The room was cool and dark, a stillness hanging in the air. There was no sound, and the unoccupied coolness to the gargoyle’s left insinuated an emptiness. No one had moved in, after Agnes had moved out, thus Gina had a double room to herself. As soon as a single room opened up, she’d be rotated in there—the beat-down had left her shaken, uncertain of unfamiliar people. She didn’t feel safe, and given the sharp descent of her senses, she didn’t feel as though she had a shot of defending herself.

Gina shifted her gaze, old muscles moving useless eyes. She’d been gradually losing her eyesight ever since the migraines had begun, which had started just after her return from the hospital. Given her mutation, she had no proof that it was because of the bludgeoning with the nightstick, but the teen had her suspicions. But after a visit to the DocProf, who stated that there was nothing medically amiss with her, they were left to believe that her mutation was acting up. Gina was evolving.

She lay in bed, listening, before heaving a sigh. She’d been awake for a few hours now, after having slept all afternoon, and it was apparent that sleep would not return that night. The gargoyle rolled into a sitting position, her feet bumping the floor before pressing to them more resolutely. She swayed a bit as she stood, shuffling towards the door into the hall.

The teachers were quite understanding of Gina’s roaming at night. Something was off with her sleeping pattern, perhaps because of this evolution, so the gargoyle had no choice but to listen to the circadian rhythm. Gina moved towards where she thought the door to be, and bumped into what had once been Agnes’s desk, which jabbed into her hip. Gina inhaled sharply, following the contour of the desk towards the door. Her knuckle grazed the knob before her fingers curled around it, twisting the knob so that she could step into the hall. As she walked closer to the door, her fingers brushed the card-key and swooped it up, depositing the key into her pocket.

Gina slid the door shut behind her.

As she was not legally blind, or at least had yet to declare it, the gargoyle did not have the notorious red-tipped white cane. She did carry along a cane, for the time being, during the day, but the gargoyle was adverse to using it. It was a crutch. It meant that she was disabled, and Gina refused to use it. She’d rather have bruised shins. Trailing her fingertips along the hall, Gina proceeded down the hall towards the common area, counting doorways as she went.

“One… two… three…” she murmured. There were five doorways preceding the common area, at which point, the wall dropped away from her completely and the hall opened up, making the air less claustrophobic. This layout, Gina was getting a hang of. Sure, she could still see contours in the dark, but they were vague. The reference was more for during the daytime, when the light washed everything out.

“Seven…” Gina breathed. There was an abnormally long stretch of wall, before her hand slipped of the ledge, finding open air. She was at the common area. Gina veered right, into the common area, her hand extended at waist height as she walked into the open room. She was feeling for the couch. Perhaps she could listen to some t.v. Couch first, remote second. Usually, the remote was in the vicinity of the couch. Gina’s taloned fingers nudged the couch and Gina smiled victoriously. She followed the curving spine of the top of the couch, towards the outer edge. She came onto the side where the students usually sat, and knelt. And now, for the hunt.

Sylar crept into the empty hallway, his curiosity having urged him to explore his new environment. Kealey would be awhile, having gone off to find Serena, which meant Sylar no longer had a decent excuse for being in this building, nor did he have someone to direct him where he should be. However as long as she stayed close to the living room he should be fine, he could hear Kealey when she got close to returning and be there. However he heard a new noise from down the hall. Words, foot steps, possible stumbling? Sylar quickly retreated into the common room. He really didn't need to hide since he'd been invited inside, but a person's habits don't die on the first night of change.

He wanted to slink into the corner next to what be the TV, and hide there, but he figured this room must be lighted well and that'd be pointless. So instead he hid behind a chair opposite to the big couch he'd examined earlier. Hopefully whoever it was would pass right through, and not take a seat. Sylar's instincts quickly shushed any sound he made. His breathing nearly inaudible, and his tail curled and half wrapped against his back, so it wouldn't poke out from the chair like some bad comedy sketch. He waited, his sense's figuring out the situation.

Voice not very deep, probable woman? She wasn't just passing through either, he could hear Gina stop, and the sounds she made as her hand probed the couch in search of something. This was an open space, a living room, and a TV was here. The controller for the TV? Why in the couch though? Either way, it meant he was now trapped here with her, but he seemed to have been unnoticed so far. She was looking for something, so she should be distracted, which meant Sylar could make use of his last sense. He leaned towards the left, peeking from behind the seat and allowing his eyes to pick up her heat. He immediately knew she was a mutant, her form was humanoid, but had obvious physical features. Wings, large oddly shaped feet, and what had to be a tail. Some kind of bird mutant, or maybe a bat? Either way, she was a physical mutant like himself, some of his fear dissipating.

However he was still a stranger in their house, so he quickly retreated behind his seat. If she was distracted looking for the remote, that meant she wanted to watch TV, maybe he could sneak out once she was engrossed in the television. Sylar never cared about television, but he remembered his mother often got so engrossed with it she'd lose track of anything else. Hopefully this girl would as well. Part of him wondered though, he was sure he'd heard her speaking earlier, and to herself?. He remained motionless, thinking about how to get past her.

Uncertain, taloned hands trailed along the couch cushions, occasionally tucking into the corners as they probed for the remote. Gina felt the couch in silence, until her fingertips finally grazed the familiar, rubber buttons of the thing, talons scraping plastic. It had sunk between two cushions. Gina fished it out and flopped onto the couch, breathing a sigh. The familiar contours of the remote sank into her hand, and Gina pointed towards where she knew the television to be. She clicked the round button at the top, left corner, and heard the plink and crackle as the t.v. sprang to life. Light gradually filled the room, washing out what little vision Gina had into a field of white.

Sound finally joined the picture, and it blared loudly, causing the gargoyle to squeak in alarm. The boys must have forgotten to turn it down after playing video games, but a now deafening boom surged into the quiet room.

“ARE YOUR CARPETS DIRTY?!”

Gina fumbled the remote and quickly turned the volume way, way down, her heart now hammering heavily. In the midst of the fumbling, however, she heard a crash, or perhaps a thunk, and it was nowhere near the television. Someone else was there.

“Who’s there?” Gina demanded, hopping onto her feet as useless eyes peered about the room, a raw edge creeping into her voice. Of course, the Mansion was a safe place. High-security. Big fences, cameras. That didn’t mean it kept everyone and everything out. What if they were after her?

“I know you’re there,” Gina continued, her expression tight. She tried to keep her eyes focused, pointed in one spot for a while, before fastening onto somewhere else. She was pretending to stare.

Sylar had been creeping around the edge of the room, his plan to sneak away behind Gina's guessed line of sight. He hadn't however, expected the booming voice of an enthused salesman. Sylar managed to avoid any kind of scream or hiss, but instead his startled body caused him to kick over an end table, sending the lap atop it to the ground. The two loud noises would have alerted anyone to his presence, and he felt his anxiety explode. He turned all of his senses onto Gina in that moment, and began to put certain pieces together on her situation. She quickly jumped up, scanning the room to find the source of the flipped table, but she didn't look at him. She questioned the area where the table fell, but Sylar had actually moved a step or two away from it, keeping low to the ground. Her voice was nervous, not just surprised, but fearful enough to reveal she was on edge more than normal.

She stared towards the table, and then looks elsewhere. Her face, and what Sylar could assume was her field of vision never seemed to focus on himself clearly. Sylar wondered, was she blind? If she was though, it seemed like her other senses weren't sharp enough, since she couldn't pick up his movements after the table fell. Sylar wasn't sure about the situation, but this thought pierced his mind and took root, intriguing the sewer dweller. He fixed himself, crouching and putting his arms on his knees as he sat. He spoke, his voice was a bit on edge, but stoic and nonthreatening. "You can't see...can you?" He questioned her. A normal person would have thought to introduce themselves, or defend their presence. But Sylar had already become focused on what he'd perceived of her in the moment.

His volume was a little louder than should be, attempting to force her attention to exactly where he was in the room. A little trick he knew, being born blind himself. Sylar had spent most of his life depending on sounds, instead of sight as his main means of perception, so now he'd make use of that knowledge. He'd have to defend himself to the girl soon enough, after all this was her home, not his. But even if Gina wasn't aware of it, Sylar was a timid boy, and no threat to another visible mutant, at least not in such a calm environment.

Gina was waiting for an answer, her pulse climbing slightly. She heard movement, but nothing distinct. What if it was someone from the outside? A reporter, a mutant-hater? A threat of some sort. She started to unfold herself, her foot cautiously touching the floor. It was a straight shot from the living room and into her room. It would be safer there. It was a smaller space, one that would be easier for the gargoyle to command.

>> "You can't see...can you?"

Gina tensed, her attention pointing towards him—perhaps this was the blind equivalent of “looking at” someone. He didn’t sound familiar. And that wasn’t a question that a person who knew her would ask. It was a small school. Word got around fast, everyone knew everyone’s business. A student would know who Gina was and why she was blind.

“I’m mostly blind,” Gina admonished, “My vision started going a while ago, after… a lot of trauma. DocProf says it’s an evolution of my mutation. I say that that’s bologna. Evolutions are supposed to make you more powerful.”

The last sentence was muttered under her breath—partially because Gina was bitter, and partially because she was saying way too much to this person who was a stranger to her. She did not want to tell them much, her paranoia informing her that they could be anyone (a dangerous anyone!), but her personable nature was outweighing that paranoia. At least somewhat.

“Are you a student?” Gina inquired, trying to put her paranoia at-ease, “A new student? You don’t sound familiar.”

To Gina, Sylar was an entirely unknown presence, making her uncomfortable. Sylar could tell, picking up on her with all of his enhanced senses, to him, she was a shining beacon of attention in the room now. However, he didn't feel very threatened by her hearing she was recently blind. That meant she hadn't learned how to master her other senses yet, something Sylar had to do from birth. He clicked his claws against his knees softly, thinking on how to proceed in the situation now that she knew he was here.

So she'd recently become blinded, perhaps an injury, perhaps her mutation. The idea of a mutation taking a sense was surprising, since for Sylar it had given him one he'd never had, albeit different than how normal people made use of their eyes. His body has evolved repeatedly, and Sylar had never really thought of it as having more power, but more reason to hide. "Power...isn't always a good thing with evolution." Though her voice had dropped to a mumble, Sylar's ears were far better than the average person's, allowing him to pick up her words clear as day.

The moment had come, if she didn't believe him, he'd end up in some serious trouble till Kealey came back to find him. "No, I'm not a student." He said bluntly, continuing further. " I was invited inside by a teacher, because I met one of the students who lives here...Once..." Sylar kind of stuttered as he finished his sentence. How could the truth have sounded so simple in his head, and came out so stupid? A stranger invited inside cause he met somebody once? Even a sewer dwelling teenager knew that wasn't the most calming excuse to be inside someone else's home.

Sylar's tail began to sway back and forth, a sign of irritation at himself, the tip of his tail brushing against the wall as it moved. "Uh...Look, I'm just a homeless mutant who came to see the Mansion Serena told me about. I didn't mean to scare you. I know how you must feel to be scared by something you can't see, trust me." Sylar said, trying to defend his presence in Gina's home.

Gina tucked her legs closer to her chest, rubbing her knees hesitantly.

“I’ve been gradually turning into a gargoyle since I was a baby,” Gina retorted, “I was a peachy little human when I was an infant, but have been evolving more and more since then. I always wondered if I would evolve, but always expected it to be a step forward, not a step back.”

Perhaps she wasn’t understanding Sylar’s point. Perhaps she didn’t want to. Sylar confessed that he was not a student, and Ginas’ eyes widened, her foot slowly slipping off the edge of the couch and onto the floor. She was getting ready to retreat. When Sylar informed her that a teacher had let him, to visit a student, the gargoyle paused. She didn’t raise to her feet, but she didn’t withdraw once more, either.

“So you’re a prospective student?” Gina smiled, her ears perking, “Lots of people find their way here like that. Meeting a person who brings them in. Heck, Mama T, the guidance counselor—she adopted her son after finding him in the city. He was a runaway. A lot of people are… I think they mostly stick around because they like the prospect of family…”

Sylar went quickly apologetic, an agitated scraping emanating from the locale of his voice. Gina flapped her hands dismissively, uttering a quick, “No, no, no, no—it’s not that…”

“I’ve just been on-edge a lot lately,” she explained, “I… uh… I was attacked. By some human cops. I still think people are out to get me. I mean, I know it’s stupid-sounding, but… I’m just paranoid. And being mostly blind isn’t very helpful. I thought… I dunno, I thought you were someone who might be after me.”

The gargoyle breathed a faint laugh at how absurdly she was behaving.

“Sorry.”

Sylar figured other mutants all changed around the time he did, puberty. Hearing Gina had suffered physical alterations since infancy kind of surprised him. His stoic face changing for just a moment beneath the shade of his hood. "I've been turning into a monster for three years. It happens in spurts, I imagine it's more difficult when it happens your entire life." Sylar didn't care for pity, nor did he give any. He didn't feel sorry for anyone, the world was an ugly place, and it did ugly things to everyone, especially mutants. "Perhaps you're simply in a phase of change, that happened to me before."

He could sense her tense up, a reasonable response to what he was, but he was glad she didn't start calling for help or trying to bolt. He didn't need chaos right now when he was trying to be a guest in this mansion of mutants. "I stopped being a student some time ago. I came here...because I was curious. Curious to see how mutants lived above ground." Sylar wasn't sure he could ever go back to being a student, or trying to become a member of society at large. But he did feel a longing, at least for some kind of social interaction, to bond with another living thing that wasn't a meal or a rat in the sewers.

His following words were quite harsh considering the tone he'd had during most of this encounter. "I've been abandoned by family once, I don't need another one." Though he considering Serena someone he could befriend, Sylar still adamantly refused the idea of ever belonging somewhere like a child was supposed to belong to a family. If one pair of parents could abandon their child, why would he ever trust anyone else to love him unconditionally.

He didn't however want to upset Gina, who he realized he was feeling quite a connection with. He listened to her explanation for her injury and wariness. So the police had gotten to her, Sylar always knew it would happen if they got a hold of him, but he felt somewhat enraged knowing they had done it to a girl, even if she was a mutant. "I don't like the police, always on a never ending chase to persecute mutants." That was a baseless statement, but Sylar had cemented police officers as "bad guys" in his mind since day one of his life as a mutant.

His own lifestyle and experiences made him quite empathetic with Gina at the moment, but his advice was probably not the best he could have given. "Paranoia isn't a bad thing sometimes. Sometimes it saves your life. I have no ideas about hurting you, but I don't blame you at all for being cautious of me, a stranger in your house."

He wondered if he might even be able to help her considering her situation. "You know, blindness isn't an entirely crippling affliction. Have you tried focusing more on your other senses?" Sylar immediately switched topics, wondering if his experience from being born blind might be able to help this mutant who he felt echoed some of his own past.

“I hope so,” Gina murmured, as Sylar proposed that it was only a change, “Or else flying is going to be very difficult….”

And then she’d get pudgier, because she wouldn’t have flying to counterbalance her diet, and then she’d need to get new clothes, but would she even be able to adjust them on her own? Gina’s mind spun as she sat there quietly. He was being cautious, or at least, keeping his distance, while he spoke. It would seem that the two were watching each other very closely. He wasn’t a student, and was only there to see how mutants lived “above ground”.

“Just like everybody else,” Gina assured him, smiling, “Except with slightly higher security, to keep the fanatics out. At least, that’s how it works at Xavier’s… there are also small communities where mutants and humans coexist, like my hometown.”

The gargoyle had hugged her knees when Sylar barked a sharp retort when family was mentioned. Oh, so he was one of those ones. Surprise flitted across Gina’s face, and it gradually melted into a tired smile. She patted the couch, seemingly over the brief outburst, “Come, join me.”

She would pause, either until Sylar seated himself, or until, in the lingering silence, she’d determined that he wouldn’t join her. For the time being, she’d let the family of subject drop. If it was enough to break his calmness so easily, it wasn’t something she would force him to discuss. Gina rolled her lips together uneasily, offering a faint laugh. Sylar continued speaking.

“They aren’t all bad,” Gina murmured quietly. Detective Cervantes had been a good man. He was a cop that wasn’t out to get mutants, “I mean… they thought I was a criminal…”

Gina rubbed her neck, smiling weakly, “It’s not my house. It’s a school. And we get new people a lot. If I flip out every time someone I don’t know turns up, I’m going to have a coronary.”

Sylar persisted, asking about the blindness and focusing on other senses.

“Kinda…” the gargoyle murmured, “Not really… I mean, I’ve been trying to listen more, I guess, but it’s weird. I’m so used to having fully-functional eyes.”

So she could fly, must a nice talent Sylar thought. He was quite agile, and adept of traversing the cityscape himself, but flight was an entirely different plane of movement. "You'd be surprised how possible it is to move without sight." Sylar however had years of experience, and a mutant ability to perceive the world through not just sounds, but smells, and through ambient heat as well.

Her explanation made him wonder just how normal other mutants tried to be, refusing to let go of their normal everyday lives just because they weren't normal humans. Maybe he was the weird one, choosing a bestial life over a human one. If her hometown was a community of both human and mutant, why would she ever leave. He wondered but did not ask aloud. He observed her pat the colorless mass she sat on, a couch Sylar knew even if he couldn't see the object. He was surprised at the offer but at the same time felt uncomfortable. "I...I don't know that I should. I'm not the cleanest person, living in the sewers and all..." He said as an excuse, when in reality he was just a bit nervous about sharing the couch with her.

His voice showed his actual feelings, the blunt aspect replaced by the sounds of a nervous boy. He however was facing her, and the tension in his body had dropped to be replaced with a friendlier demeanor. Sylar wasn't sure how the girl could forgive police officers when they had assaulted her, but to Sylar, individual cops weren't evil or hated, but the whole of the police force was his enemy, an entity which always sought to chase him. And rightfully so, even if he gave them ulterior motives. "Why would they think you were a criminal? Were you doing something wrong?" Sylar wondered if perhaps the police just assumed all mutants were criminals somehow.

It might be a school, but if the students lived here in a dormitory, it was a home. Maybe the girl didn't see it as such, or understand the concept as it stood in Sylar's head. But she was right, new people would be a common thing here, giving leniency to Sylar's surprising visit. He couldn't understand the sudden loss of vision, as Sylar had been born blind, however he did understand learning to navigate by other senses. "I'm blind as well, was born that way." His voice had returned to a calm, monotone sound. "But I still had to learn how to depend on my other senses. You should pick a place you know by heart, a place you can replicate perfectly in your head. And compare that image to what you can discern with your other senses now. Might help you deepen your other senses a bit." Sylar had never had eyesight to work with, so his images of the world were vastly different to someone who could see. But after redeveloping a form of sight himself, he figured this was the best advice he could offer to someone just learning to deal with the loss.

Gina shifted her weight and sighed as Sylar assured her how doable it was to move without seeing. Gina rubbed her legs, and could feel her face growing warmer with a blush. Gina didn’t know why she blushed—embarrassment, perhaps? But why? It took Gina a few moments of pondering to realize that such reassurance could come from one of two origins—a seeing person who didn’t know what they were talking about, or a blind person who was speaking from experience.

“Oh c**p…” Gina murmured, rubbing the heel of her hand against her forehead as the realization dawned on her. Sylar declined the offer, and Gina’s gaze habitually flicked towards him, even though the reflex turned up no new results. She cracked another faint smile.

“I don’t bite,” the gargoyle reassured him, flashing a toothy grin, “Much.”

Poor family background and sewer dwelling to boot? The feeling that this boy was kind-of like her was growing more and more unshakable—which made Gina want to draw him closer even more.

“Don’t be afraid,” Gina said, patting the couch again, “My name’s Gina. I’m the unofficial welcoming committee here—for guests and hopeful enrollees alike.”[/color]

Gina was gradually easing out of her anxiety and into a more typical-Gina interaction. Perhaps this notion of “sameness” between their two visages was making her more relaxed, even if Gina couldn’t be certain of this shared inhuman physique quite yet. Sylar pressed further, asking why’d they think she was a criminal, and Gina frowned faintly.

“I didn’t do anything,” the gargoyle murmured, “School got out early, I went for a walk… apparently there’d been break-ins in the neighborhood from a winged, female mutant… and I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. They tried to apprehend me, I panicked and tried to run…”

The squad car veering out and around, plowing into her, pushing her onto the grass—the swarm of officers spilling from vehicles, battering her with clubs, shouting at her—she tried to curl into a ball, tried to protect herself, without avail—the lights were shut off with a final blow to the head—

Gina fell silent as the recollection took hold... her eyes had begun to well-up. The muscles in her face tightened preemptively, and Gina smiled, trying to force threat of crying back with a grimace.

“—and they stopped me,” she concluded, her tone graciously more level than the gargoyle thought it was going to be.

Sylar confirmed that he was, in fact, blind, sparing the gargoyle from having to ask. He offered his advice on the matter, and Gina nodded her head attentively. She knew here well—she knew the Mansion—and with her being on house arrest while the situation in the city simmered down, and while she recovered… well, what else would there be for her to do?

“I know the Mansion pretty well,” Gina chuckled, “Not gonna have much else to do while recovering.”

Gina adjusted her weight, before rocking to her feet.

“Would you like some water?” she said suddenly, “Or a snack? I could do my best to try showing you around.”

It occurred to her that she had offered none of these things.

Sylar watched as the girl's temperature rose a bit, around her cheeks. Maybe she wasn't feeling well, or bothered by his present. "Are you alright? Your face looks warm." He said flatly, completely unaware that pointing out someone's blushing could be embarrassing to them. Her gesture of a grin was somewhat lost on Sylar, as teeth kind of blurred into a person's shape for his eyes, but he got the joke considering his own mouth full of razors. "Funny, usually I'm the one biting." He returned, his voice laced with sarcasm.

She was adamant about him sitting with her, so Sylar relented and found his hands moving to scrap anything that might be on his behind off his jeans. He inched towards the couch, his feet making a shuffling noise as he drew near. He sat down, sure to put space between himself and Gina, but only because he felt uncomfortable putting his filthy self next to someone, or on someone's furniture, though it may have come off as being a person who enjoys their personal space. He had to adjust himself though, having a tail made it difficult to sit like a normal person. He had to pull it to the side and let it hand off the arm of the couch, the lengthy appendage laying limp.


"I see." He responded to her story about why the Police assaulted her. "All winged mutants are clearly the same then." He said with a hint of anger. Sylar fled from the normal world to avoid such persecution, but the idea that police officers simply beat the girl for being a mutant, for being afraid like any person would. He at least had reason to be hunted, both for his criminal acts, and the rumors of his predatory hunts. She however was innocent of everything but being a mutant on the outside. "The police have reason to hunt me, and so I don't like them. But what they did to you was barbaric." It was the only word he could think of to describe such an act. It made him wonder if Serena was wrong about living up here, that maybe he was right to live underground, in his own world devoid of such crimes.

She must know this building well if she lived here, meaning she had a good environment to develop her navigational skills until her eyes recovered, or she was good enough to get by without them. It felt kind of funny, to hear her offer to be a host, when Sylar realized he could probably navigate this place better than her right now. "I actually came by to see my friend Serena, while I was waiting on her I kind of wandered around by myself. I probably shouldn't stray too far from where Kealey left me." At least not far enough that his ear's could find Serena whenever she showed up.

"Do you know Serena?" He asked, knowing Serena's personality she must be friends with everybody in the building, but he'd ask anyways.

Gina’s face grew even warmer at the boy’s observation, and she nodded, giving a quick, soft, “I’m fine.”

Finally, the gargoyle succeeded—the boy shuffled closer and took a seat, the couch giving beneath his weight. She did smell the faint tinge of… sewer stuff?... but was too polite to say anything. Her face didn’t even register that of disgust or alarm over the scent. She just smiled at Sylar, without really smiling at him directly, completely unfazed. Her tail flicked and curled casually behind her, chuckling faintly as she said, “Now that wasn’t so hard, was it?”

Gina wasn’t entirely sure of how she expected Sylar to react, but she wasn’t surprised of his reaction. Most people like them—nonhumans—grew angry over such injustice. Gina obviously wasn’t the criminal type. She’d been persecuted for what she was, rather than what she’d done (or not done).

“It was an accident,” the gargoyle murmured, in a tone that said that she was trying to placate her fellow mutant rather than defend the actions of the cops. She did resent them for what they’d done, but there was nothing that she could do about it… it was over now, the court had not ruled in her favor. All she had was scars and a bitter taste in her mouth. “I mean… it was a horrible mistake to make, but… they don’t know better. Not yet.”

The “they” held a gravity deeper than the cops. The “they” referred to humanity as a whole. Gina got up, her hand awkwardly extended at her waist as she carefully picked her way towards the kitchenette.

“Someday, they’ll learn, and we’ll all be able to coexist as equals,” Gina murmured. Her feet stepped onto the cool, slick tile surface, and Gina drifted towards the familiar location of the glasses cabinet. Even if the boy politely declined her offer for a tour, Gina would insist upon at least giving him water. Her hands awkwardly found the curve of the wooden door, popping it open to expose the cabinet’s inside. She reached in, fingers brushing the glasses, which clinked at the disturbance, until she felt the rough texture of a plastic cup. Gina fished it out and swatted the cabinet closed with a flat palm, shuffling towards the fridge.

She accidentally bumped into it, before feeling her way towards the built-in water spigot.

“There we go,” her fingertips accidentally tapped the lever before she guided the cup there, a momentary hiss of water escaping the floor. She filled the cup up three-quarters of the way, and then slowly began to shuffle back towards Sylar.

“Sorry,” Gina said, a friendliness at the edge of her tone, offering the cup out to him, “Momma raised me right. I have to insist upon giving you something to drink, at the very least. Kealey wouldn’t mind.”

Gina took her seat once again, her wings fluttering out of the way as she took a seat, her tail casually lingering beside her as it spilled limply onto the floor.

“Can’t say I’ve met a Serena, no,” Gina confessed, “But my sleep schedules been a little wacky lately… I haven’t seen much of anyone lately.”

Gina toyed with her hair, sighing.

“Did you know Kealey’s the head librarian here? She’s also a part of the X-men. Her and Shin are. I’m pretty sure they’re gonna get married… yeah, pretty sure,” the gargoyle said conversationally, “Have you met Shin too, yet?”

That’s right, rope him into meeting more people, so that he’d fall in love with the place and have to stay—the gargoyle was conniving like that.

Sylar's lack of vision greatly inhibited his ability to read other people's emotions. However, being able to see heat often meant he could notice embarrassment...or arousal. He knew nothing of the latter, so generally assumed people were either sick or embarrassed when he noticed a temperature rise. He guessed maybe she was embarrassed to have someone so dirty sit with her. He unconsciously inched a bit further from her, making sure there was absolutely no room between him and the arm rest of the couch.

"You'd be surprised how hard it is sometimes." He said bluntly to her response. He wasn't aiming to attack or offend her, but just saying what he honestly felt. He didn't believe violence or hate was ever an accident, hatred and fear were natural to some people, most people in fact. "I'm not so sure violence can be an accident." He responded. Gina was a nicer person than he, and still connected to humanity, where as Sylar was still keeping his distance from normal people and their police force. "You're much nicer than any of the normal people. I wouldn't forgive that kind of ignorance." He'd never forgiven his own parents ignorance, even if he understood why they'd been so afraid. Sylar remained seated as the girl rose and wandered off to find whatever it was she was doing.

He understood what she was going through, and the most important part of coping with no eyesight was teaching yourself to perceive the world with other senses. He could advice her, like he had, but she'd still have to learn on her own. Part of him wished she hadn't had to suffer the same debilitation he had, but pity didn't help or heal anyone. He felt kind of uncomfortable, sitting in the mansion, acting like normal people did. You spend years running around on all fours, hunting and scavenging, and suddenly sitting on a couch seems so alien. He almost laughed, but instead he focused on the flow of running water. She was fetching something to drink? She returned, and offered him a glass. He paused for a moment, realizing he'd have grasp the cup, something he hadn't done in awhile.

He reached out, with both hands slowly trying to grasp the cup between each hand like a vice. His fingers were cased with sharp chitin, making it rather hard to grasp things, or take things from other people's hands. He applied pressure against the cup, and his claws gently clasped in on it, the sleek cool surface touching against her flesh for a moment. He mumbled "Uh...tha...thanks." He actually was pretty thirsty, and felt a bit happy she'd gotten something for him even after he refused. He gulped the water down fast, the noise loudly filling the quiet room.

A shame he thought, Serena was so kind he could imagine her being very helpful to someone injured and crippled. "She's...she's very kind. I crawl out of a hole in the ground and her first instinct was to befriend me instead of running for her life." His voice broke a bit, an adorable sign of puberty. He'd never heard of Shin...or an X-man for that matter. "What's an X-man?" He asked bluntly, curious as to what such a title was for. He thought about the word marriage for a bit, and realized he'd never experience that part of life. Unless he met some other monster who wanted to live underground at least, but that didn't matter anyways. Sylar had caught on to Kealey's attempt to recruit him, but Gina held his attention for the moment.