Hell In Her Arms
Title: Hell In Her Arms.
Author: Cherie Dennis.
Summary: She wanted to wake up in her bed knowing that this all was a dream, that she wasn't losing the only man she'd been able to actually give her love to.
Rating: Teen, just in case.
Pairings: Claire/Sylar, mentions of Claire/Peter and Claire/West.
Disclaimer: I own nothing. Sadly. Sad, AU, character death.
Author's Note: I intended for it to be a Paire fic, but it didn't want to work out that way, and I didn't want to force it. So we have Claire/Sylar.
Claire took his hand in her own, amazed still at how rough his fingers were, as if they could tell the story of his life just through touch. She brought it slowly up, her eyes locked onto his as she kissed his palm. She ignored the tears that were so desperately trying to fall and the way that her stomach sunk at the sight of his broken, bruised body. She reached over, her fingertips lightly tracing over the slight arch of his eyebrow. He tried to force a smile, but his cracked, bleeding lip wouldn't let him; it looked more like a grimace.
"I love you," he whispered softly, his hand weakly squeezing hers. She couldn't look away but she wanted to. She wanted to wake up in her bed knowing that this all was a dream, that she wasn't losing the only man she'd been able to actually give her love to. She ran her thumb across the back of his hand, hoping against hope that she could save him somehow, be the miracle he needed to survive. But the only way she could think of doing that was giving him some of her blood, and she wasn't sure how to do that.
No hospital would accept him, not after everything he'd done. He'd made international news by killing hundreds of people, but she stuck by him. He wasn't Peter, he wasn't West, he wasn't what anyone wanted her to become. He was everything she was against, but she loved him and he loved her. She'd lost all the good things in her life and decide that, maybe, the one bad thing that kept appearing could be the greatest thing that would ever happen to her.
She had started spending every moment she could with Sylar. She didn't ask questions as to where he'd gone, what he'd done, who he'd been with. The only thing that mattered was the fact that, when he would come home late at night, she'd feel his arms curl around her as his weight sank down onto the mattress and she'd know, right then and there, that she belonged in his arms. She fit well there, and when he just brushed his thumb over her cheek, she felt more protected and loved than she could ever remember feeling before.
He was the anchor she needed to keep breathing after the disaster with Peter, and the way West looked at her when she left after her father's death, blaming him for the fact that she couldn't be with her father during his last moments, even though deep down she knew that, had West not grabbed her and flown away, Elle would've killed her. Sylar was the only one who didn't expect her to be perfect; he wanted the opposite, actually. He adored her mood swings and when she would make mistakes, would show how truly angry she could get.
And now he was in her arms, grasping for another breath, another moment so that maybe, just maybe, he could survive. She could see the way his eyes changed as he started to pull away from her, could feel the way that he slowly stopped moving. Her stomach clenched around itself as if it were stuck in a massive vice and her hands, shaking with anger and pain, gripped at anything she could grab hold of; his hair, his clothes, his hands. "No," she cried out, her body curling down towards him.
She pulled his lifeless body closer, ignoring the sharp, copper smell of the blood, ignoring the way it stained her white shirt and her jeans. She pressed her forehead to his, letting her tears slip onto his still-warm cheeks, her sobs the only sound between them. She took in a sharp breath and placed a quivering kiss on his hairline, her breath ragged and warm against his forehead.
All around her were the sounds of sirens and she knew she had to leave the apartment, but she couldn't stand the thought of leaving him alone. She knew that, when the police walked in (called in on 'domestic disturbance', she was sure) they'd assume she killed him in self defense. But she didn't; Sylar never laid a hand on her. He'd killed himself, and Claire couldn't stomach how much like Juliet she felt at that moment, holding her lover's lifeless body against hers, wishing there was some way she could join him in death.
The only difference was, however, that she couldn't die. She'd live forever, alone and heartbroken, the memory of Sylar's kiss, his touch, the way he smelled fading from her memory with every passing day. Hell was a lot colder than she'd imagined.