Acts of Kindness 3: Rise and Shine
Peter woke up feeling stiff and uncomfortable. His jaw hurt like he'd been grinding his teeth in his sleep. Peter yawned before he managed to get his eyes open, reaching up to wipe the residue of slumber from them. He jerked and tensed as he saw the probable cause for waking.
Sylar was standing in his room, staring at him with narrowed eyes. "Why do you want to help me… Petrelli?" He put just enough emphasis on the name to call attention to it, to make it clear he wasn't thinking of Peter so much as 'Peter', but as a part of the family who had manipulated Sylar from the beginning. Sylar's face was intent, like he was trying to figure out a puzzle or read Peter's mind. Or like if he didn't get the answer he wanted, one that made sense to him, he'd crack open Peter's skull and find what he wanted on his own.
Peter felt a lot of emotion in that moment, confronted and threatened in his own bed, which should have been a place of safety. Ultimately his mind only threw up two possible responses. One was to take Sylar's implicit threat seriously and respond to it as it deserved. The other was to blow him off. Peter rolled over with an exaggerated sigh. "Sylar, it's too early in the morning for this shit. Leave me alone." He tried to relax. Doing so became easier as nothing happened. He heard Sylar exhale forcefully and then stalk from the room.
Peter turned his head cautiously and looked back out of the corner of his eye. As far as he could see, Sylar went in the kitchen. A moment later, various sounds confirmed it. Peter rolled over and tried to work out the kinks in his muscles. He pulled himself out of bed and got dressed more fully. Like Sylar, he also hadn't stripped down like he usually did to sleep, but he'd at least downgraded to a t-shirt and boxers. He pulled on sweat pants, ran a comb through his hair and walked out.
The smell of coffee greeted him. Sylar gave him a silent, sidelong look and went back to what he was doing. The taller man was methodically going through the cabinets. Peter would have thought of it as snooping if it weren't so obvious he was looking for something to fix for them to eat. He had a few candidate boxes sitting out already, but apparently oatmeal and cereal weren't quite what he had in mind because he was still looking.
When he exhausted the last cabinet, Sylar turned to him and asked civilly, "Do you want oatmeal or cereal?"
Peter thought about that - not the oatmeal vs. cereal question - but about Sylar fixing him breakfast, about Sylar wanting to fix him breakfast, after that weird wake-up call. He looked over at the coffee pot, perking along, with two cups set out in front, sugar moved out and next to it with a spoon at the ready. There was another of those hated 'I'm sorrys' in there somewhere, but Peter just nodded and said, "Oatmeal would be good. There should be some jelly in the fridge."
"You like it with jelly? Never mind, of course you do. I wasn't thinking." Sylar's voice trailed off at the end and he shot Peter a cautious look.
Peter ignored it and poured the coffee, wondering if Sylar liked his with sugar or he'd set that out because he knew Peter did. One way to find out. "What do you want in your coffee?"
"Don't… don't worry about it, Peter. I'll get it." He was back to being conciliatory and cautious, as he had been nearly all the time in the nightmare. His earlier question, and the threatening undertone to it, was an aberration. Sylar wanted answers and he had no idea of how to get them without resorting to his old methods.
Peter backed off and let Sylar win this one. He collected his cup and went to the dining room, dragging back a chair. He turned it backwards and sat, leaning against the back, and watched as Sylar got a pot going and measured water and oatmeal. He put the cereal back up and closed the cabinets and was fastidiously tidy. He wasn't really that way - Peter knew that, he'd seen it in his mind - but he was nervous and when he got nervous he fussed with things.
After watching too much fidgeting, Peter said, "Thanks for the coffee."
"It's your coffee, Peter." When it seemed the silence was threatening to end the beginning of a conversation, Sylar laughed nervously and said, "It's, uh, seems weird that the food hasn't gone bad after all these years, right?"
"Yeah." Peter was noncommittal.
"But I guess you knew that. You always knew it wasn't real. Nothing… nothing there was real."
Peter tilted his head a little. Sylar was being anxious, like something was wrong. Of course there were a lot of things to be wrong here. "Nothing?"
"Well… you didn't really answer me… when I asked."
"I didn't think I needed to." Peter's voice was even and calm. "This didn't seem to be bothering you yesterday."
"Yesterday… I don't know. You should call Emma and make sure she's okay." He got out two bowls and the jelly.
"I will. Not right now."
Sylar scratched at his neck, turned off the stove and shared out portions. He added a generous dollop of jelly to one, then carried it to Peter. The other he carried over to the coffee pot and added sugar, then poured his coffee, also adding sugar, but not as much as Peter would have. He turned to face Peter, who was still watching him, always watching it seemed, and said, "Do… um… I don't want to eat out there."
"It's okay. This is fine. I need a spoon though."
"Oh! Yeah." Sylar handed him the one that had been in the jelly and then leaned against the counter, stirring the sugar into his dish with the sugar spoon and then blowing on it to cool it.
The conversation died again. Peter considered resuscitating it, but he was distracted by his phone ringing. He pulled it out and glanced at the caller ID. It was his mother. He answered, "Hi, Mom."
"Hello, Peter," his mother's voice said through the phone. "Is everything alright?"
"Yeah, everything's fine."
There was a long pause, then she asked, "Is he there?"
Peter looked up at Sylar, who was trying to pretend he couldn't hear the conversation. "Yep. Standing in my kitchen eating breakfast." Sylar shot him an uncertain look and stood up a little straighter. Peter shook his head a little at him. Sylar didn't need to worry or leave. Peter asked the phone, "Why do you ask?"
She didn't really answer him, but then again, she rarely did. "You don't have to do this, Peter."
"Do what?"
"You don't have to help him."
"Yeah? You said I didn't have to go find him either and he saved Emma. And what else am I supposed to do? He doesn't even have any ID. Should I let him just go out and mug someone for theirs?"
Now Sylar looked distinctly uncomfortable.
"Peter, he's not your responsibility."
"No, you're right. He's yours. Yours and the Company's, but I don't see anyone trying to help him. And I mean really help him, not just lock him up somewhere for months and feed him neutralizing pills like you did when my powers got out of control!" His voice rose in anger at the end. There were a lot of things in Peter's past he was unhappy about.
There was silence in the apartment and on the phone. Sylar stared at Peter, unaware of that incident from either his own knowledge or Nathan's memories. Finally Angela said very genuinely, "I'm so sorry, Peter. I thought we'd put that behind us."
Peter was still angry as he answered, "Have we? Because I'm ready to put it behind us. Can we? Can we do that mom? Put the past behind us?" He was still upset, but there was a note of pleading, almost false, almost genuine.
"Yes, of course we can."
"Good." He sat up straighter. "Then I'm going to bring him over this afternoon and I want you to help us get an identity set up for him."
"Peter!" she sounded exasperated, realizing he'd manipulated her into a corner. "You can't…"
"Yes, I can. Mom, he was Nathan for weeks - going to lunch with you, working in his office, maybe even visiting his kids. You won, you know. He's not the same guy as he used to be. You said he's not my responsibility - fine. Show me that the Company is willing to step and do something themselves to fix this mess they caused."
"That's not Nathan anymore! That's Sylar!" she nearly hissed.
He looked up at the man in the kitchen who had given up pretending not to be listening. Their eyes met briefly. "I know."
"You don't have to forgive him!"
"Mom, you had the same dream I did. You know I already have." He paused for a moment, hearing her sigh heavily on the other end of the phone. It hadn't seemed possible when he'd had the dream. "We'll come by after lunch. How's one o'clock sound?"
She sighed again, this time defeated. "You need to bring a photograph, a passport photo. You can get one at most copy stores."
"Okay. Thanks Mom."
"You're welcome." She didn't sound welcoming. She sounded bitter. "Be safe, Peter. Good-bye."
"I am. Bye." He hung up and pocketed the phone. After a pause and a few bites of oatmeal, he addressed Sylar, "So I was thinking we'd go out and get some money, then some stuff for you and I'm going to need a couch for you to sleep on instead of the futon. Mom says we'll need a passport photo of you. Then we can grab lunch and head on over. I have to be at work at four. You think you can handle getting anything else you need on your own after that?"
"What are you going to do if you come home and I'm not here?"
"Be worried. Lie on my new couch and wonder where the hell you are and what I need to do about it, if anything. I'd appreciate it if you'd leave a note. We can pick up a phone for you too, one of those pay-as-you-go things. You don't have to have a credit card or anything for them." He paused. "I won't be back until around nine or ten."
"That's pretty short hours."
"A.M."
"Oh."
Peter ate quickly, thinking they had more to do than they had time to do it in.
Sylar said, "You're really serious about this, aren't you?"
"About what?"
"Helping me. You don't have to, you know. I'm an adult. I've made it on my own for years."
"Do you want to be alone?" Peter shot back, declining to point out the number of dead bodies Sylar had caused when he'd stepped outside of society's bounds and 'made it on his own.'
"I… no. But it's not like I can't-"
Peter shook his head. "It's not about what you can and can't do. I know you can do it. It's about… something else."
"Which is?"
Peter huffed. He didn't like being made to say this and he was pretty sure Sylar was drawing it out intentionally, just to hear him say it. He glanced up at Sylar's face and saw he was right. It made it better, somehow - amusing maybe. He recalled last night that Sylar really hadn't understood at all why Peter wanted him there.
It occurred to Peter that maybe it would help to just spell it out. "I want to help you because you need help. I like helping people. It's why I'm a paramedic. And when I'm a paramedic, some days I'm helping the victim of a crime and some days I'm helping the criminal after they've been brought down. It doesn't matter. They both need my help." Sylar just looked confused.
Peter huffed again. "Okay, fine, maybe this will make sense to you. If I let you roam around on your own, I'll never know if you might start killing people again and causing more problems that I need to fix. So yeah, I suppose you're right," he said angrily, "I just want to make sure no one else loses their brother. That's not the only reason, but I guess it's the only one that you'd understand!" He practically spat the words out. Sylar backed up a step, not understanding where the anger was coming from. Peter added, just as angrily, "Because it seems to be some kind of fucking problem that I have some shred of sympathy for you."
Peter got up and stalked over to the sink to rinse out his bowl. Sylar gave him a wide berth. Freaking sociopath! Peter thought, fuming. I'm trying to be nice and you can't see it as anything but self-serving because that's all you understand. This is hopeless.
"Peter?"
He put the dish down and leaned on the counter in front of the sink, head hanging. "Sylar. I'm just angry. I'm angry the world isn't the way I want it to be. I'll get over it. I'm sorry I'm lashing out at you. I know you're doing your best."
"You don't have to patronize me, Peter. I just wanted to say thank you."
He stood up and turned just in time for a knock at the door.