Zachary Quinto Reads the Dictionary

Written by Anakin McFly

(For the people at gqmf_heroes who claimed that they wanted to watch Zachary Quinto read from the dictionary.)

"...Why are you doing this?"

"Because it's fun. We go live in ten seconds. Open the dictionary, Quinto." Sylar casually telekinetic-ed a fughat from across the room onto his finger. He looked at it in curious and faintly disgusted awe. "Although there isn't really much at stake. How could you possibly bear to put these things on your head?"

Sylar tugged at the hat and wondered how much effort it would take to shred the thing to pieces.

"Leave my hats alone!" Zach yelled.

Sylar smirked at him. "Then you know what to do."

"What kind of people would want me to read the dictionary?!"

Sylar shrugged. "Hey, it's not my fault if you have weird fans."

He flicked his finger, and the overhead flood lights came on. Zach winced at the sudden brightness. The camera lens swivelled to focus on him.

"Open the dictionary, Quinto," Sylar repeated. "Or the hat gets it." He held it up for emphasis.

Zach paled.

Somewhere on a dodgy part of the Internet, GQMFs waited with bated breaths. A few of them sort of wondered why Zach was tied to his chair, and wondered if perhaps this hadn't been such a good idea, and if the mysterious kind soul who offered to make their dream TV show come true might not have been such a kind soul after all. A few others wondered how he would turn the pages with his hands tied. A few others didn't care, because they just liked seeing him tied up.

"Do I really have to do everything for you?" Sylar asked. He sighed and telekinetically flipped the dictionary open to the first page of the 'A's. "Read. You can read, can't you?"

"You... you don't exist. You're not going to make me-"

Sylar tore the hat in two.

Zach screamed.

"Believe I'm serious now?"

Zach gulped.

"Fans are waiting, Quinto. They want to know the definitions of words in the English language as narrated by you."

Sylar zoomed the camera in so that the audience would get a better view. Off-screen, he held up half the fughat for motivation. He smiled. "Please begin."

"...'A'," Zach started nervously. "Noun. The first letter of the English alphabet."

Several audience members fainted from joy.

"...'a'," Zach continued. "Also 'an'. Strong indefinite article, determiner. 1. Used before a noun that names something or someone that has not been mentioned before, or that the person you are talking to does not know about: Do you have a car? There's a spider in the bath. SYLAR IS HOLDING ME PRISONER AND MAKING ME READ FROM A DICTIONA- AAAHHHHHH!"

Several audience members revelled in Zach's creative adjustment of dictionary example sentences. They thought the fake blood running from his forehead was also awesomely cool, and wondered what the special effects budget on this show was, because after the first definition some of them had started to doubt if this really was a good idea after all and some action like that would definitely spice things up.

Sylar flicked off the audio with his free hand. "Plan to die on live television?" he asked.

"N...no."

Sylar looked into the corner and whistled. "Noah!"

"...leave my dog alone-"

Noah trotted up to Sylar and looked at him expectantly. Sylar tossed him the half of the fughat. "Eat that."

Noah wuffed and happily obliged as Zach looked on in horror.

"He can't eat... hats..."

"Looks like he's enjoying it," Sylar commented. "Or maybe he's going to choke on it and die. It's hard to tell; I don't really know what that hat is made of. But I doubt it's meant to be eaten."

"WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?" Zach yelled.

Sylar pointed at the dictionary. "The narrated definitions of words in the English language. Come on, Quinto, how many times must I tell you? And, hey, it's my good deed for the day. I went online and saw so many of your fans clamouring to have a show just like this. You're not going to deny them that, are you?"

Zach tugged futilely at the ropes around his wrist. He glared at the dictionary, which really didn't deserve that because it was but a helpless tool in this enterprise.

"There are over a thousand pages in this dictionary," Zach said.

"Looks like you'd better get going, then."

"It'd take forever."

"You're really pessimistic, you know that? It'll take a few years, tops, depending on how much you cooperate. Maybe if you're good I'll even let you have a drink of water every... say, fifty pages, how about that?"

Zach glared at him. Blood from the cut on his head dripped onto his nose. He wanted to wipe it off because it itched, but his hands were tied.

"...So get on with it or I'll feed your dog the other half of this hat." Sylar flicked the audio back on.

Robbed of his last vestiges of equanimity, Zach glared in angry trepidation at the dictionary and the moribund task that lay ahead, harbouring temporary fantasies of absconding with his fughats to a place where Sylar would never find him, no longer forced to do inhumane tasks that any decent human being would be diametrically opposed to.

"I hate you," he muttered.

D: went his listening fans.

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