Equilateral - 3
Title: Equilateral - Part 3/3
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: implied rape, sex between consenting adults
Disclaimer: I still don't own anything, imagine that.
Pairing: Maya/Sylar/Claire threesome
Chapter One ~ · ~ Chapter Two
A/N: Here it is, the finale. Sorry if it gets sappy at the end, I just needed a bit of fluff to balance out all the angst.
When Sylar finally awakes the next morning, it’s only to find an empty bed. He’s about to panic, thoughts of the Ferret coming back for his girls running through his head, when he realizes the water’s running and the sound of Maya’s moaning in the shower is mingling with Claire’s laughter. “One time only, my ass,” he mutters as he rolls out of bed and walking to the bathroom, hesitating before walking in. The door’s wide open, neither of them had bothered to close it, and he chooses to view it as an invitation.
Leaning against the counter, he gestures at the shower curtain and it slowly starts to pull open, helped along by his telekinesis. As glistening wet skin comes into view, Sylar doesn’t even notice the water spraying out of the shower and pooling on the floor. Claire’s got Maya pinned against the wall of the shower, Claire's mouth latched onto tender skin at Maya’s neck and Claire's fingers… he can’t stop himself from leaning forward and drooling slightly when he realizes that Maya’s riding Claire’s fingers, holding onto Claire’s shoulders and biting her lip, eyes closed in ecstasy. They’re both beautiful women, but he thinks they’ve never looked better than this, and he takes a step towards them, trying to get a better look. Claire notices the movement out of the corner of her eye, and turns to smile at him then mouths “be quiet.”
Her movements seem more exaggerated, more purposeful now that she’s got an audience, and Sylar takes another step forward when she twists her finger slightly, ripping a moan out of Maya’s mouth. “Claire…”
“Shh.” Claire turns back towards him as she whispers into Maya’s ear. “I thought you didn’t want him to hear us. Didn’t want him to join us, didn’t want him to know how you still want him.” Every time she says “him”, Claire slams or twists her fingers again as further emphasis. Claire winks at him, almost daring him to speak up right then, but he doesn’t.
Instead, he pulls his clothes off and takes another step towards the tub, then slowly steps into it. He presses a kiss against Claire’s bare back in greeting, and he can tell she’s trying to suppress a moan when he cups her breast, tweaking her nipple.
She takes her frustration out on the woman in front of her. “C’mon Maya, tell me again. It gets me so hot to think about the two of you together. Please, for me?” Claire runs her other hand down Maya’s body before dropping it to her clit.
“Yes, do, it sounds fascinating.” Sylar realizes as soon as the words leave his mouth that he’s made a horrible mistake, and he’s soon proven right as Maya’s eyes fly open in horror and she tries to pull away from Claire.
“How dare you!” She yells at them, and as he tries to puzzle out which one of them she’s talking to, she pushes Claire out of her way and steps out of the shower. “You knew he was in here, and you didn’t say anything. You know how I feel about that.”
“Yeah, I do.” Claire retorts. “You’re still in love with him, even though you won’t admit it, and too scared to do anything about it. I thought I was helping you.”
“No, you were using me to put on a show for him.” Maya grabs a towel and wraps it around herself, trying to hide as much of her body as she can. “I trusted you, querida, and you used me, objectified me to give him a cheap thrill.”
“Maya, it’s not like that.” Claire scrambles out of the tub, almost slipping in all the water pooling on the floor, and tries to get her lover to listen to her. “I didn’t plan this, I didn’t set you up, I just took advantage of the fact that he showed up and was interested. I don’t want to feel like I’ve got to split my time between you and him, like I’m cheating on one of you with the other - I want my lovers to be lovers too.”
“I’ll make it easy for you then. Same rule that I have for him now applies to you - don’t touch me. There, you only have one partner; that should make your life a lot easier.” Maya slams the bathroom door as she marches back out into the main room.
“Well, that could have gone better.” Sylar drawls out, looking at Claire. “What did you think was going to happen when I joined you?”
“I don’t know. Not that.” She sighs. “I’m just making a mess of everything.”
“Not everything. Water’s still running, we’re still naked and I think I could be persuaded to share the shower with you.” He pulls back the curtain a bit more in invitation. “If you’re interested, that is?”
Claire stares at the closed door for a minute, and Sylar’s not sure if she’s debating going after Maya or if she’s just waiting for Maya to return, but then she turns to him with an intense look in her eyes that he knows can only be a good thing for him.
- - - - - - - - - -
Maya doesn’t speak to them, doesn’t even look at them when they finally exit the bathroom. There’s nothing to say, nothing that can be said that will fix the situation, and all three of them know it.
Two hours later, when the guard brings in their lunch trays, they’re still sitting in silence. “Wow, talkative crowd today,” the man tries to joke.
“Is there any reason you need to be here?” Claire snaps at him. “If not, leave.”
“Claire…” Maya starts to say, then realizes who she’s talking to, and goes silent.
The guard looks at the two women, then at Sylar, then back at Claire. “Okay, going now. Just try to control that mouth from now on, missy, there’s people here far less understanding than me,” he tries to warn her as he heads towards the door.
“Yeah, like me.” They hadn’t noticed the Ferret leaning against the door frame until he speaks. “Petrelli. Come here, now.” Claire starts shivering. “Your uncle and father still are refusing to play nice with us. I think they need a reminder of how much you’re enjoying our hospitality. Oh, don’t worry, Sylar, I’ll have your little girlfriend back here in a few hours.”
Sylar takes a step forward to protect her, but stops when both Claire and the guard glare at him. Instead, he moves to stand in front of Maya. She, in turn, stands and steps behind him, leaning forward slightly until she’s almost touching him, glad for the protection he offers. She hesitates, then does touch him, grabbing his arm and clinging to him. “Gabriel, do something,” Maya whispers in his ear as she immediately forgets why she’d been so mad at Claire, “please help her.”
He would, if he could. “I can’t; don’t draw attention to yourself unless you want to join her,” Sylar whispers back, angling his body slightly to further block the Ferret’s view of Maya. He might not be able to help Claire right now, but at least he can try to stop the guard from taking both women.
“We’ll just be right next door; I’ll open the window for you.” The Ferret licks his lips. “You do remember that room, don’t you, sweetie?” He directs at Maya.
“Padre nuestro,” Sylar hears Maya mutter under her breath, “que estás en el cielo…” He silences her with his telekinesis before the Ferret can hear her prayers, the two of them holding onto each other as the sadistic guard drags their lover out of the room.
- - - - - - - - - -
Watching them torture Claire’s the hardest thing he’s ever done. Maya is in the bathroom, being sick again, when they bring out the knives. When Maya comes into the room, she doesn’t hesitate to sit next to him, to grab his hand, to bury her head against his shoulder. Claire doesn’t scream, doesn’t cry out, and that makes it slightly easier to watch, like it’s some sort of strange movie theater and the sound’s been muted even though the horror movie plays on.
The Ferret leans down to whisper something in Claire’s ear, too low for even Sylar to hear, and this time she does scream when he brings the knife up. Sylar closes his eyes, not wanting to see, unable to bring himself to watch another minute. “Stop!” he cries out, hoping that the guards are still monitoring their cell.
“Sylar.” The Ferret turns to face the window. “Is there a problem? Not enough blood for you?”
He takes a deep breath, and then offers his deal. “Take me instead. Please, take me.”
The Ferret laughs, like it’s the funniest thing he’s ever heard since the last time Sylar had offered himself up in Claire’s place. “Take you instead? What would be the point of that? We’re learning so much about our little Claire’s powers; it’s fascinating what she can and can’t tolerate. Besides, the Petrelli brothers wouldn’t care if we sent them a tape of you instead - they’d probably cheer, or at least the older one would. No, I don’t want you today. Oh, and I forgot the best reason - you wouldn’t learn anything if I took you, you’d just bleed.” The Ferret sneers at how useless Sylar would be to him. “I’m doing this for your benefit; it’s so much fun to torture you via your little girlfriend here. She doesn’t care if I stab her or break her legs, they’ll just heal back. No, you’re the one who cares - you’re the weak one here.”
He laughs again, and then turns back towards Claire. Sylar grips Maya’s hand and watches, teeth gritted, vowing to himself that the Ferret will die, a horrible painful death. For him, and just for him, he’ll change his stance on torturing his victims before hand.
“Gabriel, do something.” Maya pleads with him again as she watches the Ferret break Claire’s arm, bending it so that her wrist is flush to her elbow and then waiting for the healing power to kick in. They’d found out earlier that Claire’s powers would heal all wounds in time, even if the bones weren’t reset to the correct position; of course, they healed as they were, twisted or kinked or however incorrectly aligned they might be.
“What do you want me to do?” is Sylar’s distracted response as he tries to figure out what the Ferret’s going to do with the newest piece of equipment he brings out. He’s never seen anything quite like it; four metal leaves held together with a screw at the top. It’s obviously something unpleasant, but Sylar’s not sure what.
The guard sees the curious look, and grins at his audience. “You like?” Ferret waves the odd metal contraption at them. “Had it specially made, can’t get craftsmanship like this these days - and Wal-Mart doesn’t carry pears of anguish.”
Sylar’s just about to ask “pears of what?” when Maya starts shaking. “No, no, no, no!” He turns to see her eyes turn dark, and takes a very quick step or three away from her. “Maya, calm down.”
“I will not! He will not rape her with that… that… that thing!” She cries out as she tries to focus her rage and her poison on the guard.
“Do what with it?” Sylar hadn’t anticipated that the metal object could be used in that way, but he turns to stare at it again and his eyes widen as he figures out what Maya means. “Oh, hell no.” He grabs Maya and pulls her away from the window, stepping in front of her and pushing her down towards the ground. “Duck.”
She falls down, cowering at his feet as he narrows his eyes and focuses on the window and the guards. The window starts to crack and he extends his hand towards it, trying to force his way through it, before he gets a better idea. He closes his eyes and focuses on his powers, letting his blood burn and his body tighten before releasing a megaburst of radioactivity, sending a massive EMP wave through the building and wiping out all the electronics and electrical systems. Everything immediately goes dark, and the Ferret screams out in surprise when he finds himself flying through the darkness, crashing into the window separating the ‘interrogation’ room from the cell, colliding with the window again and again and again until the glass finally gives in, tiny glass shards spraying everywhere. The guard falls at Sylar’s feet, face down; Sylar gives him a none-too-gently nudge with his foot, rolling him over to find that glass embedded in his throat, forehead, and upper torso.
“Sylar?” Claire’s small cry makes him immediately forget the Ferret, and he uses his telekinesis to undo her restraints and float her into his waiting arms. He runs his hands over her arms and face, even though he knows he won’t find any obvious wounds.
“You okay, babydoll?”
“Yeah.” She looks down at her twisted arm and grimaces. “I don’t think I can fix this. Break it for me? I don’t have the strength to crack it again.”
He’s almost sick as he grabs hold of her arm and brings it down roughly over his upraised knee, using the force of the blow and some of his TK to crack the bone. As soon as they hear the stomach-turning crack, she quickly grabs her arm and twists it back into its proper position before her powers can take back over. As soon as she feels that familiar tingle, she turns her arm one way and then the other, testing it out, before using it to pull Sylar down for a quick kiss. “Thanks, babe.”
“Are you two done over there, or are we going to delay our escape so you can kiss some more?” Maya stands next to the now-opened main door to the cell. “The door must have been locked electronically.”
“Shall we?” He offers his arm to Claire, and escorts her to the door, pausing to comment to Maya. “Magnetic locks, actually. EMPs disrupt magnetic fields too.” He offers her his other arm, and she takes it. They step out into the hallway only to see guards and other escaping prisoners running around, complete chaos taking over. Sylar takes a step in what he assumes is the correct direction, only to have Claire tug on his arm.
“Wait. We left something behind.” She turns to look back into the cell, pointing at the Ferret’s corpse.
“Querida, he’s dead.” Maya softly informs her. “He can’t hurt you anymore.”
“But I can hurt him. Sylar, please, we need to take him with us.”
Maya and Sylar look at each other, then at Claire. “And do what with him?” Sylar finally asks the question that Maya can’t ask.
“Revive him, kill him again, revive him, over and over and over again and again and again… please, Sylar?”
Before she can slap her hand over her mouth, Maya gasps. Sylar’s not sure if it’s in disgust or not. He can’t deny Claire what she wants, and with a twitch of his fingers, the body is under his control.
- - - - - - - - - -
“Dead man walking, order on the floor!” Sylar smirks as he calls out the familiar phrase, thrilled with the reversal of fortunes; the inmates are running the asylum, the guards turned prisoners. Claire laughs, and Maya frowns at him, but he knows she’s suppressing a giggle. As they walk down the hallway, arm in arm with a dead man’s corpse floating behind him, Sylar can’t help but contrast this escape with his previous attempts. He wonders why he’d never thought of an EMP before. All the previous attempts had pretty much been solo attempts, and he sees now that was exactly the reason they failed.
The first time, just three hours after he’d been brought in, still woozy from the drugs in his system, he’d made it three steps outside the door of his cell before Elle had zapped him with a bolt of lightening and then dragged him back into his room, giggling like it was all a fun game. They’d pumped him full of something that had taken his powers away for five months after that attempt.
The second time, the time that got him put in solitary confinement, he’d killed five guards before they’d pumped a combination of halothane and sevofluorane into the air system of that entire wing of the building, knocking out everyone. He’d held his breath for three minutes, as soon as he realized what they’d done, but his body had betrayed him and he’d fallen to his knees, gasping and choking as the gas eased him into a dreamless sleep. He’d woken up in Hell, a never-ending torture where it was just him, just powerless unspecial him in a tiny room with nothing else. By the time six months rolled around, he’d turned into a raving lunatic, talking to himself for hours on end about nothing, about everything, just talking to keep the silence from scaring him senseless. The Company psychologists had finally forced the guards to release him.
Not more than three months since he’d been released from solitary confinement for the first time, he’d made his third escape attempt. There was one guard, a scared young kid recruited just out of high school, that had been more sympathetic that most. At first, Sylar had just gotten extra servings of his favorite foods; then it was a thicker blanket during the coldest part of winter, in a building without heat. Finally, the guard had eased himself into the room while Sylar was asleep; he’d woken up when the guard sat down on his bed and touched his shoulder. Sylar had reacted badly, thinking that the boy wanted to violate him, but the kid had started crying, blubbering about how wrong and how cruel his job was, and how he wanted to help the prisoners escape. Sylar had known better, had known that it wouldn’t work and that he was just going to get in trouble again, but the kid had finally convinced him. He was three steps away from the door, three steps away from freedom, when the kid had cried out and fallen to his knees, shot in the back by another guard. Sylar had hesitated, pausing to help his unlikely savior, and his hesitation had cost him dearly. When the guards finally finished doling out his punishment for that attempt, he’d sworn to himself that he wouldn’t try it again until the time was perfect, when there was no chance of failure.
Walking down the hallway with a woman who couldn’t be killed and a woman the guards had nicknamed “the black widow”, Sylar knows that this is that time. As they stroll towards the door, a guard rushes up to them and yells “halt!” Maya turns to glare at him, a single tear tracking down her cheek. The guard and the tear both drop to the floor at the same time. No one else approaches them, no one else says anything to them as they calmly make their way to freedom.
Maya and Claire step outside, blinking in the bright light of natural sunlight, but Sylar pauses before leaving the only thing he’s known for the last five years. He takes a deep breath, and as he steps outside with the Ferret in tow.
- - - - - - - - - -
“You want to stop here?” Sylar raises an eyebrow as he looks at Claire in disbelief. “Here?”
“It’s a bit… seedy,” Claire admits as she stares at the decrepit “Rest Inn” that can only be described as a no-tell motel, “but we need to stop somewhere for the night, and this place isn’t going to ask questions.”
Sylar pulls the stolen car into the parking lot and drives around to the back of the building. No one else is parked back here, which surprises him. He pulls into a parking spot, and opens the door. Claire unbuckles and starts to do the same, but as soon as the door opens, he telekinetically slams it shut. “Stay here, both of you. I’ll let you know when it’s safe to come in.”
He makes his way up the rickety staircase to the upper level of rooms, and closes his eyes, trying to listen into each room as he walks past them. He quickly bypasses the first three rooms as soon as he hears the occupants. There’s no one in the fourth room, but he doesn’t want to be that close to the others. None of the other rooms on that floor are occupied, and resting his hand against the doorknob of the seventh room, he melts the lock. The door opens, and he turns back to the car, waving at Maya and Claire. They get out, then stare at the trunk and then back up at him. He waves again, and Maya shrugs, turning towards the stairs. Claire looks at the trunk again, pouting, but follows a few steps behind Maya.
Maya walks past him as he holds the door for her, and then stops when she sees the room. “Gabriel…”
“I know. It’s… we’ll just stay the night, just one night.” He should have known that the room would look too much like the one in Cook Lake, that it would bring back too many memories for her. “Unless you want to be the one to try to tell Claire no?”
“No, it’ll be fine.”
“Good. It’s going to be bad enough when we won’t let her torture the Ferret.” Sylar runs his hand through his hair as he looks at their wayward lover, bouncing up the stairs right then.
“Why? I say let her.” With that, Maya steps into the room, leaving Sylar staring after her, mouth agape.
- - - - - - - - - -
“Bitch.” The Ferret’s first word after being revived with Claire’s blood is what they’d all expected.
“Aw, I’m going to get the impression you don’t like me.” Claire pouts. “I’m so heartbroken. Everyone loves me.”
Sylar brings his hand up to his mouth to cover his smile, biting lightly on his index finger to keep from laughing. The comment’s typical Claire, but the gleam in her eye is new, and vaguely disturbing to him. A quick glance at Maya shows that she’s thinking the same thing.
“I guess I’ll just have to make you love me.” She continues on, not even noticing Maya and Sylar’s responses to her words. “Like you did to me. I kept track, you know. Every time you touched me, every time you hit me, every time you raped me, every bone you broke, every time you made me fucking lie and say that I loved you while you broke me. It was a lot of times, higher than you can count, I’m sure. And you know what?” Leaning down, she whispers in his ear. “I’m going to kill you an equal number of times, and keep on bringing you back. I can go on all night, and all day tomorrow too; then I’ll turn you over to Maya. I’m sure she will just to love to play with our new toy. Then, when she’s done with you, Sylar gets you.”
“Claire…” Maya calls out, shocked at Claire’s sudden cruelty.
“Don’t.” Claire glares at her. “You know he has it coming, that he’s brought it on himself. You know what he’s done, why I have to do this to him.” She starts sobbing, and it breaks their hearts to realize that she’d been so badly hurt and they hadn’t realized until then the depth of her pain and the strength of her need to avenge herself.
“She’s right, listen to her.” Sylar can’t believe he’s agreeing with Maya. “Please don’t do this, Claire. Let me, but don’t do it yourself. There’s no reason you have to become a killer like us. Torturing and killing him won’t make things better.” He wants to keep her safe, safe from herself, innocent, with no blood on her hands, so much so that he’ll put aside his own desire for revenge.
“I’ve tried to kill someone before.” She glares at him. “I don’t see it as killing; it’s putting down a rabid animal. And then,” she runs her hand along Ferret’s cheek before slapping him hard enough to leave her handprint imprinted on his skin, “bringing it back and doing it again for good measure.”
“You can’t do this; you don’t need this stain on your soul.” Maya argues with her, taking a step closer to her and trying to distract her from the guard. They can’t let her do this, it would destroy her when she finally healed enough to feel guilty over it.
“My soul?” Claire laughs. “Maya, I’m not a saint, I don’t want to be a nun like you, I’m not ever going to go to heaven or hell, won’t ever be held accountable by some greater power because I’m not going to die. You worry about your soul, and let me worry about whatever it is I want to instead.”
Maya sees her chance to fully divert Claire’s attention. “I’m not a nun, I won’t ever be. I don’t know why you and Gabriel keep saying that.” She takes a deep breath. “I did want to at one point in the not-so-distant past, but they wouldn’t have me.” She takes a step to the side, and Claire turns to look at her, turning her back to the guard, no longer paying any attention to him as Sylar quickly cuts his throat, putting the man out of his misery. He motions to Maya with a jerk of his head, letting her know that she needs to keep Claire distracted. “They said that I wasn’t free to take my vows, that I couldn’t pledge myself to God when…”
“When what?” Claire asks, fascinated by this side of Maya that she hasn’t seen before. “Did you tell them about your past? About the deaths?” It’s the nicest way she can find to allude to Maya’s victims.
She pauses, waiting until Sylar slips from the room to dispose of the body, glad that he’s not there to hear her story. “In a way. Mother Superior said I could never give myself to that lifestyle while I…” she takes a deep breath before finally confessing, “while I’m still in love with Gabriel. I stayed there for three years, trying to prove to them and myself that I didn’t, but I never did stop. Do you have any clue how painful that is, to hate someone so badly yet be so deeply in love with him, to have him completely destroy your life in every way that matters and to not care, ready to take him back in a heartbeat if only he’d show the slightest bit of interest?” She reaches up to swipe at the angry tears escaping from her eyes. “And then just like he did, they betrayed me. They needed the reward money, and it was easy to turn over an annoying woman who wouldn’t go away yet couldn’t stay. I’m sure the Company paid them well for me.”
“Oh, Maya.” Claire hugs the older woman when she starts crying in earnest. “Don’t cry. It’s going to be alright.”
“How can it be? I love him, and I can see myself falling for you too, and you’re both going to leave me for each other. I see how you look at each other, Claire, I know what’s coming.”
“Not unless you want us too.” Neither woman had noticed Sylar re-entering the room or crossing the room to stand right behind Claire. “What do you want from us, from me?”
Maya opens her mouth, but can’t speak.
“Well? Yes or no, do you want both of us?”
Still unable to speak, she does the only thing she can. Hands shaking, she reaches out for Claire and then Sylar. As she holds Claire’s handing, needing her support, she snakes her arm around Sylar’s neck and pulls him down for a tender kiss.
- - - - - - - - - -
He’s not sure how they end up on the bed, not sure whose hands are on his suddenly bare chest and whose hands are on his waistband. All he can see is a cloud of dark hair as Maya and Claire push him back, laying him flat on his back and then grinning at each other. Their approaches are twin images of each other; when one kisses the lobe of one ear, the other woman echoes the movement. When one trails kisses down his throat, the other does the same although with tiny nibbles and love bites. Soft locks of hair tickle his stomach as the women move lower, and he finally gets a good look at them when they pause to kiss each other again before turning their attention back to him. As soon as a warm mouth engulfs him, he knows it’s Claire, but he’s not expecting her to pull back immediately and for Maya to take her position; they take turns, licking and sucking and humming around him, one experienced and the other more tentative and unsure, and he finally realizes that Claire’s trying to teach Maya how to please him. “Enough,” he calls out, not wanting to startle Maya by coming right then, “please, enough.”
Maya pulls back. “Did I do something wrong?”
“No, you did it too good, sweetheart. I didn’t want to…” he trails off, not sure how to phrase what he knew was going to happen if she hadn’t stopped.
“Oh.” She blushes as she admits “I wouldn’t have minded.”
“I would have.” He gestures to her to crawl back up the bed so that he can pull her in for another kiss, this one just as heated as the one that night when they’d shared Claire. Maya suddenly jumps, startled, and yelps into his mouth. “Maya?”
She tenses again, and then closes her eyes. “Claire, oh, Claire!”
He leans up to see that Claire’s not ready to be pushed to the side in this ménage a trois, that she’s taken advantage of Maya’s distraction to part her legs. He watches, fascinated, as she presses soft kisses along Maya’s inner thighs, then focuses her attention on Maya’s clit. Maya jumps again, and Claire has to restrain her by pinning her hips. Redoubling her efforts, Claire has Maya screaming out her release in just a few minutes. She grins at him as they watch Maya ride out her orgasm, completely lost in the sensation. When she finally does open her eyes, in awe, Claire laughs then kisses her.
“That was… incredible.” Maya’s voice has gone breathless and shaky. “Wow.”
“And that wasn’t even real sex.” Claire laughs again. “Wait until you’re riding Sylar, that’s when you’ll really start screaming. By the way, did you two honestly think that I wouldn’t notice Sylar sneaking the Ferret out of here?”
“Er…” Sylar’s not sure what to say. “Yes?”
“Oh, for that, I’m going to get you good.” She pounces on him, and he’s expecting kisses or caresses or something a bit more heated, but instead he gets tickled. Laughing, he flips them over so that she’s stretched out underneath him, hands pinned above her head. She moans as he presses his body against hers, but then sighs and tries to push him off. “No.”
“No?” Not the response he’d expected to hear from her, not when she’s so obviously aroused. “Are you that mad about the Ferret? I disposed of the body in the way that you can’t bring back, I’m sorry but I couldn’t let you get that bloodthirsty.”
“No. As soon as I got a chance to think, I realized I was acting a bit nutsy. This has nothing to do with him; I’m turning you down because it’s Maya’s turn.”
“We’re taking turns now?” Maya asks, confused.
“Do you have any better way of figuring this out? I don’t know about you, but it’s fun to play, but I want… you know what I want, and there’s only one of him and two of us. We’re going to have to take turns; it’s the only fair thing to do. I do have an idea though.”
“Do I want to know?” Sylar asks, not sure what she’s going to say next.
“Get off of me, let Maya get over here.” She instructs him, and then rearranges them until she’s finally happy with the arrangement. She’s lying underneath Maya, positioned so that the women can still play even while Sylar takes Maya from behind.
He presses a soft kiss against Maya’s shoulder, and wraps a hand around her hips, pulling her up slightly. “Sure about this?”
“Do it, Gabriel. I’ve wanted you for so long. I’ve been waiting for this since the day we met.” She closes her eyes, grasping Claire’s hands, as he slides a knee between her thighs and slowly parts her legs, before pressing a last kiss against her back as he enters her. “Oh, God, Gabriel!” Maya can’t help but shriek when she finally feels him in her.
“Now, Maya, I thought you told us we couldn’t say that.” Claire chides her gently.
“I didn’t realize… oh!... that it would feel so… ohhhh! Gabriel!... so good. God, I love you.. ooooh!”
Claire laughs again, knowing exactly what Maya means. “Here, kiss me. If you keep screaming like that, it kinda defeats the purpose of hiding here.”
As the women kiss, Sylar can’t help but think that he’s escaped Hell to find Heaven. He never thought that he’d get Maya to forgive him, to let him touch her; he never thought that he’d be falling in love with two women at the same time.
- - - - - - - - - -
Dawn comes early, but Claire’s the only one to notice. Sylar and Maya are sound asleep, completely exhausted yet still wrapped around each other, and Claire feels like a voyeur for looking at them. It’s so obvious that they’re meant for each other, even after everything, and she blinks back tears. Last night had proved that her fears had been right; they needed each other far more than they need her, that there’s no room for her in between them anymore. She takes one last look at them, then walks out of the hotel room, car keys in hand.
When they wake two hours later, each reaching out for her at the same time, they wake to find the note she’d left behind.
“Maya, Sylar,” she’d written, “best of luck. I hope you two make it. I’ll make it easy for you, go ahead and leave before you have to tell me to. I love you both, Claire.”
- - - - - - - - - -
Two days and five states later, they finally catch up with her. At first, they hadn’t seen her, overlooking the slight blonde in the back booth, but Sylar finally spots the golden curls. He hadn’t expected her to dye her hair that quickly, but he’s not surprised; the dark hair coloring must remind her of Elle and her time in the Company's hands every time she looks in a mirror or has a piece of hair fall across her face, obscuring her vision with bad memories. The blonde coloring is a reminder of a happier time; no wonder she'd wanted to return to it.
“Claire.” Maya sits down in the booth next to her, and Sylar takes the seat across from them. “It took us forever to find you, please don’t do that to us again.” She tries to hug Claire, but Claire just scoots away on the bench.
“Why did you run away?” Sylar decides there’s no sense in not being direct. “We woke up and you were gone. God, I was so scared - we were so scared - do you have any clue what you put us through?” The speech is an almost exact version of the one Virginia Gray had perfected whenever he’d come home late from school or forgotten to call. “Why?”
Claire just blinks. “I didn’t think you’d care. You finally have each other, you don’t need me anymore.”
Sylar and Maya just look at each other, arguing with just a glare versus a raised eyebrow, and Maya loses. “Why in the world would you think that, querida?” she asks, stealing a sip of coffee from Claire’s mug.
“You do need me, then?”
“How many times do you think we’ve had sex since you left, Claire?” Sylar asks. “None. Here’s a better question, how many arguments have we had? How many times have we woken up in the night, reaching out for you, only to find that you’ve abandoned us? We need you to keep us together, she needs you, I need you - I think I love you even, although I’m not sure after this stunt, but that’s probably just the anger and the fear talking.”
“But…”
“I know it’s unconventional, I know you think that we were just having fun, but we can make this work. I need you both, and I don’t want one if I can’t have the other - that goes for both of you. Now, will you come with us or are we all going to go our separate ways when we leave here?”
“Maya?” Claire turns to face the other woman.
“What he said. I need both of you, I want both of you. I’ll never be happy with just Gabriel.”
Sylar stands up and offers his hand to Maya, helping her from the booth, then he extends his hand to Claire. “Now, are you coming with us or not?”
She takes it, letting him pull her to her feet. They walk towards the door, unaware of all the speculative looks from the other customers. “Where are we going?” Claire asks.
“Does it matter?” Sylar squeezes her hand.
Maya takes her other hand. “We’re together, that’s all I need.”
Claire shrugs, not really caring where they’re going. “It’s good enough for me.”
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: implied rape, sex between consenting adults
Disclaimer: I still don't own anything, imagine that.
Pairing: Maya/Sylar/Claire threesome
Chapter One ~ · ~ Chapter Two
A/N: Here it is, the finale. Sorry if it gets sappy at the end, I just needed a bit of fluff to balance out all the angst.
When Sylar finally awakes the next morning, it’s only to find an empty bed. He’s about to panic, thoughts of the Ferret coming back for his girls running through his head, when he realizes the water’s running and the sound of Maya’s moaning in the shower is mingling with Claire’s laughter. “One time only, my ass,” he mutters as he rolls out of bed and walking to the bathroom, hesitating before walking in. The door’s wide open, neither of them had bothered to close it, and he chooses to view it as an invitation.
Leaning against the counter, he gestures at the shower curtain and it slowly starts to pull open, helped along by his telekinesis. As glistening wet skin comes into view, Sylar doesn’t even notice the water spraying out of the shower and pooling on the floor. Claire’s got Maya pinned against the wall of the shower, Claire's mouth latched onto tender skin at Maya’s neck and Claire's fingers… he can’t stop himself from leaning forward and drooling slightly when he realizes that Maya’s riding Claire’s fingers, holding onto Claire’s shoulders and biting her lip, eyes closed in ecstasy. They’re both beautiful women, but he thinks they’ve never looked better than this, and he takes a step towards them, trying to get a better look. Claire notices the movement out of the corner of her eye, and turns to smile at him then mouths “be quiet.”
Her movements seem more exaggerated, more purposeful now that she’s got an audience, and Sylar takes another step forward when she twists her finger slightly, ripping a moan out of Maya’s mouth. “Claire…”
“Shh.” Claire turns back towards him as she whispers into Maya’s ear. “I thought you didn’t want him to hear us. Didn’t want him to join us, didn’t want him to know how you still want him.” Every time she says “him”, Claire slams or twists her fingers again as further emphasis. Claire winks at him, almost daring him to speak up right then, but he doesn’t.
Instead, he pulls his clothes off and takes another step towards the tub, then slowly steps into it. He presses a kiss against Claire’s bare back in greeting, and he can tell she’s trying to suppress a moan when he cups her breast, tweaking her nipple.
She takes her frustration out on the woman in front of her. “C’mon Maya, tell me again. It gets me so hot to think about the two of you together. Please, for me?” Claire runs her other hand down Maya’s body before dropping it to her clit.
“Yes, do, it sounds fascinating.” Sylar realizes as soon as the words leave his mouth that he’s made a horrible mistake, and he’s soon proven right as Maya’s eyes fly open in horror and she tries to pull away from Claire.
“How dare you!” She yells at them, and as he tries to puzzle out which one of them she’s talking to, she pushes Claire out of her way and steps out of the shower. “You knew he was in here, and you didn’t say anything. You know how I feel about that.”
“Yeah, I do.” Claire retorts. “You’re still in love with him, even though you won’t admit it, and too scared to do anything about it. I thought I was helping you.”
“No, you were using me to put on a show for him.” Maya grabs a towel and wraps it around herself, trying to hide as much of her body as she can. “I trusted you, querida, and you used me, objectified me to give him a cheap thrill.”
“Maya, it’s not like that.” Claire scrambles out of the tub, almost slipping in all the water pooling on the floor, and tries to get her lover to listen to her. “I didn’t plan this, I didn’t set you up, I just took advantage of the fact that he showed up and was interested. I don’t want to feel like I’ve got to split my time between you and him, like I’m cheating on one of you with the other - I want my lovers to be lovers too.”
“I’ll make it easy for you then. Same rule that I have for him now applies to you - don’t touch me. There, you only have one partner; that should make your life a lot easier.” Maya slams the bathroom door as she marches back out into the main room.
“Well, that could have gone better.” Sylar drawls out, looking at Claire. “What did you think was going to happen when I joined you?”
“I don’t know. Not that.” She sighs. “I’m just making a mess of everything.”
“Not everything. Water’s still running, we’re still naked and I think I could be persuaded to share the shower with you.” He pulls back the curtain a bit more in invitation. “If you’re interested, that is?”
Claire stares at the closed door for a minute, and Sylar’s not sure if she’s debating going after Maya or if she’s just waiting for Maya to return, but then she turns to him with an intense look in her eyes that he knows can only be a good thing for him.
- - - - - - - - - -
Maya doesn’t speak to them, doesn’t even look at them when they finally exit the bathroom. There’s nothing to say, nothing that can be said that will fix the situation, and all three of them know it.
Two hours later, when the guard brings in their lunch trays, they’re still sitting in silence. “Wow, talkative crowd today,” the man tries to joke.
“Is there any reason you need to be here?” Claire snaps at him. “If not, leave.”
“Claire…” Maya starts to say, then realizes who she’s talking to, and goes silent.
The guard looks at the two women, then at Sylar, then back at Claire. “Okay, going now. Just try to control that mouth from now on, missy, there’s people here far less understanding than me,” he tries to warn her as he heads towards the door.
“Yeah, like me.” They hadn’t noticed the Ferret leaning against the door frame until he speaks. “Petrelli. Come here, now.” Claire starts shivering. “Your uncle and father still are refusing to play nice with us. I think they need a reminder of how much you’re enjoying our hospitality. Oh, don’t worry, Sylar, I’ll have your little girlfriend back here in a few hours.”
Sylar takes a step forward to protect her, but stops when both Claire and the guard glare at him. Instead, he moves to stand in front of Maya. She, in turn, stands and steps behind him, leaning forward slightly until she’s almost touching him, glad for the protection he offers. She hesitates, then does touch him, grabbing his arm and clinging to him. “Gabriel, do something,” Maya whispers in his ear as she immediately forgets why she’d been so mad at Claire, “please help her.”
He would, if he could. “I can’t; don’t draw attention to yourself unless you want to join her,” Sylar whispers back, angling his body slightly to further block the Ferret’s view of Maya. He might not be able to help Claire right now, but at least he can try to stop the guard from taking both women.
“We’ll just be right next door; I’ll open the window for you.” The Ferret licks his lips. “You do remember that room, don’t you, sweetie?” He directs at Maya.
“Padre nuestro,” Sylar hears Maya mutter under her breath, “que estás en el cielo…” He silences her with his telekinesis before the Ferret can hear her prayers, the two of them holding onto each other as the sadistic guard drags their lover out of the room.
- - - - - - - - - -
Watching them torture Claire’s the hardest thing he’s ever done. Maya is in the bathroom, being sick again, when they bring out the knives. When Maya comes into the room, she doesn’t hesitate to sit next to him, to grab his hand, to bury her head against his shoulder. Claire doesn’t scream, doesn’t cry out, and that makes it slightly easier to watch, like it’s some sort of strange movie theater and the sound’s been muted even though the horror movie plays on.
The Ferret leans down to whisper something in Claire’s ear, too low for even Sylar to hear, and this time she does scream when he brings the knife up. Sylar closes his eyes, not wanting to see, unable to bring himself to watch another minute. “Stop!” he cries out, hoping that the guards are still monitoring their cell.
“Sylar.” The Ferret turns to face the window. “Is there a problem? Not enough blood for you?”
He takes a deep breath, and then offers his deal. “Take me instead. Please, take me.”
The Ferret laughs, like it’s the funniest thing he’s ever heard since the last time Sylar had offered himself up in Claire’s place. “Take you instead? What would be the point of that? We’re learning so much about our little Claire’s powers; it’s fascinating what she can and can’t tolerate. Besides, the Petrelli brothers wouldn’t care if we sent them a tape of you instead - they’d probably cheer, or at least the older one would. No, I don’t want you today. Oh, and I forgot the best reason - you wouldn’t learn anything if I took you, you’d just bleed.” The Ferret sneers at how useless Sylar would be to him. “I’m doing this for your benefit; it’s so much fun to torture you via your little girlfriend here. She doesn’t care if I stab her or break her legs, they’ll just heal back. No, you’re the one who cares - you’re the weak one here.”
He laughs again, and then turns back towards Claire. Sylar grips Maya’s hand and watches, teeth gritted, vowing to himself that the Ferret will die, a horrible painful death. For him, and just for him, he’ll change his stance on torturing his victims before hand.
“Gabriel, do something.” Maya pleads with him again as she watches the Ferret break Claire’s arm, bending it so that her wrist is flush to her elbow and then waiting for the healing power to kick in. They’d found out earlier that Claire’s powers would heal all wounds in time, even if the bones weren’t reset to the correct position; of course, they healed as they were, twisted or kinked or however incorrectly aligned they might be.
“What do you want me to do?” is Sylar’s distracted response as he tries to figure out what the Ferret’s going to do with the newest piece of equipment he brings out. He’s never seen anything quite like it; four metal leaves held together with a screw at the top. It’s obviously something unpleasant, but Sylar’s not sure what.
The guard sees the curious look, and grins at his audience. “You like?” Ferret waves the odd metal contraption at them. “Had it specially made, can’t get craftsmanship like this these days - and Wal-Mart doesn’t carry pears of anguish.”
Sylar’s just about to ask “pears of what?” when Maya starts shaking. “No, no, no, no!” He turns to see her eyes turn dark, and takes a very quick step or three away from her. “Maya, calm down.”
“I will not! He will not rape her with that… that… that thing!” She cries out as she tries to focus her rage and her poison on the guard.
“Do what with it?” Sylar hadn’t anticipated that the metal object could be used in that way, but he turns to stare at it again and his eyes widen as he figures out what Maya means. “Oh, hell no.” He grabs Maya and pulls her away from the window, stepping in front of her and pushing her down towards the ground. “Duck.”
She falls down, cowering at his feet as he narrows his eyes and focuses on the window and the guards. The window starts to crack and he extends his hand towards it, trying to force his way through it, before he gets a better idea. He closes his eyes and focuses on his powers, letting his blood burn and his body tighten before releasing a megaburst of radioactivity, sending a massive EMP wave through the building and wiping out all the electronics and electrical systems. Everything immediately goes dark, and the Ferret screams out in surprise when he finds himself flying through the darkness, crashing into the window separating the ‘interrogation’ room from the cell, colliding with the window again and again and again until the glass finally gives in, tiny glass shards spraying everywhere. The guard falls at Sylar’s feet, face down; Sylar gives him a none-too-gently nudge with his foot, rolling him over to find that glass embedded in his throat, forehead, and upper torso.
“Sylar?” Claire’s small cry makes him immediately forget the Ferret, and he uses his telekinesis to undo her restraints and float her into his waiting arms. He runs his hands over her arms and face, even though he knows he won’t find any obvious wounds.
“You okay, babydoll?”
“Yeah.” She looks down at her twisted arm and grimaces. “I don’t think I can fix this. Break it for me? I don’t have the strength to crack it again.”
He’s almost sick as he grabs hold of her arm and brings it down roughly over his upraised knee, using the force of the blow and some of his TK to crack the bone. As soon as they hear the stomach-turning crack, she quickly grabs her arm and twists it back into its proper position before her powers can take back over. As soon as she feels that familiar tingle, she turns her arm one way and then the other, testing it out, before using it to pull Sylar down for a quick kiss. “Thanks, babe.”
“Are you two done over there, or are we going to delay our escape so you can kiss some more?” Maya stands next to the now-opened main door to the cell. “The door must have been locked electronically.”
“Shall we?” He offers his arm to Claire, and escorts her to the door, pausing to comment to Maya. “Magnetic locks, actually. EMPs disrupt magnetic fields too.” He offers her his other arm, and she takes it. They step out into the hallway only to see guards and other escaping prisoners running around, complete chaos taking over. Sylar takes a step in what he assumes is the correct direction, only to have Claire tug on his arm.
“Wait. We left something behind.” She turns to look back into the cell, pointing at the Ferret’s corpse.
“Querida, he’s dead.” Maya softly informs her. “He can’t hurt you anymore.”
“But I can hurt him. Sylar, please, we need to take him with us.”
Maya and Sylar look at each other, then at Claire. “And do what with him?” Sylar finally asks the question that Maya can’t ask.
“Revive him, kill him again, revive him, over and over and over again and again and again… please, Sylar?”
Before she can slap her hand over her mouth, Maya gasps. Sylar’s not sure if it’s in disgust or not. He can’t deny Claire what she wants, and with a twitch of his fingers, the body is under his control.
- - - - - - - - - -
“Dead man walking, order on the floor!” Sylar smirks as he calls out the familiar phrase, thrilled with the reversal of fortunes; the inmates are running the asylum, the guards turned prisoners. Claire laughs, and Maya frowns at him, but he knows she’s suppressing a giggle. As they walk down the hallway, arm in arm with a dead man’s corpse floating behind him, Sylar can’t help but contrast this escape with his previous attempts. He wonders why he’d never thought of an EMP before. All the previous attempts had pretty much been solo attempts, and he sees now that was exactly the reason they failed.
The first time, just three hours after he’d been brought in, still woozy from the drugs in his system, he’d made it three steps outside the door of his cell before Elle had zapped him with a bolt of lightening and then dragged him back into his room, giggling like it was all a fun game. They’d pumped him full of something that had taken his powers away for five months after that attempt.
The second time, the time that got him put in solitary confinement, he’d killed five guards before they’d pumped a combination of halothane and sevofluorane into the air system of that entire wing of the building, knocking out everyone. He’d held his breath for three minutes, as soon as he realized what they’d done, but his body had betrayed him and he’d fallen to his knees, gasping and choking as the gas eased him into a dreamless sleep. He’d woken up in Hell, a never-ending torture where it was just him, just powerless unspecial him in a tiny room with nothing else. By the time six months rolled around, he’d turned into a raving lunatic, talking to himself for hours on end about nothing, about everything, just talking to keep the silence from scaring him senseless. The Company psychologists had finally forced the guards to release him.
Not more than three months since he’d been released from solitary confinement for the first time, he’d made his third escape attempt. There was one guard, a scared young kid recruited just out of high school, that had been more sympathetic that most. At first, Sylar had just gotten extra servings of his favorite foods; then it was a thicker blanket during the coldest part of winter, in a building without heat. Finally, the guard had eased himself into the room while Sylar was asleep; he’d woken up when the guard sat down on his bed and touched his shoulder. Sylar had reacted badly, thinking that the boy wanted to violate him, but the kid had started crying, blubbering about how wrong and how cruel his job was, and how he wanted to help the prisoners escape. Sylar had known better, had known that it wouldn’t work and that he was just going to get in trouble again, but the kid had finally convinced him. He was three steps away from the door, three steps away from freedom, when the kid had cried out and fallen to his knees, shot in the back by another guard. Sylar had hesitated, pausing to help his unlikely savior, and his hesitation had cost him dearly. When the guards finally finished doling out his punishment for that attempt, he’d sworn to himself that he wouldn’t try it again until the time was perfect, when there was no chance of failure.
Walking down the hallway with a woman who couldn’t be killed and a woman the guards had nicknamed “the black widow”, Sylar knows that this is that time. As they stroll towards the door, a guard rushes up to them and yells “halt!” Maya turns to glare at him, a single tear tracking down her cheek. The guard and the tear both drop to the floor at the same time. No one else approaches them, no one else says anything to them as they calmly make their way to freedom.
Maya and Claire step outside, blinking in the bright light of natural sunlight, but Sylar pauses before leaving the only thing he’s known for the last five years. He takes a deep breath, and as he steps outside with the Ferret in tow.
- - - - - - - - - -
“You want to stop here?” Sylar raises an eyebrow as he looks at Claire in disbelief. “Here?”
“It’s a bit… seedy,” Claire admits as she stares at the decrepit “Rest Inn” that can only be described as a no-tell motel, “but we need to stop somewhere for the night, and this place isn’t going to ask questions.”
Sylar pulls the stolen car into the parking lot and drives around to the back of the building. No one else is parked back here, which surprises him. He pulls into a parking spot, and opens the door. Claire unbuckles and starts to do the same, but as soon as the door opens, he telekinetically slams it shut. “Stay here, both of you. I’ll let you know when it’s safe to come in.”
He makes his way up the rickety staircase to the upper level of rooms, and closes his eyes, trying to listen into each room as he walks past them. He quickly bypasses the first three rooms as soon as he hears the occupants. There’s no one in the fourth room, but he doesn’t want to be that close to the others. None of the other rooms on that floor are occupied, and resting his hand against the doorknob of the seventh room, he melts the lock. The door opens, and he turns back to the car, waving at Maya and Claire. They get out, then stare at the trunk and then back up at him. He waves again, and Maya shrugs, turning towards the stairs. Claire looks at the trunk again, pouting, but follows a few steps behind Maya.
Maya walks past him as he holds the door for her, and then stops when she sees the room. “Gabriel…”
“I know. It’s… we’ll just stay the night, just one night.” He should have known that the room would look too much like the one in Cook Lake, that it would bring back too many memories for her. “Unless you want to be the one to try to tell Claire no?”
“No, it’ll be fine.”
“Good. It’s going to be bad enough when we won’t let her torture the Ferret.” Sylar runs his hand through his hair as he looks at their wayward lover, bouncing up the stairs right then.
“Why? I say let her.” With that, Maya steps into the room, leaving Sylar staring after her, mouth agape.
- - - - - - - - - -
“Bitch.” The Ferret’s first word after being revived with Claire’s blood is what they’d all expected.
“Aw, I’m going to get the impression you don’t like me.” Claire pouts. “I’m so heartbroken. Everyone loves me.”
Sylar brings his hand up to his mouth to cover his smile, biting lightly on his index finger to keep from laughing. The comment’s typical Claire, but the gleam in her eye is new, and vaguely disturbing to him. A quick glance at Maya shows that she’s thinking the same thing.
“I guess I’ll just have to make you love me.” She continues on, not even noticing Maya and Sylar’s responses to her words. “Like you did to me. I kept track, you know. Every time you touched me, every time you hit me, every time you raped me, every bone you broke, every time you made me fucking lie and say that I loved you while you broke me. It was a lot of times, higher than you can count, I’m sure. And you know what?” Leaning down, she whispers in his ear. “I’m going to kill you an equal number of times, and keep on bringing you back. I can go on all night, and all day tomorrow too; then I’ll turn you over to Maya. I’m sure she will just to love to play with our new toy. Then, when she’s done with you, Sylar gets you.”
“Claire…” Maya calls out, shocked at Claire’s sudden cruelty.
“Don’t.” Claire glares at her. “You know he has it coming, that he’s brought it on himself. You know what he’s done, why I have to do this to him.” She starts sobbing, and it breaks their hearts to realize that she’d been so badly hurt and they hadn’t realized until then the depth of her pain and the strength of her need to avenge herself.
“She’s right, listen to her.” Sylar can’t believe he’s agreeing with Maya. “Please don’t do this, Claire. Let me, but don’t do it yourself. There’s no reason you have to become a killer like us. Torturing and killing him won’t make things better.” He wants to keep her safe, safe from herself, innocent, with no blood on her hands, so much so that he’ll put aside his own desire for revenge.
“I’ve tried to kill someone before.” She glares at him. “I don’t see it as killing; it’s putting down a rabid animal. And then,” she runs her hand along Ferret’s cheek before slapping him hard enough to leave her handprint imprinted on his skin, “bringing it back and doing it again for good measure.”
“You can’t do this; you don’t need this stain on your soul.” Maya argues with her, taking a step closer to her and trying to distract her from the guard. They can’t let her do this, it would destroy her when she finally healed enough to feel guilty over it.
“My soul?” Claire laughs. “Maya, I’m not a saint, I don’t want to be a nun like you, I’m not ever going to go to heaven or hell, won’t ever be held accountable by some greater power because I’m not going to die. You worry about your soul, and let me worry about whatever it is I want to instead.”
Maya sees her chance to fully divert Claire’s attention. “I’m not a nun, I won’t ever be. I don’t know why you and Gabriel keep saying that.” She takes a deep breath. “I did want to at one point in the not-so-distant past, but they wouldn’t have me.” She takes a step to the side, and Claire turns to look at her, turning her back to the guard, no longer paying any attention to him as Sylar quickly cuts his throat, putting the man out of his misery. He motions to Maya with a jerk of his head, letting her know that she needs to keep Claire distracted. “They said that I wasn’t free to take my vows, that I couldn’t pledge myself to God when…”
“When what?” Claire asks, fascinated by this side of Maya that she hasn’t seen before. “Did you tell them about your past? About the deaths?” It’s the nicest way she can find to allude to Maya’s victims.
She pauses, waiting until Sylar slips from the room to dispose of the body, glad that he’s not there to hear her story. “In a way. Mother Superior said I could never give myself to that lifestyle while I…” she takes a deep breath before finally confessing, “while I’m still in love with Gabriel. I stayed there for three years, trying to prove to them and myself that I didn’t, but I never did stop. Do you have any clue how painful that is, to hate someone so badly yet be so deeply in love with him, to have him completely destroy your life in every way that matters and to not care, ready to take him back in a heartbeat if only he’d show the slightest bit of interest?” She reaches up to swipe at the angry tears escaping from her eyes. “And then just like he did, they betrayed me. They needed the reward money, and it was easy to turn over an annoying woman who wouldn’t go away yet couldn’t stay. I’m sure the Company paid them well for me.”
“Oh, Maya.” Claire hugs the older woman when she starts crying in earnest. “Don’t cry. It’s going to be alright.”
“How can it be? I love him, and I can see myself falling for you too, and you’re both going to leave me for each other. I see how you look at each other, Claire, I know what’s coming.”
“Not unless you want us too.” Neither woman had noticed Sylar re-entering the room or crossing the room to stand right behind Claire. “What do you want from us, from me?”
Maya opens her mouth, but can’t speak.
“Well? Yes or no, do you want both of us?”
Still unable to speak, she does the only thing she can. Hands shaking, she reaches out for Claire and then Sylar. As she holds Claire’s handing, needing her support, she snakes her arm around Sylar’s neck and pulls him down for a tender kiss.
- - - - - - - - - -
He’s not sure how they end up on the bed, not sure whose hands are on his suddenly bare chest and whose hands are on his waistband. All he can see is a cloud of dark hair as Maya and Claire push him back, laying him flat on his back and then grinning at each other. Their approaches are twin images of each other; when one kisses the lobe of one ear, the other woman echoes the movement. When one trails kisses down his throat, the other does the same although with tiny nibbles and love bites. Soft locks of hair tickle his stomach as the women move lower, and he finally gets a good look at them when they pause to kiss each other again before turning their attention back to him. As soon as a warm mouth engulfs him, he knows it’s Claire, but he’s not expecting her to pull back immediately and for Maya to take her position; they take turns, licking and sucking and humming around him, one experienced and the other more tentative and unsure, and he finally realizes that Claire’s trying to teach Maya how to please him. “Enough,” he calls out, not wanting to startle Maya by coming right then, “please, enough.”
Maya pulls back. “Did I do something wrong?”
“No, you did it too good, sweetheart. I didn’t want to…” he trails off, not sure how to phrase what he knew was going to happen if she hadn’t stopped.
“Oh.” She blushes as she admits “I wouldn’t have minded.”
“I would have.” He gestures to her to crawl back up the bed so that he can pull her in for another kiss, this one just as heated as the one that night when they’d shared Claire. Maya suddenly jumps, startled, and yelps into his mouth. “Maya?”
She tenses again, and then closes her eyes. “Claire, oh, Claire!”
He leans up to see that Claire’s not ready to be pushed to the side in this ménage a trois, that she’s taken advantage of Maya’s distraction to part her legs. He watches, fascinated, as she presses soft kisses along Maya’s inner thighs, then focuses her attention on Maya’s clit. Maya jumps again, and Claire has to restrain her by pinning her hips. Redoubling her efforts, Claire has Maya screaming out her release in just a few minutes. She grins at him as they watch Maya ride out her orgasm, completely lost in the sensation. When she finally does open her eyes, in awe, Claire laughs then kisses her.
“That was… incredible.” Maya’s voice has gone breathless and shaky. “Wow.”
“And that wasn’t even real sex.” Claire laughs again. “Wait until you’re riding Sylar, that’s when you’ll really start screaming. By the way, did you two honestly think that I wouldn’t notice Sylar sneaking the Ferret out of here?”
“Er…” Sylar’s not sure what to say. “Yes?”
“Oh, for that, I’m going to get you good.” She pounces on him, and he’s expecting kisses or caresses or something a bit more heated, but instead he gets tickled. Laughing, he flips them over so that she’s stretched out underneath him, hands pinned above her head. She moans as he presses his body against hers, but then sighs and tries to push him off. “No.”
“No?” Not the response he’d expected to hear from her, not when she’s so obviously aroused. “Are you that mad about the Ferret? I disposed of the body in the way that you can’t bring back, I’m sorry but I couldn’t let you get that bloodthirsty.”
“No. As soon as I got a chance to think, I realized I was acting a bit nutsy. This has nothing to do with him; I’m turning you down because it’s Maya’s turn.”
“We’re taking turns now?” Maya asks, confused.
“Do you have any better way of figuring this out? I don’t know about you, but it’s fun to play, but I want… you know what I want, and there’s only one of him and two of us. We’re going to have to take turns; it’s the only fair thing to do. I do have an idea though.”
“Do I want to know?” Sylar asks, not sure what she’s going to say next.
“Get off of me, let Maya get over here.” She instructs him, and then rearranges them until she’s finally happy with the arrangement. She’s lying underneath Maya, positioned so that the women can still play even while Sylar takes Maya from behind.
He presses a soft kiss against Maya’s shoulder, and wraps a hand around her hips, pulling her up slightly. “Sure about this?”
“Do it, Gabriel. I’ve wanted you for so long. I’ve been waiting for this since the day we met.” She closes her eyes, grasping Claire’s hands, as he slides a knee between her thighs and slowly parts her legs, before pressing a last kiss against her back as he enters her. “Oh, God, Gabriel!” Maya can’t help but shriek when she finally feels him in her.
“Now, Maya, I thought you told us we couldn’t say that.” Claire chides her gently.
“I didn’t realize… oh!... that it would feel so… ohhhh! Gabriel!... so good. God, I love you.. ooooh!”
Claire laughs again, knowing exactly what Maya means. “Here, kiss me. If you keep screaming like that, it kinda defeats the purpose of hiding here.”
As the women kiss, Sylar can’t help but think that he’s escaped Hell to find Heaven. He never thought that he’d get Maya to forgive him, to let him touch her; he never thought that he’d be falling in love with two women at the same time.
- - - - - - - - - -
Dawn comes early, but Claire’s the only one to notice. Sylar and Maya are sound asleep, completely exhausted yet still wrapped around each other, and Claire feels like a voyeur for looking at them. It’s so obvious that they’re meant for each other, even after everything, and she blinks back tears. Last night had proved that her fears had been right; they needed each other far more than they need her, that there’s no room for her in between them anymore. She takes one last look at them, then walks out of the hotel room, car keys in hand.
When they wake two hours later, each reaching out for her at the same time, they wake to find the note she’d left behind.
“Maya, Sylar,” she’d written, “best of luck. I hope you two make it. I’ll make it easy for you, go ahead and leave before you have to tell me to. I love you both, Claire.”
- - - - - - - - - -
Two days and five states later, they finally catch up with her. At first, they hadn’t seen her, overlooking the slight blonde in the back booth, but Sylar finally spots the golden curls. He hadn’t expected her to dye her hair that quickly, but he’s not surprised; the dark hair coloring must remind her of Elle and her time in the Company's hands every time she looks in a mirror or has a piece of hair fall across her face, obscuring her vision with bad memories. The blonde coloring is a reminder of a happier time; no wonder she'd wanted to return to it.
“Claire.” Maya sits down in the booth next to her, and Sylar takes the seat across from them. “It took us forever to find you, please don’t do that to us again.” She tries to hug Claire, but Claire just scoots away on the bench.
“Why did you run away?” Sylar decides there’s no sense in not being direct. “We woke up and you were gone. God, I was so scared - we were so scared - do you have any clue what you put us through?” The speech is an almost exact version of the one Virginia Gray had perfected whenever he’d come home late from school or forgotten to call. “Why?”
Claire just blinks. “I didn’t think you’d care. You finally have each other, you don’t need me anymore.”
Sylar and Maya just look at each other, arguing with just a glare versus a raised eyebrow, and Maya loses. “Why in the world would you think that, querida?” she asks, stealing a sip of coffee from Claire’s mug.
“You do need me, then?”
“How many times do you think we’ve had sex since you left, Claire?” Sylar asks. “None. Here’s a better question, how many arguments have we had? How many times have we woken up in the night, reaching out for you, only to find that you’ve abandoned us? We need you to keep us together, she needs you, I need you - I think I love you even, although I’m not sure after this stunt, but that’s probably just the anger and the fear talking.”
“But…”
“I know it’s unconventional, I know you think that we were just having fun, but we can make this work. I need you both, and I don’t want one if I can’t have the other - that goes for both of you. Now, will you come with us or are we all going to go our separate ways when we leave here?”
“Maya?” Claire turns to face the other woman.
“What he said. I need both of you, I want both of you. I’ll never be happy with just Gabriel.”
Sylar stands up and offers his hand to Maya, helping her from the booth, then he extends his hand to Claire. “Now, are you coming with us or not?”
She takes it, letting him pull her to her feet. They walk towards the door, unaware of all the speculative looks from the other customers. “Where are we going?” Claire asks.
“Does it matter?” Sylar squeezes her hand.
Maya takes her other hand. “We’re together, that’s all I need.”
Claire shrugs, not really caring where they’re going. “It’s good enough for me.”