Guilt Dies A Slow Death
Title: Guilt Dies A Slow Death
Characters: Peter Petrelli, Sylar/Gabriel Gray
Rating: PG (mentions of murder/canon character death)
Setting: Inside the Wall
Word count: 1,156
Summary: Everyone struggles with guilt.
A/N: Written for heroes_contest one-shot challenge #37 "Demons." Beta by game_byrd.
In law, a man is guilty when he violates the rights of others. In ethics, he is guilty if he only thinks of doing so.
- Immanuel Kent
Guilt is the price we pay willingly for doing what we are going to do anyway. - Isabelle Holland
Guilt is perhaps the most painful companion of death. - Coco Chanel
XXX
Guilt.
Everyone had it.
Some people, like psychopaths, could ignore it.
Peter knew psychopaths existed because damage or abnormalities to parts of the brain could result in impairments of normal function. That much was proven medical standard.
Peter knew a lot about emotions. They were kind of his thing. Most people had those, too. Love; lust; hope; fear; pride; peace; anger; jealousy; happiness; shame; grief and sadness. Those were pretty basic; they came in lots of different combinations; they were inherent and yet…mystical because they weren’t biological. There were bitter-sweet emotions. Like sadness and hope and pride, even love sometimes.
How was an emotion determined at all? It would be hard to say which emotion was predominant across the human race. Surely that was subjective to environment. Both positive and negative emotions, love and hope, happiness and peace against lust, jealousy, anger and grief prevailed in any situation, in any country, probably within any given person. But what was the sole motivation for each and every person? What was that inborn moral compass?
Peter knew about guilt. Lies and manipulations were born of guilt. Shame and selfishness were guilt. Anger, lust, happiness, desire, and sadness were guilt. Love, more than anything Peter wanted love not to be on that list, but it was - love was guilt, sometimes. And guilt was regret. Guilt was a choice; it could be addressed or buried. It could be changed in future…sometimes in the past. That led to crushed butterflies and slanted worlds. That led to guilt as well.
Peter felt guilt in his own failings. He had a soul and it wasn’t perfect, it wasn’t clean; it might not even be a good soul. But he tried. And he tried and he tried to make himself better, to make others better, to make their world better. He’d died for that idea. That redemption.
Sylar didn’t see things that way. Peter didn’t expect him to - it was a pretty unique belief system and he had yet to meet someone, besides Hiro and maybe Claire, who shared it. Sylar had real trouble owning up to mistakes or weaknesses. That rampant narcissism covered even the tiniest flaw, but it didn’t hide even the biggest.
So when he realized Sylar felt guilt, yes, he knew guilt probably more intimately than Peter did because shame seemed hardwired to Sylar’s very existence, his every thought and deed therein. When he saw that…he knew Sylar was no monster. He knew demons didn’t exist or walk the earth. Sylar couldn’t live or move or breathe any more than Peter could. He was just as trapped. Peter saw why Sylar couldn’t face what he’d done because there was so much there to run away from. He saw why being forgiven, accepted, normal, and being cared for and belonging seemed impossible for Sylar.
It broke what was left of Peter’s bitter, fragile heart.
He couldn’t help but understand that most basic human fear.
But Nathan lay in a premature grave, dead - murdered - before his time because of this guilty, desperate man. Peter was left without support, fair-weather friend, family - his brother because of it. He was lost and hopeless and poisoned. He felt things he didn’t know he was capable of; the sheer rage and hate hurt Peter because his soul, his mind couldn’t contain it yet he had to or let it out. Even from the once-upon-a-time hospice nurse who coached families through the transition of death when they thought there was no recovery, Peter couldn’t see a life after the death of his brother. His father’s death affected him less. But strangely, Nathan had been everything.
Peter ran from it, he ran from the man, he ran from the responsibility he imposed on himself - he ran in avoidant circles for years trapped behind a dreamt brick wall. He tried to impose that Nathan meant more somehow - certainly meant more to Peter, personally, than Sylar did now. That didn’t change the fact that Nathan was still dead, however much he wanted it to. His might, his God-given talents, powers or no powers, he should be able to win Nathan back by whatever means necessary. His will alone should grant his wishes. If that meant sacrificing Sylar? So be it. An easy price to pay. That’s what he thought.
Peter could feel the guilt eating him away like a cancer. He was the ultimate hypocrite. He’d put his life on the line for an idea that didn’t apply to Sylar because…he’d cut Nathan’s throat. Peter made that choice, day after day. He said things he never imagined coming from his mouth, from his heart. Humanity, love, forgiveness, human failing, doing the right thing…it all looked like a joke from where he stood now and he could see, so clearly, why everyone had called him a dreamer with the rosiest glasses.
So when he saw what simple help and understanding and patience and a little care could do for someone equally lost…his heart already knew what he had to do even if he didn’t want to accept and follow through. He could assuage a life-long wound that had festered and spread like an infection until the man that had been was covered in scar tissue. To do it he had to offer forgiveness for the worst sin that had ever been done to him.
That saying ‘You saw God on the street corner today. What did you do?’ was so ironic it hurt. God was cruel in showing that to him. (God was certainly cruel to take his beloved brother away). God was cruel to give him empathy. But Peter knew he’d asked for power, the chance to change and do good, do better. He just…hadn’t ever expected any of this. It was the ultimate test, the ultimate gift and the ultimate sacrifice to lay his brother to rest and let him sleep peacefully as a hero.
So the heart that had ringed itself in barb-wire and bricks had to open its gates to act as an antidote for both men. Heal-anything-blood, wasn’t that what his heart pumped out every second? That had been his mantra long ago. Nathan’s affectionate mockery of Peter being a ‘bleeding heart liberal’ came to be: Peter’s heart had to bleed to liberate them all - Nathan, Peter and Sylar.
Peter didn’t believe in monsters. He believed in circumstances. He believed in abilities even though he wasn’t sure where they came from. He believed in love and trust and forgiveness, he depended on them from others even though he couldn’t see those things. So Sylar’s mother had damned him to Hell. Sylar himself had sealed the deal in deed, with help from the people who’s mission in life was supposed to be helping the lost. Answers, Peter could provide.
Thus, guilt was a demon that ate at every soul. But with a simple, ‘I know’ and an angelic ‘it’s okay’, two sets of damages could be reversed.