Seduction of the Senses - 16
A/N: Sorry for the long delay :( Unless I collapse again, we shouldn’t have any more really long pauses in the story. I hope you enjoy it - we’re gearing up for the big explosive ending, which is coming up really soon. I’m planning on finishing the entire series by the end of next week. We’ll see if that actually happens or not, but that’s the plan at least.
“I hate you.” Claire gasps against Sylar’s shoulders as she pulls him closer to her at the same time, calling the veracity of her words into doubt.
Sylar just laughs and kisses her neck again. “Sure you do. Just keep telling yourself that, sweetheart.”
“Oooh… no, seriously… oh, Sylar!” She bites her lip for a second. “I really do. Can you please do that again?” She doesn’t understand how her body and mind can be in such discord over Sylar, but she craves his touch much more than she craves her freedom from him.
Instead of honoring her request, he stops his motions altogether and she moans her displeasure. He waits just a few seconds, until she starts squirming against him in a desperate attempt to get him to move again, and then resumes a slow and steady pace. “So… how’s Mike?”
She freezes beneath him. “Do we have to discuss him now?”
“Why not?” He toys with her ear lobe and gently tugs at it, a tender sort of love bite. “It’s not like you’re going to sit down to have coffee and conversation with me.”
“But…” she moans again as he finds a particular sweet spot inside her. “I don’t want to discuss my boyfriend while I’m… you know… with you.”
“Fine.” He grins at how easily she’s fallen into this trap, and rewards her with a kiss. “We won’t discuss him now.”
- - - - - - - - - -
Claire screams when he suddenly materializes next to her in the girls’ locker room.
A hand is quickly placed over her mouth, and he’s whispering “shhh” in her ear as he whisks her off to Florida again. The trip from the locker room to the living room only takes a second, but she’s disoriented when she finds a small table and a coffee pot waiting on them instead of a bed.
“Sylar?” She turns to face him, her questions clearly obvious on her face.
“Well, you didn’t want to discuss him last night, and you didn’t shoot down the coffee date idea…” he trails off as he pulls out a chair for her. “What, do you want tea instead?” The look on his face is pure innocence.
“Coffee’s fine.” She takes her seat, feeling like she’s wandered into the Twilight Zone. Even though he seems predictable at times, she can’t seem to get a grasp on what he’s up to or what he’s going to do next, and she’s not sure if she likes that or not.
He takes his seat, and the coffee pot slowly rises into the air before dispensing two perfect cups. “Sugar or cream?” he asks, as the sugar cubes and a small silver pitcher hang precariously in mid-air over her cup.
Claire just blinks at him. A sugar cube and a small splash of cream spill into her cup, and a spoon jumps off the table to give the cup a swirl. He waits for her to take a sip, but when she doesn’t, the cup rises off the table to nudge at her lips, and he wonders if maybe he’s finally broken her. He’d always assumed that it would take sex or blood to get to her; he’d never suspected that coffee would do the trick.
“So, how was school? And how’s dear Mike?” He asks, as if he doesn’t already know.
She grabs hold of the cup, glad for something solid to hold on to. “He’s… fine, I guess.”
“Oh, pushing him away in some pitiful attempt to get him away from me?” He makes a harsh ‘tsk’ing sound at her. “That’s not going to work. Also, the boy’s shields? Woefully inadequate. Do you know that they fail completely while he’s asleep?” He shakes his head.
Claire pales at the implications of his words. “What do you want me to do?”
“Keep on doing what you’ve been doing. There’s no reason a girl like you shouldn’t have a boyfriend.” He pretends to think for a minute. “Actually, I want you to be with him. Don’t dump him; it just may kill him, heartbreak like that.”
“Dumping him would kill him, or you would?” She’s finding it easier to figure out how his mind works, at least with regards to threats.
“Good girl. You got the gist very quickly on that one.” He gives her a cold stare. “You can’t dump him. If he leaves you, well - he’d be proving that he’s an idiot, but I won’t kill him. Vice versa… two dead exes in a very quick span. That’s just careless, Claire.”
She’s almost scared to voice her next question, afraid to turn the focus from Mike to the rest of her family, but she has to ask. “So, I keep on seeing you and I don’t dump him, and everyone’s still safe?”
“Safe as houses. Well, a slight change in our agreement - I want sex twice a week plus one non-sexual exchange like this.” He takes another sip of his coffee. “Deal?”
Really, it’s a fair deal, and Claire knows it. She hesitates though, not wanting to verbalize her thoughts, not sure if just two nights a week would ever be enough time with him.
“Deal?” he prompts her again, and she delays answering by developing a sudden need for large gulps of coffee. When she doesn’t answer this time, he subtly probes her mind. He can’t help but laugh, even thought it might give away his psychic capabilities.
“How about this, if you don’t like that deal? Sex at least twice a week, and if you don’t want coffee or a snack one day, you can choose sex instead of conversation. Does that fair to you?”
She blushes, but readily agrees to the new terms.
- - - - - - - - - -
Another month passes in a blissful haze, swiftly flowing from slow lazy kisses with Mike to a heated rendezvous with Sylar and back to Mike again. She knows she should be horribly ashamed to be seeing two men at the same time, but she finds that she really doesn’t care. Leaving Mike isn’t an option, not with Sylar’s threat hanging over his head like a sword of Damocles, so she decides to truly date him instead of trying to make him break up with her. She might prefer to get the two extremes of her experiences from one man instead of two, but she knows that Sylar can never display the sort of sweetness that Mike does, and she’s not sure that she’d want him to.
“Claire?”
The sound of Mike’s voice jerks her back to reality. “What?”
Mike grins at her, a crooked little grin that reminds her of Peter. “I was asking if you wanted to go to a movie tonight, or if we were going to hang out with your family instead?”
She finds it a bit disconcerting that she’d apparently not heard his question, lost in thoughts of Sylar. “Um…”
He pretends that she isn’t hesitating or daydreaming, and continues on. “Because I’d really just prefer to hang out at your house. Your mom’s a great cook, and we can just rent a DVD or something.”
There’s something vaguely wrong about her teenaged boyfriend wanting to stay at home with her parents as chaperones, but she assumes that it’s because he doesn’t have parents of his own and she doesn’t argue for going out because she knows nothing intimate will happen with Noah Bennet as a chaperone.
She may enjoy kissing Mike and holding his hand, but first base is as far as she’ll go with him. Her heart and her head and her body just won’t let her go further.
- - - - - - - - - -
Sylar wants to laugh every time Claire squirms against him on the sofa. She’s so uncomfortable, so out of her element even though she’s in her own house, watching her own TV with her parents, and he finds it amusing. It’s also amusing to watch Noah Bennet’s face every time he catches ‘Mike’ draping an arm around Claire’s shoulders or whispering in her ear. He’d picked the movie on purpose, giving more subtle hints about his identity and his plan, but everyone else is oblivious. Slightly uncomfortable, yes, but still oblivious.
It’s even funnier when he kisses Claire good night, then gives Sandra a goodbye hug. He pauses before he walks through the door, and then whirls around and gives Noah a big hug too. His inner sadist giggles with glee at the apoplectic look on Noah’s face when he says “goodnight, Dad - oh, can I call you that? I mean, I do plan on marrying Claire one day, you know that right? Good night!”
He’s still quietly laughing to himself as he walks down the sidewalk, and once he’s out of the Bennets’ line of sight, lets the illusion fade and teleports into Claire’s bedroom. She’s not there yet, but he can hear her and Sandra talking downstairs.
“He’s such a nice boy.” Sandra’s voice is accompanied by running water, and Sylar correctly assumes that they’re in the kitchen. “Now, you can tell me anything - you know that! - so, how serious is it?”
Claire doesn’t say anything, but Sylar knows her well enough to know that she’s shrugging.
Sandra’s voice is filled with concern. “Claire?”
“I don’t know. He keeps talking about marriage and kids and the future, but…” she trails off, favoring another shrug. “He’s not the one. It’s just too much, especially since we’re still in school.”
“Are you going to break up with him?”
“No.” Sylar holds his breath for a second, waiting to see if Claire drops any hints about how she can’t dump Mike.
“Well,” Sandra sounds slightly disappointed, “in that case… He’s such a nice boy; can’t you give him another chance?”
No answer from Claire, and Sandra continues. “Oh, honey. I hate to ask this, I really do - especially since I know you don’t love him - but how serious is this? Physically, I mean. You are being careful, aren’t you?”
“Careful?” Sylar can tell that Sandra’s question has caught Claire off guard by the baffled tone of her voice.
Sandra’s voice drops to a mere whisper, and he has to strain to hear her. “You know... protection. Birth control.”
“Mom!” Claire sounds shocked. “I’m not… we’re not… I mean, honestly! Do you really think I’d let it go that far? I just told you that I don’t love him, and we’re just in high school.”
He can’t stop himself from laughing out loud at the indignant tone in his little hypocrite’s voice. Being in school and not loving him certainly hadn’t stopped her from going after him, and he’d love to hear her try to justify her little plan or her actions since then.
- - - - - - - - - -
Claire’s got a thousand thoughts running through her head as she trudges up the stairs to her room. Everything had gone wrong with that little date, and since she’d just been with Sylar the night before, she knows that he won’t come for her that night. She almost wishes that he would, just take her away.
Even though she wants to see him, to feel him again, she’s still stunned to find him lying on her bed when she opens the door to her room. She looks down the hall, almost expecting her Dad to catch him there, and when she doesn’t see anyone else, she steps into the room and shuts the door behind her.
Her voice is barely a whisper, trying to make sure that she doesn’t get caught with a serial killer in her room - again. “What are you doing here?”
He ignores her question. “I have to say, that Mike has some balls. Calling Noah Bennet ‘Dad’ is a risky move. There might be more to the boy than I’d originally thought.” He sits up slightly, and the change in position is enough to reveal that his pants are already unbuttoned and unzipped, and that his shirt is completely unbuttoned. She instinctively licks her lips at the sight.
Pretending to ignore her predatory gaze, Sylar stretches his arms above his head before turning down the covers just slightly. “Ready for bed, babydoll?”
“What, here?” He’s always taken her back to Florida, always.
“Sure, why not? I can be quiet if you can.” The words are almost a challenge, tossed at her with a devil-may-care grin.
“Um… well, I need to call Mohinder first.” She winces as soon as soon as the words come out of her mouth, knowing that Sylar’s not going to take this slight rejection well, and she wonders at her sanity for favoring a conversation with Mohinder instead of fun-time with Sylar.
“Sure, no problem. Just pretend I’m not here.” He smiles at her, and it throws her off-balance again.
Claire grabs her cell phone off of her desk, and as she dials the now-familiar number, Sylar slips his shirt off. The phone starts ringing right as he pulls his pants off, and she hangs up as soon as she sees that he’d decided to forgo his customary boxers that night. She can always call Mohinder in the morning; naked Sylar definitely takes precedence.
- - - - - - - - - -
The ringing of the phone wakes him from a deep sleep, and he’s almost incapable of answering. “Hi?” sounds more like a sleepy grunt than he’d like.
“Mohinder?”
“Claire?” He rolls over to look at the clock. “It’s four in the morning in California. Is everything okay?”
“I couldn’t sleep, and I knew you’d be almost awake, and I feel bad about not calling last night.”
“Don’t worry. I’d just figured that you had a late date.”
“Er… yeah. A late date. That’s why I didn’t call.”
There’s something about her voice that tips him off. “Oh, Claire, not again. Please tell me you didn’t sleep with him again.”
The only answer he gets is silence, and he groans. “I just don’t understand what your fascination with him is.”
“I can’t help it. I can’t say… I mean, I don’t know.”
He can’t put his finger on it, but her answer disturbs him, especially the “I can’t say” portion. He wonders if she’s made an arrangement with Sylar, and then realizes it’s a stupid thought. Of course Sylar’s got her wrapped up in some sort of deal. The only question is what sort of deal - probably some sort of protection for her family, but Mohinder doesn’t ask. Asking would probably violate the terms of her agreement, and would definitely violate his deal - he can’t tip her off that Sylar’s got a grip on him as well.
“Claire, do you need help?” The question is as vague as he can ask and still get the message across.
“I… have you ever had anyone ask you a question, and it just completely blows your mind because it gets you to think of all sorts of things you never thought about before?”
He’s not sure if her question is a way of changing the conversation or an answer. “Yes. Want to talk about it?”
Claire laughs, slightly bitterly. “It’s going to be awkward.”
“More awkward than the conversations we’ve had in the past? Please, we talk about your love life with a murderer. I think we’ve gone past the awkward stage.”
She hesitates, and he wildly conjectures for a minute what could be more awkward than that. Surely she wouldn’t share all the gory details.
“Um… you’re a doctor, right? Can you answer a medical question?”
Oh. That sort of awkward. He briefly curses himself for answering the phone. “Not that sort of doctor, Claire. You know that.”
“It’s sorta-kinda genetics related - does that help?”
A sorta-kinda question about the medical aspects of genetics? He’s intrigued now. “Just ask already.”
“So… assume that someone is doing something risky with someone else and they aren’t the least little bit careful and um…”
He drops the phone when he makes all the mental connections. It takes him longer than normal, but he’s never been a real morning person. Mohinder’s just glad that he didn’t yell, the poor girl doesn’t need that on top of everything else. He scrambles for the phone, and picks it up to hear Claire calling out “Mohinder? Are you okay?”
“Fine. The phone decided to jump out of my grasp. Just to be clear about your question,” he takes a deep breath before asking, “are you pregnant?” The thoughts running through his head are a wild cacophony of ‘please, no, please, NO’ and ‘I’m going to kill him’, but mostly ‘NO!!!!’
“No. Most definitely not. And that’s why I’m asking. We’ve never been careful, and um… this has been going on frequently, for months. Why aren’t I pregnant? I mean, we hear all the time about how it only takes one time and about how easy it is, especially for teenagers.”
“Well, I can’t say for sure, but - how regularly are we talking?” He hates himself for asking, but he knows that she can’t turn to anyone else for answers.
“Let’s just say very frequently, and leave it at that.”
There are other questions he could ask, but he doesn’t really need to. His father had speculated about regenerative powers before, and Mohinder’s got the same hypotheses. It’s one time that he wishes that he’d been wrong.
“Without an examination, which I’m not giving you so don’t ask, I can’t be certain - but there’s a strong chance that your powers won’t let you get pregnant.” He grimaces as he gives her the news.
She doesn’t say anything for a few minutes, but he doesn’t rush her. He knows he needs time to process the news. Finally, she responds, and her voice is very tiny and weak when she asks “I can’t ever have kids? Ever?”
“As long as you have your powers, no.”
She hangs up on him. He doesn’t blame her.
Chapter 17