Nothing As Good
Title: Nothing As Good
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Sylar/Claire
Word Count: Epic. 14, 905. Snort some lines before you attempt to finish it at one go.
Warnings: Violence, blood in pints, sex, excessive stalking and power overusage.
Summary: Sylar thinks braining people is enough to get by in life. That's until he sees Claire in rollerblades... then everything changes.
Disclaimer: Nothing is mine.
Author's Note: Post-season 1 finale. It's the longest one-shot I've done. From the table, this is prompt #002, 'Addict'. I've changed the font colour to white so you won't be blind when you're done. Because of its massive size, Livejournal didn’t allow me to post the entire story as one whole, so I split it :(. Here’s the first half.
There is a day when Sylar opens his eyes and realises that something is missing. He looks for his cards, and finds them on the plastic table, with the names of people and their powers still written on them. He looks at the door and sees the bloodied chain-lock still in place. He looks at the clock and it’s been fifteen minutes past since he’d taken Amanda Weller’s love for the shapes and shades of glass in her home and her ability to manipulate them. It might make it easier to handle the next one, avid swimmer Richie Manson, and after that, Sylar will never have to worry about drowning ever again.
His body aches from the gashes and cuts of Amanda’s last effort to save herself. He doesn’t know if it’s really the root of his discomfort, but he feels like there’s something he didn’t do right, ever since New York. Maybe it’s the aftermath of a rain of blades.
After thinking about it for awhile, he attributes the feeling to a bad case of indigestion before heading out, taking his handwritten cards, his coat, and avoiding the scalped dead body on the floor impaled on a gigantic glass stalagmite.
He can already hear her mother coming, so he leaves.
Sylar skips Richie Manson because someone else with a powerful ability resides in California. It’s nobody that’s written on his cards, but it’s somebody he’s seen around before, and it’s definitely a lot closer to him than New Jersey.
He’s in a park. This is where he saw it happen, and he thinks it’s excitement he’s feeling - he doesn’t know. It’s been a long time.
He’s not used to teenagers and their fads with sports (inline skating is in now), but he’s used to finding special people by accident. Especially when he sees one very special person taking a lethal dive into the ground face first. And this time, watching it happen gives him a fresh burst of adrenaline surging through his system.
After all, he doesn’t expect a dark-haired Claire Bennet to looks so beautiful in blood.
She gets up a distance away from her shocked friends, covering her face with her hands in a poor attempt to hide her regenerative gift.
Richie Manson can definitely wait.
Sylar is not pleased to see her holding hands with a tall brown-haired boy, but he smiles because that boy is special, and it means he can kill two teenagers at once. He finds it annoying that they’ve found something in each other and he hates that they still hide from the general public.
He also loathes that she’s seen what he can do and she prefers a less powerful alternative. Of course he’s used to it, but it’s even more terrible this time because she doesn’t know that he exists.
Not that it matters anyway, since he’s going to permanently borrow her power.
He follows her home inconspicuously, occasionally finding his palms strangely itchy from watching her hold hands with what appears to be her boyfriend. Is it a Guiness record? Is it even humanly possible for two people to be connected that long (despite them actually being superhuman)? Is that the boy’s power? He senses that it’s something like that, but he isn’t so sure. He’s got to see it for himself to decide if it’s really worth the effort.
At the doorstep, they share an innocent kiss. He’s tempted to see where’s the first place she goes and if she draws the curtains in her room, but there’s a more pressing need at hand in the shape of a young adversary. So, Sylar reluctantly comes out of his hiding place from behind the tree when the door shuts and carefully paces his steps on the dry sidewalk.
He finds it odd after a very long while that this boy hasn’t displayed anything extraordinary yet. Perhaps he needs some provoking, like a rain of daggers in his back. He contemplates it for awhile, but decides against it in case he can’t use his powers to avert danger. Dead is no use to him.
Surely it’s something great. Claire would never pick someone she couldn’t relate to because she’d never make her life a lie again, not like how it was before, surrounded, coated with them. He could always tell it from her eyes.
Amazingly, miles of brisk walking and an estimate of three hours, Sylar doesn’t know where he is on the map anymore. He’s followed the kid to a music shop, the stretch of midnight bazaars, stopped by a grand-looking theatre, and walked along what seemed like seventy blocks.
It’s become a little tiresome, so he finally pretends to be a lost tourist to get to the bottom of it.
First he calls out to him and puts on the best French accent he can roll off his tongue. The boy is very open to helping him when Sylar asks where he is and where he can find a gas station.
It’s only when the boy takes a moment to ponder that he realises, in his soaked tee and heavy breathing, that the boy is indeed, very, very special.
He hasn’t broken a sweat. Not a flush, not a pant.
He smiles to himself uncontrollably and thanks Claire’s beau in French.
Then he pushes him to the concrete pavement, crushing his larynx with an invisible force, and splits his temple open, dragging a line of dark red right across.
Luckily, he doesn’t scream, so his power is taken in peace. He’d hate to draw unwanted attention, especially from the FBI again, even if he misses the fun. But of course, should it ever happen, Sylar can contain the problem effectively. In fact, it’d be a breeze, and almost too convenient, since he can leave the body in perfect condition and throw them off his scent (until the autopsy), then run all the way back to Claire’s house until tomorrow morning and surprise her with his newly acquired endless stamina.
He really likes his new power.
Sylar doesn’t need to check the newsstands to know that the body has been found. What he’s really interested in is seeing Claire’s reaction when the news reaches her, first by phone, then by the media. Torture in two ways, completely surrounding her, will be sheer entertainment.
He waits patiently outside her house, using his heightened sense of hearing to eavesdrop on the events at home. He hears her every step, every whisper, her heartbeat, and sometimes he thinks he might have read her mind.
Claire is like any other girl with an easily excitable personality and a longing for normalcy. Maybe even acceptance, after all this while. He thinks she’s still naïve, refusing to embrace her power. If she didn’t want it that much, she could always give it to him. Or he could take it himself. He hears it so clearly in her voice, what normal things she wants out of her special life, when she speaks to her friends on the phone and the kind of songs she listens to all day scribbling notes.
It’s about evening when she gets a call - the call. Sylar makes his way around the house and finds a way to draw her to the kitchen where he can see by clattering the hanging pots and pans in the kitchen.
Seconds later, Claire comes into his line of sight, making her way down the stairs with the cordless phone by her ear, frowning. When it eases and the look on her face is blank, he knows he’s struck gold.
Her blue eyes are so wide he thinks he sees the sky in them.
Amazing. It’s like watching stages of grief evolve rapidly right in front of him. He knows she’s got the news when she sinks to the floor, and he can hear the powerful sobs begin. He makes sure that he doesn’t miss any second of it, so he moves closer to the window where he can see her tear-streaked face and her hand combing through her dark locks over and over.
That’s the moment that draws him to her even more, the moment that’s perfectly emblazoned in his mind. The tungsten light casting an ethereal glow around her, that tragic smile of denial, her crumpled posture… Sylar swears it’s the first time he’s seen an angel in his life.
He takes the time to admire her disastrous state, and realises that she looks like her wings have been torn from her slender back. He is the god that took them, leaving her more beautiful than ever.
Claire’s hysterical crying and wailing sends a shiver through his body so strong and pleasant that it makes him smile.
That’s when he decides that he can take this very, very far.
His enjoyment is mellowed when her father comes home, finding her in a catatonic state on the couch. Then there’s that sickening father-daughter thing they seem to be so into, what with the hugging and hair-stroking and the comforting.
Bennets.
When Claire smiles, he realises that he’s had enough. It’s false, it’s weak - nothing he hasn’t seen before, so he takes a final moment to capture the tear-stained face of his new interest before leaving it behind to move on to Richie Manson in New Jersey, where he can get his power-hungry fix and come back for another kind of happy.
It’s not that Sylar is weak in water. He finds it a little more difficult and troublesome to be weighed down by it while he’s trying to kill someone. He didn’t intend to end up in the pool in the first place, but somebody decided to do the incredibly stupid thing and piss him off by grabbing his ankle and pulling him into the water.
It’s also partly his fault, because his mind is on other things.
Sylar tries to be creative in his killing when he feels like it. He wonders how he’s going to savour drawing the power of regeneration from her little blonde head, but he’s so intrigued by her strong reactions to the chaos in her life he decides that it can wait. Maybe until he’s bored. He’s easily bored after all. Maybe he won’t even wait.
Rushing out of the water, drenched and cold, Sylar plants his foot right into the face of Richie and sends him spiralling into the water. As soon as the swimmer’s head is above water, Sylar ensures his own feet are out of it before he freezes the entire Olympic-sized pool in three seconds flat for a swift execution to follow.
He wonders if he should make it agonizing for her like he does for Richie Manson, if she’ll put up a better fight, or if he has to hold back just to see what viciousness he can bring out of her. He wonders if he’s lucky enough to see Claire do it in tears or hatred or both.
He must be thinking it out loud, because the boy screams out that Sylar is a sick freak and he’ll have no shot at any girl, managing it when his head is being cut halfway. The sopping wet aggressor frowns at the insult - somehow particularly sensitive a topic to him- and chokes him so hard his mouth opens wide. Then Sylar takes the liberty to cut his tongue off, because he thinks he’s talking too much, and he’d rather be somewhere else to prove this dying fool wrong. He takes his power fairly quickly.
Who says he doesn’t have a shot?
What he’s doing is not a job. Fixing watches is a job. What he’s doing is, very obviously, a hobby. Every time he strikes a line across someone’s forehead, he enjoys the risen heartbeat just before it diminishes. Sometimes when they’re extra terrified, the blood sprays because it’s pumping through them so fast. Of course it’s messy, but it’s a heavenly mess, like how he hopes it will be with Claire.
The house seems empty in the day when he first arrives. It’s probably about eleven in the morning, and if his estimation is right, it’s probably when she’s just waking up. He catches a glimpse of her deep brown hair at the top window and circles the house to the front door. Pressing his ear to the wood, he listens out for any extra company she might have in the house.
No one is at home. Perfect.
With a flick of his fingers, the door opens quietly, and he walks in. Click. He’s done this so many times it’s become a habit to be careful about leaving things the way they are, and this time, he’d better be. He doesn’t want to be trapped in a cell again with wires stuck to his head.
Sylar makes his way up the stairs slowly, taking the time to memorize the layout of the Bennet home. It’s definitely smaller than the last one, but filled with more things like cushions and wall ornaments and carpet everywhere. When he reaches the top, Claire’s door opens. She walks out, and he stays absolutely still.
She enters the door straight ahead without noticing him at all.
Generally pleased with himself, he casually strolls past the doors -not without taking a glance at her new room of crisp, white sheets and cream walls- and holds the entered door open before it clicks shut.
Sylar isn’t usually surprised. He’s already had his fair share of being involved in strange phenomena and is meticulous about his processes.
Just that, well, ending up in the bathroom changes that.
He can see Claire’s silhouette in block colours beyond the frosted glass and it’s the first time he has to kill someone in the shower. The steam from the hot water somewhat alarms him; she’s in there, and he’s supposed to be in there with her.
Rephrase that.
She’s in there, and he has to get in and take her.
Nevermind.
Thinking about it unsettles him, but if he wants that power, this could his only chance. Sylar spends some time working out a strategy while the moisture clings to his forehead.
He’s got it.
Carefully, he moves to the side of the tiny stall where her back faces the panel of glass, and he takes a deep breath, muted by the splash of running water.
With a wave of his hand, the particles shift and the frosting parts, deepening in its opacity towards the edges. It leaves a big U-shaped portion of clear glass that separates them, and he can see her, how the water cascades down her back and wraps around the curve of her hip as she raises her face to the showerhead.
He swallows a lump in his throat and tries not to let all the blood rush down to his head.
Claire stays very still, until she steps back (he braces himself), but doesn’t turn. Instead, her hands reach for something in front of her, he can’t tell, he can’t move from his place to see in case she catches him. And that wouldn’t be very good.
Sylar flicks his wrist for more of the glass to clear. His eyes automatically move downward to admire her womanly shape, her legs, her ankles…
…The deep, abstract swirls of red spiralling through the water into the drain.
He thinks it’s so tragic to be stolen the right to die by your own hands. Useful, but tragic. With his head tilted, he studies how unmoving she is when she cuts herself - there’s so much blood, as much as when he’s just done opening up some heads. But he knows she will continually heal, no matter how much blood she loses from her system. Only he can tear that away from her, and he smiles at the thought.
Sylar’s lips part in fascination when Claire’s wrist comes into view; he can see the blade slide in so deeply and smoothly like a hot knife through soft butter.
It’s only right then that his infatuation for her blossoms so much that he thinks that he can fall in love with this mess, just watching the dark stream mingle with crystal clear droplets.
He really could.
Even more so when she drops the razor and her whole body shakes from the grief that overtakes her.
Claire lowers herself and sits on the tiles, cradling her knees to her chest, biting her thumb and rubbing the tears off her face. He wishes she would just stop trying to be so strong. He wants to see her just the way she is, broken and splintered so he can fix her.
He wants to touch her so badly.
The smooth pads of his fingers reach out towards the glass in front of him to split the barrier so he can be close, so close to her, breathing in the warm rolls of steam that spill from the opening. Her skin glistens, and he wonders if it’s the same after a workout or a hard day. Or in bed.
Sylar lets a sigh of longing leave his lips. Perhaps a bit too loudly.
In a split second, he makes the glass shift again to return it to its original state, just in time before Claire can turn around and identify him. He hears her voice when he dashes out of the bathroom, and he doesn’t know why he’s running in the first place. Isn’t he more powerful? Isn’t he supposed to kill her? Can’t he turn around and face her?
Maybe he’s a little nervous. For a man who relies on his super abilities, he sure can run pretty fast.
Now Claire’s shouting rings clearly in his ears, even when his legs have carried him out of sight. The dial tone sounds and her voice, that voice, gods he loves the sound of it, speaks hurriedly through the phone. It means that he has to stay away for awhile.
He goes to a place he knows.
He thinks about it when he eats dinner.
Tonight’s choice is a medium steak at a small diner with a side of fries and tartar, because he’s in the mood. Sometimes he gets milk with fish and chips, but tonight, he’s got a special craving for meat.
It arrives on an oversized plate and the waitress sets it down with a clatter, along with a basket of fries. He thinks she may have called him a cutie, but his hearing might have been a little off, since his brain’s been having trouble thinking about everything except Claire.
Like how she tries to kill herself all the time.
His steak doesn’t seem all that medium when he cuts the first chunk out. It’s a bit bloody to him. It seems like the deeper he sinks his knife into it, the more maroon it secretes and mixes with the oil/water combo, and he can’t stop thinking about Bennet’s only daughter bleeding all over the place on the bathroom tiles.
Every bite he takes is lovely after that. Maybe even at one or two mouthfuls, Sylar imagines cutting into her himself with his serrated knife; he can’t take his mind off it. How the skin around the wound swells ever-so-slightly after she dislodges the blade, how she doesn’t make a single sound when it happens. He wishes that he could’ve seen if there were tears in those blue eyes, if staying and getting caught by her would’ve been worth it.
When he’s done with his meal, he picks at the small basket of fries, dipping it in tartar and devouring it quickly. The same waitress comments on his strange eating behaviour and how she finds it cute when he consumes his food adoringly; Sylar finds that it’s becoming annoying that thinking of Claire would make him look at anything adoringly.
For that, he leaves his payment on the table with no tip and heads back to his new home.
He thinks about it when he’s planning.
Sylar has his square sheets of people’s names and powers on them, which are clipped in a stack that fit in his palm.
He’s got no clue why he keeps them because he’s got that eidetic memory thing going for him. He knows who comes next and whose powers he’s stolen already, but he thinks that maybe it makes him thrilled to be reading out the many abilities he’ll collect in the future.
Today he compiles a list of who he hasn’t killed yet, so he has an idea of what he’s missed out on so far.
1. Telepathy
2. Teleportation
3. Flight
4. Super Strength
5. Phasing
6. Regeneration
He looks at number six for a moment, and then considers putting it right on top of the list. Best for last isn’t the best philosophy sometimes, he thinks, and draws an arrow pointing it to the space above telepathy.
Somehow, he feels wrong about it. The powers he’s missed out on are, to say the least, also the most difficult to obtain. The right thing at the wrong time is ultimately wrong. The right time in the right order is needed to make everything work his way… He just doesn’t know if Claire fits in the right time or right thing. God help his gut feeling, but he doesn’t even know if putting her on the list is right at all.
He cancels the arrow and leaves it at number six.
Sylar is sure he wants to see her again. In fact, he’s itching to be by the side of her home at the moment, just to see that face. Those eyes. The little hope he sees in them like a dwindling light in the darkness.
He can’t bear to not see it again.
He draws a line across number six.
Then again, he really does want that ability. If he gets it, he’s unstoppable. Power collecting will be a breeze.
The pen scribbles the word ‘Regeneration’ above the line.
Then he crosses it out.
Then he rewrites it.
It takes about eight black, messy scratchings of ink and three minutes of internal conflict before he decides to rewrite the list and leave out her ability completely. Instead, he puts it on a separate sheet under the heading ‘Undecided’, tucks it away, and plans on how he’ll get technopathy next.
Hopefully, it will distract him from big pending problems, the heart of which are clearly called Claire Bennet.
He thinks about it in the shower.
When the water hits him, he is calm.
This is where he takes his thoughts furthest, where he lets the bottled feelings run rampant. Shower time is most often referred to as the time of unleashing, where he discovers ideas and emotions he’s never thought himself capable of.
As the warmth glides over his shoulders and washes over his back, Sylar thinks about gaining technopathy and how he can use it to his advantage. He can disable alarms and security systems and robs all sorts of banks and swim in money.
But he’s not interested in money and crime. Perhaps the only crime he’s willing to be noted for in the line of infamous glory is murder. And even if it were so, he’d much prefer to regard it as a social responsibility to fix the people who aren’t entirely happy with themselves.
He could do that for Claire.
He grimaces. He could do without saturating his brain over her.
Claire is like a toxin. Cancer. Flesh-eating bacteria with a sweet smile. She’s a pretty good example of Sylar’s neurosis, and he especially resents it when his mind takes a walk right to the thought of her at the worst times. He hates admitting it, but he can’t really help it when it comes to all things Claire.
Like now. During shower time.
Every time he thinks, he remembers steam and heat, something like this, skin warming up to become flushed red. Sweat. Wet. A distinct softness of the female form, he imagines, pressing up against him. The taste of her neck and bitter soap.
Sylar grips the showerhead with one hand and tries to focus on not thinking.
Kind of futile, considering that the image of her slippery body keeps accidentally showing up in his head.
He knows this is true when it begins to rain ice chips on his hair.
There isn’t any use for a cold shower now, really.
He concentrates for a while and the water returns. He washes the ice out of his hair with clean-smelling shampoo and lathers up with liquid soap. This is a very bad thing to do, because while he’s smoothing his palms over the planes of his chest and the muscles of his stomach, they eventually wander to where his mind takes him. Bad. Bad, bad, bad.
Sylar presses his forehead against cold tile and fixes his gaze on the grey mortar inbetween. He breathes.
Then he curves his hand over his cock. He’s still thinking of Claire when this happens, and it’s exactly why he’s getting a solid erection.
His shifts his focus to the floor of the bathtub and he can see her blood whirling about into the hole.
Watch-making. Watch-making. Think about all those watches.
Sylar squeezes his eyes shut, shoves his feeble attempt at quelling desire aside and groans himself into submission. There’s no way he can stop the feelings from taking over, feelings that possess him when he recalls her naked body, untouchable flesh ripe for his picking. She’s so wet all over, he wonders, as he begins to stoke himself a steady rhythm, if she’s equally wet when he slams two fingers into her. How hot is the sight of them withdrawing from her, watching her juices cling to them? Will the fluoride in the water dilute her taste on his tongue? How will she touch him? His fingers tangling in her dark hair as they kiss…
It’s radically new to him, the concept of having a sexual fantasy about someone he’s thought of killing. Every pump of his cock makes him part his lips to suck in clouds of hot air through his teeth while the water, pelting down on his back, sends bolts of lust pulsing through his chest right to the very tip of him. He had intricate detailed plans of how he’d kill her, like what cuts to slice where, but now, he’s got to take the trouble to weave seduction into the picture so he’ll be fully satisfied. If he can be satiated at all.
He can visualise himself holding her body close, cupping her breasts in his hands from behind just before he enters her. The exquisite ache of anticipation in his sac makes his legs almost buckle.
Hell, he would have, should have, could have, might have pushed her right up that wall to fuck her if he’d realised how crazy her was over her. And now he’s regretting that he didn’t.
That’s right. He thought it. He guesses that he’s crazy over Claire.
He’s forced to settle for less.
Sylar makes sure he comes quickly to get it over and done with. His thoughts are a mish-mash of scenarios popping up randomly, filled with vivid imagery of fucking his Claire hard up walls and over tables, pushing his hips as far as they go and letting her ride him as recklessly as she wants, his hand a fantastic blur on his member when he jerks himself to bliss.
All he can see is the blood on her wrists smeared on the frosted glass while he sucks the spot on her throat that makes her quiver in his arms.
He comes hard, shivering at the sensations bulleting through his veins. It hits the tiled wall, and when he’s calmed enough to be able to catch a breath, he removes the shower from its holder and washes the evidence away.
Strangely, he feels dirtier than he was before shower time, before soap and cleanliness. He also feels a little bit guilty, but he doesn’t know why yet.
All he really knows is that things have changed.
He grabs a towel, along with whatever scraps of dignity he has left and prepares for bed.
But he thinks about it before he sleeps.
Amanda Weller’s bed is a mattress set on glass with four posts. Every edge is round so there’s no chance of getting any cuts or wounds. Very smart. Visually appealing also.
Sylar looks up at the ceiling blankly. He’s always been used to sleeping on a single bed. The queen-size just makes him feel like there should be someone beside him and he absolutely hates that the only person he sees fitting enough to fulfil that is Claire.
The thing is, Sylar is now stuck between wanting to kill her and kiss her. He wants that precious ability to regenerate and move on, but he still wants to be able to see her cry about hardships and wallow in foolish teenage self-pity. And the thing is, there isn’t any way to have the best of both worlds. Is there?
He tries, for the first time, to think about it. But it’s after shower time, and he’s drawing nothing but a long blank. He spends the entire night trying to fill it in with a conclusion, a solution, but he just can’t.
Instead, the probability of him willing to live without the power of spontaneous regeneration creeps into his mind.
It really is quite high.
Sylar continues to stare at the ceiling and regrets, just briefly, killing Claire’s boyfriend, because he can use a big dose of fatigue to put him to sleep. He’s left listening to the midnight melt away, torturously packing himself to the brim with ways to avoid missing her.
Everything does not work the way he wants to. That is the natural order of the world, most of the time.
To the other half
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Sylar/Claire
Word Count: Epic. 14, 905. Snort some lines before you attempt to finish it at one go.
Warnings: Violence, blood in pints, sex, excessive stalking and power overusage.
Summary: Sylar thinks braining people is enough to get by in life. That's until he sees Claire in rollerblades... then everything changes.
Disclaimer: Nothing is mine.
Author's Note: Post-season 1 finale. It's the longest one-shot I've done. From the table, this is prompt #002, 'Addict'. I've changed the font colour to white so you won't be blind when you're done. Because of its massive size, Livejournal didn’t allow me to post the entire story as one whole, so I split it :(. Here’s the first half.
There is a day when Sylar opens his eyes and realises that something is missing. He looks for his cards, and finds them on the plastic table, with the names of people and their powers still written on them. He looks at the door and sees the bloodied chain-lock still in place. He looks at the clock and it’s been fifteen minutes past since he’d taken Amanda Weller’s love for the shapes and shades of glass in her home and her ability to manipulate them. It might make it easier to handle the next one, avid swimmer Richie Manson, and after that, Sylar will never have to worry about drowning ever again.
His body aches from the gashes and cuts of Amanda’s last effort to save herself. He doesn’t know if it’s really the root of his discomfort, but he feels like there’s something he didn’t do right, ever since New York. Maybe it’s the aftermath of a rain of blades.
After thinking about it for awhile, he attributes the feeling to a bad case of indigestion before heading out, taking his handwritten cards, his coat, and avoiding the scalped dead body on the floor impaled on a gigantic glass stalagmite.
He can already hear her mother coming, so he leaves.
Sylar skips Richie Manson because someone else with a powerful ability resides in California. It’s nobody that’s written on his cards, but it’s somebody he’s seen around before, and it’s definitely a lot closer to him than New Jersey.
He’s in a park. This is where he saw it happen, and he thinks it’s excitement he’s feeling - he doesn’t know. It’s been a long time.
He’s not used to teenagers and their fads with sports (inline skating is in now), but he’s used to finding special people by accident. Especially when he sees one very special person taking a lethal dive into the ground face first. And this time, watching it happen gives him a fresh burst of adrenaline surging through his system.
After all, he doesn’t expect a dark-haired Claire Bennet to looks so beautiful in blood.
She gets up a distance away from her shocked friends, covering her face with her hands in a poor attempt to hide her regenerative gift.
Richie Manson can definitely wait.
Sylar is not pleased to see her holding hands with a tall brown-haired boy, but he smiles because that boy is special, and it means he can kill two teenagers at once. He finds it annoying that they’ve found something in each other and he hates that they still hide from the general public.
He also loathes that she’s seen what he can do and she prefers a less powerful alternative. Of course he’s used to it, but it’s even more terrible this time because she doesn’t know that he exists.
Not that it matters anyway, since he’s going to permanently borrow her power.
He follows her home inconspicuously, occasionally finding his palms strangely itchy from watching her hold hands with what appears to be her boyfriend. Is it a Guiness record? Is it even humanly possible for two people to be connected that long (despite them actually being superhuman)? Is that the boy’s power? He senses that it’s something like that, but he isn’t so sure. He’s got to see it for himself to decide if it’s really worth the effort.
At the doorstep, they share an innocent kiss. He’s tempted to see where’s the first place she goes and if she draws the curtains in her room, but there’s a more pressing need at hand in the shape of a young adversary. So, Sylar reluctantly comes out of his hiding place from behind the tree when the door shuts and carefully paces his steps on the dry sidewalk.
He finds it odd after a very long while that this boy hasn’t displayed anything extraordinary yet. Perhaps he needs some provoking, like a rain of daggers in his back. He contemplates it for awhile, but decides against it in case he can’t use his powers to avert danger. Dead is no use to him.
Surely it’s something great. Claire would never pick someone she couldn’t relate to because she’d never make her life a lie again, not like how it was before, surrounded, coated with them. He could always tell it from her eyes.
Amazingly, miles of brisk walking and an estimate of three hours, Sylar doesn’t know where he is on the map anymore. He’s followed the kid to a music shop, the stretch of midnight bazaars, stopped by a grand-looking theatre, and walked along what seemed like seventy blocks.
It’s become a little tiresome, so he finally pretends to be a lost tourist to get to the bottom of it.
First he calls out to him and puts on the best French accent he can roll off his tongue. The boy is very open to helping him when Sylar asks where he is and where he can find a gas station.
It’s only when the boy takes a moment to ponder that he realises, in his soaked tee and heavy breathing, that the boy is indeed, very, very special.
He hasn’t broken a sweat. Not a flush, not a pant.
He smiles to himself uncontrollably and thanks Claire’s beau in French.
Then he pushes him to the concrete pavement, crushing his larynx with an invisible force, and splits his temple open, dragging a line of dark red right across.
Luckily, he doesn’t scream, so his power is taken in peace. He’d hate to draw unwanted attention, especially from the FBI again, even if he misses the fun. But of course, should it ever happen, Sylar can contain the problem effectively. In fact, it’d be a breeze, and almost too convenient, since he can leave the body in perfect condition and throw them off his scent (until the autopsy), then run all the way back to Claire’s house until tomorrow morning and surprise her with his newly acquired endless stamina.
He really likes his new power.
Sylar doesn’t need to check the newsstands to know that the body has been found. What he’s really interested in is seeing Claire’s reaction when the news reaches her, first by phone, then by the media. Torture in two ways, completely surrounding her, will be sheer entertainment.
He waits patiently outside her house, using his heightened sense of hearing to eavesdrop on the events at home. He hears her every step, every whisper, her heartbeat, and sometimes he thinks he might have read her mind.
Claire is like any other girl with an easily excitable personality and a longing for normalcy. Maybe even acceptance, after all this while. He thinks she’s still naïve, refusing to embrace her power. If she didn’t want it that much, she could always give it to him. Or he could take it himself. He hears it so clearly in her voice, what normal things she wants out of her special life, when she speaks to her friends on the phone and the kind of songs she listens to all day scribbling notes.
It’s about evening when she gets a call - the call. Sylar makes his way around the house and finds a way to draw her to the kitchen where he can see by clattering the hanging pots and pans in the kitchen.
Seconds later, Claire comes into his line of sight, making her way down the stairs with the cordless phone by her ear, frowning. When it eases and the look on her face is blank, he knows he’s struck gold.
Her blue eyes are so wide he thinks he sees the sky in them.
Amazing. It’s like watching stages of grief evolve rapidly right in front of him. He knows she’s got the news when she sinks to the floor, and he can hear the powerful sobs begin. He makes sure that he doesn’t miss any second of it, so he moves closer to the window where he can see her tear-streaked face and her hand combing through her dark locks over and over.
That’s the moment that draws him to her even more, the moment that’s perfectly emblazoned in his mind. The tungsten light casting an ethereal glow around her, that tragic smile of denial, her crumpled posture… Sylar swears it’s the first time he’s seen an angel in his life.
He takes the time to admire her disastrous state, and realises that she looks like her wings have been torn from her slender back. He is the god that took them, leaving her more beautiful than ever.
Claire’s hysterical crying and wailing sends a shiver through his body so strong and pleasant that it makes him smile.
That’s when he decides that he can take this very, very far.
His enjoyment is mellowed when her father comes home, finding her in a catatonic state on the couch. Then there’s that sickening father-daughter thing they seem to be so into, what with the hugging and hair-stroking and the comforting.
Bennets.
When Claire smiles, he realises that he’s had enough. It’s false, it’s weak - nothing he hasn’t seen before, so he takes a final moment to capture the tear-stained face of his new interest before leaving it behind to move on to Richie Manson in New Jersey, where he can get his power-hungry fix and come back for another kind of happy.
It’s not that Sylar is weak in water. He finds it a little more difficult and troublesome to be weighed down by it while he’s trying to kill someone. He didn’t intend to end up in the pool in the first place, but somebody decided to do the incredibly stupid thing and piss him off by grabbing his ankle and pulling him into the water.
It’s also partly his fault, because his mind is on other things.
Sylar tries to be creative in his killing when he feels like it. He wonders how he’s going to savour drawing the power of regeneration from her little blonde head, but he’s so intrigued by her strong reactions to the chaos in her life he decides that it can wait. Maybe until he’s bored. He’s easily bored after all. Maybe he won’t even wait.
Rushing out of the water, drenched and cold, Sylar plants his foot right into the face of Richie and sends him spiralling into the water. As soon as the swimmer’s head is above water, Sylar ensures his own feet are out of it before he freezes the entire Olympic-sized pool in three seconds flat for a swift execution to follow.
He wonders if he should make it agonizing for her like he does for Richie Manson, if she’ll put up a better fight, or if he has to hold back just to see what viciousness he can bring out of her. He wonders if he’s lucky enough to see Claire do it in tears or hatred or both.
He must be thinking it out loud, because the boy screams out that Sylar is a sick freak and he’ll have no shot at any girl, managing it when his head is being cut halfway. The sopping wet aggressor frowns at the insult - somehow particularly sensitive a topic to him- and chokes him so hard his mouth opens wide. Then Sylar takes the liberty to cut his tongue off, because he thinks he’s talking too much, and he’d rather be somewhere else to prove this dying fool wrong. He takes his power fairly quickly.
Who says he doesn’t have a shot?
What he’s doing is not a job. Fixing watches is a job. What he’s doing is, very obviously, a hobby. Every time he strikes a line across someone’s forehead, he enjoys the risen heartbeat just before it diminishes. Sometimes when they’re extra terrified, the blood sprays because it’s pumping through them so fast. Of course it’s messy, but it’s a heavenly mess, like how he hopes it will be with Claire.
The house seems empty in the day when he first arrives. It’s probably about eleven in the morning, and if his estimation is right, it’s probably when she’s just waking up. He catches a glimpse of her deep brown hair at the top window and circles the house to the front door. Pressing his ear to the wood, he listens out for any extra company she might have in the house.
No one is at home. Perfect.
With a flick of his fingers, the door opens quietly, and he walks in. Click. He’s done this so many times it’s become a habit to be careful about leaving things the way they are, and this time, he’d better be. He doesn’t want to be trapped in a cell again with wires stuck to his head.
Sylar makes his way up the stairs slowly, taking the time to memorize the layout of the Bennet home. It’s definitely smaller than the last one, but filled with more things like cushions and wall ornaments and carpet everywhere. When he reaches the top, Claire’s door opens. She walks out, and he stays absolutely still.
She enters the door straight ahead without noticing him at all.
Generally pleased with himself, he casually strolls past the doors -not without taking a glance at her new room of crisp, white sheets and cream walls- and holds the entered door open before it clicks shut.
Sylar isn’t usually surprised. He’s already had his fair share of being involved in strange phenomena and is meticulous about his processes.
Just that, well, ending up in the bathroom changes that.
He can see Claire’s silhouette in block colours beyond the frosted glass and it’s the first time he has to kill someone in the shower. The steam from the hot water somewhat alarms him; she’s in there, and he’s supposed to be in there with her.
Rephrase that.
She’s in there, and he has to get in and take her.
Nevermind.
Thinking about it unsettles him, but if he wants that power, this could his only chance. Sylar spends some time working out a strategy while the moisture clings to his forehead.
He’s got it.
Carefully, he moves to the side of the tiny stall where her back faces the panel of glass, and he takes a deep breath, muted by the splash of running water.
With a wave of his hand, the particles shift and the frosting parts, deepening in its opacity towards the edges. It leaves a big U-shaped portion of clear glass that separates them, and he can see her, how the water cascades down her back and wraps around the curve of her hip as she raises her face to the showerhead.
He swallows a lump in his throat and tries not to let all the blood rush down to his head.
Claire stays very still, until she steps back (he braces himself), but doesn’t turn. Instead, her hands reach for something in front of her, he can’t tell, he can’t move from his place to see in case she catches him. And that wouldn’t be very good.
Sylar flicks his wrist for more of the glass to clear. His eyes automatically move downward to admire her womanly shape, her legs, her ankles…
…The deep, abstract swirls of red spiralling through the water into the drain.
He thinks it’s so tragic to be stolen the right to die by your own hands. Useful, but tragic. With his head tilted, he studies how unmoving she is when she cuts herself - there’s so much blood, as much as when he’s just done opening up some heads. But he knows she will continually heal, no matter how much blood she loses from her system. Only he can tear that away from her, and he smiles at the thought.
Sylar’s lips part in fascination when Claire’s wrist comes into view; he can see the blade slide in so deeply and smoothly like a hot knife through soft butter.
It’s only right then that his infatuation for her blossoms so much that he thinks that he can fall in love with this mess, just watching the dark stream mingle with crystal clear droplets.
He really could.
Even more so when she drops the razor and her whole body shakes from the grief that overtakes her.
Claire lowers herself and sits on the tiles, cradling her knees to her chest, biting her thumb and rubbing the tears off her face. He wishes she would just stop trying to be so strong. He wants to see her just the way she is, broken and splintered so he can fix her.
He wants to touch her so badly.
The smooth pads of his fingers reach out towards the glass in front of him to split the barrier so he can be close, so close to her, breathing in the warm rolls of steam that spill from the opening. Her skin glistens, and he wonders if it’s the same after a workout or a hard day. Or in bed.
Sylar lets a sigh of longing leave his lips. Perhaps a bit too loudly.
In a split second, he makes the glass shift again to return it to its original state, just in time before Claire can turn around and identify him. He hears her voice when he dashes out of the bathroom, and he doesn’t know why he’s running in the first place. Isn’t he more powerful? Isn’t he supposed to kill her? Can’t he turn around and face her?
Maybe he’s a little nervous. For a man who relies on his super abilities, he sure can run pretty fast.
Now Claire’s shouting rings clearly in his ears, even when his legs have carried him out of sight. The dial tone sounds and her voice, that voice, gods he loves the sound of it, speaks hurriedly through the phone. It means that he has to stay away for awhile.
He goes to a place he knows.
He thinks about it when he eats dinner.
Tonight’s choice is a medium steak at a small diner with a side of fries and tartar, because he’s in the mood. Sometimes he gets milk with fish and chips, but tonight, he’s got a special craving for meat.
It arrives on an oversized plate and the waitress sets it down with a clatter, along with a basket of fries. He thinks she may have called him a cutie, but his hearing might have been a little off, since his brain’s been having trouble thinking about everything except Claire.
Like how she tries to kill herself all the time.
His steak doesn’t seem all that medium when he cuts the first chunk out. It’s a bit bloody to him. It seems like the deeper he sinks his knife into it, the more maroon it secretes and mixes with the oil/water combo, and he can’t stop thinking about Bennet’s only daughter bleeding all over the place on the bathroom tiles.
Every bite he takes is lovely after that. Maybe even at one or two mouthfuls, Sylar imagines cutting into her himself with his serrated knife; he can’t take his mind off it. How the skin around the wound swells ever-so-slightly after she dislodges the blade, how she doesn’t make a single sound when it happens. He wishes that he could’ve seen if there were tears in those blue eyes, if staying and getting caught by her would’ve been worth it.
When he’s done with his meal, he picks at the small basket of fries, dipping it in tartar and devouring it quickly. The same waitress comments on his strange eating behaviour and how she finds it cute when he consumes his food adoringly; Sylar finds that it’s becoming annoying that thinking of Claire would make him look at anything adoringly.
For that, he leaves his payment on the table with no tip and heads back to his new home.
He thinks about it when he’s planning.
Sylar has his square sheets of people’s names and powers on them, which are clipped in a stack that fit in his palm.
He’s got no clue why he keeps them because he’s got that eidetic memory thing going for him. He knows who comes next and whose powers he’s stolen already, but he thinks that maybe it makes him thrilled to be reading out the many abilities he’ll collect in the future.
Today he compiles a list of who he hasn’t killed yet, so he has an idea of what he’s missed out on so far.
1. Telepathy
2. Teleportation
3. Flight
4. Super Strength
5. Phasing
6. Regeneration
He looks at number six for a moment, and then considers putting it right on top of the list. Best for last isn’t the best philosophy sometimes, he thinks, and draws an arrow pointing it to the space above telepathy.
Somehow, he feels wrong about it. The powers he’s missed out on are, to say the least, also the most difficult to obtain. The right thing at the wrong time is ultimately wrong. The right time in the right order is needed to make everything work his way… He just doesn’t know if Claire fits in the right time or right thing. God help his gut feeling, but he doesn’t even know if putting her on the list is right at all.
He cancels the arrow and leaves it at number six.
Sylar is sure he wants to see her again. In fact, he’s itching to be by the side of her home at the moment, just to see that face. Those eyes. The little hope he sees in them like a dwindling light in the darkness.
He can’t bear to not see it again.
He draws a line across number six.
Then again, he really does want that ability. If he gets it, he’s unstoppable. Power collecting will be a breeze.
The pen scribbles the word ‘Regeneration’ above the line.
Then he crosses it out.
Then he rewrites it.
It takes about eight black, messy scratchings of ink and three minutes of internal conflict before he decides to rewrite the list and leave out her ability completely. Instead, he puts it on a separate sheet under the heading ‘Undecided’, tucks it away, and plans on how he’ll get technopathy next.
Hopefully, it will distract him from big pending problems, the heart of which are clearly called Claire Bennet.
He thinks about it in the shower.
When the water hits him, he is calm.
This is where he takes his thoughts furthest, where he lets the bottled feelings run rampant. Shower time is most often referred to as the time of unleashing, where he discovers ideas and emotions he’s never thought himself capable of.
As the warmth glides over his shoulders and washes over his back, Sylar thinks about gaining technopathy and how he can use it to his advantage. He can disable alarms and security systems and robs all sorts of banks and swim in money.
But he’s not interested in money and crime. Perhaps the only crime he’s willing to be noted for in the line of infamous glory is murder. And even if it were so, he’d much prefer to regard it as a social responsibility to fix the people who aren’t entirely happy with themselves.
He could do that for Claire.
He grimaces. He could do without saturating his brain over her.
Claire is like a toxin. Cancer. Flesh-eating bacteria with a sweet smile. She’s a pretty good example of Sylar’s neurosis, and he especially resents it when his mind takes a walk right to the thought of her at the worst times. He hates admitting it, but he can’t really help it when it comes to all things Claire.
Like now. During shower time.
Every time he thinks, he remembers steam and heat, something like this, skin warming up to become flushed red. Sweat. Wet. A distinct softness of the female form, he imagines, pressing up against him. The taste of her neck and bitter soap.
Sylar grips the showerhead with one hand and tries to focus on not thinking.
Kind of futile, considering that the image of her slippery body keeps accidentally showing up in his head.
He knows this is true when it begins to rain ice chips on his hair.
There isn’t any use for a cold shower now, really.
He concentrates for a while and the water returns. He washes the ice out of his hair with clean-smelling shampoo and lathers up with liquid soap. This is a very bad thing to do, because while he’s smoothing his palms over the planes of his chest and the muscles of his stomach, they eventually wander to where his mind takes him. Bad. Bad, bad, bad.
Sylar presses his forehead against cold tile and fixes his gaze on the grey mortar inbetween. He breathes.
Then he curves his hand over his cock. He’s still thinking of Claire when this happens, and it’s exactly why he’s getting a solid erection.
His shifts his focus to the floor of the bathtub and he can see her blood whirling about into the hole.
Watch-making. Watch-making. Think about all those watches.
Sylar squeezes his eyes shut, shoves his feeble attempt at quelling desire aside and groans himself into submission. There’s no way he can stop the feelings from taking over, feelings that possess him when he recalls her naked body, untouchable flesh ripe for his picking. She’s so wet all over, he wonders, as he begins to stoke himself a steady rhythm, if she’s equally wet when he slams two fingers into her. How hot is the sight of them withdrawing from her, watching her juices cling to them? Will the fluoride in the water dilute her taste on his tongue? How will she touch him? His fingers tangling in her dark hair as they kiss…
It’s radically new to him, the concept of having a sexual fantasy about someone he’s thought of killing. Every pump of his cock makes him part his lips to suck in clouds of hot air through his teeth while the water, pelting down on his back, sends bolts of lust pulsing through his chest right to the very tip of him. He had intricate detailed plans of how he’d kill her, like what cuts to slice where, but now, he’s got to take the trouble to weave seduction into the picture so he’ll be fully satisfied. If he can be satiated at all.
He can visualise himself holding her body close, cupping her breasts in his hands from behind just before he enters her. The exquisite ache of anticipation in his sac makes his legs almost buckle.
Hell, he would have, should have, could have, might have pushed her right up that wall to fuck her if he’d realised how crazy her was over her. And now he’s regretting that he didn’t.
That’s right. He thought it. He guesses that he’s crazy over Claire.
He’s forced to settle for less.
Sylar makes sure he comes quickly to get it over and done with. His thoughts are a mish-mash of scenarios popping up randomly, filled with vivid imagery of fucking his Claire hard up walls and over tables, pushing his hips as far as they go and letting her ride him as recklessly as she wants, his hand a fantastic blur on his member when he jerks himself to bliss.
All he can see is the blood on her wrists smeared on the frosted glass while he sucks the spot on her throat that makes her quiver in his arms.
He comes hard, shivering at the sensations bulleting through his veins. It hits the tiled wall, and when he’s calmed enough to be able to catch a breath, he removes the shower from its holder and washes the evidence away.
Strangely, he feels dirtier than he was before shower time, before soap and cleanliness. He also feels a little bit guilty, but he doesn’t know why yet.
All he really knows is that things have changed.
He grabs a towel, along with whatever scraps of dignity he has left and prepares for bed.
But he thinks about it before he sleeps.
Amanda Weller’s bed is a mattress set on glass with four posts. Every edge is round so there’s no chance of getting any cuts or wounds. Very smart. Visually appealing also.
Sylar looks up at the ceiling blankly. He’s always been used to sleeping on a single bed. The queen-size just makes him feel like there should be someone beside him and he absolutely hates that the only person he sees fitting enough to fulfil that is Claire.
The thing is, Sylar is now stuck between wanting to kill her and kiss her. He wants that precious ability to regenerate and move on, but he still wants to be able to see her cry about hardships and wallow in foolish teenage self-pity. And the thing is, there isn’t any way to have the best of both worlds. Is there?
He tries, for the first time, to think about it. But it’s after shower time, and he’s drawing nothing but a long blank. He spends the entire night trying to fill it in with a conclusion, a solution, but he just can’t.
Instead, the probability of him willing to live without the power of spontaneous regeneration creeps into his mind.
It really is quite high.
Sylar continues to stare at the ceiling and regrets, just briefly, killing Claire’s boyfriend, because he can use a big dose of fatigue to put him to sleep. He’s left listening to the midnight melt away, torturously packing himself to the brim with ways to avoid missing her.
Everything does not work the way he wants to. That is the natural order of the world, most of the time.
To the other half