for achanceto_dream: picture prompt (rp with its_notluck)

[heroslayer]

For being January, it was unnaturally warm, fog winding up from the streets as the snow that spotted them melted, shrouding the streetlights in a haze. Long, dark shadows stretched across the sidewalk, fighting a winning battle against what little light managed to get through the gloom, and the whole night was unnaturally quiet, as if the things that usually lurked in the dark were afraid to make a sound. Or like they were waiting for something.

Whatever the reason for their silence, though, Sylar knew one thing for certain. The whole scene was like something out of horror movie, stereotypical and perfect for what he had planned, and as he moved up the street towards Bennet's apartment, he couldn't help but smile to himself. He'd lied about not being able to kill Claire; he had the perfect idea as to how to end her and end her permanently now.

Pausing outside of the restaurant that Bennet kept his apartment above, he took a moment to consider the sign on the door. He'd have to get sushi later, whether or not he was covered in blood, and that in mind, he rounded the building, bounding up the steps to the apartment, nearly manic with glee. He knocked on the door and leaned against the railing behind him as he waited for Claire to answer the door, still grinning.

This time, he wouldn't have to worry about being stabbed.

Blissfully unaware of who was on the other side of the door, Claire pushed up off the couch before moving to answer the door. She didn't think or worry about who was on the other side because she figured that perhaps it was her dad who probably had his hands full of groceries or something. Swinging the door open, she started to smile but the warm expression died almost immediately at the sight of who it was.

"No," she breathed out, her fingers tightening around the door handle.

He pushed away from the railing, a hand falling on the door to keep it open so that she couldn't close it in his face. Not that it particularly mattered -- he'd just rip the door off the hinges and let himself in, anyway -- but he was going for effect here. "Hello, Claire."

She tried to slam the door shut in his face but it wouldn't budge which meant that he was using his ability to keep her from doing so. Letting go of the door, she started to back up as she tried to figure out a way to get out of the apartment since she wouldn't make it past him. "What are you doing here?"

Following her into the apartment, the door slammed behind him, loud in the otherwise silent night. A shrug that was disturbingly casual given the situation followed. "I thought I'd drop in. See how you were doing."

The shrug of his shoulder, the way he acted so casually and the tone of his voice put her on edge right away. He tried to make it seem like it wasn't a big deal that he was there but it was. He had searched her out for some reason and she couldn't help the dread curling in the pit of her stomach. "Why?"

"I lied to you before," he answered, simply. "I didn't mean to -- I've noticed it usually just leads to trouble for me."

His response caused her to blink at him. "Lied to me about what?"

He made a soft, amused noise -- he was sure she'd love this. "About killing you. I was wrong. I figured it out."

Even though she wasn't fond of the idea of being immortal, she certainly didn't want to die this minute and certainly not at his hands. The blood drained from her features but she would remain defiant to the edge because she was never one to back down. "So what? You're here to kill me?"

She started to edge away, moving towards the kitchen and bed area.

"Yep." He didn't bother to let her run this time -- immortal or not, he didn't relish the idea of being stabbed again -- instead raising a hand to smash her into the wall, pinning her there. He watched her for a moment, eyes wide in anticipation, and then he was moving towards her. "It's not that hard, actually. See, I used to take the brains from the people I killed -- I think that's where that stupid brain-eater theory came from. I figured if I do the same with you ... "

The floor fell away from her feet as she found herself suddenly flying backwards, a grunt exploding out of her as she hit the wall hard enough to steal the air from her even though she felt no pain from it. Peering at him through a curtain of blonde hair, she wet her lips as she started to process what he was going to do. "So you came to take my brain? What the hell happened to the whole immortality and ... first first lady?" Not that she wanted it but she was trying to make sense of the change.

He answered her question with one of his own. "What happened to turning me down?"

"What happened to waiting?" she shot back at him.

"Got bored. Guess you should have told me yes when you had the chance." Again, his shrug was far too nonchalant. "Oh, well. Your loss." That said, he raised his other hand, leveling it with her hairline, his eyes dancing up to follow it, and without further hesitation, he was sawing into her head.

When she screamed, it wasn't out if pain but out of instinct. She tried to fight against the invisible hold that had her pressed against the wall, but there was no escaping what was happening. The sawing noise filled the air, matching her screams as the blood started to trickle down her face to blind her.

Ignoring her caterwauling, he made quick work of the top of her head, leaning over to peel it off before she healed. He dumped it on the carpet unceremoniously, thinking first that she wouldn't need it anymore and then that maybe he'd gift wrap it along with her brain for Bennet, and dropped her so that he could slide both hands into her head. He doubted she'd fight back -- she'd been docile enough the last time he'd done this.

"Just like carving a pumpkin," he murmured, flashing her a sick smile. Then, without waiting for an answer, he yanked hard, ignoring the patter of blood on his face, her head still protesting violence even as he --

Suddenly, sharply, reality snapped around him, the scene bleeding away like a television clicked off without warning. Where in that case there would only have been dark, though, he was decidedly aware of his surroundings. A pillow underneath his head, disgustingly soaked in drool. Light filtering in from outside the window above him, faint but obvious. Blankets snarled around his legs and a gaping hole in his memory again, nothing connecting or coming to him beyond the last few weeks. He was back at the Carnival; that nightmare had been, well, a nightmare.

He sat there in the dark for a moment, breathing hard, and then something else snapped. Him.

He was screaming without regard for volume a moment later.

Claire was fast asleep and perfectly fine beside Sylar. There was no mark on her, no sign that the top of her head had been cut off or her brain yanked out in a last ditch effort to kill her for saying no to him just a few months before. Blissfully unaware of the nightmare that the man was having, she slept on until suddenly there was a scream ripping through her consciousness. As she woke up with a rather violent start, she scrambled and looked around wildly for fear of being attacked but there was no one. No one but the screaming man beside her.

"Sylar!" She yelled, reaching out to grab his shoulder as she stared at him in confusion. She didn't know why but his scream scared her. It tugged hard at her heart strings and for a moment all she could think of doing was somehow protecting him. So she shifted to her knees, peering at him as she gave his shoulder a shake. "Sylar, wake up! Stop!"

He stopped abruptly, staring at her, and then he was scrambling to get away from her -- which worked better than he thought it would, if only because he shoved her away, viciously and telekinetically, without meaning to. Then, frantically and without bothering to untangle his legs from the sheets, he tried to get up. He almost got as far as his getting his feet under him before he took a nosedive into the floor of the trailer.

At first she looked confused as she saw the brief flash on his face when he looked at her but then it didn't matter as suddenly he pushed her away. There wasn't very far for her to go considering she slept on the inside on the bed and so she hit the curved wall viciously, the sound of shattering glass filling her ears as her elbow went through the thin plane of glass. She didn't really feel it though and she didn't worry as she looked at him through a curtain of hair, almost eerily similar as to how she had looked at him in his dream.

"Sylar, what the ... " Then he was taking a nosedive and she scrambled after him, trying to get out of the tangled sheets. "God, are you okay?" She tried to move to help him, ignoring the blood running down her arm.

"Get away from me," he hissed, holding up his hands, hoping to ward her off. Where he'd managed to shove her away before, though, this time blue sparks errupted erratically from his fingers, laping at them in warning. Half of him was certain it was a miracle he hadn't accidentally fried her or caught something in the tiny room on fire.

She stopped dead as he hissed at her, her brows drawing together sharply before she simply stepped to the side and hurried out of the trailer. She didn't care she was only wearing a pair of shorts and a tanktop, or that her arm was bleeding, because all she knew was that she needed to get help. Running the short distance to Samuel's trailer, she skidded to a stop in front of his door and then banged loudly. "Samuel! Samuel, are you in there?"

The barker came to the door a moment later, bare-chested and bleary-eyed, and looked down at her for a moment, mutely, trying to recover his senses. It didn't take long, and he reached up, rubbing at his eyes quickly to banish the sleep from them. "Claire. What's happened?"

"It's Sylar." She almost felt bad for waking him up but at the moment she was more concerned about the man she had left behind in their trailer. A strange realization but she brushed the thought away quickly. "He woke up screaming and I tried to help him but he keeps telling me to stay away from him. He's also ... using abilities without meaning to." She glanced briefly at her bloody arm before looking up at the barker once more. "I need help."

He wet his lips with his tongue, and then he was disappearing back into his trailer, briefly. He returned a second later, shrugging into a shirt as he pushed past her to descend the steps. A glance was cast over his shoulder, just to make sure she followed, and then he was moving in the direction of Sylar's trailer, hands held out at his sides, palms flat against the Earth to push any potential rocks out of his path. He hadn't bothered to put any shoes on, and he didn't have time for bleeding feet.

She stepped back quickly as he pushed past her, letting him take the lead as she turned to follow after him. As she did, she brought her arm up to study the damage done. Most of it was healed but she had to wrap her fingers around a particularly long, jagged piece to pull it out so that her arm could finish healing. Tossing the glass into a garbage bin, she followed him to the trailer as she hurried to Samuel's side. She didn't know what to say but the concern was evident on her features.

Another glance backwards as they stopped outside of the trailer, and then he was headed up the stairs. He pushed the door open, poking his head in just to make sure there was no immediate danger to his person, and when he was satisfied, he head in in full, moving towards where Sylar had curled up in the corner, legs hugged against his chest.

"Sylar?"

"Go away." His voice cracked, and he lowered his head, eyes hidden against his knees; clearly he was or had been crying.

Claire stood in the doorway of the trailer, looking at Sylar who had now tucked himself into the corner of the trailer as though he could somehow shield himself or hide away there. Wetting her lips again, she stepped forward a little bit as she changed tactics. "Nate?" she ventured softly, holding up her hands as though she were approaching a skittish animal. "What happened?"

Use of the name he was so convinced was his seemed to help.

"I killed you," he announced, raising his head from his knees, meekly. "I dreamed it, but -- it happened. I know it happened. It was what I said to you in the dream. I think -- it's how I got your power, isn't it? How I can heal like you do?"

The air stilled in her lungs as he told her what he had dreamt about and the fact that he wasn't so sure it was a dream. Swallowing thickly, her eyes flickered to Samuel quickly before she looked back at the man sitting on the floor. "I ... is that why you pushed me away? Were you scared?" She didn't know how to answer him, how to tell him that it had happened.

"I had my fingers on your brain." And he'd woken up in a puddle of his own drool, convinced for a moment that it was her blood, still.

"It was a dream," she murmured, trying to comfort him as she took another step forward, reaching out to him. "It's okay, it was just a dream."

He shuddered slightly, and something between accusatory and incredulous crept onto his face. "You're lying."

Samuel looked mildly interested in the statement for an instant before he schooled his face back into a mask of neutrality. "Lying or not, you're safe here. Claire's safe. You won't hurt her -- you know that as well as I do."

She dropped her hands to her side because the look on his face reminded her more of Sylar than anything had in the last few weeks. Straightening, she looked over at Samuel as he tried to reassure Sylar that they were all safe. Brushing some hair back from her face, she reached over to grab a towel to start wiping the blood from her arm.

Frowning, the barker looked between the two of them, and then he was moving over to Sylar, his hands held up as Claire's had been a moment before. Sylar let him get close, though he curled in on himself a bit more, and Samuel turned, pressing his back to the wall to slide down it next to him. He leaned in, murmuring something that was too quiet for Claire to hear, and then sunk back, arching his eyebrows, his head canted to one side as he assessed his reaction.

Sylar simply nodded, and that seemed to be enough for him, as he was getting to his feet again, this time to shuffle over to Claire. "Come outside with me," he suggested, sweeping a hand towards the door.

She watched warily as Samuel leaned down to whisper something to Sylar, something that she couldn't hear and she knew she didn't dare ask. Whatever it was, Sylar was agreeing to it and she hoped that it would help him to relax a bit. Sighing a bit, she put the bloody towel on the counter before looking to Samuel with a nod. "Okay."

One more glance was tossed in Sylar's direction before she did as she was asked to do, heading outside.

He followed her out, closing the door behind him. Then, once he was sure that Sylar wasn't watching them from the broken window, and without preamble, he told her, "We need to get his memory back."

She drew in a slight breath even though she wasn't at all surprised by the statement. "I figured," she murmured softly, glancing at the broken window as well. "How do we do that?"

"He's tortured, Claire," Samuel said, not bothering with a response to her question. Not yet. "There's something of him left in him, but not enough to make sense of things, and so his subconscious is trying to do it for him. Missing as much as he is, though ... "

He shook his head; it wouldn't have taken Sherlock Holmes to see what it was doing to him.

"We need whoever did this to him. We need Matthew Parkman."

She could see it as well, what it was doing to Sylar, to have some memories or to see the things he had done without having the same bloodthirsty nature. Rubbing the back of her neck, she closed her eyes as he mentioned needing Matt Parkman and she nodded a little. "I could call him but I'm sure he knows what's going on."

She opened her eyes to look at Samuel. "What will happen? You know Sylar will try to kill him once everything is fixed."

"What he did to him -- it's a fate worse than death, don't you think?" He wouldn't protect Matt, if and when they got him here, if Sylar wanted to exact his revenge. The telepath deserved it, and if Sylar killing him made both him and the killer that much stronger, he wasn't going to protest.

She frowned at him because she was torn between wanting to protect Matt and punishing him. He had saved her once, had helped to save her family, but he had also done this. She couldn't quite blame him for killing Nathan but he had hidden it from her, from everyone. He had lied just like her dad and Angela. She looked down, shaking her head a bit. "I don't want to see him die."

"I won't be able to protect him."

"Then at least promise me that if he can make it out alive, that no one will stop him." No one but Sylar.

Samuel reached up, brushing his thumb over his lips as he considered it, well aware of what she hadn't said. "I'll keep the rest of the family away from him. And I won't be the one to bar his path."

Claire wasn't stupid, she knew what would happen once Sylar had his memories back. She knew what he was like when it came to revenge and those he felt had wronged him at some point. She just wanted to give Matt a fighting chance. "That's all I ask," she answered softly, nodding.

Mutely, he returned the nod, then glanced to the trailer behind them. "Call him tomorrow," he suggested. "Bring him to us. In the meantime, I think our friend may have had enough time to compose himself. You should go back inside."

She didn't want to do it, she didn't want to call Matt and tell him to come there. She would be willingly placing him in danger to help someone she knew he wouldn't want to help but she was hoping his own conscience would somehow make him do it.

"Okay," she agreed, hating herself for it. Glancing at the trailer, she pressed her lips together before stepping towards it. Briefly she paused to glance over her shoulder at him before she offered a small smile. "Thank you." For at least coming to help.

Stepping up into the trailer, she stopped just inside the door and looked to see if Sylar was still huddled in the same spot as before or if he had moved.

Samuel offered her a small, exhausted smile of his own, mumbling a reply before turning to head back to his trailer. And Sylar had apparently moved too, off the floor and on the bed now, though he sat in the same position he had when she and Samuel had come in moments before.

Shutting the door gently behind her, she locked it once more before turning around to face the bed. "Are ... are you okay?"

He reached up, raking his fingers over his eyes, and then dropped his hand back to knees. "That's a loaded question."

"Okay." She nodded in agreement as she moved to sit down on the edge of the bed. "Well, are you feeling a bit calmer since waking up? In other words, I don't have to worry about breaking any more windows, right?" She tried to smile but the lame attempt at a joke was probably lost on them both.

"I'm fine." Not likely, and so he corrected himself. "Better. I'm not sure I feel like going back to sleep, but ... "

"It's okay, I'm sure we're all caught up for now." She nodded, leaning back against the wall before glancing at the window once more. "Should fix that." She moved off of the bed once more, moving around to look for something she could use as a cover.

Wordlessly, he gathered up one of he blankets he didn't plan on using any time soon and held it out to her. How, exactly, she planned on holding it in place once it was up, he didn't know, but it was at least something to keep the cold out.

She found an old cardboard box, just a small one but it would do for now. Turning back, she looked at Sylar before nodding and taking the blanket as well while crawling onto the bed. She flattened the box quietly, pressing it over the hole before handing him the duct tape. "Rip me off some long pieces, please." She would tape down the box first before taping down the blanket as well.

He hummed acceptingly and unrolled the tape until he had a piece he judged to be just a bit longer than the window, tearing it off with his teeth once he had it. Still silent, he passed it to her and went to work on another.

The silence remained between them as she worked on covering the window, disturbed once in awhile by the sound of ripping tape and her shifting her weight on the bed as she needed to stretch up to reach the higher parts. Once the window was covered, she felt around for any air seeping in but there was none.

"There we go." She nodded, shifting around to sit on her backside.

Another soft noise, and he leaned to put the duct tape aside, pulling his knees back up to his chest. He rested his head on top of them, and stared blankly at the small table by the door. " ... it really did happen, didn't it?"

For a long time she didn't answer him. She merely sat there in silence, watching him closely as she tried to figure out what she could say to him and what kind of answer she could give. "Yes," she replied with a little nod. "It did, but by someone else. Not who you are now."

It was an honest answer as she rubbed her hands over her knees, drying the sudden dampness.

"It's still me. It's who I was -- what I was. I can't ... " He didn't seem to know how to finish that statement, and so he simply shook his head.

Claire could have sat there quietly and did nothing but she didn't. Instead she slipped forward a little, her hand reaching out to tentatively lay against his arm. "Don't. I survived." She knew it wouldn't be any comfort for him but she had to offer it.

He dropped his eyes to her hand, then looked up at her. "I guess."

She couldn't quite meet his gaze as she nodded, pulling her hand away. "I'll make breakfast." The brief silence felt too long and too awkward as his answer bothered her just a bit.

"Right now?" He didn't know why he was arguing. He wasn't hungry, too disturbed by the dream to want to eat, but having an out to this conversation and her at least a few feet away from him would be a welcome relief.

"Might as well do something since I'm not going to be able to sleep. Mrs. Comey would probably appreciate some help anyways." She slid off of the bed, looking for some jeans to put on and probably a sweater. It would be a relief for her too, to get some distance between them. Especially since she needed some time to prepare herself for calling Matt Parkman.

He flashed her a wan smile. "Guess so."

For a moment she hesitated, standing beside the bed awkwardly. "Just try to relax, okay? It'll be better soon," she stated somewhat vaguely and then she offered a weak smile of her own before she pulling on the clothes. Once she was done, she walked over to the door and looked back at him with another small smile before slipping out.

He took a minute to make sure she was gone, and then he stretched back out on the bed. As he said, he wouldn't sleep, but he needed something to take his mind off of everything that had happened -- the dream, what Samuel had said, Claire's cryptic remark -- and counting the cheap ceiling tiles seem the best way to do just that.


Muse: Gabriel Gray (Sylar)
Fandom: Heroes
Word Count: 4358
Note: Based off of this picture. Samuel is offering_hope and is all mine to use and abuse.