Sexual Tension Chapter 17: Where There's Smoke
Title: Where There's Smoke
Characters: Sylar, Peter
Rating: PG-13 (rating for this chapter only)
Warnings: None really. Handcuffs and arguing.
Word count: 2,400
Setting: The Wall, Sexual Tension AU
Summary: Sylar and Peter finally get a clue and on the same wavelength, but there are a few sparks that fly first.
"There is a school of thought which posits that where there is smoke, one can find fire."
Peter listened to Sylar and then casually looked around what he thought of as the 'sex room', putting his right hand on one of the metal poles and leaning against it. "This place ought to be in flames, then." At Sylar's uncertain glance, Peter elaborated positively, "This is definitely hot." He surveyed the tables of tools and implements he'd seen for the first time just the day before yesterday. This was the room where he'd finally broke down and let there be something between him and Sylar besides rage and recriminations. He'd torn down a wall here, but was still afraid of what was on the other side.
Sylar slipped up behind him, rubbing his face against Peter's hair and breathing warmly down the back of his neck, followed by nibbling seductively at his nape. Peter didn't understand what he was so concerned about, why he was still holding back, but he was. He tilted his head forward, breathing harder already at Sylar's attentions. This, he liked. A lot. One of Sylar's hands rested on his outer shoulder while the other trailed up his arm to the pole. Then it came back to his wrist. Something other than fingers was there. Peter blinked and turned his head to see what it was as the handcuff clicked in place over him.
"Wait! What?" Peter jerked his hand away but Sylar, prepared for that, jerked it right back. A metallic clink was followed by the rapid-fire clicking to tighten the cuff around the bar. Peter yanked once, fear and adrenaline shooting through him as all his worst fears surged to the front of his mind. He spun and lashed out, but Sylar had already stepped away. Peter grabbed at him again anyway, rewarded only by Sylar seizing his hand and raising another handcuff to it. "No!"
They struggled. Peter felt like he was fighting for his life, but he didn't succeed in avoiding having the cuff placed on his wrist. At least the other end of it wasn't fastened to anything. Yet. Sylar gave up quickly on trying to get him to another pole and pulled back out of his reach. Wild-eyed and unable to get to his enemy, Peter retreated back to the fixture he was attached to. Now it's going to happen? Now he's going to hurt me, torture me, kill me? Peter crouched slightly, prepared to kick, trying to think of what his options were as long as he was confined and trying not to think that this must have been what his instincts had been warning him about all along.
After staring at him for several tense seconds, Sylar pulled out the key and held it up where Peter could see it. Instead of taunting him with it, he tossed it to Peter's feet. "Before you use that, listen to me." Peter picked it up anyway, lips tight and eyes narrowed in case this was some kind of trap. This whole room has always been a trap. He examined the key and glanced at his wrist. They looked compatible, but why would Sylar give it to him? Why would he trap him and then immediately give him a way out? He looked to Sylar, who was poised, face betraying a desperate earnestness rather than anything that looked like duplicity. Still chained, but with the key in his hand, Peter waited.
"You still don't trust me," Sylar said with disappointment evident in his voice.
"Should I?" Peter bared his teeth and jangled the cuff on the pole, only made more angry by how Sylar was upset at Peter's reaction rather than upset that he'd done something to cause the reaction. It pissed Peter off that Sylar was not seeing his own role in this.
"You did more than that to me … and I let you."
"That was different," Peter snapped.
"How?" Now Sylar sounded frustrated and uncomprehending, like being chained against his will was something any reasonable person would have welcomed and Peter was just being unfathomably difficult.
Peter stared at him, angry grimace slowly fading. Sylar … really is this clueless. And … he must have intended this to go well. It's another huge risk, just like when he walked me in here the first time and was willing to let me kill or torture him. Peter sighed and backed up, putting his shoulder level with the bar, trying to get his mind around that. He gripped the pole for its solidity.
Sylar pursed his lips at Peter's lack of answer and said, "I didn't ask you if I should trust you then; I just did." He frowned, peering at Peter as if exasperated and wishing he could force sense into him just by looking. Peter knew it didn't work that way, but even so, he continued reassessing things. Sylar had had many opportunities to hurt him since they'd been intimate. He had not. But knowing that didn't dispel the fear imbedded by multiple incidents from before and buried grief. Sylar added unhelpfully, "I have given myself to you; you haven't given back."
"It doesn't work that way! You don't have any fucking idea!" The bald-faced attempts at emotional manipulation were not helping.
But Sylar only shrugged in the face of the yelling and seemed to reconsider what it was he was going to say. "You told me, the first time we were in here, that I didn't know what you wanted. I thought I did. I thought if you had me, all of me, utterly and completely, that it would be enough. But … it isn't. I see that in the mad way you just fought me off. I see that in the way you're holding onto that key like it's a lifeline. I see that … I 'don't have any fucking idea'. I was … " He swallowed around words that were uncomfortable for him to utter, forcing them out anyway. "I don't know how it works, Peter."
Peter blinked a few times and shuddered, surprised to hear that much of a concession, of a genuine attempt to communicate, come out of Sylar's mouth. It defused so much of Peter's anger to hear Sylar admitting he wasn't the expert on Peter Petrelli - what he wanted, and what he needed. That release soothed a lot of his fears, letting him consider finally letting them go. "Sylar, I ..." He looked at the key, loosening his hold on it. Really, this was ridiculous. Could he internalize that Sylar wasn't going to hurt him, wasn't a danger? He wanted to, and he could say the words and even think them to himself, but could he believe them? He looked up at Sylar. "I don't know," he said in a small voice. "I told you I wasn't 'right', not inside. If I was, then we'd have worked things out between us a long time ago and it wouldn't have taken something like this," he waved at the room with his free arm, "to … to get me to … you know." Sylar's brows rose in question. "To be with you," Peter said with an inexplicable moment of shyness, soft and warm feelings welling up inside him as some of the fear ebbed away. "I'm sorry."
"I don't want an apology," Sylar said, staring at him intently now. He quirked one brow. "I want to fix you."
Peter stared at him, a little anger seeping back into his face. "You don't even know what's wrong. You've said that."
Sylar gave one curt nod and pulled over the wooden chair Peter had used before. He sat and looked at Peter, attentive to every cue. "Then tell me."
"You're going to listen to me now?" Peter pulled back his head and waved at the stuff in the room again. "Instead of assembling all this on your own and springing things on me, then refusing to give me any time to cope with it? And being angry about how I try to deal? With fucking handcuffs and … sex?" Anger flowed through him like burning energy. Now that he had the opportunity to speak his mind, he wanted to deck Sylar for forcing them together so abruptly, for making their connection something Sylar had done and Peter was left reacting to, badly and repeatedly. It was so unilateral that even though Peter desperately wanted someone to cleave to, to make love to, to share joy and affection with, he still wanted to kick Sylar's ass for being so fucking dense.
"Yes ..." Sylar's expression faltered a little under Peter's powerful glare. "I'm going to listen to you," he said quietly.
Peter snorted and made up for the volume missing from Sylar's voice. "You killed my brother. You killed a lot of people. You suck! You've done all kinds of things; preyed on people like they were animals, terrorized them and gotten off on it."
"I didn't get off on it," Sylar grumbled. He shifted slightly and looked down.
Peter barked a laugh. "You don't deny anything else, but you want to argue about that?"
Sylar shook his head, looking back up. "That is not true. The rest is a matter of record."
"You wouldn't admit to it a few days ago."
"You … have accepted me," Sylar said, lowering his head and looking up at Peter. His voice deepened, the slightest involuntary catch in it conveying his emotion more than anything intentional could have. "You're going to have to accept all of me or it doesn't count. That includes everything I've done." After a pause, he said, "I accept everything you've done, including the times you looked away and did nothing."
"That's not equivalent," Peter snapped and pointed at him, "and you are not the sole judge of what counts and what doesn't, or what's fair and what isn't. I am not required to help you and I don't have to accept anything. And I haven't accepted what you've done!" Peter threw his hands up for emphasis, the metal cuff scraping jerkily along the pole. "I'm trying to deal with it while you pretend it never even happened!" All things considered, Peter thought it was probably a good thing that he was chained to the pole and unable to accompany his words with any more violent expression of his feelings.
Sylar dipped his head and exhaled roughly. He hunched his shoulders. "You … want me to take responsibility. I … I don't know how."
"You start by admitting it!"
Sylar made a hollow laugh, still looking at the floor. "Is that like that rotten twelve step program?"
"No. It's 'How to Apologize 101'. Maybe that's a class you missed. I'll give you the Cliff Notes version: admit what you did, recognize that it hurt people, say you're sorry, agree it was your actions that caused the problem, tell me what you'll do to make sure it doesn't happen again, and acknowledge that the feelings of other people matter!"
Sylar blinked at him uncertainly, like Peter had just said something mind-blowing.
"What?" Peter finally asked.
"That's … a class I missed."
Now it was Peter's turn to blink in surprise. "O-kay." Was it really that simple?
"I … I should … There's no punishment appropriate for what I did." Sylar shook his head, hunched his shoulders even further, and drew in on himself.
"Listen to the lesson again, Sylar," Peter said with sudden gentleness, wondering if perhaps he'd managed to hit the problem squarely on the head of the nail. "There's nothing about punishment in it."
"But how …? How do you deal with that sort of thing without punishment?" Sylar wasn't looking at Peter, his eyes tracking back and forth along the floor. "Yesterday. I did something wrong in bed with you." His head came up, expression hopeful. "And it was okay. I …" He swallowed. "I hugged you and it was alright."
Peter nodded slowly, remembering that moment. Sylar's inexplicable fury had left Peter wondering what he'd done and blaming himself even though he didn't know why Sylar was angry. His only assumption was that it had something to do with how he'd come. Too vulnerable and upset to face Sylar with communication so spotty between them, Peter had just curled up on the bed and hoped Sylar would go away. But he hadn't. Sylar had gotten over whatever was wrong and offered comfort instead. Softly now, Peter said, "I didn't come here to punish you, Sylar." Fervidly he added, "That has never been my intention."
"I've done … more things than I can easily recount. I've hurt a lot of people. I'm," Sylar swallowed and took a deep breath, staring straight forward at Peter's feet, eyes wide as he blurted out his apology by the formula Peter had related, "sorry. It … was … I did it; no one and nothing else. Your feelings matter. And I won't do it anymore."
Peter drew in and released a deep breath, sinking as he leaned on the pole until he was sitting on the floor. It was a halting and vague mea culpa but he didn't doubt the sincerity of it. Nor, strangely, that Sylar hadn't comprehended how important it was to give one - both for Sylar to give it and for Peter to hear it. "Thank you," Peter said, a sense of relief washing through him. "I can accept that - all of it." Sylar raised his eyes to Peter's. For a very long moment, they simply looked at each other. Peter took in the expressive eyes, handsome face, and the faint hope-against-hope lurking on his features.
Peter let out a breath and said, "I don't want to hurt you. Maybe I did some before, but not definitely not now."
"I don't want to hurt you, either," Sylar answered immediately. "At least … not if you don't want me to."
Is he flirting? Peter scanned over Sylar's features, seeing the tilt of the head and a hint of a smile. Peter smiled back, slyly, happy that with all the heavy emotional baggage they'd just laid down, that Sylar was still good with things between them. He'd been badly startled by the handcuffs, but Sylar had given him the key, listened, processed, and even apologized. Peter wasn't afraid anymore. Even in the heat of his anger, he hadn't unlocked himself because they were finally getting somewhere, finally connecting. He rattled the restraint that was still fastened to the pole and flirted back, "So what's all this about?"
Characters: Sylar, Peter
Rating: PG-13 (rating for this chapter only)
Warnings: None really. Handcuffs and arguing.
Word count: 2,400
Setting: The Wall, Sexual Tension AU
Summary: Sylar and Peter finally get a clue and on the same wavelength, but there are a few sparks that fly first.
"There is a school of thought which posits that where there is smoke, one can find fire."
Peter listened to Sylar and then casually looked around what he thought of as the 'sex room', putting his right hand on one of the metal poles and leaning against it. "This place ought to be in flames, then." At Sylar's uncertain glance, Peter elaborated positively, "This is definitely hot." He surveyed the tables of tools and implements he'd seen for the first time just the day before yesterday. This was the room where he'd finally broke down and let there be something between him and Sylar besides rage and recriminations. He'd torn down a wall here, but was still afraid of what was on the other side.
Sylar slipped up behind him, rubbing his face against Peter's hair and breathing warmly down the back of his neck, followed by nibbling seductively at his nape. Peter didn't understand what he was so concerned about, why he was still holding back, but he was. He tilted his head forward, breathing harder already at Sylar's attentions. This, he liked. A lot. One of Sylar's hands rested on his outer shoulder while the other trailed up his arm to the pole. Then it came back to his wrist. Something other than fingers was there. Peter blinked and turned his head to see what it was as the handcuff clicked in place over him.
"Wait! What?" Peter jerked his hand away but Sylar, prepared for that, jerked it right back. A metallic clink was followed by the rapid-fire clicking to tighten the cuff around the bar. Peter yanked once, fear and adrenaline shooting through him as all his worst fears surged to the front of his mind. He spun and lashed out, but Sylar had already stepped away. Peter grabbed at him again anyway, rewarded only by Sylar seizing his hand and raising another handcuff to it. "No!"
They struggled. Peter felt like he was fighting for his life, but he didn't succeed in avoiding having the cuff placed on his wrist. At least the other end of it wasn't fastened to anything. Yet. Sylar gave up quickly on trying to get him to another pole and pulled back out of his reach. Wild-eyed and unable to get to his enemy, Peter retreated back to the fixture he was attached to. Now it's going to happen? Now he's going to hurt me, torture me, kill me? Peter crouched slightly, prepared to kick, trying to think of what his options were as long as he was confined and trying not to think that this must have been what his instincts had been warning him about all along.
After staring at him for several tense seconds, Sylar pulled out the key and held it up where Peter could see it. Instead of taunting him with it, he tossed it to Peter's feet. "Before you use that, listen to me." Peter picked it up anyway, lips tight and eyes narrowed in case this was some kind of trap. This whole room has always been a trap. He examined the key and glanced at his wrist. They looked compatible, but why would Sylar give it to him? Why would he trap him and then immediately give him a way out? He looked to Sylar, who was poised, face betraying a desperate earnestness rather than anything that looked like duplicity. Still chained, but with the key in his hand, Peter waited.
"You still don't trust me," Sylar said with disappointment evident in his voice.
"Should I?" Peter bared his teeth and jangled the cuff on the pole, only made more angry by how Sylar was upset at Peter's reaction rather than upset that he'd done something to cause the reaction. It pissed Peter off that Sylar was not seeing his own role in this.
"You did more than that to me … and I let you."
"That was different," Peter snapped.
"How?" Now Sylar sounded frustrated and uncomprehending, like being chained against his will was something any reasonable person would have welcomed and Peter was just being unfathomably difficult.
Peter stared at him, angry grimace slowly fading. Sylar … really is this clueless. And … he must have intended this to go well. It's another huge risk, just like when he walked me in here the first time and was willing to let me kill or torture him. Peter sighed and backed up, putting his shoulder level with the bar, trying to get his mind around that. He gripped the pole for its solidity.
Sylar pursed his lips at Peter's lack of answer and said, "I didn't ask you if I should trust you then; I just did." He frowned, peering at Peter as if exasperated and wishing he could force sense into him just by looking. Peter knew it didn't work that way, but even so, he continued reassessing things. Sylar had had many opportunities to hurt him since they'd been intimate. He had not. But knowing that didn't dispel the fear imbedded by multiple incidents from before and buried grief. Sylar added unhelpfully, "I have given myself to you; you haven't given back."
"It doesn't work that way! You don't have any fucking idea!" The bald-faced attempts at emotional manipulation were not helping.
But Sylar only shrugged in the face of the yelling and seemed to reconsider what it was he was going to say. "You told me, the first time we were in here, that I didn't know what you wanted. I thought I did. I thought if you had me, all of me, utterly and completely, that it would be enough. But … it isn't. I see that in the mad way you just fought me off. I see that in the way you're holding onto that key like it's a lifeline. I see that … I 'don't have any fucking idea'. I was … " He swallowed around words that were uncomfortable for him to utter, forcing them out anyway. "I don't know how it works, Peter."
Peter blinked a few times and shuddered, surprised to hear that much of a concession, of a genuine attempt to communicate, come out of Sylar's mouth. It defused so much of Peter's anger to hear Sylar admitting he wasn't the expert on Peter Petrelli - what he wanted, and what he needed. That release soothed a lot of his fears, letting him consider finally letting them go. "Sylar, I ..." He looked at the key, loosening his hold on it. Really, this was ridiculous. Could he internalize that Sylar wasn't going to hurt him, wasn't a danger? He wanted to, and he could say the words and even think them to himself, but could he believe them? He looked up at Sylar. "I don't know," he said in a small voice. "I told you I wasn't 'right', not inside. If I was, then we'd have worked things out between us a long time ago and it wouldn't have taken something like this," he waved at the room with his free arm, "to … to get me to … you know." Sylar's brows rose in question. "To be with you," Peter said with an inexplicable moment of shyness, soft and warm feelings welling up inside him as some of the fear ebbed away. "I'm sorry."
"I don't want an apology," Sylar said, staring at him intently now. He quirked one brow. "I want to fix you."
Peter stared at him, a little anger seeping back into his face. "You don't even know what's wrong. You've said that."
Sylar gave one curt nod and pulled over the wooden chair Peter had used before. He sat and looked at Peter, attentive to every cue. "Then tell me."
"You're going to listen to me now?" Peter pulled back his head and waved at the stuff in the room again. "Instead of assembling all this on your own and springing things on me, then refusing to give me any time to cope with it? And being angry about how I try to deal? With fucking handcuffs and … sex?" Anger flowed through him like burning energy. Now that he had the opportunity to speak his mind, he wanted to deck Sylar for forcing them together so abruptly, for making their connection something Sylar had done and Peter was left reacting to, badly and repeatedly. It was so unilateral that even though Peter desperately wanted someone to cleave to, to make love to, to share joy and affection with, he still wanted to kick Sylar's ass for being so fucking dense.
"Yes ..." Sylar's expression faltered a little under Peter's powerful glare. "I'm going to listen to you," he said quietly.
Peter snorted and made up for the volume missing from Sylar's voice. "You killed my brother. You killed a lot of people. You suck! You've done all kinds of things; preyed on people like they were animals, terrorized them and gotten off on it."
"I didn't get off on it," Sylar grumbled. He shifted slightly and looked down.
Peter barked a laugh. "You don't deny anything else, but you want to argue about that?"
Sylar shook his head, looking back up. "That is not true. The rest is a matter of record."
"You wouldn't admit to it a few days ago."
"You … have accepted me," Sylar said, lowering his head and looking up at Peter. His voice deepened, the slightest involuntary catch in it conveying his emotion more than anything intentional could have. "You're going to have to accept all of me or it doesn't count. That includes everything I've done." After a pause, he said, "I accept everything you've done, including the times you looked away and did nothing."
"That's not equivalent," Peter snapped and pointed at him, "and you are not the sole judge of what counts and what doesn't, or what's fair and what isn't. I am not required to help you and I don't have to accept anything. And I haven't accepted what you've done!" Peter threw his hands up for emphasis, the metal cuff scraping jerkily along the pole. "I'm trying to deal with it while you pretend it never even happened!" All things considered, Peter thought it was probably a good thing that he was chained to the pole and unable to accompany his words with any more violent expression of his feelings.
Sylar dipped his head and exhaled roughly. He hunched his shoulders. "You … want me to take responsibility. I … I don't know how."
"You start by admitting it!"
Sylar made a hollow laugh, still looking at the floor. "Is that like that rotten twelve step program?"
"No. It's 'How to Apologize 101'. Maybe that's a class you missed. I'll give you the Cliff Notes version: admit what you did, recognize that it hurt people, say you're sorry, agree it was your actions that caused the problem, tell me what you'll do to make sure it doesn't happen again, and acknowledge that the feelings of other people matter!"
Sylar blinked at him uncertainly, like Peter had just said something mind-blowing.
"What?" Peter finally asked.
"That's … a class I missed."
Now it was Peter's turn to blink in surprise. "O-kay." Was it really that simple?
"I … I should … There's no punishment appropriate for what I did." Sylar shook his head, hunched his shoulders even further, and drew in on himself.
"Listen to the lesson again, Sylar," Peter said with sudden gentleness, wondering if perhaps he'd managed to hit the problem squarely on the head of the nail. "There's nothing about punishment in it."
"But how …? How do you deal with that sort of thing without punishment?" Sylar wasn't looking at Peter, his eyes tracking back and forth along the floor. "Yesterday. I did something wrong in bed with you." His head came up, expression hopeful. "And it was okay. I …" He swallowed. "I hugged you and it was alright."
Peter nodded slowly, remembering that moment. Sylar's inexplicable fury had left Peter wondering what he'd done and blaming himself even though he didn't know why Sylar was angry. His only assumption was that it had something to do with how he'd come. Too vulnerable and upset to face Sylar with communication so spotty between them, Peter had just curled up on the bed and hoped Sylar would go away. But he hadn't. Sylar had gotten over whatever was wrong and offered comfort instead. Softly now, Peter said, "I didn't come here to punish you, Sylar." Fervidly he added, "That has never been my intention."
"I've done … more things than I can easily recount. I've hurt a lot of people. I'm," Sylar swallowed and took a deep breath, staring straight forward at Peter's feet, eyes wide as he blurted out his apology by the formula Peter had related, "sorry. It … was … I did it; no one and nothing else. Your feelings matter. And I won't do it anymore."
Peter drew in and released a deep breath, sinking as he leaned on the pole until he was sitting on the floor. It was a halting and vague mea culpa but he didn't doubt the sincerity of it. Nor, strangely, that Sylar hadn't comprehended how important it was to give one - both for Sylar to give it and for Peter to hear it. "Thank you," Peter said, a sense of relief washing through him. "I can accept that - all of it." Sylar raised his eyes to Peter's. For a very long moment, they simply looked at each other. Peter took in the expressive eyes, handsome face, and the faint hope-against-hope lurking on his features.
Peter let out a breath and said, "I don't want to hurt you. Maybe I did some before, but not definitely not now."
"I don't want to hurt you, either," Sylar answered immediately. "At least … not if you don't want me to."
Is he flirting? Peter scanned over Sylar's features, seeing the tilt of the head and a hint of a smile. Peter smiled back, slyly, happy that with all the heavy emotional baggage they'd just laid down, that Sylar was still good with things between them. He'd been badly startled by the handcuffs, but Sylar had given him the key, listened, processed, and even apologized. Peter wasn't afraid anymore. Even in the heat of his anger, he hadn't unlocked himself because they were finally getting somewhere, finally connecting. He rattled the restraint that was still fastened to the pole and flirted back, "So what's all this about?"