the sky is dark now: sylar/claire, peter/claire, west/claire
Title: The Sky is Dark Now
Author: missaliceblue
Pairing: Sylar/Claire, Peter/Claire, West/Claire,
Rating: NC-17 for language and sex.
Status: 1/1, Complete. 4000 words. Spoilers through 2x03.
Summary: This is how Claire Bennet deals with it. Angst, smut, and some seriously messed-up dynamics.
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
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After the first time, she closed her eyes when they would fly together. It had been three months since he’d met her and she never seemed to grow tired of it. She asked him to take her up - up there - all the time.
“Scared?” he asked her with a smile on his face as they zoomed through the cold air.
“No,” she said, like she was irritated, and she was, probably. She pressed her face deeper into his sweater and she didn't look up until they were back on the ground.
-----
West had tried being nice and he had tried talking about what they had in common, and none of that worked. But he couldn’t stop at this point - he wanted her in an irrational sort of way. His wanting didn’t respond to his orders to calm down, not care, leave it alone. He wanted her in a way that made him try too hard.
He was scaring her off and he knew it and there was nothing he could do to stop it.
She responded at the very beginning when he challenged her, so that’s what he tried again, now, because she was slipping through his fingers before he’d even had a fair chance.
“Don’t you like being the freak? You want to be like everyone else?” He asked her at lunch one day.
“Yes,” she responded with a ferocious whisper. “That’s exactly what I want.”
“You don’t want to be different?”
“No. Who would?” she said in reply, like he was crazy for liking the fact that he was unusual, for wanting her to stop being so sad about it.
“What does your family think?” He thought of his father and his grandmother, and of everyone else in his family that he knew could crystalise water or burn trees with their mind and on and on...
“I’m adopted,” she said tersely.
“So you don’t know anyone else who’s special? Just me?”
Her mouth twisted and she looked at him with her sad eyes - the sad eyes that had pulled him from across the room all those months ago.
She answered him after a long pause. “Nope. All I’ve got is you.” And she ate her lunch very, very slowly, or not at all. He could never tell.
-----
He asked his mom for girl advice, and was reprimanded a few minutes later for being so dense. He had never asked her out on a proper date. Duh. That’s what the problem was, maybe.
“So…what’re you doing this weekend?” He asked her this as she tucked her papers into her science binder.
“I’m super busy,” she said in her cold, tight voice.
He nodded, accepted it. And vowed to come up with a different game plan.
“But we could go out.” She punctuated the word with pouting lips that made him think about things he shouldn’t.
So he took her to the basketball game. He didn’t like basketball and neither did she, really, but it was something to do and she said she wanted to be out of her house.
They sat somewhere up by the wall and he bought her a pretzel, which she also probably didn't like but she ate it anyway. They drove home in his car and he parked where she told him to, under the dark shadow of a willow tree by her house.
“Did you have fun?” he asked.
“I did,” she nodded seriously, and she was lightly tracing her fingertips on his knee.
“Maybe next weekend we could-“
She kissed him fiercely, shoved her fingers in his hair and she leaned over him, her mouth hot and her fingers everywhere. He waited for that initial, gentlemanly reaction to push her away but it never came.
He peeked at her once and she was beautiful up close, even though her eyes were pinched shut and crinkled.
They’d been going at it for a few minutes when the gentlemanly reaction finally kicked in and he pulled away from her a little, grabbed her hands. “Claire, you’re special to me. Really special. Get it?” he asked, as he fumbled with his seatbelt.
Claire nodded. “Yeah. Yeah. Kiss me again.”
He raised his arm and turned on the light in the console of his car because he wanted her to see the truth. “I want you to know that.”
Claire crumpled back to her side of the car, her fist in front of her eyes. “W-what? Geez, turn the light off!”
“I really want to look at you, just for a minute,” he said, and he knew he sounded like he was pleading but the situation was too far gone to try and hide it.
“’Kay, fine. Go,” she said irritably, and crossed her arms over her body.
He was dampened but not deterred. “Claire, I lo-“
She leaned forward lightning quick and slapped her hand over his mouth. “Don’t! Seriously. Don’t.”
Her hand muffled his voice. “What?”
She kept her hand on his mouth and raised the other, palm up. “Look, just…don’t say that, okay?”
Her hand was still on his mouth, and his eyes crumpled with confusion.
Claire turned off the light tersely, and slid her hand off of his face slowly. The light from the streetlamp lit her face (beautiful and sad) and she stared at him for a long time. Stared at what, he didn't know, because the light was behind him and he could practically feel the shadows creeping over his cheeks and mouth.
She leaned forward and frenched him hard enough he felt their teeth click. But he wasn’t stupid, and even when she pushed him up against the window and rubbed her hips against his, he didn't forget.
“Claire, Claire. Little Claire,” he said, and he nipped her behind the ear.
It was late at night and they were on her bed. Her door was shut and locked, and she could hear the tree by her bedroom window shivering as the wind raced through it.
“Did you miss me while I was gone?”
“What do you think?” she said sarcastically.
“I think you did.” He was smiling at her again.
She sighed and turned her head to the side. “I didn't.” He was laying on top of her but it was more than that, really. He was on top of her and around her - covered her body completely. Sylar was bigger than her. In every way.
“You shouldn’t lie to me, Claire. I don’t like it.”
“I’m not lying to you. I didn’t miss you,” she said dully.
He laughed, and lifted her shirt a bit, kissed her stomach. “Ah, Claire. Skinny Claire. You’ve lost weight. The sad princess pining for her lover?”
“Yeah right,” she said with a scowl.
He smiled. “Remember what I said about the lies. I don’t like it when people lie. Very ugly. And you…are not ugly at all, are you?” His fingers trailed upwards from her belly.
Claire took a deep breath, and stared at the dark head that was laying on her torso.
“You’ve always been a pretty girl. You’re skinny now, but you’re still pretty. I still approve. I know that’s important to you,” he said.
She shook her head and rolled her eyes. “You are so incredibly stupid,” she said, and he laughed.
And then he looked pointedly at her chest. She was wearing a button-up shirt because that was what he liked and her strong words were undone with just his gaze. His fingers reached for her shirt.
“Am I?”
His eyes were bright and excited as he carefully undid each button, and he seemed to relish the way each tiny disk squeezed through the thin slit of fabric.
“You might not have missed me…but you’d miss me now if I left, wouldn’t you? That’s why you keep inviting me into your bed, isn’t it?” He parted her shirt, exposed her chest and torso. She shivered as the cold air hit her skin, puckering her nipples beneath the thin silk of her bra.
“Oh, Claire,” he breathed. He ran his fingers lightly over her hair, and leaned in to carefully lick her bottom lip.
She bit her lip, hid it away. “Come on…” she said.
“Come on what?” he asked her, grinned at her after.
“You know…” she said in a tired sort of voice.
“--I know a lot of things.” He said it like he meant it and he probably did.
She rolled her eyes and he laughed at her, again, pressed his hips into hers provocatively. “I could show you some of the things I know, Claire. I think you’d like that.”
Claire blinked and ignored him.
He eased off of her, and put his fingers on the zipper of her jeans. “I’ve become all sorts of powerful. I can do things you can’t even imagine.” He unzipped her jeans with one quick, terse movement.
“But do you know what I can’t do?” He didn't wait for her answer as he carefully parted the top of her pants, hooking just the tip of his finger underneath her waistband.
“I’ll tell you, Claire, since you won’t ask. I can’t seem to get anyone else to be you.” He pulled down the front of her underpants and gave her a long, slow look there, and Claire kept on biting her lip.
He stared back up with her with what seemed to be approval. It would have creeped her out a few months ago, but now it just made her anxious and eager.
Not that she’d say that to him. He already knew.
“Don’t think I didn't try with little Candice, because I did. I’ve tried with an awful lot of people, and no one else compares. Which is why I indulge you now.”
He pulled her jeans off of her hips, slithered them down her thighs and calves. She sucked air through her teeth.
“But don’t forget that I’m doing you a favour. Never forget that. I’m being nice. And I can stop being nice any time.”
She lifted her head off of her pillow. “Is that a threat?”
He crawled back over her, and his expression was predatory. “I don’t have to make those anymore.”
He lowered his lips to her collarbone, licking her in the cleft of her neck, between her breasts. Goosebumps broke over her skin.
“It’s very inconvenient, you know, the way you taste. No one else tastes the same.” He pressed his knees between her legs, scissored them open roughly. Claire made a sound in the back of her throat.
It was short though. He soon stole it from her lips, muffled it with his tongue as he penetrated her mouth, filling every corner with his hot, wet stroking. She shivered.
“Mm. No one. Pity, because you’re so troublesome, my little Claire, but I can’t seem to get enough of you.”
“Can you please wrap this up?” she asked, her patience breaking momentarily. She didn’t want to make him angry, but this was pushing even her limits.
“I will wrap this up when I feel like it,” he said, and she watched his smile grow cruel. “Would you like to know where you taste the best? I’ll tell you all about it.”
She jerked back from him, started to push him off of her. “I’m done. Get off.”
“No. That’s not the way this works.” He slammed his hands on top of her arms, pinning them to the bed.
She raised her knees and was about to kick him off of her when he nestled his head by hers and whispered harshly in her ear. “You could do that, but I don’t think you should. Remember, sweet, I’m the only person on this planet that can give you what you want.”
Claire dropped her head back onto her pillow, and stared at the ceiling. He was right.
“Of course, I’m not sure if I’d give it to you just how he would’ve.”
“Shut up,” she interrupted swiftly.
“But she’s not surprised, is she?” he said, and he slid his fingers over the clasp of her bra. “I’m not sure if you’ve noticed - I certainly have, at least, and that ridiculous little boy you are amusing yourself with has too, by the way…”
Sylar liked to take his time with his favorite parts, and he slowly, slowly unhooked her bra. “I’m not sure if you even know this, but…you’re not fooling anyone.”
She looked up at the ceiling and did not blink.
He spread the thin strips of satin wide, and Claire felt his eyes raking her body. She was naked now, and he was staring, his lips pursed and his dark eyes never leaving her body. His breathing sped, and his large hands cupped her breasts.
“As I was saying. You think a man can’t tell when you’re pretending he’s someone else when you kiss him. He’s an insufferable twit and I will kill him eventually, but…don’t be naïve, Claire.”
He kissed her ribs, her sternum, her mouth, and it was not gentle. “He knows. And I know. The difference between him and me is that I know your secrets. I know just what’s going on in that darling blonde head of yours.”
That pissed her off. She raised her courage and smiled thinly at him. “You’d like to think you know everything about me, wouldn’t you?”
His erection was rigid against her belly. “I do. And you know I do. I think you like that I do.”
Suddenly her patience snapped. “Get off me. Get the fuck off me, I’m sick of this!”
“I hate it when ladies curse, usually, but with you it’s, well. Do it again, please,” he said, and she hated the mocking lilt in his voice. She hated that she couldn’t tell when he was being serious or not.
“Of course I’m being serious, button.” He answered her even though she hadn’t spoke aloud. He raised one of his long fingers, pressed it lightly against her nose. “You really need to learn to turn off the jumbly thoughts in your head, you know. I hear everything.”
She started to shake, in a bad way.
“I heard you for months, you know. I could hear you thinking about him from miiiiiles away.” He smiled down at her, sweetly, like he was pitying her. “So sad, really. The desperate little girl crush. It was very cute, the way you used to hold onto his every word, every spare gaze he’d bother giving you.”
She stared straight up at the ceiling. He was unbuckling his pants now, and she tried to stop the shaking in her thighs, because she knew what was coming.
Sylar grabbed her chin and forced it toward his face. “It was more than that though, wasn’t it? I want to hear you tell me why.”
She looked at him with a burning hatred. “You can just get bent. I’m not telling you anything you want to hear. I just want you to shut up and to hurry up, okay?”
He sighed dramatically but he was excited, very excited. They’d done this enough times for her to recognise that. “No, no. I think you have to tell me. You have to tell me all about your desperate little crush. I want you to tell me why it was so bad and wrong.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He was fussing in between her legs, shrugging his dark slacks down to his knees. He grabbed her hips, and his fingers were hot and pressing. She moaned. “Well hot damn, Claire, if you won’t tell me, I’m not going to do it. We can just end it here like civilised people.”
He let go of her, and in that moment she felt choked and trapped, like she was being smothered. She grabbed his arms. “No, don’t!” She frowned and she felt her lip quivering. She’d lost against him. Again.
He laughed at her now, his jackal grin spread beneath eyes that were black and feral. “There she is.”
Tears rippled in the corners of her eyes and she raised one fist to hit him on the shoulder in a defeated sort of way. “You bastard, I…I fucking hate you, you know.” She covered her eyes with her hands.
“Oh, stop it,” he said good-naturedly, and he ran a finger down her sternum. “It’s all in fun, Claire Bear.”
“Don’t call me that,” she said brutally, and her hands were still over her eyes. “I’m never doing this again. This is the last time.”
“Never?” On the last syllable she heard his voice move up an octave or two, drop the lisping tone and adopt a scratchier one. The weight on her body lessened some, and Claire felt herself stop breathing.
It was always at this part that she, just for a few brief seconds, let herself believe.
She lifted her hands away from her eyes and…there he was. The same long hair falling over her forehead and an easy, crooked smile. The same warm golden eyes that used to look at her while she spoke and she would know in that moment that he was truly understanding her.
He was staring at her, just a few inches away from her face.
“Peter,” she breathed.
He smoothed one palm over her forehead, and he nodded. She grabbed his hand and pressed a kiss into it.
“So you never want to do this again? You do hate me.” He teased her with that open smile of his.
She put her hands on his arms, his shoulders, his chest. His skin was pale and smooth, dusted over lightly with dark hair. “Of course I don’t hate you.” She reached up to him and pressed her lips against his. He murmured her name and clasped his arms around her.
This was not Peter: she knew this. Knew it in her gut and in her soul but she turned off those loud screaming parts inside of her. That’s what all of this was about, wasn’t it? She’d paid her dues and now she had her moment, and she sure as hell wasn’t going to waste it. She was going to pretend and she was not going to think anymore.
She kissed him, long and slow and smooth. It was sweet and it was tender and he let her set the pace, like he always did. She trailed her fingers into his hair and sighed happily when he finally pulled his lips away from hers.
“Claire.” He kissed her breasts, caressed her hip and waist. “My sweet Claire.” She watched him do it, hunger in her eyes.
“Are you sure you don’t hate me?” he asked as he crawled over her, set his knees in between hers.
She wrapped her legs around his waist, tightly. Like she could hold him there if she pressed herself against his flesh hard enough.
“I could never hate you,” she said with a tremor in her voice. “I love you.”
He thrust inside her with one long, slick push. She cried out and he laid his body on top of hers, warm and comforting in its heaviness. “I know…I know you do.”
He pushed himself up a little, and raked one hand through the hair at her forehead, holding her face open to him. And then he pulled out, almost all the way.
Her legs were still digging into him, and she clenched him closer. “Don’t…” she started to say, before the welcoming fullness entered her again, filling all those empty places inside of her, pushing out all of her painful thoughts and tears.
“I won’t,” he said, and this is what made it all worth it, made her keep on letting him into her bedroom. Even if she could have stopped him she wouldn’t, because for these precious, precious minutes she was whole and she was real and the reason for that was the fact that Peter…her Peter was here.
“I’m never going to leave you, Claire. I promise. Never again.” Her breath hitched as he spoke to her earnestly, and she dug her feet into his back.
It was at first a slow rocking, her eyes on his because she would not waste a second of this. She studied every line of his face. She didn't waste time crying, had gotten over that after the first few times. Instead she relished every sensory detail - the scratch of his stubble, the swish of his hair, and the way he penetrated her to the deepest parts of her body, his hips rubbing rhythmically between her thighs.
She felt her orgasm building inside of her; the pain of wanting and dreading it at once nearly overwhelming her. She pushed her hands into his hair, pulled his head against hers. “Longer - please. Just…” she begged, just before the wrenching feeling shook through her lower back.
Claire gasped and groaned deeply, threw her head back into her pillow but she never closed her eyes and she never looked away from him. Peter watched her with a loving, sweet sort of smile, and he was still, very still as she came.
Her body was warm and she felt fluttery and calm and she almost had herself believing as he pressed kisses along her neck and into her mouth. His voice was soft and low. “I love you, Claire. You’ve got to know that. I’ve loved you since I first saw you in that high school.”
Claire’s lips trembled as she kissed him. “I love you too, Peter - God. I love you so much.”
He started moving more quickly. Claire watched it building in his body, the sweat beading on his forehead as he got closer and closer. Peter reached down between her legs, and began rubbing her in that familiar way - the way he always did.
He brought her with him as he came, his head on her neck, their bodies slick and intertwined on her bed. She wrapped her arms around his neck, tightly, and she held him there as the last pieces jerked out of him, and she felt very warm and very full. Like it was complete. She was complete.
She laid like that for no more than a few seconds. But in that tiny moment there was peace and there was quiet, two emotions that Claire hadn’t experienced outside of these moments since the day she watched her uncle burn into the sky.
Burn. Hot red and orange.
This was always when the real tears started.
The truth crackled through her, breaking her fine illusion into a million pieces. Her face crumpled. She closed her eyes, tightly, because she knew what was coming next.
“That’s right, Claire,” he said, and his voice was back to being harsh and horrible in her ear as he grasped her chin, turning it to him, though she refused to open her eyes. He was still inside of her when he whispered brutally into her ear, his lips brushing against her hair. “The sky is dark now and you’re not fooling anyone, not even yourself. I’m the only one that can give you what you want, and do you know what that is? Do you?”
She refused to answer, waited for ages.
So did he.
He broke her finally, and she mouthed the words, though she couldn’t seem to tie her voice to them.
“That’s right, Claire. Your uncle. You want your uncle. You’re in love with your uncle.”
She was crying now, and she heard him chuckle low in his throat.
“Your dead uncle.”
fin.
a/n: it's been three weeks since i've had time to write anything and god, i'm sorry that when i finally did it is this story. it started as a cute little west/claire ficlet and then out of nowhere sylar showed up (i havent written him since august) and he made things all horrible and fucked up. my apologies. i'll try to write something less horrible next time. school is kicking my ass though, so be patient.
in happier news, unfinishedline has fifty friends now. wow. thanks guys.
Author: missaliceblue
Pairing: Sylar/Claire, Peter/Claire, West/Claire,
Rating: NC-17 for language and sex.
Status: 1/1, Complete. 4000 words. Spoilers through 2x03.
Summary: This is how Claire Bennet deals with it. Angst, smut, and some seriously messed-up dynamics.
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
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After the first time, she closed her eyes when they would fly together. It had been three months since he’d met her and she never seemed to grow tired of it. She asked him to take her up - up there - all the time.
“Scared?” he asked her with a smile on his face as they zoomed through the cold air.
“No,” she said, like she was irritated, and she was, probably. She pressed her face deeper into his sweater and she didn't look up until they were back on the ground.
-----
West had tried being nice and he had tried talking about what they had in common, and none of that worked. But he couldn’t stop at this point - he wanted her in an irrational sort of way. His wanting didn’t respond to his orders to calm down, not care, leave it alone. He wanted her in a way that made him try too hard.
He was scaring her off and he knew it and there was nothing he could do to stop it.
She responded at the very beginning when he challenged her, so that’s what he tried again, now, because she was slipping through his fingers before he’d even had a fair chance.
“Don’t you like being the freak? You want to be like everyone else?” He asked her at lunch one day.
“Yes,” she responded with a ferocious whisper. “That’s exactly what I want.”
“You don’t want to be different?”
“No. Who would?” she said in reply, like he was crazy for liking the fact that he was unusual, for wanting her to stop being so sad about it.
“What does your family think?” He thought of his father and his grandmother, and of everyone else in his family that he knew could crystalise water or burn trees with their mind and on and on...
“I’m adopted,” she said tersely.
“So you don’t know anyone else who’s special? Just me?”
Her mouth twisted and she looked at him with her sad eyes - the sad eyes that had pulled him from across the room all those months ago.
She answered him after a long pause. “Nope. All I’ve got is you.” And she ate her lunch very, very slowly, or not at all. He could never tell.
-----
He asked his mom for girl advice, and was reprimanded a few minutes later for being so dense. He had never asked her out on a proper date. Duh. That’s what the problem was, maybe.
“So…what’re you doing this weekend?” He asked her this as she tucked her papers into her science binder.
“I’m super busy,” she said in her cold, tight voice.
He nodded, accepted it. And vowed to come up with a different game plan.
“But we could go out.” She punctuated the word with pouting lips that made him think about things he shouldn’t.
So he took her to the basketball game. He didn’t like basketball and neither did she, really, but it was something to do and she said she wanted to be out of her house.
They sat somewhere up by the wall and he bought her a pretzel, which she also probably didn't like but she ate it anyway. They drove home in his car and he parked where she told him to, under the dark shadow of a willow tree by her house.
“Did you have fun?” he asked.
“I did,” she nodded seriously, and she was lightly tracing her fingertips on his knee.
“Maybe next weekend we could-“
She kissed him fiercely, shoved her fingers in his hair and she leaned over him, her mouth hot and her fingers everywhere. He waited for that initial, gentlemanly reaction to push her away but it never came.
He peeked at her once and she was beautiful up close, even though her eyes were pinched shut and crinkled.
They’d been going at it for a few minutes when the gentlemanly reaction finally kicked in and he pulled away from her a little, grabbed her hands. “Claire, you’re special to me. Really special. Get it?” he asked, as he fumbled with his seatbelt.
Claire nodded. “Yeah. Yeah. Kiss me again.”
He raised his arm and turned on the light in the console of his car because he wanted her to see the truth. “I want you to know that.”
Claire crumpled back to her side of the car, her fist in front of her eyes. “W-what? Geez, turn the light off!”
“I really want to look at you, just for a minute,” he said, and he knew he sounded like he was pleading but the situation was too far gone to try and hide it.
“’Kay, fine. Go,” she said irritably, and crossed her arms over her body.
He was dampened but not deterred. “Claire, I lo-“
She leaned forward lightning quick and slapped her hand over his mouth. “Don’t! Seriously. Don’t.”
Her hand muffled his voice. “What?”
She kept her hand on his mouth and raised the other, palm up. “Look, just…don’t say that, okay?”
Her hand was still on his mouth, and his eyes crumpled with confusion.
Claire turned off the light tersely, and slid her hand off of his face slowly. The light from the streetlamp lit her face (beautiful and sad) and she stared at him for a long time. Stared at what, he didn't know, because the light was behind him and he could practically feel the shadows creeping over his cheeks and mouth.
She leaned forward and frenched him hard enough he felt their teeth click. But he wasn’t stupid, and even when she pushed him up against the window and rubbed her hips against his, he didn't forget.
“Claire, Claire. Little Claire,” he said, and he nipped her behind the ear.
It was late at night and they were on her bed. Her door was shut and locked, and she could hear the tree by her bedroom window shivering as the wind raced through it.
“Did you miss me while I was gone?”
“What do you think?” she said sarcastically.
“I think you did.” He was smiling at her again.
She sighed and turned her head to the side. “I didn't.” He was laying on top of her but it was more than that, really. He was on top of her and around her - covered her body completely. Sylar was bigger than her. In every way.
“You shouldn’t lie to me, Claire. I don’t like it.”
“I’m not lying to you. I didn’t miss you,” she said dully.
He laughed, and lifted her shirt a bit, kissed her stomach. “Ah, Claire. Skinny Claire. You’ve lost weight. The sad princess pining for her lover?”
“Yeah right,” she said with a scowl.
He smiled. “Remember what I said about the lies. I don’t like it when people lie. Very ugly. And you…are not ugly at all, are you?” His fingers trailed upwards from her belly.
Claire took a deep breath, and stared at the dark head that was laying on her torso.
“You’ve always been a pretty girl. You’re skinny now, but you’re still pretty. I still approve. I know that’s important to you,” he said.
She shook her head and rolled her eyes. “You are so incredibly stupid,” she said, and he laughed.
And then he looked pointedly at her chest. She was wearing a button-up shirt because that was what he liked and her strong words were undone with just his gaze. His fingers reached for her shirt.
“Am I?”
His eyes were bright and excited as he carefully undid each button, and he seemed to relish the way each tiny disk squeezed through the thin slit of fabric.
“You might not have missed me…but you’d miss me now if I left, wouldn’t you? That’s why you keep inviting me into your bed, isn’t it?” He parted her shirt, exposed her chest and torso. She shivered as the cold air hit her skin, puckering her nipples beneath the thin silk of her bra.
“Oh, Claire,” he breathed. He ran his fingers lightly over her hair, and leaned in to carefully lick her bottom lip.
She bit her lip, hid it away. “Come on…” she said.
“Come on what?” he asked her, grinned at her after.
“You know…” she said in a tired sort of voice.
“--I know a lot of things.” He said it like he meant it and he probably did.
She rolled her eyes and he laughed at her, again, pressed his hips into hers provocatively. “I could show you some of the things I know, Claire. I think you’d like that.”
Claire blinked and ignored him.
He eased off of her, and put his fingers on the zipper of her jeans. “I’ve become all sorts of powerful. I can do things you can’t even imagine.” He unzipped her jeans with one quick, terse movement.
“But do you know what I can’t do?” He didn't wait for her answer as he carefully parted the top of her pants, hooking just the tip of his finger underneath her waistband.
“I’ll tell you, Claire, since you won’t ask. I can’t seem to get anyone else to be you.” He pulled down the front of her underpants and gave her a long, slow look there, and Claire kept on biting her lip.
He stared back up with her with what seemed to be approval. It would have creeped her out a few months ago, but now it just made her anxious and eager.
Not that she’d say that to him. He already knew.
“Don’t think I didn't try with little Candice, because I did. I’ve tried with an awful lot of people, and no one else compares. Which is why I indulge you now.”
He pulled her jeans off of her hips, slithered them down her thighs and calves. She sucked air through her teeth.
“But don’t forget that I’m doing you a favour. Never forget that. I’m being nice. And I can stop being nice any time.”
She lifted her head off of her pillow. “Is that a threat?”
He crawled back over her, and his expression was predatory. “I don’t have to make those anymore.”
He lowered his lips to her collarbone, licking her in the cleft of her neck, between her breasts. Goosebumps broke over her skin.
“It’s very inconvenient, you know, the way you taste. No one else tastes the same.” He pressed his knees between her legs, scissored them open roughly. Claire made a sound in the back of her throat.
It was short though. He soon stole it from her lips, muffled it with his tongue as he penetrated her mouth, filling every corner with his hot, wet stroking. She shivered.
“Mm. No one. Pity, because you’re so troublesome, my little Claire, but I can’t seem to get enough of you.”
“Can you please wrap this up?” she asked, her patience breaking momentarily. She didn’t want to make him angry, but this was pushing even her limits.
“I will wrap this up when I feel like it,” he said, and she watched his smile grow cruel. “Would you like to know where you taste the best? I’ll tell you all about it.”
She jerked back from him, started to push him off of her. “I’m done. Get off.”
“No. That’s not the way this works.” He slammed his hands on top of her arms, pinning them to the bed.
She raised her knees and was about to kick him off of her when he nestled his head by hers and whispered harshly in her ear. “You could do that, but I don’t think you should. Remember, sweet, I’m the only person on this planet that can give you what you want.”
Claire dropped her head back onto her pillow, and stared at the ceiling. He was right.
“Of course, I’m not sure if I’d give it to you just how he would’ve.”
“Shut up,” she interrupted swiftly.
“But she’s not surprised, is she?” he said, and he slid his fingers over the clasp of her bra. “I’m not sure if you’ve noticed - I certainly have, at least, and that ridiculous little boy you are amusing yourself with has too, by the way…”
Sylar liked to take his time with his favorite parts, and he slowly, slowly unhooked her bra. “I’m not sure if you even know this, but…you’re not fooling anyone.”
She looked up at the ceiling and did not blink.
He spread the thin strips of satin wide, and Claire felt his eyes raking her body. She was naked now, and he was staring, his lips pursed and his dark eyes never leaving her body. His breathing sped, and his large hands cupped her breasts.
“As I was saying. You think a man can’t tell when you’re pretending he’s someone else when you kiss him. He’s an insufferable twit and I will kill him eventually, but…don’t be naïve, Claire.”
He kissed her ribs, her sternum, her mouth, and it was not gentle. “He knows. And I know. The difference between him and me is that I know your secrets. I know just what’s going on in that darling blonde head of yours.”
That pissed her off. She raised her courage and smiled thinly at him. “You’d like to think you know everything about me, wouldn’t you?”
His erection was rigid against her belly. “I do. And you know I do. I think you like that I do.”
Suddenly her patience snapped. “Get off me. Get the fuck off me, I’m sick of this!”
“I hate it when ladies curse, usually, but with you it’s, well. Do it again, please,” he said, and she hated the mocking lilt in his voice. She hated that she couldn’t tell when he was being serious or not.
“Of course I’m being serious, button.” He answered her even though she hadn’t spoke aloud. He raised one of his long fingers, pressed it lightly against her nose. “You really need to learn to turn off the jumbly thoughts in your head, you know. I hear everything.”
She started to shake, in a bad way.
“I heard you for months, you know. I could hear you thinking about him from miiiiiles away.” He smiled down at her, sweetly, like he was pitying her. “So sad, really. The desperate little girl crush. It was very cute, the way you used to hold onto his every word, every spare gaze he’d bother giving you.”
She stared straight up at the ceiling. He was unbuckling his pants now, and she tried to stop the shaking in her thighs, because she knew what was coming.
Sylar grabbed her chin and forced it toward his face. “It was more than that though, wasn’t it? I want to hear you tell me why.”
She looked at him with a burning hatred. “You can just get bent. I’m not telling you anything you want to hear. I just want you to shut up and to hurry up, okay?”
He sighed dramatically but he was excited, very excited. They’d done this enough times for her to recognise that. “No, no. I think you have to tell me. You have to tell me all about your desperate little crush. I want you to tell me why it was so bad and wrong.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He was fussing in between her legs, shrugging his dark slacks down to his knees. He grabbed her hips, and his fingers were hot and pressing. She moaned. “Well hot damn, Claire, if you won’t tell me, I’m not going to do it. We can just end it here like civilised people.”
He let go of her, and in that moment she felt choked and trapped, like she was being smothered. She grabbed his arms. “No, don’t!” She frowned and she felt her lip quivering. She’d lost against him. Again.
He laughed at her now, his jackal grin spread beneath eyes that were black and feral. “There she is.”
Tears rippled in the corners of her eyes and she raised one fist to hit him on the shoulder in a defeated sort of way. “You bastard, I…I fucking hate you, you know.” She covered her eyes with her hands.
“Oh, stop it,” he said good-naturedly, and he ran a finger down her sternum. “It’s all in fun, Claire Bear.”
“Don’t call me that,” she said brutally, and her hands were still over her eyes. “I’m never doing this again. This is the last time.”
“Never?” On the last syllable she heard his voice move up an octave or two, drop the lisping tone and adopt a scratchier one. The weight on her body lessened some, and Claire felt herself stop breathing.
It was always at this part that she, just for a few brief seconds, let herself believe.
She lifted her hands away from her eyes and…there he was. The same long hair falling over her forehead and an easy, crooked smile. The same warm golden eyes that used to look at her while she spoke and she would know in that moment that he was truly understanding her.
He was staring at her, just a few inches away from her face.
“Peter,” she breathed.
He smoothed one palm over her forehead, and he nodded. She grabbed his hand and pressed a kiss into it.
“So you never want to do this again? You do hate me.” He teased her with that open smile of his.
She put her hands on his arms, his shoulders, his chest. His skin was pale and smooth, dusted over lightly with dark hair. “Of course I don’t hate you.” She reached up to him and pressed her lips against his. He murmured her name and clasped his arms around her.
This was not Peter: she knew this. Knew it in her gut and in her soul but she turned off those loud screaming parts inside of her. That’s what all of this was about, wasn’t it? She’d paid her dues and now she had her moment, and she sure as hell wasn’t going to waste it. She was going to pretend and she was not going to think anymore.
She kissed him, long and slow and smooth. It was sweet and it was tender and he let her set the pace, like he always did. She trailed her fingers into his hair and sighed happily when he finally pulled his lips away from hers.
“Claire.” He kissed her breasts, caressed her hip and waist. “My sweet Claire.” She watched him do it, hunger in her eyes.
“Are you sure you don’t hate me?” he asked as he crawled over her, set his knees in between hers.
She wrapped her legs around his waist, tightly. Like she could hold him there if she pressed herself against his flesh hard enough.
“I could never hate you,” she said with a tremor in her voice. “I love you.”
He thrust inside her with one long, slick push. She cried out and he laid his body on top of hers, warm and comforting in its heaviness. “I know…I know you do.”
He pushed himself up a little, and raked one hand through the hair at her forehead, holding her face open to him. And then he pulled out, almost all the way.
Her legs were still digging into him, and she clenched him closer. “Don’t…” she started to say, before the welcoming fullness entered her again, filling all those empty places inside of her, pushing out all of her painful thoughts and tears.
“I won’t,” he said, and this is what made it all worth it, made her keep on letting him into her bedroom. Even if she could have stopped him she wouldn’t, because for these precious, precious minutes she was whole and she was real and the reason for that was the fact that Peter…her Peter was here.
“I’m never going to leave you, Claire. I promise. Never again.” Her breath hitched as he spoke to her earnestly, and she dug her feet into his back.
It was at first a slow rocking, her eyes on his because she would not waste a second of this. She studied every line of his face. She didn't waste time crying, had gotten over that after the first few times. Instead she relished every sensory detail - the scratch of his stubble, the swish of his hair, and the way he penetrated her to the deepest parts of her body, his hips rubbing rhythmically between her thighs.
She felt her orgasm building inside of her; the pain of wanting and dreading it at once nearly overwhelming her. She pushed her hands into his hair, pulled his head against hers. “Longer - please. Just…” she begged, just before the wrenching feeling shook through her lower back.
Claire gasped and groaned deeply, threw her head back into her pillow but she never closed her eyes and she never looked away from him. Peter watched her with a loving, sweet sort of smile, and he was still, very still as she came.
Her body was warm and she felt fluttery and calm and she almost had herself believing as he pressed kisses along her neck and into her mouth. His voice was soft and low. “I love you, Claire. You’ve got to know that. I’ve loved you since I first saw you in that high school.”
Claire’s lips trembled as she kissed him. “I love you too, Peter - God. I love you so much.”
He started moving more quickly. Claire watched it building in his body, the sweat beading on his forehead as he got closer and closer. Peter reached down between her legs, and began rubbing her in that familiar way - the way he always did.
He brought her with him as he came, his head on her neck, their bodies slick and intertwined on her bed. She wrapped her arms around his neck, tightly, and she held him there as the last pieces jerked out of him, and she felt very warm and very full. Like it was complete. She was complete.
She laid like that for no more than a few seconds. But in that tiny moment there was peace and there was quiet, two emotions that Claire hadn’t experienced outside of these moments since the day she watched her uncle burn into the sky.
Burn. Hot red and orange.
This was always when the real tears started.
The truth crackled through her, breaking her fine illusion into a million pieces. Her face crumpled. She closed her eyes, tightly, because she knew what was coming next.
“That’s right, Claire,” he said, and his voice was back to being harsh and horrible in her ear as he grasped her chin, turning it to him, though she refused to open her eyes. He was still inside of her when he whispered brutally into her ear, his lips brushing against her hair. “The sky is dark now and you’re not fooling anyone, not even yourself. I’m the only one that can give you what you want, and do you know what that is? Do you?”
She refused to answer, waited for ages.
So did he.
He broke her finally, and she mouthed the words, though she couldn’t seem to tie her voice to them.
“That’s right, Claire. Your uncle. You want your uncle. You’re in love with your uncle.”
She was crying now, and she heard him chuckle low in his throat.
“Your dead uncle.”
fin.
a/n: it's been three weeks since i've had time to write anything and god, i'm sorry that when i finally did it is this story. it started as a cute little west/claire ficlet and then out of nowhere sylar showed up (i havent written him since august) and he made things all horrible and fucked up. my apologies. i'll try to write something less horrible next time. school is kicking my ass though, so be patient.
in happier news, unfinishedline has fifty friends now. wow. thanks guys.