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

[chimeramimic.livejournal.com]

It is much too late for us. Our relationship is, and has always been, based upon sex. It seems only fitting that our last time be an even further perversion of the act we've been engaging in since I was a child. I close my eyes and kiss his mouth, the ledge of my own need for pleasure hardly realized. That's fine and well. With the way it's made my skin creep and crawl, I am sure that I would never have been able to go through with what I am planning otherwise.

He lays his head against my chest, his body cradled in my arms, and I settle my fingers against his temple as I slowly open my eyes. The ceiling is familiar and yet, totally distant and alien. My heart flutters slightly before I press the thought through my fingers and into his mind.

Sleep, tell my lover, calling him that in my heart because it is the last time I will allow myself to think it. And when you wake up, your little brother will be off trying to get a job...and you'll remember all of the good times you had...

I have to literally remove everything I can from his memories manually. It's tedious, covering up for what we've done. But it's the only way. He needs to be a good father, a good husband... I don't know, exactly, what I'll do. But that's all right.

I tell myself that at least.

[crashgirl82.livejournal.com]

My cell phone is ringing, and the sound is distant from the depths of my sleep. I want to ignore it, and I do. It stops finally, thankfully, and I stretch my limbs briefly and settle back into the warmth of the covers. I know I haven't slept this well in months, not since the last time I drank, and I want to enjoy it while it lasts. The phone starts ringing again, and I groan. Not going to happen.

It's literally a struggle to shake off the heavy lure that this wonderful sleep has over me, and I reach for the phone. "Hello?" My voice is thick with drowsiness, and I feel slightly hungover. But I don't drink anymore. I'm a recovering alcoholic.

It's Heidi, wanting to know when I'll be home so we can go out to celebrate my thirty-ninth birthday. If I'm not home...where the hell am I?

I mumble into the phone that I'll be home in a little bit, and I blink a few times, not sure of where I am at first.

Peter's apartment. In my brother's bed. Naked. What the fuck?

I start regaining my bearings, and alarmed, it slams me like a speeding tractor-trailer. These sheets smell like sex. I can still taste her on my tongue, feel her body under my hands. The devil herself, no doubt.

I must have broken my sobriety last night. That's why I slept so well. But I don't taste alcohol...just her, whoever she was. I don't even remember her name.

Oh, Christ. I cheated on Heidi with some fucking woman I can't even remember. What the fuck did I do? Did I really have a woman in my brother's bed?

How could Peter have let this happen? No. Not his fault. Mine. Always mine. I try to think back on what happened, but all I'm getting is a bunch of jumbled images and whispered bits of words, among them the face and the voice of this woman who mysteriously seduced me and now is just a memory.

I must have gotten really hammered. Fuck. Maybe Peter knows what the hell is going on.

"Peter?!" I call out to him, panic and confusion in my voice, in my heart. He doesn't answer me. I'm alone. Something is wrong. Something is missing...but I don't know what it is. I've really fucked up this time.

[chimeramimic.livejournal.com]

Freeing my brother doesn't free me, but in a very strange and surreal way, it helps keep the ache down. Leaving him in my bed was still the hardest thing I've ever had to do, especially when we just made love...when he just took my virginity. I don't want to be ridiculous and blame my new found hormones on this, but I can't explain it any other way. As a man, my lust for him intermingled with my love for him. I could not let go. But as a woman, I guess I feel...maternal? Is that even the right word for this? My heart hurts, I love for him to hold me, but I know that it is for the best that I don't stay with him.

Nathan was right, I understand just how much I have lived for him and so rarely for myself. My God.

The first thing I do is take out money. I haven't had a job in a long time, but I do have a sizable bank account under my name that I've never once touched. I didn't want Petrelli money, not even growing up. I only wanted what I could do on my own. But I need clothing. Food. I'll need a place to live. And while I could take a tip from Claude Rains' rule book, I have no desire to resort to that.

I select a fashionable boutique to shop at, letting the clerks there drain several thousand dollars of my funds to outfit me. I hate to say this, but it feels good to do that, to get new clothes. I even have some skirts, but those were mostly impulse buys. I stick with jeans and tight shirts, even if I find it difficult to get use to the restrictive underwear the fitter seemed shocked that I wasn't wearing when I came in.

It's a strange few days after that. I can't figure out why I'm still a woman, and it turns out that I don't want to stop being one. I call myself Paige, simply because it's the female form of Peter, and I don't want to completely give up who I am.

Who I was.

By the time I get to California, I'm tired, but I feel all right for once. It's only then that I call Nathan, psyching myself up. Of course, I still sound like a mousy little woman on the phone. "Hi Nathan."

[law-anddisorder.livejournal.com]

I call out Peter's name once more--and then I remember. Peter told me he was going out to look for a job. All right. So he didn't come home, didn't spend my birthday with me, and I went out and picked up some girl at a bar and brought her here? To this place? There's almost nothing in it except for his bed, and some folding chairs in the living room.

All right. I'll call Peter's cell. It goes straight to voicemail, and I angrily snap it shut. I have a pounding headache. I can't worry about him right now; I have to get home and take Heidi out like I promised her.

I shower in Peter's bathroom, dress, and lock the door, leaving whatever memories that happened in there behind me forever.

Or at least I thought. Dinner is a terrible experience. I barely touch what I've ordered. I feel empty. Lost. Like something's ripped out an important piece of myself, and I don't know how, or what. I want to cry, because every time I look at my wife's smiling face, I see the woman with no name. She did something to me, and that's why I can't remember her. She's the reason I'm inexplicably twisted inside.

Heidi knows something is wrong with me, but she doesn't press. She's probably thinking it's because I'm now one year away from turning forty years old. Midlife crisis. I guess you could call it that.

I order wine with dinner, and Heidi gives me a look. But I go very easy. I'm driving. Heidi drinks most of it, and by the time we get home she's pleasantly tipsy and horny and pulls me into bed, asks me to make love to her.

I close my eyes and touch Heidi, and all I can feel is that other woman's body in her place. Heidi's eyes are ice-blue, but all I can see in the dim light is a pair of dark, intense irises framed by impossibly long eyelashes.

I have to stop.

I make her cry, and I think of telling her what I've done, but I decide against it. I need Heidi to help me through this. I pull her close and whisper, "I'm sorry." But she'll never know how sorry I am.

A few days go by, and still I haven't been able to get Peter on the phone. I'm worried about him, but I'm slowly falling back into depression. I don't let myself drink away the pain, though. Peter would hate me if I did that.

Heidi is sleeping when my cell rings. An area code I don't recognize. "Hello?"

I almost drop the phone at her cheery greeting. It's her, the woman who fucked my life up even better than Niki Sanders did.

"How did you get this number?" I hiss. "What the fuck did you do to me, you bitch?"

[chimeramimic.livejournal.com]

I blink at the phone, frowning lightly at the receiver before I start to laugh. "Nathan. Nathan, it's me. Your brother? All right, your sister at the moment. I don't know how I got this one. I just started working at the hospital out here and I guess I ran into someone that can change gender. It's...well it's pretty damned crappy. Try getting a job when your license says you're a guy but you have c-cups!"

I'm trying to joke with him. God, has my brother reverted back to his old ways? Is he back to womanizing?

I sigh lightly and cross one arm under my annoyingly ample chest. I lean against the wall of my apartment, gazing at myself in the mirror.

"How'd your birthday go?" And now... I'm going to lie. "I'm so sorry I missed it. Did the boys get you another silk tie?" This is actually pretty easy. Easier than I imagined really. Small talk. With Nathan so far away, it hurts...less. Perhaps.

[law-anddisorder.livejournal.com]

What the fuck is going on? Is this really my brother? He knows my children's names, my birthday. But I could have told all that to her. She could have found out somehow. I'm not exactly anonymous, after my campaign for Congress.

He's talking just like my brother does, but he sounds just like the woman I can't forget and can't remember. There's no such thing as a coincidence, I know that much. Nothing's making sense.

I listen to him--what used to be him--ramble on about my kids and silk ties and whatever other shit he's saying, and flip through the beginning of the phone book, trying to place his area code. He's in California. If this isn't some nightmarish joke that the devil herself is playing on me.

My head is spinning, and before I can stop myself, I go to the liquor cabinet. I had never poured it out, because I've never felt this temptation before right now, and like a black hole, it sucks me in, consumes me, even after everything Peter went through to stop me. I pour myself a glass of Scotch, and the first swallow burns like fire.

I need to believe this is Peter, because I think he's the only one who can help me figure this out.

"I can hardly remember anything that happened on my birthday," I whisper. "I must have gotten so smashed that I blacked out. I started drinking again, Peter. I'm sorry."

Beforer he can even respond to that, I keep going. "I cheated on Heidi. Something's--something's wrong with me. The girl I took home? I think she fucked with my head somehow. I feel like a walking zombie, Pete. Like I did when you were gone for those four months."

[chimeramimic.livejournal.com]

I look up at the ceiling and pinch the bridge of my nose. "Nathan, put down the bottle. I swear to God... I did not go through those weeks getting you sober to have to do it again. It's all right that you cheated. Just...don't do it again. Okay?" I want to bang my head against the wall. "Your kids don't need their dad to leave them again."

I could wring his neck. All of my hard work and all of my suffering have been to give him something he just throws away. I'll have to call the Haitian...even if I really do not want to do that. I slide down against the wall.

"You don't want to see me like this, really," I say, switched into 'little brother crudeness'. "I've got tits. It's not pretty." Lying comes easier with practice, as horribly true as that is. "So sober up. I'll come home for a visit in a few weeks when I'm back to normal. And you. Nathan. You're a good man. You're a very good father. So please stop drinking."

[law-anddisorder.livejournal.com]

Clutching the phone to my head in one hand, the glass in the other, I sit heavily on the couch, try to take comfort in what I'm hearing, my brother's words in someone else's voice. My brain spins in a mixture of fear and panic, and I push it down with another swallow of the liquor.

How can he tell me I'm a good man, a good father? It's not all right that I cheated. It's not like it's the first time I've ever done it, but the guilt has never stayed with me this long. Because I can't get that woman, whoever she was, out of my head. For the past few days, she's been a fixture inside my mind, permanently burned into my consciousness. When I close my eyes to sleep, I see her in my dreams.

I'm losing my grip on everything Peter gave back to me, and I don't know why. Something fundamental inside of me, the glue that holds it all together, is gone. Vanished without a trace.

"Okay, Pete," I say, trying to convince him that it really is. If I were feeling like myself, I would be angry that he just picked up and decided to skip town to California the day of my birthday. But I can understand him not wanting me to see him turned into a woman. I'd probably laugh at him or make a sarcastic comment, or even worse, hit on him.

"I hope you get back to your old self soon," I say, faking a smile so he'll hear it through the phone. He doesn't have to know I'm not listening to a word he says. I refill my glass, and the vicious cycle starts all over. "Love you, Pete."

I drink until the devil's face fades away, and then I slip back into bed, into Heidi's arms. "Wake up, baby," I whisper into her sweetly fragrant hair, pressing my erection into her hip.

Heidi grumbles and turns over to her back, blinks, and asks, "Nathan, honey...what's wrong?"

"Nothing," I answer. Everything. She says nothing about the fact that it's three in the morning and that I'm drunk, and all she can say once I slide into her is that she loves me and God, fuck her harder.

[chimeramimic.livejournal.com]

Closing the phone takes more effort than I thought it would. I know he's drinking. I can almost taste it on the sound waves coming through the phone. It's happening all over again. We're destined to repeat this game until thing gives. Or someone loses it. Or we just tumble into nothing.

I want to bang my head against the wall until I', bleeding and unconscious, but what good is that going to do to anyone? I throw the phone across the room instead and pull my knees to my chest to bury my hands into my palms. I need to call the only person that can put my brother right again.

To reset him, so to speak.

To make him... Fuck, I just can't. Part of me still wants him. Most of me still wants him. I want him to fly out here, rip off my clothes, and fuck me senseless. I want him to do things to me that is not possible.

I want him to leave Heidi for me. Simon and Monty will be fine with their mother. She'll find someone new and Nathan will be with me. We can work on making new children.

God, we can do so much together.

I almost call him again... But I can't make my fingers press the buttons. It's two days before I ring him up again. I haven't left the apartment since then.

"Nathan," I say, my voice raw. I've been crying, pathetic as that is. "I'm...scared. I'm not changing back." I don't want to.

[law-anddisorder.livejournal.com]

This time when the woman who is and is not my brother calls, I'm walking out of a restaurant in Washington, D.C., buzzed from a few afternoon cocktails, a beautiful blonde who insists she's not Niki Sanders at my side.

It's been a strange two days since I spoke with Peter last. I was contacted by yet another strange woman, and when I met her, I was convinced she was Niki. She laughed me off and offered me a position as junior Senator of New York. I told her I'd get back to her.

And here I am, having just accepted the position, ready to take this copy of Niki Sanders back to our hotel room for another afternoon of mindblowing sex, when my phone rings.

It's Peter, and he's crying. He sounds even more pathetic than he usually does, because he's a woman.

What is wrong with my brother this time? These are his abilities. He should be controlling them, and not the other way around. My future success hinges on this moment, and Peter's about to fuck everything up yet again.

I tell him to hang on, and I mute him. "Tracy, I have to take this call. Go on ahead; I'll call you in a bit."

She air-kisses me and gets into her Mercedes, and I put the phone back to my head. "This is a really bad time, Pete. Where do you want me to meet you? I don't have a lot of time." I sigh and wait for him to compose himself.

[chimeramimic.livejournal.com]

The tears end and the anger bubbles up instead. I close my eyes and shove my tongue against my teeth. "Well I'm sorry to bother you," I say, trying not to be so hurt. This is what I wanted! This is what I was hoping for. I wanted Nathan to get himself together. I wanted him to be his own man again.

And he is. He sounds... Good. Confident. Proud. He sounds like my brother again. I rub at my face and shove my tongue through my lips just to calm myself. I have to be careful here. As much as I want him to drop everything and fly to me, I can't risk undoing everything I've worked so very hard for.

"Call me when you're free, all right? I love you, Nathan." I really love you.

I hang up the phone before he can answer me, jaw set. If he's moved on -- and of course he has! -- then I should as well. I pull myself up to my feet. I shower. I dress. And by the time the sun sets in California, I've got myself a waitressing job. Go figure. It's not exactly heroic, but they didn't ask me for my social security card either.

[law-anddisorder.livejournal.com]

"I love you too, Peter," I whisper to the dead air.

What a callous bastard I am. He's stuck in the body of a woman and I'm worried about myself. Nothing's changed. I've got my old life back; my children, my wife, my cheating and my drinking, my political career back on track. The one thing missing is my brother.

I call Tracy. "There's been a change in plans. I'll call you when I'm free." I have to make a trip out to California to find my brother. My sister. Whoever he is. He ran away, but he wants me to find him.

Once I've cancelled my flight to New York, I use the Internet on my cell to try to find a listing for Peter. I don't find anything at first, until I realize I'm not looking for a man. He's a woman.

What in hell would he call himself?

Then I find it, an address and phone number in Los Angeles. It has to be him. Paige Petrelli, age 27.

I book the next flight to LAX, even though I could just take to the skies myself. I need time to prepare myself for seeing Peter as a woman, especially if somehow, he really is the devil herself. After a few nights of drinking myself to oblivion, she's left me alone, and I can't shake the strange feeling that I'm chasing after her.

[chimeramimic.livejournal.com]

I'm surprised beyond all recognition to find my brother at my door that evening. I've just finished my first shift at the most expensive cafe in the world and my feet hurt. The clientele there is ritzy, Hollywood stars and big Silicon Valley tychoons. They come in for their twenty dollar coffees and cakes and tip well if you've got big tits and wear the uniform tight.

I'm still in my uniform -- though a blonde I work with informed me that I should bring a dufflebag tomorrow with my uniform inside and change there -- which consists of a tight tan bodice, a very short, multi-layered, floofy sort of skirt with black lace underneath and knee high boots. The arms are bare.

I look like... Well I don't know. I look like those girls at Nathan's old Halloween parties that dress up like sexy Alices in Wonderland or sexy Little Red Riding Hoods.

"Nathan!"

[law-anddisorder.livejournal.com]

I don't even know what to say. A three-hour flight and the few drinks I had would never have prepared me for the sight of my brother as a girl.

He is the devil-woman. How is this possible? But...she didn't look like this. She was all-natural, nothing fake about her. Peter--Paige, my mind supplies sarcastically--looks like a model, only he's much too short to be one.

He's wearing this ridiculously cute outfit that makes him look like he's on his way out the door to a costume party. I can't fucking help but stare at his cleavage--it's right in my face. He's wearing makeup: mascara, black eyeliner. Purple eyeshadow, pinkish lip gloss. The only reason I'm sure this is my brother is that his eyes are the same color, brown with a bit of green. Just like mine.

The woman from my dreams--she's not Paige Petrelli. She's someone else. I guess I'll never know who she was.

"Dear Lord," I sigh. "You got anything to drink in this place? You tell me no and I get right back on the plane to New York."

[chimeramimic.livejournal.com]

"It's--" Christ. "The only place that didn't need a social security card." I'm embarrassed, more now than I had been getting the uniform. In the past week, I've managed to get use to being a woman. I can walk in heels now. I figured out that makeup makes you get bigger tips. And that a smile gets you anywhere.

I even flirted a little today with a man in a complete Armani suit that kept ordering pricey coffees just so I'd come over more.

It was a nice experience, strangely enough. Sort of like being in Philadelphia again, only this time, I wasn't letting five guys a night fuck me into oblivion. I'm moving on. Or trying to. Even if seeing Nathan chokes me right up.

I cross my hands over my cleavage, shy and for a good reason. He's been staring. I don't want to slip into his arm and smell his aftershave on his lapel.

"Maybe...you should go home. Won't the kids miss you?"