A/N: Finally, an update! Again, I'm sorry for such a delay between chapters – as soon as I can work out Hiro's secret I'll happily freeze time and be able to get stuck into writing without interruptions X) I hope you think this update is worth the wait, but a warning before you read on: there's dub-con/non-con abuse in this chapter (non-sexual) and things get a bit violent in relation to restrainment devices/imprisonment.
In Enemy Territory
Sylar woke with a start. One moment there was nothing, the blissful reprieve of the deepest of sleeps that could only have followed death; and the next he was freezing and shivering and confused, his mouth very dry and his eyes stinging as he blinked blearily around himself in the darkness.
Then there was pain. A sharp burn pierced down either side of his spine like a dozen sets of daggers, while a full-body ache pulsed through him at once. What the...? Was that muscle cramp? It had been so long since he'd experienced it thanks to the ability to regenerate that he'd almost forgotten what it felt li...
Wait. Regeneration? His abilities...? All non-responsive. Slowly coming to beneath a sticky veil of grogginess, Sylar noticed he'd been stripped of his clothes and re-dressed in white, scrub-like garments that regurgitated unpleasant memories through him like bile. Peering at his surroundings again with dread congealing in his gut, he searched for the form of a familiar power-blocking Haitian nearby. Nothing. No one. Just the inside of a dimly lit cell that smelled of concrete and stone: a bare floor, a door on one side, and a pane of opaque black glass in the wall opposite where Sylar stood trembling.
The place held remnants of another underground enclosure with which he was far too familiar, but it wasn't Primatech.
Or it wasn't Primatech anymore.
Teeth chattering in the cold, it took a moment for Sylar to assemble his thoughts. He remembered Union Wells High School... Tracy Strauss had been there, and then Noah and Matt and others – then...! Oh. That would explain the goosebumps on his still thawing skin. Not to mention the flakes of ice that were melting in long strands of wet hair that fell across his vision. But as for the pain? Or the disorientation that felt similar to how Sylar remembered being drunk pre-regeneration...?
Only then did he realise he couldn't move. Sleek but solid restraints clinked around his ankles, his wrists were shackled up by each side of his head, and every attempt to get free of the ribcage-like harness that cocooned his torso only stabbed more agony down his vertebrae than before. What the fuck? That part was new.
Finally struck by the rush of fear, Sylar recognised the pain in his spine to be needles, probably pumping some ability-nullifying cocktail of drugs through his bloodstream – hence the grogginess. Tethered up against the wall, as awake as he could possibly manage, he writhed again to no effect, wishing he couldn't recall his last venture within enemy territory. Noah's 'office' had been swathed in all sorts of paper and plots, and designs for some advanced new contraption that would be able to contain even the most powerful of evos, an evolved method of shoving a tube up their nose a la Primatech...
Sylar yelled aloud with the effort of tugging against his restraints. His heart was pounding and his eyes were watering and his muscles were tiring already in this position without the privilege of regeneration to keep him strong but fuck he had to get out of here somehow! He wasn't fleeing out of fear for his life, because Sylar was clever enough to know he would be dead already if Renautas wanted him so. That didn't mean, however, that he didn't tremble at the thought of the horrific experiments most likely lined up for his benefit. He knew this game already. He knew what was coming. Years of nightmares could never let him forget the helplessness of being trapped, bound and vulnerable and probed and tortured at the mercy of a Company that despised him too much to let him die.
With an echoing cry, Sylar was forced to desist his escape attempts, panting with the exertion. Without the endurance of superhuman healing, he physically couldn't rip a rack of needles out of his own spinal cord. Which meant he was stuck here. Holy shit.
Out of nowhere, the click and hiss of a door sliding open preceded a blinding fluorescent light flooding the cell from overhead. There was no time for the prisoner's eyes to adjust to the brightness before a blurry shape stumbled inside and charged at him.
Sylar growled, acting on instinct alone, and tried to evade the grabbing hands as best he could when strung up flat against the wall in a crude imitation of the way he'd used to tease his victims. All he could do was try to kick and look fearsome while hands pawed at his face and shoulders and someone spoke hurried words in his direction –
"Shh, shh, it's okay, it's me! Calm down!"
Too late, he recognised the voice with a blissful eruption of relief in his chest. Squinting in the sudden light, he was so grateful to see the tousled and flustered young man before him that he didn't even care he'd been found in such an undignified state. "P-Peter?" He gasped.
Gentle fingers linked with Sylar's, gloriously warm against skin that had been solid ice just recently. "It's alright, I'm gonna fix this!" Peter Petrelli whispered, and maybe it was the blinding white light, the drugs, or maybe just because he was so unbearably happy to see him, but the watchmaker was sure this man hadn't ever looked so flawless until that moment. Peter sent a reassuring, crooked smile his way before moving on to examine Renautas' hardware. His hands were soothing as they traced Sylar's body, tugging at hinges and trying to find seams in the unfamiliar, resilient harness.
Numb with relief, Sylar's voice was nearly as weak as his knees. "How - how did you get in here? What happened? Did they have you in one of these too?"
Peter didn't answer the question, too distracted by fussing over Sylar's restraints. "God, I was so worried... they're on their way and I wasn't sure I could get to you in time." At this unasked for information, Sylar shivered not for the first time since reviving. With a frustrated sigh, Peter gave up on the harness but he didn't stop talking, didn't stop comforting Sylar with gentle hands on his face and a vulnerability to his voice that Sylar thought he knew even though he'd never heard it aloud before. "But it's okay, it's okay, I'm gonna get you outta this. It's gonna be alright, I promise."
It was only when Peter rose onto his tiptoes and pressed his lips to Sylar's that everything shifted. Shocked, the watchmaker jerked out of the kiss, frowning down upon this beautiful little being that he was suddenly certain was even more beautiful and even more little than usual.
"What's wrong?" Peter asked breathlessly, entrancing hazel eyes threatening to fill with tears. And it wasn't the surprise of a kiss in public that gave Sylar pause, a gesture he had long yearned for but never received; and it wasn't the unlikelihood of Peter crying after rejecting said kiss that did it either. It was everything.
Son of a bitch.
Affronted, Sylar stared down at the figure who gazed right back up at him. He yearned so badly to be wrong, craving the relief he usually found in every slight brush of that mouth against his. But just then it had been too rough. Too hollow. Too careless. A gesture void of the heart and soul Peter Petrelli usually infused in each and every kiss. Here he was before Sylar: heroic and sensitive and foolishly naïve, all affectionate words and touches and needing to be protected; and he was just so Peter in all the ways Sylar liked to think of him. Only, he wasn't right. He wasn't real.
It was the cruelest punishment Sylar would never have expected. Not to have his innermost desires discovered and used to hurt him: but to let him believe, even for a moment, that there was hope.
But now the bubble had popped and harsh reality billowed in from all sides. And when Sylar finally mustered a murmur he was so furious that it eclipsed all the fear, all the relief and all the confusion that had been swirling inside him until now. "You might be able to fool me with a wall. Or books. Or even an entire city." He snarled through his teeth. "But him...? You're gonna have to do better than that."
The young man before the former villain just continued to look up at him, as if he knew exactly which expression would make Sylar's lungs stutter and his heart skip a beat. But without that underlying strength that Sylar had always admired in him, the resilience, or even the infuriating stubbornness that Sylar would often wish could be put on pause at times, Peter wasn't himself. Autonomy was part of the deal, and only now did Sylar realise just how much he appreciated the small, sometimes troublesome, unpredictable things that differentiated his only friend from the pristine version he carried in his mind.
Just as that thought rang true, Peter changed. With an uncharacteristic, heartless smirk, the vision faded away like smoke, making way for the mastermind pulling the strings to saunter into the cell in his place. "Is that supposed to be touching?" He scoffed. "Please. Spare me the details."
With a fresh, deeper surge of nausea, Sylar closed his eyes and turned his face away from that bastard, holding onto his last remnants of composure but by a thread. He wouldn't choose to be found this way by anyone, never mind his enemies, but Matt Parkman was certainly one of the last names on the list. The very real, very full might of his predicament smothered Sylar anew, even worse than it had before thinking he'd been rescued. Suddenly he was very aware of the heaving of his chest, the chafing cuffs at his wrists, of the thin, papery clothes that were his only form of defense in the world.
He might have been trembling from more than the cold this time.
"Is this real?" He asked tightly, dreading the answer whichever way it went. "This place?"
Parkman huffed. "Oh, I assure you it is. Including the gadget you're testing out for us now." Sylar burned again at the humiliation of being kept tethered up before this particularly self-serving fucker. "Like it?" Matt continued. "It's a prototype, designed specially to contain monsters like you."
The needles throbbed down Sylar's spine at the reminder of them, and he wondered if he could really feel the drugs seeping thickly through his veins like tar or if it was just his imagination. He fought with all the willpower he had left not to make one peep and show that it hurt. Instead, he laboured over a scathing expression, seeking out Parkman's sickeningly smug face just to leer at him. "All that time and money just for me? Should I be flattered?"
"Sick, is what you are."
"Oh I'm the sick one? Look at you, Parkman: you're enjoying this. But I suppose that's understandable. Tell me, did your bosses already know how incompetent you are before our last encounter, or did I do them a favour?"
Sylar took a small victory in the damage he inflicted to the cop's self-satisfied expression. Seemingly out of breath already, Matt strode right up to Sylar and jabbed an accusing finger in his face. "Think that's funny, you son of a bitch? Thanks to you and your boyfriend I've had to work my ass off just to keep my job since you set that room on fire with me in it!"
The smirk playing with Sylar's lips disappeared. That slice of victory was swiftly replaced by a chill and light-headedness unlike any he had known in his previous life as a killer.
Peter. He had been grabbed along with Sylar back at Union Wells school, which meant Renautas must have got him too. The Peter who had ran in here before hadn't been real, it had only been a cruel trick, which meant that he was still around here somewhere. That the enemy still had him.
And that thought was more terrifying than being trapped alone with the telepath who had once locked Sylar inside his own mind for the better part of a decade.
He might have been embarrassed at the tremor in his voice if he wasn't so desperate for an answer. "Where's Peter?" He demanded, his heartbeat suddenly very loud in his ears.
"D'you honestly think I'm gonna tell you?"
Matt retreated a step when the ferocious rattling of restraints echoed around the cell. "Tell me!" Sylar roared, channeling all his fear and all his rage into the most dangerous of expressions he could muster. Baring his teeth, he didn't even have to try to infuse every word with bleeding promise. "You tell me where he is, Parkman, or I can promise you -"
"You'll what? Kill me? That doesn't sound like someone who keeps claiming he's changed his ways." For the first time since he'd arrived, Matt smiled. It was difficult to see it clearly while his eyes were still adjusting to the light, but Sylar could feel it as vividly as if the man had just stabbed him through the chest.
Clenching his fists, he dropped his gaze and blinked blearily at the ground. As much as he despised the thought: Matt was right. Violence was easier than this, it was more promising than the idea of being so weak – but even if he wasn't physically restrained by this Renautas hardware, was ripping the look off Parkman's face worth sacrificing everything he'd worked so hard to create, maintain and abstain from in this new life...?
In the old days, Sylar would have promised this bastard a slow, agonizing death, then followed up on every word as soon as he got the chance. Today, he couldn't. He shouldn't. Though that didn't mean he would be able to stop himself if something happened to the one person he couldn't bear the thought of losing. But then, that wouldn't be fair on Peter to pin even one more act of carnage on him. It's the last thing he would want.
Heart pounding, Sylar was unable to stop the fight from leaving him like failing to stem blood from an open wound. He fought to hold Parkman's stare through long, disheveled strands of his hair, aware that he probably looked a mess, looked every bit the caged beast that everyone in his life had ever thought him to be. Everyone, that was, except Peter Petrelli.
Tears prickled, unbidden, at Sylar's eyes. It took him a moment to muster even a whisper past the dryness of his mouth. "Is he safe?"
Matt didn't even twitch. His expression was tight and difficult to read. Under no illusions that the telepath would magically grow a conscience, Sylar wasn't really expecting an answer. Which might have been why he was taken so off guard by the one that followed.
"Yes."
The prisoner startled at the sound of a third voice, his eyes quickly landing on the doorway just in time to catch the distinct silhouette of Noah Bennet swarming into sight.
"Peter is being well taken care of, and he's no longer your concern."
The tremor of emotions that imploded just at the sight of the company man was far too laden and far too corrupted to distinguish just one in the mess. All Sylar knew right then was that he felt even smaller in the bowels of this putrid organization. That he could no longer feel his legs. And that he might have preferred to be locked alone in here with Matt Parkman after all.
"My advice is to start worrying about yourself, Gabriel." Noah's glasses glinted in the light. "We've got some catching up to do."
( )( )( )
Peter woke slowly, at his own pace. He took his time to acknowledge the soft surface he was lying on, the weight of a blanket draped over his form, and how comfortable he was here, how warm. Strange, when the last thing he remembered was icy pain compressing him all over.
Confused, he eased his eyes open to look not upon his own apartment, or Charles Devaux's bedroom, or even a two-bed, dilapidated hotel room for a couple of superhuman fugitives to hide out in. Rubbing at his eyes, Peter pushed himself up from couch cushions until he could make sense of the unfamiliar space around him, bathed in refreshing morning light. Gleaming white walls; a large desk on the far side of the room; floor-to-ceiling windows stamped along one side; and multiple sculptures of the double helix symbol proudly displayed around what he now recognised, with a sinking of his gut, to be an office.
An office. Renautas...? Noah!
It all came flooding back, crystal clear as if it had happened just five minutes ago although hours must have passed since: the plan, the school, the ambush. Oh god.
Instantly, Peter was rushed with remorse, with regret, and he hated himself for being so foolish back there and as dim-witted and blind as everyone always thought of him to be! He'd really believed Tracy. He'd wanted to trust her. Even now, he could remember the weight of remorse preoccupying her thoughts, her words while she'd led them to the slaughter: 'I figure I owe it to Nathan to help you change your fate. You deserve more than what's been planned for you...' Had she meant it? Was this her fucked-up way of diverting him from his fate of letting the world end? Did she truly think handing him over to the enemy was a favour to Nathan...? Or had every single word just been part of Noah Bennet's grand plan?
Furious with himself, Peter wrestled to scramble off the couch and to his feet, seeking an escape. But before he could even untangle his limbs from the blanket, he jumped when a voice spoke quietly behind him.
"There's no need to panic, dear."
Only panicking more, his head swam dizzily while he sought out the woman sitting in the corner of the room. His heart raced faster when recognition kicked in, and faster still once he acknowledged the tall form of the Haitian standing silently behind her chair. Peter didn't even need to try to know he was currently powerless.
The next moment, fear made way for something else entirely.
"Mom?"
Angela Petrelli's answering smile was tight and fell short of her eyes. "Hello, sweetheart."
Swept up in a competing gust of rage and heartbreak, Peter had to stop himself from either running to her this instant or fleeing in the opposite direction. He'd been through so much since he'd last seen her face. Through months of struggle and fear and exhaustion he'd missed her terribly, and now that they were reunited he yearned for her to help him, to ease the pain and pressure on his shoulders the way only mothers can do. He wanted to hug her and love her and beg her to love him back, to love him again after casting him out all this time while he'd been running for his life, but he couldn't. He could barely even stand the sight of her after knowing the things she'd done.
"What is this?" Peter frowned, taking in the whole display for the first time.
Angela was seated next to another, pointedly empty, chair and a table featuring a steaming teapot and two cups of the matching set. It was such a jarring sight in the otherwise sleek, ceramic surroundings, a pretense of homeyness that was so blatant it may as well have been a kid's teaparty. Poised with her legs crossed at the ankle and her hands folded in her lap, Angela herself might have been the falsest feature of the carefully crafted scene.
Peter couldn't process properly. It was impossible to believe that he hadn't set eyes on his mother since before she'd conspired to blow up an oil rig. Or, more aptly, frame his only friend and kill hundreds of innocent people along the way. If he wasn't still carrying that guilt, and if the sight of her didn't bring so much remorse flooding back so fast, then no time could have passed at all since he'd last held her hands in his.
Angela reached for the teapot, filling her own cup. "Sit with me, dear, and we can talk like adults."
Peter didn't. And not just due to the hollow display of welcomeness she had crafted, or just her actions at the oil rig, or just because she'd abandoned her own son without ever giving him a reason or a chance to explain himself. He stayed firmly in place because it didn't take long to understand why the first thing he'd seen after another ressurrection was her.
"Back at the school? The ambush...? That was your idea?" The truth in this knowledge hollowed Peter's chest as if his vital organs had just been torn out.
Angela blinked, a confirmation. "I merely helped refine the details."
Somehow the office felt colder than it had even the second before, the windows bigger, the walls brighter, the distance between mother and son stretching wider although Peter was close enough to see the resignation pooling in her eyes.
"Why?" He croaked. Standing his ground, he scowled from the couch at the woman whose arms he craved around him more than anything. His words came faster the longer he spoke, more impassioned. "Why would you do that? We were gonna talk to Noah! We were gonna work things out! It's not what you think, about the future -"
"I don't want to talk about the future." Angela set the teapot down with a dull clunk. "I've dreamed of nothing else for months."
Peter fell silent, only for the first time noticing how uncharacteristically haggard she looked. Her face was more lined than it had been before, her hair sitting not quite as perfectly as usual. Blowing on her tea, Angela let him look, surveying him over the rim of her cup with the same attention to detail as he was her. For once Peter didn't care that she'd tut and say he needed a haircut, that he needed to shave, to eat and rest cause he was too thin and running himself ragged as usual. Today her disapproving eyes meant nothing to him when it came to his appearance. Not when there was so much more of himself on display.
As if just to make him wait, Angela savoured a sip of her drink before continuing. "I'm sure by now you'll have seen the same nightmares that I have, Peter. What else is there to say?" Peter had never been able to escape the scrutiny of those all-seeing eyes of hers. He knew that the look on his face would give her his answer without one word being said.
Just like he always had done, he failed to both contain his expression and appear like a fully-functioning adult who wasn't as ridiculously out of his depth as he felt. Suddenly aware that he was still sitting in the spot where his mother had him carried in unconscious and helpless, covered him in a blanket and watched him sleep, Peter clambered to his feet and let them carry him numbly to the empty seat opposite her, even though he didn't want to be so close.
It might have been easier to maintain the illusion of competence had memories of a life yet to be lived not crept into the edges of his vision, hovering in his awareness like a fog he could feel but not see. The end of life on Earth. The promise of Peter's hideous descent into madness... and now he couldn't deny that Angela knew of it too. As if he hadn't felt exposed enough when he'd had to share this foresight with his closest friend –
Peter's ribcage suddenly felt like it tightened.
"Where's Sylar?" He demanded, his hands curling into fists on the table surface. He resisted the urge to scream the man's name a hundred times over at the way it made his mother's face pinch in distaste. Similarly, Peter felt sick, but only at the thought of what his friend must be going through right at this moment, what Renautas was doing to him... somehow it seemed unlikely Sylar was getting the same five star guest treatment that Peter was.
And whose fault was that? Who hadn't listened to Sylar's advice and quit while they were ahead? Who had kept pushing the plan they both knew was doomed, and who had been the one to make the final call to trust Tracy Strauss and her lies...?Peter couldn't bear to think of it.
Angela sniffed, filling Peter's teacup without bothering to ask him first. "I'm not going to talk about him, either."
"Then what do you want?" Peter's throat was tight and his voice rough when it smashed the surface of the silence. "Why am I here?"
Considering he must have been out of it for hours already and Renautas hadn't done anything with him, it was tempting to believe she was only doing this to hurt him with her disappointment in the creature he was to become. If that was her plan, it was working. Then what was to be his fate? Was he to be punished for crimes he was yet to commit? Would she lock him up and ship him off somewhere until he was less of an embarrassment to the Petrelli name, and no longer such a danger to her own visions for the world? Peter wished he didn't believe she was capable of such things.
He tried to brace himself when Angela set his cup before him, complete with a generous swirl of rich honey. Peter didn't touch it. Angela smiled at him again, in the telltale way that meant her next words were going to be crushing.
So this was it. The moment he'd been waiting for. The answer to a million questions he'd asked himself in vain only to dread every outcome. And although he'd had months to accept that his mother had really thrown him to the wolves, and he'd endured sleepless nights wondering how she could do such a thing to him; now that he was really about to find out... Peter realised he didn't even want to know.
( )
Angela had been clawing her way to this moment for so long that she could only hold it tentatively in her grasp, afraid it might break. Countless meetings, so much planning, months of failed attempts and close calls and improvising, even orchestrating the entire operation from the sidelines of 'retirement' while letting Noah believe it was his idea... it was irrelevant now. None of it mattered when Angela finally had what she wanted.
"So I can take you home, dear."
The statement rang throughout the office.
Angela did nothing to impede its impact while she watched it wash over the young man she'd longed to see again with all the charred remnants of her heart. It didn't matter how many nameless, faceless people she'd had to sacrifice along the way, or that she'd doubted Noah's competence more than a few times – because in the end he'd honoured their deal and brought her baby back to her.
Angela watched Peter stare at her helplessly across the table, defensiveness falling from his person in a tender display that knocked him for six. "Home?" He repeated, testing the word for a weak spot as if it might fall apart.
Mrs Petrelli only blinked at him. Her spoon lazily chased a slice of lemon around her teacup if only to keep her hands busy, to stop her from reaching out to cradle his face now that he was really here in front of her again. And he was just as vibrant as he'd always been, just as beautiful, just as sensitive as he'd been even as an astoundingly observant child who always seemed to know the perfect moment to crawl into her lap and hug her. Now, a lifetime of lies later, Angela couldn't be sure if she should blame the gaping wound that Nathan's death had left behind, or the exhaustion of enduring the past few months worried sick for her youngest child, but she was certain she used to be much better at keeping her emotions in check than she was managing internally at present.
Slowly, Peter's surprise turned into a frown. It hurt Angela to watch his pretty face reveal every emotional bruise she had dealt him over a lifetime of betrayals, blooming into sight one by one.
"I don't have a home." He said darkly, like nothing more than the unfortunate fact that it was. "I'm a fugitive now. But you know that already, don't you? 'Cause it's all thanks to you and what you've done. You set me up: at the rig. With Renautas. You've had Noah hunting me down all this time. Why would you do that?"
Angela took another sip of her tea. It was still too hot to drink and burned her tongue, but it was nothing compared to the scorching betrayal in Peter's eyes: large and guarded and swimming with heartbreak. Angela only wished she didn't deserve every last drop of it. "Everything I've done has been for you, sweetheart." It was meant to sound more matter-of-fact than it did.
Peter's breath left him in a tiny, dubious huff. Shaking his head, he pushed his chair back from the table but remained seated, simply adding more distance to the already impenetrable divide between the pair. His teacup rattled and sloshed at the motion, its contents seeping steadily across the table.
"I don't believe you, Ma."
From the taut line of his brow to the rigid crossing of his arms, Peter acted as if Angela had said nothing of consequence at all, nothing heartfelt, but merely a hollow statement that he'd grown to see through after trusting it in vain too many times before. Angela resented the softness in his accusation more than if he'd screamed it at her.
"It's 'cause of Sylar. Isn't it? This is about him."
( )
Peter didn't know how he'd managed to keep his voice as even so far. It got more difficult by the second, when each one further ripped open old wounds and let his mother's betrayals run deeper into the leaking wells of his chest. In a way he was glad that his abilities were currently being blocked, or perhaps badly contained electricity would be rolling down his arms for all to see.
With a sigh, Angela set her cup back down on the table, addressing him face-on this time with no props in the way. Quietly and methodically, she listed off her whole speech as if she'd rehearsed it. "He will ruin you, Peter. I've seen it. Combined, your power is too much to contain, you cannot stay together, it is too dangerous. People will die."
Peter had wanted nothing but a direct answer until he got one. Reeling, he got shakily to his feet again if only in a weak attempt to try and avoid the words he didn't want to hear. Feeling sick with guilt and uneasiness, he turned his back on his mother in favour of the window.
"You corrupt each other, dear. I've witnessed it a hundred times. And once that happens nobody will be able to stop you."
For a long while there was nothing but Peter's breath fogging up the glass. He barely even noticed the spanning view of Renautas' main headquarters outside, too busy running his hands through his hair and wishing he couldn't feel her statements striking all the wrong notes inside.
Oh god. Hearing it said like that was somehow even worse than seeing the aftermath in his dreams... but she didn't understand. She didn't know the full story. And without the missing puzzle pieces, Angela would only ever be able to see part of the final design.
Fuck, why did it have to hurt so much to be so conflicted? To feel torn apart at the seams? To actually feel sorry for her after she'd fucked him about like she had? Because Peter knew what his mother had seen in her visions. And he couldn't blame her for being afraid when he'd done the exact same thing. He didn't doubt that she believed in what she was saying... and she was right, in a way. But her dreams were warped, disfigured by prejudice to spare her from the truth she would never be able to handle:
That Sylar had come back through time to save them all, and that Peter was the one to blame.
( )
When Peter mustered his voice it was hard at the edge. "You're wrong, Ma. You're only seeing what you wanna see. You're blaming Sylar cause it's easier, cause you want an excuse to hate him more than you already do."
The accusation stung. But it was nothing close to how much it had hurt Angela to watch darkness and power corrupt her son, night after night after night. Perhaps only because he wasn't looking this way that Angela didn't stop her chin from trembling. Because already it had started. Already it was happening. He was no longer the same, pure-hearted boy who had never used to doubt her, who had trusted in everyone with everything he had.
Blinking back the looming threat of tears, Angela patted her hairstyle into place although it didn't need it. "Well what would you expect me to do with my dreams, Peter? Nothing?"
She was dreading the blade of his glare even before he shot it over his shoulder her way. Angela hardly had time to rearrange her expression. "You could've talked to me about them." Peter spoke softly through his teeth, his words husky on the way out. "You could've trusted me rather than hurt so many people and make up so many lies that I can't even tell where this started! And all for what?" His overgrown hair fell in his face when he shook his head again, taking a step closer. "...All this time I thought you hated me. I thought you wanted me locked up, or – or worse! Why didn't you just tell me what was going on? I would have listened to you!"
Angela reached again for her barely touched tea, if only for a prop to hide the shaking of her hands. "I didn't want you to know what I'd seen. I was hoping to spare you from it." It wasn't the first time Angela looked back upon her past ideas and actions through the dirtied lens of hindsight and regretted them. "I had planned to change your future before you ever found out. I was only looking out for you, sweetheart, and I will not apologise for that."
For a moment Peter just stared at her, as if lost. Then she saw it make sense for him.
"'Change my future'...? You mean take Sylar out of it, don't you?" It wasn't really a question, sharp and taut and trembling with anger almost as much as his fists were. "This whole time? You just wanted him gone so you could what – save me from him?!" Angela watched as sunlight traced the accusing set of his features, smooth and healthy where they would once become hollow, infused with a passion he was destined to lose. "Then what? You'd have me all to yourself? D'you think you're gonna take me home, lock me in my room and forbid me from seeing him? Huh? Don't I get a say in all this? How I feel doesn't even matter, is that it?!"
Crack! The teacup slammed down upon the table surface, a shrill cry erupting into the room before Angela even realised it was hers. "I cannot let him take another one of my children from me! I cannot!"
She instantly regretted her outburst.
Wide-eyed, Angela attempted to pull herself back together as successfully as trying to un-tear paper. But Peter was having none of it. She could do nothing but watch as all her cards were tugged out her grasp, and every agonising scar of the truth slowly made sense in his expression. As easily as opening the wrong door, Peter had just stumbled upon the backstage area that nobody was supposed to see: a web of lies delicately crafted like a timeline built out of string, tangling and weaving and spanning every corner with the sole intention of being built to protect him. And there was nothing she could do to hide it, to stop him from realising what it meant.
Angela stood slowly from her chair, the better to accept Peter's fury. Instead, the softness of his tone impacted more than a punch to the face would have. "...This has never been about the future. Has it?"
Angela hated being hit so consecutively. She hated being unable to pull the wool over her son's eyes the way she'd used to, the way she'd succeeded with everyone else in the entire operation so far. But maybe that was because they didn't care enough to really know her? Maybe it had only worked because they didn't share the same pain she had been forced to carry all along?
But Peter did. And it was evident in his voice, in the way he swayed slightly on the spot, the way he gaped at her then with such disbelief, such clarity, as if he'd just witnessed her shapeshift into someone he didn't know.
"All this time...?" Peter barely breathed the words. "It's been about Nathan."
( )( )( )
Sylar glowered between his two interrogators, unsure which he despised the most at present. Good Cop Bennet was gearing slightly in the lead, despite the way he was trying to appear calm and collected and professional beside Parkman's Bad Cop antics.
"Do you know why you're here?" Noah repeated, impatience beginning to fracture his well-worn mask of collectedness.
Pretending to think on his answer, if only to assert the scrap of control he had left, Sylar forced what he hoped was a contrite expression through his medicated stupor. "Let me guess. It's 'cause I double parked at the store that time, isn't it?"
Noah sighed, crossing his arms. Maybe it was thanks to the rather effective shackles subverting their usual power imbalance, but it didn't escape Sylar's notice that the guy's attitude was significantly lacking the hostility of their usual interactions. Sylar wasn't staring down a gun, for one thing. Bennnet wasn't chewing on slurs, for another.
"Play cute all you want, Gabriel. It doesn't change the fact that we know you were involved in a plot that was going to kill billions of people. What I want to know is why."
Once more Sylar lost his voice before the slew of sharp words could leave his tongue. Great. In all this excitement he'd almost forgotten the reason he'd walked so stupidly into Renautas' clutches in the first place. Peter's dream of the future. The empath had said it was something inhuman that ended the world, that they'd let it happen, that thanks to them everyone else on the planet had been erased from existence like nothing more than burning ash...
The same cold chills that had consumed him upon first hearing this prophecy hit Sylar again now. He knew he could try to tell Bennet all the information he had on this. But at the same time, he was just as certain that without Peter and his impossibly contagious hope, or without Claire and her sway over her father's point of view, nobody would ever believe him anyway.
"I wasn't going to kill anyone." Sylar insisted, refusing to watch this fall upon the deaf ears and stony expressions of his tormentors. It was difficult to keep his head above the tide of desperation and grogginess that rose slowly around where he was locked in place, chained to the riverbed and unable to swim up for air. "I don't do that anymore."
( )
Bullshit.
Or so Noah wanted to believe with everything he'd gained from his past exchanges with this evolved superhuman. He knew from experience that it was crucial to remain impartial during an interrogation, not to let biases and personal feelings compromise the job. But this was Sylar. Sylar. The prized white whale who had upturned Noah's whole life and everyone he loved, and now Noah had him at long last, writhing on the hook and gasping for air.
But why did it still not feel like a triumph? Why couldn't Noah shake the sense that something wasn't adding up in his grand finale of the plan that supposedly saved the future?
From the outside he ensured to come across as unreadable. Truly, however, he couldn't ignore the memory of the last time he'd had Sylar like this, locked in a cell very similar to this one, the day after he had tried to kill Claire at her homecoming game. The interrogation was the same, the control, the flames that roared in the eyes of the prisoner in defiance of his capture.
But today... those flames might have been the only tether that connected this pained and weary man to the one Noah had caged in the past. "So you keep telling us." He said.
"It's the truth!" Licking his dry lips, Sylar spoke with much more effort than before. "I don't need to hurt people anymore, I don't want more powers, I'm done with all that!" Deep, dark eyes smouldered angrily in Parkman's direction. "We can thank Bad Cop, here, for putting that in motion -" Sylar made as if to lean forward in a display of intimidation, however the Renautas-tech harness saw to that idea and he gave up with a small grunt of pain.
It wasn't as vindicating as Noah had expected it would be.
( )
Matt beat Noah to a retort, before the killer got any ideas about shining a light on a particular mental imprisonment, one that may or may not have been responsible for bringing him and Peter together and starting all this mess in the first place...
"So you decide you're bored with your old hobby and we're supposed to just forget about the mindless murders?!" He spat, crossing his arms so tightly he hoped it made him look more menacing toward the son of a bitch.
"They weren't mindless."
"That's right, cause you did every one deliberately, didn't you?"
Breathing deeply, Sylar seemed to just barely speak over the swelling might of his anger, a growl reverberating close beneath the surface. "I didn't have a choice. I've told you, there's a hunger -"
"So – so now you're merely a victim of your ability?"
When the killer's eyes tracked over to Noah, and the pair locked gazes for long, meaningful seconds, Matt got a feeling they were remembering a secret he wasn't privy to. "Among other influences."
Matt just sneered, throwing his arms out wide. "Right, yeah, poor you! You couldn't control your power so you slaughtered your way across the country!"
Maintaining smouldering eye contact, Sylar's growl grew louder, contempt dripping from his lips with every word that broke free as if having stewed for a long time. "When your ability manifested you couldn't control it either, Parkman! The headaches, the voices, you were just as clueless as the rest of us. But you could just pop a few pills and be done with the side effects, right? Well what about me?" Stopping to draw breath, the captive's expression wavered slightly in an uncharacteristic display of emotion. "There was nothing that could make it stop for even a second. Believe me, I tried."
Matt could have gone without the reminder of one repressed memory he'd seen in the depths of this murderer's mind before. Indignantly shifting his weight on the spot, he remembered the noose, the desperate man crying within it, the rope breaking at the last second... A quickly exchanged glance with Noah said the company agent was thinking of the exact same moment in time. Great. But what did that matter?! Sure, Sylar wasn't exactly wrong about all evos struggling to adjust to their powers, but what difference did it make if he had once tried to end it all? It was just one unsuccessful killing in a sea of other bodies that the heartless motherfucker had murdered for his own selfish gain!
"If I could go back and undo what I've done then I would."
Sylar's voice was strained, verging on desperate. Maybe it was due to pain or exertion, or the obscenely expensive cocktail of drugs Renautas had shot him up with, but Matt had rarely known this bastard to let himself be so unguarded. Somehow he looked smaller than usual, naked without the towering ego and false pretenses that usually shrouded his form like a costume. And until today, Matt was pretty sure he'd never seen the glisten of tears in those eyes.
"I know you don't believe me but I'm sorry. I'm sorry for every one of them. I don't know how many times I can say it."
It was a soft hush of a confession from a broken soul that might have worked and made Matt actually feel guilty. If it hadn't come from him.
"What kind of idiots do you take us for? Huh? Now you didn't mean to kill all those people? You're claiming you never knew what you were doing the whole time?"
"Oh, I knew." The confession seeped darkly into every corner of the cell, perfectly menacing despite Sylar's inability to do much in that moment. "I was aware for every single moment of it. And once I could stop I didn't want to. After all, how could I when I'd already fallen so far and it was so much easier to just keep killing than to –"
The murderer's voice caught in his throat. He seemed to fade in colour, like the saturation was being drawn out of a photograph. His bound hands twitched in discomfort and he let out a shuddering sigh, eyes darting between his two captors.
"...It was easier to keep killing than to feel?" Noah said.
Matt couldn't believe what he had heard. Almost as much as he couldn't believe Noah had actually supplied such an answer to Sylar's doped-up ramblings. Yet, here they were now, receiving confirmation in the form of ringing silence and a furious glare thrown their way by the prisoner.
( )
Sylar couldn't look away from Bennet no matter how much he wanted to, as if his line of sight was as restrained as his body. Heart thundering against his ribcage, he didn't even blink as the agent seemed to deconstruct him with that cold stare alone. Shit.
He knew he was a rambling, drug-induced wreck but he couldn't seem to help himself. He couldn't even muster the strength to appear calm, never mind threatening. He wanted to take back all that he'd just said, deny such intimate, invasive claims against him and fight his way free, but it was too late.
"And that's where Peter comes in?" Noah continued slowly. Dubiousness leaked into the echo of his voice, rebounded back by the enclosed walls of the cell. "For some godforsaken reason he granted you forgiveness, a connection, everything you ever wanted but never thought you deserved, am I right? And – what? That does it for you? Peter bats his eyes and suddenly you're Mr goddamned Humanitarian?"
Sylar itched beneath the urge to feel tiny at these accusations and reminders of his past, to feel embarrassed, ashamed of his feelings. He didn't even waste a thought on how Noah seemed to know so much that he shouldn't, not when Parkman was sitting atop a goldmine of Sylar's most intimate truths, and could only keep a secret when it was his own.
Burning heat creeping over his face, the former killer bit his tongue to avoid giving anything even more revealing away. He wanted to close his eyes and wake up safe and warm and pain-free back in that cramped hotel bed next to Peter, someone soft and affectionate, instead of standing here shivering before Parkman and Bennet. He wanted to cry, but refused to let go in front of them.
Sylar growled. "Why don't you ask Parkman? Or has he already worked his magic on your thoughts?" Noah blinked, an eyebrow raising as he shot a glance at his partner in crime. Sylar forced out a laugh. "You don't even know, do you? Wow. You used to be smarter than this, Bennet."
Matt squawked, his cheeks flushing darker than they already were. "Noah," he dragged the older man into the recess of the cell with a crushing grip on his arm. If it was an attempt at a quiet word it failed, the cell reverberating a few choice words back Sylar's way. Honestly, Sylar wouldn't be surprised if Matt was crafting his own innocence this very moment: one deliberately manipulated thought at a time. "...Waste of time... say anything to try and play us... the truth? C'mon... believe a word that comes out that twisted mouth..."
Sylar was sickly grateful for the reprieve. Aching and weak on numb legs, he suspected he might not have been able to stand without the harness doing the brunt of the work for him. It was a relief not to have to fake it, even if only for these few seconds. Here in the dark he awaited his sentence, churning over the clamminess of his reality and already aware he had lost.
"Parkman's right." When horn-rimmed glasses glinted in his direction again, the watchmaker tried to make his stance sharper around the edges, a weak attempt at defiance. But he was still trembling within the confines of his harness in a motion that couldn't have been misinterpreted as anger. "You say you're not gonna hurt more people, and it would make my job a hell of a lot easier if I believed that. Unfortunately, it doesn't tie in with our evidence." At the very least, Noah had the decency to not look delighted when he gave Matt the go-ahead. "Luckily, we don't have to just take your word on this."
Again, it wasn't a surprise. Just a disappointment. Sylar wasn't so naïve as to think Matt had only accompanied his boss in here to gloat. He knew what the telepath's mere presence meant, that there was only one way this interrogation was going to go. He hadn't expected an easy way out of this, or to survive with all pieces of him intact.
He weakly prepared to resist, but it was familiar territory. Matt had been in here before, his previous handiwork evident like scars left in tissue, like giant letters stamped across a towering brick wall, but Sylar didn't want him to see the lasting impact he'd left behind. It didn't matter that the guy already knew his most private secrets from having played this game already, because that time in Matt's kitchen Sylar had let him in willingly, an olive branch, a gesture of sincerity that the cop had ripped like tissue paper and crumpled with rough, uncaring hands.
This time, tired and sore and unable to escape, when the mind-reader descended in upon him, Sylar couldn't help being afraid.
( )( )( )
Peter seriously thought he might throw up.
Pacing back and forth by the window, he rubbed his temples as if that would stop them from hurting, far too stifled in here and far too disgusted to even look his mother in the eye. "I can't believe you, Ma!"
"He killed Nathan."
"I knowwhat he did!" Peter caught sight of his reflection in the glass: a furious and pallid and ill-looking young fool. It was nothing compared to how he felt.
Appalled, he didn't even need a functional lie-detecting ability to be able to see Angela's dreams of the apocalypse revealed as just the crutch they had been all along. Just something to blame, something to use to get everyone else on board and justify the real reason she had wanted to get Sylar in her clutches...
Peter drew in a deep breath that did nothing whatsoever to calm him. "He killed my brother, and I'll never forget that. I have to live with it every day." He managed to force his eyeline to meet his mother's at last, hot chills rolling over his skin like fire atop water. "But at least he apologised! He apologised so many times I thought the words would lose meaning, but they didn't! He's sorry for the things he's done, he's proved it and he means it, and he doesn't try to make up excuses or act like it's okay! But what about you? How could you do this?! All the people you hurt just to get Sylar locked up? You did that in Nathan's name!"
"Neither me or your brother could ever stand by and let you condemn your future, Peter."
It wasn't a new sensation to feel disgusted by his blood ties to his family. Yet Peter suffered the feeling as badly now as he had the very first time. Angela had gone to so much effort just to get him away from Sylar – a 'bad guy', a 'cold blooded killer'... but how many people had shekilled in her time? How many Nathans had she ripped from other people's lives as just part of her many plots? And did she even regret it? Had she ever tried to apologise to the victim's loved ones, even once?
Peter started pacing again, his throat very tight. "Nathan would be ashamed of you, Ma."
Angela's reply was clipped from somewhere behind him. "You think he'd approve of you trying to 'redeem' Sylar with this little affair you've got going? As if it means Nathan's death wasn't in vain -"
"That's not what this is! You think that's what this is?"
"It doesn't matter what you want to call it, Peter: you're my son, I love you, but I will not let Sylar ruin what is left of my family!"
Stumbling to a stop, Peter's lungs caught painfully in his chest. Too much of her ravings had him enraged beyond acceptance, yet what croaked past his lips was not what he intended to say.
"You loveme?"
How long had he yearned to hear such a declaration from this woman? All this time he thought she'd disowned him, turned her back and set an organisation of ruthless hunters after him because she didn't love him anymore. But now he knew that she did. And it hurt that this certainty didn't come from her words, but from the many dispicable deeds she had masterminded in order to reach him again. It hurt that he only received her affections when it was well past overdue. That she only deemed it acceptable to share when it was stained in other people's blood.
Peter couldn't have stopped his eyes from stinging or his voice from shaking if he'd tried. "When you love someone you're supposed to care about their feelings."
Confusion marred his mother's usually unreadable face. Even now, when it had come to him literally spelling it out for her, she still didn't understand how he felt? Maybe Peter would have been able to control himself better if this wasn't the first time he'd properly spoken to someone other than Sylar in months, but it was. Claire would never have listened to all this. Peter hadn't wanted to tell her. But now he was helpless to keep it all bottled up inside for even one second longer.
"When you love someone you're supposed to support them!" He cried, throwing his hands out before him. "Not set them up to blow up an entire city, or – or make them think they're going crazy when they're not! Or lie about the deaths of their family!" Here he faltered, his voice broken, stunted by the realisation that this last was true of more than one occasion. Balling his fists, Peter wouldn't have been able to shout anymore even if his feet hadn't carried him across the office to stand within touching distance of Angela. "You're supposed to be able to trust them."
He had rarely seen his mother look the way she did right then. Pursing her painted lips while her eyes were large and glistening, almost frayed at the edges compared to her usual immaculate presentation. She appeared small and frail where she stood adrift in the centre of the office, two untouched cups of tea left abandoned and growing cold to the side. Setting his jaw to stop his lip from trembling, Peter wished he didn't care that Angela was upset too, or that she didn't want to hear the things he was saying, but who would he be if he didn't feel guilt even through the fire of his anger?
Through burning, blurry vision, he saw but couldn't reject his mother's hands as she gently grasped his shoulders. Her touch was warm and familiar, soothing, an anchor in the lonely storm in which he was set adrift to drown by himself. She stroked his arms the way she'd used to stroke his back when he was young and in her arms, falling asleep against her shoulder. When he'd trusted her unconditionally and had never known such a concept as betrayal.
Now, he searched the lack of Angela's saving graces, the empty space that came and went without an argument coming to light. For she had no excuses, and for once she didn't lie, and while Peter should have been grateful for that, instead the last tethers of hope fell from his grasp like the tattered ends of ribbons he had clung to all his life.
"Listen to me, dear," Angela crooned, a watery smile failing to do its job. Her fingers squeezed so tightly it began to be painful. "You're right. I've made mistakes in my life that I would take back if I could. And yes, I've lied to you too many times, in trying to do what I thought was right. Because I would do anything to protect you, Peter. I love you, and I can't lose another son. Not you too." Peter closed his eyes at this, shivering at the words he'd used to long for most in the entire world. "You and me, we're all we have left. Hate me if you must, but nothing in this life can change the fact we're still a family."
Family. Love. What the hell did Angela know of such things? The murky essence she clung to wasn't the same substance that flowed through Peter's veins. It wasn't the illusive prize he yearned for with every beat of his breaking heart.
Because he had never known trust. Not truly. He'd never known love the way he bestowed it upon others. He'd been raised hungry, left cold, craving something he didn't even know he was allowed to miss. He'd grown up ashamed of what he needed, of what he never managed to find, because nobody had ever listened to what he wanted, or put up with his flaws or embraced all his mistakes and told him they loved him anyway.
Nobody, that was, until somehow Peter had found the most dependable bond of his life in the last place he would ever have looked. Somewhere broken, somewhere forbidden, somewhere scandalous built atop a crumbling foundation that should never have worked but it did.
And now Angela was trying to take it from him.
Peter wasn't even aware his tears had spilled over despite his efforts until Angela wiped them from his cheeks and groomed his hair off his face. He cursed himself for allowing her to soothe him like this. And in that moment he cursed her more. For casting her familiar spell of hollow words and manipulating touch over him, and for making him want to forget all the reasons why he shouldn't and just give in to her.
( )
Swiping at his eyes, Peter sniffled and pulled free from Angela's clutches, as if the air were cleaner back there, away from her. "Some family."
He hadn't shouted. In fact, he spoke much more softly than Angela deserved. She tried her best to contain the urge to cling to her youngest son, a contradiction to the way her hands were still held out before her, unmet, as if waiting for him to return.
Peter released a hopeless sigh, a scowl half obscured behind the silky dark curtain of his hair. "Y'know, I used to think I was lucky to be second best?" He scoffed. "I was actually grateful to even be tolerated that much. Pathetic, huh?"
He almost held it together when he looked upon Angela again, sombre and serious but for the slight tremor to his chin and the tears glistening in his eyes. He held it together a great deal better than Angela did inside.
"And... the first time he made me feel like someone's first choice? I didn't know what to do with it." Peter frowned deeper, blinking rapidly. "Before then I didn't know what it felt like to be... enough. My whole life I've always had to apologise for being in the way. For not being smart enough, or strong enough, or always being 'too sensitive'..."
Angela barely swallowed down a sob when her son's eyes returned to hers. Not because she saw anger shining there, but because she saw awe.
Peter spoke gently, as if even he couldn't believe what he was saying. "But Sylar never saw me that way, Ma. He's never tried to change me. Not once. He doesn't force me to be something I don't wanna be. And if I ask for help – he helps me, without making me feel weak for needing it. And I never even knew that was possible, before him." He dipped his head once, a nod, a gesture, an accusation behind more scorching tears that he refused to let fall. "You did that to me. My family. You and... and Dad." The third name didn't dare escape his lips, but the lack of it expanded within the office just as largely as the Senator's presence had in life.
Finally, Angela's demeanor cracked with a whimper that reverberated around the office. She clamped a manicured, bejeweled hand over her mouth, but it was too late. Peter winced at the sound, a fresh tear streaming silently down his face, and if Angela knew him at all she could tell he was fighting not to return to her side the way they both yearned for him to do.
Holding herself together only through sheer force of will, Angela took a step toward him with hands outstretched. "Please, sweetheart, I'm trying to help you. You're just making it harder for yourself -"
"Don't." Peter recoiled further, every part of the motion betraying how much it pained him to do so. He drew in a long, shaking breath, taking the time to deliver each word carefully, softly, deliberately. "I could never hate you, Ma. But I hate the things you've done. Just like I hate the things Sylar's done. Letting him in was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do... but he's not that person anymore." Squaring his shoulders, the young man stood up straight now, strong in his resolve and ready to fight like hell to save it. "I already lost my best friend. I won't go through that again. I'm not leaving this place without him."
Angela took the hit face-on. Somehow the pain of impact gave her the strength to kick herself back into gear, slowly but surely. Going through the motions, Mrs Petrelli neatened her hair and dabbed smudged mascara from her eyes so that nobody would know upon sight how badly she was wounded. About as badly as if her son had just phased into her chest and crushed her heart in his palm.
So Peter would rather be with the cretin that had already ruined him too many times than his own mother; who had loved, suffered and killed for him...? Angela couldn't say she hadn't anticipated this. It didn't dampen the pain in any capacity.
Even now, years later, she still had re-occurring nightmares of Dr Suresh carrying her son's pale, lifeless body into her house, the first time she had seem him in death. She could recall another cold winter's night with perfect clarity: when Peter had returned to her truly broken, grieving and bloody after his countless fight with Sylar that had involved the hospital, a nailgun, and the finality of Nathan's death. Peter had cried himself to sleep in Angela's arms like he never had before, and she hadn't had to do much convincing to get him to stay with her in her apartment for the following days. She had never seen him so hollow or void of life, before or since, that time. He had never been so broken-hearted, even after a lifetime of having his particularly tender heart bruised and crushed too many times. Honestly, Angela had even entertained the fear that he might never recover.
Of course, he had done, if not entirely. But Angela hadn't forgotten the state of him. And of her own grief. Or that Sylar was the one responsible for doing that to them. She would never forget, and she would never forgive, no matter what it took.
Perhaps she should have broken down right here and now, or reconsider her options, or take this opportunity to put the brakes on the last stage of her grand plan? Perhaps she would have felt even worse about what had to come next, about breaking her baby boy's heart once again, about taking his fate into her own hands and giving him the fight he was so valiantly promising...?
Perhaps, if Peter's heartfelt declaration hadn't only reminded Angela exactly why she was fighting for him in the first place, she might have let him win.
( )( )( )
It's cold and it's raining. The sun has set recently but Sylar doesn't stop battering the wall with his sledgehammer, even though his hands are numb and slipping and the rain has nearly soaked him through. He's so invested in his efforts that he doesn't even notice Peter has stopped working beside him until there are warm hands on his arms slowly easing the hammer down and guiding him inside so he doesn't catch a cold. It's the first time Sylar notices Peter acknowledge his well-being. The first time he realises Peter does care, even a little...
Oh, come on. This was not what Matt needed to see. He had no interest in the perverted crush of a psychopathic murderer, and it made him as disgusted to have it forced upon him now as it had the night of the Sullivan Brothers' carnival.
Getting impatient, he flipped faster through the pages of Sylar's mind in search of the gold stuff, the ugly truth, the valuable evidence that nobody else but Matt could ever access. He tried to filter out the sappy stuff from Sylar's innermost intentions: the endless nights and fights and reconciliations that held no value for him. But, as it turned out, trying to differentiate Peter Petrelli from the evolution of Sylar's deepest, darkest desires proved as difficult as trying to differentiate oxygen from air.
Sylar doesn't get it. Peter should be furious with him. He should be terrified and disgusted and miles away by now, but he's not. Instead he sits next to Sylar on the couch, staying with him for the simple reason of providing company. Sylar can't believe Peter ran across the city to him even though he had every right not to bother. And he can't believe Peter held him while he cried. Then the empath stuns Sylar even more by promising to help him become a better person, to be there for him like nobody else ever has been, not to give up on him, lie or betray him as long as Sylar is serious about changing. And even though he has no reason to do so, and everything he's ever known is screaming at him not to be so stupid... Sylar believes him.
The first kiss was a mistake. Sylar is left reeling against the towering brick wall while nursing a punch to the gut and wishing he hadn't been so stupid. He doesn't understand though. It makes sense, it feels right, and they're both desperate for even a scrap of human connection here in this hell, aren't they? But Peter just ran away from him, and Sylar is haunted by the look on his face, and even though he doesn't know how Peter could resist what they just did, he hates himself for it anyway. And it's not because he didn't get what he wanted, and thoroughly embarrassed himself in the process. No. He wonders if this is how it feels to actually like someone? To like them enough that their feelings matter more than his own?
Months later, they're undressed and out of breath and Peter is crying. Sylar is watching him and trying to be comforting although he wants to cry too, because Peter just confessed that he doesn't hate him anymore. It caught them both off guard, and that gift is so precious and so utterly astounding that Sylar can't even begin to make sense of it. It's unreal, the idea of something... more. He feels unworthy, but the feeling is addictive and suddenly Sylar starts to realise just how badly he wants it, just how much he's been missing all this time. Peter stays with him longer than usual, lying beside him until the tears stop falling and the sweat dries upon their skin. Sylar sleeps soundly that night.
A full moon hangs in the sky tonight, the alley is glistening as remnants of rain fade away and Sylar sits curled up on the ground. He stares at the wall that still stands there unbroken, trying not to dwell on how small he feels, how rejected after the latest fight with the only person he's ever cared about so much that it hurts. He never thought he'd forget how it feels to argue. He never thought he'd get so used to having a friend. Now, he wonders if they'll ever get out of here or if they're really stuck forever in a dream. Or if that would even be a bad thing since he has nothing to go back to anyway. He's scared that the real world might not accept this new man he's worked so tirelessly to become. He's scared that he might have to face that life alone.
The room flickers in the light of a TV. Sylar's carrying a plate through for Peter who's just finished a double shift in his first week back in the real world. He falters upon seeing the empath sleeping soundly on Sylar's couch where he left him, before settling in beside him with the pasta and his book. Peter's head falls against his shoulder as he sleeps and Sylar has to resort to turning the pages with telekinesis, but he doesn't mind. It's the warmest and happiest he's felt since the wall broke down, to realise he used to worry that their bond wouldn't last in the real world but it has.
Sylar is hiding on the Devaux rooftop, feeling dirty and shaken cause he'd really thought he'd killed someone back at the Linderman casino. His confidence in this new life is shattered, broken beyond repair, and he's terrified. Not of what he thought he did to a duplicating man, but of the realisation that it might happen again but for real. He fears for the hard work and effort he's put in to become a better person, a good guy, a hero who people can aspire to be the way he secretly did for others in the past. He never wants to go back to who he used to be.
Sylar is traipsing back home with Peter, both of them mud-stained and tear-streaked and dejected. Sylar has just held back the might of the East River but still he feels awful, not triumphant; miserable, not proud of what he did. He helps Peter with his injuries and lets him shower first even though Sylar needs the escape to think on what he just promised to do to him. He's scared it'll go wrong and that he'll ruin Peter by cutting his head open to reach his abilities, but he's going to do it anyway because Peter wants it and Sylar is tired of being so selfish. He wants to be good. He wants to be brave, selfless, worth something. He wants to do a good thing for someone else even if it involves his own fears.
Dawn light shines over the hotel bed. Sylar is naked and sweaty and tangled up in pleasure and bedsheets and Peter, and he's the happiest he's ever been in his life. This is more than he ever thought he would get. It's more than he deserves. It's all he ever wanted: to feel close and needed and trusted in life, to be important even if to one person. Who cares that the world is ending in six years when right now it's him and Peter, and Sylar feels like he's enough, just like this, just as he is, for the first time in his life? He doesn't need anything else, he doesn't need more powers or to prove anything to anyone, he doesn't even care that nobody else will know that he finally feels at peace, because other people aren't important. It's just this, it's just them, it's soft lips and hot skin and firm arms around him, and as long as he has this he'll never fall again. Not when he's finally sated, finally content, and when the voice inside that used to scream out in hunger just doesn't seem to matter anymore...
Matt couldn't take much more of this. With great effort, he wrenched himself free from his prisoner's consciousness, unaware of just how deep he had travelled until he almost got lost on the way out.
The cell was too bright and musty, claustrophobic compared to the intricate expanse of Sylar's mind. Staggering slightly, Matt steadied himself on Noah, taking a second to orient himself to the cold dose of reality. He wished he couldn't sense something else weighing on him too, something different and rancid that felt an awful lot like doubt scratching at the edges of his ego.
"Well? Is he telling the truth or not?" Noah asked, so direct he could merely have been inquiring about the contents of a teenage diary, and not the deepest crevices of someone's protesting mind. Never mind one that happened to be battle-scarred but healing, tentatively content, and void of the old, all-consuming hunger for power...
"Uh," Matt swiped the perspiration from his forehead, stalling.
He glanced at Sylar, hating that he felt unsettled by how exhausted the guy looked, by the weary and assaulted expression trying not to show on his face. The killer roused slowly, frowning and parting his lips in a question never spoken. Matt was unable not to relive the way he had instead smiled to himself on that couch in the memory, so at peace with Peter asleep on his shoulder, delicious food and his favourite book... The way Sylar scowled at him now gave Matt the uncomfortable thought that the guy had been able to see which exact memories he had picked out. It didn't make him feel any better about the whole thing.
Fucking hell.
"Parkman?" Noah barked, making Matt and Sylar jump. They both glanced at the agent, Matt failing to hide the conflict from his expression, and Sylar fighting to keep bleary eyes open.
Too much information continued to swirl around Matt's head, forcing him to feel it, taste it and try to deny that it was sincere. He remembered when the murderer had shown up at his house last year, raving about wanting his powers removed... and while he had gleaned enough from that twisted mind at the time to know Sylar's intentions were true, Matt hadn't once thought they came from a genuine desire to be a better person. Something had been wrong with his ability, meaning he couldn't kill anymore, and so he'd wanted an easy fix for the problem. Right?
Only now, for the very first time, did the thought occur to Matt that maybe Sylar's powers hadn't evolved past the man's capabilities after all, back then. What if, instead, Sylar had evolved past the capability of his powers...?
Sweating profusely, the former cop struggled to breathe past the too-tight collar of his shirt. What the hell was he supposed to do now? Admit he'd been wrong about Sylar this whole time? Crack open the vault of the whole nightmare mind-prison shebang? Say goodbye to his freedom and family, not to mention any chance of a hefty promotion for helping secure Renautas' most wanted...?! Matt had dived enthusiastically into this interrogation in hopes of breaking up for air with armfuls of loot, not returning empty-handed and with a considerable hole having been blasted in his conscience!
"Uh... uh, we should – we should – outside." Noah remained silent while Matt spluttered into a fraction of coherence. He didn't need to recast his tired ability to know from here what the tight lips and steely glint to his boss's stare meant. In just one look, Noah displayed everything that Matt couldn't bring himself to say aloud.
Jesus Christ. As if Noah wasn't already suspicious enough of him! Matt had no idea how he was getting out of this one without breaking his no-mind-controlling-the-boss rule. He wanted rid of everything he'd just seen and felt in the depths of Sylar's memories. It was too much to take on, too sickly sweet, and the cold, hard, glaring truth of the matter was not one he had ever expected to find.
Shaky on his feet, Matt turned his back on Sylar and all but ran for the exit with Noah, still smarting with the ramifications of what he'd just done. But before the company men could reach the corridor, a strained cry fell short at their feet.
"Wait!"
Sylar panted as if just that one word had drained the last of his strength. His voice was fragile, no matter how powerful it was supposed to have been.
"Wait... P-Peter... tell me what you're doing with him!"
Matt stopped in his tracks.
It wasn't that he felt... bad. Because that would mean he was sympathising with a murderer, and basically letting him off the hook for his crimes! So, no, Matt definitely didn't feel 'bad'. It was just... strange, how the very same question stirred such a different reaction in him than it had just minutes before.
It would probably be kinder not to tell Sylar what fate had been decided for Peter Petrelli, and had been decided long before any of them had any say in the matter. But somehow, despite a history and hatred that went beyond anyone else in his lifetime, Matt found that he didn't want to leave Sylar waiting and worrying about the only person in his life who he had ever truly loved.
Turning back to the bound and helpless captive, Matt couldn't make himself meet the desperation glistening in the man's eyes. And, unlike earlier, he took no pleasure in hurting him with what he had to say.
( )( )( )
"Do you think I don't know you, Peter?" Angela cast out the question gently. It swept through the office as harmlessly as a breeze.
Peter's retort was as guarded as his stance, shot from where he was keeping his distance as if a few steps of carpet and open space was enough to protect him. "What're you talking about?"
Really, Angela couldn't blame him. Not at all. It wasn't his fault that he had been forced to survive too many of her mistakes over his lifetime. He couldn't help that he'd been born so reckless and trusting and sensitive to everyone and everything around him. He had always been blind when it came to sharing his heart with those who didn't deserve it, after all. It was one of his most endearing qualities. So, no, Angela didn't blame him. What hurt her most was that he had used to feel that way about her.
She averted her eyeline when his expression twitched, the beginning of wariness leaking through. She couldn't watch him. She didn't want to see the moment he realised what was coming.
"I never expected you to leave Sylar behind so easily." A misplaced sense of pride swelled up in Angela's chest. "Our family always fight for the things we want. We can't help it, it's in our blood."
She didn't bother hiding her regret as she sought out Rene, the figure standing guard at the outskirts of the scene, as strong and silent as a statue. Angela chose to believe the apprehension radiating from Peter meant he had forgotten the Haitian had been watching the whole exchange. Not that she had just broken the final, fragile barrier of his trust.
"Everyone always said you boys inherited that drive from your father. But you didn't." Angela confessed, a small, sad smile touching her lips. "You got it from me."
One nod was all it took to have Rene obediently creep out from the corner of the room. And one moment more before the empath's gasp broke the air.
"Ma?" He staggered back over his feet, eyes wide. "What're you doing?"
"I'm sorry, sweetheart. It's the only way." Angela's voice shook, just a little. "As long as you remember him, you'll never move on."
She didn't want to watch the Haitian close in upon Peter, or witness the fresh betrayal that swept over her remaining son, encasing and preserving the moment in her memory for all time. She wished it didn't have to happen, and that Peter didn't have good reason to fear. But not enough to stop the plan she had so delicately set in motion for months.
"Take everything." She commanded. "Everything since the morning of the carnival."
A/N: Thanks so much for reading if you've made it all the way here! I can't say how grateful I am for those of you who keep coming back for each update, even though it's a ridiculous wait between them (sorry again for that) X) This update was particularly long, never mind not one of the happiest in the story!, but hopefully it was worth the wait. And don't worry – this is not the end, I could never leave my boys in such a mess ^.^
I know Sylar's imprisonment is quite unpleasant – which is why I put warnings at the beginning of the chapter X( The device he's trapped in is supposed to be an earlier version of the ones Renautas use in Heroes Reborn (evos are locked to a table/bed with some sort of cable connected to their spinal cords that keeps their powers under control and/or keeps them unconscious), and obviously Matt has never been shy butting into people's deepest thoughts and messing around in there, has he? He is still on track to becoming the (SPOILERS FOR HEROES REBORN) villain he becomes in Reborn, after all...
Again, thank you very much for your patience and for reading! Hopefully I can update the next chapter soon ^.^ As for what will happen to Peter and Sylar next? There's a lot more drama, action and angst on the way – consider this a fair warning X)
