Wall Verse Chapter 4, Camping
Sylar had been talked into going camping by Peter. It was silly. It was stupid. It was pointless. It was all that and more, but Peter had insisted he wanted to see what else was out there. For all his personal adventures, Sylar was quite the homebody. He'd finally crumpled when Peter had said fine, he'd just go without him then. And so they'd marched off into the uncertain landscape that Peter was sure was just Sylar's imagination, with perhaps some of his own mixed in, and that Sylar sometimes feared Peter was right. He didn't know, but he wasn't about to let the empath get away now that they'd finally loosened up with each other.
He woke - Sylar woke - the next morning stiff and sore with an awareness of all his blisters and aches, but he felt something else too, something like Hope at the bottom of Pandora's Box. It was the thing that had ended his slumber and realizing what it was, he kept his eyes shut and tried to deepen his breathing back to somnolent levels. He wanted to fool Peter; he needed to fool Peter. Because Peter had woke first and was slowly stroking the outside of Sylar's forearm. That marvelous, surreptitious touch stopped only a few moments later, but it confirmed all sorts of things about the empath - hints and mixed signals, now all clarified.
Sylar continued to feign sleep even though he badly wanted to open his eyes and look. He heard Peter shift and stand, leaving the tent they'd set up. The day before, Sylar had not been able to manage an objection to this gesture at authenticity in camping, even though they had their choice of abandoned abodes to choose from. After all, it put him sleeping in the same "room" with Peter. Apparently Peter had not been unmoved by that consideration either. It might even have been his plan all along, the manipulative little brat. New territory, indeed.
Peter had managed to talk Sylar into going camping with him. It was silly. It was immature. It was fun. He wanted to get out and away from the routine they'd settled into. For a much as he valued being reliable, steady, and there for people, he was a rebel at heart. He'd finally been forced to threaten to go alone - that had cracked Sylar loose from his moorings. And so they'd marched off on an adventure together, seeing new corners of this world of Sylar's imagining. In a way it was like a tour of the inside of his brain. Peter was thrilled. Maybe he'd see a side of his companion other than the stoic smart-ass he liked to front with.
He - Peter - hardly slept. He kept thinking about the time he'd stayed up all night to watch Sylar-faux-Nathan passed out in drunken stupor on Peter's bed. The man's rest was less disturbed this time, but not by much. An entire night of watching the man struggle intermittently with his demons, completely vulnerable in slumber, moved Peter. As dawn greeted the world, the nightmares seemed to get worse. Peter knelt next to Sylar and stroked his arm slowly. Sylar stopped whimpering immediately and seemed to rouse, then lapse back into sleep.
Peter stopped, regarding his companion for some moments. He watched the slight motions of Sylar's eyes under his lids and the lack of relaxation around his lips. He was faking! Peter smiled. So Sylar knew he'd tried to comfort him. Peter rose and left the tent, stretching in the light of the new day. He wouldn't say it had been a bad night of sleep, exactly. He'd been confronted with Sylar's humanity for hour upon hour and perhaps that was just what Peter needed to truly wake him up. He heard the man stir out and Peter turned to greet him, a new-found warmth in his heart.