Sylar

In all honesty, Sylar had no idea why he'd been so adamant on meeting with Bennet in the first place.

He had no reason to love the man, after all, no reason to care, when he fell in the same category as Nakamura, both of them people to be hated rather than to try and make amends with. Perhaps Bennet was worse, in a way, even. The man had tortured him, deliberately and to death, despite the fact that it was revenge, which he understood, and he'd survived, his brain having forced his heart to start beating again. He'd also threatened Mohinder, from what his geneticist had told him, hurt the Indian when he had very clear rules about what happened to people who touched the things that were his.

Bennet was worse than Nakamura because the damn Japanese kid hadn't done what he'd done with malicious intent where the man in the hornrimmed glasses had, and yet here he was, getting off a plane from Manhattan to meet the sonovabitch at a coffee shop in Costa Verde. He'd even offered to let him walk away with his life, just this once, and for what? Because he was important to Claire? Because he wanted to rub it in that it had been him that had saved Baileigh, when he'd sat around and been powerless? Because he wanted certain assurances, threatened out of Bennet or given freely, that he'd leave Suresh alone?

He didn't know. And as he had when he'd gone to visit Molly in her dreams, he was immediately regretting his decisions, all too willing to blame it on outside factors.

At least it was a coffee shop they were meeting at. It wasn't his usual, nor was it the one that Claire worked at that he'd taken up frequenting to bother his niece, but he could still make it work in his favor. Coffee shops always did, regardless of whether or not they were on his home turf.

Sighing, unhappy, he thumbed idly at his carry-on--he hadn't bothered with an overnight bag as he was catching the first flight back, once this was over--he moved to the row of pay phones outside, and looked up the number for a cab company. Then, once he'd called for a pick up, he moved to the curb outside, shifting from one foot to the other, restlessly, as he waited for the car to come.

And sooner rather than later, he in the cab and then out, heading into the coffee shop Bennet had specified, every inch of him on edge, ready for a fight, just in case Bennet couldn't keep his word.

Sylar doesn't sleep that night.

He tries--and it should be easy, laying in Mohinder's arms, sore and sated--but he can't. He just lays there in the dark, watching the rise and fall of his chest, sihlouetted by the light coming in off the windows. He lays there in the dark, listening to the sound of his heartbeat, his usual lullabye, drowning out the sounds of the city beyond the walls of the loft. He lays there in the dark, and thinks of death.

Mohinder killed him tonight, and he can't begrudge him it, can't bring himself to seek penance. Not when his geneticist was right in doing so. Not when he knows he wouldn't have stopped otherwise, ticking and fury having driven him in the moments before death. He thinks the Indian did the right thing--even told him as much when he'd pulled himself up off the concrete, tendon and muscle and bone working to correct themselves--but he can't take his mind off it. He hasn't been religious in more than a decade, but he can't help but wonder why there was nothing.

He'd at least been expecting some kind of monster from Hell--he's still sure he's going there, even if he doubts the existence of God--reaching up to try and pull him down. He'd escape, of course, run screaming from the choking scent of brimstone and the promise of eternal damnation, but there was nothing. Only black. Only a disappointing hole in his otherwise unblemished memory, which the hunger had bled out through like paint down a drain.

It's unsettling. And it rattles his faith, the one he though he'd been free of ages ago, more soundly than anything he could have dreamed of doing himself.


Muse: Gabriel Gray (Sylar)
Fandom: Heroes
Word Count: 287
Notes: What the mun does when she can't sleep. :D

He hated them. All of them.

Weeks ago, he hadn't even put any thought to it, really, sure of his own importance. He was so close to God that he could taste it, so certain that any attention he wanted, he could command. He was a master of his craft, the crown king of fear and pain. And, behind closed doors, in the private world he was forging for himself, the ruler on high of far subtler, more terrifying things.

Then they'd swept in.

They'd always existed, he knew - he knew - but as of late, it had been so easy to ignore them. They simply didn't have what he did or, if they did, he knew exactly how to take it from them. It was so easy. So very easy to swoop in from the shadows and demand that all they had be given to him, without so much as a word. They were insects. And apparently, he'd forgotten that vermin, in large numbers, could be dangerous.

His mistake and now he was left grasping at straws, spotlight stolen, public and private worlds both crumbling down around him. He'd allowed himself to be beaten and bloodied, and the plague of them had swept in, gnawing at delicate parts. Taking from him everything he had stolen from them, because he'd shown weakness. Because he'd stopped being the monster in the dark and started being some kind of pathetic lap dog. His mistake and he didn't intend to repeat it.

He'd go back to his roots. Back to death and ticking and black coats and slinking in shadows. Back to watching and waiting and hate and power.

If it meant he could recapture what truly mattered? It would be worth it.


Muse: Gabriel Gray (Sylar)
Fandom: Heroes
Word Count: 294

Sylar doesn't sleep much after they kill the kid in Hollywood. It's a side effect of his power. His body absorbs ambient light like a plant, metabolizes it into a near limitless supply of energy, and now that Sylar has his power, his body does the same. It's a little annoying, especially in the first week, when he lays down next to Suresh at the end of the day and just knows he won't be sleeping any time soon, but he learns to live with.

He learns to plan in the wee hours of the night, the geneticist's limbs tangled around his own. He learns to love watching him sleep. The latter, he's doing now.

Suresh makes a small noise, still unconscious, curls a little tighter around him, and he can't help but wonder what he's thinking. What he's dreaming. He wishes for not the first time, that it was safe to go back to New York, so he could kill the cop for his power. That way, he'd never have to wonder again. But despite the fact that the Indian is as power mad as he is now, he hesitates to suggest it, every time. He's not sure how Suresh feels about his family anymore, as they never discuss it, and he doesn't want to risk Mohinder turning all that glorious power on him - not when they've come as far as they have. So, he keeps his mouth shut. There's plenty of other game to hunt, and besides, he thinks that hearing Suresh ask him to go back to New York for Matt's ability would better than his asking. He can wait.

And so, instead of bemoaning his lack of telepathy further, he reaches out to trace the scar on Mohinder's shoulder, lightly. Shadows flood dark skin, light stripped away as he uses the kid's power on a whim, and for a moment, Suresh's shoulder is cloaked in darkness, snapping and snarling at the light to keep it away. He drops his hand away, and the ambient light of the room leaps back in so suddenly the other man's skin seems to glow for a minute.

He can't help but wonder, suddenly, if that isn't a metaphor for something bigger.

Suresh is just as insane as he is, now. He's not sure what caused it, entirely, but he's fairly sure it wasn't him. Sad but true, as Suresh had been perfectly fine if a little angry when the Company had recaptured him, after he'd gotten his abilities back. But then a week later, when the Indian had come to spring him from his cell as per their agreement - his freedom for Molly's life when he escaped, because oh, would he escape with or without Mohinder - something had changed. He looked like a man on the edge. Like Sylar himself had when Chandra had told him that maybe he just wasn't special, after all. He was haunted. Cagey. And when he'd shot that first Company agent, when they'd made their escape, the shadows had poured into his eyes just as suddenly as it shaded his skin at Sylar's command just a moment ago.

It's the perfect parallel, really. He knows what Mohinder's going through, because he went through it himself. Chandra's betrayal. That heart-stilling violence that powdered the remains of small, sweet Gabriel. It's so striking, so much like him, that he can't help but wonder if he shouldn't let Suresh find a name of his own. Christen himself with something fit for the strength of clarity his loss of sanity has brought.

But more importantly, sitting here in the near-dark of their cheap motel room, he can't help but wonder what will finish his metaphor. What's that one thing that will make the light come back and put them at odds again? For once, he doesn't know, and for the first time in a long time, he's afraid. Afraid of losing his equal. His parallel.


Muse: Gabriel Gray (Sylar)
Fandom: Heroes
Verse: Corruption
Word Count: 661

He'd walked past this church a hundred times. He even went to school here, in his younger years, when his mother had gotten religion, like it was something she could hang in the window and expect to catch light. Then, it had been impressive, all narrow windows sans stained glass and sharp angles; the sort of thing that really put the fear of God into you. Nowadays, however, it did little for him. Just another house for a false God. Just another collection of stone and mortar in the shape of a building. And he would have been more than content to walk straight past it, today, if it weren't for one thing.

( The ticking. )


Muse: Gabriel Gray (Sylar)
Fandom: Heroes
Word Count: 714

Gabriel had realized he was broken when he'd taken that first look at Brian Davis' head. It had been a slow realization, one that came after the pain and the hysteria had subsided, but it came nevertheless. And the fact that, in stealing the other man's telekinesis, he was a little closer to whole had come shortly after. It was like a puzzle, one half-complete, and with every kill he made and power he stole, he was a step closer to perfection. One jagged-edged, bloodstained piece closer to having what he'd been rightfully denied, to being able to see the whole picture.

What he hadn't realized, however, was that there were far worse ways of being broken than in terms of abilities. Such as psychologically. Such as he was, now, curled in a shuddering ball of watchmaker in the unfinished room at the back of his apartment, fingers sticky with blood.

He hadn't meant to kill Chandra. He'd loved Chandra. So their relationship had been strained, so the man had starting refusing his phone calls again - it didn't matter. The Indian had been the closest thing to a father figure he'd had in years. He'd opened his eyes to a realm of possibility that he'd only dreamed about before. And then he'd taken it all away, by turning him away. He'd been scared of him. He'd betrayed him. He had meant to kill Chandra.

He couldn't decide. It didn't matter.

The one thing that he couldn't find the critcal flaw in was dead. The man he loved with all his boyish heart and hated with every fiber of his being was dead. His hands bore signs of the crime. He'd done it. He'd done it, and all he wanted was for that same said man to walk into the door and tell him it was alright, give him absolution. It would never happen.

Oh, but he burned for forgiveness. He would scream for it - sing and dance for it, if that's what it took - if his throat didn't already ache, voice broken from screaming into his wrists as he hadn't dared to touch his face. Not with these hands. Not with the stain on them. And without Chandra to give it to give him what he so desperately wanted, right now, who would?

His mother? Nononono. Not that. He couldn't deal with that - with her - now. She'd see the grim under his nails, even if he washed his hands, and she'd know. Just as she knew everything he'd done as a child, her eyes everywhere. She'd see how broken he was, what a monster he'd become, and he couldn't deal with that. He'd lost one of his family figures today, he didn't want to push another away, even if she never listened and always saw and made tuna fish sandwiches even though he hated them.

But if not to family, where did monsters go to beg for pardon?

God. He listened to anyone who needed Him, or so he'd learned as a child.

Pulling himself to his knees, shoulders twitching with the weight of what he'd done, he pressed his fingers to the wall, scratching out words. He couldn't go to church, sure the priests would view him with the same merciless attention as his mother, so he would have to leave a message to Him as big as he could manage. As many times as he could manage, like a boy who'd done wrong in school and had to resign himself to writing the same sentence on the black board, over and over.

Forgive me Father, for I have sinned. Forgive me Father for I have sinned. Forgive me Father, for I have sinned. Forgive me Father ...

He wrote until there was no more blood on his hands. Then he wrote until his hands bled. And in the end, there was no sign from God, no forgiveness that he might have needed. In the end, there was no God.


Muse: Gabriel Gray (Sylar)
Fandom: Heroes
Word Count: 666