WHO: Sylar, and unfortunate souls. WHERE: Heropa and Maurtia Falls. WHEN: Throughout September. WHAT: Two out of three successful murders. Closed threads, in one place for organisation purposes. WARNINGS: Violence and death.
And it's dark inside, too, because the power's out. The lights are unresponsive. Food is warming in her refrigerator. The time on the microwave is blank. Maybe a fuse was blown, or maybe there's an outage, although the people across the street seem to have power, where lights glow against the curtains, and the streetlamps are finally beginning to blink on.
It's not unmanageably dark. A post-sunset dimness still lingers. But there is also a smell in the air. Coppery, metallic, and powerfully storm-like, rich energised ozone with none of the dampness. ]
[ It's been a long, irritating day. Rude people, stiflingly humid weather, an ache in her hands all day - just a series of little things that had gone wrong. So this seems just completely in line with everything else. Of course her electricity is out. Of course she won't be able to just sprawl out and watch telly like she was planning to, or heat up one of the cakes she'd put into the freezer like she'd been looking forward to.
She tries the lightswitch. Nothing. Switches on her phone flashlight and stomps down to the closet where the fusebox is, tries them all. Not the problem. She thinks of calling Billy, having him come back to help her fix it, but, well...if her housemate is out, she doesn't want to interrupt that. She wants him to keep having fun.
So, instead, she stumps outside to see if she can find the origin of the outage. Some problem with the wires, probably - a tree fell on it, perhaps. Bloody irritating. Maybe Adam knows how to fix something like this, she thinks - he knows how to fix a lot of things, this doesn't seem impossible...So she wanders out to squint up at the power lines leading to her house. ]
[ Sylar's voice probably, at this stage, isn't exactly familiar so much as recognisable, if Kitty has an ear for that sort of thing. He hasn't done much else in the way of promotional material since earlier that month. He's been busy.
Like following Kitty Jones to her home, for instance. His voice comes from somewhere behind her where he has wandered into the path between herself and her front door. Intimidating as far as physicality goes, but his voice has a customary mildness to it and his expression is neutral when he regards the power lines, where they connect between house and pole.
Incidentally, he is very good at fixing things too. ]
I know, surprising. Not a cloud in the sky. You call yourself Kitty, right?
[ There is a difference, in her mind, between you call yourself and your name is. Where she's from, names have power; if someone has your name, they have control over you. So people take steps to conceal their names. So that's my name is a quiet affirmation that she's open, willing to entrust her safety to everyone around her. It's not just what she's called, it's her name. A demonstration of trust.
It's also at least half a lie. It's not her name - not exactly. Her name is Kathleen; Kitty is a schoolyard taunt transformed into a nickname. But that's Kitty's way - offering friendly, ingenuous half-truths.
She looks friendly and ingenuous now, smiling and tucking her hair behind her ear. At the same time, she's highly cognizant of the weight of the purse on her arm, the objects in it that are weighing it down. ]
Honestly...This is bloody irritating. I had been looking forward all day to having a bit of cake and some tea when I got home. I'm having a wretched bloody week. 'Scuse my language. I know you, don't I?
[ There're always these little moments, like when the other person is negotiating between trusting their instincts and not wanting to be rude. Sylar looks for it, now, because the tipping point can be crucial, a sort of intent focus beneath an otherwise calm, unassuming exterior.
And maybe it's a little entertaining.
He almost smiles. ]
Not exactly. I was on-- you know, "TV", [ comes with quotation fingers. ] But we spoke before that, too.
[ His head tips a little at the sound of a car just near enough to snag his interest. He shouldn't stay here too long. ]
[ There's no almost about her smile. She keeps looking at him, face warm and friendly and open, even as she becomes intensely aware that he's not smiling. Some people are serious, she chides herself. Some places, people don't smile...But he's intense. More intense than he should be. It should be, It was so wild! A lightning strike! Out of nowhere! Instead, it's just quiet calm.
Her hand comes up to the strap of her purse to shrug it higher on her shoulder. ]
I help a lot of people. - Eurgh, that sounds like I'm bragging, doesn't it? How unbearable.
[ It doesn't earn a smile, but it earns an eyebrow raise. ]
Maybe, if it wasn't in your nature. But it is, right? Helping people.
[ Sylar thinks so. He's okay about making those kinds of judgement calls. He wanders a step closer, casual, calm, and yet with the same quiet intensity as prey sizing up something larger than it; or a predator, considering its chances. There's probably something to that, how one can resemble the other.
His breathing could sound better. As he speaks, he seems to take him effort to catch his breath back. Beneath an impassive exterior is a man who could also probably use eight naps.
Licks of electricity dance over his knuckles, his hands curled at his sides, and a shudder is only barely concealed within his own posture. ]
You can help me.
[ He goes to lift his hand, but electricity is already on its way to running wild. Lightning, fast and bright, singes his jacket cuff, scorches the pavement, sears the damp, bristled grass along the edge of the pathway, but zigzags for Kitty. Stop her heart, the one she puts to so much use. Merciful. ]
[ She doesn't even have time to react. She smells it, metallic and harsh, and sees a flash, and feels the hairs on her arm raise, and then it hits her - a dull numbing scorching sort of pain, like being punched through the chest, like dying. A shriek looses itself from her lips, half pain and half terror; she's blown backwards, tumbling end over end until she comes to a stop.
When she does stop, she looks different. The attack was brutal enough that it made her lose control over her shapeshift; so she no longer looks young and fresh-faced. Instead, it's a gray-haired old woman who lies motionless on the grass, skin wrinkled, skin spotted with age. And the old woman appears, for all intents and purposes, quite dead.
In truth, Kitty's resilience is working to undo the damage the electricity had done to her. She's unconscious for a few seconds, no more - then she comes back to herself, and by some mercy her wits come back before her ability to move does. So she comes awake, but stays very, very still. Maybe it was a random murder - maybe, she hopes, maybe now that he's blasted her with energy he'll just go away, chuckling to himself over what he's accomplished... ]
[ There's a long pause. Silence. But no sound of departure.
Then, foot steps, slow and coming closer, confusion making his hawkish features even sharper as he assesses the remarkable change he's induced. It's not the first time he's seen something like this, at least, and the possibility of acquiring shapeshifting lurches in his heart, even if it's not what he came for. He's not sure, either, if he can only take one power, or all of them, but there's really only one way to find out.
A hand goes out to grab her, heft her over a shoulder, but he pauses. His head tips. It's a soft sound, but one that tugs at the edges of his hearing. It's the sound of a heartbeat, coming from the woman he knows, by all logic, should be dead. ]
[ Timing is crucial. If she were as robust as she had been before, if she were as physically capable, then she'd have bounced back from an attack like this right away. But in her aged body, weakened by her time in the Other Place, she isn't nearly as capable. She has less endurance, less flexibility. But - she also has other advantages.
And so she waits. She waits until he's near. She waits for him to touch her - but he's pausing now. He knows something is wrong. And so she adjusts her sense of timing, knowing it's now or never: her eyes snap open, and she twists, teeth bared - and then there's a ripple of magic, and she changes form. The woman becomes a cobra, hood flaring, striking with impossible speed and ferocity at the hand that's within her reach. She doesn't have a cobra's venom - this strike won't be deadly - but there's not a human alive who isn't going to be frightened by the bite of a feared creature like this one. Maybe frightened enough to run. She hopes he'll be frightened enough to run - ]
[ Scary things aren't immune to other scary things, even if fear tastes a little differently, a little addicting. Snakes, however, the shape of them, their movement, their speed, triggers that little primal survivalist trigger in every human mind, a raw nerve that has Sylar moving before thinking in stupid lizard-brain shock. His hand comes away striped with blood, and he lands hard and awkward backwards on his tailbone, unfeeling.
He doesn't run.
Not exactly. There's another window of opportunity opened, however, when electricity zithers off of him in ribbons, except rather than surging to pummel her with lightning, it seems to zap and bite at him even greater speed than her snake form. With a growl, he moves to get to his feet at a roll, climbing up, taking a knee again when his own lightning zips between flesh, belt buckle, metal watch, finding a numbing home in his thigh.
It probably happens to most men, you know. Nothing to be ashamed of. But he's having a hell of a week, and now, recent injury seeps blood from his chest into his shirt, as if his own fallibility was rising to the surface. ]
[ Good. She's vaguely aware of some injury, aware of the taste of his blood in her mouth - good. She takes no time to dwell on it. Instead, the snake slithers fast, fast as it can though the grass before its shape changes with a shudder of magic. Then it's a sparrow rising from the grass, fluttering through the air, pumping desperate wings to get back to the house before he can hit her again. But she's clearly hurt herself; her flight is unsteady and uneven, and she tumbles through the air shakily.
Go, she says to herself desperately, go, go, go, go - ]
joseph kavinsky, and later, others. maurtia falls.
Maybe someone will see him, and call the cops. But if Sylar hadn't been concerned about that back in upscale Heropa, he is even less worried about it here: under cover of darkness, in a city with a reputation for things going wrong, in an apartment he doubts he will return to. He emerges from the building and takes the fire escape with quick feet, more concerned with efficiency than he is about quiet; you can hear him coming, with a canine kind of stomping reverberating through the frame of the metal staircase, making his own particularly sensitive ears ring.
He is an expected kind of villain, all dark coat over dark clothing. He has a shoulder bag that cuts not too heavy on its strap There's a moment, before he enters the alleyway properly that he pauses; then, with a long-legged swing, levers himself over a railing to land on the gritty ground of the filthy alleyway. Shadows, messy graffiti, bags of trash, puddles.
Sylar whistles a tune, a mildly off-key jaunty number, as he moves. ]
[footsteps on the other end. moisture and concrete, a rasp of air in the lungs of a chronic smoker who's too young, nonetheless, to really feel the brunt of his bad decisions.
well you know. apart from, soon at a theater near you, the one he's making right now!
it's joseph kavinsky again. the skinny boy whose tracks sylar has been stalking across a couple cities of late, whose small maurtia falls apartment had been a cluttered heap of drug and juvenile paraphernelia, no pictures, no laptops, and blank-walled, as curiously anonymous as the mansion in heropa had been. both his hideouts had looked like just that: hideouts.
which is probably why, as he rounds the corner and into the alleyway, kavinsky looks irritated. he has his cellphone in his hand. there's something flashing on the little screen, which may or may not have something to do with the fact that he has made this timely appearance.]
Cunty McCunterson, [he says.] Fancy meeting you hear.
Edited (gonna plug in language warnings as if thats the most we have to worry about) 2016-09-25 07:04 (UTC)
[ Sylar does not appear to be surprised to see Kavinsky. Deliberately, conspicuously. He'd heard the harsh rasp of his breathing, the rhythm of his footfalls, and now, he can hear his heart. In the back of his mind, he wonders what tipped him off, what he missed, his hackles raising and a fresh helping of adrenaline setting his blood to simmer.
But it doesn't matter. At least he came prepared.
He doesn't quite draw to a halt, but he does slow, veer some ways aside, keeping to the edges, a wolfish kind of skulk. ]
But I guess we were never formally introduced. Hi, I'm Sylar. [ One-handed finger gun. ] Joseph, right?
Kavinsky, [says kavinsky.] I should have herpes, no lie.
[he doesn't stop walking until he's at the distance for a friendly conversation. to be fair, they are talking, and it would be an error understandable under circumstances under than repeated home invasions, knowledge that sylar can shoot lightning, and so on. but maybe it's understandable given that now, too: sylar has seen the kid's dossier. he knows what kavinsky can do, and moreover, what can be done to him without real ill effect.
he stays in the middle of the stinky alley. and he takes a gun from his pants. it looks oddly plastic. it's not hard to guess that sylar has met this one before.] How's the sucking chest wound?
[ It's tempting to sass something to the effect of the kid's fixation on transmitted diseases, but it's more distracting when something that looks like a weapon is drawn. With exception to a bag, closed loose with a flap, Sylar appears unarmed, his hand still forming the shape of his own mock up pistol.
He's probably the kind to mime cocking it with a thumb and blowing invisible smoke from his fingertips, but like it's been established: he's read Kavinsky's dossier. It wouldn't do to get cocky.
So there are no mimes or even dramatic pauses when blue-white electricity leaps from his fingertips and zigzags through the air, straight for Kavinsky. The aim is wild, with a hydra spray of electricity snagging on skin, zippers, and more importantly, plastic. The damp smells of the alleyway are quickly joined by the scents of scorch and storm. ]
Sweet of you to ask, [ he answers, through his teeth. ] Kavinsky.
[a flash of light, the chemical reek of burning. heat and pain flare through kavinsky's hand, and he's on enough cocaine that he doesn't feel it immediately but when the sensation bites through his nerves, it nonetheless bites hard. it might have helped if he'd felt it a moment sooner, let go.
because now he has plastic melted to one hand.]
Son'fa fu--ck'nh twat.
[he staggers, his knees jerking on the edge of collapse. the muscles in his jaw twitch, his teeth, ground shut, are instantly sore to the molars. if he were someone else, someone differently powered, he'dve broken one. his heart would have stopped, probably. he'd pass out, lungs at half-capacity, the water vaporized off the surface of his eyes and third-degree burns across his chest, his thighs, where the buttonfly would've melted down against his skin, just below the navel. but he's not. so he stands there for a minute, singed but not broken, doubled-over, shoes skewed on the asphalt. shaking a deformed plastic gun out of-- off of— one hand.
and then he straightens, a smile scabbing over his face. he pulls out another gun, from the back of his pants.
this one's metal. and not steady, but leveling now with malicious intent and surprising proficiency. toward sylar. his finger on the trigger and firing.]
Pain is useful. If it wasn't, not even prey would feel it, but predators do too. Arguably, pain means more to them than anyone else. There is also something kind of primal in the way Sylar leaps like a jackrabbit at the sight of a gun, diving without grace for the nearest thing that resembles cover. He disappears behind the bulk of a rust-bucket dumpster, back slamming against it a moment after that crack of the bullet exiting the pistol.
Well gosh. It's almost like Kavinsky was expecting him. In the gloom, and for no one, Sylar bares his teeth in something like a grin. Crouched like a gargoyle, his own weapon of choice in hand. ]
Don't shoot, [ he says, voice materialising with a shiver. ] Please, just--
[ His breathing, like a rusty hinge, and his heart is bounding, except he feels very calm, like his mind is filling with frost. Soon, soon-- ]
[kavinsky's voice bounds off the dumpster and the walls. it's the work week so not a lot of people are home, and the people who are fit into any number of stereotypes/sensible personages who aren't going to respond to crazy imports screaming in an alleyway for reasons.
by now, the scratch of kavinsky's footfalls on asphalt is a familiar sound. he's coming closer. no mercy, or maybe merely no fear. which is easier, when your pain is without real consequence-- and not so very hurtful, either.]
[ To an audience of no one, Sylar rolls his eyes at insults flung his way. He is, currently, checking the piece of equipment in his hand -- smooth metal, cheap plastic, a short life span, but maybe long enough. It has a trigger, so that's where his finger goes, and he shifts so his back is against brick wall, still out of sight, watching the space Kavinsky will appear.
But he pulls the trigger before then. It doesn't need a line of sight. ]
I was trying to find out about you, [ he says, and the affect of fear is bleeding out of his voice. ] About your powers, I mean. I was looking for your file. It wasn't personal.
[ Will he feel it? Like a descending fog? A prickle of nerve endings? Maybe nothing at all, as Kavinsky's powers switch off. ]
[maybe if kavinsky were on less cocaine plus adrenaline plus > i'm an idiot teenager holding a gun hormones, he would notice. the seams of his jeans would bite him and his sock started rolling down in his shoe and that would aggravate him and he'd feel the pull of gravity in his bones, the casual vulnerability of cells that would separate on impact. would have, should have, could have.
he comes to the wrong conclusion.]
Let me guess. You're a broke-ass motherfucker who wants goods he can't pay for.
[the dream shit. kavinsky is vain and covetous about that power, in particular. another bullet ricochets off the dumpster's side, a deafening, spark-spitting zwwang.] There was another way, retard.
[ The wrong conclusion bears a striking resemblance to the right conclusion. You know, in that secret jokey way that has Sylar smile to himself in the dark. Straight white teeth, dead eyes. But then Kavinsky shoots again, and the boom and the zwang wipe away Sylar's smile.
Something internal, coiling, readying to strike. ]
There really wasn't, [ he says, his voice a deeper register, suddenly, the clip of his teeth harsh, consonants metallic in his mouth. The increasingly familiar sensation of light slicing into eyeballs as white lightning fans out, leaves scorch marks on the dumpster, shivers through the dank puddles gathered on the alleyway floor.
A finger of lightning touches Kavinsky's outstretched arm, as gentle as an inquiring tap, all the while burning skin, making muscle seize, making more muscles seize as electricity seeks the bottoms of Kavinsky's feet.
Sylar is moving, keeping his finger depressed on the trigger, its blunt-nosed plastic muzzle pointed away from him. ]
fire? electricity. sensation of heat conductivity is the same. he thinks he's saying stop, but he isn't. that's just his own voice screaming bouncing around in his skull as every muscle in his body goes rigid, pulling tight around his skeleton, tiny strings and fibers ratcheted up in a way that would hurt later if he were, you know, capable of pain later. were kavinsky capable of speaking, it'd just be stop. harder to do creative swears when your brain has short-circuited into a loop around the one screeching-- request.
maybe also with a side commentary of, i'm supposed to be invincible.
his eyes move a little maybe. down to the plastic gun. and when the electrical surge ends, he topples like a ragdoll, onto his knees, the fetid alley floor, spitting, tourettesing some other swears-- nothing creative. f-bomb, cunt, you know. stupid stuff like that.
he dropped his gun. he couldn't pick it up even if he thought about it.]
[ Sylar is scuffed black boots, walking calmly into a blurry view. A pause, and then a near delicate touching of the gun to heel, scraping it aside to skitter out of the way. ]
I don't know about the goods, [ he's saying. Little forks of lightning zither here and there, playing off his skin, snagging at the little metal ties on the ends of his boot strings, touching the damp ground. ] Or what you think you have that I'd want. What I want is what's in your head, Joseph. Your power.
[ His other hand is caged around a little ball of electricity, hovering, a threat. ]
[kavinsky had already crashed down on knees that had never learned to kneel, and that was bad enough. but he's now falling the fuck over, which he finds objectively worse. in a moment, he's deposited himself gently onto his own face, the concrete pressing up into his cheek.
obscurely, he's grateful to be breathing. this will be hilarious eventually, to at least one of the two imports involved.]
Are you working for the Russians? [kavinsky tries to say. because he remembers now, the way his powers had cut out under him. fruitless nightmares and radiation sickness spawning worms in his guts. his voice is slurry and crackled. rryhoh russians? his eyelid twitches when he tries to look up, finds himself contemplating sylar's ugly old person shoes.]
[ Somewhere tall, Sylar tips his head. Is that what Kavinsky is afraid of? He'd heard about the attacks, for virtue of securing the power suppression device still warm in his hand. ]
No, I'm alone.
[ Old person shoes move out of sight because he steps over Kavinsky, descends into a gargoyle crouch over the kid's collapsed form, a knee putting a suffocating weight between his shoulder blades. He puts a big hand in the snarl of trendily cut hair at the crown of his head, a grip that shoots thousand-prickle pain across Kavinsky's scalp. ]
I can hear your heart. Not the part of your I'm interested in-- hell, maybe we have that in common. Should I stop it, before I start?
this is the worst thing i've ever seen (tw suicidal ideation, mean swears, sylar is the worst)
[kavinsky's brain isn't working right, which is his only real excuse for the realization that occurs only now, that he is going to die. probably.
nah, pretty definitely.
even though his muscles are exhausted, his heart ramps up suddenly, adrenaline prickling through his neck and fingers, needles in his spine. it doesn't help that he can't all the way breathe. a lizard part of his brain registers immediate pain— simple stupid suffocation panic. in the meantime, the smarty human part of his brain thinks the lizard part is making a mountain out of a molehill when there is obviously a crushing rockslide coming down from the further distance. if bargaining were an option, he'd take a firm squeeze to the lungs over murder.
he doesn't know what's worse: that the pamphlets promised that he'd come back, or that this isn't how he wanted.]
Think you should try and suck it outta my asshole instead.
[ This close, maybe Kavinsky can just hear the scuff of a half-laugh in Sylar's throat. They don't talk like that in his prime time TV New York, that's for sure.
His fist tightens. Kavinsky's face is tugged off the pavement, and then slammed back down.
Once, twice. Enough to stun, if not knock completely unconscious. Time skews, disappears into a point, expands. The world rolls around Kavinsky so that its his back against the filthy concrete instead. The last thing he'll feel is a grip up under his jaw. The last thing he'll hear is the sound of a little motorised whir, close to his ear. Like someone's going to carve up a turkey with an electric knife.
Close to that, anyway.
There's a blade. It splits skin, it bites into bone. ]
[there are some cities where bystanders hear gunshots and call the cops immediately.
it only takes sylar a few minutes to get he wants out of the exposed brain tissue, and that's long enough for the steam to clear out of kavinsky's brand new head wound. but his body's still warm for awhile. it's not until it cools off, an hour maybe, that a woman comes down with a bag of groceries and sees him lying in two pieces. one of the pieces-- his scalp, still crunchy with overmuch hairgel, is much smaller.
his eyes are still open. he looks at her old person shoes with much less disdain than he'd judged gabriel's with. she screams a lot, calls the police. stupidly, she says first, there's been a shooting, because kavinsky's pistol is still lying near his hand like the punchline to a bad joke. but then also, they cut open his head, and, it's a little boy, and his sleeve had peeled back while he was stretching out for his nap on the ground, so, an import. the cross-street.
a bit of a talker, she also lets the dispatcher know she's going to leave in order to throw up.
and that's what the little birdie tells jesse, two minutes later. cop to dirty cop.]
Edited (html is ver' diffcult) 2016-10-09 05:42 (UTC)
[Jesse's only two blocks away when he gets the call. It'll be maddening later. Two blocks away. How he could have stopped it if he'd just walked in a certain direction. How he could have reversed it if he'd left sooner.
He's out the door before he even knows what his body's doing, sprinting as fast as he can. If he was thinking at all, he'd realize it'd go faster if he summoned Joel. Maybe Joel can feel his panic anyway, but Jesse - Jesse's not thinking, he's moving. It's all a blur until he's suddenly there and there's a little boy's body on the ground and how many times is this going to happen? How many of them is he going to lose?
Jesse drops to his knees beside Kavinsky, ignoring the gore as he reaches to cup the boy's face. He's cold. Through the blur of Jesse's tears, Kavinsky looks so much younger. This is a child.]
It's gonna be okay.
[That's a promise most people can't make to a corpse, but Jesse's not most people, and he reaches for Kavinsky's death. He even holds it for a brief moment, just enough for a flash of blade cutting bone slicing brain pouring blood pounding heart seizing pain final breath. But it's a ghost of the thing. It rejects him the way Lucifer's wounds once rejected him, a soul too far out of his reach to make a bargain with.
That's when Jesse realizes he's too late. And then there's nothing to do but scream, the rage bubbling over and spilling out of him into the night air. This was never supposed to happen again. That's the whole point of his power. He was two blocks away and he was too late and Kavinsky's dead because of it.]
[if kavinsky were available for comment, he could have make jolly inconvenient fun of jesse. why the fuck would you bring me back without the to of my head on? he'd laugh at jesse's tears and his hands on his face, say something needlessly stupid about how gabriel had obviously just uglied him up out of jealousy.
but he's not available for comment, which is obviously the point.
so jesse screams, his voice bouncing off the metal of the very same fire escape that gabriel had used to climb down from the apartment, and echoing off the walls into which kavinsky's wasted bullets are plugged into. there's blood encrusted on his eyebrow, where sylar had thumped him on the concrete like a fish monger rendering his li'l buddy ready for the knife. there had actually been a great deal of similarity between sylar and a fish monger at the time— the clean apathy and easy finesse of his hands. kavinsky had even been gasping for breath, right at the end.
between the screams and the dirty cops, jesse will have more than a few minutes to do before the police sirens begin to wail in the distance. but they'll come. (a cat is the first to arrive, actually. a tortoiseshell with extremely small feet, attracted to fish metaphors and the smell of blood. she meows at jesse from a trash can lid.)]
[ Joel's power is a weird thing: he feels a sudden sense that something isn't right; a niggling, crawling feeling that instantly stirs alarm. He stops what he's doing - making himself a cup of coffee, despite how late it is - and listens hard, even though there's nothing to listen to. It's Jesse, he knows it's Jesse, he can feel it's Jesse, but he can't quite work out where or why. He closes his eyes and concentrates on it. Joel doesn't realise it, but it's the rage-filled, anguished scream Jesse lets out that suddenly makes Joel think: Maurtia Falls.
He disappears from the kitchen in a coiling swarm of ghostly black tendrils snaking up around him, reappearing seconds later within that same cocoon of smoke-like tendrils in an alleyway in Maurtia Falls. As the snake-like coils evaporate from around him, he looks wildly left and right, squinting through the darkness. He launches into a run, bursting out onto the street, picking up speed and glancing down each dark alley and street as he passes them by. Jesse is around here somewhere. He's close; he can feel it.
There. He skids to a stop at spotting somebody huddled in a darkened street, crying. Jesse. And somebody lying on the street. Joel breaks into a run, sweaty and breathing fast, and suddenly slows as the state the body is in comes into focus the nearer he gets.
A kid. With the top of his head sawn off. Joel stops dead in his tracks a few feet away from the body, staring down at it in silent horror. Jesus. ]
[Jesse can hear someone approaching, and his whole body anticipates the killer's presence. His shoulders hunch as he prepares to spring to his feet, his eyes wild and furious when his head snaps up. But it's only Joel - thank god, Joel - and that attack pose melts and sags back into despair.]
It's not working.
[Maybe Joel can guess what he means by that, because Jesse can't articulate right now.]
It's not working. It's - I keep trying but...
[His power hasn't left him. When Jesse looks back to Kavinsky's lifeless face, he can still feel the death. But he can't take it. Why can't he take it? Why is he still alive and why is Kavinsky still dead?]
I need to - I need to - Joel, I need to fix him. Help me fix him. It's not working.
[ If Joel is good at anything, it's compartmentalising. Shutting himself off from horrors and gore and death like a switch, until he feels nothing. He manages to do this now, even in the face of a dead kid in front of him. Jesse's babbling panic is making him pull it together.
He takes a quick step closer. ]
Hey, c'mon, stop. Stop.
[ Joel crouches down, a hand reaching out to grasp Jesse's arm, to make Jesse look at him. He can smell the blood now he's crouched down. He forces himself not to look at the dead kid. The hard way he swallows is the only thing that gives him away that he can't bear to think about being so close to a dead child. ]
C'mon, look at me. Okay? [ Who is this?, he thinks to ask, but questions can come later. Right now, they need to deal with the dead kid. ] I'll get us outta here, okay? But I need you to focus.
[Jesse doesn't look at Joel again. He's still fixated on the corpse, hands clutching at Kavinsky's face as if that will suddenly kick his power into action. It's cold out here, and Kavinsky's skin doesn't hold even a hint of lingering warmth, and still Jesse's trying to convince himself there's a chance and maybe he isn't too late if he can just push himself a little harder.]
[ Both hands reach for Jesse now, grabbing him by the shoulders. He's seen and experienced first-hand what Jesse's powers can do. If he hasn't managed to bring the kid back yet... More than that, Jesse might kill himself trying to do so, with the horrific way this kid has been murdered. He drags Jesse away from the kid, his strength making Jesse as light as a rag doll to Joel, then takes Jesse's head in both hands once they're a few feet away from him to make Jesse look at him. He's still crouching down, now in front of Jesse. ]
[Joel isn't helping at all. Jesse fights the whole way, snarling and clawing in a fruitless attempt to break out of Joel's much stronger grip. When those hands cup his face, he reaches up to seize Joel by the wrists and try to force him to let go. Again, to no avail. The hopelessness of it all draws an anguished wail out of Jesse.]
I'm not leaving him here. Don't make me, Joel. Please. Don't leave him here like he's garbage.
[ Jesse's fight against him is futile; Joel doesn't let go. He'd be loath to admit it, but Jesse's anguished wail and the anguished look all twisted up on his face makes Joel's chest tighten in an ugly, anguished way. ]
I can get him outta here, okay? You, too. Before someone sees us. Stop!
[And just like that, Jesse's panic subsides. Okay. Okay, they'll take Kavinsky somewhere else. They'll get him somewhere safe and then Jesse can fix him. He sucks in a shuddering breath and nods, his body going still.]
[ Okay. Good. Joel releases Jesse's face and drops his hands to his shoulders with a grounding squeeze. He doesn't want to take the kid to their place, but-- ]
The cabin. Okay?
[ Repeating "okay?" a lot, trying to draw Jesse's focus out of him. ]
[He's shaking beneath Joel's hands, both from shock and from his anxiousness to get on with it. Dying at the cabin will be better than dying here, and Kavinsky can wake up somewhere warm.]
[ Without waiting for a response, he drops his hands away and pushes himself to his feet. A quick, steeling breath to brace himself, resisting the urge to push his hand anxiously through his hair, and he turns around and steps up to the kid.
His eyes stray to the kid's face, make the mistake of snatching a quick glance at where his skull has been sawn off. Jesus. He locks it all down inside him, though, crouching down and reaching his hands down to slide underneath the kid's shoulders and knees. The lifeless body weighs nothing in Joel's arms, legs and arms dangling as Joel stands back up. He disappears from the spot in a brief tangle of snake-like smoke.
He reappears not more than thirty seconds later after having set the kid down on the couch in the dark cabin, stepping out from the cocoon of smoke and moving quickly across to Jesse with his hand outstretched. ]
[In those few seconds while Joel's been gone, Jesse's crawled over to the bloody spot of pavement where Kavinsky's body just lay. Upon return, Joel will find Jesse's hands soaked in that blood, fists clutched against his heart. Jesse is, in fact, holding the gory pieces of Kavinsky that Joel just left behind. Those aren't garbage, either. He will fix this.
At Joel's prompting, Jesse looks up with a dazed expression and nods for a third time. Joel will have to grab him. He doesn't want to risk dropping what he's holding.]
[ He grabs Jesse by the elbow, stricken eyes on bits of the kid clutched in Jesse's hands. He puts his focus back on the cabin, though, and they disappear from sight in a writhing cloud of black smoke. They reappear only a few feet away from the kid's lifeless body on the wooden floor. ]
[Jesse is not at all pleased to find Kavinsky deposited on the floor, but the first priority is getting the pieces he's gathered into a bowl so he doesn't lose them. Only once that's done does he move Kavinsky's body to the couch. Then he rushes around the cabin gathering various medical supplies, apparently prepared to fucking operate on a dead body. That body is dead dead dead and it's like Jesse hasn't noticed. He has to put all the pieces together before they start liquefying, then solve the problem of why is this resurrection failing?
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kitty jones. heropa.
And it's dark inside, too, because the power's out. The lights are unresponsive. Food is warming in her refrigerator. The time on the microwave is blank. Maybe a fuse was blown, or maybe there's an outage, although the people across the street seem to have power, where lights glow against the curtains, and the streetlamps are finally beginning to blink on.
It's not unmanageably dark. A post-sunset dimness still lingers. But there is also a smell in the air. Coppery, metallic, and powerfully storm-like, rich energised ozone with none of the dampness. ]
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She tries the lightswitch. Nothing. Switches on her phone flashlight and stomps down to the closet where the fusebox is, tries them all. Not the problem. She thinks of calling Billy, having him come back to help her fix it, but, well...if her housemate is out, she doesn't want to interrupt that. She wants him to keep having fun.
So, instead, she stumps outside to see if she can find the origin of the outage. Some problem with the wires, probably - a tree fell on it, perhaps. Bloody irritating. Maybe Adam knows how to fix something like this, she thinks - he knows how to fix a lot of things, this doesn't seem impossible...So she wanders out to squint up at the power lines leading to her house. ]
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[ Sylar's voice probably, at this stage, isn't exactly familiar so much as recognisable, if Kitty has an ear for that sort of thing. He hasn't done much else in the way of promotional material since earlier that month. He's been busy.
Like following Kitty Jones to her home, for instance. His voice comes from somewhere behind her where he has wandered into the path between herself and her front door. Intimidating as far as physicality goes, but his voice has a customary mildness to it and his expression is neutral when he regards the power lines, where they connect between house and pole.
Incidentally, he is very good at fixing things too. ]
I know, surprising. Not a cloud in the sky. You call yourself Kitty, right?
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[ There is a difference, in her mind, between you call yourself and your name is. Where she's from, names have power; if someone has your name, they have control over you. So people take steps to conceal their names. So that's my name is a quiet affirmation that she's open, willing to entrust her safety to everyone around her. It's not just what she's called, it's her name. A demonstration of trust.
It's also at least half a lie. It's not her name - not exactly. Her name is Kathleen; Kitty is a schoolyard taunt transformed into a nickname. But that's Kitty's way - offering friendly, ingenuous half-truths.
She looks friendly and ingenuous now, smiling and tucking her hair behind her ear. At the same time, she's highly cognizant of the weight of the purse on her arm, the objects in it that are weighing it down. ]
Honestly...This is bloody irritating. I had been looking forward all day to having a bit of cake and some tea when I got home. I'm having a wretched bloody week. 'Scuse my language. I know you, don't I?
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And maybe it's a little entertaining.
He almost smiles. ]
Not exactly. I was on-- you know, "TV", [ comes with quotation fingers. ] But we spoke before that, too.
[ His head tips a little at the sound of a car just near enough to snag his interest. He shouldn't stay here too long. ]
When I asked for help.
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[ There's no almost about her smile. She keeps looking at him, face warm and friendly and open, even as she becomes intensely aware that he's not smiling. Some people are serious, she chides herself. Some places, people don't smile...But he's intense. More intense than he should be. It should be, It was so wild! A lightning strike! Out of nowhere! Instead, it's just quiet calm.
Her hand comes up to the strap of her purse to shrug it higher on her shoulder. ]
I help a lot of people. - Eurgh, that sounds like I'm bragging, doesn't it? How unbearable.
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Maybe, if it wasn't in your nature. But it is, right? Helping people.
[ Sylar thinks so. He's okay about making those kinds of judgement calls. He wanders a step closer, casual, calm, and yet with the same quiet intensity as prey sizing up something larger than it; or a predator, considering its chances. There's probably something to that, how one can resemble the other.
His breathing could sound better. As he speaks, he seems to take him effort to catch his breath back. Beneath an impassive exterior is a man who could also probably use eight naps.
Licks of electricity dance over his knuckles, his hands curled at his sides, and a shudder is only barely concealed within his own posture. ]
You can help me.
[ He goes to lift his hand, but electricity is already on its way to running wild. Lightning, fast and bright, singes his jacket cuff, scorches the pavement, sears the damp, bristled grass along the edge of the pathway, but zigzags for Kitty. Stop her heart, the one she puts to so much use. Merciful. ]
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When she does stop, she looks different. The attack was brutal enough that it made her lose control over her shapeshift; so she no longer looks young and fresh-faced. Instead, it's a gray-haired old woman who lies motionless on the grass, skin wrinkled, skin spotted with age. And the old woman appears, for all intents and purposes, quite dead.
In truth, Kitty's resilience is working to undo the damage the electricity had done to her. She's unconscious for a few seconds, no more - then she comes back to herself, and by some mercy her wits come back before her ability to move does. So she comes awake, but stays very, very still. Maybe it was a random murder - maybe, she hopes, maybe now that he's blasted her with energy he'll just go away, chuckling to himself over what he's accomplished... ]
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Then, foot steps, slow and coming closer, confusion making his hawkish features even sharper as he assesses the remarkable change he's induced. It's not the first time he's seen something like this, at least, and the possibility of acquiring shapeshifting lurches in his heart, even if it's not what he came for. He's not sure, either, if he can only take one power, or all of them, but there's really only one way to find out.
A hand goes out to grab her, heft her over a shoulder, but he pauses. His head tips. It's a soft sound, but one that tugs at the edges of his hearing. It's the sound of a heartbeat, coming from the woman he knows, by all logic, should be dead. ]
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And so she waits. She waits until he's near. She waits for him to touch her - but he's pausing now. He knows something is wrong. And so she adjusts her sense of timing, knowing it's now or never: her eyes snap open, and she twists, teeth bared - and then there's a ripple of magic, and she changes form. The woman becomes a cobra, hood flaring, striking with impossible speed and ferocity at the hand that's within her reach. She doesn't have a cobra's venom - this strike won't be deadly - but there's not a human alive who isn't going to be frightened by the bite of a feared creature like this one. Maybe frightened enough to run. She hopes he'll be frightened enough to run - ]
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He doesn't run.
Not exactly. There's another window of opportunity opened, however, when electricity zithers off of him in ribbons, except rather than surging to pummel her with lightning, it seems to zap and bite at him even greater speed than her snake form. With a growl, he moves to get to his feet at a roll, climbing up, taking a knee again when his own lightning zips between flesh, belt buckle, metal watch, finding a numbing home in his thigh.
It probably happens to most men, you know. Nothing to be ashamed of. But he's having a hell of a week, and now, recent injury seeps blood from his chest into his shirt, as if his own fallibility was rising to the surface. ]
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Go, she says to herself desperately, go, go, go, go - ]
joseph kavinsky, and later, others. maurtia falls.
Maybe someone will see him, and call the cops. But if Sylar hadn't been concerned about that back in upscale Heropa, he is even less worried about it here: under cover of darkness, in a city with a reputation for things going wrong, in an apartment he doubts he will return to. He emerges from the building and takes the fire escape with quick feet, more concerned with efficiency than he is about quiet; you can hear him coming, with a canine kind of stomping reverberating through the frame of the metal staircase, making his own particularly sensitive ears ring.
He is an expected kind of villain, all dark coat over dark clothing. He has a shoulder bag that cuts not too heavy on its strap There's a moment, before he enters the alleyway properly that he pauses; then, with a long-legged swing, levers himself over a railing to land on the gritty ground of the filthy alleyway. Shadows, messy graffiti, bags of trash, puddles.
Sylar whistles a tune, a mildly off-key jaunty number, as he moves. ]
cw c-word
well you know. apart from, soon at a theater near you, the one he's making right now!
it's joseph kavinsky again. the skinny boy whose tracks sylar has been stalking across a couple cities of late, whose small maurtia falls apartment had been a cluttered heap of drug and juvenile paraphernelia, no pictures, no laptops, and blank-walled, as curiously anonymous as the mansion in heropa had been. both his hideouts had looked like just that: hideouts.
which is probably why, as he rounds the corner and into the alleyway, kavinsky looks irritated. he has his cellphone in his hand. there's something flashing on the little screen, which may or may not have something to do with the fact that he has made this timely appearance.]
Cunty McCunterson, [he says.] Fancy meeting you hear.
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[ Sylar does not appear to be surprised to see Kavinsky. Deliberately, conspicuously. He'd heard the harsh rasp of his breathing, the rhythm of his footfalls, and now, he can hear his heart. In the back of his mind, he wonders what tipped him off, what he missed, his hackles raising and a fresh helping of adrenaline setting his blood to simmer.
But it doesn't matter. At least he came prepared.
He doesn't quite draw to a halt, but he does slow, veer some ways aside, keeping to the edges, a wolfish kind of skulk. ]
But I guess we were never formally introduced. Hi, I'm Sylar. [ One-handed finger gun. ] Joseph, right?
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[he doesn't stop walking until he's at the distance for a friendly conversation. to be fair, they are talking, and it would be an error understandable under circumstances under than repeated home invasions, knowledge that sylar can shoot lightning, and so on. but maybe it's understandable given that now, too: sylar has seen the kid's dossier. he knows what kavinsky can do, and moreover, what can be done to him without real ill effect.
he stays in the middle of the stinky alley. and he takes a gun from his pants. it looks oddly plastic. it's not hard to guess that sylar has met this one before.] How's the sucking chest wound?
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He's probably the kind to mime cocking it with a thumb and blowing invisible smoke from his fingertips, but like it's been established: he's read Kavinsky's dossier. It wouldn't do to get cocky.
So there are no mimes or even dramatic pauses when blue-white electricity leaps from his fingertips and zigzags through the air, straight for Kavinsky. The aim is wild, with a hydra spray of electricity snagging on skin, zippers, and more importantly, plastic. The damp smells of the alleyway are quickly joined by the scents of scorch and storm. ]
Sweet of you to ask, [ he answers, through his teeth. ] Kavinsky.
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because now he has plastic melted to one hand.]
Son'fa fu--ck'nh twat.
[he staggers, his knees jerking on the edge of collapse. the muscles in his jaw twitch, his teeth, ground shut, are instantly sore to the molars. if he were someone else, someone differently powered, he'dve broken one. his heart would have stopped, probably. he'd pass out, lungs at half-capacity, the water vaporized off the surface of his eyes and third-degree burns across his chest, his thighs, where the buttonfly would've melted down against his skin, just below the navel. but he's not. so he stands there for a minute, singed but not broken, doubled-over, shoes skewed on the asphalt. shaking a deformed plastic gun out of-- off of— one hand.
and then he straightens, a smile scabbing over his face. he pulls out another gun, from the back of his pants.
this one's metal. and not steady, but leveling now with malicious intent and surprising proficiency. toward sylar. his finger on the trigger and firing.]
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That's fine.
Pain is useful. If it wasn't, not even prey would feel it, but predators do too. Arguably, pain means more to them than anyone else. There is also something kind of primal in the way Sylar leaps like a jackrabbit at the sight of a gun, diving without grace for the nearest thing that resembles cover. He disappears behind the bulk of a rust-bucket dumpster, back slamming against it a moment after that crack of the bullet exiting the pistol.
Well gosh. It's almost like Kavinsky was expecting him. In the gloom, and for no one, Sylar bares his teeth in something like a grin. Crouched like a gargoyle, his own weapon of choice in hand. ]
Don't shoot, [ he says, voice materialising with a shiver. ] Please, just--
[ His breathing, like a rusty hinge, and his heart is bounding, except he feels very calm, like his mind is filling with frost. Soon, soon-- ]
We can work it out.
tw pedophilia as a grossly inaccurate insult
[kavinsky's voice bounds off the dumpster and the walls. it's the work week so not a lot of people are home, and the people who are fit into any number of stereotypes/sensible personages who aren't going to respond to crazy imports screaming in an alleyway for reasons.
by now, the scratch of kavinsky's footfalls on asphalt is a familiar sound. he's coming closer. no mercy, or maybe merely no fear. which is easier, when your pain is without real consequence-- and not so very hurtful, either.]
'S what I'm trying to work out.
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But he pulls the trigger before then. It doesn't need a line of sight. ]
I was trying to find out about you, [ he says, and the affect of fear is bleeding out of his voice. ] About your powers, I mean. I was looking for your file. It wasn't personal.
[ Will he feel it? Like a descending fog? A prickle of nerve endings? Maybe nothing at all, as Kavinsky's powers switch off. ]
In fact, who you are is irrelevant.
cw ableist language etc.
he comes to the wrong conclusion.]
Let me guess. You're a broke-ass motherfucker who wants goods he can't pay for.
[the dream shit. kavinsky is vain and covetous about that power, in particular. another bullet ricochets off the dumpster's side, a deafening, spark-spitting zwwang.] There was another way, retard.
.
Something internal, coiling, readying to strike. ]
There really wasn't, [ he says, his voice a deeper register, suddenly, the clip of his teeth harsh, consonants metallic in his mouth. The increasingly familiar sensation of light slicing into eyeballs as white lightning fans out, leaves scorch marks on the dumpster, shivers through the dank puddles gathered on the alleyway floor.
A finger of lightning touches Kavinsky's outstretched arm, as gentle as an inquiring tap, all the while burning skin, making muscle seize, making more muscles seize as electricity seeks the bottoms of Kavinsky's feet.
Sylar is moving, keeping his finger depressed on the trigger, its blunt-nosed plastic muzzle pointed away from him. ]
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fire? electricity. sensation of heat conductivity is the same. he thinks he's saying stop, but he isn't. that's just his own voice screaming bouncing around in his skull as every muscle in his body goes rigid, pulling tight around his skeleton, tiny strings and fibers ratcheted up in a way that would hurt later if he were, you know, capable of pain later. were kavinsky capable of speaking, it'd just be stop. harder to do creative swears when your brain has short-circuited into a loop around the one screeching-- request.
maybe also with a side commentary of, i'm supposed to be invincible.
his eyes move a little maybe. down to the plastic gun. and when the electrical surge ends, he topples like a ragdoll, onto his knees, the fetid alley floor, spitting, tourettesing some other swears-- nothing creative. f-bomb, cunt, you know. stupid stuff like that.
he dropped his gun. he couldn't pick it up even if he thought about it.]
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I don't know about the goods, [ he's saying. Little forks of lightning zither here and there, playing off his skin, snagging at the little metal ties on the ends of his boot strings, touching the damp ground. ] Or what you think you have that I'd want. What I want is what's in your head, Joseph. Your power.
[ His other hand is caged around a little ball of electricity, hovering, a threat. ]
I've seen enough to know it's wasted on you.
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obscurely, he's grateful to be breathing. this will be hilarious eventually, to at least one of the two imports involved.]
Are you working for the Russians? [kavinsky tries to say. because he remembers now, the way his powers had cut out under him. fruitless nightmares and radiation sickness spawning worms in his guts. his voice is slurry and crackled. rryhoh russians? his eyelid twitches when he tries to look up, finds himself contemplating sylar's ugly old person shoes.]
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[ Somewhere tall, Sylar tips his head. Is that what Kavinsky is afraid of? He'd heard about the attacks, for virtue of securing the power suppression device still warm in his hand. ]
No, I'm alone.
[ Old person shoes move out of sight because he steps over Kavinsky, descends into a gargoyle crouch over the kid's collapsed form, a knee putting a suffocating weight between his shoulder blades. He puts a big hand in the snarl of trendily cut hair at the crown of his head, a grip that shoots thousand-prickle pain across Kavinsky's scalp. ]
I can hear your heart. Not the part of your I'm interested in-- hell, maybe we have that in common. Should I stop it, before I start?
this is the worst thing i've ever seen (tw suicidal ideation, mean swears, sylar is the worst)
nah, pretty definitely.
even though his muscles are exhausted, his heart ramps up suddenly, adrenaline prickling through his neck and fingers, needles in his spine. it doesn't help that he can't all the way breathe. a lizard part of his brain registers immediate pain— simple stupid suffocation panic. in the meantime, the smarty human part of his brain thinks the lizard part is making a mountain out of a molehill when there is obviously a crushing rockslide coming down from the further distance. if bargaining were an option, he'd take a firm squeeze to the lungs over murder.
he doesn't know what's worse: that the pamphlets promised that he'd come back, or that this isn't how he wanted.]
Think you should try and suck it outta my asshole instead.
cw murder!!!
His fist tightens. Kavinsky's face is tugged off the pavement, and then slammed back down.
Once, twice. Enough to stun, if not knock completely unconscious. Time skews, disappears into a point, expands. The world rolls around Kavinsky so that its his back against the filthy concrete instead. The last thing he'll feel is a grip up under his jaw. The last thing he'll hear is the sound of a little motorised whir, close to his ear. Like someone's going to carve up a turkey with an electric knife.
Close to that, anyway.
There's a blade. It splits skin, it bites into bone. ]
tw a murdered :c (brain gore!)
it only takes sylar a few minutes to get he wants out of the exposed brain tissue, and that's long enough for the steam to clear out of kavinsky's brand new head wound. but his body's still warm for awhile. it's not until it cools off, an hour maybe, that a woman comes down with a bag of groceries and sees him lying in two pieces. one of the pieces-- his scalp, still crunchy with overmuch hairgel, is much smaller.
his eyes are still open. he looks at her old person shoes with much less disdain than he'd judged gabriel's with. she screams a lot, calls the police. stupidly, she says first, there's been a shooting, because kavinsky's pistol is still lying near his hand like the punchline to a bad joke. but then also, they cut open his head, and, it's a little boy, and his sleeve had peeled back while he was stretching out for his nap on the ground, so, an import. the cross-street.
a bit of a talker, she also lets the dispatcher know she's going to leave in order to throw up.
and that's what the little birdie tells jesse, two minutes later. cop to dirty cop.]
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He's out the door before he even knows what his body's doing, sprinting as fast as he can. If he was thinking at all, he'd realize it'd go faster if he summoned Joel. Maybe Joel can feel his panic anyway, but Jesse - Jesse's not thinking, he's moving. It's all a blur until he's suddenly there and there's a little boy's body on the ground and how many times is this going to happen? How many of them is he going to lose?
Jesse drops to his knees beside Kavinsky, ignoring the gore as he reaches to cup the boy's face. He's cold. Through the blur of Jesse's tears, Kavinsky looks so much younger. This is a child.]
It's gonna be okay.
[That's a promise most people can't make to a corpse, but Jesse's not most people, and he reaches for Kavinsky's death. He even holds it for a brief moment, just enough for a flash of blade cutting bone slicing brain pouring blood pounding heart seizing pain final breath. But it's a ghost of the thing. It rejects him the way Lucifer's wounds once rejected him, a soul too far out of his reach to make a bargain with.
That's when Jesse realizes he's too late. And then there's nothing to do but scream, the rage bubbling over and spilling out of him into the night air. This was never supposed to happen again. That's the whole point of his power. He was two blocks away and he was too late and Kavinsky's dead because of it.]
jesse 8CCCCCCCC X(
but he's not available for comment, which is obviously the point.
so jesse screams, his voice bouncing off the metal of the very same fire escape that gabriel had used to climb down from the apartment, and echoing off the walls into which kavinsky's wasted bullets are plugged into. there's blood encrusted on his eyebrow, where sylar had thumped him on the concrete like a fish monger rendering his li'l buddy ready for the knife. there had actually been a great deal of similarity between sylar and a fish monger at the time— the clean apathy and easy finesse of his hands. kavinsky had even been gasping for breath, right at the end.
between the screams and the dirty cops, jesse will have more than a few minutes to do before the police sirens begin to wail in the distance. but they'll come. (a cat is the first to arrive, actually. a tortoiseshell with extremely small feet, attracted to fish metaphors and the smell of blood. she meows at jesse from a trash can lid.)]
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He disappears from the kitchen in a coiling swarm of ghostly black tendrils snaking up around him, reappearing seconds later within that same cocoon of smoke-like tendrils in an alleyway in Maurtia Falls. As the snake-like coils evaporate from around him, he looks wildly left and right, squinting through the darkness. He launches into a run, bursting out onto the street, picking up speed and glancing down each dark alley and street as he passes them by. Jesse is around here somewhere. He's close; he can feel it.
There. He skids to a stop at spotting somebody huddled in a darkened street, crying. Jesse. And somebody lying on the street. Joel breaks into a run, sweaty and breathing fast, and suddenly slows as the state the body is in comes into focus the nearer he gets.
A kid. With the top of his head sawn off. Joel stops dead in his tracks a few feet away from the body, staring down at it in silent horror. Jesus. ]
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It's not working.
[Maybe Joel can guess what he means by that, because Jesse can't articulate right now.]
It's not working. It's - I keep trying but...
[His power hasn't left him. When Jesse looks back to Kavinsky's lifeless face, he can still feel the death. But he can't take it. Why can't he take it? Why is he still alive and why is Kavinsky still dead?]
I need to - I need to - Joel, I need to fix him. Help me fix him. It's not working.
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He takes a quick step closer. ]
Hey, c'mon, stop. Stop.
[ Joel crouches down, a hand reaching out to grasp Jesse's arm, to make Jesse look at him. He can smell the blood now he's crouched down. He forces himself not to look at the dead kid. The hard way he swallows is the only thing that gives him away that he can't bear to think about being so close to a dead child. ]
C'mon, look at me. Okay? [ Who is this?, he thinks to ask, but questions can come later. Right now, they need to deal with the dead kid. ] I'll get us outta here, okay? But I need you to focus.
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I'm not leaving him. I can do this. I can...
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[ It almost sounds so matter-of-fact, the way Joel says this. It's not without a hint of something rough and tight in his voice, though. ]
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He's not..! Let go of me. I can bring him back, I just need - Let go.
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Jesse!
[ Both hands reach for Jesse now, grabbing him by the shoulders. He's seen and experienced first-hand what Jesse's powers can do. If he hasn't managed to bring the kid back yet... More than that, Jesse might kill himself trying to do so, with the horrific way this kid has been murdered. He drags Jesse away from the kid, his strength making Jesse as light as a rag doll to Joel, then takes Jesse's head in both hands once they're a few feet away from him to make Jesse look at him. He's still crouching down, now in front of Jesse. ]
He's gone. Okay?
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I'm not leaving him here. Don't make me, Joel. Please. Don't leave him here like he's garbage.
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I can get him outta here, okay? You, too. Before someone sees us. Stop!
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The cabin. Okay?
[ Repeating "okay?" a lot, trying to draw Jesse's focus out of him. ]
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Okay.
[He's shaking beneath Joel's hands, both from shock and from his anxiousness to get on with it. Dying at the cabin will be better than dying here, and Kavinsky can wake up somewhere warm.]
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I'll take him first, then I'll come back for you.
[ Without waiting for a response, he drops his hands away and pushes himself to his feet. A quick, steeling breath to brace himself, resisting the urge to push his hand anxiously through his hair, and he turns around and steps up to the kid.
His eyes stray to the kid's face, make the mistake of snatching a quick glance at where his skull has been sawn off. Jesus. He locks it all down inside him, though, crouching down and reaching his hands down to slide underneath the kid's shoulders and knees. The lifeless body weighs nothing in Joel's arms, legs and arms dangling as Joel stands back up. He disappears from the spot in a brief tangle of snake-like smoke.
He reappears not more than thirty seconds later after having set the kid down on the couch in the dark cabin, stepping out from the cocoon of smoke and moving quickly across to Jesse with his hand outstretched. ]
C'mon.
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At Joel's prompting, Jesse looks up with a dazed expression and nods for a third time. Joel will have to grab him. He doesn't want to risk dropping what he's holding.]
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[ He grabs Jesse by the elbow, stricken eyes on bits of the kid clutched in Jesse's hands. He puts his focus back on the cabin, though, and they disappear from sight in a writhing cloud of black smoke. They reappear only a few feet away from the kid's lifeless body on the wooden floor. ]
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This will be a long night.]