Title: Oh, How Low the Mighty Have Fallen
Author: kenzimone
Disclaimer: Don't own.
Fandom: Heroes
Characters: Nathan, Sylar
Rating: R
Summary: Nathan never saw this coming.
Note: Five Years Gone coda. Totally and utterly unbeta'd.
James Lanier had been the Head of Security at the White House for as long as Nathan could recall. He had served under both the Clinton and Bush administrations, ran his department with an efficiency born out of nothing but experience, and knew the House as well as its many departments like a lover knew the curves of his partner's body.
James Lanier, Nathan knew, could be trusted with the life of the President.
Which is why, when Nathan wakes at 2:47 AM a few nights into his second term of presidency to find his Head of Security standing by his bedside, hand on shoulder rousing him from sleep, he thinks nothing of it. He simply slips out of bed, out of Heidi's loose embrace, and picks up a robe from the chair at his bedside.
And then he quickly and quietly follows Lanier out of his bedroom.
...
Nathan's not a disliked president. Not from what he's heard.
His approval ratings are high, the general public pleased with how he's handled the rebuilding of New York, as well as the search for those responsible for its ruin. They approve of his promise to weed out those amongst them who call themselves 'gifted', to find for them help, a cure. He's a media darling, his press conferences filled with banter and the subsequent articles written in all but condemning tones.
Death threats are very few, and very, very far between.
And so this is what he's been dreading; the phone call in the middle of the night, the summoning by his closest men, the hand that pulls him away from the controls of his well oiled machine of a country and gives him unexpected news, bad news, that will cause his presidency to veer off course.
To crash and burn, to make him spend the rest of his time in office cleaning up the ensuing mess.
Yes, this is what he's been dreading, and the halls of the White House suddenly seem very dark and cold as he follows James Lanier and prepares to meet whatever it is that might make him or break him.
...
Nathan's suspicion doesn't rouse until he's already inside the empty conference room, until Lanier closes the door behind them and locks it. Until he turns on the lights and Nathan takes in the canvases littering the room, recognizes the smell of paint in the air.
"James..." Nathan turns, ready to show some heavy presidential disapproval, only Lanier is gone, and from the shadows steps another man. A tall, thin man, dressed in dark clothes, with dead eyes and an eerie and snake like smile gracing his features.
"Hello, Nathan."
Nathan suddenly feels very small, and very vulnerable. He's barefoot, the carpet tickling the soles of his feet, his robe doing nothing to face off the chill in the air. He's confused, groggy, and wonders for a second if this perhaps may all be a dream.
And then he's pushed up against the wall, an invisible force crushing his ribs, making him slide higher and higher up against the paneling and pinning him at just the right height for his feet to lift off the floor.
And the man with the snake like smile simply stands there, eyes calmly taking him in. Savoring him.
Nathan tries to speak, tries to say something forceful and authoritative, but the sound gets lodged in his throat and for a moment he's sure he's going to suffocate. The world starts to spin and warp and just as blackness starts to creep in towards the edges of his vision the pressure on his chest lessens.
"I'm sorry, Nathan. That was very rude of me," the man with the dead eyes says.
Nathan doesn't quite hear him, being too preoccupied with trying to breathe.
"Where's James?" he wheezes. "And who are you?"
The man closes his eyes and tips his head to the side. He stays like that for a moment, silent and frowning, eyes moving rapidly beneath his eyelids like he is going through his memories one by one, searching for something lost, or perhaps misplaced. And then he smiles, like he's found his answer. "James is in the main hall. He won't be bothering us any time soon."
The man with the snake smile moves forward, leisurely stalking closer, and Nathan's throat suddenly feels dry, the force holding him up against the wall unmoving and unbreakable.
"As for who I am..." the man drawls, and suddenly there's a ripple in the air, a wave of nothing that hits the walls and disappears, and Nathan finds himself face to face with... himself.
"...I am you," Nathan tells him.
...
'Get out of town,' Peter had told him, and that is exactly what Nathan had done.
He'd fabricated a detailed and intricate lie, and made sure that his wife and children, his mother, as well as most of his closest and most important people, where out of New York before noon on the day of the explosion.
And then he'd waited. As the country grieved, he'd waited for Peter to return. And just before he'd given up hope, Peter had walked through the door. A scarred shell, wrecked with guilt, invisible blood of thousands dripping off his fingertips, but it had felt like Peter and looked like Peter.
And for Nathan, that had been good enough.
...
Nathan screams now, acts before he knows it, and the man wearing his face twists it into a cold half smile and the force against Nathan's chest develops new life, slamming him into the wall anew. Nathan thinks he feels something crack, and a sharp pain shoots through his body, but then it's gone.
"Don't scream," the man says. "It's so undignified. Especially of a president."
Nathan tastes blood, feels it dripping down his chin. The man turns, crimson robe billowing slightly as he walks away, approaching the closest of the canvases lining the room's walls. "I want to thank you," he says, "for the opportunity you've given me. Ruler of the free world. It has a certain ring to it. Though I can't say I appreciate the work you've been encouraging Dr. Suresh to do."
He hesitates now, turns and walks back towards Nathan. There's a purpose in his step, a look in his eyes. Nathan recognizes it from the day of his Presidential Oath of Office, from the eyes staring back at him from the mirror.
"We are not diseased," the man who is now him snarls in Nathan's face. "You of all people should know that. Some, most, of you are less deserving than others, but I possess not something that should be cured. It should be... nurtured. Embraced."
He smiles, eyes flaring milky white. "Let me show you, Nathan, what you have helped to create."
The canvases are large. There are ten of them, lined up one after another along the conference room walls.
The man paints them all.
He works like no painter Nathan has ever seen, like a machine that does not consider emotion or light or colors, it simply paints. Like a factory belt, producing one picture after another until it's met its quota.
Dreadful, detailed pictures. Horrible paintings.
Nathan sees himself with Dr. Suresh, cutting the red tape in front of a large clinic.
He sees the new New York, buildings gleaming in the sun; himself, hair flecked with gray, sitting behind the desk of the Oval Office.
He sees his mother's funeral; his youngest son enrolling in the army. Himself dancing with his wife at their oldest son's wedding; Heidi's swollen belly and her happy smile.
He sees the thwarting of an assassination attempt, and his son's platoon ambushed and destroyed in a snow covered landscape.
He sees himself standing tall and triumphant, Peter's bloody body lying limply by his feet.
"It's beautiful, isn't it?" the man says, hands and forearms flecked with paint. And then he raises his finger and begins to carve.
The very last thing Nathan sees, is Peter's blood covering his own smiling face.