Title: Future Perfect
Disclaimers: I don't own any supernatural powers or anything else to do with Heroes. If I had, the series would continue, no matter what.
Genre: angst, supernatural, with connotations of romance. Hints of sickfic and hurt/comfort.
Rating: PG-15, in upcoming chapters, probably.
Summary/Set: A distant time and land, a long way away. Noah is curious what happens long after he's gone, especially as far as his precious Clairebear is concerned.
Pairing: I'm writing it, so it's Sylaire. Also Paire and Syelle. How, you'll see. Reference to Noren.
Note: inspired by Vespaer's brilliance and Far Distant Futures. Some of the concepts I use come from there.
Hiro did not promise anything. Nor how the place Noah arrived would look like, nor that the aged company agent will ever be able to go back to his own present, but Noah Bennet did not care. In his world, he was dying anyway, told he had a few weeks to live perhaps, with nobody around to care. The horn rimmed glasses stuck with him, but none of his family did, friends he didn't have and Lauren was long gone. Noah was seventy two years old and have not talked to his daughter for most of the last twenty. She would've come to see him under the circumstances for sure, if he'd left her a message that he's to die soon. Except he would never do that to her, to both of them actually. What good would that do, it'd just make them hurt them unnecessarily.
Instead, he intended to do a little spying. It was his style, it made him more comfortable with its prospects. So with the little contacts he had left, he traced down Hiro and asked him to send him roughly a thousand years into the future, to a location that was close to Claire.
Super Hiro told him however that while he had perfected his ability over the last couple of decades and felt more like the master of time and space than ever before, he could transport Noah without having to go himself with him, but could not be sure a given person will be present at where he sends him. What he feels when trying to find a place to transport to, is a strong connection that has a pull towards the searched for person, but might not necessarily be her or him.
So Hiro gave Noah a handshake and a hug that made them feel weird and raised his hand for a good bye with a silly grin that could not overshadow the sadness in his eyes till he lastly blinked the old man away to a cold and unfriendly planet the Japanese man himself had no desire to witness, nor experience.
The plane the ex agent was standing on was a blackened, arid surface, with puffs of smoke stemming from the dusty ground as if they were large bushes of ash, casting menacing shadows on the grey dominated scenery, with reddish brown clouds marring the dreary skies above. Driven by the natural instinct of a hunter that told him danger was afoot, Noah looked around for shelter even before the beams of multicoloured rays of light appeared, covering a great percentage of the ground in front of him and burning the lingering or perhaps newly sprung up flora, akin to moss, to cinders. The projectiles coming from above spread meticulously in every direction and it became obvious to Noah that even if he could find shelter, that would also be scorched with him under it, no matter what he did. The realization hit him just half a moment before he could grasp that even though he could see no ice, snow, or any indication of a vaguely arctic scenery, the chill in the atmosphere was starting to make his fingers freeze stiff and the only reason his lungs did not do the same was that there did not seem to be any air to be breathed in at all.
Well, that at least should save him from a slow and torturesome death, he concluded without much sentiment attached to the thought. His life was over a long time ago, three times over, when he lost his first wife, when his children and ex wife shunned him, when he could not save Lauren from the rage of a heroin lord she was to capture in Nicaragua. He had nothing to lose, bar for a few minutes of being able to observe an unquestionably different Claire, who he could not be sure would even remember what happened a thousand years ago or so. As pain was building up in his chest and spread outwards, his legs buckled by themselves and he would've let his eyes drift closed as well if not for the astounded, yet gruff voice he would've recognised anywhere, his arch enemy's. "What the freaking hell?"
Sylar lifted him up telekinetically like a rag doll and pulled him quickly over to himself from about fifty yards away till his face was as close to the other man's that the killer's breath misted his glasses. His breath! Noah took a deep, well needed gulp of air despite himself while Sylar scrutinized him to the last detail, not minding that the moving light rays near enough touched the top of their heads.
"Bennet. Is that really you?" Sylar cocked his head in much the same manner he'd always do, looking much the same as when the agent first captured him, although certain lines of tiredness and world-weariness seemed to have been etched onto his face. Or was it just the awkward lighting?
Noah nodded halfheartedly, taking in his surroundings with some amount of purpose once again. Being with Sylar was a far cry from where he had wanted to be and he couldn't quite follow how Hiro's ability of placing him into a location with a strong connection to Claire worked in this case, but he was convinced he would not get an immediate answer as Sylar himself seemed preoccupied with the projectiles that came their way.
The ex agent ducked on instinct once more, his palms touching the ground, unnecessarily, given that Sylar appeared to have created a protective bubble around themselves that made the dangerous beams bounce off. At the same time, in a whirlwind of events that occurred in a matter of seconds from him arriving to this time and place, Noah became aware that he could use his fingers all right, in fact he could use every part of his body. His surprise must've been showing on his features, since Sylar went into the trouble of explaining the situation, despite the attack they were under.
"There is heat on the side of the planet that is turned to its two suns as opposed to this side that only ever has the benefit of one distant one. I'm telekinetically drawing heated air around us from there." Apparently he could go into lengthy explanations as his protective shield was doing the work for him by itself.
"Air?" Noah echoed, sounding a little lost, more so than his reputation in his younger years would've allowed. How was it that previously he could not breathe?
"The planet has a thin atmosphere, but I can draw oxygen close to us in higher densities with the same ability," Sylar grabbed hold of the older man's arms standing face to face with him. His grip didn't seem rough, it was more like a solicitous and confidential gesture, "if not the whole surface gets burnt they will eventually realize someone's deterring the projectiles. We need to go. Hold on to my neck," was as much as Sylar took the bother to elucidate him with before lifting him off the ground and turning so that Noah could sit on his back. The ex agent only wondered a little as to why, till the evolved human stepped out onto the burnt vegetation, making the soles of his sandals immediately catch fire.
Sylar did not give it any importance, his job was to run as quickly as possible while maintaining enough air and temperature around them necessary for keeping them, or better said keeping Noah Bennet alive. His feet healed by themselves anyway, and then they healed again and again, till they didn't have to. The ex agent watched as the bottom of future Sylar's trousers extended and eventually formed thick boots on his legs, ones that could not go up in fire that easily. It was some sort of adapting regenerating mechanism and since the material it was made from was unlike anything he ever touched, Noah assumed it was an invention of the future and had nothing to do with the original cell regeneration ability of certain people. He had time enough to ponder, his transporter on two legs had been running for quite a while with him on his back.
Talking they didn't do, it would've been quite difficult given the circumstances. Sylar was occupied with advancing and using his abilities in a few different ways at the same time, and Noah was busy hanging on. He had started to feel cold again after a while, but assumed it was because he was not moving his muscles much. However, when the man carrying him gave little shudders a couple of times and stumbled a few, the time traveller had to speculate about whether Sylar's powers were waning under the constant and elongated pressure of an unknown enemy's unremitting assail. And for what crimes? The glasses wearing man couldn't stop himself from wondering.
By the way the serial killer's newly formed boots sounded on the ground, the surface became harder and it was not long before it was starting to give a clinking sound, as if it was metal. Even with the thin atmosphere, a deafening wind picked up some up the low and so far remaining vegetation and swirled the crawling bushes around, threatening to hit them in the head. The scenery changed once more and became dotted with stalactite like stone structures, denser and denser till Sylar had to go around them. Suddenly the ground dropped out from under them and they began to fall and getting detached from each other.
Stone walls around them, rocks at the bottom, the flashes of projectiles continuing above them in a colourful fashion and none of it worried Noah. He's always taken the life of an agent with a certain blasé attitude and it would've been ridiculously unlikely ending up crushed on rocks if he got this far.
They landed softly, presumably due to Sylar, or perhaps the planet's gravity was less considerable than what he was used to. Looking around, Noah determined they were in some sort of chamber, or room, when the ceiling started to close over from two sides.
"Now comes the hard part," Sylar commented and waved a finger at him, depositing the old man in a chair with straps that went around him automatically right before the room moved and the shuttle, plane or whatever they were in started to ascend quickly.
Soon, Noah understood what his once partner meant by the comment. Sylar had to produce a protective shield not just around them, but their transport vessel as well. Through the only window ahead, the aged agent spotted their attackers. Perhaps about a dozen planet size space ships, with all their weapons now trained on them as they turned to face Sylar's small space craft.
Noah recognized no equipment on board, but he was sure there shouldn't be as much smoke, or burning smell..the constricting sensation in his chest returned. There was no oxygen.
Tbc