Acts of Kindness 1: I was just trying to be kind
Peter had noticed it right away after they got out of Matt's trap, but he didn't think about it right then: Sylar had Nathan's body language. And more than that, he moved in relation to Peter as Nathan had. He stood next to him, so close their shoulders brushed as they walked; he even anticipated Peter's motions from long familiarity, as Nathan had.
It hadn't been an issue while stuck in his head. Sylar had acted like Sylar while there. They'd stood apart, like strangers, and while every now and then Sylar got too close to him, it was usually Peter getting too close to him, getting in his face, confronting him, threatening him. Sylar would look away and back down most of the time. The worst he'd do was glare back, trying to salvage his dignity and make some attempt to stand up for himself even though he knew he was in the wrong.
After a few missteps - no, dozens or scores of them, actually, and Peter lashing out at him every time - Sylar still hadn't gotten to the point where he didn't mention Nathan's memories, but he would catch himself and wince each time he did it, apologizing and turning away, almost cringing. Peter had left it alone, letting Sylar punish himself instead of doing it for him. As the apparent years had passed, Peter had started to feel bad about that near-conditioned response and one thing he'd become sure of was that Sylar didn't do it intentionally.
So when they stood together in the carnival, shoulder to shoulder, just as Nathan would have stood next to him, and he felt Sylar's arm brush his own, he didn't say anything. Peter just glanced over out of the corner of his eye. Sylar was watching Claire, paying no attention at all to him. He was standing where he was because it felt natural to him, because maybe that was where he felt he belonged. Peter turned his eyes back to Claire's upward progress and this time, instead of lashing out at Sylar for reminding him of his brother, Peter held his silence.
During the aftermath, Peter had other things on his mind and he lost track of Sylar. The others didn't want him there - that was clear. They hated him and feared him. Unlike Matt, there was no way for them to find out for themselves that Sylar was reformed. It was so easy for it to be just another act and as Peter was well aware - as it was nagging him in the back of his head even now - Sylar was really good at acting.
When the people began to clear away, Peter had looked around, wondering if he should worry, if he should track Sylar down, if he had some obligation or responsibility to look out for him because no one else would. That much was clear. After years in each other's head with no current events to speak of, the only thing they'd been able to talk about was the past. With Nathan's memories off limits and Peter so reluctant to share anything of himself, that left Sylar to fill the void.
He did. He told Peter about himself until Peter was really kind of sick of it, but the silence was worse. When too long had gone without hearing anything in the void, not even another human voice, Sylar would ask Peter if he'd ever told him about the time when… and Peter would say no, he hadn't, even though he had and they both knew that, but it was a polite way for Peter to decline the conversation if he wasn't interested. Sylar was careful with him and patient and always reaching out, somehow managing to do that even when he was giving Peter space.
Sylar had no friends, no living family that he felt anything for, no co-workers or girlfriends or even boyfriends. He didn't know his neighbors and while he liked a lot of the customers at the watch shop, he'd left that life behind years ago now and none of them had known him personally. He'd felt profoundly isolated before he had his ability. Getting it had pushed him right over the edge - not that Sylar put it that way. He never tried, not once, to excuse what he'd done or to say he hadn't been able to control himself, even though Peter knew full well from personal experience with the Hunger that it was not to be denied.
Sylar had no one, but at least in Matt's head, he had Peter. Now on the outside, he still had no one, but Peter had anyone and everyone. No one who knew Sylar looked at him with anything remotely like friendliness and everyone else was a stranger. When Peter saw Emma off and he turned back to look at the mostly empty carnival, he didn't have long to wonder where Sylar had gotten himself off to. The man walked out from where he'd taken refuge in one of the tents, watching from the darkness and relative protection.
Peter snorted softly, face blank as Sylar came up to him with a hopeful, almost infatuated look on his face. Very hopeful. Needy. Insecure. He walked right up to Peter, too close for a stranger, but exactly where Nathan would have stopped. Peter told him, "Come on. Let's go get some coffee." He didn't ask. He didn't need to. He would have asked a stranger. He would have asked Emma. He would have asked her, 'Do you want to go get some coffee?' But he didn't do that now and he only realized his own behavior after the words left his lips. Sylar fell into step immediately. Peter had a question he needed to ask and he didn't want to ask it here.
He couldn't find the right way to word it. They sat together at a tiny table that put them too close to each other. Sylar watched the other patrons with a relaxed posture and a set to his shoulders and head that reminded Peter again of Nathan, not of Sylar. He hadn't sat like that in the city of forever, in the nightmare they'd inhabited.
Peter fiddled with his coffee, turning the cup slowly, watching the liquid swirl. Finally he decided to just blurt it out. "Sylar." He had the other man's attention immediately. "Before that thing with Matt, after Thanksgiving…" He looked up. Sylar gave him a single nod, face neutral. "…at the hospital?" Sylar nodded again, slowly. "What was that?"
"Which part?" Sylar's tone was cautious, but that only made sense. Peter had forbidden any topic that dealt with Nathan, especially his death and events around it. Things were different now, but how different was not known. Peter didn't even know, so he tried to keep himself calm and be tolerant of where Sylar might go with his answer.
Peter elaborated, "The part where you… where you were Nathan. What was that? Who was that? What was going on there?"
Sylar swallowed and now it was his turn to fiddle with his coffee. He hunched inwards, a posture that wasn't Nathan's, but Peter had seen it so, so many times, so often that it hurt to see it again. It hadn't hurt before his admission at the wall. Before then, Peter had always felt a pang of satisfaction that Sylar felt uncomfortable, feeling it was no more than a shadow of his own grief about Nathan and that Sylar deserved every bit of darkness that cast on his soul. But now… now it hurt to see it again and Peter sighed, knowing he'd been… small, in how he'd treated Sylar.
"I… You didn't know?" Sylar looked up at him, still very careful.
"No, I don't know. Tell me."
Sylar looked down again. "I… I shifted into Nathan's form. You didn't think about that?"
Peter blinked a few times. He shrugged and made a confused gesture with his hands. He didn't know what Sylar was getting at.
"You were nullifying my powers, Peter. How did I do that?"
Peter stared at him blankly. How had he done that? He'd never thought about it. Sylar, memories or not, shouldn't have been able to do that. Peter had intentionally retracted the nullification a few minutes later to let Nathan heal, but… he hadn't retracted it before then, when Sylar had shifted. "I… how…?" Peter blinked and inhaled. "No. No - why?" The how didn't matter as much as the why and that was the essence of what had been nagging at Peter.
Sylar's voice was very small. Peter had to lean forward to hear him, eyes narrowed and face hard, but Sylar was looking down at his drink. "I was just trying to be kind, Peter."
Peter's nostrils flared and his muscles tensed. He didn't know what he wanted to do, but it crashed over him with certainty: that hadn't been Nathan. He'd thought he'd purged Sylar's memories, but he himself knew memory loss wasn't permanent for someone who could regenerate. The whole thing didn't make sense. He still had questions, just different ones. "How?"
Sylar swallowed, cringing into himself more. "It… It's happened before. When someone I… have hurt. I… I can empathize. After the nails… they hurt. You hurt me. You… you hurt me. You wanted to kill me. And in that moment, I…" He chuckled. "I know this sounds gay as hell and," his voice dropped again nearly to a whisper and Peter had to lean in even more, "please forgive me Peter, but," he spoke a little louder and Peter could lean back a little, annoyed that what Sylar couldn't bear to speak out loud was an apology and that was because Peter had told him he'd had enough of those. Sylar went on, "but at that moment I understood you and I had your ability. It came with the ability nullification." His body jerked in a single laugh. "I laughed at you. I'm sor-" He cut himself off.
Peter said evenly, "So you cancelled out the nullification and all that purging of your memories was fake." Sylar nodded, still looking down. Peter blinked, feeling tears prickling at his eyes. He'd thought that was Nathan. It hadn't been. It had been Sylar - acting. 'I was just trying to be kind,' Sylar had said. In a softer voice, Peter said, "You were trying to give me a good-bye."
Sylar flinched a little, but risked looking up. Apparently Peter's face wasn't as forbidding as he'd expected, because he didn't look back down immediately. "I thought… I thought if you got to say good-bye, that maybe that would be all. It'd be over. You'd go back to your life and I'd…" He looked down now and shrugged despondently. "I'd go back to mine." He sat up suddenly, as if realizing something. "I'm sorr-, ah, fuck. Anyway, I need to get back to my life. You… have yours." He stood up. "Thanks for the coffee."
He started to walk off and in that moment Peter could have let him go. But in his mind was that Sylar's worst fear was being alone; that hopeful look on the man's face as he came up to him after hiding at the carnival until Peter was free; that Sylar had had his chance there on the roof of the hospital to end Peter and instead he'd tried to be kind, clumsy and strange as his effort may have been.
Peter reached out and grabbed his forearm as he walked by. "Hey. Sit down. Your old life is over. You're not that guy anymore. Talk to me. Please. Tell me what you're going to do with your new one."
Sylar stood there stiffly. He swallowed and said very roughly, "I don't know what I'm going to do, Peter."
"Then sit back down," Peter urged softly. "Will you listen to suggestions?" Slowly, Sylar walked back to his seat and sat. Peter nodded. "Let's talk this through together. We might be out here, no longer the last two people on earth, but we're still in this together. Let me help."
Sylar relaxed as he internalized that he wasn't alone after all.