Summary: After the disasters involved with rounding up specials, everyone thought that Nathan had grown up. Boy, were they wrong. Set during the Season 3 finale. OOC for Nathan and Gabriel, since they are friends who have teamed up to play a bad taste practical joke on the other Heroes.

Notes: This is set during "An Invisible Thread", i.e. the Season 3 finale. The scene should be pretty obvious, because I have rewritten a scene from the episode. It's a crack fan fic. Sort of.

Nathan and Gabriel have been friends for years (thus, OOC for both of them), though their friendship is complex.

I must thank petrelli heiress, for reminding me of the awesomeness of the word 'dastardly'.

Disclaimer: I don't own Heroes, Twitter nor 'What Goes Around Comes Around' by Justin Timberlake. You thought that I own those. *I attempt in vain to stifle laughter, before running out of the room to have a snickerfest.* Sorry about that, I'm back now.

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What Goes Around, Comes Around

"Are you almost done?" Nathan asked Gabriel, as the latter applied fake blood around the former's throat.

It was a secret between the two of them that they were friends. Nathan had known Gabriel back when he was an innocent watch maker, and knew about Gabriel's lust for blood when he became Sylar. Nathan kept it all quiet from the authorities, because Sylar had convinced him that that it was 'an effective way to eliminate the competition'.

Now, it was time for fun and games. Nathan's family and friends would believe that Sylar had gotten to him, which was when the surprise would be revealed.

"I'm almost there." Gabriel replied. One of Gabriel's secrets was that he used to apply prosthetic makeup for actors. Nathan had a lot of fake blood stashed in his basement, stored away for a perfect time like this. I just shivered. Even the thought of fake blood revulses me.

"You're pretty sick, shape shifting into me and then calling a press conference," Nathan said. He smiled. "You're smarter than I give you credit for."

"Thanks," Gabriel replied, dryly. "I was repaying you for the numerous times your field teams tried to capture me."

"How else was I going to round up specials without attracting suspicion? If you were not on the list, the most dangerous of them all, it would have been game over for both of us."

"Yeah, yeah, you've explained it to me already. All right, it's done."

Nathan checked out his fake wound in the mirror.

"Very good!"

"I could have just used my finger. That would have been a lot faster." Gabriel swished his finger menacingly in the air.

"Ha ha. Very funny."

"Okay, now play dead."

Nathan obediently tilted his head back, and pointed his eyes at the ceiling, playing dead.

"Excellent, Nathan. You really do look dead. I'm gonna go hide. I'll be just outside the window."

Nathan looked at Gabriel and grinned evilly. "Cool."

Gabriel levitated outside the window, just out of view of anyone inside the hotel room. Nathan checked that the security camera inside the room was working. It was.

"The room looks unstable, Nathan," Gabriel said from outside, as he looked at the still-smouldering pieces of wood that were left over from the fight between himself, Nathan and Peter.

"Don't worry about it. I can fly myself to safety, remember? Now shush, I can hear someone coming."

Nathan quickly sat back down and played dead. Matt Parkman entered the room, and saw Nathan, apparently deceased.

"You don't want to see this," Matt said, alarmed.

Angela Petrelli ignored him, and screamed her lungs out. Nathan laughed and stood up, while Matt and Angela gaped at him in shock.

Angela then did what any loving mother would do to her son, who had just played a bad taste practical joke on her. She growled and pushed Nathan back into the chair, before putting her hands around his neck and throttling him. She didn't even care that she was getting fake blood on herself in the process. Angela was quite strong for a sixty-something year old woman. Not even Nathan could fight off her unstoppable wrath. Really, you would have been impressed. It was quite ironic, that she had dreamed that Nathan was in trouble, and had done all she could to protect him. Now, all that she was succeeding in doing was choking the life out of her first born.

It was all Matt could do to pull Angela off Nathan. "You are a bad son! I thought you had grown up lately, but now I see that I was terribly mistaken!" She stormed out of the room.

Matt glared at Nathan, who was fighting for breath. "You Petrellis are crazy! You've tried so many times to kill each other. Not that I'm saying my own family is normal. Far from it. But at least I'm happy with my Janice and my Baby-Touch-And-Go." For a big man, Matt exited the room swiftly and impressively.

Gabriel levitated back into the room, laughing.

"Thanks for your help, Gabriel," Nathan half-growled, half-gasped.

"You got whipped by your Mom. That's hilarious!"

"I don't wanna play any more," Nathan whined.

"Come on, you nancy boy. This was your idea..."

"No, it wasn't."

"...and you said you wanted to see the look on Peter's face."

"Well, yeah, that's true," Nathan brightened up.

Gabriel smoothed out Nathan's clothes, and reapplied some of the fake blood. Both of them resumed their positions.

Peter and Claire reentered the room. When they both simultaneously saw Nathan's body, Claire screamed and Peter said something which cannot be repeated here.

As before, Nathan laughed and stood up, but this time he yelled out, "Surprise!"

Claire immediately fainted, in a spectacular fashion. Peter growled, and attempted to throttle Nathan. Who would have guessed that Peter would have an identical reaction to the prank as Angela? What a violent family.

Nathan, having decided that he had been choked enough, broke Peter's grip and flew out the open window. Peter flew after him in a rage. He thought he saw Sylar out of the corner of his eye, and of course he was correct.

"What are you doing out here?" Peter demanded.

"Nathan and I were in this together," Gabriel said smugly.

"That's right," Nathan said. He had flown back to join them, a smirk on his face. "The whole thing with rounding up specials, right through to my fake death just now, was a hoax."

"You mean, you and him...you are...friends?" Peter pointed an accusatory finger at his arch nemesis.

Nathan nodded. "Yep."

"You're sick!" Peter shouted, and flew at Nathan in an attempt to tackle him. Nathan dodged just in time. Peter tried to tackle him again, which Nathan dodged. Nathan was no longer smirking.

"That wasn't even funny, Nathan! I thought you were dead! You're both so cruel and selfish!" Peter managed to glare at both of them, at the same time. It was an impressive feat.

"Oh come on, Peter. It was just a joke-" Nathan started.

"Yeah, well, no one is laughing. What goes around, comes around." Peter flew back through the window, unimpressed by Nathan and Gabriel's dastardly deceptions.

What goes around, goes around, goes around

Comes all the way back around.

What goes around, goes around, goes around

Comes all the way back around.

Nathan felt a pang of regret that Peter's feeling were hurt, and felt like going after him. Then he thought that Peter was just looking for attention, just like he had always done as the younger brother. Nathan stayed where he was.

Claire had recovered by the time Peter had come back to join her. "Come on, Claire. Let's go shopping." Peter was fuming, and always found retail therapy helped him to relax. Claire squeezed Peter's hand appreciatively, because one of her main interests was shopping, besides complaining about everything under the sun and stars. Sometimes, she combined shopping with complaining, which is why not many people wanted to shop with her. Peter didn't seem to mind, in fact he seemed to enjoy shopping with Claire, which was why he was Claire's favourite uncle. They left.

Meanwhile, Hiro Nakamura and Baby-Touch-And-Go rejoiced in the corner of the room. It was a wonder why none of the others had spotted them, but then again, they were in deep shadows. It was unknown why the two of them were in the room. Hiro rejoiced because he had played numerous practical jokes on Ando (more often than not, they involved putting something nasty in Hiro's drawers at work) and his own sister, Kimiko. Baby-Touch-And-Go rejoiced because of all the practical jokes he had played on Janice and Matt. You thought that babies couldn't play practical jokes on people, didn't you? See, fan fiction can be educational.

Nathan and Gabriel levitated back into the room.

"Now, it's time to upload the video of our prank to Twitter," Gabriel said.

"I don't think that's such a good idea. No one found it funny," Nathan said, rubbing his neck.

"We came this far, so we might was well finish it." Gabriel obviously didn't care about other people's feelings as much as he could have.

"Besides, we wouldn't want the copy of the disc with you and Niki Sanders in Las Vegas, which I have, to fall into the wrong hands, would we?" Gabriel continued, narrowing his eyebrows scarily.

"No," Nathan gulped, and knew that his fate was sealed. They both went upstairs to the hotel's security room, and gained access easily via Nathan's credentials. They uploaded the video onto Twitter and got a lot of hits. There were some good comments on it, and a lot of heckling, mainly by Peter and Claire's friends.

Okay, so Nathan was blackmailed. Still, he could have been man enough to say 'no' to Gabriel.

As it turned out, Peter's words about 'what goes around, comes around' came true. It came around to Nathan and Gabriel the day after the prank.

Nathan was flying and accidentally crashed through the roof of a pillow factory. He was covered from head to toe in goose feathers, suffering from minor cuts and bruises, and the printing of his photo in every major newspaper caused him and the government great embarrassment. His official line was that it was a freak accident (thankfully, there were no witnesses). The cause of the accident is unknown to this day. Nathan realised that he could have died if the feathers hadn't broken his fall, and that life was too short to have bad blood between himself and his friends and family. He begged for their forgiveness. After a long talk, they accepted his apology. To this day, they've been on good terms. Nathan didn't contact Gabriel again.

Meanwhile, Gabriel woke up to find that his eyebrows and hair were missing. That's right, the eyebrows and hair that defined him a super hot bad guy, were on his head one night and had vanished by the morning. He visited the local hospital for an emergency weave, but it was to no avail. Gabriel was sad, but was soon overjoyed when he auditioned for a part in the local production of 'Aliens Without Eyebrows Fishing in a Four Dimensional Subterranean Mish-Mash', and was successful. He scored the leading part of Larry, the leader of the aliens, and got to use an Eastern European accent on the stage (as well as a really cool fishing rod, I might add). He played this role for three successful seasons, and hasn't killed anyone since.

By the way, the reason for Gabriel's eyebrows and hair going missing is undetermined. Police are still investigating.

THE END

Urgh, that's the third time in a row I've made Nathan a bad guy, after I vowed that I would make him a hero. While I go punish myself, please comment by clicking the big, green button.