Sylar didn't seem to show any emotion about his Mother, or her abandonment of him after learning he was a mutant. "I didn't even look like this yet either." Sylar pointed out, explaining that for his parents, just the word mutant meant monster to them. Sylar actually agreed with Clyde's statement though, regular people were ignorant, and monstrous in their ignorance. Though he stopped from saying more as Clyde spoke his own story.

Sylar could empathize with the feeling of anger, of wanting to get away. Normal people were like cattle, corralled into groups, cities, run by those with the loudest voice. Anything different was to be feared, hated, run out. Sylar might be a monster, but most mutants seemed to Sylar like regular people who just happened to have impressive natural gifts. "Anything out of the ordinary scares them right out of their comfort zone it seems." Sylar said with a bit of rage, showing that though he was different, part of him was still human. He'd gotten over his own origin as he lived underground, but hearing about it happening to another mutant still irked him.

It seemed Clyde didn't tell this to just anyone though, afraid perhaps that they might seek his parents out, or react in a way he didn't want. Maybe Clyde had opened up to Sylar because he didn't look like a person anymore, funny how if you took away the normal body and a pretty face, people's perceptions of you changed on a fundamental level. Telling a monster your secrets felt completely safe compared to whispering it to a friend even. Sylar didn't smirk or chuckle, but he did respond in a way to comfort Clyde. "Do I look like the type to gossip? I'm an urban legend to some myself, so don't worry about it." He replied to Clyde's request of secrecy.

Clyde guilty after whining about his situation with his dad despite Sylar's situation sounding far worse. At least he was left with one parent that wasn't a blatant mutant-hater.

Clyde could sense a hint of Slyar's anger within that statement. Cautious, he stepped back. The math was simple: A monstery appearance plus anger equaled terrifying. It didn't help that Sylar towered over him. It'd been made clear to Clyde that he shouldn't dare pry for details about his parents (or any other subject that angered him, for that matter). He still didn't know Sylar well, but if he got enraged, yeah, Clyde wouldn't want to stick around to see that.

Crap. Showing fear would probably make Sylar feel even worse. “I guess you wouldn't.” It made sense; Sylar didn't strike Clyde as the type that had a huge social life.

“About the normal people, sadly, a lot of them don't like us,” Clyde stated with honesty. “But you have to admit, some mutants ah pretty bad apples, too. I just wish they wouldn't treat us all that way.”

Sylar did have something of an odd taste for inflicting fear. The sensation of respect he felt, when normal people were afraid of him, when he made use of what had befallen him to stay alive did give him a bit of joy. But Sylar knew Clyde was a mutant, and Sylar didn't feel the need or want to terrify his own kind. Even if Clyde looked like a regular person to him. He noticed Clyde was still a bit anxious around him, so he tried to remain calm and keep himself from being too monstrous in their chat.

Clyde seemed to realize that Sylar wasn't going to reveal anything they said here, or go gossiping to anyone. Who would Sylar gossip to anyways? His fellow sewer people? He was the only one he knew of so far. So far, most of the mutants Sylar had met had been good people, caring people, though maybe some had extreme personalities. "Humans...are afraid of change. They get uncomfortable easily...and even the smallest difference can get you kicked out of their pack." Sylar tended to use animal terms when referring to people, himself included, a habit that grew out of his increasingly animal like life style. "And I'm not dumb enough to think all mutants are saints...I know I'm not. But I've at least felt that mutants all know the things we go through." Sylar stared at Clyde, his features hidden beneath his hood until he reached up and pulled it back, revealing dead infected eyes, and the edges of his face contaminated by monstrous plating. "I look worlds apart from you Clyde, but we both dealt with bad parents. I'd rather be grouped with people who relate to me, than try to weasel back into their world."

Sylar's tone had a bit of venom too it, his disdain for regular people apparent. It wasn't that he hated them individually, it was the group ignorance. The natural tendency of humans to gang up and hate upon anything different to keep themselves comfortable. He hated that humans...weren't humane.

Clyde nodded. “You could put it that way. If people don't understand something, it frightens them. It seems other mutants do try to understand better. I wouldn't say all of them understand everything, though.” There were a few mutants Clyde knew of that, like normal people, made fun of him and his mutation. “Every mutation's different,” he added.

Speaking of that, now that Sylar no longer had his hood up, Clyde was able to get a better look at his face. It was still dark, but Clyde could see some more inhuman features there. It was somewhat unsettling, but he did his best to ignore that and make eye contact like he would with any other person.

Sylar seemed to have a strong preference for speaking with mutants. If what he said about his family was true, and Clyde didn't really doubt it, he couldn't blame him. But, avoiding normal people completely seemed almost cowardly to him.

“It's easiah hanging around other mutants, but you might have to face normal people sometime,” Clyde said, bluntly, but truthfully. “Just saying.”

Clyde was certainly right, every mutation was vastly different from one another. Sylar was surprised at these differences, he'd not finished school but he knew that generally mutations were a negative thing in natural terms. However the human mutation was not only beneficial to some, but to most! Leaving creatures like Sylar with the short end of the stick. "I haven't met two mutants with the same mutation yet. It's odd how different we all are, and yet the similarity between some of our situations. Surprises me." Clyde was an interesting person, more level headed and down to Earth than any of the mutants Sylar had met so far. Though being more normal than the average mutant probably wouldn't be a compliment if he said the thought aloud.

Clyde pointed out Sylar couldn't avoid normal people forever, and he couldn't. He did however, do a good job of making sure most of the normal people who caught a sight of him were too terrified to pose any threat. "Sometimes normal people see me, I'm so monstrous though, that most of them just run from me. So it's fairly easy to keep my distance for now." The fact Sylar was a common criminal with an extensive background of small scale robbery wouldn't help him deal with regular people either, especially their police force. "I figure it must be alot easier for you normal looking mutants to talk to them. No fangs and giant alien tail for them to gawk at." Sylar might come off as rude or blunt at times, but really he just said whatever came to mind without a thought of how it might sound, at least until after he'd said it. A bad habit for people with little social interaction.

Again, Clyde nodded in agreement. He still held some resentment for being so unlucky mutation-wise.

“Well, yeah, of course,” he resonded to the last statement. It was harder for them to sympathize with mutants that didn't look as human. And Sylar, well, fit that category. However, normal looking mutants still had issues of their own. “It's that's only because they don't know. Even then, it can still be a problem if the non-mutants found out. I think some people are even moh scared of us normal-looking ones because they can't tell."

Considering all of the fear and religious taboo, it was safe to say that, at present, things weren't great for mutants. The riots a few months ago hadn't helped the situation one bit, either. A lot of people, his dad included, just had that fear of not knowing whether the stranger sitting next to them on the bus was capable of shredding objects to pieces with his mind. Sadly, that made some very paranoid.

Sylar could understand the thought, people with psychic powers, looking no different than anyone else was a very scary thought. "I guess the threat you don't know is scarier than the one you see coming.Sylar mumbled in response to Clyde's thought. He had felt so openly persecuted, but the resentment for the way normals saw mutants must be the same between physical mutants and normal looking ones. Sylar had managed to avoid the riots himself, but had known people they affected, but tensions between normals and mutants hadn't really gotten any better.

Sylar thought actual peace or understanding between normals and mutants was probably far beyond his own life time if not impossible. "At least some of us have found homes. This Mansion, it's nice to know it's here for our kind." Sylar thought aloud, even though he didn't call this place home itself. Sanctuary and the Mansion were more safehouses for him, places he could hole up for a night if need be. Crowds still made him anxious, even crowds of his own kind.

“Yep,” Clyde shrugged. There was truth to that statement. Really, though, there were so many different opinions regarding mutants that they were impossible to categorize.

“Yeah, it is. It's given a lot of mutants somewhere to live.” Clyde was grateful that this place was there for him when he ran away. Even though he still didn't fit in so well with his classmates, this was worlds better than living on the streets.

Clyde suddenly shivered, but this time, it wasn't because he was scared. Standing in one spot at that time of night was getting chilly. “It's cold out heah. Why don't we head inside?” the age shifter suggested. “You wuh wanting to find yo friend, right?”

Sylar has refrained from offers to live at the Mansion, or at Sanctuary, both of which seemed to want to add more to their rosters, but he had refrained mostly for fear of mingling with a group. The fact that such homes existed though, was pretty good in his opinion. Mutants deserved anything regular people got, so knowing his own kind wasn't as underprivileged as he'd have expected before made him a bit happy. However once Clyde suggested going inside, Sylar felt those same nerves light up again.

Even now he was still bothered by the idea of invading this place, feeling he wasn't quite welcome yet, mostly in his own mind. For Sylar, cold was simply a natural part of life, so he hadn't noticed the temperature physically. "I'm not sure that I should, this isn't my home like it is to you or her." Sylar mumbled his words, uncomfortable but still curious as going into the Mansion always meant seeing his friend or possibly a free meal. Two things he didn't care to turn down. "Besides I doubt she's still up at this hour." Sylar turned to stare at the Mansion for a moment, the large opaque blob which the others knew as home, to him was still an unknown since he'd barely spent any time inside.

Clyde shook his head in disbelief. “How did you plan on finding yo friend if you refuse to go inside? Expect huh to happen to be wandering the grounds like me?” He found this almost funny, in a way, but refrained from laughing.

As far as Clyde knew, the Mansion staff didn't mind if random people came in, as long as they behaved themselves, of course. Even though Sylar looked scary, there wasn't anything about him that was screaming hostility. Then again, Clyde didn't know Sylar all that well. He didn't have any reason to insist that Sylar came inside, so he was going to respect his decision regardless.

Seems Clyde had caught a small snag in Sylar's plan, or lack there of. Being the timid creature he was, often times he'd hang around the Mansion and never speak or interact with anyone. Was just nice to hang around a place where nobody shouted monster or called the police on spotting you. And he didn't always let Serena or Evelyn know he'd stopped by. "Er..." He mumbled for a second. "Well...I guess sometimes I don't actually plan on finding her." The nervous nature and crack in his voice would probably sound odd considering his usual stern tone.

Sylar sighed a bit. "I'm an odd...creature." He stated as he continued to converse with Clyde. "I make a friend or two, and I'm still too nervous to stay up here long enough to see them." Sylar never felt comfortable being out in the open, being up here meant being vulnerable. At least in the sewers he was the top of the food chain, nothing down there was a threat. Not the rats, not the rare homeless person who wandered in, and especially not the various cats he fed when he had the chance. "I imagine I'm pretty confusing at the moment, maybe I'll just step in for a moment...to warm up some." He said, feeling he could at least take the time to warm up a bit and maybe steal a drink of water from the Mansion before he vanished back into the dark.

It looked like Clyde caught Sylar off guard with that remark. He listened to what Sylar had to say about it. If he wasn't always trying to find his friend, why did he like lurking around the Mansion? The explanation, according to Sylar, was nervousness. “Sounds like you really ah not used to dealing with people. But don't feel so bad. I'm not much bettah,” he admitted, shrugging.

Clyde was a bit surprised that Sylar had changed his mind about entering the Mansion. But, the sooner they got out of the cold, the better. “This way then,” he said, starting to walk towards the building. He crossed his arms, fighting the chill.

Sylar was indeed quite poor at dealing with people, this whole socializing thing made him uncomfortable at times. You spend years as the loner kid who gets bullied, and trying to insert yourself into a new world turns out to be very hard. You worry about that they won't like you, that they'll see you as a monster, that they'll simply ignore you like everyone else did. Its something of a wall to get over or through, one which he was working on thanks to a few individuals, but it was a gradual process. "I was a loner when I was normal, and now I'm just half a person, so it's a bit hard to interact. You get used to being alone after awhile." He mumbled in response. At least Clyde had the appearance of a normal human, that'd help him more than Sylar's claws, fangs, and tail helped him for certain.

Sylar followed Clyde, the cold didn't bother him so much, but it was nice to warm up every so often. Especially when your clothes were ragged and full of holes. "Sure, I won't stay long though." Sylar looked up a bit as they neared the mansion, for him it was a massive blob a midst an empty space. "It always amazes me, that such a place exists. Whoever runs it must be loaded. And they just let all you muties live here for free?" Sylar hadn't really asked much about the people who ran the Mansion since he'd last been here and met one of the teachers, a woman. She'd been quite determined to get him to move here, though he'd turned her down.

The Mansion was an entirely different entity to Sylar, the idea of live among many of his own kind was intimidating, almost as much as living with normal people had been years ago. Too many variables, too much stimuli to take in and process. He was working towards joining the mutant community, but it was still a time off. Though he knew when he finally decided to come out into the world he'd have some friends waiting, Serena and Evelyn had certainly proved so during their meetings. "So you like it here Clyde?" He asked, changing the mood and pacing of the conversation from his earlier questions.

Sylar didn't plan on staying long. Clyde hadn't expected him to. Sylar seemed to have a harder time with the “not fitting in” thing than he did.

Clyde cringed at the word that came out of Sylar's mouth. Mutie. Coming from another mutant made it non-offensive, but that was the very same term bigots would write on their signs and shout at visible mutants. “Yeah, pretty much. You might not want to use 'mutie,' though. Mutant-hatahs use it a lot,” he replied. Heh, Clyde did wonder where the money came from. Did they have a precog who played the stock market or something?

“It's all right heah,” he answered as honestly as he could. “Sure, strange things happen at times because of all the mutations, and I have a roommate that makes goldfish look intelligent, but at least it's a place to live and eat. And, theah ah enough people heah that at least try to be undahstanding.”

Clyde reacted to the word mutie like many other mutants did, the word was a racial slur, a hate term. Sylar didn't usually feel things like offense or disgust as normal people did, so to him the word was just a word for mutant. "That's what they call us, so I just always used the same word. I'll try to avoid it." He said rather bluntly, his lack of social skills showing in adopting a term used by the hateful masses that forced him underground.

Seemed everyone who lived at this Mansion liked it, and the world it represented. A community of mutants, people who all knew what it was like to be feared, living together like normal people do. Was it pretending to be like the normals? Or was it a true mutant life style? Sylar didn't know, this world entirely different to how he lived his own life. "With how different we all are compared to one another I'd figure they keep a list of all the different powers. I've yet to meet another like myself, it's almost like were all whole new species of people." Sylar remembered some of the biology he learned way back, how species could eventually branch out into new ones. The world of mutants certainly seemed like that sometimes, though most of them still looked normal, unlike himself. So that made him the outlier, the extreme, the freak. It was funny kind of.

"There's another community like this i've seen, over at a place called Sanctuary. I wonder if this building and that one are affiliated with each other." He questioned aloud as his thoughts focused on things less chaotic or dangerous than his life normally contained.