More Between Us Chapter 38/? "Bizarro World"
Chapter 38/? "Bizarro World"
See puzzle here.
Day 11, Afternoon
“I’m going to go to the bathroom. I’ll be right back.” Peter pushed himself upright and weaved towards the little room uncertainly.
XXX
Sylar’s elation at being the best thing someone had, in a mutually positive way, in an otherwise rough day wasn’t lengthy. He didn’t think he’d have any better luck wrapping his head around whatever scenario while at full mental strength. But when was the last time he’d been a highlight in someone’s day like that? Probably never. It was completely novel even if his present self wasn’t responsible. “Oh,” he said, not knowing what else to say yet feeling the need to respond. Peter started to coil up. Maybe I screwed it up then? The guy didn’t look good and Sylar leaned back a little in case Peter leapt at him or something, but Peter excused himself. Sylar just blinked and watched him mournfully because something wasn’t right and, since it was a person, he didn’t know how to fix him, Peter. He replied quietly, hoping he wasn’t intruding on Peter’s thoughts too much, “Okay.”
Pouting, partly for or because of Peter and partly for the loss of company, being self-centered as he was, he slowly focused himself on the puzzle. He held a vaguely gray piece and he found that unhelpful. The majority of the puzzle was a rainy gray, including the buildings and street. He tried to think, he did, but very little came to him. What makes a day bad for Peter Petrelli? Losing Nathan or finding his body wasn’t the worst day ever? He frowned. No, he said…top five, so it still probably is. Damnit. He sighed and went back to fiddling. Sylar couldn’t tell Peter to quit with the moody, but he sure thought it because he did not want to go back to being on-guard. This talking business was much nicer.
XXX
Peter gently shut the bathroom door behind him and sat on the toilet, forgetting to put down the seat. It felt awkward to sag into it in the middle, but at the moment he had other things on his mind. Getting a grip on himself, primarily. He appreciated Sylar leaving him alone. All he needed was a few minutes of quiet to clear his mind, stuff the bad memories back into the archives and re-establish the ‘Do Not Retrieve’ sign over them. He put his face in his hands, finding spots that weren’t sore and rubbing them lightly.
There was a lot of his past that he spent a great deal of mental effort on not remembering, not integrating, keeping it separate and not a part of who he was. Sometimes things were so big that he couldn’t avoid them, but a lot of the traumatic events that had happened to him were neatly compartmentalizable. Most, in fact. The very nature of being special had restricted the circle of who he might talk to about these things, so that it was easy to get along at work without ever speaking of the things that were important. Instead, they could talk about Donald Trump’s hair or the latest Saturday Night Live skit.
He pulled himself back to his feet, turned and put up the toilet rim, using the appliance for its purpose. He put the rim down after and washed his hands, then his face. What’s it gotta be like for Sylar? How does he sort things out? He’s got to have more crap than I do to deal with, and from the sound of it, he’s had even less opportunity to discuss it with anyone. He realized that he was, oddly, in a reverse situation from normal. His main, shared frame of reference with Sylar was the very subject matter he usually tried so hard not to disclose. Peter sighed and got out a fresh hand towel, wiping his face carefully. He looked at himself in the mirror, then picked up Sylar’s comb to bat loosely at his bangs. He looked at the comb blankly. Maybe I should talk about this with him? It’s the main thing we’ve got in common.
Peter gave a mental and physical shrug, then opened the door, exiting, comb still in hand. “Hey, Sylar. Comb your hair, would you?” He offered the comb, looking over the guy’s hair, wondering if he should offer to do it. He let Sylar take a stab at it first and looked instead to the various puzzle pieces, asking quietly, “Do you mind me talking about … what happened in the future? Some of it wasn’t good. I don’t know if you’d want to hear it. And I’m serious about that.” He walked around to his chair, glancing at Sylar again. “There’s other things we could talk about, like Giulani’s political chances or your favorite comedy routine.” These were things Peter was more practiced in discussing - meaningless social niceties - and ones where he was unlikely to hit landmines, both for himself or for Sylar.
XXX
So the guy had to pee, Sylar distantly noted. He wondered which Peter he’d be dealing with when the man emerged. Leave it to Peter to be unexpected - on exiting he slapped a comb into Sylar’s instinctively outstretched hand, the other going up to touch his hair in surprise. What’s wrong with my- oh, geez. That was embarrassing. He had no idea how bad it looked; yet Peter hadn’t laughed so it must not have looked too clownish. Fighting the desire to throw the comb into a wall across the room from being commanded to groom or from the implication that he looked bad and needed ‘fixing’, his hair was still a mess. Sylar used first the wide, thick end of the comb; working out the slept-in tangles took him a moment and some interesting facial expressions. Then he switched to the fine-tooth side and swept his hair back. Without water or gel it wouldn’t stay long. No wonder he’s relaxed, you look like a fool. He can’t take you seriously. Giving you sandwiches…playing with a puzzle, crap crap crap. His loss of decorum was probably aiding the current friendly-ish aspects of the situation; his pride stung a little regardless. Peter again did himself a favor and didn’t rub it in and he’d sounded normal enough.
Peter actually watched him comb a little and that made him feel a little tingly. Sylar slowed down the actions, dragging them out for show just because. It didn’t hold Peter’s attention forever, but it was enough. And entertaining.
Peter spoke as he finished and Sylar looked up at him, setting the comb aside. He gave a small chuckle about Guilani’s odds - it was so irrelevant. Sobering, he thought about if he minded talk of the future. Answering slowly, he intoned, “I don’t mind it if the universe won’t unravel. And if you’re not from the future.” His look was serious as he stared Petrelli down. “I think you’d be a lot more bitter and I’d be in a lot more pain if you were, but…I won’t rule it out.” My life really is that weird. I don’t know what I’ll do if you are from the future.
Sylar’s gaze lost focus, eyeing the tabletop as he considered his answer carefully. “And provided that future isn’t….possible anymore?” He really refused to be one of those idiots that demanded to know about his future. Inevitably, as Peter said, if it was bad, he’d try to change it thereby screwing it up. The trick with the future was just not to know. He tried not to pity Angela, the pitiless, merciless Medusa, but her ability, much like his own, came with the fine print in invisible ink about insanity side-effects. “The future’s never good, Peter,” he stated simply, looking back up at the man with dead certainty, trying to break bad news and challenge at the same time. /”You die alone. No one will mourn your death.”/ I mean…has he looked around lately?
Provided all those things are answered for…”I don’t mind talking about it, no.” Whatever happened…happens? to me…it isn’t me. Its nice he’s actually offering. I usually have to pin people with my mind and threaten to get this kind of face time.
XXX
Peter considered Sylar’s points. He couldn’t see how discussing something that had actually happened to him would be a problem. The information is in my head. How is speaking it out loud gonna make a difference? “That future isn’t possible anymore.” Nathan’s dead, for one thing. He frowned and herded his thoughts away from that. “The universe isn’t going to unravel if I tell you. And I’m not from the future. If anything, I’m from the past, relative to you. For you it’s been three years. For me, a few days.” Peter knew how he got here, but hey, time travel made as much sense as anything else and Sylar had already rejected the truth. “Let me think about what I’m going to say. Gimme a minute.”
XXX
Sylar simply nodded, partly amusing himself with the puzzle (what little he cared to do of it right now).
XXX
He pushed around a few puzzle pieces randomly as he reviewed the events of that day again, this time without such a strong emotional reaction. He reached up and rubbed slowly at his forehead with his left hand. He put it down and started with, “Okay. The part with you in it. To explain what I was doing there, I have to start earlier than that.” He sighed, looking at Sylar for a moment before looking down and going on. “A future version of myself … came and got me, then teleported both of us into the future. His time. Lots and lots of people had abilities. I was in New York, and it looked like everyone had them. He said the world was going to explode and showed me a mural of it. I don’t know if he painted it, or someone else who could see the future, but there it was. He said he’d been trying to figure out what to change in the past to prevent it, but he couldn’t understand all the factors. He said I needed to find you … the future version of you, and get your ability, so I’d know what to change.”
This was where Peter lifted his head and paid careful attention to Sylar as he spoke. “Then …” Peter shrugged. “I told you it was Bizarro world? Yeah. Claire showed up, shot him right in front of me - probably fatally. Then she turned on me. I ran. Our powers were jacked by the Haitian, but she missed me. Once I got a little away, I teleported to where you were. You were … in the Bennet house. With, uh, the Bennet’s dog. And with a little boy, three or four years old, who called you Daddy, and called me Uncle Peter.”
Peter paused to let Sylar digest that most unlikely of news. Everything he’d said had been delivered fairly slowly, as he was trying to feel his way around what he wanted to say, as he said it.
XXX
Um…whoa. That was all he had to think about that clusterfuck. Sylar watched Peter steadily, tilting his head slightly, blinking, raising his eyebrows and frowning in reaction to the shocking details. He pictured the events in his head, helping him get through it, but Peter’s speed was manageable. Then he went back and linearly thought things out. He felt a pinprick of something that he’d almost aided Arthur in creating that future. Nathan, well…Peter had been right all along. Somehow, that didn’t really surprise Sylar. He frowned at the part of Peter, any Peter, needing his ability. If Sylar was stuck in that world where he was no longer special…how was Peter going to do any better, ability or no? Clearly, Sylar had dropped the ball somewhere. I’m the perfect example of…power, I guess. He wanted to pursue that thought but the damn concussion was inhibiting - the thoughts weren’t important per se, merely self-reflective, but that was still annoying. What about Hiro? He must have been…an enemy, Peter said. So that left me?
Then things got a little harder to process. Claire shot him, she shot Peter. I mean, I told her she was like Daddy Number One, but that’s taking things too far. Why the hell would Claire, who loves Peter, shoot h- But that scary-ass future Peter shot Nathan. That makes more sense. Peter was giving him the space and time to think this through. Sylar scratched a fingernail at the cardboard side edge of a puzzle piece as he did. Peter is hard to follow sometimes. What else had Peter said? There were some serious details that were….preposterous, truly almost unthinkable. He wanted to call Peter a liar, he did, but Peter was a better liar than this and he could come up with a lot better material - the really, really ugly kind - when the inspiration struck.
The Bennet’s house? Were they there? It is a nice house…I mean…why would I-? With their goddamn dog? I hate that yappy rodent! He quit trying for linear and rearranged priorities from least emotional first, the proverbial bomb last. Assuming of course that he has a kid, some way, some how: Uncle Peter. It might have been Nathan’s kid and I thought I was still a Petrelli? That made his head hurt. Unless I…married a Petrelli and there aren’t that many females. (Dear God, I hope it wasn’t Angela…but that would make the kid Peter’s…well, not his nephew. Thank God). Or maybe its an….what’s the- honorary title, yeah. But even so, that’s a stretch. That would require Peter and I to be somewhat friendly. Maybe he babysits?
But the real kicker was ‘Daddy.’ The assumption was obvious, the truth…it was safe to say Peter hadn’t dug for it. In their ‘specialty’, Daddy didn’t always mean biological or even legal parenthood. Hell, parenthood was a loose term, barely defining the reproductive sperm-giving process. Of course this was the first thing he wanted to address, blurting out, “A kid?” Not just a life. A real live kid? Sylar leaned back, frowning deeply at Peter. The thought made his heart beat faster and ache at the same time. He’d thought for years he was infertile. Like Bennet said, he’d screwed up his own DNA. Surely shapeshifting had been the final nail in that tiny coffin. How on earth did the kid survive all that time? I must have been a Petrelli, had some kind of…protection or deal in place. I wonder if that was before or after the kid. “I had a kid?” Are you sure? Mom’s dead, I don’t need kids, I can’t have them - it must have been an accident. Unless someone stole my sperm. Was it a clone or something? Given his and Samson’s ability, it surprised him the power would allow for that kind of…competition a child with potential abilities represented - or perhaps the infant was prey being groomed. Sylar knew his own conception had to have been an accident. Or maybe one of those tricks to keep his mother quiet and unaware while Samson hunted. He ignored the shiver in his spine, putting aside those ideas.
It called me Daddy? He tried to picture what three or four years old even looked like and failed pretty miserably in ways that had nothing to do with his injuries. He didn’t really know what children looked like at any given age; he didn’t see many children except on television. Hell, he’d never even held a baby before. (Was I a good father?) None of that mattered. Peter said that future was gone. And it wasn’t the end of it; Peter had implied that the story didn’t end well.
XXX
“Yeah,” Peter said quietly, looking him over to see how he was handling the outpouring of information. “You had a little boy.” Sylar seemed to be doing okay, but moving very slowly on indicating when he was ready for the next sentence.
XXX
Sylar inhaled and let it out slowly. “Go on.”
XXX
Peter nodded in acknowledgement, but didn’t speak right away. He moved around the edge pieces, sorting them roughly by color, and tried to fit a few more together. He found two pairs that linked up in the pool, but wasn’t sure where they went. He referenced the box and put them along the sides where he thought they belonged. “You know, I’ve never told this to anyone. At all.” He glanced up at Sylar for a brief, still moment. “Never had anyone to tell it to.” He smiled a little and went back to segregating puzzle bits for a while.
“Kid’s name was Noah. I don’t know what that means, really. I spent most of that day in shock, running from one thing or another - too many things I didn’t understand hitting me all at once.”
XXX
Sylar gazed back at Peter, serious and astounded. Never? Not even your family? But why tell me, why tell me now? Maybe its not…important since its not a possible future anymore, but its sure interesting. I know something Nathan doesn’t? That was a serious boost, being told something new (from Peter’s standpoint) without having to demand or threaten or blackmail it out. Information was power and Sylar wanted both, as such, information didn’t flow on tap around him like it did for the other specials. The closest he’d ever gotten was with Mohinder and as a Petrelli twice. This was like being treated as an equal, as someone on the same level of Peter. It was like being one of the hero gang almost (never mind that Peter had no one else to talk to). Sylar couldn’t help but feel a little touched by the trust and honor and vote of confidence in his intelligence and capabilities to have this shared with him. And that someone, a hero, would tell him something about Sylar himself? When had that ever happened? Secrets were power and the more everyone knew about Sylar that he didn’t know himself was another playing card against him. But now, it was almost like being told a secret in confidence. He couldn’t help but feel a little bit special. Of course he wanted to live up to that trust.
Okay, now Peter was just pulling his leg. No son of mine would be named Noah, that’s for sure. Pulling names out of hats, gimme a break. Bennet’s house, Bennet’s dog, probably Bennet’s kid. Like Noah Jr.? Strangely, that the kid might not be his was…equal parts relief and longing, which was just really confusing and stupid of him.
XXX
Peter glanced up a few times, but otherwise kept to his work, letting Sylar think and process - letting himself think and process. He’d certainly brooded over the incident since it had happened, but he hadn’t done it much and it was different to mull it over in front of someone, imagining what sense Sylar might make of it.
“You … the future version of you, pegged me as being from the past almost right away. You left Noah with his breakfast and we went in another room to talk. You told me we were brothers, which was the first I knew of it. Or rather, you said you were sorry I’d come so far to find that out.” Peter’s lips pursed. He’d troubled himself over that line in particular, because it didn’t make sense. Why did Sylar, so sharp on so many other issues, believe they were brothers in that future? Was Sylar adopted … somehow? Why did he think that Peter didn’t already know this? Had he instantly understood the exact moment from the past Peter was from? Because a day or two, or a week ahead of when he’d left and Peter would have known. And why did he think the reason Peter had come to see him was to discover that? Wouldn’t it be easier to find that out in his own time, if he just found a phone and called the right person? Also, Sylar had been so certain that future-Peter hadn’t told him, which was a huge assumption to make. Unless he’d been clued in to Peter’s impending visit … but he’d seemed surprised … This was a puzzle Peter didn’t have all the pieces to.
“I’ve begun to wonder if that wasn’t just a different timeline, but maybe an entirely different dimension. Like I said: Bizarro world.” His brows drew together, unsettled by what that meant. There were too many ramifications for him to wrap his mind around. “Maybe there were things that were true there that just weren’t true here? I could have picked up the ability to cross to another reality from that other version of me …” He grimaced and shook his head. He’d like to think he would have known which ability he was using to teleport back to his own time and place, and that dimension-hopping would be noticeably different, but he used a lot of powers reflexively and some entirely unconsciously, so who knew?
He sighed and reiterated the part of the story he’d given earlier, so Sylar knew where it fit. “I told the future-you why I was there - I’d been told to get your ability. You warned me about it and refused. I had you draw the future. You did and agreed to show me how to use your power. You gave me your watch,” Peter gestured at the one on Sylar’s wrist, which indeed looked like the same one. “It was brok … broken.” Peter’s voice caught as he realized something, putting together words from then and much more recent. He tilted his head somewhat, looking past Sylar at the apartment door and the bloody handprint. “Funny - you told me then that you kept it for the same reason you told me, here, that you have that handprint on the door. But the you here couldn’t have known …” He smiled a little, looking back to Sylar. “Well, I suppose you’re both the same person, essentially. You said it was a scar - a reminder. And you had me fix the watch.”
XXX
I made it- him breakfast? The kid? Thoughts of dimensions had him stumped. Sadly he was nowhere near up to task when it came to dissecting the difference between the linear future and a dimension, but that was kind of a new thought to the power of teleportation. ‘You’re both the same person, essentially’. He’d blinked because those kinds of…echoing words from the mouth of some domesticated future self was weird in anyone’s book. Yeah, but the future Peters he’d seen weren’t exactly cut from the same cloth. The only times Sylar had seen his future…well, it hadn’t gone three or four years out, although there was that one time where he painted Nathan in his office. That had been weird, too. Sylar had painted the nuclear guy and assumed he was the bomb. (He gladly ignored the part about using his mother’s blood to recreate the explosion on her floor - that was traumatic enough). Then he painted himself opposite Peter at Kirby and that was the end of that ability.
Sylar waited until part two of the story concluded before chuckling about Peter explaining how he’d found out about the whole brotherhood thing, the first time around at least. “That explains you popping into my cell with a bone to pick all of a sudden. Well…extra bones.” (Stop saying bone…) He’d kind of wondered about that at the time. Convenient of Ma to show up, too. Funny of Peter to be talking about scars.
But hang on. “I gave you my watch?” Sylar motioned with the appropriate wrist. Broken or not, I’ve never let anyone touch it. Its connected to my ability? I can give it away? Oh, Samson, you fool! Sylar enjoyed an internal cackle about that, but it was cut short as he thought some more: I could have had abilities before 2006 if I’d only fixed the Sylar faster? Holy shit….That was mind-boggling. Chandra, you fucking asshole. Enjoy rotting in hell. “What’s more, you fixed it?” his tone was extremely dubious. Not that the watch couldn’t be fixed - obviously it could, the one he wore currently was in working condition - but surprised that Peter, untrained and really clueless had managed it. The kid was like a sponge, maybe it was fitting that he got the easy way out of everything. Stand next to me, tinker with a watch, ta-da! He has ultimate power. It’s not fair. That caused a spike of pure jealous, righteous anger in him on instinct. I don’t play well with the other little children. He felt better that his future self had resisted. And warned Peter. I wonder if we fought about it. Heaving a grouchy sigh, he eyed Peter as he crossed his arms, muttering warningly, “You’re lucky when you came back your mother thought she had me by the balls.” She so did.
XXX
“I …” Peter shook his head, not sure how to respond to that last statement, or to Sylar’s accompanying semi-threatening posture. I should have come back to some other time, like right before Kirby Plaza or before I thought Dad died or maybe some night while I was in college, studying human physiology. You know, like sometime when I could have changed something. Not so that I could … wait, did Sylar think I teleported from his house to the cell? Why would he … oh yeah, I haven’t finished the story.
“Yeah. Um, yeah. I held it in my hand, it came apart, you talked me through it and all of a sudden everything made sense.” Peter held his hands in a remembered approximation of how he’d done it before - left hand palm up like he was holding something, right hand poised over it as if manipulating, but a good foot or more between them. His brow furrowed. “Sort of made sense. Like I said, my thoughts got … weird.”
XXX
Well, did it make sense or didn’t it? Sylar thought. And there we go again with this ‘your ability makes my head feel weird’ business. That’s kind of insulting.
XXX
He sighed. Might as well get the bad part of the story over with. It was part of why Peter hadn’t dwelled much on Noah or Mr. Muggles during the story. He knew how this ended, so there was no point to trying to get Sylar emotionally invested in them. “Right after I got your ability, Claire, some blonde speedster woman, and Knox showed up. I don’t know how they tracked me. I don’t know how they got there so fast. We … you and I, that is, fought them.” You told me to leave, but I didn’t listen. “Noah was killed.” It was all my fault. “You …” Peter reached up with his left hand to scratch at his right temple. He touched at his injured eye briefly, checking to see if it was still, in fact, injured. Of course it is. I’m stalling.
XXX
Sylar gave a slow, solemn blink, tilting his head as he watched Peter. It was inevitable. The irony of losing his child to a victim who’s brother he’d taken wasn’t lost on him. Eye for an eye, as it were? Kid had to pay for ‘Daddy’s’ sins I’m sure. Still he knew that was beyond the pale - a four year old who was innocent except by genetics and tainted only by his father’s association was leagues different from a forty-three year old mobster politician who’d dug his own grave. Or his mother had dug it for him, either way. The point was, Nathan had lived his life and made his choices, the kid, ‘Noah’, hadn’t gotten the chance. Of course, the whole thing was probably an exercise of some sort - Ma taking evil to new levels.
XXX
“When you saw that, you got really angry.” Grief. He looked up at Sylar, taking in his expression and determined to get past this and get it all told. “I’d already dealt with the speedster and Claire was still trying to pull herself together. You took care of Knox. Then you blew up just like I did in the sky over Kirby Plaza, except … uh … you know, you were on the ground, in, like, a residential area. And about ten feet away from me.” The only good thing I can say about that is that it was fast. He looked down finally, shaking his head.
XXX
Sylar observed Peter, getting something of a kick out of taking the news (that he’d had a kid and said kid had been murdered) better than Peter expected. That type of thing was to be expected. Besides, the kid never existed and now, never would. So Peter shows up, takes my watch and my power, gets my kid killed and I explode. “So I really was ‘the bomb’ after all.” Obviously Peter healed so he wasn’t going to apologize for something as ridiculous as a future he had no part in.
“So after all that you decided to come back, kick my ass, rub my face in it and try to kill me? Because, four years in the future, I blow up the California? I think you should be thanking me - I stopped that future without your help.” I held your mom and Claire and Bennet and Meredith at Primatech and played twenty-goddamn-questions with Angela about my parents. Finding out I wasn’t a Petrelli was…difficult. No, well, yes, but surely that interrupted things. Hell, I stopped the group from waltzing over to Pinehearst if you want to look at it that way. Bennet and Elle were most useful in finding the right path.
Tapping the puzzle piece on the tabletop, he pondered the story as a whole. “Was that the future you…mentioned the other day? The one where you heard that other….name?” My first name. I hope to God you’ve only seen one future of mine.
XXX
“Yeah. Yeah, it was. You told me not to call you Sylar there, and you winced like the name … bothered you. You said to call you Gabriel.” He’d also heard that name in the memories he’d inadvertently stolen from Sylar - not that he’d used Rene’s power accidentally, but he hadn’t expected that side effect. And not that Peter was going trolling around in those memories, tempting as that was to aid in understanding his companion. The least he could do was to stay out of them. He supposed he was lucky that he was concussed enough not to remember his recent dreams. It was either that, or his subconscious was getting better about observing boundaries.
“I didn’t teleport from the explosion to your cell,” he said a little petulantly, despite how much he wished that were true. He shook his head and grumbled out, “The day just kept getting worse after that.” His mind struggled to compare the death of a child plus mass death and destruction to the very personal experience of Claire torturing him and then him losing his mind and killing Nathan. “At least, it sure didn’t get any better. I was not in the best frame of mind by the time I got to your cell.” Which is to say, I was crazy, or at least crazed. It’s not an excuse. Sort of sounds like an excuse - ‘I had a bad day, so I decided to kill you’. I think I was blaming him for me killing Nathan. He sighed. Almost added Ma to the death toll. How many people did I get killed that day? Few hundred thousand? The sucky thing is that it isn’t shit compared to the ones I got killed in that other future.
Very quietly he added, “Thanks for knocking me out, there.” Lucky my mother had you by the balls, like you said. It was a disturbing image when taken literally, but there was little he would put beyond his mother these days. Peter went back to work on the puzzle, head down enough to hide most of his face as he turned his attention away from his companion. He carefully blanked his mind, going through the usual, well-practiced mental routine he used to avoid thinking about something he didn’t want to think about. He hunched inwards, head pulling in and shoulders up. His arms drew in a bit closer to his sides. He might not be thinking it consciously, but there were a lot of deaths Peter counted himself responsible for.
XXX
Both brows went up in shock. “I’m sorry, was that a ‘thank you’? Is that allowed?” That was a first. It took the guy how many years to say it? Contrary to popular belief, Sylar had saved some lives in his time, including Peter’s more than a few instances. And that wasn’t counting the people he hadn’t killed, chose not to kill or couldn’t kill, the people who’d been spared for whatever reason. Not Claire, Angela, Bennet, Micah, or Luke. Some disbelief was required. Just think, if I’d have let you kill her then, we wouldn’t be in this mess! Nathan would be alive and Peter wouldn’t have problems with me - my life wouldn’t be so fucked! Fuck the future. Those assholes preaching about doing good deeds (doing none themselves) and when he saved a life, he was rewarded with death, violence, imprisonment, biting replies or stone cold silence. Truly a fucked up reward system. And they wondered why he wouldn’t play ball? “Are you sure you want to be thanking me for preventing you from, you know, saving the world?” All that after having his neck snapped in half. Sylar heaved a tense sigh, tossing the puzzle piece down and snatching up another, too angry to communicate more, he turned his focus to the puzzle. I swear to God, if he tries to blame that on me and my ability in any way, I will crush him.
XXX
Peter looked up for a moment, watching Sylar’s angry motions. With a slight, conciliatory lift of his brows, Peter said, "By the time I got to you, I was so fucked up that if I'd saved the world, it would have been a complete accident." He assumed that his statement would help Sylar, as it was a sideways confirmation - yes, Peter had meant his thanks genuinely, and yes, he understood as much as he could, what it might have cost. Maybe if Sylar hadn’t stopped him, Peter’s psychotic careening might have taken Arthur out instead of being a bit calmer, later, and allowing that ill-fated hug that drained his abilities. But Ma would still be dead. Peter was content Sylar had done right.
If only I could have been stopped sooner. He looked down again, brows pulling together. He reached up aimlessly with his left, fingers roaming around his forehead and pinching the top of his nose briefly before letting his hand return to the table and his attention go back to the puzzle. Sylar muttered something Peter didn’t catch, nor did he care all that much, not feeling very defensive at the moment.
XXX
Under his breath, “Typical empath.” Moments passed as Sylar did try to find the piece’s location in the puzzle. The idea of interlocking parts was enough to calm him some. As quietly as Peter had spoken before, he said sadly, “Seemed the least I could do for a fellow sufferer of an ability.” That was, at the heart of it, the truth. A son had lost his mother and to watch that same scene replayed right before his eyes…At the time, he hadn’t wished that burden of guilt on his brother and he’d longed to protect their mother.
Sometimes he thought it made sense for him to have sprung for Angela’s womb, the root of all devastation. Evil begat evil after all. Now he was forever locked in her shadow, tied to Nathan like an anvil, one of her brood in one way or another. Blood was fickle as well he knew.
XXX
Peter gazed at Sylar steadily for a long beat, then looked down at their joint project with a generically displeased grunt. He felt rather down, emotionally, which was hardly surprising given the subject matter, but at the same time he was glad to have gotten that out. Here we are, telling each other secrets. One corner of his mouth lifted a little and he found another piece to link up on the continuing border. Or at least I’m telling. It wasn’t something he’d kept a secret intentionally, but it felt better to know the information was out there in someone else’s mind now. It was a tiny, hair’s breadth connection and maybe it gave Sylar some context for Peter attacking him out of the blue. Peter hoped so.
He watched Sylar finally connect one piece to another - the first he’d done as far as Peter had noticed. Before the man moved on, Peter pointed at the corner closest to him, where the bottom third of the signature was visible on the linked pieces. “Hey, look around for the rest of this signature, will you? There should be two more pieces with writing on them.” He started to add how easy they should be to find, but some intuition about Sylar’s ego stopped his tongue. And on second thought, he wasn’t sure at all how Sylar would take direction, but he’d already spoken. Nothing for it but to find out.
Continued...