Hey, guys! I know, right? Again, I rise from the dead. I LOVE doing that! *fistpump*
So, listen, what I wrote in my A/N last time was true-most of this new chapter was finished, but the fact is, I've been so busy with the semester projects and reading that I've barely even had a chance to open the file where I store this fic since then. I should be studying and composing papers right now, to be honest, but I needed a break! Fan fic is such a lovely mini-vacation, is it not? On that same note, please excuse any little mistakes in this chapter. I proof-read, but I'm well aware of how that particular skill suffers when I'm in a rush. :)
Leslie "Lestat" Laughlin, permanent insomniac, occasional partaker of blood, and voracious Sylar-enthusiast, sits in his private room in the back of Nokturna and basks in the presence of his idol. The high backs of the gothic chairs emerge like deep-violet wings from behind their shoulders as the two men sit facing each other, between them a low rectangular coffee table on which sit two goblets of scarlet wine. At least, Sylar's is wine. He fears Laughlin is taking this vampire fetish a little too seriously.
"I guess some people might say you're more zombie than vampire," Laughlin allows, staring. "But I don't see the point in arguing semantics. You're immortal, that's the point. The real deal. My god . . ."
Sylar isn't sure that's a casual turn of phrase. He has a creeping feeling that this man—this platform heel-jacked, ivory-powder pancaked, glittery man—might worship him. To say the very least, it doesn't give him the surge of satisfaction he expected from deification.
"I've followed your work for as long as I can remember," Laughlin informs him, in a tone that suggests he ought to be flattered. "Back since I was a kid. I knew even then what you were. The bodies would turn up every so often—random victims, but always that same M.O. Nobody believed me. Told me to get my head outta my ass. Guy's gotta be dead by now, they'd say. But I knew . . ."
"How did you know?"
Laughlin shrugs.
"Call it a gut instinct," he says. "I was sure our paths would cross one day—sure you'd be the death of me." He chuckles, gesturing at his makeup and flashing his fangs. "Figured I better get my immortality in while I still had the chance."
"Leslie . . ." Sylar bites his lip for a moment, drumming his fingers on the arm of the chair. He glances down and finds the uneven texture is due to a pair of gnarled hands carved into the oak. Retracting his hand uneasily, he observes, "You seem a lot more . . . um . . . comfortable with discussing your own murder than I'm used to."
"What can I say, man?" The younger man—much younger—smiles. "You fascinate me. Everything about you."
He sits forward, resting his elbows on his knees and curling his fingers together.
"Let's trade," he suggests eagerly. "What do you say, huh? A little quid pro quo? Tell me about your best time, and I'll tell you about mine." Modestly, he amends, "I mean, if you're interested."
"My best—?"
"Just tell me this, then," interrupts Laughlin. "It is in the brain, isn't it? In Activating Evolution—ha, like you need me to tell you—but Suresh wrote that it was in the brain. Then later his son said it wasn't the brain, after all, it was the blood, but I've tried it both ways, and I—"
"It's in the brain," Sylar supplies quickly, before he can elaborate. Just please, god, don't ask me if I eat it.
Laughlin sits back, satisfied.
"I thought so," he says. "I did a little tinkering, but I never got anywhere with it. 'Course, you had the means to the material, didn't you? You should've seen my first kill: some heroin-addicted hooker I found in a gutter. Talk about a fried brain. I don't think she even noticed when I started up my autopsy saw."
"How many people have you killed?" Sylar asks, genuinely curious and more than a little disturbed at the imagery the man has evoked.
Laughlin's lashes flutter downward, somewhat ashamedly.
"Oh, don't ask me that," he murmurs, but it's obvious from the small smile on his lips that he's flattered Sylar is taking an interest. "My number's embarrassing, compared to yours."
That puts things into perspective a bit. Unnerved or not, Sylar can't really judge.
"I don't even know mine anymore," Sylar admits, forcing a chuckle. Time to make friends with this weirdo and get back to New York as soon as possible. "If you really want to hear about my, um . . . best time . . ."
The other man perks up immediately. If he had the bat ears he obviously desires so much, he'd be pricking them.
"There was this girl," Sylar continues, hating every second of trying to bond with Leslie. "I mean, she was a girl. Well—" He laughs. "She's still a girl, she just grew up. So it's . . . you know, completely on the level now."
He can see he began to lose Laughlin the moment he referred to this girl in the present tense. Perhaps he made a mistake brushing over the inappropriate parts. Hey, she used to be a girl.
"Her ability," he continues, regardless, "is what I aspired to even while taking dozens—hundreds—of other lesser abilities."
"I don't understand," Laughlin interjects, shaking his head so that his blonde curls shift around his high cheekbones. "Did you kill her or didn't you?"
That's actually kind of a good question.
"It's not that easy with this girl," he replies with a vague, sardonic smirk. "I killed her, yes, but she sort of . . . shook it off her shoulder. And now she needs my help. She's the reason I'm here."
"Because of a woman?"
Laughlin looks highly skeptical. However, he must read displeasure in Sylar's features, because he puts up a hand and hastily adds:
"Hey, man, that's your business. Only this chick must be some new brand of bangable, that's all I'm saying. I mean, you killed the woman outside that nightclub back around 2030, and she was a knockout. What was her name . . ?" He looks up at the ceiling a moment, trying to remember. "Crow! That was it. I looked up her profile. Hey, what did she have, anyway? I mean aside from herpes, probably."
He laughs.
"Seduction," Sylar replies, stony-faced.
Laughlin's eyebrows shoot up. He looks intrigued, thrilled beyond words. Rapping his knuckles absently against the tabletop, he darts a few glances at the door, uncertain.
"Listen!" he blurts at last, unable to contain himself. "Let me get a girl in here, okay? I mean, I gotta see this shit. It won't take five minutes, I swear—"
He's already darting up from his chair when Sylar reaches across the table and clamps down on over his fingers. With his other hand, he plants Leslie back in his seat.
"Hey, man," Laughlin says slowly but laughingly, looking down at Sylar's hand. "I wanted to watch, you know? I'm not looking to participate."
Sylar releases his hand and his hold and sits back.
"I didn't take Alison Crow's power, Leslie."
"But you sliced her, just like the others," Laughlin reminds him, confused. "I put her on the mural. What happened, she got you so riled up you popped her top by accident?"
"Holy shit," Sylar mumbles beneath his breath. Sighing heavily, he explains, "Leslie, look . . . I'm trying to empathize with you. Um—okay. How was your home life? You didn't by any chance have a really terrible childhood, did you?"
Please?
Laughlin shrugs.
"Parents were a little suffocating," he says. "You know how they can be. Leslie, do this. Do that. Leslie, where were you last week, we almost filed a missing persons report!"
"Right. Okay. Not quite what I'm looking for. What about jobs? Did you ever have a job that made you feel—"
"I opened this club with some of the cash from my inheritance," Laughlin chuckles, amused at the very idea of menial labor. "It's the first job I've ever had." He puts out his arms. "I'm privileged, man. What can I say?"
Sylar almost wants to kill him on principle.
"Well . . ." He soldiers on valiantly, rubbing at the bridge of his nose. "Is there someone you love? Like a woman?"
Laughlin stares at him blankly.
"A man?"
Never know unless you ask.
"A dog, Leslie! Come on, you've got to give me something."
He shakes his head.
"I had a ferret once," he supplies casually, shrugging. "Shit, what was its name . . ? Sprinkles? Spr—Spritzer? I don't know, man, what do you name a ferret?"
Without inviting the image, Sylar envisions a ferret—or perhaps it's a weasel—rendered stiff via chemicals and sawdust, resting amidst its fellow victims on his father's mantel. He imagines picking it up by its tail and beating Laughlin to death with it.
"No idea," Sylar says evenly. "I never had a pet."
He flattered himself, a long lifetime ago, that Claire was a pet of sorts. Now he realizes it was the other way around, and he was probably fortunate she remained unaware for so long. He was a cast-off, not-quite-socialized dog prone to biting, but would have come crawling at her beck, pleased to be kicked if it meant she'd scratch his tummy in the midst of a better mood. Maybe it's still that way. He had it all mixed up when he explained the nature of their relationship.
"What I really wanted was a snake," Laughlin expounds. "One of those big pythons, you know? And you feed it the little mice and stuff? Good for my image, I've got three of them now. But Mom wouldn't let me have one. So I get a ferret instead, can you believe that? Anyway, I accidentally shut it up in my closet. Didn't know the damn thing was dead till I tried to put on my favorite pair of leather boots. Shit was nasty."
And with that lovely story, he reaches the end of Sylar's patience.
"Look, Leslie," he growls, still managing to reign in the urge to bash open the man's head and have done with it. His hope that a bloodless resolution will be reached is flickering like a flame at the bottom end of a wick. "I'm in kind of a grave situation here."
"Ha, is that a pun?"
"No." Okay, that's it. It's over.
"Oh, sorry."
"This girl—"
"Right, what does that have to do with me, exactly?"
"Well, Leslie, she happens to be carrying my demon-spawn right now, and unfortunately, if I don't get your ability, it's just not going to work out, so—"
"Ohhh!" Laughlin blurts, as if finally arriving at a great understanding. "I get it . . . Oh, you had me confused! It's not about her. It's you—you and the little you. Right?"
"Right." Sure. Sylar, Jr. What the hell.
"Wow . . ." Laughlin marvels at the idea of his icon's foray into the exciting world of procreation. "So, what's the plan? World domination? Come on, you can tell me."
"Yes. Yes, world domination." Yes, the plan is to laugh maniacally while his super-powered sons whip the minions into erecting the giant Sylar monuments with fewer mutinous grumbles and more jaunty tunes. "Look, Leslie, I tried to empathize with you."
Really, he did.
"And I'm terribly sorry." That's true, too—but more for Claire than Laughlin. "But there's really nothing left for me to do except . . . Well, you know."
Rather than throwing his arms up to shield his head or making a pitiful attempt at escape, Laughlin smiles and makes a brief gesture as if to say, Forget about it.
"It's all right," the young man assures him. He rises from his chair and takes a low seat on the edge of the coffee table. "Hell, it's my dream."
That Sylar simply can't understand. Not that it makes any difference, but:
"Leslie, how can being murdered be your dream?"
Laughlin contemplates this and reasons, "Maybe it's because I never had a real dream, you know? I mean, a sleeping one. Anyway, does it matter? I've been waiting for this since I was a kid. I even designed my headstone around this moment. Do you want to know what it's going to say? It makes even more sense, now that I know what you're going to use me for. Like it really was destiny. Do you want to know?"
He lies back across the table and grins.
"Thus I become part of the greater machine," he recites.
The phrase trips some taut string of memory.
Like it or not, we are the same machine, Gabe had said. Gabriel 2.0, he called him. The same, but different.
I think all the additions to your DNA have made you insane. Another voice, dusty from a crypt. Who is that? Bennet. Noah Bennet who hated him but maybe had a point.
Maybe he becomes someone new—someone just a little bit different—every time he kills and acquires.
My god . . . Sylar reflects. How many people do I have in here?
Leslie frowns, noting the slightly glazed, reflective appearance of his idol's eyes.
"Would it be more fun if I ran?" he offers considerately.
Snapping back to the situation before him, Sylar stops himself from answering in the affirmative.
It's no fun if you fake it.