Fic: Mad World 5/8
Chapter 5
Massively awkward was the only way Peter could describe the following nine hours. His mother had seemed to know what they had done which brought up the possibility that she dreamed him almost making out with Sylar in the lab. Gaining an instant headache from the idea, Peter smiled in a completely unconvincing way and prayed she hadn’t mentioned anything to Nathan.
Fortunately or unfortunately his brother had other concerns. Namely the intelligence Micah and the team had recovered indicated that Danko had been conducting human testing with the serum for the last three days and there were already several ‘terminations’ listed in the reports. This information caused such a look of ice-cold rage to become Sylar’s permanent expression and immediately doused any idea of resuming where they had left off on the mission.
Refusing to admit he was disappointed and telling himself to get in the right head space, it was Peter who discovered they’d lost some lambs.
Near midnight had Peter taking his turn to collect coffee for everyone in Nathan’s den. It was a war council of sorts, partly planning the mission to rescue the test subjects, partly a continuous argument with no end in sight. Peter had been playing mediator, alternatively calming angry voices and soothing jangled nerves. Personally he thought they should just ask Molly to find any of the special’s they knew had been taken and then go rescue them.
It was never that easy apparently. Like Maury Parkman before him, the Spider could tell when Molly used her ability and had almost found the sanctuary several times in recent years. Thus the young woman’s gift was used only in times of dire emergency. Matt and Sylar were in the midst of a verbal battle defining whether this was a ‘dire’ enough situation.
Watching the hideously expensive coffee machine begin to chug and burble, Peter wandered into the lower lounge and saw Monica absorbed in an action movie. Surprised at the lack of youthful testosterone that usually flowed in the beautiful woman’s wake, the nurse climbed the stairs to the boys’ bedroom.
Not there.
Nor were they in the games room, other bedrooms, backyard, and garage or on the tennis court.
Coming back into the den with his heart racing and no coffee, Peter interrupted Noah’s words by asking in a voice close to panic.
“Has anyone seen Ethan, Luke or Lyle? They’re not in the house.”
“Lyle?” Claire sounded frightened in a way the invulnerable woman never was for herself.
“They went for food hours ago.” Angela told them, standing with her hands clutching each other white knuckled. “Did they come back?”
“No-one has seen them since.” Peter looked to Noah with sympathy. Lyle was his youngest child. The man had used a lifetime of worry over his magnificent daughter. It was God’s cruel joke to threaten the one that should have been easier to keep safe.
“Ethan’s angry.” Matt’s voice brought them to silence. “He’s somewhere familiar, it scares him and he hates it.”
Peter felt nausea twist in his gut. “They’ve been caught. Ethan knows the FedMarshal holding cells.”
Matt stood sharply and looked directly at Sylar as if his eyes could perceive the man.
“It’s Danko.” Not a flicker of emotion touched the strong handsome face of the man before him. “They’re still in New York. Luke’s seen Danko, he’s… he’s screaming in his head for Gabriel to help him.”
Sylar closed his eyes and took one long deep breath.
Nathan threw open a folder on his desk. “They must be at the main facility on Ellis Island. It’s impenetrable even if Hiro teleported…” His words tailed off as Sylar opened his eyes.
Even Peter took a breath at what he saw there.
Taking all his courage, Peter walked forward and caught the killer’s attention with a gentle hand to the shoulder. “I’ll take you.”
The dark eyes that looked down into his belonged to a murderer that had been dead for three years.
Blocking out the protestations around him, Peter concentrated on the times he’d seen Ellis from ferries and bridges.
Cool wind threw his hair into his eyes and raised a shiver down his spine. Sylar was unfazed by the chill, eyes on the buildings that covered the small island.
“Do you want me to get the others?” Peter raised his voice to be heard over the waves.
Sylar didn’t even glance at him, just started walking towards the high stone walls with determination a Sherman tank would envy.
“I’ll take that as a no.” Peter wrapped his arms around himself and trotted to keep up. He wanted to get Ethan out of this place. Away from the grey clinical walls, anonymous prison clothing and likely maiming by FedMarshal guards. The boys shouldn’t be here, they were too young to be part of the war yet. They should be at the mansion, eating Sandra’s cooking like they’re stomaches were bottomless pits and flirting badly with the pretty woman.
Not subject to needles that could render them ‘terminated’ by their own fucking government.
Sylar’s plan seemed to be ‘destroy anything or anyone between them and the boys’. Peter was fine with that as long as no one got killed just for being there.
“I need you.” Sylar gritted out, the velvet voice almost ice-cold with rage.
Peter didn’t even think of misunderstanding that statement. He simply drew on his most powerful memories of Sylar, looked directly into the man’s handsome, determined face and joined his telekinesis to its true master.
Combined, their power was earth shattering.
An eight foot area of the concrete walls bowed out for a split second and then exploded. Within the resultant shower of dust, they could hear the beginning of an alarm that pierced their ears with its sharp call. Two guards fell from the nearest tower, their descent only slowed from deadly to fractures at the last moment by Peter’s quick reflexes. Making it his mission to shove away and knock out the guards that came near them so they wouldn’t be ripped apart or melted, Peter kept to Gabriel’s heels and hoped they’d get to the cells before they saw Danko.
No such luck.
They were all in the same place. A huge aircraft hanger of some kind with the left sectioned off into wire cells and the right a large medical area with gurneys and white coated technicians.
“They had already finished it.” Peter realised as he saw the vials of serum filling shelf after shelf of freezer units.
Sylar suddenly grinned. “They kept the security with the serum. We were distracted by the lab so we wouldn’t notice they were rounding up even more people.” A wave of his hand and a dozen vials exploded.
Peter flinched, his eyes falling on the cells and the cowering people within.
“Get them out Peter, get them home.” Angry eyes found a figure at the centre of the massing guards. A short, slight man, balding with deep-set insomniac eyes. “I’m going to be having some Me time.”
Peter hesitated for a moment. Sylar had committed himself to his sentence with one hundred percent devotion. This would undo a lot of the ground he’d gained with the others. But some small part of Peter understood. The man ordering the hail of gunfire that showered them but failed to touch had imprisoned Gabriel in a facility just like this. Had tortured him until the killer had thrown himself on the dubious mercy of his enemies rather than go on living another day.
Justice might finally be served today.
Peter walked over to the cages. His telekinesis was so intertwined with Sylar’s that the few pushes he could manage wouldn’t be enough to free the prisoners. So with a combination of Mohinder’s strength and Ethan’s acid tongue Peter destroyed every door he could see.
“Fucking A, I knew you’d come!” Ethan yelled over the chaos shattering the building around them. “I told that asshole ‘Peter and Gabriel are going to fry this place when they get here.’ I knew you’d both come.”
Peter herded all the captives together and started to lead them in a group to the walls and beach beyond. He would likely sprain something teleporting them all to the mansion, and Sylar would loose the extra boost Peter was giving him, but at least they’d be….
“Dad!” Lyle yelled in exultation, eyes on a helicopter that roared over the shattered walls.
‘How in hell did Noah get a helicopter so fast?’ Peter wondered incredulously, before pushing the boys towards it.
Hiro was suddenly at his side, a warm smile on his kind face before he took the hands of two prisoners and vanished.
His mission now in the hands of others, Peter ran back towards the building where Sylar was making a mess of the military. It no longer had a roof and the walls were going to meet the earth in a matter of minutes.
Realising that he hadn’t seen Luke amongst the prisoners, Peter scanned the battlefield and found the boy, crouched behind Sylar. Completely protected by the strongest telekinetic on the planet. Continuing to merge that same power, although used with less finesse, with its owner’s, the nurse reached their side and grabbed Luke’s hand.
“We have to go!” he yelled over the conflagration around them.
Luke violently shook his head. “Not until that fucker is dead!” he screamed back.
Peter leaned around Sylar to see Danko, somehow still alive amidst the killer’s fury and wondered at the protections that layered the FedMarshal leader.
“This is boring.” Sylar said calmly, his voice audible amongst the din. “Time for you to die.”
With a suddenness that was likely planned, every man surrounding Danko dropped their guns and began writhing in pain at his feet. A raised weapon and several more rounds bounced off Sylar’s shield.
“You should have joined me Gray; we could have ruled the world by now.” The FedMarshal shouted unafraid.
Peter was impressed despite himself.
Sylar cocked his head to one side as if considering the proposal now.
“Not in this reality.” He answered before a line a blood appeared on the high forehead and Danko died.
“Rot in hell Mutherfucker.” Luke hissed as the man who’d murdered his mother and kept him prisoner for two years finally fell.
Only the three of them were left standing as the sound of the helicopter departed.
Sylar turned to Peter, the rage gone but also any passion he’d once shown now buried under the aftermath of what he’d done.
“Home,” Peter said before taking their hands and suiting action to words.
*****
They had the children back, but everything between Peter and Sylar had gone all difficult again. Peter mourned for those first tentative steps to friendship, let alone the insane chance of something sexual between them. He couldn’t tell if it had been the merging of their power or Danko’s death, but Sylar had turned into a first class bastard and this time, it wasn’t Peter’s fault.
The former killer snarled at everyone, even the protected Molly wasn’t immune to Sylar’s bad humour. During conversations where missions were discussed, he would disparage Nathan’s plans, insult Bennet until the man was ready empty a clip into his head and mock Hiro so much he’d leave shrouded in puzzled hurt. Peter suspected that Sylar was just pissed off with the world because they had all been played. Some of the most powerful and versatile ‘specials’ in existence and they had missed Danko’s sinister plan, the deaths of everyone in custody the result of their arrogance.
But still, it wasn’t really anyone’s fault, not Nathan’s, not Bennet’s and certainly not Sylar’s. Trying to break the icy disdain that now radiated from his almost-friend, Peter found himself becoming just as short of patience as the killer nearly two weeks after the rescue from Ellis Island.
It all came to a head when Sylar brought Monica to tears in the training ring. The critique was actually reasonable, their leader pointing out the flaw Peter himself had discovered in their first fight together. It was the vicious, clever turn of phrase that struck too close to the bone and placed a last straw on Peter’s back.
Sylar stood, arms folded, an elegant sneer in place. From his neat black shirt and dress trousers to his impeccable hair, the killer radiated confidence and a pitiless disappointment in everything around him...and everyone.
“…like a robot with bad programming. Do you think the FedMarshals haven’t run sims on battling you? They had you for ten months Monica, they know you better than you know yourself. You have to think to fight, not just go through the motions like a battle Barbie with an empty skull…”
“Hey, enough.” Peter was standing too close, the scent of the killer’s pine aftershave a memory of lust that was too distracting. Flicking a gaze at Monica’s dejected figure, Peter stoked his anger and forced out all what-might-have-beens.
The icy-dead glare turned its full power on the nurse. “As I’m leader of the combat team Petrelli, I decide when it’s enough.” The glare became dismissive. “You can fuck off.”
That’s it asshole. Peter came to a mental resolution. He was fitting in to this time, no longer a lost soul and he wouldn’t have his opinion disparaged. Not by anyone…certainly not by Sylar.
“You can leave her out of your bitch-fest Sylar.” Peter countered, voice becoming hotter in inversion to the ice in his adversary’s. “Monica did her job that day. Stop taking your anger out on everyone else.”
A brilliant gleam entered the dark gaze as the frozen anger finally began to thaw. “Maybe I should take it out on you Petrelli? As I remember you pushed to continue the hospital raid, all the while the boys were being tasered and loaded into vans…”
“I couldn’t have known,” Peter defended. He’d worked himself over for that decision enough times that Sylar couldn’t find a weakness there. “No-one could. The lab was the viable target, Claude was right…”
Strong fingers closed into a fist in Peter’s shirt. “When you see your invisible lover again, tell him he’s on my angry-list as well. The intelligence was so badly flawed we should never have trusted him to begin with. Something else you are responsible for I might add.” The threat against Claude was useless as Peter hadn’t had contact with his mentor in days. But it still served to pull Peter over the brink into fury.
“Stop saying he’s my lover. Stop blaming other people for the mistake,” pinching into the nerves in the killer’s wrist, Peter broke the hold on his shirt and pushed Sylar backwards with a hard, human-strength shove.
Catching himself easily, Sylar smiled a cruel mirthless grin. “Sorry Petrelli,” he said with no trace of regret. “I’m just having trouble keeping track of how many members of the house you are sleeping with. What did Raines do to get kicked out of your bed? Or hasn’t he left and is still hovering round like a…”
Peter’s fist connected with that gorgeous jaw. The sudden shock at his action couldn’t cover the satisfaction of shutting up the lewd accusations and the bloom of red on the fine, lightly tanned skin. Instant healing removed all trace of bruising, but that didn’t halt two long-fingered hands from catching Peter on the chest and shoving him out the door of the garage. A telekinetic burst causing Peter to land on his back by the tennis court.
Ribs clicking back into place, Peter stood quickly as Sylar stalked towards him like his rage-filled angelic namesake.
“Stop it guys. C’mon…” But Monica’s plea was lost in the rivalry of anger and power.
“You’re not really angry with anyone else,” Peter accused in a low, dark voice.
Sylar scoffed, his hands flickering to life with a current once belonging to a woman named Elle. “I’m pretty fucking angry with you right now Petrelli.”
“Ditto with you Sylar.” Dimly aware they had drawn a crowd from the mansion, Peter ignored the small shocks that reached him from the killer’s position less that a yard away and allowed his own hands to become blisteringly cold. A small puff of frigid breathe issued from his lips as Tracy’s power manifested. “But I meant, the man you are really pissed off at, the man you know fucked up and are punishing as much as you can is…”
The bolt of lightening caught Peter in the guts and pushed him once again to the ground.
“Enough, both of you!” Angela might well not have spoken for all the attention she was paid.
“Spare me the empathic psychoanalysis.” Sylar laughed without humour as Peter rose. “You have no idea what I’m feeling.”
“Most of the time, apart from anger,” Peter shot out as darts of ice sliced open the skin on Sylar’s high cheekbone and temple. A small private blizzard surrounded the taller man. “I don’t think you feel anything at all.”
Sudden hurt crossed the other’s face that had nothing to do with blood, but Peter was relentless in his rage. “Everyone here accepted you even after you were found guilty of all those murders.” Peter shot a meaningful glance at the blue-white electricity dancing in Sylar’s fingers.
The handsome face paled and the power vanished from sight.
“Peter, no.” Claire this time and Peter hesitated. Would have stopped if not for the sudden humanity he saw once again in the other’s face. “You’re so angry at yourself Sylar, but you’re taking it out on those that care about you now. Stop it before you do something they won’t forgive.”
Peter’s plea made an impact like his punch never had, but Gabriel Gray was never the kind of man who could easily accept his feelings. As Sylar his rage was manifest, no-one had ever shown him how to understand guilt.
“They barely forgive me as it is Petrelli, you should know that.” Sylar left himself powerless in the face of the ice storm around him, his words a weapon all on their own. “They never forgave you for destroying Pinehearst you know…”
“Gabriel!” Nathan’s voice held something like fear, but Peter was transfixed by his adversary’s words.
“You said you were kidnapped the night the building exploded?” Sylar asked as they were having a genteel conversation and not in the middle of a magnificent brawl.
“Yes.” Peter’s lips were going numb from the cold.
“Funny that your precious, loving family, the ones you say I should watch my tongue around,” Sylar stepped out of the dying ice storm and spoke clearly into Peter’s face. “Funny that they didn’t even wonder where you were.”
Peter couldn’t form a word, a cold that had nothing to do with Tracy taking his limbs in paralysis.
“They thought you’d simply run off in your typical adolescent way. No-one even looked for you…” the velvet voice rasped deep into Peter’s soul.
“No, don’t.”
Peter didn’t recognise the voice and didn’t really care.
“…it took them six months to realise you weren’t just hiding somewhere being a child. Six months. Such an impression you have on people, Peter, that they don’t even care whether you live or die.”
It was too much. Peter could fight with powers, could battle with words about anything else. But his own worth? For three long months he’d kept his inner self safe amongst the degradation and hate of the compound. Had staved off the hard skin and ruthlessness that threatened to overcome him.
This…this just wasn’t something Peter could deal with. God, they always found new ways to hurt him.
Stepping back, Peter easily avoided the hand that reached out to him and stared directly into his brother’s guilt-ridden eyes.
He shot into the air like a rocket.
For a long, long time he considered never coming down.