Broken Connections, Chapter One: In Pieces
Peter knew something was wrong when the door to Matt Parkman's house silently swung inward, without any apparent cause. He'd knocked. A moment before it had been closed and locked, but not now. One breath later, he smelled the blood. He swallowed hard and tried to control the sudden pounding of his heart. Fear and adrenaline coursed through him, but neither of those would help. He was here to get Sylar. His mother, the dream he'd had - neither had told him how things would be when he found him, just that he would find him, and doing so would save Emma and everyone else at the carnival. Marshaling his courage, he took a slow, careful step inside … then another.
The smell was stronger. It made the air feel thick in his lungs, unnaturally moist. He rounded the edge of the sofa to see Sylar squatting next to the source - Matt Parkman, dead. The top of Matt's head was gone. Parts of his brain looked mangled. Warm blood was still seeping out to saturate the carpet. It coated Sylar's hands, making them slick and tacky, red to the wrists where it stained the cuffs of his white shirt. Peter swallowed back bile. He couldn't imagine how this man would save the carnival. Perhaps by killing Emma? The thought turned his stomach.
"Hello, Peter."
"Sylar," Peter said back automatically, though he was in no mood to exchange polite greetings. The last time he'd seen this person in the flesh had been a few nights ago when Sylar had saluted him as he sauntered away from Mercy Hospital. It had been Peter's final attempt at saving Nathan. Looking at Matt's corpse, or at Sylar, sickened him. He glanced around the room instead, realizing with a hideous lurch in his gut that there was a playpen in the center of the living room. A teddy bear lay at the edge of the darkening carpet, the bottom of its golden fur gradually blackening.
"Fancy seeing you here," Sylar quipped.
"There was a child," Peter said, his gaze snapping to Sylar's, eyes widening in alarm.
"Was."
Peter bristled at the implication Sylar had murdered an innocent child, who couldn't be more than a toddler to judge from the furniture and toys, but he felt so helpless to exact vengeance. His only ability was flight. It was how he'd gotten here, borrowed on short notice from West. He hadn't brought a gun or even a knife. He had only his fists against a man who could regenerate, who had telekinesis, who could slice his throat open from where he squatted on the floor with no more than a thought and a flick of his finger. "Was?" Peter rasped, his voice hollow.
Sylar cocked his head slightly. "And a mother." The smallest smirk played across his lips as he watched Peter react to the news with a faltering step backwards.
Peter struggled with his self control. Fists curled, but attacking Sylar would not help. Maybe there was something he could do for the other victims. He turned to go down the hall, but Sylar's voice caught at him.
"I let them go," Sylar said. He sounded tired.
Peter glanced in the first room he came to - a master bedroom, reasonably tidy. No corpses, at least, or sign of a struggle. Perhaps Sylar was telling the truth. He returned, his piercing eyes demanding answers.
Sylar shrugged as though Peter had spoken. "She had no ability. The boy did, but," he rose to his feet, "I've gone soft."
"Doesn't look that way to me," Peter spat, gesturing at Matt's corpse. He still felt so futile. If he'd only arrived a little earlier, he'd have had a chance to save Matt.
"Don't feel sorry for him," Sylar said curtly. "He tried to lock me in a mental prison for the rest of my existence."
"Looks to me like he had the right idea."
Sylar drew in a deep breath and exhaled, favoring Peter with a withering look that had the opposite effect from his intention. It didn't scare Peter; it just pissed him off. "I came here for help," Sylar said petulantly.
"And killing him was supposed to 'help'? Who does that 'help', Sylar?!" Peter didn't even know why he was arguing, but it was the only thing he could do. Calling the cops was dumb - Sylar would cut through them effortlessly. Calling the Company was equally pointless, assuming Peter even knew how to get in touch with them. Rene was on the other side of the continent and trying to snag the right power from Sylar to fight him directly was the riskiest of crapshoots. His mother had known something like this would happen; that must have been why she told him not to go. Matt was already dead. Peter's goal of getting Sylar to save Emma seemed worse than useless now. He might as well fly back to New York empty-handed and see what he could do alone. Maybe there was another way.
Sylar rolled his eyes and interrupted Peter's nascent plans. "Is everyone so self-absorbed? Even you, Peter?"
"What?" The questions didn't follow.
"Listen, you want my help? I need help." Sylar pointed at the middle of his chest with a bloody index finger.
Peter looked at Matt's body. It didn't leave him inclined to feel helpful. Maybe instead of fighting, he could take an ability from Sylar - he had a lot of them - perhaps shape-shifting again, and infiltrate the carnival that way.
"No!" Sylar said sharply, flinging Peter against the nearest wall and pinning him there with telekinesis.
Peter kicked, knocking over a small set of shelves, but accomplishing nothing. His legs under the knee and arms after the elbow were free, as was his head, but the main part of his body was fixed in place as securely as it had been at Thanksgiving, when he'd been forced to sit at the table as Sylar gorged on pumpkin pie and assaulted Peter's mother.
"She deserved it!" Sylar barked.
"What?"
"Never mind." Sylar rubbed his face, leaving it gruesomely smeared with blood. He looked at his hand, his eyes rolled oddly in a psychotic manner, and he raised the other hand to do more of the same on the other cheek and side of his forehead, leaving irregular, crimson streaks. He seemed lost in the horrifying application of war paint, but the telekinetic lock on Peter never wavered.
He's crazy. Insane. Disturbed. He said he needed help. In a voice he had to struggle to keep steady, Peter said, "Why did you think Matt was going to help you?"
With gore staining his features, Sylar looked up Peter, mouth gaping in a grin. Disgust and fear twisted Peter's face. Sylar chuckled, an unmistakeable edge of hysteria to the sound. He sat down on the nearby arm of the sofa. Still laughing, he pulled up the arm of his shirt, revealing blank skin. "I had a tattoo." The laughter vanished as his mood shifted, lightning fast. In its place, his voice sounded sad and lost. "It's gone now."
"Was it a compass?" Peter couldn't help but see the connection between his own appearing-disappearing ink.
"No." Sylar's features became intent and he peered at Peter for a long moment.
Peter's eyes snapped to Matt's corpse, realizing what Sylar had done and why some of what he was saying didn't connect with the words spoken aloud. He's reading my mind!
"Hm," Sylar hummed. "Took you long enough. I'd always wondered if you were as dense as you seemed. It turns out the answer is: yes." Peter frowned and squirmed, annoyed by the insult, but it was hardly the most important thing going on here. Sylar looked down at the floor for a long moment, before raising his eyes again. "That's actually a good thing for you, Peter. You don't seem to have been in on any of it. I'd thought not. I'd suspected not. That's why I went to you."
"You?" Peter couldn't place when Sylar had come to him for anything good.
"As Nathan," Sylar said patiently.
"Oh." Yeah. He supposed that counted. Sort of. Sylar gave him a queer look. Peter was getting tired of being pinned to the wall like a piece of performance art, 'Italian-American on Display'. The only way he was going to get down was if he played Sylar's game. First he needed to find out what it was. "What did the tattoo have to do with anything?"
"I was told it would lead me to what I wanted most - a connection. First it took me to Claire." Peter tensed, fear coursing through him again. Was she alright? Had she survived whatever Sylar had done to her? Sylar rolled his eyes again. "Calm down. She's fine." When Peter stopped struggling against the hold, he went on, "She wasn't my connection, but I decided perhaps she was just the first step along the path. She said I needed to lose my powers to be human again, so I came here."
"To Matt?"
Sylar nodded. "For a while, when I thought I was Nathan, I didn't know I had these abilities. I thought Parkman could take them away again, make me forget about them, repress them somehow."
Peter relaxed a little, hanging there quietly as he considered what Sylar was saying. Sylar really had been trying to find help. He was willing to lose all of his powers? "And he couldn't, so you killed him?"
"No. He said he could and then he trapped me in that mental prison I mentioned. He tricked me! That's why I killed him."
Calmly, Peter blurted out the truth even though he knew it was dangerous to say, especially in his powerless position. "Sylar, you're a danger to everyone."
"Peter, any perfectly normal human being can buy a gun and go on a rampage. If they so desire, they can poison hundreds, or even thousands, with the investment of only a few hours of research. A few people can organize to fly planes into buildings. I'm sure even worse is possible. Everyone is a danger to everyone. For me, it just happens to be easier." He bit his lip hard enough that Peter thought he might have pierced it with his teeth, but between the blood still drying on his face and the regeneration, he couldn't tell a moment later. "Which is why it's even more important than it is for most for me to have reasons not to do that sort of thing."
"Let me down."
Sylar looked at him intently again, then twitched his brows. Peter had no plans of attacking or running - no plans at all. He'd just decided the two of them weren't going to attack each other at the moment, thus there was no reason for the continued annoying, demeaning confinement. Sylar let him go and offered generously, "You could take my ability and then use it to get Parkman's. The body's still warm. You would probably keep the telepathy after swapping mine for something else."
"No, thank you," Peter said, revolted at the very idea. "I've had your ability in the past. It didn't work out." And in the future, too, I guess.
Sylar shrugged, shrinking a bit on the arm of the sofa as he hunched his shoulders and gave up. "I don't know what else I have to offer the world besides blood, Peter."
You have regeneration. I'll bet you could give a lot of blood. But Peter didn't say that. A second later, he realized Sylar had heard it anyway and added the thought, That was sarcasm.
"I know."
"Good."
"But it's an interesting point. Assuming, of course, none of these abilities have made my blood … unfit."
Peter gave Sylar's hopeless, blood-stained face a long look, thinking about Mohinder telling him how abilities wrought changes on a cellular, even a DNA, level. Peter had gone through the usual regular blood screening as an EMT, but they weren't checking for the sort of things that abilities might do to a person. He didn't know what to say about it, so he nodded and changed the subject. "You said there was a mother and a little boy, right?"
Sylar nodded, still looking at the floor morosely. Peter didn't have any pity for him. It was the Parkmans he felt sorry for and he thought Sylar should, too.
"Are they going to come back here at some point?"
Sylar lifted his head and made a few blinks. "Probably. Everything they own is here."
Peter nodded. "Then get off your butt, Sylar, and quit being so self absorbed. I'm not going to leave her husband's body here for her to find like this. You made the mess. Now help clean it up."
XXX
"So what now?" Sylar asked after they were done.
"Why is what you do next something I need to deal with?" Peter complained as he straightened from returning the crate of cleaning products to their place under the kitchen sink.
"Because you're the only person who's ever helped me, Peter. Genuinely and without any ulterior motive."
"That's because I thought you were my brother at the time. Both times."
"I could be again." Sylar shape-shifted into Nathan. He'd washed his face - doing so had been one of Peter's first directions in the course of cleaning up the place. Sylar had been surprisingly obedient. The second order had been to have Sylar TK the body into the bathtub so it would drain somewhere less messy. Then they cleaned up and removed everything from the living room, including pulling up the carpet and padding, which was currently rolled up in the garage. There was no way to get that much blood out of it - it would have to be disposed of and replaced. They stacked the furniture as neatly as possible on one side of the living room. At the end, they'd taken Matt's body, cleaned him, changed his clothes, replaced the top of his head, and laid him out, wrapped in a sheet in the living room with a few pillows to tilt his body enough to discourage further leakage. Sylar had, rather tackily in Peter's opinion, turned a frying pan to gold and left it prominently on the counter as though it were some kind of ridiculous weregild. Peter had thought as loudly and viciously as possible, 'What you did can't be paid for.' Sylar had said nothing, standing there quietly fondling the skillet until Peter had put away the last of the cleaning supplies.
"Stop that!" Peter snarled, getting angrily into Sylar's Nathan-face. "You aren't my brother! You never were!"
"Our mother said differently." But Sylar shifted back to his normal face anyway.
"She lied!"
"I know."
Peter huffed, glaring at him for a moment, a swift recounting of the most awful things he'd known his mother to do flying through his mind. Sylar … paled. Peter looked away, checking his watch and trying not to think about what it meant for a psychopathic serial killer to be put off by Angela's deeds (or maybe it was by Peter's repressed, impotent rage about them). "I have to be in New York tonight to try and stop whatever's going to happen at the carnival." He went to the back door. The enclosed yard was as good a place as any to take off from.
"I thought you said only I could do that," Sylar said, following him.
"I never said that." Peter moved off the porch and out past the orange tree, looking for a clear patch of sunny California sky.
"You thought it."
"I didn't think it," he snapped irritably, stopping where he intended to launch from. He wasn't fond of having his mind read constantly, though he would grudgingly admit it was occasionally convenient.
Sylar grabbed his arm, preventing him from taking off. "You came here to get me to save people at the carnival. You had a dream I'd do it. That's why you came all the way across the country to find me, against your mother's advice and all common sense."
Peter glared at him. He wasn't going to ask. Come get Sylar - yes. Ask for help from his brother's murderer - no. He'd done the best he could for Matt's family. Now he was needed elsewhere. He peeled Sylar's fingers from his arm and took to the air. Sylar made some exasperated noise and followed him. Peter tried not to think about where Sylar had picked up the power of flight. He just made sure to pour on enough speed as to make conversation impossible.
Within a few steps of landing on the dark, forested edge of Central Park, Sylar was talking to him again, but now he was bargaining. "I won't kill anyone. I promise."
Peter looked at him out of the corner of his eye, unconvinced. Sylar stabbed his hands into his pockets and hunched his shoulders. It was a good sign, Peter thought, that Sylar seemed to have realized killing people wasn't a good solution to one's problems.
Sylar snorted. "And just what were you planning on doing with all those drugs you had for me at the hospital?"
"If I was planning on killing you," Peter said snippily, "I wouldn't have had all those drugs, now would I?"
"You tried anyway!"
"I was trying to save Nathan."
"You were trying to kill me!"
Peter stopped, turning to face him. "I was trying to save Nathan," he said even more emphatically, before bursting out, "Why are we even arguing about this? I wanted you dead for what you'd done. So what? How is that not an understandable reaction to having your brother murdered, Sylar?"
"It is understandable, Peter, which is my point. You thought killing someone was a good solution to your problems."
Peter's mouth opened and then shut. Oh. Yeah. God-damn telepathy! "You had it coming!" he finally said, but it sounded like a weak schoolyard comeback, which it was. He stalked off again, following the sidewalk towards the more open areas of the park. Other people were streaming in that direction, so it was probably the right one.
Sylar followed. "And I would like to point out, additionally, that I did not show up at Matt Parkman's house, metaphorical guns blazing. I even submitted myself, entirely, to his mental powers. I allowed him to ..." He made a gun shape of his fingers and held it to his head. "But the idiot thought he could trap me, me?, in a time dilation matrix?" Sylar hooted with derisive laughter as they walked. "I restore chronographs for a living, Peter! I can tell that your watch is well-tuned; it only loses a half-second an hour, which is pretty good for a self-winding model, but if you'd let me look at it, I could fix it so it didn't lose or gain time at all, a precision that no one else in the world can match. Did Parkman really think I was going to be fooled by the impression of time passing when it wasn't? Hiro, that Japanese fool, couldn't even stop time when I was involved, not even when his life depended on it!"
"Did you tell him what you were there for? Matt?"
"Yes."
Well … Peter frowned. So Matt had tried to trap him even knowing Sylar wasn't there to do harm. That sucked. And it wasn't like Matt didn't have an ability that let him know if Sylar was being honest or not. "You still shouldn't have killed him."
"Why not?"
"Because you're stronger than he is."
Sylar stopped and blinked at him, confused. "The strong prey upon … that's exactly why I should have killed him."
Peter pulled up as well. People continued past, so intent on fulfilling their summons to the carnival that they completely ignored the heated exchange. "Sylar, you have an obligation to act like a decent human being and not some mindless predator. And that means, just because you're stronger than someone else, you don't hurt them, abuse them, or kill them - especially when you're stronger."
"He was trying to kill me."
"And that was wrong. I agree. But just because he did something wrong doesn't mean you should have killed him."
"So, just because I killed Nathan doesn't make it right for you to kill me, is that it?"
"Right."
Once again, Sylar was taken aback. "You actually believe that!"
Peter huffed and walked off, heading towards the blinking lights of the carnival. I never said me wanting to kill you was right. I said it was understandable. Perhaps telepathy was, in a weird sort of way, the perfect ability for Sylar to get. People were self-absorbed; they actually did believe the things they said; and even so, they weren't a bunch of sociopaths out to get each other. If reading minds was the only way for Sylar to be convinced of that, then fine. Let him read minds. But that was still no justification for killing Matt Parkman.
Sylar trotted after him, shaking his head. "Fine. Like I said, I won't kill anyone!"
"Good."
The night went better than Peter had expected. Sylar didn't actually kill anyone. Peter was thankful that he didn't kill anyone, either. It's a sorry state of affairs when not killing other people is the bar by which you judge an evening, Peter thought sourly, watching as Claire stood up after her swan dive and faced the approaching cameras. Sylar had been saying something profound about how good it felt not to have killed anyone. Peter felt supremely unimpressed about that, but he supposed it was an improvement.
"Well," Peter said, "it's over now." He felt angry. He'd been angry for a long time now, but this was bringing it to the surface. Nathan had tried what Claire had just done - to expose the world to specials, to make their presence known. He'd tried it not just once, but twice, and paid for it both times. The world did not tend to respond well to this revelation - as Coyote Sands and Homeland Security could attest. What made Claire think her way would work when all the others had not? Peter snorted and turned away. She hadn't asked his opinion and it was her life to live, but he still had a strong feeling that she'd be the next to need saving.
Sylar fell in behind him, quiet.
"Where do you think you're going?" Peter shot over his shoulder.
"To the last place I slept while in New York."
Peter kept walking, thinking that through. "That was … my apartment. When you were Nathan. Right?" It was possible he'd slept somewhere else in the city after Nathan fell from Mercy Hospital, but if so, Sylar wouldn't have referenced it like Peter would know where he meant.
Sylar made a noncommittal sound.
"Are you … Seriously, you're going to come sleep in my apartment?" Peter glanced back at him. The arrogance! "I didn't even invite you!"
Sylar plodded along behind him anyway. He wouldn't be the one to leave this - whatever it was, between them.
Peter looked forward again, thinking this over. He had the feeling that if he stood up to Sylar and told him to shove off, Sylar would go. He'd leave, and … go somewhere else, where he'd be alone with all his secrets and regrets. Maybe he'd be a menace. That he was coming to Peter's apartment argued either he intended to kill Peter tonight for his ability, or maybe, sadly, he didn't have anywhere else to go. Peter looked back at him again, giving Sylar a nasty look as he considered that first option - the one where Peter didn't wake up in the morning and someone else had to clean up his dead body like they just had for Matt.
"I don't want your ability, Peter," Sylar said quietly.
"Why not?"
"It's not useful to me."
Peter didn't believe that for a moment, despite the truth of the lie. "You have a lot of abilities. Was Ted's ability useful to you? Were you planning on blowing up New York and were just mad I almost beat you to it?"
Sylar made a dry chuckle from where he still walked behind. "No."
"Why don't you want my ability, Sylar?"
Sylar sighed and increased his pace so he was walking alongside Peter instead of trailing him. "Taking your ability would involve killing you and I ..." He didn't go on.
"Say it."
"I don't want to kill you, Peter."
The way Sylar delivered it sounded more like he'd have to kill Peter if he revealed the answer, but it was the answer itself. Peter still wasn't satisfied. He wasn't in the best of moods. The resolution with the carnival had been anticlimactic. It felt unfinished - Samuel was in the custody of the Company, who couldn't be trusted further than Peter could throw them; the carnies had no leader, they'd just been exposed and most likely their way of life was destroyed, along with probably their homes and business; Claire had made things dangerous for everyone, special or not; and here was Sylar, following him home and having not said he wouldn't kill him, just that he didn't want to. It wasn't very comforting.
"Okay. I won't kill you."
"Not tonight, not ever?"
Sylar swallowed and looked uneasy, but he repeated, "Not tonight. Not ever."
Peter eyed him for a moment, but he believed him. It occurred to him he could swap for telepathy now. It would certainly be more useful than terrakinesis. But he liked Sylar knowing that he was going to trust him based on his word alone. It put the burden on Sylar not to change his mind, not to betray that trust. Of course, if he did, Peter would be dead and not around to do anything about it, but Peter didn't value his life very much.
Sylar stared at him as they walked, finally forced to look away to avoid running into a light pole. "You … your life … is very valuable, Peter."
"To whom?"
"Your mother, at least."
"She tried to have me blow up New York. She had my memories wiped and locked me in a container bound for Ireland. I think she might have been complicit in dealing with a future version of me who tried to kill Nathan and stuck me inside some other guy's body. She sent me to kill my dad when I didn't have any powers - an even stupider idea than me going after you today. I'm expendable, Sylar. No one needs me. Nathan was always more important anyway. Now that he's gone ..." Peter shook his head.
"Your life was valuable to him!"
"Yeah. And he's dead." Peter shot back. There was way too much emotion in what Sylar had said. "Why do you care?" He assumed this was just some leftover emotions from Nathan. He wasn't sure if it was disgusting or heart-warming that that might be why Sylar hadn't killed him where he stood when he entered Matt Parkman's house.
Sylar grabbed him by the collar and shoved him bodily against the brick wall of the building they were walking alongside. "Peter, don't doubt your faith. You save lives. You just, tonight, saved thousands! Every fucking day you make a difference to people. I've seen you. I know what you do. You help. I think you're the connection. You're the one I was being led to."
"Fuck you, Sylar!" His life and his feelings weren't any of Sylar's concern. If Sylar cared so much about them, then why had he killed Nathan? Or Matt? Or any of them? The man laid waste to everything he touched - just like Peter did. He batted Sylar's hand away and twisted free, only to get grabbed again and slammed back - this time with enough force that he was sure Sylar was augmenting with telekinesis. That's not fair!
"Peter, if your life is so worthless when you do so much for people, then what does that make mine?"
Peter blinked. Well, that was kind of why … I mean … He swallowed. It wasn't right to kill someone, even Sylar. I was trying to save Nathan, he thought stubbornly, about his attempted murder of Sylar at Mercy. He squirmed, but it wasn't an organized attempt to free himself. So we're both fucked. "Fine. Come back to my apartment, then. It doesn't matter what you might do to me." He shoved Sylar off, turning and stalking down the street. Sylar followed.
Peter's apartment wasn't exactly flush with beds. He had one. No couch. No futon. No foam pad. Just one double bed. Various raids by the government and unexpected periods of absence (including concomitant failure to pay rent) had resulted in him losing nearly everything he owned a couple times over. All he had left was what they couldn't take. He'd replaced the bare necessities and that hadn't included optional sleeping arrangements for possible guests. He ignored Sylar, who padded around the apartment restlessly like a tiger unhappy about the limits of his cage. Peter stripped off his clothes and put on pajama bottoms, climbing into bed after a very long day that had been preceded by more nights of broken sleep than he cared to think about. He was still angry. He was still grieving his brother. He was worried sick about the future. He was trying not to give a damn about the deranged serial killer who had decided to take up residence in the only place Peter could call home, even if it wasn't much of one. Against it all, he clamped his eyes shut and tried to sleep.
After a while, he heard the rustle of clothing in the room. He felt the dip of the mattress. He didn't know what was about to happen and he didn't care - or rather, he did and he did, but he was trying to bury both as deep as possible in his subconscious. He didn't know if he wanted what was about to happen, but it was going to happen and he wasn't going to stop it. In a weird way, it was a culmination of all the fights and struggles they'd had. It was the resolution and climax the night needed. He felt Sylar's fingers brush lightly along his bare ribs and Peter shuddered in anticipation. He was so tired, though.
"Take regeneration," Sylar whispered, leaning forward to trail soft, wet kisses along his spine. Peter's back arched in pleasure. He reached for the ability, feeling blind in the doing because he wasn't using his hand to channel it as he always had before. But the ability came to him anyway, transferring through Sylar's lips against his skin. The regeneration didn't do anything about his emotions, but it cleared away much of his exhaustion and the fact that he hadn't eaten since the day before. "Let me take care of you," Sylar murmured into his hair, having moved up his back to his head. One hand was still stroking Peter's side, roaming up almost to the level of his nipple, then downward to the waistband of his pajama bottoms. The other hand, Sylar shifted his weight and brought it into play with Peter's hair. Peter sighed out a whimper as Sylar's teeth nibbled at his neck.
Fuck this tentative stuff. You're going to do it anyway. Peter pulled down his pants, kicking them off. Then he reached over the side of the bed, grasping around in the darkness. He found the bottle of hand lotion and passed it back without explanation. He heard the bottle exhale noisily, spuming its contents into Sylar's palm. Peter raised the knee and lifted his uppermost leg. Oh yes, telepathy was incredibly convenient, but Sylar would have figured it out anyway. Cold creaminess was smoothed across his crack, slick, lotioned fingers probing and exploring.
Faster! Peter thought. He didn't want to start thinking about what he was doing, what he was allowing. If he thought about it, he might have to try to stop it. Sylar rumbled something displeased, but moved into place anyway to spoon behind Peter, his endowments, whatever they might be, generous enough to allow the position. It took a little jockeying and Peter wasn't entirely ready for the rough penetration, but he welcomed the discomfort. He didn't want it to be perfect. He wanted it messy and painful like all the rest of their interactions. With that thought, Sylar changed from the slow nudges to give him a hard thrust.
"Yeah!" Peter barked out, immediately ashamed that he'd made an actual verbalization of assent.
Sylar twisted his lowermost arm to reach under Peter's neck, wrapping it around his throat. "If that's how you feel, then I won't let you speak again." A moment later, quite unrelated to the hand across him, he felt his throat seize just like it had at Kirby Plaza. Peter's hands, which to this point had been largely unoccupied, flew to the one at his throat, clinging to it. He couldn't breathe. Sylar's thrusts were coming fast and hard now, his other hand holding Peter's hip to give him leverage. "Jerk yourself off, Peter," he directed. Peter made a strangled, choking noise. Sylar let him breathe for one, two, three gasps before cutting the air off again. "Jerk yourself off or I won't let you breathe."
One of Peter's hands left his throat, taking himself in his grip and tugging with quick, short motions. The pressure on his windpipe eased, but Sylar's hand over his throat tightened, fingers digging in as he rode Peter even harder. This wasn't going to take long for either of them. Peter could feel his peak rising fast, his head fuzzing out on the limited oxygen he was getting. He shuddered again, feeling the whole world contract and all his worries and cares fall away. There was nothing left but the physical - the cock ramming into him, his hand shaking up and down on his dick, Sylar's hands claiming him possessively. It all came together at once. He felt Sylar shove into him harder and then the man's hips stuttered. Sylar's gasping breaths were loud in Peter's ears. He thought he could feel the throbbing of Sylar's cock as it emptied itself inside of him. That thought - Sylar had fucked him to completion, had come inside him - drove him over the edge. He came, spurting.
The hand at his throat loosened. Peter felt Sylar's forehead come forward to rest against his shoulder. Peter sagged, the euphoria making him boneless and happy. Nothing else mattered right now. Not even Sylar fucking him in the ass, which was something he was pretty sure he would pay for later somehow. If no one else flogged him for it, he'd do the honor himself. Sylar withdrew from him wet and limp, reaching down between them to rub between Peter's legs, fingers caressing asshole and taint and balls as if to rub in the remaining lotion. Or maybe just to say, 'This is mine.'
Peter smiled faintly as the touching sent aftershocks crashing through him. Okay, maybe he wouldn't flog himself too badly. Not as long as Sylar never mentioned it. A small kiss on his shoulder was his answer before Sylar pulled away, turning to face the other direction. Sleep, deep, restful, and unbroken, pulled him under.
Sylar took him again in the morning, before it was even light outside. This time, Peter didn't think he'd done anything to ask for it, even mentally, but it wasn't like Sylar didn't have his own will in the matter. With his abilities, he could take whatever he wanted. That's not to say Peter was or wasn't consenting. He positioned himself, took it, and sighed as Sylar padded off to the shower afterward. Peter finished himself alone in the bed, then waited for Sylar to exit the shower before taking his own turn.
He was pulling on his pants after finishing in the bathroom, chest and feet still bare, when he realized Sylar was in the process of leaving. With a yelp, Peter hurried into the living room. "No! Hey!"
Sylar hesitated, the dark blue front door open as he gave Peter a wary, questioning look. Peter grabbed him at the elbow of his black woolen jacket, taking a power fast and at random.
"No, wait," Peter muttered as he realized which one he'd gained, "Maybe flight's not a good choice. What else do you have?" He reached for Sylar's arm again, but Sylar dodged back with a grimace. The door swung mostly closed. "Come here," Peter said irritably, grabbing at him and for a moment the two flailed at one another - Peter trying to get a hold and Sylar trying not to be held, and interestingly to Peter's mind, not fighting back. Then Peter's hand made contact for a moment - maybe it was long enough, he felt a tingle - and Sylar used telekinesis to throw him back against the door. Peter's weight against it caused it to slam shut the last few inches it had to travel, and rattled him against it. He'd bitten the end of his tongue and hit the back of his head, but neither were all that critical or intentional. His senses felt … heightened … and all the input was stunning.
It took him a few seconds to orient on Sylar, who was busy lecturing him about personal conduct, which was rich. Sylar was telling him indignantly, "You do not get to rifle through my abilities like I'm your own personal card catalogue, Petrelli! I worked hard for those abilities. I risked my life for them - murdered people! I bled and died for some of them! You don't get to take them at will like you're checking a book out of the library!"
Peter lifted his head. Things were different inside his brain now. He could feel that as the fuzziness receded. He focused his new power. He'd had this one before and the potential for abuse with it was something he'd spent a lot of time thinking about. "You can't tell me what to do."
Sylar looked confused and then surprised as he tried to speak ... and failed.
"Let me go."
Peter was lowered a second later as Sylar continued to struggle with himself. All Sylar managed to get out was, "Stop-" before his own vocal cords rebelled against him and closed up, refusing to allow him to finish with whatever he was going to say. Peter grinned. He knew he shouldn't. He knew this wasn't the time for it, but the expression of horror and alarm on Sylar's face was just fucking priceless. He couldn't hear the jangled, angry thoughts swarming inside Sylar's head, but he could imagine them. Sylar thought he was so invincible with all his powers, but Peter had bested him repeatedly despite it.
Perhaps this was a bad time to stand around gloating. Sylar seemed to have realized something; his head snapped up and he glared daggers at Peter. "Don't-" was all Peter got out before a telekinetic blast sent him hurdling out of his living room and into the bedroom, skidding on the floor to catch up against the far wall. By the time Peter got to his feet, Sylar had left.