Tweak

InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "*SARCASM ALERT*"

unsureidentity (unsureidentity) wrote in colligo_threads,
@ 2009-05-30 22:53:00

Entry tags:

!closed, #complete, claire winchester, gabriel 'sylar' gray

WHO: Gabriel "Sylar" Gray & Claire Bennet
WHAT: Gabriel doesn't feel completely comfortable with only a half understanding of himself and his relationships to others. Claire, for some reason he doesn't understand, is trying to help.
WHERE: Gabriel & Peter's apartment
WHEN:
RATING: PG
STATUS: In Progress

Gabriel had at least some idea who he was now. He had a name, an origin, a few very scant memories flittering across the forefront of his mind, but other than that, all understanding of his existence was scarce. He had a jumble of memories for different sources that made it next to impossible to pick out which ones were important to him. It was only a few that created an intense gut reaction that he was positive that they were his own. That, and a lingering fixation on snowglobes that he had no basis for but still couldn't shake from his mind.

He'd spent most of the day in his room. He was grateful that the apartments had changed. It was going to be difficult enough staying with Peter however long they were going to tolerate this arrangement like this. He wasn't sure how he could have done it if they had remained in one room.

Staring at the far wall, his head leaning back against the wall behind his bed, legs crossed over each other, stretched out on the bed, Gabriel was zoned, probing his own mind to try and sort things out, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't make any headway. And the frustration was only leading to a pile of accidentally disintegrated objects whose particle dust littered the floor.

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x_clairebear_x
2009-06-11 12:13 am UTC (link)

She had to swallow hard as he spoke, some part of her worried at her lack of real reaction to what he was saying and another part of her almost grateful that it didn't sicken her as much as it once had. Doing this, helping him, seeing this through until whatever happened finally came to pass, Claire knew she wouldn't be able to handle it if she reacted with pure emotion everytime they discussed the terrible things that Sylar had done. Yet she couldn't help but wonder just what was wrong with her that the man responsible felt more empathy for his victims than she did, when she herself was one of them.

Forcing the thoughts away, she exhaled softly and moved to where he sat on the bed. After a few seconds of indecision she perched down beside him. "It wasn't you," she finally spoke. "You... you're not him. You're not Sylar."

It wasn't that simple, obviously. Nothing was ever that simple. Yet it was still true in all the ways that mattered. A brief pause and Claire added softly, "And it might be better if you can't answer why you did it, or how you could, at least not for a while."

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unsureidentity
2009-06-11 12:25 am UTC (link)

"But it was in me once," Gabriel said, opening his eyes and peering over at Claire, quietly wondering how she could possibly stand to be this close to him after everything that he'd done to her, all of the pain that he'd put her through. "If I became him once, the capacity to become him again is still in me somewhere, waiting for an opportunity to crawl right back out of my skin and envelop me in a set of actions that I want nothing to do with, in a thought pattern that I would rather not enter my mind again."

Not that he would likely have much control over that. He hadn't had much control over his mind for awhile lately, and he wasn't expecting to get it back anytime soon.

"Part of me doesn't want to be myself anymore," Gabriel said quietly. "There's got to be something simpler than the mess I've made of this life."

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x_clairebear_x
2009-06-11 12:33 am UTC (link)

"So?" Claire replied. "Just because its there doesn't mean you have to let it happen again. If there's one thing I can definitely say about you, it's that you don't let anything stop you once you make up your mind about something. So make up your mind that you're not going to let him win, and then figure out how to do it."

Obviously, much easier said than done, but the hard work was going to be up to him. Claire would help wherever she could. She wouldn't analyze why she was willing to help, nor could she say what lengths she would go to, but she would be there if only so she'd know the second he lost that internal struggle. And if that happened, she vowed to herself that she'd put an end to Sylar once and for all.

Drawing one leg up so she could wrap an arm around it absently, she thought for a moment before giving a slight shrug. "There's not," she answered. "Nothing's ever simple." Her gaze flickered from her knee to him as she couldn't help but ask, "Besides, why should you get to take the easy way out? No one else gets to." She didn't mean to sound quite so... flippant, but she wasn't going to apologize. Not to him, and not about this.

And she certainly wasn't going to analyze the slight guilt she felt at her flippancy either. That was something she was going to ignore until it, quite simply, went away.

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unsureidentity
2009-06-11 01:08 am UTC (link)

"Nobody else can change who they are," Gabriel said, closing his eyes and willing up the ability that he had been trying to get under control more than any of the others. His shapeshifting ability already came pre-set with a number of different faces, ones that he was slowly cycling through from the wholly unfamiliar (Taub, random people on the street, the EMTs and forensic scientists) to the sickeningly familiar (Danko, Nathan, Micah, her own face) before finally settling on a form with springy blond curls and deep worry lines etched into her face. "Nobody would know the difference. I have their feelings more than I have my own, more than I know my own."

It would be simpler and so much easier than trying to figure out who he was. He could just slip into someone else's skin, disappear into the crowd. Nobody would know who he was or what he had done. Nobody would have to know him at all. He could exist in a life of solitude. Something told him that he'd done it before.

"Who'd know the difference?"

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x_clairebear_x
2009-06-11 01:24 am UTC (link)

One minute, she'd been slowly coming to terms with the fact that she was talking to someone who looked like Sylar yet wasn't quite him, and the next minute Claire was staring at her the all too familiar face of her own mother. Her eyes widened and she was on her feet and backing away from him before she even realized what she was doing.

"Stop it," she hissed, irrational anger swelling up inside of her. "You don't..." She stopped herself before she said something she couldn't take back, even if part of her honestly didn't care at this point. She was trying to be mature, though, so Claire forced her mouth shut and focused on breathing deeply a few times. When she spoke again, her tone was hardened but she sounded far more composed.

"I would," she said flatly as she met the faux Sandra's gaze and stubbornly refused to look away. "You're not her, no matter how much you might pretend. Just like you're not Nathan. You... you're Gabriel Gray and you don't have the right to pretend to be anybody else just because it might be easier for you!" Clamping her mouth shut once more, Claire swallowed hard and half-turned, her eyes landed on a pile of ash without really seeing it. She just couldn't look at him when he was looking like that.

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unsureidentity
2009-06-11 01:37 am UTC (link)

"I..." Gabriel started before his features melted back into his own, a deep regret etched on his face as he started again. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean... I wasn't trying to upset you," He said gently. He'd just been trying to comfort himself. If he could hide, then he wouldn't have to try so hard. He wouldn't have to put up with her or Peter or any of the people that he still cared about despite knowing that he wasn't Nathan looking at him like he was some sort of monster.

"I don't want to live like this anymore," Gabriel said, feeling these feelings echoing deep out of him from somewhere that he hadn't realized was there. "I'm going to have to live forever. And maybe in a hundred years or more, nope will remember who I am. They won't know my face, and I could go back to being myself without the burdens that I've already heaped on. But I can't live like this now. I know who I am," Did he really? "But it's easier when other people don't."

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x_clairebear_x
2009-06-11 01:51 am UTC (link)

Only when he looked like himself again did Claire look back at him and breath a soft sigh of relief. The irony wasn't lost on her that his face, and not her mother's, made her feel a bit more at ease. It was true, though, at least in this situation. Giving a slight nod at his apology, she moved back to the bed and sat down once more.

The talk shifted slightly then, getting far more into how he felt than what he could really do to change it with an easy fix. Claire listened, her gaze on her hands as they rested in her lap. "You're not the only one that's going to live forever," she pointed out softly, not at all willing to think about she was feeling slightly guilty for her earlier reaction. Idly she realized that in all the time that she'd known Sylar, in all the ways he'd tried to manipulate her, apparently all it would have really taken was for him to be the man he'd apparently been before he'd become the monster she so feared and hated.

Slowly her gaze flickered back to him, her expression unreadable. "Hiding who you are isn't going to solve anything," she stated finally, knowing at least that much was true even if she was wholly uncertain about everything else. With a heavy sigh, she shook her head slightly. "Besides, in a hundred years, you're not going to be the same person you are now. People change. Even us."

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unsureidentity
2009-06-11 08:07 am UTC (link)

"A hundred years seems so far away," Gabriel said quietly. He hated to think about it, but he understood what Claire's ability meant. He didn't know why he'd wanted it so bad now. He couldn't contemplate it, knowing that he'd have to live with what he'd done for eternity. But maybe... Maybe that was easier to live with than the fear that someday, he'd die and have to suffer for what he'd done. "But compared to eternity, I suppose it's nothing," He said, looking up at her slowly, a soft fear in his eyes as he looked over at her.

"At least I won't be alone," He said gently, offering her a very timid and worried smile. "I don't think I could stand that. It'll be hard enough...having to watch everyone I know die. Even if they do hate me."

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x_clairebear_x
2009-06-11 11:12 pm UTC (link)

Claire agreed, albeit silently, that a hundred years did seem a long ways away. Truth be told it was rare for her to really dwell on what being 'immortal' meant. The fact that she would someday have to bury her family, the fact that she would reach a point where making and keeping friends would become part of a cycle so as not to draw attention to herself when they aged and she didn't, the fact that the world might very well go away and yet she could still not... it was all too much for her to really think about for long. She was glad when he changed the subject, even if it was only slightly and in a direction that was eerily similar, and yet not, to the one that Sylar had mentioned in that hotel room not that long ago.

The look - the timid smile and the obvious worry - was definitely not Sylar however. Which in a way made it much easier for Claire to stay relaxed and admit that he was right. He wouldn't be alone, and neither would she. And if he stayed Gabriel and didn't become the serial killer that he'd been before, she supposed that being stuck an eternity with him would be okay.

So she smiled back, her own not exactly warm and inviting but definitely more sincere than most she'd given him thus far. "You won't be alone," she agreed, "and I think if you give people time and don't go back to the way you were before, most of them will come around."

Claire's smile became a semi-bemused one. "I mean, if I can, there's hope for anyone, right?" she half-joked.

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unsureidentity
2009-06-15 08:47 pm UTC (link)

As much as Gabriel wanted to believe her, to believe that it was possible for people not to hate him, there was a part of him that was nagging that it wouldn't be possible for most. Peter, maybe. He had a distinct feeling that Peter had been able to do it before...but of course, that had been before he'd killed his brother. Gabriel attempted to muster up another, stronger smile, but it fell flat when the sudden doubt hit him.

Besides, what if he couldn't hold onto this? What if his mind slipped away from him again, and he was left as Sylar once more?

He would really be alone, then. And then what would he do? Just go back to killing in an attempt to make himself useful instead of the worthless nothing that he was and fill the void that had been left in his life with powers that he didn't even need or use?

Whoa. Where had that come from?

"I don't know," Gabriel said quietly after a moment, looking up at her. "About either of those. Sometimes... I'm not even sure that I'm any different than what I was."

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x_clairebear_x
2009-06-15 09:36 pm UTC (link)

Claire didn't wish that she could read minds. It was one ability, if she had to pick which one she did have, that she'd never want. To know what someone was thinking at all times would be exhausting, difficult, and a total invasion of someone's privacy.

Yet there were times, such as this one, when she had to admit it would come in handy. To know what Gabriel was thinking right this very minute would... well, it'd still be an invasion of his privacy and wrong, but it would make conversing with him much easier.

Still, she couldn't read minds anyway, so it was a moot point. All she could do was listen as he spoke and try to decide the best thing to say in reply. Which, this time around, she didn't have the first clue.

"What do you mean?" Claire questioned slowly, her forehead furrowing a bit in mild confusion. "You're not any different than what you were, when?" If he was referring to what he was like as Sylar, she would have to disagree. A lot. He was about as far removed from Sylar as he could be while still sharing the same body and brain. But if he meant something else... well, it was probably best she'd asked, just in case.

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unsureidentity
2009-06-15 09:48 pm UTC (link)

And now he had to explain the mess that was swirling around in his head, the vague thoughts that he got and the feelings that came along with them that made him wonder whether or not the man that he had been before he really been as much of a monster as he had tried to make himself out to be.

"You know how some people go around wearing a mask, pretending to be something that they're not because they either think people won't understand or won't appreciate who they really are?" Gabriel asked, a quiet hesitation in his voice. He didn't know how Claire would react to the suggestion that Sylar was really just him putting up a front of murder and psychosis because that was what he knew people expected of him.

"I think," Gabriel said, biting his inner cheek. "It feels... Sometimes it feels like after a point, Sylar was more of a front than a real identity. It doesn't... My memories are hazy anyway, but it doesn't feel solid, attached."

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x_clairebear_x
2009-06-15 10:51 pm UTC (link)

Claire nodded at his question, all too easily able to relate. Hadn't she told both of her fathers not long ago that she was always trying to be brave, to put up a front for them, so they would be proud of her? She never felt like she could just be herself, not really.

She almost explained as much out loud. Almost told Gabriel what she'd told both Noah and Nathan. Almost confessed right there, on the edge of the man's bed, how there were times when she wasn't even sure who she really was anymore because she was always pretending, always acting different because it seemed like the right thing to do.

When he made the correlation between his initial statement and Sylar, however, Claire found herself grateful she'd stayed silent. As it was she felt her stomach tighten and drop clear to her toes. No, she thought, vaguely horrified. No, Sylar has to be different. He has to. It was the only way to ensure that she could be rid of him forever. This abstract thought that Gabriel and Sylar weren't one in the same, were two separate identities... it was all she had, right now. It had to be true. There wasn't any other option.

Yet, the very man she had been hoping was so different from the one she loathed was saying otherwise. She frowned mildly as her gaze dropped to her lap and she tried to come to terms with his statement. After a moment, she exhaled slowly and returned her attention to Gabriel.

"So, Sylar was just your way of being accepted?" she questioned slowly, in a much more calm voice than she actually felt. "That, um... that," Claire shook her head, "that's a little self-defeating, don't you think?"

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unsureidentity
2009-06-15 11:00 pm UTC (link)

"I think... It was less about being accepted and more about feeling as though... I never would be?" Gabriel suggested, a quiet hesitation in the statement. He knew how crazy that sounded, how far-fetched and yes, self-defeating, but somehow in all of the twisted thought processes in his head, it sort of made sense. "That I'd rather be loathed than ignored, strong and in control rather than passive and easily manipulated. Almost as though it were a choice between the type of outcast that I was going to be."

Gabriel paused, pressing his hands against his forehead before rubbing them over his face, groaning and leaning back, tilting his head towards the ceiling before dropping his hands. "Either I was going to be the user, or I was going to be the used. No middle ground. This head seems to think in unrealistic extremes," Gabriel said, smacking himself in the forehead several times in frustration, the last sentence coming out as a grumble.

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x_clairebear_x
2009-06-16 01:21 pm UTC (link)

She tried to listen with as open of a mind as she could manage. She really did. It wasn't easy, when talking about Sylar, but Claire did her best to hear what Gabriel had to say before forming any opinions of her own. The only problem was, keeping her mind as clear as she had meant that when he'd finished speaking, she wasn't sure what to say exactly.

That didn't stop her from reacting, though, to his self-inflicted smacks to his forehead.

"Hey!" she exclaimed, reaching out to grasp his wrist to stop him from hitting himself again, "Don't do that." It upset her, to see him being so hard on himself, and Claire wasn't quite sure why it upset her. It shouldn't, not after everything he'd done, but it still did and part of her didn't even want to know why.

Turning a bit, one leg drawing up off the floor as she twisted to face him fully, Claire studied him for a long moment before speaking again. When she did, her voice was quiet and contained none of the hardened wariness she'd been using as of late.

"You're not being used here," she stated. "And I'm not going to let anyone in my family try it, either. You have just as much right to be here as the rest of us. You've made mistakes, sure, but beating yourself up over them isn't going to change that. Neither is going back to being Sylar. And it may take a while, or it may never happen at all, but I do think if you try to do the right thing and show people that you're trying, they'll come around." Her lips quirked upward into a hint of a smile. "It's not like we haven't all screwed up pretty fantastically before, too."

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unsureidentity
2009-06-16 01:38 pm UTC (link)

The tight grasp on his wrist coupled with her words yanked him back down, grounding him in reality and pulling him from the mass of confusion that were the thoughts that were swimming in his head before allowing one to slam forward in his mind so suddenly that it surprised him.

A face that he didn't recognize, a voice that was familiar but somehow still foreign, and a name, an alias, that flickered into his consciousness as the words rang in his head.

You've forgotten who you really are.

You don't have to be alone.

You could save us all.

"Does the name Rebel mean anything to you?" Gabriel asked after a moment as the memories settled firmly in his mind, twisting his gut.

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x_clairebear_x
2009-06-16 01:54 pm UTC (link)

Okay. Whatever Claire had been expecting him to say, that had most definitely not been it. Blinking in mild confusion, her gaze dropped as she realized belatedly that she was still holding onto his wrist. She pulled her hand away slowly, returning her attention to Gabriel.

"Yeah," she replied softly, "He... he was helping us, when the government was hunting us down. He sent me a few texts. Some were to help other people, and one was warning me to get out when the agents came after me." She stopped there, not having much else to say but not sure she'd say anything more even if she could.

After a heartbeat, almost afraid to say the words, or rather almost afraid of his answer, she questioned hesitantly, "Why do you ask?"

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unsureidentity
2009-06-16 02:02 pm UTC (link)

"I met him," Gabriel said before pausing and correcting himself. "Or Sylar met him. Couldn't have been much more than fourteen, if that. Just a kid," He said, the words lingering in his throat before he pulled at the memory, another name swirling into his mind. "Danko... was looking for him. Thought we had him pinned down. No electricity, no machines. Sent me, him, in to flush him out."

Gabriel stalled, turning over the memory in his mind's eye a few more times before the words came out of his mouth, almost unbidden, his voice altering between the soft tone that he'd been using and the hardened voice of Sylar.

"I know who you are."

"I sincerely doubt that."

"I know you have a problem, and I think I can help."

"And do tell me what is my problem."

"You've forgotten who you really are."

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