Sylar watches, absently swirling the last of the wine around in his glass, as Claire twirls the spaghetti strands onto her fork. One drops off, and the rest spill loosely as she tries to recover it. She glares down at the noodles as if they are being intentionally disobedient.
What is it about watching her eat that holds such fascination for him? He wonders. It occurs to him that he's spent the better part of his life dining alone. That's probably a leading factor.
Plus, she tends to look leagues more delicious than the food.
He wrinkles his brow in distaste. Where did that come from? Averting his eyes as she takes the final bite, he focuses on finishing his wine. She places her fork on her plate.
"Do you want dessert?" he asks, setting his glass down.
Claire puts her palms out briefly.
"If I eat any more tiramisu, I won't fit through the door."
But she fits nicely in Sylar's building. And the bed. He likes having her there, a fixture more involving than even the most intricate of timepieces.
"Actually . . ." she says pensively, playing with the stem of her glass, "can we even get fat? I mean, I can't see surviving explosions and then keeling over from heart disease, you know?"
"Probably not," he guesses. "I mean, I don't jog or anything . . . and I think there was a ten year period where I ate pie every day, so . . ." He shrugs.
"Hm." Claire smiles contemplatively.
"Claire, are you lamenting the fact that you'll never be morbidly obese?"
She chuckles.
"No. It's just funny, the things we can't do, because our bodies interpret them as damage. For instance—" She tips her wine, tastes it. "We can't get drunk. You know, I've never been drunk, not once in my entire life."
"It's intensely overrated." Sylar savors power, and control goes hand in hand with that. There's nothing like intoxication to shoot control all to hell.
"I just always thought I'd go out with friends on my twenty-first birthday and get hammered at some bar. Guess I saw it as a rite of passage, something dumb like that. Like prom." She raises her eyebrows, adding in retrospect, "Which I also missed, come to think of it."
"So you missed having your toes crushed to the tune of sappy, overplayed pop songs and then getting groped by some adolescent pervert in the back of a limo. Every young girl's dream."
Claire smirked.
"Is that how your prom played out?"
"You mean was I groped in the back of a—"
"You know what I mean, Sylar."
"No," he says, fiddling with the unused knife lying by his plate.
"So, what was it like, then? You didn't step on any toes?"
He looks up at her, and she's only half-teasing. Beneath that guise, she's really curious, sad that she missed out on the experience herself. Sylar considers making up some extravagant lie, filling her head with soft lighting, soft music, and maybe some heavy petting for good measure.
"I didn't go to prom, either," he says truthfully.
"Why?" That's not right, her face seems to be saying. You had a normal life back then. I didn't even have a chance.
How can he answer, really? He was a geek in glasses who didn't have a date or a clue. He's put a lot of work into overcoming that past.
"Damned if I remember," he replies. "Anyway, I'm sure my reason was a lot less interesting than yours."
"Mine being that I was trying to rid the world of you."
He raises his empty glass in a mock toast.
"How'd that work out, by the way?" he teases, just as their waiter arrives with the check.
"It's a work in progress," Claire retorts, sitting back with an appreciative sneer.
They leave the restaurant, and he can't stop glancing at her. She likes dressing up when they go out; he's noticed that. Now she's wearing a beautifully cut, olive-hued dress that dips just low enough in front to allow a nice view. He wants to put his arm around her shoulder just so he can brush her clavicle with his fingertips. He doesn't, of course.
He had to practically make her buy the damn dress. Or, rather, let him buy it. She seemed wary to have him spend any money on her, as though she stood a snowball's chance in hell of exhausting his funds. But she needed more clothes and was clearly drawn to the dress when she glimpsed it in the formal wear department. He finally snapped that if she didn't buy it like she obviously wanted to, he'd turn her into gold and the store could use her as a mannequin for all he cared.
Sylar isn't the only one glancing at her. She gets a lot of admirers, but she hardly seems to notice, staring down at her feet.
"Claire," he says, stopping to hail a taxi. "What if I told you . . . I could get you drunk?"
She looks up at him, skepticism written all over her face.
"Well, I'd have to call bullshit," she says.
He shrugs.
"Forget it, then."
He lifts his hand, but Claire tugs at his sleeve, pulling his attention back to her.
"Okay, I'll bite," she says. "How?"
"I can slow it down," he says simply, doing his best to sound nonchalant. All he needs is for her to link this little trick with the Haitian's power. "It's something I . . . well, picked up along the way." He hastens onward. Best to gloss over the blood and gore bits; Claire isn't particularly fond of them. "We'd still have to put back quite a lot, but if we showed a little dedication, I think we could get pretty well drunk off our asses."
Sylar mastered the Haitian's ability long ago-far better, he's certain, than its original owner. And while he's never hesitant to use it when in pursuit of some delicious power, he is entirely unwilling to apply it to himself, to turn off his own abilities even temporarily. However, in the course of his experimentations, he's found it isn't necessary to feel the full effects of the power. He can also use it tweak any given ability, turn it down a notch or so, if he wishes. Which, of course, he typically doesn't, basking in the vast collectio he's acquired. But he feels like giving Claire a treat tonight.
She narrows her eyes at him, and he braces for the question, Where'd you get that one from? In his mind, he's already forming a blatant lie: Some middle-aged nobody in Arkansas—took twice as long as usual to cut through his skull. He's willing to displease her with gory details if it helps her believe him.
But instead, she merely asks, "Have you tried it before?"
He nods.
"Once."
Once, Sylar went to a wedding, and he decided to indulge a bit, getting nicely buzzed on expensive champagne and tequila and vodka and whatever else they happened to be serving at the open bar. He wound up dancing with the bride—without her knowledge and fully against her wishes—and when she tossed the bouquet, no one caught it, because it never came down. Maybe in his slightly drunken state, he wanted her to catch on to his presence, but she didn't, because she was just too damn deliriously happy, the goddamned glowing bride in virginal white with the sun bouncing off her hair.
If he'd been really drunk, he might have lost all inhibitions entirely and given into his strong desire to rip the groom out through the too-cute Just Married sign painted on the back window as they drove away. But he didn't, just took a few random leftover bottles back to his hotel, got smashed in private, and woke up the next morning without even a hint of a hangover to attest to the previous day's events. And then life rolled on, uninterrupted, for thirty years.
Claire stands at his side now, contemplating his offer. Part of her can't help but think he'd be a fun drinking partner—well, interesting is maybe a better word. She isn't convinced he won't start regaling her with slurred tales of his horrific escapades, but . . .
"Okay," she relents.
He raises his eyebrows.
"Let's do it," she says, giving him a level stare. "I mean—if you really can."
He laughs at the subtle challenge in her voice, then takes out his wallet and hands her money for cab fare.
"Go home," he says, and when he says home, he means his and hers. "I'll find a liquor store. Shouldn't take too long."
He sees her into a taxi, stops her from shutting up part of her dress in the door, then takes off in search of copious amounts of alcohol. This probably isn't a good idea, but she's so damned wistful about these things. It seems to Sylar that, whereas he focuses on the experiences offered by immortality, Claire fixates on the few experiences denied by it.
Guess I'm the optimist in this relationship.
He smiles when he enters the store, the bell overhead dinging as he pushes the door open.
At the very least, he concedes, she's probably one hell of a drinking buddy.
[] [] []
Sylar arrives home to a truly horrifying development. Claire has uncovered his photo album. At this very moment, she's staring at a picture of Gabriel Gray's mother standing with her arm slung around her clearly uncomfortable son.
He believes this has to be, by far, the most nightmarish event to occur since Claire's arrival-and that's taking into account the bloody therapy session.
"Did you go through my things?" he asks accusingly as he sets his purchases down on the end table.
"Why the hell do you look like Clark Kent?" she returns plaintively, ignoring both his question and his obvious disapproval.
His mouth tightens as if she's offended him.
"That's how I looked," he says.
"Well, you looked like Clark Kent," she responds with raised brows. "In a sweater-vest. Who's that, your mom?"
He sighs and turns his back on her. There are several clanks as he reaches into the bags and begins pulling bottles out.
"Mm-hm," he answers shortly, then amends, "Well—for all intents and purposes, anyway."
"What's that mean?"
"Nothing. That's my mom."
"I didn't know you had a mom . . ."
"Well, of course I had a mom. What'd you think—they forgot to lock up Hell one day and I made a break for it?"
Claire laughs shortly.
"Something like that . . . So, what ever happened to her?"
"Take a guess, Claire." This conversation is making him rather grumpy. "That picture was taken years before I even met you. She's dead, obviously."
"Yeah, but I mean—"
"She-got-old-and-she-moved-to-Florida-and-she-died!" he rattles off quickly with a roll of his eyes, slamming yet another bottle down.
"Florida." Claire raises a dubious brow.
He turns to look at her, a dark glower on his face.
"Florida," he reiterates firmly.
"If you say so." She shrugs and begins to turn the page, but he rushes over and snatches the album away from her.
"That's enough of that," he says. He moves to put it back in the coat closet, where it's been stored away in a shoebox since he purchased the building. He makes a mental note to find a better hiding place for it. Or simply incinerate it as he should have done ages ago.
"Hey," she calls to him from the couch, where she's sprawled on her stomach with her chin in her hands, the hem of her dress riding around the bend of her legs.
"Yeah?"
"I kind of want to see you like that," she says thoughtfully.
Sylar shakes his head, confused.
"What are you talking about? Like what?"
"Like you were in the picture—all nerded up." Claire smiles widely, and it takes him aback a little. He blinks.
"No," he says nevertheless.
"Aw, come on . . ." she wheedles, momentarily sounding every bit the teenager she looks.
"Why, for god's sake?"
"I don't know . . ." She ponders it for a moment. "I just think it'd be interesting, seeing you from a new perspective."
He finds himself really, ridiculously considering it for a second. She looks awfully convincing, lying there on the couch with her dress dipping in front. Then, with a grimace, he catches himself and tosses his head as if to clear the nonsense out of it.
"I don't have that stuff anymore," he informs her as if to close the discussion. "That was a long time ago."
But Claire just won't take no for an answer.
"Well, you can fake it. I'm not asking for a carbon copy, just . . . Give me your best Gabriel Gray." She pulls her knees under herself and sits up. "Do it for me?"
Looking at her—looking at that look she's donned like a highly convincing mask—it hits him like a punch in the stomach that Claire Bennet believes she can manipulate him. He isn't sure how he feels about that.
"All right, then," he says, wishing very much to regain the upper hand here. "You want to play dress up? Go put on your cheerleading uniform."
"I don't still have that old thing," she replies, giving him a look that suggests he's mentally deranged.
"Oh, really?" he challenges, adding inwardly, You and hubby never played that game?
"Of course not." She's a good liar, he has to give her that.
"It's in the closet, Claire, in your suitcase. I packed it."
"What?" she squeaks, eyes widening. "Why would you pack that?"
"I don't know, why would you keep it?"
There's a tense moment, which he breaks.
"Anyway, that's the deal. One watchmaker for one cheerleader. Or—" He gestures to the bottles lined up on the table. "-we could just forget the whole thing and get straight to our six bottles of tequila. You know, like rational people."
Stroke of genius, he thinks, giving himself a mental pat on the back. Check and mate.
But Claire rises from the couch and walks past him, almost brushes him, and the phrase getting up in his face comes to mind despite the height difference. She vanishes into the bedroom for a while, locking the door, and he can hear her rifling in the closet. He waits uneasily, busying himself with opening one of the bottles.
The lock clicks open.
"Your turn," says a voice from behind him.
His mouth drops open slightly at the sight of her. The uniform is discolored with age, but it hardly matters. Years and years and a lifetime or two since the first time he saw her, and suddenly it feels like yesterday.
"Sorry, no pom-poms," she says, uber-casual, strolling up to the end table to take the bottle from him. She sniffs the contents warily and makes a face.
"I—have to shave," he says, running a hand over the seemingly permanent stubble on his jaw. Quasi-permanent, as Claire would say.
"Why's that?" She's still peering uncertainly at the tequila.
"It really isn't Gabriel unless I shave."
So, he heads for the bathroom.