A/N: This first chapter, gorgeous and sensual and lovely as it is, was not written by myself. It was penned by Trekker47 (47_trek_47 on LJ) in response to a LiveJournal Heroes Kink Meme contest and published anonymously on 10/18/2008. It had pretty much the same title it has here. As you'll see at the end of this chapter, it stops at an odd place, leaving the reader just begging for what happens next. Given that years had passed and others had also begged for a sequel and not received one, I did what any fervent fanficker should do and I wrote one myself. Then I contacted the author and received her kind and generous permission to reprint her work with attribution and follow it with my own. So. You will see an obvious difference in writing style and I don't claim to know the author's original intent. Mine is only a possibility. There are six chapters, approximately 15,000 words.

Setting: This is an AU which has no relation (none at all!) to my usual work. It is roughly the Exposed Future, in that abilities are known to all, but those with abilities are also horrifically persecuted. That has bled over to create a general persecution of anyone who is "different". It has created a cultural shift and re-introduced human slavery into any society sophisticated enough to manage the infrastructure for it.

Warnings and Notes: Explicit sexual content, light bondage, non-explicit torture, Slave!Peter, Mostly Evil!Sylar, Morally Ambiguous!Peter, Passive Aggressive!Peter, Almost Certainly Evil!Nathan (background character), reference to past child molestation, non-con sex (well, he's a slave… non-con is kind of assumed), occasional bad language, adult themes, cuddling, the death of Danko. More on the dark side than not. Ends well.

Ever since he'd heard they'd caught Peter, Sylar had been hunting through the slave markets.

Peter, of course, was never supposed to have been sold into the open market, but by some paperwork mix-up, he had been auctioned off in an anonymous lot of a thousand to a wholesaler.

Most of the lot had gone to distributors. A few of them, though, had been purchased by private dealers. One of those dealers was at this market today.

Most of the crowd was here looking for slaves in the more traditional sense. Factory owners, municipal garbage companies, people looking for maids, gardeners, sometimes even nannies. The slaves propped up the bottom rung of the economy nicely, and cheaply. But, once you passed through the large holding cages in the front, where slaves were being sold en mass to the factories, and then past the area beyond that were the slaves who were considered docile enough for household service sat placidly under tents, rarely restrained by anything more than the dealer's dirty looks, you reached the area in the back where the "companion" slaves were caged.

And that was where the dealer he was looking for today was located.

It didn't worry Sylar that if they could catch someone as powerful as Peter, they could possibly catch him. Peter was weak, and he trusted too easily. One of his friends had probably turned him in for the reward and he'd no doubt gone along like a dimwitted puppy. Sylar knew better than that, and in any case, ever since he'd teased the secrets of telepathy out of that cop's brain, he'd been able to tell anyone anything he wanted. Just like Luke Skywalker.

Sylar smiled slyly. He liked that. As he walked up to the cage of the dealer he'd been looking for, he introduced himself as "Lucas," and put on a soft, farm boy drawl. "I'm looking for a male. A brunette," he said. "White. Youngish. No more than thirty. And he has to be pretty."

"I've got one," the guy said. "But he's a strong guy. Beat the hell out of another one of 'em when he caught him fucking around with one of the girls."

Hmm. That could be Peter. Depending on if the fucking around was consensual or not. "I'm interested," Sylar said.

The dealer went to unlock the main, chain link door of his enclosure, beside which there was a laminated page listing all the STDs his slaves were tested and negative for. Sylar leaned in, trying to catch a peek down the narrow aisle between the cages as the man went back to retrieve the one he was talking about.

The dealer banged on one of the doors and snapped, "Back up, you. Turn around, hands behind your head," before taking out his keys and unlocking the padlock. He grabbed the slave's remote from where it was hooked to the chain link as he went inside.

Oh, yes. Sylar smiled as the pair emerged.

He'd heard rumors of the President's personal security team scouring the area markets.

But he was too late. Sylar had found Peter first.

He was naked but for a tight, black jockstrap that really hid nothing, and his muscles gleamed with oil. He stopped just outside the enclosure and stood with his feet spread wide, his chin up, and his eyes blazing with defiance. Not a hint of recognition, though. That wasn't surprising; almost all of the slaves had their memories wiped at the same time they were sterilized and the implant that suppressed their powers was installed.

The dealer went on to Sylar and handed him the remote that controlled Peter's implant. "He's a bit feisty," he said. "If you two want to get to know each other, there's a space around back."

"Thanks," Sylar said, then gestured with the remote, looking at Peter. "Shall we?"

Sylar saw a muscle jump in Peter's clenched jaw, but he did as asked.

Around back was an area closed off with cubicle paneling, with a folding chair and a bench inside. On the wall was a basket holding a grungy tube of lubricant, a box of vinyl gloves, and a bottle of waterless hand sanitizer. A printed sign was pinned next to the basket, saying "No exchange of bodily fluids!" and, beneath that, in smaller letters, "Smile! You are being filmed!"

One glance at the security camera confirmed Sylar's suspicion that it was fake, but it was irrelevant, anyway.

Peter had turned around and was fixing him with that tense, defiant stare again.

"You are a pretty one," Sylar said, stepping closer. "And so fierce. I like that. I'm gonna enjoy ripping that fight out of you."

"You don't scare me," Peter said.

Sylar sniffed, amused, and said, "Not yet."

He took a moment to just look Peter over, top to bottom, not hiding at all where his eyes lingered. Once he'd finished his perusal, he said, "I think I'll call you Peter."

"Peter?" Peter said. "Why not just go one step further and call me 'Penis?' Or 'Asshole,' given I'm sure that's all I'll be to you, anyway."

Sylar smiled pleasantly. "Oh, thanks for reminding me. I wanted to see that. Bend over and show me."

Peter just crossed his arms. "And if I don't?"

Sylar silently raised his hand holding the remote. It was a small, black device, about an inch square, that sort of resembled an iPod shuffle. It had a plastic thumb wheel that turned between one and ten, with a red button in the center and a small switch in the upper right hand corner. The numbers represented varying levels of painful feedback, transmitted straight into the slave's brain by the implant at the back of their neck. 1 was not much sharper than a static shock.

10 was literally unbearable, incapacitating, whole-body pain. In Sylar's slave-holder licensing course, the instructor had said that it was a given that any slave subjected to it would experience some degree of post-traumatic stress syndrome, most likely for the rest of their lives. The instructor, something of a humanitarian in Sylar's opinion, had told them no one should really ever encounter a situation severe enough to call for flipping the safety switch that unlocked levels 8 through 10. Dealers were required to disclose if a slave had ever been exposed to the highest level.

Peter just snorted, unimpressed.

Sylar flipped the safety switch to "off" and twisted the dial up to 10 with an easy slide of his thumb.

By the way Peter went instantly pale, Sylar knew that-disclosure from the unscrupulous dealer or not-Peter clearly knew exactly and viscerally what that number meant.

Without even being asked again, Peter turned around, pulled the strap of the jockstrap down under his ass cheeks and bent forward, spreading himself open with his hands.

"Very nice," Sylar drawled. He grabbed the lube from the basket-ignoring the gloves-and dripped some on his fingers. "Are you clean, pet?"

"Of course I am," Peter huffed. "That jerk didn't feed us since yesterday morning."

"Tsk," Sylar said, turning the dial down to 6 with his thumb and pressing the button. Peter cried out at the unexpected pain. "You will answer me with yes or no, and you will address me as 'sir' or 'master.' Understood?"

"Yes, master," Peter said, his voice utterly dripping with sarcasm.

"Very good, pet," Sylar said, lightly. "We'll work on tone later." Then he pushed two slick fingers into Peter's ass.

Peter hissed at the intrusion, but otherwise didn't react. His ass was tight around Sylar's knuckles. "Tense, pet?" Sylar asked.

"Fuck you," Peter said.

"Ah ah." Sylar hit the button again, feeling Peter's ass spasm around his fingers as Peter grunted in pain. "Try again."

"Yes, Master." His tone still said fuck you.

"Good boy." Sylar pushed in a little deeper, then began to slowly finger-fuck him, in and out, in and out. Slow, hypnotic strokes.

"Am I your first?" he said, conversationally.

"No, master, I'm sure you're not," Peter snapped.

Sylar let the additional commentary slide. "Am I your first that you remember?"

A pause.

"Answer me, pet," Sylar said, gently, pushing his fingers in deep and twisting them, sliding his fingertips across the slick, giving walls of Peter's insides.

He heard Peter's voice crack, just slightly, as he said, "Yes, sir."

"Then I am your first. This is special. You'll remember this for the rest of your life."

Sylar let his fingers slide out. He pulled a tissue from his pocket and wiped them clean, then said, "Stand up. Dress yourself."

Peter took a moment to comply. Then he stood and turned, pulling the jockstrap back into place. His eyes were less sure and his gaze wavered.

Sylar smiled and reached out, tilting his chin up with the hand he'd fucked him with. "You're not sure whether you're relieved or disappointed."

"No, sir." Peter said. He was not agreeing with Sylar; he was denying it.

Sylar slapped his cheek lightly. "I didn't ask you a question, pet."

He felt Peter's teeth grinding, a subtle vibration through his jaw line, but Peter didn't speak.

"I'm going to take you home," Sylar said. "And I'm going to fuck you, and hurt you. I'm going to chain you up, naked, with no food and no water, unless you take it from my mouth, like a kiss. And when your spirit finally breaks, and you're irrevocably mine, I'm going to fix this thing," he reached around and tapped his finger against the implant - no more complicated than a German watch - "and then take a look inside your head. Figure out that magical power of yours. And after that... you and I, pet, we'll rule this sorry world."

The dealer was waiting for them outside.

Sylar smiled and said, "I'll take him."