shatterverse | (no subject)

The narration is sure it has made this joke before, but:

Is it a bird?

Is it a plane?!

NO!

It's a Canadian kid on a jetpack! A far more common sight, to be sure.

It affords him a pretty good vantage point from which to spot Sylar. There is, he has to admit, a little bit of guilt when he recognises the disguise. Mainly at the slightly disappointing ratio of making out versus inventing reality-punching machines in his recent activities.

Still: "Hey!" Good-naturedly, as he redirects subtle levers to bring himself into a gentle landing dive. "It was... Nathan, eh?"

"Yes."

He hasn't met this kid before.

On the other hand, there's a really good explanation for why that is.

Two, but one of them is much likelier.

"But I think you may have encountered the other me. Looks like there's two around here."

"...Oh."

Stephen touches down and mostly-depowers the jetpack, leaving it just weightless enough to sit like a feather on his shoulders rather than dragging on them like any other huge amalgamation of metals by rights would.

Well, in that case. "Stephen Bell." He offers his hand.

"Nathan Petrelli, but you already know that."

His handshake is...

...

...oddly familiar, actually.

"That's a nice piece of equipment you have there. Where'd you find it?"

~~THE NARRATION IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR POTENTIAL MISINTERPRETATIONS OF SYLAR'S DIALOGUE. SERIOUSLY.~~

To be fair, what they're doing with their hands is not frequently shaking them, but still! The familiarity is still there in quantities enough to be mildly disconcerting. Though you'll forgive him if he doesn't immediately make the connection that may seem obvious to the reader. Mad the world may be, but 'mad' doesn't always translate to 'alternates of my boyfriend impersonating flying guys'.

So he looks briefly uncertain, but he's not about to start suddenly knowing who Sylar is.

Besides, 'Nathan' wants to talk about the jetpack!

"I built it," he replies eagerly. "It works by--" ...the narration will ask the reader here to kindly insert their own interpretation of antigravity technobabble. At some length.

Sylar's understanding of this explanation is greatly improved by the fact that he already knows most of it.

Pretend to greater ignorance than he possesses for the sake of playing a part? ...you're kidding, right? THIS IS SYLAR.

He nods and smiles and asks relevant questions.

Too relevant.

It's almost as though he's seen one before, but that would be impossible, wouldn't it?

No, the real moment of truth comes when he absently inquires after the manufacture of a part that's not immediately visible. He knows it's there. It has to be there, because it's an integral piece of the whole. But to most people, it wouldn't be apparent.

Then again, this isn't most people.

People understanding his often obtuse explanations are quite rare and wonderful to Steve. So much so that he even starts to answer Sylar's latest question, before stopping mid-word, suddenly aware that he's being reminded forcibly of another encounter on a beach what seems like an age ago.

Is there a face for feeling like your stomach's dropped out of the bottom of your shoes? There should be. The Steve interpretation of it involves slightly open mouths and frozen expressions.

Yes, this is the part where he's remembering conversations with the words 'alternate selves' and 'killed someone' and hoping to God that he's jumping to ridiculously unsubstantiated conclusions.

"Yes?"

Imagine this questioning glance, only substantiated by Nathan Petrelli's rather prominent jaw and ensubtled* by his rather low-key (by comparison) eyebrows.

Sylar wants to know why Steve's suddenly gone pale and why his heartbeat has turned into the frantic drumroll of a fearful circus.

"I'm sorry, did I say something wrong?"

*No, that's not a word. Shush.

"--No!"

Sometimes, Stephen wishes very very much that he was better at lying.

And he's overreacting, surely? the more logical (it's extensive!) part of his brain objects. Could be a completely different alternate: it's more likely, he reasons, than that one specific version should show up. Could be that Nathan has the same power as Gabriel, or a similar one. Could be that this is a parasitic alien creature which infects humans, stealing first their abilities and then their forms until the misappropriated body falls apart and another must be sought. These are all possibilities!

"I... suppose it's a pointless question whether you have a mutant ability?" he manages. "Besides flight?"

His sense of self-preservation, let him show you it.

"...Mutant ability."

Frown.

"You make it sound so-- banal."

All right, now that is officially creepy.

"Very few people have more than one."

--and that's not exactly a 'no', is it.

All right, when we're getting into the territory of direct quotes, there's really only so much reasonable doubt you can force into the equation.

(...This is going to sound really stupid if he's wrong, but just once, Stephen wants to do the whole 'referencing something you didn't know I knew' thing. The techie guy deserves to get the best lines sometimes!)

"Gabriel." Still nervous. And, incidentally, backing up a little. "Why are you pretending to be Nathan? ...When did you manifest shapeshifting?"

Sylar:

a) goes white.

b) stops looking like Nathan in favour of looking like, well, Gabriel.

Plus ten years and a laughably floofy haircut.

"Where did you get that name."

Okay, so Stephen's used to seeing that younger alternate around the Cooper house, but he still finds versions of his boyfriend that aren't his boyfriend quite undeniably weird. (Not to mention awkward! There are bits of his brain he has to lock up a lot that don't really care about alternate universes. There's a reason he avoids the boy and his girlfriend.)

(Fortunately, a lot of those bits are hiding. Scary alterna-Gabe is scary.)

Stephen's hands, automatically and half-unconsciously, go to the straps of his jetpack. That's where the controls are.

"I know you, eh? A -- a different you."

It should be noted that he's trying not to sound frightened. You know, just like he was trying to fib earlier.

"A different me."

Hmmmmmmm.

"Different how?"

Having met the real Nathan Petrelli-- a man, the narration reminds you, whom he killed-- Sylar is not going to discount the idea that there might be another him running around.

He isn't quite sure how he feels about it.

Different in that he only has hair like that in the space between bedroom abuse and comb retrieval?

...Okay, that is so not appropriate as a train of thought right now that there are not even words.

"Just from a different world," offers Steve, who is wracking his brains for what's safe to tell. If he's wrong then there should be no danger in talking about his own Gabriel and the Cooper farm, but there's that margin of uncertainty in which he is in no way prepared to risk it. The thought of a murderous version of the man even knowing of his existence (too late), let alone where he's living, is distinctly unpalateable.

"Eh, I'm sorry. I should've thought." It's an honest apology: with hindsight, calling a man who's never met him by his name was never going to be a good idea, whether or not he knew about alternates. Nice one, Steve.

"Yes, you should have," he agrees mildly.

Except that to someone who knows what Gabriel looks like when he's trying to suppress anger and succeeding, Sylar really doesn't look all that mild right now.

With growing amusement, still not entirely enough to overpower the much subtler base element of rage: "I think I'd like to meet him."

Willing to risk the consequences of arranging such a meeting, Steve?

--willing to risk the consequences of refusing?

Steve happens to know a Gabriel and his subtle emotional shades very well indeed.

Oh shit, says his brain.

Emphatically.

His mouth says, after a frantic second: "Not a good idea, really. It's a bit out of your way. Quite a long way out of it, really."

Judging by the unconscious shifting of his fingers on the jetpack's little switches, he's in half a mind to just take off and get the hell out of here. And hope to God that this Gabriel can't fly like Nathan as well as look like him. (To which the narration replies: sucks to be you, Steve.)

"Oh, but I assure you, it's not as though I have anywhere to be. It'll be no trouble at all, really."

Sylar smiles slowly.

It's not a good smile.

It's not a smile Stephen has ever seen on Gabriel, come to think of it.

"You're not the only one around here who's flight-capable."

Margin of uncertainty: narrowing!

OH GOD HOW DOES HE GET OUT OF THIS. (In both the literal and figurative instances. The version in which 'this' is the proposed meeting is, unfortunately, starting to look like it resides in a seperate reality to the version in which 'this' is suffixed with 'situation in one piece and/or with dry underwear'.)

"...You're pretty skilled," he says weakly, cursing the fact that he doesn't have VADER ~~and her MISSILES~~.

It fills the time until he can think of another excuse. Dammit, brain, why did you not spend less time on quantum mechanics and more on practicing generating excuses?

"It's been said."

That smile, on the other hand, is actually quite familiar.

It seems that intervening decade hasn't wrought a great many changes on how this man responds to compliments.

Well, except for the fact that the embarrassment is gone.

Bet you never thought you'd be missing Gabe's self-deprecation, eh, Stevie?

"Now about that meeting...?"

He will never complain about the self-depreciation ever again, not even in jest. He will hug it and love it and cherish it like a cherishable thing. The pride without the adorable frostings of embarrassment and gratitude and, well, Gabrielness is like breaking some raw eggs into a bowl and expecting it to be a cake.

The excuse generator has apparently come into work with a hangover. It will be disciplined later. For now, Sylar, say hi to Stevie being a big brave boy.

"I'd -- rather you didn't."

ARE YOU GOING TO KILL HIM NOW.

"Why not?"

It's polite, in the way that the circling of a shark who awaits the correct moment to eat you is polite.

It's curious, in the way that a cat wondering if this swat will break the mouse's neck is curious.

Shiny, futuristic and energy-efficient it may be, but Steve's jetpack doesn't have a great deal to offer in the way of speed. It's no tortoise, but neither will it win any races. (Well, back home, he also had a bloody jet.) Guess what manufacturing decision he's regretting right now?

"I don't know you," he points out. Well, he's seen enough to know that he doesn't. "And--" he invents "--Gabe might be a bit freaked out that there's two of him, eh?"

...oh, come on, who would say 'because I'm 99% sure you're a dangerous criminal'?

Stephen, your heartbeat says you're not being straight with Sylar here.

Not being straight with Sylar is a good way to get yourself killed.

"You know him, don't you? And as you so astutely realized, I am him. Therefore, you know me. Unless of course there's something you're not telling me."

Never mind that Sy's reasonably certain the version Stephen knows is from at least six years in the past.

Let it be known that he is disturbingly good at faking his younger self's cheerful, open innocence when he tries. The mask only cracks around the last five words or so.

His aptitude is really quite frightening.

Hurriedly: "Yes, but the whole point of split-off universes is that there are differences, you know, so I doubt you're exactly the same person, and who says you're not from different timelines?"

Steve continues to be bendy with Sylar!

...Oh, hang on. Shit.

"...I mean, you look older."

Backtracking Steve is backtracking.

"Your hair's..." Gesture.

Give a man enough rope, or so the saying goes.