Title: An Elaborate Dance
Author: Scarylittleelf
Rating: T / PG
Characters: Sylar, Claire, Nathan (mentioned)
Summary: Sylar POV in an invisible thread on his interactions with Claire.
Authors Notes: This started out as a random thought and morphed into a mental analysis of Sylar/Claire interactions.
It was all an elaborate dance. An elaborate lie. Fascinating in its intricacy, alluring in its reserve. They were both lying to each other and to themselves.
He wondered if it still counted as a lie, if they both knew that it was. And whether or not telling the lie with your words was negated by telling the truth with your actions. It was strange to him, lying to Claire. He had never done it before. He had hunted her, attacked her, killed her friends and family, terrorized her and tried to turn her into as much of a monster as he was. But he had never lied to her. He knew the value that she placed on truth, for he valued it just as much. How vital it would be to her. Her father had lied to her for her entire life; her real family had shown her nothing but disappointment and betrayal. They had all lied to her at one point or another, for numerous reasons. But not him. So it was strange to him to look her in the eye and tell her that he was Nathan, as the lies half veiled in truth slipped from him.
She was cautious. Her questions barely giving any information away in case he wasn't who he seemed to be. Good girl, troubling and mildly complicating, but still. He would be slightly disappointed in her if she was too trusting. As Maya had been.
His hand quivered at the closeness of her skin as he reached out for her necklace and held the fragile piece of metal around her throat. He remembered Mexico, her laughter, her hopeful eyes looking up at Nathan as she began to believe that he would atone for his mistakes. But then he saw more. He saw Noah, and Sandra and her brother, as they celebrated her birthday, he saw her bleed from a wound that she inflicted on herself as she helped the puppeteer escape, he saw water as she hid underwater with an unfamiliar face, he saw her helplessness as she began to realize how trapped she was as the government hunted her and her kind. Memory after memory assaulted him, over a years worth of her life flashed behind his eyes.
He pushed them aside for now. He could peruse them later to better understand the slight blonde before him. He let the lies about Mexico pass smoothly between his lips, reassuring her, as a father would, while pushing away the tinge of discomfort he felt at his deception. He made sure that each lie was accompanied by a truth. He had been worried about her, he was headed for the hotel, he did want to shut down building 26, and he did feel that Claire knew him better than anyone else did. These were truths turned to lies simply by the voice that uttered them and he felt himself stumble in the dance, his feet tripping almost imperceptibly beneath him. An outsider probably would not have noticed, but she did. His beautiful and deadly dance partner watched him with piercing green eyes, recognizing but not acknowledging his misstep. She did know him well.
Instead, she smiled a sweet smile and looked down, continuing their dance of deception. Continuing the falsehood with her words and honey dipped sweet words of apology and reassurance of her faith in her father. And so he continues as well. Offering her the chance to get away, to be safe. In truth, he does want to protect her. He felt her pain that he had caused her before and felt pain because of it. She seemed to draw the instincts out of him and nearly every other being around her. He wanted to protect her and make her safe. He didn't want to hurt her even though he knew that he would. Because his desire to protect her was countered with desire to break her and hear her scream, a desire that was just as strong. She was beautiful in pain. He was her own personal nightmare and he couldn't change that. The moment of truth stung him. His own words echoing from the past to metaphorically bite him in the ass. "That's the thing about the truth…It stings like a bitch."
The lies were beginning to drown him, the truth painful but necessary, like all evils. He allowed his mouth to continue the lies even as he showed her the truth with his actions. He angled the door to the bathroom open a small margin. It wasn't much but just enough for her to see the prone form of her father if she bothered to look. She was insisting that she accompany him, and put herself in the middle of all of this. It was hard to tell if she noticed. Her eyes glanced down once or twice but neither her voice or her face ever faltered. He began to wonder if she knew and was just better at this dance than he was. He entered the bathroom, allowing himself a small breath and as he retrieved his (Nathan's) coat, stepping carefully over the legs of the body on the floor.
As he stepped out, her posture betrayed her. Her shoulders had shifted back slightly and her head was tilted to one side, her calm expression, perceptively forced. So it was this time that her steps faltered and he continued their dance, by saying aloud, the words that he had felt were true since the day had acquired her power and began to truly understand her. That he wanted her right there, right by his side. She was one who was truly deserving of her power. She was the only one who could withstand him and thus she would be the only one who could stand by him. He could never hurt her. Not physically anyway, and the part of his being that was still Gabriel, would never want to hurt her in any other way. She would be able to love all sides of him, just as she had learned to love the light and darkness in herself, the light and dark sides that he had been carefully cultivating for the better part of a year. He had once been pure and untainted as she was in Odessa years ago, but he had discovered more of himself, and more of her with each passing day.
It wasn't until he had actually taken her power that he began to appreciate what she was, and what she dealt with everyday. She did not face a simple human life with a simple death. She faced near immortality everyday, alone. She, who relied on her family and friends so much, would lose them all to the evils of time and age, and she would eventually be alone. But not now. Not anymore. He needed her to understand that he would be there for her, even when they would all leave her. So he smiled and continued their dance, raising his arm to her as he walked, a silent offering, more than just his arm, more than simple trust, more than steps to their dance. He wasn't even really sure of what he was offering to her as she stepped in time with him, a small smile curling her lips as she curled her slight arm around his. He felt their silent music swirl around them, but even with all his powers he could not tell if the melody was one of romance, horror, tragedy, adventure or a swelling crescendo of them all as they walked arm in arm out of the room. Hunter and prey, walking together. Two skilled actors veiling the truth behind smiles, fooling everyone but each other. Two beautiful dancers, flowing through the steps of a complicated dance, to music only they could hear.
*****
He was impressed with her in the entrance of the Stanton Hotel. Her eyes told him clearly that she knew who he was, but her steps never faltered. She skated through the steps of dutiful and intelligent daughter even as slight inflections in her voice told him she knew his secret. It was odd to him to admit that she was turning out to better at this dance than he. He was a murderer, a terrorist and a self-proclaimed serial killer. He had the ability to understand everything and anything in the world. And yet she was somehow better at navigating the treacherous steps of his dance than any other partner he had danced with. She kept him on his toes, monitoring his steps, his words, rather than the other way around. Her tiny smirk at him as she flaunted her knowledge of the president's chief of staff proved that to him. He knew from the memories that he gained from Liam's hand as he touched him, that Liam and Claire had never met, yet she surpassed his knowledge by simply using her head and a little common sense. He was beginning to stumble more often now. Her presence was becoming more and more unsettling. Her consistent yet small defiance's pushing him to step faster, harder, to dance better and be more convincing, but only resulting in more obvious slip-ups.
"I thought you were right-handed." Her honey-dipped words now dripped with a new poison. One of knowing, and accusation, veiled and barely apparent like arsenic among the sweet syllables that left her cherry gloss lips. Ah, but it was her first major step. The first verbal acknowledgement of a mistake in their dance, making it that much more heated. That much more passionate, virulent and intense. That much more dangerous.
And now he circles her, his words curt and explanatory, not for her but to the other ears listening in. His words are lies, but his feet circle around her as the precious, delicate prey that she is. Their dance takes more life into it with each step, each breath; eyes and ears and skin acknowledging what the tongue and words cannot. At least not yet. They reach the suite; each step begins to slow, becoming a bridge into a bigger moment. They play their parts, both waiting for the change in the music, the cue that will lead them to their next set of steps. Unchoreographed, unknown yet unchangeable, unavoidable, and they both knew that they were coming. The discordant ring of the cell phone is the cue in their silent, singular melody that they both perceive yet do not hear. And so it begins that the dance of deception comes to a close and moves fluidly into the dance of truth and revelation.
And he is looking forward to it. He begins to understand now. She was better at the dance of deception. She was born in it, and she grew up in it. While she had always craved the truth, she was uncomfortable with its sharpness and its stinging pain. One that not even she could heal from. And so they began the dance that he excelled at, and he would just have to teach her the steps. He felt more comfortable now that he had shed the face of her father and herself. He was himself again, he now had her all to himself, and there was much to discuss.
"Ah god, this is fun."