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WHO: Sylar and Sarissa
WHERE: Nonah
WHEN: October!
WHAT: Sarissa seeks out some emotional support from the best possible option.
WARNINGS: TBA.

[ Finding Gabriel Gray is easily done, which is one of those things he should seriously consider looking into, given givens; now, out the front of an empty two bedroom townhouse, bricked up in all greys and browns in the rest of a predominantly grey and brown Nonah. It's been overcast all day, and even as it makes a lurch towards evening, this hasn't changed. Occasionally, a car growls past. He dimly recalls New York having a more attractive fall season.

Anyway. He is sitting on the steps that lead up to his front door, partially ajar, watching with his chin in his hand and his elbow on his knee as a skinny stray cat is lying bellyfirst on the pavement. He's set out a can of tuna, peeled open. The cat is interested, but wary.

Eventually, it puts its scratched up little nose to the edge of the can, and after a few fishy mouthfuls, Sylar reaches out one long arm, one big hand, to grab it round the scruff. It takes a swipe that doesn't penetrate his skin even a little, but calms immediately under dull pressure up near its skull, like prey going limp in the jaws of something bigger. No imminent violence, anyway; Gabriel holds it firm, insistently massages behind its ears before reluctant, hoarse purring emanates out of its scrawny body.

A distinct sight in his usual black and thick-framed glasses, it's hard to get a distance read on what he's thinking. It's generally hard to get a read close up, too. ]

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( She watches from a distance, for a moment. She doesn't know how to be nearer to people right now. Steps towards reconciliation and patching things up, they don't automatically mean the sailing's smooth all of a sudden. Repairs take time. When something gets broken there's the risk it might be weaker, even if you try fixing it. Maybe it'll be stronger, but maybe not. And part of her is terrified, because those girls, that— that family, that collection of souls has been so much her focus these past few months. Do better for them, be gentler for them, get it right as much as she can for them.

Finding out they weren't an inherent them all together, it felt like taking pieces off herself.

So maybe she isn't sure why she's here, because bad jokes and a few drinks on a few nights do not a close friendship make. But Gabriel is someone she met for herself, in her own time, who doesn't have connections to Clone Club or the adjacent elements. That he seems to be trying to woo a cat is kind of a bonus. )

Hey. Long time no see.

( Not quite cheery; her hair is falling is curls, because she couldn't be arsed with a straightener or blow drying today. Her hands are healed up, but she's still looking right right. There's bruises, but it's more like shadows of discolouration around her brow bone, cheekbone, her lip than the dramatic things that were all over her when she last saw Cosima and Sarah. She moves with her arms loosely crossed, like she could somehow be casually protective of herself. )

Got a new friend?

[ Gabriel doesn't hear her coming, which wouldn't make too much of an outward difference (his superhearing and its subsequent loss being one of those easy secrets he's kept this whole time) if it wasn't for the fact he also genuinely does not expect her. A look upwards, a slightly owlish, caught expression behind his glasses before he smooths it away with a look up and down.

A conspicuous look up and down. His hands have paused around the cat, whose tail starts to flick with impatience. ]

Too soon to tell, [ he says, answering the question. He sets the cat down, and the animal is hungry enough not to make good on escape, head ducking down to finish off the rest of the tuna while its tail snakes around. Its spine undulates beneath some flat-palmed petting. ] But maybe for as long as the tuna's in good supply.

You look terrible.

That's how I make friends, too. Sometimes some herring, to mix it up.

( Although— she pats down her side pockets on her jeans, turning them out. Empty, save for some safe bits of paper that probably went through a wash cycle. )

Look, I'll go get you some damn tuna, ( Sarissa continues, mouth tugging into a smile that's brighter than she feels and pulls on the healing slit at her lip, ) no need to start being mean, Gabriel.

Well, I'd have put out a saucer of beer if I known I'd have company.

[ There's a pause before Gabriel shifts where he's sitting -- making room for her to take it, if she wants it. This entire month feels like a long stretch of white noise and mundanity, interspersed with flashes of violence. Finding some kind of middle ground makes for some rusty gear turning.

Fortunately, he'd never put on much of an act, here. Not the chattier, quippier creature he'd presented to Rosita, or even the snarling predator that Kavinsky got to meet, or the slightly affected facet he'd shown to Pablo.

Understated, quiet, not world's apart from the ducking creature he's given dinner to. ]

You know how to charm a girl.

( Dry and drawled, and though she just eyes the newly available space at first, it only takes her a couple of moments to cross the distance and claim it for herself. Proximity is a little strange, but it's almost a relief, as well. Closeness to Sarah and Cosima meant closeness to people she'd gotten used to holding contact with, even casually. Closeness to Alison was more like the careful maintaining of distance, a bubble respected even as it was leaned against - entering proximity might be close enough, or too close, depending on the day. With Gabriel she can bump his shoulder (his arm, realistically, because he is a good deal taller than her) and that's all she needs to immediately worry about.

She prefers not to think about the fact that proving how independent she can be of the others is still her acting in their orbit. Smiling crookedly at the cat is better. )

If you take a shine to 'im you can get cat traps. Con the little guy into getting tamed. Betrayal in the name of enriching the life experience, yeah?

If that's how that works, I've been going about everything wrong.

[ Or right. He knows all kinds of things about lulling people into a false sense of security, but as far as friendships go, well--

Sarissa claims her own space; Gabriel stays in his, long arms looping around bent knees as he watches the cat make quick work of canned fish, as if it were going to be taken away at any moment. He is, however, hyper aware of her, and the only tension that betrays him is the rigid curl of fingers tucking in against his palm. ]

Besides, I'm not very nurturing.

— Says the guy feeding a stray.

( There's more to being nurturing than food, granted. If that was all nurturing took then things would be a lot different for all kinds of people, but it was a good enough start. A lot of people wouldn't even consider giving good to strays, writing it off as a waste. Call her a sucker or whatever you want, though, Sarissa reserves a separate bank of respect for people are kind to animals with no obligation for said kindness.

For a moment she just looks at the cat, watching it watch them as it tackles the canned fish. It's a fairly good distraction, so far as distractions go. )

So what've you been up to the past few weeks, anyway? Aside from becoming a cat lady.

Canned tuna is bad for you. Mercury in the air poisons the ocean and then the fish. And then cats. But maybe it's different here.

[ Maybe they don't have pollution problems here like they do back home, with their sleek futurism and optimism. Sylar is not exactly recounting something he is occupied with, himself, or particularly concerned; one of life's facts, to be found interesting, thrown into the conversation as sly rebuttal to allegations of being a good person. ]

I quit my job, [ he says, turning his hands. Nothing under his nails. ] I stopped going. The salon, not the show. I'm thinking about taking up superheroism.

[ A hint of sarcasm struggles out of his usual dry deadpan. ]

Do you want to come in?

( Though her eyebrows are raised a little with the comment about work and superheroism, she's going to just start with, ) Sure. I can handle going inside.

( She stands, rolling her shoulders lazily. )

Mind, with that anti-cat vendetta, superheroism might be off the cards.

( Oh, Gabriel, you silly goose. If that's what you want to believe, this terrible dismissal of what might be nuturing. She still thinks there's a good intention in there somewhere, though. ) Granted it might take you a while, so I guess maybe spandex and capes'll help hide your secret tuna agenda.

Not if you're a dog person.

[ But he's standing, up the stairs two at a time, less eager, more lazy and rangy for the neat little concrete staircase. He leaves the cat with its can, ignoring the humans while it settles on its belly, the tin held in paws.

Within, it doesn't look like he's done a lot to it since he was given this place. The same standard issue furniture in the same carpet indentations they were set in. A small stack of books sits on a table. There are unwashed dishes by the sink, but they're been arranged and ordered, ready for cleaning. He is outwardly a neat and put together person and so the inside of his home reflects this without effort, if also austere, lonely, someone who hasn't really settled.

In truth, he doesn't spend a lot of time here, but even Sylar has to sleep sometimes. There's no awkward show of inviting her to take a seat, or offering to go get her a beer. He lingers to close the door, and once done, he's more interested in seeing what she would do, as if he'd let the stray in, and not a human woman, bruises and all. ]

Is that what you are?

( She asks the question over her shoulder, only turning once he's inside as well and the door is shut, turning so she's walking backwards a few paces. There's no trace of unease or discomfort, exactly, though there's a certain pull of tension across her back and shoulders despite herself, a faint correctness to her posture that's at odds with the rest of her excessively casual gait and the way she holds herself.

The tidiness reminds her, hideously, of her sisters. The people who call her their sister and who she thought were hers and who she still wants to be hers. Tidiness and neatness and order makes her remember Alison, and even if they've spoken and made plans, there's that memory of how she flinched when Sarissa had flung words at her like venom, how worried she'd sounded on the phone. She worries, sometimes, that Alison is the most isolated of them; Cosima might not grasp all the nuances of people all that well, but she's fluid and charming and seems like she could befriend anyone, if she put her mind to it, and Sarah might be quieter, but she's got that kind of weird, magnetic draw, can read people as easy as paper off a page. What might push people away on others pulled people closer to Sarah. And it wasn't that Alison wasn't funny or charming or interesting, she was just controlled and contained and maybe a little harder to get close to.

For a moment as she looks at the neatly arranged books and the oddly lonely feeling room, and there's a pang of guilt, because she's here instead of trying harder with the others, and because she's barging into the life of someone else who's more contained and controlled, like she'll make him flinch, too.

When she looks back to Gabriel, her expression is a little less— typical Sarissa. )

Have you met any of my sisters?

[ He doesn't flinch then, anyway. Gabriel was, up to that moment, imagining herding her into a corner, breaking through personal space like sheet glass, but it was only a thought and not quite traceable on his face when he looks up to meet her less-than-typical expression with a more characteristic one of his own -- his oddly attentive focus, doggish and waiting.

He shakes his head, subtle. ]

I've seen them, [ he supplies, moving to find a place to be. The arm of a couch, leaning there rather than taking a more conventional seat, as if not quite fitting in the space as expectedly as all that. ] On the network.

Rachel? ( Although it's a guess. It's not like she watches the network all that closely, just that she remembers Rachel's network post as the most recent to come to mind. ) Or Cosima, probably, if she had dreads, glasses? She's the one everyone knows. Chatty monster.

( Said with an eyeroll, though it's fond. ) She's, um. You know when people are so passionate about something that they kinda make everything light up? You get excited talking to them because they're so vibrant when they get going.

( A huff of breath, and Sarissa shakes her head as she slouches onto the couch. ) Sorry. We had a fight a little while ago. Still trying to get my head around it.

[ Sylar doesn't illuminate exactly how much he knows of Sarissa's sisters, at least identitywise. A tip of his head might confirm that he saw Rachel's post, but in truth, he's occupied his time in looking up everything on public record.

Which makes private matters new, so he listens, and raises one eyebrow. ]

She didn't seem like she could land a punch. The chatty monster. [ He doesn't in fact think that Sarissa's bruises have come from her sisters, his tone more ironic than actually trying to make a joke. Her appeals to what he knows of people like that -- of feeling about people like that -- seem to glide off of him like sheet ice. ]

Ha. No, she couldn't. Tiger'd probably come second in a fight with cooked ramen noodles.

( She says it 300% fondly, though, and shakes her head. That he didn't really reply to the question about knowing people like Cosima doesn't immediately register - her mind will loop back to it and gnaw on it sooner rather than later, another mark to suggest that Gabriel wasn't all that social, or happy. )

It was about some family stuff. These little gems, ( and she vaguely indicates the bruises, ) are from my losing a brawl against a dumpster.

( Which is partly true. )

But they're not.

[ Mild intonation, as if to best disguise the testing barb, poking, the same lazily sinister curiousity of a crocodile opening its eye. It's more guess than fact. The information via rumourmill and network seems contradictory, at times, and also: he knows, disconcertingly, of face twins.

He doesn't take banter bait. That takes more effort, generally.

His head tips. ]

Family.

( She bristles, and a moment later prays its at least a little bit internal. The way she tenses is visible, a by-product of hurt, though its protectiveness that sparks the larger portion of it. )

They are. ( They're her family, even if genetics doesn't play into it. Cosima is her sister, and Alison, and Sarah. It wouldn't matter if the mechanics in their hearts made them beat different, as if she were alien where they're human - they're her family. )

It's complicated and it sounds like total bullshit if you aren't caught up in it, but they are, even if we didn't grow up together. I don't even like Rachel, but she's still my sister, right down to the bone. Cosima and Alison and Sarah, though, I feel like I work better when I'm with them. They're my sisters.

Edited 2016-11-01 16:18 (UTC)

[ There are sparks in her words, so something caught. Sylar doesn't prod further; he takes off his glasses to run a loose hem of his shirt over the insides, a gesture that nearly reads as abashed in the wake of assumption.

There's a lot to unpack there, whether Sarissa intends it or not. ]

Are you still fighting?

( Well, maybe she feels a little bad. The corner of Sarissa's mouth tugs a little - a smile, by no means abashed but entirely softened off from the spark of a moment before. )

No. I mean— it's pretty weird, still, but we're figuring it out. I was kinda dickish. It's, uh.

( Sarissa shakes her head. ) I don't like losing my temper, y'know? I'm a bastard and I wind people up and that, but I don't like actually getting into it. They didn't deserve it.

[ Sylar moves, then, leaving his lean-perch to sit in the chair adjacent while she's talking. He rests a heel against the edge of the squat coffee table, steering a raised eyebrow look across at her. The conversation lapses into a quiet that is thoughtful on Gabriel's end.

Eventually-- ]

I did a lot of wishful thinking when I was a kid about how that someday, someone would tell me that my family weren't really my family. That I belonged somewhere else, to someone else, that I was-- different. Better than just ordinary.

[ He veers around the word 'special'. It's lost some shine. ]

The last conversation I had with my mom was a fight. It got easy to say the wrong thing. Or I just got tired about trying to say only the right thing, I'm not sure.

Was it just you, before them?

I.

( It isn't drawn out. It's a normal I that ends in a full stop, not hanging in the air. The sentence didn't have much direction before she swallows it, gaze dropping to Gabriel's heel resting against the coffee table. )

I have family back in Australia. My mum, my yia yia. Cousin, uncle, aunt. The relatives you know about but never really talk to. I, uh— had a fiancée. I don't know. I've had people and I've— I think I frighten people away.

( Somehow, she musters up a smile, fingers knitting together but still outstretched as she rests her forearms on her knees. Her spine forms an arch in what would be a lazy slouch, if she didn't look so uncomfortable. ) These girls... Finding out me and them were family was like— like you said, you know, some childhood wish coming true? I'm like this monster, though.

( Sarissa pauses, and looks to Gabriel - the like of his neck and his profile in the high of the room. ) What happened with your mum? Is it okay to ask?

Edited 2016-11-06 09:56 (UTC)

[ It's a pretty expected follow up question, but still, Gabriel's intent gaze slides off of her. It's easy to tumble down memory lane, but easier still to resist when in the presence of other people. There are plenty of long, empty hours to obsess over these things.

Before Sarissa can take back the moment-- ]

She died about a year ago. And I found out afterwards that I really was adopted. Kind of a confusing plot twist. I was gonna go find my real family, actually, or try to--

[ He raises an eyebrow. His hands out, a subtle gesture built to carry the current universe and all of its space-time parameters. ]

--but wound up here.

[ But wait. ]

You're not a monster.

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oh my god I wrote this five hours ago and didn't hit post comment

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I FAILED AT OUR TREBUCHET QUEST i blame laundry

you love laundry more than serial killers i guess