Bricks in the Wall, Chapter 71: Practical Reasons
Title: Practical Reasons
Characters: Peter, Sylar
Words: 400
Rating: PG
Warnings: None.
Setting: The Wall
Summary: Sylar doesn't understand Peter's reading choices. Peter thinks there's a lot Sylar doesn't understand.
Peter walked back to the desk in Sylar's apartment, picking up the book he'd been reading. He shut it without bothering to check the page and stuck it back on the nearby shelf. He turned back to the desk, reaching for the game on the top of the stack. It was Battleship. He remembered having won their last match. That was good - it was a win/win. If Sylar won, he'd be happy to have revenged himself, and if Peter won, he'd enjoy having the trend continue. He regarded Battleship as a coin-flip-game anyway as to who won. At least, it should be a coin-flip-game, but people like Sylar insisted on playing it methodically, which defeated the whole purpose. He turned to see if Sylar was interested in playing it again, methodical or no.
Sylar was staring at the book Peter had returned to the shelf. "Kant, A Critique of Practical Reason," he read the title out loud. He looked at Peter wonderingly. "Why were you reading that?"
Peter shrugged. He didn't want to get into deep philosophy about one's understanding of reality when deprived of sensory experience, because that would lead inevitably to a discussion of how Peter perceived their here-and-now. It was not the same understanding Sylar had.
Sylar was not to be deterred. His wonder went to suspicion and uncertainty. "Why were you reading that? That's a very heavy book," he added, which could mean the literal heft of the substantial tome, or more likely the intellectual rigor required to comprehend it.
Peter frowned. "It was just something I was reading, Sylar."
"But why? That's not you. That's nothing like you."
He would have been offended if Sylar knew jack shit about what he was talking about. It wasn't even the first or second time he'd read the damn thing, having had to write a term paper in college on it and discussed it at some length with many of his friends. He gave Sylar a good, long, hard stare, thinking about how Sylar must be using Nathan's memories to be so certain. "Nathan didn't know me. He knew about me, and what he expected me to be, and that was all he thought he needed to know. Don't make the same mistake." Peter gestured at the game in front of him. "Now put the book back, have a seat, and let's play Battleship."