The Deepest Truth (Ficlet, Nathan/Peter)
Title: The Deepest Truth
Pairing: Nathan/Peter
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Angst, Implied Incest (if you're wearing the slash goggles.)
Disclaimer: I do not own Heroes or its characters; I make no money from the writing of this story.
Spoilers: Takes place in Season 1. Nothing really.
Summary: Nathan thinking about his brother Peter.
Nathan wonders what it is about his brother he loves so much. Peter is pathetic, needy, forgiving. Peter possesses each and every one of those weak qualities he hates in everyone else he meets.
Peter begs for his attention, constantly seeks his approval, wishes he could have his brother all to himself.
Peter would never want that if he knew what Nathan was really like inside. But Nathan tries not to show that side of himself to Peter. Nathan lives the life of a public servant, always trying to find the greater good. And oftentimes, that obscures the needs of the few, the ones who slip through the cracks. The few that are the ones like his brother.
The greater good, unfortunately, do not include people like Peter. They do not include bleeding hearts. They do not include idealists. They do not include pacifists.
Nathan knows that Peter is all of these things. Not to say Peter can’t find strength; Peter must be strong, in order to empathize with all these people like himself, but the fact that he cannot find the strength to be objective and look at things rationally, the fact that Peter lets it control him so thoroughly, that is the thing about his brother that is broken. Nathan can’t even make sense of it.
Try as he might, Nathan almost doesn’t want to be the one to take away his brother’s rose colored glasses. Peter deserves ignorance. Peter deserves innocence. Peter is a class all his own.
Peter would never want to know Nathan’s desire for control, that unforgiving part of himself, the part of him that makes all the hard decisions. Peter never has to know, because the decision Nathan makes concerning Peter is always the same. That is one of the few easy decisions, after all.
Nathan pushes it all away when he deals with his little brother. He forces himself to pay attention to him, makes himself listen to Peter’s desperate need for validation. And after all the times Nathan has let him down, Peter still wants his approval. Why can’t Peter hate him, for all the things he hasn’t done for him? Why does Peter love him for the few things he has?
Nathan hates himself for not being what Peter wants, so he tries. He tries to give Peter what he needs, what he deserves. But somehow, it’s never enough. Peter deserves more than the cold-hearted, power-driven being that Nathan is. He tries to change himself, to live up to what Peter expects of him. Peter loves the world, and Nathan wishes the world wouldn’t hurt him so much.
So Nathan changes.
He changes, just for him.
Nathan holds his brother in his arms while he cries. Nathan says the words that Peter needs to hear, three simple words that are the deepest truth he has ever known.
Nathan loves Peter.