Title: Cognition
Disclaimers: I don't own any superhuman abilities or anything else to do with Heroes.
Genre: humor/angst. A couple of drabbles possibly shorter than the description leading up to them. That's all I have time for these days.
Rating: nothing you should hide from.
Summary: Sylar gains understanding of the power given to him by some of the abilities he stole.
Set: some time in Sylar's long future.
Pairing: that'd give the story away!
It took him fifty years to realize what Simon Whittle's ability was. Sylar hunted down almost every man and woman who's name had been on the list of people with special abilities that he had once stole from Primatech and he had to admit, some of them had such trivial powers he wondered himself why his hunger bothered collecting them. Sometimes he'd pick some brains, sense the presence of an ability and would replicate it in his head, taking on a superhuman ability he didn't even know the exact quality of.
There were a couple of occasions where he never found out what the particular ability was for, or what it could be used for. And then there was the case of Whittle.
With always a lot of family members around, it was hard to corner the evolved human. But somehow it didn't click with him. Not when seeing Whittle's busy schedule, not when seeing his precarious economic situation, not when hearing that annoying child laughter.
Sylar did not have many ladies in his life. If we disregard Gabriel's pathetic joke of a nerd girlfriend in high school, there was only Elle, Claire and the occasional one night stand or hooker, a few times every decade or so when he happened to feel like it.
So he excused himself that it was not surprising it took him that long to figure out that no matter the woman, or the form of contraception used, he will end up with a child every time, courtesy of an ability he picked up several decades ago. Superhuman fertility.
Could be about twenty and counting. Twenty little Sylar's running about the planet. Not good...
tbc (should be another version coming up)