Chasing Pavements
Title: Chasing Pavements
Author: cameroncrazed
Rating: PG
Spoilers/Warnings: AU, does not follow canon ‘verse. So much fluff that diabetics may want to have insulin close at hand.
Disclaimer: Nothing is mine, absolutely nothing. Especially not Heroes.
Written for raitheemohugger - prompt: “Chasing Pavements” (Adele). I hope you like; I know it’s not exactly the way the song goes, but it is derived from the lyrics. I couldn’t channel angst today, so you get uncontrollable fluff.
“Stupid. Stupid. Stupid!” Claire groans in frustration while trying to knock some sense into her head by banging it against her desktop, ignoring the waterfall of papers sliding off onto the floor in a confused pile. “Stupid! I’m so stupid!” Only an absolute idiot would continue to chase after an impossible dream, but she can’t give it up now.
“Wouldn’t argue with that.”
She squeaks when someone other than the voice in her head answers her diatribe, looking up to see an amused Sylar staring down at her. “Eeep!” Of course it would be object of her impossible dream that overheard her.
“And you’re so eloquent too.” He saunters into her office, and with a careless brush of his hands, all her papers rearrange themselves into organized stacks. She doesn’t even have to look to know that the stacks are in alphabetical order, too. “Now, what have you done that makes you erroneously think that you’re hopelessly stupid?”
“Nothing. I haven’t done anything.” She looks back down at her desk, anything to keep from looking at him and confessing nothing more than fall in love with the one man I can’t have, and I’m too scared to tell you. She doesn’t even have to think about it, she knows that it’s more than mere lust alone, that she’s head-over-heels in love with him, but there’s no way she can ever tell him. She’s done everything that she can to fall out of love in him, has looked through his files and at all the gruesome photos of his kills, but it doesn’t do any good. It just makes her want to wrap him up in a hug, to take all the pain away.
He looks at her oddly. “Hmm.” She doesn’t have to look at him to know that he’s contemplating her like a puzzle that he hasn’t figured out yet, but before he can start to put her together, he changes the subject. “Well, we can discuss this later. Mo wants to see all of us in the conference room in ten.”
Great. Just what she needs. To be stuck in the conference room with Sylar and his precious MoMo and the rest of the Company drones. Perfect way to spend an afternoon.
“It won’t be that bad, babydoll. Just do what I do - doodle on your paper while pretending he’s the teacher from the Charlie Brown cartoons. It’s a lot to easier to listen to him when all you hear is ‘wah-wah-wah wah-wah wah-wah-wah’, really it is.” He wraps an arm around her shoulder, and she just about jumps for joy as he leads her out of the office, staying in constant contact.
- - - - - - - - - -
Claire has to admit, Sylar had been right. The meeting isn’t nearly as bad as she’d expected, and she’s filled an entire sheet of paper with nothing but doodles and scribbles of CBPG and C ♥ S, hoping that no one would ever look at her paper and figure out the deeper meaning. She knows that it’s childish, far too young for an ambitious Company woman of twenty-two, but it’s better than disrupting the meeting by tackling Sylar and having her dirty, wicked, naughty way with him on the conference room table. Not as much fun, but much more work appropriate; sex in the conference room is not the way to get to be the head of a department by the time she’s thirty.
Sylar leans closer towards her, and she frantically flips the page over before he can see the all-too-damning Mrs. Claire Gray that she’d scrawled as a title on the page. He reaches over, penning bored much?
Of course. But I’ve figured out something important.
She almost laughs when he wiggles an inquisitive eyebrow at her before scribbling Intriguing. Do tell.
We were wrong about MoMo’s power. He’s not superstrong like some sort of ox on steroids, he’s got the power to bore people into comas. Just look at Peter if you don’t believe me.
He glances over at Peter, and bursts out laughing as Peter slumps over onto the table, snoring loudly. Mohinder doesn’t even notice Peter or Sylar’s actions, just carries on as usual.
Am I right, or am I right?
Ah, that’s what I love about you, you always have the answer to everything.
When she sees that particular line, she knows for a fact that she’s never going to toss this paper in the recycling bin; she’s going to frame it and display it on her mantle, along with the Bennet family portrait and the fancy diploma Angela’s money had bought.
- - - - - - - - - -
She’s about to hyperventilate when he takes her by the hand and drags her out of the conference room the second that Mohinder wraps up the meeting; he doesn’t drop it as they stroll down the hallway towards the café. When he offers to buy her a latte, she almost announces her love for him on the spot, but plays it cool with a “I love y… yummy coffee” that doesn’t sound the least little but suspicious, not to her at least.
Once she has her drink and he’s scared the café employee into remaking his tea, this time correctly, he rests his hand on the small of her back and directs her towards one of the small tables scattered around the room, pulling out a chair for her. They sit in silence for a minute, sipping their drinks.
“Now, about earlier. What was that little freakout about?”
She’d been hoping that he would have forgotten that. “Like I said, nothing.”
“Claire, it’s not ‘nothing’. You’ve turned into a complete basket case, and don’t think no one’s noticed. You’re forgetful, flighty, and no one can depend on you anymore. You lost a prisoner between the transport van and the entry door. You had to ask for three replacement sets of forms today because you messed up your signature. For God’s sake, Claire, how do you not know how to spell your name by now? Are you going senile or just crazy?”
Crazy in love, maybe. She bites her lip, not admitting that she now spells Bennet with a G, and it ends up looking oddly like Gray.
“You’ve got to snap out of this, before you get demoted back to running to get coffees and answering the phone - or worse. Angela’s this close,” and he holds his hand up so that his thumb and forefinger are a picometer apart, “to either sending you to see the Company shrink or firing you. What the hell is going on in that beautiful little head of yours?” He rests his hand against her head, and she forgets how to breathe.
She means to say “I’ll snap out of it”, or “I’m so sorry for letting you down”, or anything that sounds vaguely responsible and contrite. Instead, she chirps “Do you want have supper tonight?,” immediately wishing the floor would open up and swallow her in all her blushing embarrassment.
He just looks at her for a second, then leans across the table, claiming her lips in a kiss that makes her think she must be hallucinating. When they finally pull away, panting for breath, he chuckles. “I’ve wanted to do that for a while.”
“What?”
“I’m in love with you, Claire, and have been for awhile.”
She had never once considered the possibility that he would return her feelings. In all her dreaming, in all her contemplations on whether or not she should give up or make a move on him, chase the dreams that haunt her late at night, the idea of him feeling the same had never been an option.
“Is this going somewhere, or is this a waste of time? Should I not have said anything?” He asks, and she realizes she hadn’t responded to his declaration.
She stands slowly, and then offers her hand to him. “Well, whatever this is, I’d like for it to go back to my office, and then back to my apartment tonight and maybe into my bed, but no, it’s most definitely not a waste. C’mon, stud.” She leans down before he can stand, kissing him again. “I love you too.” She never thought that she’d say those words to him, but now that she has, she knows she’s never going to stop repeating them every chance she gets.
Author: cameroncrazed
Rating: PG
Spoilers/Warnings: AU, does not follow canon ‘verse. So much fluff that diabetics may want to have insulin close at hand.
Disclaimer: Nothing is mine, absolutely nothing. Especially not Heroes.
Written for raitheemohugger - prompt: “Chasing Pavements” (Adele). I hope you like; I know it’s not exactly the way the song goes, but it is derived from the lyrics. I couldn’t channel angst today, so you get uncontrollable fluff.
“Stupid. Stupid. Stupid!” Claire groans in frustration while trying to knock some sense into her head by banging it against her desktop, ignoring the waterfall of papers sliding off onto the floor in a confused pile. “Stupid! I’m so stupid!” Only an absolute idiot would continue to chase after an impossible dream, but she can’t give it up now.
“Wouldn’t argue with that.”
She squeaks when someone other than the voice in her head answers her diatribe, looking up to see an amused Sylar staring down at her. “Eeep!” Of course it would be object of her impossible dream that overheard her.
“And you’re so eloquent too.” He saunters into her office, and with a careless brush of his hands, all her papers rearrange themselves into organized stacks. She doesn’t even have to look to know that the stacks are in alphabetical order, too. “Now, what have you done that makes you erroneously think that you’re hopelessly stupid?”
“Nothing. I haven’t done anything.” She looks back down at her desk, anything to keep from looking at him and confessing nothing more than fall in love with the one man I can’t have, and I’m too scared to tell you. She doesn’t even have to think about it, she knows that it’s more than mere lust alone, that she’s head-over-heels in love with him, but there’s no way she can ever tell him. She’s done everything that she can to fall out of love in him, has looked through his files and at all the gruesome photos of his kills, but it doesn’t do any good. It just makes her want to wrap him up in a hug, to take all the pain away.
He looks at her oddly. “Hmm.” She doesn’t have to look at him to know that he’s contemplating her like a puzzle that he hasn’t figured out yet, but before he can start to put her together, he changes the subject. “Well, we can discuss this later. Mo wants to see all of us in the conference room in ten.”
Great. Just what she needs. To be stuck in the conference room with Sylar and his precious MoMo and the rest of the Company drones. Perfect way to spend an afternoon.
“It won’t be that bad, babydoll. Just do what I do - doodle on your paper while pretending he’s the teacher from the Charlie Brown cartoons. It’s a lot to easier to listen to him when all you hear is ‘wah-wah-wah wah-wah wah-wah-wah’, really it is.” He wraps an arm around her shoulder, and she just about jumps for joy as he leads her out of the office, staying in constant contact.
- - - - - - - - - -
Claire has to admit, Sylar had been right. The meeting isn’t nearly as bad as she’d expected, and she’s filled an entire sheet of paper with nothing but doodles and scribbles of CBPG and C ♥ S, hoping that no one would ever look at her paper and figure out the deeper meaning. She knows that it’s childish, far too young for an ambitious Company woman of twenty-two, but it’s better than disrupting the meeting by tackling Sylar and having her dirty, wicked, naughty way with him on the conference room table. Not as much fun, but much more work appropriate; sex in the conference room is not the way to get to be the head of a department by the time she’s thirty.
Sylar leans closer towards her, and she frantically flips the page over before he can see the all-too-damning Mrs. Claire Gray that she’d scrawled as a title on the page. He reaches over, penning bored much?
Of course. But I’ve figured out something important.
She almost laughs when he wiggles an inquisitive eyebrow at her before scribbling Intriguing. Do tell.
We were wrong about MoMo’s power. He’s not superstrong like some sort of ox on steroids, he’s got the power to bore people into comas. Just look at Peter if you don’t believe me.
He glances over at Peter, and bursts out laughing as Peter slumps over onto the table, snoring loudly. Mohinder doesn’t even notice Peter or Sylar’s actions, just carries on as usual.
Am I right, or am I right?
Ah, that’s what I love about you, you always have the answer to everything.
When she sees that particular line, she knows for a fact that she’s never going to toss this paper in the recycling bin; she’s going to frame it and display it on her mantle, along with the Bennet family portrait and the fancy diploma Angela’s money had bought.
- - - - - - - - - -
She’s about to hyperventilate when he takes her by the hand and drags her out of the conference room the second that Mohinder wraps up the meeting; he doesn’t drop it as they stroll down the hallway towards the café. When he offers to buy her a latte, she almost announces her love for him on the spot, but plays it cool with a “I love y… yummy coffee” that doesn’t sound the least little but suspicious, not to her at least.
Once she has her drink and he’s scared the café employee into remaking his tea, this time correctly, he rests his hand on the small of her back and directs her towards one of the small tables scattered around the room, pulling out a chair for her. They sit in silence for a minute, sipping their drinks.
“Now, about earlier. What was that little freakout about?”
She’d been hoping that he would have forgotten that. “Like I said, nothing.”
“Claire, it’s not ‘nothing’. You’ve turned into a complete basket case, and don’t think no one’s noticed. You’re forgetful, flighty, and no one can depend on you anymore. You lost a prisoner between the transport van and the entry door. You had to ask for three replacement sets of forms today because you messed up your signature. For God’s sake, Claire, how do you not know how to spell your name by now? Are you going senile or just crazy?”
Crazy in love, maybe. She bites her lip, not admitting that she now spells Bennet with a G, and it ends up looking oddly like Gray.
“You’ve got to snap out of this, before you get demoted back to running to get coffees and answering the phone - or worse. Angela’s this close,” and he holds his hand up so that his thumb and forefinger are a picometer apart, “to either sending you to see the Company shrink or firing you. What the hell is going on in that beautiful little head of yours?” He rests his hand against her head, and she forgets how to breathe.
She means to say “I’ll snap out of it”, or “I’m so sorry for letting you down”, or anything that sounds vaguely responsible and contrite. Instead, she chirps “Do you want have supper tonight?,” immediately wishing the floor would open up and swallow her in all her blushing embarrassment.
He just looks at her for a second, then leans across the table, claiming her lips in a kiss that makes her think she must be hallucinating. When they finally pull away, panting for breath, he chuckles. “I’ve wanted to do that for a while.”
“What?”
“I’m in love with you, Claire, and have been for awhile.”
She had never once considered the possibility that he would return her feelings. In all her dreaming, in all her contemplations on whether or not she should give up or make a move on him, chase the dreams that haunt her late at night, the idea of him feeling the same had never been an option.
“Is this going somewhere, or is this a waste of time? Should I not have said anything?” He asks, and she realizes she hadn’t responded to his declaration.
She stands slowly, and then offers her hand to him. “Well, whatever this is, I’d like for it to go back to my office, and then back to my apartment tonight and maybe into my bed, but no, it’s most definitely not a waste. C’mon, stud.” She leans down before he can stand, kissing him again. “I love you too.” She never thought that she’d say those words to him, but now that she has, she knows she’s never going to stop repeating them every chance she gets.