Kindness Without Killing (The Black Channel Dubstep), [Heroes; Mohinder Suresh/Luke Campbell; NC-17]

[ludakreusz]

Title: Kindness Without Killing (The Black Channel Dubstep)
Author: carmexgirl
Summary: Luke doesn't really know what kindness is, until it's too late.
Fandom: Heroes
Pairing: Mohinder Suresh/Luke Campbell
Rating: NC-17
Original story: Killing with Kindness by jaune_chat
A/N: With thanks to my tireless and extremely patient beta, boudecia7. Thanks hun!

Comments

[jaune_chat]

Dear Remixer,

You rock.

I really like this alternate take. Showing the freaky depths of Sylar's very twisted relationship with Luke was squeamishly excellent, particularly that Luke was willing to burn himself without hesitation, just because Sylar asked. The extra thick layer of angst at the fact that Luke being with Mohinder is all leading up to a betrayal is a great dark read.

I particularly loved the dream sequence. I appreciate the symbolism and Luke's agonizing decision, and him waking up to Mohinder's kiss made it just that much more meaningful.

I have some constructive criticism for the middle. The bit here:

On the fourth day, he pulled out all the stops, and it actually worked. And that’s where things started to go wrong. Because what happened next wasn’t supposed to happen at all.

While I know exactly what's happening here, someone who has not read the original story might not understand everything that's going on. What stops? What exactly worked? How did things all go wrong? You explain a little bit in the next few paragraphs, but overall it's confusing. It's like the story stumbles in the middle before hitting its stride again.

Overall however I liked your remix a lot. The betrayal is heartwrenching, and Luke disgust at himself is visceral and immediate. A lovely, angsty, different look at my fic. Thanks Remixer!

[carmexgirl]

I let out a huge sigh of relief when you said you liked it. I saw you'd commented somewhere else saying it was 'dark', so I got a bit antsy thinking you hated it!

This is where I admit my tremendous boo-boo. I meant to put as a caveat at the top that this is meant to be read as a frame to the original fic, so you get the start of this, then your story, then the aftermath, with a little explanation of what's going on in Luke's head. In my haste to get this posted before I went to Europe for two weeks, I completely forgot to put the caveat up there, so I can see why you or anyone would think it's a little confusing.

I honestly didn't think I made it that dark when I wrote it, but reading it back now, it's terribly bleak! I wanted to take this lightness and comfort you set up in the original and turn it around, make it into this one big lie that spirals out of control, with dire consequences. Gosh, that *is* bleak isn't it?

I'm glad you liked it, and I had fun doing it, so thank you for signing up!

[jaune_chat]

And now this story makes 110% more sense. And is 110% more awesome.

For me, dark doesn't equal bad. I like a dark fic as much as the next fanfic writer. Good grief, the one I remixed was originally a very dark angsty fic, and I did not lighten it one iota when I did my version. Actually, I may have turned up the wattage on the angst just for good measure.

So your fic totally worked for me on several levels. :-)