He confesses his sins to you in breathless sighs. He's so familiar to you, yet so mysterious. He wasn't always like this. No, not too long ago he was yours. Now he's consumed like oxygen to a flame. The eyes that look at you are no longer filled with wonder, now they are filled with hunger.
A hunger you will never be able to satisfy.
No matter the brutality he has caused, he is always gentle with you. His hand goes through your hair and down your face. You loved those hands, used to love to watch them work. Now, the work they do chills you to your core. You know the blood, the death, that's been caused by those hands but now they're gentle on your skin and for a moment he's yours again.
His lips are on yours as your hands go to his hair, no longer combed back away from the face now missing black rimmed glasses, instead spiked in every direction, possibly showing how disjointed he's become. He comes to you when he can, when he needs an escape from the evil he sees, the evil he causes. Before the eclipse, before everything you ever loved changed, he came nightly to your bed. His name was always on your lips at the peak of ecstasy.
But now there are too many names. His soft lips move to your neck, his hands wandering and your body slowly going into auto-pilot.
Your mind screams at you. Giving you reason after reason to pull away, to run from what you've loved for so long.
Abomination
Death
Destroyer
Murderer
But as he says your name in a husky lust filled voice, you forget it all. You go back to those moments when he'd forget the ticking and was only engrossed in you. You go back to those times when it was just the two of you in his shop, making the other forget about their horrible life – you miss his smile the most. Miss the way his smile used to represent happiness, laughter, you. Now when he smiles, it's almost animalistic…he smiles when he stalks his prey. But when he's with you, you swear his smile is different; that it's only for you to see. You go back to the times when you thought he would be the one you called husband.
That's all changed now. Power is all he wants, except for moments like this when he comes to you in the night and for a moment you see the man you fell in love with again. You know of the terrible things he's done and you know of how it pains him as well. He had always felt so inadequate, just an ordinary watchmaker. He strived to be special, different.
But to you he was always special. To you he had always meant love, security, warmth. And even though that warmth is gone and you don't always feel that security, the love is still there. You know you still love him, you tell him every chance you get and when he says it back, you want to believe him. So no matter what he says, what he does he'll always be the man you met when you happened into his shop one rainy afternoon.
You'll never know him as Zane or as Sylar.
For you, he's always Gabriel. He's always your angel.
And in the end, it's always the same. He kisses your lips and you kiss back, soaking in the final moments. He curls himself around you, his chest firmly against your back, and his arm around you. Sometimes he'll even take your hand in his and on some occasions it doesn't send a chill through you to know what those hands have done. Sometimes, when he takes your hand in his, you kiss it and smile but no matter your feelings you always take his hand and pull it close to your chest as he blankets you. When you hear his breathing slow and steady, you pray to whatever God is listening that you stay ordinary, that he finds redemption, and that in the end, blood and death will not be the last thing you see of him.
You pray that your angel finds peace and comes back to you.