maskormenacelogs | O8 👶 you don't seek murder like this often

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O8 👶 you don't seek murder like this often

WHO: Gabriel "Sylar" Gray, Elliot Alderson, Jesse Pinkman & Joseph Kavinsky
WHERE: Maurtia Falls & surrounding areas
WHEN: February 2017
WHAT: revenge screaming
WARNINGS: Up to NC-17 for prose-written violence I guess? Substances/poisoning, torture, etc.

closed to elliot alderson;

[it's two in the morning and kavinsky is at home. one of. his apartment. 'home.' close enough.

as homes go, kavinsky's is a boyish monstrosity. a man cave stretched out into a full three rooms, and on a spectacularly ridiculous budget. his flatscreen tv takes up most of one wall. the wireless subwoofer speakers look like cell towers stationed throughout the lacquered floor, if people tended to balance tumblers of half-finished liquor and Cokes and spent ashtrays on top of cell towers. the pool table folds out of the fucking wall, and it's only half out this evening, a stolen stop sign jammed into the nook. the tv is blaring some stupid show about guns. there is an inexplicable knife sticking out of the black leather sofa.

he's staring at his cellphone, but in reality, he's listening for the door. despite appearances, the first activity is actually closely tied to the other. also related: he has a handgun shoved down the back of his pants and a grenade in his pocket.

just in case.]

closed to gabriel "sylar" gray & eventual jesse pinkman;

[the bake shack is not maurtia falls' finest, but its a cut above the neighboring options. the diner has a fairly standard menu. tuna, blt, blt with avocado, buffalo chicken, chicken fingers, grilled chicken, parmesan chicken, chicken, cheddar and broccoli, that kind of thing. the food tends to be a little fresher than most of its counterparts, thanks to some shady dealings, and they occasionally take inspired liberties with such additions as cilantro and white pepper on the daily specials. the service is above average. slightly higher, if you happen to have television experience and handsome eyebrows.

the waitress has been crushing on him awhile. she probably isn't the one who put the blood in his coffee.

either way, she's already sashayed away by the time the effects start to kick in. an instant's fatigue. and then the room starts to spin in sylar's vision. the waitress' ass swerves into a sickening perpendicular, the second before she disappears around the corner of the counter. in the kitchen, there will be someone there to grab her, cover her mouth, shove some money in the pocket of her short-shorts. they'd paid the cook twice as much.

the sunshine coming through the window feels overbright. gabriel still has strength in his hands, a shade of lucidity to his thoughts, but it's fading on him fast even as neon spots start to crawl into his vision.]

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Have you ever jumped off the edge of a sky scraper?

[ Hackles up. Backed into a corner. That brain melting potion on one side, the silver teeth of the saw grinning at him from the other. ]

It's the last thing I did before I killed her the first time. There's like this [ teeth pale in the yellow-dim gloom, bared, beneath eyes that glint ] primal rush, this obliterating certainty of death. One second, I know what I'm doing, I know what will happen, and the next it's just. Blind panic. Almost ecstatic.

And then I lived.

[ He looks again at the items, then back at Kavinsky. Eyebrows twinging upwards. ]

Dealer's choice.

[kavinsky stares at the man who killed him. he thinks about dying pretty often himself, so it's a fairly significant topic to raise actually! evem when you set aside the specifically murdery experiences. after sylar, the second leading cause of kavinsky's death is kavinsky himself, so.]

Do you know how you wanna die? If it'd stick.

[kavinsky apparently decides on the poison. he slides off the chair, puts down the bonesaw. if the chair were about two feet closer to sylar, he could probably grab it, but two feet is a long way when you're tied to a metal chair and being terrorized by weirdly colored fluids. kavinsky goes for the iv bag, and it seems like a certain former nurse, recent mafia boss, idiot's-friend apprised him of how to do the thing. he gets the tube loose, chews off the needle cap, and starts to fill her up.] Jumping off the roof is just fucking dramatic, [says the young man who did himself on july 4th with a gigantic fire dragon that one time.]

[ If Sylar were interested in playing Kavinsky's game, he would have chosen the saw. Damage can be healed, one way or another. Pain endured. He doesn't like things getting in his head. But he doesn't protest, even if he watches Kavinsky's progress out of the corner of his eye, even if his mouth is going dry.

He settles that look on the bonesaw. Just sitting there. ]

Ropes break. [ Or their support beams snap, but let's not get too specific, now. God his dick hurts. ] Guns jam, and it's kind of sad, to me. Like putting a lame animal down. Gravity is certainty. And what's wrong with being dying dramatic, if you've only ever lived quiet?

[ The hand with the needle in its arm stretches, flexes, unconscious anticipation. He swallows for saliva. ]

How about you?

[the basement is getting fuzzy, but that might just be panic. derealization is a symptom of panic. kavinsky caps the syringe and plugs the iv back into the bag.

the tube wiring down to sylar's arm is turning a weird color. clear-blue and red blood don't mix too well, in terms of if you were going to attempt to paint a masterpiece with only those two colors. they mix in funny strands like a barber's pole. winding down, down, down into the great vein in sylar's arm. kavinsky had not been responsible for the insertion of that needle, of course.]

Don't be an asshole, [he says.] You already know I got a thing about getting killed by shitty dickprint monsters. [he punctuates his point by punching sylar in the side of the head. not a lot of weight behind it. just enough to move the older man's head a couple of inches, spin his brain about before it settles into its new bath.]

[ Bap. Sylar flinches, expression resolving more into a scowl in its resolution as he swerves a look back to ~Joseph~. ]

Right, [ he roughs out. More a growl, now, sandpapery and quiet. Swallows again. ] We should do it again sometime.

[ That twining of colour is not the kind of thing you want to see going at a regular drip into your blood stream. He'd already been feeling like hammered shit and now that pounding of his head seems to be taking on a different pitch, a whine. ]

[the light gets brighter, except it intensifies in a way that fails to bring out more detail in the walls or the barren concrete floor. instead, they get blurrier. cones firing-- misfiring inside sylar's eyes. hot pain crawls into his arm, but it's dim and far away; a lower concentration of satya's toxins than the dose that kavinsky had fired into his chest once upon a city.]

If you wanna be a dream thief, you'd better keep my dead.

[but kavinsky's voice loops and turns and comes out of the ceiling at a funny angle. he isn't there anymore. his abandoned metal chair crease into a blur, stretching, the pitted metal compacting into a blur, before it abruptly snaps back into shape. four legs on the floor, the back squared off and flat.

sarissa theron is sitting in it. dark ponytail and frown, her little incisors hidden away. she doesn't look as small now as she does when she's standing up, but that might be because he's still hunched from the faraway echo of penile agony.] I was thinking about shortening 'Sylar' down for a pet name, [she says.] But 'Sylo' sounds like I'd fiddle your knob and sheep feed would come out. Probably should've figured we were doomed.

[ A few hard blinks doesn't get rid of her, though it does make his vision wobble, and snap back into focus, queasy-like.

Looking at Sarissa feels like he's having a staring competition with the lightbulb hanging over head, but at the same time, it's the only reliable thing in the room. The veins in his arm feel like they're full of fire, and fireworks -- like hers -- hiss and spit in his vision. ]

You'd be funnier if you didn't make everything into a fucking joke, [ he says, without ire. Sound advice, for a woman who's not there. ] Anyone ever tell you that.

[there's a pause as sarissa soaks up the insult. not deterred-- ever-- of course-- pshh-- but acknowledging sylar's complaint. she's considerate that way in the presence of a dude fresh out of torture. or just not a psychopath. one of her little bunny clone incisors peeks out a moment, then fades. her eyes look sad.]

You'd be funnier if you stopped murdering people, [Sarissa answers eventually.] But I'm pretty sure you shouldn't need anybody to tell you that, mate.

Have you got an endgame? I'm not trying to be funny. And I'm not talking about Kavo, or even this... [she looks around. the room seems emptier than before. not as dirty. mostly because he's lost all the details in his vision and his body is trying to turn itself out, getting away from the toxins flowing through his veins.] Wherever we are. He's just a kid. Worse comes to worse, you'd come back this go-around. Best case scenario after that, this shit will only get worse.

[ His heart feels like its slipped like a fish upstream, into his brain, pounding away at the forefront. In moments, his dark shirt is darker with damp. He would prefer his hallucinations quiet, but even an awareness about the unreality of the situation doesn't stop him from answering it. A philosophical perspective. He's also insane.

And dying, maybe. He shudders against his restraints in an effort to not do that. ]

You know the story about the frog and the scorpion? And the river.

[ He gives a canine shake of his head, eyes closed against the sight of his ex, sharp in the foreground of a nightmare Gaussian blur or painful light, eyeball-sucking shadow. ]

No river, here. Scorpion can do whatever it wants.

[he'd asked her to be serious. maybe that's why she is now, setting her feet apart. leaning forward, elbows on her knees. her eyes are unblinking, or maybe he's just missing it in the queasy blur of his vision.]

There's always a river, arshole. The bloody story's about being out-of-control, not doing what you fucking want.

[a beat.]

Unless this bondage bullshit is what you were after. [not so serious. possibly she's just mad about having been murdered. twice.] Look at me. [she pushes his thigh, and the pain reverberates down to his groin. somewhere in the real world, kavinsky kicked him again, and asked jesse if the healer is able to go all the way up to the kitchen and get him a beer and still hold the killer down with his power.] You don't think this is going to end well. And it's not going well if it doesn't end, either.

[ The kick gets a response this time, no chance of bracing himself, disoriented, over-exposed -- it's a raw bark of pain, and a full bodied flinch as if to pull his knee away from Sarissa's reaching hand.

But he looks at her, her face floating on a surface of vertigo. ]

It's about nature, [ is growled out, a little strangled against the leather gripping his trachea. The way rottweilers sound at the end of their chain. In his head, to his ears, it sounds sharper than it does in real life. In real life, it sounds borderline incoherent, saliva-specked. ] About doing what you want, being out of control, 'cause there's nothing else left.

[ He rests his head backwards, chin tipped up, trying to catch his breath. ]

I thought about giving you that story, [ is a little clearer. He seeks out the shape of Kavinsky in the room. Talking into empty space. A void. ] But it sounded, you know. [ He swallows, roughly. ] Like a line.

You know you're a fucking mess when the only thing you say that isn't a line is the one thing that sounds like it. [but she's not unsympathetic, taking her hand away. she seems less real for a moment, a shade too pale and a few inches taller, muddled into the uncertain space between reality and nightmare and legitimate trauma.

it's quiet awhile apart from the chatter of artificial static in sylar's ears, the wall paint dribbling like human melt once upon a time in hiroshima and lurching towards his chair, vanishing next into a burning snap of electric white. that's kavinsky putting a flashlight in his eyes. but it's sarissa's face he sees after, and her hand on the side of his neck.

(kavinsky checking the tape is sitting right. that beer made his fingers cold. he's scooted in closer than he'd dared before, leaning up between sylar's knees.)

but it's sarissa who asks:]

Did you ever try to fight it?

[ His pupils are broad, black discs in his head, unseeing and dazzled. There is a kind of sudden awareness of another person in his space, like sensing electricity in the air or a shift in current in water. Cold fingers against skin that is very warm. ]

I tried to die, [ he says.

Doggish, Sylar chases that touch. They hadn't been together so long to make physical intimacy an instinct, but he recalls, vividly, speculative questions in close proximity, conversations heavy enough to be spoken in whispers, and lifting his face to her hand. It's more swoony than smooth, nudging into skinny, cool wrist, chasing affection like a phantom. ]

[incredulity on kavinsky's face. it might be a trick, but he feels reassured with jesse there, not that the healer's presence negates the tricks themselves but he'll make them a lot less effective.]

What'd you use?

[a thumbnail goes into the side of the apple of sylar's throat, too blunt to cut, too wide to pierce. he's thinking about hitting the serial killer again, but something about this seems more interesting than that. his chair screeches an inch closer on the concrete below. sarissa's eyes blink at sylar, fringy and dark and sad for him, even though she should wish it had stuck.]

[ His pulse is racing at an abnormal rate, even if the rest of him seems slack, seem low and lost. ]

Gravity. Remember.

[ His voice is barely above a purr, slipping deeper into this weird in between space of reality and full blown drug-induced psychosis. It's warm and dark here, and there is a hand of sharp tenderness on his throat. He can almost imagine Angela Petrelli's precise red nails stroking back his hair as he lies flat, and strapped down, just like this.

But it's not her he's thinking about, it's Sarissa. And it's not even really Sarissa. It never really was. ]

I showed up early, with the sidewalk. Pulverised into ash. Grey all over. God, you were scared for me. I had it, though. [ His hands jerk against his restrains, like he's forgotten they're there. The action aborted. ] You. Your attention.

[ Wetness gathers in the corners of his eyes, making them darker. ]

Didn't help.

[after all this time, it hadn't even once occurred to kavinsky, not once, that gabriel had truly cared for sarissa in any way. it'd obviously been part of the long con, his final objective to obtain her powers. precise. calculated. the same methodical approach with which he'd broken into each of kavinsky's homes, and brought a nullifier device in the end.

for some reason, it makes kavinsky angrier. the moisture thickening sylar's eyelashes.]

Help? [his fingers dig deeper. yank the collar back and to the right, skewing sylar's head off-axis. in the same motion, kavinsky scoots off the edge of his own chair, pops neatly onto sylar's lap. thighs crosswise thighs. he's whole inches taller than sarissa, but nearly as light. not that it would matter. sarissa looks angry all of a sudden; in that warm, sanguine lovely way that sarissa does everything that a sarissa will do.

her eyes flash fire. her teeth grit. her cute little incisors are showing.]

No part of you really thought that cutting open somebody's brain is attention-seeking. Why are you crying? What makes you think you've got anything to cry about?

[ His world seems to constrict, diminishing from the vague shadows thrown from the lightbulb, the boundaries of the room, reducing now into some weird little thimble reality that takes up only the space of the chair he is secured to and the too-warm presence of a person sitting in his lap.

The leather at his throat constricts like a hand when its pulled taut. ]

I thought it might be different, [ he gravels out. ] Here. With you. It wasn't. I wasn't.

[ As far as crying goes, this seems more like he's allergic to feelings in place of having them, with tears producing themselves and forming skinny, glistening tracks out from the corners, streaking ear-wards.

Incidentally, he is deeply aware of unglamourous penis pain and associated pressure, just as much as the cut of leather around his throat, and the lovely brown of Sarissa's eyes, the soft shapes of her mouth -- even when she's mad. ]

You're hurting me.

Sorry, mate. Can't make vegemite without wringing the tears out of a fucking onion.

[but that isn't something sarissa would actually say. not under these circumstances. and nor is it something that kavinsky says, more of the banal eggs and cake type, out loud, but it gets lost in the translation of static in the canals of his ears, of particle light moving like a wave hitting the rods and cones in sylar's eyes at the wrong angles and spinning off into the polluted, fractured mess of his brain.]

Hey, Sylar. Hey.

[it's a fragmented echo. minutes have passed. more than that? time is an unevenly burning candle, melting lumpy and malformed over the unwitting fingers of the dizzy young man struggling to read by its light. no more pressure dragging the collar at gabriel's throat; less dark, curly hair netting the slender shoulders hunkered down under gabriel's nose. and the familiar sweetness of sarissa's deodorant replaced by the acrid undertone of axe body spray.

the fragrance favored by all true villains.

one-note and tinny, a shrill whine fills the concrete room. he's heard it before: a small blade rotating at high velocity. when kavinsky looks up, he's kavinsky again. neon green, but kavinsky nonetheless.

but it's sarissa's voice who says,] Maybe you need to try harder.

[ The fantasy feels like it has his brain on a torsion spring, pulling it back in every time he begins to spin away. Joseph Kavinsky is remembered only as his face presses out from the haze like he's surfacing.

God, what has he even been saying? Doing?

He gives a full-bodied twitch of revulsion when Sarissa's voice slithers out from between Kavinsky's less cute teeth. The bony weight on his thighs feels like a paralytic, and metal whines and clinks as fisted hands make a valiant attempting at wrenching fastenings from fixtures.

It takes him a second, then, to realise that that dull buzz-whine is coming from somewhere external, not just his own brain. ]

[kavinsky laughs. the sound seems slightly dislocated, but this time, it's his laugh, snaky and low in the air. boy register. kind of hard to hear, though, under the shrill pitch of the saw.] Cooperate, shithead, [he says.] I just want one.

[his pupils are blown out huge. as big as sylar's. you could excise their eyeballs and switch them and they'd look the same. a tiny, millimeter-thin brown ring hugged tight around black, light-eating pits of myopic darkness. kavinsky had thought about doing it sober, in order to remember. in order to know what he was doing, maybe. but all of the motivating factors, seriously considered, merely made him want to do cocaine more.

and well. when a cokehead wants to do cocaine, a cokehead will do cocaine.

the blade bites into sylar's finger. and it's anticlimactic, really. the shouting and terror and accidental tears, which only then register the reality— that none of the ones that sylar had shed earlier had been false. the rattle of wood and metal. kavinsky watches the finger-bone splinter and then pop with a strange detachment, and then finds himself watching himself with an even stranger detachment. like he's standing out to the side of them. regarding the spectacle in third person. a cameraman.

it's some stupid movie shit. not quite the music videos that kavinsky used to stylize his life after. a different genre. the creepy clinch of male bodies in the chair, fluids and bolted steel and bald concrete everywhere. jesse off in the back. screams that aren't. pleasure.

distantly, he thinks that he looks kinda hot. good job, he tells himself. you'll always have that going for you.]

[ Sylar howls.

It's not dignified. He is rarely dignified, actually, so maybe it means something that what was happening prior to this moment and prior to the injection of psychoactive drugs was not about stoicism and more about not giving a fuck what ultimately becomes of him. The howl, though, is animal and raw, and kind of delayed. It's when bone splinters that no amount of disassociation can smother out pain, even little bones like this.

He stops screaming when he passes out, neck loose in collar and sprawls like only the bits that are strapped in are keeping him from slithering out into a pile on the floor.

By the time the last of skin and tendon is snapping loose, his expression is almost at peace. ]

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O8 👶 you don't seek murder like this often

cw suicide references

tw more suicidal ideations suicidal ideations all day and all night

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a little more impressionistic, lmk if not ok!

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