The Last Two Men [4/11] - Heroes - Mohinder/Sylar
Title: The Last Two Men [4/11]
Pairing: Mohinder/Sylar
Word Count: 2556
Rating: R
Warnings: end-of-the-world, character deaths, zombie-vampires.
A/N: Inspired heavily by 'I Am Legend'. Thanks to Babylon_pride for betaing.
Previous parts: One :: Two :: Three
Summary: On the 13th of November 2010, the dead began to remain undead. Two years later, the last men on Earth struggle to survive.
9th November, 2010
He can't stop himself from smiling as he looks down at the files in front of him: all filled with photos and data of the people that he's cured, the people that have been fixed by his work. A year has passed, a long year of work and stress and toil, but the pride that swells in his chest when he looks down at his achievements tells Mohinder that it's been worth it - he's accomplished what his father died for. The answers to all of those questions are right there in front of him.
His gaze lingers upon those files as he pulls up the zip of his jacket and prepares to go home for the evening. It's late and the winter's night has already fallen outside. No doubt Matt will once again scold him for being an irresponsible father: he can only hope that Molly will still be awake when he arrives home. She's growing up without him.
With his jacket on, he pulls together the files and tucks them into the messenger bag he still uses - he thinks he ought to get a briefcase, something more professional, but somehow he doesn't think that would suit him - and grabs his keys from the desk. Time to go home. Time to put all the Roger Whitalls of the world behind him.
He turns the light out and locks the office door as he exits, his mind already at home: he dreams of a warm shower and a hot dinner as he walks along the Company's clinical corridors, smiling a goodbye to his colleagues. He has a team these days, a whole troop of research assistants. He has resources his father could never have dreamed of. They're saving lives. Every day he goes home feeling like a superhero.
The automatic doors whoosh open for him and he breathes deeply as he steps into the cold night air - the kind of cold that gets right into your lungs. It's refreshing after spending so many hours cooped up inside his office, working through the data. Bob's beginning to push him into expanding the drug; making it more readily available to those who needed it sounds like a brilliant idea, but he still isn't sure. There needs to be extensive testing to ensure that there would be no adverse reaction - but Bob seems allergic to the idea and Mohinder is quickly running out of compromises.
It will all work out, he's certain as he moves towards his car where it sits peacefully in the parking lot, undisturbed. He has his own parking space these days: he's becoming more and more integrated into the Company each day. He's sure Bennet would be sickened with him - you've gone native echoes in his mind - yet it doesn't matter. He knows he's doing good; he's had a year to convince himself of that.
His keys jangle on his key chain as he hunts for them. He hardly notices the flicker of movement in front of him before he almost runs straight into a thin frame and a weak body - he startles, muscles tensing as old instincts fly into life, but it isn't a monster in front of him, it isn't a killer, it isn't Sylar.
He frowns. "Maya?" he asks, unable to quite believe his eyes. He hasn't seen her since she left town after Sylar disappeared: she'd said she couldn't stay, though he and Molly had urged her to.
Now here she stands in front of him, with her black hair in flowing curves by her face. Her eyes are wide and trusting as she looks up at him. "Mohinder," she says. "I have been waiting for you."
He manages a smile despite his pounding heart. "You surprised me," he admits, though perhaps 'surprised' is a mild word. "How long have you been out here?"
"Some time now," she says. He realises he's clinging with a deadly grip to the strap of his messenger bag and forces himself to unclench his hand. "It's been a while, Mohinder. I hope you have been well."
"I've been coping," he says - and, yes, in this case that is the perfect word to use. 'Coping'. 'Getting by'. 'Burying myself in research so that I don't need to think of how screwed up the world truly is'. "What are you doing here?" And that sounds rude - it is rude - so he softens it with a smile. "I'm sorry, it's just…"
"A shock?" she says for him. "I know. I heard about your research…"
"Ah," he says as it clicks for him. His research: curing dangerous powers. What's more dangerous than hers? "Are you still having trouble controlling it?"
"I thought I was okay," she admits. Her head ducks and she watches his shoes instead of his face. "Can we go somewhere else? I'd like to talk to you further."
He should say no. Everything he is tells him that he ought to regretfully shake his head and say that he can't help her: perhaps he could pull some strings to have her admitted to the program of tests that he's still running, but he can't do more than that. He can't leap through hoops for her, but there's something about the pain mixed with hope in her expression that causes him to nod.
Just talking about it won't hurt, will it?
*
"I was going to be married," she tells him as they sit in a coffee house. Her drink has long gone cold, untouched: they've been small-talking for hours now, circling the real subject and getting gradually closer. "He was a good man. I think Alejandro would have liked him…"
Mohinder's mind flashes to Shanti - and it does so less and less these days; he feels like he's losing all he used to be - and he nods. "Maya," he says quietly. "Please, tell me what happened. Maybe I can help."
Her smile is slow and sad. She looks out of the window at the empty street outside. Brightly coloured cars are parked on double yellow lines. "I woke up one morning and he was dead," she states, a cannonball from the blue. "He just lay there… There was the blackness coming from his eyes and I…" She shakes her head and clutches onto her cold coffee cup. Mohinder notices that her hands are shaking but he doesn't know how to make them stop. "I started screaming, but no one came. Nobody. There was nobody. All dead. I killed all of them, Mohinder." Her voice has dipped to a shallow echo, rasping out of control. "I didn't mean it. I didn't mean to do it, I swear. I swear. I was sleeping…"
This café feels too safe for this conversation; it feels too cosy and helplessly domestic. This is a place to talk of relationship woes and family problems, not mass murder and uncontrollable abilities.
"I can't control it," she whispers. "I thought I could, but I- I need your help."
He'd known this was coming. He'd known all along and can see it coming towards him with the finality of a steam train.
"Your research - it could stop me?" She's breathless and her dark eyes are imploring him. He doesn't know how to respond. "I don't want to hurt anyone else. I can't. You need to stop me. I need you to stop me."
It isn't only her hands that are shaking now: her chin trembles and he worries that she might dissolve into tears at any given moment, yet he has to whisper, "I can't."
She blinks, slow and dazed like a cartoon.
"Maya, there's no space on the program. I-"
"You can make space. Please."
He has to shake his head slowly. "I can't. We're thinking of expanding the drug, Maya. If we manage to do that…"
"When? When can I have it?"
His words falter again: he can't give her a concrete point in time, he can't give her anything. "I don't know."
"Mohinder, I will kill again if you don't help me. I can't stop it any more."
She looks at him with pleading dark eyes; telling her 'no' would feel like kicking a puppy in the face - a helpless, pretty puppy. He shakes his head, but his words contradict the action. "I'll see what I can do," he promises, though he's sure that he can't do a lot.
*
10th of November, 2010
"So she just asked you?" Elle asks, swinging her legs back and forth as she sits on one of the stools in the lab. "Just randomly? That's kinda rude."
Mohinder purses his lips together. "She's desperate."
"So's everyone that comes in here. We can't cure them all."
"But she's a friend," Mohinder insists - and is she? He isn't certain on that front, but she's still someone that he should be able to help. "I need to do something for her. Her ability… It's killing people, Elle."
"Then maybe she should be going to your cop-friend, not to you."
"Matt," Mohinder murmurs, but he knows Elle 'forgets' those names on purpose. "I don't think the police would be able to help her."
"And we can't either. What a shame."
"Please," he says, looking up to catch her eye now - and he makes sure to hold her blue-eyed gaze, hoping that he might be able to energise a hint of compassion. "Can you talk to your father for me?"
She bites her bottom lip and leaps down from the stool. "Y'know, I really shouldn't do favours for you," she says, and he holds back a smile - because she's going to do it now, he can tell. Maybe between them they can arrange something that might help Maya.
Yet hours later when Bob enters his lab he knows that he isn't bringing good news with him. He trudges inside and closes the door behind him with a quiet little click, smiling like Mohinder's an idiot that needs to be subdued. "I'm sorry," is the first thing out of his mouth.
Mohinder feels his heart sink.
"We cannot allow our personal investments to cloud this matter, Mohinder. We're too close for that."
Too close to what, Mohinder wants to ask, but he knows he won't be given an answer. His hands are pressed palm-down against the wooden top of the lab bench as he watches Bob and tries not to start yelling. "What if it was Elle?" he asks. "What if she needed cured?"
"She doesn't."
"But what if she did? Wouldn't you do anything to help her? How can you tell me to keep 'personal investments' out of this, Bob? The only reason I ever allowed myself to become involved with this company was 'personal investment'."
"I know you think that's what drives you," Bob says. He sounds like he's trying to be reasonable. Screw 'reasonable'. Screw logic. Screw science - what's the point in it if he still can't help the people who need it most? "But we have to think of the bigger picture. Your friend Maya is a criminal. I should technically be speaking to the police about this, but I'm doing you a favour by keeping quiet. If you allowed her onto this program, 'keeping quiet' would no longer be an option. Do you understand that, Mohinder?"
Yes.
He understands a threat when he hears it. He understands perfectly.
If he tries to help her here, Bob will make sure that her crimes catch up with her - and Maya would not survive in prison, Mohinder knows that. It would crush her too quickly, and her ability would take everyone in that building down with her, leaving hundreds of dead bodies to be found.
"I understand," he says, his voice ringing with hollow sincerity.
When he leaves for home that night, his heart pounds in his chest with the same thrill it had while spying for Bennet. He walks to his car quietly, head bowed, and places his bag in the passenger seat. In the depths of that back, hidden by paperwork and case notes, sits a capped needle and a single vial of the cure he's been working on for years.
*
"Do you understand the risks?" Mohinder asks yet again, pacing uncomfortably in his living room. The space feels cramped right now, although it's just he and Maya that remain. Molly is in bed and Matt had rolled his eyes at them the second he heard of what Mohinder is planning to do now.
"Yes, I understand."
"You could die, Maya. I haven't had the chance to do the testing I usually would - if you have a negative reaction to this…" He pauses and shakes his head, once again asking himself why on earth he's doing this. "It could be fatal - or it could have the complete opposite effect from what it's intended to. I think you-"
"Mohinder, please. You have explained this already. I know. If I can't be cured, then I would rather die."
Her dark eyes water at him, begging him more strongly than any words could accomplish. This is insane, Mohinder thinks as he finds himself nodding. Absolutely insane. "Okay. Go and sit on the couch. Can you roll your shirt sleeve up for me?"
As she nods and goes to do what he'd asked, he opens his bag and pulls out the small case with the needle and serum. Placing it down on the kitchen table, he longs for a set of gloves to wear but he'll have to risk it without. His hands shake when he withdraws the needle from its case and prepares it. Any second now he hopes that Maya will have second thoughts and will hastily ask him to stop and give her time to consider what she's about to do - and what she's about to make him do. This goes against every scientific principle that his years of study has instilled into him, but…
She needs his help.
He walks over to the couch and sits down. In his fingers the needle feels sticky, as if he'd been holding onto it for far too long. "You're sure?" he asks again, wishing for her to back out, pleading with her.
She stays strong and nods. "Mohinder, you're doing the right thing," she assures him, with a smile that barely trembles. Perhaps she's right, Mohinder tells himself. Saving lives is what his scientific search is all about: how many more will die if Maya is left to roam with her power gradually slipping out of her control?
He swallows around a lump in his throat, and takes hold of her arm as he hunts for a vein. They appear like little blue rivers of paint on her thin arm; she hasn't been eating properly. Her skin feels like tissue paper. "Good luck," he whispers, raising the needle so that the tip is pressed against that shimmer of blue on her arm.
She smiles at him and nods. "Yes," she agrees. "Good luck to both of us."
If this goes wrong, it's Mohinder who will have to clear up this mess. He should pull out if she won't. He should rip the chance of salvation away from her. It would be the logical thing to do. Not necessarily the right thing, but certainly the safest.
He looks up and meets her pleading eyes - and injects the cure.
Pairing: Mohinder/Sylar
Word Count: 2556
Rating: R
Warnings: end-of-the-world, character deaths, zombie-vampires.
A/N: Inspired heavily by 'I Am Legend'. Thanks to Babylon_pride for betaing.
Previous parts: One :: Two :: Three
Summary: On the 13th of November 2010, the dead began to remain undead. Two years later, the last men on Earth struggle to survive.
9th November, 2010
He can't stop himself from smiling as he looks down at the files in front of him: all filled with photos and data of the people that he's cured, the people that have been fixed by his work. A year has passed, a long year of work and stress and toil, but the pride that swells in his chest when he looks down at his achievements tells Mohinder that it's been worth it - he's accomplished what his father died for. The answers to all of those questions are right there in front of him.
His gaze lingers upon those files as he pulls up the zip of his jacket and prepares to go home for the evening. It's late and the winter's night has already fallen outside. No doubt Matt will once again scold him for being an irresponsible father: he can only hope that Molly will still be awake when he arrives home. She's growing up without him.
With his jacket on, he pulls together the files and tucks them into the messenger bag he still uses - he thinks he ought to get a briefcase, something more professional, but somehow he doesn't think that would suit him - and grabs his keys from the desk. Time to go home. Time to put all the Roger Whitalls of the world behind him.
He turns the light out and locks the office door as he exits, his mind already at home: he dreams of a warm shower and a hot dinner as he walks along the Company's clinical corridors, smiling a goodbye to his colleagues. He has a team these days, a whole troop of research assistants. He has resources his father could never have dreamed of. They're saving lives. Every day he goes home feeling like a superhero.
The automatic doors whoosh open for him and he breathes deeply as he steps into the cold night air - the kind of cold that gets right into your lungs. It's refreshing after spending so many hours cooped up inside his office, working through the data. Bob's beginning to push him into expanding the drug; making it more readily available to those who needed it sounds like a brilliant idea, but he still isn't sure. There needs to be extensive testing to ensure that there would be no adverse reaction - but Bob seems allergic to the idea and Mohinder is quickly running out of compromises.
It will all work out, he's certain as he moves towards his car where it sits peacefully in the parking lot, undisturbed. He has his own parking space these days: he's becoming more and more integrated into the Company each day. He's sure Bennet would be sickened with him - you've gone native echoes in his mind - yet it doesn't matter. He knows he's doing good; he's had a year to convince himself of that.
His keys jangle on his key chain as he hunts for them. He hardly notices the flicker of movement in front of him before he almost runs straight into a thin frame and a weak body - he startles, muscles tensing as old instincts fly into life, but it isn't a monster in front of him, it isn't a killer, it isn't Sylar.
He frowns. "Maya?" he asks, unable to quite believe his eyes. He hasn't seen her since she left town after Sylar disappeared: she'd said she couldn't stay, though he and Molly had urged her to.
Now here she stands in front of him, with her black hair in flowing curves by her face. Her eyes are wide and trusting as she looks up at him. "Mohinder," she says. "I have been waiting for you."
He manages a smile despite his pounding heart. "You surprised me," he admits, though perhaps 'surprised' is a mild word. "How long have you been out here?"
"Some time now," she says. He realises he's clinging with a deadly grip to the strap of his messenger bag and forces himself to unclench his hand. "It's been a while, Mohinder. I hope you have been well."
"I've been coping," he says - and, yes, in this case that is the perfect word to use. 'Coping'. 'Getting by'. 'Burying myself in research so that I don't need to think of how screwed up the world truly is'. "What are you doing here?" And that sounds rude - it is rude - so he softens it with a smile. "I'm sorry, it's just…"
"A shock?" she says for him. "I know. I heard about your research…"
"Ah," he says as it clicks for him. His research: curing dangerous powers. What's more dangerous than hers? "Are you still having trouble controlling it?"
"I thought I was okay," she admits. Her head ducks and she watches his shoes instead of his face. "Can we go somewhere else? I'd like to talk to you further."
He should say no. Everything he is tells him that he ought to regretfully shake his head and say that he can't help her: perhaps he could pull some strings to have her admitted to the program of tests that he's still running, but he can't do more than that. He can't leap through hoops for her, but there's something about the pain mixed with hope in her expression that causes him to nod.
Just talking about it won't hurt, will it?
*
"I was going to be married," she tells him as they sit in a coffee house. Her drink has long gone cold, untouched: they've been small-talking for hours now, circling the real subject and getting gradually closer. "He was a good man. I think Alejandro would have liked him…"
Mohinder's mind flashes to Shanti - and it does so less and less these days; he feels like he's losing all he used to be - and he nods. "Maya," he says quietly. "Please, tell me what happened. Maybe I can help."
Her smile is slow and sad. She looks out of the window at the empty street outside. Brightly coloured cars are parked on double yellow lines. "I woke up one morning and he was dead," she states, a cannonball from the blue. "He just lay there… There was the blackness coming from his eyes and I…" She shakes her head and clutches onto her cold coffee cup. Mohinder notices that her hands are shaking but he doesn't know how to make them stop. "I started screaming, but no one came. Nobody. There was nobody. All dead. I killed all of them, Mohinder." Her voice has dipped to a shallow echo, rasping out of control. "I didn't mean it. I didn't mean to do it, I swear. I swear. I was sleeping…"
This café feels too safe for this conversation; it feels too cosy and helplessly domestic. This is a place to talk of relationship woes and family problems, not mass murder and uncontrollable abilities.
"I can't control it," she whispers. "I thought I could, but I- I need your help."
He'd known this was coming. He'd known all along and can see it coming towards him with the finality of a steam train.
"Your research - it could stop me?" She's breathless and her dark eyes are imploring him. He doesn't know how to respond. "I don't want to hurt anyone else. I can't. You need to stop me. I need you to stop me."
It isn't only her hands that are shaking now: her chin trembles and he worries that she might dissolve into tears at any given moment, yet he has to whisper, "I can't."
She blinks, slow and dazed like a cartoon.
"Maya, there's no space on the program. I-"
"You can make space. Please."
He has to shake his head slowly. "I can't. We're thinking of expanding the drug, Maya. If we manage to do that…"
"When? When can I have it?"
His words falter again: he can't give her a concrete point in time, he can't give her anything. "I don't know."
"Mohinder, I will kill again if you don't help me. I can't stop it any more."
She looks at him with pleading dark eyes; telling her 'no' would feel like kicking a puppy in the face - a helpless, pretty puppy. He shakes his head, but his words contradict the action. "I'll see what I can do," he promises, though he's sure that he can't do a lot.
*
10th of November, 2010
"So she just asked you?" Elle asks, swinging her legs back and forth as she sits on one of the stools in the lab. "Just randomly? That's kinda rude."
Mohinder purses his lips together. "She's desperate."
"So's everyone that comes in here. We can't cure them all."
"But she's a friend," Mohinder insists - and is she? He isn't certain on that front, but she's still someone that he should be able to help. "I need to do something for her. Her ability… It's killing people, Elle."
"Then maybe she should be going to your cop-friend, not to you."
"Matt," Mohinder murmurs, but he knows Elle 'forgets' those names on purpose. "I don't think the police would be able to help her."
"And we can't either. What a shame."
"Please," he says, looking up to catch her eye now - and he makes sure to hold her blue-eyed gaze, hoping that he might be able to energise a hint of compassion. "Can you talk to your father for me?"
She bites her bottom lip and leaps down from the stool. "Y'know, I really shouldn't do favours for you," she says, and he holds back a smile - because she's going to do it now, he can tell. Maybe between them they can arrange something that might help Maya.
Yet hours later when Bob enters his lab he knows that he isn't bringing good news with him. He trudges inside and closes the door behind him with a quiet little click, smiling like Mohinder's an idiot that needs to be subdued. "I'm sorry," is the first thing out of his mouth.
Mohinder feels his heart sink.
"We cannot allow our personal investments to cloud this matter, Mohinder. We're too close for that."
Too close to what, Mohinder wants to ask, but he knows he won't be given an answer. His hands are pressed palm-down against the wooden top of the lab bench as he watches Bob and tries not to start yelling. "What if it was Elle?" he asks. "What if she needed cured?"
"She doesn't."
"But what if she did? Wouldn't you do anything to help her? How can you tell me to keep 'personal investments' out of this, Bob? The only reason I ever allowed myself to become involved with this company was 'personal investment'."
"I know you think that's what drives you," Bob says. He sounds like he's trying to be reasonable. Screw 'reasonable'. Screw logic. Screw science - what's the point in it if he still can't help the people who need it most? "But we have to think of the bigger picture. Your friend Maya is a criminal. I should technically be speaking to the police about this, but I'm doing you a favour by keeping quiet. If you allowed her onto this program, 'keeping quiet' would no longer be an option. Do you understand that, Mohinder?"
Yes.
He understands a threat when he hears it. He understands perfectly.
If he tries to help her here, Bob will make sure that her crimes catch up with her - and Maya would not survive in prison, Mohinder knows that. It would crush her too quickly, and her ability would take everyone in that building down with her, leaving hundreds of dead bodies to be found.
"I understand," he says, his voice ringing with hollow sincerity.
When he leaves for home that night, his heart pounds in his chest with the same thrill it had while spying for Bennet. He walks to his car quietly, head bowed, and places his bag in the passenger seat. In the depths of that back, hidden by paperwork and case notes, sits a capped needle and a single vial of the cure he's been working on for years.
*
"Do you understand the risks?" Mohinder asks yet again, pacing uncomfortably in his living room. The space feels cramped right now, although it's just he and Maya that remain. Molly is in bed and Matt had rolled his eyes at them the second he heard of what Mohinder is planning to do now.
"Yes, I understand."
"You could die, Maya. I haven't had the chance to do the testing I usually would - if you have a negative reaction to this…" He pauses and shakes his head, once again asking himself why on earth he's doing this. "It could be fatal - or it could have the complete opposite effect from what it's intended to. I think you-"
"Mohinder, please. You have explained this already. I know. If I can't be cured, then I would rather die."
Her dark eyes water at him, begging him more strongly than any words could accomplish. This is insane, Mohinder thinks as he finds himself nodding. Absolutely insane. "Okay. Go and sit on the couch. Can you roll your shirt sleeve up for me?"
As she nods and goes to do what he'd asked, he opens his bag and pulls out the small case with the needle and serum. Placing it down on the kitchen table, he longs for a set of gloves to wear but he'll have to risk it without. His hands shake when he withdraws the needle from its case and prepares it. Any second now he hopes that Maya will have second thoughts and will hastily ask him to stop and give her time to consider what she's about to do - and what she's about to make him do. This goes against every scientific principle that his years of study has instilled into him, but…
She needs his help.
He walks over to the couch and sits down. In his fingers the needle feels sticky, as if he'd been holding onto it for far too long. "You're sure?" he asks again, wishing for her to back out, pleading with her.
She stays strong and nods. "Mohinder, you're doing the right thing," she assures him, with a smile that barely trembles. Perhaps she's right, Mohinder tells himself. Saving lives is what his scientific search is all about: how many more will die if Maya is left to roam with her power gradually slipping out of her control?
He swallows around a lump in his throat, and takes hold of her arm as he hunts for a vein. They appear like little blue rivers of paint on her thin arm; she hasn't been eating properly. Her skin feels like tissue paper. "Good luck," he whispers, raising the needle so that the tip is pressed against that shimmer of blue on her arm.
She smiles at him and nods. "Yes," she agrees. "Good luck to both of us."
If this goes wrong, it's Mohinder who will have to clear up this mess. He should pull out if she won't. He should rip the chance of salvation away from her. It would be the logical thing to do. Not necessarily the right thing, but certainly the safest.
He looks up and meets her pleading eyes - and injects the cure.