i'll be your loaded gun

[evolved]

[ Prior to this, he's never really seen the inside of it. Been inside, yes, but never ... looked. Everything within Peter's apartment has been wrecked at this point, and Sylar doubts that it'll ever even look remotely the same again -- a bookcase has been overturned, shattered glass is sprinkled everywhere, and most of the dining set has been smashed to pieces, split into chunks and splinters of wood that's rained down over the floor of the livingroom. Red adorns the walls where bodies and furniture's slammed into them with enough force to crack them dangerously deep. There is so, so much red.

Blood coats Sylar's arms up to his elbows, there's blood on Sylar's face and in his hair and there's blood on Peter's hands, blood soaking the lush white carpet where Peter has, just a second ago, been hauled over and sprawled. It's impossible to know how much of it that's Sylar's and what is Peter's anymore, but the way it paints the long column of Peter's throat, trickles down that pale, new and healed skin that has been closed and ripped open and closed again until Sylar smudges the crimson trail with his fingers, he finds it beautiful in an obscene sort of way that there is no forgiveness for. He fists bloody fingers in Peter's shirt, shoves when he attempts to get to his feet, pins him to the ground with telekinetic hands and pushes him down into the floor with enough pressure for it to be crushing and painful.

His shadow falls over Peter as he takes a step closer, the soles of his shoes as red as everything else, and he places himself by Peter's feet, tall and dark and predatory and inescapable with an expression full of a whole new kind of anger. He appears eerily calm, though, right now, as he's simply staring down at him with an unreadable look on his face and with his hand raised to just ... keep Peter right where he is. Let it occur to him that he isn't getting up. ]

Do you really think you can escape it, Peter? Escape me?

[ He thinks that maybe he'd like to kill Peter, but Sylar doesn't intend to. He just intends to make everything hurt. Hurt until there is nothing but that intense, stabbing physical and psychological pain pressing in from every direction and Peter understands everything that Sylar does, until he finds a whole new way of seeing, until he can see all that Sylar sees. Crawl in under his skin and melt into him. ]

You can try to fight it all you want, but in the end, it all comes down to this.

Comments

[askedtobe]

[ Every time he has to heal, it gets a little bit more exhausting, a little bit more agonizing, takes a little bit more time to the point where Peter isn't just bleeding, he's dripping with it. He can feel it rolling down his skin in a sickening kind of way, soaking into the fabric of his shirt with the effort it requires to piece himself back together. Knit knew skin and muscle and tissue back together until he's Peter all over again, just with the added pleasantries of buckets of his own blood on the outside instead of in. It's regrowing platelets that somehow takes all the work, and Peter's near nauseous because of it, though he's grown numb to the way Sylar looks with Peter's blood strewn across his skin.

Laid out amongst the debris that his apartment has dissolved into, Peter has every intention on getting up and fighting back, just like every single time he's done it already since this started. He's even saying it to himself, get up, get up -- but nothing's happening and the rage is building up somewhere beneath his ribcage. A hollowing feeling, filled with all the hatred that he can muster, has burrowed deep down inside of him, but no amount of pulling will set it, or him, free.

Watching Sylar for a few seconds, Peter's back to trying to pull himself out of it. It's a near frantic fight with himself, with his own abilities pushed up against the wall that are Sylar's, and there's nothing easy or simple about it. A push of mind's, Peter's tangled and confused compared to the blank calm of Sylar's and it isn't fair; isn't fair that Sylar should get to have mastery over his abilities when Peter spends so much time fighting them. But he's still pushing back telekentically, trying to drag his limbs up from the concrete hold the floor seems to have on him, until he's practically shouting-- ]

Oh, come on! [ Ignoring Sylar for as long as possible, Peter's putting up one hell of a fight. And it's one that wasted completely as he's not moving, and he knows he's not going to be able to start anytime soon, either. But he can't stop fighting it either, can't stop trying to break free from the hold the other man has on him. All the struggling seems to make the blood run that much redder, that much faster until he can smell it near coating the walls, squeaking under Sylar's shoes.

But as soon as he stops, he's given in, and he has no intention of letting Sylar sneak his way inside without a fight that's worthy of tearing the entire city down to the ground. ]

To what, you killing me? Already proved you can't do it enough times today, what makes you think trying again's gonna be any different?

[evolved]

[ No one should be allowed to be as beautiful while in pain as Peter is, while being ripped apart and torn into and burned and destroyed, while bleeding and breaking and gasping for breaths that can't be pulled into lungs that are, for a few seconds before they heal, only ruins. No one should be allowed to be as beautiful with their throat slit from ear to ear. Sylar is curious, horribly curious, as to whether or not he still would've looked as beautiful with his head sliced open, if he'd gotten the chance to take that look inside that time before the events at Kirby Plaza. He steps around Peter, pushing a chunk of wood out of the other's reach with his foot as he does, and he's still gazing down at him while as calm as a man who has all the time in the world. He knows that his telekinetic hold is strong enough to keep Peter exactly where he wants him, unless his concentration is broken, but this comes more from confidence in his own abilities than it does from him underestimating Peter. That is a mistake he doesn't intend to ever make.

His lack of control might be a significant weakness, but turning his anger and hatred into force, Peter knows how to do that. He's capable of nearly as much destruction as Sylar, and this, this makes him so ... important. Makes him worthy. Fascinating. A challenge. He's known all along that Peter won't go down as easily now as he did that time in Suresh's flat, but that is not a problem, in actuality. The knowledge has him prepared and willing to take whatever Peter might unleash. ]

If I wanted to find a way to kill you, I would. [ If Peter had his control, Sylar's control, he might have been able to overpower him but his fear, of his powers, of himself, it's holding him back.

So his struggling is futile. All Peter is, right now, is a piece of artwork, red with blood and furious and in a perfect position for slicing into and harming. The resistance, Sylar wants it -- he wants Peter to fight him every step of the way and make everything difficult because it's viciously perfect, this. Being covered in each other's blood and surrounded by the destruction they've inflicted when Sylar, in the end, proves that he is better. ]

I was talking about us. It all ... [ He crouches now, leaning just slightly over Peter's body. ] Comes down to us. What we are. [ A palm is pressed flat to Peter's chest, slick with all of that ruby red. ]

That we're the same, and that there's nothing you can do to change it.

[askedtobe]

[ Knowing perfectly well that he's nothing but an object in this moment does nothing for Peter's control, or lack thereof. Something to be broken, cut into pieces, wait until it heals and do it all over again. Nothing but a toy, something for Sylar to bat around until he's grown bored of it, spreading blood until there's nothing left of him but his own constant demise. There's nothing else to this, or at least nothing else that Peter wants to admit to. It's a simple battle to the death, done in constant repeat -- it's not a sickly twisted form of comparison, because there's no one else like them. And watching Sylar move closer brings that point home until Peter wants to scream.

Trying to scoop up the remains of his anger isn't even remotely difficult, but it's wielding it that Peter still has trouble with. Toeing the line of savior and villain, learning how to be the hero without the destruction -- Peter's terrified to go too far. Scared that he won't know when to stop, know how to. He wants control he just doesn't have yet and struggling with it, pushing back so hard that he can't do anything at all is equally as useless, so instead he explodes. Peter knows that neither of them are heroes in this instant, neither of them are the villain. But at least he's not the monster, and he has no intention of ever letting himself become one. ]

We're nothing alike. [ Near snarling his words, he refuses to acknowledge the actuality in Sylar's, gaze locked on every single movement of the other man's. He can't take the inching closer, hackles raising and nearly startling to crackle with radioactivity. But he clamps down on that before it can go any further, defiance blossoming into trying to get enough of a hold on the ground that he could use it to his advantage. Use it to try to move instead of allowing it to be the showcase for his death one more time.

But suddenly, Peter's attempt to escape shifts, changing to an attempt to get out from under Sylar's touch. He wouldn't run if it meant Sylar would just stop touching him and he heaves angry breaths, desperate to wrench himself away. But nothing works. Nothing lets him sneak his own telekinetic hold under the wire. It was sheer agony, pushing back as hard as he could but still proving to be as useless as he'd always been.

Slamming down walls and trying to keep Sylar back, Peter was gritting his teeth, fists nearly clenching with how hard he was trying. Peter couldn't care less about the chaotic wreck his apartment had become when all he wanted was to destroy Sylar, prove that he could do it. ]

Just because you want us to be doesn't make it true. I'm never going to be anything like you.

[evolved]

We're more alike than we're different. [ He's no longer bothering to keep track of the number of times Peter has been brought to the brink of death. Sylar wants to, somehow, mark him, bruise him and have cuts and scars to later admire, because in a way, that feels like it'd get his point across - but that isn't an option. Not when Peter's body repairs itself within seconds after he's been opened up, knits itself back together until he's as good as new, until there isn't a single trace left of the violence inflicted upon him as if it never actually was.

So he settles for something that's nowhere near as satisfying, but still something - slicing open the same skin and cracking the same bones and creating the same pretty marks that would be bruises, over and over again, killing him over and over and over again until he's as sick of the constant repeat as Peter is himself. Until he's sure that Peter will be able to feel the wounds long after they've healed. Feel Sylar for a long, long time, even after this is over. ]

We take other people's abilities and we master them in ways they never could. [ A flare of light and heat forms in the palm of Sylar's hand, a tiny, dangerous and bright explosion that blossoms outward before fading to nothing. Threatening. So very close to burning away fabric and skin where he was touching only seconds ago. ] No one can rival the power we possess.

[ The more Peter struggles to get away, the closer Sylar moves. Being near him is like being surrounded by ticking clocks, broken clocks, and Sylar merely watches that beautiful fury of his manifest itself in little bursts of energy, watches Peter bleed powers like he bleeds blood with those dark and cold and analytical eyes. Agonizingly patient. Perhaps he's the monster, the boogeyman - but Peter, he's conquered and cornered and prey to the predator. ] But there's more to it than just our original abilities.

You know it just as well as I do - you have my ability already, Peter. You've had it all along, ever since we first met.

[askedtobe]

[ Just listening to Sylar speak would have been enough to make his blood boil, anger rising in a fog up past his skin. But it's Sylar's encroaching into his space, nearly overtaking his very being that gets to Peter the most; the fact that he can't escape from it that makes his eyes go unfocused with blazing, furious desperation. He can't even push back no matter how hard he tries and Peter's near tearing himself apart from the inside out with the effort he's exerting. ]

What's your point?

[ There's an inkling of fear creeping in, just enough to settle across the furrows in Peter's brow, just enough to be almost noticeable. Peter doesn't want to know what this means and doesn't want to think that he's somehow more connected to Sylar than he thought previously. It was already enough that they were perfect enemies, two parts of some sickening whole that Peter couldn't rightly explain.

But to possess part of him -- Peter knew he already did. He simply didn't allow himself to tap into it, to access any part of his mind that could relate back to the man he hated more than anything else, who was far more a part of him than the blood that was still rolling down his skin.

He woudn't let himself understand, for as long as he could get away with. ]

Why's it matter when i've never even used it? It doesn't mean i'm going to turn into you. [ Gaze following Sylar's movements to the best of his abilities, Peter tries all over again, throwing up a hard wall of telekinesis in an attempt to shove Sylar back, to throw the other man off of him and away. He's already expecting the sharp, bright sting that comes just before his blood begins to flow again, before his bones crack and ribs break and everything hurts. He's learned to feel the compression of burst blood vessels, the way his skin splits and he blames it all on Sylar, hyper-sensitive to the way his skin mends itself, to the way Sylar tears him into pieces. And maybe if he can get just one hit in, he can put off his imminent death for just a few more minutes, give him time to build up his ammunition to heal. There's only so much he can take, but Peter doesn't even possess a white flag, he can't give in even if he wanted to. Because there's nothing to give in against, there's no ending this. ]

[evolved]

[ The telekinetic force is strong and sudden enough to push him off of Peter, but he's quick to counter, drag himself back up with his lost focus reclaimed and what it serves to do is make things all the more interesting for Sylar rather than give the other what he wants. Peter can only begin to move away at best, try to scramble to his feet and get up from where he's been pinned before the unyielding pressure of Sylar's telekinetic bonds is back. The difference when Sylar approaches again, hovers over him this time is that he's crushed to the floor by not only Sylar's mind, but a moment later also by sharp knees and the heaviness of Sylar's larger body.

Invisible fingers wrap around Peter's wrists, squeeze tight, cementing them in place at his sides. ]

It'll let you see everything from a new perspective. My perspective. [ He meets those furious, accusing eyes, reaching down to brush a thumb over Peter's jaw and run a hand down that blood-slick neck. All of it to watch that mouth of his twist into that artistic and so very pretty angry downward line. ] Once I show you how to access it.

[ They're meant to end each other, but at the same time complete each other in a twisted way that Sylar wants to understand, thinks that he might already do, or be beginning to. Peter refuses to see it and acknowledge it, but Sylar is going to show him, open doors that he's been trying so hard to keep shut and locked. Pry him apart until he lets him in. ] How does it work, Peter? Your power. To use someone else's ability, you think of how the person makes you feel, don't you?

After I do, [ Blue, crackling electricity pours from the palm of the firm hand he presses to Peter's throat, through his fingers as he rakes them down his chest, increasing in voltage with every passing second. ] I'm going to make sure you never forget how I make you feel.

[askedtobe]

[ For a fleeting moment Peter had believed he'd managed to gain some kind of upper hand, an advantage while he nearly scrambles to his feet. Not a real one of course, but a momentary escape would have been better than nothing. But it's snatched from him just as quickly as he'd gained it, until once again he's at the mercy of Sylar's searching fingers, his hold twice as tight.

Letting Sylar’s words wash over him without truly absorbing them, Peter tries to turn his face away, tries to stop looking. Listening. Knowing. Because while part of him agrees, the rest of him is too disgusted, too terrified to admit that Sylar might be right. Whatever he wants to believe though, it doesn’t matter as soon as electricity is coursing through his limbs making him twitch and tug against the invisible bonds of telekinesis. Trying to tip his head back, away from Sylar's fingers, Peter's choking on the sound of his own unwilling scream, doing anything he can to cram it back down into his lungs before he lets his own agony hit the electrostatically charged air. Eyes squeezed shut, there's not an inch of him that isn't fighting back, even though he knows its useless, knows he can't do anything to make it stop until Sylar wills it so.

Not that it's exactly easy to do anything at all, or possible, and he can feel his own skin splitting and burning and healing and doing it all over again in a constant, sickening rhythm as Sylar keeps up the electric discharge. And still, Peter keeps trying, keeps working on spitting out words between the sound of his own agony. But there's not enough room to fit thoughts into his head let alone the things he actually wants to scream at the other man.

But finally, he manages between forced breaths. ] Stop it! Stop-- [ He doesn’t truly think Sylar’s going to listen, but he’s pushing back, trying to breath, trying to think through the constant swelling of charged pain, seeing nothing but sparks behind his eyelids before he finally opens them again and stares seething, but desperately at Sylar. ]

I’ll.. I’ll prove you wrong. I won’t... become you. Won't matter what you show me. [ Gritting out the words as he twitches, realizing the smell of burnt flesh is his own, Peter has finally succumbed to a challenge. A dare; his own. To prove what he knows, deep down, might not be true. ]