More Between Us, Chapter 15/? "Fallen Angels"
Title: More Between Us Than A Wall part 15/?
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: 6, 583
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).
Day 8
Peter turned with two cups and, before Sylar could gather his brain cells to protest, had poured into them both. Huh, looks like you are drinking coffee with him today. He didn’t feel the need to reject the…gesture.
He grabbed up a pair of mini-straws (the kind you couldn’t drink out of to save your life) and began to stir his coffee. Peter blurted his third come-on, to Sylar’s ears, but in reality it was just that, something he’d blurted out that sounded sexual to a very deprived man. ‘Gimme that cream’ Thank God Peter wasn’t paying a whit of attention to him because he gasped and quickly brought his coffee closer so it would look like he’d burned himself or something while regions below his belt experienced a flood (oh, who cares? Surely Peter will understand…?). He-he wants what now?
Keeping his eyes glued to the pitcher, he quickly poured out what he needed into his cup and slid it slowly towards Peter, just slow enough to get the other man to clue in. “It’s all yours,” he murmured then took his first drink to hide his absolutely delighted smirk in the cup. Note to self: Discussions about sex give him a loose mouth…and possibly turn him on.
XXX
Peter watched the gradual progress of the cream pitcher, waiting until Sylar’s hands were entirely off it so as to avoid any possible touching. Not that the empath usually cared about that kind of thing, but he was sending all the wrong signals at the moment and obviously Sylar was picking them up. Given that the other man had made what might have been a pass at him the day before, this was starting to be very awkward. Peter set his teeth together and managed to say, “Thank you,” mostly without opening them. He poured generously, feeling a heat across his nose and forehead. Blushing. Awesome, he thought to himself sarcastically. Fucking awesome. Why don’t you just tell the guy you’re interested in him while you’re at it?
XXX
And just like that Peter was done playing. Part of him was left to wonder-Am I that toxic? Then another small voice spoke up from far back in his head, Yeah, you are. You leave a bad taste in everyone’s eyes when they look at you. He ducked his head and went back to stirring the coffee he hadn’t intended on having at all. It took some self-control not to bite his lip, but he pulled it off. “No problem,” he mumbled in reply.
Playing was all it was; that was all it could be, but he’d enjoyed even that for the brief moment he’d been given the falsehood. Sylar usually preferred some sugar in his coffee, but Peter had set it out of reach and he wasn’t about to ask for it and make the poor, clearly shame-faced man push it over or look at him. And Peter was feeling awkward at the very least; it read in his body language and in the tight voice he’d used. Nothing if not good at picking up those unsubtle hints. It succeeded in making him feel awkward about it, perhaps even awkward about having enjoyed it.
XXX
Peter stirred, tasted, added some sugar, stirred and tasted again. He added a little extra and set the sugar canister aside. He picked up his toast gingerly, balancing it on his left hand and took a bite, keeping his eye line well off to the side of Sylar, trying to think about what he should say. Ask if he has any siblings? No - Nathan. And if I think of that immediately, so will he and I don’t want to invite that discussion. Yeah. So no. Other family? Does he even have any family? He can’t, really. It wouldn’t work. If he had family, he wouldn’t have been so quick to accept Ma telling him he was a Petrelli. He has to be a foster kid, or adopted or something. There would have been some question otherwise. And that means he wouldn’t have any siblings either - same reason - Ma would have said, ‘You’re a Petrelli’ and he’d have been ‘Oh really? Is my sister one, too?’ But not a peep.
XXX
Lifting his head again Sylar stared straight ahead and neither of them addressed whatever it was that…might have happened. So it’s going to be like that. Pretending you don’t exist while you sit right beside him. Idly, he sipped on the coffee to be polite, and not because of the lack of sugar, while he kept his own eyes focused straight ahead back into the kitchen. The medic had most obviously gotten Sylar’s half-worded attempt at a sexual invitation otherwise the words wouldn’t have bothered him.
You Petrellis have a gift for making people feel less-than, he thought a little bitterly, right after you give them at least a hint of something they want. Frustration boiled in him but there was no help for it. Sylar wrapped his hand loosely around the rather warm cup, eyeing the mocha liquid inside as he thought to himself. Yet his family isn’t labeled psychopathic for having and knowing what a person wants and abusing it. Wasn’t that how it went?
XXX
Peter reached down and took up his coffee cup, blowing on the hot liquid and then sipping at it carefully. Of course, maybe he had a long talk with Ma about the details, but I don’t think so. I suppose that means Ma knew of his family situation, or lack of one. That would kind of suck, being alone like that. He sighed, remembering telling Sylar on his first day here that the other man should have tried to find more help when he had trouble with his abilities. Nathan had been a huge help to Peter, more than once and even though his mother hadn’t … helped, per se, she’d been there and provided a sort of stabilizing influence. That, and she set me up to destroy New York, but that’s not the point.
How would things have been different though if I’d had no Ma to worry about, no Nathan to tell me it was all crazy talk, no Claire to tell me I was her hero? He crunched through more of the toast. I wouldn’t have been out there killing people, but … His eyes flicked to Sylar, then away. It would have been different, all right.
It was an uncomfortable subject. He sought a new one. How many blocks away is this music shop? Nah; pointless. I’ll find out in a little while anyway. He wanted to ask something that told him more about who he was dealing with, but he didn’t want to be invading the man’s privacy. He thought back to things Sylar had said he did around here and asked, “You said you liked to cook to pass the time. Do you have a restaurant or somewhere you go to do it, or is it always in your apartment?” He gestured at the diner. “I came down here a couple times and fixed breakfast. Seemed more convenient than doing it in my apartment.” Plus, of course, I didn’t have the apartment the first time, but whatever.
XXX
The one time Sylar glanced at Peter he appeared to have something on his mind and that didn’t bode well. He chose to pretend it was a comfortable silence (yeah right), until Peter spoke after a while of chewing on his toast, the crunch oddly satisfying from his standpoint. Then again, Peter eating had always deeply amused him (Peter doing any action that required contortion of his poor lip). Sylar deeply suspected that came from Nathan…at least he hoped it did. Even he wasn’t that depraved as to think Peter eating for fuck’s sake as ‘cute’.
Oh, there it went. Wave bye-bye to your masculinity, please, because it just dumped you.
He exhaled an amused breath, one that failed to make it to chuckle status, “Yeah, I cook sometimes. I mean, I cook to eat, yes.” Sylar made a face, considering the question. “I used random restaurants when I would wander too far from…home,” his pause was brief. “But I usually just cook at home. There’s less room and you still have to clean up, but hey, it’s something to do, you know.” He shrugged. “A restaurant would have more equipment if you’re a gourmet.” That drew a more amused sound from him at the thought.
//”Do I like sushi?” He’d asked Ma after she caught him staring at the clumps of raw fish on a platter. “You’re the one who had a craving for yellowtail. I wanted Italian,” had been her succinct yet questioning reply// and before that he recalled her near threat of //’Nah. I never kid about family brunch.”// That just shows you, he thought.
“But I forgot, you can’t clean dishes, can you, Peter?” was his gentle teasing in the other man’s direction, chiding him lightly for not getting his hands dirty (perhaps not being able to grow up).
XXX
“I thought maybe you were a gourmet?” Peter said half questioning, half teasing, finding himself suddenly trying to fall back into that same openness, same reaching out, poking and being friendly. Or rather, too friendly. He dialed it back. It would take a while to find a balance. A little more stiffly, he added, “You said when I first came here that you liked to cook and spent a lot of time doing it …?” I was listening to you, you know? “I suppose at home you know where everything is at.”
He chuckled at Sylar’s light taunt about the dishes, taking it in the not-mean-spirited way he hoped it was meant. “I can, I just …” He shrugged, finishing the last of his toast. He washed it down with a larger sip of coffee. The drink was just starting to get to the top of the drinkability range of temperature. “Well, it’s not my favorite thing to do unless someone’s there doing it with me. Same for laundry. We always had scrub-“ He’d know that, from Nathan’s memories. Actually, would Nathan have ever noticed what we had in the kitchen? “-brushes at home, and sponges. And those little bristly green scrubbing things. I’m sure they have a name.” He looked up at Sylar, eyes making a quick circuit of the man’s face, expecting that he’d know this sort of thing.
Peter took a larger drink of his coffee and frowned briefly at the toast crumbs on the counter. I wonder if I leave them there, if they’ll disappear like trash? First time I was in here, I didn’t clean up and it was still messy when I came back. He walked over to get a wet cloth, then cleaned up.
“If someone’s helping though, dishes or laundry or whatever, it’s a nice way to spend the time.” He’d enjoyed working with most of the staff his parents employed. He remembered his mother being absolutely scandalized one evening when he’d been helping Sarah and carried out a tray of hors d’oeuvres she’d prepared. That Angela’s guests saw him serving had struck most of them as charming. She’d tried to laugh it off as that, but Peter had been banned from gatherings in future if he couldn’t ‘control himself.’ That wasn’t much of a punishment, really, but Sarah had caught hell for it, too, which was. So after that, he left to hang out with his friends to late hours, or wherever. Sometimes he’d chase down Nathan and inflict his sixteen or seventeen year old self on his brother.
XXX
Sylar’s face turned dubious and amused. “Sorry to disappoint,” he chuckled before Peter seemed to shift again. No more so than Nathan was a gourmet. “I was…never really exposed to it.” He just took the next half-question Peter posed him, letting it and the delivered tone slide past him. Those had not been his words and he wasn’t sure where Peter had gotten the impression he was suddenly Miss Martha Stewart; Home Garden and Cooking Channel. Like he’d said just before; he cooked to eat.
Peter went about cleaning up and Sylar thought he was just doing it because of the discussionary topic. Dish washing was next and his eyebrows rose. Was that an invitation? He thought he’d clarify, “You wanna see my dirty laundry?” and laughed a little to show he was actually joking since Peter seemed to be having difficulty loosening up again. Then again, the instant it was out of his mouth he knew it probably wasn’t the right kind of joke to accomplish that. It was adding to the problem. Okay…no more flirting.
“You like the ‘I’ll wash, you dry’ thing,” he nodded with seriousness, trying to picture who Peter had ever done that with. “Laundry is just plain boring. There’s only so much motion sickness one person can take, man.”
XXX
Peter was thankful he wasn’t drinking coffee at the moment Sylar suggested they do laundry together, or whatever he was implying. He choked anyway, half laughing, half scowling. “No!” Peter stared at Sylar apprehensively after that. Did I say something suggestive again? Dammit. I don’t think I did. I think he just has a dirty mind. Or is this the dirty-mind-version of the sarcasm/snark, and now that I’ve got him thinking that way he’s going to keep at it? Well… if that’s the case, then just calm down. No more reason to take offense at that than to the sarcasm, even if they’re both annoying. He relaxed and nodded in agreement to Sylar’s ‘you wash, I dry’ line.
“I meant the folding part,” Peter murmured around a careful drink after Sylar mentioned motion sickness. “Never mind,” he added, considering the other man might take that too as an invitation to fold clothes together sometime.
XXX
Peter’s face had been amusing when he protested togetherness and laundry. Sylar had given a quiet, “Oh,” of response. Folding, of course. He didn’t even notice the other man clearing up the ‘invitation’ in question. It appeared like he was adapting, like it or not.
On the heels of thinking about Peter’s supposed inability to clean one damn dish, his lack of job skills (or so it seemed), the inability to socially flourish at the hands of his parents; Sylar finally looked up at the other man, having a good question to ask at last. “What made you get into medicine?”
XXX
“Why did I get into medicine?” Peter snorted. “I didn’t want to be an attorney.” He took a drink of coffee. “Or worse yet, join the military. I needed to do something. I was flunking out of pre-law.” He looked at Sylar for a long moment, holding his cup halfway to the counter, assessing and judging with an intent gaze. He caught himself and looked away. What to tell? What not to tell? He felt defensive, but he forged ahead even as he shifted his weight uncomfortably and started glancing at Sylar more often while he talked, weighing his reaction.
“Tim talked to me about it - that’s Uncle Tim. He told me to find my passion, do what I liked. He said that-“ there was no point to having money if you didn’t spend your time wasting it. Entitled son of a bitch. Peter eyed Sylar. Most people would not take Tim’s philosophy well and he suspected Sylar would be no different in that regard. “He said that I should make the most of my opportunities and that I didn’t have to be prelaw. Dad disagreed.” There had been quite a few fights about it that summer, but ultimately although his father could force Peter to go to class and even pay attention, he couldn’t make him like it and he couldn’t (or at least didn’t) invest the level of obsessiveness necessary to run his son’s life to that degree.
Peter looked at Sylar briefly out of the corner of his eye. “Would you believe it was actually Linderman who suggested medicine?” It was kind of a faux-embarrassing secret, something he’d not told the rest of his family. Arthur had drug Peter along on their Fourth of July party and made something of an issue to his friends that his son needed career guidance. Arthur had clearly and explicitly encouraged his friends to steer Peter in the expected Petrelli course. Daniel Linderman had been coming to Petrelli events for years. He’d even been there when Peter brought out the hors d’oeuvres tray years before. He’d taken Peter aside, listened to him to a creepy/disturbing degree and advised him differently than Arthur had intended, ending with honeyed words about the shit Peter would catch if he shared their ‘secret.’ It had skeeved Peter out, but he hadn’t told anyone. He had to get the money for nursing school somewhere.
XXX
Sylar’s eyes then dulled over a little as Peter addressed his choice. Boy, can I relate. It made him (and Nathan) sympathetic…to a degree.
Both (all three) had been shoved into a…’job’, not necessarily a career, one that they hadn’t (necessarily) wanted, whether they liked it or not. In two of the three cases it was my-way-or-the-highway ‘choice’. Peter just…hadn’t mattered much in //Dad’s// plans and Martin was disgusted with and perhaps envious of Gabriel. Yet Peter was the only one who was alive, out of the enforced occupation with prospects. Lucky son of a bitch. Clearly the trick was having an older brother.
“You’d make a horrible lawyer. It’s a good thing you didn’t go that route. I think I-” shit! “Arthur would have had you put away for being a disgrace,” Sylar said bluntly, neatly avoiding the potential landmine. Maybe //Dad// kind of did? He snorted at the idea of Peter being in the military, the stint in Haiti notwithstanding.
Sylar kept his head down not to upset the medic with anything that might and probably would pass through his eyes (Mom had always hated that until he learned that little trick) trying to just listen as the other man spoke. Sylar’s lips pursed, mostly for himself, but Nathan in him did the same. Find your passion my ass. What a dreamer. He’s lucky he fucking found it. And that’s its legal. Peter had it so easy and he had no idea. At the mention of Linderman, someone, the name he only knew through Nathan, Sylar looked up at him.
“Is that so.” A healer, who was probably aware to some degree of Peter’s ability (as if it wasn’t obvious), suggesting medicine to an empath. A literal perfect fit except for Peter’s suicidal urges that he liked to disguise as his hero side-job. Gabriel had killed to get that kind of ear time, literally; Chandra hadn’t listened, so he’d paid the price almost the same as his first kill, Brian. Nathan recalled that party, being particularly (politely) drunk and seeing Dad hanging onto Peter’s shoulder for the night-poor Pete hadn’t been able to move from his side. Poor Pete wishing he could be (possibly not-so-politely) drunk.
Technically that’s…a dirty little Peter secret, isn’t it? Sylar concluded. Really? What the hell do I care?
“Full of secrets, you are. Your family,” was his delicate phrasing for ‘Nathan’, “doesn’t know about that one.” The lawyer and intuitive in him connected the dots in Peter’s lack of job and sudden funds for med school. Baby brother had never made a peep about his wallet or payments now had he. Nathan had always wondered distantly about that when he had time or when he was reminded of the fact. Smart kid-man, smart man. Goddamn age gap. But Peter would have gotten himself in deep had Linderman and/or Dad not died, been killed…whatever.
XXX
He nodded to Sylar’s comment about Peter making a poor lawyer, thinking, Yeah, I’d probably end up doing all pro bono work. Sylar pointed out that Peter’s family hadn’t known about where he’d gotten his money for his education. Peter looked at him steadily, the right corner of his mouth twitching upward along with his left brow. He didn’t blink. Yes, you know a secret about me now. But the only person that you would mean anything to is Ma and not only would she not listen to you, I don’t think she’d really care. But does it make you feel that I trust you a little that I told you that? Because I do. Just a little.
He went back to his drink silently, putting off the somewhat threatening demeanor he’d just shown.
XXX
“Couldn’t just get a job, could you? That’s not good enough for your kind,” Sylar forced a grin and he didn’t bother putting enough effort into it to make it appear real. He was insinuating plainly that a ‘job, just a job’ was too good for Peter. “Arthur probably wouldn’t let you just travel and you would be bored or…be unfulfilled with that. It had to be a career.” It was his turn to exhale and shake his head into his cup.
Sylar stood and had been about to pass by the medic when he’d gotten the stare of a lifetime. It read ‘watch your next step, buddy.’ Or more accurately in Sylar’s case, ‘watch the next evil words out of your mouth’. He met the stare and paused, letting Peter finish the coffee and unfortunately it gave him time to tense up about something.
XXX
He listened to Sylar’s quip about a job and felt his hackles rise, along with his blood pressure. Peter took a bigger drink and looked away for a moment, hanging onto his emotion and working it out before he said something undeserved. Sylar’s jibe was irritating, but Peter’s sudden and intense surge of anger was out of proportion to the comment.
He set to cleaning up, sort of mindlessly while the semi-red haze over his mind started to lift. The other man took his cup and Peter flinched very slightly from the motion. “Sorry,” he muttered and got out of the other man’s way. He exited the kitchen as soon as Sylar went past him. He went to the door when he saw Sylar was coming out, and made a jerk of his head towards the street. When he saw a sign of assent on the other man’s face, Peter went out.
XXX
The tension led to a flinch as Sylar took the cup, gently, brushing by the EMT uncomfortably in the tight aisle that was the waiter station to wash their cups. What was there to be done about the empath’s aversion to Sylar doing…anything? Nothing, he knew the answer was. Sylar returned and they exited the diner, he caught Peter’s gesture to continue on and nodded, relieved the man had calmed down, presumably from his fit about having ‘a job’.
XXX
Once they were walking again, Peter felt some of the tension passing. He felt he needed to explain his sudden emotion, because it had probably been obvious - Sylar was no slouch on detecting such. “’Arthur’ wouldn’t let me work. I had a job freshman year. He got me fired from it.” And he forbade Peter from getting another one while he was in college, or something to that effect. At the time Peter had been furious (he still was), but he followed orders like he always did when his father got in his face and was explicit about what he was to do. In retrospect, having had an ability that allowed him to push thoughts and deliver mental commands, he knew what had happened. It made him no less angry.
XXX
Sylar’s eyebrow quirked at ‘Arthur’, an intentional use he didn’t need as Sylar knew Arthur in many ways by now. “Owch. That’s…almost- no, it is ridiculous.” Sylar felt a wave of sympathy for Peter at that. That was like…being castrated or something, socially. A grown man that ‘wasn’t allowed’ to hold a job for his father’s fear of embarrassment was…jeez. He could seriously empathize with that sentiment.
XXX
Trying to change the subject, Peter looked over and asked, “So, can you tell me about your jobs, or career? From … before, you know?”
XXX
At the question, Sylar’s hands found his pockets, “Oh, sure, I can tell you.” Question is-will I?
“You kind of already saw it, so you say. I, um…” he hedged, still eager to avoid the subject. Please don’t blush. Peter was someone who, had they met differently, Sylar, or Gabriel rather, would have looked up to. In a way he still did. Peter Petrelli was everything Sylar should be and he wasn’t anywhere near close-he was off that rock by a few hundred miles. Normally it was an embarrassment to him, significant shame being his mindset about that time, mostly due to his social class (lack thereof) and family situation (same thing).
Normally he could say it to the average person and be able to get through it. Bennet made a mockery out of his name, tried to belittle him, set him back and that was the issue with it. He wanted Peter’s approval on something that was really nothing. It was a nothing topic; it didn’t contribute to him today, not really, but at the same time it was everything to him; it had been him. Wait, I want Peter’s approval? For what? It’s come and gone before you ever knew him or knew what you could be. Still looking for that ‘it’s okay to be a normal goddamn watchmaker’ line? With Peter he…it put him further away from his misguided attempts at heroism. But he’d learned his lessons well: there would be no hero acts on his part ever because he was tainted. He held back the question, Why can’t I be like him?
XXX
When Sylar began to speak of his job history, it looked like he grew embarrassed. Peter gave him a small smile and for a moment, more attention. Then he looked forward with a general nod, trying to encourage without putting the man in a spotlight. Peter didn’t ponder why he did that, except that it seemed right and he wanted to dispel the discomfort. He wasn’t going to shame or mock Sylar about his job choices.
What could the man have been doing that was embarrassing? Honest work was honest and Peter respected it a great deal, all the more for his own (historical) lack of contribution in that area. Peter drew a lot of identity from his work as a nurse and paramedic. Those were very important to him and to who he was. He knew that wasn’t the case for everyone, but Sylar’s bashfulness about it made Peter think that this past of Sylar’s was equally important to him.
XXX
“I repaired time pieces-watches, clocks. I-i-it was my ability,” Sylar tried to reason to the other man’s understanding, “I can tell the time without a clock, keep track of it and…I can tell how and why the clock is broken.” That’s right, yap it up. He’ll think more of you if you elaborate and talk yourself up, I’m sure. “I was kind of…dead locked.”
He paused, inhaling while he considered diving into the increasingly pathetic story of his life to the last (or was it the first?) person he wanted to do that to. “It was just…complicated.” Ah, the Mom attribute. It drove him insane with rage when he thought of his choice of killing that punk Trevor, the manipulation behind it, years of active manipulative work in the making. Bennet just had to have his monster. If you’d just been stronger…
XXX
“Dead-locked?” Peter repeated curiously, wondering what he meant by that. Did it mean Sylar was bored with his job? There was no career advancement? Huh. He repaired watches; I repaired people. He wanted to say that and point out the similarities, but people were so much more valuable than watches. The comparison might offend even though Peter didn’t mean the value difference. He mulled over if there was another way to say it while Sylar paused and told him it was complicated.
XXX
Sylar watched his feet for a little while as they walked, Peter thought and he spoke. “Yeah,” he said simply, but didn’t expand on it immediately.
XXX
“You said it was your ability, but …” Peter’s brow furrowed, trying to work out what Sylar meant by choosing to use that word, ‘ability,’ that so often meant more between them. He couldn’t get out of his mind how a future version of Sylar had had Peter repair a watch in order to access Sylar’s ability. Was he saying they were one and the same somehow, for him? Was it like how Peter had always felt that vague and sometimes not-so-vague yearning to help others, like Peter didn’t matter unless he was giving?
“I’m trying to think of how to say what I want to say here. I guess … did you do anything else, from … you know, high school on? Because if that was your ‘passion’ like my uncle was telling me - I know it was corny, kind of entitled advice,” he looked aside with a brief frown, then back at Sylar with a clearer expression, “I don’t know. I know that once I was in nursing I really felt like I was doing the right thing. Or at least - no, what I mean is I was doing the right thing for me and I’m wondering if you felt like your work was the right thing for you, if you felt the same way?”
“What do you mean that you were dead-locked?” Peter tilted his head and furrowed his brow, acutely interested in the conversation and how Sylar’s ability reflected on who he was as a person; especially who he was as a person without it, as he was now.
XXX
“My ability is…seeing how things work, seeing what’s wrong or broken,” he supplied, “Didn’t you know that?” Sylar asked right back, confused if that was the case. Peter knew that, right? “I can look at your watch right now and tell you that it’s been stopped since you’ve been here without seeing the face.”
Sylar pointed to the man’s wrist, “The battery is still good, too, and it always ran slow and made you run to catch work. The point is I was better than my d-…the owner because of it. It was a good fit despite anything else.” This was probably just creating way more questions than Peter probably wanted. Definitely more than he himself wanted.
He watched Peter as he searched for words, interested in what the semi-wise younger man had to say on the subject. Once it was clear that the medic wouldn’t be slamming him on it, of course. “No, nothing else.” Sylar listened as Peter tried to, what, validate his occupation without knowing the particulars? He spoke quiet and slow next, still considering, “It…it was the same for me, yes,” he found himself admitting slowly, almost in spite of himself. His opinion of it was…cloudy.
/”You should call Mr. Bilger, that man from Smith and Barney. You fixed his Rolex.” Mom bustled into the kitchen to make him the stupid sandwich he would be forced to choke down.
“Why would I call him?” he’d asked, distracted, barely, barely listening to her drone.
“Maybe he could get you a job!” He’d set down his tools, closing Dad’s clock and pulling off his loupes.
As he stood he gave a contemptuous roll of his eyes, his body tense in annoyance and frustration. And he’d been home all of five minutes before she set in. “I have a job. I fix watches,” he spat in his controlled way.
“That’s a hobby,” she put it down so quickly, “Investment banking is…a very lucrative field.”
He turned from replacing the gorgeous clock back on the wall, “I can’t be an investment banker!” his voice rose and his hands spread out in plea.
“You can be anything you want!” she insisted.
“Mom, he wouldn’t even remember who I am!” His final defense was adding ‘Mom’…like that would help.
“Who could forget you?” she asked in her falsified innocence, completely genuine.
“Mom, you’re not even listening to me!” he whined, all out begging. That got the attention he shouldn’t have to beg for, but it wasn’t real and he knew it. He stared at the floor, knowing he’d already lost. It was all over but the shouting.
“I am listening,” Mom’s voice shook as she gave that protest of offense because, yes, he’d offended her by saying that. But really, she wasn’t.
“No.” Quietly he spoke again, dared to speak again, “You’re making a tuna sandwich,” he looked up and gestured at the damn thing, sneering at it. Oh, he was going to hell for speaking up, wasn’t he? He’d spent too much time away, busy hurting people and being hurt to be special for Mom. Too much time spent away that he could no longer play his role and receive her…acceptance, her blessing. His reward.
“So?” She was shrieking now.
“I asked you not to!”/
Sylar closed his eyes. The memory spoke for itself. And, joy, one day Peter would probably end up seeing that one, too; unless they figured out what was going on and stopped it. That is…if Peter wanted it stopped at all… “It could have been, but there were…lots of…other factors.” Peter reiterated his earlier question since Sylar had glossed over it. “My mom, okay? My life. Family…” he waved his hand, “shit, family issues, drama. The job wasn’t…it was a responsibility,” he whispered the last, “a hobby.”
She said it was a hobby. Why couldn’t anyone just let me be about it? In his own way he was happier being special, unemployed, on the run and on the FBI’s Most Wanted list. Was his life better one way or other? Not really-both were lonely and both had their perks. One was exciting and one was comfortable. And neither worked out the way he would have liked.
XXX
At Sylar’s mention of Peter’s watch, he looked at it, then held it to his ear. Not a single tick; not a single tock. Peter smiled happily. That pleased him to no end. He listened to the rest of Sylar’s words and his expression sobered quickly.
‘It could have been … the right thing?’ I think that’s what he’s saying - that watchmaking could have been as meaningful to him as nursing was to me, it’s just that something else happened; something with his family, his mom? Again, Peter’s thoughts went to the lack of mention of other family when Angela had introduced Sylar as his brother. It didn’t fit, if Sylar’s mother was still in the picture.
“My family didn’t exactly react well to my ability either. My mother tried to make me a mass murderer.” He snorted. “You know all that, though,” he said with a liberal dash of resentment about Sylar’s illegitimate knowledge. He didn’t know what he was resentful about though - Sylar hadn’t asked for Nathan’s memories. Maybe he stole abilities, but the memories had been forced on him.
XXX
Sylar was immediately amused, even if he didn’t show it, that Peter tested out his watch, going so far as to smile about it for a moment. It made him feel better even if he didn’t understand the reasons behind it. Maybe Peter understood something of the significance of time and clocks. Sylar exhaled, “Yeah, you got the shaft on that, t-” He clapped his teeth shut quickly, suddenly aware at Peter’s tone that he was treading on thin ice that didn’t belong to him. It wasn’t even his fault. He hadn’t brought it up! So it’s my fault now for listening to him? This is unwinnable.
Thus far he’d contained himself and his curiosity (not an easy task); specifically avoiding the subject and not giving indications that he knew more than he did…even though both men knew what he knew. Now he was getting the ax because Peter felt he should which was equal parts unfair, expected and understood. I don’t know what he expects me to do about it, though. Was he back at the reevaluation stage? Was Peter?
My mom called me damned and tried to throw me out then kill me. I already was a murderer and she didn’t even know it. Or maybe she did…I know how veteran soldiers feel now; duty discharged and ready for some kind of homecom- welcome to get…that. Hey, another murder checkmark for your bed post.
XXX
Trying to change the subject, Peter asked in a voice that was somewhat clipped and too fast, “So, tell me about your mom. What happened there?”
The moment the words left his mouth, he knew he’d used the wrong tone - too cavalier, too indifferent - and triply so if he really thought Sylar’s mother had died sometime in the last five or six years. Sylar had been opening up a little here and Peter … Peter had just stepped in it.
XXX
There was a strained pause of silence as the pair turned a corner at Sylar’s direction, pointing to the shop in the middle of the now-upcoming block. Peter’s voice caught his attention before the words did and he turned, but the topic had changed, almost to his surprise. One, Peter had let it drop, lucky enough for him. Two, he was inquiring about something…personal. Very personal. What?
In that voice…where did I go wrong here? I didn’t say anything that was that god-awful bad…did I?
Then it hit him. He’d been over-sharing. Sylar lacked any other social experience other than do what the person wanted, inquire and get to know them and keep his mouth shut in order to befriend someone. The other way was obviously not going to cut it-it rarely ever did. Empathizing, he realized it was, by sharing experiences, different though they be. Go figure he doesn’t want that. We’ve been through this before: he is not here for therapy. It sucked all over again because from here Peter sure looked like an angel. He’s really lost his way if he’s here, then. Snowball’s chance in a basket.
He bit down hard on his lip. ‘What happened there?’ Nothing that you’d care to hear, Peter Petrelli. I won’t put my problems and my…feelings such as they are; I won’t put my mother on trial to you just so you have something to talk about. He swallowed and watched his feet eat up the ground. He’ll see what he sees in his dreams and you can’t anticipate or prepare for that, so let it happen. And keep your fucking mouth shut. No one’s ever asked me about that…
“We’re here,” he croaked tightly, opening the door for Peter to lead them in, what with the broken hand and all. Politely giving Peter, and himself, an out. Sylar lingered in the doorway as Peter walked further into the store, seemingly not noticing that he hung back. As soon as the angle would allow, he sunk to pretzel his legs on the floor. You won’t find understanding with him, he thought; and on the heels of it came, I miss you, Mom. I got sent to the wrong place just like you always said. /”You’re damned.”/ I hope that makes up for something.
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: 6, 583
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).
Day 8
Peter turned with two cups and, before Sylar could gather his brain cells to protest, had poured into them both. Huh, looks like you are drinking coffee with him today. He didn’t feel the need to reject the…gesture.
He grabbed up a pair of mini-straws (the kind you couldn’t drink out of to save your life) and began to stir his coffee. Peter blurted his third come-on, to Sylar’s ears, but in reality it was just that, something he’d blurted out that sounded sexual to a very deprived man. ‘Gimme that cream’ Thank God Peter wasn’t paying a whit of attention to him because he gasped and quickly brought his coffee closer so it would look like he’d burned himself or something while regions below his belt experienced a flood (oh, who cares? Surely Peter will understand…?). He-he wants what now?
Keeping his eyes glued to the pitcher, he quickly poured out what he needed into his cup and slid it slowly towards Peter, just slow enough to get the other man to clue in. “It’s all yours,” he murmured then took his first drink to hide his absolutely delighted smirk in the cup. Note to self: Discussions about sex give him a loose mouth…and possibly turn him on.
XXX
Peter watched the gradual progress of the cream pitcher, waiting until Sylar’s hands were entirely off it so as to avoid any possible touching. Not that the empath usually cared about that kind of thing, but he was sending all the wrong signals at the moment and obviously Sylar was picking them up. Given that the other man had made what might have been a pass at him the day before, this was starting to be very awkward. Peter set his teeth together and managed to say, “Thank you,” mostly without opening them. He poured generously, feeling a heat across his nose and forehead. Blushing. Awesome, he thought to himself sarcastically. Fucking awesome. Why don’t you just tell the guy you’re interested in him while you’re at it?
XXX
And just like that Peter was done playing. Part of him was left to wonder-Am I that toxic? Then another small voice spoke up from far back in his head, Yeah, you are. You leave a bad taste in everyone’s eyes when they look at you. He ducked his head and went back to stirring the coffee he hadn’t intended on having at all. It took some self-control not to bite his lip, but he pulled it off. “No problem,” he mumbled in reply.
Playing was all it was; that was all it could be, but he’d enjoyed even that for the brief moment he’d been given the falsehood. Sylar usually preferred some sugar in his coffee, but Peter had set it out of reach and he wasn’t about to ask for it and make the poor, clearly shame-faced man push it over or look at him. And Peter was feeling awkward at the very least; it read in his body language and in the tight voice he’d used. Nothing if not good at picking up those unsubtle hints. It succeeded in making him feel awkward about it, perhaps even awkward about having enjoyed it.
XXX
Peter stirred, tasted, added some sugar, stirred and tasted again. He added a little extra and set the sugar canister aside. He picked up his toast gingerly, balancing it on his left hand and took a bite, keeping his eye line well off to the side of Sylar, trying to think about what he should say. Ask if he has any siblings? No - Nathan. And if I think of that immediately, so will he and I don’t want to invite that discussion. Yeah. So no. Other family? Does he even have any family? He can’t, really. It wouldn’t work. If he had family, he wouldn’t have been so quick to accept Ma telling him he was a Petrelli. He has to be a foster kid, or adopted or something. There would have been some question otherwise. And that means he wouldn’t have any siblings either - same reason - Ma would have said, ‘You’re a Petrelli’ and he’d have been ‘Oh really? Is my sister one, too?’ But not a peep.
XXX
Lifting his head again Sylar stared straight ahead and neither of them addressed whatever it was that…might have happened. So it’s going to be like that. Pretending you don’t exist while you sit right beside him. Idly, he sipped on the coffee to be polite, and not because of the lack of sugar, while he kept his own eyes focused straight ahead back into the kitchen. The medic had most obviously gotten Sylar’s half-worded attempt at a sexual invitation otherwise the words wouldn’t have bothered him.
You Petrellis have a gift for making people feel less-than, he thought a little bitterly, right after you give them at least a hint of something they want. Frustration boiled in him but there was no help for it. Sylar wrapped his hand loosely around the rather warm cup, eyeing the mocha liquid inside as he thought to himself. Yet his family isn’t labeled psychopathic for having and knowing what a person wants and abusing it. Wasn’t that how it went?
XXX
Peter reached down and took up his coffee cup, blowing on the hot liquid and then sipping at it carefully. Of course, maybe he had a long talk with Ma about the details, but I don’t think so. I suppose that means Ma knew of his family situation, or lack of one. That would kind of suck, being alone like that. He sighed, remembering telling Sylar on his first day here that the other man should have tried to find more help when he had trouble with his abilities. Nathan had been a huge help to Peter, more than once and even though his mother hadn’t … helped, per se, she’d been there and provided a sort of stabilizing influence. That, and she set me up to destroy New York, but that’s not the point.
How would things have been different though if I’d had no Ma to worry about, no Nathan to tell me it was all crazy talk, no Claire to tell me I was her hero? He crunched through more of the toast. I wouldn’t have been out there killing people, but … His eyes flicked to Sylar, then away. It would have been different, all right.
It was an uncomfortable subject. He sought a new one. How many blocks away is this music shop? Nah; pointless. I’ll find out in a little while anyway. He wanted to ask something that told him more about who he was dealing with, but he didn’t want to be invading the man’s privacy. He thought back to things Sylar had said he did around here and asked, “You said you liked to cook to pass the time. Do you have a restaurant or somewhere you go to do it, or is it always in your apartment?” He gestured at the diner. “I came down here a couple times and fixed breakfast. Seemed more convenient than doing it in my apartment.” Plus, of course, I didn’t have the apartment the first time, but whatever.
XXX
The one time Sylar glanced at Peter he appeared to have something on his mind and that didn’t bode well. He chose to pretend it was a comfortable silence (yeah right), until Peter spoke after a while of chewing on his toast, the crunch oddly satisfying from his standpoint. Then again, Peter eating had always deeply amused him (Peter doing any action that required contortion of his poor lip). Sylar deeply suspected that came from Nathan…at least he hoped it did. Even he wasn’t that depraved as to think Peter eating for fuck’s sake as ‘cute’.
Oh, there it went. Wave bye-bye to your masculinity, please, because it just dumped you.
He exhaled an amused breath, one that failed to make it to chuckle status, “Yeah, I cook sometimes. I mean, I cook to eat, yes.” Sylar made a face, considering the question. “I used random restaurants when I would wander too far from…home,” his pause was brief. “But I usually just cook at home. There’s less room and you still have to clean up, but hey, it’s something to do, you know.” He shrugged. “A restaurant would have more equipment if you’re a gourmet.” That drew a more amused sound from him at the thought.
//”Do I like sushi?” He’d asked Ma after she caught him staring at the clumps of raw fish on a platter. “You’re the one who had a craving for yellowtail. I wanted Italian,” had been her succinct yet questioning reply// and before that he recalled her near threat of //’Nah. I never kid about family brunch.”// That just shows you, he thought.
“But I forgot, you can’t clean dishes, can you, Peter?” was his gentle teasing in the other man’s direction, chiding him lightly for not getting his hands dirty (perhaps not being able to grow up).
XXX
“I thought maybe you were a gourmet?” Peter said half questioning, half teasing, finding himself suddenly trying to fall back into that same openness, same reaching out, poking and being friendly. Or rather, too friendly. He dialed it back. It would take a while to find a balance. A little more stiffly, he added, “You said when I first came here that you liked to cook and spent a lot of time doing it …?” I was listening to you, you know? “I suppose at home you know where everything is at.”
He chuckled at Sylar’s light taunt about the dishes, taking it in the not-mean-spirited way he hoped it was meant. “I can, I just …” He shrugged, finishing the last of his toast. He washed it down with a larger sip of coffee. The drink was just starting to get to the top of the drinkability range of temperature. “Well, it’s not my favorite thing to do unless someone’s there doing it with me. Same for laundry. We always had scrub-“ He’d know that, from Nathan’s memories. Actually, would Nathan have ever noticed what we had in the kitchen? “-brushes at home, and sponges. And those little bristly green scrubbing things. I’m sure they have a name.” He looked up at Sylar, eyes making a quick circuit of the man’s face, expecting that he’d know this sort of thing.
Peter took a larger drink of his coffee and frowned briefly at the toast crumbs on the counter. I wonder if I leave them there, if they’ll disappear like trash? First time I was in here, I didn’t clean up and it was still messy when I came back. He walked over to get a wet cloth, then cleaned up.
“If someone’s helping though, dishes or laundry or whatever, it’s a nice way to spend the time.” He’d enjoyed working with most of the staff his parents employed. He remembered his mother being absolutely scandalized one evening when he’d been helping Sarah and carried out a tray of hors d’oeuvres she’d prepared. That Angela’s guests saw him serving had struck most of them as charming. She’d tried to laugh it off as that, but Peter had been banned from gatherings in future if he couldn’t ‘control himself.’ That wasn’t much of a punishment, really, but Sarah had caught hell for it, too, which was. So after that, he left to hang out with his friends to late hours, or wherever. Sometimes he’d chase down Nathan and inflict his sixteen or seventeen year old self on his brother.
XXX
Sylar’s face turned dubious and amused. “Sorry to disappoint,” he chuckled before Peter seemed to shift again. No more so than Nathan was a gourmet. “I was…never really exposed to it.” He just took the next half-question Peter posed him, letting it and the delivered tone slide past him. Those had not been his words and he wasn’t sure where Peter had gotten the impression he was suddenly Miss Martha Stewart; Home Garden and Cooking Channel. Like he’d said just before; he cooked to eat.
Peter went about cleaning up and Sylar thought he was just doing it because of the discussionary topic. Dish washing was next and his eyebrows rose. Was that an invitation? He thought he’d clarify, “You wanna see my dirty laundry?” and laughed a little to show he was actually joking since Peter seemed to be having difficulty loosening up again. Then again, the instant it was out of his mouth he knew it probably wasn’t the right kind of joke to accomplish that. It was adding to the problem. Okay…no more flirting.
“You like the ‘I’ll wash, you dry’ thing,” he nodded with seriousness, trying to picture who Peter had ever done that with. “Laundry is just plain boring. There’s only so much motion sickness one person can take, man.”
XXX
Peter was thankful he wasn’t drinking coffee at the moment Sylar suggested they do laundry together, or whatever he was implying. He choked anyway, half laughing, half scowling. “No!” Peter stared at Sylar apprehensively after that. Did I say something suggestive again? Dammit. I don’t think I did. I think he just has a dirty mind. Or is this the dirty-mind-version of the sarcasm/snark, and now that I’ve got him thinking that way he’s going to keep at it? Well… if that’s the case, then just calm down. No more reason to take offense at that than to the sarcasm, even if they’re both annoying. He relaxed and nodded in agreement to Sylar’s ‘you wash, I dry’ line.
“I meant the folding part,” Peter murmured around a careful drink after Sylar mentioned motion sickness. “Never mind,” he added, considering the other man might take that too as an invitation to fold clothes together sometime.
XXX
Peter’s face had been amusing when he protested togetherness and laundry. Sylar had given a quiet, “Oh,” of response. Folding, of course. He didn’t even notice the other man clearing up the ‘invitation’ in question. It appeared like he was adapting, like it or not.
On the heels of thinking about Peter’s supposed inability to clean one damn dish, his lack of job skills (or so it seemed), the inability to socially flourish at the hands of his parents; Sylar finally looked up at the other man, having a good question to ask at last. “What made you get into medicine?”
XXX
“Why did I get into medicine?” Peter snorted. “I didn’t want to be an attorney.” He took a drink of coffee. “Or worse yet, join the military. I needed to do something. I was flunking out of pre-law.” He looked at Sylar for a long moment, holding his cup halfway to the counter, assessing and judging with an intent gaze. He caught himself and looked away. What to tell? What not to tell? He felt defensive, but he forged ahead even as he shifted his weight uncomfortably and started glancing at Sylar more often while he talked, weighing his reaction.
“Tim talked to me about it - that’s Uncle Tim. He told me to find my passion, do what I liked. He said that-“ there was no point to having money if you didn’t spend your time wasting it. Entitled son of a bitch. Peter eyed Sylar. Most people would not take Tim’s philosophy well and he suspected Sylar would be no different in that regard. “He said that I should make the most of my opportunities and that I didn’t have to be prelaw. Dad disagreed.” There had been quite a few fights about it that summer, but ultimately although his father could force Peter to go to class and even pay attention, he couldn’t make him like it and he couldn’t (or at least didn’t) invest the level of obsessiveness necessary to run his son’s life to that degree.
Peter looked at Sylar briefly out of the corner of his eye. “Would you believe it was actually Linderman who suggested medicine?” It was kind of a faux-embarrassing secret, something he’d not told the rest of his family. Arthur had drug Peter along on their Fourth of July party and made something of an issue to his friends that his son needed career guidance. Arthur had clearly and explicitly encouraged his friends to steer Peter in the expected Petrelli course. Daniel Linderman had been coming to Petrelli events for years. He’d even been there when Peter brought out the hors d’oeuvres tray years before. He’d taken Peter aside, listened to him to a creepy/disturbing degree and advised him differently than Arthur had intended, ending with honeyed words about the shit Peter would catch if he shared their ‘secret.’ It had skeeved Peter out, but he hadn’t told anyone. He had to get the money for nursing school somewhere.
XXX
Sylar’s eyes then dulled over a little as Peter addressed his choice. Boy, can I relate. It made him (and Nathan) sympathetic…to a degree.
Both (all three) had been shoved into a…’job’, not necessarily a career, one that they hadn’t (necessarily) wanted, whether they liked it or not. In two of the three cases it was my-way-or-the-highway ‘choice’. Peter just…hadn’t mattered much in //Dad’s// plans and Martin was disgusted with and perhaps envious of Gabriel. Yet Peter was the only one who was alive, out of the enforced occupation with prospects. Lucky son of a bitch. Clearly the trick was having an older brother.
“You’d make a horrible lawyer. It’s a good thing you didn’t go that route. I think I-” shit! “Arthur would have had you put away for being a disgrace,” Sylar said bluntly, neatly avoiding the potential landmine. Maybe //Dad// kind of did? He snorted at the idea of Peter being in the military, the stint in Haiti notwithstanding.
Sylar kept his head down not to upset the medic with anything that might and probably would pass through his eyes (Mom had always hated that until he learned that little trick) trying to just listen as the other man spoke. Sylar’s lips pursed, mostly for himself, but Nathan in him did the same. Find your passion my ass. What a dreamer. He’s lucky he fucking found it. And that’s its legal. Peter had it so easy and he had no idea. At the mention of Linderman, someone, the name he only knew through Nathan, Sylar looked up at him.
“Is that so.” A healer, who was probably aware to some degree of Peter’s ability (as if it wasn’t obvious), suggesting medicine to an empath. A literal perfect fit except for Peter’s suicidal urges that he liked to disguise as his hero side-job. Gabriel had killed to get that kind of ear time, literally; Chandra hadn’t listened, so he’d paid the price almost the same as his first kill, Brian. Nathan recalled that party, being particularly (politely) drunk and seeing Dad hanging onto Peter’s shoulder for the night-poor Pete hadn’t been able to move from his side. Poor Pete wishing he could be (possibly not-so-politely) drunk.
Technically that’s…a dirty little Peter secret, isn’t it? Sylar concluded. Really? What the hell do I care?
“Full of secrets, you are. Your family,” was his delicate phrasing for ‘Nathan’, “doesn’t know about that one.” The lawyer and intuitive in him connected the dots in Peter’s lack of job and sudden funds for med school. Baby brother had never made a peep about his wallet or payments now had he. Nathan had always wondered distantly about that when he had time or when he was reminded of the fact. Smart kid-man, smart man. Goddamn age gap. But Peter would have gotten himself in deep had Linderman and/or Dad not died, been killed…whatever.
XXX
He nodded to Sylar’s comment about Peter making a poor lawyer, thinking, Yeah, I’d probably end up doing all pro bono work. Sylar pointed out that Peter’s family hadn’t known about where he’d gotten his money for his education. Peter looked at him steadily, the right corner of his mouth twitching upward along with his left brow. He didn’t blink. Yes, you know a secret about me now. But the only person that you would mean anything to is Ma and not only would she not listen to you, I don’t think she’d really care. But does it make you feel that I trust you a little that I told you that? Because I do. Just a little.
He went back to his drink silently, putting off the somewhat threatening demeanor he’d just shown.
XXX
“Couldn’t just get a job, could you? That’s not good enough for your kind,” Sylar forced a grin and he didn’t bother putting enough effort into it to make it appear real. He was insinuating plainly that a ‘job, just a job’ was too good for Peter. “Arthur probably wouldn’t let you just travel and you would be bored or…be unfulfilled with that. It had to be a career.” It was his turn to exhale and shake his head into his cup.
Sylar stood and had been about to pass by the medic when he’d gotten the stare of a lifetime. It read ‘watch your next step, buddy.’ Or more accurately in Sylar’s case, ‘watch the next evil words out of your mouth’. He met the stare and paused, letting Peter finish the coffee and unfortunately it gave him time to tense up about something.
XXX
He listened to Sylar’s quip about a job and felt his hackles rise, along with his blood pressure. Peter took a bigger drink and looked away for a moment, hanging onto his emotion and working it out before he said something undeserved. Sylar’s jibe was irritating, but Peter’s sudden and intense surge of anger was out of proportion to the comment.
He set to cleaning up, sort of mindlessly while the semi-red haze over his mind started to lift. The other man took his cup and Peter flinched very slightly from the motion. “Sorry,” he muttered and got out of the other man’s way. He exited the kitchen as soon as Sylar went past him. He went to the door when he saw Sylar was coming out, and made a jerk of his head towards the street. When he saw a sign of assent on the other man’s face, Peter went out.
XXX
The tension led to a flinch as Sylar took the cup, gently, brushing by the EMT uncomfortably in the tight aisle that was the waiter station to wash their cups. What was there to be done about the empath’s aversion to Sylar doing…anything? Nothing, he knew the answer was. Sylar returned and they exited the diner, he caught Peter’s gesture to continue on and nodded, relieved the man had calmed down, presumably from his fit about having ‘a job’.
XXX
Once they were walking again, Peter felt some of the tension passing. He felt he needed to explain his sudden emotion, because it had probably been obvious - Sylar was no slouch on detecting such. “’Arthur’ wouldn’t let me work. I had a job freshman year. He got me fired from it.” And he forbade Peter from getting another one while he was in college, or something to that effect. At the time Peter had been furious (he still was), but he followed orders like he always did when his father got in his face and was explicit about what he was to do. In retrospect, having had an ability that allowed him to push thoughts and deliver mental commands, he knew what had happened. It made him no less angry.
XXX
Sylar’s eyebrow quirked at ‘Arthur’, an intentional use he didn’t need as Sylar knew Arthur in many ways by now. “Owch. That’s…almost- no, it is ridiculous.” Sylar felt a wave of sympathy for Peter at that. That was like…being castrated or something, socially. A grown man that ‘wasn’t allowed’ to hold a job for his father’s fear of embarrassment was…jeez. He could seriously empathize with that sentiment.
XXX
Trying to change the subject, Peter looked over and asked, “So, can you tell me about your jobs, or career? From … before, you know?”
XXX
At the question, Sylar’s hands found his pockets, “Oh, sure, I can tell you.” Question is-will I?
“You kind of already saw it, so you say. I, um…” he hedged, still eager to avoid the subject. Please don’t blush. Peter was someone who, had they met differently, Sylar, or Gabriel rather, would have looked up to. In a way he still did. Peter Petrelli was everything Sylar should be and he wasn’t anywhere near close-he was off that rock by a few hundred miles. Normally it was an embarrassment to him, significant shame being his mindset about that time, mostly due to his social class (lack thereof) and family situation (same thing).
Normally he could say it to the average person and be able to get through it. Bennet made a mockery out of his name, tried to belittle him, set him back and that was the issue with it. He wanted Peter’s approval on something that was really nothing. It was a nothing topic; it didn’t contribute to him today, not really, but at the same time it was everything to him; it had been him. Wait, I want Peter’s approval? For what? It’s come and gone before you ever knew him or knew what you could be. Still looking for that ‘it’s okay to be a normal goddamn watchmaker’ line? With Peter he…it put him further away from his misguided attempts at heroism. But he’d learned his lessons well: there would be no hero acts on his part ever because he was tainted. He held back the question, Why can’t I be like him?
XXX
When Sylar began to speak of his job history, it looked like he grew embarrassed. Peter gave him a small smile and for a moment, more attention. Then he looked forward with a general nod, trying to encourage without putting the man in a spotlight. Peter didn’t ponder why he did that, except that it seemed right and he wanted to dispel the discomfort. He wasn’t going to shame or mock Sylar about his job choices.
What could the man have been doing that was embarrassing? Honest work was honest and Peter respected it a great deal, all the more for his own (historical) lack of contribution in that area. Peter drew a lot of identity from his work as a nurse and paramedic. Those were very important to him and to who he was. He knew that wasn’t the case for everyone, but Sylar’s bashfulness about it made Peter think that this past of Sylar’s was equally important to him.
XXX
“I repaired time pieces-watches, clocks. I-i-it was my ability,” Sylar tried to reason to the other man’s understanding, “I can tell the time without a clock, keep track of it and…I can tell how and why the clock is broken.” That’s right, yap it up. He’ll think more of you if you elaborate and talk yourself up, I’m sure. “I was kind of…dead locked.”
He paused, inhaling while he considered diving into the increasingly pathetic story of his life to the last (or was it the first?) person he wanted to do that to. “It was just…complicated.” Ah, the Mom attribute. It drove him insane with rage when he thought of his choice of killing that punk Trevor, the manipulation behind it, years of active manipulative work in the making. Bennet just had to have his monster. If you’d just been stronger…
XXX
“Dead-locked?” Peter repeated curiously, wondering what he meant by that. Did it mean Sylar was bored with his job? There was no career advancement? Huh. He repaired watches; I repaired people. He wanted to say that and point out the similarities, but people were so much more valuable than watches. The comparison might offend even though Peter didn’t mean the value difference. He mulled over if there was another way to say it while Sylar paused and told him it was complicated.
XXX
Sylar watched his feet for a little while as they walked, Peter thought and he spoke. “Yeah,” he said simply, but didn’t expand on it immediately.
XXX
“You said it was your ability, but …” Peter’s brow furrowed, trying to work out what Sylar meant by choosing to use that word, ‘ability,’ that so often meant more between them. He couldn’t get out of his mind how a future version of Sylar had had Peter repair a watch in order to access Sylar’s ability. Was he saying they were one and the same somehow, for him? Was it like how Peter had always felt that vague and sometimes not-so-vague yearning to help others, like Peter didn’t matter unless he was giving?
“I’m trying to think of how to say what I want to say here. I guess … did you do anything else, from … you know, high school on? Because if that was your ‘passion’ like my uncle was telling me - I know it was corny, kind of entitled advice,” he looked aside with a brief frown, then back at Sylar with a clearer expression, “I don’t know. I know that once I was in nursing I really felt like I was doing the right thing. Or at least - no, what I mean is I was doing the right thing for me and I’m wondering if you felt like your work was the right thing for you, if you felt the same way?”
“What do you mean that you were dead-locked?” Peter tilted his head and furrowed his brow, acutely interested in the conversation and how Sylar’s ability reflected on who he was as a person; especially who he was as a person without it, as he was now.
XXX
“My ability is…seeing how things work, seeing what’s wrong or broken,” he supplied, “Didn’t you know that?” Sylar asked right back, confused if that was the case. Peter knew that, right? “I can look at your watch right now and tell you that it’s been stopped since you’ve been here without seeing the face.”
Sylar pointed to the man’s wrist, “The battery is still good, too, and it always ran slow and made you run to catch work. The point is I was better than my d-…the owner because of it. It was a good fit despite anything else.” This was probably just creating way more questions than Peter probably wanted. Definitely more than he himself wanted.
He watched Peter as he searched for words, interested in what the semi-wise younger man had to say on the subject. Once it was clear that the medic wouldn’t be slamming him on it, of course. “No, nothing else.” Sylar listened as Peter tried to, what, validate his occupation without knowing the particulars? He spoke quiet and slow next, still considering, “It…it was the same for me, yes,” he found himself admitting slowly, almost in spite of himself. His opinion of it was…cloudy.
/”You should call Mr. Bilger, that man from Smith and Barney. You fixed his Rolex.” Mom bustled into the kitchen to make him the stupid sandwich he would be forced to choke down.
“Why would I call him?” he’d asked, distracted, barely, barely listening to her drone.
“Maybe he could get you a job!” He’d set down his tools, closing Dad’s clock and pulling off his loupes.
As he stood he gave a contemptuous roll of his eyes, his body tense in annoyance and frustration. And he’d been home all of five minutes before she set in. “I have a job. I fix watches,” he spat in his controlled way.
“That’s a hobby,” she put it down so quickly, “Investment banking is…a very lucrative field.”
He turned from replacing the gorgeous clock back on the wall, “I can’t be an investment banker!” his voice rose and his hands spread out in plea.
“You can be anything you want!” she insisted.
“Mom, he wouldn’t even remember who I am!” His final defense was adding ‘Mom’…like that would help.
“Who could forget you?” she asked in her falsified innocence, completely genuine.
“Mom, you’re not even listening to me!” he whined, all out begging. That got the attention he shouldn’t have to beg for, but it wasn’t real and he knew it. He stared at the floor, knowing he’d already lost. It was all over but the shouting.
“I am listening,” Mom’s voice shook as she gave that protest of offense because, yes, he’d offended her by saying that. But really, she wasn’t.
“No.” Quietly he spoke again, dared to speak again, “You’re making a tuna sandwich,” he looked up and gestured at the damn thing, sneering at it. Oh, he was going to hell for speaking up, wasn’t he? He’d spent too much time away, busy hurting people and being hurt to be special for Mom. Too much time spent away that he could no longer play his role and receive her…acceptance, her blessing. His reward.
“So?” She was shrieking now.
“I asked you not to!”/
Sylar closed his eyes. The memory spoke for itself. And, joy, one day Peter would probably end up seeing that one, too; unless they figured out what was going on and stopped it. That is…if Peter wanted it stopped at all… “It could have been, but there were…lots of…other factors.” Peter reiterated his earlier question since Sylar had glossed over it. “My mom, okay? My life. Family…” he waved his hand, “shit, family issues, drama. The job wasn’t…it was a responsibility,” he whispered the last, “a hobby.”
She said it was a hobby. Why couldn’t anyone just let me be about it? In his own way he was happier being special, unemployed, on the run and on the FBI’s Most Wanted list. Was his life better one way or other? Not really-both were lonely and both had their perks. One was exciting and one was comfortable. And neither worked out the way he would have liked.
XXX
At Sylar’s mention of Peter’s watch, he looked at it, then held it to his ear. Not a single tick; not a single tock. Peter smiled happily. That pleased him to no end. He listened to the rest of Sylar’s words and his expression sobered quickly.
‘It could have been … the right thing?’ I think that’s what he’s saying - that watchmaking could have been as meaningful to him as nursing was to me, it’s just that something else happened; something with his family, his mom? Again, Peter’s thoughts went to the lack of mention of other family when Angela had introduced Sylar as his brother. It didn’t fit, if Sylar’s mother was still in the picture.
“My family didn’t exactly react well to my ability either. My mother tried to make me a mass murderer.” He snorted. “You know all that, though,” he said with a liberal dash of resentment about Sylar’s illegitimate knowledge. He didn’t know what he was resentful about though - Sylar hadn’t asked for Nathan’s memories. Maybe he stole abilities, but the memories had been forced on him.
XXX
Sylar was immediately amused, even if he didn’t show it, that Peter tested out his watch, going so far as to smile about it for a moment. It made him feel better even if he didn’t understand the reasons behind it. Maybe Peter understood something of the significance of time and clocks. Sylar exhaled, “Yeah, you got the shaft on that, t-” He clapped his teeth shut quickly, suddenly aware at Peter’s tone that he was treading on thin ice that didn’t belong to him. It wasn’t even his fault. He hadn’t brought it up! So it’s my fault now for listening to him? This is unwinnable.
Thus far he’d contained himself and his curiosity (not an easy task); specifically avoiding the subject and not giving indications that he knew more than he did…even though both men knew what he knew. Now he was getting the ax because Peter felt he should which was equal parts unfair, expected and understood. I don’t know what he expects me to do about it, though. Was he back at the reevaluation stage? Was Peter?
My mom called me damned and tried to throw me out then kill me. I already was a murderer and she didn’t even know it. Or maybe she did…I know how veteran soldiers feel now; duty discharged and ready for some kind of homecom- welcome to get…that. Hey, another murder checkmark for your bed post.
XXX
Trying to change the subject, Peter asked in a voice that was somewhat clipped and too fast, “So, tell me about your mom. What happened there?”
The moment the words left his mouth, he knew he’d used the wrong tone - too cavalier, too indifferent - and triply so if he really thought Sylar’s mother had died sometime in the last five or six years. Sylar had been opening up a little here and Peter … Peter had just stepped in it.
XXX
There was a strained pause of silence as the pair turned a corner at Sylar’s direction, pointing to the shop in the middle of the now-upcoming block. Peter’s voice caught his attention before the words did and he turned, but the topic had changed, almost to his surprise. One, Peter had let it drop, lucky enough for him. Two, he was inquiring about something…personal. Very personal. What?
In that voice…where did I go wrong here? I didn’t say anything that was that god-awful bad…did I?
Then it hit him. He’d been over-sharing. Sylar lacked any other social experience other than do what the person wanted, inquire and get to know them and keep his mouth shut in order to befriend someone. The other way was obviously not going to cut it-it rarely ever did. Empathizing, he realized it was, by sharing experiences, different though they be. Go figure he doesn’t want that. We’ve been through this before: he is not here for therapy. It sucked all over again because from here Peter sure looked like an angel. He’s really lost his way if he’s here, then. Snowball’s chance in a basket.
He bit down hard on his lip. ‘What happened there?’ Nothing that you’d care to hear, Peter Petrelli. I won’t put my problems and my…feelings such as they are; I won’t put my mother on trial to you just so you have something to talk about. He swallowed and watched his feet eat up the ground. He’ll see what he sees in his dreams and you can’t anticipate or prepare for that, so let it happen. And keep your fucking mouth shut. No one’s ever asked me about that…
“We’re here,” he croaked tightly, opening the door for Peter to lead them in, what with the broken hand and all. Politely giving Peter, and himself, an out. Sylar lingered in the doorway as Peter walked further into the store, seemingly not noticing that he hung back. As soon as the angle would allow, he sunk to pretzel his legs on the floor. You won’t find understanding with him, he thought; and on the heels of it came, I miss you, Mom. I got sent to the wrong place just like you always said. /”You’re damned.”/ I hope that makes up for something.
XXX
Continued...