Bricks in the Wall, Chapter 19: Feet First
Title: Feet First
Characters: Sylar, Peter
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
Words: 1400
Setting: The Wall, Bricks
Summary: Peter and Sylar are reading on the couch in Sylar's apartment, but reading isn't really what Peter wants.
Catcher in the Rye. Peter remembered it vaguely from high school, but that was about it. It was failing to hold his attention now just as it had then. He kept wondering if maybe he was able to read the book because Sylar had memorized it; wondering if he was really reading it at all or if his mind was just making up the words to make him think he was reading it. He shifted uncomfortably on Sylar's couch, his eyes glazing over at the multitude of uninteresting letters on the pages.
Sylar was slouched on the other end with his own book, looking content and totally absorbed. He hadn't moved a muscle for at least ten minutes, besides the occasional flip of a page or the back and forth scanning of his eyes. Peter tried crossing his legs at the ankles, thinking that would give him a better position. A few minutes later, that wasn't working either. He toed off his shoes and hooked one foot up under his knee. It was better, though he didn't like putting his feet on someone else's furniture. His own - sure. His favorite reading positions were on his stomach or back, or on his side on his bed. Somehow the couch that seemed to mold itself perfectly to Sylar's form just wasn't working for Peter.
He glanced over at his companion. Maybe it's the proportions. He's a little longer in the torso than I am. Taller. Maybe that's it. Maybe I should just adjust this pillow. He did, wallowing it around. Sylar glanced over as he turned a page, but said nothing. Still, Peter felt annoyed and chastened to have distracted. When that didn't work either, he took the crass step of turning lengthwise on the couch, his back to the arm of the furniture, and putting his feet up on it, knees bent. Sylar gave him a longer look, but thankfully didn't object. Instead, Sylar shifted position so his legs stuck out in Peter's general direction, canting his back so he sat a little against the arm on his end, his body diagonal to the couch. It was a mirroring gesture and Peter calmed.
Peter sighed, feeling a little better like this. He went back to the book, trying to recall what little had happened in the plot so far. Soon the characters were drawing in his attention. His feet slipped from the tight, don't-take-up-too-much-space position he'd been holding. They crept over to the middle of the couch as he relaxed. Sylar was way on the other side anyway. Peter had his feet hug the back of the couch, keeping distance between their bodies, observing an unspoken boundary. He wiggled, settling his butt in as his torso gradually and unintentionally followed his feet, sliding down over the minutes.
Sylar shifted carefully again, and something about the care of his motion caught Peter's attention, tensing his whole body. Sylar caught the stiffening, looking over at Peter apprehensively. Peter realized he was taking up almost two-thirds of the couch now. It was unconscionably rude. He started to sit up, but Sylar reached for his feet, saying, "No! Peter …" Peter stopped. Sylar did, too, with his hand a few inches from Peter's ankles. Swallowing cautiously, Sylar said, "Put your feet back here, beside me. You can straighten out all the way then." Peter eyed him warily. Was this a trap? Why would Sylar offer that? "It's okay," Sylar tried to sooth, his expression one of trying to calm a nervous child.
It made Peter feel like he was overreacting. He extended his feet slowly, though, watching all the while. Sylar smiled a little. "Yeah," and nodded a little too fast. Peter sniffed and looked back to his book pointedly, trying to act like 'yeah, this is normal'. After about a minute, he wriggled a little to get comfortably situated. Sylar canted himself a bit more, echoing Peter's position except that his own feet were on the floor. It was companionable. Peter's feet had crossed that boundary at Sylar's request. They tingled a little, which seemed ridiculous. Peter sniffed again, trying to read.
Minutes passed. Peter's feet were cooling. He dug the toes between the cushions at the join of the arm and back of the couch. It created a couple inches of space between them. At Sylar's glance down, Peter invited, "You can scoot back a little if you want." That was all he'd intended, but Sylar wasn't a mind-reader. He scooted back until his butt was touching Peter's ankles and calves, crossing whatever new boundary was in place between them and initiating contact. Peter stifled his response to that, focusing his eyes sightlessly on his book, trying to figure out why such a nonsexual touch was setting him off, making his stomach do funny things and his heart beat faster. It probably had to do with how little he and Sylar touched normally. Casual touch was very important to Peter, and he'd had very little of it here, deliberately minimizing it every time it happened, drawing lines between them just like with his feet.
He took a deep breath and let it out, letting himself enjoy the body heat against himself, giving himself permission for it to be pleasant and satisfying to feel someone else against him. There was nothing more - it was just a touch. His eyes slid shut as his back relaxed, and then his neck. His feet warmed and then the rest of him, too. Tension drained out of him. He let the book rest on his chest, thinking he'd go back to reading it in … well, just a minute or two. First, he would rest - the book wasn't that important. How long had it been since he'd been so amiably with someone? Years, at least. A few moments later, his body twitched in one of those pre-sleep, full body jerks. He turned, vaguely aware of where his feet were, thinking muzzily that Sylar would just have to deal.
He felt Sylar's hand rest on his topmost calf as he settled back down. It just touched there, creating contact and warmth - not rubbing or massaging, but just being there. Peter sighed in unabashed pleasure. He blinked his eyes open slowly, seeing the toes of Sylar's sneakers. Possessed of an entirely crazy idea, he said thickly, "Take your shoes off," without stopping to think it through.
With a second of hesitation, Sylar complied. Peter didn't look at him. He didn't want to. He knew what he wanted - he could feel it inside of himself - and he didn't want to see Sylar not understanding, or being confused, or blaming or angry or whatever. The man's shoes removed, Peter reached down and snagged at his sock-clad feet. "Come here." Sylar let him pick up his feet and pull them up to the couch in front of Peter, against his chest. They were bony and smelly and it was awkward, but they were human. And somehow, holding this part of Sylar, Peter could divorce himself from the idea that he was hugging Sylar to himself. He could blot that thought out and just curl his upper body around another, holding, touching, feeling he was with someone and not so desperately alone. He could pretend to himself that later, when he woke up and rose, that it had just been … damn, he had no idea how to explain this … well, maybe it was just so weird that Sylar wouldn't mention it. Fuck it all.
He held Sylar's feet to him like they were the oddest of teddy bears, and felt a slight pressure on his calf as Sylar gave him a small squeeze. It felt like approval. Peter sagged, getting his way, perverse and wrong though he thought it was. Sylar's foot funk didn't begin to push aside the soul-deep contentment he felt at having something to hold … something very much like a person. Book entirely forgotten, he drifted off to sleep.