Fic: Ritual (41): Masquerade
Betcha thought you wouldn't see this so soon, huh?
Title: Ritual (41): Masquerade
Author: mystery_sock
Pairing/Characters: Nathan/Heidi, implied Peter/Nathan, Arthur, Angela
Rating: NC-17
Spoilers: all episodes through 2.08: "Four Months Ago"; webcomic "War Buddies" (story takes place pre-series)
Word Count: about 9400
Warnings: language, implied incest, explicit sex, alcohol abuse
Summary: Nathan could always blame it all on the costume party, but letting his guard down with Heidi came with tremendous consequences. Unbeta'd; errors all mine.
• Ritual Reader's Guide - all Ritual stories in chronological order •
Heroes is not my property; I just like to play with it.
28 OCTOBER 2000
(two weeks after Ritual (39) "Both Sides Now")
Peter and Nathan spent the whole afternoon together. Peter had decided that he didn't feel like studying that day, much preferring to have a late lunch with Nathan, and then take him costume-hunting.
Nathan wasn't much one for Halloween, but Heidi had invited him to a costume ball organized by the educational charity she had been working with that year, and he decided he'd give it a chance. It would be a great opportunity for face time with some powerful figures in the government's educational system, as well as a chance to apologize to Heidi for avoiding her for the last few weeks.
Currently, the closest thing to a costume he had was his full-dress uniform, for which he had far too much reverence to wear to a costume party. That wasn't a costume; that was him. Besides, it didn't fit as well as it should, as he had put some weight since he'd last worn it. Nathan had confessed his dilemma to Peter when they spoke on the phone the night before, and Peter volunteered that a friend of his worked at a shop in the Village legendary for the best costumes in the city, and therefore, the world. Nathan appreciated the best of the best, and he hadn't seen Peter all week. It would be a fun, brotherly thing to do; "hang out," platonically for a change, meet a friend of Peter's, and rent something to impress.
Peter's friend turned out to be a transsexual with blue-green dreadlocks down to his-or her? her, sure, okay-ass, a shiny black pleather mini-dress and orange stockings, and an insistence on measuring Nathan extremely thoroughly. Nathan squirmingly submitted to being poked, prodded, and very slightly fondled, and breathed a sigh of relief when she scurried off to the back room where the costumes were stored. Peter just stood there watching and smirking. "What's so funny?" Nathan demanded.
"Gotta make sure that inseam is correct," Peter quipped. "You might need a couple of extra inches taken out in the basket."
"Oh, shut up." Nathan hoped he wasn't blushing. "Is that the kind of company you keep? No wonder Ma thinks you run around with freaks and degenerates."
"Oh, I don't 'run around' with Peter," the shop assistant broke in, returning unexpectedly with armloads of garments. "He's not masculine enough for me."
"Well..." Nathan muttered, blushing now for certain. Peter snickered. "You did grab me a little bit."
"Honey, what I grabbed wasn't little. And Peter's right; your inseam will need adjustment, unless you want to tape down Big Willy Johnson, and trust me, you don't. Our pants run tight. Fortunately, we also do quick tailoring. Now get in the dressing room and try some of those on, and see what you think."
Nathan slunk away to the dressing room to the sound of their laughter. He disrobed down to undershirt and shorts and tried on a succession of outfits; pirate (the pantaloons itched terribly), cowboy (the jeans-and-chaps-in-one made his legs look ridiculously short), furry gorilla suit (just no). He got to the bottom of the pile and pulled out what seemed like fifteen yards of material, black on one side and red on the other.
A cape with a high collar. And a white shirt, white satin vest, white silk scarf, and black evening coat. But of course; Dracula. He chuckled; this was worth a try. He tried everything on and it fit as though it was made for him, though the trousers were somewhat tight in the crotch. "Think I've got one," Nathan said out loud.
"Really? Let me see," called Peter.
"Yeah, let's see," said the assistant.
Nathan came out in full attire, though barefoot and with the necktie undone. Peter and the shopgirl/boy just stared for a second. "Oh, my God, that's the fucking hottest thing I've ever seen," the transsexual breathed reverently. "You should just dress like that every day."
"That's awesome!" Peter agreed. "Wow! How does it feel? It looks great." He turned his back to the shop assistant and mouthed at Nathan, Fuckable.
Nathan smiled and fluttered the cloak behind him. "Yeah?"
The assistant shook her head. "No, wait, that's the hottest thing I've ever seen. Make it swirl. Do you like it?"
"Yeah, I think it works. The inseam is a little tight..."
"No problem," said the tranny with a grin. "And I'm so happy I get to say this-take off your pants and I'll make everything better. Now, we can rent you the whole package... ahem... for five hundred, including makeup and accessories, including a nice set of dental-grade fangs, and your choice of a black, white, or this very fetching red cravat with a genuine Romanian medal of honor..."
After a whirlwind of tailoring and purchasing, Nathan and Peter took a taxi back to Nathan's apartment with all of the garment boxes and bags. Peter lounged sprawled out on a chair with a bottle of Mexican Coke and watched Nathan carefully lay out all the elements of the costume on his bed. "This must be a huge deal tonight, huh?" Peter asked. "You're really going all out."
"Yeah," said Nathan. "I'm going with one of my girlfriends. I'm trying to blow her mind." The intriguing Heidi. He liked her enough that he considered her a genuine friend, even if he wished she'd be more daring in bed. Their last date, almost a month ago, had consisted of dinner and a play, and then back to her place for some pleasantly frustrating missionary-position sex. In bed, most of his satisfaction with Heidi came from the fact that she was so responsive to him; he could make her come over and over again, and Nathan liked providing orgasms almost as much as having them himself. He hadn't yet tried anything exceptionally interesting with her sexually; the kinkiest thing they'd ever done was him going down on her for the brief time that she could take it. They'd fucked maybe five or six times since they'd met, and every time, he was left wanting more. There was time, he thought. Once she was comfortable with him, he could show her more things that he liked.
Oh, but not all. Some of them were Peter's exclusive domain.
"Blow her mind," Peter echoed dreamily, running the glass Coke bottle up the inside of his blue-jeaned thigh. "I'm sure you won't stop with her mind. I'm jealous."
Nathan laughed dismissively. He didn't actively want Peter right now, too distracted by his thoughts of Heidi, and his younger brother's come-ons just seemed comical. You wish, little man. "You should be," Nathan answered. "Why didn't you get a costume? Don't you have a party tonight?"
"Yeah, but it's not a costume party," Peter explained. "It's just a party. One of those Billyburg hipster blowouts. Besides, I grew out of my Spider-Man Underoos."
"You had Spider-Man Underoos?" Nathan remarked. "Now I'm jealous. Anyway, I had better start getting ready. Could you do my makeup? You did theater."
"We never did makeup," Peter said. "It was all improv. You know, the kind of drama class you take when you're pre-law?"
"I'm sure you've learned a thing or two from your drag queen friend. I'm gonna go take a shower and shave."
"Want company?" Peter asked casually.
"No. If you see me naked and wet and soapy, I'll never get out of here."
"Would that be so bad?" Peter mused, standing up and leaving the bedroom. Nathan watched him go with a smile on his face. Their relationship was in a good place. They wanted each other, but for once, the lust was manageable. They could joke about it. Peter had learned some self-control, and Nathan extended more trust toward him as a result. The last time they had played together had been so wonderful, so religious, so fun; such generosity extended to each other, such bravery on both sides. It left Nathan feeling grounded and satisfied, strong and clear, and very much loved.
Now was the time to move to another level with Heidi.
---
The Russian driver of the service car wasn't fazed by the spectacle of a pallid-faced man with a white-streaked widow's peak, fangs, and a cape riding in his back seat. "Everyone in costume," the driver explained in his heavily accented English, his voice calmly amused. "I just drop off Cleopatra and Charlie Chaplin to party in Meatpacking District."
"I'm not sure what we'll be picking up," Nathan mused, glad that the guy had a sense of humor. "I let her know we're on the way; she should be ready."
Heidi wasn't outside waiting when they arrived outside her building, so Nathan got out of the car to stretch his legs and see if he could catch sight of her in the lobby. Passersby pointed at him and waved, and Nathan waved back, arching his fingers and baring the fangs fastened to his canine teeth with denture cement. He was already enjoying himself. Despite his protests, Peter had done a decent job with Nathan's makeup, brushing dried-blood-red paint onto his mouth and then blotting it away, leaving only a stain of dull color; applying only a thin sheen of the pearlescent-white base makeup, even if he had gotten a little heavy-handed with the eyeliner. It still looked very good; sexy and dangerous.
He was momentarily distracted waving to a truckful of tourists on their way to Times Square, but when he turned his gaze back to the door of Heidi's building, he caught sight of a scruffy, sullen-looking, dirty-faced boy in a cloth cap, threadbare knee breeches, wool knee socks, heavy-soled boots, checked vest and mismatched jacket, looking searchingly up and down the sidewalk. The dirty-faced boy glanced up with Heidi's electric-blue irises and saw him, gaped in amazement, grinned, lowered eyelashes shyly.
Nathan stared, too.
Galvanized. Every nerve in his body violently alive and focused and wanting. For a moment he understood Dracula in a way that he never imagined he ever would; seized with lust, paralyzed with it, struck dumb and frozen in the spot.
With her eyes closed, she looked so much like Peter.
And not just like Peter; like Peter had when he was younger. When Peter was jail bait, when Peter was wrong, when he should have been off limits to Nathan and everybody but especially Nathan... but too beautiful to resist, too horny to deny, too close to avoid. Peter at fifteen. And not even the real Peter; a fantasy Peter in a fantasy world of young scruffy hoodlums, wild orphans looking after themselves, scrambling through the back streets of Depression-era Alphabet City, living by wits, pluck, and nerve. That daydream Nathan had when he was a boy himself, reading too much Jack London and Mark Twain and Horatio Alger, without imagining that there might have been something else to it... some other longing, some other kind of meaning twisted into it.
"You look amazing," Heidi enthused, walking up to him.
He wished she hadn't spoken; her feminine voice almost ruined things. But then she slid her hand underneath his cape, under his tuxedo jacket, caressing the white satin of his waistcoat, and Nathan forgot his annoyance. Her voice lowered at the same time. "Are you gonna bite me?" she purred. Husky and intimate, slightly amused, knowing that she had him in the palm of her hand. But obviously, she had no real idea, and no real idea why.
Nathan's heart was pounding. "Do we have to go to this party?" he asked. "Can't we just go back upstairs?" She wore no makeup, just some sooty smudges on her cheeks and nose, like she'd wiped tears off her face with her sleeve. He wanted to fuck her so badly that it hurt.
Heidi shrugged and smiled apologetically. "But it's my charity," she explained. "I have to make an appearance. And there are so many people there who you really must meet. Besides, I designed half of the decorations. And we're already all dressed up. By the way..." She took a moment to turn around, showing off. "What do you think?"
"It's very... authentic."
Heidi didn't seem to notice Nathan's agitation. "I'm a Newsie! Have you ever seen that movie? It's one of my favorites. It's pretty silly, I know, but I've just loved it ever since it came out. It looks like fun, you know? But only if you're a boy. It's no fair that the boys get to have all the fun."
Nathan struggled to control himself. "Shall we?" he suggested, opening the car door. He had been meaning to put on a cheesy Transylvanian accent, but he had completely forgotten about it. Heidi just beamed at him, and slid into the back seat of the car.
As soon as Nathan was in, too, he reached for her and crushed their mouths together. His fingers clutched her shoulders tightly for a moment, then ran down over her chest, where her small breasts had been trapped under a layer of elastic bandages. She gasped desperately, "Nathan-oh! Nathan, I can't breathe." He paid no attention, kissing her again, grateful for the lack of lipstick, and yet missing it... missing the waxy taste, the sweet, slightly fruity scent, missing that normality. Lipstick meant heterosexuality, not lusting after underaged boys. (And yet not "boys"; just Peter. Nathan wasn't even attracted to teenage girls, let alone teenage boys. Just Peter.) Lipstick meant that he was doing what he was supposed to do. Not tonight.
If there were important people at the costume ball for Nathan to meet, he didn't remember a single one of them. Heidi tried introducing him, at first, but Nathan barely took his eyes off her, and only reacted to greetings by baring his fangs in a wolfish grin as he handed over a business card. Before Heidi could even make a break for the punch bowl, he had taken her into his arms again and kissed her hungrily, not caring who saw, or what they thought; Dracula seducing, consuming, possessing a young boy. He wasn't Nathan; he didn't have to be Nathan.
And she didn't have to be Heidi.
By ten o'clock, she couldn't take it anymore. "Let's just go," she whispered to him. "Take me home." Her lips were as red as if she had been wearing her usual scarlet lipstick, and her eyes were misty and unfocused. Nathan didn't need to be told twice; he took her by the hand and led her back outside, into a waiting taxicab.
In the cab, he didn't kiss her; he instead pulled her onto his lap, pressing his burning, pulsing erection into her buttocks, his mouth traveling along her neck, alternately caressing and teasing, and taking brief sharp bites. The porcelain fangs attached to his teeth left tiny purple dents in her skin. She could have protested at any time, as her mouth was free, but she didn't say anything, approving or admonishing; she only gasped whenever he dug his teeth into her. Nathan wanted to take the fangs off, but he wasn't willing to let her go. His arms held hers trapped against her breasts. He could feel the heat coming from her, from between her legs. The brief journey was agony.
As they arrived back at Heidi's, Nathan tossed money at the driver and jumped out of the car, dragging her along after him. She stumbled slightly, but he had her; if she felt like she might just tumble into the gutter, so much the better. She was completely under his power and it was good that she knew it, good for her to be a little scared. Of course he wouldn't let her fall, or he would have to fall with her, and let things transpire as they would, on the sidewalk, in the lobby. It wasn't him. He was under the power of something else.
In the elevator he trapped her against the wall, again not kissing her, just holding her there. Her head drooped, eyes closed, as though she were falling asleep; moist pink lips parted, the edges of her white teeth bright against her dirty face. Heidi-Boy. Exquisite. He wanted to bite her again, but not here. Here he just wanted to trap her and smell her. He could smell her... nervous sweat and the cinnamon she'd used to dirty her jacket and sleeves and the intoxicating syrup pooling between her legs. It wasn't the way boys were, and yet Nathan's body responded to it without it troubling his mind.
Doors open and an elegant hallway and another door that she stumbled against, fumbling for her keys while Nathan grabbed her ass, reached around and grabbed between her legs, fighting off annoyance that the cock he wanted wasn't there. He wanted to feel a bulge of adolescent hardness there, but there was only the seam of her trousers and the feverish mound of her pubic bone. It was hard and prominent. He could pretend.
"Nathan," she gasped, the door finally opening to her, their bodies propelled inside her apartment.
He didn't want to hear his name; not yet. Later, when she was screaming it, yes, then. Kicking the door shut, he pushed her to her elegant, curved flowered-chintz sofa, up against the arm of it, bent her over. One hand on her buttock, one hand still grabbing her pubis, digging his fingers in. She gasped again, this time the sound transmitting pain. He didn't want that. He hummed a wordless apology that descended into a growl, unfastened the rough belt holding the trousers up on her tiny waist. God, she was little. Smaller than Peter-smaller than Peter now. Not then. Not when he was younger. Not when Nathan had first felt Peter's body against his, wanting and blind and as helpless as Nathan felt now.
He stripped the trousers down, exposing a perfect, shapely, creamy-pale feminine behind. Not boyish at all. Not Peter. Good, though, just as good, better even, maybe... this was okay, not a sick impulse, longing for something that should never be. Nathan's cock was out before he thought, rubbing against the crack and down, the head pressing in. He wasn't thinking. Heidi gasped again. "Nathan-oh!" No, not there, she wasn't ready, he couldn't do that to her. But that... yes, there, yes, the wetness inside her, on him, surrounding him.
He moaned. "Yes... ahhhh!" He buried himself to the hilt inside her. And then again and some more.
"Nathan, stop! We can't!"
God, what was he doing? This couldn't happen, not like this. At once he returned to himself, shook his head and withdrew. "Sorry, sorry," he said. Sorry for everything. Sorry for losing himself, no matter how exquisite it felt. It was so rare and beautiful to let go of having to be The Great Nathan Petrelli. He couldn't help sliding two fingers into her, though, touching the fluid wonderingly. He thought to taste it-God, he loved that taste-but she squirmed underneath him, sliding away. "Oh, God, I'm sorry."
"No, it's okay..." She broke off with a husky, disbelieving laugh. "I want it. Come on, let's go to my room. Let's do this right."
Nathan shed his cape and vest in the living room, the rest of his clothes in Heidi's bedroom. A couple of sharp tugs freed the fangs from his mouth, and he spit them out into his handkerchief and set them on her bureau. She took off her cap, and Nathan protested, "No, please... just leave the hat on for a minute... it's so cute." That made her laugh, and she put the hat back on and took the rest of her clothes off.
On the bed, he turned her face-down. "Like this," he murmured. He got a condom out of her bedside table drawer, tore it open, and rolled the cool latex over his still-damp cock. He moved into position behind her, angled her hips up toward him. "Like this. Tell me if you like this." She made a quiet, anxious mewling sound, spread her thighs apart, her own fingers sliding inside her, over her clitoris. He had to taste it while he could, so he drew his tongue along her, across her clit. She moaned and pumped her fingers inside her. She was using three fingers. He was impressed; in the times before, she used only one. He loved to watch her finger herself. She had showed him once before, showing him the stroke that she liked. But this wasn't the time. He needed to fuck now, with her head down and her ass in the air, showing off to him, all of her most intimate areas inches away from his face, begging to be eaten. But he needed to fuck now. Now.
He slid back into her, held her hand against her vulva, her fingers trapped against her clit. She would do what he directed her to. He could make her come. They had never been in this position; he could tell that she wasn't quite comfortable, and he wondered if she had ever done it like this before. Good. He needed to show her what he liked. Good-so good-he was fucking her too hard. She was practically screaming, but she didn't tell him to stop, or slow down, or give her a minute to catch her breath. "Yes-uh huh-yes, oh God!"
"Fuck yeah... fuck yeah... oh," he said. He had never said "fuck" to her before. She bucked back against him, wanting it harder and deeper. She seized suddenly and cried out against the pillow, and he held her hand against herself, drawing that orgasm out of her, feeling it tremble against his cock inside her. "Yes, that's right," he said. "God, yes, Heidi, that's it. You got another one for me? You want to give it to me again?"
She did. He pulled the cap off her head, loosing her dark hair in a flood over her shoulders. She was Heidi. This was real. He didn't need a fantasy anymore. She wasn't a boy and she couldn't be and he wouldn't treat her like one when what she was, was so beautiful.
He still fucked her from behind until he had come. That was beautiful in and of itself.
Now he needed a moment to recover. He rolled off of her and lay in a quivering heap for a moment. To his surprise, she climbed all over him, kissing and sucking his lips, biting him back, harder than he had bitten her, leaving crescent welts all over his cheeks and neck and chest. He loved that sharp sweet pain. "Okay, get it together, Petrelli," she growled at him. "You're not off the hook yet." She stripped the condom off him and tossed it into her pretty pink wastebasket. "You gonna fuck me all night?" she demanded. "You better. You better fuck me all night because I need it, you understand me?"
Nathan stared at her in delighted surprise. "Yes, ma'am," he replied. Finally, he had brought out that part of her that he'd always suspected was there. Now was the time to show her more... "You know what you can do to get me ready sooner, though, don't you?"
Even in her emboldened state, she actually blinked at him, realizing what he must mean. "You want me to...?"
"Yeah, you'd better suck it," Nathan said pleasantly.
Heidi blinked some more, combing her tousled hair back from her face with her fingers. For God's sake, she was blushing. Sure, he'd never asked her to before, but... Wow, she was twenty-four years old, and blushing over a blowjob. "Okay," she said uncertainly. "I don't think I'm any good at it."
"You are," he said, smiling as the thought of how Peter would have never hesitated. Peter had never really been innocent like this. But no, he wasn't here; that was wrong and this was right. "I'm sure you are."
"It's... uh..."
"Don't be afraid," he said comfortingly. He drew her to him and hugged her. "You don't have to. Not right now. When you want to... when you feel okay... I trust you, and I want you to." As he murmured to her and embraced her, his fingers slipped back down her body, back inside of her, and the way she sighed told him that she'd be ready, soon enough. And so would he.
----
29 OCTOBER 2000
He woke up blissfully happy.
Next to him, Heidi slept on, her face very young and tired, most of the gray soot gone from her cheeks. She was so tenderly beautiful that he had to kiss her lips, again and again, until she woke up and kissed him back.
He put his hand back between her legs. She twitched and opened her sky-colored eyes. "Ow," she said. "I'm a little sore today."
"I'm terribly sorry," Nathan grinned. "I can help." He slid down and administered to her with his lips and tongue, using broad, soft, caressing strokes, only brushing her clit in passing. She still responded, of course, grasping his hair in her fingers, urging him on. He ate at her slowly, gradually building in intensity, penetrating her with one finger, seeking out the soft, hot spot inside her and pressing down on it at the same time as he lightly sucked her clit, flickering his tongue against it at just the right moment. She laughed through her orgasm this time, disbelievingly, as if to say, There I go again. Last night, he'd lost count.
He let her relax as he sat up and checked the time. It was almost noon; he hadn't slept so late since he'd gotten out of the hospital. Then again, last night, they hadn't stopped until the sky had begun to lighten outside, so they hadn't really had that much sleep. He didn't feel tired in the slightest. He hadn't had any drinks last night; he had forgotten all about alcohol. So unlike him. He hadn't been Nathan. How wonderful.
"Hungry?" Heidi whispered. At Nathan's nod, she added, "Want to get brunch?"
"As long as I don't have to be dressed like Dracula."
"You still have makeup on," she pointed out. "All that mascara."
"Let's take a shower."
"Definitely."
They went to a little café a few streets down, and ordered the same food, giggling like schoolkids, feeding each other off their plates. The waiter returned to their table to warm up their coffees, and said grumpily, "Cut it out, you two, you're making my other customers jealous."
Nathan watched him go with a smile. Across the table, Heidi beamed. "You attacked me last night," she said in a discreet whisper, eyes glinting. "What was that about?"
For the first time in many hours, Nathan felt his skin go cold. He carefully didn't alter the smile on his face, or look away from her, thinking, You will never know if I can help it. "I just missed you," he said. "I loved your outfit. Spunky. So much more interesting than the usual 'slutty nurse', 'slutty cheerleader', 'slutty scientist' option."
"Instead I was a dirty-faced, musical pickpocket," she replied. "I'm glad you liked it." She took a deep breath and let it out as a sigh. "Boy, work's going to be fun tomorrow," she added. "I should give myself a dollar every time anyone asks me, 'So who was that?'"
"Give them my name," Nathan replied, covering his sudden unease with a swallow of coffee. "Let them be jealous."
"Oh, they'll have no idea," Heidi added, subtly shifting in her seat and giving an exaggerated wince. "I'm going to have to go home and apply an ice pack." Nathan couldn't help feeling good about that. She smiled at him. "Thank you for a wonderful evening," she said.
"It was my pleasure," Nathan answered sincerely.
He had brought the rest of his costume with him to the café, and after a lingering kiss on the sidewalk, hailed a cab home. Once he got in the door of his own apartment, and saw all the empty garment boxes and piles of special-effects makeup still arrayed in his bathroom, he felt a wave of unpleasant anxiety descend over him. He couldn't remember what he had to do at work; this was the first weekend in a long time that he hadn't done at least some work. His mind felt muddled up, and the late brunch had made him sleepy. He needed to go for a long run.
He took off the costume pants and shirt, folded everything back into its boxes, and prepared a pile to be returned to the costume shop by courier. Dressed in his underwear, he stood and looked at himself in the mirror, wondering what Heidi saw when she looked at him. He did still have a lot of black smudging around his eyes, making them look enormous and haunted, and his shoulders were stippled with bite marks. He caught sight of the empty Coke bottle that Peter had left on his nightstand the evening before. That time seemed so long ago; an eternity instead of eighteen hours.
He put on a T-shirt, track pants, and running shoes, then picked up the phone and dialled the family home. The housekeeper answered, and he asked if Peter was around. "Yes, he's here," the housekeeper replied, her voice sounding annoyed. "I'll put him on."
After a long pause, Peter's stuffy-sounding voice answered. "Hey, Nathan."
"What's wrong with you?"
"Hung over," Peter explained. He was hoarse. "I was out till eight or nine in the morning. And I sprained my ankle trying to climb a fire escape. I was drinking chocolate-orange martinis. Too many, I guess."
"That sounds disgusting," Nathan replied stiffly. He didn't really know why he'd called Peter now, and didn't really feel like talking to him. What was Peter's problem? Always getting in over his head, always doing too much. Stupid kid.
"How was your thing?" Peter asked.
Nathan hesitated for just a moment before replying, his thoughts locking down immediately, falling into place. He wasn't going to tell Peter anything about last night-not Heidi's reaction to his costume, and certainly not his reaction to hers. It was none of Peter's business; it had nothing to do with him. "It was fine," he said noncommittally. "Anyway, I'm gonna go for a run. I just wanted to check in and make sure you weren't dead."
"Wish I was," Peter replied with a sigh. "Thanks for calling. See you soon?"
"Yeah, maybe. Getting toward Thanksgiving..."
Peter replied with a groan. "Oh, God, that. Yeah. Not thinking about that. Hope to see you before then."
Nathan stared into space and set his jaw. He didn't want that at all; didn't want to see Peter without the safety buffer of their mother and father between them. At the moment, he just wanted to be alone. "We'll see," he said, and hung up.
He ran from his apartment to Wall Street, and back again. When he returned to his apartment, night had fallen, his legs were like jelly, and his mind was like driven snow, pure and thoughtless. He went inside and collapsed on the living room floor, sides heaving, at peace. He was Nathan Petrelli and everything was as it should be.
----
22 NOVEMBER 2000
Heidi phoned mid-morning, and asked Nathan to meet her for lunch. "There's something I have to talk to you about," she said. Nathan stared at the photograph of his mother, father, and Peter on his desk, tightening his jaw. It wasn't really a good day to leave the office, Wednesday before the holiday and a million loose ends to wrap up, but he wouldn't mind seeing her, and from the tone of her voice, it wasn't optional. It was more like, You will do this if you ever want to see me again. It made sense. He owed it to her. He'd been avoiding her again, seeing other women who he cared about less, or working out at the gym until it was time to go to bed. Avoiding Heidi. Avoiding Peter. Not really wanting to deal with the intensity of either one of them.
They met at a quiet, homey restaurant that Nathan had never known about before, with comfortable chairs, checked tablecloths, and the air smelling of cinnamon rolls and chicken soup. Heidi seemed familiar with it, though; she only gave the menu a glance before she ordered. "Do you come here often?" he asked.
"Only when I'm starving," she said. "Sometimes I want chicken and dumplings. It's weird, I know."
"It's not weird." He had only ordered dry toast and coffee. "So... what's up? How are you?"
She stared at him for a while without speaking, without smiling. Momentarily she lowered her gaze. "I... I'm pregnant," she said, looking up at him again, awaiting his reaction.
Nathan looked down and stirred his coffee. He blinked and took a deep breath, but didn't speak. Inside his head he groaned, No, no, shit, not again. Fuck. Not again. Shit! No! This already happened to me once! Goddammit, I lost myself. I would never have done that. I didn't do it. It wasn't me.
"Nathan?" Heidi prompted, voice faintly hopeful. "Say something?"
"Mine?" he asked, just like he had done before, in a crappy coffeehouse in Midland, on a sunny day with a sunny-haired girl who had never even graduated from high school. Couldn't this be different? Couldn't he be different? She was dead now, and no one even knew about all that, besides his parents...
Heidi's eyes flashed furiously. "Of course it's yours!" she hissed. "Do you really think I'm sleeping around on you?"
Like I do? Nathan mused. He finally stopped stirring his coffee, and took a swallow. It was sour and flat. "I'm sorry, I... I just..." He looked up helplessly at the waitress, bringing over his plate of toast, and Heidi's massive bowl of dumplings in broth. Heidi chewed on a fingernail for a moment, her eyes horrified and haunted, then picked up her spoon and took a big bite of her food. "No, I never thought that. I don't think that."
"Good," said Heidi, taking another bite, chewing angrily. "Because... I take it you're not happy."
"I-I don't really know what to feel."
"Well, imagine how I feel!"
"I can't," Nathan said. "I couldn't. It's different for you, I know." He pushed the plate of toast away from him, completely losing any appetite he might have had. He waited for a moment until she had set down her spoon, then he reached across the table and picked up her hand. He kissed the back of it as gently as he could. "Heidi. I treasure you. I respect you. And... I love you." He had never said that to her before. He hadn't said it to anyone but Peter, or his mother, in a very, very long time. Not since the last mother of a child he had gotten by accident. Just like her, like Meredith, Heidi rolled her eyes in disgust and disbelief, and took her hand back. "I do," he said. "But I need a few days to think about what all this means."
"A few days, huh," she said bitterly, taking her hand back. "A very few, I hope." She picked up her spoon and kept eating.
"Well..." he asked slowly. "Do you feel all right? Physically, I mean?" She just shrugged again, and he tried a different tack. "What do you want to do?"
"I don't know," she said. Then she sat up straight and squared her shoulders. "I'm not terminating, if that's what you mean. Absolutely not. I just could never think of that as an option."
"Of course not," Nathan said hastily. "No. No, I..." He sighed. "This is... just unexpected. I'm just going to need some time to process. Thanksgiving's tomorrow, and I..." He trailed off as she rolled her eyes impatiently. "I always spend the entire weekend with my parents and my little brother. We all really depend on it."
"And I'm flying out tonight, to spend the holiday with Father, in Annapolis," she countered. "So what? You think you're the only one who loves your family? Get real, Nathan."
"Heidi..." He leaned across the table and took her hand again, staring into her eyes, and said reverently, believing it with his whole heart, "I love you. I do. Okay? So we'll work this out." He smiled at her, but she didn't return it. "I'll be in touch this weekend, and please call me if you need anything. I've got to go back to work."
She looked up in surprise as he stood up and gave her a weak smile, reaching into his wallet and dropping some money on the table, more than enough to cover the food they'd ordered. He left without saying anything else.
Instead of returning to work, Nathan headed toward Central Park, calling the office and informing them that he would be taking the rest of the afternoon off.
The weather hadn't improved, and the wind blew icy rain against his legs and his bare hand holding the umbrella. He hardly noticed the cold. He just needed to stay in motion as the thoughts boiled inside his head. How in the hell had this happened to him again? He always tried to be so careful. But he had let it happen, let that part of himself out, the part that he could and should only show to Peter. But the same thing had happened to him before; too much lust, too much impulse, and once again, an innocent young woman was in trouble. He hadn't even been thinking about protection with Meredith; it was all just so delicious and sudden. Just fun. He had thrown caution and responsibility to the wind. And then she was pregnant. And then she was dead, and their baby with her. And worse than the sense of failure was the feeling of relief. They were just gone and might as well have never existed in the first place. Everything was better off this way.
Heidi would not abort; nor would he let her, if he had anything to say about it. So he'd be a father. Again. Really, though, this time. Unless his parents didn't approve. But what if they did? They couldn't force Heidi to end it... not the pregnancy, anyway. They could convince her to break things off with him. But how would that leave Heidi? They wouldn't do that, would they, not to a woman who he loved? But did she love him? She had never told him so.
At the other side of the park, a thoroughly soaked and chilled Nathan slouched into a tiny, dark, smoke-scented bar and sat down on a stool at the counter, streaming rain out of his sleeves and shoes. The bartender raised his eyebrows at him, but only asked, "What're you having?"
Nathan glanced at the clock. He was due back at the family home for dinner in four hours. "Scoresby, neat," he said shortly. Yes, it was self-abuse; he would usually never deign to drink such middlebrow crap. And yet, on a day like this, it seemed like the only logical solution. The alcohol bit sharply into his throat as he downed the shot, and his hand was still wet as he lifted the empty glass, muttering, "Keep 'em coming."
----
After dinner, the Petrellis retired to the sitting room and drank cappucino. Back when the sons were children, they would play cards or Monopoly together, but now they each occupied separate corners of the room, like strangers at a party. Angela was the only person who had spoken throughout the meal, delightedly explaining their activities for the weekend, spreading a thin veneer of lightweight gossip as she went. Occasionally Peter would raise his eyes and glare at Arthur; his father just stared back with level hostility. Nathan just sat, hardly glancing at any of them. He didn't know what was going on between Peter and his Dad, and he didn't particularly care. He'd managed to get himself home and cleaned up and changed beforehand, but had barely touched his food at the dinner table, the eight shots of cheap Scotch refusing to share his stomach with anything wholesome.
Angela gradually fell quiet, narrowing her eyes at her older son. "Nathan, would you help me with the coffee cups?" she asked sweetly. Nathan got up without thinking about it, and tried to take Peter's cup, but Peter shook his head and held tight. Arthur handed over his cup without protest, gifting Nathan with a slight smile before resuming his unblinking stare at Peter. Angela actually stood behind Nathan and started walking, hustling him out ahead of her and into the kitchen. Once they had set the cups in the sink, she stood in front of him, arms crossed. "All right, Nathan. Spill it."
Nathan just blinked at her for a moment. "Don't play coy," Angela insisted. "You come in here stinking drunk like you've been at the racetrack all day. You think I can't tell? What's going on?"
"I've got a little problem," he replied. "My girl, Heidi. She's... pregnant." He watched her eyes grow wide, and begged, "Ma, please don't say anything to Dad. At least not until I figure out what to do. Right now, I don't know."
"What do you mean, you don't know?" Angela scoffed. "There's only one thing to do. You have to marry her. And soon. How far along is she?"
"Ma, I... Uh, a month."
She grinned wolfishly. "Perfect. I couldn't have planned it better myself. In fact, I think you're going to need my help planning. Heidi George? Oh, she's perfect. You do like her, don't you?"
"Of course I do," Nathan said, laughing faintly. "I like her a lot."
"Good. Has she told her father? The Major will be overjoyed; he's getting on in years and I'm sure he'll be thrilled to have another grandchild. Nathan, don't you understand? This is the time. She's the woman. You're ready." Her beautiful eyes sparkled. "This is the best thing that could possibly happen to you right now. Your career is taking off perfectly..." She moved close to him, and straightened the collar and cuffs of his shirt, flicking invisible lint from his shoulder. He relaxed under her touch. "She's beautiful, young, and healthy, and it's time for you to start having children." She took his hand. "Stop looking so sick. Come with me."
He followed her upstairs to a little-used guest room on the attic floor, mostly used these days for storage. She turned on the dim lamp on the table, got a set of keys from the top drawer in the bureau, and unlocked a different drawer on a white-painted antique sewing table. Reaching in, she withdrew a small dark box, and opened it to show him a slender ring crowned with diamond and sapphire. "This ring has been in the Petrelli family for four generations," Angela said softly. "It belonged to your grandmother, and when she passed away, she left it to Arthur to pass along, and keep it in the family. It's been resized repeatedly; it can take it. I would be very happy if you offered this to her."
Nathan took the box, and gazed at the ring, the pale blue of the sapphire so similar to the color of Heidi's eyes. It was indeed perfect. "Why didn't Dad give this to you?" he asked.
"Oh, he used it to propose to me," Angela said airily. "But I wanted to choose my own ring." She held up her hand and flashed eight carats of pure white stones on her third finger. "This ring, though, did the trick. I was so happy when he asked me to marry him that I cried like a baby." She laughed. "He didn't know what he was getting himself into. But I did." She leaned up to him and kissed him quickly on the mouth, sighing softly, "I won't tell anyone. You can make this public at a time of your own choosing. Oh, Nathan... My baby boy. Be happy. Please, be happy."
----
Peter went to bed shortly after Nathan and Angela returned to the sitting room, limping carefully toward his room. He gave Nathan a longing glance at the door, but Nathan just looked away and murmured, "G'night, Pete. Put some ice on it."
Angela watched her younger son go, then stood up herself. "I'm going to turn in, too," she said. "Coffee is at eight, breakfast at nine, we leave for the parade at ten. All right? I'll see you all in the morning." She went to where Nathan sat, taking the ring box out of his pocket and cradling it in his lap, and kissed him on the forehead.
Arthur stood up to embrace her briefly. After she had gone, he turned to Nathan. "Come on," Arthur said. "You're not done drinking tonight. Seems like someone could use a cigar."
Nathan wasn't so sure about that, but it was always an honor to be invited into his Dad's cigar room, sitting almost knee-to-knee in the big chairs, under the soft red and green lights of the antique lamps. Arthur poured two small glasses full of his rarest single-malt. He retrieved two slim cigars from the humidor, clipped their ends with his miniature guillotine tool, and handed one to Nathan. Nathan waited patiently as Arthur lit his cigar first, listening with pleasure to the moist sounds of Arthur drawing air through the cigar with his lips, exhaling a fat cloud of acerbic smoke. "I see you've got my ring," Arthur said laconically.
Nathan smiled at the small black box on his lap. "Yeah," he said.
Arthur blinked at the smoke, his long eyelashes ticking against the insides of his eyeglasses. "The George girl?" he asked. Nathan nodded, wondering how he'd guessed. Arthur nodded too, giving a tight smile of satisfaction. "I know her father. Your mother knows him better. Good family. Connected, smart, discreet. They'll help you get into City Hall, if that's what you want."
"It's not," Nathan said.
"No, it's not," Arthur agreed. "Mayor? Nah. You want better. Bigger. Washington. You can have it and you should."
"Yeah," said Nathan.
"Your mother must be ecstatic."
"For a change," Nathan mused.
Arthur smiled openly then. "That wasn't the right time, and that wasn't the right girl. The rest... well, that can't be helped." The smile dissolved, and Arthur gazed into space for a moment, brooding, troubled. Then he shook his head and smiled again. "You more than have my blessings. I'm proud of you, son."
Nathan flushed with pleasure. "Thank you," he murmured. He lifted the glass to his mouth, and let the smoky-velvet flavor of the Scotch play over his tongue. "Dad... do you ever regret having had a family?"
Arthur raised his eyebrows in mild surprise. "Never," he answered without hesitation. "I married your mother before I was deployed in the conflict. Just a few weeks before; I wanted to make sure I didn't lose her, but I had my duty to perform. She accepted that. She was proud of me. She was a beautiful bride."
"I've seen the pictures," Nathan agreed.
His father went on, "And then I came back here for a month, between missions, and we made you. I swear to God... if we hadn't, if I hadn't taken my chance to catch her and keep her, and if we hadn't brought our love together to make this, this miracle... " His voice tumbled over itself. "You, Nathan. Our baby boy. If we hadn't-if I hadn't had the memory of this love. Of this beauty, of this possibility. I would have lost my mind. I came close. I saw things that shouldn't exist; I did things that no man should do." The haunted look came back, transformed briefly into horror. "If I hadn't known and-and believed that you were back there, waiting for me at home, you and your mother, I..."
"Dad," Nathan broke in, overwhelmed, slightly frightened. He had never seen his father so close to breaking down. He had seen him angry, certainly-Arthur was angry a lot, frighteningly so-but never this awful combination of fear and loathing, confessing to crimes too appalling to speak of. Nathan wanted to put his arms around his Dad, comfort him and shush him, but a son did not touch his father in that way. It would dishonor him.
At the sound of Nathan's voice, Arthur calmed again, and downed his glass of Scotch like it was water. He poured himself another one, and drank that one down, too, slowing his breathing. He met Nathan's eyes, staring over the tops of his glasses. "That kind of stability," he said, "that belief, a wife and children and a home, will be good for you. It's what you need. You will be facing a different kind of war, but one that might be just as deadly... one with just as much ambiguity about which side are the good guys. You need to remember-you're on the right side. You're one of the good guys. Never doubt it, or you will have nothing."
Nathan stared. "What do you mean? War? I already fought, Dad."
Arthur narrowed his eyes, then lowered his gaze, shook his head, and sat back with a sigh. "I'm just saying I'm proud of you," he said. "And never give up your love. Your strongest, truest love. You'll know it when you feel it. I hope it's with Miss George. And with your children. That's what will sustain you. That's what will clear away the cobwebs. Because it's hard, this journey you're about to take, and it's easy to lose sight of just which side you're on."
"I'm... on your side," Nathan said.
Arthur smiled, relaxed, his previous outburst forgotten. "And I'm on yours," he said. "Always. Happy Thanksgiving." He topped up Nathan's glass, poured himself a new one, and clinked the glasses together.
At the end of the night, after Arthur had gone off to bed, Nathan stood in the hallway, his head swirling with alcohol and cigar smoke. He wanted to go to Peter's room and give him a kiss good night. He was on Peter's side; Peter was the love that sustained him. But... He hesitated outside the door. He stank of cigar smoke, which Peter disliked; he was toxically drunk, already slumping toward hangover without even sobering up first; and... he had to be normal from now on. He had to give this a chance. He had to try to transfer his feelings onto Heidi if he was going to make this marriage work. Why else had he fallen in love with her? She could be the next best thing. She was the mother of his child and the key to his future, and Peter was his loser little brother. He had to separate the two.
He found his hand on the doorknob, though, hoping just to catch a glimpse of Peter sleeping. He wouldn't even kiss the little shithead... just look at him. Not crawl into bed with him and whisper Are you lonely? That was in the past. No more snuggling together in bed, no more stubbly boy-kisses, falling asleep to quiet music, tasting the sweet-salt-sharpness of Peter's sweat.
But the door was locked anyway, saving him from himself. Nathan smirked, went off to the attic guest room and collapsed fully clothed on the bed, asleep before his head hit the pillow.
----
26 NOVEMBER 2000
At noon on Sunday, Nathan was finally able to make the call.
"Meet me in the Roof Garden at the Met at four," he said.
"You've got some nerve, telling me what to do."
"I know. I'm sorry. Will you?"
"It's cold outside. It might be closed."
"It's not closed. Just bundle up. I'll make sure we've got something hot to drink."
An aggrieved sigh. "All right, Nathan."
"Thank you, Heidi," he said.
The rain had stopped over the weekend, but it was still chilly and damp out, and the Roof Garden café was nearly deserted. Heidi showed up no more than thirty seconds after he did; she must have seen him walking ahead of her but made no effort to catch up with him. It stung, but he felt that he deserved it. "How was your holiday?" he asked her lightly, handing her a styrofoam cup of hot lemon tea.
She wrapped her gloved fingers around the cup, but didn't drink from it. "It was fine," she said. "Father's doing all right; he likes walking around with Bobo. My dog," she added.
"I know Bobo," Nathan smiled. She had shown Nathan a picture of a jowly black Labrador on their second date, the same time she'd shown him a photograph of her father, who bore a strong resemblance to Bobo. Amazing that someone as elfin and delicate as Heidi could be created from the bull-necked Major's DNA. He reached out and tucked a loose strand of her shiny black hair into her woolly cap, stroking the curve of her ear with his fingertip. She frowned at him, but her body had responded to his touch, just subtly leaning toward him, a dash of color coming into her pale cheeks.
"What do you want?" she asked.
He couldn't keep his smile from growing, taking over his face, as he settled himself down on one knee on the cold, rough concrete of the balcony. Heidi's eyes grew huge. "I know you think I'm a total bastard, but..." He fumbled in his coat pocket and withdrew the black velvet box, cracking it open to display the heirloom ring. "Heidi, will you be my wife?"
"Oh..." She reached for the ring, drew back again, looking almost scared to touch it. He stood up, chuckling, and took her left hand, pulling the glove off. "Y-yes," she responded, half laugh, half gasp. "Oh, my goodness, I... I didn't think... oh, Nathan. Yes! Yes, I will!"
"Do you love me?" he asked.
She had an extremely silly smile on her face. "Yes," she said. "Of course I do."
"You've never said so."
"Really? I haven't? I just... I've loved you since I met you. I just assumed that I had. I just love you so much I just..." She broke off and laughed, embarrassed. "Sorry. I do. I've just been so mad at you for a while, I guess..." She stared at the ring. "My God, is that an antique?"
"Try it on. See if it'll fit. It was my great-great-great grandmother's."
"Oh, my God," Heidi swore softly, picking up the ring. She slid it easily onto her ringer finger, but it slipped off again just as easily, and she nearly dropped it. "Ooh! I guess not. We can-"
"Take it in to be resized. Yeah. Whatever you want." Nathan shrugged.
Heidi grinned at him. "Get used to those words," she said. "You're gonna be saying them a lot."
"Yeah, I know," he said, then broke into a grin. He drew her to him and kissed her lips. When he drew away, tears trickled from her eyes, and her face looking up to his was marked with gratitude. He felt good about this. He could take care of her. He could easily master this new role, the way he had mastered so many before. She was the one.
"Welcome to the family," he said.
END (41)
A/N: DOH, THE IRONY. ^_^ Sad, yes. Very sad. (Following this in the chronology: Ritual (5): "What It's Really About". Nathan's resolution to stay away from Peter doesn't last very long. At. All. Hooray!)... Heidi's surname and family information is totally made up by me and has no basis in canon - well, gee, about 2/3 of this story has no basis in canon! That's just how I roll.... More Ritual stories - and otherwise - to come in the future. Thank you to all who read this! Roll on September 22nd and Villains!
Title: Ritual (41): Masquerade
Author: mystery_sock
Pairing/Characters: Nathan/Heidi, implied Peter/Nathan, Arthur, Angela
Rating: NC-17
Spoilers: all episodes through 2.08: "Four Months Ago"; webcomic "War Buddies" (story takes place pre-series)
Word Count: about 9400
Warnings: language, implied incest, explicit sex, alcohol abuse
Summary: Nathan could always blame it all on the costume party, but letting his guard down with Heidi came with tremendous consequences. Unbeta'd; errors all mine.
• Ritual Reader's Guide - all Ritual stories in chronological order •
Heroes is not my property; I just like to play with it.
28 OCTOBER 2000
(two weeks after Ritual (39) "Both Sides Now")
Peter and Nathan spent the whole afternoon together. Peter had decided that he didn't feel like studying that day, much preferring to have a late lunch with Nathan, and then take him costume-hunting.
Nathan wasn't much one for Halloween, but Heidi had invited him to a costume ball organized by the educational charity she had been working with that year, and he decided he'd give it a chance. It would be a great opportunity for face time with some powerful figures in the government's educational system, as well as a chance to apologize to Heidi for avoiding her for the last few weeks.
Currently, the closest thing to a costume he had was his full-dress uniform, for which he had far too much reverence to wear to a costume party. That wasn't a costume; that was him. Besides, it didn't fit as well as it should, as he had put some weight since he'd last worn it. Nathan had confessed his dilemma to Peter when they spoke on the phone the night before, and Peter volunteered that a friend of his worked at a shop in the Village legendary for the best costumes in the city, and therefore, the world. Nathan appreciated the best of the best, and he hadn't seen Peter all week. It would be a fun, brotherly thing to do; "hang out," platonically for a change, meet a friend of Peter's, and rent something to impress.
Peter's friend turned out to be a transsexual with blue-green dreadlocks down to his-or her? her, sure, okay-ass, a shiny black pleather mini-dress and orange stockings, and an insistence on measuring Nathan extremely thoroughly. Nathan squirmingly submitted to being poked, prodded, and very slightly fondled, and breathed a sigh of relief when she scurried off to the back room where the costumes were stored. Peter just stood there watching and smirking. "What's so funny?" Nathan demanded.
"Gotta make sure that inseam is correct," Peter quipped. "You might need a couple of extra inches taken out in the basket."
"Oh, shut up." Nathan hoped he wasn't blushing. "Is that the kind of company you keep? No wonder Ma thinks you run around with freaks and degenerates."
"Oh, I don't 'run around' with Peter," the shop assistant broke in, returning unexpectedly with armloads of garments. "He's not masculine enough for me."
"Well..." Nathan muttered, blushing now for certain. Peter snickered. "You did grab me a little bit."
"Honey, what I grabbed wasn't little. And Peter's right; your inseam will need adjustment, unless you want to tape down Big Willy Johnson, and trust me, you don't. Our pants run tight. Fortunately, we also do quick tailoring. Now get in the dressing room and try some of those on, and see what you think."
Nathan slunk away to the dressing room to the sound of their laughter. He disrobed down to undershirt and shorts and tried on a succession of outfits; pirate (the pantaloons itched terribly), cowboy (the jeans-and-chaps-in-one made his legs look ridiculously short), furry gorilla suit (just no). He got to the bottom of the pile and pulled out what seemed like fifteen yards of material, black on one side and red on the other.
A cape with a high collar. And a white shirt, white satin vest, white silk scarf, and black evening coat. But of course; Dracula. He chuckled; this was worth a try. He tried everything on and it fit as though it was made for him, though the trousers were somewhat tight in the crotch. "Think I've got one," Nathan said out loud.
"Really? Let me see," called Peter.
"Yeah, let's see," said the assistant.
Nathan came out in full attire, though barefoot and with the necktie undone. Peter and the shopgirl/boy just stared for a second. "Oh, my God, that's the fucking hottest thing I've ever seen," the transsexual breathed reverently. "You should just dress like that every day."
"That's awesome!" Peter agreed. "Wow! How does it feel? It looks great." He turned his back to the shop assistant and mouthed at Nathan, Fuckable.
Nathan smiled and fluttered the cloak behind him. "Yeah?"
The assistant shook her head. "No, wait, that's the hottest thing I've ever seen. Make it swirl. Do you like it?"
"Yeah, I think it works. The inseam is a little tight..."
"No problem," said the tranny with a grin. "And I'm so happy I get to say this-take off your pants and I'll make everything better. Now, we can rent you the whole package... ahem... for five hundred, including makeup and accessories, including a nice set of dental-grade fangs, and your choice of a black, white, or this very fetching red cravat with a genuine Romanian medal of honor..."
After a whirlwind of tailoring and purchasing, Nathan and Peter took a taxi back to Nathan's apartment with all of the garment boxes and bags. Peter lounged sprawled out on a chair with a bottle of Mexican Coke and watched Nathan carefully lay out all the elements of the costume on his bed. "This must be a huge deal tonight, huh?" Peter asked. "You're really going all out."
"Yeah," said Nathan. "I'm going with one of my girlfriends. I'm trying to blow her mind." The intriguing Heidi. He liked her enough that he considered her a genuine friend, even if he wished she'd be more daring in bed. Their last date, almost a month ago, had consisted of dinner and a play, and then back to her place for some pleasantly frustrating missionary-position sex. In bed, most of his satisfaction with Heidi came from the fact that she was so responsive to him; he could make her come over and over again, and Nathan liked providing orgasms almost as much as having them himself. He hadn't yet tried anything exceptionally interesting with her sexually; the kinkiest thing they'd ever done was him going down on her for the brief time that she could take it. They'd fucked maybe five or six times since they'd met, and every time, he was left wanting more. There was time, he thought. Once she was comfortable with him, he could show her more things that he liked.
Oh, but not all. Some of them were Peter's exclusive domain.
"Blow her mind," Peter echoed dreamily, running the glass Coke bottle up the inside of his blue-jeaned thigh. "I'm sure you won't stop with her mind. I'm jealous."
Nathan laughed dismissively. He didn't actively want Peter right now, too distracted by his thoughts of Heidi, and his younger brother's come-ons just seemed comical. You wish, little man. "You should be," Nathan answered. "Why didn't you get a costume? Don't you have a party tonight?"
"Yeah, but it's not a costume party," Peter explained. "It's just a party. One of those Billyburg hipster blowouts. Besides, I grew out of my Spider-Man Underoos."
"You had Spider-Man Underoos?" Nathan remarked. "Now I'm jealous. Anyway, I had better start getting ready. Could you do my makeup? You did theater."
"We never did makeup," Peter said. "It was all improv. You know, the kind of drama class you take when you're pre-law?"
"I'm sure you've learned a thing or two from your drag queen friend. I'm gonna go take a shower and shave."
"Want company?" Peter asked casually.
"No. If you see me naked and wet and soapy, I'll never get out of here."
"Would that be so bad?" Peter mused, standing up and leaving the bedroom. Nathan watched him go with a smile on his face. Their relationship was in a good place. They wanted each other, but for once, the lust was manageable. They could joke about it. Peter had learned some self-control, and Nathan extended more trust toward him as a result. The last time they had played together had been so wonderful, so religious, so fun; such generosity extended to each other, such bravery on both sides. It left Nathan feeling grounded and satisfied, strong and clear, and very much loved.
Now was the time to move to another level with Heidi.
---
The Russian driver of the service car wasn't fazed by the spectacle of a pallid-faced man with a white-streaked widow's peak, fangs, and a cape riding in his back seat. "Everyone in costume," the driver explained in his heavily accented English, his voice calmly amused. "I just drop off Cleopatra and Charlie Chaplin to party in Meatpacking District."
"I'm not sure what we'll be picking up," Nathan mused, glad that the guy had a sense of humor. "I let her know we're on the way; she should be ready."
Heidi wasn't outside waiting when they arrived outside her building, so Nathan got out of the car to stretch his legs and see if he could catch sight of her in the lobby. Passersby pointed at him and waved, and Nathan waved back, arching his fingers and baring the fangs fastened to his canine teeth with denture cement. He was already enjoying himself. Despite his protests, Peter had done a decent job with Nathan's makeup, brushing dried-blood-red paint onto his mouth and then blotting it away, leaving only a stain of dull color; applying only a thin sheen of the pearlescent-white base makeup, even if he had gotten a little heavy-handed with the eyeliner. It still looked very good; sexy and dangerous.
He was momentarily distracted waving to a truckful of tourists on their way to Times Square, but when he turned his gaze back to the door of Heidi's building, he caught sight of a scruffy, sullen-looking, dirty-faced boy in a cloth cap, threadbare knee breeches, wool knee socks, heavy-soled boots, checked vest and mismatched jacket, looking searchingly up and down the sidewalk. The dirty-faced boy glanced up with Heidi's electric-blue irises and saw him, gaped in amazement, grinned, lowered eyelashes shyly.
Nathan stared, too.
Galvanized. Every nerve in his body violently alive and focused and wanting. For a moment he understood Dracula in a way that he never imagined he ever would; seized with lust, paralyzed with it, struck dumb and frozen in the spot.
With her eyes closed, she looked so much like Peter.
And not just like Peter; like Peter had when he was younger. When Peter was jail bait, when Peter was wrong, when he should have been off limits to Nathan and everybody but especially Nathan... but too beautiful to resist, too horny to deny, too close to avoid. Peter at fifteen. And not even the real Peter; a fantasy Peter in a fantasy world of young scruffy hoodlums, wild orphans looking after themselves, scrambling through the back streets of Depression-era Alphabet City, living by wits, pluck, and nerve. That daydream Nathan had when he was a boy himself, reading too much Jack London and Mark Twain and Horatio Alger, without imagining that there might have been something else to it... some other longing, some other kind of meaning twisted into it.
"You look amazing," Heidi enthused, walking up to him.
He wished she hadn't spoken; her feminine voice almost ruined things. But then she slid her hand underneath his cape, under his tuxedo jacket, caressing the white satin of his waistcoat, and Nathan forgot his annoyance. Her voice lowered at the same time. "Are you gonna bite me?" she purred. Husky and intimate, slightly amused, knowing that she had him in the palm of her hand. But obviously, she had no real idea, and no real idea why.
Nathan's heart was pounding. "Do we have to go to this party?" he asked. "Can't we just go back upstairs?" She wore no makeup, just some sooty smudges on her cheeks and nose, like she'd wiped tears off her face with her sleeve. He wanted to fuck her so badly that it hurt.
Heidi shrugged and smiled apologetically. "But it's my charity," she explained. "I have to make an appearance. And there are so many people there who you really must meet. Besides, I designed half of the decorations. And we're already all dressed up. By the way..." She took a moment to turn around, showing off. "What do you think?"
"It's very... authentic."
Heidi didn't seem to notice Nathan's agitation. "I'm a Newsie! Have you ever seen that movie? It's one of my favorites. It's pretty silly, I know, but I've just loved it ever since it came out. It looks like fun, you know? But only if you're a boy. It's no fair that the boys get to have all the fun."
Nathan struggled to control himself. "Shall we?" he suggested, opening the car door. He had been meaning to put on a cheesy Transylvanian accent, but he had completely forgotten about it. Heidi just beamed at him, and slid into the back seat of the car.
As soon as Nathan was in, too, he reached for her and crushed their mouths together. His fingers clutched her shoulders tightly for a moment, then ran down over her chest, where her small breasts had been trapped under a layer of elastic bandages. She gasped desperately, "Nathan-oh! Nathan, I can't breathe." He paid no attention, kissing her again, grateful for the lack of lipstick, and yet missing it... missing the waxy taste, the sweet, slightly fruity scent, missing that normality. Lipstick meant heterosexuality, not lusting after underaged boys. (And yet not "boys"; just Peter. Nathan wasn't even attracted to teenage girls, let alone teenage boys. Just Peter.) Lipstick meant that he was doing what he was supposed to do. Not tonight.
If there were important people at the costume ball for Nathan to meet, he didn't remember a single one of them. Heidi tried introducing him, at first, but Nathan barely took his eyes off her, and only reacted to greetings by baring his fangs in a wolfish grin as he handed over a business card. Before Heidi could even make a break for the punch bowl, he had taken her into his arms again and kissed her hungrily, not caring who saw, or what they thought; Dracula seducing, consuming, possessing a young boy. He wasn't Nathan; he didn't have to be Nathan.
And she didn't have to be Heidi.
By ten o'clock, she couldn't take it anymore. "Let's just go," she whispered to him. "Take me home." Her lips were as red as if she had been wearing her usual scarlet lipstick, and her eyes were misty and unfocused. Nathan didn't need to be told twice; he took her by the hand and led her back outside, into a waiting taxicab.
In the cab, he didn't kiss her; he instead pulled her onto his lap, pressing his burning, pulsing erection into her buttocks, his mouth traveling along her neck, alternately caressing and teasing, and taking brief sharp bites. The porcelain fangs attached to his teeth left tiny purple dents in her skin. She could have protested at any time, as her mouth was free, but she didn't say anything, approving or admonishing; she only gasped whenever he dug his teeth into her. Nathan wanted to take the fangs off, but he wasn't willing to let her go. His arms held hers trapped against her breasts. He could feel the heat coming from her, from between her legs. The brief journey was agony.
As they arrived back at Heidi's, Nathan tossed money at the driver and jumped out of the car, dragging her along after him. She stumbled slightly, but he had her; if she felt like she might just tumble into the gutter, so much the better. She was completely under his power and it was good that she knew it, good for her to be a little scared. Of course he wouldn't let her fall, or he would have to fall with her, and let things transpire as they would, on the sidewalk, in the lobby. It wasn't him. He was under the power of something else.
In the elevator he trapped her against the wall, again not kissing her, just holding her there. Her head drooped, eyes closed, as though she were falling asleep; moist pink lips parted, the edges of her white teeth bright against her dirty face. Heidi-Boy. Exquisite. He wanted to bite her again, but not here. Here he just wanted to trap her and smell her. He could smell her... nervous sweat and the cinnamon she'd used to dirty her jacket and sleeves and the intoxicating syrup pooling between her legs. It wasn't the way boys were, and yet Nathan's body responded to it without it troubling his mind.
Doors open and an elegant hallway and another door that she stumbled against, fumbling for her keys while Nathan grabbed her ass, reached around and grabbed between her legs, fighting off annoyance that the cock he wanted wasn't there. He wanted to feel a bulge of adolescent hardness there, but there was only the seam of her trousers and the feverish mound of her pubic bone. It was hard and prominent. He could pretend.
"Nathan," she gasped, the door finally opening to her, their bodies propelled inside her apartment.
He didn't want to hear his name; not yet. Later, when she was screaming it, yes, then. Kicking the door shut, he pushed her to her elegant, curved flowered-chintz sofa, up against the arm of it, bent her over. One hand on her buttock, one hand still grabbing her pubis, digging his fingers in. She gasped again, this time the sound transmitting pain. He didn't want that. He hummed a wordless apology that descended into a growl, unfastened the rough belt holding the trousers up on her tiny waist. God, she was little. Smaller than Peter-smaller than Peter now. Not then. Not when he was younger. Not when Nathan had first felt Peter's body against his, wanting and blind and as helpless as Nathan felt now.
He stripped the trousers down, exposing a perfect, shapely, creamy-pale feminine behind. Not boyish at all. Not Peter. Good, though, just as good, better even, maybe... this was okay, not a sick impulse, longing for something that should never be. Nathan's cock was out before he thought, rubbing against the crack and down, the head pressing in. He wasn't thinking. Heidi gasped again. "Nathan-oh!" No, not there, she wasn't ready, he couldn't do that to her. But that... yes, there, yes, the wetness inside her, on him, surrounding him.
He moaned. "Yes... ahhhh!" He buried himself to the hilt inside her. And then again and some more.
"Nathan, stop! We can't!"
God, what was he doing? This couldn't happen, not like this. At once he returned to himself, shook his head and withdrew. "Sorry, sorry," he said. Sorry for everything. Sorry for losing himself, no matter how exquisite it felt. It was so rare and beautiful to let go of having to be The Great Nathan Petrelli. He couldn't help sliding two fingers into her, though, touching the fluid wonderingly. He thought to taste it-God, he loved that taste-but she squirmed underneath him, sliding away. "Oh, God, I'm sorry."
"No, it's okay..." She broke off with a husky, disbelieving laugh. "I want it. Come on, let's go to my room. Let's do this right."
Nathan shed his cape and vest in the living room, the rest of his clothes in Heidi's bedroom. A couple of sharp tugs freed the fangs from his mouth, and he spit them out into his handkerchief and set them on her bureau. She took off her cap, and Nathan protested, "No, please... just leave the hat on for a minute... it's so cute." That made her laugh, and she put the hat back on and took the rest of her clothes off.
On the bed, he turned her face-down. "Like this," he murmured. He got a condom out of her bedside table drawer, tore it open, and rolled the cool latex over his still-damp cock. He moved into position behind her, angled her hips up toward him. "Like this. Tell me if you like this." She made a quiet, anxious mewling sound, spread her thighs apart, her own fingers sliding inside her, over her clitoris. He had to taste it while he could, so he drew his tongue along her, across her clit. She moaned and pumped her fingers inside her. She was using three fingers. He was impressed; in the times before, she used only one. He loved to watch her finger herself. She had showed him once before, showing him the stroke that she liked. But this wasn't the time. He needed to fuck now, with her head down and her ass in the air, showing off to him, all of her most intimate areas inches away from his face, begging to be eaten. But he needed to fuck now. Now.
He slid back into her, held her hand against her vulva, her fingers trapped against her clit. She would do what he directed her to. He could make her come. They had never been in this position; he could tell that she wasn't quite comfortable, and he wondered if she had ever done it like this before. Good. He needed to show her what he liked. Good-so good-he was fucking her too hard. She was practically screaming, but she didn't tell him to stop, or slow down, or give her a minute to catch her breath. "Yes-uh huh-yes, oh God!"
"Fuck yeah... fuck yeah... oh," he said. He had never said "fuck" to her before. She bucked back against him, wanting it harder and deeper. She seized suddenly and cried out against the pillow, and he held her hand against herself, drawing that orgasm out of her, feeling it tremble against his cock inside her. "Yes, that's right," he said. "God, yes, Heidi, that's it. You got another one for me? You want to give it to me again?"
She did. He pulled the cap off her head, loosing her dark hair in a flood over her shoulders. She was Heidi. This was real. He didn't need a fantasy anymore. She wasn't a boy and she couldn't be and he wouldn't treat her like one when what she was, was so beautiful.
He still fucked her from behind until he had come. That was beautiful in and of itself.
Now he needed a moment to recover. He rolled off of her and lay in a quivering heap for a moment. To his surprise, she climbed all over him, kissing and sucking his lips, biting him back, harder than he had bitten her, leaving crescent welts all over his cheeks and neck and chest. He loved that sharp sweet pain. "Okay, get it together, Petrelli," she growled at him. "You're not off the hook yet." She stripped the condom off him and tossed it into her pretty pink wastebasket. "You gonna fuck me all night?" she demanded. "You better. You better fuck me all night because I need it, you understand me?"
Nathan stared at her in delighted surprise. "Yes, ma'am," he replied. Finally, he had brought out that part of her that he'd always suspected was there. Now was the time to show her more... "You know what you can do to get me ready sooner, though, don't you?"
Even in her emboldened state, she actually blinked at him, realizing what he must mean. "You want me to...?"
"Yeah, you'd better suck it," Nathan said pleasantly.
Heidi blinked some more, combing her tousled hair back from her face with her fingers. For God's sake, she was blushing. Sure, he'd never asked her to before, but... Wow, she was twenty-four years old, and blushing over a blowjob. "Okay," she said uncertainly. "I don't think I'm any good at it."
"You are," he said, smiling as the thought of how Peter would have never hesitated. Peter had never really been innocent like this. But no, he wasn't here; that was wrong and this was right. "I'm sure you are."
"It's... uh..."
"Don't be afraid," he said comfortingly. He drew her to him and hugged her. "You don't have to. Not right now. When you want to... when you feel okay... I trust you, and I want you to." As he murmured to her and embraced her, his fingers slipped back down her body, back inside of her, and the way she sighed told him that she'd be ready, soon enough. And so would he.
----
29 OCTOBER 2000
He woke up blissfully happy.
Next to him, Heidi slept on, her face very young and tired, most of the gray soot gone from her cheeks. She was so tenderly beautiful that he had to kiss her lips, again and again, until she woke up and kissed him back.
He put his hand back between her legs. She twitched and opened her sky-colored eyes. "Ow," she said. "I'm a little sore today."
"I'm terribly sorry," Nathan grinned. "I can help." He slid down and administered to her with his lips and tongue, using broad, soft, caressing strokes, only brushing her clit in passing. She still responded, of course, grasping his hair in her fingers, urging him on. He ate at her slowly, gradually building in intensity, penetrating her with one finger, seeking out the soft, hot spot inside her and pressing down on it at the same time as he lightly sucked her clit, flickering his tongue against it at just the right moment. She laughed through her orgasm this time, disbelievingly, as if to say, There I go again. Last night, he'd lost count.
He let her relax as he sat up and checked the time. It was almost noon; he hadn't slept so late since he'd gotten out of the hospital. Then again, last night, they hadn't stopped until the sky had begun to lighten outside, so they hadn't really had that much sleep. He didn't feel tired in the slightest. He hadn't had any drinks last night; he had forgotten all about alcohol. So unlike him. He hadn't been Nathan. How wonderful.
"Hungry?" Heidi whispered. At Nathan's nod, she added, "Want to get brunch?"
"As long as I don't have to be dressed like Dracula."
"You still have makeup on," she pointed out. "All that mascara."
"Let's take a shower."
"Definitely."
They went to a little café a few streets down, and ordered the same food, giggling like schoolkids, feeding each other off their plates. The waiter returned to their table to warm up their coffees, and said grumpily, "Cut it out, you two, you're making my other customers jealous."
Nathan watched him go with a smile. Across the table, Heidi beamed. "You attacked me last night," she said in a discreet whisper, eyes glinting. "What was that about?"
For the first time in many hours, Nathan felt his skin go cold. He carefully didn't alter the smile on his face, or look away from her, thinking, You will never know if I can help it. "I just missed you," he said. "I loved your outfit. Spunky. So much more interesting than the usual 'slutty nurse', 'slutty cheerleader', 'slutty scientist' option."
"Instead I was a dirty-faced, musical pickpocket," she replied. "I'm glad you liked it." She took a deep breath and let it out as a sigh. "Boy, work's going to be fun tomorrow," she added. "I should give myself a dollar every time anyone asks me, 'So who was that?'"
"Give them my name," Nathan replied, covering his sudden unease with a swallow of coffee. "Let them be jealous."
"Oh, they'll have no idea," Heidi added, subtly shifting in her seat and giving an exaggerated wince. "I'm going to have to go home and apply an ice pack." Nathan couldn't help feeling good about that. She smiled at him. "Thank you for a wonderful evening," she said.
"It was my pleasure," Nathan answered sincerely.
He had brought the rest of his costume with him to the café, and after a lingering kiss on the sidewalk, hailed a cab home. Once he got in the door of his own apartment, and saw all the empty garment boxes and piles of special-effects makeup still arrayed in his bathroom, he felt a wave of unpleasant anxiety descend over him. He couldn't remember what he had to do at work; this was the first weekend in a long time that he hadn't done at least some work. His mind felt muddled up, and the late brunch had made him sleepy. He needed to go for a long run.
He took off the costume pants and shirt, folded everything back into its boxes, and prepared a pile to be returned to the costume shop by courier. Dressed in his underwear, he stood and looked at himself in the mirror, wondering what Heidi saw when she looked at him. He did still have a lot of black smudging around his eyes, making them look enormous and haunted, and his shoulders were stippled with bite marks. He caught sight of the empty Coke bottle that Peter had left on his nightstand the evening before. That time seemed so long ago; an eternity instead of eighteen hours.
He put on a T-shirt, track pants, and running shoes, then picked up the phone and dialled the family home. The housekeeper answered, and he asked if Peter was around. "Yes, he's here," the housekeeper replied, her voice sounding annoyed. "I'll put him on."
After a long pause, Peter's stuffy-sounding voice answered. "Hey, Nathan."
"What's wrong with you?"
"Hung over," Peter explained. He was hoarse. "I was out till eight or nine in the morning. And I sprained my ankle trying to climb a fire escape. I was drinking chocolate-orange martinis. Too many, I guess."
"That sounds disgusting," Nathan replied stiffly. He didn't really know why he'd called Peter now, and didn't really feel like talking to him. What was Peter's problem? Always getting in over his head, always doing too much. Stupid kid.
"How was your thing?" Peter asked.
Nathan hesitated for just a moment before replying, his thoughts locking down immediately, falling into place. He wasn't going to tell Peter anything about last night-not Heidi's reaction to his costume, and certainly not his reaction to hers. It was none of Peter's business; it had nothing to do with him. "It was fine," he said noncommittally. "Anyway, I'm gonna go for a run. I just wanted to check in and make sure you weren't dead."
"Wish I was," Peter replied with a sigh. "Thanks for calling. See you soon?"
"Yeah, maybe. Getting toward Thanksgiving..."
Peter replied with a groan. "Oh, God, that. Yeah. Not thinking about that. Hope to see you before then."
Nathan stared into space and set his jaw. He didn't want that at all; didn't want to see Peter without the safety buffer of their mother and father between them. At the moment, he just wanted to be alone. "We'll see," he said, and hung up.
He ran from his apartment to Wall Street, and back again. When he returned to his apartment, night had fallen, his legs were like jelly, and his mind was like driven snow, pure and thoughtless. He went inside and collapsed on the living room floor, sides heaving, at peace. He was Nathan Petrelli and everything was as it should be.
----
22 NOVEMBER 2000
Heidi phoned mid-morning, and asked Nathan to meet her for lunch. "There's something I have to talk to you about," she said. Nathan stared at the photograph of his mother, father, and Peter on his desk, tightening his jaw. It wasn't really a good day to leave the office, Wednesday before the holiday and a million loose ends to wrap up, but he wouldn't mind seeing her, and from the tone of her voice, it wasn't optional. It was more like, You will do this if you ever want to see me again. It made sense. He owed it to her. He'd been avoiding her again, seeing other women who he cared about less, or working out at the gym until it was time to go to bed. Avoiding Heidi. Avoiding Peter. Not really wanting to deal with the intensity of either one of them.
They met at a quiet, homey restaurant that Nathan had never known about before, with comfortable chairs, checked tablecloths, and the air smelling of cinnamon rolls and chicken soup. Heidi seemed familiar with it, though; she only gave the menu a glance before she ordered. "Do you come here often?" he asked.
"Only when I'm starving," she said. "Sometimes I want chicken and dumplings. It's weird, I know."
"It's not weird." He had only ordered dry toast and coffee. "So... what's up? How are you?"
She stared at him for a while without speaking, without smiling. Momentarily she lowered her gaze. "I... I'm pregnant," she said, looking up at him again, awaiting his reaction.
Nathan looked down and stirred his coffee. He blinked and took a deep breath, but didn't speak. Inside his head he groaned, No, no, shit, not again. Fuck. Not again. Shit! No! This already happened to me once! Goddammit, I lost myself. I would never have done that. I didn't do it. It wasn't me.
"Nathan?" Heidi prompted, voice faintly hopeful. "Say something?"
"Mine?" he asked, just like he had done before, in a crappy coffeehouse in Midland, on a sunny day with a sunny-haired girl who had never even graduated from high school. Couldn't this be different? Couldn't he be different? She was dead now, and no one even knew about all that, besides his parents...
Heidi's eyes flashed furiously. "Of course it's yours!" she hissed. "Do you really think I'm sleeping around on you?"
Like I do? Nathan mused. He finally stopped stirring his coffee, and took a swallow. It was sour and flat. "I'm sorry, I... I just..." He looked up helplessly at the waitress, bringing over his plate of toast, and Heidi's massive bowl of dumplings in broth. Heidi chewed on a fingernail for a moment, her eyes horrified and haunted, then picked up her spoon and took a big bite of her food. "No, I never thought that. I don't think that."
"Good," said Heidi, taking another bite, chewing angrily. "Because... I take it you're not happy."
"I-I don't really know what to feel."
"Well, imagine how I feel!"
"I can't," Nathan said. "I couldn't. It's different for you, I know." He pushed the plate of toast away from him, completely losing any appetite he might have had. He waited for a moment until she had set down her spoon, then he reached across the table and picked up her hand. He kissed the back of it as gently as he could. "Heidi. I treasure you. I respect you. And... I love you." He had never said that to her before. He hadn't said it to anyone but Peter, or his mother, in a very, very long time. Not since the last mother of a child he had gotten by accident. Just like her, like Meredith, Heidi rolled her eyes in disgust and disbelief, and took her hand back. "I do," he said. "But I need a few days to think about what all this means."
"A few days, huh," she said bitterly, taking her hand back. "A very few, I hope." She picked up her spoon and kept eating.
"Well..." he asked slowly. "Do you feel all right? Physically, I mean?" She just shrugged again, and he tried a different tack. "What do you want to do?"
"I don't know," she said. Then she sat up straight and squared her shoulders. "I'm not terminating, if that's what you mean. Absolutely not. I just could never think of that as an option."
"Of course not," Nathan said hastily. "No. No, I..." He sighed. "This is... just unexpected. I'm just going to need some time to process. Thanksgiving's tomorrow, and I..." He trailed off as she rolled her eyes impatiently. "I always spend the entire weekend with my parents and my little brother. We all really depend on it."
"And I'm flying out tonight, to spend the holiday with Father, in Annapolis," she countered. "So what? You think you're the only one who loves your family? Get real, Nathan."
"Heidi..." He leaned across the table and took her hand again, staring into her eyes, and said reverently, believing it with his whole heart, "I love you. I do. Okay? So we'll work this out." He smiled at her, but she didn't return it. "I'll be in touch this weekend, and please call me if you need anything. I've got to go back to work."
She looked up in surprise as he stood up and gave her a weak smile, reaching into his wallet and dropping some money on the table, more than enough to cover the food they'd ordered. He left without saying anything else.
Instead of returning to work, Nathan headed toward Central Park, calling the office and informing them that he would be taking the rest of the afternoon off.
The weather hadn't improved, and the wind blew icy rain against his legs and his bare hand holding the umbrella. He hardly noticed the cold. He just needed to stay in motion as the thoughts boiled inside his head. How in the hell had this happened to him again? He always tried to be so careful. But he had let it happen, let that part of himself out, the part that he could and should only show to Peter. But the same thing had happened to him before; too much lust, too much impulse, and once again, an innocent young woman was in trouble. He hadn't even been thinking about protection with Meredith; it was all just so delicious and sudden. Just fun. He had thrown caution and responsibility to the wind. And then she was pregnant. And then she was dead, and their baby with her. And worse than the sense of failure was the feeling of relief. They were just gone and might as well have never existed in the first place. Everything was better off this way.
Heidi would not abort; nor would he let her, if he had anything to say about it. So he'd be a father. Again. Really, though, this time. Unless his parents didn't approve. But what if they did? They couldn't force Heidi to end it... not the pregnancy, anyway. They could convince her to break things off with him. But how would that leave Heidi? They wouldn't do that, would they, not to a woman who he loved? But did she love him? She had never told him so.
At the other side of the park, a thoroughly soaked and chilled Nathan slouched into a tiny, dark, smoke-scented bar and sat down on a stool at the counter, streaming rain out of his sleeves and shoes. The bartender raised his eyebrows at him, but only asked, "What're you having?"
Nathan glanced at the clock. He was due back at the family home for dinner in four hours. "Scoresby, neat," he said shortly. Yes, it was self-abuse; he would usually never deign to drink such middlebrow crap. And yet, on a day like this, it seemed like the only logical solution. The alcohol bit sharply into his throat as he downed the shot, and his hand was still wet as he lifted the empty glass, muttering, "Keep 'em coming."
----
After dinner, the Petrellis retired to the sitting room and drank cappucino. Back when the sons were children, they would play cards or Monopoly together, but now they each occupied separate corners of the room, like strangers at a party. Angela was the only person who had spoken throughout the meal, delightedly explaining their activities for the weekend, spreading a thin veneer of lightweight gossip as she went. Occasionally Peter would raise his eyes and glare at Arthur; his father just stared back with level hostility. Nathan just sat, hardly glancing at any of them. He didn't know what was going on between Peter and his Dad, and he didn't particularly care. He'd managed to get himself home and cleaned up and changed beforehand, but had barely touched his food at the dinner table, the eight shots of cheap Scotch refusing to share his stomach with anything wholesome.
Angela gradually fell quiet, narrowing her eyes at her older son. "Nathan, would you help me with the coffee cups?" she asked sweetly. Nathan got up without thinking about it, and tried to take Peter's cup, but Peter shook his head and held tight. Arthur handed over his cup without protest, gifting Nathan with a slight smile before resuming his unblinking stare at Peter. Angela actually stood behind Nathan and started walking, hustling him out ahead of her and into the kitchen. Once they had set the cups in the sink, she stood in front of him, arms crossed. "All right, Nathan. Spill it."
Nathan just blinked at her for a moment. "Don't play coy," Angela insisted. "You come in here stinking drunk like you've been at the racetrack all day. You think I can't tell? What's going on?"
"I've got a little problem," he replied. "My girl, Heidi. She's... pregnant." He watched her eyes grow wide, and begged, "Ma, please don't say anything to Dad. At least not until I figure out what to do. Right now, I don't know."
"What do you mean, you don't know?" Angela scoffed. "There's only one thing to do. You have to marry her. And soon. How far along is she?"
"Ma, I... Uh, a month."
She grinned wolfishly. "Perfect. I couldn't have planned it better myself. In fact, I think you're going to need my help planning. Heidi George? Oh, she's perfect. You do like her, don't you?"
"Of course I do," Nathan said, laughing faintly. "I like her a lot."
"Good. Has she told her father? The Major will be overjoyed; he's getting on in years and I'm sure he'll be thrilled to have another grandchild. Nathan, don't you understand? This is the time. She's the woman. You're ready." Her beautiful eyes sparkled. "This is the best thing that could possibly happen to you right now. Your career is taking off perfectly..." She moved close to him, and straightened the collar and cuffs of his shirt, flicking invisible lint from his shoulder. He relaxed under her touch. "She's beautiful, young, and healthy, and it's time for you to start having children." She took his hand. "Stop looking so sick. Come with me."
He followed her upstairs to a little-used guest room on the attic floor, mostly used these days for storage. She turned on the dim lamp on the table, got a set of keys from the top drawer in the bureau, and unlocked a different drawer on a white-painted antique sewing table. Reaching in, she withdrew a small dark box, and opened it to show him a slender ring crowned with diamond and sapphire. "This ring has been in the Petrelli family for four generations," Angela said softly. "It belonged to your grandmother, and when she passed away, she left it to Arthur to pass along, and keep it in the family. It's been resized repeatedly; it can take it. I would be very happy if you offered this to her."
Nathan took the box, and gazed at the ring, the pale blue of the sapphire so similar to the color of Heidi's eyes. It was indeed perfect. "Why didn't Dad give this to you?" he asked.
"Oh, he used it to propose to me," Angela said airily. "But I wanted to choose my own ring." She held up her hand and flashed eight carats of pure white stones on her third finger. "This ring, though, did the trick. I was so happy when he asked me to marry him that I cried like a baby." She laughed. "He didn't know what he was getting himself into. But I did." She leaned up to him and kissed him quickly on the mouth, sighing softly, "I won't tell anyone. You can make this public at a time of your own choosing. Oh, Nathan... My baby boy. Be happy. Please, be happy."
----
Peter went to bed shortly after Nathan and Angela returned to the sitting room, limping carefully toward his room. He gave Nathan a longing glance at the door, but Nathan just looked away and murmured, "G'night, Pete. Put some ice on it."
Angela watched her younger son go, then stood up herself. "I'm going to turn in, too," she said. "Coffee is at eight, breakfast at nine, we leave for the parade at ten. All right? I'll see you all in the morning." She went to where Nathan sat, taking the ring box out of his pocket and cradling it in his lap, and kissed him on the forehead.
Arthur stood up to embrace her briefly. After she had gone, he turned to Nathan. "Come on," Arthur said. "You're not done drinking tonight. Seems like someone could use a cigar."
Nathan wasn't so sure about that, but it was always an honor to be invited into his Dad's cigar room, sitting almost knee-to-knee in the big chairs, under the soft red and green lights of the antique lamps. Arthur poured two small glasses full of his rarest single-malt. He retrieved two slim cigars from the humidor, clipped their ends with his miniature guillotine tool, and handed one to Nathan. Nathan waited patiently as Arthur lit his cigar first, listening with pleasure to the moist sounds of Arthur drawing air through the cigar with his lips, exhaling a fat cloud of acerbic smoke. "I see you've got my ring," Arthur said laconically.
Nathan smiled at the small black box on his lap. "Yeah," he said.
Arthur blinked at the smoke, his long eyelashes ticking against the insides of his eyeglasses. "The George girl?" he asked. Nathan nodded, wondering how he'd guessed. Arthur nodded too, giving a tight smile of satisfaction. "I know her father. Your mother knows him better. Good family. Connected, smart, discreet. They'll help you get into City Hall, if that's what you want."
"It's not," Nathan said.
"No, it's not," Arthur agreed. "Mayor? Nah. You want better. Bigger. Washington. You can have it and you should."
"Yeah," said Nathan.
"Your mother must be ecstatic."
"For a change," Nathan mused.
Arthur smiled openly then. "That wasn't the right time, and that wasn't the right girl. The rest... well, that can't be helped." The smile dissolved, and Arthur gazed into space for a moment, brooding, troubled. Then he shook his head and smiled again. "You more than have my blessings. I'm proud of you, son."
Nathan flushed with pleasure. "Thank you," he murmured. He lifted the glass to his mouth, and let the smoky-velvet flavor of the Scotch play over his tongue. "Dad... do you ever regret having had a family?"
Arthur raised his eyebrows in mild surprise. "Never," he answered without hesitation. "I married your mother before I was deployed in the conflict. Just a few weeks before; I wanted to make sure I didn't lose her, but I had my duty to perform. She accepted that. She was proud of me. She was a beautiful bride."
"I've seen the pictures," Nathan agreed.
His father went on, "And then I came back here for a month, between missions, and we made you. I swear to God... if we hadn't, if I hadn't taken my chance to catch her and keep her, and if we hadn't brought our love together to make this, this miracle... " His voice tumbled over itself. "You, Nathan. Our baby boy. If we hadn't-if I hadn't had the memory of this love. Of this beauty, of this possibility. I would have lost my mind. I came close. I saw things that shouldn't exist; I did things that no man should do." The haunted look came back, transformed briefly into horror. "If I hadn't known and-and believed that you were back there, waiting for me at home, you and your mother, I..."
"Dad," Nathan broke in, overwhelmed, slightly frightened. He had never seen his father so close to breaking down. He had seen him angry, certainly-Arthur was angry a lot, frighteningly so-but never this awful combination of fear and loathing, confessing to crimes too appalling to speak of. Nathan wanted to put his arms around his Dad, comfort him and shush him, but a son did not touch his father in that way. It would dishonor him.
At the sound of Nathan's voice, Arthur calmed again, and downed his glass of Scotch like it was water. He poured himself another one, and drank that one down, too, slowing his breathing. He met Nathan's eyes, staring over the tops of his glasses. "That kind of stability," he said, "that belief, a wife and children and a home, will be good for you. It's what you need. You will be facing a different kind of war, but one that might be just as deadly... one with just as much ambiguity about which side are the good guys. You need to remember-you're on the right side. You're one of the good guys. Never doubt it, or you will have nothing."
Nathan stared. "What do you mean? War? I already fought, Dad."
Arthur narrowed his eyes, then lowered his gaze, shook his head, and sat back with a sigh. "I'm just saying I'm proud of you," he said. "And never give up your love. Your strongest, truest love. You'll know it when you feel it. I hope it's with Miss George. And with your children. That's what will sustain you. That's what will clear away the cobwebs. Because it's hard, this journey you're about to take, and it's easy to lose sight of just which side you're on."
"I'm... on your side," Nathan said.
Arthur smiled, relaxed, his previous outburst forgotten. "And I'm on yours," he said. "Always. Happy Thanksgiving." He topped up Nathan's glass, poured himself a new one, and clinked the glasses together.
At the end of the night, after Arthur had gone off to bed, Nathan stood in the hallway, his head swirling with alcohol and cigar smoke. He wanted to go to Peter's room and give him a kiss good night. He was on Peter's side; Peter was the love that sustained him. But... He hesitated outside the door. He stank of cigar smoke, which Peter disliked; he was toxically drunk, already slumping toward hangover without even sobering up first; and... he had to be normal from now on. He had to give this a chance. He had to try to transfer his feelings onto Heidi if he was going to make this marriage work. Why else had he fallen in love with her? She could be the next best thing. She was the mother of his child and the key to his future, and Peter was his loser little brother. He had to separate the two.
He found his hand on the doorknob, though, hoping just to catch a glimpse of Peter sleeping. He wouldn't even kiss the little shithead... just look at him. Not crawl into bed with him and whisper Are you lonely? That was in the past. No more snuggling together in bed, no more stubbly boy-kisses, falling asleep to quiet music, tasting the sweet-salt-sharpness of Peter's sweat.
But the door was locked anyway, saving him from himself. Nathan smirked, went off to the attic guest room and collapsed fully clothed on the bed, asleep before his head hit the pillow.
----
26 NOVEMBER 2000
At noon on Sunday, Nathan was finally able to make the call.
"Meet me in the Roof Garden at the Met at four," he said.
"You've got some nerve, telling me what to do."
"I know. I'm sorry. Will you?"
"It's cold outside. It might be closed."
"It's not closed. Just bundle up. I'll make sure we've got something hot to drink."
An aggrieved sigh. "All right, Nathan."
"Thank you, Heidi," he said.
The rain had stopped over the weekend, but it was still chilly and damp out, and the Roof Garden café was nearly deserted. Heidi showed up no more than thirty seconds after he did; she must have seen him walking ahead of her but made no effort to catch up with him. It stung, but he felt that he deserved it. "How was your holiday?" he asked her lightly, handing her a styrofoam cup of hot lemon tea.
She wrapped her gloved fingers around the cup, but didn't drink from it. "It was fine," she said. "Father's doing all right; he likes walking around with Bobo. My dog," she added.
"I know Bobo," Nathan smiled. She had shown Nathan a picture of a jowly black Labrador on their second date, the same time she'd shown him a photograph of her father, who bore a strong resemblance to Bobo. Amazing that someone as elfin and delicate as Heidi could be created from the bull-necked Major's DNA. He reached out and tucked a loose strand of her shiny black hair into her woolly cap, stroking the curve of her ear with his fingertip. She frowned at him, but her body had responded to his touch, just subtly leaning toward him, a dash of color coming into her pale cheeks.
"What do you want?" she asked.
He couldn't keep his smile from growing, taking over his face, as he settled himself down on one knee on the cold, rough concrete of the balcony. Heidi's eyes grew huge. "I know you think I'm a total bastard, but..." He fumbled in his coat pocket and withdrew the black velvet box, cracking it open to display the heirloom ring. "Heidi, will you be my wife?"
"Oh..." She reached for the ring, drew back again, looking almost scared to touch it. He stood up, chuckling, and took her left hand, pulling the glove off. "Y-yes," she responded, half laugh, half gasp. "Oh, my goodness, I... I didn't think... oh, Nathan. Yes! Yes, I will!"
"Do you love me?" he asked.
She had an extremely silly smile on her face. "Yes," she said. "Of course I do."
"You've never said so."
"Really? I haven't? I just... I've loved you since I met you. I just assumed that I had. I just love you so much I just..." She broke off and laughed, embarrassed. "Sorry. I do. I've just been so mad at you for a while, I guess..." She stared at the ring. "My God, is that an antique?"
"Try it on. See if it'll fit. It was my great-great-great grandmother's."
"Oh, my God," Heidi swore softly, picking up the ring. She slid it easily onto her ringer finger, but it slipped off again just as easily, and she nearly dropped it. "Ooh! I guess not. We can-"
"Take it in to be resized. Yeah. Whatever you want." Nathan shrugged.
Heidi grinned at him. "Get used to those words," she said. "You're gonna be saying them a lot."
"Yeah, I know," he said, then broke into a grin. He drew her to him and kissed her lips. When he drew away, tears trickled from her eyes, and her face looking up to his was marked with gratitude. He felt good about this. He could take care of her. He could easily master this new role, the way he had mastered so many before. She was the one.
"Welcome to the family," he said.
END (41)
A/N: DOH, THE IRONY. ^_^ Sad, yes. Very sad. (Following this in the chronology: Ritual (5): "What It's Really About". Nathan's resolution to stay away from Peter doesn't last very long. At. All. Hooray!)... Heidi's surname and family information is totally made up by me and has no basis in canon - well, gee, about 2/3 of this story has no basis in canon! That's just how I roll.... More Ritual stories - and otherwise - to come in the future. Thank you to all who read this! Roll on September 22nd and Villains!