Acts of Kindness 2: Shelter from the Storm
They left when the coffee shop closed and found themselves standing on the sidewalk under the night sky. Peter was relieved to see Sylar shift from the Nathan-esque behavior he'd shown intermittently in the shop to be more "Sylar," or at least different. Maybe this was Gabriel he was seeing - the real person behind Sylar's mask of cruelty and ambition. He didn't know.
Sylar's hands were stuffed in his pockets and his shoulders hunched inwards, a little slouched forward as he looked up and down the street uncertainly. That last was the most unlike Nathan of all. Yes, Nathan was uncertain at times, but this wouldn't have been one of them.
Peter considered that. He wasn't acting like Nathan because Nathan probably had no reference point for how Sylar was feeling now. "Where are you going to go?" Peter asked. He'd been shying away from asking that specific question for the last three hours, focusing on the future in a more general and distant way. Of course Sylar didn't have an apartment and although he could go to a motel, Peter shied away from thinking about how he'd pay for it, without money or credit cards or even ID. It had come up that he had none of the documents needed for normal life.
"I… um." Sylar twisted a little back and forth. "I was… I guess maybe I'll go to the beach house. At least for tonight."
The beach house? Peter's mind hesitated to process that. "You mean… our… the Petrelli beach house?" It was owned by the trust fund, but of course Nathan was welcome there and he knew how to get in even if he didn't have his keys.
"Yeah. No one's there. I know the code." Sylar looked at Peter's expression and his eyes narrowed at the perceived rejection. He drew into himself even more. "No. Never mind. I'll go somewhere else." He turned and started to walk away.
Peter caught up to him in three fast steps. He knew a place. "Yeah. Right. Somewhere else. I know where. Come with me." He touched Sylar briefly on the elbow, but there was no need to do anymore than that to try to assert control over where they were going. Sylar had been heading in the right direction for Peter's intention anyway.
"Why? Where are you going?"
"Come on. Just trust me."
Sylar stopped immediately, pulling out of his funk and standing taller. Peter looked him up and down for a moment, thinking maybe he saw a threat there, an attempt at intimidation. Or maybe he was just seeing things, because when he really looked it just seemed more like simple stubbornness. Peter was silent, just regarding him, so Sylar said, "Trust you? Can I trust you?"
Peter paused. He'd been thinking more along the lines of whether he could trust Sylar. It hadn't occurred to him that it might go both ways. Yes, he'd forgiven him and Sylar knew that, but what did that really mean? Not even Peter was sure, but he said, "Yeah. You can."
Sylar exhaled sharply, giving Peter an almost disapproving look for his faith in him. "Where are we going?"
Peter smiled a little, noticing it had changed from 'where are you going' to 'where are we going.' "Just come on." And he walked off, listening behind him but not waiting. After a moment, he smiled again to himself as he heard Sylar's long strides eating up the distance between them. He fell into step right next to him, too close, as before.
They walked in silence, but Peter's thoughts were busy. He knew that Sylar knew all about him - had Nathan's memories about Peter and that was more than disconcerting, but he hadn't really thought about what that meant in a larger context until Sylar mentioned the beach house. He knew everything Nathan had known. He knew where Heidi and Nathan's sons lived. He knew where Peter's mother lived, when she was likely to be alone and how to get in the house, even assuming he didn't have an ability that would let him make quick work of normal barriers to home invasion.
Sylar knew Claire's phone number, what college she was attending and probably even which dorm she was staying in. In addition, he had to know everything Nathan had known as a senator - all the contacts, the people, the ins and outs and secrets and who-owed-who favors. With shape-shifting, he could be anyone, or more disturbingly, he could go back to being Nathan.
At that thought, Peter reached up and rubbed his forehead as they walked, shaking his head. Sylar looked over at the gesture, but didn't comment. As if to prove Peter's thoughts, in the next block he raised his head and began looking around intently, obviously having realized where they were going. "Your apartment? Why?" But his strides didn't slow, so neither did Peter's.
"Because I'm sleepy and it's late and you need to stay somewhere."
"You… You trust me that much? To let me sleep at your place? I mean…"
Peter looked at him out of the corner of his eye. "Shouldn't I? Are you saying you're not safe to be around?" He managed to make himself sound serious, though he thought it was ridiculous. Sylar's tone was so open and raw and doubting that it cemented to Peter that there was nothing to be afraid of. There was no answer, but he didn't need one.
It wasn't like Peter wasn't thinking though, but mainly what he was thinking was that if Sylar wanted him dead, then they wouldn't be walking down the street together. And if Sylar was so unstable that he might act trustworthy now and flip out later, then Peter wanted to know that. He needed to know it so he could do something about it, because someone had to and he wasn't seeing anyone else stepping up to the plate.
He wondered if anyone else even could. He recalled something he'd learned in world history class. President Nixon had been an outspoken opponent to Communist China for many years and his negative feelings about the other government were well known. When it looked like conditions might escalate between the United States and China, it was Nixon who made a special trip to China to meet with their leadership and defuse it. He went personally, because it was the sort of impasse that no ambassador or lesser diplomat could handle. China would not trust the US, would not believe their sincerity, unless it was their known enemy himself who came to them and humbly asked to discuss how to keep the peace.
It had spawned a saying: Only Nixon could go to China. What it meant was that sometimes, the only person you can trust is the one who has openly declared their dislike of you. Everyone else was too likely to have an agenda, to be trying to manipulate you in an underhanded manner. Only your sworn enemy was likely to be forthright with you and the only person's opinion that mattered, after such a negotiation, was that sworn enemy. Peter had every reason to dislike Sylar. Everyone knew that. They didn't know about the time they'd shared mentally. But the only person who was truly able to vouch for Sylar's sincerity, the only one who might be taken seriously, was Peter. He was also the only person Sylar could really trust.
When they walked in, Sylar took a brief look around like a person tended to do to a place they were familiar with - none of the curiosity and interest that a new place might engender. Peter wasn't in the habit of having guests and he didn't have much in the way of furniture. He did have an old futon from college, which he dug out of the closet. When he walked back in, Sylar was standing nervously at the entrance of the dining room, looking it over, breathing a little too fast. Peter eyed him. Clinically, it looked to him like the edge of a panic attack.
"I don't like it here, Peter. I don't like the memories."
Peter dropped the futon more abruptly than he had to. "Tough," he said harshly. "It happened. I'm not going to let you run from it. I sure as hell can't." He set his feet apart and drew himself up in a challenging posture, but it was unnecessary. Sylar's eyes dodged to the side and he ducked his head. Peter relaxed a little. Obviously Sylar had some feelings about this too, but it was hard to care, given this was where his last illusions about his brother's death had been stripped away.
Peter stalked out of the room and came back, throwing down a pillow and a blanket. Sylar was still standing tensely in the doorway, but his breathing had slowed back to normal. Peter swallowed and softened his voice a little. "Are you going to stay?" He couldn't keep him here against his will and all trust aside, someone needed to help Sylar get back on his feet and do something with his life other than be a menace. He needed people and work and connections. He wouldn't get those if Peter drove him off, because he sure as hell didn't have anyone else he could go to. They'd talked about that.
"Yeah," Sylar said, shuffling a little as he walked over to the futon.
Peter let out the breath he'd been holding. "Okay. I'm going to get some sleep." He tried to think of how he could phrase what he wanted to say next, but his brain didn't help him out with any good way to put it. When Sylar looked up at him, curious about why he was just standing there, Peter blurted out, "Please don't leave in the morning, okay?" He looked away. "I'm really serious about trying to help."
"So I don't kill anyone else's brother, is that it?" Sylar asked bitterly.
Peter's head snapped around and he inhaled sharply, too surprised and angry to do anything for a moment.
"I'm s-" Sylar looked frightened and startled at his own words. "I didn't mean to say that. I shouldn't have said that. I'll be here in the morning." He sat down on the futon immediately, fussing with the blanket and cringing away from Peter. It was the cringing that made Peter turn and go to his bedroom. This is not going to be easy, he thought.
Peter tossed and turned for over an hour, having drank too much caffeine at the coffee house. He was exhausted, but not sleepy. Finally he got up and padded out quietly to look in the living room. Even in the dark, he could see Sylar was curled up on the futon, apparently fast asleep. He was too tall for it. Peter had forgotten about that - it had been a little short even for him. Peter leaned on the doorframe and frowned at the man.
Along with Nathan's memories, he had all of Sylar's powers. He could regenerate. He could fly. He could change his face and his form and manipulate things with telekinesis. He'd said he could make things into gold. Peter wasn't sure what else Sylar had as powers, but he felt kind of like he was a normal, mundane person trying to baby-sit a reformed comic book villain, except that most of the villains gained their power from machines or labs or science or money - all things that could be stripped away. The powers of the heroes were usually intrinsic to them, as Sylar's were.
Peter snorted. Yeah, that's it, Sylar's just a hero who went bad for a little while and now he's back on the straight and narrow path of goodness. If only it were that easy.
Sylar stiffened a little at the sound and turned his head. Peter straightened and quit leaning on the wall. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to wake you." He retreated back into his bedroom, but Sylar's voice followed him.
"Can we talk some more?"
Peter came back slowly. "About what? Don't you just want to sleep?"
"You were the one who said you were sleepy, Peter." Sylar reached up and rubbed at his eyes anyway. He'd been out. Peter felt bad for waking him. He supposed it also looked a little creepy for him to be watching Sylar sleep.
"What did you want to talk about?"
Sylar shifted under the blanket and Peter could see that except for his shoes, he'd stayed fully clothed. As if I needed another indication of how uncomfortable he is, Peter thought. Sylar asked, "You thought you killed me, didn't you?"
"What?" Peter scrambled through his memories, trying to find a context for that. There were several candidates.
"Back at the Stanton Hotel. You were the president. And… then… there…" Sylar turned away, curling up to himself, but he kept talking. "I was at the bonfire. But somewhere in there, they came up with that shape-shifter's body and must have told you that was me. You knew I could heal, so you either thought they were burning me alive, or you thought they'd killed me with a drug or something else. You were the one who injected me. The simplest explanation would have been to give you a dose of neutralizing compound and tell you it was lethal. That way you wouldn't stick around to make sure I didn't wake up. That way the others could get the body from you and do… what they did. But that means you must have thought you killed me."
Peter scrubbed at his face with his hand. This was more than his tired mind was able to handle at the moment and the cognitive problem laid in trying to think of what this meant to Sylar. He sighed. He couldn't think of a good reason to say anything but the truth. "Yeah. That's what they said. Why?"
If he'd been able to see Sylar's expression, he would have seen him smile. As it was, he thought he could hear it in his voice. "I was wrong. You are a killer. You pulled the trigger on Da- your dad and you thought you'd killed me."
They were both silent. Peter didn't bother to reiterate anything about how justified he'd felt he'd been. Honestly, with the syringe in hand, he hadn't known Nathan was dead and he'd also known that Sylar could be taken down with something less lethal than he'd been handed. Or at least, than he'd been told he'd been handed. Noah had also told him it was all he had, so it was that or nothing. He'd had a choice, though if he were honest with himself, and he thought he was, if he'd known Sylar had killed Nathan, he'd have used lethal injection without a qualm. As it was, he'd had qualms. They just hadn't stopped him.
Into the heavy quiet, Sylar asked, "Is that why you want me here? Guilty about what you did? Or… do you think we have something in common?"
Both of those suggested reasons ran all through Peter and he was glad of the darkness to hide his expression. Because he could tell from Sylar's voice and from so long of being in his head that he really didn't mean any malice in what he'd said. His last question was hopeful even. 'We've both murdered people, let's be friends!' It was sickening, but Peter held his tongue. Yes, this is not going to be easy at all.
Peter coughed, hoping he could keep his voice under control enough that it didn't betray his conflicted emotions. (Well, not that they were all that conflicted - he was angry and not much else at the moment.) "It's neither of those, Sylar. Neither. I'm going to go back to bed."
He walked back to bed and this time he fell asleep.