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Clyde hadn't even set a foot outside the door when he heard a muffled, yet angry voice. Startled, he spun around.

“What?” The voice sounded like it had come from the washing machine. Was someone in there? Clyde walked towards it, confused. Again, he heard someone yelling (and swearing) at him, and it was something about a purple shirt.

“Okay, okay. Sheesh.” Yeah, he'd put the purple shirt in the wash. It wasn't a crime. Rolling his eyes, he shut off the machine and lifted the door open. It was odd; nothing he put in there was supposed to talk. This was probably some sort of prank.

Considering Clyde was on his last set of clean clothes, it was about time he did his laundry.

On his way to the laundry area, he passed through the living room, towing the small bag that contained the clothes that needed to be washed. That was when something on the ground caught his eye. A T-shirt. A Guns N' Roses one, to be precise. And, it was bright purple. That was a bit unusual for a rocker tee.

Why would someone leave their shirt in the living room? A shirt wasn't normally something someone would leave behind.

Anyways, Clyde didn't want to know. But, he now was going to think twice before sitting on that couch.

Without giving it much thought, he picked the shirt up and slipped it into the bag and continued towards the laundry room. The shirt had been lying on the ground, so it probably needed to be washed.

“Do you think I'm part of the cool crowd? Do I look like someone people would want to hang out with?”

Kaitlyn couldn't have been serious. Looking like a kid wasn't cool at all. Not that Clyde wanted to be part of the cool crowd – most of them were jocks that had been knocked on the head one too many times. He just wished his mutation was different so that people would actually treat him like an equal.

“It doesn't tend to go well,” Clyde sighed. “Eithah they think I'm lying, oh they... well, you could probably guess what else they do.”

Clyde didn't feel like telling the whole sob story about how bad the teasing was back at the school in Boston. Everyone there knew he looked younger than he was supposed to be, so dealing with it was hard. After he'd moved, he'd decided that withholding that bit of information at least kept him off most people's radar.

However, things might have turned out better if he had informed Persi instead of getting angry.

No crowds where Sylar lived? Oh, it couldn't have been a subway station he was living in. Basement of an abandoned building? The sewers? A cave? The way Sylar worded it, it appeared that he intentionally scared off whoever wandered into his home, wherever it was. It was antisocial but understandable, given the negative attention Sylar's mutation would likely attract. Clyde himself wished there was a way to ward off bullies, but, being less than four feet tall, scaring them was not an option. There were always crowds to deal with, whether he liked it or not.

“Moving into a school setting would be a huge leap fo you,” Clyde commented under his breath. In his experience, classes were the worst; he was always the odd one out when surrounded by teenagers that actually looked their age. People always were told to embrace their differences, but, frankly, being different was hard.

“Anyways, yeah, a lot does change. It hurts when it does, too,” he answered as he entered the kitchen. Height, strength, the way people perceived him... Shifting sometimes allowed him to escape the annoyances that came with his normal form.

Sylar's request for meat wasn't all that surprising. With an appearance like his, “vegetarian” wasn't a word that came to the age shifter's mind. Clyde tugged the refrigerator door open and glanced at the shelves. “Looks like theah's some leftovah pork roast in heah. I think theah's a big industrial-sized box of microwavable patties in the freezah.” Sylar didn't seem the picky type; Clyde was sure there was something in the kitchen for him to eat.

This person didn't want to talk about it. No surprise there; that was pretty personal stuff. And wow, he really did seem to think he was only eight. It always irritated Clyde when people made that mistake, but he wasn't going to yell at him. No, not in this context.

“Seventeen. My mutation's messed up,” he informed him after some hesitation. All his condition ever did was generate misunderstanding. In fact, it was the reason he'd overreacted to this guy's remarks in the first place. “I guess I nevah explained it. Hell, I don't even know yo name.”

Even though the guy claimed that the arguments didn't contribute, Clyde still felt sick about what he said. Telling an already suicidal person to die was terrible, no matter who he was. What if this guy had died? Then, Clyde would have been that cold-hearted bastard who had encouraged the death, with no one to say otherwise. If that happened, he'd never be able to live with that on his conscience.

Clyde shook his head. “But, I told you to die when I should've done the opposite.” He paused, fiddling with the hem of his jacket. “Why'd you do it?” Perhaps he had no business asking, but he wanted to know the reason.