A/N: I know I said a songfic would be next, and I am still working on that. But in the meantime, I hope you enjoy this one X)

Just a Kiss

Sylar's first kiss was supposed to be at a highschool party.

He found himself unwittingly dragged along to the crowded, bustling house filled with deafening music and real, live alcohol – both thrilled and terrified by this strange world and the knowledge that his mother would have a heart attack if she knew where he was. A group of kids, his best friends for that one night only under the influence of cheap beer and toxic punch, actually invited him to join in a game of spin the bottle... but when the thing pointed his way and his heart caught in his throat because it was finally about to happen...the girl gagged and span again.

Sylar laughed it off with everyone else of course. But it was never funny to him.

Years passed, and Sylar learned to live without ever knowing what it was to kiss, instead wistfully dreaming after what he was missing out on. Eventually he accepted that it just wasn't going to happen for him, and came to terms with his quiet, lonely life with his mother and his watches. It was just another desire that was outside his reach: like having friends, like doing what he wanted instead of what was expected of him, like actually daring to be special the way he wished he was...

Until that biggest wish was granted, and suddenly he held too much power that he couldn't begin to comprehend. He did something awful. And he didn't want this power anymore. At the very same moment he intended to end his life, an angel found him and gave him hope. All blonde hair and blue eyes, she was the first person to ever acknowledge Sylar as a human being. She granted him that first sip of something more, that part of life that he had never before known.

She kissed him, just once, the night before she betrayed him. The night before his heart was broken for the first time. That first tingle of lips against his own turned Sylar into a monster.

The second turned him into a liar. Powerless, eroding inside and willing to do anything he had to do to claw his way back to where he once had been, Sylar threw away his second kiss in order to preserve his power. The woman was hardly worth it, foolishly obtuse and childishly naïve with a voice that grated his nerves down to the bone. But that night: heart pounding with the thrill of a recent kill, adrenaline spurning him onwards to manipulate another idiot to do his bidding... Sylar finally learned the truth about a kiss: it wasn't precious or magical the way he had used to believe. It was a weapon. One he intended to wield for himself this time.

But despite this epiphany, his third kiss doomed him. Turned him into a fool, a sucker for love and all the ideals it presented. He should have known never to trust that same woman and those same blue eyes and that same empty cavern in place of where her heart should be. He'd thought he'd learned his lesson, but this time he gave his angel so much more of himself than just a kiss. And the worst part about it was that he'd known she'd betray him again. But that didn't stop him for shedding a tear while he killed her.

Sylar's fourth kiss turned him into a pawn to be played, when he was vulnerable and clueless and innocent and she knew that. The temptress, the prize, dangled in front of him by the rest of the carnival folk, drew him in and he fell – hook, line and sinker. But it wasn't due to her power. He fell for her "kindness", blind as he was to the truth at the time. She took advantage of him when he had no reason or means to deny her, and the whole lot of her twisted, lying "family" let it happen. They took him in under the guise of "home", yet none of them ever cared for him at all. It shouldn't have been a surprise, really.

His fifth kiss was all for show. Once more cheated and drained dry until no further use for him was needed, Sylar used that old weapon, the possession of his mouth over another's, to frighten his victim. To put her in her place. To make her regret ever playing him for a fool. That woman, the wicked witch, the ice queen, the one he had so badly wanted to take care of him as she did her own offspring, perhaps hurt him most of all. It pained him to do it, to be reminded of how stupidly he had believed her at one point, as two different people, violated beyond all belief because he wasn't even deemed worthy enough to exist upon this Earth. But that didn't stop him from giving away yet another of his poisonous kisses.

That one turned him into a broken son. His sixth an open book, while every one of his innermost thoughts and secrets was stolen and used against him by that same tattooed temptress all over again, while the rest of her lot surely all laughed outside the compressed space of the dark trailer. "Impotent" she'd called him. And as much as he'd wanted to prove her wrong, he couldn't.

His seventh kiss made him a desperate cretin, trying so hard to fool himself into thinking he could possiblyhave a chance at something else. A chance at redemption, his "connection" with another human being who might actually understand him... but of course it wasn't to be. He was unworthy of affection, disgusting, repulsive of course. The same way he had been back when the spinning bottle had started it all.

But his eighth undid all the other ones before it. It wasn't until he had lived out an eternity, trapped and isolated in an empty world, driven mad by his past and the unquenchable need to repent, that Sylar finally discovered what a kiss was supposed to be. And it wasn't to be feared. It wasn't to be wielded. It was to be savoured, worshipped, and Sylar eventually felt it all make sense the very moment that his only companion, his deepest, truest connection, saved him. That tender brush of lips was so unlike anything he had ever known: so sweet, laced with the purest taste of forgiveness and love that finally overthrew years worth of hate and conflict between himself and this man who he had danced to the death with multiple times over.

And that last kiss... that last kiss turned Sylar human again at last.

A/N: Thanks for reading, please feel free to leave a comment as always!

Just in case anyone is a little unclear on who Sylar kissed in this fic, here they are in order:

1 – Elle, when she saved his life after he tried to hang himself, then set him up to kill again.

2 – Maya, when infected with the Shanti virus and after killing her brother Alejandro.

3 – Elle again, during the eclipse.

4 – Lydia, at the carnival while Sylar/Nathan had amnesia and Samuel told Lydia to befriend him.

5 – Angela, at thanksgiving after regaining control of his body from "Nathan".

6 – Lydia again, when he returned to the carnival to kill Samuel but couldn't do it.

7 – Claire, when he turned up at her school and tried to form a connection with her.

8 – Peter, within Matt's nightmare world, when they finally overcame everything awful between them. Yes, technically this one wasn't shown in the show – but I took some artistic liberties X)