Title: stand at the head of the dying man
Fandom: "Criminal Minds"/"Heroes"
Disclaimer: not my characters; title from Anne Sexton
Warnings: spoilers for ep 2.11, "Sex, Birth, Death"; spoilers for season three "Heroes"
Pairings: none stated
Rating: R
Point of view: third
Wordcount: 795
Nathan's first kill happened ten years after Dr. Reid saved his life. All that therapy did help: it wasn't a whore he killed.
He stared down at the corpse, slowly and methodically drying his hands. Barely recognizable anymore, just guts and muscle, skin peeled off and tossed aside. He'd always been interested in the insides, in what made people tick.
At the hospital, he'd read dozens of medical texts. Everyone thought it was to become a doctor. (He could still do that. Go to college, med-school. Become someone. Help people.)
He spent five years of his life trying to fix himself. Restrain the impulses, lock away the compulsions. Pretend he didn't dream of death, didn't fantasize about taking everyone he saw apart. Breaking them down into their base components to see how they worked.
He could help people. Save lives. Stitch flesh back together, remove broken parts.
Five years of his life spent inside, controlled, watched, weighed, and measured. Studied. All his demented thoughts and dangerous flaws laid bare for rushing doctors and nurses with cold hands and orderlies who leered.
He'd sought help, and they failed. In those early days, he'd been so confused. He knew better now, though. He'd researched. And after he got out—after they let him go, proclaiming him healthy and sane and safe, he couldn't stop seeking something. Answers. The truth.
It wasn't about hurting people. Not anymore. It was learning. Discovering the parts of people that they couldn't hide. Survival of the fittest. All he had to do was figure out the inner-workings, the collection of veins, the flow of life from one limb to the next. Once he understood it completely, then—
It took five more years to understand. To realize he wasn't insane when he thought he saw into someone's body. The veins and capillaries and muscle contracting around bone. And then he stumbled onto two men torturing a third, making him writhe and beg and scream. He watched, mouth open in awe, as they scalded and cut and broke him without ever touching him, and then he looked past the surface, at how they tore him apart inside.
"Luke," the taller, older one had said as Nathan watched a heart stop beating. "We have company."
And Nathan had stood still, not flinching as they both turned to look at him, predatory gazes locking him in place.
The one called Luke glared at him, but the other—the other smirked and headed out the alley, calling over his shoulder, "Coming?"
Luke had hurried after him and so did Nathan, and he never once looked back.
Nathan dropped the towel on the counter, crouching down to watch the last trickle of blood.
o0o
"He called while you were out," Luke told him when he got back.
Nathan nodded. "What'd he want?"
Luke snorted. "Same as always—orders. We need to meet him at the Capitol."
Nodding again, Nathan glanced around the apartment. "Well, I'm all packed. You?"
Luke rolled his eyes and said, "You never unpacked. It's not normal."
Nathan bit his lip, considering. "If I let you drive, will you burn this place down for me?"
Narrowing his eyes, Luke clarified, "With the people still inside?"
Nathan nodded a third time, trying to hide his eagerness. Luke slowly smiled. "Dude," he breathed. "You are just as messed up as me and Sylar."
Swiftly, they carried their few bags to the car. Nathan watched in awe and fascination as Luke set the building on fire with his mind, melting everything meltable and grinning as it sparked.
"Have fun?" Luke asked nonchalantly, hands loose around the wheel as the firetruck roared into the parking lot.
Nathan nodded, wide-eyed gaze on the top floor as a father tried to shield his daughter from the blaze.
"I still don't understand why you didn't want us there," Luke said. "I mean, yeah, me, I guess I get. But Sylar?"
Nathan turned his head to study Luke. "Are your feelings hurt?" he asked in disbelief.
"No!" Luke denied, peeling out of the lot. "I just—it was your first time. Thought you might want some back-up. Or somethin'."
"I wanted to do it alone," Nathan explained, staring down at his hands. He looked at his own bones, his musculature, the blood that gave him life. "I needed—I've always thought about it. I nearly did it a decade ago."
"What stopped you?" Luke tried to sound uninterested and Nathan smirked.
"My conscience." He glanced at Luke and they shared a grin.
"Well, that's something you don't have to worry about anymore."
Nathan settled back into the seat and flipped radio stations while Luke skillfully wove his way through DC traffic.
They had a man to meet and a country to take over.