Milliways, room 1153
May. 8th, 2009 03:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
watchmakers_son[After this.]
He's bleeding.
Sylar didn't notice it, in the jumbled and buzzing fog after Elle's attack, but there are tiny cuts everywhere: on his face, his hands, his neck. A few of them have sunk fairly deep, and others still have thin clear slivers of glass embedded in them. Bent over the sink in room 1153, Sylar tweezes out the largest fragments with his fingernails, hissing short breaths between his teeth at the stinging pain.
On the edge of the sink rest three items: a piece of elastic, a needle, and the (thankfully unbroken) vial of Claire's blood. The box, he tossed aside haphazardly as soon as he fished the vial from its center. It's fetched up against the side of the bathtub with its hinges splayed wide into an L shape.
Once he's yanked out as many of the bits as he can find, he flexes his injured hands with meticulous care. They ache, still, but with most of the glass gone, most of the pain has ebbed as well. Enough to do what he needs to do, anyway.
Sylar rolls up his sleeve and ties off the tourniquet at the top of his arm, continuing to clench and unclench his hand to bring the veins to the surface. It trembles, slightly, and doesn't stop trembling as he picks up the needle and vial. Anticipation, he tells himself, as he watches the needle's reservoir fill. Not the virus. And if it is the doing of some obscure and engineered sickness -- well. That will hardly matter any more soon enough.
He holds his breath, slips the needle into his arm, and pushes the plunger.
Thin lines of cold thread up his veins. They race to his shoulder, through his chest, fade in the warmth of his own blood...and then, for a long, agonizing moment, that's all.
Sylar's breath quickens. He drops the needle into the sink and releases the tourniquet, then digs his fingers into the porcelain. His shaking nails rattle a nearly inaudible stacatto. "No," he rasps. If Maya's recovery was a fluke -- if this wasn't the right means of repair after all -- if Mohinder's research and reassurances had all been a lie and Sylar's travels for nothing --
The static buzz, like ringing in his ears, crescendos back, bringing sick curls of nausea with it that double him over in a choked gasp. This close, he can see every chip in the porcelain,
zzzzzzzzzztickzzzzzzzztickzzzzzzzz
and every dotted blemish on the tap, the faded off-blue of the COLD handle
zzzzticktickzzzztickzztickticktickzzzz
as the light flickers, just a little, in its reflection as the ringing in his ears continues to build. He can't breathe.
zzzzzztickzzzzzzztickzzzzztickzzztickzztickztickticktick
But when Sylar forces his seized muscles into working, lifting himself up just enough to glimpse his reflection (all over his face, the cuts are sewing closed and flattening to smooth, healed skin), he realizes that it isn't ringing or buzzing he hears.
tickzztick -- tick. Tick. Tick.
It's far more familiar.
Tick.
He can see.
The gasp, this time, is far closer to laughter, even as the discordant pieces and parts snarl his vision and make him grip the sink even harder. He closes his eyes, listening, and takes a long moment to savor every beat. Eventually, pushing himself an inch straighter, Sylar takes a hand away from the sink and gestures to the fallen box in a quick, experimental movement, trying to catch hold of the strings that he know must be there.
Nothing stirs. Some of the laughter dies; he tries again, searching harder this time as he flicks his wrist toward the box. Again: nothing.
He grits his teeth. Not entirely cured, then. Or perhaps it will come back, in time; it feels far too loud to see much else properly right now. Maybe, once he's re-adapted -- Sylar pushes himself away from the sink and sees another jarring rhythm as the tiles creak against the porcelain. He shakes his head to clear it; breathes deep, to steady himself.
Or maybe there are other ways. If he can make sense of the parts once more, and the ways to align each one to the other...there are far more telekinetics than Brian Davis, and so much more besides that he can find, if need be. Sylar meets his eyes in the mirror.
"I'm back," he whispers to his reflection. He touches two fingers to a spot where a cut used to be, smearing away the blood to expose the unblemished skin beneath, and smiles.
He's bleeding.
Sylar didn't notice it, in the jumbled and buzzing fog after Elle's attack, but there are tiny cuts everywhere: on his face, his hands, his neck. A few of them have sunk fairly deep, and others still have thin clear slivers of glass embedded in them. Bent over the sink in room 1153, Sylar tweezes out the largest fragments with his fingernails, hissing short breaths between his teeth at the stinging pain.
On the edge of the sink rest three items: a piece of elastic, a needle, and the (thankfully unbroken) vial of Claire's blood. The box, he tossed aside haphazardly as soon as he fished the vial from its center. It's fetched up against the side of the bathtub with its hinges splayed wide into an L shape.
Once he's yanked out as many of the bits as he can find, he flexes his injured hands with meticulous care. They ache, still, but with most of the glass gone, most of the pain has ebbed as well. Enough to do what he needs to do, anyway.
Sylar rolls up his sleeve and ties off the tourniquet at the top of his arm, continuing to clench and unclench his hand to bring the veins to the surface. It trembles, slightly, and doesn't stop trembling as he picks up the needle and vial. Anticipation, he tells himself, as he watches the needle's reservoir fill. Not the virus. And if it is the doing of some obscure and engineered sickness -- well. That will hardly matter any more soon enough.
He holds his breath, slips the needle into his arm, and pushes the plunger.
Thin lines of cold thread up his veins. They race to his shoulder, through his chest, fade in the warmth of his own blood...and then, for a long, agonizing moment, that's all.
Sylar's breath quickens. He drops the needle into the sink and releases the tourniquet, then digs his fingers into the porcelain. His shaking nails rattle a nearly inaudible stacatto. "No," he rasps. If Maya's recovery was a fluke -- if this wasn't the right means of repair after all -- if Mohinder's research and reassurances had all been a lie and Sylar's travels for nothing --
The static buzz, like ringing in his ears, crescendos back, bringing sick curls of nausea with it that double him over in a choked gasp. This close, he can see every chip in the porcelain,
zzzzzzzzzztickzzzzzzzztickzzzzzzzz
and every dotted blemish on the tap, the faded off-blue of the COLD handle
zzzzticktickzzzztickzztickticktickzzzz
as the light flickers, just a little, in its reflection as the ringing in his ears continues to build. He can't breathe.
zzzzzztickzzzzzzztickzzzzztickzzztickzztickztickticktick
But when Sylar forces his seized muscles into working, lifting himself up just enough to glimpse his reflection (all over his face, the cuts are sewing closed and flattening to smooth, healed skin), he realizes that it isn't ringing or buzzing he hears.
tickzztick -- tick. Tick. Tick.
It's far more familiar.
Tick.
He can see.
The gasp, this time, is far closer to laughter, even as the discordant pieces and parts snarl his vision and make him grip the sink even harder. He closes his eyes, listening, and takes a long moment to savor every beat. Eventually, pushing himself an inch straighter, Sylar takes a hand away from the sink and gestures to the fallen box in a quick, experimental movement, trying to catch hold of the strings that he know must be there.
Nothing stirs. Some of the laughter dies; he tries again, searching harder this time as he flicks his wrist toward the box. Again: nothing.
He grits his teeth. Not entirely cured, then. Or perhaps it will come back, in time; it feels far too loud to see much else properly right now. Maybe, once he's re-adapted -- Sylar pushes himself away from the sink and sees another jarring rhythm as the tiles creak against the porcelain. He shakes his head to clear it; breathes deep, to steady himself.
Or maybe there are other ways. If he can make sense of the parts once more, and the ways to align each one to the other...there are far more telekinetics than Brian Davis, and so much more besides that he can find, if need be. Sylar meets his eyes in the mirror.
"I'm back," he whispers to his reflection. He touches two fingers to a spot where a cut used to be, smearing away the blood to expose the unblemished skin beneath, and smiles.
