The Dance We Do, 1/1
“It’s not what I would’ve done.”
The words haunt him, terrify him. He doesn’t even recognize the man who said them. Like the morning after a drunken one-night stand, they are strange and foreign - and utterly frightening. He wants him to take them back, to erase everything that has happened in the last twenty-four hours, but in his exhausted heart, he knows it is too late.
The damage is done.
The pain has seeped into his soul, spreading the infection that everyone he has ever known has warned him about, and now it is too late for antibiotics. Only amputation can save him.
Can they amputate your soul?
His stupidity is laughable. Of course not. They’re not even sure it exists, or if everyone has one. Otherwise, what right-minded person would cause someone to suffer so much and so needlessly?
Maybe he’s not right-minded. Maybe he’s evil.
A different kind of evil. Not like Sylar or Baron Samedi; not a dictator or a murderer, but something different.
Something worse.
Someone who likes watching people suffer - fester - from the inside out.
Someone who makes you love him, just so he can stab you through the heart and watch you bleed.
Someone who -
No.
That isn’t Nathan. That can’t be Nathan.
Nathan is strong and good, and above all, right. He cares about the world. His entire life has been given to serving the people.
He’s a hero.
Then why didn’t this betrayal come as a shock to anyone else? Why had nobody stared, open-mouthed at his story and told him that everything would be okay, that Nathan had just been upset, that he hadn’t meant any of it?
Because he did.
And they all know that.
It’s only Peter who has been blinded, who has ignored the signs of his brother’s betrayal because he wants to see good in him that isn’t there.
He is a naïve fool.
Angela was right. Nathan is just like their father, driven by the selfish need to gain power and control the world.
New York should’ve been a big clue.
But Peter is blinded by his weakness; Nathan is his weakness.
And when Nathan had arrived in Kirby Plaza that night, bent on saving the city he had only so recently been willing to sacrifice, Peter had bowed to his power and had erased all of Nathan’s transgressions from his mind.
Because in that moment, Nathan had been the brother that Peter has always believed him to be.
This is their illustrious tango, they dance they do; Nathan makes mistakes and Peter forgives him, over and over and over again.
Because that’s what Peter does, and that’s what he’ll always do.
The words haunt him, terrify him. He doesn’t even recognize the man who said them. Like the morning after a drunken one-night stand, they are strange and foreign - and utterly frightening. He wants him to take them back, to erase everything that has happened in the last twenty-four hours, but in his exhausted heart, he knows it is too late.
The damage is done.
The pain has seeped into his soul, spreading the infection that everyone he has ever known has warned him about, and now it is too late for antibiotics. Only amputation can save him.
Can they amputate your soul?
His stupidity is laughable. Of course not. They’re not even sure it exists, or if everyone has one. Otherwise, what right-minded person would cause someone to suffer so much and so needlessly?
Maybe he’s not right-minded. Maybe he’s evil.
A different kind of evil. Not like Sylar or Baron Samedi; not a dictator or a murderer, but something different.
Something worse.
Someone who likes watching people suffer - fester - from the inside out.
Someone who makes you love him, just so he can stab you through the heart and watch you bleed.
Someone who -
No.
That isn’t Nathan. That can’t be Nathan.
Nathan is strong and good, and above all, right. He cares about the world. His entire life has been given to serving the people.
He’s a hero.
Then why didn’t this betrayal come as a shock to anyone else? Why had nobody stared, open-mouthed at his story and told him that everything would be okay, that Nathan had just been upset, that he hadn’t meant any of it?
Because he did.
And they all know that.
It’s only Peter who has been blinded, who has ignored the signs of his brother’s betrayal because he wants to see good in him that isn’t there.
He is a naïve fool.
Angela was right. Nathan is just like their father, driven by the selfish need to gain power and control the world.
New York should’ve been a big clue.
But Peter is blinded by his weakness; Nathan is his weakness.
And when Nathan had arrived in Kirby Plaza that night, bent on saving the city he had only so recently been willing to sacrifice, Peter had bowed to his power and had erased all of Nathan’s transgressions from his mind.
Because in that moment, Nathan had been the brother that Peter has always believed him to be.
This is their illustrious tango, they dance they do; Nathan makes mistakes and Peter forgives him, over and over and over again.
Because that’s what Peter does, and that’s what he’ll always do.