January 2007

[watchmakers_son]

The next time he opens his eyes, Sylar's face to face with the silent thunderclap of a star going nova.

He freezes. Blinks once. Lifts his hand, cautious and slow, without stepping back. The sleeve of his thin cotton shirt slides back an inch as he presses light fingertips to the Observation Window; it's like touching a sheet of ice, and narrow white circles of fog instantly appear around his fingers.

It's disorientingly quiet.

He's standing up, though, he realizes. And nothing hurts.

Thoughtful, Sylar brushes his fingers through the condensation. It squeaks faintly as the patterns warp and streak away. As he turns around, the lights flicker above him, and for half an instant

the floor's just as cold, there are bars across the window, there is --

When they steady again, it's far too bright, and the walls...he doesn't think they were that pale.

He can't be sure.

Comments

[watchmakers_son]

It's not a flicker from the overhead lights this time; it's one from the window, as Sylar turns his head to catch it. He can't see his reflection.

Easing his arm away from his stomach, he returns his attention to Kaylee. "I wouldn't think that would stop you," he murmurs. "Does he want to take all the glory, then?"

Just like before.

(No. That was Peter. (That was your delusion.) Wasn't it?)

[gonna_live]

Kaylee's hands tighten at her sides.

Small:

"I don't work. Remember?"

"He don't want me involved."

[watchmakers_son]

"Then why meet you here at all?"

It's sudden and vicious, and the look he shoots her is pure scorn.

"Does he think he can fix you, too?"

[gonna_live]

She shrinks back into herself, even more. "He's supposed to do it. It's his job. It's what he was born to do." It sounds like an apology.

[watchmakers_son]

"It's a shame he's not better at it." Flatly.

Sylar ventures another step; there's no pain this time, but he finds he can't move very far. Something pulls at his ankles for an instant before vanishing.

"I'd be careful of trusting your husband, Kaylee." And that's very soft. "And his work."

[gonna_live]

Confusion washes over Kaylee's face

(look out, kid, it's something you did)

along with disappointment.

Then uncertainty.

"Then who'll put me back together?"

[watchmakers_son]

Silence.

In every applicable sense of the word.





"Maybe there isn't anything left," he says, but it's strangely devoid of cruelty -- and just as uncertain as Kaylee's expression. Sylar tilts his head, fingers ghosting over his abdomen again. "I can't hear you. Or see you. You sound like the dead."

[gonna_live]

She presses her fingertips to her lips, as though trying to keep something in.

A long moment passes.

When her hand moves --

It doesn't fall away, but it's still not a controlled movement. There's force to it. Something Kaylee can't seem to control.

In a burst: "You could be anything you want. The special one. You could be anything. If you wanted, you could be president."

[watchmakers_son]

It's become difficult to remember. There is fog, always that damned fog, and nearly everything fractures apart like glass when he does manage to find it.

Some things, though, are more resilient.

Sylar jerks as if stung, stumbling backward a step with his eyes wide. Then, almost instantaneously, he catches himself on a chair back, and his eyes darken as he bares his teeth.

"Who told you that?" he snarls.

Flicker; tick go the lights.

[gonna_live]

"Simon."

She casts a nervous glance over her shoulder.

"Peter. One or the other. Both. I get -- I get confused, and -- "

" -- you're all the same -- "

[watchmakers_son]

"How would they know?" Furious, he lets go of the chair and slams his open hands against it. It rattles forward. "And my name. How would they know that, too?"

All of them the same. How can that mean anything?

[gonna_live]

Kaylee puts up her hands, as though this is a stickup.

"Gabriel -- "

"Everybody knows."

[watchmakers_son]

"What?"

Flicker. Tick. Sylar looks up at the lights.

He turns back to Kaylee as the floor and walls shadow around them, a familiar, painful pressure building in his chest all the while. The light wobbles again, and in the heartbeat space between one bolt of illumination and the next --

the tile floor echoes, and the white and green walls are lit too bright; behind Kaylee is a man in a white coat with a stethoscope coiled around his neck like a snake, behind him is someone --

Flicker.

Tick.

It's gone.

[gonna_live]

"Everybody knows, Gabriel," Kaylee repeats, with something very like pity. "You didn't know they did?"

[watchmakers_son]

He shakes his head, mutely at first. It's not acknowledgment; it's denial, and at his sides, his hands tighten.

"How?"

[gonna_live]

"We talk."

Slowly, her hands drop.

"You left us alive. We talk. And we know."

[watchmakers_son]

It isn't just his hands any longer: Sylar's shoulders pull taut as his jaw clenches to match. Several seconds go by before they loosen.

When he smiles, in a quick flash of teeth, it looks far more like one animal facing down another.

"And you say you still want to be fixed, too. Don't you," he whispers, and with no further warning, he lunges.

[gonna_live]

His hands make it around her throat.

The floor moves.

Kaylee, choking, stumbles back.

The floor moves.

Shakes. Quakes.

They're on the floor. There's screaming. The sound of breaking glass. Wind.




Nature, they say, abhors a vacuum.

[killitwithfire]

Water summons wind.

Wind makes fire dance.

Or at least, it makes fiery hair dance.

"--the hell," Axel mutters crossly .

[watchmakers_son]

The lights are gone.

It's freezing, and as the wind howls, Sylar lets go, instinctively covering the back of his head as he plants his elbows on the floor.

BOOM.

That doesn't last. The entire bar shakes under the shockwave of an exploding star, and he jerks his head up, palms slamming wide and flat against the (tile) wood. Glass fragments glitter all around him.

Axel's hard to miss.

"Did you do this?" he demands.

[killitwithfire]

"Please," Axel snorts. "Like I'd cause this much collateral?"

His head tilts contemptuously.

[watchmakers_son]

Cautiously, he pushes himself to his knees, squinting against the blinding rush of air.

There's a gaping hole in the Observation Window. It's half plugged by debris, broken chairs and tables and bottles.

(And at least two bodies.)

The lights slam back on and color everything a bright, washed-out green before dimming again. Sylar trails his fingertips over the floor, brushing aside a few bits of glass.

"It shouldn't have been able to do that." Almost desperate. "I know."

He doesn't.

[killitwithfire]

"Are you sure?" Axel asks, grinning toothily.

"It touches the Void."

[watchmakers_son]

"No. It's -- "

He frowns, struggling to remember.

"You said something about it. About why that doesn't matter."

[killitwithfire]

"The Void? Of course it matters; it's nothing. You'd have to be crazy to think otherwise."

There are still teeth in his grin, brilliant white, and too straight.