Rekindle All Your Dreams
Title: Rekindle All Your Dreams
Author: jaune_chat
Fandom: Heroes
Characters: Sylar/Luke
Rating: NC-17
Wordcount: 9,526
Spoilers: Up through 3x18 “Exposed”
Warnings: Knifeplay, some blood, slash
Disclaimer: Heroes belongs to Tim Kring, NBC et al.
A/N: This is a Sweet Charity fic written for perdiccas. She wanted a cutting story, and it just sort of… grew… from there. Title taken from the song "Red Right Hand." Thanks to brighteyed_jill for betaing!
Summary: Luke’s been left behind one too many times, and this time he just wants Sylar to notice him. When he sees an opportunity, he stops at nothing to make sure he won’t be forgotten.
Art by the talented aquasnake08, commissioned by the generous perdiccas.
Luke waited for hours in the abandoned diner, getting hungrier, thirstier, and angrier with every passing moment. He’d been half-afraid, half-hopeful to move at first. Afraid because he was dreading Sylar would come back to finish the job of killing him, despite his earlier statement. Hopeful because Sylar had come back for him before.
After darkness had fallen, he’d swung a full one-eighty. He dreaded Sylar wasn’t coming back, that he’d honestly meant it when he’d told Luke to go home to his mother. And then he hoped Sylar would come back to kill him.
By midnight, Luke’s stomach was in such a knot that he couldn’t even be sick. Sylar hadn’t come back. Sylar didn’t care if Luke was alive or dead. He’d taken over Luke’s life last week, and he didn’t even fucking care. Sylar had just thrown him away like a worn-out toy the second he ceased to be interesting. Luke spent nearly an hour forcing back tears, biting into the fabric of his shirt to keep himself in control. Not good enough. I’m not good enough…
By one a.m. despair had given way to anger. Screw Sylar. It didn’t matter. He didn’t matter. Luke didn’t need anyone, not even him. Scratch that, especially not him. Luke bit his lip as he thought that, and slammed open the door, striding out into the cool air. Turning around, he focused his power on the dry wood of the abandoned building, waiting until it smoked, smoldered, and finally burst into flame. Luke let it burn, let the whole damn thing burn and crumble into ash, before turning away to trudge along the highway, hands shoved deep into his pockets.
Screw Sylar… Luke thought, staring at the dark ground. …don’t need him.
The cold wind, laden with ash, dried his face as he walked along the dusty highway shoulder.
It wasn’t fucking fair. Luke thought he’d finally found someone who understood him, who got where he was coming from, and it had all fallen apart the minute he was… (not good enough, not interesting enough, just not enough.) Just because he’d shaded the truth a little, tried to draw out the freedom of the road trip, everything had gone wrong. Fuck it; the truth wouldn’t have helped either. Why bother telling Sylar his dad was a creep when all he wanted to do was find him?
For some reason, Sylar had still had hope. He was a serial killer, home invader, and torturer, but he had still hoped to find his father. Luke hadn’t wanted to burst that bubble, oddly enough. He didn’t have anything to hope for himself, so Sylar’s hope and purpose had been a draw. He was motivation and freedom and powered badassery all in one. All gone now.
Luke squinted through the darkness, broken only by a distant light. It was his only goal right now, just to find the next light. Sylar had told him to go home. Yeah, right. Why bother? His mom would call the cops or agents to get him, assuming they didn’t pick him up on the road first. Luke didn’t have any money, food, or water, either; nothing he could use to survive.
“Go home to your mother, Luke.” Right. Asshole.
Hunching his shoulders, Luke shuffled down the highway. He wasn’t going to go back home, but he didn’t know where to go either. West would do until he found something he wanted.
The light in the distance loomed closer, Luke’s first view of civilization that he’d seen in the hours since he’d started walking. He was thirsty, hungry, and now shivering in the cool of early morning, and the lone gas station up ahead looked incredibly inviting. He pushed his way inside, ignoring the two guys stocking up on beer. He went straight for the back cooler, double-checked the security mirrors, pulled out a Gatorade, and chugged it down. He went through three bottles before he felt quenched, satisfied enough to want more than just basic necessities.
He was on the run. He needed money, and he had to stay somewhere tonight. Screw it, he was already a criminal. Adding robbery to his rap sheet shouldn’t surprise the government. They already thought the worst of him. Like his mom. Like Sylar. Anger rose in him, and false courage and bravado, what had sustained him through Sylar’s death threats, stiffened his spine.
Luke stalked up to the counter, and placed both hands flat on the scarred surface.
“Give me your money,” he tried to growl. It didn’t quite have the menace he wanted. Sylar did it better-. Screw Sylar!
The clerk, a tough-looking older guy, didn’t seem impressed.
“Other way around kid, you owe me for those drinks.”
Stupid. Luke’s own stupid baby face making him look as dangerous as a puppy. Luke glared at the clerk and let his power out, scorching the counter and starting it melting.
“What… the fuck?” the man yelled, and Luke aimed one palm at the guy.
“Money, now! And the keys to your car!”
The man hesitated, and Luke took a deep breath, stomach churning as he got ready to fry the guy.
“What’s going on Larry?”
Shit. The two dudes that had been getting beer couldn’t have stayed away for another five minutes?
“This kid’s trying to rob-.”
Luke took his eyes off the clerk to look at the beer guy, only to hear the distinctive shuck-shuck of someone pumping a shotgun as the clerk pulled one out from behind the counter. Luke was torn between wanting to puke in fear and explode in anger. How could he be so fucking stupid?
“Back off, son,” the clerk said sternly. “You just sit down right where you are. Ed’s going to call the sheriff for me, and Clive’ll make sure you don’t pull anything funny.”
Ed, the curious boozer, started to come closer, while Clive, a little farther away, started to walk purposefully towards the group, both of them looking down at him like he was some joy-riding punk who needed to be taught a lesson. It reminded Luke of how his mom sometimes looked at him.
Anger took over. Screw it!
Luke screamed and aimed his hands in both directions at once, trying to catch everybody. Ed went down screaming bloody murder, and Clive, behind him, dove for cover behind some shelves. Larry swung his gun in startlement, and Luke’s microwave blast hit the metal barrel, making sparks fly everywhere. The feedback felt like it had just electrified Luke’s bones, and he dropped to his knees in pain, hugging his arms to his chest and keeping a scream behind his teeth.
Larry managed to keep a hold of his shotgun and aimed it back at Luke’s head, shouting something incomprehensible. Time seemed to slow down, the sounds in the air swimming towards Luke like they’d been impeded in molasses. Larry shouldered the gun firmly, putting his finger on the trigger, and Luke knew there was no chance he could miss at this range.
The gun suddenly went flying in one direction, and Larry in another, ending up pinned against the wall behind the counter. He got a horrified look on his face right before his neck spontaneously snapped. Two more snaps behind Luke told him Ed and Clive had met the same fate. Time resumed its normal pace. Muscles still burning, Luke stood up to find his savior standing in the doorway, cold wind flapping his coat around his body, haloed from behind in the harsh white lights.
Sylar.
Luke wanted to kill him for coming to his rescue. Sylar just couldn’t keep showing up whenever he got bored. Luke couldn’t handle it again.
“How’d you kill your dad?” Luke spat in greeting. No thank you, not for him. If Sylar hadn’t left him in the first place (second place), Luke wouldn’t have needed the help.
“I didn’t,” Sylar said evenly.
Luke sneered at him, anger overriding caution. Pathetic. Sylar was just as pathetic as him.
“So what? You two kiss and make up? He send you out on a beer run?”
“Luke-,” Sylar started.
Luke didn’t want to hear it, and snapped out the cruelest thing he could think of. He wanted to hurt him. “Go back to your daddy, Sylar. I don’t need your help.”
For the second time that day, Luke found himself telekinetically pinned to a wall, and he flinched as new bruises blossomed over the old ones.
“Don’t talk about my father,” Sylar said, his voice dangerously low.
“Whatever man. Put me down so I can get a beer; you didn’t leave any behind when you left. Oh wait, you didn’t leave me anything.”
Bastard. Fucking bastard. Fucking leave me alone!
“You shouldn’t have beer. It clouds your judgment.” Sylar took a few steps inside the doorway, and his expression was oddly concerned. Luke didn’t give a crap at that point.
“Since your judgment kinda sucks, maybe that would be an improvement!” Luke yelled. Sylar abruptly released his mental hold, and Luke fell heavily to the floor.
“My father is dying of cancer. He’s a bastard, so I left him to rot and die alone.” Sylar’s voice sounded oddly hollow.
“Big whoop. Hope it was worth it,” Luke muttered, getting up slowly. He ached in every limb, but tried not to show it. Walking behind the counter, he found Larry’s keys, unlocked the register, and stuffed the cash into his pockets.
“Where are you going?” Sylar asked him, still not moving as Luke started to walk towards the door.
“Anywhere. Doesn’t matter.” God’s honest truth, for what that was worth.
“Luke-,” Sylar called. Luke hesitated in the doorway. “The agents will find you.”
“So, why do you care?”
“Get in the truck.” It was neither command nor plea, just a plain comment.
“Why should I go anywhere with you? You’re just going to leave me behind when you start PMSing again.”
Sylar’s expression darkened dangerously. Luke knew he was immanent danger of increasing the body count to four right here, but couldn’t make himself stop talking.
“Maybe I’ll go out to Disneyland or something. Fun family fucking vacation for one-.”
“Luke, stop making me want to kill you.” That came out as pure exasperation.
“Why do you fucking give a shit? Got some goal in mind for me?” Luke asked sarcastically.
“Yes.”
Luke was taken aback. “Like what?”
“You need to learn. I’ll teach you.” Weirdly, Luke thought Sylar’s offer was completely spontaneous. He seemed as surprised as Luke to have even said it.
“Teach me what?” Luke challenged.
“How not to get your damn head nearly blown off, for starters,” Sylar snapped.
Luke scowled, but considered it for a second. Even if Sylar was just going to abandon him again, he had to stay somewhere tonight.
“Whatever,” Luke said finally, shrugging, and walked out to the truck. Sylar followed him, and Luke could feel his gaze burning into the back of his head. He wondered if Sylar was going to kill him when they got further down the highway.
At this point, Luke didn’t even care. Death would be an improvement over his shitty life at present.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Luke guessed he must have fallen asleep in the truck, death threats or no death threats, because next morning he woke up in a motel bed with no memory of lying down there. A bolt of fear shot through him when he realized the opposite bed was empty, but he stopped himself from leaping up when he heard water running in the bathroom, saw the duffle bag still on the table. Sylar was still here…
Pushing himself up more slowly, he stumbled to the table across from the bathroom to paw through Sylar’s bag, trying to find something edible. After he’d gulped down a squashed power bar, he turned to see Sylar in front of the mirror in the bathroom meticulously shaving himself with that damn straight razor of his. It looked like something right out of the movies. Normal people didn’t use things like that.
“Why do you use that?” Luke asked. Sylar didn’t even twitch. “Isn’t it kind of cliché? Serial killer and all?”
Sylar ignored him until he’d carefully shaved another swath across his cheek.
“It takes precision,” was his only answer. Luke stewed for a long minute, sick of feeling like he barely existed for Sylar. Last-minute rescue or not, things were rapidly going back to “normal” between them.
How long would it take Sylar to get bored with him again? Luke wanted Sylar to see him, to remember that he existed. He wanted to mean something to Sylar other than being a passing diversion.
Scowling, Luke pushed into the bathroom to use the shower, yanking off his shirt indifferently. Maybe ignoring Sylar would make something happen. See how he liked it for once.
But the bathroom was too small, and Luke accidentally jostled Sylar’s elbow as he struggled out of his clothes. Sylar pulled the razor away from his face fast, too fast, and the sharp blade came down, opening up a long, thin cut on Luke’s shoulder. Luke hissed in pain as the blood welled up, but didn’t scream, didn’t move, didn’t even look up at first. Then he realized Sylar was actually looking at him, paying close attention to his reaction to the cut with a kind of awed fascination.
Luke swallowed slightly, and shrugged with a little wince. He wasn’t going to apologize, and Sylar wasn’t either, and that was fine with him. Besides, Sylar’s attention was better than any stupid apology.
Quickly putting off the rest of his clothes, he stepped in the shower, dialing it up as hot as it could get in this crappy motel. The cut stung worse when he washed it off, but Luke didn’t care. He wanted it to hurt. He’d seen Sylar pay attention to him when he winced. Luke wanted to see if he’d do it again.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
He did. Sylar noticed Luke more now, paid more attention to him, and virtually stared at him when Luke came out of the shower without his shirt. But when the clean cut started to heal after a few days, and Luke wasn’t in pain any longer, Sylar’s attention wavered, going back to his usual indifference. He no longer let Luke pick their route, radio station, or food, and even stopped talking to him for long periods, seemingly absorbed in his own thoughts. In the past, such silences had always been quickly followed by Sylar leaving Luke behind.
That was when the idea first crossed Luke’s mind. He only debated with himself for about fifteen minutes about whether or not he was going to do it; most of that time spent wondering how the hell he was going to ask. Because he wasn’t going to do it to himself; Sylar liked to have control. And if Sylar had that control, if Luke gave it to him, then he wouldn’t forget, wouldn’t leave Luke behind again. That gave Luke hope. That was something he hadn’t had in a long time.
He waited until early morning, until Sylar was done shaving, but before he’d put everything away. Biting his lip to still the fluttering in his stomach, Luke darted into the bathroom and put his hand over the straight razor.
Before Sylar could shove him aside, Luke quickly said, “I want you to do it again.”
Sylar froze, seeming confused. Luke picked up the razor so he could run the blunt side across his shoulder and chest, paralleling where the thin scar was under his shirt.
“You liked it?” Sylar asked slowly, taking the blade back.
Luke swallowed. “Yeah,” he whispered. It had hurt, he hadn’t liked that, but…
“Liar,” Sylar said dismissively, going expressionless, and started to turn away.
“I want you to do it to me,” Luke said loudly. That was no lie, and Sylar paused again. He finally turned back, eyes darker than usual, and reached out to wrap his large hand around the back of Luke’s neck.
“I want you to do it to me,” Luke said again. A muscle in Sylar’s face twitched, and his hand suddenly crushed down on Luke’s spine.
“On the bed, face up, shirt off,” Sylar said, and his voice had gone raspy. Luke was pleased to have gotten a reaction, but most of his nervousness was at the fact that he was going to let himself get hurt, willingly this time. He was going to get ripped up and bleed and get scarred and all because he wanted his serial killer road trip buddy to notice he existed.
He wanted this too, which was the extra-special, short bus kind of stupid.
Luke lay back on the scratchy bedcover, shivering slightly as he felt Sylar’s weight dip the bed. He flinched when Sylar’s hand spread the skin just under his collarbone, but held still. Luke sucked in a surprised breath when Sylar flipped open the blade with a magician’s flourish and sliced a neat, shallow, inch-long cut just under Luke’s right collarbone, just to the right of his breastbone. The pain didn’t hit immediately, not until Sylar moved an inch to the right, and laid down another cut. Then it hurt.
Taking long, shuddering breaths in and out through his nose to keep himself in control, Luke tried to focus on anything other than the thin, shallow, painful cuts Sylar was carefully laying all over his chest in neat little staggered rows. Each cut was preceded by Sylar carefully tightening the skin with his intensely warm fingers. Each cut was inspected at close range, Sylar drawing himself close enough to Luke’s chest for his warm, mint-scented breath to heat and soothe the excruciating little slices. Nausea roiled in Luke’s stomach as he valiantly fought to keep from puking, moving, turning away from the rising and falling pain.
Forcing his eyes open through his tears, Luke watched in trepidation as the cuts got closer to his nipple, now peaked and hard from fear. Sylar deliberately paused and looked up at Luke for the first time. He seemed to be savoring Luke’s reactions, paying exquisite attention to every shuddering breath, every little twitch, every repressed whimper and whine.
“Say it again,” Sylar demanded, voice soft.
“I want you to do it,” Luke repeated, voice uneven and choked, but still not a lie. Sylar circled Luke’s nipple with the blunt side of the blade, making Luke suck in a huge, surprised breath at the shocks of pleasure that sparked through him at that touch. Then Sylar cut again, on the far side, and Luke bit his lip on his sob.
Sylar stopped when he’d reached the bottom of Luke’s ribcage, never crossing the centerline of his body, never crossing into his side. Just stopped, precisely where it seemed he had to, and placed one broad hand over the marks, feeling Luke’s chest rise and fall with stuttering, shuddery breaths. The heat from his hand made the pain fade, and after a long moment, he took his hand away.
“Go clean up,” Sylar said quietly. Luke couldn’t get up quickly. He could barely get up slowly. It hurt, God it hurt. It ached, it stung, it burned, it fucking smarted. But Sylar was watching him, eyes following every wince, and that gave Luke enough strength to get to the bathroom.
Luke’s paused to look in the mirror, wanting to see what a wreck Sylar had left of his body. His red, tear-stained face stared back at him, surprised eyes dilated and swollen. But what caught him off-guard was the red on his skin. Sylar had made incredibly precise cuts, the little rows overlapping so that it looked like basketweave, accentuating what muscle structure Luke had.
It looked… good. Luke raised one hand to gingerly touch it, wincing slightly as his overworked nerves protested the slightest pressure. It was going to scar, probably in raised little lines. A permanent reminder of what had just happened: Sylar touching him, paying him his complete attention. Luke stared in the mirror again, breath hitching as he realized he was half hard.
Luke decided that the cuts looked better than good.
Ducking into the shower, he washed himself with exacting care, gritting his teeth against the pain. Despite what the cuts looked like, they still hurt. Wanting to distract himself, Luke braced one hand on the wall, and slipped the other around his swollen dick. He started slow, movement limited in his arm because of the pain in his chest. Because of that, he actually noticed when the door opened again. Water was running in the sink: Sylar, washing his hands and the razor.
Luke tugged harder, little moans escaping his chest that he didn’t bother to hide. Sylar was listening, and Luke wanted him to hear. It freaked him out a little, but he still wanted Sylar to hear it. Grunting a little in frustration when he couldn’t get the leverage he needed, Luke awkwardly finished himself off with his left hand, the pain in his chest pushing him over the edge.
When he came out of the bathroom, still moving slowly and carefully, Sylar walked straight up to him, putting his hand on Luke’s shoulder, and held him at arm’s length, as if inspecting him for flaws. Sylar’s touch felt warm, even after the shower, and inexplicably gentle. After a long moment, Sylar nodded in satisfaction.
“Good boy.”
Something like that should have not gotten Luke hard again, but it did.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It took Luke nearly ten days to recover from the cutting, ten days in which Sylar was… not precisely “nice,” but in other ways he was… better. Luke almost felt like he was better too. Sylar hadn’t slammed him into any unyielding objects; Luke hadn’t given him a reason to. Sylar hadn’t bitched about Luke’s choice in food or music; Luke hadn’t been as annoyingly pushy as possible. Maybe because for the first time he believed this road trip was going to last longer than it took to find Sylar’s dad and he didn’t have to cram memories into every waking moment. Maybe because now Luke had hope that Sylar wouldn’t leave him behind.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Two weeks after the first time, the scars had mostly faded into thin pink lines, slightly raised, and Luke started to get a panicky feeling in the pit of his stomach again. Sylar’s attention had been focused on him because every time Luke winced, or twitched, or had to move carefully because of the cuts, Sylar was reminded of what he’d done. But now that everything was healed up…
“I want you to do it again,” Luke asked, voice shaking. Sylar had the razor out of Luke’s hand before he could even finish speaking.
The pain was no less, but the anticipation had faded enough that Luke could concentrate on Sylar’s hands, his breath, the heat of his body on Luke’s skin as the razor slicing into the skin on the left side of his chest over and over… Neat little rows, pulsing over his heart, back of the blade skimming over his nipple, the pain rising and falling and sparking over and over, a scream nailed behind Luke’s teeth. Sylar, Sylar, Sylar…
This time, when Luke looked in the bathroom mirror afterward, he was more than half hard. The cuts on his chest looked more than good. They looked sexy. They made him look, feel desirable. Wanted. Wanted by Sylar.
Sylar was thoroughly, aggressively masculine, both in looks and in behavior; not someone that Luke would have considered himself attracted to before a few weeks ago. Luke honestly hadn’t give a crap about liking one type or the other; he’d gone with whatever was easiest, usually girls. But Sylar was the center of Luke’s own admittedly-pathetic little world now, and was the only person he’d ever felt attracted to that seemed to give two shits about whether he was alive or dead. Homecoming Queen Alexia Long would have rather put out her own eyes than even acknowledge his existence. Sylar had been willing to save his life. Now, suddenly, Sylar had become irresistibly attractive.
Oh, Luke was definitely more than half hard now.
Sylar was listening as Luke finished himself off in the shower, Luke knew it, and this time he thought he heard a deeper grunt from Sylar, a definite echo of his own pleasure, before he was done.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When they were driving later that day, Sylar was the one that broke their amicable silence.
“I learned one thing from my father,” he said, with a sidelong glance at Luke as he wince-shifted to show he was paying attention. “I’ve always gone after weak prey. No challenge. No way to grow.”
“What do you want to do now?” Luke asked, feeling a thrill of excitement. They’d been traveling more or less aimlessly these past few weeks, always going where the agents were not, keeping a low profile. And while Luke had seen more of the country in that time than he’d seen in the previous seventeen years of his life, even the freedom of a road trip could get boring.
“The agents are taking what’s mine.”
Luke grinned widely, ear-to-ear. He didn’t need any further explanation than that. The agents were going to go down, and whatever wusses with powers that the agents were tracking down didn’t have a chance against Sylar.
“So we need to get you ready.”
“Like how?” Luke asked.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
He had his answer the next day, when Sylar poked Luke out of bed to join him for his morning regimen of sit-ups and push-ups. The pain was literally nauseating, and Luke broke open his cuts again, but Sylar wouldn’t let him stop, refused to let him quit until he was satisfied.
“Satisfied” meant Luke was sweaty, flushed, and in pain from more than his cuts, but Sylar was smiling at him, moisture trickling down both of their faces. Pain became instantly irrelevant.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Again, harder!” Sylar’s voice was sharp, but not cruel as Luke came in again, punching as hard as his half-healed skin would let him. This time the hit was good, solid as Sylar had been trying to teach him for the past two weeks, and Luke instinctively let his power out at the same time. Not because he wanted to hurt Sylar, but because Sylar didn’t want him to hesitate. He wanted Luke to take advantage of everything he had.
Flesh sizzled briefly over Sylar’s ribs, and Luke bit back a wince. Sylar clenched his teeth and growled, seizing both of Luke’s wrists and suddenly ramming him back against the wall, bodies a half-inch apart, breathing Luke’s air.
Luke wasn’t sure if Sylar was going to kill him for making that hit. He wanted Luke to be strong, had gone all Fight Club on him, but… Then again, Luke couldn’t think straight when Sylar was around. Fuck, he wanted to press up into him, see if he was as hard from this as Luke was. He wanted to know if he was having any affect on Sylar outside their times with the razor.
Sylar simply held him down for several long minutes, and finally let go with his left hand to fish into his inner jacket pocket. He came out with the razor, which he pressed into Luke’s hand. Then he waited, eyes burning, dark… intoxicating.
“I want you to do it again,” Luke said, voice cracking as he handed the razor back.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This time the cuts were on the tender skin of Luke’s stomach, from just under the older cuts on the right side of his chest, never crossing the centerline of his body, to just above the waistband of his jeans. The pain was even worse. The skin here was so tender and fragile, and it bled worse, enough that Sylar had to stop at one point and bring a towel over so they wouldn’t stain the bedcover.
Luke’s neck and shoulders were tight and painful as he fought to keep himself still, rigid, breath hitching and sobbing slightly at the pain, tears smearing down his face as he bit his lip hard enough to taste blood. And despite all of that, there was blood flowing elsewhere that he just couldn’t stop.
Sylar was going very slowly, almost excruciatingly so, his hands practically gentle as they tightened Luke’s skin for each cut. There was no possible way Sylar could miss Luke’s arousal at his casual, inadvertent caresses. No possible way.
He didn’t say anything though, not until he was done and told Luke to clean himself up. Not a damn word until Luke had stroked himself to orgasm in the shower and heard Sylar just outside the curtain, his voice husky, saying, “Yeah…”
By the time Luke got out, there were wadded-up bits of toilet paper in the tiny trashcan.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sylar had them tail a team of agents for almost a week, waiting until Luke was at least half-healed, before moving in for the kill. They parked the car a half-block away and waited until the agents came out the back with an unconscious woman slung between two of them.
All of them had gone in the house, bar the driver, who was otherwise… indisposed. At least, Luke didn’t think he was going to be able to separate his hands from the steering wheel anytime soon. Melted plastic was a bitch to get out of bone. Sylar had actually smiled, smiled at him for doing that, keeping the agent silent by telekinetically breaking the man’s jaw so Luke could work.
Luke thought that fighting alongside Sylar was nearly better than sex.
Stepping into the back yard, they’d waited in the open for the agents to emerge. Sylar stepped out in front to meet them.
The agents weren’t complete idiots; they drew on him instantly, dropping their burden to the ground. Sylar smiled, teeth gleaming in the streetlights, as both he and Luke brought their hands up. The guns went flying in all directions, and most of the agents were too smart to go for back-up weapons. The very smartest of them ran. Or tried to.
Luke let heat blast from his hands at the two running agents, both of them going down with muffled cries and the smell of boiling blood marring the night air. Sylar took on the rest, stabbing out at them with telekinesis and electricity, flinging bodies all around the yard like he was some kind of superhero.
Luke hadn’t seen anything that cool since that one Matrix movie.
The agents were remarkably tough, unwilling to go down after a single hit. Luke would have charged in, if Sylar hadn’t thrown him a swift, negating head shake. Then Luke realized Sylar wanted the fight to last. He wasn’t being as efficient as he could. If he’d wanted to just kill the agents, he could have cut them up or broken their necks from a distance, or in an ambush, and had them dead within seconds. This fight… was almost artistic. It was like a live-action stunt show, and Sylar was doing it for Luke.
That rush that gave him was as good as taking out the agents himself.
When the last agent had been knocked sprawling and unconscious, Luke went to grab the woman they’d been carrying, holding her up for Sylar’s inspection. Sylar grinned at him, all teeth, and Luke smiled back, breathing nearly as hard as him despite the lack of exertion.
“Awesome.”
“You got her?” Sylar asked, hand on the drug harness. Luke firmed his grip, ignoring the pain from the stretched skin on his stomach, and nodded. Sylar pulled the tube from the woman’s nose, and held her chin while she slowly regained consciousness.
“The agents are gone,” Sylar said, in an uncharacteristically soft and kind voice. “They were after you because you have a power. What’s your power?”
She was slowly coming around, but wasn’t fully coherent yet. “L-light. I… make light. Not bad, didn’t do anything wrong… please, lemme go…”
“Hmm.” Sylar seemed to consider that for a long moment, and looked over the woman’s shoulder at Luke.
“You gonna take it?” Luke asked, both interested and nervous. Interested because he honestly wanted to see how the hell Sylar did take his powers. Nervous because once he’d taken it, would he start to want more? Would he want Luke’s? Would what they had between them, whateverthefuck it was, be enough to keep him off Sylar’s menu? Luke wanted to think Sylar saw him now, but didn’t want to be so much of idiot to think it hadn’t crossed Sylar’s mind more than once.
“Let’s see it. Show me your power,” Sylar urged gently. The woman still didn’t seem to realize Luke was the one holding her up, and vaguely waved her hand at Sylar’s direction. Pale yellow light seemed to solidify, and she dragged her fingers like she was painting, making the light smear and hang on the air. Luke raised his eyebrows; that was kinda cool. Not earth-shattering, but neat. He bet something like that would be wicked at a rave.
Sylar actually twitched at her display though, Luke saw him. He flinched like he just had a bad memory, and shook his head slightly. Luke slowly let the woman go.
“Better run. The agents will only come back otherwise,” Sylar suggested. His voice was completely casual, as if recommending that she put down ant traps to prevent an infestation in her kitchen. She blinked, and actually seemed to see the agents lying in her back yard for the first time. Blanching, she turned and fled.
“Why didn’t you want her?” Luke asked finally, later when they were at a motel. The night had been… weird. On one hand, going after the agents with Sylar had been everything he wanted. On the other, he had no idea why Sylar had been so weird with that woman. Half of him was still revved and pumped from the fight, the other trying to process what had gone on at the end.
“I don’t like painting,” Sylar said tersely, looking about as torn as Luke did. Luke thought about the cryptic comment for another ten seconds, and then did what he usually did when confronted with something confusing; changed the subject. Sylar didn’t like painting, fine, whatever the hell that meant. Luke knew what he did like.
“You kicked ass though.”
Sylar looked up at him and smiled tightly. The smile got broader when Luke leaned in, putting his hand inside Sylar’s jacket to grab the razor again. This time he’d barely gotten the words out before Sylar had him on the bed, hands rock-steady again as he plied the sharp, sharp blade over the remaining unscarred skin on Luke’s stomach.
It felt real, solid, beyond pain, beyond weakness. Sylar had actually, willingly let Luke see something of himself that wasn’t perfect, his reaction to that woman’s power, and he hadn’t thrown Luke away for it like he had the last two times. This time he’d stayed. As Luke rode out the nauseating pain, feeling the blood flow down his side to soak into the towel Sylar had put there, Luke felt strong for the first time in forever.
He was harder too, despite the pain, hard and throbbing and desperately interested as Sylar’s hand lingered on his tender, sliced skin, fingers tracing back and forth above his waistband. Sylar’s face was inches away from Luke’s fluttering stomach, his warm breath soothing the cuts. Slowly Sylar lowered his lips to Luke’s naval, pressing a kiss into the pink flesh, his tongue flickering out to press inside, probing deep and lingeringly.
It shouldn’t have felt good, but the effect was electrifying. Luke’s nerves lit up at the unexpected intimacy, and his cock strained against the confines of his jeans.
“Sylar…” Luke breathed. “God!”
Sylar didn’t need more encouragement than that, and his hand slid around to the front of Luke’s pants, rubbing hard. It didn’t take long, just a half dozen strokes, and Luke slammed his hips up, crying out wordlessly, the spike of pain from his stomach helping spur his orgasm. Gasping and bleeding, Luke fell back to the bed, flushed, eyes glassy, stomach an artistic red ruin.
“Good boy, Luke,” Sylar said softly, leaning over him to look directly into his eyes, a pleased and proud expression on his face. “So fucking good.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sylar made Luke wait almost three weeks before accepting the razor again. Going twice with only a week between sessions had left Luke nearly unable to walk. He spent the better part of the first three days curled up like a shrimp in the truck, but for once felt slightly more than halfway secure that he wasn’t going to wake up in the motel room alone and abandoned. Hope, once an infrequent visitor that always left the house a mess and no gas in the tank, had almost become a resident.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Luke’s breathing was ragged as he leaned his chin against the back of the chair, nearly matching Sylar’s as he delicately made a small cut over Luke’s shoulder blade. Not being able to see when Sylar would bring the blade down had raised the rest of Luke’s senses to a fever pitch to try to anticipate him. This was the fourth time Sylar had been at Luke’s back, and it still gave him a jolt to have a serial killer behind him with a blade. A really good kind of jolt though.
Another bright slice of pain, and Luke muffled a moan. Damn, all of this, week after week for months now had practically rewired him. He would start to get hard just from watching Sylar shave, let alone strop the razor, and just asking Sylar was enough to make him start to throb. The times between, all Luke had to do was see Sylar looking at him, or feel the ache in his flesh from half-healed wounds, and that would be enough to set him off.
“If you don’t stop moaning, I’m going to make a mistake,” Sylar murmured, hands stretching and soothing Luke’s skin before each cut, breath close enough to warm the blade.
“Sorry,” Luke whispered. He wanted to rock his hips to ease the ache in his groin, but didn’t want to mess up Sylar’s knife-work. He liked how he looked after Sylar got done with him, just seeing himself in the mirror made him realize that he was worth something. Not just to Sylar, but to himself too. Old Luke might not have been able to stand this kind of pain. But he could now. There wasn’t anything the world had managed to throw at him yet that was better (or was it worse?) than anything Sylar had already done to him.
He was stronger now, physically, mentally, more able to hold his own against the agents they targeted. Never too many at once, and they didn’t always kill them when they found them. A crippled or injured soldier, Sylar had reasoned, cost the government more money than a dead one, and also cost them in pride, morale, and power. It sent a message that was unmistakable, “It’s too expensive to go after us. Try it, I dare you.”
So far the government hadn’t dared. Sylar and Luke were only going after agents that had targeted specials Sylar wanted. The weird thing was, Sylar hadn’t taken a power yet. Luke had been there every time, and he had simply rejected them all. Light, enhanced sense of smell, being able to burrow like a big mole, really sharp fingernails, and Luke had thought for certain Sylar would have wanted X-ray vision. But he’d let them all go, all for some odd reason or another. Let them live. Never taken a power in front of Luke.
Luke couldn’t have said for certain that Sylar was not going out later on his own and taking them, but he slept lightly enough that he was pretty sure Sylar wasn’t leaving in the middle of the night. And they were together almost every minute of the daytime. So…
Luke hissed as Sylar made his final cut, and sighed when Sylar pulled him back against his chest. His scored back protested rigorously, but having Sylar put his arms around him, breath warm on his neck, lips dropping a kiss on the nape of his neck…
Luke could handle the pain for that.
He still had to stay there, frozen, for long minutes though. At least until he was certain that he wouldn’t scream in pain.
“Sylar?” he asked, trying to distract himself while he waited for the worst of the pain to fade. “Why haven’t you taken any powers? I thought you wanted them.”
It was the first time he’d ever questioned Sylar about it, and he braced himself for a bad reaction. Instead Sylar went incredibly still, and Luke could feel his breath hot on his neck, lips a bare fraction away from his skin. Then Sylar’s hand slid around to Luke’s groin to palm his heavy erection, rocking slightly.
“We don’t need anyone,” Sylar whispered.
Luke came from Sylar’s voice alone.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When the next time came around, Luke wanted more. He wanted to show Sylar more, to show his intent, his willingness, his… Luke didn’t want to say “devotion,” because that sounded kind of biblical and sort of weird. “Admiration” was too damn dry for what he was feeling. And “love” was so full of pitfalls that he didn’t even want to go there.
Choice. He wanted to show Sylar he’d chosen. That was it.
“Wait,” Luke whispered, and Sylar halted the razor an inch above his shoulder. “I want it to show this time.”
Air rushed out of Sylar’s lungs, and his hands flattened on Luke’s back, the razor trapped under the right palm, as if bracing him from falling. Sylar stayed still for a long time, and Luke wondered if he’d asked too much. Or not enough.
“Where?” Sylar asked, his voice barely audible. Luke uncrossed his arms and extended them fully, rolling his wrists and fingers. There were scars already there from cigarette burns, broken bottles, and other abuses. Luke wanted them gone, overlaid and erased by his choice, his and Sylar’s together. He wanted Sylar to notice the new scars all the time, to see more of a reminder of Luke’s dedication than just his repressed whimpers of pain and stiff movements.
“On the chair, arms on the table,” Sylar said, and Luke rose up from the bed, deliberately stretching and involuntarily wincing as he tried to show off the thin scars decorating his torso. Sylar’s eyes followed him avidly as he sat down and laid out his left arm for Sylar to cut. Sylar pulled his own chair close and leaned over Luke’s arm, the warm blade of the razor resting gently on Luke’s shoulder. Sylar’s breath was close enough to heat Luke’s skin, and he closed his eyes, letting a shiver of anticipation run through him.
This was going to hurt far worse than the cuts on his chest, and he knew it, accepted it, and wanted it.
“Go on,” Luke encouraged, and dropped his head to pillow on his right arm at the table, staring up at Sylar.
Sylar’s first cut was fast, and a little deeper than Luke had expected; the thin slice of pain made him gasp and chew on his lip to get control. He breathed, matching Sylar breath for breath as the heat soothed the new wound. There was a slight gasp when the second cut sliced shallower than the first, the sharp blade keeping the wound from stinging until Sylar had laid a third cut open. Luke kept his eyes open this time, despite the familiar rising pain and faint nausea, eyes filling and overflowing with tears as cut after small cut marched down the inside of his arm. He gasped when they reached his wrist, as Sylar made the shallowest cuts possible over the veins on the tender inner skin.
Swallowing thickly as Sylar wiped the blood away, Luke made a series of faint whimpers as the cuts began again, closer to the outside of his arm, where they could be more easily seen. Sylar slowed down, leaning closer to Luke’s arm as he flicked the blade over and over again, cutting his perfect, shallow, stinging little cuts. His breath was close now, breathing in the metallic scent of blood and the harsher overtones of fear and pain.
He reached the end again, and turned Luke’s arm, exposing the outer skin. He paused, the blade at Luke’s shoulder, and Luke blinked to clear his eyes of tears.
“I want it to show,” he said, proud that there was no quaver in his voice. Sylar’s return gaze was so intense Luke almost felt seared with the heat of it. But it hadn’t been a lie.
Sylar only did one more column before he’d deemed that enough, but when Luke looked in the mirror, he could easily see the cuts everywhere, thin, red, and perfect. Fucking beautiful.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The next day, Luke asked Sylar to stop by the Salvation Army. Sylar didn’t even ask, just gave him some cash and waited in the car. Luke came out twenty minutes later, several t-shirts in a bag. He changed into one of them when they stopped for gas; a size too small, faded logo on dark fabric, and left off his jacket entirely. The healing cuts on his arm showed easily now, enough so that when Sylar came back from inside, he took one look and demanded that Luke drive.
“Uh… you never let me drive.”
“You either drive or I’m going to run the car off the road.”
Awesome.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Again, come on!”
Luke lashed out, Sylar blocked him, and he turned, twisted, and struck out again. Keeping his fingers stiff, like he’d been taught, he jabbed faster, harder.
“You break your hands and it’s going to take you a lot longer to heal than me,” Sylar had reminded him when he’d swung with a closed fist. His voice wasn’t mocking in the slightest. He actually seemed to care if Luke hurt himself. There was some kind of irony in that thought somewhere, but it didn’t matter to Luke in the slightest.
Blocked again. Turn, feint, let the heat surge through his hand, sharper and fiercer now, like the cuts on his arms, both of them completely covered now, helped channel his power. Sylar instinctively turned away from the intense blast, giving Luke the opening he needed. His elbow slammed up into Sylar’s solar plexus, driving the air from his lungs, letting him get a hand around him, finally slapping a palm against the back of Sylar’s head.
Sylar froze for a few moments, and smiled at Luke, a grin of mutual triumph. This was the first time since they’d met, over six months ago now, that Luke had legitimately managed to get the upper hand against him.
“Gotcha,” Luke said, grinning widely. Sylar brought his own hand up slowly and echoed Luke’s pose, pulling him into a hard kiss. Luke went slack, eyes shutting so he could concentrate on Sylar’s mouth on his, the rasping from the stubble on his skin, the faint smell of aftershave, the slight chapped dryness of his lips. Groaning, Luke pulled them closer, and could feel the hard ridge of Sylar’s cock pressing into his hip.
Oh fuck yes. Oh fuck yes…
“Want to. I want to-,” Luke breathed, trying to talk around Sylar’s passion. Sylar abruptly tangled his hand in Luke’s hair, longer now, and pulled his head back.
Mouth gaping, trying to find Sylar’s again even though he knew it was useless, he watched Sylar lean down over him, eyes calculating and appraising. His hips moved in subtle rhythm, and Luke keened softly at the delicious friction.
“I know,” Sylar murmured, mouth suddenly under Luke’s ear, pressing a kiss to his neck. But not now. Not this time, not yet.
“Then…” Luke fumbled for the blade again, and could feel Sylar throbbing against him, growing harder as he pressed the razor into his hand.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
He offered his left hand this time, palm up, finally able to hold back the worst of his tears despite the pain. It wasn’t the pain he was worried about this time, it was his power. When Sylar stretched the skin of his palm, heat was threatening, building, like his power wanted to protect itself. When Sylar cut, the blade sparked and Sylar’s skin scorched. Instead of blood, the wound seemed to leak heat, cauterizing the wound, glowing beautiful red.
That seemed utterly fascinating to Sylar, who traced the first little wound with a curious finger.
“Can you hold it back, Luke?” Sylar asked at length, flipping the blade open and closed. He wanted to complete the cuts badly, Luke knew it, and he wanted him to. Luke’s hands looked empty, strange compared with the rest of his skin now. He wasn’t doing this just to keep Sylar around, not anymore. But they’d started this, and Luke knew they had to finish it. And once they did…
Luke didn’t close his eyes, even though it would have helped. He concentrated fiercely to draw the heat away inside of him. He ignored the warmth of Sylar’s hands, his breath, ignored everything but the pain itself. It helped him focus, and he watched carefully, breath hitching, as Sylar laid very tiny, fine cuts all over his palm and up each of his fingers. His power felt like it was lurking just below the surface of his blood, practically clamoring to get out, and Luke had to dig his nails into his opposite palm to keep control.
When Sylar put the blade aside, he nodded at Luke, who let his power rush up. The heat didn’t just shimmer, it blasted, as if cutting the skin had removed some kind of barrier, and Sylar had to lean back from the table to avoid getting his face seared off.
“Whoa…” Luke said, blinking at his hand like he’d never seen it before. The wounds on his palm had cauterized instantly.
When he looked up, Sylar was looking at him like he’d just gotten exactly what he wanted for Christmas. Minutes later, Sylar had him shaking and moaning, hand palming Luke’s erection through his jeans, mouth on his, tongue practically down his throat as he pushed him into a hard orgasm that left him seeing stars.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Luke shivered, holding onto control with teeth and toenails as Sylar made the last cut on his right hand. He was nearly vibrating inside with power, feeling like something had just clicked between them.
“Go on,” Sylar whispered, wiping down the knife and closing it with a final-sounding snikt.
Luke kept his hands palm up on the table, and gasped as the heat slammed through him, leaving the smell of scorched air in its wake. Gasping, he took it inside himself again as Sylar leaned over him, his hands dropping down on Luke’s, palm-to-palm. Luke stretched up to kiss him as he felt an oddly familiar heat burn down into fingers and palms. But it wasn’t his heat. It was Sylar’s. Sylar was using his power.
Luke could not even make a coherent noise, just a raw, needy moan as he let his power out again, the heat shimmering both up and down. Entwining their fingers, Sylar pulled him up and pushed him down to the bed. Though he hadn’t let go of his hands or his mouth, Luke felt Sylar undoing his belt and pushing down his jeans and boxers with nothing but his mind.
Luke gave a strangled cry as Sylar pulled off his mouth, and started to trail down his neck and chest, tongue slipping out to occasionally trace the lines of the scars, circle and tease a nipple, and dip into his navel. Keening softly in his throat as Sylar nuzzled down the line of his low belly, his chest bumping the end of Luke’s throbbing cock, Luke raised up their joined hands so they wouldn’t inadvertently set the bed on fire. If Sylar had to stop, Luke was going to kill somebody. Twice.
Sound deserted him completely when Sylar licked a spiraling trail down Luke’s cock, going back over and over to taste new skin. A thick and strong touch down a heavy vein, a light tease around the sensitive spot below the crown, a gentle probe in the slit at the end, a delicate lapping over Luke’s balls, all kept him speechless. There had to have been judicious use of telekinesis to keep everything moving so carefully, perfectly without the use of hands, but Luke absolutely did not care. Sylar could do this any fucking way he wanted to.
Luke’s head arched back into the mattress when Sylar finally closed his mouth around the end, sucking gently. No one had ever done anything like this for him before, and the fact that it was Sylar doing it kept him paralyzed and silent. So silent, in fact, that Sylar actually paused, and Luke had to squeeze his hands in reassurance. Squeezed them so hard, in fact, that he nearly dislocated one of Sylar’s fingers. A faint chuckle turned into a languid moan as Sylar slid Luke’s cock down his throat.
“S-Sylar!” Luke managed, his voice strangled and breathless. He was only conscious of his hands and Sylar’s mouth on his flesh. Everything else was irrelevant. Another moan around his cock made Luke buck his hips up, only to be held in a firm, telekinetic grip. Sylar seemed to laugh indulgently around Luke, the vibrations making him grit his teeth to keep from cumming right away. He wanted this to last, and Sylar seemed to understand, squeezing his hands in return as he slowed, taking Luke down languidly, a fraction at a time, laving attention on every inch of him.
The heat started to spike in the room, from powers and passion both as Sylar finally had Luke down to the root. That all-encompassing sensation combined with the deep, potent throbbing, the tightness in his balls, and the tiny shocks of pleasure from Sylar’s throat set him rigid in warning. Sylar swallowed hard around Luke with a muffled growl, and Luke came, screaming Sylar’s name, powers pulsing from one to the other.
Dropping his head flat to the bed, Luke went slack and nerveless, sweat-soaked hair in his eyes as Sylar pulled off of him. Leaning over Luke, hands on either side of his head, Sylar kissed him almost chastely on the lips, a bare brush of flesh that Luke could scarcely return.
“You ready?” he asked.
Luke closed his eyes and nodded. He was definitely ready now. For anything.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This van seemed no different from the others, just another government vehicle with a special or two inside and maybe ten or so agents. And just like the others, they had no chance.
“I thought you wanted a challenge,” Luke asked, looking at the van with a bit of boredom. They’d done this game almost a dozen times already. Lay out a squad of agents, free the boring special they’d collected. It was kinda fun, but didn’t accomplish as much of a goal as Sylar seemed to like.
“It’s not the agents I’m after,” Sylar said. He had a faint smile on his lips. “We’ve got the agents afraid to come out. They know there’s a damn good chance they’re going to get burned or cut if they do. That means any agents out now have some special they really need to collect.”
Luke didn’t ask if Sylar wanted their power. He knew he really didn’t, not anymore. He was confident of that now.
“Anyone they really want to collect has to be a fighter. Someone who hates the government.”
“So like… what? An ally or something?” Luke asked with some trepidation.
“I can make anyone hate me. Doing the opposite is the challenge.”
He grabbed Luke’s hand, clasping it hard both in reassurance and just to feel the raised scars. Luke nodded slowly, gripping back equally hard. He was stronger now; strong enough to know this was solid. There wouldn’t be abandonment at a run-down diner, not in his future. Not even for whoever was in that van.
“So… what’s going to happen when we get this dude out?”
“He’s the diplomat. We’re the nuclear warheads he warns the government he has if they don’t back off.”
Luke started grinning. We. We.
“We’re gonna change the world? That’s the goal?”
“If things go right, we’re not just going to change it. We’re going to be in charge of it. I just need Peter for a public face.”
Sylar echoed his grin and got out of the car. Luke followed him. As they walked towards the van, Luke felt the power rising within him, confident he and Sylar would be able to handle this. Both of them. They were strong enough for this now.
Author: jaune_chat
Fandom: Heroes
Characters: Sylar/Luke
Rating: NC-17
Wordcount: 9,526
Spoilers: Up through 3x18 “Exposed”
Warnings: Knifeplay, some blood, slash
Disclaimer: Heroes belongs to Tim Kring, NBC et al.
A/N: This is a Sweet Charity fic written for perdiccas. She wanted a cutting story, and it just sort of… grew… from there. Title taken from the song "Red Right Hand." Thanks to brighteyed_jill for betaing!
Summary: Luke’s been left behind one too many times, and this time he just wants Sylar to notice him. When he sees an opportunity, he stops at nothing to make sure he won’t be forgotten.
Art by the talented aquasnake08, commissioned by the generous perdiccas.
Luke waited for hours in the abandoned diner, getting hungrier, thirstier, and angrier with every passing moment. He’d been half-afraid, half-hopeful to move at first. Afraid because he was dreading Sylar would come back to finish the job of killing him, despite his earlier statement. Hopeful because Sylar had come back for him before.
After darkness had fallen, he’d swung a full one-eighty. He dreaded Sylar wasn’t coming back, that he’d honestly meant it when he’d told Luke to go home to his mother. And then he hoped Sylar would come back to kill him.
By midnight, Luke’s stomach was in such a knot that he couldn’t even be sick. Sylar hadn’t come back. Sylar didn’t care if Luke was alive or dead. He’d taken over Luke’s life last week, and he didn’t even fucking care. Sylar had just thrown him away like a worn-out toy the second he ceased to be interesting. Luke spent nearly an hour forcing back tears, biting into the fabric of his shirt to keep himself in control. Not good enough. I’m not good enough…
By one a.m. despair had given way to anger. Screw Sylar. It didn’t matter. He didn’t matter. Luke didn’t need anyone, not even him. Scratch that, especially not him. Luke bit his lip as he thought that, and slammed open the door, striding out into the cool air. Turning around, he focused his power on the dry wood of the abandoned building, waiting until it smoked, smoldered, and finally burst into flame. Luke let it burn, let the whole damn thing burn and crumble into ash, before turning away to trudge along the highway, hands shoved deep into his pockets.
Screw Sylar… Luke thought, staring at the dark ground. …don’t need him.
The cold wind, laden with ash, dried his face as he walked along the dusty highway shoulder.
It wasn’t fucking fair. Luke thought he’d finally found someone who understood him, who got where he was coming from, and it had all fallen apart the minute he was… (not good enough, not interesting enough, just not enough.) Just because he’d shaded the truth a little, tried to draw out the freedom of the road trip, everything had gone wrong. Fuck it; the truth wouldn’t have helped either. Why bother telling Sylar his dad was a creep when all he wanted to do was find him?
For some reason, Sylar had still had hope. He was a serial killer, home invader, and torturer, but he had still hoped to find his father. Luke hadn’t wanted to burst that bubble, oddly enough. He didn’t have anything to hope for himself, so Sylar’s hope and purpose had been a draw. He was motivation and freedom and powered badassery all in one. All gone now.
Luke squinted through the darkness, broken only by a distant light. It was his only goal right now, just to find the next light. Sylar had told him to go home. Yeah, right. Why bother? His mom would call the cops or agents to get him, assuming they didn’t pick him up on the road first. Luke didn’t have any money, food, or water, either; nothing he could use to survive.
“Go home to your mother, Luke.” Right. Asshole.
Hunching his shoulders, Luke shuffled down the highway. He wasn’t going to go back home, but he didn’t know where to go either. West would do until he found something he wanted.
The light in the distance loomed closer, Luke’s first view of civilization that he’d seen in the hours since he’d started walking. He was thirsty, hungry, and now shivering in the cool of early morning, and the lone gas station up ahead looked incredibly inviting. He pushed his way inside, ignoring the two guys stocking up on beer. He went straight for the back cooler, double-checked the security mirrors, pulled out a Gatorade, and chugged it down. He went through three bottles before he felt quenched, satisfied enough to want more than just basic necessities.
He was on the run. He needed money, and he had to stay somewhere tonight. Screw it, he was already a criminal. Adding robbery to his rap sheet shouldn’t surprise the government. They already thought the worst of him. Like his mom. Like Sylar. Anger rose in him, and false courage and bravado, what had sustained him through Sylar’s death threats, stiffened his spine.
Luke stalked up to the counter, and placed both hands flat on the scarred surface.
“Give me your money,” he tried to growl. It didn’t quite have the menace he wanted. Sylar did it better-. Screw Sylar!
The clerk, a tough-looking older guy, didn’t seem impressed.
“Other way around kid, you owe me for those drinks.”
Stupid. Luke’s own stupid baby face making him look as dangerous as a puppy. Luke glared at the clerk and let his power out, scorching the counter and starting it melting.
“What… the fuck?” the man yelled, and Luke aimed one palm at the guy.
“Money, now! And the keys to your car!”
The man hesitated, and Luke took a deep breath, stomach churning as he got ready to fry the guy.
“What’s going on Larry?”
Shit. The two dudes that had been getting beer couldn’t have stayed away for another five minutes?
“This kid’s trying to rob-.”
Luke took his eyes off the clerk to look at the beer guy, only to hear the distinctive shuck-shuck of someone pumping a shotgun as the clerk pulled one out from behind the counter. Luke was torn between wanting to puke in fear and explode in anger. How could he be so fucking stupid?
“Back off, son,” the clerk said sternly. “You just sit down right where you are. Ed’s going to call the sheriff for me, and Clive’ll make sure you don’t pull anything funny.”
Ed, the curious boozer, started to come closer, while Clive, a little farther away, started to walk purposefully towards the group, both of them looking down at him like he was some joy-riding punk who needed to be taught a lesson. It reminded Luke of how his mom sometimes looked at him.
Anger took over. Screw it!
Luke screamed and aimed his hands in both directions at once, trying to catch everybody. Ed went down screaming bloody murder, and Clive, behind him, dove for cover behind some shelves. Larry swung his gun in startlement, and Luke’s microwave blast hit the metal barrel, making sparks fly everywhere. The feedback felt like it had just electrified Luke’s bones, and he dropped to his knees in pain, hugging his arms to his chest and keeping a scream behind his teeth.
Larry managed to keep a hold of his shotgun and aimed it back at Luke’s head, shouting something incomprehensible. Time seemed to slow down, the sounds in the air swimming towards Luke like they’d been impeded in molasses. Larry shouldered the gun firmly, putting his finger on the trigger, and Luke knew there was no chance he could miss at this range.
The gun suddenly went flying in one direction, and Larry in another, ending up pinned against the wall behind the counter. He got a horrified look on his face right before his neck spontaneously snapped. Two more snaps behind Luke told him Ed and Clive had met the same fate. Time resumed its normal pace. Muscles still burning, Luke stood up to find his savior standing in the doorway, cold wind flapping his coat around his body, haloed from behind in the harsh white lights.
Sylar.
Luke wanted to kill him for coming to his rescue. Sylar just couldn’t keep showing up whenever he got bored. Luke couldn’t handle it again.
“How’d you kill your dad?” Luke spat in greeting. No thank you, not for him. If Sylar hadn’t left him in the first place (second place), Luke wouldn’t have needed the help.
“I didn’t,” Sylar said evenly.
Luke sneered at him, anger overriding caution. Pathetic. Sylar was just as pathetic as him.
“So what? You two kiss and make up? He send you out on a beer run?”
“Luke-,” Sylar started.
Luke didn’t want to hear it, and snapped out the cruelest thing he could think of. He wanted to hurt him. “Go back to your daddy, Sylar. I don’t need your help.”
For the second time that day, Luke found himself telekinetically pinned to a wall, and he flinched as new bruises blossomed over the old ones.
“Don’t talk about my father,” Sylar said, his voice dangerously low.
“Whatever man. Put me down so I can get a beer; you didn’t leave any behind when you left. Oh wait, you didn’t leave me anything.”
Bastard. Fucking bastard. Fucking leave me alone!
“You shouldn’t have beer. It clouds your judgment.” Sylar took a few steps inside the doorway, and his expression was oddly concerned. Luke didn’t give a crap at that point.
“Since your judgment kinda sucks, maybe that would be an improvement!” Luke yelled. Sylar abruptly released his mental hold, and Luke fell heavily to the floor.
“My father is dying of cancer. He’s a bastard, so I left him to rot and die alone.” Sylar’s voice sounded oddly hollow.
“Big whoop. Hope it was worth it,” Luke muttered, getting up slowly. He ached in every limb, but tried not to show it. Walking behind the counter, he found Larry’s keys, unlocked the register, and stuffed the cash into his pockets.
“Where are you going?” Sylar asked him, still not moving as Luke started to walk towards the door.
“Anywhere. Doesn’t matter.” God’s honest truth, for what that was worth.
“Luke-,” Sylar called. Luke hesitated in the doorway. “The agents will find you.”
“So, why do you care?”
“Get in the truck.” It was neither command nor plea, just a plain comment.
“Why should I go anywhere with you? You’re just going to leave me behind when you start PMSing again.”
Sylar’s expression darkened dangerously. Luke knew he was immanent danger of increasing the body count to four right here, but couldn’t make himself stop talking.
“Maybe I’ll go out to Disneyland or something. Fun family fucking vacation for one-.”
“Luke, stop making me want to kill you.” That came out as pure exasperation.
“Why do you fucking give a shit? Got some goal in mind for me?” Luke asked sarcastically.
“Yes.”
Luke was taken aback. “Like what?”
“You need to learn. I’ll teach you.” Weirdly, Luke thought Sylar’s offer was completely spontaneous. He seemed as surprised as Luke to have even said it.
“Teach me what?” Luke challenged.
“How not to get your damn head nearly blown off, for starters,” Sylar snapped.
Luke scowled, but considered it for a second. Even if Sylar was just going to abandon him again, he had to stay somewhere tonight.
“Whatever,” Luke said finally, shrugging, and walked out to the truck. Sylar followed him, and Luke could feel his gaze burning into the back of his head. He wondered if Sylar was going to kill him when they got further down the highway.
At this point, Luke didn’t even care. Death would be an improvement over his shitty life at present.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Luke guessed he must have fallen asleep in the truck, death threats or no death threats, because next morning he woke up in a motel bed with no memory of lying down there. A bolt of fear shot through him when he realized the opposite bed was empty, but he stopped himself from leaping up when he heard water running in the bathroom, saw the duffle bag still on the table. Sylar was still here…
Pushing himself up more slowly, he stumbled to the table across from the bathroom to paw through Sylar’s bag, trying to find something edible. After he’d gulped down a squashed power bar, he turned to see Sylar in front of the mirror in the bathroom meticulously shaving himself with that damn straight razor of his. It looked like something right out of the movies. Normal people didn’t use things like that.
“Why do you use that?” Luke asked. Sylar didn’t even twitch. “Isn’t it kind of cliché? Serial killer and all?”
Sylar ignored him until he’d carefully shaved another swath across his cheek.
“It takes precision,” was his only answer. Luke stewed for a long minute, sick of feeling like he barely existed for Sylar. Last-minute rescue or not, things were rapidly going back to “normal” between them.
How long would it take Sylar to get bored with him again? Luke wanted Sylar to see him, to remember that he existed. He wanted to mean something to Sylar other than being a passing diversion.
Scowling, Luke pushed into the bathroom to use the shower, yanking off his shirt indifferently. Maybe ignoring Sylar would make something happen. See how he liked it for once.
But the bathroom was too small, and Luke accidentally jostled Sylar’s elbow as he struggled out of his clothes. Sylar pulled the razor away from his face fast, too fast, and the sharp blade came down, opening up a long, thin cut on Luke’s shoulder. Luke hissed in pain as the blood welled up, but didn’t scream, didn’t move, didn’t even look up at first. Then he realized Sylar was actually looking at him, paying close attention to his reaction to the cut with a kind of awed fascination.
Luke swallowed slightly, and shrugged with a little wince. He wasn’t going to apologize, and Sylar wasn’t either, and that was fine with him. Besides, Sylar’s attention was better than any stupid apology.
Quickly putting off the rest of his clothes, he stepped in the shower, dialing it up as hot as it could get in this crappy motel. The cut stung worse when he washed it off, but Luke didn’t care. He wanted it to hurt. He’d seen Sylar pay attention to him when he winced. Luke wanted to see if he’d do it again.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
He did. Sylar noticed Luke more now, paid more attention to him, and virtually stared at him when Luke came out of the shower without his shirt. But when the clean cut started to heal after a few days, and Luke wasn’t in pain any longer, Sylar’s attention wavered, going back to his usual indifference. He no longer let Luke pick their route, radio station, or food, and even stopped talking to him for long periods, seemingly absorbed in his own thoughts. In the past, such silences had always been quickly followed by Sylar leaving Luke behind.
That was when the idea first crossed Luke’s mind. He only debated with himself for about fifteen minutes about whether or not he was going to do it; most of that time spent wondering how the hell he was going to ask. Because he wasn’t going to do it to himself; Sylar liked to have control. And if Sylar had that control, if Luke gave it to him, then he wouldn’t forget, wouldn’t leave Luke behind again. That gave Luke hope. That was something he hadn’t had in a long time.
He waited until early morning, until Sylar was done shaving, but before he’d put everything away. Biting his lip to still the fluttering in his stomach, Luke darted into the bathroom and put his hand over the straight razor.
Before Sylar could shove him aside, Luke quickly said, “I want you to do it again.”
Sylar froze, seeming confused. Luke picked up the razor so he could run the blunt side across his shoulder and chest, paralleling where the thin scar was under his shirt.
“You liked it?” Sylar asked slowly, taking the blade back.
Luke swallowed. “Yeah,” he whispered. It had hurt, he hadn’t liked that, but…
“Liar,” Sylar said dismissively, going expressionless, and started to turn away.
“I want you to do it to me,” Luke said loudly. That was no lie, and Sylar paused again. He finally turned back, eyes darker than usual, and reached out to wrap his large hand around the back of Luke’s neck.
“I want you to do it to me,” Luke said again. A muscle in Sylar’s face twitched, and his hand suddenly crushed down on Luke’s spine.
“On the bed, face up, shirt off,” Sylar said, and his voice had gone raspy. Luke was pleased to have gotten a reaction, but most of his nervousness was at the fact that he was going to let himself get hurt, willingly this time. He was going to get ripped up and bleed and get scarred and all because he wanted his serial killer road trip buddy to notice he existed.
He wanted this too, which was the extra-special, short bus kind of stupid.
Luke lay back on the scratchy bedcover, shivering slightly as he felt Sylar’s weight dip the bed. He flinched when Sylar’s hand spread the skin just under his collarbone, but held still. Luke sucked in a surprised breath when Sylar flipped open the blade with a magician’s flourish and sliced a neat, shallow, inch-long cut just under Luke’s right collarbone, just to the right of his breastbone. The pain didn’t hit immediately, not until Sylar moved an inch to the right, and laid down another cut. Then it hurt.
Taking long, shuddering breaths in and out through his nose to keep himself in control, Luke tried to focus on anything other than the thin, shallow, painful cuts Sylar was carefully laying all over his chest in neat little staggered rows. Each cut was preceded by Sylar carefully tightening the skin with his intensely warm fingers. Each cut was inspected at close range, Sylar drawing himself close enough to Luke’s chest for his warm, mint-scented breath to heat and soothe the excruciating little slices. Nausea roiled in Luke’s stomach as he valiantly fought to keep from puking, moving, turning away from the rising and falling pain.
Forcing his eyes open through his tears, Luke watched in trepidation as the cuts got closer to his nipple, now peaked and hard from fear. Sylar deliberately paused and looked up at Luke for the first time. He seemed to be savoring Luke’s reactions, paying exquisite attention to every shuddering breath, every little twitch, every repressed whimper and whine.
“Say it again,” Sylar demanded, voice soft.
“I want you to do it,” Luke repeated, voice uneven and choked, but still not a lie. Sylar circled Luke’s nipple with the blunt side of the blade, making Luke suck in a huge, surprised breath at the shocks of pleasure that sparked through him at that touch. Then Sylar cut again, on the far side, and Luke bit his lip on his sob.
Sylar stopped when he’d reached the bottom of Luke’s ribcage, never crossing the centerline of his body, never crossing into his side. Just stopped, precisely where it seemed he had to, and placed one broad hand over the marks, feeling Luke’s chest rise and fall with stuttering, shuddery breaths. The heat from his hand made the pain fade, and after a long moment, he took his hand away.
“Go clean up,” Sylar said quietly. Luke couldn’t get up quickly. He could barely get up slowly. It hurt, God it hurt. It ached, it stung, it burned, it fucking smarted. But Sylar was watching him, eyes following every wince, and that gave Luke enough strength to get to the bathroom.
Luke’s paused to look in the mirror, wanting to see what a wreck Sylar had left of his body. His red, tear-stained face stared back at him, surprised eyes dilated and swollen. But what caught him off-guard was the red on his skin. Sylar had made incredibly precise cuts, the little rows overlapping so that it looked like basketweave, accentuating what muscle structure Luke had.
It looked… good. Luke raised one hand to gingerly touch it, wincing slightly as his overworked nerves protested the slightest pressure. It was going to scar, probably in raised little lines. A permanent reminder of what had just happened: Sylar touching him, paying him his complete attention. Luke stared in the mirror again, breath hitching as he realized he was half hard.
Luke decided that the cuts looked better than good.
Ducking into the shower, he washed himself with exacting care, gritting his teeth against the pain. Despite what the cuts looked like, they still hurt. Wanting to distract himself, Luke braced one hand on the wall, and slipped the other around his swollen dick. He started slow, movement limited in his arm because of the pain in his chest. Because of that, he actually noticed when the door opened again. Water was running in the sink: Sylar, washing his hands and the razor.
Luke tugged harder, little moans escaping his chest that he didn’t bother to hide. Sylar was listening, and Luke wanted him to hear. It freaked him out a little, but he still wanted Sylar to hear it. Grunting a little in frustration when he couldn’t get the leverage he needed, Luke awkwardly finished himself off with his left hand, the pain in his chest pushing him over the edge.
When he came out of the bathroom, still moving slowly and carefully, Sylar walked straight up to him, putting his hand on Luke’s shoulder, and held him at arm’s length, as if inspecting him for flaws. Sylar’s touch felt warm, even after the shower, and inexplicably gentle. After a long moment, Sylar nodded in satisfaction.
“Good boy.”
Something like that should have not gotten Luke hard again, but it did.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It took Luke nearly ten days to recover from the cutting, ten days in which Sylar was… not precisely “nice,” but in other ways he was… better. Luke almost felt like he was better too. Sylar hadn’t slammed him into any unyielding objects; Luke hadn’t given him a reason to. Sylar hadn’t bitched about Luke’s choice in food or music; Luke hadn’t been as annoyingly pushy as possible. Maybe because for the first time he believed this road trip was going to last longer than it took to find Sylar’s dad and he didn’t have to cram memories into every waking moment. Maybe because now Luke had hope that Sylar wouldn’t leave him behind.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Two weeks after the first time, the scars had mostly faded into thin pink lines, slightly raised, and Luke started to get a panicky feeling in the pit of his stomach again. Sylar’s attention had been focused on him because every time Luke winced, or twitched, or had to move carefully because of the cuts, Sylar was reminded of what he’d done. But now that everything was healed up…
“I want you to do it again,” Luke asked, voice shaking. Sylar had the razor out of Luke’s hand before he could even finish speaking.
The pain was no less, but the anticipation had faded enough that Luke could concentrate on Sylar’s hands, his breath, the heat of his body on Luke’s skin as the razor slicing into the skin on the left side of his chest over and over… Neat little rows, pulsing over his heart, back of the blade skimming over his nipple, the pain rising and falling and sparking over and over, a scream nailed behind Luke’s teeth. Sylar, Sylar, Sylar…
This time, when Luke looked in the bathroom mirror afterward, he was more than half hard. The cuts on his chest looked more than good. They looked sexy. They made him look, feel desirable. Wanted. Wanted by Sylar.
Sylar was thoroughly, aggressively masculine, both in looks and in behavior; not someone that Luke would have considered himself attracted to before a few weeks ago. Luke honestly hadn’t give a crap about liking one type or the other; he’d gone with whatever was easiest, usually girls. But Sylar was the center of Luke’s own admittedly-pathetic little world now, and was the only person he’d ever felt attracted to that seemed to give two shits about whether he was alive or dead. Homecoming Queen Alexia Long would have rather put out her own eyes than even acknowledge his existence. Sylar had been willing to save his life. Now, suddenly, Sylar had become irresistibly attractive.
Oh, Luke was definitely more than half hard now.
Sylar was listening as Luke finished himself off in the shower, Luke knew it, and this time he thought he heard a deeper grunt from Sylar, a definite echo of his own pleasure, before he was done.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When they were driving later that day, Sylar was the one that broke their amicable silence.
“I learned one thing from my father,” he said, with a sidelong glance at Luke as he wince-shifted to show he was paying attention. “I’ve always gone after weak prey. No challenge. No way to grow.”
“What do you want to do now?” Luke asked, feeling a thrill of excitement. They’d been traveling more or less aimlessly these past few weeks, always going where the agents were not, keeping a low profile. And while Luke had seen more of the country in that time than he’d seen in the previous seventeen years of his life, even the freedom of a road trip could get boring.
“The agents are taking what’s mine.”
Luke grinned widely, ear-to-ear. He didn’t need any further explanation than that. The agents were going to go down, and whatever wusses with powers that the agents were tracking down didn’t have a chance against Sylar.
“So we need to get you ready.”
“Like how?” Luke asked.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
He had his answer the next day, when Sylar poked Luke out of bed to join him for his morning regimen of sit-ups and push-ups. The pain was literally nauseating, and Luke broke open his cuts again, but Sylar wouldn’t let him stop, refused to let him quit until he was satisfied.
“Satisfied” meant Luke was sweaty, flushed, and in pain from more than his cuts, but Sylar was smiling at him, moisture trickling down both of their faces. Pain became instantly irrelevant.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Again, harder!” Sylar’s voice was sharp, but not cruel as Luke came in again, punching as hard as his half-healed skin would let him. This time the hit was good, solid as Sylar had been trying to teach him for the past two weeks, and Luke instinctively let his power out at the same time. Not because he wanted to hurt Sylar, but because Sylar didn’t want him to hesitate. He wanted Luke to take advantage of everything he had.
Flesh sizzled briefly over Sylar’s ribs, and Luke bit back a wince. Sylar clenched his teeth and growled, seizing both of Luke’s wrists and suddenly ramming him back against the wall, bodies a half-inch apart, breathing Luke’s air.
Luke wasn’t sure if Sylar was going to kill him for making that hit. He wanted Luke to be strong, had gone all Fight Club on him, but… Then again, Luke couldn’t think straight when Sylar was around. Fuck, he wanted to press up into him, see if he was as hard from this as Luke was. He wanted to know if he was having any affect on Sylar outside their times with the razor.
Sylar simply held him down for several long minutes, and finally let go with his left hand to fish into his inner jacket pocket. He came out with the razor, which he pressed into Luke’s hand. Then he waited, eyes burning, dark… intoxicating.
“I want you to do it again,” Luke said, voice cracking as he handed the razor back.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This time the cuts were on the tender skin of Luke’s stomach, from just under the older cuts on the right side of his chest, never crossing the centerline of his body, to just above the waistband of his jeans. The pain was even worse. The skin here was so tender and fragile, and it bled worse, enough that Sylar had to stop at one point and bring a towel over so they wouldn’t stain the bedcover.
Luke’s neck and shoulders were tight and painful as he fought to keep himself still, rigid, breath hitching and sobbing slightly at the pain, tears smearing down his face as he bit his lip hard enough to taste blood. And despite all of that, there was blood flowing elsewhere that he just couldn’t stop.
Sylar was going very slowly, almost excruciatingly so, his hands practically gentle as they tightened Luke’s skin for each cut. There was no possible way Sylar could miss Luke’s arousal at his casual, inadvertent caresses. No possible way.
He didn’t say anything though, not until he was done and told Luke to clean himself up. Not a damn word until Luke had stroked himself to orgasm in the shower and heard Sylar just outside the curtain, his voice husky, saying, “Yeah…”
By the time Luke got out, there were wadded-up bits of toilet paper in the tiny trashcan.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sylar had them tail a team of agents for almost a week, waiting until Luke was at least half-healed, before moving in for the kill. They parked the car a half-block away and waited until the agents came out the back with an unconscious woman slung between two of them.
All of them had gone in the house, bar the driver, who was otherwise… indisposed. At least, Luke didn’t think he was going to be able to separate his hands from the steering wheel anytime soon. Melted plastic was a bitch to get out of bone. Sylar had actually smiled, smiled at him for doing that, keeping the agent silent by telekinetically breaking the man’s jaw so Luke could work.
Luke thought that fighting alongside Sylar was nearly better than sex.
Stepping into the back yard, they’d waited in the open for the agents to emerge. Sylar stepped out in front to meet them.
The agents weren’t complete idiots; they drew on him instantly, dropping their burden to the ground. Sylar smiled, teeth gleaming in the streetlights, as both he and Luke brought their hands up. The guns went flying in all directions, and most of the agents were too smart to go for back-up weapons. The very smartest of them ran. Or tried to.
Luke let heat blast from his hands at the two running agents, both of them going down with muffled cries and the smell of boiling blood marring the night air. Sylar took on the rest, stabbing out at them with telekinesis and electricity, flinging bodies all around the yard like he was some kind of superhero.
Luke hadn’t seen anything that cool since that one Matrix movie.
The agents were remarkably tough, unwilling to go down after a single hit. Luke would have charged in, if Sylar hadn’t thrown him a swift, negating head shake. Then Luke realized Sylar wanted the fight to last. He wasn’t being as efficient as he could. If he’d wanted to just kill the agents, he could have cut them up or broken their necks from a distance, or in an ambush, and had them dead within seconds. This fight… was almost artistic. It was like a live-action stunt show, and Sylar was doing it for Luke.
That rush that gave him was as good as taking out the agents himself.
When the last agent had been knocked sprawling and unconscious, Luke went to grab the woman they’d been carrying, holding her up for Sylar’s inspection. Sylar grinned at him, all teeth, and Luke smiled back, breathing nearly as hard as him despite the lack of exertion.
“Awesome.”
“You got her?” Sylar asked, hand on the drug harness. Luke firmed his grip, ignoring the pain from the stretched skin on his stomach, and nodded. Sylar pulled the tube from the woman’s nose, and held her chin while she slowly regained consciousness.
“The agents are gone,” Sylar said, in an uncharacteristically soft and kind voice. “They were after you because you have a power. What’s your power?”
She was slowly coming around, but wasn’t fully coherent yet. “L-light. I… make light. Not bad, didn’t do anything wrong… please, lemme go…”
“Hmm.” Sylar seemed to consider that for a long moment, and looked over the woman’s shoulder at Luke.
“You gonna take it?” Luke asked, both interested and nervous. Interested because he honestly wanted to see how the hell Sylar did take his powers. Nervous because once he’d taken it, would he start to want more? Would he want Luke’s? Would what they had between them, whateverthefuck it was, be enough to keep him off Sylar’s menu? Luke wanted to think Sylar saw him now, but didn’t want to be so much of idiot to think it hadn’t crossed Sylar’s mind more than once.
“Let’s see it. Show me your power,” Sylar urged gently. The woman still didn’t seem to realize Luke was the one holding her up, and vaguely waved her hand at Sylar’s direction. Pale yellow light seemed to solidify, and she dragged her fingers like she was painting, making the light smear and hang on the air. Luke raised his eyebrows; that was kinda cool. Not earth-shattering, but neat. He bet something like that would be wicked at a rave.
Sylar actually twitched at her display though, Luke saw him. He flinched like he just had a bad memory, and shook his head slightly. Luke slowly let the woman go.
“Better run. The agents will only come back otherwise,” Sylar suggested. His voice was completely casual, as if recommending that she put down ant traps to prevent an infestation in her kitchen. She blinked, and actually seemed to see the agents lying in her back yard for the first time. Blanching, she turned and fled.
“Why didn’t you want her?” Luke asked finally, later when they were at a motel. The night had been… weird. On one hand, going after the agents with Sylar had been everything he wanted. On the other, he had no idea why Sylar had been so weird with that woman. Half of him was still revved and pumped from the fight, the other trying to process what had gone on at the end.
“I don’t like painting,” Sylar said tersely, looking about as torn as Luke did. Luke thought about the cryptic comment for another ten seconds, and then did what he usually did when confronted with something confusing; changed the subject. Sylar didn’t like painting, fine, whatever the hell that meant. Luke knew what he did like.
“You kicked ass though.”
Sylar looked up at him and smiled tightly. The smile got broader when Luke leaned in, putting his hand inside Sylar’s jacket to grab the razor again. This time he’d barely gotten the words out before Sylar had him on the bed, hands rock-steady again as he plied the sharp, sharp blade over the remaining unscarred skin on Luke’s stomach.
It felt real, solid, beyond pain, beyond weakness. Sylar had actually, willingly let Luke see something of himself that wasn’t perfect, his reaction to that woman’s power, and he hadn’t thrown Luke away for it like he had the last two times. This time he’d stayed. As Luke rode out the nauseating pain, feeling the blood flow down his side to soak into the towel Sylar had put there, Luke felt strong for the first time in forever.
He was harder too, despite the pain, hard and throbbing and desperately interested as Sylar’s hand lingered on his tender, sliced skin, fingers tracing back and forth above his waistband. Sylar’s face was inches away from Luke’s fluttering stomach, his warm breath soothing the cuts. Slowly Sylar lowered his lips to Luke’s naval, pressing a kiss into the pink flesh, his tongue flickering out to press inside, probing deep and lingeringly.
It shouldn’t have felt good, but the effect was electrifying. Luke’s nerves lit up at the unexpected intimacy, and his cock strained against the confines of his jeans.
“Sylar…” Luke breathed. “God!”
Sylar didn’t need more encouragement than that, and his hand slid around to the front of Luke’s pants, rubbing hard. It didn’t take long, just a half dozen strokes, and Luke slammed his hips up, crying out wordlessly, the spike of pain from his stomach helping spur his orgasm. Gasping and bleeding, Luke fell back to the bed, flushed, eyes glassy, stomach an artistic red ruin.
“Good boy, Luke,” Sylar said softly, leaning over him to look directly into his eyes, a pleased and proud expression on his face. “So fucking good.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sylar made Luke wait almost three weeks before accepting the razor again. Going twice with only a week between sessions had left Luke nearly unable to walk. He spent the better part of the first three days curled up like a shrimp in the truck, but for once felt slightly more than halfway secure that he wasn’t going to wake up in the motel room alone and abandoned. Hope, once an infrequent visitor that always left the house a mess and no gas in the tank, had almost become a resident.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Luke’s breathing was ragged as he leaned his chin against the back of the chair, nearly matching Sylar’s as he delicately made a small cut over Luke’s shoulder blade. Not being able to see when Sylar would bring the blade down had raised the rest of Luke’s senses to a fever pitch to try to anticipate him. This was the fourth time Sylar had been at Luke’s back, and it still gave him a jolt to have a serial killer behind him with a blade. A really good kind of jolt though.
Another bright slice of pain, and Luke muffled a moan. Damn, all of this, week after week for months now had practically rewired him. He would start to get hard just from watching Sylar shave, let alone strop the razor, and just asking Sylar was enough to make him start to throb. The times between, all Luke had to do was see Sylar looking at him, or feel the ache in his flesh from half-healed wounds, and that would be enough to set him off.
“If you don’t stop moaning, I’m going to make a mistake,” Sylar murmured, hands stretching and soothing Luke’s skin before each cut, breath close enough to warm the blade.
“Sorry,” Luke whispered. He wanted to rock his hips to ease the ache in his groin, but didn’t want to mess up Sylar’s knife-work. He liked how he looked after Sylar got done with him, just seeing himself in the mirror made him realize that he was worth something. Not just to Sylar, but to himself too. Old Luke might not have been able to stand this kind of pain. But he could now. There wasn’t anything the world had managed to throw at him yet that was better (or was it worse?) than anything Sylar had already done to him.
He was stronger now, physically, mentally, more able to hold his own against the agents they targeted. Never too many at once, and they didn’t always kill them when they found them. A crippled or injured soldier, Sylar had reasoned, cost the government more money than a dead one, and also cost them in pride, morale, and power. It sent a message that was unmistakable, “It’s too expensive to go after us. Try it, I dare you.”
So far the government hadn’t dared. Sylar and Luke were only going after agents that had targeted specials Sylar wanted. The weird thing was, Sylar hadn’t taken a power yet. Luke had been there every time, and he had simply rejected them all. Light, enhanced sense of smell, being able to burrow like a big mole, really sharp fingernails, and Luke had thought for certain Sylar would have wanted X-ray vision. But he’d let them all go, all for some odd reason or another. Let them live. Never taken a power in front of Luke.
Luke couldn’t have said for certain that Sylar was not going out later on his own and taking them, but he slept lightly enough that he was pretty sure Sylar wasn’t leaving in the middle of the night. And they were together almost every minute of the daytime. So…
Luke hissed as Sylar made his final cut, and sighed when Sylar pulled him back against his chest. His scored back protested rigorously, but having Sylar put his arms around him, breath warm on his neck, lips dropping a kiss on the nape of his neck…
Luke could handle the pain for that.
He still had to stay there, frozen, for long minutes though. At least until he was certain that he wouldn’t scream in pain.
“Sylar?” he asked, trying to distract himself while he waited for the worst of the pain to fade. “Why haven’t you taken any powers? I thought you wanted them.”
It was the first time he’d ever questioned Sylar about it, and he braced himself for a bad reaction. Instead Sylar went incredibly still, and Luke could feel his breath hot on his neck, lips a bare fraction away from his skin. Then Sylar’s hand slid around to Luke’s groin to palm his heavy erection, rocking slightly.
“We don’t need anyone,” Sylar whispered.
Luke came from Sylar’s voice alone.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When the next time came around, Luke wanted more. He wanted to show Sylar more, to show his intent, his willingness, his… Luke didn’t want to say “devotion,” because that sounded kind of biblical and sort of weird. “Admiration” was too damn dry for what he was feeling. And “love” was so full of pitfalls that he didn’t even want to go there.
Choice. He wanted to show Sylar he’d chosen. That was it.
“Wait,” Luke whispered, and Sylar halted the razor an inch above his shoulder. “I want it to show this time.”
Air rushed out of Sylar’s lungs, and his hands flattened on Luke’s back, the razor trapped under the right palm, as if bracing him from falling. Sylar stayed still for a long time, and Luke wondered if he’d asked too much. Or not enough.
“Where?” Sylar asked, his voice barely audible. Luke uncrossed his arms and extended them fully, rolling his wrists and fingers. There were scars already there from cigarette burns, broken bottles, and other abuses. Luke wanted them gone, overlaid and erased by his choice, his and Sylar’s together. He wanted Sylar to notice the new scars all the time, to see more of a reminder of Luke’s dedication than just his repressed whimpers of pain and stiff movements.
“On the chair, arms on the table,” Sylar said, and Luke rose up from the bed, deliberately stretching and involuntarily wincing as he tried to show off the thin scars decorating his torso. Sylar’s eyes followed him avidly as he sat down and laid out his left arm for Sylar to cut. Sylar pulled his own chair close and leaned over Luke’s arm, the warm blade of the razor resting gently on Luke’s shoulder. Sylar’s breath was close enough to heat Luke’s skin, and he closed his eyes, letting a shiver of anticipation run through him.
This was going to hurt far worse than the cuts on his chest, and he knew it, accepted it, and wanted it.
“Go on,” Luke encouraged, and dropped his head to pillow on his right arm at the table, staring up at Sylar.
Sylar’s first cut was fast, and a little deeper than Luke had expected; the thin slice of pain made him gasp and chew on his lip to get control. He breathed, matching Sylar breath for breath as the heat soothed the new wound. There was a slight gasp when the second cut sliced shallower than the first, the sharp blade keeping the wound from stinging until Sylar had laid a third cut open. Luke kept his eyes open this time, despite the familiar rising pain and faint nausea, eyes filling and overflowing with tears as cut after small cut marched down the inside of his arm. He gasped when they reached his wrist, as Sylar made the shallowest cuts possible over the veins on the tender inner skin.
Swallowing thickly as Sylar wiped the blood away, Luke made a series of faint whimpers as the cuts began again, closer to the outside of his arm, where they could be more easily seen. Sylar slowed down, leaning closer to Luke’s arm as he flicked the blade over and over again, cutting his perfect, shallow, stinging little cuts. His breath was close now, breathing in the metallic scent of blood and the harsher overtones of fear and pain.
He reached the end again, and turned Luke’s arm, exposing the outer skin. He paused, the blade at Luke’s shoulder, and Luke blinked to clear his eyes of tears.
“I want it to show,” he said, proud that there was no quaver in his voice. Sylar’s return gaze was so intense Luke almost felt seared with the heat of it. But it hadn’t been a lie.
Sylar only did one more column before he’d deemed that enough, but when Luke looked in the mirror, he could easily see the cuts everywhere, thin, red, and perfect. Fucking beautiful.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The next day, Luke asked Sylar to stop by the Salvation Army. Sylar didn’t even ask, just gave him some cash and waited in the car. Luke came out twenty minutes later, several t-shirts in a bag. He changed into one of them when they stopped for gas; a size too small, faded logo on dark fabric, and left off his jacket entirely. The healing cuts on his arm showed easily now, enough so that when Sylar came back from inside, he took one look and demanded that Luke drive.
“Uh… you never let me drive.”
“You either drive or I’m going to run the car off the road.”
Awesome.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Again, come on!”
Luke lashed out, Sylar blocked him, and he turned, twisted, and struck out again. Keeping his fingers stiff, like he’d been taught, he jabbed faster, harder.
“You break your hands and it’s going to take you a lot longer to heal than me,” Sylar had reminded him when he’d swung with a closed fist. His voice wasn’t mocking in the slightest. He actually seemed to care if Luke hurt himself. There was some kind of irony in that thought somewhere, but it didn’t matter to Luke in the slightest.
Blocked again. Turn, feint, let the heat surge through his hand, sharper and fiercer now, like the cuts on his arms, both of them completely covered now, helped channel his power. Sylar instinctively turned away from the intense blast, giving Luke the opening he needed. His elbow slammed up into Sylar’s solar plexus, driving the air from his lungs, letting him get a hand around him, finally slapping a palm against the back of Sylar’s head.
Sylar froze for a few moments, and smiled at Luke, a grin of mutual triumph. This was the first time since they’d met, over six months ago now, that Luke had legitimately managed to get the upper hand against him.
“Gotcha,” Luke said, grinning widely. Sylar brought his own hand up slowly and echoed Luke’s pose, pulling him into a hard kiss. Luke went slack, eyes shutting so he could concentrate on Sylar’s mouth on his, the rasping from the stubble on his skin, the faint smell of aftershave, the slight chapped dryness of his lips. Groaning, Luke pulled them closer, and could feel the hard ridge of Sylar’s cock pressing into his hip.
Oh fuck yes. Oh fuck yes…
“Want to. I want to-,” Luke breathed, trying to talk around Sylar’s passion. Sylar abruptly tangled his hand in Luke’s hair, longer now, and pulled his head back.
Mouth gaping, trying to find Sylar’s again even though he knew it was useless, he watched Sylar lean down over him, eyes calculating and appraising. His hips moved in subtle rhythm, and Luke keened softly at the delicious friction.
“I know,” Sylar murmured, mouth suddenly under Luke’s ear, pressing a kiss to his neck. But not now. Not this time, not yet.
“Then…” Luke fumbled for the blade again, and could feel Sylar throbbing against him, growing harder as he pressed the razor into his hand.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
He offered his left hand this time, palm up, finally able to hold back the worst of his tears despite the pain. It wasn’t the pain he was worried about this time, it was his power. When Sylar stretched the skin of his palm, heat was threatening, building, like his power wanted to protect itself. When Sylar cut, the blade sparked and Sylar’s skin scorched. Instead of blood, the wound seemed to leak heat, cauterizing the wound, glowing beautiful red.
That seemed utterly fascinating to Sylar, who traced the first little wound with a curious finger.
“Can you hold it back, Luke?” Sylar asked at length, flipping the blade open and closed. He wanted to complete the cuts badly, Luke knew it, and he wanted him to. Luke’s hands looked empty, strange compared with the rest of his skin now. He wasn’t doing this just to keep Sylar around, not anymore. But they’d started this, and Luke knew they had to finish it. And once they did…
Luke didn’t close his eyes, even though it would have helped. He concentrated fiercely to draw the heat away inside of him. He ignored the warmth of Sylar’s hands, his breath, ignored everything but the pain itself. It helped him focus, and he watched carefully, breath hitching, as Sylar laid very tiny, fine cuts all over his palm and up each of his fingers. His power felt like it was lurking just below the surface of his blood, practically clamoring to get out, and Luke had to dig his nails into his opposite palm to keep control.
When Sylar put the blade aside, he nodded at Luke, who let his power rush up. The heat didn’t just shimmer, it blasted, as if cutting the skin had removed some kind of barrier, and Sylar had to lean back from the table to avoid getting his face seared off.
“Whoa…” Luke said, blinking at his hand like he’d never seen it before. The wounds on his palm had cauterized instantly.
When he looked up, Sylar was looking at him like he’d just gotten exactly what he wanted for Christmas. Minutes later, Sylar had him shaking and moaning, hand palming Luke’s erection through his jeans, mouth on his, tongue practically down his throat as he pushed him into a hard orgasm that left him seeing stars.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Luke shivered, holding onto control with teeth and toenails as Sylar made the last cut on his right hand. He was nearly vibrating inside with power, feeling like something had just clicked between them.
“Go on,” Sylar whispered, wiping down the knife and closing it with a final-sounding snikt.
Luke kept his hands palm up on the table, and gasped as the heat slammed through him, leaving the smell of scorched air in its wake. Gasping, he took it inside himself again as Sylar leaned over him, his hands dropping down on Luke’s, palm-to-palm. Luke stretched up to kiss him as he felt an oddly familiar heat burn down into fingers and palms. But it wasn’t his heat. It was Sylar’s. Sylar was using his power.
Luke could not even make a coherent noise, just a raw, needy moan as he let his power out again, the heat shimmering both up and down. Entwining their fingers, Sylar pulled him up and pushed him down to the bed. Though he hadn’t let go of his hands or his mouth, Luke felt Sylar undoing his belt and pushing down his jeans and boxers with nothing but his mind.
Luke gave a strangled cry as Sylar pulled off his mouth, and started to trail down his neck and chest, tongue slipping out to occasionally trace the lines of the scars, circle and tease a nipple, and dip into his navel. Keening softly in his throat as Sylar nuzzled down the line of his low belly, his chest bumping the end of Luke’s throbbing cock, Luke raised up their joined hands so they wouldn’t inadvertently set the bed on fire. If Sylar had to stop, Luke was going to kill somebody. Twice.
Sound deserted him completely when Sylar licked a spiraling trail down Luke’s cock, going back over and over to taste new skin. A thick and strong touch down a heavy vein, a light tease around the sensitive spot below the crown, a gentle probe in the slit at the end, a delicate lapping over Luke’s balls, all kept him speechless. There had to have been judicious use of telekinesis to keep everything moving so carefully, perfectly without the use of hands, but Luke absolutely did not care. Sylar could do this any fucking way he wanted to.
Luke’s head arched back into the mattress when Sylar finally closed his mouth around the end, sucking gently. No one had ever done anything like this for him before, and the fact that it was Sylar doing it kept him paralyzed and silent. So silent, in fact, that Sylar actually paused, and Luke had to squeeze his hands in reassurance. Squeezed them so hard, in fact, that he nearly dislocated one of Sylar’s fingers. A faint chuckle turned into a languid moan as Sylar slid Luke’s cock down his throat.
“S-Sylar!” Luke managed, his voice strangled and breathless. He was only conscious of his hands and Sylar’s mouth on his flesh. Everything else was irrelevant. Another moan around his cock made Luke buck his hips up, only to be held in a firm, telekinetic grip. Sylar seemed to laugh indulgently around Luke, the vibrations making him grit his teeth to keep from cumming right away. He wanted this to last, and Sylar seemed to understand, squeezing his hands in return as he slowed, taking Luke down languidly, a fraction at a time, laving attention on every inch of him.
The heat started to spike in the room, from powers and passion both as Sylar finally had Luke down to the root. That all-encompassing sensation combined with the deep, potent throbbing, the tightness in his balls, and the tiny shocks of pleasure from Sylar’s throat set him rigid in warning. Sylar swallowed hard around Luke with a muffled growl, and Luke came, screaming Sylar’s name, powers pulsing from one to the other.
Dropping his head flat to the bed, Luke went slack and nerveless, sweat-soaked hair in his eyes as Sylar pulled off of him. Leaning over Luke, hands on either side of his head, Sylar kissed him almost chastely on the lips, a bare brush of flesh that Luke could scarcely return.
“You ready?” he asked.
Luke closed his eyes and nodded. He was definitely ready now. For anything.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This van seemed no different from the others, just another government vehicle with a special or two inside and maybe ten or so agents. And just like the others, they had no chance.
“I thought you wanted a challenge,” Luke asked, looking at the van with a bit of boredom. They’d done this game almost a dozen times already. Lay out a squad of agents, free the boring special they’d collected. It was kinda fun, but didn’t accomplish as much of a goal as Sylar seemed to like.
“It’s not the agents I’m after,” Sylar said. He had a faint smile on his lips. “We’ve got the agents afraid to come out. They know there’s a damn good chance they’re going to get burned or cut if they do. That means any agents out now have some special they really need to collect.”
Luke didn’t ask if Sylar wanted their power. He knew he really didn’t, not anymore. He was confident of that now.
“Anyone they really want to collect has to be a fighter. Someone who hates the government.”
“So like… what? An ally or something?” Luke asked with some trepidation.
“I can make anyone hate me. Doing the opposite is the challenge.”
He grabbed Luke’s hand, clasping it hard both in reassurance and just to feel the raised scars. Luke nodded slowly, gripping back equally hard. He was stronger now; strong enough to know this was solid. There wouldn’t be abandonment at a run-down diner, not in his future. Not even for whoever was in that van.
“So… what’s going to happen when we get this dude out?”
“He’s the diplomat. We’re the nuclear warheads he warns the government he has if they don’t back off.”
Luke started grinning. We. We.
“We’re gonna change the world? That’s the goal?”
“If things go right, we’re not just going to change it. We’re going to be in charge of it. I just need Peter for a public face.”
Sylar echoed his grin and got out of the car. Luke followed him. As they walked towards the van, Luke felt the power rising within him, confident he and Sylar would be able to handle this. Both of them. They were strong enough for this now.