Broken Glass [sequel] - Any Other Night - 4/9 - Danger
Author: motsureru
Title: Broken Glass [sequel] - Any Other Night - 4/9 - Danger
Rating: NC-17 Overall
Spoilers/Summary: Season 1. A continuation after Season 1, Sylar/Mohinder-centric
Notes: Thanks to hugh for beta work~
Word Count: 4,465
Teaser: The idea that Mohinder had some woman potentially waiting for him back in India made something in Sylar’s stomach twist a little; Mohinder’s place was here, in this car.
.4 Danger
He’d tried his hardest. He’d done everything in his power to be the first one awake, the one in tune and alert. But somehow…
Mohinder woke up first. When Mohinder’s eyes opened, there was light coming in through a crack between the curtains and small dust particles drifting aimlessly through the air. He rubbed his face, squinting away from the light and pushing back messy curls that fell over his forehead. When his eyes adjusted, Mohinder looked to the opposite bed to see that sliver of light-
That sliver of light shining over a corpse that rest slumped and twisted.
Mohinder gave a start- he sat up quickly, eyes widening and blinking several times at the shock. Pale and slack, a corpse that- no, not a corpse.
Sylar lay awkwardly, leaning up against the headboard, having shifted from his original position in the night. Sylar’s back was to the wood, his covers having fallen at his waist. One shoulder drooped downward and his head followed in suit, though it bent backwards at an unusual angle. One of Sylar’s arms was dangling off the bed, and the other lay across his lap with palm spread open. The sight made Mohinder shudder.
The television was on again. Perhaps Sylar had trouble sleeping and sat up to watch in the night, only to fall asleep uncomfortably in the process. Mohinder would have never been the wiser. Rubbing his face again, Mohinder shifted out of bed as quietly as possible. As he stood, he looked to Sylar’s sleeping form. He let his eyes follow the scar that ran down the man’s chest now; the place where stitches had faded and only dull, lifeless tissue remained. He wanted to believe that it was the gravestone of the true Sylar. That from hereon out Mohinder’s job was to bury Sylar even deeper beneath that scar. But for now he simply turned his back on it and went to shower.
Once Mohinder had emerged (fully clothed, as he knew better from last night), he was met with a pair of eyes that looked worse for the wear. Sylar had dressed and packed up his suitcase already, but he was rubbing his neck and looking exhausted. “Good morning,” Mohinder offered the man, hanging up his towel and taking his belongings to his own suitcase.
“…Morning.” -was the gruff mumble as Sylar moved past to get to the bathroom.
Mohinder smiled in faint amusement over the natural weariness in that sound. “I’ll get us some coffee and return the keys. Then we’ll head out, alright?”
Something muttered along the lines of ‘yeah sure’ was the reply, and Mohinder slipped on his shoes before heading out the door.
To say the first few hours that passed were uncomfortably silent yet again would have been an understatement. Mohinder was almost tempted to say, judging by the way Sylar leaned his head against the car window with droopy, distant eyes, that Sylar looked hung-over. These little signs of his humanity were something Mohinder found himself quietly treasuring. It almost reminded him of the first day Sylar was in the hospital when all his ideas of the man had endured a revolution.
It was not until close to eleven, after their first rest stop and well received meal, that either of them broke the silence.
“Even after eating, you look like you could sleep for another two days,” Mohinder began, opting to turn on the radio again, swiveling the dial back and forth. The New York station was long gone, but he couldn’t place exactly what state they were in now; back roads were the preference over highways, and Mohinder was doing his best to keep their path covert. If they didn’t know exactly where they were at the moment, nobody else would know, either. He’d consult a map later. “Did you not sleep last night? You didn’t look very comfortable in the morning.”
Sylar reached over and gave a brief bat of his hand against Mohinder’s, taking over the radio search. “I thought about sleeping. But I stayed up listening instead.”
“Listening?” Mohinder withdrew his fingers, raising one eyebrow.
“Of course. It’s important to know if we’re being followed, or watched for. I was listening for police scanners.” Sylar yawned briefly, and the station came to a stop on smooth jazz. He leaned back in his seat.
Mohinder raised both eyebrows at that. “And? That must have been difficult.”
“It’s just hard to sift through that many radios,” Sylar murmured in return. “But we’re alright, for now. I didn’t pick up anything alarming.”
That Sylar would overextend himself for their safety felt vaguely flattering to Mohinder. Or was he just proud, in a strange way? The scientist smiled, glancing over at Sylar. “That’s reassuring, but I don’t want to start feeling too comfortable yet. I’d like to drive at least until midnight tonight before we sleep again. Or I sleep, anyway.”
Finally, Sylar sat up a little straighter in his seat. “It feels different than last time. Being on the road with you.” He adjusted his shirt a little- a loose fabric of dark green- and fidgeted. He felt very normal.
Unsure of where this conversation was going, Mohinder replied with the obvious. “It is different.”
“I mean, we talked more then. To pass the time,” Sylar continued, listening as slow saxophones began to weave melodies between the silent moments. “Now you just drive while I doze off.”
A half chuckle came from Mohinder’s lips. “That part was the same back then. I believe you told me you couldn’t drive. -But in that time we did talk a lot. You were trying very hard to make me like you. Trust you.”
“I’m not still?” Sylar pressed, brown eyes turning to watch Mohinder’s face as he spoke.
But Mohinder did not reply.
“When did you realize? Who I was?”
Mohinder bit his bottom lip for a moment as he considered his words. “Not until we were back in New York.”
Sylar frowned softly to himself, brows furrowing. “I thought it was sooner. You drove so fast and so long to get us back. I thought-”
“I was trying my best to protect you,” Mohinder filled in the blanks, keeping his eyes on the highway. “But it was from yourself in the end, I suppose.”
Sylar smiled at that, and his eyes moved as well to the road before them. “I think you’re still doing that.”
Mohinder drew in a slow breath through his nose. Was that what it was? His inherent urge to protect going into overdrive? But more than that- did Sylar want it that way? Was he just searching for someone to tell him he could be something else? To protect him from his own primal urges?
“It’s nice, I think,” Sylar concluded, tone contented, seemingly at peace. “To have someone trying to protect me instead of trying to kill me.”
Mohinder’s lips quirked. “Well I’ve already done the latter. And the former, before that. I guess it’s time to start all over again.”
Sylar’s little smile broadened. He appeared to get some grand entertainment from these theoretical situations. “So when this is over you’ll try again, then? To kill me?” he asked, glimpsing the way Mohinder’s fingers curled around the steering wheel in apprehension.
But Mohinder just shook his head. “I don’t want that. Not especially, anymore.”
“I’m not sure I deserve that kind of sympathy.”
When silence fell between them again, Mohinder sighed deeply. “You know, all we ever talk about are these deep revelations of inner self. I’m starting to think if anyone else tried to speak with us, they’d run screaming in existential terror.” Mohinder’s lips formed a slight smile again, and he was the one to look to Sylar this time for confirmation.
The resulting grin on Sylar’s face was as unsettling as it was endearing. “What do normal people talk about on road trips?”
“I can’t say that I know, but I’m sure it doesn’t have to do with brain eating and the last time they tried to kill one another.” Mohinder felt a twinge of amusement over his own words. This reminded him of the scarce normal moments they’d shared before sex had made their communication layered with uncertainties and clandestine meanings.
“Well, let’s talk about something normal, then,” Sylar opted almost cheerfully. Now was his chance to turn the tables. Casualness and trust could be within his grasp, and after those stones were laid, the path to inside everything that was Mohinder would be clear. “If all this… all these powers, all these theories, human bombs in New York-if all of this had never happened, where would you see yourself?”
The question took Mohinder aback entirely. It was the last question he expected. Furthermore, where would he be? Mohinder had stepped away from his life in India, made the decision more than once never to go back. An easier life had waited for him there and might still be waiting for him even now.
“Well,” Mohinder began, “I’d still be in India, for one. After my father’s death… I seriously considered staying. I had a good job teaching at the university. On top of that, Mira even offered me a position with the genetics lab, so long as my father’s research was behind me. I probably would have taken her up on that offer.”
“Mira?” Sylar quirked an eyebrow, thinking back to their conversation last night about accomplices and lovers. “A girlfriend of yours back home?”
“…” Mohinder cleared his throat a little. “She… used to be something like that… We knew each other well when I began teaching at the University of Madras.”
The idea that Mohinder had some woman potentially waiting for him back in India made something in Sylar’s stomach twist a little; Mohinder’s place was here, in this car. Here, at Sylar’s disposal. “So you’d go back home and marry her if you weren’t here?” Sylar suggested.
Mohinder’s discomfort became apparent by the way he shifted in his seat and pursed his lips. His expression looked troubled, and rightfully so. “I don’t know about that. She wanted me to at one point, but I… I’m not really sure why I’m telling you this.”
“Road trip conversation. Getting to know each other, right? Go on,” Sylar tried to say as easily as possible, without it sounding as manipulative as it was.
Mohinder took in a deep breath. Getting to know each other… “I guess… I shared things with her. My excitement over my father’s work, my aspirations with expanding on my thesis. But as much as she openly discussed those things with me, she never really appreciated them. She liked my enthusiasm, I think, but she never respected my ideas.”
“Then it never would have worked,” Sylar replied decisively, tapping his fingers in a rhythm against his knee. “She never really knew you.” Not like he did, not at all in the way he did. Sylar knew Mohinder even before he knew Mohinder, thanks to Chandra. But that was a fact that he kept veiled, lest the moment be lost.
Unable to help but smile a little, Mohinder let the conversation go. It wasn’t hard to tell from context that Sylar seemed sure of his own place above Mira in the pecking order of life. It was almost comical, odd as it was. And though Mohinder considered asking the man similar questions back, the prospect of asking the watchmaker’s son turned serial killer about his experiences with women or his future seemed like dangerous territory to tread. So Mohinder simply let jazz fill the silence and carry them slowly into the next state.
“Let’s have a look at that map.”
“Will that be one room or two, sir?”
“One.”
“And the number of beds?”
“What’s cheaper? Queen, or twins?”
“One bed.”
“Then one it will be.”
When Sylar emerged from the main office, he held two keys and an enlarged sense of pride. Mohinder had stepped out to call Bennet and update him on his location; the perfect opportunity to take this further had arisen.
It was late now, past midnight, and Mohinder was exhausted, he knew. Sylar could hear every ache and creak in the man’s bones, practically feel the way his muscles screamed for relaxation and a comfortable bed. Even his face was an open book. Mohinder’s defenses were low, and Sylar had been smoothing their small conversations over all day, addressing the man with friendly words and casual touches that were forward but subtle. They only had another day or two on the road; Sylar was prepared to make their relationship closer before the inevitable explosion that would happen once Bennet reappeared in the picture. He told himself that his own safety depended on Mohinder, in one way or another, just as his goals did. Anything he did was perfectly justified.
“One bed?” Mohinder blurted out as he dropped his suitcase in the doorway. The rush of blood into his face was like music to Sylar’s ears. “I thought-”
“I asked, but she said they’re having some kind of roach problem in some of the other rooms. So we have the farthest one away… only had a queen-sized available.” Sylar shrugged, setting his own suitcase by the door.
“Oh.” Mohinder watched as Sylar opened his suitcase to retrieve a toothbrush, disappearing inside their bathroom. He gave his own little sigh and kicked off his shoes. It was just one night, obviously. No harm in that.
When Sylar emerged with an ‘It’s all yours,’ Mohinder was dressed in his boxers and a t-shirt, the distinction made as to how much clothing he would or would not wear depending on who was in his bed. Sylar noticed, but said nothing as they switched spots. He stripped down to only his boxers with every intention of making Mohinder quite aware of his own clothing or lack thereof. He crawled into bed beneath the covers and turned down the sheets on Mohinder’s side. He listened as Mohinder’s hand worked at a kink in his shoulder from inside the bathroom.
“I’ll set the alarm,” Sylar called, reaching over to do so.
“Thank you,” Mohinder murmured as he reappeared, moving to his side of the bed. He sat on the edge for a moment, something unspoken crossing his mind, but finally he turned out the lights and lay back, sliding his legs between cool sheets.
The two lay in silence for what seemed like forever, staring up at the ceiling. Finally, Sylar turned over onto his side, a few inches of space between them. He squinted through the darkness, making out how Mohinder’s black curls stood in contrast to the sheets.
“It means a lot to me,” he started to say softly, “that you even bother to help me like this. I thanked you before, but…” Sylar reached a hand forward and touched Mohinder’s arm, trailing his fingertips against where skin and sleeve parted ways. “I don’t think I say it enough.”
The thud thud thud in Mohinder’s chest grew more audible. He turned onto his side to face Sylar, but one couldn’t tell if it was just to flee that grazing stroke or meet his invisible gaze. “You’re taking as much of a risk by traveling with me. Practically into the hands of the enemy.”
Sylar shifted his body closer, and daring to take the chance that Mohinder might flinch away, he lifted his hand and rested a warm palm gently against Mohinder's cheek. His skin was smooth there, but the heel of Sylar’s hand was skimmed by the light stubble gracing Mohinder's jaw. It made Sylar’s lips twitch at the edges. “Would you turn me in? If Bennet found out?”
Mohinder's breath caught, but no matter how he tried, he couldn’t see Sylar’s eyes in the darkness; he couldn’t unearth what expression played across the man’s mouth when he touched Mohinder's face. It means nothing. His mind whispered those words over and over again. “No, I wouldn’t.” But Mohinder offered no reasons why, reasons that would only complicate matters. Reasons he didn’t have.
The response made Sylar smile anyway, and he leaned his body forward, fingers slipping around Mohinder's ear and into his hair. He arched his neck, lips parting when they neared the darker man’s. Sylar wanted to seal that promise with a kiss. He wanted to, but he stopped mere breaths from his destination.
It occurred to Sylar that only one thing kept them decisively apart: Mohinder’s refusal to take initiative. Mohinder would take any affection lavished on him; he even took Sylar’s desire that bordered on abuse. But never would Mohinder consciously give up his control because of some longing for Sylar.
“Kiss me,” Sylar finally whispered the soft request, fingertips tensing amidst black curls and then relaxing once more. “Kiss me, Mohinder.”
The air dragged uneasily through Mohinder's lungs, and the depth of the danger involved in those words made Mohinder's body tingle as goose bumps crawled across his flesh. But there was a heat, too: an unhurried warmth that stole down his frame and told him every second of this was wrong, utterly wrong, but so very enticing.
“Mohinder…” -came the insistent but subtle plea.
Dangerous. Dangerous and terrible and criminal, but Mohinder couldn’t see himself saying no. Turning his head away and thickening the tension of the moment… it didn’t feel right. It wasn’t real. It would be dishonest, because Mohinder knew what he had wanted before and still wanted now.
Though his head swam with doubts and entreaties to stop, Mohinder ignored them. His fingers carefully gripped the sheets between them, and with shaky movements Mohinder pushed forward, letting their lips brush together in an unfamiliar touch; this wasn’t the lustful need of days before. This was something deeper, something more terrifying.
The surge of that realization nearly made Sylar gasp, but he settled for returning that kiss cautiously instead. It was Mohinder that kissed again, Mohinder whose lips tilted and took what they wanted. A shudder ran through Sylar’s body, and suddenly his hand was not in curls but reaching around the small of Mohinder's back and pulling him closer. With a short noise Mohinder's lips backed away, muffled bursts of warm breath passing between their lips.
Had he gone too far? Too soon? Was Mohinder changing his mind? Sylar felt a slow ache not just in his chest, but more prominently elsewhere. “What do you want…?” Sylar whispered into the shadows of the man he held near.
Mohinder swallowed, fingers hesitant to grasp onto Sylar’s bare skin instead of the sheets trapped between them. Wrong, so wrong… He clung weakly to the idea that this could be casual, be nothing between them. “I don’t know what I want. This… it doesn’t change everything…”
Sylar tilted his head down, touching their foreheads together for the briefest moment. “Then why has everything changed?”
“Sylar, I-”
“Kiss me again.” He breathed the request. “It’s alright to show me.”
This time, the hesitation was only a second. Mohinder kissed harder, lips closer to what they had been the first time such forbidden contact took place. His hand reached up and grasped around Sylar’s neck, tongue delving deeper into the eager mouth that met his. Sylar pulled Mohinder closer then, stealing the space between them by pressing their bodies together until legs tangled and the heat between soft fabrics touched. Mohinder let slip the sound of a moan in his throat, and that was all the invitation Sylar felt he needed.
Preferring his arms to his mind, Sylar quickly drew Mohinder over and turned them so that the darker man rest on top. The comforter slipped backwards and lay across their hips to hide the legs so chaotically strewn together. The change in position made Mohinder sit upright in alarm, pressing his forearms to the mattress. Their lips broke away with a sharpness that startled both men.
Mohinder hovered above, blood racing in anticipation, while his mind tripped over sudden realizations of intimacy. This was completely unlike before. Completely different, and yet neither man seemed to want it any less. Sylar’s hands were drawing slowly up Mohinder's sides, making him shiver when the fabric of his t-shirt bunched slowly as it was pulled away. Mohinder's lips stayed parted, suspended over mingling breaths, deliberating their next move.
Sylar watched Mohinder intently, his feather-soft touches neither moving too fast nor stopping. He could see the indecision, the way Mohinder faltered, torn between denial and acceptance. “What do you have to lose by staying with me?” Sylar whispered, thumbs tracing slowly over Mohinder's ribs. The man was beautiful. Sylar wanted him again and again, and he cherished, intoxicated by desire, the idea that, after tonight, he might have this every night hereafter. “Stay with me.”
A draw of a breath made it past Mohinder's lips but not to his chest. The fingers of one hand slipped into Sylar’s hair, and soon the space between them vanished once more. Mohinder brought their lips together tightly, but it was an action halted by Sylar’s abrupt need to tear Mohinder's shirt from his body. Immediately after, lips descended again, and Sylar’s arms wrapped powerfully about Mohinder's back so that their bodies met to their fullest.
Sylar could feel keenly their erections trapped against one another between their bellies; he ached to feel them flesh to flesh instead of straining against worn fabric. But even as he tried to break his lips away and let his hands focus on their ultimate goal, Mohinder's mouth was more demanding- there was an arch of his body, a deepness to his kisses that lead tongues to slide and distractions to their limits. Sylar found his hands grasping onto Mohinder's hips, his desire merely riding out Mohinder's entrapment, following his lead.
Mohinder was arching and rocking his hips, grinding the two of them together in a surprisingly dominant rhythm. His one hand grasped tightly onto Sylar’s shoulder, the other lost in Sylar’s dark hair. When he finally released Sylar’s mouth for air his breath was panting and ragged, a match to Sylar’s own. Sylar’s hands were sliding further down then, around the underside of Mohinder's thighs and up beneath his boxers with obvious intentions.
It was then that Mohinder pressed his hips harder, eliciting an unexpected groan from Sylar’s lips. Sylar wanted nothing more than to throw Mohinder down, to roll them over and rip away those last remnants of clothing, to fuck the man hard into the sheets and make him beg for every last inch. -But Mohinder was doing this all; Mohinder was taking what he wanted all of his own accord. Sylar dared not stop him. He’d give Mohinder everything, as he promised the first time, so long as Mohinder kept wanting it.
Mohinder wanted it. Fingernails digging deeply into Sylar’s shoulder and scalp, Mohinder brought their lips together again. But it was brief- the growing tension throughout his body made it harder to focus, and though he tried to continue the duel between their mouths, Mohinder was thrusting their hips faster together, drawing pleasure from the heat and friction more to his own ends than Sylar’s. With lips parted and ghosting openly together between heavy breaths, Mohinder's moan died in his throat when his body seized and orgasm overcame him suddenly.
Mohinder’s hips came to a still, but Sylar’s need did not. He was so very close to the peak, so desperately near to the end that he couldn’t stand for Mohinder to be finished. With hardly a thought he grasped Mohinder's hand and tore it from his shoulder, pushing it between them. Behind damp cloth and the musk of desire, Sylar pressed Mohinder's hand down and beneath the fabric of his boxers. “Don’t stop. Please,” he pleaded gruffly.
Taking only an instant to feel his shock, Mohinder complied, gripping the painfully hard erection with his sweat-slicked palm. Mohinder felt Sylar twitch under his hold, heard him hiss behind his teeth as he bucked upwards. Mohinder worked his hand quickly, knowing perfectly the anguish of that anticipated release, knowing the agony of that ache. Sylar’s fingers dug roughly into Mohinder’s hips, unaware of the bruising effect they were having. Moments later, fingernails were added when Sylar gave a short cry, flesh pulsing tightly as he came in quick bursts over Mohinder's fingers.
Slowly, Mohinder eased his grip, listening as Sylar’s breathing struggled with the intensity of orgasm. Everything between them felt so raw, so alive in the moment. It hadn’t been sex; it had been far more powerful than that. This exchange was full of more meaning, more than just a surrender to passion. They’d surrendered something else to one another this time.
Wiping his hand slowly against his own clothing out of courtesy, Mohinder shivered, realizing for the first time how chilly the sweat on flesh had made the room. Sylar was the one to reach up and pull the comforter slowly over Mohinder's shoulders.
“We should-” Mohinder began in a soft voice.
But Sylar interrupted, placing his mouth over the darker man’s own. “Just take them off. Lay here.”
Nodding silently in the darkness, Mohinder shifted his body to the side. He wiped his hand again, then pulled his legs up to strip the offending boxers off and away. Sylar did the same, tossing the clothing carelessly onto the floor while Mohinder lay on his back. The covers were readjusted, and Sylar turned onto his side once more, staying close to Mohinder.
“Everything’s changed,” Sylar reassured quietly, though for whom he was not sure.
Mohinder felt bare in that moment in more than just the obvious way. He didn’t feel the need for words, not when Sylar’s arm moved across and draped possessively over his chest. Mohinder turned his head, touching his temple to Sylar’s shoulder. That was his reply.
Sylar lay in the darkness, listening to the way Mohinder's heart calmed and feeling the way an afterglow should have felt the first time they had shared their bodies. This time he didn’t feel panic afterwards. This time, he understood that peril was to come.
His mother had always told him how dangerous the world was. He could name a hundred ways he might meet his end walking from one end of the city to the other. He could list a thousand different illnesses she insisted he’d catch if he did not do this small thing or that. He could tell anyone who asked the dangers of a man doing a hard labor job, and justify the safe, menial task of being a watchmaker for the rest of his days. But the one thing Gabriel Gray’s mother never warned him about, that one, petrifying thing…
No one had ever warned him about the dangers of love.
Comments and crit are great to keep me going. <3
I've gotten used to this Wednesday-Saturday posting schedule, so I hope to keep it regular for you guys.
Also, the number of chapters is decided. ^^