Title: The Man Who Sold The World
Author: Bria - ladyofbrileith
Fandom: Heroes
Pairing: Adam/Peter, Mohinder/Sylar
Rating/Warnings: PG-13, m/m relationships-but no graphic sex, spoilers for S2 and part of S3.

Words: 15,520

Summary: In a world where over 99% of the population has died, decimated by the release of the Shanti virus, Adam has worked hard to build an outpost of civilization for survivors in a paradise, a new Garden of Eden, where humanity can be shaped into the image of his choosing. But while most of the survivors have resigned themselves to this new world and struggle to find their own place and build lives within it, Peter refuses to do so. Despite the feelings he and Adam share, Peter won't rest until he manages to undo what was done, no matter the cost, and Adam must find a way to stop him before it's too late, and his perfect apocalypse is destroyed.

Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6
Notes: Thank you to my wonderful betas: kirsteena, risingfire and keep_them_safe

FANMIX to accompany: by entwashian - The Future Never Happened

This is potentially the most ridiculous question ever asked. My partner's family...god. My partner's family, you see, turns out to be my family. Or, no, not turns out to be, because...I knew it was a possibility when I started falling in love with him. I knew there was a chance...

And, no, before anyone asks, he and I are not related. There's no blood or DNA we share.

But the situation is...complicated, and it always will be complicated, and I cannot change that. I cannot change what I am, that I am a man who does not age, who moves through time without having it touch me, that I have loved before, and that I loved...that once upon a time I loved his mother. That maybe there is a substantial part of me that still does. I'm not someone who stops loving when I have fallen. We had a child, she and I--his half brother. We have grandchildren--his nieces and nephews. The secrets are out, now, and everyone knows. He has to live with the fact that he's dating his mother's ex, and his brother's father, and "complicated" is actually a very mild word.

Add in the fact that his mother and I haven't exactly had the most...stellar of records for honesty in the past, and that there are more wounds there, and some days I have no idea what the fucking hell he's doing with me. Shall we review, in brief, how I get along with his family? See if it counts as "good terms"?

His mother: We were lovers for near on 14 years. I count her, still, as one of the loves of my life. We plotted to destroy the world together, for purposes we still believe were good ones, though we may have come to disagree on the level of destruction necessary to achieve our purposes. I may have tried to kill her with my pet telepath. She may have told our son how to kill me and that he should do so. I still love her. I'm fairly certain part of her still loves me. I chose him. She accepts that fact. We're speaking. We all got along well for the holidays. On the other hand, I bought her a necklace that cost more than a small house, so I say that might have been a bit over the top, but...all right, all in all, on good terms?

His elder brother: Hated me for ages for using Peter. Threw a few punches. Exchanged more than a few insults. Found out I was his father. Wasn't overly pleased at that at first. Seems to be coming around to the idea, though, and wanting to spend time with me, and lets me see his children and be in their lives, so...I think we're getting there?

His twin: My BFF. Probably feels as uncomfortable as a new member of the family structure as I do, as we were both cast out of it for decades, but, we're coming to terms with it, and though he was royally pissed at me lately for certain...actions I took that weren't all that advisable, we seem to have made up.

His niece: My granddaughter. My protege. She's never really had a problem with me, despite everyone trying to turn her against me for a while. She was the first to realize what we were to each other, to accept me as part of the family, and we've been close for a while, bonded by our mutual ability, one no one else fully grasps, even the others who have acquired them. There's something to it, when it's just yours, when it is what you were born with, and it bonds us.

His nephews: Monty seems to adore me. Ninja swords and pirate stories work well for that. Simon, I'm less certain of, but I don't think he dislikes me...

His nephew-in-law and one of his best friends: Oh dear god, don't get me started. My first love who married my granddaughter; who betrayed me for another; who built me up into believing I was something special to him, then took it away; who buried me alive and left me there to go mad...Honestly, I have no idea what terms we are on from day to day. I have...forgiven as best I am able, and I believe he has, as well, and sometimes I see the glimmer of the friends we once were, but then he married Claire, and now...I do not know again. I can't think about it.

So. It's complicated, but honestly, it isn't so much his family I worry nearly as much about as it is him. How he will take my entanglement in his family's life, the more he thinks about it. If he ever realizes how much his mother meant, and still means, to me. I gave her up, I chose him, and I've no regret there. She and I hurt each other too deeply to ever go back to what we were, before, but what we were...I don't think he knows, and I worry if he ever understands, ever grasps it, ever fully understands it. He's taken so much from me, put up with so much, forgiven so much...

Sometimes I wonder when enough will be enough, and what will be the final straw.

Enough was enough. He was tired of watching them hurt each other. He was tired of standing back and trying to act like he was disinterested beyond being Claire's roommate and mentor. Nathan was his son. Claire was his granddaughter. They were the only blood relations he had in the fucking world, the only ones he'd had in centuries, and he was tired of seeing them hurt when they had a chance at something so much more.

He'd never asserted any authority with Claire, treating her like an adult, free to do as she pleased, and while he tried to guide her toward better decisions, he'd never laid down the law or rules at the house or anything else. He'd been there when she needed him, tried to show her she could trust him. But this time he'd let his annoyance and worry override that, and, half to his surprise, she'd listened.

Angela had arranged the Nathan side of things, and now he was pacing her living room, waiting for the younger generations to arrive. He wasn't quite certain what to say, but, well.

It was time someone took this family in hand, and if no one else was going to step up to bat to do it, then he damn well would. They were hurting, ripping apart at the seams, all of them, and he couldn't let it continue. He knew they both wanted to fix it, so hopefully there wouldn't be any difficulty, especially after his discussion with Nathan the other night. Hopefully that desire, with some sort of forcing them to face the issues and not retreating would be enough.

Somehow they had to get it right. They deserved that, instead of continuing to suffer for the mistakes of their elders. He had to find a way to make it right, no matter what it cost him.

[AN: Not exactly how this scene went in RP, but mostly an artistic interpretation of a moment of how it was going in Adam's head. Nathan is notacargojet and Angela is mapetrelli.]

They sit there untouched, two waffles among four. There should be five, but Nathan refused. The boys devoured theirs before running out to play in the snow, and though she asked for one, Angela hasn't touched hers. Nor has he. Now there they are on china someone cherished, possibly handed down from generation to generation. It looks old enough to span at least the three that were gathered at the table just moments before, before they excused the youngest, before the secrets spilled out in confessions that couldn't be denied, before the anger erupted, before silence descended and the three of them were reduced to staring at separate points on the kitchen walls and floor and table, but never meeting each others' eyes to see what other secrets they might reveal.

He has no idea where they go from here.

It's a strangely disconcerting realization and one he's been forced to far too often lately. Things were going so smoothly up until...up until he decided to bring Suresh to Eden. That was the turning point, wasn't it? Elle's pregnancy was a dream come to fruition. Eden was flourishing and coming along well. Bennet had come to town, and semi-promised to keep him informed should he find his errant grandchild. Hiro running back and forth to Japan was a nuisance, yes, but he was loyal, at least, for once. And he had Peter by his side.

Now Peter is gone, and Hiro is acting oddly, and Angela is here in his life and home after apparently telling his son to kill him, and Elle is terrified by the apparent threat of her presence, and he had a few brief moments with his grandsons, but Nathan is here to take them away, and Nathan knows the truth, but doesn't really believe it, and nothing is being said because they are all staring at the walls, and the waffles just sit on some other family's china who thought to pass it on to grandchildren who will never run and play in the snow the way he can hear his doing through the glass of the windowpanes.

His gaze drops back to his waffle. Breakfast had seemed like a good idea, but like so many others it falters in cold retrospect. No infusion of normalcy can make this situation approach anything resembling familial. The man across the table may be his blood, but the likelihood of him ever calling him father is so remote as to be ludicrous, and the chance of this ever being his family, of ever finding place among them...he can't even decide which place he wants, can he, as fucked up as that is. Father, brother, son, lover. It's twisted up in his head too far, the bonds that run back and forth in blood and love and thirty years and a promise and a lie.

He takes a breath, tries to form words, tries to find a coherent thought.

Nothing comes.

The waffles grow cold.