(no subject)
Title: Define Dangerous
Characters: Sylar, Claire.
Spoilers: Up to Season 2.
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2040
Chapter: 4/?
Previously: Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3
Summary: While escaping the Company, Sylar meets up with someone from his past. Together, they must piece together some semblance of normality after years of captivity. Future AU.
Before the night when Primatech took him into custody, life for Sylar was so much more simple and loads more entertaining. Find a victim, kill them, take their abilities and then use those to destroy more pathetic souls who couldn't handle their own power. It was a circular process, but his entrance into the company's underground world cut that cycle short. Now he was the one who couldn't control his gifts.
Stepping off the elevator, fresh from his fight with Claire, he shot sideways glares at the other tourists on the first floor. He wanted to break this world apart and watch it crumble before him. Sylar clenched his hands into fists, then stretched his fingers out again. Power traveled from the tips of his fingers up through his arms. Marching through the hotel lobby, he waved a hand at the door leading out to the street, throwing it open with such force its glass threatened to break. That was control, of a sort.
What happened back in the hotel room still bothered him. He couldn't explain the sudden release of unwanted telekinesis. Anger had always been the hardest of his emotions to suppress. It fed him, sustained him through life's trials. It pushed him forward most times but right now it was threatening the things he held most important. His powers.
It had been nearly two days since Sylar last received an injection at Primatech. He hoped with enough time the effects of the drug would dissipate. As time wore on, he began to worry that his abilities were going to be screwed up indefinitely. He shot a small ball of radioactivity out his hand, playing with the energy while testing himself.
An woman stepped into the lobby with a small child in tow. Sylar thought she might have seen the ball of energy he was playing with because she suddenly grabbed for the child's hand. In a demanding, yet protective, tone she whispered to her son. “Come here, Michael, you stay away from that man.”
“That's right, lady, lock up your children and stay inside where it's safe.” He said under his breath after catching pieces of her conversation. He hoped that some part of himself was still frightening, still in control. The company couldn't have taken everything from him. Leaving the hotel, he smirked as the woman continued pulling her son away.
After passing a few stores along the busy main street of the city, the only major road of the whole small southwestern city, Sylar felt a headache coming on. His enhanced memory, another stolen power from an unsuspecting source, started acting up. It sent him a memory of another time, another place when he's lost control. In his mind, Sylar could see snowglobes flying, snow falling in the living room and a pair of accusatory scissors.
And then all he saw was blood.
Blood staining his hands red.
His mother's blood, bleeding out of her and covering the floor in apocalyptic designs.
“You're not Gabriel. You're damned. And I want you out of my house.” Sylar stopped, gripping the brick wall of a building strong enough to put dents in the stone from a strength so strong no ordinary human could possess it. Nausea washed over him as he heard his mother crying, a memory from across time and space. “I want my son. What did you do with my son? Give me back my boy.”
He breathed, seeking control.
What was it in him that insisted on hurting everyone he came in contact with, even his own mother? Was there something in his hardwiring, pieces of his brain that he failed to fix yet? Was it still there, after all this time?
He couldn't tell who he was anymore, where Gabriel stopped and Sylar began. That line was always a tough distinction to draw, even before being subjected to Primatech's control.
Letting his emotions settle back down, Sylar traced one finger down the wall he was leaning against, leaving a finely drawn frost mark with his cryokinesis. When he was done, the shape of a double helix was left on the wall, frozen over like ice. Curious, he traced one more on top of it, going the other direction, with the same frost inducing finger. A double helix. Two sides of the same whole. Gabriel and Sylar.
He was content to leave that mark there, until his hand touched the wall again and he involuntarily froze the whole wall. A sheet of snowy frost spread over the brick, covering over the double helix and drawing attention from the crowd on the street. Sylar backed away, unable to explain it to them and unsure why he felt he needed to anyway.
Some kid on a skateboard surveyed the effects of his cryokinesis and then stopped to ask, “Dude, that's awesome. How did you do that?”
For a moment, Sylar was about to launch into a speech about how he was special and how it came naturally to him. This was not the time to be special though. Not while people were beginning to gather to witness his work, making him all the more uncomfortable. The company could be out there, waiting to take him in. He furrowed his dark brows, backing away. “It was nothing, really.”
He mumbled something about physics and his hands being really cold or something, anything to get away from the encroaching crowd. Once he had gotten a block away without anyone following him, Sylar starred down at his hands. First he'd messed up his telekinesis earlier today and then that scene with the frost. He shook his head, muttering to himself. “This is just a temporary setback. A simple glitch in the system. Easily fixable.”
Flicking a finger at a random pedestrian, Sylar attempted to knock her over telepathically. She continued walking down the street, completely unfazed by his show of abilities. He waved his hand at her again, concentrating on feeling the normal surge of strength. Nothing happened.
He walked on until he passed by a park and picked a bench to sit down on. “This can't be happening,” He told himself, as if that was enough to stop whatever was going on. Sylar gripped the wood of the bench, eager to grasp onto some sort of reality but it quickly melted under his touch. He jumped up, wiping the liquefied seat off of his hand, suddenly realizing how much of a danger to himself he had become.
Sylar focused on the space between his skull, sensing the veins and gray matter of his brain. What did they give him in the compound? Was this some kind of strange withdrawal from that poison? He closed his eyes, seeking out the broken pieces of his own biological construct.
Instead of finding the answer he sought, Sylar saw a picture flash across his closed eyes. A blond girl, running down a flight of stairs, terrified. When he opened his eyes again, for a moment the world was white. That sensation soon faded away, the whiteness becoming clearer and clearer until he was back in the park once again.
Sylar noticed that his hands left deeply traced lines in the dirt, forming a rudimentary picture of what he'd seen beneath his eyelids. Claire. Being chased. He shot his head up. His own problems could wait, Sylar needed to get back to the hotel as soon as possible.
“In breaking news, President Walker will be attending a seminar on--” The television in the hotel room blared as Claire switched through the channels, searching for something familiar. Everything had changed. She felt like she was waking up from a coma, suddenly thrust into a new and foreign world. If someone had asked her who the president was or even the month and year, she wouldn't have known how to answer. Things like those didn't matter in Primatech.
She switched on a music channel which was neither the MTV or VH1. It was some station she'd never heard before, probably one that began broadcasting during her years in captivity. It was playing some sort of top songs of the nineties marathon. She found a comfortable familiarity with the oldies. They made her think of happier days, far away in a life that didn't exist anymore.
“I'm still recalling things you said to make me feel alright. I carry them with me today now,” Claire sang along with the television, giving her voice some much needed practice. Every time she spoke after leaving the company, it felt like she was breaking some rule and caused her to wonder if she should give words to her thoughts at all.
In Primatech, the inmates weren't allowed to speak back, not unless they wanted to be drugged or beaten or undergo a million other things the company did to keep them submissive. After this understanding grew in her, Claire gave up trying to speak up, giving all the say over her life up to those who controlled her fate. Even after all this time, she still feared their rule and could still feel their cage around her. Sylar was right about that.
While listening to the music, Claire walked around the hotel room, idly wondering what to do next. She perused the emergency exit rules and then the room service menu, which she couldn't order from because Sylar had all the money anyway. She couldn't tell if he was coming back. He'd been gone for an hour now and the threat of being left here, all alone, loomed over her head.
There was far too much bad blood between them in the past to suddenly be allies. No matter what happened in the company, no matter how much he helped her or how much she now missed him. He was trouble, trouble she was content to do without for the time being. At least, that's what she told herself as the time went on and he didn't return.
Claire dared herself to take a look in the mirror again. Her frown grew deeper every time she looked in that damn thing but she tried to pull the corners of her mouth into a smile. Straightening up her normal outfit of white pants and white shirt, donated to her by the company, she felt completely out of her league.
Where was she going to go? What was she going to do with the rest of her life? These were questions that, for two long years, didn't even occur to her. Nor did they need an answer if they did cross her mind. All her choices were made for her, from what she would wear to her daily schedule to whether she would even be alive the next morning. Having that much power back in her hands was at times exhilarating but mostly terrifying.
The phone rang, causing her to jump nearly right out of her skin. She froze in front of the mirror listening to it ring from across the room. Still new to this game of playing hide and seek with the company and fearing for her life, she debated answering it. When it rang for the third time, crept over to the phone. She placed her hand on the receiver, listening to her heart beating in her chest and then picked it up.
“Hello?” Claire asked, inching her way into conversation like a timid child. With one last glimmer of hope, she asked. “Is this you, Sylar?”
“Claire Bennett.” They answered, cold and reserved. “How are you, Subject 126? There are guards waiting down in the lobby for you. Why don't you be a good little girl and come down quietly so we don't have to cause a scene for the nice tourists at this establishment?”
“No! Nononon.. no.” She slammed down the phone with a forceful, shuddering hand. They'd found her. Again. A memory from two years ago played in her head. Her father took a bullet for her, killing him instantly. Blood from the bullet wound splattering blood across Claire's prom dress. It was supposed to be one of the best nights of her life but it was the night her old life ended. They couldn't take her again. She wouldn't let them.
..to be continued..
Characters: Sylar, Claire.
Spoilers: Up to Season 2.
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2040
Chapter: 4/?
Previously: Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3
Summary: While escaping the Company, Sylar meets up with someone from his past. Together, they must piece together some semblance of normality after years of captivity. Future AU.
Before the night when Primatech took him into custody, life for Sylar was so much more simple and loads more entertaining. Find a victim, kill them, take their abilities and then use those to destroy more pathetic souls who couldn't handle their own power. It was a circular process, but his entrance into the company's underground world cut that cycle short. Now he was the one who couldn't control his gifts.
Stepping off the elevator, fresh from his fight with Claire, he shot sideways glares at the other tourists on the first floor. He wanted to break this world apart and watch it crumble before him. Sylar clenched his hands into fists, then stretched his fingers out again. Power traveled from the tips of his fingers up through his arms. Marching through the hotel lobby, he waved a hand at the door leading out to the street, throwing it open with such force its glass threatened to break. That was control, of a sort.
What happened back in the hotel room still bothered him. He couldn't explain the sudden release of unwanted telekinesis. Anger had always been the hardest of his emotions to suppress. It fed him, sustained him through life's trials. It pushed him forward most times but right now it was threatening the things he held most important. His powers.
It had been nearly two days since Sylar last received an injection at Primatech. He hoped with enough time the effects of the drug would dissipate. As time wore on, he began to worry that his abilities were going to be screwed up indefinitely. He shot a small ball of radioactivity out his hand, playing with the energy while testing himself.
An woman stepped into the lobby with a small child in tow. Sylar thought she might have seen the ball of energy he was playing with because she suddenly grabbed for the child's hand. In a demanding, yet protective, tone she whispered to her son. “Come here, Michael, you stay away from that man.”
“That's right, lady, lock up your children and stay inside where it's safe.” He said under his breath after catching pieces of her conversation. He hoped that some part of himself was still frightening, still in control. The company couldn't have taken everything from him. Leaving the hotel, he smirked as the woman continued pulling her son away.
After passing a few stores along the busy main street of the city, the only major road of the whole small southwestern city, Sylar felt a headache coming on. His enhanced memory, another stolen power from an unsuspecting source, started acting up. It sent him a memory of another time, another place when he's lost control. In his mind, Sylar could see snowglobes flying, snow falling in the living room and a pair of accusatory scissors.
And then all he saw was blood.
Blood staining his hands red.
His mother's blood, bleeding out of her and covering the floor in apocalyptic designs.
“You're not Gabriel. You're damned. And I want you out of my house.” Sylar stopped, gripping the brick wall of a building strong enough to put dents in the stone from a strength so strong no ordinary human could possess it. Nausea washed over him as he heard his mother crying, a memory from across time and space. “I want my son. What did you do with my son? Give me back my boy.”
He breathed, seeking control.
What was it in him that insisted on hurting everyone he came in contact with, even his own mother? Was there something in his hardwiring, pieces of his brain that he failed to fix yet? Was it still there, after all this time?
He couldn't tell who he was anymore, where Gabriel stopped and Sylar began. That line was always a tough distinction to draw, even before being subjected to Primatech's control.
Letting his emotions settle back down, Sylar traced one finger down the wall he was leaning against, leaving a finely drawn frost mark with his cryokinesis. When he was done, the shape of a double helix was left on the wall, frozen over like ice. Curious, he traced one more on top of it, going the other direction, with the same frost inducing finger. A double helix. Two sides of the same whole. Gabriel and Sylar.
He was content to leave that mark there, until his hand touched the wall again and he involuntarily froze the whole wall. A sheet of snowy frost spread over the brick, covering over the double helix and drawing attention from the crowd on the street. Sylar backed away, unable to explain it to them and unsure why he felt he needed to anyway.
Some kid on a skateboard surveyed the effects of his cryokinesis and then stopped to ask, “Dude, that's awesome. How did you do that?”
For a moment, Sylar was about to launch into a speech about how he was special and how it came naturally to him. This was not the time to be special though. Not while people were beginning to gather to witness his work, making him all the more uncomfortable. The company could be out there, waiting to take him in. He furrowed his dark brows, backing away. “It was nothing, really.”
He mumbled something about physics and his hands being really cold or something, anything to get away from the encroaching crowd. Once he had gotten a block away without anyone following him, Sylar starred down at his hands. First he'd messed up his telekinesis earlier today and then that scene with the frost. He shook his head, muttering to himself. “This is just a temporary setback. A simple glitch in the system. Easily fixable.”
Flicking a finger at a random pedestrian, Sylar attempted to knock her over telepathically. She continued walking down the street, completely unfazed by his show of abilities. He waved his hand at her again, concentrating on feeling the normal surge of strength. Nothing happened.
He walked on until he passed by a park and picked a bench to sit down on. “This can't be happening,” He told himself, as if that was enough to stop whatever was going on. Sylar gripped the wood of the bench, eager to grasp onto some sort of reality but it quickly melted under his touch. He jumped up, wiping the liquefied seat off of his hand, suddenly realizing how much of a danger to himself he had become.
Sylar focused on the space between his skull, sensing the veins and gray matter of his brain. What did they give him in the compound? Was this some kind of strange withdrawal from that poison? He closed his eyes, seeking out the broken pieces of his own biological construct.
Instead of finding the answer he sought, Sylar saw a picture flash across his closed eyes. A blond girl, running down a flight of stairs, terrified. When he opened his eyes again, for a moment the world was white. That sensation soon faded away, the whiteness becoming clearer and clearer until he was back in the park once again.
Sylar noticed that his hands left deeply traced lines in the dirt, forming a rudimentary picture of what he'd seen beneath his eyelids. Claire. Being chased. He shot his head up. His own problems could wait, Sylar needed to get back to the hotel as soon as possible.
“In breaking news, President Walker will be attending a seminar on--” The television in the hotel room blared as Claire switched through the channels, searching for something familiar. Everything had changed. She felt like she was waking up from a coma, suddenly thrust into a new and foreign world. If someone had asked her who the president was or even the month and year, she wouldn't have known how to answer. Things like those didn't matter in Primatech.
She switched on a music channel which was neither the MTV or VH1. It was some station she'd never heard before, probably one that began broadcasting during her years in captivity. It was playing some sort of top songs of the nineties marathon. She found a comfortable familiarity with the oldies. They made her think of happier days, far away in a life that didn't exist anymore.
“I'm still recalling things you said to make me feel alright. I carry them with me today now,” Claire sang along with the television, giving her voice some much needed practice. Every time she spoke after leaving the company, it felt like she was breaking some rule and caused her to wonder if she should give words to her thoughts at all.
In Primatech, the inmates weren't allowed to speak back, not unless they wanted to be drugged or beaten or undergo a million other things the company did to keep them submissive. After this understanding grew in her, Claire gave up trying to speak up, giving all the say over her life up to those who controlled her fate. Even after all this time, she still feared their rule and could still feel their cage around her. Sylar was right about that.
While listening to the music, Claire walked around the hotel room, idly wondering what to do next. She perused the emergency exit rules and then the room service menu, which she couldn't order from because Sylar had all the money anyway. She couldn't tell if he was coming back. He'd been gone for an hour now and the threat of being left here, all alone, loomed over her head.
There was far too much bad blood between them in the past to suddenly be allies. No matter what happened in the company, no matter how much he helped her or how much she now missed him. He was trouble, trouble she was content to do without for the time being. At least, that's what she told herself as the time went on and he didn't return.
Claire dared herself to take a look in the mirror again. Her frown grew deeper every time she looked in that damn thing but she tried to pull the corners of her mouth into a smile. Straightening up her normal outfit of white pants and white shirt, donated to her by the company, she felt completely out of her league.
Where was she going to go? What was she going to do with the rest of her life? These were questions that, for two long years, didn't even occur to her. Nor did they need an answer if they did cross her mind. All her choices were made for her, from what she would wear to her daily schedule to whether she would even be alive the next morning. Having that much power back in her hands was at times exhilarating but mostly terrifying.
The phone rang, causing her to jump nearly right out of her skin. She froze in front of the mirror listening to it ring from across the room. Still new to this game of playing hide and seek with the company and fearing for her life, she debated answering it. When it rang for the third time, crept over to the phone. She placed her hand on the receiver, listening to her heart beating in her chest and then picked it up.
“Hello?” Claire asked, inching her way into conversation like a timid child. With one last glimmer of hope, she asked. “Is this you, Sylar?”
“Claire Bennett.” They answered, cold and reserved. “How are you, Subject 126? There are guards waiting down in the lobby for you. Why don't you be a good little girl and come down quietly so we don't have to cause a scene for the nice tourists at this establishment?”
“No! Nononon.. no.” She slammed down the phone with a forceful, shuddering hand. They'd found her. Again. A memory from two years ago played in her head. Her father took a bullet for her, killing him instantly. Blood from the bullet wound splattering blood across Claire's prom dress. It was supposed to be one of the best nights of her life but it was the night her old life ended. They couldn't take her again. She wouldn't let them.
..to be continued..