The Music of Our Lives
Author’s note: Thanks so much for the requests! I had a lot of fun with this one, because so many of the songs were new to me. Some of them I just used as inspiration (like “So Contagious”, the title alone gave me the idea) and others I used lyrics in the text (like “A Light on a Hill”). All the drabbles are 500 words long; a bit longer than my usual 100 words, but since they’re all unrelated, I needed the extra room to explore the concepts. I hope you like :) ETA: if you don't know the songs, click on the title - I've linked them to Youtube :)
Requests:
1. karathephantom: "So Contagious" - Acceptance
“Oh, not again!” Mohinder can’t believe his luck as he stares at the man on his doorstep. Sylar’s pale, sweating and trembling, as he holds onto the doorframe for support.
“Help me.”
Mohinder can tell its killing the man to have to ask for help. “Come in then.” He helps him to the couch just as Sylar’s legs buckle, and he falls onto the cushions.
“Now, sit and stay there.” Even as he says it, Mohinder knows it sounds ridiculous, it’s not like the man has the strength to rummage through the apartment. With one last look over his shoulder at Sylar, wondering how he’d manage to catch the virus yet again, Mohinder makes his way to his phone. He doesn’t even look at the address book, dialing a number he’d memorized years earlier.
A woman’s breathless voice answers after the first ring. “Hello?” She sounds anxious, and he realizes that she must have known something was wrong.
“Claire, it's Mohinder. Sylar’s here at my apartment.”
“I’ll be right over.”
She’s there in less than five minutes, clinging to Peter’s arm as he teleports them into the apartment. Mohinder gets a quick hug, and then she’s all business. “Where is he?”
“Couch in the den.”
As soon as she walks into the room, she knows that it’s bad, worse than last time. “You silly, stupid man.” She smoothes back the sweat-matted hair from his forehead. “Peter, help me here?” Claire carefully rearranges Sylar on the sofa, scooting around until she’s seated with his head in her lap, and then she offers her arm to Peter. He carefully wraps a tourniquet around her arm, then draws the blood. She steadies Sylar, holding him still as Peter slides the needle into his arm, completing the transfer. Mohinder stands in the corner, watching it all in fascination, wondering how many times this scene has played out over the years.
Sylar blinks, then tries to sit up. “Where am I?”
“Mohinder’s.” Claire answers. “Apparently you were too sick to make it home. I told you not to leave the house this morning, that you were still sick.”
“Sorry, babydoll.” Sylar sits up, and then hugs her. “I had to check on the shop though; I thought I’d be okay.”
“If Mohinder didn’t live so close to Gray and Sons, you would have passed out in the street, Sylar. I had to heal you, this can’t keep going on. You’ve been sick for three weeks. Now, come on, let’s go home.”
As they walk towards the door, they both stop at Mohinder. “Thank you for calling me, Mohinder.” Claire comments, and Sylar sheepishly adds, “Sorry for crashing here.”
“No problem.” Mohinder walks them to his door, and after he closes and locks the door, he wonders how long it’ll be before he sees them again.
A week later…
“Claire?” The man’s voice seems odd, and it takes her a minute to recognize him.
“Mohinder? Are you okay?”
“Sylar gave me his fucking flu. Help me?”
2. stolen_kisses87: "A Light on a Hill" - Margot and the Nuclear So and So's
“I can’t do this anymore.” She calmly states, while frantically throwing her clothes and toiletries into a small suitcase resting on their queen-sized bed. “I just can’t.”
He doesn’t try to stop her, knows there’s nothing he can say or do to make her stay. “Do you want me to call a cab, or do you have alternate arrangements?”
“Fuck you.” She doesn’t bother to look at him. “You know I’m not cheating on you, it’s not like there’s someone else, it’s just that I can’t take it any longer. You’re still killing, Sylar, and I thought I could live with it, but I can’t. This life, this life you and I’ve built, it’s just too deadly. I’m done. I shouldn’t have started it, but I did and now I’ve got to leave.”
“Didn’t say I did think you were cheating, Claire-bear. I just meant that maybe you’d already called a cab, or one of your precious heroes to come save you from me. What can I do to help?”
She hurls a shoe at him, and he uses his telekinesis to swat it away just before it hits him. “You aren’t even going to try to stop me?” Her tone is a cross between angry and incredulous.
“No need. You knew I was still killing, it’s not like I was lying to you about it, and I’ve told you from the beginning that I wasn’t going to stop or change for you. I’m not going to apologize, say I’m sorry when I’m not, and I’m not going to lie and tell you I’ll stop.” He notices that she’s finished packing, and instead of letting her struggle with the heavy suitcase, he uses his powers to float it off the bed and next to the door.
She glares at him, not saying anything, and stomps over to the door, throwing it open and trying to drag the suitcase out into the hallway.
“Wait, before you go…” he calls out, making his way over to her.
“I told you, it’s too late. Don’t waste your breath begging me to stay.” She still won’t look at him.
He grabs her shoulders and spins her around to face him, pulling her close for one last kiss. When she finally pushes him away, she’s breathing fast, almost panting, and her hair is falling down from where he’d removed the pins in her updo to feel the blonde silk in his fingers one last time. She slaps him, then grabs the suitcase, her anger giving her the strength to pick it up.
As she walks away, he yells after her. “You think you can’t live with me, just try living without me, babydoll. No other man will make you burn like I did, like I can.”
She doesn’t look back, but he noticed that she didn’t take his ring off either, and he knows that the fact that she hadn’t flung the golden wedding band in his face is a good sign. She’ll be back.
3. lex_4_well: "In the Bathroom is Where I Want You" - Nightmare of You
“Is anyone paying any attention?” Sylar whispers in her ear, barely audible over the cacophony surrounding them, children’s shrieks, parents’ words of warning, the non-stop ‘beep beep beep’ of a hundred arcade games competing for attention. His hand finds the edge of her skirt, and then he starts tracing small circles on the bare skin of her thigh.
Claire quickly looks around the restaurant, spotting the rest of the family. “No. Georgia and my dad are playing a game, and my mom’s watching Caro and Chelsea play on the slide.”
“Come on.” He grabs her hand, quickly leading her toward the back hallway, where the restrooms are located. After leaning up against the door of the ladies’ room and hearing no one inside, he pushes the door open. Giggling, she follows him into one of the stalls and before she can blink, he’s pushed her against the flimsy metal divider and has her skirt hiked up around her waist and her panties pushed to the side.
“You’ve got to be kidding me. I thought we were just coming in here to make out or something.” Of all the places to make love, a tacky graffiti-covered bathroom stall in Chuck E. Cheese’s has never crossed her mind until now; it’s kind of kinky, now that she thinks about it, kind of exciting. Even as she protests, her hands make quick work of the zipper on his pants.
“It’s been three months, I’m about to explode. I’m not kidding.” Even in his hurry, he doesn’t forgo foreplay, and she almost shrieks when his ice-rimed fingers find her clit.
Claire knew that they’d been busy lately, but… “Has it really been that long?”
He pulls back to look at her. “First, Georgia got the flu, then I was out of town with your dad for three weeks, and then as soon as I got back, Carolina refused to sleep in her own bed, then Chelsea decided she had to sleep with us too, and then your parents showed up. Between your family and the rugrats, I haven’t had more than five minutes alone with you until now.”
There’s nothing to say, there’s nothing she can apologize for, so instead she pulls him closer and wraps her arms around him. “Come on then, tiger. We don’t have all day.”
Two months later…
“You know, I liked your idea of naming the kids after the place of conception, but can we please change that policy?” Claire calls out, staring at the positive pregnancy test in her hand.
“Well, we’ve already got two states; want to change to that scheme instead?” Sylar calls back to her from their bedroom. “Wait, why?”
She walks back out of the bathroom, and crawls up onto their bed, curling up around him. “Because while Chuck isn’t a bad name, I’m not fond of ‘Cheese’ or ‘third stall on the right’ as a middle name.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Sylar looks dumbstruck.
“When else did we get time alone?”
4. liam22: "Come Right Out and Say It" - Relient K
“Claire, talk to me, please.” West begs as she stares out the window of the tiny diner. “I can’t take this any more.”
She just takes another bite of her burger, and sighs. “What now, West?”
He leans across the table and grabs her hand, noticing how she flinches away from his touch. “Something’s wrong between us, and I want to fix it, but I don’t think I can, so why don’t you come on and out and say it? You’ve in love with someone else, aren’t you?”
Her hands start shaking, as does her voice when she replies. “What makes you think that?”
“Come on, Claire. You don’t want me to touch you. I had to beg you to have dinner tonight. You treat me like I’m your annoying brother instead of your fiancé, and you can’t stop from looking at every guy you pass, like you’re searching for someone.”
“I… I… I…” She starts stuttering, then jerks her hand away from his. “I’m sorry.”
“No need. Does he love you back?” It torture to ask, but he has to know.
She laughs, a low bitter laugh that sends shivers down his spine. “He’d as soon kill me as kiss me.”
“Now, don’t be so pessimistic.” It’s so odd, him giving advice to his soon-to-be ex, but he doesn’t want her to hurt.
“I’m so sorry.” She repeats her words from earlier. “I guess we need to break up now, don’t we?”
“Yeah.”
Reaching out across the table, she grabs his hand again, only this time to press her ring into his palm. His fingers close around the diamond solitaire, and the ring cuts into his flesh.
“Now, who is he and how did you meet?” It’s going to take an entire bottle of whiskey to survive the night, but he knows she needs him as a friend and his wounded pride’s just going to have to wait.
“I wasn’t kidding about the killing thing. I met him when he tried to kill me back in Odessa.”
“Oh. Dear. God.” Make that two bottles of whiskey, he thinks, as he realizes that he’d just been dumped for a serial killer. “No, Claire, not him. Anybody but him. How about Peter, you like Peter.”
“He’s my uncle, West.” She rolls her eyes, but a small smile crosses her face for a second.
“Better your uncle than a psychopath.”
“I’m not that bad, boy.”
Both West and Claire scream as Sylar materializes on the bench seat next to Claire.
“Now, sweetheart, I never knew. Tell me more about this little crush of yours.” Sylar directs at Claire as he grabs some of her ketchup-coated fries.
“But… but… but…” Claire just stutters.
“Been following you for weeks, trying to find an opportune moment to get you alone. Of course, I didn’t realize you wanted me to get you alone.” The man grins, and West’s skin shudders at how creepy it looks. “Now, you, get lost.”
West doesn’t have to be told twice.
5. raitheemohugger: "Mistaken for Strangers" - The National
She’d always been broken, little tiny broken and sharp shards of a woman calling out for someone to piece her back together, his very own blonde Humpty Dumpty, but he’d never seen her so very broken before.
When she was a teen, all ‘woe is me’ attitude, bouncing blonde curls, a sad smile and a blood-soaked cheerleading outfit, she hadn’t been this shattered; nor had she been when he’d watched from the shadows as her families fell apart under the strain of a thousand lies and the stress of hiding from the Company.
He’d watched as she’d dealt with the tumultuous river of adolescence, the fears and anger he was all too familiar with, except for the fact that he’d never had to deal with being dumped by a Peter Pan wannabe. He watched her struggle in college, overwhelmed by the sudden freedom and the burden of being a Petrelli at the prestigious university where Petrellis had always and always would attend, and had yearned to whisk her away from it all. He wished he had, before she’d turned into this, a miniature Angela with Nathan’s brain and drive.
This woman, this strange petite brunette with a J.D. after her perfect Petrelli name and a chip on her perfectly groomed shoulder the size of Manhattan, can’t possibly be his little cheerleader. Even though he’d watched the transformation, he still can’t comprehend the changes.
He takes a deep breath, and gathers the courage to finally approach her. “Come here often?”
Slim fingers tipped with long blood-red fingernails that put him in mind of a predator bird’s talons curl around the stem of her wine glass. “Not interested. I want to be alone.”
It’s the last lie on a list a mile long, more than he can stand. “Bullshit.”
“Excuse me?” She finally looks at him, and he can tell the second she recognizes him. “Oh, it’s you.”
“Nice to see you too. You’re lying; you come here all the time, just praying that someone will want to talk to you, just so you won’t have to be alone anymore.”
“How dare you talk to me like that?” She’s beautiful in her anger. “I could be waiting for a friend here, you know.”
He’s thrilled that she’s talking to him instead of withdrawing. “You aren’t, because you don’t have any. You drove them all away; they can’t even recognize you now. It doesn’t have to be like this, you know.”
“What do you know about friends? Didn’t you kill all yours?” A cruel smile crosses her face when he winces, knowing that her shot had hit its mark.
He holds up his hands in a sign of peace. “I mean you no harm. I just wanted to let you know you don’t have to be like this. Let me help.”
She stares at him for a minute, trying to gauge his intentions, then takes his hand. Even if he kills her, it’s got to be better than the life she’s leading now.