[heroes] Evolution: Volume VII
The Claire Bennet edition, and the last of Evolution for a little while.
Title: Never Broken
Pairing: Adam Monroe/Claire Bennet
Rating: PG-13
Summary: “What’s happened here is nothing more than the acceleration of your evolution.”
“What’s happened here is nothing more than the acceleration of your evolution,” he said. She answered him with a searching look so, with a sigh, he put it more simply: “The rate of your ability has sped up. This Sylar you’re so fond of, all he’s done is made the eventual the present.”
“You can’t feel pain,” she stated, propping herself up on her elbow. Her hair fell over her shoulders, and his eyes were drawn to the bare line of her clavicle.
“For the most part,” he told her, raising a hand to curl a lock of flaxen blond around his finger. “Deep wounds still tingle.”
Her voice became desperate; she seemed not to notice his fingers toying with her hair. “But why? Are you just used to it?”
“It’s adaptation,” he said. The mild fascination in his voice had nothing to do with the words he was speaking, as his eyes followed the line of her throat to her lips. “Whether physical or psychological, it makes no difference.” His fingers ghosted over her shoulder, to her neck, gently guiding her back down to the bed as he rolled onto his hands to hover above her.
“But,” she said, her favourite word, as she fought the tears already shining in her eyes, “maybe I could have held onto it, if he hadn’t taken it away from me.”
Adam cracked a crooked grin and stroked a thumb along her temple. “No, Claire,” he whispered. “Where you currently are is where you were always going to be.”
Title: One in a Million (Two of a Kind)
Pairing: Sylar/Claire Bennet
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Sylar’s mind wandered to unpleasant places.
In the moments he wasn’t busy preparing for his next target, cleaning up his previous one, or simmering over the discrepancies in his own past, Sylar’s mind wandered to unpleasant places. It was unreasonable, he knew, (and frustratingly so,) to think of returning for the cheerleader in Costa Verde. He tried desperately to shackle the temptation with logic, but nothing came of it.
Other victims had fought him, some with more fire than her, some with nearly as much success. It was not as if he hadn’t been stabbed before. With a pen, with a letter opener - most memorably, with the broken neck of a porcelain swan. She was the only one to kill him, because, though it pained him to admit it, he would have died if he’d not acquired her power. If her ability had been anything other than rapid cellular regeneration, he would be breathing worms.
He saw bits of himself in her: a confused child striving so hard for recognition, for that elusive rite to adulthood constantly denied them. A need to express and assert oneself; to shed the neglect inflicted upon them by others like an old skin. When she lay there on the coffee table, there was a flicker in her face of madness that can only accompany complete terror - that, like terror, stayed forever and could only flourish and never wilt.
When he told her she was special, he had meant it, and even he, with his superhuman hearing, hadn’t been sensitive to the underlying message. She was special to the world, yes, different from all the others. She was also special to him.
He wouldn’t let this odd fascination deter him from his work. There were plenty of files left, dozens of abilities waiting to be harvested, and a father he had yet to question. And thanks to a folder on a stranger named Adam Monroe, he now knew that Claire could wait - for days, weeks, decades if necessary. He was sure that somewhere along that ouroboros of time, she would realise that he, too, was special.
Title: Never Broken
Pairing: Adam Monroe/Claire Bennet
Rating: PG-13
Summary: “What’s happened here is nothing more than the acceleration of your evolution.”
“What’s happened here is nothing more than the acceleration of your evolution,” he said. She answered him with a searching look so, with a sigh, he put it more simply: “The rate of your ability has sped up. This Sylar you’re so fond of, all he’s done is made the eventual the present.”
“You can’t feel pain,” she stated, propping herself up on her elbow. Her hair fell over her shoulders, and his eyes were drawn to the bare line of her clavicle.
“For the most part,” he told her, raising a hand to curl a lock of flaxen blond around his finger. “Deep wounds still tingle.”
Her voice became desperate; she seemed not to notice his fingers toying with her hair. “But why? Are you just used to it?”
“It’s adaptation,” he said. The mild fascination in his voice had nothing to do with the words he was speaking, as his eyes followed the line of her throat to her lips. “Whether physical or psychological, it makes no difference.” His fingers ghosted over her shoulder, to her neck, gently guiding her back down to the bed as he rolled onto his hands to hover above her.
“But,” she said, her favourite word, as she fought the tears already shining in her eyes, “maybe I could have held onto it, if he hadn’t taken it away from me.”
Adam cracked a crooked grin and stroked a thumb along her temple. “No, Claire,” he whispered. “Where you currently are is where you were always going to be.”
Title: One in a Million (Two of a Kind)
Pairing: Sylar/Claire Bennet
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Sylar’s mind wandered to unpleasant places.
In the moments he wasn’t busy preparing for his next target, cleaning up his previous one, or simmering over the discrepancies in his own past, Sylar’s mind wandered to unpleasant places. It was unreasonable, he knew, (and frustratingly so,) to think of returning for the cheerleader in Costa Verde. He tried desperately to shackle the temptation with logic, but nothing came of it.
Other victims had fought him, some with more fire than her, some with nearly as much success. It was not as if he hadn’t been stabbed before. With a pen, with a letter opener - most memorably, with the broken neck of a porcelain swan. She was the only one to kill him, because, though it pained him to admit it, he would have died if he’d not acquired her power. If her ability had been anything other than rapid cellular regeneration, he would be breathing worms.
He saw bits of himself in her: a confused child striving so hard for recognition, for that elusive rite to adulthood constantly denied them. A need to express and assert oneself; to shed the neglect inflicted upon them by others like an old skin. When she lay there on the coffee table, there was a flicker in her face of madness that can only accompany complete terror - that, like terror, stayed forever and could only flourish and never wilt.
When he told her she was special, he had meant it, and even he, with his superhuman hearing, hadn’t been sensitive to the underlying message. She was special to the world, yes, different from all the others. She was also special to him.
He wouldn’t let this odd fascination deter him from his work. There were plenty of files left, dozens of abilities waiting to be harvested, and a father he had yet to question. And thanks to a folder on a stranger named Adam Monroe, he now knew that Claire could wait - for days, weeks, decades if necessary. He was sure that somewhere along that ouroboros of time, she would realise that he, too, was special.