Fanfiction: Monsters, Heroes
MONSTERS
Author: lacidiana
Fandom: Heroes
Pairing: Sylar/Nathan
Genre: Drama/Psych
Words: 2,072
Rating: R; non-consensual sexual content (non-graphic), violence
Spoilers/Notes: Diverging A/U from general S4 events.
Summary: He's not dead, but he'd might as well be.
A/N: This is a fic from early 2010 that I'm dragging out of the archives; I originally planned for it to be longer, but I've eventually accepted it's not going any further and it feels pretty complete as is. Anyway, with so many other WIPs on my plate and the show ended, I figured I'd post this as one last Heroes hurrah!
x-posted: AO3
---
He's a slave.
Every waking moment, every hour he's working, or sleeping, or drinking from bottles like there's an answer at the bottom, he's got shackles weighing on his hands. Every time he grins white teeth at lobbyists, or says hello to the doorman, or shakes someone's hand with a firm, sure grip, he feels the barrel of a gun against his head.
He's been shaking a lot of hands lately.
Right now, though, he's hugging his mother. She stands back from him, asks him if he's doing all right, smiles sweetly as her eyes narrow and give him that piercing look he started noticing six months ago. The look he only began to understand six weeks after that.
"I'm fine, Ma," he hears himself say, and he finishes the smile that had already begun to spread across his face. He pats her shoulder and tells his fingers to clench, to grip hard, to let her know he's not fine -- he's trapped -- God, he's trapped, and she doesn't even know it. She, with all her premonitory wisdom, doesn't have a single clue of what her desperation condemned him to.
This is hell. It's hell, and he doesn't know how much more he can take.
Help me.
But his lips never move and his fingers don't even twitch. Instead, he steps back and begins shuffling papers; he makes small talk about the Yankees and financial reports; he laughs when she mentions Peter's dead-end job and he shakes his head when she asks him if he's seen Noah lately.
He did see him. About a week ago. Saw him scramble for his gun, heard him pull the hammer, felt the gut-wrenching tension as his own arm shot up and cut the air with one stroke of its fingers. Felt the blood on his hands as he crouched down and grabbed him up by his hair, watched the light leave his eyes from behind his cracked glasses and felt his own lips stretch into a sneer.
Except they weren't his own lips. Not that night. Maybe not ever.
His mother asks why his hand is shaking and he says something about not getting enough sleep. It isn't a complete lie, and he finds comfort in the fact that at least one part of this body falls under his involuntary control.
A few more minutes and his mother seems satisfied that what has already taken place isn't going to happen. She kisses his cheek, then leaves, closing the door behind her.
Nathan takes a breath. He hears someone else's voice.
"I can feel how much you hate her."
Nathan turns, wearily, to see Sylar's face staring at him from the mirror. When Nathan grits his teeth, so does the reflection.
"I think you're confusing her with you."
Nathan watches Sylar's face fill with mirth again. "If that makes you feel better."
Nathan wrenches his gaze away and recognizes his own hands when he fumbles to lock the door. Halfway between turning back toward the room and taking a step, he isn't himself again.
Sylar's gait is nearly giddy as he walks toward the desk and draws a finger across its edge. He starts to sit down.
"I think we fooled her pretty well. I'd say I was rubbing off on you if I didn't know you were already a liar."
The words hit Nathan with all the force of a wet rag. He's thinking of other things when he leans his elbows on the desk and buries his face in his hands.
"Do you ever shut up?"
"Not when I'm having this much fun." Sylar leans back in the seat, snatching a peppermint out of the desk's welcome bowl and studying the crinkling plastic as he begins to unwrap it. "You should know that by now."
Nathan frowns as he realizes his bad thumb is much worse at getting candy open than Sylar's. He doesn't bother to answer.
And Sylar makes a point of not continuing as he finally triumphs with the wrapping and tosses the candy into his mouth. Nathan seethes over how he doesn't even like goddamn peppermint as he cracks it between his teeth and swivels the chair toward the window.
He stares out at DC. Sylar does too.
Nathan wonders where, along the way, he got used to this. You aren't supposed to share senses with someone else. You aren't supposed to be to subjected to the whims of a psychopath, to be his silent passenger as he cuts open skulls in the night and uses you the next day to pretend everything's fine. You aren't supposed to share a life with your killer.
Nathan's fingers dig deep into the armrest. He feels a laugh come out of his chest.
"What, Petrelli? You going to pick a fight?"
Nathan's eyes are narrowed, fixed on a point far on the horizon.
"Why shouldn't I?"
"Oh, I could think of several reasons." The chair swivels again and Sylar's eyes move toward the small mirror on Nathan's desk, one of the many that have been steadily multiplying in his home and office. "For one thing, it's thanks to me that you're even here."
Nathan's hand grabs the mirror and holds it up to his face even though it's now reflecting his own features. He's breathing hard.
"It's thanks to you that I'm dead in the first place."
When Sylar laughs, Nathan no longer feels it from within himself. He slowly lowers the mirror and sees the murderer sitting on the edge of his desk, rolling the peppermint around the inside of his cheek like some demented schoolboy. Against all reason, Nathan no longer tastes the candy himself.
"Yeah, well..." Sylar considers for a moment before he clicks his tongue. "Life... isn't fair. What makes you think death's any different?"
Nathan narrows his eyes and looks away. He hates it when he does this. Not that he enjoys any of the maniac's games, but at least when they're swapping forms and words and reflections, he knows he's tied down to a physical self, that despite his death and his unnatural life, the world in front of him is something real, something he can hold and touch. But at times like this, that line becomes blurred. He starts wondering if anything around him exists, if he's living in a nightmare. He doesn't know if he's alive or dead, or in some kind of personal purgatory.
Sylar laughs. Nathan looks up.
"What's so funny?"
"You," he says. He gestures loosely at him. "You and your Catholic weeping."
Nathan pauses. He smirks grimly as he slowly moves his eyes to Sylar's.
"Like you're any better."
Sylar glances. "What?"
"Like you're any better," Nathan repeats, louder. For a moment in time, he can lean back in his chair, can fold his arms across his chest and let himself smile. "You think you're the only one who can cross our wires? I've seen her, in your dreams. Telling you you're--"
Nathan feels his head slam against the back of his chair as it rams into the wall behind him. Sylar is on top of him, straddling him, his hands clutching his collar and pulling it up.
"Don't you dare--"
"Dare what?" Nathan grins. "Tell you what you did? Tell you what I know? Pry into someone's thoughts long enough and they start prying back, Gabe."
For the first time in their shared existence, Sylar's at a loss for words. Nathan knows he shouldn't push his luck, but he can't help it. He shakes as he continues.
"You killed her. Your own--"
"I should get rid of you," Sylar says.
Nathan stops. Freezes.
"I should get rid of you like I should've months ago." Sylar's voice is quiet. His eyes wander over Nathan's face like he's a piece of livestock, one that's scarred and worn-out from abuse. "You've been fun, but I think the honeymoon's over."
Nathan feels a chill crawl up his spine. He'd almost forgotten about this kind of terror. He'd almost forgotten about the beginning, when Sylar's will had been erratic, his control absolute. When Nathan's awareness had been as tenuous as cracking ice; when Sylar had dug deep into his memories, his psyche, had pulled out each individual thread to see which ones were the strongest and which ones hurt the most. He'd cut through Nathan like he was a cadaver that could still feel pain, peeling skin and muscle, nerves and veins, until all that was left were his bones. Murder and resurrection, over, and over, and over again.
He almost hadn't survived.
Nathan feels Sylar's hand gripping his chin, his fingers digging into his jaw. Nathan knows it can't be real, but it's like he can feel the scrape of stubble against his cheek as Sylar leans forward, can feel his hot breath against his ear.
"Unless you convince me you're worth keeping."
Nathan breathes sharply.
He knows this game.
He shuts his eyes as he feels Sylar's other hand against his chest, trailing down. He tries to keep his shoulders squared, his fists clenched, tries to pull himself out of the illusion and into reality even though he knows the truth of the situation is much worse than what the killer is showing him. He knows it's his own hand that's going for his belt, unzipping his fly, pressing its palm down, hard, and making him draw a breath through his teeth. His own hand, in his own office, under his own goddamn desk.
"Not your own hand," Sylar hisses, and Nathan feels Sylar's phantom fingers clench around him. His face flushes with rage as he turns it away. Sylar laughs. Nathan can feel the psychopath's fingertips ghost over his face, like he's studying him. Like he's a specimen, an object. A curiosity.
"You politicians," he murmurs. "Thinking everything's yours. People give you an inch and you take a mile; I let you live and you think my body's yours."
Nathan barks out a laugh from the back of his throat, tense from the strain.
"You owe me one."
Sylar's fingers make it under Nathan's waistband; Nathan feels teeth against his ear.
"I don't owe you anything."
"Yeah you do," Nathan says, quietly. His eyes are still closed, like he can pretend this isn't happening if he draws far enough away from it, if he retreats further into a head that isn't his. "You owe me my life, and my freedom, and my... family."
Nathan feels Sylar slowly pull his face away, drag his hand from Nathan's pants.
"You mean Peter?"
Nathan's eyes snap open. Sylar smirks, leaning back from him and glancing away, as if pondering something.
"Or maybe... Heidi? Simon and Mont...gomery? Definitely your sweet little Claire..."
Nathan doesn't answer, but he knows the look on his face is telling enough. Sylar's raises his hands, disarmingly, as he arches an eyebrow.
"I haven't stopped you from seeing--"
"I'll never let you within an inch of any of them, do you hear me?" Nathan whispers, the words spilling out of his mouth like a flood. He raises one trembling finger, pointing it at Sylar with condemnation befitting a Senator. "I'll kill you first."
Sylar isn't fazed. He keeps grinning as his -- their -- hands start loosening Nathan's tie.
"Right. Tell that to Mr. Bennet." He pauses, gives a small nod of confirmation as he pulls the tie off completely. "And see?" He tosses it over Nathan's shoulder and grins. "You do hate your mother."
Nathan is breathing too hard to shut his eyes, too angry to do anything but glare with fury at the killer who owns his soul like a man owns an appliance. Sylar must notice, because he smirks and leans forward, casually draping his arms over Nathan's shoulders.
"Something wrong, Senator?"
Nathan doesn't answer. Everything's wrong. Everything's gone to hell, and he's watching it from front row seats, or -- no, it's worse than that: he's playing a part on stage, going through the motions and earning applause while all he wants is to do is turn and yell "fire."
He feels Sylar's hand against his face. His nails dig into his cheek.
"That's right, Nathan. I'm all you've got left."
Author: lacidiana
Fandom: Heroes
Pairing: Sylar/Nathan
Genre: Drama/Psych
Words: 2,072
Rating: R; non-consensual sexual content (non-graphic), violence
Spoilers/Notes: Diverging A/U from general S4 events.
Summary: He's not dead, but he'd might as well be.
A/N: This is a fic from early 2010 that I'm dragging out of the archives; I originally planned for it to be longer, but I've eventually accepted it's not going any further and it feels pretty complete as is. Anyway, with so many other WIPs on my plate and the show ended, I figured I'd post this as one last Heroes hurrah!
x-posted: AO3
---
He's a slave.
Every waking moment, every hour he's working, or sleeping, or drinking from bottles like there's an answer at the bottom, he's got shackles weighing on his hands. Every time he grins white teeth at lobbyists, or says hello to the doorman, or shakes someone's hand with a firm, sure grip, he feels the barrel of a gun against his head.
He's been shaking a lot of hands lately.
Right now, though, he's hugging his mother. She stands back from him, asks him if he's doing all right, smiles sweetly as her eyes narrow and give him that piercing look he started noticing six months ago. The look he only began to understand six weeks after that.
"I'm fine, Ma," he hears himself say, and he finishes the smile that had already begun to spread across his face. He pats her shoulder and tells his fingers to clench, to grip hard, to let her know he's not fine -- he's trapped -- God, he's trapped, and she doesn't even know it. She, with all her premonitory wisdom, doesn't have a single clue of what her desperation condemned him to.
This is hell. It's hell, and he doesn't know how much more he can take.
Help me.
But his lips never move and his fingers don't even twitch. Instead, he steps back and begins shuffling papers; he makes small talk about the Yankees and financial reports; he laughs when she mentions Peter's dead-end job and he shakes his head when she asks him if he's seen Noah lately.
He did see him. About a week ago. Saw him scramble for his gun, heard him pull the hammer, felt the gut-wrenching tension as his own arm shot up and cut the air with one stroke of its fingers. Felt the blood on his hands as he crouched down and grabbed him up by his hair, watched the light leave his eyes from behind his cracked glasses and felt his own lips stretch into a sneer.
Except they weren't his own lips. Not that night. Maybe not ever.
His mother asks why his hand is shaking and he says something about not getting enough sleep. It isn't a complete lie, and he finds comfort in the fact that at least one part of this body falls under his involuntary control.
A few more minutes and his mother seems satisfied that what has already taken place isn't going to happen. She kisses his cheek, then leaves, closing the door behind her.
Nathan takes a breath. He hears someone else's voice.
"I can feel how much you hate her."
Nathan turns, wearily, to see Sylar's face staring at him from the mirror. When Nathan grits his teeth, so does the reflection.
"I think you're confusing her with you."
Nathan watches Sylar's face fill with mirth again. "If that makes you feel better."
Nathan wrenches his gaze away and recognizes his own hands when he fumbles to lock the door. Halfway between turning back toward the room and taking a step, he isn't himself again.
Sylar's gait is nearly giddy as he walks toward the desk and draws a finger across its edge. He starts to sit down.
"I think we fooled her pretty well. I'd say I was rubbing off on you if I didn't know you were already a liar."
The words hit Nathan with all the force of a wet rag. He's thinking of other things when he leans his elbows on the desk and buries his face in his hands.
"Do you ever shut up?"
"Not when I'm having this much fun." Sylar leans back in the seat, snatching a peppermint out of the desk's welcome bowl and studying the crinkling plastic as he begins to unwrap it. "You should know that by now."
Nathan frowns as he realizes his bad thumb is much worse at getting candy open than Sylar's. He doesn't bother to answer.
And Sylar makes a point of not continuing as he finally triumphs with the wrapping and tosses the candy into his mouth. Nathan seethes over how he doesn't even like goddamn peppermint as he cracks it between his teeth and swivels the chair toward the window.
He stares out at DC. Sylar does too.
Nathan wonders where, along the way, he got used to this. You aren't supposed to share senses with someone else. You aren't supposed to be to subjected to the whims of a psychopath, to be his silent passenger as he cuts open skulls in the night and uses you the next day to pretend everything's fine. You aren't supposed to share a life with your killer.
Nathan's fingers dig deep into the armrest. He feels a laugh come out of his chest.
"What, Petrelli? You going to pick a fight?"
Nathan's eyes are narrowed, fixed on a point far on the horizon.
"Why shouldn't I?"
"Oh, I could think of several reasons." The chair swivels again and Sylar's eyes move toward the small mirror on Nathan's desk, one of the many that have been steadily multiplying in his home and office. "For one thing, it's thanks to me that you're even here."
Nathan's hand grabs the mirror and holds it up to his face even though it's now reflecting his own features. He's breathing hard.
"It's thanks to you that I'm dead in the first place."
When Sylar laughs, Nathan no longer feels it from within himself. He slowly lowers the mirror and sees the murderer sitting on the edge of his desk, rolling the peppermint around the inside of his cheek like some demented schoolboy. Against all reason, Nathan no longer tastes the candy himself.
"Yeah, well..." Sylar considers for a moment before he clicks his tongue. "Life... isn't fair. What makes you think death's any different?"
Nathan narrows his eyes and looks away. He hates it when he does this. Not that he enjoys any of the maniac's games, but at least when they're swapping forms and words and reflections, he knows he's tied down to a physical self, that despite his death and his unnatural life, the world in front of him is something real, something he can hold and touch. But at times like this, that line becomes blurred. He starts wondering if anything around him exists, if he's living in a nightmare. He doesn't know if he's alive or dead, or in some kind of personal purgatory.
Sylar laughs. Nathan looks up.
"What's so funny?"
"You," he says. He gestures loosely at him. "You and your Catholic weeping."
Nathan pauses. He smirks grimly as he slowly moves his eyes to Sylar's.
"Like you're any better."
Sylar glances. "What?"
"Like you're any better," Nathan repeats, louder. For a moment in time, he can lean back in his chair, can fold his arms across his chest and let himself smile. "You think you're the only one who can cross our wires? I've seen her, in your dreams. Telling you you're--"
Nathan feels his head slam against the back of his chair as it rams into the wall behind him. Sylar is on top of him, straddling him, his hands clutching his collar and pulling it up.
"Don't you dare--"
"Dare what?" Nathan grins. "Tell you what you did? Tell you what I know? Pry into someone's thoughts long enough and they start prying back, Gabe."
For the first time in their shared existence, Sylar's at a loss for words. Nathan knows he shouldn't push his luck, but he can't help it. He shakes as he continues.
"You killed her. Your own--"
"I should get rid of you," Sylar says.
Nathan stops. Freezes.
"I should get rid of you like I should've months ago." Sylar's voice is quiet. His eyes wander over Nathan's face like he's a piece of livestock, one that's scarred and worn-out from abuse. "You've been fun, but I think the honeymoon's over."
Nathan feels a chill crawl up his spine. He'd almost forgotten about this kind of terror. He'd almost forgotten about the beginning, when Sylar's will had been erratic, his control absolute. When Nathan's awareness had been as tenuous as cracking ice; when Sylar had dug deep into his memories, his psyche, had pulled out each individual thread to see which ones were the strongest and which ones hurt the most. He'd cut through Nathan like he was a cadaver that could still feel pain, peeling skin and muscle, nerves and veins, until all that was left were his bones. Murder and resurrection, over, and over, and over again.
He almost hadn't survived.
Nathan feels Sylar's hand gripping his chin, his fingers digging into his jaw. Nathan knows it can't be real, but it's like he can feel the scrape of stubble against his cheek as Sylar leans forward, can feel his hot breath against his ear.
"Unless you convince me you're worth keeping."
Nathan breathes sharply.
He knows this game.
He shuts his eyes as he feels Sylar's other hand against his chest, trailing down. He tries to keep his shoulders squared, his fists clenched, tries to pull himself out of the illusion and into reality even though he knows the truth of the situation is much worse than what the killer is showing him. He knows it's his own hand that's going for his belt, unzipping his fly, pressing its palm down, hard, and making him draw a breath through his teeth. His own hand, in his own office, under his own goddamn desk.
"Not your own hand," Sylar hisses, and Nathan feels Sylar's phantom fingers clench around him. His face flushes with rage as he turns it away. Sylar laughs. Nathan can feel the psychopath's fingertips ghost over his face, like he's studying him. Like he's a specimen, an object. A curiosity.
"You politicians," he murmurs. "Thinking everything's yours. People give you an inch and you take a mile; I let you live and you think my body's yours."
Nathan barks out a laugh from the back of his throat, tense from the strain.
"You owe me one."
Sylar's fingers make it under Nathan's waistband; Nathan feels teeth against his ear.
"I don't owe you anything."
"Yeah you do," Nathan says, quietly. His eyes are still closed, like he can pretend this isn't happening if he draws far enough away from it, if he retreats further into a head that isn't his. "You owe me my life, and my freedom, and my... family."
Nathan feels Sylar slowly pull his face away, drag his hand from Nathan's pants.
"You mean Peter?"
Nathan's eyes snap open. Sylar smirks, leaning back from him and glancing away, as if pondering something.
"Or maybe... Heidi? Simon and Mont...gomery? Definitely your sweet little Claire..."
Nathan doesn't answer, but he knows the look on his face is telling enough. Sylar's raises his hands, disarmingly, as he arches an eyebrow.
"I haven't stopped you from seeing--"
"I'll never let you within an inch of any of them, do you hear me?" Nathan whispers, the words spilling out of his mouth like a flood. He raises one trembling finger, pointing it at Sylar with condemnation befitting a Senator. "I'll kill you first."
Sylar isn't fazed. He keeps grinning as his -- their -- hands start loosening Nathan's tie.
"Right. Tell that to Mr. Bennet." He pauses, gives a small nod of confirmation as he pulls the tie off completely. "And see?" He tosses it over Nathan's shoulder and grins. "You do hate your mother."
Nathan is breathing too hard to shut his eyes, too angry to do anything but glare with fury at the killer who owns his soul like a man owns an appliance. Sylar must notice, because he smirks and leans forward, casually draping his arms over Nathan's shoulders.
"Something wrong, Senator?"
Nathan doesn't answer. Everything's wrong. Everything's gone to hell, and he's watching it from front row seats, or -- no, it's worse than that: he's playing a part on stage, going through the motions and earning applause while all he wants is to do is turn and yell "fire."
He feels Sylar's hand against his face. His nails dig into his cheek.
"That's right, Nathan. I'm all you've got left."