Seduction of the Senses - 11
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Author’s note: Thank you, thank you, thank you freetheelves2 for your help. Sorry that this chapter needed more work than usual. Also, happy early birthday to cheap_valentine! :) I know I keep saying that we’re getting back into creepy evilness, but we’re still not there yet - sorry, I didn’t realize it was going to take me so long to get back to it - next chapter, definitely. P.S. Just noticed that it's sylar_claire's birthday too - yay! I'm soooo glad this community exists!
Sylar abruptly awakes when someone splashes cold water on his face, sitting up as he sputters.
“Oh, good. You’re okay. Have to say, we were a bit worried about you,” the bartender addresses him, “but you need to go home and sleep it off, you can’t stay here. Do you want one of the boys to take you home?”
His mouth is dry, and his head hurts slightly, but the rest of the effects of the alcohol are already gone. “I’m good, I don’t need any help. How much do I owe you?”
The man just laughs. “Son, I’ll be happy if you just don’t die of alcohol poisoning tonight and I get in trouble over it. You make it through the night, we’ll call it even.” He gives Sylar a critical look. “You look astonishingly okay, but I’m going to ask Dougie to take you home anyhow.”
“I live close; I can just walk. Fresh air might do me good.” The headache’s almost gone at this point, and he feels much better than he had when he’d started drinking.
“Hmmm… unless you’re living in one of the tourist-trap hotels, the closest actual house to here is the old Sigmon mansion; you the new kid that just moved in? I’d heard that the place had sold.” The bartender gives him a speculative look.
Sylar sees an image of his house floating through the bartender’s mind, only with the addition of dozens of police cars and ambulances, and he wants to hear that particular story. “Yeah, I am.”
The bartender rests his elbows on the bar, leaning forward and speaking intently. “You’re not from around here, are you? You probably haven’t heard the stories then.”
Intentionally copying the other man’s mannerisms in an attempt to make the man trust him more, Sylar leans forward too. “What stories?”
“That place is haunted.” The bartender whistles. “They say that on the night of the full moon, you can hear a woman crying and a man screaming, and then you can see them. The Sigmons, I mean - or at least, their ghosts.”
Sylar can’t help but roll his eyes. “There’s no such thing as a ghost.”
“Sure there is. Just because you haven’t seen one yet, that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. Everyone ‘round here knows about it; the place has been sitting empty for the last three years. It’s only been haunted since Tom... well, after everything happened.”
“What happened?” Sylar finds this entire story amusing, but tries to hide his grin. Ghosts. Unbelievable.
“Well,” the man manages to drawl out the word to multisyllabic length, “The police say it was a double suicide, but everyone knows that it was a murder-suicide or a double murder. Oh, I’m sure you don’t want to hear this old gossip.” The man turns away, knowing that he’s got an audience now.
“Go on, Bob. You tell it better than everyone else.” Dougie encourages him. “And our boy here needs to know. I mean, he is living there.”
The bartender just looks at them for a minute, then sighs, like he doesn’t want to tell the story again but will if his audience insists. “It was just about three years ago, ‘bout a week before Valentine’s Day. The Sigmons were a nice couple - young, rich, attractive. The type everyone just loves to gossip about, you know how that goes. We were all shocked when everyone started whispering that the baby she was carrying wasn’t her husband’s. No way could that possibly be true, not the least little bit likely - but her husband gets a little bit suspicious. Matt Sigmon comes home earlier than expected that night - he’d been right here, talking with the boys and me up until then - and finds his pretty little wife in bed with his brother. Supposedly, he goes ballistic and shoots himself and then Katie follows, overcome with guilt. You can believe that if you want to, but all the rumors say that his brother Tom killed Matt and then somehow Katie ended up dead.”
“Fascinating.” Sylar wonders why they’re bothering to tell him all this crap, other than to keep him longer to give him more time to sober up, as if he needs it.
“I know, ain’t it? Listen, that house is no place for a guy with a broken heart. Don’t stay there; it’ll just mess with your mind. You can stay with me, or I can drop you off at a hotel, but get away from there. Nothing good’s ever happened there.”
“I’ll be fine.” Sylar can’t imagine that a house can mess up his mind any worse than Claire already has. “But if it makes you feel better, I’ve got plans that are going to keep me out of town for a few days. I’m just going home to pack; then I’m going after my girl. I’m not coming back without her, either.”
- - - - - - - - - -
Claire sits on her bed, legs pulled up tight against her chest, thinking for the entire night. She doesn’t even bother to turn back the sheets or attempt to sleep. No more tears fall as she faces the darkness of the night completely dry-eyed and clear minded, but she can’t sleep. Just knowing that she’ll only see him in her mind, start remembering him again, she knows that she can’t drift off to sleep. All night, all she can think of is how she’s messed up so badly, how she shouldn’t have fallen for him, trying desperately to find a way out. Every few minutes, her mind drifts back to the terrible seconds right after she’d picked up the gun, and she can’t help but wonder if he’s survived her treachery against him. The closest she comes to crying is when she imagines his body lying somewhere with her bullet through his heart. She just has to hope that he’s got enough powers that she’s not managed to kill him.
Reassuring herself that he must be alive, that it’s not an option for him to not be alive, her thoughts turn to what she’s going to do now. Even with the shower, she can still sense his touch and scent all over her body, and she wonders if this is what lust must be about. It can’t be love, it’s not possible - it can’t be possible that she’s falling in love with him-- she won’t let it be possible - but lust and obsession seem highly likely. But there’s no way he’d want her back, want to return to the way things were at the beach before she'd opened her mouth and ruined everything, and she doesn’t know how she’s going to be able to cope without him or how she’s going to get her mind off of him. She reminds herself that he’s not the only man out there, that he’s just the only man she’s ever slept with, and she wonders for a wild minute if all she’ll have to do to move on is to sleep with someone else. Knowing that idea won’t work, she abandons it quickly. Time and distance are the only things that can really help her, and she hopes that he’s willing to give her those things.
When her useless alarm goes off - useless because she’s been staring intently at the clock for over an hour at that point - she gets off the bed and makes her way over to her armoire. No tears fall, but she does grimace when she pulls out another matching set of underwear that she’d bought with Sylar’s seduction in mind. It wouldn’t do any good to pull out another set; everything in that drawer was bought with him in mind. Everything innocent, everything unsullied by the thought or touch of him, was tossed in the garbage long before he’d entered her life, and she reminds herself that she’s only got herself to blame. The crimson lace goes on without another thought, and she pulls jeans and a T-shirt out of her closet thoughtlessly. Sneakers go on next, and she brushes out her hair and pulls it into a ponytail. A spare cheerleading uniform gets shoved into a duffle bag, and she makes her way downstairs to the kitchen and her waiting mother.
- - - - - - - - - -
As soon as she’s out of the room, an invisible hand smoothes the wrinkles out of her bedspread and straightens out the little messes here and there that she’s made; a few minutes later, the door to her room closes as though someone had closed it behind him on his way out.
Invisible shoes make little sound on the staircase, the sounds muffled by the thick carpeting except for one give-away squeak on the seventh stair.
Claire and Sandra both whirl around, expecting to see Lyle, but there’s no one there. Neither one of them wants to point out the obvious, that there’s a chance that Sylar’s back in their house, and they both tell themselves that it must be something else making that noise. Claire shoves books and papers into her book bag, trying to ready herself for another monotonous day at school, and Sandra busies herself with fixing breakfast.
He wants to laugh as soon as he sees what she’s fixing, but he knows that that would definitely give away his presence; instead, he leans against the door of the fridge and focuses his stare on Claire. He wants to see her reaction as soon as she notices; although he normally wouldn’t read her mind - he doesn’t mind reading and manipulating everyone else’s, only has trouble raping her mind like that - he starts a light probe just because he can’t miss this response for anything. Sandra whirls around, almost walking into him before he can jump out of her way, and opens the fridge. “Claire? Orange juice or soda for breakfast?”
The words orange juice cause only the slightest physical reaction from Claire, but her thoughts give her away and Sylar smirks when she responds with a hoarse “Soda, please.”
“Sure thing, sugar. Breakfast will just be a minute. Do you want to call down Lyle for me? I swear, that boy is always running late.”
Claire dutifully gets up and goes upstairs, leaving Sandra and an invisible Sylar alone for a few minutes before returning with a sleepy-eyed Lyle in tow. The faintest hint of a smile graces Sylar’s face as he watches Claire sit down, still unaware of her surroundings. Sandra puts the waffles on plates, douses them in syrup, and slides them in front of the kids, and Sylar starts his mental countdown… three… two… and one.
His timing is just perfect, and the smell of the syrup wafts up to Claire at that exact second. “Gah!” Claire jumps away from the table like she’s been bitten, eyes wide in shock.
“Claire?” Sandra looks up, surprised by the reaction. Waffles with extra maple syrup have never been received with screams of horror before. “I thought you’d want some comfort food; it’s been a rough few days. What’s wrong?”
“Maple syrup,” Claire whimpers. “I can’t… please… no… syrup.” She moans as she looks at the waffle, and the piles of the syrup pooling on the surface of the food and the plate, and immediately blushes as thoughts of syrup-covered Sylar run through her head. He’s pleased to find that she’s not as unaffected by him as she acts, and if her thoughts and stammering are any indication, he’s still got a big chance to win her over.
“Now, Claire, we’ve had this discussion before.” Sandra sighs. “You do not need to lose weight, and that little bit of syrup won’t make you fat. Eat your breakfast.”
A quick mental suggestion from Sylar, and Claire calmly picks up her fork and starts eating. He finds that it’s getting easier to touch her mind like this, and it doesn’t bother him as badly as it had before. Even though she doesn’t say anything, and her actions don’t betray her thoughts, he knows that all she can think about with each bite of the waffle is the feel and flavor of him under her tongue. By the time she’s eaten enough to appease her mom, she’s squirming in her seat.
Sylar carefully walks over to stand behind her chair, careful to not touch her as he rests his hands on the back of it, just a hair’s breadth away from her. He’d give anything to actually touch her, but he can’t. Instead, he uses his telekinesis to run a light touch from her ankles up to her thighs, teasing her center for just a second, before going back to a light caress on her leg. She thinks she’s going insane, and the thought more than amuses him.
- - - - - - - - - -
It’s taking every bit of her concentration to stay awake, and even so, every so often she catches herself starting to drift off to sleep. At the time, staying up all night to avoid dreaming about Sylar made perfect sense. In the middle of senior English, however, it makes absolutely no sense to her sleep-deprived mind. She finally gives in the overwhelming urge to close her eyes and take a nap, but is interrupted just a minute later when the bell rings, signaling the end of class. Yawning, Claire stands up and grabs her bag, leaving the class to make a quick stop at her locker before going to biology.
She’s so tired that she can’t figure out how to get the lock undone - she’s not sure if she can’t remember the combination, or if she’s just not coordinated enough to spin the combination dials. “Oh, come on, please.” She doesn’t mean to speak out loud, but she can’t help it. Her pleas to the lock help, however, and the lock clicks open immediately. As soon as the door to the locker swings over, a cascade of blood-red roses seems to explode from the locker. Claire has to drop her books to catch the flowers before they tumble to the ground.
“Ooooh, nice!” One of the other cheerleaders has wandered over to look at the flowers. “Who are those from?”
Claire can’t find a note, and so she shakes her head in confusion. “No note. Definitely not Lyle or my dad.” She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath of the sweet perfume of the roses, and wishes for just a minute that they’re from Sylar. If they are, then that means he’s definitely still alive. Of course, if he is still around, then he’s probably angry with her and angry scorned lovers usually don’t leave such pretty flowers.
The other girl is still cooing over the beauty of the roses, and reaches out to lightly touch one of the petals, then quickly counts the bouquet. “Okay, so that’s odd… did you notice that there’s only eleven here, not a full dozen?”
“That’s strange. Maybe one got dropped?” Claire thinks for a minute. “Wait, how did these get here? No one else should have my locker combination.”
“That is odd.” A man’s voice joins the conversation. “Of course, I might have noticed the combination before, not that you told me, but I may have noticed. Maybe I’m not the only one.” West looks at the roses and frowns. “Who’s sending you flowers?”
Claire’s momentarily disappointed that there’s a chance the flowers are from West. “Did you do this? I thought I told you it was over, just friends now.”
West raises his hands in mock surrender and takes a step back. “The roses aren’t from me. By the way, I got the ‘friends’ message loud and clear. I was just commenting that your locker combination’s not entirely a secret. Of course, if they were from me, I still wouldn’t admit it, but they’re not.”
She takes another deep breath, and for just a brief second, she thinks she can smell Sylar’s cologne. The spicy sandalwood swirls together with the roses, and she loses control of her senses again. If she closes her eyes, she can almost feel him standing there beside her; she wonders if this is what going crazy feels like.
Another bell rings, and West groans. “Time to get back to class. Hey, since we’re both going to the same place, do you want to walk with me?”
Claire narrows her eyes at him, and asks again “Are you sure these aren’t from you?” She can’t take the flowers with her, so she reluctantly pushes them back into the locker and closes the door, after double checking to make sure she has her biology book.
“Maybe. Maybe not.” The answer is a definitive ‘no’, but West doesn’t see the harm in teasing her about the flowers, especially since no other love-struck sap seems to be claiming them.
- - - - - - - - - -
Sylar stands next to the water fountain across from Claire’s locker for about twenty minutes before the bell rings, waiting for her to come and find his gift for her. Even though she’d said that she didn’t want chocolate and roses, that doesn’t mean he can’t spoil her a bit. He watches as she struggles with the lock, and finally gives her a little bit of help when she starts talking to the lock. She looks exhausted, and he’s thrilled that he’s gotten under her skin this much. Her tiny gasp when she first sees the roses makes him ever-so-grateful for finding Dale Smither, and her wish that the roses were from him makes him smile. The smile, disappears, however when the flying whelp shows up.
It's cue enough for him to make his way over to her side, so that he can stake his claim on his goddess just in case West tries anything. Even though there’s no way that she can actually see him, he’s close enough to Claire that he’d be shocked if she couldn’t detect his body heat. All he would have to do is just reach out the tiniest bit, and then he’d be touching her. No one at this school would have a chance of stopping him if he decided to reveal himself and steal her away again, but he doesn’t just because he knows that he’s never going to win her with constant kidnappings. He’s got to wait until she’s willing to beg him again, and that’s exactly what he’s going to do. Of course, when he hears the whelp’s thoughts, waiting on her doesn’t preclude him from protecting what’s his, making sure no other man ever touches her. He briefly fantasizes about killing the boy right then, right there, right in front of Claire - just as a message to her and to everyone else that she belongs to him - but he doesn’t.
Instead, he follows Claire and the whelp at a comfortable distance, trailing them all the way into the biology classroom. As Claire takes her usual seat, Sylar takes a position propped against the back wall near the windows. His eyes narrow as he watches the whelp try to take a seat next to Claire, and as he listens to her mental annoyance at West’s persistence, the whelp’s intended seat falls as its legs collapse as if melted. The boy ends up sprawling at the floor, blushing heavily as the rest of the class laughs at him. The laughter gets louder when the next chair he pulls over collapses as well. After the teacher threatens detention as the third chair collapses, as if West is responsible, the whelp gets the message and picks a seat on the opposite side of the room, as far away from Claire as possible.
Class isn’t nearly as boring as it was when he was in high school, and he wonders if it’s because of the updated material or if he’s just more interested in the ideas of DNA, evolution, and biology now. There’s a pop quiz, and he knows that Claire’s not prepared for it, so he doesn’t feel even the tiniest bit of guilt for taking over her mind this time, telling himself that he’s doing it in order to help her. It’s his fault that she’s not been sleeping for the last few days, for two entirely different reasons, and he lulls her into a mental slumber as he controls her hand, filling in the blanks and circling the correct multiple choice answers. He’s determined that he’s not going to control her to the degree that he can control others, it wouldn’t be right to treat her like that, so as soon as he’s finished with the quiz, he releases her from the sweet daydream he’d stuck her in and lets her regain control.
When class is over and she grabs her bags and walks out, he realizes his mistake in not killing the whelp earlier. The boy dares to reach out and rest his hand at the small of her back, guiding her down the hallway, and Sylar’s blood boils when he hears Claire’s thoughts on the subject, about how easy it would be to just get back with West and let him help her forget about him. He’d planned on playing nice, treating her to little goodies and kindnesses, and she’s thinking about using a high school boy to forget about him? It’s not going to happen, he won’t let it happen.
- - - - - - - - - -
“So, about that quiz - what was the answer to number three?” West joins up with her as she steps out of the classroom.
“What quiz?” Claire readjusts her bag, trying to figure out what West is talking about.
He waves his hand in front of her face. “Hello, this is Earth calling Claire. The quiz we just took. Number three - the one about mitochondria?”
She stops in her tracks and blinks. “I don’t remember a quiz. I don’t remember seeing a quiz, taking a quiz, anything about a quiz. What are you talking about?”
“Are you okay?” West lets his hand fall on her back, trying to pull her closer. “You don’t seem okay, you’re really confused. Why don’t we go to the cafeteria, get you a soda, and let you sit a bit.”
“I think I might have fallen asleep. I honestly don’t remember anything from about fifteen minutes in.” It’s not entirely the truth; she remembers every vivid detail of a lurid daydream involving Sylar, but she can’t tell her ex-boyfriend that. “Maybe I should sit. I haven’t been sleeping.”
The hand on her back is shifted into an arm wrapped securely around her waist, and if she closes her eyes, she can pretend that it’s not West holding her and that she’s not being held because he’s worried that she’s going to pass out. She’s slightly reassured by his warm bulk next to her, and she knows that it would be so easy… her thoughts slip away for a minute, back to Sylar, and she mentally curses herself. She’s got to get over him; she can’t go on like this, sleep-deprived and constantly thinking of him. It would be so easy to give West a bit of encouragement, to let him back into her life. Other girls use rebound guys to get over their exes, their bad mistakes, their one-night stands that turn into so much more, and she wonders if she can use West to chase Sylar’s ghost from her mind and the smell and taste and feel of him from her body. It would be cruel to use West like that, she knows, but maybe if she makes it clear from the beginning that she’s only interested in sex, maybe he’d be okay with it. That’s where she’d gone wrong with Sylar, not making her intentions clear from the start, and if she’s upfront with him, surely West wouldn’t react like Sylar had.
“West?” She bites her lip when she calls out to him, and he looks over at her hopefully. She can’t do this to him. “Never mind. Um, I need to get to cheerleading practice, I’m sorry I forgot that earlier - maybe we can meet up for a soda later, or you could walk me home after practice?”
“Sure thing, Claire. It’ll give us a chance to talk. Practice is over at four, right? I’ll be waiting for you outside the locker room.”
She smiles at him, and hopes that he doesn’t notice that the smile doesn’t reach her eyes. “I’d like that. I’ll see you at four.”
- - - - - - - - - -
“For God’s sake, Claire, you’re going to get us all killed!” May, the head cheerleader, screams at her. “Stop your damned daydreaming, and get your head out of the clouds.”
“Sorry, May.” Claire can’t believe how badly her day’s going. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to.”
“Sorry doesn’t cut it. Sorry’s not going to miraculously heal Sara’s sprained ankle. You know what, you’re done for today. Shower off, go home - if you can act like you want to be here and know what you’re doing, you can come back tomorrow.”
Claire doesn’t make eye contact with any of them, just runs off the field back to the locker room. She’s muttering to herself, mad at her performance and how she’d managed to hurt yet another innocent, as she angrily pulls off her clothes and starts the water. Angry tears streak down her cheek as she lathers up the shampoo in her hands, but before she can bring her hands up to her head, someone else’s fingers are running through her hair. She yelps and jumps away.
When she turns around to face the intruder, trying to use her hands to cover all the important parts, she finds a smirking Sylar. A smirking, wet, naked Sylar.
“Miss me, babydoll?”
She doesn’t give it a second thought before she throws herself into his arms, pressing kisses over ever square inch of his face and jaw, wrapping her arms around his neck just as she wraps her legs around his waist. “Are you really here, really alive?” she asks in between kisses, “or have I finally gone so insane that you’re just a figment of my imagination?”
He laughs as he takes a few steps forward to press her against the shower wall. “Can a figment do this?” he whispers into her ear as he slowly enters her, making her gasp out loud, “or this?” A finger finds it way to her clit, and she shudders as he stills his movements inside of her in favor of teasing her with his finger.
“Sy… please, Sylar, please.” She tries to use her own movements to get the friction that she needs, but it’s not enough. “God, I need you, please, just move already.”
“Did you miss me?” he asks, still not moving. “Or did you just miss getting fucked? What do you want, me or just my cock?”
Writhing against him, trying to get some sort of satisfaction instead of just this constant stretching, she realizes what he wants. He wants to see her beg, wants to see her grovel and plead for his touch, and she doesn’t mind doing that in the least little bit. It’s the least she owes him for what she’s done to him. “Please, Sylar, I’m yours. I want you. I need you, oh God, how I need you, please let me have you?” Every heart-felt word is punctuated with more tiny kisses against his face. “I’m so sorry, so sorry, I was so wrong, so sorry.”
She’s not sure if it’s the begging or the apologizing, but he’s starting to move, and with every further word that comes out of her mouth, he pounds into her and pushes her up against the wall. When she stops babbling in favoring of a stifled moan against his shoulder, he stops again, so she’s quick to start talking again. Once she realizes that he’s matching his movements to the speed of her words, she realizes that she can set the pace, and the words continue to fall off her tongue at a hurried pace. Some words roll out, smooth and round and gently slurred by her accent, and his corresponding movements are more languid and loving; other words pop out, harsh and abrupt, and his staccato thrusts are a perfect match. It doesn’t take long before she can feel her muscles tensing, a telltale sign that she’s on the edge of another Sylar-induced orgasm, and she urges him into finishing with a rapid-fire choice of words, muttering out “I love you” over and over as quickly as she can.
She hadn’t realized that he’s as close to coming as she is, and when she says “I love you” for the first time, he starts shuddering against her. Even though he’s already finished, he continues to keep her pace with both his hips and his fingers, but she still can’t come. Her legs are starting to cramp from the continual tensing and she can barely breathe as her heart pounds in her ears, and she knows that if she doesn’t come soon that she’s just going to explode. She reaches up above her, wrapping one hand around the shower head and the other around the curtain rod, trying to find something to grasp to as he starts laving her breasts with his tongue in an attempt to get her off. It’s only when she realizes that she’s the only one making any noise that she realizes what she needs from him. “Please, Sylar, please - I need to hear what I mean to you. Please.”
He leans back slightly, upsetting the pace of his thrusts, but it doesn’t matter anymore when he looks at her like that and whispers, “I love you, too.”
The world explodes in a burst of sparks behind her eyes, and everything goes black as her body rides out the waves of her orgasm and the stress and sleeplessness finally catch up with her.
She only blacks out on the orgasmic high for a minute - no more than two - but when she opens her eyes again, the shower’s no longer running and Sylar’s nowhere to be seen. Claire can’t understand why he isn’t there; she’d just told him that she loves him, and he’d responded in kind, and then disappeared. It makes no sense to her why he’d run when he’s the one that’s been pursuing her, but she’s glad in a way that she doesn’t have to face him and have a conversation about the exchange. She briefly wonders if this is his way of punishing her for her “just sex” stance earlier; if maybe he’d just intended their most recent encounter to be the same way and that she’s gone and ruined it by blurting out something that she’s not entirely sure is true.
The other girls will be coming back in just a few minutes, so she quickly showers to remove the traces of Sylar. If any of them were to see her like this, with the just-been-fucked hair and his semen drying on her thighs and legs, they’d immediately know what she’s been up to, and she can’t let them know. She’d get the reputation of the biggest slut in the school, or they’d assume that she’d slept with West, and she can’t let either of those rumors get started.
She dries off and reaches for her clothes to redress when she realizes - her shirt, bra, and jeans are still there, but her panties have disappeared. While she knows that Sylar’s the panty-thief, she can’t help but wonder if it’s more punishment for her actions or it’s a promise of future action.
Next chapter!