find me
Title: Find Me
Author: missaliceblue
Pairing: Sylar/Claire. Peter/Claire.
Rating: R for language, character death, incest, some adult situations.
Status/Word Count: Completed one-shot. 3,000 words. Canon.
Summary: Obsession. Love. Which is stronger?
Thanks to superbetas mutinousmuse and andbless_mybaby.
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
------------------------
She saw HIM one night. He was standing under the window of her room, her new one in California, the one that no one was supposed to know about. Just standing there like the creepy fuck that he is, that half-smile barely twisting his lips.
His eyes were as dark as the night that surrounded him. Darker.
She didn't think, just reacted. She grabbed her phone, called Peter, and babbled four or five words into it.
He was there instantly, jumping them both back to New York.
-----
It’s of the utmost importance that Sylar not take her ability, says Mohinder. They have it on the authority of Hiro, the one who has long hair and speaks English flawlessly.
Mohinder takes his glasses off and rubs his eyes and tells her that she is in very grave danger. That as long as HE knows where she is, she’s at risk, as are the lives of everyone she’s around.
She has to leave. She’s not safe anywhere for long periods of time. She’s got to stay on the move.
She trusts Peter, trusted him when he told her that this was the best plan, trusted Nathan when he told her the same thing.
That doesn’t mean she liked the plan though - she argued against it to Nathan and Mohinder and said that it was gross and it didn't make sense for her to run away with her Uncle.
Nathan just stared at her, and Mohinder looked away. Peter stood next to her, and she felt him tense.
She whispered that no one would believe it.
Nathan didn't say anything for awhile, and when he spoke, he sighed and said that yes, they really would.
The entire thing was utterly embarrassing and she felt like a freak, or a slut, or a sick, sick person.
It happened in front of Mohinder, who is not a Petrelli which means he wouldn’t understand and it bothered her that he had to hear it, makes her ears turn pink now just remembering it.
Her father and mother think she ran away with Peter. It’s been six months and they still think she ran away with Peter.
-----
Peter becomes her constant companion: bodyguard, transportation, and friend, all in one. Her only one.
They stay for a couple weeks, sometimes more. Peter wraps his arms around her and then they’re in Egypt or Thailand or Wisconsin. They do a nice job pretending that they’re just seeing the world, on some manic version of a Senior Trip for her.
-----
She finds a note in the pocket of her canvas jacket, the one that’s still crisp and new because it’s just easier to buy clothes in each city rather than pack it around.
She opens the note and reads it and smiles and figures the coat was returned on the whim of a high school girl who still thought such love notes were worth tucking into the pocket of a jacket. To be taken home and read and re-read and treasured in a shoebox under a bed.
Find me, before I come find you.
She, on the other hand, doesn’t even smile at boys anymore.
-----
They call Nathan on Tuesdays. Peter says that his name is August Martin when Nathan’s secretary asks, which is code for everything is okay.
Nathan doesn’t take the calls. They leave a fake number to be called back at, every week, because that is how it has to be, she’s told.
-----
She cried herself to sleep the first three weeks, usually on a clean towel, because she hated the thought of touching the gross hotel comforters.
They eat out all the time. She misses cooking every so often, and she’ll drag a bag full of groceries to the hotel if they happen to find one with a kitchenette. They’re in Tennessee at the moment, and they do, so she goes to the tiny corner market just down the street.
She buys steak and peppers and onions and in the aisle by the lemons she thought she saw HIM in the corner of her eye for a split second, slowly sniffing a peach.
She does a double take, but he was gone. For a minute her whole body shakes, and she longed to drop her little basket and run.
But that would be crazy. How would he have found her? Why would he have hesitated?
She’s getting more paranoid. She didn't even know that was possible.
-----
The steak was tough. Peter compliments it though, like he always did when she cooked.
After, they rent a movie and she pretends to pay attention to it. Peter fell asleep halfway through, and she turns the TV off and stares at the ceiling until she falls asleep.
It took hours. She memorized the swirling pattern of the paint, the tick of Peter’s wristwatch from across the room.
Sometimes she wonders if it would hurt so very much, to be carved open like a pumpkin.
-----
They’re in Miami during Spring Break. She can hear the loud catcalls outside their bedroom door. Happy kids her own age that laugh and whistle and kiss and get high and eat pizza in their rooms.
She threw the phonebook at the curtains covering the window. Some days she couldn’t remember. Some days she couldn’t remember why they’re even bothering.
Peter told her that she can’t think that way, and kissed her on the cheek, softly. Then he drew away slowly, looking into her eyes the whole time.
-----
This week when Peter calls Nathan, the secretary clicks him through.
Hiro’s dead.
You can imagine what this means, says Nathan, and she can hear the tremors in her father’s voice through the phone, from ten feet away.
-----
Peter usually stands outside the door now, until she’s done crying. As soon as her sobs wither away he will knock and then come in.
He pretends not to see the tears on her cheeks and her red eyes and she appreciates that. He tries to cheer her up with a funny little story or a cup of coffee and sometimes it works.
That night they laid on the same bed and watched a movie, and he’s always very careful not to touch her when they’re on a bed, but this time his shoulders bumped into hers.
-----
They move more quickly now. Every three days and they’re in a new city. Sometimes less.
She likes Canada. It feels a little foreign, just slightly different around the edges and corners, not so much that she feels nervous about staying there.
One time in a suburb of Toronto they passed by a tiny school carnival - it wasn’t even big enough for a roller coaster or those spinning eggcup-looking things. There were booths and hot dog stands and when she begged him to stop he said yes.
He won her a white bear on the coin toss and that night she smiled without forcing it.
-----
She doesn’t tell Peter about this, but she calls her parents.
She calls their house and whoever answers will say hello, hello and she never says anything. Just hangs up after awhile.
The last time she called, her mother said hello and then very softly, the tears wobbling behind her voice, she spoke her name.
She hung up. Fast.
-----
They stay too long in Nicaragua - lulled by the little town they were in, by the contentment and genuine kindness of the people they rent a room from, that cook their dinner for them.
She calls the older lady ‘Abuelita’ and she’s stricken by the woman’s dead body on the floor of the tiny kitchen - legs spread provocatively, blood streaming from the back of her head.
There’s a white piece of paper on the woman’s chest
She gingerly takes it off of the body, and her fingers shake as she holds it in her hand.
It’s written on white notebook paper, carefully torn by hand using a straight edge of some kind.
His handwriting is loopy and low and it says the same words that she found in her coat pocket all those months ago.
Find me, before I come find you.
She rips the note into a million tiny pieces, and doesn’t tell Peter about it.
-----
She takes her white bear that Peter won for her with them. She packs it in her backpack with the rest of her meager belongings, whatever can fit on her back and still manage to let Peter get his arms around her all the way.
He presses closer to her now, isn’t so afraid to let his skin touch hers.
-----
His name was (had been) Shen Xu, and Mohinder showed her a picture. It was blurry and faded but she could still see an old man with white hair and sweet eyes and Peter held her when she cried. For him, the Shen guy.
She asked Mohinder if she could keep the picture. At first he hesitated and she thought he was about to say yes. But then she saw his eyes flick to Peter standing behind her, and she gets a very polite and very certain I’m afraid that’s not possible.
Her nightmares that week feature Shen Xu and are, at first, a welcome change to the old standby, the ones where a tall man with dark eyes stalks her down the empty streets of New York City.
In the morning she wakes up and rubs her eyes and relaxes the muscles in her back - lets them settle and stretch because she doesn’t have to be afraid and tense anymore.
And then she cries a little again for Shen Xu, because she’s sad but also because a part of her was glad that Shen Xu had been able to regenerate himself, same as her.
Shen Xu’s power belongs to Sylar now, says Mohinder, and while that has disastrous consequences for the rest of the world, the fortunate part is that she is therefore no longer a target for HIM. Nathan and Peter and Mohinder say she can go home now. That she’s safe.
She doesn’t think she’s safe, exactly, but she’s definitely safer.
It’s hard to turn it off though, the paranoia that makes her look over her shoulder everywhere, half-expecting to see that freak that doesn’t even have pupils, his eyes are so black.
-----
They went back to New York, for awhile.
Nathan said he was going to explain to her parents so they’d understand. She was going to go back, eventually. It was all going to be okay.
Her white bear from the fair is gone. She asks the maid if she’s seen it. She asks the boys if they took it. She tears the house apart looking for it. But it’s gone.
-----
She’s watching MTV in her room at Nathan’s when HE appears.
He’s carrying a tiny bundle that he drops unceremoniously the minute his feet hit the ground.
The head of Molly Walker lolls over, out of the white sheet she’s wrapped in. Her delicate little forehead is covered with blood.
And then he just stares at her. With that horrible half-smile.
She doesn’t remember starting it but she can hear it now, ripping out of her throat. She screams at a high pitch - one long note that starts in her gut and doesn’t end, not even when HE smiles at her almost…lovingly while she’s screaming.
Peter burst into her room, the door nearly breaking at the hinges.
HE pointed at Peter, and then he was gone.
The motion is not lost on her.
-----
Pinned on Molly’s shirt is another note. The pin is shoved straight into Molly’s poor body. It sturdily holds the paper - that fucking little piece of paper that was the only constant when she and Peter played cross-continental whack-a-mole.
It says the same thing, the same thing it said every time she got one.
Find me, before I come find you.
She pretends not to know what it means when Nathan shakes his head over the body, the innocent little girl body that was miserable for most of its life and deserved a happy ending, with unicorns and a castle and a prince. At least a castle, she thinks, and then she has to sit down.
Peter sits by her and puts his arm around her.
Nathan keeps shaking his head and says that it can’t be about her ability anymore. It’s not about her ability anymore.
And then Nathan’s face gets very dark and he says that maybe it wasn’t ever about her ability to begin with.
She wishes she could muster a look of surprise, but she can’t.
Peter’s fists tighten and he looks at her with his mouth set in a line. His voice shakes with anger when he tells her that Sylar is never going to touch her. And that he’s going to kill Sylar for her, soon.
Nathan tells him to get serious, that Peter tried to kill the guy plenty of times and it never worked. Hell, they’ve all tried. He just comes back. He’s like a cockroach. Or a Cylon.
But Peter won’t listen; he’s in that belligerent, self-righteous stance that won’t listen to reason, no matter what realities Nathan throws at him.
The two brothers rage on, and she ignores them. She kneels by Molly, who is still wrapped in a sheet, her blank eyes and little toes stabbing into every fraction of her soul.
She thinks about how many times Peter tried to kill HIM. Nathan’s right. Peter failed every time and almost got himself killed for trying. Every time.
She covers Molly’s face with the sheet and she nearly passes out when she thinks of what Mohinder’s going to do when he sees this.
It’s in that fuzzy, light-headed moment that her plan becomes quite clear.
-----
That night she sneaks into Peter’s room when the house is dark and quiet, and tells him that she’s scared.
He isn’t asleep yet, but his hair is tousled and his body is warm when he tells her that she shouldn’t be scared because he will always, always take care of her.
She knows that it’s true. She also knows that HE doesn’t mess around. That, to him, pointing a finger is as good as a death sentence. It is a death sentence.
She nestles into Peter’s arms and cries for what feels like hours. When she’s done she has no tears left, and that’s it. She doesn’t have any more tears and she will never, ever have any left to cry again. She vows this to herself, burns it into her brain, her heart, her fists that curl and demand it.
It’s easy to turn her face up to his, to press her lips against Peter’s. At first he hesitates and she can see the fear in his eyes but she isn’t afraid, not at all, and she’s really being pretty forward but she can’t shake the feeling that they don’t have much time left.
He fucks her much like she’d always thought he would - gently and thoroughly. He makes sure she comes first, and then he lets himself go.
It’s still gentle even then, though. He doesn’t have a selfish or brutal bone in his body, wasn’t made for any sort of violence. It’s not a part of him. It doesn’t belong. She’s extracting that part out of him now with every stroke.
Peter tells her brokenly that he loves her just before he comes.
She smiles at him like the goddamn Mona Lisa, because that’s all she can do.
He falls asleep with his arms around her, and it takes awhile before she can get away without waking him. She brushes her fingers through his hair before she goes, but she does not cry.
She walks slowly through the quiet, dark hallways of her father’s home - past the rooms that she didn't even get a chance to like enough to miss.
She doesn’t bother with shoes - its summer and she wears an old pair of Peter’s boxers and an even older shirt.
His semen trickles down her inner thigh as she slips out the front door of the Petrelli home.
If he wants her so bad, then this is what it’s going to be. If he wants her so bad, then this is what he’s going to get.
She cuts into the Park. It’s dark and this would be dangerous for anyone beside her, but she doesn’t care. She wanders for awhile, her feet padding softly on pavement.
It’s not long before her neck prickles and she turns.
HE is standing on the rocky ledge that runs along the pathway she is on. Next to him is the bronze statue of a panther about to pounce, a statue she always liked before, but now she realizes that she hates it.
She blinks and then he’s standing next to her. “About an hour ago I heard you climax.” He speaks to her conversationally.
“I hope you heard him too,” she says bitterly.
“I suppose.” He shrugs lightly, like it doesn’t matter to him, and she believes it.
His eyes are black. She thinks of oil and space and she thinks of tar and none of that is black enough to describe how his eyes look right now.
He bends forward, and he kisses her. He doesn’t touch her anywhere else, just the slight weight of his lips on hers. She keeps her mouth firmly impassive, refuses to acknowledge the kiss by changing the pressure of her lips either way.
He pulls away from her slowly. His eyes are a mass of shadows so dark that she can see her hair and face reflected in them, a flicker of brown and rose and gold.
“You found me,” he says quietly, smiling that fucking creepy half-smile at her.
His arms are around her - like Peter used to do, but not anymore.
“Claire.” He whispers this against her hair. “My little Claire.”
And then they’re gone.
A/N: well, that was dark and horrible. sorry.
i am very indebted to andbless_mybaby for her characterization of sylar in her own sylar/claire stories - he’s a hard guy to understand but she gets it, and her fics helped me get it too. so i would be remiss if i didn't gratefully acknowledge her influence here.
also, thanks to eowyn_girl for reading this fic in its infancy and providing feedback and encouragement even though she hated the ending with every fiber of her soul :)
Author: missaliceblue
Pairing: Sylar/Claire. Peter/Claire.
Rating: R for language, character death, incest, some adult situations.
Status/Word Count: Completed one-shot. 3,000 words. Canon.
Summary: Obsession. Love. Which is stronger?
Thanks to superbetas mutinousmuse and andbless_mybaby.
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
------------------------
She saw HIM one night. He was standing under the window of her room, her new one in California, the one that no one was supposed to know about. Just standing there like the creepy fuck that he is, that half-smile barely twisting his lips.
His eyes were as dark as the night that surrounded him. Darker.
She didn't think, just reacted. She grabbed her phone, called Peter, and babbled four or five words into it.
He was there instantly, jumping them both back to New York.
-----
It’s of the utmost importance that Sylar not take her ability, says Mohinder. They have it on the authority of Hiro, the one who has long hair and speaks English flawlessly.
Mohinder takes his glasses off and rubs his eyes and tells her that she is in very grave danger. That as long as HE knows where she is, she’s at risk, as are the lives of everyone she’s around.
She has to leave. She’s not safe anywhere for long periods of time. She’s got to stay on the move.
She trusts Peter, trusted him when he told her that this was the best plan, trusted Nathan when he told her the same thing.
That doesn’t mean she liked the plan though - she argued against it to Nathan and Mohinder and said that it was gross and it didn't make sense for her to run away with her Uncle.
Nathan just stared at her, and Mohinder looked away. Peter stood next to her, and she felt him tense.
She whispered that no one would believe it.
Nathan didn't say anything for awhile, and when he spoke, he sighed and said that yes, they really would.
The entire thing was utterly embarrassing and she felt like a freak, or a slut, or a sick, sick person.
It happened in front of Mohinder, who is not a Petrelli which means he wouldn’t understand and it bothered her that he had to hear it, makes her ears turn pink now just remembering it.
Her father and mother think she ran away with Peter. It’s been six months and they still think she ran away with Peter.
-----
Peter becomes her constant companion: bodyguard, transportation, and friend, all in one. Her only one.
They stay for a couple weeks, sometimes more. Peter wraps his arms around her and then they’re in Egypt or Thailand or Wisconsin. They do a nice job pretending that they’re just seeing the world, on some manic version of a Senior Trip for her.
-----
She finds a note in the pocket of her canvas jacket, the one that’s still crisp and new because it’s just easier to buy clothes in each city rather than pack it around.
She opens the note and reads it and smiles and figures the coat was returned on the whim of a high school girl who still thought such love notes were worth tucking into the pocket of a jacket. To be taken home and read and re-read and treasured in a shoebox under a bed.
Find me, before I come find you.
She, on the other hand, doesn’t even smile at boys anymore.
-----
They call Nathan on Tuesdays. Peter says that his name is August Martin when Nathan’s secretary asks, which is code for everything is okay.
Nathan doesn’t take the calls. They leave a fake number to be called back at, every week, because that is how it has to be, she’s told.
-----
She cried herself to sleep the first three weeks, usually on a clean towel, because she hated the thought of touching the gross hotel comforters.
They eat out all the time. She misses cooking every so often, and she’ll drag a bag full of groceries to the hotel if they happen to find one with a kitchenette. They’re in Tennessee at the moment, and they do, so she goes to the tiny corner market just down the street.
She buys steak and peppers and onions and in the aisle by the lemons she thought she saw HIM in the corner of her eye for a split second, slowly sniffing a peach.
She does a double take, but he was gone. For a minute her whole body shakes, and she longed to drop her little basket and run.
But that would be crazy. How would he have found her? Why would he have hesitated?
She’s getting more paranoid. She didn't even know that was possible.
-----
The steak was tough. Peter compliments it though, like he always did when she cooked.
After, they rent a movie and she pretends to pay attention to it. Peter fell asleep halfway through, and she turns the TV off and stares at the ceiling until she falls asleep.
It took hours. She memorized the swirling pattern of the paint, the tick of Peter’s wristwatch from across the room.
Sometimes she wonders if it would hurt so very much, to be carved open like a pumpkin.
-----
They’re in Miami during Spring Break. She can hear the loud catcalls outside their bedroom door. Happy kids her own age that laugh and whistle and kiss and get high and eat pizza in their rooms.
She threw the phonebook at the curtains covering the window. Some days she couldn’t remember. Some days she couldn’t remember why they’re even bothering.
Peter told her that she can’t think that way, and kissed her on the cheek, softly. Then he drew away slowly, looking into her eyes the whole time.
-----
This week when Peter calls Nathan, the secretary clicks him through.
Hiro’s dead.
You can imagine what this means, says Nathan, and she can hear the tremors in her father’s voice through the phone, from ten feet away.
-----
Peter usually stands outside the door now, until she’s done crying. As soon as her sobs wither away he will knock and then come in.
He pretends not to see the tears on her cheeks and her red eyes and she appreciates that. He tries to cheer her up with a funny little story or a cup of coffee and sometimes it works.
That night they laid on the same bed and watched a movie, and he’s always very careful not to touch her when they’re on a bed, but this time his shoulders bumped into hers.
-----
They move more quickly now. Every three days and they’re in a new city. Sometimes less.
She likes Canada. It feels a little foreign, just slightly different around the edges and corners, not so much that she feels nervous about staying there.
One time in a suburb of Toronto they passed by a tiny school carnival - it wasn’t even big enough for a roller coaster or those spinning eggcup-looking things. There were booths and hot dog stands and when she begged him to stop he said yes.
He won her a white bear on the coin toss and that night she smiled without forcing it.
-----
She doesn’t tell Peter about this, but she calls her parents.
She calls their house and whoever answers will say hello, hello and she never says anything. Just hangs up after awhile.
The last time she called, her mother said hello and then very softly, the tears wobbling behind her voice, she spoke her name.
She hung up. Fast.
-----
They stay too long in Nicaragua - lulled by the little town they were in, by the contentment and genuine kindness of the people they rent a room from, that cook their dinner for them.
She calls the older lady ‘Abuelita’ and she’s stricken by the woman’s dead body on the floor of the tiny kitchen - legs spread provocatively, blood streaming from the back of her head.
There’s a white piece of paper on the woman’s chest
She gingerly takes it off of the body, and her fingers shake as she holds it in her hand.
It’s written on white notebook paper, carefully torn by hand using a straight edge of some kind.
His handwriting is loopy and low and it says the same words that she found in her coat pocket all those months ago.
Find me, before I come find you.
She rips the note into a million tiny pieces, and doesn’t tell Peter about it.
-----
She takes her white bear that Peter won for her with them. She packs it in her backpack with the rest of her meager belongings, whatever can fit on her back and still manage to let Peter get his arms around her all the way.
He presses closer to her now, isn’t so afraid to let his skin touch hers.
-----
His name was (had been) Shen Xu, and Mohinder showed her a picture. It was blurry and faded but she could still see an old man with white hair and sweet eyes and Peter held her when she cried. For him, the Shen guy.
She asked Mohinder if she could keep the picture. At first he hesitated and she thought he was about to say yes. But then she saw his eyes flick to Peter standing behind her, and she gets a very polite and very certain I’m afraid that’s not possible.
Her nightmares that week feature Shen Xu and are, at first, a welcome change to the old standby, the ones where a tall man with dark eyes stalks her down the empty streets of New York City.
In the morning she wakes up and rubs her eyes and relaxes the muscles in her back - lets them settle and stretch because she doesn’t have to be afraid and tense anymore.
And then she cries a little again for Shen Xu, because she’s sad but also because a part of her was glad that Shen Xu had been able to regenerate himself, same as her.
Shen Xu’s power belongs to Sylar now, says Mohinder, and while that has disastrous consequences for the rest of the world, the fortunate part is that she is therefore no longer a target for HIM. Nathan and Peter and Mohinder say she can go home now. That she’s safe.
She doesn’t think she’s safe, exactly, but she’s definitely safer.
It’s hard to turn it off though, the paranoia that makes her look over her shoulder everywhere, half-expecting to see that freak that doesn’t even have pupils, his eyes are so black.
-----
They went back to New York, for awhile.
Nathan said he was going to explain to her parents so they’d understand. She was going to go back, eventually. It was all going to be okay.
Her white bear from the fair is gone. She asks the maid if she’s seen it. She asks the boys if they took it. She tears the house apart looking for it. But it’s gone.
-----
She’s watching MTV in her room at Nathan’s when HE appears.
He’s carrying a tiny bundle that he drops unceremoniously the minute his feet hit the ground.
The head of Molly Walker lolls over, out of the white sheet she’s wrapped in. Her delicate little forehead is covered with blood.
And then he just stares at her. With that horrible half-smile.
She doesn’t remember starting it but she can hear it now, ripping out of her throat. She screams at a high pitch - one long note that starts in her gut and doesn’t end, not even when HE smiles at her almost…lovingly while she’s screaming.
Peter burst into her room, the door nearly breaking at the hinges.
HE pointed at Peter, and then he was gone.
The motion is not lost on her.
-----
Pinned on Molly’s shirt is another note. The pin is shoved straight into Molly’s poor body. It sturdily holds the paper - that fucking little piece of paper that was the only constant when she and Peter played cross-continental whack-a-mole.
It says the same thing, the same thing it said every time she got one.
Find me, before I come find you.
She pretends not to know what it means when Nathan shakes his head over the body, the innocent little girl body that was miserable for most of its life and deserved a happy ending, with unicorns and a castle and a prince. At least a castle, she thinks, and then she has to sit down.
Peter sits by her and puts his arm around her.
Nathan keeps shaking his head and says that it can’t be about her ability anymore. It’s not about her ability anymore.
And then Nathan’s face gets very dark and he says that maybe it wasn’t ever about her ability to begin with.
She wishes she could muster a look of surprise, but she can’t.
Peter’s fists tighten and he looks at her with his mouth set in a line. His voice shakes with anger when he tells her that Sylar is never going to touch her. And that he’s going to kill Sylar for her, soon.
Nathan tells him to get serious, that Peter tried to kill the guy plenty of times and it never worked. Hell, they’ve all tried. He just comes back. He’s like a cockroach. Or a Cylon.
But Peter won’t listen; he’s in that belligerent, self-righteous stance that won’t listen to reason, no matter what realities Nathan throws at him.
The two brothers rage on, and she ignores them. She kneels by Molly, who is still wrapped in a sheet, her blank eyes and little toes stabbing into every fraction of her soul.
She thinks about how many times Peter tried to kill HIM. Nathan’s right. Peter failed every time and almost got himself killed for trying. Every time.
She covers Molly’s face with the sheet and she nearly passes out when she thinks of what Mohinder’s going to do when he sees this.
It’s in that fuzzy, light-headed moment that her plan becomes quite clear.
-----
That night she sneaks into Peter’s room when the house is dark and quiet, and tells him that she’s scared.
He isn’t asleep yet, but his hair is tousled and his body is warm when he tells her that she shouldn’t be scared because he will always, always take care of her.
She knows that it’s true. She also knows that HE doesn’t mess around. That, to him, pointing a finger is as good as a death sentence. It is a death sentence.
She nestles into Peter’s arms and cries for what feels like hours. When she’s done she has no tears left, and that’s it. She doesn’t have any more tears and she will never, ever have any left to cry again. She vows this to herself, burns it into her brain, her heart, her fists that curl and demand it.
It’s easy to turn her face up to his, to press her lips against Peter’s. At first he hesitates and she can see the fear in his eyes but she isn’t afraid, not at all, and she’s really being pretty forward but she can’t shake the feeling that they don’t have much time left.
He fucks her much like she’d always thought he would - gently and thoroughly. He makes sure she comes first, and then he lets himself go.
It’s still gentle even then, though. He doesn’t have a selfish or brutal bone in his body, wasn’t made for any sort of violence. It’s not a part of him. It doesn’t belong. She’s extracting that part out of him now with every stroke.
Peter tells her brokenly that he loves her just before he comes.
She smiles at him like the goddamn Mona Lisa, because that’s all she can do.
He falls asleep with his arms around her, and it takes awhile before she can get away without waking him. She brushes her fingers through his hair before she goes, but she does not cry.
She walks slowly through the quiet, dark hallways of her father’s home - past the rooms that she didn't even get a chance to like enough to miss.
She doesn’t bother with shoes - its summer and she wears an old pair of Peter’s boxers and an even older shirt.
His semen trickles down her inner thigh as she slips out the front door of the Petrelli home.
If he wants her so bad, then this is what it’s going to be. If he wants her so bad, then this is what he’s going to get.
She cuts into the Park. It’s dark and this would be dangerous for anyone beside her, but she doesn’t care. She wanders for awhile, her feet padding softly on pavement.
It’s not long before her neck prickles and she turns.
HE is standing on the rocky ledge that runs along the pathway she is on. Next to him is the bronze statue of a panther about to pounce, a statue she always liked before, but now she realizes that she hates it.
She blinks and then he’s standing next to her. “About an hour ago I heard you climax.” He speaks to her conversationally.
“I hope you heard him too,” she says bitterly.
“I suppose.” He shrugs lightly, like it doesn’t matter to him, and she believes it.
His eyes are black. She thinks of oil and space and she thinks of tar and none of that is black enough to describe how his eyes look right now.
He bends forward, and he kisses her. He doesn’t touch her anywhere else, just the slight weight of his lips on hers. She keeps her mouth firmly impassive, refuses to acknowledge the kiss by changing the pressure of her lips either way.
He pulls away from her slowly. His eyes are a mass of shadows so dark that she can see her hair and face reflected in them, a flicker of brown and rose and gold.
“You found me,” he says quietly, smiling that fucking creepy half-smile at her.
His arms are around her - like Peter used to do, but not anymore.
“Claire.” He whispers this against her hair. “My little Claire.”
And then they’re gone.
A/N: well, that was dark and horrible. sorry.
i am very indebted to andbless_mybaby for her characterization of sylar in her own sylar/claire stories - he’s a hard guy to understand but she gets it, and her fics helped me get it too. so i would be remiss if i didn't gratefully acknowledge her influence here.
also, thanks to eowyn_girl for reading this fic in its infancy and providing feedback and encouragement even though she hated the ending with every fiber of her soul :)