Sylar watched the Texas scenery pass by as Maya drove, clearly under the speed limit so as not to alert more police. Everything looked pretty much the same in this part of the country; dirt, desert, a few cacti and other cars sharing the road. They were going to be in New York in a few scant days.
Then Sylar would meet up with Mohinder one last time and force the geneticist to fix him. And Maya would get her cure, or if not, he could always kill her. He doubted Alejandro would even make it that far before Sylar murdered him. Things were looking up for the trio, all the pieces clicking together like clockwork.
Right then, as yet another truck passed them due to Maya's extremely slow driving, all motion and movement came to a halt. Their own engine stopped along with all of the others on the road. A bird hung in the air, frozen as if in a still frame. A lone tumbleweed paused in its course along the dirt road.
As Alejandro leaned up into the front of the car, speaking in hushed but frantic tones with Maya, Sylar looked up and down the road. What the hell was going on? He'd met an Asian a few months back, a foolish, almost infantile, man who could make all time come to a complete halt. Sylar had killed him in Kirby Plaza though, or at least that's what he assumed.
"No se, Alejandro," Maya seemed ready to burst into tears, the black death kind, as she argued with her increasingly persistent brother. She was like an animal, caged and frightened. Backed up into a corner, there was no telling what she would do. Her hands hit the steering wheel in-sync, all the anger she had towards her brother exploding in a long string of Spanish words Sylar couldn't comprehend, "Yo tampoco sé lo que está pasando aquí Alejandro. ¡Por favor deja de gritarme!"
Not wanting to be near Maya when she hit critical meltdown and all the more curious about why the world had suddenly ceased to turn, Sylar exited the car tentatively. As curious as he was, there were times when subtlety was important.
All around him, things were frozen in time and space, stuck in place by some unknown power. This ability could be useful to him if Sylar could ever find a way to take on special powers again. The damage he could do to people if they would just stop screaming and running whenever he came to collect their lives. Though, he admitted, that would ruin all the fun.
"Does this happen often in America?" Maya joined him on the road. He wasn't sure if that was supposed to be a joke or just her plain stupid naivety. She seemed calmer, more at ease but he knew that wouldn't last long. Not here. Not amongst this craziness.
The back of her neck, the place where the base of her head encapsulated her beautiful brain, dripped with tiny unmoving sweat buds. Sylar shook his head, surprised he was even thinking of her that way.
Alejandro joined them a moment later, ruining the moment between them. Sylar sighed; it was the story of his life, to always be so close and yet cut off too soon. Her brother placed a hand on Maya's shoulder, offering her some sort of comfort and stealing just a little for himself. He whispered into Maya's ear and she nodded.
"What should we do now, Gabriel?" Her eyes, those innocent, beautiful eyes glanced up at him. She idolized him, seeing him as some sort of a hero. In that moment, he wanted to be that for her and knew it could never be. He was what he was and eventually she would find that out.
"The car won't work." Sylar carefully thought out their options, assuming the leadership role which Maya so often cast him into. It came naturally to him; he could see how things fit, which pieces to move to get them towards their goal. As an added benefit, whenever she attempted to give him that power, it annoyed Alejandro. "And neither will any of these others--"
A quick once-over of the other cars and trucks, oddly enough quite a few of them were Nissans, proved Sylar's point. All modes of transportation had been cut off. At least the three of them weren't stuck in place, as the other travelers were, unable to move as time stood still. Though, maybe that was better for them, they might not even realize a lapse in time when they awoke.
"We still have to get to New York. It's a couple thousand miles in," Sylar looked up at the sun before pointing down the road, "That direction."
"We could walk. Me and Alejandro walked all the way from Honduras to Mexico." As Maya said his name, Alejandro picked his head up, standing a bit taller even though he had no idea what she had said. She wasn't giving in to defeat, steadfastly determined to make it to see her doctor and get her cure.
It was something Sylar admired in her. Among other talents of hers.
Though he remembered walking through Central America, after leaving Candice's corpse rotting in that tiny shack in the tropical wilderness. For three days straight, he'd walked without food or water, eventually collapsing in the middle of a road in Mexico. He really didn't want to go through that again.
Nevertheless, he couldn't say no. Not to her pleading eyes or the desire for power that burned inside him. With a nod, Sylar agreed. "I guess it's settled then. We'll keep walking. Maybe we'll find a place with a working--" he was about to say something ordinary, like 'phone' or 'car' but as he glanced around he amended that statement. "..timeline."
It took an hour but they eventually made it to a place with some movement. Maya grabbed for his hand, as they came across a line of a hundred or more people, all carrying signs with 'Strike' written across them. Sylar smiled as he squeezed her hand, amused by the way Alejandro grit his teeth as they touched.
"What are they doing? What is this.. strike?"
"I'm not sure." Sylar replied, just as confused as she was about this new development. He wouldn't let it show though. Controlling his emotions came easier as he moved into action. "Let's get closer."
Alejandro trailed behind, like the little brother who always tagged along. Maya was slowly deposing him in their family hierarchy.
The commotion was caused by several people marching back and forth across the road, barring all traffic passing through that way. A picket line, Sylar realized, as he watched them angrily chanting, "No contract, no peace, no show! No contract, no peace, no show!"
Several people from this picket line were wearing shirts that said 'writer' on their backs, others were coming up to hand out flyer to them. One of the picketers handed him a flyer, outlining the multiple failures of the television networks to meet their demands. "This is the last thing we will write until talks resume and our contract is assured."
"A..huh," Sylar gave him the once over, still confused over this act of protest. "So, what does this have to do with us again? And what did you do to the rest of the world?"
Maya nodded and Alejandro leaned in to whisper questions in her ear. She repeated what the striker had said back to him in Spanish.
"We put down our pen and several worlds stopped. We're sorry it had to come to this but the networks are refusing to give us an honest share of what they make through DVD and Internet downloads. They've also refused to pay new fees for the extra stuff we write for the Internet, cell phones and other digital formats."
"I feel for you, really," Sylar sarcastically argued, his muscles growing tense and preparing for a fight. This was delaying their progress, an unfortunate delay in the middle of what was turning into a prosperous journey. "But we need to get to New York City, so if you'll just let us cross--"
"Sorry," The striker stood up against the taller man, strong in their position and unyielding in their stance. "I can't let you do that. No one's moving anywhere in this universe until we get our fair cut of the money. Maybe next year--"
"Next year?!" Sylar shouted back at him. He couldn't wait a whole damn year to get his powers back and return to New York and find Mohinder again. He needed to know what the future held for him now. "You've got to be kidding me. What the hell are we supposed to do until next year?!"
"There is always fanfic," The striker whispered to him, secretly.
Sylar had the distinct impression that the other striker's wouldn't want him talking about that. The idea detested him though. "You mean, where people slash me into having random gay orgies through horribly grammatically incorrect prose?" He rolled his eyes, "You've got any better ideas?"
The striker looked at Maya and then back to Sylar, trying to come up with a solution. After a moment, a solution came to him. "Well, you could always go have some fun with each other." He elbowed Sylar, sharing a wink with Maya. "Spend a few months getting to know each other while the writers and network executives figure some of this legal stuff out."
Maya's eyebrows shot up, making her seem all the more innocent. Sylar smirked as she said something to an awaiting Alejandro, wondering how much of the truth she would tell him. As he shrugged with a comfortable ease, Sylar was positive she didn't tell him much of it. After a moment he kissed her on the cheek and replied, "Voy a ver que es eso de 'slash'. Nos vemos en un par meses cuando yo sea un hombre."
For the first time during their whole trip together, Sylar saw the other man happy. Extremely happy. He didn't know what Maya said to him, but it seemed to have changed this other man's attitude instantly. Relieved to have some time alone with Maya, he was still a bit nervous about letting the other man out of his sight. Maya's gifts weren't as useful if he didn't have Alejandro around to shut down the waterworks. "Where is he going?"
Maya blinked. This whole situation was a bit strange for her and no matter how much she fought against the tide, she was getting in over her head. "He.. he said he will meet up with us in a few months. He is going to go enjoy some slash."
"Enjoy? I don't think that's possible." Sylar smirked but let the other man go. Alejandro would be back soon enough, after he had discovered that the world of slash was a dark, scary place to be. To put yourself in the hands of some writer, to have your innocence torn from you and things shoved into your butt that really shouldn't be there in the first place, Sylar was evil but that was just cruel. "Speaking of enjoying the moment, perhaps we should go find a place to do that ourselves."
Before taking his offered hand, Maya smiled to the striker as they returned to the picketline. With a childlike exuberance, she waved to him, "I hope you get what you want. Good luck!"
Sylar shook his head at her simple charm. It was almost a shame he would take that innocence from her in the future, murdering her for those wonderful powers and stealing such sweetness from the world.
For now though, they left to go enjoy the world as it lay dormant.
Stuck like this, Sylar could be her hero, never showing another face other than sympathetic, angelic Gabriel to her. She would never see what would happen when they got to Dr. Suresh's apartment, never witness how gruesomely he was going to murder the son of the great author. He could be her savior, something to cling to while in the land of the almost-dead. And she would never have to grow up, never again have to murder another soul with her curse, never live through the pain he would cause her and her brother.
Only in this moment between time, this space between what was and what would be, could they be together. It was time to stop and smell the roses.
-End-
TRANSLATIONS:
No se, Alejandro. Yo tampoco sé lo que está pasando aquí Alejandro. ¡Por favor deja de gritarme! - I don't know, Alejandro. I don't know what's going on here either, Alejandro. Please stop yelling at me!
Voy a ver que es eso de 'slash'. Nos vemos en un par meses cuando yo sea un hombre. - I'm going to go check out this 'slash' thing. I'll see you in a few months when I have become a man.