[Heroes/Survivor] Penance (Nathan/Peter, NC-17)
Title: Penance
Fandom: Heroes/Survivor [novel by Chuck Palahniuk]
Pairing: Nathan/Peter
Rating: NC-17
Warning: Incest, angst, underage sex, strange religious cults.
Spoiler: None for Heroes. A lot for Survivor.
Word Count: 3231 (W)
Notes: Prequel to May you die with all your work complete, that must be read first. Other notes and references in the other fic's header.
Thanks to: snopes_faith, the unrepenting beta. This fic is all hers, so hands off. *gives Caroline a Creedish!Nathan action figure (at natural, muscled size)*
Like every time, also the first one starts in the hayloft - within the smell of dried grass and soil and the ghosts of generations of butchered animals, within the creaking of wood and the shadows of the haystacks that hang over the both of you and don’t let you see much further than your nose.
Not much further than your nose there’s Nathan, one hand in your hair and the other one in your pants.
You’ve got your eyes shut so tight that they almost hurt. The obscenity of all of this is nearly too much to bear yet it excites you - the rustle of the clothes you left on, Nathan’s breath warming your neck, and that hand that never touched you lower than an arm or higher than a knee now squeezing with five fingers the tangible proof of your perversion.
You think it would be less perverse if you’d taken off your clothes. You’re both men: Nathan’s already seen you naked, and you’ve seen him, as your stomach reminds you, butterflying. This way it seems something indefinite at mid-way between one sin and another, infinitely more perverse than either. This way you can almost imagine that Nathan surprised you while you were sinning in solitude in your little corner, and instead of reproaching you as you’d expect him to - instead of slapping you or sending you to pray kneed on chickpeas - he moved your hand away and replaced it with his.
The thought makes your stomach twist.
The truth is, he reached you in the hayloft some time after dinner, and when he found you you were just looking out of the square little window that - you don’t know yet - in a couple of years you’ll cross to climb up to the roof and throw yourself down.
“I’m not repenting what I did,” you muttered without turning back, with that stubbornness your father defines a “rottenness” at the core of your character, while you think that some way, for some reason, your mother would’ve liked it.
“You should,” Nathan replies, stepping in the dust. “Your grades are the worst in the whole District. Father’s been called by your teachers. Nobody in this family…”
“I know. I’m a shame. The worst Petrelli in all the family history.“ Your father’s words; you don’t know much about family history. “Father said that…”, your tongue falters for the hugeness of this humiliation, “he’ll kick me out.”
“Only if you don’t change your mind,” specifies Nathan, gently. “And you know he won’t.” He hesitates, probably aware he’s almost - almost - implied your father’s a liar. “If you don’t give him a valid reason.”
He leans his hand on your shoulder, but it seems a show of strength more than an attempt to comfort you. You sigh, without resting your fingers on his as you would in another occasion. You rub your forehead against the icy glass of the window.
“Just because there’s no one else,” you whisper. “Just because I’m the only one left.”
“Peter.”
“If they weren’t dead he wouldn’t think twice about kicking me out.”
“Stop that.”
“So it’s better keep me even if I’m worth nothing. It’s like this, Nathan. I’m still here just because Mother died.”
His grip on your shoulder becomes stronger, almost painful, but you remain still, don’t wince, don’t let a sound escape out of your mouth.
“Tomorrow you’ll ask him forgiveness for making him ashamed of you. And from tomorrow on your grades will be as high as anybody else’s. At least.”
You turn abruptly, trying to release his grasp and whipping unintentionally his hand with your too long hair. “You think it’s easy, don’t you? You…”
“I think you don’t work enough on it,” Nathan replies, calmly. “I think you don’t want to work on it. I think you don’t take your mission seriously.”
Like every time, his absolute seriousness tears your determination to pieces, even when you’re sure you’re stronger. “You don’t know how much I do, Nathan.”
“By words?” He rests both his hands on your shoulders, at both sides of your neck, and this time his gesture is more comforting than threatening. His tone doesn’t seem as menacing, but roughly paternal. “Saying you’re not repenting what you did?”
“I’m trying, Nathan.”
“You believe God put you on the earth to try? Everybody can try. Even those godless out there, you can bet somebody amongst them is trying. And what do they achieve?”
“I don’t know,” you mutter, not meeting his eyes. And you add, peevishly: “I never saw one”.
“Nothing. They achieve nothing.” He leans his hand on your face, brushing your cheekbone. “You can do so much more than this, Peter. I know you. You don’t want to disappoint me.”
You close your eyes for a moment, perfectly conscious that Nathan will guess your weakness and, instead of taking advantage of it, he’ll give you a rest.
“Fine.”
“You’re a good boy,” he says kissing your forehead, with that warm voice he reserves for you and his children, that one that gathers like a hot pool in your groin and sends flames to your face. You hug him instinctively, out of habit, and it surprises you to find that this alone is enough to make you feel better.
There are many things you don’t repent for.
The hug lasts a little too long, and when Nathan releases his arms from your back what it leaves you is a fast heartbeat and a sticky feeling of wrong that you don’t know where it comes from, nor how to send away. Nathan squeezes your shoulders in his hands, looking right in your eyes. For a moment you think he’ll kiss you again (Nathan’s far more affectionate with you than all the others with their brothers) - instead he makes a faint smile and lets go of you.
Frustration is a feeling they taught you to live with, but sometimes it’s so strong it takes your breath away.
You sit on the squeaking cot where you occasionally can’t help but fall sleep, only to wake up cold in the middle of the night. You look at him, and Nathan follows you. There are many things you’d like to ask him - things you don’t understand and the Bible doesn’t explain - if you weren’t too afraid to induce him to doubt of you.
“… Nathan?”
In the poor light, the shadows on your brother’s face have something hideous, like sneering. But it’s just your impression, because his smile is calm as always.
“Do you have ever… I mean…” You swallow, struggling for words. You can think only of the wrong ones.
“Don’t go round it,” he tells you, patiently.
“… when you’re alone. When you’re done with work, and you’re not with your wife. When it’s dark. You never… I mean…” You gesture, incapable to come out with it. “It’s just that sometimes, I… I know it’s wrong, but…”
Nathan’s silent, and so are you, feeling heavy on your chest. Now he’ll reproach you. If he understood, he’ll reproach you. And how could he not have understood?
“It’s not the same, Peter,” Nathan says, looking you in the eye. “You and I are not the same.”
You know. It doesn’t hurt you. You’ve never envied him for this. “It’s just…”
“And not all pleasant things are good.”
You bite on your cheek. It wasn’t a repetition of your teacher’s words that you were looking for. And you can’t ignore that voice in your head reminding you that Nathan didn’t answer.
“You think that knowing you’re not the only one will make you feel better?”
Yes.
“No. I… just want to understand, Nathan.”
“What?”
What you think when you do it.
“If I’m made wrong.”
Nathan exhales slowly, leaning his hand on your knee. “You’re not made wrong, Peter.” He hits you lightly, then squeezes your thigh in his hand. “Right?”
You know it’s not enough that Nathan says a thing for it to be true, but this time he sounds sure. You lean backwards on your hands, close your eyes and swear dearly to yourself that if Nathan’s hand moves higher of half an inch, even of the last, infinitesimal part of an inch, you’ll tell him everything. Everything.
“Do you make penance, after?”
“Yes,” you lie.
His hand withdraws from your knee. Nathan nods; your answer seems enough.
You open your eyes again. “That’s it? To make penance?”
“Humbly.”
You always think that word sounds odd on your brother’s mouth. “Humble” is not an adjective that suits him.
“Humbly, sure,” you sigh, lying down on the creaking cot, and you look at him hoping he’ll tell you something better, something that’s not in your school texts, something none of your schoolmates knows. A secret recipe to fix things. If even Nathan thinks humbleness is enough, you don’t know what else to do.
“Some things can’t be avoided,” Nathan says, slowly. He leans cautiously on his elbow, sinking into the cot. “There are some commandments harder than others.”
“What do you think when you do it?” you ask him without breathing.
He looks at you like you’d asked him to remember one by one when his three children lost their first tooth. “This is none of your concern” he answers, but in a gentle, almost cordial tone.
“Sorry,” you mutter, blushing.
With those fingers you always think fitter to grab a spade than caress his wife’s body, Nathan pulls down your shirt that had risen from your belly and left a strip of naked skin. You instinctively put your hand on his. Your heart beats so fast Nathan will surely notice it.
“You… want to do it?” you whisper audaciously, feeling your cheek burn. “Now?”
Nathan’s face freezes. “What?”
“With me,” you add, in an even lower whisper. “Together.”
Nathan reaches out to grab your face, with such an abrupt move that you don’t even have time to back out. “Who are you doing these things with, Peter?”
“No-nobody,” you babble quickly.
“One of your schoolmates? Somebody else?”
“No. I never…”
“Look at me.”
And you do and tell him, trembling a little: “No. I swear. I only… I only want to do it with you.”
It seems so stupid, now that you said it. So childish. It seemed such an important thing last time you thought about it - a big thing, one of those you’d die for. But Nathan won’t think of it like this. You glance away, because you know he’ll be even madder now, and you don’t want to see him mad.
“God, Peter,” Nathan mutters, and it’s the second time in all your life you’ve heard him calling His name in vain. (The first, you were three and you remember only the scream and the blood, and your brother’s face covered with red like that of butchered calves.)
“I’m… I’m sorry,” you gabble, while the world seems to crumble fast all around you. “Forgive me, Nathan.”
He doesn’t answer. You sit up, uncertainly, waiting for him to say you disgust him, he’s ashamed of you being his brother, you must never dare touch or watch him anymore. “I’ll make penance,” you promise with a faint voice. “Tomorrow. And the day after tomorrow.” You lean your cheek on his shoulder, shyly, shutting your eyes for fear you’ll get a slap. Nathan doesn’t move. “I’ll make penance all the week, “you promise more and more softly, finding your eyes captured by the way his scar glints under the moonlight. “Nathan. Please…”
He turns slowly, resting his palm on your cheek, but slowly like a caress, even if it doesn’t make sense, you don’t deserve any caress. He pushes his fingers through your hair, pulling up your chin from his shoulder. “You don’t know what you asked me for, Pete,” he says softly. You could count on one hand’s fingers the times he’s called you Pete. No Peter in any family gets ever called Pete. It doesn’t make sense: yours is not a name, it’s a title. But any time he does, it gives you a tiny shiver of pleasure up through your back.
You think about saying again you’re sorry, because you are, but the words come out all wrong. “It’s more than one year, I tried, I swear I tried.” Nathan looks at you gravely, as serious as a statue, and you’ve already forgotten your brother won’t accept “I tried” as an excuse for your failures anymore.
You’re trembling.
Before you can realize it, the cot is under your back and Nathan on you, as heavy as a horse’s flank. It takes your breath away. The first thing you think is that he’s going to beat you, he really is, as your schoolmates told you so many times (you learned to tell it was the same at your home, even if it wasn’t).
Nathan doesn’t beat you, even if his weight keeps pressing you on the cot, but you realize it’s not that you’re suffocating, it’s that you’re not breathing. You take a mouthful of trembling breath that ends up truncated in half.
He’s kissing your mouth. It’s a strange thing, the way he’s chewing your lips with his, the way he tries to force them open, but you think that even if you don’t understand, that’s not important. You rise your arms on his shoulders and open your mouth, closing your eyes shut. When he touches your tongue and your mouth fills with saliva you think that even if you don’t like it much, that’s not important. You just want him to take everything, even if it’s not much.
“Stop me,” Nathan gasps, kissing your face and the corners of your mouth. “God, Peter, I don’t know what I’m doing.”
He shifts an inch forward, between your legs, turning a flame on in your groin. You take his face in your hands to make him kiss you like before, lust making you suddenly brave (you think you worked out how to move your tongue, and you can’t wait to try again). You open your leg towards the wall of the hayloft, feeling your body burn with satisfaction when Nathan slides more comfortably on you, occupying all the space you offered him.
“You don’t have to do it,” he whispers on your lips.
“Please.”
“If you don’t want, nothing will happen. I won’t love you less.”
“Please, Nathan.” You don’t want nothing to happen. It’s all your life nothing’s happened.
He closes his eyes, or rather he just lowers them, and kisses you again. It’s harder, now, more demanding. You feel the calloused palm of his hand searching for the skin under your shirt, tickling your ribs, then squeezing your hip between his thumb and the other fingers until it hurts and you let out a strangled noise in his mouth.
Nathan mutters quickly that this is going to be a secret, it must be, it’s very important that you understand it.
“Is it… is it like this with your wife?” you gasp without answering, wondering if he leaves any mark on her. You’ve never seen other than your sister in law’s arms and face and you know she’s the most honest woman in the world; but suddenly the thought of Nathan marking her pale skin red seems like making her a whore.
“No. No, this has got nothing to do with her. It’s just me and you, Peter. It’s our secret. You understand?”
You open your eyes. There’s Nathan everywhere around you, his breath and his familiar scent surrounding you, reducing you to a mere extension of the pleasure he’s giving you. He undoes your pants, diving his fingers under the fabric, and you notice you’ve stopped breathing again.
Not even alone, not even when nobody could see you, not even when you felt the freest and the boldest, have you ever allowed yourself to touch you as Nathan’s doing now. He’s decisive, without the tiniest hesitation, like this didn’t upset him the way it does you; the way he holds it, how he strokes the head with his thumb, like this weren’t the first time he’s held his brother’s virility in his hand. “Efficiency” is a word you often thought about Nathan, but this is the first time doing so has given you shivers.
He asks you if you like it, moving his palm around that flesh in which there’s all your universe compressed, and when you don’t answer he asks again, looking at your face, his erection heavy against your inner thigh. He must know; he wouldn’t stand thinking you didn’t want this. You sigh on his cheek and whisper something that sounds meaningless but that seems to reassure him. When he touches you again it’s so sweet a pleasure that you snap your head back calling Nathan, God, and every angel you can think about.
He covers your mouth, kisses your neck and orders you to stop being blasphemous, and you’re too happy to catch his shiver while he’s saying this. There’s too much pleasure between your legs to think about the shades. When you’re finished, you move his hand away and kiss him passionately, unbuttoning his pants. Pleasure made you generous and you’d like to feel his breath tremble while you touch him, but Nathan’s older than you and everything he concedes you is a noisy sigh after a long wait.
“What do you like?” you whisper, apprehensive and slightly disappointed. What can he find of interest in you, who masturbates without watching because you’re ashamed? “I’ll do you everything you want.”
“It’s alright,” he answers, his voice deeper and calmer than some moment ago. He moves to his side and you follow him, leaving him some space. Nathan rests his hand on yours, breathing in with his half-closed eyes, and when you kiss him he squeezes your fingers a little harder, encircling your shoulders with his free arm.
“I can learn anything you like,” you mutter on his mouth.
“Don’t tempt me, Peter.”
“I’m serious, I…”
“Faster,” he mutters brusquely. You obey, feeling his hand moving to your hip and then lower, under your pants’ edge, grabbing a slim buttock in his palm. You wince lightly.
The air is cold on your skin, but you don’t notice it. Nathan squeezes and strokes, pushing your pants lower and lower, until you can feel his rough fingers pressing at your inner thighs and then moving upward, cutting off your breath. “Nathan…”
“You want me to stop?”
“No… no,” you babble, and his fingers keep caressing but don’t proceed further, like they didn’t have the nerve, leaving a curious, hot tingle on your skin.
“I… I think I love you,” you whisper.
Nathan opens those eyes that could make you do, say and think anything in the world and looks at you with genuine confusion. When he murmurs an answer, his voice is hoarse and warm, made distant by the orgasm that’s approaching.
“Yes,” he mutters. “I know.”
Before the cold of the hayloft freezes you, Nathan hugs you closer, breathing on your neck. It’s almost enough to make you forget everything else, your father and your grades and the fact you’re the worst Peter in the whole District of the Church. You close your eyes, breathing the smell of wood mixed with the one of your brother, of hay, wool, and animals oblivious of their destiny.
Tomorrow you’ll make penance.
Fandom: Heroes/Survivor [novel by Chuck Palahniuk]
Pairing: Nathan/Peter
Rating: NC-17
Warning: Incest, angst, underage sex, strange religious cults.
Spoiler: None for Heroes. A lot for Survivor.
Word Count: 3231 (W)
Notes: Prequel to May you die with all your work complete, that must be read first. Other notes and references in the other fic's header.
Thanks to: snopes_faith, the unrepenting beta. This fic is all hers, so hands off. *gives Caroline a Creedish!Nathan action figure (at natural, muscled size)*
Like every time, also the first one starts in the hayloft - within the smell of dried grass and soil and the ghosts of generations of butchered animals, within the creaking of wood and the shadows of the haystacks that hang over the both of you and don’t let you see much further than your nose.
Not much further than your nose there’s Nathan, one hand in your hair and the other one in your pants.
You’ve got your eyes shut so tight that they almost hurt. The obscenity of all of this is nearly too much to bear yet it excites you - the rustle of the clothes you left on, Nathan’s breath warming your neck, and that hand that never touched you lower than an arm or higher than a knee now squeezing with five fingers the tangible proof of your perversion.
You think it would be less perverse if you’d taken off your clothes. You’re both men: Nathan’s already seen you naked, and you’ve seen him, as your stomach reminds you, butterflying. This way it seems something indefinite at mid-way between one sin and another, infinitely more perverse than either. This way you can almost imagine that Nathan surprised you while you were sinning in solitude in your little corner, and instead of reproaching you as you’d expect him to - instead of slapping you or sending you to pray kneed on chickpeas - he moved your hand away and replaced it with his.
The thought makes your stomach twist.
The truth is, he reached you in the hayloft some time after dinner, and when he found you you were just looking out of the square little window that - you don’t know yet - in a couple of years you’ll cross to climb up to the roof and throw yourself down.
“I’m not repenting what I did,” you muttered without turning back, with that stubbornness your father defines a “rottenness” at the core of your character, while you think that some way, for some reason, your mother would’ve liked it.
“You should,” Nathan replies, stepping in the dust. “Your grades are the worst in the whole District. Father’s been called by your teachers. Nobody in this family…”
“I know. I’m a shame. The worst Petrelli in all the family history.“ Your father’s words; you don’t know much about family history. “Father said that…”, your tongue falters for the hugeness of this humiliation, “he’ll kick me out.”
“Only if you don’t change your mind,” specifies Nathan, gently. “And you know he won’t.” He hesitates, probably aware he’s almost - almost - implied your father’s a liar. “If you don’t give him a valid reason.”
He leans his hand on your shoulder, but it seems a show of strength more than an attempt to comfort you. You sigh, without resting your fingers on his as you would in another occasion. You rub your forehead against the icy glass of the window.
“Just because there’s no one else,” you whisper. “Just because I’m the only one left.”
“Peter.”
“If they weren’t dead he wouldn’t think twice about kicking me out.”
“Stop that.”
“So it’s better keep me even if I’m worth nothing. It’s like this, Nathan. I’m still here just because Mother died.”
His grip on your shoulder becomes stronger, almost painful, but you remain still, don’t wince, don’t let a sound escape out of your mouth.
“Tomorrow you’ll ask him forgiveness for making him ashamed of you. And from tomorrow on your grades will be as high as anybody else’s. At least.”
You turn abruptly, trying to release his grasp and whipping unintentionally his hand with your too long hair. “You think it’s easy, don’t you? You…”
“I think you don’t work enough on it,” Nathan replies, calmly. “I think you don’t want to work on it. I think you don’t take your mission seriously.”
Like every time, his absolute seriousness tears your determination to pieces, even when you’re sure you’re stronger. “You don’t know how much I do, Nathan.”
“By words?” He rests both his hands on your shoulders, at both sides of your neck, and this time his gesture is more comforting than threatening. His tone doesn’t seem as menacing, but roughly paternal. “Saying you’re not repenting what you did?”
“I’m trying, Nathan.”
“You believe God put you on the earth to try? Everybody can try. Even those godless out there, you can bet somebody amongst them is trying. And what do they achieve?”
“I don’t know,” you mutter, not meeting his eyes. And you add, peevishly: “I never saw one”.
“Nothing. They achieve nothing.” He leans his hand on your face, brushing your cheekbone. “You can do so much more than this, Peter. I know you. You don’t want to disappoint me.”
You close your eyes for a moment, perfectly conscious that Nathan will guess your weakness and, instead of taking advantage of it, he’ll give you a rest.
“Fine.”
“You’re a good boy,” he says kissing your forehead, with that warm voice he reserves for you and his children, that one that gathers like a hot pool in your groin and sends flames to your face. You hug him instinctively, out of habit, and it surprises you to find that this alone is enough to make you feel better.
There are many things you don’t repent for.
The hug lasts a little too long, and when Nathan releases his arms from your back what it leaves you is a fast heartbeat and a sticky feeling of wrong that you don’t know where it comes from, nor how to send away. Nathan squeezes your shoulders in his hands, looking right in your eyes. For a moment you think he’ll kiss you again (Nathan’s far more affectionate with you than all the others with their brothers) - instead he makes a faint smile and lets go of you.
Frustration is a feeling they taught you to live with, but sometimes it’s so strong it takes your breath away.
You sit on the squeaking cot where you occasionally can’t help but fall sleep, only to wake up cold in the middle of the night. You look at him, and Nathan follows you. There are many things you’d like to ask him - things you don’t understand and the Bible doesn’t explain - if you weren’t too afraid to induce him to doubt of you.
“… Nathan?”
In the poor light, the shadows on your brother’s face have something hideous, like sneering. But it’s just your impression, because his smile is calm as always.
“Do you have ever… I mean…” You swallow, struggling for words. You can think only of the wrong ones.
“Don’t go round it,” he tells you, patiently.
“… when you’re alone. When you’re done with work, and you’re not with your wife. When it’s dark. You never… I mean…” You gesture, incapable to come out with it. “It’s just that sometimes, I… I know it’s wrong, but…”
Nathan’s silent, and so are you, feeling heavy on your chest. Now he’ll reproach you. If he understood, he’ll reproach you. And how could he not have understood?
“It’s not the same, Peter,” Nathan says, looking you in the eye. “You and I are not the same.”
You know. It doesn’t hurt you. You’ve never envied him for this. “It’s just…”
“And not all pleasant things are good.”
You bite on your cheek. It wasn’t a repetition of your teacher’s words that you were looking for. And you can’t ignore that voice in your head reminding you that Nathan didn’t answer.
“You think that knowing you’re not the only one will make you feel better?”
Yes.
“No. I… just want to understand, Nathan.”
“What?”
What you think when you do it.
“If I’m made wrong.”
Nathan exhales slowly, leaning his hand on your knee. “You’re not made wrong, Peter.” He hits you lightly, then squeezes your thigh in his hand. “Right?”
You know it’s not enough that Nathan says a thing for it to be true, but this time he sounds sure. You lean backwards on your hands, close your eyes and swear dearly to yourself that if Nathan’s hand moves higher of half an inch, even of the last, infinitesimal part of an inch, you’ll tell him everything. Everything.
“Do you make penance, after?”
“Yes,” you lie.
His hand withdraws from your knee. Nathan nods; your answer seems enough.
You open your eyes again. “That’s it? To make penance?”
“Humbly.”
You always think that word sounds odd on your brother’s mouth. “Humble” is not an adjective that suits him.
“Humbly, sure,” you sigh, lying down on the creaking cot, and you look at him hoping he’ll tell you something better, something that’s not in your school texts, something none of your schoolmates knows. A secret recipe to fix things. If even Nathan thinks humbleness is enough, you don’t know what else to do.
“Some things can’t be avoided,” Nathan says, slowly. He leans cautiously on his elbow, sinking into the cot. “There are some commandments harder than others.”
“What do you think when you do it?” you ask him without breathing.
He looks at you like you’d asked him to remember one by one when his three children lost their first tooth. “This is none of your concern” he answers, but in a gentle, almost cordial tone.
“Sorry,” you mutter, blushing.
With those fingers you always think fitter to grab a spade than caress his wife’s body, Nathan pulls down your shirt that had risen from your belly and left a strip of naked skin. You instinctively put your hand on his. Your heart beats so fast Nathan will surely notice it.
“You… want to do it?” you whisper audaciously, feeling your cheek burn. “Now?”
Nathan’s face freezes. “What?”
“With me,” you add, in an even lower whisper. “Together.”
Nathan reaches out to grab your face, with such an abrupt move that you don’t even have time to back out. “Who are you doing these things with, Peter?”
“No-nobody,” you babble quickly.
“One of your schoolmates? Somebody else?”
“No. I never…”
“Look at me.”
And you do and tell him, trembling a little: “No. I swear. I only… I only want to do it with you.”
It seems so stupid, now that you said it. So childish. It seemed such an important thing last time you thought about it - a big thing, one of those you’d die for. But Nathan won’t think of it like this. You glance away, because you know he’ll be even madder now, and you don’t want to see him mad.
“God, Peter,” Nathan mutters, and it’s the second time in all your life you’ve heard him calling His name in vain. (The first, you were three and you remember only the scream and the blood, and your brother’s face covered with red like that of butchered calves.)
“I’m… I’m sorry,” you gabble, while the world seems to crumble fast all around you. “Forgive me, Nathan.”
He doesn’t answer. You sit up, uncertainly, waiting for him to say you disgust him, he’s ashamed of you being his brother, you must never dare touch or watch him anymore. “I’ll make penance,” you promise with a faint voice. “Tomorrow. And the day after tomorrow.” You lean your cheek on his shoulder, shyly, shutting your eyes for fear you’ll get a slap. Nathan doesn’t move. “I’ll make penance all the week, “you promise more and more softly, finding your eyes captured by the way his scar glints under the moonlight. “Nathan. Please…”
He turns slowly, resting his palm on your cheek, but slowly like a caress, even if it doesn’t make sense, you don’t deserve any caress. He pushes his fingers through your hair, pulling up your chin from his shoulder. “You don’t know what you asked me for, Pete,” he says softly. You could count on one hand’s fingers the times he’s called you Pete. No Peter in any family gets ever called Pete. It doesn’t make sense: yours is not a name, it’s a title. But any time he does, it gives you a tiny shiver of pleasure up through your back.
You think about saying again you’re sorry, because you are, but the words come out all wrong. “It’s more than one year, I tried, I swear I tried.” Nathan looks at you gravely, as serious as a statue, and you’ve already forgotten your brother won’t accept “I tried” as an excuse for your failures anymore.
You’re trembling.
Before you can realize it, the cot is under your back and Nathan on you, as heavy as a horse’s flank. It takes your breath away. The first thing you think is that he’s going to beat you, he really is, as your schoolmates told you so many times (you learned to tell it was the same at your home, even if it wasn’t).
Nathan doesn’t beat you, even if his weight keeps pressing you on the cot, but you realize it’s not that you’re suffocating, it’s that you’re not breathing. You take a mouthful of trembling breath that ends up truncated in half.
He’s kissing your mouth. It’s a strange thing, the way he’s chewing your lips with his, the way he tries to force them open, but you think that even if you don’t understand, that’s not important. You rise your arms on his shoulders and open your mouth, closing your eyes shut. When he touches your tongue and your mouth fills with saliva you think that even if you don’t like it much, that’s not important. You just want him to take everything, even if it’s not much.
“Stop me,” Nathan gasps, kissing your face and the corners of your mouth. “God, Peter, I don’t know what I’m doing.”
He shifts an inch forward, between your legs, turning a flame on in your groin. You take his face in your hands to make him kiss you like before, lust making you suddenly brave (you think you worked out how to move your tongue, and you can’t wait to try again). You open your leg towards the wall of the hayloft, feeling your body burn with satisfaction when Nathan slides more comfortably on you, occupying all the space you offered him.
“You don’t have to do it,” he whispers on your lips.
“Please.”
“If you don’t want, nothing will happen. I won’t love you less.”
“Please, Nathan.” You don’t want nothing to happen. It’s all your life nothing’s happened.
He closes his eyes, or rather he just lowers them, and kisses you again. It’s harder, now, more demanding. You feel the calloused palm of his hand searching for the skin under your shirt, tickling your ribs, then squeezing your hip between his thumb and the other fingers until it hurts and you let out a strangled noise in his mouth.
Nathan mutters quickly that this is going to be a secret, it must be, it’s very important that you understand it.
“Is it… is it like this with your wife?” you gasp without answering, wondering if he leaves any mark on her. You’ve never seen other than your sister in law’s arms and face and you know she’s the most honest woman in the world; but suddenly the thought of Nathan marking her pale skin red seems like making her a whore.
“No. No, this has got nothing to do with her. It’s just me and you, Peter. It’s our secret. You understand?”
You open your eyes. There’s Nathan everywhere around you, his breath and his familiar scent surrounding you, reducing you to a mere extension of the pleasure he’s giving you. He undoes your pants, diving his fingers under the fabric, and you notice you’ve stopped breathing again.
Not even alone, not even when nobody could see you, not even when you felt the freest and the boldest, have you ever allowed yourself to touch you as Nathan’s doing now. He’s decisive, without the tiniest hesitation, like this didn’t upset him the way it does you; the way he holds it, how he strokes the head with his thumb, like this weren’t the first time he’s held his brother’s virility in his hand. “Efficiency” is a word you often thought about Nathan, but this is the first time doing so has given you shivers.
He asks you if you like it, moving his palm around that flesh in which there’s all your universe compressed, and when you don’t answer he asks again, looking at your face, his erection heavy against your inner thigh. He must know; he wouldn’t stand thinking you didn’t want this. You sigh on his cheek and whisper something that sounds meaningless but that seems to reassure him. When he touches you again it’s so sweet a pleasure that you snap your head back calling Nathan, God, and every angel you can think about.
He covers your mouth, kisses your neck and orders you to stop being blasphemous, and you’re too happy to catch his shiver while he’s saying this. There’s too much pleasure between your legs to think about the shades. When you’re finished, you move his hand away and kiss him passionately, unbuttoning his pants. Pleasure made you generous and you’d like to feel his breath tremble while you touch him, but Nathan’s older than you and everything he concedes you is a noisy sigh after a long wait.
“What do you like?” you whisper, apprehensive and slightly disappointed. What can he find of interest in you, who masturbates without watching because you’re ashamed? “I’ll do you everything you want.”
“It’s alright,” he answers, his voice deeper and calmer than some moment ago. He moves to his side and you follow him, leaving him some space. Nathan rests his hand on yours, breathing in with his half-closed eyes, and when you kiss him he squeezes your fingers a little harder, encircling your shoulders with his free arm.
“I can learn anything you like,” you mutter on his mouth.
“Don’t tempt me, Peter.”
“I’m serious, I…”
“Faster,” he mutters brusquely. You obey, feeling his hand moving to your hip and then lower, under your pants’ edge, grabbing a slim buttock in his palm. You wince lightly.
The air is cold on your skin, but you don’t notice it. Nathan squeezes and strokes, pushing your pants lower and lower, until you can feel his rough fingers pressing at your inner thighs and then moving upward, cutting off your breath. “Nathan…”
“You want me to stop?”
“No… no,” you babble, and his fingers keep caressing but don’t proceed further, like they didn’t have the nerve, leaving a curious, hot tingle on your skin.
“I… I think I love you,” you whisper.
Nathan opens those eyes that could make you do, say and think anything in the world and looks at you with genuine confusion. When he murmurs an answer, his voice is hoarse and warm, made distant by the orgasm that’s approaching.
“Yes,” he mutters. “I know.”
Before the cold of the hayloft freezes you, Nathan hugs you closer, breathing on your neck. It’s almost enough to make you forget everything else, your father and your grades and the fact you’re the worst Peter in the whole District of the Church. You close your eyes, breathing the smell of wood mixed with the one of your brother, of hay, wool, and animals oblivious of their destiny.
Tomorrow you’ll make penance.