(no subject)
Title: Define Dangerous
Characters: Sylar, Claire.
Spoilers: Up to Season 2.
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2636
Chapter: 21/?
Previously: Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10, Chapter 11, Chapter 12, Chapter 13, Chapter 14, Chapter 15, Chapter 16, Chapter 17, Chapter 18, Chapter 19, Chapter 20
Summary: While escaping the Company, Sylar meets up with someone from his past. Together, they must piece together some semblance of normality after years of captivity. Future AU.
The sun rose over the lake with so many colors Sylar could tell why Peter had chosen to settle down here. Away from the rest of the world, a person could still feel like they were a part of it all through the natural awe of the outdoors. It was a false connection though, built on lies and false indignation.
Peter was throwing everything he could have with Claire away, so he could hide up here alone and forget the life he once knew. It was up to Sylar to show him the truth, even if that meant beating reality into his tiny, pathetic skull.
He walked up the front steps and peeked in through the window, shading his eyes with one hand. There were no lights on inside and no signs that anyone was up this early in the morning. Peter was going to be in for quite a surprise when he woke up.
As Sylar phased through the wall, he contemplated what he would do after Claire and Peter reunited, what he would do without her. He shook off the thought almost immediately. Those kinds of ideas were what led to the incident the night before, which he was eagerly trying to forget. Once Claire was gone, things could go back to normal and he would be able to go back to being dead inside. It was so much easier when he didn't have to feel anything.
Despite all efforts to misplace the memory of her skin against his own, the way she nibbled at his lip when they kissed or how she opened for him and drew him in, Sylar couldn't push the thoughts far enough away. Images of her lying naked on the bed, moving beneath him poked their way past the wall he fixed in his mind, pushing their way through his resistance. Sylar grumbled quietly, “Next time I work alone.”
Walking down the hallway, he grounded himself in the present moment, the scent of cedar and firewood and the rustic furnishings. The walls were all wood, very natural, probably cut from logs around the neighborhood almost a century ago. He peered up the stairs, wondering where he should start his search for the younger Petrelli brother.
Sylar moved farther down the hall and into the living room. There were picture frames and photographs on every flat surface possible; over the fireplace, the bookshelves, the end tables, some were even tacked up along the walls. They all held the same four faces. Sylar only knew the two boys; Nathan and Peter Petrelli. He assumed the older gentleman and the woman were their parents. It was a living shrine, a monument to the dead.
When he checked the photos more closely, Sylar noticing some of the photographs were cut in two, others were missing torn out sections. In one of these particular photos, the edges of the missing person's blond hair were still there. The photograph was folded in half and stuck in the frame. Sylar picked it off the fireplace mantel, opened the back and took out the picture.
The smiling face of Claire starred back at him once Sylar unfolded the picture. Nathan was hugging her in the group shot, with Peter standing behind them seemingly at peace with the world. It was photographic evidence that for one moment in time, she was happy and whole. She had the kind of family Gabriel once longed for after his own father split and left town.
He slammed the frame and picture down on the mantel and grimaced, full of disgust for anyone who would abandon their family. “You cut her out of your life and leave her to clean up the mess. Good job, Peter. You're a real fucking hero.”
Sylar moved on to the back of the house, where a giant library with full wall length windows overlooked the woods. In a leather chair, with his feet up on a stool and one hand still clutching the beer from the night before, Peter Petrelli slept sitting up, completely oblivious to the world around him.
“Peter, wake up.” Sylar singsonged as he crept into the room. He knocked Peter's feet off the leather stool and sat down in front of him. He yelled a little louder. “Peter! This is your conscious speaking. It's time to wake up and stop being such an asshole.”
When Peter's snoring went up a decibel in reply, Sylar rose to his feet and kicked the stool away in one abrupt motion. Now that his powers were working again, one flick of his wrist was all it took to send Peter crashing into the ceiling and pin him there.
“What the-- Sylar!” His eyes narrowed at his enemy as Peter started to wake, startled by the sudden height and vertigo. He groaned, whether it was from the hangover he must have by this point or the force of Sylar's telekinesis, neither could tell. “Son of a bitch! What are you doing in my home?”
Sylar starred up at him, disinterested in playing games. This was serious and Peter was going to have to start treating it as such. “I was going to go the friendly route, for Claire's sake, but you didn't seem to be responding to the gentle approach.”
He sat down in the leather chair, enjoying the sight of Peter writhing on the ceiling above him. He brought the stool over and put his feet up. The only way this could have been better would be to have some ice cream to go with the show. “We need to talk about things regarding your niece. Mostly about how you've been treating her lately.”
Peter struggled against the invisible force, but with such a massive hangover he could not call on his powers yet. “I don't have a niece.”
“Still in denial?” Sylar sent a book from off one of the high shelves into the room careening into Peter's head. After Peter winced and let out a small cry from the impact of the hard-covered book hitting his temple, Sylar sent another one flying in his direction. “I could do this all day, Peter. And then I could start with the heavier objects. And the sharper ones. Or we could talk about the oh-so-taboo subject of Claire Bennet.”
“You want to talk, fine, let's talk.” Peter spit out as he bounced against the ceiling, while Sylar's powers held him like glue in the air and his own powers started to emerge through the hangover daze. He wanted down but Sylar was content to make gravity work against him. “They tortured my brother so he would give them her location after she moved away from Costa Verde but he wouldn't say a word, so they rooted through his mind with a telepath until he was nothing but a shell. And then they killed him.”
“Do you ever get tired of the poor-me-I'm-so-emo speechifying?” Sylar interrupted, looking absolutely bored out of his mind. He released Peter and watched him drop to the floor ungracefully. After landing on his face, Peter spent some time gathering the strength to move.
As he rolled over onto his back, Sylar relished the pain clearly etched across his face. He walked over to Peter and leaned over him, “And has it ever occurred to you that maybe Claire had it just as rough?”
Peter winced as he pushed himself up to a seated position. His glare never left Sylar's direction as he spoke. “From what I hear, she lived a perfect little life in some suburb out west, hiding like a coward with her godforsaken family while mine was picked off one by one by the company while they tried to find her.”
“You have no idea what she went through, do you?” Sylar narrowed his eyes. Before he could tell Peter how wrong he was about Claire living out a perfect life with her family, he was knocked across the room by a burst of telekinesis. His head hit the wall, sending a wave of blackness through his vision. He hadn't been expecting Peter to regain his strength so quickly and did not particularly like being on this side of the power struggle.
“How bad could her life have been?” Peter scrambled to his feet, his eyes darkening. Sylar knew this look well, though he was usually the one wearing it. There was little room for logical thought to filter in through the cloud of violence and revenge. “She disappeared for years so she could go off and have a normal life. We were left to deal with the aftermath. She couldn't even be reached after Nathan's death. I thought she might want to come to her own father's funeral. I guess not.”
“Do you really think she would miss that?” Sylar asked but the only reply was Peter shooting a bolt of lightening at his chest. He missed by an inch but Sylar could swear he smelled the sleeve of his shirt burning. That was a nifty little ability there. If Claire's interests didn't demand to come before his own, Sylar would have enjoyed stealing it from Peter. “Claire wanted to be a part of Nathan's life, everyone knew that. Hell, I even knew that I didn't exactly run in your crowd. The only reason she never came to the funeral was because she was already underground at the company's facility.”
Peter aimed for another round of electrifying energy but faltered and lowered his hand. “Wha-- what?” Peter's guard dropped, for an instant Sylar thought he might believe him. There was the slightest recognition of the truth in his features. That belief quickly died away; Peter began building energy again, refusing to listen. “You're lying. She wasn't.. she couldn't have been down there. I would have known.”
“Unless Primatech didn't want you to know she was there.” Sylar floated a small metal paperweight off on of the desks; if Peter didn't back down from this fight Sylar was going to have to beat him unconscious. It wasn't something he would feel too guilty about afterwards. Still, despite Sylar's desire to do some real damage to the boy, he also wanted to get the truth through to him. “They have a way of hiding the truth and keeping it buried. You know how they work. Or did you forget how they covered up the real cause of Nathan's death?”
Peter frowned as Sylar caught his attention; the faintest bits of truth were beginning to make their way into his brain. The blue energy swirling around his hand lessened just a bit. Yet, denial sunk its nails in him, refusing to let go.
“Come on, Peter, think about it before you go off shooting first and asking questions when we're all dead: Why do you think she and I started working together anyway? We just decided one day 'hey, I'm tired of trying to kill you, maybe we can hang and be best buds now'?” Sylar rolled his eyes, the prospect of him and Claire being on the same side without an outside force pushing them together almost laughable.
Peter seemed to lose all interest in fighting, finally able to accept that there might be some validity behind his enemy's statements. As Sylar expected, the deal clincher was the alliance he'd formed with Claire. Apparently, it was as strange in Peter's mind as it was in his own. “How long was she down there?”
“Two years.” Sylar relaxed and returned the heavy paperweight to its proper spot. Peter would listen to him now, he was sure of it. “When I escaped, I brought her out with me. She was kind of.. broken.” His voice faltered on that word, remembering how defeated she was the first few days outside of the company. Peter heard the hesitation in Sylar's voice and new worry crossed his face, surprising them both. “She would barely speak a word but she's doing better now.. mostly. She just doesn't have a place to go.”
Peter backed up and held up his hands in defense, understanding what Sylar was suggesting. “She can't stay here. I have a life here.. a quiet, secluded life and she can't--” Another book flew at his head, interrupting his many excuses as it collided with the back of his head. When Peter's hands balled up into fists, Sylar couldn't help smirking. “Damn it. Stop doing that!”
“Stop being a selfish moron and I'll stop hitting you with random objects.” Sylar shrugged; amused at the way he could still annoy Peter, even while trying to do the good thing. “Deal?”
Peter hissed out the anger inside him, releasing it slowly. The restraint Peter showed by not continuing the fight amused Sylar to no end. He knew the boy still wanted to throw down but that wouldn’t help either of them. Damn Claire for getting in the middle of an epic battle.
A picture hanging on the wall was crooked, having been knocked into during their fight. Peter moved to fix it, focusing on something other than the deep need of his to do some violence and spoke. “I don't know if Claire would fit in my world now or if she would even like it here.”
“A cozy, boring house with a lakeside view, who wouldn't like it?” Sylar said sarcastically as he leaned against the arm of one of the sofas that occupied the middle of the room. Settling down would never suit him. He'd never found a place he could call home for more than a few days at a time. Claire would be happy here though. She could lie on the beach and work on her tan, get some color into her cheeks after how pale she'd grown in the company.
She could forget about the company and about all the dangers out there in the world, including him. It would be better for her. She’d have a happy, normal life and Sylar would just disappear.
“Besides,” he added more seriously, “the only option for her is to stay with me. And that's not going to happen. I need my space.”
“So you can kill people?” Peter turned back to face him, defenses going up again. It was a rhetorical question; they both knew he hadn't changed. Sylar would continue to do what came naturally to him until the end of time or his own death, whichever came first.
Sylar refused to answer. Instead, he walked over to Peter, grabbed his arm and began leading him towards the front entrance of the house. “Come on.”
Peter twisted out of Sylar's hold but followed him to the door anyway. Sylar had a plan and Peter seemed content to join in the idea for the time being. He reached for his keys, which hung on a rustic, wooden sign that resembled a painted fish. “Where are we going?”
“Back to the motel to see Claire.” Sylar answered, opening the front door and waiting for Peter to lock it behind them. He met Peter's gaze and a new, deadly determination entered his voice. “You're going to apologize to her.”
Peter broke away from the stare and paused. His fingers numbly grasped the door lock. He seemed to be considering kicking Sylar out and returning to his old life. He glanced behind him, down the long, empty hallway of his big, secluded house. He may have finally begun thinking of Claire, worrying about her safety and the past that still haunted her, but apologizing was another big step. “And if I don't..”
“If you don't,” Sylar thought of a good punishment as he dragged Peter outside and closed the door. He wasn't letting him off the hook so easily. He finished with a pointblank answer that held no room for backing out. “I'm going to kill you.”
..to be continued..
Characters: Sylar, Claire.
Spoilers: Up to Season 2.
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2636
Chapter: 21/?
Previously: Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10, Chapter 11, Chapter 12, Chapter 13, Chapter 14, Chapter 15, Chapter 16, Chapter 17, Chapter 18, Chapter 19, Chapter 20
Summary: While escaping the Company, Sylar meets up with someone from his past. Together, they must piece together some semblance of normality after years of captivity. Future AU.
The sun rose over the lake with so many colors Sylar could tell why Peter had chosen to settle down here. Away from the rest of the world, a person could still feel like they were a part of it all through the natural awe of the outdoors. It was a false connection though, built on lies and false indignation.
Peter was throwing everything he could have with Claire away, so he could hide up here alone and forget the life he once knew. It was up to Sylar to show him the truth, even if that meant beating reality into his tiny, pathetic skull.
He walked up the front steps and peeked in through the window, shading his eyes with one hand. There were no lights on inside and no signs that anyone was up this early in the morning. Peter was going to be in for quite a surprise when he woke up.
As Sylar phased through the wall, he contemplated what he would do after Claire and Peter reunited, what he would do without her. He shook off the thought almost immediately. Those kinds of ideas were what led to the incident the night before, which he was eagerly trying to forget. Once Claire was gone, things could go back to normal and he would be able to go back to being dead inside. It was so much easier when he didn't have to feel anything.
Despite all efforts to misplace the memory of her skin against his own, the way she nibbled at his lip when they kissed or how she opened for him and drew him in, Sylar couldn't push the thoughts far enough away. Images of her lying naked on the bed, moving beneath him poked their way past the wall he fixed in his mind, pushing their way through his resistance. Sylar grumbled quietly, “Next time I work alone.”
Walking down the hallway, he grounded himself in the present moment, the scent of cedar and firewood and the rustic furnishings. The walls were all wood, very natural, probably cut from logs around the neighborhood almost a century ago. He peered up the stairs, wondering where he should start his search for the younger Petrelli brother.
Sylar moved farther down the hall and into the living room. There were picture frames and photographs on every flat surface possible; over the fireplace, the bookshelves, the end tables, some were even tacked up along the walls. They all held the same four faces. Sylar only knew the two boys; Nathan and Peter Petrelli. He assumed the older gentleman and the woman were their parents. It was a living shrine, a monument to the dead.
When he checked the photos more closely, Sylar noticing some of the photographs were cut in two, others were missing torn out sections. In one of these particular photos, the edges of the missing person's blond hair were still there. The photograph was folded in half and stuck in the frame. Sylar picked it off the fireplace mantel, opened the back and took out the picture.
The smiling face of Claire starred back at him once Sylar unfolded the picture. Nathan was hugging her in the group shot, with Peter standing behind them seemingly at peace with the world. It was photographic evidence that for one moment in time, she was happy and whole. She had the kind of family Gabriel once longed for after his own father split and left town.
He slammed the frame and picture down on the mantel and grimaced, full of disgust for anyone who would abandon their family. “You cut her out of your life and leave her to clean up the mess. Good job, Peter. You're a real fucking hero.”
Sylar moved on to the back of the house, where a giant library with full wall length windows overlooked the woods. In a leather chair, with his feet up on a stool and one hand still clutching the beer from the night before, Peter Petrelli slept sitting up, completely oblivious to the world around him.
“Peter, wake up.” Sylar singsonged as he crept into the room. He knocked Peter's feet off the leather stool and sat down in front of him. He yelled a little louder. “Peter! This is your conscious speaking. It's time to wake up and stop being such an asshole.”
When Peter's snoring went up a decibel in reply, Sylar rose to his feet and kicked the stool away in one abrupt motion. Now that his powers were working again, one flick of his wrist was all it took to send Peter crashing into the ceiling and pin him there.
“What the-- Sylar!” His eyes narrowed at his enemy as Peter started to wake, startled by the sudden height and vertigo. He groaned, whether it was from the hangover he must have by this point or the force of Sylar's telekinesis, neither could tell. “Son of a bitch! What are you doing in my home?”
Sylar starred up at him, disinterested in playing games. This was serious and Peter was going to have to start treating it as such. “I was going to go the friendly route, for Claire's sake, but you didn't seem to be responding to the gentle approach.”
He sat down in the leather chair, enjoying the sight of Peter writhing on the ceiling above him. He brought the stool over and put his feet up. The only way this could have been better would be to have some ice cream to go with the show. “We need to talk about things regarding your niece. Mostly about how you've been treating her lately.”
Peter struggled against the invisible force, but with such a massive hangover he could not call on his powers yet. “I don't have a niece.”
“Still in denial?” Sylar sent a book from off one of the high shelves into the room careening into Peter's head. After Peter winced and let out a small cry from the impact of the hard-covered book hitting his temple, Sylar sent another one flying in his direction. “I could do this all day, Peter. And then I could start with the heavier objects. And the sharper ones. Or we could talk about the oh-so-taboo subject of Claire Bennet.”
“You want to talk, fine, let's talk.” Peter spit out as he bounced against the ceiling, while Sylar's powers held him like glue in the air and his own powers started to emerge through the hangover daze. He wanted down but Sylar was content to make gravity work against him. “They tortured my brother so he would give them her location after she moved away from Costa Verde but he wouldn't say a word, so they rooted through his mind with a telepath until he was nothing but a shell. And then they killed him.”
“Do you ever get tired of the poor-me-I'm-so-emo speechifying?” Sylar interrupted, looking absolutely bored out of his mind. He released Peter and watched him drop to the floor ungracefully. After landing on his face, Peter spent some time gathering the strength to move.
As he rolled over onto his back, Sylar relished the pain clearly etched across his face. He walked over to Peter and leaned over him, “And has it ever occurred to you that maybe Claire had it just as rough?”
Peter winced as he pushed himself up to a seated position. His glare never left Sylar's direction as he spoke. “From what I hear, she lived a perfect little life in some suburb out west, hiding like a coward with her godforsaken family while mine was picked off one by one by the company while they tried to find her.”
“You have no idea what she went through, do you?” Sylar narrowed his eyes. Before he could tell Peter how wrong he was about Claire living out a perfect life with her family, he was knocked across the room by a burst of telekinesis. His head hit the wall, sending a wave of blackness through his vision. He hadn't been expecting Peter to regain his strength so quickly and did not particularly like being on this side of the power struggle.
“How bad could her life have been?” Peter scrambled to his feet, his eyes darkening. Sylar knew this look well, though he was usually the one wearing it. There was little room for logical thought to filter in through the cloud of violence and revenge. “She disappeared for years so she could go off and have a normal life. We were left to deal with the aftermath. She couldn't even be reached after Nathan's death. I thought she might want to come to her own father's funeral. I guess not.”
“Do you really think she would miss that?” Sylar asked but the only reply was Peter shooting a bolt of lightening at his chest. He missed by an inch but Sylar could swear he smelled the sleeve of his shirt burning. That was a nifty little ability there. If Claire's interests didn't demand to come before his own, Sylar would have enjoyed stealing it from Peter. “Claire wanted to be a part of Nathan's life, everyone knew that. Hell, I even knew that I didn't exactly run in your crowd. The only reason she never came to the funeral was because she was already underground at the company's facility.”
Peter aimed for another round of electrifying energy but faltered and lowered his hand. “Wha-- what?” Peter's guard dropped, for an instant Sylar thought he might believe him. There was the slightest recognition of the truth in his features. That belief quickly died away; Peter began building energy again, refusing to listen. “You're lying. She wasn't.. she couldn't have been down there. I would have known.”
“Unless Primatech didn't want you to know she was there.” Sylar floated a small metal paperweight off on of the desks; if Peter didn't back down from this fight Sylar was going to have to beat him unconscious. It wasn't something he would feel too guilty about afterwards. Still, despite Sylar's desire to do some real damage to the boy, he also wanted to get the truth through to him. “They have a way of hiding the truth and keeping it buried. You know how they work. Or did you forget how they covered up the real cause of Nathan's death?”
Peter frowned as Sylar caught his attention; the faintest bits of truth were beginning to make their way into his brain. The blue energy swirling around his hand lessened just a bit. Yet, denial sunk its nails in him, refusing to let go.
“Come on, Peter, think about it before you go off shooting first and asking questions when we're all dead: Why do you think she and I started working together anyway? We just decided one day 'hey, I'm tired of trying to kill you, maybe we can hang and be best buds now'?” Sylar rolled his eyes, the prospect of him and Claire being on the same side without an outside force pushing them together almost laughable.
Peter seemed to lose all interest in fighting, finally able to accept that there might be some validity behind his enemy's statements. As Sylar expected, the deal clincher was the alliance he'd formed with Claire. Apparently, it was as strange in Peter's mind as it was in his own. “How long was she down there?”
“Two years.” Sylar relaxed and returned the heavy paperweight to its proper spot. Peter would listen to him now, he was sure of it. “When I escaped, I brought her out with me. She was kind of.. broken.” His voice faltered on that word, remembering how defeated she was the first few days outside of the company. Peter heard the hesitation in Sylar's voice and new worry crossed his face, surprising them both. “She would barely speak a word but she's doing better now.. mostly. She just doesn't have a place to go.”
Peter backed up and held up his hands in defense, understanding what Sylar was suggesting. “She can't stay here. I have a life here.. a quiet, secluded life and she can't--” Another book flew at his head, interrupting his many excuses as it collided with the back of his head. When Peter's hands balled up into fists, Sylar couldn't help smirking. “Damn it. Stop doing that!”
“Stop being a selfish moron and I'll stop hitting you with random objects.” Sylar shrugged; amused at the way he could still annoy Peter, even while trying to do the good thing. “Deal?”
Peter hissed out the anger inside him, releasing it slowly. The restraint Peter showed by not continuing the fight amused Sylar to no end. He knew the boy still wanted to throw down but that wouldn’t help either of them. Damn Claire for getting in the middle of an epic battle.
A picture hanging on the wall was crooked, having been knocked into during their fight. Peter moved to fix it, focusing on something other than the deep need of his to do some violence and spoke. “I don't know if Claire would fit in my world now or if she would even like it here.”
“A cozy, boring house with a lakeside view, who wouldn't like it?” Sylar said sarcastically as he leaned against the arm of one of the sofas that occupied the middle of the room. Settling down would never suit him. He'd never found a place he could call home for more than a few days at a time. Claire would be happy here though. She could lie on the beach and work on her tan, get some color into her cheeks after how pale she'd grown in the company.
She could forget about the company and about all the dangers out there in the world, including him. It would be better for her. She’d have a happy, normal life and Sylar would just disappear.
“Besides,” he added more seriously, “the only option for her is to stay with me. And that's not going to happen. I need my space.”
“So you can kill people?” Peter turned back to face him, defenses going up again. It was a rhetorical question; they both knew he hadn't changed. Sylar would continue to do what came naturally to him until the end of time or his own death, whichever came first.
Sylar refused to answer. Instead, he walked over to Peter, grabbed his arm and began leading him towards the front entrance of the house. “Come on.”
Peter twisted out of Sylar's hold but followed him to the door anyway. Sylar had a plan and Peter seemed content to join in the idea for the time being. He reached for his keys, which hung on a rustic, wooden sign that resembled a painted fish. “Where are we going?”
“Back to the motel to see Claire.” Sylar answered, opening the front door and waiting for Peter to lock it behind them. He met Peter's gaze and a new, deadly determination entered his voice. “You're going to apologize to her.”
Peter broke away from the stare and paused. His fingers numbly grasped the door lock. He seemed to be considering kicking Sylar out and returning to his old life. He glanced behind him, down the long, empty hallway of his big, secluded house. He may have finally begun thinking of Claire, worrying about her safety and the past that still haunted her, but apologizing was another big step. “And if I don't..”
“If you don't,” Sylar thought of a good punishment as he dragged Peter outside and closed the door. He wasn't letting him off the hook so easily. He finished with a pointblank answer that held no room for backing out. “I'm going to kill you.”
..to be continued..