this is why, nathan/peter/claire (heroes), hard r
Title: this is why
Author: likecharity
Pairing: Nathan/Peter/Claire
Rating: Hard R (very hard R!!)
Warnings: Incest (brother/brother, uncle/niece, and a bit of father/daughter), and Claire is sixteen!
Summary: Later in their lives, they will be lying in bed, Claire between them, and the ambiguity will make it difficult when she asks them, stuttering and shy, to explain to her their story.
A/N: Set sometime after Claire starts staying at the Petrelli mansion in S1, but the timeline of it really doesn't fit in with canon, so I just gave up with that. This is for you, eryslash, I hope it cheers you up a bit. :)
It starts, of course, with Nathan and Peter. Peter is sixteen, maybe seventeen, and moody and barely talking. Nathan is in his late twenties, and busy, and barely around. It happens in an office, wood panelling on the wall. Peter drops his satchel, spilling homework on the floor, and thrusts himself at his brother, frustrated with the wait, impatient and desperate. Nathan gives in. That's all there is to it.
Neither will remember this exactly. Peter will remember emotions more than anything, and he'll always remember how he felt in that moment, though he'll be completely unable to recall situations or surroundings. Nathan, if asked, will frown and shake his head and suggest that maybe that wasn't the way it started at all.
They'll never be able to pinpoint the definitive moment when something really changed (or if anything really changed at all). It seems ridiculous, not to be sure of these things, but no matter how hard they'll try, the memories will always be hazy, blending in to one another.
And so, later in their lives, they will be lying in bed, Claire between them, and the ambiguity will make it difficult when she asks them, stuttering and shy, to explain to her their story.
Peter will remember feeling like his whole life had been the build-up to that single first kiss, but he will know how sentimental that sounds, and won't say it.
"What did you feel?" she will ask him, fingertip running in lazy circles across his chest, and finally, in her endless stream of questions, that'll be the one he can answer.
He will stroke a golden curl of hair back from her face and say, honestly, with a huff of a laugh, "Relief."
She'll nod and turn away from him towards her father. She'll tilt her head, eyes wide and curious, and Nathan will simply look away towards the window, and, voice low, tell her, "Guilt."
* * *
From Nathan and Peter comes Peter and Claire. It seems somehow predictable, but it still means something -- a hell of a lot of things, in fact. Peter saves Claire's life and she saves his in return, and if there's anything in the world that means more than that, they just don't want to know. And Claire is sixteen and, no matter her abilities, trusting and innocent, and she sees Peter as a hero and a saviour. And after their first meeting, she knows that sooner or later he'll be entering into her dreams as her knight in shining armour, the one she pictures in her childish fantasies of weddings and living happily ever after. And she knows that when she grows wet between her thighs it's because of him, and it will be his face in her mind when she reaches down with slippery fingers to quell the heat.
They slip up, though, first by letting it happen, and then again by letting Nathan find out. It is obvious to the two of them from the beginning that there is a spark, and the knowledge of shared blood comes too late to make a difference. A tender hug, hands lingering too long, breath mingling in the air between them -- they both want it to happen, it doesn't matter that they knew they shouldn't let it. Peter can't see her as his niece; she is a stranger, young and pure and new in his arms, and there is something between them that he just can't waste energy on denying.
And so this is the start. The start of something else, something extra, an added bit of complication to lives so full of them already.
But Nathan's discovery is not as dramatic as Peter imagined it. (He always knew his brother would find out, it was inevitable. It didn't stop him from being careful, trying to put it off for as long as he could, but he knew it would happen, and he pictured the scenario regularly, seeing it like a scene in a bad drama, all high-pitched yelling and throwing crockery.)
But they aren't walked in on, or being watched without knowing. They spend an evening together at the mansion, the three of them, and Nathan sees them go into their separate bedrooms, waving them goodnight before going off to his own. And in the morning, they come down separately, Nathan and Peter meeting in the hallway outside the bathroom in which Claire is showering.
When she enters the dining room, fresh-faced and yawning, Peter isn't thinking, and he says, "Claire, you said you wanted us to go out for pancakes, didn't you?"
Nathan, always alert, says sharply, "When did she say that?"
Peter's still waking up, rubbing his eyes. "Last night," he replies, and if that doesn't tell Nathan enough, the panicked look Claire shoots Peter afterwards certainly clears things up.
It's possible, for a moment, that they could still cover, but the fear and the worry and the guilt is so clear on their faces that there doesn't seem to be any point.
Nathan takes Peter off upstairs, leaving Claire on her own with her hand clamped over her mouth and tears stinging her eyes. "I'll talk to you later," Nathan tells her as they leave the room, but he never does.
Upstairs, Nathan shuts the door quietly and turns to his brother looking surprisingly calm. "I don't know what to say, Pete," he shrugs, fingers on his temples, smoothing the threatening headache there. "You know she's your niece, not to mention underage."
Peter nods. "I do know," he agrees helplessly. What else is there to say? He wants to explain how knowing and feeling are two very different things, but Nathan doesn't seem the right person to say this to.
"I can tell you to stop," Nathan says, but Peter hears it simply as stopstopstop, "but you wouldn't, would you?"
Peter hesitates, but he shakes his head as he knows Nathan expects. There is a silence, and then it's broken by their mother, shouting up the stairs at them and demanding to know why exactly her poor granddaughter is in floods of tears in the dining room.
* * *
Claire quizzes him about it later, ringing him when he's in the middle of making himself some dinner back at his apartment.
"What did he say? Is he going to tell your mother? Is he going to tell anyone?" she asks, and he fumbles one-handed with a packet of pasta, ripping it down the middle by mistake.
"Claire, I can't talk right now-" he attempts, but she's having none of it, nagging at him, nervous and scared.
"Do you want it to stop? Now that he knows?" she asks, and Peter's hand slips in surprise at her question, earning himself a papercut across his thumb.
He thrusts his thumb into his mouth and sucks the blood away, trying to talk at the same time. "No, God, Claire, no," he tells her. "There's no more reason for us to stop than there was before. He won't tell anyone."
"How do you know?" Her voice is slightly tinny and far away; it must be a bad connection. He is struck by how absurd it is to have this conversation over the phone.
"I just do."
"He hasn't even looked at me since you left," Claire says. "Are you coming round tomorrow?"
Peter sighs. "Yeah," he says. "I'll see you then. Bye."
When he hangs up he looks down to inspect his cut, and finds it gone, no trace of its existence thanks to the power he shares with Claire. His appetite is gone, all of a sudden, and he tapes up the pasta packet and puts it away.
* * *
But after that it's easy. It shouldn't be -- two conversations shouldn't be all they need -- but then, it's Claire, with a gulp and downcast eyes, confessing quietly to Peter one night only days later, "I've been thinking about him."
And Peter says, "You've been thinking about-?" but he doesn't know why, because he knows who she means, and he also knows she isn't going to clarify. (She never knows quite how to refer to him, anyway, he's noticed. Noah Bennet is her 'Dad', but 'Nathan' seems too friendly and 'Mr Petrelli' too formal. Once, Peter saw her call him 'Sir', and she blushed furiously, flustered and uncertain in such an unfamiliar situation.)
And that's it, really. She says it, and Peter tells Nathan in their first real private conversation in days. Peter receives only a long sigh from him, as he rubs his chin, deep in thought, and swears a little under his breath, never actually letting anything on with words. And that's all it takes. Peter doesn't know this for sure, but he's seen the way Nathan's been looking at her, seen the change in it lately. And he knows his brother well enough to know that the curiosity will get the better of him eventually.
He's pretty sure Claire doesn't know what effect her words will have, either. None of them do. It's a simple statement, if taken completely out of context, but the meaning of it makes them both squirm, makes Claire's eyes water with the truth of it.
If they can't get back to Peter's apartment with a believable excuse, they fuck in a remote room of the mansion, usually one of the ones on the second floor, a guest room barely used. It's far enough away from the other bedrooms that they don't have to worry about being heard, but they worry anyway, swapping moans and groans in favour of sighs and gasps. And there's never any invitation extended to Nathan, he just always knows, watching their interactions throughout the day, probably lying in bed later in the night, listening out for creaks of stairs to follow down after.
He watches them from the doorway, palm pressed hard against the erection trapped tight in his pants. Peter always glances up and their eyes lock, Claire apparently oblivious, riding Peter's cock slowly, almost lazily, lost in the feeling of it all. Nathan's eyes always wander across the scene before him, though Peter can tell he tries to stop them, and he watches as his brother gives in, struggling with the zipper of his pants in his desperation for some friction. Claire always comes with her breath hitching in her throat and Peter's thumb on her clit, and she rocks forwards, eyes shut tight, curled ends of her hair tickling Peter's chest. Peter always comes just after she does, the sight of her pushing him over the edge. He never sees Nathan's climax, never knows that it's always simultaneous with his own, never sees his brother clutching at the doorframe with a sweaty hand and spilling over his fist.
The first time, Peter was stunned, and his eyes jerked immediately to the crack in the door, seeing Nathan hold a finger up to his lips and shake his head, eyes dark and wicked. Peter covered quickly, cupping Claire's face with his hand, distracting her from following his gaze, and he let Nathan stay,
They never talk about it -- Nathan and Peter -- because they never really have. Once or twice, years ago, they had their arguments, a half-hearted "This is wrong" or "We can't" here and there, but it was all futile, every feeble protest shot down in the end, and they stopped letting it bother them a long time ago. And of course Claire is different, adding something that is somehow worse, but it's never talked about. Peter hears everything Nathan can't say by watching him, fascinated and tormented in the doorway, gritting his teeth and wrapping his hand around his cock with a mixture of defeat and desperation on his face.
* * *
Claire tries it once -- the 'talk' -- after turning away from a kiss one night, closing her eyes and saying "We shouldn't..." with her voice weak and tired. Peter finds it difficult to sympathise, because he's been through all this before, but it feels like it was so long ago. And this is the day he tells her, the day she learns. She's the first to know, which is odd when he thinks about it.
"I know how you feel," he tells her, first.
"Then how do you do it?" she snaps back at him, her voice heavy with emotion. "How do you go on acting like everything's normal, like it's no big deal for you? We're related, Peter, uncle and niece. How can you act like it doesn't even bother you, when it's tearing me apart?"
It would be easier to make some crack about her healing power, tell her it doesn't matter if she tears right down the middle because she can piece herself back together. He almost says it, wanting to follow it up with a soft kiss on the forehead and maybe a "We'll get through this", but something changes the words on their way from his brain to his mouth.
"Because I've been through it all before," he says, and she reels, mouth falling open. He's surprised at how quickly she understands, how she doesn't even ask him what he means. She doesn't need any clarification at all.
"How long for?" she asks, and then, "Still?"
"Since I was a teenager," he says, still puzzled, wondering if she really knows what they're talking about. "About your age," he adds, and she flinches.
The second question is harder. Ever since Nathan found out about the two of them, found out about "I've been thinking about him", the brothers have barely been in a room together alone for more than a few seconds. It's all carefully planned by Nathan, Peter's sure -- his brother will talk to him if others are around, act just the way he always has, knowing Peter will follow his lead, but the second they're alone, Nathan will leave, avoiding him and not even bothering to hide it.
"Still?" Claire says again, prompting him.
"Why?" Peter hears himself ask. Is Claire jealous, is that it? Is she scared that he loves Nathan more? Is this a facet of every relationship, as twisted as theirs is, and she is simply scared that he is unfaithful?
Claire doesn't answer. She shakes her head slowly, backs towards the door, and doesn't speak to him for the rest of the day.
* * *
She turns up at his bedroom the same night, though it's more like early morning, and makes him panic when she knocks gently on the door before pushing it open. He wakes with a start to see her standing before him, tugging anxiously at the hem of the baggy t-shirt she sleeps in.
"Can we go to the guest room?" she whispers, and Peter just doesn't understand, but he's only half-awake, and half-hard already, and if this means she isn't mad at him, he's happy to oblige.
Everything seems more real, downstairs -- it's earlier than usual and the room is lighter, and it's almost awkward at first, as Claire pulls the t-shirt over her head and brings his hand between her legs. Something feels wrong, and he can't explain it, but when she lowers herself down onto his cock, the tight heat of her is comforting. She whispers that she doesn't think she minds, as if their conversation from earlier has continued seamlessly, without a break, but before Peter can respond, he sees the movement of a shadow out of the corner of his eye.
He follows it, and Nathan's there, gently pushing open the door, and the dreamlike feeling comes back, surrounding the three of them, telling him this isn't real and making any remnants of remaining guilt slip away. Nathan doesn't move right away this time, just watches, and Peter finds it difficult to take his eyes off him.
Claire leans down and kisses him again and he turns his eyes back to her.
"Why doesn't he ever come in?" she says softly.
He almost doesn't hear at first, asks her "What?" at the same time as the words reach his brain. He gapes at her.
"I only wanted to know," is all she says.
Peter's too scared to turn back to Nathan, to see if he heard, but then there's a soft creak of floorboards and the bed sinks down by his feet. Claire lifts herself up, straddling him, staring straight ahead. She looks stunned. Peter's heart hammers so loudly he's sure they can hear it and he thinks he can barely see. He feels himself begin to soften and slip out of her, but then his vision clears and he sees his brother reach forwards and curl a strong hand around Claire's bare shoulder, and he's hard again in an instant.
Nathan's only in his pajama pants, a thin sheen of sweat across his chest, and Claire turns her head slowly to look at him. Peter thinks, for one horrifying, exciting moment, that they'll kiss. They don't, they just hold each other's gaze for what feels like a lifetime, and Peter's cock throbs and aches from it, but he can't even bring himself to move. His limbs feel like lead, and he lays there still until Nathan finally moves, carefully pulling off his pants and coming round to sit on the other side of them on the bed, where there's more room.
For a long time, nobody moves again, and then Claire sucks in a long, shaky breath and lifts her hips. It still seems forever between this moment and the next, when Claire is bucking erratically on top of Peter once again as though uninterrupted, her head thrown back, and his hand is curled around Nathan's cock, jerking him to a quick and sudden orgasm with the strong sense of familiarity he's missed so terribly.
Nathan moves ever closer, until his hot skin touches both of them. He reaches out and runs a steady hand down Claire's body, gently stroking her cheek first and then travelling down over her throat, a hard nipple, and her tensed, tanned stomach. He reaches the juncture of her parted thighs where Peter disappears inside her, and he keeps his hand there, pressing his thumb gently to her clit.
"This is why," he whispers in her ear as she comes, silently, her body trembling and her lips falling open.
Author: likecharity
Pairing: Nathan/Peter/Claire
Rating: Hard R (very hard R!!)
Warnings: Incest (brother/brother, uncle/niece, and a bit of father/daughter), and Claire is sixteen!
Summary: Later in their lives, they will be lying in bed, Claire between them, and the ambiguity will make it difficult when she asks them, stuttering and shy, to explain to her their story.
A/N: Set sometime after Claire starts staying at the Petrelli mansion in S1, but the timeline of it really doesn't fit in with canon, so I just gave up with that. This is for you, eryslash, I hope it cheers you up a bit. :)
It starts, of course, with Nathan and Peter. Peter is sixteen, maybe seventeen, and moody and barely talking. Nathan is in his late twenties, and busy, and barely around. It happens in an office, wood panelling on the wall. Peter drops his satchel, spilling homework on the floor, and thrusts himself at his brother, frustrated with the wait, impatient and desperate. Nathan gives in. That's all there is to it.
Neither will remember this exactly. Peter will remember emotions more than anything, and he'll always remember how he felt in that moment, though he'll be completely unable to recall situations or surroundings. Nathan, if asked, will frown and shake his head and suggest that maybe that wasn't the way it started at all.
They'll never be able to pinpoint the definitive moment when something really changed (or if anything really changed at all). It seems ridiculous, not to be sure of these things, but no matter how hard they'll try, the memories will always be hazy, blending in to one another.
And so, later in their lives, they will be lying in bed, Claire between them, and the ambiguity will make it difficult when she asks them, stuttering and shy, to explain to her their story.
Peter will remember feeling like his whole life had been the build-up to that single first kiss, but he will know how sentimental that sounds, and won't say it.
"What did you feel?" she will ask him, fingertip running in lazy circles across his chest, and finally, in her endless stream of questions, that'll be the one he can answer.
He will stroke a golden curl of hair back from her face and say, honestly, with a huff of a laugh, "Relief."
She'll nod and turn away from him towards her father. She'll tilt her head, eyes wide and curious, and Nathan will simply look away towards the window, and, voice low, tell her, "Guilt."
* * *
From Nathan and Peter comes Peter and Claire. It seems somehow predictable, but it still means something -- a hell of a lot of things, in fact. Peter saves Claire's life and she saves his in return, and if there's anything in the world that means more than that, they just don't want to know. And Claire is sixteen and, no matter her abilities, trusting and innocent, and she sees Peter as a hero and a saviour. And after their first meeting, she knows that sooner or later he'll be entering into her dreams as her knight in shining armour, the one she pictures in her childish fantasies of weddings and living happily ever after. And she knows that when she grows wet between her thighs it's because of him, and it will be his face in her mind when she reaches down with slippery fingers to quell the heat.
They slip up, though, first by letting it happen, and then again by letting Nathan find out. It is obvious to the two of them from the beginning that there is a spark, and the knowledge of shared blood comes too late to make a difference. A tender hug, hands lingering too long, breath mingling in the air between them -- they both want it to happen, it doesn't matter that they knew they shouldn't let it. Peter can't see her as his niece; she is a stranger, young and pure and new in his arms, and there is something between them that he just can't waste energy on denying.
And so this is the start. The start of something else, something extra, an added bit of complication to lives so full of them already.
But Nathan's discovery is not as dramatic as Peter imagined it. (He always knew his brother would find out, it was inevitable. It didn't stop him from being careful, trying to put it off for as long as he could, but he knew it would happen, and he pictured the scenario regularly, seeing it like a scene in a bad drama, all high-pitched yelling and throwing crockery.)
But they aren't walked in on, or being watched without knowing. They spend an evening together at the mansion, the three of them, and Nathan sees them go into their separate bedrooms, waving them goodnight before going off to his own. And in the morning, they come down separately, Nathan and Peter meeting in the hallway outside the bathroom in which Claire is showering.
When she enters the dining room, fresh-faced and yawning, Peter isn't thinking, and he says, "Claire, you said you wanted us to go out for pancakes, didn't you?"
Nathan, always alert, says sharply, "When did she say that?"
Peter's still waking up, rubbing his eyes. "Last night," he replies, and if that doesn't tell Nathan enough, the panicked look Claire shoots Peter afterwards certainly clears things up.
It's possible, for a moment, that they could still cover, but the fear and the worry and the guilt is so clear on their faces that there doesn't seem to be any point.
Nathan takes Peter off upstairs, leaving Claire on her own with her hand clamped over her mouth and tears stinging her eyes. "I'll talk to you later," Nathan tells her as they leave the room, but he never does.
Upstairs, Nathan shuts the door quietly and turns to his brother looking surprisingly calm. "I don't know what to say, Pete," he shrugs, fingers on his temples, smoothing the threatening headache there. "You know she's your niece, not to mention underage."
Peter nods. "I do know," he agrees helplessly. What else is there to say? He wants to explain how knowing and feeling are two very different things, but Nathan doesn't seem the right person to say this to.
"I can tell you to stop," Nathan says, but Peter hears it simply as stopstopstop, "but you wouldn't, would you?"
Peter hesitates, but he shakes his head as he knows Nathan expects. There is a silence, and then it's broken by their mother, shouting up the stairs at them and demanding to know why exactly her poor granddaughter is in floods of tears in the dining room.
* * *
Claire quizzes him about it later, ringing him when he's in the middle of making himself some dinner back at his apartment.
"What did he say? Is he going to tell your mother? Is he going to tell anyone?" she asks, and he fumbles one-handed with a packet of pasta, ripping it down the middle by mistake.
"Claire, I can't talk right now-" he attempts, but she's having none of it, nagging at him, nervous and scared.
"Do you want it to stop? Now that he knows?" she asks, and Peter's hand slips in surprise at her question, earning himself a papercut across his thumb.
He thrusts his thumb into his mouth and sucks the blood away, trying to talk at the same time. "No, God, Claire, no," he tells her. "There's no more reason for us to stop than there was before. He won't tell anyone."
"How do you know?" Her voice is slightly tinny and far away; it must be a bad connection. He is struck by how absurd it is to have this conversation over the phone.
"I just do."
"He hasn't even looked at me since you left," Claire says. "Are you coming round tomorrow?"
Peter sighs. "Yeah," he says. "I'll see you then. Bye."
When he hangs up he looks down to inspect his cut, and finds it gone, no trace of its existence thanks to the power he shares with Claire. His appetite is gone, all of a sudden, and he tapes up the pasta packet and puts it away.
* * *
But after that it's easy. It shouldn't be -- two conversations shouldn't be all they need -- but then, it's Claire, with a gulp and downcast eyes, confessing quietly to Peter one night only days later, "I've been thinking about him."
And Peter says, "You've been thinking about-?" but he doesn't know why, because he knows who she means, and he also knows she isn't going to clarify. (She never knows quite how to refer to him, anyway, he's noticed. Noah Bennet is her 'Dad', but 'Nathan' seems too friendly and 'Mr Petrelli' too formal. Once, Peter saw her call him 'Sir', and she blushed furiously, flustered and uncertain in such an unfamiliar situation.)
And that's it, really. She says it, and Peter tells Nathan in their first real private conversation in days. Peter receives only a long sigh from him, as he rubs his chin, deep in thought, and swears a little under his breath, never actually letting anything on with words. And that's all it takes. Peter doesn't know this for sure, but he's seen the way Nathan's been looking at her, seen the change in it lately. And he knows his brother well enough to know that the curiosity will get the better of him eventually.
He's pretty sure Claire doesn't know what effect her words will have, either. None of them do. It's a simple statement, if taken completely out of context, but the meaning of it makes them both squirm, makes Claire's eyes water with the truth of it.
If they can't get back to Peter's apartment with a believable excuse, they fuck in a remote room of the mansion, usually one of the ones on the second floor, a guest room barely used. It's far enough away from the other bedrooms that they don't have to worry about being heard, but they worry anyway, swapping moans and groans in favour of sighs and gasps. And there's never any invitation extended to Nathan, he just always knows, watching their interactions throughout the day, probably lying in bed later in the night, listening out for creaks of stairs to follow down after.
He watches them from the doorway, palm pressed hard against the erection trapped tight in his pants. Peter always glances up and their eyes lock, Claire apparently oblivious, riding Peter's cock slowly, almost lazily, lost in the feeling of it all. Nathan's eyes always wander across the scene before him, though Peter can tell he tries to stop them, and he watches as his brother gives in, struggling with the zipper of his pants in his desperation for some friction. Claire always comes with her breath hitching in her throat and Peter's thumb on her clit, and she rocks forwards, eyes shut tight, curled ends of her hair tickling Peter's chest. Peter always comes just after she does, the sight of her pushing him over the edge. He never sees Nathan's climax, never knows that it's always simultaneous with his own, never sees his brother clutching at the doorframe with a sweaty hand and spilling over his fist.
The first time, Peter was stunned, and his eyes jerked immediately to the crack in the door, seeing Nathan hold a finger up to his lips and shake his head, eyes dark and wicked. Peter covered quickly, cupping Claire's face with his hand, distracting her from following his gaze, and he let Nathan stay,
They never talk about it -- Nathan and Peter -- because they never really have. Once or twice, years ago, they had their arguments, a half-hearted "This is wrong" or "We can't" here and there, but it was all futile, every feeble protest shot down in the end, and they stopped letting it bother them a long time ago. And of course Claire is different, adding something that is somehow worse, but it's never talked about. Peter hears everything Nathan can't say by watching him, fascinated and tormented in the doorway, gritting his teeth and wrapping his hand around his cock with a mixture of defeat and desperation on his face.
* * *
Claire tries it once -- the 'talk' -- after turning away from a kiss one night, closing her eyes and saying "We shouldn't..." with her voice weak and tired. Peter finds it difficult to sympathise, because he's been through all this before, but it feels like it was so long ago. And this is the day he tells her, the day she learns. She's the first to know, which is odd when he thinks about it.
"I know how you feel," he tells her, first.
"Then how do you do it?" she snaps back at him, her voice heavy with emotion. "How do you go on acting like everything's normal, like it's no big deal for you? We're related, Peter, uncle and niece. How can you act like it doesn't even bother you, when it's tearing me apart?"
It would be easier to make some crack about her healing power, tell her it doesn't matter if she tears right down the middle because she can piece herself back together. He almost says it, wanting to follow it up with a soft kiss on the forehead and maybe a "We'll get through this", but something changes the words on their way from his brain to his mouth.
"Because I've been through it all before," he says, and she reels, mouth falling open. He's surprised at how quickly she understands, how she doesn't even ask him what he means. She doesn't need any clarification at all.
"How long for?" she asks, and then, "Still?"
"Since I was a teenager," he says, still puzzled, wondering if she really knows what they're talking about. "About your age," he adds, and she flinches.
The second question is harder. Ever since Nathan found out about the two of them, found out about "I've been thinking about him", the brothers have barely been in a room together alone for more than a few seconds. It's all carefully planned by Nathan, Peter's sure -- his brother will talk to him if others are around, act just the way he always has, knowing Peter will follow his lead, but the second they're alone, Nathan will leave, avoiding him and not even bothering to hide it.
"Still?" Claire says again, prompting him.
"Why?" Peter hears himself ask. Is Claire jealous, is that it? Is she scared that he loves Nathan more? Is this a facet of every relationship, as twisted as theirs is, and she is simply scared that he is unfaithful?
Claire doesn't answer. She shakes her head slowly, backs towards the door, and doesn't speak to him for the rest of the day.
* * *
She turns up at his bedroom the same night, though it's more like early morning, and makes him panic when she knocks gently on the door before pushing it open. He wakes with a start to see her standing before him, tugging anxiously at the hem of the baggy t-shirt she sleeps in.
"Can we go to the guest room?" she whispers, and Peter just doesn't understand, but he's only half-awake, and half-hard already, and if this means she isn't mad at him, he's happy to oblige.
Everything seems more real, downstairs -- it's earlier than usual and the room is lighter, and it's almost awkward at first, as Claire pulls the t-shirt over her head and brings his hand between her legs. Something feels wrong, and he can't explain it, but when she lowers herself down onto his cock, the tight heat of her is comforting. She whispers that she doesn't think she minds, as if their conversation from earlier has continued seamlessly, without a break, but before Peter can respond, he sees the movement of a shadow out of the corner of his eye.
He follows it, and Nathan's there, gently pushing open the door, and the dreamlike feeling comes back, surrounding the three of them, telling him this isn't real and making any remnants of remaining guilt slip away. Nathan doesn't move right away this time, just watches, and Peter finds it difficult to take his eyes off him.
Claire leans down and kisses him again and he turns his eyes back to her.
"Why doesn't he ever come in?" she says softly.
He almost doesn't hear at first, asks her "What?" at the same time as the words reach his brain. He gapes at her.
"I only wanted to know," is all she says.
Peter's too scared to turn back to Nathan, to see if he heard, but then there's a soft creak of floorboards and the bed sinks down by his feet. Claire lifts herself up, straddling him, staring straight ahead. She looks stunned. Peter's heart hammers so loudly he's sure they can hear it and he thinks he can barely see. He feels himself begin to soften and slip out of her, but then his vision clears and he sees his brother reach forwards and curl a strong hand around Claire's bare shoulder, and he's hard again in an instant.
Nathan's only in his pajama pants, a thin sheen of sweat across his chest, and Claire turns her head slowly to look at him. Peter thinks, for one horrifying, exciting moment, that they'll kiss. They don't, they just hold each other's gaze for what feels like a lifetime, and Peter's cock throbs and aches from it, but he can't even bring himself to move. His limbs feel like lead, and he lays there still until Nathan finally moves, carefully pulling off his pants and coming round to sit on the other side of them on the bed, where there's more room.
For a long time, nobody moves again, and then Claire sucks in a long, shaky breath and lifts her hips. It still seems forever between this moment and the next, when Claire is bucking erratically on top of Peter once again as though uninterrupted, her head thrown back, and his hand is curled around Nathan's cock, jerking him to a quick and sudden orgasm with the strong sense of familiarity he's missed so terribly.
Nathan moves ever closer, until his hot skin touches both of them. He reaches out and runs a steady hand down Claire's body, gently stroking her cheek first and then travelling down over her throat, a hard nipple, and her tensed, tanned stomach. He reaches the juncture of her parted thighs where Peter disappears inside her, and he keeps his hand there, pressing his thumb gently to her clit.
"This is why," he whispers in her ear as she comes, silently, her body trembling and her lips falling open.