For Sylar

[downsidedarling]

Diana's been having a bad day.

"Oh look," she grumbles. "Another man. I bet he's a rapist. The last ten men I checked out of this shithole were fucking rapists."

She places a hand on the oval window and closes her eyes.

Comments

[the_brain_man]

The first time, the very first time, he killed with his hands. If he’d expected anything, it would have been for murder to be difficult - but Brian Davis just stopped, a watch with the coil ripped out, a defunct piece to be scavenged for salvageable parts

[the_brain_man]

(Doesn’t he know it.)

Sylar laughs, short and humourless. “That’s not a gift. This-”

Crack: a twitch of the hand and pressure slams into Eights’ chest, breaking several ribs.

“-is a gift. What you have is a disease.”

Subtly wrong. Undesirable. Unfixable?

[downsidedarling]

"Mmmm."

Now that she knows it makes him uncomfortable, she's much less subtle about her enjoyment.

"Come on, man. Look at this logically." She pauses for a coughing fit; spatters of blood exit her mouth, to join the mess already on the floor. "I wouldn't be talking to you right now, were I normal. I'd've given up Speaker ten minutes ago and I'd be lying on the floor in a whimpering pile." Once more a pause, for the same reason.

"You can't tell me," she continues, amused, "that that ain't worth something."

A rumble deep in her throat, and Eights very carefully and deliberately spits a gob of blood and phlegm in Sylar's direction.

[the_brain_man]

His jaw tightens.

“It’s filthy,” he says insistently. (Almost seems to be talking to himself, rather than to Eights; in any case he’s still not quite focused on her face.)

He hears the rumble, but doesn’t realise what it is until the wet red lump has flown down onto his coat - he jerks aside automatically, and it barely misses his face. He wipes it quickly away with his sleeve, snarls up at Eights-

And puts her down, very carefully, on the ground, his movements as delicate as if she were an antique and fragile timepiece. He has no intention of satisfying her any longer.

[downsidedarling]

Calmly, as though it's a perfectly routine operation (and it probably is), Eights opens her desk drawer, removes a knife, and slits her own throat. Before her corpse is finished falling to the ground, it catches fire, flaring brightly for half a second before fading off to reveal a renewed Eights. (The chunks of spine strewn about the room also go up in smoke, though any and all bloodstains remain untouched.)

"You won't get far down here with that attitude," she tells him, still calm. "Now get the fuck out of my fucking office, you shitstain. I'm done with you."

Without another word, she puts the knife away, sits back down, and turns on the stereo.

(I'm gonna hit the highway like a bat out of hell
On a silver-black phantom bike)

[the_brain_man]

Sylar doesn’t answer, but turns on his heel

(It’s not her victory, he tells himself, he just doesn’t have the patience right now to deal with her prevaricating and her grating wrongness)

and leaves, his face twisting.

But he puts on a pleasant face for the receptionist, slipping into a friendly persona - it’ll do him good right now, distance himself from the dark frustration. “I’ll need another contractor, I’m afraid - Eight Hour Chainsaw’s busy at the moment.”

[downsidedarling]

The receptionist isn't deaf. She noticed soem of the goings-on. But she makes no comment.

"Try Dice. Other hallway. Sixth on the left."

But before he does so, he might notice the sound of a familiar voice from the hallway he just exited, giving an apparent friend his residence code and informing her that under no circumstances is anybody to take this worthless cocksmear's contract. This, followed by the sound of typing.

One might intuit from this that Dice may not be particularly receptive to Sylar's request.

[the_brain_man]

Damn her. Sylar's gaze flies briefly to the door and then back again, though his expression doesn't change.

"Who else is there?" he asks, casual but quick. "I think I'll ask around."

[downsidedarling]

"Reen and Helen, but they're new. Couldn't take your contract even if they wanted to. Dice is your best bet. Other than that you could always come back another day."

The receptionist never looks up from her incessant doodling.

[the_brain_man]

He leans towards her.

"How soon do sentences start?"

[downsidedarling]

"No earlier than a week after they're assigned, no later than a month. Beyond that, it's up to Jasmine, in your case."

Pause.

"She hates men. She'll be on you the second your week is up."

[the_brain_man]

That gives him a little leeway, at least.

"And the earliest that there will be more contractors available?"

[downsidedarling]

"No idea who'll be showing up on shift next, but this bunch gets out in six hours. You could come back then."

In six hours, judging by the noises going on at the back of the hallway, not only every contractor in Downside but most of its general residents will have heard Sylar's residence code and that he is not someone they want to be helping.

[the_brain_man]

His gaze shifts to the door again, agitated, and stays there.

"What if," he says, and it's not subtle at all but there's a nagging feeling of time running out, "I have to get a contractor really quickly?"

[downsidedarling]

"You're fucked," she says amicably. "Eights didn't like you, am I right?"

[the_brain_man]

He glares at the door, before returning his attention to the receptionist, his mouth a thin line.

Flatly: "The feeling was mutual."