Sylar

He could hear them moving down the hallway. Not that the Haitian was ever particularly loud, not much of a talker and quite possibly better at the whole stealth game than he was, but Elle was making a show of things, babbling loudly to him, her voice echoing down the corridor as they moved towards him.

Any other time, he supposed it might have made a guy suspicious -- why talk so loud if you weren't trying to signal someone else you were on the way? -- but he thought it worked rather well here. Elle was the hysterical near-widow, after all, and fear or worry or whatever stew of emotions she was supposed to be marinating in had a tendency to change the quality of one's voice. He'd heard it enough times when one of his victims bothered trying to beg him for mercy.

Dimly amused, he turned his chair away from the door and sunk down in it, stretching out until he was sure his head couldn't be seen over the top of the leather. The door swung open just seconds later.

( Elle cleared her throat. "Can you just wait here for a minute? I think I need something to drink." )


Muse: Gabriel Gray (Sylar)
Fandom: Heroes
Word Count: 1225
Note: Elle is not_myfirstday and is used with love. The use of the Haitian is not directed at any specific journal.

The foreman just wouldn't shut up. He supposed, on some level, that it was understandable -- the man was proud of what he and his construction team had managed to accomplish in the few short months they'd been given to build the office complex and their benefactor was nothing if not demanding -- but it was still irritating.

So much so that he's spent the last twenty minutes wondering what would happen if he dropped Nathan Petrelli's face and just destroyed the place. He planned on doing it later anyway, after all -- his own little contribution to the economy when he blamed terrorists and commissioned a new crew to build bigger and better -- and the cameras weren't hooked up just yet. No one would see him for who he truly was but the foreman, and he would die tragically as the building came down on his head, its supports mysteriously collapsing.

It was a tempting idea truly, and the only thing that was stopping him was the fact that people knew that he would be here. They knew that Nathan would be here. It had been all over the news that the good senator had planned on visiting his shiny, new business complex, and if he escaped the devastation, it would appear suspicious. Nathan just dropping dead wasn't on the agenda either, unfortunately; he needed his position as much as he hated his face.

( He also apparently needed another way out of this ridiculously one-sided dialogue. )


Muse: Gabriel Gray (Sylar)
Fandom: Heroes
Word Count: 752
Note: Elle is not_myfirstday and is used without permission but with love. ♥

The party is in full swing when he finds her hanging out by the buffet table, smiling and nodding and looking for an out in the conversation she's holding with one of the foreign dignitaries that ended up stopping by. He has half a mind to leave her there, as amusing as it is to watch the pained faces she's making and the way the man either doesn't recognize them or ignores them as he babbles on, but he thinks better of it. She'd make him regret it, if she knew he'd been lurking nearby the whole time, and she always seems to know, so he steps up behind her, fingers touching her arm lightly to let her know he's there. She makes no attempt to hide her relief.

"Ambassador." He smiles winningly, but he has no intentions of getting caught in this stupid conversation, too. "I don't suppose you'd mind if I borrowed my wife for a minute?"

The man smiles and waves them off, and he wraps his fingers around Elle's arm, leading her off towards one of the private rooms. The door closes behind them, and he pulls away, stepping up to the desk with a sigh, his back still turned to her; it's not hard to miss the shift, even so. He reaches up, running his fingers through his hair as if he needs to fix it -- as if he's been stuck in costume for an age, and it's the end of a long Halloween -- and turns to face her.

"You realize that's probably not the best idea, right?" Even so, she leans back against the door to ensure that no one walks in on them, her arms folding under her breasts. "I mean, all those people out there and me in here with a wanted murderer?"

He scrubs a hand over his face, then drops them back to his side, shrugging. "Good thing I'm not going to be here for very long." She tries to start and he cuts her off. "I'm tired of this. Tired of playing this game and all the stupid parties and the film crews. I'm getting out of here."

( "Because people aren't going to notice Nathan Petrelli's suddenly fallen off the face of the Earth." )


Muse: Gabriel Gray (Sylar)
Fandom: Heroes
Word Count: 930
Note: Elle is not_myfirstday and is used without permission but with much love. Merry Christmas, hon. Hope this works for you. ♥

The Company had stopped keeping him caged months ago. It had been Angela's decision, motivated by the fact that he'd demonstrated on more than one occasion now that he could behave like a rational human being, and he relished the freedom. He couldn't quite come and go as he pleased just yet, and his mother demanded that he live at Hartsdale as well as work there, but it was a start. He was making progress.

Not that he had much time to think about it. Angela kept him as busy as she could without either of them feeling like she was running him ragged. And that perhaps explained why, only hours after coming back from an assignment with Bennet, word came through to him that she needed him in her office again. He didn't need to sleep just yet, even though this would be the third assignment in as many days, and they both knew it.

Sighing, he didn't bother putting on his suit coat or tie back on again -- she could live with him deciding it was Casual Friday -- and moved through the halls quickly and quietly, knocking on the door briefly before letting himself in. He closed the door behind him, raising his eyebrows curiously, and she shot him a thin, tired smile in response. He didn't need rest, but hell if she didn't look like she couldn't sleep for days.

"I've already spoken to Noah," she started without preamble, reaching for a copy of the Times at the corner of her desk, "but barring him, you're the only the second person I'm mentioning this to." A pause, and she was handing him the newspaper. "I take it you've seen this."

Taking it from him, he skimmed it quickly, a frown pulling at the corners of his lips. From the look of things, from what the article refused to keep quiet, Pinehearst had won -- abilities were now available to anyone, assuming they had the cash. And as someone who had prided himself for so long on being special and worked so hard to be that way, this was a slap in the face. "What -- "

She stopped him with a wave of a hand. "It doesn't matter -- what matters is the fact that I'm closing down Primatech. We're done here; you're a free man."

"Why?" he demanded, bewildered, waving the paper at her. "Do you have any idea how many problems this is going to cause? How long before it's not just Accountant Bob with an ability? How long before someone like me -- like I used to be -- gets their hands on this. This is a -- a license to print money."

"I would imagine your father has already taken that into account," she answered, sourly. "And there are far more people working for Pinehearst these days than there are us. We can't handle everything, Gabriel -- I know it and Noah knows it -- and with Claire running off to go bat for the other team, so to speak ... " She sighed, shaking her head, and reached to take the paper back from him. "How long before it's just a handful of us, wasting away in this office?"

"I'd stay," he promised her. "I wouldn't leave you."

She fixed him with a disapproving look, her expression ice. "I'm telling you to. I'm still your mother; I think I still have that authority."

"This is -- "

"Get out of my office."

He stared at her for a moment, and then he was lowering his head, shadows creeping onto his face as he stared at her from under his eyebrows. Steel wired his jaw shut, and he took a moment to stare holes through her before turning, marching from her office as surely as he'd come in. She wanted him gone? Fine, he'd leave. And on the outside, he'd find someone to kill, someone familiar -- Peter, maybe, or Elle -- in an effort to stain her hands with blood by association. She'd close the Company yes, but she'd have to reopen it if only to cage him when he became a nuisance again.

That thought alone was enough to kill any possible hopes of further redemption he had, he knew, but at this point he didn't care. And that in mind, when he hit street level, he took a moment to look around before making a beeline in the direction of the apartment Bennet had mentioned Elle was keeping these days.

She was close and more convenient than Peter. She'd be a good start.

He's been drumming on the desk for nearly five minutes now, only half paying attention to the mountain of paperwork under his fingers or Elle behind him, too set on the cadence he's tapping out on his ink blotter. Tap. Tap. Tap. Each beat perfectly uniform, each pause between sound the same length, never faltering as he tattoos the ticking in his head on his desk, his breathing somehow even despite his state of unease. And just when he starts to think it's helping, Elle rounds the desk sharply, catching his hands with hers.

"You want to cut that out?"

He frowns up at her for an instant before his expression seems to one-eighty, shifting into a smile that never reaches his eyes. "I'm sorry." He's not and they both know it. "Am a bothering you?"

"Just a little," she chirps brightly, her tone as near-mocking as his smile, and then she's sighing, letting his hands go. He doesn't go back to drumming, however, instead fixing his attentions on watching her as she moves around the room, seemingly as restless as he is. "Look, I get it, okay? You being Nathan Petrelli? Not a big turn on for me, either, trust me. But the whole I think I'm a drummer in DC's newest emo kid band thing?"

She shakes her head, shooting him a glance over her shoulder before turning in full, fixing him with a sour look as she sinks back against the wall. "Not exactly working out well for either of us, Sylar."

He sighs, reaching up to press his fingers to the bridge of his nose before dropping his hand back to the desk. "It's getting to me," he tells her, grudgingly. She's known him for years now, but he still hates talking about what goes on in his head half the time, and this is no exception. "I've been fine since the Petrellis decided it was a good idea to screw with me. The hunger? It's ... " He shakes his head. "But the last few days it's been ... "

"Bad. Yeah, I know." She shifts a bit, one foot and then the other, uncomfortably -- she knows what it is to be on the wrong side of him, and he can tell the idea that he's even near that breaking point frightens her -- and then reaches up to brush a bit of her hair out of her face. A deep breath, which she exhales shortly, and then, "We'll go find something for you to do tomorrow night after the speech. And in the meantime ... "

"In the meantime?" he echoes, prompting her to finish.

( She manages a smirk, something in her expression nothing short of wicked. "In the meantime, I can think of a few other things you could do." )


Muse: Gabriel Gray (Sylar)
Fandom: Heroes
Word Count: 2584
Note: Elle is not_myfirstday and is used with love and permission. Credit for the idea also goes to her, since I was drawing a blank for my final prompt of the month. ♥