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Tweak says, "The chair bit me! Owie.. ;_;"

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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unsureidentity
2009-06-16 03:48 pm UTC (link)

"He was so lost," Gabriel said, the zoned out expression leaving him as he looked up at Claire, his words this time more than just a repetition of the memories throbbing in his mind. They were an answer to what she was suggesting. "A kid who had had his whole family taken away from him, looking for something, someone, good in this world that would be able to put a stop to all of the horror that was being experienced. I knew how he felt, a little too well. So well, that I wasn't even thinking about what I was doing," He said with a soft sigh.

Taking him back to the apartment, taking him somewhere that he'd be safe, he hadn't even stopped to consider that Taub's apartment was the farthest thing from safe for someone that Danko and the other agents were supposed to believe was dead. His presence there was covered by Danko knowing what he was, who he was, but Micah....

"He was too innocent, always looking for the best in people, even when there was nothing good to be seen."

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x_clairebear_x
2009-06-16 07:54 pm UTC (link)

Claire didn't like the way this conversation was turning. She decided, right then and there, if the story ended with something along the lines of "so I killed him", she was out of there. Immediately. However, for all of her wariness, she didn't think that was what he was alluding to. Instead, she thought Gabriel was more trying to reason out just why Sylar had helped Rebel.

It was really a pity that she had even less of a clue than he did.

Yet something else he said stuck out for her so Claire backtracked to that statement rather than focusing on his most recent. "You said you knew how he felt, a little too well. What did you mean by that?"

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unsureidentity
2009-06-16 08:08 pm UTC (link)

"He was lost, had had everything he'd ever cared about taken from him, friends, family, his mother. He was alone, just trying to find some way to survive, trying to find something good in this world that would help him believe that not everything was about manipulation and betrayal," Gabriel said quietly, wringing his hands together. "If there's anything that I do, without a doubt, remember, it's that I was very on my own."

He wasn't sure how else he could explain it. Most of his memories were still fragmented, still scattered, and until he was able to put the whole puzzle together, he'd only have bits and pieces that he could draw on. And while some pieces seemed to be falling in place the more that he pushed, they hardly showed him the whole picture. But the one thing it was started to show him was a man who was just as fragmented as his memories were now.

"Sylar asked her, Angela, if there was anything good left in this world, tried to force her to convince him that she was nothing like him, that she had some scrap of humanity left in her, after spending several hours trying to convince her...and you, and your father, and you were nothing better than he was. I don't know what that says to you. But to me, that speaks to a man that doesn't know what he's looking for much less what he wants."

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x_clairebear_x
2009-06-16 08:47 pm UTC (link)

To just about anyone else, hearing Gabriel speak about Sylar as though he were someone else might have been off-putting. For Claire, however, it made the conversation easier in a way. It let her think of them as two separate people too, which put her back at ease and a little less inclined to dash through the door at the first sign of trouble.

Of course, how he was speaking wasn't nearly as important as what he was saying. And what he was saying, well, it didn't sit well with Claire. At all. Her brow furrowed and her jaw tightened. She couldn't help it. Hearing that Sylar was anything like her put her on immediate edge. For Gabriel's sake, though, Claire did her best to stay calm and really think about what he was saying.

And she realized, however horrifying it might seem, that he was right.

"I-" She stopped, swallowing hard. Her gaze flickered to her lap and she sighed softly. "I guess you're right." With a long exhale, she peered back up at Gabriel with a somewhat lost expression, unsure what more to say. After a long moment, Claire made a frustrated sound in the back of her throat and rose to her feet.

"This isn't supposed to happen," she exclaimed, turning to face Gabriel. "This... whatever it is you're doing. Making me see something about Sylar that I didn't before. I'm willing to give you a chance because you're not him, and I'm not going to let my family take advantage of you or make you some... some pawn of theirs. But I-" She stopped, shook her head, and wrapped her arms around herself.

"I can't feel pain," Claire spoke again after a long pause. "I haven't been able to feel pain since the day that Sylar took my ability and I don't know if I ever will again. He took that from me, along with everything else - including Nathan. So I'm sorry, if he was lost, and I'm sorry if he wanted to belong and didn't. But I can't - I won't - feel bad for that. I want to help you. I do. But not him. Never him."

She meant what she said. She meant every word. Yet some part of her wondered, however fleetingly, if she really meant it... why did she feel guilty, just saying the words?

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unsureidentity
2009-06-16 08:53 pm UTC (link)

"And if I can't stop it... If I can't keep the memories from coming back, you're just going to go back to hating me?" Gabriel asked, looking up at Claire. "Would that make me him again? Even if I don't act any differently? Even if I'm still just as lost as I am right now except with a better understanding of why and how?"

Did this really matter so little?

Gabriel still wasn't sure how much of himself he had lost, how much he had retained, or whether he even would be any different once the memories were all back in place, and he could finally see the whole picture and understand the whole story. If there was even a chance that he could act the same, if he would, he wanted to know now if any of it would even matter.

What was the point in trying if it didn't?

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x_clairebear_x
2009-06-16 09:30 pm UTC (link)

Yes. No. Both answers somehow managed to flash within Claire's mind immediately, yet she knew that neither one of them was exactly right. She wanted to say no because that made her feel like a better person. She wanted to say yes because she felt as though she was letting her whole family down otherwise. Yet she couldn't. No matter what, Claire couldn't bring herself to lie in either direction. Not about something like this.

So rather than answer him directly, she decided to explain where she stood. How she felt. Explain, and see if that made her answer any clearer.

"It isn't his name or the fact that he seems so sure of himself all the time, or anything like that," she began slowly, her gaze on her feet. "I can understand why he hates half the people he does. I'd be lying if I said part of me doesn't hate half of them myself for the things they've done." Slowly Claire raised her chin until she was peering at Gabriel with a sorrowful, lost expression.

"Sylar kills people. Maybe sometimes he has a good reason, and maybe sometimes he doesn't mean to, but he kills people and he destroys lives and he takes and takes and-" Her breath hitched and Claire stopped, forcing herself to breathe for a second before trying to speak again. When she did, her voice was thick with emotion.

"It isn't who Sylar is, or how he acts, that makes me hate him. It's what he does. The decisions he makes. You say you think he does it because at least that way he knows where he stands with other people. That he'd rather be loathed than ignored. Well, I wasn't ignoring him. I didn't even know him. And he still hunted me down and he eventually caught me. Then sliced off the top of my head, and took something from me that can't be replaced." Claire glanced away, struggling with the violation she'd felt at that moment; a violation she was reminded of every time she should feel pain and yet didn't.

"So, I don't know," she finally answered, once she thought she'd composed herself enough to speak again. Her green eyes settled back on Gabriel. "I want to say that no, I wouldn't hate you. I'd like to think I'm a better person than that. But most of it would really depend on you. Not me."

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unsureidentity
2009-06-16 09:38 pm UTC (link)

"I don't know," Gabriel echoed, looking over at her. He understood. He understood all of her reasons. He could appreciate them, but he still didn't know how this would all turn out in the end to give her the reassurance that she might need to know that he wouldn't be someone that she needed to hate again. For all he knew, he was reasoning this all wrong, that everything he was feeling were just manifestation of his own guilt projecting onto the memories or something like that. He wanted to believe that he was better than that, that he hadn't allowed himself to become completely heartless.

But he just didn't know.

"I'm sorry," Gabriel said, shifting on the bed so that he was sitting next to her instead of laying back, his hands gripping the side of the bed as he held himself up. "I don't mean to make this more complicated for you than it already is."

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x_clairebear_x
2009-06-16 11:49 pm UTC (link)

Claire shook her head, giving him a thin smile that was laced with weariness. "Don't apologize," she replied. "It isn't your fault. I knew going into this that it wasn't going to be simple or easy." Nothing with him ever was, no matter who he was.

Exhaling a puff of air through pursed lips, she glanced at the various piles of ash around the room before her gaze once more landed on Gabriel. "I think that you need to figure out who you are, no matter who that may be," she said sincerely. Swallowing around a lump in her throat, she added, "And I think that I need to stop looking at you and Sylar as two completely different people because that isn't fair to you and it isn't helping you get better."

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unsureidentity
2009-06-17 12:04 am UTC (link)

"I don't want to be that, for what it's worth," Gabriel said as he looked over her, a soft, sincere expression in his eyes. He truly didn't. No matter who he was, he knew in his heart that the last thing that he wanted to be was a killer. There was so much more that he could do, so much more potential that he could have especially with his abilities, that using them to murder simply to get more seemed like a repetitive waste.

Her last statement inspired as much dread as it did hope, the knowledge that she might not be as comfortable if comfortable at all with the idea of him being around if she started thinking like that sinking into his mind. But still... It was probably for the best, better for him to attempt to integrate the two sides of himself than trying to keep them apart no matter what. At least then... He might be able to control the way that they came together.

Leaning over, a slight hesitation in the movements, Gabriel pulled her into a quick, brief hug, his actions gentle, far gentler than anything that Claire might have expected from him, as he sighed, "Thank you. For trying."

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x_clairebear_x
2009-06-17 12:22 am UTC (link)

He was hugging her. The man with the face of the killer that had made her life hell was hugging her. And Claire, for all of her uncertainty about him and everything he'd said since she'd arrived in his room, didn't mind it one little bit. In fact, she actually appreciated the gesture in a way. Yes, it was another startling reminder of just how different he was from Sylar, which didn't help her merge the two together in her mind, but that small, simple act of true humanity made her all but certain that she was doing the right thing with her decision to help him rather than cast him to the proverbial wolves like everyone else.

Her smile was a gentle, sincere one as she peered up at him. "You're welcome," she said, "but no thanks are necessary. Really. What they did to you was wrong. It's the least I can do, trying to make it right again somehow." And okay, so Claire would admit to herself that she hadn't exactly started out with those noble of intentions. She had started out wanting to kill him, then deciding that if she could make sure Gabriel stayed put that she really would be rid of Sylar forever. But now that she'd spoken with him, and gotten to know him a bit, she had to admit that the thought of just leaving him so broken to figure it all out and fend for himself just felt wrong. Possibly the same, if not worse, as any of the horrible things that Sylar himself had ever done.

Not wanting to dwell on her own guilt for her initial motives, Claire added, "And if you don't want to be that, I say we figure out some sort of way to give you back all of your memories and everything without letting the end result be something you don't want."

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