Title: The Mantelpiece Chronicles
Chapter: 1/10
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: Peter/Claire. Sylar/Niki (hey, read the first one and it'll make sense, heh)
Disclaimer: I don't own anything
Summary: (Companion To Partial Eclipse)While he's unpacking his new house, Sylar opens a box that Peter intended to be kept secret. As Sylar digs deeper through the past, he uncovers secrets about Peter and Claire's history that he never thought possible.

Well, this almost didn't get posted cause my Internet has been out all day long. But the Internet gods have granted me a little access to post this, as intended, on March 17. I'll be posting every Monday from now on, until the story is done, and then right after I'll begin the "official" sequel )

Also, if you haven't read PE, then go ahead to the link above and check it out. Of course, if you don't have time, you can always check out my Everything You Need To Know About Partial Eclipse guide, and then you'll be set to read this XD Either way, Thanks for reading!

Part One

"House of the Rising Sun"

xxx

Multi-colored fragments of light peppered Gabriel Monroe's white walls. The tiny rainbows were simply a result of the sun reflecting off the Golden Gate Bridge, a phenomenon free to everyone who could see the bay from home. But Gabriel never looked at the glittering lights with a calm smile and applause to Mother Nature. He just stared, wondering about all the scientific properties of refraction, the electromagnetic spectrum… About how even God could be given a logical and researched explanation.

If, the man bitterly amended, there actually is a God.

Gabriel, known more familiarly as "Sylar" to himself and others, was a man of science. Though, it hadn't always been that way. For the past six and a half years, he'd straddled the fence between faith and data.

After all, Sylar could move things with his mind, shoot icicles out of his hands, and had more reason then anyone else to doubt the presence of a higher being. Yet, at the same time, through the thicket of science and evolution that was engrained in his genetic code, a quiet voice always reminded him of something only God could have done.

God had brought him Peter, and that was enough for Sylar to level with for the time being. It was the single thin string tethering Sylar to the crucifix, when anvils on his feet pulled him down to the world of algorithms and theories.

Then Peter died, and that string finally snapped.

xxx

There was a house in New Orleans

They called the Rising Sun

And it's been the ruin of many a poor boy

And God, I know I'm one

-House of the Rising Sun, by The Animals

xxx

Three Years Ago

"Well," Sylar sighed. "I suppose you could call it…roomy."

His mouth slashed with obvious chagrin as he stared upon his new 'home.' The turn-of-the-century wallpaper, dusty chandeliers, and lingerie older then Dick Clark lying everywhere were all features that Peter omitted from his excited descriptions.

"C'mon," Peter said brightly. "It's a historic Boston townhouse. You likedthe American Revolution, right?"

"It's a bordello," Sylar choked back. "And it clearly doesn't date back to the 1700's. 1890 at earliest."

Though his brother had already moseyed into the living room, several suitcases in hand, Sylar didn't move a hair from his stance in the doorway.

"Look at all the bedrooms though!" Peter pointed towards the upstairs balcony, where the doors to several rooms were visible. "There's space for everyone. I bet we could save double the amount of people now."

Sylar's face still remained stoic in contrast to his brother's cheerfulness, but he came to his senses, taking a few careful steps towards Peter. He set down his tattered cardboard box of belongings, the only thing he brought with him, next to Peter's small mountain of suitcases.

Peter inhaled deeply, and then sneezed. For the first time since entering the former house of harlotry, he looked slightly disappointed.

"It does need dusting," he admitted.

"It needs a bath," Sylar weakly added.

Peter swiveled around to face his comrade, eyes sparking with confusion, frustration.

"What's gotten into you? Usually you're Johnny Sunshine."

Crows feet crinkled his eyes as he glared up at Sylar's sheepish expression. There was an uncomfortable silence between the twins that Sylar tentatively broke.

"I'm sorry," he muttered uselessly. "I know you're trying hard, but this," he gestured vaguely around them, "this just isn't home, PeterIt doesn't feel like a home."

Peter gradually relaxed and went from irritated to sympathetic. Apparently, his heartstrings as a nurse hadn't all been snapped quite yet. "It will. It just needs to be lived in a little. Trust me for once, will you? I haven't felt at home in a year and a half either, but there's some real potential in this place. I know it."

Sylar yearned to retort back that he didn't want potential. He didn't want sooner or later, he didn't want trust me, and he certainly wanted a better brother then this over-idealistic, self-righteous Peter guy who had found him in the desert a couple months ago.

But Sylar, though his thoughts were bitter, always upheld a particular decorum of gentlemanliness on the exterior. And thus, he said nothing.

xxx

It took a long time to unpack their boxes; to schlep suitcases and cartons of mostly useless crap into a worn-down bordello, without a drop of Gatorade or three men and a truck.

98 of their belongings were Peter's, seeing as the young man had come from a fruitful New York apartment and a fancy family, whereas Sylar's only possessions were what he could scrape together from his lonely one-room shack. That was the greatest source of silently boiling conflict between the two brothers: their lifestyles.

Sylar knew nothing about his family. He'd never sat down to dinner on Thanksgiving and helped cut the turkey with his father. He had never celebrated a birthday, or sent a Christmas card, or given a chaste kiss to his mother's cheek before bed. No, according to Peter, Sylar was the bad guy, the man found alone in the sewers of New York three years before. The man forced to run from the cops, his past, and the terrors of the world which he knew not.

And Sylar surmised that even though Peter tried, he did, the kid really tried…there was no way a pretty boy do-gooder from the elite district could ever, ever understand that.

xxx

"Got any threes?"

Peter hesitated before grumbling a curse and sliding a faded three of hearts across the carpet, over to Sylar. The amnesiac had to smile a bit smugly, glancing up at Peter's full hand of mismatched cards, and then down at his own remaining two.

"Can't we just play poker?" Peter insisted for the third time. "I'm pretty lousy at this game."

"What?" Sylar arched an eyebrow. "You haven't met a psychic somewhere along the way?"

"Yeah, I wish," Peter replied with an accompanying scoff under his breath. He threw his cards down onto the old oak coffee table and stood up from his moth-eaten recliner (included with the rent of the estate at no extra charge).

Sylar groaned under his breath, disappointed as he tossed his now-worthless stack next to Peter's. "We could always go back to unpacking."

He felt Peter's quizzical eyes burning holes into his back as he stood up and walked over to a stack of cardboard boxes. Sylar moved to rip open the tape on the top container, but when Peter realized exactly what it was Sylar was opening, he nearly body slammed his sibling in a zealous effort to preserve the box's sanctity.

"No-no-no! Stop!" he cried. Within seconds, Peter's upper body was sprawled across the cardboard flaps, preventing Sylar from seeing anything inside.

"What?" Sylar's eyes flitted around, looking for a big label on the box that said "Porn Collection" or something. But all he could find were the letters "C.B" scrawled on the side in Peter's sharp penmanship, and that wasn't enough information for Sylar to see how everything ticked in a situation like this.

"Don't you ever open this box, okay?" Peter demanded, his voice unusually imposing. Sylar took a step back, his unconventionally handsome features contorted with bewilderment.

"Alright…I do suppose it's none of my business," he obliged in slow, cautious tones. Peter exhaled, limbs going limp, and he pulled himself off the carton. With flushed cheeks and a chest that rose and fell with heavy breaths, he quickly picked up the box and steered towards the staircase.

"I'm gonna take it to my room," he muttered uselessly. "You haven't picked one out yet, have you?"

Sylar shrugged, but the tension from Peter's sudden outburst still showed in his clenched muscles. "No. You can have any of them…I…I don't care."

Peter nodded mechanically and started up the steps, with the mystery box in his arms and a frown etched into his face from then on.

When Peter reached his room, Sylar heard him lock the door with a click.

xxx

Sylar was still watching snowflakes of light dust his carpet and walls when he thought of that mystery box for the first time in three years.

In all the time he knew Peter, the subject never came up again. The carton that Petrelli had so forcefully tried to protect stayed a secret, as it should've, and Sylar still to the day didn't know what was inside.

A spark of curiosity bloomed in the back of his mind, one that he longed to starch. Sylar had inherited all of Peter's belongings after the funeral. He knew for a fact that he'd loaded Peter's "CB" box onto the moving cart himself, though he hadn't recalled its significance at the time. It was at the very top shelf of his walk-in closet now, untouched, unopened, and absolutely ignored until now.

Sylar wondered how morally unethical it would be to rummage through it now that Peter was dearly departed. On one hand, it seemed vastly disrespectful, but in all realism…Peter was a pile of dust in the urn which rested on Sylar's mantelpiece. Would he really care?

Sylar forced himself to be emotionless and stone-faced as he got up off the floor, unconsciously headed towards the bedroom closet.

He didn't even realize where he was or what he was doing until his hands were filled with sandpaper-like cardboard, the sides of Peter's clandestine box. A note of doubt was throbbing in the frontal lobe of Sylar's gifted brain, the little cricket of his consciousness that felt slightly bad about abandoning the dead's wishes.

He shook off the feeling and opened it before he could change his mind.

A small cloud of dust assaulted Sylar's nose and he coughed violently. But once he wiped the skuzzy film off his eyes and held his breath to lean over the box, the deep dark secrets that Peter had tried so anxiously to protect were finally revealed.

Sylar was staring at a box of…junk.

He didn't know how long he simply sat there, mentally sorting out the mishmash of random memorabilia that Peter stashed away in this makeshift safe. There were a couple journals, lots of receipts, a tarnished silver ring, empty envelopes, stained letters, a couple photographs…the whole collection was like a time capsule of all things Peter. Or, that's at least what Sylar assumed at first glance.

He gingerly picked out a few of the photographs and was astonished to discover who was actually in them. These were pictures of Peter; they were all of Claire.

Sylar scooted back and turned the box around, peering at that faded label which had once been such an enigma to him. C.B. Claire Bennet, he realized.

He rummaged through the stuff some more and found this to be a haunting pattern with all the other items. Peter had receipts to coffee shops and restaurants and to a place called "Emerald City", all of which showed items bought for two people, not one. After all Sylar's snooping, the only true mystery that remained was the spotty silver ring from the bottom of the box, with a small diamond in the middle. It was an old-fashioned ring, a girl's old fashioned ring.

Sylar looked to the inscription on the inside, and it seemed to be a lot more recent, more freshly etched, than the actual ring itself.

To Claire….from your hero.

Gabriel's stomach lurched and he carefully set the silver hoop back in the box. His mind reeled with this discovery, all the possibilities exploding around his head like shimmering fireworks. He'd known since the day he met Peter that Claire had been his brother's "niece" for a couple years, and that Peter had always had some sort of unsuitable, unrequited affection for the girl. But this…this looked like some sort of secret relationship…

Sylar knew his brother had been odd, but dating a girl he thought at the time was his niece?

However, the events of the past couple months came back to him, and a small frown melted his shocked expression. Peter and Claire, when they'd been in Sylar's company for the short while preceding their deaths, did not have the aura of former lovers. Rather, their passion was more that of a restrained couple who wanted to be together, but never had the opportunity.

Sylar was back to square one again, except even more confused than in the beginning.

Yet…the story was in front of him, wasn't it? All these journals and letters and memorabilia that could show him the truth about why Peter and Claire came to be the way they were…

The amnesiac winced, almost able to feel Peter's spirit glaring at him in distaste. No, those records were private, and it was none of his business. He shouldn't have even opened it in the first place.

Though, as soon as Sylar flipped the box's cover shut and gave the thing a commanding shove to the back of the closet, he was already wrenching it open again seconds later, peering down into Peter's lost history. His intelligent eyes shined with curiosity and guilt, but maybe this one wrong could make a right.

If he got through this without feeling ashamed at offending Peter, perhaps it was the same as truly admitting that his brother died.

So with a deep breath and a silent plead for forgiveness, Sylar picked up one little black journal at random and opened to page one.

October 7, 2007

Claire and I had coffee at Rafferty's to celebrate our little "anniversary" today. Which resulted in the most humiliating-but-still-kind-of-hilarious conversation of my entire life…

xxx

To be continued…