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Title: Thick As Thieves (Part 1)
Author: islandblue
Characters: Sylar/Peter
Rating: R
Word Count: 991
Warnings: None
Spoilers: All of Season 1
Summary: Peter lived through the nuclear discharge and after much deliberation decided to come back to New York conveniently without telling anyone he was still alive. But he soon finds out he isn’t the only one to have survived that night.
Disclaimer: Don't own. Don't sue.
Author's Note: A huge high-five to midnightblue88 for being a totally awesome beta. Thanks for dealing with this monster of a story ;)
::***::
If Peter was honest with himself, he would have to say he absolutely hated flying. He began to understand why his brother might have been reluctant to make use of the ability. At times he’d almost get nauseous from the strange and unemphatic sensations which reverberated through-out his body. But mostly it was like a combination of vertigo and an invariable unease at the thought of suddenly forgetting how to do it.
However, tonight Peter needed to get half-way across town and walking there would take much too long. He considered taking a bus but his need for mandatory invisibility had its disadvantages. Not being able to get off at the right spot if the bus was empty and the driver was pushing 60 miles an hour was one of them. He didn’t want to risk it.
Regardless of what Claude had managed to teach him, it was continually frustrating to shift through the abilities, taking up the right ones at the right time. Attempting to make use of two at the same time didn’t seem possible. Peter had tried to do so numerous times anyway. Oddly enough, there is quite a bit of free time to fill up when you’re pretending to be dead.
Either way, tonight would not be the night he’d be able to fly invisibly.
The last rays of the sun disappeared over fifty minutes ago. Peter took off quickly, shooting through trees that lined the shadowy street of a suburban area. Within seconds he was loosely hanging a couple of hundred feet above the small neighborhood. Wind blew much cooler and stronger up here and it whipped his long, dark coat around him like a sail. The slacks he was wearing were thin and he only had a t-shirt underneath. Both garments were doing very little to fend off the chill and his hands were already numbing up as he fastened every button on his coat. It was a clear and crisp night, and despite his dicey plans for the evening, he became preoccupied with the brilliance of the city. New York looked like an electric farmland of street and building lights. There was no city noise this far up and it was unpleasantly comforting. It made him feel small and scared and fed a part of him which kept insisting that he couldn’t do this alone.
But he knew he could and more importantly, he wanted to do it alone, even if it was a bad idea. A voice in the back of his mind still insisted he should have at least contacted Claire.
When he had woken up seven days ago in a small wooded area an hour outside of New York, he didn’t remember anything. Unavoidably, most of it returned and it didn’t take long to comprehend what had happened. How his restorative ability stretched to unknown extremes yet again. How Nathan had sacrificed his life to save the world while his own body had selfishly healed. How Nathan predictably fixed what Peter screwed up.
He was never seen as a failure, Peter was aware of that. The word Nathan and his mother would use was ‘incapable’. And it wasn’t just his family either. That image of meek, callow little Peter rubbed off on others. Like Simone.
When this saving the cheerleader, saving the world business came up, it felt like a puzzle piece had fallen into place. ‘This ... is what you've been waiting for. Be the one we need.’ Hiro’s message had constantly echoed through his head and filled him with a sense of resoluteness.
Unfortunately, when he had a clear second shot at stopping Sylar, he had ruined it. For his part, Sylar had worked out exactly what to do: get Peter riled up. Peter lost control and Nathan saved the day.
Initially it was all he could think about, and he had become more and more frenetic as the days wore on. What infuriated him wasn’t jealousy of Nathan or even of Hiro for finishing the job. It was a repudiating hatred at his own failure, his incapability. Which is why he decided - maybe a little carelessly - that he would need a plan to focus him. One plan. And he would avoid thinking about the rest. When he returned to New York City on the second day, the only thought-out choice he had made was not letting anyone know he was still alive.
Peter was floating restlessly in the chilly air. It was difficult to tell where he needed to go since he was now looking at the roads from three hundred feet up. He scanned all the lights east of him and recognized a couple buildings. Turning up his collar against the wind, he leaned forward stretching out and the city quickly became a bright blur around him. By the time he was closing in on the location, the lights had started to thin out.
The road dead-ended in a warehouse district, and he landed throwing his weight into his legs. His heels dug in and he skidded to a stop sending grit flying everywhere. It made metallic clinking sounds when it hit a large yellow dirt digger nearby. Peter was slightly out of breath, and he rubbed his face trying to get some feeling back into it. Checking his watch told him he had at least half an hour before the show started.
The area he landed in was being overhauled and all the buildings converted into lofts. Scaffolding surrounded nearly all the structures and some of the sheets had come loose, hanging eerily in the air. Of course there was also the inevitable row of blue and white johnnies. The whole area was just out of the way enough to be almost completely isolated.
Perfect, he thought to himself as he walked through a large opening into one of the partially completed buildings. He plunked down onto the nearest row of stacked bricks.
Now to wait.