Rating: NC-17 for graphic material that some people will definitely find offensive.

Disclaimer: other than the story itself, nothing is mine. Also, I apologise.

Notes: this takes place during the gray area of timeline between the "Three Weeks Ago" marker in 'Four Months Ago...' and the beginning of 'Four Months Later...' (Gosh, this show's timeline can be wordily confusing.) It is Petrellicest. (No, the other one. No, the other--yeah. That one. [...Some of the first two, too.])

RECOIL by Jayne Leitch
2007

Claire knocks on the door to Peter's apartment, then waits long enough that she begins to wonder if anyone's in there at all. When the door finally opens, she doesn't know what she expected--but a gaunt, pale Nathan with straying focus and stubble thickening across his face wasn't it. She doesn't mean to accuse him, but she speaks without thinking--"On the news, they said you were hurt."--and sounds more suspicious than concerned.

Nathan just looks at her, all dead eyes and gallows...something. She's pretty sure it's not humour; then again, she was never very good at reading him. "I was."

*

Nathan stands absently in the middle of Peter's narrow kitchen. He doesn't seem to have noticed that he didn't close the door before turning and walking away; Claire follows him inside, and closes the door behind her.

There's an empty picture frame on the counter. It strikes Claire as odd--out of context enough to catch her attention, vaguely familiar enough to hold it briefly--before she's distracted by the open bottle of rye on the tiny kitchen table. The bottle's full, but missing its cap; Claire sees Nathan's hand twitch at his side, and realises he's rolling it carelessly between his fingers.

*

"I wanted to say thank you," Claire says, her spine straight, her words rehearsed, "for what you did in the plaza. For the way you stepped in when I--" She bites her tongue, literally, hard and sharp enough to taste blood before the wound heals itself and the pain turns phantom. If only it was that easy all the time, she thinks, then makes herself focus. "Anyway, it was really brave of you, and I want you to know--I wanted to tell you how much it meant. To me. So--thank you."

Nathan stands very still and looks over her left shoulder at nothing. "Have you ever fired a gun before?"

The question carries a hint of tired condescension; Claire narrows her eyes. "No."

He nods. "When you pull the trigger, there's a recoil," he says, and for all he seems engaged in what he's saying, he might as well be talking about the dry toast he had for breakfast--although Claire doubts he's eaten that much all day. "The force of the bullet being discharged acts back against your hand. If you're not expecting it--if you don't know how to brace for it, how to compensate for the jolt--it'll ruin your aim. Even if you'd been able to fire--" Now it's his turn to catch himself; he glances down, clears his throat, and when he looks up again he's so far away he might as well be in another apartment entirely. "He never should've asked," he mutters, then shakes his head. "What happened wasn't your fault, Claire. It wasn't your responsibility."

She thinks he's trying, however carelessly, to comfort her. It stings. She didn't come looking for forgiveness; she doesn't want it, from him or anyone else. If it had been up to her, New York would be a smoking crater right now, and he knows it. Lucky it wasn't up to me, she thinks, snide inside her own head, and asks deliberately, "What did happen, Nathan?"

Somehow, without moving a muscle, he smiles--faint, wry, knowing--and, for the first time since he opened the door, looks her square in the eyes. Claire looks back and thinks she's falling off a cliff: she's never felt such distance in her life. "I lost my grip."

*

It's like he's trying to believe the worst--like he *wants* to. It frustrates Claire, and she wishes the kitchen were bigger so she could move, so she could get away from him and his claustrophobic resignation. Instead, she crosses her arms and shifts her weight from one foot to the other. "It couldn't have been an actual explosion," she repeats, and except for the fact that she said it out loud this time, it's just like the arguments she's been having with herself for weeks. "That wouldn't make any sense! When Ted lost control--"

"Ted wasn't Peter." The weariness in his voice makes her think Nathan's covering worn ground, as well. She can't believe how easily he seems to have convinced himself of Peter's death. "Ted only had one ability to deal with, he wasn't trying to control strength and time travel and God knows what else--flight--at the same time." He stands next to the table, his back to Claire; his right hand, bare inches from the bottle, sways toward it as if pulled magnetically. It never makes contact.

"Maybe not, but Peter did have other abilities--*does* have them. He has my ability. He would've been fine if I'd shot him--"

"Do you think I want him to be dead?" Nathan turns, challenging--but even this feels like an empty gesture, emotionless and distracted. There's no heat in his voice at all. "I thought, for a long time, that he was alive. We hadn't found a body. There was no other explanation. But that's wishful thinking, Claire. That's credulous and naive. He's gone."

The simplicity of it only fuels her anger; it takes her over to him, close enough to glare right up into his sallow face, too close for him to ignore. Still, his gaze slides away from her, dull and abstracted as if he doesn't really see her at all, and she thinks she could be anyone, say or do anything, and still not reach him. "He *is* alive. I know he is."

To her shock, his mouth curves into a small, hurtful smile. "Right. I'm here because I'm waiting for him to come home."

She slaps him. Her hand cracks across his face, her palm burns from his stubble, but except for the red mark on his cheek, it doesn't seem to impact him at all: when he turns his head back and looks vaguely in her direction, he's still looking across a vast, empty distance.

Claire hates him. For giving up, for shutting down, for turning Peter's apartment--where Peter *lived*--into a shrine to his death; she hates him, and his acceptance, and his right to mourn.

She hates that he has a *reason* to mourn.

*

The sound of the slap rings in her ears and the force of it stings her hand, and Claire knows she should've pulled the trigger. Peter would be here. He would have survived. We all would have survived. I should've just pulled the trigger--

She looks at Nathan.

She won't make the same mistake again.

*

For a long moment he lets her kiss him, a firm press of her lips on his closed mouth. Claire knows the instant it works, the instant he connects: the hair on the back of his neck stands up, bristles against her fingers, and he pulls sharply away. When she opens her eyes, his attention is finally on her, startled and wary and watching. "Claire," he says, low and cautious.

But this is what needs to be done. She looks at his mouth, tries to pull him down to her again; muscles cord in his neck as he strains not to go.

The next kiss is a deliberation: he's still tense under her hand, but his mouth is slack. When Claire slips her tongue between his lips, she expects him to pull away again; when he doesn't, when he opens for her and responds, kissing back, she feels a rush of heat that leaves her lightheaded.

Eventually, again, he does pull away; again, when she opens her eyes, he's motionless and guarded. But his mouth is open, wet, and his eyes are on her, and his breathing's gone a little uneven, and Claire has no intention of stopping.

There's an empty glass next to the bottle of rye. With decision, Claire lets go of Nathan; stepping around him, she goes to the table and picks up the bottle. She can feel his gaze on her back as she pours, a prickling sense of awareness.

When she turns around, she's holding the half-full glass and Nathan's full attention. She doesn't offer, not explicitly; she wants him to understand, and watches him, waiting.

He looks at her, at the glass, and his expression doesn't change, but she knows the instant his decision is made: she sees it in the sudden shuttering of his gaze, the slight, throat-baring tilt of his head that comes just before he reaches out. His hand doesn't brush hers as he takes the glass; he doesn't gulp the rye, but drinks it steadily in smooth, controlled swallows.

He hands back the empty glass, but Claire doesn't put it down. "Do you need another one?" she asks bluntly.

For a moment, there's a hint of bleak amusement in his eyes; she wonders if he took the question as a challenge. "No."

*

When he puts a condom on the table, Claire's mouth goes dry and her fingers fumble on the button of her jeans. She doesn't think he noticed, but the next thing he does is wrap his hand around her wrist and hold her still; when she looks up, he's watching her, inscrutable and searching.

She pulls her hand free and cups his face, kisses him fiercely and focuses on the scratch of his beard, the liquor-taste on his tongue. After a moment, he flattens his hands to the small of her back and holds her flush against him, and she knows the danger's passed.

*

They're silent, mostly, except for the soft noises of breath. The scrape of the chair being pulled away from the table seems loud; Claire's low, involuntary moan as she lowers herself onto Nathan's lap seems to echo through the apartment. He steadies her as she begins to rock her hips, his warm hands splayed loosely, one low on her back, the other on her thigh. Her fingers curl into claws on his shoulder and in his hair, and she wonders if her grip is enough to hurt him.

He watches her ride him, his eyes heavy-lidded as they rove from her face down to the curls between her legs. Claire feels his gaze as almost tactile--but his hands don't move, and finally she has to say, "Nathan, touch me."

It makes him blink up at her, his eyes gone wide and dark, his lips parted. Then something hardens in his expression, under his skin, and his tongue runs quickly over his lower lip, and he obeys. He pets her from shoulders to buttocks, cups her breasts, strokes her throat, slides his fingers into her hair, and suddenly his hands won't *stop* moving. The feel of him--on her, inside her, *with* her--is a constantly building pressure, and Claire wants, at once, more and none of it.

She gets more. Full of restless motion, Nathan kisses her, one hand buried in her hair while he grazes her lips with his teeth and sucks her tongue into his mouth. His arm snaking across her back holds her to him, skin to skin from breast to hips, and it's too much sensation, too much and too *close*, and Claire comes with a full-body tremor.

*

He's motionless again, his hands gone back to their loose hold on her hips, his eyes fixed on the floor. She's thrumming, tender from her orgasm, tempted to indulge in a little distance of her own--but she hasn't moved either, and he's still hard inside her.

It's not intimate. Claire knows it should be--that was the *point*--but she can feel him withdrawing a little more with every still, silent second; it makes her angry all over again, and scared, and a little humiliated. She shifts in his lap, trying to encourage him, but his hands tighten on her and hold her still.

Determined, she puts her hands on his shoulders and leans down to try to catch his eye. "Nathan," she says, and kisses his cheek. "Don't do that." She kisses his temple. "Don't go away." She kisses his forehead; he might as well be a statue. "Nathan." And she doesn't want to sound hurt, or pleading, so she leans in until her lips brush his and says into his mouth, "Peter loves us. He's coming ba--"

He cuts her off with a hard kiss, so sudden and vicious it makes her jolt.

*

Claire's back hits the wall, and Nathan pulls at her legs until they wrap around his waist, and then he's fucking her.

*Fucking* her; it's rough, and it hurts, and she's so shocked she can't even find words to tell him to stop.

His whole body rocks into her, each brutal push of his hips a deep, jarring thrust--but his hands are flat on the wall, a refusal of touch. She clutches at him, gasping, trying to hold on; her hands scrabble on the taut, straining expanse of his back, slippery with sweat and moving, moving. She tries to move with him, at least, but his rhythm is mindless and all she can do is think, I can't do this. It can't be *like this*.

Abruptly--absurdly--her eyes fix on the empty picture frame on the counter; just as abruptly, her mind's eye fills it: Nathan and Peter in tuxedos, smiling, touching. *Together*, and in the welter of the moment, Claire *aches*.

The frame over Nathan's shoulder (it shouldn't be empty); the memory of Peter (he made me feel--); the weight of Nathan's body (he wants to hurt me)--breathing's almost too difficult. Claire drags in air like she's drowning, air thick with the three of them: her and Nathan, bodies and sweat and *sex*, mingled and heavy with Peter's absence. Desperation gives her back her voice; she chokes out, "Nathan--*Peter*--" and climaxes again, shaking apart, hard and sudden and whimpering.

Nathan shudders, pushes deep inside her, and goes utterly still as he comes.

*

He rests his forehead against the wall: she can't see his face. His beard scratches her cheek, and his breath is harsh in her ear, ragged and half-vocal.

Claire unwraps her legs from around his waist and slides down until she's standing, still pressed between Nathan and the wall. Her knees quake under her weight, and she wonders if she can hold herself up--but she needs to move, she needs to get out from under him, away from the feel of his body, away from the slick of their skin. Unsure what else to do, she puts her hand on his chest and pushes; it's a relief when he sways immediately so she can duck past him. She doesn't fall.

She left her clothes in a neat little pile on the floor. Standing over them, she's struck by how normal they look, and can't stop staring.

Nathan's voice--quiet, rough, dispassionate--startles her. "Do you want a shower?"

Claire spins to face him, but he hasn't turned around; he's right where she left him, his head bowed, one hand still flat on the wall. There are faint red lines scoring his back where she scratched him. "No," she says, far too quickly and loudly; then, a little softer, she adds, "I--I'll have one at the hotel."

He nods. She dresses, shaking.

*

She's at the door when Nathan says, "Claire."

Her whole body freezes. Her fingertips graze the cold metal of the doorknob; she thinks, irrationally, He might stay here forever, and fights the sudden, fearful thought that he wants to keep her there with him. "I'm--I have to go--"

"Claire." There's no change in inflection; it's as if he hadn't heard her speak at all. She turns to find him standing at the far end of the kitchen, half-dressed and watching her, thoughtful and remote.

She can't meet his fever-bright eyes. Her gaze drops; she hadn't noticed before how low his pants hang on his hips, and the sight brings tactile memory of his ribs under her palms, the bones far too close under his skin. She feels sick. "I'm so sorry, Nathan," she whispers, and casts about for any way to explain--but everything she could say is too weighted with shame and sorrow, and all she can do is repeat, "I'm sorry."

Nathan gazes at nothing, focused inward, unreadable. When he speaks, it's with the quiet distraction she hates so much--hated so much. Before. "You can heal from anything."

At first, she thinks he's talking about them. The casual insensitivity staggers her, and all she can do is stare in disbelief--but then she sees it: as if drawn against his will, his eyes fix on the picture frame on the counter. Fix and focus and *burn*, and all at once Claire understands that he's asking--and *what* he's asking. She replays his voice in her head--"You can heal from anything."--and, this time, hears the faint note of hope she hadn't thought to expect.

As long as someone's there to take out the glass, she thinks. Or the stray bullet.

"Yes," she lies.

Nathan's eyes close briefly, and the tension falls out of his body--no, she realises, it shifts, somehow, and resettles in a new shape. He's not trying to withdraw anymore; he's just trying to stay standing. When he opens his eyes again and looks at Claire--right at her--his intense weariness makes her shiver. "I'm sorry," he says, and she thinks he's sincere.

It lasts until he reaches for the bottle of rye--no hesitation, no self-consciousness--and begins to pour. Claire sways, so suddenly lightheaded it's like her whole body's gone numb. "Nathan--"

"Goodbye, Claire." Calm, concise, decided. He doesn't look at her again.

*

The hallway outside Peter's apartment is cold, empty. It feels alien somehow, part of a very different world than the one on the other side of the door, the one she can't help thinking she just closed Nathan into--the one without Peter. For a long, blank moment, Claire lingers with her hand on the doorknob.

When she lets go and hurries away, she doesn't intend to ever come back.

End.

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