[Heroes] You can sleep, Mr. President (Nathan/Peter, PG-13)
Title: You can sleep, Mr. President
Fandom: Heroes
Pairing: Nathan/Peter
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1496 (W)
Warning(s): A bit of sappiness. Somebody's underage in this fic, wanna guess who?
Spoiler(s): Since it's a FYG AU series, 1x20 "Five Years Gone" is a little spoiled, yes.
Thanks to: snopes_faith, the we-can-be-incoherent-for-once beta.
Notes: Part of the You can sleep series. Past fics:
+ You can sleep while I drive
+ You can sleep while I drabble
+ You can sleep while I watch you
Two months after You can sleep while I drive
“They should’ve elected you,” he tells you while his thumbs sink between the tensed muscles of your shoulders. In some moment between his employment at Primatech and your last delivery, Peter seems to have decided that elections is not an off-limits topic anymore.
“It would’ve changed nothing.”
“Not in Congress. In the White House.” Peter presses his fingertips hard, and you can almost imagine him, even if you can’t see him, with his tongue between his teeth. “You wouldn’t have done all this shit.”
“I wouldn’t have run for President.”
His fingers grab your shoulders while his thumbs move up to the back of your neck, and you focus half your energies in the attempt not to sigh noisily.
“Why not?”
It was one of your mother’s plans. The way she talked about it, it looked like it had been decided before you were born. There was a period, when you came back from Bosnia and the word “hero” kept blowing around you like a cheap perfume, you believed it too. Your mother used to say it would be the best thing for America since the times of FDR.
“You would’ve voted for me?” you ask, casting Peter a glance from up your shoulder.
He seems to consider the question very carefully. “The other guy would’ve been worse,” he decides eventually, in a thoughtful tone.
“Thanks.”
“I mean,” he resumes, “you wouldn’t have made up all this shit of Squads and Camps and special numbers, would you? You’re one of us. I mean, that would’ve made no sense. Would it?”
You chuckle. “Ah, Peter, it’s nice to see you think my morals just works for my personal interest.”
“You’ve got no morals,” Peter replies, unimpressed. And he adds: “You fuck your brother”.
“You’re not my brother.”
“My ID card says so. And I’m underage.”
“Your ID card says not. What’re we gonna do?”
“We could blame Bennet.” He closes his knees at both sides of your hips and his hands slide on your chest. Peter takes his left wrist in his right hand and brushes his cheek against yours.
“Deal.” You rest your hand on his knee, stroking it slowly. “It’s always Bennet’s fault.”
Peter points his chin on your shoulder, studying your face at close distance, so close his face looks just like a palette of blurred colours at the corner of your eye.
“You would’ve made things work. This thing. Them and us. C’mon, listen to me. Them and us, it sounds like… sounds like a fucking movie. Things were not supposed to go like this. You wouldn’t have let them happen like this.”
You open your mouth to say that a man alone can’t change history, and you don’t think that putting you in that chair would’ve made any difference. That some things maybe are just meant to happen, in one way or another. In one world or another.
“No,” you murmur instead. “I wouldn’t.”
Peter passes his hand through your hair, kissing your jaw. You can feel him smile while he says cheerfully: “And I would’ve been your dirty little secret”.
“We wouldn’t have met,” you remind him.
“Sure we would,” Peter proclaims, convinced. “I would’ve come and picked you up.”
+
You dream you’re the President. The bomb exploded, and New York is like you remember it: a pile of rubble. It’s November 8th, 2007.
Somebody’s telling you that once you’ve landed you must be careful - some dissenters are likely to start a protest. You wonder how can they have any wish to protest in a day like this, and what to protest about. It wasn’t your fault. The bomb, it wasn’t your fault. Heidi and the kids are alive and well at home, at Washington D.C., yet you feel a strange pain in your chest, like a painful absence of sound where it was supposed to be the heartbeat. And you don’t know why.
Peter isn’t there, and thinking of it, there’s no reason why he should. You don’t remember knowing any boy named Peter, yet the very thought of a boy named Peter is enough to clutch your stomach. In another life he could’ve been your son. In this one, his face is a palette of blurred colours and his voice another absence of sound that vibrates in your ears.
“Mr. President?” You open your eyes. The door is open. You pull the edges of your heavy coat closed. At the margin of your conscience you’re surprised that the wool of the lifted collar is tingling your shaven cheeks, even if you don’t remember you ever went out with a less-than-perfect shave. Outside it’s raining, and your assistant hurries to open an umbrella to shelter you from the drops as sharp as knife blades.
During all the car trip you’re absent-minded. The world out of your window is dripping greyish. It hasn’t got the limpid consistency of dreams when you’re living them, but the smoky and obscure one of dreams when you remember them at dawn. But you obviously don’t know it’s a dream. You think it’s the rain. The rain always complicates everything.
“Mr. President.”
There’s so big a crowd, in Kirby Plaza, that it doesn’t fit into the square - it invades the blackish paths of streets with the skinned asphalt, the rectangular marks of the buildings’ foundations, widening infinitely, and the nearer you get the huger it seems to become; even if you flew now, to enclose it all in one look you should rise so high that the rain would freeze all around your coat.
You rest your hands at both sides of your stand. The memorial to the victims of the bomb is a dark marble plate with the white engravings glinting faintly under the rain. The square is full with wreaths of white, red and blue flowers.
The speech words come out clear and precise from your mouth, but you’re not listening to yourself.
Foremost there’s a man with a diagonal scar on his face and his lips tightened in a thin line, his big and dark eyes fixed on you.
You need some time to notice you’ve stopped at half a sentence. The man with the scar now has got a curious expression, his lips open enough for you to notice the asymmetry of his mouth. Before you can realize it, he’s next to you on the stage, at few inches from your face.
“Hi, Nathan.”
You watch him without understanding. So closely, you can distinguish every colour shade in his gash, the smooth transition from the vivid pink in the middle to the fading white on the borders.
“I’m Peter.”
“You’re not Peter,” you reply without thinking. “Peter’s seventeen.”
The grimace on the scarred man looks like the grotesque parody of a sad smile. “I’ve grown up quickly.”
The crowd around you looks frozen like the terracotta army from that Chinese tomb.
“I’m your brother,” says Peter who’s not Peter, and there’s something accusatory in the way he says it, like that implies some grave fault from you.
“I’ve got no brothers.”
“You said that the last time too.”
“I’ve never seen you.”
“And the one before. And the one before that too.”
“Keep it down.”
“They can’t hear. They’re all…”
You turn back, crossed by a shiver, just to find the square is totally empty, abandoned to the solitude of its memorial.
“… dead.”
The rain drips on your cheeks and from your cheeks on your coat.
“You knew that. You knew it was going to happen. And you did nothing to stop it.”
“I didn’t…” There’s your wife’s name engraved in the marble, soaked with rain. “No.” Your eyes burn. “No.” If you had known, you would’ve saved her, wouldn’t you? You would’ve saved them all. “I don’t know. I can’t remember.” Peter’s face is curiously blurred, now. “I’m sorry.”
“This too,” Peter whispers, his tone now as icy as the marble, as the rain, as your home when you come back at night stumbling on the empty bottles, “You say it every time.”
+
You wake up because the fridge’s door is icy against your forehead. You pass your hand over your face, ashamed. Not since the nights after the bomb and that terrible insomnia have you happened to fall asleep on your feet like that.
You drink a glass of milk and close the fridge, cold, feeling your legs weak and your head ache.
Peter has occupied all the bed, with his open arms like crucified. You gently push him to his half and he curls himself up to a ball with a soft snore that, you’d swear, sounds like purring.
You would never have hurt him.
You turn by your side without seeing the man standing next to the bed. He’s got a diagonal scar on his face and his lips tightened in a thin line, big and dark eyes. When Peter crawls in the bed towards your part, muttering in his sleep, he closes his eyes and disappears.
Fandom: Heroes
Pairing: Nathan/Peter
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1496 (W)
Warning(s): A bit of sappiness. Somebody's underage in this fic, wanna guess who?
Spoiler(s): Since it's a FYG AU series, 1x20 "Five Years Gone" is a little spoiled, yes.
Thanks to: snopes_faith, the we-can-be-incoherent-for-once beta.
Notes: Part of the You can sleep series. Past fics:
+ You can sleep while I drive
+ You can sleep while I drabble
+ You can sleep while I watch you
Two months after You can sleep while I drive
“They should’ve elected you,” he tells you while his thumbs sink between the tensed muscles of your shoulders. In some moment between his employment at Primatech and your last delivery, Peter seems to have decided that elections is not an off-limits topic anymore.
“It would’ve changed nothing.”
“Not in Congress. In the White House.” Peter presses his fingertips hard, and you can almost imagine him, even if you can’t see him, with his tongue between his teeth. “You wouldn’t have done all this shit.”
“I wouldn’t have run for President.”
His fingers grab your shoulders while his thumbs move up to the back of your neck, and you focus half your energies in the attempt not to sigh noisily.
“Why not?”
It was one of your mother’s plans. The way she talked about it, it looked like it had been decided before you were born. There was a period, when you came back from Bosnia and the word “hero” kept blowing around you like a cheap perfume, you believed it too. Your mother used to say it would be the best thing for America since the times of FDR.
“You would’ve voted for me?” you ask, casting Peter a glance from up your shoulder.
He seems to consider the question very carefully. “The other guy would’ve been worse,” he decides eventually, in a thoughtful tone.
“Thanks.”
“I mean,” he resumes, “you wouldn’t have made up all this shit of Squads and Camps and special numbers, would you? You’re one of us. I mean, that would’ve made no sense. Would it?”
You chuckle. “Ah, Peter, it’s nice to see you think my morals just works for my personal interest.”
“You’ve got no morals,” Peter replies, unimpressed. And he adds: “You fuck your brother”.
“You’re not my brother.”
“My ID card says so. And I’m underage.”
“Your ID card says not. What’re we gonna do?”
“We could blame Bennet.” He closes his knees at both sides of your hips and his hands slide on your chest. Peter takes his left wrist in his right hand and brushes his cheek against yours.
“Deal.” You rest your hand on his knee, stroking it slowly. “It’s always Bennet’s fault.”
Peter points his chin on your shoulder, studying your face at close distance, so close his face looks just like a palette of blurred colours at the corner of your eye.
“You would’ve made things work. This thing. Them and us. C’mon, listen to me. Them and us, it sounds like… sounds like a fucking movie. Things were not supposed to go like this. You wouldn’t have let them happen like this.”
You open your mouth to say that a man alone can’t change history, and you don’t think that putting you in that chair would’ve made any difference. That some things maybe are just meant to happen, in one way or another. In one world or another.
“No,” you murmur instead. “I wouldn’t.”
Peter passes his hand through your hair, kissing your jaw. You can feel him smile while he says cheerfully: “And I would’ve been your dirty little secret”.
“We wouldn’t have met,” you remind him.
“Sure we would,” Peter proclaims, convinced. “I would’ve come and picked you up.”
+
You dream you’re the President. The bomb exploded, and New York is like you remember it: a pile of rubble. It’s November 8th, 2007.
Somebody’s telling you that once you’ve landed you must be careful - some dissenters are likely to start a protest. You wonder how can they have any wish to protest in a day like this, and what to protest about. It wasn’t your fault. The bomb, it wasn’t your fault. Heidi and the kids are alive and well at home, at Washington D.C., yet you feel a strange pain in your chest, like a painful absence of sound where it was supposed to be the heartbeat. And you don’t know why.
Peter isn’t there, and thinking of it, there’s no reason why he should. You don’t remember knowing any boy named Peter, yet the very thought of a boy named Peter is enough to clutch your stomach. In another life he could’ve been your son. In this one, his face is a palette of blurred colours and his voice another absence of sound that vibrates in your ears.
“Mr. President?” You open your eyes. The door is open. You pull the edges of your heavy coat closed. At the margin of your conscience you’re surprised that the wool of the lifted collar is tingling your shaven cheeks, even if you don’t remember you ever went out with a less-than-perfect shave. Outside it’s raining, and your assistant hurries to open an umbrella to shelter you from the drops as sharp as knife blades.
During all the car trip you’re absent-minded. The world out of your window is dripping greyish. It hasn’t got the limpid consistency of dreams when you’re living them, but the smoky and obscure one of dreams when you remember them at dawn. But you obviously don’t know it’s a dream. You think it’s the rain. The rain always complicates everything.
“Mr. President.”
There’s so big a crowd, in Kirby Plaza, that it doesn’t fit into the square - it invades the blackish paths of streets with the skinned asphalt, the rectangular marks of the buildings’ foundations, widening infinitely, and the nearer you get the huger it seems to become; even if you flew now, to enclose it all in one look you should rise so high that the rain would freeze all around your coat.
You rest your hands at both sides of your stand. The memorial to the victims of the bomb is a dark marble plate with the white engravings glinting faintly under the rain. The square is full with wreaths of white, red and blue flowers.
The speech words come out clear and precise from your mouth, but you’re not listening to yourself.
Foremost there’s a man with a diagonal scar on his face and his lips tightened in a thin line, his big and dark eyes fixed on you.
You need some time to notice you’ve stopped at half a sentence. The man with the scar now has got a curious expression, his lips open enough for you to notice the asymmetry of his mouth. Before you can realize it, he’s next to you on the stage, at few inches from your face.
“Hi, Nathan.”
You watch him without understanding. So closely, you can distinguish every colour shade in his gash, the smooth transition from the vivid pink in the middle to the fading white on the borders.
“I’m Peter.”
“You’re not Peter,” you reply without thinking. “Peter’s seventeen.”
The grimace on the scarred man looks like the grotesque parody of a sad smile. “I’ve grown up quickly.”
The crowd around you looks frozen like the terracotta army from that Chinese tomb.
“I’m your brother,” says Peter who’s not Peter, and there’s something accusatory in the way he says it, like that implies some grave fault from you.
“I’ve got no brothers.”
“You said that the last time too.”
“I’ve never seen you.”
“And the one before. And the one before that too.”
“Keep it down.”
“They can’t hear. They’re all…”
You turn back, crossed by a shiver, just to find the square is totally empty, abandoned to the solitude of its memorial.
“… dead.”
The rain drips on your cheeks and from your cheeks on your coat.
“You knew that. You knew it was going to happen. And you did nothing to stop it.”
“I didn’t…” There’s your wife’s name engraved in the marble, soaked with rain. “No.” Your eyes burn. “No.” If you had known, you would’ve saved her, wouldn’t you? You would’ve saved them all. “I don’t know. I can’t remember.” Peter’s face is curiously blurred, now. “I’m sorry.”
“This too,” Peter whispers, his tone now as icy as the marble, as the rain, as your home when you come back at night stumbling on the empty bottles, “You say it every time.”
+
You wake up because the fridge’s door is icy against your forehead. You pass your hand over your face, ashamed. Not since the nights after the bomb and that terrible insomnia have you happened to fall asleep on your feet like that.
You drink a glass of milk and close the fridge, cold, feeling your legs weak and your head ache.
Peter has occupied all the bed, with his open arms like crucified. You gently push him to his half and he curls himself up to a ball with a soft snore that, you’d swear, sounds like purring.
You would never have hurt him.
You turn by your side without seeing the man standing next to the bed. He’s got a diagonal scar on his face and his lips tightened in a thin line, big and dark eyes. When Peter crawls in the bed towards your part, muttering in his sleep, he closes his eyes and disappears.