Ficathon Story: Relics of Childhood
Title: Relics of Childhood
Author: scribblinlenore
For: trollopfop
Prompt: See the end of the story.
Pairing: Nathan/Peter
Rating: NC-17
Spoilers: Through episodes aired so far.
Disclaimer: Not mine, although...the naked part was my idea. *g*
Note: Thanks to linaerys for organizing the ficathon and much love to barely_bean for beta reading.
Word count: 3,300
Relics of Childhood
By Lenore
Nathan has never been sentimental--nobody knows this better than Peter--so it's odd that Nathan's study is such a repository of childhood bric-a-brac. On the bookcase are many familiar objects, the rowing trophy that Nathan won in high school, the paperweight he made at camp, an intricate mass of scrap metal, burnished to a high shine through implacable determination, the delicate, spiny fossil traced into stone that Nathan and their father found on a hiking trip years before Peter was even born.
These things are like old friends to Peter, so much time spent staring at them when he was a kid, his older brother's room a mysterious and forbidden Shangri-La. Even now, he wants to reach out and trace the twists and curves of the paperweight with his finger, and doesn't, not because he might give himself away, which would be a sensible caution, but because he can still hear sixteen-year-old Nathan, "Keep your hands off my stuff, Pete." He thinks that this is why he never flies, of all the abilities he's absorbed, the only one he doesn't practice, because it belongs to his brother.
Nathan works at his desk unawares, plowing through emails that need answering, speed-reading a stack of briefing materials that's at least three feet high. He's always been like this, methodical, unrelenting, a force of will. Peter smiles fondly, trying not to remember what he said the last time he saw his brother, that it's not safe for anyone to be around him now, especially the people he cares about. Simone is dead, and Peter is dangerously close to breaking, and it doesn't feel like it should count if he's invisible, like nothing is real, him least of all.
He's begun to understand, maybe a little too well, the wilderness in Claude's eyes.
At least Peter has this to rely on, relic of his own childhood, the simple comfort of having an older brother. Nathan pushes away from the computer, goes to pour himself a drink, stares out the window at the twinkling Manhattan night. Peter can count on one hand the number of times he's seen Nathan this unguarded, and for the first time, he feels the violation of what he's doing. That doesn't keep him from moving closer, from studying the softness of Nathan's mouth, usually pursed with calculation, the lines at the corners of his eyes etched with weariness, vulnerability Nathan is careful not to show when anyone is watching.
Peter takes another step, as close as he dares get, and even then, he half hopes that Nathan will sense him, that he'll just know. This is when the picture blindsides its way into his head, blotting out everything else, until there's just him and Nathan and no clothes, Nathan's hand curved around Peter's hip, Nathan's lips pressed hotly to his throat.
Peter lurches away in surprise, bumping into the globe he got Heidi and Nathan for a wedding present.
Nathan goes still, his features sharpening. "Peter?"
Peter runs.
***
Trash makes a gritty sound beneath his feet as Peter takes a shortcut between buildings, a narrow passageway where lost things collect, abandoned furniture and rusted car parts and the people no one remembers exist. A grizzled man, smears of grease on his face, crumbs in his dirty beard, seems to look right at Peter and shouts, "Hey! Hey!" For a heart-stopping moment, Peter is afraid he's lost control of his powers again, but then he realizes. The man is staring into nothing, yelling at his own demons.
He hurries on and the same thought keeps pounding away, making his head hurt, "This isn't the way it's supposed to be."
Every day, he's combed the papers for some mention of Simone. He expected headlines, details blaring out from the front page, but he hasn't found even a stray mention in the police blotter, that indifferent warehouse of personal tragedy. He went to her apartment one afternoon, picked the lock in a fit of voodoo thinking that maybe it had all been a terrible dream, that she would be there, that she'd laugh when he told her what he'd believed had happened, but the place was dusty, empty feeling, the smell of souring milk coming from the refrigerator.
If he knew where she was buried, he would go there and sit with her, tell her he's sorry. In the absence of that, he does the only thing he can to feel close to her, sneaks up to the top of the Deveaux building every night. Claude left behind a pallet, and Peter beds down, but doesn't close his eyes, because how is he supposed to sleep when nothing is the way it's supposed to be? Save the world. He really thought that's what this power was meant to do, why it existed at all, so impossibly. Memory tastes bitter when he thinks of Simone's wide-eyed disbelief, the bloodstain blooming on her blouse, the way her body crumpled.
Staying awake does nothing to keep the images from parading behind his eyes. The city glowing orange, blowing apart, only a char gray ruin left behind. Nathan with a stern look of concentration, running his hand very slowly down Peter's bare chest. Peter squeezes his eyes tightly shut. How is any of that the future?
He tries to push the unsettling pictures away with the old and familiar. Peter's very first memory is of his brother, or perhaps it isn't really a memory at all, just an image he's created, having heard the story so many times. Peter was slow to walk, not even all that eager about crawling. Willful, his mother likes to say. Nathan always smiles and corrects her, Just patient. Pete knew the world would come to him. All except for Nathan himself, too busy with whatever absorbs thirteen-year-olds to slow down for a little brother, so Peter had to give up on patience. He skipped walking altogether and went straight to running, and feels like he's been trying to catch up to his brother ever since.
When he does finally close his eyes, it's with a picture of Nathan as a boy, swinging Peter's chubby baby self up into his arms, his face bright with pride, because this is Peter's imagination after all, saying, "You did it, Pete. I always knew you could."
***
Peter has no idea why he puts such stock in his training regime. Recent history has hinted very strongly that there are some things you can never really be prepared for. Perhaps it's just the comfort of routine.
Whatever the reason, he walks a circuit across the city, making himself invisible, making himself seen, tuning in to strangers' mental conversations, God. Did I unplug the coffee pot before I left? and I don't think Corrine suspects anything and Am I getting sick? My throat is kind of sore. I think I'm getting sick, tuning it out again when it gets too dispiriting. He's still a chicken about Claire's power, no daredevil stunts for him. He scrapes his knuckles along a cinderblock wall, watches as the red abrasions quickly disappear.
He ends up across the street from Nathan's campaign office, with its huge "Vote Petrelli" picture of his brother outside. This, too, has become a habit. He lingers, not really expecting Nathan to materialize, but there he is all of a sudden, striding purposefully out of the building toward the waiting limo, places to go, important people to shake hands with. He stops, looks around, his expression alert, as if he realizes somehow that Peter is there. Peter's heart beats ridiculously hard, such a strangely perverse desire, to be found when he's deliberately trying to hide.
Nathan continues on into the car, but before he drives away, Peter is hit with another image, the two of them, hands fisted in hair, legs tangled in messy sheets, bodies moving, rough and urgent and in perfect sync. He staggers a step, no thought of where he is or where he's going. Someone bumps into him, barks "watch it," looks right at him.
Peter hurries on, blipping out of sight again, and there's a feeling in the pit of his stomach, hot and twisting. Not the first time he's had this particular sensation, he realizes, as memory plows into him, a hit and run with the past.
He was only five when Nathan went off to college, nine when Nathan started his stint in the Navy. For years, Peter's relationship with his brother was mostly a theoretical concept, a flimsy web of birthday cards with their hastily scrawled "have a good one," the occasional phone call in which Peter would talk as fast as he could until he was out of breath, desperate to tell Nathan "just one more thing," the brief visits that their father always monopolized with his, "We need to discuss your future, Nathan."
There was never any time, and Peter got used to being a de facto only child. So he was caught off balance the summer after his freshmen year when Nathan, newly discharged from the Navy, came to spend July and August at the family getaway in Maine. Business kept their father in the city, and their mother had her garden club and charity events and hob-knobbing with everyone who was anyone among the summer people on the island. That left Nathan and Peter alone in the house together much of the time, virtual strangers piloting an awkward course around one another.
Over breakfast one morning, Nathan said, "I suppose you've learned to swim by now?"
Innocent enough question, and Peter wasn't sure why it goaded him the way it did. Maybe it was the smug look on his brother's face. "I'm not five years old anymore!"
The corner of Nathan's mouth turned up, almost a smile, and Peter thought, but wasn't sure, that winding him up had been Nathan's aim all along. "Let's hit the water then."
They spent every day swimming and kayaking and arguing about the most minor things, learning to be brothers in more than theory. At the end of one long afternoon, they returned to the boathouse, and Nathan crouched down, muscles bunching in his arms, rippling across his back as he pulled the kayak up onto the dock. Peter felt suddenly split in two, the person he'd always been, as well as some distant observer, who really saw his brother, his sun-brown skin and broad shoulders, narrow waist and long legs, that seemed even longer in the brief triangle of a swimsuit he was wearing.
Then the feeling of distance disappeared, so abruptly it was dizzying, and sensation hit all at once, a punch to the gut. Peter was almost painfully conscious of his own body, his skin and how hot it felt, the existence of his bones, thud of his pulse. He'd always taken for granted that he was flesh and blood, but now he really knew.
"Can you hand me that--" Nathan stopped short and gave him a sharp look of scrutiny. Peter went even hotter in the face, denial bubbling up in him, however untrue.
But then Nathan just whacked him on the arm. "Race you to the house." He took off, and once again, Peter was chasing after him.
When Nathan left for law school at the end of the summer, he said goodbye with a touch to Peter's cheek and a kiss to the top of his head. He's had his hands on Peter ever since.
Just the way, Peter realizes, he's wanted it.
By nightfall, Peter has meandered his way to Isaac's, as he does every day. Breaking and entering is an easy habit to fall into, and the lock gives without any particular resistance. He walks slowly among the paintings, among Claire and Hiro, himself and his brother, and people he doesn't know. He has no idea why this is always the last stop on his route. The first time he came, it was with a half-baked notion of vengeance that lost its urgent sizzle when he stepped through the door and the events of that day started to flash back at him, frame by excruciating frame, all of it his doing as much as Isaac's.
Maybe he keeps coming here simply as a reminder. This is what power can do if you're not careful.
He finds Isaac in the back as usual, a bigger mess than the day before, drugged out of his mind and babbling. The only word Peter can make out is the obvious one, Simone. He turns and starts to go, and that's when it knocks him off balance, memories that don't belong to him, Simone, her expression by turns laughing and longing and quizzical, calling him the wrong name.
That's when Peter finally gets it. So ridiculously obvious he feels stupid not to have understood before.
Sometimes thoughts are pictures.
He goes searching for Nathan at his office, doesn't find him. There's nothing scheduled for that evening on the agenda he sees lying on the desk, but Nathan isn't at home, either. Peter has a hunch, and follows it, and turns out to be right. Nathan has used the spare key that Peter gave him and is standing by the bookcase in his living room, examining a photograph of the two of them, his expression so blank it's as if he's looking at strangers.
Peter focuses on his brother, follows the tangled threads of his thoughts, and makes himself visible almost without meaning to. "Are you crazy? You can't make a deal with Linderman. You know what that did to dad."
Nathan doesn't startle, just turns his head coolly. "It's rude to spy on people, Peter." He doesn't sound the least bit surprised.
Peter finds this strangely perturbing. "About Linderman," he persists.
"I'm handling it," Nathan says, tight-lipped. "What I'm concerned about is you."
The inside of Nathan's head is Byzantine in its twists and turns, plans for double-crossing Linderman and a running list of ambitions and a mental note about Heidi's birthday, and in the background of it all, an image of the two of them, heated and unbrotherly.
Peter doesn't think, doesn't decide, just launches himself at Nathan, pressing their mouths together, his hands grappling in Nathan's perfect, starched shirt.
Nathan stiffens. "Rude."
Peter doesn't care, doesn't stop. He kisses in a mess, licking at his brother's mouth, fumbling with the top button of his shirt.
"Peter. No." Nathan tries to grab Peter's wrists, make him stop.
Peter doesn't let him. "You want it. I know you want it. And if you could see inside my head, you'd know how much I need it."
It's fighting dirty, playing this card, working his brother's weaknesses, but he can't feel bad, not when it's so much the truth. The tension in Nathan's arms gradually goes slack, and Peter manages to get his shirt open, kisses his collarbone, mouths a nipple, making Nathan gasp a little, a decidedly satisfying sound. He works his knee between Nathan's legs, and Nathan is already hard, starts to rock against Peter, despite himself. He wraps his arms around Peter's waist, fingers digging in, and then all pretense that they're not going to do this goes irrevocably out the window.
They stumble into the bedroom, clumsy and desperate to be free of their clothes, not much like the pictures Peter saw in his head, always controlled despite the passion, pure Nathan, but this is Peter's show now.
There's the predictable tussle once they make it to the bed. They wouldn't be Petrellis if they didn't fight to be on top. Peter doesn't let up until he has Nathan where he wants him, looking up at him, wrists pinned above his head.
"Okay, Pete. Okay." Nathan's chest dips sharply, and he doesn't try to pull away.
Peter smiles and kisses him, deeply, fondly, because he knows what an act of will it takes for his brother to relent. "I'm going to make it worth your while. Promise."
Nathan's body is not the same now as it was that summer in Maine, but he's no less beautiful, and Peter kisses his tribute across Nathan's chest, down his arms, over his belly and into the dark curls below. The few blowjobs he's given were experiments--can I do this or not?--and when the men called out his name, he always heard a different voice. He can admit that now.
Now that it's Nathan doing the moaning, Nathan's hand in his hair. Peter glances up, and Nathan's expression is bleak, like this hurts him, like he's afraid it might stop.
When Peter does pull away, it's only to fumble around in the bedside table. He comes up with the lube, squeezes the tube too hard in his haste, sticky stuff spurting everywhere. He shoves his fingers in his ass, not gently, too desperate to care. Nathan doesn't look away, hardly seems to blink, his gaze so intense Peter feels it all over his skin.
Peter slings his leg across Nathan's body, and Nathan grabs tightly onto Peter's hips. "Careful. You're going to--"
"You can't hurt me."
He sinks down onto his brother's cock, and they both cry out. The sensation of being opened up burns all through Peter, but he doesn't wait for it to ease. He's been running flat out all his life trying to catch up, and there's never any time. He moves, and it's frantic and fierce, and there's no air in his lungs. He can't stop himself, so it takes Nathan to make him slow down, hands tight on his waist, voice soft, "Look at me, Pete."
Peter opens his eyes and falls into a kiss, Nathan's thumb stroking in circles over his cheek. Peter pulls back and stares, and Nathan's expression is utterly unguarded. It's so much better now that Peter doesn't have to steal it.
He doesn't realize at first what Nathan is saying under his breath, "Stay with me, Peter. Stay here with me. I can't keep-- Just stay."
Peter kisses his cheek, his forehead, his lips. "I've never been anywhere else."
Nathan closes his eyes and his mouth pulls into a tight line. He shoves up hard into Peter's body and comes. Peter holds onto Nathan's shoulder and jerks off. Nathan is still half hard inside him, and Peter comes all over Nathan's chest.
They lay side by side afterwards, not talking, the muffled sounds of traffic from the street accentuating the quiet. When Nathan gets up at last, he fixes Peter with a look, and Peter pulls the covers up over himself, getting comfortable. "Go on. Make your call. I'll be here."
A flash of relief crosses Nathan's face, and he pads out into the hall. All Peter can hear is the low murmur of his voice, but he can easily imagine what Nathan is telling Heidi, It's Peter. He's kind of in bad shape. I don't think I should leave him.
Nathan isn't gone long, and when he slips back into bed, he pushes the damp hair back from Peter's forehead and kisses him. Peter smiles drowsily, and Nathan slips an arm around his shoulders, and Peter sleeps like a man who has no reason to fear himself.
In the morning when he wakes, the first gray light is just beginning to sift into the room. Nathan's arm is flung across him, and it takes almost surgical care to extricate himself without waking up his brother. He does a hasty job of washing up and pulls on clean clothes. He stops for a moment at the foot of the bed. In sleep, Nathan looks ten years younger, as if no time has gone by at all.
Peter opens the French doors and goes out onto the balcony. Still not safe to be around the people he loves, but at least he doesn't feel like he's running anymore. At least he finally has Nathan within reach.
He steps off into nothing and flies.
***
Thanks to trollopfop for the great prompt: Peter reads Nathan's mind, and is surprised by what he finds there.
Author: scribblinlenore
For: trollopfop
Prompt: See the end of the story.
Pairing: Nathan/Peter
Rating: NC-17
Spoilers: Through episodes aired so far.
Disclaimer: Not mine, although...the naked part was my idea. *g*
Note: Thanks to linaerys for organizing the ficathon and much love to barely_bean for beta reading.
Word count: 3,300
Relics of Childhood
By Lenore
Nathan has never been sentimental--nobody knows this better than Peter--so it's odd that Nathan's study is such a repository of childhood bric-a-brac. On the bookcase are many familiar objects, the rowing trophy that Nathan won in high school, the paperweight he made at camp, an intricate mass of scrap metal, burnished to a high shine through implacable determination, the delicate, spiny fossil traced into stone that Nathan and their father found on a hiking trip years before Peter was even born.
These things are like old friends to Peter, so much time spent staring at them when he was a kid, his older brother's room a mysterious and forbidden Shangri-La. Even now, he wants to reach out and trace the twists and curves of the paperweight with his finger, and doesn't, not because he might give himself away, which would be a sensible caution, but because he can still hear sixteen-year-old Nathan, "Keep your hands off my stuff, Pete." He thinks that this is why he never flies, of all the abilities he's absorbed, the only one he doesn't practice, because it belongs to his brother.
Nathan works at his desk unawares, plowing through emails that need answering, speed-reading a stack of briefing materials that's at least three feet high. He's always been like this, methodical, unrelenting, a force of will. Peter smiles fondly, trying not to remember what he said the last time he saw his brother, that it's not safe for anyone to be around him now, especially the people he cares about. Simone is dead, and Peter is dangerously close to breaking, and it doesn't feel like it should count if he's invisible, like nothing is real, him least of all.
He's begun to understand, maybe a little too well, the wilderness in Claude's eyes.
At least Peter has this to rely on, relic of his own childhood, the simple comfort of having an older brother. Nathan pushes away from the computer, goes to pour himself a drink, stares out the window at the twinkling Manhattan night. Peter can count on one hand the number of times he's seen Nathan this unguarded, and for the first time, he feels the violation of what he's doing. That doesn't keep him from moving closer, from studying the softness of Nathan's mouth, usually pursed with calculation, the lines at the corners of his eyes etched with weariness, vulnerability Nathan is careful not to show when anyone is watching.
Peter takes another step, as close as he dares get, and even then, he half hopes that Nathan will sense him, that he'll just know. This is when the picture blindsides its way into his head, blotting out everything else, until there's just him and Nathan and no clothes, Nathan's hand curved around Peter's hip, Nathan's lips pressed hotly to his throat.
Peter lurches away in surprise, bumping into the globe he got Heidi and Nathan for a wedding present.
Nathan goes still, his features sharpening. "Peter?"
Peter runs.
***
Trash makes a gritty sound beneath his feet as Peter takes a shortcut between buildings, a narrow passageway where lost things collect, abandoned furniture and rusted car parts and the people no one remembers exist. A grizzled man, smears of grease on his face, crumbs in his dirty beard, seems to look right at Peter and shouts, "Hey! Hey!" For a heart-stopping moment, Peter is afraid he's lost control of his powers again, but then he realizes. The man is staring into nothing, yelling at his own demons.
He hurries on and the same thought keeps pounding away, making his head hurt, "This isn't the way it's supposed to be."
Every day, he's combed the papers for some mention of Simone. He expected headlines, details blaring out from the front page, but he hasn't found even a stray mention in the police blotter, that indifferent warehouse of personal tragedy. He went to her apartment one afternoon, picked the lock in a fit of voodoo thinking that maybe it had all been a terrible dream, that she would be there, that she'd laugh when he told her what he'd believed had happened, but the place was dusty, empty feeling, the smell of souring milk coming from the refrigerator.
If he knew where she was buried, he would go there and sit with her, tell her he's sorry. In the absence of that, he does the only thing he can to feel close to her, sneaks up to the top of the Deveaux building every night. Claude left behind a pallet, and Peter beds down, but doesn't close his eyes, because how is he supposed to sleep when nothing is the way it's supposed to be? Save the world. He really thought that's what this power was meant to do, why it existed at all, so impossibly. Memory tastes bitter when he thinks of Simone's wide-eyed disbelief, the bloodstain blooming on her blouse, the way her body crumpled.
Staying awake does nothing to keep the images from parading behind his eyes. The city glowing orange, blowing apart, only a char gray ruin left behind. Nathan with a stern look of concentration, running his hand very slowly down Peter's bare chest. Peter squeezes his eyes tightly shut. How is any of that the future?
He tries to push the unsettling pictures away with the old and familiar. Peter's very first memory is of his brother, or perhaps it isn't really a memory at all, just an image he's created, having heard the story so many times. Peter was slow to walk, not even all that eager about crawling. Willful, his mother likes to say. Nathan always smiles and corrects her, Just patient. Pete knew the world would come to him. All except for Nathan himself, too busy with whatever absorbs thirteen-year-olds to slow down for a little brother, so Peter had to give up on patience. He skipped walking altogether and went straight to running, and feels like he's been trying to catch up to his brother ever since.
When he does finally close his eyes, it's with a picture of Nathan as a boy, swinging Peter's chubby baby self up into his arms, his face bright with pride, because this is Peter's imagination after all, saying, "You did it, Pete. I always knew you could."
***
Peter has no idea why he puts such stock in his training regime. Recent history has hinted very strongly that there are some things you can never really be prepared for. Perhaps it's just the comfort of routine.
Whatever the reason, he walks a circuit across the city, making himself invisible, making himself seen, tuning in to strangers' mental conversations, God. Did I unplug the coffee pot before I left? and I don't think Corrine suspects anything and Am I getting sick? My throat is kind of sore. I think I'm getting sick, tuning it out again when it gets too dispiriting. He's still a chicken about Claire's power, no daredevil stunts for him. He scrapes his knuckles along a cinderblock wall, watches as the red abrasions quickly disappear.
He ends up across the street from Nathan's campaign office, with its huge "Vote Petrelli" picture of his brother outside. This, too, has become a habit. He lingers, not really expecting Nathan to materialize, but there he is all of a sudden, striding purposefully out of the building toward the waiting limo, places to go, important people to shake hands with. He stops, looks around, his expression alert, as if he realizes somehow that Peter is there. Peter's heart beats ridiculously hard, such a strangely perverse desire, to be found when he's deliberately trying to hide.
Nathan continues on into the car, but before he drives away, Peter is hit with another image, the two of them, hands fisted in hair, legs tangled in messy sheets, bodies moving, rough and urgent and in perfect sync. He staggers a step, no thought of where he is or where he's going. Someone bumps into him, barks "watch it," looks right at him.
Peter hurries on, blipping out of sight again, and there's a feeling in the pit of his stomach, hot and twisting. Not the first time he's had this particular sensation, he realizes, as memory plows into him, a hit and run with the past.
He was only five when Nathan went off to college, nine when Nathan started his stint in the Navy. For years, Peter's relationship with his brother was mostly a theoretical concept, a flimsy web of birthday cards with their hastily scrawled "have a good one," the occasional phone call in which Peter would talk as fast as he could until he was out of breath, desperate to tell Nathan "just one more thing," the brief visits that their father always monopolized with his, "We need to discuss your future, Nathan."
There was never any time, and Peter got used to being a de facto only child. So he was caught off balance the summer after his freshmen year when Nathan, newly discharged from the Navy, came to spend July and August at the family getaway in Maine. Business kept their father in the city, and their mother had her garden club and charity events and hob-knobbing with everyone who was anyone among the summer people on the island. That left Nathan and Peter alone in the house together much of the time, virtual strangers piloting an awkward course around one another.
Over breakfast one morning, Nathan said, "I suppose you've learned to swim by now?"
Innocent enough question, and Peter wasn't sure why it goaded him the way it did. Maybe it was the smug look on his brother's face. "I'm not five years old anymore!"
The corner of Nathan's mouth turned up, almost a smile, and Peter thought, but wasn't sure, that winding him up had been Nathan's aim all along. "Let's hit the water then."
They spent every day swimming and kayaking and arguing about the most minor things, learning to be brothers in more than theory. At the end of one long afternoon, they returned to the boathouse, and Nathan crouched down, muscles bunching in his arms, rippling across his back as he pulled the kayak up onto the dock. Peter felt suddenly split in two, the person he'd always been, as well as some distant observer, who really saw his brother, his sun-brown skin and broad shoulders, narrow waist and long legs, that seemed even longer in the brief triangle of a swimsuit he was wearing.
Then the feeling of distance disappeared, so abruptly it was dizzying, and sensation hit all at once, a punch to the gut. Peter was almost painfully conscious of his own body, his skin and how hot it felt, the existence of his bones, thud of his pulse. He'd always taken for granted that he was flesh and blood, but now he really knew.
"Can you hand me that--" Nathan stopped short and gave him a sharp look of scrutiny. Peter went even hotter in the face, denial bubbling up in him, however untrue.
But then Nathan just whacked him on the arm. "Race you to the house." He took off, and once again, Peter was chasing after him.
When Nathan left for law school at the end of the summer, he said goodbye with a touch to Peter's cheek and a kiss to the top of his head. He's had his hands on Peter ever since.
Just the way, Peter realizes, he's wanted it.
By nightfall, Peter has meandered his way to Isaac's, as he does every day. Breaking and entering is an easy habit to fall into, and the lock gives without any particular resistance. He walks slowly among the paintings, among Claire and Hiro, himself and his brother, and people he doesn't know. He has no idea why this is always the last stop on his route. The first time he came, it was with a half-baked notion of vengeance that lost its urgent sizzle when he stepped through the door and the events of that day started to flash back at him, frame by excruciating frame, all of it his doing as much as Isaac's.
Maybe he keeps coming here simply as a reminder. This is what power can do if you're not careful.
He finds Isaac in the back as usual, a bigger mess than the day before, drugged out of his mind and babbling. The only word Peter can make out is the obvious one, Simone. He turns and starts to go, and that's when it knocks him off balance, memories that don't belong to him, Simone, her expression by turns laughing and longing and quizzical, calling him the wrong name.
That's when Peter finally gets it. So ridiculously obvious he feels stupid not to have understood before.
Sometimes thoughts are pictures.
He goes searching for Nathan at his office, doesn't find him. There's nothing scheduled for that evening on the agenda he sees lying on the desk, but Nathan isn't at home, either. Peter has a hunch, and follows it, and turns out to be right. Nathan has used the spare key that Peter gave him and is standing by the bookcase in his living room, examining a photograph of the two of them, his expression so blank it's as if he's looking at strangers.
Peter focuses on his brother, follows the tangled threads of his thoughts, and makes himself visible almost without meaning to. "Are you crazy? You can't make a deal with Linderman. You know what that did to dad."
Nathan doesn't startle, just turns his head coolly. "It's rude to spy on people, Peter." He doesn't sound the least bit surprised.
Peter finds this strangely perturbing. "About Linderman," he persists.
"I'm handling it," Nathan says, tight-lipped. "What I'm concerned about is you."
The inside of Nathan's head is Byzantine in its twists and turns, plans for double-crossing Linderman and a running list of ambitions and a mental note about Heidi's birthday, and in the background of it all, an image of the two of them, heated and unbrotherly.
Peter doesn't think, doesn't decide, just launches himself at Nathan, pressing their mouths together, his hands grappling in Nathan's perfect, starched shirt.
Nathan stiffens. "Rude."
Peter doesn't care, doesn't stop. He kisses in a mess, licking at his brother's mouth, fumbling with the top button of his shirt.
"Peter. No." Nathan tries to grab Peter's wrists, make him stop.
Peter doesn't let him. "You want it. I know you want it. And if you could see inside my head, you'd know how much I need it."
It's fighting dirty, playing this card, working his brother's weaknesses, but he can't feel bad, not when it's so much the truth. The tension in Nathan's arms gradually goes slack, and Peter manages to get his shirt open, kisses his collarbone, mouths a nipple, making Nathan gasp a little, a decidedly satisfying sound. He works his knee between Nathan's legs, and Nathan is already hard, starts to rock against Peter, despite himself. He wraps his arms around Peter's waist, fingers digging in, and then all pretense that they're not going to do this goes irrevocably out the window.
They stumble into the bedroom, clumsy and desperate to be free of their clothes, not much like the pictures Peter saw in his head, always controlled despite the passion, pure Nathan, but this is Peter's show now.
There's the predictable tussle once they make it to the bed. They wouldn't be Petrellis if they didn't fight to be on top. Peter doesn't let up until he has Nathan where he wants him, looking up at him, wrists pinned above his head.
"Okay, Pete. Okay." Nathan's chest dips sharply, and he doesn't try to pull away.
Peter smiles and kisses him, deeply, fondly, because he knows what an act of will it takes for his brother to relent. "I'm going to make it worth your while. Promise."
Nathan's body is not the same now as it was that summer in Maine, but he's no less beautiful, and Peter kisses his tribute across Nathan's chest, down his arms, over his belly and into the dark curls below. The few blowjobs he's given were experiments--can I do this or not?--and when the men called out his name, he always heard a different voice. He can admit that now.
Now that it's Nathan doing the moaning, Nathan's hand in his hair. Peter glances up, and Nathan's expression is bleak, like this hurts him, like he's afraid it might stop.
When Peter does pull away, it's only to fumble around in the bedside table. He comes up with the lube, squeezes the tube too hard in his haste, sticky stuff spurting everywhere. He shoves his fingers in his ass, not gently, too desperate to care. Nathan doesn't look away, hardly seems to blink, his gaze so intense Peter feels it all over his skin.
Peter slings his leg across Nathan's body, and Nathan grabs tightly onto Peter's hips. "Careful. You're going to--"
"You can't hurt me."
He sinks down onto his brother's cock, and they both cry out. The sensation of being opened up burns all through Peter, but he doesn't wait for it to ease. He's been running flat out all his life trying to catch up, and there's never any time. He moves, and it's frantic and fierce, and there's no air in his lungs. He can't stop himself, so it takes Nathan to make him slow down, hands tight on his waist, voice soft, "Look at me, Pete."
Peter opens his eyes and falls into a kiss, Nathan's thumb stroking in circles over his cheek. Peter pulls back and stares, and Nathan's expression is utterly unguarded. It's so much better now that Peter doesn't have to steal it.
He doesn't realize at first what Nathan is saying under his breath, "Stay with me, Peter. Stay here with me. I can't keep-- Just stay."
Peter kisses his cheek, his forehead, his lips. "I've never been anywhere else."
Nathan closes his eyes and his mouth pulls into a tight line. He shoves up hard into Peter's body and comes. Peter holds onto Nathan's shoulder and jerks off. Nathan is still half hard inside him, and Peter comes all over Nathan's chest.
They lay side by side afterwards, not talking, the muffled sounds of traffic from the street accentuating the quiet. When Nathan gets up at last, he fixes Peter with a look, and Peter pulls the covers up over himself, getting comfortable. "Go on. Make your call. I'll be here."
A flash of relief crosses Nathan's face, and he pads out into the hall. All Peter can hear is the low murmur of his voice, but he can easily imagine what Nathan is telling Heidi, It's Peter. He's kind of in bad shape. I don't think I should leave him.
Nathan isn't gone long, and when he slips back into bed, he pushes the damp hair back from Peter's forehead and kisses him. Peter smiles drowsily, and Nathan slips an arm around his shoulders, and Peter sleeps like a man who has no reason to fear himself.
In the morning when he wakes, the first gray light is just beginning to sift into the room. Nathan's arm is flung across him, and it takes almost surgical care to extricate himself without waking up his brother. He does a hasty job of washing up and pulls on clean clothes. He stops for a moment at the foot of the bed. In sleep, Nathan looks ten years younger, as if no time has gone by at all.
Peter opens the French doors and goes out onto the balcony. Still not safe to be around the people he loves, but at least he doesn't feel like he's running anymore. At least he finally has Nathan within reach.
He steps off into nothing and flies.
***
Thanks to trollopfop for the great prompt: Peter reads Nathan's mind, and is surprised by what he finds there.