Reminiscences
Title: Reminiscences
Characters: Nathan/Peter
Rating: R
Warnings: Incest
Word count: ~1,500
Setting: Preseason, fall, 1998. Peter is 19. Nathan is 31. For those who follow Shattered Salvation, this is background for that AU. It's a month or two before the events of Light Up.
Summary: Nathan never wanted to be in love with his brother, but there was only so long he could fight it.
Notes: I wrote this February of 2010, but it got deleted when I consolidated Shattered Salvation into a chronology.
There might have been dozens of times, but there were three moments when Nathan noticed. The first time, he'd had his hands on the outside of Peter's shoulders, standing close to him, head down, talking quietly. He'd been encouraging, warm, his voice soft, his touch softer. In the course of conversation his hands moved to Peter's shoulders, stroking from his neck out to his arms. He put his hands on Peter's neck as he made a point, then moved them to cradle the back of his head.
That was when Peter started breathing harder and got an awkward expression on his face. Nathan brought his hands forward, cupping Peter's face as he concluded whatever point he was making, then pulled his brother into an embrace. Peter resisted him and broke away almost immediately. Nathan let him, because he'd felt why. He had a shocked, slightly open-mouthed expression as Peter pulled away, looking down and muttering something about needing to go to the bathroom. He walked away quickly, leaving Nathan standing there in surprise at his baby brother's physical reaction.
….
The second time, he'd been sitting next to Peter, talking about his campaign and what he hoped to achieve with it. They were just pie-in-the-sky dreams. He knew it. He admitted it. Peter encouraged him to speculate anyway on how he'd help people if he could. He put his hand on Peter's leg, but instead of keeping it in the more normal position on top of his thigh, it slipped directly to the inside. He patted him, maybe he even caressed the spot where his hand had fallen to. Nathan would have liked to have said it was inadvertent, but mostly it was just taking a liberty he'd taken many times before without rebuff. He felt the warmth of Peter's skin through his slacks. He talked about what kind of difference he could make in the world as his fingers wandered.
Peter's face flushed and he tried to move away, but Nathan grabbed him back and put his arm around his shoulders instead of gripping his leg. Peter swallowed and looked away, then patted Nathan - on the top of his thigh, near the knee - and tried to leave again. This time Nathan let him, assuming the conversation had grown boring to the younger man. Yet he saw a telltale bulge to Peter's pants as he rose and the older man's brows pulled together. It would have been obvious if Nathan was seeing it from any point of view but his own, but Nathan had never been very good at stepping out of his own shoes. That he'd meant nothing (consciously) by it didn't matter.
….
The third time had been at their parents. They’d both been invited to a family dinner. After the meal, Nathan had talked to his mother about the difficulty he was having with their father about Arthur's continued disapproval of Peter. The younger Petrelli didn't know the discussions the rest of the family was having about his future in college. Yes, Peter had noticed the attitude at dinner, but it was always there with his father and he usually ignored it. The man didn't deserve Peter's anger, so he didn't get it. Nathan felt differently. He came into the living room and stood behind Peter, rubbing his shoulders energetically at first, then more gently. He told him he loved him and his father was unfair. He bent to put his face next to Peter's, his stubble prickling the younger man’s ear, Nathan's face against Peter's cheek.
He came around to Peter's front, hands still on his shoulders, and crouched down, telling Peter how proud he was of him and all he'd accomplished, going his own way, being his own man. His hands slid down Peter's arms slowly as Peter blinked and looked unsettled. The younger man said he needed to go and rose. Nathan didn't back up, but he stood as well. It meant Peter's body brushed his the whole way up and he discovered why Peter felt it was time to leave.
Peter had mumbled, "I'm sorry."
Nathan responded without thinking, "Don't be!" and grabbed his arm as motivations and feelings he'd kept deeply, deeply buried for years came surging to the surface. Then, coming to himself, seeing the reality of things, he let Peter go as if burned and stepped away, shaking himself. Peter inhaled sharply and pursued his brother across the living room, turning him around and looking at his face. Peter had a look of blinking astonishment on his features as he realized his arousal was not unreturned, as he clearly realized a great deal about Nathan’s overly familiar touching of him.
Their mother had walked in on them at that point. She asked if anything was wrong. Peter said no, he was just asking Nathan to come by his place and help him move some furniture, right then, that night. And of course, mooch a ride off him. Nathan stammered. Peter nodded eagerly and acted like he'd said yes, then went to grab his things.
Nathan drove him back to his place, while Peter kept up a constant banter about college. Peter asked him up, almost demanded, then he ran off his roommate with the claim he needed to work out some family stuff. Nathan was sitting in the living room still trying to figure out what was going on when Peter came back from seeing off his roomy. Peter was giving him the oddest look - so many things suddenly made sense to him. He walked over to his brother and put a hand on his shoulder. He said, "Remember when I asked you about having sex with men?"
Nathan looked up at him apprehensively. He so did not want to have this conversation. He tried to rise, but Peter pushed him back down and he didn't fight it. His gut churned with fear, uncertainty, and temptation. "Yeah, yeah. I do," he answered huskily. He looked at Peter's hand on him.
That hand slipped behind him as Peter began rubbing a circle on Nathan's back. "You said it didn't matter the gender, as long as everyone was an adult and willing."
"Yeah, yeah." He answered on autopilot, too nervous to think, refusing to think ahead to where this was going. What he wanted was so wrong he couldn't even let himself think it.
Peter stepped around in front of his brother, putting both hands on his shoulders. Nathan was looking forward at Peter's crotch - or perhaps more charitably at his stomach, but his eyes were unaccountably drawn a little lower than that. Peter massaged him lightly and said nothing for a while, until he began rising.
Nathan's head twitched up when he saw that. He leaned back, freeing himself from Peter's hands. He stood, but Peter didn’t give ground, doing the same thing to him that Nathan had done to him at the Petrelli house - forcing him to brush his body. Nathan’s expression was so painfully conflicted at the touch that Peter smiled.
"Peter! You're my brother. I'm... I'm 12 years older than you. I practically raised you!" He didn’t move away though, so they stood inches apart.
Peter looked at him levelly and said, "And you are the one who keeps touching me. I'm an adult and I'm willing. So are you. Clearly you want me."
Nathan opened his mouth to deny it, but nothing came out. Peter reached out and hugged him, pulling him flush and letting Nathan feel his desire. The older man twitched and swayed, very much wanting to fight away from him, very much wanting to stay there and feel him. The conflict tore at him. But desire won and Nathan put his arms around his brother in return. His limbs felt leaden and on fire at the same time. His head swum. This would damn himself. It would damn Peter. It would damn his parents. Everything would be ruined. He couldn't do this, but he couldn't turn away, either. He felt powerless to resist.
Peter could feel the answering reaction as well as the palpable, almost unendurable tension knotting up Nathan’s body. He pulled back and kissed Nathan tentatively on the cheek. He'd kissed him fraternally thousands of times. He wasn't feeling fraternal at the moment. Nathan looked at him, terrified and lost in lust. He licked his lips uneasily, breathing hard. They eyed each other's lips for a very long moment. Nathan was frozen, teetering on the brink. It took every shred of willpower he had not to act. Peter finally decided Nathan wasn't going to do it, wasn't going to make the first move no matter what, so he did it instead, bringing their mouths together. Nathan fell.