Nivosity
Title: Nivosity
Characters: Gabriel/Sylar POV, Peter Petrelli, Mohinder, Angela, Virginia and Martin Gray as well as original characters.
Rating: PG-13 (bullying, adolescent name-calling, thoughts of violence, light Mohinder bashing, light slash, m/m ‘kiss’)
Setting: Pre-canon/S1/post-S4
Word count: 3,347
Summary: A triptych about Gabriel's learning experiences with snow throughout the years. Written for the 2011 Sylar_Peter Advent Calendar.
A/N: Partly inspired by ZQ's experiences filming "Unexpected" in S1 in Converse sneakers.
A/N 2: Many thanks for Game_byrd's last minute, helpful beta'ing.
1986, Queens, New York
The door to his locker smacked him hard and rebounded off the now-bruised shoulder as he was removing his backpack. “Ow!” the seven-year-old said before he could catch himself. Then he sighed, adjusting his glasses and tugged out his heavy pack to face his bully.
“What is it this time?” Gabriel asked, assured of an unreasonable answer. But when was violence ever reasonable? Never in his eyes, anyway.
Markus, a two-years-older middle-schooler, had more money, better looks (if not grades), sandy blonde hair and stood a good head taller than Gabriel. That distance meant Markus was huge and Gabriel a shrimp. Markus’s shadow, Jenson, was present, of course, to do the dirty work. Why Jenson hung out with Markus was beyond him. The eldest boy, the leader, only ruined Jenson’s grades, but both boys were two-faced enough to fool the teachers.
“Yo, dweeb, where do you think you’re going?” It was eight o’clock, the start of school hours. All the students had already been ushered into their classes. Gabriel had only come to school to pick up his books for homework later. His lack of haste was obvious to the two boys who knew him to be prompt, but they’d merely stopped by as he was unattended in the hallway.
“I have church,” Gabriel’s voice cracked from defiant to a whisper against his will.
“Church? That’s on Sundays, geek. Today is Wednesday.” Both larger boys looked confused. Gabriel shifted his backpack over the shoulder that hadn’t been hit. His coat was getting small as he’d done some growing since he was five, but not a whole lot, not enough in his opinion. That little growth counted when it came to clothes so he was probably going to get a new coat for Christmas. He didn’t rub at his right shoulder, the one that had gotten smacked. That would just incite the bullies and show them weakness. “How do you get such good grades if you don’t know the days of the week. Stupid,” Jenson added on.
“It’s the Eighth Day,” when that was greeted with snorts of ignorance, Gabriel elaborated, “Immaculate Conception?” he tried again with no luck. “It’s the day we celebrate the Virgin Mary’s conception of Jesus,” he wound up simplifying.
“Who’s we?” Jenson began to ask before Markus cut him off, “Yeah, whatever. Just another excuse your weird mom makes up. She likes sending you to school so she doesn’t have to deal with you even if the teachers hate it.”
Gabriel frowned and pursed his lips, “My mom isn’t weird. We’re Catholic. And teachers do not hate me; I’m a good student.”
“Is that what your mommy tells you, Gaybe?” Markus leered, tilting his head back and forth mockingly.
“No, I rea-“
“Shut up, geek. Your mom’s a freak and that stuff stays in the family.” Markus reached out and swatted at Gabriel’s head, upsetting the neat hair his mother had combed this morning as the hairspray stuck strands of hair together that now stung and tugged when others moved.
He grunted and moved back and to the side, away from his bullies towards the other side of the hall. That swat was merely a warning shot; there would be more to come. He’d suffered too many broken glasses to fool around if it could be avoided. Problem was Gabriel still needed to get around them if he was going to walk home. Jenson swiped to grab him, catching part of his jacket, just enough to turn him off balance but Gabriel dashed away at a dead run, heavy backpack and all. The two larger boys were hot on his heels instantly. Mom wouldn’t let him play sports. They could neither afford it nor did she want her precious son to be hurt. Little did she know he could probably try out for track with all the running he got in.
Snow had fallen in November but had melted or been driven off. December came around and New Yorkers were dealing with five and a half inches now. It wasn’t always the fluffy kind seen on TV, more slushy and wet, but it was snow all the same; slippery, too. Gabriel discovered that after running out from underneath the awning for drop-offs and pick-ups.
His pack thumping awkwardly against his lower tailbone, Gabriel swerved as his left foot failed to grip the ice of the drive-up and slid out from under from his body. Cars and buses driving over the snow had slicked it into ice overnight. So, gasping and panting, he struggled to get both feet under his control again, the weight of the backpack slowing him up now. He heard the other boys stop a distance behind him, but he didn’t pause to check. Getting his balance and limb back under control, Gabriel stepped further out onto the drive as carefully and quickly as he could, making for home across the parking lot where there was less snow and more chance of being seen. Ice really sucked for a fast get-away.
“Hey, Gaybe! Look what I got!” Markus crowed from the covered sidewalk. Gabriel, immediately fearing something had slipped from his backpack and was now in the fiends’ possession, turned quickly to look over his right shoulder.
He caught a face-full of a snowball, one specially made with rocks and gravel. With a grunt and a gasp both his feet slid from under him from the momentum and shock of the projectile. Arms flailing uselessly, sightless as his glasses and right eye amassed snow, his butt crashed down with assisted speed into the ice, pulling a loud pained cry from him on impact.
Once seated, however roughly and unintended the descent, Gabriel felt the slush from his face sliding under his coat, beneath his shirt to melt uncomfortably on his chest. A few gravel bits were stuck to his lip as the snow dissolved on his face and he spit them out. A large chunk of snow slid from his glasses like the first morning sweep of a car’s windshield and he could see a bit. Still panting, trying to catch his breath back as painful waves traveled up his spine and down his legs from having his tailbone jarred with his entire weight, Gabriel slowly rolled to his side, then all fours to stand.
He ignored the rest of the snowballs that puffed and pushed against his jacket, groaning a little when he’d straightened up. Gabriel waddled off with something of a stiff limp to the continued mockery of his attackers. It took him longer than normal to get home even though he had hurried, stumbling some more around trying to clean his glasses. Dad wasn’t happy, but when was he ever happy? The resulting yelling from Dad, and fussing therein from Mom, about making them late was endured with patient silence from Gabriel.
“I slipped,” was all he said. His mother dabbed a bit of her emergency make-up (kept for just such instances, he suspected) onto the large scrape on his cheek and nose from where the rock hit, blabbering away about it. She didn’t get that he couldn’t have landed on his ass and hit his face in the same slip and Dad, hovering around impatient and dominating, didn’t care.
Once at church, Mom lived up the excitement of explaining the horror of his “fall” to anyone stupid enough to listen when they saw his face. Dad wasn’t stupid, but Mom chose to be; so the mere thought that he might have to deal with bullies (and all those lame excuses about the hurts he sustained) never even entered her considerations. He was a special boy; who would want to hurt him? Thank goodness his glasses hadn’t been chipped.
21 years later, Somewhere in Montana
The drive from Virginia to Montana in the fall/winter of 2006 was long and cold for the killer who had failed to bring the correct shoes for the northwest weather. His coat was fine, his jeans were fine, even having no gloves or mittens was fine…the Chuck’s? To say there was a single layer of canvas with laces and a sole between his feet and how many feet of snow was an understatement - his toes felt locked in place due to the freeze. He’d already nearly burned the hair off his toes sticking them too close to the heater in the car. He had to beware of puddles like a fashion model in six inchers would at a dirt bike derby in downpour. It was ridiculous.
Mohinder had grown annoyed at the time he was forced to wait while “Zane” tiptoed around puddles and any snow bank higher than three inches that he couldn’t leap. There was a lot of Montana puddleage to leap, even with his long legs. Honestly, Sylar was annoyed, too.
After subtly squirming for an hour and a half at having to pee, through nothingness of white landscape that was Montana, Mohinder finally pulled over at a gas station to let him “go”. Sylar tip-toe-dashed to the restroom, making it without any sock-drenching event and leaving Mohinder to get gas and snacks or whatever else. Finally relieved, he passed by Mohinder on the way back out, throwing him a semi-fake smile on the way out while the Indian eyed the ‘health’ food section, such as it was.
Once outdoors, he breathed out, enjoying the cloud around his face before he looked around. Unsurprisingly it was more white landscape. Did it ever end? Either winter, snow or Montana? Glancing back, he saw that Mohinder was no closer to reaching a decision about his snack so Sylar turned to the drift of snow that had been plowed up from the gravel drive of the parking lot.
Walking over to it, he removed his hands from their warm confinement in his jacket pockets, digging them into the partly crusted snow clumps. His lips curved up, his delight being mostly internal. It had been a long time, years, since he’d either had the chance, taken the chance or had the safety to play in the snow. Suddenly cold fingers came away holding a double sized handful of ice particles. Eagerly he crushed the clump, kneading it closer together to make it smaller as the heat of his hands melted the snow to form it.
God, Mohinder was taking forever. How long did it take to pick a healthy snack? It was a gas station, how many options could there actually be? The idea of shoving Mohinder’s face into the more gravelly section of the snow drift was highly tempting; the temptation lingering in his mind as a way of shutting up the high-and-mighty geneticist. As he thought, or rather, fantasized, he kept crunching up and molding snow clumps. The scientist could not have it both ways, Sylar rationalized: blabbing as if everyone, the mere “Zane Taylor”, could understand his work while at the same time pretending to be better and smarter than everyone. Sylar awaited the moment when he got to see Mohinder’s face when he found out he’d gotten played for all his smarts. Because, really, some garage band geek of a musician, a loser in life, understanding genetics?
He sighed. Hands stiffening and turning red from direct exposure, he finally ceased molesting the white powders. Sylar was just about to swipe his hands dry and begin to warm them when the bell on the gas station door jingled cheerily, glancing back he saw it was his long-lost ‘driver’ (the same one he’d discovered had been a taxi driver which gave him a real sense of safety).
Sylar aborted his hand care and hefted his missiles, pivoting and zipping them at Mohinder’s head. A little “innocent” payback was surely in order for making him wait to pee, clutch at the car whenever a drop-off or curve or on-coming car approached and listening to his senseless blabber in that god-awful accent. This would be therapeutic catharsis. His first shot smacked Mohinder right in the kisser and he grinned, keeping it at ‘playful’ instead of ‘evil and intimidating and bringer of bodily harm’. The man’s face was priceless - mouth open in shock, dusted from hair-tips to shoulder in moderately slushy snow. When he’d recovered enough, he squawked, voice high, completely lacking any dignity, “ZANE!” God, Mohinder was such a pissy girl sometimes.
He’d just grinned again and smacked the man’s jacket with another prepared volley without using telekinesis this time.
'14' years later, Present day, New York
As they were exiting their apartment, Peter lingered behind to hold the door open for a couple entering while Gabriel continued on to the sidewalk. He sighed, enjoying the smell of fresh snow on a snowy winter day as he was quickly covered in slow-falling flakes. Dressed in his peat coat with no hat, the snow lightly hit his face; the attack calming and welcome. Gabriel leaned his head back, just staring at the gray sky that was almost too bright to stare at. Gleefully, he lost track of time, just tracking the individual snowflakes as they came in for a landing on his person, paying no attention to what seemed to be taking Peter so long, but whatever - that was Peter for you. In truth it was part of what he loved about the man, those silly do-good urges, needs, really. He would dare to call himself blessed, if he thought about it, by Peter’s very nature and even more so that it was his and his alone. Let the guy hold the door for as long as he pleased (so long as he didn’t get sick, however. Then Gabriel would have to intervene).
Out of nowhere an icy, damp blast slapped into his face, making him gasp in shock. What the hell?! Who had dared-? With the ice melting off his face, he spun around and saw that Peter was…not by the door but beside the corner of their building near a waist-high snowdrift. Gabriel’s eyes slitted and he growled though the other man couldn’t hear him over the traffic. He advanced on the smaller man, fists balled up, but Peter was still grinning away like the little guilty bastard he was.
Recollections of having snowballs thrown at him raced through him and he found himself struggling with his instincts: anger, self-defense and harmful retribution and the fact that this was Peter didn’t faze him at the moment. The silly empath had triggered things he had no knowledge of. Peter was registering as an enemy.
Gabriel darted over, causing Peter to give him a derisive call to say that he wasn’t impressed, attempting a dodge away just before he was lifted bodily off his feet by Gabriel’s shove to land in the three or four foot deep drift.
Growling again, Gabriel leapt over him and proceeded to shovel snow in the man’s face, returning the favor tenfold, silently, angrily retaliating. But…Peter had lain still after his initial surprised cry and descent. That lack of reaction snapped Gabriel out of his vicious haze as that was usually the sign that his prey was wounded, unconscious or dead. He began swiping the snow away from Peter's upturned, listless, pink face. Panting in rising panic now, his heart beating fast for another reason now, he called, “Peter?...Peter…Peter!” He shook his prone companion, doubtless gaining stares (and probably a few 911 calls) from the passersby.
With a surge of motion, Gabriel felt as if his side had been brushed with five popsicles, minus the flavoring, that immediately dissolved into slush on his skin. He yelped shrilly, jerking away and back, practically spasming as Peter’s face broke into a grin, his hand underneath Gabriel’s jacket and shirt to press a naughty handful of snow to his ribs. Gabriel had since broke out into goose bumps all across his torso and even on his thighs, staring at Peter wide-eyed until he could figure out if he should strangle the little man, kiss him, or get back at him non-violently somehow. Perhaps a combination of all three.
Peter just chuckled and brushed more snow from his own face with his free hand, “Oldest trick in the book,” he stated smugly, getting out from under Gabriel and standing up to shake off. The urge was very, very strong not to allow even Peter get away with enacting things that would get other people killed for doing. That would be hypocritical of him to allow. This was a level of one-upmanship that Gabriel hated to permit with his competitive nature.
Gabriel had never engaged in the activity of snow-play innocently. Although he had learned to make and fling them with accuracy out of necessity, not out of any real desire for fun. Had the opportunity arisen, safely of course, he would have enjoyed the more fun aspects of it. As it stood snowballs were a travesty to him, not an amusing, bonding pastime. And for his beloved Peter to use this tool on him was difficult to overcome. That was generally a type of hurt that Peter avoided with him. So why would he use it now? What was the purpose?
When Gabriel still knelt there, staring up at him, head tilted dangerously, Peter paused. He reached out a hand to tenderly brush some of his lover’s hair back from where it had fallen in his face.
That single motion made the otherwise tense encounter (read: fight) okay. Placation did cross his mind, but this was Peter; sexy, cute, playful, goof-off Peter who was honest. They were just playing around, nothing more. Gabriel hadn’t considered that it might be in play. It wasn’t like Gabriel had had playmates or siblings to engage with and learn all those social quirks he sometimes missed. He let out his breath into the ghost-like air and allowed his muscles to unclench. Everything was okay, he assured himself.
In that case, some form of non-lethal action on his part was expected “in play”. Gabriel had wrestled with his competitiveness, anger, self-preservation and memories over something as simple as a snowball quite literally, all for nothing. He deduced that he hadn’t been harmed physically or verbally and playing, as he understood it, involved a give-and-take routine, each player trying their best to out-maneuver the other. Peter had shown his hand, completed his ‘move’. And now, Gabriel gathered from the other man’s stillness and lack of continued action, it was his ‘turn’. It was surprisingly, deceptively simple.
So how to enact his counter-measure? Peter gaining the upper hand twice could not be ignored. Deciding quickly before Peter got wise, Gabriel stealthily started forming an orb of the natural projectile off to the side where Peter was unlikely to see it, all the while failing to move. Peter gained a slight frown.
Just as the man was opening his mouth to deliver some Peter-ism, Gabriel suddenly called the pre-made ball into position with his mind and slung it into Peter’s face. He saw his partner’s expression morph from questioning concern to stunned as the other man cleverly caught a ball of snow using that darling little mouth of his. Gabriel stood up, letting out a yell of delighted triumph, feeling better still at having ‘conquered’.
Peter gave him a miffed look and miffed he did look because they would know have to change and warm up before his birthday dinner. It wasn’t like *he* had started it, Gabriel reasoned soundly. Mama Angela Petrelli and Co. were going to have to put their big boy and girl panties on and tough it out at the restaurant as Gabriel might be busy soothing the special birthday boy’s ruffled feathers for a while.
Approaching his shorter partner, he slid his digits into the soft brunette hair and licked a quarter-sized clump of tasteless ice from near the man’s mouth, thus declaring an intimate, possibly erotic, truce. They would see how far it went. And how late they could be as Peter’s face grew interested.
Gabriel just hummed, cluing in finally. At thirty-four, not counting the eight years experience behind the Wall, he was still learning things: *that* was how a snowball fight was supposed to go.
Characters: Gabriel/Sylar POV, Peter Petrelli, Mohinder, Angela, Virginia and Martin Gray as well as original characters.
Rating: PG-13 (bullying, adolescent name-calling, thoughts of violence, light Mohinder bashing, light slash, m/m ‘kiss’)
Setting: Pre-canon/S1/post-S4
Word count: 3,347
Summary: A triptych about Gabriel's learning experiences with snow throughout the years. Written for the 2011 Sylar_Peter Advent Calendar.
A/N: Partly inspired by ZQ's experiences filming "Unexpected" in S1 in Converse sneakers.
A/N 2: Many thanks for Game_byrd's last minute, helpful beta'ing.
1986, Queens, New York
The door to his locker smacked him hard and rebounded off the now-bruised shoulder as he was removing his backpack. “Ow!” the seven-year-old said before he could catch himself. Then he sighed, adjusting his glasses and tugged out his heavy pack to face his bully.
“What is it this time?” Gabriel asked, assured of an unreasonable answer. But when was violence ever reasonable? Never in his eyes, anyway.
Markus, a two-years-older middle-schooler, had more money, better looks (if not grades), sandy blonde hair and stood a good head taller than Gabriel. That distance meant Markus was huge and Gabriel a shrimp. Markus’s shadow, Jenson, was present, of course, to do the dirty work. Why Jenson hung out with Markus was beyond him. The eldest boy, the leader, only ruined Jenson’s grades, but both boys were two-faced enough to fool the teachers.
“Yo, dweeb, where do you think you’re going?” It was eight o’clock, the start of school hours. All the students had already been ushered into their classes. Gabriel had only come to school to pick up his books for homework later. His lack of haste was obvious to the two boys who knew him to be prompt, but they’d merely stopped by as he was unattended in the hallway.
“I have church,” Gabriel’s voice cracked from defiant to a whisper against his will.
“Church? That’s on Sundays, geek. Today is Wednesday.” Both larger boys looked confused. Gabriel shifted his backpack over the shoulder that hadn’t been hit. His coat was getting small as he’d done some growing since he was five, but not a whole lot, not enough in his opinion. That little growth counted when it came to clothes so he was probably going to get a new coat for Christmas. He didn’t rub at his right shoulder, the one that had gotten smacked. That would just incite the bullies and show them weakness. “How do you get such good grades if you don’t know the days of the week. Stupid,” Jenson added on.
“It’s the Eighth Day,” when that was greeted with snorts of ignorance, Gabriel elaborated, “Immaculate Conception?” he tried again with no luck. “It’s the day we celebrate the Virgin Mary’s conception of Jesus,” he wound up simplifying.
“Who’s we?” Jenson began to ask before Markus cut him off, “Yeah, whatever. Just another excuse your weird mom makes up. She likes sending you to school so she doesn’t have to deal with you even if the teachers hate it.”
Gabriel frowned and pursed his lips, “My mom isn’t weird. We’re Catholic. And teachers do not hate me; I’m a good student.”
“Is that what your mommy tells you, Gaybe?” Markus leered, tilting his head back and forth mockingly.
“No, I rea-“
“Shut up, geek. Your mom’s a freak and that stuff stays in the family.” Markus reached out and swatted at Gabriel’s head, upsetting the neat hair his mother had combed this morning as the hairspray stuck strands of hair together that now stung and tugged when others moved.
He grunted and moved back and to the side, away from his bullies towards the other side of the hall. That swat was merely a warning shot; there would be more to come. He’d suffered too many broken glasses to fool around if it could be avoided. Problem was Gabriel still needed to get around them if he was going to walk home. Jenson swiped to grab him, catching part of his jacket, just enough to turn him off balance but Gabriel dashed away at a dead run, heavy backpack and all. The two larger boys were hot on his heels instantly. Mom wouldn’t let him play sports. They could neither afford it nor did she want her precious son to be hurt. Little did she know he could probably try out for track with all the running he got in.
Snow had fallen in November but had melted or been driven off. December came around and New Yorkers were dealing with five and a half inches now. It wasn’t always the fluffy kind seen on TV, more slushy and wet, but it was snow all the same; slippery, too. Gabriel discovered that after running out from underneath the awning for drop-offs and pick-ups.
His pack thumping awkwardly against his lower tailbone, Gabriel swerved as his left foot failed to grip the ice of the drive-up and slid out from under from his body. Cars and buses driving over the snow had slicked it into ice overnight. So, gasping and panting, he struggled to get both feet under his control again, the weight of the backpack slowing him up now. He heard the other boys stop a distance behind him, but he didn’t pause to check. Getting his balance and limb back under control, Gabriel stepped further out onto the drive as carefully and quickly as he could, making for home across the parking lot where there was less snow and more chance of being seen. Ice really sucked for a fast get-away.
“Hey, Gaybe! Look what I got!” Markus crowed from the covered sidewalk. Gabriel, immediately fearing something had slipped from his backpack and was now in the fiends’ possession, turned quickly to look over his right shoulder.
He caught a face-full of a snowball, one specially made with rocks and gravel. With a grunt and a gasp both his feet slid from under him from the momentum and shock of the projectile. Arms flailing uselessly, sightless as his glasses and right eye amassed snow, his butt crashed down with assisted speed into the ice, pulling a loud pained cry from him on impact.
Once seated, however roughly and unintended the descent, Gabriel felt the slush from his face sliding under his coat, beneath his shirt to melt uncomfortably on his chest. A few gravel bits were stuck to his lip as the snow dissolved on his face and he spit them out. A large chunk of snow slid from his glasses like the first morning sweep of a car’s windshield and he could see a bit. Still panting, trying to catch his breath back as painful waves traveled up his spine and down his legs from having his tailbone jarred with his entire weight, Gabriel slowly rolled to his side, then all fours to stand.
He ignored the rest of the snowballs that puffed and pushed against his jacket, groaning a little when he’d straightened up. Gabriel waddled off with something of a stiff limp to the continued mockery of his attackers. It took him longer than normal to get home even though he had hurried, stumbling some more around trying to clean his glasses. Dad wasn’t happy, but when was he ever happy? The resulting yelling from Dad, and fussing therein from Mom, about making them late was endured with patient silence from Gabriel.
“I slipped,” was all he said. His mother dabbed a bit of her emergency make-up (kept for just such instances, he suspected) onto the large scrape on his cheek and nose from where the rock hit, blabbering away about it. She didn’t get that he couldn’t have landed on his ass and hit his face in the same slip and Dad, hovering around impatient and dominating, didn’t care.
Once at church, Mom lived up the excitement of explaining the horror of his “fall” to anyone stupid enough to listen when they saw his face. Dad wasn’t stupid, but Mom chose to be; so the mere thought that he might have to deal with bullies (and all those lame excuses about the hurts he sustained) never even entered her considerations. He was a special boy; who would want to hurt him? Thank goodness his glasses hadn’t been chipped.
21 years later, Somewhere in Montana
The drive from Virginia to Montana in the fall/winter of 2006 was long and cold for the killer who had failed to bring the correct shoes for the northwest weather. His coat was fine, his jeans were fine, even having no gloves or mittens was fine…the Chuck’s? To say there was a single layer of canvas with laces and a sole between his feet and how many feet of snow was an understatement - his toes felt locked in place due to the freeze. He’d already nearly burned the hair off his toes sticking them too close to the heater in the car. He had to beware of puddles like a fashion model in six inchers would at a dirt bike derby in downpour. It was ridiculous.
Mohinder had grown annoyed at the time he was forced to wait while “Zane” tiptoed around puddles and any snow bank higher than three inches that he couldn’t leap. There was a lot of Montana puddleage to leap, even with his long legs. Honestly, Sylar was annoyed, too.
After subtly squirming for an hour and a half at having to pee, through nothingness of white landscape that was Montana, Mohinder finally pulled over at a gas station to let him “go”. Sylar tip-toe-dashed to the restroom, making it without any sock-drenching event and leaving Mohinder to get gas and snacks or whatever else. Finally relieved, he passed by Mohinder on the way back out, throwing him a semi-fake smile on the way out while the Indian eyed the ‘health’ food section, such as it was.
Once outdoors, he breathed out, enjoying the cloud around his face before he looked around. Unsurprisingly it was more white landscape. Did it ever end? Either winter, snow or Montana? Glancing back, he saw that Mohinder was no closer to reaching a decision about his snack so Sylar turned to the drift of snow that had been plowed up from the gravel drive of the parking lot.
Walking over to it, he removed his hands from their warm confinement in his jacket pockets, digging them into the partly crusted snow clumps. His lips curved up, his delight being mostly internal. It had been a long time, years, since he’d either had the chance, taken the chance or had the safety to play in the snow. Suddenly cold fingers came away holding a double sized handful of ice particles. Eagerly he crushed the clump, kneading it closer together to make it smaller as the heat of his hands melted the snow to form it.
God, Mohinder was taking forever. How long did it take to pick a healthy snack? It was a gas station, how many options could there actually be? The idea of shoving Mohinder’s face into the more gravelly section of the snow drift was highly tempting; the temptation lingering in his mind as a way of shutting up the high-and-mighty geneticist. As he thought, or rather, fantasized, he kept crunching up and molding snow clumps. The scientist could not have it both ways, Sylar rationalized: blabbing as if everyone, the mere “Zane Taylor”, could understand his work while at the same time pretending to be better and smarter than everyone. Sylar awaited the moment when he got to see Mohinder’s face when he found out he’d gotten played for all his smarts. Because, really, some garage band geek of a musician, a loser in life, understanding genetics?
He sighed. Hands stiffening and turning red from direct exposure, he finally ceased molesting the white powders. Sylar was just about to swipe his hands dry and begin to warm them when the bell on the gas station door jingled cheerily, glancing back he saw it was his long-lost ‘driver’ (the same one he’d discovered had been a taxi driver which gave him a real sense of safety).
Sylar aborted his hand care and hefted his missiles, pivoting and zipping them at Mohinder’s head. A little “innocent” payback was surely in order for making him wait to pee, clutch at the car whenever a drop-off or curve or on-coming car approached and listening to his senseless blabber in that god-awful accent. This would be therapeutic catharsis. His first shot smacked Mohinder right in the kisser and he grinned, keeping it at ‘playful’ instead of ‘evil and intimidating and bringer of bodily harm’. The man’s face was priceless - mouth open in shock, dusted from hair-tips to shoulder in moderately slushy snow. When he’d recovered enough, he squawked, voice high, completely lacking any dignity, “ZANE!” God, Mohinder was such a pissy girl sometimes.
He’d just grinned again and smacked the man’s jacket with another prepared volley without using telekinesis this time.
'14' years later, Present day, New York
As they were exiting their apartment, Peter lingered behind to hold the door open for a couple entering while Gabriel continued on to the sidewalk. He sighed, enjoying the smell of fresh snow on a snowy winter day as he was quickly covered in slow-falling flakes. Dressed in his peat coat with no hat, the snow lightly hit his face; the attack calming and welcome. Gabriel leaned his head back, just staring at the gray sky that was almost too bright to stare at. Gleefully, he lost track of time, just tracking the individual snowflakes as they came in for a landing on his person, paying no attention to what seemed to be taking Peter so long, but whatever - that was Peter for you. In truth it was part of what he loved about the man, those silly do-good urges, needs, really. He would dare to call himself blessed, if he thought about it, by Peter’s very nature and even more so that it was his and his alone. Let the guy hold the door for as long as he pleased (so long as he didn’t get sick, however. Then Gabriel would have to intervene).
Out of nowhere an icy, damp blast slapped into his face, making him gasp in shock. What the hell?! Who had dared-? With the ice melting off his face, he spun around and saw that Peter was…not by the door but beside the corner of their building near a waist-high snowdrift. Gabriel’s eyes slitted and he growled though the other man couldn’t hear him over the traffic. He advanced on the smaller man, fists balled up, but Peter was still grinning away like the little guilty bastard he was.
Recollections of having snowballs thrown at him raced through him and he found himself struggling with his instincts: anger, self-defense and harmful retribution and the fact that this was Peter didn’t faze him at the moment. The silly empath had triggered things he had no knowledge of. Peter was registering as an enemy.
Gabriel darted over, causing Peter to give him a derisive call to say that he wasn’t impressed, attempting a dodge away just before he was lifted bodily off his feet by Gabriel’s shove to land in the three or four foot deep drift.
Growling again, Gabriel leapt over him and proceeded to shovel snow in the man’s face, returning the favor tenfold, silently, angrily retaliating. But…Peter had lain still after his initial surprised cry and descent. That lack of reaction snapped Gabriel out of his vicious haze as that was usually the sign that his prey was wounded, unconscious or dead. He began swiping the snow away from Peter's upturned, listless, pink face. Panting in rising panic now, his heart beating fast for another reason now, he called, “Peter?...Peter…Peter!” He shook his prone companion, doubtless gaining stares (and probably a few 911 calls) from the passersby.
With a surge of motion, Gabriel felt as if his side had been brushed with five popsicles, minus the flavoring, that immediately dissolved into slush on his skin. He yelped shrilly, jerking away and back, practically spasming as Peter’s face broke into a grin, his hand underneath Gabriel’s jacket and shirt to press a naughty handful of snow to his ribs. Gabriel had since broke out into goose bumps all across his torso and even on his thighs, staring at Peter wide-eyed until he could figure out if he should strangle the little man, kiss him, or get back at him non-violently somehow. Perhaps a combination of all three.
Peter just chuckled and brushed more snow from his own face with his free hand, “Oldest trick in the book,” he stated smugly, getting out from under Gabriel and standing up to shake off. The urge was very, very strong not to allow even Peter get away with enacting things that would get other people killed for doing. That would be hypocritical of him to allow. This was a level of one-upmanship that Gabriel hated to permit with his competitive nature.
Gabriel had never engaged in the activity of snow-play innocently. Although he had learned to make and fling them with accuracy out of necessity, not out of any real desire for fun. Had the opportunity arisen, safely of course, he would have enjoyed the more fun aspects of it. As it stood snowballs were a travesty to him, not an amusing, bonding pastime. And for his beloved Peter to use this tool on him was difficult to overcome. That was generally a type of hurt that Peter avoided with him. So why would he use it now? What was the purpose?
When Gabriel still knelt there, staring up at him, head tilted dangerously, Peter paused. He reached out a hand to tenderly brush some of his lover’s hair back from where it had fallen in his face.
That single motion made the otherwise tense encounter (read: fight) okay. Placation did cross his mind, but this was Peter; sexy, cute, playful, goof-off Peter who was honest. They were just playing around, nothing more. Gabriel hadn’t considered that it might be in play. It wasn’t like Gabriel had had playmates or siblings to engage with and learn all those social quirks he sometimes missed. He let out his breath into the ghost-like air and allowed his muscles to unclench. Everything was okay, he assured himself.
In that case, some form of non-lethal action on his part was expected “in play”. Gabriel had wrestled with his competitiveness, anger, self-preservation and memories over something as simple as a snowball quite literally, all for nothing. He deduced that he hadn’t been harmed physically or verbally and playing, as he understood it, involved a give-and-take routine, each player trying their best to out-maneuver the other. Peter had shown his hand, completed his ‘move’. And now, Gabriel gathered from the other man’s stillness and lack of continued action, it was his ‘turn’. It was surprisingly, deceptively simple.
So how to enact his counter-measure? Peter gaining the upper hand twice could not be ignored. Deciding quickly before Peter got wise, Gabriel stealthily started forming an orb of the natural projectile off to the side where Peter was unlikely to see it, all the while failing to move. Peter gained a slight frown.
Just as the man was opening his mouth to deliver some Peter-ism, Gabriel suddenly called the pre-made ball into position with his mind and slung it into Peter’s face. He saw his partner’s expression morph from questioning concern to stunned as the other man cleverly caught a ball of snow using that darling little mouth of his. Gabriel stood up, letting out a yell of delighted triumph, feeling better still at having ‘conquered’.
Peter gave him a miffed look and miffed he did look because they would know have to change and warm up before his birthday dinner. It wasn’t like *he* had started it, Gabriel reasoned soundly. Mama Angela Petrelli and Co. were going to have to put their big boy and girl panties on and tough it out at the restaurant as Gabriel might be busy soothing the special birthday boy’s ruffled feathers for a while.
Approaching his shorter partner, he slid his digits into the soft brunette hair and licked a quarter-sized clump of tasteless ice from near the man’s mouth, thus declaring an intimate, possibly erotic, truce. They would see how far it went. And how late they could be as Peter’s face grew interested.
Gabriel just hummed, cluing in finally. At thirty-four, not counting the eight years experience behind the Wall, he was still learning things: *that* was how a snowball fight was supposed to go.