Like so many others, I just had to try my hand at expanding the "Invisible Thread" Sylar/Claire scene.
He is trying to make her cry, or vomit, or beg, or do something to humiliate herself, she's convinced of it. He inevitably wants to make fools of all who have ever gotten in his way. He is coolly listing her loved ones who will die, he is running casual fingers along her cheek and talking of "building bridges," he's making her sip wine with him while her stomach churns in protest.
"I'm proud of you, Claire," he croons mockingly into her ear, "you're being so brave." From the corner of her eye, she sees him glance down and smirk at the slightly quaking wine glass in her hand. "This is a big day for both of us. I'm going to move way up in the world, and you-" Sylar tips his glass in her direction, "get to sneak in some underage drinking while Daddy's not around."
"Funny, wouldn't think you'd make much of a politician," she says quietly through gritted teeth, "You'd actually have to convince people to like you."
But he's ignoring her snide words, trying to discern the topic that causes her the most discomfort. He buries his fingers in her hair at the sensitive spot where her neck meets her skull. "It's okay, really, I know how it feels to have no control over your body when you do something terrible. You just look down at your hands" he uses the invisible strings to lift her unoccupied hand, palm turned up, "and their not following your lead anymore." Her possessed hand slowly curls it into a grotesque claw, tendons tightening, and she knows that if she could feel pain this would hurt. She remembers a time when he was careful with her, like she might break. A time when he was unsure of his evil.
"Stop it," she mutters angrily, with as much authority as she can muster. The feeling of watching your own body move without your order is a little bit like moving through the spiraling walkway in a funhouse - you're not quite sure whether it is you or everything around you that is in motion. The lack of pain just adds to this sensation.
Claire watches her hand spiral almost to the point of breaking, in both directions, then watches it relax down lightly onto his knee. Her brain cannot send the signal to wrench it away.
"But you spend so much time in control, Claire, it's such a shame. You've decided that the only thing you can control is yourself, because you're realizing that no one else around you has a clue." It's true - people don't live the way they're supposed to, they don't die the way they're supposed to, and they aren't the heroes they're supposed to be. She is supposed to be here in this room with Nathan, protecting him with her impenetrable courage. Sylar should be dead or, in the best of all possible worlds, feeling every bit of pain that she has missed out on since their meeting at the Bennett house. Or her father should be here to free her
from her puppet master.
Although he could just use his powers to make her look at him, Sylar uses his hands. He sets both of their wine glasses on the table, then raises his hands and snakes both index fingers along her jaw line. She is sickened by the excited twitching of his finger pads and the slight smell of luxury soap mixed with his wine-tinged breath. She tries to dissociate, to force amnesia, to become a part of the wall or carpet.
Sylar grasps her face in both of his hands, turning her head to look her in the eye. An unacceptable boundary has been crossed: There has never before been so much physical contact between them.
"You're trying to be unbreakable so that you can save all of the weak people around you. You think that because you can't die, you're not allowed to feel fear. But I can show you so much about yourself if you just admit that you're afraid." His gaze is absolutely confident, and mockingly benevolent. She wants to gouge the patronizing certainty out of those eyes.
Claire is proud that the words come so clearly and with such audible disgust when she feels so far away. "Stop acting like you know me. Believe me when I say that you can't offer me anything better than the privilege of getting to kill you." Her gift of singular conviction has always matched his. She will kill him, and no other reality can exist. Because the present psychological warfare is becoming unbearable.
Sylar's hands mercifully fall away from her face and he removes himself from the couch, disappearing from her line of sight before she has a chance to see the impact of her rejection on his face.
"I know you can't talk about it right now, Claire. How petrified you are." His voice is moving away from her. "You're still in the thick of it, absorbing everything, in fight-or-flight mode." A door opens, shoes click on tile, Sylar's voice echoes off of the bathroom walls. "But I can help you work through that." A drawer opens. "You're fighting the wrong battles and running away from the wrong people." A rustling of cloth and a clacking of metal.
Claire clenches her jaw tightly and the air leaving her nostrils increases in pressure. Sylar has not allowed her the range of motion to even turn her head in his direction, and the lack of available visual information is maddening. No matter what he's doing, he can't hurt you, she tells herself. But the word hurt has exhausted itself, she doesn't know what it means anymore.
She has given up on responding verbally to him. To speak is to give him more information to use against her, or to show her how little her conviction matters to him, and she cannot stand to feel any more ineffectual. Her only available tactic at the moment is shutdown, autopilot. She will sew her mouth shut for eternity before allowing him to play conversational games with her.
She hears a soft padding on the carpet behind her, then feels his breath on her hair. "It's okay, Claire, I'm learning a different kind of language. Something that comes before speech." If she weren't giving him the silent treatment, she'd remind him that two-year-old's shared this in common with him.
As Sylar places his arms behind her back and under her legs, her neck and head are finally allowed back under her control. She stares at his face, radiating her intent to shut him out, to hold herself out of his grasp mentally if not physically. It's the same message that a defiant child aims at her parents when they make her sit at the dinner table and finish her spinach.
He looks inspired as he lifts her off the couch, his eyes wide and childishly hopeful even as his mouth curves into a competitive smirk. How are you going to try to fight me this time?, the smile asks.
In a spasm of hatred, she spits in his face. Anything to shove a little humiliation back into his head. Still holding her like a baby, not changing his expression in the slightest, he uses her hand to wipe the spit off of his cheek and lips slowly, too slowly. It is meant as a threat - something about using those hands however he chooses to. Turning the body against itself is a torture technique used by countless interrogators.
Claire looks away, trying again to turn her growing panic to stone, but her eyes are caught by the wooden table toward which he is carrying her. There is a large white towel covering most of it, and a collection of metal objects lying near the edge, surgical, unidentifiable, clean. Blades and metal should have a different set of associations when you cannot die, but Claire feels the squirming dread in her stomach press harder.
Sylar lays her down on the towel with deliberate composure. "I'm going to do all the hard work for you. All you have to do is stay calm, don't lose your head." He laughs quietly to himself, then waxes sober. "If this drives you insane, than I'll just have to talk you back down to reality." He lays a reassuring hand on her forehead. "My reality is extremely persuasive, I promise you."
Then he opens her skull, again.
This will continue... Now that I have dragged out my old psych/neuro books for inspiration, I'm afraid there is no turning back ;)