The First Night
The journey home was a battle in itself.
The streets were a devouring mob of uncaring people who shoved and pushed or pulled with no remorse; traffic roared and blared and screeched on relentlessly, with no rhyme or reason or respect to its design; and even the subway was no better, just a bustling, smelly tin can that rattled along on squealing tracks until you couldn't not feel queasy.
Everything was far too loud, too busy, too alive to a man who had known only silence for so long.
Peter had been dreading his empty apartment all day. Yet when he got there it was actually a relief to close the door on the rest of the world and be able to hide. He locked his front door for the first time in years, securing the chain in place even though it felt ridiculously flimsy as protection against the millions of people spanning out from his doorstep. Then he scuffed into the centre of the main room: stripped bare but for a mismatched table and chairs and a solitary bookcase by the window. He barely recognised the place as his own. Even the smell was foreign to him now.
He shivered, although it wasn't due to the December chill creeping in through cracks in the walls. Strange, how even in a world fit to bursting with life and people and sights and sounds... he couldn't remember ever feeling so alone.
Suddenly Peter didn't know what to do all by himself. He was so used to the sounds and sense of someone shuffling around nearby that the lack of all that was literally giving him pause. He didn't have to wait his turn to use the bathroom? He wouldn't have to work around someone else's schedule? Couldn't even exchange a 'goodnight' before parting ways...? The apartment was waiting, open and empty like a void, but it was the daunting concept of freedom itself that rendered Peter Petrelli helpless.
Running a hand wistfully over the wall, the tabletop, the glass panes in his bedroom door, he waded sadly to the bathroom and brushed his teeth in silence. Or as much as he could call it that when the city only blared on outside these walls.
The real city. Reality. It was going to take a long time to get used to that. He knew he should have been overjoyed to be back here after fighting for this every day for years, but now that it was actually happening...? It just wasn't what he had imagined.
Peter readied for bed in a haze, caught between disbelief and hyper-awareness where everything conspired to remind him he was no longer a captive in a dream, and that he still couldn't quite trust in that knowledge. It felt like opening his eyes for the first time, but upon a view he thought he'd once known but that he had distorted in his mind. Everything here was familiar, but nothing felt like home. Not anymore. Not without Sylar.
Peter couldn't believe it had been hours already since he had broken down the wall to his prison with his unlikely ally. It had flashed past in a blur of heroics and media frenzy, but how could the same amount of time also feel like forever? It was ridiculous how much Peter missed the company of the only person he'd known for the past half a decade. Shouldn't he be sick of the sight of him by now?! But no. Instead, Peter could feel the thread that connected him to Sylar stretched taut across the furthest distance it had endured in years, and it hurt. Their first night apart was never going to be easy, he had known that already, but that didn't make it any less difficult to endure now that it was actually here.
He climbed into bed with a sigh, puffing his pillows and turning this way and that before having to admit it was impossible to get comfortable, what with lights pouring through the slats in his blinds, honking cries of cars below and the blatant lack of someone else nearby. Damn it.
Peter rolled onto his back, threading his fingers through his hair in order to keep them from reaching for his nightstand. He shouldn't. It was stupid. It was pathetic to be so scared of the world he had grown up in. It was embarrassing to be so weak, and Sylar would only laugh at him anyway. Maybe. Probably. But maybe even that wouldn't be as bad as this isolation?
Shadows roamed over Peter's bedroom walls and caught in the reflections in the doors, but he couldn't tell how quickly time was passing. Hours? Milliseconds? Even time itself was a construct he had forgotten, and all at once it was beyond his grasp like a handful of sand that he couldn't keep hold of. All he knew was that the twist in his gut grew sharper as he lay there, and that he might never sleep again if things were to continue in this manner.
It was a particularly loud blast of a siren outside that made his heart jolt and his arm disobey him and reach for his phone of its own accord. Then it was too late to stop himself, and by then he didn't even want to.
"Hey, stranger."
The instant that voice came through the line, every part of Peter's being relaxed. He exhaled a happy, sleepy breath. "Hey." He sank into the mattress that was suddenly the softest thing in the world, letting a smile roam free to tease the corner of his lips. "I, uh, just wanted to let you know I got back in one piece. It wasn't easy. I nearly got hit by at least three cabs and I actually got lost crossing the same street twice, if you can believe that. Was the city always so busy...?" A lazy chuckle left his throat, and suddenly Peter realised how exhausted he really was. How warm and comfortable and content now.
That was, until Sylar's serious tone cut right through the bullshit. "Peter?" His voice was a spark of familiar colour when everything else was just off, and although Peter instantly knew he'd been caught out he still didn't regret initiating contact.
"...Yeah?" He spoke quietly, wishing he didn't feel so stupid and needy.
"Are you checking up on me?" Sylar asked, although they both knew why he had really called. As surely as Peter was aware of that, he was also aware that his friend was just as grateful for it as he was.
"Aw, you caught me." He rolled onto his side and propped his phone on his pillow next to his face, so he could hear and speak without having to hold the device. He bundled up tightly under his duvet, smiling to himself at Sylar's very Sylar-ish, matter of fact reply.
"That's very thoughtful of you, but I'm fine. Can't sleep, so I'm taking advantage of the extended literary world of a real bookcase." He hummed a small, happy sound to himself that crackled through the phone. Peter's next words were distorted by a yawn.
"Oh yeah? What're you reading?" Honestly, he didn't even care, and he wasn't even properly listening anymore in his appeased, dozy state. But upon too long a silence – such a telling lack of response – he couldn't help but blurt out a gasp. "No you did not!"
"Well I was halfway through a chapter before the wall broke, and I couldn't just leave it unfinished, could I?" Sylar sounded a shade defensive, but when Peter laughed deep, happy laughs that warmed his belly, the former murderer's voice softened for him. "I never even got to read the copy you gave me."
"Hey, I'll get you a new one. A book you haven't read a billion times already, how's that sound?"
"Hm, I suppose that'll do."
The pair drifted into a comfortable silence. Peter could so easily picture the other man right now: propped up in his bed with the duvet folded neatly at his waist, the soft glow of the lamp dancing in glasses that he would have donned just in favour of the occasion. It was a wholesome image, one that soothed Peter's worries like a cool hand on his forehead.
"Which part you at?" He murmured with the fading, drowsy tendrils of his voice. He didn't actually want to know the answer, or hear another marathon ramble about Pillars of the Earth, thank you very much. He'd had more than enough of those already. But right now, that wasn't a problem at all.
There was a slight pause of surprise from the other end of the line, before Sylar conceded and launched into one of his long winded play-by-plays featuring every intricate detail and theme and imagery that Peter couldn't possibly care less about. Still, it was the nicest thing he could imagine in that moment.
He smiled to himself again and let his eyelids slide closed. Finally it was easy to tune out the rest of the city, the rest of the world, and forget where he was and what he'd done and where he'd come from. He could be drifting off on the couch on a lazy afternoon behind The Wall, when the universe still belonged just to him and Sylar and everything was familiar.
Within seconds, Peter fell sound asleep at last.
A/N: Hey guys, this is a cute little scene that has been in my mind for a loooong time. It was originally going to be in Tongues of Fire (chapter 5, when Peter gets home), and since I cut it I've always sort of regretted it X) So finally I thought I would share it with you, and maybe at some point in future I'll edit it into Tongues of Fire, but we'll see.
Speaking of – I'm hoping to update ToF either today or tomorrow, so please stay tuned X)
For now, enjoy this as an almost-AU to that story, a deleted scene, or as its own self-contained oneshot. I hope you like it, and welcome any feedback as always!