Title: Can't Make Me Let You Go
Character(s): Peter/Claire, Nathan
Rating: PG
Summery: Nathan wants to have a little talk with Peter about his new girlfriend.
A/N: Future fic, again.
The only warning he has to impending danger this time is the sound of a door slamming and the icy shiver that always goes down his spine when his brother glares at him. Whether he can actually see the glare or not doesn't matter. When Nathan's pissed, Peter knows about it the minute he walks into the room.
"Get up," Nathan snaps, throwing a shirt at Peter. "We need to talk. You stay here," he adds to the girl in bed with his baby brother and he's gone with another door slam.
Peter stares at the door for moment before rolling his eyes and pulling on his shirt and then his boxers when he finds them. He can't say he's never been rudely awakened by Nathan before. It's one of the few things he can honestly say that he and his brother have done several times voluntarily. He does wish that Nathan could learn to have better timing, like when he had a full night's sleep in him.
"Peter?" she sounds so frightened and nervous that out of impulse he leans over and kisses first her forehead, then her cheek, and finally her lips.
"Nice way to end a date, don't you think?"
She gives him a look. "That ain't funny."
"It's a little funny."
"Not really. Somethin' could be seriously wrong."
"I'll be back soon," he murmurs with a quick smile. He moves a piece of her bangs out of her eyes, and adds, "It's probably nothing. Try not to worry, okay?"
She nods, holding the sheet to her chest with one hand. "I'll try," she whispers, voice husky and with more of that Texan accent he loves so much.
Peter finds his brother pacing around his kitchen, muttering to himself and knocking papers off the counter as though they were his to throw around. "Good morning to you too," he quips as he starts to get a pot of coffee together. He did have a better plan for this morning then another fight with Nathan and while the plan's completely ruined now, he still needs the coffee part of it.
"What is the matter with you?" Nathan hisses.
Peter blinks, unsure if his brother means the coffee or whom he spent the night with. "I'm sorry?"
"Running around with that damn cheerleader," Nathan continues, clearly already into ranting mode. "Do you have any idea of how this effects our image?"
"Your image you mean, Mister Congressman?" Peter asks, leaning against his counter and folding his arms across his chest defensively.
"Peter this isn't a game."
"I'm not laughing, now am I?" Peter retorts.
"She's nearly eight years younger then you," Nathan says it like just that fact alone is supposed to turn Peter from the error of his ways.
"I'm not twenty five anymore, Nathan," Peter answers. She was off limits to him when he was twenty five, he knew that very well back then and he respected it. She isn't jail bait anymore though. It's part of the reason why he loves twenty seven so much. "It's okay now."
"She's not even twenty yet."
"But she's not seventeen," Peter points out. "And that's all that really matters."
"That's not all that matters," Nathan sighs. His brother's naive, and that's not really a secret to anyone that's met him. He wishes that just this once, Peter would grow up just a little and see the logic right in front of him. "I'm concerned. She's too young for you. I don't want to see you get hurt by this."
Peter knows he might actually appreciate the concern if he knew that it wasn't just about Nathan being a congressman and having his baby brother dating a girl a lot younger looking bad on him. But it is. The entire argument's about Nathan and his standing in the political world not about how Peter feels about her and she feels about him.
"If I remember correctly, you're the one who flew to Vegas to sleep with a hooker," Peter snaps. "So you really have no business telling me who to date."
"That was different."
The coffee maker's finally warmed up and Peter puts the grounds in and turns the machine on before answering. "How?"
"Niki and I..." Nathan stops. It's hard to for him to weed through the guilt that comes with Niki's name nowadays enough to just speak about her. "We're adults."
Peter narrows his eyes immediately. "And I'm not an adult now?"
"You are. She's not."
"Her name's Claire," Peter says, daring to reprimand his older brother with that simple sentence.
Nathan sighs, conceding to the fact that he's going to get nowhere with his baby brother with his current approach. "Petey," he says, suddenly so full of smiles and charm that it puts Peter on edge rather then relaxing him. "I'm asking you as a brother to stop seeing her. She's too young. She'll only mess things up for you."
Peter pulls a mug down from one of the cupboards. He doesn't bother to offer one to Nathan. Even if his brother wants to stay, he isn't going to let him. "And I'm telling you as a brother to butt out of my business," he answers, pouring himself the coffee. He takes a sip and looks at his brother over his shoulder, "You can leave now."
"We're not done here."
"We are now," Peter retorts, coldly. He puts his mug down on the counter because he's sure that if he didn't, then he'd end up throwing it at Nathan or the wall. "You can't just come into my apartment, drag me away from her, and then demand that I break up with her because it looks bad for you. I honestly don't care if it does. I love her. I love Claire."
"You're making a mistake, Peter."
"Then why do you look so surprised?" Peter asks. He is the screw up of the family, isn't he? Making mistakes is what he does best.
Nathan exhales slowly, shakes his head in a rueful manner and leaves the apartment without another word but with another door slam. It's only then that Peter realizes she's been listening in for the entire conversation. She steps away from the bedroom door and into the kitchen, appraising him with a cautious look.
"You mean it?" she asks.
"Mean what?"
Claire pulls his robe that she found in his room tighter around her tiny body and bites her lip. "You love me?"
His expression melts and he nods. "Yeah," he says softly, "I love you."
Claire half smiles at him. "I love you, too," she tells him, laughing when he grabs her by the waist and kisses her. She holds him close to her, resting her head on his chest, sighing into his shirt. It doesn't matter what Nathan thinks or wants, she realizes, because she isn't going anywhere. Peter doesn't want her to and she wouldn't even if he did.
Comments are love.