Title: Take My Hand
Characters: Peter, Sylar
Words: 900
Rating: PG
Warnings: None.
Setting: The Wall
Summary: It's a proposal.
Peter sat down next to Sylar where he was reading on the couch. "Let me have your hand."
Sylar said nothing, but he set his book down and put both hands on his thighs. Peter picked up his nearer hand, the right, and stroked it. He turned it palm up, petting that side as well, and began to gently massage it. Baffled, Sylar asked, "What are you doing?"
"Rubbing your hand."
"Why?"
Peter didn't pause. He kept doing what he'd been doing. "Because we're lovers, Sylar. I get to do this." He worked down the length of Sylar's pinkie finger, then moved on to the next. "I like touching people, especially the ones I'm intimate with. It's important to me. I want to touch you in ways that make you feel good. And I like helping people, so it's a double whammy of 'things Peter wants to do'."
He looked up to see Sylar looking at him wonderingly. Peter smiled and blushed a little, embarrassed to be the focus of such an expression. "What's that look about? None of what I just said was new."
"You said, 'We're lovers'," Sylar said as though he didn't quite believe the words.
Peter's smile broadened. The corners of his eyes wrinkled. "Yeah," he said slowly, drawing it out and teasing a little, "that's what we are now."
"You call it that, even to yourself?"
"We make love to each other. That means we're lovers. And yes – that's how I think of it. That's how I've thought about it from the start." Peter chuckled softly and reached for Sylar's other hand. "Give me that one now." Sylar complied and ran his other hand, now free, through Peter's hair. He cupped the back of Peter's head and tilted his face up for a sweet kiss. Peter opened his eyes halfway through, looking deep into Sylar's darker eyes. He loved getting lost in them. Peter broke the kiss, then kissed again, then a third time. Sylar's hand slipped down. Peter pulled back and reluctantly turned his attention to Sylar's left hand.
"I've had really shallow relationships for a long time – most of my life. I knew they wouldn't last. With men, I thought I couldn't let them. With Simone, I thought I could have something. She was beautiful and I loved her from the moment I saw her, but I thought maybe I'd finally found someone I could be with, if things could have worked out. I thought her family, her connections, her wealth were all things that might get her past my father's … bigotry.
"See, I thought it was racism when I was growing up. But he was so inconsistent about it! There were so many exceptions – people he knew, people who were powerful, and sometimes just total strangers at random and I couldn't understand why they had a bye and no one else did. I could hear the dog whistles and the code words he was using, about how some people were better than others, the innate superiority of some bloodlines, that sort of stuff. I knew they meant something. I didn't realize until after he took my powers away that it was abilities he was talking about."
Peter exhaled heavily. "No wonder he had Nathan injected! He couldn't have his firstborn son not be a member of the master fucking race."
"For the same reason," Sylar said dryly, "he had to take your abilities away as soon as he could. He couldn't have his second born son, in open rebellion against him, being more powerful than anyone and everyone in the master race. He substituted me for you, but only as long as he thought he had me under control."
Peter nodded. "You killed him. We killed him. I don't think either one of us are much for knuckling under. Too bad Nathan had bought into Dad's philosophy from the beginning. All that talk on the news about 'terrorists'. My partner, Hesam, thought Nathan was talking about people like him – brown-skinned, foreign-born, possibly Muslim. He was hearing it, too, but like me when I was a teenager listening to Dad, he thought Nathan was talking about something else. He didn't know about abilities. Neither did I way back then. So when I met Simone, I thought this time it might work. The Deveaux's were old friends of the family. Maybe she'd pass the test."
Sylar spoke in an even, uninflected voice, "Maybe love would stay. But she was shot by her ex-boyfriend and died in your arms."
"Yes." Peter raised Sylar's hand to his lips and solemnly kissed his knuckles, one by one. "You're not going to run off by my family. You're not going to die in my arms because you've been shot. You're not going to be lost in time because of some fuck-up. I'm not going to break your cello because I can't explain things because you wouldn't believe me.
"Sylar, you are the best chance at a long-term relationship I'm going to get. You're strong. You're careful. You know my history and all the baggage I come with. You know what you're getting into and you're still willing to do it." Peter gave him an admiring look. Sylar blinked a couple times like he didn't know what to do with such an expression directed his way.
Peter took up both of Sylar's hands in his own. He looked earnestly into Sylar's face. "I want this to last."
Whispering, Sylar answered, "It will."