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]

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.

[watchmakers_son]

The window's not broken; it's just that someone's drawn a shade across it.

Blink. Gone.

"That isn't what I meant," he snaps, and winces as the sharp intake of breath pulls oddly. It takes him a minute before he can slowly clamber to his feet.

The glass crunches in sharp spikes of noise.

[killitwithfire]

It sounds like the barriers of broken worlds.

"Are you sure?"

[watchmakers_son]

"Yes."

A pause. Another breath. He passes one hand over his eyes, tries to focus on Axel, as the wind tangles his hair.

"Wasn't I?"

He can't think.

[killitwithfire]

Axel starts pacing, slowly, his feet making no more sound than they ever have.

"You're asking me? That's a new one, Sylar."

[watchmakers_son]

Sylar's back goes rigid, and he stares at Axel.

Softly, almost wonderingly: "You don't know my name."

It's the first time he's been called Sylar in...he doesn't know how long. However long he's been here. Longer.

[killitwithfire]

A thin, thin smile.

"What makes you think that?"

Slowly, the pacing continues.

[watchmakers_son]

His own smile, faint as it is, disappears. When he backs up a step, there's another loud crunch.

(The resistance under his feet was stronger that time, like cracking bone.)

"Why call me that, then?"

[killitwithfire]

"Would you rather I call you Gabriel, Gabriel?"

Axel's steps move smoothly to keep a perfect circle around Sylar.

"I could do that, y'know. If you'd rather."

His grin has teeth in it again, and there are shadows over his eyes, stark and sharp, and he stops pacing, directly behind Sylar.

[watchmakers_son]

"No."

The pressure at his ankles is back; Sylar can't turn around, can't step away.

"That isn't -- " He swallows. The wind has died down, but not the cold, and there is still enough of a breeze to send his hair into his eyes. "It's Sylar. My name is Sylar."

[killitwithfire]

"S-Y-L-A-R, right?"

Axel laughs.

"Or is it G-A-B-R-I-E-L?"

[watchmakers_son]

"That isn't my name," he grates out, each word sticking in his mouth.

The lights extinguish.

In the dark, the faint pinprick light of the stars suddenly flares a bright yellow.

[killitwithfire]

Axel just laughs, softly.

[watchmakers_son]

In the surrounding quiet, perhaps it makes sense that it should sound so much louder, seem to come from so many directions.

And yet.

Sylar can't hear his breathing or his heartbeat; he can only feel them as he strains to see through the dark. Some of the shadows coalesce into vague shapes -- tables, IV (coat) stands, fallen debris.

Others are beginning to peel off into things wholly unidentifiable.

[killitwithfire]

Vague shapes move in the shadows.

With the shadows.

Are the shadows?

Axel is still laughing, his teeth white like the Cheshire Cat's.

[gifted_profiler]

It's almost impossible to see in the dark; even more so to tell what any of the shapes really are.

Until the lightning tears across the blackness, that is, leaving the stench of scorched ozone hanging in the air.

(There's no rain; not with this storm, not yet.)

The man standing there watching him doesn't seem to have any difficulty seeing through the shadows, though, to judge from the intensity of his focus. Each bolt, each flash through the sky is oddly reflected from the new hardness in Frank Black's eyes, which are fixed on Sylar.

"Your name doesn't matter." There's a rough, dangerous certainty in the low gravel of his voice.

"I know who you are."

[watchmakers_son]

It's so bright, and such a marked contrast to the dark, that all Sylar can see at first are reddish-orange spots. He shakes his head, blinking furiously as one hand lifts in an aborted, warding gesture.

It falls to his side once he recognizes Frank.

"That is who I am," he spits, enraged -- and while his posture stays taut, his expression and voice drop into a sudden calm when he speaks next. "And it didn't help you very much, in what you wanted. Did it, agent."

[gifted_profiler]

"Is it?"

He doesn't smile.

"I've learned from my mistakes. But you haven't, have you?"

There's a beat of silence, and in it Frank's gaze flickers up, over the other man's shoulder. He nods in response to whatever's caught his attention, then looks back at Sylar.

"You will."

[killitwithfire]

The brightness reflects off of Axel's hair like too much bloom in a videogame.

"He forgot to mention that a mistake can't learn from its own mistakes," he observes. "Tch."

[watchmakers_son]

Sylar turns around: first to meet Axel's eyes, then to search, futilely, for whatever had caught Frank's attention.

"None of it -- " he begins to snarl as he turns back around.

Frank's gone.

Another beat passes before he can continue, and when he does, Sylar's voice is hoarse. "None of it was a mistake."