fic: Balancing On One Wounded Wing (6/7)
Title: Balancing On One Wounded Wing (6/7).
Rating: PG-15.
Characters: Nathan/Elle, baby!Noah, Tracy, Sylar, HRG.
Warning: Character death.
Summary: Two screwed up people meet. Become more screwed up.
Spoilers: An Invisible Thread.
A/N: Gah, this part about killed me to write. It's also, I think the longest part, at almost 4000 words.
Part 5
There was a time when it was said that nothing could hurt Nathan Petrelli; after the assassination attempt and his appointment to the senate, newspapers all over the country were reporting how he was untouchable, indestructible. He knows this because he read every one of the cuttings his mother gave him as a toast to his 'success'.
He also knows that he's sliced his wrists open, poured boiling water on himself until his skin puckered and peeled, burned his fingers, cut his fingers off; maimed himself in every conceivable way. And yet-
And yet, here he is now, lying in bed, his skin unmarked, untainted. Perfect. Pure.
Elle's curled into him, her sharp nails digging into his side, sliding down, cutting his flesh. It's dark outside, inky and black and the monsters are crawling out from under the beds and the wardrobes.
“What're you doing?” he mumbles. Has he slept? It's late, they've been in bed for hours - he remembers having sex, remembers holding her tight and never wanting to let go, remembers this strange suffocating feeling of obsession that was gone as soon as it came.
“Writing my name,” she replies, and she sounds like a little girl, all innocent and full of wonder. “Your skin absorbs the letters. E-L-L-E.” She traces the letters lightly with her index fingers, ducks her head to kiss his side.
“You're part of me.” The words leave his mouth to hang in the air between them. Had he meant to say that? He doesn't think he did, but maybe. Maybe this Nathan-who-can-heal does things like that. Things that make no sense.
She slides a hand across his stomach, but doesn't answer.
He tries to catch his breath in the dark. He doesn't even know why he lost it in the first place.
-
Elle is very happy at the moment. Almost manically so, finally out of his mother's house and in their own apartment, and the change in her - or maybe the change back - freaks out Peter, who looks at both of them with those big worried brown eyes of his, but leaves Nathan completely unfazed.
He tells Saunders this. He tells Saunders about the up days when he climbs out of their tenth floor window and sees how fast he can break the sound barrier, and the down days when panic is coiled in a cold knot in the pit of his stomach and he gets confused buying groceries.
He doesn't think the drugs are working.
“You have to give them time, Nathan, they won't magically cure you, they won't ever do that. You won't ever be the way you were before.”
He keeps talking, analysing why Nathan might feel this way or that way, and he's making notes, reams and reams of notes on the inner workings of Nathan Petrelli's mind, but Nathan isn't listening any more.
You won't ever be the way you were before.
He's suddenly knows that this is true.
-
Noah takes his first steps at ten months. It's a late Sunday morning and from the lounge there's the monotonous drone of a keep fit video - and one, and two, and three - and Nathan is in the bathroom, shaving. With a straight razor.
He doesn't know exactly when this change from electric occurred, only that when his hand reaches into the cabinet, this smooth, sharp, flat blade is always what comes out. It could even be said that he enjoys it, that he savours the slide of it against his skin, the occasional slip that leaves a second's worth of blood pooling out across the blade and dripping down his chin. He likes rinsing it down the drain with the foam, water for a second pink, then clear once more.
This morning, he pulls his skin taut, taking time and care to get every last hair. He rinses and repeats, and repeats and repeats until there's nothing there. There's no foam, no hair, no blood.
He lifts the blade again, thumb pressing the handle into the side of his index finger hard enough to leave a mark on him if he were other than he is. The cool edge of the blade touches his throat. When he lifts his eyes, it takes one, two, three seconds for him to recognise himself in the mirror - this man holding a blade to his own throat. His fingers tingle and a thrill shoots through his body, making him nauseous and anxious and excited, but he doesn't shake. He doesn't move at all. All he knows is the razor and tingling in his hands.
“What are you waiting for?” The words come from his own mouth; he watches as it makes the sounds that he doesn't expect. He presses the blade harder against his throat. He says, “Do it, it won't hurt, you can't get hurt, you're special.”
And then there's a tugging at his leg. He jolts back to the bathroom, tiles warm and slightly damp beneath his feet, his face pale except for the one thick droplet of dark blood running down his neck. It's suddenly cold, cold enough that the hairs on the back of his neck rise, and his hands begin to shake, though this, perhaps, really has nothing at all to do with the temperature.
The handle of the razor slips from his fingers; falls straight down. He looks down, meeting Noah's wide eyes, his little hand gripping Nathan's trouser leg.
The blade slams back up into Nathan's hand.
Noah tugs again. Nathan throws the razor into the sink, hands shaking so badly that he can't even bend his fingers properly. He yells, “Elle!” so loud that he's sure the neighbours can hear.
When she arrives at the doorway, face red and tendrils of hair sticking to her forehead, he grips the edge of the sink and hisses, “Get your fucking kid out of here.”
She almost looks shocked, but covers it well. She's used to people being cruel to her, she's just not used to him being cruel. He can normally keep himself under control.
She drags Noah from the room without a backward glance. He waves his hand sharply and the door slams closed - outside it he can hear Elle telling Noah to be quiet, the plea stop crying changing from hopeless to angry within seconds.
He screws his eyes shut. The world tilts, shakes, but he doesn't fall. Noah is crying as he has done so many times before, wailing like the world's coming to an end. Nathan's head pounds in time with Noah's sobs, like a spike being hammered right between his eyes. He clings to the sink like it's the only thing that's real, and with his eyes closed it is; the floor is no longer there, no warm wet tiles underneath his feet, the world around him is perfectly silent. It's as if-
As if he isn't here, as if he's trapped in a void. No sound, no light; nothing. He's not here, and he's not anywhere else, either.
(Whatever you're going through, this... identity crisis... you can survive.)
He opens his eyes. The handle of the door is being jiggled uselessly. On the other side Elle is saying, what the hell is going on?
What the hell is going on is that every last item from the cabinet - pill bottles, scissors, razors - is now in the sink, and the mirror is cracked straight done the middle. His fingers are still curled around the edge of the sink.
With a flick of his wrist, the door pops open. Elle doesn't speak immediately, just stands in the doorway and watches him as he looks at his reflection.
“Nathan,” she starts, takes a step forward. He lifts a hand; a pill bottle floats up out of the detritus, then falls, once again caught by the laws of gravity. “Oh,” Elle breathes.
She takes another step, until she's by his side. Her hand curls around his forearm, the corners of her mouth are curved up. She presses up onto her toes. “You look different,” she murmurs against his cheek.
His eyes flicker to her then back to the mirror. She's right, he does look different.
-
When he sees Saunders next, he talks about Claire, he talks about having not seen her in a year, he talks about how disconnected he is and how unreal everything seems.
He doesn't talk about his second new power. He doesn't talk about how he spent all of that day practising moving pens and coffee cups around the lounge. He doesn't mention how Elle squealed and kissed him every time he got it right; doesn't say that she dragged him to bed early and told him that she loved him more than once.
He tries to research these new developments but is stymied at every turn by restrictions and secrets and confidential information. In this Company, he has no power; he knew this already but now it's crystal clear to him. He can do nothing without his mother's permission.
So they go for lunch at a restaurant she tells him is one of his favourites. When he reads the menu carefully, she say, “The salmon is your favourite, dear.”
He says, “Of course,” and orders it.
“How are your sessions going with Dr Saunders?” she asks at length, before sipping delicately from a wine glass.
Sessions. She makes it sound as if they're playing badminton together or something.
“Fine,” he replies. The salmon is most assuredly not his favourite.
“I'm glad.” She sounds anything but, though. She sounds, in fact, quite the opposite.
“You already know how they're going, don't you?” he says quietly. Her hand, still holding the wine glass, freezes.
“I'm sorry?” she says, her tone sweet and light. He tightens his left hand to a fist under the table.
“Nothing.” He smiles, and she returns it. She places the glass back on the table, and they continue their inane discussions about the weather and the Company's finances, and he knows that she would sooner die than loosen her control over him.
She would sooner let him kill her than lose control.
In the following days, he starts to think about empathic mimicry - before their father took Peter's powers Peter could fly, heal, and move things with his mind among many many other abilities. So maybe it's something to do with the formula, some unforeseen circumstance that has set him on the knife edge of sanity. For this, he feels that Mohinder is the one to go to, the one who had a hand in creating that second bastardised strain, but something tells him he can't.
He can't tell Mohinder about these changes any more than he can tell Peter, Angela or, God forbid, Bennet. He can't talk to anyone that he's supposed to, not when they want him to talk, want him to say something incriminating and buy himself a one way ticket to the newly fitted, fully kitted out cells. Well, he won't be caught again; he's free and he intends to remain that way.
He doesn't even bother to try and recall a time when he actually was held captive, because somehow he knows he was even if he can't remember it.
-
Elle sings to Noah sometimes - it's about the only thing that she likes to do with her son - and she has a nice enough voice, even if the words are less so.
“One fine day in the middle of the night, two dead boys got up to fight, back-to-back they faced one another, drew their swords and shot each other...”
Somehow it sounds less disturbing in her sweet lilt, but Nathan's still glad that Noah's too young to understand the words; the boy just waves his hands and giggles along with her.
They aren't yours. The thought drifts unbidden through his mind as he watches them, Elle sitting cross-legged on the floor of the lounge, helping Noah push his toy car along. They aren't for you, it comes again stronger, and he squeezes his eyes shut for a second.
(Pushing a toy car along in a diner he'd never been to. Only... Arthur gave him an electric car for his fifth birthday - his father gave him an electric car. It was the most expensive one in the toy store. Big enough to ride on. His friends were so jealous. He remembers that, he remembers-- there was a picture at the mansion and Angela pushed it into his hands. He remembered.)
“-you okay?” Elle is standing in front of him - him, Nathan. Her fingers rest on his cheek. “You were mumbling something.” She searches his face carefully, uncharacteristic concern colouring her features.
“I'm fine,” he murmurs. Her hand is warm, and his skin is clammy. He feels breathless and weak.
There's a crash from the kitchen, and he's almost glad of the intrusion, though the sudden movement of spinning around leaves him dizzy. He feels his way along the hall, Elle at his heels.
“What is it?” she asks when he gets to the door. Her hands rest briefly on his hips before she moves around him to see for herself. Water laps to their feet; Nathan stares at the ground for what feels like an inordinate amount of time.
(Washington. Malden. One of them is still missing. But this is the wrong one.)
“Tracy,” he says.
The naked glistening woman in front of them smiles. “You really do have a thing for blondes, don't you? You're the last one, Nathan. I wanted it to be special, but I guess it doesn't really matter.”
Elle pushes her away past Nathan. “Just who the fuck are you?”
“I'm just one of his blondes, little girl. I suppose you'll have the distinction of being his last.”
The air around Elle crackles. “Hey crazy bitch, you can't just come into someone's home, that's liable to get you roasted from the inside out.” She laughs a little. “Sorry.”
Blue flares in her palms; Tracy smirks, and Nathan's still too far behind connecting the dots to stop it. Electricity arcs out of Elle's hands, met halfway by a torrent of narrowly aimed water. She shrieks, drops to the ground only to have her still sparking hands hit the flooded kitchen floor.
“That's basic science, electric girl.” Tracy sneers. “Water and electricity don't play well with each other.”
“Fuck,” Elle hisses, her jeans and sleeves soaked, blue lines dancing across her skin. Nathan grabs her by the back of her t-shirt and pulls her up. She feels small and alive and incredibly dangerous in his grip.
“Go,” he says, practically throwing her out of the room. “Get Noah. Call Bennet.” He slams the door shut in her face before she has the chance to answer and turns back to Tracy.
“Nice little set up you've got, attack dog and all. You always were a coward.”
“Used to be.” He steps forward till they're toe to toe, her breasts almost pressing against his chest. He touches her shoulder lightly. “When you knew Nathan.”
(He remembers the bridge, Pinehearst, Mohinder's laboratory, Linderman who wasn't really there. He remembers the room that left his shirt sticky with sweat and stuck to his back when he exited it. He remembers betrayal on all sides.)
“So, you're gonna drown me on dry land now?” he murmurs. He fancies that she seems a little scared. She steps back from his touch. “I really don't blame you , Tracy.”
“You aren't making this very satisfying,” she tells him. “I like a healthy dose of fear from my victims.”
“Oh, I know the feeling,” he replies. “Your power really is quite... fascinating.”
She frowns. “Okay. You're crazier than I remember. Oh well.” Her skin starts to glisten more, water runs down the length of her body, creating ripples in the puddle on the floor. Water slops into his shoes.
“Goodbye, Nathan.”
And then-- He can't breathe for the water filling his lungs, pouring into his mouth and nose as Tracy advances on him, skin beginning to turn translucent. He lifts his hands, and it's just-- it's instinct, he doesn't know what's going to happen, he doesn't know--
He pushes his fingers against her stomach, and her skin gives way some as it returns to water. She looks shocked and well-- then she is.
The current passes through his body into hers and back again, burning up every part of him that's wet, tearing mercilessly at his skin. The pain is nearly unbearable; his head feels like it's going to split open, his teeth feel like they're going to fall out - he's his own electric conductor and he's on the edge of death, only... he isn't, is he?
Something tells him to pull back, cuts through the torture and forces him to. There's a thump. He opens an eye even though he feels like they're going to shatter. One look down tells him that Tracy is quite irrevocably dead, the smell in the air enough to bring bile to his throat.
By the time Bennet arrives five minutes later, Nathan's changed into dry clothes. Out of her earshot, he tells the man that Elle killed Tracy, but, he says, it was self-defence and does Bennet really have to question her?
Bennet pauses for almost a full minute. Forty six seconds, to be exact. “No, I suppose that wouldn't help anyone, would it?”
-
And now he's killed someone. He is at once horrified by this and completely unfazed. Like two sides of a coin - pick one and that's how he feels.
The analogy isn't quite right, though. He isn't one person with two sides. He's two people.
Fuck, that sounds crazy.
He shakes out his pills into his hand, throws them into his mouth and washes them down quickly over dinner. He's up to ten now - God knows what they're for - and they don't help, but they have to. They have to make him better. Elle doesn't speak at all through dinner, and he doesn't try to start a conversation. There's barely the time, anyway; she eats so fast and spirits Noah away for bed that he barely registers her presence.
He's killed someone and there's blood on his hands. There's blood everywhere - down his shirt, on the ground, on the walls. Forgive me, I have sinned.
He can't finish his food; hasn't even started it. He practically runs to the bathroom, struggles to pull his clothes off - they don't have blood on them, but they do, they're covered in it. He steps into the shower, turns it up full blast, as hot as it will go and grabs the nearest bottle of shower gel.
He scrubs at every inch of himself, from his hair to the soles of his feet and back again, takes the loofah and scrubs his back raw, water running into his eyes and mouth.
And he sees Tracy, burned from the inside out; he scrubs harder, hands shaking and dropping the shower gel several times. He keeps going like this until the once nearly full bottle is empty, then just stands under the assault, skin never turning as red as he'd like.
The first spark is a surprise; it shoots though his body, doubling him over in pain, and he almost collapses, but one hand to the wall is enough to hold him steady. After that, they aren't surprises, they're welcomed. They're penance.
Forgive me, I have sinned. Forgive me, I have sinned. Forgive me, I have sinned.
The water shuts off, small hands pull him from the shower. “You're freezing,” Elle says. “You've been in here forever.” The cool air outside the shower freezes his skin, but he doesn't open his eyes - he knows he'll only see blood, knows he isn't clean yet
“I think I'm having another breakdown,” he murmurs.
She clasps her arms around his neck, pulling his head down until he nuzzles against her cheek. “It's okay, it's fine, you're fine.” One hand runs down his side, pulling his hips tight against hers. She presses a kiss to his neck, and it's familiar, so familiar.
He pushes her back, grips her arms tight and presses her flat against the wall, seeking her mouth out blindly, pushing his tongue in until he feels her teeth. She struggles, nails scratching at his shoulders, knees digging into his legs until he lifts her and she gets her thighs around his waist.
He growls something like, “Mine,” against her lips, and she purrs in response, arching up into him to tug down her pants.
But she isn't yours, a voice whispers in his head. And then - as Elle slides her panties down and moves against him - he works it out.
Two dead boys.
-
Elle takes Noah out shopping the next morning and Nathan - or not as the case may be - pretends to be asleep until she's gone. Then he gets up and goes to the bathroom.
The mirror is still broken, splitting his reflection in half. He picks up the razor.
“My name is Nathan Petrelli.” He spreads shaving foam over his chin and neck, and touches the razor to his skin.
Mm, I don't think so.
“I was born September 9th, 1967.” He drags the blade down.
Why don't you tell me about your last birthday?
“I have three children: Claire, Simon, and Monty.” He rinses the razor and lifts it again.
And you have my child, too.
“I graduated from Annapolis, but I lied about getting honours.” He nicks himself, but his skin heals so fast the blood doesn't have a chance to get to the surface.
You've been lying for a very long time.
“I burned his body myself.” His grip tightens on the razor, ghosting slashing movement across his throat. He isn't the one doing this.
Say my name.
Nathan can't speak. He bites his lips, the razor presses against his throat, slowly moving back and forth, not quite hard enough to cut.
Say my name.
“Sylar,” he sobs.
Cut your throat, Nathan Petrelli, you're already dead.
The razor jerks in his grip, a quick sliceslice, and blood sprays out across the sink, runs down his chest and stains his white t-shirt. He remembers--
The chair, Sylar over him, and he looks down at himself, glassy-eyed and dead, and there's no get out of jail free card here. Claire will be so mad.
Bennet gripping him by the hair and ripping his throat open with a box cutter. Elle watches him die, and he's dead for hours this time. You're nobody.
--everything.
He looks up at his reflection, and his skin ripples as he watches, his bone structure gets heavier then lighter then heavier again.
“I don't-- I don't have to be you,” he chokes out. “Don't have... to lose. Can beat you-- I can beat you.”
“Oh, can you?” And this time the voice isn't in his head, it's coming from his mouth, but sounds nothing like him. Or sounds exactly like him. There's a distant thump of a door being closed. “Elle's back,” the voice that's not his but is says. “Why don't we test your theory out?”
He doesn't reach for the door handle, yet that's where he finds his hand to be. He looks back at the mirror, but he isn't there any more.
~the final part~
Rating: PG-15.
Characters: Nathan/Elle, baby!Noah, Tracy, Sylar, HRG.
Warning: Character death.
Summary: Two screwed up people meet. Become more screwed up.
Spoilers: An Invisible Thread.
A/N: Gah, this part about killed me to write. It's also, I think the longest part, at almost 4000 words.
Part 5
There was a time when it was said that nothing could hurt Nathan Petrelli; after the assassination attempt and his appointment to the senate, newspapers all over the country were reporting how he was untouchable, indestructible. He knows this because he read every one of the cuttings his mother gave him as a toast to his 'success'.
He also knows that he's sliced his wrists open, poured boiling water on himself until his skin puckered and peeled, burned his fingers, cut his fingers off; maimed himself in every conceivable way. And yet-
And yet, here he is now, lying in bed, his skin unmarked, untainted. Perfect. Pure.
Elle's curled into him, her sharp nails digging into his side, sliding down, cutting his flesh. It's dark outside, inky and black and the monsters are crawling out from under the beds and the wardrobes.
“What're you doing?” he mumbles. Has he slept? It's late, they've been in bed for hours - he remembers having sex, remembers holding her tight and never wanting to let go, remembers this strange suffocating feeling of obsession that was gone as soon as it came.
“Writing my name,” she replies, and she sounds like a little girl, all innocent and full of wonder. “Your skin absorbs the letters. E-L-L-E.” She traces the letters lightly with her index fingers, ducks her head to kiss his side.
“You're part of me.” The words leave his mouth to hang in the air between them. Had he meant to say that? He doesn't think he did, but maybe. Maybe this Nathan-who-can-heal does things like that. Things that make no sense.
She slides a hand across his stomach, but doesn't answer.
He tries to catch his breath in the dark. He doesn't even know why he lost it in the first place.
-
Elle is very happy at the moment. Almost manically so, finally out of his mother's house and in their own apartment, and the change in her - or maybe the change back - freaks out Peter, who looks at both of them with those big worried brown eyes of his, but leaves Nathan completely unfazed.
He tells Saunders this. He tells Saunders about the up days when he climbs out of their tenth floor window and sees how fast he can break the sound barrier, and the down days when panic is coiled in a cold knot in the pit of his stomach and he gets confused buying groceries.
He doesn't think the drugs are working.
“You have to give them time, Nathan, they won't magically cure you, they won't ever do that. You won't ever be the way you were before.”
He keeps talking, analysing why Nathan might feel this way or that way, and he's making notes, reams and reams of notes on the inner workings of Nathan Petrelli's mind, but Nathan isn't listening any more.
You won't ever be the way you were before.
He's suddenly knows that this is true.
-
Noah takes his first steps at ten months. It's a late Sunday morning and from the lounge there's the monotonous drone of a keep fit video - and one, and two, and three - and Nathan is in the bathroom, shaving. With a straight razor.
He doesn't know exactly when this change from electric occurred, only that when his hand reaches into the cabinet, this smooth, sharp, flat blade is always what comes out. It could even be said that he enjoys it, that he savours the slide of it against his skin, the occasional slip that leaves a second's worth of blood pooling out across the blade and dripping down his chin. He likes rinsing it down the drain with the foam, water for a second pink, then clear once more.
This morning, he pulls his skin taut, taking time and care to get every last hair. He rinses and repeats, and repeats and repeats until there's nothing there. There's no foam, no hair, no blood.
He lifts the blade again, thumb pressing the handle into the side of his index finger hard enough to leave a mark on him if he were other than he is. The cool edge of the blade touches his throat. When he lifts his eyes, it takes one, two, three seconds for him to recognise himself in the mirror - this man holding a blade to his own throat. His fingers tingle and a thrill shoots through his body, making him nauseous and anxious and excited, but he doesn't shake. He doesn't move at all. All he knows is the razor and tingling in his hands.
“What are you waiting for?” The words come from his own mouth; he watches as it makes the sounds that he doesn't expect. He presses the blade harder against his throat. He says, “Do it, it won't hurt, you can't get hurt, you're special.”
And then there's a tugging at his leg. He jolts back to the bathroom, tiles warm and slightly damp beneath his feet, his face pale except for the one thick droplet of dark blood running down his neck. It's suddenly cold, cold enough that the hairs on the back of his neck rise, and his hands begin to shake, though this, perhaps, really has nothing at all to do with the temperature.
The handle of the razor slips from his fingers; falls straight down. He looks down, meeting Noah's wide eyes, his little hand gripping Nathan's trouser leg.
The blade slams back up into Nathan's hand.
Noah tugs again. Nathan throws the razor into the sink, hands shaking so badly that he can't even bend his fingers properly. He yells, “Elle!” so loud that he's sure the neighbours can hear.
When she arrives at the doorway, face red and tendrils of hair sticking to her forehead, he grips the edge of the sink and hisses, “Get your fucking kid out of here.”
She almost looks shocked, but covers it well. She's used to people being cruel to her, she's just not used to him being cruel. He can normally keep himself under control.
She drags Noah from the room without a backward glance. He waves his hand sharply and the door slams closed - outside it he can hear Elle telling Noah to be quiet, the plea stop crying changing from hopeless to angry within seconds.
He screws his eyes shut. The world tilts, shakes, but he doesn't fall. Noah is crying as he has done so many times before, wailing like the world's coming to an end. Nathan's head pounds in time with Noah's sobs, like a spike being hammered right between his eyes. He clings to the sink like it's the only thing that's real, and with his eyes closed it is; the floor is no longer there, no warm wet tiles underneath his feet, the world around him is perfectly silent. It's as if-
As if he isn't here, as if he's trapped in a void. No sound, no light; nothing. He's not here, and he's not anywhere else, either.
(Whatever you're going through, this... identity crisis... you can survive.)
He opens his eyes. The handle of the door is being jiggled uselessly. On the other side Elle is saying, what the hell is going on?
What the hell is going on is that every last item from the cabinet - pill bottles, scissors, razors - is now in the sink, and the mirror is cracked straight done the middle. His fingers are still curled around the edge of the sink.
With a flick of his wrist, the door pops open. Elle doesn't speak immediately, just stands in the doorway and watches him as he looks at his reflection.
“Nathan,” she starts, takes a step forward. He lifts a hand; a pill bottle floats up out of the detritus, then falls, once again caught by the laws of gravity. “Oh,” Elle breathes.
She takes another step, until she's by his side. Her hand curls around his forearm, the corners of her mouth are curved up. She presses up onto her toes. “You look different,” she murmurs against his cheek.
His eyes flicker to her then back to the mirror. She's right, he does look different.
-
When he sees Saunders next, he talks about Claire, he talks about having not seen her in a year, he talks about how disconnected he is and how unreal everything seems.
He doesn't talk about his second new power. He doesn't talk about how he spent all of that day practising moving pens and coffee cups around the lounge. He doesn't mention how Elle squealed and kissed him every time he got it right; doesn't say that she dragged him to bed early and told him that she loved him more than once.
He tries to research these new developments but is stymied at every turn by restrictions and secrets and confidential information. In this Company, he has no power; he knew this already but now it's crystal clear to him. He can do nothing without his mother's permission.
So they go for lunch at a restaurant she tells him is one of his favourites. When he reads the menu carefully, she say, “The salmon is your favourite, dear.”
He says, “Of course,” and orders it.
“How are your sessions going with Dr Saunders?” she asks at length, before sipping delicately from a wine glass.
Sessions. She makes it sound as if they're playing badminton together or something.
“Fine,” he replies. The salmon is most assuredly not his favourite.
“I'm glad.” She sounds anything but, though. She sounds, in fact, quite the opposite.
“You already know how they're going, don't you?” he says quietly. Her hand, still holding the wine glass, freezes.
“I'm sorry?” she says, her tone sweet and light. He tightens his left hand to a fist under the table.
“Nothing.” He smiles, and she returns it. She places the glass back on the table, and they continue their inane discussions about the weather and the Company's finances, and he knows that she would sooner die than loosen her control over him.
She would sooner let him kill her than lose control.
In the following days, he starts to think about empathic mimicry - before their father took Peter's powers Peter could fly, heal, and move things with his mind among many many other abilities. So maybe it's something to do with the formula, some unforeseen circumstance that has set him on the knife edge of sanity. For this, he feels that Mohinder is the one to go to, the one who had a hand in creating that second bastardised strain, but something tells him he can't.
He can't tell Mohinder about these changes any more than he can tell Peter, Angela or, God forbid, Bennet. He can't talk to anyone that he's supposed to, not when they want him to talk, want him to say something incriminating and buy himself a one way ticket to the newly fitted, fully kitted out cells. Well, he won't be caught again; he's free and he intends to remain that way.
He doesn't even bother to try and recall a time when he actually was held captive, because somehow he knows he was even if he can't remember it.
-
Elle sings to Noah sometimes - it's about the only thing that she likes to do with her son - and she has a nice enough voice, even if the words are less so.
“One fine day in the middle of the night, two dead boys got up to fight, back-to-back they faced one another, drew their swords and shot each other...”
Somehow it sounds less disturbing in her sweet lilt, but Nathan's still glad that Noah's too young to understand the words; the boy just waves his hands and giggles along with her.
They aren't yours. The thought drifts unbidden through his mind as he watches them, Elle sitting cross-legged on the floor of the lounge, helping Noah push his toy car along. They aren't for you, it comes again stronger, and he squeezes his eyes shut for a second.
(Pushing a toy car along in a diner he'd never been to. Only... Arthur gave him an electric car for his fifth birthday - his father gave him an electric car. It was the most expensive one in the toy store. Big enough to ride on. His friends were so jealous. He remembers that, he remembers-- there was a picture at the mansion and Angela pushed it into his hands. He remembered.)
“-you okay?” Elle is standing in front of him - him, Nathan. Her fingers rest on his cheek. “You were mumbling something.” She searches his face carefully, uncharacteristic concern colouring her features.
“I'm fine,” he murmurs. Her hand is warm, and his skin is clammy. He feels breathless and weak.
There's a crash from the kitchen, and he's almost glad of the intrusion, though the sudden movement of spinning around leaves him dizzy. He feels his way along the hall, Elle at his heels.
“What is it?” she asks when he gets to the door. Her hands rest briefly on his hips before she moves around him to see for herself. Water laps to their feet; Nathan stares at the ground for what feels like an inordinate amount of time.
(Washington. Malden. One of them is still missing. But this is the wrong one.)
“Tracy,” he says.
The naked glistening woman in front of them smiles. “You really do have a thing for blondes, don't you? You're the last one, Nathan. I wanted it to be special, but I guess it doesn't really matter.”
Elle pushes her away past Nathan. “Just who the fuck are you?”
“I'm just one of his blondes, little girl. I suppose you'll have the distinction of being his last.”
The air around Elle crackles. “Hey crazy bitch, you can't just come into someone's home, that's liable to get you roasted from the inside out.” She laughs a little. “Sorry.”
Blue flares in her palms; Tracy smirks, and Nathan's still too far behind connecting the dots to stop it. Electricity arcs out of Elle's hands, met halfway by a torrent of narrowly aimed water. She shrieks, drops to the ground only to have her still sparking hands hit the flooded kitchen floor.
“That's basic science, electric girl.” Tracy sneers. “Water and electricity don't play well with each other.”
“Fuck,” Elle hisses, her jeans and sleeves soaked, blue lines dancing across her skin. Nathan grabs her by the back of her t-shirt and pulls her up. She feels small and alive and incredibly dangerous in his grip.
“Go,” he says, practically throwing her out of the room. “Get Noah. Call Bennet.” He slams the door shut in her face before she has the chance to answer and turns back to Tracy.
“Nice little set up you've got, attack dog and all. You always were a coward.”
“Used to be.” He steps forward till they're toe to toe, her breasts almost pressing against his chest. He touches her shoulder lightly. “When you knew Nathan.”
(He remembers the bridge, Pinehearst, Mohinder's laboratory, Linderman who wasn't really there. He remembers the room that left his shirt sticky with sweat and stuck to his back when he exited it. He remembers betrayal on all sides.)
“So, you're gonna drown me on dry land now?” he murmurs. He fancies that she seems a little scared. She steps back from his touch. “I really don't blame you , Tracy.”
“You aren't making this very satisfying,” she tells him. “I like a healthy dose of fear from my victims.”
“Oh, I know the feeling,” he replies. “Your power really is quite... fascinating.”
She frowns. “Okay. You're crazier than I remember. Oh well.” Her skin starts to glisten more, water runs down the length of her body, creating ripples in the puddle on the floor. Water slops into his shoes.
“Goodbye, Nathan.”
And then-- He can't breathe for the water filling his lungs, pouring into his mouth and nose as Tracy advances on him, skin beginning to turn translucent. He lifts his hands, and it's just-- it's instinct, he doesn't know what's going to happen, he doesn't know--
He pushes his fingers against her stomach, and her skin gives way some as it returns to water. She looks shocked and well-- then she is.
The current passes through his body into hers and back again, burning up every part of him that's wet, tearing mercilessly at his skin. The pain is nearly unbearable; his head feels like it's going to split open, his teeth feel like they're going to fall out - he's his own electric conductor and he's on the edge of death, only... he isn't, is he?
Something tells him to pull back, cuts through the torture and forces him to. There's a thump. He opens an eye even though he feels like they're going to shatter. One look down tells him that Tracy is quite irrevocably dead, the smell in the air enough to bring bile to his throat.
By the time Bennet arrives five minutes later, Nathan's changed into dry clothes. Out of her earshot, he tells the man that Elle killed Tracy, but, he says, it was self-defence and does Bennet really have to question her?
Bennet pauses for almost a full minute. Forty six seconds, to be exact. “No, I suppose that wouldn't help anyone, would it?”
-
And now he's killed someone. He is at once horrified by this and completely unfazed. Like two sides of a coin - pick one and that's how he feels.
The analogy isn't quite right, though. He isn't one person with two sides. He's two people.
Fuck, that sounds crazy.
He shakes out his pills into his hand, throws them into his mouth and washes them down quickly over dinner. He's up to ten now - God knows what they're for - and they don't help, but they have to. They have to make him better. Elle doesn't speak at all through dinner, and he doesn't try to start a conversation. There's barely the time, anyway; she eats so fast and spirits Noah away for bed that he barely registers her presence.
He's killed someone and there's blood on his hands. There's blood everywhere - down his shirt, on the ground, on the walls. Forgive me, I have sinned.
He can't finish his food; hasn't even started it. He practically runs to the bathroom, struggles to pull his clothes off - they don't have blood on them, but they do, they're covered in it. He steps into the shower, turns it up full blast, as hot as it will go and grabs the nearest bottle of shower gel.
He scrubs at every inch of himself, from his hair to the soles of his feet and back again, takes the loofah and scrubs his back raw, water running into his eyes and mouth.
And he sees Tracy, burned from the inside out; he scrubs harder, hands shaking and dropping the shower gel several times. He keeps going like this until the once nearly full bottle is empty, then just stands under the assault, skin never turning as red as he'd like.
The first spark is a surprise; it shoots though his body, doubling him over in pain, and he almost collapses, but one hand to the wall is enough to hold him steady. After that, they aren't surprises, they're welcomed. They're penance.
Forgive me, I have sinned. Forgive me, I have sinned. Forgive me, I have sinned.
The water shuts off, small hands pull him from the shower. “You're freezing,” Elle says. “You've been in here forever.” The cool air outside the shower freezes his skin, but he doesn't open his eyes - he knows he'll only see blood, knows he isn't clean yet
“I think I'm having another breakdown,” he murmurs.
She clasps her arms around his neck, pulling his head down until he nuzzles against her cheek. “It's okay, it's fine, you're fine.” One hand runs down his side, pulling his hips tight against hers. She presses a kiss to his neck, and it's familiar, so familiar.
He pushes her back, grips her arms tight and presses her flat against the wall, seeking her mouth out blindly, pushing his tongue in until he feels her teeth. She struggles, nails scratching at his shoulders, knees digging into his legs until he lifts her and she gets her thighs around his waist.
He growls something like, “Mine,” against her lips, and she purrs in response, arching up into him to tug down her pants.
But she isn't yours, a voice whispers in his head. And then - as Elle slides her panties down and moves against him - he works it out.
Two dead boys.
-
Elle takes Noah out shopping the next morning and Nathan - or not as the case may be - pretends to be asleep until she's gone. Then he gets up and goes to the bathroom.
The mirror is still broken, splitting his reflection in half. He picks up the razor.
“My name is Nathan Petrelli.” He spreads shaving foam over his chin and neck, and touches the razor to his skin.
Mm, I don't think so.
“I was born September 9th, 1967.” He drags the blade down.
Why don't you tell me about your last birthday?
“I have three children: Claire, Simon, and Monty.” He rinses the razor and lifts it again.
And you have my child, too.
“I graduated from Annapolis, but I lied about getting honours.” He nicks himself, but his skin heals so fast the blood doesn't have a chance to get to the surface.
You've been lying for a very long time.
“I burned his body myself.” His grip tightens on the razor, ghosting slashing movement across his throat. He isn't the one doing this.
Say my name.
Nathan can't speak. He bites his lips, the razor presses against his throat, slowly moving back and forth, not quite hard enough to cut.
Say my name.
“Sylar,” he sobs.
Cut your throat, Nathan Petrelli, you're already dead.
The razor jerks in his grip, a quick sliceslice, and blood sprays out across the sink, runs down his chest and stains his white t-shirt. He remembers--
The chair, Sylar over him, and he looks down at himself, glassy-eyed and dead, and there's no get out of jail free card here. Claire will be so mad.
Bennet gripping him by the hair and ripping his throat open with a box cutter. Elle watches him die, and he's dead for hours this time. You're nobody.
--everything.
He looks up at his reflection, and his skin ripples as he watches, his bone structure gets heavier then lighter then heavier again.
“I don't-- I don't have to be you,” he chokes out. “Don't have... to lose. Can beat you-- I can beat you.”
“Oh, can you?” And this time the voice isn't in his head, it's coming from his mouth, but sounds nothing like him. Or sounds exactly like him. There's a distant thump of a door being closed. “Elle's back,” the voice that's not his but is says. “Why don't we test your theory out?”
He doesn't reach for the door handle, yet that's where he finds his hand to be. He looks back at the mirror, but he isn't there any more.
~the final part~