Achilles' Heel
Title: Achilles' Heel - Part 1 of the Weakness trilogy
Characters/Paring: Bennet, Sylar, Mohinder - vague/implied Mohinder/Sylar
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Up to 3.03 "One of Us, One of Them"
Warnings: Nothing worse than what's on the show.
Word Count: 858
Summary: Bennet observes an interesting meeting.
Notes: This idea deserves further expansion, but I don't think it'll ever happen. I'll just hope the actual show goes down a similar path.
---------------
Lately, Noah Bennet had taken to watching the security feeds from level 5. Angela Petrelli might think she had things in order, but he knew better. Every night Sylar went placidly into his cell, and every night it was a farce and a mockery. Without the drugs there was nothing keeping him there. He was staying because he chose to, and that was what worried Bennet more than anything. Sylar wasn’t tractable, Sylar didn’t tow the company line, and yet he stayed. There were some obvious reasons, like the access to people with abilities; but the pretense he was putting up at wanting to change, to do some good, was pure and utter bullshit and he knew it.
So it was of no surprise to Bennet when he spied Sylar slipping out of his cell one night. He was tempted into rash action, the urge to hit the alarm, but he needed proof that Sylar was incapable of change. He needed proof that this was more than just a restless midnight walk. So he sat and watched.
When he worked out where Sylar was headed, he was only vaguely surprised. The medical wing had a new guest; one Bennet wasn’t particularly fond of. Suresh’s idiotic self-experimentation had landed him in a world of trouble. When the Company had finally become aware of what had happened, the man had been falling apart, piece by piece, his body changing and rejecting the changes all at once. Open sores riddled his body and the chance for infection was dangerously high. New strength and hormones that raged out of control made him a particularly difficult patient, and so they had him highly sedated.
Sylar slipped past the locked door with ease, but halted upon entering. Bennet imagined he was taking in the sight that lay before him: a body wrapped in bandages discoloured in reds and yellows from oozing sores. A listless mop of curls brushed back from a face that was somehow both peaceful in the oblivion of sleep, and yet held a strain upon it that spoke of both physical and mental agony. It was an expression that had been etched on the man’s face since he first arrived.
Sylar stepped forward slowly, bare feet moving silently across the coolly tiled floor. His posture was stiff and filled with tension, and once again Bennet pondered hitting the alarm. He didn’t much care if Suresh died, but it would be hard to explain why he did nothing about it. Surely Sylar must be there to kill him. Bennet only knew scattered facts about the history the two men had together, but he did know that Suresh had once had Sylar vulnerable, that he had tried to put a bullet into the killer’s brain. So what reason could Sylar have for visiting the Professor if not to kill him and extract his revenge?
Yet Sylar’s posture said nothing of anger or a need to kill. The tension was of a different sort. He approached Suresh’s prone form with a hesitancy that Bennet had never seen in him before. It was fascinating. Almost like some compulsion was drawing him forward, one he yearned to fight and yet could not.
Bennet turned on the audio feed.
“-you’ve done to yourself?” Sylar seemed to be asking of the unconscious man before him. “You’ve always had a knack for getting in over your head.”
A long-fingered hand reached forward, brushing across a brow damp with sweat and dislodging a tired curl. Bennet couldn’t tell if it was a sinister gesture or something else entirely, but his gut was telling him that it was important, either way.
“I suppose I could kill you right now…” Sylar murmured softly, the tone betraying that murder was not necessarily legitimate option at the moment. “It looks like your own genius might do the job just as well, though.”
He paused again, head turning to glance back towards the door for a moment as if he heard something. Whatever it was, he quickly dismissed it and turned back to the man on the bed. He leaned down, mouth hovering near Suresh’s ear, and though his lips moved, it was too quiet for the microphones to pick up. Bennet frowned in frustration, trying to lip-read but not being able to get a clear enough picture.
Then Sylar pulled back, a smirk gracing his lips. A hand ghosted over Suresh’s frame, stopping to hover here and there, Sylar’s brow occasionally creasing in concentration. The process took about a minute before Sylar straightened and uttered a small sound that might have been a satisfied grunt.
“You’ll live, for now. Come see me when you wake up. It should be fun.”
Without further ado Sylar swept from the room and headed back in the direction of his own.
Bennet leaned back, mind buzzing with what he had just witnessed. There was no proof, of course, but something told him that this was the ultimate puzzle piece. That somehow, beyond all logic and reason, Mohinder Suresh might just be the key to ending Sylar once and for all. The Achilles Heel he’d been searching for.
A weakness.
Part 2 - Lifted Haze
Characters/Paring: Bennet, Sylar, Mohinder - vague/implied Mohinder/Sylar
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Up to 3.03 "One of Us, One of Them"
Warnings: Nothing worse than what's on the show.
Word Count: 858
Summary: Bennet observes an interesting meeting.
Notes: This idea deserves further expansion, but I don't think it'll ever happen. I'll just hope the actual show goes down a similar path.
---------------
Lately, Noah Bennet had taken to watching the security feeds from level 5. Angela Petrelli might think she had things in order, but he knew better. Every night Sylar went placidly into his cell, and every night it was a farce and a mockery. Without the drugs there was nothing keeping him there. He was staying because he chose to, and that was what worried Bennet more than anything. Sylar wasn’t tractable, Sylar didn’t tow the company line, and yet he stayed. There were some obvious reasons, like the access to people with abilities; but the pretense he was putting up at wanting to change, to do some good, was pure and utter bullshit and he knew it.
So it was of no surprise to Bennet when he spied Sylar slipping out of his cell one night. He was tempted into rash action, the urge to hit the alarm, but he needed proof that Sylar was incapable of change. He needed proof that this was more than just a restless midnight walk. So he sat and watched.
When he worked out where Sylar was headed, he was only vaguely surprised. The medical wing had a new guest; one Bennet wasn’t particularly fond of. Suresh’s idiotic self-experimentation had landed him in a world of trouble. When the Company had finally become aware of what had happened, the man had been falling apart, piece by piece, his body changing and rejecting the changes all at once. Open sores riddled his body and the chance for infection was dangerously high. New strength and hormones that raged out of control made him a particularly difficult patient, and so they had him highly sedated.
Sylar slipped past the locked door with ease, but halted upon entering. Bennet imagined he was taking in the sight that lay before him: a body wrapped in bandages discoloured in reds and yellows from oozing sores. A listless mop of curls brushed back from a face that was somehow both peaceful in the oblivion of sleep, and yet held a strain upon it that spoke of both physical and mental agony. It was an expression that had been etched on the man’s face since he first arrived.
Sylar stepped forward slowly, bare feet moving silently across the coolly tiled floor. His posture was stiff and filled with tension, and once again Bennet pondered hitting the alarm. He didn’t much care if Suresh died, but it would be hard to explain why he did nothing about it. Surely Sylar must be there to kill him. Bennet only knew scattered facts about the history the two men had together, but he did know that Suresh had once had Sylar vulnerable, that he had tried to put a bullet into the killer’s brain. So what reason could Sylar have for visiting the Professor if not to kill him and extract his revenge?
Yet Sylar’s posture said nothing of anger or a need to kill. The tension was of a different sort. He approached Suresh’s prone form with a hesitancy that Bennet had never seen in him before. It was fascinating. Almost like some compulsion was drawing him forward, one he yearned to fight and yet could not.
Bennet turned on the audio feed.
“-you’ve done to yourself?” Sylar seemed to be asking of the unconscious man before him. “You’ve always had a knack for getting in over your head.”
A long-fingered hand reached forward, brushing across a brow damp with sweat and dislodging a tired curl. Bennet couldn’t tell if it was a sinister gesture or something else entirely, but his gut was telling him that it was important, either way.
“I suppose I could kill you right now…” Sylar murmured softly, the tone betraying that murder was not necessarily legitimate option at the moment. “It looks like your own genius might do the job just as well, though.”
He paused again, head turning to glance back towards the door for a moment as if he heard something. Whatever it was, he quickly dismissed it and turned back to the man on the bed. He leaned down, mouth hovering near Suresh’s ear, and though his lips moved, it was too quiet for the microphones to pick up. Bennet frowned in frustration, trying to lip-read but not being able to get a clear enough picture.
Then Sylar pulled back, a smirk gracing his lips. A hand ghosted over Suresh’s frame, stopping to hover here and there, Sylar’s brow occasionally creasing in concentration. The process took about a minute before Sylar straightened and uttered a small sound that might have been a satisfied grunt.
“You’ll live, for now. Come see me when you wake up. It should be fun.”
Without further ado Sylar swept from the room and headed back in the direction of his own.
Bennet leaned back, mind buzzing with what he had just witnessed. There was no proof, of course, but something told him that this was the ultimate puzzle piece. That somehow, beyond all logic and reason, Mohinder Suresh might just be the key to ending Sylar once and for all. The Achilles Heel he’d been searching for.
A weakness.
Part 2 - Lifted Haze