fic: Nothing Is Taking Me Down, Part 10/10 (Heroes)
Title: Nothing Is Taking Me Down, Part 10/10 (complete)
Author: acinogan
Characters: Sylar, Elle, Peter, Angela, Matt, Mohinder, Daphne, Noah Bennet, a couple of others
Word Count: 1877 this bit
Rating: PG-13 this part
Summary: Elle makes a guest appearance on Sylar's latest road trip to collect on a debt. Going more and more AU by the moment.
Spoilers/Warnings: Gen. Volume 4 spoilers
Disclaimer: I don't own Heroes characters etc.
A/N: nudged by the prompt from superkappa regarding Damien Rice songs. i actually gleaned this from "I Remember," though.
A/N: thanks to everyone who read and commented along the way! i really appreciate it! oh, i want to try to do a fanmix for this fic, but i have no idea how to get it uploaded, so if anyone were to want to advise me about that, it would be awesome.
Prologue | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9
He drove back to the hotel quickly, calling her name as he stepped through the door to his room. He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw her there, sitting on the big bed in the middle of the room. Well, when he saw the illusion of her form sitting there. Why was he only just now splitting hairs about what he was actually seeing? Maybe Parkman's power was getting to him.
"I don't want to find him," he began without preamble. "They locked up Luke anyway, so I would need to start looking again, but I don't want to. Not right now."
"Okay," she allowed, a bit confused.
"Maybe in a little while," he conceded.
"What took you so long to get back?"
"Bennet was waiting for me in the car. He wanted to rub it in how everyone's used me."
"You didn't leave him alive enough to get out of the car without a push, did you?"
"I did," he admitted simply. "He doesn't have anything I need." Elle laughed sharply.
"How do I keep forgetting you only kill people you need something from?"
"I can fix you now, though, we can..." He could create a temporary illusion that his new power would transform into reality for as long as he let it. But he couldn't fix her, he couldn't undo what he'd done, and they both knew that.
"You can't, but I'm glad you want to."
"Maybe there's another power, a better one, and we can go get it and then--"
"Gabriel," she stopped his verbalized thinking and then smiled sadly at him. The look on her face was almost like pity, and that unnerved him. She was not allowed to feel sorry for him. He was not a man to be pitied, not by anyone, especially not by her. "This is enough for now," she reassured him, and those few words ripped him apart along the seams that had already begun to unravel thanks to his somewhat raw state of mind.
He used his power and made her solidify where he saw her image sitting so that, by the time he'd crossed the room, she was in his arms and he could feel her weight pressing into the bed underneath him. Her body had mass that occupied the space between him and the bed. This power was like a miracle, it was like Lazarus, like the Resurrection, and it was his. He threaded his fingers through hers and her hand was warm. He could feel her squeeze his hand in return.
"Try your power on me," he told her, as if he'd told her to open the birthday present he'd gotten her. She smiled up at him.
"Do you think it will work?"
"Try it."
She watched their clasped hands and he watched her face. He felt a small shock in his hand, and her face lit up. He could feel the smile widen across his own face; they were grinning like idiots at each other. Then she sent a huge bolt up his arm, big enough to make him call out in pain and singe the hotel bedspread a little. She giggled with delight to have gotten her power back. He had never been so glad to smell burning flesh and synthetic textiles, he thought, as he took a deep breath while his arm regenerated completely. She still grasped his hand, almost like she was afraid that if she let go of him, the illusion would stop. He fixed the scorch mark on the bedspread with his power.
"I like this power," she said quietly, reverently, and he couldn't tell whether she meant her own or his.
He nuzzled her cheek with his, and he could feel her chest rise and fall under his as she took a deep breath.
"I remembered what this felt like," she whispered in his ear, a confession to both of them. "It wasn't the same in the dreams. This feels real, like before in Building 26." She planted a path of gentle, sweet kisses from his ear along his jaw to his chin and smiled. "I can even feel your stubble."
"Hang on." He concentrated a bit, and her eyes widened.
"Instant shaving. Wow. But I kinda liked it, can you put it back?" He did, and she traced the thumb of her free hand over his cheek, feeling the present-again stubble. "There are endless possibilities here. We could spend years just playing around with this one power." As soon as the words were out in the open, she realized what she'd said and the possible implications, and the obvious joy that had been on her face shuttered away behind a more neutral expression as she finally released his hand. She was still in charge of her own emotions, her own facial expressions and movements, he noted, even though he was creating her physical presence. How much would he have to concentrate to make her look happy again? To make her think she was happy again?
"Stop staring at me like that; it's creepy."
"I was just thinking."
"About all the little experiments you want to run on me with your new power? That's what it looked like you were thinking."
"Not that, exactly, just wondering how much of this is you and how much of it is me making it seem like you."
"If we talk about it too much, my brain will explode. Can't we table the hows and whys for a while and just play?"
He smiled at how much that sounded like the Elle he'd stolen a rental car with. Even if he'd made her say that, it was still a good idea, so he gave in. He lost track of time in the hotel bed with her, neither of them wanting to completely lose contact with the other, so he made sure he was always touching her, and she did the same, reaching for him if his body got more than a few inches away from hers. When they settled in to go to sleep a few hours later, exhausted, her back pressed against his chest, he marveled at the fact that after months of empty arms, he finally had his beautiful companion back. That when he wanted to see the sparks he equated with her, she could make them for him.
"Thanks for haunting me," he said into the hair on the top of her head. He heard, and felt, her laugh softly.
"You did deserve it. I should have milked the tormenting you part a while longer, I think."
"You can still torment me if you want to. I'll let you do whatever you want. If you want to get back at me, I understand. I'll help you." He made the offer sincerely. If she wanted him to do something to make up for killing her, he would do it. After a short silence, she turned over in his arms to face him.
"I told you a couple of days ago what I want. You were even awake, so you should remember it," she joked.
"Help me."
"You know, we were in the car, and the kid was in the store, and you were yelling at me, and I told you--"
"That you wanted me to regret killing you the most," he finished for her as he recalled their conversation.
"Do you?" she asked him, looking him unwaveringly in the eyes. He carefully considered before he answered her. He had done a lot of things that could be considered regrettable, but most of them he could easily reconcile with his own code of ethics. There were a few things he did genuinely regret, though, and killing her was definitely one of those things. Most of the items on that list had qualifiers associated with the regret. He regretted that his mother, Virginia, had died thinking he was a monster more than he was sorry she'd died. There were a few people he regretted leaving alive. Bennet, for example, he really should have killed a while ago. But those were different. With Elle, he would take it back if he could. It was too permanent now, though, and they couldn't go back. Wait, maybe that was the solution, literally going back--
"We need to find Hiro Nakamura and get his power next. I can teleport back to the beach and stop it from happening."
"He lost his power. Arthur took it. And I don't know of any other time travelers." She actually smiled at him when his hope evaporated. "Like I wouldn't have checked that option out first."
"I would change it if I could. Is that what you wanted to hear?"
"Almost. Do you want to fix that more than anything else that you want?" she pressed him, not satisfied with the generalized nature of his admission.
"I wish I hadn't done it. More than anything I've done."
"Okay. That makes it a little better." She tilted her chin up to kiss him, and remembering again how amazing it was to be able to touch her cascaded into another exploration of her body.
Later, "how long do you think you'll stay with me?" was the closest he let himself get to asking her anything of great emotional importance.
"I don't know," she admitted. "Until it stops feeling good? A while, if I can."
"A long time?"
"Do you want me to stay with you for a long time?"
"Can it be like this the whole time? Nobody trying to tell us what to do."
"You make your own world."
"You said that before."
"You remembered." She smiled at him, her eyes narrow with the need for
sleep.
"Have you even slept the whole time you've been dead?" he asked her.
"Not really, I don't think. Not like this, where you lie down and get tired and fall asleep. This feels good."
"I did remember, earlier. With Parkman. I want you to stay." Exhaustion allowed him to talk with very little self-censoring.
"Okay." She scooted in as close to him as she could, her face along the curve of his throat, and when she asked the question, he almost couldn't hear her muffled voice. "What happens when you fall asleep?"
"Hmmm?"
"When you fall asleep. Will I go away? Or just not not be able to feel you or touch you anymore?"
"I don't know. If you go away, you'll come back." He felt her nodding against his neck. "What if you fall asleep first? Will I have to concentrate more to feel you?"
"We have to stop. This is too much thinking. Just stay awake until I fall asleep, okay? I don't want to find out tonight."
"All right." He wrapped his arms tightly around her and waited to feel the even expansion and contraction of her torso that would mean she had fallen asleep.
He would do whatever he had to do to make sure she got to stay with him this time. Take any power that could keep her there, and nobody would stop him, not the government, not Noah Bennet, not Angela or any of the Petrellis. Not his father, if he ever tried to find Samson Gray. Not even himself.
Author: acinogan
Characters: Sylar, Elle, Peter, Angela, Matt, Mohinder, Daphne, Noah Bennet, a couple of others
Word Count: 1877 this bit
Rating: PG-13 this part
Summary: Elle makes a guest appearance on Sylar's latest road trip to collect on a debt. Going more and more AU by the moment.
Spoilers/Warnings: Gen. Volume 4 spoilers
Disclaimer: I don't own Heroes characters etc.
A/N: nudged by the prompt from superkappa regarding Damien Rice songs. i actually gleaned this from "I Remember," though.
A/N: thanks to everyone who read and commented along the way! i really appreciate it! oh, i want to try to do a fanmix for this fic, but i have no idea how to get it uploaded, so if anyone were to want to advise me about that, it would be awesome.
Prologue | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9
He drove back to the hotel quickly, calling her name as he stepped through the door to his room. He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw her there, sitting on the big bed in the middle of the room. Well, when he saw the illusion of her form sitting there. Why was he only just now splitting hairs about what he was actually seeing? Maybe Parkman's power was getting to him.
"I don't want to find him," he began without preamble. "They locked up Luke anyway, so I would need to start looking again, but I don't want to. Not right now."
"Okay," she allowed, a bit confused.
"Maybe in a little while," he conceded.
"What took you so long to get back?"
"Bennet was waiting for me in the car. He wanted to rub it in how everyone's used me."
"You didn't leave him alive enough to get out of the car without a push, did you?"
"I did," he admitted simply. "He doesn't have anything I need." Elle laughed sharply.
"How do I keep forgetting you only kill people you need something from?"
"I can fix you now, though, we can..." He could create a temporary illusion that his new power would transform into reality for as long as he let it. But he couldn't fix her, he couldn't undo what he'd done, and they both knew that.
"You can't, but I'm glad you want to."
"Maybe there's another power, a better one, and we can go get it and then--"
"Gabriel," she stopped his verbalized thinking and then smiled sadly at him. The look on her face was almost like pity, and that unnerved him. She was not allowed to feel sorry for him. He was not a man to be pitied, not by anyone, especially not by her. "This is enough for now," she reassured him, and those few words ripped him apart along the seams that had already begun to unravel thanks to his somewhat raw state of mind.
He used his power and made her solidify where he saw her image sitting so that, by the time he'd crossed the room, she was in his arms and he could feel her weight pressing into the bed underneath him. Her body had mass that occupied the space between him and the bed. This power was like a miracle, it was like Lazarus, like the Resurrection, and it was his. He threaded his fingers through hers and her hand was warm. He could feel her squeeze his hand in return.
"Try your power on me," he told her, as if he'd told her to open the birthday present he'd gotten her. She smiled up at him.
"Do you think it will work?"
"Try it."
She watched their clasped hands and he watched her face. He felt a small shock in his hand, and her face lit up. He could feel the smile widen across his own face; they were grinning like idiots at each other. Then she sent a huge bolt up his arm, big enough to make him call out in pain and singe the hotel bedspread a little. She giggled with delight to have gotten her power back. He had never been so glad to smell burning flesh and synthetic textiles, he thought, as he took a deep breath while his arm regenerated completely. She still grasped his hand, almost like she was afraid that if she let go of him, the illusion would stop. He fixed the scorch mark on the bedspread with his power.
"I like this power," she said quietly, reverently, and he couldn't tell whether she meant her own or his.
He nuzzled her cheek with his, and he could feel her chest rise and fall under his as she took a deep breath.
"I remembered what this felt like," she whispered in his ear, a confession to both of them. "It wasn't the same in the dreams. This feels real, like before in Building 26." She planted a path of gentle, sweet kisses from his ear along his jaw to his chin and smiled. "I can even feel your stubble."
"Hang on." He concentrated a bit, and her eyes widened.
"Instant shaving. Wow. But I kinda liked it, can you put it back?" He did, and she traced the thumb of her free hand over his cheek, feeling the present-again stubble. "There are endless possibilities here. We could spend years just playing around with this one power." As soon as the words were out in the open, she realized what she'd said and the possible implications, and the obvious joy that had been on her face shuttered away behind a more neutral expression as she finally released his hand. She was still in charge of her own emotions, her own facial expressions and movements, he noted, even though he was creating her physical presence. How much would he have to concentrate to make her look happy again? To make her think she was happy again?
"Stop staring at me like that; it's creepy."
"I was just thinking."
"About all the little experiments you want to run on me with your new power? That's what it looked like you were thinking."
"Not that, exactly, just wondering how much of this is you and how much of it is me making it seem like you."
"If we talk about it too much, my brain will explode. Can't we table the hows and whys for a while and just play?"
He smiled at how much that sounded like the Elle he'd stolen a rental car with. Even if he'd made her say that, it was still a good idea, so he gave in. He lost track of time in the hotel bed with her, neither of them wanting to completely lose contact with the other, so he made sure he was always touching her, and she did the same, reaching for him if his body got more than a few inches away from hers. When they settled in to go to sleep a few hours later, exhausted, her back pressed against his chest, he marveled at the fact that after months of empty arms, he finally had his beautiful companion back. That when he wanted to see the sparks he equated with her, she could make them for him.
"Thanks for haunting me," he said into the hair on the top of her head. He heard, and felt, her laugh softly.
"You did deserve it. I should have milked the tormenting you part a while longer, I think."
"You can still torment me if you want to. I'll let you do whatever you want. If you want to get back at me, I understand. I'll help you." He made the offer sincerely. If she wanted him to do something to make up for killing her, he would do it. After a short silence, she turned over in his arms to face him.
"I told you a couple of days ago what I want. You were even awake, so you should remember it," she joked.
"Help me."
"You know, we were in the car, and the kid was in the store, and you were yelling at me, and I told you--"
"That you wanted me to regret killing you the most," he finished for her as he recalled their conversation.
"Do you?" she asked him, looking him unwaveringly in the eyes. He carefully considered before he answered her. He had done a lot of things that could be considered regrettable, but most of them he could easily reconcile with his own code of ethics. There were a few things he did genuinely regret, though, and killing her was definitely one of those things. Most of the items on that list had qualifiers associated with the regret. He regretted that his mother, Virginia, had died thinking he was a monster more than he was sorry she'd died. There were a few people he regretted leaving alive. Bennet, for example, he really should have killed a while ago. But those were different. With Elle, he would take it back if he could. It was too permanent now, though, and they couldn't go back. Wait, maybe that was the solution, literally going back--
"We need to find Hiro Nakamura and get his power next. I can teleport back to the beach and stop it from happening."
"He lost his power. Arthur took it. And I don't know of any other time travelers." She actually smiled at him when his hope evaporated. "Like I wouldn't have checked that option out first."
"I would change it if I could. Is that what you wanted to hear?"
"Almost. Do you want to fix that more than anything else that you want?" she pressed him, not satisfied with the generalized nature of his admission.
"I wish I hadn't done it. More than anything I've done."
"Okay. That makes it a little better." She tilted her chin up to kiss him, and remembering again how amazing it was to be able to touch her cascaded into another exploration of her body.
Later, "how long do you think you'll stay with me?" was the closest he let himself get to asking her anything of great emotional importance.
"I don't know," she admitted. "Until it stops feeling good? A while, if I can."
"A long time?"
"Do you want me to stay with you for a long time?"
"Can it be like this the whole time? Nobody trying to tell us what to do."
"You make your own world."
"You said that before."
"You remembered." She smiled at him, her eyes narrow with the need for
sleep.
"Have you even slept the whole time you've been dead?" he asked her.
"Not really, I don't think. Not like this, where you lie down and get tired and fall asleep. This feels good."
"I did remember, earlier. With Parkman. I want you to stay." Exhaustion allowed him to talk with very little self-censoring.
"Okay." She scooted in as close to him as she could, her face along the curve of his throat, and when she asked the question, he almost couldn't hear her muffled voice. "What happens when you fall asleep?"
"Hmmm?"
"When you fall asleep. Will I go away? Or just not not be able to feel you or touch you anymore?"
"I don't know. If you go away, you'll come back." He felt her nodding against his neck. "What if you fall asleep first? Will I have to concentrate more to feel you?"
"We have to stop. This is too much thinking. Just stay awake until I fall asleep, okay? I don't want to find out tonight."
"All right." He wrapped his arms tightly around her and waited to feel the even expansion and contraction of her torso that would mean she had fallen asleep.
He would do whatever he had to do to make sure she got to stay with him this time. Take any power that could keep her there, and nobody would stop him, not the government, not Noah Bennet, not Angela or any of the Petrellis. Not his father, if he ever tried to find Samson Gray. Not even himself.