Ficathon Response: Here Endeth The Lesson
Title: Here Endeth The Lesson
Author: cameroncrazed
Written for the Sylaire Ficathon at sylar_claire
Recipient: raitheemohugger
Pairings: Luke/Claire, Sylar/Claire
Rating: errr… I mean, R
Word Count: 8647
Spoilers: up through 3x18
Warnings: dub-con, voyeurism, cursing, a bit of violence
Disclaimer: Heroes belongs to Tim Kring, NBC et al. Don’t own Def Leppard, either, darn ;)
Author’s Note: Thanks to ladyanne525 for betaing!
Rating Requested: PG-13 to NC17
Any pairings besides Sylaire? How prominent should they be in the fic?: Sylar/Claire/Luke is interesting if only one of them has a real shot. ;-) And mentions of Alex/Claire are alright, but he shouldn't be present.
Prompts requested (please list at least 3, more if you'd like):
(pick one or two)
1.Tarantula- Smashing Pumpkins
2.Claire joining up with Sylar and Luke...Sylar gets jealous of Luke's crush on Claire, which results in some aggressive dubcon to prove she's "his". (my favorite prompt)
3. Sylar is actually Rebel (or takes over the job when Rebel is killed), and Claire has to face the fact that she's fallen in love with Sylar
4. The Heroes are forced to resettle in a desolate, isolated compound, and because of their abilities Sylar and Claire are the only ones not to have been successfully sterilized. Lots of pressure.
What don't you want your fic to include?: Syelle, Claire having a real relationship with anyone else (unless she ditches them for Sylar in the end), total noncon, fluff to the extreme.
Claire sighs as her phone beeps at her, yet again. Another message from the mysterious Rebel, yet again. She’s starting to get very irritated with his constant interference in her life.
THE BROKENHEARTED CAFÉ, ESCONDIDO, DAY AFTER TOM. 1 PM. LOSE THE BLONDE. - R.
She growls under her breath. She’s not about to dye her hair because some loser with a thing for text messaging likes red heads better. She’s not, absolutely not. Just because he’s been right about everything else, that doesn’t mean he’s right this time. It’s a whim, he’s just jerking her chain, it didn’t mean anything.
The phone beeps again.
BROWN WOULD LOOK GOOD. - R.
She rolls her eyes. Rebel could be so melodramatic.
REMEMBER, AGENTS ARE LOOKING FOR SHORT BLONDE. DO IT. - R.
She has to admit, he had a point. Toying with a piece of her hair, she stares at it, wondering what color dye to buy. Since Rebel had suggested brown, she guesses going brunette wouldn’t be too traumatic.
- - - - - - - - - -
Luke doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t need to. The growls of his stomach are deafening.
Sylar sighs, knowing that the teen had already eaten all the snacks they’d bought at the last truck stop. He hadn’t counted on making so many stops on their trip; Luke constantly needed food, drink, or a bathroom break. Sylar swears to himself that if he ever gets a pet dog, he’s naming the beast Luke.
It was so much easier to just go by himself; he’s much better at ignoring bodily needs than Luke is, but he can’t blame the boy for not having the necessary discipline yet. He’s learning though; his stomach might be demanding food, but Luke hasn’t said a word, and won’t, scared that Sylar would kill him, or worse yet, try to send him away again. He’s been incredibly quiet, withdrawn almost, and makes a valiant attempt at curling up in the passenger seat, like he could make himself small enough that Sylar won’t see him; he’s not Luke anymore, and Sylar almost wishes he had killed him instead of creating this spineless creature.
He spots a diner up ahead, and hits the gas. The sooner they can eat and get back on the road, the better. He almost gags when he spots all the bright red hearts hung in the windows and the cutesy cursive “Brokenhearted Café” sprawled in pink and red across the front door. If they try to serve him heart-shaped eggs or breakfast foods, he’s not going to be held accountable for his actions.
“You awake?” He asks, pretending that there’s nothing wrong with them. “I’m getting hungry, hope you are.”
“Hell yeah.”
For a second, Sylar can almost spot the old Luke underneath the bruises and scared child mentality.
- - - - - - - - - -
The girl is sitting by herself at the counter, seemingly not realizing the show she’s putting on as she slowly sucks on a straw stuck into a strawberry milkshake. He can already imagine the taste of the creamy goodness on her lips, wondering what it would be like to kiss her. She keeps toying with her hair, all bouncy brunette curls that Luke would love to run his fingers through.
“What’s so interesting?”
Luke can’t blame Sylar for asking; he’s sitting with his back to the girl, so he can’t possible see the miniskirt and straw-sucking action. “Nothing.” He’s fairly certain that girls don’t fit into Sylar’s master agenda, and he’s not provoking another fight.
“Luke…” Sylar growls out. “Stop the bullshit.”
The pained look on Sylar’s face, more so than being called out over the lie, makes him quickly respond. “Okay, it’s a girl. A cute girl. Happy now?” Not sure how Sylar’s going to react, he tries his best not to sound petulant.
“Save me from over-sexed hormonal teenagers.” Sylar mutters under his breath, but he’s just loud enough for Luke to hear him. Luke watches with interest as Sylar looks around the café, turning to look at the girl, a sudden frown on his face.
“Problem?” He really hopes that Sylar doesn’t want to kill this girl; he’s not sure he can help, and that might make him target two.
“She reminds me of someone…” Sylar finishes scanning the restaurant. “Okay, it looks safe enough. Five minutes, that’s it.”
“Five minutes for what?” He almost doesn’t want to know the answer to that question. Luke sometimes wonders what’s going through Sylar’s head. He’s oddly relaxed and upbeat today; Luke hopes that doesn’t bode badly for the coming night.
“You need to develop a better sense of how to charm people. She looks easy enough. Just… don’t tell her our real names. See if you can get her to cover our lunch today, like I did with those women last night.”
Luke sees no need to mention that “pay for our meals or die, and I’m going to need your car keys, too” doesn’t exactly fit the Merriam-Webster approved definition of ‘charming’; he doesn’t want to find out if Sylar was joking or just delusional.
- - - - - - - - - -
“Come here often?” The boy leans against the counter, trying to be suave; Claire doesn’t laugh when he accidentally places his elbow in a puddle of spilled ice cream, but only because she bites her inner lip. She’s invited this on herself, she knows; the change in hair had necessitated a change in clothes, and she’d gone a bit crazy with the push-up bras, stiletto heels, and the short dresses in colors that would have been unthinkable with the blonde hair and the over-protective father. He’s not the first to hit on her; she knows he’s not going to be the last.
“No, and I won’t if I’m going to be hit on by guys with lame lines.” She doesn’t have the patience to deal with him; she’s on a mission. It’s times like this that she wonders why she ever thought high-school boys were interesting. He’s cute enough, but she’s gotten used to interacting with adults. Alex may have implied she was a stripper at one point, but at least he hadn’t used lame lines. She feels a pang of loneliness thinking about him.
“Don’t be that way.” He touches her arm, and she pulls it away from him, glaring at him. He carries on as if he hadn’t noticed that she isn’t the least little bit interested. “I’m L… Lyle.”
“That’s my brother’s name. Ew.” Before he has the chance to continue being lame, her phone beeps.
HIS NAME’S LUKE. GO WITH HIM. - R.
She grimaces; Rebel’s reduced her to sitting around in tacky diners, seducing geeks. This wasn’t exactly what she’d signed up for when he’d recruited her for the resistance. “So, Luke…”
“I said my name is Lyle.” He looks panicked, like he can’t believe she’s seen through the pseudonym.
“Well, from here on out, you answer to Luke. Want to get out of here?” She hopes he’s the type that would appreciate a direct approach, even thought she’s not about to perform the tasks that her words might promise.
He looks like Christmas has come early for a few seconds, but then frowns. “I, um … my brother… he’s not going to like this idea.”
A brother. Great. She wonders what exactly Rebel’s up to now. She lightly trails her hand down his arm, and with a dark smile, she taunts him. “And you always do everything your brother wants?”
“No, but… we’re headed out of town, sorry.”
“What a coincidence, so am I.” She leans closer to him, brushing her shoulder against his. “Unless you don’t want a chance to get to know me better?”
“Uhhh…”
“Hey! Five minutes! Time’s up, boy.” A harsh male voice calls out; he sounds familiar, but that can’t be…
Claire whirls around to see the man walking towards them. For a second, she thinks she sees Alex; she’d never realized they looked so similar before. He’s not changed at all since she’d seen him last, except for the fact that her glass shard’s not sticking out of the back of his head, and he’s alive. She’s not sure if that’s an improvement or not, but she does feel vindicated that she’d been right about that odd feeling in her gut. Grasping the only thing close by she can use as a weapon, she jumps to her feet and addresses him. “Sylar.”
“Well, well, well, if it isn’t little Claire Bennet…” he eyes her, and she suddenly wants a sweater to wrap around her exposed flesh, “all grown up, I see. What are you doing here?”
She probably could lie to him by twisting the truth just enough not to set off his inner lie-detector, but decides not to. She knows how much he appreciates honesty. “Trying to convince Luke here to take me with you.”
“First of all, not happening. Second,” and he turns to glare at Luke, “why in the hell did you tell her the truth? Third, not happening. Go back home where you belong, with that annoying dog and family. Run back to Grandma and Noah and Bio… never mind, don’t think about Bio-Mom. Sorry.”
Stabbing him with a plastic spork wouldn’t help her achieve her goals, she’s sure. She hisses out “Look. You’re headed out of town, I am too. I’m either going with you, or I’m hitchhiking. Honestly, I’d rather take my chances with you than with scuzzy truckers. The longer we stand here arguing about it, the more likely those hunter guys are going to catch up with us.”
“What do you know about them?”
He takes a menacing step closer to her, and she backs up quickly, bumping into Luke, who places a steadying hand on her back. She’s almost glad for his presence, and wonders how he’d gotten mixed up with Sylar. “Just that they’re looking for people like us, and that they’re overly fond of sticking tubes of sedatives up people’s noses and dressing them in tacky orange jumpsuits.” She still doesn’t exactly understand why that’s become Nathan’s standard operating procedure, but she’s still mad about having it done to her.
“Get your hands off of her, Luke.” Sylar growls as soon as he notices how they’re touching, and she finds it interesting that Luke immediately obeys. “I take it they caught you at one point?”
“Yes.” She catches a movement out of the corner of her eye. “And if I’m not mistaken, there are two of them in the kitchen.”
Sylar goes completely still, not moving until he’s finished assessing the situation. “Luke, escort Claire out to the car, and get it running. I’ll be out in a minute.”
Before she can protest that she doesn’t need protecting like some sort of fragile doll, that she wants to help him, Luke’s grabbing her hand and tugging her with him. She stops him before he can push the door open, looking out into the parking lot and spotting the agents crouched down in the bushes at the door. “Damn it.”
Luke sees them too. “Sylar?” he whispers, very calmly. She realizes that this must not be his first time, that he’s run into these creeps before, since otherwise he’d be too terrified to turn to Sylar for answers.
“Give Claire the keys and go. Now. Hopefully they won’t recognize her.”
She gets the plan now; Sylar’s counting on the change in attire and hair, along with the extra three inches of shoe-induced height, to mask her true identity. She hopes it works. With a tight grasp on Luke’s hand, she pushes open the door, and immediately starts her act. “So, Lyle baby,” and she’s so proud of herself for saying that without gagging, “do you have your own hotel room?”
He plays along perfectly, turning and hiding his face against her hair like he’s kissing her neck as he responds with a “Sure do” in a pitch far lower than his usual speaking voice.
Giggling, part in amusement but mostly nervousness, she walks faster, pulling him along with her like she just can’t wait to get him alone, heels tapping along the pavement as they walk right past the agents. She knows things are going to go pear-shaped as soon as they get near the car, but she hopes her plan works. She leans in closer to Luke, whispering “get in the floorboard of the backseat.” He squeezes her hand, and she takes that as a sign he’s going to follow her command.
Other than the car she’d borrowed from May, which she’s been planning on ditching here anyhow, and the gray sedans that just scream “government!”, there’s only one car in the parking lot; it has to be Sylar’s. Ten paces from the cars, she hits the unlock button on the key fob, hoping that it wouldn’t be one of the annoying ones that beeped. Unfortunately, it did, drawing the attention of the agents.
“Hey!” One of them shouts. “Stop!”
“Shit.” Luke mutters and they both run the last few steps to the cars as the agents start shooting at them. Luke dives into the backseat as she hops into the driver’s seat, cursing the fact that Sylar had been the last one driving, as she’s going to have to adjust the seat before she can reach the pedals. Sylar’s not at the door yet when she stomps on the clutch, then backs the car out of the parking spot, foot firmly planted on the gas pedal. It’s a quick decision to make, that if he’s not coming out to her, then she’s going to have to go after him.
“Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap.” She’s never been good manipulating a stick-shift; of course, Sylar would have to steal a manual car. “How the hell do you drive this damn thing?”
Luke leans up from the backseat, manipulating the clutch as she works the pedals and shoves the car into fourth gear and floorboards it again.
“Put it in first!” he yells. “Not fourth! You’re going to kill the transmission!”
When the options are kill the car or take a chance at the agents getting lucky and killing them, she’ll gladly murder the engine or whatever car part he’d mentioned, so she ignores him. With one hand gripped on the steering wheel, she reaches around with the other to push him back down. “Cover your head.”
The agents shooting at them have to leap out of the way as she crashes right into the wall of glass windows in the front of the café, pulling the car partly inside. She honks the horn, as if Sylar wouldn’t have noticed her grand entrance, and slides into the passenger seat. He jumps in, and gives her a pointed look as he slides the seat back again. Luke yelps as the seat hits him.
They ignore him, and Claire can’t help but laugh as Sylar backs out of the café and all the way to the main road, agents jumping out of his way while waving their guns in anger. They’re gone in a cloud of dust. It’s exhilarating, more fun than she’s had in ages.
“You’re insane.” Luke finally says as he sits upright in the back. “Truly fucking insane. You ran us into a building!”
“Don’t curse at her.” Sylar replies; she’s almost touched, but it’s too much of a reminder of overprotective family members. “You aren’t hurt, are you?”
“No, but…”
“Then stop bitching. We should have just left you there.”
As they start snipping at each other with growls of “why don’t you just go home, you whiny brat, before I kill you” and “make me, if you can” and “you know you want me to stay, just admit it”, she wonders if this was what Rebel wanted.
As if on cue, her phone chirps again.
GET TO LA. GOOD NIGHT MOTEL. RES. FOR D. HAWKINS. - R.
- - - - - - - - - -
“Ewwwww!” Their room is disgusting, and she says that after having seen Lyle’s room three months after the last cleaning. It smells like mold, there’s trash on the floor, and if she’s not mistaken, there’s an used condom lying on what’s not going to be her bed, contents spilling out on a pillow that needs to be incinerated.
Sylar shudders at his first sight of the room as he steps up behind her; he’s close enough that she can feel the wave of aversion that hits him. A giant rat crawls out from under the bed, and shrieking, she leaps into Sylar’s arms as if the rat’s going to viciously attack. Luke laughs at how girly she is, and she sticks out her tongue at him, but she doesn’t stop holding on to Sylar. She knows what he’s capable of, but the rat’s an unknown threat, and she’s siding with Sylar in this fight.
“Luke.” Sylar steps to the side, letting Luke in, and she wonders what he’s supposed to do; based on his actions from the three hour car ride, she almost expecting him to whine the rat to death. Instead, he stretches out a hand, palm glowing red, and after a few seconds, the rat falls over as the smell of burning fur hits her nose. She’s not sure if she should be impressed or disgusted, but she’s mostly nauseated.
Sylar’s still holding her, and she lets him, as Luke lifts up the bedcovers and microwaves the bed and whatever’s hiding underneath the bed. When he’s finally finished micro-sanitizing the room, Sylar sets her down on the cleaner of the two beds.
“Thanks.” She doesn’t know why, but she blushes. She tells herself that it’s just from the feel of a man’s body pressed against hers, blushing at the memory of what she’s done with other similar men.
“Don’t mention it. Now, are you going to scream over the roaches in the bathroom too?” He jokes with her, and it’s the most at ease she’s ever been with him. It’s a bizarre feeling.
- - - - - - - - - -
“Give it a rest.” Okay, the microwave thing might have been interesting at one point, but there are only so many bags of popcorn they can possibly eat and burnt chili in a can reeks unlike anything she’s ever smelled before, even worse than eau de ex-rat. She’s fairly certain that he’s got a tiny crush on her at this point, so she’s trying to be kind, but she’s going to lose her mind if he keeps it up.
“You didn’t mind it when I was killing that rat for you.”
“True, but that’s when you were being useful.”
He glares at her. “Providing supper’s not useful?”
“Playing with popcorn does not equal providing supper. Sylar running out to get us pizza and sodas and brownies, that’s providing supper. Can you change the channel, I hate this show.”
Luke turns the volume up instead, out of spite.
“Mature, really mature. Why is it that Sylar hasn’t killed you yet?” She knows he must have been tempted; she’s tempted, and Sylar’s not a saint.
“My sparkling wit and companionship.” He deadpans.
She knows his type, knows how similar he is to Lyle. It makes it easy for her to hurt him. “More like he feels sorry for you. Let me guess, daddy ran off years ago and mommy just doesn’t care. Ooooh, poor baby.” She understands exactly why Sylar had become attached to Luke, he couldn’t help but want to have his mini-me turn out differently.
“Fuck you.” He fiddles with yet another bag of popcorn, and it’s the last straw for her.
“Grow up!” She grabs the TV remote and throws it at him. “Here’s a hint. I’m not impressed by your power, and it’s so infantile to try to show off to me because you have a little crush. What did you think I was going to do, throw myself at you, screaming ‘take me, I’m yours’ just because you’ll never drink cold coffee again? Please. Come back when you figure out how to turn yourself into a nuclear bomb or have telekinesis or immortality or something that actually matters.”
“Sylar can do all that.”
“I know.” Before he can respond, she bounces off her bed and flounces into the bathroom, locking the door behind her. It’s easier to focus on the roaches than to ponder why she’d even said all of that.
- - - - - - - - - -
He turns over, pulling the pillow over his head. It doesn’t help. Luke’s still breathing, and as long as he is, there’s going to be noise. Why he’d let the brat continue to come along on the trip, he doesn’t know.
“Sylar?”
“Mmphf.” In between Luke’s snoring and Claire’s questions, he’s never going to get sleep. Solitary loneliness is starting to look incredibly good again.
“Is he always like this?”
“No.” Surely she knows that he wouldn’t tolerate this every night. He blames the double pepperoni pizza and the fact that they’re making him sleep on the floor; Luke usually doesn’t do anything except whimper in his sleep.
“Should we wake him or turn him over or something?” She sounds vaguely desperate.
He groans; she must think he’s an idiot if she thinks he hasn’t thought of that by now. “I’ve already TK’d him over a few times, does it sound like it helped? What else do you want me to do, kill him?”
She doesn’t respond; he wishes she had, just so he’d know how she really felt about the kid. They sit and listen to Luke snore some more, until Claire gets out of bed, slipping her sneakers on. “I can’t stand it anymore, I’m going to go get some fresh air.”
That makes him sit straight up in bed. “No. It’s too dangerous.” She can’t go out there, not in this neighborhood, not at this time of night.
“You say that like you care.”
“Someone’s going to see you, and your father’s flunkies are still hunting us, you know.” He hadn’t realized she’s so intuitive, and hopes she accepts that answer.
“It’s the middle of the night at a no-tell motel.” She sounds incredulous. “The only people who’ll see me are the hookers and their johns, maybe a pimp or two, and they’re not going to care.”
If that’s supposed to make him feel better, she’s failed miserably. “No. Absolutely no way in hell.”
“Do you want me to smother him in his sleep? Is it all a diabolical plan to make me more like you, to get him dead without you having to get your hands dirtier?” She snaps, and he can’t help but laugh. Sleep deprivation and the cheerleader do not get along well, it seems.
“I’ll put him in the bathroom, we can shut the door or hope he chokes on a roach; maybe we can get some sleep then.”
Luke doesn’t wake as Sylar floats him into the bathroom, resting him in the bathtub with a blanket and a pillow.
“Ahhh.” Claire sighs and smiles at him. “It’s so quiet.”
“Yes, well, let’s take advantage of that fact.”
They’re both asleep in minutes.
- - - - - - - - - -
“Don’t touch the radio.” He grits his teeth, and grips the steering wheel he’s a bit surprised that it doesn’t crack under the force of his anger.
“I’m not the one who turned it on the first place, and your taste in music sucks. I’m just trying to find something decent to listen to.” Claire switches the station again.
“What did I just say?” Luke yells at her, then with a terse movement, turns the radio off.
With a glare that makes him very glad that she doesn’t have some sort of death ray power, she reaches over and turns it on again, turning it up even louder. “Love is like a bomb, baby, c’mon get it on…” she sings along as loudly as possible, almost daring him to say something else.
If it wasn’t for the fact that Sylar had told them to stay there, engine running and ready to go, Luke would just get out of the car, walk off his anger, but he can’t. Sylar’s going to be back any second, and Luke’s not going to be the one to disappoint him this time. As she continues to screech along with the song, his palms start to itch as his power starts flaring up. He doesn’t have perfect control, not yet, and he knows he’s going to lose control if he can’t get his temper under control soon.
“Claire, please. Shut up!”
When she turns her head to look out the window instead of looking at him, singing even louder, he finally explodes. He means to melt the car radio, anything to stop the noise, but he misses. Distracted by arguing with her, he’d missed Sylar running out to the car, and the sudden way Sylar jumps into the backseat, slamming the door behind him, causes him to jump. He certainly hadn’t meant to melt her seat belt, but knows that she’s not going to believe that; she probably thinks that he was purposefully trying to melt her.
“Well?” Sylar asks, as if he hadn’t notice how the car is filling with smoke and Claire is frantically trying to pull the belt off before it can melt onto her clothes.
Luke’s not expecting her to start crawling into the backseat, so when he reaches for the gear shift, he touches the soft skin of her leg instead. A quick glance in the rear view mirror, and he closes his eyes and has to take a deep breath when he catches a glimpse of the black lace of her panties stretched out over the smooth skin of her ass. If it wasn’t for the fact that he knows they need to get out of there in a hurry, and that he’d find another dead agent in the men’s room, he’d have to run in there for a few minutes.
“Luke?” Claire asks as soon as she takes the seat next to Sylar. “Are we going to sit here all day or what?”
It breaks him out of his fantasy, and he pulls out of the parking lot, as if he can outrun his want.
- - - - - - - - - -
So focused on irritating Luke, she doesn’t recognize the words spilling out of her mouth until she gets to the chorus. “Pour some sugar…” She trails off in mid-phrase. Not only are the lyrics a tad bit too suggestive when trapped in a car with two men, but the song reminds her of Sandra.
Dangerous. Perfect way of describing the man sharing the backseat with her.
Handsome. She can’t argue with that assessment, not without being a complete liar.
Before her mind can go to an utterly dangerous place, she turns to stare out the window, trying her best to think about something other else. She wonders if her mom misses her, if their house is still being watched. Curling her legs up on the seat, she leans against the door, thinking. Maybe Rebel had sent her to them to help avoid capture that first day. Maybe she was supposed to be a buffer between them, so that Sylar wouldn’t kill Luke, and if he did, she could fix that mistake. Maybe she was supposed to learn something from the trip…
“I want to go home.” She says it before she can even really think about it.
“What, and miss all the fun?” Luke asks sarcastically. “You mean, you don’t want to spend another night at a rat-trap hotel with us or annoy us with your singing some more?”
Sylar doesn’t say anything, just stares at her for a minute.
It makes her nervous, and she has to say something to break the silence, and once she starts, she can’t stop babbling. “I miss my mom, and Lyle, and Muggles, and I wonder if they’re still getting divorced and if that bitch agent has bothered them again, and if Dad ever calls, and if…” She starts crying when she realizes that Noah had been right, that she’s not ready for this kind of life yet.
She’s not expecting Sylar to unbuckle both of their seat belts and pull her into his lap. It shocks her out of her home-sickness. She tries to fight against him, but he just holds her in place until she gives up. Finally, she slumps against him, trying her hardest not to think, to just feel.
“Better now?”
Luke answers before she can. “Dude. We both get homesick, but she gets a hug and you throw me against a wall and break a rib? Bros before hoes, Sylar!”
She can tell he’s joking by the tone of his voice, but she’s not sure if Sylar realizes that as his body tenses and he raises that infamous hand. Beside the fact that Luke shouldn’t die over a joke, she really doesn’t want to re-assemble her body parts after a car crash just because Sylar felt the need to behead their chauffeur. “It’s a joke,” she whispers into his ear, and he immediately relaxes.
“So, you want to go home, and miss out of on the joy of meeting Daddy Dearest tomorrow? We should be there by lunchtime, and I know you’ve just dying to see proof that I really was born instead of hatched.”
As far as jokes go, it’s not great, but Claire recognizes that’s asking her not to leave them, not yet. She’s not sure if having a psycho killer and his apprentice wanting her to stay is a good thing or not, but she’s going to, regardless.
- - - - - - - - - -
It’s not the worst hotel room they’ve ever had, it’s not the best. There’s only one bed, which she knows Sylar’s going to claim with a bloodthirsty viciousness, but there’s a couch she can sleep on and they’ve learned that Luke is a freak who actually enjoys sleeping in the bathtub, and at least this place has a TV.
She eyes the bed, wondering if he’d try to hurt her for just sitting on it, but chooses the safer sofa, and hits the “on” button on the remote.
“…and stunning news out of Washington today, so stayed tuned! Exclusive video coming up after this commercial break!” The perky newscaster sounds breathless.
News. Ugh. She turns the station, but before she can keep changing channels until she finds something interesting, Sylar jerks the remote out of her hands. “Hey!”
“Not now, Claire.” He flips back to the news station, and sits down next to her on the sofa, leaning forward as if a closer proximity to the screen would result in a reduced number of commercials.
When the news finally comes back on, she gasps as the ‘exclusive video’ starts playing. Prisoners in orange jumpsuits, shackled and handcuffed and sedated, stumble across the screen as the perky anchor exclaims something about domestic terrorism, Miranda rights, and other things that she’s completely tuning out. The video zooms in as two soldiers push a smaller prisoner forward. She starts to shake when the phrases “Senator Petrelli” and “unidentified minor” start being uttered as the hood’s pulled off and the girl’s head rolls backwards. It doesn’t seem real, like it really happened, when she can see it played out on national TV.
She doesn’t have to ask what Sylar thinks of the news; electricity starts arcing from his hands as soon as he recognizes the littlest prisoner, and Luke is quick to switch off the TV before he can destroy it. It takes him a few seconds longer than it did her, but then again, she knows the story intimately well. He turns to face her. “Claire…”
“Not now.” She can’t take it, doesn’t want their pity or their scorn or whatever it is their feeling. She feels like she can’t breathe.
Luke tries to hug her, but she pushes him away with her full strength. “No!”
Sylar doesn’t say anything else, just telekinetically lifts her and puts her on the bed, curled up in a ball of self-pity.
When they leave, they lock the door behind them. She doesn’t really care if they come back or not.
- - - - - - - - - -
They’re both silent as they walk back from the Chinese restaurant, bags of fried rice and sweet-and-sour chicken in tow. Sylar seemed certain that she’d like it, and Luke doesn’t have any reason to argue with him on that point. He’s fairly certain that she won’t care what they put in front of her; she seemed really out of it when they left. Luke still can’t believe what they’ve seen. It was like something out of a really bad B movie, or ‘The X-Files’. He finally has to ask the question that’s been bothering him ever since the video started playing. “What was that?”
“That,” Sylar responds very calmly, “was why I’m going to kill all those bastards. Put them down like rabid dogs.”
Not sure if it’s a sign that he’s turning into a psychopath or not, Luke can’t help but agree with the sentiment. He wants to volunteer to help, but he’s afraid Sylar wants the pleasure of doing it by himself. “Who is Petrelli, by the way, and why did he let Claire go?”
He gets a bark of laughter for a response. “You don’t know.” Sylar laughs again.
“No, who is he?” Luke’s sure he’s missing something important.
“Claire’s father.”
Luke whistles. “And I thought my old man was bad.”
- - - - - - - - - -
Claire just pushes the chicken around on the styrofoam plate, not the least little bit hungry.
“Need a warm-up?” Luke waves his hand over his plate, and she watches as the steam starts to rise from the rice.
Instead of answering, she pushes the plate away and crawls back onto the couch. Behind closed eyes, she keeps seeing the scene with Nathan and his pet hunter play out, and it makes her feel even worse. The entire nation’s seen her at her weakest now, and knows that she didn’t fight hard enough to stop him. That she didn’t do enough to stop the plane, didn’t stop the deaths that followed. What she’s done with Rebel, what she’s doing now, doesn’t make up for that first failure, and she doesn’t know how to make it better. She should have fought harder, argued with Nathan and Angela more before they’d put their plan into play.
“Okay, I’ll take that as a no.” She hears Luke say, before dropping his fork and declaring “I think I’m done too.”
He and Sylar putter around the room some, but as long as they don’t talk to her or try to make her get up, she doesn’t care. All she can think about is how much of a failure she is, and how much she wishes her mom was there.
Sylar mutters something about a shower, and if she wants the bathroom first, but she just shakes her head no. A few minutes later, she hears water running in the bathroom and then the bouncing of the mattress as Luke jumps onto the bed. He turns the TV on, and starts flipping through the channels. She knows he’s trying to get a response out of her when he flips it over to some sort of adult movie and then another, but she doesn’t oblige him until he turns on CNN and the anchor starts talking about her video again. He turns the volume up, until it’s like Wolf Blitzer’s in the room, shouting at them.
She’s up on her knees on the couch before she can think. “Turn it off!”
Luke looks at her for the longest time, remote in hand, before finally taunting her. “Make me.”
She no longer cares that he’s trying to get her to interact with them again, trying to draw her out of her self-imposed shell. She doesn’t even think about just turning the TV off manually or unplugging it, just jumps on the bed in a head-first tackle, trying to take the remote away from him. He kicks at her, and she accidentally scratches him as they wrestle for the remote. She finally jerks it away from him and hits the off button.
It’s only then that she realizes that he’s laid out beneath her, his hands resting on her thighs as she straddles his hips. “Oh.”
“Claire. Move, please.” He sounds almost desperate, and she should pretend that she doesn’t know why. She tries to crawl off of him, but he just groans and holds on tighter, and she realizes that he hadn’t asked her to leave.
Absolutely breathless, she doesn’t exactly know why this is happening now, happening like this. “Luke.” If she’s being honest, she doesn’t really want him, but she can’t have what she really wants nor can she deny that this attraction feels good. He’s not that bad, not now that she’s gotten to know him, and if he can help her forget for just a little bit, and no one gets hurt, she sees no reason not to indulge in some innocent kissing.
He rolls them over so that they’re on their sides facing each other, and brings his hand up to rest on her waist. “Tell me no.”
She kisses him instead, lets herself get lost in a haze of meaningless hormones as she wraps her arms around his neck and he rolls her onto her back.
- - - - - - - - - -
It’s good to have a plan, which he does; he’s going to have to make it so that the tracking system goes down first, and then he can make his main move. The hunter first, that bald little weasel, and then Nathan Petrelli. He blames himself; he should have taken care of the problem when they were working together for Arthur. If he’d just killed him like he’d wanted to at the time, Claire wouldn’t have had to suffer.
Unsure about Bennet’s true loyalties, Sylar magnanimously decides to have a little chat with him first; if the man had truly been working to protect Claire, then he’d be spared. The little soldiers who’d handled her so roughly will have to be dealt with too, but he’s more concerned about the ring leaders. She’s his, and they’d signed their own death warrants when they’d dragged her into their web.
He turns off the shower, shaking the water from his hair with a swift movement as he wraps the towel around his waist.
“Ohhhh.”
That’s odd. Luke usually only makes sounds like that when he’s asleep, but the kid is biologically incapable of going to bed before midnight. The moan is followed by Claire’s soft whimper, something he’s only heard in his dreams.
The mirror explodes as he clinches his fists; he’s going to kill that kid.
- - - - - - - - - -
With the tiny part of his brain that’s still capable of rational thought, he knows he ought not be doing this, ought not be running his hand along her legs, pushing up her skirt and trying to get her to part them enough for him to settle between her thighs. He knows that he shouldn’t let her kisses overwhelm his better judgment and sense of self-preservation. Sylar’s been in the shower for about ten minutes now, and if Luke’s learned anything from their travels together, it’s that the other man’s going to be exiting the bathroom any second now, which means that he’s going to be killing Luke soon. The girl underneath him is untouchable, he knows that, knows it like Sylar had signed his name all over her with a big black Sharpie pen or scent marked her. He just doesn’t care anymore, as proven by the way he’s got his tongue in her mouth and her shirt unbuttoned and half off, exposing her skimpy bra.
He pulls back, breaking their kiss, panting hard. “We shouldn’t be…”
She won’t even let him finish his sentence, just aggressively grabs his head and pulls him back down for a kiss. He can’t help but think that she’s just trying to avoid reality, that she can’t possibly want him this badly, but he’s not stupid and he’ll take what she’s giving as long as she’s willing. An explorative hand finds his zipper, and he can’t help but squeak as she expertly starts to rid him of his pants.
Giggling against his lips, she works her hand inside his boxers and he groans, loudly, and bucks against her while he claims her mouth again. She moans, and it’s like the sound track to his favorite porno.
What’s unlike his fave sound track is the sudden bark of “What the fuck?” The only thing running through his head now is ‘oh, shit, Sylar’ and he hopes that he kills him quickly instead of drawing it out. He knows that Sylar won’t hurt her, even though she’s still carrying on like she hadn’t realized that they had a very disapproving serial killer in the room with them.
“Get off of her now.”
Luke knows he’s in serious trouble by the tone of Sylar’s voice; it’s the same tone he uses right before things turn very bloody. He wonders if apologizing would help, or if he’d only make the situation worse. “I’m so sorry, but she was… and I… pants.” As soon as the words leave his mouth, he knows he’s made a horrible mistake.
He’s proven right when Sylar slams him up against the hotel wall, almost pushing him through the flimsy drywall with the force of his anger. For once, though, Sylar’s physically touching him instead of just using his telekinesis; Luke knows that it’s a sure sign that they’ve pushed him too far.
“Luke…” Sylar shakes him hard enough that Luke’s a bit surprised that his teeth aren’t rattling loose in his mouth and he’s absolutely amazed he hasn’t wet himself yet in fear. “I give you everything. I take you away from a neglectful mother, I try to teach you how to be strong, I provide room and board, I protect you, and this - this is how you repay me?”
“Sylar! Let him go!” Claire’s finally realized what’s going on, and while Luke appreciates the fact that she’s attacking Sylar on his behalf, he wishes she had something more substantive than a pillow. That’s when he realizes that lack of oxygen’s getting to him as Sylar keeps squeezing his throat, since he didn’t even know that he knew what substantive meant until now.
Sylar doesn’t ease up his grip for a second as he addresses her. “This is none of your business. Get your clothes back on properly, and I’ll deal with you later.”
For an unusually smart guy, Sylar doesn’t know anything about dealing with women. Even Luke knows a rephrased “shut up and sit there looking pretty” will not go over well with any girl, much less Claire.
“Let go of him. News flash - you’re not my uncle after all, so lose the overprotective act!”
Three… two… one. Sylar drops him and spins around to face her right on schedule. Luke runs a hand over the painful flesh, gasping for breath as Sylar proceeds to start screaming at Claire. He hopes no one calls the cops on this little domestic disturbance in progress.
“I know I’m not your uncle, Claire. Besides the fact that it was obvious that Angela was lying, uncles don’t act like this. They don’t want to touch you, don’t want to kiss you, don’t want to claim you as their own.”
Luke watches wide-eyed as Sylar backs her over to the bed, looming over her as he rants.
“Do you really think that your uncle Gabriel would want to make you bleed, fucking tear you apart just to listen to you scream for more? You always knew I wasn’t any uncle of yours.”
Sylar pushes, and Claire falls back on the bed, quickly scrambling back away from him.
“You’re not stupid, princess. You know what game we’ve been playing, with your teasing and your oh-so-risqué songs, and your short dresses and the way you flirt with both of us. You knew what was going to happen. I'd rather kill you than see you with another man, and I will - just try me.”
“No.” She shakes her head. “I didn’t. I didn’t, I swear.”
Sylar looks at her hard for a few seconds, and Luke knows that he’s waiting for that tingle that comes from a liar’s words; it never comes.
“Then I was wrong, and you’re incredibly stupid.” Sylar crawls up on the bed over her. Luke wants to avert his eyes, since he’s just realized that Sylar’s wearing nothing but a poorly-knotted towel, but he can’t look away as Sylar holds himself up over her body on just his forearms, lower body pressed firmly against hers. Claire bites her lip and then moans, and Luke’s not sure if it’s a ‘please, more’ moan or a ‘just kill me and get it over with’ type of sound. If he knew for sure that she didn’t want it, he might be willing to try to help her.
“Do you want this, Claire? Did you want Luke, really, or did you just want a man above you, in you?”
She turns her head, and says nothing.
“Answer me, damnit!”
“No!”
Even Luke knows she’s lying; he doesn’t even have to see the way Sylar’s body jerks at the lie.
“Tell me the truth - do you want me?”
“No.”
Another lie, and the tremor that runs through Sylar makes Luke almost wish he had that power. Sylar rips off the towel, and has her shirt off the next second.
“Do you want me to take you? Want me to fuck you through the mattress, claim you, make you mine?”
She hesitates, then whispers “no.”
Sylar jerks like he’s been electrocuted, and Luke’s mouth starts to go dry. They’ve completely forgotten he’s there, and he’s not about to crawl off to lick his wounds if he’s going to get to see a real life porno. Even as she’s saying no, something that all three of them know to be a lie, she wraps her legs around Sylar’s hips, and helps him pull off her skirt. Luke feels light headed when he sees she’s wearing those black lace panties he’d spotted in the car, and he’s about to hyperventilate when Sylar pulls back far enough to slide the panties off her hips and down her legs.
He was wrong; the scene playing out in front of him is better than any x-rated movie he’s ever seen or can even imagine, even if he doesn’t have the best view. From the way Sylar’s moving, Luke’s a bit surprised that she’s not screaming, but the whimpers and whines and groans escaping her mouth are just as sexy, almost primitive. Sylar’s the vocal one, continuing to growl about his dominance and how she belongs to him. Luke has to take himself in hand, it’s not possible to watch them and not get worked up over it.
With a quick flash of motion, Sylar rolls them over so that she’s riding him; Luke can’t believe the way it makes her breasts bounce and the way her hair falls back as she arches her back is the most erotic thing he’s ever seen.
“Say it, Claire, say you’re mine.” Sylar sounds almost desperate as he continues to writhe beneath her, hand teasing her clit.
Luke finally finds his voice, calling out. “Lie to him.”
“No, I’m not yours, I’ll never be.”
Sylar really should be in porn, Luke thinks, as the man comes with a bellow and his head falls back on the pillow, exhausted. Claire goes rigid on top of him, then starts shuddering in a way that makes Luke wonder if she’s having a seizure, keening the entire time, until she finally slumps on top of Sylar’s chest.
It’s a bit of a surprise when he looks down and realizes that he’d come, too; he’d been so caught up in them, he hadn’t even realized. He’s sheepish as he pulls off his T-shirt, using that to clean up. Tiptoeing as quietly as he can so that he doesn’t wake them, he makes his way to the couch, since it’s obvious that Claire won’t be sleeping there tonight.
“Luke?”
He must not have been as silent as he thought. “Yeah?”
“She’s mine. Here endeth that lesson.” Sylar sounds smug, completely wrapped up in his own awesomeness. Without looking, Luke can see the smirk on his face.
“Got it. Crystal clear on that part.”
“Good. Because next time you as much as look at her, you’re dead.”
Yeah, he had that figured out already. Sylar wasn’t even able to share that stupid matchbox car; Luke knows that hell would freeze over before he’d share Claire. He knows the pecking order in this little group, and exactly where he fits in - dead last, just like always.
- - - - - - - - - -
“Sylar?”
“Mmphf.” He pulls her tighter against him, and tries his best to ignore the sunlight streaming into the room.
“Sylar. Get up. Luke’s gone.”
“Grphamf.” Her ability to function first thing in the morning is unnatural. He tries to kiss her neck, but gets a mouthful of hair instead, so he grumbles again and tries to get back to sleep.
“Get up! Luke is gone!” She pushes him hard enough that he rolls out of the bed, landing on the floor with a thud.
“What do you want me to do about it? I’ve been telling him to go home for three weeks now, and apparently, he finally listened.”
Claire jumps out of bed, and immediately starts pulling clothes on. “What if the government got him?”
“Yes, Claire, they came into our hotel room, and took him, leaving us - while we were buck naked and oblivious to the world - sound asleep in our bed. That makes so much sense.” He doesn’t understand why she’s so upset; she ought to be more concerned with the fact that they’d slept together, or that he’d threatened to kill her again, or the fact that he’s still naked, but she seems genuinely concerned about the kid. He guesses that it’s easier to deal with this minor problem than to think about the bigger problems between them, how their relationship was redefined.
She tosses his pants at him. “Get dressed. We need to go after him.”
He catches them, but drops them on the bed as he searches for his boxers. “No. We’re going after my father today, remember?”
“Screw your father! He’ll still be there this afternoon, and there’s no way Luke can get that far away on foot.” She holds up their car keys, dangling them on one finger to demonstrate that the boy was too stupid to steal their car. In what only has the faintest resemblance to packing, she starts throwing random things into their bags. “Besides, isn’t your agenda something like 9 am - meet daddy, 10 am - wash daddy’s blood off, noon - long lunch, 1 - take on the US government?”
She’s only slightly wrong, in that he’d planned on a nooner and then a long lunch at 1, and then the government coup, but she had the general gist right. “And your point is…?” He pulls on a shirt.
Her purse is in hand the bags stacked against the door. “We need him, especially if we’re going after Nathan’s group. Luke can make their blood boil and their hearts explode at thirty paces; I can just bleed on them, and that’s not exactly useful. I’m not letting you go after them without backup.”
She might have a point, but he’s too stubborn to admit it. “No. He’ll just get in the way or get himself killed.” He shuts the door behind them, and they argue all the way to the parking lot, until he starts to see the wisdom in having a co-conspirator and she understands why it might be safer for Luke if they just let him go.
They’re still arguing when he cranks the car, and they pull out of the hotel parking lot in a cloud of dust.
Author: cameroncrazed
Written for the Sylaire Ficathon at sylar_claire
Recipient: raitheemohugger
Pairings: Luke/Claire, Sylar/Claire
Rating: errr… I mean, R
Word Count: 8647
Spoilers: up through 3x18
Warnings: dub-con, voyeurism, cursing, a bit of violence
Disclaimer: Heroes belongs to Tim Kring, NBC et al. Don’t own Def Leppard, either, darn ;)
Author’s Note: Thanks to ladyanne525 for betaing!
Rating Requested: PG-13 to NC17
Any pairings besides Sylaire? How prominent should they be in the fic?: Sylar/Claire/Luke is interesting if only one of them has a real shot. ;-) And mentions of Alex/Claire are alright, but he shouldn't be present.
Prompts requested (please list at least 3, more if you'd like):
(pick one or two)
1.Tarantula- Smashing Pumpkins
2.Claire joining up with Sylar and Luke...Sylar gets jealous of Luke's crush on Claire, which results in some aggressive dubcon to prove she's "his". (my favorite prompt)
3. Sylar is actually Rebel (or takes over the job when Rebel is killed), and Claire has to face the fact that she's fallen in love with Sylar
4. The Heroes are forced to resettle in a desolate, isolated compound, and because of their abilities Sylar and Claire are the only ones not to have been successfully sterilized. Lots of pressure.
What don't you want your fic to include?: Syelle, Claire having a real relationship with anyone else (unless she ditches them for Sylar in the end), total noncon, fluff to the extreme.
Claire sighs as her phone beeps at her, yet again. Another message from the mysterious Rebel, yet again. She’s starting to get very irritated with his constant interference in her life.
THE BROKENHEARTED CAFÉ, ESCONDIDO, DAY AFTER TOM. 1 PM. LOSE THE BLONDE. - R.
She growls under her breath. She’s not about to dye her hair because some loser with a thing for text messaging likes red heads better. She’s not, absolutely not. Just because he’s been right about everything else, that doesn’t mean he’s right this time. It’s a whim, he’s just jerking her chain, it didn’t mean anything.
The phone beeps again.
BROWN WOULD LOOK GOOD. - R.
She rolls her eyes. Rebel could be so melodramatic.
REMEMBER, AGENTS ARE LOOKING FOR SHORT BLONDE. DO IT. - R.
She has to admit, he had a point. Toying with a piece of her hair, she stares at it, wondering what color dye to buy. Since Rebel had suggested brown, she guesses going brunette wouldn’t be too traumatic.
- - - - - - - - - -
Luke doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t need to. The growls of his stomach are deafening.
Sylar sighs, knowing that the teen had already eaten all the snacks they’d bought at the last truck stop. He hadn’t counted on making so many stops on their trip; Luke constantly needed food, drink, or a bathroom break. Sylar swears to himself that if he ever gets a pet dog, he’s naming the beast Luke.
It was so much easier to just go by himself; he’s much better at ignoring bodily needs than Luke is, but he can’t blame the boy for not having the necessary discipline yet. He’s learning though; his stomach might be demanding food, but Luke hasn’t said a word, and won’t, scared that Sylar would kill him, or worse yet, try to send him away again. He’s been incredibly quiet, withdrawn almost, and makes a valiant attempt at curling up in the passenger seat, like he could make himself small enough that Sylar won’t see him; he’s not Luke anymore, and Sylar almost wishes he had killed him instead of creating this spineless creature.
He spots a diner up ahead, and hits the gas. The sooner they can eat and get back on the road, the better. He almost gags when he spots all the bright red hearts hung in the windows and the cutesy cursive “Brokenhearted Café” sprawled in pink and red across the front door. If they try to serve him heart-shaped eggs or breakfast foods, he’s not going to be held accountable for his actions.
“You awake?” He asks, pretending that there’s nothing wrong with them. “I’m getting hungry, hope you are.”
“Hell yeah.”
For a second, Sylar can almost spot the old Luke underneath the bruises and scared child mentality.
- - - - - - - - - -
The girl is sitting by herself at the counter, seemingly not realizing the show she’s putting on as she slowly sucks on a straw stuck into a strawberry milkshake. He can already imagine the taste of the creamy goodness on her lips, wondering what it would be like to kiss her. She keeps toying with her hair, all bouncy brunette curls that Luke would love to run his fingers through.
“What’s so interesting?”
Luke can’t blame Sylar for asking; he’s sitting with his back to the girl, so he can’t possible see the miniskirt and straw-sucking action. “Nothing.” He’s fairly certain that girls don’t fit into Sylar’s master agenda, and he’s not provoking another fight.
“Luke…” Sylar growls out. “Stop the bullshit.”
The pained look on Sylar’s face, more so than being called out over the lie, makes him quickly respond. “Okay, it’s a girl. A cute girl. Happy now?” Not sure how Sylar’s going to react, he tries his best not to sound petulant.
“Save me from over-sexed hormonal teenagers.” Sylar mutters under his breath, but he’s just loud enough for Luke to hear him. Luke watches with interest as Sylar looks around the café, turning to look at the girl, a sudden frown on his face.
“Problem?” He really hopes that Sylar doesn’t want to kill this girl; he’s not sure he can help, and that might make him target two.
“She reminds me of someone…” Sylar finishes scanning the restaurant. “Okay, it looks safe enough. Five minutes, that’s it.”
“Five minutes for what?” He almost doesn’t want to know the answer to that question. Luke sometimes wonders what’s going through Sylar’s head. He’s oddly relaxed and upbeat today; Luke hopes that doesn’t bode badly for the coming night.
“You need to develop a better sense of how to charm people. She looks easy enough. Just… don’t tell her our real names. See if you can get her to cover our lunch today, like I did with those women last night.”
Luke sees no need to mention that “pay for our meals or die, and I’m going to need your car keys, too” doesn’t exactly fit the Merriam-Webster approved definition of ‘charming’; he doesn’t want to find out if Sylar was joking or just delusional.
- - - - - - - - - -
“Come here often?” The boy leans against the counter, trying to be suave; Claire doesn’t laugh when he accidentally places his elbow in a puddle of spilled ice cream, but only because she bites her inner lip. She’s invited this on herself, she knows; the change in hair had necessitated a change in clothes, and she’d gone a bit crazy with the push-up bras, stiletto heels, and the short dresses in colors that would have been unthinkable with the blonde hair and the over-protective father. He’s not the first to hit on her; she knows he’s not going to be the last.
“No, and I won’t if I’m going to be hit on by guys with lame lines.” She doesn’t have the patience to deal with him; she’s on a mission. It’s times like this that she wonders why she ever thought high-school boys were interesting. He’s cute enough, but she’s gotten used to interacting with adults. Alex may have implied she was a stripper at one point, but at least he hadn’t used lame lines. She feels a pang of loneliness thinking about him.
“Don’t be that way.” He touches her arm, and she pulls it away from him, glaring at him. He carries on as if he hadn’t noticed that she isn’t the least little bit interested. “I’m L… Lyle.”
“That’s my brother’s name. Ew.” Before he has the chance to continue being lame, her phone beeps.
HIS NAME’S LUKE. GO WITH HIM. - R.
She grimaces; Rebel’s reduced her to sitting around in tacky diners, seducing geeks. This wasn’t exactly what she’d signed up for when he’d recruited her for the resistance. “So, Luke…”
“I said my name is Lyle.” He looks panicked, like he can’t believe she’s seen through the pseudonym.
“Well, from here on out, you answer to Luke. Want to get out of here?” She hopes he’s the type that would appreciate a direct approach, even thought she’s not about to perform the tasks that her words might promise.
He looks like Christmas has come early for a few seconds, but then frowns. “I, um … my brother… he’s not going to like this idea.”
A brother. Great. She wonders what exactly Rebel’s up to now. She lightly trails her hand down his arm, and with a dark smile, she taunts him. “And you always do everything your brother wants?”
“No, but… we’re headed out of town, sorry.”
“What a coincidence, so am I.” She leans closer to him, brushing her shoulder against his. “Unless you don’t want a chance to get to know me better?”
“Uhhh…”
“Hey! Five minutes! Time’s up, boy.” A harsh male voice calls out; he sounds familiar, but that can’t be…
Claire whirls around to see the man walking towards them. For a second, she thinks she sees Alex; she’d never realized they looked so similar before. He’s not changed at all since she’d seen him last, except for the fact that her glass shard’s not sticking out of the back of his head, and he’s alive. She’s not sure if that’s an improvement or not, but she does feel vindicated that she’d been right about that odd feeling in her gut. Grasping the only thing close by she can use as a weapon, she jumps to her feet and addresses him. “Sylar.”
“Well, well, well, if it isn’t little Claire Bennet…” he eyes her, and she suddenly wants a sweater to wrap around her exposed flesh, “all grown up, I see. What are you doing here?”
She probably could lie to him by twisting the truth just enough not to set off his inner lie-detector, but decides not to. She knows how much he appreciates honesty. “Trying to convince Luke here to take me with you.”
“First of all, not happening. Second,” and he turns to glare at Luke, “why in the hell did you tell her the truth? Third, not happening. Go back home where you belong, with that annoying dog and family. Run back to Grandma and Noah and Bio… never mind, don’t think about Bio-Mom. Sorry.”
Stabbing him with a plastic spork wouldn’t help her achieve her goals, she’s sure. She hisses out “Look. You’re headed out of town, I am too. I’m either going with you, or I’m hitchhiking. Honestly, I’d rather take my chances with you than with scuzzy truckers. The longer we stand here arguing about it, the more likely those hunter guys are going to catch up with us.”
“What do you know about them?”
He takes a menacing step closer to her, and she backs up quickly, bumping into Luke, who places a steadying hand on her back. She’s almost glad for his presence, and wonders how he’d gotten mixed up with Sylar. “Just that they’re looking for people like us, and that they’re overly fond of sticking tubes of sedatives up people’s noses and dressing them in tacky orange jumpsuits.” She still doesn’t exactly understand why that’s become Nathan’s standard operating procedure, but she’s still mad about having it done to her.
“Get your hands off of her, Luke.” Sylar growls as soon as he notices how they’re touching, and she finds it interesting that Luke immediately obeys. “I take it they caught you at one point?”
“Yes.” She catches a movement out of the corner of her eye. “And if I’m not mistaken, there are two of them in the kitchen.”
Sylar goes completely still, not moving until he’s finished assessing the situation. “Luke, escort Claire out to the car, and get it running. I’ll be out in a minute.”
Before she can protest that she doesn’t need protecting like some sort of fragile doll, that she wants to help him, Luke’s grabbing her hand and tugging her with him. She stops him before he can push the door open, looking out into the parking lot and spotting the agents crouched down in the bushes at the door. “Damn it.”
Luke sees them too. “Sylar?” he whispers, very calmly. She realizes that this must not be his first time, that he’s run into these creeps before, since otherwise he’d be too terrified to turn to Sylar for answers.
“Give Claire the keys and go. Now. Hopefully they won’t recognize her.”
She gets the plan now; Sylar’s counting on the change in attire and hair, along with the extra three inches of shoe-induced height, to mask her true identity. She hopes it works. With a tight grasp on Luke’s hand, she pushes open the door, and immediately starts her act. “So, Lyle baby,” and she’s so proud of herself for saying that without gagging, “do you have your own hotel room?”
He plays along perfectly, turning and hiding his face against her hair like he’s kissing her neck as he responds with a “Sure do” in a pitch far lower than his usual speaking voice.
Giggling, part in amusement but mostly nervousness, she walks faster, pulling him along with her like she just can’t wait to get him alone, heels tapping along the pavement as they walk right past the agents. She knows things are going to go pear-shaped as soon as they get near the car, but she hopes her plan works. She leans in closer to Luke, whispering “get in the floorboard of the backseat.” He squeezes her hand, and she takes that as a sign he’s going to follow her command.
Other than the car she’d borrowed from May, which she’s been planning on ditching here anyhow, and the gray sedans that just scream “government!”, there’s only one car in the parking lot; it has to be Sylar’s. Ten paces from the cars, she hits the unlock button on the key fob, hoping that it wouldn’t be one of the annoying ones that beeped. Unfortunately, it did, drawing the attention of the agents.
“Hey!” One of them shouts. “Stop!”
“Shit.” Luke mutters and they both run the last few steps to the cars as the agents start shooting at them. Luke dives into the backseat as she hops into the driver’s seat, cursing the fact that Sylar had been the last one driving, as she’s going to have to adjust the seat before she can reach the pedals. Sylar’s not at the door yet when she stomps on the clutch, then backs the car out of the parking spot, foot firmly planted on the gas pedal. It’s a quick decision to make, that if he’s not coming out to her, then she’s going to have to go after him.
“Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap.” She’s never been good manipulating a stick-shift; of course, Sylar would have to steal a manual car. “How the hell do you drive this damn thing?”
Luke leans up from the backseat, manipulating the clutch as she works the pedals and shoves the car into fourth gear and floorboards it again.
“Put it in first!” he yells. “Not fourth! You’re going to kill the transmission!”
When the options are kill the car or take a chance at the agents getting lucky and killing them, she’ll gladly murder the engine or whatever car part he’d mentioned, so she ignores him. With one hand gripped on the steering wheel, she reaches around with the other to push him back down. “Cover your head.”
The agents shooting at them have to leap out of the way as she crashes right into the wall of glass windows in the front of the café, pulling the car partly inside. She honks the horn, as if Sylar wouldn’t have noticed her grand entrance, and slides into the passenger seat. He jumps in, and gives her a pointed look as he slides the seat back again. Luke yelps as the seat hits him.
They ignore him, and Claire can’t help but laugh as Sylar backs out of the café and all the way to the main road, agents jumping out of his way while waving their guns in anger. They’re gone in a cloud of dust. It’s exhilarating, more fun than she’s had in ages.
“You’re insane.” Luke finally says as he sits upright in the back. “Truly fucking insane. You ran us into a building!”
“Don’t curse at her.” Sylar replies; she’s almost touched, but it’s too much of a reminder of overprotective family members. “You aren’t hurt, are you?”
“No, but…”
“Then stop bitching. We should have just left you there.”
As they start snipping at each other with growls of “why don’t you just go home, you whiny brat, before I kill you” and “make me, if you can” and “you know you want me to stay, just admit it”, she wonders if this was what Rebel wanted.
As if on cue, her phone chirps again.
GET TO LA. GOOD NIGHT MOTEL. RES. FOR D. HAWKINS. - R.
- - - - - - - - - -
“Ewwwww!” Their room is disgusting, and she says that after having seen Lyle’s room three months after the last cleaning. It smells like mold, there’s trash on the floor, and if she’s not mistaken, there’s an used condom lying on what’s not going to be her bed, contents spilling out on a pillow that needs to be incinerated.
Sylar shudders at his first sight of the room as he steps up behind her; he’s close enough that she can feel the wave of aversion that hits him. A giant rat crawls out from under the bed, and shrieking, she leaps into Sylar’s arms as if the rat’s going to viciously attack. Luke laughs at how girly she is, and she sticks out her tongue at him, but she doesn’t stop holding on to Sylar. She knows what he’s capable of, but the rat’s an unknown threat, and she’s siding with Sylar in this fight.
“Luke.” Sylar steps to the side, letting Luke in, and she wonders what he’s supposed to do; based on his actions from the three hour car ride, she almost expecting him to whine the rat to death. Instead, he stretches out a hand, palm glowing red, and after a few seconds, the rat falls over as the smell of burning fur hits her nose. She’s not sure if she should be impressed or disgusted, but she’s mostly nauseated.
Sylar’s still holding her, and she lets him, as Luke lifts up the bedcovers and microwaves the bed and whatever’s hiding underneath the bed. When he’s finally finished micro-sanitizing the room, Sylar sets her down on the cleaner of the two beds.
“Thanks.” She doesn’t know why, but she blushes. She tells herself that it’s just from the feel of a man’s body pressed against hers, blushing at the memory of what she’s done with other similar men.
“Don’t mention it. Now, are you going to scream over the roaches in the bathroom too?” He jokes with her, and it’s the most at ease she’s ever been with him. It’s a bizarre feeling.
- - - - - - - - - -
“Give it a rest.” Okay, the microwave thing might have been interesting at one point, but there are only so many bags of popcorn they can possibly eat and burnt chili in a can reeks unlike anything she’s ever smelled before, even worse than eau de ex-rat. She’s fairly certain that he’s got a tiny crush on her at this point, so she’s trying to be kind, but she’s going to lose her mind if he keeps it up.
“You didn’t mind it when I was killing that rat for you.”
“True, but that’s when you were being useful.”
He glares at her. “Providing supper’s not useful?”
“Playing with popcorn does not equal providing supper. Sylar running out to get us pizza and sodas and brownies, that’s providing supper. Can you change the channel, I hate this show.”
Luke turns the volume up instead, out of spite.
“Mature, really mature. Why is it that Sylar hasn’t killed you yet?” She knows he must have been tempted; she’s tempted, and Sylar’s not a saint.
“My sparkling wit and companionship.” He deadpans.
She knows his type, knows how similar he is to Lyle. It makes it easy for her to hurt him. “More like he feels sorry for you. Let me guess, daddy ran off years ago and mommy just doesn’t care. Ooooh, poor baby.” She understands exactly why Sylar had become attached to Luke, he couldn’t help but want to have his mini-me turn out differently.
“Fuck you.” He fiddles with yet another bag of popcorn, and it’s the last straw for her.
“Grow up!” She grabs the TV remote and throws it at him. “Here’s a hint. I’m not impressed by your power, and it’s so infantile to try to show off to me because you have a little crush. What did you think I was going to do, throw myself at you, screaming ‘take me, I’m yours’ just because you’ll never drink cold coffee again? Please. Come back when you figure out how to turn yourself into a nuclear bomb or have telekinesis or immortality or something that actually matters.”
“Sylar can do all that.”
“I know.” Before he can respond, she bounces off her bed and flounces into the bathroom, locking the door behind her. It’s easier to focus on the roaches than to ponder why she’d even said all of that.
- - - - - - - - - -
He turns over, pulling the pillow over his head. It doesn’t help. Luke’s still breathing, and as long as he is, there’s going to be noise. Why he’d let the brat continue to come along on the trip, he doesn’t know.
“Sylar?”
“Mmphf.” In between Luke’s snoring and Claire’s questions, he’s never going to get sleep. Solitary loneliness is starting to look incredibly good again.
“Is he always like this?”
“No.” Surely she knows that he wouldn’t tolerate this every night. He blames the double pepperoni pizza and the fact that they’re making him sleep on the floor; Luke usually doesn’t do anything except whimper in his sleep.
“Should we wake him or turn him over or something?” She sounds vaguely desperate.
He groans; she must think he’s an idiot if she thinks he hasn’t thought of that by now. “I’ve already TK’d him over a few times, does it sound like it helped? What else do you want me to do, kill him?”
She doesn’t respond; he wishes she had, just so he’d know how she really felt about the kid. They sit and listen to Luke snore some more, until Claire gets out of bed, slipping her sneakers on. “I can’t stand it anymore, I’m going to go get some fresh air.”
That makes him sit straight up in bed. “No. It’s too dangerous.” She can’t go out there, not in this neighborhood, not at this time of night.
“You say that like you care.”
“Someone’s going to see you, and your father’s flunkies are still hunting us, you know.” He hadn’t realized she’s so intuitive, and hopes she accepts that answer.
“It’s the middle of the night at a no-tell motel.” She sounds incredulous. “The only people who’ll see me are the hookers and their johns, maybe a pimp or two, and they’re not going to care.”
If that’s supposed to make him feel better, she’s failed miserably. “No. Absolutely no way in hell.”
“Do you want me to smother him in his sleep? Is it all a diabolical plan to make me more like you, to get him dead without you having to get your hands dirtier?” She snaps, and he can’t help but laugh. Sleep deprivation and the cheerleader do not get along well, it seems.
“I’ll put him in the bathroom, we can shut the door or hope he chokes on a roach; maybe we can get some sleep then.”
Luke doesn’t wake as Sylar floats him into the bathroom, resting him in the bathtub with a blanket and a pillow.
“Ahhh.” Claire sighs and smiles at him. “It’s so quiet.”
“Yes, well, let’s take advantage of that fact.”
They’re both asleep in minutes.
- - - - - - - - - -
“Don’t touch the radio.” He grits his teeth, and grips the steering wheel he’s a bit surprised that it doesn’t crack under the force of his anger.
“I’m not the one who turned it on the first place, and your taste in music sucks. I’m just trying to find something decent to listen to.” Claire switches the station again.
“What did I just say?” Luke yells at her, then with a terse movement, turns the radio off.
With a glare that makes him very glad that she doesn’t have some sort of death ray power, she reaches over and turns it on again, turning it up even louder. “Love is like a bomb, baby, c’mon get it on…” she sings along as loudly as possible, almost daring him to say something else.
If it wasn’t for the fact that Sylar had told them to stay there, engine running and ready to go, Luke would just get out of the car, walk off his anger, but he can’t. Sylar’s going to be back any second, and Luke’s not going to be the one to disappoint him this time. As she continues to screech along with the song, his palms start to itch as his power starts flaring up. He doesn’t have perfect control, not yet, and he knows he’s going to lose control if he can’t get his temper under control soon.
“Claire, please. Shut up!”
When she turns her head to look out the window instead of looking at him, singing even louder, he finally explodes. He means to melt the car radio, anything to stop the noise, but he misses. Distracted by arguing with her, he’d missed Sylar running out to the car, and the sudden way Sylar jumps into the backseat, slamming the door behind him, causes him to jump. He certainly hadn’t meant to melt her seat belt, but knows that she’s not going to believe that; she probably thinks that he was purposefully trying to melt her.
“Well?” Sylar asks, as if he hadn’t notice how the car is filling with smoke and Claire is frantically trying to pull the belt off before it can melt onto her clothes.
Luke’s not expecting her to start crawling into the backseat, so when he reaches for the gear shift, he touches the soft skin of her leg instead. A quick glance in the rear view mirror, and he closes his eyes and has to take a deep breath when he catches a glimpse of the black lace of her panties stretched out over the smooth skin of her ass. If it wasn’t for the fact that he knows they need to get out of there in a hurry, and that he’d find another dead agent in the men’s room, he’d have to run in there for a few minutes.
“Luke?” Claire asks as soon as she takes the seat next to Sylar. “Are we going to sit here all day or what?”
It breaks him out of his fantasy, and he pulls out of the parking lot, as if he can outrun his want.
- - - - - - - - - -
So focused on irritating Luke, she doesn’t recognize the words spilling out of her mouth until she gets to the chorus. “Pour some sugar…” She trails off in mid-phrase. Not only are the lyrics a tad bit too suggestive when trapped in a car with two men, but the song reminds her of Sandra.
Dangerous. Perfect way of describing the man sharing the backseat with her.
Handsome. She can’t argue with that assessment, not without being a complete liar.
Before her mind can go to an utterly dangerous place, she turns to stare out the window, trying her best to think about something other else. She wonders if her mom misses her, if their house is still being watched. Curling her legs up on the seat, she leans against the door, thinking. Maybe Rebel had sent her to them to help avoid capture that first day. Maybe she was supposed to be a buffer between them, so that Sylar wouldn’t kill Luke, and if he did, she could fix that mistake. Maybe she was supposed to learn something from the trip…
“I want to go home.” She says it before she can even really think about it.
“What, and miss all the fun?” Luke asks sarcastically. “You mean, you don’t want to spend another night at a rat-trap hotel with us or annoy us with your singing some more?”
Sylar doesn’t say anything, just stares at her for a minute.
It makes her nervous, and she has to say something to break the silence, and once she starts, she can’t stop babbling. “I miss my mom, and Lyle, and Muggles, and I wonder if they’re still getting divorced and if that bitch agent has bothered them again, and if Dad ever calls, and if…” She starts crying when she realizes that Noah had been right, that she’s not ready for this kind of life yet.
She’s not expecting Sylar to unbuckle both of their seat belts and pull her into his lap. It shocks her out of her home-sickness. She tries to fight against him, but he just holds her in place until she gives up. Finally, she slumps against him, trying her hardest not to think, to just feel.
“Better now?”
Luke answers before she can. “Dude. We both get homesick, but she gets a hug and you throw me against a wall and break a rib? Bros before hoes, Sylar!”
She can tell he’s joking by the tone of his voice, but she’s not sure if Sylar realizes that as his body tenses and he raises that infamous hand. Beside the fact that Luke shouldn’t die over a joke, she really doesn’t want to re-assemble her body parts after a car crash just because Sylar felt the need to behead their chauffeur. “It’s a joke,” she whispers into his ear, and he immediately relaxes.
“So, you want to go home, and miss out of on the joy of meeting Daddy Dearest tomorrow? We should be there by lunchtime, and I know you’ve just dying to see proof that I really was born instead of hatched.”
As far as jokes go, it’s not great, but Claire recognizes that’s asking her not to leave them, not yet. She’s not sure if having a psycho killer and his apprentice wanting her to stay is a good thing or not, but she’s going to, regardless.
- - - - - - - - - -
It’s not the worst hotel room they’ve ever had, it’s not the best. There’s only one bed, which she knows Sylar’s going to claim with a bloodthirsty viciousness, but there’s a couch she can sleep on and they’ve learned that Luke is a freak who actually enjoys sleeping in the bathtub, and at least this place has a TV.
She eyes the bed, wondering if he’d try to hurt her for just sitting on it, but chooses the safer sofa, and hits the “on” button on the remote.
“…and stunning news out of Washington today, so stayed tuned! Exclusive video coming up after this commercial break!” The perky newscaster sounds breathless.
News. Ugh. She turns the station, but before she can keep changing channels until she finds something interesting, Sylar jerks the remote out of her hands. “Hey!”
“Not now, Claire.” He flips back to the news station, and sits down next to her on the sofa, leaning forward as if a closer proximity to the screen would result in a reduced number of commercials.
When the news finally comes back on, she gasps as the ‘exclusive video’ starts playing. Prisoners in orange jumpsuits, shackled and handcuffed and sedated, stumble across the screen as the perky anchor exclaims something about domestic terrorism, Miranda rights, and other things that she’s completely tuning out. The video zooms in as two soldiers push a smaller prisoner forward. She starts to shake when the phrases “Senator Petrelli” and “unidentified minor” start being uttered as the hood’s pulled off and the girl’s head rolls backwards. It doesn’t seem real, like it really happened, when she can see it played out on national TV.
She doesn’t have to ask what Sylar thinks of the news; electricity starts arcing from his hands as soon as he recognizes the littlest prisoner, and Luke is quick to switch off the TV before he can destroy it. It takes him a few seconds longer than it did her, but then again, she knows the story intimately well. He turns to face her. “Claire…”
“Not now.” She can’t take it, doesn’t want their pity or their scorn or whatever it is their feeling. She feels like she can’t breathe.
Luke tries to hug her, but she pushes him away with her full strength. “No!”
Sylar doesn’t say anything else, just telekinetically lifts her and puts her on the bed, curled up in a ball of self-pity.
When they leave, they lock the door behind them. She doesn’t really care if they come back or not.
- - - - - - - - - -
They’re both silent as they walk back from the Chinese restaurant, bags of fried rice and sweet-and-sour chicken in tow. Sylar seemed certain that she’d like it, and Luke doesn’t have any reason to argue with him on that point. He’s fairly certain that she won’t care what they put in front of her; she seemed really out of it when they left. Luke still can’t believe what they’ve seen. It was like something out of a really bad B movie, or ‘The X-Files’. He finally has to ask the question that’s been bothering him ever since the video started playing. “What was that?”
“That,” Sylar responds very calmly, “was why I’m going to kill all those bastards. Put them down like rabid dogs.”
Not sure if it’s a sign that he’s turning into a psychopath or not, Luke can’t help but agree with the sentiment. He wants to volunteer to help, but he’s afraid Sylar wants the pleasure of doing it by himself. “Who is Petrelli, by the way, and why did he let Claire go?”
He gets a bark of laughter for a response. “You don’t know.” Sylar laughs again.
“No, who is he?” Luke’s sure he’s missing something important.
“Claire’s father.”
Luke whistles. “And I thought my old man was bad.”
- - - - - - - - - -
Claire just pushes the chicken around on the styrofoam plate, not the least little bit hungry.
“Need a warm-up?” Luke waves his hand over his plate, and she watches as the steam starts to rise from the rice.
Instead of answering, she pushes the plate away and crawls back onto the couch. Behind closed eyes, she keeps seeing the scene with Nathan and his pet hunter play out, and it makes her feel even worse. The entire nation’s seen her at her weakest now, and knows that she didn’t fight hard enough to stop him. That she didn’t do enough to stop the plane, didn’t stop the deaths that followed. What she’s done with Rebel, what she’s doing now, doesn’t make up for that first failure, and she doesn’t know how to make it better. She should have fought harder, argued with Nathan and Angela more before they’d put their plan into play.
“Okay, I’ll take that as a no.” She hears Luke say, before dropping his fork and declaring “I think I’m done too.”
He and Sylar putter around the room some, but as long as they don’t talk to her or try to make her get up, she doesn’t care. All she can think about is how much of a failure she is, and how much she wishes her mom was there.
Sylar mutters something about a shower, and if she wants the bathroom first, but she just shakes her head no. A few minutes later, she hears water running in the bathroom and then the bouncing of the mattress as Luke jumps onto the bed. He turns the TV on, and starts flipping through the channels. She knows he’s trying to get a response out of her when he flips it over to some sort of adult movie and then another, but she doesn’t oblige him until he turns on CNN and the anchor starts talking about her video again. He turns the volume up, until it’s like Wolf Blitzer’s in the room, shouting at them.
She’s up on her knees on the couch before she can think. “Turn it off!”
Luke looks at her for the longest time, remote in hand, before finally taunting her. “Make me.”
She no longer cares that he’s trying to get her to interact with them again, trying to draw her out of her self-imposed shell. She doesn’t even think about just turning the TV off manually or unplugging it, just jumps on the bed in a head-first tackle, trying to take the remote away from him. He kicks at her, and she accidentally scratches him as they wrestle for the remote. She finally jerks it away from him and hits the off button.
It’s only then that she realizes that he’s laid out beneath her, his hands resting on her thighs as she straddles his hips. “Oh.”
“Claire. Move, please.” He sounds almost desperate, and she should pretend that she doesn’t know why. She tries to crawl off of him, but he just groans and holds on tighter, and she realizes that he hadn’t asked her to leave.
Absolutely breathless, she doesn’t exactly know why this is happening now, happening like this. “Luke.” If she’s being honest, she doesn’t really want him, but she can’t have what she really wants nor can she deny that this attraction feels good. He’s not that bad, not now that she’s gotten to know him, and if he can help her forget for just a little bit, and no one gets hurt, she sees no reason not to indulge in some innocent kissing.
He rolls them over so that they’re on their sides facing each other, and brings his hand up to rest on her waist. “Tell me no.”
She kisses him instead, lets herself get lost in a haze of meaningless hormones as she wraps her arms around his neck and he rolls her onto her back.
- - - - - - - - - -
It’s good to have a plan, which he does; he’s going to have to make it so that the tracking system goes down first, and then he can make his main move. The hunter first, that bald little weasel, and then Nathan Petrelli. He blames himself; he should have taken care of the problem when they were working together for Arthur. If he’d just killed him like he’d wanted to at the time, Claire wouldn’t have had to suffer.
Unsure about Bennet’s true loyalties, Sylar magnanimously decides to have a little chat with him first; if the man had truly been working to protect Claire, then he’d be spared. The little soldiers who’d handled her so roughly will have to be dealt with too, but he’s more concerned about the ring leaders. She’s his, and they’d signed their own death warrants when they’d dragged her into their web.
He turns off the shower, shaking the water from his hair with a swift movement as he wraps the towel around his waist.
“Ohhhh.”
That’s odd. Luke usually only makes sounds like that when he’s asleep, but the kid is biologically incapable of going to bed before midnight. The moan is followed by Claire’s soft whimper, something he’s only heard in his dreams.
The mirror explodes as he clinches his fists; he’s going to kill that kid.
- - - - - - - - - -
With the tiny part of his brain that’s still capable of rational thought, he knows he ought not be doing this, ought not be running his hand along her legs, pushing up her skirt and trying to get her to part them enough for him to settle between her thighs. He knows that he shouldn’t let her kisses overwhelm his better judgment and sense of self-preservation. Sylar’s been in the shower for about ten minutes now, and if Luke’s learned anything from their travels together, it’s that the other man’s going to be exiting the bathroom any second now, which means that he’s going to be killing Luke soon. The girl underneath him is untouchable, he knows that, knows it like Sylar had signed his name all over her with a big black Sharpie pen or scent marked her. He just doesn’t care anymore, as proven by the way he’s got his tongue in her mouth and her shirt unbuttoned and half off, exposing her skimpy bra.
He pulls back, breaking their kiss, panting hard. “We shouldn’t be…”
She won’t even let him finish his sentence, just aggressively grabs his head and pulls him back down for a kiss. He can’t help but think that she’s just trying to avoid reality, that she can’t possibly want him this badly, but he’s not stupid and he’ll take what she’s giving as long as she’s willing. An explorative hand finds his zipper, and he can’t help but squeak as she expertly starts to rid him of his pants.
Giggling against his lips, she works her hand inside his boxers and he groans, loudly, and bucks against her while he claims her mouth again. She moans, and it’s like the sound track to his favorite porno.
What’s unlike his fave sound track is the sudden bark of “What the fuck?” The only thing running through his head now is ‘oh, shit, Sylar’ and he hopes that he kills him quickly instead of drawing it out. He knows that Sylar won’t hurt her, even though she’s still carrying on like she hadn’t realized that they had a very disapproving serial killer in the room with them.
“Get off of her now.”
Luke knows he’s in serious trouble by the tone of Sylar’s voice; it’s the same tone he uses right before things turn very bloody. He wonders if apologizing would help, or if he’d only make the situation worse. “I’m so sorry, but she was… and I… pants.” As soon as the words leave his mouth, he knows he’s made a horrible mistake.
He’s proven right when Sylar slams him up against the hotel wall, almost pushing him through the flimsy drywall with the force of his anger. For once, though, Sylar’s physically touching him instead of just using his telekinesis; Luke knows that it’s a sure sign that they’ve pushed him too far.
“Luke…” Sylar shakes him hard enough that Luke’s a bit surprised that his teeth aren’t rattling loose in his mouth and he’s absolutely amazed he hasn’t wet himself yet in fear. “I give you everything. I take you away from a neglectful mother, I try to teach you how to be strong, I provide room and board, I protect you, and this - this is how you repay me?”
“Sylar! Let him go!” Claire’s finally realized what’s going on, and while Luke appreciates the fact that she’s attacking Sylar on his behalf, he wishes she had something more substantive than a pillow. That’s when he realizes that lack of oxygen’s getting to him as Sylar keeps squeezing his throat, since he didn’t even know that he knew what substantive meant until now.
Sylar doesn’t ease up his grip for a second as he addresses her. “This is none of your business. Get your clothes back on properly, and I’ll deal with you later.”
For an unusually smart guy, Sylar doesn’t know anything about dealing with women. Even Luke knows a rephrased “shut up and sit there looking pretty” will not go over well with any girl, much less Claire.
“Let go of him. News flash - you’re not my uncle after all, so lose the overprotective act!”
Three… two… one. Sylar drops him and spins around to face her right on schedule. Luke runs a hand over the painful flesh, gasping for breath as Sylar proceeds to start screaming at Claire. He hopes no one calls the cops on this little domestic disturbance in progress.
“I know I’m not your uncle, Claire. Besides the fact that it was obvious that Angela was lying, uncles don’t act like this. They don’t want to touch you, don’t want to kiss you, don’t want to claim you as their own.”
Luke watches wide-eyed as Sylar backs her over to the bed, looming over her as he rants.
“Do you really think that your uncle Gabriel would want to make you bleed, fucking tear you apart just to listen to you scream for more? You always knew I wasn’t any uncle of yours.”
Sylar pushes, and Claire falls back on the bed, quickly scrambling back away from him.
“You’re not stupid, princess. You know what game we’ve been playing, with your teasing and your oh-so-risqué songs, and your short dresses and the way you flirt with both of us. You knew what was going to happen. I'd rather kill you than see you with another man, and I will - just try me.”
“No.” She shakes her head. “I didn’t. I didn’t, I swear.”
Sylar looks at her hard for a few seconds, and Luke knows that he’s waiting for that tingle that comes from a liar’s words; it never comes.
“Then I was wrong, and you’re incredibly stupid.” Sylar crawls up on the bed over her. Luke wants to avert his eyes, since he’s just realized that Sylar’s wearing nothing but a poorly-knotted towel, but he can’t look away as Sylar holds himself up over her body on just his forearms, lower body pressed firmly against hers. Claire bites her lip and then moans, and Luke’s not sure if it’s a ‘please, more’ moan or a ‘just kill me and get it over with’ type of sound. If he knew for sure that she didn’t want it, he might be willing to try to help her.
“Do you want this, Claire? Did you want Luke, really, or did you just want a man above you, in you?”
She turns her head, and says nothing.
“Answer me, damnit!”
“No!”
Even Luke knows she’s lying; he doesn’t even have to see the way Sylar’s body jerks at the lie.
“Tell me the truth - do you want me?”
“No.”
Another lie, and the tremor that runs through Sylar makes Luke almost wish he had that power. Sylar rips off the towel, and has her shirt off the next second.
“Do you want me to take you? Want me to fuck you through the mattress, claim you, make you mine?”
She hesitates, then whispers “no.”
Sylar jerks like he’s been electrocuted, and Luke’s mouth starts to go dry. They’ve completely forgotten he’s there, and he’s not about to crawl off to lick his wounds if he’s going to get to see a real life porno. Even as she’s saying no, something that all three of them know to be a lie, she wraps her legs around Sylar’s hips, and helps him pull off her skirt. Luke feels light headed when he sees she’s wearing those black lace panties he’d spotted in the car, and he’s about to hyperventilate when Sylar pulls back far enough to slide the panties off her hips and down her legs.
He was wrong; the scene playing out in front of him is better than any x-rated movie he’s ever seen or can even imagine, even if he doesn’t have the best view. From the way Sylar’s moving, Luke’s a bit surprised that she’s not screaming, but the whimpers and whines and groans escaping her mouth are just as sexy, almost primitive. Sylar’s the vocal one, continuing to growl about his dominance and how she belongs to him. Luke has to take himself in hand, it’s not possible to watch them and not get worked up over it.
With a quick flash of motion, Sylar rolls them over so that she’s riding him; Luke can’t believe the way it makes her breasts bounce and the way her hair falls back as she arches her back is the most erotic thing he’s ever seen.
“Say it, Claire, say you’re mine.” Sylar sounds almost desperate as he continues to writhe beneath her, hand teasing her clit.
Luke finally finds his voice, calling out. “Lie to him.”
“No, I’m not yours, I’ll never be.”
Sylar really should be in porn, Luke thinks, as the man comes with a bellow and his head falls back on the pillow, exhausted. Claire goes rigid on top of him, then starts shuddering in a way that makes Luke wonder if she’s having a seizure, keening the entire time, until she finally slumps on top of Sylar’s chest.
It’s a bit of a surprise when he looks down and realizes that he’d come, too; he’d been so caught up in them, he hadn’t even realized. He’s sheepish as he pulls off his T-shirt, using that to clean up. Tiptoeing as quietly as he can so that he doesn’t wake them, he makes his way to the couch, since it’s obvious that Claire won’t be sleeping there tonight.
“Luke?”
He must not have been as silent as he thought. “Yeah?”
“She’s mine. Here endeth that lesson.” Sylar sounds smug, completely wrapped up in his own awesomeness. Without looking, Luke can see the smirk on his face.
“Got it. Crystal clear on that part.”
“Good. Because next time you as much as look at her, you’re dead.”
Yeah, he had that figured out already. Sylar wasn’t even able to share that stupid matchbox car; Luke knows that hell would freeze over before he’d share Claire. He knows the pecking order in this little group, and exactly where he fits in - dead last, just like always.
- - - - - - - - - -
“Sylar?”
“Mmphf.” He pulls her tighter against him, and tries his best to ignore the sunlight streaming into the room.
“Sylar. Get up. Luke’s gone.”
“Grphamf.” Her ability to function first thing in the morning is unnatural. He tries to kiss her neck, but gets a mouthful of hair instead, so he grumbles again and tries to get back to sleep.
“Get up! Luke is gone!” She pushes him hard enough that he rolls out of the bed, landing on the floor with a thud.
“What do you want me to do about it? I’ve been telling him to go home for three weeks now, and apparently, he finally listened.”
Claire jumps out of bed, and immediately starts pulling clothes on. “What if the government got him?”
“Yes, Claire, they came into our hotel room, and took him, leaving us - while we were buck naked and oblivious to the world - sound asleep in our bed. That makes so much sense.” He doesn’t understand why she’s so upset; she ought to be more concerned with the fact that they’d slept together, or that he’d threatened to kill her again, or the fact that he’s still naked, but she seems genuinely concerned about the kid. He guesses that it’s easier to deal with this minor problem than to think about the bigger problems between them, how their relationship was redefined.
She tosses his pants at him. “Get dressed. We need to go after him.”
He catches them, but drops them on the bed as he searches for his boxers. “No. We’re going after my father today, remember?”
“Screw your father! He’ll still be there this afternoon, and there’s no way Luke can get that far away on foot.” She holds up their car keys, dangling them on one finger to demonstrate that the boy was too stupid to steal their car. In what only has the faintest resemblance to packing, she starts throwing random things into their bags. “Besides, isn’t your agenda something like 9 am - meet daddy, 10 am - wash daddy’s blood off, noon - long lunch, 1 - take on the US government?”
She’s only slightly wrong, in that he’d planned on a nooner and then a long lunch at 1, and then the government coup, but she had the general gist right. “And your point is…?” He pulls on a shirt.
Her purse is in hand the bags stacked against the door. “We need him, especially if we’re going after Nathan’s group. Luke can make their blood boil and their hearts explode at thirty paces; I can just bleed on them, and that’s not exactly useful. I’m not letting you go after them without backup.”
She might have a point, but he’s too stubborn to admit it. “No. He’ll just get in the way or get himself killed.” He shuts the door behind them, and they argue all the way to the parking lot, until he starts to see the wisdom in having a co-conspirator and she understands why it might be safer for Luke if they just let him go.
They’re still arguing when he cranks the car, and they pull out of the hotel parking lot in a cloud of dust.