Sylaire Ficathon - Saligia
Three things they would like: Claire turning bad, smut, a somewhat happy, if ambiguous, ending
Three things they don’t want: Sylar going good, PWP, Slash or Petrellicest
A/N: SALIGIA is the mnemonic to remember the seven deadly sins: Superbia, Avaritia, Luxuria, Invidia, Gula, Ira, Acedia. Descriptions of the sins (and virtues) come from Wikipedia. I had trouble with turning Claire evil, toyed with a couple ideas for it - but they would all require much longer multi-chapter stories to fully explore, so… we get to explore how she plays with each of the deadlies. I’ve thrown some of the seven virtues in there, just for fun and as a reminder that no one is ever truly good or truly bad, just a mix of the two :) If the ending seems a bit abrupt, it’s because I’m trying to make sure the ending’s nice and ambiguous. I hope you like it, and I just want to say a giant “Thank You!!!!” to raitheemohugger for running this ficathon :)
Superbia (Pride): “the original and most serious of the seven deadly sins, and indeed the ultimate source from which the others arise”
When she's young, a little girl with bouncy blonde pigtails and a frilly pink dress that she adores and pastel pink paint on her stubby fingernails, her parents drag her to church.
It's boring, she doesn’t like it, and the Sunday school teacher smells bad. None of it makes any sense to her, all the fighting and strange poetry about sheep and confusing parts about so-and-so begat so-and-so, and for the longest time she thinks “begat” is something akin to robbery and murder because the teacher stumbles and blushes through a hasty denial of knowledge whenever anyone asks.
The ideas behind her parents’ religion just make no sense to her, especially when they try to explain “original sin” to her, since she's unable to comprehend that she sinned just as soon as she was born; that no matter what, she couldn’t be good enough to not sin. It doesn’t seem right, that a baby like Lyle could be considered bad for just breathing and existing, and so she doubles her efforts to be a good little girl, to follow all the confusing rules and regulations, only to be told that she couldn’t be good enough because she's a woman and women are inherently evil, had been ever since Eve ate that damnable apple. The day that the preacher tells her that she’ll never be as good as a man, always more sinful due to her very nature is the day that she tells her parents that they might be able to make her go to church, but they can’t make her believe it, not anymore.
They change churches the next week, but Claire still refuses to listen, refuses to learn any of the lessons they try to teach her.
- - - - - - - - - -
When she's fifteen, it's a special year. Her powers manifest, and she becomes freak numero uno in her mind. At first, it's something strange, some bizarre, something to deny because how many other teenagers could throw themselves off a tower and live, much less walk away?
The day that she saves the man from the fire, her feelings change. She is special, something amazing, and she’s never been more proud of her powers, up until the minute that Jackie is unfairly given credit for her deeds.
When she's fifteen, she finds her real family, only to find soon after that she doesn’t particularly like most of them, only able to really relate to Peter. Her hero, her uncle (although her heart tells her that he's closer than that, her big brother misplaced by a generation), her favorite man on Earth at that particular moment, she worships the ground he walks on until he presses a gun into her hands and begs her to shoot him, until she hears Sylar taunting him about being the true villain in their story.
If Peter could be bad, if saintly perfect Peter who's willing to die to protect her and who dedicates his life to helping people, can be the face of true evil and Sylar, murderous twisted Sylar, is the hero…
It gives her a lot to think about.
- - - - - - - - - -
Ira (Wrath): “The desire to seek revenge outside of the workings of the justice system… and generally wishing to do evil or harm to others.”
Claire has two fathers, defies anyone who tells her that she ought not call Noah her father too. Noah is closer to her than Nathan, is tied to her by his very words, actions, and desires instead of just his DNA and his blood. When he dies, when she sees Mohinder shoot him, she knows what she has to do. The Company has to be destroyed, she has to reveal herself and everyone else with powers, and she has to make sure that they’re wiped from the face of the earth. When Sandra’s not looking, she steals one of Noah’s guns and a small shoulder holster, hiding the weaponry under her clothes. Revelation is only the first step in her revenge; Mohinder and the men he work for are going to pay for their actions, she swears to herself as she cries in the shower that night.
West tells her not to do this, Sandra begs her not to do this, Mr. Muggles yaps at her in a tone clearly indicating his annoyance, although she’s not certain if it’s with her actions or if it’s because she won’t take the time to play with him. Lyle doesn’t care one way or another, too infuriated with her, blaming her for his father’s death - his real father’s death, he cruelly points out as the last thing he says to her before shunning her with silence. She doesn’t care what they say; she has nothing any more, nothing except for the thought of vengeance; it’s this urge, this desire to hurt them that makes her feel a bit closer to Sylar and her father. Both have killed, albeit for different reasons, but she understands them now in a way that she wasn’t capable of before.
The only thing that stops her is Noah’s return, the sudden realization that the father that she has no strong blood ties to owes his life to her blood, that they’re bound together in every possible way now.
That knowledge, and the fact that Noah’s got his hand on her shoulder in a show of support, are the only two things that stop her from killing Mohinder Suresh the next time she sees him.
- - - - - - - - - -
Liberalitas (Charity): “Willingness to give.”
Videos, grainy shaky videos taken from cell phones as well as smooth vivid digital videos taken with high-tech network equipment, are quick to show up on Youtube. Claire watches them on her computer in fascination, time and time and time again, replaying each clip until she can see the entire assassination attempt repeat in her head even when her eyes are closed. Nathan steps to the podium, and starts his speech. A bullet rings out before he can reveal his powers, before he can do what his daughter had been planning on doing just a day before, and he starts to slump, caught by Peter and Matt Parkman. None of the videos show what happen after that, since everyone’s running or ducking or panicking, but Claire can only imagine.
All that night, she watches the videos again and checks cnn.com like it’s her religion. There are no updates, no breaking news bulletins to declare that ex-Senator Petrelli has died from his wounds, or that the shooter has been caught, or that there’s been a miraculous recovery. She chews her fingernails to the quick, and is already re-chewing them before they can fully grow back out again. Claire calls Angela at least a hundred times, and Angela for once doesn’t mind, all too willing to cling to what may be one of the last reminders she has of Nathan. Both women call Peter’s cell phone, leaving hysterical messages, but he doesn’t return a single one.
The next morning, after a sleepless terror-filled night, Claire drags herself to the kitchen and demands that Sandra drive her to the airport. Angela’s arranging a ticket for her right then, and she’s catching the first flight possible; she has to get to Odessa.
They’re almost to the airport, Sandra begging her with every breath to not do this, to not get involved in this newest danger, when Claire’s cell phone starts ringing. She holds her breath, praying that it’s Peter, but it’s only West. That opinion changes a second later when he promises that he can get her to Nathan’s side far faster than USAir or American can. His word is good, and a mere hour later, she’s standing by her bio-dad’s hospital bed, watching her blood drip through the IV, running into his arm and repairing the damage.
Blood. It’s the answer to everything, the answer for everything. He’s of her blood, he has her blood, she’s more than willing to give her blood for him, more than willing to use her powers to make sure he can continue to use his. She’s never felt closer to him than in that moment, when he first runs his hand across his smooth chest, feeling for a bullet wound that’s no longer there, and then pulls her into a heart-felt hug, tears of gratitude splashing onto her hair as she’s content to just stand there in his embrace. She finally feels like a Petrelli.
- - - - - - - - - -
Gula (Gluttony): “the over-indulgence and over-consumption of anything to the point of waste”
College is interesting, for multiple reasons. The classes are so unlike those in high school that it’s somehow wrong to even compare them. Discussions with friends in her dorm range from the ridiculous to the metaphysical and back again in the blink of an eye. A coffee date with a cute frat boy ends up with them listening to mp3s of sacred choirs performing hymns as she lies on his bed at three in the morning, head spinning from his kisses and the confusing twists of their conversation on medieval philosophy. Late night chats about boys with her best friend turns into confessional time, each of them spilling out their secrets as they gorge themselves on Ben & Jerry’s.
College is also interesting because it’s during that time that Peter reluctantly introduces her to some of his special friends, that she finally meets Adam, finally comprehends what she should have realized years earlier. She, he, they are immortals, doomed to never die, never share the curse of mortality that defines all other lives. It gives her a lot to think about; about how death is what gives life meaning, what it means to never have to face the prospect of heaven and hell, only self-imposed versions of those words.
She dyes her hair midnight black and takes to wearing a lot of black and gray clothing, wrapped up in her own meandering thoughts about the transience of humanity; her roommate thinks that she’s turned Goth after a bad break up, and Claire can’t even start to tell her how she’s in mourning that a life that won’t end. Adam teases her, convinces her that eternity isn’t necessarily a bad thing, pays for a salon to reverse the hideous dye job, drags her out of her funk kicking and screaming.
Realizing that no matter what she does to herself, that she cannot, will not die leads to some interesting experiments and habits. She’d toyed with suicide before, as evidenced by all those hours of Zach’s films that she keeps hidden in her tiny dorm closet under thick winter sweaters, but knowing that nothing can harm her… Adam laughs when she tries to talk to him about it, but when she wakes the next morning, there’s a packet of unfiltered cigarettes lying next to her, and she knows that they’re a “welcome to immortality” gift from Adam.
He takes her drinking the very next weekend, escorting her into a seedy bar that’s permeated with a smell that makes her noise wrinkle in distaste and makes her stomach roll over. The first shot, the first taste of alcohol in her life outside of the watered-down wine at Petrelli Family Functions (she mentally capitalizes the words even when she thinks about it; Angela capitalizes the words in her brief and precise notes demanding Claire’s attendance at such events), rushes through her veins, making her throat burn and her head spin. The feeling doesn’t last, her powers kicking in just as soon as alcohol starts metabolizing, and she’s left with nothing but emptiness and a sadness that can’t be chased away by the next shot Adam pushes in her direction.
When he carries her home later that night, she’s polished off two bottles of Everclear and she’s lost in a haze as the alcohol competes with her powers. He knows that she won’t die of alcohol poisoning, that this is as close as she can come to truly being drunk, but he doesn’t know that it’s not enough, that she wants more, needs more to make her feel truly alive.
- - - - - - - - - -
Avaritia (Greed): “ a sin of excess.... [as] applied to the acquisition of wealth or personal gain” - can include bribery and manipulation of authority
Graduation day, and the Petrellis aren’t there. The Bennets are, and she waves at them as she marches across the stage for the first time in her life, knowing that it’s only the first degree out of many, but she wonders why not a single one of her birth family cares enough to show up. No Angela, Nathan, Heidi, Simon, or Monty. Peter’s not even there, and it makes her feel more abandoned. She’s going to have to give them up one day, knowing that they’ll die and leave her alone within her first century of life, but she’d never expected them to abandon her this early, not on what’s supposed to be a happy day. She assumes that they just forgot or were too busy with more important things, like a manicure session or brunch.
Later that night, after the parties and the banquet and the gifts and pictures and everything else that defines “graduation”, Peter shows up in her dorm room, head hung and face stained with tears. Angela, grandmother, dragon empress of the Petrelli dynasty, had died that morning, a sudden heart attack reminding the rest of the family that she still did have a heart; Nathan, newly crowned head of the family, had decreed that they weren’t going to upset Claire on her special day, that she wouldn’t be told until after the festivities were over.
It’s the first irreversible death in the family, Noah and Nathan excluded by the power of her blood, and she’s shocked, stunned, suddenly mourning for a woman she’d not particularly liked, but loved nonetheless.
The night before, she’d gone to bed as a happy college student. This night, she goes to bed as a heartbroken college graduate, burdened by the loss of her grandmother and by the sudden realization that she’s an heiress, one of the richest twenty-one year olds in the country.
- - - - - - - - - -
After graduation, instead of going to work with Mohinder like she’d planned on, going to work on genetics and learn more about the very nature of her powers, she finds herself sucked into the Petrelli family business, suddenly understanding why Peter had tried to escape from this lifestyle the first chance he got. Work, social activities, her entire life revolves around gaining more power, more prestige, more money for the family. Nathan’s not content to be a mere Senator, yet he’s not quite to the level that he needs to be at to make himself a serious contender for the presidency.
Charming politicians, businessmen, shady characters that she’s almost-but-not-quite convinced are Mafiosos, smiling at those snakes in human skin as she flirts, cons, or bribes them out of their money, all in the idea and name of the glorious President Petrelli, that’s what her nights consist of. Days revolve around being seen by the cameras, smiling for the paparazzi as she feeds the homeless or visits hospices, escorted by Peter of course, whatever Nathan tells her to do in order to gain a point or two in the latest popularity point.
Everything’s seemingly above board, nothing immoral in front of the cameras, but after every one of the political fundraising dinners, she cries as she tries to scrub herself clean in an overly-hot shower, feeling dirty in a way that she knows that she can never wash away, no matter how much soap she uses, how hard or how long she scrubs, scrubbing until the skin splits and blood mixes with the soap bubbles, how hot the water is, almost at the boiling point in a watery assault that someone without her powers would never survive. Sandra laughs when Claire tells her about her days, reminding her of that old joke about politics and sausage making; Claire can’t find anything to laugh about.
She’s never been more tired, more sick of life, more angry at herself for hunting up her birth family in the first place, but she finally realizes that the Texan preacher had been right. Born a Petrelli, especially a Petrelli woman, she’d had no recourse other than sin, no other options. To be a Petrelli means that she doesn’t get a chance to not sin; to be a Petrelli is to be a liar, a cheat, and a sinner a thousand times over before breakfast is even served.
Sylar had been right when he’d called Peter a villain, but for the wrong reasons. Peter’s a Petrelli, by nature unable to be anything but a villain masquerading as a hero, forever haunted by choices that he didn’t make, haunted by the very fact of his existence, just as she is.
- - - - - - - - - -
Humanitas (Kindness): “Charity, compassion, friendship” and Humilitas (Humility): “Modest behavior, selflessness, and the giving of respect”
She has to admit, not every aspect of the role she plays is bad. There are benefits to being a Petrelli, to being surrounded by paparazzi and the press, to being well-known and respected.
When there’s a natural disaster, every politician worth his salt scrambles to put together charity donations and fund-raising galas and political ads praising their contributions to “the cause.” When Nathan Petrelli gets involved in disaster relief, he sends his daughter and his brother, and it’s the only time that Claire’s happy any more.
Searching for the bodies of victims, only to miraculously find survivors when everyone else was sure that none were there, is a high that drugs and alcohol never can match, although she still tries from time to time. Peter’s powers, from Sylar’s hearing to Linderman’s healing, combine with her ability to get in and out of every possibly location safely add up to them being viewed in awe, but she doesn’t care. She could care less that there’s a camera constantly trained on her, that pictures of her without makeup and her hair in a straggly ponytail are going to show up in every fashion magazine or gossip rag in the country, that she’s inspiring thousands to donate money, blood, food, or clothing to charity. All that matters is getting to the next person, and then the next, and the next, until she and Peter drop from exhaustion or until everyone’s safely reunited with their families.
It inevitably happens, that someone will jam a microphone in her face when she’s too tired to censure her speech any more, that someone will ask her for a sound bite for the evening news, and she snaps at them to get the hell away from her and let her get back to work, that there are things more important out there than sound bites and news clips and ratings, that people are living and dying out there. Even though she means it, even though it’s not the least little bit formulaic or practiced, she always gets praised for her message and Nathan always benefits.
The press and the political pundits say that she’s ushering in a new era of generosity and giving, a new Camelot to be run by her father. When Peter tells her that one, she laughs so hard she gets hiccups.
- - - - - - - - - -
Invidia (Envy): “those who commit the sin of envy desire something that someone else has which they perceive themselves as lacking”
It’s not fair to say that she hates Elle, the feelings run so much deeper than that. Hate had been the simplistic drive she’d felt when she’d met the other blonde, that horrible day that Mohinder shot her dad. Hatred had been what she’d felt when Peter had revealed what had happened to him after Kirby Plaza, how Elle had been partly responsible for him being missing for so long, how Elle had toyed with him.
When she’d found out how Elle had been raised, the hatred had dimmed - slightly, just ever so slightly. Claire knew she’d been the lucky one, raised in love with the Bennets, while her half-sister - and her mind still reels how Elle is Meredith’s daughter, too - had been brought up as one of Bob’s little experiments.
Envy hits when she realizes how free Elle is, even though she’s irrevocably bound to the Company. Bob might tell her what to do, and how to do it, but he doesn’t control Elle to the same level that Nathan controls her. For the most part, Elle can go out whenever and wherever she’d like; Claire can’t for fear that the omnipresent cameras would capture her drinking or smoking or carousing with some random stranger. Elle can date whomever she’d like - within reason, Bob comments with a smile - and do whatever she’d like with her lovers. Claire’s only allowed to play at dating, making a pretty show for the cameras as she’s “romanced” by the sons of other politicians or by young Wall Street bankers. Nathan goes ballistic when a picture of her kissing one of the beaus gets plastered on a tawdry gossip page; his office calls the banker’s office and arranges for them not to see each other anymore.
The day that Elle giggles and says “I’ve got a secret - promise not to tell?”, Claire’s view of the world tilts again. That night, she dreams of her sister’s lover; it’s not the first time she’s dreamed of him, but it is the first time that he’s not featured in a nightmare.
It’s not that she wants him, she just doesn’t want Elle to have him either; he’s just another thing to make her envy Elle more. At least, that’s what she tries to tell herself.
- - - - - - - - - -
Patientia (Patience): “The ability to forgive; to show mercy to sinners.”
When Elle tells her that she’s dating Sylar - Sylar of all people! - Claire look around for a hidden camera. It’s the only possible explanation, that she must be on Candid Camera, until she considers that a psychopath would make a good match for a sociopath like Elle. It’s strange, but it makes a tiny bit of sense.
Elle insists that Claire has to join them for coffee one day, or maybe a double date, and won’t listen when Claire keeps saying “no”. Claire has to join them, Elle demands it, and she finally just gives up. Surely he won’t kill her in the middle of Starbucks, surely. She still carries Noah’s stolen gun with her, just in case.
The coffee meeting is interesting, to say the least. He growls and grumbles, and Elle teases him and gives him little shocks when no one’s looking. It’s odd, but Claire can see that it somehow works.
As she gets up to “go freshen up”, which is Elle-code for ‘go flirt with the baristas,’ Claire and Sylar find themselves trapped in awkward silence. He breaks first.
“Elle’s invited me to Thanksgiving dinner.”
“But…” Claire’s eyes widen as she realizes what he’s saying, that Elle’s invited him to the Petrelli mansion for Turkey Day. “Oh, crap. Nathan and Peter are going to go ballistic.”
“That’s what this little meeting was about. She wants you to put in a good word for me, wants you to keep the Petrelli brothers under control, but she doesn’t want to ask you.”
She meets his gaze. “Why should I do that?”
Sylar laughs, but for once, it’s not a cruel laugh but rather one of amusement. “I promise I won’t kill them at the dinner table.”
“What about before or after supper, and what about me?”
He holds his hand up in an odd gesture, solemnly stating “Boy’s Scout Pledge. I won’t hurt any one on Thanksgiving.”
Being friends with Zach pays off in multiple ways, and she immediately recognizes the gesture from Star Trek. “That’s so not the boy scout hand thingy, but I’ll believe you. Besides, Peter’s got the better of you every other time.”
Sylar wraps his hands around his cup of coffee, not even noticing when he squeezes the cardboard container so hard that coffee violently squirts out the top. Claire wonders if he’s imagining choking her or Peter, but doesn’t really want to know the answer. He finally realizes that he’s strangling his cup, and sheepishly sets it down. “This really does mean a lot to Elle,” he pauses before growling “thank you” under his breath.
She would brush it off, but she knows the effort it’s taken him to say it, to take this sort of approach to getting on Elle’s good side. “You’re welcome. You know, you’re not so bad for a killer. I don’t dislike you nearly as much as I do some others, and I do understand why you do what you do.”
“That almost sounds like forgiveness or permission, in a twisted way.”
“In a twisted way, it is.” Claire finally breaks eye contact, and looks back at the counter to see Elle sauntering their way. She’s relieved, glad that Elle’s coming back, unable to take the tension of sitting alone with Sylar for another minute.
- - - - - - - - - -
Luxuria (Lust): “obsessive or excessive thoughts or desires of a sexual nature”
Elle will never forgive her, never, even though Claire knows that Elle doesn’t love the man, just loves flaunting him in front of Bob and the rest of the Company and the Petrellis. He’s hers, regardless of if she wants to possess him like that, which means that he’s supposed to be automatically off-limits to Claire.
Supposed to be, another phrase that Claire hates. Thanksgiving’s one of those days that’s supposed to be a day all about family, yet her family’s in the dining room, screaming and arguing, as she hides in the den with Elle’s boyfriend, trying to pretend that those people can’t possibly be related to her. Maybe she should ask Mohinder to run the paternity test again; it wouldn’t hurt.
“Why haven’t you killed her yet? You do still kill, right?” She asks, curious as to why he’d waste his time with someone like Elle. Until Elle had confessed to her, until the day she’d met them for coffee, Claire had never considered the idea that Sylar would date someone instead of just killing them on principle; apparently, even he got lonely, just as lonely as she is these days.
He doesn’t answer at first, choosing to just stare at her instead, as if he can see what she’s thinking. Sylar finally answers with a chuckle and a muttered “Yes, I kill, and I don’t know why she’s still alive. She’s… amusing, I guess; that, and because of her, the Company lets me have the ones that they don’t want.”
“Are you going to?” Claire’s not sure how she wants him to answer.
“Again, I don’t know.” He growls at her, then smirks. “Probably will kill you if you don’t stop asking so many questions, though.”
“Oooh, someone’s grouchy. Sleep on the couch last night?” She nudges him with her foot as she says it. As soon as she teases him, she knows that she’s jumped an invisible line that was never meant to be crossed.
“You know, you’re awfully friendly to someone who’s tried to kill you in the past.” He stretches out on the couch, trying to get more comfortable, and his foot brushes against her leg when he lies across the furniture; she’s not sure if it’s accidental or not.
“Tried, and failed, if I remember correctly.” She curls up, tucking her legs under her, giving him more room to stretch out those long legs. “Really, this guy I knew in high school - he did a much better job of killing me than you did. Maybe you should ask him for advice.” It’s the first time she’s been able to think or mention Brody without cringing, first time she’s been able to turn that experience into a joke.
“Maybe I should.” He winces as something crashes in the other room, and she feels like sticking out her tongue and taunting him about how he shouldn’t have stolen someone else’s super hearing if he didn’t want to hear things like this. “Are they always like this?”
“No, usually they’re worse. Nathan hasn’t started drinking yet. Just wait, you’ll see - Christmas is always spectacular. You might want to bring ear plugs.”
“Why is it that you, the actual Petrelli daughter, is hiding in here with me, and Elle’s the one in there,” he pauses for a second as he listens in on the annual Petrelli Thanksgiving Fight, another one of those Family Events that’s earned it’s capital letters, “cursing Peter and Bob?”
“She likes the fighting, likes the drama. Again, just wait - Christmas will be good.”
Doors slam in the distance, and someone - probably Nathan - starts cursing fluently in Italian. Everything gets quiet for a minute, then Peter and Elle start yelling again.
“You want to get out of here?” Sylar gets up off the couch, unable to listen to Elle and Peter and their odd way of flirting, and offers her his hand. “I think I need to leave now, before I do go after your precious uncle again, and I don’t want to break that promise I made to you.”
“I thought you’d never ask.” Claire lets him help her with her coat, lets him escort her out of the back door of the house, and down the street, all the way to a diner that’s open on Thanksgiving Day, a haven for all those that have no place else to go.
It’s the perfect spot for the two of them to actually talk, exchange life stories and philosophies, to say the things that really need to be said like “I’m truly sorry”, and “You do know she doesn’t love you, right?” and “I think she’s using me to make Peter jealous” and “My apartment’s just around the corner, if you want to?”
- - - - - - - - - -
By the time they get to his apartment, she’s on fire, no longer caring if it’s right or wrong; by the way he presses her up against the door before it can close all the way, she knows he feels the same way. Caught between him and the door, she’s lost in a sensual haze just as soon as he kisses her, the only thing she can think of is the feel of his body and the heat of his mouth upon hers.
He tears her top, shredding it with both his fingers and his telekinesis in his urge to get to her, baring her entire upper body before shoving her back against the door again, so hard that she’d swear that the pattern of the wood grain would be permanently etched on her back if it wasn’t for her powers.
She gives as good as she gets, ripping off all the buttons on his shirt before yanking it off and tossing it across the room, not caring when it falls to drape over a lamp, not caring if she sets the place on fire or not. The heat from him and the answering inferno in her blood and deep inside her is all she can focus on, panting long before he ever lets his hands find the edge of her skirt and lifts it slowly. When one long callused finger finds the edge of her panties, Claire curses out loud, both from the sudden feeling of heightened lust that rips through and from the realization that maybe she shouldn’t have bothered with underwear today, that it’s just blocking him from being where she really wants him to be.
Claire’s not a virgin, Sylar’s not either, but as he leans his head against the door next to hers, as his hands wrap around her ass as he helps her wrap her legs around him, as he thrusts into her in a gloriously controlled explosion of movement, she feels like it is the first time, that none of her previous lovers had ever made her feel like this. None of them had ever made her scream like this, like he does when he slides inside her. None of them had felt this good, so big, making her feel like she’s so full that she’s about to explode. A few had talented fingers, or centuries of experience to make up for that shortcoming, but none of them had ever made their fingers dance along her clit or along her nipples, ice and fire being mapped out on her feverish skin. She bites down on his shoulder, bringing blood, as her first orgasm of the night hits her.
Lost in the cataclysm of tingling nerves and fireworks sparking behind her eyes as he urges her into a second orgasm right behind the first, she doesn’t notice how the wound quickly heals, how he’s managed to find a power like her, found and murdered someone just like her. She wouldn’t have cared anyhow, too lost in her sudden lust for him.
- - - - - - - - - -
She’d been right, Christmas that year is spectacular. Sylar had broken things off with Elle the day after Thanksgiving, claiming that she should be with someone who really loves her, but he hadn’t told her that he was leaving her for Claire. Claire hadn’t mentioned it, since she thought that Elle knew and that it was just a topic to avoid. Peter hadn’t mentioned it, not wanting to get electrocuted for being the bearer of bad news. Heidi hadn’t mentioned the fact that Claire had called her on Black Friday, whispering into the phone that she really needed Heidi to bring some fresh clothes and sneakers to a small apartment in Queens and to not ask questions, not knowing that Claire had stolen her sister’s man. Nathan hadn’t mentioned it, since he had no clue, just like Elle.
When Sylar takes his seat next to her, casually draping an arm across her shoulders, Claire’s not sure who screams the loudest - Elle or Nathan. It turns into an interesting duet, Elle’s soprano tones mimicking an operetta as she shrieks about not being able to trust Claire and Nathan’s voice warbling between tenor and bass as he bellows about murderers in his house, seducing his daughter. The words intermingle into a confusing mess, enough to induce a headache in those still listening to the warring diatribes, namely Peter and Heidi.
No longer paying any attention to the drama queens, Sylar lowers his hand from her shoulders to her knee, and then lets it creep higher as Elle’s voice crescendos in pitch. Claire’s too lost in the feelings of his hands on her skin under her skirt to really pay too much attention to anyone else at the table, too thrilled that he’s willing to play like that and that she’d learned her lesson about wearing panties at Thanksgiving.
She’s going to have to marry this man one day, if he keeps this up. A Petrelli Christmas Brunch has never been such fun before.
- - - - - - - - - -
Acedia (Sloth): “The modern view of the vice… is that it represents the failure to utilize one's talents and gifts.”
Claire detests Nathan's running mate. The man is a grade-A primo jerk, a scumbag with a taste for cheap prostitutes and bribery. She wants to run away and wash her hands as soon as she shakes his hand for the first time, and she knows that the rest of the family shares her dislike. Heidi and Elle refuse to be alone in a car or room with the man, and Sylar threatens to kill him if he looks at Claire like that a second time. Peter reads his mind and tells the rest of them that the man's actually worse than they'd assumed; he looks nauseated whenever he looks at him. But this is the man that the Party champions, and they're stuck with him.
Nathan doesn’t get the Presidency, not this election. The Party had convinced him that he wasn’t ready, that he needed to wait his turn, that he was needed in the Vice Presidency position. They convinced him with pleas, and bribes, and promises of power that this way he’d have uninterrupted power and control for sixteen years, eight as the vice and eight as the commander in chief. Peter and Claire comment that after sixteen years of power like this, that Nathan will move on to serve as head of the Galactic Empire; it’s meant to be a joke, but neither laugh.
The Party says to wait, to gain experience and name recognition; after eight successful years in this position, Nathan will have no trouble winning the Presidency. The press lauds the decision, claiming that it will only make him a better politician. Heidi soothes him, telling him that he’s making the right decision to further the family, that the boys and Claire will benefit from his actions, that he’s doing the right thing for the next generation of Petrellis. Peter hugs him and tells him that no matter what, Nathan’s still his hero. Claire doesn’t say anything, not sure what to say, letting Sylar speak for her.
The pardon is granted on a Friday, a secret backroom deal that Nathan orchestrates the first chance he gets, a mere month after taking office. The wedding, a small affair in the Rose Garden, occurs the next day. On Sunday, Sylar offers his new father-in-law a small gift, quietly whispering to him during brunch that it doesn’t matter what everyone else says, that if Nathan wants the Presidency that badly, well… they’re too special to have to wait; they’re entitled to have what they want, when they want it.
Nothing happens on Monday, and Claire assumes that her father had laughed off the offer, not really taking Sylar seriously. Tuesday leaves her feeling a bit anxious, after seeing the smirk that Sylar gives her as he reassures her that he’s not going to do anything to disrupt their honeymoon.
Claire has time to think before the attack comes, time to think about what she should do, if she should do anything. They’re all in Paris, the Petrellis and the First Family, at a NATO conference when the attack finally comes. It’s not like she expected, just a single bullet shot ringing out on a busy street, but she knows it’s coming by the way that Sylar tenses and tries to move away from the President in the minutes before it happens, trying to grab her hand and pull her away too. Peter also tenses, looking around wildly and grabbing Nathan and Heidi before the shot comes.
They all know what’s happening; Claire has time to act. All she has to do is step in front of the President, take the bullet for him, knowing that it won’t hurt her like it would him. All she would have to do is be the first to catch him when he falls, cut herself just enough to mingle her blood into his wound. All she has to do is use her powers, and no harm will come to anyone.
She chooses to do nothing, letting Sylar pull her away, watches in shock as the President falls as a bloom of rose-red blood wells up on his suit, as the Secret Service scrambles to protect the rest of them.
When she and Sylar talk about it on the plane ride home, he says “How could it have been me? Pure coincidence. I was standing right beside you the entire time.” She doesn’t mention that she knows that Hiro Nakamura hasn’t been seen in over a year, how she knows that he’s more than capable of being in two places at the same time.
When she and Peter talk about it later, they both say that they assumed the other would step forward and act, but they don’t make eye contact nor do they ever speak of it again, never speak of how they’d sell their souls for Nathan’s sake.
The press comments about the assassination, how eerily similar it was to the earlier attempt on Nathan’s life, how he’d survived to become President when another man falls in the same exact way, shot from the same angle with the same type of bullet by two men of the same height and body type.
The coincidences gives Claire a lot to think about. That night, when Sylar crawls into their bed, she takes his hand and asks if he has anything he’d like to say to her. Instead of denying or confirming her speculations, he gives her a hard look, and repeats the question, asking maybe if she has something to tell him instead. At her blank look, he says that she’ll figure it out in another month or two, distracting her from her purpose, as she tries to figure out his puzzle since she’s not sure of what exactly he’s hinting at. She finally joins him in slumber; answers can wait, tomorrow can wait, she already has all that she needs.
For all of Nathan’s talk about how their family can never have too much money, too much power, too much fame, Claire knows that he’s wrong. She doesn’t need the politics, doesn’t want to play all the little games. Sylar’s wrong when he says that he can never have too many powers, and she knows it. Both of these men, her men, will only be left wanting for more, never content, never happy as she is as she remembers one of the first lessons that the Bennets had taught her, about how all they really need is love. It seems she’d learned one of the moral lessons that they’d tried to teach her after all.
Three things they don’t want: Sylar going good, PWP, Slash or Petrellicest
A/N: SALIGIA is the mnemonic to remember the seven deadly sins: Superbia, Avaritia, Luxuria, Invidia, Gula, Ira, Acedia. Descriptions of the sins (and virtues) come from Wikipedia. I had trouble with turning Claire evil, toyed with a couple ideas for it - but they would all require much longer multi-chapter stories to fully explore, so… we get to explore how she plays with each of the deadlies. I’ve thrown some of the seven virtues in there, just for fun and as a reminder that no one is ever truly good or truly bad, just a mix of the two :) If the ending seems a bit abrupt, it’s because I’m trying to make sure the ending’s nice and ambiguous. I hope you like it, and I just want to say a giant “Thank You!!!!” to raitheemohugger for running this ficathon :)
Superbia (Pride): “the original and most serious of the seven deadly sins, and indeed the ultimate source from which the others arise”
When she's young, a little girl with bouncy blonde pigtails and a frilly pink dress that she adores and pastel pink paint on her stubby fingernails, her parents drag her to church.
It's boring, she doesn’t like it, and the Sunday school teacher smells bad. None of it makes any sense to her, all the fighting and strange poetry about sheep and confusing parts about so-and-so begat so-and-so, and for the longest time she thinks “begat” is something akin to robbery and murder because the teacher stumbles and blushes through a hasty denial of knowledge whenever anyone asks.
The ideas behind her parents’ religion just make no sense to her, especially when they try to explain “original sin” to her, since she's unable to comprehend that she sinned just as soon as she was born; that no matter what, she couldn’t be good enough to not sin. It doesn’t seem right, that a baby like Lyle could be considered bad for just breathing and existing, and so she doubles her efforts to be a good little girl, to follow all the confusing rules and regulations, only to be told that she couldn’t be good enough because she's a woman and women are inherently evil, had been ever since Eve ate that damnable apple. The day that the preacher tells her that she’ll never be as good as a man, always more sinful due to her very nature is the day that she tells her parents that they might be able to make her go to church, but they can’t make her believe it, not anymore.
They change churches the next week, but Claire still refuses to listen, refuses to learn any of the lessons they try to teach her.
- - - - - - - - - -
When she's fifteen, it's a special year. Her powers manifest, and she becomes freak numero uno in her mind. At first, it's something strange, some bizarre, something to deny because how many other teenagers could throw themselves off a tower and live, much less walk away?
The day that she saves the man from the fire, her feelings change. She is special, something amazing, and she’s never been more proud of her powers, up until the minute that Jackie is unfairly given credit for her deeds.
When she's fifteen, she finds her real family, only to find soon after that she doesn’t particularly like most of them, only able to really relate to Peter. Her hero, her uncle (although her heart tells her that he's closer than that, her big brother misplaced by a generation), her favorite man on Earth at that particular moment, she worships the ground he walks on until he presses a gun into her hands and begs her to shoot him, until she hears Sylar taunting him about being the true villain in their story.
If Peter could be bad, if saintly perfect Peter who's willing to die to protect her and who dedicates his life to helping people, can be the face of true evil and Sylar, murderous twisted Sylar, is the hero…
It gives her a lot to think about.
- - - - - - - - - -
Ira (Wrath): “The desire to seek revenge outside of the workings of the justice system… and generally wishing to do evil or harm to others.”
Claire has two fathers, defies anyone who tells her that she ought not call Noah her father too. Noah is closer to her than Nathan, is tied to her by his very words, actions, and desires instead of just his DNA and his blood. When he dies, when she sees Mohinder shoot him, she knows what she has to do. The Company has to be destroyed, she has to reveal herself and everyone else with powers, and she has to make sure that they’re wiped from the face of the earth. When Sandra’s not looking, she steals one of Noah’s guns and a small shoulder holster, hiding the weaponry under her clothes. Revelation is only the first step in her revenge; Mohinder and the men he work for are going to pay for their actions, she swears to herself as she cries in the shower that night.
West tells her not to do this, Sandra begs her not to do this, Mr. Muggles yaps at her in a tone clearly indicating his annoyance, although she’s not certain if it’s with her actions or if it’s because she won’t take the time to play with him. Lyle doesn’t care one way or another, too infuriated with her, blaming her for his father’s death - his real father’s death, he cruelly points out as the last thing he says to her before shunning her with silence. She doesn’t care what they say; she has nothing any more, nothing except for the thought of vengeance; it’s this urge, this desire to hurt them that makes her feel a bit closer to Sylar and her father. Both have killed, albeit for different reasons, but she understands them now in a way that she wasn’t capable of before.
The only thing that stops her is Noah’s return, the sudden realization that the father that she has no strong blood ties to owes his life to her blood, that they’re bound together in every possible way now.
That knowledge, and the fact that Noah’s got his hand on her shoulder in a show of support, are the only two things that stop her from killing Mohinder Suresh the next time she sees him.
- - - - - - - - - -
Liberalitas (Charity): “Willingness to give.”
Videos, grainy shaky videos taken from cell phones as well as smooth vivid digital videos taken with high-tech network equipment, are quick to show up on Youtube. Claire watches them on her computer in fascination, time and time and time again, replaying each clip until she can see the entire assassination attempt repeat in her head even when her eyes are closed. Nathan steps to the podium, and starts his speech. A bullet rings out before he can reveal his powers, before he can do what his daughter had been planning on doing just a day before, and he starts to slump, caught by Peter and Matt Parkman. None of the videos show what happen after that, since everyone’s running or ducking or panicking, but Claire can only imagine.
All that night, she watches the videos again and checks cnn.com like it’s her religion. There are no updates, no breaking news bulletins to declare that ex-Senator Petrelli has died from his wounds, or that the shooter has been caught, or that there’s been a miraculous recovery. She chews her fingernails to the quick, and is already re-chewing them before they can fully grow back out again. Claire calls Angela at least a hundred times, and Angela for once doesn’t mind, all too willing to cling to what may be one of the last reminders she has of Nathan. Both women call Peter’s cell phone, leaving hysterical messages, but he doesn’t return a single one.
The next morning, after a sleepless terror-filled night, Claire drags herself to the kitchen and demands that Sandra drive her to the airport. Angela’s arranging a ticket for her right then, and she’s catching the first flight possible; she has to get to Odessa.
They’re almost to the airport, Sandra begging her with every breath to not do this, to not get involved in this newest danger, when Claire’s cell phone starts ringing. She holds her breath, praying that it’s Peter, but it’s only West. That opinion changes a second later when he promises that he can get her to Nathan’s side far faster than USAir or American can. His word is good, and a mere hour later, she’s standing by her bio-dad’s hospital bed, watching her blood drip through the IV, running into his arm and repairing the damage.
Blood. It’s the answer to everything, the answer for everything. He’s of her blood, he has her blood, she’s more than willing to give her blood for him, more than willing to use her powers to make sure he can continue to use his. She’s never felt closer to him than in that moment, when he first runs his hand across his smooth chest, feeling for a bullet wound that’s no longer there, and then pulls her into a heart-felt hug, tears of gratitude splashing onto her hair as she’s content to just stand there in his embrace. She finally feels like a Petrelli.
- - - - - - - - - -
Gula (Gluttony): “the over-indulgence and over-consumption of anything to the point of waste”
College is interesting, for multiple reasons. The classes are so unlike those in high school that it’s somehow wrong to even compare them. Discussions with friends in her dorm range from the ridiculous to the metaphysical and back again in the blink of an eye. A coffee date with a cute frat boy ends up with them listening to mp3s of sacred choirs performing hymns as she lies on his bed at three in the morning, head spinning from his kisses and the confusing twists of their conversation on medieval philosophy. Late night chats about boys with her best friend turns into confessional time, each of them spilling out their secrets as they gorge themselves on Ben & Jerry’s.
College is also interesting because it’s during that time that Peter reluctantly introduces her to some of his special friends, that she finally meets Adam, finally comprehends what she should have realized years earlier. She, he, they are immortals, doomed to never die, never share the curse of mortality that defines all other lives. It gives her a lot to think about; about how death is what gives life meaning, what it means to never have to face the prospect of heaven and hell, only self-imposed versions of those words.
She dyes her hair midnight black and takes to wearing a lot of black and gray clothing, wrapped up in her own meandering thoughts about the transience of humanity; her roommate thinks that she’s turned Goth after a bad break up, and Claire can’t even start to tell her how she’s in mourning that a life that won’t end. Adam teases her, convinces her that eternity isn’t necessarily a bad thing, pays for a salon to reverse the hideous dye job, drags her out of her funk kicking and screaming.
Realizing that no matter what she does to herself, that she cannot, will not die leads to some interesting experiments and habits. She’d toyed with suicide before, as evidenced by all those hours of Zach’s films that she keeps hidden in her tiny dorm closet under thick winter sweaters, but knowing that nothing can harm her… Adam laughs when she tries to talk to him about it, but when she wakes the next morning, there’s a packet of unfiltered cigarettes lying next to her, and she knows that they’re a “welcome to immortality” gift from Adam.
He takes her drinking the very next weekend, escorting her into a seedy bar that’s permeated with a smell that makes her noise wrinkle in distaste and makes her stomach roll over. The first shot, the first taste of alcohol in her life outside of the watered-down wine at Petrelli Family Functions (she mentally capitalizes the words even when she thinks about it; Angela capitalizes the words in her brief and precise notes demanding Claire’s attendance at such events), rushes through her veins, making her throat burn and her head spin. The feeling doesn’t last, her powers kicking in just as soon as alcohol starts metabolizing, and she’s left with nothing but emptiness and a sadness that can’t be chased away by the next shot Adam pushes in her direction.
When he carries her home later that night, she’s polished off two bottles of Everclear and she’s lost in a haze as the alcohol competes with her powers. He knows that she won’t die of alcohol poisoning, that this is as close as she can come to truly being drunk, but he doesn’t know that it’s not enough, that she wants more, needs more to make her feel truly alive.
- - - - - - - - - -
Avaritia (Greed): “ a sin of excess.... [as] applied to the acquisition of wealth or personal gain” - can include bribery and manipulation of authority
Graduation day, and the Petrellis aren’t there. The Bennets are, and she waves at them as she marches across the stage for the first time in her life, knowing that it’s only the first degree out of many, but she wonders why not a single one of her birth family cares enough to show up. No Angela, Nathan, Heidi, Simon, or Monty. Peter’s not even there, and it makes her feel more abandoned. She’s going to have to give them up one day, knowing that they’ll die and leave her alone within her first century of life, but she’d never expected them to abandon her this early, not on what’s supposed to be a happy day. She assumes that they just forgot or were too busy with more important things, like a manicure session or brunch.
Later that night, after the parties and the banquet and the gifts and pictures and everything else that defines “graduation”, Peter shows up in her dorm room, head hung and face stained with tears. Angela, grandmother, dragon empress of the Petrelli dynasty, had died that morning, a sudden heart attack reminding the rest of the family that she still did have a heart; Nathan, newly crowned head of the family, had decreed that they weren’t going to upset Claire on her special day, that she wouldn’t be told until after the festivities were over.
It’s the first irreversible death in the family, Noah and Nathan excluded by the power of her blood, and she’s shocked, stunned, suddenly mourning for a woman she’d not particularly liked, but loved nonetheless.
The night before, she’d gone to bed as a happy college student. This night, she goes to bed as a heartbroken college graduate, burdened by the loss of her grandmother and by the sudden realization that she’s an heiress, one of the richest twenty-one year olds in the country.
- - - - - - - - - -
After graduation, instead of going to work with Mohinder like she’d planned on, going to work on genetics and learn more about the very nature of her powers, she finds herself sucked into the Petrelli family business, suddenly understanding why Peter had tried to escape from this lifestyle the first chance he got. Work, social activities, her entire life revolves around gaining more power, more prestige, more money for the family. Nathan’s not content to be a mere Senator, yet he’s not quite to the level that he needs to be at to make himself a serious contender for the presidency.
Charming politicians, businessmen, shady characters that she’s almost-but-not-quite convinced are Mafiosos, smiling at those snakes in human skin as she flirts, cons, or bribes them out of their money, all in the idea and name of the glorious President Petrelli, that’s what her nights consist of. Days revolve around being seen by the cameras, smiling for the paparazzi as she feeds the homeless or visits hospices, escorted by Peter of course, whatever Nathan tells her to do in order to gain a point or two in the latest popularity point.
Everything’s seemingly above board, nothing immoral in front of the cameras, but after every one of the political fundraising dinners, she cries as she tries to scrub herself clean in an overly-hot shower, feeling dirty in a way that she knows that she can never wash away, no matter how much soap she uses, how hard or how long she scrubs, scrubbing until the skin splits and blood mixes with the soap bubbles, how hot the water is, almost at the boiling point in a watery assault that someone without her powers would never survive. Sandra laughs when Claire tells her about her days, reminding her of that old joke about politics and sausage making; Claire can’t find anything to laugh about.
She’s never been more tired, more sick of life, more angry at herself for hunting up her birth family in the first place, but she finally realizes that the Texan preacher had been right. Born a Petrelli, especially a Petrelli woman, she’d had no recourse other than sin, no other options. To be a Petrelli means that she doesn’t get a chance to not sin; to be a Petrelli is to be a liar, a cheat, and a sinner a thousand times over before breakfast is even served.
Sylar had been right when he’d called Peter a villain, but for the wrong reasons. Peter’s a Petrelli, by nature unable to be anything but a villain masquerading as a hero, forever haunted by choices that he didn’t make, haunted by the very fact of his existence, just as she is.
- - - - - - - - - -
Humanitas (Kindness): “Charity, compassion, friendship” and Humilitas (Humility): “Modest behavior, selflessness, and the giving of respect”
She has to admit, not every aspect of the role she plays is bad. There are benefits to being a Petrelli, to being surrounded by paparazzi and the press, to being well-known and respected.
When there’s a natural disaster, every politician worth his salt scrambles to put together charity donations and fund-raising galas and political ads praising their contributions to “the cause.” When Nathan Petrelli gets involved in disaster relief, he sends his daughter and his brother, and it’s the only time that Claire’s happy any more.
Searching for the bodies of victims, only to miraculously find survivors when everyone else was sure that none were there, is a high that drugs and alcohol never can match, although she still tries from time to time. Peter’s powers, from Sylar’s hearing to Linderman’s healing, combine with her ability to get in and out of every possibly location safely add up to them being viewed in awe, but she doesn’t care. She could care less that there’s a camera constantly trained on her, that pictures of her without makeup and her hair in a straggly ponytail are going to show up in every fashion magazine or gossip rag in the country, that she’s inspiring thousands to donate money, blood, food, or clothing to charity. All that matters is getting to the next person, and then the next, and the next, until she and Peter drop from exhaustion or until everyone’s safely reunited with their families.
It inevitably happens, that someone will jam a microphone in her face when she’s too tired to censure her speech any more, that someone will ask her for a sound bite for the evening news, and she snaps at them to get the hell away from her and let her get back to work, that there are things more important out there than sound bites and news clips and ratings, that people are living and dying out there. Even though she means it, even though it’s not the least little bit formulaic or practiced, she always gets praised for her message and Nathan always benefits.
The press and the political pundits say that she’s ushering in a new era of generosity and giving, a new Camelot to be run by her father. When Peter tells her that one, she laughs so hard she gets hiccups.
- - - - - - - - - -
Invidia (Envy): “those who commit the sin of envy desire something that someone else has which they perceive themselves as lacking”
It’s not fair to say that she hates Elle, the feelings run so much deeper than that. Hate had been the simplistic drive she’d felt when she’d met the other blonde, that horrible day that Mohinder shot her dad. Hatred had been what she’d felt when Peter had revealed what had happened to him after Kirby Plaza, how Elle had been partly responsible for him being missing for so long, how Elle had toyed with him.
When she’d found out how Elle had been raised, the hatred had dimmed - slightly, just ever so slightly. Claire knew she’d been the lucky one, raised in love with the Bennets, while her half-sister - and her mind still reels how Elle is Meredith’s daughter, too - had been brought up as one of Bob’s little experiments.
Envy hits when she realizes how free Elle is, even though she’s irrevocably bound to the Company. Bob might tell her what to do, and how to do it, but he doesn’t control Elle to the same level that Nathan controls her. For the most part, Elle can go out whenever and wherever she’d like; Claire can’t for fear that the omnipresent cameras would capture her drinking or smoking or carousing with some random stranger. Elle can date whomever she’d like - within reason, Bob comments with a smile - and do whatever she’d like with her lovers. Claire’s only allowed to play at dating, making a pretty show for the cameras as she’s “romanced” by the sons of other politicians or by young Wall Street bankers. Nathan goes ballistic when a picture of her kissing one of the beaus gets plastered on a tawdry gossip page; his office calls the banker’s office and arranges for them not to see each other anymore.
The day that Elle giggles and says “I’ve got a secret - promise not to tell?”, Claire’s view of the world tilts again. That night, she dreams of her sister’s lover; it’s not the first time she’s dreamed of him, but it is the first time that he’s not featured in a nightmare.
It’s not that she wants him, she just doesn’t want Elle to have him either; he’s just another thing to make her envy Elle more. At least, that’s what she tries to tell herself.
- - - - - - - - - -
Patientia (Patience): “The ability to forgive; to show mercy to sinners.”
When Elle tells her that she’s dating Sylar - Sylar of all people! - Claire look around for a hidden camera. It’s the only possible explanation, that she must be on Candid Camera, until she considers that a psychopath would make a good match for a sociopath like Elle. It’s strange, but it makes a tiny bit of sense.
Elle insists that Claire has to join them for coffee one day, or maybe a double date, and won’t listen when Claire keeps saying “no”. Claire has to join them, Elle demands it, and she finally just gives up. Surely he won’t kill her in the middle of Starbucks, surely. She still carries Noah’s stolen gun with her, just in case.
The coffee meeting is interesting, to say the least. He growls and grumbles, and Elle teases him and gives him little shocks when no one’s looking. It’s odd, but Claire can see that it somehow works.
As she gets up to “go freshen up”, which is Elle-code for ‘go flirt with the baristas,’ Claire and Sylar find themselves trapped in awkward silence. He breaks first.
“Elle’s invited me to Thanksgiving dinner.”
“But…” Claire’s eyes widen as she realizes what he’s saying, that Elle’s invited him to the Petrelli mansion for Turkey Day. “Oh, crap. Nathan and Peter are going to go ballistic.”
“That’s what this little meeting was about. She wants you to put in a good word for me, wants you to keep the Petrelli brothers under control, but she doesn’t want to ask you.”
She meets his gaze. “Why should I do that?”
Sylar laughs, but for once, it’s not a cruel laugh but rather one of amusement. “I promise I won’t kill them at the dinner table.”
“What about before or after supper, and what about me?”
He holds his hand up in an odd gesture, solemnly stating “Boy’s Scout Pledge. I won’t hurt any one on Thanksgiving.”
Being friends with Zach pays off in multiple ways, and she immediately recognizes the gesture from Star Trek. “That’s so not the boy scout hand thingy, but I’ll believe you. Besides, Peter’s got the better of you every other time.”
Sylar wraps his hands around his cup of coffee, not even noticing when he squeezes the cardboard container so hard that coffee violently squirts out the top. Claire wonders if he’s imagining choking her or Peter, but doesn’t really want to know the answer. He finally realizes that he’s strangling his cup, and sheepishly sets it down. “This really does mean a lot to Elle,” he pauses before growling “thank you” under his breath.
She would brush it off, but she knows the effort it’s taken him to say it, to take this sort of approach to getting on Elle’s good side. “You’re welcome. You know, you’re not so bad for a killer. I don’t dislike you nearly as much as I do some others, and I do understand why you do what you do.”
“That almost sounds like forgiveness or permission, in a twisted way.”
“In a twisted way, it is.” Claire finally breaks eye contact, and looks back at the counter to see Elle sauntering their way. She’s relieved, glad that Elle’s coming back, unable to take the tension of sitting alone with Sylar for another minute.
- - - - - - - - - -
Luxuria (Lust): “obsessive or excessive thoughts or desires of a sexual nature”
Elle will never forgive her, never, even though Claire knows that Elle doesn’t love the man, just loves flaunting him in front of Bob and the rest of the Company and the Petrellis. He’s hers, regardless of if she wants to possess him like that, which means that he’s supposed to be automatically off-limits to Claire.
Supposed to be, another phrase that Claire hates. Thanksgiving’s one of those days that’s supposed to be a day all about family, yet her family’s in the dining room, screaming and arguing, as she hides in the den with Elle’s boyfriend, trying to pretend that those people can’t possibly be related to her. Maybe she should ask Mohinder to run the paternity test again; it wouldn’t hurt.
“Why haven’t you killed her yet? You do still kill, right?” She asks, curious as to why he’d waste his time with someone like Elle. Until Elle had confessed to her, until the day she’d met them for coffee, Claire had never considered the idea that Sylar would date someone instead of just killing them on principle; apparently, even he got lonely, just as lonely as she is these days.
He doesn’t answer at first, choosing to just stare at her instead, as if he can see what she’s thinking. Sylar finally answers with a chuckle and a muttered “Yes, I kill, and I don’t know why she’s still alive. She’s… amusing, I guess; that, and because of her, the Company lets me have the ones that they don’t want.”
“Are you going to?” Claire’s not sure how she wants him to answer.
“Again, I don’t know.” He growls at her, then smirks. “Probably will kill you if you don’t stop asking so many questions, though.”
“Oooh, someone’s grouchy. Sleep on the couch last night?” She nudges him with her foot as she says it. As soon as she teases him, she knows that she’s jumped an invisible line that was never meant to be crossed.
“You know, you’re awfully friendly to someone who’s tried to kill you in the past.” He stretches out on the couch, trying to get more comfortable, and his foot brushes against her leg when he lies across the furniture; she’s not sure if it’s accidental or not.
“Tried, and failed, if I remember correctly.” She curls up, tucking her legs under her, giving him more room to stretch out those long legs. “Really, this guy I knew in high school - he did a much better job of killing me than you did. Maybe you should ask him for advice.” It’s the first time she’s been able to think or mention Brody without cringing, first time she’s been able to turn that experience into a joke.
“Maybe I should.” He winces as something crashes in the other room, and she feels like sticking out her tongue and taunting him about how he shouldn’t have stolen someone else’s super hearing if he didn’t want to hear things like this. “Are they always like this?”
“No, usually they’re worse. Nathan hasn’t started drinking yet. Just wait, you’ll see - Christmas is always spectacular. You might want to bring ear plugs.”
“Why is it that you, the actual Petrelli daughter, is hiding in here with me, and Elle’s the one in there,” he pauses for a second as he listens in on the annual Petrelli Thanksgiving Fight, another one of those Family Events that’s earned it’s capital letters, “cursing Peter and Bob?”
“She likes the fighting, likes the drama. Again, just wait - Christmas will be good.”
Doors slam in the distance, and someone - probably Nathan - starts cursing fluently in Italian. Everything gets quiet for a minute, then Peter and Elle start yelling again.
“You want to get out of here?” Sylar gets up off the couch, unable to listen to Elle and Peter and their odd way of flirting, and offers her his hand. “I think I need to leave now, before I do go after your precious uncle again, and I don’t want to break that promise I made to you.”
“I thought you’d never ask.” Claire lets him help her with her coat, lets him escort her out of the back door of the house, and down the street, all the way to a diner that’s open on Thanksgiving Day, a haven for all those that have no place else to go.
It’s the perfect spot for the two of them to actually talk, exchange life stories and philosophies, to say the things that really need to be said like “I’m truly sorry”, and “You do know she doesn’t love you, right?” and “I think she’s using me to make Peter jealous” and “My apartment’s just around the corner, if you want to?”
- - - - - - - - - -
By the time they get to his apartment, she’s on fire, no longer caring if it’s right or wrong; by the way he presses her up against the door before it can close all the way, she knows he feels the same way. Caught between him and the door, she’s lost in a sensual haze just as soon as he kisses her, the only thing she can think of is the feel of his body and the heat of his mouth upon hers.
He tears her top, shredding it with both his fingers and his telekinesis in his urge to get to her, baring her entire upper body before shoving her back against the door again, so hard that she’d swear that the pattern of the wood grain would be permanently etched on her back if it wasn’t for her powers.
She gives as good as she gets, ripping off all the buttons on his shirt before yanking it off and tossing it across the room, not caring when it falls to drape over a lamp, not caring if she sets the place on fire or not. The heat from him and the answering inferno in her blood and deep inside her is all she can focus on, panting long before he ever lets his hands find the edge of her skirt and lifts it slowly. When one long callused finger finds the edge of her panties, Claire curses out loud, both from the sudden feeling of heightened lust that rips through and from the realization that maybe she shouldn’t have bothered with underwear today, that it’s just blocking him from being where she really wants him to be.
Claire’s not a virgin, Sylar’s not either, but as he leans his head against the door next to hers, as his hands wrap around her ass as he helps her wrap her legs around him, as he thrusts into her in a gloriously controlled explosion of movement, she feels like it is the first time, that none of her previous lovers had ever made her feel like this. None of them had ever made her scream like this, like he does when he slides inside her. None of them had felt this good, so big, making her feel like she’s so full that she’s about to explode. A few had talented fingers, or centuries of experience to make up for that shortcoming, but none of them had ever made their fingers dance along her clit or along her nipples, ice and fire being mapped out on her feverish skin. She bites down on his shoulder, bringing blood, as her first orgasm of the night hits her.
Lost in the cataclysm of tingling nerves and fireworks sparking behind her eyes as he urges her into a second orgasm right behind the first, she doesn’t notice how the wound quickly heals, how he’s managed to find a power like her, found and murdered someone just like her. She wouldn’t have cared anyhow, too lost in her sudden lust for him.
- - - - - - - - - -
She’d been right, Christmas that year is spectacular. Sylar had broken things off with Elle the day after Thanksgiving, claiming that she should be with someone who really loves her, but he hadn’t told her that he was leaving her for Claire. Claire hadn’t mentioned it, since she thought that Elle knew and that it was just a topic to avoid. Peter hadn’t mentioned it, not wanting to get electrocuted for being the bearer of bad news. Heidi hadn’t mentioned the fact that Claire had called her on Black Friday, whispering into the phone that she really needed Heidi to bring some fresh clothes and sneakers to a small apartment in Queens and to not ask questions, not knowing that Claire had stolen her sister’s man. Nathan hadn’t mentioned it, since he had no clue, just like Elle.
When Sylar takes his seat next to her, casually draping an arm across her shoulders, Claire’s not sure who screams the loudest - Elle or Nathan. It turns into an interesting duet, Elle’s soprano tones mimicking an operetta as she shrieks about not being able to trust Claire and Nathan’s voice warbling between tenor and bass as he bellows about murderers in his house, seducing his daughter. The words intermingle into a confusing mess, enough to induce a headache in those still listening to the warring diatribes, namely Peter and Heidi.
No longer paying any attention to the drama queens, Sylar lowers his hand from her shoulders to her knee, and then lets it creep higher as Elle’s voice crescendos in pitch. Claire’s too lost in the feelings of his hands on her skin under her skirt to really pay too much attention to anyone else at the table, too thrilled that he’s willing to play like that and that she’d learned her lesson about wearing panties at Thanksgiving.
She’s going to have to marry this man one day, if he keeps this up. A Petrelli Christmas Brunch has never been such fun before.
- - - - - - - - - -
Acedia (Sloth): “The modern view of the vice… is that it represents the failure to utilize one's talents and gifts.”
Claire detests Nathan's running mate. The man is a grade-A primo jerk, a scumbag with a taste for cheap prostitutes and bribery. She wants to run away and wash her hands as soon as she shakes his hand for the first time, and she knows that the rest of the family shares her dislike. Heidi and Elle refuse to be alone in a car or room with the man, and Sylar threatens to kill him if he looks at Claire like that a second time. Peter reads his mind and tells the rest of them that the man's actually worse than they'd assumed; he looks nauseated whenever he looks at him. But this is the man that the Party champions, and they're stuck with him.
Nathan doesn’t get the Presidency, not this election. The Party had convinced him that he wasn’t ready, that he needed to wait his turn, that he was needed in the Vice Presidency position. They convinced him with pleas, and bribes, and promises of power that this way he’d have uninterrupted power and control for sixteen years, eight as the vice and eight as the commander in chief. Peter and Claire comment that after sixteen years of power like this, that Nathan will move on to serve as head of the Galactic Empire; it’s meant to be a joke, but neither laugh.
The Party says to wait, to gain experience and name recognition; after eight successful years in this position, Nathan will have no trouble winning the Presidency. The press lauds the decision, claiming that it will only make him a better politician. Heidi soothes him, telling him that he’s making the right decision to further the family, that the boys and Claire will benefit from his actions, that he’s doing the right thing for the next generation of Petrellis. Peter hugs him and tells him that no matter what, Nathan’s still his hero. Claire doesn’t say anything, not sure what to say, letting Sylar speak for her.
The pardon is granted on a Friday, a secret backroom deal that Nathan orchestrates the first chance he gets, a mere month after taking office. The wedding, a small affair in the Rose Garden, occurs the next day. On Sunday, Sylar offers his new father-in-law a small gift, quietly whispering to him during brunch that it doesn’t matter what everyone else says, that if Nathan wants the Presidency that badly, well… they’re too special to have to wait; they’re entitled to have what they want, when they want it.
Nothing happens on Monday, and Claire assumes that her father had laughed off the offer, not really taking Sylar seriously. Tuesday leaves her feeling a bit anxious, after seeing the smirk that Sylar gives her as he reassures her that he’s not going to do anything to disrupt their honeymoon.
Claire has time to think before the attack comes, time to think about what she should do, if she should do anything. They’re all in Paris, the Petrellis and the First Family, at a NATO conference when the attack finally comes. It’s not like she expected, just a single bullet shot ringing out on a busy street, but she knows it’s coming by the way that Sylar tenses and tries to move away from the President in the minutes before it happens, trying to grab her hand and pull her away too. Peter also tenses, looking around wildly and grabbing Nathan and Heidi before the shot comes.
They all know what’s happening; Claire has time to act. All she has to do is step in front of the President, take the bullet for him, knowing that it won’t hurt her like it would him. All she would have to do is be the first to catch him when he falls, cut herself just enough to mingle her blood into his wound. All she has to do is use her powers, and no harm will come to anyone.
She chooses to do nothing, letting Sylar pull her away, watches in shock as the President falls as a bloom of rose-red blood wells up on his suit, as the Secret Service scrambles to protect the rest of them.
When she and Sylar talk about it on the plane ride home, he says “How could it have been me? Pure coincidence. I was standing right beside you the entire time.” She doesn’t mention that she knows that Hiro Nakamura hasn’t been seen in over a year, how she knows that he’s more than capable of being in two places at the same time.
When she and Peter talk about it later, they both say that they assumed the other would step forward and act, but they don’t make eye contact nor do they ever speak of it again, never speak of how they’d sell their souls for Nathan’s sake.
The press comments about the assassination, how eerily similar it was to the earlier attempt on Nathan’s life, how he’d survived to become President when another man falls in the same exact way, shot from the same angle with the same type of bullet by two men of the same height and body type.
The coincidences gives Claire a lot to think about. That night, when Sylar crawls into their bed, she takes his hand and asks if he has anything he’d like to say to her. Instead of denying or confirming her speculations, he gives her a hard look, and repeats the question, asking maybe if she has something to tell him instead. At her blank look, he says that she’ll figure it out in another month or two, distracting her from her purpose, as she tries to figure out his puzzle since she’s not sure of what exactly he’s hinting at. She finally joins him in slumber; answers can wait, tomorrow can wait, she already has all that she needs.
For all of Nathan’s talk about how their family can never have too much money, too much power, too much fame, Claire knows that he’s wrong. She doesn’t need the politics, doesn’t want to play all the little games. Sylar’s wrong when he says that he can never have too many powers, and she knows it. Both of these men, her men, will only be left wanting for more, never content, never happy as she is as she remembers one of the first lessons that the Bennets had taught her, about how all they really need is love. It seems she’d learned one of the moral lessons that they’d tried to teach her after all.