[Closed RP: Sylar and Peter] Five Days Later

[likeabadpenny.livejournal.com]

((OOC: Any and all details about Sylar have been cleared with the mun first!))

For someone who had always said to have 'his head stuck in the clouds too often for his own good', Peter thought his current plan was going rather well.

Then again, 'well' was entirely subjective. Yes, Sylar hadn't been able to terrorize anybody for the last five days. But, in said five days, Peter had been stuck in the same room with only Sylar for company. For the first few days, he'd tried to keep a mental watch on Sylar's thoughts to see if he was planning escape, but the things he kept hearing were enough to convince him never to use telepathy again. Especially what he'd heard on the first day.

Five days. Five days of sitting on cold stone, watching over a serial killer that would do anything to escape. And Sylar had certainly tried - Peter would still wear the bruises from those attempts if he didn't heal so fast. Five days of having to use the Voice on Sylar to make him eat and not try to escape. Needless to say, conversation had been few and far between, for which Peter was grateful. He was doing this to keep people safe, not to make small talk. Five days of trying not to fall asleep so that he could monitor how much sedative was being pumped into Sylar's veins.

And on the fifth day, it wasn't working so well.

Sitting up against the door, Peter struggled to keep his eyes open. He couldn't recall how much sleep he'd gotten, but seeing that he had been keeping a 24/7 watch, he didn't think it was very much. Sometimes, he thought he could hear Sylar talking, but when he looked back up, it was clear he hadn't been. Other times he could swear he heard Nathan's voice outside the door, but he hadn't talked to Nathan since his sorting.

Peter had to wonder if he was going insane, through a combination of sleep-deprivation and being in the company of goddamn Sylar for five days. It was enough to drive anybody up the wall.

Comments

[likeabadpenny.livejournal.com]

"I'm the human sponge, I don't need sleep," Peter cracked, his grin completely out of place. He laughed once, amused, which soon dissolved into hysterical sounding giggles. Being a nurse, he was well aware of the fact that things seemed to get funnier the more tired you were, but this was just beyond that. This was... probably parts of his brain shutting down from sleep-deprivation.

Still laughing, Peter rested his head back against the wall, staring up at the ceiling. In the five days, he'd never really looked at the ceiling, and it was fascinating, when he really took the time to study it. Slowly, the laughter trailed off, and Peter rubbed at his eyes again.

And he hadn't even had coffee in five days. No wonder he was going round the bend.

[mmm-brainz.livejournal.com]

...And people thought Sylar was a Fruit Loop.

Okay, fairly enough, yes, five days. No sleep. No caffeine. It was going to do hell on somebody's mind. Brains were something he just knew. Temporal lobe goes haywire, led to slurred speech and nonsensical words. The parietal lobe makes up new objects, new forms, things that aren't there. Psychosis. Nystagmus. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nystagmus) Decreased immunity. Hand tremors, ADHD-like symptoms, herniating in some bad cases... Yes. He'd spent a long time reading about sleep deprivation, once he learned he'd probably be experiencing a lot of it.

Essentially, it was a similar effect to being drunk. Which Peter was a prime example of at the moment.

Sylar only shot Peter a bemused sort of half-smirk, eyebrow quirked in light of the man's newfound giddiness. "Looks like the sponge is all dried up," he commented lightly, staring up at him for a moment through hooded eyes before he let his gaze fall back to the floor, almost defeated. If only Peter would give into that. Or, as an alternative, he could just go absolutely nuts in general, hallucinate so many layers of false imagery that Sylar could just walk right out without Peter's being any the wiser. Come on, come on.

[likeabadpenny.livejournal.com]

Actually snorting in more inappropriately-timed amusement, Peter drew his knees up to his chest, letting his forehead fall onto one of his knees. "I wish," he replied, halfway between smirking and grimacing. It would be so nice not to even have this power at all; to just go back to being a regular human, go back to nursing where he only cared about his patients, not the entire world as if it were his responsibility.

He thought about looking at the IV line, but that require actually lifting his head, so Peter decided against the effort. It would be fine. His memory wasn't great at the moment, but he thought he'd checked it recently. And if he hadn't done anything then, it should... God, he was tried. Too tired to be thinking properly.

It was hardly the most comfortable of positions, but when Peter felt himself drifting off, he let it happen. Just half an hour, just a few minutes would be good. Sylar could... take care of himself for a bit, right? And for once, the thought of Sylar didn't immediately send Peter jolting awake again - instead, he just let sleep take over, hoping that some internal alarm would wake him later.

[mmm-brainz.livejournal.com]

And beat...

Beat...

There it was.

A smile actually crossed Sylar's face as Peter's breathing pattern slipped into that slow, steady rhythm synonymous with someone who'd just fallen asleep. "Nighty night," he cooed under his breath, and glanced over to the IV line that he'd pinched shut a good few hours or so ago. Peter had been off his rocker going on the last day now - it wasn't hard to get anything past him, at this juncture.

The tube jerked free of his arm, falling to the floor as the straps immediately followed suit, and God, standing felt so good after so long. Five days in here, wasn't it? It had to be, about. He'd lost count around three hundred thousand seconds and that was a good few hours into the first day as it was. God, it was insulting for him to have been tied up so long, under Peter's watch.

He even loomed over Peter for a good, few, long seconds, as if he were debating just what to do with the boy.

No, he decided. Peter wasn't all too important enough to deal with anything right now. Peter would get his later. When Sylar could stand without his legs threatening to give out underneath him. Peter could consider himself lucky that Sylar didn't care all that much what happened to him, at least at the moment.

Besides. He was taking the watch. Peter didn't deserve it.

...Sylar could fix it.

[likeabadpenny.livejournal.com]

He'd actually been having a rather nice dream. Obviously, Peter was unaware that it was a dream, but it was a place he'd like to stay, anyway - where he didn't have to use his powers and people were safe, a place where Sylar didn't exist, where Nathan was proud of him and didn't use the politician smile so much, where Peter could just go back to his old job.

A slight sound - not consistent with his dream - spun the dream out of control and made Peter's eyes snap open.

Shit.

Scrambling away from Sylar's looming shadow, Peter stared with wide eyes at him, then at the IV, and back at Sylar, everything taking a little too long to process. A pressure at his back alerted him to the fact that he'd just effectively cornered himself. "How the hell did you get free?" He blurted, standing as quickly as he could, more scared than he should be considering.

He tried to gather his thoughts, to focus enough to use telekinesis and give Sylar a good push into the wall, but his thoughts were too scrambled. Too caught up in 'you shouldn't have fallen asleep' and 'you've just failed'. Nothing was working.

[mmm-brainz.livejournal.com]

The smile dipped away from Sylar's features before he even had time to enjoy the thing. For a split second, he didn't say anything, his features drawn into a deer-in-the-headlights sort of expression when Peter's breath jumped a bit. "Damn," he murmured in return, and it wasn't an answer to Peter's question, by any means, but it had to be said. Sylar paused again, looking to the watch that he'd slipped from Peter's wrist in his hands to the boy backed - quite literally - into the corner. "And you were going to get away so easily."

With a simple flick of his fingers, the chair went automatically diving for Peter, but for once Sylar wasn't focused on whatever could kill Peter. He just wanted the damn guy out of his way. The legs of the chair slammed up against the stones, on either side of the man, restricting his arms and pinning him to the wall in all the needed places. Sylar tilted his head for a moment, almost as if he was listening for something. Pounding heart rate. Bingo.

"Don't make this harder on yourself, Pete," he replied in a slow, almost soothing tone, eyebrow arching upward at the male. "Make or break time right now." And just how permanently damaged did he want to leave this room?

[likeabadpenny.livejournal.com]

Too shocked to move or even react just yet, Peter just stared, his heart beating so fast that he was almost sure he was going to give himself a heart attack. Something he'd thought ran in the family until mom - Jesus, he couldn't even get his thoughts together. At least he wouldn't be giving Sylar the satisfaction of dropping dead.

Claude. He had to think of Claude, had to get out of this. But invisibility wasn't going to do much good when he was pinned, was it? He needed -- the blonde woman, strength, he needed that. But that wasn't going to do much good when he couldn't use his arms, either.

Telekinesis - Sylar, or whoever Sylar had murdered to get it - that could work, especially when his 'benefactor' was right here. Clenching his jaw, not replying to Sylar's smug words, Peter tried to push back, push up. As soon as wood grated on stone, enough so that Peter could duck down and free himself - leaving the chair still on the wall - he launched forward, a wildly thrown fist aiming at Sylar's jaw.

[mmm-brainz.livejournal.com]

That heart rate was driving Sylar absolutely batty. Anybody would ahve been able to hear Peter's pulse going off the charts in panic, never mind the fact that the pounding, to Sylar's ears, sounded like war, and he had to flinch a bit to shake it off. The screeching of wood against stone wasn't really helping, although, at that, Sylar actually shot Peter a scowl. As if Peter were doing this on purpose, as a grievance against him, rather than an attempt to free himself. God, he would just be so glad when he was out of here.

Clever boy. He could almost be considered something approaching intelligence at this point.

Nevertheless, he lunged towards Sylar, and he raised a simple hand to stop it, narrowing his eyes at the Petrelli as Peter's fist met what had to feel the rough equivalent of a brick wall against his knuckles. He just loved it when Peter used his own powers against him. There was some kind of sick poetry to it. "Ouch. That's gotta hurt," he hissed, and gave Peter's hand a good, sharp twist with invisible fingers, arm send punching towards the floor and probably sending the boy entirely off-kilter - if not dislocating his shoulder completely.

[likeabadpenny.livejournal.com]

Peter had been expecting the block, but not the rest, and the crack of his shoulder popping out of his socket was almost enough to make him scream. No matter how much he healed, the pain was something he'd never get used to. Staggering back a few steps, Peter roughly shoved his shoulder against the wall, forcing the joint back to where it was supposed to be. The sickening sensation of bones grinding together made him want to pass out.

But he couldn't, he had to stop Sylar, and goddamn, why wasn't the pain stopping? He had to think of Claire, of her ability, but a stable thought was almost impossible right now.

So Peter, desperate to end this, grabbed the closest thing on hand. The IV pole, with everything still connected. His good arm still wasn't co-operating too well, so he used his left, swinging wide and going for Sylar's knees. If the bastard couldn't walk, he couldn't get out of here.

[mmm-brainz.livejournal.com]

And he had so many damn choices to stop the guy, but he had to be limited to the few he'd exposed to Peter so far. Cryokinesis was a no-go. Liquefaction was entirely out of the question. Sylar swept his hand over again, that same invisible wall stopping the pole before it smashed rather painfully with with his kneecaps.

"This is getting kind of old," he automatically prompted in return, eyes needling towards Peter before they rolled over in his sockets. This was just... sad. He was swinging around like a madman with no country to his name. Of course, it was just sad now. And Sylar didn't want to test just when Peter was going to come to his senses enough to use that handy power of persuasion on him again. "It's going to end. Now."

The IV pole swung back around, sharply, going right back to Peter's own shins and fully intent on taking him down before Sylar was.

[likeabadpenny.livejournal.com]

The hit to his shins sent Peter falling to his knees, taking a sharply indrawn breath as the jolt to his knees seemed to travel right through his nervous system. Breathing deeply, but too quickly, he thought about getting up. But didn't.

He just wanted this to be over. Not just this fight, but... this whole thing. Sylar was stronger than he was, than he'd ever be, but people couldn't die here and that knowledge reduced Peter's plan to uselessness. He just wanted to lie on his couch and watch awful soap operas, and leave it to somebody better than him to be a hero. It wasn't a death wish, he was just too goddamn tired.

"So finish it," Peter snapped. Just put something through my head so I can have an excuse not to try be a hero anymore. But he wasn't going to let Sylar just walk out of here, that would be too much failure for him to cope with. He didn't get up, but a thought sent the chair flying towards Sylar.

[mmm-brainz.livejournal.com]

'So finish it'? Was he really...? No, it couldn't be that easy. Could it?

Oh. And there he went. Of course it couldn't.

The chair was discarded with a simple step to the side, as he watched the thing soar past him with an arched brow, something resembling amusement crossing his features. Right. This was just getting insulting, by this point in time. That had kept him tied up for almost a week? He was slipping. Sylar took a few long seconds to stand there, looming in all of his height and his creepiness over the boy with an odd sort of pity.

"You're pathetic, Peter Petrelli," Sylar crooned with a frown, crossing an arm across his chest and tapping his free fingers against his chin, as though he were an art critic in a moment of scrutinizing a piece of work. "I couldn't do you the favor, sorry. But feel free to do so on your own part. I wouldn't stop you."

[likeabadpenny.livejournal.com]

For a moment, Peter seriously considered just going nuclear. Just a little explosion, enough to wipe out Sylar but not to tear the whole castle down. But that wouldn't work, he couldn't control it enough - knowing his luck, he'd end up tearing the whole castle up and some of the nearby villages, too.

A tingling in his hands made him look down, and panic tore through him. "Shit, shit, this can't be happening," Peter cursed, wide-eyed. It was faint, but he could almost see the bones in his hands, the radioactive power lighting up from the inside. This was all Sylar's goddamn fault, getting him worked up.

He didn't even hear Sylar's mocking words, too caught up in staring at his own hands. Maybe he could use this. A punch backed up with radioactive skin probably hurt - and telekinesis was working so well for him right now. Thinking quickly, Peter pushed himself up and aimed a fist at Sylar's stomach, ignoring the twinges from his still-healing shoulder.

[mmm-brainz.livejournal.com]

Peter's hands flared to that florescent shade of orange and Sylar quirked an eyebrow, an expression of... almost glee crossing his features. Because there it was. Everybody was oh-so convinced that Sylar was the villain, and Sylar was going to be the end of them all, eventually, and oh, Peter was such a sweetheart, when here was their little hero, seconds away from going nuclear onto the entire school. Hundreds of people. Dead. Poof.

So much for Peter's little idealistic dream of this school, huh?

"What are you going to do now, Pete?" he shot back, something of excitement flashing in his eyes. It didn't last long - his face was already contorting into a scowl, irritated. "Who's going to fly you out of trouble now, huh? Who's going to correct YOUR mistakes?" He'd been so caught up in the moment that Peter's fist sunk right into his stomach, effectively knocking the wind out of him and burning a hole straight through his shirt - and, consequentially, probably a few layers of skin, judging by the flare of pain blossoming in his abdomen.

Fun time was over. They needed to end this fast.

The IV pole swung around a second time, base going straight for Peter's head as Sylar clutched an arm around his stomach and stumbled back a few feet. Damn, that hurt.

[likeabadpenny.livejournal.com]

Peter's victory over finally managing to get a hit on Sylar was short-found, and a little painful, considering the the rather sharp smack of the IV pole into his forehead. He'd been too distracted, too slow to see it coming - but even though it sent him tumbling, he was up a second later.

This room was too goddamn small. But even though his head was pounding - was that blood he could feel? Bastard - Peter wasn't going to give up so easy. At least the knock to the head had sent the radioactive power short-circuiting, the glow dimming and easing his panic.

"Guess you fixed it," he grinned recklessly, flexing his fingers. But his temporary relief was cut short by the question of how to take Sylar down. He knew he didn't have a chance in the world of trying to stop time right now, his brain was too scrambled, thoughts not connecting properly. This probably wasn't going to end well.

[mmm-brainz.livejournal.com]

Yes, there it was... The radiation sucking back into his fingers, almost as if someone had just flicked off a light switch. As if Sylar had flicked off a light switch. "Looks like I did fix it," he murmured in response, the IV pole still raised behind Peter, unwavering, as Sylar cocked his head at the other man. "Lucky us, that I kept you from blowing up the entire school." His voice was pure poison as he narrowed his eyes onto Peter, everything just spitting hate.

"And they say I'm the villain," Sylar seethed, advancing onto Peter a few steps and looming over him with a kind of ominous homage to death, his fingers flexing at his sides. "But who's the hero now, Pete? The one who just almost took out a couple hundred people in one go?" He crouched in front of Peter, dancing smile tugging up the corners of his mouth. Anybody else, it might have seemed friendly, but on Sylar... it was just like a promise of impending doom.

Finger to his lips in contemplation, Sylar just shook his head, standing again and taking a step back. "Maybe I should just fix it for good," he finally decided, nodding once, and the IV pole came back a last time, like a javelin, goring straight through the back of Peter's head.

[likeabadpenny.livejournal.com]

If it was one question in the world that Peter really wanted answered, it was why Sylar insisted on some kind of strange, semi-meaningful words of wisdom right before something happened. Unfortunately, it just seemed to make him that much creepier, that more more unhinged, and Peter couldn't stop himself from backing up a little.

At least this time he was actually paying attention. The last words Sylar spoke - fixing it for good - set off an eternal alarm, and Peter squeezed his eyes shut. When he opened them, Sylar was still, the tip of the IV pole was lightly pressed against the back of Peter's head, its momentum frozen.

But he didn't move. It was an odd sensation, stopping time. The feeling of seconds ticking by was something a person never noticed until it wasn't happening anymore. Peter took a breath, and closed his eyes. If he moved, the fight would continue, and he wasn't deluding himself that he'd actually win this one, no matter how long he strung it out. He could move, and run, but Peter never could back down from a challenge.

The people here couldn't die; they were safe. They didn't need him right now.

Peter shifted his head slightly, angling so that pole would directly through the back of his brain, where it needed to go. He wasn't suicidal, he just wanted a break for a few days. And this was just one way to get it. One corner of his lips turning up in a satisfied smile, Peter let time resume ticking.

[mmm-brainz.livejournal.com]

Sylar watched Peter's body slump, IV pole protruding a good two, three feet from his forehead, hands still twitching a bit at his sides, in anticipation. There was that weird kind of rush that came with something like this, randomly. He eyed the few tendrils of blood oozing up from the gouge in his forehead, beading up around the metal pole and sliding down his pale skin... There was almost a chill that ran down his spine, pleased.

Not that it could last. Hogwarts had the no-kill spell still in hold around it, Peter had... Claire's damn power. Sylar wouldn't be surprised if he was awake again by the end of the week. He lingered for a few long seconds nonetheless, studying the picture in front of him with a strange sort of look in his eyes, and as he started for the door... he just couldn't help having a sick, pleased sort of satisfaction in having watched the light finally slip away from Peter's eyes.