Title: Healing (2/2)
Author: Trekker (47_trek_47)
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Nathan/Peter/Claire, mainly Claire/Peter, Nathan/Peter, Nathan & Claire
Length: 14,923 words
Spoilers: Through "Powerless"
Warnings: Fictional incest between fictional relatives; underage (Claire is sixteen); explicit sex; depression; some blood, gunshot wounds, and needles at the beginning in a non-sexual context

Summary: Maybe Claire can save them both.


Continued from Part One...

***

She couldn't even try to sleep that night. She just lay there in the dark, staring at the ceiling, until the lights went out in the hall and the house settled into the kind of quiet that meant Mom was in bed for the night. Lyle was spending the night at a friend's house.

She got up silently, and stood beside her bed for a long time, thinking, Should I? Can I? Maybe he didn't mean it like that. How could I think he meant it like that? I shouldn't. I'm wrong. It's wrong.

She began shivering in her thin nightgown and the nighttime coolness.

Finally she just gave up. I'm going. Screw it. I'm going.

She went. Down the stairs and into the foyer. The light in the hall bathroom was on and the door was standing open, making the whole downstairs just bright enough to see things.

She heard each of her steps as she walked to the archway to the living room. She was shivering hard now, and she didn't think it was just cold. She stopped where she had the night before, with her hand on the frame.

She closed her fingers on it tightly.

They weren't even under the sheet tonight. The dim light from the bathroom was plenty to see them: all of them. Nathan, mostly, since he was covering Peter's body with his own. Her fingertips felt numb and her head felt swirly. Peter had his face turned down, pressed into the pillow. He had one arm out, with his fist clenched around a handful of the sheets. He was moving in time with Nathan, with long, langorous rolls of his whole body. She couldn't breathe.

And then he turned his head and his eyes found her again. Nathan followed his gaze. She felt the urge to run, but she couldn't have, even if she had truly wanted to. Her body wasn't responding to her commands right then.

Maybe they'll tell me to leave, she thought. Maybe they'll call me a freak and tell me to get the hell out--

But they didn't. Instead, Nathan rolled them onto their sides, Peter facing her. In the half-light, she could see everything about him: his shadowed muscles, his erection, the trail of hair from his belly button down to his groin. Nobody spoke, but the invitation was clear.

Still numb, she barely felt the hem of her nightgown between her fingers when she took it and lifted it off over her head. The cool air brushed across her bare breasts as she walked to the bed, feeling like she was floating through a dream.

The sheets were warm. They felt good against her cool skin.

Peter, who pulled her into his arms, was warm, too. She pressed herself to him, but she didn't stop shivering.

"I've gotta--" Nathan said, and then he was moving again, nudging Peter against her every time he pressed into him.

She could feel Peter's sharp exhalations against her cheek. The top of his penis was hot and damp and nudged her bare belly. Through her panties, she could feel the hard length of it pressed against her groin. She bit her lip, hard. I want it in me. Right now.

But she didn't move to take her panties off. It was too much. She couldn't even think of it head on. She just pushed her arms around Peter, between his back and Nathan's chest, and held on as tightly as she could, just drowning in the feeling of all of his skin against almost all of hers. She realized she'd found their rythym and was moving her hips against him in time with it.

I love you. Peter, I love you.

She couldn't say it though. It would have taken more concentration than she had.

Instead, she just held onto him, and then he started kissing her. It was completely, unquestionably real. She wondered if it was possible to pass out just from this.

She wondered if it was possible to have an orgasm just from this.

But then Peter slid one hand down her stomach and into her panties and she didn't have to wonder anything anymore.

She bit down on her own hand hard enough to draw blood to hold in her cry as his fingers moved demandingly on her.

"Yeah. Oh, yeah. Claire--"

She came, digging her fingernails into his back and feeling the universe compress around her, her body turn inside out. His finger on her clitoris coaxed her through it, drawing it out, soothing her afterwords. He kissed her cheeks and her eyelids and wrapped his arms around her again, alongside Nathan's, which she hadn't realized he'd put around her back. She buried her face in Peter's neck and clung to him, hearing every small sound he made as Nathan--

Hearing everything Nathan was saying now. Not just pieces.

"I love you. I love you so much. You are perfect. Perfect."

She almost felt like crying, because she could feel Peter fighting it, tensing up, trying to wish it away because he didn't believe it. She wished she could say something but she still couldn't speak, she could only hold him tight and think, You are. He does. I do. Believe us, Peter.

"I'm gonna come," Peter said suddenly. "Claire--"

Nathan and Peter both let go of her and she pulled away, watching Peter fumble for the tissue box up by his pillow.

She watched from the side of the bed as Nathan reached down and put his hand around his cock, moving it fast as he kept moving slowly inside of him, saying, "Yeah, that's it. That's it. Come on, baby. Come on, sweetheart. You're so good, yeah."

Peter pressed his hand and the wad of tissues to himself and threw his head back, "Oh. Nathan. Nath--"

Seeing him come was amazing--that long moment of pure ecstasy transforming him in the midst of all the pain.

She pressed herself against him again the moment he'd wiped himself off and put the tissues aside, and she stayed there until they both felt Nathan come inside him.

After, she slipped away, picking up her nightgown and creeping back up the stairs. It took her hours to finally fall into an exhausted sleep.

***

Too early the next morning, after breakfast, Nathan gave her a quick glance and headed out into the backyard. Peter was still asleep in a tangle of sheets in the family room and Mom was going through her usual morning routine.

Claire joined Nathan at the picnic table. For awhile, neither of them spoke or made eyecontact. They watched the birds squabble at the bird feeder, looked up at the now-cloudless sky, listened to the neighbors' sprinklers hissing and sputtering.

Claire broke first. "Depression is physical," she said. "So... he should be able to fix it. I should be able to fix it. I think he's not letting himself."

Nathan nodded, looking down at his folded hands resting on the table. "Yeah," he said. "I know. I went through it. Couple weeks of pills and I was... not okay, but... better. Different. I could feel it." He shook his head. "I think you're right."

He took a deep breath then and sat up, finally meeting her eyes.

"So what do we do?" Claire said.

Nathan shrugged. "Keep telling him he's worth it." He paused, considering. "Convince him he can use his power to do good. That he's meant to. Like he used to believe."

They were both silent for a moment, then Nathan looked down again. "God, I miss that obnoxious optimistic little bastard."

"We're much better at being the sarcastic realists," Claire agreed, nodding.

Nathan chuckled.

After a pause, with both of them looking away, lost in their own thoughts, Claire said, "I was gonna go public, too."

He looked up. "Oh?"

"Yeah. I had all of Dad's old files together, ready to call a press conference or whatever."

"What happened?"

"Long story," she said, quickly. Then, after he'd waited for a moment, patiently, she began to tell it. "See, you know my Dad worked for that Company, right?"

She ended up telling it all, from the beginning, about the first time she'd hurt herself and healed to finding out what her Dad really did, to Sylar and Peter, Zach, Meredith, moving to Costa Verde, meeting West, Dad getting shot and then Dad coming back.

He listened through it all, and she realized she'd never really told anyone the whole thing, and it felt good to just get it out there and know that he'd believe her.

After she was finished, he said, "The first time I flew was in the middle of a car accident. My wife--my... ex-wife--Heidi was in the passenger seat. She ended up paralyzed."

He told her about Linderman, and his father and his suicide. About Peter apparently losing his mind, jumping off a building, jetting off to Texas to save a cheerleader. About getting a call from an old girlfriend he'd believed was dead. About the campaign and the FBI and his mother. About knowing Peter was alive, but having no way to be sure.

She'd known pieces of the story, but it was different all put together and in his words.

Then he said, "Your boyfriend could fly?"

He sounded a little jealous.

Claire grinned. "Yeah. But not like you. He flies like... a kite, kind of. Floaty, sorta. You and Peter fly like jets."

"Hm," Nathan said, as though considering whether that should mitigate the jealousy of not being the only flying human in the world or not.

The conversation sputtered to a halt again. Claire focused on a pair of sparrows that were squabbling over a certain perch on the feeder.

Suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, Nathan said, "Are you on birth control pills?"

Startled, she said, "Um, no. Why... would I be?"

"Wait," he said. "You mean you've never--you're not--"

"No..." she said, rolling the word out, feeling a flutter of nerves in her stomach, worrying this was going to ruin everything.

He stared at her. "Are you sure you want to do this?"

"Yes," she said, carefully, clearly, emphatically.

"You don't have to."

"Yes, I do. For him," she said. "And I want to. I've never wanted anything like I want this. I want this. Please don't make us not do this."

He sighed. "I was thinking it would be best to get a hotel room somewhere. Something private. No distractions, and we won't risk... screwing things up for you with your mom."

She nodded, trembling inside. "Yeah. Yeah, that's a good idea."

Oh, my god, we're going to do this. Again, on purpose, for real. We're planning it.

She jumped a bit when he took her hand in his. He squeezed gently, not saying anything or looking at her, but she could feel the implied thank you.

***

Nathan vanished for about an hour after that. When he returned, he headed straight for the family room and reappeared a few minutes later with a sleepy Peter in tow.

Claire had been trying to do homework, or read, or something, or anything, and failing utterly at concentrating on any of it. She'd finally ended up crashing in front of the TV and watching cartoons, because the bright colors and screechy voices were all that was simple enough to keep her attention. Peter dropped down on the floor next to her (the couch had been hopeless and they'd had it hauled off the to dump.)

"Hi," she said.

Nathan headed off to somewhere else.

"Hi," Peter said.

Peter zoned out instantly on the cartoons. She wasn't even sure what show it was or even what the basic plotline was. She could smell him. Feel the heat of his arm next to hers. He looked like a kid who'd been up past his bedtime, tossled hair and drooping eyelids.

She leaned against him, resting her head on his shoulder. "Peter... you can fix this. You know you can."

She felt him take a breath. "I don't... deserve to."

"Yes, you do."

For a moment, he was suddenly passionate. "No. I don't." He pulled away from her, stood up and paced to the fireplace and back. "All I've done since this started is get people I love killed. Simone. Maybe Caitlyn. Nathan. I don't deserve any of this. I can't handle it. Nathan was right--I can't save the world."

Claire stood up. "Nathan doesn't believe that. He believes you can."

"He used to," Peter said. "And he was right. It's just a fantasy. A stupid... kid thing."

"No, it's not. Peter, we have these... powers... for a reason."

"No, we don't. It's evolution, it's random. It's just--bad luck. Evolution goes wrong sometimes. It went wrong with me."

"Everybody makes mistakes, Peter. You just have to move on. Learn from them. You can do these amazing things. It's just like learning to walk, you have to start slowly."

He shut his eyes and closed his hands into fists and said, "I can't. I can't. I'm not who you think I am."

"Yeah, you are," Nathan said, appearing suddenly in the archway.

Peter opened his eyes and focused on Nathan dispairingly. "No," he said, softly.

"Fine," Nathan said. "If you can't believe that... then at least believe we believe it. Believe we love you. Let us."

"It doesn't change anything."

"Maybe not. But let us, anyway. Just let us."

Peter's shoulders slumped and Nathan crossed the room, putting his hands on either side of Peter's neck and squeezing the muscle there gently, shaking him a bit until he met Nathan's eyes. When he did, though, he just shut his eyes abruptly and tightly and gasped wetly, halfway to a sob. "Nathan--" Then he threw himself against him, holding onto him like a bouy in a stormy sea. "I can't--I can't. It hurts."

"I know. God, I know, Pete. I want so much to make it stop. Please let us make it stop."

"I can't."

Claire suddenly shook herself and went to the center of the house, yelling up the stairs, "Mom! Me and Nathan and Peter are going to go see a movie!"

"Okay, hon! Dinner's at seven and don't forget you've got homework!"

She ran back into the room and before she could let herself overthink it, wrapped her arms around Peter from behind, joining in their embrace. "Peter, please. We love you. I love you. You saved me. You saved me in so many ways. Come with us."

"Where?" he said, wetly.

"Somewhere we can be together for awhile," Nathan said. "All of us."

"What?" Peter said. "We can't--"

"Yes, we can. If you want it. We want it," Claire cut in, before Nathan could even speak.

He didn't answer for a long time. She could feel him shaking.

Then he said, again, but differently and quietly: "Where?"

***

It was just a Comfort Inn, somewhere outside of LA off the freeway. Nathan had already booked the room, so they'd landed on the roof and taken the stairs down and straight to it. 522. No one saw them.

The room was just like any other hotel room anywhere. It smelled the same, looked the same, with the same bland artwork and the same beds with the same pastel comforters.

Nathan put the "Do Not Disturb" sign into the keycard slot and shut the door behind all of them. He threw the deadbolt and turned around. Claire had stopped in the middle of the room, with Peter standing across from her. She looked back at Nathan, who said, "We should probably all take showers. Just..." He shrugged, and Claire realized that he was actually unsure.

She suddenly understood why Peter had been so thrown off by that, when it happened back in New York.

Nathan crossed between the two of them and went to the nightstand between the beds, opening the drawer and pulling out a small, turquois cardboard box. He went to Claire and handed it to her.

"What's this?" she said, even as she was flipping it over to read the label.

"Spermicide," he said.

Peter had sat down on the end of the bed further from the door.

"Wait... aren't we gonna use, uh, condoms?" It was weird to say that word, in the actual proper context, but she had to ask, because if not, that was kind of a deal-breaker.

"Yeah," Nathan said. "Of course. But... let's just say that didn't prevent you. And given the circumstances--"

"Oh," Claire said, suddenly getting it. "Gotcha. Better safe than--Good thinking. Right."

"You should probably take the first shower," he said. "I think that stuff takes a little time to kick in."

He sat on the bed next to Peter, who immediately leaned into him.

"Right," Claire said, to no one in particular, and headed into the bathroom.

She read the directions for the stuff three times before she actually used it, then got into the shower and cleaned herself thoroughly, hyperaware that someone--two someones--would be seeing, touching and smelling pretty much all of her.

She spent the first half of the shower just thinking, over and over, I can't believe I'm doing this. I'm a total slut. I can't believe I'm doing this. By the time she shut off the water, though, she felt calm.

She dried off and put her clothes back on and walked back out into the room.

Nathan immediately got up from where he'd been lying alongside Peter and went to take his turn in the bathroom. Without saying anything, Claire crawled onto the bed and took his place, settling along Peter's side. She'd heard once of something--dolphins, maybe--doing something like this. Taking turns keeping a packmate warm and alive and afloat. It certainly felt almost like an animal instinct.

Peter lifted the hand of the arm he had under her shoulders and drifted his fingers lightly through her hair. She smiled, glad he was doing... anything. She stroked his chest in return. She could feel his heartbeat.

They lay together silently until she heard the water turn off. Then, she got up and walked to the table by the curtained window, sitting down there. She listened to the bathroom door open and the sound of Peter and Nathan's kiss, then to the bathroom door closing again, before she looked up.

Nathan was sitting with his back to her on the edge of the closer bed, naked. He was still ruffling a handtowel through his hair. She stared at his back for a moment, before she silently stood up and stripped down to her bare skin. She crossed the room--feeling the rough, low carpet under her bare feet--and sat across from him on the edge of the other bed. He didn't seem startled.

They regarded each other silently. There was no lewdness in the way he was looking at her bare body, just a sort of intense curiosity. She got that. She felt it, too, as she let her eyes wander, tracing the network of scars along his left side, the whorls of his body hair, the geography of his almost-too-lean muscled physique. She'd spent the last couple of days picking out the ways his face echoed hers, and now she was doing the same with his body.

The last place she was able to let her eyes go was his penis. It wasn't hard. She'd never, in her recollection, seen a soft penis. She'd only occasionally seen--and a couple of times touched--hard ones through clothing... and she'd seen Peter's.

She'd been adopted, and she'd known that about as long as she'd really been thinking about sex, so she'd never had to think about her parents doing that to create her. But Nathan had. Nathan and Meredith, sixteen--almost seventeen--years ago. He would have been younger then. Maybe he hadn't had those scars yet. Meredith would have been younger, too.

They were both beautiful people. That was probably what drew them to each other, she thought. Or maybe it was their powers. Latent, then, but... West had found her, hadn't he? It was like they were drawn to each other.

His penis, that she was looking at, had been inside Meredith's vagina--and then there'd been her.

Almost without thinking, she slid off her bed, coming down into a kneel between his bare feet on the carpet. She lifted her hand but stopped with it in midair. He shifted his knees just a bit further apart. Consenting. Inviting.

She touched his penis. Cupped it in the palm of her hand. It was warm and silky-soft. Malleable. Even after his shower, she could smell him, here. Nothing bad, just a musky, human smell. She flexed her hand and her fingertips brushed the wirey, hairy, warm sac of his testicles. She sucked in a breath when his penis twitched in her hand, suddenly warmer and alive, like a creature with a mind of its own.

"Sorry," he said, with a shaky breath, like he had any control over his own involuntary reactions. Like that wasn't, technically, the whole reason they were here.

"S'okay," she said, her own voice barely above a whisper, too.

She pushed her hand back in further, deeper, curling it around the soft weight of his balls, paranoidly careful not to squeeze to hard or catch his skin with a fingernail. Trapped by her own restrictions, all she could do was hold him, moving her free thumb just slightly against the shaft of his cock, feeling the small changes in it as it grew and lengthened slowly.

She startled when his hand slid into her hair, curling there just behind her ear.

"It's okay," he said, "You're not going to hurt me."

She shuddered and felt her insides clench. She was suddenly wet between her folds down there, freeing the skin to move and slide against itself, fiery and thrilling.

Experimentally, she rubbed him, pressing his cock up between his belly and the flat of her palm.

He made a sound, just a small grunt or groan, and shifted his hips and said, "Yeah. Yeah, that's it. Like that."

She felt his hand tremble against the curve of her skull.

Then another hand was on her shoulder, and then a body was kneeling alongside hers, pushing Nathan's legs open wider.

"Peter--" she said, as he leaned in and licked: Nathan's cock, her hand, both.

"Ah, Pete," Nathan said, as Peter took his cock away from Claire and slipped the head of it into his mouth. He held it shallowly, and she could see his shining, pink tongue sweeping around the reddening bulb of flesh at the top.

In seconds, Nathan was completely hard. The once-bunched skin was stretched taut and shiny and dark pink with blood and his hips were shifting constantly, restlessly, as Peter bobbed his head down and up, sometimes taking Nathan in almost to the top of Peter's hand, sometimes pulling off completely and licking down and up and around, always holding the base, sometimes pumping it with his hand.

Then, Peter pulled off completely for a second, a single strand of saliva still connecting him to Nathan, and he looked at her with half-closed eyes and said, "Kiss him."

"Um," she said, her cheeks almost as hot as her groin, "Uh, where?"

Peter smiled slightly. "His mouth. For now."

She got up on the bed and sat down beside Nathan, their bare hips pressed together. Nathan lifted his arm and wrapped it around her shoulder and they looked at each other for a moment. Then Nathan's eyes shut and he hissed a breath through closed teeth, and she wasn't sure what Peter had done to him, but she felt like it was now or never, so she leaned in, feeling her breast press against his side, and she kissed him.

He kissed her back. He'd do anything, she thought, Anything he told him to.

So would I, she realized, as she opened her mouth for Nathan's tongue.

It went on, long enough that she forgot Nathan was her father, and that she was really just here for Peter. Long enough that she was pressed against him, one leg thrown over his thigh and tucked between his calf and Peter's chest. His hand was down between her legs, two fingers up inside her, moving now and then when he wasn't too distracted by Peter's mouth doing whatever it was doing down between his legs.

She broke away suddenly with a gasped, "Oh, my god. I can't--somebody please--"

"Yeah," Nathan said, "Yeah. Pete. Peter, I'm gonna come if you don't--I wanna fuck you. Hell, I wanna fuck both of you."

And her only reaction to that was Yes. Please. Oh, please. Now. Anything. Something. Please.

Then Peter rolled to his feet and Nathan moved back to the center of the bed, lying down with his head toward the pillows. Before Claire could move, Peter was beside her, catching her arms with his hands and turning her towards him, leaning in.

She opened her mouth under his instantly, desperately, shaking all over as he wrapped his arms around her back, still kissing her, and pulled her against him and then lay them both out flat on the bed, his perfect weight pressing her down into the covers.

"Peter. Oh, god, Peter." He tasted like Nathan and salt.

He whispered, "You taste like him."

Her legs were spread wide and she couldn't help but tilt her hips up. She gasped when she felt his bare erection brush against her, the shaft dragging between her wet lips.

"Shit," he said. "Oh." Then he was doing it intentionally, rubbing them together, sliding against her wetness, pressing and dragging against her clit. Yes. Yeah. Touching herself had never felt like this. Nothing like this. It couldn't come close to the totality of having his hot body against hers, damp and sticky with sweat, his hands in her hair, his tongue in her mouth, his smell all around her, filling her.

Then Nathan's voice broke through the haze, dark and chiding but gentle. "Hey. Pete." His hand worked between them, catching Peter's shoulder and pulling him away from her and both she and him moaned in protest. She clenched her arms around his back, trying not to let him go.

But he turned his head. Of course he did. It was Nathan, after all, and as much as Nathan (or Claire) would do anything for Peter, Peter would do anything for him.

Why is he taking him away? she thought, Is he jealous?

But it wasn't that. He just kissed Peter's cheek and reached down further between them, to where their bodies touched, still. She looked down, and saw him deftly rolling a condom over Peter's cock and thought, Oh. Yeah. Oh, my god. I wasn't even thinking about that.

Peter let out a shuddery breath and said. "Thanks. Shit. Thanks."

Then they kissed, seemingly far above her, quickly but deeply. Then Peter's whole soul was focused on her again.

"Is this okay?" he said.

"Yes."

"Good. It might--hurt. I'm sorry. I don't know. I've actually never, uh--"

Nathan was still sitting right beside them, his knees digging into Claire's side. She saw he had his hand on Peter's back. "It's okay," he said, "She'll be fine. She's fine. I--uh--checked."

Suddenly annoyed and sort of offended, Claire glared. "You checked?"

He shrugged, wide-eyed. "Sorry? I just didn't want us to--hurt you."

"Can't be hurt," she pointed out, huffily. "And anyway, I could have told you that I did a lot of gymnastics when I was a kid."

And then Peter was laughing. At first, she felt disconcerted and definitely offended. Then, as he said, "You two," she started to smile. Then grin. Then laugh.

She caught Nathan rolling his eyes and that just made her laugh harder. Peter had fallen down over her, pressing his forehead to her shoulder, helpless with laughter.

She hugged him tight and nestled her face against his, and then he turned his head and then she kissed him and then they were kissing again, and his tears were falling on her cheeks and neither of them were laughing anymore and she threw back her head and said, "Please. Peter, please."

"Wait," he said.

She groaned wildly. "Too much waiting."

"Just--" He moved off her, beside her, laying down on his side, facing her with Nathan sitting behind his back. He craned his head around and reached behind himself, grabbing Nathan's arm. "I want you, too. Think we can?"

"Yeah," Nathan said, touching Peter's side. "Yeah, I think so."

Nathan stretched out behind him, spooning up against him, even as he reached between them, rubbing himself with something. "You ready for this?" he said.

"I'm good," Peter said. "Really good. Go ahead."

Then both of them were closing their eyes. Peter's lips parted with a small moan, and Nathan shifted behind him. Peter drew up his top leg, feeling around for a moment with his foot until he'd managed to hook that leg between Claire's, cinching them close again. Claire, so distracted by watching their joining, was caught off-guard by the feeling of his erection against her again.

Nathan murmured nonsense against Peter's ear, and then Peter pulled Claire into his arms, kissing her face and washing away any of the cold tendrils of abandonment that had started to creep into her. He reached down and caught her top leg under the knee, pulling it up over his hip, bringing them perfectly into alignment, with his cock brushing against her again.

"Put me inside you," he whispered.

Her hand shook hard, but she managed to do it. She was watching Nathan kiss along Peter's shoulder, watching Peter lean his head back, eyes closed, expression ecstatic, lost in pleasure. His cock stretched and pushed her, but it felt good. So good. Better than anything else in the world.

Better than anything she'd felt before... until he started to move. That was even better. He wasn't moving fast. Just slow shifts of his hips, into her, then out and back, onto Nathan. Nathan's hand was suddenly on top of hers, both of them resting on Peter's ribs, and he clutched it tight, pained restraint written across his face.

Slow, so slow. Painfully, awfully slow, even as it felt so good. All so precarious. A couple times, Peter shifted back too quickly and slid out of her. Once Peter must have zigged when Nathan zagged and it made Peter cry out for a second in real pain.

But gradually, it changed. They began to figure it out, find a rhythm. She learned when to lift herself and follow him back, Nathan learned the right angle to match Peter's slow dance.

She whispered, "I love you."

She felt him shudder.

Then Nathan kissed him, just behind his ear, that bare spot where his hair ended and his throat began. "I love you, too."

Peter made a sound, like his pained groan earlier.

Claire pressed herself closer, canting her hips to take him all the way inside her, unexpectedly. "Yes, we do."

His hands curled into fists against her back. His eyes stayed tightly shut. He'd stopped moving, but now she was rocking her hips, fucking him. And Nathan--Nathan was doing the same, rolling behind his back, saying, "It's okay. It's okay. Just let it go. Just let go."

The movement was hard, physically. It taxed muscles she rarely used even in cheerleading to lift herself up and into him like that, but she wasn't about to stop, she basically couldn't stop, now that she'd found she could grind her clit against the base of his cock everytime she pushed him into her.

She could feel him fighting her, holding her out, and she said, "Let me in. Let me help. Please, Peter. Please. You're worth it, you deserve it, we love you. Please. I'm right here, just let me in."

Nathan was fucking him hard, now, ramming Peter's body against hers every time she rose up. She worried he might be hurting him, but nothing in Peter's cries, now rythmic and involuntary, sounded like pain.

"Let her," Nathan growled. "Let her, Pete. Come on. Stop this. Just let us help."

"Can't," Peter panted, "I can't, I can't."

Claire felt a sudden surge of anger, matching the arousal inside. "Yes you can. Don't say you can't, Peter fucking Petrelli. Don't tell me you can't. I know what you can do."

"Listen to her," Nathan said, urgently, fucking him even harder, making the bed rattle. "She's right. Stop acting like a spoiled kid, Pete. Grow up. The world needs you, you hippy little punk. Get with the program."

Peter whipped his head back and shoved his hips forward, catching Claire deep and sharp, but that was okay, the pain was okay, because he was coming, hard, and screaming it out, and all she and Nathan could do was hold on through it, forever through it, until finally he collapsed, quivering, between them.

Claire flopped onto her back, her own body screaming, so close and so unfufilled. She shoved her hand between her legs and started rubbing her clit frantically, but it wasn't enough, it wasn't the same. On the other side of Peter, Nathan sat up abruptly, swiping a towel over his groin, then climbing over Peter. Suddenly he was over her, ripping open a condom packet and then rolling the condom on, saying, "Yes or no?"

"Yes," she said. "Yes, yes, yes. I'm gonna die if you don't."

And that was all he needed. He slammed into her, fucking her like he'd fucked Peter, hard, deep, fast and relentless, holding her legs up at an almost painful angle, and she vaugely knew she was shouting and clutching his shoulders and it seemed like it only took about ten seconds before she was coming like she'd never come before, wretching every muscle in her body and feeling a cry rip through her raw throat and a flood of wet between her legs.

Then he was coming, too. Pressed deep inside her, shuddering all over, not making a sound, just coming, lips twisted in a grimace of overwhelming feeling.

He fell away, panting, sweat rolling down his face into his hair.

She stretched, arching her back. For a moment, everything ached--then nothing did. That would be her ability, checking in again. Nathan wasn't looking at her. She rolled her head to the side and realized Peter's pale hand was resting in the center of Nathan's golden chest. She sat up and looked.

The first thing she saw was Peter's smile.

***

The arranged themselves into a comfortable cuddling position, with Claire in between the two men, all of them exhausted, drifting and dozing. They rested for about an hour, before Peter was up, saying, "Nathan, you have Hiro's number in your cell right? I should really call him."

Nathan, the only one of them who didn't have the benefit of genetic healing to help him recover from an orgy, groaned as he pushed himself more-or-less upright. "Right now?"

Peter shrugged, a why-not gesture, and went back to Nathan's pants, rooting through his pockets until he found Nathan's cellphone.

"Wait," Nathan said, still kind of groaning. "He can teleport. And he probably will, once he knows where we are. We should all put some clothes on first. And maybe... cover our tracks a bit. Okay?"

"I second that motion," Claire said, quickly. She wasn't a hundred percent sure who Hiro was, but she was a hundred percent sure she didn't want him to see all of this.

"Good point," Peter said.

So they all got up, got clean, and got dressed. They straightened up the room a bit, Nathan went down and checked them out, then they all returned to the roof of the building. The sun was starting to slant towards the horizon, making the sky orange and pink, and a cool breeze was blowing. The skyscrapers of LA were visible in the hazy, smoggy distance. Peter stopped and stared, and the look on his face was one of pure awe.

It made her smile, and then it made her sad. She went over and took his hand. "So, this means you'll be leaving now, right?"

He smiled and stroked her cheek. "I can teleport. I'll visit, I promise. No matter what." Then he seemed to consider that, and added, "Unless I get amnesia again."

"You should get all your identifying information tattooed on your arm," she said.

"Can't," he said, "Tattoos don't stick for us."

"What? Oh man," Claire said. So much for that butterfly she'd secretly been saving up for. "That sucks."

He grinned, then left her to go get Nathan's cellphone back from him. She stood by Nathan and they watched him talk to Hiro--"... Yes. Yes, Hiro, I swear, I do want to use my powers for good. Really. ... Yes, I'm mending my villinous ways."--until suddenly, with a small 'snap,' Hiro appeared on the roof with them.

Peter hung up, and Hiro hugged him enthusiastically, then turned to Claire and said, "You! You're The Cheerleader!"

"Er," said Claire, "Yeah? I guess?"

"He likes to name people based on attributes," Nathan said, driely. "I'm--"

"Flying Man!" Hiro cut him off. He hugged Nathan, too. Nathan bore the affectionate assault stoicly.

They all ended up sitting on the cement wall around the roof as the three men discussed strategies and world-saving. Claire stayed out of the conversation.

At some point, Peter said, "You could come with us, Claire."

But she'd made the decision she'd figured out she had to and said, "I can't. I mean--I'm not ready. You know? I need to... figure some stuff out and things. And, like, graduate from high school.

"But," she added, "You guys have to promise to call me if you need me for anything."

Shortly after that, everybody was ready to go and it was almost time for dinner. Nathan flew her home. Just outside the house, he squeezed her shoulder and said, "You made the right choice. I'm proud of you."

It didn't seem like it should have mattered so much, but it did. She blinked away a tear and then threw her arms around him. They hugged, then she kissed his cheek and stepped away. "Take care of him, okay?"

"I will. Count on it," he said, and then he was six hundred feet up and rising.

She went in.

Mom was almost done with dinner. She looked up when Claire came in. "Hi, honey. Where're the amazing flying Petrelli brothers?"

"Destiny called," Claire said, as she snagged a french fry from the baking sheet. She chewed, swallowed, and said, "They answered."

Mom arched a brow at her. "And you were able to resist the siren call of destiny?"

"Well," Claire said, "I have a math test on Tuesday."

***

The next evening, Mom called her downstairs: "Claire! Come see this! Quick!"

She ran down to find a breaking news bulletin on the TV. A line of guys in all black were kneeling on the pavement outside of a bank, and a guy in a beige trenchcoat and a green ski mask was standing in front of them. He said, "Put all your weapons on the ground," and, as though hypnotized, the guys in black did it. Then another guy in beige and a blue ski mask flew past picking all the weapons up. The commentator cried out in amazement, forgetting for a second his running narration of the events.

Claire felt herself grinning ear-to-ear as she realized what was happening.

The police swept in and rounded up the now-unarmed criminals, and once they were out of the way, four men gathered in the center of frame, all of them wearing various colors of ski masks and matching beige trenchcoats. She could recognize Hiro, Nathan, and Peter, but she wasn't sure who the fourth man in the green was.

It didn't matter though.

She caught a glimpse of Peter's crooked grin behind his red ski mask, just before Hiro and the other man touched and vanished, and Peter and Nathan joined hands and shot up into the sky.

---
End