Heroes: Excerpt
Title: Excerpt
Author: Desiree
Rating: PG
Spoilers: All seasons
Characters: Peter, Sylar
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Summary: Wall fic. Peter is trying to deal with the situation.
A/N: Written for the Heroes Advent Calendar. This is part of a larger(ish) fic, parts of which have been hibernating on my hard-drive since the series' finale. I didn't get to writing the way I wanted to, but I'm hoping to put the whole thing up sometime during January. And yes, I know it's been done before - I'd say ad nauseam, but I enjoy wall stories too much.
His mother's dreams never lie - Sylar will save Emma, and hundreds of others by proxy. But Angela isn't wrong; with the killer there's always a price to pay.
Still.
Peter has been prepared to break Sylar out of the psychic prison Matt has him trapped in and deal with the consequences later. Spending an
indefinite amount of time with his brother's killer as his only company? Not so much.
Peter isn't a cruel person by nature, though he can get spiteful on occasion. Those first few weeks in an uninhabited world 'spiteful' is a very apt description of Peter's emotional state; so is 'desperate, angry, frustrated.' So is 'petty.'
And he just doesn't want to deal with Sylar; he's not ready to admit yet that he'll have to.
So he hides.
Sylar goes looking for him at first, his shouts wheedling and desperate, pleading and furious in turns. And Peter doesn't feel guilty about it; not until later. Not until the next time Peter visits his brother's killer in his small space full of books, spare parts and watches and timepieces, taken apart and put together again and again.
For a few minutes, Peter just leans against the doorjamb and observes as the other man holds a wristwatch to his ear, concentrating on the mechanisms within (and how is it that Sylar still seems to have that intuition for how things work, when they lost all other powers in this place?).
Sylar's eyes keep flicking in his direction, emotions flitting across his features that Peter doesn't have the inclination to read, but the man makes no other move to acknowledge his visitor's presence.
“Are you ignoring me?” Peter snaps after another few minutes have gone by, grim annoyance quickly following the initial exasperation. “What, is this payback for avoiding you?”
Sylar's poker face isn't what it used to be. His fingers jerk on the watch he's inspecting, his brows twitch in and out of a frown, his eyes keep sliding to Peter's form in the doorway. The man isn't exactly ignoring him, but he's obviously refusing to interact.
“Goddamn it, Sylar!”
The watch clatters to the table, and Peter has a moment of stunned disbelief as his adversary covers his ears with his hands, his face contorting into a mask of desolate rage. A few swift strides take him across the room and, thoroughly fed up, he slaps Sylar's arms down, snarling, “Don't act like a fucking child!”
The response is immediate: wooden chair legs scrape over hardwood floor as the other man scrambles to get away from him, roaring, “Stay away from me! You're not real, you never were! You're not - “
In an unexpected, impulsive show of savageness, Peter lands a vicious uppercut on Sylar's chin, drawing blood from the corner of the man's lips with the force of his blow.
“That real enough for you?” he snaps, turning away and stalking out the way he came. The last thing he sees before leaving are Sylar's wide eyes and fingers coming away bloody from the cut on his mouth.
He doesn't go very far. Antagonizing Sylar isn't going to get them out of here; Peter just can't seem to help himself. But as he's pacing up and down the utterly empty street, an unbidden thought creeps up on him.
Three years.
It already feels like weeks to him, and unlike Sylar Peter knows what's happening. Sylar's claim suddenly doesn't seem so preposterous.
Three years.
Even convicts in solitary confinement have a bare minimum of social interaction, and there have long since been efforts to eliminate the procedure as a viable form of punishment because of adverse psychological effects. Some consider it a form of torture. There's an uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach when he eventually makes his way back to Sylar's place. Something that almost feels like dread - almost feels like guilt.
A low, rhythmic sound reaches his ears before he even walks through the door. For a moment, Peter stops and stares, not quite sure what he ought to be feeling at the sight before him. His arch-nemesis is huddled on the floor in a small space that isn't stacked with books like the rest of the room, pressed against the floor to ceiling bookcase, clawing at his hair, banging his head against the shelf in his back over and over.
He doesn't want to feel pity for the man, but he does.
There's a small red smear on the wood that grows steadily larger.
“Okay, stop!”
The sight of the blood suddenly spurs Peter into action. He's kneeling in front of the pathetic form before he knows it, tries to stop cranial bone reconnecting with wood. It takes more effort than he expected. Sylar fights him, tries to get away, snarling and furious and silent and horribly inept without his powers to help him out. Peter's fingers get smashed between bone and wood, Sylar will probably be sporting a shiner some time soon, but eventually, Peter gets him to stop. Gets him to listen.
“You're not hallucinating! I'm not a product of your imagination, dammit!”
This time, it's not so easy to ignore the gamut of emotions written large across Sylar's expression, in his dark eyes. Desperate hope shines through the madness.
When the killer doesn't move, Peter lets go of his head and collapses next to him, back against the wooden shelf. He shoves a stack of books out of his way to make room and watches dispassionately as the pile comes tumbling down. Pressed against the other man's side, the position feels awkward and too close, but Peter doesn't move away. Sylar's eyes track him, stare at him, fathomless - those eyes always have been.
They're both panting.
“I came here to get you out, and I'm not leaving without you.”
The reassurance is as much for Sylar's benefit as a reminder to himself.
His brother's killer lets his head fall back, one last heavy thud against the blood stained wood. It looks more like resignation than anything else. They stay like this for over an hour.
After that, Peter may give his fellow inmate the cold shoulder, may refuse to talk to him for weeks on end, may let himself be provoked to throw a punch, but he never stays deliberately out of sight again when Sylar is looking for him.
Fin
Author: Desiree
Rating: PG
Spoilers: All seasons
Characters: Peter, Sylar
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Summary: Wall fic. Peter is trying to deal with the situation.
A/N: Written for the Heroes Advent Calendar. This is part of a larger(ish) fic, parts of which have been hibernating on my hard-drive since the series' finale. I didn't get to writing the way I wanted to, but I'm hoping to put the whole thing up sometime during January. And yes, I know it's been done before - I'd say ad nauseam, but I enjoy wall stories too much.
His mother's dreams never lie - Sylar will save Emma, and hundreds of others by proxy. But Angela isn't wrong; with the killer there's always a price to pay.
Still.
Peter has been prepared to break Sylar out of the psychic prison Matt has him trapped in and deal with the consequences later. Spending an
indefinite amount of time with his brother's killer as his only company? Not so much.
Peter isn't a cruel person by nature, though he can get spiteful on occasion. Those first few weeks in an uninhabited world 'spiteful' is a very apt description of Peter's emotional state; so is 'desperate, angry, frustrated.' So is 'petty.'
And he just doesn't want to deal with Sylar; he's not ready to admit yet that he'll have to.
So he hides.
Sylar goes looking for him at first, his shouts wheedling and desperate, pleading and furious in turns. And Peter doesn't feel guilty about it; not until later. Not until the next time Peter visits his brother's killer in his small space full of books, spare parts and watches and timepieces, taken apart and put together again and again.
For a few minutes, Peter just leans against the doorjamb and observes as the other man holds a wristwatch to his ear, concentrating on the mechanisms within (and how is it that Sylar still seems to have that intuition for how things work, when they lost all other powers in this place?).
Sylar's eyes keep flicking in his direction, emotions flitting across his features that Peter doesn't have the inclination to read, but the man makes no other move to acknowledge his visitor's presence.
“Are you ignoring me?” Peter snaps after another few minutes have gone by, grim annoyance quickly following the initial exasperation. “What, is this payback for avoiding you?”
Sylar's poker face isn't what it used to be. His fingers jerk on the watch he's inspecting, his brows twitch in and out of a frown, his eyes keep sliding to Peter's form in the doorway. The man isn't exactly ignoring him, but he's obviously refusing to interact.
“Goddamn it, Sylar!”
The watch clatters to the table, and Peter has a moment of stunned disbelief as his adversary covers his ears with his hands, his face contorting into a mask of desolate rage. A few swift strides take him across the room and, thoroughly fed up, he slaps Sylar's arms down, snarling, “Don't act like a fucking child!”
The response is immediate: wooden chair legs scrape over hardwood floor as the other man scrambles to get away from him, roaring, “Stay away from me! You're not real, you never were! You're not - “
In an unexpected, impulsive show of savageness, Peter lands a vicious uppercut on Sylar's chin, drawing blood from the corner of the man's lips with the force of his blow.
“That real enough for you?” he snaps, turning away and stalking out the way he came. The last thing he sees before leaving are Sylar's wide eyes and fingers coming away bloody from the cut on his mouth.
He doesn't go very far. Antagonizing Sylar isn't going to get them out of here; Peter just can't seem to help himself. But as he's pacing up and down the utterly empty street, an unbidden thought creeps up on him.
Three years.
It already feels like weeks to him, and unlike Sylar Peter knows what's happening. Sylar's claim suddenly doesn't seem so preposterous.
Three years.
Even convicts in solitary confinement have a bare minimum of social interaction, and there have long since been efforts to eliminate the procedure as a viable form of punishment because of adverse psychological effects. Some consider it a form of torture. There's an uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach when he eventually makes his way back to Sylar's place. Something that almost feels like dread - almost feels like guilt.
A low, rhythmic sound reaches his ears before he even walks through the door. For a moment, Peter stops and stares, not quite sure what he ought to be feeling at the sight before him. His arch-nemesis is huddled on the floor in a small space that isn't stacked with books like the rest of the room, pressed against the floor to ceiling bookcase, clawing at his hair, banging his head against the shelf in his back over and over.
He doesn't want to feel pity for the man, but he does.
There's a small red smear on the wood that grows steadily larger.
“Okay, stop!”
The sight of the blood suddenly spurs Peter into action. He's kneeling in front of the pathetic form before he knows it, tries to stop cranial bone reconnecting with wood. It takes more effort than he expected. Sylar fights him, tries to get away, snarling and furious and silent and horribly inept without his powers to help him out. Peter's fingers get smashed between bone and wood, Sylar will probably be sporting a shiner some time soon, but eventually, Peter gets him to stop. Gets him to listen.
“You're not hallucinating! I'm not a product of your imagination, dammit!”
This time, it's not so easy to ignore the gamut of emotions written large across Sylar's expression, in his dark eyes. Desperate hope shines through the madness.
When the killer doesn't move, Peter lets go of his head and collapses next to him, back against the wooden shelf. He shoves a stack of books out of his way to make room and watches dispassionately as the pile comes tumbling down. Pressed against the other man's side, the position feels awkward and too close, but Peter doesn't move away. Sylar's eyes track him, stare at him, fathomless - those eyes always have been.
They're both panting.
“I came here to get you out, and I'm not leaving without you.”
The reassurance is as much for Sylar's benefit as a reminder to himself.
His brother's killer lets his head fall back, one last heavy thud against the blood stained wood. It looks more like resignation than anything else. They stay like this for over an hour.
After that, Peter may give his fellow inmate the cold shoulder, may refuse to talk to him for weeks on end, may let himself be provoked to throw a punch, but he never stays deliberately out of sight again when Sylar is looking for him.
Fin