10 Things Claire Learns: Chaper 2, Part 1
Chapter 2 : 10 Big Things That Claire Learns About Gabriel Gray.
AN: This isn’t exactly so much 10 things that Claire learns, but rather a mixture of things she learns and things that she never thought would happen in regards to Sylar.
Disclaimer: Only the plot belongs to me.
1.
As much as Claire hates to admit it, she and Sylar are equally matched in terms of stubbornness and temper. Peter once described them as “two snarling wolves tugging on the same deer carcass”. Despite the weird metaphor Peter’s not wrong. Forty years after jumping off that Ferris Wheel, Claire is as equally determined to hate Sylar forever as Sylar is to prove to her that he has changed. Thirty years later Claire is just as focused on moving to London for her career as Gabriel is not to let her go (in the end they leave together). At their wedding 300 years later both remain firm that the only people they wish to invite are Peter and Julia Petrelli (Peter’s wife of 70 years, who also has the power of rapid cellar regeneration), even though they have to travel from the middle of Alaska for the ceremony. Each are also equally determined to make the other “theirs” forever, and fourtantly this is something that both are in complete agreement over.
Gabriel’s temper is like a snake; occansialy visible as it approaches, but always rising to the surface lighting quick. When Gabriel strikes it is with words, which he uses with deadly skill, precision and accuracy.
Temper wise Claire is like cat; giving off clear warnings of her rising anger, and when she attacks it’s normally with words, but more often then not the words are ferric and will surly bleed.
When they fight it will more often then not result in full out screaming matches that may last for an hour or more, depending on which of them is angrier. It’s so loud and intense in fact, that many people have assumed that they were a married couple two seconds away from divorce (and this was when they could barley tolerate each other). Sometimes it becomes so loud, that Peter and Julia once remarked that NASA should record it because she and Gabriel had figured out how to break the sound barrier.
Despite the ferocity of their tempers and the words that are wielded like weapons, neither Claire nor Gabriel have ever said anything to hurt the other, for both are aware how much they each have been hurt in their lives, and both would sooner allow themselves to be experimented upon rather then cause the other to bleed.
2.
Experiencing mind numbing, heart stopping terror when the man whom Claire thought she loathed more then anyone took a bullet to the back of his skull for her?
Feeling her heart pound so hard it felt as though it would leap out of her chest as she dragged his limp, impossibly heavy body out of the line of fire?
Not thinking twice when she carefully used a stick to pick the bullet out of his brain so he could heal?
Claire Bennett had always thought that she would be glad to see this man die.
As she crouches there in the dark, Sylar’s blood staining her hands and clothes with bits of his bone and brain matter stuck to her face and hair, next to an overflowing dumpster with the sounds of gunshots only a few feet away, she realizes this isn’t the case.
3.
Claire had always assumed a lot of things about Sylar.
Sylar enjoys every single act of murder he commits.
Claire never would have thought that Sylar had loathed himself for every murder, or that his power came with a Hunger 20,000 times more powerful then the strongest drug addiction. Claire didn’t know that for years he was powerless against it, and even as the guilt, regret, and self loathing grew stronger and stronger he could not stop.
Sylar had lived a perfectly normal life until he began to commit senseless acts of murder.
Claire hadn’t known that for years his mother had psychologically abused him. Virginia Gray had constantly told Gabriel that he wasn’t good enough, he didn’t try hard enough and was a disappointing excuse for a son, that he was special and could be so much more then a mere watch maker because they both knew he could do better. Gabriel’s mother would never aknowdgle his accomplishments, no matter if he received an A on a 12 page research paper or if he began to single handily run his Watch Repair shop at the age of fifteen while attending college full time.
Virginia would rarely touch her son, leaving him almost physically aching for the occasional hand in his hair or on his check. On those rare occasions when he did experience her touch, nearly every time she would immeadtily wash her hands afterwards, muttering all the while about germs. Now, as an adult Gabriel understands that her reaction was caused by OCD, but as a child he had thought that something was wrong with him, that he was dirty and disgusting, and it was his own fault his mother was afraid to touch her own son.
Sylar was incapable of loving another person, and had never done so in his life.
Virginia Gray’s son had loved her more then anything. He’d loved her despite the emotional abuse, the neglect, the pain she’d caused him as both a child and an adult, and her nearly complete inability to express that she loved him as well. When she disowned him after he had tried so hard to give her a gift, to make her proud of him, the heartbreak he’d felt was nearly crippling. As he felt her blood flowing onto his hands and saw her eyes widen in shock and agony Sylar hoped Hiro Nakamura would kill him. Sylar pleaded with the other man finish the job, begged him to end his life as had been predicted in that comic book, for now… now he truly was a monster.
Elle… Gabriel couldn’t have said that he truly loved her. Gabriel knows that even if time and cirimstances had been in their favor, his feelings would not have developed passed that first stage where lust is fueling the emotion of love. Elle may have loved him, but she also wanted Sylar, not Gabriel Gray. Elle wanted the Monster that he was more then capable of being, the Monster that Gabriel loathed, the killer whom he feared, and the aspect of himself that he was determined to vanquish. In the end Elle got her wish, and yet she didn’t. Sylar may have ended her life, but Gabriel was the one who cremated her body, who felt regret and love for her. Sylar felt nothing.
Sylar hated lies because it represented something that he had no control over.
Lies did not represent a loss of control to Sylar. They meant worthlessness, pain, betrayal, shame, and being used for another’s gain.
Lies represented a father who had sold him. Had sold him as if he were a slave, property, as if he were an worthless animal that you had no further use for.
Lies brought to mind Martian Gray, the “father” whom abandoned his six year old son to care for an mentally unstable mother. Martian Gray meant a six year old child staring out the front window while his mother obsessively cleaned the tiny apartment, waiting for a father that never came back. Martian Gray’s lies meant suffering, pain, fear, confusion, and self blame that no child should ever feel.
Please come back daddy. I’ll be good, I’ll make sure mommy doesn’t clean so much and you won’t get any more letters from my teachers. I won’t read so much and we can watch TV every night like you want to even though mommy hates it. I won’t cry and wake you up at night because I have dreams about monsters chasing me. Oh daddy, please, please come back. What did I do wrong? Daddy… I love you.
Lies meant Elle. Elle was the anger, hullimation, pain and betrayal of realizing that the only person whom had thought he was special and worth something, whom liked him, the girl he was falling head over heals for, and perhaps most importantly the only friend he’d ever had, was manipulating him for her own gain. Yes, as time passed Sylar was able to forgive her for her actions and let go of his own initial emotions, for he could feel her genuine guilt and regret for deceiving him and causing him so much pain. But, you see the thing was Sylar had been fighting so hard to control The Hunger for her power, and when he discovered Elle was lying to him once again? Well the intensity of his emotions cased his control to break. Sylar killed the first woman he had loved, all because of a lie, and all for a power that he rarely uses.