Misery Loves Company
Title: Misery Loves Company
Author: catoasapun
Characters: Gabriel, Mohinder
Rating: PG
Warnings: About 2 curse words; angst
Spoilers: Mostly 3X04 I Am Become Death, as this takes place in that 'verse.
Disclaimer: I do not own these characters. *sigh*
Word Count: 2,667
Prompt: IABD future - Mohinder's a recluse and Gabriel's trying to move on from his past, but he can't help stopping by the lab when he happens to be in town.
A/N 1: Written for cruiscin_lan (using the above prompt) for the Mylar_fic Ficathon. I'm not sure if this is exactly what you wanted, but I do hope you enjoy it! It was fun writing for you. :)
A/N 2: Love and thanks to my angel of a beta, paxlux. You make this easier, you know. <3
The weeks pass in blurs.
Places and people and everything in between fade together, weaving around Gabriel Gray a shroud of meaningless existence. Logically, he knows he’s alive, of course, but he is certain that he wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between life and death if he were asked about it.
To him, they are more or less the same thing. They feel the same.
As he goes through towns whose names he doesn’t remember (because he doesn’t care to) and brushes past faceless people who have no idea that a monster walks amongst them, he tries not to dwell on what he’s done, what has been done to him.
It still doesn’t make sense, and eventually he begins to accept that it probably never will. It is the rare subject that can baffle Gabriel Gray: the laws of the universe offer themselves freely to him, exposing their secrets to his open, capable mind. But, when Fate and Karma come into the picture, he finds that his gift fails him. They operate outside the rules of the world as he knows them, and try as he might, he cannot begin to understand them.
So, to silence the ever-existent questions racing wildly in his mind, he keeps moving.
Moving away from the skeletal remains of what had once been Costa Verde, moving away from what had been his realization of happiness, from what had been his life, his child, his home; moving away from everything that he had come to be and everything he had come to love.
His feet trace paths which he can only vaguely remember walking before, cities and towns he had traveled through lifetimes ago. His intent had been different then, the fact that he even had intent differs from what he is doing now. Where all those years ago (his mind tells him it wasn’t as long ago as his tired soul tells him it was) he had crossed the country to hunt those who didn’t deserve what they were given, he now meanders aimlessly, only moving forward by the grace of God.
It takes several months before he finds himself in New York again.
He hadn’t made a conscious decision to return, but when one wanders without direction, the subconscious tends to take over and lead one to places it remembers. Whether good or bad, the unconscious mind seeks comfort in familiarity: old homes, schools, and workplaces become beacons of light, beckoning the lost.
And that, he assumes, is how he ended up on Mohinder’s doorstep.
This building, this loft, has played a starring role in many of the major events of his past: here he committed murder (more than once,) here he first witnessed the future unraveling before his eyes, here he had stolen the cure for an inhibiting disease. It isn’t a place of uplifting memories, but it holds a good deal of importance to him all the same. It represents what he once was, what he had worked so hard to walk away from.
And here he stands again, an uncertain hand resting against the front door.
He doesn’t have to step inside to feel the negative vibration emanating from inside. It reeks of fear and pain, and he immediately wonders how much is his fault. Not that he remembers this place as ever being anything less than a deathtrap, but now it feels like a black hole.
Apartments in Manhattan don’t just turn into black holes, and if his recent experiences tell him anything, Gabriel is exceptional when it comes to turning something into nothing.
Pushing the thought aside, he turns the handle and slowly swings the door open.
He isn’t sure what he had been expecting, but he knows what he finds is not it. It takes a moment for his eyes to adjust to the darkness as he lets the door close behind him; very little light is coming in from behind broken blinds on the windows. Papers covered with illegible scribbling and long-forgotten bits of trash litter floors and countertops, and dust coats every exposed surface.
Pausing to fully take the room in, he runs a hand lightly over a tabletop and watches as his fingers leave trails in their wake. As he moves them, they brush over the smooth surface of a newspaper: it stops him cold.
There, on the front page, an image of the post-apocalyptic ruins he left in California glares up at him, the words “Thousands Killed in Massive Explosion,” mocking him. He feels his throat close up and his stomach drop, and he regrets his decision to come inside.
A loud crash and the sounds of someone moving very quickly startle him out of his paralysis and he pulls his hand back to his side, eyes scanning the dark backroom. He can vaguely make out the outline of what he assumes is Mohinder lurking near the doorway.
“What are you doing here? Get out!” the voice is low and rasping, but Gabriel recognizes it anyway.
Stepping around the desk and towards the figure, he holds his hands up in the most non-threatening motion he can think to use.
“Mohinder-I’m not-”
The other man disappears behind the wall of the entryway to the backroom, shadows swallowing him up entirely.
“Get. Out. If you come near me, I swear I’ll kill you!”
Rolling his eyes, Gabriel walks toward the entryway anyway. He pauses at the wall, touching its stone face with one hand.
“Being a little dramatic, aren’t you?” he snaps, doing everything humanly possible not to look at the newspaper again.
Soon he finds that nothing works: the gruesome picture is burned into his mind’s eye and has no intention of leaving.
Sighing and closing his eyes, Gabriel presses his back to the wall and slides down, coming to sit on cold and dusty concrete. He folds his knees up to his chest, resting his forehead against them as the exhaustion of weeks and weeks of travel catches up with him. His whole body feels like it’s made of lead, and he isn’t sure he has the energy to get up and leave. Nor, he decides, does he have the desire.
Mohinder will just have to deal with it.
“I told you to leave. What are you doing?” Mohinder’s voice is nervous, uncertain: the voice of someone who knows he should be scared, but isn’t completely sure what it is he should be scared of.
Mohinder never liked not knowing.
“I’m sitting. If you want me to leave, get out here and make me,” Gabriel replies with a sharp tone, not bothering to lift his head.
The Mohinder whom Gabriel once knew would have charged him at this point, probably with a needle full of some drug or another, and fought with everything he had to defend himself. So when he receives only a dejected sigh in response, Gabriel looks up, surprised.
“That’s it? No guns? No knives? What fun is that?”
On the other side of the wall, he hears Mohinder shifting, the sound of cloth against cement meeting his ears as Mohinder presumably sits against the wall much the way Gabriel does now.
Gabriel imagines they are likely back to back, only the wall separating them. It would be easy enough for either man to take a few small steps and kill the other. Instead they sit on the floor, trying to remember the roles they are expected to play now.
“You’re not worth all that.”
Scoffing, Gabriel rests his head on his knees once more. He presses his eyes shut and exhales deeply. Leave it to Mohinder to hide his discomfort behind walls of smart-ass comments.
Gabriel wants to fire back at Mohinder with something witty and scathing, but finds he is simply too weary. His mind refuses to formulate an acceptable come-back (beyond “I’m sure,”) so he says nothing.
Silence settles over them like dust, blanketing them with its suffocating weight.
It doesn’t take long before Gabriel shifts uncomfortably, lowering his knees and letting his head fall back against the wall. He still isn’t used to silence. The past several years had contained little of it, and he liked it that way.
The noise of life had been a welcome distraction from thoughts of his past.
“You still haven’t told me what you’re doing here,” Mohinder’s voice is less worried now, and Gabriel can hear the beginnings of the edge he remembers from before.
“No, I haven’t.”
Glancing down at his hands, Gabriel clenches and unclenches them for no reason in particular except to give himself something to do. He finds himself questioning how he got here. It seemed natural earlier, now he’s not so sure. Subconscious or not, there had to be a reasonable explanation.
“Care to enlighten me? Or am I to assume this is a personal visit?”
“Don’t flatter yourself, Mohinder.”
If Gabriel were face to face with Mohinder, now would be the point in the conversation where he’d step just a little too close and speak in tones just a little too soft, words meant to threaten which they both knew were empty at best. That’s how it had always gone.
He wonders if Mohinder remembers that.
“Then leave.”
Irritated now, Gabriel laughs. In no time at all, Mohinder has managed to burrow under his skin and completely topple the dams of emotional control it’s taken Gabriel years to build. He can feel his blood pressure rising faster than a jet on a runway which is several meters too short.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize I was such an inconvenience. Are you expecting company?”
“How you see yourself as anything less than an inconvenience is beyond me,” Mohinder pauses and Gabriel can hear him shifting around, “you are unbelievable.”
Briefly, Gabriel pictures himself getting up, walking through the doorway, and strangling the life out of the other man, but ignores the images. He wouldn’t want to give Mohinder the satisfaction.
“Thank you,” he smirks, imagining the rage likely playing across Mohinder’s features. By now, he is undoubtedly grinding his teeth or curling his hands into fists. Or both.
Once again, silence falls between them.
Immediately, Gabriel’s mind goes into overdrive. He throws his head back and shuts his eyes against the onslaught, but it doesn’t help. Words like “failure,” “murderer,” “Hell,” and “abomination” circle and collide in his brain, and for a moment he is certain he is going to die here: drowned in his own self-loathing
On the opposite end of the room, a tattered newspaper curses at him, condemning him for his most unforgivable sins in bold type.
Fucking paper.
“What are you doing?” Mohinder’s voice hisses, and Gabriel notes that it sounds like he’s standing now. He hadn’t even heard Mohinder get up.
“Nothing,” he groans in response, his voice overly rough in his attempt to compensate for his pathetic state, “I’m fine.”
Leaning to his left, Gabriel rests his weight on one hand, rubbing his eyes with the other.
Why had he come here? Why did he always end up back here?
When did Fate decide to go and have a sense of humor?
“I didn’t ask you that,” Mohinder’s voice is closer now, and Gabriel opens his eyes to find the man standing in the doorway, arms crossed over his chest and a smirk locked firmly on his face.
Now that he’s close, Gabriel can clearly see why he had tried to stay hidden before. He is a walking example of what not to do with science. Only Mohinder could get himself into a mess like that and still have a superiority complex.
“I am aware of that.”
Gabriel’s gaze doesn’t leave Mohinder’s face as the other man begins to circle him, his own dark eyes cast downward.
“Well, then. Perhaps you should-”
“Mohinder… thank you.”
Pausing to stare Gabriel down, Mohinder looks confused.
“What?”
“Don’t make me say it again,” breathes Gabriel, wincing at the thought. He hates himself, but he knows what he knows.
Mohinder may be dense at times, but he is far from stupid. And, it seems, that spark of (ill-advised) compassion he’d always possessed isn’t something Gabriel had been able to rid him of.
Of course, Gabriel knows, Mohinder would rather die than admit to that.
“What are you talking about?”
Feeling sick and ignoring every instinct he has to shut up and go already, Gabriel hesitates. He feels broken and pitiful enough to say it.
“Thank you… for not mentioning-” he stops himself. He tried, but he can’t form the words: Thank you for not mentioning that I turned an entire city and all its inhabitants to dust.
“Oh…”
“You knew about it.”
Looking down at his shoes, Mohinder seems to consider the statement. The contempt is now gone from his face, and he looks wholly uncomfortable. After a moment he walks slowly to where Gabriel sits, sliding against the wall and sitting beside him. He doesn’t look at Gabriel, and his arms stay crossed.
“Yes,” he starts slowly, as though he is suddenly (one of the few times since Gabriel met him) at a loss for what to say, “Normally I’m rather behind on current events. But some things are too big to escape even me.”
“And you didn’t say anything… I didn’t know you hated me so little.”
“Now who’s flattering himself?” Mohinder sneers, his features scrunching into a look of disgust. It quickly fades, however, and he sighs, leaning his head against the wall, “I’ve had a lot of time to overcome my hatred for you.”
Scoffing, Gabriel turns to shake his head at Mohinder, one brow raised in amusement.
There had been a time when Gabriel-Sylar, then-was certain no one on Earth in all of its rich history could hold a grudge like Suresh. His hatred had been pure and intense then, a constant.
“It hasn’t been that long, Mohinder.”
“Time passes slowly when you’re alone. Anyway, I managed to create far worse demons for myself than you ever did.”
Gabriel understands that concept all too well.
“Impressive.”
Mohinder shrugs, still not looking at Gabriel.
“The point is: we’ve both done deplorable things to get to where we are now. Perhaps we really do deserve the Hell we’ve been given; I can’t be certain either way. But I do know that I’m in no place to wish further pain on you-I can see that you wish more than enough on yourself.”
“I don’t need your pity, Mohinder,” Gabriel snarls, knowing he isn’t fooling anyone. Pity hurts, but indifference hurts more. He had once been adept at hiding his pain, but now he is far too tired to play the part as convincingly.
For the first time since he arrived, for the first time in years, Mohinder’s eyes meet Gabriel’s.
Gabriel finds no pity there. He sees only understanding.
“I haven’t forgiven you that thoroughly.”
Laughing once, Gabriel hangs his head and closes his eyes.
Everything is gone, all of it. Gabriel Gray once thought he had nothing, now he knows what nothing really is. He has nothing left to lose, so when a warm hand finds his and holds it lightly, he doesn’t recoil. When long fingers intertwine themselves with his, he lets them. When they tighten briefly, squeezing as though to reassure him of something, he appreciates it.
Mohinder’s skin is a lot drier than Gabriel imagined it would be.
Looking up again, Gabriel finds Mohinder still sitting with his head against the wall, his own eyes closed.
He considers pulling away and saying something along the lines of “serial killers don’t hold hands,” but thinks better of it.
Releasing the tension in his shoulders, he leans back once more, enjoying the feel of Mohinder’s hand warm and heavy in his. It doesn’t take the memories away; it doesn’t erase the myriad mistakes of the past; it doesn’t cure anything for either of them.
But, he decides, they’re already in Hell: they may as well enjoy the company.
Author: catoasapun
Characters: Gabriel, Mohinder
Rating: PG
Warnings: About 2 curse words; angst
Spoilers: Mostly 3X04 I Am Become Death, as this takes place in that 'verse.
Disclaimer: I do not own these characters. *sigh*
Word Count: 2,667
Prompt: IABD future - Mohinder's a recluse and Gabriel's trying to move on from his past, but he can't help stopping by the lab when he happens to be in town.
A/N 1: Written for cruiscin_lan (using the above prompt) for the Mylar_fic Ficathon. I'm not sure if this is exactly what you wanted, but I do hope you enjoy it! It was fun writing for you. :)
A/N 2: Love and thanks to my angel of a beta, paxlux. You make this easier, you know. <3
The weeks pass in blurs.
Places and people and everything in between fade together, weaving around Gabriel Gray a shroud of meaningless existence. Logically, he knows he’s alive, of course, but he is certain that he wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between life and death if he were asked about it.
To him, they are more or less the same thing. They feel the same.
As he goes through towns whose names he doesn’t remember (because he doesn’t care to) and brushes past faceless people who have no idea that a monster walks amongst them, he tries not to dwell on what he’s done, what has been done to him.
It still doesn’t make sense, and eventually he begins to accept that it probably never will. It is the rare subject that can baffle Gabriel Gray: the laws of the universe offer themselves freely to him, exposing their secrets to his open, capable mind. But, when Fate and Karma come into the picture, he finds that his gift fails him. They operate outside the rules of the world as he knows them, and try as he might, he cannot begin to understand them.
So, to silence the ever-existent questions racing wildly in his mind, he keeps moving.
Moving away from the skeletal remains of what had once been Costa Verde, moving away from what had been his realization of happiness, from what had been his life, his child, his home; moving away from everything that he had come to be and everything he had come to love.
His feet trace paths which he can only vaguely remember walking before, cities and towns he had traveled through lifetimes ago. His intent had been different then, the fact that he even had intent differs from what he is doing now. Where all those years ago (his mind tells him it wasn’t as long ago as his tired soul tells him it was) he had crossed the country to hunt those who didn’t deserve what they were given, he now meanders aimlessly, only moving forward by the grace of God.
It takes several months before he finds himself in New York again.
He hadn’t made a conscious decision to return, but when one wanders without direction, the subconscious tends to take over and lead one to places it remembers. Whether good or bad, the unconscious mind seeks comfort in familiarity: old homes, schools, and workplaces become beacons of light, beckoning the lost.
And that, he assumes, is how he ended up on Mohinder’s doorstep.
This building, this loft, has played a starring role in many of the major events of his past: here he committed murder (more than once,) here he first witnessed the future unraveling before his eyes, here he had stolen the cure for an inhibiting disease. It isn’t a place of uplifting memories, but it holds a good deal of importance to him all the same. It represents what he once was, what he had worked so hard to walk away from.
And here he stands again, an uncertain hand resting against the front door.
He doesn’t have to step inside to feel the negative vibration emanating from inside. It reeks of fear and pain, and he immediately wonders how much is his fault. Not that he remembers this place as ever being anything less than a deathtrap, but now it feels like a black hole.
Apartments in Manhattan don’t just turn into black holes, and if his recent experiences tell him anything, Gabriel is exceptional when it comes to turning something into nothing.
Pushing the thought aside, he turns the handle and slowly swings the door open.
He isn’t sure what he had been expecting, but he knows what he finds is not it. It takes a moment for his eyes to adjust to the darkness as he lets the door close behind him; very little light is coming in from behind broken blinds on the windows. Papers covered with illegible scribbling and long-forgotten bits of trash litter floors and countertops, and dust coats every exposed surface.
Pausing to fully take the room in, he runs a hand lightly over a tabletop and watches as his fingers leave trails in their wake. As he moves them, they brush over the smooth surface of a newspaper: it stops him cold.
There, on the front page, an image of the post-apocalyptic ruins he left in California glares up at him, the words “Thousands Killed in Massive Explosion,” mocking him. He feels his throat close up and his stomach drop, and he regrets his decision to come inside.
A loud crash and the sounds of someone moving very quickly startle him out of his paralysis and he pulls his hand back to his side, eyes scanning the dark backroom. He can vaguely make out the outline of what he assumes is Mohinder lurking near the doorway.
“What are you doing here? Get out!” the voice is low and rasping, but Gabriel recognizes it anyway.
Stepping around the desk and towards the figure, he holds his hands up in the most non-threatening motion he can think to use.
“Mohinder-I’m not-”
The other man disappears behind the wall of the entryway to the backroom, shadows swallowing him up entirely.
“Get. Out. If you come near me, I swear I’ll kill you!”
Rolling his eyes, Gabriel walks toward the entryway anyway. He pauses at the wall, touching its stone face with one hand.
“Being a little dramatic, aren’t you?” he snaps, doing everything humanly possible not to look at the newspaper again.
Soon he finds that nothing works: the gruesome picture is burned into his mind’s eye and has no intention of leaving.
Sighing and closing his eyes, Gabriel presses his back to the wall and slides down, coming to sit on cold and dusty concrete. He folds his knees up to his chest, resting his forehead against them as the exhaustion of weeks and weeks of travel catches up with him. His whole body feels like it’s made of lead, and he isn’t sure he has the energy to get up and leave. Nor, he decides, does he have the desire.
Mohinder will just have to deal with it.
“I told you to leave. What are you doing?” Mohinder’s voice is nervous, uncertain: the voice of someone who knows he should be scared, but isn’t completely sure what it is he should be scared of.
Mohinder never liked not knowing.
“I’m sitting. If you want me to leave, get out here and make me,” Gabriel replies with a sharp tone, not bothering to lift his head.
The Mohinder whom Gabriel once knew would have charged him at this point, probably with a needle full of some drug or another, and fought with everything he had to defend himself. So when he receives only a dejected sigh in response, Gabriel looks up, surprised.
“That’s it? No guns? No knives? What fun is that?”
On the other side of the wall, he hears Mohinder shifting, the sound of cloth against cement meeting his ears as Mohinder presumably sits against the wall much the way Gabriel does now.
Gabriel imagines they are likely back to back, only the wall separating them. It would be easy enough for either man to take a few small steps and kill the other. Instead they sit on the floor, trying to remember the roles they are expected to play now.
“You’re not worth all that.”
Scoffing, Gabriel rests his head on his knees once more. He presses his eyes shut and exhales deeply. Leave it to Mohinder to hide his discomfort behind walls of smart-ass comments.
Gabriel wants to fire back at Mohinder with something witty and scathing, but finds he is simply too weary. His mind refuses to formulate an acceptable come-back (beyond “I’m sure,”) so he says nothing.
Silence settles over them like dust, blanketing them with its suffocating weight.
It doesn’t take long before Gabriel shifts uncomfortably, lowering his knees and letting his head fall back against the wall. He still isn’t used to silence. The past several years had contained little of it, and he liked it that way.
The noise of life had been a welcome distraction from thoughts of his past.
“You still haven’t told me what you’re doing here,” Mohinder’s voice is less worried now, and Gabriel can hear the beginnings of the edge he remembers from before.
“No, I haven’t.”
Glancing down at his hands, Gabriel clenches and unclenches them for no reason in particular except to give himself something to do. He finds himself questioning how he got here. It seemed natural earlier, now he’s not so sure. Subconscious or not, there had to be a reasonable explanation.
“Care to enlighten me? Or am I to assume this is a personal visit?”
“Don’t flatter yourself, Mohinder.”
If Gabriel were face to face with Mohinder, now would be the point in the conversation where he’d step just a little too close and speak in tones just a little too soft, words meant to threaten which they both knew were empty at best. That’s how it had always gone.
He wonders if Mohinder remembers that.
“Then leave.”
Irritated now, Gabriel laughs. In no time at all, Mohinder has managed to burrow under his skin and completely topple the dams of emotional control it’s taken Gabriel years to build. He can feel his blood pressure rising faster than a jet on a runway which is several meters too short.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize I was such an inconvenience. Are you expecting company?”
“How you see yourself as anything less than an inconvenience is beyond me,” Mohinder pauses and Gabriel can hear him shifting around, “you are unbelievable.”
Briefly, Gabriel pictures himself getting up, walking through the doorway, and strangling the life out of the other man, but ignores the images. He wouldn’t want to give Mohinder the satisfaction.
“Thank you,” he smirks, imagining the rage likely playing across Mohinder’s features. By now, he is undoubtedly grinding his teeth or curling his hands into fists. Or both.
Once again, silence falls between them.
Immediately, Gabriel’s mind goes into overdrive. He throws his head back and shuts his eyes against the onslaught, but it doesn’t help. Words like “failure,” “murderer,” “Hell,” and “abomination” circle and collide in his brain, and for a moment he is certain he is going to die here: drowned in his own self-loathing
On the opposite end of the room, a tattered newspaper curses at him, condemning him for his most unforgivable sins in bold type.
Fucking paper.
“What are you doing?” Mohinder’s voice hisses, and Gabriel notes that it sounds like he’s standing now. He hadn’t even heard Mohinder get up.
“Nothing,” he groans in response, his voice overly rough in his attempt to compensate for his pathetic state, “I’m fine.”
Leaning to his left, Gabriel rests his weight on one hand, rubbing his eyes with the other.
Why had he come here? Why did he always end up back here?
When did Fate decide to go and have a sense of humor?
“I didn’t ask you that,” Mohinder’s voice is closer now, and Gabriel opens his eyes to find the man standing in the doorway, arms crossed over his chest and a smirk locked firmly on his face.
Now that he’s close, Gabriel can clearly see why he had tried to stay hidden before. He is a walking example of what not to do with science. Only Mohinder could get himself into a mess like that and still have a superiority complex.
“I am aware of that.”
Gabriel’s gaze doesn’t leave Mohinder’s face as the other man begins to circle him, his own dark eyes cast downward.
“Well, then. Perhaps you should-”
“Mohinder… thank you.”
Pausing to stare Gabriel down, Mohinder looks confused.
“What?”
“Don’t make me say it again,” breathes Gabriel, wincing at the thought. He hates himself, but he knows what he knows.
Mohinder may be dense at times, but he is far from stupid. And, it seems, that spark of (ill-advised) compassion he’d always possessed isn’t something Gabriel had been able to rid him of.
Of course, Gabriel knows, Mohinder would rather die than admit to that.
“What are you talking about?”
Feeling sick and ignoring every instinct he has to shut up and go already, Gabriel hesitates. He feels broken and pitiful enough to say it.
“Thank you… for not mentioning-” he stops himself. He tried, but he can’t form the words: Thank you for not mentioning that I turned an entire city and all its inhabitants to dust.
“Oh…”
“You knew about it.”
Looking down at his shoes, Mohinder seems to consider the statement. The contempt is now gone from his face, and he looks wholly uncomfortable. After a moment he walks slowly to where Gabriel sits, sliding against the wall and sitting beside him. He doesn’t look at Gabriel, and his arms stay crossed.
“Yes,” he starts slowly, as though he is suddenly (one of the few times since Gabriel met him) at a loss for what to say, “Normally I’m rather behind on current events. But some things are too big to escape even me.”
“And you didn’t say anything… I didn’t know you hated me so little.”
“Now who’s flattering himself?” Mohinder sneers, his features scrunching into a look of disgust. It quickly fades, however, and he sighs, leaning his head against the wall, “I’ve had a lot of time to overcome my hatred for you.”
Scoffing, Gabriel turns to shake his head at Mohinder, one brow raised in amusement.
There had been a time when Gabriel-Sylar, then-was certain no one on Earth in all of its rich history could hold a grudge like Suresh. His hatred had been pure and intense then, a constant.
“It hasn’t been that long, Mohinder.”
“Time passes slowly when you’re alone. Anyway, I managed to create far worse demons for myself than you ever did.”
Gabriel understands that concept all too well.
“Impressive.”
Mohinder shrugs, still not looking at Gabriel.
“The point is: we’ve both done deplorable things to get to where we are now. Perhaps we really do deserve the Hell we’ve been given; I can’t be certain either way. But I do know that I’m in no place to wish further pain on you-I can see that you wish more than enough on yourself.”
“I don’t need your pity, Mohinder,” Gabriel snarls, knowing he isn’t fooling anyone. Pity hurts, but indifference hurts more. He had once been adept at hiding his pain, but now he is far too tired to play the part as convincingly.
For the first time since he arrived, for the first time in years, Mohinder’s eyes meet Gabriel’s.
Gabriel finds no pity there. He sees only understanding.
“I haven’t forgiven you that thoroughly.”
Laughing once, Gabriel hangs his head and closes his eyes.
Everything is gone, all of it. Gabriel Gray once thought he had nothing, now he knows what nothing really is. He has nothing left to lose, so when a warm hand finds his and holds it lightly, he doesn’t recoil. When long fingers intertwine themselves with his, he lets them. When they tighten briefly, squeezing as though to reassure him of something, he appreciates it.
Mohinder’s skin is a lot drier than Gabriel imagined it would be.
Looking up again, Gabriel finds Mohinder still sitting with his head against the wall, his own eyes closed.
He considers pulling away and saying something along the lines of “serial killers don’t hold hands,” but thinks better of it.
Releasing the tension in his shoulders, he leans back once more, enjoying the feel of Mohinder’s hand warm and heavy in his. It doesn’t take the memories away; it doesn’t erase the myriad mistakes of the past; it doesn’t cure anything for either of them.
But, he decides, they’re already in Hell: they may as well enjoy the company.