torchwoodinstitute | (no subject)

Sylar was left looking thoughtful and disturbed by what Jack was saying. If he decided to stay? They'd take him here? He'd been planning on trying to weasel out of going back to Primatech, and that was basically saying he could do so. Did that extend to Luke? Probably not, with the way Jack was talking.

More disturbing was the thought that maybe he could go back on what he'd done. He knew Mohinder had believed in him, but Sylar had always thought he'd crossed a line awhile ago. There was no point in trying to cross back over to the normal land where people were decent, so he might as well be the best monster he could. That was kind of the feeling Primatech had given him, too. This place didn't seem to adhere to any of that.

Before he could really reconcile any of what was flying through his mind, he heard Mohinder in the hall. And- yeah, there was no one else that could be, when he saw Mohinder in the doorway. Sylar had figured Mohinder would start looking like his old man as he grew older, but there was no sign of that here. Sylar glanced down at the table and rubbed the back of his neck instead of saying hi.

Mohinder was just as fascinated by the boy, though the idea was disturbing to him on so many levels that ' Sylar' had happened to him so soon. Jim hadn't filled him in on the conversation, just that a sixteen or seventeen year old version of his fiancé had showed up and was calling himself Sylar. Mohinder wished Gabriel was with him now because the name itself invoked a sort of dread in him that he couldn't begin to abide.

He swallowed and crossed the room, more handsome than the boy who had confessed to liking him at the pizza parlor until Gabriel told him he was seeing Luke.

Mohinder sat down delicately across from the boy and cupped his hands together in front of him on the table. "Can I call you Gabriel?"

He broke into a light laughter, looking back up at Mohinder. "He insisted on it, too. Okay, sure you can." There was a slight emphasis on 'you'. Mohinder was allowed. "You might get me mixed up with your fiance, though." He looked pointedly at the ring on Mohinder's finger.

That question had at least broken the ice somewhat. Sylar hadn't been sure what to say to this man who was clearly everything that Mohinder would be in a few years. Adulthood really suited him. "So you both, uh, work here? You and Gabriel?"

"I hardly believe that I'll get you and he mixed up if I can work with Gabriel and Sasan without much incident." Just that once. But once was enough.

Unlike Sylar, Mohinder wasn't smiling. He didn't think he was capable of smiling either and he certainly did not want to. He had so many questions to ask. Obviously a younger version of himself at least knew Sylar. Perhaps they were friends? And it didn't seem to bother him to know that he was in a gay relationship quickly headed towards marriage. Perhaps all was not as lost as it had seemed, but hat name--

Mohinder had to press. When he was upset or angry he tended to do irrational things and this might actually be one of them.

"Shall I tell you why I dislike the other name?" Jack looked about ready to step in, but Mohinder was already standing and lifting his t-shirt. This was not to show off the lean, smoothly muscled body that his older self got to touch whenever he wanted, but to point out the scars on his back, pink lines cut into caramel flesh. "This is my reminder of who Sylar had been before we killed him."

Jack blinked. Would 'scared straight' even work with this kid?

Maybe not entirely. But Sylar did look distressed to see the scars cut into Mohinder back there. He was speechless for a long moment. It was not something he had ever considered doing, although he knew that Luke probably had entertained the idea, at some point.

It was still uncanny how much this man was obviously Mohinder. No one else spoke with these same tones to Sylar, especially after they knew what he could do.

"That never happened in my world," he said quietly. "Primatech got to us before anything like that happened." This Mohinder must've been familiar with Primatech by now. It seemed like they'd be destined to cross paths.

If he'd felt awkward before, it was even more of a problem now. He wasn't sure what all he was feeling meant, but it seemed kind of pointless to try and sort it out, at the moment. "How long ago was that?" he asked, looking up at Mohinder. "That you 'killed' him?"

"It's been about two... I suppose nearly three years." Mohinder sat himself down, and Jack got up to check on the food. "The man Gabriel is now is not the man I first met. Nor the man that did this to me. I want you to understand that you don't have to be that name."

Did Sylar get it it was this just some words that meant nothing in the long run to the teen?

"I don't know your story, but I will tell you mine." It just wouldn't be in brief. Mohinder did nothing in brief. He started at the beginning, with Zane. Though details were skipped up, he moved towards the yo-yoing in his apartment and the desperate call on the phone. The illusionist. The trek through the jungle-- The decision for Sylar to did and Gabriel to be born again.

"We worked for the Company for a little while. It was mostly blackmail I suppose. Blackmail and lies, an attempt to use us against one another. And then Jack found us-- Found Gabriel. By then we were a bit of a package deal. But for you--What possessed you to take up that name? Does it have something to do with that other boy you came with? What was his name? Campbell?"

No. Mohinder didn't know him either.

It was quite the story. Gabriel and Mohinder had been through a lot together. Sylar listened carefully, occasionally biting his lip. All the details fit together, and that sure sounded like the Company...he didn't think Mohinder was lying. This Mohinder looked about as good as his Mohinder at lying, which was not at all.

The questions took him a minute to answer- he was still trying to process everything he heard, and what it might mean for him. "Yeah. We met when someone played a prank on me. When he showed me his power, I just- I had to know more. I followed him around for awhile, found 'Activating Evolution', and we talked about it a lot. And then I ran into someone who had telekinesis, and me and Campbell started planning." He bit at his lip again. "Is there some reason he's not in these other realities?"

"Gabriel didn't discover his aptitude until he was much older than you. Perhaps he did to to school with a Campbell but there was simply no connection at that time?" Mohinder could only offer the smallest of hypothesizes at this point. Had everything changed because Gabriel did not find the book his father wrote until much later? "Though, my father did not publish his work until I was already at university. Your timeline and ours don't connect well."

Mohinder touched his engagement ring very gently. What would it have been like if he had met Gabriel as a teenager?

Would they have come to love one another? Would he have been able to stop the monster before it became too great? Would Gabriel not have had to suffer for so long or cause others to suffer as much as he had?

Would his father still be alive?

"Your friend... Does he hurt people too? Or were you planning on hurting him?" It seemed a fair question. Jack didn't actually care of it. It seemed so very eckless.

It was a fair question, but Gabriel didn't look too keen on answering it. He'd already said way too much, but Mohinder always had a way of getting him to talk. Maybe it was the way that Mohinder shared first.

And he didn't want this Mohinder to get hurt, either. "He hurts people, too. He expects me to take his power some day, but I wouldn't. He's important to me." There. He thought Jack had probably figured out that much already. "And he doesn't like Mohinder because he thinks you're going to steal him away from me."

Okay, so pronouns were difficult in these situations. But he felt like he got across the warning.

Sylar was starting to look a little sick. This had been a very busy day, after all, and he'd overused a new power. Twice. All the adrenaline he'd had upon arriving was finally wearing off, and trying to hold onto everything that was going on was a further strain.

Mohinder wasn't a doctor. Not a medical doctor at least, but he could see what stress and strain was doing to the teenager. He would heed the warning as best he could. Mohinder did not answer the boy and he didn't intend at all to ask more than he had to about the Campbell boy. "How's food coming along, Jack? Could we get a bag of something sweet please? And more chocolate milk."

He knew how to take care of his fiancé when he over stretched himself. He could help steer this version of him to safety too.

"And you'll need to lay down. You're starting to sweat."

Jack did as he was told, though he was starting to have a very bad feeling about this second boy with his melt down tendencies. He doubted it was really jealousy that made the boy had Mohinder so much as a possessiveness towards Sylar.

That he didn't care if he was killed, or that he suspected (maybe even hoped) to be murderer and consumed by Sylar was more worrying still. Campbell was nothing short of a psychopath who had already killed.

If Sylar let on the sexual satisfaction Luke got from murder... Well, Luke would no longer be alive. Jack could only tolerate so much.

Then again, Luke wasn't really doing so well right now. He couldn't cool down and if he couldn't cool down, he couldn't calm down. He'd give up, radiating heat enough to peel the paint by where he rested his head, breathing hard and fast. He was tucked away under the stairs.

He was alone.

This wasn't how he was suppose to die though.

Gabriel kept touching the walls to get readings of where Luke had been- and the memories were imprinted even stronger than usual. That was usually an indication of emotions running high, from what he could tell.

And yep, there was their little firebug- except without the actual fire, apparently. Interesting. He was quiet, only letting himself be heard as he got within twenty feet of the stairway. "Hello there. Have a rough trip in?"

It was hard to tell whether he'd be looking for a new set of clothes or not after talking to this kid. The volatile nature itself made the whole thing rather exciting.

They sent that slack jawed idiot from the kitchen after him? Yeah, this was not that dude's lucky day. Luke stopped plucking at the hair on the back of his neck to scowl up at the intruder.

His face...looked different. More confident. Less afraid. No. He was excited. He had that look Sy got whenever they were around someone with a new and interesting power. Luke, however, was not smart enough to put the two together here.

"I'd fuck off and stay fucked off," he said, charmingly.

"Heh. No, thanks," he said, taking a few steps closer. He stared at Luke with intense interest. "This isn't a power I've seen before, so I'll hang out here."

He leaned up against the nearest wall and made himself comfortable. "What's your name, kid?"

Luke's eyes widened like saucers as he stared up at the man. What had that dude in the suspenders called him? Sas? What a stupid fucking name.

He couldn't help but equate him again to Sylar, which left him just a little slackjawed. It did take his mind away from the pain.

And that was enough to make him realize who this was.

"Sylar...?" Well not his name but a name at least?

"It's Gabriel now, but close enough," he replied with an amused shrug. His hands were in his pockets. He wouldn't fault anyone for thinking he and Sasan were the same person, but Gabriel's style was a little less colorful and a lot more dependent on the silhouette he created.

Right now, that silhouette was radiating power- in a different way than Luke, of course. He didn't have any cause to worry about most things, and so he didn't.

He watched Luke with a familiar curiosity- it wasn't muted, but it did seem to be tamed, a bit. "You are friends with Sylar, aren't you?" he said. "Wow. Took me until about four years ago until I found someone I could stand. You must be pretty special. Especially if he hasn't done the whole-" He raised a pointed finger, not quite to Luke's forehead, and moved it across in a line. "-thing."

Luke wasn't sweating. The amount of energy he was giving off was evaporating it before it could leave his skin moist. That said, he was starting to look a little more focused too. There was nothing romantic about the way Luke looked up at Gabriel. His eyebrows had lifted but his pupils weren't dilating. Whatever Sasan's theory about a love triangle, it wasn't true.

Luke had absolutely no capacity to love, though he could fake it all right as long as Sylar was willing to delude himself.

"I'm not special," Luke grunted. "I helped him get that power and now I'm an emergency food supply for when he needs a fix or he gets done with me." Luke said that as if he believed it. "Or is that what you're going to now? Wouldn't blame you. My power is pretty cool and it's killing me anyway. Better get it before my brain fries."

Gabriel could see some of the differences right away. Having actually experienced love- even if he clung like a desperate kid sometimes- he could tell this was different. More like the addiction that had pushed him forward. Little Sylar couldn't possibly guess that, of course, because he'd spent his whole life hoping for someone to love him for the strange creature he was. He barely even knew what the word meant. And this lucky kid came across a psychopath first.

No wonder Jack had sent Gabriel down for this.

After staring at the teenager for probably too long, he shrugged again and said, "Nah. That's not my thing anymore. Plus, I don't think your brain's gonna fry. How would you be an emergency food supply, then?"

Luke laughed softly, just under his breath. "Wow. You grow up to be a fucking jerk," he responded, the grin as fake as the laugh. Luke went through the motions. He couldn't survive the way he wanted to be and so he had learned to fake almost everything.

He wanted to be anyone but himself anyway. Luke only hated one thing and that was the mind that could not love and could not hate anything else. He hated his won fucking indifference. He hated his existence. But that didn't mean that he didn't want to live.

"But you're right. He needs me." Sylar loved him. Luke equated that to be the same thing. "I need some sort of water... You have a million fucking doors and none of them lead to a fucking bathroom?"

Sylar was Sylar. Even when he was Gabriel. And okay, to be honest? He kinda dug the way the older version spoke to him. He was so calm. And Luke needed that.

Gabriel smirked, glad to get a request in the form of a complaint. "Yeah, this place is obnoxious when you're trying to get somewhere fast. Come on, I'll show you where the closest one is." If Luke couldn't make it under his own power, Gabriel would cart him there with telekinesis.

"It's too bad I don't have the freezing ability I used to. I could cool you off right now." He honestly felt sort of mixed about those old powers. He missed them, but losing them led into a much better chapter of his life.

Luke was not too far gone to be unable to walk himself, but he was struggling. The exertion caused the metal they passed to heat up and being too close to him was uncomfortable. Microwaves were a bitch.

"How the hell did you lose abilities? Is it like a video game and you only have so many slots?" Luke could be useful to Sylar if he found this information out for him. Fucking Suresh was no help at all.

Even if he was giving Sylar the means to copy abilities without cutting people open.

The thought caused another burst of heat.

"Just-- hurry."

He could ask questions once he was standing in the shower.

Gabriel kept walking as if he were out in the open with sunny skies and a light breeze. However, he did speed up a little.

"No, it's not like that. I'll go into it when we get there," he replied. He had them do a zigzag in a couple of corridors, going through unmarked doors- and then he opened the first door in a hallway, and it looked like a dorm bathroom. Sinks, open stalls for showers, etc. Gabriel flicked his fingers and turned on all the showers at once. The humidity might not hurt, either.

Luke's reaction pretty much solved any particular riddle as to why Sylar stuck with the other teenager. He liked watching Sylar work.

Sneakers and all, Luke piled himself into the showers, standing under the spray looking like a drowned rat. Though water was not exactly a dampener of microwaves, the effect of the water could still be psychosomatic enough that it did lead towards the boy calming down and the danger to pass.

"I get that there isn't some older version of me here. Whatever. Did you kill me?" That was the most pressing question. "Because I don't think you did or you wouldn't be so interested in what I could do. You have no idea who I am do you?"

"Nope." Gabriel wasn't going to pull punches, there. "I'm good with faces, and I've never met you before. It's possible you two got into a branch of realities where you don't exist. Huh, I wonder what the ones without me are like." They probably involved a lot of happier people. Oh, well.

Luke was looking better, even while looking like a drowned rat. That was good- Gabriel could take the heat, but that didn't mean it was pleasant to have your insides broiled. "So what's your name, kid? I never caught it.

"I never gave it," Luke pointed out, not playing that game. "It doesn't matter who I am if I don't even exist here right? Soon as you guys get some food into Sy, we're as good as gone anyway."

He had no idea that Jack had just about as good as offered Sylar a place to stay here. And he had absolutely no way of knowing that he himself would not be offered the same.

"So you're one of them now? Talk about selling out, dude. Do they feed you files too so you don't feel the need to go out and crack skulls?"

Well, he gave Luke the opportunity. From now on he was 'kid', or any increasingly embarrassing nickname he could come up with.

The accusation got a laugh from him. "Oh, you guys got caught by Primatech, huh? I suppose you would, you don't seem like you'd be all that subtle. Or maybe you went after Petrellis. That's pretty much an instant trip there."

He looked off into the distance as he thought about the rest of it. It had been a long road, getting to here. And seeing someone so like how he used to be was a big reminder. "This isn't Primatech. But you can call it selling out, if you want. I do make a lot of money. Not quite sure what you mean by 'one of them' though. This whole place is made up of misfits."