FIC: Thus Spoke Zarathustra // Chapter Five : Trick Or Treat Pt.1
Title: Thus Spake Zarathustra: Chapter Five : Trick or Treat Pt.1 (Post #1)
Characters/Pairing: Sylar/Claire
Summary: Master or Husband? Sylar's coming to the slow realization he really can't have both.
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Women as property. Kinks are voyeurism (camera), whips, canes, domination, chains, piercing, semi-predicament bondage but none of the violence is non-consensual or over-the-top (which I will henceforth warn for in light of the obvious fact it could trigger some people).
Notes: ~ 16,150 words all together, much of it sex and Sylar's issues. Which lead to sex. It has lots of kink (the kink I'm counting for my bingo will be the voyeurism, I think). I will be including more Molly (and Luke) in coming chapters but I wanted to get back to basics, so to speak, after taking some weird divergences. The chapter will, of course, be broken into two posts. It's also the first part of a larger chapter. I'm currently working on a second part. My beta is MIA and I'm impatient so *laughs* all mistakes are mine, as usual.
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The house - once a boarding house for some sort of drilling operation - with its three floors and 14 bedrooms left a lot of places to go but Claire spent most her time on the first floor, only venturing up the stairs when he told her to fetch Molly. She probably hadn’t gone far unless she was, for some no doubt aggravating reason, purposefully hiding from him. He called out her name while stalking down the hall to their bedroom but heard no answer or faint shuffling movements. In the open doorway a quick scan of the room told him she wasn’t there. The bathroom door was cracked, like he’d left it, without the light on and he doubted she’d sit in the dark by choice.
As he systematically went through the first floor he grew both more worried and more annoyed with every new room. When he called her name again he put some force into it so it projected up stairs. Small footsteps answered but then Molly appeared at the top of the stairs, not his wife. “Is everything okay, Sylar?”
“I’m just looking for Claire. She wandered off somewhere. Do you know where?”
She shook her head, still staring at him. “I saw her a while ago ‘cause I forgot something in the playroom. She went up the stairs.”
To the third floor? Huh. What could she possibly want up there? “Thank you, kitten.” He smiled at her, seeing how she judged the impromptu nickname. She didn’t object, at least.
By the time he got to the head of the stairs she had nearly reached her room and she smiled back at him. “Maybe she just wanted to be alone. She didn’t seem to like Luke very much. He’s weird. He looks at me funny.”
Sylar frowned sharply. He’d missed that. Where was his head tonight? Clearly first thing tomorrow he’d need to have another talk with their house guest about how he could and couldn’t look at Sylar’s thirteen year old ward if he wanted to keep his eyes. “I’ll talk to him about it and make him stop, okay?”
Breath gushed out of her in relief. “Really? Thank you, Sylar.”
He shrugged and started up the stairs again as he spread out his senses to see if he could pick up a feeling or idea that might pinpoint Claire’s location. Mostly it’d give a direction to go, but it didn’t work until he started his search by going to the left. Three doors down he picked up stormy emotions; at five he actually heard her crying. It let him track her down to a mostly empty bedroom at the end of the hall. He nudged the door open both carefully and quietly.
Standing in the doorway gave him full view of everything but the closet - where he surmised the crying must be coming from. He inched forward as silently as possible, not interested in spooking her or letting her pretend it never happened. When he finally reached the latched closet door he moved quickly, shoving it open and stepping inside then swinging it closed behind him. Despite having no windows he wasn’t plunged into complete darkness; she’d brought a large flashlight which now stood on its tail, shining light on the ceiling that then reflected to fill the small, attached room. Even with its bright beam Claire herself sat in half-shadow wedged into the far corner from the light. From what he could see she was wiping at her cheeks furiously.
“Claire. Princess, why are you hiding in the dark and crying?” He tried to ask without any judgment but she mentally tensed anyway.
“I needed the release. I’m fine now. Really. I’m sorry I wasn’t there when you were looking for me.” She slowly uncurled herself from her wedged in position and leaned further into the light. “What did you want?”
“You. I want to talk to you.” He’d show her after they discussed this. To be clear about his determination he sat down on the carpet, crossing his legs. Neither of them were leaving until they talked. “Why did you need a release? I want you to tell me exactly what’s going on in that head of yours - I’m not reading it from your mind. I could but you hate when I do that. So I expect you to be honest with me, of course, and answer any questions thoroughly. Understand, princess?”
“Yes.” She didn’t answer the question immediately despite his push but Sylar let her gather her thoughts while he simply watched her. When she’d leaned forward it had forced her on her hands and knees, the position she was still in now. It gave him a good angle at her tits where her bra pushed them forward and they hung heavily, swinging gently if she shifted anything. Just the sight of that got him hard. If not for her obvious distress he’d fuck her mouth before getting back to the conversation. “I-I’ve been here a couple of times. When things got hard like after the beating or earlier when I felt myself breaking. Crying let me push out all the bad feelings so I wouldn’t cry at other times. Like times you weren’t trying to make me cry during sex.
“I think all the stress of my parents visiting, the fight you had with my dad, the mall trip with all those people, and now having a house guest only a couple of days later just got to me. I started to worry I’d end up crying for no reason, which can’t be sexy and probably would annoy you. So I came here. I’ve cried now, I feel more in control and less stressed out. I am totally sorry I made you look for me; I thought you’d talk to Luke for a while or help with Molly’s homework like you sometimes do after dinner.”
Sylar raised an eyebrow skeptically. “It’s just stress from all the commotion lately, nothing else? Nothing at all?”
“Yes, just that.” No tickle-shimmer came on and he relaxed a little. “What did you need?” He blinked. “You were looking for me because you needed or wanted something, right?”
“Oh. Yes. I want to show you something.”
As he stood and walked out of the room Claire followed close behind, still crawling. She tried to keep up, she really did, but his long strides and easy steps forced her to her feet and jogging to catch up. By the time he got to the stairs she had. He took her all the way back down to the first floor and stopped only when they reached the bedroom. But instead of getting the door on the left, which led there, he opened the door on the right.
While she’d been preparing dinner he’d used his abilities to transfer most of his various equipment into here. Theoretical favorites - tools he wanted to try out on her the most - hung by hooks designed for key rings. Boards with four or five hooks in a row were nailed carefully to the walls.
Most of the tools were still in the storage containers he’d labeled and kept in his walk-in closet and those storage containers were in standing shelves that reminded him of cubby holes in elementary school. Two or three containers, depending on the size, fit in each square hole and each of the three box shelves had 16 cubby holes. Even with his extensive collection he didn’t have enough to fill all three so he left the bottom row empty in each. But the real boon was the furniture.
Besides the bed, a bed at a perfect height for fucking, the room now held three other pieces of furniture. From his first trip to Alexander’s he had a long, narrow and padded table with fitted stockades for holding both her head and her legs in place and in nearly any position he could think of. The others were from an actual furniture store. A very modern looking black leather chair with oval shaped pads in place of a solid back. The pads curved back, forcing the seated party to lay in a position similar to a dentist’s chair. It came with an ottoman for putting someone’s feet up and had an adjustable height. If the designed hadn’t intended for it to be used in sex games Sylar would be very surprised. A bamboo privacy screen sectioned into four adjustable parts and decorated with colorful and vibrant flowers on one side. A blue futon couch hybrid that could be laid out like a bed or folded up with an arm rest on each end. For someone Claire’s size it’d be easy to sleep on it with her head slightly inclined. And, finally, a narrow wrought iron table meant for an entry way. Attached to the legs at one end of the table was a shelf of sorts. Anyone bent over it would suffer discomfort, which was really the point.
He smiled as Claire took each piece in, no doubt making the same sexual connections he made when he first saw the pieces. But the real coup was still covered. He pulled her close to him by wrapping his arms around her from behind where he could nuzzle the top of her head. With telekinesis Sylar activated the button that pulled the bed sheet up and revealed the cage.
She gasped at the reveal, jerking in his grip a second later and almost breaking it because of his loose hold. He set his muscles to firm up his grip and squeezed tighter as well. Unlike what he expected she didn’t relax into the new, tighter grip. She jerked harder, still stuck but undeterred by his superior strength. He realized her heart thudded in her chest, the tap-tap-tap of a trapped rabbit, and she made the occasional little whimper-y noise before she found her words.
“You said no more cage. You agreed. You asked me what I hated and feared and never, ever wanted to be hurt by again and then you agreed no more cage! You promised…” She whined in a sound more animal than human.
“Claire, stop being a cunt and calm down. What I agreed to was never putting you in the cage in the attic. This isn’t in the attic, it isn’t the same cage. I’m even willing to say now that I won’t put you in a cage that’ll intentionally cause you more pain than the occasional cramped muscle. No more shocks, no more sleep deprivation.” He released his hold enough to press his hand along the front of her collar and tug the ring out to hold. “I never said no more cages at all. It’s just a cage, princess, just metal bars. This one even has a sheepskin blanket stretched over the floor to be more comfortable. I am going to use this cage: maybe as punishment, maybe to have you sleep in it, but mostly because I love the look of hope you get when I come near, staring from behind those bars with such an obvious plea that this time I’ll let you out. It’s very erotic.”
She’d finally started calming down, her heartbeat returned to normal, and she whispered, “Controlling everything. Food, water, when I use the bathroom. I see why it appeals to you, sir. I’m sorry for my reaction. I was scared.”
“I know.” He stroked up one of her arms and tugged at the ring again. “I know how much the cage in the attic terrifies you.” Sylar kissed the top of her head and took in a deep breath, catching a combination of her sweet, tangy shampoo and the smell of sex. Fuck but it made him hard.
He was hard. Claire rolled her hips to lightly grind against Sylar’s growing erection in hopes of distracting him from her recent misbehavior. Whether it worked or not wasn’t clear when he ordered: “Go lie down on the bed, face up.” He released her collar reluctantly and made his way to one cubby while she followed directions and lost sight of him.
When he came back he held a small box that looked a little familiar, like she’d seen it before, but she didn’t know where until he popped the latch and pushed the lid open. Little earnings of all sorts rested in the bottom layers of the box while needles and sterile pads sat on a smaller tray above the rest. He took out the tray and dumped out the earrings onto the bed, shifting through them. “There, perfect.” Sylar smiled in a lazy, satisfied way and pinched one of her nipples playfully, laughing when she squeaked a little in surprise. Then he put the earrings on her stomach and picked up the piercing needle.
She tried controlling her breath so that her chest only barely moved and when he put the tip of the needle against the nerve-filled flesh in the base of her right nipple she held her breath completely. He punched the needle in and through, knocking a pained gasp from her. Sitting still for the next needle proved harder for Claire with how fresh the other nipple’s pain felt. She forced herself to anyway. When he lined up the path he wanted to use she even managed a small smile. Sylar leaned over to kiss her and as his lips met hers he shoved in the needle, tearing it through nerves so sensitive it felt like he’d burned her. Only a breathless squeak escaped her. The burn turned to a warm ache before disappearing as her skin healed around the needles. He straddled her now, taking a second to reach down and stroke her hair before pushing one of the needles through with the piercing he’d chosen for her. It hurt just as much when her skin got skewered a second time but this time she kept control, staying silent but a little breathless. The idea of doing this again, for the other nipple, almost made her flinch. Instead she closed her eyes and breathed through the pain when it came. Her skin closed up a second time, sealing the piercings in place.
“Good girl.”
Claire’s stomach twisted happily at the now rare phrase and she opened her eyes. He reached a hand behind her head and raised it, using his palm for support. She could easily see the new piercings on her chest. To her surprise they circled her nipples, little bands of silver-gray metal with tiny spikes on them, and seemed to be held together by a single bar crossing through the middle. The rings fit just a little too snugly around the base of her nipples, making sure that she felt a slight pressure on the nerves there at all times. It didn’t hurt and wasn’t uncomfortable at the moment but she doubted it’d stay that way. Eventually her nerves would get the message and understand the tight pressure on them blocked off blood flow they really needed to have and then her body would send pain messages to her brain. She did flinch when she thought about that - Sylar would need to change the piercings then.
“What’s wrong?” he asked. She shook her head.
“Nothing important. I’m just not looking forward to going through that again. It hurt more than when you pierced my clit.” Which didn’t make sense but it had.
He nodded at her. “When I pierced your clit you were half-drugged and I helped block some of the pain anyway. I didn’t want to overwhelm you.” The obvious - that he didn’t care if he overwhelmed her now and, anyway, she was a lot harder to rattle now days - stayed unspoken and she felt just a little bit grateful for that. It meant she didn’t have to look at the ‘half-drugged’ statement too closely.
“Oh.” She smiled at him and sat up entirely so his hand wouldn’t need to support her anymore. “Do you want to try my new decorations out, then, sir?”
His tongue darted out to lick his lips in anticipation, the answer to that obvious on his face. Of course he did; why else would he pierce her in the first place? “You know I do, babydoll, but maybe I better take care of myself, just this once.” That made Claire frown like nothing else would. Why the hell wouldn’t he want her? He liked fucking her, he liked it a lot. Had she done something wrong? “Claire, it’s not you. These last few days have been stressful for me too. First the fight with Noah, then the shopping trip where Molly about ran me ragged, and now dealing with another mouth to account for stresses me out too. Right now I want almost nothing more than to take all my frustration and excess energy out on you one painful inch at a time.”
That meant a lot and she shivered at the factual admission of what he wanted. But what she didn’t understand was why he didn’t just do it, take it. He couldn’t be waiting for permission or request, the very idea of that seemed ridiculous on an almost stupid level. But she asked anyway, tilting her head with a slight incline because even when they both sat she looked up at him. “Then do that. Why would you settle for a hand job, and a self-applied one at that, when you can have exactly what you want?”
“I don’t think you understand, Claire. I want to hurt you, someone. I want to take all the shit that comes with seeing Noah and everything else out on someone, anyone who would bleed. If I start I don’t trust myself to stop if it gets too much for you, if I hurt you past whatever level it is that lets you convince yourself that everything is fine.”
The words hung between them for a little while, mostly because she didn’t know what to say and it looked like Sylar said all he wanted to say. Then she asked, “Would you hold me in your lap and stroke me and call me Good Girl? After you did whatever it is you’re scared of maybe going too far with. Would you?”
“Babydoll, I’ll do that now. Come over, climb in my lap.” He lifted an arm that would hug her tight once she got in range but she didn’t get in range.
She fought not to follow his order automatically and stayed where she was, only a foot from him now, and maybe a million miles away in his mind. “No.” The word sounded foreign and ugly on her lips when she used it against him, even if she did have permission. And this might not count as permission. It made her feel a little sick inside to even say it. “After. After you do what you need to do, would you baby me and tell me I did a good job? I’d like that a lot.”
“Claire, you’re not listening. I made you a promise never to beat you again, not in some serious and brutal way, and I intend to keep my promise. I’ll get it under control, then check out how these new piercings make you feel.” He gave her a tight smile and started to get up.
“I want you to do it.”
“What?” Sylar cocked his head like he couldn’t have heard right. Of course he had heard right with his perfect hearing. This hesitation was all mental.
“It’s my…” She didn’t want to say the things that’d make it easy for him to argue and convince himself he’d done the right. Things like ‘I belong to you’ and ‘It’s my purpose to make you happy. That’s what I’m here for.’ So instead she said, “… place as your wife. You should be able to come to me when you feel like everything’s a little too out of control, just like I’d go to you.” She thought of how she hadn’t done that at all by choosing to hide, crying alone in that abandoned room while hoping he didn’t notice. “Like I’d go to you now, anyway. I was stupid for hiding like that but I guess I thought you’d be angry for me crying without a better reason.” Like being beat.
He shook his head slowly and it seemed sad somehow. “I’d never be angry at you for something like that, just relieved you have a way to handle it when things get really hard.” The only thing worse than hiding away from him would be falling apart again, the way she did earlier after he beat her the last time. But she trusted him not to go that far when he wasn’t angry and she could handle anything up to that.
She could. “You’re not angry now, are you?”
Sylar’s bushy eyebrows drew together as he gave her an almost suspicious look. Slowly, he answered “No. I’m not angry.”
“Then I trust you not to go too far, not to go so far I can’t handle it.” Claire smiled at him, trying to reassure him and be encouraging all at once. “When you’re angry…” She shook her head. “When you’re angry maybe you would but you’re not angry now so I’m not worried. I promise I’ll use my safe word if you do go too far, okay?” She had to mean it because he’d tell a lie but she didn’t have to define what she meant by ‘too far’. “And if I say Mr. Muggles you stop, right? That’s how it works?”
“Yes. That’s how a safe word works.” On his knees now he still towered over her sitting on the floor and she waited for him to either keep getting up or sit back down. One or the other and that’d be his decision. “Promise me. Promise me you’ll use it not just if I go ‘too far’ -“ Claire heard the quotes in his voice. “-but if it starts reminding you of the day of your miscarriage. The second it starts to do that you say it. Promise.”
She licked her lips. If he started in on her, really in on her, she knew it’d remind her of that bad, bad day. Seemed Sylar knew it too. She did the only thing she could: “I promise.”
He sat back down. “Alright. Then I’m going to go get the camera while you think about some things you feel might entertain me in my current mood.”
Making her think of things meant that he would get an idea of her limits right now as well as get her more involved with the scene. An active participant instead of a passive victim, she guessed. She didn’t guess much, though, wishing he’d just choose what he wanted to do and do it. No question she’d reach the floaty place today and that couldn’t be anything but good. She liked that state of mind. Right now Claire followed his order, not wanting to go against him for the second time in less than 30 minutes.
Given his current mood - a mood to hurt someone as a release - he probably would want things with immediate payoffs, nothing too planned out or subtle or made for emotional harm. It seemed the simplest way to do that would be just doing it. Take a tool or his hands and hit her until one of them couldn’t do it anymore. Most of the time when they had sex or sex-like activities he didn’t use anything, just his hands twisting her nipples or slapping her pussy or pinching the inside of her thighs until she came hard, but the times he did he liked to tie her up. So tie her up and then do it. She just needed the perfect tie. This new bed had the design of a canopy but without the actual canopy on it. Maybe later he’d decorate it a little more and give the inside a box-like feeling but for now the metal canopy support posts made perfect places to attach a tie. She could suggest the classic spread out, each limb tied to one post to form an X of sorts. It’d keep her legs spread but she could do that, no tie necessary. She might suggest that - him punishing her for every flinch or rock she made out of position because if he hit hard enough she would be tempted to move, to try to get away from the next strike.
“Thought of anything?”
Nothing good enough, not yet. “Just the obvious, sir.” She watched as he set up the camera on its tripod. “Why don’t you pick one of the toys you want to try on me and start? That’s what you want to do, right?”
He swallowed roughly, his expression intent as he turned around to face her. “What I want? I want things not good for either of us.”
“I thought you agreed - we just talked about this.” Claire frowned. Had he changed his mind while getting the camera? “I want you to do what you want.”
Sylar laughed mirthlessly. She’d never heard such a dead laugh, an unfunny laugh, before and it sent chills down her spine. “What I want to do is use my telekinesis to make little, shallow cuts, just enough to get a thin ribbon of blood trickling onto the bed sheets from each cut. I want to do that so that when I’m done there’s a perfect outline of you on the bed.”
Despite all her training by him - both planned and through impulsive, angry reactions - those words still pushed the fear up into her throat so hard she felt she’d choke on it for the first time since she lost the baby. Telekinesis, cutting her, holding her, it got to her at the very core of her fight-or-flight response. Since she couldn’t do either, she blew out a slow, shaky breath and said, “So long as they’re shallow that shouldn’t hurt the baby.” It might even be safer than some of the other options, like hitting around the area with something thick like a heavy cane or paddle.
“Oh, babydoll.” After coming over to her Sylar cupped her face, tilting it up a little bit. Then he seemed to reconsider and he sat down next to her on the bed instead without taking his hand off her cheek.
“Yes, Sylar?” He liked his name and, with what he wanted to do, it fit the moment.
“Do you ever think about the future?”
Claire blinked at the randomness of that question, leaning her head into his hand accidentally when she cocked her head a little. She stopped when she realized what she’d done. But that didn’t take away the confusion. “The future? Um, I think about what it might be like to be pregnant. How big am I going to get and how will it feel, things like that. And sometimes I think about what having a little girl could be like, little feet pattering around below me without the sound belonging to a dog for once. That’s about all. Oh, wait --
“I guess now I’m thinking about what classes might be like. What being around people again could feel like. That really is all.” Was it the right answer, or the wrong one?
He didn’t say anything for nearly a minute - according to the count in her head - and she wanted to make another suggestion, one about how he might tie her up, but it stuck in her throat. When he got quiet and think-y things could change in an instant demanding she keep up or pay the price for staying behind. Finally, he spoke up again. “What about a few years from now? Not just with a baby walking around but really think about it. By the time the baby’s walking and talking steadily you’ll be going into your third year or so. You’ll need to declare a major. Molly will be halfway through high school. And, of course, we’ll still be together, the same as we will thirty years from now and three hundred.”
“I don’t really think about it,” she admitted without having to think about that either. Her major she could figure out later and everything else was such a static, inevitable fact that it didn’t seem to need any time or energy spent thinking about it. “I need to take some general classes before I know what I really want to do.”
“And the rest?”
Some of the fear bled away finally and Claire smiled. “I don’t think about the stars in the sky changing either. No need to think about truths until you’re at one.”
He nodded just slightly but she couldn’t tell notice from approval right now. His hand slipped along her jawline and away. “So you don’t think about this at all. You don’t think about being hit at least once nearly every day and really hurt once every few weeks for my amusement, to keep me under control. Whatever you want to call it. And you don’t think about being fucked in your cunt, or your mouth, or your ass whenever, wherever I want whether you’re embarrassed or not. Hell, it doesn’t even matter if you’re in the mood or not because we both know you’re not going to tell me no for that.
“Earlier, when I found you crying upstairs and you leaned forward so that your breasts hung and swayed I thought about how much I wanted to fuck your mouth before we went back to the conversation. And if I had you’d have, what?”
It took her a long while to realize that’d actually been a serious question she should answer. She didn’t apologize because apologies were useless. Actions were the important thing. “Right then? I’d have opened my mouth and waited for you to decide if you wanted to fuck my throat or if I should take a more active role. How else would I react?”
“A time not too long ago, Claire, you reacted by asking me to please not make you do it. Or maybe asked if getting me off like that would mean you got the rest of the afternoon off, like you were on duty.”
She didn’t mention she still felt on-duty, but for a job that never went off the clock. It stayed with her 24/7 and she tried to work it even in her sleep. The other thoughts like wanting the whole afternoon off and blowjob avoidance were bad girl thoughts that got her in trouble at the time and would get her in trouble again if she let them. And the last thing Claire wanted was to be in trouble. So, she simply said, “I changed.” The air felt tense and thick as he dealt with that statement while giving her a look very close to disapproval. She needed to change that somehow but hell if she knew how.
“You changed.” He continued to stare, making her flush as heat ran up her neck. But then his expression softened into something far more safe. Maybe. “Yes, you have. You’re much better trained to be a slave girl and sex toy now, aren’t you?”
This might have been a rhetorical question so she kept her answer to herself for now. Outwardly, she lowered her eyes and felt almost shy. The question wasn’t was she trained but was she trained enough to satisfy all his needs and pass his strict standards. Maybe the time finally came for him to test her on all she’d learned.
“Answer my question, babydoll.”
She smiled after all and brought her gaze back up a little. “Do you mean better trained than when I got here? Because, yeah, of course. The training took, didn’t it? And I’m better than I was before the… Bad Place too.” Referring to it like that took out some of the fear and the sting. Only some but some needed to be enough here.
“Since the Bad Place.” He used her term for it hesitantly, not quite sure of the way it came out. “Since you changed, as you called it.” No direct question there but it demanded an answer anyway.
“Oh.” She refused to lose her smile, though it softened to a close-mouth quirk of her top lip. This line of questioning seemed weird, even for him, especially when he knew the answers already. “I like to think so. I definitely obey better and I’ve been trying to be a better slave. You know, more useful in other ways besides sex. Plus, of course, enthusiastic in the sex part. As enthusiastic as a new bride, right?” Her eyebrows went up in hope he agreed. He didn’t say anything. “So, yes. My training’s a lot further along, maybe even complete for what you want to do with me. I don’t know, though; it’s your plan.”
“My plan,” he agreed, still acting weird. He’d brought his hand up to his mouth, rubbed it like he wanted to clean something off. Then he bit on his thumbnail while he thought. She still stayed silent, both worried by his strange mood and scared of trying to distract him from it. If she tried to interrupt whatever this meant, whatever change it would bring, he might be very angry and she didn’t know what he’d do if he got angry. Nothing good.
Maybe this was what he meant. For as long as they did this, this playing house thing he wanted right now, she’d always need to think about that: the inevitable point he’d become angry and, from angry, unpredictable. Hurtful. Scary. In a way it meant, as calm as she felt about it, she’d always have to live in fear. And she did feel calm about it; not being calm about it would be like worrying about a tornado coming. You can prepare but in the end it came, it did what it did, and either you survived or you didn’t. She’d always survive physically. Some day he might do something to shatter her mentally but she couldn’t turn a tornado around and she couldn’t protect herself against that.
Claire licked her lips. This she felt, well, not safe, but not stupid for bringing up, since he’d asked her the question and all. This was just being honest with him: “Do you mean how I’m always thinking about whether something I could do is probably going to make you angry or probably going to be safe?” With him nothing was guaranteed except that, eventually, he’d get angry again. “Living like that?”
“Yes, Claire. That’s exactly what I meant.”
He’d told her he’d stay out of her head, because she hated it, but she needed to tell him everything in exchange. He would have meant that - everything - so she did her best: “I don’t. Don’t really think about the future, that is. I don’t think about it because you can always change your mind, at any time, for any reason, and if you do then little things or big things, or both things, change too. So whatever future I think about might be gone tomorrow or next week or a year from now. So, no, I don’t think about the future. I think about now. Mostly I think about what might please you the most right now. Sometimes I miss my mom.” She hated admitting that even though she knew he already knew it. It still felt weird… wrong to admit something like that. But he wanted the whole truth. “Sometimes I think about what life might have been like if I hadn’t been special. If I’d just been some normal girl growing up in Texas with a father who was actually in paper sales and not lying to everyone he supposedly loves. I think about that less and less lately. Lately what I think about is you being happy with me. I want that. You wanted to know what I want. I want that more than anything. More than anything in the world I want you to be happy with me.”
“But you don’t mean happy,” he told her as he pulled his hand away from his mouth. “Not the way I mean happy when I say I want you to be happy with me. You mean pleased. You want me to be pleased with you.”
She nodded. Pleased did work better than happy. “Yes, that. I want you to be pleased with me. It’s hard to tell because the Bad Place kinda burnt all the fear out of me but it makes me feel better when you’re pleased. I don’t worry so much about making you angry then. When you’re pleased with me I’m not scared. It’s when I disappoint you that the fear starts. When I anger you is even worse. So, tell me what I need to do to please you right now. You wanted to do this, right?” She took Sylar’s hand in hers and brought it to her bare breast. “Is this where you wanted to start?”
He jerked his hand away from her and, sure enough, she felt the distant, muted, locked up fear banging on the walls and screaming in her head. With vicious, ruthless force Claire shoved it all the way back down; it couldn’t help her here and she didn’t want it. She bit her lip on the urge to apologize, because he didn’t care about apologies, and the even stronger urge to ask what she did wrong. She was trying.
“I’m trying.” It came out without permission from the rest of her brain and she winced on the other side of it. But this was one rabbit that couldn’t be shoved back in the hat. “I’m doing the best I know how, Sylar. I need to know what it is you want, or need, me to do so I don’t do something that makes you angry, whatever that is today.”
Maybe she said the wrong thing. Maybe she took the truth too far. But she couldn’t unsay it and she didn’t know she wanted to anyway.
He laughed, an amused sort of chuckle that seemed to be more at her than anything. When he shook his head she looked down at her hands and stopped watching him. She didn’t need to see the condescension or annoyance on his face at the stupid little girl who couldn’t even figure out how to be a good toy.
“Claire, sweetheart. Babydoll.” His fingers grazed her jaw and she flinched out of instinct more than anything. “Well, I don’t like when you do that but that’s my own fault so I guess I can’t be surprised.” His fingers laid against her skin, then gripped and pressed with his knuckles pushing up under her chin and his thumb on her full bottom lip. “I really need to figure out what I want. Riding the line like this is going to break you irreparably sooner rather than later.”
That didn’t seem to require, or ask for, a response so she stayed silent.
The pad of his thumb brushed along her lip, spreading the saliva she’d put there when worrying it. “So the question is: do I want a wife or do I want a slave? It seems I can’t have both, not with the way I got you here.” She still didn’t raise her eyes to look at him because she didn’t have an answer. No, she had an answer. It just wasn’t the one he wanted. But then she didn’t have a choice when Sylar asked: “What do you think? What would you prefer? Knowing this would be your future and that while I might not be perfect at it I’d do my best not to treat you like a slave - even if that means giving you the ability to get away from me if, when, I lost that fight - do you want to change the decision you made before?”
A lot happened since then but nothing that changed her mind. He moved his thumb off her mouth so she could answer. “I don’t have the answer you want.”
“I want you to answer my question.”
His fingers pressed harder and she swallowed on the feel of them pressing against her throat. “Yes, sir.” Claire didn’t try to smile. She didn’t try to do or say anything to distract from what she said even though she badly, badly wanted to. “It wasn’t a decision.” His eyes drew together shrewdly but he waited, waited for her to explain herself. “Being your wife in, I don’t know, the way that has people meet, get to know each other, and fall in love can’t happen. We met and you tried to cut open my head while I was still conscious. I thought you were trying to kill me. You did kill my best friend since sixth grade. We got to know each other by you coming after me not just once but three times before you just took me for good. And I don’t even know what love is. I know my father says he loves me and says he loves my mom but if that’s true then that means you can lie and damage the people you love without losing any sleep at night and I don’t want to think of that as love. It’s a type of loyalty, maybe a sense of possession. I don’t know.
“Mostly I know you took me. I lost my virginity scared and in pain and helpless. And then you did it again and again and again. God, you must have used me, my body, me at least three or four times a day until you put me in that, that cage. The cage was its own type of hell. So I found a way to escape or learn to live with it. Something like that. It doesn’t involve trying to be something I’m not.” She licked her lips. “I don’t even know what you mean when you say ‘wife’. The only wife I’ve really ever seen is my mom and I figure she can’t be a normal example. But I don’t know what to do because I can’t, I don’t, I don’t know how to be a wife, let alone a wife to you, and you get so angry at the way I found to cope.” Done. A big breath of air, powered by relief, pushed out of her in a slow release. Then she waited, the fear still trying to rise to the surface. But she couldn’t let it. She’d start crying or stop responding if she let it and neither one would make this situation better.
“I mean… Someone to share your life with. Watching television, making meals, sleeping next to, all those things. Someone you love, who loves you, sleeping next to you. That’s what having a wife means to me. It means a partner.” Pretty words and Sylar kissed her forehead.
“I do that,” Claire pointed out quietly. “I just do extra stuff too to try and please you.”
“You act like a toy. You treat your own body like it doesn’t matter what happens to it.”
It didn’t. She’d heal. Healing was what she did, whether she liked it or not. “Whatever happens it’ll end up good as new, ready for what you need next,” she pointed this out too just as quietly as before.
He sighed. “That’s exactly what I mean. You don’t even think about it being a question of hurting you, you just assume I will until you’re hurt enough I have to wait for you to heal.”
No, that wasn’t right. She was better than that - it was the one advantage her ability gave her here. “You don’t have to wait. I heal too fast.”
His fingers wrapped around one of her hands, squeezing it, and she didn’t know if he meant it for warning or support. “That’s what I’m talking about. It’s like how you think I only want your body and not your mind, not you. I want you, Claire Bennet nee Petrelli. Maybe that’s it. Maybe I need to go back to before this started and warn myself not to take you yet. I can wait for you to be ready this time. No rape, no cages, nothing.”
“No deal to stop killing,” she added, pursing her lips. Making that deal was the best thing she’d done - ever. Not for her, no, but for everyone else. “And killing while you wait for me to grow up.”
“Maybe.” He didn’t lie and tell her he’d stop that too, even while he waited. “But you’d get the chance to go to college and be normal for at least a little while.” His teeth clenched but Sylar even added, “Have your first time be with some college kid who has no idea how lucky he is to lie in bed with you.” As clear as anything: he hated that idea, especially the part where a faceless boyfriend touched her.
What would that be like? To start classes, worried only about making friend and maybe the disappearance - or revealed death - of her bio dad. Maybe she’d join a sorority, she thought her mom was in one in college and they went for daughters of former members, didn’t they? And she’d meet a boy in one of her classes, like his smile, and agree to go on a date with him. They’d date and after a few she’d invite him back to her room when her roommate was gone overnight. Her first time would be clueless and they wouldn’t be in love but it’d be warm and without fear. Nothing like her life, in other words.
Nothing she could have, even if he went back and convinced himself to leave her alone. Long before her perfect life of dull normalcy could get a foot off the ground some other crisis would happen just like every time things calmed down since the day she first noticed her ability.
“If that’s what you want, sir.” She didn’t want it but that didn’t really matter. “Do you want to play with me while you decide?”
“You’re upset at the idea. It’s in your voice.” Or her emotions. He might not be reading Claire’s thoughts but he could still read her. Maybe he couldn’t even tell when he used it anymore. Sylar touched her again but not on the breast where she left off: he cupped her shoulders, holding both of them like he either wanted to hug her or keep her still. She’d be still for him without the hold, didn’t he know that? “Why? Why, Claire? Don’t you want things to be different so you were never raped, never hurt like I’ve hurt you, never broken like I’ve broken you?”
That should be what she wanted. After all, a minute ago she told him about how scared she felt pretty much all the time unless she cut herself off from being able to feel fear at all. “I guess. It’s the normal thing to want, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Sylar replied simply, releasing her shoulders.
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Comments, either separately on each post or all at once, are very much welcome. I work pretty hard on the story so I like knowing people are still enjoying it.
Characters/Pairing: Sylar/Claire
Summary: Master or Husband? Sylar's coming to the slow realization he really can't have both.
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Women as property. Kinks are voyeurism (camera), whips, canes, domination, chains, piercing, semi-predicament bondage but none of the violence is non-consensual or over-the-top (which I will henceforth warn for in light of the obvious fact it could trigger some people).
Notes: ~ 16,150 words all together, much of it sex and Sylar's issues. Which lead to sex. It has lots of kink (the kink I'm counting for my bingo will be the voyeurism, I think). I will be including more Molly (and Luke) in coming chapters but I wanted to get back to basics, so to speak, after taking some weird divergences. The chapter will, of course, be broken into two posts. It's also the first part of a larger chapter. I'm currently working on a second part. My beta is MIA and I'm impatient so *laughs* all mistakes are mine, as usual.
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The house - once a boarding house for some sort of drilling operation - with its three floors and 14 bedrooms left a lot of places to go but Claire spent most her time on the first floor, only venturing up the stairs when he told her to fetch Molly. She probably hadn’t gone far unless she was, for some no doubt aggravating reason, purposefully hiding from him. He called out her name while stalking down the hall to their bedroom but heard no answer or faint shuffling movements. In the open doorway a quick scan of the room told him she wasn’t there. The bathroom door was cracked, like he’d left it, without the light on and he doubted she’d sit in the dark by choice.
As he systematically went through the first floor he grew both more worried and more annoyed with every new room. When he called her name again he put some force into it so it projected up stairs. Small footsteps answered but then Molly appeared at the top of the stairs, not his wife. “Is everything okay, Sylar?”
“I’m just looking for Claire. She wandered off somewhere. Do you know where?”
She shook her head, still staring at him. “I saw her a while ago ‘cause I forgot something in the playroom. She went up the stairs.”
To the third floor? Huh. What could she possibly want up there? “Thank you, kitten.” He smiled at her, seeing how she judged the impromptu nickname. She didn’t object, at least.
By the time he got to the head of the stairs she had nearly reached her room and she smiled back at him. “Maybe she just wanted to be alone. She didn’t seem to like Luke very much. He’s weird. He looks at me funny.”
Sylar frowned sharply. He’d missed that. Where was his head tonight? Clearly first thing tomorrow he’d need to have another talk with their house guest about how he could and couldn’t look at Sylar’s thirteen year old ward if he wanted to keep his eyes. “I’ll talk to him about it and make him stop, okay?”
Breath gushed out of her in relief. “Really? Thank you, Sylar.”
He shrugged and started up the stairs again as he spread out his senses to see if he could pick up a feeling or idea that might pinpoint Claire’s location. Mostly it’d give a direction to go, but it didn’t work until he started his search by going to the left. Three doors down he picked up stormy emotions; at five he actually heard her crying. It let him track her down to a mostly empty bedroom at the end of the hall. He nudged the door open both carefully and quietly.
Standing in the doorway gave him full view of everything but the closet - where he surmised the crying must be coming from. He inched forward as silently as possible, not interested in spooking her or letting her pretend it never happened. When he finally reached the latched closet door he moved quickly, shoving it open and stepping inside then swinging it closed behind him. Despite having no windows he wasn’t plunged into complete darkness; she’d brought a large flashlight which now stood on its tail, shining light on the ceiling that then reflected to fill the small, attached room. Even with its bright beam Claire herself sat in half-shadow wedged into the far corner from the light. From what he could see she was wiping at her cheeks furiously.
“Claire. Princess, why are you hiding in the dark and crying?” He tried to ask without any judgment but she mentally tensed anyway.
“I needed the release. I’m fine now. Really. I’m sorry I wasn’t there when you were looking for me.” She slowly uncurled herself from her wedged in position and leaned further into the light. “What did you want?”
“You. I want to talk to you.” He’d show her after they discussed this. To be clear about his determination he sat down on the carpet, crossing his legs. Neither of them were leaving until they talked. “Why did you need a release? I want you to tell me exactly what’s going on in that head of yours - I’m not reading it from your mind. I could but you hate when I do that. So I expect you to be honest with me, of course, and answer any questions thoroughly. Understand, princess?”
“Yes.” She didn’t answer the question immediately despite his push but Sylar let her gather her thoughts while he simply watched her. When she’d leaned forward it had forced her on her hands and knees, the position she was still in now. It gave him a good angle at her tits where her bra pushed them forward and they hung heavily, swinging gently if she shifted anything. Just the sight of that got him hard. If not for her obvious distress he’d fuck her mouth before getting back to the conversation. “I-I’ve been here a couple of times. When things got hard like after the beating or earlier when I felt myself breaking. Crying let me push out all the bad feelings so I wouldn’t cry at other times. Like times you weren’t trying to make me cry during sex.
“I think all the stress of my parents visiting, the fight you had with my dad, the mall trip with all those people, and now having a house guest only a couple of days later just got to me. I started to worry I’d end up crying for no reason, which can’t be sexy and probably would annoy you. So I came here. I’ve cried now, I feel more in control and less stressed out. I am totally sorry I made you look for me; I thought you’d talk to Luke for a while or help with Molly’s homework like you sometimes do after dinner.”
Sylar raised an eyebrow skeptically. “It’s just stress from all the commotion lately, nothing else? Nothing at all?”
“Yes, just that.” No tickle-shimmer came on and he relaxed a little. “What did you need?” He blinked. “You were looking for me because you needed or wanted something, right?”
“Oh. Yes. I want to show you something.”
As he stood and walked out of the room Claire followed close behind, still crawling. She tried to keep up, she really did, but his long strides and easy steps forced her to her feet and jogging to catch up. By the time he got to the stairs she had. He took her all the way back down to the first floor and stopped only when they reached the bedroom. But instead of getting the door on the left, which led there, he opened the door on the right.
While she’d been preparing dinner he’d used his abilities to transfer most of his various equipment into here. Theoretical favorites - tools he wanted to try out on her the most - hung by hooks designed for key rings. Boards with four or five hooks in a row were nailed carefully to the walls.
Most of the tools were still in the storage containers he’d labeled and kept in his walk-in closet and those storage containers were in standing shelves that reminded him of cubby holes in elementary school. Two or three containers, depending on the size, fit in each square hole and each of the three box shelves had 16 cubby holes. Even with his extensive collection he didn’t have enough to fill all three so he left the bottom row empty in each. But the real boon was the furniture.
Besides the bed, a bed at a perfect height for fucking, the room now held three other pieces of furniture. From his first trip to Alexander’s he had a long, narrow and padded table with fitted stockades for holding both her head and her legs in place and in nearly any position he could think of. The others were from an actual furniture store. A very modern looking black leather chair with oval shaped pads in place of a solid back. The pads curved back, forcing the seated party to lay in a position similar to a dentist’s chair. It came with an ottoman for putting someone’s feet up and had an adjustable height. If the designed hadn’t intended for it to be used in sex games Sylar would be very surprised. A bamboo privacy screen sectioned into four adjustable parts and decorated with colorful and vibrant flowers on one side. A blue futon couch hybrid that could be laid out like a bed or folded up with an arm rest on each end. For someone Claire’s size it’d be easy to sleep on it with her head slightly inclined. And, finally, a narrow wrought iron table meant for an entry way. Attached to the legs at one end of the table was a shelf of sorts. Anyone bent over it would suffer discomfort, which was really the point.
He smiled as Claire took each piece in, no doubt making the same sexual connections he made when he first saw the pieces. But the real coup was still covered. He pulled her close to him by wrapping his arms around her from behind where he could nuzzle the top of her head. With telekinesis Sylar activated the button that pulled the bed sheet up and revealed the cage.
She gasped at the reveal, jerking in his grip a second later and almost breaking it because of his loose hold. He set his muscles to firm up his grip and squeezed tighter as well. Unlike what he expected she didn’t relax into the new, tighter grip. She jerked harder, still stuck but undeterred by his superior strength. He realized her heart thudded in her chest, the tap-tap-tap of a trapped rabbit, and she made the occasional little whimper-y noise before she found her words.
“You said no more cage. You agreed. You asked me what I hated and feared and never, ever wanted to be hurt by again and then you agreed no more cage! You promised…” She whined in a sound more animal than human.
“Claire, stop being a cunt and calm down. What I agreed to was never putting you in the cage in the attic. This isn’t in the attic, it isn’t the same cage. I’m even willing to say now that I won’t put you in a cage that’ll intentionally cause you more pain than the occasional cramped muscle. No more shocks, no more sleep deprivation.” He released his hold enough to press his hand along the front of her collar and tug the ring out to hold. “I never said no more cages at all. It’s just a cage, princess, just metal bars. This one even has a sheepskin blanket stretched over the floor to be more comfortable. I am going to use this cage: maybe as punishment, maybe to have you sleep in it, but mostly because I love the look of hope you get when I come near, staring from behind those bars with such an obvious plea that this time I’ll let you out. It’s very erotic.”
She’d finally started calming down, her heartbeat returned to normal, and she whispered, “Controlling everything. Food, water, when I use the bathroom. I see why it appeals to you, sir. I’m sorry for my reaction. I was scared.”
“I know.” He stroked up one of her arms and tugged at the ring again. “I know how much the cage in the attic terrifies you.” Sylar kissed the top of her head and took in a deep breath, catching a combination of her sweet, tangy shampoo and the smell of sex. Fuck but it made him hard.
He was hard. Claire rolled her hips to lightly grind against Sylar’s growing erection in hopes of distracting him from her recent misbehavior. Whether it worked or not wasn’t clear when he ordered: “Go lie down on the bed, face up.” He released her collar reluctantly and made his way to one cubby while she followed directions and lost sight of him.
When he came back he held a small box that looked a little familiar, like she’d seen it before, but she didn’t know where until he popped the latch and pushed the lid open. Little earnings of all sorts rested in the bottom layers of the box while needles and sterile pads sat on a smaller tray above the rest. He took out the tray and dumped out the earrings onto the bed, shifting through them. “There, perfect.” Sylar smiled in a lazy, satisfied way and pinched one of her nipples playfully, laughing when she squeaked a little in surprise. Then he put the earrings on her stomach and picked up the piercing needle.
She tried controlling her breath so that her chest only barely moved and when he put the tip of the needle against the nerve-filled flesh in the base of her right nipple she held her breath completely. He punched the needle in and through, knocking a pained gasp from her. Sitting still for the next needle proved harder for Claire with how fresh the other nipple’s pain felt. She forced herself to anyway. When he lined up the path he wanted to use she even managed a small smile. Sylar leaned over to kiss her and as his lips met hers he shoved in the needle, tearing it through nerves so sensitive it felt like he’d burned her. Only a breathless squeak escaped her. The burn turned to a warm ache before disappearing as her skin healed around the needles. He straddled her now, taking a second to reach down and stroke her hair before pushing one of the needles through with the piercing he’d chosen for her. It hurt just as much when her skin got skewered a second time but this time she kept control, staying silent but a little breathless. The idea of doing this again, for the other nipple, almost made her flinch. Instead she closed her eyes and breathed through the pain when it came. Her skin closed up a second time, sealing the piercings in place.
“Good girl.”
Claire’s stomach twisted happily at the now rare phrase and she opened her eyes. He reached a hand behind her head and raised it, using his palm for support. She could easily see the new piercings on her chest. To her surprise they circled her nipples, little bands of silver-gray metal with tiny spikes on them, and seemed to be held together by a single bar crossing through the middle. The rings fit just a little too snugly around the base of her nipples, making sure that she felt a slight pressure on the nerves there at all times. It didn’t hurt and wasn’t uncomfortable at the moment but she doubted it’d stay that way. Eventually her nerves would get the message and understand the tight pressure on them blocked off blood flow they really needed to have and then her body would send pain messages to her brain. She did flinch when she thought about that - Sylar would need to change the piercings then.
“What’s wrong?” he asked. She shook her head.
“Nothing important. I’m just not looking forward to going through that again. It hurt more than when you pierced my clit.” Which didn’t make sense but it had.
He nodded at her. “When I pierced your clit you were half-drugged and I helped block some of the pain anyway. I didn’t want to overwhelm you.” The obvious - that he didn’t care if he overwhelmed her now and, anyway, she was a lot harder to rattle now days - stayed unspoken and she felt just a little bit grateful for that. It meant she didn’t have to look at the ‘half-drugged’ statement too closely.
“Oh.” She smiled at him and sat up entirely so his hand wouldn’t need to support her anymore. “Do you want to try my new decorations out, then, sir?”
His tongue darted out to lick his lips in anticipation, the answer to that obvious on his face. Of course he did; why else would he pierce her in the first place? “You know I do, babydoll, but maybe I better take care of myself, just this once.” That made Claire frown like nothing else would. Why the hell wouldn’t he want her? He liked fucking her, he liked it a lot. Had she done something wrong? “Claire, it’s not you. These last few days have been stressful for me too. First the fight with Noah, then the shopping trip where Molly about ran me ragged, and now dealing with another mouth to account for stresses me out too. Right now I want almost nothing more than to take all my frustration and excess energy out on you one painful inch at a time.”
That meant a lot and she shivered at the factual admission of what he wanted. But what she didn’t understand was why he didn’t just do it, take it. He couldn’t be waiting for permission or request, the very idea of that seemed ridiculous on an almost stupid level. But she asked anyway, tilting her head with a slight incline because even when they both sat she looked up at him. “Then do that. Why would you settle for a hand job, and a self-applied one at that, when you can have exactly what you want?”
“I don’t think you understand, Claire. I want to hurt you, someone. I want to take all the shit that comes with seeing Noah and everything else out on someone, anyone who would bleed. If I start I don’t trust myself to stop if it gets too much for you, if I hurt you past whatever level it is that lets you convince yourself that everything is fine.”
The words hung between them for a little while, mostly because she didn’t know what to say and it looked like Sylar said all he wanted to say. Then she asked, “Would you hold me in your lap and stroke me and call me Good Girl? After you did whatever it is you’re scared of maybe going too far with. Would you?”
“Babydoll, I’ll do that now. Come over, climb in my lap.” He lifted an arm that would hug her tight once she got in range but she didn’t get in range.
She fought not to follow his order automatically and stayed where she was, only a foot from him now, and maybe a million miles away in his mind. “No.” The word sounded foreign and ugly on her lips when she used it against him, even if she did have permission. And this might not count as permission. It made her feel a little sick inside to even say it. “After. After you do what you need to do, would you baby me and tell me I did a good job? I’d like that a lot.”
“Claire, you’re not listening. I made you a promise never to beat you again, not in some serious and brutal way, and I intend to keep my promise. I’ll get it under control, then check out how these new piercings make you feel.” He gave her a tight smile and started to get up.
“I want you to do it.”
“What?” Sylar cocked his head like he couldn’t have heard right. Of course he had heard right with his perfect hearing. This hesitation was all mental.
“It’s my…” She didn’t want to say the things that’d make it easy for him to argue and convince himself he’d done the right. Things like ‘I belong to you’ and ‘It’s my purpose to make you happy. That’s what I’m here for.’ So instead she said, “… place as your wife. You should be able to come to me when you feel like everything’s a little too out of control, just like I’d go to you.” She thought of how she hadn’t done that at all by choosing to hide, crying alone in that abandoned room while hoping he didn’t notice. “Like I’d go to you now, anyway. I was stupid for hiding like that but I guess I thought you’d be angry for me crying without a better reason.” Like being beat.
He shook his head slowly and it seemed sad somehow. “I’d never be angry at you for something like that, just relieved you have a way to handle it when things get really hard.” The only thing worse than hiding away from him would be falling apart again, the way she did earlier after he beat her the last time. But she trusted him not to go that far when he wasn’t angry and she could handle anything up to that.
She could. “You’re not angry now, are you?”
Sylar’s bushy eyebrows drew together as he gave her an almost suspicious look. Slowly, he answered “No. I’m not angry.”
“Then I trust you not to go too far, not to go so far I can’t handle it.” Claire smiled at him, trying to reassure him and be encouraging all at once. “When you’re angry…” She shook her head. “When you’re angry maybe you would but you’re not angry now so I’m not worried. I promise I’ll use my safe word if you do go too far, okay?” She had to mean it because he’d tell a lie but she didn’t have to define what she meant by ‘too far’. “And if I say Mr. Muggles you stop, right? That’s how it works?”
“Yes. That’s how a safe word works.” On his knees now he still towered over her sitting on the floor and she waited for him to either keep getting up or sit back down. One or the other and that’d be his decision. “Promise me. Promise me you’ll use it not just if I go ‘too far’ -“ Claire heard the quotes in his voice. “-but if it starts reminding you of the day of your miscarriage. The second it starts to do that you say it. Promise.”
She licked her lips. If he started in on her, really in on her, she knew it’d remind her of that bad, bad day. Seemed Sylar knew it too. She did the only thing she could: “I promise.”
He sat back down. “Alright. Then I’m going to go get the camera while you think about some things you feel might entertain me in my current mood.”
Making her think of things meant that he would get an idea of her limits right now as well as get her more involved with the scene. An active participant instead of a passive victim, she guessed. She didn’t guess much, though, wishing he’d just choose what he wanted to do and do it. No question she’d reach the floaty place today and that couldn’t be anything but good. She liked that state of mind. Right now Claire followed his order, not wanting to go against him for the second time in less than 30 minutes.
Given his current mood - a mood to hurt someone as a release - he probably would want things with immediate payoffs, nothing too planned out or subtle or made for emotional harm. It seemed the simplest way to do that would be just doing it. Take a tool or his hands and hit her until one of them couldn’t do it anymore. Most of the time when they had sex or sex-like activities he didn’t use anything, just his hands twisting her nipples or slapping her pussy or pinching the inside of her thighs until she came hard, but the times he did he liked to tie her up. So tie her up and then do it. She just needed the perfect tie. This new bed had the design of a canopy but without the actual canopy on it. Maybe later he’d decorate it a little more and give the inside a box-like feeling but for now the metal canopy support posts made perfect places to attach a tie. She could suggest the classic spread out, each limb tied to one post to form an X of sorts. It’d keep her legs spread but she could do that, no tie necessary. She might suggest that - him punishing her for every flinch or rock she made out of position because if he hit hard enough she would be tempted to move, to try to get away from the next strike.
“Thought of anything?”
Nothing good enough, not yet. “Just the obvious, sir.” She watched as he set up the camera on its tripod. “Why don’t you pick one of the toys you want to try on me and start? That’s what you want to do, right?”
He swallowed roughly, his expression intent as he turned around to face her. “What I want? I want things not good for either of us.”
“I thought you agreed - we just talked about this.” Claire frowned. Had he changed his mind while getting the camera? “I want you to do what you want.”
Sylar laughed mirthlessly. She’d never heard such a dead laugh, an unfunny laugh, before and it sent chills down her spine. “What I want to do is use my telekinesis to make little, shallow cuts, just enough to get a thin ribbon of blood trickling onto the bed sheets from each cut. I want to do that so that when I’m done there’s a perfect outline of you on the bed.”
Despite all her training by him - both planned and through impulsive, angry reactions - those words still pushed the fear up into her throat so hard she felt she’d choke on it for the first time since she lost the baby. Telekinesis, cutting her, holding her, it got to her at the very core of her fight-or-flight response. Since she couldn’t do either, she blew out a slow, shaky breath and said, “So long as they’re shallow that shouldn’t hurt the baby.” It might even be safer than some of the other options, like hitting around the area with something thick like a heavy cane or paddle.
“Oh, babydoll.” After coming over to her Sylar cupped her face, tilting it up a little bit. Then he seemed to reconsider and he sat down next to her on the bed instead without taking his hand off her cheek.
“Yes, Sylar?” He liked his name and, with what he wanted to do, it fit the moment.
“Do you ever think about the future?”
Claire blinked at the randomness of that question, leaning her head into his hand accidentally when she cocked her head a little. She stopped when she realized what she’d done. But that didn’t take away the confusion. “The future? Um, I think about what it might be like to be pregnant. How big am I going to get and how will it feel, things like that. And sometimes I think about what having a little girl could be like, little feet pattering around below me without the sound belonging to a dog for once. That’s about all. Oh, wait --
“I guess now I’m thinking about what classes might be like. What being around people again could feel like. That really is all.” Was it the right answer, or the wrong one?
He didn’t say anything for nearly a minute - according to the count in her head - and she wanted to make another suggestion, one about how he might tie her up, but it stuck in her throat. When he got quiet and think-y things could change in an instant demanding she keep up or pay the price for staying behind. Finally, he spoke up again. “What about a few years from now? Not just with a baby walking around but really think about it. By the time the baby’s walking and talking steadily you’ll be going into your third year or so. You’ll need to declare a major. Molly will be halfway through high school. And, of course, we’ll still be together, the same as we will thirty years from now and three hundred.”
“I don’t really think about it,” she admitted without having to think about that either. Her major she could figure out later and everything else was such a static, inevitable fact that it didn’t seem to need any time or energy spent thinking about it. “I need to take some general classes before I know what I really want to do.”
“And the rest?”
Some of the fear bled away finally and Claire smiled. “I don’t think about the stars in the sky changing either. No need to think about truths until you’re at one.”
He nodded just slightly but she couldn’t tell notice from approval right now. His hand slipped along her jawline and away. “So you don’t think about this at all. You don’t think about being hit at least once nearly every day and really hurt once every few weeks for my amusement, to keep me under control. Whatever you want to call it. And you don’t think about being fucked in your cunt, or your mouth, or your ass whenever, wherever I want whether you’re embarrassed or not. Hell, it doesn’t even matter if you’re in the mood or not because we both know you’re not going to tell me no for that.
“Earlier, when I found you crying upstairs and you leaned forward so that your breasts hung and swayed I thought about how much I wanted to fuck your mouth before we went back to the conversation. And if I had you’d have, what?”
It took her a long while to realize that’d actually been a serious question she should answer. She didn’t apologize because apologies were useless. Actions were the important thing. “Right then? I’d have opened my mouth and waited for you to decide if you wanted to fuck my throat or if I should take a more active role. How else would I react?”
“A time not too long ago, Claire, you reacted by asking me to please not make you do it. Or maybe asked if getting me off like that would mean you got the rest of the afternoon off, like you were on duty.”
She didn’t mention she still felt on-duty, but for a job that never went off the clock. It stayed with her 24/7 and she tried to work it even in her sleep. The other thoughts like wanting the whole afternoon off and blowjob avoidance were bad girl thoughts that got her in trouble at the time and would get her in trouble again if she let them. And the last thing Claire wanted was to be in trouble. So, she simply said, “I changed.” The air felt tense and thick as he dealt with that statement while giving her a look very close to disapproval. She needed to change that somehow but hell if she knew how.
“You changed.” He continued to stare, making her flush as heat ran up her neck. But then his expression softened into something far more safe. Maybe. “Yes, you have. You’re much better trained to be a slave girl and sex toy now, aren’t you?”
This might have been a rhetorical question so she kept her answer to herself for now. Outwardly, she lowered her eyes and felt almost shy. The question wasn’t was she trained but was she trained enough to satisfy all his needs and pass his strict standards. Maybe the time finally came for him to test her on all she’d learned.
“Answer my question, babydoll.”
She smiled after all and brought her gaze back up a little. “Do you mean better trained than when I got here? Because, yeah, of course. The training took, didn’t it? And I’m better than I was before the… Bad Place too.” Referring to it like that took out some of the fear and the sting. Only some but some needed to be enough here.
“Since the Bad Place.” He used her term for it hesitantly, not quite sure of the way it came out. “Since you changed, as you called it.” No direct question there but it demanded an answer anyway.
“Oh.” She refused to lose her smile, though it softened to a close-mouth quirk of her top lip. This line of questioning seemed weird, even for him, especially when he knew the answers already. “I like to think so. I definitely obey better and I’ve been trying to be a better slave. You know, more useful in other ways besides sex. Plus, of course, enthusiastic in the sex part. As enthusiastic as a new bride, right?” Her eyebrows went up in hope he agreed. He didn’t say anything. “So, yes. My training’s a lot further along, maybe even complete for what you want to do with me. I don’t know, though; it’s your plan.”
“My plan,” he agreed, still acting weird. He’d brought his hand up to his mouth, rubbed it like he wanted to clean something off. Then he bit on his thumbnail while he thought. She still stayed silent, both worried by his strange mood and scared of trying to distract him from it. If she tried to interrupt whatever this meant, whatever change it would bring, he might be very angry and she didn’t know what he’d do if he got angry. Nothing good.
Maybe this was what he meant. For as long as they did this, this playing house thing he wanted right now, she’d always need to think about that: the inevitable point he’d become angry and, from angry, unpredictable. Hurtful. Scary. In a way it meant, as calm as she felt about it, she’d always have to live in fear. And she did feel calm about it; not being calm about it would be like worrying about a tornado coming. You can prepare but in the end it came, it did what it did, and either you survived or you didn’t. She’d always survive physically. Some day he might do something to shatter her mentally but she couldn’t turn a tornado around and she couldn’t protect herself against that.
Claire licked her lips. This she felt, well, not safe, but not stupid for bringing up, since he’d asked her the question and all. This was just being honest with him: “Do you mean how I’m always thinking about whether something I could do is probably going to make you angry or probably going to be safe?” With him nothing was guaranteed except that, eventually, he’d get angry again. “Living like that?”
“Yes, Claire. That’s exactly what I meant.”
He’d told her he’d stay out of her head, because she hated it, but she needed to tell him everything in exchange. He would have meant that - everything - so she did her best: “I don’t. Don’t really think about the future, that is. I don’t think about it because you can always change your mind, at any time, for any reason, and if you do then little things or big things, or both things, change too. So whatever future I think about might be gone tomorrow or next week or a year from now. So, no, I don’t think about the future. I think about now. Mostly I think about what might please you the most right now. Sometimes I miss my mom.” She hated admitting that even though she knew he already knew it. It still felt weird… wrong to admit something like that. But he wanted the whole truth. “Sometimes I think about what life might have been like if I hadn’t been special. If I’d just been some normal girl growing up in Texas with a father who was actually in paper sales and not lying to everyone he supposedly loves. I think about that less and less lately. Lately what I think about is you being happy with me. I want that. You wanted to know what I want. I want that more than anything. More than anything in the world I want you to be happy with me.”
“But you don’t mean happy,” he told her as he pulled his hand away from his mouth. “Not the way I mean happy when I say I want you to be happy with me. You mean pleased. You want me to be pleased with you.”
She nodded. Pleased did work better than happy. “Yes, that. I want you to be pleased with me. It’s hard to tell because the Bad Place kinda burnt all the fear out of me but it makes me feel better when you’re pleased. I don’t worry so much about making you angry then. When you’re pleased with me I’m not scared. It’s when I disappoint you that the fear starts. When I anger you is even worse. So, tell me what I need to do to please you right now. You wanted to do this, right?” She took Sylar’s hand in hers and brought it to her bare breast. “Is this where you wanted to start?”
He jerked his hand away from her and, sure enough, she felt the distant, muted, locked up fear banging on the walls and screaming in her head. With vicious, ruthless force Claire shoved it all the way back down; it couldn’t help her here and she didn’t want it. She bit her lip on the urge to apologize, because he didn’t care about apologies, and the even stronger urge to ask what she did wrong. She was trying.
“I’m trying.” It came out without permission from the rest of her brain and she winced on the other side of it. But this was one rabbit that couldn’t be shoved back in the hat. “I’m doing the best I know how, Sylar. I need to know what it is you want, or need, me to do so I don’t do something that makes you angry, whatever that is today.”
Maybe she said the wrong thing. Maybe she took the truth too far. But she couldn’t unsay it and she didn’t know she wanted to anyway.
He laughed, an amused sort of chuckle that seemed to be more at her than anything. When he shook his head she looked down at her hands and stopped watching him. She didn’t need to see the condescension or annoyance on his face at the stupid little girl who couldn’t even figure out how to be a good toy.
“Claire, sweetheart. Babydoll.” His fingers grazed her jaw and she flinched out of instinct more than anything. “Well, I don’t like when you do that but that’s my own fault so I guess I can’t be surprised.” His fingers laid against her skin, then gripped and pressed with his knuckles pushing up under her chin and his thumb on her full bottom lip. “I really need to figure out what I want. Riding the line like this is going to break you irreparably sooner rather than later.”
That didn’t seem to require, or ask for, a response so she stayed silent.
The pad of his thumb brushed along her lip, spreading the saliva she’d put there when worrying it. “So the question is: do I want a wife or do I want a slave? It seems I can’t have both, not with the way I got you here.” She still didn’t raise her eyes to look at him because she didn’t have an answer. No, she had an answer. It just wasn’t the one he wanted. But then she didn’t have a choice when Sylar asked: “What do you think? What would you prefer? Knowing this would be your future and that while I might not be perfect at it I’d do my best not to treat you like a slave - even if that means giving you the ability to get away from me if, when, I lost that fight - do you want to change the decision you made before?”
A lot happened since then but nothing that changed her mind. He moved his thumb off her mouth so she could answer. “I don’t have the answer you want.”
“I want you to answer my question.”
His fingers pressed harder and she swallowed on the feel of them pressing against her throat. “Yes, sir.” Claire didn’t try to smile. She didn’t try to do or say anything to distract from what she said even though she badly, badly wanted to. “It wasn’t a decision.” His eyes drew together shrewdly but he waited, waited for her to explain herself. “Being your wife in, I don’t know, the way that has people meet, get to know each other, and fall in love can’t happen. We met and you tried to cut open my head while I was still conscious. I thought you were trying to kill me. You did kill my best friend since sixth grade. We got to know each other by you coming after me not just once but three times before you just took me for good. And I don’t even know what love is. I know my father says he loves me and says he loves my mom but if that’s true then that means you can lie and damage the people you love without losing any sleep at night and I don’t want to think of that as love. It’s a type of loyalty, maybe a sense of possession. I don’t know.
“Mostly I know you took me. I lost my virginity scared and in pain and helpless. And then you did it again and again and again. God, you must have used me, my body, me at least three or four times a day until you put me in that, that cage. The cage was its own type of hell. So I found a way to escape or learn to live with it. Something like that. It doesn’t involve trying to be something I’m not.” She licked her lips. “I don’t even know what you mean when you say ‘wife’. The only wife I’ve really ever seen is my mom and I figure she can’t be a normal example. But I don’t know what to do because I can’t, I don’t, I don’t know how to be a wife, let alone a wife to you, and you get so angry at the way I found to cope.” Done. A big breath of air, powered by relief, pushed out of her in a slow release. Then she waited, the fear still trying to rise to the surface. But she couldn’t let it. She’d start crying or stop responding if she let it and neither one would make this situation better.
“I mean… Someone to share your life with. Watching television, making meals, sleeping next to, all those things. Someone you love, who loves you, sleeping next to you. That’s what having a wife means to me. It means a partner.” Pretty words and Sylar kissed her forehead.
“I do that,” Claire pointed out quietly. “I just do extra stuff too to try and please you.”
“You act like a toy. You treat your own body like it doesn’t matter what happens to it.”
It didn’t. She’d heal. Healing was what she did, whether she liked it or not. “Whatever happens it’ll end up good as new, ready for what you need next,” she pointed this out too just as quietly as before.
He sighed. “That’s exactly what I mean. You don’t even think about it being a question of hurting you, you just assume I will until you’re hurt enough I have to wait for you to heal.”
No, that wasn’t right. She was better than that - it was the one advantage her ability gave her here. “You don’t have to wait. I heal too fast.”
His fingers wrapped around one of her hands, squeezing it, and she didn’t know if he meant it for warning or support. “That’s what I’m talking about. It’s like how you think I only want your body and not your mind, not you. I want you, Claire Bennet nee Petrelli. Maybe that’s it. Maybe I need to go back to before this started and warn myself not to take you yet. I can wait for you to be ready this time. No rape, no cages, nothing.”
“No deal to stop killing,” she added, pursing her lips. Making that deal was the best thing she’d done - ever. Not for her, no, but for everyone else. “And killing while you wait for me to grow up.”
“Maybe.” He didn’t lie and tell her he’d stop that too, even while he waited. “But you’d get the chance to go to college and be normal for at least a little while.” His teeth clenched but Sylar even added, “Have your first time be with some college kid who has no idea how lucky he is to lie in bed with you.” As clear as anything: he hated that idea, especially the part where a faceless boyfriend touched her.
What would that be like? To start classes, worried only about making friend and maybe the disappearance - or revealed death - of her bio dad. Maybe she’d join a sorority, she thought her mom was in one in college and they went for daughters of former members, didn’t they? And she’d meet a boy in one of her classes, like his smile, and agree to go on a date with him. They’d date and after a few she’d invite him back to her room when her roommate was gone overnight. Her first time would be clueless and they wouldn’t be in love but it’d be warm and without fear. Nothing like her life, in other words.
Nothing she could have, even if he went back and convinced himself to leave her alone. Long before her perfect life of dull normalcy could get a foot off the ground some other crisis would happen just like every time things calmed down since the day she first noticed her ability.
“If that’s what you want, sir.” She didn’t want it but that didn’t really matter. “Do you want to play with me while you decide?”
“You’re upset at the idea. It’s in your voice.” Or her emotions. He might not be reading Claire’s thoughts but he could still read her. Maybe he couldn’t even tell when he used it anymore. Sylar touched her again but not on the breast where she left off: he cupped her shoulders, holding both of them like he either wanted to hug her or keep her still. She’d be still for him without the hold, didn’t he know that? “Why? Why, Claire? Don’t you want things to be different so you were never raped, never hurt like I’ve hurt you, never broken like I’ve broken you?”
That should be what she wanted. After all, a minute ago she told him about how scared she felt pretty much all the time unless she cut herself off from being able to feel fear at all. “I guess. It’s the normal thing to want, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Sylar replied simply, releasing her shoulders.
* * *
Comments, either separately on each post or all at once, are very much welcome. I work pretty hard on the story so I like knowing people are still enjoying it.