The Cure
Title: The Cure
Author: Harikari
Pairings: Eventual Matt/Mohinder, unrequited Sylar/Mohinder.
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: Don't own em'. No copyright infringement is intended. I'm writing this for fun, not profit.
Warnings: Violence, gore, strong language, some eventual male/male sexual content, possible dub-con, AU Season 2, spoilers for all of Season 1 and important elements of the Season 2 episodes aired so far, etc.
Summary: When the Company puts Mohinder in danger by inadvertently revealing his unique hero healing ability to an individual bent on the destruction of all things 'special', Matt and a virus-stricken Sylar are forced to team up to protect him.
Part One
"Matt?" ventured Molly. "Hello? Did you hear me?"
Matt blinked; focused on the little girl standing in front of him with her hands on her hips, on the feel of the couch underneath him. "Er...," sputtered Matt. "What?"
Molly rolled her eyes and sighed. She batted the tendrils of long, light brown hair that were hanging in front of her face away with an impatient flip of her hand. "Maple or strawberry," she said, and she stressed the words in a way that suggested she'd said them more than once in the last minute or so. "Mohinder wants to know what kind of syrup you want on your waffles so that he can fix them for you and I can bring them-"
"That's okay," said Matt, cutting her off. "I'm up. I'll be there in a second." He pushed himself up so that he was sitting; stared blankly at the television in front of him. It was on, the volume was low, and the Meet the Press logo was flashing across its screen. Molly shrugged and ambled away. Matt noticed that her hair was tangled, that she was clad in her pajamas -- the white ones with the pink rose pattern. Right, he thought, it's Sunday.
Sunday morning. Matt yawned; rubbed at his tired eyes with the heels of his hands. It was Sunday morning, both he and Mohinder had been granted the day off, and he'd dropped off on the couch watching dry individuals debate about a presidential election that was months upon months away from actually happening. He grabbed the mug sitting atop the coffee table; sipped. The coffee was tepid, tasted old. It had been a while since he'd awoken and stumbled into the kitchen to brew and collect it before stumbling back to the couch, then.
"Matt," Molly persisted. "Are you coming?" Matt nodded, slammed his mug back down onto the coffee table in a harsher manner than was probably necessary, and turned his gaze towards the kitchen. He could see from where he was sitting that Molly had taken her usual place at the dining table; she was swinging her legs, humming what Matt thought sounded a lot like the Suite Life of Zack and Cody theme song (and geez, he hadn't planned on ever knowing something as horrifying as a Disney's original theme song by heart), and stuffing a large cut of waffle into her mouth.
"Be sure and chew, Molly," came Mohinder's soft, cultured voice and Matt's gaze shifted once more. His eyes narrowed. The scientist was hunched over, rifling through a drawer for something. When he turned around, two forks in hand, he flashed a brief and completely innocent slant of a smile Matt's way.
Matt frowned. He didn't have to be the mind reader he was to figure out that Mohinder had been the one to send a weekend-morning, grumpy, very hungry and all around impatient Molly to wake him just for amusement's sake. The kitchen was wide open to the living room -- the apartment's layout was such that the geneticist could have easily raised his voice to wake the Detective; could have called him to breakfast himself.
Ha, thought an unamused Matt. He stood and held up a hand; waved it in his relatively new 'family's' general direction. "Right there," he said. "One second."
He disappeared quickly into the bathroom. Once the door had snicked shut behind him he turned the faucet on cold; washed his face. He stared into the mirror (it was smeared with Molly's hand prints for some reason he couldn't really fathom). When the memory of the dream Molly had liberated him from -- the dream that had left him with an unsettling, pulling feeling in his gut for all of five seconds after he'd opened his eyes -- had refused to surface after two full minutes of staring he washed his hands, dried them on the hand towel hanging on the wall next the mirror and strode out of the bathroom.
"So, what's a guy gotta' do to get something to eat around here?" he asked once he'd reached the kitchen table. He sat in his own usual spot, looked at Molly, and raised an inquiring eyebrow. Mouth full, she blinked up at him. Mohinder sat a plate of three large, freshly made waffles down in front of him.
"Thanks," he said, and reached for the butter.
And halfway through his syrup doused waffles and orange juice he got caught up in the sight of a happy Molly, in the taste of artificial strawberry on his tongue, in Mohinder's content expression as the geneticist worked at his own breakfast, and in the pleasant warmth of the apartment.
The dream that had left him feeling slightly angry and paranoid and like something was wrong wriggled its way to the back of his mind; nothing more than a vague, unpleasant memory and a phantom tightness in his gut remained.
Part Two