Fic: Need (part 1 of 2)
Title: Need (part 1 of 2)
Rating: PG-13
Words: 2950
Characters: Mohinder, Sylar, Peter
Warnings: Mentions of off-screen deaths, and of needles
Spoilers: Through 2.07
Disclaimer: Not my characters, not writing this for profit.
A/N: Thanks to
aelora for being a wonderful beta! Also, I'd like to dedicate it to
nothingtosay, for the purposes of cheering up. :0) This is very talkative and plotted; I think I'm trying to make up for the mindless smut.
Summary: In a near-future AU, the virus has been stopped, but Peter's got a bigger problem. And the only person Mohinder can get help from is also the last person he wants to get help from.
It was depressing coming down here even in the best of circumstances. But this time the dread of what he was about to do, without permission, made a knot in his stomach.
He nodded at the Haitian, who gave a slow nod back. His visit would be reported, everything he said would be reported, but by then it would be over one way or another.
He stepped to the cell, hesitated, then reached a card out toward the automatic door lock. It was amazing how quickly something like this could be built when the wealth of the Petrelli family was behind one - just like the cells at Primatech, Bennet had said, and he wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad one.
He took a deep breath. This is for Peter, he told himself, and then he turned the door handle, took a couple of steps inside, deliberately left it ajar behind him.
“Hello, Mohinder.” The voice from the figure inside was quiet and neutral.
“Sylar,” he replied.
“Come down here to gloat some more?” Still that quiet, calm voice. Mohinder would have preferred anger. It would have made him feel more in control - would have been more familiar.
“No,” he said. “I’m here to offer you a deal.”
Sylar finally looked up and laughed. “Interesting. I suppose it’s one I can’t refuse.” He looked through Mohinder hungrily, at the open door behind him.
“You’re welcome to make any choice you want,” Mohinder answered tightly. “It’s up to you whether you walk out of here, or are carried out in a body bag.”
Sylar’s eyes shifted to Mohinder for a moment before going back to the doorway, but he didn’t respond.
“You’re welcome to try that too, but I don’t think you’ll get very far.” Mohinder leaned against the wall, arms crossed.
“You’re very confident for someone who’s failed at this before. Multiple times.”
“How long do you think you can keep this up?” Mohinder asked. “You escape, you’re caught, you escape again, you’re caught again. You can’t keep doing it forever. Sooner or later, even the great Sylar is going to make a fatal mistake.”
Sylar’s jaw twitched but again he sat silently.
“I’m here to offer you a way out,” Mohinder said. “Do something for me, and I’ll do something for you. I can arrange it so that you go on about your life without any interference from us.”
For the first time, anger flashed across Sylar’s face. “I suppose this involves your precious research. Eliminate my abilities - eliminate me - and then you can throw me back where your father found me.”
“You can keep your abilities. Most of them, anyway. And afterwards, I don’t give a damn where you go or what you do. You can throw yourself off the Brooklyn Bridge, for all I care. But that’s only part of the deal.”
Mohinder held himself steady as Sylar stared at him. Curiosity must have finally won out; this time Sylar broke the silence, saying, “It’s not much of a deal so far. I do something unspecified for you…you take away something that belongs to me.”
Like you took things away from so many other people? Mohinder forced himself not to voice that thought. Instead he said, “You’d have your life. You’d have your freedom.”
“Whatever this favor you need from me is, it must be something that no one else can do for you,” Sylar purred. “We both know you wouldn’t be here if you could find any other solution. No, I’d say that if you want something from me, in trade, you’re going to have to offer me something just a little more alluring.”
Mohinder swallowed. The man was too good at figuring things out. He shouldn’t have come here, shouldn’t have tried - but he couldn’t find any other way, and he was running out of time.
“I’m waiting, Mohinder,” Sylar said with a smile and a look in his eyes that made Mohinder uneasy. “Tell me…what are you willing to offer me?”
Mohinder suddenly stepped back into the corridor, motioned to the Haitian. “I’ll do better than tell you. I’ll show you.”
* * * * * * *
Peter’s skin was pale and unhealthy as he lay limply on the bed. Sylar stared at him through the window, his expression indecipherable.
“When Peter came back again, he was nervous about his family’s reaction,” Mohinder said quietly. “His first impulse was to come to see me. But I was working with someone that day. Maya…”
He closed his eyes. They’d been working with Maya through an interpreter, teaching her relaxation techniques, keeping her sedated for large portions of the day or tightly under the Haitian’s control while he frantically searched for a way to suppress her ability. He was afraid of her - everyone was afraid, they couldn’t help it - but he felt he owed it to her to try to give her a normal life. And then Peter had come in, out of nowhere, drifting in invisibly to avoid being reported by the guards. He appeared suddenly in front of Maya, tall, dark-haired, looming and threatening, just like-
Maya had screamed, lost control. And Peter was right next to her as her ability manifested - he couldn’t help himself. Mohinder had grabbed for the syringe he always kept on hand and screamed for the Haitian, who should have been nearby as always. He only had enough sedative for one, though, and his vision had dimmed as he collapsed forward over Maya’s motionless body…
He’d woken up six days later in a private hospital, every muscle in his body feeling as if it had been beaten. Peter, he’d learned, was in the room next door, in an artificial coma. And Maya-
“Good old Pete, the living sponge. Out of control as always!” Sylar laughed. For a second Mohinder thought Sylar had somehow read his mind, but he was still staring at Peter’s body. He’d just put the pieces together, as quickly as he always did. “And the pretty little princess? Is she down here with the rest of the bad girls and boys?”
“She killed herself,” Mohinder said roughly. “We tried to keep what happened with Peter from her, the fact that he’d accidentally taken on her power, but the interpreter told her. She left a note, saying that she thought she had already done so much evil that there was no hope left for her soul, and she didn’t want to cause agony to anyone else.”
Sylar stood motionless as a statue. Just as the silence grew unbearable, he finally whispered, “What do you want from me, Mohinder?”
“You killed her brother.”
“And if you hadn’t interfered with me, I would have taken her power too. It would have saved her the burden of suicide. Are you happy now?”
“You have her brother’s ability. You’re the only person besides the Haitian who can stop Peter if he loses control.”
Sylar turned as comprehension finally dawned in his eyes. Before he could say anything, Mohinder hurried on. “I have continued working on a way to suppress abilities. And what I’ve realized is…you and Peter…you’ve taken on many abilities. You’ve changed your genetic patterns to accommodate them. I think I can pinpoint very specific patterns - individual abilities - and eliminate only those.”
Sylar’s eyes narrowed.
“I can guarantee you that if you’ll cooperate with me, there will be no more prisons, no more experiments,” Mohinder said. “You can live out the rest of your life in peace, doing whatever you want to do - thieving, watchmaking, I don’t care. But you have to do three things. You have to help me now, have to let me use you to test my theories. And if I can isolate the correct genes, you have to let me remove your ability to take on other people’s powers.”
“So I won’t be tempted to kill again? How do you know I won’t keep hunting people down, out of jealousy?” Sylar’s tone was taunting.
“Would you keep killing for no real reason? Even if there was no gain in it for you?”
Sylar turned back to the window, but otherwise didn’t react. Finally he said, “What’s your third condition?”
“Isn’t that obvious?” Mohinder asked. “You are to stay here, with Peter, and help keep him under control. If that…ability…comes out, you are to stop it. We can’t keep sedating him like this. His body is falling apart under the strain.”
Sylar’s mouth quirked up in a half-smile. “So. I’m the only one who can save the day, is that it? You need me for your scientific theories, and the great Peter Petrelli needs me to stay alive.”
“Yes. You’re the hero,” Mohinder snapped. “Does that satisfy your ego?”
Sylar smiled unpleasantly. “Watching the two of you twist?” He crossed his arms and glowered at the pale figure in the next room for long seconds before saying, “Yes. It does. I’m in.”
Mohinder cleared his throat but before he could say anything, Sylar added, “Of course, you’ll have to stop suppressing my powers. So that I'll be ready to help Pete at a moment’s notice.”
Mohinder felt sick again. “I’m aware of that.”
The Haitian stepped forward as Mohinder started to stalk away, not trusting himself to be civil any longer.
“Oh, Mohinder?” Sylar looked away from the window after him. “I restored timepieces.”
It took Mohinder several seconds to realize what Sylar was referring back to, and then he had to struggle against laughter. Of all the things to fixate on… He managed to choke out, “Whatever you want.”
Sylar gave him another unpleasant smile, and he fled.
* * * * * * *
“I don’t like this, Mohinder,” Peter said weakly. He glanced towards the window.
“You’re not alone,” Mohinder said. “Your brother was furious-”
How dare you do something like this. How dare you think you have any authority to offer immunity to that murderer-
So you’d prefer to see Peter dead, then? Mohinder had calmly answered Nathan, knowing what his reply would be.
Peter chuckled, picking the words from Mohinder’s thoughts, but sobered quickly. “Seriously, Mohinder…” He lowered his voice. “Do you honestly think we can trust him?”
“I don’t think whispering will do you much good,” Mohinder answered evenly. “You do remember where you got your hearing, don’t you?”
Both men looked up involuntarily at the faint sound of laughter from the other side of the window, where Sylar stood, watching them.
“But really,” Peter insisted, turning his eyes back to Mohinder’s face. “Can you trust him?”
“Yes,” Mohinder forced himself to say. He looked back up to where Sylar stood, staring at him, suddenly expressionless.
* * * * * * *
The frequent blood draws quickly became a part of their routine. It seemed like no matter how much Mohinder dared to take, he still needed more. Experiment after experiment failed, frustratingly. As Mohinder slipped another vial onto the needle, he realized Sylar’s arm was beginning to develop track marks. He supposed Peter’s was, as well.
“It’s not going as easily as you thought it would, is it?”
Mohinder was startled into admitting, “No. It’s not.”
“It’s not the same thing as finding a vaccine for the virus,” Sylar said. Mohinder braced himself for recriminations about all the things he’d done without Sylar’s permission to find that, the last time they'd managed to keep the killer penned up. Instead, Sylar continued, “You’re doing incredibly complicated work, sorting through billions of genes-”
Mohinder’s temper flared at the realization that he was being soothed and encouraged by Sylar. “What do you know about genetics research?” he snapped.
“What do you know about me? About what it’s like to be special?” Sylar hissed. “You can run through all the codes and algorithms you want, you can tease every secret out of our DNA so that you can render judgment on what we’re fit to have, but you’ll never really know what it’s like.”
Mohinder was taken aback, wondered where this was going. Sylar shifted his gaze to a spot on the wall. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“No,” Mohinder answered, carefully removing the needle from Sylar’s vein. “I shouldn’t have-”
“Mohinder…I’m sorry,” Sylar whispered suddenly.
Mohinder stared at Sylar, shocked, but the man was done talking. He pressed a cotton pad to the inside of Sylar’s elbow, and gently guided Sylar’s other hand to it. “Put pressure on this,” he said. “I forgot to get-”
Sylar crooked a finger on his free hand. There was a faint sound behind Mohinder, and then a band-aid floated to his side. Mohinder hesitated for just a second before grabbing it and pulling it out of its wrapper. "Thank you," he said.
Sylar kept his eyes resolutely fixed on the wall.
* * * * * * *
“Do you ever miss what you used to do?” Mohinder asked one morning.
“What?” Sylar said.
“Do you ever miss what you did, before all this started?” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Peter look up curiously.
“Why would you ask me that?”
Mohinder shrugged. The night before, after another useless 15-hour day followed by brooding over everything he’d lost in the last year, he’d been depressed. But this morning, when he’d contemplated how absurd his life had become, everything suddenly seemed darkly humorous.
“I’m just making conversation,” he said.
“Well, don’t.”
“You do, don’t you?” Mohinder asked. “I’m sure we could have them bring in some broken clocks and tools. You don’t have anything else pressing to attend to, and the walls around here are quite bare. The ticking might even liven up the place a little.” He tried to suppress a smile as Sylar stared at him, his face flickering between fury and bewilderment. “I bet you were good at it.”
“Why do you say that?”
“You always…” Mohinder suddenly sobered. He was on the verge of speaking of things that were best forgotten, but he’d said too much to not go on. Finally he said, “You’ve always been able to…to pull together the pieces of a situation, to understand what needs to be done. That must have been a part of you all along. It just seems logical that you must have been that way…before, too. And if you were, you must have been unbelievably good at that kind of work.”
Silence followed, and Mohinder felt flustered. He started to pull Sylar’s sleeve back down, but the man must have reached to do it himself at the same time, because the fingers of his right hand brushed against Mohinder’s. Mohinder jumped but held himself steady, and carefully buttoned the cuff before looking up again. Sylar was wide-eyed with an expression that he didn’t understand. For a moment, Mohinder was transfixed. Then he flashed a nervous smile, grabbed his tray and turned to go.
Peter was watching Sylar with an odd look on his own face. His eyes flickered up to Mohinder briefly, and then he smiled.
* * * * * * *
“You should be in bed.”
Mohinder whirled around. Sylar leaned against the wall, watching him.
“How did you get out of your room? And in here?” Mohinder demanded. “There’s a security lock…”
Sylar cocked his head.
Mohinder passed a hand over his eyes. “I’m sorry. That was a stupid-”
“You should be in bed,” Sylar repeated. “It’s after 11.”
“Shouldn’t you be staying close to Peter?”
“He’s sleeping. Like a baby. I can hear his breathing,” Sylar said. “I could hear yours, too. You need rest. You’re not going to get anywhere if you have a breakdown.” He walked towards Mohinder.
Mohinder turned around and picked up his pen. “I just have a few more things to do-” He jumped as a hand suddenly touched his, and backed instinctively away.
“If I wanted to hurt you, I would have done it before,” Sylar said, amused.
“There are plenty of guards around,” Mohinder said in a shaky voice.
“No,” Sylar replied. “If I wanted to really hurt you, I would have done it long ago. In your apartment.” He stopped.
Mohinder wrapped his arms around himself.
Sylar stood there for a moment and then sighed. “Sleep well, Mohinder,” he said as he turned away.
“Where are you going?” Mohinder asked unevenly.
Sylar paused with his hand on the door handle. “To my cell. Where else would I go?”
Mohinder stared at him, lips parted, but finally looked away. Sylar slammed the door behind him as he left.
* * * * * * *
“Where else would I go?”
Mohinder stared back at him, unable to look away. Sylar let go of the door handle and closed the distance between them. Something in Mohinder told him to back away, before it was too late to turn back, but he waited.
Sylar’s hands were warm as they touched his neck, tilted his face upwards. Mohinder blindly reached for Sylar’s waist and pulled their bodies together.
“Where else would I go, Mohinder?” Sylar repeated breathlessly.
Mohinder opened his mouth to tell him, but there was a sudden crash.
Mohinder jerked and looked at the floor, where his coffee mug had just shattered. He got down from his stool to pick up the pieces and then looked blearily at the clock. 1:48 AM. He should have gone to bed when Sylar - he should have -
He cursed as an edge sliced into his thumb. He squeezed his other hand around the cut, and suddenly remembered the surprisingly gentle feel of Sylar’s hand against his. Maybe if you hadn't pulled away, maybe he would have come even closer. Close enough to actually feel how warm he is. And maybe then... Mohinder's eyes widened as he fully realized what he was thinking.
“Oh, God,” he whispered, staring down at the mess he’d made without really seeing it.
Go on to Part 2.