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

[crashgirl82.livejournal.com]

"I won't, Peter, I promise," I murmur against his throat, pressing my lips to the pulse that beats there, much slower now than it was a minute ago.

I pull back so I can see his face. He no longer has that wild, uncontrolled look in his eyes, and I'm relieved. I don't want this love for my brother to turn into lust again. I want to show him just how beautiful this can be.

I can start all over.

Just as Peter always does, he's giving me a second chance. Just as he did when he came back into my life, after I thought I'd lost him forever.

But first I need to leave my guilt behind, so I am able to help him forget what I did before. I want him to remember this time as the first, even if it takes forever to get there. I'm willing to wait.

I sit up, and Peter moves over until he's sitting on the couch next to me. I whisper, placing a kiss in the hollow of his shoulder, "Just as long as you don't leave me again. either, okay?"

I turn my face up again to kiss him, and he nods his head.

"Please talk to me, all right?" I ask. "The minute you don't like what's happening, we'll stop, okay?"

[chimeramimic.livejournal.com]

That's always so much easier said than done. No one tells the great Nathan Petrelli 'no.' Not even his little brother. I'm sitting on one knee one leg curled under me, the other resting along side of Nathan's as we look at one another. He touched my face, my chin, my throat and my eyes shine for him.

"I will Nathan." I know I'm lying. I'm his, pathetic as that sounds. My fingers move up along his neck and into his hair until he pulls me close again. It's easier to breathe this way. I want to fall asleep in his arms again, but I've been sleeping for too long.

This apartment needs to be aired out. I need to get back to my normal life...whatever that is. There's a murderer out there, there's a conspiracy. There's the Company to try and shut down. And yet, for the life of me, all I can do is put my head on his shoulder.

"We're in trouble, Nathan." I'm not talking about us. I'm talking about the world. "Something is going to happen. I can feel it."

[crashgirl82.livejournal.com]

Well, that was quick, I fume inwardly.

I don't even know how to respond to this. I feel just like I did when he was sixteen years old, watching Peter give me those eyes of his, enjoying those touches that always lasted a bit too long, and then hating myself for it. Hating him for it.

"What? What's going to happen?" I ask, pulling away from him, almost shoving him off me. I get to my feet and pick up my wrinkled dress shirt from the floor.

While I shrug into it, I go right to the kitchen, right to the cupboard. I don't even fucking care if he opens his mouth about my drinking, because if I don't right this minute, I might do something I'll regret.

Before I go back into the living room, I wait until the heavy ache between my legs subsides. I sit down across the room from him and take a shot right out of the bottle. The alcohol seems to just fuel my anger instead of calming me like I'd hoped it would.

I take a deep breath, and my voice low, almost threatening, I say, "So, tell me, Peter. What is so goddamned important that you felt the need to tell me that right this second?"

I take another shot, burning the taste of him off my tongue.

[chimeramimic.livejournal.com]

I can't believe it. Not the alcohol, not the biting words, none of it. My heart sinks where it had leaped before. Where did he get that? I threw out all of his liquor! How much more has he hidden? "Oh, I don't know," I grunt, feeling a sting in my chest as I watch him. I made the wrong choice to forgive him so easily it seems.

Why do we fight? Why can't it ever been like it is for normal people? Who am I kidding, I never, never want to be normal again. Not while I can be a super hero.

"Saving the world, making it a better place... Matt Parkman got shot last time I saw him. I want to check up on him. And Hiro. And Mohinder."

I have to stop him before he downs anymore. I cross the room quickly, snatching the bottle from his lips and toss it against the wall. Bad move. It shatters, obviously.

"NATHAN! Stop it!"

[crashgirl82.livejournal.com]

The bottle flies across the room and smashes on the far wall, and the rage that's been steadily building in me smashes through the last bit of my control. That petulant little fuck. Constantly crying. An emotional fucking wreck. Can't even take charge of his own life, and he thinks he can tell me how to live mine?

I'll give you something to cry about.

I can't stop my arm from coming up, my hand curled into a fist.

I don't feel anything, surprisingly, as my fist connects with Peter's jaw. He stumbles back and falls, his hand coming down on the broken bottom of the bottle.

He looks down at his hand in disbelief, and pulls the glass out from his palm. Blood runs down his wrist briefly, then slows to a trickle as the wound closes.

No matter how much I want to hurt Peter, no matter how much I do hurt him, he'll only heal...

I ignore that last bit of rational thought as I launch myself at him again.

[chimeramimic.livejournal.com]

Oh god. Oh god. What is he doing to me? What the fuck is he-- I feel the next punch, making my brains scramble around inside my head. I've had glass in my skull before, luckily, none of this glass can penetrate it. It just crushes into my skin. Scrapes up my scalp. I'm bleeding and healing and bleeding again.

What a nightmare. Really. It's...it's miserable.

Still, I don't fight him off. If I do, I'll hurt him. I have telekinesis, super strength. The moment I do something to him, he could shatter every damned bone in his body. And I simply can not stand that.

"Nathan--" It's a weird gurgly sound. "Fuck, Nathan stop--"