title: you kill me, you build me up
rating: PG-13
pairing: sylar/claire
summary: sylar watches claire sleep.
warnings: general sylar creepiness, which i maintain really only needs a warning for how disturbingly hot it is.
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baby girl, show me how many different ways you are broken, maybe I can fix you
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He waits patiently.
The floorboards creak and the shutters clack hard against the house, as the rain continues to beat down in sheets off the windowpanes of the older, Victorian-style house she lives in now (so different than the last one, the warm and sunny one in beautiful suburban California). The hours pass and it slows to a fainter trickle, until there is nothing but the low groan of the aging house under years of abuse and weathering.
A sudden flash of movement in the corner of his eye, the tall streetlights flicker for a moment before blotting out once more, snuffed like a half dozen candle flames on a kid's birthday cake while they make a wish.
Mother told him he'd been such a good boy this year. (Well, until he killed her.)
But surely tonight he can make one teensie-tiny wish of his own, anyway. It was all just a big misunderstanding, really...
His head snaps up --he hates when he gets distracted from his musings-- but the movement's less than nothing to be bothered by. Just a neighbourhood stray, a matted mongrel of a dog, desiccated and ruined, another wanderer looking for a final resting place tonight. He hears it howl, a shrill piercing whine in the dead of the night and an involuntary shiver courses up his spine as he watches the feral dog slink off in the darkness with the sunken, hollow eyes of a once-feared predator that has long since lost its fire.
Not like him. No, he's just getting started.
Turning to her bedside, he notices how beautifully the wan moonlight from the bare window of her room illuminates her sleeping figure, erases all warmth from --her lips, her closed eyelids, her hair-- her perfect, unblemished skin, painting her figure in chiaroscuro. Shades of gray shadow her features, and it's exactly as he's always wanted her, open and inviting, radiant in the cool light of night.
Poor thing, all alone in big, dark house on a night like this, surely she'd like some company. Someone to hold instead of the poor, threadbare teddy she's childishly clinging to, as if it will ward away the evils of the world for her, from her.
Poor thing, sweet thing. Talk to me, show me how many different ways you've been carelessly handled by the idiots around you who didn't understand how special you are. Those little boys who groped at you, tried to defile you, they weren't worth a bat of your eyelash. You're better than that. They don't understand you, not like I do. I understand. I'm special, and so are you. We're special.
Lightning forks in the distance, crackles and branches into an eerie phosphorescence, throws his shadow against her bedroom wall, distorts it until its frighteningly tall and imposing, something out of a bedtime story told to children at night to keep them subdued, subservient. (He remembers tiny child's fingers, clenching and unclenching the soft weight of a pillow as he tried to hide his own tears in the dark of night, brush them aside so they didn't see him afraid, didn't see him cry.)
Baby girl, show me how many different ways you are broken, maybe I can fix you--
And as if on cue, she does.
Like a puppet on strings.
He can see it in the way her forehead creases in her sleep and she wrinkles her nose, almost as if she's dreaming about the pain she doesn't feel anymore in real life once she's awake and invulnerable. He's amazed at the amount of thrashing, she sleeps as fitfully as he did as a child, tosses and turns in her sleep as she moans a name quietly, and clutches the teddy closer to her chest, silent tears running down her cheeks from her closed eyes as she trembles from under the safety of a thick down comforter.
He kneels in front of her bed, rubs a lock of hair between his thumb and forefinger before inhaling her fruity apple shampoo, her soap, her skin and takes a moment to notice the changes, subtle undertones in her scent since the last time he saw her halfway across the continent. Trailing his fingers over her cheek whisper soft he hears it before it happens, cocks his head to the side to take in the all too familiar click and whir of gears moving, spinning into place, perfect synchronicity as he steps back and retreats to her doorway.
The clock chimes three in the background, on the other side of the house.
Cuckoo-cuckoo-cuckoo.
He can see her colourless eyes open wide with fear as she jolts up from bed, gasping so softly he almost misses it.
Almost.
"Sylar."
He stands casually in the doorframe, hands in his pockets as he inhales and whistles softly. No longer a sillouhette, a shadow, now he's her nightmare come to life, a wicked curve playing on his lips as he steps into the threshold of her room, grinning like a chocolate-smeared child caught by his parents with his hand in the emptied cookie jar, as her eyes widen in shock.
"Hello, Claire-bear. Miss me?"