Bricks in the Wall, Chapter 13: Morality
Title: Morality
Characters: Peter, Sylar
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
Words: 430
Summary: "Only Peter could see a murder spree as a quest for salvation."
Notes: Inspired by .com/talks/jonathan_haidt_on_the_moral_?
"Do you think people can change and improve themselves?"
"Obviously," Sylar muttered, peering into the clockwork gearing he was trying to fix.
"How so?"
"How is it obvious?" Sylar asked. Peter nodded. "Peter, I … why would I have been gathering abilities if it wasn't to make myself better?"
"Morally better?"
"It's the same thing."
"What?" Peter sounded, and was, aghast.
Sylar blinked at him slowly, in the way he did when he thought Peter was being particularly dense. He watched as Peter swallowed down the rest of the outburst he wanted to make. Then Sylar looked away and continued working, letting Peter sort through the issue by himself. As he'd become more familiar with the man, he'd come to see that Peter's brain handled ideas and information very differently from his own. If Sylar didn't understand something right away, he tended not to understand it at all and required new information to make sense of it.
As a result, Sylar learned or dismissed things immediately - he either got it or he didn't, and he could act on that straight off. Peter, though, might take the same information and chew through it for a while, coming to the answer (or not) eventually. Because of that, even when Peter didn't understand something, he was prone to follow along anyway, assuming that it would work out sooner or later and make sense. Peter was also prone to stewing on things - something that was occasionally productive for him. If Sylar stewed on something, it never helped at all and only meant he was stuck in a rut. Peter, though, might spin his wheels or he might suddenly get traction. It was interesting - to Sylar - and had taught him to just let Peter process at times.
"Might makes right?" Peter hazarded after a minute.
"Not quite."
Peter scratched slowly at his chin as more seconds ticked by. "Morality … is framed … by those with power."
Sylar smiled slowly. He wouldn't have put it that way, precisely, but yes, that was his point. "Exactly."
Peter pondered that for a few more moments. "I don't agree," he asserted firmly. Sylar shrugged without surprise. Peter's agreement or lack thereof didn't change the world. "So all those powers you were collecting," Peter went on, "you thought that would make everything all right? You thought that would save your soul?"
Sylar jerked, the calipers he'd been using to measure the gearing ratio clattering to the floor as he stared at Peter in shocked silence.