watchmakers_son | Kindred, part two; March 2007

He expected it to clear after the sedatives wore off and, little by little, he eased himself out of the bed. He thought her voice would grow less muffled. He wondered when his hands -- his entire body, in truth -- would start to feel warm again.

Sylar has been waiting for hours now for the eerie silence to lift, and for the moment when he can look at something and know it's real by the way the patterns click and fit.

It still hasn't happened. The IV line can't be frozen or melted when he pinches it between his fingers, either; nor can he push the entire stand into the wall with a thoughtless gesture from several yards away.

If this is the truth, and all that came before was because of that woman --

-- then why can't he do anything?

It has to be a mistake. Seated at a small table, one hand curved, Sylar focuses on a mug resting a foot away from him and tries to pull.

It doesn't move. (HAVE A NICE DAY, it says along one side, just above a disproportionately cheerful smiley face.)

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Sylar, it's fairly safe to say, has no interest in breakfast. Slowly, he closes his hand into a fist.

This isn't a matter of weakness, or needing to relearn. It's simply not there. He can't feel it, can't sense the push and pull that should drag the mug closer, just like he can't feel the nuclear heat under his skin or hear all the harmonics of the plate crashing against the table.

"I can't make it move," he whispers.

Candice rolls her eyes.

"You almost died," she tells him smoothly. "After a trauma like that, it's going to take a while for your body to heal. It could be months, may be even longer, before you have your powers back. But, that's why I'm here." She grins and steals a bite of his bacon. "The Company will foot the bill, and I can make this whole process a little more...colorful."

Sylar's jaw tenses as he finally looks up, away from the mug. "And that's your idea of helping me."

As if just noticing the plate for the first time, he seizes it, shoving it across the table toward her with a clatter.

"Making it colorful? Making me breakfast? I have -- " He slams an open hand on the table, and instantly has to shift to grab the edge of the table instead, cut off mid-sentence as he catches his breath. When he begins again, his voice is a low, vehement rasp.

"I can't freeze things, I can't hear anything, I have lost. Everything. That I have worked for. Everything that I had, it's gone. And what have you done? Made me believe I was going crazy, that it was all a lie?"

(Maybe it still is, whispers something quiet and traitorous.)

"Please," she tells him. "After four different surgeries, you think you weren't hallucinating most of what you keep babbling about? You're not Superman." At that she grins, and begins to circle around Sylar's chair.

"But you can be," Claire tells him, wearing her red and white cheerleader uniform. "If you put some effort into it."

"It will take time," Michelle tells him. "A lot of time to relearn your powers, tactics to balance each of their uses. You know, raw power isn't the answer. Not with people like us." She giggles.

The universe quirks. Now, the bare room is a vast luxury apartment with a huge picture window that looks out over the evening Las Vegas skyline. There are two identical blonde women in tiny dresses leaning on each other where Michelle had been standing. One pouts. The other smiles. "It's about control," they tell him.

Sylar, half-hunched over the table, loosens his grip on its edge as he slowly raises his head.

There's nothing to see, but he looks all the same: at the seamless changes, the ripple from one world to the next. It's like trying to understand a painting after you've gone blind. He's only half-listening to Candice.

(He's heard it before, anyway. He thinks. The memory is smudged and disjointed when he tries to recall it.)

Eventually, Sylar leans his head to the right, eyes narrowing a fraction in clear interest.

If she claims that most of it was his doing, after all...that leaves some of it that wasn't.

"And if you agree to be good," the twins tell him as they sway closer and intertwine into a colorful geisha that hides her face behind a fan, "I'll play nice."

"Very nice," a well muscled Pam Grier tells him.

"The limit," Sylar says as he circles around and kneels by the real Sylar's chair, "is only my imagination." He smiles. "Do we have a deal?"

It really is extraordinary, he thinks, looking down into his own face. What this one can do.

Take the same blind man from before; make him a thief, place him in front of a Van Gogh, and tell him that there isn't any security.

Sylar's hand inches across the table, fingers spread.

It would be worth the chance, wouldn't it. Even if it's difficult. The basic steps are the same for any robbery; certain traits may help, but they're not a requirement.

Genetics are genetics, in the end, and while he may not see how, he knows that she does work. He's done this enough times to fill in the rest.

And he hadn't needed telekinesis to kill Brian Davis.

His fingers close around the cool ceramic of the mug. "Yes," he murmurs, calmly distant, as he mirrors the other Sylar's smile down to the last detail. "I think we do."

In one sudden, violent motion, he swings his arm forward and slams the mug into the side of Candice's head with a CRASH.

If Candice had not been knocked unconscious, her thoughts would have been something like this:

"Sonofabitch!"

"I hate you, you pervy little watch boy."

"I was a better you!!"

But her main thought would have been, "You have no powers. You are trapped in the middle of a jungle in Southern Mexico. You are severely injured. Instead of thinking this through and waiting to try and kill me when you might have your powers back, you waste my time and yours and break my favorite mug. Idiot."

Thankfully, she was unconscious and didn't have to worry about...feeling anything.

There.

Carefully, laboriously, Sylar gets to his feet, leaning on the table for support. He pushes away after a moment's pause and steps over his own body; VE A NI and one eye of the smiley face crunch underfoot.

"I know what happens without control," he hisses, easing himself into a crouch with equal care. "I've seen what abilities like yours can do, before they start to work."

As he reaches out to skate a finger along the short black hair near Candice's temple, the figure shimmers and melts, reshaping itself into a new one: neither Michelle nor the Candice he knows, but an overweight woman with mousy brown hair. Sylar draws back, briefly, before he smiles and settles his hand onto the bloodied side of her forehead.

"But," he whispers, "raw power never hurts. And if I'm going to get mine back -- "

He digs his fingers into her skin.

"Starting with yours will do just fine."

Kindred, part two; March 2007

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