Rating: R
Author: Trekker
Pairing: slight Peter/Nathan
Fandom: Heroes
Spoilers: Through "Powerless"
Warning: Dark
"Peter?" Nathan said, when his brother was the first thing he saw when he opened his eyes. He was in a bed, in a small, quiet room. Peter was sitting beside him, looking down at him, almost frowning. Above Peter's head hung an IV bag full of something clear, with a line running down towards him.
"Hey," Peter said, softly, his expression not changing much. His features were still and cold and nothing at all like what Peter was supposed to look like.
"What happened?" The last thing he remember was the speech, trying to tell the world, and then--he gasped sharply. Peter's hand pressed down on his chest, holding him in place.
"You got shot," Peter said.
He could remember, now.
Burning, blooming pain, falling, the room going dark, Peter calling his name. Frantic panic, oh, god, I'm shot, I think I'm dying. Fighting to breathe and getting nothing, feeling some huge pressure on his chest like a heavy hand pushing out all his air. The sudden, sharp, stupid humiliation when he realized he'd pissed his pants, that he was going to die like this, with so many eyes on him--and one final, desperate thought, Help me. Help me, Peter, please, please save me, oh please, oh god, Peter, I don't want to die.
But now, nothing hurt. "What am I on?" he said, looking up at the IV bag, watching it drip.
"Nothing," Peter said. "You're fine."
"What?"
"You died," Peter said, and Nathan gasped again, sharply, into lungs that should have hurt, should have been full of blood but weren't. "It's ok," Peter continued, softly, his hand rubbing Nathan's unblemished chest. "I fixed you. It's fine. You're fine."
Peter's voice was as flat and lifeless as his eyes.
"Pete--where are we?" He tried to sit up, but Peter wouldn't let him, holding him in place with strength beyond any normal human's.
"It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. You're safe. That's all that matters." Peter tilted his head slightly, and for a single flicker of a moment, he seemed young again. Nathan could almost see the curtain of bangs falling over his eyes. "Do you love me, Nathan?"
Nathan took a careful breath. God, it was quiet. Very, very quiet. Dim and still. "Of course I do," he said. "Always."
"Do you trust me?" Peter said.
"Where are we?" Nathan said, instead of answering, feeling the unease begin to grow towards panic. Something wasn't right, none of this was right, and it wasn't just that he'd been dead, oh god, dead, no, it was more than that--
"Did you know Mom was in on it? She knew they were going to shoot you. She told them it was okay," Peter said, his tone almost conversational. "She said she had her reasons. Good reasons, she said, right reasons. Moral reasons." He huffed a sound that was nothing like a laugh.
"Peter, you're starting to scare me--" Nathan said, trying to be reasonable, trying to get Peter to be Peter again, but Peter's eyes weren't on him anymore, they were turned towards something across the room, vague and distant.
"Morality," Peter said, with his first real hint of inflection, a mocking tone. Then he turned his eyes in Nathan's direction again, but seemed to look far through him. "In this philosophy class once, the professor asked us if we thought right and wrong would still exist if there were no people. Like the tree falling in the forest, right? Does it even matter?"
Nathan hadn't turned his head yet. He assumed he could, but he hadn't. He was afraid to. Still, he could see a small sliver of wall meeting ceiling, and he knew then that he recoginized the room. Peter's apartment, his bedroom. He just hadn't realized before, because it was so quiet. No cabs honking, no hobos shouting. No electricity humming.
"Peter--" he said again, feeling the panic rise like bile. This time, when he tried to sit up, Peter didn't even have to hold him down. His limbs felt heavy, the edges of his vision were fuzzy. "Peter, what did you--"
Then Peter was meeting his eyes for real. He reach up and stroked back Nathan's hair.
"Adam was right," he whispered, and Nathan shuddered. No, he can't mean--
Peter leaned down and kissed him, one small brush of his dry lips against Nathan's. "Shh," he sighed, breathing a gentle breath that mixed with Nathan's quickening pants.
"I can't move, Pete," Nathan said. Oh, god, the silence. Silence. In New York City. No cars, no laughter, no music, no planes--Oh, god.
"I know, I know," Peter shushed. "It's okay." His eyes were wide and earnest, his hand was stroking Nathan's shoulder gently, soothing. "In a little bit, you're just going to go to sleep, okay? It'll be nice and easy. Not like before, not at all, just like sleeping."
Nathan cried out then, softly because he couldn't find the air for more.
Peter shushed him again, gently, quickly, saying, "It's okay, it's okay, it has to be this way, ok? It's best this way. It needs to be this way."
"What did you do? Pete--"
"It's okay," Peter said. "It's over now. It's all over. It's okay."
Then Peter was kissing him again, hard and frantic enough to cut his lip, and at first he couldn't stand it, couldn't think, and then, just before Peter pulled away, he pushed up into it, clumsy and useless now, but just able to push up, move his numbing lips against Peter's, just for a moment. When Peter sat back, his cheeks were flushed and his eyes were bright for one precious heartbeat, before he blinked and his eyes went empty again.
"I love you, Nathan," he said, and then, "I'm sorry."
And then he was raising a gun, one Nathan hadn't even known he'd had, and with his slowed reflexes, Nathan couldn't even cry out before the gun was in Peter's mouth and an explosion cracked the unnatural silence and Peter fell, first toward Nathan, then glancing off Nathan's legs and tumbling off the bed, hitting the floor with a thump and leaving nothing but that empty silence, now complete.
All Nathan could hear was his own breathing and his pulse, both slowing, a soft susseration in his ears. He couldn't see anymore, so he shut his eyes, counting his breaths, feeling his fingers tingle and then seemingly fade away.
The last thing he saw, in his mind, was a tree falling. He couldn't hear it.
The End
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