Claire
Spoilers/Warnings - Up through 1.23 "How to Stop an Exploding Man," future!fic
Written for - heroes50 13. Brother and cheer_and_fly Triangle Challenge
Summary - And he wonders if he could ever find the strength to say he might be better off dead.
Disclaimer - I don't own a thing. I'm just borrowing the characters, I promise to give them back unharmed.
Her blonde hair slides through his fingers, perfect waves of gold marred only by his calloused hands. She moans low, keening and crying for more, and he pulls her tighter to him, her young, healthy body crushed against his torso, solid and firm, and her lips hungrily press against his, and he wonders where it all went wrong.
-
He wakes to her soft hands on his face and a headache thrumming behind his eyes; the world when he opens his eyes is so bright, saturated and painfully colorful he empties the contents of his stomach on the hard earth beside her. She murmurs softly to the person standing at her side, words unperceivable, but they are soft and loving - like her hands and like her heart.
Exhaustion overcomes him again and he passes out as he is hefted up from the ground, and the worry on her brow is the last thing he sees before the dizzying technicolor world goes black.
-
Three weeks have passed and he waits for her; the room is lit in blue, and Dr. Suresh still comes to check on him every day. Blood, bile and billions of tests later, Suresh has claimed him a miracle. No one has ever survived the level of radiation he experienced - all painful light and nerve endings burning to nothing but the pain is still there, eating away his soul - and he thanks god no one else has lived through a world of pain and hollowness as he has.
She visits at night, when the room is dark in the corners and lit by warm yellow light, and she smiles without sparkling and laughs without heart. He listens to her stories; homes lost and families gone and a floor of people hiding from the world that will never understand.
It has been three weeks since he turned up in a field outside of Scranton, Pennsylvania, and he smiles for the first time when she whispers as she stands at the door to his blue curtained, blue lit, cold room that she missed him while he was away.
That night he dreams in color and light and burning eyes and bodies; he does not smile again for months.
-
She pulls him from his prison one day, small and scared, and he opens his mouth to protest, but her finger touches his lips in a spark of warmth and recognition and want, and she silences him. Not safe and danger pass her lips before she sneaks through the halls of the cold building of the enemy which promised safety until mere minutes before.
It is not until they walk the dark streets of New York, Suresh and his tiny brunette at their side, does he realize she saved his life; chose to save him over Parkman or Micah or any of the others that have cared for her. And he wonders if he could ever find the strength to say he might be better off dead.
But on the subway, where Suresh cuddles his little girl to his chest and murmurs sweet Hindi nothings in her ear, does he realize that the tiny blonde curled next to him wants only what Molly has: a hero to save her life over and over again.
And when she is asleep, he finds the courage to mutter into her delicate ear, “I can’t save you. I never could.”
-
Suresh finds them a new place, a new identity, a new life. People point and stare; the gay, interracial couple raises eyebrows in this peaceful Mid-Western town, but Claire smiles and explains and the attention fades, and he watches the young woman that could not be farther from any daughter of his that he wonders how anyone could believe that she is - until he looks in her eyes and he remembers how all the world is a circle, and because she is so far away from him, she is exactly what he is but the opposite.
It is in those days he realizes the path they walk; the narrow, dangerous trail that threatens to crumble and fall into the ravine with every passing day, and Suresh says nothing, but he knows that every moment they spend together is carefully and quietly catalogued, and eventually, he will no longer be able to claim making up for lost time as he brushes his hand down her cheek and across her shoulder.
He waits for the day she runs screaming from the monster he has become. But she always sees past his flaws, and the memory of a burning body and horrific screams haunt his dreams more and more until he wonders how long until her perky smile will only spell death for him.
-
It is late one night (the dreams so bad recently he has decided to forgo sleep) when she wanders down to the kitchen; eyes and face heavy with sleep and dressed for bed, she needs not what will happen, and he needs it more than he could ever say.
She startles at his form before offering a sleepy smile and soft words, and he can only watch the curve of her neck and the pink of her lips in the faint light of the streetlamp outside the window. Her movements mesmerize him, and it is not until her hands are on his shoulders, eyes and words dark with concern does he realize what has happened.
He looks into her eyes, puzzled and young and achingly the same (but still so different), and he reaches forward and cups her cheek so differently from all the time before (but really the same). Her pupils widen as he softly caresses her young skin, and when she pulls not away, he realizes his mistake. He counted on her conscience for so long, he never once thought she was just as gone as he - that her desires were the same, unspoken, buried, wrong ones as his.
It was not until her soft pink lips are pressed against his and his hands trailing up and down her back that he knows she has always wanted the same thing.
-
She sleeps contentedly by his side, soft supple skin glowing in the pale white light of the moon, and he watches her breathe in and out one thousand times before he curls up next to her. He will sleep that night, her face, gestures and words finally her own. The ghost that has haunted him and her for all those months finally deceased in a fiery crescendo of screams, sweat and love.
Tomorrow he will not wait for her to come home, and tomorrow he will not see burning brown eyes in her clear green ones, and tomorrow he will not love her like the daughter she is and he will not love her as he ever loved him, but he will love her, and try to be the hero he never should have become.
Tomorrow she will not be Peter, and tomorrow he will not be Peter either. Tomorrow they will lay Peter to rest with the rising sun, and start the life they always should have had, normal, plain, ordinary and golden.
Feedback is love!
Rating - Heavy PG-13; mild sexuality
Pairing - Nathan/Claire
Spoilers/Warnings - Up through 1.23 "How to Stop an Exploding Man," future!fic
Written for - heroes50 13. Brother and cheer_and_fly Triangle Challenge
Summary - And he wonders if he could ever find the strength to say he might be better off dead.
Disclaimer - I don't own a thing. I'm just borrowing the characters, I promise to give them back unharmed.
Her blonde hair slides through his fingers, perfect waves of gold marred only by his calloused hands. She moans low, keening and crying for more, and he pulls her tighter to him, her young, healthy body crushed against his torso, solid and firm, and her lips hungrily press against his, and he wonders where it all went wrong.
-
He wakes to her soft hands on his face and a headache thrumming behind his eyes; the world when he opens his eyes is so bright, saturated and painfully colorful he empties the contents of his stomach on the hard earth beside her. She murmurs softly to the person standing at her side, words unperceivable, but they are soft and loving - like her hands and like her heart.
Exhaustion overcomes him again and he passes out as he is hefted up from the ground, and the worry on her brow is the last thing he sees before the dizzying technicolor world goes black.
-
Three weeks have passed and he waits for her; the room is lit in blue, and Dr. Suresh still comes to check on him every day. Blood, bile and billions of tests later, Suresh has claimed him a miracle. No one has ever survived the level of radiation he experienced - all painful light and nerve endings burning to nothing but the pain is still there, eating away his soul - and he thanks god no one else has lived through a world of pain and hollowness as he has.
She visits at night, when the room is dark in the corners and lit by warm yellow light, and she smiles without sparkling and laughs without heart. He listens to her stories; homes lost and families gone and a floor of people hiding from the world that will never understand.
It has been three weeks since he turned up in a field outside of Scranton, Pennsylvania, and he smiles for the first time when she whispers as she stands at the door to his blue curtained, blue lit, cold room that she missed him while he was away.
That night he dreams in color and light and burning eyes and bodies; he does not smile again for months.
-
She pulls him from his prison one day, small and scared, and he opens his mouth to protest, but her finger touches his lips in a spark of warmth and recognition and want, and she silences him. Not safe and danger pass her lips before she sneaks through the halls of the cold building of the enemy which promised safety until mere minutes before.
It is not until they walk the dark streets of New York, Suresh and his tiny brunette at their side, does he realize she saved his life; chose to save him over Parkman or Micah or any of the others that have cared for her. And he wonders if he could ever find the strength to say he might be better off dead.
But on the subway, where Suresh cuddles his little girl to his chest and murmurs sweet Hindi nothings in her ear, does he realize that the tiny blonde curled next to him wants only what Molly has: a hero to save her life over and over again.
And when she is asleep, he finds the courage to mutter into her delicate ear, “I can’t save you. I never could.”
-
Suresh finds them a new place, a new identity, a new life. People point and stare; the gay, interracial couple raises eyebrows in this peaceful Mid-Western town, but Claire smiles and explains and the attention fades, and he watches the young woman that could not be farther from any daughter of his that he wonders how anyone could believe that she is - until he looks in her eyes and he remembers how all the world is a circle, and because she is so far away from him, she is exactly what he is but the opposite.
It is in those days he realizes the path they walk; the narrow, dangerous trail that threatens to crumble and fall into the ravine with every passing day, and Suresh says nothing, but he knows that every moment they spend together is carefully and quietly catalogued, and eventually, he will no longer be able to claim making up for lost time as he brushes his hand down her cheek and across her shoulder.
He waits for the day she runs screaming from the monster he has become. But she always sees past his flaws, and the memory of a burning body and horrific screams haunt his dreams more and more until he wonders how long until her perky smile will only spell death for him.
-
It is late one night (the dreams so bad recently he has decided to forgo sleep) when she wanders down to the kitchen; eyes and face heavy with sleep and dressed for bed, she needs not what will happen, and he needs it more than he could ever say.
She startles at his form before offering a sleepy smile and soft words, and he can only watch the curve of her neck and the pink of her lips in the faint light of the streetlamp outside the window. Her movements mesmerize him, and it is not until her hands are on his shoulders, eyes and words dark with concern does he realize what has happened.
He looks into her eyes, puzzled and young and achingly the same (but still so different), and he reaches forward and cups her cheek so differently from all the time before (but really the same). Her pupils widen as he softly caresses her young skin, and when she pulls not away, he realizes his mistake. He counted on her conscience for so long, he never once thought she was just as gone as he - that her desires were the same, unspoken, buried, wrong ones as his.
It was not until her soft pink lips are pressed against his and his hands trailing up and down her back that he knows she has always wanted the same thing.
-
She sleeps contentedly by his side, soft supple skin glowing in the pale white light of the moon, and he watches her breathe in and out one thousand times before he curls up next to her. He will sleep that night, her face, gestures and words finally her own. The ghost that has haunted him and her for all those months finally deceased in a fiery crescendo of screams, sweat and love.
Tomorrow he will not wait for her to come home, and tomorrow he will not see burning brown eyes in her clear green ones, and tomorrow he will not love her like the daughter she is and he will not love her as he ever loved him, but he will love her, and try to be the hero he never should have become.
Tomorrow she will not be Peter, and tomorrow he will not be Peter either. Tomorrow they will lay Peter to rest with the rising sun, and start the life they always should have had, normal, plain, ordinary and golden.
Feedback is love!