November - December 2006; location unknown

[watchmakers_son]

There's nothing remarkable about this room, nor anything inside of it.

It's a perfect square lit in sickly yellow and off-white tones, the walls irregularly patterned from years of repainting. One of the fluorescent lights strobes every so often; when it doesn't, it buzzes, almost subaudibly, like a distant insect's whine. The single bed in the corner has a thin mattress and thinner sheets, and medical equipment -- all of it small and carefully cased and free of exposed wires -- arrays around it, holding sentinel.

The shoes by the bedside are the same dingy white shade as the walls. They have no shoelaces.

The window's crisscrossed with thick bars.

On the bed, Sylar makes a small noise -- something between pain and grogginess -- and cracks open his eyes.

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[morelikeasponge.livejournal.com]

Someone's watching him. A familiar face.

As Sylar's eyes open, Peter leans forward, smiling. His hair is brushed back neatly; his hands are folded in his lap.

"How are you feeling?"

[watchmakers_son]

Everything's hazed and hard to see, like trying to look through a fogged-up window. Sylar blinks once, woozily.

Before the face comes into focus, he hears the voice.

Focus doesn't matter very much after that.

Teeth bared, hands tightening convulsively on the sheets, he sucks in a breath and croaks out a hoarse, "You."

[morelikeasponge.livejournal.com]

"Me," Peter agrees, still smiling -- pleasantly.

He tips his head to one side, watching Sylar with clinical interest, and without fear. "Bad dreams?"

[watchmakers_son]

Sylar drags his hands back and tries to lever himself to sitting. He barely makes it an inch upright before gasping and falling flat again, expression screwed up in pain.

"What're you doing?" he wheezes. The words slur and bump into one another; it doesn't mask any of the vitriol.

[morelikeasponge.livejournal.com]

Peter's gaze is steady. Much steadier than Sylar is.

"We're trying to help you," he says gently, and puts his hand on Sylar's shoulder. "Careful -- you're weak, you don't want to hurt yourself."

[watchmakers_son]

Were he stronger, the movement would be almost instantaneous. As it stands, it's uncoordinated, wobbly, and far slower than he intends.

But Sylar reaches up and clamps a hand around Peter's wrist all the same, digging his nails in, glaring as best he can when he still can't see very well.

"I should've killed you," he rasps. "I was supposed to." His grip tightens (not very much). "Get away. You -- "

[morelikeasponge.livejournal.com]

"I'm not going anywhere."

His hand closes around Sylar's, careful but firm, and tugs it away. "Can you tell me who you are?"

[watchmakers_son]

"You know who I am."

He tries to wrench his hand free. As his arm twists, another bolt of pain shoots up through his abdomen, and Sylar bites back a yell. "Get away from me."

What he can remember -- Hiro, he thinks he remembers Hiro, but what -- ?

[morelikeasponge.livejournal.com]

"I do," says Peter, letting go, and studying him with clear concern. "But I need for you to tell me if you know who you are. It's been a while since you've been lucid."

[watchmakers_son]

"I -- "

It's the concern, as much as the words, that pulls him up short. Chest heaving as he tries to reign in the ache, Sylar balls his hands again and stares, uncomprehending.

"What?"

The light flickers, its constant buzz stuttering into a tick-tick-tick-tick. He doesn't notice.

[morelikeasponge.livejournal.com]

Peter folds his hands in his lap again, forearms balanced against his thighs as he leans forward. His expression is calm, patient; the easy way the question rolls out suggests this isn't the first time he's asked it. "Can you tell me your name?"

[watchmakers_son]

His jaw sets.

"My name," he tells him, as if speaking to a small child, "is Sylar."

[morelikeasponge.livejournal.com]

Peter sits back with a soft sigh, and shakes his head.

"Your name is Gabriel Gray," he says; there's only kindness in his voice. Kindness -- and pity. "You're very sick, Gabriel. Now, I'm trying to help you get better, and you can get better, but I'm going to need your help, too."

[watchmakers_son]

Peter shouldn't know that name.

Eyes widening, Sylar lifts his head, clear shock passing over his face before it veers back into the barely suppressed rage. For the first time, then, his focus shifts: he notices the walls, the bed, the barred window.

He still can't move; he's too weak, too badly hurt by whatever they did to him. Each time he tries to concentrate, it slips away like grasping a handful of water.

And Peter Petrelli should not know that name.

"Where am I," he says, very low and deliberately enunciated, as he turns back to Peter.

[morelikeasponge.livejournal.com]

"You're in a hospital."

Peter's eyes stay fixed on his.

"What do you remember?"

[watchmakers_son]

Sylar scoffs; it turns into a wince midway through, and a few seconds pass before he can catch his breath.

"You've met Parkman." It's almost, but not quite, a statement. "You were both there. Why not read my mind and find out yourself, Peter?"

[morelikeasponge.livejournal.com]

Peter exhales heavily; there's a hint of disappointment in his expression.

"Gabriel," he says, "that's a part of your delusion. You have to understand this. There's no such thing as mindreading."

[watchmakers_son]

There isn't even pause before Sylar dismisses this as easily as someone saying the grass is blue or the sun rises in the west: he shakes his head in several small, careful movements, mouth twisted in disgust.

Being told that he's deluded, insane -- there's nothing new in that.

(And yet.

Not simply that he's insane, this time; that there's no such thing --

How can he say that?)

"Sylar."

[morelikeasponge.livejournal.com]

"Sylar." Peter's mouth twists in a rueful smile. "The supervillain persona."

He leans back, rubs his forehead. "The identity you created for yourself to let you pretend you were somebody powerful. Somebody special. Gabriel, we both know that's not true. That's not who you are."

[watchmakers_son]

"If you think," he begins in a vicious snarl, trying once more to prop himself up --

The broken light gutters again, and this time, Sylar stops as his gaze skips up to it.

For a long while, he doesn't do anything but stare, as if he's forgotten Peter's in the room entirely.

[morelikeasponge.livejournal.com]

"Gabriel?" Peter prompts, after a few patient moments.

[watchmakers_son]

"The light's broken," he whispers.

It's not spoken with any of his familiar surety, or of knowing beyond a doubt. It's more like a quiet, dawning realization -- and a quiet, dawning horror.

All this time, the light was broken.

"I can't see it."

[morelikeasponge.livejournal.com]

"What do you mean?" The concern's back. "There's something wrong with your vision?"

[watchmakers_son]

He stays frozen for several more seconds, not moving beyond the rise and fall of his chest.

Then his eyes lock onto Peter's, utterly furious.

"What did you do to me?"

It starts out low. By the time it's peaked into a shout, he's rounded up all of the strength he can -- some lying dormant, most of it due to the sudden surge of adrenaline -- and launched himself toward Peter.

[morelikeasponge.livejournal.com]

As he does, Peter reaches swiftly for a small plastic object by his wrist, and it's crushed between them as Sylar lurches forward.

Peter tries to pull it back, and for a moment they're falling

(8:12 and the clock whirs smoothly)

but the floor they land on is smooth tile, not concrete. Peter's finger finds the emergency button.