The darkening sky was heavy with clouds. Rain or snow or maybe a mix was imminent but not yet falling. The windows of the Petrelli townhouse glowed with light, and it gave the facade an illusion of being homey and warm. Nathan snorted to himself as he stopped at the base of the steps.
Heidi put her hand on his arm. "Do you need a moment?" she said, sounding amused.
"Har har," he said, drily, but he didn't move right away. He did need a moment. He hadn't been home in three months. Hadn't seen Peter in three months. The last time he had seen Peter, they'd parted with a kiss. Not a brotherly kiss.
Peter had slunk into the guest bedroom Nathan had stayed in between the end of his lease and leaving for Yale. He'd shut the door behind himself, and when Nathan turned away from his mostly-packed suitcase, Peter had gone to him and wordlessly wrapped himself around him tight and close, and after a long moment, they'd kissed, deep and until they were both out of breath and hard. Then Ma had called up that the driver was ready and Peter had slipped back out again, vanishing down the hall, leaving Nathan to swipe his hand across his lips and try to calm himself down.
And that was nothing next to some of the things they'd gotten up to in Nathan's apartment--hands and mouths and moving against each other, all of it narrated in gasps and heated whispers--
Nathan shuddered, then blinked a couple of times and tightened his lips.
Not anymore. He was in law school, he was in love with a beautiful woman, and that insanity was over with, plain and simple.
That decided (again, for the hundredth time since he'd decided to bring Heidi home for Thanksgiving), he headed up the stairs and rang the bell.
Ma answered with a tight smile, greeted him and then Heidi, and then allowed them inside. In the foyer, she called back into the house. A moment later, Peter clattered down the stairs like a stampeding herd of wildebeests.
He stopped dead at the foot of the stairs, messy bangs flopping down over his eyes. Nathan felt his insides twist and felt his hand twitch to brush back those errant bangs. He clenched his hand shut and held it down by his side.
"Peter," he said, putting on a smile he wasn't feeling, and ignoring what he was feeling.
Over. It's over. It was just a mistake.
Peter shoved his bangs back and just stared. At Nathan, and then at Heidi. Surely Ma had told him that Nathan was bringing a guest with him?
Then Pop emerged from the hallway to his office, and the standard exchange of greetings and introductions began.
"And this," Nathan said, hooking his arm around the uncharacteristically quiet Peter's shoulders and hauling him over, playing up the exuberance, trying to shake Peter out of it, "Is my brother, Peter."
"Nice to meet you," Heidi said, smiling and holding out her hand, "I've heard so much about you."
"Yeah," Peter said, blankly. "Excuse me." Then he ducked out from under Nathan's arm and stalked back up the stairs.
Nathan blinked up after him, then turned to Heidi, who looked more amused than offended, fortunately. "Um. Sorry. He's... he's a teenager."
Heidi was still smiling. "It's fine."
"So," Ma cut in, "I've had the housekeeper prepare rooms for both of you. The first and second bedrooms on the right. Nathan, I'm sure you can show Heidi the way?"
"Ma--" Nathan said. Separate bedrooms? What was he? Sixteen?
Ma just arched her eyebrow at him, silently, daring him to try and argue with her, that single muscle twitch calling up all the disaster his past daliances had wrought.
Oh, it's so good to be home, Nathan thought, darkly. He raised his hands in surrender. "All right. All right."
Ma smiled with satisfaction, nodded, and said, "Dinner will be on the table in an hour. It would be lovely if you'd join us for a cocktail in the family room after you both get settled."
Pop, who had been silent during all of this, stepped forward after Ma had flitted off and clapped his hand on Nathan's shoulder. "Good to have you home, sport." He turned to Heidi, took her hand and kissed the back of it. "And a true pleasure to meet you. Now, if you'll excuse me, I should be getting back to my call."
"Sure, Pop," Nathan said, glad that at least one of his family members was able to behave civilly in front of the woman to whom he was already planning how to propose.
Alone with Heidi now, he gestured towards the stairs. "Shall we?"
***
"Sorry about all that," he said, in Heidi's room as he set down her suitcase. "I don't know what--"
"Nathan," Heidi said, coming over and grabbing him by the tie so he had to look at her. She raised her brows and said, "It's fine." She let go of his tie but moved her hands to his shoulders, still gently restraining him. "Peter's just jealous that someone's trying to take his big brother away. And your mother--I know mothers, Nathan. She's just sizing me up. It's a compliment, really. It means she hasn't rejected me out of hand."
She grinned.
Nathan felt himself relax and smiled. "You know... I really, really love you."
"Who wouldn't?" she said.
He kissed her lightly then stepped back. "I should get my stuff organized. Downstairs in fifteen or so?"
***
Peter was virtually silent throughout dinner, which was fine by Nathan. It made him easier to ignore, and the more he ignored Peter, the less he noticed that there were parts of him that didn't understand "it's over" or "it's wrong" or "it's sick and disgusting."
Peter didn't even bother to follow them all into the family room, so the rest of the evening was spent in easy conversation with Pop and Ma. Heidi held her own well, and he thought Ma was maybe even warming up to her by the time they all decided it was time for bed.
At the door to Heidi's room, Nathan kissed her goodnight, slow and long, already feeling oddly anxious about a night without her. She smelled good, felt good--small and right in his arms--and it had only take a couple of months to get to feeling like she was just another part of him. He stood outside her door for a few moments after she went in, still feeling her.
Then he looked down the hall, catching just the briefest flash of movement from Peter's doorway, then nothing. He watched for a moment, but no one stirred.
***
He opened his eyes to darkness and a warm body sliding in along his own. Still half-asleep, he wrapped his arm around smooth skin and breathed in familiar scent and murmured, "Miss me?" as lips brushed across the corner of his mouth, making his body tingle.
A voice that wasn't Heidi's whispered, "All the time," against his cheek and Nathan was wide awake.
"Peter!" he hissed, shoving Peter away and himself away from Peter. They ended up sitting across from each other, staring through the darkness. Nathan's cock was hard. It usually was, he told himself, when he woke up. Of course it was.
For a moment, neither of them spoke, then Peter said, sharply but whispering, "What?"
"What the fuck do you think you're doing?"
"I think it's pretty obvious," Peter snapped, still keeping his voice blessedly low, but aside from that small favor, Nathan couldn't see anything at all good about this situation.
"No," Nathan snapped, "what's obvious is that the woman I hope will be my fiancee is sleeping just next door."
"Fiancee? You can't--"
"Can't what?" Nathan cut him off. "Can't have a normal life? Be a normal person?"
That was when he realized he'd been having this argument in his head far longer than he'd been having it for real, out-loud. He couldn't seem to stop himself from saying it all.
"What the hell do you think, Peter? You think you and I were going to--what? Move to the suburbs? Have a house with a white picket fence? You're insane. Something's wrong with you if you're that stupid. Seriously. Get some help or something."
Peter was silent. Motionless.
It pissed Nathan off. It always did, that way Peter had of acting like a small, wounded animal when all he'd been told was the truth. Peter needed some truth. He couldn't live his whole life in the clouds, no one could.
"Well?" Nathan demanded, demanding he snap out of it, demanding he give Nathan an answer for the maybe-not-rhetorical questions. "Say something!"
Peter didn't answer. He just climbed off the bed and walked out of the room.
After awhile, Nathan laid back down, but he was trembling and it took a long time to fall asleep.
***
It took him a moment to realize that what had awoken him was the chirp of his cell phone.
Blindly, Nathan groped across the nightstand until he found it and answered it with a thumb-press almost on instinct.
"Petrelli," he said, rubbing his eyes and rolling up onto his side, squinting at the clock to get the numbers to come into focus.
It was just before two. Someone breathed wetly on the other side and he almost hung up, thinking of drunk prank callers, but then--
"Nathan."
"Peter?" He sat up. "Peter! Where are you--"
"Nathan, I'm so sorry, okay? I'm so, so sorry, please don't be mad at me, I really, really need your help--"
"Peter," he said, feeling his voice go hard and commanding, like it did when his unit had acted up in the Navy, "Where. Are. You?"
Another wet gasp, and then, "I'm at a police station. It's... it's just outside the city, I was coming back from the Kellers' place, there was this party--"
Nathan shut his eyes and drew in a deep breath, mind swirling with Oh, god, Peter. Are you hurt? What the hell did you do? How'd you end up way out there? Did they arrest you? Did they hurt you?
"I don't know exactly where--"
"Pete, just get the address from someone. Just calm down. I'll be right there."
***
He slammed his hands down on the desk and said, "Peter Petrelli. Where is he, what's going on?"
The officer behind the desk just finished typing and then looked up at him placidly. "His father?" he asked.
Nathan's jaw tightened. "Older brother. Where is he?"
"He was brought in on DUI charges. Rolled his car over."
Nathan felt his heart stutter, even as he told himself, You talked to him, he sounded fine. "Is he okay?"
"He's fine." The officer grimaced. "Drunk drivers usually have enough alcohol in their system to be pliable enough to pull through the crashes just fine. It's the other people who get hurt."
Oh, god. Nathan tightened his fingers on the edge of the desk, thinking of Peter trying to deal with being responsible for hurting someone. Killing someone. "Others?"
"No, not this time. Your brother got lucky." Nathan's breath left him in a relieved rush. The officer pulled something off the printer. "I assume you're here to post bail?"
"There's a fine, right? Can I pay that now, too?"
The next few minutes were spent signing papers and signing checks from his personal savings account--the one not even their parents or Heidi knew he had. Then, finally, they led him to the back.
Peter was sitting, curled in on himself, on the very edge of the cot in the cell furthest back. Nathan felt some part of himself he hadn't even realized was still tense relax. He's okay. He's fine.
Peter raised his head as the officer unlocked the cell. He had a black eye with an arching, scabbing-over cut above it that was held together with two white butterfly bandages. Aside from that, he just looked tired. There were blood drops on his white shirt.
He didn't say anything and didn't meet Nathan's eyes as he joined them on the other side of the bars.
Nathan felt a powerful urge to touch him--as though he couldn't be sure Peter was really intact unless he ran his hands over him--but, again, he held himself back.
"Car?" Nathan said, to the officer.
"Out back."
***
It was a ruin of sparkling broken glass and twisted metal, like a beer can at a frat party. Nathan could only stare at it at first, bewildered that this could be Peter's car: that nice car that Ma and Pop had bought for him when he turned sixteen, all shiny and new, and now...
And Peter had been in there while it happened, but he was here now, all in one piece, just scraped and bruised.
It didn't compute, and he was still trying to understand it when Peter said, speaking for the first time, "I just--I just took the curve too fast, I guess, and it just--"
"Don't," Nathan said, still looking at the car, feeling like his skin was suddenly on fire as he took in the deflated airbag, shattered windows, and bent steel cage. No one should have survived a crash like that. It was too bad, just too bad. It was the kind of crash that caused traffic jams in the other lane, because people had to stare in horrified amazement. The car was, beyond a doubt, irrevocably totalled. Peter did that. Peter wasn't supposed to do shit like that. Peter was supposed to think about things.
"To think I thought you were smarter than that," was what ended up coming out when Nathan could finally speak, and he shook his head disgustedly and turned away from the wreck.
Peter didn't say anything.
***
Not quite to the city yet, Peter suddenly broke the silence with, "Pull over!"
Nathan kept driving.
"Please! Pull over! Please, okay? I think I'm gonna--"
That was enough to convince Nathan, even in his single-minded just-get-home state. He jerked the car over to the side of the road and Peter stumbled out the door immediately. Nathan put the car in park and listened to Peter vomiting out in the quiet night.
After a moment, Nathan grabbed the box of tissues, hit the emergency flashers and got out, hissing at the cold air as he walked around the car to Peter.
He was still on his knees, with his arms wrapped around himself, shivering obviously in just that thin T-shirt. Nathan dropped the tissues beside him and took off his own jacket, dropping it over Peter's shoulders and stooping beside him, waiting for him to come to and get cleaned up so they could get going. But Peter just stayed there, hugging himself and shivering.
Nathan pulled out a tissue and pushed it in Peter's hand and said, "Pete--"
"I didn't do it on purpose!" Peter cried, suddenly.
"What?" Nathan said.
"I didn't--" And suddenly, Peter was gasping and sobbing, trying to get the words out. "I didn't--do it to get your attention, okay? I really didn't. It was just an accident, it was an accident; I didn't mean to."
"Peter," Nathan said, sighing impatiently, irrationally and powerfully angry again that Peter could be so dumb. "You were drunk, and you drove. You're sixteen and you're drunk. That is not an accident."
"No," Peter said, looking at him with teary eyes, "I didn't know it was that bad, okay? I just--wanted to get home." Peter curled in tight on himself again and repeated, "Just wanted to go home."
Nathan stood up roughly, feeling the sharp cold on his uncovered arms. "Then get cleaned up and let's go. I want to get some sleep tonight."
He got back in the car and waited, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel, as Peter finally wiped himself clean and got to his feet, wavering his way back to the car.
Peter just stared out the window the rest of the way home.
***
Nathan ushered Peter up the stairs and back to his own bedroom. As they walked in the door and shut it behind them, Nathan said, "Go take a shower. Tomorrow, we tell Ma that you fell asleep at the wheel. Chances are, they won't buy you a new car, so you'll have a good excuse not to drive, so they won't have to know your license is suspended. Okay?"
Peter just nodded without looking at him and headed for the bathroom, shoulders slumped, head down.
As the bathroom door shut, Nathan felt suddenly tired. He walked to the center of the room and sat down for a moment on the edge of Peter's bed. The clock said four. Nathan looked around. Peter's walls were covered in posters of cars and football. His desk was a cluttered mess of papers and textbooks. His bed wasn't made, and Nathan realized it smelled faintly like Peter.
Nathan shut his eyes for a moment, just breathing and listening to the water run. In his mind, he could see the crumpled car. He could have died. He could have died. He should have died.
He squeezed his eyes tighter for a moment and opened them, staring at the closed bathroom door. My brother could have died.
He shuddered again, surrounded by all this evidence of Peter, even the smell of Peter, and suddenly thinking how it would have been if he had died, if the call had come from that officer, "I'm so sorry, Mr. Petrelli..."
And no one would know. No one would have a clue how much he'd lost.
He realized he'd clenched his hands and he uncurled them slowly, feeling the blood rush back in. It didn't happen. He's fine. Go back to bed.
But he didn't. He was too tired to move yet. He just needed a moment.
He didn't even realize the water had turned off until the door opened and let in a cloud of steam and Peter, who was naked and swiping his hair with his towel.
They both jumped when they saw each other, startled. Peter immediately dropped his arm down, holding the towel in front of himself, saying, "Oh, god. I didn't realize you were..."
But then he trailed off.
There was the black eye and the cut over his eyebrow, and also a bruise on his collarbone and hip. A trail of round bruises ran down his left arm. Small cuts covered the backs of his hands and his arms up to where his T-shirt had stopped.
He had tight brown nipples. Nathan knew how they tasted.
His eyes met Peter's almost by accident, but once they were there, he couldn't seem to look away. The moment stretched out between them, and Nathan thought--though the protest sounded weak even in his own mind--You don't understand. I didn't mean it like that. I was just about to leave.
Then Peter let go of the towel.
Nathan surged inside and everything else was irrelevant, because Peter had almost died tonight, and fuck it, he got a free pass for this one. Anyway, Peter was already across the room and climbing into Nathan's lap, all naked, damp, warm and smooth. There wasn't any way to stop it now. They were kissing like the last time and Peter's breath was hitching against his mouth.
Let loose, it was unstoppable. Let loose, it made him roll them over, trap Peter under him: a tangle of naked long limbs and a hot, wet mouth that tasted like Listerine. He needed to touch him everywhere. He needed to trail his fingers over every inch of skin and feel it safe and intact. He needed to kiss along that arch above his brow to soothe the pain, and to touch the soft, tender bruises with his fingertips and press just enough to make Peter squirm and pant. Yes, just like that.
Their breathing was so harsh and loud in the perfect stillness of the house it seemed impossible that anyone couldn't hear them, but he didn't care, he just needed this, right now.
Peter whimpered, high and long, digging his slim fingers into Nathan's back.
There were too many clothes between them, even with Peter naked. Nathan threw off his shirt and unfastened his pants. Peter shoved them down and Nathan was able to kick them the rest of the way off. He sat up, straddling Peter, looking down, breathing hard, grasping for some control--just enough control to keep this going, not enough to make it stop.
"Don't go," Peter said.
"I'm not," Nathan said. I can't, he thought.
He reached down and pressed both hands, flat, up Peter's chest to his collarbone, then dragged them back down again. Just touching him felt so good. How can it feel so good? It's not this way with Heidi. It's not this way with anyone.
Peter's eyelids were heavy and he lay still beneath Nathan, totally relaxed, totally at ease, totally submissive.
"I'd let you do anything you wanted to me, because I want you to do everything to me. I'd beg if I thought it would help, but it won't," Peter had told him once, in Nathan's bed in Nathan's apartment. They were supposed to be watching videos and playing cards.
Peter's unblinking gaze was burning him, so he reached out, caught Peter's shoulder, and turned him over beneath him. Peter went willingly, humming soft appreciation and resting his cheek on crossed arms. Nathan leaned in and mouthed the too-long hair at the nape of his neck and then kissed his jaw with a wet, open mouth.
Like this, their bodies matched up just right; Nathan's cock nestled between the cheeks of Peter's ass. It was so easy to roll his hips and rub along that seam. Peter tensed and relaxed beneath him, pushing up into him. Nathan had gotten off like this more than once with Peter. Peter had gotten off on it, too.
Peter seemed pretty close to getting off on it right now, if the way he was pushing up into Nathan and down into the sheets was any indication.
Nathan increased his pace, pushing down harder, trapping Peter under him, restricting his movements. He heard Peter groan and felt him wriggle in small protest. Mine, he thought. You come when I say you come. When I'm good and ready. You owe me.
"Yeah," Peter said, almost as if he'd read his mind. "Yeah. Oh, god, yeah. Hold me down."
Kinky little bastard, Nathan thought with dark cheer. Heidi would have a coronary if he ever tried to treat her like this, but Peter... Peter loved it.
Nathan loved it.
Peter squirmed beneath him, still trying to push his ass up against Nathan's dick and panting from the effort of it. Begging. He was begging, just without words.
"Do you know how much money I spent on you tonight?" Nathan growled, because he was still angry, and he wanted to be damn sure Peter knew it. "Do you know what a pain in the ass it is to get called at two in the morning to bail your idiot little brother out of jail?"
Peter whined desperately and shoved backwards, dragging Nathan's cock along his asscrack, reacting as if Nathan had whispered 'I love you' rather than the harsh words he had said.
Nathan grunted and drove his hips down in three or four hard thrusts, as if to emphasize his point before he continued, "I thought you were hurt, you little punk. You could have been dead."
"Saved me," Peter gasped. "You always come save me."
"I couldn't have saved you if you were dead," Nathan snapped, irritated now half at Peter's blind faith and half at the way sticky sweat was making their skin catch and pull painfully.
He grabbed the bottle of lotion off Peter's nightstand and got a glob on his hand. He reached down between them, pushing his slick fingers along Peter's ass, sliding in deep between the cheeks. Peter clenched them around him and sucked in a breath.
He realized he was touching Peter's asshole with the tip of one finger.
He froze for a moment.
Peter just kept breathing and not moving, except to completely relax.
Nathan flexed his finger, testing the pliability of the tight ring of muscle. It moved under the pad of his finger. He drew in a breath, then pressed gently. That was all it took for his finger to slide inside. Just a little. Just up to the very first knuckle, just past his fingernail.
"Oh," Peter said. He stopped breathing for a long moment.
Nathan pushed, just a little more. It was easy. He slid in all the way to his second knuckle, surrounded by smoothness, slickness. He felt suddenly like he could feel every cell in his body. Every hair, standing on end.
He pulled his finger out and reached down, moving as carefully as if the air, the bed, Peter, himself, were made of fragile glass. He wrapped his slick hand around his dick and drew it up, base of the shaft to the head, shuddering all over at the fiery feeling.
I should say... something, he thought, but speaking seemed like it would break the moment. He knows. He knows what I'm doing.
He shifted up, over Peter. Peter had his head resting on his pillow, eyes shut, one hand up, lying on the pillow beside him, just slightly closing and opening. The tension in his brow was the only thing that suggested he was waiting.
Anything. He said anything.
Still, he bent down and kissed around Peter's shoulders first, until he realized he was stalling. Scared.
Then he reached down, lined up his dick, and pushed.
Peter cried out into the pillow and something wasn't right, because it was hardly like there was even a hole there. He could barely get in a centimeter or two, and it was tight, too tight. When he pushed a little harder, seeing if the tension would relax if he could just get them past it, Peter gasped, harshly and raggedly. Nathan let himself think for a hopeful moment that it could be a good sound, until:
"No. No. Stop. Nathan, stop."
Everything went cold.
He hadn't realized he'd pulled away; he didn't realize much of anything until suddenly Peter's hands were digging into his wrists and holding him down, not letting him run.
"Don't. Don't go. Please, please, please don't go. Nathan, please. If you don't want to hurt me then don't go."
He couldn't even find the words to apologize, the enormity of it too much to grasp, much less put into words. There were sins and there were sins, and he'd just crossed the line--
"--not like that," Peter was saying, his hands still crushing Nathan's wrists, holding his hands down on the bed, trapping him over Peter. "It wasn't like that, I didn't mean it like that. Nathan, chill, you're freaking me out."
Hurt him. Oh, Christ, I hurt him--
"Nathan, please." One more desperate, sharp whisper, and then barely audible sibilance. Nathan had to strain to hear, and as a consequence, he did hear. "Please. Look at me."
He could feel the progress of every one of his fast breaths, air rushing into his nose, down his throat, expanding his chest. He looked.
Peter's eyes were liquid darkness, perfectly still, perfectly calm, perfectly inescapable. Looking into them, Nathan stopped trying to pull away, and only then realized how hard he had been trying.
Peter let go with one hand and reached up, cupping Nathan's cheek and stroking lightly with his thumb. He looked far, far older than his years. "I didn't mean it like that," he said, again, but it was the first time Nathan really heard it. "I just... I've heard it's easier to relax if you pull out. I'm sorry. I haven't... done this before."
Nathan felt his jaw clench. You can't talk like this. You can't be this blunt. It's not-- Not what? Proper? Socially acceptable? That would be laughable if Nathan was in any mood to laugh.
They both sighed at the same moment.
The mood was lost, that was for certain. Nathan was feeling nothing right then but cold and naked. It would have been easy enough to get up, walk out, go back to his room and remember his resolution that this was over, for good, forever.
Peter's hand was still on his cheek.
He shut his eyes.
Never over. Never want this to be over. Never, never, never. I need him, I want him, I want this. Please don't make me give this up. I can't. I need him. I almost lost him.
He felt Peter let go of his other wrist then. A moment later, both of Peter's hands were on him, tracing meandering paths around his face, his neck, the soft skin of his throat. He shuddered, but held perfectly still, waiting to see where Peter would touch him and how, and needing the comfort of his touch. Peter's hands continued around his shoulders, his back, then both of his hands hooked together around the nape of Nathan's neck, just below his hairline.
Nathan swallowed hard.
"God, you're beautiful." Peter whispered those words so low, they couldn't have been intended for him to hear, but everything was so quiet and still they carried to him nonetheless.
He opened his eyes to find Peter's closed and wet along the lashes. He watched Peter's throat move as he swallowed and the tiny muscles flinching in his face as he fought against tears.
Peter didn't open his eyes when he said, "This is over, right? With us? I mean--we're fucked."
But Peter was supposed to be the optimist, the one who never gave up, the one who kept on pushing back no matter how many times he was shoved away. It was like having a trapdoor open under him, and maybe that's why Nathan reacted like he did, so hard and fast. He was scrabbling for something to hold onto so he wouldn't fall.
"Never," Nathan hissed. "Never over." And then he kissed him, hard and closed-mouthed, but that didn't matter when they were naked all along each other. Peter tasted like salt. He took a moment to catch on and react, but when he did, he was fierce, digging his nails into Nathan's back and giving as good as he got.
The heat roared over them again, and suddenly Peter was on top of him, straddling him.
"Let me do it," Peter said.
"Don't," Nathan said, grasping for some shred of sanity, "If it hurts, don't."
"It won't," Peter said, wild-eyed and way beyond sanity, "I want this. You have no idea how much I want this."
I think I do, Nathan thought, and then he let go, too. Do it, Pete. Let's do this. You and I. God, I want this.
Then Peter was slathering more lotion on them both, and then holding Nathan's dick. He knelt over Nathan, looking down between his own legs as he lined them up. For a moment, he dragged Nathan's dick back and forth across his own asshole, as if he were teasing himself.
God, that felt good, so slick and smooth. "Oh, yeah. Oh, Peter--"
Then Peter paused and pushed himself down, just for a moment before stopping. His body was still locked down tight, keeping them apart. He shut his eyes and grimaced as he let go of Nathan's cock and slid his own fingers inside himself, fucking himself roughly and muttering, "Come on, come on, come on."
Nathan's hand shook as he reached up and stroked it down along Peter's side, collecting the sheen of sweat on his skin.
"Shh," Nathan said, trying to help; trying to hurry him. "Shh, just relax. Just relax, it's okay. Just breathe." It was hard to say that; hard to be calm when all his body wanted to do was slam into Peter, pin him to the bed, and fuck him forever.
His whole body jolted when Peter grabbed his dick again, jerking it upright.
"Ah, fuck."
"Yeah," Peter gasped. "Yeah, that."
Then they were aligned again, and this time, this time it worked. It was easy.
"Oh, god. Oh, my god." It was all he could say. It was all he could think. Just that and fire. He burned.
He forced his eyes open, but he couldn't get them to focus. He could only make out the vague shape of Peter over him, holding himself perfectly still.
"Pete? Pete. Talk to me," he said.
"Oh. Oh, man."
"Does it hurt?" He could feel the words scraping out of his throat.
"Yeah," Peter said. Then he quickly added, "A little. Just a little, inside, and it's--stretched, but... it's--it's good. It's really, really, really good. Oh, wow. Is it--Is it good?"
"Yeah. God, yeah."
The universe shifted when Peter lifted himself just a little and let himself down again.
"Oh, fuck. Pete, I'm not gonna last very long," Nathan said. His voice caught and shook, but he was just grateful he could still speak at all.
"'S okay." Peter moved again and they both grunted. "Can you-- touch me-- please? I--uh--I need my arms to--"
"Yeah. Yeah."
Peter's hands were planted on Nathan's shoulders. His palms dug in painfully, but right then, even that felt good. Nathan reached for him with his still-slick hand, found him and stroked him a few times, while Peter just hung there, suspended and motionless, holding Nathan's dick inside him. Nathan'd never felt him so hard: like iron under a thin layer of hot flesh.
"I've wanted--so long--" Peter struggled just to talk. Then, suddenly, he bit his lip, furrowed his brow, and started moving slowly but regularly.
Nathan's brain shorted out. Nothing existed but that tight massage around his dick, the hot cock in his hand, and those palms pressing down on him; crushing him into the bed as the feelings crushed everything else out of him. It took all his concentration to keep moving his hand, jerking Peter as fast and hard as he wished Peter could be riding him, even though this slow tease was already too much.
Peter said, "Gonna--" and came. He jolted his hips, breaking the connection between them, and spattered Nathan's stomach and chest.
He only stopped for a moment, gasping. Then he reached back, lined them up, and slammed himself back, all the way. Nathan bit his lip and saw stars, and Peter said, "Ow. Oh, ow," then started moving--fast.
The bed rattled beneath them and Nathan squeezed his eyes shut, dug his fingers into Peter's hips, and hung on for the ride.
When he came--quickly and sharply and so hard it frightened him--he couldn't breathe.
When he could again, Peter laid down on top of him, wet with sweat and laughing softly.
"Are you laughing?" Nathan said, slightly irritated since he felt impossibly exhausted. The world settled back into place.
Peter just sighed and relaxed. "Endorphins," he said. "I laughed when I saw the car the first time, too."
"Mmph," Nathan said, trying not to think too closely on the similarities of this and a near-fatal car wreck. It was too easy of an analogy. Instead, he wrapped his arms around Peter and held him. For once, for a little while, he let himself be quiet and happy and warm, feeling Peter breathe and continue to breathe. He liked the smell of Peter's sweat and the way he was whispering sweet nonsense against Nathan's jaw. In that moment, he realized that he didn't know how long he'd wanted this--only that it had been a long, long time.
One of the last coherent things Peter said before he slipped off to sleep was, "Never over."
Nathan took a slow, careful breath. He let it out.
It was true. This wasn't over.
He slid out from under Peter reluctantly, hating the wash of cold air that immediately curled around him in the place of Peter's warm skin. He pulled the covers up around Peter's shoulders, then forced himself into Peter's bathroom to get cleaned up as well as he could with a washcloth at the sink. He dodged looking at the mirror for awhile until he realized he was doing it, then he forced his eyes up and met his own gaze squarely. His mind was blank, but he'd be damned if he was going to go through his life unable to look himself in the eye.
He draped the washcloth over the top of the shower stall and stepped back out into Peter's room. He stopped halfway to the door, already midway through reaching for the handle. He could still faintly smell Peter on himself.
He turned and walked back to the bed.
Peter was sprawled across the entire mattress, one foot poking out from under the blanket.
Nathan watched him for a moment, amazed by how beautiful he was. Men weren't supposed to be that beautiful. No one was supposed to be that beautiful.
Giving in to the urge he'd felt since he'd first seen him in the foyer, he stroked Peter's bangs back, then leaned down and kissed his forehead, letting his lips linger long enough to feel his heat. As he stood back up, he saw Peter's lip twitch in a hint of a smile.
He felt himself smile in response.
***
He woke to a kiss.
Barely awake, he thought it was Peter. He hummed in agreeable response before he opened his eyes and found Heidi sitting on the side of the bed, grinning.
"I don't think I've ever seen you sleep past five thirty," she said.
He blinked, trying to reorient himself. "Um. Long night," he said.
"Oh?"
He sat up and rubbed his still-bleary eyes. "Yeah. I'll tell you about it on our run, okay?"
Not about all of it, of course. But he could tell her the revised and sanitized version of the accident that Peter would also be telling their parents at home.
After he'd finished with the tale, about a half-mile into their run, Heidi said, "Oh, poor Peter. And poor you. That must have been scary. I know how much he means to you."
Nathan responded only with a noncommittal grunt and enough of a pace increase to make talking difficult. He didn't want to reply--or risk being tempted to tell her how much she didn't know about what Peter 'meant' to him.
By the time they got home, breakfast was on the table and Ma was in and out of the room, fretting over Peter in her usual understated way--hovering and fussing at him. Nathan smiled a bit at that, and ruffled Peter's hair as he walked past him to grab a croissant.
To his surprise, after Ma had wandered off again, Peter said, "Hey, Heidi. Sorry I was such a loser yesterday. Just a bad day and all."
Nathan glanced back suspiciously, looking for some trace of malice in Peter's apparently amiable stance, but finding none.
Heidi took the apology with grace and a smile. "It's fine. I was sixteen myself once. I remember it all too well."
She took the empty chair next to Peter, who leaned over conspiratorially and said, "But, like, Nathan? Are you sure? 'Cause he's kind of high maintenance."
But he said it with a smile, like it was an in-joke.
Heidi met Nathan's gaze with affection in her eyes that made his heart clench.
"I think he's worth it," she said.
Then Peter was looking at him, too, with an expression that paralleled Heidi's. "Yeah. Yeah, he probably is."