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.

Comments

[law-anddisorder.livejournal.com]

Of course he's afraid. He has a woman's body, and he has no clue what to do with it. I'll bet he hasn't even really looked at himself yet, he's so scared.

I have to help him, somehow, and not by thinking with my dick, for once. "Peter, sit up." I pull him to an upright position and stroke a finger down his cheek.

"Look at me."

I lock my eyes with his so I can really see my brother, trapped in there behind the female exterior.

"This is temporary, so you should enjoy it while you can. In your mind you're still yourself. So what's a little accidental shape-shifting? Maybe you have to learn how this body works so you can change back."

I'm clearly no expert on the multitudes of powers that can exist in everyone like us, being only able to fly myself, and synthetically at that. But my suggestion could be valid.

"Maybe if you get familiar with it, you won't be so afraid of it. Now come on. Go take a look at yourself. All of you." I haul him to his feet, take him by his shoulders, and walk him over to the mirrored closets. Then I sit back down on his bed.

"I'll stay right here, all right?"

I really hope he understands what I'm trying to do here. I just want to help, and I know he wants me to help him. This is, unfortunately, the best thing I can think of.

[chimeramimic.livejournal.com]

My brother will fuck anything pretty that's still moving. I try to push out the dark feelings, especially because I know that they are not coming from him. Not that it helps. My heart is aching as I slowly remove my clothes. I can't bring myself to look at the image in the mirror. It's not that I'm ugly, and it's not that I'm going to whore myself to Nathan to try and get him to stay with me. I've already done that to many, many men while I was in Philadelphia.

Even so, this is a move that makes me ill with guilt. I don't play the manipulation game too well. As I push down boxers already too big for me, I keep my eyes closed and turn around to gaze at Nathan, naked and according to him at least, absolutely, mindblowingly beautiful.

"Do you like this better than what I usually am?"

My eyes smolder into his as I move closer, within touching distance of him. He could put his hands on my hips with minimal effort.