More Between Us, Chapter 11/? "Telling Stories"
Title: More Between Us Than A Wall part 11/?
Characters: Peter Petrelli and Sylar/Gabriel Gray (Matt and Nathan if you squint?)
Rating: PG-13/T to eventual NC-17/M
Warnings: Language, mind fuckery (no pun intended), violence, angst (?), dirty language/thoughts/actions but nothing explicit.
Setting: Inside the Wall, S4.
Words: 7, 433
Summary: Peter has hacked into Sylar's mind on a rescue mission. Everything goes to Hell. Welcome to Sylar's mind!
Notes (Must Read): In collaboration with the wonderful Game_byrd (Gamebird- FFN) who writes for Peter (I write for Sylar). This is everything that goes on 'behind the scenes' of the episode. The story begins after Peter telepathically joins Sylar in his Matt-induced nightmare (The Wall) in the episode. Based on CANON with fanon and intellect, imagination and a thing called common sense filling in all those nasty plot-holes, but we won't point fingers.
One deviation from canon: In The Fifth Stage when Peter wipes Sylar's memory after the fight, he gained all of Sylar's memories via Rene/The Haitian's ability that allows the user to remember the person's memories in addition to erasing them from the person. AKA Peter has every single one of Sylar's memories stored in his subconscious. They appear from time to time when Peter sleeps or becomes distracted or experiences one of Sylar's deja vu's. Sylar has since recovered his memories with a combination of IA and regeneration. Sylar still has Nathan's memories from Matt Parkman's previous mind-fuck in Invisible Thread. The boys are powerless inside the Wall.
Things you'll need: // // denotes a Nathan Petrelli memory from Sylar's head. Sylar/Gabriel's memories are within singular lines / /. Peter's are \ \ and Peter’s recollection of a Sylar memory (via Rene/the Haitian's ability) is \\ \\. 'Posts' are separated between the boys by XXX (no, that's nothing naughty).
A/N: Brief M/M innuendo.
Day 7
A grin must have stuck on his face for some reason, probably because Peter was good at relaying the events and he was interested to see where they concluded. He chuckled at imagining Peter conniving the police, not the ‘rescue’ team to clean up a body because it was a mess. And before he could clue in on that fact, Peter delivered the punch line he hadn’t seen coming.
He laughed, completely unexpected even from him. “A-a skunk?!” he managed around his laughter. Oh, god, he’d forgotten Peter had a sense of humor. Something panged inside him, but he ignored it. He clapped his hands a few times, not really at or for Peter, just in amused reaction. His face felt like it would break since he hadn’t laughed this hard since…well….
“Oh, god, Petrelli….You’re a keeper,” he said once he’d calmed down sufficiently. The words held no meaning and his tone was normal and light. He placed a hand on his stomach for a brief moment to remember to breathe before he straightened; not noticing that he’d adjusted his stance a little. Exhaling, he smiled at Peter, who now stood. “I didn’t know EMTs covered the animal division.”
Sylar had his own memories of road kill, some that had scarred his memory as a child as the…animal had been still alive and stuck and…But Peter’s story brought levity, much needed. He recognized that Peter Petrelli would probably end up doing most of the story-telling here, at least on the lighter side. He interacted with people (and animals) and had actual stories to divulge.
He noticed that had not answered his question by any means, but Peter’s reply had been what he needed to hear, not what he’d been expecting. "Good one."
Peter grinned right back and it was a pleasant sight. C’mon, it was a face and it was a nice face. It was smiling because of him and that was a good feeling. The medic went back to rummaging and that was kind of amusing. He hoped Peter didn’t think that he considered him….some kind of doll with a pull string, available for cheap amusement. He considered that a moment. Actually….up until now, he almost had thought of him that way.
XXX
Peter gave him an easy grin back, very pleased to have put a smile on Sylar’s face. It was so much better than a scowl, or a glare, or that arrogant condescension the man seemed to wear like it was his favorite hat. And he had such a nice smile, which was really surprising. Peter was glad to see it again, but he got his eyes away from it before his attention looked like anything else. He opened a drawer and sorted through a haphazard collection of utensils.
“Good to know you have a sense of humor,” he said and chuckled. “I have to tell you I was a little worried there for a moment.” You certainly do worry me. The limits of what you might do are just way off the chart. He shut the drawer and went on to the cutlery drawer, actually bending down a little - a spot hurt in his back where he was sure he had a bruise from Sylar’s elbow - and looking inside, behind the silverware tray. There was a collection of bits of kitchen errata there - a cocktail fork, some straws, and salt packets from a fast food place, among other things. No cockroaches here. That has its good points, at least.
XXX
The other man chuckled at him, a sound that, in the past, hadn’t spelled good things. “I could say the same thing about you.” Heh, oops. Was that losing his cool or…being normal to Peter? He recalled several snarkier things Peter had delivered even while they were at odds with each other; enemies; of course he had other sources for Peter’s idea of manipulating, teasing, pranking and interacting.
XXX
“I think I’d have to say that every EMT who managed to get past the first breaker - it happens after a couple months in the seat - develops a pretty morbid sense of humor. You kind of have to. Every day, every person you go see, they’re always hurt, a lot of the time ungrateful or uncooperative. I’m not saying that’s wrong or they’re bad people,” Peter’s voice softened and gentled remarkably, “they’re just people.” Then his tone went back to normal as he said, “But it wears a person down. You get swung on by a rowdy drunk or cursed at because something hurts and you can’t make it stop instantly - there’s a certain attitude towards it you have to learn or else the breaker breaks you.”
XXX
His companion continued in the same vein and for once (for once in his life!) he didn’t care one bit. He did actually want to hear about Peter’s job, gone though it may be, it didn’t matter at all. He tilted his head and shifted his weight to get more comfortable, watching Peter’s face where he could as he spoke and searched. He spoke about breakers. Wait…breakers? That idea confused him coming from Peter.
Sylar watched the man’s face and noted the changes in his voice as he talked about people, in general, that were injured and hurt. ‘They’re just people’ stuck out at him, it barely made sense to him, actually. How...why does he think they’re ‘just people’? No one is ‘just people’. His gut clenched when Peter spoke of losing someone; first for his own loss, that is murders, which led to the most…prominent and as yet unaddressed kill. Badly he wanted to ask of Peter, ‘what do you know about loss?’ not including Nathan, of course.
XXX
Peter opened the cabinet above the drawer and found himself looking at drinking glasses, mostly mismatched. He sorted through them with his left hand like he expected to find something behind them, which was absurd, but he did it anyway. “The next breaker comes the first time you lose someone - and not the first time someone dies, because yeah that’s hard, but it’s the first time you make a mistake and you realize, you know, that your mistake killed someone. If you’d done what you were supposed to do, if you’d done something different, they’d still be alive. A lot of people wash out then.” He stared at the cabinet without really seeing the glasses anymore. He closed it and moved on to the one next to it: plates.
XXX
Half-aware, he saw Peter ‘looking’ for something in the glasses before he took on the plates. ‘A lot of people wash out then’ was so much more true than Peter knew and it made Sylar’s gaze fall away from the other man’s face, his own flickering over emotions he probably had little right to feel. Still, the former EMT went on, his voice dulling and that made Sylar ache by proxy.
XXX
Peter’s voice got a little hollow. “The next one after that is when you realize you’re not really making a difference. No matter how good you are at your job, there’s always more calls and a lot of the time it’s the same people for the same thing.” He looked at the counter, frowning. He rubbed the edge of the brace against the counter and sighed. “Makes you just want to yell at them to quit fucking up their lives already.
“If you can make it past all of that, you’re usually set until your body starts giving out.” The pay sucks, too. He smirked and looked over at Sylar, wondering if he should continue carrying the conversation, or shut up, or figure out something to ask the other man in return that didn’t touch on the last few years. I wonder if he’s got any cool watchmaking stories? I suppose if he doesn’t, I could tell him about that guy in the house on the island, where I had to cross that icy footbridge…
XXX
That explains why people yell at me, it dawned on him quickly, but it’s not because they care. It’s because you’re fucking someone else’s life up. That explains Bennet and Angela and Peter. They won’t help you because you couldn’t change. His insides were already a little funky from a deep, long-overdue laugh moments before, but this made him uncomfortable, his feet shifting as he swallowed.
Peter glanced back and he straightened, not tensing, just covering up his adverse reaction, nodding at him and forcing a quick grin. Unlike you, my body doesn’t give out. My mind does. When it isn’t being swept under the carpet or forced into police officer’s heads. “Totally listening, man,” he said, just so Peter wouldn’t stop. It wasn’t like the things Peter said would affect him permanently, but the medic was so perceptive and he had no idea he was doing it. “I’ve heard that about medicine.” Not detailing the fact that as a kid he once considered being a doctor ‘when he grew up’.
The one and only Brain Doctor, Neurosurgeon M.D, slightly used; a.k.a. the Boogeyman. I’m so special now. It made him wonder how much he’d thrown away those years ago the moment Suresh senior walked in his door. Clearly a lot, he supplied himself all-too-helpfully. Sylar was aware he’d missed whatever life-train that was supposed to make his stop. There hadn’t been a lot of options. Why had every decision, every option always been a catch-twenty-two? In the end, he’d pleased himself, ‘looked out for number one’ because even when Virginia and Elle had been alive, even when he ‘was a Petrelli’, that was all he’d had. All he still had. He blinked and tried to focus on something else, desperate to do that.
XXX
Peter was getting a kind of weird ‘read’ off Sylar, not that this was terribly new as he didn’t read people as well as he once did, and Sylar was fairly opaque under the best of circumstances. But this was a different weird than the previous weird. The man’s smile was forced and whenever Peter looked over at him, he changed his body language from whatever it was unobserved, to whatever he was trying to project. While Peter considered that, he opened the refrigerator and looked at the contents.
Peter nodded to Sylar’s observation. “Yeah, burn-out rate’s pretty high.” He shut the fridge. “I’ll tell you another story.” It was something to fill the time and reduce the awkwardness of the silence between them, and maybe even, Peter was hoping, reduce some of the latent hostility in the air. Just because he was talking to Sylar didn’t mean he was happy with him, but as long as they studiously avoided talking about anything ‘important’, Peter could unwind a little and be civil.
He headed back to the bedroom, walking by Sylar and expecting the other man to follow him. He assessed the room, then started in on the dresser. “Last winter we had a bunch of snow, it had melted a lot, then refroze and it snowed again. So we had like an inch of ice under three or four inches of snow, which was also melting now - really nasty. Most people had enough sense to stay in though, for once, and we’d been lucky - me and Hesam, that is - if you want to call ‘boring’ lucky and a lot of EMTs do. We’d pulled transfers all day and had hardly gotten our boots wet. Transfers are when we move patients from one clinic to another. There’s not much work involved, because the nurses will have them prepped and packed when you get there and pick them up at the door when you drop them off. You’re just a glorified taxi service.”
XXX
Sylar tagged along behind Peter in his search for…lint or his dead pet moth or something, thoroughly enjoying hearing his voice. Not that it was Peter’s, but that it was a voice and it spoke to him. And on top of that, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d heard a story beyond /‘My boys have been such a disappointment. But you…I can give you what all boys crave from their mothers; inspiration and guidance’/ along with his given name from dear ‘Mommy’. He grinned as Peter launched into another tale, the ache in his heart slowly fading away due to the amusement in the man’s voice, knowing that they could have been brothers or close to it had they met under alternate circumstances.
His expression was open from the stories, even if Peter didn’t think he was sharing anything, indeed he probably didn’t see it, not that it mattered. Sylar took every word at face value. He chuckled at lucky being the same thing as boring and that struck him as just Peter’s speed. It occurred to him to wonder just where Peter found the time to rescue the world (not just New York and his friends and family) and keep a full-time, full-responsibility job.
Sniggering at the image of Peter being a glorified taxi service was really the cherry on top of the story.
XXX
He didn’t see anything of interest in the dresser, not even porn this time. He wandered into the closet, avoiding the nightstand for both porn- and gun-related issues. It was a little surprising the place had a walk-in closet. The clothes were all out of date. Whoever had lived here was a big guy, around the middle more than tall. “So there we were, crashed in the break room. I was watching one of the Die Hard movies - it wasn’t the first one, which is the best, so I wasn’t real invested in it. Hesam was snoring. He’d been out late the night before with his brother at some karaoke club. Then the call came in.”
XXX
Sylar kept his grin and moved into the bedroom behind Peter, poking aimlessly around over a bookshelf as the other man took to the closet. He was instantly forced to bite his lip over about a million “closet” jokes. Oh, Peter…I see what Nathan was talking about with you. So naïve.
XXX
Peter opened some boxes in the closet a bit hesitantly, then relaxed. Bills, paperwork, records. On the last box, he jerked. Porn. Ah! He knew that had to be around here somewhere. He shut the box, shook his head, colored a bit and left the closet, heading to the bathroom. He went on with his story. “The call was for a nonresponsive out in the middle of nowhere. I didn’t even know we had a nowhere, New York City, but Hesam said he recognized the address and we went. It was this hilly little undeveloped district and the roads hadn’t been plowed yet. On the way there, we got some details: the police had been dispatched, too; the subject’s brother had gone by his house that morning and couldn’t raise him so he walked around the place and could see in the windows that he was all slumped over in a chair and wouldn’t respond to hammering; doors and windows all locked.”
XXX
Hearing a sudden movement, he looked to see what the cause could be; Peter merely held a box, exposed for a moment, but he couldn’t see inside from his position. The man closed it with an odd look as he left the closet in favor of the bathroom. Feeling sneaky and still able to hear Peter’s voice, he padded inside himself, taking up the exact box that made his companion’s expression so…whatever. Lifting the lid he was instantly stared in the face by a naked woman…on a magazine of course, but he practically threw it away from himself.
He’d seen women naked a time or two and all that, but porn wasn’t…he barely restrained himself from looking around to see if he’d been caught by Virginia. It was just that ingrained in him. A blush found itself on his face at the thought that Peter Petrelli had just seen this same magazine. He’d never owned a speck of porn or anything of the sort. Of course, he had used his library card to read a few romance novels as a teen. They were….cliché and predictable; no characters or real-life aspects to be found. None of it was his style. The magazine…model, he supposed he could call her, had no features on her face, where her face would be rather. Instead it was just blank skin with no hint of nose or eyes or mouth. He narrowed his eyes back at Peter. That probably did cut down on the value for him.
XXX
Peter found a box of bandages in the medicine cabinet in the bathroom. A quick glance inside revealed they’d work for his knuckles. He set them out. “So we get there. Hesam’s still hung over and there’s no way we’re getting the rig down this windy little driveway the guy has, so I get out on foot and head in. The police car had gone ahead, but I go over this rise and there it is stuck in the snow, one cop with it trying to get free and the other had gone ahead like I was doing. So it was a good thing we didn’t try it ourselves. We’d have slid right down the incline into them. I go on and I’m sure getting my boots wet now, because it was slushy and a mess and I’m having to really watch my step with the ice under all of this.”
He finished with the bathroom and headed out, recovering his messenger bag and moving to the dining room with it and the box of bandages. “Because all we need, you know, is one of us to slip and fall and need extraction - that’s always embarrassing. I finally look up, because I’d been watching my feet and following the tracks of the other cop, and see that right in front of me is this rickety old wooden bridge - the only way to get over to the house.” He glanced up at Sylar. “I kid you not - a freaking footbridge like out of a bad movie, with planks missing and only one rail, which looks on the edge of falling off. The other side has a rope and honestly it looks more reliable. The thing’s covered with ice and it’s above this little stream - I’d like to say a river, because really, when it’s wider than you can jump across, it doesn’t matter how much. If I fell in that thing I was going to be drenched in freezing cold water. It was all swollen from the melt.”
XXX
Snorting to himself (the blood in his face rearranging itself by now), he moved to the dresser, just to be doing something. Peter gave excellent details and he was able to follow the story, practically see the moment in time for himself and he appreciated that. Sylar wasn’t surprised by how animated the other man was; Peter held his singular audience captive regardless. But when it came to the point about the ‘river’ as Peter dubbed it, Sylar did speak up in its defense: “I think that’s a stream, actually,” he suggested quietly, his voice quiet because it didn’t matter if Peter heard or not. It did matter if he stopped talking.
XXX
He took off his old bandages and began to apply new ointment after wiping off the old. “I could see where the cop had slipped a couple times, but he’d made it. I started across. Speaking of the cop, all this time he’s banging on the guy’s door with his crowbar, trying to get in and all I can think of is how we’re going to get the guy back if he’s dead or unconscious. Well, actually, all I could think of was if one of these planks was going to break under me, or if I was going to slip on the ice. But I got across.”
XXX
Sylar dragged his fingers over the random objects on the dresser without seeing them. Peter seriously did that for a living? Then again, who was he to talk, not that he made a living out of it. Sylar kind of made death out of it. Momentarily he was distracted with Peter’s long-gone, rather irrelevant conundrum: how to get the man back over the bridge, but his attention was snapped back once the rescue got within the house in the story. He watched Peter who was now re-bandaging his hand, properly this time.
XXX
“Now it’s just me and the cop. Hesam’s come over the hill and the other cop has given up on getting his car out, but neither of them are all that interested in trying that deathtrap of a bridge. We manage to force the door and head in. We go through the house - it smells pretty musty, but not bad; it’s warm; it’s dead quiet. We go in the den and there the guy is, slumped over just like his brother said. But his color really isn’t all that bad and about as I notice that, I also notice this huge hearing aid on his ear.”
He chuckled. “Cop touches his shoulder. Guy wakes up.” He laughed again. “He’s perfectly fine. Battery ran out on his hearing aid or something and he fell asleep in his chair. Nothing to worry about.” Peter started putting new bandages on his right knuckles, smiling warmly. “Nothing to worry about, of course, except getting back across that bridge.” He glanced up at Sylar, really looking the guy over, trying to read if he was still ‘off’ on his emotional read or if he’d settled during the story.
XXX
At first he blinked. Then Peter explained about the battery and he had no choice but to laugh again. Peter really is good with people, isn’t he? Sylar thought to himself, his amusement tapering off and his chest felt funny in its absence. Look at what he does; easing the tension, telling me what I probably need to hear and probably what he wants to talk about instead of what I asked for.
His head tilted to make eye contact with Peter as he looked back from his self-care, Sylar’s own face was still pleased and much more calm. He’d quickly slapped down the memories of Virginia’s own hearing loss from his younger days. Choosing not to recall how he’d had to repeat everything in his quiet, shy child’s voice and how it annoyed her to anger. It got better after puberty when his voice broke and he rumbled instead of squeaking and whispering.
“Sounds to me like you’re the risk-taker of the group,” was what he said, thinking, we’re so different, but god, if he isn’t just like me in some ways. He knew that would be a bad case of over-sharing and not knowing a good thing when he saw it and avoided glancing at Peter’s busted hand as he delivered his comment.
XXX
Peter laughed off Sylar’s comment. “Yeah, maybe, but I’ve gotten in a lot of trouble over that. I’m not a very good partner…or rather, I’m not good at it the way my partners want me to be.” He leaned back, frowning, and reached over to flick at one of the bits of waxed paper from the bandages. Hesam’s words came back to him: ‘You run off the second we get on scene. I’m a chauffeur.’ That had stung - really stung. Being called a chauffeur or taxi driver was one of the worst insults EMTs could sling around at each other. Having abilities and concealing them from Hesam had driven a wedge between them, at a time when Peter’s only social outlet was his work.
He felt resentful and grumpy about his partners, which was what inspired his next story choice. “Here’s one that’s bothered me for a long time.” Peter stood up and gathered his bag. They were done here, as far as he cared, so it was time to move on to a new apartment. “Maybe you’d like to hear it.” He laughed a little hollowly. “It’s not like I’ve ever had the chance to tell it to anyone.”
XXX
Sylar swallowed hastily. Er, what? Good at what now, exactly? Peter delivered it so honestly that he was clueless as to how Sylar might be (and was) taking his words. “Last time I checked it was about the patient, not the partner,” he replied, voice a little reedy. He watched the man closely out of the corner of his eye as the storm grew in Peter’s expression. He tilted his head, eyes widening as his companion (not to be confused with ‘partner’) was about to let him in on the equivalent of a secret. Whoa…he didn’t know what to say or do for that one; it shocked him to the core.
Then it struck him. Peter had nothing to lose now. What good was a fucking secret when there was only one person to know? He’s not entrusting you with anything, get over it. He did slowly, but his lower lip jutted out a moment as he thought. The creepy laugh put him off and he didn’t like considering what this man would have to have seen to utter it so well. Peter was on the move again and he followed as a faithful shadow on to the next frontier, AKA apartment. Then again….he doesn’t have to share this, but he is anyway.
XXX
The next apartment was another messy one, but not with trash. It was cluttered and full of things, very much like Sylar’s place, but the objects themselves were different - not books and clocks, but crafts and carved wood and pottery. Huh. Neat. Peter smiled a little. There was a lot to see here and that pleased him. He started in on the living room while he talked.
XXX
The not-so final frontier was crowded and cramped with something Sylar would have called junk had it not been so similar to his own apartment. Objects littered the floor and nearly every available flat surface and he felt right at home, oddly enough, in the ocean of stuff. Peter looked happy, but Sylar was busy stroking at a carved quail figure. Whoever had lived here before, the guy was into pottery, carving and some leather working and toy-tinkering. In other words, his stuff could be useful. Peter looked around on his own as he launched into his third and probably a genuine horror story. How could he resist?
XXX
“A couple years back, just after I’d started as an EMT, I didn’t have a regular partner. I just took whoever I was assigned to. So me and this guy, we got called to a violent psych. There were two cop cars there, a third arriving, and five different people had this one guy pinned down on the grass. We get out and as it turns out, no one’s really bad hurt, but the guy’s not calming down, and they’re going to send him in for evaluation. One of the cops asks me if we have a body bag.
“I say no, because we don’t. And I’m not too wild about what he’s suggesting, but I know it happens.” He looked over at Sylar, realizing he needed to explain that before the other man got the wrong idea. “A body bag can be used as a makeshift restraint. It’s thick canvas and it keeps them from thrashing around. We’re not allowed to have a guy handcuffed in the ambulance without a cop right there with us and even then it’s iffy, but we can have them strapped down and by the law that’s fine.” He gave a shrug and a roll of his eyes to indicate what he thought of that, then went back to searching, looking at a series of nesting eggs made up to be…dogs in suits? Something like that.
XXX
He straightened up, glancing at Peter as he blurted out something about body bags. Has he ever been in one? He is on the ‘good’ side of the law…sort of. The medic explained the usage of the body bag and he nodded, turning towards a full table, poking around on it. His eyebrows rose slightly as Peter explained the laws, rather, the rights of the ‘patient’ such as it was. Well, you learn something new every day. He agreed with Peter on this one; whatever that law or practice was, it was ridiculous. Not to mention it inhibited saving people. Not that he gave a damn.
XXX
“My partner gets on the line and has them send us over a body bag. I try to talk to the guy, but he’s cursing and struggling and really strung out, plus the cops aren’t letting up and there’s no way for me to get a connection with him. The other ambulance gets there and we get him in the bag, long story a little shorter. Just at the end, he manages to spit right in the face of one of the other EMTs, and after everything else we’d been doing trying to handle this guy, she lost it, tried to kick him, screamed back at him. Now this guy had been saying everything under the sun at us that was offensive and…”
Peter frowned, thinking back on that, seeing the scene, hearing the insults. He stopped looking at things and just stood there tensely, because it was provocative even in memory. “Her partner drags her off; she gets in their rig to drive. Her partner gets in the back of mine, with the patient and my partner. My partner tells me to drive. He knows I haven’t been around long.” Peter reached up and scratched lightly at the bump on his chin left by Sylar’s fist, then up to his forehead in a nervous gesture.
XXX
Sylar engrossed himself physically in sorting through the tools of the previous occupant. He took up a small pick that he knew to be from the leather working and clay-carving station; an awl and he might have a use or two for it. There was a nice sized flat-head screwdriver that he stole as well. Can never have too many screwdrivers. Peter spoke on about the experience; a wild raving lunatic by the sound of it causing his medical teams some disturbance. His mouth twitched in amusement at the idea of the medical lady being spat on…and then throwing a tantrum, but he knew the conclusion of the story when Peter said that the partners got in with the loon-patient. No punch line for this one, I think.
XXX
“I drive. I hear some noises from in back. I know what they’re doing, but I turn up the radio chatter and put on the music. I didn’t look in the rearview. We get to the psych ward. Patient seems same as before - violent, psychotic.” Peter looked at the ceiling and sighed, then headed for the bedroom. “I guess they didn’t hit him in the face. But that bothered the hell out of me.”
XXX
The other man moved again, with a sigh, obviously still frustrated over something years past and he tagged behind at a distance, sensing the air to be….potentially unwelcoming. Into the bedroom they went, the exploring part fading to the background of the story-telling. Sylar got his ending, the one he predicted, too. And it was somehow offensive to his idea of who Peter was, somehow that was a little insulting, why he couldn’t say. You’re supposed to be the hero. That seemed to come from the additional person in his head, but he felt the same.
XXX
He glanced back at Sylar. “I try to tell myself that if I’d known what they were going to do, I would have tried to have my partner drive so it wouldn’t have happened. But then even after I knew, I didn’t stop the rig. I didn’t report my partner. I just kept driving. But I never partnered with him again.” He shook his head. “There was no one I could even talk to about it.” But it felt good to get it off his chest after all this time, sort of like a confession. What a weird idea - Sylar listening to my sins. Ha.
XXX
Sylar stared head-on at Peter, not bothering to spare him the gaze he’d been told was intense. For all your morals, you’re so human, Petrelli. The rest of his mind was having difficulty with what he’d been told. It didn’t matter now; the loony patient was long gone, Peter didn’t work at Mercy any longer and so couldn’t report the former partner. Peter had no responsibility to the public any longer and ‘people were people’.
Peter Petrelli essentially stood by and watched someone get beaten. From Sylar’s perception the incident in and of itself was unamazing. One guy gets beat and you bottle it up like this? How many years? In truth, Sylar would walk by that and not feel a thing other than smug humor and a sense of normality. Peter couldn’t see the world, he saw the people in it.
His expression as he pinned the other man with his eyes was probably one of stern question. ‘Really?’ and/or ’Why?’ It set his teeth on edge, making them almost itch in anger at Peter’s thoughtless hypocrisy. ‘That totally explains your routine with the goddamn nail gun,’ was so close to slipping out. It’s okay so long as you’re not the one watching, hm? “Ever consider that he deserved it?” was what he said, stiffly nonetheless. ‘It’s how the world works, you innocent kid. And I thought that people were your responsibility.’
XXX
Peter wanted to cringe from that intense gaze, but despite feeling contrite, he wouldn’t do that in front of Sylar - glare or no glare. Instead he turned partly away, literally giving a cold shoulder to the stare. He looked back at Sylar’s question though. “D-deserve it? No one d-“ He looked Sylar up and down with the briefest flick of his eyes, remembering who he was talking to. Stiffly he said, “Not for cursing at people and spitting on them.”
XXX
Sylar gave a deadly glare at the shoulder he was presented with. He thinks he can brush it off? No one deserves it my ass. He got no response and Peter looked a bit peeved overall, but he didn’t chuckle since that hadn’t…necessarily been his goal. Peter knew his fault and now Sylar did, they glared, they shrugged, they moved on. Man-code (they were certainly not in the realms of ‘Bro-code’).
“If you’re following the moral straight-and-narrow, your partner, such as he was, deserved something he didn’t get from you,” he delivered honestly (as if Peter was interested in his warped morality), cocking his head forward and raising his brows briefly to Peter as he knelt to peer under the bed. Weirdos like Samson would probably keep nick-knacks and other useful junk in odd places and it would allow him to avoid eye contact rather neatly. “But I’m sure you know that.”
XXX
Peter pursed his lips at Sylar’s comment about what Peter’s partner deserved. “What?” he said before he could stop himself, but then shook his head and muttered, “Never mind,” to head off any potential answer. Instead, he looked down and brooded, taking Sylar’s comment to heart and really thinking about it. What did my partner deserve that he didn’t get? My support? I let him do it. My help? Not happening and no, no work partner ‘deserves’ my help to do something unethical. If he deserved anything, he deserved to get written up for it. Should I have talked to him privately maybe and jumped his case about it? I was the rookie; he wasn’t going to listen to me. Of course, maybe I should have said something anyway. Peter’s brows drew together. It’s not about what he hears. It’s about what I say.
He leaned his back against the wall, driving his left hand into his pants pocket and letting his right hang. He met Sylar’s eyes for a moment, then looked away and down. It was sort-of an agreement. Okay, I should have talked to my partner. I should have told him someone knew, someone didn’t approve. I enabled it by not speaking up. Somehow I doubt that’s what Sylar’s implying. He sighed a little, but kept himself from nodding to ‘I’m sure you know that.’ He suspected he and Sylar weren’t talking about the same thing so he was silent, staring at the floor and mulling over the situation from years ago and the words exchanged today. He hadn’t told the story with any intentions of drawing parallels between the violent psych and Sylar. I need to be more sensitive to who I’m talking to. He frowned, listening to Sylar rummage under the bed. The list of things he couldn’t talk about here was pretty long.
XXX
Sylar studiously didn’t open his mouth on the other man’s inability to speak to someone. I’m not gonna touch that one. Again with the hypocrisy, too. So horrible when it happens to you, precious Peter. He pulled out boxes from under the bed, rifling through them for something of technical appeal, ignoring his companion for a few moments.
He brought out a pack of pro-diamond filers, ten in all, a perfect addition to his collection of tools, and a cross peen hammer, then continued on his search. He found various wall hangings, pots, tools, random clothes that slipped under the bed (mostly socks, eck), papers and toys (really how old was this guy?), a guitar…
Something ticked in his head and he drew out the instrument, not quite sure why he did. Peter plays…sort of. He exhaled a little in relief at finding something to take away his temptation of anger. Nathan does come in handy now a days. “Guitar…?” he offered up hesitantly because he didn’t feel the guitar was wholly his gift and that bothered him. It was akin to telling secrets and scars under hypnosis. But as much as he hated it, he needed it, too.
XXX
Then the other man straightened, pulling out something big. He was on the other side of the bed from Peter. Whatever the object was, Sylar looked at it blankly for a moment, then offered it up.
“A guitar?” Surprise flashed across Peter’s features, obliterating the gloominess that was threatening to settle there. “Oh wow. Let me see that.” He took it from Sylar’s hands, eyes for it alone. It was a steel-string acoustic guitar with a light buff finish. He could see a traced pattern on the wood where apparently the apartment’s craftsman resident (imaginary resident, Peter corrected himself) had planned to paint or enamel a design on it. A slow smile grew across his face. “It’s been a long time since I’ve played a guitar.”
The warm memories of sitting at the piano with Emma bubbled to the surface along with more distant recollections of the punk band he’d been in during high school. He sat on the edge of the bed, back to Sylar, and held the instrument as if to play it. The strings weren’t tight, but that didn’t matter. His right hand was immobilized anyway. He rested the fingers of his left on the frets and stepped through a few positions, trying to remember.
“Cool,” he said happily. “You know, this would be great physical therapy for my hand in a few weeks.” He looked back at Sylar, the previous tension dispelled as if forgotten, and asked, “You said you could play the piano some. Any other instruments?”
XXX
Peter looked up quickly from where he’d been sulking (wasn’t my damn story) and cradled the unfinished guitar, that even Sylar could see was beautiful. “I know,” he replied, addressing Peter’s playing. Obviously that was all he’d intended to say, but his brain wriggled and reminded him that that was privy information, so he hastened to speak up again to cover the pause.
“You look like you know how to handle that.” Oh, well done. He won’t suspect a thing with that type of smooth recovery. Sound like a girl with a goddamn crush. He longed to rub his face, but kept casual, leaning against the foot of the bed stand as he watched Peter.
“Guitar is actually doctor recommended for hand therapy, yeah.” Peter was instantly sucked in, latching onto the instrument with a passion evident on his face, what little he could see of it through those floppy bangs from his place behind and to the side of the medic. Anything that had gone wrong that day was forgotten by both parties it seemed as Peter chatted a little. Both bodies were relaxed as was the air between the two.
“I played the triangle in band,” Sylar deadpanned and nodded with seriousness. He kept his expression one of light accomplishment. Peter was obviously, hopelessly out of his depth when it came to jokes; he hadn’t ever joked with Sylar, King of Sarcasm. He held the pick, the filers and the hammer in one hand and went on, “Then came the bagpipes sophomore year. That was hard to practice with in an apartment complex in Queens, let me tell you. The nose flute was always my dream, though.”
XXX
Peter felt a prickle of irritation at the ‘I know’ - Nathan’s memories and Sylar’s condescension cut at him even through the odd happiness he was feeling. But Sylar tried to cover it, or maybe he was just elaborating and either way Peter let it go. He had the strange feeling the guitar was his, sort of like the bear - something he wanted, something he was going to hang onto. He wasn’t normally a possessive type of person, but the whole of this world belonged to Sylar and Peter felt like such an outsider. He felt like he was here at Sylar’s mercy, but there wasn’t anywhere else he could go. Sure, he could go off by himself and be alone. But come on, Sylar was better company than being alone. Most of the time. Usually. Or at least he could be - Peter had seen that in bits and pieces. If he could just get past what was between them and see Sylar as he really was … Now that was a laugh.
Speaking of which: the triangle? Peter looked at him blankly. It was a pretty standard joke. Yes, he recognized it. But although Sylar had laughed at Peter’s funny story, their positions were now flipped and it was Peter getting the ribbing. He didn’t know how to react at first. When Sylar went on, Peter started to smile and then laughed at the part about the nose flute. Sylar did have a pretty big nose. The mental image made Peter chortle. He wasn’t relaxed enough to laugh out loud, but his grin was wide and easy. He shifted to turn more towards the other man, opening up a little.
XXX
Of course he was making that up, but it was to garner a response. Peter asked things and expected things a certain way and Sylar did so love to throw people for a loop, catch them off balance. Honesty did the trick most of the time, he’d found. Well…that wasn’t entirely accurate; he himself seemed to throw people for loops and not in a good way.
Without abilities, he was (almost) an average guy…with above average problems. Maybe it was time for Peter to see that. /”I’m not a good guy…but I’m not all bad either.”/ Stupid Sam. It was uncanny how he knew to sound just like Sylar. Word for word. That’s what had thrown him. But in the end, Sam was another puppet.
To keep the man’s attention where he wanted it, he stood smoothly (more graceful then he felt with a dull pounding in his head and a crick in his back). Bracing his feet shoulder width, sliding his fingers into his pockets, he said in a low, intimate voice, “And don’t ‘what?’ me, sweetheart. I know you enjoyed nailing me more than you let on, Peter Petrelli.” There it was; his invitation. Out in the open.
He accompanied it by giving Peter a look that the empath would probably manage to mistake anyway; he allowed need and enough lust into his eyes while they brushed all over Peter. I could play you, his gaze projected.
XXX
Continued...
Characters: Peter Petrelli and Sylar/Gabriel Gray (Matt and Nathan if you squint?)
Rating: PG-13/T to eventual NC-17/M
Warnings: Language, mind fuckery (no pun intended), violence, angst (?), dirty language/thoughts/actions but nothing explicit.
Setting: Inside the Wall, S4.
Words: 7, 433
Summary: Peter has hacked into Sylar's mind on a rescue mission. Everything goes to Hell. Welcome to Sylar's mind!
Notes (Must Read): In collaboration with the wonderful Game_byrd (Gamebird- FFN) who writes for Peter (I write for Sylar). This is everything that goes on 'behind the scenes' of the episode. The story begins after Peter telepathically joins Sylar in his Matt-induced nightmare (The Wall) in the episode. Based on CANON with fanon and intellect, imagination and a thing called common sense filling in all those nasty plot-holes, but we won't point fingers.
One deviation from canon: In The Fifth Stage when Peter wipes Sylar's memory after the fight, he gained all of Sylar's memories via Rene/The Haitian's ability that allows the user to remember the person's memories in addition to erasing them from the person. AKA Peter has every single one of Sylar's memories stored in his subconscious. They appear from time to time when Peter sleeps or becomes distracted or experiences one of Sylar's deja vu's. Sylar has since recovered his memories with a combination of IA and regeneration. Sylar still has Nathan's memories from Matt Parkman's previous mind-fuck in Invisible Thread. The boys are powerless inside the Wall.
Things you'll need: // // denotes a Nathan Petrelli memory from Sylar's head. Sylar/Gabriel's memories are within singular lines / /. Peter's are \ \ and Peter’s recollection of a Sylar memory (via Rene/the Haitian's ability) is \\ \\. 'Posts' are separated between the boys by XXX (no, that's nothing naughty).
A/N: Brief M/M innuendo.
Day 7
A grin must have stuck on his face for some reason, probably because Peter was good at relaying the events and he was interested to see where they concluded. He chuckled at imagining Peter conniving the police, not the ‘rescue’ team to clean up a body because it was a mess. And before he could clue in on that fact, Peter delivered the punch line he hadn’t seen coming.
He laughed, completely unexpected even from him. “A-a skunk?!” he managed around his laughter. Oh, god, he’d forgotten Peter had a sense of humor. Something panged inside him, but he ignored it. He clapped his hands a few times, not really at or for Peter, just in amused reaction. His face felt like it would break since he hadn’t laughed this hard since…well….
“Oh, god, Petrelli….You’re a keeper,” he said once he’d calmed down sufficiently. The words held no meaning and his tone was normal and light. He placed a hand on his stomach for a brief moment to remember to breathe before he straightened; not noticing that he’d adjusted his stance a little. Exhaling, he smiled at Peter, who now stood. “I didn’t know EMTs covered the animal division.”
Sylar had his own memories of road kill, some that had scarred his memory as a child as the…animal had been still alive and stuck and…But Peter’s story brought levity, much needed. He recognized that Peter Petrelli would probably end up doing most of the story-telling here, at least on the lighter side. He interacted with people (and animals) and had actual stories to divulge.
He noticed that had not answered his question by any means, but Peter’s reply had been what he needed to hear, not what he’d been expecting. "Good one."
Peter grinned right back and it was a pleasant sight. C’mon, it was a face and it was a nice face. It was smiling because of him and that was a good feeling. The medic went back to rummaging and that was kind of amusing. He hoped Peter didn’t think that he considered him….some kind of doll with a pull string, available for cheap amusement. He considered that a moment. Actually….up until now, he almost had thought of him that way.
XXX
Peter gave him an easy grin back, very pleased to have put a smile on Sylar’s face. It was so much better than a scowl, or a glare, or that arrogant condescension the man seemed to wear like it was his favorite hat. And he had such a nice smile, which was really surprising. Peter was glad to see it again, but he got his eyes away from it before his attention looked like anything else. He opened a drawer and sorted through a haphazard collection of utensils.
“Good to know you have a sense of humor,” he said and chuckled. “I have to tell you I was a little worried there for a moment.” You certainly do worry me. The limits of what you might do are just way off the chart. He shut the drawer and went on to the cutlery drawer, actually bending down a little - a spot hurt in his back where he was sure he had a bruise from Sylar’s elbow - and looking inside, behind the silverware tray. There was a collection of bits of kitchen errata there - a cocktail fork, some straws, and salt packets from a fast food place, among other things. No cockroaches here. That has its good points, at least.
XXX
The other man chuckled at him, a sound that, in the past, hadn’t spelled good things. “I could say the same thing about you.” Heh, oops. Was that losing his cool or…being normal to Peter? He recalled several snarkier things Peter had delivered even while they were at odds with each other; enemies; of course he had other sources for Peter’s idea of manipulating, teasing, pranking and interacting.
XXX
“I think I’d have to say that every EMT who managed to get past the first breaker - it happens after a couple months in the seat - develops a pretty morbid sense of humor. You kind of have to. Every day, every person you go see, they’re always hurt, a lot of the time ungrateful or uncooperative. I’m not saying that’s wrong or they’re bad people,” Peter’s voice softened and gentled remarkably, “they’re just people.” Then his tone went back to normal as he said, “But it wears a person down. You get swung on by a rowdy drunk or cursed at because something hurts and you can’t make it stop instantly - there’s a certain attitude towards it you have to learn or else the breaker breaks you.”
XXX
His companion continued in the same vein and for once (for once in his life!) he didn’t care one bit. He did actually want to hear about Peter’s job, gone though it may be, it didn’t matter at all. He tilted his head and shifted his weight to get more comfortable, watching Peter’s face where he could as he spoke and searched. He spoke about breakers. Wait…breakers? That idea confused him coming from Peter.
Sylar watched the man’s face and noted the changes in his voice as he talked about people, in general, that were injured and hurt. ‘They’re just people’ stuck out at him, it barely made sense to him, actually. How...why does he think they’re ‘just people’? No one is ‘just people’. His gut clenched when Peter spoke of losing someone; first for his own loss, that is murders, which led to the most…prominent and as yet unaddressed kill. Badly he wanted to ask of Peter, ‘what do you know about loss?’ not including Nathan, of course.
XXX
Peter opened the cabinet above the drawer and found himself looking at drinking glasses, mostly mismatched. He sorted through them with his left hand like he expected to find something behind them, which was absurd, but he did it anyway. “The next breaker comes the first time you lose someone - and not the first time someone dies, because yeah that’s hard, but it’s the first time you make a mistake and you realize, you know, that your mistake killed someone. If you’d done what you were supposed to do, if you’d done something different, they’d still be alive. A lot of people wash out then.” He stared at the cabinet without really seeing the glasses anymore. He closed it and moved on to the one next to it: plates.
XXX
Half-aware, he saw Peter ‘looking’ for something in the glasses before he took on the plates. ‘A lot of people wash out then’ was so much more true than Peter knew and it made Sylar’s gaze fall away from the other man’s face, his own flickering over emotions he probably had little right to feel. Still, the former EMT went on, his voice dulling and that made Sylar ache by proxy.
XXX
Peter’s voice got a little hollow. “The next one after that is when you realize you’re not really making a difference. No matter how good you are at your job, there’s always more calls and a lot of the time it’s the same people for the same thing.” He looked at the counter, frowning. He rubbed the edge of the brace against the counter and sighed. “Makes you just want to yell at them to quit fucking up their lives already.
“If you can make it past all of that, you’re usually set until your body starts giving out.” The pay sucks, too. He smirked and looked over at Sylar, wondering if he should continue carrying the conversation, or shut up, or figure out something to ask the other man in return that didn’t touch on the last few years. I wonder if he’s got any cool watchmaking stories? I suppose if he doesn’t, I could tell him about that guy in the house on the island, where I had to cross that icy footbridge…
XXX
That explains why people yell at me, it dawned on him quickly, but it’s not because they care. It’s because you’re fucking someone else’s life up. That explains Bennet and Angela and Peter. They won’t help you because you couldn’t change. His insides were already a little funky from a deep, long-overdue laugh moments before, but this made him uncomfortable, his feet shifting as he swallowed.
Peter glanced back and he straightened, not tensing, just covering up his adverse reaction, nodding at him and forcing a quick grin. Unlike you, my body doesn’t give out. My mind does. When it isn’t being swept under the carpet or forced into police officer’s heads. “Totally listening, man,” he said, just so Peter wouldn’t stop. It wasn’t like the things Peter said would affect him permanently, but the medic was so perceptive and he had no idea he was doing it. “I’ve heard that about medicine.” Not detailing the fact that as a kid he once considered being a doctor ‘when he grew up’.
The one and only Brain Doctor, Neurosurgeon M.D, slightly used; a.k.a. the Boogeyman. I’m so special now. It made him wonder how much he’d thrown away those years ago the moment Suresh senior walked in his door. Clearly a lot, he supplied himself all-too-helpfully. Sylar was aware he’d missed whatever life-train that was supposed to make his stop. There hadn’t been a lot of options. Why had every decision, every option always been a catch-twenty-two? In the end, he’d pleased himself, ‘looked out for number one’ because even when Virginia and Elle had been alive, even when he ‘was a Petrelli’, that was all he’d had. All he still had. He blinked and tried to focus on something else, desperate to do that.
XXX
Peter was getting a kind of weird ‘read’ off Sylar, not that this was terribly new as he didn’t read people as well as he once did, and Sylar was fairly opaque under the best of circumstances. But this was a different weird than the previous weird. The man’s smile was forced and whenever Peter looked over at him, he changed his body language from whatever it was unobserved, to whatever he was trying to project. While Peter considered that, he opened the refrigerator and looked at the contents.
Peter nodded to Sylar’s observation. “Yeah, burn-out rate’s pretty high.” He shut the fridge. “I’ll tell you another story.” It was something to fill the time and reduce the awkwardness of the silence between them, and maybe even, Peter was hoping, reduce some of the latent hostility in the air. Just because he was talking to Sylar didn’t mean he was happy with him, but as long as they studiously avoided talking about anything ‘important’, Peter could unwind a little and be civil.
He headed back to the bedroom, walking by Sylar and expecting the other man to follow him. He assessed the room, then started in on the dresser. “Last winter we had a bunch of snow, it had melted a lot, then refroze and it snowed again. So we had like an inch of ice under three or four inches of snow, which was also melting now - really nasty. Most people had enough sense to stay in though, for once, and we’d been lucky - me and Hesam, that is - if you want to call ‘boring’ lucky and a lot of EMTs do. We’d pulled transfers all day and had hardly gotten our boots wet. Transfers are when we move patients from one clinic to another. There’s not much work involved, because the nurses will have them prepped and packed when you get there and pick them up at the door when you drop them off. You’re just a glorified taxi service.”
XXX
Sylar tagged along behind Peter in his search for…lint or his dead pet moth or something, thoroughly enjoying hearing his voice. Not that it was Peter’s, but that it was a voice and it spoke to him. And on top of that, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d heard a story beyond /‘My boys have been such a disappointment. But you…I can give you what all boys crave from their mothers; inspiration and guidance’/ along with his given name from dear ‘Mommy’. He grinned as Peter launched into another tale, the ache in his heart slowly fading away due to the amusement in the man’s voice, knowing that they could have been brothers or close to it had they met under alternate circumstances.
His expression was open from the stories, even if Peter didn’t think he was sharing anything, indeed he probably didn’t see it, not that it mattered. Sylar took every word at face value. He chuckled at lucky being the same thing as boring and that struck him as just Peter’s speed. It occurred to him to wonder just where Peter found the time to rescue the world (not just New York and his friends and family) and keep a full-time, full-responsibility job.
Sniggering at the image of Peter being a glorified taxi service was really the cherry on top of the story.
XXX
He didn’t see anything of interest in the dresser, not even porn this time. He wandered into the closet, avoiding the nightstand for both porn- and gun-related issues. It was a little surprising the place had a walk-in closet. The clothes were all out of date. Whoever had lived here was a big guy, around the middle more than tall. “So there we were, crashed in the break room. I was watching one of the Die Hard movies - it wasn’t the first one, which is the best, so I wasn’t real invested in it. Hesam was snoring. He’d been out late the night before with his brother at some karaoke club. Then the call came in.”
XXX
Sylar kept his grin and moved into the bedroom behind Peter, poking aimlessly around over a bookshelf as the other man took to the closet. He was instantly forced to bite his lip over about a million “closet” jokes. Oh, Peter…I see what Nathan was talking about with you. So naïve.
XXX
Peter opened some boxes in the closet a bit hesitantly, then relaxed. Bills, paperwork, records. On the last box, he jerked. Porn. Ah! He knew that had to be around here somewhere. He shut the box, shook his head, colored a bit and left the closet, heading to the bathroom. He went on with his story. “The call was for a nonresponsive out in the middle of nowhere. I didn’t even know we had a nowhere, New York City, but Hesam said he recognized the address and we went. It was this hilly little undeveloped district and the roads hadn’t been plowed yet. On the way there, we got some details: the police had been dispatched, too; the subject’s brother had gone by his house that morning and couldn’t raise him so he walked around the place and could see in the windows that he was all slumped over in a chair and wouldn’t respond to hammering; doors and windows all locked.”
XXX
Hearing a sudden movement, he looked to see what the cause could be; Peter merely held a box, exposed for a moment, but he couldn’t see inside from his position. The man closed it with an odd look as he left the closet in favor of the bathroom. Feeling sneaky and still able to hear Peter’s voice, he padded inside himself, taking up the exact box that made his companion’s expression so…whatever. Lifting the lid he was instantly stared in the face by a naked woman…on a magazine of course, but he practically threw it away from himself.
He’d seen women naked a time or two and all that, but porn wasn’t…he barely restrained himself from looking around to see if he’d been caught by Virginia. It was just that ingrained in him. A blush found itself on his face at the thought that Peter Petrelli had just seen this same magazine. He’d never owned a speck of porn or anything of the sort. Of course, he had used his library card to read a few romance novels as a teen. They were….cliché and predictable; no characters or real-life aspects to be found. None of it was his style. The magazine…model, he supposed he could call her, had no features on her face, where her face would be rather. Instead it was just blank skin with no hint of nose or eyes or mouth. He narrowed his eyes back at Peter. That probably did cut down on the value for him.
XXX
Peter found a box of bandages in the medicine cabinet in the bathroom. A quick glance inside revealed they’d work for his knuckles. He set them out. “So we get there. Hesam’s still hung over and there’s no way we’re getting the rig down this windy little driveway the guy has, so I get out on foot and head in. The police car had gone ahead, but I go over this rise and there it is stuck in the snow, one cop with it trying to get free and the other had gone ahead like I was doing. So it was a good thing we didn’t try it ourselves. We’d have slid right down the incline into them. I go on and I’m sure getting my boots wet now, because it was slushy and a mess and I’m having to really watch my step with the ice under all of this.”
He finished with the bathroom and headed out, recovering his messenger bag and moving to the dining room with it and the box of bandages. “Because all we need, you know, is one of us to slip and fall and need extraction - that’s always embarrassing. I finally look up, because I’d been watching my feet and following the tracks of the other cop, and see that right in front of me is this rickety old wooden bridge - the only way to get over to the house.” He glanced up at Sylar. “I kid you not - a freaking footbridge like out of a bad movie, with planks missing and only one rail, which looks on the edge of falling off. The other side has a rope and honestly it looks more reliable. The thing’s covered with ice and it’s above this little stream - I’d like to say a river, because really, when it’s wider than you can jump across, it doesn’t matter how much. If I fell in that thing I was going to be drenched in freezing cold water. It was all swollen from the melt.”
XXX
Snorting to himself (the blood in his face rearranging itself by now), he moved to the dresser, just to be doing something. Peter gave excellent details and he was able to follow the story, practically see the moment in time for himself and he appreciated that. Sylar wasn’t surprised by how animated the other man was; Peter held his singular audience captive regardless. But when it came to the point about the ‘river’ as Peter dubbed it, Sylar did speak up in its defense: “I think that’s a stream, actually,” he suggested quietly, his voice quiet because it didn’t matter if Peter heard or not. It did matter if he stopped talking.
XXX
He took off his old bandages and began to apply new ointment after wiping off the old. “I could see where the cop had slipped a couple times, but he’d made it. I started across. Speaking of the cop, all this time he’s banging on the guy’s door with his crowbar, trying to get in and all I can think of is how we’re going to get the guy back if he’s dead or unconscious. Well, actually, all I could think of was if one of these planks was going to break under me, or if I was going to slip on the ice. But I got across.”
XXX
Sylar dragged his fingers over the random objects on the dresser without seeing them. Peter seriously did that for a living? Then again, who was he to talk, not that he made a living out of it. Sylar kind of made death out of it. Momentarily he was distracted with Peter’s long-gone, rather irrelevant conundrum: how to get the man back over the bridge, but his attention was snapped back once the rescue got within the house in the story. He watched Peter who was now re-bandaging his hand, properly this time.
XXX
“Now it’s just me and the cop. Hesam’s come over the hill and the other cop has given up on getting his car out, but neither of them are all that interested in trying that deathtrap of a bridge. We manage to force the door and head in. We go through the house - it smells pretty musty, but not bad; it’s warm; it’s dead quiet. We go in the den and there the guy is, slumped over just like his brother said. But his color really isn’t all that bad and about as I notice that, I also notice this huge hearing aid on his ear.”
He chuckled. “Cop touches his shoulder. Guy wakes up.” He laughed again. “He’s perfectly fine. Battery ran out on his hearing aid or something and he fell asleep in his chair. Nothing to worry about.” Peter started putting new bandages on his right knuckles, smiling warmly. “Nothing to worry about, of course, except getting back across that bridge.” He glanced up at Sylar, really looking the guy over, trying to read if he was still ‘off’ on his emotional read or if he’d settled during the story.
XXX
At first he blinked. Then Peter explained about the battery and he had no choice but to laugh again. Peter really is good with people, isn’t he? Sylar thought to himself, his amusement tapering off and his chest felt funny in its absence. Look at what he does; easing the tension, telling me what I probably need to hear and probably what he wants to talk about instead of what I asked for.
His head tilted to make eye contact with Peter as he looked back from his self-care, Sylar’s own face was still pleased and much more calm. He’d quickly slapped down the memories of Virginia’s own hearing loss from his younger days. Choosing not to recall how he’d had to repeat everything in his quiet, shy child’s voice and how it annoyed her to anger. It got better after puberty when his voice broke and he rumbled instead of squeaking and whispering.
“Sounds to me like you’re the risk-taker of the group,” was what he said, thinking, we’re so different, but god, if he isn’t just like me in some ways. He knew that would be a bad case of over-sharing and not knowing a good thing when he saw it and avoided glancing at Peter’s busted hand as he delivered his comment.
XXX
Peter laughed off Sylar’s comment. “Yeah, maybe, but I’ve gotten in a lot of trouble over that. I’m not a very good partner…or rather, I’m not good at it the way my partners want me to be.” He leaned back, frowning, and reached over to flick at one of the bits of waxed paper from the bandages. Hesam’s words came back to him: ‘You run off the second we get on scene. I’m a chauffeur.’ That had stung - really stung. Being called a chauffeur or taxi driver was one of the worst insults EMTs could sling around at each other. Having abilities and concealing them from Hesam had driven a wedge between them, at a time when Peter’s only social outlet was his work.
He felt resentful and grumpy about his partners, which was what inspired his next story choice. “Here’s one that’s bothered me for a long time.” Peter stood up and gathered his bag. They were done here, as far as he cared, so it was time to move on to a new apartment. “Maybe you’d like to hear it.” He laughed a little hollowly. “It’s not like I’ve ever had the chance to tell it to anyone.”
XXX
Sylar swallowed hastily. Er, what? Good at what now, exactly? Peter delivered it so honestly that he was clueless as to how Sylar might be (and was) taking his words. “Last time I checked it was about the patient, not the partner,” he replied, voice a little reedy. He watched the man closely out of the corner of his eye as the storm grew in Peter’s expression. He tilted his head, eyes widening as his companion (not to be confused with ‘partner’) was about to let him in on the equivalent of a secret. Whoa…he didn’t know what to say or do for that one; it shocked him to the core.
Then it struck him. Peter had nothing to lose now. What good was a fucking secret when there was only one person to know? He’s not entrusting you with anything, get over it. He did slowly, but his lower lip jutted out a moment as he thought. The creepy laugh put him off and he didn’t like considering what this man would have to have seen to utter it so well. Peter was on the move again and he followed as a faithful shadow on to the next frontier, AKA apartment. Then again….he doesn’t have to share this, but he is anyway.
XXX
The next apartment was another messy one, but not with trash. It was cluttered and full of things, very much like Sylar’s place, but the objects themselves were different - not books and clocks, but crafts and carved wood and pottery. Huh. Neat. Peter smiled a little. There was a lot to see here and that pleased him. He started in on the living room while he talked.
XXX
The not-so final frontier was crowded and cramped with something Sylar would have called junk had it not been so similar to his own apartment. Objects littered the floor and nearly every available flat surface and he felt right at home, oddly enough, in the ocean of stuff. Peter looked happy, but Sylar was busy stroking at a carved quail figure. Whoever had lived here before, the guy was into pottery, carving and some leather working and toy-tinkering. In other words, his stuff could be useful. Peter looked around on his own as he launched into his third and probably a genuine horror story. How could he resist?
XXX
“A couple years back, just after I’d started as an EMT, I didn’t have a regular partner. I just took whoever I was assigned to. So me and this guy, we got called to a violent psych. There were two cop cars there, a third arriving, and five different people had this one guy pinned down on the grass. We get out and as it turns out, no one’s really bad hurt, but the guy’s not calming down, and they’re going to send him in for evaluation. One of the cops asks me if we have a body bag.
“I say no, because we don’t. And I’m not too wild about what he’s suggesting, but I know it happens.” He looked over at Sylar, realizing he needed to explain that before the other man got the wrong idea. “A body bag can be used as a makeshift restraint. It’s thick canvas and it keeps them from thrashing around. We’re not allowed to have a guy handcuffed in the ambulance without a cop right there with us and even then it’s iffy, but we can have them strapped down and by the law that’s fine.” He gave a shrug and a roll of his eyes to indicate what he thought of that, then went back to searching, looking at a series of nesting eggs made up to be…dogs in suits? Something like that.
XXX
He straightened up, glancing at Peter as he blurted out something about body bags. Has he ever been in one? He is on the ‘good’ side of the law…sort of. The medic explained the usage of the body bag and he nodded, turning towards a full table, poking around on it. His eyebrows rose slightly as Peter explained the laws, rather, the rights of the ‘patient’ such as it was. Well, you learn something new every day. He agreed with Peter on this one; whatever that law or practice was, it was ridiculous. Not to mention it inhibited saving people. Not that he gave a damn.
XXX
“My partner gets on the line and has them send us over a body bag. I try to talk to the guy, but he’s cursing and struggling and really strung out, plus the cops aren’t letting up and there’s no way for me to get a connection with him. The other ambulance gets there and we get him in the bag, long story a little shorter. Just at the end, he manages to spit right in the face of one of the other EMTs, and after everything else we’d been doing trying to handle this guy, she lost it, tried to kick him, screamed back at him. Now this guy had been saying everything under the sun at us that was offensive and…”
Peter frowned, thinking back on that, seeing the scene, hearing the insults. He stopped looking at things and just stood there tensely, because it was provocative even in memory. “Her partner drags her off; she gets in their rig to drive. Her partner gets in the back of mine, with the patient and my partner. My partner tells me to drive. He knows I haven’t been around long.” Peter reached up and scratched lightly at the bump on his chin left by Sylar’s fist, then up to his forehead in a nervous gesture.
XXX
Sylar engrossed himself physically in sorting through the tools of the previous occupant. He took up a small pick that he knew to be from the leather working and clay-carving station; an awl and he might have a use or two for it. There was a nice sized flat-head screwdriver that he stole as well. Can never have too many screwdrivers. Peter spoke on about the experience; a wild raving lunatic by the sound of it causing his medical teams some disturbance. His mouth twitched in amusement at the idea of the medical lady being spat on…and then throwing a tantrum, but he knew the conclusion of the story when Peter said that the partners got in with the loon-patient. No punch line for this one, I think.
XXX
“I drive. I hear some noises from in back. I know what they’re doing, but I turn up the radio chatter and put on the music. I didn’t look in the rearview. We get to the psych ward. Patient seems same as before - violent, psychotic.” Peter looked at the ceiling and sighed, then headed for the bedroom. “I guess they didn’t hit him in the face. But that bothered the hell out of me.”
XXX
The other man moved again, with a sigh, obviously still frustrated over something years past and he tagged behind at a distance, sensing the air to be….potentially unwelcoming. Into the bedroom they went, the exploring part fading to the background of the story-telling. Sylar got his ending, the one he predicted, too. And it was somehow offensive to his idea of who Peter was, somehow that was a little insulting, why he couldn’t say. You’re supposed to be the hero. That seemed to come from the additional person in his head, but he felt the same.
XXX
He glanced back at Sylar. “I try to tell myself that if I’d known what they were going to do, I would have tried to have my partner drive so it wouldn’t have happened. But then even after I knew, I didn’t stop the rig. I didn’t report my partner. I just kept driving. But I never partnered with him again.” He shook his head. “There was no one I could even talk to about it.” But it felt good to get it off his chest after all this time, sort of like a confession. What a weird idea - Sylar listening to my sins. Ha.
XXX
Sylar stared head-on at Peter, not bothering to spare him the gaze he’d been told was intense. For all your morals, you’re so human, Petrelli. The rest of his mind was having difficulty with what he’d been told. It didn’t matter now; the loony patient was long gone, Peter didn’t work at Mercy any longer and so couldn’t report the former partner. Peter had no responsibility to the public any longer and ‘people were people’.
Peter Petrelli essentially stood by and watched someone get beaten. From Sylar’s perception the incident in and of itself was unamazing. One guy gets beat and you bottle it up like this? How many years? In truth, Sylar would walk by that and not feel a thing other than smug humor and a sense of normality. Peter couldn’t see the world, he saw the people in it.
His expression as he pinned the other man with his eyes was probably one of stern question. ‘Really?’ and/or ’Why?’ It set his teeth on edge, making them almost itch in anger at Peter’s thoughtless hypocrisy. ‘That totally explains your routine with the goddamn nail gun,’ was so close to slipping out. It’s okay so long as you’re not the one watching, hm? “Ever consider that he deserved it?” was what he said, stiffly nonetheless. ‘It’s how the world works, you innocent kid. And I thought that people were your responsibility.’
XXX
Peter wanted to cringe from that intense gaze, but despite feeling contrite, he wouldn’t do that in front of Sylar - glare or no glare. Instead he turned partly away, literally giving a cold shoulder to the stare. He looked back at Sylar’s question though. “D-deserve it? No one d-“ He looked Sylar up and down with the briefest flick of his eyes, remembering who he was talking to. Stiffly he said, “Not for cursing at people and spitting on them.”
XXX
Sylar gave a deadly glare at the shoulder he was presented with. He thinks he can brush it off? No one deserves it my ass. He got no response and Peter looked a bit peeved overall, but he didn’t chuckle since that hadn’t…necessarily been his goal. Peter knew his fault and now Sylar did, they glared, they shrugged, they moved on. Man-code (they were certainly not in the realms of ‘Bro-code’).
“If you’re following the moral straight-and-narrow, your partner, such as he was, deserved something he didn’t get from you,” he delivered honestly (as if Peter was interested in his warped morality), cocking his head forward and raising his brows briefly to Peter as he knelt to peer under the bed. Weirdos like Samson would probably keep nick-knacks and other useful junk in odd places and it would allow him to avoid eye contact rather neatly. “But I’m sure you know that.”
XXX
Peter pursed his lips at Sylar’s comment about what Peter’s partner deserved. “What?” he said before he could stop himself, but then shook his head and muttered, “Never mind,” to head off any potential answer. Instead, he looked down and brooded, taking Sylar’s comment to heart and really thinking about it. What did my partner deserve that he didn’t get? My support? I let him do it. My help? Not happening and no, no work partner ‘deserves’ my help to do something unethical. If he deserved anything, he deserved to get written up for it. Should I have talked to him privately maybe and jumped his case about it? I was the rookie; he wasn’t going to listen to me. Of course, maybe I should have said something anyway. Peter’s brows drew together. It’s not about what he hears. It’s about what I say.
He leaned his back against the wall, driving his left hand into his pants pocket and letting his right hang. He met Sylar’s eyes for a moment, then looked away and down. It was sort-of an agreement. Okay, I should have talked to my partner. I should have told him someone knew, someone didn’t approve. I enabled it by not speaking up. Somehow I doubt that’s what Sylar’s implying. He sighed a little, but kept himself from nodding to ‘I’m sure you know that.’ He suspected he and Sylar weren’t talking about the same thing so he was silent, staring at the floor and mulling over the situation from years ago and the words exchanged today. He hadn’t told the story with any intentions of drawing parallels between the violent psych and Sylar. I need to be more sensitive to who I’m talking to. He frowned, listening to Sylar rummage under the bed. The list of things he couldn’t talk about here was pretty long.
XXX
Sylar studiously didn’t open his mouth on the other man’s inability to speak to someone. I’m not gonna touch that one. Again with the hypocrisy, too. So horrible when it happens to you, precious Peter. He pulled out boxes from under the bed, rifling through them for something of technical appeal, ignoring his companion for a few moments.
He brought out a pack of pro-diamond filers, ten in all, a perfect addition to his collection of tools, and a cross peen hammer, then continued on his search. He found various wall hangings, pots, tools, random clothes that slipped under the bed (mostly socks, eck), papers and toys (really how old was this guy?), a guitar…
Something ticked in his head and he drew out the instrument, not quite sure why he did. Peter plays…sort of. He exhaled a little in relief at finding something to take away his temptation of anger. Nathan does come in handy now a days. “Guitar…?” he offered up hesitantly because he didn’t feel the guitar was wholly his gift and that bothered him. It was akin to telling secrets and scars under hypnosis. But as much as he hated it, he needed it, too.
XXX
Then the other man straightened, pulling out something big. He was on the other side of the bed from Peter. Whatever the object was, Sylar looked at it blankly for a moment, then offered it up.
“A guitar?” Surprise flashed across Peter’s features, obliterating the gloominess that was threatening to settle there. “Oh wow. Let me see that.” He took it from Sylar’s hands, eyes for it alone. It was a steel-string acoustic guitar with a light buff finish. He could see a traced pattern on the wood where apparently the apartment’s craftsman resident (imaginary resident, Peter corrected himself) had planned to paint or enamel a design on it. A slow smile grew across his face. “It’s been a long time since I’ve played a guitar.”
The warm memories of sitting at the piano with Emma bubbled to the surface along with more distant recollections of the punk band he’d been in during high school. He sat on the edge of the bed, back to Sylar, and held the instrument as if to play it. The strings weren’t tight, but that didn’t matter. His right hand was immobilized anyway. He rested the fingers of his left on the frets and stepped through a few positions, trying to remember.
“Cool,” he said happily. “You know, this would be great physical therapy for my hand in a few weeks.” He looked back at Sylar, the previous tension dispelled as if forgotten, and asked, “You said you could play the piano some. Any other instruments?”
XXX
Peter looked up quickly from where he’d been sulking (wasn’t my damn story) and cradled the unfinished guitar, that even Sylar could see was beautiful. “I know,” he replied, addressing Peter’s playing. Obviously that was all he’d intended to say, but his brain wriggled and reminded him that that was privy information, so he hastened to speak up again to cover the pause.
“You look like you know how to handle that.” Oh, well done. He won’t suspect a thing with that type of smooth recovery. Sound like a girl with a goddamn crush. He longed to rub his face, but kept casual, leaning against the foot of the bed stand as he watched Peter.
“Guitar is actually doctor recommended for hand therapy, yeah.” Peter was instantly sucked in, latching onto the instrument with a passion evident on his face, what little he could see of it through those floppy bangs from his place behind and to the side of the medic. Anything that had gone wrong that day was forgotten by both parties it seemed as Peter chatted a little. Both bodies were relaxed as was the air between the two.
“I played the triangle in band,” Sylar deadpanned and nodded with seriousness. He kept his expression one of light accomplishment. Peter was obviously, hopelessly out of his depth when it came to jokes; he hadn’t ever joked with Sylar, King of Sarcasm. He held the pick, the filers and the hammer in one hand and went on, “Then came the bagpipes sophomore year. That was hard to practice with in an apartment complex in Queens, let me tell you. The nose flute was always my dream, though.”
XXX
Peter felt a prickle of irritation at the ‘I know’ - Nathan’s memories and Sylar’s condescension cut at him even through the odd happiness he was feeling. But Sylar tried to cover it, or maybe he was just elaborating and either way Peter let it go. He had the strange feeling the guitar was his, sort of like the bear - something he wanted, something he was going to hang onto. He wasn’t normally a possessive type of person, but the whole of this world belonged to Sylar and Peter felt like such an outsider. He felt like he was here at Sylar’s mercy, but there wasn’t anywhere else he could go. Sure, he could go off by himself and be alone. But come on, Sylar was better company than being alone. Most of the time. Usually. Or at least he could be - Peter had seen that in bits and pieces. If he could just get past what was between them and see Sylar as he really was … Now that was a laugh.
Speaking of which: the triangle? Peter looked at him blankly. It was a pretty standard joke. Yes, he recognized it. But although Sylar had laughed at Peter’s funny story, their positions were now flipped and it was Peter getting the ribbing. He didn’t know how to react at first. When Sylar went on, Peter started to smile and then laughed at the part about the nose flute. Sylar did have a pretty big nose. The mental image made Peter chortle. He wasn’t relaxed enough to laugh out loud, but his grin was wide and easy. He shifted to turn more towards the other man, opening up a little.
XXX
Of course he was making that up, but it was to garner a response. Peter asked things and expected things a certain way and Sylar did so love to throw people for a loop, catch them off balance. Honesty did the trick most of the time, he’d found. Well…that wasn’t entirely accurate; he himself seemed to throw people for loops and not in a good way.
Without abilities, he was (almost) an average guy…with above average problems. Maybe it was time for Peter to see that. /”I’m not a good guy…but I’m not all bad either.”/ Stupid Sam. It was uncanny how he knew to sound just like Sylar. Word for word. That’s what had thrown him. But in the end, Sam was another puppet.
To keep the man’s attention where he wanted it, he stood smoothly (more graceful then he felt with a dull pounding in his head and a crick in his back). Bracing his feet shoulder width, sliding his fingers into his pockets, he said in a low, intimate voice, “And don’t ‘what?’ me, sweetheart. I know you enjoyed nailing me more than you let on, Peter Petrelli.” There it was; his invitation. Out in the open.
He accompanied it by giving Peter a look that the empath would probably manage to mistake anyway; he allowed need and enough lust into his eyes while they brushed all over Peter. I could play you, his gaze projected.
XXX
Continued...