Chapter 7: Lambaste
Claire strode up to the patient's bed, looking a bit dissident. She was certainly only doing what she was asked to and nothing more. "Why did you save us?" She snapped without any to and fro.
"Us who? I didn't save you little Claire. You never really need saving, did you forget?"
She looked up to the heavens. Why was it that her conversations with Sylar always had to be so convoluted and marked by double meaning? "Why did you want to save the planet?"
He looked at her like she had two heads, "cause without people it would not be much fun? Should I hunt animals? Any surviving bacteria perhaps?"
"What are your intentions with your newly found fame?" The blond continued with her investigation, knowing that it wasn't really Sylar's answers that mattered, but what he was thinking when he heard them. Peter would be listening to those in the background.
"Who said I wanted fame?" Maintaining a shapeshift would've taken valuable energy away from telekinesis.
"What is it you want?"
To be loved. "Out of here," he raised himself on an elbow. The pain in his middle where those weird and inexplicable surgery scars were, intensified and he closed his eyes for a moment until it passed to some extent.
"What is it you want from the world outside?" She refrazed the question. She had been told to keep prompting him to cogitate about the most important things in his life.
Indeed, what would he want from the world outside when all the people alive who mattered to him in some positive or negative way were his very captors and the only one who he hoped to play part in his future was standing right in front of him. He pointed to the door nevertheless, willing it to move, perhaps out of habit of asserting himself, he didn't know, but all that happened was the nausea building up in him. Realizing he was threatening to look very uncool in front of Claire by throwing up, he lay back and put in some effort to summon a faint smile instead, "I'm just becoming extremely stiff and sore from lying here, so I'm thinking a change of scenery will do the job."
A frown creased Claire's forehead. It felt like she wasn't getting anywhere with his enigmatic answers, but maybe Peter will with his thoughts. Next item she should be focusing on. The news crews. "Are you all right for an interview with CNN?" She bit her bottom lip. It was a just question, given the circumstances, but it came out a bit wrong, with a bit too much sympathy and concern for him in her voice. She wondered if he was even aware that his panting sounded like a quiet, wailful groan as his arm dropped lifelessly by his side. She shook her head. Did she really need to treat him like a human being simply because she had this caring side to her?
Sylar looked at her curiously with a certain puzzlement in his eyes. He was quite sure he had not heard that tone of voice from her, at least not directed towards him. But as his mind wasn't as clear as it could've been, he couldn't quite place the phenomenon. He didn't need any reminders when it was so hard to forget what it was like to kiss her and he had tried so hard. "What have they done to me? Why is it I'm feeling so bad?"
Claire's eyebrows rose, "perhaps you would feel worse if you used your body in a physical sense to stop the asteroid, don't you think? But going against it all by yourself was nevertheless pretty stupid, especially if it's you were talking about? There are at least a dozen people with telekinetic abilities who could've joined forces."
Cooperation! Like anybody ever wanted to work with him if they weren't forced to. His gaze wavered, he was having trouble concentrating. The tune of his father's shop's own grandfather clock flitted through his mind, almost sounding out all else. To overcome the lighheadedness, he took a couple of deep breaths. "Their help would have been negligible," he slurred through the buzzing and humming in his ears. It was the truth, at least partially. He was able to ask for assistance if he needed it, that wasn't it, it was the inevitable rejection he feared. If he didn't use his powers, nobody took him into consideration.
"What's the matter?" Claire noted his shakiness, "should I call the doctor?"
Sylar would've laughed out sardonically if he could have. What doctor? Doctors around here did not signify anything good, Mohinder included, if you could call him that. His eyes dampened a little with the sheer magnitude of his self pity, not as much regarding his current situation, more so concerning his destiny to be alone till the end of days and more, atonement or not, apparently. He had saved the entire human race and was not forgiven. What else could he do? Was self destruction even possible? He will have to think about that, what options were there.
Suddenly he could feel the slight weight of a hand pressing on his arm, soft and little, and very gentle, "are you in a lot of pain?" Claire probed him intently, making him very confused. That look in her eyes, so tender and merciful? He liked it, but could not relish it for his scars were throbbing painfully.
"Yes," he said faintly, panicking. Although he could still feel her hands on his skin, he had the sensation of falling back and away from her any second now and into an unclimbable, dark pit, where he was to stay for the rest of his life.
The little blond turned to the observation window, "I think he had passed out."
tbc
