(Heroes/SPN) I’m Gonna Sing My Song for jaune_chat
Title: I’m Gonna Sing My Song
Author: brighteyed_jill
Fandoms: Heroes, Supernatural
Characters: Sam and Dean; Luke and Sylar
Pairings: Sylar/Luke
Rating: R
Word count: ~3400
Spoilers: Though Season 3 for Heroes, none for Supernatural
Warnings: violence
Disclaimer: Supernatural and Heroes belong to their respective creators
A/N: (A sort of bonus fic.) :)
Summary: Luke Campbell knows something’s a bit off about the two guys in the Impala who pick up him from that abandoned diner, but when he figures they might be able to help him find what he’s lost, he has to play his cards just right.
“So, do you ever listen to other stations?” Luke asked.
Dean’s glare bounced off the Impala’s rearview mirror and hit Luke like a shove. “Next time you rescue a punk kid from an abandoned diner, you can choose the music. Anyway, you only have to listen to it until we get to the next town.”
Luke dropped back against the bench seat and crossed his arms over his chest. “Great.”
From the passenger seat, Sam turned around and gave Luke an apologetic puppy-dog smile. “He’s not so bad, once you get to know him.”
“Right.” Luke turned his attention to the dead, brown fields rushing by outside. When they were on the road together, Sylar hadn’t made him sit in the back like an annoying younger brother. Even when he maybe kind of deserved it. Luke felt a prickling at the back of his neck, and when he turned to look, Sam was still watching him. “What?”
“It’s just... It’s this cast we’re working on. It’s tough,” Sam said. “A lot of people have died, and we’re trying to make sure no one else gets hurt.”
“Well maybe those dead people deserved what they got,” Luke muttered.
Dean glared again. “Deserved to have their skulls ripped open and their brains scooped out like a nice juicy melon?”
“Dean!” Sam shot him a look.
“It’s fine. You can talk in front of me.” Luke tucked his hands in his jacket pockets. “I’m not a little kid. I’ve seen dead bodies.”
“Really?” Sam raised his eyebrows.
“Yeah.” Luke didn’t say he’d been the one to make the dead body dead. These guys might not be cops, and no matter what they told him, they weren’t FBI agents, but they were certainly professionals of some kind. Bounty hunters, maybe. Or killers for hire. Luke was taking his life in his hands accepting a ride with them. He felt a little better. “These people who died,” Luke ventured. “Was there anything weird about them?”
“How do you mean weird?” Sam asked.
“Like, crazy stuff had been happening around them before they died, or people said they were strange.” Luke shrugged, going for nonchalant. “Stuff like that.”
“What are you, a junior investigator?” Dean asked.
“I just heard some stuff, thought it might be related.”
“What, like, on the news?” Sam asked.
“No,” Luke said slowly. If he played this smart, really smart, he could find Sylar again and get back in his good graces in one smooth move. “I didn’t so much actually tell the truth back there when I said my friends were playing around and ditched me.”
“That is shocking,” Dean said. “I am shocked.”
So how did you end up alone on the side of the highway?” Sam asked.
“Why do you care, all of a sudden? You’re just gonna dump me off in ten minutes. Why exchange life stories?”
“I just thought if you’d heard something about the murders, you might want to help.” Sam’s eyes narrowed. “People are dying.”
“Nobody helped me,” Luke said to the floor. This was the tricky part. Luke had to play this just right. “So there’s some psycho out there cutting people’s heads open. You said you’re not cops. You think I actually believe you’re FBI agents? Please. What the hell can you do about it? That guy in Pittsburgh, he screamed for help when he was getting his head cut open, I bet. Nobody helped him. I’ve gotta look out for myself, and that doesn’t involve telling you jack shit.”
The car swerved sharply, sending Luke flying across the seat. His head connected painfully with the window. “Hey!”
The car skidded to a stop of the gravel of the shoulder. Dean got out, marched around the car, pulled open the back door, and dragged Luke out by the back of his coat. One shove sent Luke sprawling to his knees in the rough grass of the roadside ditch.
“Dean!”
When Luke looked back, his eyes fixed immediately on the handgun pointed right at him.
“Who are you? And don’t say you’re some poor innocent kid.”
“Dean, put the gun away!”Sam climbed out of the car, moving carefully as if he was afraid of setting off a bomb.
“How do you know about the guy in Pittsburgh?”
“I dunno, man,” Luke said. “I heard it on the news!”
“Wrong. The PD hasn’t released information about that whole brain thing to the press. They don’t want to cause a panic.” Dean held the gun perfectly steady, like he really knew what he was doing. Like he’d shot people before. “How’d you know?”
“I didn’t do anything!” Luke felt a heated glow under his skin. It hummed within him like downed power lines, and he held onto it, just beneath the surface. He wondered if his power moved faster than bullets. He didn’t think so. “I didn’t!”
Sam edged closer. “Dean, put it away!”
Dean pulled back the safety and leveled the gun at Luke. “How’d you know?”
“Because he told me!” Luke yelled. He tore his eyes away from the gun and fixed his eyes on the ground. “The guy that did it. He told me.”
Dean’s gun hand dropped slowly. “Alright, kid. We’re gonna need some explanation.”
--
They pulled into a motel parking lot in Wapello just after midnight. There hadn’t been much conversation after the sun had gone down. Or, if there had been, Luke had slept through it. He’d been running on rivers of adrenaline the last few days, ever since Sylar had walked into his life. Now that he’d walked out again, Luke felt like everything was on hold: all this was just a tedious intermission. He’d get back to Sylar and show how useful he could be, and things could go back to the way they were before, during the three days when Luke had actually felt his life wasn’t a complete waste. When he woke up, Sam and Dean were climbing out of the Impala. Luke wiped the drool off his chin and followed suit.
“Come on.” Sam pulled a sleeping bag out of the trunk and tossed it to Luke.
He fumbled the catch, but managed to get a grip before it hit the ground. “What’s this for?”
“Sleeping, genius.” Dean hefted a duffel bag. “Sam snores, and I hog the covers, so no sharing beds. You’ll have to settle for the floor.”
“What, I don’t get my own room?”
Dean snorted. “You paying for it, short stuff?”
Sam shot his brother a warning look. “Luke, if this guy might come back for you like you said, it’s safer if we’re all in one place.”
Luke bit back a retort. He still wasn’t sure what these guys meant to do. They could be planning on finding out what he knew and then leaving him. Then Luke would be on his own. With no leads. Again. And he wasn’t scared of these guys, gun or no gun. If they tried anything, they’d find their blood boiling out of their ears. “Fine.”
Inside the room, the bright yellow wallpaper was broken only by framed oil paintings of corn fields. Luke laid out his sleeping bag as close to the door as possible. He wasn’t sure yet exactly what his plan was, but if he could get some alone time, he might figure out a way to contact Sylar.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Dean pouring what looked like white dust across the doorway. “What the hell is that?”
“Salt.”
“For...?”
“In case I get hungry in the night and want to fix up some French fries.” Dean looked up just long enough to show his smirk. “What do you think?”
“Uh… Okay.” Luke backed away, headed for the bathroom. “I’m gonna grab a shower.”
“Don’t use all the hot water!” Dean called after him.
Luke turned the shower on full blast and cranked it all the way to hot. Then he pressed his ear to the door.
“--not zombies.” Sam’s voice carried easily through the door and over the hiss of the shower. “I mean, we could still be talking zombie master, but this was precise work.”
“You’re not saying this is a regular human serial killer?” Dean asked.
“Luke seems to think the guy that was dragging him around was human.”
“Plenty of monsters can look like regular people.”
“Plenty of regular people are monsters.”
“Yeah, but how’s a human gonna slice through someone’s noggin in two minutes and walk away with his brain? Come on.”
“Witches? They’re big into body parts.”
“Witches, demons, who the hell knows. We’re flying blind, here. I say we hit the research again, and when Mr. Juvenile Delinquent there gets out of the shower, we find out exactly what he saw.”
Luke smirked into the steam. Sam and Dean believed his story about being dragged from his home by the man who’d killed a federal agent. He’d mostly told the truth, but conveniently left out any mention of special abilities. He got the impression these guys didn’t take kindly to anything that smacked of the supernatural. Hell, if Luke had shown a hint of his power back there on the roadside, Dean probably would have wasted him.
Luke stripped off his clothes and climbed into the shower, letting the scalding water wash off the dust of the road along with the pain of rejection. Sylar would be sorry he’d left Luke, when the Winchesters caught up to him. Luke closed his eyes and let himself picture it: Sylar’s surprise at seeing Luke again, his approval when he realized how Luke had tricked their enemies, his gratitude for Luke’s loyalty.
Afterwards, they’d go to a hotel like this one. Or no--maybe they’d be out on the road somewhere, a deserted road, with a badass car like the one these guys had. And Sylar would push Luke down over the hood, spread him out under the sun, whispering in Luke’s ear how clever he was to come up with a plan like that, how he was so good. And Luke would be squirming against the car, already so damn close from feeling Sylar’s hands holding him down, and then Sylar would take--
A fist pounded on the rickety bathroom door. “Hey kid! If there’s no hot water left when I get in there, you’re riding in the trunk tomorrow!”
“Whatever!” Luke yelled back. Then, under his breath, “Shit.” He leaned against the shower wall and slid to his knees. He closed his eyes again and savored the adrenaline rush in his blood as he imagined Sylar standing over him, demanding. Luke fisted a hand in his own hair, just to test what it would feel like, and with his other hand, he brought himself off, quick and rough.
Luke barely bothered toweling himself off before pulling his dirty clothes back on. He opened the door with a rush of steam.
Sam was sitting on one of the beds with books spread out around him. Dean sat at the room’s sole table, tearing something out of the newspaper. “‘Bout time.” Dean grabbed his bag and disappeared into the bathroom.
Luke went to sit on his sleeping bag. He wished he had his iPod. Or his laptop. Something to do. He watched Sam, who was squinting at a beat-up old-looking book, and scribbling on a post-it pad. “Watcha doing?”
“Research.” Sam wrote for another minute, then glanced up. Luke tried to look trustworthy. “We’re trying to figure out if there’s a pattern to this guy’s victims. It might help us predict where he’s going next.”
“Oh.” Luke picked at a loose thread on the sleeping bag. He tried to think of something clever to say. Truth was, he had no idea how Sylar tracked down the people he’d stolen abilities from. Maybe he’d met a lot of pathetic bastards like Luke, who’d helped him to his next goal, then been abandoned. Not this time, though. Luke was going to make himself useful to Sylar. He was going to prove his worth.
“Luke. Hey.”
Luke looked up to see Sam perched on the edge of the bed.
“We’re gonna find this guy. Don’t worry. We won’t let him get to you.”
“Sure.” The idea of these guys standing up to Sylar seemed laughable. On the other hand, the Winchesters apparently knew some tricks the government agents didn’t, or they wouldn’t have tracked him this far. Luke would have to be on his guard.
“If there’s anything else you can tell us about him, it might help. Even if it sounds strange.”
Luke shrugged. “I dunno what you want me to say. The whole thing is kind of surreal. Last week I was getting hassled by my mom and getting in fights at school. This week I’m on a road trip with a serial killer.”
“Hey, are you...” Sam’s face scrunched into a sympathetic frown. “I mean, is there someone you need to call? I bet your parents are worried. They probably filed a missing persons report by now.”
Luke snorted. “Yeah, right. Nobody cares about me.”
“There’s no one you can call?”
Luke swallowed hard. If Sylar had a cell phone he’d call it in a second, even if he couldn’t say anything in front of Sam. But he didn’t have a number to call, and Sylar had no reason to pick up, anyway. Not until Luke proved his worth. “No,” Luke said. “I look out for myself.”
“You seem pretty independent.”
“Thanks, I think.”
“Just saying.” Sam dragged one of his books onto his lap. “I don’t think you need looking after.”
“I don’t,” Luke said, maybe a little too quickly.
“Alright,” Sam said. He stared down at his book. “You know, one time, when we were teenagers, Dean and I got into this big fight. Like, screaming at each other, saying I never wanted to see him again. You know, juvenile crap. Anyway, so I went out, angry as hell, just going where I shouldn’t have been. And this group of, uh, guys jumped me. Beat me up pretty bad, and might have done worse if Dean hadn’t shown up. He’d gone out looking for me, even though an hour before he’d been screaming at me to get out of his face and leave him the hell alone. I know it’s not the same, really, but he’s always come back for me, when he really needed to. Even when I didn’t deserve it. I don’t know. Maybe you’re not as alone as you think.”
“Yeah.” Luke pulled the loose threat out of the sleeping bag and crushed it in his hand.“Whatever. Now are we gonna braid each other’s hair and play truth or dare? Christ.” Luke borrowed into the sleeping bag and rolled over to put his back to Sam. He couldn’t tell if it was disappointment or relief he felt when Sam left him alone.
Luke lay there with his eyes closed a while, until Dean came out of the bathroom and Sam went in. The TV switched on, volume low, but Luke could still identify the sounds of a Dr. Sexy, MD re-run. The white noise helped him think. Tomorrow, he’d figure out a way to find out where Sylar had gone. As he sank into sleep, he thought about his plan, and figured that maybe he could work it so the Winchesters didn’t have to die. Sam, at least. Dean was a total jerk.
--
Luke shoveled the last bit of pancake into his mouth. He was used to being the first one done at any meal, but Sam and Dean had long since devoured their extensive breakfasts and had spread out their research across the Formica tabletop at Wapello’s only diner.
“If there is no connection,” Sam asked, “then how’s he choosing his victims?”
“Maybe it’s random.” Dean picked up on one of the newspaper clippings for the tenth time. “Sometimes a psycho’s just a psycho.”
Luke tried to stifle his laugh, but only half managed, and ended up coughing into his orange juice.
Dean narrowed his eyes at Luke. “You got something to share with the class?”
“Not really.” Luke picked up his fork and pushed around the remnants of his greasy hashbrowns. When he looked up, Sam had on that wide-eyed, patient look that seemed to say he would wait as long as Luke needed. Luke signed. “Well, just, he said this thing to me, once. Like that you should always have a goal in mind, and know what your end game is. Didn’t sound like he was just on a random killing spree. He definitely had a purpose.”
“What are you, his apprentice?” Dean asked.
“I didn’t ask him to take me!” Luke snapped. A lie. He had asked. He’d begged, in fact. “Do I look like I’m some bad-ass serial killer’s accomplice? I’m nobody. Even strangers trying to rescue me think I’m fucking annoying.” The truth. There was no reason Sylar should want him back. “Besides, big bad villains don’t go abandoning their apprentices on the side of the road like a dumb dog, right?” Maybe, maybe. It could be a test. Even a dumb dog could find their way home to its master. Nearby diners were starting to stare. Luke deliberately lowered his voice. “Fuck. I just want to get back at the asshole who dragged me halfway across the country and couldn’t even be bothered to murder me. It’s bullshit, man. You guys are dicks, but I think you might be able to find him, and I wanna help.”
Dean glanced at Sam, cleared his throat, and then gave Luke a slow nod. “Yeah, okay. I get it.”
“I’ve gotta take a piss.” Luke threw down his silverware. He followed a twisting hallway back past the bathroom and pushed out the propped-open back door to the gravel parking lot. The weak morning sun provided scant warmth, but Luke let his energy sizzle to the surface of his skin, warming him all over. He pressed his forehead against the rough brick of the wall.
Luke was going to have to try harder. These guys were probably getting suspicious. Even if they weren’t, they going to get sick of him, soon, and if they ditched him, he’d lose his best chance of finding Sylar. He had to tell them something, something that could help them figure out where Sylar might be, but that wouldn’t give away what Sylar was--what they both were.
“Is this meant to be some kind of revenge?”
Luke whirled around. For a moment, he thought the figure standing silhouetted against the sun must have been a mirage. He raised a hand to shield his eyes. Sylar stood smiling at him with sharp, sharp teeth. “What?”
“You’re leading around people who think they can stop me.”
“They can’t stop you.” Luke lowered his hand. He probably looked dumb. “And I didn’t tell them anything. I thought they could find you, is all.”
Sylar took a step closer. “Why are you looking for me?”
“Why are you looking for me?” Luke countered. Sylar stared at him, unmoving, until Luke had to say something else. “What, you just happened to be wandering around a diner parking lot?”
Sylar inclined his head toward the door. “Those two in there. Are they a threat?”
Luke considered. “Not to you.”
“Fine.” Sylar pointed at a black SUV parked behind the building. The doors swung open. “Get in.”
Luke stayed where he was. “Aren’t you going to say thank you?”
“For what?”
Luke grinned. “For throwing those guys off your trail.”
“No. We’re not their kind of monster.”
Luke felt strangely cheered at being in the same category of monster as Sylar. He got in the car.
With Sylar behind the wheel, Luke relaxed. He didn’t even care where they were going, or what Sam and Dean would do when they found he’d ditched them. He was where he wanted to be, for once. When they pulled out onto the highway, Luke began fiddling with the radio dial. At last, he found what he was looking for.
“Luke.” Sylar raised an eyebrow. “What is that?”
Luke turned up the volume until the sounds of Led Zeppelin filled the car. “Classic rock, man. Classic rock.”
-END-
Prompts:
-Sleeping with the enemy (literally or figuratively)
-Earning trust
Author: brighteyed_jill
Fandoms: Heroes, Supernatural
Characters: Sam and Dean; Luke and Sylar
Pairings: Sylar/Luke
Rating: R
Word count: ~3400
Spoilers: Though Season 3 for Heroes, none for Supernatural
Warnings: violence
Disclaimer: Supernatural and Heroes belong to their respective creators
A/N: (A sort of bonus fic.) :)
Summary: Luke Campbell knows something’s a bit off about the two guys in the Impala who pick up him from that abandoned diner, but when he figures they might be able to help him find what he’s lost, he has to play his cards just right.
“So, do you ever listen to other stations?” Luke asked.
Dean’s glare bounced off the Impala’s rearview mirror and hit Luke like a shove. “Next time you rescue a punk kid from an abandoned diner, you can choose the music. Anyway, you only have to listen to it until we get to the next town.”
Luke dropped back against the bench seat and crossed his arms over his chest. “Great.”
From the passenger seat, Sam turned around and gave Luke an apologetic puppy-dog smile. “He’s not so bad, once you get to know him.”
“Right.” Luke turned his attention to the dead, brown fields rushing by outside. When they were on the road together, Sylar hadn’t made him sit in the back like an annoying younger brother. Even when he maybe kind of deserved it. Luke felt a prickling at the back of his neck, and when he turned to look, Sam was still watching him. “What?”
“It’s just... It’s this cast we’re working on. It’s tough,” Sam said. “A lot of people have died, and we’re trying to make sure no one else gets hurt.”
“Well maybe those dead people deserved what they got,” Luke muttered.
Dean glared again. “Deserved to have their skulls ripped open and their brains scooped out like a nice juicy melon?”
“Dean!” Sam shot him a look.
“It’s fine. You can talk in front of me.” Luke tucked his hands in his jacket pockets. “I’m not a little kid. I’ve seen dead bodies.”
“Really?” Sam raised his eyebrows.
“Yeah.” Luke didn’t say he’d been the one to make the dead body dead. These guys might not be cops, and no matter what they told him, they weren’t FBI agents, but they were certainly professionals of some kind. Bounty hunters, maybe. Or killers for hire. Luke was taking his life in his hands accepting a ride with them. He felt a little better. “These people who died,” Luke ventured. “Was there anything weird about them?”
“How do you mean weird?” Sam asked.
“Like, crazy stuff had been happening around them before they died, or people said they were strange.” Luke shrugged, going for nonchalant. “Stuff like that.”
“What are you, a junior investigator?” Dean asked.
“I just heard some stuff, thought it might be related.”
“What, like, on the news?” Sam asked.
“No,” Luke said slowly. If he played this smart, really smart, he could find Sylar again and get back in his good graces in one smooth move. “I didn’t so much actually tell the truth back there when I said my friends were playing around and ditched me.”
“That is shocking,” Dean said. “I am shocked.”
So how did you end up alone on the side of the highway?” Sam asked.
“Why do you care, all of a sudden? You’re just gonna dump me off in ten minutes. Why exchange life stories?”
“I just thought if you’d heard something about the murders, you might want to help.” Sam’s eyes narrowed. “People are dying.”
“Nobody helped me,” Luke said to the floor. This was the tricky part. Luke had to play this just right. “So there’s some psycho out there cutting people’s heads open. You said you’re not cops. You think I actually believe you’re FBI agents? Please. What the hell can you do about it? That guy in Pittsburgh, he screamed for help when he was getting his head cut open, I bet. Nobody helped him. I’ve gotta look out for myself, and that doesn’t involve telling you jack shit.”
The car swerved sharply, sending Luke flying across the seat. His head connected painfully with the window. “Hey!”
The car skidded to a stop of the gravel of the shoulder. Dean got out, marched around the car, pulled open the back door, and dragged Luke out by the back of his coat. One shove sent Luke sprawling to his knees in the rough grass of the roadside ditch.
“Dean!”
When Luke looked back, his eyes fixed immediately on the handgun pointed right at him.
“Who are you? And don’t say you’re some poor innocent kid.”
“Dean, put the gun away!”Sam climbed out of the car, moving carefully as if he was afraid of setting off a bomb.
“How do you know about the guy in Pittsburgh?”
“I dunno, man,” Luke said. “I heard it on the news!”
“Wrong. The PD hasn’t released information about that whole brain thing to the press. They don’t want to cause a panic.” Dean held the gun perfectly steady, like he really knew what he was doing. Like he’d shot people before. “How’d you know?”
“I didn’t do anything!” Luke felt a heated glow under his skin. It hummed within him like downed power lines, and he held onto it, just beneath the surface. He wondered if his power moved faster than bullets. He didn’t think so. “I didn’t!”
Sam edged closer. “Dean, put it away!”
Dean pulled back the safety and leveled the gun at Luke. “How’d you know?”
“Because he told me!” Luke yelled. He tore his eyes away from the gun and fixed his eyes on the ground. “The guy that did it. He told me.”
Dean’s gun hand dropped slowly. “Alright, kid. We’re gonna need some explanation.”
--
They pulled into a motel parking lot in Wapello just after midnight. There hadn’t been much conversation after the sun had gone down. Or, if there had been, Luke had slept through it. He’d been running on rivers of adrenaline the last few days, ever since Sylar had walked into his life. Now that he’d walked out again, Luke felt like everything was on hold: all this was just a tedious intermission. He’d get back to Sylar and show how useful he could be, and things could go back to the way they were before, during the three days when Luke had actually felt his life wasn’t a complete waste. When he woke up, Sam and Dean were climbing out of the Impala. Luke wiped the drool off his chin and followed suit.
“Come on.” Sam pulled a sleeping bag out of the trunk and tossed it to Luke.
He fumbled the catch, but managed to get a grip before it hit the ground. “What’s this for?”
“Sleeping, genius.” Dean hefted a duffel bag. “Sam snores, and I hog the covers, so no sharing beds. You’ll have to settle for the floor.”
“What, I don’t get my own room?”
Dean snorted. “You paying for it, short stuff?”
Sam shot his brother a warning look. “Luke, if this guy might come back for you like you said, it’s safer if we’re all in one place.”
Luke bit back a retort. He still wasn’t sure what these guys meant to do. They could be planning on finding out what he knew and then leaving him. Then Luke would be on his own. With no leads. Again. And he wasn’t scared of these guys, gun or no gun. If they tried anything, they’d find their blood boiling out of their ears. “Fine.”
Inside the room, the bright yellow wallpaper was broken only by framed oil paintings of corn fields. Luke laid out his sleeping bag as close to the door as possible. He wasn’t sure yet exactly what his plan was, but if he could get some alone time, he might figure out a way to contact Sylar.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Dean pouring what looked like white dust across the doorway. “What the hell is that?”
“Salt.”
“For...?”
“In case I get hungry in the night and want to fix up some French fries.” Dean looked up just long enough to show his smirk. “What do you think?”
“Uh… Okay.” Luke backed away, headed for the bathroom. “I’m gonna grab a shower.”
“Don’t use all the hot water!” Dean called after him.
Luke turned the shower on full blast and cranked it all the way to hot. Then he pressed his ear to the door.
“--not zombies.” Sam’s voice carried easily through the door and over the hiss of the shower. “I mean, we could still be talking zombie master, but this was precise work.”
“You’re not saying this is a regular human serial killer?” Dean asked.
“Luke seems to think the guy that was dragging him around was human.”
“Plenty of monsters can look like regular people.”
“Plenty of regular people are monsters.”
“Yeah, but how’s a human gonna slice through someone’s noggin in two minutes and walk away with his brain? Come on.”
“Witches? They’re big into body parts.”
“Witches, demons, who the hell knows. We’re flying blind, here. I say we hit the research again, and when Mr. Juvenile Delinquent there gets out of the shower, we find out exactly what he saw.”
Luke smirked into the steam. Sam and Dean believed his story about being dragged from his home by the man who’d killed a federal agent. He’d mostly told the truth, but conveniently left out any mention of special abilities. He got the impression these guys didn’t take kindly to anything that smacked of the supernatural. Hell, if Luke had shown a hint of his power back there on the roadside, Dean probably would have wasted him.
Luke stripped off his clothes and climbed into the shower, letting the scalding water wash off the dust of the road along with the pain of rejection. Sylar would be sorry he’d left Luke, when the Winchesters caught up to him. Luke closed his eyes and let himself picture it: Sylar’s surprise at seeing Luke again, his approval when he realized how Luke had tricked their enemies, his gratitude for Luke’s loyalty.
Afterwards, they’d go to a hotel like this one. Or no--maybe they’d be out on the road somewhere, a deserted road, with a badass car like the one these guys had. And Sylar would push Luke down over the hood, spread him out under the sun, whispering in Luke’s ear how clever he was to come up with a plan like that, how he was so good. And Luke would be squirming against the car, already so damn close from feeling Sylar’s hands holding him down, and then Sylar would take--
A fist pounded on the rickety bathroom door. “Hey kid! If there’s no hot water left when I get in there, you’re riding in the trunk tomorrow!”
“Whatever!” Luke yelled back. Then, under his breath, “Shit.” He leaned against the shower wall and slid to his knees. He closed his eyes again and savored the adrenaline rush in his blood as he imagined Sylar standing over him, demanding. Luke fisted a hand in his own hair, just to test what it would feel like, and with his other hand, he brought himself off, quick and rough.
Luke barely bothered toweling himself off before pulling his dirty clothes back on. He opened the door with a rush of steam.
Sam was sitting on one of the beds with books spread out around him. Dean sat at the room’s sole table, tearing something out of the newspaper. “‘Bout time.” Dean grabbed his bag and disappeared into the bathroom.
Luke went to sit on his sleeping bag. He wished he had his iPod. Or his laptop. Something to do. He watched Sam, who was squinting at a beat-up old-looking book, and scribbling on a post-it pad. “Watcha doing?”
“Research.” Sam wrote for another minute, then glanced up. Luke tried to look trustworthy. “We’re trying to figure out if there’s a pattern to this guy’s victims. It might help us predict where he’s going next.”
“Oh.” Luke picked at a loose thread on the sleeping bag. He tried to think of something clever to say. Truth was, he had no idea how Sylar tracked down the people he’d stolen abilities from. Maybe he’d met a lot of pathetic bastards like Luke, who’d helped him to his next goal, then been abandoned. Not this time, though. Luke was going to make himself useful to Sylar. He was going to prove his worth.
“Luke. Hey.”
Luke looked up to see Sam perched on the edge of the bed.
“We’re gonna find this guy. Don’t worry. We won’t let him get to you.”
“Sure.” The idea of these guys standing up to Sylar seemed laughable. On the other hand, the Winchesters apparently knew some tricks the government agents didn’t, or they wouldn’t have tracked him this far. Luke would have to be on his guard.
“If there’s anything else you can tell us about him, it might help. Even if it sounds strange.”
Luke shrugged. “I dunno what you want me to say. The whole thing is kind of surreal. Last week I was getting hassled by my mom and getting in fights at school. This week I’m on a road trip with a serial killer.”
“Hey, are you...” Sam’s face scrunched into a sympathetic frown. “I mean, is there someone you need to call? I bet your parents are worried. They probably filed a missing persons report by now.”
Luke snorted. “Yeah, right. Nobody cares about me.”
“There’s no one you can call?”
Luke swallowed hard. If Sylar had a cell phone he’d call it in a second, even if he couldn’t say anything in front of Sam. But he didn’t have a number to call, and Sylar had no reason to pick up, anyway. Not until Luke proved his worth. “No,” Luke said. “I look out for myself.”
“You seem pretty independent.”
“Thanks, I think.”
“Just saying.” Sam dragged one of his books onto his lap. “I don’t think you need looking after.”
“I don’t,” Luke said, maybe a little too quickly.
“Alright,” Sam said. He stared down at his book. “You know, one time, when we were teenagers, Dean and I got into this big fight. Like, screaming at each other, saying I never wanted to see him again. You know, juvenile crap. Anyway, so I went out, angry as hell, just going where I shouldn’t have been. And this group of, uh, guys jumped me. Beat me up pretty bad, and might have done worse if Dean hadn’t shown up. He’d gone out looking for me, even though an hour before he’d been screaming at me to get out of his face and leave him the hell alone. I know it’s not the same, really, but he’s always come back for me, when he really needed to. Even when I didn’t deserve it. I don’t know. Maybe you’re not as alone as you think.”
“Yeah.” Luke pulled the loose threat out of the sleeping bag and crushed it in his hand.“Whatever. Now are we gonna braid each other’s hair and play truth or dare? Christ.” Luke borrowed into the sleeping bag and rolled over to put his back to Sam. He couldn’t tell if it was disappointment or relief he felt when Sam left him alone.
Luke lay there with his eyes closed a while, until Dean came out of the bathroom and Sam went in. The TV switched on, volume low, but Luke could still identify the sounds of a Dr. Sexy, MD re-run. The white noise helped him think. Tomorrow, he’d figure out a way to find out where Sylar had gone. As he sank into sleep, he thought about his plan, and figured that maybe he could work it so the Winchesters didn’t have to die. Sam, at least. Dean was a total jerk.
--
Luke shoveled the last bit of pancake into his mouth. He was used to being the first one done at any meal, but Sam and Dean had long since devoured their extensive breakfasts and had spread out their research across the Formica tabletop at Wapello’s only diner.
“If there is no connection,” Sam asked, “then how’s he choosing his victims?”
“Maybe it’s random.” Dean picked up on one of the newspaper clippings for the tenth time. “Sometimes a psycho’s just a psycho.”
Luke tried to stifle his laugh, but only half managed, and ended up coughing into his orange juice.
Dean narrowed his eyes at Luke. “You got something to share with the class?”
“Not really.” Luke picked up his fork and pushed around the remnants of his greasy hashbrowns. When he looked up, Sam had on that wide-eyed, patient look that seemed to say he would wait as long as Luke needed. Luke signed. “Well, just, he said this thing to me, once. Like that you should always have a goal in mind, and know what your end game is. Didn’t sound like he was just on a random killing spree. He definitely had a purpose.”
“What are you, his apprentice?” Dean asked.
“I didn’t ask him to take me!” Luke snapped. A lie. He had asked. He’d begged, in fact. “Do I look like I’m some bad-ass serial killer’s accomplice? I’m nobody. Even strangers trying to rescue me think I’m fucking annoying.” The truth. There was no reason Sylar should want him back. “Besides, big bad villains don’t go abandoning their apprentices on the side of the road like a dumb dog, right?” Maybe, maybe. It could be a test. Even a dumb dog could find their way home to its master. Nearby diners were starting to stare. Luke deliberately lowered his voice. “Fuck. I just want to get back at the asshole who dragged me halfway across the country and couldn’t even be bothered to murder me. It’s bullshit, man. You guys are dicks, but I think you might be able to find him, and I wanna help.”
Dean glanced at Sam, cleared his throat, and then gave Luke a slow nod. “Yeah, okay. I get it.”
“I’ve gotta take a piss.” Luke threw down his silverware. He followed a twisting hallway back past the bathroom and pushed out the propped-open back door to the gravel parking lot. The weak morning sun provided scant warmth, but Luke let his energy sizzle to the surface of his skin, warming him all over. He pressed his forehead against the rough brick of the wall.
Luke was going to have to try harder. These guys were probably getting suspicious. Even if they weren’t, they going to get sick of him, soon, and if they ditched him, he’d lose his best chance of finding Sylar. He had to tell them something, something that could help them figure out where Sylar might be, but that wouldn’t give away what Sylar was--what they both were.
“Is this meant to be some kind of revenge?”
Luke whirled around. For a moment, he thought the figure standing silhouetted against the sun must have been a mirage. He raised a hand to shield his eyes. Sylar stood smiling at him with sharp, sharp teeth. “What?”
“You’re leading around people who think they can stop me.”
“They can’t stop you.” Luke lowered his hand. He probably looked dumb. “And I didn’t tell them anything. I thought they could find you, is all.”
Sylar took a step closer. “Why are you looking for me?”
“Why are you looking for me?” Luke countered. Sylar stared at him, unmoving, until Luke had to say something else. “What, you just happened to be wandering around a diner parking lot?”
Sylar inclined his head toward the door. “Those two in there. Are they a threat?”
Luke considered. “Not to you.”
“Fine.” Sylar pointed at a black SUV parked behind the building. The doors swung open. “Get in.”
Luke stayed where he was. “Aren’t you going to say thank you?”
“For what?”
Luke grinned. “For throwing those guys off your trail.”
“No. We’re not their kind of monster.”
Luke felt strangely cheered at being in the same category of monster as Sylar. He got in the car.
With Sylar behind the wheel, Luke relaxed. He didn’t even care where they were going, or what Sam and Dean would do when they found he’d ditched them. He was where he wanted to be, for once. When they pulled out onto the highway, Luke began fiddling with the radio dial. At last, he found what he was looking for.
“Luke.” Sylar raised an eyebrow. “What is that?”
Luke turned up the volume until the sounds of Led Zeppelin filled the car. “Classic rock, man. Classic rock.”
-END-
Prompts:
-Sleeping with the enemy (literally or figuratively)
-Earning trust