Sylar

"So, uh, mind if I ask what was up with you the last few days?"

It was more than few days, but it seems that for all Peter's curiosity, he can't tackle the subject head on. You're not surprised -- the way you dragged yourself around for the last two weeks looking like death warmed over must have been unsettling for him, even with the animosity that lingers between the two of you. You're the protector, the only one of your merry little band with enough power to keep him and Claire from getting killed, and more than that, you're not supposed to get sick. You're untouchable, immortal, and for two weeks you let them drag you from place to place with barely enough energy to stand. You wonder if he's more worried about the same thing happening to Claire than he is about you, and you smile a bit, thinly.

"It's been six years, Peter. Running for six years." The smile turns sick in spite of the fact that your answer is largely an act for his benefit, disgusted with the situation -- you don't like running, but you won't be caged again -- and you put a bit of power into your tone. "Guess that sort of thing takes a toll on people like me, too."

His face goes slack, eyes glassy, and he nods slowly, rapt. A flicker of a smirk dances over your mouth in that instant before he comes back to himself; you may never have managed to take Eden's ability from her, but this is almost as good.

( "Yeah, guess so," he answers. )


Muse: Gabriel Gray (Sylar)
Fandom: Heroes
Word Count: 1005
Note: Peter is hadtobeahero and is used with love and permission.

"What did you do?"

Bela jumped, wheeling in her chair to face him, and he couldn't help but smile. It was no real surprise that he'd taken her by surprise -- those things, the Hellhounds if he believed what Ruby had said, would have been enough; the fact that this was the first time he'd made his presence known all day and no one else seemed to be around was just icing on the cake -- but it was still amusing, somehow. She didn't seem to appreciate the joke, however, and flashed him a look that was equal parts sour and guardedly frightened still. "Where the hell have you been?"

Moving to take up a seat in one of the office chairs they'd managed to track down, he gestured over his shoulder back the way he'd came. "There's a storage closet back there. I was poking around in it."

"Weren't your orders to keep an eye on me while the others went after the Colt?"

The amusement bled away from his face abruptly, and he steeled his jaw, trying to avoid the urge to make her pay for that remark on principle alone. He didn't take orders. Not anymore. After a moment and thankfully, however, he managed to rationalize that she didn't know that, and he managed to quell the urge with a shake of his head. Still, though, he pointed out, "I don't take orders. This is just me paying a debt."

( She looked away, studying the imperfections in the cement of the floor. "Fair enough, I suppose." )


Muse: Gabriel Gray (Sylar)
Fandom: Heroes
Word Count: 1023
Note: Bela is enjoythe_ride and is used at the mun's request. This is not biding on the verse unless the mun wants it to be and/or thinks that I didn't butcher her character.

Throughout the course of the day, Nathan had felt as though someone was watching him. On one hand and knowing what he did now, he supposed it made sense -- Mohinder had mentioned the fact that Sylar was all too aware of what they'd gotten up to since they'd played Trading Spaces on a more dangerous level. On the other hand, it didn't make him feel much better. He didn't particularly like the idea of the killer spying on him, and if he'd been restless before, counting the days until they left India for Colorado, he was all but climbing the walls, now.

At least he was lucky enough that Mohinder wasn't around to see him like this. Another thing he didn't really care for was the odd looks the geneticist kept giving him whenever he thought he wasn't looking, and he didn't doubt this would make it worse. Possibly for both of them, given how short his temper felt on top of his inability to sit still. He'd hurt Mohinder once, even if he'd fixed it, if Mohinder swore up and down that had been Sylar and not him; he didn't want to be back there, looming over him, the geneticist bloodied and beaten again.

Sighing at the thought, he stopped pacing abruptly and ran a hand over his hair in an effort to steady himself. It didn't help much -- nothing had, since the great reveal -- but maybe a shower would. It was the only thing he hadn't tried yet today, and he had to have something, some great hope to cling to. Of course, that would probably get torn to shreds the second the water started running cold and he still didn't feel any better, but he could try. He could keep fooling himself. It was what he was good at.

Another sigh, and he turned on his heels and marched towards the bathroom. He'd managed to get as far as noting how hellish he looked in the mirror when he caught a shudder of black in the glass above his shoulder. And as he turned to see what it was, he immediately wished he hadn't.

( There, sitting on the edge of the bed, was Sylar. )


Muse: Gabriel Gray (Sylar)
Fandom: Heroes
Word Count: 1007

It's not her birthday anymore, but it's the first few minutes any of them have gotten to themselves since the text messages went out last night and he seizes the opportunity.

Getting up from his place in the waiting room of the hospital, he moves over to where Molly has curled up around Matt. They look up at him, Matt frowning and Molly curious, and he manages a smile for the both of them as he asks to borrow her for a minute. Her curiosity growing, she untangles herself from Matt's arms, reaching for his hand as she gets to her feet, and he moves them down the hallway, calling out to Parkman -- and Mohinder, since his awareness is more important -- that they'll be right back.

They get about three feet away from the rest of the assembled group before she asks him where they're going, but he says nothing in favor of a small, sly smile. She doesn't ask again, though she does raise her eyebrows, demanding an answer -- a habit she's picked that up from him -- but he ignores her. And sooner rather than later, they're outside and across the parking lot, and he's looking through the compartment under what passes for the passenger seat.

Pushing aside a handful of papers, some important and others not, he comes up with a small, cheap radio and thumbs it on. He cycles through a handful of stations and static, settling on someone playing something he doesn't recognize but slow enough to sway to, and sets the radio on the ground. With a deep breath, he motions her over to him awkwardly, and she takes the hint effortlessly, wrapping her arms around his waist. Her head comes to rest against his chest, and slowly they take to dancing -- if the two of them shuffling across the asphalt counts as dancing, anyway.

He may not have anything physical to give her, too wrapped up in the last few days to figure out what she wanted, much less go shopping, but he can give her this. He promised, after all.


Muse: Gabriel Gray (Sylar)
Fandom: Heroes
Word Count: 352
Note: Molly is humanmapquest and is used without permission but with love. ♥

"... did I die?"

They were the first words West had managed after nearly five minutes of coughing up water, and yet Sylar ignored him. It was well and good that the kid was alive, but he was in the middle of something and didn't exactly appreciate the interruption. The coughing had been enough -- he didn't need to have his concentration further shattered by having to carry on a conversation, too.

West, however, didn't seem to agree and after a groan, he managed, "If I'm dead, the afterlife sucks. My head is killing me."

Sighing, agitated, Sylar looked away from his work, shooting a black look over his shoulder at his partner, who laid sprawled on the deck a few feet off, soaking wet, the heels of his palms dug into his eyes. Then, shaking his head a little, he turned back to his work -- at the rate this was going, maybe he would have been better off, leaving West to drown in the hot tub.

"I know you're there. I can hear you breathing."

"Shut up," Sylar snapped.

( Behind him, he heard West push himself into a sit, shakily. "Okay, I don't know about you, but I almost died. I think you can be -- " )


Muse: Gabriel Gray (Sylar)
Fandom: Heroes
Word Count: 789
Note: West is ihavea_theory and is used with permission.

The cabin attendant had been afraid.

It was the first thing he came aware of, when his hand touched the kid's skin, and it hit him like a shock of cold water on a warm day. He supposed on some level, in the part of his mind that was still his for the moment, that it was to be expected--the boy had been murdered, after all--but he'd been braced for something else. For pain, but no fear, the whole thing over too quick for the attendant to really realized what was happening until he'd been in hell for thirty seconds, like his usual kills were, when he wasn't savoring the moment. Like the waitress in Odessa had been. Or Sprague, if you discounted the fact that he'd flipped the truck they'd been escorting him in beforehand.

He supposed, however, that not every killer had the same finesse he did, and so he tried to push through the fear, fingers shifting just a bit on the boy's skin in an attempt to give him a better grip on himself, even as he watched the scene before him. A deep breath followed, and then he was racing down the deck toward only God knew where, fueled by the memory and his own insatiable curiosity, rather than simply running like a bat out of hell like the other man was. Not that either of them got particularly far, stopped by the rise of walls that neither of the attendant hadn't seen--and therefore neither had he, as this wasn't his memory--until it had been too late. The idiot had trapped himself in a dead end.

The attendant turned, breathless, and he followed suit, peering into the strange shadows the lights on deck cast. Silence and a shiver of hope that maybe he--they--had escaped followed, and then at the far end of the hallway, one of the lights died, fizzling as if it had been submerged underwater for too long. The one opposite it followed. Then the next pair, closer to them. Then the next.

Terror reasserted itself, and Sylar cast a glance at the man whose memory he was stealing as he stiffened before fumbling for the mess of keys at his side. And while he wasn't sure if it was simple intuition or a tie to the vision, he could tell that the attendant was hoping to let himself into the nearest room, to avoid whatever was out there in the dark. They were close enough to possible safety, after all, and the man had to have the right key, didn't he? Neither of them seemed to know, but it didn't stop the kid from wheeling on his heels again, back towards the cabin he'd trapped them against, stuffing one key after another into the lock, hoping one of them would work.

In the end, he found the right key, but it came a second too late, as suddenly he was choking. Sylar followed suit, caught by the ghosts of what had happened and unable to remind himself that this wasn't real.

Lungs burning, his head spinning, the killer sucked in a sharp breath, trying to cry out, but he found he couldn't. Nor could he cough, as his chest was demanding he at least try. He twitched--possibly in the memory, possibly physically back where he was sure his body was abandoning him--and then dug his nails into his fingers, sharply, as the realization finally sunk in that none of this wasn't actually happening. And when he came back to himself, apparently never having moved from where he'd crouched by the dead attendant, it occurred to Sylar that he knew exactly how the boy had died.

"He drown."

Before West could point it out, he knew that wasn't quite proper English, but his head was still buzzing from the shadow of the attendant's death. He took a deep breath, trying to steady himself and his breathing so he could correct himself, but his traveling companion beat him to the punch, one eyebrow raised curiously. "He ... drown ... ed?"

Somehow, Sylar managed to summon up a wry smile. "I was using broken English."

Not that it mattered, nor did the rest of the conversation, really. What was important that someone else on the ship was like them, and whoever it was, they were giving super powered psychopaths like him a bad name.


Muse: Gabriel Gray (Sylar)
Fandom: Heroes
Word Count: 727
Note: Written as a companion piece to this. West is ihavea_theory, naturally.