Title: Adjustment
Disclaimers: I don't own any supernatural powers or anything else to do with Heroes. If I had, the series would continue, no matter what.
Genre: angst, supernatural, hints of hurt/comfort and romance.
Rating: PG-15 for violence.
Summary/Set: Brave New World. Sylar tries to prove everyone he'd changed by giving himself up to Noah to do with as he pleases, who takes him back to his cell. Claire has other ideas for punishment.
Pairing: mild/budding Sylaire.
Peter felt ambivalent about going to the company's gleaming containment facility on his weekly visit to Sylar. On the one hand it felt pleasant and comfortable to be able to see and talk to the man he got so used to and grown to care for during their years together alone behind the wall, but it also made him uneasy for reminding him of all that went on with evolved human prisoners under her mother and Nathan's control. Not to mention he'd never been in agreement with what Sylar had decided to undergo.
The new persona that has emerged from the confines of Matt's mind prison in the form of the one once known as Gabriel Gray, did not want to hide. He had all intention to reconnect with everyone that could matter and do it in all the right ways society would've accepted, which meant paying for his deeds in the manner people could maybe find adequate. So he'd accepted willingly all the tasers and guns being pointed at him, without defending himself and let himself being drugged and put in irons and a straightjacket and being taken away to a secure facility with the aid of a new-fangled innovation, an evolved ability dampening device.
Peter did not argue much at the time. He was happy to be out of the limitations of a mind's wall and able to spend time with his lady friend. He also understood how keen Sylar was on proving the world he was different than what everybody thought of him. But he did worry for his friend. First of all, the cells were not much dissimilar to their previous confinement and he didn't like, or more like trust his mother pulling the strings either. Sylar had already changed to a pensive, introspective person whose remorse was enough to imitate hell in his own soul, he had a strong desire to be accepted and plans for the future. But nobody bar Peter believed that and the derailed ability collector felt he had no other choice than his current path. The young returned paramedic however was worried that solitude and people's doubts was the last thing his friend needed.
Their weekly conversations were in some ways a continuation of the talks and discussions they once had when they had nobody else for company for years, they ranged from personal issues and moral debates to trivial matters like books and pizza choices. Fundamentally though, they were so much more. Their relationship flourished ever since that deciding moment that led to the wall giving way and there was no way back. Some of it Peter would've not been able to explain to anyone, he felt it however. The Petrelli had been a caring person all his life, but there were few people he had this amount of regard for. There was Emma and his family, and that was about it.
The way he felt about Sylar confused him and he'd spent a good deal thinking about it. He knew from experience that although the ex watchmaker was his own unique self, all of Nathan's essence was still existent within him. Peter could not deny, that spark of another life buried within him had made Sylar a whole lot more important in his eyes, even if he did not like the taller man reminding him of that by sometimes quoting one of Nathan's thoughts, reiterating an event. It maybe was connected to his older brother's memory to a certain extent, but Peter was quite sure he cared about Sylar for other reasons too, like the two of them being in some ways alike and prospectively sharing a future where they would not only need to learn to coexist, but be potentially able to alter the future according to a common plan and goal.
Apart from the usual identity checks and signatures required to enter the building, Peter was not usually stopped by anyone, given who he was and how routinely he had been visiting Sylar the same time and same day week by week. This time however, a man in a blue coat was waiting for him on the corridor, introduced himself as penal complex physician on duty and let him know in a kind, but monotone manner that the detainee he was about to see might not cooperate the same way as normal today.
Peter was cursing to himself, he was afraid this time will come, that the solitude and the treatment Sylar received in there will one day get to him. So he was quite surprised when the specialist expressed his concerns that there might be something physically amiss with their feared captive. The man showed Peter the medical files and it appeared that just about every reading and marker was beyond normal parameters and personnel could make no sense of the phenomenon as no ordinary human being would've been alive under the same circumstances. The paramedic keenly agreed on trying to shed light on the situation, regardless of his antagonism against the methods of those working for the company. This was more important than personal preferences.
The ability mimic entered his friend's spacious cell warily. Everything was looking pretty much the same as other times and Sylar was lying on his bed, staring at a page in one of the science magazines Peter made sure brought every time, in a manner not unlike some of the previous times he visited. "I hear you have trouble keeping food down?" His visitor strode up to the bed edgily. With Sylar's regenerating ability, was it psychological strain that ailed him, manifesting itself in bodily functions? Not waiting for his answer, Peter sat down on the edge of the only piece of furniture in the room, pulled the publication out the super powered evolved human's hands and held one of his wrists to take his pulse.
Sylar froze, following the magazine's journey with his eyes. It tumbled down the sheets and onto the cold, stone floors. Concentrating on it was a good way to be able to avoid Peter's gaze. The villain-turned-self-proclaimed-hero was feeling embarrassed when proven vulnerable. "Uhm," he acknowledged the question simply.
"What are your other symptoms?" Peter turned paramedic at a mere instant if it was needed.
"Who said I had other symptoms?" Sylar asked quickly, defensively, not at all happy that his perfect façade of invulnerability that he liked to put up in front of his captors, was in danger.
"Nobody," Peter assured him soothingly, "but they are a bit puzzled as to why you'd have too much bilirubin or have a nonexistent D4 cell count, or anything like that at all for that matter!"
"What are you talking about? Blood count?" He frowned, "I can't say I ever indulged in that particular matter of anatomical studies," he rolled his eyes sarcastically.
"What I'm saying is that if you had these parameters and were an ordinary human, I'd take you in the ambulance and shortly straight to the intensive care unit, knowing you'd be in the morgue in no time not matter what. So what's up? Something surely is, even if your abilities are able to control and contain it somehow."
Sylar shrugged, "so? It's nothing new. I've been having stomach cramps for quite a while. I was quite surprised it didn't manifest outwardly so far when it has been there almost as long as I've been in this facility."
Peter looked at him thoughtfully, "a sore stomach? That's all you're feeling?" He enquired suspiciously.
Sylar pursed his lips discomfited, "well, the wording is a bit off for one. Being stabbed in the stomach and the knife twisted repeatedly in there every other minute is more like it."
The paramedic's eyes widened, looking at his friend with his gaze going up and down, assessing him once more, "severe abdominal pain?" He translated what he heard into something more medical sounding, "what else? Come on, Sylar, I can't help you if you don't tell me."
"Uhm," the ex killer looked in his direction sheepishly, but avoided eye contact, "a lot of digestive stuff, you know, reflux, queasiness, having to go a lot, bloating, you know the like."
"Anything else?"
Sylar shrugged, as if still reluctant to share, "feverish and shaking here and there, lightheaded sometimes."
Peter nodded solemnly and pulled his protégé's t shirt up to get him ready for the examination by palpation, "where do you feel the abdominal pain?" The prisoner however waved a hand over his entire midsection with a vague gesture that made his conversation partner reformulate the question, "where does it hurt the most?"
Sylar placed some gingerly fingers above his bellybutton, and the paramedic followed suit by careful and gentle examination, quickly thwarted by the guarding reflex of the abdominal muscles, to Peter's grimness and concern. His patient however, aware of the young Petrelli's unremitting attitude to protect him, waved him off dismissingly, "it comes and goes, you know. It had only been about one and a half hours since they gave me their wonder cocktail that's supposed to efface my powers," he rolled his eyes.
Peter paused for a moment. "Supposed to? Your powers are working?"
Sylar nodded, "to a considerable extent. No cell could hold me," he winced, remembering their time behind the wall, "an ordinary physical one I mean."
"But..but what about regeneration? It doesn't make much sense how you're in poor health then."
"Oh, leave it to the company to manufacture any drug that makes sense. They have no idea of the chemical interactions themselves."
"So you're saying that you are unmistakably aware of how they are poisoning you in here and you just let it happen? What are you doing in here?" Peter asked shaking his head.
The taller man closed his eyes for a brief moment and sighed. He was trying to do what was right here and certainly didn't need Peter pointing out his choice's drawbacks. It was hard enough coping with the discomfort, day in, day out.
"Gabriel?" Peter tried to get his attention once more, worried it was the pain that made him close his eyes.
"I'm not really all that into masochism you know that, but is there another way you could suggest me paying for what I have done, and in a manner that satisfies all the people?" He asked still lying on the bed, not wanting to admit to his visitor how hard it was for his abdominal muscles to allow him to straighten up.
Peter grunted, "being in here is like when you kept apologizing, annoying the heck out of me! It's the right thing, but it's all it is, passive. It doesn't change much."
"Thanks. I'm feeling all better now," Sylar rolled his eyes, but his voice did not become accusing as his friend criticised him. For no moment did he forget he himself was the one in the wrong for so long, it'd take a while to change that.
"That's not what I mean. You need to stop letting yourself tortured, physically and emotionally. You need to get out of here and actively seek to do good, to better the world. That way you can make up for everything you think you have to make up for."
Sylar looked up to him slowly, but took a while to answer even after that, "what if something happens and I can't control it? If I can't contain my abilities? That's why I'm better off here where the world is safe from me," he panted after the garble, breathing hard.
Peter shook his head, "I still think it's the wrong thing, Sylar."
"Of course you would. You let me out. When your mind let go of your fears regarding me, that was when the wall crumbled. Anybody else, it'd take them another five years in close confinement with me, to get convinced that I'm not the Sylar they knew anymore."
"I don't think other people are the problem. You'd have to get swayed. How is the amount of pain you're in a lot not making you want to get out of here?" Peter grumbled, seeing through Sylar's bravery show. He was frustrated, knowing how thickheaded Sylar could be at times. "How can I help? Is there any way I could convince you to free yourself from here or at least let me get you out?"
The prisoner's answer was immediate. It was apparent that he had thought about it before and it was a clear precondition of what he thought was right, "if Claire would agree with you, then I'd be sure I could face the people outside these walls."
"Well then, I'll just have to get her to agree with me," Peter nodded decisively. He'd always preferred when he could resort to definite action.
Tbc