heroslayer | rp for youngerpetrelli: i have measured out my life with coffee s

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rp for youngerpetrelli: i have measured out my life with coffee s

(Continuing from this, since

youngerpetrelli and I kinda broke my comments. Eheh. Oops?)

Sylar nodded. "I did, yes. But not because Nakamura stabbed me."

He tried to keep himself from sneering, really he did, but in the end, he couldn't stop his lips from twisting, albeit marginally. There was simply too much hate, when it came to the little, sword-wielding sonovabitch. And, even beyond that, there were too many bad memories centered around Kirby Plaza--even beyond his defeat and near-death.

"The Company found me," he explained after a pause. "They took me to Mexico. Stitched me up, where I'd been stabbed. And then gave me some kind of virus that took my abilities away."

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"We," he parroted, somehow managing to draw the single-syllabled word out as though it were a foreign food and he was trying to decide whether or not he liked it. An in the end, it seemed he didn't, as he was shaking his head. "I'm not the hero, Peter. I never will be, even if I get the hunger under control. It's not who I am."

A pause, in which he popped one shoulder in a shrug, and then he continued. "I'll help, but only because I want to protect what's mine."

"I know -- not expecting you to be. But that's okay -- any help is help." And that was the truth -- as long as Sylar wasn't working against them, it really didn't matter. They needed all the help they could get, and whether for altruistic or selfish reasons, it was still help.

He shrugged, leaning back in his seat so that he could stretch out a little. "Point." He skipped a beat, and then, as an afterthought, he added, "As long as we're clear."

And despite his protests otherwise, if his brother were to come to him with a specific task in mind? He just might do it. It would depend on his mood, he supposed.

He nodded, allowing himself a small smile. "As crystal," he answered. And he was pretty sure he knew what Sylar considered 'his' to begin with.

He flashed Peter a smile of his own, the expression amazingly genuine. "Good."

He liked the idea that his brother seemed to honestly understand where he was coming from, that he wasn't going to try and convince him this was a case of with them or against them, that he was still his own man, rather than forced to pick a side. And while he wouldn't tell Peter this, that alone was probably more than enough to make him lend a hand, even when something came up in this whole mess that he didn't have a personal stake it, and all because he'd been given a choice. Funny how that worked.

"Anything else you wanted to ask me?" Not that he was trying to get rid of his brother, but Peter had put the same question to him, a few minutes ago, and he was feeling surprisingly candid.

He nodded. Sylar had already told him the most important thing -- ignore the ticking. He could try to do that; could push it to the back of his mind and just not listen to it. But what happened when he couldn't ignore it?

"I -- what do you do when the ticking gets too loud to ignore. Is there anything you can do to fight it at that point?" He was so scared that the answer would be 'no.'

"I tend to destroy my apartment, when it gets that bad." Barring that, there were other things he did that Peter didn't need to know about. Or at least not directly, as he offered, "You're seeing someone that heals," before glancing down at the table, almost embarrassed. Violent sex was as good an outlet as any.

He was silent for a moment after that, considering the wood of the table, as if it were the most interesting thing in the world, and then slowly, he raised his eyes. "You shouldn't have a problem with Adam and Claire, though. You already know how their powers work." And he'd found through spending time with Adam after he'd taken his power that the ticking sounded different, somehow. No where near as obnoxious or as driving as it had been before.

"But there are days with Suresh where ... " He stopped short, trying to find a way of putting it. "Where anything he says to me is automatically the wrong answer. On days like that, I avoid him. It's the best I've been able to come up with."

"I... should probably avoid destroying things. I like my apartment, and Adam would get annoyed if I wreck his place. But... Um... yeah." He picked up some of what Sylar was thinking, despite all attempts to keep from reading his brother's mind, and a faint blush coloured his cheeks. "Right." He'd just have to get more comfortable with the role of the aggressor...

"So... it's easier around people whose abilities you already have? Or would it be different for me, since I don't get those abilities the same way in the first place. I have to learn them, while you understand them from the start...?"

Sylar leaned forward a little, opening his mouth to the answer the question put before him only to stop short. He'd been about to tell his brother that he wasn't sure, since they were so different in how they came about their abilities, but then something had occurred to him. As of current, Peter had all of his abilities--aptitude included--so if he asked the other man whether or not he was bothering him, it would be the perfect test run. And, on the off chance that he did? He'd be able to either talk Peter down, or stop him from killing him. Or, if worse came to worst, take the brunt of the empath's need to know, and survive it.

So, all that in mind, he popped one shoulder in a shrug before, "Depends. Am I bothering you?"

He cocked his head, studied Sylar for a long moment. It was true that he already had all of Sylar's abilities, but then he'd also had Nathan's. On the other hand, Sylar wasn't hiding things from him the way that future version of their brother had been...

...tick tick tick... It was still there, but it was... different, somehow. Quieter, less insistent, less... compelling. He couldn't deny that there was still something there, but it seemed to be manageable...

"It... no, you're not. It's quieter... I think I might be able to deal with this. I hope." Of course, his control might still be tested by the combination of this and Mohinder's ability, and he didn't really want to think about that right now...

"Then, you should be fine around Adam and Claire." Silence, as he considered his brother, and then almost hesitantly, as if this were against his better judgment. "And if it gets that bad, you can always come and find me. I'd survive."

And there'd be less guilt on Peter's part, if the empath pummeled him, rather than his niece or his lover.

All right, that had definitely surprised him. It caught him so off guard that he stared at Sylar for a long moment before finally nudging his brain into gear. And even then, all he could think of to ask was, "Why?"

"You'd rather hurt someone you care about?" he shot back, shrugging.

He and Peter were blood family now, yes, but he had a feeling there would be no love between the two of them for quite some time. There was too much between them, for them to have quick friendship, too many reasons for one to want to kill the other, even if the effect was only temporary. Too much much darkness between the two of them. Too much pain.

And if he could offer retribution to his brother, both to help him control the hunger, and to clear his own twisted conscious? So be it. Besides, he'd been looking for someone to kill him for weeks now, just to see what it felt like.

"What? No -- god, no... it's just..." Just what? To be honest, it's the most selfless thing anyone has done since Nathan flew him out of the middle of Kirby Plaza, and it's something he never would have expected from Sylar.

"It's just unexpected..."

"Well, the offer stands." A pause, and then, "Though I'd appreciate it if you didn't try killing me between seven and three on weekdays."

An odd condition, he knew, but well. He was stalking Suresh's brat from the shadows, just to make sure the Company didn't try anything, during those hours at Mohinder's request. He'd rather Molly didn't know he was there at all, let alone that he was fighting his brother to, quite possibly, the death a few feet away from the playground.

He raised an eyebrow, puzzled. "You... have a job?" And then he wanted to facepalm, because that was an idiotic question to ask -- it wasn't like Sylar had been getting an allowance from Mom all this time. As far as he knew, at least...

Finally, he shook his head and said, "Don't mind me. I-- thank you. If things go really wrong, I'll definitely... look you up."

Sylar couldn't help but laugh at the question. "Something like that. More an obligation than an occupation." And that was about as much as he was going to give his brother, unless the empath asked him directly.

"But, you're welcome."

"Oh, okay," he answered, still a little embarrassed, especially after Sylar laughed.

"No maiming and dismemberment between seven and three. Not that I'm usually up and about before nine, anyway." He grinned a little and said, "Always did better with the late shifts..."

Truthfully, Sylar would have rather skipped the dismemberment part--he'd already lost two of his fingers when he'd gone to kill Arthur, and while they'd grown back, he had no desire to repeat the experience. Still, however, he understood that, at least for the moment, Peter was making an attempt at a joke, and so, he allowed him a smile.

"I'm not much of a morning person, myself," he shot back, shrugging. "But I've never needed much sleep."

"Works out well, then," he said with a nod. "I don't really need a lot of sleep, but I like it. Some people think that's weird, but I actually get a lot of pleasure from sleep. Good sleep, that is." Not more than he got from sex, but he wasn't about to say that. And to be honest, he wasn't even sure why he was telling Sylar this -- it still struck him as weird that they were having such a normal conversation.

"That's always been the case for you? Not needing a lot of sleep?"

It was odd to ask, to be continuing this conversation, but he was curious now. While it was true that he'd never needed much rest, he'd learned that, with his aptitude, he needed even less. It was something about the way his brain worked, he was sure, pathway shifting around the mental need for sleep so that he could get away with clocking somewhere around two or three hours a day, and still feel fine. It was how he'd kept moving, kept killing and taking, as a murderer--he stayed awake for days on end, seeking new kills, only pausing to catnap.

And when he'd taken Adam's regeneration? Well, that had only further cut the amount of time he needed to sleep. It was a strange side effect, yes, but not an unwelcome one, as with how fast-paced his life had been as of late, being able to sleep for just an hour every couple of days and still function was amazing. It was the sort of thing that made him wonder just how long he could stay awake before his body finally shut down, or if his brother had experienced the same thing.

"Well, I never gave it much thought," he mused, "but I would always try to stay up late when I was a kid. Kind of assumed that was because Nathan was still awake and I didn't want to go to bed while I knew he'd still be up. But in nursing school, when we had rotations I never minded the late night ER shifts, and I'd stay up ridiculous hours studying..." He shrugged. "I honestly don't know -- I kind of like sleeping..."

He thought he knew what Sylar was getting at, though, and he cocked his head, studying his brother. "Do you find yourself eating more after you've had to heal significant damage?" Because god knew, between the speedster power he'd picked up from that woman in the future, and healing serious damage, his appetite could go into overdrive...

Sylar nodded, reaching on reflex to cover the hand he'd injured--his dominant hand, his left one--with the other. "I lost two of my fingers the other night," he told him. "They grew back, but since then, it feels like I haven't stopped eating."

He'd done big lunches and dinners, since then. Ate breakfast, when he knew for a fact he usually skipped it, since eating first thing in the morning always made him feel sick to his stomach for a reason he'd never been able to pin down. And he was pretty sure he owned stock at the ice cream place on Times Square, for how many times he'd stopped for a snack, since it had happened.

"I thought that was just me." A pause, in which he cocked his head to one side curiously, and then, "Side effect of Adam's ability?"

He raised an eyebrow, looked closely at Sylar's hand. There was no evidence of any injury -- not that he had expected one, but as a nurse he found it fascinating that they could actually regrow lost parts without even the smallest scar. "Did... did Dad do that to you?" he asked quietly, before pulling his attention back to their discussion.

"I think it's a side effect of any ability that either taxes or raises the metabolism. I've noticed it when I heal, definitely, but other things seem to affect it, too. Medically and biologically, it makes sense. It's just a pain in the butt when it comes to grocery shopping."

"Indirectly." Sylar rubbed at the fingers he'd lost absently, as if he didn't even realize he was doing it, and then dropped his hand away. "I'm assuming they had a precog, because I got a twenty-one gun welcoming squad."

He'd managed to stop most of the bullets--he'd missed two, one going through his shoulder, the other through his leg--but regardless, it still hadn't been his idea of a good time. Nor had following the teleporter through the halls been a favorite pastime of his, since, "There was a teleporter that was leading them. A woman. She closed a maglock door on my hand when I got close." He offered his brother a wry smile. "I guess I should be thankful I didn't lose my entire hand."

Unconsciously, he flexed his fingers as if they still hurt, somehow--impossible--and then, like Peter, he re-centered himself on more pleasant conversation. "I haven't had a problem with it before. This is the first real ability I have that's affected my metabolism." Even his telekinesis didn't put a strain on his body like this had. His mind, yes, as he could remember exhausting himself more than once, while lifting something particularly heavy, but not his body. "It does make sense, though."

rp for youngerpetrelli: i have measured out my life with coffee s

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