hackthis_archive (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
hackthis_archive) wrote2007-06-20 01:26 pm
hackthis_archive) wrote2007-06-20 01:26 pm
Entry tags:
Heroes - Love is a Grave Mental Disease (Nathan/Peter, PG-13)
Okay, let's just put it out there right now:
I am puritanical about staying away from Heroes spoilers. I DO NOT WANT TO HEAR THEM. I DON'T WANT TO KNOW THEM. I DON'T EVEN WANT THEM LINKED IN MY LIVE JOURNAL. I know filming for Season 2 starts at the end of the month and people will be tempted. Have some restraint around me. Think of spoilers like Fight Club, and we don't talk about Fight Club, now do we? Seriously. Casting. Clothing. Who drank how much water the other day. I don't want to hear about supposed plot arcs, if Nathan's getting knocked up by Peter, or if Jeezy Creezy himself has a guest spot during sweeps, got it? Good.
Having said all of that. When your beta is all LOOK AT THIS! And you click, well, you are kind of stuck. So stuck in fact that you're like, oh, I should write about this. Plus, you know, it is from a NYT Book Party, so technically, not spoilery!
Heroes
Nathan/Peter, PG-13
Post-S1
Mad love to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sparky77 for getting me out of a jam at the end.
Love is a Grave Mental Disease
It's the belt. The belt is complicating Nathan's life.
Nathan has a lot of complications at the moment: he's a dead, newly-elected congressman, who can't call his wife and tell her not to mourn or to reassure his children that daddy's alive. He's living in a Canadian shack with his younger brother, who's invincible and channeling his inner lumberjack, even though two weeks ago he died in Nathan's arms for the third time in the last month.
Nathan is so tired of Peter dying on him.
Nathan is so tired of the way his heart just stops when Peter dies, and he thinks that this might be it -- the time that he loses Peter for good, regardless of powers or shards of glasses being pulled out of skulls. Peter dies; Nathan goes into shock; he can actually feel his heart evaporating into the ether every second Nathan has to hold Peter's lifeless body, and then Peter comes back and Nathan's heart has to repair itself all over again.
There are fewer pieces every time, and Nathan is afraid. He's learning how to live in this constant state of uneasy fear, and Nathan hates being afraid.
And then there's the belt.
At the moment, all Nathan really hates is Peter in fleece and jeans and boots and a greening brass belt that catches Nathan's eye more than it should. Either Nathan stares at Peter's belt or he stares at Peter's hair, which is, well it's different. Nathan can't remember the last time Peter wasn't hiding behind a curtain of hair, and now Peter is completely exposed. He's naked and reborn and his hair is growing back at an amazing rate, but Nathan's learning that there are lots of amazing things where Peter is concerned.
Mostly though, Nathan can't get away from Peter's spiky black hair. Nathan had hair like that when he first joined the Navy, but so did everybody else, it was nothing notable.
Nathan had never hidden behind his hair, he didn't have the luxury. He was a Petrelli, and Petrellis had to put their best face on at all times. Of course Peter hadn't even been able to spell puberty when Nathan joined the military, and then Nathan came home on leave one weekend and there was this sullen brat with a curtain of shiny black hair. Nathan had to clap Peter on the shoulder and hold him at arm's length to make sure that this person was related to him at all.
He's been holding Peter away from him ever since, but Peter's eyes say it all. They always have, and so Nathan looks at Peter's exposed ears and the worry lines on his forehead that appeared overnight. He doesn't think about hair too short for him to pull on during sex, or the way he can't reach out and push Peter's hair behind his ear anymore.
Instead of thinking about bristles rubbing against the flat of his palm or spiky hair against the soft skin between his thighs, Nathan looks at the belt that Peter's wearing and hates it more than he's ever hated anything in his life.
Life in a Canadian shack is not Nathan's idea of a good time. There is no TV, no wireless, no scotch, no wife, and no shrieking children throwing themselves at his ankles when he walks through the door.
What Nathan has instead of his life is an axe for firewood, enough canned goods to see them through the Apocalypse, packages from his mother with cash and newspapers that are outdated by months, and the knowledge that sooner or later they will go back, but he has no idea as to what will be there or when.
What Nathan has is a radio that only gets the country station and the weather report, and a brother who goes out every day and comes back with blood on his clothing and an occasional body part facing the wrong way.
What Nathan is, is tired. He's tired of this life, and worrying, and hiding, and the cheap reading glasses that are close to his prescription, but not quite right. Every time he lowers his head too far he has to push the glasses back up his nose with the knuckle of his right index finger, but he has nothing else to do. Nowhere else to be –- correction: nowhere else he can (wants to) be, but with Peter and watching him recuperate and do whatever it is that Peter needs to do.
So night after night Nathan sits in the uncomfortable double bed they're meant to share, reading a copy of Catch-22 that's held together by a rubber band and waiting on Peter to come home to him in one piece. Tonight, Peter's late, and Nathan keeps reading the same passage about Milo Minderbinder selling chocolate-covered cotton.
Nathan pushes his glasses up for the hundredth time, and tries not to worry, and then Peter's there, three feet from the bed with snow in his hair and an eyebrow raised, and Nathan throws the book at him, because he can. "Jesus Christ, Pete, you can't use the door like everybody else?" he scolds, pages flying everywhere
Peter blinks once, twice, at the confetti of pages, and then he smiles. "I came back. I came back to you."
Nathan looks over the top of his reading glasses cautiously. "You came back to me from where?"
"No place important," Peter says vaguely, and Nathan just snaps. He's been doing this for days, weeks, his entire life has been about protecting Peter and now it's like he's supposed to sit back and watch as he's being forced out of his job.
He's out of the bed, glasses discarded by the wayside, and in Peter's space in a heartbeat. Peter flattens himself against the wall more as a matter of space than anything else.
Nathan can feel his own anger vibrating underneath his skin, but .07% of the population won't die if he goes crazy in some Canadian backwater. "I am so fucking tired of this!" Nathan snaps. He has no idea what to do; he feels like he's never been angry before in his life. And then he thinks about Linderman and guns and how he ended up here in the first place.
Nathan can feel his fingers closing into a fist and it would be so easy to hit Peter. So easy to make him hurt the way Nathan has every time that Peter's left him alone, but there's this look in Peter's eyes. The lack of hair obscuring his face leaves him completely naked to Nathan, and Nathan can see all the confusion and the hurt and the need for acceptance that Peter's been warring with forever it seems.
Nathan exhales and splays out his fingers instead. He could hit Peter, he could kiss him, hold him, touch his hair or feel his heat through his clothing. He could remember that Peter is alive, but no. No, that way lies insanity. "No," he says more to himself than Peter. "No more." He turns away, only to find himself shoved against the wall, Peter in the place where he just stood.
"You can't even touch me anymore, can you?" Peter says evenly. His body is blocking Nathan in, but there's something more holding him down.
"I don’t know what you're talking about." Nathan would look away, but his head won't turn to the side.
"Sorry, you won't touch me anymore," Peter corrects, his eyes wide open. "I'm here, alive and breathing, and you're just dying inside."
Nathan can roll his eyes at least. "Save the poetry, Pete, it doesn't work on me."
The force holding Nathan back drops away for a moment and then Peter's grabbing Nathan's hand and making Nathan touch Peter's face. Nathan's heart rattles in his chest, jump-started by how warm Peter's skin is.
"Every night you roll so far to the other side of the bed I assume you're just floating above the floor," Peter says softly. "Is it really that bad to be close to me? Really?"
Nathan makes a scoffing noise and looks away. That fucking belt is peaking out from underneath Peter's layers of shirts and Nathan wants to choke something. He doesn't take his hand away from Peter's face though. This isn't their life. This isn’t his life. He's not supposed to have to watch his brother die repeatedly. He hates that he puts himself through this over and over again.
"I'm not going to leave you," Peter continues, "why don’t you believe that?"
Nathan looks back and narrows his eyes. "Next time you can hold my dead body in your arms and see how it feels."
Peter flinches, and it's the last thing Nathan's expecting when Peter grabs his jaw kisses him. It's hot and warm and every extremity tingles, like Peter's breathing life back into dead nerve endings. Nathan's hand falls between them, and he braces himself against the wall as though he might collapse without it.
After Peter pulls back, he releases Nathan's jaw and warily reaches up to push back the hair that's long gone. Nathan cocks his head to the side, watching for the moment that Peter realizes he can't hide anymore.
Peter's hand changes direction at the last second and he rubs the back of his neck instead. He gives Nathan this sheepish grin and finally, after all this time Nathan sees his Peter –- the one he thought was lost. The wrapping has changed a little bit, but the contents are still the same.
He leans forward and kisses Peter on the forehead almost absently, but not quite. "You have to be more careful," he says quietly. "I can't do this again."
Peter's hair rubs against Nathan's skin as he tucks his head under Nathan's chin -- like he did the last time he died. "I know," Peter says, letting the lie hang between them.
-end-
Photo and beta byantheia. Reading glasses and pens provided by sparky77. Title from Plato.
I am puritanical about staying away from Heroes spoilers. I DO NOT WANT TO HEAR THEM. I DON'T WANT TO KNOW THEM. I DON'T EVEN WANT THEM LINKED IN MY LIVE JOURNAL. I know filming for Season 2 starts at the end of the month and people will be tempted. Have some restraint around me. Think of spoilers like Fight Club, and we don't talk about Fight Club, now do we? Seriously. Casting. Clothing. Who drank how much water the other day. I don't want to hear about supposed plot arcs, if Nathan's getting knocked up by Peter, or if Jeezy Creezy himself has a guest spot during sweeps, got it? Good.
Having said all of that. When your beta is all LOOK AT THIS! And you click, well, you are kind of stuck. So stuck in fact that you're like, oh, I should write about this. Plus, you know, it is from a NYT Book Party, so technically, not spoilery!
Heroes
Nathan/Peter, PG-13
Post-S1
Mad love to
sparky77 for getting me out of a jam at the end.It's the belt. The belt is complicating Nathan's life.
Nathan has a lot of complications at the moment: he's a dead, newly-elected congressman, who can't call his wife and tell her not to mourn or to reassure his children that daddy's alive. He's living in a Canadian shack with his younger brother, who's invincible and channeling his inner lumberjack, even though two weeks ago he died in Nathan's arms for the third time in the last month.
Nathan is so tired of Peter dying on him.
Nathan is so tired of the way his heart just stops when Peter dies, and he thinks that this might be it -- the time that he loses Peter for good, regardless of powers or shards of glasses being pulled out of skulls. Peter dies; Nathan goes into shock; he can actually feel his heart evaporating into the ether every second Nathan has to hold Peter's lifeless body, and then Peter comes back and Nathan's heart has to repair itself all over again.
There are fewer pieces every time, and Nathan is afraid. He's learning how to live in this constant state of uneasy fear, and Nathan hates being afraid.
And then there's the belt.
At the moment, all Nathan really hates is Peter in fleece and jeans and boots and a greening brass belt that catches Nathan's eye more than it should. Either Nathan stares at Peter's belt or he stares at Peter's hair, which is, well it's different. Nathan can't remember the last time Peter wasn't hiding behind a curtain of hair, and now Peter is completely exposed. He's naked and reborn and his hair is growing back at an amazing rate, but Nathan's learning that there are lots of amazing things where Peter is concerned.
Mostly though, Nathan can't get away from Peter's spiky black hair. Nathan had hair like that when he first joined the Navy, but so did everybody else, it was nothing notable.
Nathan had never hidden behind his hair, he didn't have the luxury. He was a Petrelli, and Petrellis had to put their best face on at all times. Of course Peter hadn't even been able to spell puberty when Nathan joined the military, and then Nathan came home on leave one weekend and there was this sullen brat with a curtain of shiny black hair. Nathan had to clap Peter on the shoulder and hold him at arm's length to make sure that this person was related to him at all.
He's been holding Peter away from him ever since, but Peter's eyes say it all. They always have, and so Nathan looks at Peter's exposed ears and the worry lines on his forehead that appeared overnight. He doesn't think about hair too short for him to pull on during sex, or the way he can't reach out and push Peter's hair behind his ear anymore.
Instead of thinking about bristles rubbing against the flat of his palm or spiky hair against the soft skin between his thighs, Nathan looks at the belt that Peter's wearing and hates it more than he's ever hated anything in his life.
Life in a Canadian shack is not Nathan's idea of a good time. There is no TV, no wireless, no scotch, no wife, and no shrieking children throwing themselves at his ankles when he walks through the door.
What Nathan has instead of his life is an axe for firewood, enough canned goods to see them through the Apocalypse, packages from his mother with cash and newspapers that are outdated by months, and the knowledge that sooner or later they will go back, but he has no idea as to what will be there or when.
What Nathan has is a radio that only gets the country station and the weather report, and a brother who goes out every day and comes back with blood on his clothing and an occasional body part facing the wrong way.
What Nathan is, is tired. He's tired of this life, and worrying, and hiding, and the cheap reading glasses that are close to his prescription, but not quite right. Every time he lowers his head too far he has to push the glasses back up his nose with the knuckle of his right index finger, but he has nothing else to do. Nowhere else to be –- correction: nowhere else he can (wants to) be, but with Peter and watching him recuperate and do whatever it is that Peter needs to do.
So night after night Nathan sits in the uncomfortable double bed they're meant to share, reading a copy of Catch-22 that's held together by a rubber band and waiting on Peter to come home to him in one piece. Tonight, Peter's late, and Nathan keeps reading the same passage about Milo Minderbinder selling chocolate-covered cotton.
Nathan pushes his glasses up for the hundredth time, and tries not to worry, and then Peter's there, three feet from the bed with snow in his hair and an eyebrow raised, and Nathan throws the book at him, because he can. "Jesus Christ, Pete, you can't use the door like everybody else?" he scolds, pages flying everywhere
Peter blinks once, twice, at the confetti of pages, and then he smiles. "I came back. I came back to you."
Nathan looks over the top of his reading glasses cautiously. "You came back to me from where?"
"No place important," Peter says vaguely, and Nathan just snaps. He's been doing this for days, weeks, his entire life has been about protecting Peter and now it's like he's supposed to sit back and watch as he's being forced out of his job.
He's out of the bed, glasses discarded by the wayside, and in Peter's space in a heartbeat. Peter flattens himself against the wall more as a matter of space than anything else.
Nathan can feel his own anger vibrating underneath his skin, but .07% of the population won't die if he goes crazy in some Canadian backwater. "I am so fucking tired of this!" Nathan snaps. He has no idea what to do; he feels like he's never been angry before in his life. And then he thinks about Linderman and guns and how he ended up here in the first place.
Nathan can feel his fingers closing into a fist and it would be so easy to hit Peter. So easy to make him hurt the way Nathan has every time that Peter's left him alone, but there's this look in Peter's eyes. The lack of hair obscuring his face leaves him completely naked to Nathan, and Nathan can see all the confusion and the hurt and the need for acceptance that Peter's been warring with forever it seems.
Nathan exhales and splays out his fingers instead. He could hit Peter, he could kiss him, hold him, touch his hair or feel his heat through his clothing. He could remember that Peter is alive, but no. No, that way lies insanity. "No," he says more to himself than Peter. "No more." He turns away, only to find himself shoved against the wall, Peter in the place where he just stood.
"You can't even touch me anymore, can you?" Peter says evenly. His body is blocking Nathan in, but there's something more holding him down.
"I don’t know what you're talking about." Nathan would look away, but his head won't turn to the side.
"Sorry, you won't touch me anymore," Peter corrects, his eyes wide open. "I'm here, alive and breathing, and you're just dying inside."
Nathan can roll his eyes at least. "Save the poetry, Pete, it doesn't work on me."
The force holding Nathan back drops away for a moment and then Peter's grabbing Nathan's hand and making Nathan touch Peter's face. Nathan's heart rattles in his chest, jump-started by how warm Peter's skin is.
"Every night you roll so far to the other side of the bed I assume you're just floating above the floor," Peter says softly. "Is it really that bad to be close to me? Really?"
Nathan makes a scoffing noise and looks away. That fucking belt is peaking out from underneath Peter's layers of shirts and Nathan wants to choke something. He doesn't take his hand away from Peter's face though. This isn't their life. This isn’t his life. He's not supposed to have to watch his brother die repeatedly. He hates that he puts himself through this over and over again.
"I'm not going to leave you," Peter continues, "why don’t you believe that?"
Nathan looks back and narrows his eyes. "Next time you can hold my dead body in your arms and see how it feels."
Peter flinches, and it's the last thing Nathan's expecting when Peter grabs his jaw kisses him. It's hot and warm and every extremity tingles, like Peter's breathing life back into dead nerve endings. Nathan's hand falls between them, and he braces himself against the wall as though he might collapse without it.
After Peter pulls back, he releases Nathan's jaw and warily reaches up to push back the hair that's long gone. Nathan cocks his head to the side, watching for the moment that Peter realizes he can't hide anymore.
Peter's hand changes direction at the last second and he rubs the back of his neck instead. He gives Nathan this sheepish grin and finally, after all this time Nathan sees his Peter –- the one he thought was lost. The wrapping has changed a little bit, but the contents are still the same.
He leans forward and kisses Peter on the forehead almost absently, but not quite. "You have to be more careful," he says quietly. "I can't do this again."
Peter's hair rubs against Nathan's skin as he tucks his head under Nathan's chin -- like he did the last time he died. "I know," Peter says, letting the lie hang between them.
-end-
Photo and beta by
antheia. Reading glasses and pens provided by sparky77. Title from Plato.![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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