For Eden AND Sylar
Eden's house is larger than Sylar's.
(She had Mohinder, after all. He mourned.)
On the whole this is not much of a recommendation, but being Eight-Hour's does wonders for your furnishing capabilities, and she's had every opportunity to make it habitable.
(She had Mohinder, after all. He mourned.)
On the whole this is not much of a recommendation, but being Eight-Hour's does wonders for your furnishing capabilities, and she's had every opportunity to make it habitable.
Eden went to the bar earlier today. (Old habits don't die when the body does.) She worked off her buzz in the library, staring at Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart. (Old habits don't die.) She thought about how far she's sliding back into who she was - drinking, ignoring people, seeing them only for what she can get from them. She should stop it. She should make more friends. But it's so much energy. She barely has enough energy to feel fear and worry.
With a nod to the librarian, she left, intending to read Things Fall Apart at home. A young Indian man stopped her and gave her an amber bracelet - Eden is used to people stopping her. She's Eights' gal. (The booze didn't dull missing Mohinder. She's a selfish bitch for wanting him here.)
She said thanks. Asked his name. Then (her heart throbbing in pain) asked if he wanted to get a coffee sometime. He uncertainly stammered a, "Sure." She smiled at him as she left.
She can't remember his name by the time she reaches her house. Maybe it's for the best.
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But this time, he’s in control.
Pale patches in a corner might have been taken for mere patterns of light before they focus and, without really changing, become a man’s face. His expression could be called impassive, if his eyes weren’t dark and cold and hard as flint.
Two curled fingers translate to a measured pressure on the throat, making speech impossible.
One corner of Sylar’s mouth flickers upwards, just slightly.
“Hello, Sarah.”
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She can't speak. Like before. Her throat quivers, strains as she tries, harsh puffs of air but little else. The rest of her body is hardly idle. Muscles tense, (shaking) hands become fists (uselessly) as she begins to step back towards the door.
Though the rest of her body is in motion, Sylar might detect a twitch of her cheek muscle at the name he gives her.
(Should've asked Amber Bracelet to come in. He could have stopped this. She could have ordered him to protect her. Fuck, why doesn't she think why doesn't she think why doesn't she think)
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"FUCK!"
Cursing Sylar, herself, the librarian's insufficient pain threshold, and anything else she can think of, Eight-Hour clatters down four flights of stairs to her garage, where she hops on a motorcycle. It's barely possible she'll get there in time. (She has no idea what she'll do when she does. It's not important, really. She'll think of something.)
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He walks towards her, slowly, savouring her helplessness and the fear in her heart. One step. Two.
"It's been too long," Sylar chides her, tilting his head, his eyes riveted on Eden's. He contrives to look slightly, mockingly hurt. "Have you been avoiding me?"
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Failed. She managed to do something heroic once. Failed. Now even that - the one thing that she could look back on without regret - means nothing. Failed.
Don't cry. Don't let him see you cry. Don't cry. She finds, with a tiny thrill of relief, that she doesn't.
She's much too terrified for that.
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After last time, and her temporary victory (he can’t think of it as a real one - he’s Sylar, he doesn’t lose, he can’t -), he’s tempted to linger over this, really draw it out - but this time is different to the others. Special. She has to stay alive until he’s taken what he wants, or she’ll torch and this could all go wrong (just like last time -- she managed it once, which is bad enough, but twice is beyond contemplation). She’s a special piece in special circumstances. White-hot bones through red-hot skin will cauterize the wound. The movement will not leave the escapement, to keep the mechanism ticking even as its cogs are scavenged.
So: a challenge.
This time there are no interruptions. Skin and bone part under his finger like a neat Red Sea, exposing a ticking, seething, red-grey mass, spilling over with the busy little lives of a billion busy little mechanisms all interlocking and clicking smoothly together --
-- it’s beautiful --
-- their perfection only highlighting the odd one out, the gene that none of the others wants to play with, sitting there screaming fix me.
So he does.
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no could've stopped this all those others could've stopped him why
A tear trickles down her cheek, then another, then a flood along with the red.
It just hurts so much.
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This-- this feeling, teetering on the edge of something, about to soar-- some people would say he's touching God. He'd rebuke that with a scientific quote of some sort-- well, that is, if he wasn't turning inwards and having to consciously remember to breathe. Barriers shatter and he fills the world--
"Don't speak."
--the knot uncoils all at once and ploughs out through his skin, white-hot and ice-clean and now he can feel the slight variation in his own mind, and hear the strange harmonics in his own voice--
(The telekinetic grip has slipped away, unsustainable in this mad rush.)
Everything he did to get here was worth it. Pure and simple.
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It wouldn't quite be correct to say that Eight-Hour stopped to pick up a sword along the way; she simply leaned down and snatched it out of the hand of a mugger as she passed him in the street. He didn't exactly object.
Now, blessing the utter lack of a speed limit on streets that haven't seen a motor vehicle in centuries, she is coming to the rescue. Sort of. A large part of her already knows that whatever Sylar is after, he must already have; but she would not be herself if she didn't still desperately want to do something.
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From far away a command comes.
She was too slow. Now she can't speak. Can't save herself. She's slumped against the wall by this point, life gushing out, making choked, soft moans.
You don't need words to beg for the pain to end. Before, Eden could focus beyond that - she had a goal, a purpose. But now the game's over. There's no point.
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The other, an engine's smoky roar, and a voice that he recognises with an angry hiss. Sylar whips round to face the door, ready to meet Eight-Hour with a snarl--
--Wait.
This isn't like last time. He's improved himself again.
And a couple of neatly-aligned cogs strike off an idea.
Now, he'll meet her with a smile.
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She does switch the sword from her left hand to her right, and without so much as an intake of breath swing it savagely at Sylar's head. Dramatism is for people with advantages. Eights is here for blood, plain and simple.
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Logically speaking, Sylar doesn't need to move to block the blow. But when someone swings a sword at your head, logic isn't exactly at the forefront of your actions: he jerks back and throws up his arm in front of his face, and the speed of Eights' swing is enough that the blade leaves a mess of cut sleeve and a thin red trickle before it clangs off a telekinetic shield.
Does she have no appreciation for grandeur? Oh, well. If it's a no-holds-barred fight she wants... An invisible wall slams into Eight-Hour, carrying her backwards into the wall, but vanishes just short of crushing her against it.
"Don't move."
Another order suggests itself; he throws a smirk sideways at the crumpled Eden, in case she recognises the wording. "You don't want to hurt me."
How did Eden refrain from using her power every single moment of the day? It was exhilarating.
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Fine.
Some things don't require motion.
Eights usually closes her eyes for this, but since at the moment she can't, she simply waits for the shock to clear and thinks - and slowly, ever-so-slowly, a crackle of fire that isn't quite fire builds up inside her, dancing between molecules and remaining for the moment invisible to the outside world. A self-induced torch is something most contractors learn to perform, at one point or another. They make things remarkably convenient.
By his command, she doesn't want to hurt Sylar. But there are other things she can want to do to him instead, at the moment - things that do require motion - and she concentrates on those, smirking inwardly, as a form of motivation for this difficult task. Sylar has heard this particular pattern in her heartbeat before. Perhaps he remembers it. It is doubtful, however, that he could ever think she'd use it as a weapon.
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Oh, why not laugh? If any situation deserves it, this does. Ahahahahaha.
His laughter stops as abruptly as it begins, though, and after only a couple of seconds: he does indeed remember that pattern, and the memory's less than fond. He shoots Eight-Hour an angry look. Now, of all times? When he's trying to enjoy his victory, she has to-- to start that again?
But it does give him an idea.
He steps towards her, leaning forward, close to her face -- very close -- and says, soft and low and full of relish:
"You hate to be hurt. The thought of it terrifies you, and there's no pleasure in it, none at all."
Then he breaks her finger again, as a test.
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