milliways_bar | (no subject)

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Some time this afternoon, Axel and Yrael are wandering into the bar room from the lake area, already deep in discussion.

"So," Axel says, gesturing, "what you're essentially saying is that you'll be rewiring my entire body?"

"Pretty much," Yrael nods, amiably. "Though it will be more 'wiring' than 'rewiring.' For a heart to work, it needs blood vessels, and those have to go through every part of your body to keep it alive. You'll need those before any heart will work."

"Sounds complicated," Axel raises an eyebrow at Yrael.

"That's because it is. Shall we get something to drink?" He suggests lightly, as they find a place to sit.

Of course, anyone who knows these two could have guessed that they'd head for the couch in front of the fireplace.

(ooc: Two pups, two muns~~, fabulous prizes~~! Millitimed to before the amnesia plot. Tag at will!)

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Sylar's halfway down the stairs when he hears the lake door open and the quiet conversation that follows. Unthinking, his steps slow as he cocks his head slightly: two voices, both familiar (one far moreso than the other), moving toward the fireplace.

By the time he's reached the bottom of the stairs, he can see both Axel and Yrael clearly. He stops there, one hand on the banister, still watching and listening.

"--Pepper tea," Axel says to the waitrat that comes by, trusting Yrael to order for himself. He scratches his head a little.

"Okay, so, biology's not my strong suit," he admits. He killed the Nobody who was the big expert there. "Do you... have any idea what the wiring will do to the rest of me?"

"They will keep the rest of you alive once your body is dependent on the heart to stay alive, rather than depending on your strength of will. Blood vessels are, essentially, the heart's own pathways through you." Yrael catches a wait rat by the tail with his foot, idly. "So that, if needed, you will not have to will yourself to keep going, but the heart will send strength through you to keep you strong."

"Of course, like anything related to the heart, having blood vessels holds both strength and weakness. If you are cut, you will bleed."

Building a new heart?

Sylar frowns faintly as he takes a step closer, then another. Axel is still painful to look at, the fundamental wrong seeming to skew every aspect of him by half a degree; Yrael isn't, any longer.

This is incidental to their conversation.

He is, truly, fixing himself, and Sylar's quiet fascination is mingling with much less quiet disbelief.

"I can live with bleeding," Axel says quietly. "Tea for Yrael, too," he adds to the waitrat, after a moment. "And..." His eyes flick up; he can sense the faint taint of darkness, and he blinks in genuine surprise to see Sylar. The last time they met, that hadn't been there.

"For our eavesdropper, too, I think."

There are a lot of teeth in his grin.

"Yes," Yrael says down to the waitrat, scrambling to pull its tail out from under Yrael's foot. Then his glance follows Axel's look, and he smiles.

"And a plate of grilled halibut with that light cream sauce that is so delicious. On his tab," he adds, nodding at Sylar.

Sylar makes a small scoffing noise and shakes his head, attention flicking from Yrael and Axel to the waitrat and back. He doesn't move.

"I see you've found the means to your repair." This is to Axel, and mired in skepticism.

This does not negate the wonder, distant as it may be.

"I told you I would," Axel points out.

...Okay, so there's an even chance of him winding up as tatters of nothingness, but like he'll admit that.

"Sooner than I thought, too."

Yrael pauses, listening. Then he smiles at the wait rat. "And a bottle of Atlantean wine, for after. Three glasses." Just in case. With that, he lets the terrified waitrat go; it skitters across the floor as fast as it can, back to the kitchens.

"The least I could do for a friend," he smiles. It'll still be a feat, if he pulls it off.

"So you expect it to work."

He ventures another step, eyes following the waitrat as it scampers by before snapping back to the pair.

"That sort of creation. It's not outside the realm of your ability?"

"Yeah, I do," Axel says. He has confidence in his friend.

"My kind made worlds, Sylar, and constructed all Life into being."

Of course, it wasn't him that did any of this. He's rarely tried his hand at it. But that doesn't show from the expression on the paper-thin mask of a face that hides the Bright Shiner of light and chaos.

"Comparatively, a single heart is a small thing." Of course, it took seven of them, at full strength, to make the worlds and weave Life into being. He's older now, and weaker, and alone.

He smiles, confident and at ease. He makes a mental note to ask Axel if they can visit that library in Hollow Bastion, to see if he can find more information about what makes a heart.

This is the sort of power you could have, if only you continued, whispers a small, nasty voice in his mind. The power you would give up --

Sylar cannot silence it, but he can, for now, push it aside. He hasn't made his choice yet.

"I suppose I should offer my congratulations," he says, faintly snide, with a lopsided smirk to match.

"Only if they're sincere," Axel retorts. "If they are, gladly accepted. If not, don't bother. Lies are so hurtful."

Said in a tone that says really, they're not. And... The cat isn't out of the box yet. Things could still go either way.

"You could join us for a celebratory cup of tea?" Yrael suggests, smiling amiably.

Pepper tea is rather spicy, Yrael's heard.

Like chai.

His answering grin is swift and humorless, though not as feral as it could be.

"I'd prefer not to."

"Your loss," Axel says with a shrug.

The returning waitrat still brings three cups with the pot, and Axel pours all three.

Murder - and murderous intent - are all well and good, but there's no excuse for poor manners.

One can get away with being rude to one's friends, but one must ever seek to kill one's enemies with politeness.

"Wine, then? Atlantean is the best in any world, truly," Yrael says, taking his cup of tea.

"No." His eyes have locked on Axel again, the mocking smile gone.

If Yrael is the power that could be lost, he thinks, Axel must be the change itself: something irrevocably broken that's nevertheless repaired (or near it), the shift from futility to maybe, perhaps...

They've seen him in pain, in panic. They probably haven't seen Sylar looking quite simply this unsettled.

"Your loss," Axel says again. He's silent for a moment.

"You know," he says then. "You look like you might want to sit down."

He's never seen Sylar looking... Unsettled.

"And like you could use a drink, but I think you've already made up your mind about that."

He sips his tea, then smiles at the waitrat who brings his food. The waitrat doesn't linger, in case Yrael gets distracted and comes after him.

"Thank you for supper, also. I had been getting hungry," a small lie. Bright Shiners don't get hungry. Some of them just like food. "while we talked about our project."

"I'm glad to be of help." Flatly sarcastic.

After hesitating a moment longer, though, he does close the remaining gap between them and rest his hand on the back of an available chair.

He doesn't sit yet.

"Any help is always appreciated, right?" Axel grins again. The whole... topic is drawing Sylar in. (Really, he doesn't know how anyone couldn't be drawn in, but it's interesting.)

He sips his tea, and remains silent for another moment. Although it may be notable that his tea isn't visibly cooling.

"Indeed," Yrael says, smiling into his cup of tea.

"If you have any words of wisdom on the details of how hearts work, those would be appreciated, as well. Every bit of information helps, I suppose." He twirls his fork before getting down to the business of the grilled salmon before him.

"I'll buy your supper if it's helpful," he says, right before taking the first neat bite of flaky fish.

Mmmf. Yum.

"No expertise beyond what you'd find in a biology textbook."

Hearts are not his particular area of concern.

"And the most basic medical knowledge." He rests his other hand on the chair back. "That transplants of any organ are delicate. The body can reject them if it's not handled properly. If it doesn't reject it, there is still the chance it may not work at all."

He lifts his eyebrows the merest fraction.

"It's no different from assembling anything else."

"And what about building it from scratch?" Axel asks. His voice and expression both are very, very neutral.

Any input is useful. Any help is good.

"If you found yourself in a position where you were assembling one, how would you go about it?"

"Assembling a heart?"

He shifts his grip on the chair back.

"It's easier to take what already exists and modify it to fit. You don't believe that'll work?"

Axel's lips quirk in something that isn't exactly a smile. It's far too... empty.

"There's nothing there to modify," he says. "No heart, and none of the things that go with it."

"Exactly," Yrael says.

"But assume one can get the parts for assembly. Veins, arteries, capillaries, blood, the heart itself."

"I will admit I am not sure about the order in which to proceed with things." He tilts his head.

A pause.

Sylar's small, vague smile is rather more amused than before.

"That's not something I can teach you," he answers calmly.

"Well, nobody knows everything," Axel says with a small shrug.

"Nobody that I know of," he corrects himself after a moment. He's open to the possibility, even if it's slightly disturbing in a way that affects even him.

Yrael raises his white eyebrows slightly, a smile pulling at the corners of his mouth.

"A Nobody knows everything?"

..."And a Nobody you know? What luck!"

He's doing this on purpose. Friends are asses, sometimes.

"Actually," Axel says, in a perfectly pleasant tone. Contemplative, even. "There was one of us who knew a lot about this kinda thing. Emphasis on was."

He shrugs.

"Not that he managed jack shit in ten years."

The entire time, he's looking at a point just above Yrael's head. As if into the middle distance.

There may be a burning smell. It may be coming from Yrael's hair.

"I promise results a lot faster than that, though I still have research to do. No one seems to know much about this topic, specifically," Yrael says with a wry glance towards Sylar.

He knows what's happening to his hair, but feels that orangey-red isn't his color. Yrael's hair brightens, like white flame itself, engulfing the warm, orange flames until there is only white flame left.

Yrael's hair may look a bit like Axel's, now. If white, and moving as flames move in a slight draft.

"So, he isn't around to ask for advice in this situation?" Yrael eyes the fiery assassin.

He remains silent, but it's unavoidable: Sylar's focus sharpens to intent study at the display of power on both their parts.

(Yrael, perhaps, endures a bit more of it. He's well-acquainted already with what Axel can do -- rather more on some counts than others.)

"Vexen, alas, is no longer with us," Axel replies, in an over-exaggerated tone of regret. "He suffered from an... overabundance of blind spots, and unfortuantely, didn't have enough time to regret them."

"Dear dear," he tuts, shaking his head with his eyes closed. "Well, hindsight is always 20/20."

He's aware of Sylar watching, however, and when he opens his eyes again, they are returning the gaze. "This is why I asked you, actually. There is a way you look at things that reminded me of a good friend of mine who used to come here. He did the same thing." Yrael believes he may be dead, but there has been no word, so... he still has some hope.

Yrael's eyes narrow, their vertical pupils widening as he muses. "That way of looking at things, looking at the components, not just the whole. Seeing how it fits together, how it works. My friend used his skill very well; he was an excellent doctor... of medicine, history, psychology..."

Then the calculating look is gone, and he smirks, shrugging. "I was just wondering if you'd be willing to put it to good use, as well."

Sylar's eyes narrow further; he meets Yrael's gaze without blinking.

"I seem to remember," he says with deadly evenness, "my last encounter with him ending in a trap. Imprisonment." His gaze flickers to Axel for a split second, fury sparking just as briefly. "Why would I help him?"

"I thought it was a mutual demonstration," Axel says. "And then you freaked out." And came at me with ice, he doesn't, exactly, say, although there's a flicker in his eyes, the same thing that was there when Sylar first brought out the ice, although he almost almost controls it.

He's silent for a moment, and then says, neutrally,

"I'm willing to call it a misunderstanding if you are."

He really hadn't intended to imprison Sylar; that had just been a... side effect.

Yrael raises an eyebrow at the two of them. "I did not even know you two knew each other until tonight." From the flicker in Axel's eyes, he knows there are things not being said.

He'll ask later.

"Axel most likely did not know that it would bother you so much," Yrael says, inclining his head. "Misunderstandings happen."

Of course, Axel leaving Sylar in that box was probably as much a misunderstanding as Sylar approaching Axel with ice was.

Sylar remains quiet for another minute. His grip on the chair tightens by an infinitesimal amount.

A balance, Frank had said. Remembering who you are; weighing it equally against what you can do.

Repairing what's broken has always been who he is.

And it's not nearly enough to stop him from saying, "That doesn't answer my question."

"I can't answer that question for you," Axel says. "I don't think Yrael can, either. You're the only one who can answer for yourself."

It's a lesson he learned from Roxas. The hard way.

The hardest way.

Yrael nods, slightly. "No one would know your reasons better than you."

Sylar straightens, taking his hands off of the chair as he regards them both. When he speaks, however, it's only to Axel.

"Fix yourself," he says, and save the emphasis on yourself, it's in uncanny imitation of Axel's tone when they last parted.

And he turns to walk away.

(Along the way, he passes by a table and plucks an apple from the bowl set near its edge.)

"Would if I could," Axel says quietly. He looks away, towards the fire.

"And that's why I'm here," Yrael says cheerfully.

The tone of his voice doesn't match the look he's giving Sylar's back.

Axel looks over at Yrael, and gives him a slight smile.

"Thanks," he says, just as quietly as before.

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