pinch hit for moritainekai
Sitting by her bedside, he thinks about what she had told him, bending the corners of his magical paper star. She had said finding anyone in the world just by thinking about them wasn’t “special.” Mohinder thinks he knows someone who might disagree. He sighs and runs terse fingers through his hair.
The girl is okay, she’s not going to end up like Shanti…He’s saved her. So why does he feel guilty?
Chilly light penetrates the room, its glowing tendrils mocking him through the window. On a whim, he holds the orange star up to the sky, imagining that maybe it belongs there-it certainly doesn’t belong here with him… So maybe right next to the moon-it can keep the night safe from the bogeyman.
He studies his mother’s face, still and smeared with blood. Gabriel stumbles back, unable to process this evidence of his malevolence.
No! No, not me, Sylar. It was him.
We’re one and the same, Gabe.
The world goes dim; this must be the end of him.
But it isn’t, and he’s almost disappointed… He wakes in a pool of blood, painted over the floor in some crude replication of Isaac Mendez’s loft. He feels suddenly and very violently ill.
“Molly,” he hisses, waking her, protective star still clutched in his fist.
“Dr Suresh?” she calls sleepily, rolling to face him, now hunched over her bed. “What’s wrong?”
He wouldn’t have to wonder what she meant if he had bothered to look in a mirror-he would have seen his face, haggard and weary with the beginnings of a beard poking out, eyes dark; cheeks hollow. “I need your help, Molly,” he says insistently, squeezing tiny fingers in his other hand. He doesn’t want to leave her, but taking her would put her in danger.
Her head lolls back and her eyes shut in exhaustion. He pulls at her arm, a bit frantic now.
“Please, I need you.”
It’s only a murmur, but she sits up and lifts her heavy eyelids, wrenching her arm out of his grasp gently. A sad look flashes over her eyes, and she motions for him to move his head closer so she can whisper in his ear. “Don’t hurt him, okay?”
He draws back, blinking; tucks his protective star into his pocket. “Okay,” he breathes.
Sylar begrudgingly drops to his knees and begins to scrub at the red coating the floor. His-Gabriel’s-mother has been temporarily taken care of, and he allows himself a small sigh. Where had that come from? He had thought Gabriel to be long dormant. A mocking voice in a dusty corner of their mind… he certainly hadn’t thought Gabriel had the sort of power to overcome him like that.
He knew the boy still had influence over him, after Zane… After Mohinder had attempted to torture him. He could feel Gabriel tugging at his restraints, but he hadn’t considered him a threat. He regrets it now.
A knock at the door and he curses-since when does Mother Gray get visitors?
Oh, right, she doesn’t.
Sylar tries to ignore the incessant sound, but finds he soon has a migraine from the enhanced echo of knuckles on wood. He grumbles, and moves tentatively across the room to open the door, an innocent smile fixing itself lopsidedly to his face.
Mohinder’s hand drops like lead as Sylar, and it is unmistakeably so, looks to him expectantly through thick-rimmed glasses.
“Mr Sylar,” he says flatly, appraising the neatly parted hair, the snugly fitting sweater…
“Gabriel Gray,” the monster counters, smiling brilliantly.
Mohinder scowls, stepping past the psychopath dismissively. He wrinkles his nose at the metallic scent the room seems bathed in. Blood. “You may have been him once, Sylar, but you are merely a murderer now.”
Sylar flinches, dropping fluidly into his Gabriel façade-which he supposes, really isn’t such a façade anymore. “You’re wrong, Mohinder,” he says quietly in Gabriel’s tenor, meeting the Indian’s eyes unerringly.
He hears something unfamiliar in that heartbeat. Not that he’d been listening to it; it just…slips under his radar sometimes. It starts to quicken, its thumping excited and fearful. Sylar steps closer now, knitting his eyebrows together in curiosity.
Mohinder shudders, recognizing Sylar’s look of find-out-how-it-works. Unmistakably Sylar… and yet…
The taller man pitches forward, and takes his lips hurriedly. Mohinder makes a small sound in protest, reaching into his pocket to remove the small slip of paper. Sylar catches his wrist, drawing him against himself before sobering, realizing that this is most assuredly not what Gabriel would do.
He drops Mohinder’s hand, taking a step back. But Mohinder closes the distance, pressing the star into Sylar’s chest. The killer’s eyes widen, and the mask slips away. Mohinder isn’t sure what he had been expecting-Sylar to burst into flames? Certainly not. And somehow this, Sylar showing his true face, this is more satisfying.
The hand closes around his other wrist now, seemingly frightened to displace the star, though Mohinder knows better. Sylar kisses him in a mockery of kindness, licking Mohinder’s lips even as his hand tightens, cutting off circulation. He gasps despite himself, but struggles to get away, finds himself being manoeuvred across the room and pressed flush against Sylar, his hand and the star crushed in between them.
Mohinder makes an unintelligible noise as the kiss gets deeper, Sylar’s tongue forcing its way inside; teeth scraping against his cheek. Sylar is working his hands under Mohinder’s shirt while he struggles endlessly, falling into a rhythm, his body responding much more than he would ever consciously authorize.
Sylar works the article of clothing over Mohinder’s head as he steps backwards into his-Gabriel’s-mother’s room. It catches on the dark hand, which still pushes the small paper into the fabric of his sweater. Sylar looks to Mohinder quizzically, once again doing a fair impression of his alter-ego. But Mohinder knows that smile-Zane…
He drops his lips to Mohinder’s neck, sucking noisily as he pries the item from the Indian’s distracted fingers. Mohinder shuts his eyes as his shirt drops to the floor, long fingernails raking over his nipples. He forgets the star-doesn’t need protection. Not now.
He’s removing Sylar’s sweater, and there’s a small flutter of paper but he doesn’t notice. He focuses on Molly’s words and the need thrumming through his pores. He had wanted Zane, he reminds himself, as if it’s a justification.
Don’t hurt him.
But how can he not? With all the pain Sylar has caused… The other man pulls them together, imperceptibly close, and Mohinder bites back a moan as their hips collide and their chests slide… He initiates this time, chewing on Sylar’s lower lip and pushing him back into the bed, tipping him over backward.
Sylar lets out a small creak, evoked by his perpetual desire to figure out what makes Mohinder tick. Most people he would cut open, but in this moment of heat and flesh he can think of nothing more appropriate.
Inappropriate, as it were.
Shut up, Gabriel.
He nips at Mohinder’s collarbone to drown out the voice, moving blunt teeth over his side as he works the man’s jeans off of slender hipbones telekinetically.
“Take it, Mohinder,” he taunts, moving up to scrape his teeth against his earlobe. “I know you want it.”
Mohinder steels himself, quashing the urge to cry out. Sylar’s nails drag along his back, digging into his hips; littering crescent shapes over his bones. Then he’s grappling for the clasp on the man’s pants. This is too surreal, happening too fast for him to register. He just has to feel; work out logic later… Much later.
Sylar wraps spindly legs around him and he feels surrounded, feels like prey. He quakes, hesitating a moment. What did this accomplish? And then again, what did stopping now prove?
Nothing.
He enters Sylar thoughtlessly, blissfully empty of analysis. He begins to thrust, no pretence involved, and he knows Sylar won’t mind.
And he doesn’t, not one for pretence himself as he moves against Mohinder, tightening his grip, inspiring blood to trickle down mocha thighs. The slighter man pulls out of Sylar completely, trying to detach himself as foreign sounds crawl up the serial killer’s throat, escaping and attacking his ear drums violently. He slams back in, brushing a place deep inside Sylar, too lost to notice a subtle shift.
Gabriel throws back his head, his contrastingly light touch ghosting along Mohinder’s back to tangle in his ebony curls. He tries to muffle himself, but he screams despite himself, his release spilling over Mohinder’s abdomen.
The man looks surprised, and Gabriel feels mortified, blush creeping into his cheeks. Realization dawns behind dark eyes and Mohinder notes the shift, sliding out of the other man with a small cry of loss.
A sudden gust of wind sweeps in through the partially opened window, and Mohinder registers his star flying out with the air.
As the moon vanishes behind dark clouds, he thinks, placing a gentle kiss on Gabriel’s forehead.
Maybe we’re all in our proper places after all.