Respite by RedHillBones/NoExitWounds
Rated Mature for violence, language, and sex. Contains rape
Fandom/Characters: Heroes; Sylar/Claire, Molly Walker
Kink: Piercing
Note: This next part isn't part of the Bingo but, rather, another square on the card. It's here for continuity if anyone wants to read it.

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The next morning, after Sylar had sent Molly back to her room and locked the door, he found her with her back up against the headboard and her knees pulled to her chest. She had the sheets wrapped around her, like usual, and she looked up at his eyes when he entered. His eyes were green like hers and dilated with want, not like hers, but she thought about why it even mattered. She could give it willingly and maybe get something in return, or he'd rip it from her anyway and then hurt the sweet little girl that had sobbed so much last night. “You're my own, personal monster.” He laughed, sitting down near her feet and putting one hand on her knee. Claire sucked in a breath, expecting him to part her legs, but he didn't do that. Instead he asked her if she wanted breakfast. Something ugly and vicious twisted up inside of her and she said – angry, and hurt, and sarcastic – “If it pleases you.”

“Oh, Claire. The desire to kill me is still in your eyes. You're not broken yet, but good try,” he told her, reaching up to stroke her face and she shuddered.

What she was was getting there, like a slow, inevitable fall where at the bottom she'd crack all her bones and spill her insides only to get back up without a physical scratch. “I'll do what you want,” she told him. “Isn't that enough?” Please don't beat me. Again.ease don't beat me

“For now,” he agreed and kissed her. Unlike the other kisses this one stayed gentle, kinda tentative, and he rubbed her neck as she forced herself to relax into it. Her lips parted and he ran his tongue over her lips and into her mouth. “Babydoll, it's time for breakfast.”

That's what she was to him, like the An American Girl dolls that looked so realistic, with hair made from real hair, that she'd played with as a little girl. She stayed where she was. If he wanted helpless, obedient, she'd be exactly that until he was so sick of it he begged her to do something else. “Carry me?” she asked with a sweet smile.

Sylar's lips quirked up in an odd confusion as he stared at her, then at her legs, and it switched over to a smirk. “Feeling helpless today?”

She swallowed hard. “I am helpless. You made that clear last night. I'll, I'll do what you want.” Damnit, she hated saying that, she almost choked on the words. “For Molly's sake.”

“You've said that before but then you hurt me and tried to run,” he pointed out, tugging on a lock of her hair.

Claire took a deep breath and ignored the way it made her breasts shift closer into his view. “I-I-I made a mistake,” she admitted. She had. She'd have to kill him first, shove something into the back of his skull, before she tried again.

He laughed at her, reaching out to stroke her hair. “What to know a secret? Shapeshifting isn't just external. I moved the spot. It could be anywhere.”

Her stomach gagged on the thought, threatening to revolt, and tears spilled over her eyes. Sylar hadn't lied to her, didn't feel the need to lie to her, and she didn't think he was lying now. Oh, god. They were screwed. They were fucking fucked. If her father, the one that raised her, couldn't find her, she could be here...

Her lower lip trembling just slightly, Claire brushed the tears off of her cheeks and nodded her understanding. “Despite what a lot of people seem to think about me, I'm not helpless and I'm not stupid. I know my limits. I know what I can do,” she told him seriously, keeping her voice low. She couldn't look him in the face. “You won. And I know my best chance of getting out of here in one piece is by making you happy.”

“How very rational.” Sylar's warm hand brushed her cheek bone with his knuckles as he spoke.

“Would it be possible for me to get some clothes?” She had to try. Running around in a sheet wouldn't work forever.

He cocked his head, his eyes distant, and then stood. “You haven't behaved very well so I'm taking this as payment for your behavior today, understand?” She nodded and he went over to the dresser and closet. He brought out clothing, in the form of blue silk boxers and a business suit shirt, tossing them to her. They were men's clothing. No, they were his.

She stared at the offering for a minute and then shrugged, wanting to be dressed more than she wanted to argue. “Thank you, Sylar.” Switching over only took a minute and she found a string to tie the boxers up where they threatened to fall down her small hips.

“You're beautiful,” he told her, dropping a light kiss on the top of her head. “I'm going to go make breakfast. I'll unlock Molly's door and you can get her washed and dressed for the day.” A part of her thought he'd taken the risk of keeping Molly alive just to make her prove she could take care of a child and she stared up at him blankly before nodding.

Then she did the smart thing and walked off.



“Molly?” The large, metal door creaked open and she peered around it, searching for the girl's slight form and found it sitting on the bed. Cross-legged, hunched over, and crying just a little bit, Molly seemed so much younger than her twelve years.

She'd dressed for the day in jeans and sweater, and looked up at Claire with distant eyes. “Claire?”

Taking a deep breath, Claire went over to the bed and sat down, pulling Molly into her lap. “I'm sorry about yesterday. I had to try, but I know better now.” She pressed her mouth to Molly's ear. “Next time, we'll kill him first.” A beheading should at least slow him down. Louder, she added, “So, we should make the best of it, okay? He's making us breakfast right now. Do you need to take a shower or a bath?” Molly glanced down at her body and sniffed her shirt before shaking her head and Claire grinned. Even for super-powered kidnap victims life was less complicated at 12. “Cool, then come on.”

They took each other's hands and she led Molly out to the main room, watching Sylar cook as they settled down at the kitchen table and she got everyone juice.

“Apple juice for me,” Sylar told her without prompting and she filed that away for later. Sedatives in his juice?

After she poured it she dropped down into her seat and pulled her knees up to her chest, not yet ready to handle the full day. He put plates of food in front of them anyway, piled with eggs, bacon, pancakes, doused in maple syrup, and Molly's eyes went wide with hunger before she started devouring her stack. Claire ate a little slower, watching Sylar as she ate. He seemed to notice her eyes on him because he looked up at her after a few bites, reached over, and cupped her cheek. But neither of them said anything and, after a few minutes, they went back to eating.


After breakfast Sylar checked Molly's work, real approval crossing his face – and it looked wrong to her – at all the right answers. Once he gave Molly another assignment, a stuffed animal, and a book to read for fun the girl disappeared back into her room, happy to have escaped the adults and the craziness. Claire wished she could retreat too but she couldn't. Instead she'd picked up one of the books on Sylar's bookshelf and started flipping through it. The cover had caught her attention but the introductory article pulled her in, twisting her stomach.

'Piercing in a contemporary setting can be equated to a rite of passage in any given society. Van Gennep established the phases of a ritual process which marked it as a rite of passage. The phases are: a pre-liminal phase where the initiate is seen to ritually die so as to leave their old life, a liminal phase equated to limbo where the initiate is neither a part of the social group they came from nor a part of the group to which they are being initiated. The final phase is a post-liminal one where the individual celebrates their membership of the new social group and all that it entails.'

It sounded suspiciously like what Sylar had been ranting on about for two days and she cautiously flipped the page after skimming through the rest of the introductory article, only to come up short at the first picture. “What the hell is that?”

Sylar appeared over her shoulder and she jumped instinctively, swallowing hard. Damnit. “That's a corset piercing.” His eyes raked over her shoulders and across her neck. “I was actually thinking...”

“What? No!” He was not doing th-that to her. No way. It was freaky. She glared at him angrily and his mouth went hard. Shit, shit, shit, please don't hurt me. Which would hurt worse? The piercing or the beating? Her lower lip trembled and she muttered, “Instinct. Sorry. Of course you can do what you want.”

“Yes, yes, I can, Claire.” He ran a hand roughly through her hair. “Go to my closet. There's a plastic sheet of sorts there and set it up on the bed. I'll be there in a minute.”

Her entire body shuddered as she glanced one more time at the freaky piercing and decided to get it over with, stalking to the bedroom with determination. It might hurt but she got over pain quickly again. She'd survive, she always did, and he might decide to do something to Molly if she didn't play along. The plastic sheet, which looked like a modified shower curtain – please don't let this have carried a body – sat neatly in the corner of the closet and she brought it out, setting it up on the bed as directed. It didn't surprise her when he came in with a little kit and instructed her to strip. “Yes, Master,” she muttered.

He zapped her quickly with electricity for her tone and she stuck a tone out at his back even as she quickly stripped off the first clothing she'd worn in days. “On the bed, on your stomach,” he ordered, his voice rough again and, she noticed, his cock pressing against the inside of his slacks. She climbed onto the slippery material and tried to relax as best she could.

Claire realized she should have known better when his hand slipped between her legs, glancing and teasing over her most sensitive parts to find her clit, which throbbed in betrayal. This, this physical reaction meant nothing, even if she'd never had it with Brody, the asshole, or West, the sweetheart. She hadn't had it with Alex either except that moment in the pool where she wanted him to rip her clothes off and take her right there, but it hadn't been the time and god knows where he was now. So she had this reaction to Sylar. Physically he was a man, an attractive man, and he knew how to use his body – and play hers. There wasn't any shame in that.

“What are you thinking?” he asked, flicking his index finger over her swollen, peeking clit so that she sucked in a breath. Somewhere he'd picked up the ability to tell when people lied and he had Matt's ability to, so lying was futile.

She told him the truth. “You disgust me, but you do know what to do with your hands.”

Sylar laughed, a deep, dark laugh that chilled up her spine as he kissed a path up that way and nuzzled the back of her neck. “Good girl,” he told her and her stomach flipped at the stupid praise. She wasn't a little girl anymore! As his thumb pressed hard on her clit and she lost all breath, she knew he knew that.

Then his hands were gone and he flipped her over, spreading her legs and sitting between them. “Uh, you're a little overdressed to fuck me,” she pointed out and he snorted.

“I'm not going to fuck you, yet,” he told her, pressing her legs down besides him and then bending her knees up before he turned to the little kit. “Get up, on your elbows.” She did it, mostly curious as to what he had planned. He brought out a small box of valuable looking stones attached to studs and rings, but she suspected these weren't for her ears. “Pick one out.”

Definitely not for her ears and in a distant, base way, she found it hard to even care. It'd only hurt for a second. “Um. This one,” she pointed to the small, cute ruby heart that acted as a clasp for a white gold ring and he smiled, nudging her back down.

The next thing she felt made her shiver. A cool packet, that smelled of antiseptic, rubbed over her swollen sex, paying special attention to her clit, and she shut her eyes, not wanting to admit what would come next. What this would mean. As soon – as soon – as she removed it, it would heal. He couldn't do anything permanent to her and she held onto that thought as she felt the sharp poke against her clit. He slid the needle in as she squeaked low in her throat and tightened her legs around him, wanting the pain gone but relishing it all the same. Even the punishment last night. God, she'd been so close to...

It didn't bear thinking about.

As she took short, shallow breaths he wiped off the bit of blood that remained and tugged on the brand new, already healed piercing. “Perfect. Turn over.”

“You're not --”

“Yes. I'm curious about it,” he said. “Let's just say I'm finally exploring my kinky side.” The way he said it should have scared the shit out of her, not caused a low burning in her stomach as she obediently flipped over and offered him her back. He straddled her, moving the kit closer to her head, and bent down to whisper in her ear. “Play with yourself but don't come. You don't want to know what will happen if you do.”

Claire swallowed hard and slipped her right hand underneath her, trying to breath, and shift, and not get off at the same time as he set up the first piercing. The needle poked deep into her skin, or so it felt, as she ghosted her careful fingers over her clit and buried her face in the pillow that smelled like him. How had it come to this? How had she gotten here? She'd figure that out later. Now she groaned as the first piercing clipped together with a snap. He'd started with her upper back and she found the sting manageable, easy even, to handle as her fingers caught in the new piercing in her – in her clit. So, determined to ignore him, she focused on the pleasure of her own fingers and how much she could enjoy a piercing that she probably never could have gotten permission for at home.

Her attention hazed out after that as she slid her fingers over and inside of her throbbing pussy – pussy, it sounded dirty but it was, she was acting dirty so she guessed that fit. Every touch, every sting in her back that brought her back to the moment, pushed her a little bit closer to the edge but, as she started clenching, ready to scream, she remembered his warning. Punishment. She'd be punished for coming. Her hand eased off and she panted into the pillow as to fifth piercing slid in. “How many more?”

He didn't answer until the next one, reaching down between her and a plastic sheet to thrust two fingers into her waiting pussy. Claire would cry but she couldn't give him the satisfaction. “Three, unless you'd like me to do your nipples as well.”

“No. No, that's fine.” She swallowed hard, turning her head against the pillow to speak. “Is this your way of marking me, since you can't just tattoo me with 'Property of Sylar. Do not touch.'?”

Sylar laughed, a deep, amused laugh that sent chills and something else through her. God, this was confusing. “Yes, pretty much. And I think it'll be interesting to see the results. Keep touching.”

Swallowing, to gather her nerve and calm down, Claire did as he told her to, touching herself very lightly and really feeling out the ring for the first time. It wasn't all that thin, like some of her earrings, more medium thickness, and the little gem didn't stick out too much to be gaudy. Gaudier. Did it really matter? Sylar would be the only one to see it and he found it exciting. Keeping with the letter of the law, if not the spirit, she ghosted the outside of her pussy, just the lips, as he continued piercing but even that made her pant and squirm underneath him. Her body, like always, had decided to betray her, to not be under her control, to do things no sane body would, like react desperately to serial killers or survive twelve story falls. She sighed, a little in arousal and a little in annoyance, and then she felt tugging.

Glancing back over her shoulder she saw Sylar lacing up the piercings with a dark green ribbon, first one side and then the other, alternating, to make her skin a corset of sorts. When he brought a mirror over to show her she had to admit the result looked dramatic and grown up. “Are we done?” The pain had already faded.

“Undress me.” He climbed back off the bed and pulled the plastic sheet off, which had blood dripping on it, tossing that to the floor. This time, remembering the horrible results of what she'd done before, Claire undressed him quickly, efficiently, and without putting her mouth anywhere near his cock.

The ribbon tugged when she moved, reminding her of its presence, and she shifted curiously to experiment as he watched. He smiled and she wanted to pout but instead she just parted her lips and climbed onto the bed. “How do you want me?”

As Sylar brushed his own black hair back away from his face and settled down against one pillow, he reached over to cup the side of her jaw and smiled. “How would you like it today?”

He was asking her? Why? So he could do the opposite? To make her admit she wanted it? Just for kicks? Claire bit hard into her bottom lip, tasting blood, tired of all the games. “Please, don't play games with me.” She spread out on her back, her legs parted and waiting for him in the middle. He'd fuck her and maybe he'd leave her alone for the rest of the day.

Instead a look of rage crossed his face and she flinched back, turning on her side and yanking her legs up in a second. “Stop. Humoring. Me.” He grabbed her hair, viciously, wrapping it around his fist and pulling back. Her stomach dropped out of her and she squeezed her eyes shut, ready for the pain, ready for the punishment. She couldn't avoid it without getting Molly hurt too and she wouldn't do that, not ever again. “You're not going to fight?”

“No,” Claire kept her voice low and her eyes shut. “No, Sylar, I'm not going to fight. I wish you'd just fuck me and leave me alone for the rest of the day. I could use a rest. There has to be something you want that'd make you happy until tonight.”

He cocked his head, like he'd decided to consider, and then let her go. “Go ahead, rest. I have some errands to run and I'll see you tonight, babydoll.” He kissed her on the lips, getting up and getting dressed easily. With a last, simple smile he left her behind, locking the door after him. Of course.





That afternoon Claire dreamt of Primatech and that awful night when she, her dad, Meredith, and Angela had been stuck in there with Sylar. At the time she'd been so angry, so full of rage, outrage, and disbelief, that it'd seemed surreal, but she'd come back to think about it a lot, especially lately. When she thought that Sylar was ash and she had both her fathers again. No, when she thought she had both her fathers again, being honest with her for the first time. Just another lie, in a long list of them, and Sylar telling her the truth again. She hated it.

In Primatech he'd been so angry but under that anger had been a child, like Angela said. A little boy full of hurt and rage over being neglected, discarded, abused, who'd just wanted a family, had taken over in his own way and played games with their lives. No, the others' lives because Claire? Well, Claire Bennet couldn't die. She swallowed hard, pounding her fist against the padded pillow and tried to get comfortable. The piercings kept making themselves noticeable, tugging here or there, not exactly in pain but reminding her of the change that he'd done to her body. Funny, this felt like the first time she'd had scars to match the emotional trauma.

'We can heal from anything... physical, at least. We can't heal from a broken heart.'

That's what he'd said. One of the things, at least. Then Angela's lie. God, it'd made her sick. She'd told Sylar he was her son, her flesh and blood, to manipulate and use him and Sylar had bought it, for a time. He'd become a Company man. He'd tried to make his mother proud.

That scared her more than anything. He'd wanted to make Angela proud and had been willing to give up anything and everything to do it.

Claire's mind drifted to something else that he'd said to her, about how she should ask her father sometime about what he and Elle had done to Sylar. She'd blown it off at the time, not caring, not interested, but now any little thing she could learn about Sylar to use, to barter with, would help her. So now she'd ask.

She waited until Sylar came home, with a number of shopping bags and what looked suspiciously like a new clock, before she got out of bed, but almost immediately returned to it because both she and Molly said they weren't really hungry for lunch after the big breakfast and he let them skip. Then, shedding his army flack green jacket and his boots, he joined her on the bed. He didn't smile at the moment but he looked relax, reaching over and brushing her hair out of her face before tugging on the top binding of the 'corset.'

“I really do like this. It's beautiful, bold but not gaudy, like you,” he told her, raising his eyebrows when she didn't come up with some angry retort.

“You never lie to me, except when you thought you were Nathan, right?” she asked him, pillowing her head on her arms and stretching out on her stomach.

“I see no reason to lie to you. You respond to the truth so... well and you've been lied to quite enough. Daddy, for example. You wouldn't be here now if he hadn't lied about what happened to me. Oops.”

She glared into the pillow, planning to have a few choice words with her father at some point. “I want you to tell me what my dad and Elle did to you.” That stopped him cold in surprise and he reared his head back, trying to catch her eyes, to read her expression. She stared back at him calmly, waiting for the answer. She needed an explanation. “I never asked my dad, he just would have lied, so I'm asking you now. What did they do to you?”

Sylar took a deep breath, reaching down and distracting himself by stripping off his socks and tossing them to the corner. Then he settled down on his stomach next to her and took her hand. “They made me a monster.” She'd caught that much so she waited for him to go on. “After Brian Davis, the first person I killed – impulsively, it was an accident really, I only wanted to meet someone like me and then the hunger took over and...” He shook his head. “After I did that I was sure I was damned, that I deserved to die. I hung myself in my shop, so that my mother wouldn't be the one to find me, and I was dying when Elle sauntered in and cut it down. She called it an accident, the rope had just snapped like fate, and I'd been a little too distracted to notice the difference.

“Then she befriended me. We spent time together. When, when I asked her out on a date she was amenable and I thought that we had a good time. I'm sure she was sick of the assignment,” bitterness choked his words but Sylar went on, “but I was too amazed that such an attractive, sweet woman had taken an interest in me. I was oblivious. Then,” now he sounded more sure, “they wanted to observe the actual process and see what I did exactly so they brought in another person like us.” Swallowing a little bit roughly, he ran a hand through her hair and gave a quiet sigh. “Trevor or something. He could make things explode, a power I really had no use for, but it didn't matter.

“Elle fawned over him, just like planned, and I got jealous. I was so happy with the way things were; I had no clue she was manipulating me. I'd like to say I haven't been that dumb since but, well, Angela. She'll get hers, eventually.” Talking casually about the annihilation of her grandmother didn't bother her nearly as much as she expected it to. “She threatened to go with him because it was just so cool.” There he mimicked Elle, simpering a little, before he sneered. “They got what they wanted and Elle outed herself as a Company agent in the process. I don't think that was as planned. She was just following orders. Once I had a second death on my hands I figured I was damned already, no penance, no repair would save my soul, so why bother? And now, of course, I won't die. That takes care of that problem neatly.”

Claire's stomach rolled in disgust, not at his casual talk of taking her power or even of murdering another human being, but at what her father had knowingly done. They'd set Sylar up with a girlfriend, a girlfriend who he, who it looked like he liked, and she'd betrayed him. “W-What were you like with her?”

“What?” He raised his eybrows. “Oh, with the fake Elle? Stupid. Pathetic. No way she would have looked twice at me normally.” His jaw clenched.

“Tell me anyway?” she tried, reaching over with uncertain fingers to touch his cheek.

“I tried to woo her.” He rolled his green eyes a little bit and tangled his hand in her blonde hair. “Wine, home cooked meals, anything she wanted that I could afford. I wanted to make her happy, of course I did. She was beautiful and the part she played was ever so sweet.”

“That doesn't sound pathetic to me. It sounds nice.”

“You wouldn't be here except by force.”

“Because you stalked me across the country – twice – cut my head open and killed my biological mother.”

“That. I don't think she'd dead. She should be able to survive her own powers, you know. She's probably in Mexico by now or maybe Europe, trying to put distance between herself and I.” His lips were chapped but soft when he kissed her forehead. “They'll always disappoint you, betray you, hurt you. They don't respect you, how strong you are or what you're capable of.”

“And you do?”

“Yes. I'm not taking all of these precautions for little Molly. I fully expect that before this is over you'll hurt me at least once more but I don't mind. It's really only fair.”

“You're weird.” Claire brought her hand back to herself and closed her eyes, trying not to think too hard about how much her heart ached. It ached because her father, once again, let her down and betrayed her. It ached because, once again, Sylar had proven to be the trustworthy, honest one. Even trying to cling to the fear of the day before, when he'd used that gun, didn't do very much. It wouldn't have killed her and she didn't think he planned to really use it anyway.

“Be that as it may, you're stuck with me.”

“I know.”

“How exactly do you feel about me, Claire? Remember, I can tell when you lie.”

Wasn't that a loaded question? She swallowed but she knew the simple answer without even thinking about it. “Confused. I don't see how you think that I will ever love you.”

“Given time, honesty, peace, I have to believe you will. I have to believe that you're still capable of that, that I'm still worthy of it.” He shifted over enough to kiss the corner of her mouth. “I will never lie to you, or leave you, or neglect you. You're too important to me.”

Now, if he just wasn't a serial killer. Clenching her teeth, she asked a question she probably didn't want the answer to. “Would you stop killing for me?”

“What?”

“It's a simple question. Would you stop killing for me? No more powers. No going after my father or grandmother – I'm angry at them but if anyone's going to kill them for this, it'll be me.”

“What about if we're attacked? In self-defense or defending you and Molly?” He raised his eyebrows.

“I guess that's okay, if you have to. Try just to hurt them first?”

Sylar gave a rich, deep laugh and kissed the side of her mouth again. “Yes, Claire, I will do my best to stop killing for you. On one condition.”

Here it came. Something horrible had to be brewing in his mind, something she'd never agree to, like 'you do it for me.' “What?”

“You stop fighting the idea of us having a child together.”

“What?” She'd been ignoring it, for the most part, not ready to deal with all of that. “I'm seventeen. I'm not ready to be a mother.”

“You've seen more than many people see in an entire lifetime. You're prepared. If you start acting as if you want this child, I'll do my absolute best to resist the hunger for you and our family.”

Sickly, she thought he meant it. That's what he wanted: a family. It'd stopped mattering to him how he got it. “Okay.” She could do this. Hopefully she wouldn't have to go through with it, maybe she couldn't even get pregnant, but if it got the killing to spot she couldn't be so selfish as to put herself in front of others.

“Such a little hero,” he teased and she stuck her tongue out at him.

This had to be what going crazy felt like.

* * *

Comments welcomed in all forms. (Please do!) Feedback/concrit cherished. All typos mine (and probably hilariously inappropriate).

Additional parts: One ; Two ; Three ; X ; Four ; X ; Five.