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]

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?"