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]

The last bit of this hell, the pressure from my wrists finally releases, and it's over.

I'm crying freely now, and laughing. But there's nothing funny about this tragedy. Peter hates me. He's finally found it within himself to disown me forever. I'm not his brother, not anymore. I'm his tormenter. I've hurt him for the last time he'll let me.

The tears turn to sobs, and until I lay my head on his shoulder I haven't realized he's been sitting in my lap the whole time. I've wrapped my arms around him tightly, and I'm sobbing into his shoulder.

He can't forgive me for this. I don't want him to. I deserve his hatred.

Nathan, I hear as he kisses my tears away. Nathan, I love you.

"No," I cry, fighting weakly against his arms as they circle me. "Please. No."

[chimeramimic.livejournal.com]

I don't have any choice here. I never have a choice when it comes to Nathan. If I'm not his, I can't survive. I use to do all sorts of crazy things as a child to get him to stop being mad at me again. I've forgiven him for all of the shitty things he's ever done to me. I thought it was just what brothers do.

But it's not. It can never be that.

Nathan, my Nathan, is all I have. Our bond is deeper than that. I've fought against it, but the truth is very simple, something I knew when I was six years old when I told everyone I was going to marry Nathan. Or when I was fifteen and I felt a sting of pain in my gut as I watched him kiss his new bride.

For me, Nathan is my world. As messed up, as awful as that is, I don't have a choice but to cling to him. To love him. To give him the twisted things he wants from me.

"For God's sake, Nathan, please let me love you!"

[law-anddisorder.livejournal.com]

His outburst pierces into the armor of self-loathing and hatred I've fashioned for myself, and the truth wounds deeper than any blade ever could. It's not that I've done him so much wrong in his short life that he hates me. He'll never hate me.

I only hate myself. He loves me, but I don't love myself.

Peter will love me until the day he dies, and that really means forever, because thanks to my daughter, it looks like he never will.

He's almost like a puppy, ever faithful to his master, even if the person he loves most never has a kind word to say, even if his master is heavy-handed and cruel. People like that don't deserve that kind of unconditional love and devotion. People like me. I don't deserve him, and I've known that for a long time.

Now I know exactly why that is. There is one thing I don't know, and probably never will: why Peter continues to be my puppy.

I stop fighting him, and he continues to kiss my cheeks as the tears come down. He even wipes my nose with his sleeve. I whisper, "How can you love me when I can't love myself? When I don't know how to love you?"

[chimeramimic.livejournal.com]

Why do we breathe? Why do we think? Why do we cry to express deep sorrow? I can't answer any of these questions, but I do know the hows and whys of loving Nathan Petrelli. "Because you're Nathan," I whisper, my fingers ins his curling hair as I gaze into his face. I've seen it blown up on billboards and passing me by on buses. I've watched him in commercials with his boys and his wife. I know this face, better than I know my own.

My eyes close as I kiss his lips again, slanting my mouth to his despite how I'm trembling. If he leaves me, I will have no idea what else to do with my life.

Saving the world can wait for now.

"I can love you enough for both of us." It hardly matters that I have not confirmed that he loves me. It doesn't make a difference.

[law-anddisorder.livejournal.com]

The tears finally stop, but Peter doesn't stop kissing me, and now he's kissing my mouth, his tongue sliding across my closed lips, trying to convince me to let him in once again.

Maybe Peter can love me enough for both of us. It may not be fair to him, or to me even, but it's the truth. He's a better person than I'll ever be, and that's another truth I cling to as I kiss him back, barely able to breathe because my head is swimming from the tears, my nose still running.

One more question comes to mind, one that I simply must ask or my heart might burst. My voice is weak and pathetic, just like my body right at this moment. And for once, I don't care. Peter will take care of me, I'm sure of it.

"I know you love me, but...do you forgive me, Peter? For all of this?"

[chimeramimic.livejournal.com]

What a stupid question. I hardly dignify it with an answer, but I know Nathan needs it. "I'll always forgive you," I murmur against his lips. How could I not? I might have despised him for what he did to me, gotten so angry that I couldn't speak, but there was no change that forgiveness would not follow.

Even when he left me. God, that broke my heart, even if it was just for the few hours that I was asleep.

I lay my head against his shoulder and his fingers, still bruised from punching me, touch my cheek. I close my eyes. It's warm. I'm happy. This is ridiculous that I can feel this way for someone so unstable, for the closest person genetically to me.

I guess you can't cheat fate.

"What can I do for you, Nathan?" What will make it better for us?

[law-anddisorder.livejournal.com]

Peter's hand comes up to touch mine, the bruised one, the one I'm using to gently stroke his cheek, and as soon as his fingers close around mine, all the pain is gone. It's all in my mind. Pain is imaginary, when Peter is here. There's only him, only my brother, only his love for me.

I could tell him I love him. And I do. Three simple words that mean nothing when I hear them slip from my mouth. A basic emotion. I need Peter to know they mean so much more than what I've shown him up to now. I've raped him, hit him, called him names. Apologized to him, and hurt him over and over again. Made a liar of myself, over and over again.

Peter just nods, and his other hand comes up and he uses his sleeve to wipe my face, the tears and the sweat and my running nose.

"Teach me," I whisper. "Teach me how to love you. Show me what you want. What you need."

Peter sits up in my lap, straddling me, and he kisses me again, slowly, deeply, his tongue swirling around mine, tasting sweet like always. I'm becoming more aware of his body on top of me, and it hurts and feels wonderful to hold my brother in my arms like this again.

[chimeramimic.livejournal.com]

He's intoxicating. I can't say I always thought so, but it's obvious I was enthralled by him since I was little. The feeling here is just a little more heated then all of the times he called me from some foreign country or just from college to say hello. Or each time he hugged me too close and let my press my nose against the curve of his neck.

He kisses well, enough to make me lose myself for entirely too long, my hips moving as he moves me. It's unconscious, this little sensual dance we perform, or is it? I know what Nathan wants, and while I don't think I'm ready for it, not after yesterday, I will not let him go. I will not let him find it in someone else again.

He can't really hurt me.

Our lips parts and I'm breathless. I lean forward to press my lips against his ear. My offer is filled with trepidation. "Do it right this time," I whisper. I don't want to be fucked. I want something more. I want a connection.

And Nathan use to that through physicality. I can do this.