Promises
Inspired by "Heavy In Your Arms" by Florence and The Machine
"This will be my last confession.
I love you never felt like any blessing.
Whispering like it's a secret only to condemn the one who hears it.
…With a heavy heart."
Part I: Denial
2013
"I'll spend the rest of my life trying to kill you."
"Shh. Don't cry," he coos in her ear, trailing a thumb down her cheek to catch the tears flowing there. His fingers have no right to be as soft as they are. He pauses for a moment to give the drop of saline on the end of his digit a curious glance before he focuses on her again and sucks it into his mouth. His eyes never leave hers as he moans, tasting the evidence of her torment.
"I'll take care of you, Claire." Deceiving palms seize her face, his fingers continuing to roam and stroke while he angles her about, forcing her to look at him through her futile struggles. The hands holding her captive give no indication of the strength they wield; of the raw power concealed within the immortal flesh. He has no right to be as gentle with her as he is.
"I'll never lie to you, or betray you." His velvety voice fills her ears as the blade slips into her palm, his fingers folding hers around the smooth metal of the handle to grasp it. "I'll never abandon you." Her father's eyes are seething with fury when Sylar takes her trembling chin, tilting her face upward to bestow a chaste kiss on her forehead. His lips and words have no right to feel as genuine as they do. "I'll never forsake you."
He laughs a laugh of cruel amusement when she shoves him away and slashes wildly at his throat through bleary vision. Her aim is true and she lands a mortal blow that leaves him temporarily gasping for breath as blood, blacker than the death following in his wake, fills his lungs. The sick gurgle of his morbid humor escapes paling lips before the wound closes, an ever lasting reminder of the eternity he is determined that they should share. She sends the steel edge of her weapon whistling through the air again and again, cutting, ripping, tearing, and sinking into his unyielding body. Flecks of crimson speckle her bronzed skin, and he allows it. Claire's fierce screams grow wild, and they both know that she's enjoying her taste of vengeance much more than she should.
Congealing pools of his life force stick beneath her feet, squishing faint sensations of cold between her toes before he stops her. Even then, it isn't really him stopping her so much as the fatigue of intense emotional fallout bringing a halt to her onslaught. When he captures her wrists and pulls her into the ragged, stained remnants of his chest, barely covered with the tatters of what used to be a shirt, it is to keep her from collapsing to the floor in exhaustion and nothing else. "I'll never lead you into the hands of your enemies."
She tries to fight his control when the knife returns from where it had clattered to the floor and slides into her hand again. She wants to fight him. The fire of defiance burns as brightly in her eyes as it ever has, but her body refuses to comply. He knew what he was doing. Wearing her down. She stripped away her own ability to resist, and he allowed it. His knowing smile disgusts her more than she thought possible as it curls over perfect white canines. Feral. Wicked. Demonic.
"I'll never keep secrets from you," he whispers into her ear smoother than a lover. His hands wrap around her shoulders and knead away at the knotted muscles as though he could massage her tensions into nonexistence. "I'll never let anyone else hurt you ever again."
Claire steps over the broken bodies that once housed Sandra and Lyle. The faces of her mother and brother stare up at her in accusation, eyes glazed over and cold, but they're no longer residing within their hollowed shells. They've thankfully been allowed to move beyond the suffering that is her own fate. Noah however, remains. "I'll make sure that you're never lonely again. Maybe someday I can even show you love if you let me."
Her father's eyes widen in fear as she crouches down before him. Her head quirks to the side in the fashion of the calculating predator that Sylar will twist her into, but for now the motion is only completed under the pull of a puppet master's strings. "I'm sorry," she croaks through the raw tightening of her already sob ravaged throat. Pangs of guilt mercilessly rake her insides because she has no more tears to spare for his impending loss.
"It's okay, Claire Bear," he rasps back to her. Noah is nearly unconscious as it is, slumped awkwardly against the wall, but she doesn't want him to see it coming. She gingerly removes his blood spattered glasses and places them in his hand like a gift that she wishes she could give instead of the horror of what she doubts will be a painless end.
"I love you," they tell each other, and Sylar allows it. She waits for him to jerk her along on invisible threads, to force her to commit unspeakable atrocities, but he never does. The threat becomes clear. Noah's death is inevitable, but whether it comes from the monster, prolonged and agonizing, or swift and clean by her own hand, the choice is hers alone to make. It would be easier if he didn't give her an option, but perhaps that is the point of the exercise.
"Forgive me." Sylar mutters something under his breath that sounds like "for I have sinned", but she ignores him. The tip of the blade glides through her father's chest to pierce his heart entirely too easy. Killing the man that had raised her doesn't feel anything like the stabs that she had driven into Sylar's flesh. There is no sense of justice, or righteous pleasure. No will to keep going. Only the give of muscle and bone, and then the hollow release. Not for the first time, Claire wonders if her ability has made her jaded to the human condition. It shouldn't be so simple to deprive another person of their life.
His arms wrap around her quaking form, and she's too weak to fight him. He combs his fingers through her tangled and blood-matted hair, smoothing the strands away from her face, and presses his lips to her temple in a kiss that mocks affection by its very nature. But she's too tired to resist any more for the night and drifts into sleep to the eternal rhythm of his heartbeat. "I can protect you, and keep you safe. You're mine now, and I'll take care of you." It's a promise.
Similar visits are paid to other homes of people that he views as being responsible for their conditions. Matt Parkman, Mohinder Suresh, and the last of the Petrellis. They are all condemned to death. She keeps waiting for him to exert his control over her, but he never does. There is only ever her own hands running red with the blood of her friends and family while he whispers his promises to her. She cries for hours each time, and he allows it, holding her softly into the wee hours of the morning. He has no right to comfort her the way he does.
When Angela falls to the floor into the welcomed embrace of the angels, she starts towards Peter because she already knows what is going to happen. He's clearly terrified, but he doesn't strike at her to defend himself, only pulls her into an adoring hug with a kiss that she'll remember for the rest of her days. Her dear, sweet uncle tells her that he loves her much the same as her father had, and Sylar allows it. As she raises the dripping blade to Peter's chest however, he stops her by yanking on her puppet strings and halting her arm in mid-air.
He won't make her kill Peter herself. Perhaps he worries that it will be too much and break her beyond repair. Perhaps he just wants that claim for his own. She pleads with him to let her do it, and he smiles because he knows he's won some kind of victory over her. Claire willingly crumbles in his arms, begging for the painless death her hero deserves. She shamelessly presses her lips to his in hopes of offering some incentive, or at least sacrifice. He greedily devours the motion and allows it. Peter's neck snaps in an instant with the slightest flick of a wrist that he didn't even have the time to see coming. It's a gift that he's given her. His own offering of good faith; a blessing. As he carries her tired body away she marvels at how peaceful Peter appears to be, as if he were only sleeping. He has no right to be as merciful as he has been.
2015
Sylar keeps her in a constant state of disoriented fatigue by staying on the move in patterns too convoluted, or erratic for her to understand. She no longer recognizes any of their surroundings and has no idea where they are, or where they've been; not even an idea of how long he's been keeping her captive. She has no family, or friends left to hope for rescue from. She has no money, shoes, or clothing except for that on her back which he allows her. He's managed to completely isolate her so that she's entirely dependent on his care which he happily provides with a grotesque smile and a wicked twinkle in his eye. But it doesn't stop her from fighting him; from trying to escape.
He tracks her through the trees of an ice-laden woodland, sparkling in the waning sunlight like a crystalline palace of fantasy. Her bloodied footprints lead him along a macabre trail in the snow. For a brief period, he wishes that she wouldn't make the pursuit so easy. He wants the challenge of a descent hunt; a game of genuine skill and cunning. That feeling doesn't last long. Years of his predatory stalking shadow her life. Claire is no fool.
She waits patiently under the blankets of frost, her body temperature lowered, her lungs void of air, and her pulse slowed, barely lingering on the fringes of consciousness until he approaches. She can hear him pause, shifting his weight over a drift as he twists around to locate her stealthy position. "Claire…" he calls out to her tauntingly. "I can hear you, Claire. You can't hide from me."
"I was counting on it," she stammers through deathly blue lips. The muscles that should be shrieking for mercy from their coiled tension release the sapling that serves her as an ambush tactic. Claire doesn't stop to see whether her makeshift trap is successful or not. As soon as the air fills with the echoes of slurred curses she's bolting back through the forest as quickly as her frostbitten limbs can carry her. It's not fast enough. It's never fast enough.
2016
At night he leads her to bed and crawls in beside her. He hasn't tried to touch her yet, but his presence is repulsive enough. Claire musters every ounce of strength and will available in her body, and she flails at him. She punches, kicks, scratches, and bites. She pushes him down, finding a blade spirited into her hand, and strikes with everything she's got left. She cries and screams, spews obscenities, and venomous words of pure hate while she releases rivers of his blood from violently torn flesh. And he allows it because she's only playing further into his hands. When her body gives out in exhaustion he scoops her up into his arms and brings her back to bed so that she falls asleep securely in his arms with his heartbeat in her ears. He has no right to prey on her needs the way he does.
To be continued…
