Empire State 6/6 (To be continued in another fic!)
Title: Empire State, part 6 of 6 of 1
Summary: In a 19th Century America still under British control, the West India Company has a special assignment for Captain Suresh.
Rating: PG this chapter, eventual NC-17 for arty, frothy sex.
Pairings: Mylar and Plaude, so far, Petrellicest if you squint and tilt your head (hell, probably less than canon, actually), hints of possible one-sided Matt > Mohinder.
Other characters: Bob, Nathan, Molly, Matt, Elle, Claude, Bennet and others.
Warnings: Oh my god, schmoop. Seriously, if you're diabetic, or if you can't take fluff, I highly recommend you turn around now, lest you fall into a coma, because ho boy, fluff, sugar, fluff. Pre-Mylar (ever so slightly closer still again than last chapter), mangling Victorian history, standard AU OOCness, general flounciness of prose. Unbetaed, so I am responsible for all steam-engine-typo-gremlins. Spoilers til the end of S2 if there's any at all, beyond the basic who's who.
Wordcount: 5,862
Disclaimer: I don't own Heroes, and I don't own history.
A/N: Still more Merchant Ivory than Stephenson, but I promise there will be gears and difference engines in the near future. Very frothy.
A/N2: In which a misunderstanding occurrs, and a change of plans ensues.
A/N3: Just to be clear (and the fact that I'm explaining it here means it's kind of a failairous technique, but ah well), Sylar and Gabriel are not separate personalities- they're the division that Gabriel has created in himself as would-be monarch who must show no weakness and vulnerable young man. The names used switch as Mohinder observes Sylar display either vulnerability or authority. Something I'm trying, not sure if it's working.
A/N4: Dedicated to / written for speccygeekgrrl for the hope_in_sight auction.
A/N5: Only beta'd by me, all mistakes mine.
A/N6: Will be continued in the next part of Empire State, which I believe will be called 'The White City."
Previous chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
The bulb flickered, flaring brighter as Elle's head drooped, then snapped back up. Mohinder winced at the sudden brightness, blinking rapidly, and huddling deeper into the coat wrapped around him while rubbing his hands through the fingerless gloves he wore to handle the equipment.
"Wake up, Bishop," Sylar growled. "You're going to ruin his eyes with it flashing like that."
"I'm sorry," Elle snapped back. "It's been hours, I'm freezing, and I'm bored!"
"It's fine," Mohinder said to Elle, then looked over at the Archduke. "Really."
Sylar was having none of it, not meeting Mohinder's gaze and remaining intently focused on Elle.
"I'm so terribly sorry that our current predicament bores you, Elle, perhaps-" he began derisively. Mohinder took one look at the tension in Elle's jaw, the tilt of the Archduke's head and the way his eyes narrowed, and groaned.
"Stop it," he interrupted. "I'm almost through, and then we can all go to bed."
"Lucky you," Elle said without a trace of sincerity. "That must be a grand old time."
Sylar's fist clenched and he leaned forward in an attempt to rise, but paused as Mohinder moved his head away from the microscope in frustration, jaw set at an angle which meant trouble.
"Why, when I'm trying to make this as painless as possible, would you continue to goad him like that?" Mohinder snapped in exasperation. Elle's jaw dropped and she sputtered like the electricity of the light bulb in her hand.
"Why shouldn't I when he goads all of us all the time?!" Elle shrieked. "He's not the only one who has worries, you know! He's not the only one who cares about what happens, and he's sure as hell not the only one Bennet wants to kill!"
"Keep your voice down!" Sylar shouted back, slamming his fist against the arm of his chair, the wood creaking.
"Keep your voice down!" Elle retorted, and the light bulb exploded, the room now lit with the flickering electricity from her hands. Mohinder flinched, hissing as he shut his eyes against the flying glass and sizzling sparks. Sylar was at his side in an instant, turning his face this way and that, looking for damage, but at least the shouting had finally stopped. Mohinder firmly extricated himself from Sylar's grip and patted his own chest and face for glass.
"I think that's enough for tonight," Mohinder said, once he was confident he was in tact, exhaling shakily and holding his face in his trembling hands.
"Mohinder, I'm sorry-" Elle began, the light from her hands fading to a soft, staticky glow, only to have the Archduke snarl through his teeth, edging closer to Mohinder again.
"Just go," Sylar said, glaring.
"-you're no better than I am!" Elle protested, pointing accusingly.
"I don't care who goes so long as the shouting stops!" Mohinder cried out, bringing his hand down on the stone floor and shattering one of the many glass slides with which he worked, cursing as he removed shards of it and the light bulb from his skin. Elle dropped her head and nodded, getting to her feet.
"I'm sorry," Elle said again, then added pointedly before she left, "Mohinder."
The door clicked shut.
"Let me see," Sylar said immediately, although Elle had taken the light with her when she'd left.
"It's fine," Mohinder replied tensely.
"Then let me see that it's fine," Sylar pressed, moving to sit closer. Mohinder curled further in on himself. He felt Sylar reach for his wrist and pulled back ineffectually.
"You and what light, exactly?" Mohinder muttered, trying a little harder to pull away. Sylar sighed irritably, letting go and feeling around in the dark for an oil lamp, using a conventional flint to light it. Mohinder stared at this simple act.
"What?" Sylar grumbled when he realized he was being so thoroughly scrutinized.
"Nothing. It's just strange to see you doing something by hand," Mohinder answered him. Sylar looked uncomfortable at that, setting the lamp down on his desk, picking at a shadow on the surface of the wood.
"I could've lit it another way," he said.
"How?" Mohinder asked, genuinely curious. Sylar didn't answer, since all he would have done was pick the flint up with his mind rather than his hand. The suggestion that he might not have been able to, that his reach only extended to the tips of his fingers, seemed to terrify him. That fear made Mohinder's frustration ebb, and he added: "It doesn't bother me that you did it by hand."
Sylar swallowed, momentarily looking both small and grateful as he picked up the lamp and came around the desk.
"Just let me see what you've done to yourself," he said, feeling uncomfortably Gabriel-esque, and set the lamp down on the floor. Taking Mohinder's hand again, he frowned. "What a mess."
"Yes, well..." Mohinder said, a little embarrassed at having had a tantrum, particularly one which now required him to be fussed over. Sylar picked the glass from Mohinder's flesh carefully with his mind. "At least I only destroyed the one slide, though I think I've contaminated a couple."
"Miss Walker has grown quite used to being stuck with needles," Sylar commented, getting up and picking up a bottle of Carolina moonshine from a shelf by his desk. He opened it and held it over Mohinder's hand. "This is going to burn."
"It's fine," Mohinder said, and before the words were even out of his mouth, he felt the almost clear liquid sear into his open wounds. "Hell!"
"I warned you," Sylar said, dabbing at the wounds with a clean rag.
"So you did," Mohinder grumbled, setting a slide into the tray of the microscope with his uninjured hand.
"Better that than having it go gangrenous," Sylar said, and then looked quite afraid, "or catching what ails Miss Walker."
Mohinder said nothing, peering at the slide as Sylar wrapped his hand in the strips of fabric.
"What?" Sylar prompted after several moments of silence.
"Before, her blood cells were... there were these little creatures crawling between them, but now they're gone."
"Are you sure that isn't just your blood and not hers?" Sylar asked.
"I have no idea," Mohinder sighed miserably, rubbing his eyes. "I'm not a bloody physician."
"You're all I have, Mohinder," Sylar admonished. "You're going to have to try."
"If all you have is a single bean, it won't keep you from starving," Mohinder said bitterly. Sylar's face softened and he stroked Mohinder's hair.
"Yes it will," he said quietly. "It just needs to be planted and nurtured, and it'll give so, so much more than what it looks like it ever could from its initial appearance."
Mohinder leaned into Sylar's hand, Gabriel's touch. The past several nights in the dark lair had brought familiarity. At first they'd slept side by side like two planks of wood, but eventually the sweetness of Gabriel's awkward sincerity combined with the cold caused Mohinder to come closer and closer, until at last they'd entangled. Mohinder told himself it was for warmth, at first, but he found that he sought out those small touches during their waking hours as well. He sighed, looking up slightly balefully at Sylar's words.
"Am I the bean in this analogy?" Mohinder asked.
"I believe you started it," Sylar replied. "And you could sustain me for a lifetime and more."
"But can I sustain Miss Walker?" Mohinder said. "Or am I just breaking glass, wasting her time, all the time of everyone here?"
The last of the tyrant faded out of the man in front of Mohinder as Sylar squeezed his shoulders in reply, offering no reassurance besides the touch.
"We should move now," Mohinder continued. "I doubt very much that I would be a shoddier doctor if on the move."
"Miss Walker won't last," Sylar said with a frown. "This cold alone is a great risk."
Mohinder considered this dilemma.
"Then leave me with her,” Mohinder suggested, though he knew that it wouldn't be accepted. “I can find warmer shelter; it'll be easier to conceal two people rather than so many more, and we can meet at some appointed place-"
Mohinder trailed off, for just like that, the iron-willed autocrat was back, as Sylar had fixed him with a sympathetic but stern gaze.
"Parkman will not leave her,” he said. “And I will not leave you."
Mohinder looked at the ivory curtain, back on the wall of the study. Sylar followed his gaze and his face colored slightly. Mohinder gently touched his shoulder and then let his hand drop.
"No. I suppose you will not, will you?" Mohinder said, still staring at it with an expression Sylar couldn't read, in which he couldn't recognize a current of approval or disgust, and he couldn't help but lose his air of authority.
"Do you really want me to?" Gabriel asked, fear creeping into his voice. Mohinder turned and took both of his hands, ardently wanting to soothe him and at the same time wanting to press him into being the leader he was advertised as being.
"I want you to do what is best for these people, the ones who count on you so thoroughly that they tolerate your shouting, your harboring of would-be assassins, your defiance of the crown..." Mohinder groaned, searching Gabriel's face for some sign that he understood the absurdity of all those contradictory actions. "Your allegiance should be to them, not to me. I have done nothing for you, or for any of them, but provide Noah Bennet with better aim at all of you.”
Gabriel sighed and turned his hands so that he could curl them around Mohinder's.
"You make their lord happy," he replied, as though he was talking about someone else, as though he wasn't the terrible tyrant of whom he spoke. Mohinder considered for a moment that, perhaps, Gabriel wasn't as the other man continued. "You should not underestimate just how valuable the happiness of the king is to the kingdom."
Mohinder pulled his away and held his face in his own hands, dragging his fingers over his eyes and through his hair.
"Why do you...?" Mohinder began, then stopped with a sigh.
"Why do I what?" Gabriel asked. Mohinder said nothing, trying to turn back to the microscope, shaking his head, but Gabriel caught his hands again, gently turning him back to face him. "Why do I what?"
"Why are you their leader?" Mohinder asked finally. "Why do you even wish to be?"
"I'm the strongest. I understand how things work. I make the plans, I make the decisions," Gabriel said, feeling a chill.
"But... why? A distant monarch with her local thugs is anathema, but you intend to replace that with a local one in yourself?" Mohinder asked. "I want to understand..."
"We're at war, you beautiful, doubting thing," Gabriel murmured, feeling slightly heartsick at the idea that Mohinder didn't have faith in him. "We have to be... I have to be... colder. Colder than my heart wants me to be. A leader has to be. A general has to be. A king has to be. No war can be won with an army full of generals. Bennet doesn't just mean to quiet us, to make sure we act so very mundane, he means to murder us or make us his slaves. I cannot be to them what I am to you. I cannot be theirs the way I am yours. I can show my softest weakness to no one, save you."
"Is Peter not most powerful?" Mohinder asked. Gabriel's eyes darkened, and Mohinder observed as the attitude, the poise of Sylar passed back over him like clouds across the sun.
"In his case, the flesh is willing, but the spirit ill suited to the task. Peter makes hard choices with his heart, and he has no control of his powers. He can't be heartless, which a king often has to be.”
“And you can?” Mohinder said skeptically. Sylar cracked a smile at that, looking at Mohinder with such warmth in the flickering lamplight, but at the same time, that warmth was shot through with pride and self-satisfaction.
“I can,” Sylar said, “when I choose. That's the important part, Mohinder: that control. If Nathan or Claude was in terrible danger, Peter would be unable to focus well enough to rescue either of them. If you were in terrible danger-”
“Aren't I?” Mohinder interrupted sardonically. Sylar rolled his eyes.
“Smart ass. If you were, I would be able to retain the presence of mind to make sure no harm came to you. I could hold my terror in a box, lock it deep inside, so that I wouldn't make the rash and likely tragic mistakes that Peter's heart would lead him into.”
Sylar set the lamp aside.
“Heroes die young, usually shattered from having gotten their lovers, friends, and families killed. Kings die old in their beds, and leave something behind more solid than stories.”
“I had no idea you were such a cynic,” Mohinder murmured, a chill in his spine at how easily this young man seemed to believe he could shut off all the love and adoration he professed for Mohinder like extinguishing a candle, and light it up again, just as easily.
“Is it cynical to know history?” Sylar argued, looking slightly hurt by the accusation. “Has King Arthur returned since I stopped walking around in public? You must understand what a king has to be.”
“I do understand,” Mohinder replied, taking him by the shoulders. “I just... I don't understand how you can be both this cunning rebel with wondrous powers and...”
Sylar looked at him.
“And what?”
“...and a young man capable of irrational jealousy and such sweetness towards a man he barely knows. I don't understand how you can believe so fervently that you're meant to rule the world, and at the same time, meant to do achieve this revolution while having me for a lover. It contradicts itself, a plan so grand and all encompassing, and a goal that's so... so personal, and which hasn't got a thing to do with his grander one! You've decided you want me around so you've decided I'm to be a doctor and...”
“Why you?” Sylar asked. “Is that what you're asking me?”
Mohinder considered the question.
“Yes. I think that is what I'm asking.”
“I don't know, Mohinder. I don't write destiny. I didn't engineer my own birth to be the one who'd be capable of saving these people.”
Sylar got up and stood in front of the ivory curtain, fingers grazing softly down the fabric.
“I learned to paint the future so long ago. The first thing I painted was a raid by the crown on our old headquarters. It was just me, the Bishops, and Claude back then. Because of that painting, we escaped. I left it behind to taunt Bennet, which is how Parkman came to us, bringing Molly with him. Peter ran away from his family shortly after, Nathan hot on his heels. We found the High Bridge, and I melted away the stone to make the tunnels, Bishop turned mere rope to electrical wire, and he and his daughter built the generator with my guidance.
“I had just built this chamber when the trance came over me, and when I awoke, there on the wall, was you.”
Sylar glanced over his shoulder at Mohinder, and confessed the fears that he and Gabriel shared.
“I was terrified, Mohinder, more frightened than I could explain to you. I had a destiny, a calling, but this vision interrupted it all,” he said, then turned back. “I melted the paint off the wall, trying to run from it, but the minute the wall was blank, the same vision forced itself on me again.”
Gabriel pulled aside the curtains, staring at what he'd painted not once, but twice.
“That's never happened before or since. So... I covered it up, but some secrets are harder to keep than others.”
Mohinder finally found his voice, and eked out:
“Particularly with invisible men around.”
“Precisely. When I first saw this, believe me, I wanted it to go away more than you could know, but every fragment of me knew that destiny was right, and ultimately, my body and soul mutinied against my rationality.”
Mohinder couldn't see Gabriel's face, only his back, but the delicate brush of his fingers across Mohinder's cheekbone in the mural betrayed just as much compassion as a soft smile, or an affectionate eye.
“I planned for my ascent to power, Mohinder Suresh, but oh, how I dreamed of you.”
Gabriel drew the curtain closed again, timidly turning back.
“In my capacity as archduke, rebel, and would-be emperor, I'm well aware that taking you in is a risk of absolute madness, but I've tried to blot you out before, to no avail.”
Gabriel finally brought himself to meet Mohinder's eyes.
“You're indelible.”
Gabriel sighed from the weight of his confession, composing himself and crossing the stone floor to sit next to Mohinder, his pale skin glowing warmly in the light of the hurricane lamp.
“So,” Mohinder said softly. “We're at a bit of an impasse.”
Gabriel turned with a little crook of a grin.
"One could say that," Gabriel replied. "But destiny will probably force our hands in one direction or another before too long. How's your hand?"
"A bit sore, but nothing dire," Mohinder said, not voicing the thought that he really wasn't too keen on the idea of just waiting for something to happen to make their decisions for them, particularly with a child's life at stake.
"If you find yourself, feeling ill, feverish, tell me immediately," Gabriel added gravely. Mohinder sighed.
"I'm the only 'doctor' here, I'm afraid. Should I catch Miss Walker's ailment, well..."
Mohinder didn't finish the sentence that that might simply mean the end of him, as well as the little girl.
"I'll think of something," Gabriel said. Mohinder sighed and gave him a slightly exasperated look.
"You needn't promise that," he chided gently. "It's not fair to expect you to fix literally anything."
Gabriel looked back, affronted and slightly frightened.
"You don't think I can," he accused. Mohinder crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow.
"Is that at all what I said?" he retorted. "I said that you needn't promise and you needn't take everything on your own shoulders. It's unnecessary."
Gabriel scuffed his heel against the floor, twitching his long leg like an awkward adolescent.
"I want to, when it's you," he explained. "It's not the same as with everyone else. It's not obligation."
Mohinder relented slightly.
"I understand," he said. Gabriel peered at him in the soft light.
"Do you?" he asked softly.
"Just because I can't see the future doesn't mean I don't understand that it can weigh on a person, excellency. I face it more blindly than you, but nonetheless I do have to face it."
Gabriel paused.
"Don't call me excellency when we're alone. It sounds wrong," he said. "I'm never going to be your ruler. No one ever could, I think. You're too independent, too... autonomous."
Mohinder gave a wan smile and shook his head.
"Bennet would certainly agree with that sentiment. I just have difficulty believing that others know what's best for me. You're going to have to cope with it as well, so I doubt you'll find it nearly so endearing when you're on the receiving end."
Gabriel snorted.
"I find everything about you endearing, Mohinder."
"That's because it's all new," he countered. Gabriel took his hand, lacing their fingers together without resistance from the captain.
"No," Gabriel said. "It's because it's destiny. You'll see."
Mohinder squeezed his hand and, on impulse, rested his head on Gabriel's shoulder.
"Perhaps I will."
They sat in comfortable silence like that for a moment, Mohinder leaning against Gabriel's warmth and vice versa, the coziness broken when a knock came on the door. Mohinder made to pull away, but Gabriel clung tightly to his hand even as his expression hardened and Sylar's firm stoicism returned.
"Enter," he ordered. Matthew Parkman opened the door, pausing at the entrance.
"Well?" Sylar prompted, staring down Matt as Matt glanced at Mohinder and their joined hands. Matt didn't rise to the bait.
"Did you make any progress with Molly?"
Mohinder rubbed his forehead.
"A bit?" he said tentatively. "There's something in her blood that shouldn't be. Little beasties of some sort."
Matt blinked uneasily.
"Beasties?" he cringed, taking a step further into the room. "Can you fix it?"
"I don't know," Mohinder said, longing to inform Matt in frustration that he wasn't a bloody doctor. Matt's brow knit.
"Well then you need to be reading more instead of... whatever this is and start being a doctor!" Matt retorted as though Mohinder had spoken aloud. Sylar scowled, chin dropping, eyes which looked black in the dim light flaring.
"Do not," he said sharply, "read his mind."
"She's dying, Sylar," Matt argued. "We don't have all the time in the-"
Apparently they had less time than any of them suspected, because Matt was cut off by the walls shaking, chips of stone tumbling from the ceiling. Sylar grabbed Mohinder tightly to his side, protecting him with those invisible forces at his command.
"Fuck!" Matt cried, twisting and running from the room, presumably back toward Molly. Sylar hauled Mohinder to his feet.
"Stay next to me," he ordered, exiting the room. Mohinder obediently remained quite close as Sylar addressed his troops with every shred of ruthless efficiency he'd previously claimed.
“Bennet?” he asked Claude, who rolled his eyes.
“No, it's this charming rabbi I crossed back in Damascus, yes Bennet!”
“Go make some trouble for them, distract them,” Sylar ordered. They would discuss sarcasm and insubordination later; for now, there was no time. “Nathan, go secure the rendezvous.”
Claude gave a tense nod and retreated, but Nathan remained.
“One of the arches collapsed, Molly's trapped- so is Bishop,” Nathan reported.
“Go anyway!” Sylar said walking past him to evaluate the initial damage. “There's nothing more you can do here.”
“Then the captain should-” Nathan began, taking Mohinder's sleeve, only to be slapped away by invisible hands.
“He stays with me,” Sylar snapped. “When you find a safe point, stay there, and we'll find you. Go.”
They turned a corner and caught sight of Matt and Elle scrambling to move stones out of the way of the blocked passage. Mohinder darted forward to help, but Sylar stuck out an arm and held him back.
“Get clear,” he ordered the other two. Sylar made a fist and yanked, pulling the stones towards himself, Mohinder and the frantic others, but before any could strike them, the debris melted, flowing up to shore up the cracked ceiling and walls. Once the passage was a passage again, Sylar grabbed Mohinder's wrist.
"Right next to me, no more than six inches away, understand?" he growled, following after as Matt and Elle raced to find their respective families, Mohinder tight behind his shoulder.
The first sound Mohinder heard was a shriek as Elle bolted back into the corridor, but then the noise cut off, no further sound coming from her open mouth, though her eyes moved wildly from one face to the next.
"This way!" Matt called, and his voice seemed to echo not just off the stone, but off the walls of Mohinder's skull, and he found his feet moving before he even asked them to, Sylar right at his side.
The next sounds to be heard over the din were the tiny, gutting whimpers and shallow breath of a hurt, terrified little girl trying to be brave. A shard of sharp stone had cut into the flesh near Miss Walker's collar bone, and Mohinder's mouth went dry.
"No!" Mohinder roared as Matt reached to pull the sliver free. "No, that's probably cut her jugular vein. You mustn't move it yet. There's a brown satchel in Gabriel's bedroom, by the door, Matt, bring it to me quick as you can."
Matt squeezed Molly's hand and nodded, running off.
“Mohinder,” Molly whimpered.
“Shh, shh, don't move. It'll be all right, darling; I know what to do. It's okay to be frightened, but we're going to set it all right.”
Mohinder leaned down and kissed her hand gently, but she wasn't looking at him. He followed her gaze to see her staring, frozen like a rabbit in a snare, at the archduke, who wore an expression Mohinder had never seen. He was about to inquire why the hell Sylar was glowering at the child when Matt came crashing back in, holding out the case for which Mohinder had asked. Mohinder took it, unbuttoning the leather fob, and extracted a fine needle and thread.
"When I remove the sliver, you have to hold her vein together, or she'll bleed to-" Mohinder cut himself off.
"Bleed too much," he finished, instead of, 'to death.' "Can you do that?"
Sylar was silent, staring at the slow trickle of blood.
"Gabriel!" Mohinder shouted, and Sylar snapped out of his reverie, nodding. "Good. On three."
Mohinder made the count and the shard came free, tossed aside as Sylar placed invisible dams at each side of the breached vein and Mohinder got to work, carefully suturing together the fragile tissue of the vein itself, and then the translucent skin above, while Bennet's attack continued.
Back on the surface, an invisible man slunk through the shadows, not to avoid being seen, but to avoid being hit by the damned ordnance being flung at the earth. To make matters worse, particularly for Claude, at some point in the night it had started to snow. He managed to outflank one side through the woods, tugging fuses from cannons. In the confusion, Claude went to do the same to the contingent on the other side of the bridge, when he felt something hit him in the back. He spun, scrambling in the snow, reaching to feel his chest and back for what he felt certain was a hole from buckshot.
“Still in one piece, Claude?” came a wry voice from the dark. Claude looked at his fingers, finding them coated in bright sulfur-yellow paint, so thin that the color dripped down to his feet and stained the snow below. Bennet grinned, peeling a glove off the hand he'd used to throw it the yellow-drenched sponge and letting it drop to the ground. Claude, remaining invisible, darted to the side, but Bennet drew his pistol, tracking him easily. “I've been ready to have this raid for weeks, all I needed was the snow. We couldn't have you slipping out unseen, could we?”
Claude swallowed, schooling any nervousness off his face before he returned to visibility with a coy grin.
“Delaying on my account? Why darling,” he replied, crouching down and picking up a handful of snow and wiping the paint off his hands, “I'd no idea you missed me so. You've such a funny way of showing it, after all.”
Bennet didn't lower his pistol as the cannons banged on around them.
“As I recall, I didn't miss you entirely,” he replied. “How's your shoulder?”
“It got better,” Claude replied, though the place where Bennet had shot him last time ached at the memory. "Sorry to disappoint."
"Where are the rest of them?" Bennet asked. Claude looked past him at the sparks and red-orange glow that lit the area around the bridge.
"Looks like you've got a pretty good idea already," Claude answered, spine tensing. A damned good idea, perhaps too good.
"Then you're going to lure them out and signal me," Bennet replied. "Only the Archduke dies, I have a deal with the Doña regarding her offspring."
"I'm afraid not, dear heart," Claude replied. "You leave me no choice but to call in your marker."
Bennet smiled at that.
"Oh, Claude, I've saved your life as many times as you've saved mine," he drawled indulgently.
"I didn't mean the marker for your life, Noah," he answered, the humor on Claude's face falling away. "Every scrap of happiness you have, you owe to me, and your wife can say the same, and now your bill is come due."
Noah Bennet narrowed his eyes.
"This is the last time, Claude," Bennet said, putting up his gun.
"Believe me, dear heart, I've got no designs on there being a next one," Claude replied, vanishing before Bennet's very eyes. The paint had dripped as much as it was going to, and the snow came down so hard now that Claude's footprints were quickly obscured.
"Kisses to your misses," he added, and was gone.
Below, in the chamber, Molly Walker was a whole vessel once more, but a drained one. Mohinder could tell that much from the dark stain across the sheets, and rolled up a sleeve.
"She's lost too much blood. Can you mimic a pair of invisible needles attached to tube?" he asked Sylar frantically. "You have to pull blood from me and push it into her. Mine didn't cause hers to curdle when it mixed on the slides."
"It's risky," Matt protested.
"She's cold, she'll freeze if we don't!" Mohinder snapped, then thrust his arm at Sylar. "Do it. Blood only, you can't let air into her veins."
"Will it hurt you?" Sylar asked, not moving a fraction. "Could you catch what she has, or the blood loss-"
"How can you-?" Matt started to shout, but Mohinder cut him off.
"I'll be fine, Gabriel, please!" Mohinder cried. "I can do this, but not if you won't help me!"
Mohinder thrust his arm in front of Sylar, veins up, waiting to see in what direction the conflict on his face would resolve. At last, with a fierce scowl, Sylar grabbed his wrist, and Mohinder gasped as a sting as sharp as a hornet struck inside his elbow.
"You'd better be fine," Sylar said grudgingly, a ribbon of blood weaving through the air to connect to Molly's arm, "or I will never trust your word again."
Mohinder watched in silence as the bombardment continued and Molly's color returned, the ribbon cutting off on Mohinder's side first and vanishing into Molly's arm.
"We have to go," Matt said, gathering her up. Sylar gave him a dirty look for the redundant statement, and checked the inside of Mohinder's elbow to make sure he'd clotted.
"We need to get the Bishops," Sylar added, and Mohinder saw a flicker of guilt cross Matt's face. As if on cue, Elle began screaming in mid-sentence.
"-me, someone help! Daddy!" Mohinder and Sylar moved quickly to the next chamber, to a far more grim sight than what Miss Walker had presented. Elle was bent over her father, a gaping wound in his side. Elle looked up as she saw them and shrieked at Matt, launching herself at him.
"You! I'll kill you!" she shrilled, sparks skipping across her exposed skin. Mohinder gasped, and Molly buried her face against Matt's shoulder, waiting for the seizing pain that never came. Elle collapsed to the ground like a pile of rags.
Sylar lowered his hand, having cut off the flow of blood to her brain for just long enough to render her unconscious.
"Thank you," Bishop rasped. "She shouldn't have to see the rest."
"I can't save him," Mohinder said, stunned by the sight and the reality, so close on the heels of his first victory over death, that all such victories were temporary at best. "Mister Bishop, I'm sorry, but... Your liver's been... I'm so sorry, there's nothing I can do."
Sylar turned to Matt.
"Get out," he growled. "We'll have a talk about this later, if there is one."
Matt turned, holding Molly tight, and ran, half-hoping that he would never see archduke or doctor again.
"Shut your eyes," Sylar ordered Bishop, then turned to Mohinder. "You too. No matter what you hear, don't open them."
"Why?" Mohinder asked, looking from the collapsed girl on the floor to the dying man, then back to Sylar.
"Just do it," Bishop replied with a weak smile. "Better if you do."
Mohinder reluctantly shut his eyes, holding his breath, and for the first time that evening, Sylar moved enough away from him that Mohinder no longer felt his body heat. The cold air of the cavern sinking through his clothes and the slight chill of blood loss made him feel isolated, empty. He was about to protest, to open his eyes, but that instinct was completely quashed when the sound started.
Stay in the military long enough, and any man will recognize the sound Mohinder heard, a crackling, wet noise, the sound of both something soft and damp and something hard and dry being broken open. It was punctuated by the occasional grunt and thin, high noise from Bishop's throat, and as it carried on, the sucking crunch got rounder, more hollow, until the hard noises ceased and only the wet noises remained. Mohinder screwed his eyes shut tighter than he ever had in his life, tighter than when waking from his worst nightmare as a boy. When everything was silent but for Sylar's breathing, when the amputation noises had ceased after what felt like an eternity, Mohinder opened his eyes, flinching at the sight of what was left of Robert Bishop. Sylar scooped Elle up off the floor, throwing her over his shoulder like a sack of clothes, his hands red and dripping. He met Mohinder's eyes as he straightened, a tiny furrow between his eyebrows in a split-second expression of despair.
“You shouldn't have looked,” he said.
“I know,” Mohinder replied, without apology or real regret. It was too late now, after all. Sylar looked as though he wanted to say more, but another explosion rocked the ground above them.
“Stay close,” Sylar said, and Mohinder nodded as they made their way out and up, through passages that Sylar had reserved for himself and whoever else he deemed worthy, coming out into the falling snow. Bennet and his men had switched from explosives to pouring kerosene down the passages. There was a spark, a match thrown, and the ground around the old entrances glowed orange and red, hissing and sputtering as the snow and the flame collided. There was a terrible shudder.
“Come on,” Sylar said to Mohinder softly. Mohinder reached out and grabbed Sylar's hand, tacky with drying blood, as they swiftly loped through the snow. Behind them, the ground buckled and collapsed in on itself, the caverns imploding. None of the soldiers realized that under it all was shattering a mural of two men in love, expressions of rapture and adoration crumbling under ash and water, dirt and cold, filthy stone. The soldiers did not know, and neither Mohinder nor Sylar had the luxury of looking back.
-To be continued in Part 2-
Summary: In a 19th Century America still under British control, the West India Company has a special assignment for Captain Suresh.
Rating: PG this chapter, eventual NC-17 for arty, frothy sex.
Pairings: Mylar and Plaude, so far, Petrellicest if you squint and tilt your head (hell, probably less than canon, actually), hints of possible one-sided Matt > Mohinder.
Other characters: Bob, Nathan, Molly, Matt, Elle, Claude, Bennet and others.
Warnings: Oh my god, schmoop. Seriously, if you're diabetic, or if you can't take fluff, I highly recommend you turn around now, lest you fall into a coma, because ho boy, fluff, sugar, fluff. Pre-Mylar (ever so slightly closer still again than last chapter), mangling Victorian history, standard AU OOCness, general flounciness of prose. Unbetaed, so I am responsible for all steam-engine-typo-gremlins. Spoilers til the end of S2 if there's any at all, beyond the basic who's who.
Wordcount: 5,862
Disclaimer: I don't own Heroes, and I don't own history.
A/N: Still more Merchant Ivory than Stephenson, but I promise there will be gears and difference engines in the near future. Very frothy.
A/N2: In which a misunderstanding occurrs, and a change of plans ensues.
A/N3: Just to be clear (and the fact that I'm explaining it here means it's kind of a failairous technique, but ah well), Sylar and Gabriel are not separate personalities- they're the division that Gabriel has created in himself as would-be monarch who must show no weakness and vulnerable young man. The names used switch as Mohinder observes Sylar display either vulnerability or authority. Something I'm trying, not sure if it's working.
A/N4: Dedicated to / written for speccygeekgrrl for the hope_in_sight auction.
A/N5: Only beta'd by me, all mistakes mine.
A/N6: Will be continued in the next part of Empire State, which I believe will be called 'The White City."
Previous chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
The bulb flickered, flaring brighter as Elle's head drooped, then snapped back up. Mohinder winced at the sudden brightness, blinking rapidly, and huddling deeper into the coat wrapped around him while rubbing his hands through the fingerless gloves he wore to handle the equipment.
"Wake up, Bishop," Sylar growled. "You're going to ruin his eyes with it flashing like that."
"I'm sorry," Elle snapped back. "It's been hours, I'm freezing, and I'm bored!"
"It's fine," Mohinder said to Elle, then looked over at the Archduke. "Really."
Sylar was having none of it, not meeting Mohinder's gaze and remaining intently focused on Elle.
"I'm so terribly sorry that our current predicament bores you, Elle, perhaps-" he began derisively. Mohinder took one look at the tension in Elle's jaw, the tilt of the Archduke's head and the way his eyes narrowed, and groaned.
"Stop it," he interrupted. "I'm almost through, and then we can all go to bed."
"Lucky you," Elle said without a trace of sincerity. "That must be a grand old time."
Sylar's fist clenched and he leaned forward in an attempt to rise, but paused as Mohinder moved his head away from the microscope in frustration, jaw set at an angle which meant trouble.
"Why, when I'm trying to make this as painless as possible, would you continue to goad him like that?" Mohinder snapped in exasperation. Elle's jaw dropped and she sputtered like the electricity of the light bulb in her hand.
"Why shouldn't I when he goads all of us all the time?!" Elle shrieked. "He's not the only one who has worries, you know! He's not the only one who cares about what happens, and he's sure as hell not the only one Bennet wants to kill!"
"Keep your voice down!" Sylar shouted back, slamming his fist against the arm of his chair, the wood creaking.
"Keep your voice down!" Elle retorted, and the light bulb exploded, the room now lit with the flickering electricity from her hands. Mohinder flinched, hissing as he shut his eyes against the flying glass and sizzling sparks. Sylar was at his side in an instant, turning his face this way and that, looking for damage, but at least the shouting had finally stopped. Mohinder firmly extricated himself from Sylar's grip and patted his own chest and face for glass.
"I think that's enough for tonight," Mohinder said, once he was confident he was in tact, exhaling shakily and holding his face in his trembling hands.
"Mohinder, I'm sorry-" Elle began, the light from her hands fading to a soft, staticky glow, only to have the Archduke snarl through his teeth, edging closer to Mohinder again.
"Just go," Sylar said, glaring.
"-you're no better than I am!" Elle protested, pointing accusingly.
"I don't care who goes so long as the shouting stops!" Mohinder cried out, bringing his hand down on the stone floor and shattering one of the many glass slides with which he worked, cursing as he removed shards of it and the light bulb from his skin. Elle dropped her head and nodded, getting to her feet.
"I'm sorry," Elle said again, then added pointedly before she left, "Mohinder."
The door clicked shut.
"Let me see," Sylar said immediately, although Elle had taken the light with her when she'd left.
"It's fine," Mohinder replied tensely.
"Then let me see that it's fine," Sylar pressed, moving to sit closer. Mohinder curled further in on himself. He felt Sylar reach for his wrist and pulled back ineffectually.
"You and what light, exactly?" Mohinder muttered, trying a little harder to pull away. Sylar sighed irritably, letting go and feeling around in the dark for an oil lamp, using a conventional flint to light it. Mohinder stared at this simple act.
"What?" Sylar grumbled when he realized he was being so thoroughly scrutinized.
"Nothing. It's just strange to see you doing something by hand," Mohinder answered him. Sylar looked uncomfortable at that, setting the lamp down on his desk, picking at a shadow on the surface of the wood.
"I could've lit it another way," he said.
"How?" Mohinder asked, genuinely curious. Sylar didn't answer, since all he would have done was pick the flint up with his mind rather than his hand. The suggestion that he might not have been able to, that his reach only extended to the tips of his fingers, seemed to terrify him. That fear made Mohinder's frustration ebb, and he added: "It doesn't bother me that you did it by hand."
Sylar swallowed, momentarily looking both small and grateful as he picked up the lamp and came around the desk.
"Just let me see what you've done to yourself," he said, feeling uncomfortably Gabriel-esque, and set the lamp down on the floor. Taking Mohinder's hand again, he frowned. "What a mess."
"Yes, well..." Mohinder said, a little embarrassed at having had a tantrum, particularly one which now required him to be fussed over. Sylar picked the glass from Mohinder's flesh carefully with his mind. "At least I only destroyed the one slide, though I think I've contaminated a couple."
"Miss Walker has grown quite used to being stuck with needles," Sylar commented, getting up and picking up a bottle of Carolina moonshine from a shelf by his desk. He opened it and held it over Mohinder's hand. "This is going to burn."
"It's fine," Mohinder said, and before the words were even out of his mouth, he felt the almost clear liquid sear into his open wounds. "Hell!"
"I warned you," Sylar said, dabbing at the wounds with a clean rag.
"So you did," Mohinder grumbled, setting a slide into the tray of the microscope with his uninjured hand.
"Better that than having it go gangrenous," Sylar said, and then looked quite afraid, "or catching what ails Miss Walker."
Mohinder said nothing, peering at the slide as Sylar wrapped his hand in the strips of fabric.
"What?" Sylar prompted after several moments of silence.
"Before, her blood cells were... there were these little creatures crawling between them, but now they're gone."
"Are you sure that isn't just your blood and not hers?" Sylar asked.
"I have no idea," Mohinder sighed miserably, rubbing his eyes. "I'm not a bloody physician."
"You're all I have, Mohinder," Sylar admonished. "You're going to have to try."
"If all you have is a single bean, it won't keep you from starving," Mohinder said bitterly. Sylar's face softened and he stroked Mohinder's hair.
"Yes it will," he said quietly. "It just needs to be planted and nurtured, and it'll give so, so much more than what it looks like it ever could from its initial appearance."
Mohinder leaned into Sylar's hand, Gabriel's touch. The past several nights in the dark lair had brought familiarity. At first they'd slept side by side like two planks of wood, but eventually the sweetness of Gabriel's awkward sincerity combined with the cold caused Mohinder to come closer and closer, until at last they'd entangled. Mohinder told himself it was for warmth, at first, but he found that he sought out those small touches during their waking hours as well. He sighed, looking up slightly balefully at Sylar's words.
"Am I the bean in this analogy?" Mohinder asked.
"I believe you started it," Sylar replied. "And you could sustain me for a lifetime and more."
"But can I sustain Miss Walker?" Mohinder said. "Or am I just breaking glass, wasting her time, all the time of everyone here?"
The last of the tyrant faded out of the man in front of Mohinder as Sylar squeezed his shoulders in reply, offering no reassurance besides the touch.
"We should move now," Mohinder continued. "I doubt very much that I would be a shoddier doctor if on the move."
"Miss Walker won't last," Sylar said with a frown. "This cold alone is a great risk."
Mohinder considered this dilemma.
"Then leave me with her,” Mohinder suggested, though he knew that it wouldn't be accepted. “I can find warmer shelter; it'll be easier to conceal two people rather than so many more, and we can meet at some appointed place-"
Mohinder trailed off, for just like that, the iron-willed autocrat was back, as Sylar had fixed him with a sympathetic but stern gaze.
"Parkman will not leave her,” he said. “And I will not leave you."
Mohinder looked at the ivory curtain, back on the wall of the study. Sylar followed his gaze and his face colored slightly. Mohinder gently touched his shoulder and then let his hand drop.
"No. I suppose you will not, will you?" Mohinder said, still staring at it with an expression Sylar couldn't read, in which he couldn't recognize a current of approval or disgust, and he couldn't help but lose his air of authority.
"Do you really want me to?" Gabriel asked, fear creeping into his voice. Mohinder turned and took both of his hands, ardently wanting to soothe him and at the same time wanting to press him into being the leader he was advertised as being.
"I want you to do what is best for these people, the ones who count on you so thoroughly that they tolerate your shouting, your harboring of would-be assassins, your defiance of the crown..." Mohinder groaned, searching Gabriel's face for some sign that he understood the absurdity of all those contradictory actions. "Your allegiance should be to them, not to me. I have done nothing for you, or for any of them, but provide Noah Bennet with better aim at all of you.”
Gabriel sighed and turned his hands so that he could curl them around Mohinder's.
"You make their lord happy," he replied, as though he was talking about someone else, as though he wasn't the terrible tyrant of whom he spoke. Mohinder considered for a moment that, perhaps, Gabriel wasn't as the other man continued. "You should not underestimate just how valuable the happiness of the king is to the kingdom."
Mohinder pulled his away and held his face in his own hands, dragging his fingers over his eyes and through his hair.
"Why do you...?" Mohinder began, then stopped with a sigh.
"Why do I what?" Gabriel asked. Mohinder said nothing, trying to turn back to the microscope, shaking his head, but Gabriel caught his hands again, gently turning him back to face him. "Why do I what?"
"Why are you their leader?" Mohinder asked finally. "Why do you even wish to be?"
"I'm the strongest. I understand how things work. I make the plans, I make the decisions," Gabriel said, feeling a chill.
"But... why? A distant monarch with her local thugs is anathema, but you intend to replace that with a local one in yourself?" Mohinder asked. "I want to understand..."
"We're at war, you beautiful, doubting thing," Gabriel murmured, feeling slightly heartsick at the idea that Mohinder didn't have faith in him. "We have to be... I have to be... colder. Colder than my heart wants me to be. A leader has to be. A general has to be. A king has to be. No war can be won with an army full of generals. Bennet doesn't just mean to quiet us, to make sure we act so very mundane, he means to murder us or make us his slaves. I cannot be to them what I am to you. I cannot be theirs the way I am yours. I can show my softest weakness to no one, save you."
"Is Peter not most powerful?" Mohinder asked. Gabriel's eyes darkened, and Mohinder observed as the attitude, the poise of Sylar passed back over him like clouds across the sun.
"In his case, the flesh is willing, but the spirit ill suited to the task. Peter makes hard choices with his heart, and he has no control of his powers. He can't be heartless, which a king often has to be.”
“And you can?” Mohinder said skeptically. Sylar cracked a smile at that, looking at Mohinder with such warmth in the flickering lamplight, but at the same time, that warmth was shot through with pride and self-satisfaction.
“I can,” Sylar said, “when I choose. That's the important part, Mohinder: that control. If Nathan or Claude was in terrible danger, Peter would be unable to focus well enough to rescue either of them. If you were in terrible danger-”
“Aren't I?” Mohinder interrupted sardonically. Sylar rolled his eyes.
“Smart ass. If you were, I would be able to retain the presence of mind to make sure no harm came to you. I could hold my terror in a box, lock it deep inside, so that I wouldn't make the rash and likely tragic mistakes that Peter's heart would lead him into.”
Sylar set the lamp aside.
“Heroes die young, usually shattered from having gotten their lovers, friends, and families killed. Kings die old in their beds, and leave something behind more solid than stories.”
“I had no idea you were such a cynic,” Mohinder murmured, a chill in his spine at how easily this young man seemed to believe he could shut off all the love and adoration he professed for Mohinder like extinguishing a candle, and light it up again, just as easily.
“Is it cynical to know history?” Sylar argued, looking slightly hurt by the accusation. “Has King Arthur returned since I stopped walking around in public? You must understand what a king has to be.”
“I do understand,” Mohinder replied, taking him by the shoulders. “I just... I don't understand how you can be both this cunning rebel with wondrous powers and...”
Sylar looked at him.
“And what?”
“...and a young man capable of irrational jealousy and such sweetness towards a man he barely knows. I don't understand how you can believe so fervently that you're meant to rule the world, and at the same time, meant to do achieve this revolution while having me for a lover. It contradicts itself, a plan so grand and all encompassing, and a goal that's so... so personal, and which hasn't got a thing to do with his grander one! You've decided you want me around so you've decided I'm to be a doctor and...”
“Why you?” Sylar asked. “Is that what you're asking me?”
Mohinder considered the question.
“Yes. I think that is what I'm asking.”
“I don't know, Mohinder. I don't write destiny. I didn't engineer my own birth to be the one who'd be capable of saving these people.”
Sylar got up and stood in front of the ivory curtain, fingers grazing softly down the fabric.
“I learned to paint the future so long ago. The first thing I painted was a raid by the crown on our old headquarters. It was just me, the Bishops, and Claude back then. Because of that painting, we escaped. I left it behind to taunt Bennet, which is how Parkman came to us, bringing Molly with him. Peter ran away from his family shortly after, Nathan hot on his heels. We found the High Bridge, and I melted away the stone to make the tunnels, Bishop turned mere rope to electrical wire, and he and his daughter built the generator with my guidance.
“I had just built this chamber when the trance came over me, and when I awoke, there on the wall, was you.”
Sylar glanced over his shoulder at Mohinder, and confessed the fears that he and Gabriel shared.
“I was terrified, Mohinder, more frightened than I could explain to you. I had a destiny, a calling, but this vision interrupted it all,” he said, then turned back. “I melted the paint off the wall, trying to run from it, but the minute the wall was blank, the same vision forced itself on me again.”
Gabriel pulled aside the curtains, staring at what he'd painted not once, but twice.
“That's never happened before or since. So... I covered it up, but some secrets are harder to keep than others.”
Mohinder finally found his voice, and eked out:
“Particularly with invisible men around.”
“Precisely. When I first saw this, believe me, I wanted it to go away more than you could know, but every fragment of me knew that destiny was right, and ultimately, my body and soul mutinied against my rationality.”
Mohinder couldn't see Gabriel's face, only his back, but the delicate brush of his fingers across Mohinder's cheekbone in the mural betrayed just as much compassion as a soft smile, or an affectionate eye.
“I planned for my ascent to power, Mohinder Suresh, but oh, how I dreamed of you.”
Gabriel drew the curtain closed again, timidly turning back.
“In my capacity as archduke, rebel, and would-be emperor, I'm well aware that taking you in is a risk of absolute madness, but I've tried to blot you out before, to no avail.”
Gabriel finally brought himself to meet Mohinder's eyes.
“You're indelible.”
Gabriel sighed from the weight of his confession, composing himself and crossing the stone floor to sit next to Mohinder, his pale skin glowing warmly in the light of the hurricane lamp.
“So,” Mohinder said softly. “We're at a bit of an impasse.”
Gabriel turned with a little crook of a grin.
"One could say that," Gabriel replied. "But destiny will probably force our hands in one direction or another before too long. How's your hand?"
"A bit sore, but nothing dire," Mohinder said, not voicing the thought that he really wasn't too keen on the idea of just waiting for something to happen to make their decisions for them, particularly with a child's life at stake.
"If you find yourself, feeling ill, feverish, tell me immediately," Gabriel added gravely. Mohinder sighed.
"I'm the only 'doctor' here, I'm afraid. Should I catch Miss Walker's ailment, well..."
Mohinder didn't finish the sentence that that might simply mean the end of him, as well as the little girl.
"I'll think of something," Gabriel said. Mohinder sighed and gave him a slightly exasperated look.
"You needn't promise that," he chided gently. "It's not fair to expect you to fix literally anything."
Gabriel looked back, affronted and slightly frightened.
"You don't think I can," he accused. Mohinder crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow.
"Is that at all what I said?" he retorted. "I said that you needn't promise and you needn't take everything on your own shoulders. It's unnecessary."
Gabriel scuffed his heel against the floor, twitching his long leg like an awkward adolescent.
"I want to, when it's you," he explained. "It's not the same as with everyone else. It's not obligation."
Mohinder relented slightly.
"I understand," he said. Gabriel peered at him in the soft light.
"Do you?" he asked softly.
"Just because I can't see the future doesn't mean I don't understand that it can weigh on a person, excellency. I face it more blindly than you, but nonetheless I do have to face it."
Gabriel paused.
"Don't call me excellency when we're alone. It sounds wrong," he said. "I'm never going to be your ruler. No one ever could, I think. You're too independent, too... autonomous."
Mohinder gave a wan smile and shook his head.
"Bennet would certainly agree with that sentiment. I just have difficulty believing that others know what's best for me. You're going to have to cope with it as well, so I doubt you'll find it nearly so endearing when you're on the receiving end."
Gabriel snorted.
"I find everything about you endearing, Mohinder."
"That's because it's all new," he countered. Gabriel took his hand, lacing their fingers together without resistance from the captain.
"No," Gabriel said. "It's because it's destiny. You'll see."
Mohinder squeezed his hand and, on impulse, rested his head on Gabriel's shoulder.
"Perhaps I will."
They sat in comfortable silence like that for a moment, Mohinder leaning against Gabriel's warmth and vice versa, the coziness broken when a knock came on the door. Mohinder made to pull away, but Gabriel clung tightly to his hand even as his expression hardened and Sylar's firm stoicism returned.
"Enter," he ordered. Matthew Parkman opened the door, pausing at the entrance.
"Well?" Sylar prompted, staring down Matt as Matt glanced at Mohinder and their joined hands. Matt didn't rise to the bait.
"Did you make any progress with Molly?"
Mohinder rubbed his forehead.
"A bit?" he said tentatively. "There's something in her blood that shouldn't be. Little beasties of some sort."
Matt blinked uneasily.
"Beasties?" he cringed, taking a step further into the room. "Can you fix it?"
"I don't know," Mohinder said, longing to inform Matt in frustration that he wasn't a bloody doctor. Matt's brow knit.
"Well then you need to be reading more instead of... whatever this is and start being a doctor!" Matt retorted as though Mohinder had spoken aloud. Sylar scowled, chin dropping, eyes which looked black in the dim light flaring.
"Do not," he said sharply, "read his mind."
"She's dying, Sylar," Matt argued. "We don't have all the time in the-"
Apparently they had less time than any of them suspected, because Matt was cut off by the walls shaking, chips of stone tumbling from the ceiling. Sylar grabbed Mohinder tightly to his side, protecting him with those invisible forces at his command.
"Fuck!" Matt cried, twisting and running from the room, presumably back toward Molly. Sylar hauled Mohinder to his feet.
"Stay next to me," he ordered, exiting the room. Mohinder obediently remained quite close as Sylar addressed his troops with every shred of ruthless efficiency he'd previously claimed.
“Bennet?” he asked Claude, who rolled his eyes.
“No, it's this charming rabbi I crossed back in Damascus, yes Bennet!”
“Go make some trouble for them, distract them,” Sylar ordered. They would discuss sarcasm and insubordination later; for now, there was no time. “Nathan, go secure the rendezvous.”
Claude gave a tense nod and retreated, but Nathan remained.
“One of the arches collapsed, Molly's trapped- so is Bishop,” Nathan reported.
“Go anyway!” Sylar said walking past him to evaluate the initial damage. “There's nothing more you can do here.”
“Then the captain should-” Nathan began, taking Mohinder's sleeve, only to be slapped away by invisible hands.
“He stays with me,” Sylar snapped. “When you find a safe point, stay there, and we'll find you. Go.”
They turned a corner and caught sight of Matt and Elle scrambling to move stones out of the way of the blocked passage. Mohinder darted forward to help, but Sylar stuck out an arm and held him back.
“Get clear,” he ordered the other two. Sylar made a fist and yanked, pulling the stones towards himself, Mohinder and the frantic others, but before any could strike them, the debris melted, flowing up to shore up the cracked ceiling and walls. Once the passage was a passage again, Sylar grabbed Mohinder's wrist.
"Right next to me, no more than six inches away, understand?" he growled, following after as Matt and Elle raced to find their respective families, Mohinder tight behind his shoulder.
The first sound Mohinder heard was a shriek as Elle bolted back into the corridor, but then the noise cut off, no further sound coming from her open mouth, though her eyes moved wildly from one face to the next.
"This way!" Matt called, and his voice seemed to echo not just off the stone, but off the walls of Mohinder's skull, and he found his feet moving before he even asked them to, Sylar right at his side.
The next sounds to be heard over the din were the tiny, gutting whimpers and shallow breath of a hurt, terrified little girl trying to be brave. A shard of sharp stone had cut into the flesh near Miss Walker's collar bone, and Mohinder's mouth went dry.
"No!" Mohinder roared as Matt reached to pull the sliver free. "No, that's probably cut her jugular vein. You mustn't move it yet. There's a brown satchel in Gabriel's bedroom, by the door, Matt, bring it to me quick as you can."
Matt squeezed Molly's hand and nodded, running off.
“Mohinder,” Molly whimpered.
“Shh, shh, don't move. It'll be all right, darling; I know what to do. It's okay to be frightened, but we're going to set it all right.”
Mohinder leaned down and kissed her hand gently, but she wasn't looking at him. He followed her gaze to see her staring, frozen like a rabbit in a snare, at the archduke, who wore an expression Mohinder had never seen. He was about to inquire why the hell Sylar was glowering at the child when Matt came crashing back in, holding out the case for which Mohinder had asked. Mohinder took it, unbuttoning the leather fob, and extracted a fine needle and thread.
"When I remove the sliver, you have to hold her vein together, or she'll bleed to-" Mohinder cut himself off.
"Bleed too much," he finished, instead of, 'to death.' "Can you do that?"
Sylar was silent, staring at the slow trickle of blood.
"Gabriel!" Mohinder shouted, and Sylar snapped out of his reverie, nodding. "Good. On three."
Mohinder made the count and the shard came free, tossed aside as Sylar placed invisible dams at each side of the breached vein and Mohinder got to work, carefully suturing together the fragile tissue of the vein itself, and then the translucent skin above, while Bennet's attack continued.
Back on the surface, an invisible man slunk through the shadows, not to avoid being seen, but to avoid being hit by the damned ordnance being flung at the earth. To make matters worse, particularly for Claude, at some point in the night it had started to snow. He managed to outflank one side through the woods, tugging fuses from cannons. In the confusion, Claude went to do the same to the contingent on the other side of the bridge, when he felt something hit him in the back. He spun, scrambling in the snow, reaching to feel his chest and back for what he felt certain was a hole from buckshot.
“Still in one piece, Claude?” came a wry voice from the dark. Claude looked at his fingers, finding them coated in bright sulfur-yellow paint, so thin that the color dripped down to his feet and stained the snow below. Bennet grinned, peeling a glove off the hand he'd used to throw it the yellow-drenched sponge and letting it drop to the ground. Claude, remaining invisible, darted to the side, but Bennet drew his pistol, tracking him easily. “I've been ready to have this raid for weeks, all I needed was the snow. We couldn't have you slipping out unseen, could we?”
Claude swallowed, schooling any nervousness off his face before he returned to visibility with a coy grin.
“Delaying on my account? Why darling,” he replied, crouching down and picking up a handful of snow and wiping the paint off his hands, “I'd no idea you missed me so. You've such a funny way of showing it, after all.”
Bennet didn't lower his pistol as the cannons banged on around them.
“As I recall, I didn't miss you entirely,” he replied. “How's your shoulder?”
“It got better,” Claude replied, though the place where Bennet had shot him last time ached at the memory. "Sorry to disappoint."
"Where are the rest of them?" Bennet asked. Claude looked past him at the sparks and red-orange glow that lit the area around the bridge.
"Looks like you've got a pretty good idea already," Claude answered, spine tensing. A damned good idea, perhaps too good.
"Then you're going to lure them out and signal me," Bennet replied. "Only the Archduke dies, I have a deal with the Doña regarding her offspring."
"I'm afraid not, dear heart," Claude replied. "You leave me no choice but to call in your marker."
Bennet smiled at that.
"Oh, Claude, I've saved your life as many times as you've saved mine," he drawled indulgently.
"I didn't mean the marker for your life, Noah," he answered, the humor on Claude's face falling away. "Every scrap of happiness you have, you owe to me, and your wife can say the same, and now your bill is come due."
Noah Bennet narrowed his eyes.
"This is the last time, Claude," Bennet said, putting up his gun.
"Believe me, dear heart, I've got no designs on there being a next one," Claude replied, vanishing before Bennet's very eyes. The paint had dripped as much as it was going to, and the snow came down so hard now that Claude's footprints were quickly obscured.
"Kisses to your misses," he added, and was gone.
Below, in the chamber, Molly Walker was a whole vessel once more, but a drained one. Mohinder could tell that much from the dark stain across the sheets, and rolled up a sleeve.
"She's lost too much blood. Can you mimic a pair of invisible needles attached to tube?" he asked Sylar frantically. "You have to pull blood from me and push it into her. Mine didn't cause hers to curdle when it mixed on the slides."
"It's risky," Matt protested.
"She's cold, she'll freeze if we don't!" Mohinder snapped, then thrust his arm at Sylar. "Do it. Blood only, you can't let air into her veins."
"Will it hurt you?" Sylar asked, not moving a fraction. "Could you catch what she has, or the blood loss-"
"How can you-?" Matt started to shout, but Mohinder cut him off.
"I'll be fine, Gabriel, please!" Mohinder cried. "I can do this, but not if you won't help me!"
Mohinder thrust his arm in front of Sylar, veins up, waiting to see in what direction the conflict on his face would resolve. At last, with a fierce scowl, Sylar grabbed his wrist, and Mohinder gasped as a sting as sharp as a hornet struck inside his elbow.
"You'd better be fine," Sylar said grudgingly, a ribbon of blood weaving through the air to connect to Molly's arm, "or I will never trust your word again."
Mohinder watched in silence as the bombardment continued and Molly's color returned, the ribbon cutting off on Mohinder's side first and vanishing into Molly's arm.
"We have to go," Matt said, gathering her up. Sylar gave him a dirty look for the redundant statement, and checked the inside of Mohinder's elbow to make sure he'd clotted.
"We need to get the Bishops," Sylar added, and Mohinder saw a flicker of guilt cross Matt's face. As if on cue, Elle began screaming in mid-sentence.
"-me, someone help! Daddy!" Mohinder and Sylar moved quickly to the next chamber, to a far more grim sight than what Miss Walker had presented. Elle was bent over her father, a gaping wound in his side. Elle looked up as she saw them and shrieked at Matt, launching herself at him.
"You! I'll kill you!" she shrilled, sparks skipping across her exposed skin. Mohinder gasped, and Molly buried her face against Matt's shoulder, waiting for the seizing pain that never came. Elle collapsed to the ground like a pile of rags.
Sylar lowered his hand, having cut off the flow of blood to her brain for just long enough to render her unconscious.
"Thank you," Bishop rasped. "She shouldn't have to see the rest."
"I can't save him," Mohinder said, stunned by the sight and the reality, so close on the heels of his first victory over death, that all such victories were temporary at best. "Mister Bishop, I'm sorry, but... Your liver's been... I'm so sorry, there's nothing I can do."
Sylar turned to Matt.
"Get out," he growled. "We'll have a talk about this later, if there is one."
Matt turned, holding Molly tight, and ran, half-hoping that he would never see archduke or doctor again.
"Shut your eyes," Sylar ordered Bishop, then turned to Mohinder. "You too. No matter what you hear, don't open them."
"Why?" Mohinder asked, looking from the collapsed girl on the floor to the dying man, then back to Sylar.
"Just do it," Bishop replied with a weak smile. "Better if you do."
Mohinder reluctantly shut his eyes, holding his breath, and for the first time that evening, Sylar moved enough away from him that Mohinder no longer felt his body heat. The cold air of the cavern sinking through his clothes and the slight chill of blood loss made him feel isolated, empty. He was about to protest, to open his eyes, but that instinct was completely quashed when the sound started.
Stay in the military long enough, and any man will recognize the sound Mohinder heard, a crackling, wet noise, the sound of both something soft and damp and something hard and dry being broken open. It was punctuated by the occasional grunt and thin, high noise from Bishop's throat, and as it carried on, the sucking crunch got rounder, more hollow, until the hard noises ceased and only the wet noises remained. Mohinder screwed his eyes shut tighter than he ever had in his life, tighter than when waking from his worst nightmare as a boy. When everything was silent but for Sylar's breathing, when the amputation noises had ceased after what felt like an eternity, Mohinder opened his eyes, flinching at the sight of what was left of Robert Bishop. Sylar scooped Elle up off the floor, throwing her over his shoulder like a sack of clothes, his hands red and dripping. He met Mohinder's eyes as he straightened, a tiny furrow between his eyebrows in a split-second expression of despair.
“You shouldn't have looked,” he said.
“I know,” Mohinder replied, without apology or real regret. It was too late now, after all. Sylar looked as though he wanted to say more, but another explosion rocked the ground above them.
“Stay close,” Sylar said, and Mohinder nodded as they made their way out and up, through passages that Sylar had reserved for himself and whoever else he deemed worthy, coming out into the falling snow. Bennet and his men had switched from explosives to pouring kerosene down the passages. There was a spark, a match thrown, and the ground around the old entrances glowed orange and red, hissing and sputtering as the snow and the flame collided. There was a terrible shudder.
“Come on,” Sylar said to Mohinder softly. Mohinder reached out and grabbed Sylar's hand, tacky with drying blood, as they swiftly loped through the snow. Behind them, the ground buckled and collapsed in on itself, the caverns imploding. None of the soldiers realized that under it all was shattering a mural of two men in love, expressions of rapture and adoration crumbling under ash and water, dirt and cold, filthy stone. The soldiers did not know, and neither Mohinder nor Sylar had the luxury of looking back.
-To be continued in Part 2-