Title: Positive Reinforcement
Characters: Sylar, Peter Petrelli
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
Word count: 900
Setting: The Wall
Summary: Sylar is trying to puzzle out what he can do to make Peter be friendlier.
Sylar found Peter in the park. It was a brisk morning. Petrelli had hauled a mechanical baseball pitcher out there and somehow gotten it to work – no mean feat. But of course he'd had a lot of free time lately, with the way he'd been avoiding Sylar. He didn't run off now; having set up his chosen activity, Peter was more or less committed to staying there. Sylar took advantage of that and walked over.
Sylar watched Peter swing at a couple balls, knocking them out into the open area of the Frisbee golf course. "I could have pitched for you if you'd asked," he said wistfully. "I used to-" Sylar cut himself off. He'd never thrown balls for Peter when Peter was a boy. That hadn't been him.
Peter paused to glare at him for the slip, because he knew as well as Sylar what he'd been about to say. The machine spat out a ball that whizzed by unimpeded. Peter turned back, settling himself for the next one.
"I'm not fit for human company, is that it?" Sylar said in gloomy defeat. He glanced off the way he'd come, wondering if he should just go back and leave Peter to it – maybe fix some watches and hope that loneliness would eventually effect Peter as much as it already chewed at Sylar.
"It's not like you can't do something about that," Peter grumbled quietly before swinging at the next ball.
Sylar's head came around. It was the first thing Peter had said to him in nearly two weeks. He immediately complained, "It's kind of hard when the only person I have to interact with, won't interact with me!"
It was the wrong tone to take. Sylar knew that. Peter rounded on him, bat in hand but held off to the side. Sylar was still hyperaware of how easily he could be brained by that thing, and how justified Peter would be to do it, just on general principles. But instead of hitting him, Petrelli got right in his face like he always did when he was pissed at him. It was so often that Sylar should have gotten used to it by now. Peter snarled, "You start by not blaming others for your situation, acting like you had nothing to do with causing it!"
Lifting his chin slightly, he said loftily, "It's always my fault, is that your answer?"
Peter snorted. "Yeah, it is. And whether or not you do something about it is your responsibility, too. I'm not here to fucking change you, Sylar, or to fix you! That's your job!" He wheeled and went back to where he could take his anger out on baseballs.
Sylar was relieved that he'd been yelled at. It was attention. It was interaction. It was painful, but better than the maddening silence. Even negative attention was better than that. After Peter's back was turned, he sank to the ground, crossed his legs, and sat quietly through the next dozen balls. It was nice to listen to them. It was nice that Peter hadn't left. He needed more of that – the interaction – but if this kept up, Peter wouldn't even give him the negative kind. "How do I fix myself?" he finally asked meekly.
Peter looked back at him long enough to miss another ball, then turned away again. The expression on his face was thoughtful, though, not dismissive, so Sylar waited for the reply. Two more balls were slammed further into the park before the mechanical pitcher made a couple hollow clicking noises and stopped functioning. Its supply of balls had run out. Peter took the bat in both hands, one on either end of it, and turned to face him. "You can't change who you are, but you can change what you do." Then Peter walked out to the machine, fussing with the settings.
Sylar rose and followed, watching. Peter stuck the bat in the empty basket, then picked up the handle for the machine and started hauling it behind him like a cart. He headed out to collect the balls. Sylar trailed along behind him. "There's nothing I can do to change the past, Peter."
"Didn't ask you to."
"But that's what you want."
"It's not what I want out of you."
"You want me to change." At Peter's look, Sylar added to prove he'd been listening, "How I act."
"Yes, Sylar," Peter said loudly and with emphasis. "That's not unreasonable. It's not inauthentic or fake. People all the time are changing how they act around other people. They don't like them; they act worse. They start to like them; they act better. They fall in love; it brings out the best in them."
"They're enemies …?"
"And I want to take this bat," Peter jerked his thumb at the item in question, "and cave in your skull with it. But I don't, because that's wrong. Because I can control how I act around you no matter what you've done. Because I. Can change. How. I act." Peter stared at him fiercely for a long moment. "So can you." They had reached the area where the balls were scattered across the short grass. Peter bent to gather them up, tossing them into the basket.
Sylar watched him do it for a while, then picked one up and studied it before adding it to the basket. Peter glanced over at the clunking noise of the extra ball falling into the wire frame basket. Defensively, Sylar shrugged and said, "I'm … helping?"
Peter eyed him for several more seconds, finally giving him a single, deliberate nod before turning back to the work of recovering the baseballs. Sylar smiled slightly, inordinately pleased by that tiny sign of approval. He hurried to find more balls and get that, or something like it, again.