Disclaimer: I don't own Heroes.
Being an agent has meant everything in Elle Bishop's life. It was her self-worth, her accomplishments, her hobby, her rise and fall.
It was the only guidance that she has ever gotten from her daddy.
Nonetheless, she did not go back to the Company.
Her daddy is gone and her boyfriend wanted her dead. Elle is not ready to stand amidst the battle unfolding between the Company and Sylar again, when she barely survived Sylar's attack on the beach. Not, she silently corrects herself. Technically, she did not.
Elle yawns and turns off the lights that say Easy as Pie, and then steps out of the bakery and locks the door behind her.
Ever since she came back to life, the irrational fear that gripped her made her decide to lay low.
She found a job at the local pie shop. It has been three months and people have been nice to her: her boss, her coworkers, her customers…she is safe. Not once has she needed to use her powers to defend herself. Life is uneventful, purposeless…
And unbearably lonely. She feels hollow.
Elle wants to scream and rage at this bland life of hers. She can feel it. She can feel the monster within her demanding to be let loose. She can feel herself itching for excitement, itching to release the beautiful blue sparks from her body, itching for the smell of burnt flesh and the sound of screaming…
Elle shakes her head and takes a deep breath.
Perhaps she should find excitement elsewhere. Elle eyes a drunken couple walking precariously down the sidewalk, and turns her eyes to the bar at the far end of the street.
Maybe she doesn't have to be alone tonight.
X X X
Elle has found a new toy.
The man holds her waist gently as they dance. He gives off a vibe that resembles Peter Petrelli. Adorable, gentle, someone who will not hurt her, someone who certainly will not cut her head open. Safe. She rests her head on his shoulder and allows herself to close her eyes. Having somebody around, even strangers, is better than the lonely quietness at home.
The man lifts her chin and kisses her, and Elle lets him. He whispers in her ear, "Shall we go to my apartment?"
Elle gives him a sultry smile, flirtatious. "Why not? If you promise to be good."
"Oh. I'll be good." He smiles, harmless and sweet.
Soon enough, they roll onto his bed. The man kisses her hungrily and explores her body with his hands. Elle can feel his hardness pressing against her thigh.
His hand travels back and hold her face, and he kisses her with more intensity.
It should feel good. It should feel good to be wanted.
But it makes her want to cry.
It reminds her of the powerful man who once held her face and captured her mouth with such desire, and the memory hurts.
Damn it. She is going to have a good time, and she will not let some silly memories ruin it. Elle snaps her eyes shut and reciprocates the kiss. Her hands fumble for his belt.
She is actually slightly repulsed.
And then the slightest gesture did it. When he slides his finger over her forehead to push her hair away, she loses her composure.
"Stop." She shoves the man away, shuddering from the unpleasant memory.
"What's wrong?" The man asks, clearly confused and faintly irritated.
"I don't want this anymore." Elle sits up and replies coolly. She then turns her back to the man and moves towards the edge of the bed.
His gentleman's façade slips away.
"I don't think so." The man pulls Elle back by the arm roughly. "I hate it when you women play games like that." He shoves Elle back onto the bed, pinning her down by the shoulders. "Whoever says being a gentleman would work can go to hell. Whores just need a good fuck."
Oh. So he is a big bad wolf after all. Or so he thinks.
He is nothing compared to Gabriel.
Elle smiles up at him sweetly, her voice like honey on a blade. "I suggest you let go of me."
The man sneers. "Who the hell is Gabriel? I promise I'll fuck you better than he ever did."
Elle's eyes widen in shock. How…
Then she gets it, and she grits her teeth. "Fucking telepath." With that, she shocks him with her full blast.
The man is thrown to the wall and falls hard on the floor with a thump. He moans in agony as his skin burns and sizzles. When he looks up, there is horror on his face.
Pleased with what she sees, Elle grins. She almost forgot how exhilarating this is. This, is what she really needs. Not company. Not one night stands. She needs a good kill.
"You know, you're not even a very good telepath. Telepaths push thoughts," she mocks. "Why don't you give it a try? Make me strip for you."
She blasts him again, not holding back, and blue sparks illuminate the dark apartment like fireflies. Elle clenches her jaw as anger rises in her. She hates to think of Gabriel. She hates that her body only wants Gabriel, and this man had to remind her. It's all. His. Fault. Elle closes her eyes and savors the adrenaline rushing through her body. Her inner monster approves of the perfectness around her: the crackling electricity, the painful screams, the burnt smell…
And then she is thrown across the room and crashes to the floor.
Elle groans in pain as her head spins. She had been so engrossed in her little episode she did not even realize someone had entered the apartment.
A man walks over to the burned body on the floor, and Elle strains her neck to try to see his face. A table is blocking her view.
Moments later, the table is pushed away telekinetically, revealing the man's face. Obviously annoyed, he snarls at Elle, "You fried his brain?"
Fear crosses Elle's face and she can feel currents of electricity flowing down her hands.
"Don't try, Elle." Sylar lifts his hand and holds Elle against the wall, and she gasps. He tilts his head and regards her with piercing dark eyes. "Who saved you?"
Elle's mouth feels dry and she gulps with apprehension. She forces herself to return his gaze. "I don't know."
The tingle in his ears indicates that that was a lie. Sylar stares at Elle evenly. He does not actually care how she survived, it was mere curiosity. There are enough ways to bring back the dead that it shouldn't surprise him. Ultimately, he can always kill her againif he wants to.
However, there issomething that he does care about.
"Was Bennet lying about my parents?"
Sylar distinctly remembers asking Elle the very same question on the beach on that fateful night. When she flinched from his touch, it was all the answer he needed. He is not entirely sure why he is asking again.
Perhaps he simply wants to hear the liar speak the truth, for at least once.
No. But Elle is not going to say that. Maybe she isn't living a particularly happy life, but she doesn't have a death wish either. She reassures herself: lie enough times, and it will become the truth.
With feigned agitation and self-righteousness, she replies, "I told you. That's Bennet, of course he was lying. He's a master of manipulation and—"
There is the tingle again.
"You and I have trust issues, Elle," Sylar cuts her off with a hiss. He lifts his finger in his signature move and drawls almost lazily. "Give me a good reason why I shouldn't cut your head open right now."
Elle snaps her mouth shut. Her lips quiver as she observes, "Lie detection. New ability?" She has seen it in the Company files.
Sylar smiles at Elle mockingly. A liar who cannot lie is like an angel with a crippled wing, except there is nothing angelic about this woman. "My patience is running thin, Elle."
"You already know the answer," Elle says offhandedly.
Of course he does. Arthur and Angela Petrelli are not his parents. Both Bennet and Elle are proof to that. Sick betrayal and white hot anger tear through Sylar's chest. He demands, "Why did you lie? What was in it for you?"
Elle averts her gaze, refusing to answer the question. Just because she can't lie, it doesn't mean she has to tell the truth. She is suddenly glad that she has fried the telepath's brain.
Sylar curls his lips cruelly. "I hope it's worth it." He narrows his eyes and makes a slow slicing motion with his finger. Elle lets out a whimper when a sharp pain strikes her forehead. She can feel blood starting to drip down.
Sylar stops. "Why, Elle?"
Reliving the moments before her death, Elle can't help but feel tears welling up in her eyes. It was an experience that she will never forget. The pain, and the horror of sinking into unending darkness…Elle chokes over the lump in her throat, all her suppressed anger in the past few months surfacing. "You…son of a bitch…you ruined…everything…"
"I ruined everything?!" Sylar repeats incredulously.
"HE KEPT US TOGETHER! Arthur Petrelli kept us together! We could take whatever we wanted…WE WERE GOING TO TAKE WHATEVER WE WANTED…WHY. DID. YOU. HAVE. TO. RUIN. IT?" Elle screams at him, tears roll down her cheeks and Sylar can feel her fighting her invisible restraints.
Sylar scowls. She has the nerve to blame everything on him.
"Because you're a liar, Elle," he hisses, "because you're not an angel and I'm not Gabriel."
"I DON'T CARE!" Elle shoots back angrily. "I never asked you to turn back to the…" she struggles for words, "shy and…reserved watchmaker. I never said I wanted him!"
Sylar stares at her. There is no tingle. "You don't know what you're saying."
"To hell with you!" Elle snaps. She hates that she is so pathetic. Drawn to the monster that she has created. Is it only poetic that she dies by his hands?
Sylar only keeps staring at her. He killed Elle because she had lied, and he still thinks that she deserved it. Attempting to manipulate the monster was her fatal mistake, but there was more to that.
When he realized that he could never be Gabriel, that he would forever be damaged and broken—as would Elle—he chose to destroy any possibilities between them. He chose to stop pursuing what was not meant to be–happiness, because he is tired of finding hope only to have it extinguished.
Had Elle always been content with Sylar?
"They're all trying to make you into something – boy scout, a monster. What's it gonna be, huh?"
Sylar remembers the excitement on Elle's face when he killed the car rental clerk. She called him Gabriel then, yet tried so hard to provoke him into losing his temper and doing something that Gabriel Grey would never do.
Who did she really want? The question tugs at his mind, and it is his nature to seek answers to everything.
"Did you ever miss Gabriel?" Sylar asks quietly. "Shy, introverted, normalGabriel."
"Yeah," Elle says. "When you killed me on the beach."
Sylar snorts, somewhat amused. Looking into Elle's sharp blue eyes, he realizes that the vindictive urge to take her life is gone.
Without warning, he steps closer until their faces are only inches close.
"What're you doing?" Elle whispers, her voice strangulated.
Sylar answers huskily, "Taking what I want." And then he grabs her face and kisses her full on the mouth.
Elle widens her eyes in surprise. She regains her mobility and clutches Sylar's shoulders, returning his fervent kiss. The hollowness in her heart suddenly becomes full, and it is difficult to breathe.
Sylar picks her up and lays her down on the bed. He leans in to kiss her neck, undressing her as he moves lower. The fact that they are going to have sex in an apartment whose owner she has just killed earlier and left on the floor thrills her. She sucks in some air and sighs, "Gabriel…"
Sylar corrects her mildly, "Sylar," his gaze intense. She needs to see him for what he is and still want him, not an illusion of what he could have been.
Elle obediently complies, "Sylar." Sylar or Gabriel, it doesn't matter. He is her monster, her man, her obsession, her…killer.
Hesitation crosses her face and her exploring hands become still.
Sylar gives her a questioning look.
Elle looks at Sylar uncertainly, feeling the need to clarify their situation. "Is it happening again? You'll have sex with me and then kill me again?" Because if it is, she will skip the sex part and jump to the part where she shocks him out the window.
Sylar frowns a little at the way Elle summarized their past relationship into that one sentence. He simply plants a kiss on the small cut on her forehead. "Don't make me kill you."
Elle shudders at the sting on her forehead. Oh well, it's a start. She flips their bodies around so she is on top. She grins at him, her smile radiant and mischievous. "Guess I have to make you not want to kill me then." She trails small kisses along Sylar's jawline and slips her hand in his pants, finding his erection. Sylar exhales audibly. He prefers being in control, but he lets her take the lead.
"Can I zap you?" Elle asks, kissing his bare chest.
"No," he replies.
"Just a really small zap, please?" Elle whines.
"No."
Elle looks up at him and pouts. "You're taking all the fun out of it."
Sylar rolls his eyes and threatens half-heartedly, "Or I could pin you down and do all sorts of fun things—" he inhales sharply when Elle wraps her mouth around his cock.
Elle swirls her tongue around the tip of his cock, then licks its length up and down like a popsicle. Sylar groans and rests his hand on Elle's head. He hasn't had sex ever since last time with Elle, and he is feeling a different kind of hunger now.
Suddenly Elle bites him. A really soft bite that has only made his cock harder. Sylar jerks involuntarily and pulls Elle back by the hair.
"Oww, you only said I couldn't zap you," Elle defends herself.
Sylar raises an eyebrow and rolls her over, switching their positions. "I also said I'd pin you down and do all sorts of things to you."
Immediately Elle finds herself pushed back onto the bed, unable to move. "Hey," she protests.
Sylar pushes her bra up and captures one nipple in his mouth, sucking gently. His hand plays with her other breast, kneading her tender flesh and pinching the nipple. Elle gasps and whimpers as pleasure shoots downward and wetness pools in her panties. Being completely at her monster's mercy only heightens her sensations.
Sylar slips one hand in her panties. "So ready for me, Elle." He slips two fingers in her pussy and groans at her tightness.
Elle moans, "Gabe…Sylar…" Her thoughts become cloudy, and she tries to wiggle her hips. "Please, I want to touch you." As much as she belongs to him, he belongs to her too, however temporarily.
"No zapping," Sylar warns mildly, his breathing heavy. He needs to take her now.
Suddenly his hand feels something crinkle under the blanket, when he takes it out he realizes it is a condom. "You were going to use it with the telepath," he says with an arched eyebrow.
Elle takes the condom and grins. "Well, I changed my mind and fried him instead." She opens the wrapper and puts the condom on his cock.
Sylar doesn't need Elle to know how much that pleases him, so he hides the faint smile on his face, spreads her legs and slides into her.
X X X
When they are both satisfied and exhausted from pleasing each other, Sylar rolls off of Elle and lies on his stomach. He keeps a hand on her throat, intimate yet dangerous. "Don't try anything," he warns before closing his eyes, allowing himself to drift into sleep beside her.
Elle blinks. Don't try what? To escape or to shock him? She answers automatically, "Okay."
Tingle. "You're lying, Elle," keeping his eyes closed, Sylar responds impassively.
Defeated and speechless, Elle sighs, "Fine, I won't try anything."
"Hmm."
And she drifts into sleep with him.
X X X
Sylar wakes up to the bright light shining through the thin blinds.
His eyebrows knit together as he regards Elle's sleeping form beside him. He did not expect to see her alive, let alone make love to her.
Sylar gets off the bed quietly and makes himself a coffee in the kitchen, smirking at the sight of the burnt telepath on the floor. It is unfortunate that he cannot take his power, but he guesses he'd rather search for another telepath than have the loser touch his—Sylar frowns, trying to come up with the right word—toy. His favorite toy.
Spotting an easel on the other side of the apartment, Sylar walks over and smiles. The telepath liked to draw? Staring at the blank paper, incoherent visions start to dance before his eyes.
Moments later, his eyes turn white as he enters a state of precognition. He picks up the brushes by the easel and starts to paint the image that's becoming clearer and clearer in his head…
When Sylar regains consciousness, he stares at the painting in astonishment.
A dark haired man hugging a blonde woman from behind, but that isn't what shocks Sylar. What shocks Sylar is the large bulge on the woman's stomach—she is pregnant.
"I smell coffee…" a groggy voice comes from behind him. Sylar hastily smears the whole painting with black paint.
Elle comes to his side, eyeing the painting dubiously. "Is that the future? What's that? A power outage?" She giggles, "I probably caused that."
"It's nothing," Sylar replies and turns his eyes to her flat stomach. They did use a condom last night, does that mean whatever happened last night will happen again?
He picks up his jacket from the floor and puts it on.
Uncertainty flickers across Elle's face. "Will I see you again?"
Sylar turns to look at her, hesitant as to what to say. "Elle, I killed you. Are you sure you want to see me again?"
"I know you killed me," Elle snaps, then she looks away. "Maybe I hate you, but I hadn't felt…alive ever since until yesterday." She rakes her fingers through her fair in frustration. "If…if I had to feel that…nothingness again, I'd lose it."
She feels like her helpless, trapped younger self again, who was always begging for daddy's love and affection. She hates it. She hates it.
Sylar takes a deep breath. What Elle said was nothing short of a profession of love. Admittedly, he has never connected with anybody on a level as deep as with Elle. Elle is the only person who has seen the real him yet still wants him.
Sylar can't say he is not dazed by the fact. Crazy bitch.
That makes two of them. She has betrayed him twice and he still wants her.
All the more reason why he should leave her alone. She will probably lie again, and then he will snap, again. "Sounds like what you need is a shrink," he merely says.
Elle glares at him. "Right. A shrink." She puts on her own jacket and walks past Sylar towards the door, trying not to dwell on how much it hurts.
Sylar grabs her arm. "Where're you going?"
"That's none of your business."
"Where are you going?" He asks again, with more force this time.
Elle looks up at him, remembering that he can tell if she lies. "I don't know. Maybe I'll find Peter."
"Peter?" Sylar frowns in confusion. "Why?"
Elle jerks her arm out of Sylar's hand. "I can't go to a real shrink, can I? Peter's an empath. You can always talk to an empath."
In fact, Peter has been the only person who has ever shown her kindness. Talking to him would be better than talking to no one, and he willhelp her if for nothing other than fearing that she will lose control and blast the innocents.
Sylar's frown deepens. "You have a thing for Peter?"
Not really. Elle shrugs. "He's kind of cute."
There is no tingle.
Sylar feels a twinge of jealousy and pulls Elle back. He is glad that she did not use the word special. He is not sure how he would handle that.
He holds both her arms possessively and presses his forehead against hers. She belongs to him. The painting told him that much.
Elle wraps her arms around Sylar's neck. She whispers with pleading eyes, "Don't let me go."
"You don't need Peter," Sylar agrees.
She is not going. She is his girl, his toy, his angel, and perhaps…his future child's mother.
She is his.
His to love, his to kill.
Elle squeals in delight. "Can I give you a really small zap then?"
-End-
Author's note: I really believe that the lie detecting ability is a total game changer! All Elle needs is a chance.