Key Lime Gratitude

Participants:

munin_icon.gif sylar_icon.gif

Scene Title Key Lime Gratitude
Synopsis "Eileen" thanks Sylar with pie.
Date November 4, 2008

Siann Hall: Gabriel and Gillian's Room


There's an old saying that the deepest craving of human nature is the need to be appreciated. Munin doesn't know if there's any truth to these words, but lately she's found that believing in them brings her more comfort than not, which is why she's made a pilgrimage to the Bronx without telling Ethan or any of the others back in Long Island City. When she arrives at Siann Hall apartments, she slips in through the front doors with one of the other tenants, pausing to consult the callbox so she can determine which flat belongs to Gabriel before heading upstairs. A few minutes later, she stands outside unit 410, one small hand poised to wrap its knuckles against the door that presumably separates her from the man Amato has been calling a monster.

Knock knock, Mr. Wilkens.

Not a sound comes from the little apartment. No music, no TV, no shower running. But finally, foot steps, ones that pause just by the door as whoever's inside peers through the old fashioned peephole installed into the door. The scrape of locks - at least two - follow, before the door opens wide. Certainly no monster if appearances are to be of any indication, Sylar is dressed in a warm blue hooded sweater, jeans, bare feet against the cheap carpeting of the room. It's a decently cold fall day, but heat leaks out from the room, thanks to a newly purchased space heater. "Eileen," Sylar says, glancing up and down the hallway in case his hearing is missing the possibility of another presence having followed the girl. "What're you doing here?"

Munin looks from the figure standing in the doorway down to the unmarked styrofoam box she holds in her gloves hands, and then back up again, offering him a small if wary smile. "I, ah— brought you something." She's dressed a little heavier than Sylar is, though this almost certainly has something to do with the fact she's spent several hours in transit after dark in weather hovering just above the freezing point. Reaching up, she curls her fingers around the colourful cashmere scarf she wears around her neck, pulling it down just a little further so her voice isn't as muffled by the fabric. "I would've called, but Ethan didn't have your number."

Sylar's gaze also travels down to the nondescript box, and hesitates. Then, he pushes the door open a little wider, and moves inside. It's indication to follow, although he doesn't verbolise the invitation right away. Inside, the place is largely undercorated, the furniture simple and a little aged, but all very clean. Considering the coats hanging up just beside the door, it might be clear that Sylar isn't the only occupant of this apartment - although for now, he and Munin are alone. On a coffee table, newspapers are sprawled out, along with a mug of partially drained coffee. "Would Ethan have given it to you even if he did?" he asks, leaning against the kitchen island and lifting an eyebrow in a look towards her. "Somehow I don't think I'm on his good side right now. And he cares for you."

As Munin steps into the apartment, she silently notes the coats by the door. Although there's a faint hint on amusement twinkling in her pale green eyes, the expression she wears on her face isn't one of surprise — she's suspected for awhile now there's no such thing as a wholly solitary creature, not even a lone wolf like Sylar. "No," she agrees, "I don't think he would. Not after last night." As she speaks, her voice grows quiet and the frivolity begins to slowly fade from her doll-like features. "That's why I'm here, actually." She crosses the apartment and sets the styrofoam box down on the coffee table beside the mug, taking a seat on the arm of the couch with her legs crossed at the ankles. "I know you didn't do it for me, but that doesn't change what would've happened if you hadn't been there. Thank you."

More hesitation, as if Sylar isn't quite sure how to go about this conversation. He can play the part of Gabriel Wilkens with ease, and slipping into that role here would make it all the more easier, but considering what she knows, now, and what she's seen… to be that man would either to be admitting he is that man, or just a blatant lie. But he moves forward, picking up the styrofoam container and pushing the lid open to see what's inside. Dessert, apparently. He stares down at the slice of pie for a moment before looking at the girl. "I thought you'd be scared of me," he says. "But then again, with friends like yours, who needs enemies? You're welcome. Madeline's power should be used for more than scaring young girls. Now it will be."

"Friends like ours," Munin corrects Sylar mildly. "Ethan might not be too pleased with you right this minute, but just you let me work on him for a day or two — he'll come around. As for being scared of you? Sure. I'm a little scared." She'd be lying if she said she wasn't. "But that don't mean I'mma turn my back on you, not for so long as you're one of us. Whether I like it or not, you're family. And family accepts each other for who they are. What they are." The emphasis she places on her words is gentle, but it's also firm. Sincere. "Amato says you have a special ability. Something even Kazimir's never seen before, an' he's been around for a long, long time. How does it work?"

Now, he moves around the coffee table, sitting down at the opposite side of the couch and setting the slice of key lime pie aside for later devouring. "Do they?" Sylar asks, mostly rhetorically, giving Eileen an almost strange look before readily diverting to this new topic. His head tilts to the side as he looks up at the girl, Munin temporarily taller thanks to this new positioning. "I have a lot of special abilities," he reminds her. Kind of coyly. He knows what she means. "You'll have to be more specific."

"You hear the things that no one else can hear, you project your voice into the thoughts of others, you can take off the top of someone's skull with the tip of your finger — you're special." Not that Sylar doesn't already know it. Munin elaborates for her own benefit rather than his, as though verbalizing her thoughts might help her to better understand them. "How?"

It won't be the first time Sylar's been asked this question. It will be one of the few times he's actually answered it. "I see how things work," he explains, with a tone of reverence for his own ability. "What makes them go, what makes them stop. When I looked into poor Madeline's head last night, I saw what made her different to me, to anyone else. And no one understands their powers," a hint of a smile, "better than I do. That's my special ability - control."

Munin was following Sylar's explanation up until the very last word. Her dark brows knit together, and a delicate series of furrows appears on her forehead, twice as prominent as they would be were her hair not swept back into a bun at the top of her head. What he describes doesn't sound like 'control' so much as it does 'superhuman perception'. "No wonder Kazimir was so eager to get his hands on you," she says, though she keeps the second half of this thought to herself. You could ruin him.

It's a good thing Sylar hasn't found a telepath yet. He doesn't need encouragement. The murderer smiles a little brighter at Munin, as if bashful somehow, although the gesture doesn't really reach his eyes - it rarely does. "As far as I can understand it, I'm exactly what Kazimir wants to rid the world of, or exactly what Kazimir needs." He focuses a little more on the girl, dark brown gaze meeting her pale green. "I should be thanking you for that. Had I not met you, I wouldn't have found out what I wanted about your family. I'd be lost." Would he be? Maybe right now, he believes that, that he's found a path - he lifts a hand and with a slight clatter, a fork comes spinning out of the kitchen, landing neatly in his hand. "Or so much dust," he adds, picking up the paper box now.

There's something about the way Sylar phrases his response that causes Munin's fingers to flex, hands balling up into white-knuckled fists. The muscles in her shoulders grow tense as she rises from her seat on the arm of the couch and looks down at him from beneath her dark lashes. Her emotions are a little more difficult to read than they were a few minutes ago. Trying to decipher her true feelings is like gazing through a pool of rippling water — there's definitely something hidden under there, but that something is vague and undefined, obscured by what's happening on the surface. "If you ever want somebody to talk to," she says as she readjusts her scarf, preparing to take her leave of the apartment, "put something out on your windowsill. I'm always around."

It's a strange kind of offer, Sylar pausing, before he shifts enough to look around at his window sill. Nothing there for now, but at odd hours during the day, it seems to be a pigeon hot spot for whatever reason it is birds choose to gather. Although it's not the means at which she suggests they get in touch that makes it strange to Sylar - just the offer. To talk. But he simply nods to her, settling back against the couch, stabbing his fork into the meringue portion of the pie. "So am I," he says, no longer watching her. Provided she makes her way out, Sylar doesn't make moves to stop her, although before she can shut the door behind her, his voice drifts through her head. Thank you, Eileen.

The door clicks shut behind Munin, followed by a long, tentative lapse of silence broken only by the steady rhythm of her heartbeat. It's a full ten seconds before the sound of her retreating footsteps — ballet flats soft against the outdated tiles on the floor ouside — reaches Sylar's ears. Only when she hits the stairwell can he be sure that she's truly gone, off to tend to errands in parts of the city unknown.


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November 4th: Featherlight
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November 4th: The Voodoo That You Do
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