Bricks in the Wall, Chapter 67: The Fourth Stage
Title: The Fourth Stage
Characters: Sylar, Peter
Words: 1800
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: The occasional f-word
Setting: The Wall
Summary: Sylar finds Peter in a depressed fugue over Nathan's passing. He doesn't know what to do to help, but he tries.
Note: The Fourth Stage of the Kubler-Ross model of Grieving is depression.
Sylar rode the elevator to the ground floor, exiting and heading for the door. Something he caught out of the corner of his eye arrested his progress. He stopped and looked again. Peter was in the recreation room already. That was a first - usually Peter was out roaming around and Sylar had to find him. But that wasn't the only novel thing. Sylar's companion was crouched on the overstuffed leather sofa, huddled into the corner of it. He held a baseball in his left hand. Leaning against the arm of the sofa was a baseball bat. He glared at Sylar with the most intense hate Sylar had ever seen, which was saying a lot.
Sylar walked to the doorway with slow, measured steps. If it weren't for the ball in Peter's hand, he'd have thought the man was lurking down here with the bat, waiting to assault him. Peter made no move to get up, so maybe he was safe. Marginally.
Peter was still glaring death at him. He growled, "Go somewhere else, Sylar."
Sylar cocked his head. Obviously, Peter wanted to be alone. But as far as that went, he probably didn't want to be here at all. Neither did Sylar, really. People didn't get what they wanted very often. Sylar saw no advantage in granting Peter's wish. "I live here," he answered, casually leaning against the doorframe to signal how unthreatened he was.
"Go find something to do somewhere else." Peter's teeth were bared.
"Hm." Sylar leaned his head against the frame, too, and blinked innocently at Peter. If he provoked the man enough, would he really take up that bat and use it? What was putting him in such a bad mood? "Did you have a bad dream? I've told you that you can sleep with me."
Peter's shoulders gave a shudder. "Go." His eyes seemed to go unfocused a moment later.
Sylar waited until Peter's hand moved to the bat. Instead of leaving, he walked brazenly into the room, over to the upright piano. The only activity of interest he had planned today was dogging Peter's heels and seeing what the other man was up to. Peter was usually busy with various projects that were pointless in Sylar's eyes but meaningful to Peter. In either case, the activity was a relief to Sylar. Peter was interesting, if frustrating and annoying at times (even if those were most of the time, it was still better than being bored). This moodiness was new. That Peter would leave his apartment and come over here to be moody and incalcitrant in public was … well, based on Nathan's memories, Sylar knew that was Peter. He wanted to be seen, even if he wouldn't admit it. Sylar raised the lid on the piano, peering inside at the wires and felt-covered hammers.
"What the fuck are you doing?" Peter snapped. His tone was still nasty, but his voice no louder.
Sylar knew that was not good. He suspected Peter was still holding the bat, but at least he'd moved back to full sentences and engaging. Without looking back (but listening attentively in case Peter rose), he answered, "It's out of tune. I thought I might take a look at it."
"Get … out of here. Something else."
Incomplete sentences now. That was even more dangerous than the earlier zoning out. Sylar let his eyes slide back to Peter. He couldn't see it, but he suspected the man was shaking. As amusing as it was to push the envelope of Peter's self-control, he didn't know enough about what had set Peter off to get much joy out of it. He wasn't even sure it involved him. He exhaled and replaced the lid of the piano before leaving the room entirely.
He didn't stay gone for long, returning from a trip upstairs with a book of baseball statistics and history. Peter had gone back to being vacant-eyed and fondling the baseball. He looked alarmed and angry as Sylar waltzed right over to the couch and sat himself down on the other end. Sylar opened the book to a likely spot and began to read, giving no attention whatsoever to the seething eyes directed at him from only a few feet away.
"What are you doing?" Peter hissed.
"Something else - just like you said." He expected more of a fight than he got. After a few more minutes of staring (which should have been brief, but felt like a small eternity to Sylar), Peter flopped over to his side against the arm of the couch and did nothing. When Sylar's peripheral vision told him it was safe, he glanced over. Peter seemed to have withdrawn into his own little world. He was cuddling the baseball and staring into space.
Sylar sighed and flipped through the book to find the start of a chapter, rather than the random page he'd begun with. He wanted to complain that he was not equipped to handle Petrelli drama queens, but, well, honestly, he was probably better equipped than most. He could be very patient when necessary and he knew most of Peter's tricks. Among other things, he didn't think this was an attempt to manipulate him - at least not an intentional one. Peter was upset and he wanted to be upset in the company of others, but apparently not Sylar or else he wouldn't have tried to run him off. Peter's hindbrain probably hadn't clued that there was no one else other than Sylar to be upset near. If Sylar was not welcome, then the upset was probably because of something Sylar did. He hadn't done anything lately to trigger this sort of ... whatever it was Peter was doing. That left the issue of Nathan.
He kept reading. There wasn't much he could do about Nathan, much like he couldn't do anything about the other murders. On the one hand, he wanted to shrug his shoulders and move on - it had happened, it was over, why couldn't people accept the new reality without whoever-the-fuck in it? On the other hand, he had this void inside of him where his mother used to live, and his dreams of his father, his dreams of being a Petrelli or the even shorter-lived one of being linked to Claire (a pencil in the eye had shown him the error of those thoughts, though he'd gotten the hint thoroughly enough using Lydia's ability). He was empty, hollowed out, and made purposeless by those losses. Was that how Peter felt about Nathan?
As if on cue, Peter sniffled. Sylar's head jerked around sharply, aghast at this breach of appropriate behavior. There were tears wetting Peter's face, leaking down the side of his nose and around his nostrils, where Peter was currently wiping them off with his sleeve. Nasty, Sylar thought. And weak. All his parent's admonishments about crying welled up in Sylar's mind - it was childish, pointless, noisy, distracting, made them angry, they'd give him something to cry about, it didn't matter, he wouldn't get his way with tears, he was a sissy, he was a baby, he was pathetic and worthless and vile. He stared at Peter. Why was he crying so openly? Was he not ashamed of it? That seemed the very opposite of weakness. Either that, or Peter was so far gone he didn't care.
Disquieted, Sylar went back to his book. He had less of an idea of how to tend a crying Peter than one who was brimming with rage. A few minutes later, Peter shifted and nudged his feet against Sylar's thigh. He thought at first Peter was trying to urge him off the couch so he could stretch out, but that wasn't it. It was the contact alone Peter was seeking. He'd stopped weeping, at least. Peter pulled up the baseball bat (an event that caused Sylar no small degree of tension) and hugged it.
Sylar sighed and put his hand on Peter's sock-clad, top-most foot. If Peter was touching him, then Sylar got to touch back, right? Peter cuddled the stupid baseball gear and didn't object, so that seemed to be how things worked. Warmth slowly suffused his hand and the spots on his leg where Peter's feet were against him. It was nice. Then Peter made a noisy, hiccupping swallow. Sylar put the book down. He did not want Peter to start crying again, especially not if he was going to be loud about it this time. That would drive him from the room faster than any threat of physical pain.
"You can hit me," he offered.
Peter lifted his head to look over at him, groggy, with eyes red-rimmed and hair in disarray. Sylar wondered how his hair had become so messed up from simply lying there. "What?" Peter said after a moment.
"I said you can hit me," he repeated, "if it would make you feel better."
Peter snorted and let his head settle. "Why would that make me feel better?"
"Because you're angry at me."
"I'm grieving. I'm not angry," Peter said bleakly. Being self-aware didn't seem to be helping his mood.
"Fine. Then you're grieving, angry, and in denial. You can still hit me."
"With the bat?" Peter asked, still lying down and not looking at Sylar. He didn't sound hopeful so much as curious.
"Yes," Sylar answered calmly, knowing that being hit like that was probably a death sentence. Offering himself up to the relatives of those he'd killed was something he'd done more than once.
Peter was silent. Sylar had to wonder if he was thinking it over. Peter shifted the bat in his hands a few times and finally tossed it aside, out of reach. "I don't want to hit you with the bat," Peter said sullenly. He sniffed. "Why do you think that would help anything?"
"There was … someone else - Elle. I killed her father. She was … very angry about that." Sylar wrapped his hand around the top of Peter's foot, looking down at that continued contact. Peter was touching him, wanted to touch him, wanted to draw comfort from him no matter what Sylar had done. He remembered the brief but passionate relationship he'd had with Elle. It could have been so much better. He wondered if things could be better between himself and Peter, if they could ever get this Nathan thing out of the way. Peter lifted his head again to look at him, so he went on, "I … let her kill me. And … she got over it."
"She got over you killing her dad?" Peter said, voice blank.
"Yes."
"I'm not going to get over you killing Nathan."
Sylar nodded silently, still looking down at where he cupped Peter's foot. What if Peter didn't get past it any more than Sylar had over killing Virginia? He gave Peter's foot a squeeze and Peter pressed it against Sylar's thigh in response. Sylar smiled a little, fleeting and tiny and sincere. He wasn't sure he wanted Peter to get over it, anyway. Maybe it was time to accept that sometimes, people never let go of their loved ones.