Collectors
TITLE: Collectors
AUTHOR: barhaven
CHARACTERS: Daphne and Sylar
RATING: PG
SUMMARY: Daphne and Sylar run into each other. And they're both looking to steal something valuable.
NOTES: Originally written for a prompt at comment_fic, expended slightly for this version. Technically an alternate volume 4, but written mostly for the weirdness.
ETA (03/10/2009): Awards! Best Gen Fic at the heroes_slash fanfic awards, and 2nd place for Best Daphne Characterization at the heroes_het_fic fanfic awards. Thanks to everyone who voted. :)
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It's a sunny day in New York, and it's Daphne's job to steal something priceless. As always. For ten minutes she's been sitting alone by a cluster of umbrella-shaded sidewalk café tables, watching. Waiting. She hates waiting.
From the shadow of some tarp-covered construction scaffolding across the street, Sylar has been watching Daphne for six of those ten minutes.
He never forgets an ability. If the killer hadn't known what to watch for, he would have missed the fraction of a second when she disappears from the table and reappears as if she never moved from the spot. Except that there's now a laptop case dangling from her hand. Expensive black leather, with someone else's name on handle.
A marvellously convenient power. Utterly wasted on its owner. Sylar imagines all the ways could put it to better use than petty theft, or blackmail, or whatever it is the woman is doing. It's tempting to make his way across the street right now, and take her by surprise before she can disappear, but it's too public over there. Broad daylight. Witnesses. Nothing he couldn't handle, but slicing open skulls on a busy street in the middle of New York isn't exactly conducive to keeping a low profile. There must be a better way to-
Sylar blinks. He shouldn't have. A gust of wind blows away the shreds of a discarded newspaper clinging at the edge of the tarp, and Daphne is suddenly standing next to him in the shadow of the scaffolding. One hand on her hip, the stolen laptop case swinging impatiently from the other.
"Do you want something?" she says.
When he raises an eyebrow at that, she rolls her eyes. "Rhetorical question. I remember you. I wasn't just delivering business cards back then, you know."
"And I remember you," Sylar says. "The thief."
"Sometimes. I'm a collector."
"So am I."
Sylar smirks. He raises his hand.
A fraction of time darts past, so tiny that even a watchmaker can barely catch it. Before he can even attempt any telekinesis, Daphne disappears. A gust of air slaps the blue tarp covering the scaffolding, and whips Sylar's hair and coat around violently.
For a moment, it seems he's alone. The metal bars creak and tremble around him. Then the air whips past him again, and...
"I steal things," Daphne says from over his shoulder. She holds out a blood-speckled scrap of paper that was buried in Sylar's coat pocket until two seconds ago - a scribbled address, just a lead that turned out to be a disappointment - and tosses it on the pavement at his feet. "You kill people."
"We both take what we want," Sylar says. Pickpocketing. What a waste of a perfectly good ability. He tenses his hand again, more subtly this time. "Powers. Memorabilia. People like us... We always go back to what we know."
Just keep her listening. One second of distraction. That's all he needs-
And apparently, isn't going to get. In the time between one fraction of a second and the next, the wind kicks up again. Daphne is gone as if she'd never been there, and there's only the creaky rattle of scaffolding in her wake.
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Thirty seconds later - far, far away - Daphne stops.
Her heart is still racing. Sylar had been proving too elusive for her normal approach, but baiting him to show himself like that... Not her first choice. Back when she was running errands for the Pinehearst, she'd been briefed on all the people she was expected to encounter along the way. She knows exactly how dangerous the killer is. A lot of other people, too.
That information is still serving her well. At least her time at Pinehearst wasn't a total waste. Turns out that - to the right employers - that kind of experience is better than a letter of recommendation.
Daphne abandons the laptop next to a bench. It was a nice touch for the diversion. She carefully pockets today's real treasure, and decides she isn't getting paid enough for this.
It's been a strange few weeks since she was approached to do these jobs, and she still doesn't know much more about it than when she started. Daphne doesn't even know what her mysterious new employer does with the "Significant Acquisitions" they want from "Persons of Interest" (their words, not hers). Just that the items they demand are always bizarrely...specific. Seemingly worthless. More dangerous to steal than any priceless artwork or secret formulas.
The marionette's head, smiling with delicate paint-chipped features. The pearl necklace. The taxadermied crow, not quite finished, cotton wadded in its empty eye sockets.
Weird stuff.
What's really weird is how much it bothers her. She's stolen a lot of things. Food, formulas, enough priceless artwork and knick-knacks to fill a Parisian loft. Yet these strange mementos, so precisely described and requested... She can never be rid of the things fast enough. Just touching them makes her feel uncomfortable.
Daphne can't quite put her finger on why. It's not guilt. Considering the "Persons of Interest" like Sylar that have cropped up on the list so far, she can't think of people who deserve this more. Something just feels...off. Like if she touched the thing tucked safely in her pocket right now, it would be less like holding a stolen trinket than holding a severed bit of flesh and bone, or a fragment of a true name.
Still, far be it from her to question other people's collections.
As Daphne runs, she admits that this gig does have its advantages. Even with every detail of these jobs crawling with weird vibes, all the unknowns, the risks, and the unsettling presence of today's acquisition... It's satisfying to know that she's the most qualified person in the world for this job. Not just because she's fast, but because she's a thief. And a good one.
A minute puts a lot of distance between Daphne and Sylar. But it's a full minute and fourteen seconds before Sylar notices that the broken watch on his wrist is missing.
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