[Mad] Unravel
[OOC: Sylar is heroslayer and used with permission and by request]
"Does being around me drain you?"
Melissa glanced up from where she had her head resting on the window, doodling in her journal to look over at Sylar with an arch of her eyebrow. She'd surrendered the keys to let him drive without argument, their constant movement starting to catch up with her, weariness settling over her much like the dust that seemed to coat everything out here in the middle of nowhere. His question surprised her, and she just watched him a moment, gaze searching, looking for some reason behind the question. Whether he cared or was just curious; whether he thought it did; whether he was looking for a certain answer. She was probably reading too much into it, looking for too much, but that was something that she did, especially when she was tired.
"It's not you," she said after the pause seemed to have stretched on for too long, shifting her gaze back out toward the road, looking through the windshield.
He frowned, she could see it out of the corner of her eye. "But what you do, and who I am..."
Lifting her shoulder slightly in a shrug, Melissa rested her head back against the window, feeling the vibration of the glass. "I'm not saying you couldn't. It's there, everything you feel, all bottled up. But you don't want to feel it, so I don't which..." She trailed off, and her lips quirked slightly. "Sometimes it makes my head hurt a bit, I guess. That much of a struggle in you. It's got to be exhausting part of you, but I'm getting used to it. Like..."
She trailed off once more, studying the brown stretch of road that faded into brown fields and lifted off the face of the earth into brown hills that finally met blue sky. He was quiet, waiting for her to find her thought out there, and she appreciated that display of patience, the lack of driving need to know now. There was space in her head, like the space out there, and he let her take it to form the words to describe something she hadn't dwelled much on, hadn't paused in their running to find the time to pull it forth and give it form. He got that, the need for space and silence in a confined vehicle that could close up around them, but somehow didn't, and the question was one she wanted to find the right answer to.
The silence lengthened this time, and for a time she didn't feel pressed to break it, a small frown tugging between her brows, one finger tracing back and forth across her lower lip as she tried to figure out how to explain it. She'd indicated she heard him. She was going to answer. He let her have her thoughts, but she started to feel the tension build, let herself open up to it, felt the shift from curiosity to something else, something nameless, something that tightened in her stomach and made her breath quicken in a way she didn't understand, until she finally shifted in her seat completely to lean back against the door and face him, gaze shadowed and far away even as it focused in on him, her ability clearly active.
"At first, everything jangled. It was jarring and raw and scraping. After what you went through, how I found you, what I saw there...that was to be expected. I wasn't...I learned somewhere to shield myself, instinctively. Self-preservation, I suppose, but you caught me with them down, and you are more than a little overpowering. Some people are just like that. Forces in and of themselves, harder to block out. You're like that, and you weren't controlling it those first few hours and I wasn't shielding and if it had stayed like that, then I don't know what would have happened. I don't know what would happen, if you dropped your walls and I dropped mine and I felt all of you, looked at you like this all the time, let you inside of me like that. Maybe you would drain me. Maybe not. Maybe it would be just the opposite and you'd overpower me, but I'd never have felt so powerful or alive. Maybe I'd drain you in doing so. Maybe we'd feed off each other and be better for it. Maybe we'd be worse. But...it's settled. You did what you do. I did what I do. I can feel you there, brushing up against the edges of the walls. I can look and see you from behind them. But it's a safe distance, for both of us. So, no. You don't drain me. Not like this." Her gaze shifted back to normal, something subtle, almost just a tilt of her head that wouldn't even be noticed if you didn't know what she was doing, and her lips curved in a slight smile. "I'm just tired from the car, from looking over our shoulders, and because the bed in the motel last night had to be the most uncomfortable thing I've slept on since summer camp in junior high."
Sylar had shifted his gaze from the road to lock with hers when she turned, trusting the desertedness all around them and his own reflexes to keep them where they ought to be on the pavement. He kept it there for a few moments after she finished, something flickering in it that she couldn't quite read, which was more upsetting than anything else that had happened in the last several weeks. Then he nodded once, and turned his attention back to the road. Melissa watched him a moment more, noticing that his hands clutched the wheel more tightly, skin white around his knuckles, and she wondered if he was trembling slightly inside the way she was, as she shifted back in her seat, resuming her previous position with her head against the glass, eyes dropping to the page where she looked at her doodles without seeing them.
"Does being around me drain you?"
Melissa glanced up from where she had her head resting on the window, doodling in her journal to look over at Sylar with an arch of her eyebrow. She'd surrendered the keys to let him drive without argument, their constant movement starting to catch up with her, weariness settling over her much like the dust that seemed to coat everything out here in the middle of nowhere. His question surprised her, and she just watched him a moment, gaze searching, looking for some reason behind the question. Whether he cared or was just curious; whether he thought it did; whether he was looking for a certain answer. She was probably reading too much into it, looking for too much, but that was something that she did, especially when she was tired.
"It's not you," she said after the pause seemed to have stretched on for too long, shifting her gaze back out toward the road, looking through the windshield.
He frowned, she could see it out of the corner of her eye. "But what you do, and who I am..."
Lifting her shoulder slightly in a shrug, Melissa rested her head back against the window, feeling the vibration of the glass. "I'm not saying you couldn't. It's there, everything you feel, all bottled up. But you don't want to feel it, so I don't which..." She trailed off, and her lips quirked slightly. "Sometimes it makes my head hurt a bit, I guess. That much of a struggle in you. It's got to be exhausting part of you, but I'm getting used to it. Like..."
She trailed off once more, studying the brown stretch of road that faded into brown fields and lifted off the face of the earth into brown hills that finally met blue sky. He was quiet, waiting for her to find her thought out there, and she appreciated that display of patience, the lack of driving need to know now. There was space in her head, like the space out there, and he let her take it to form the words to describe something she hadn't dwelled much on, hadn't paused in their running to find the time to pull it forth and give it form. He got that, the need for space and silence in a confined vehicle that could close up around them, but somehow didn't, and the question was one she wanted to find the right answer to.
The silence lengthened this time, and for a time she didn't feel pressed to break it, a small frown tugging between her brows, one finger tracing back and forth across her lower lip as she tried to figure out how to explain it. She'd indicated she heard him. She was going to answer. He let her have her thoughts, but she started to feel the tension build, let herself open up to it, felt the shift from curiosity to something else, something nameless, something that tightened in her stomach and made her breath quicken in a way she didn't understand, until she finally shifted in her seat completely to lean back against the door and face him, gaze shadowed and far away even as it focused in on him, her ability clearly active.
"At first, everything jangled. It was jarring and raw and scraping. After what you went through, how I found you, what I saw there...that was to be expected. I wasn't...I learned somewhere to shield myself, instinctively. Self-preservation, I suppose, but you caught me with them down, and you are more than a little overpowering. Some people are just like that. Forces in and of themselves, harder to block out. You're like that, and you weren't controlling it those first few hours and I wasn't shielding and if it had stayed like that, then I don't know what would have happened. I don't know what would happen, if you dropped your walls and I dropped mine and I felt all of you, looked at you like this all the time, let you inside of me like that. Maybe you would drain me. Maybe not. Maybe it would be just the opposite and you'd overpower me, but I'd never have felt so powerful or alive. Maybe I'd drain you in doing so. Maybe we'd feed off each other and be better for it. Maybe we'd be worse. But...it's settled. You did what you do. I did what I do. I can feel you there, brushing up against the edges of the walls. I can look and see you from behind them. But it's a safe distance, for both of us. So, no. You don't drain me. Not like this." Her gaze shifted back to normal, something subtle, almost just a tilt of her head that wouldn't even be noticed if you didn't know what she was doing, and her lips curved in a slight smile. "I'm just tired from the car, from looking over our shoulders, and because the bed in the motel last night had to be the most uncomfortable thing I've slept on since summer camp in junior high."
Sylar had shifted his gaze from the road to lock with hers when she turned, trusting the desertedness all around them and his own reflexes to keep them where they ought to be on the pavement. He kept it there for a few moments after she finished, something flickering in it that she couldn't quite read, which was more upsetting than anything else that had happened in the last several weeks. Then he nodded once, and turned his attention back to the road. Melissa watched him a moment more, noticing that his hands clutched the wheel more tightly, skin white around his knuckles, and she wondered if he was trembling slightly inside the way she was, as she shifted back in her seat, resuming her previous position with her head against the glass, eyes dropping to the page where she looked at her doodles without seeing them.