Proskynesis
Title: Proskynesis
Author: puckkit
Rating: PG-13 (profanity, suggested sex)
Pairing/Character: Mohinder/Gabriel
Disclaimer: I do not own these characters or the show Heroes, therefore all of this is false and made up from my charmingly eccentric imagination.
Author's Notes: Religious themes (and they're not subtle), AU, no spoilers, no powers. Basically my little breather from the multiple part fic I'm writing right now. Lines taken from prayers are, obviously, not mine. Cut-text lyrics from The Absence of God by Rilo Kiley.
Our Father, who art in heaven
Gabriel went to his knees on a nightly basis until he was seventeen. He'd pray to be special, pray for a future where he stood out from the masses.
Oftentimes he prayed for the regular things like world peace and his family being safe, added them on like a disclaimer at the end of his long passionate plea to the heavens.
He threw himself at the mercy of God, laid his heart bare and waited with limited trust.
Sometimes he prayed that his mother would be happy. Sometimes, that he'd find someone who loved him. But most times he did neither. Those requests paled in importance to his own, and he didn't want anything to take away from his real desire.
He would go to his knees to be different. God wouldn't, couldn't, fail him, not if He loved Gabriel like it was said that He did. If He really loved the boy who was too nerdy and too smart and far too weak, He would understand.
Gabriel was nothing, could never be anything unless God exerted even the tiniest amount of his supposed power. Unless God recognized Gabriel down on his knees and raised him to his feet.
If Gabriel had even a hairsbreadth of the power God had...
If Gabriel were to be touched like those angels, like those civilians in stories, those undeserving prophets...
Bless us, O Lord, and these Thy gifts
which we are about to receive from Thy bounty
When Gabriel was seventeen he rebelled in the only way he knew how. He stopped waking up promptly with his alarm, making his bed and smiling good morning to his mother just to try and get a smile, a nod, a gesture of approval in return. He'd have done anything for her approval.
Instead he slept in, missed the classes he didn't like, refused to wear his glasses even though he got headaches. He stopped taking off his shoes in the doorway of the house and started closing his door more.
When his family had supper at the dinner table, his mother blessing everyone for their food with a casual but meaningful prayer, Gabriel kept his eyes open and his head straight ahead. He felt the rush of looking up while everyone else bowed, submissive, and relished in the bitterness that crawled through his veins like so many grains of sharp glass, not quite decomposed into the smooth particles of sand.
He wouldn't be worn down like his family, like the nameless other he so strived to avoid becoming a part of. He screamed his thoughts as though God were a weary telepath and felt a strange sense of peace afterwards.
Fuck off, God. I don't need your pity.
He was surprised at how sweet the words tasted in his mouth, escaping his throat violently as his chair scraped backwards and his parents stared in shock. He wouldn't be submissive. He wouldn't be weak.
Gabriel was nobody's pawn.
Hail Mary, full of grace
the Lord is with Thee
When Gabriel met Mohinder at twenty-three and a half, he didn't think much of the encounter. Mohinder looked just like another man thinking he knew more than he really knew, all blustering confidence hiding a nervous demeanour that didn't belong.
Gabriel could understand that, could even relate to it, but that didn't mean he had to respect it.
They were in a bar. Gabriel felt completely in control amongst the chaos, it was easy to be in control when everyone else was completely bereft of it (with alcoholic aid, of course). Mohinder, however, looked cast adrift, eyes shadowed by glaring, flashing beams of light that originated at the dance floor and trickled through bodies to reach him.
Gabriel couldn't help but feel compelled, drawn by that look that described so much of his childhood, and thus he ended up passing the dancers with a casual gait to offer him a drink, taking one for himself.
Mohinder tried to look casual when he took it with slender fingers, tried to hide his surprise and almost succeeded, but Gabriel didn't care too much about appearances and false pretences by the second drink.
He didn't care about much at all by the third.
Still, Mohinder was skittish even when intoxicated, so instead of what Gabriel would usually have done (and had done before) they watched long haired girls, petite and plastered, pass without a glance backwards and joked over their sex lives. Mohinder blushed heavily (or so Gabriel assumed- he certainly spoke with a blush in his voice) but ploughed through conversation heedless of social propriety, so Gabriel took it as a good sign.
He still didn't really like him, but it didn't stop him from leaning in close to offer his number, tamping down on the temptation to lean even closer.
Things felt taboo, secretive, and although Gabriel had come to terms with his sexual appetite years earlier there was still more than a little awkwardness involved, and not all of it on Mohinder's side. There was also something else, something exciting, and when Mohinder held out a pen and his hand without hesitation, high with an unnamed emotion he knew that there was going to be a future between them.
He ended up home alone at the end of the night, careful planing he told himself and laughed with vicious self-deprecation at his previous ideas of fate and futures before falling into his bed with a hazy memory, a thrill of anticipation weaving its way into his dreams.
He woke to the sound of a ringing phone.
I believe in God, the Father Almighty
Creator of Heaven and Earth
He cultivated their relationship with careful lies, a little game against a mind so sharp as to make it a real challenge. Mohinder didn't give any more than he himself gave, so after all the taking and the resisting and the fighting it was any wonder Gabriel was still playing a game at all.
Perhaps... perhaps sometime between the beginning and the present, they became something more than a game, than a thrill, than a cheap date on Friday nights, and Saturday nights, and Sunday mornings and afternoons and evenings.
It was all up for interpretation.
All Gabriel knew was that with his hands so entwined in thick dark hair, his thumb stroking along a smooth hairline down to a temple before brushing against fluttering eyelashes- all Gabriel knew was that nothing was as beautiful or as perfect as Mohinder on his knees before him.
The power, the control, the high that couldn't be denied.
Maybe, Gabriel thought sadistically as he tightened his fingers just to hear the noises that spilled from Mohinder's occupied mouth.
Maybe this was how God felt.
Author: puckkit
Rating: PG-13 (profanity, suggested sex)
Pairing/Character: Mohinder/Gabriel
Disclaimer: I do not own these characters or the show Heroes, therefore all of this is false and made up from my charmingly eccentric imagination.
Author's Notes: Religious themes (and they're not subtle), AU, no spoilers, no powers. Basically my little breather from the multiple part fic I'm writing right now. Lines taken from prayers are, obviously, not mine. Cut-text lyrics from The Absence of God by Rilo Kiley.
Our Father, who art in heaven
Gabriel went to his knees on a nightly basis until he was seventeen. He'd pray to be special, pray for a future where he stood out from the masses.
Oftentimes he prayed for the regular things like world peace and his family being safe, added them on like a disclaimer at the end of his long passionate plea to the heavens.
He threw himself at the mercy of God, laid his heart bare and waited with limited trust.
Sometimes he prayed that his mother would be happy. Sometimes, that he'd find someone who loved him. But most times he did neither. Those requests paled in importance to his own, and he didn't want anything to take away from his real desire.
He would go to his knees to be different. God wouldn't, couldn't, fail him, not if He loved Gabriel like it was said that He did. If He really loved the boy who was too nerdy and too smart and far too weak, He would understand.
Gabriel was nothing, could never be anything unless God exerted even the tiniest amount of his supposed power. Unless God recognized Gabriel down on his knees and raised him to his feet.
If Gabriel had even a hairsbreadth of the power God had...
If Gabriel were to be touched like those angels, like those civilians in stories, those undeserving prophets...
Bless us, O Lord, and these Thy gifts
which we are about to receive from Thy bounty
When Gabriel was seventeen he rebelled in the only way he knew how. He stopped waking up promptly with his alarm, making his bed and smiling good morning to his mother just to try and get a smile, a nod, a gesture of approval in return. He'd have done anything for her approval.
Instead he slept in, missed the classes he didn't like, refused to wear his glasses even though he got headaches. He stopped taking off his shoes in the doorway of the house and started closing his door more.
When his family had supper at the dinner table, his mother blessing everyone for their food with a casual but meaningful prayer, Gabriel kept his eyes open and his head straight ahead. He felt the rush of looking up while everyone else bowed, submissive, and relished in the bitterness that crawled through his veins like so many grains of sharp glass, not quite decomposed into the smooth particles of sand.
He wouldn't be worn down like his family, like the nameless other he so strived to avoid becoming a part of. He screamed his thoughts as though God were a weary telepath and felt a strange sense of peace afterwards.
Fuck off, God. I don't need your pity.
He was surprised at how sweet the words tasted in his mouth, escaping his throat violently as his chair scraped backwards and his parents stared in shock. He wouldn't be submissive. He wouldn't be weak.
Gabriel was nobody's pawn.
Hail Mary, full of grace
the Lord is with Thee
When Gabriel met Mohinder at twenty-three and a half, he didn't think much of the encounter. Mohinder looked just like another man thinking he knew more than he really knew, all blustering confidence hiding a nervous demeanour that didn't belong.
Gabriel could understand that, could even relate to it, but that didn't mean he had to respect it.
They were in a bar. Gabriel felt completely in control amongst the chaos, it was easy to be in control when everyone else was completely bereft of it (with alcoholic aid, of course). Mohinder, however, looked cast adrift, eyes shadowed by glaring, flashing beams of light that originated at the dance floor and trickled through bodies to reach him.
Gabriel couldn't help but feel compelled, drawn by that look that described so much of his childhood, and thus he ended up passing the dancers with a casual gait to offer him a drink, taking one for himself.
Mohinder tried to look casual when he took it with slender fingers, tried to hide his surprise and almost succeeded, but Gabriel didn't care too much about appearances and false pretences by the second drink.
He didn't care about much at all by the third.
Still, Mohinder was skittish even when intoxicated, so instead of what Gabriel would usually have done (and had done before) they watched long haired girls, petite and plastered, pass without a glance backwards and joked over their sex lives. Mohinder blushed heavily (or so Gabriel assumed- he certainly spoke with a blush in his voice) but ploughed through conversation heedless of social propriety, so Gabriel took it as a good sign.
He still didn't really like him, but it didn't stop him from leaning in close to offer his number, tamping down on the temptation to lean even closer.
Things felt taboo, secretive, and although Gabriel had come to terms with his sexual appetite years earlier there was still more than a little awkwardness involved, and not all of it on Mohinder's side. There was also something else, something exciting, and when Mohinder held out a pen and his hand without hesitation, high with an unnamed emotion he knew that there was going to be a future between them.
He ended up home alone at the end of the night, careful planing he told himself and laughed with vicious self-deprecation at his previous ideas of fate and futures before falling into his bed with a hazy memory, a thrill of anticipation weaving its way into his dreams.
He woke to the sound of a ringing phone.
I believe in God, the Father Almighty
Creator of Heaven and Earth
He cultivated their relationship with careful lies, a little game against a mind so sharp as to make it a real challenge. Mohinder didn't give any more than he himself gave, so after all the taking and the resisting and the fighting it was any wonder Gabriel was still playing a game at all.
Perhaps... perhaps sometime between the beginning and the present, they became something more than a game, than a thrill, than a cheap date on Friday nights, and Saturday nights, and Sunday mornings and afternoons and evenings.
It was all up for interpretation.
All Gabriel knew was that with his hands so entwined in thick dark hair, his thumb stroking along a smooth hairline down to a temple before brushing against fluttering eyelashes- all Gabriel knew was that nothing was as beautiful or as perfect as Mohinder on his knees before him.
The power, the control, the high that couldn't be denied.
Maybe, Gabriel thought sadistically as he tightened his fingers just to hear the noises that spilled from Mohinder's occupied mouth.
Maybe this was how God felt.