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perpetual_motionTitle: Before and After the Before
Author: Perpetual Motion
Fandom: Heroes
Pairing: Peter/Hiro
Rating: PG
Spoilers: The train scene from “Hiros” is recreated word-for-word.
Summary: “you really need a less complicated power.”
Dis: Not mine. Lied through my teeth.
Author’s Notes: A big thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
distaff_exile, who proofread the first few pages and told me they sounded right to her. And to my brain, which went through a lot of pain to wrap itself around the concept of Hiro’s power.
Before and After the Before
By Perpetual Motion
“What if it changes something?”
Hiro stared at the ceiling of their safe house of the moment, debating whether changing the subject would end badly for him. They’d had this conversation so many times, he could practically play it verbatim in his head. But Peter worried, and Hiro hated the way he looked when he worried, so he decided to have the conversation again. “What could it change? It’s already happened.”
“Yeah, but-“ Peter cut off as he propped himself on an elbow and looked down at Hiro’s face. “But it hasn’t happened. Not really.”
“But it has. You remember it.”
“Yeah.”
“And I looked like this.”
Peter ran a thumb over Hiro’s soul patch, ruffling it with his nail. “Yeah, pretty much.”
“Pretty much?”
“Well, you weren’t naked on the train.”
Hiro grinned and knocked Peter’s elbow out from under him, curling up against his side when Peter settled himself on the pillows. “And you didn’t have the scar.”
“So you told me.”
“Did I?”
“You said I looked ‘different without the scar’. I remember that.”
Hiro looked at the scar and traced it with a finger, from the edge of Peter’s left brow and down his face in a curve that ended just under his bottom lip. “I’ve never seen you without it.”
“Don’t forget to say that.”
“Say what?”
“Say that I look different.”
“Why?”
“You said it the first time. The only time. The – you really need a less complicated power.”
And that made Hiro laugh outright as he rolled himself on top of Peter and kissed the edge of his mouth. “We can’t all be lucky enough to pick up whatever power wanders by.”
Peter grinned and flicked his hair out of his eyes. “Yeah, well, I’m just cooler than you.”
“Oh?” Hiro’s tone was a challenge.
“Sure. Me? I’m so laid back and cool that all the powers want me. You? You’re so Asian your power is all wrapped up in advanced physics and mathematics.”
“And Asians aren’t cool?”
“Asians aren’t laid back.”
Hiro flopped onto his side of the bed, made his arms and legs limp, and let his head loll to one side. “I’m completely laid back.”
“The first time I met Ando, he had his shirt tucked in.”
Hiro let his head loll to the other side so that he could see Peter. “So?”
“Tucked in. In Texas. In early October. It was eighty degrees. Only you crazy, stressed-out Asians do that.”
“Only crazy, stressed-out Asians like Ando do that.”
“Yeah, whatever.” Peter rolled back onto his elbow and splayed his fingers across Hiro’s chest. “I could go with you.”
“You’ll be there.”
“I mean me. This me.”
“I think that’s dangerous.”
“Why?”
“Two of you in the same time at the same place when you’re from different times could lead to-“
“Hiro, this is not an issue of X-Men.”
“Actually, I was thinking about-“
“It doesn’t matter.” Peter brushed his fingers over Hiro’s sternum. “I just don’t want you to go alone.”
“You’ll be there.”
“Yeah, but I won’t. I still thought I could fly back then. I was just confused and wired and trying to figure out what the hell happened to me. Until you called Issac’s place, I thought I had just had some freaky hallucination.”
“You were enough you to do what I asked you to. You told me to save the cheerleader.”
Peter’s brow furrowed, and he dropped his head against Hiro’s shoulder. “This conversation is giving me a headache. You gave me the message because I gave you the message to give me the message. I’m there, but I’m not, and I didn’t even know you, and now we’re naked together discussing how you’re going to meet me for the first time.”
Hiro smiled. “Well, at least only one of us has come back from the dead.” He didn’t see the pillow before Peter hit him in the head.
*
They’d asked for some privacy for the big event, and Peter gave Mohinder a grateful smile when Mohinder shuffled everyone out of the house with the promise of a completely unhealthy breakfast at the pancake house down the street.
“My sword?” Hiro asked when Peter held it out to him.
“You were wearing it.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m telling you to, apparently.”
Hiro smiled and took the sword as Peter combed the tangles out of his ponytail. “Anything else I need to know?”
“Just make sure you wait for a minute after the train freezes before you show yourself. That’s how long it took before I saw you. And tell me about the scar.”
“I will.” Hiro turned around for Peter’s inspection. “Like you remember?”
Peter eyed him carefully, adjusted the sword just so, and smoothed the front of Hiro’s shirt. “Just like I remember.”
“Okay. I’m going now. Count to five.”
“I will.” Peter stepped back and watched as Hiro squeezed his eyes shut and made his face shake from the force of his concentration. He never had quite gotten over how different it makes Hiro look. Like he’s a kid about to blow out his birthday candles. They’ve never actually had the time to celebrate anyone’s birthday. They’ve been too busy trying to save the world. Peter decides, as Hiro disappears, that he needs to rectify that.
“One,” he says.
*
It was darker in the train than he thought it would be, and by the time his eyes adjusted enough that he didn’t fear tripping over anyone, it had been about forty seconds. He counted to twenty in his head and watched the way Peter scrambled around the car, checking on people and trying to figure out what was going on. By the time Hiro stepped forward, Peter was near panic.
“Peter Petrelli.” Hiro hoped his voice sounded authoritative enough that it would help Peter calm down.
Peter squinted at Hiro. “What-“ he cut off and gasped for air. “ … are you doing this?”
In his head, Peter reminds him about the scar. Hiro jumps for it, unsure what else to say to this slightly different version of the man who’d just seen him off. “You look different without the scar.” The confused look is something Hiro recognized, and it comforted him.
“I don’t know you.” Peter’s hair was falling in his face. Hiro stepped a little closer and clasped his hands together. He couldn’t fix it. This wasn’t the Peter he knew.
“Not yet. My name is Hiro Nakamura, and I’m from the future and I have a message for you. I don’t have much time. I’m risking a rift just by coming here. The girl. You have to save her.” He’d practiced the speech for weeks, running it past Peter time and again. Trying to get the timing correct according to how Peter remembered it sounding.
“What girl?” Confusion, but also interest. Peter never could resist a puzzle.
“The cheerleader. It’s the only way to prevent it.”
“Prevent what?”
“Everything.” Perhaps he’d put a bit more emphasis on that word than he’d meant to, but Hiro pushed past it to the next part. He had to get Peter to Issac. “Listen to me. She must live. The painter, Isaac, go to him. He will know. When I call, you must tell me where we meet. You told me many times how lost you felt before it all started. This is what you’ve been waiting for. Be the one we need. “ Be the one I need, Hiro thought but didn’t say as he turned his back.
“Wait!”
He couldn’t turn around, couldn’t look back. It wasn’t his Peter, and telling him what he did put the wheels in motion. He’d figure it out. “Save the cheerleader! Save the world!”
“Wait! Hiro! I don’t understand!”
There was desperation edging Peter’s voice. Hiro closed his eyes and thought of his Peter, with the scar and slightly shorter hair. The Peter who told him he had to go but also told him he’d better come back. That was the Peter he wanted.
*
“Five,” Peter sighed and opened his eyes. Hiro was standing ten feet away, still looking like he was about to go into battle. “Right on time.” He walked to Hiro and touched his face, smiling happily at the sight of him in one piece.
“Told you.” Hiro was more relieved than he’d ever admit. He’d been afraid of a thousand different ways everything could have gone wrong. He’d pictured coming back and finding Peter as an evil dictator or missing a limb, or dead.
“How was I?”
“Slightly terrified, I think. You handled it well.” Hiro removed his sword and set it carefully on the floor. He grabbed the front of Peter’s shirt, reeled him in, and kissed him. “And now that the hard part’s over, take me back to bed.”
Peter laughed in relief around a second kiss and reached back to undo Hiro’s hair. “Lucky for the both of us I found you attractive on that train. Otherwise, I don’t think I would have listened to a word you said.”
Weeks of planning and anticipation. Review after review of Hiro’s movements and outfit and particular cadence when speaking had all paid off in less than a minute. He was still here. Peter was still here. Things were most likely no more messed up than they’d been before he’d left. Hiro had learned, over time, that the small victories had to be celebrated as much as the big ones. He led Peter to bed for the celebration.
Author: Perpetual Motion
Fandom: Heroes
Pairing: Peter/Hiro
Rating: PG
Spoilers: The train scene from “Hiros” is recreated word-for-word.
Summary: “you really need a less complicated power.”
Dis: Not mine. Lied through my teeth.
Author’s Notes: A big thanks to
distaff_exile, who proofread the first few pages and told me they sounded right to her. And to my brain, which went through a lot of pain to wrap itself around the concept of Hiro’s power. Before and After the Before
By Perpetual Motion
“What if it changes something?”
Hiro stared at the ceiling of their safe house of the moment, debating whether changing the subject would end badly for him. They’d had this conversation so many times, he could practically play it verbatim in his head. But Peter worried, and Hiro hated the way he looked when he worried, so he decided to have the conversation again. “What could it change? It’s already happened.”
“Yeah, but-“ Peter cut off as he propped himself on an elbow and looked down at Hiro’s face. “But it hasn’t happened. Not really.”
“But it has. You remember it.”
“Yeah.”
“And I looked like this.”
Peter ran a thumb over Hiro’s soul patch, ruffling it with his nail. “Yeah, pretty much.”
“Pretty much?”
“Well, you weren’t naked on the train.”
Hiro grinned and knocked Peter’s elbow out from under him, curling up against his side when Peter settled himself on the pillows. “And you didn’t have the scar.”
“So you told me.”
“Did I?”
“You said I looked ‘different without the scar’. I remember that.”
Hiro looked at the scar and traced it with a finger, from the edge of Peter’s left brow and down his face in a curve that ended just under his bottom lip. “I’ve never seen you without it.”
“Don’t forget to say that.”
“Say what?”
“Say that I look different.”
“Why?”
“You said it the first time. The only time. The – you really need a less complicated power.”
And that made Hiro laugh outright as he rolled himself on top of Peter and kissed the edge of his mouth. “We can’t all be lucky enough to pick up whatever power wanders by.”
Peter grinned and flicked his hair out of his eyes. “Yeah, well, I’m just cooler than you.”
“Oh?” Hiro’s tone was a challenge.
“Sure. Me? I’m so laid back and cool that all the powers want me. You? You’re so Asian your power is all wrapped up in advanced physics and mathematics.”
“And Asians aren’t cool?”
“Asians aren’t laid back.”
Hiro flopped onto his side of the bed, made his arms and legs limp, and let his head loll to one side. “I’m completely laid back.”
“The first time I met Ando, he had his shirt tucked in.”
Hiro let his head loll to the other side so that he could see Peter. “So?”
“Tucked in. In Texas. In early October. It was eighty degrees. Only you crazy, stressed-out Asians do that.”
“Only crazy, stressed-out Asians like Ando do that.”
“Yeah, whatever.” Peter rolled back onto his elbow and splayed his fingers across Hiro’s chest. “I could go with you.”
“You’ll be there.”
“I mean me. This me.”
“I think that’s dangerous.”
“Why?”
“Two of you in the same time at the same place when you’re from different times could lead to-“
“Hiro, this is not an issue of X-Men.”
“Actually, I was thinking about-“
“It doesn’t matter.” Peter brushed his fingers over Hiro’s sternum. “I just don’t want you to go alone.”
“You’ll be there.”
“Yeah, but I won’t. I still thought I could fly back then. I was just confused and wired and trying to figure out what the hell happened to me. Until you called Issac’s place, I thought I had just had some freaky hallucination.”
“You were enough you to do what I asked you to. You told me to save the cheerleader.”
Peter’s brow furrowed, and he dropped his head against Hiro’s shoulder. “This conversation is giving me a headache. You gave me the message because I gave you the message to give me the message. I’m there, but I’m not, and I didn’t even know you, and now we’re naked together discussing how you’re going to meet me for the first time.”
Hiro smiled. “Well, at least only one of us has come back from the dead.” He didn’t see the pillow before Peter hit him in the head.
*
They’d asked for some privacy for the big event, and Peter gave Mohinder a grateful smile when Mohinder shuffled everyone out of the house with the promise of a completely unhealthy breakfast at the pancake house down the street.
“My sword?” Hiro asked when Peter held it out to him.
“You were wearing it.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m telling you to, apparently.”
Hiro smiled and took the sword as Peter combed the tangles out of his ponytail. “Anything else I need to know?”
“Just make sure you wait for a minute after the train freezes before you show yourself. That’s how long it took before I saw you. And tell me about the scar.”
“I will.” Hiro turned around for Peter’s inspection. “Like you remember?”
Peter eyed him carefully, adjusted the sword just so, and smoothed the front of Hiro’s shirt. “Just like I remember.”
“Okay. I’m going now. Count to five.”
“I will.” Peter stepped back and watched as Hiro squeezed his eyes shut and made his face shake from the force of his concentration. He never had quite gotten over how different it makes Hiro look. Like he’s a kid about to blow out his birthday candles. They’ve never actually had the time to celebrate anyone’s birthday. They’ve been too busy trying to save the world. Peter decides, as Hiro disappears, that he needs to rectify that.
“One,” he says.
*
It was darker in the train than he thought it would be, and by the time his eyes adjusted enough that he didn’t fear tripping over anyone, it had been about forty seconds. He counted to twenty in his head and watched the way Peter scrambled around the car, checking on people and trying to figure out what was going on. By the time Hiro stepped forward, Peter was near panic.
“Peter Petrelli.” Hiro hoped his voice sounded authoritative enough that it would help Peter calm down.
Peter squinted at Hiro. “What-“ he cut off and gasped for air. “ … are you doing this?”
In his head, Peter reminds him about the scar. Hiro jumps for it, unsure what else to say to this slightly different version of the man who’d just seen him off. “You look different without the scar.” The confused look is something Hiro recognized, and it comforted him.
“I don’t know you.” Peter’s hair was falling in his face. Hiro stepped a little closer and clasped his hands together. He couldn’t fix it. This wasn’t the Peter he knew.
“Not yet. My name is Hiro Nakamura, and I’m from the future and I have a message for you. I don’t have much time. I’m risking a rift just by coming here. The girl. You have to save her.” He’d practiced the speech for weeks, running it past Peter time and again. Trying to get the timing correct according to how Peter remembered it sounding.
“What girl?” Confusion, but also interest. Peter never could resist a puzzle.
“The cheerleader. It’s the only way to prevent it.”
“Prevent what?”
“Everything.” Perhaps he’d put a bit more emphasis on that word than he’d meant to, but Hiro pushed past it to the next part. He had to get Peter to Issac. “Listen to me. She must live. The painter, Isaac, go to him. He will know. When I call, you must tell me where we meet. You told me many times how lost you felt before it all started. This is what you’ve been waiting for. Be the one we need. “ Be the one I need, Hiro thought but didn’t say as he turned his back.
“Wait!”
He couldn’t turn around, couldn’t look back. It wasn’t his Peter, and telling him what he did put the wheels in motion. He’d figure it out. “Save the cheerleader! Save the world!”
“Wait! Hiro! I don’t understand!”
There was desperation edging Peter’s voice. Hiro closed his eyes and thought of his Peter, with the scar and slightly shorter hair. The Peter who told him he had to go but also told him he’d better come back. That was the Peter he wanted.
*
“Five,” Peter sighed and opened his eyes. Hiro was standing ten feet away, still looking like he was about to go into battle. “Right on time.” He walked to Hiro and touched his face, smiling happily at the sight of him in one piece.
“Told you.” Hiro was more relieved than he’d ever admit. He’d been afraid of a thousand different ways everything could have gone wrong. He’d pictured coming back and finding Peter as an evil dictator or missing a limb, or dead.
“How was I?”
“Slightly terrified, I think. You handled it well.” Hiro removed his sword and set it carefully on the floor. He grabbed the front of Peter’s shirt, reeled him in, and kissed him. “And now that the hard part’s over, take me back to bed.”
Peter laughed in relief around a second kiss and reached back to undo Hiro’s hair. “Lucky for the both of us I found you attractive on that train. Otherwise, I don’t think I would have listened to a word you said.”
Weeks of planning and anticipation. Review after review of Hiro’s movements and outfit and particular cadence when speaking had all paid off in less than a minute. He was still here. Peter was still here. Things were most likely no more messed up than they’d been before he’d left. Hiro had learned, over time, that the small victories had to be celebrated as much as the big ones. He led Peter to bed for the celebration.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
on 2006-12-01 04:17 am (UTC)no subject
on 2006-12-01 04:20 am (UTC)no subject
on 2006-12-01 06:39 am (UTC)He never had quite gotten over how different it makes Hiro look. Like he’s a kid about to blow out his birthday candles.
That is such a great way to describe the look that Hiro gets. I've been trying to figure it out and that is perfect.
no subject
on 2006-12-01 05:45 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2008-06-08 08:54 pm (UTC)“My sword?” Hiro asked when Peter held it out to him.
“You were wearing it.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m telling you to, apparently.”
♥♥♥YAYNESS!♥♥♥ So much yay. Okay, I think I'm done.
no subject
on 2008-06-08 09:07 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2010-05-07 12:50 am (UTC)I specially enjoyed the way you play with Hiro's powers and all the headache time traveling can be, and liked the chemistry between them, my favorite part was Future Hiro on the train with Peter.
I dont know if you have more fics of those two lying around, if you do let me know I would love to read them.
no subject
on 2010-05-07 06:53 am (UTC)I love time travel when I don't have to think about it. Once I think about it, my head just hurts. I figure it's got to be the same for Hiro, who knows what he's doing but still probably tries not to think about it.
I don't have more Hiro/Peter lying about, but I'm glad you liked this one enough to want to read more!