A/N: *Whimper* Don't maim me. Anyone noticing a pattern with these chapter beginnings? ;P


Red sunset's light seeped across the broken glass that gleamed upon the carpet like some kind of macabre confetti. It had been several hours since the manifested movie character had surpassed the horizon and Sylar was beginning to loathe how much he had relied on the power that had been taken. Even if it weren't for the fact that he was writing the story and himself within it, he would still have suspected that Jack would head for the ocean. Yet, without the means to fly and considering the vastness of the body of water, there was little point wasting time on the search. He would get the pirate back soon enough. If Sylar remembered correctly, which, considering the enhanced memory capability he had acquired from Ms Andrews in the diner, he did, Jack possessed a compass that could lead him to the thing he most wanted. Feasibly, anything Sparrow could ever want, now that he knew he had been written, would be provided by the girl, the Author. He would head for her.

Sylar swept up the glass with a dustpan and brush, appreciating the pieces in their deadly beauty. He took his time putting the apartment in order. There was no rush. Soon they would both be here and he wouldn't have to do so much as step outside. All that was required was a succession of bait.

It wasn't particularly clever, and it was sure to be tacky, but she wouldn't be able to resist. And so, the watchmaker sat back in his armchair and closed his eyes to avoid the nausea that the world was sure to cause him over the course of the story's next few sentences…

Sila woz bord so he desided 2 wotch sum tv bcoz even supavilluns need 2 relax he diddunt hav his tellykn- telka- ablitee 2 move things ne mor so he woz anoid & cudden b bovvad 2 find da remoat…

That was enough. It had only taken the first word, really (wow, was she a stickler…) but he had continued long enough, not only for her to burst through the window-space, but to be sufficiently knotted in agony on the apartment floor. Sylar's eyes snapped open. He smirked at the writhing Author.

"I'm touched you care so much for my integrity. You turned out to be more pedantic than I expected. I hadn't even gotten around to misplaced apostrophes."

The Author moaned in exhausted fury and tried to reach out for him with a clawing hand. Sylar seized her arm, wrenched it behind her back and dragged her upright.

"I expected better of you, too," she hissed. "Resorting to butchering the art of language. Pfft."

"For you, words speak louder than actions, which is exactly why you got yourself into this mess in the first place." Sylar spun her around to face him and drew his hand up like a poised cobra. She froze, transfixed under his marionette spell. He walked her around and guided her into the armchair that he had vacated. Keeping her entranced, he backed off until he reached the sofa. His free hand snatched up the roll of tape he had set aside for her arrival and he began to secure her. "Stupid girl, didn't you realise what the consequences would be? Writing a character with such a capacity for awareness, and worse still, a character that wasn't even yours to begin with? You lost control." The tape buzzed harshly as he finished binding her to the chair. "You were playing games out of your depth and you…quite simply…lost." He placed his hands on the arms of the chair and leaned over her, eyes gloating and fierce.

"Hypocrite," she said. "You're writing the story now, so you tell me how easy it is to keep a character in line."

Sylar's cool withered at the edges. He said nothing.

"You've tried governing your own actions," she continued, "and you can change the little things, but you're as trapped as I am. You could have given yourself any ability you could think of, just by writing in a poor excuse, if you even wanted to bother with one, but you wouldn't do that. Where would the sense of progression come from? What would happen to the point of your existence when there's nothing left to attain? Yet, what about the things that you could do: change the genre, live out your fantasies, ensure that there was no way you could ever be stopped…?"

The watchmaker stepped back. "I won't be."

The Author smiled wryly. "What about Jack?"

Sylar sneered. "Are you implying that an incompetent antihero from an idealized fiction, designed mostly to keep kids entertained and make women fall over themselves, is a match for me?"

"I'm implying you shouldn't underestimate him."

"I'm writing him."

Her eyes shone with impending triumph. "So where is he?"

Sylar bared his teeth.

"You can't plan out his every move," the Author stated. "You can't write 'everything'. Writers create, readers imagine, characters…live. They run away from you. Sooner or later, the story writes itself."

He paced the room, trying to contain his agitation. "I should understand this. I took your ability. I need to fix it, make the story listen."

"We're not in a timepiece, Sylar. There are too many ways this can go and there's only one way to fix a watch. You're not contending with something that is broken."

"It's incomplete -."

"That's not the same thing."

"I've always been able to fine-tune abilities, to make them perfect," he muttered. Realisation crossed his features. "But there's no such thing as a perfect story."

"Bingo," she whispered.

Sylar looked at the restrained Author shrewdly. "That still doesn't mean your pathetic rendition of a pirate can stop me." Her smirking response caused his nostrils to flare. "You gave him a few abilities, fine. That makes it more challenging. He can fly and he can steal one power at a time if I get too close. More of a Petrelli brothers combo. As for the resistance to fatal damage from abilities – if I haven't managed to undo that already – I'll just kill him with my bare hands. There's nothing impressive about him."

She grinned. "If you say so."

His temper boiled over; the coffee table was forced to kamikaze against the wall after being snatched up in his hands.

The Author pouted. "That thing's had a tough day."

Sylar whirled on her, tendrils of white-blue light beginning to make tesla coils out of his arms. Without his telekinesis to vent his anger upon inanimate objects, it was between electric and nuclear. The latter was a waste.

"I am better than him!" he yelled. The ceiling lamp stuttered uncontrollably. "I have power; I have depth; I have style… I am real." The childish bitterness clung to his tone. "I can be anything anyone desires. Anything I desire. I am a lone future."

The Author squinted against the blinding surges. She shouted over the crackling air, "And none of it matters! You both have identity issues. You're both determined to have one big pissing contest with the rest of the world. It doesn't matter if you storm in and take it all on as you do, or if you bounce around aimlessly like him. It's about territory, it's about proving yourself to everyone that's ever known you or that ever will know you, it's about freedom and, you might as well face it, it's about sex."

Sylar's current fizzled out. "That's bleak, even for you."

"That's the nutshell," she said. "Are you done getting me to talk about the psychology of the human condition or can we get to the fighting now?"

He snorted. "You're gonna fight me strapped to a chair?" He caught the sound of another heartbeat too late.

"Much as I'd love to see that, mate, I'm inclined to wager she meant me."

Jack, hovering in the open doorway to silence his footfalls, splayed his palm towards Sylar. With a deft flip of the pirate's hand, the watchmaker was thrown upward and pinned to the ceiling. Sylar struggled, desperate to free a hand to retaliate, but it was futile. Sparrow dropped into a walk and made for the Author who smiled up at him expectantly. The hand that was not holding Sylar in place reached towards her bonds. The end of the tape quivered. The Captain hesitated. She gave him a puzzled frown.

Jack looked to Sylar and back to her. "Make me like 'im," he said.

"What?"

"I want to do what he can. Not to use it for anyfing bad, just…to ensure I can do what I want. I won't 'arm anyone what doesn't attack me first. I'll live as I always 'ave done but with a few extra tricks up me sleeve. Make me the immortal Captain Jack Sparrow. That's all I ask, and I'll get you out."

She bit her lip. "No."

"Why not?"

"I want you to achieve immortality, Jack, don't get me wrong, but you have to find it yourself."

Sylar sniggered. Sparrow pouted momentarily. Then he drew his sword. He put the point to her chest, uncertainty in his face, and murmured, "Then I ain't askin'. I don't like 'urting people, especially not young lasses, but I want to survive."

"You're talking to the wrong person, Captain. She's not in a position to write anyone's destiny." Sylar smirked. "But I am." He yelled without forming words and let out a stream of sonic waves that knocked Jack off his feet. The watchmaker fell to the carpet.

Jack got up only to be puppeteered into surrender. Sylar picked up the discarded sword and beckoned to the pirate. Sparrow whimpered as his disobedient feet carried him towards the waiting psychopath.

"That bandanna's gonna have to hold more than your hair in place, Jack. I don't think it's up to the task." Sylar swung back the sword, ready to strike.

At the last possible moment, the Author slipped a trainer to the end of her toes and kicked out. The shoe clubbed the watchmaker between the shoulder blades, interrupting his action. Jack grabbed for the sword, snatching at Sylar's wrist. The watchmaker gritted his teeth and tried to prise away Jack's grip. Sparrow gasped as his hand filled with the unfathomable pain of burning cold, the surface of the skin frosting over. He cried out and let go, but Sylar kept hold of him. Sylar gave one last murderous glance before he drove the cutlass point through Sparrow's chest.

Jack gasped soundlessly for the air that no longer coursed through his brain and the blood that lay dormant throughout his system of fleshy belief. He collapsed, his kohl-rimmed eyes dulling, his skin paling, until at last he lay still.

Sylar held up his hands as they glistened wetly with the pirate's blood. He grinned at the Author, whose distress delighted him, and approached her.

"Now can you see how much better I am? I understand the hurt, the loss, the faith you had in him, but now you can invest in me. Let me be your obsession. Idolise me, make me a god in this image, keep writing me; write only me. Write my existence until your last breath is your belief in me. Tell me…" He sank to his knees before her, half triumphant, half pleading, fully crazed. "Tell me I'm special."

At first it seemed she would cry. Tears flecked her bottom lashes and she trembled. Then came the laughter. Bitter, wild laughter that struck Sylar to the core, the kind of laughter he had heard when he had tried to argue that he would ever amount to anything when he grew up. The kind that upset the cogs in his beautifully, perfectly, crafted watches because it didn't appreciate the little things. He was good with little things. Why did people only ever want the big stuff to happen?

In fury he brought his index finger up to point at her forehead. There was only the smallest fraction of time between the end of laughter and the dawn of screaming. Blood trickled at her hairline just above the temple.

Sylar stopped. The return of his telekinesis, the power he had first stolen, spurred his creativity. Wordlessly, he stood and turned. He slid the skewered Sparrow across the carpet with a gesture of his hand and let him come to rest at the Author's feet.

"This isn't the kind of theatre I had in mind to take you to," Sylar quipped. "But the show's good enough for me. You're not squeamish, are you?"

She looked up at him, groggy with pain and horror. Her lips parted to utter some semblance of a syllable, but he snapped the beak of his fingers and thumb together, clamping her mouth shut.

"Sshh. The curtain's going up." Sylar patted her hand, leaving behind a bloody imprint. "Are you sitting comfortably?" He touched the arm of the chair. Little by little the soft texture of the armchair solidified into pure gold. The Author flinched at the cold surface.

Sylar cast his hand out towards the dead pirate and willed the sword to withdraw. It rose into the air, gleaming red. Under his direction, the cutlass drifted into the space above Jack's head, the blade's edge aligned horizontally with his brow. The watchmaker coiled his bloody fingers about a lock of the Author's hair and tucked it behind her ear. Holding the sword poised for its gruesome surgery, he leaned in to whisper.

"It's time to see just how precious Jack Sparrow really is…"