A Long Trip Home

[chimeramimicry]

The door is two yards away but I can't move from the top of the stairs.  It's been months, four or so, since I've been here, in this spot.  Gone were the days of trudging up the stairs with my satchel on the way home from work because my building's landlords refused to fix the elevators properly.  Gone too was the pleasure I had of returning to this apartment I paid for with my own money and not from my trust fund.  I donated all of that to charity the moment I turned twenty-five and finished paying off my loans to school.  It was two years ago.  It feels like forever.

I'm not the same man I had been.  I'm not a child anymore.  At least, I want to think that.

I'm still clutching the photograph of my brother and I in our tuxedos.  There's a smudge on it from my thumb and full of creases.  I've not let it go since I opened that box containing everything that I am.  Everything I was.  I left Ireland without looking back.  There was, there is only one thing on my mind.  Nathan.

Nathan.

Nathan.

I know he's here.  I've always felt a connection to him.  Mohinder Suresh called it part of my empathy, to feel things like that.  Funny to be so empathically linked to someone I spent my whole life pining for, who has always had a life to live without me.  He's never had time for me.  Never.

"Just walk, Peter," I whisper to myself as I move to a door I have not touched in a long time.  I swallow.  And knock.  I know he's in here without knowing it.  I almost lose the nerve to knock.  Please answer, Nathan.  Please.

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[chimeramimic.livejournal.com]

Sleep is so much easier now with Nathan here, with the feel of his sweat against me and the comfortable numbness that has signified every interaction I've had with him in my entire life. His arms around me are soothing and I rest my fingers against his knuckles as I close my eyes. His knees press against the backs of mine and into the warmth of his body and the fine silk sheets I can finally get some rest.

I wake up just after dawn and Nathan is still there, snoring lightly against my ear, spooning me intimately and with a possessiveness I have never minded in him. I close my eyes for half an hour longer, just enjoying him, before nature forces me out of his arms.

I shower after that, call for room service, and return to bed with a wet head and warm lips willing to overlook his morning breath. "Nathan..." He came for me. Though we fought, and fought worse than we ever had in our lives, things had worked out for the best. "Nathan...the coffee's here."

[law-anddisorder.livejournal.com]

"Coffee is good," I murmur into his lips. I snuggle deeper into my brother's clean, soapy scent, realizing just how much I need a shower myself. I didn't overdo it on the alcohol last night thankfully, but I know I still need to get control of this problem. If not for myself, at least, for Peter's sake. I can't keep using my alcoholism as an excuse for my abusive treatment of him.

The thought of AA makes me cringe, but what other choice do I really have? An inpatient program would probably be the best choice, but that's something my own pride will never allow. I can just see Heidi in my mind's eye, denouncing her drunken, philandering ex-husband to her fucking country club friends, her colleagues at work, answering her with such placating sentiments as, We told you he'd never change, dear, and Once a cheater, always a cheater. I still love her, and I always will, but whatever happened to in sickness and in health?

I push those angry thoughts from my brain before Peter gets wind of them, and I sit up, stretch my kinked-up limbs. I must have slept like a rock last night, because I don't think I moved once, and my muscles are stiff and sore. Peter hands me a steaming cup of coffee, made just how I like it, cream, just a dash of sugar. I smile gratefully when I realize he has not sent the bottle away with the remains of last night's little picnic dinner. He's not going to be happy when I spike my drink, but I do it just the same, because I have to keep the withdrawal symptoms to a minimum if he hopes for me to function today. Go easy, Petrelli, I command myself.

He has no right to be hypocritical of me right now anyway; I know what goes on in those fucking clubs, and I don't doubt for a second Peter's ingested more illicit substances in the last week than I did in four years of college. Though I did do my share of experimenting, alcohol was always my drug of choice.

"So, what do you want to do today, Pete?" I ask, downing the coffee, heading for the shower. I leave the door open so he can talk to me while I let the hot spray work the tension out of my body.

"You want to go right home, or do you want to stay here awhile? Maybe do some Christmas shopping?"

[chimeramimic.livejournal.com]

Wrapped in a white, complimentary towel -- who would want to wear the mess I wore here ever again -- I sit in the doorway to the bathroom with my head leaning against the jam. "I'm not going home." I know that this will spurn another argument, but the trust is that I was simply weak last night because of what had been done to me. Because of the man that Nathan had pushed me to becoming. No, that's not entirely fair, but since when did that matter in the long run. Nathan and I will always blame the other, always.

My eyes closed because I can hear him turn the water off. Does he think he has a magical penis that can right any wrong with a single fuck? I have to pinch the bridge of my nose because yeah. Yeah, Nathan probably thinks exactly that.

I'm not upset with him. I know my brother far too well now that my memories have returned. Sylar gave as much as he took, I suppose, though the memories are simply cruel.

"Mom knew about us when we were younger," I say softly, knowing he can hear me. "I don't know why she thought it was all right --" Lies. She loves Nathan the best. He's her favorite and I? I was cannon fodder for her. I was her gift to Nathan...first to fuck and then to die in order to boost his career. "But when Dad found out, he took our memories, took them all, took them deep. Guess he didn't want it ruining you for your career."

I don't mean to sound bitter.

"What you told me in my apartment a few weeks ago...about the first time you held me when I came home from the hospital? That I was born for you? That's true. That's all I was born for."

[law-anddisorder.livejournal.com]

Peter's words put a bitter taste in my mouth, and it's not just the mixture of coffee and alcohol and the fact that I haven't brushed my teeth yet. I scrub the toothbrush along my teeth, the water on my naked body suddenly cold and unpleasant. I don't know what to say, but luckily I don't have to speak yet. I see him crane his neck back to look at me, but I just focus my eyes on my reflection in the foggy mirror.

What in the world incited my brother to bring this up now? Why does Peter remember when I can't? I think about the memory that dug itself out of the deepest recesses of my mind while I was with Heidi, and all I can recall is feeling lost, in the dark, mine and Peter's sinful act illuminated only by the flash of lightning, accompanied by the intermittent music of Peter's cries, of distant thunder. I don't know what happened that night. I don't know if I ever will. But it's starting to make perfect sense the reason why someone would want me to forget.

"Ma knew? She fucking knew? That means she knows now, you know that, don't you, Pete?" I almost trip over him in my haste to exit the bathroom, because he's sitting right in the fucking doorway. What the fuck is going on? If someone wanted us to forget, then how did it happen all over again?

[chimeramimic.livejournal.com]

Oh, my poor brother and his poor ego. His pride, his image, it's bad enough for the two of us to be lovers, but now that someone else knows, it's going to scar Nathan for life. I pull up my knees as he passes and then stand up. I watch him pace. And run his fingers through his hair. And pace some more. And frown. And wave his hands around like any good Italian politician. It use to make me smile to sit on his bed and listen him give his openings and closings. And afterward, to suck his cock.

I follow him now, follow him towards the balcony where he sighs and frowns, picking up a piece of toast in passing to hand it over to him.

"I don't care who knows," I say, though I realize he does. I can't just be his anymore. I'm my own man. "And if you're worried that I'll tell, or write a book about you, I won't."