Sylar

"You know, I used to love this part."

The man he had pinned to the wall said nothing, grunting instead, and continued to struggle in a futile effort to get his hands free so he could renew his attack. Sylar looked somewhere between dimly amused and slightly irritated, and chanced a glance down at his shirt, his own blood drying on there from where he'd been caught off guard earlier. Really, he should have known better than to try the I don't want to hurt you angle -- that never worked with the already hostile -- but hindsight was twenty-twenty and he had a lot to learn about this whole hero business.

Shrugging off the thought, he raised his eyes back to his mark and pressed him harder into the cheap paneling at his back before repeating himself. "I used to love this part. Catching people like us, I mean."

He took a half-step forward, watching the other man from under his eyebrows and allowed him a wicked smirk. A part of him wanted to cut into him and see what made him tick, Claire only half right, the hunger that had made him a monster still baying at the back door of his mind in spite of his redemption, but he would restrain himself. Five years in his own personal hell had taught him how to and given him a reason to want to.

All the restraint in the world wouldn't stop him from putting the fear of God into this guy, though, not when he'd taken hostages and cast all of them in a terrible light, and his grin widened, taking on a manic edge. "Last time I bothered, I wasn't playing for Team Hero, though. I was like you." A pause, and then he amended, "I was better than you. I wouldn't have needed to involve other people."

Another skipped beat and he reached up, fingers ghosting over the other man's temple. He shuddered faintly; Sylar hummed approval. "I'd just get you alone, cut you open, and take what I wanted. Your ability. No one would miss you, not even a little bit. The world would be that much better off without you. I'd be that much better off without you. And the high that comes afterwards?"

He closed his eyes, taking a deep, shuddering breath. He let it out a wistful sigh, eyes opening again sharply, darting to the edges of his hairline. "That's the best part. That's the part I miss the most."

Allowing a moment for that to sink in, he wet his lips with his tongue and took a step back. A thoughtful look that took far less acting on his part than he would have expected crossed his face, and he raised a hand, a single finger level with the other man's hairline. "Maybe it's time I fell off the wagon."

The other man whimpered, renewing his struggle against the wall, clenching his eyes closed, tightly. It took all of his will power to put his hand down and remind himself that he didn't need more abilities.

"Lucky for you I'm not that guy anymore." He took another step away, turning towards the door only to find himself face to face with Peter, instead. He couldn't help but smile fondly, genuinely, and murmured, "I've got other things I care about now. Better things."

Thanfully, Peter didn't see to catch any of that -- or care much if he had -- and glanced past Sylar to the man pinned to the wall. "You ready?"

"You get his family out?" Sylar countered.

"Yeah."

"Then I guess we're done here."

Peter flashed him an instant's worth of a smile then moved around him, shoulders brushing his intentionally as he circled, and Sylar felt the roll of the hunger ebb away slowly. He had loved killing, had loved it and his powers more than anything for the longest time, but it was as he had said just a minute before. There were things he simply loved more, now. Things -- people -- like Peter.


Muse: Gabriel Gray (Sylar)
Fandom: Heroes
Word Count: 678
Note: Peter is hadtobeahero and is used with love and permission. The relationship between Peter and Sylar is meant to be platonic, but uh, feel free to read between the lines.

He's not sure how long he lays there, listening to the rain come down outside and the sound of Matt snoring, before he realizes he's laying there. Matt's asleep, and as tied to the other man's consciousness as he is, he shouldn't be here -- not physically, at least. He should be trapped in Matt's dreams, forging them into nightmares, but here he is, in his and Janice's room in Los Angeles. He can feel the bedspread under his fingers and the lingering warmth from where the little woman was laying until just a few minutes ago, rather than the numb disconnect he's suffered as of late, cut off from his sense of touch when he lost his body. He's here, and Matt's --

He sits up, reaching out to poke the cop in the shoulder, the gesture both a test and a way to get him to stop snoring if he's wrong and Matt's still the physical presence here, and his fingers slide right through him. Like trying to touch a ghost conjured by a projector. Like trying to touch someone on the wrong side of their divide of physical and mental. Like Matt's, all the times he's tried to touch -- punch, throttle, whatever -- him. He's here, honestly, truly here, and it sends a shudder of exhilaration rocketing up his spine and a smile to his lips. It's not what he wants in full, not his body, but it's a start.

Rocking back on the bed, he lets the headboard dig into his shoulders and soaks in the discomfort. "You've just taken over Matt Parkman's body -- " He doesn't need a mirror to tell that much; missing height and the shadows of his hands in the near dark are enough to clue him in. " -- what are you going to do next?"

( Matt keeps right on snoring, not that he's surprised, and his grin grows just a bit. )


Muse: Gabriel Gray (Sylar)
Fandom: Heroes
Word Count: 1297
Note: Contains spoilers for Heroes 4x07 (Strange Attractors) but left uncut since it's been about a month since it aired. I figured I'd warn anyway, though, just in case people were behind.

Sitting there in his father's shop among the wild, dead things, he couldn't help but wonder if Virginia Gray had always known the truth about what his father could do and if that was why she'd pushed him so hard to be special.

He doesn't understand why his mother doesn't come with them into the diner; what the money passed between his father and his uncle means; why his father turns to leave without trying to manhandle him back into the car like he did when they set out. All of it makes so very little sense to a six-year-old, and so he calls out to him, feet pounding gravel as he bolts away from his aunt and uncle and after his father.

Samson Gray ignores him, gets in the car, and turns to his mother. An argument explodes between them and Gabriel can't say he's surprised even if he doesn't understand it, as it's all they've done in the last few weeks, so he just keeps running. Pretends it isn't happening, just like they pretend it hasn't happened -- they don't fight and he didn't watch his father hit his mother last night -- every time they catch him listening in or spying on them from the top of the stairs.

( His mother raises a hand in anger but his father is faster. )


Muse: Gabriel Gray (Sylar)
Fandom: Heroes
Word Count: 793

He barely registered the door open, too caught up wandering the space between dreaming and awake, the fact that he hadn't slept in days having come down on him like a ton of bricks, despite the fact that he'd sworn off sleep. Still, though, the subtle open-close of the door was enough to make him stir, shifting a bit in the armchair he'd claimed as his resting place, a grunt of protest falling out of his mouth. He'd been awake, really, and woe be to whoever it was that had let themselves in, assuming they tried to tell him otherwise.

That thought took a moment to sink in properly, but when it did, he was suddenly wide awake, tension set off by sharp fear wrenching him out of the sprawl he'd taken up and into a sit. There was someone in his house--someone who could very well be Sylar, given that the killer was back and had a habit of just being around, when you least expected it--and there he'd been, near napping.

He took a deep breath, narrowly resisting the urge to clear his throat--what if whoever it was heard him?--and got up from his seat as quietly as he could. He'd made it halfway to the nearest window, when a voice rang out from somewhere in the house. He couldn't quite tell where, but it didn't matter. "Nathan?"

His mother; he sighed, reaching up to scrub a hand over his face, and moved away from the window. "In here, Ma."

He could hear hear moving around in the kitchen, now that his heart had stopped hammering in his chest and ears, and with another sigh, he headed in that direction, shoving his hands in his pockets. And that, clearly, had been exactly what Angela had hoped he'd do, as she hadn't made a move to meet him. Rather, when he found her, she was rooting through his cupboards, trying to hunt down a pair of plates, if the box of pizza--the good stuff from one of the Italian places he and Peter used to frequent--she'd set on his table was any indication.

"Your secretary told me you haven't been in since Monday," she said, a disdainful note in her voice that he couldn't tell whether it was directed at him or the paperware she'd found instead of actual plates. Either way, however, she pulled them down out of the cabinet, turning as she continued, "I don't know what's going on, Nathan, but -- dear Lord, what happened to your face?"

( Wincing, he resisted the urge to reach up to press his fingers to the wounds Sylar had inflicted upon him, during their last meeting. "Shaving accident?" )


Muse: Gabriel Gray (Sylar)
Fandom: Heroes
Word Count: 1235
Note: Angela is mapetrelli and is all mine to use and abuse.

I love my job.

( 7 calendar dates you would rather forget )


( 7 calendar dates that are important to you [locked] )


Muse: Gabriel Gray (Sylar)
Fandom: Heroes
Word Count: 275
Note: All dates are taken from the Heroes wiki time line. They seemed accurate enough, so I went with them, since I was too lazy to re-watch thirty-some episodes to try and figure out the dates.