tampered | log; ongoing

log; ongoing

When; Night of the 20th
Rating; PG-13 for language
Characters; Elle Bishop (

makes_you_tick)
Summary; Elle wants Sylar to hurt. Sylar wants to make amends.
Log;

Elle wanted Sylar to hurt.

Oh, she'd gotten the voicemail all right, but she hadn't listened to it. Right when he'd said her name -- Elle -- she'd deleted it. Then she'd picked up his jacket from the floor and stared at it and cried a little, but she was okay now. Even if she'd once liked him a lot, she didn't anymore. He had killed her, and she wanted to know why.

As she stood in front of his shop, she didn't know if she wanted to laugh or scream or cry. Maybe she would do all three. Maybe she wouldn't do any of them. She needed to talk to him, or she was going to fall apart right there. He had answers that she was going to get from him, and it didn't matter whether he agreed or not. If she closed her eyes, she could feel the emotions fighting each other inside her, anger and hate and need and everything and nothing at all.

"Sylar!" she screamed, blasting the windows with everything she had. "Sylar!" She watched as some of the displays fell over and turned into little pieces and some just burned, but she couldn't bring herself to care. Maybe this little shop display was like her, a fragile balance that broke over and over again. Couldn't fix things like that. But that was okay, 'cause she was broken too much already. All she wanted was for him to hurt bad, too, and she didn't care how.

Taking a breath, she stepped over the threshold, electricity crackling in her hands. She couldn't find him, but she was sure he was in here somewhere, sure as she was of anything. She forced down the memories that the little shop gave her, memories of peach pie and sitting on the floor and what was maybe falling in love for the first and last time. "You know, I believed you," she called out, her voice almost sing-song and full of confidence she didn't feel. When she walked, the glass made crunching noises under her shoes, making Elle wonder if hearts went crunch. She shot a burst of her lightning across the room, searching for him. Dammit, where was he? "When you said you'd changed. I really did."

And maybe that was a tremor in her voice, since she didn't think she could deal with the man who had given her everything and taken it all away.

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Sylar had been towards the back of the shop when the front of it blew in. He'd been about ready to crunch whoever dared into a little ball and toss them in the general direction of the jail- but then he heard Elle's voice.

With a sigh, he retreated further back, into the shadows. He used his sound manipulation to speak to her, as if he were speaking into her ear. As fun as it was vibrating the flesh off of someone with your scream, this was a far more useful application of good old Jesse's power.

"I believed you, Elle. But did you really think that all I needed was a healing hug? That having someone to date was going to fix us up, just like that? Cure me from being a predator? I'd been broken too many times for that. I think you have, too."

His shop was not big. She'd find him in the back soon- it would be a good idea for him to cut to the chase. His voice lowered until he was nearly whispering. "You knew the Petrellis weren't my parents, didn't you? You had to have seen that in my file."

Elle spinned around when she heard Sylar's voice, only to find no one there. Funny his voice could do so much to her, especially since the last time she'd heard it like this, all low and intimate, was right before he'd cut her head open. She thought she wanted to kill him, too. Where was he? She stepped over broken clocks and chairs, carefully watching the edges of the store for any sign of him. When he mentioned the Petrellis, she wanted to scream again. She didn't even care about the Petrellis. This was about her and him, not about Arthur Petrelli or that old hag Angela.

She fired another blast towards the back. "I don't care about the Petrellis. I need answers." Even though she didn't know her own questions, any answers would be a start.

A bolt zipped past him, exploding something in the wall behind. But it did the favor of lighting up his face, in blue and shadow. He stepped forward, still wearing glasses but looking very unlike the man she'd 'saved' so long ago.

He now wore clothes that he considered 'snappy'- not black as Sylar the serial killer, but cut and tailored carefully to fit him well. It was like the shop. Gabriel, but with a little more style. Of course, right now, the shop was resembling more of a tornado drop zone.

The way in which she sidestepped his question infuriated him. "Well, I cared," he growled, taking a step towards her. "I thought I had parents who were trying to help me, I had someplace I belonged- and then I find out that everyone was lying to me to make me more pliable?" And then he was right there, invading her personal space again. He knew this would probably get him heavily shocked for his effort, but he couldn't care. He stared down at her and reached for her wrist. "Why didn't you think that would matter to me?"

He was supposed to be apologizing, or at least notifying her of his next move. Somehow, it wasn't turning out that way- but he'd still get around to it. He was sure he would.

As Sylar walked out, Elle slowly smiled. Score. He was trying to be Gabriel, huh? She really wanted to know how that had been turning out. He didn't actually expect anyone to believe that he was reforming again, did he?

And then he was close, too close, but that was all right with her. Suddenly, she wanted this confrontation, wanted it so bad that she could feel her electricity buzzing. Though she drew back her hand, she remained standing where she was. Why let him get to her? She raised her chin and stared up at him, and she thought that she could hear the tick-tock that was his heart. Still, her other hand was steady beside her, a ball of electricity in her palm.

His gaze was intense as always, but she bet that hers could match his now. "And you just assumed that I was lying to you, too? Like fake Mommy, fake Daddy, and everyone else. Bennet never told me anything. Not your parents, not where you were from -- nothing."

Sylar waited for the world to shake, for that buzz that told him she was lying to him-- but it never came. His eyes widened while the rest of him froze.

She hadn't been lying to him. She hadn't. He'd killed her for it and she had truly believed him the whole time. It wasn't even because she mistakenly thought she knew best for him- she hadn't known at all. He let a breath out as he tried to work that out, a little huff somewhere between a sigh and a grunt of acknowledgment.

They had still been too naive to think it would work, that either of them could be okay. What happened on the beach was an indication of that. His eyes flashed dark as he thought about what Angela had said to him right before he killed her- another murder that shouldn't have happened. I would've been proud to have a son like you... He'd been too angry to let it go. He'd still be too angry now.

It was too much. He turned away from Elle, swallowing his regrets down. He had a plan, he had better stick to it. Things always went so much better when he did.

"Elle," he said, his voice weak and trembling at first. "You can't go back to our world. But I can make a deal with the people in charge here, I can get your life back. You'd breathe and eat and grow older just like everyone else who's alive here. Do you want that?"

Elle laughed when she saw his eyes widen. Did she die for this? For a man who'd never understand her except in all of the ways that mattered, that was the crux of it. She didn't even know if she believed him. The first time she'd believed him, he'd killed her. She didn't want to make the same mistake again. But he looked so regretful, and she could almost believe that he actually felt something about killing her. It was nice to have him being remorseful. It made her feel like she'd meant something to him, which made her feel a little fluttery inside. She wasn't angry anymore, but she let the ball of electricity in her palm grow just a little bigger.

Tick-tock, went the clock or Sylar's heart. She thought it was both.

With her free hand, she reached up to touch his face. Gently, she turned his head back around and gave him a hopeful look. "I want answers, and I want to hurt you," she said softly, eyes wide and earnest. "I just don't know which one I want more."

He hadn't expected her to touch him, nor to try to pull him back to look at her. She always did that- he'd never truly been able to read her actions. They didn't make sense to him, and that intrigued him. Nearly everything about her was so obvious and on the surface, but she was still a mystery to him, somehow.

Her words made him chuckle, softly. His shoulders relaxed and he turned his body the rest of the way to face her again. "I think you'll find, Elle- in this place, everyone gets both. Even Claire's learned more about me than she's ever cared to."

He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and opened them again. "Making the deal would probably hurt me more than you'd guess," he offered. It was one of those things that was technically true that he appreciated saying. It would get him what he wanted in two ways, even if he had to use the deities for it. They might as well be useful, if he couldn't get rid of them. "They need an exchange, something of equal importance. But you shouldn't be dead. Unless you tell me no, I'll do that much, at least."

With that settled, he moved on. "What answers are you looking for?" he asked, eyebrows raising in curiosity.

"It's not that easy," Elle said, her voice still soft and gentle. She drew her hand back, and her moment of tenderness was gone. "We don't get to be nice so fast." Even if the anger was gone, all the hurt and all the betrayal and all the confusion was there, and a little bit of the hate, too. They couldn't ever have what they had before, no matter how much she'd have liked that to happen, but there he was, pretending a few answers could fix everything. Maybe it could for him, but Elle needed more.

When Sylar had killed her, he had killed more than her physical self. He had killed her hope that she could ever be fixed and her idea that she could ever have love. He had killed her belief in him, which had kept her running for so long. She remembered the girl who had been with the boy who had been Gabriel Gray in a time so long ago, and she looked back at Sylar and knew where it all went wrong.

A ball of electricity appeared in the hand that was between then, too. It illuminated his face, made it hard angles and shadows. "I meant it when I said I wanted you to hurt."

He watched her, still curious. Her emotions played across her face, and he didn't blame her for them. But then again, they'd been here before. She'd struck him down so many times in that little room, angry for what he'd done, angry for what she'd done. They'd still ended up laughing together at the end of it.

Well- now she was merely mad at him, which was probably how it should've been all along. She threatened him with the crackling blue, but he'd long since stopped caring about pain. He nearly laughed. "You'll have that, too, if you want it. You should have seen me a month ago- I was asking for it."

Yes, Gabriel the Repentant was something he'd been building up from that curse six weeks prior, the one where he'd run away from her early enough on that he was okay. He was no longer sure whether his efforts were intended to be real or not, whether he was playing a game or whether he actually cared. It didn't really matter, did it? Nothing here was actually real. At least that was somewhat cathartic.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly, biting his lip in between sentences. "I was wrong, because I'm always wrong. I always twist things until they break, and I don't know how to stop. You helped me as much as anyone could, and I'm trying to do better here, but- I keep wondering how long it'll be until I snap everything in half again."

He let out a long sigh and closed his eyes.

Once, Elle had thought that capturing Sylar would make Daddy love her, but Daddy was dead and Sylar was here and it didn't matter anymore. She frowned when she heard his words. She hadn't helped him. Instead, she had been the one who had made him this way. Any guilt she had once had was long gone. Now she was facing this Sylar, who wasn't Gabriel but looked so much like him, and who lied so well.

"Oh," she said, reaching up to send a spark to the tip of his nose. Peter Petrelli would have added that he wouldn't have let anyone else be hurt, but Elle wasn't that nice. Instead she added, "I'm not going to be there when you do."

Then she thought of all her love, her hate, her want and desperation and hurt, and she sent the electricity at him harder than she'd sent it at the windows and stronger than she thought she ever could. She watched as the blue lights hit him, and she watched as she let everything out, and she closed her eyes and felt more connected to him ever since he killed her that first time. Maybe she was shouting at him too; she heard screams and wasn't sure if they were hers or his. She heard Sylar and I hate you and Why and I need to know and Please, and she opened her eyes to see white lights and blue lights and a dark shadow in the middle and nothing at all --

And when it was all over, all she heard was her own ragged breathing as she collapsed to the floor. She asked, her tone quiet and plaintive, "Why?"

He'd had her power for awhile now, and he hadn't expected to have any problems absorbing that lightning. But the amount it was coming out- it wasn't the sheer power she had the last time she'd attacked him with it, but it was focused. It was almost an uncomfortable pressure, like she was hitting him with telekinesis instead, like he was getting ready to explode. It was too much and once it did start hurting him, he would probably fry instantly.

His instinctual reaction was to fight it, even if he had thought he probably wouldn't. He knew he'd grow everything back, but it would hurt, and he wasn't too keen on that level of regeneration right now. So he was too focused on fighting the overload to recognize the screaming until after, when he heard timepieces exploding in his ear and the bright light of the electricity completely blinded him.

He was still standing as she collapsed, but just barely. He knelt down when she fell. "Because," he said to her softly. His was nearly out of breath as he clung onto a chair to keep the rest of him upright. "It was too good. I couldn't trust it, in the end."

Her hand was bleeding. Strange. She didn't remember hurting it. From the glass?

She blinked and looked up. He was still too close, but she was too tired to move. She simply stayed sitting on the floor, pieces of glass around her. There was something missing inside her. Then again, there always had been. "That's it?" she asked, raising her head to look at him. With her bloodied hand, she pushed back her bangs to show him the small scar that still remained.

"You took everything."

He stared at the scar for a few moments, before his eyes dropped to stare at the ground. "I thought it wasn't real," he murmured, without conviction.

It sounded like such a stupid excuse- of course it was. Even if she was stupid for doing it, she had been devoted to him. She would've done anything for him. Why had he thought she would have kept that secret? She understood family, even if the one she'd gotten stuck with was just as terrible as his own.

He looked at his hands, expecting to see blood and finding none.

He looked back up at her, the line on her forehead. "Like father, like son, I guess," he said bitterly, letting himself slump to sit on the ground and look away from her.

She let her hand drop, leaving only the smattering of blood across her forehead. It was cold. Dark. She'd knocked out the lights. Watching as one spark jumped its way between two of her fingers, she thought she felt like one of those flickering lightbulbs, on and off and too bright and dead. Small sparks ran along the side of her body, but those never hurt her. She didn't look at Sylar, and didn't think about anything he'd said. She didn't say anything, either. There wasn't anything to say.

He sat there for a long while, wondering why they always ended up on the floor. Maybe it was just their level.

When he looked at her again, he frowned thoughtfully. "Elle," he said gently. "You look exhausted. You should go home."

He stood slowly, surveying the damage. Very few pieces made it out of this one, although he supposed he still had plenty of parts. Something smoldered in the back, and he put it out by forming a bubble of force and keeping fresh air from getting to it.

"Can I call you a cab?" he asked, glancing back towards her.

It was so normal, as though she hadn't spent the past few minutes trying to destroy both him and his shop. The glass and watches and clocks lay in pieces around them, all a sign of Elle's destruction. That was what she caused, wasn't it? She and Sylar both. That was why they'd worked together so well, because they were both so messed up. That was also why they'd fallen apart so spectacularly, because they could never work. She almost wanted to laugh, except that she was too tired to laugh. She was too tired to do much more than simply sitting there on the floor. She'd feel the anger again later, feel the pain and the hurt all over again. But for now, all she wanted to do was sleep.

"I . . ." she began, not sure of what to say next. She didn't even know what she was going to do from here -- what they were going to do. Her electricity flickered again. Distracted, she held out her hand, struggling to focus the charge. She couldn't lose her power now. She couldn't.

"Was it ever right?" Elle asked Sylar, because there were so many instances where it had gone wrong, and she watched as a faint blue line crossed the space between them.

He noticed the strand of electricity, and he stared at it as it connected. It was no longer that pressure, just the pleasant tingling sensation over his skin, as if he was using the ability for himself. He raised his hand and stepped forward, letting more strands connect. The sharp blue light crackled between them, until he was almost close enough to touch her hand, and he could feel it rushing in through his pinky and out through his thumb.

Staring at how they connected was a good way to take time and think about that question. By the time he looked up at her, his expression had softened, into something that could be a smile. "You know I'm the wrong person to ask, Elle. But-" He moved a finger, shifted his hand in the air slightly and boosted the power running between them. Something shone in his eyes. "I think so. It was beautiful, what was between us. But I have a knack for destroying beautiful things, I've found." The last is said so softly it's almost a whisper. He stared at their hands. so he wouldn't have to look up and see that same lost expression he was wearing on her face.

He knew where to go from here in actuality, but he couldn't look like he did. It would be a slow process and he'd long since realized here that his biggest problem with people was being patient. He had to wait for her feelings to catch up.

It was all too much for her. "I can't -- "

Abruptly, she closed her hand and scrambled to get up, staring at anywhere but him. Beautiful, beautiful, it had been beautiful, but it had been so wrong and yet the only thing that had mattered to her. Maybe she'd thought that she had been in love, but love wasn't for people like them, people who destroyed and destroyed and never rebuilt. In the darkness, she couldn't see his face. For that, she was glad. She didn't want to know what he was thinking right now or see his eyes full of regret. She didn't think she could handle it. No matter what Daddy said, for Elle, being tough didn't mean anything as far as Sylar was concerned.

Breathing out heavily, she stood in the darkness, facing the shadowy outline where he stood. He looked even more like Sylar, murderer, now than he had before, and her breath caught in her throat. All her muscles were tense, and she didn't know if she was getting ready to attack him again or to run far away from another death, or whether she was simply going to stand there and freeze. And Elle realized that she was scared, scared of what had happened to her, scared of what would happen to him, scared that any future they could have together was simply going to be destroyed once again.

He wanted to help her up, but somehow he imagined that she wouldn't have it. It was too much for now, anyway. What he had in mind might be, too, but the risk was less.

He didn't step forward, didn't move so she could see his face better. "It's too little, too late, I know," he said, then swallowed. "But I'm going to fix what I can. Elle..."

After a pause in which he studied her face from his safety in the dark, he turned away. He stared back at his shop, at the ruin they always, always caused. "Sometimes these curses show me that I could have been a good man. That I still have a chance. And if even I do-" He lowered his head as he looked to the ground, then shook it.

He opened a drawer and took out a small ball of crunched metal- the watch he destroyed the last time he talked to Peter. He could still fix it. With Elle here, maybe he could believe what he was saying, that it wasn't too late.

"I don't believe you," Elle said, taking a step back. "A good man? You killed Brian Davis, just to be special. And that was before me." She was afraid of letting him in again -- she didn't want to be hurt again. If she pushed him away, she could stay safe. If she could truly hurt him, then he'd hate her and stay away. She couldn't see what he was taking out of the drawer, but it didn't matter. If it was important, she'd know.

And, she had been drawn to him because he was so messed up, just like her. Good boys were toys to her, pretty little things who'd never be able to understand her. They pitied her and looked at her with those stupid eyes full of sympathy, and she hated it. She didn't need pity from anyone. Beneath the watchmaker's son, Gabriel had been just as messed up as she was, and then Sylar had happened, and the messed-up bits were on top. She hadn't liked it when Sylar had tried so hard to be Daddy's good little boy. It reminded her too much of herself.

Sylar actually chuckled at that, setting the watch down on his twisted workbench. "Oh, I was broken long before you. Since I was five, and I saw my father kill my mother- the same way I ended up killing you..."

With a heavy sigh, he nodded. "You're right. Whether or not it was possible before, I could never be a good man now. But I know I can be better than this." There was conviction in his eyes, something he'd had to fake for awhile now.

He did seem to remember something, and a hint of an apologetic smile appeared on his face. "Not that any of that's your concern at this point, I know."

A watch? Then again, he was playing at being Gabriel the watchmaker, wasn't he? She wondered how long the act could last. Frowning slightly, she stared at him, running his words through her head. "So you're just going to say sorry, play nice, and everything's okay?" She didn't bother masking the accusatory tone in her voice. The last time he tried to do that, she'd ended up dead. Now that she was dead, she didn't see why there was going to be any difference. Still, the bit about his dad killing his mom tugged at her somewhere inside, and she frowned again. She knew what daddy issues felt like.

She bit her tongue. "It doesn't work that way. You know that."

He frowned slightly at her words, looking up and away from her for a moment. "I know. But what would you suggest I do? At least this way I'm going in the right direction." He gave Elle a questioning look, perhaps willing her to challenge that. If there was anyone who'd give him a hard time for toeing the line too much, it was her.

He turned towards her fully again, leaning back against a counter and clutching the edge with both hands. He shrugged as he continued. "Doing anything else leads automatically to losing myself, losing everything I might have cared about, hurting anyone who comes into contact with me. The whole routine started to lose its appeal awhile ago."

Apparently the whole routine didn't lose its appeal until after he'd killed her, Elle thought bitterly. Maybe if he'd known it then, she would have believed him now. "Geez, that makes me feel a ton better about myself," she said, wrinkling her nose. "Since when were you so worried about hurting people? You're a murderer. And you'll do it again." Her belief in Gabriel Gray had died a long time ago, right when she'd caused him to kill the guy who could explode glass. Tyler or something, she didn't remember; all she'd wanted then was Gabriel. Daddy, she thought.

Every single time she'd seen him before, she'd been so wrong about him, whether he was good or bad or everything in between. She didn't want to be wrong again.

He slumped, leaning his weight fully on the counter. "Since I realized I'd do it, whether I wanted to or not. Whether it would hurt people I wanted with me..." He glanced up at her, and then back to the floor. "Since I realized I didn't have control."

He sighed deeply and brought a hand up to push some fallen strands of hair back. "I will do it again. Because I don't know who I am without it...I've been lost for so long, Elle."

He'd planned to continue on after that, tell her how he'd been lied to all his life, so it wasn't surprising he messed up and thought he couldn't trust her. But the admission was far too close to home. It felt like it knocked the wind out of him.

Every word he said made Elle scared that she wouldn't be able to hate him, when she desperately wanted to. She wasn't his shrink. She wasn't his friend. He had no right to be telling her this, making her feel for him. "Don't," she said, her voice wavering. He killed you, and he killed Daddy, and he'll kill again, she told herself. But she'd been lost too, after her Daddy died and she got kicked out of the Company, and she hadn't found herself till she met him after that. Now that her eyes were adjusted to the darkness, she could see him too, all repentant and sad.

He had no right, her mind and heart insisted, but her soul (if she even had one) said something else.

He glanced up to her with her one-word warning, assessing. "Maybe you should go," he said softly, looking at her with sad eyes before dropping his gaze again. "Before I keep answering your questions. It's nothing you want to hear."

In the silent spaces, he could still hear ticking- not every clock had been destroyed. But even these were broken terribly, each tick grating on his nerves as they occurred completely out of sync. He wondered if anyone saw him- them- that way.

Maybe he'd fix everything in this room. Maybe that would say something.

And Elle stared at him for a long while, thoughts running through her head like the electricity running through her blood. Tick-tick-tick-tock, went the clocks, and still she stared, wondering if he could really be as sad and alone as she was sometimes, when her toys and her assignments couldn't take away her loneliness. Sylar had a heart, too, because his heart went tick-tick-tock, while Elle's went ba-dump crack. Now, her heart didn't beat and just went crackle crack.

She reached a hand out towards Sylar, almost to touch him, but she couldn't do it. Maybe there'd been love, once, but love wasn't for damaged goods like them. He'd said it, in his own words. When she looked, there was sadness in his eyes, and she wondered if it matched the desperation in her own. Swallowing hard, she backed away that mile towards the remnants of the door. The cacophony of cries built up inside her head, but they all boiled down to one.

Please, she thought, before she turned away and ran.

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