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tampered2008-12-07 11:32 pm
makes-you-tick.livejournal.com) wrote in tampered2008-12-07 11:32 pm
Penance [complete]
When; Today
Rating; R for violence.
Characters; Sylar (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
makes_you_tick) and Elle Bishop (elletric)
Summary; Sylar hunts down Elle. It doesn't go how either of them want it to.
Log;
Sylar (and there was no doubt about it, this was not Gabriel, it was Sylar) stalked around the apartment building, black coat flapping against him in the cold wind. He'd heard some rumors of power flickers in this part of the City, this building specifically. He knew it wouldn't be hard to find her- he was surprised it took this long.
He stepped into the building and headed to the fourth floor, where most of the problems have been. Taking a cursory look around, one of the doors down the hall was...odd. The door was welded shut at the doorknob. That would be her. With a smirk, he lifts a finger and the hinges come of the door. It opens towards him, hinging on the welded doorknob with a loud and angry creak.
===
The moment she hears the door move in that unnatural way, Elle Bishop thinks it might be easier to just stay where she is, sitting in the middle of this empty living room, empty because she moved much of the furniture into the other rooms to give herself space, making the room almost completely vacant. What is the point in running, she wonders. If it is who she suspects, the answer is that there is no point in it at all.
Everything hurts, even when she isn't trying to use her ability, but Elle remembers finding her father, dead in his chair, remembers the fear when she felt the blood on her forehead. She always will.
"Come on," she mutters, waiting. Nothing is in her control. Nothing ever has been. But at least she's used to it by now.
===
"Trying to hide from me, Elle?" he says, as he steps through the doorway. It's meant to infuriate her, as she likely just got stuck. Or maybe she's been waiting for him, or maybe she really was hiding, who knows?
He pulls his coat off and tosses it to the floor. He would rather it stay as nice as possible here. "I'm sorry, I did have a few prior engagements I had to get to first."
===
"Oh? And what were they?" she asks, curled in a veritable ball on the floor, but staring up at him as if she's the one in authority here, though the truth is that neither of them are. It's painful to move, ability or not, and she stays perfectly still, waiting for an opening, waiting for something to play out in her favor, even for a second. A second, she swears, is all she needs.
===
Sylar grins wide and walks towards her. He crouches, still looming over her as he draws closer. "Now, don't worry yourself about that. Let's just say I've been busy."
He laughs loudly, as if the little ball of hurt she's curled into is the funniest thing in the world to him. "Come on, Elle, where's all that bravado from a few days ago?" He reaches up, one finger extended- and he pushes a small curl of hair off of her forehead. His voice lowers to a mocking whisper. "I thought you were gonna kill me."
===
"Don't!" she snaps, hand coming up to hit his away, electricity streaming out of her fingertips. Then she stands, though it's more like a scramble backward as she gets to her feet, pulling both hands in closer toward her sides before pushing them out ahead of her, palms up, fingers curled.
"What is wrong with you?" She screams because it makes her feel more powerful as much as because of the way it feels like her entire body might pull apart at any second. It's an unnecessary question. Of all people, Elle probably has a better idea of what is wrong with him, what has always been wrong with him, what she helped to make sure would always be wrong with him.
Answers are as unnecessary as the question and she doesn't hesitate to attack him. If you die here, you come back. That's fine with her. Let him come back, again and again. Any part of her that ever expected anything to work out has long since taken a back seat to dealing with how things never work out, and this, more often than not, leads her to extremes.
Day and night. Good and evil. Life and death.
===
She stands, he stays on his knees. Not that he would have much choice in the matter, with the electricity streaming into him, moving through every vein and muscle and nerve ending. It blasts out of his fingertips, his eyes and his toes.
He'd be laughing happily now if he could, if he could even pick through the overload in his mind to know which way is up. He'd wanted her to attack, to take it all out on him so she wouldn't have to take it out on herself. And now the floodgates are open.
Of course, he can't really laugh right now. It's more of a time for screaming reflexively. It's possible he should've considered how much this would hurt.
===
This continues for a while, until Elle herself is in such an acute state of pain that she has to stop, stumbling back until she hits the wall, legs threatening to let her fall to the floor. Trembling makes her feel horribly weak but she can't stop it, can't pretend she doesn't see her hands shaking or feel her chest constricting and burning all at once, sending a blazing and pointed sensation through every part of her.
"Why," she falters, completely relying on the wall behind her for support now, one hand pressed flat against it, fingers flexed apart so that every tiny line of tension is excruciatingly obvious. "Who are you trying to fool?"
It's not working, she wants to tell him.
Maybe once, it might have.
But not this time.
Then it occurs to her.
"Yourself?" she half asks, half accuses, the dark edged skepticism as evident as the crackle of light rippling under her skin.
===
He's on the floor now, and it's a good thing his regeneration seems to be keeping up with the electricity, if only just barely. He smells ashes. He groans and pushes himself up on his elbows.
"I'm not-" he croaks, and he realizes just how cracked his throat is as he has a coughing attack. He has to wait to continue, and brushes his hair backwards in the meantime. It still sticks up haphazardly.
And she's still sparking. He frowns at her, almost sternly. "Tell me the truth, Elle. Do you blame yourself for creating me?"
===
That makes her really look at him, for a second, for a minute, for some indeterminable span of time beyond that, but she has nothing to say to that. Of course she blames herself. How could she not?
Her answer is to send the hand against the wall shooting forward in front of her, the surge of voltage seeming to break her apart from the inside, releasing one powerful burst of lightning, only to short out, spiraling back in on her, crackling around her hand, up over her wrist and forearm. She might be crying, which isn't any good, considering her volatile state, but she can't help it. There is the physical pain, and there is the mental weight, and there is everything else that all only ends with her realizing: he's not going to die. Whatever she does, whatever she says, it won't be enough.
It was never enough, was it, dad?
Even now, there is something terrible, something bitter and selfish that settles in her as naturally as blood and bone.
===
He yells again, less visceral this time but still a deep bellow. He falls backwards again, onto the floor, and finds he has to pick himself up again. As he looks up towards Elle, he realizes that all his clothing has deep cuts and slashes to it, and his pants leg appears to be on fire. He bats it out, then levels his gaze at Elle.
"Stop blaming yourself for my murders, Elle. It wasn't you that started me down that path. It wasn't you who planned all those trips. If you want to blame yourself for Trevor, fine. But I still killed him." He was a loser, anyway. Pitiful.
He closes his eyes for a short while, a slow blink and nothing more. Then he leans forward until he's leaning on his palms, towards her. "Maybe I had a lot of forces pushing me. Dr. Suresh, you, this....thing inside me that makes me want it so badly. Maybe I didn't have much of a chance. But it was still my decision." He tilts his head to the side and narrows his eyes at Elle. "Stop hurting yourself for what I've done."
===
She really wants to tear him apart and when he reaches out for her she yells something incoherent at him, both hands out, electricity zapping from fingertip to fingertip, because there is no control here, but she's aiming to burn him if he so much as brushes her again, much less a pointed touch.
"Don't tell me what to do!" she all but snarls. Don't you tell me anything. She's backing along the wall now, aiming for the door. He's not dying, worse, he's healing. Of course.Elle has often had problems with thinking things all the way through. Keeping one hand extended in warning, biting back her own voice that wants to give away that it might be more merciful to just kill her, might be enough to just have it all stop, because what does she really have left? There is Sam, she thinks with a flash of softness, of a girl she would have liked to be, given the chance, a girl she doesn't think she can be, doesn't deserve to be.
It speaks to something, however, that she doesn't think he's too good for her, only that he can do better, and people always do.
Or that is what she has experienced and witnessed, over and over, given no reason to believe otherwise.
===
He falls onto this face this time, jolting on the floor. He recovers again, although it takes longer this time, and the only movement he makes is to roll onto his back. He's exhausted now. He heaves deep breaths before looking back up at her, disgust and hatred burning in his eyes.
"Stop playing around, then!" he yells. "Take your vengeance and kill me!"
===
How dare he.
She whirls on him, at the doorway and standing in it now, staring down at him, and the anger in her smolders to something cold, seeing him sprawled like the mess that he is on the floor.
"Nothing would make me happier," she says, voice cracking because she's caught between the hoarseness of screaming and the disgust of having cried at all. There is a barely there matter of pride for her, or maybe it's something far more pathetic, probably. She could never put her finger on it, but whatever it is, it holds her back, tells her: no, not like this, it's not what you said. That much is true. She said she would find him, kill him on her terms. Most of all, she refuses to do something he tells her to do. How dare he, how dare he, how dare he, she hears and feels and breathes this strike. It is as if he expects her to just crawl over and slit his throat like a common criminal, one to another.
No, she thinks.
I'm not denying myself.
I'm denying you.
This penance. This show. This stupid, stupid thing.
I won't let you have it.
Walking over, she bends down, bringing crackling fingertips to his throat, enough to render him in as much pain as possible, but nothing lethal, especially not for him. Then she's walking out the door as quickly as her pained legs can carry her.
"Maybe next time," she taunts.
Elle runs as soon as she is out of the building, runs, and runs until she collapses behind some other structure, many, many yards away.
The winter air is cold and everything hurts, but all she can think, curling in on herself again, is: don't come after me, don't come after me, don't come after me. All she can think is: you can't die and I'm scared and I don't know what to do. This is my fault. This is your fault. Don't come after me.
Don't come after me.
Rating; R for violence.
Characters; Sylar (
makes_you_tick) and Elle Bishop (elletric)Summary; Sylar hunts down Elle. It doesn't go how either of them want it to.
Log;
Sylar (and there was no doubt about it, this was not Gabriel, it was Sylar) stalked around the apartment building, black coat flapping against him in the cold wind. He'd heard some rumors of power flickers in this part of the City, this building specifically. He knew it wouldn't be hard to find her- he was surprised it took this long.
He stepped into the building and headed to the fourth floor, where most of the problems have been. Taking a cursory look around, one of the doors down the hall was...odd. The door was welded shut at the doorknob. That would be her. With a smirk, he lifts a finger and the hinges come of the door. It opens towards him, hinging on the welded doorknob with a loud and angry creak.
===
The moment she hears the door move in that unnatural way, Elle Bishop thinks it might be easier to just stay where she is, sitting in the middle of this empty living room, empty because she moved much of the furniture into the other rooms to give herself space, making the room almost completely vacant. What is the point in running, she wonders. If it is who she suspects, the answer is that there is no point in it at all.
Everything hurts, even when she isn't trying to use her ability, but Elle remembers finding her father, dead in his chair, remembers the fear when she felt the blood on her forehead. She always will.
"Come on," she mutters, waiting. Nothing is in her control. Nothing ever has been. But at least she's used to it by now.
===
"Trying to hide from me, Elle?" he says, as he steps through the doorway. It's meant to infuriate her, as she likely just got stuck. Or maybe she's been waiting for him, or maybe she really was hiding, who knows?
He pulls his coat off and tosses it to the floor. He would rather it stay as nice as possible here. "I'm sorry, I did have a few prior engagements I had to get to first."
===
"Oh? And what were they?" she asks, curled in a veritable ball on the floor, but staring up at him as if she's the one in authority here, though the truth is that neither of them are. It's painful to move, ability or not, and she stays perfectly still, waiting for an opening, waiting for something to play out in her favor, even for a second. A second, she swears, is all she needs.
===
Sylar grins wide and walks towards her. He crouches, still looming over her as he draws closer. "Now, don't worry yourself about that. Let's just say I've been busy."
He laughs loudly, as if the little ball of hurt she's curled into is the funniest thing in the world to him. "Come on, Elle, where's all that bravado from a few days ago?" He reaches up, one finger extended- and he pushes a small curl of hair off of her forehead. His voice lowers to a mocking whisper. "I thought you were gonna kill me."
===
"Don't!" she snaps, hand coming up to hit his away, electricity streaming out of her fingertips. Then she stands, though it's more like a scramble backward as she gets to her feet, pulling both hands in closer toward her sides before pushing them out ahead of her, palms up, fingers curled.
"What is wrong with you?" She screams because it makes her feel more powerful as much as because of the way it feels like her entire body might pull apart at any second. It's an unnecessary question. Of all people, Elle probably has a better idea of what is wrong with him, what has always been wrong with him, what she helped to make sure would always be wrong with him.
Answers are as unnecessary as the question and she doesn't hesitate to attack him. If you die here, you come back. That's fine with her. Let him come back, again and again. Any part of her that ever expected anything to work out has long since taken a back seat to dealing with how things never work out, and this, more often than not, leads her to extremes.
Day and night. Good and evil. Life and death.
===
She stands, he stays on his knees. Not that he would have much choice in the matter, with the electricity streaming into him, moving through every vein and muscle and nerve ending. It blasts out of his fingertips, his eyes and his toes.
He'd be laughing happily now if he could, if he could even pick through the overload in his mind to know which way is up. He'd wanted her to attack, to take it all out on him so she wouldn't have to take it out on herself. And now the floodgates are open.
Of course, he can't really laugh right now. It's more of a time for screaming reflexively. It's possible he should've considered how much this would hurt.
===
This continues for a while, until Elle herself is in such an acute state of pain that she has to stop, stumbling back until she hits the wall, legs threatening to let her fall to the floor. Trembling makes her feel horribly weak but she can't stop it, can't pretend she doesn't see her hands shaking or feel her chest constricting and burning all at once, sending a blazing and pointed sensation through every part of her.
"Why," she falters, completely relying on the wall behind her for support now, one hand pressed flat against it, fingers flexed apart so that every tiny line of tension is excruciatingly obvious. "Who are you trying to fool?"
It's not working, she wants to tell him.
Maybe once, it might have.
But not this time.
Then it occurs to her.
"Yourself?" she half asks, half accuses, the dark edged skepticism as evident as the crackle of light rippling under her skin.
===
He's on the floor now, and it's a good thing his regeneration seems to be keeping up with the electricity, if only just barely. He smells ashes. He groans and pushes himself up on his elbows.
"I'm not-" he croaks, and he realizes just how cracked his throat is as he has a coughing attack. He has to wait to continue, and brushes his hair backwards in the meantime. It still sticks up haphazardly.
And she's still sparking. He frowns at her, almost sternly. "Tell me the truth, Elle. Do you blame yourself for creating me?"
===
That makes her really look at him, for a second, for a minute, for some indeterminable span of time beyond that, but she has nothing to say to that. Of course she blames herself. How could she not?
Her answer is to send the hand against the wall shooting forward in front of her, the surge of voltage seeming to break her apart from the inside, releasing one powerful burst of lightning, only to short out, spiraling back in on her, crackling around her hand, up over her wrist and forearm. She might be crying, which isn't any good, considering her volatile state, but she can't help it. There is the physical pain, and there is the mental weight, and there is everything else that all only ends with her realizing: he's not going to die. Whatever she does, whatever she says, it won't be enough.
It was never enough, was it, dad?
Even now, there is something terrible, something bitter and selfish that settles in her as naturally as blood and bone.
===
He yells again, less visceral this time but still a deep bellow. He falls backwards again, onto the floor, and finds he has to pick himself up again. As he looks up towards Elle, he realizes that all his clothing has deep cuts and slashes to it, and his pants leg appears to be on fire. He bats it out, then levels his gaze at Elle.
"Stop blaming yourself for my murders, Elle. It wasn't you that started me down that path. It wasn't you who planned all those trips. If you want to blame yourself for Trevor, fine. But I still killed him." He was a loser, anyway. Pitiful.
He closes his eyes for a short while, a slow blink and nothing more. Then he leans forward until he's leaning on his palms, towards her. "Maybe I had a lot of forces pushing me. Dr. Suresh, you, this....thing inside me that makes me want it so badly. Maybe I didn't have much of a chance. But it was still my decision." He tilts his head to the side and narrows his eyes at Elle. "Stop hurting yourself for what I've done."
===
She really wants to tear him apart and when he reaches out for her she yells something incoherent at him, both hands out, electricity zapping from fingertip to fingertip, because there is no control here, but she's aiming to burn him if he so much as brushes her again, much less a pointed touch.
"Don't tell me what to do!" she all but snarls. Don't you tell me anything. She's backing along the wall now, aiming for the door. He's not dying, worse, he's healing. Of course.Elle has often had problems with thinking things all the way through. Keeping one hand extended in warning, biting back her own voice that wants to give away that it might be more merciful to just kill her, might be enough to just have it all stop, because what does she really have left? There is Sam, she thinks with a flash of softness, of a girl she would have liked to be, given the chance, a girl she doesn't think she can be, doesn't deserve to be.
It speaks to something, however, that she doesn't think he's too good for her, only that he can do better, and people always do.
Or that is what she has experienced and witnessed, over and over, given no reason to believe otherwise.
===
He falls onto this face this time, jolting on the floor. He recovers again, although it takes longer this time, and the only movement he makes is to roll onto his back. He's exhausted now. He heaves deep breaths before looking back up at her, disgust and hatred burning in his eyes.
"Stop playing around, then!" he yells. "Take your vengeance and kill me!"
===
How dare he.
She whirls on him, at the doorway and standing in it now, staring down at him, and the anger in her smolders to something cold, seeing him sprawled like the mess that he is on the floor.
"Nothing would make me happier," she says, voice cracking because she's caught between the hoarseness of screaming and the disgust of having cried at all. There is a barely there matter of pride for her, or maybe it's something far more pathetic, probably. She could never put her finger on it, but whatever it is, it holds her back, tells her: no, not like this, it's not what you said. That much is true. She said she would find him, kill him on her terms. Most of all, she refuses to do something he tells her to do. How dare he, how dare he, how dare he, she hears and feels and breathes this strike. It is as if he expects her to just crawl over and slit his throat like a common criminal, one to another.
No, she thinks.
I'm not denying myself.
I'm denying you.
This penance. This show. This stupid, stupid thing.
I won't let you have it.
Walking over, she bends down, bringing crackling fingertips to his throat, enough to render him in as much pain as possible, but nothing lethal, especially not for him. Then she's walking out the door as quickly as her pained legs can carry her.
"Maybe next time," she taunts.
Elle runs as soon as she is out of the building, runs, and runs until she collapses behind some other structure, many, many yards away.
The winter air is cold and everything hurts, but all she can think, curling in on herself again, is: don't come after me, don't come after me, don't come after me. All she can think is: you can't die and I'm scared and I don't know what to do. This is my fault. This is your fault. Don't come after me.
Don't come after me.