A/N: So this is my first Heroes fic. I liked how it turned out (although I found the amount of time it took to write absolutely pitiful). Tell me what you think though! Reviews are beyond appreciated!
Disclaimer: I don't own Heroes but if I did I would totally give Nathan and Peter more airtime. Yeah!
Summary: Peter and Nathan go out to dinner and something "chilling" happens. Post-Hiros. It's a bit of a crack-fic. Read and Review.
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"Just a scotch on the rocks." Nathan said distractedly, still looking at his menu.
The waiter scribbled it down and looked expectantly at the other man sitting across from him.
"Umm… I'll just have a Coke." Peter said, looking up at the waiter. The server nodded cordially and left the men to consider further regarding what they would be having for dinner.
"So," Nathan said, putting down his menu. "How are things with Simone?"
Peter looked up, a slight fierceness in his eyes. He hadn't even agreed to this stupid dinner; Nathan had forced him into coming. "Hey, people think you're crazy, Pete. It wouldn't be pretty having to send some men in white coats to your door to appease their whining about your sanity." Okay, practically forced him. Peter knew it was just a joke, but it had unnerved him enough to meet his brother at the fancy restaurant in Lower Manhattan.
"Well, I've been out and about lately." Peter said, trying to seem calm while trying to be as vague as possible with any information he had. He didn't trust his brother with any information anymore. He had spread a lie about him that ruined his chances with just about every girl in New York. Not one day ago had he met a nice girl on the subway only to have her ask, "Hey, you're Nathan Petrelli's brother…? The crazy one that jumped off a building, right" Peter's eye twitched at the memory… He hoped his brother hadn't seen that. "I haven't talked to her much."
Nathan nodded as the waiter entered and set down their drinks.
"Your scotch and your coke." The waiter said in unison with the clunking of the cups on the table.
"Thanks," Peter replied, taking a sip of his drink.
"Are you ready to order, sirs?" The waiter asked politely.
"I think I'm going to need a little more time," Peter said quickly.
Nathan gave him a confused expression as if trying to decode what his brother had just said for some deeper meaning. The man evidently couldn't figure it out and shrugged it off.
"Yeah, I'll keep on looking as well."
"Of course," the waiter replied and hurriedly left their presence.
"So, I heard you went on a little trip." Nathan said, looking up from his menu to look at his younger sibling.
Peter looked up in surprise. How did he-?
"You clearly underestimate the power of a politician." Nathan said, taking a sip of his drink. "And you overestimate the ability of mom to keep a secret."
He smiled smugly at Peter the way he always did when they were little; Nathan always won the fights. Peter was the good guy that always lost, proving the phrase "nice guys finish last" wholly true in their instance. Nathan went back to his menu that he had undoubtedly picked out what he'd order from an hour ago.
He always did something like that when he knew he had just won an argument. Whether it be turning his attention back to the TV or polishing his fingernails, Nathan always "afterwards-gloated" with his little actions. So what if his big brother was a politician? It wasn't as if he was king of New York. It was more of the knight of New York, hardly anything to shove in anybody's face. Peter tried to contain himself from sticking his tongue out at his sibling, ruling it the immature thing in this kind of situation.
Minutes ticked by and Peter was slowly becoming angrier the longer he was forced to stay in the haughty company of his older brother. He knew he had to get out of here and fast. The thought of using his brother's presence for the sole purpose of flying away was becoming more and more attractive.
No, Peter, you have to try and contain your planet sized hole to feel special for just one night…. (Then you can take a stroll by Nathan's house tomorrow and make a quick flight to see the sights!)
Peter smirked at his musings. He loved knowing that he could absorb people's abilities. He hadn't yet figured out the exact use of his own ability though. But he was special. (The Asian dude on the subway told him!)
"You look like you're having a difficult time there, Pete," Nathan pointed out, lifting Peter out of his thoughts.
"Oh, um," Peter's eyes shifted nervously as he realized he was just giving his menu very perplexed looks. That must not have looked sane. Smooth, Peter, smooth. "There's just a lot of stuff to choose from…"
Peter cringed inwardly. That was to infinity and beyond stupid.
"I don't see what you mean, but I guess since everybody thinks you're crazy, that gives you some grounds to act like it, right?"
"Argh, you're such a jerk!" Peter yelled loudly, standing up from his table. Several guests of the restaurant looked up from their plates and talking to avert their attention to the two men sitting at their table. They began to talk amongst themselves over the rudeness of it all but they didn't begin severely thrashing the two until they caught sight of Nathan Petrelli, future congressman.
"I was always voting for that other guy," One whispered.
"Who's the other guy running against him?" Another gossiped.
"Beats the crap out of me, but that Nathan Petrelli is so rude and irresponsible, I don't care if the opposing candidate was Gary Coleman, I'd soon vote for him than that guy." The other replied.
"He is so hot when he gets all sweaty like that," the various spectators and gossipers looked at the girl who had her hands positioned over her black laptop. She obviously forgot that she was in a room full of Nathan-haters so she was promptly thrown out of the restaurant.
Nathan was becoming considerably nervous as the spectators continued to talk about them. He had to do something to squelch this fire at its source. He quickly stood up and placed a hand on Peter's shoulder who, try as he might, couldn't rid himself of his older brother's death grip (The harder I struggle the stronger it gets! Ahh!)
"Sorry about that, folks." Nathan said, a fake, smarmy smile plastered onto his face. "I believe you remember my crazy brother Peter here from that party I had a few nights a go."
A few wannabe's nodded their head in false understanding.
"Oh yeah, that certainly shocked me when I heard about it." One whispered to their naïve friend.
"Sorry, he had a little outburst here." Nathan continued. "I thought it was safe to take him to a sophisticated restaurant with lots of sophisticated people-"
He watched as several of the onlookers smiled and ruffled up with pride.
"I guess I was wrong though." He said, raising his eyebrows pointedly at Peter who gave him a perplexed shake of his head. How could he lie so easily? Nathan was pure evil, a villain in its natural form. "I think it's time somebody went home to their cushy white room, huh, Pete?"
The spectators laughed and shook their heads.
"He's so funny," One viewer said to another. "Now I remember why I chose to vote for him, ha, ha, ha."
"But you just said you weren't-"
"Yeah, just shut up. I know what I said, lady. I don't need any input from you."
The lady whimpered.
"Drinks are on me, folks!" Nathan declared, turning away from the crowd.
The snobby guests went back to their business of trying to call a waiter to them so they could get their free drink. Nathan turned his attention to Peter, who stared sullen at his older brother.
"Don't give me that sullen teenager look, Pete," Nathan said quietly aggravated. "I wouldn't have to keep telling that lie if you would just stop being a testament to it!"
Peter scowled and simmered.
"I'm not crazy though, Nathan!" Peter yelled angrier than he ever thought he was in his life. Nobody looked up this time though. No sound was even heard after Peter yelled it in the crowded restaurant. Nathan looked around quickly, preparing himself to do some damage control for his brother's second explosion that night but found nobody talking about them. In fact, nobody was even moving.
Nathan turned back to Peter in utter confusion but it quickly turned into one of anger.
"Time may have frozen but that doesn't cancel out the fact that you were just about to RUIN MY CHANCES AT BEING CONGRSSMAN AGAIN!"
Peter cringed at the rage that thickly coated every word. And he thought he was angry. Lesson Learned #1: Never anger a power-hungry politician in a crowded, high-status restaurant.
"Okay, okay, sorry," Peter said, going back into submissive, little brother mode. "I think we should really put more attention on the fact that time has frozen and we're the only ones who notice."
Nathan took a deep breath to calm his pulsing nerves and heart then looked around.
"I suppose this is certainly strange…" Nathan admitted.
"That's an oxymoron." Peter pointed out.
"He, he," Nathan pity laughed, sending Peter a totally uncaring expression.
The two brothers continued to explore their surroundings but only one thing became clear through it all: Time was frozen.
"Time is frozen." Peter stated.
"Oh my god, Peter, really?" Nathan said in mock fascination.
"No, I don't mean it like that. I mean that I think I realized something." Peter said. "I met this Asian on the subway that could do something like this…"
"I know you can absorb powers or whatever, Pete, but nobody else even has them." Nathan pointed out.
"No, Isaac can paint the future!" Peter cried in indignation.
"And here you go with the crack-pot artist again…" Nathan sighed exasperated, throwing up his cloth napkin.
"It's true though! How else would I be able to paint the future after meeting with him?" Peter asked.
"You painted the future once?" Nathan inquired.
"Yeah, want to see my picture?" Peter asked, pulling out the piece of paper he always liked to keep in his wallet. Nathan quirked an eyebrow at him as if to ask "Why do you carry a drawing around with you?" "I placed it there as a reminder of when I first started using my new abilities," Peter said proudly, handing over the drawing.
"More like when you first started using pencils." Nathan said, staring amusedly at the two big-headed stick drawings. "This picture sucks."
Peter snatched it away and accompanied the gesture with a death glare.
"It's better then whatever you could draw!" Peter said, folding the paper back up carefully and slipping it back into his wallet.
"Peter, don't challenge me, guy who got first place in South Bateaux's National Art Contest, in drawing. I'd kick your butt so hard your drawing's stick butts would feel it."
Peter just glared again in response, stuffing his wallet back into his jean pocket.
"Okay, so what now, Mr. Smarty Pants?" Peter asked.
"I don't know, maybe if we get far enough from the scene of the crime these people will get back to normal." Nathan suggested.
"Spoken like a true villain," Peter mumbled, still not over the fact that his older brother was pure evil.
"What was that?" Nathan questioned.
"Nothing," Peter replied hastily. "Let's go out the front door."
Nathan nodded and the two made their way towards the front entrance. There efforts to leave the restaurant proved to be in vain as the long line of people that crowded in the narrow, front lobby blocked their way. Nathan wasn't even able to squeeze past the scrawny young woman who stood looking irritated at the hostess.
"It's no use. This skinny girl is in my way." Nathan sighed, taking off his suit jacket and throwing it carelessly on a bald man's head. (This was so in his book of weirdest things that had ever happened to him. Yep, right up there with that flying power.)
Peter groaned, running a hand through his hair that was constantly getting in his face.
"I never understood why you've never gotten a haircut." Peter heard Nathan say. "Your hair looks so bummish."
He looked up quickly.
"Hey, I like my hair like this. That's why I don't get a haircut." Peter defended. "And, for your information, I haven't met a single bum with this great of hair. So get off my back for just one moment."
Nathan looked stunned. Peter gave him a confused look.
"What? You're acting like I never told you off before, Nate." Peter said, a nervous smile on his face. What was up with his brother? He must have gotten some super back-talking ability just then. Cool. That could come in handy…
"You've never told me off before when I hadn't said anything!" Nathan pointed out.
"What?" Peter said, his face twisting in bewilderment. "You just said you didn't know why I didn't get a haircut and that my hair looked bummish."
"No, I secretly thought it." Nathan said, tapping his temple. "I'd never say that aloud or else you'd have one of these hissy fits.
Peter scoffed.
"If you secretly thought it than how did I hear you?" Peter inquired.
"'Cause you're a freak, that's why." Peter heard Nathan say but his lips didn't move. "I don't know." Nathan actually said.
"I'm not a freak! I've been blessed with beautiful abilities that I must use for the betterment of man!" Peter said.
"Spoken like a true freak," Nathan thought.
Peter just glared and Nathan became a little happier that Peter could read his mind. He lifted up the bald man's drink and tried to take quick swig of it but found it impossible as the man's martini was stuck in place to its cup.
"Oh, for crying out loud-" Nathan said impatiently, scooping a bit of the drink onto his fingers and putting it in his mouth. It tasted oddly good. Nathan actually found the time-frozen martini quite delicious (Not that he would be requesting said drink at his local bar anytime soon.). "So, you can read minds as well as bend the space-time continuum?"
"It looks like it…" Peter said, trying to scoop his coke out of his own cup but having difficulties because of its long cylinder shape. The younger man finally resolved on stealing a French fry off the bald man's plate (Was it the brothers' fault that the bald guy had all the good foods?)
"You're like Spock then, right?" Nathan mused.
Peter nearly choked on his French fry as he stared incredulously at his brother.
"N-Nathan?" Peter said, beginning to laugh now. "Y-You're a Trekkie?!"
Nathan looked completely guilt-stricken now as he realized what he had just done (or thought). Peter could hear his brother's thoughts saying only one thing now: "Oh freaking crap!" This only resulted in Peter rolling on the floor in close tears.
"I watched like one episode while I was flipping through the channels," Nathan said quickly, trying to cover up his Star Trek roots that were so plainly showing. Okay, Nathan wanted everything he said before to die, he would never wish Peter to have this power ever.
Peter, on the other hand, was getting so much amusement out of his newfound ability that he wanted to find the guy or girl with it and thank them. Peter had never had the upper hand but it felt so good.
"Okay, enough games, Peter," Nathan said finally after his younger brother recovered from his laughing bout. "And enough reading my mind! We have to stop this right now or there could be some major repercussions!" "Like me losing my superior standing!".
Although Peter was thoroughly (thoroughly) enjoying his brother's slow deterioration of himself, he knew the right thing to do was to get things moving again.
"You're right but I don't know how to stop this ability. I don't even know how I started it!"
"Well, it started when you were just about to ruin my whole career. Maybe you should go flying with me around the Statue of Liberty and see if anything happens." "God knows that'll ruin everything."
"Nathan, I highly doubt 'ruining people's careers' is how you activate anything." Peter reasoned.
"Well, what do you remember doing when you 'activated' it then?" Nathan asked, resting his arm on the bald guy's head.
"I don't know, I remember you making me out to be really crazy," Peter said, retracing his steps and twitching at the said memory. "Oh! I was really angry, I remember now. I don't think I've ever felt that angry before in my life."
A look of realization dawned on Nathan's face as well.
"I remember now too. You had that really constipated look on you face." Nathan said, shaking his finger repeatedly at Peter in remembrance.
"What?" Peter said, not remembering that particular part of the event at all. "I did not look constipated."
"Uh, yeah, you did." Nathan said pointedly. "You looked like you were trying to crap out a planet. You had your eyes shut really tight and you were shaking and stuff. I thought you were having an anger-induced seizure or something."
Peter shook his head in disbelief. Although he was sure his brother was pulling his leg, Nathan's thoughts showed no indication that he was doing such thing. They did, however, elaborate on the fact that Peter looked very constipated. "If that's what Peter looks like when he's really angry, I'd hate to see him when he's furious. He's probably crap out the universe. It's like he ate car keys and nails for breakfast. I was so disgusted. I'm glad I didn't have to make up a cover story for that."
"Okay, I'll try and unfreeze all this just stop thinking those mean thoughts about me..." Peter pouted, trying to salvage what was left of his wounded self-esteem.
Nathan just smirked in response and nodded. Had he found psychic boy's kryptonite?
"It's not my 'kryptonite,' Trekkie!" Peter said.
Nathan glowered.
"Okay, so I guess I should get really mad then." Peter said, scratching his head. "How should I do that?"
Nathan slugged him in the cheek and Peter toppled to the floor.
"Augh!!" Peter yelled grasping his damaged cheek. "What the heck?!"
"I was trying to get you angry," Nathan said nonchalantly, shrugging at his brother who lay on the floor of the dimly-lit restaurant. The older brother turned around while the younger brother jumped up and pounced on his sibling's back. The two collapsed to the ground (knocking down several others in the process on top of them) and tumbled around fighting, swearing, and punching.
Maybe thirty minutes later (it was hard to tell seeing as time was, well, you know), the two brothers lay on the floor of the restaurant panting. Peter lay with his head propped up on a muscular man's flat, washboard stomach while Nathan lounged on a fallen woman's head.
"This is so freaky," Peter said, getting up.
"I feel like a killer with spare bodies," Nathan agreed, standing up as well.
They tried to position the fallen people back to their original places but they could only pray they had gotten it right.
"Truce?" Peter offered his hand. His knuckles were bruised from when he connected them with Nathan's face a few times but it was in no contest with his own bruised and battered face.
"Sure," Nathan said, grasping his brother's hand. The politician had a dark bruise on his cheek and a nasty wound next to his left eye.
"I guess you're going to have to cancel any photo shoots this week." Peter said a little shamed that that was all because of his own doing.
"Is it really that bad?" Nathan asked, touching close to the bruise next to his eye. It was the tenderest spot at that point. "I hope it doesn't look as bad as Peter's face."
"I'm pretty beat-up too, huh?" Peter smiled, reading the thought.
There was a silence as the two brothers basked in their guilt about beating the crap out of each other.
"We're so immature." Peter confessed. "We're supposed to be grown men but we still fight like when we were toddlers."
"You fight like when you were a toddler," Nathan pointed out with a grin. "By the looks of your face, I'm more in the "young adult" fighting level."
Peter smirked.
"I'm sorry, either way," he finally said.
"Yeah, me too." They hugged quickly as that was what they were accustomed to doing and pulled apart. Having nothing else to do, they both took seat on the floor across from each other. Nathan leaned against the lobby's wooden door and Peter the wall.
"Are you as tired as I am of nothing moving?" Peter asked glumly.
"Pete, I was tired of it when you made that constipated face." Nathan replied equally depressed.
Realization dawned on Peter the second time that long night.
"Maybe I should do that then." Peter said.
"What? Look constipated?" Nathan replied.
Peter's eye twitched.
"Yes, I suppose... I'll just act really concentrated and, wham, all will be moving again!"
"Okay, give it a shot." Nathan said with a wave of his hand.
Peter closed his eyes very tight and clenched his teeth. He stiffened up his entire body and began shaking. "Unfreeze time, unfreeze time…" he repeated over and over in his head. He started hearing noises again. Clacking of plates, people talking, and a man's muffled yelling- It was all so real and-
"Peter, Peter," Peter could hear Nathan say. "Time's unfrozen so I think we should start leaving."
The younger brother opened his eyes and looked up at the people moving around and talking. The moment he caught sight of the bald man trying to remove the sudden appearance of the coat on his head, he knew what his brother said was truth. He grabbed hold of his brother's proffered hand and the two hastily made their way out the front door.
As the two made their way down the street in the cool night air, they passed a police officer lecturing an Asian man who was supposedly "harassing" a cheerleader.
"I have save cheerleader though!" Hiro reasoned in badly articulated English.
"Yeah, yeah, that's what the thug I was dealing with last week said…" Matt replied while scrawling out a ticket for the small Asian man.
A/N: Hey, hey, thanks for reading! If you liked it, review; if you didn't, review anyway and tell me why you didn't like it! ideas for more chapters are nice too. I'm open for just about anything. Thanks again!
Retrospect
