More Between Us Chapter 30.2/? "Upper Body"
Chapter 30.2/? "Upper Body"
Day 10
Shoving Peter’s hands away, Sylar breathed a little harder now. “Oh, good one, Petrelli,” he laughed a bit, shaking his head in a sort of semi-defeated, impressed, begrudging respect. No syringe? No nail gun? And I’m the one being fucking strip-searched here.
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Good one? No? What did I say? ‘This is going to hurt’? Or was it … Peter looked down at his left hand. His left - Sylar’s dominant hand to the extent that Sylar had one. A wisp of memory flickered in the back of his mind, teasing him with a possible explanation. He turned the light of his attention to it, focusing and drawing it out. The memory felt strangely foreign and a moment later he realized why. Dozens of snips of memory came loose and flooded the forefront of his brain. All of them featured a hand (his own?), raised with finger or fingers extended toward a forehead, grisly purpose and determination behind the gesture.
Peter’s eyes (eye, rather) widened even further and he made a strangled sound in the back of his throat, rocking back on his heels in counterpoint to Sylar’s withdrawal. He fought with himself to stuff those undesired thoughts back into the box they’d come from, or pretend they didn’t exist - anything but think about them and cement them even more into his mind through the focus.
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Sylar looked at Peter curiously for a moment through a bit of his fallen hair. As he was propped on an elbow, he sat up, more in the middle of the couch, away from Peter. He leaned forward, putting elbows on knees for Peter to check his back, waving an indifferent hand to the nurse, “Don’t try for that again,” or my underwear or I will crush your hand. “Check my back. Then it’s your turn for an exam.” A bit of payback for Peter? Perhaps.
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Peter didn’t move at first, staring at Sylar and trying to figure out what he was supposed to think. ‘Check my back’? All of that … those memories … if that’s what triggered him … did he think I was making a joke about cutting people’s heads open? And now he’s acting like it’s no big deal? I upset him enough for him to yell and jump back, and just a few seconds later he’s pretending that was a joke and waving for me to look at his back?
Peter got to his feet slowly. His knees hurt from the prolonged kneeling on the short, not-very-well-padded carpet. He bought some more time by stretching them a couple times. My turn for an exam? What does that mean? Mental? Physical? What the hell? He thought about how he felt, emotionally. He thought he should be angry about the reminder of how many people Sylar had killed. But he wasn’t. He wasn’t sure what he was, except sure that the next time he felt some pseudo-memory like that lurking around in his head, he was going to ignore the hell out of it.
He moved over to the couch a little hesitantly at first, then calmed down when he gathered that Sylar’s outburst was over. Peter looked over the man’s back, his eye immediately caught by the purpling bruise in the middle. It looked too old to be from the day before, which meant it was from the first fight. Or maybe it was from Sylar’s ‘file cabinet combat’. “How did you get that bruise on your back?” Peter asked quietly, trying to re-summon his role as a medic and, for the most part, failing. “Do you think you might have a cracked rib? Does it hurt when you breathe?”
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Even leaning over that far was killing his head, but he was not about to roll on his stomach (on the goddamn couch) for Peter to eye his back for two seconds. “Eh?” I have a bruise on my- oh! “The bedpost when you rushed me. The first fight.” Still causing me problems, but it could be worse. He might have snapped my spine had things been a little different. Sylar stopped to think. “I didn’t feel or hear anything. Been breathing fine except for my head, my face.” I wonder if he can do anything about my sinuses while he’s at this. He noticed Peter wasn’t touching him now. Is he still freaked out or he doesn’t wanna touch me or my back just looks in tip-top shape? The spine is kind of important, but…he’s the medic, I guess. I have to trust him to a point.
It struck him then just how much trust he’d been placing in Peter’s hand and eye. Peter had been utterly professional, almost annoyingly so. Oh, wow…Well, its useful information even if it was a huge risk.
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Peter stood to Sylar’s right side and looked over Sylar’s slightly turned shoulder to give his back a thorough eyeing. There were a few other small marks but they looked inconsequential. When Sylar did nothing to disallow the observation, Peter rested his right, nearer hand on Sylar’s bare shoulder, or at least he rested a couple fingertips and the brace. He considered Sylar’s strongly negative reaction to Peter touching his forehead and decided that was probably limited to just the forehead. Perhaps he could get away with finishing the exam. “Okay. Can I check the spot where I hit your head in that fight?”
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“Hmm,” Sylar hummed the affirmative, presuming Peter meant the first concussion from the first fight. That part of his head was pretty easy to access currently. He was much less bothered by the prospect of having his “kill spot” scoped out than he was about having his mind wiped. Sylar turned to his left to bring the area within easier reach for Peter, who was on his right side and would have had to reach across without getting a visual.
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Peter turned, reaching his left hand around the back of Sylar’s head and sliding his fingers into the man’s hair behind his ear. He felt around, barely probing at all in case what Sylar had reacted to was the expectation of pain. That seemed unreasonable, given the man’s high pain tolerance in other areas. Peter erred on the side of being less sure about what he was feeling, but causing less discomfort in the process of feeling it. He was making sure the hematoma was going down normally, which it was. “Kay,” he said as he smoothed Sylar’s hair back into place with a couple short strokes, so customary that he didn’t think anything about it.
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Sylar’s eyes shut when Peter put his hands into his hair; reaching for an impact site or not, it still felt good. The nurse barely felt around, but maybe since it was just skin over bone he didn’t need to. When that was over shortly after, Peter petted his hair back down. Sylar opened his eyes and turned to look at Peter at that. He didn’t have to do that. Or maybe he did. You’re not looking so hot and a big old cowlick out the back of your head would probably have him giggling and staring the rest of the day. Peter took a few steps back to look at him, ending the contact.
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“Tell me about your breathing. Tell me what’s going on with your head and face that’s hurting when you breathe.” Done or not, he couldn’t let a comment about difficulty breathing go unquestioned. Breathing was critical and was, in fact, the reason why Peter had been motivated to do the physical exam in the first place - he’d noticed Sylar’s breathing was off and mis-attributed it to the knee to the man’s gut.
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Sylar straightened his back by placing more weight on his elbows on his knees. “It doesn’t hurt when I breathe, it’s just…restricted? Swollen? You know, headache in the forehead and the back of my head there,” he pointed towards the back of his head where Peter had just checked. “Sinuses from my face as near as I can tell.” Does he need to feel those, too? I know they get bad and they sometimes poke and prod them. That thought amused him. He doesn’t want to look at my body, but the one thing he does have to look at everyday, my face, and he won’t check it? Ha.
Peter had tagged him hard enough, but it wasn’t anywhere near as bad as it could have been as Sylar had clearly mashed up Peter’s pretty face.
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Peter’s brows pulled together slightly as he considered that. “I can get you a decongestant,” he offered, looking over Sylar’s face and trying to think of what he could do to help with that. “Maybe a nasal rinse.” He cocked his head, trying to think, but nothing else really came to mind. It wasn’t an area of medicine he had much experience in. “Didn’t come up much in nursing school or paramedic training.” It didn’t sound life-threatening, but it also sounded like something Peter could do something about. That was a welcome change from most of the rest of Sylar’s condition, for which the required care tended towards the passive - doing whatever he could to minimize Sylar’s exertion and assist him in bedrest.
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“I’m going to rest. When I’m done, you’re going to get your eye and whatever’s making you limp examined because you look like crap that can barely stand up straight,” Sylar said decisively despite being tired. Has he showered? He doesn’t smell…I guess he’s had time to sneak out and come back. What do I care? Its not tit-for-tat either - he looks like shit and I haven’t seen him do much self-care. Sylar had a host of rationale in case he was pressed, but it was also to convince himself.
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“You’re going to what?” Peter gave his head an immediate, small shake. He didn’t like the sound of that, so he dismissed it and continued, “Never mind. Do you have some sweat pants or pajama bottoms or whatever around here? You might be more comfortable in something looser than those jeans.” Not to mention they probably have blood on them. He handed over Sylar’s t-shirt, hesitating next to him in case Sylar wanted or needed to stand to get dressed (whatever that’s all about). He didn't stick out his hand to help Sylar up, but he would if he saw some sign that he should. Mostly he just stood there, looking at Sylar expectantly for a few seconds. “I’ll go out and see what I can get for your sinuses before dinner.”
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“I’m going to give-“ Peter cut him off and Sylar glared. Now my jeans are too tight? No easy access jokes now, you’ve basically seen it all. He swiped his T-shirt angrily then pointed to the dresser Peter had got the shirt from earlier. He worked on putting the shirt on, wondering what why he bothered and where his anger came from because it hadn’t stemmed from being interrupted.
Disappointment, betrayal, relief, relaxation, a kind of soul-stroking joy with an underlying hint of despair about the whole exam was his feel of the moment. Peter hadn’t done anything he expected and he was floundering about how to take the man’s behavior - he’d expected something to happen. Even Peter wasn’t that perfect. Maybe he was looking for a bone, something to hold over Peter’s head, but he mainly got the feeling he’d been examined…and found very, very lacking. Peter hadn’t so much as peeked or passed a hand over anything with lewd, humiliating or painful intent and it was truly a little scary. Sylar was now realizing he might be in a deeper hole than he’d thought. The professionalism was gagging him and as such he couldn’t even respond to Peter’s remark about sinus remedies.
The medic returned with one of the two pairs of pajama pants Sylar kept, this one a red-green-black flannel, well-used, but functional and warm. He took that, not sparing Peter a glance and worked first his right leg then his left (slower and stiffer) into the legs before squirming the waistband up around his hips. Just to show Peter he hadn’t won or defeated him, Sylar left the drawstrings untied. He was going to have to change his strategies if he was going to be inspected and discarded like an old newspaper, lightly skimmed over. Sylar scraped his hair back and lay down, pulling the blanket to his waist again.
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Peter absorbed the angry attitude and had trouble not automatically adopting it as his own. He wanted to grit his teeth - that hurt, so he didn’t, but he wanted to. Instead he exhaled sharply and fetched the pajama pants as directed. He immediately moved on to the kitchen just to get away from the feeling. It was an unexamined experience, but one he hadn’t had in a while, either.
He knocked around in the food prep area for a few seconds before shrugging off the emotion as he decided on something useful to do with himself. He poured up a glass of water and looked in the freezer. They’d exhausted the supply of ice packs he’d made earlier and he hadn’t made more. The ice trays were refrozen though, so he took the moment to bag up a new one, using a combination of his left hand and right forearm to pop out the cubes from the plastic tray.
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Sylar was left staring at his ceiling. It wasn’t a healthy thing for him to do - he’d done it before in solitude and he and solitude were barely on speaking terms. Peter’s exit spoke of annoyed anger, too bad Sylar failed to care. He speculated if the exit meant, though, that Peter was finally going to do something about Sylar’s increasingly troublesome behavior. What would happen, would happen - he wasn’t, hadn’t been in any position to defend.
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He paused to scratch at his scalp over his left ear and stare off into the distance, letting his mind free-wheel for the moment. Little disconnected bits of thought made it to the surface of his consciousness, but he ignored them in favor of just standing there and being in the now. He still hurt in a lot of places, he noted absently, and the awareness of his discomfort was what started him back up again. He had things to do. He refilled the ice trays and replaced them, then collected up the glass of water and the single ice pack he’d just made. He draped it, and a tea towel, over his right wrist as he carried the glass out in his left.
Sylar looked like he was in a slightly better humor, lying back and preparing to rest. Peter handed off the glass of water, saying, “In case you want something to drink while I’m out. I should be pushing fluids more aggressively, but … well.” There’s only so much I can get around to. “If you’ll pull the blanket aside, we’ll put this on your leg,” he said, indicating the ice pack. “Then I’ll get those pillows over there to go under your knee. The ice pack will need to be taken off every fifteen minutes until it melts."
XXX
Peter appeared with water and he took it, the break between interactions doing the trick to remind him of his weariness. “Out?” Sylar noticed the word. Maybe he means sleeping ‘out’, but what if he means ‘out of your place’ out? Or…crap, ‘out of this world I think is inside your head’? “What do you mean out?” he pressed, pulling the blanket as much aside for his left leg as he could, but he could only reach so far laying flat.
Tired and being pampered undeservedly, he didn’t respond to the part about removing the ice pack every fifteen minutes as it was something he already knew, albeit didn’t totally remember at the moment. Peter placed the pillows, formerly near the chair, under his knee now and placed the ice on his thigh then laid the blanket back over him. It hurt for a minute as his nerves adjusted, but then it started to feel so good on his bruise. Sylar placed the glass of water at his side, firmly trapped there with his arm even as he felt a curl of unease about laying, sleeping on his back around Peter. During his hunting years, hell, even before when Martin was still around, he slept on his side to be able to defend and rise quicker. Peter’s exam, particularly the hip-rocking stage, showed him the position on his back wasn’t ideal.
“Get some sleep, Peter,” he mumbled, letting his eyelids lower as he looked up at his companion, unsure if he meant for Peter to sleep or that Sylar was going to.
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Peter moved back to his chair after Sylar’s murmured comment. He’d planned to leave immediately, but there were two signals now from Sylar that he might be alarmed by Peter’s departure - a direction to sleep, and before that an inquiry on where Peter was going. He spoke quietly to answer, “I’m just going to get you a decongestant, like I mentioned earlier. It’ll help you breathe.” Is this a sign that maybe he’s realizing I’m helping him? That maybe he doesn’t mind me here? Or is he just checking to see when I’m leaving so he can lock the door? Somehow, that last didn’t ring true, so Peter dropped it and moved on to considering what he was going to do. Wasn’t there something else I was going to get while I was out? Damn. Peter looked down at the floor, trying to play through their conversation and the moment when he’d decided he should go out and do or get something. Decongestant … and nasal rinse, maybe. It might be kind of tough to get him stable at a sink for right now, so really only the pills. But wasn’t there something else?
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Sylar still looked him over, but Peter sat as he’d desired him to. It occurred to him, on and off, that Peter had or could get up and leave. It was unsettling on many levels. Sylar knew he had since Peter brought in a puzzle; how far Peter went to get it was the question. It was a tangled mess in his head that Peter had forced his way in and practically forced medical attention onto Sylar while he was, admittedly, too fucked up to give any kind of decent answer. That Peter had caused the damage and looked to assuage his own guilt by helping and Sylar had said (or strongly implied) that he didn’t want Peter around…Then Peter had been surprisingly decent when Sylar had expected a massacre of a basic exam…He didn’t know what to think, but he was enjoying the attention. He wouldn’t turn that away.
Sylar’s lifelong experience was of being left for dead or thereabouts unless someone came along to finish him off or “rescue” him for the sake of scientific experimental testing. Or being left while he slept, the other (whoever it was) creeping away in the night never to be seen again. Peter would come back. He’d need me. He does need me; he said so. I’m still important enough for that. Besides, where would he go? I’m the only one here. He’d find a map, he’d find his way back. Deciding on that, he gave Peter one last look over, hating having to trust and hope that Peter wasn’t some figment of his imagination once again, before allowing sleep to take him.
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There are his injuries … toes, thigh, hip/abdomen, back, knuckles, wrist, head in two spots. I never got to look in his mouth or ask about his tongue, but he talks fine and he was able to eat, so that’s probably okay. Hm, anything else? Just the breathing, I think. Anything for me? Morphine, Peter thought jokingly. More ice packs. Dinner. So I guess the question is whether I walk a couple blocks and back to that grocery store where I’m sure to find what I need, or search the apartments here some more where I might. There’s that one that had the ice machine. I might as well go there and check, make some more ice packs while I’m there.
Sylar’s breathing had dropped off into slumber. Peter felt his own energy starting to ebb and knew if he didn’t get back on his feet, they’d both be sleeping pretty soon. He levered himself up and wandered into the kitchen to get the box of sealing plastic bags. He dumped the water out of the spent ones and took those with him as well, slipping quietly out the front door. He was in luck, finding a box of the appropriate pills in the medicine cabinet of the apartment where he’d been making the ice packs. It cut down blocks of walking on his still-wrenched hip to only a few hundred feet of walking the halls.
He returned with his load, stowing the extra bags in the freezer and snagging a pack for himself. He thought about dinner and decided, Screw it. It can be late. He’s asleep and I’m tired. Leaving the decongestant on the kitchen table where he wouldn’t forget it, he returned to his seat, setting the ice pack on it. He wondered if he could slide Sylar’s off his leg without waking him. Peter smiled a little at how bad things might go if Sylar woke and reacted poorly, but he decided to try it anyway. He lifted the edge of the blanket, found the corner of the plastic bag, and eased it towards him, leaving the tea towel in place.
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Sleep cycle interrupted somewhat with a touch or a shift just barely perceptible while he slept, Sylar’s head moved from where he’d fallen asleep. Moving from right to left, presumably to check his left leg, which gave a brief jerk, he settled back into the pillow without having opened his eyes. “Hmm?Mmm.”
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Surprised that had worked, Peter settled back into his chair, putting Sylar’s stolen, partly melted ice pack on his wrist, and leaning back to balance the new one on his face. He slept, or zoned out - one or the other, waking when the survival-oriented part of his mind decided that he was getting, or was going to get, frostbite of the eye if he didn’t do something about it.
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Sylar woke up some time later, groaning and frowning as he rubbed at his eyes. He’d been out pretty cold which he contributed to his current state of concussion. He had no idea what time it was and didn’t care - he realized he’d started to care what time of day it was when Peter showed up. For now he yawned, eyes still shut until he realized Peter might still be lounging around. That cracked his eyes open, unhappy in the brighter outside world than that of his eyelids, “Mmm, Peter?” he asked, focusing his eyes around. He considered why he’d slept so well as he’d practically passed out at the nearest opportunity - he just hoped it hadn’t been mid-sentence. Ideally the little jerk was still around because he had something on his to-do list…Sylar was sure it would come to him again. Need to start writing crap down on my hands or something.
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My name? What? Some sort of alarm went off in Peter’s head as he woke, breathing accelerating and heart speeding before he even knew what he was afraid of. Sylar? Sylar’s voice … But it sounded muzzy, not threatening. Something moved on his injured right hand, sending a small stab of pain through him, followed by a mysteriously wet, glopping sound. He jumped a little, head throbbing with the rapid shift in blood pressure. I’m awake. I was asleep? Shit. What was that noise? Why’d my hand hurt? Peter tilted in the chair, fully upright, his left hand gripping the arm rest as his balance went haywire and the world narrowed down for a few seconds. Nothing happening. Calm down. He drew in a deep breath and let it out, looking at his right hand as his body kicked off of fight-or-flight mode. The hand looked fine. He supposed he’d just tensed it unexpectedly or something. The completely melted ice pack that had fallen to the floor remained outside his field of view and unknown to him.
“Nng,” he grumbled, taking in Sylar still on the couch, looking him over. Peter blinked and reached up to rub at his right eye with the thumb of his left hand. He moved his mouth around, swallowing. It felt dry and tasted bad. “Hnn,” he elaborated on his previous noise.
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Apparently Peter had been just as unconscious as he completely failed to juggle several bags of water. Sylar absolutely couldn’t help that his ego was stroked within an inch of its life at seeing that kind of reaction just on saying the guy’s name, dead sleep or no. Otherwise watching Peter Petrelli flail (and sort of fail) was pretty entertaining, so he lay there and watched the show.
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He became aware of something else, glancing down at his crotch where a bag of water topped his groin. How’d that get there? Vaguely he recalled moving the one off his eye earlier. Wasn’t there another one on my hand? Maybe it was the water, maybe it was something else, but he had to go to the bathroom. He levered himself up stiffly, finally catching sight of the bag on the floor. Holding the one that had been in his lap, he said, “I’ll be right back,” and made his way to the facilities, shutting the door without locking it. Only as he was in the process of relieving himself did he realize he hadn’t bothered with the lock. Nothing happened, so he shrugged it off. The slow process of getting acclimatized to Sylar’s presence continued.
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What? Where now? The bathroom was Peter’s destination based on trajectory as Sylar watched as much as he could from laying flat on his back with a growing scowl. Without so much as a ‘by your leave’? He grumbled. Better not make a fucking mess, I swear to God.
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He washed up and came out, saying, “I guess I’ll get started on dinner. I was gonna make spaghetti.” He started past the couch, glancing down at the man. I should get another ice pack for his leg. He fetched one from the freezer for Sylar and then headed back to the kitchen to start water boiling.
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Peter didn’t take long so the odds of him doing something nasty in there were pretty low. The nurse went to the kitchen, but returned with another ice pack, which Sylar took, “Hmm.” He didn’t know what to think about all this…treatment. Ice packs, blankets…pajamas, now his favorite meal? Changing me, sticking around, looking after me, using my bathroom. He mumbled in sarcasm as Peter retreated, “Cooking for me, too? Marry me?” I suppose that would imply that you’d have to sleep with me, too. No go, then. Sylar dragged a disappointed hand through his hair.
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Continued...