Fic: Waking Dream

[lastcutebender]

Title: Waking Dream 
Author: lastcutebender 
Character/Pairing: Sylar/Gabriel G., Mohinder.
Rating: R (just to be safe.)
Word Count: 1849
Disclaimer: Don't own Heroes.
Warning: If you don't like AU's or Slight AU's, do not continue.
Author's Note: I know I've been MIA for a while, without internet and what not, but I'm back! Anyway, I've actually wanted to post this for a while but never did, at least not here. So here it is, a story. It's a bit AU-ish, in the fact that it deals within the Heroes verse, but I've tweaked some things here and there. I hopes you likes it! 
Summary: We never really appreciate linear thought until it's ripped away from us. When you can't remember who you are, nothing else really matters. All you want is the truth, and you want it now. Slight AU.


Waking Dream

Chapter 1

Look Up and You're Gone

White wasn't so much a color as it was a room these days. It was all he saw, day in and day out, and it was driving him mad. Yes, he wasn't the type of person that needed color in his daily life, but it had been six months since he'd seen anything other than the stark blankness of his walls. Seeing a spot of black would have probably kept him transfixed for hours.

This was his life now.

His days of killing and collecting were gone, his powers stripped from him so carefully that there were moments that he believed that he still possessed them.

'That day in the sun room, when was it…two weeks ago?'

He went for something out of his reach and it slid to him. It had crossed-[The food here was never really that satisfying.]

He shook his head angrily, trying to retrieve his earlier thought process. He wasn't thinking about food, he was thinking about…

his abilities.

'That day in the sun room, when was it…two weeks ago?'

He went for something out of his reach and it slid to him. It had crossed that expanse of space by itself, without provocation, and pressed itself into his waiting palm.

Or did it?

[The blankets here were so itchy. Sometimes he would scratch himself raw from raking his nails across his flesh.]

He shook his head again, pressing his hands against his eyes as he grunted in frustration. Everything here was like trying to remember a dream. Thoughts just in your reach but the moment you believed you had grabbed onto something solid, it was already gone, fluttering even further away from you.

'What day was it?'

Monday, Saturday…did it even matter? It wasn't as if remembering the day would answer anything important.

The bingo chip, it felt so smooth and real in his grasp. The surface cool and solid and he had known that that chip had found its way into his palm.

Police Tape.

Screaming.

Blood.

Forgive Me.

His head was pounding now, his eyes watering from the pain. And just like every other nameless day, it was useless, this process of trying to remember even the smallest detail of his life before his imprisonment.

Imprisonment.

Imprisonment…

'Is that really what this is?'

Everything was out of his reach now and sleep was setting in fast. His eye-lids trembled with the effort of trying to be kept open but just like everything else, it was fruitless. Within moments the battered man was unconscious and spread out across the floor, lost in a sea of dreams that the harder he tried to understand, the more confusing they became.

|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|

"He's relentless now."

A small woman with a clipboard held tightly in her grasp stated softly, her voice worried.

"We knew this wasn't going to be easy when we took him…" her companion responded coolly, "We'll be fine."

"He's not like the others." the woman pointed out, "He's going to keep on trying and he is going to eventually find an opening."

She bit her lip when the taller man looked down on her with disapproving eyes, "Go do your rounds Elle."

She nodded silently and turned away, opening and shutting the door quietly behind her as she left.

When she knew she was a safe distance from the room, she ran a hand through her hair and let out a frustrated sigh. Six months and they barely had had an incident, two at the most.

And that's what worried her.

Plans that worked out well, too well, were normally short lived; especially when something deadly was thrown into the mix. Lately it felt as if their time was running out and she didn't know how she was supposed to do anything about it. With a father who wouldn't listen to a word out of her mouth unless she was offering coffee, and no actual authority of her own, the task before her wasn't going to be an easy one. Then again, they never were.

She could contact Angela, but the older woman would probably brush her off just as quickly as her father had, probably faster. She had no patience for her own sons, let alone the daughter of a colleague who was going based off of gut instinct rather than fact.

She stopped as a metallic thud sounded on the door next to her and she peeked into the room using the small window provided. Pinning her clipboard under her arm, she pulled out the syringe tucked away in her pocket.

"Adam, if you don't stop slamming your head against the door, I'm going to have to sedate you."

The blonde man continued on, ignoring her warnings completely and Elle shook her head as she unlocked the door. Not even the patients listened to her.

|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|

"My name is Chan- -esh"

All his memories sounded like bad audio pouring from an old stereo. Bits and pieces of vital information bleeped out or dropping off all together, leaving him to fill in the blanks. On normal circumstances he wouldn't mind, he was always up for a challenge, never backing down from intellectual stimulation…but this was different.

It felt as if someone had thumbed through his very thoughts and memories and sliced out the bits they wanted, leaving him with a subconscious and memory bank that closely resembled Swiss cheese.

"Gabriel."

Slowly the addressed raised his gaze, meeting a pair of eyes framed in glasses looking down at him from that perfect square window in the door.

"Are we feeling better?"

'Are we feeling anything?'would have been a more appropriate question. Choosing to ignore the statement, he directed his attention back to the floor, hoping that this would convey the appropriate message.

"You know today's our session, Gabriel." The voice persisted, "Whether you choose to acknowledge me or not, I'm still here."

'What a shame.'

"Come on Gabriel." the static voice urged through the tiny speaker it was being emitted from, "stand up so we can restrain you."

'Restraints, how offensive'.

He wasn't an animal. He was a human being just like the rest of them. Why was he the one being constrained when they were the ones wielding the stun guns and needles, drugging anyone who didn't conform to their way of thinking? Half the patients had been taken down by force at least once, the other half resorting to holding themselves and staring out into nothingness, expressions forever blank.

They were the ones who were insane.

He would never allow himself to-

The hallway was colder than his room. It felt as if someone was cooling the building with liquid nitrogen; it was biting at his skin. His restraints making it feel that much more penetrating.

Confused the brunette looked around, "How did I get here?"

"You co-operated Gabriel, don't you remember?" the balding man explained calmly, "Today is our session."

"But…I was sitting on the floor." his eyebrows were furrowed in confusion as he tried his best to remember the past five minutes.

"I see that writing things down hasn't been helping with your memory loss." The psychiatrist jotted something down on the legal pad he was carrying, "We'll have to try something different."

Doors drifted passed, each identical to the last. They stopped at one that also looked exactly like the rest.

Everything here was so ordinary.

Everything here was the same.

No one here was special.

The doctor shooed away the two guards that had been walking behind them silently, ready at a moments notice to execute necessary force.

"I think today is going to be a good day Gabriel."

The couch inside the office was soft, designed to make you feel comfortable, to make you relax, to make you want to spill any and all of your secrets. The couch was just like them.

"So how have you been Gabriel?"

"Why do you keep saying my name?"

"Because that's who you are, isn't it?"

Was it?

"It is." he answered quietly, "but you don't have to keep repeating it."

The doctor gave a small smile and bowed his head in apology, "I'm sorry, I'll stop." He picked up a file folder and flipped it open, shuffling through the many sheets inside.

"You never answered my question."

The brunette, Gabriel, struggled. He couldn't even form a cohesive thought in his head, how could he describe complete and utter loss?

"Broken." Gabriel whispered.

The doctor nodded and scribbled on his legal pad, "That's an interesting word choice."

Gabriel looked up, "Is it?"

"Well, it's normally used in terms of objects. A broken lamp for example or a watch even, not a person."

Watch.

A watch.

'I can fix that.'

"Timepiece."

"Hmm?" the psychiatrist's glasses glinted in the sunlight streaming in through the blinds on the windows.

"I'm sorry, I've always preferred calling them timepiece's." Gabriel admitted somewhat bashfully.

"And why's that?"

The brunette thought for a while, but his thoughts seemed a constant loop of gibberish. Nothing more than white noise.

"I don't know." he pinched the bridge of his nose, bending over his knees slightly "I can't remember."

"Are you feeling alright?" there was a creak of wood as the doctor shifted in his chair.

"I have a headache."

"A symptom of the amnesia." the psychiatrist declared.

Amnesia.

Amnesia.

Was that really what this was?

"I..." he pressed a hand against his forehead "I keep forgetting things. I keep losing my train of thought. Is-is that also a symptom?"

"It's very common in advance cases like yours."

The words were meant to bring comfort, to make him feel at ease with his condition. Dread was all he took from the statement.

Advance cases.

"What happened?" he asked after his headache had passed. He looked up at the doctor sitting across from him, studying his facial expression closely.

The psychiatrist placed a closed fist against his lips and cleared his throat, arranging himself in his seat again. "You were in a car accident." his voice was careful, "Your mother died and you were flung through the windshield like a rag doll. It's a miracle you're still alive."

His mother was dead.

"My mother's dead?" the patient's voice was flat while processing this information.

"Yes, I'm sorry."

He wasn't. They both weren't.

"You can only remember events before the accident."

His eyebrows furrowed again.

Was that true? Could he only remember things before the accident? But that day in the sun room wh-

His bed was soft beneath him. He sank into it as he sat on the edge, watching his doctor silently.

"You've really come a long way Gabriel. You should feel proud of yourself."

He was back in his room.

'When did I get here?'

As he opened his mouth to say something, the psychiatrist cut him off, "Our session has probably tired you out. Get some rest."

Rest.

Rest sounded good.

The door shut with a heavy clunk and he was alone again in his too white room, locked in this place where everything was the same and no one was special…but something was different.

"I can fix that."

Chapter 2