February 2007

[watchmakers_son]

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.

Comments

[watchmakers_son]

He blinks, twice, trying to clear the last of the haze.

"I," he begins at a mumble, twisting in an effort to turn his face away. It's only for a moment before his gaze snaps back, almost unbidden.

And then, incongruously: a laugh, quick and harsh and a little manic.

"And you're meant to be a doctor, too," Sylar tells him, as if he can't quite believe it.

[aj_crawley]

"Don't get sarky," the orderly says warningly, straightening up. Rather than edged, though, his tone has a note of familiar banter to it. "We'll see who's laughing when all their hard work finishes paying for med school."

The light above flickers; he casts a glance up at it before continuing with a snort.

"Dad always said I could be anything I wanted. Though I'm not sure he meant taking lip from ingrate patients."

[watchmakers_son]

Sylar's breathing, not terribly steady to begin with, hitches.

"There was someone," he begins, then pauses to swallow. "Who was just here. Someone I knew. Did you see them?"

He darts his own gaze to the light, following the orderly's.

[aj_crawley]

"Yeah," he says, pulling the cart up alongside the bed. "Your mum. Familiar face around here by now - she's some kind of saint, I swear. The Holy Virginia," he adds, and laughs, amused by the awfulness of his pun.

(It's a fine laugh, clear and deep with merriment, and infectiously uncomplicated. The room seems warmer already.)

[watchmakers_son]

"She's been here before."

It's a question, despite the lack of inflection, as Sylar briefly turns his attention to the cart. It skips up to the orderly's face soon after.

There's an odd expression on his face.

"So I didn't hurt her."

[aj_crawley]

"Everyone knows that was an accident, Gabriel."

There's no pity in his voice. What there is: understanding, and those eyes, a forgiving blue.

[watchmakers_son]

They're difficult to look at for very long, and yet Sylar can't look away. He cracks a small, completely humorless smile.

"Does she?"

[aj_crawley]

Quietly:

"She wouldn't be here if she didn't, I can tell you that."

A moment in silence, and then he turns to the tray atop the cart, handing Gabriel the juice (plastic cup thin enough, translucent enough, to let the light seep into the wine-coloured liquid). In the other hand, the smaller cup, with three pills inside, round, white, and flat.

"These for the panic attacks," he says, "and this for the vitamins. Go on."

Do this in  m e m o r y  of me.
(The light flickers again; the orderly tsks.)

[watchmakers_son]

The liquid darkens, seems thicker; the light steadies and it's a clear vivid red again. Sylar tips the cup slightly. It slides over the plastic with no trouble.

He glances up at the other man again, curling his fingers around the brim of the smaller cup, nails scraping the pills.

"I thought forced injections were more your style," he remarks, very level.

[aj_crawley]

"No," the other man answers calmly, turning again to pick up brush and pan. "That sounds more like you."

Crouching down to the floor, he begins to sweep in long, easy strokes. As clean as the room is, there's no helping a surface people walk on; his brush leaves a gleaming, snaky wake behind it, and there, and there again. The room is much, much warmer now - and what he's sweeping into his dustpan is snowflakes.

[watchmakers_son]

Sylar goes still. In his hand, a shallow white crease forms along the side of the pill cup.

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.

[aj_crawley]

Still sweeping - sure to be thorough - the orderly starts humming quietly. He has no great talent for music, that's evident enough from the start, but nevertheless, the cadence is somehow... soothing.

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.

[watchmakers_son]

The smaller cup settles inside the larger one quiet neatly, when he stacks them together. The back of his throat tastes bitter and faintly metallic.

He cants his head, listening, without taking his eyes off of the cups.

"What are you doing?" he asks suddenly.

[aj_crawley]

"Cleaning up," he says, not looking up either. "After you. As usual."

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.

[watchmakers_son]

"She wasn't here, though."

His gaze drifts: still not on Crowley, but on the snowflakes now.

"Not like that. She couldn't have been."

[aj_crawley]

His back to the patient now, the orderly's sweeping stops.

(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..."

[watchmakers_son]

Sylar grits his teeth and leans forward to press one palm against his forehead. Despite the temperature of the room, goosebumps are still trailing over his arms.

"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.

[aj_crawley]

There is nothing there.


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.

(rustle)

[watchmakers_son]

Of course that's all it would be.

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.

[aj_crawley]

It's every childhood horror. It's everything that clamped tight and iron around little lungs and little throats, and you can't get up to go to the bathroom because it's under the bed.

She's crying and screaming and she can't move and she's so scared, so scared and she didn't mean to wet her pants, she didn't, she tried to be brave but she can't, she can't, she wants to go home now so bad and have cookies with Mommy and and and--

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."

[watchmakers_son]

Frowning, he looks down to where the orderly's pointing. There's nothing at first; then, red spatters in tiny, irregular circles on his shirt.

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.

[aj_crawley]

"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 - "

[watchmakers_son]

Even if Sylar could hear him beyond something garbled, tinny, and distant, he wouldn't be able to respond. Hands flat on the sheets -- the backs of them are flecked with blood, now, too -- his coughs trail into strangled, wet gasps before he catches his breath and starts all over again.

A thick band passes across his ankles. The hissing from the light's getting louder.

[aj_crawley]

Over his wrists, now, too - warm, and dry, and holding them in place, and the flickering of the light gleams on scales.

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.