A Note From Lara: Okay, this is me saying "I don't write slash. Like, ever. I fail at it." But this idea popped into my head after a conversation with petrelli heiress, and I just had to write it. So enjoy my first (and probably last) slash fic.
Warning: Contains spoilers through Volume 5 of Heroes, so make sure you're up-to-date if you don't want to be spoiled.
I never paid much attention to Nathan Petrelli. It was always his little brother who interested me. Peter was powerful. Peter was a threat. Peter was... well, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't kind of attracted to him. But Nathan was mostly useless to me, and he'd never presented any kind of threat to me, even when he was helping Peter to attack me in the Capitol Building. No, I never paid much attention to Nathan Petrelli... until I became him.
Once I was inside his head, living his life, seeing the world through his eyes, things changed. I knew him in the most intimate possible way, from the inside out, and I was amazed to find that I liked what I found. He taught me things I'd never even imagined I'd see. He tempered my Hunger, and he showed me a new perspective on life. I admired him, and in time, I came to love him.
Nathan had never been told when I thought I was his brother, and for that I was very glad. He'd never think of me in that light.
But, of course, he'd never really think again. Matt Parkman's pathetic attempt to hide me away only lasted a few days at most. For that time, I was in a limbo, seeing what was going on around me, within me, but unable to do anything about it. And by the time I was in control again, I didn't want to. Nathan was what I was living for now. Or rather, not living. Because the only way I could give back to him what he'd given to me was to stay hidden, stay quiet, and never reveal myself.
I was pulling the strings, of course, nudging forward the appropriate responses and going through the motions, but all I really was was a canvas for the colors of Nathan. I absolutely had to stay under the surface, because the moment I emerged, Nathan was gone forever.
And then, in one stupid moment, one gunshot, everything changed. He wasn't going to heal on his own. That power hadn't manifested... in him. But me, I had that power and I had it in spades. Acting on instinct, self-preservation overrode my love of my host, and I took control, forcing our body to heal.
Afterwards, of course, I looked for him. I searched desperately for Nathan, ransacking every corner of our mind, but not a trace of him was to be found, aside from memory.
Grief overrode everything. I had lost him. I had lost him, who was most important to me. And in my horror and panic at having destroyed yet one more person I loved, I raced back into the dark recesses of my mind, determined to succeed where Matt Parkman had failed, and hide myself away for good from all the pain of the world without Nathan in it.
When they came across the body that had once been mine, that had become wholly his, and then back again, and back once more, I was tucked so far away, not even the slightest memory was allowed to reveal itself. I had lost Nathan Petrelli, and in doing so, I had lost myself.
Yeah, like I said. I'm bad at writing slash.