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There's a flash and a bang and a very confused man with ridiculous hair appears, hovering a few feet above the rubble of a destroyed parking lot.

Hey, when you can cast illusions, you don't need a comb.

"...The hell?" Sylar starts to say, and before he's quite done with the sentence it's President Nathan Petrelli who's making the quizzical exclamation to empty air, settling gently to the ground.

You can never be too careful.

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And Sylar is not getting impatient!

Yet.

...Steve, you're not going to like this, but Sylar has another one of those looks on that's familiarly Gabrielesque only a thousand times less telegraphed.

From Gabriel, it's quite a flattering look.

From this man...

Well. At least you can be fairly sure Gabe's taste isn't going to change in the next decade?

When Steve glances uncomfortably back (he's doing it a lot; one would even imagine that he does not entirely trust Sylar!), he does a midair double-take. This is an entertaining manouvere which involves a momentary swerve to the side as the head is unthinkingly turned too far into the slipstream in the name of confirming that yes, that's the face he's wearing.

...Um. He's just going to get back on course and wonder whether to be immensely disturbed.

It's at about this point that Sylar cottons on to the fact that Stephen has been recognizing his subtle mood shifts this whole time.

Surprisingly, he laughs.

A few things are starting to come together here.

"So when you say you know the younger me...?"

For all it's delivered lightly, the don't bullshit me on this one is a strongly implied undercurrent.

Sylar wants to know.

Ah. That's what they call an academic question.

Steve's shifty-eyes are lost on the birds.

...for obvious reasons, he'd rather announce this to everyone back home through a tannoy from the school roof than to the guy flying behind him, but the undercurrent is quite clear and he's already pushing his luck with this decoy.

"...We, uh..."

His ankles just tangled, Sy. There's your answer.

Ever heard Gabriel giggle?

Yes you have.

So the sound coming from behind you should be really quite familiar.

D'aww. Gabe has a boyfriend. How cute.

Okay, Steve is officially through the looking-glass here. He's pirouetting in midair just to remind his stupid brain exactly who it is that's soaring along behind him.

The narration admits to the possibility that Sylar may freak him out a little.

This narration cheerfully proclaims that at least he's still got his shirt on.

And really, the whole "black trenchcoat" bit is a clue.

God, Steve wants out of here. (This may have been mentioned before.)

At least, perhaps, temporary escape can be found in this way: "I'm going to go a little higher, and see if I can spot the city from there," he says clearly, before starting to cautiously ascend. It's the tiptoeing attitude that he's seen adopted by policemen in documentaries, where they have to deal with armed hostage-takers, and treat them as if they might go off at any second.

...Maybe that was an unfortunate analogy. He really doesn't want to start thinking about hostages, not in this situation.

Might go off at any second, eh?

*ahem*

Sylar is a showoff. (This may have been mentioned before.)

That's why he's suddenly nowhere to be found-- no, wait. Up there. That little black dot.

Mmm, farsightedness. So useful.

~~QUIET YOU.~~

Stephen suffers a fair amount of distress when he realises where Sylar's gone, because if the man is able to see Metropolis (and from that far up, it should be as easy as finding it on a map) from up there, then it logically follows that a little way in the other direction he should be able to see the Cooper farm.

Though perhaps it's not so bad as all that -- it's not like the farm has a flashing neon sign reading 'GABRIEL LIVES HERE' hanging over it. (Though it does have the skyscraper-ship-fort. And Steve wouldn't put it past the mad intellect behind it to make it glow at some point.)

"Hey!" he yells, rising more swiftly, though he hardly expects to be heard at this distance.

And just like that, Sylar drops down beside him again.

Mildly: "You needn't shout. Yes?"

@_@, goes Steve.

This version of Gabriel is a regular grab-bag of tricks, it would seem.

"...wait for me?" he says weakly, though it's rather pointless now.

(It wasn't what he was going to say, but seeing as he doesn't know what he was going to say, that will have to do.)

"Did you see -- the city?"

"Looks like it's this way."

He heads off.

There he goes! Gosh that man is fast. Sorry, Steve.

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