Fic: The Ghost in the Gears (Sylar/Mohinder)
I.
My name is Mohinder Suresh.
I was born April 8th, 2015, in Chennai, India.
My father, Chandra Suresh, was murdered at 11:53 PM on September 28th, 2047, by a man named Sylar.
My father was a geneticist who believed that people all over the world were being born with mutated genes that granted them extraordinary abilities. A book of his theories, Activating Evolution, was published in 2034. The fact that he was laughed out of the scientific community the moment that it hit the shelves should not come as a surprise; nor should - to anyone paying attention - the fact that he was right.
I myself possess no ability, but I have recently become rather well-acquainted with someone who does. Zane Taylor, a man with the power to move objects with his mind, contacted me with questions about his ability and I met him in his beachfront home in Virginia. The two of us developed such a quick and easy rapport that we decided, spur-of-the-moment, to embark on a cross country road trip to track down more people like him and continue my father’s research. He’s proven himself an invaluable resource and a charming companion and I’m eminently pleased to have him along.
*
We share a room in a motel in Florida the night before our first meeting with another person who may have special abilities.
Zane can’t seem to stop moving. “I’m just so excited to meet someone like me,” he says. His pacing is driving me crazy but I find his innocent excitement endearing.
I kiss him to keep him still.
He closes his eyes to kiss me back and the lights switch off at his whim.
*
Zane talks dirty to me in declarative sentences. He punctuates them all with my name.
“You’re sucking my cock, Mohinder,” he says as if he’s trying to convince me.
I raise my eyes to meet his. He squeezes them shut the moment our gazes meet. The hand in my hair drags forward and black strands fall like a veil in front of my eyes.
He chants my name like an invocation.
*
I set aside one of my extra copies of Activating Evolution to give to our potential new ally, but a page near the front appears to have been torn out.
I find another copy, but the problem is the same: page three is missing.
I look through every copy of the book that I own - not a single one remains intact.
It’s nothing that should trouble me - the missing page contains only the copyright information - but it is a bit baffling.
*
We stop at a diner on the way back to the motel to celebrate a successful meeting with a man who can turn himself invisible. Zane’s treat. He excuses himself to go to the restroom while we wait for our bill and leaves his wallet on the table.
Zane carries a photograph in his wallet of a man with a bright smile and hair as black and curly as my own. The resemblance between us is striking but not absolute - my eyes are smaller, his features more delicate. I’m jealous of his perfect teeth. I’m jealous of his place in Zane’s wallet.
*
Zane calls me beautiful while he fucks me from behind; when I turn my head to look at him he places his palm on the back of my skull and guides me face first into the pillow. He clenches his fist in my hair and holds me down.
Is he thinking of someone else?
“Mohinder, Mohinder…”
If so, why would he keep saying my name?
“I’m fucking you - you’re letting me fuck you, Mohinder.”
If not, why can’t he stand to see my face?
“Tell me how much you want it, Mohinder.”
I open my mouth to acquiesce but his grip on my skull is unrelenting. More linen is shoved between my teeth with each thrust and I come with the dry taste of cotton on my tongue.
*
I take advantage of Zane’s shower time to rifle through his bags. Under his clothes I find a shirt that I recognize as my own - one I thought I had forgotten to pack. Zane must have stolen it as a memento, something to press against his face when I’m not around. I should be unsettled or embarrassed but the thought makes me feel warm.
I reach under the shirt and find other clothes - clothes I forgot to pack, clothes I wasn’t planning on packing, clothes that I haven’t worn in years and should rightfully still be in India. Has he been stalking me? Here is the gown I wore at my graduation; the clothes I wore at my father’s funeral. And under those, objects: the statue I used to fend off the man bugging my apartment on the day that I met Eden; the gun that I had stolen from him the very same day. Everything evocative of an important day, an event that shaped me as a person.
Do I even have any mundane memories?
I find a small stack of papers, ragged on one edge, each numbered ‘3.’ They all have the same printing error, stating that the book from which they were torn was first published in 1993. Is that why Zane decided to remove them?
At the very bottom of the bag is a scrapbook of clippings and photographs - most featuring the man from the picture in Zane’s wallet.
Here he is with my father at his convocation ceremony.
Here is his yearbook photo, captioned ‘Mohinder Suresh, Professor, Department of Genetics.’
Here is his obituary.
I’m too distracted to notice Zane crouching down behind me and I jump when he wraps his arms around me. “Shhh,” he says, nestling his chin on my shoulder. “Do you know who you are?”
“Yes.” He exhales a quivering breath and a stray lock of hair tickles my ear.
“Tell me.”
“My name is Mohinder Suresh,” I say.
He shivers like someone just walked over my grave.
II.
My name is Mohinder Suresh.
I was born April 8th, 2024, in Chennai, India.
My father, Chandra Suresh, was murdered at 11:53 PM on September 28th, 2056, by a man named Sylar.
My father was a geneticist who believed that people all over the world were being born with mutated genes that granted them extraordinary abilities. A book of his theories, Activating Evolution, was published in 2043. The fact that he was laughed out of the scientific community the moment that it hit the shelves should not come as a surprise; nor should - to anyone paying attention - the fact that he was right.
I myself possess an ability, one that regretfully emerged too late to validate my father’s work: I am able to heal from any injury, however severe, within seconds of receiving it.
I discovered my ability during a journey with my new colleague, Zane Taylor, who - by some astonishing coincidence (he would call it fate) - possesses the exact same one.
Zane and I met in his beachfront home in Virginia, after he contacted me with questions about his ability. The two of us developed such a quick and easy rapport that we decided, spur-of-the-moment, to embark on a cross country road trip to track down more people like him and continue my father’s research. On our way to California to meet a woman suspected to have enhanced hearing, we were in a collision - nothing particularly severe, but enough to smash my head against the driver’s side window. I was knocked unconscious, but Zane tells me he watched in amazement as the gashes on my face closed themselves in the same manner that he’d observed in his own skin.
*
Zane hypothesizes that our rapid cellular regeneration will protect us from the deleterious effects of age - that we are, in effect, immortal.
Working from that assumption, he infers that our meeting each other was preordained. “Destiny,” is the word he uses. “We don’t ever have to be lonely.”
I kiss him when he says that, not entirely convinced of his grandiose words but seduced by them nonetheless.
*
Zane calls me beautiful while we make love with the lights on. Face to face because, he tells me, he can’t take his eyes off of mine.
I’ve never been with a man before, but I find that there’s something comforting in the guidance of hands stronger and surer than my own - an inexplicable familiarity.
Zane cradles my head with his right hand, threading his fingers loosely through my hair, and curls his left hand around my thigh. He bends over my body like a bow, his face level with mine, his gaze unnerving.
He doesn’t blink once while he fucks me, doesn’t make a sound; not even when he comes, so deep inside me that I feel like we’ve become one person, our souls so intertwined that we share each other's thoughts.
My own name echoes around inside my skull: Zane’s voice, clear as a bell, telling me who I am.
*
“We are meant to do extraordinary things together, Mohinder,” Zane tells me in a post-coital haze, lending weight to his flowery discussions of destiny with an eerie echo of my past, a strong memory of something I once said to…someone:
“Do you ever get the feeling you were meant to do something extraordinary?”
Or maybe something someone said to me? I don’t remember.
I mention this to Zane and he suggests (after assurance on my part that I will not take offence) that I am experiencing flashbacks to a past life.
I fall asleep in Zane’s arms and dream of him ripping my heart out of my chest with his bare hands.
It is the most vivid dream that I have ever had.
Is this also a past life?
I roll over to tell Zane about it, but he is no longer next to me.
*
Zane crawls into bed beside me, resting his head on my chest and his hand on my stomach. Electric currents course into my body from his everywhere skin touches skin, scored to what sounds like a symphony of every type of noise in existence-crashes, bangs, thuds, shrieks, scrapes, and spoken words-increasing steadily in volume until I realize that I’m screaming and my hands are covering my ears and Zane is trying to whisper words of comfort to me but it sounds like he’s shouting in my ear through a bullhorn.
I want him away from me and at that thought he flies against the wall, a spike of pain driving through my head at the thud his body makes.
The sounds are breaking the levees that have been set up in my mind and the world disappears under a flood of noise, and images that change every time that I move, and Zane’s voice - somehow still both quiet and audible - saying ‘What have I done?’ over and over again.
Real electricity is building up inside me. It feels nothing like any time Zane has touched me. Blue bolts of lighting fly out of my body - not just the fingertips, but every square inch, setting my clothing and hair on fire.
The whole room starts to burn.
I drag my body through the fire and out onto the grass. When I get far enough away from the smoke to be able to see, I see that I am alone with myself.
Am I still Mohinder Suresh?
Who am I?
I lift my head to view my own charred remains. My circulatory system is stringing itself up over muscles that are still weaving themselves together.
I am still someone made of meat and blood.
A patch of pale skin sprouts up like white moss on my belly and spreads out over my body, engulfing me.
III.
My name is Mohinder Suresh.
I was born April 8th, 2030, in Chennai, India.
My father, Chandra Suresh, was murdered at 11:53 PM on September 28th, 2062, by a man named Sylar.
My father was a geneticist who believed that people all over the world were being born with mutated genes that granted them extraordinary abilities. A book of his theories, Activating Evolution, was published in 2049. The fact that he was laughed out of the scientific community the moment that it hit the shelves should not come as a surprise; nor should - to anyone paying attention - the fact that he was right.
I myself possess no ability, but I have recently become rather well-acquainted with someone who does. Zane Taylor, a man with the power to move objects with his mind, contacted me with questions about his ability and I met him in his beachfront home in Virginia. The two of us developed such a quick and easy rapport that we decided, spur-of-the-moment, to embark on a cross country road trip to track down more people like him and continue my father’s research. He’s proven himself an invaluable resource and a charming companion and I’m eminently pleased to have him along.
*
Zane is on me the minute I close the door of the motel room. It should be surprising, offensive - how does he know I won’t punch him in his face? - but instead it’s completely expected. Like we were lovers in a past life.
Zane efficiently removes my clothes and shoves me on the bed. He gets me off like he has a deadline to meet and smirks to himself when I climax quickly.
I stumble to the bathroom to rinse myself off. I don’t bother turning on the light. My reflection in the mirror above the sink appears startlingly old, my skin drooping and my hair limp. In the darkness, my eyes appear to be the wrong colour.
I go back to bed.
“Time to go to sleep, Cinderella.” Zane places his palm on my forehead. “It’s almost midnight.”
*
Zane is awake and staring at me with his head tilted inquisitively.
When he sees that I’m up he straddles my hips and leans back slightly, his palms resting on my thighs, eyeing me appraisingly.
“You’re a work of art, Mohinder.” He shifts his weight forward and runs his hands up my body.
“Perfect outside.” His hands continue up the sides of my face. “Perfect inside.” His index finger taps against my temple. “But there’s this one thing that’s been driving me crazy.”
Zane cups my cheek with his right hand and slides his left down my neck. Two fingers rest on my carotid artery. “It just doesn’t sound right.”
This scenario is familiar.
“But don’t worry,” he says. “I can fix it.”
He places his palm on my chest and it turns into quicksand, sucking him in.
My heart turns to clay in his hand.
IV.
My name is Mohinder Suresh.
I was born April 8th, 2045, in Chennai, India.
On September 28th, 2077, at 11:53 PM, I murdered my own father with the help of a man named Sylar.
My father was a geneticist who believed that people all over the world were being born with mutated genes that granted them extraordinary abilities. A book of his theories, Activating Evolution, was published in 2064. The fact that he was laughed out of the scientific community the moment that it hit the shelves should not come as a surprise; nor should - to anyone paying attention - the fact that he was right.
I myself possess no inborn ability, but I have become rather well-acquainted with someone who does. Sylar has the power to transfer abilities from one person to another - to tear them from the skulls of inferior vessels and weld them to the will of whomever he considers worthy. Shapeshifting, regeneration - I willingly accept the gifts that he bestows upon me, allowing him to mold me into the perfect version of myself.