It had been close to the end of Peter's shift anyway. He stood outside the apartment Gabriel had listed and banged hard on the door, three times. He heard nothing. Irritated that Gabriel might still be out on the street somewhere, he banged on it again. This time he heard a noise. He just hoped no one else lived there, and that Gabriel had given a correct address. It was, after all, after midnight. If he had the wrong place this was going to be embarrassing.

Peter took a step back and centered himself in front of the peephole, adjusting the strap of his medical kit. He saw the lighting through the hole change as someone looked out. He was relieved to hear Gabriel's voice call out, "What do you want?" He sounded annoyed.

"I want to see how you're doing."

"I'm fine. Go away."

"Open up… Gabriel. You know me. You know I'm not leaving until I make sure you're alright."

There was a long pause, then the door unlocked and opened. Peter walked in. He wondered if Gabriel had given his address with this in mind. He'd certainly been more cooperative with Peter than with Hesam. Gabriel hobbled over to a kitchen chair and sank down on it. Peter put his bag on the table next to it.

With his coat off, Peter could see the purpling bruise on Gabriel's left arm where someone had grabbed him. Peter went to one knee in front of him. "I want to see if your arm's broken."

"I can move my hand. It's not broken." He looked dismissive and grouchy.

"That doesn't mean anything. I've seen people walk with a broken leg, even a broken back." Peter put his hand on the upper, outer part of the other man's forearm. His elbow was swollen, but not discolored. When Gabriel didn't flinch away, he slid his hand around behind the joint, fingers probing lightly. He watched Gabe's face for reaction. "You see, you have two bones in your forearm. If you only break one of them, and it's a simple fracture-" Gabriel's brows pulled together and he shifted uncomfortably as it hurt.

Peter nodded to himself and hooked his hand under the elbow and a little down the forearm, trying to feel what was going on. The skin was very cool. "You had an ice pack on?" Gabriel nodded and inhaled sharply as Peter pressed a spot. "Hang on, I'm going to do that again, okay?" Gabriel nodded. This time he only grimaced. Peter nodded slowly and took Gabriel's wrist with his other hand, rotating it one way and then the other, his hand still underneath. He watched for Gabriel's response, telling him where the pain was.

He pulled his hands back and rested them on Gabriel's knees. "I'm not an x-ray machine, but I think you're right. I don't think it's broken - just hyperextended. Ice and rest and it should be fine. Might be sore for a few days or a few weeks. Don't try to stretch it out for a while. Just manage the pain and we can work on range of motion when the swelling goes down."

Gabriel didn't say 'I told you so' or anything else. He was looking at Peter's hands on his knees. It wasn't an unwelcoming look. Peter smiled and patted one of them. "Now, tell me what's wrong with your leg."

"I kicked him in the shin. It hurt. And then because I was favoring that leg, I came down on it wrong. I think I twisted the ankle."

"Can I look?"

Gabriel nodded. Peter smoothed his hands down both calves. He knew it was the left again, given how Gabriel had been walking, but he didn't pass up the chance to check the other leg for tenderness or blood. Gabe was getting more and more cooperative, but there were still a lot of unanswered questions. The left ankle was swollen up to the size of a big orange or a small grapefruit. He peeled off the sock gingerly and felt around at it. "You haven't had any ice on this?"

"I…" He shrugged and looked away, at the kitchen counter. Peter followed his eyes to see a quart sized bag next to an ice tray.

"I interrupted?"

"No… I was on the couch when you knocked. I just got tired."

Peter nodded. "I can't blame you. Looks like you had a busy evening." He slid his hand down and looked at the man's toes. As he'd expected, he found injection sites. "You've been shooting up here?"

Gabriel tried to pull his foot back, but Peter had one hand behind his heel and he held on. With the pain in his ankle, there was no way to get away without hurting - a lot.

Quiet and steady, Peter said, "Gabriel - I'm not judging. I need some honesty here. What are you on?"

"I'm clean right now. That's what the fight was over. I couldn't get any."

He waited, but there was no elaboration. Peter parted the toes and looked at the webbing. The track marks were very minor. He wasn't an expert on illicit drug use, but he didn't think Gabriel had shot up more than once or twice between each. Assuming the other foot was the same, it was maybe a dozen times.

Peter put the foot down gently. He stood, walking behind him, and began to pull up Gabriel's shirt, bunching it and looking at his back. Gabriel didn't fight him. He just sighed and leaned forward. As Peter had expected, there was a scattering of bruises here, but to his surprise most of them were old, like the man had received a similar beating a week or two ago and they were just now fading. There were only a couple new marks on him, as apparently he'd taken the majority of this recent conflict on his face. He could see a larger one, fresh, darkening his hip and disappearing under his jeans.

Peter dropped the shirt and came back around to the front. "I need to see the rest of you."

"What?"

"I need to see how bad you're hurt and I'm not going to believe you unless I see it. Take your pants off."

Gabriel blinked up at him, getting angry. His lip curled. "For $20, I'll give you a blow job and for $30 you can fuck me. I don't drop my trousers for less." He turned his head to the side, disgusted. "I'm not even all that expensive, Peter. Just leave."

Peter huffed. He reached in his pocket and pulled out his wallet. Gabriel's eyes came back as Peter jerked two twenties out and angrily threw them on the table. He stuffed his wallet back in his pocket. "There's a tip," he said curtly. "Now stand up and show me what I want to see."

There was a long silence while Gabriel looked at the bills. Finally he shook his head, reached out and pushed them towards Peter. "I don't want your money."

"You're the one who brought it up. If I have to hire you for you to let me help you, then fine. I've paid." He pointed at Gabriel's pants. "Off," he demanded.

There was another tense silence before Gabriel finally stood and unbuttoned his jeans. He pushed them down, along with his briefs, to where they tangled around his ankles. He couldn't put a hand on the table to steady himself because it was to his left. He wavered. Peter put out a hand to him and he caught it with his right. Peter looked at his body.

The bruise on his hip extended down a little further, like he'd fallen hard against something unyielding. Given it was his left side that he had all these injuries on, Peter figured he'd been unwilling to catch himself with his arm and just taken the fall on his hip instead. He had another large bruise on his leg above the knee. "What happened here? Did you get kicked?"

"Yes," Gabriel said, subdued.

Peter went to his knees, letting go of the other man's hand and instead steadying him with a hand on his right thigh. His pose was typical of a very different act and Gabriel was not unaware of this. Peter noticed the twitch the other man's penis made. He pretended he hadn't seen that. Instead, he touched the area around the bruise and judged the swelling. "This looks superficial."

Gabriel didn't say anything. Peter stood carefully and walked around him. Thin or not, he still had a great ass. Since he was unobserved, Peter let himself smile at that. The bruise on the hip wasn't visible from here. "Okay," he said. "You were right. You're fine."

Gabriel pulled up his pants with Peter holding him steady. When he sat back down, Peter opened his bag and got out wipes and ointment. This time he cleaned the strikes to his chin and jaw, and recleaned the mark above his eye. He searched around and found the one on his scalp, picking out a few more pieces of glass. Peter pulled out his own comb and ran it gently through his hair to get any other bits out. Gabriel submitted quietly. When he was done, Peter said, "Let's get you back to the couch. You need to lay down and keep that ankle up."

After settling him in and arranging cushions, Gabriel reached out with his right and grabbed Peter's hand. He gave a single squeeze. Peter gave him a soft smile in return. He wandered off into the kitchen and started poking around.

"What are you doing?" Gabriel asked, able to hear the noise, but not see what Peter was up to.

"I'm going to give you some painkillers. Just ibuprofen, that sort of thing. I'm getting you a glass of water, once I… ah, here." He found the glasses, got one out and filled it, then brought it and some pills. "Are you hooked on painkillers?"

"No," Gabriel said, ducking his head. "Just euphorics and… things that get me high."

"Well, if you take the right painkillers, and enough of them, they'll do the same thing. All these will do is dull it a little though. You're telling me the truth, right?"

Gabriel cringed a little and nodded once, collecting the medicine from Peter's hand. "Yes, I am telling you the truth, Peter. I wouldn't lie to you." He popped them in his mouth and took the glass, downing them.

Peter took the glass back from him and went in the kitchen again. "Can I get you something else to drink?" There still existed in both of their minds the five, nearly six years of relative time they'd spent together in Matt's mental prison. They'd lived apart during that, but by the end they were in each other's space fairly often.

At first, Peter had stayed wherever he happened to be when exhaustion struck him, refusing to believe he needed to sleep. He'd sink down and rest, then rise afterward with few ill effects. Eventually though, his mind (he supposed) rebelled against this departure from the routine of life and he started seeking out beds. It wasn't long after that until he moved semi-permanently into an apartment across the hall from the one Sylar resided in. He figured he might as well.

It was the loneliness that got to him. As an empath and a people person, it had stung Peter at least as deeply as Sylar. To go years without anyone to talk to or relate to except the murderer of your brother… it had ended up being more of a torture for Peter than it was for Sylar. Sylar had sensed that. He was persistent in trying to break down the barriers between them, for Peter's sake as much as his own. Peter would have gone crazy without human contact. It was only there at the end that Peter had finally let him tear down the walls.

After that they were out. Even though they'd both felt the connection, the recognition of each other, the intimacy of that last moment when Peter forgave him, they'd drifted apart almost immediately thereafter. Peter had wondered, for months, if he'd felt what he'd thought he'd felt there, from the other man. He hadn't been sure and he had thought to himself that it wasn't like Sylar didn't know where he lived. Peter was hiding, closeted in more ways than one, but through Nathan's memories, Sylar would know how to find him.

"Um," Gabriel said hesitantly, "Tea, please?"

"It'd be better if you stayed away from caffeine."

"I have decaf. It's in the narrow cabinet next to the stove."

Peter looked. "Found it." He started a pan of water, not seeing a teapot. Then he turned to getting an ice pack assembled for the ankle. He brought that out, repositioned Gabriel's foot, and wrapped it carefully. "What do you have to eat around here?"

"Peter you… you don't have to do this."

Peter put a hand on the other man's shin and said, "I know." For a moment, Gabriel just looked at him, meeting his eyes evenly. He had lovely eyes - deep, brown, rich, large, expressive and beautiful, even if they were a little bloodshot at the moment. Peter smiled slowly, not noticing that his hand had begun to stroke small circles. The moment stretched on. Gabriel's eyes dropped to Peter's hand and Peter jerked it back suddenly as he caught himself. Everything else he could pass off as caring for a patient. Caressing Gabriel's leg… not so much.

"I don't mind," Gabriel said immediately.

Peter's gaze snapped up to his. "You don't?"

"No," he said softly.

Peter looked back at his shin and reached out to give it a tentative pat. He wasn't quite ready to explore that. "That's good. So what do you have to eat? I'm hungry, and I doubt you ate anything tonight. You look like you're starving yourself. You need something on your stomach to go with those pills I gave you. Otherwise you'll be nauseous."

Gabriel shrugged. "If the bread's still good, we could have sandwiches. I think there's some salmon in cans."

Peter patted him more heartily and stood up, grinning. Gabriel's apartment behind the wall had been stocked with red salmon. The man never got tired of eating it. Apparently it was one of his favorites, smelly though it was - that and tuna, but apparently he preferred salmon. "Sure. I'll make us sandwiches."

The bread was fine. The tea finished steeping. Peter returned with a pair of sandwiches and glasses. He pulled over a TV tray Gabriel directed him to, to use as their table. They ate, not speaking until they were done.

"So," Peter said, collecting up their plates and heading back to the kitchen to get refills on their drinks. "Will you tell me what happened?"

Gabriel knew what he meant. It was the elephant in the room and they both knew Peter wasn't asking how he got beat up. "You know they were… cataloguing us."

"Yeah." Peter came back and handed Gabriel another glass of tea. Peter's desire not to have his ability recorded or tracked had been a large part of why he'd stopped associating with Sylar.

"Well..." He sighed and rubbed at his face a little, his injuries making the familiar all-over face-scrub gesture difficult. "Ah… there's so much. I think I'll just keep it simple, to what matters. They… they came up with a variant of the Shanti virus. They gave injections to everyone with abilities they deemed 'dangerous.' They knew my past, by then. I was deemed dangerous. Claire wasn't."

"The Shanti virus? That's the one that removes abilities."

"Yep," Gabriel looked at him sadly. "Here I wanted to be special. I had my moment and then they took it all away. I'm just a regular guy now. Doing regular guy things." He looked away. "Well, maybe regular things for losers."

"You're still special," Peter said.

"I am not," Gabriel said hotly. "Special maybe like a retarded person is special! I'm a fuck up. I'm back to working for my uncle in that fucking clock repair shop and the sound of all those gear works going all fucking day long…! It used to mean something!" He shook his head, tears suddenly in his eyes. He turned his face away. "Peter… just… go away, all right? You left before. Just leave again. Just go. Leave me alone again."

Peter tensed and kicked himself hard, mentally. He'd been waiting, all this time, for Gabriel to approach him. Gabriel had been waiting for the same thing. The drifting apart wasn't due to lack of interest, it was due to lack of understanding and yet he had known - he'd known! Gabriel had made himself clear in the mental prison - and Peter hadn't followed up on it. He'd been coy and standoffish, not sure how real it was or wasn't, waiting for Gabriel to pursue him. He'd been an idiot. Gabriel wasn't going to push himself on him, not after everything they had between them.

Realization was followed swiftly by action. He shifted the TV tray out of the way and went to Gabriel's side, sitting on the narrow bit of couch available to him. He reached out and touched Gabriel's cheek boldly. "No… No, I'm not leaving."

Gabriel turned to look at him, uncertain and hopeful. Peter leaned in very slowly, watching him all the while for some sign that he was unwelcome or being too forward. He knew Gabriel was open to this, even aside from the prostitution. Whether he would allow it from Peter was a question though. The other man tilted his head forward slightly in invitation, matching the angle of Peter's head. Relief passed through him and Peter let his lips touch Gabriel's, pressing in slightly. His fingertips caressed his right cheek. Gabriel's right hand rose to stroke gently at Peter's ribs. He lost himself in the simple kiss.

When Peter finally leaned away he was shaking a little. He reached out impulsively to let his fingers trace the other man's lips, suddenly wanting to have all of him. Gabriel kissed his fingertips and asked breathily, "You're staying the night?"

It was only a question, stated simply but with so much hanging on the answer. Peter responded with one of his own, still making sure where he stood, still not believing. "Can I?"

"I only have the one bed, but it's a double."

Peter looked at the couch Gabriel was lying on. There was no need for him to sleep in Gabriel's bed with him, but clearly that's what he was being invited to do. "I'd love to. But I think you're a little too banged up for us to do anything."

Gabriel grinned broadly enough that he winced as the expression pulled at his injuries. It quieted all of Peter's doubts.