torchwoodinstitute | (no subject)

Oh, that was not good. Sylar was able to school his features and merely look curious and a little confused as they continued. "Really? Weird." But no one should know that name, not unless they were watch enthusiast. This guy was not a timepiece fanatic.

And of course, Jim wasn't going to tell them where they were. That would be way too easy. "Okay. Thanks."

He stepped into the kitchen and waited to see if Jim was going to stay with them or not. Either way, as soon as that door closed he'd be trying to teleport (or whatever it was he did- that power was supposed to be gravitational manipulation) him and Luke out of there. This had become very much not worth the risk.

The kitchen wasn't exactly empty. Jack wasn't currently flirting with Sasan (it was only funny when Jim was there) but he was playing cards, some sort of weird version of solitaire that he had this far been able to properly convey the rules to anyone on how to play.

The swish of the door did cause him to look up, one strangely shaped card in hand, and his eyes drifted from Jim to the two shorter boys.

He knew one of them. He'd followed Gabriel for years (well, a week or so for himself but years for Gabriel) since the boy was ten while he was vetting him for Torchwold. He kept that to himself. This might not be Gabriel after all, but any one of his doppelgängers.

"What did I say about guests?"

"Don't look at me, Captain," Jim muttered.

Well, damn. This was not ideal. Apparently, this was where people were hanging out. Sasan had looked up from a magazine he'd read once already and frowned slightly when he saw Sylar. This was sort of freaky- why did everyone here seem to recognize him?

He glanced at Luke, hoping the warning got across. "Yeah, sorry about that. It was an accident. We'll leave you alone."

He held his hand out, fingers spread, and a small vortex appeared. Sylar's fingers twitched as he worked to manipulate it correctly, tweaking the same thing he did last time. But it felt unstable, like the little tunnel he was making kept getting pulled in another direction and twisted around into a knot. He kept trying to straighten it out, but his head was killing him. He wasn't going to manage it before he passed out, so he reluctantly shut it down.

"....or not." He sighed heavily. Time to see if they pulled weapons on him now. At least telekinesis he could manage.

Jack only sat back, hands crossed over trouser button, and watched the boy attempt to summon his vortex. That was certainly an ability that Gabriel didn’t have. In fact, Jack knew that Gabriel didn’t develop his ability until he was in adulthood, or at least had not been tempted by it to sneak out and find others like him to use their abilities for himself. And he didn’t recognize the boy with him at all, the one with eyes that could only be remarked upon as soulless. Jack might not believe nor disbelieve in souls (it didn’t matter to a man who couldn’t die), but he didn’t like the feeling the somewhat stockier kid gave off.

“That might be our fault,” Jack mused, which immediately made that dead-eyed kid step in front of the other boy. Protective. Interesting. He waited for any particular sign that he was going to attack, and when he didn’t, Jack simply stayed where he was and glanced up at Jim to stop him from freaking out. The man at the table next to him was someone Jim would very likely do the same thing for, after all.

That put Jack in a bad position.

“This facility is called the Torchwood Institute.” He was going to leave off the Time Agency bit. “We’re currently experiencing a lockdown. There’s a dampening field in the facility preventing comings and goings by vortex. I’m not really sure how you got here, but hey, it helps up with our troubleshooting later. So you’re hung—“

The other boy suddenly spoke up, interrupting. “What the fuck, man?! We didn’t ask to be here!” Sorry Sylar. Luke didn’t take threats well, even when there weren’t threats at all.

Hey, interrupting was way better for diplomacy than attempting to melt people. Since Sylar knew Luke was readily capable of that- although three people was a bit much at once, especially with two in opposite directions- he was actually rather glad that Luke was only complaining.

And hey, it was pretty unfortunate that they ended up in a place under lockdown after all the crap they'd just been through. "It was an accident," Sylar said, backing up Luke's statement. "I was just trying something and I guess it was a bigger deal than I thought."

His awkward kid demeanor had dropped entirely- there wasn't much point in keeping that up anymore if people knew him. Luke's outburst was likely to smooth over the change, anyway. But he hoped that by staying calm it would help keep the situation more manageable. Not that these guys seemed to spook. Geez, he just opened a freakin' black hole in their kitchen, why was the dark-haired guy the only one to look kind of freaked? "Did we cause the lockdown?" That seemed reasonable, although everything seemed pretty dead when they got there.

"Fraid not. Sasan's the lucky one for that." Jack thumbed towards Sasan with a grin and stood up, putting his cards on the desk and heading over to the refrigerator. Hm. Okay. So what did teenagers like? Chocolate milk?

He knew Sasan was going to scoff or protest. It amused him to do that. He really enjoyed the soft squeaks. He was pretty sure Jim would too if he lightened up a little to flirt with their PR director.

Luke had at least calmed down. Or backed off. His shoulders dropped a little and he watched Jack like a hawk as he poured their glasses.

And he got one for Jim too. Just because.

"Me?" Jack was right that Sasan was going to protest that, complete with little I-can't-believe-you-just-said-that squeaks. It was a good thing all around, really, because it kicked Sasan out of the scared little rabbit mode he'd gone into. That tended to happen when someone ripped a hole in the universe in front of him. "I didn't cause it, I just found it. You're welcome, by the way."

All the drama made Sylar raise an eyebrow at it. There was something weird about these two guys. One he just plain couldn't parse, and the other looked like a cousin of his or something. This was always so much easier when they had abilities.

Sylar was equally wary and eager for the chocolate milk. He didn't know about other teenagers, but he loved the stuff. He ultimately decided to go ahead and have some, taking the glass and gulping it down quickly. "Thanks. You guys seem pretty relaxed for being on lockdown, you know," he observed. It wasn't like a military, and it wasn't like Primatech, either.

"Some of us take to it better than others," Jsck laughed.

He took the other glasses he had poured and handed one to Luke, who looked wary, but took it anyway and openly gawked at Sylar. This guy! He was too trusting! Luke was going to have to really talk to him about this.

The other glass, Jack handed to Jim. The blond smirked, took the offered chocolate milk, and made a wide birth around the teenagers to sit in Jack's spot. He slid the glass to Sasan with a little half smile.

"I promise I didn't poison it. You watched me pour it," Jack told Luke, who still just stared at him. "Okay. Suit yourself. I'm Captain Jack Harkness. I run the place. And you two can stay with us until we get the issue here taken care of or we can figure out a way to get you home before you decide to black hole us to death."

The chocolate milk tasted like it was supposed to, thankfully. Sylar would've hated to have Luke melt their faces off. -well, he would've hated to miss it, anyway.

Sasan looked from the milk to Jim, slowly smiling. "Well, I might indulge a bit. You have to promise to drink half, though," he told Jim. He didn't want to half half the glass staring at him and tempting him further. Now that this had been at least partially settled and it was clear they weren't in immediate danger, Sasan was pleased to pay more attention to Jim.

And Sylar was finding he liked this Captain Jack. This boss didn't seem to take things too seriously. "I'm not going to black hole you to death," he said with a smirk. No, he'd always give that to Luke first. Opening up a black hole on someone seemed awfully impersonal. "So what do you guys do here, when you're not on lockdown? This place looks huge."

Jack might not answer him, but he couldn't help but ask. It was such an intriguing mystery.

"How much time do you have?" Jack asked, as cheeky as ever and Jim, who had just agreed to have half the glass, rolled his eyes.

"While," he replied for the other Captain, letting Sasan drink from the straw as he took a sip from the edge of the glass. Seeing that, Luke finally had a sip as well and then downed the whole thing.

He was starving.

"Funny. Haha. Pretty much we take care of weird things and make sure that they don't end up destroying things we think should stay intact. It can be anything, places or people but mostly they're objects. One of those objects is probably what has us on lockdown down."

Lie.

Jim and Sasan would know it. The boys would not.

"So you've met me and Sasan and Jim. You're Sylar. And you--"

Luke sighed and put the empty glass down. Fuck if he was giving his full name. "Campbell."

Well, that sounded interesting. Sylar figured that if he didn't make them bat an eye, their definition of 'weird things' had to be pretty broad.

Sylar figured Luke wouldn't give his name. That was probably smart. So Sylar moved straight on to what he'd really been wanting to know since they entered the room. "How do you know me? Jim didn't have a chance to tell you." He wanted to ask if Jack had contact with Noah Bennet, but he hardly wanted to give away any extra information. It's not like Jack would reply honestly if he had.

"Jim doesn't have to." Jack tapped the small device in his ear, which left the blond making the indignant noise. "What? Listening in on you while you're muttering to yourself is amusing. Back me up on this, Sas."

Blue eyes, two sets of them, drifted towards the man drinking the chocolate milk, one with a grinning mouth beneath and the other looking none too happy.

"But I didn't have to be listening in. I would have known you anyway, though not by "Sylar." You work here. Well, a slightly older version of you does at least."

Sasan's reaction to being 'called in', so to speak, was to shift his eyes to the side. "I'm pleading the Fifth on that," he said, despite the fact that they were in an entirely different country and one of them might not have ever heard the term. And all throughout, he continued sipping at the chocolate milk.

Sylar found this whole thing very curious, but not quite as interesting as the answer to his question. Jack didn't even try to dodge it, from what Sylar could tell. Confusion crossed his face for the first time, and he tried to work it through. "So did I time travel, as well as teleport? We're from 2015."

He wouldn't bother asking further about the name. They couldn't know about the whole killer part of it, or else they'd be way more concerned. He'd at least still sense some tension from Sasan.

Luke wasn't buying any of this shit. This was Sylar getting in over his head again. He was so easily seduced by just about everything and Luke was starting to feel left out again. He and Sylar was a match. A team.

To hear he was working here in a few years? Even in theory, that hurt.

"You came from a different reality. I don't expect you to believe me but it does help that you can create black holes...and what? Do you have telekinesis yet? Clairesence?" Jack tilted his head to the side and completely ignored Luke.

Jesus. What the fuck was wrong with these people?

The Captain certainly did know how to grab Sylar's interest. The teenager's eyes lit up at the mention of a new ability, and- yeah, perhaps he was now not being quite so careful as he should. "What's that second one? I don't have that."

Nothing had changed for Sylar, at least. Even with it right in front of him, he didn't think the future was written in stone. And hey, this was a different reality? He had the ability to hop realities? They could go somewhere, hunt down all sorts of specials and then move 'out of bounds' as soon as it became a problem. He glanced over at Luke and was rather disappointed that the other kid wasn't so excited. He guessed he'd have to explain the idea later.

"Touch an object, see it's history," Jack explained easily enough and gestured for Sylar to have a seat if he wanted to. Luke was going to be that guy and stay standing and watchful. Hearing about this other Sylar was...strange.

"If there's really Sy from the future here, where is he?" Luke asked, almost accusatory. He was a liar. He had a feeling Jack was too, even if he was being forthcoming.

Jack shrugged. "Sas, seen Gabe around?"

"About a half hour ago, he was stomping around the upper levels," Sasan replied. "So he's probably around here somewhere." He looked at Jim. "I swear, the two of you take shifts. It's amazing how much you can't sit still." Sasan smiled fondly as he said so, as if it were an actual compliment.

"Really, though, I'm honestly surprised he hasn't popped back in here yet. Maybe he went to see what Mohinder was up to?" Sasan guessed.

Uh oh. That was not a good name to hear existing in this alternate reality, with Luke already pissed off. Sylar frowned and waved off the questioning. "It's all right. I'm sure we'll meet him eventually. We really don't need to see him right now." He didn't want Luke to melt down, after all.

Maybe it was starting to get a little warm in here already though. No one really seemed to notice how dark Luke's eyes had gotten (Jack was keeping mum on the subject and Jim was scoffing lightly, but still somewhat appreciatively at Sasan). No one really needed to notice, however, not when Luke could no longer keep the question in, several moments after Mohinder's name was mentioned.

"Suresh is here?"

Suresh and Sylar were here, older, and he was not. The jealous tipped him over and he found himself cursing and running out of the kitchen. Jack did not go after him and he told his agents to stay where they were as well. His eyes turned back to Sylar.

"How long will it take him to calm down?"

Sylar frowned and shifted when Luke ran out, getting up out of the chair he'd just sat down in and taking a few steps towards the door. But he knew that being around Luke when he was overheating like that was a bad idea. It tended to just piss Luke off more, because of the danger it put Sylar in.

Jack's question was met with a sigh. "Ten, fifteen minutes?" Sylar guessed. But of course this was one of the most sore subjects with Luke. Besides, it'd been quite a day already. "Maybe more like 30. He has to calm down enough to turn off the heat, and we'd already been training a whole day. He's tired."

Now that Luke was out of the room, Sylar asked the question that'd been on his mind since he heard of his counterpart. "So he's not here? Have you ever met anyone like him?" There was an undertone of worry to Sylar's voice.

Thirty minutes was a long, dangerous time. Luke didn't even know where he was going and so he just kept going down and down and down. It would be better if he had some cold water but it was cooler the further down he went and that should be all right.

Jack scooted his chair in and set his elbow on the table.

"I've never met him of anyone that looks like him," Jack said, not sugar coating it. "Even if Campbell isn't his really name, if he was here, I'd know." Jack watched Sylar's face. There was a cunning in his eyes that he recognized but he wouldn't bring those things up in front of Sasan. Jim had to know about Gabriel's past in the broad strokes because they worked together. But Sasan did not. "But never mind. How about you tell me what else you can do and Jim will put a pizza on for us."

The blond was paying no attention to Jack and was staring at Sasan as he had more milk and watched the strange exchanges going on that were now part of his daily life.

Sylar sighed again and sat down once more. No point in talking about this while standing.

Sasan had watched the whole thing, feeling a little bad that he'd brought up an obviously sore subject. Ugh, a love triangle going on with this kid? That has got to be some dangerous drama. But soon he was noticing that Jim was watching him. He smiled and scooted the milk back over to him. He knew it was kind of disgustingly sweet for the two of them, but Sasan was going to enjoy what they had, dammit.

"I'll get the pizza," he said, squeezing Jim's shoulder lightly as he got up.

Sylar wasn't paying any attention to the two of them, once he'd realized they were off in their own world. He had his eyes on Jack. This was a very targeted question the Captain asked, and it made Sylar question his earlier assessment of what he might know.

He leaned the side of his head on an upturned hand, slouching forward in his chair. "How about you tell me what you can do, first? I can tell you've got something weird going on." That was kind of an answer in its own right.

"I do. And it's nothing you can take and use for yourself since it isn't in my DNA," Jack said immediately, a strange smile on his lips. "I suppose you could always try, but it would just leave you with a bloody mess."

Yeah, that got Jim's attention, who was trying to keep his eyes on the glass and not on the fact that he had gotten caught staring like a teenager. Being locked in here with Sasan and no respite from the other man was driving him pretty crazy with all sort of needs he shouldn't have.

That he shouldn't be able to have.

He had no idea that Gabriel started killing people so early in life. Wow. And he still grew up to have a devoted fiancee?

The casual way Jack called him out made Sylar almost want to try it- especially since, the way Jack put it, he must have some form of healing ability. And yet, what Jack said about Sylar not being able to take it, that rang true. There'd be no point.

But now the burning question was- how could all of them still be so calm? They clearly all knew what he'd been doing! He didn't ask right away, though, unless that somehow broke whatever was holding this rather pleasant conversation up. He was looking at Jack with somewhat more wariness, however.

After a quiet moment, he said, "Enhanced eyesight. That's the only other ability I have. Mohinder helped me get that one." He smiled a little. "And the vortex power, although that one was more of an accident." The Company had 'slipped' and given him the wrong file. It was weird how they showed their trust like that.

As Jack had a hard time believing that Mohinder was part of a little cult of getting people with mutated abilities to lay down and let their heads be cut open, he decided that Sylar had learned that he could copy abilities empathically.

The divergent time stream here was somewhat remarkable and he would have liked to do more research on it across the various realities but that would require more use of the rift core and they were on lockdown.

Campbell was not a name that had come up in any of the realities he had observed or tracked Gabriel in. But that hardly meant he couldn't be in ones Jack had discarded early on before setting on the version of Gabriel he had finally recruited.

"What's your Mohinder like?" Jack asked, conversationally. "Is he your age? Ours is a geneticist. Probably twice as old as you are now."

Sylar sat up in his seat, visibly perking up to talk about Mohinder. "Of course he is. Mine is younger. Our age. He's...have you ever seen an abandoned puppy on the side of the road, trying to figure out how to cross it on his own? He's kind of like that." It was said with fondness. "The same people that picked us up were the ones that picked him up, but they really just wanted his Dad's research. I haven't been able to convince him that they're not the best, yet."

Sylar was still keeping an eye on everything, but he was far more comfortable now. "So does this mean everyone in my timeline's younger? Like people shifted a generation or something?" How weird. He wondered how that could even happen.