Emily (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
iluvroadrunner6) wrote2010-02-27 08:09 pm
iluvroadrunner6) wrote2010-02-27 08:09 pm
Sylar - Where Imagination Meets What If
Fandom: Heroes
Title: Where Imagination Meets What If
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
iluvroadrunner6
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Gabriel “Sylar” Grey, mentions of Elle Bishop and Sylar/Elle
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
tamingthemuse Prompt: Alkaline
Content Warning: Spoilers through Season 4.
Summary: It was probably the only thing that he was grateful about when it came to what Parkman did to him. In all the screwing up of his psyche, the man actually did manage to fix the cause of his problem. He just took it two steps too far.
Author’s Note:lollobrigida linked me to THIS picture a while back and mentioned how it reminded her of Elle, and Sylar has been mulling over it ever since. Always fun.
Disclaimer: Everything belongs to Kring. I’m just borrowing and will put everything back where I found it.
He often wondered if the reason why time felt so much longer there was because of the elusive twists and turns of his own mind. It was a mind that didn’t forget, didn’t lose things, just filed them all away in rooms that became laden with boxes of information. Most of it was useless and irrelevant now, facts that he had sorted away that he assumed would be useful, somewhere along the way. That was the benefit of remembering everything. Everything found its way to being useful at some point.
He didn’t understand why his mind did this anymore. There was a piece that was missing, something that he ironically couldn’t remember. Something that had been lost amidst the filing system. Or maybe it was altered. His mind had become such a jumble with Parkman sorting around in there that he wasn’t sure if anything was where it was supposed to be anymore. Maybe that was why time stretched so long—because there wasn’t a way to find anything anymore.
Then again, he knew where the answers were. He knew where the irregularity was, if there was one. But he stayed away. There was nothing good for him in the tower of horrors that contained his victims, but remorse and self-loathing. He had learned months ago that wallowing in his own regrets wasn’t going to get him anywhere other than two steps closer to losing his mind. There was so much pain in those memories. Something that that drive inside him had made him blind to. The need to know more, understand more, have more, but now that he was bound to the limitations of his own head, that need was shoved to the side. It was probably the only thing that he was grateful about when it came to what Parkman did to him. In all the screwing up of his psyche, the man actually did manage to fix the cause of his problem.
He just took it two steps too far.
Yet, in the end, it wasn’t even the memories themselves that bothered him. It was that first floor of the tower where his memory and his imagination met. He couldn’t avoid it, couldn’t pass through into the building to find out what he needed to know without seeing the rooms of what if and what never would be. The people who’s regrets were the strongest—who’s losses were the most painful. The ones where their deaths were accidents, unintentional blows struck in the heat of passion. The rooms on the first floor contained glimpses of thoughts he wouldn’t bother to entertain when he had the entirety of the outside world to stimulate him, but when he was alone in this city, trapped with nowhere else to turn, they bloomed, grew into scenarios that sometimes seemed so real he could reach out and touch them, some of them more tantalizing than most.
There was one room in particular, that he spent far too much time just hanging in the doorway of. He never saw her face, only her back as she kneeled on the bed, long blond hair hanging down to the small of her back, but he knew who it was. There had always been a certain crackle about her that hung in the air, a jolt that brought to mind the taste of ozone and a hard alkaline edge. Being around Elle was like being sucked into a lightning storm—you never knew where it was going to hit, but you wanted to take the chance, just to see if you could survive. Then again, by the time they were officially acquainted, there was no way Sylar couldn’t survive, which meant that the one taking the chance was her, and her alone.
The chance had cost her in the end. Probably more than she ever had expected.
He wasn’t even sure if it was solely regret when it came to Elle, or perhaps not regret at all. In the end, she had dug her own grave. She placed herself in the hands of someone who she knew was dangerous. She wanted to change him, to try and prove to him that he didn’t need to be guided to be who he was. He didn’t need a lighthouse to call him home. But in the end, even that backfired for her—if he didn’t need a lighthouse, then he didn’t really need her either. He didn’t think that that meant taking her life. But it didn’t mean that whatever this illusion was presenting him would have happened either.
Yet still he liked to watch. He would stand in the doorway, never crossing the threshold, and just watch her. He watched the way the curve of her back would arch and her hips would resettle against the edge of the windowsill. He would make up stories, trying to figure out what she was waiting for, but leave before they actually took root enough to play out before them. That was the danger of the rooms after all—where imagination met what if. He didn’t need to see the way things could have been. He already knew that they were never going to be. He would have plenty of time to delude himself into believing, participating, even.
After all, there was something about being imprisoned in your own mind that just screamed forever.
Title: Where Imagination Meets What If
Author:
iluvroadrunner6Rating: PG-13
Characters: Gabriel “Sylar” Grey, mentions of Elle Bishop and Sylar/Elle
tamingthemuse Prompt: AlkalineContent Warning: Spoilers through Season 4.
Summary: It was probably the only thing that he was grateful about when it came to what Parkman did to him. In all the screwing up of his psyche, the man actually did manage to fix the cause of his problem. He just took it two steps too far.
Author’s Note:
lollobrigida linked me to THIS picture a while back and mentioned how it reminded her of Elle, and Sylar has been mulling over it ever since. Always fun.
Disclaimer: Everything belongs to Kring. I’m just borrowing and will put everything back where I found it.
He often wondered if the reason why time felt so much longer there was because of the elusive twists and turns of his own mind. It was a mind that didn’t forget, didn’t lose things, just filed them all away in rooms that became laden with boxes of information. Most of it was useless and irrelevant now, facts that he had sorted away that he assumed would be useful, somewhere along the way. That was the benefit of remembering everything. Everything found its way to being useful at some point.
He didn’t understand why his mind did this anymore. There was a piece that was missing, something that he ironically couldn’t remember. Something that had been lost amidst the filing system. Or maybe it was altered. His mind had become such a jumble with Parkman sorting around in there that he wasn’t sure if anything was where it was supposed to be anymore. Maybe that was why time stretched so long—because there wasn’t a way to find anything anymore.
Then again, he knew where the answers were. He knew where the irregularity was, if there was one. But he stayed away. There was nothing good for him in the tower of horrors that contained his victims, but remorse and self-loathing. He had learned months ago that wallowing in his own regrets wasn’t going to get him anywhere other than two steps closer to losing his mind. There was so much pain in those memories. Something that that drive inside him had made him blind to. The need to know more, understand more, have more, but now that he was bound to the limitations of his own head, that need was shoved to the side. It was probably the only thing that he was grateful about when it came to what Parkman did to him. In all the screwing up of his psyche, the man actually did manage to fix the cause of his problem.
He just took it two steps too far.
Yet, in the end, it wasn’t even the memories themselves that bothered him. It was that first floor of the tower where his memory and his imagination met. He couldn’t avoid it, couldn’t pass through into the building to find out what he needed to know without seeing the rooms of what if and what never would be. The people who’s regrets were the strongest—who’s losses were the most painful. The ones where their deaths were accidents, unintentional blows struck in the heat of passion. The rooms on the first floor contained glimpses of thoughts he wouldn’t bother to entertain when he had the entirety of the outside world to stimulate him, but when he was alone in this city, trapped with nowhere else to turn, they bloomed, grew into scenarios that sometimes seemed so real he could reach out and touch them, some of them more tantalizing than most.
There was one room in particular, that he spent far too much time just hanging in the doorway of. He never saw her face, only her back as she kneeled on the bed, long blond hair hanging down to the small of her back, but he knew who it was. There had always been a certain crackle about her that hung in the air, a jolt that brought to mind the taste of ozone and a hard alkaline edge. Being around Elle was like being sucked into a lightning storm—you never knew where it was going to hit, but you wanted to take the chance, just to see if you could survive. Then again, by the time they were officially acquainted, there was no way Sylar couldn’t survive, which meant that the one taking the chance was her, and her alone.
The chance had cost her in the end. Probably more than she ever had expected.
He wasn’t even sure if it was solely regret when it came to Elle, or perhaps not regret at all. In the end, she had dug her own grave. She placed herself in the hands of someone who she knew was dangerous. She wanted to change him, to try and prove to him that he didn’t need to be guided to be who he was. He didn’t need a lighthouse to call him home. But in the end, even that backfired for her—if he didn’t need a lighthouse, then he didn’t really need her either. He didn’t think that that meant taking her life. But it didn’t mean that whatever this illusion was presenting him would have happened either.
Yet still he liked to watch. He would stand in the doorway, never crossing the threshold, and just watch her. He watched the way the curve of her back would arch and her hips would resettle against the edge of the windowsill. He would make up stories, trying to figure out what she was waiting for, but leave before they actually took root enough to play out before them. That was the danger of the rooms after all—where imagination met what if. He didn’t need to see the way things could have been. He already knew that they were never going to be. He would have plenty of time to delude himself into believing, participating, even.
After all, there was something about being imprisoned in your own mind that just screamed forever.