Chapter 10: Switch

It was slow, but Sylar felt life flowing more and more powerfully in his veins while clattering and shuffling sounds came from downstairs, from what was presumably a kitchen. Sylar enjoyed the moment simply lying flat on his back, it wasn't as much his strength coming back, but the absence of pain. The only thing that was bothering him at the moment was how Claire's voice sounded to him when she said her last few sentences. During his capture the girl usually talked to him on an even voice, as if trying to show him she couldn't be influenced. Some sadness seeped into it sometimes, and then there was that capacity for compassionateness in her she couldn't conceal. Sylar was sure it had to do with an amount of fellow feeling, and he will make sure Claire will admit that to herself one day. Right now however, she had physically and emotionally retreated from him and that somehow made Sylar a little frustrated. It was not in his nature though to dwell on negative thoughts too much, he left that to Gabriel instead.

So he pulled himself into a sitting position without trouble and swiftly set his bare feet down. His strength was almost complete. Abilities were literally feeling like they were clicking themselves into place in his head and he gave them an idle try just to be certain. He turned the first object he saw, the small pocket Bible on the nightstand into gold, then chucked it into the drawer. Might come in useful later. He did not suppose Claire had much money on her hands without daddy Bennett funding her. He made contact with the lamp on the stand just by chance, well, it had to be said that was an object with so very little history during its existence, apart from once serving as a leaning frame to some gay couple when they made love. Not much interested anymore, he closed the drawer telekinetically.

Trying out all his abilities for the sake of it was not necessary, not to mention shapeshifting was so off the menu it's unbelievable. But he always liked to practice any new powers he'd acquired, something he didn't have the chance to after the last time he looked at some evolved humans' brains for being shot down and up with a vengeance. There was not a way to test breathing under water at the moment either and he already had proof of having mastered his special hearing, given his previous experience with the ability. The beginnings of a grin started on his face, he knew what Claire was up to exactly in the other room. The soft, barely noticeable sound of some small, narrow piece of fabric rubbing against skin gave her away. She was changing her panties...then unfortunately she put as much warm clothing on as she could find.

Which let one more new noesis to consider, control of the dead. Sylar did not give the resulting mind action much conscious thought-it was not just about the fact that the necessary neurons, dendrites and synapses were created in his own brain the moment he looked at the late Constance Blake's brain, but also it was not questionable what exactly he would want to do with his newly fangled power. His inner self gave the answer too quickly for him to even debate it with himself. His lips moved and he breathed out one shaky word: "Elle..."

Still, he turned around a little jumpy when he heard crackling coming from the empty corner of the room. The cause of the noise was blue electricity and behind it, the supple form of Elle emerged, standing in front of him, stiff, awkward and wobbly.

Sylar gave his head a little, confused shake. He didn't like what he saw. Far from him to be afflicted by what others would consider a disturbing scene, the woman was the one person who could have made it feel too ad hominem. But instead of arguing with his own instincts regarding using the ability of control of the dead, he tilted his head and concentrated. That ability needed perfected, used and mastered, better than the original owner ever did. It's use had to be understood on a molecular level and then put together as a whole. Elle looked too ungainly, unnatural, inconvenient to see. Her movements had to be smoothed, there had to be sparks in her eyes and most of all, she had to be able to speak as a result of her own thinking process, not puppet mastery or the fine tuned telekinesis he was capable of.

"Hey Gabriel..." She said calmly with her pretty voice, accompanied by her characteristic sad smile. She looked at him straight with her heartbroken eyes and stuck out her chin the way she usually ascertained herself. She looked down at herself, than around her, "hm, something about rustic charm..." Ravishing as ever, she stepped forward, towards him.

It was that moment that he realized that he did it. He had commanded the dead to act, appear and be alive, for all intended purposes, at least while he was using that power and oh boy, was it worth the immense headache and concentration it required to make it so. And the intended purpose was to ask her that question that was on his mind ever since that weird day of the eclipse. "Elle, it makes no sense. Why did you lie there and let me kill you like that when you could fry my brains unconscious just like you had before? You had your ability, there was nothing stopping you. Why did you let me become this killer again and again?"

"Love does strange things, you know...I didn't expect it. I didn't expect it big time. Either that, or I was suicidal, perhaps both," she said so evenly and unemotionally that Sylar wondered if it was really her, or just his imagination. "I don't know, all right? I never had a choice in anything. To know who I am, or why I do or don't do things. It's not like it's my fault or anything that I mix up pain with pleasure and vice versa. And uh, I hate to tell you, but I am dead, and I'll never have the choice. I still believe you might though," she stepped closer one bit more and placed a single chaste kiss on his lips.

Then she was gone, leaving Sylar grabbing his head and dropping back on the bed. That was it, a little too much, a little more than Constance Blake that ever achieved with her ability, yet not enough to bring out the real Elle for more than a few seconds. He did get an answer to his question, one of them that is. He didn't get to ask how intimate of a relationship Elle and Claire had had when they were friends. Was it as cozy as he thought it was? Well, maybe he'll find that out from Claire one day, it's not worth giving himself another headache over.

By the way, Claire. Her withdrawal, her antagonism, her actuation to show him she was pure and untouchable by evil. He had meant every word he said to her, that he wanted her and his proposal for them to rule the world together, for her to be his First Lady, his wife. He still believed that one fine day she will come to love him, most likely when the people she was attached to were dead, but why wait lifetimes for that? Claire had clearly showed mercy towards him, compassion even. She had cared about him and she had acted upon it numerous times trying to ease his pain. That could be the key.

Sylar liked to be in control and being regarded by people as someone who pulled the strings. Shocking, stunning and eliciting fear in others had a certain intoxicating allure. At the same time, he had nothing against using his intelligence to manipulate them for goals that paid off later, like when he appeared to beg for his life to Mohinder, but it was in fact the scientist's life that was at stake. So far in the past now, given how that man treated him and with what!

The current goal was to get Claire on his side before the winter set in. He had no intentions to spend months in total darkness in Alaska. So he will play a little game that Claire will believe because she will trust her own abilities. Those drugs had debilitated him, and those drugs will liberate him. Mohinder had well boasted about himself regarding how good the inhibiting drugs were that he had created, with lasting effects. The blond will have no reason to doubt it when weeks later he will still show some remaining symptoms of having been injected with it. No matter how much he hated using his shapeshifting ability, he could produce any symptoms or could twist his own insides and such when Claire touches him. She will think he is not well and will eventually try to get help for him again with the side effect of the two of them becoming even more close.

Surely the Arctic was no place to be.

Tbc