Equilateral - 1
As he holds his hands over his ears in a futile attempt to block out the woman’s terrified screams, Sylar promises himself that the first thing he’s going to do if he ever manages to escape from this hell is to kill Bob Bishop. The second thing he’ll do is track down the team that had managed to grab him, but Bob Bishop’s death is his number one priority. The woman’s screams suddenly stop, and he tentatively uncovers his ears, wondering if the guards had stopped their gruesome work momentarily or if they’d finally killed her.
He cocks his head to the side, trying to listen for once instead of blocking the sounds, when he hears the sobs start. He’d been right; it was just a temporary lull designed to inflict some psychological damage on their victim in addition to the physical. He should know, he’s been one of their favorite inmates to work with until this newest batch of females had shown up. The guards had immediately shoved him to the side, locking him back in his tiny cramped cell, in favor of the “fresh meat”, as he’d heard the women referred to.
“No, no, por favor, no.” The woman sobs again, and he’s reminded of Maya. Of course, there’s no way Maya would ever let herself be captured, subdued, and brought here, she’s too powerful to capture; he knows it’s not her or at least, he hopes it’s not her. “Please, sir. Please, no. I’ll be good, I promise, no.”
“Shut up and stop crying or I’ll give you something to really cry about.” Sylar easily recognizes the voice. It’s the guard that he privately refers to as the Ferret; the man looks just like a rodent. “Order in the hall, dead man walking!” The Ferret calls out, and Sylar balls his hands into fists as soon as he hears the words, remembering the countless times he’s heard them. “Dead man walking” is one of the guards’ favorite forms of mental torture, since you can never tell if it’s a joke, a way of teasing or showing who really has the power, or if you really are being led off to the termination chamber. One time, they had marched him all the way down there, only to fall over laughing when his legs had buckled and he’d fallen down in terror.
“NO!!!” The woman screams again, and Sylar hears the undisputable sounds of a fight. The guard yelps, and then someone fires a gun. He knows that the guard has just fired a warning shot into the ceiling; when they kill here, it’s much more hands on.
“Stop that, you useless bitch, unless you really do want to die already!” The words of a second guard are joined with a sickening thud that Sylar knows from experience is a fist to the stomach. “I told you, stop it! You’ve been warned what’ll happen if you try that crap here, so keep it up.” As he talks, he drags the woman down the hallway, her screaming with every step.
The sounds get closer, then stop right outside his door. He wraps his arms around his torso, just wondering what they’re going to do to him now. Five years in this place - sixteen months in solitary confinement while they’d taken him completely apart, mentally, and then the rest of the time around other prisoners and the guards - and he’s more broken than he’s ever been before. One of the guards knocks on his door. “Sylar! Get back, we’re opening the door.”
It’s not Ferret, but Sylar still obeys, crawling back into the far corner of the room. It’s not worth another fight, another beating if he’s found still sitting on his bed when the door opens. The door comes flying open, and the guard steps into the room, his gun trained on Sylar. Ferret and a third guard step into the room, carrying a woman in between them; she’s fighting them with all she has, kicking out in every direction, trying to make contact with any body part she can. It’s obvious that she’s new; the old-timers don’t fight anymore, they conserve their energy for futile escape attempts. They drag her over to his bed and drop her there, making a hasty retreat.
“She’s all yours; consider it a reward for being a good little boy, Gabriel.” Ferret smirks at him; Sylar has to remind himself why killing the man right now would be a bad idea. Ferret turns back to the woman. “Or maybe it’s a punishment for being such a bitch, Sister. I’m sure our Sylar will take good care of you.”
The woman leaps off the bed, hands and nails extended as she tries to claw at Ferret. The third guard pulls out his tazer and zaps her; she falls back on the twin-size bed, shuddering.
As the guards walk out the door, Ferret addresses Sylar again. “Break her in, help her learn the rules. Kill her only if you have to; we’ll turn a blind eye to self-defense against this one.” The door slams shut, and Sylar finally gets a chance to look at the woman on his bed. She’s still shaking slightly, curled up in a fetal position.
“Miss?” It’s strange, this feeling sweeping over him. It’s almost like he feels sorry for her, a tiny touch of empathy towards another guest of the Company.
“No, no, por favor, Gabriel. No.”
She says his name just like Maya had, begs just as prettily as Maya had. He takes a hesitant step towards the bed, and she lifts her head, the veil of dark hair parting just enough for him to finally see her face. Even with all the bruises and cuts, even with the fresh and dried blood covering her cheeks, he easily recognizes her.
“Maya.” He’s not sure if he’s glad to see her or not, and his tone reflects that indecision.
“Please don’t hurt me, please.” She curls into herself even more. “I can’t take it, I just can’t.” She starts to cry, and he takes a few steps back, like a few inches of distance could help him if she started crying the black tears. The tears streaking down her cheek remain clear, no hint of the darkness, and he feels a bit safer.
“I’m not going to hurt you.” Holding up his hands in a universal sign he’s sure she’ll recognize, he shuffles forward, reclaiming the position he'd held when she’d started crying. “I don’t want to hurt you.” It’s the truth, she’s been hurt enough by the guards, and he’s never really appreciated torture just for the sake of torture. His kills, for the most part, had been quick and clean; since he was just assisting evolution, and evolution didn't require horror, he'd not been like that, not killing for a cheap thrill. Another step forward and he’s close enough to touch her.
She realizes that fact at the same second he does. “Don’t touch me,” she spits at him, hatred coloring every word, “I don’t want you to touch me.” Even as she says it, she scrambles backwards on the bed, putting more space between them.
“I just wanted to see if you had any broken bones. The Ferret loves to break noses and ribs.” He sits down on the edge of the small bed. “We need to talk.”
“I don’t have anything to say to you.” It’s obvious to him that she’s hurting badly when she stands up and crosses to the other side of the room, wincing with each step. He finds it odd how she walks, how she never reaches for what he assumes are painfully broken ribs. Instead, she wraps her arms around her lower torso, much like he had earlier, slightly hunched over. “I thought you were dead. It’s been so long, over four years. Mohinder thought you’d been captured, but not me. I hoped you were dead, I prayed you were. I lit candles every day, praying that you were already burning in Hell for your sins. Mother Superior told me it was a sin, praying for a man’s death like that, but I didn’t care. I told her you were a devil, a monster, not a man.”
“Hell, the Company’s special prison - same difference.” Sylar leans back, resting his head against the wall. “We still need to talk - not about us, that was a conversation we should have had five years ago, but about what to expect here. Do as your told, keep the guards happy, and they let you keep your powers.” He holds out one hand towards her, lets her see his palm ice over as he calls up one of his abilities. “If you don’t… well, I think you know what happens.”
“Conchetumares.” The word slips out before she can stop it, and she pauses and crosses herself. “Yes, I know. The… Ferret as you call him, was more than happy to show me what will happen next time, and the time after that, and after that until he decides to finally kill me.” She looks at him, a sly sideways glance, then looks away again. “Why are here? I would have thought that you’d have killed the guards for touching you like that, broken out of here, killed them all.”
“I’ve tried.” He laughs, bitterly. “God knows I’ve tried. The last try, I was five inches from the door. Five inches to freedom, and I couldn’t make it. You do not want to know what they do to you for trying something like that. Wait, what do you mean, touch me like that? Sweetheart, I’ve been beat up far worse than this, back when I was in high school.” Compared to the football team and what they’d done to geeky innocent Gabriel, the guards - for the most part - aren’t that bad, too intimidated by the mystique of the infamous Sylar to beat him too badly, knowing that one day he will get free and come after them.
Maya turns away, won’t meet his eyes, doesn’t say a word, and he knows. “They don’t do that, not to the men. I’m sorry.” He truly is; rape’s another crime that he’d never commit, it sickens him more than anything else possibly could. “Ferret did that?”
“Yes.” Another tear tracks down her face, with just the slightest tint of blackness. She reaches up and wipes the tear away, looking at it on her finger like it’s just smeared mascara.
“Don’t cry. When I do break out of here, someday really soon, I’ll kill him for you.” Sylar hates her for bringing out this slightly… protective side of his personality; he shouldn’t give a damn about what they’ve done to her, but he does.
“No you won’t. I will.” She looks up, meets his gaze, no sign of any more tears. “You can have the rest, but Ferret is mine, sin or no.” Back against the wall, she slowly slides down until she’s sitting on the floor.
- - - - - - - - - -
Sylar lies on his back, staring up at the ceiling, trying to ignore Maya as best as he can.
Sharing a jail cell with his ex-… Sylar’s not sure what to call her, “ex-girlfriend” is too innocent and childish for what had passed between them, “ex-friend” fails to be descriptive enough and can’t even start to define what she is to him, and “ex-lover” is not entirely true, so he settles on just the simplistic “Maya.” Sharing the space with Maya is far from comfortable. There’s no privacy, and not enough space to ever be out of her way entirely. She’s still bitter, mad at him and at his deeds, but he can’t blame her for that. He had killed her brother and then her, even if he had revived her afterwards. Ever so often, he finds her looking at him with the oddest expression on her face, one that he can’t read, can’t interpret. “What?” Sylar finally asks when he catches her glance for what has to be the twentieth time that hour.
“Nothing.” She continues pacing around the small room. “Well… how long are they going to leave me in here with you?”
“Did you hear them tell me that? No, you didn’t - that’s because they didn’t. I’m not a fucking mind reader, I don’t know.” Sylar doesn’t mean for the words to be so sharp or so crude, but she’s really getting on his nerves at the point.
“Gabriel, you will not talk to me like that.” Maya stops her movements to look at him. “Do you think they’ll leave me in here overnight?”
“Probably.” Last time he’d had a cell mate, they’d left the girl there for three weeks, until she’d finally had a mental breakdown and they’d had to cart her off for termination. He’d been glad at the time that she’d been the one to crack instead of him. “Why?”
“There’s only one bed.” She stares at the twin-sized mattress. “And two of us.”
He rolls over slightly to the left, and pats the space next to him. “I won’t bite unless you ask nicely, sweetheart.”
“No!” In his opinion, it’s a typical Maya reaction, shock and horror rolled up in a tidy little shout, with just the tiniest bit of curiosity in her eyes, a spark of interest that she can’t hide. “I can’t, no.”
“I’m not going to touch you, so relax. You couldn’t pay me to touch you.” Knowing that she could easily kill him with a single tear, knowing that he’d have to handle her like a piece of delicate glass, knowing that she’d been raped earlier that day - there’s so many reasons that Sylar has for not wanting to bed her, but he refrains from telling her that.
“Sleep on the floor.” It’s not a suggestion or a question, but rather a command.
“You sleep on the floor. My bed, my room, and I already offered to share.” He closes his eyes, really not caring what she chooses to do.
Her words are harsh as she accuses him. “You’re no gentleman.”
“Never said I was.” Sylar rolls over, turning to face the wall, and pretends to be asleep.
Maya hesitates, then he hears the sound of her lying down on the floor, followed by a quietly whispered “Gabriel?”
“What now, Maya?”
“You have two blankets, and I have none. It’s cold in here.”
“Would it kill you to just ask politely, or is this your passive-aggressive way of demanding a blanket?”
She sighs, then rephrases her statement. “Please, Gabriel, may I have a blanket?”
Without ever looking at her, he tosses the heavier of the two blankets to her. She wraps the blanket around her, with no words of gratitude, and tries her best to sleep.
- - - - - - - - - -
After a week of letting them get used to being around each other, early one morning the guards storm into the cell with no warning, and grab Maya before she’s had a chance to really wake up. She only manages a brief sleepy grunt of surprise before the Ferret slaps his hand over her mouth.
Sylar does his best to feign sleep, keeping his breaths deep and even. He can’t let them see any emotion, any indication how he feels about their intention. Any thing other than indifference will just doom her to more time in their hands.
“Wakey, wakey, Sylar!” A guard’s voice booms through the speaker in his room. “We’ve got a special show for you today.”
‘No. Not that. Please, not that.’ He wants to scream, but he can’t, just sitting up and pretending to wipe the sleep out of his eyes. The phrase “special show” never bodes well.
“Good Sylar, good dog.”
That guard’s third on the list, Sylar reminds himself as the man speaks, he will die for this one day. That little mantra is the only thing helping him keep his control.
“Now, we’re going to uncover the window for this, I think you’re going to enjoy it. I know I am. Do you want me to tap into the speakers, or can you hear through the glass?”
It’s right as the guard speaks that the door to the cell next door opens, and Sylar can see them dragging Maya in and tossing her onto the cot set up in the middle of the room. She screams, and it’s like she’s still in the room with him.
“Nah, I’m good. She’s loud, and I’ve got good hearing.” Sylar hates it when they do this to him; every few months, they’ll give him a roommate, and then wait a day or two, sometimes a week, until he’s had a chance to get slightly attached, and then this would happen. It was easier when he just had to listen, it’s always so much worse when they make him watch too.
They make him watch as the Ferret advances on Maya, and she falls off the cot in her hurry to scramble away from him. They make him watch as more guards pour into the room and handcuff her to the bed. They make him watch, up until the point that she screams again, screams for him, calls out for Gabriel to do something, to rescue her. They make him watch, up until that same point, when her tears turn black and the guards start dropping like sadistic flies. Distance buys him a few more seconds, and he watches with glee as every guard in there falls over, dead. He coughs, and black ooze gushes from his mouth and his eyes, and he too falls.
- - - - - - - - - -
When he comes too, he’s a bit surprised. He’d thought for sure that Maya had finally managed to kill him that time, that he’d finally be free of the Company. Instead, he opens his eyes to see the same jail cell, and he has to question whether or not he’s dead. There’s a very good chance he’s going to go to Hell, and he sees no reason why Hell couldn’t be just like this. He’d always assumed that Hell would be hot but the room’s freezing, just like always, and he’s fairly sure that he’s still alive.
“Sylar?” The guard’s voice seems way off, and it takes him a minute to realize that the guard’s yelling through the door instead of using the speaker system. “You okay?”
He knows it’s a question about if he’s recovering from Maya’s version of the Black Death. “Fine.”
“Get back then, we’re coming in.”
He doesn’t even attempt to move off the bed, too drained to move a single inch. The door opens, and Ferret enters with two other guards. Ferret looks at him, like he wants to raise a fuss over Sylar still being on the bed, but he doesn’t. Instead, he motions to someone outside the room. Three more guards enter, rolling a hospital bed into the room. Maya’s stretched out on the bed, handcuffed to the safety rails, with heavy gauze bandages wrapped around her head. Another guard enters, dragging another inmate into the room, a petite brunette teenager. He shoves the girl at Sylar, and then wipes his hands on his shirt in disgust. “I hate having to touch the filth.”
“Don’t be that way, Gareth.” Ferret responds, licking his lips as he stares at the girl. “Sometimes touching ‘em can be a lot of fun.”
Sylar immediately grabs the girl and pulls her behind him, trying to ignore the way her thin frame’s shaking in terror. The Ferret notices the motion, and Sylar braces for a blow. Instead, the man starts laughing. “Fine, spoilsport. I’ll get her another time. You can’t protect them all. By the way, it’s up to you how you decide to use these two. Anything goes, anything at all. Have fun.”
The guards are still laughing and the girl’s still trembling when the door closes. “I really hate those bastards.” Sylar mutters as soon as he’s sure they’re alone in the cell.
“Me too.” The girl lets go of him, crawling over him, and goes to check on Maya, carefully unwrapping the bandages. As soon as she sees what they’ve done to her, the girl runs into the small attached bathroom and Sylar can hear her retching. He’s not sure he wants to know, but he can’t stop himself from getting up to see. It’s all he can do to keep from joining the girl in the bathroom when he sees that the guards have assured that Maya’s tears will never affect them again.
After all, it’s difficult to cry when you no longer have eyes or tear ducts.
- - - - - - - - - -
“You okay?” Sylar asks as he leans in the doorway to the bathroom.
“What do you think?” The girl is standing in front of the sink, face buried in a cool washcloth. “So, are you my new jailer or what?”
“Nah, cell mate. They only say crap like that to scare you. They know all the new girls have heard about me, heard about what I’ve supposedly done. It’s an easy way of terrorizing you just a bit more.”
“They didn’t have to tell me, I already knew.” She lowers the washcloth, turning to face him. “I know exactly who you are, you sick monster, and what you’re capable of.”
He immediately recognizes her, even with the darkened hair. “You would.” There’s no point antagonizing her anymore, there’s no fun to be had in teasing and threatening her when he can’t follow through on it, impotent in deed if not word, and he walks away. She quickly follows, but when Sylar goes to sit down on the bed, she turns towards Maya instead.
“Do you know who she is?” Claire asks as she tries to twist Maya’s arm and the handcuff around so that her wrist is exposed.
“Maya Herrera. Sister Maya by now, probably.” Fascinated, Sylar watches as Claire struggles with the handcuffs. “What are you doing?”
“What do you think I’m doing?” Claire stops her struggles once she’s maneuvered Maya into place, and stops to examine her fingernails, experimentally running the pad of her thumb over the nail edges until she gets to the middle finger on her left hand.
For the life of him, he cannot figure out what the girl’s up to. “I have no clue. Do you need some help?”
“Will you actually help, or are you going to try to stop me?” She stops messing with her nails to stare at him. “Because if you’re just going to tell me ‘no, don’t do that’, then we’re going to have an issue.” She takes a deep breath, then places her fingernail on Maya’s wrist, pressing hard enough to scratch the delicate skin. Claire looks at the scratch, then curses. “Damn it.”
“I’ll help you, but I don’t really know what you’re doing.” He doesn’t understand why he’s trying to be useful, why he wants to help her, but he does.
“Cut her wrist for me, deep enough to make her bleed. I thought I could do it with my nails, but they’re not sharp enough, and I really don’t want to use my teeth.”
He wonders how long Claire’s been a guest of the Company, how long it’s taken to make her crack like this. “Excuse me?”
“You do remember what my blood can do, right? I was under the impression that you’ve used it to heal her before. I heard all about that little incident in Mohinder’s lab. Since we don’t have any sort of needles or syringes, we’re going to have to do this the messy way.” Claire stares at him like he’s being particularly stupid, and Sylar can’t argue with her. He should have thought about using her to heal Maya earlier.
“Hold out your arm too, we’re going to have to do this quickly.” He waits until Claire’s arm is resting right on top of Maya’s, Claire’s lighter skin almost shining gold against Maya’s darker flesh, and then he telekinetically slits both women’s wrists. While the skin differs in tone, he can’t tell whose blood is whose as their blood mingles and the wounds start to heal over.
“Do you think she got enough?” Claire asks as she looks up at him, cradling her arm against her chest, skin unmarred as if nothing had happened.
“I don’t know.” They both watch, waiting, hoping, praying to see Maya’s eyes reform. When they see the slightest change around the empty sockets, Claire grabs his arm in excitement, seemingly unaware that she was touching him. By the time that all the injuries, the horrible gauges are filled and the eyes are completely reformed and Maya looks back at them, blind no longer, they’re holding hands. When Claire sees the scathing look Maya gives her, she jumps away from both of them like she’s been burned.
- - - - - - - - - -
That night, as he lies on the numbingly cold floor of the cell, without even a blanket to cover him, Sylar reviews the ‘must die’ list that he keeps. Bob Bishop is still number one, and Ferret’s still number two. If Maya is ever able to recognize the guard who’d attacked her first when she’d started tearing up, that man will be third. He’s reassessing the list, figuring out who’ll be number four, when Claire calls out to him. “Sylar?”
“What now?”
“Aren’t you cold?” Her voice shakes, her teeth rattle just a bit, indicating that even if he’s not cold, she certainly is.
“Claire, I can control ice, can completely coat my body in frost and icicles. The room’s not that bad in comparison. Besides, you and Maya needed the blankets more than me.” He still doesn’t understand how Maya managed to talk him into giving Claire his bed, giving up what little comfort he has left, to spend the night on the dirty floor.
She sighs, then he can hear her shifting on the bed. “There’s room up here, and the blanket’s big enough for two.”
“Not scared of sharing a bed with the big bad wolf?” He makes sure his voice is pitched low, too low and quiet to wake Maya. Even if Claire doesn’t mind sharing, he’s positive Maya will throw a fit.
“If you were going to kill me, you would have as soon as the guards left.”
Regardless of what he’d told her, Sylar’s so cold that he’s not sure he can get up. A tiny burst of energy, not enough for either of the women to be aware of, is needed to get him moving, get the freezing stiffness out of his back and hips. He crawls into the bed and telekinetically pulls the blanket over him, not wanting to take a chance on accidentally touching Claire and causing her to kick him back out of the warm bed. As soon as the blanket’s over them, Claire starts squirming and moving around, trying to get comfortable on her half of the bed. After an agonizing five minutes when he just wants to yell at her to stop her damned wriggling, dreading ever time she’d accidentally touch him, horrified she’d realize that he’s not unaware she’s a woman, she finally settles down. He’s almost asleep when she starts shifting again. She finally gets turned, snuggled up against his back, her left arm thrown around his waist and her left leg thrown over his legs. She’s so cold that he almost shrieks when her frozen feet find his calves, cold little toes trying to dig into the warm of his skin, but instead he releases another miniscule energy burst, trying to warm her up. She sighs, and rests her forehead against his back. It’s only then does he realize that she’d been asleep the entire time; she must have unconsciously been trying to get warm.
It takes him the longest time to fall asleep that night.
- - - - - - - - - -
If the middle of the night had been freezing cold, early morning when Maya wakes them can only be described as bitterly frigid. Not the room, that is to say, but her attitude. “Spooning with a teenager, Gabriel?”
“Give it a rest, Maya. I was cold, she was cold, and it was the logical solution.” If he didn’t know better, if he didn’t know that she prays every night that he’d drop dead, if he didn’t know how badly she hates him, he’d think that she was jealous.
Claire sits up, waking to their argument, and quickly realizes what’s going on. She wraps an arm around Sylar’s waist and props her head on his shoulder, draping herself over him as best as she can, and stares at the other woman. “Besides, I’m twenty-one, not a teen any more.” Her glare is a challenge; she’s taken an immediate dislike to the older woman.
“Get off of me.” Sylar shrugs her away, and gets up from the bed. “Maya, she didn’t mean…”
“Gabriel, I know what she meant. I’m just saying it’s immoral, it’s wrong, you ought not share a bed with either of us.” Maya glares back at Claire. “Didn’t your mother raise you better than to sleep with a man like that?”
“Don’t mention my mother, lady. Besides, don’t I get a ‘thank you’ for helping you out yesterday?”
“What could a child like you do for me?”
Sylar takes a few steps back, almost retreating into the safety of the bathroom. “Maya, Claire, please.”
“Shut it.” Claire snaps at him, then turns back to Maya. “Gee, I don’t know. What could I do for you? Oh, I know, slit my wrist to give you a bit of my healing blood. You’ve had some before, that’s how Mohinder saved you when Sylar shot you before.” She mutters something under her breath, too quiet for Maya to hear, but Sylar does and about falls over, having to resort to biting his lip to keep from laughing out loud.
“What did she say, Gabriel?”
“Gahbrielle? I know you’re not from around here, so I’ll cut you some slack. It’s Gay-bre-ull or Sigh-lar. Gee, no wonder he shot you, he was probably sick of you butchering his name. By the way, what I said was that I’m not surprised he shot you, you’re really annoying. I probably would have, only sooner.”
“You impudent child!” Maya tries to get up, only to find that she’s still handcuffed to the bed. “Get these cuffs off of me!”
Sylar’s about to melt the cuffs off when the door swings open and the Ferret steps into the room. Maya and Claire both immediately shrink back from him, and Sylar shoots Claire a speculative look - had he violated her too, in addition to Maya?
“Well, I see we’re all up and about this morning.” He leers at Claire, and she pulls the blanket up around her. Sylar takes a step towards her, only to find that the Ferret’s staring at Maya now. “I’m bored, so hmmm…. Eenie, meenie, miny,” he points first at Sylar, then Claire, then Maya. “Moe.” His finger jerks back to Sylar. “You, boy, out here, now.”
“Take me instead.” Claire offers, to Sylar’s surprise. He’d never volunteer for a round with Ferret, not for any reason. “You know I can take so much more than he can.”
“Intriguing, but no.” Ferret points at the door, and Sylar slowly walks towards it, wondering if he’ll ever be back to the cell again.
- - - - - - - - - -
All he wants is some peace and quiet, a soft bed to lie on and absolute silence. He’s their favorite whipping boy when they want to have a little fun messing with someone’s mind, he has so much material to work with, and they’re talented at what they do. He needs solitude to even attempt to undo the damage they’ve inflicted. They’d found someone who was talented at pulling out memories to play with, and he can still hear his mother’s voice and screams, can still see and smell and feel her blood on his hands, drying between his fingers and under his nails, creating a sticky mess on his palms.
Instead, when the guards toss him back into the cell, he gets thrown into the middle of a cat fight between Claire and Maya; the two combatants are standing in the middle of the room, facing off.
“He’s a murderer!” Maya shrieks and gestures wildly at Claire.
Claire’s retort is calm and said without a hint of anger, just amusement. “Oh, here’s an idea. Everyone here who hasn’t killed someone or attempted to kill someone, raise your hand.” She raises an eyebrow as she stares at Maya’s sudden blush. No one raises their hand. “I know you, I know all about you. I’ve seen the files the Company keeps on you. You’ve killed hundreds of people, he’s killed maybe twenty - if that many, so why don’t you take your holier-than-thou attitude and shove it where the…”
“Shut up, both of you.” It takes what little strength he still has to telekinetically silence both of them. “As much as I appreciate you fighting over me, I just want you to be quiet.”
“We weren’t fighting over you, moron.” Claire rolls her eyes. “She called me a hussy and a whore. We were fighting over little miss Sister-Maya-Better-Than-Me’s attitude.”
“Quiet!” He gets up from where the guards had tossed him and walks over to the bed, collapsing face down on it. The bed shifts a few seconds later when Maya sits down on it, quickly followed by Claire.
“Sylar?” Claire whispers, trying to use the same volume level and tone of voice that she had whenever Sandra had a migraine. “Are you okay?”
Maya runs a hand over his head, trying to comfort him. It only causes him more pain. “Do you need anything?”
“Yeah. For the both of you to be far far away from me right now.”
- - - - - - - - - -
After a few weeks, the cell definitely isn’t big enough for three people, especially when the guards remove the hospital bed and what had been Sylar’s bed, replacing it with a full size bed, clearly indicating that all three of them are supposed to sleep there. Claire and Maya still aren’t talking, except during their twice daily fights, and Sylar’s fed up with both of them. A month of living with two bickering women is almost more than he can stand, and some times he finds it hard to remember why he shouldn’t kill them.
“Maya? There’s a big bed up here, all you have to do is join us.” Claire offers, and Maya just rolls away to face the other direction. Sylar wonders how she can stand to sleep on the floor every single night, but he really doesn’t care what she does, just as long as she does it silently. “Really, he doesn’t try anything. I’m more likely to cop a feel than he is, completely by accident, I mean, but… Sylar. That’s what I was saying. He’s not going to touch you. You’re not a horrible sinner for just sharing a bed with us.” When it becomes obvious that Maya’s ignoring her, Claire just curls closer to him and closes her eyes, quickly falling asleep with her head on his chest.
She’s sound asleep when, fifteen minutes later, Maya calls out. “Promise?”
“Wha?” He’s mostly asleep at that point too.
“Promise to not try anything?”
“Yeah. Too tired to, even if I wanted to,” he thinks about it for a second, and clarifies his comment, “which I don’t.”
The bed shifts slightly when Maya lies down next to him, wrapping her blanket around her like a chastity bodysuit. It’s so odd, he finds, to be holding a woman he’s tried to kill several times while a woman he could have loved lies next to him but not touching him, separated by a few inches and a dirty woolen blanket and her frosty attitude and hatred towards him.
Chapter Two
He cocks his head to the side, trying to listen for once instead of blocking the sounds, when he hears the sobs start. He’d been right; it was just a temporary lull designed to inflict some psychological damage on their victim in addition to the physical. He should know, he’s been one of their favorite inmates to work with until this newest batch of females had shown up. The guards had immediately shoved him to the side, locking him back in his tiny cramped cell, in favor of the “fresh meat”, as he’d heard the women referred to.
“No, no, por favor, no.” The woman sobs again, and he’s reminded of Maya. Of course, there’s no way Maya would ever let herself be captured, subdued, and brought here, she’s too powerful to capture; he knows it’s not her or at least, he hopes it’s not her. “Please, sir. Please, no. I’ll be good, I promise, no.”
“Shut up and stop crying or I’ll give you something to really cry about.” Sylar easily recognizes the voice. It’s the guard that he privately refers to as the Ferret; the man looks just like a rodent. “Order in the hall, dead man walking!” The Ferret calls out, and Sylar balls his hands into fists as soon as he hears the words, remembering the countless times he’s heard them. “Dead man walking” is one of the guards’ favorite forms of mental torture, since you can never tell if it’s a joke, a way of teasing or showing who really has the power, or if you really are being led off to the termination chamber. One time, they had marched him all the way down there, only to fall over laughing when his legs had buckled and he’d fallen down in terror.
“NO!!!” The woman screams again, and Sylar hears the undisputable sounds of a fight. The guard yelps, and then someone fires a gun. He knows that the guard has just fired a warning shot into the ceiling; when they kill here, it’s much more hands on.
“Stop that, you useless bitch, unless you really do want to die already!” The words of a second guard are joined with a sickening thud that Sylar knows from experience is a fist to the stomach. “I told you, stop it! You’ve been warned what’ll happen if you try that crap here, so keep it up.” As he talks, he drags the woman down the hallway, her screaming with every step.
The sounds get closer, then stop right outside his door. He wraps his arms around his torso, just wondering what they’re going to do to him now. Five years in this place - sixteen months in solitary confinement while they’d taken him completely apart, mentally, and then the rest of the time around other prisoners and the guards - and he’s more broken than he’s ever been before. One of the guards knocks on his door. “Sylar! Get back, we’re opening the door.”
It’s not Ferret, but Sylar still obeys, crawling back into the far corner of the room. It’s not worth another fight, another beating if he’s found still sitting on his bed when the door opens. The door comes flying open, and the guard steps into the room, his gun trained on Sylar. Ferret and a third guard step into the room, carrying a woman in between them; she’s fighting them with all she has, kicking out in every direction, trying to make contact with any body part she can. It’s obvious that she’s new; the old-timers don’t fight anymore, they conserve their energy for futile escape attempts. They drag her over to his bed and drop her there, making a hasty retreat.
“She’s all yours; consider it a reward for being a good little boy, Gabriel.” Ferret smirks at him; Sylar has to remind himself why killing the man right now would be a bad idea. Ferret turns back to the woman. “Or maybe it’s a punishment for being such a bitch, Sister. I’m sure our Sylar will take good care of you.”
The woman leaps off the bed, hands and nails extended as she tries to claw at Ferret. The third guard pulls out his tazer and zaps her; she falls back on the twin-size bed, shuddering.
As the guards walk out the door, Ferret addresses Sylar again. “Break her in, help her learn the rules. Kill her only if you have to; we’ll turn a blind eye to self-defense against this one.” The door slams shut, and Sylar finally gets a chance to look at the woman on his bed. She’s still shaking slightly, curled up in a fetal position.
“Miss?” It’s strange, this feeling sweeping over him. It’s almost like he feels sorry for her, a tiny touch of empathy towards another guest of the Company.
“No, no, por favor, Gabriel. No.”
She says his name just like Maya had, begs just as prettily as Maya had. He takes a hesitant step towards the bed, and she lifts her head, the veil of dark hair parting just enough for him to finally see her face. Even with all the bruises and cuts, even with the fresh and dried blood covering her cheeks, he easily recognizes her.
“Maya.” He’s not sure if he’s glad to see her or not, and his tone reflects that indecision.
“Please don’t hurt me, please.” She curls into herself even more. “I can’t take it, I just can’t.” She starts to cry, and he takes a few steps back, like a few inches of distance could help him if she started crying the black tears. The tears streaking down her cheek remain clear, no hint of the darkness, and he feels a bit safer.
“I’m not going to hurt you.” Holding up his hands in a universal sign he’s sure she’ll recognize, he shuffles forward, reclaiming the position he'd held when she’d started crying. “I don’t want to hurt you.” It’s the truth, she’s been hurt enough by the guards, and he’s never really appreciated torture just for the sake of torture. His kills, for the most part, had been quick and clean; since he was just assisting evolution, and evolution didn't require horror, he'd not been like that, not killing for a cheap thrill. Another step forward and he’s close enough to touch her.
She realizes that fact at the same second he does. “Don’t touch me,” she spits at him, hatred coloring every word, “I don’t want you to touch me.” Even as she says it, she scrambles backwards on the bed, putting more space between them.
“I just wanted to see if you had any broken bones. The Ferret loves to break noses and ribs.” He sits down on the edge of the small bed. “We need to talk.”
“I don’t have anything to say to you.” It’s obvious to him that she’s hurting badly when she stands up and crosses to the other side of the room, wincing with each step. He finds it odd how she walks, how she never reaches for what he assumes are painfully broken ribs. Instead, she wraps her arms around her lower torso, much like he had earlier, slightly hunched over. “I thought you were dead. It’s been so long, over four years. Mohinder thought you’d been captured, but not me. I hoped you were dead, I prayed you were. I lit candles every day, praying that you were already burning in Hell for your sins. Mother Superior told me it was a sin, praying for a man’s death like that, but I didn’t care. I told her you were a devil, a monster, not a man.”
“Hell, the Company’s special prison - same difference.” Sylar leans back, resting his head against the wall. “We still need to talk - not about us, that was a conversation we should have had five years ago, but about what to expect here. Do as your told, keep the guards happy, and they let you keep your powers.” He holds out one hand towards her, lets her see his palm ice over as he calls up one of his abilities. “If you don’t… well, I think you know what happens.”
“Conchetumares.” The word slips out before she can stop it, and she pauses and crosses herself. “Yes, I know. The… Ferret as you call him, was more than happy to show me what will happen next time, and the time after that, and after that until he decides to finally kill me.” She looks at him, a sly sideways glance, then looks away again. “Why are here? I would have thought that you’d have killed the guards for touching you like that, broken out of here, killed them all.”
“I’ve tried.” He laughs, bitterly. “God knows I’ve tried. The last try, I was five inches from the door. Five inches to freedom, and I couldn’t make it. You do not want to know what they do to you for trying something like that. Wait, what do you mean, touch me like that? Sweetheart, I’ve been beat up far worse than this, back when I was in high school.” Compared to the football team and what they’d done to geeky innocent Gabriel, the guards - for the most part - aren’t that bad, too intimidated by the mystique of the infamous Sylar to beat him too badly, knowing that one day he will get free and come after them.
Maya turns away, won’t meet his eyes, doesn’t say a word, and he knows. “They don’t do that, not to the men. I’m sorry.” He truly is; rape’s another crime that he’d never commit, it sickens him more than anything else possibly could. “Ferret did that?”
“Yes.” Another tear tracks down her face, with just the slightest tint of blackness. She reaches up and wipes the tear away, looking at it on her finger like it’s just smeared mascara.
“Don’t cry. When I do break out of here, someday really soon, I’ll kill him for you.” Sylar hates her for bringing out this slightly… protective side of his personality; he shouldn’t give a damn about what they’ve done to her, but he does.
“No you won’t. I will.” She looks up, meets his gaze, no sign of any more tears. “You can have the rest, but Ferret is mine, sin or no.” Back against the wall, she slowly slides down until she’s sitting on the floor.
- - - - - - - - - -
Sylar lies on his back, staring up at the ceiling, trying to ignore Maya as best as he can.
Sharing a jail cell with his ex-… Sylar’s not sure what to call her, “ex-girlfriend” is too innocent and childish for what had passed between them, “ex-friend” fails to be descriptive enough and can’t even start to define what she is to him, and “ex-lover” is not entirely true, so he settles on just the simplistic “Maya.” Sharing the space with Maya is far from comfortable. There’s no privacy, and not enough space to ever be out of her way entirely. She’s still bitter, mad at him and at his deeds, but he can’t blame her for that. He had killed her brother and then her, even if he had revived her afterwards. Ever so often, he finds her looking at him with the oddest expression on her face, one that he can’t read, can’t interpret. “What?” Sylar finally asks when he catches her glance for what has to be the twentieth time that hour.
“Nothing.” She continues pacing around the small room. “Well… how long are they going to leave me in here with you?”
“Did you hear them tell me that? No, you didn’t - that’s because they didn’t. I’m not a fucking mind reader, I don’t know.” Sylar doesn’t mean for the words to be so sharp or so crude, but she’s really getting on his nerves at the point.
“Gabriel, you will not talk to me like that.” Maya stops her movements to look at him. “Do you think they’ll leave me in here overnight?”
“Probably.” Last time he’d had a cell mate, they’d left the girl there for three weeks, until she’d finally had a mental breakdown and they’d had to cart her off for termination. He’d been glad at the time that she’d been the one to crack instead of him. “Why?”
“There’s only one bed.” She stares at the twin-sized mattress. “And two of us.”
He rolls over slightly to the left, and pats the space next to him. “I won’t bite unless you ask nicely, sweetheart.”
“No!” In his opinion, it’s a typical Maya reaction, shock and horror rolled up in a tidy little shout, with just the tiniest bit of curiosity in her eyes, a spark of interest that she can’t hide. “I can’t, no.”
“I’m not going to touch you, so relax. You couldn’t pay me to touch you.” Knowing that she could easily kill him with a single tear, knowing that he’d have to handle her like a piece of delicate glass, knowing that she’d been raped earlier that day - there’s so many reasons that Sylar has for not wanting to bed her, but he refrains from telling her that.
“Sleep on the floor.” It’s not a suggestion or a question, but rather a command.
“You sleep on the floor. My bed, my room, and I already offered to share.” He closes his eyes, really not caring what she chooses to do.
Her words are harsh as she accuses him. “You’re no gentleman.”
“Never said I was.” Sylar rolls over, turning to face the wall, and pretends to be asleep.
Maya hesitates, then he hears the sound of her lying down on the floor, followed by a quietly whispered “Gabriel?”
“What now, Maya?”
“You have two blankets, and I have none. It’s cold in here.”
“Would it kill you to just ask politely, or is this your passive-aggressive way of demanding a blanket?”
She sighs, then rephrases her statement. “Please, Gabriel, may I have a blanket?”
Without ever looking at her, he tosses the heavier of the two blankets to her. She wraps the blanket around her, with no words of gratitude, and tries her best to sleep.
- - - - - - - - - -
After a week of letting them get used to being around each other, early one morning the guards storm into the cell with no warning, and grab Maya before she’s had a chance to really wake up. She only manages a brief sleepy grunt of surprise before the Ferret slaps his hand over her mouth.
Sylar does his best to feign sleep, keeping his breaths deep and even. He can’t let them see any emotion, any indication how he feels about their intention. Any thing other than indifference will just doom her to more time in their hands.
“Wakey, wakey, Sylar!” A guard’s voice booms through the speaker in his room. “We’ve got a special show for you today.”
‘No. Not that. Please, not that.’ He wants to scream, but he can’t, just sitting up and pretending to wipe the sleep out of his eyes. The phrase “special show” never bodes well.
“Good Sylar, good dog.”
That guard’s third on the list, Sylar reminds himself as the man speaks, he will die for this one day. That little mantra is the only thing helping him keep his control.
“Now, we’re going to uncover the window for this, I think you’re going to enjoy it. I know I am. Do you want me to tap into the speakers, or can you hear through the glass?”
It’s right as the guard speaks that the door to the cell next door opens, and Sylar can see them dragging Maya in and tossing her onto the cot set up in the middle of the room. She screams, and it’s like she’s still in the room with him.
“Nah, I’m good. She’s loud, and I’ve got good hearing.” Sylar hates it when they do this to him; every few months, they’ll give him a roommate, and then wait a day or two, sometimes a week, until he’s had a chance to get slightly attached, and then this would happen. It was easier when he just had to listen, it’s always so much worse when they make him watch too.
They make him watch as the Ferret advances on Maya, and she falls off the cot in her hurry to scramble away from him. They make him watch as more guards pour into the room and handcuff her to the bed. They make him watch, up until the point that she screams again, screams for him, calls out for Gabriel to do something, to rescue her. They make him watch, up until that same point, when her tears turn black and the guards start dropping like sadistic flies. Distance buys him a few more seconds, and he watches with glee as every guard in there falls over, dead. He coughs, and black ooze gushes from his mouth and his eyes, and he too falls.
- - - - - - - - - -
When he comes too, he’s a bit surprised. He’d thought for sure that Maya had finally managed to kill him that time, that he’d finally be free of the Company. Instead, he opens his eyes to see the same jail cell, and he has to question whether or not he’s dead. There’s a very good chance he’s going to go to Hell, and he sees no reason why Hell couldn’t be just like this. He’d always assumed that Hell would be hot but the room’s freezing, just like always, and he’s fairly sure that he’s still alive.
“Sylar?” The guard’s voice seems way off, and it takes him a minute to realize that the guard’s yelling through the door instead of using the speaker system. “You okay?”
He knows it’s a question about if he’s recovering from Maya’s version of the Black Death. “Fine.”
“Get back then, we’re coming in.”
He doesn’t even attempt to move off the bed, too drained to move a single inch. The door opens, and Ferret enters with two other guards. Ferret looks at him, like he wants to raise a fuss over Sylar still being on the bed, but he doesn’t. Instead, he motions to someone outside the room. Three more guards enter, rolling a hospital bed into the room. Maya’s stretched out on the bed, handcuffed to the safety rails, with heavy gauze bandages wrapped around her head. Another guard enters, dragging another inmate into the room, a petite brunette teenager. He shoves the girl at Sylar, and then wipes his hands on his shirt in disgust. “I hate having to touch the filth.”
“Don’t be that way, Gareth.” Ferret responds, licking his lips as he stares at the girl. “Sometimes touching ‘em can be a lot of fun.”
Sylar immediately grabs the girl and pulls her behind him, trying to ignore the way her thin frame’s shaking in terror. The Ferret notices the motion, and Sylar braces for a blow. Instead, the man starts laughing. “Fine, spoilsport. I’ll get her another time. You can’t protect them all. By the way, it’s up to you how you decide to use these two. Anything goes, anything at all. Have fun.”
The guards are still laughing and the girl’s still trembling when the door closes. “I really hate those bastards.” Sylar mutters as soon as he’s sure they’re alone in the cell.
“Me too.” The girl lets go of him, crawling over him, and goes to check on Maya, carefully unwrapping the bandages. As soon as she sees what they’ve done to her, the girl runs into the small attached bathroom and Sylar can hear her retching. He’s not sure he wants to know, but he can’t stop himself from getting up to see. It’s all he can do to keep from joining the girl in the bathroom when he sees that the guards have assured that Maya’s tears will never affect them again.
After all, it’s difficult to cry when you no longer have eyes or tear ducts.
- - - - - - - - - -
“You okay?” Sylar asks as he leans in the doorway to the bathroom.
“What do you think?” The girl is standing in front of the sink, face buried in a cool washcloth. “So, are you my new jailer or what?”
“Nah, cell mate. They only say crap like that to scare you. They know all the new girls have heard about me, heard about what I’ve supposedly done. It’s an easy way of terrorizing you just a bit more.”
“They didn’t have to tell me, I already knew.” She lowers the washcloth, turning to face him. “I know exactly who you are, you sick monster, and what you’re capable of.”
He immediately recognizes her, even with the darkened hair. “You would.” There’s no point antagonizing her anymore, there’s no fun to be had in teasing and threatening her when he can’t follow through on it, impotent in deed if not word, and he walks away. She quickly follows, but when Sylar goes to sit down on the bed, she turns towards Maya instead.
“Do you know who she is?” Claire asks as she tries to twist Maya’s arm and the handcuff around so that her wrist is exposed.
“Maya Herrera. Sister Maya by now, probably.” Fascinated, Sylar watches as Claire struggles with the handcuffs. “What are you doing?”
“What do you think I’m doing?” Claire stops her struggles once she’s maneuvered Maya into place, and stops to examine her fingernails, experimentally running the pad of her thumb over the nail edges until she gets to the middle finger on her left hand.
For the life of him, he cannot figure out what the girl’s up to. “I have no clue. Do you need some help?”
“Will you actually help, or are you going to try to stop me?” She stops messing with her nails to stare at him. “Because if you’re just going to tell me ‘no, don’t do that’, then we’re going to have an issue.” She takes a deep breath, then places her fingernail on Maya’s wrist, pressing hard enough to scratch the delicate skin. Claire looks at the scratch, then curses. “Damn it.”
“I’ll help you, but I don’t really know what you’re doing.” He doesn’t understand why he’s trying to be useful, why he wants to help her, but he does.
“Cut her wrist for me, deep enough to make her bleed. I thought I could do it with my nails, but they’re not sharp enough, and I really don’t want to use my teeth.”
He wonders how long Claire’s been a guest of the Company, how long it’s taken to make her crack like this. “Excuse me?”
“You do remember what my blood can do, right? I was under the impression that you’ve used it to heal her before. I heard all about that little incident in Mohinder’s lab. Since we don’t have any sort of needles or syringes, we’re going to have to do this the messy way.” Claire stares at him like he’s being particularly stupid, and Sylar can’t argue with her. He should have thought about using her to heal Maya earlier.
“Hold out your arm too, we’re going to have to do this quickly.” He waits until Claire’s arm is resting right on top of Maya’s, Claire’s lighter skin almost shining gold against Maya’s darker flesh, and then he telekinetically slits both women’s wrists. While the skin differs in tone, he can’t tell whose blood is whose as their blood mingles and the wounds start to heal over.
“Do you think she got enough?” Claire asks as she looks up at him, cradling her arm against her chest, skin unmarred as if nothing had happened.
“I don’t know.” They both watch, waiting, hoping, praying to see Maya’s eyes reform. When they see the slightest change around the empty sockets, Claire grabs his arm in excitement, seemingly unaware that she was touching him. By the time that all the injuries, the horrible gauges are filled and the eyes are completely reformed and Maya looks back at them, blind no longer, they’re holding hands. When Claire sees the scathing look Maya gives her, she jumps away from both of them like she’s been burned.
- - - - - - - - - -
That night, as he lies on the numbingly cold floor of the cell, without even a blanket to cover him, Sylar reviews the ‘must die’ list that he keeps. Bob Bishop is still number one, and Ferret’s still number two. If Maya is ever able to recognize the guard who’d attacked her first when she’d started tearing up, that man will be third. He’s reassessing the list, figuring out who’ll be number four, when Claire calls out to him. “Sylar?”
“What now?”
“Aren’t you cold?” Her voice shakes, her teeth rattle just a bit, indicating that even if he’s not cold, she certainly is.
“Claire, I can control ice, can completely coat my body in frost and icicles. The room’s not that bad in comparison. Besides, you and Maya needed the blankets more than me.” He still doesn’t understand how Maya managed to talk him into giving Claire his bed, giving up what little comfort he has left, to spend the night on the dirty floor.
She sighs, then he can hear her shifting on the bed. “There’s room up here, and the blanket’s big enough for two.”
“Not scared of sharing a bed with the big bad wolf?” He makes sure his voice is pitched low, too low and quiet to wake Maya. Even if Claire doesn’t mind sharing, he’s positive Maya will throw a fit.
“If you were going to kill me, you would have as soon as the guards left.”
Regardless of what he’d told her, Sylar’s so cold that he’s not sure he can get up. A tiny burst of energy, not enough for either of the women to be aware of, is needed to get him moving, get the freezing stiffness out of his back and hips. He crawls into the bed and telekinetically pulls the blanket over him, not wanting to take a chance on accidentally touching Claire and causing her to kick him back out of the warm bed. As soon as the blanket’s over them, Claire starts squirming and moving around, trying to get comfortable on her half of the bed. After an agonizing five minutes when he just wants to yell at her to stop her damned wriggling, dreading ever time she’d accidentally touch him, horrified she’d realize that he’s not unaware she’s a woman, she finally settles down. He’s almost asleep when she starts shifting again. She finally gets turned, snuggled up against his back, her left arm thrown around his waist and her left leg thrown over his legs. She’s so cold that he almost shrieks when her frozen feet find his calves, cold little toes trying to dig into the warm of his skin, but instead he releases another miniscule energy burst, trying to warm her up. She sighs, and rests her forehead against his back. It’s only then does he realize that she’d been asleep the entire time; she must have unconsciously been trying to get warm.
It takes him the longest time to fall asleep that night.
- - - - - - - - - -
If the middle of the night had been freezing cold, early morning when Maya wakes them can only be described as bitterly frigid. Not the room, that is to say, but her attitude. “Spooning with a teenager, Gabriel?”
“Give it a rest, Maya. I was cold, she was cold, and it was the logical solution.” If he didn’t know better, if he didn’t know that she prays every night that he’d drop dead, if he didn’t know how badly she hates him, he’d think that she was jealous.
Claire sits up, waking to their argument, and quickly realizes what’s going on. She wraps an arm around Sylar’s waist and props her head on his shoulder, draping herself over him as best as she can, and stares at the other woman. “Besides, I’m twenty-one, not a teen any more.” Her glare is a challenge; she’s taken an immediate dislike to the older woman.
“Get off of me.” Sylar shrugs her away, and gets up from the bed. “Maya, she didn’t mean…”
“Gabriel, I know what she meant. I’m just saying it’s immoral, it’s wrong, you ought not share a bed with either of us.” Maya glares back at Claire. “Didn’t your mother raise you better than to sleep with a man like that?”
“Don’t mention my mother, lady. Besides, don’t I get a ‘thank you’ for helping you out yesterday?”
“What could a child like you do for me?”
Sylar takes a few steps back, almost retreating into the safety of the bathroom. “Maya, Claire, please.”
“Shut it.” Claire snaps at him, then turns back to Maya. “Gee, I don’t know. What could I do for you? Oh, I know, slit my wrist to give you a bit of my healing blood. You’ve had some before, that’s how Mohinder saved you when Sylar shot you before.” She mutters something under her breath, too quiet for Maya to hear, but Sylar does and about falls over, having to resort to biting his lip to keep from laughing out loud.
“What did she say, Gabriel?”
“Gahbrielle? I know you’re not from around here, so I’ll cut you some slack. It’s Gay-bre-ull or Sigh-lar. Gee, no wonder he shot you, he was probably sick of you butchering his name. By the way, what I said was that I’m not surprised he shot you, you’re really annoying. I probably would have, only sooner.”
“You impudent child!” Maya tries to get up, only to find that she’s still handcuffed to the bed. “Get these cuffs off of me!”
Sylar’s about to melt the cuffs off when the door swings open and the Ferret steps into the room. Maya and Claire both immediately shrink back from him, and Sylar shoots Claire a speculative look - had he violated her too, in addition to Maya?
“Well, I see we’re all up and about this morning.” He leers at Claire, and she pulls the blanket up around her. Sylar takes a step towards her, only to find that the Ferret’s staring at Maya now. “I’m bored, so hmmm…. Eenie, meenie, miny,” he points first at Sylar, then Claire, then Maya. “Moe.” His finger jerks back to Sylar. “You, boy, out here, now.”
“Take me instead.” Claire offers, to Sylar’s surprise. He’d never volunteer for a round with Ferret, not for any reason. “You know I can take so much more than he can.”
“Intriguing, but no.” Ferret points at the door, and Sylar slowly walks towards it, wondering if he’ll ever be back to the cell again.
- - - - - - - - - -
All he wants is some peace and quiet, a soft bed to lie on and absolute silence. He’s their favorite whipping boy when they want to have a little fun messing with someone’s mind, he has so much material to work with, and they’re talented at what they do. He needs solitude to even attempt to undo the damage they’ve inflicted. They’d found someone who was talented at pulling out memories to play with, and he can still hear his mother’s voice and screams, can still see and smell and feel her blood on his hands, drying between his fingers and under his nails, creating a sticky mess on his palms.
Instead, when the guards toss him back into the cell, he gets thrown into the middle of a cat fight between Claire and Maya; the two combatants are standing in the middle of the room, facing off.
“He’s a murderer!” Maya shrieks and gestures wildly at Claire.
Claire’s retort is calm and said without a hint of anger, just amusement. “Oh, here’s an idea. Everyone here who hasn’t killed someone or attempted to kill someone, raise your hand.” She raises an eyebrow as she stares at Maya’s sudden blush. No one raises their hand. “I know you, I know all about you. I’ve seen the files the Company keeps on you. You’ve killed hundreds of people, he’s killed maybe twenty - if that many, so why don’t you take your holier-than-thou attitude and shove it where the…”
“Shut up, both of you.” It takes what little strength he still has to telekinetically silence both of them. “As much as I appreciate you fighting over me, I just want you to be quiet.”
“We weren’t fighting over you, moron.” Claire rolls her eyes. “She called me a hussy and a whore. We were fighting over little miss Sister-Maya-Better-Than-Me’s attitude.”
“Quiet!” He gets up from where the guards had tossed him and walks over to the bed, collapsing face down on it. The bed shifts a few seconds later when Maya sits down on it, quickly followed by Claire.
“Sylar?” Claire whispers, trying to use the same volume level and tone of voice that she had whenever Sandra had a migraine. “Are you okay?”
Maya runs a hand over his head, trying to comfort him. It only causes him more pain. “Do you need anything?”
“Yeah. For the both of you to be far far away from me right now.”
- - - - - - - - - -
After a few weeks, the cell definitely isn’t big enough for three people, especially when the guards remove the hospital bed and what had been Sylar’s bed, replacing it with a full size bed, clearly indicating that all three of them are supposed to sleep there. Claire and Maya still aren’t talking, except during their twice daily fights, and Sylar’s fed up with both of them. A month of living with two bickering women is almost more than he can stand, and some times he finds it hard to remember why he shouldn’t kill them.
“Maya? There’s a big bed up here, all you have to do is join us.” Claire offers, and Maya just rolls away to face the other direction. Sylar wonders how she can stand to sleep on the floor every single night, but he really doesn’t care what she does, just as long as she does it silently. “Really, he doesn’t try anything. I’m more likely to cop a feel than he is, completely by accident, I mean, but… Sylar. That’s what I was saying. He’s not going to touch you. You’re not a horrible sinner for just sharing a bed with us.” When it becomes obvious that Maya’s ignoring her, Claire just curls closer to him and closes her eyes, quickly falling asleep with her head on his chest.
She’s sound asleep when, fifteen minutes later, Maya calls out. “Promise?”
“Wha?” He’s mostly asleep at that point too.
“Promise to not try anything?”
“Yeah. Too tired to, even if I wanted to,” he thinks about it for a second, and clarifies his comment, “which I don’t.”
The bed shifts slightly when Maya lies down next to him, wrapping her blanket around her like a chastity bodysuit. It’s so odd, he finds, to be holding a woman he’s tried to kill several times while a woman he could have loved lies next to him but not touching him, separated by a few inches and a dirty woolen blanket and her frosty attitude and hatred towards him.
Chapter Two