i am the jigsaw man

Looking to get in touch with Sylar's mun? Can't find her on e-mail or AIM? Here's the place to do it; all comments are screened by default and will only be unscreened with permission.

(For general availability and other OOC mun info, you can also check this post.)

( Everything You Wanted to Know About Sylar's Powers But Were Afraid to Ask (sort of) -- last updated March 23, 2008; contains spoilers through 2x03, ''Kindred'' )

( So what's going on with Sylar right now? (Spoilers through 2x11, ''Powerless.'') )

( What does this mean for your pup? )

[After this.]


He's bleeding.

Sylar didn't notice it, in the jumbled and buzzing fog after Elle's attack, but there are tiny cuts everywhere: on his face, his hands, his neck. A few of them have sunk fairly deep, and others still have thin clear slivers of glass embedded in them. Bent over the sink in room 1153, Sylar tweezes out the largest fragments with his fingernails, hissing short breaths between his teeth at the stinging pain.

On the edge of the sink rest three items: a piece of elastic, a needle, and the (thankfully unbroken) vial of Claire's blood. The box, he tossed aside haphazardly as soon as he fished the vial from its center. It's fetched up against the side of the bathtub with its hinges splayed wide into an L shape.

Once he's yanked out as many of the bits as he can find, he flexes his injured hands with meticulous care. They ache, still, but with most of the glass gone, most of the pain has ebbed as well. Enough to do what he needs to do, anyway.

Sylar rolls up his sleeve and ties off the tourniquet at the top of his arm, continuing to clench and unclench his hand to bring the veins to the surface. It trembles, slightly, and doesn't stop trembling as he picks up the needle and vial. Anticipation, he tells himself, as he watches the needle's reservoir fill. Not the virus. And if it is the doing of some obscure and engineered sickness -- well. That will hardly matter any more soon enough.

He holds his breath, slips the needle into his arm, and pushes the plunger.

( Read more... )

Sylar left as soon as they released him, and made it no more than four hours with Maya and Alejandro before another gas station door opened on Milliways. He nearly closes it again; it's catching sight of the grass through the lake door window, the pale tinge of frost he doesn't remember being there four hours ago, that finally coaxes him inside.

Stopping at the bar just long enough to murmur out a request for Earl Grey, Sylar takes his mug to the nearest open booth and settles in.

Every now and then, his fingers skate over his throat: no longer visibly bruised, but faintly aching nonetheless.

( Read more... )

Sylar tries to leave Milliways more than once.

The door's visible, but doesn't yield when he tries to open it. (It's inconvenient, but it makes sense: if he arrived without a door, of course he'd have to leave without one.) The forest...he's deliberately avoided the outside, knowing it puts him at a disadvantage. When he finally gathers his energy and begins to walk, he's deposited back on its edge within twenty minutes.

That happens four times. On the fifth, when he swipes his hand along a tree trunk to catch his balance, the bark feels warm and damp with condensation. He looks up to a canopy rippled with flat palm leaves and smiles, with no relief or satisfaction.

It's as Dr. Suresh said once: not all progress might be welcomed, but it must be undertaken for the sake of survival.

( Read more... )

( Read more... )

( Read more... )

When he wakes up -- is lucid again, as the dark-haired man who's removing his IV calls it -- the restraints are gone.

A mild concussion from self-inflicted head trauma, is what else he calls it. They removed the restraints once Sylar had calmed down; this is a hospital, after all, not a prison. You haven't been back with us for some time, he adds as Sylar carefully settles a hand over his abdomen, pressing lightly, and grimaces.

It hurts a bit less than it used to, though. It's healing.

How long? he asks, and receives no response.

Later, he falls asleep, to no dreams, and wakes up again to the silent, flickering fluorescent light. The cycle repeats itself three more times.

A second doctor mentions during one of his visits, in tones of pleasant surprise, that it's good to see the lucidity persist for this long. So many months have passed lately with no change.

On the fourth day, with effort, Sylar is able to work through the pain enough to sit up, his hands braced behind him to keep himself upright.

The next time he opens his eyes, Sylar's face to face with the silent thunderclap of a star going nova.

He freezes. Blinks once. Lifts his hand, cautious and slow, without stepping back. The sleeve of his thin cotton shirt slides back an inch as he presses light fingertips to the Observation Window; it's like touching a sheet of ice, and narrow white circles of fog instantly appear around his fingers.

It's disorientingly quiet.

He's standing up, though, he realizes. And nothing hurts.

Thoughtful, Sylar brushes his fingers through the condensation. It squeaks faintly as the patterns warp and streak away. As he turns around, the lights flicker above him, and for half an instant

the floor's just as cold, there are bars across the window, there is --

When they steady again, it's far too bright, and the walls...he doesn't think they were that pale.

He can't be sure.