Family Emergency

Title: Family Emergency

Author(s): AmandaLee, Bloodylocks

Genre: General, drama

Fandom: Heroes

Rated: NC-17

Warnings: Slash, incest, mpreg


Chapter 1

"Peter, you've put on weight," Nathan remarked as he watched his younger brother step out of the shower, drying himself off with a towel.

Peter's brow furrowed, and he ceased his movements with the towel, instead gazing down upon himself. "No, I haven't," he objected.

"Yes, you have," Nathan insisted, now failing to keep the disapproval from his voice. "Look at your gut! It wasn't there a month ago!"

In reply, Peter flung the wet towel at his big brother still lying in bed. "So? You've kept telling me that I'm too weedy, that I need to put on some weight. Shouldn't you be happy?"

"I meant some more muscle mass, Peter," Nathan said dryly. "Not a beer gut."

Peter gave a puerile glare at his older brother. "I don't even drink beer! So, lay the fuck off already!"

Nathan rolled his eyes and he removed the wet article from himself and tossed it on the ground. "Fine, fine. You're the nurse, I'm not. Forgive me for being too stupid for your standing."

"Fuck you," the younger man snarled as he left the room.

"Already did," Nathan muttered with an amused smirk.

Peter Petrelli returned a few seconds later, face slightly red. "I forgot my clothes," he mumbled as he hurried back to a folded clean pile of what he would wear that day.

"Does it all fit?"

"You'd better shut your big fat face up before I shut it for you."

Nathan held back a snicker as he sat up. "I'm not the one who looks like he's going to have a baby."

Indeed, Peter's pants looked uncomfortably tight around the waist, and, it turned out, he had trouble buttoning the last few buttons on his shirt. Nathan himself was in impeccable shape despite being thirteen years his brother's senior, and it amused him to watch Peter struggle with holding his stomach in so he could get into his clothes.

"It's funny how it's all congregated around your waist..." Nathan mused to himself. "You keep that up, you'll soon look like you've swallowed a beach ball!"

"I hate you..." Peter muttered. He raised his hand to swat at Nathan, but his brother caught his wrist and pulled him onto the bed, pinning him down.

"No, you don't," the older Petrelli said with practiced self-confidence before kissing the younger man. The kiss was long and slowly became harder as Peter moaned into his older brother's mouth. When they finally broke the kiss, they were both gasping.

"You bastard..."

"Don't be grumpy, Pete," Nathan cooed, his tone almost mocking in his attempts to be sweet. "On the other hand... fucking you can be very fun if you're a little pissed."

The younger brother frowned again. "Apologize for what you said."

"No."

"Then I'm going to be a LOT pissed."

"Good," the older man replied, his voice a hungry growl, and he pulled his brother into another kiss so hard that it hurt. But he did not care, because to him it felt fantastic.

"Nathan..." Peter objected half-heartedly. "I can't... I have to be at work in forty-five minutes..."

"To do what? Watch old people die?" Nathan taunted. "You can't do anything for them. I need you here more than they need you weeping by their bedside."

"You asshole!" Peter hissed, bucking up hard enough to almost throw Nathan off him. "It's called hospice care. Everyone deserves to get a worthy death!" Peter was halfway out of bed when Nathan grabbed him again and wrestled him back into the mattress, this time face down, locking his hands behind his back. Peter growled but it only elicited an amused scoff from his older brother. Nathan was confident that he could hold Peter down with just one hand and used the other one to start tugging down his little brother's all-too-tight pants.

"You can't go until I say you can go..." he whispered hotly in Peter's ear. "Now be a good little boy and stop resisting. You'll only wear yourself out." They had played this game for years, and Nathan knew that Peter got off of it as much as he did. He managed to get Peter's trousers down to his mid-thighs and swept his hand over the perfect pale globes of his brother's fine ass.

"Nathan, get off me!" the younger man suddenly gasped, and his struggles were no longer playful, but panicked.

"What the hell, Pete? I thought I said you aren't going anywhere until"--

Peter struggled again, but before he could do anything more, his stomach rebelled and rid itself of the breakfast he had consumed less than an hour ago. Exactly five seconds of unnerving silence passed. Nathan's eyes were wide as saucers as he stared at his hundred dollar sheets, which stood out as a strange contrast against the vomit now staining them. Seeing his own digested food was enough to set off Peter's already delicate gag reflex again.

"Oh my GOD, Get the fuck OFF!" Nathan shouted as he reflexively shoved Peter off of him. What he had not realized though was that his brother had no where else to go except for the floor, which was exactly where he landed. Whilst feeling incredibly guilty about being so harsh with his own little brother, the very thought of the foul smelling puke saturating his bed made him want to imitate Peter's urge to be sick, so he tore the sheets from the mattress, even those which were untainted, and began to make a bundle ready for incineration. Good lord, he had liked those sheets too.

Peter only lay on the floor in his own vomit, groaning at the now throbbing ache in his side from the fall."What the fuck just happened??" he croaked.

"You just puked all over my bed. That's what happened!" Nathan growled, disgusted at the fact that his hands and parts of his chest were covered in Peter's vomit. "Way to go, Peter! Thank you so much!"

"I didn't do it on purpose, if that's what you're thinking!" Peter shouted back, now dangerously close to tears. He was on the floor, pants and underwear around his knees, his entire front side covered in foul-smelling pieces of half-digested food. He'd need another shower; that was one for sure. And so would Nathan.

"Jesus Christ, Peter! You could have told me!" Nathan exclaimed, his emotions swinging between anger and guilt.

"I tried to tell you..." Peter sobbed. "You just held me down!"


Difficult though it was, Nathan had to admit that Peter had a point. His brother had tried to tell him, and he'd thought it was all a part of their game. He knelt down next to Peter and grabbed his upper arms; one of few places that weren't covered in vomit. Peter's clothes were beyond salvage either way.

"You're right. I'm sorry," he said softly. "I thought you were playing at first. Don't... worry about the sheets. I'll replace them."

"I don't care about your sheets..." Peter murmured, now shaking. "I'm not feeling well..."

If his hands hadn't been covered in vomit, Nathan would have ruffled his brother's tousled brown hair. "Let's go take a shower," he said.

***

Peter's health did not seem to improve as the week went on. In fact, it seemed to be getting worse. At first Nathan laughed at the idea that his nurse of a brother could not even keep himself well, but when a full week passed without any signs of improvement, his worry grew.

Speaking of growing...

"I really think you should have that looked at," Nathan said, staring at his brother's stomach one morning as Peter sat on the bathroom floor, head resting on the toilet seat. Indeed, he could not help but stare and wondered if anyone else had noticed such a physical change.

"Do you think I hadn't already thought of that?" Peter snapped miserably, closing the lid and standing up, his legs wobbling for a moment. "For all I know, I've got ascites."

"Yeah, exactly!" his brother responded. "...whatever that means..."

"...it's accumulation of fluid in the peritoneal cavity. And it's a sign of liver failure," Peter added wearily, barely raising an eyebrow at Nathan's horrified expression. "Might be a tumour, though..."

"What kind of tumour could that be?" Nathan inquired.

Peter briefly went through his mental records of patho-physiology and came to the conclusion that symptoms like these were common in ovarian cancer. Except... he didn't have any ovaries.

"I have no idea," he frankly told Nathan.

"I'll make a doctor's appointment for you," his older brother prompted, ushering Peter out of the bathroom. "This is freaking the hell out of me."

"You're not the only one," his brother replied.

***

Three days later, Peter found himself in a hospital gown, sitting on a poorly-cushioned bed. Despite being a registered nurse, being a patient in this place made him incredibly uncomfortable. For God's sakes, shouldn't he have been able to take care of himself now?

Glancing down at his stomach, he had to admit it looked wrong to stick out like it did. Even the roomy gown could not hide it and Peter instinctively put his arms around it, to either comfort himself, hide the sight, or both. Nathan, sitting in a chair next to his brother in the doctor's office saw how insecure and nervous Peter was and felt inspired to reach for his hand. But just when he was about to, the doctor entered the room. He was middle-aged, of average height and slightly stocky.

"Peter Petrelli? I'm doctor Cramer," he introduced himself and walked over to shake hands with Peter.

"This is Nathan, my brother," Peter quickly explained. "I... brought him here for moral support."

Doctor Cramer raised an eyebrow. "I see..." he murmured and then shook hands with Nathan as well. "Okay then... Let's start with a medical history, shall we?"

Peter began by meticulously describing pretty much everything that had inflicted him since childhood, from chicken pox to the broken arm he suffered at the age of seven. After a while Nathan took over the explaining, simply stating that his brother had been healthy until a few weeks ago when his stomach abruptly started growing and was accompanied by violent nausea.

Doctor Cramer actually laughed. "If you were a woman, I'd say you were pregnant," he said as an attempted joke, which was not appreciated by either Petrelli brother.

"This isn't a joke," Nathan said quite brusquely. "Just tell me what's wrong with him!"

"I apologize, Mr. Petrelli," the doctor quickly said. "I'll have to do a full physical and take a set of tests to be analyzed." He then turned to Peter. "Would you rather your brother stays throughout the examination?"

"Umm," Peter glanced at his brother for a moment, indecisive. He wanted to be a mature adult about this without his own brother holding his hand, but he really did not feel well enough to go through this alone...

"He can stay. He'll help me keep track of everything you tell me."

"Very well then..." the doctor proceeded to put down his clipboard. "First, let's have a look at that belly of yours."

Peter could not believe how vulnerable it made him feel to lie back and allow this stranger's hands to lift the gown. The constant presence of Nathan standing behind him however kept him calm as he was poked and prodded. From time to time, Doctor Cramer scribbled down notes in an unreadable handwriting that was typical to doctors. His brow furrowed thoughtfully at one point while palpating Peter's stomach, but he didn't say anything out loud. He listened to the nurse's lungs and heart through his stethoscope and wrote down some more notes.

"I'll need to take a few samples of your blood, and I'll also need a urine test," he informed them after performing a rectal examination on the now rather frightened young man. Peter didn't think he could ever enjoy having fingers up there again.

"Well, doctor? What do you think is wrong with him?" Nathan pressed as the physician tied a rubber band around Peter's upper arm in order to prevent the blood from leaving his veins. Peter had already closed his eyes. Despite being a nurse, needles had always freaked him out.

"I can't be positive yet. It's too soon in the examination to say." Brow knitted, Cramer extracted blood, then produced a plastic cup with a lid. "You're a nurse, correct?" he asked with a professional looking smile. "You know what to do."

His nerves already shot, Peter had difficulty at first in starting the flow of urine, but it eventually came, as he had been holding his bladder for quite some time that day in preparation for the appointment.

Following the collection of samples from Peter, Dr. Kramer excused himself to pass them on to a nurse. Peter simply lay back on the table, his legs dangling from the edge, hands on his chest.

"I'm sure it'll be fine, buddy," Nathan said is an attempt at comfort, though his voice betrayed his own clear worry.

"No, it won't!" Peter cried out in a shrill voice riddled with panic. "Did you not see his face?! He was trying to be all professional and bullshit, but I know that face when I see it. Doctors get it all the time when they find something seriously wrong in a patient. I'm probably dying, Nathan! Otherwise he wouldn't have acted like that."

Nathan drew in a shaky breath. "I really think you're overreacting, Peter..."

"Yes, of course, that's what I always do, isn't it?" Peter shot back, tears now streaming from his large eyes. "Poor emotional little Peter, he always makes a big deal out of nothing, isn't that right?"

Nathan reached out for his brother. "Now calm down... I'm sure stress isn't good for... whatever condition you may have."

Peter latched onto the arm thrown around his shoulders. "Oh God, hold me, Nathan..." he sobbed. "I don't wanna die..."

Oh good grief... Nathan wanted to tell Peter to stop being so damn dumb, but after all that had happened, he was not so certain of himself. For all they knew, Peter really was dying. Nathan pushed the thought aside and just held onto his little brother.

"It's okay... even if it was that serious, I'd take care of you. Track down every doctor on the planet to fix it. And I'd pay all the bills..."

Peter did not truly believe all of this, but it comforted him anyway, so he remained in his brother's grasp, trying to calm himself before anyone else entered the room and saw the fuss he was making. Peter was still sobbing into Nathan's shoulder when Doctor Cramer returned and informed them that the results from the blood and urine samples would come in the following day. If he found anything odd about the two brothers' intimate relationship, he was polite enough not to let it show. For all he knew, there was simply an older brother doing his best to comfort and calm his nearly hysterical baby brother.

Peter's hands were unsteady and trembling when he put his clothes back on. The swell of his recently developed gut seemed to mock him through the layers of fabric.

"I wanna fucking stab it and let whatever's in there out already..." Peter said between sobs as he was driven back to his apartment.

"Now, now..." Nathan said as he steered his way down the streets. "I told you, I'll take care of it, whatever it is."

"What are you, my fucking doctor now?"

Nathan sighed and remained quiet for the rest of the ride back.

TBC...