Title: Moth and Rust

Category: Angst/Science fiction

Characters: Peter, Sylar

Summary: For years, Peter Petrelli tried to overthrow the new president - until the man one evening so graciously took time out of his schedule to explain where he failed. Post "An Invisible Thread", AU.

It's the evening of December 17th 2013, and fireworks whistle towards the night sky of Washington D.C. Further away at the National Mall, various aircrafts rumble as they take off in a show arranged by the air force. Henry Howard, recently re-elected president of the United States, stands by one of the 147 windows in the White House. He sees all of this, and everything is rightfully his – save for the name and the face. But at least "President Howard" is a better title than "watchmaker Gray".

Henry Howard was the first president Sylar had killed and assumed the identity of, and now his mind can't help associating freely; although this evening is earmarked for the 110th anniversary of the Wright Brothers and their achievements within aviation, his thoughts wander to another pair of flying brothers.

Peter Petrelli, whom he last saw with a vacuous face expression and a gaze open for interpretation. Nathan Petrelli, who ended up nailed to a wall like a placard and with his throat slit. Those two had been a few of a few who figured out what was really going on, while the rest of the country watched with furrowed brows as the president announced some vital changes in his politics towards "national threats". Naturally, they were the first to storm into the Oval Office with guns and flash grenades drawn.

The ensuing scrimmage had ended, when Sylar threw Peter headfirst through the window onto the South Lawn. The paintings were smashed, the carpet stained, the Resolute desk capsized and burning. From his shrunk up position against the wall, Nathan Petrelli looked as dejected as if it had been democracy that had caught fire. While his brother yet lay incapacitated in the grass, Sylar made short work of him.

Wounded, probably imbued with hatred (though, as long as it didn't bother Sylar physically-), Peter Petrelli had taken off in a shaky flight carrying his brother's body. As soon as he was out of sight, the renewed president had turned to the smoldering office and begun planning on what great redecoration plans he would implement.

During the next two years, Sylar's rule under the guise of the President didn't differ much from any previous leader's. He kept in character with the help of absorbed memories, and by fulfilling some more of Howard's election promises he stayed fairly popular with the people. But world domination didn't always go like a Swiss clock; many times it was tempting to throw the mask just to spice things up. Ultimately he chose to remain undercover. It never paid off to place a too big a flywheel in a clockwork, and there was no reason to start doing it now.

Contradictory enough, the same two years also had the highest rates ever recorded of attempted murders on the president. Car bombs, sniper shootings, poison in food and water… The list went on. The majority of the West Wing staff was moved to a safer location, and state visits were redirected to addresses outside the White House. But when the time came for the President to join his staff at their temporary high quarters, he refused. "To back down now would signal that I am giving in to the forces of evil at work here" he told the Union in a speech broadcasted from the Oval Office.

Initially the attacks were highly precise and personal, and very few of the people surrounding Henry Howard were injured in them. But within eight months, the assaults reached a near desperate level: In January 2008, the President narrowly escaped being peppered with bullets as he left the Capitol after his State of the Union Address. On the Fourth of July same year, he was on his way to give a speech at the Mall when a car parked on the road side exploded upon his escort's passing. As by a miracle, Howard survived his limo being thrown onto the thronged sidewalk of Constitution Avenue, while the driver and tens of other people perished. The bomb technicians would later conclude that the explosive charge had been "insanely powerful".

With so many severe attacks on the President himself, it was only natural that the Department of Homeland Security called for increased authority when it came to the handling of "terrorists". Soon, every move any evolved human made was closely watched and registered, and the additional Buildings 27-32 for especially dangerous individuals were opened. Only a selected few, like Emile Danko and his team, were aware of this.

Sylar guessed, or rather knew that behind every murder attempt was none but Peter Petrelli. In reports from interrogations with freshly arrived captives he read that indeed, the man was campaigning against him and spreading the word of the President's true identity among the evolved - but it seemed the majority of the pack was too afraid of being captured to help a boy scout knocking on their door.

"'Heroes'" he muttered and snapped the case file shut, once again pleased to never have identified with them. At least something good had come out of this read; the conclusion that no amount of special prisons in the world would be necessary, if Peter Petrelli could be weeded out.

The chance came quite unexpected almost three years after his unofficial inauguration. At the dusk of a warm but unusually showery day in August, the President paused a moment in his work to turn and face the vista behind him, visible through the large windows of his office. The evening wind had scanted, ruffling affectionately in the leaf trees planted along the South Lawn. After a daylong, steady downpour one could at last spot thin cracks in the plaster of clouds above D.C. Ten minutes past eight the first bold rays of the setting sun shone through it, and painted his office in an exuberant shade of peach.

The first lightning that hit the windows made them rattle. He blinked, surprised. There had been no word about thunderstorms in the weather forecast – in fact that had not even looked like a real thunderbolt to him.

In the next moment he saw the lanky man, darting across the same grass he had laid unconscious in a scant couple of years ago, this time firing a shockwave of electricity. It hit the building again, causing the entire room to vibrate dully. The lamps flickered and went out, the computer died.

"Sod it!" The President swore, putting the desk between himself and the window glass. He was prepared to let his face get all grazed, but not one millimeter more. The third strike split the window frame, and it rent like the veil of the Temple. Panes were thrown out of the window bars, yet in the midst of it all, Sylar yet had time to think that the sound of them crashing to the floor was annoying.

Already charging a new bolt, the intruder leapt at him through the new entrance way, and Sylar had to jerk his entire arm upwards to make the man stop midair. The second he did, though, he could be moved around as easily as a cursor on a computer screen. With a practiced hand, Sylar put him up against the wall.

"And how did you plan to defeat me with that ability?"

The electric arcs in Peter Petrelli's hands went out as the stranglehold tightened. Some both figurative and literal arm-twisting later, Sylar managed to wrest the answer out of him:

"I was gonna shock you into a cardiac arrest and then stab you in the killing spot".

"In your shoes I'd rather have swapped that electro-power for a chocolate ice cream". Albeit now closing in, Sylar kept a few feet's distance as not to meet with any ability-replicating tricks. "Come to avenge Nathan, have you?"

"Like I'd give you the satisfaction" the man grumbled, turning his head sideways to possibly ease the invisible pressure on his windpipe. "I came here tonight to put you out of your misery, because this country is getting dragged along into it. Without your anti-terrorism program, people wouldn't be hunted, suffering, dying-"

"Please. Save the heroic speech until you know the full image. You don't want me dead, because the consequences will be devastating-"

Peter pulled in a sudden, hyperventilating breath through his nose. Realizing the man was going to spit at him, Sylar quickly gestured to make the saliva hitch in his throat. The hacking cough and choked wheezes that followed brought him more delight than if he'd pressed a white-hot iron into the do-gooder's shoulder.

"First the body guards would find me" he resumed, "shot in the back of the head, with a cardiac arrest. The windows are blown to smithereens, and over everything hovers this heavy fire-and-brimstone stink". He waved a hand towards the battered room, indicating the rancid smell left from the lightning strikes.

"Homeland Security with Emile Danko at the head will be called in. He'll soon realize that you're the culprit, and instantly take action. By taking up the raids and persecutions against the evolved yet another step, he tries to make you leave your hide – either voluntarily, or turned over by them. But time goes, and the hunt gives no prey. Danko's patience wears thin-"

Without warning, Sylar released the telekinetic grip on Peter's throat. The man dropped forward onto his sallow face, gulping down air.

"…until he one day snaps like a dry twig, and takes it out on the evolved. He's done it before, this time would be no different. All these killing sprees and violent roundups of 'dangerous individuals' are just displays of his bad temper".

Steepling his fingers together, Sylar pointed them at his guest.

"Do you understand what I'm saying? Every time you so bravely try to 'save' your own kind from me, you're actually making it worse for them. I'm not the problem with this country - you are. You have become the threat you always claimed that specials never posed".

He half expected a shocked face, a shudder of guilt, movements diminished by self-contempt. Instead, he received an incredulous glance that lasted as long as it took for Peter to regain his aplomb.

"If I'm really such a nuisance, how come you haven't killed me yet?"

"After this exposition? That would be like having spoken for deaf ears, wouldn't it? No, you'll have to live on in order to mull this over". Sylar smiled in weak amusement, before gesturing at the door. It opened with a soft click, showing the way out.

"Now begone. I don't want any moth nor rust corrupting this country under my rule".¨

Whether he finally and reluctantly realized Sylar was far superior, or took the easy way out by labeling him a lost case, Peter Petrelli at last seemed to give up on defeating him. Silently, the man turned and left the same way he came in, through the crashed window. His steps were not the ones of a humiliated man, nor were they victorious. Not a hint of what his thoughts were. Barely a minute later he disappeared behind the horizon like shot out of a railgun, cleaving the dappled evening sky in his wake.

Ironically, the Italian Eagle scout retreated to the trouble spots of the world to do what he was good for: relieving pain and stemming the blood flow. Six months later he was identified among the bodies of other soldiers in an arid battle field in the Middle East, a sniper bullet buried in his brain. The morgue was the last place where Sylar saw Peter Petrelli's expressionless eyes, with the entrance wound like an ugly caste mark right between them, before the body bag was zipped up and sent home to New York.

This meant another schmaltzy epitaph for mama Petrelli.

A/N: As trivia I might mention that several Muse-songs inspired me in the writing, particularly Take a Bow, Assassin, Soldier's Poem, Hoodoo and Hyper Music.

Also, great thanks to Meowen for beat-reading this for me. Your two cents were worth alot!

/Morgane