Denoucement
Aug. 8th, 2012 03:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
black_hatPairing: Sylar/Claire
warning: abusive and body horrorish, also, weird birth control method and shape-shifting a bit. Not non-con though. Or really even dub-con, though eh, I warn for darkness and gruesomeness. I hope I handled all aspects respectfully.
Word Count: 3546
Thanks to ever_neutral to the look over on one scene in particular. :) The rest of mistakes are just mine. That's always good news...:3
For: xx_pinkstar
In the beginning, Claire ran.
This, through the haze of his sedated mind, Sylar-Gabriel-Sylar remembered well. She had stood above them all and showed them what she was and then a few weeks later, she was gone. Oh well, had been his initial thought.
He had been chasing her for what felt like forever and now it would be forever. He had time to catch up and for now he had Peter.
Somehow, however, the general public decided he should die. It was a pretty popular one, and Sylar was not of that opinion (even if he was). Not much he could do about it at the present: Noah Bennet helped hunt him down.
Again.
The man would take no responsibility for his actions. Sylar couldn’t understand someone like that.
His mind was adjusting and he’d get out of this federal cell. He felt less than human and that was also no surprise. He had expected to get out a lot sooner than this. Sylar suspected an internal enemy, from his long time in his own mind. He had been weakened and damaged and perhaps some internal enemy, himself, was preventing his escape.
Because he couldn’t concentrate. He was even dreaming up voices and faces.
“That’s what you think.”
Someone said, and Sylar furrowed his brow. He didn’t recognize that voice in his head. A face appeared and small fingers flicked his forehead. Flicked his forehead.
Claire.
Her face was emotionless for the most part except her eyes were focused. Her hair was slicked back and she was in all black (hey that rhym…)
He groaned.
“Hi, Sylar,” she said. She never really spoke his name except in a horrified whisper: there was no less horror here, only he wasn’t seeing it. For some disconcerting reason. “You can thank me never.”
“What?”
Something pierced his arm and suddenly his mind was dangerously clear again, things clicking into place. The metal straps were pulled back and he sat up. Claire had a syringe in her hand, full of her blood.
“Who else was here?”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “Just some guy who can walk through walls. I’m not going to tell you his name.”
As if he would still---well. Good idea.
“He left you here.”
“I noticed.”
“Still not every popular, are you?”
That got her attention momentarily. “No, I guess I'm not,” she said, a mysterious reflective look on her face, and she stepped back from him, putting her hands in her pockets. She was going to live through all of it and be self-contained. Actually self-contained.
He envied her.
“I can walk through walls now,” Sylar said, throwing something out there.
She didn’t answer him.
He couldn’t help himself. He never really could. “I could leave you here.”
Claire nodded, leaning against the wall. Sylar pushed the limit, hearing the alarms beginning to screech through the place, and while Claire hadn’t committed any crimes, this would count. This, his freedom, would count. It was a delicious irony.
If she had begged.
She didn’t. She remained there, still, until he grabbed her and broke the walls down. He still didn’t have that ability.
…
“You are such a liar,” she said, bored. Sylar ignored her and he did not show off his strength for her. In fact, he moved quickly, so no one could see her clearly against him. She stiffened, her teeth bared against his chest, but she didn’t struggle.
Once free, he took to the air.
He could have used a different power. Claire pushed away from him and he kept his grip, lest he dropped her. He could have, technically, and she seemed to want to be dropped to the very far ground.
Sylar couldn’t quite respect her wishes. In midflight, there was a small, petite knife in his gut. How quaint and predictable.
In a field, away from the city, he let her go, took out the knife, and handed it to her.
“Here. I have returned all your in-flight belongings.”
“I wanted you to keep it,” she said, her back to him—she was straightening her hair in its small ponytail—
“No, that would be wrong,” he said, and stuck it in her back. He didn’t feel bad about that: he felt almost bad…well, bad, because she didn’t notice. He pulled it out with TK discretely and just tossed it aside.
Claire started walking, without a backwards glance.
“So, what now?” he asked, his hands out in a grand gesture.
She didn’t answer.
“Claire,” he said, using her name to get control. She kept her back to him. Sylar wasn’t to be deterred and while he wanted to use…old methods, old habits that he was dying to use especially with her, he clamped down on the urge. He followed her.
They walked for a long time, back into the city, and Claire approached a small car, unlocked it, and…this was why she had wanted him to drop her. Most likely.
He got in the passenger’s side without a word. She looked impossibly annoyed.
“What?” he asked. “I don’t know what to do, where to go. I can’t go back to Peter now, he’d be in danger. And he’s too good to be judged by the world for being with me. I can’t go back,” he said, fully realizing it.
“That’s too bad,” she said. She was lying. By the way.
“I have to go somewhere.”
“I can think of some places you could go,” she said.
He stared at her. She was different, and his old impulses were falling towards him. Patterns emerging.
“Why?” he asked. She turned on the car and began to drive.
“Keep your stupid head down,” she said.
He changed shape. Claire looked and was disturbed.
“Pick another,” she said.
Claire never liked the look of herself.
“Not until you tell me why. Why did you save me?” he asked. “Why did you think I deserved to live?”
“It’s my fault you were there in the first place,” Claire said.
“That’s not an answer,” he almost growled. “Tell me why.”
She seemed to close up again.
“Tell me why you, yet again, took away the people’s choice.”
"Why should you die?” she asked, harshly, flaring up. Considering the context…
She had a point.
***
“Yes, I’m the girl who can’t die,” Claire told the motel manager, “and yes, among other very special things, he’s a pervert.”
Sylar’s guard was still significantly older. He grabbed her arm and pulled her out of that motel, and despite his …downward spiral, he was still proud.
“Don’t ever call me that again.”
“Awfully long time to make promises,” Claire said, her knees folded under her, and something in him, at her tone, realized the truth of it.
“You know, I would have stayed there. Let them do what they would have wanted.”
She didn’t answer him. He tried to believe himself instead.
Claire watched the night sky pass by through the window. His grip tightened on the wheel. On the radio, there was report after report of social unrest, and she was listening to it. Actually listening to it. He watched her and it didn’t fit with what he had known of her.
It was as if she had let go.
"It wasn't right before the jump, either," she said, as if reading his mind.
He had, once, felt her pain and isolation, and that was a while ago. He never forgot. He wished that alone could have made him kinder, better, absolved him.
It didn’t. His mind was impossibly tight, impossibly, and he hated his lack of control. On the radio, they just called him a serial killer. He wasn’t. Technicalities aside. Claire didn’t blink.
It was true, wasn’t it? He remembered those faces again and his mother and what he had done. All of it.
They made it to the second hotel without incident, and he---fell back to what he was. He raised a hand and pushed the girl who saved his life against the wall with his TK.
Not another first. It never seemed to be.
Claire stared back at him evenly, without a trace of that struggling or even that old hate—she still did, just not quite to the level he …he wanted. He lost his control.
He pressed his hand against her stomach and burnt her. Not a sound. She watched, her eyes disappointed strangely.
“It always smells so bad,” she commented. He slit her throat. Cut her tongue out. Broke her neck. Again and again, until he was on his knees before her, holding on to her, his forehead against hers. She allowed it, even curled her hand around the back of his neck.
It was the single most infuriating thing to ever happen to him. And yet it felt like he couldn’t do anything about it.
He thought he could be screaming. Crying at least. No, just an undercurrent of screaming.
“Shhh,” she said, strangely sad. “It’s okay. What happens, happens, and it’s always okay.”
“No,” he said, shutting his eyes. “I’m still broken. I wish I could hurt you.”
“Yeah. I’m sorry,” she said.
She had lied about a little but not everything. Not everything.
***
Claire sat on the barstool, watching the news.
She never missed the news. Sylar could miss the news. He could miss many things at this point. It was surreal, that she was sitting by him now—sipping a drink. It had an umbrella, for G…it had a stupid umbrella in it. She had bright colors on today but she had hardly said a word for days. He didn’t mind, he didn’t want to talk, as tenuous as it was being in his own skin.
His thoughts were racing. They hadn’t slowed down with all the contradictions running through his veins. He couldn’t know Claire’s thoughts.
“I’ve never even been to Europe,” he complained, suddenly.
She looked over at him. Frowned. Looked back with a sigh.
“I’m sure you were going to make your way over there, unfortunately,” Claire said.
“Have you been?” he demanded.
“No,” she said. “That’s the unfortunate part. You’d probably go over there to stalk me.”
“Not if it’s France.”
She did not look at him, she seemed determined not to.
“I thought France had great….clocks,” she said. He looked at her.
“What does that have to do with anything?”
Her eyes narrowed. He liked it when he did get to her.
“I blame your father for not being able to travel,” he said. “For ruining every aspect of my life.”
“You blame everyone else for your problems,” she said.
“Yet another thing we have in common.”
She gritted her jaw and there was most likely not more talking tonight . The news roared on. Claire kept watching, and sometimes she’d mutter the details of a death. Locked in her own racing mind.
He wanted to threaten someone, bring out something else in her that he used to know…he didn’t like what he was seeing.
“They keep telling me how alone I’ll be,” she said, in a good humored tone.
It clicked.
It clicked for him. He stared at her in such a way she turned to meet his eyes. Saw something there.
They left, both—it felt—finally in sync.
***
Claire had a new knife in her hand.
“You don’t understand, I don’t feel anything about any of this. That’s what happened.”
Lies. Emotional pincushion. He knew this. He wished it would make him kinder but he knew what needed to be done. What needed to be done—that was what he would do. It was that simple.
“You thought the hatred of me would free you,” he said, sitting on the bed. After saving his life.
“I do hate you,” she said.
“But it’s not enough,” he said.
“I don’t know what’s happening to me,” she said.
No tears. Just an admission. What was always going to—but it felt like a lie. Sylar didn’t know why it did. Perhaps it was the fact that she was an emotional pincushion.
“You know what you’re doing,” he said, appraisingly. “No matter what you believe, you know exactly what you’re doing. There’s no harm in wanting to save yourself at the expense of another.”
“That is harm,” Claire argued.
“Which I can feel.”
He couldn’t say it wasn’t calculated. She slapped him in reaction. Hard.
“Felt that too, but did I ever feel as helpless as you. Hmm, no-,” (some lying), he said, and there was a look in her eyes of fire and this was it. This was it. She hated him and it was owed and hers, and he thought this would do nicely. One more touch-
He shifted.
“Go on. Jump,” he said through her voice. “You won’t get hurt...why do you have to live through the inevitable like the rest?"
“Freak!”
That was all it took, to turn her pain towards him. She was on him, and he let her body rock him backwards onto the bed, her knee in his stomach. Felt that. Oh good. He let himself remain in Claire’s skin for a brief second, letting her see the pain reflected on her own features—
Claire leaned forward and put her knee against his neck. “Do you even feel anything, you selfish…” She stopped, caught herself. “Change back. I’m not like you, you know,” that stung. And who had ever mentioned his momentary fascination with his doppelganger?
He did as he was told. She watched him closely. Put the knife to his cheek and pushed down. She took quite a bit. Her mouth fell open at the look on his face.
The mixture of pain and now, shame. And want.
Then: “Oh... Fuck.”
He found it amusing but there was something else he knew she’d like, having seen her, really seen her. She was still full of surprises (wasn’t supposed to be) but this was a sure thing. He thrust his hips up and the motion took her.
She was not surprised.
“I knew you’d like it,” he said, and saw cruelty break open on her forever-young face, changing right there and showing her experiences.
He’d let her, he decided.
Her hand grabbed for his shirt and pulled at it, pulled it off of him. She looked down. He had never seen someone look that ungenerously angry in a very long while (well, not that long ago, a week ago in fact) but it concerned his body.
“You don’t have to look that unimpressed,” he said. She stabbed him low in the gut, wincing but keeping her eyes fixed on him. “Doesn’t work that way,” he said, and there was nothing about what he was planning that was generous. Or anything but what it was.
He reached out and touched her through her jeans, hard, and she got the picture. From her face, she got the picture. She went to cutting some more and he cut right back. It was an even fight, and perhaps even more so on her side because he only wanted to…
Do what he should.
She was a wreck, fists and nails seeking out any part of him she could. His nose, his jaw, his eyes. All hurt like hell. He welcomed such a thing: hell.
This was never what he wanted but it was the only thing he wanted that was right.
He touched her jeans, but she was there first, unbuttoning them, her eyes enflamed, lips red. She pushed her leg against his erection, and it was belligerent (she shouldn’t know how to do that), and so—
“Have a heart.”
“Don’t have one,” she said, and that was his li(n)e.
He told her so. Her face was eclipsed, focusing on him as if he was the source of everything inside of her too.
To prove her wrong, and to prove that there was more than just the blood—so much of it—that was turning him on (and there was so much, the smell of it) and he did want to see and feel and know—
He pushed and tore and she did gasp as his fingers glazed that thing called her heart—her eyes threatened to dim and blood spit out of her pretty, small mouth-
“Found it,” he said, and then she—she pulled herself down on him, teeth bared and snarling. He gasped this time, and it –was the blood—that made him almost lose control. Inside of her, it felt out of his—element, entirely.
The knife in his chest now really didn’t help the situation at all, as she twisted it with all her might. She did finally get there, moving under his ribcage.
He could only hold on.
“Why don’t you take that too?” she challenged, her eyes dark and tore and wild. A green so bright that he might have misunderstood after all.
What he had taken and who he had taken it from. Yes. He had misunderstood.
He barely lasted. It didn’t even seem fair. She didn’t notice, her first sexual arousal (her first sexual anything) taking all her attention. She looked at him and at the bloody sheets. She laid back for a moment, panting. She then turned back to him, one hand on his stomach and the other on his arm, her leg against his penis.
Contact. She kept looking for something and then seemed to find it. She was satisfied and yet…she looked away suddenly. Something in his face had made her look away.
“Kill me,” she said.
“It couldn’t have-.”
“We didn’t use protection,” she pointed out. Right. He took care of it. She came back a little different. She rubbed the sheets that were crusted dry with blood.
“That was wrong,” Claire said.
“I deserved it,” he claimed, possessively.
“Shut up,” she said softly. Not gently. “You don’t know anything.”
It was like she finally stabbed him in the heart. She looked back at his silence and grew still.
She rubbed her arms once and then stopped, sitting there naked. She laid back again, staring at the ceiling. He didn’t move.
He couldn’t. He didn’t know what to do.
“What did that mean?” she asked.
He didn’t have an answer.
***
“You should go back to Peter,” she said at midnight. “You want to, right?” she asked.
“I haven’t thought about it,” he lied.
“By now, he’ll want to see you.”
Sylar didn’t need this from her. But he let her do it anyway. He didn’t know why. She even drove him in a fight of irony, back to the city.
They sat in the car.
“I’m not sure I want this anymore,” he said. Going back to Peter was...daunting.
“You do,” she said. “Otherwise I’m only going to get worse towards you. Now that it’s started.”
“Did you feel something?”
He didn’t look at her as he asked.
“Yes,” she said.
“It’s only human,” he said.
“It is,” she said, swallowing hard, “I just don’t know if that’s who I want to be. But if that is me, you still don’t…” she struggled. “It shouldn’t have happened to you.”
Now he did look. Surprised. He thought she’d keep on …well. As long as she’d be able to. He would have let her because it was what she owed, what so many people were owed. Here, she was letting him go. He still didn’t understand.
She glanced up. “Well, I mean, I shouldn’t have cut off half your face, that was unnecessary.”
“I get the point. What are you going to do now?” he asked instead of that other burning question.
“I’m going home,” she said.
Where the world would find her. He did imagine Sandra would be hurting less to see her. For whatever....that was worth. Whatever it was. He frowned.
“There's no reason to stop living because of this power," she said, and it almost sounded like a joke. "You should do the same. If you don’t mind me saying so," she said.
He looked at his hands. Yes. Peter would not be there forever unless he chose to. Sylar already knew the answer.
“I don’t even know how to do that,” he confessed. “I’m too worried about where I’m going. I worry about what the future will bring.”
It was beginning to sink in despite the bloody sheets they had taken, as if it was something to truly hide, and he had burnt.
“You don’t have to worry about some things,” she said. “With my power—about what I said before…” she seemed stuck. He understood.
“The thing is, I always wanted God to find me,” he said. “I knew that even when I met you."
She looked at him as if it were true. It was. He got out of the car quickly, running from her now.
“Next time you need to feel something, you know where I am.”
And there would be a next time. Her open expression closed up--yet there was something in her eyes now he didn't like. Awareness.
“Goodbye, Sylar,” she said and drove off, leaving him alone in the darkness. For once, he didn’t have to worry about it.
The only thing that didn’t push him over the edge was that he wasn’t the only person who knew what it felt like.
warning: abusive and body horrorish, also, weird birth control method and shape-shifting a bit. Not non-con though. Or really even dub-con, though eh, I warn for darkness and gruesomeness. I hope I handled all aspects respectfully.
Word Count: 3546
Thanks to ever_neutral to the look over on one scene in particular. :) The rest of mistakes are just mine. That's always good news...:3
For: xx_pinkstar
In the beginning, Claire ran.
This, through the haze of his sedated mind, Sylar-Gabriel-Sylar remembered well. She had stood above them all and showed them what she was and then a few weeks later, she was gone. Oh well, had been his initial thought.
He had been chasing her for what felt like forever and now it would be forever. He had time to catch up and for now he had Peter.
Somehow, however, the general public decided he should die. It was a pretty popular one, and Sylar was not of that opinion (even if he was). Not much he could do about it at the present: Noah Bennet helped hunt him down.
Again.
The man would take no responsibility for his actions. Sylar couldn’t understand someone like that.
His mind was adjusting and he’d get out of this federal cell. He felt less than human and that was also no surprise. He had expected to get out a lot sooner than this. Sylar suspected an internal enemy, from his long time in his own mind. He had been weakened and damaged and perhaps some internal enemy, himself, was preventing his escape.
Because he couldn’t concentrate. He was even dreaming up voices and faces.
“That’s what you think.”
Someone said, and Sylar furrowed his brow. He didn’t recognize that voice in his head. A face appeared and small fingers flicked his forehead. Flicked his forehead.
Claire.
Her face was emotionless for the most part except her eyes were focused. Her hair was slicked back and she was in all black (hey that rhym…)
He groaned.
“Hi, Sylar,” she said. She never really spoke his name except in a horrified whisper: there was no less horror here, only he wasn’t seeing it. For some disconcerting reason. “You can thank me never.”
“What?”
Something pierced his arm and suddenly his mind was dangerously clear again, things clicking into place. The metal straps were pulled back and he sat up. Claire had a syringe in her hand, full of her blood.
“Who else was here?”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “Just some guy who can walk through walls. I’m not going to tell you his name.”
As if he would still---well. Good idea.
“He left you here.”
“I noticed.”
“Still not every popular, are you?”
That got her attention momentarily. “No, I guess I'm not,” she said, a mysterious reflective look on her face, and she stepped back from him, putting her hands in her pockets. She was going to live through all of it and be self-contained. Actually self-contained.
He envied her.
“I can walk through walls now,” Sylar said, throwing something out there.
She didn’t answer him.
He couldn’t help himself. He never really could. “I could leave you here.”
Claire nodded, leaning against the wall. Sylar pushed the limit, hearing the alarms beginning to screech through the place, and while Claire hadn’t committed any crimes, this would count. This, his freedom, would count. It was a delicious irony.
If she had begged.
She didn’t. She remained there, still, until he grabbed her and broke the walls down. He still didn’t have that ability.
…
“You are such a liar,” she said, bored. Sylar ignored her and he did not show off his strength for her. In fact, he moved quickly, so no one could see her clearly against him. She stiffened, her teeth bared against his chest, but she didn’t struggle.
Once free, he took to the air.
He could have used a different power. Claire pushed away from him and he kept his grip, lest he dropped her. He could have, technically, and she seemed to want to be dropped to the very far ground.
Sylar couldn’t quite respect her wishes. In midflight, there was a small, petite knife in his gut. How quaint and predictable.
In a field, away from the city, he let her go, took out the knife, and handed it to her.
“Here. I have returned all your in-flight belongings.”
“I wanted you to keep it,” she said, her back to him—she was straightening her hair in its small ponytail—
“No, that would be wrong,” he said, and stuck it in her back. He didn’t feel bad about that: he felt almost bad…well, bad, because she didn’t notice. He pulled it out with TK discretely and just tossed it aside.
Claire started walking, without a backwards glance.
“So, what now?” he asked, his hands out in a grand gesture.
She didn’t answer.
“Claire,” he said, using her name to get control. She kept her back to him. Sylar wasn’t to be deterred and while he wanted to use…old methods, old habits that he was dying to use especially with her, he clamped down on the urge. He followed her.
They walked for a long time, back into the city, and Claire approached a small car, unlocked it, and…this was why she had wanted him to drop her. Most likely.
He got in the passenger’s side without a word. She looked impossibly annoyed.
“What?” he asked. “I don’t know what to do, where to go. I can’t go back to Peter now, he’d be in danger. And he’s too good to be judged by the world for being with me. I can’t go back,” he said, fully realizing it.
“That’s too bad,” she said. She was lying. By the way.
“I have to go somewhere.”
“I can think of some places you could go,” she said.
He stared at her. She was different, and his old impulses were falling towards him. Patterns emerging.
“Why?” he asked. She turned on the car and began to drive.
“Keep your stupid head down,” she said.
He changed shape. Claire looked and was disturbed.
“Pick another,” she said.
Claire never liked the look of herself.
“Not until you tell me why. Why did you save me?” he asked. “Why did you think I deserved to live?”
“It’s my fault you were there in the first place,” Claire said.
“That’s not an answer,” he almost growled. “Tell me why.”
She seemed to close up again.
“Tell me why you, yet again, took away the people’s choice.”
"Why should you die?” she asked, harshly, flaring up. Considering the context…
She had a point.
***
“Yes, I’m the girl who can’t die,” Claire told the motel manager, “and yes, among other very special things, he’s a pervert.”
Sylar’s guard was still significantly older. He grabbed her arm and pulled her out of that motel, and despite his …downward spiral, he was still proud.
“Don’t ever call me that again.”
“Awfully long time to make promises,” Claire said, her knees folded under her, and something in him, at her tone, realized the truth of it.
“You know, I would have stayed there. Let them do what they would have wanted.”
She didn’t answer him. He tried to believe himself instead.
Claire watched the night sky pass by through the window. His grip tightened on the wheel. On the radio, there was report after report of social unrest, and she was listening to it. Actually listening to it. He watched her and it didn’t fit with what he had known of her.
It was as if she had let go.
"It wasn't right before the jump, either," she said, as if reading his mind.
He had, once, felt her pain and isolation, and that was a while ago. He never forgot. He wished that alone could have made him kinder, better, absolved him.
It didn’t. His mind was impossibly tight, impossibly, and he hated his lack of control. On the radio, they just called him a serial killer. He wasn’t. Technicalities aside. Claire didn’t blink.
It was true, wasn’t it? He remembered those faces again and his mother and what he had done. All of it.
They made it to the second hotel without incident, and he---fell back to what he was. He raised a hand and pushed the girl who saved his life against the wall with his TK.
Not another first. It never seemed to be.
Claire stared back at him evenly, without a trace of that struggling or even that old hate—she still did, just not quite to the level he …he wanted. He lost his control.
He pressed his hand against her stomach and burnt her. Not a sound. She watched, her eyes disappointed strangely.
“It always smells so bad,” she commented. He slit her throat. Cut her tongue out. Broke her neck. Again and again, until he was on his knees before her, holding on to her, his forehead against hers. She allowed it, even curled her hand around the back of his neck.
It was the single most infuriating thing to ever happen to him. And yet it felt like he couldn’t do anything about it.
He thought he could be screaming. Crying at least. No, just an undercurrent of screaming.
“Shhh,” she said, strangely sad. “It’s okay. What happens, happens, and it’s always okay.”
“No,” he said, shutting his eyes. “I’m still broken. I wish I could hurt you.”
“Yeah. I’m sorry,” she said.
She had lied about a little but not everything. Not everything.
***
Claire sat on the barstool, watching the news.
She never missed the news. Sylar could miss the news. He could miss many things at this point. It was surreal, that she was sitting by him now—sipping a drink. It had an umbrella, for G…it had a stupid umbrella in it. She had bright colors on today but she had hardly said a word for days. He didn’t mind, he didn’t want to talk, as tenuous as it was being in his own skin.
His thoughts were racing. They hadn’t slowed down with all the contradictions running through his veins. He couldn’t know Claire’s thoughts.
“I’ve never even been to Europe,” he complained, suddenly.
She looked over at him. Frowned. Looked back with a sigh.
“I’m sure you were going to make your way over there, unfortunately,” Claire said.
“Have you been?” he demanded.
“No,” she said. “That’s the unfortunate part. You’d probably go over there to stalk me.”
“Not if it’s France.”
She did not look at him, she seemed determined not to.
“I thought France had great….clocks,” she said. He looked at her.
“What does that have to do with anything?”
Her eyes narrowed. He liked it when he did get to her.
“I blame your father for not being able to travel,” he said. “For ruining every aspect of my life.”
“You blame everyone else for your problems,” she said.
“Yet another thing we have in common.”
She gritted her jaw and there was most likely not more talking tonight . The news roared on. Claire kept watching, and sometimes she’d mutter the details of a death. Locked in her own racing mind.
He wanted to threaten someone, bring out something else in her that he used to know…he didn’t like what he was seeing.
“They keep telling me how alone I’ll be,” she said, in a good humored tone.
It clicked.
It clicked for him. He stared at her in such a way she turned to meet his eyes. Saw something there.
They left, both—it felt—finally in sync.
***
Claire had a new knife in her hand.
“You don’t understand, I don’t feel anything about any of this. That’s what happened.”
Lies. Emotional pincushion. He knew this. He wished it would make him kinder but he knew what needed to be done. What needed to be done—that was what he would do. It was that simple.
“You thought the hatred of me would free you,” he said, sitting on the bed. After saving his life.
“I do hate you,” she said.
“But it’s not enough,” he said.
“I don’t know what’s happening to me,” she said.
No tears. Just an admission. What was always going to—but it felt like a lie. Sylar didn’t know why it did. Perhaps it was the fact that she was an emotional pincushion.
“You know what you’re doing,” he said, appraisingly. “No matter what you believe, you know exactly what you’re doing. There’s no harm in wanting to save yourself at the expense of another.”
“That is harm,” Claire argued.
“Which I can feel.”
He couldn’t say it wasn’t calculated. She slapped him in reaction. Hard.
“Felt that too, but did I ever feel as helpless as you. Hmm, no-,” (some lying), he said, and there was a look in her eyes of fire and this was it. This was it. She hated him and it was owed and hers, and he thought this would do nicely. One more touch-
He shifted.
“Go on. Jump,” he said through her voice. “You won’t get hurt...why do you have to live through the inevitable like the rest?"
“Freak!”
That was all it took, to turn her pain towards him. She was on him, and he let her body rock him backwards onto the bed, her knee in his stomach. Felt that. Oh good. He let himself remain in Claire’s skin for a brief second, letting her see the pain reflected on her own features—
Claire leaned forward and put her knee against his neck. “Do you even feel anything, you selfish…” She stopped, caught herself. “Change back. I’m not like you, you know,” that stung. And who had ever mentioned his momentary fascination with his doppelganger?
He did as he was told. She watched him closely. Put the knife to his cheek and pushed down. She took quite a bit. Her mouth fell open at the look on his face.
The mixture of pain and now, shame. And want.
Then: “Oh... Fuck.”
He found it amusing but there was something else he knew she’d like, having seen her, really seen her. She was still full of surprises (wasn’t supposed to be) but this was a sure thing. He thrust his hips up and the motion took her.
She was not surprised.
“I knew you’d like it,” he said, and saw cruelty break open on her forever-young face, changing right there and showing her experiences.
He’d let her, he decided.
Her hand grabbed for his shirt and pulled at it, pulled it off of him. She looked down. He had never seen someone look that ungenerously angry in a very long while (well, not that long ago, a week ago in fact) but it concerned his body.
“You don’t have to look that unimpressed,” he said. She stabbed him low in the gut, wincing but keeping her eyes fixed on him. “Doesn’t work that way,” he said, and there was nothing about what he was planning that was generous. Or anything but what it was.
He reached out and touched her through her jeans, hard, and she got the picture. From her face, she got the picture. She went to cutting some more and he cut right back. It was an even fight, and perhaps even more so on her side because he only wanted to…
Do what he should.
She was a wreck, fists and nails seeking out any part of him she could. His nose, his jaw, his eyes. All hurt like hell. He welcomed such a thing: hell.
This was never what he wanted but it was the only thing he wanted that was right.
He touched her jeans, but she was there first, unbuttoning them, her eyes enflamed, lips red. She pushed her leg against his erection, and it was belligerent (she shouldn’t know how to do that), and so—
“Have a heart.”
“Don’t have one,” she said, and that was his li(n)e.
He told her so. Her face was eclipsed, focusing on him as if he was the source of everything inside of her too.
To prove her wrong, and to prove that there was more than just the blood—so much of it—that was turning him on (and there was so much, the smell of it) and he did want to see and feel and know—
He pushed and tore and she did gasp as his fingers glazed that thing called her heart—her eyes threatened to dim and blood spit out of her pretty, small mouth-
“Found it,” he said, and then she—she pulled herself down on him, teeth bared and snarling. He gasped this time, and it –was the blood—that made him almost lose control. Inside of her, it felt out of his—element, entirely.
The knife in his chest now really didn’t help the situation at all, as she twisted it with all her might. She did finally get there, moving under his ribcage.
He could only hold on.
“Why don’t you take that too?” she challenged, her eyes dark and tore and wild. A green so bright that he might have misunderstood after all.
What he had taken and who he had taken it from. Yes. He had misunderstood.
He barely lasted. It didn’t even seem fair. She didn’t notice, her first sexual arousal (her first sexual anything) taking all her attention. She looked at him and at the bloody sheets. She laid back for a moment, panting. She then turned back to him, one hand on his stomach and the other on his arm, her leg against his penis.
Contact. She kept looking for something and then seemed to find it. She was satisfied and yet…she looked away suddenly. Something in his face had made her look away.
“Kill me,” she said.
“It couldn’t have-.”
“We didn’t use protection,” she pointed out. Right. He took care of it. She came back a little different. She rubbed the sheets that were crusted dry with blood.
“That was wrong,” Claire said.
“I deserved it,” he claimed, possessively.
“Shut up,” she said softly. Not gently. “You don’t know anything.”
It was like she finally stabbed him in the heart. She looked back at his silence and grew still.
She rubbed her arms once and then stopped, sitting there naked. She laid back again, staring at the ceiling. He didn’t move.
He couldn’t. He didn’t know what to do.
“What did that mean?” she asked.
He didn’t have an answer.
***
“You should go back to Peter,” she said at midnight. “You want to, right?” she asked.
“I haven’t thought about it,” he lied.
“By now, he’ll want to see you.”
Sylar didn’t need this from her. But he let her do it anyway. He didn’t know why. She even drove him in a fight of irony, back to the city.
They sat in the car.
“I’m not sure I want this anymore,” he said. Going back to Peter was...daunting.
“You do,” she said. “Otherwise I’m only going to get worse towards you. Now that it’s started.”
“Did you feel something?”
He didn’t look at her as he asked.
“Yes,” she said.
“It’s only human,” he said.
“It is,” she said, swallowing hard, “I just don’t know if that’s who I want to be. But if that is me, you still don’t…” she struggled. “It shouldn’t have happened to you.”
Now he did look. Surprised. He thought she’d keep on …well. As long as she’d be able to. He would have let her because it was what she owed, what so many people were owed. Here, she was letting him go. He still didn’t understand.
She glanced up. “Well, I mean, I shouldn’t have cut off half your face, that was unnecessary.”
“I get the point. What are you going to do now?” he asked instead of that other burning question.
“I’m going home,” she said.
Where the world would find her. He did imagine Sandra would be hurting less to see her. For whatever....that was worth. Whatever it was. He frowned.
“There's no reason to stop living because of this power," she said, and it almost sounded like a joke. "You should do the same. If you don’t mind me saying so," she said.
He looked at his hands. Yes. Peter would not be there forever unless he chose to. Sylar already knew the answer.
“I don’t even know how to do that,” he confessed. “I’m too worried about where I’m going. I worry about what the future will bring.”
It was beginning to sink in despite the bloody sheets they had taken, as if it was something to truly hide, and he had burnt.
“You don’t have to worry about some things,” she said. “With my power—about what I said before…” she seemed stuck. He understood.
“The thing is, I always wanted God to find me,” he said. “I knew that even when I met you."
She looked at him as if it were true. It was. He got out of the car quickly, running from her now.
“Next time you need to feel something, you know where I am.”
And there would be a next time. Her open expression closed up--yet there was something in her eyes now he didn't like. Awareness.
“Goodbye, Sylar,” she said and drove off, leaving him alone in the darkness. For once, he didn’t have to worry about it.
The only thing that didn’t push him over the edge was that he wasn’t the only person who knew what it felt like.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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Date: 2012-08-09 12:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-09 12:57 pm (UTC)I'm glad you like their dynamic in this one and you got exactly what I was going for with Sylar's :/ about her reaction to him now. He's very concerned ;) I'm actually really thrilled because it's a hard dynamic at times and loving of banter and push pull and everything made me very happy :3
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Date: 2012-08-10 12:03 am (UTC)Thank you! ^_^
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Date: 2012-08-10 02:51 am (UTC)I am so glad you liked it and I loved writing for this fandom again so thanks for the prompting opportunity <3