Fic: Dreaming
Title: Dreaming
Rating: R
Words: 1800
Characters: Mohinder, Mohinder/Sylar
Warnings: Violence, descriptions of sex
Spoilers: The whole series to date
Disclaimer: Not my characters, not writing this for profit.
Author's Notes: This is the result of me musing about what Mohinder might decide to do after the events of Powerless. I'm honestly not exactly sure where I'm going with this, but I had this part finished so I wanted to put it up and see if anyone found it interesting. There's more to come after this...but I don't have a coherent plot or ending at this point, so I'm not sure whether to keep on or not.
“Hey man, you got any change?”
“Sorry.” Mohinder walks on by lost in thought and only realizes a few steps later that the guy is moving behind him. Panhandlers don’t usually follow after you…
“Hey, come on.” A hand suddenly grabs his laptop bag. He whirls and for a second he hears advice telling him that nothing is worth dying over. The problem is, the information he’s got in that computer is precious enough to kill for.
He jerks back on the bag’s strap and only then realizes that the guy has a knife. He doesn’t really even have time to react before it’s slammed into his chest once, twice, and everything becomes confused. He has a vague impression of motion, and darkness, and then he’s lying on his back on the cold sidewalk, a hand supporting his neck.
He lifts his head and sees a crumpled form lying a few feet away. Fingers press on his shoulder. Pain suddenly slams into him and he lets out a strangled moan.
“It looks like nothing vital was damaged. You’re a lucky man, doctor. But then, you always have been, haven’t you?”
He squints upward but the light further down the street creates so much contrast that he can’t make out the face of the person holding him. He reaches up and grabs a handful of jacket. “Thank you,” he chokes out.
A deep chuckle, and he hears a siren somewhere. “No one gets to decide whether you live or die but me, Mohinder.”
He closes his eyes and reaches a hand up to touch himself, but it’s intercepted and pulled gently down to his stomach. “I don’t think you want to do that-you’ll just make it hurt worse.”
He’s forced to admit that this man has a point. Don’t people who’ve been injured usually go into shock? Why couldn’t that happen to him? It would be preferable to the pain that’s starting to make sweat break out across his forehead. He groans, even though he tries to hold it in.
The hand cradling his neck gently slips away. “There’ll be someone here to take care of you in a few seconds. Don’t worry. It’ll be alright.” He blinks, disoriented, but all he can make out is the wailing of sirens.
It’s not until later, when a paramedic starts asking him questions, that he remembers to wonder how his saviour knew his name.
* * * * * * * *
According to the resident in the ED, he doesn’t need surgery, just antibiotics and stitches. Luckily, they decide he does qualify for a morphine drip, which he hits as often as possible for psychological effect. After all, there’s no one to contact, no one to come visit him, except for his mother back in India, and he’d really prefer that she not know about this. He lies there, alone, and wishes for oblivion. Eventually he dozes. Whenever he comes back to consciousness, he pushes the button again, knowing the action will lull him back to sleep.
“Are you feeling better?” a nurse asks him as he groggily wakes up at her entrance.
“I will be as soon as I can get out of here.”
“Wanting to get back to your friend, huh?”
“What?”
The woman smiles at him conspiratorially. “That visitor of yours?”
The adrenaline rush helps him shake off the lethargy, but the nurse catches his startled expression before he asks any questions. “You really have been out of it, haven’t you? A tall guy? Rather striking? He wasn’t here long, but I have to say, I wouldn’t mind being laid up if I had someone like that coming to check up on me.”
Mohinder sinks back against the pillow as she makes notes in his chart. He doesn’t remember anyone being there. At all. Was he just too dazed, or…
* * * * * * *
He’s discharged the next day without having to make too much of a bloody nuisance of himself. He’d called the hotel and had them hold the room for him, but as he enters, it seems like something is different. His suitcase, the files, are all still there, but…
He sits heavily in the chair, closing his eyes. Maybe he’s just paranoid. It’s hard not to be. He leans his head back and stares at the ceiling. He’s burnt every bridge he had, especially if Bob realizes what he’s taken from the Company’s records. There’s no one he trusts to turn to for help or advice. No one at all…
He drags himself to the sink, runs a glass of water, takes a couple of pills. Then he pulls back the covers on the bed one-handed and sinks into them, and closes his eyes.
* * * * * * *
He’s dreaming now, and a piece of him faintly knows this, but he still drifts on asleep. He's back in his kitchen in New York, cooking for Molly. She calls out for him to come play with her. He smiles and lays down his spoon, and turns just in time to glimpse her running out the door into the main hallway.
He follows, but suddenly he's outside under a hot sun, playing cricket with his cousins. They're still no bigger than Molly, dressed in school outfits, but he accepts it and joins in. A bat cracks and he lunges out for a ball that comes near him but somehow loses his balance and falls over, his head snapping against the ground painfully, and it goes dark.
He blinks but before his eyes adjust, a hand suddenly grabs his throat. He clutches at its wrist instinctively and realizes he's not on the ground, he's standing, his back against a wall. Before he can say anything, he hears, "Where's the list, Mohinder?"
Sylar. Of course. He tries to suck in a breath, but he seems to be paralyzed.
"You know I'm going to find it, in the end. You didn't have enough time to hide it outside the apartment. Why don't you save us both the time and trouble and just tell me where you put it?"
His cheekbone stings from where a fist caught him. He knows there's no hope, but he wants to at least go down fighting. He snakes his hands up to Sylar's chest, intending to grab his shirt and try to wrench him off-balance to the side, but he somehow yanks Sylar closer to him. Their faces almost bump and something in Sylar's expression shifts, subtly. Sylar looks at him as the silence stretches on and Mohinder stares back, open-mouthed. No. This isn’t how it happened.
“No,” he whispers aloud. Sylar smiles at him.
“Oh, Mohinder. You still want me, even after everything. That’s so…sweet.”
Mohinder turns his head away, which is a mistake, as Sylar leans in and lightly kisses the side of his neck. He closes his eyes as he feels a hand tugging at the button on his jeans, pulling his waistband open. His fists are still knotted in Sylar’s shirt, and he can tell Sylar’s not using anything but his own body weight to hold him in place. One quick shove, and he could throw the man off balance, pull away, stop this. So why doesn’t he?
He gasps and tries not to think about how he was hard even before Sylar’s hand curled around him. His fingers are cold and Mohinder jerks reflexively at the sensation. Sylar draws in a deep breath against his neck and strokes him. Sylar’s tongue brushes against his skin, and he lets out a noise, hating himself. But he still turns his head back, feels lips brush against his, tastes Sylar, and the way it feels-oh, God… Then suddenly, Sylar whirls him around and slams him down onto the desk.
Mohinder struggles to catch his breath as Sylar leans over him, standing between his legs. Sylar licks his thumb and rubs it slowly over the very tip of Mohinder’s cock. “Come on,” he coaxes. “The only way to get me to stop this is to tell me where the list is. At least that way, you can die with your dignity still intact. So where is it, Mohinder?”
He starts to jack Mohinder again as he tightens his grip on Mohinder’s throat, and Mohinder thinks that he couldn’t answer if he wanted to. He tries to think of something, anything, that could pull him away from this, but he can’t. He’s spent three days with this man, watching his face, listening to his voice, wondering how it would feel to be touched by him. His mind may be repulsed by what he’s figured out, but his body still wants.
He bites his lip hard as Sylar suddenly lets go of him. He moans disappointment but then hears the sound of a zipper and braces himself, his mind racing frantically. But there’s no movement, and no sound except Sylar’s heavy breathing.
Finally he can’t take it any longer and blurts out, “Well? What are you waiting for?”
Sylar laughs and leans forward, pressing himself against Mohinder, who doesn’t even realize that he thrusts back. “Oh, no,” he whispers. “That’s not how it works now. If you want more, you’ll have to tell me where the list is.” He slides a hand up under Mohinder’s maroon undershirt, palm rubbing smoothly across sweat-covered skin, and Mohinder moans again despite himself. “So what’s it going to be, Mohinder? Do you want more?”
* * * * * * *
Mohinder finally jerks awake, grabbing at the rough sheets on the motel bed. It’s all right, it was a dream, he’s safe, he’s…utterly horrified with himself. He can still feel that touch against his stomach. And suddenly it clicks in his head: long fingers holding his own hand down in that same spot, and that smiling voice talking about deciding his fate. It was, it was…
“Shit,” he says. It’s a hopelessly inadequate response, but he’s too strung out on vicodin to be more eloquent. He thought he’d covered his tracks, but he should have known. Of course Sylar found him. Of course Sylar came to visit him in the hospital-there wasn’t anything useful to him in the hotel room, he would have come to check Mohinder’s laptop. But Mohinder had learned from his mistakes. He’d memorized the names and addresses of the three people he was tracking down and left nothing in the case studies he brought with him that would provide a clue. Which means Sylar will be watching him, waiting to see where he goes, and whether he visits anyone special…
Mohinder rolls over and winces at the jolt in his shoulder. Even pain doesn’t have any effect on his erection. He curls up and buries his head in the pillow, trying to ignore it, refusing to think about what caused it. He’s just thankful that he woke up before he answered Sylar.
Because he’s not entirely sure he would have stayed silent.
Also, a continuation, or a companion piece of sorts... Sylar's own dream about Mohinder.
And a genuine sequel... The Bargain.