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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[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."