fic: No Other Way
Title: No Other Way
Characters/Pairings: Sylar
Rating: PG
Warnings: If you know Sylar, I think you're good.
Spoiler alert: Season 3
Word Count: 572
Summary: Sylar expects to walk away from Elle's body and be done with it, but it proves harder than he expected.
She’d never looked less like an angel. He remembered when he had first seen her, in her white top. At first, he had thought he had more in common with the broken watch she’d brought than with her. He was broken, too. After she’d betrayed him, he had wondered if she had gotten the watch herself or if some nameless entity at the Company had done it.
And now she had betrayed him again, the pain worse than before. He had loved her. He had thought he understood her.
He’d been happy. Angela and Arthur had wanted him. From the time Angela had cupped his cheek, he had wanted her to be… Or had he just wanted family? And Elle had said nothing. She had let him believe a lie.
Maybe she had understood him, too. He’d picked up on enough to know how Bob had treated her. Maybe she’d understood the importance of family - even if the family were fake - better than he had. Maybe she had seen how much he wanted it, the normalcy of it all. Never mind how broken he was to think of the Petrellis as normal...
He could walk away. He should walk away. He’d done enough by setting her on fire. He hadn’t done that for anyone else. He should just go back to thinking of her as worth nothing more than an ability.
If only he’d never met her... He could still remember how confused he’d been when he first realized she had an ability. It hadn’t occurred to him yet why she’d lied to him, only that it hurt that she had. He’d barely been able to tell her to run before he killed her, too.
And now he had. The angel was dead. He wished he could stop thinking of her as an angel, that he could stop thinking of her smiling and laughing at him, kissing him. How many other women would ever pretend to be kidnapped and laugh at how he’d nearly been shot? He’d never known what to expect with her, and despite how he knew they were both broken, he had never been so... happy.
Maybe she’d felt the same way.
He tried to look at her corpse as if it were nothing, to feel nothing. If this had been any other special, Sylar would be experimenting with his new ability already. But Elle had already taught him how to use it. She’d always been different from the other specials.
He forced himself to take a step toward the road. He’d find a car, find clean clothes, get her smell out of his nose, kill some people. Maybe he’d even find his dad to try and recapture the sense of family he’d wanted with the Petrellis.
Like he could have had with Elle.
He went still. He tried to take another step, but the wind kicked up the scent of her charred body. He couldn’t get the image of her smiling at him out of his head.
No, he couldn’t walk away yet. Not yet.
Soon he was back on the road, listening to a news report of a slain coroner and a body stolen from the morgue. With her tissue samples sent off, Elle Bishop was officially dead, and unofficially living off gold trinkets in Mexico.
This wasn’t the path either of his mothers had chosen for him, but he wouldn’t live any other way.
Characters/Pairings: Sylar
Rating: PG
Warnings: If you know Sylar, I think you're good.
Spoiler alert: Season 3
Word Count: 572
Summary: Sylar expects to walk away from Elle's body and be done with it, but it proves harder than he expected.
She’d never looked less like an angel. He remembered when he had first seen her, in her white top. At first, he had thought he had more in common with the broken watch she’d brought than with her. He was broken, too. After she’d betrayed him, he had wondered if she had gotten the watch herself or if some nameless entity at the Company had done it.
And now she had betrayed him again, the pain worse than before. He had loved her. He had thought he understood her.
He’d been happy. Angela and Arthur had wanted him. From the time Angela had cupped his cheek, he had wanted her to be… Or had he just wanted family? And Elle had said nothing. She had let him believe a lie.
Maybe she had understood him, too. He’d picked up on enough to know how Bob had treated her. Maybe she’d understood the importance of family - even if the family were fake - better than he had. Maybe she had seen how much he wanted it, the normalcy of it all. Never mind how broken he was to think of the Petrellis as normal...
He could walk away. He should walk away. He’d done enough by setting her on fire. He hadn’t done that for anyone else. He should just go back to thinking of her as worth nothing more than an ability.
If only he’d never met her... He could still remember how confused he’d been when he first realized she had an ability. It hadn’t occurred to him yet why she’d lied to him, only that it hurt that she had. He’d barely been able to tell her to run before he killed her, too.
And now he had. The angel was dead. He wished he could stop thinking of her as an angel, that he could stop thinking of her smiling and laughing at him, kissing him. How many other women would ever pretend to be kidnapped and laugh at how he’d nearly been shot? He’d never known what to expect with her, and despite how he knew they were both broken, he had never been so... happy.
Maybe she’d felt the same way.
He tried to look at her corpse as if it were nothing, to feel nothing. If this had been any other special, Sylar would be experimenting with his new ability already. But Elle had already taught him how to use it. She’d always been different from the other specials.
He forced himself to take a step toward the road. He’d find a car, find clean clothes, get her smell out of his nose, kill some people. Maybe he’d even find his dad to try and recapture the sense of family he’d wanted with the Petrellis.
Like he could have had with Elle.
He went still. He tried to take another step, but the wind kicked up the scent of her charred body. He couldn’t get the image of her smiling at him out of his head.
No, he couldn’t walk away yet. Not yet.
Soon he was back on the road, listening to a news report of a slain coroner and a body stolen from the morgue. With her tissue samples sent off, Elle Bishop was officially dead, and unofficially living off gold trinkets in Mexico.
This wasn’t the path either of his mothers had chosen for him, but he wouldn’t live any other way.