Sylar (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
darwinism) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
damned_institute2010-09-01 11:27 pm
darwinism) wrote in damned_institute2010-09-01 11:27 pm
Entry tags:
Night 51: Staff-Only Kitchen
[ From here. ]
Even the kitchen here looked spruced up and colorful, though Sylar didn't give much of a damn about that as he started rummaging through the drawers and cabinets for any kill-friendly utensils. So far, though, he was having surprisingly little luck: mixing bowls and stirring spoons weren't exactly going to help him in his efforts against Peter Petrelli unless his nefarious plan involved sitting him down and serving him waffles or something. Maybe if they were poisoned? That'd be kind of funny.
"How about something sharp," he muttered as he yanked open another compartment. Rolling pin. Yeah, if he was going to choose a blunt instrument to flail around, that wasn't the one. Finally, he tugged on one of the smaller drawers and found it jammed somehow, which, unfortunately, was probably a good sign. Peering down at it, he jostled the contents and pulled it out the whole way, revealing a mess of utensils, and...
"There you are." Sylar smirked as he drew out a long, thin carving knife and held it to the light of his flashlight. Polished and gleaming. He wouldn't mind having this while going up against some freak-of-nature monster.
He placed it on the counter and retraced his kitchen-raiding steps with a little more leisure and open-mindedness. A couple of cake testers might make for better lock-picking tools, for instance.
But he wasn't about to load himself down with too much unnecessary equipment. Snatching up his knife again, he started making his way out of the kitchen, a smile on his face.
[ Awaiting Elle encounter. ]
Even the kitchen here looked spruced up and colorful, though Sylar didn't give much of a damn about that as he started rummaging through the drawers and cabinets for any kill-friendly utensils. So far, though, he was having surprisingly little luck: mixing bowls and stirring spoons weren't exactly going to help him in his efforts against Peter Petrelli unless his nefarious plan involved sitting him down and serving him waffles or something. Maybe if they were poisoned? That'd be kind of funny.
"How about something sharp," he muttered as he yanked open another compartment. Rolling pin. Yeah, if he was going to choose a blunt instrument to flail around, that wasn't the one. Finally, he tugged on one of the smaller drawers and found it jammed somehow, which, unfortunately, was probably a good sign. Peering down at it, he jostled the contents and pulled it out the whole way, revealing a mess of utensils, and...
"There you are." Sylar smirked as he drew out a long, thin carving knife and held it to the light of his flashlight. Polished and gleaming. He wouldn't mind having this while going up against some freak-of-nature monster.
He placed it on the counter and retraced his kitchen-raiding steps with a little more leisure and open-mindedness. A couple of cake testers might make for better lock-picking tools, for instance.
But he wasn't about to load himself down with too much unnecessary equipment. Snatching up his knife again, he started making his way out of the kitchen, a smile on his face.
[ Awaiting Elle encounter. ]
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That sure as fuck wasn't waffles. It wasn't anyone she wanted to see, or planned on seeing. Ever. She knew Sylar was here, Peter had warned her, offered to help, and she turned him down. The scene kept replaying in her head, and now she was starting to feel like she should have listened to him closer. She should have taken him up on his offer. Something, anything.
The light from her flashlight reflected from his knife, and from the white of his smile. Elle wanted to scream. She wanted to kill him, beat him to the ground with her baseball bat until his stupid skull cracked in, raging to his dying body about how it was his fault Daddy was dead, it was his fault she didn't have a family or a job or a life anymore and if she hadn't taken that stupid assignment none of this would have happened. There would have been other assignments. Gabriel Gray's corpse would have spent a few days rotting on the noose until someone finally found it. None of this would have happened.
But she couldn't do any of that. She couldn't even make it to the screaming part. Fear paralyzed her, it turned her blood ice cold.
She managed to shake her bat at him. She should have dropped the flashlight to hold it better, but like hell she was going to be trapped in the dark with Sylar. She could shock him if he came too close, anyway. Maybe.
"Stay back." It wasn't the I hate you you sick bastard you're going to fucking die and it's going to be because of me she had wanted to say, but the sentiment was jammed into those two words, as much as it was able.
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But as the light swerved from his face and he raised his own flashlight to the figure in front of him, he realized that this situation was something he couldn't have been prepared for. He froze, air stuck in his throat. His eyes widened enough to betray his surprise, but not his shock. For a split second that rooted him to the ground like a withering tree, he was back at the stairs, then last night's bathroom. He'd seen the same expression in that mirror, that same anger. That same fear.
Same face.
Now-familiar fire rushed up from his stomach to his chest. His hands tensed bone-white around his flashlight and knife, but his arms didn't budge from his sides. Through his dry throat he managed a short laugh; through his sweaty face, a crooked smirk. Through his thoughts, racing in desperate circles of rationalization, he got out the words: "Well. Look who the doctors dragged back in."
Dragged back in when? Dragged back in how?!
The bastard doctor had something to do with this. He must've. Sylar's mind swam in the wake of implication: the doctor had planned to bring her back long before the torture. He must've had this all laid out from the start – just like the echo of uncontrolled transformation that he'd planted in Sylar's body, he'd planted in the Institute a tangible echo of Sylar's sins. No wonder the doctor had decided to leave her appearance in his system. The son of a bitch had been counting on this. Maybe she was even in on it.
Or maybe he was imagining this. Hallucination. He felt nauseous enough for it to be, though he knew his body's new wave of sickness had been sparked by the girl in front of him instead of the other way around. Either way, she looked just as afraid–
She looked afraid. It was her that he was looking at. Her.
And yet, as he used that knowledge to get his breathing even and his thinking back in order, he stubbornly ignored the deeper truths that it implied. Because the doctor hadn't forced those expressions on his face last night. And Sylar was forcing his own expressions right now.
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Would he try again? Or did the first time leave him satisfied enough? She didn't know. She could never predict what Sylar was going to do. Not now, not when he was Gabriel Gray. But the fact that she was there with him, alone in the dark, in this secluded area, in this tiny room, was enough to rack chills down her spine. Who would come if he tried something? If she screamed? She'd seen a couple people wandering the second floor, but how far could her voice possibly carry? And what if she attracted the wrong thing?
"Don't think I won't hurt you. 'Cause I will." Her words came from behind clenched teeth. It felt like every muscle in her body was tense, poised, waiting to run or attack but not able to decide which to actually do.
She needed to shock him. It was her initial response to any dangerous situation, and it felt like every fiber of her being was crackling with the as of yet unused potential. But Elle was still frozen in place. She couldn't let go of the baseball bat or the flashlight, because her hands refused to listen to her. Her feet wouldn't listen to any attempts to step back, let alone run.
"Do you even know what you did to me?"
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Peter. Did Peter know about Elle showing up? If he didn't, then Sylar had better end her life before the idiot got some stupid ounce of hope from it, because it sure seemed like Elle was aware of the situation. Come to think of it, the way she was acting was a little... unusual. Sylar had heard about patients coming back to life without any of their previous memories in the nuthouse, but Elle's words and her genuine terror made it clear that she did have them, and that made this out of the norm. Dangerous.
Which was exactly what he didn't want Elle to figure out. The analysis was helping: his body was relaxing, his pain clearing. He chanced a glance down at his left hand; he could see the scar. He was okay.
But Elle wouldn't be.
He slowly raised his eyes to hers as the same sense of control spread through his body. He could see her clearly now: she was scared, and though Sylar knew that she was armed with more than just a couple of blunt objects, so was he.
"If you want to try something, be my guest," he said, eyes fixed on her face as he tried to take in every nuance of her expression, every sign of what her irrational mood might bring. He turned the knife so that he was holding it face-down, then raised his hand, gently pulling two fingers from the handle. Concentrating carefully on his own exertion of power, he made a small spark between the two fingers, just enough to be visible across the room. The flicker of light glinted across his grinning teeth and cast shadows across his face as he raised his brow questioningly.
"But I think you remember how that turned out last time."
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He did.
Peter hadn't been lying. She knew he hadn't been lying. Why would Peter lie? He had no reason, and even if he did, Elle doubted his ability to be convincing. But still, having Peter tell her one thing and seeing the proof of it standing before her were two entirely different things. That was her electricity, and he was flaunting it.
In a brash move, rushed and driven by raw adrenaline, Elle let the bat fall to the ground in a loud, unceremonious clatter. Blue sparks crackled in her palm.
"No." Her voice was low and dark. Coldness in her eyes reflected from the current in her hand. "You don't remember what happened the last time you messed with me."
She wasn't sure if she wanted to tell him. Not exactly. While it was a victory in the sense that she survived, she still managed to enable a slew of dangerous prisoners escape and was more or less fired for it. He didn't need to know that part. She had wanted to keep going and tell him exactly how he'd ruined her life, detailing out a list from the day she ever set foot in that stupid dirty repair shop, but she couldn't let herself. No matter how much she wanted to, she couldn't show her weaknesses. Not now. Although she'd considered it when her power was malfunctioning at its worst, when she couldn't sleep or eat or even breathe without electricity overflowing her system, she didn't want to die. Not here, and not by his hand.
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But it'd also be one more obstacle to overcome, and he had plenty of those already.
Including the way Elle was acting. He couldn't help but let an unsure crease creep into his otherwise smug expression as he heard her voice, cold and calmer than her overall body language. Her emphasis wasn't on the right words – in fact, her words didn't make much sense unless she was babbling out big threats incoherently, but... Sylar wasn't so sure if that's what this was. She might've been angry and irrational, but her conviction told him that she wasn't making things up. He was missing something here.
And whatever it was, he'd have plenty of time to figure it out after he got away. Right now, he just needed to be aware enough to keep her unstable while he made his escape; he could still feel the potential of electricity in his system, but he could also feel the slight aftershocks of something else, something far less helpful. Stay focused, he told himself.
"Really?" he said out loud, looking only slightly strained as he tried slowly sidling toward the wall to his right, the one nearer to the door. "Funny, considering I remember you bleeding out on the ground."
It wasn't much, but it'd have to do for now. He racked his brains memories of his previous encounters with Elle, looking for anything specific he could use against her. She'd been frisky, that was for sure, and aside from Peter, she'd also been friendly with–
"Eddie," he added suddenly, clicking his tongue. "I bet he would've loved to see you then."
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"Seriously? You gave me a scape." She knew what he was referring to, what he had to be referring to, but she wouldn't give him the satisfaction of recognition. "A little scape. Big deal. I knocked you out cold. You probably would have died if--"
If he didn't have Claire's power. But did he here, now? Something was wrong with everyone that she knew who had also ended up here in Landel's. They were all on seemingly different timelines; nothing was adding up. Well, she wouldn't give that to Sylar, either. He didn't need the hope or satisfaction of knowing he'd be getting the pony he always wanted this Christmas.
"You got lucky." That was better.
His words made her take pause and start racking her brain. Did she even know an Eddie? It was possible; she'd done a lot of flirting with the Company's wards. But they never meant anything. She couldn't be bothered to remember the names of most of them. They always went away (with the exception of Adam, who was a mistake for other reasons.) On rare occasions, they became agents, but it was more usual that they ran tests on them. Just like Elle, but with none of her resilience.
But why would Sylar know any of that? He couldn't possibly have access to any of that information.
Hence, the face Elle made in return to Sylar's jab was blank, with a slight hint of irritation more than anything else. Probably not the result he'd been seeking.
"Who the fuck is Eddie?"
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But even if she had, it didn't explain why she kept looking so... in control. Sylar hadn't been trying to inspire this kind of anger – dangerous anger, and the fact that he was missing a vital piece to the situation's puzzle was starting to genuinely unsettle him.
And then came the kicker.
Sylar froze against the wall, his eyes focusing on his prey with renewed intensity. A series of explanations ran through his head – selective memory loss, damage from his own exploration, some kind of brainwashing common to these parts – before he realized the obvious.
Timelines. They'd been mentioned a million times on the boards before the nurses had tightened their leash on the info and he suspected he'd come across examples of it before. Elle didn't remember Eddie, which meant she didn't remember being here. Elle did remember Sylar, but since she didn't remember being here, she must've known him from home. Since Sylar didn't remember her from home...
Wait. That wasn't right. He did remember her. In fact, he realized with a chill down his spine, she was the very last thing he remembered before waking up here, just before her electricity had slammed him into that wall of glass.
Just before she'd knocked him out.
Comprehension flooded him in a wave of relief. He was getting the reins on this problem again, although a nagging incongruity kept him from feeling completely at ease: why was she so damn angry? According to her words and hesitation, something had prevented her from offing him back at Suresh's lab, something that she resented. There was something personal in this for her, and given that Sylar had never met her in his old life, he had no idea what it could be.
Then again, he'd killed a hell of a lot of people. Probably revenge.
But Sylar had no idea who Elle was getting revenge for, and he had to handle this delicately now that he knew he was missing a few cards from his hand. He'd already screwed his chances for control by letting on that he was at a loss for information, but of course, the best way to fix a mistake was to harness it. Elle didn't know who Eddie was. But she once had. And she'd once known Sylar, which meant that Sylar knew her.
"'Who's Eddie?'" Sylar echoed in disbelief, narrowing his eyes as if he were scrutinizing her – and he was. "Your little boytoy...? My... partner in crime...?"
His eyes widened, then he raised his head as if in slow realization. He smiled coldly. "Oh. I see."
He took one step toward her, strategically. He leaned forward just so. "Guess that's what happens to failures."
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"I don't care what you did to your boyfriend. Big deal. You know what you did to me? You killed my father. You KILLED him!"
She couldn't deny that it felt good to finally get the anger out. Fuck being strong. It wasn't worth it. Elle's emotions started manifesting physically, blue sparks trailing across her skin and lighting her up like a christmas tree in the darkness of the kitchen.
It took everything in her not to scream. This wasn't supposed to be happening. All this electricity was supposed to be directed at Sylar. He was supposed to be the one writhing in pain.
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The door didn't seem as though any harm had come to it, but Matt had to wonder why it was unlocked. So far, though, Matt had yet to come across any unlocked doors at all in the building - besides that doctor's office, but that was obviously a room meant to hold personal property, which would definitely need a key - and he wasn't quite sure what that meant. Was Landel's security more lax than he and Mello had anticipated? Or was it meant for just that purpose: to get them to let their guard down long enough to really fuck them over?
Now wasn't the time to worry over that, though. Tightening his grip on his flashlight, the brunet came further into the kitchen, looking around at the counters a moment before moving on to the doors.
There were two of them, and he paused before proceeding. This wasn't the place he and Mello'd come across his first night, when they'd gotten thrown out of fake Tokyo. It was probably through one of these doors, though, that elusive pantry that Matt hadn't been prepared to find.
His stomach growled again as he contemplated which door to try next. Taking a deep breath, he realized that this decision couldn't be helped along with usual deduction, so he just reached for the one on the left.
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Nothing had changed. This was a good sign. Quiet, Matt re-entered the kitchen, shutting the pantry door behind him before crossing the room again.
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It was dark and rather clean despite all the smells that assaulted Goku's senses. He barely came up to the kitchen counters, but that wasn't a problem. He was the nimble sort. Jumping up on the cold stove, he began rummaging through drawers, pulling each and every one out before moving on to the next once he realized nothing edible could be found within. "Where are you chicken? I SMELL YOU!"
Rolling off the counter, the monkey boy scuttled across the linoleum floor toward the fridge. He knew well what the cold box could contain.
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"The chicken will not answer back, so there is little use in calling for it," Spock told him. By now, he had reached the point where his lips were faintly tightened in a way that wasn't quite a frown, but enough to indicate his displeasure at having to constantly remind Goku of their surroundings. If this behavior persisted, he realized he may have to consider performing a neck pinch on the boy. After all, his blatant chatter and yelling ran the risk of giving away their location and attracting enemies.
That was a last resort, of course, seeing how the last thing he wanted was to be forced to carry Goku's unconscious body with him. Furthermore, Spock was uncertain as to how effective that particular technique was within Landel's. It had not worked on the staff, but he hadn't had the opportunity to try it on a patient before now.
Either way, it appeared Goku's senses had led them straight to the kitchen. Considering he had yet to read any maps, Spock had to privately admit that his ability to locate it by smell alone was quite remarkable. There was no doubt that he was unlike other human boys his age, though now clearly wasn't the time to interrogate him on the matter.
Instead, Spock began to look through the drawers in search of any potential items. It seemed as though someone might have passed through there before them, but that hardly mattered so long as he discovered at least one utensil that could potentially be of use. As the Vulcan looked, he never entirely diverted his attention away from Goku in case he tried to do something...unwise.
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He didn't find any chickens lying around, but there was juice and a few strange paper sacks. Master Roshi drank from sacks sometimes, but he always said it wasn't for little boys. "Hmmm..." He grabbed one anyway and simply ripped the bag apart. All at once, the contents fell to the floor with a clop, a can sputtering and leaking across the tile.
"Uwwwah!" Not sure what to do about this, Goku crept away from the spill, gathering up the plastic bag that contained some kind of sandwich before it could get soiled. That too he simply tore through and began chewing on the crustless bread. He wasn't a big fan of the mushy texture of sandwiches, but it was food even if it didn't give him as much energy as say a nice roasted boar.
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Goku, meanwhile, appeared to be quite preoccupied with the refrigeration unit, though the noises he made as he investigated it left something to be desired. As he began consuming some of the food inside, however, Spock realized it was possible that he would speak less as a result, at least for the time being.
It was best to work quickly, then. After opening two more drawers, Spock's gaze soon locked onto a long, thin knife, and his pale fingers grasped onto the handle. While it would have been ideal if he found another for either the captain or McCoy, he knew he was fortunate simply to have found the one.
Just as he was turning to Goku to inform him that he'd completed one of his objectives for the evening, however, his radio crackled to life. There was a message, apparently, and Spock paused to listen to it.
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"Ah--!" That got his attention. With a bottle of juice in his hand, Goku turned around to meet this new person who had come into the kitchen. All he found was Spock, but he could have sworn the voice had come from inside their room. Maybe Marc was shy and in hiding.
"Hey!" Goku greeted back with a wave. He didn't know what corner of the room Marc was in, so he made sure to wave all the way around in case he missed him. "I'm Goku--"
That was a pretty nasty trick th--
Jeez, he just kept on talking right over him! Maybe he hadn't been loud enough for Marc. It was best to try again. "Where are you?" His shout echoed off the walls, making it difficult to understand the last few words from Marc. But he just kept on rambling as if the monkey boy hadn't even opened his mouth.
"Hey!!" He shouted again, pointing beside Spock. "Come out! We know yer here--" And it continued on like this. Marc would talk and Goku would talk louder, searching for this elusive creature. Finally, the radio went silent and Goku stopped speaking as well, but only for a moment. "Where'd you go? Marc... MARC?!"