IC Contact

[cargojet]

You've reached Senator Nathan Petrelli. If I'm not answering your call please leave me a message, and I'll get back to you just as soon as I can.

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[askedtobe]

[ Sipping quietly on the last of his soup as he listened to Nathan, Peter kept his eyes on his brother over the container, even if Nathan seemed to have no interest in looking at him. Finally settling it back down into his lap quietly, Peter swirled the last of the broth around as he listened, looking apologetic, sad, to blame without really even trying. It helped that he still didn't feel all too well -- the cure made him feel like he had the flu when his body had barely adjusted to being pulled out of the coma.

Waiting for his brother to finish, even when Nathan did, Peter wasn't quite sure what to say. Not when he didn't entirely know what Nathan was getting at. If he wanted to talk about the possibility of Peter's death, or the fact that he didn't like taking help when he should, or that he didn't know how to stop when other peoples lives were in danger. There were so many things to say and all Peter could do for a few seconds, was just try not to cry. ]

You're lucky I felt worse this time around, then. Didn't have anywhere to go. And that I didn't have to explode, made it easier to not get up and want to run away from every-- [ The trying not to cry thing failed only seconds later and Peter couldn't look up anymore, didn't want to know if he'd find Nathan still looking away or staring at him. It was better to stay oblivious. At least for as long as he could. ] From everyone. But most of all, you.

Nathan, if i'd died, i'd have done it with us still hating each other. That's not how it's supposed to be with us. It's not, and I still don't know how to forgive you for what you did, but you're still my big brother. You still raised me, and I'd still rather have it be you sitting next to my bed over anyone else, and yeah, it is nice. To have you here while i'm trying to get the energy to get out of bed. Even though i'm sorry that you had to see me like this, and that you had to find me in the maze, and that I couldn't take care of it by myself. I've always wanted to get the point where I could just do it without your help.

[ Wiping at his nose with the back of his hand before anymore tears could drop, Peter sniffled hard, the pressure from his sinuses making his head feel twice as carved out, throbbing from the inside out. ]

Doesn't matter how mad at you i've been, i've just missed you.

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[cargojet]

[ Nathan just listened, and watched him, and it was raw and honest in a way that they just couldn’t have been with each other for years. Peter rarely every spoke about their relationship – neither did Nathan – and now they’d both laid it out. That was how it was—that they needed each other, relied on each other, and that even if everything was broken, even if they were hurt and angry and believed in different things, at the core of it they were still brothers.

It was a difficult realisation to come to for Nathan, but everything had been brought up again, made so raw out of seeing Peter like this that it might as well have been a year ago, sitting by his bedside wringing his hands together as his brother lay impotent and potentially dying in the bed beside him. All the feelings that had been smashed out of existence by Peter’s disappearance and the things that followed; the election, Linderman, the explosion—everything after that, had all come crashing back together, smothering him, hurting in ways that Nathan had thought he was long past. He’d believed he could do anything to make sure that the world was safe, even sacrifice his brother, but the real question was that when it actually came down to it, when it was Peter’s life on the line, would he actually ever be capable of it?

Or would those feelings have come back anyway? The understanding that even at the risk of the world, or his career, he didn’t want his brother – his only brother, his little brother – to die by his own selfishness, his own hand, and call it a ‘necessary evil.’ Could he be that callous? That cold? After this, he really didn’t think he could.

And this was his little brother who was still upset by the idea that Nathan would have to see him struggling, that he wanted to be perceived as stronger than that by his older brother even now, after everything that Nathan had – that he would - put him through. This was his little brother who still missed him despite that, and he dropped forward and wrapped his arms around him again, pressed his nose into Peter’s neck and took a deep, shuddering breath as he impressed the feeling of salty tears against his own hairline. He drew back just a moment later, looked him in the eye and nodded. ]

That’s what I’m saying, Pete. Crazy as it sounds I missed you too.

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[askedtobe]

[ The close contact of his brother was enough to have Peter closing his eyes, the warmth from the connection enough to make him sleepy. It seemed to calm everything, to put things where they were meant to be, and almost made Peter feel like he wasn't quite so sick anymore.

Which was easier said than done, considering Peter still wanted to curl up into the fetal position and give up until everything stopped hurting. But he knew that sickness would fade eventually, that he'd get better. What was a far bigger concern was having the ties to his brother broken irreversibly, and what scared Peter the most was losing his brother while having him just an arms reach away, preaching from a podium and pushing them even further apart.

Tilting his head slightly to lean it against Nathan's, Peter yawned, making himself far too comfortable as he sleepily curled against his brother, empty soup bowl held precariously in his fingers. ]

'Least i'm not going anywhere this time.

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[cargojet]

[ Nathan hesitated, but the moment passed, a stray thought whirring unwanted against his mind, then slipping away before he could voice it. He couldn't stand to think of what would happen if Peter was wrong. This ship didn't keep people for long. It let them get comfortable, then whipped them away, leaving behind only raw wounds and the people who nursed them. Nathan still wished he could have explained himself to Claire, spoken to her more than he had, and yet she was gone and there was no getting her back to make up for lost time.

Peter wouldn't necessarily stay. Nathan himself could vanish at any given moment, leaving Peter to know only that he was returning to his own timeline and his own mistakes; things that he couldn't change. Knowing his own future was a tragedy waiting to happen and there was nothing he could do to prevent it--it ate at him in ways he hadn't told anyone, and yet he put on a brave face, threw himself at it, because he wasn't prepared to let Peter see how much it scared him. He'd made his own choices that led him there, felt he could justify them even now.

He just wished he didn't have to lose Peter in the process. He only knew now that he had it back how much he'd missed this; even something so simple as sitting by his brother's sickbed.

Holding Peter a little closer, he made the most of it, just in case, brushed a kiss to his brother's temple and lay his own head down, closing his eyes. ]