Non-Human Love
Title: Non-Human Love
Characters: Peter Petrelli, Gabriel
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
Word count: ~600
Summary: Peter and Gabriel discuss the next article in the series. Follow up to "You Are What You Eat" and "Getting Around".
Peter looked at the title of the next article and blanched. “Uh …”
Gabriel looked over his shoulder. “Um … I’m not sure I want to read that.”
“I think I want to read it just so I know whether the article is as bad as the title.” Peter scrolled down a little. Gabriel watched Peter’s face, wondering if his willingness to read it indicated anything deep, dark, and naughty about Peter that he needed to know. Shape-shifting didn’t allow him to turn into an animal (he’d tried it, of course), but there might be other abilities out there that did. Especially if werewolf legends were true …
“Oh, it has clocks in it,” Peter said.
Gabe’s attention was immediately snared. “Really?” He quit daydreaming and started reading.
Peter snorted. “’Non-African ethnic groups’. I’m sure the racial supremacists will have a fit to know that it’s not the Africans who are the most primitive.”
“Technically, all creatures alive today are equally evolved.”
“What?” Peter turned from the article to Gabriel. “You believe that?”
“Yes.”
“I thought you thought that abilities were the next step in human evolution.”
“They are.”
Peter got a puzzled look on his face, so Gabriel elaborated, “All life started at the same point. It has all, presumably, progressed the same amount of time. Those who have changed a great deal, like humans, have gone through a lot of adaptations during that time, but some forms of life have gone through very little. They found a working strategy early, optimized it, and never needed to change again. To call them primitive is a misnomer.”
“A what?”
“A … it’s wrong.”
“Okay. But sometimes you’ve talked about specials being the most highly evolved.”
“That’s the way Chandra talked about it. He was wrong. Sometimes I’m sloppy with my language. It’s more accurate to say we’re more adapted. And certainly abilities are going to make us more able to influence our environment than people without abilities. Though …” Gabriel paused and Peter looked back at him. “In the last year or so, I’ve had reason to doubt that this is the unalloyed good thing that I used to think it was. Abilities can be destructive. If we … don’t evolve our morality to keep pace, then it’s no use. If we destroy our environment or drive everyone away from us, then it’s not a positive mutation.”
Peter kissed him silently, staring into his eyes for a long, entrancing moment before finally turning back to the article. After a few seconds, he said, “Oh. I guess the racists have their consolation. Looks like the Africans did it, too.”
Gabriel shrugged. “If they can reproduce fertile offspring with their partner, then I don’t see what the problem is. Calling them non-human is a technicality.”
“Probably a technicality that some will seize on.”
“But the other races are ‘guilty’ of the same thing. If anything, this is evidence against racism, showing that human societies have practiced miscegenation for as far back as the genetic record goes.”
“Oh. Well … yeah. That makes sense. Hang on, though. I didn’t finish the article.” Peter read through the last paragraph. “Huh. That wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it was. I thought they were implying something gross.” Peter rolled his eyes. “If they think that is non-human, then …” He shrugged.
Gabriel kissed him on the cheek. “Then we are far more kinky than I thought.”