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Disclaimer: Heroes is propert of NBC and Tim Kring. No copyright infringement intended. Dooms Day is property of Gackt, who I would own if I could, but I can't so I don't. I'm poor; you harass me, you get squat. So go harass someone else.
AU Future Fic, centric on Sylar (or as I tend to refer to him, Sylar Gray). Inspired by the song and lyrics of Doomsday by Gackt, the story is set in a futuristic AU, New York; seventeen years after the present series, and features the pairing between Sylar and another, surprise, Heroes character. Like the song, I intend for the story to be very angsty, and full of retrograde, retrospect, instrospect, thoughts and views concerning both characters, and most probably (no promises) it may involve suicide and/or blood-letting. Still, tell me what you think if you have any ideas. This is one that'll probably take me too long to update, so any inspiration may be welcome.
Dooms Day
He stumbled into the alley, the wound in his side eating away at his consciousness. Rats went scurrying at the sound of his feet, avoiding the sudden intruder with swift, tiny legs. He sneered, stomping loudly just to stir them up a tad bit more. And like a bad one-night stand, obsessive and scorned, the wound flared up and burned his entire right side.
Fuck, he thought. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
The bartender deserved it, he argued in his head. All he wanted was another whiskey. Instead the idiot went screaming 'El Diablo!!' over and over again, while nearby patrol officers - who were bored out of their minds at the lack of action these days - were painstakingly chomping down on day-old doughnut looking crap (seriously, the stuff tasted like dried toilet paper), while downing fuckin' charcoal water the diner was claiming to be coffee. He was paying goodwill dues at first, polite and charming to the man all the way, but after that damned newsflash came on about the Goverment's latest foray into advance genetic research, and how they were getting closer to zero timeline trackers, he just lost it.
Who did those fucking, monkey-suited bastards, think they were? What the hell gives them the right to decide, that the evolutionary imperative of progression, expansion, and invasion over the lesser - the weaker species - of the natural human hierarchy, as nothing more than unimportant paperwork to write-off? What gives them the right to label THEM, those people whose genetic advancements surpassed homo-sapien, as FREAKSHOWS?
It struck a chord in his well played orchestra of lies, and without thinking, he had demanded another whiskey, although he had had seven, and - he was actually planning to leave anyway - the bartender told him to call it a night and go to bed. Rattled over what was surely rude service, he had grabbed the bartender's wrist, demanded his whiskey, after which the bartender's eyes widened and he started screaming "El Diablo!!". The two, crack-eyed officers heard the scream, and quickly apprehended him, locking both arms behind him, and pinning him to the dirty floor. He didn't really remember much - the whiskey was good whiskey - but both the officers just went flying off of him, and into the walls, and his wrists slipped out of the half locked cuffs. He stood up, giddy, and looked around.
The diners were hiding under their tables, whining like the inferior bastards they were, scared to look at him.
What, he wanted to scream. Never seen a priest drink whiskey before?
He was about to go back to asking for his well-deserved whiskey, when he felt a sharp pain rip through his side. He shouted at the top of his lungs, rage overcoming him and driving a nail into the back of his skull; he spun around ready to kill off this fuck-brained attacker.
Instead, he came face to face with a pint-sized boy, trembling on the floor, hands still clenched as if holding a knife. He looked down, and saw the handle of a bread-knife sticking out of his waist. He stared at the boy, at his school-boy haircut and bookworm rimmed glasses, at a loss because it had been years since he'd killed a child. He tried remembering, until he saw it, in the cheap eyewear the kid had hanging over his nose.
He saw the dirty, unshaven, unkempt, monster of a man. His stubbled jaw, his alcohol-burned eyes, his unstable stance, and the blood seeping through an old EndeverafteR T-shirt. He sneered immediately; now he understood why. He pulled out the knife with a hiss, and flung it as hard as he could at the bar line.
Grabbing his coat he had left, furious that his self control was compromised to the point he unconsciously dropped his illusion, and showed the entire diner that he was nothing more than another freak.
He kept his pace, avoiding the passerbys and ignorant fools. He kept his head low, trying to stop his hearing from picking up the static. He kept going; he didn't even realise he was running until he stumbled into that trashcan, and this atypical alleyway. The fucking rodents ran away from him. What? Did they dare judge him too, now? He stomped, and promptly managed to squish one with his foot. He smiled, but stopped short when the pain burned through him.
Lost for words, he slumped down in a heap, and stared into the night.
Fuck, he thought. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
She was almost running down the alleyway, wanting nothing more than to go home. Her job kept her well past lockdown, as usual, but the green card she kept in her pockets at all times proved useful in getting her through the officers working practically every turn of the city. Unfortunately, the green card was pretty much useless against the run-of-the-mill mugger or perverted stalker, so she made haste to cover the distance between the restaurant and her meager apartment.
She was already halfway down the alley when her step faltered on a rotting object. She lost balance for a moment, stumbling forward only to have the largest rat make his commune between the two rundown buildings. She shrieked, backing up immediately but only to shriek again when she nearly tripped over something else. She spun around, grabbing her bag tightly and closing her coat firmly out of some self-preservation mode she had relating to her feminine rights. She took a few steps forward, peering behind the trash cans to verify what exactly blocked her earlier on. She saw a shoe - no, wait, a foot? - that prompted her to step closer and see what was the owner of the foot.
And believe me, with the way New York was living nowadays, the question was always a 'What' rather than a 'Who.
She followed the awkward foot, up towards a leg, and eventually catching sight of the full-bodied, very dirty, and very drunk, man lying slumped against the wall. She took a deep breath, half-worried he was dead (she needed to use this same alley tomorrow morning... She was pretty sure she wasn't keen on having some junkie stink up the experience) but grabbed her chest stunned, when he quite obviously, snored. She looked down at him again, curious now. She could hear her father's voice telling her about talking to strangers, but she pushed it away. She inched closer, and had the story of ancient demons that snatch girls off the street whenever it was hungry, run through her head. She pulled back a bit, skimming through the list of 'People Who Will Miss Me When I'm Gone' in her head. She bit her lip, and decided at the moment, that there really wasn't anyone to worry about.
With that, she gathered her nerves, and bent down to feel for a pulse.
Ookay! There was one! He's alive.
She sighed in relief. Satisfied, she decided to stop this stupidity and get some well-earned sleep. She stood up, patting away the dirt and tentatively made her way out, when she heard a different kind of snore. She frowned; she'd heard that before. Once. Actually, too many times. She turned back towards the man, and saw the bloody spot on his shirt. She gasped softly, unsure of what to do. Or what anyone would think.
A girl! In the middle of the night! Standing over a bleeding man!
Oh, she knew what they'd say. That policeman's daughter! Has she learned nothing?
Well, she's learned a lot the last seventeen years. And her greatest feat remains the ability to keep her unyielding view of goodness in anyone, whether they're one of the tagged-victims, or someone like her eternally bawling co-worker, Samantha, who for the hundredth time admits she's done the unforgivable sin by sleeping with her professor. She was a good soul. That was that, really.
There was that 'snore' again. She looked down and bit her lip.
Five years ago, things got pretty bad around the city. She would if she could, but she couldn't, so she had no choice but to learn a few things during that fallout. One of them being nursing and first aid. Although those times were usually accompanied by Nicole, the ultimately cool and resourceful god-aunt she hadn't seen since the fallout, she was sure whatever the problem was, she could fix it.
Right?
She bent down and curled her arm around a weakened bicep.
Truth was, she had lost patients before, and blood still scared her. But if there was one thing her father taught her, it was that helping was always the right thing to do. So sturdying herself, she carefully hoisted up the man, and struggled through the alleyway, heading for her apartment.
The man stirred, barely dragging his feet on his own.
She managed to muse; if that was all he could do, that would be enough.
They stumbled into the modest apartment with less grace than a couple of drunk mules. She had her bag in her mouth, her keys between her fingers and her pockets, her left shoe almost falling off her foot, and her right arm numb as a nail. The man groaned every few minutes, and she half expected him to already be dead when she unceremoniously dumped him on to the couch.
He landed in an awkward position, folded over and under in ways that was so not appropriate, so she sighed and crouched down to help manouvere his limbs into place. Her hand brushed against the wound in his side, the man flinching ever so slightly. For the millionth time that night, she reminded herself that this was stupid; following that train of thought closely with another echo that persisted that what she was doing was good work. Besides, leaving the man outside in the dumps would probably increase chances of him stinking up the place tomorrow morning. The way she saw it, at least the most rational way, she was doing herself a huge favour.
"Bastards..."
She almost lept out of her shoes at the groan. Clutching her chest and her coat over her body again (she really needed to quit doing that), she backed away a few steps. The man stirred.
'Well... See. You were dying in an alley, so I decided to rescue you... Nope, no trouble. I always bring unknown, dirty, smelly, dying men home after my shift!! Nothing to worry about!'
Slow down, honey.
She inched closer, trembling a little as she hovered over the increasingly delirious patient. She noted his hard, though smooth features. His strong, well-defined chin, overgrown with stubble, and yet still the frame for finely curved, and weathered lips. His nose was proud, and his cheekbones, pedestals for his closed-eyes and their crown of brows, flared gently along his face, although rather gaunt because he looked almost skeletal. His hair was dirty, although it looked recently cut, and a pale chain hung around his neck, glimmering softly under the light of her fluorescent room. Suddenly curious, she bent forward and gently touched the chain.
"You DARE!!" he shot up, eyes snapping open and teeth gnarling at her. He grabbed her wrist, yanking her down and growling in an inhuman voice.
"You DARE!? You bastards!! I will kill you all! And your powers! ALL YOUR POWERS!! I WILL TAKE THEM ALL!!"
She gasped, the vision in her mind's eye landing on her chest, knocking the air out of her. She saw it. She saw him. It couldn't be... It couldn't! She gasped for air; this only happened when her instinct, her ability to locate led her to find the person she thought of, as being right in front of her, staring at her dead in the eye.
And he was. Alive and breathing. It couldn't be!! He was dead!
She wrenched her arm free and fell backwards, scurrying until she felt the television stand behind her. She came to a stop and breathed heavily, hands immediately reaching up to her head and feeling around for anything that could have happened. She felt her body grow cold and numb, the chills enveloping her almost smotheringly, blurring her vision and enclosing her world in shadows.
He simply swayed for a moment, before falling back onto the couch, once more unconscious. She could only stare, arms wrapping frantically around herself, tugging the coat and her own skin, tears creeping out of her eyes. She kept on sliding her feet on the wooden floor, pushing away the carpet from under her, and cried softly under her breath. She closed her eyes, the tears beginning to fall, and kept hugging her body, her nails digging deeper into her skin.
A bear. A teddy bear. She remembered hugging a teddy bear.
'Don't hurt me... Please..'
In her mind's eye, as clear as yesterday, she remembered the sight of the dark, police uniform - breaking down the doors, and telling her it was alright.
"Daddy..." she cried under her breath, faint blood staining her sleeves, where she began to bleed underneath.