Participants:
| Scene Title | Not An Accident |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | After the confrontation with the enemy, masks and lies are temporarily discarded in favor of the most basic of realities. |
| Date | November 29, 2008 |
Siann Hall: Gabriel and Gillian's Apartment
He'd left his glasses on the ground.
This occurs to Sylar only when they've reached level four of Siann Hall. It's not in his nature to forget such small details, and truly, he didn't, but it wasn't on his mind to be so pedantic. Besides, it's not as though they're necessary. Not in function, and not in representation. He really should kill Peter for this, and maybe he will, someday. The fact that he didn't tonight, when he had the man pressed against the fence and telling him to stop, almost pleading, leaves Sylar feeling bitter. He's changed. He's not sure he likes this change.
But at the end of the day, he wants the other Peter to die more.
They've said next to nothing during their journey home, and Sylar is happy for that. The fact that they're still walking side by side is, frankly, shocking, but he ignores it, his demeanor one that indicates he doesn't wish to talk, at least not until they're in the privacy of their home. Their home, that Gillian refused to compromise, but does it matter?
Inside, he throws on the light and tugs off his coat, thin grey sweater underneath adequate warmth once inside. He could have kept pushing, what if Peter had been sliced up by the chain fence, hard to come back from that. What if he could tear him apart himself. He can almost imagine Gillian's screams now upon witnessing the evisceration of her new friend. Sylar hangs up his coat with enough force to almost puncture the fabric.
Nothing really spoken between them after the unrelenting conversation of where to go. Their home. Not his home, not her home, not even Chandra's home. Their home. Gillian wouldn't let that go. There's hotels should could have gone to, numbers she could call— she could have even told her new 'friend' to take her somewhere else. Once the door is closed behind them, she checks the lock and sheds her scarf and coat, letting them both drop on the floor.
The anxiety hasn't left her heart, the tension remains. Not fear, but something else all together— that knot in the back of her head remains tightly tied, clamped down, keeping her energy in. "Gabriel," she finally says, her newly highlighted hair revealed in dim lighting, the heat starting to warm skin that'd been out in the cold far too long— even tightly wrapped as it may have been.
There's a hesitant pause, as she waits for him to even look at her. That anxiety rises in her heartbeat, and then she moves to him. Cold hands raise upward to grab him by the head and try to pull him down closer to her level, to do what they've done before. This time without a count of three.
Sylar pauses, looking blankly at the wall when she summons up that name. Time for the questions, or accusations, time for him to try and get his focus back to do damage control on the mess Peter has made, time to make sure she's not about to run back out the door despite the fact she's just taken off her coat and dropped it on the floor again despite his repeated suggestions she— he lets out a breath. He doesn't want to have to kill her. He's stunned that Peter, of all people, would put him in that position. Well. Petrelli'll only have himself to blame.
He looks at her. And goes still when her mouth meets his. Then his hands come up to her arms, one to dance through hair highlighted red just like her sister oh god that poor girl and he breaks the kiss, but not the distance. "What're you doing," Sylar asks, voice barely more than a rasp.
With the height difference, Gillian's forced to stand on her toes in boots that don't make that easy on her. Twisting her ankle on various directions. That's why she had to pull him down a few inches— she needed to even out the difference between them. As he pulls away, her eyes open again— he may not have even seen her close them. There's a pause, as she takes a few slow breaths. Today's been a rough day for her. Found out her sister died in a newspaper article that's folded up in her coat.
What is she doing? Taking control. In one of the only ways she knows how. "I don't know who you were," her voice is deeper than normal, caught in the tension, clamped in her throat. "I don't know how much of who you are around me is real. But there was one time I know was real." To punctuate what she means, she leans in to kiss him again. No shapeshifting will get in the way— because she's not surprised. Nothing about this is an accident.
He meets the kiss easily. Better than trying to summon up words. Sylar'd been mad at her, hadn't he? For betraying him. For sneaking off to talk to the man they were supposed to kill together. For letting herself to be told things he'd been trying so hard to keep from her. But she can't know everything. This just proves it. He's not sure whether to feel proud of himself, or horrified. Luckily for him, Gillian is taking control of what he should be feeling.
The kiss is responded to, after a few seconds of simple acceptance, perhaps with more fervor than she'd expect from him, the same kind that had occurred the first time this had happened. His fingers lace back through her hair, gripping. He didn't lie to you, he projects, softly, a stark contrast to the way he'd yelled before. He didn't lie to you about anything.
The growing tension from her continues at the returned kiss, hands moving away from his face to grasp at his shirt, to hold on tighter as Gillian leans against him. In a way it might seem she's kissing for support— but there's more to it. Far more than she'll say outloud. And since his telepathy is only one way at the moment… She grimaces, leaning back to look up at him after his voice projects softly in her head.
"No abilities. Not right now." The abilities he killed people to get. New abilities. She knows he picked up at least one new one since they met, killed someone. Good? Bad? How often has he left without word, how often has she wondered what he did with his time. "This is just you and me, Gabriel. Nothing else." As she insists on this, in the same determined tone she demanded not to be left out of the plan and to go to their home, she doesn't start to kiss him again— instead those warming fingers begin to pull on his shirt, obviously lifting it up enough to get skin to skin contact.
No abilities. Just as she insisted, her own power is kept tightly controlled— for the moment.
And what is he but the sum of his powers? Flesh, blood, a name she still calls him despite what she knows— maybe because of what she knows. Sylar shakes his head once in denial, as if to argue that there is absolutely nothing to him besides those collected abilities, those ghosts, or at least, nothing worth knowing— but that's all the denying he makes.
Sylar kisses her once, on his own accord this time, before the shirt comes off, which only displays the battering he's gone through in the past month, in the past week. A bullet scar she already knows about high on his arm, a fresher one in his side, both long since healed, and colourful bruises marring skin across his stomach, circling his shoulder. All of which he deserves, in one way or another. "I asked you who I was," he says. "Do you still know?" His hands find their way back to her, gripping fabric as well, tugging as she did. "Do you still like me?" It's an important question.
As his shirt comes off, Gillian glances over his chest and winces again, this time at the visible wounds, ones she'd never seen. The one on his arm she may have known about, but the rest… how did he manage to walk around without making a whimper? She's still got signs of damage healing in various areas, but nothing as harsh as what she's seeing just on his chest— No gunshot wounds, no cracked bones. Cuts and bruises, stuff she whined over, but he barely even asked for extra ice.
Hands continue to run over his body, far lighter now that she's seen the damage. "Take away everything… and you're a man," she says in a softened voice. Even the clothes he wore masked something— everything he showed her hide him away, covered him up. A man who used her, tried to harness her for his own means. He wouldn't be the first, likely won't be the last. But he never used her for this—
"Yes. I still like you," she says, shifting so that he can pull her shirt off all the way, revealing even more of the coiling chinese dragon tattoo that'd barely been partially visible under the neckline of the dress she wore to Rapture.
Strange how this works. Peter's epic struggle between himself, quite literally, throwing shadows over this interaction while, deep down, when only a few knew both his names, Sylar doing something similar in little arguments and negotiations in his own head, with every single move his makes. As he draws her close again, he's not even sure what he's supposed to be. What, exactly, Gillian likes. Not the murderer, not the facade. Thing is, Sylar isn't sure it goes any deeper.
Doesn't matter. Not right now.
While his wounds are made visible, her tattoos start to reveal themselves, memories etched in ink and permanence. Sylar only nods at her confirmation, eyes going down to the images, fingers brushing across them. Clothes fall discarded on the ground and less literal masks are pushed aside as he kisses her again in earnest, steering her back towards the wall that separates between the doors to their rooms. No powers, so it's with a manual shove, hand slapping against the surface, that he pushes open his bedroom door.
The bed is made. This would not surprise Gillian if she had half a mind to pay attention to it. Between keeping the knot in the back of her head from unravelling, and the tension that's building up between them, she's got little time to notice anything that isn't him. His fingers over her skin, touching the even dozen tattoos that she has etched on her. With clothing left behind, likely to be cleaned up and folded later on by said neatfreak, she doesn't even consider all the consquences of her actions at the moment.
Sometimes things can be as simple as man and woman— two people together— like a watch on the surface is simple, a timepiece. Only when examined is it so complex. Simple doesn't have to be bad, though.
And to make matters more confusing for his internal conflict… she still whispers the name she's known him by since they first met (for the second time). "Gabriel."
 November 29th: Kisses And Queries |
Previously in this storyline… Next in this storyline… |
 November 30th: After |