AN: I love you guys! Soooo...I feel like something is missing in this chapter. There is a step that is missing...but I can't figure out what it is. And you've waited long enough. So please enjoy and let me know what you think!
Special thanks to Lamies for all her great input!
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Chapter 11
Sylar felt Elle blast him with her full power for what seemed like hours to his body although the slow ticking in his head assured him that not more than five minutes had passed. When his body clawed its way back to life again for the tenth time, to his relief he sensed her tiring. He didn't know how long even his body could make new tissue out of nothing. Snapping his hand out quickly, he pushed with his telekinesis and she went flying back against the crumbled fireplace where she bounced once and lay coughing for a moment. He closed his hand tightly and pulled it back, the vein in his throat beating madly. Using his telekinesis had been instinctive…but so had the concern that had immediately welled up for her afterward. He couldn't deny the sharp fear that had leapt up in him at the sound of her thin body landing harshly on broken masonry. That same hand that had defended him…had reached for her. His eyes narrowed. Gingerly, he pushed himself up, reminding himself again that he needed to cut her out of his mind, his heart. When he reached his full height, his smoldering eyes slowly scanned her body in a thorough, hungry manner before settling on her face. Damn but that had hurt. He had to give it to her, that attack had been more than he expected. She had even managed to burn almost all of his clothing off. It had been a long time since someone had hurt him that badly...given him any sort of challenge. He felt new energy course throughout his newly reconstructed cells. She had shown her true colors after all and now he would show his. He smirked at her.
"Is that all you've got?"
An deadly look spread across her face until it was replaced by an antagonistic smile as she pushed her long hair back from her face. "Why? You having a hard time keeping up?"
"Hardly. I think you know I could go all day."
She laughed mockingly and despite the grime and sweat she was covered in, he couldn't help but notice how incredibly gorgeous she still managed to look. Her tight little shirt and skirt seemed to almost be strategically shredded.
"Don't kid yourself, baby." She smiled wickedly, heartstopingly at him for a moment and it was like he was looking at her for the first time. His Elle, the deadly Agent Bishop. God but she looked amazing like this - like some kind of amazon warrior. But she had betrayed him in the worst way. He shouldn't be feeling anything anymore for her but...he almost felt like....
And then in a blink, she was gone.
She had sprung to her feet and hurled herself down the passage that led to the back of the house. After only a seconds hesitation, he followed on her tail but she was too far ahead of him for him to see her. Rounding a corner quickly, he felt a sharp pain on the back of his head. He fell on his face and a heavy silver picture frame landed next to him. She had nailed him with their wedding photo! As he groaned and shook his head, out of the corner of his eye he saw her high heels approach and heard a loud crackle of static as a beautiful arc of electric blue fire sped towards him. The jolt hit him square in the back and pain quickly spread throughout his body, searing his lungs as he breathed in to scream.
"Arrghh!" He flung out with his mind to grab her, force her away but she was gone. She was off again running back the other way into her office and he stumbled angrily after her, tasting blood again. He grasped at his anger, holding on to it as he chased her through hallways lined with pictures of another life, the nauseating smell of his own baked flesh still in his nostrils.
As he neared the open door to her office, he slowed and then tore the walls off with his telekinesis so that he could see the room in its entirely, sensing her in the quiet of the air. A tiny smile crept onto his face. She wasn't going to get the jump on him again but he had to admire that last little stunt of hers.
As the drywall came flying off, Elle emerged from behind her long mahogany desk wielding a slender black gun that he had never seen before. She fired at him twice. He easily deflected both the shots, more angry than ever. Those shots had been aimed straight at his head! Easily pulling the gun telekinetically from her, he snapped it into his hand from the air, admiring it's deadly lines and flipping it around in his hands. Turning a gun on its owner was one of his favorite tricks - there was something so absolutely poetic and cruel about it.
"Didn't you do your homework, Elle?" he asked her mildly, smugly, as if she hadn't just barbecued him to the point of near death minutes earlier. "Stopping bullets is my specialty."
"I know. I was counting on it." It was then that he noticed the tiny device in her other hand. She pressed it and the gun exploded in his hands as she dove under the desk. Bullets and metal fragments embedded themselves painfully into his body. Fuck! Before he could pick himself up she was standing over him again.
"This is for freezing me!" she screamed. She kicked him in the ribs, hard. He grunted. Her shoes were sharp! "And that's for freezing me again!" She tried to kick him again but he grabbed her by her ankle and pulled roughly. She tumbled down next to him and he quickly climbed on top of her, pressing his naked, bleeding chest down onto her and trying to pin her down as the shrapnel was slowly squeezed from his body and his skin healed itself over. She was squirming crazily and all of her thrashing was beginning to make him strangely excited. He mentally shrugged. He was still a man after all.
"Get off of me!"
"I thought you liked being bottom, darling."
"As if you ever knew what I liked," she bit back.
Gabriel's eyes narrowed heatedly. She was lying! She was lying of course, but it still stung. And god but he really wanted to prove her wrong. She smiled smugly at him, knowing her verbal jab had hit its mark. He grappled with her, finally pulling her hands up above her head with his hands and pushing her down with his weight even though they both knew he could easily hold her down with nothing more than a thought. They were pressed together from chest to ankle and he was acutely aware of the quick rise and fall of her chest and the warm heat of her body.
"We both know that's a lie, honey. Nobody is that good an actress." He stifled a groan at her attempts to buck him off. He could already feel himself hardening unexpectedly. "But if you want me to prove it, I suggest you keep doing that," he said casually, knowing it would irritate her but despite everything, half hoping that she would.
She stiffened, feeling him against her, and her face flushed. And then all of a sudden her body changed its wild, flailing movements to a more sinuous, languid and purposeful writhing. He swallowed. "Want to know what I'd really like to do, baby?" she whispered. Against his will, he watched her lick her lips slowly.
And then she kneed him in the groin.
"Argh!!" he gasped, curling up a bit as she pushed him off of her. "Ahhh...Jesus, Elle!" Healing be damned, that still hurt like a bitch!
"Not like you need them! You are never touching me again, you miserable lying fuck!" He blinked up at her in pained surprise. Why was it that after finding out about her identity, he was more surprised at her foul-mouthed language? Without waiting for him to recover, she pressed her hands to his chest and shocked him again. Instead of taking it this time though, he held onto her wrists as she poured energy into him, rolling himself on top of her again and holding them together so that her hands were trapped between them. Her electricity rolled through them both and she screamed. He let up immediately. She was a treacherous, lying she-devil but...it still made his hair stand on end to hear her cry out like that. Another weakness that he would need to stub out.
"I hate you!" she seethed, struggling against him as she tried to shock him again. "I hate you!" She somehow managed to loosen one of her hands and clawed him across the face. He stared down at her as a splash of blood oozed out to land on her cheek before the wound closed smoothly. Inexplicably, tears welled in her eyes as she watched. His heart was pounding to a wild rhythm in his chest as he watched the anger slowly drain out of her at the warm, familiar weight of his body on hers.
"How could you do this to me?!" Unwanted tears pooled in her eyes, sparkling and snapping as they trickled onto her electrified skin. He felt his heart clench even as he called himself six kinds of fool. He leaned over her, unable and unwilling to move, his body unusually exhausted. His throat was suddenly thick.
"Elle, I…"
"How could you do this to me?" She asked again, sadly this time. She looked so young at that moment. Almost like a child really, with her big blue eyes and smooth skin and soft pink lips. He leaned down onto her, unthinkingly reaching out to stroke her beautiful, battered face. It was a face that he had watched so many times in the dark of the night as a tiny, unacknowledged dream of a child with her smile and his eyes grew in the shelter of his heart. She was supposed to be his humanity, his light in the dark. But she was just as dark, just as damaged as he was. He should hate her for it. You do hate her, he told himself. She's a liar. She never loved you.
"You lied to me," he said hollowly, sweat dripping down from the tip of his hair to splash noiselessly into the carpet beside her head. His words sounded meaningless and hypocritical, even to him.
"I lied to you," Elle repeated bitterly. Her eyes stared up accusingly at him from inches away. "Of course. And you've always been so honest with me."
"That was -"
"Different?"
He inhaled, stung. "To protect you!" They stared at each other for a moment, the feeling behind his words heavy and laden with meaning between them. Her breathing was labored and her chest was heaving like she had just run a mile. He could feel the puff of her exhalations on his neck. "I can't trust you."
"You are choosing not to trust me. Just like you are choosing to fight me. Just like you've chosen to no longer love me," she raged at him.
I still love you.
"You think I lied to you. I did. We both did. But I never betrayed you. You've done that to yourself."
"That's not true."
"Stop lying to yourself," she ground out.
"Stop trying to get inside my head. You can't."
She looked at him steadily. "I'm already inside you. It doesn't matter what you say. You know it's true."
"No, what I know is that I don't want you anymore," he said deliberately, cruelly and watched as his pain was reflected back in her eyes. "I don't need you and I don't want you. It's been fun, Elle, really - playing house like this. Even more fun now that everything's out in the open. I loved having a stupid blond bimbo to come home to every night to spread her legs for me and make me dinner after a long day of killing her friends and co-workers without her ever knowing it." She went still. They stared at each other for a long moment as he silently urged her to fight back, swallowing the bile rising in the back of his throat as he ruthlessly pushed away the urge to take back his words. Her wide eyes stared at him unblinkingly as she trembled. Say it, he silently pleaded. There's nothing left to lose. Say what you really think of me. Say that I mean nothing to you. Say it.
"You can't kill me," she finally whispered in understanding.
"Don't kid yourself," he replied quietly, harshly.
"You can't kill me unless I make you kill me," she continued wonderingly as if he'd never spoken. "You want me to give you a reason. You want me to fight you to make it easier."
"No."
"You threatened me, but you've been holding back. You've been holding back this whole time. You could have killed me, or stopped me, so many times. You never did."
He stared at her, speechless.
"You're such an idiot," she said almost fondly.
"And you are a lying bitch," he said automatically, hollowly.
"Yes," she mouthed, her eyes glittering at him. "But I'm your lying bitch." He inhaled sharply, his eyes wide. Looking at her now, the dark truth of her words sank into him. He felt numb. He couldn't kill her. Even knowing what she was…God, it only made him want her even more. As sick as it was, as much as she had betrayed him…he didn't think he could ever stop wanting her. She was simply lying there now, staring into his eyes, her conviction giving her strength and he still couldn't do anything to her. He could feel himself weakening in the face of her submission. She was giving him the opportunity to make good on his threats…and he couldn't. A tremor ran through his body.
"I'm still yours," she whispered and he read the truth in her eyes. A strangled noise escaped his throat. And then his hands were all over her, cupping her, stroking her, holding her, crushing her to him. She felt so delicate and broken in his hands as she laid there limply, tears trickling out of her eyes, dark truths pouring out of her lovely, lying mouth. He felt her nails dig into his bare back and he kissed her then to stop her from saying anything more. He felt her melt at his savage, open mouth kiss.
"Gabriel!" she gasped against him and he buried his face in her neck, his hands tangled in her hair and the back of her shirt. The feeling behind that name on her lips...it was too much.
"Don't. Don't lie to me," he commanded roughly, clutching her tight. It must have hurt but instead of struggling, she smoothed his hair down the nape of his neck gently and wrapped her arms around him.
"Not everything was a lie." He heard the hitch in her voice, the sincerity, and he swallowed thickly, wanting to believe her so very badly. Even knowing everything, he still couldn't help it. He ached at the thought of letting go of her. She felt so small in his arms. She had never felt more vulnerable to him than in this moment when he knew what he could do to her, what he had never even considered doing to her before but what he knew he would have done to Agent Bishop without a second thought. And he knew then that he had held back.
On his cheek, he felt the hot splash of her tear. He lifted his head in wonder to stare down at her silently pleading face, at those deep morning blue eyes so full of sorrow and longing. And he was lost.
Before he knew it, he was kissing her again - hot, heavy kisses that were full of hopelessness - and her mouth was opening under him and he could feel the wetness on her face and it was on his face, too. Her arms were around him and clutching him and he felt of surge of want tinged with despair well up in him. He gripped her harder. Suddenly, it didn't seem like anything else mattered except the rightness of her in his arms.
The carpet in her office was warm and plush and as he pushed up her skirt, she lifted her hips to help him, arching herself into him. He felt her hands slip down to untie what was left of his pants and quickly kicked the rest of his restraining garments off. He groaned at the feel of her quick little hands slipping down lower to grip him.
"Elle," he pleaded, pressing up against her. I love you.
He felt the gentle softness of her body and the warm encouraging circle of her arms tighten around him and felt as if he were standing at the edge of a precipice. One more word from her and he would plummet over the edge.
"Gabriel," she whispered, her voice full of love and acceptance despite everything.
And that was when he felt himself fall for her all over again.
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AN: Bonus time! So as a special thank you for making it this far with me and as an apology for taking so long in between chapters, I've included the short crack scene below. It was supposed to occur immediately after Elle and Gabriel find out about each other. This is the first scene I wrote for this story and I was originally going to build the story around it but it ended up going in a completely different direction from what I first intended so this scene had to be scrapped. I always liked it, though. Hope you enjoy it.
Chapter 10 (Original)
"I can't believe you're Bishop!"
"I can't believe you're Sylar."
"How the hell did you keep this from me?"
Elle smirked. "It wasn't easy."
"You don't really work at a bakery, do you?"
"Gah, no way!"
"So all those pies you brought home were, what, made by someone else?" he asked accusingly. At Elle's guilty nod, Gabriel blew up. "You told me those were made with love! With love! I can't believe this!"
"You're mad about baked goods? I just saw you kill someone!"
"You would have died if I hadn't killed him. And you're one to talk Bishop. I've read your file. You have a list of kills a mile long." They glared at each other. Gabriel sighed.
"Is it true what you can do?" he asked.
"Depends. What does your file say?"
"It hypothesizes that you'd the strongest electrogenicist on record."
Elle smiled smugly. "Well, I don't think there are any others like me on record but…" she shrugged coyly, clearly indicating that yes, her powers were indeed, bad ass.
"I saw what you can do. It's incredible," he breathed. He was hovering over her and Elle recognized the smoldering look in his eyes. It was almost the same look he gave her before he usually threw her in bed and locked the door for a day of hanky panky, but not quite.
"Your power, Elle…it's amazing. Like nothing I've ever seen before…" he continued. She uneasily noticed his eyes go slightly wild around the edges and his breathing deepen.
"Gabriel, what are you…"
"Shh, baby…" He raised his hand, two of his fingers outstretched and then –
"OW! What the hell was that for?!"
She had bitch slapped him as hard as she could.
"You were going to 'Sylarize' me!"
"I was not!"
"Don't you lie to me, Gabriel Gray!"
"…alright, maybe just a little –"
"Just a little…!"
"- but I would have like, totally healed you."
"You can do that?" she said in surprise before the scowl returned to her face. "You know what - never mind. That's not the point," she ground out. "Gabriel, I swear to god, it you ever cut me open I am filing for divorce!"
"You always say that, babe."
She poked him hard in the chest. "This isn't like when you leave the toilet seat up or eat the last fudgesicle, this time I mean it."
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AN: I know, I know - totally NOT how this story ended up but...what are you gonna do, right?