(no subject)

[ace_of_knaves]

Who: Peter and the Joker
When: Evening, before Sirens
Where: The Roof of Peter's apartment
Summary: The Joker lures a police tail after him...just so he can have Voids close by when he draws Peter up to the roof...
Warnings: Violence, shenanigans, Joker

The red corvette spun around the corner on two wheels, nearly running down a man who was rushing his two children home before the sirens rang. That was the adorable thing about Sector Four to the Joker; it was such a wholesome place in the light of day. At night it was still part of the Port. It was the place family dreams went to die.

Joker wrenched sharply at the wheel of the corvette and glanced back at the trail of police cars behind him. The officer in the front car was yelling something at him but he did not bother listening. The officer had told him his name but Joker had not listened to that either. Guy had a funny nose, though. It was big, bulbous and red. Joker liked the nose.

"'Scuse me!" this was shouted to a pedestrian as he spun around another corner and ground to a halt, hitting a fire hydrant. The corvette failed to knock the metal aside which was disappointing. But the roof was already down and this allowed the Joker to leap nimbly from the vehicle and run for the nearest apartment building. Convenient things, removable roofs. He made a mental note to visit the late Doctor Slavkov's grave and thank him for the car.

The apartment was Joker's real target. Somewhere inside was Peter, a man important to Sylar. Sylar. The name alone raised the poison in his veins. Unfortunately, Sylar had made it clear that he didn't care about living or dying. So that meant going after his little nemesis...it was a more worthy vengeance, anyway. It was something The Persian would not have thought up.

Joker reached out and grabbed a thin, weasely man who was trying to slink away from the sidewalk. The clown's eyes were electric with malicious intent and the man lifted his hands, energy crackling at his fingertips. The glow lasted for only a moment before fizzling.

The Police Voids are in range. Good.

Joker dragged the man over to the apartment's fire escape. "Nothing personal, old chum, you're just a hostage. You know how it is when the fuzz is on your keister."

Of course, this has nothing to do with the cops either. And everything to do with Peter!

"STOP!" yelled Officer Nose, pulling over next to the abandoned corvette. Joker was already half way up the fire escape with his hostage locked in his grip. This was easy for him. When you've run up and down buildings being chased by the Bat, nothing else compared.

"PUT YOUR HANDS IN THE AIR!"

Or maybe it was "hair". Joker wasn't listening again. He dragged the squirming weasel to the edge of the roof and dangled him.

"CALL OFF YOUR BOYS, FUNNY FACE!" Joker yowled down at Nose. "OR THE CORONER WILL BE PICKING THE ASPHALT OUTTA THIS GUY'S TEETH!"

Come on out, Peter. Come stop the Big, Bad Clown.

Comments

[askedtobe]

Telepathy wasn't something that, while Peter had used a number of times, he had wholly mastered. He'd used it with Sylar more than anyone, though he believed that had far more to do with some sort of communication link they had than actual telepathy but he tried not to think about that one too much. No, for the most part, Peter tried to stay out of other people's heads.

But when he heard his name being called out, like some flickering, taunting thought -- everything to do with him -- it wasn't something he could simply ignore. Not to mention, somewhere outside the apartment building, there was a growing commotion that had seemingly come out of nowhere. Which meant something was up. Literally.

Rationality told him to ignore it, but when a second thought cracked across his mind, Peter couldn't just sit by and bury his head in the sand. This time it was far too much of an obvious calling, a taunt, and Peter's gaze instantly snapped up to the ceiling.

The roof.

Somehow Peter knew the Joker was on the roof. Peter'd never exactly dealt with the Joker before, for a number of reasons, one of which being that it wasn't his battle to fight. He hadn't felt the need to get in the middle of something that so many others where, when he already felt useless enough. But this time the Joker was on his roof, obviously calling him out.

Which should usually make one suspicious, but Peter couldn't just ignore it. Glancing over his shoulder to where Sylar was seated on the couch, Peter muttered a quick 'Be right back' before he was grabbing hold of space and time, and snapping himself up to the roof of his apartment complex in the blink of an eye.

Brows furrowed in immense concern, on the opposite side of the roof stood the Joker, holding a man over the side, making him stare down his potential death. Taking a few steps forward, Peter suddenly felt something pull at his core, making him pause for only a second, but he had no clue there were voids in the area, had no idea what the sensation was, so he continued -- another few slow steps forward. Supposedly he was the man of the hour, and if the Joker wanted him, then maybe Peter could save the man's live. Maybe, just maybe, he could do something for once.

Another step forward and Peter's finally gaining his voice, a furious edge to it he only reserved for times like this. "What do you want?"

[ace_of_knaves]

The question caught the Joker by surprise. He hadn't expected Peter to actually know he was being called upon. But no matter, he was here. That was all the clown really wanted.

"Oh, goody, Peter Pastrami, I presume?"

He gripped the weasel-man's belt in his free hand and cooed.

"Sorry, sonny, guess I don't need you anymore. I've got bigger fish to fry. Guppies, even."

With this, he released his hostage's collar then dropped him. With a cry, the weasel fell, head first towards the street and Joker's feral gaze swung around to lock on to Peter's face.

He smiled, showing teeth.

[askedtobe]

Peter's eyes went wide as he watched the man fall to his apparent death, and he had every intention of going after him -- in fact, he even tried. His feet were supposed to lift off the ground, he was supposed to be able to fly, something that came to Peter almost as easy as breathing.

But nothing happened save for a slight tug he felt draw up his spine, the one that usually lifted him into the air. He'd been effectively rendered useless, and he wasn't entirely sure how, but suddenly everything was in far more dire straights and Peter had no idea what to do.

A problem that became infinitely worse when the Joker turned his gaze towards him and Peter was rooted to the spot, angry and terrified all at once.

Maybe if Peter was lucky, the clown wouldn't have any idea that there were voids in the area, maybe he could fake it. Because whatever was going on wasn't something Peter didn't want to be in the middle of, but here he was, and there was nothing he could do. So he took another step forward, repeating the same question as before, just as angrily.

"What do you want? You got me up here."

[ace_of_knaves]

The Joker smirked when he heard the man crunch against the sidewalk. Peter had moved, had attempted to intervene, the clown could see it in his eyes. But Good Old Officer Nose's Police Voids, now surrounding the building, were shutting down abilities until this known murderer could be put in cuffs. Joker couldn't feel the Voids outside of a faint tingling in his spine. He had no powers to cancel out. Of course, they didn't need to know that.

"I just wanted to see you, dear boy," he crowed. "Oh, and quite possibly kill you, too."

With a lazy movement, he drew a knife from his sleeve. The blade was laced in Venom.

"Nothing personal, kiddo. I have nothing against you. But your little friend Sylar, now, he's really cheesed me off. So I've gotta send him a message. You understand, right?"

[askedtobe]

"Wait--" This, this was not what he was expecting. Maybe it should have been, but he hadn't thought it had to do with him exclusively, or even Sylar. He knew that the Joker wasn't exactly pleased with Sylar, who in the Port was, but he didn't think that the clown would come after him for it. It meant that the Joker and potentially other people thought they were connected, which was one thing that Peter had far too many mixed feelings about, and was something he had no idea how to deal with.

Holding up a hand, as if that could possibly do anything to protect him, Peter took a few stumbled steps back, fear starting to set in and wrapping around his lungs like a vice.

"Killing me isn't gona make him do anything. Sylar doesn't--" But hadn't Sylar said just days before that he cared? And Peter knew that this was some mixed up, wrong twisted relationship that was forming so of course it would effect Sylar. Of course it made sense. Everything that happened to Peter effected Sylar, that's how it had always been. How it would always be.

Swallowing hard, all Peter could think of to do was try to talk his way out of this. He had no abilities, no weapons, no nothing to protect himself, save for the steps back he was taking and a pitiful ability to fight. "He won't care if you go after me, he'll probably thank you for it if you do."

[ace_of_knaves]

Joker somehow doubted that Sylar would be grateful for Peter's death. No proud supervillain let anybody touch their hero. At the very least he could prove that Sylar could not hide from his rage; that he could cleave down the people close to him until he had nobody left. The thought made the clown giddy, and his eyes gleamed in the setting sun like blood-tinged emeralds.

"I'll take my chances if you don't mind. Call it an experiment!"

He tilted the blade of the knife, reflecting the sunlight into Peter's eyes, hoping to momentarily blind him.

[askedtobe]

Peter thought that maybe he had the chance to get away if he timed it right -- get back down the door that would lead down back to his apartment where he'd at least be safer, though not necessarily completely safe. But it might be something, and right now, it was all he had.

"Experiment on somebody else!"

Except the sinking sunlight is caught off the length of the blade and Peter has to squeeze his eyes shut, free hand coming up to cover his eyes in an unconscious response as he takes a few more stumbled steps backward.

[ace_of_knaves]

The Joker took this moment to strike, flinging the poisoned blade towards Peter's stomach. Time was running short, he knew. He could already hear the clattering of Nose's boys as they climbed the fire escape.

[askedtobe]

Peter didn't even have time to peel his fingers from his eyes before the knife hit its mark, sinking in and illiciting a huffed exhale from Peter. Stumbling back onto his ass, Peter's first instinct was to pull the blade out, and he even got as far as wrapping his fingers around the hilt of the blade. But he knew with all the voids around, he'd be bleeding everywhere in no time with absolutely no opportunity to heal.

Which was right around when the shaking started -- hard tremors that pulled up his spine and splayed out to his shoulders and-- wait, made him laugh? For Peter, smiling was enough of a rarity, but starting to laugh after he'd been stabbed was an impossibility.

Except he was and somehow all of this felt incrediby wrong, and even more unfair than that.

[ace_of_knaves]

Joker knelt at Peter's side and wrapped his fingers around the hilt of the knife, smiling a smile that might have passed for sympathetic on any other face.

"You're dying, yanno," he said calmly, and pulled the knife downward, stopping just short of spilling the young man's innards across the roof. "But old Joker is in a giving mood. I'll end it for you quickly."

He leaned in close to the side of Peter's face and purred into his ear. "I'm sure you'll find this all hilarious when you look back on it."

The clattering of footsteps on the fire escape grew louder, and he wrenched the knife out with a violent, twisting motion. "Au revoir, Pete! If ya ever see your buddy Sylar again, tell him to keep his grubby paws off my things!" He buried his Cuban heel into Peter's ribs and shoved him off the edge of the roof just as Nose's boys finally started to close in.

Joker flashed them a wide grin, tipped his fedora at them, and leaped from the roof to the awning of a nearby, shorter building. The police rushed to the ledge and looked down into the street but Joker was as elusive as the wind when he wanted to be. The clown had already vanished into the blood red light of the setting sun. He was gone.

fff sorry for all the edits

[askedtobe]

Tremors were slowly turning into full on paralysis and whatever grin it was that had came over his face made Peter feel just as hideous as the fact that he couldn't breathe. He had no idea what was going on and the seeming chaos of the moment was fading as his own terror grew. There was a rushing of blood in his ears that almost drowned out the sound of his stupid laughter and all Peter wanted to do was to make it all stop.

Especially when the Joker leaned down and very nearly gutted him, Peter couldn't even react to the hideous amount of pain, to the spilling of his own blood -- it was too hard to breathe between the laughing, not that the searing pain helped as blood pooled in his lap, spread out down across his legs. Squeezing his eyes shut, all he could do was hope that the Joker let him die in peace, or at least however peaceful you could call laughing your ass off until you choked to death was.

But no, the heel in his side proved that peaceful wasn't going to be an option and then suddenly, he was dropping, his eyes opening wide, knowing exactly how this was going to end. He'd been shoved off roofs before and there was no moving, no escaping the inevitable collision as the wind whipped around him.

And then as his head split across the pavement, everything simply stopped. It was all over, just like that.

Who knew if it was the impact or the poison that killed Peter this time -- or perhaps it was a combination of the two, though it hardly mattered. Either way, Peter laid there for a short while, in a growing pool of his own blood, as the Police Voids picked up and moved on, still on the hunt for the escaping Joker.

But as soon as the voids were out of range, as Peter's body had done numerous times before, he brought himself back: his skull rebuilt, his skin began to knit itself back together, the rictus grin unwinding its way across his face, his body undoing the full on paralysis. After another few seconds, Peter finally sat upright with a sudden gasp of breath, shifting, cracking and realigning his broken back in the process. Trying to reorient himself, Peter knew well enough that the fact that he'd come back to life meant the voids were gone.

Except as he slowly started to push himself back onto his feet with blood tricking down his neck, the tremors started again, and suddenly Peter was infinitely more terrified than he wanted to be.

It was going to happen all over again and there was nothing he could do. Cellular regeneration hadn't removed the poison from circulating through his veins, and as the shaking turned violent, Peter practically threw himself into a shadow, working his way through the darkness and back into a corner of his apartment. Breathing hard and dripping blood, it was when one laugh pulled out of him that Peter was practically running to the bathroom in an attempt to avoid Sylar, splattering blood as he went.

<3

[gabriel_gray]

There had been a commotion outside. Footsteps, sirens, voids, and Sylar couldn't feel his powers but he could feel the heaviness of the voids in the street, and he rose slowly, calmly from his place on the couch and found his way back out into Peter's room. He closed the door, carefully, and moved over to the window to look down into the street.

Peter had gone without any kind of explanation, and now Sylar suspected he had found something up on the roof, heard something or perhaps been called, because the police were pointing up, and the heaviness still lingered. The voids. Did Peter know they were there? Had he stumbled off to blind heroism under the influence of those voids, and if so, who had taken him there?

Sylar was careful not to twitch the blinds, not wanting to draw attention to himself, listening as best he could, but his ears seemed dull without his power to back them. He could hear a few dull shouts, but nothing else. Nothing useful.

He considered going to the roof, finding out for himself, but with the police attention there he didn't plan to actually go ahead with it. But he did worry about Peter, and worry was all he could do.

And then there was a scream, and a thump, a crack like a skull opening up, and someone had hit the pavement outside.

Sylar stared down into the street, but it was not Peter who lay there, and even if it had been, he knew, as soon as the voids were gone he would be fine. But the police still were pointing up, which meant something was still going on on the roof, and he waited quietly to see what would happen.

Another body struck the ground.

This time it was Peter, which meant that whoever was on the roof had thrown him off. There would be a delay--perhaps they were coming for him, and wasn't that clever? Put Peter out in a way that he couldn't heal, then come after a powerless Sylar. Clever, but Gabriel was clever too. He knew what was happening, and that was more than enough. The chair from beside the bed broke into useful pieces, and Sylar made a club from one of the legs and moved to stand beside the bedroom door. And then he waited, waited to hear feet in the apartment.

There was a clatter and a bang - a laugh - and his blood ran cold. He knew now what this was.

Sylar moved through the door now, because that was Peter. Peter laughing. Peter, who had run through the apartment into the bathroom, and slammed the door shut behind him, and Gabriel followed with his makeshift club, and rapped warily on the door.

"Peter?"

[askedtobe]

Slamming the door behind himself and instantly falling back against it, Peter didn't even bother to lock it as he slid to the ground, leaving a trail of blood wherever he went. Hearing the knock on the door, followed by Sylar's voice, made Peter curl inward: it was the last thing he wanted right now, attention from Sylar. Attention from anyone, not when he was dying all over again. Not when he was shaking like a leaf, the paralysis making a steady crawl up through his limbs.

Clapping his hands against his ears while he still could, Peter couldn't stand it, didn't want to hear himself laughing anymore, this was torture on a whole different level. It was entirely different than dying with bleach coursing through his veins, this was embarrassing on a whole different front because he couldn't control a single thing he was doing. He hardly laughed when he was in a good mood, but to the point where he couldn't catch his breath? It was hideously absurd and he felt completely destroyed.

Tipping sideways slightly as it became harder to breathe between each choking laugh, Peter couldn't think of any ability he could use to make this all stop, and as the seconds ticked by, wishing for death to just hurry on up was the only thing he could do.

[gabriel_gray]

There was blood spattered down the hallway, and blood on the bathroom door handle, and the cats had come out to sniff at the blood, but had apparently decided there was something wrong with it and flinched away, and all the while Peter's laughter came obscenely from the other side of the door.

He had slumped down now - Sylar could see from the shadow, from the blood around the bottom of the door - and he dropped down too, an inch of wood seperating him and Peter. He could hear his choking breath, the laughter taking over, and it was ironic, wasn't it? Laughing yourself to death. This was the clown; no doubt at all, and a clown who would pay, he thought, for doing this to Peter.

He tapped gently on the door, just beside where Peter's ear would be.

"If you don't let me in, I'll break the door down."

He wasn't sure how he'd do that quite yet, but they made it look easy in the movies. He'd thrown people through doors, but that was different from throwing himself through one, particularly one with Peter on the other side of it.

[askedtobe]

Though he didn't exactly want attention at the moment, he couldn't really speak either, and moving was becoming ever more difficult. Not to mention, he couldn't even argue about wanting space, couldn't tell Sylar to just wait, so what other options did he have than to move?

He didn't know exactly how long he had before he'd truly die, considering being shoved off the roof had sort of gotten in the way before. But Peter had just enough mobility left to reach up and grab the door handle, opening it an inch or two, before using his hands to scoot just enough out of the way to cram himself up near the shower.

And then he went right back to trying to bury his face against his knees, because he couldn't breathe, and the spreading, rictus grin was starting up again, putting a face to the obscene alughter, and it would only be another minute or so before the oxygen supply cut off to his brain and simply rendered him dead all over again. Some part of him wanted to scream that this wasn't fair, that he was supposed to be able to heal, that this sort of thing wasn't supposed to happen.

Not to him.

Even the laughing gave way to pure choking after a few more seconds, paralysis curling up and around his lungs, making everything impossible, even, thankfully, the sick laughter that he couldn't stand to hear anymore.

[gabriel_gray]

The door flickered open, just enough that Sylar could move inside, and he did immediately, taking stock of the room and of Peter, hiding his face, the laughter cracking breathlessly out of him until he was sure he wouldn't be able to breathe in again. Sylar just stared, wondering what to do, because he had never seen anything like this in his life.

Peter had just been thrown to his death, and now he was dying again, laughing until he suffocated, and he reached forward, pushing Peter's head back, and recoiled in muted fear at the expression that greeted him. He did not frighten easily, that was true, but this was horrific, like nothing he'd ever seen before, and a clear brand painted across Peter's face announcing who had done it.

But he had stopped laughing, and breathing, and Sylar moved down to his knees again and touched Peter's face, stared down into his eyes, and knew there was no way to help him.

The voids had gone. He would come back to life, he knew, but would this start again if he did? He didn't know enough about this invulnerability to know what the problem was, or even begin to wonder how to fix it.

[askedtobe]

Having his head pulled upward made Peter want to smack away Sylar's hand, but he couldn't do a single thing but look at him pleadingly, practically begging the other man with his gaze to just let him die without having an active audience. He couldn't take being stared at, watched, inspected, couldn't even tell if Sylar was trying to do anything to help.

Not that he thought there was a single way to save him, even if Sylar wanted to.

But either way, it was less than a minute before the combination of the paralysis wrapping around his diaphragm, his lungs, and the fact that he couldn't get a breath even between the silent laughs, simply killed him all over again.

Life only pulled from Peter's eyes for a few seconds, death barely settling in before the cycle started all over again. First it was the paralysis that was slowly unwinding its way out of him, letting Peter's body go slack in Sylar's hands, then it was the rictus grin fading away, until after another second he sat bolt upright, pulling in a loud, gasped breath, eyes wide with fear.

Taking in as many breaths as he could, gasping for air, knowing exactly what was going to start happening again, when the twitching slowly began to start at his shoulders, Peter wasn't sure he'd ever looked at Sylar so desperately before.

"Sylar, please. I don't need you to watch."

[gabriel_gray]

He died. There was nothing that Gabriel could do but watch; watch as Peter died, and whatever it was slowly receded, and then he opened his eyes and began to breathe heavily again. He was used to death, but this wasn't just death, was it? There was something overriding the invulnerability, something lethal that was killing Peter again, and they both knew it.

Sylar shifted, reaching for Peter's arm and guiding him up to his feet.

"You're not dying alone in a bathroom." It was unquestionably firm, because Sylar was dragging him out of the bathroom toward the bedroom, and he stopped there to pull Peter out of the ruined, bloodied shirt. There was no decency in it, lying in your own filth, dying, dying again, staring at white floor tiles and the mildew on the shower curtain again and again? And laughing at it? That kind of thing would make anyone crazy, and Peter was borderline as it was.

The next part was hard for him. It put Peter over his own freedom. "Is there anyone I can call?"

[askedtobe]

Peter had no idea why he was being dragged out of the bathroom, and he very nearly tried to latch onto the door as they went, dragging bloodied fingertips across the wall and wanting to cry. He just wanted Sylar to leave -- hell, he would've wanted anyone to leave, but this was a whole new kind of humiliation.

Just like before, the tremors were what started first, leaving Peter standing, starting to shake viciousy harder as blood died across his skin where he'd been stabbed before.

"No, I don't want anyone--" Which was exactly when the first laugh bubbled out of him, and then another, and Peter was mere inches away from shoving at Sylar, not knowing what else he was supposed to do. He was desperate to make it stop, for it to just kill him until this could be finished, and he was terrified. Terrified that it wouldn't stop, that he'd be stuck in some hideous groundhog day loop until someone got up the nerve to take his head off.

It wasn't funny, in fact he thought he was going to be sick from terror, but he was cracking up and all he had was Sylar. Just like always, the only one there was Sylar but Peter was dying again and he couldn't keep himself held together.

[gabriel_gray]

"If that were true, you wouldn't have let me into the bathroom, and you wouldn't be here. You knew I was here." He was speaking softly, soothingly, trying to work out what he should do, how to stop this. He could, he supposed, drive a nail into Peter's head, but that would just kill him, and would it stop this laughter from doing it instead? Was it simply a case of waiting it out and hoping that it would stop?

Peter was the only one who could tell him either way, and right now Peter was falling into chuckles all over again, and he looked pale and frightened, as though he was less sure of what to do than Sylar himself. The best he could do was get him over to the edge of the bed, and wrap his arms around Peter's back as though that might somehow stop the trembling, and with his chin against Peter's shoulder wish bloody hatred on the Joker.

"Say the word, and I'll kill him for you, Peter." And what he meant was that he would kill him for himself, but Peter was the one suffering. "I'll make him wish he'd never been born."

[askedtobe]

Though he didn't want to admit it, there was something soothing about being taken into Sylar's arms while he shook, and he let himself go slightly slack with devastation, trying to clamp down on laughter that sounded anything but humorous to Peter.

"You can't kill anyone right now," Speaking through gritted teeth around laughs that were forcing their way out of his lungs, Peter tries to stop thinking about how humiliating this is and instead stuffs his face against Sylar's shoulder, as if that somehow made the torturous laughter go away. If anything it simply muffles it, made it quieter so hat Peter could tell himself it wasn't truly there anymore, even though it was all he could hear, ringing disgustingly in his mind.

Knees going stiff with paralysis, Peter grabs hold of Sylar's shirt almost painfully tight, already finding it hard to catch his breath in between the laughs he's stuffing against Sylar's shirt, and Peter has to wonder if this was going to make him lose his mind. If this was going to stop, or if this was what was truly going to kill him like nothing else had.

[gabriel_gray]

"I wouldn't use my powers even if I had them," he answered, and it was a breath tilted into Peter's ear, a breath that gusted at the strands of hair that fell across the other man's face. "I'd kill him with my bare hands, make him suffer for doing this to you."

Despite the softness of his voice, there was a bitter vehemence in it, and again that possessiveness. Peter was his, and this suggestion that another man could simply come and not only kill him, but make him suffer again and again, tormenting him with pain and laughter, was enough to make him angrier than he had ever been. Peter pulled himself closer, and his breath was shortening, struggling as his lungs began to freeze up again, and Sylar tangled his hand in Peter's hair and made a soft 'Shhh' noise in his ear.

"I'm not going anywhere, Peter."

[askedtobe]

Peter had no idea how he was even supposed to react at this point -- this was Sylar, who he'd only invited into his home a number of days ago, who had even killed him once, and now Peter was clinging to him for dear life, because -- as it seemed to be becoming truer by the day -- Sylar was all he had.

And he was starting not to care about how desperately he needed him, and might have said as much if he could have.

But he'd lost the ability to speak all over again, his lungs closing off, his throat stuffed full of hysterical laughter, leaving no room for air to pass through. It made his head spin, his stomach drop out from underneath him as the paralysis took hold, and Peter had to wonder how he hadn't thrown up yet. Maybe it was the feeling of the edges of the world going dark and pulling inward that kept his stomach contents where they were, but in a way, he was thankful for the paralysis, otherwise the inability to breathe would have left him thrashing, clutching for life.

As it was though, it was the damn rictus grin that set him off the most, made him feel as if he'd lost every ounce of the control he once had over himself. But at least it meant he'd be dying in mere moments, his grip on Sylar's turning near vicious with its intensity, only further encouraged by the complete paralysis setting in.

And just like last time, it was all over -- another few seconds and Peter was going slack in Sylars arms as his body slowly began to, once again, recharge.

[gabriel_gray]

Sylar frowned, and the laughing came on, faster, more breathless, and he could feel the other man beginning to freeze up under him, the laughter overwhelming, the tight grip on his arms becoming vicious, knotted fingers closing tight enough to pinch and hurt, but it was the very last thing before it ended, again, and Peter fell still, slumped in his arms, and his hands fell away.

Had it taken longer for him to recover this time? He wasn't sure. He wasn't used to this, any of it--Peter was the nurse, and Sylar killed. He killed without remorse. He killed ruthlessly, and he had killed cruelly in the past, but at least he killed fast. No, that wasn't true. He had taken his time with Batman, after all, stretched it out, enjoyed every moment.

But this was cruel. Perhaps the Joker hadn't known that this would happen, that Peter would die and keep on dying, but, Sylar told himself, the clown wouldn't have cared even if that were true. But the fact was that Peter was suffering, and for some reason it was not just the insult that hurt.

Before Peter came back, Sylar edged back, brushing the spittle away from his mouth as it twisted back into something human again. He wiped his hand on the blanket, then raised it to brush Peter's hair out of his face again, just as life flickered back into the dead eyes. There was blood everywhere. Blood drying on his own hands as well as Peter's, blood matting his hair and mottled across his stomach from a wound that was no longer there. He'd been stabbed, he thought. Then this was some kind of poison?

[askedtobe]

As per usual, it didn't take too long for the paralysis to begin dragging its way out of him, pulling down from the top of his head to his lungs, diaphragm, stomach, until his body unconsciously began to breath again and suddenly Peter was dragged hard back into true consciousness.

Scrambling his feet across the ground, Peter's hands instantly slammed up against Sylar's chest as he pulled in a desperately hard breath, almost as if he hadn't breathed for years, his eyes wide with unexpected terror. It was like whiplash, being dragged from death back to life, and there was something inherently exhausting about it; having to do it for the third time in less than as many hours was making Peters head spin, and he had no chance whatsoever to catch his breath. No pun intended.

Staring hard at Sylar but staying silent, Peter keeps waiting for it, the expected to start all over again, and it's evident across his features that he's more than a little bit scared. But he's still heaving breaths like it's the last thing he can do, trying to grab hold of his life while it's still in his clutches

But if he was going to die again this time, it was taking longer to start, and when Peter realized that fact, he relaxed only slightly, his gaze slowly dropping. He wasn't exactly hopeful that it was over, and maybe he shouldn't be because a tremor suddenly worked it's way up his back, making his shoulders quake. It had taken longer this time, and it was definitely less powerful, but Peter suddenly wasn't any less terrified.

"Sylar." It was almost a whimper, not that he thought that the other man could help in any way apart from being comforting, but he had to say it because he had to say something. And Sylar was all he had, and somehow the other man stifled the terrifying ache in the pit of his stomach just enough that he wanted to grab hold and refuse to let go. But the silence after the word was almost deafening, and while his shoulders twitched, it was all Peter could do not to fall apart and say that he just didn't want to have to die all over again. That he wasn't sure he could take it.