Bricks in the Wall, Chapter 62: Who's Who
Title: Who's Who
Characters: Peter, Sylar
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
Words: 1500
Setting: The Wall
Summary: After a long time together, Sylar has figured out a lot about how Peter works. There is a very personal issue Sylar wants Peter to understand.
"I have some questions to ask you," Sylar said as they sat down in his apartment. He felt safe here. He felt like 'him' here. He knew he needed those small supports because he was about to break open a subject neither of them was going to be happy about. When Peter seemed well situated on the couch, Sylar leaned forward in the armchair and asked, "When you arrived at the hospital in Odessa to see Matt Parkman, who did you think was with you?"
"Nathan. You."
That was a confusing answer. Sylar clarified it. "Which did you think was with you at the time?"
"Nathan."
"Looking back on it now, who do you think was with you?"
"Uh … Nathan?" Peter's brows drew together a little as though not sure what the difference was in the question.
Sylar blinked. He'd had this suspicion about Peter, hence this line of questioning. "You think that was Nathan? Now, with everything you know now."
Peter tilted his head like a dog at an odd noise. "Yeah."
Sylar breathed out slowly. Peter's sense of identity and who people were wasn't quite lining up with his own and since Sylar was personally involved in this one, the interpretation mattered. A lot. "Okay," he allowed, moving on but not forgetting. "After I touched Matt's hand, who were you with?"
"Nathan."
"After I touched Matt's hand."
"Yeah? At least, I think it was Nathan. I got knocked out."
"Yes. But when I tried to drop you off in the desert?"
"Nathan?"
He stared at Peter, but the guy was entirely serious. The occasional questioning tone seemed more of a 'why would you even doubt this?' sort of thing than any uncertainty on Peter's part. Peter's first answer, 'Nathan; you,' came back to Sylar. "You … don't see a difference between me and Nathan."
"Yeah I do."
Sylar raised his brows again. Once more, Peter was serious. The urge to assume he was lying was strong, but he'd found Peter to be generally very honest with him, scrupulously so. That he would be lying now at such a moment, didn't stand up to scrutiny. There was no reason why Peter would lie at this juncture. The simpler answer, Occam's Razor, was that Peter was telling the truth as he saw it. It was the whole matter of that perception that Sylar was trying to get at. "Why would it make a difference that you were knocked out at the hospital? I'm going to be who I am regardless of whether or not you're conscious."
It was now Peter's turn to blink at him. "What? No, you're not. You don't have to be, necessarily." He gave Sylar a look that doubted Sylar's sanity. "You weren't always."
I wasn't … always. Does he think I really became other people at times? He thinks … I was Nathan all those weeks? "So if I use shapeshifting to look like Nathan again and start acting like him, who am I?"
"How would I know?"
Sylar leaned back, feeling a weird trembling in his limbs. He was glad he was sitting. This is why he did that at Mercy Heights. This is how a good-hearted person can do something so horrible and get away with it without a single moral qualm. He genuinely thought I would be Nathan - not that he would make me into Nathan, but that I was Nathan. "You … know … Nathan's dead, right?"
"Yes." Peter bit that word out with slightly bared teeth.
"But … you think I could still be him, is that it?" Like he could be brought back from the dead through me with the right combination of powers? That was a frightening thought; even more that Peter apparently believed it. It made it even more important to correct Peter's thinking on this matter.
Peter's eyes narrowed. "I don't know. Are you?"
NO! Sylar clamped his lips shut firmly over that reflexive mental shout. Clasping his hands, he put them in front of his mouth to hold back any possible outburst. This was explaining a lot. Peter's most monstrous act looked so different now. He was starting to understand so many things Peter did and said as a consequence, how he treated Sylar … hell, how he treated other people and why he didn't question Sylar's name. "So … you think I am Nathan if I think I'm him. Is that right?"
Peter shrugged slightly. "I think you are Nathan if you are Nathan. I don't know if you are or not. Unless you're acting like him or talking like him. I don't know how else I'd know."
And if I were living his life, pretending to be him … then you would say I was him. He remembered that hollow feeling of not belonging, not being right with the world that he'd had constantly as faux-Nathan. It made his stomach roil just to think about it. Gently, gently though, because he'd figured out what Peter's buttons and levers were and hitting him too hard with things would just make him defensive, Sylar asked, "Don't you see all of that was just an act, Peter?"
Peter cringed a little and some of the light went out in his eyes. Sylar felt his heart hurt in response, even though he didn't understand the reason for the pain he'd just inflicted, he could see that inflict it he had. Peter rubbed his knees anxiously and gave Sylar a pained look. "You didn't think it was just an act."
"'You'. Look at me, Peter. Who am I?"
"Sylar."
"If I use shape shifting and I look like someone else, who am I then?"
Peter blinked successively. He looked uncertain, but what Sylar wanted was happening - Peter was listening, he was taking it in, he was thinking. "You're … Sylar. Looking like someone else."
"Okay." Would he have thought I was actually the president if I'd managed to get to him for real? I think he would have! The possibilities were mind-blowing. Peter's behavior towards him when he'd been labelled as his brother came back as well. Then from Nathan's memories, he recalled the easier switch in his inclusive, supportive, protective behavior towards Claire as soon as he found out she was his neice. Once the label was applied and as long as it stuck, Peter followed a set pattern of behavior in accordance with it. Fucking black and white thinking! Let's see if I can show him the grey. "Stay with me here. I was brainwashed into thinking I was someone else. That doesn't make me that other person."
Peter again drew inward, like a very slow-motion response to being hit. A moment later he winced, shifted his weight uncomfortably, and squirmed a little. Sylar had another feeling that he was hurting the man, and badly. Hopefully it was more of the 'stripping away the bandage' type than reopening old wounds.
Very gravely, Sylar leaned forward and said slowly, "Who was I at Mercy Heights?"
Peter wouldn't look at him. He shrugged one shoulder and said, "Sylar," rather unconvincingly. Then he shrugged again like it didn't matter or was ambiguous.
"Who was I before you took my memories away?"
"Sylar." This time Peter was firm, and looked at him to answer.
"After you took my memories away?" Sweat stood out on Sylar's brow. Even just talking about getting mind-wiped made him anxious - even knowing that Peter was (largely) harmless right now and that he was (mostly) safe.
"Well … you were …." Peter hunched his shoulders and covered his face, specifically his eyes. His breathing, previously regular enough, became uneven.
Sylar exhaled slowly as Peter either cried or nearly cried. Sylar swallowed. Peter's pain was a sign the conversation was changing his thoughts on the matter. He was starting to see, perhaps, that no one had been restored to life. He hadn't done anything good or helpful or healing or saving. It was vitally important to Sylar to get Peter to understand that he hadn't been dealing with Nathan at any point after the Stanton Hotel. Peter would never be able to see the injury that had been done to Sylar, or recognize how broken he really was, until he saw that it had been Sylar all along, with his identity deformed and maimed by abilities - first by Matt, then by Peter. "After you took away Sylar's memories, was that Nathan, or was it still Sylar, just without his memories?"
In a very soft voice, with his face still covered, Peter said, "I thought it was Nathan."
"Do you think it was Nathan now?"
With a wipe to his eyes followed by scrubbing his hand off on his jeans, Peter rose and left without answer. Sylar slumped back in his seat, triumphant but still sorry. He knew hounding Peter wasn't going to help. The guy was overwhelmed now. But he was overwhelmed because he had listened. There had been no denial or argument. Maybe there would be tomorrow. But for now, Sylar was going to count this as a painful, but necessary, win.