And here's 2 of 3 in xmas in July for evil15smiles because WYSIWYG is fail and I should know it.
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Prompt: Angst and/or fluff, hospital room.
Rating: PG-13 for off-page character death, language, non-graphic violence and kissing.
Characters: Mohinder, Sylar
Warnings: Off-page character death
A Conversation in Bedlam After an Arson
The building looked like an architectural sketch of itself- bare bones of a building as Sylar stood, shuddering with more horror than he'd ever felt. He strained over the howl of sirens and the thrum of adrenaline coming from other spectators, trying to hear any sign of Mohinder- heartbeat, voice, anything.
Anything.
Nothing.
He listened to the police scanners and the radios of the EMTs for any description of Mohinder, any mention of his name, but once again came up empty. He jumped down into the alley, cushioning his landing with his ability, and walked towards the scene, just another awed New York City gawker.
"No one else is coming out of that," he overheard one of the firemen mutter, not with any ability, but with normal human hearing. In spite of that, Sylar flinched like it was the loudest thing he'd ever heard. He turned and walked, away from the building, away from the ash and the ruins, fighting the urge to run from it, fighting the urge to run back and check again. Mohinder always survived. Why should this be different?
The six o'clock news the next morning reported that thirty people died of smoke inhalation, that the fire was arson, and that it had started on the sixth floor. He flicked off the T.V. with his mind.
What now?
There would be no list, no more chats over tea, drugged or otherwise. Mohinder had just… left. He'd just gotten up and left the table in the middle of their game, without even the violent gesture of scattering the pieces and refusing to play anymore.
Sylar found himself walking without realizing where he was going, leaving the apartment, taking the winding subway route and walking the last few blocks to the police precinct for Mohinder's neighborhood. He shifted as he walked down the street, skin getting darker, frame shorter, until he resembled a blend of Mohinder's features with Chandra's.
He opened the door and walked to the desk, the bored looking receptionist barely flicking her eyes up to acknowledge him.
"Help you?" she mumbled.
"I'm here to identify a body," he answered.
"Morgue. Elevator's over there."
Everything sounded far too loud to him, the elevator walls feeling like they were closing in, and Sylar wasn't sure if he'd be able to stop himself from destroying this building and everyone in it upon seeing Mohinder's lifeless face, marred by soot and burns. He wasn't sure he could even be bothered to try.
"I'm here to identify a body," he said again at the morgue.
"I'm sorry to hear that," the white coated attendant said. He even sounded like he meant it. "If you'd come with me. Who are you here to identify, and do you know where they were found?"
"Last night's fire in Brooklyn. My-"
My true love, my best enemy, my worst friend, my nemesis, my magnetic north, my true fucking love, my-
"-brother, Mohinder Suresh."
The attendant stopped and turned, stunned.
"Doctor Suresh isn't dead. The judge sent him to Bellevue this morning," he said, a funny strain in his voice. "You should look in to getting him a good lawyer; his public defender's an idiot."
"Why does he need a lawyer?" Sylar gasped.
Alive, thank you Christ.
"Who do you think started the fire?"
Sylar turned and left the morgue without another word, letting the illusion slip once he got to the street. Apparently the game wasn't over, but the rules had changed, and drastically.
He shifted his form again, clothes switching to a suit, a briefcase materializing from nothing, his hair going slightly longer, smooth and neat, his face clean-shaven but otherwise the same.
He hailed a cab and instructed the driver to take him to Bellevue.
When he arrived, he went through the metal detectors, had his briefcase X-rayed, and swept into the ward with an air of intimidating authority and contempt.
"I need to speak with Mohinder Suresh," he said to the nurse behind the desk. She returned his look indifferently.
"You don't look like family. Visiting hours start at three."
"I'm not family, I'm Doctor Suresh's attorney. I trust you're not attempting to restrict my client's access to council." The nurse gave him a baleful look.
"Here's how this is gonna go," she growled at him, standing up and retrieving a big ring of keys from a drawer. "You've got an hour. If you get him wound up, I'm throwing you out. If you get wound up, I'm throwing you out. Remember that he's not right in the head right now, so don't expect him to be reasonable."
"You make him sound completely insane," Sylar said skeptically.
"Where do you think you are, skinny?" the nurse snorted with a humorless laugh.
"Let's go, you're not my only problem today."
Sylar tilted his head as he followed her, contemplating simply decapitating her, taking Mohinder, and bringing this place crashing to the ground. He supposed it could wait 'til he'd gotten a bit more insight to the situation.
The nurse unlocked a door just like any other door.
"Don't get too close, or it's your ass," she said. Sylar stepped in and the door thudded shut behind him.
"Who's there?" a voice snarled from the bed, creaking as its occupant jerked against his restraints. "Is that you, Peter, you miserable fucking coward?"
"Tt.Now I'm offended. I don't see you for months and you start by insulting me?" Sylar sighed, taking a seat on the bed beside Mohinder's head and gently playing with his hair. "Really, Mohinder, manners."
Mohinder shut his eyes and let out a long, relieved breath, tension uncoiling from his body.
"Oh thank gods, it's just you."
Sylar's fingers stilled.
"Still somewhat insulting," he commented.
"Sorry," Mohinder said, craning his neck to look at Sylar.
"I'm just a bit concerned. You usually aren't ever 'somewhat' anything. Particularly insulting. Particularly to me."
Mohinder jerked his head away, eyes darkening.
"Is this a trick?" he growled. "Did they send you?"
"Shh. No one sent me. What the hell are you doing here, Mohinder?" Sylar murmured, any amusement at this role reversal draining away at the intensity and direction of Mohinder's paranoia.
"You don't know, do you?" Mohinder replied incredulously.
"I know there's a smoking pile of sticks where your building used to be. I know you seem to think I'm a good thing and Petrelli's a bad thing."
"My child is dead."
"How?" Sylar asked evenly, resuming his stroking.
"Maya killed her."
"She never did have any control."
"Oh, but you're wrong," Mohinder laughed. "She decided that since living without her brother was too hard for her to bear, living without her family must be too much for Molly."
Sylar slid further onto the bed, lifting Mohinder's head and setting it in his lap, making it easier to look at one another as they spoke.
"So you burned down the building to kill Maya?"
"Maya killed herself. She murdered my child with that filthy ability and then put her own head in my oven," he answered flatly. Sylar's fingers strayed from Mohinder's hair to his face.
"Then what brings us to arson?"
Mohinder was silent for a long time as long fingers caressed his temples.
"It wasn't enough," he said finally, softly. "There was a short investigation, then the funeral. Matt ran back to his wife in California and another child that wasn't his. And I was alone, with sympathetic acquaintances. Petrellis, Bishops, even Niki Sanders stopped by to watch me mourn. I was somewhat surprised to discover that I hated them. All of them."
Mohinder's eyes focused sharply on Sylar.
"Dear empathic Peter most of all, actually. There's no question that he understood that my world is over, irreparable. He still turned up every day with words he thought would make things better. I asked him, you know. I asked him to go back and fix it, to warn me."
"He refused."
"Of course. All well and good to play with timelines when it's his loved ones at stake, but he's too ethical to save a child."
"Do you blame me as well?" Sylar asked, no defensiveness in his tone, merely curiosity.
"I'm to blame. You shot Maya," Mohinder said with a nostalgic smile, as if he was recalling a day at the beach that they'd spent together and not a kidnapping and murder. "I could've sliced open my own arm, shot myself to demonstrate the cure. She lived because of me, therefore Molly died because of me."
"I would've just taken Maya's power."
"Would you have killed Molly for hers as well?"
"I don't know. Maybe. I was unusually grateful to you for giving back my abilities. I might've let you keep her."
"Doesn't matter now. Either way, her death would be my fault. My actions led us all to that point."
"Your reasoning is faulty," Sylar chided gently, for all that he liked where this was going. Mohinder chuckled.
"I know. I can't escape it, though. I suppose that's why I'm here."
"Why'd you burn down the building, Mohinder? There are simpler ways to kill yourself."
"I'm well aware. I wasn't trying to kill myself."
"Oh?" Sylar replied, tilting his head as he gazed down. "What were you trying to do?"
"Kill everyone else. Perhaps if I kill enough people, Peter will be forced to go back and save Molly to stop me. Or I'll just bring the whole world to an end. It doesn't really matter."
"How do you intend to do that from here?" Sylar asked, running a finger along the strap holding Mohinder's chest to the bed.
"Now I should be offended. I'll find a way out of here. It's only a matter of time before someone makes a mistake; you know that better than anyone."
Sylar smiled, curling his spine downwards to nestle his nose and lips in Mohinder's hair, thinking that he had never loved him more than he did now, in this madness.
"Or," he spoke into glossy curls, "You could come with me. Like you said, it's only a matter of time."
"Why would you do that for me?" Mohinder asked levelly, arching his head back so that Sylar's lips hovered over his.
"Respect. Chemistry. Love," Sylar listed. "And we share our primary interest. We're the only two sane people on earth, for all we know. How can you ask me to let you go now?"
"You said ordinary humans were innocent, that there was no reason to kill them."
"Before, there wasn't."
"And now?" Mohinder asked. Sylar smiled.
"Now it'll make you happy," he answered softly, and brushed Mohinder's lips with his as he telekinetically undid the straps that held Mohinder down. Mohinder's hands came up to thread into his hair as they kissed. Sylar pulled back to allow Mohinder to rise and stretch, dropping the lawyer illusion as he stood as well.
"Shall we start here?" Sylar asked. "I'd like to tear that nurse at reception apart, but it would be more direct to destroy the whole building."
"Not yet," Mohinder replied. "I need to stop off in diagnostics."
Mohinder looked at Sylar with a broken, sorrowful smile and oh, that feeling of absolute devotion just swelled and grew in Sylar the more damage Mohinder showed. He couldn't possibly love him any more, Sylar thought.
"They should have everything I need," Mohinder began, reaching and clasping Sylar's hand in his, "To make a List."
Sylar had never been more overjoyed to be wrong.
Prompt: Angst and/or fluff, hospital room.
Rating: PG-13 for off-page character death, language, non-graphic violence and kissing.
Characters: Mohinder, Sylar
Warnings: Off-page character death
A Conversation in Bedlam After an Arson
The building looked like an architectural sketch of itself- bare bones of a building as Sylar stood, shuddering with more horror than he'd ever felt. He strained over the howl of sirens and the thrum of adrenaline coming from other spectators, trying to hear any sign of Mohinder- heartbeat, voice, anything.
Anything.
Nothing.
He listened to the police scanners and the radios of the EMTs for any description of Mohinder, any mention of his name, but once again came up empty. He jumped down into the alley, cushioning his landing with his ability, and walked towards the scene, just another awed New York City gawker.
"No one else is coming out of that," he overheard one of the firemen mutter, not with any ability, but with normal human hearing. In spite of that, Sylar flinched like it was the loudest thing he'd ever heard. He turned and walked, away from the building, away from the ash and the ruins, fighting the urge to run from it, fighting the urge to run back and check again. Mohinder always survived. Why should this be different?
The six o'clock news the next morning reported that thirty people died of smoke inhalation, that the fire was arson, and that it had started on the sixth floor. He flicked off the T.V. with his mind.
What now?
There would be no list, no more chats over tea, drugged or otherwise. Mohinder had just… left. He'd just gotten up and left the table in the middle of their game, without even the violent gesture of scattering the pieces and refusing to play anymore.
Sylar found himself walking without realizing where he was going, leaving the apartment, taking the winding subway route and walking the last few blocks to the police precinct for Mohinder's neighborhood. He shifted as he walked down the street, skin getting darker, frame shorter, until he resembled a blend of Mohinder's features with Chandra's.
He opened the door and walked to the desk, the bored looking receptionist barely flicking her eyes up to acknowledge him.
"Help you?" she mumbled.
"I'm here to identify a body," he answered.
"Morgue. Elevator's over there."
Everything sounded far too loud to him, the elevator walls feeling like they were closing in, and Sylar wasn't sure if he'd be able to stop himself from destroying this building and everyone in it upon seeing Mohinder's lifeless face, marred by soot and burns. He wasn't sure he could even be bothered to try.
"I'm here to identify a body," he said again at the morgue.
"I'm sorry to hear that," the white coated attendant said. He even sounded like he meant it. "If you'd come with me. Who are you here to identify, and do you know where they were found?"
"Last night's fire in Brooklyn. My-"
My true love, my best enemy, my worst friend, my nemesis, my magnetic north, my true fucking love, my-
"-brother, Mohinder Suresh."
The attendant stopped and turned, stunned.
"Doctor Suresh isn't dead. The judge sent him to Bellevue this morning," he said, a funny strain in his voice. "You should look in to getting him a good lawyer; his public defender's an idiot."
"Why does he need a lawyer?" Sylar gasped.
Alive, thank you Christ.
"Who do you think started the fire?"
Sylar turned and left the morgue without another word, letting the illusion slip once he got to the street. Apparently the game wasn't over, but the rules had changed, and drastically.
He shifted his form again, clothes switching to a suit, a briefcase materializing from nothing, his hair going slightly longer, smooth and neat, his face clean-shaven but otherwise the same.
He hailed a cab and instructed the driver to take him to Bellevue.
When he arrived, he went through the metal detectors, had his briefcase X-rayed, and swept into the ward with an air of intimidating authority and contempt.
"I need to speak with Mohinder Suresh," he said to the nurse behind the desk. She returned his look indifferently.
"You don't look like family. Visiting hours start at three."
"I'm not family, I'm Doctor Suresh's attorney. I trust you're not attempting to restrict my client's access to council." The nurse gave him a baleful look.
"Here's how this is gonna go," she growled at him, standing up and retrieving a big ring of keys from a drawer. "You've got an hour. If you get him wound up, I'm throwing you out. If you get wound up, I'm throwing you out. Remember that he's not right in the head right now, so don't expect him to be reasonable."
"You make him sound completely insane," Sylar said skeptically.
"Where do you think you are, skinny?" the nurse snorted with a humorless laugh.
"Let's go, you're not my only problem today."
Sylar tilted his head as he followed her, contemplating simply decapitating her, taking Mohinder, and bringing this place crashing to the ground. He supposed it could wait 'til he'd gotten a bit more insight to the situation.
The nurse unlocked a door just like any other door.
"Don't get too close, or it's your ass," she said. Sylar stepped in and the door thudded shut behind him.
"Who's there?" a voice snarled from the bed, creaking as its occupant jerked against his restraints. "Is that you, Peter, you miserable fucking coward?"
"Tt.Now I'm offended. I don't see you for months and you start by insulting me?" Sylar sighed, taking a seat on the bed beside Mohinder's head and gently playing with his hair. "Really, Mohinder, manners."
Mohinder shut his eyes and let out a long, relieved breath, tension uncoiling from his body.
"Oh thank gods, it's just you."
Sylar's fingers stilled.
"Still somewhat insulting," he commented.
"Sorry," Mohinder said, craning his neck to look at Sylar.
"I'm just a bit concerned. You usually aren't ever 'somewhat' anything. Particularly insulting. Particularly to me."
Mohinder jerked his head away, eyes darkening.
"Is this a trick?" he growled. "Did they send you?"
"Shh. No one sent me. What the hell are you doing here, Mohinder?" Sylar murmured, any amusement at this role reversal draining away at the intensity and direction of Mohinder's paranoia.
"You don't know, do you?" Mohinder replied incredulously.
"I know there's a smoking pile of sticks where your building used to be. I know you seem to think I'm a good thing and Petrelli's a bad thing."
"My child is dead."
"How?" Sylar asked evenly, resuming his stroking.
"Maya killed her."
"She never did have any control."
"Oh, but you're wrong," Mohinder laughed. "She decided that since living without her brother was too hard for her to bear, living without her family must be too much for Molly."
Sylar slid further onto the bed, lifting Mohinder's head and setting it in his lap, making it easier to look at one another as they spoke.
"So you burned down the building to kill Maya?"
"Maya killed herself. She murdered my child with that filthy ability and then put her own head in my oven," he answered flatly. Sylar's fingers strayed from Mohinder's hair to his face.
"Then what brings us to arson?"
Mohinder was silent for a long time as long fingers caressed his temples.
"It wasn't enough," he said finally, softly. "There was a short investigation, then the funeral. Matt ran back to his wife in California and another child that wasn't his. And I was alone, with sympathetic acquaintances. Petrellis, Bishops, even Niki Sanders stopped by to watch me mourn. I was somewhat surprised to discover that I hated them. All of them."
Mohinder's eyes focused sharply on Sylar.
"Dear empathic Peter most of all, actually. There's no question that he understood that my world is over, irreparable. He still turned up every day with words he thought would make things better. I asked him, you know. I asked him to go back and fix it, to warn me."
"He refused."
"Of course. All well and good to play with timelines when it's his loved ones at stake, but he's too ethical to save a child."
"Do you blame me as well?" Sylar asked, no defensiveness in his tone, merely curiosity.
"I'm to blame. You shot Maya," Mohinder said with a nostalgic smile, as if he was recalling a day at the beach that they'd spent together and not a kidnapping and murder. "I could've sliced open my own arm, shot myself to demonstrate the cure. She lived because of me, therefore Molly died because of me."
"I would've just taken Maya's power."
"Would you have killed Molly for hers as well?"
"I don't know. Maybe. I was unusually grateful to you for giving back my abilities. I might've let you keep her."
"Doesn't matter now. Either way, her death would be my fault. My actions led us all to that point."
"Your reasoning is faulty," Sylar chided gently, for all that he liked where this was going. Mohinder chuckled.
"I know. I can't escape it, though. I suppose that's why I'm here."
"Why'd you burn down the building, Mohinder? There are simpler ways to kill yourself."
"I'm well aware. I wasn't trying to kill myself."
"Oh?" Sylar replied, tilting his head as he gazed down. "What were you trying to do?"
"Kill everyone else. Perhaps if I kill enough people, Peter will be forced to go back and save Molly to stop me. Or I'll just bring the whole world to an end. It doesn't really matter."
"How do you intend to do that from here?" Sylar asked, running a finger along the strap holding Mohinder's chest to the bed.
"Now I should be offended. I'll find a way out of here. It's only a matter of time before someone makes a mistake; you know that better than anyone."
Sylar smiled, curling his spine downwards to nestle his nose and lips in Mohinder's hair, thinking that he had never loved him more than he did now, in this madness.
"Or," he spoke into glossy curls, "You could come with me. Like you said, it's only a matter of time."
"Why would you do that for me?" Mohinder asked levelly, arching his head back so that Sylar's lips hovered over his.
"Respect. Chemistry. Love," Sylar listed. "And we share our primary interest. We're the only two sane people on earth, for all we know. How can you ask me to let you go now?"
"You said ordinary humans were innocent, that there was no reason to kill them."
"Before, there wasn't."
"And now?" Mohinder asked. Sylar smiled.
"Now it'll make you happy," he answered softly, and brushed Mohinder's lips with his as he telekinetically undid the straps that held Mohinder down. Mohinder's hands came up to thread into his hair as they kissed. Sylar pulled back to allow Mohinder to rise and stretch, dropping the lawyer illusion as he stood as well.
"Shall we start here?" Sylar asked. "I'd like to tear that nurse at reception apart, but it would be more direct to destroy the whole building."
"Not yet," Mohinder replied. "I need to stop off in diagnostics."
Mohinder looked at Sylar with a broken, sorrowful smile and oh, that feeling of absolute devotion just swelled and grew in Sylar the more damage Mohinder showed. He couldn't possibly love him any more, Sylar thought.
"They should have everything I need," Mohinder began, reaching and clasping Sylar's hand in his, "To make a List."
Sylar had never been more overjoyed to be wrong.