A/N: Because I actually didn't care for Elle too much before this past episode. She reminds me of another character who doesn't get too much love in another fandom of mine, but I finally forgave her for things. I really am that weak. Spoilers for Four Months Ago, oh my gosh.
ampere
She isn't an idiot. She's got fire and electricity rampant in her veins, but that doesn't mean she had to compromise her brain to get them.
They all treat her like she's such a horrible little thing, like giving something to her is like handing the keys to Heaven to Lucifer.
They don't trust her even now, after most of her life spent in the white white facility. But they let her out often now for very good behavior, let her buy cute things so she knows what to wear when it's time to purr in a pretty freak's ear.
Take Peter Petrelli: oh, he's pretty, very very pretty, the kind of boy she'd bring home to her grandmama if she was alive enough to give a damn. He's awful tense, though, when she touches him: there's stiffness fixed in his shoulders, a tightness in his stomach, a clammy feel to his strong hands. He looked so perfect, but he's far from a good plaything.
She'll have to fix that.
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The first time she comes to him she's wearing a tight shirt and skirt, wears high heels sharp enough to be worth something in a fight. She rounds off her fingernails to look a bit softer,
The first time she touches him with current in her fingers, it is next to nothing. One milliampere and that's it. Baby stuff, she tells her new toy, disgusted at his wince.
Step up, come on, she goads, I know you can take much more than that. You can take just around anything, can't you?
He's pretty when he speaks, but still very pretty when he's silent.
You're unbreakable, that's what people say, she informs him prettily. And if you're not, then I'll have to help, won't I?
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It doesn't matter how hard she tries.
She goes to his cell so happy, thunder rolling far away and lightning a pretty thing on the horizon.
But he can't keep his mind off the outside. He can't stop thinking of freedom and family and former loyalties.
She's shocked him to try to get rid of it; she's kissed him, hard, to try to get rid of it. He kisses nice when he doesn't wince and his hands feel oh so lovely on her hips; he's going need less training than she had expected.
But it doesn't help him. Most days he doesn't look directly at her, fixes his dark eyes on the pill-cup or the pillow or the walls, looks at anywhere but her.
She gets angry at him for it, and could shock enough to burn, but Bob's orders were simple (don't break the toy, just toss it around a little) and so she storms out most days.
She leaves his cell in a right horrible mood, lightning broiling above her head and thunder on her breath.
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She doesn't admit it much. But she knows how that feels: to have nothing but one thing on the brain.
Some days, during her small windows of free time, she studies some of her personal effects. And she wonders how the pretty Petrelli boy would look on all fours with leather digging into his neck and a whip against his spine, her name the only word on his lips.
Oh, he'd be very very pretty, this is a thought she dreams about and giggles at. But he isn't ready for that, oh no, and Bob would scold her for taking things too far. She'd be playing with Company property then, or playing more with it than they want her to.
But she doesn't keep her mind off the goal: she'd buy his freedom when the time was right, and have him all to herself. And then she'd do the impossible: she'd hit six amperes, four hundred thousand watts of electricity running through the Petrelli boy's veins, and sigh at the cry torn from his pretty lips at the end of it.
She'll make it happen, even if it means the death of him. And maybe the death of her.
It'd be her phoenix cry, her grand finale, one they'll talk about for years to come.
Because it's always, always better to go out with a bang.
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