Gabriel Gray (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
watchmakers_son) wrote2008-03-13 01:52 am
watchmakers_son) wrote2008-03-13 01:52 am
February 2007
When he wakes up -- is lucid again, as the dark-haired man who's removing his IV calls it -- the restraints are gone.
A mild concussion from self-inflicted head trauma, is what else he calls it. They removed the restraints once Sylar had calmed down; this is a hospital, after all, not a prison. You haven't been back with us for some time, he adds as Sylar carefully settles a hand over his abdomen, pressing lightly, and grimaces.
It hurts a bit less than it used to, though. It's healing.
How long? he asks, and receives no response.
Later, he falls asleep, to no dreams, and wakes up again to the silent, flickering fluorescent light. The cycle repeats itself three more times.
A second doctor mentions during one of his visits, in tones of pleasant surprise, that it's good to see the lucidity persist for this long. So many months have passed lately with no change.
On the fourth day, with effort, Sylar is able to work through the pain enough to sit up, his hands braced behind him to keep himself upright.
A mild concussion from self-inflicted head trauma, is what else he calls it. They removed the restraints once Sylar had calmed down; this is a hospital, after all, not a prison. You haven't been back with us for some time, he adds as Sylar carefully settles a hand over his abdomen, pressing lightly, and grimaces.
It hurts a bit less than it used to, though. It's healing.
How long? he asks, and receives no response.
Later, he falls asleep, to no dreams, and wakes up again to the silent, flickering fluorescent light. The cycle repeats itself three more times.
A second doctor mentions during one of his visits, in tones of pleasant surprise, that it's good to see the lucidity persist for this long. So many months have passed lately with no change.
On the fourth day, with effort, Sylar is able to work through the pain enough to sit up, his hands braced behind him to keep himself upright.
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For the panic attacks, he said.
(For your delusion.
To fix yourself.)
He should not be seeing those --
Quickly, suddenly decisive, he tosses back the pills and drains the cup.
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Steadily, rhythmically, he moves with a certain metronomic precision - one that has little to do with physical grace (he's of a height with Gabriel, or a little more - face turned away and hair tousled, they could be the same - but his proportions are awkward, curiously elongated), and more to do with the way he seems to inhabit his body; like something apart from him, a wondrous machine, well-learned and finely-tuned.
His arm extends, shoulder, elbow, wrist, with the delicate accuracy of wires and cogs, that (tick) sometimes seems so (tick) organic. The long handle of the brush in his hand, and the bristles sweeping back: a dry, hissing rustle across the floor.
"Gray, gray, my life is gray, cold is my heart since you went away..."
And snowflakes puff softly into the back of the pan.
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He cants his head, listening, without taking his eyes off of the cups.
"What are you doing?" he asks suddenly.
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If neither of them are looking, do either of them see it? A corner-of-your-eye, thought-you-saw movement on the floor. Or maybe it's just a trick of the flickertick light.
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His gaze drifts: still not on Crowley, but on the snowflakes now.
"Not like that. She couldn't have been."
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(The rustling sound does not.)
"If you say so, Gabriel," he seems to decide finally, with a sigh less despondent than long-suffering.
He glances back over his shoulder, checking to see whether the pills and juice are gone - enough, just, for a glimpse of those eyes, those
"Blue, blue, my world is blue, blue is my world now I'm without you..."
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"What's," he starts to say --
And then that movement again, or something like it. Immediately, his head whips toward it as he drops his hand.
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Only a clean 'S' through the thin dust.
Only a long, gleaming tilde, that disappears beneath Gabriel's bed.
Blissfully ignorant, the orderly stands, unfolding himself lithely; even through his (brilliantly) white uniform, the smooth mechanism of his back is evident - a marvel of precision engineering.
Without turning, he places the brush and dustpan to one side, on top of the cart. From the depths of the pan, an icy glitter: not snowflakes at all, but tiny shards of glass.
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He leans his head back, suddenly weary, closing his eyes for a moment.
"Please tell her I'm sorry," he says in a monotone. "If you see her."
The sheets feel rough under his fingers, like canvas; Sylar begins to smooth them out in small, convulsive movements, interrupted every so often when he digs his fingers into them, as if trying to anchor, or tear, or possibly both.
With each movement, they rustle.
It doesn't stop when he does, and soon he's gone motionless, breath held, listening harder.
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The orderly chuckles.
"Don't worry, I will. She'll be glad to hear it. You might say: Gray, life is gray, cold is her heart since you went away - "
The sharp tang of snow in the air, but the orderly is laughing that wonderful laugh, infectious, merry, bubbling -
- gurgling -
- liquid.
He turns around, and it's not cranberry juice at all, seeping down from between his lips and over his chin, down into a dark mess in the (dead) centre of his chest.
He points an accusatory finger.
"Gabriel," he says wetly, in a tone of mild surprise. "You're bleeding."
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He touches his head again, and something damp sticks to his hair.
Oh, thinks Sylar with a strange detachment as his pulse quickens. That's why it's so warm.
And then, without warning, he's coughing: violent, chest-wracking heaves that send up more blood onto the sheets, lodging something thick and spongy in the back of his throat that won't come free no matter how hard his body tries to expel it. His grip loosens as he rocks forward, bent double.
The light sputters and settles into a rattling hiss.
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"Gabriel." The voice emerging from the orderly's mouth is hard and high, not his own. "Look what you've done, the sheets are ruined again - "
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A thick band passes across his ankles. The hissing from the light's getting louder.
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And the flickering
and the flick-ering
flicker
The orderly reaches for his brush, grasping it by the bristled end. He enunciates, clear as a bell, "God damn these lights," and in a graceful overhead sweep, jabs the handle into the fluorescent tube.
It shatters like a nova, and in the last glow, the orderly's eyes gleam gold.
And a thousand tiny shards of glass drift down and down, like snowflakes.