Five Stages by aseina
disclaimer: Tim Kring owns Heroes.
a/n: First Heroes fic. I hope that the characterizations are accurate!
summary: Peter's progression through the five stages of grief. Set after Nathan's death in Season 4. Spoilers.
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Denial
Peter couldn't pinpoint the exact moment when he decided to reject the very notion that Nathan was dead.
He was unable to remember when he had buried the thought, due largely in part to the fact that his denial was an unconscious decision.
Peter didn't remember sitting down and reasoning with himself as he calmly repeated a weary declaration:
"Nathan isn't dead".
Instead, he had weighed the evidence, considered the gravity of his mother's words, and envisioned the image of his brother's corpse in that storage garage.
It only took him a minute to shake his head and tell himself,
"That wasn't my brother in there."
With that, Peter set out to find Sylar and bring Nathan back.
As long as he kept believing that he could free Nathan from Sylar's clutches, he could hold on to some hope of seeing his brother again.
Anger
As Peter slammed the nail gun into Sylar's palms in a kind of sacrilegious crucifixion, he resisted the temptation to kill him on the spot.
Sylar was a sinewy mass of evil beneath him, toxic putty in his hands. He sneered at Peter, taunting him, reminding the younger Petrelli that he stole his brother and that he would never see Nathan ever, ever again.
Peter cried out in rage as he struck Sylar with a wild, uncoordinated blow to the jaw.
Sylar's sputtering, bloody laugh did nothing to assuage Peter's wrath.
Instead, it incited further anger, and Peter struck Sylar again and again, never content with the rather disappointing amount of blood that poured from Sylar's lips.
More and more, Peter was realizing that his mother and Sylar were right.
He had to let go, but-
He couldn't.
Peter tried to destroy the thought as he felt Sylar's jaw softening under his fists, but he couldn't drown his anger- anger at his mother for making him believe in this mockery of a brother, and anger at Sylar for murdering Nathan.
Bargaining
Peter tried to bargain for Nathan's life twice.
The first time, he bargained with Sylar, looming over him with the nail gun as he growled threats and demanded his brother's safe return.
When Sylar laughed off his attempts, Peter pressed his fingertips to Sylar's forehead, noting the trembling of his fingers with a mild, detached disgust as he searched through the miasma of Sylar's mind for any sign of his brother.
Peter was briefly victorious, and he almost felt tears of relief spring to his eyes when he saw the bruised, smiling face of his brother staring up at him.
The peace was short-lived when Peter realized the hopelessness of the situation. Nathan was struggling to hang on, and Peter knew that this wouldn't last.
It was the eye of the storm, and Sylar was the swirling hurricane that ravenously circled around his brother's body.
When Peter bargained a second time, it was with Nathan, or at least a stranger with his face.
Despite the momentary lapses into Sylar's psyche, Peter still knew that he was talking to his brother. He recognized the plaintive sighs, the creased brow, and the tired eyes.
Nathan didn't have very long.
Peter placed his hands on his brother's shoulders, curling his fingers into the fabric of his shirt as he pulled Nathan into a desperate hug and begged him to keep fighting, to keep hanging on.
He knew that he had nothing to bargain with, but a tiny optimistic part of him wished that his sheer desire to keep his brother alive would be enough.
Depression
As Nathan clung to his rapidly weakening arms, Peter couldn't help but think back to all of the times that Nathan had been there for him, and all of the times when he hadn't.
He remembered everything, from the first moments on the rooftop to their father's funeral, and he choked back a sob.
Peter heard Nathan telling him to take care of Claire and tell their mother that he loved her. He was saying good-bye, in so many words.
He temporarily regressed back to his initial denial phase, trying in vain to wish himself away from this rooftop, from thisending.
The dead weight at the end of his arms reminded him of the terrible truth that he had been running from for months.
He was about to lose his brother.
Nathan stared up at him with eyes that were uncharacteristically genuine for Sylar, but Peter knew that this was because it was still Nathan and not Sylar that he was saying good-bye to.
It was still his brother when he choked out a bitter "I love you" and felt his hands beginning to slip, and it was still his brother falling into the darkness, for once incapable of flight.
It was definitely his brother that caused the tears to flow from his eyes freely as he crumpled against the concrete ledge in agony and grief.
Acceptance
Peter was sitting on a gurney outside of a crime scene when he finally accepted Nathan's death.
He felt Claire's healing touch flow through his body as he straightened his posture and carefully regarded his niece.
She was saying something about avoiding Nathan's memory, and Peter desperately wanted to drown her out.
However, part of him knew that he had to listen.
He allowed himself to finally admit to someone that he had been avoiding mourning his brother because he didn't want any of this to be real.
Peter knew that he had oscillated between the stages of denial and anger for the past few days, but it was expected.
Life wasn't always linear, and people weren't always able to be categorized into a neat little chronological flow chart of psychological states.
However, Peter knew that he would eventually move on to the acceptance stage, difficult as it seemed to believe at the time.
When he told Claire about his difficulty with moving on, he allowed her to pull him into a hug.
He hung his head over her shoulder and cried a few quiet tears before wordlessly patting her on the back and pulling away.
He offered her a teary smile in thanks and glanced at the night sky for a moment.
Even though the healing wouldn't happen overnight, Peter knew that Claire and his mother would support him as they all traveled the long road towards acceptance.
End.