The Last Two Men [9/11] - Heroes - Mohinder/Sylar
Title: The Last Two Men [9/11]
Pairing: Mohinder/Sylar
Word Count: 2561
Rating: R
Warnings: end-of-the-world, character deaths, zombie-vampires.
A/N: Inspired by 'I Am Legend'. Thank you to Babylon_pride for betaing!
Previous parts: One :: Two :: Three :: Four :: Five :: Six :: Seven :: Eight
Summary: On the 13th of November 2010, the dead began to remain undead. Two years later, the last men on Earth struggle to survive.
25th of May, 2012
In the kitchen, a clock ticks.
Mohinder fiddles nervously with his teacup, watching the liquid slosh back and forth. It had proved too difficult to keep forcing himself to look up at where Sylar was sitting opposite him - working out exactly what to say when he was still reeling from the bullet-fast kiss from moments ago is a nightmare.
"Sylar…" he says, brow creased.
"It's okay," Sylar answers before he has the opportunity to say anything more. "Don't mention it."
It isn't healthy to let something like this fester unaddressed: between the pair of them, Mohinder knows that they already possess too many secrets. Things left unsaid. His fingers tap nervously against the side of his cup. "Sylar, I really think we ought to-"
"How long do we have?" Sylar asks, cutting him off sharply. Mohinder frowns again. "Until we know? How long does it usually take?"
"I don't know," Mohinder answers, bothered more than he should admit by that. There are only a few early handful of examples - Bob and those he infected. "After a few hours, if I'm… In a few hours my eyes will start blackening."
"And then?"
"Then I start dying." Slow, it'll be slow. Painful - agonising. He can still remember the way that Bob had begged him to end it towards the end. He hadn't been strong enough to grant him that release. "Once I- Once I'm gone…"
"You'll be one of them." Sylar nods, confirming it to himself.
One of them.
Mohinder tries to imagine it, tries to see himself as one of those snarling creatures, tries to envision himself hunting and killing and eating raw meat straight from the bone. He'd have to hide from the sunlight, lurking in the shadows during the day. Maybe he'll find a pack and be absorbed into a family - he has no idea how the hierarchy of these monsters works. Do they have a leader? A structure of any kind? Their hunting patterns seem to be intelligent but getting close enough to study it is a risk nobody would be foolish enough to take. In any other circumstances he might've found himself glad at the scientific opportunity his transformation would offer.
'Transformation'. He's getting better at euphemisms. If this takes hold he'll be dying, not changing. He'll be…
"Get up," Sylar says, cutting through his thoughts with a tone like broken glass.
Mohinder looks towards him: he tries and fails to catch his eye. "What?"
"The sun will have risen by now. We're going out."
I don't want to go anywhere with you, dies on Mohinder's tongue when he sees the expression on Sylar's face.
"Sylar…"
"We're going out," he repeats. "I don't care where."
He looks at their cooled cups of tea and waves his hand, forcing them to float over to sit by the sink. A waste, really, but Mohinder couldn't stomach eating or drinking anything now. He doubts if he'll be able to all day, just waiting to find out if this is really happening. Waiting for his eyes to go black will be as agonising as waiting for a severe diagnosis. How could he have been so stupid?
"I should go to the lab," Mohinder muses. "Use what time I have left productively."
"You've had all this time, Mohinder. If you haven't cracked it yet…" Sylar doesn't look at him, standing up instead. "We're going out. Wherever you want."
"One last request," Mohinder murmurs. How to spend his last day? Is there anything left in this city that he'll miss once his humanity is stripped away?
"Anything you want."
"Let's go for a walk," Mohinder decides.
A wander through the city's sunny wilderness. He shivers, and tries not to let himself dwell on whether or not this will be the last opportunity he has for such an activity.
*
They walk until they hit the outskirts of town, the area where the houses begin to peter out. Another few miles along the road would have them free of the buildings altogether, but Mohinder's starting to feel breathless already. They've strayed further than he'd usually feel comfortable allowing: a mile or two is usually his limit. Going further than that from their home is courting danger. If something went wrong, they'd never make it back in time - but, today, the worry seems overly paranoid. Unnecessary.
They take a seat on the short wall that surrounds what used to be somebody's garden. Hidden behind the tall, wild grass, Mohinder thinks he can catch a glimpse of a rusted child-sized trampoline. He tries not to look at it for longer than he has to, turning his back to it and sitting on the cold brick wall.
Long moments pass filled with prickling silence.
Mohinder clears his throat. Their small talk trickled away miles ago. "Sylar," he says again, more determined than he was earlier, "about what happened this morning…"
"It was stupid," Sylar says without being prompted further. "I shouldn't have kissed you."
Shouldn't have waited so long, crosses Mohinder's mind, shouldn't have waited until it was too late, but he crushes the thought before it can take seed. "No, you shouldn't have," he agrees.
Sylar looks down at his hands and Mohinder looks to the sky, wondering how much longer he'll have to wait before they know for certain if he's caught the infection. So far he feels fine, as healthy as ever even if exhaustion has started to tug at his bones.
"When I came here," Sylar blurts, "in the beginning… I was looking for you."
"I know that. You-"
"No, I was looking for you." Sylar doesn't look up, shoulders hunched. Mohinder's never seen an expression like this on his face before. "Not because I thought you'd know anything about what was going on, or because I needed your help, or…" He pauses to breathe through his nose. It's only when Mohinder doesn't respond that he continues. "The world was ending, and- I wanted you to be alive."
Mohinder presses his lips together, holding his thoughts inside even though the silence that falls is painful.
"This isn't fair," Sylar adds eventually.
No, it's not. The world turning on them, cruel and destructive, that isn't fair at all and never has been.
"We should start heading back," Mohinder says, though he knows that isn't the right thing to say at all. Sylar needs some kind of acknowledgement of all he's said, the secrets he's sacrificed, but Mohinder can't offer that. He can't offer him anything but hate and distrust.
Sylar's shoulders heave in a heavy shrug. "We could do something else," he suggests. "Anything else."
"By the time we get back to the house a few hours should have passed," Mohinder points out. By the time they get back they'll know what the future holds. He feels jagged butterflies swarming his stomach at the very idea.
Sylar shakes his head. "There's no point. Let's walk somewhere. If your eyes turn black I'll tell you." Sylar still won't look at him, standing up instead and pointing back the way they'd came. "I want this day to be special, Mohinder."
"Ah, of course," Mohinder mutters sarcastically as he gets to his feet. "A special day of wandering aimlessly around deserted streets. Fantastic. That is exactly how I wanted to spend my last day of humanity."
"Don't say that." Sylar scowls at him. "We don't know that yet."
"Yet," Mohinder reminds him. "Since when were you the optimist?"
"Since you decided to be the pessimist," Sylar grouches. He sighs and holds out his hand. "Humour me."
"Do I have much of a choice?"
"Not really," Sylar answers with a smile. His hand still waits and when he gestures impatiently Mohinder gives in and reaches out to take it, letting Sylar help him to his feet. "We've got some time yet."
Only a little, barely anything at all, but it's easy and peaceful to fall into step beside Sylar. Mohinder could never have imagined that he'd become comfortable in this life - living with a killer, struggling to survive - but as they walk slowly together through the street of this town Mohinder finds that he doesn't want the day to end. He isn't ready to have to let go of the small life they've managed to carve out for themselves.
*
"When were you planning on telling me?" Mohinder asks when he leaves the bathroom much later that afternoon, his voice shaking.
Sylar's shoulders remain tense and unresponsive. He sits on their couch, barely able to look at him. Sylar looks scared, terrified, and Mohinder wants to yell and shout and scream at him until he gets over it. Sylar has no right - no right to look like that.
When Sylar doesn't answer, Mohinder changes the question. "How long?" He waves his hand at his eyes in fury. In the mirror above the sink in the bathroom he'd had to spend so long staring into the swirling blackness of his eyes. His vision doesn't seem any different, but all trace of colour had gone from them in the reflection. He looks like one of them. "How long have my eyes been like this, Sylar?"
Sylar gives a vague shrug. "An hour or so, I guess. Does it matter?"
"Yes, it matters. It…" He's going to die either way, isn't he? "You didn't tell me."
"I knew you'd react like this."
"Like what?"
Sylar shakes his head and doesn't answer: it seems that he's developed more tact than Mohinder had realised. "I didn't want you to have to deal with it. Not yet."
"So you just-" He sat there and acted as if everything was normal. He sat with Mohinder and watched those eyes that indicated that he was turning into a monster and he didn't say a goddamn thing. "You are unbelievable, Sylar."
Sylar laughs dryly, a disturbingly hollow sound. He doesn't apologise. He would never do that.
"So what now?" Sylar asks, his voice raw. "What do we…"
He doesn't like having to ask, Mohinder can see that. He doesn't like not having the answers.
Mohinder can't say that he likes it too much either.
"I'm not sure," he has to say. "I suppose I'll be feeling the effects soon."
"You'll be in pain, right?" Sylar looks towards their boarded windows. "You'll… It'll hurt?"
"Yes," Mohinder answers. "A lot, I imagine."
Sylar nods. "Shit."
Mohinder moves to sit down on the couch, taking a seat beside Sylar. He places his hands firmly over his knees, holding on tightly so that they won't tremble. He doesn't want to appear afraid; he doesn't want to be afraid.
"Should I…" Sylar's thought trails away.
They sit there, neither of them looking at each other. Reality presses and strains to break in and crush them with its weight. Mohinder breathes. Slowly. Deeply. He listens to the pounding of his heart, each thump telling him that he's still alive.
"When it- starts…" Sylar says awkwardly. "Do you still want me to…"
Mohinder nods tensely, barely able to make his head move. "Please," he says.
God, he doesn't want this to happen. He doesn't want to die, not really, not like this, but - It's inevitable, he tells himself as he breathes out slowly. It was always going to end like this. They were never going to escape; he was never going to fix things; the world was never going to be set right. Pretending otherwise is-
Sylar's hand closes over his. His palm is clammy and his grip is too tight. Bruises might be left behind if Mohinder lived long enough to see them. "It'll be okay," Sylar promises. "I'll make it quick."
"Thank you," Mohinder says. He wants to laugh - endlessly, loudly, like he had on the first day that Sylar had found him - when Sylar's arm moves around his shoulders and he doesn't flinch away. He folds weakly against Sylar instead, seeking comfort from a monster who shouldn't be able to offer him any.
"Mohinder," Sylar says, irritation - with him, with the world, with their fate - laced through his voice as he looks into Mohinder's pitch-black eyes. "Will this-"
"I don't think I can infect you," Mohinder answers before Sylar has to ask. "Not yet. Not like this."
When he turns - how much time do I have left? A few more hours? - his skin will be too dangerous for Sylar to touch: he can only hope that he's dead long before it reaches that stage. Sylar won't allow him to become a monster.
Sylar's arm around his shoulders is holding onto him more tightly than Mohinder is comfortable with, and when Sylar seems as if he is about to try to kiss him Mohinder looks away sharply. He rests his head against the man he's struggled to live with for so long and closes his eyes. "Let's sit here for a while," he says, unwilling to look at the disappointment that he knows will take hold of Sylar's face. "Let's just… sit."
"Sit," Sylar confirms, shuffling down until they're both comfortable.
Mohinder stares blankly at the far wall of the room, going over the ideas and theories that he's flirted with ever since Maya's death in the beginning. There must be something there, he hopes. Something. Anything. Once he's gone… Sylar can't do this. Sylar may be a lot of things, but he isn't a scientist - and, damn it, he isn't responsible for this mess. Mohinder got the world into this mess. He feels certain that he should be the one that can get them out of it again, if only he can think hard enough and fast enough.
Sylar doesn't speak as time rushes away. He sits like a statue, frozen in this moment. Glad not to be interrupted, Mohinder doesn't ask him what he's thinking: he doesn't want to know and he certainly doesn't have to face it.
When the clock begins to climb past five, the first stabbing wave of pain hits him deep within his gut. Burning. Erasing. Remoulding. Mohinder's eyes screw shut and his mouth opens in wordless pain: he doesn't make a sound but Sylar shifts, looking down. "Mohinder?"
Mohinder shakes his head. His hand moves to cover his stomach as if he can hold this back physically: one hand against all the might of death itself. "I can feel it."
His body moving, shifting, dying as it prepares for what comes next - he can feel it starting. Even watching what had happened to Bob years ago hasn't prepared him for it: it feels like an unskilled surgeon has turned his scalpel on him without anaesthetic.
"It's okay," Sylar soothes mindlessly. His hand rubs circles on Mohinder's back as if that will help. "It's okay, Mohinder, I promise."
"Shut up," Mohinder snaps. "God, just shut up."
He wishes that he could scream at his body to do the same thing, to start behaving, to come under his control again. Heavily, he stands from the couch - but there is nowhere to escape to. Nowhere to run. Nowhere left to go.
His hand still rests on his stomach as he turns blindly, ignoring Sylar as he yells at him to sit back down. The pain is too much to handle, pushing at him from inside his body. It's not something that Sylar can understand or protect him from. When it comes to this, Mohinder has to take it on alone.
Part Ten
Pairing: Mohinder/Sylar
Word Count: 2561
Rating: R
Warnings: end-of-the-world, character deaths, zombie-vampires.
A/N: Inspired by 'I Am Legend'. Thank you to Babylon_pride for betaing!
Previous parts: One :: Two :: Three :: Four :: Five :: Six :: Seven :: Eight
Summary: On the 13th of November 2010, the dead began to remain undead. Two years later, the last men on Earth struggle to survive.
25th of May, 2012
In the kitchen, a clock ticks.
Mohinder fiddles nervously with his teacup, watching the liquid slosh back and forth. It had proved too difficult to keep forcing himself to look up at where Sylar was sitting opposite him - working out exactly what to say when he was still reeling from the bullet-fast kiss from moments ago is a nightmare.
"Sylar…" he says, brow creased.
"It's okay," Sylar answers before he has the opportunity to say anything more. "Don't mention it."
It isn't healthy to let something like this fester unaddressed: between the pair of them, Mohinder knows that they already possess too many secrets. Things left unsaid. His fingers tap nervously against the side of his cup. "Sylar, I really think we ought to-"
"How long do we have?" Sylar asks, cutting him off sharply. Mohinder frowns again. "Until we know? How long does it usually take?"
"I don't know," Mohinder answers, bothered more than he should admit by that. There are only a few early handful of examples - Bob and those he infected. "After a few hours, if I'm… In a few hours my eyes will start blackening."
"And then?"
"Then I start dying." Slow, it'll be slow. Painful - agonising. He can still remember the way that Bob had begged him to end it towards the end. He hadn't been strong enough to grant him that release. "Once I- Once I'm gone…"
"You'll be one of them." Sylar nods, confirming it to himself.
One of them.
Mohinder tries to imagine it, tries to see himself as one of those snarling creatures, tries to envision himself hunting and killing and eating raw meat straight from the bone. He'd have to hide from the sunlight, lurking in the shadows during the day. Maybe he'll find a pack and be absorbed into a family - he has no idea how the hierarchy of these monsters works. Do they have a leader? A structure of any kind? Their hunting patterns seem to be intelligent but getting close enough to study it is a risk nobody would be foolish enough to take. In any other circumstances he might've found himself glad at the scientific opportunity his transformation would offer.
'Transformation'. He's getting better at euphemisms. If this takes hold he'll be dying, not changing. He'll be…
"Get up," Sylar says, cutting through his thoughts with a tone like broken glass.
Mohinder looks towards him: he tries and fails to catch his eye. "What?"
"The sun will have risen by now. We're going out."
I don't want to go anywhere with you, dies on Mohinder's tongue when he sees the expression on Sylar's face.
"Sylar…"
"We're going out," he repeats. "I don't care where."
He looks at their cooled cups of tea and waves his hand, forcing them to float over to sit by the sink. A waste, really, but Mohinder couldn't stomach eating or drinking anything now. He doubts if he'll be able to all day, just waiting to find out if this is really happening. Waiting for his eyes to go black will be as agonising as waiting for a severe diagnosis. How could he have been so stupid?
"I should go to the lab," Mohinder muses. "Use what time I have left productively."
"You've had all this time, Mohinder. If you haven't cracked it yet…" Sylar doesn't look at him, standing up instead. "We're going out. Wherever you want."
"One last request," Mohinder murmurs. How to spend his last day? Is there anything left in this city that he'll miss once his humanity is stripped away?
"Anything you want."
"Let's go for a walk," Mohinder decides.
A wander through the city's sunny wilderness. He shivers, and tries not to let himself dwell on whether or not this will be the last opportunity he has for such an activity.
*
They walk until they hit the outskirts of town, the area where the houses begin to peter out. Another few miles along the road would have them free of the buildings altogether, but Mohinder's starting to feel breathless already. They've strayed further than he'd usually feel comfortable allowing: a mile or two is usually his limit. Going further than that from their home is courting danger. If something went wrong, they'd never make it back in time - but, today, the worry seems overly paranoid. Unnecessary.
They take a seat on the short wall that surrounds what used to be somebody's garden. Hidden behind the tall, wild grass, Mohinder thinks he can catch a glimpse of a rusted child-sized trampoline. He tries not to look at it for longer than he has to, turning his back to it and sitting on the cold brick wall.
Long moments pass filled with prickling silence.
Mohinder clears his throat. Their small talk trickled away miles ago. "Sylar," he says again, more determined than he was earlier, "about what happened this morning…"
"It was stupid," Sylar says without being prompted further. "I shouldn't have kissed you."
Shouldn't have waited so long, crosses Mohinder's mind, shouldn't have waited until it was too late, but he crushes the thought before it can take seed. "No, you shouldn't have," he agrees.
Sylar looks down at his hands and Mohinder looks to the sky, wondering how much longer he'll have to wait before they know for certain if he's caught the infection. So far he feels fine, as healthy as ever even if exhaustion has started to tug at his bones.
"When I came here," Sylar blurts, "in the beginning… I was looking for you."
"I know that. You-"
"No, I was looking for you." Sylar doesn't look up, shoulders hunched. Mohinder's never seen an expression like this on his face before. "Not because I thought you'd know anything about what was going on, or because I needed your help, or…" He pauses to breathe through his nose. It's only when Mohinder doesn't respond that he continues. "The world was ending, and- I wanted you to be alive."
Mohinder presses his lips together, holding his thoughts inside even though the silence that falls is painful.
"This isn't fair," Sylar adds eventually.
No, it's not. The world turning on them, cruel and destructive, that isn't fair at all and never has been.
"We should start heading back," Mohinder says, though he knows that isn't the right thing to say at all. Sylar needs some kind of acknowledgement of all he's said, the secrets he's sacrificed, but Mohinder can't offer that. He can't offer him anything but hate and distrust.
Sylar's shoulders heave in a heavy shrug. "We could do something else," he suggests. "Anything else."
"By the time we get back to the house a few hours should have passed," Mohinder points out. By the time they get back they'll know what the future holds. He feels jagged butterflies swarming his stomach at the very idea.
Sylar shakes his head. "There's no point. Let's walk somewhere. If your eyes turn black I'll tell you." Sylar still won't look at him, standing up instead and pointing back the way they'd came. "I want this day to be special, Mohinder."
"Ah, of course," Mohinder mutters sarcastically as he gets to his feet. "A special day of wandering aimlessly around deserted streets. Fantastic. That is exactly how I wanted to spend my last day of humanity."
"Don't say that." Sylar scowls at him. "We don't know that yet."
"Yet," Mohinder reminds him. "Since when were you the optimist?"
"Since you decided to be the pessimist," Sylar grouches. He sighs and holds out his hand. "Humour me."
"Do I have much of a choice?"
"Not really," Sylar answers with a smile. His hand still waits and when he gestures impatiently Mohinder gives in and reaches out to take it, letting Sylar help him to his feet. "We've got some time yet."
Only a little, barely anything at all, but it's easy and peaceful to fall into step beside Sylar. Mohinder could never have imagined that he'd become comfortable in this life - living with a killer, struggling to survive - but as they walk slowly together through the street of this town Mohinder finds that he doesn't want the day to end. He isn't ready to have to let go of the small life they've managed to carve out for themselves.
*
"When were you planning on telling me?" Mohinder asks when he leaves the bathroom much later that afternoon, his voice shaking.
Sylar's shoulders remain tense and unresponsive. He sits on their couch, barely able to look at him. Sylar looks scared, terrified, and Mohinder wants to yell and shout and scream at him until he gets over it. Sylar has no right - no right to look like that.
When Sylar doesn't answer, Mohinder changes the question. "How long?" He waves his hand at his eyes in fury. In the mirror above the sink in the bathroom he'd had to spend so long staring into the swirling blackness of his eyes. His vision doesn't seem any different, but all trace of colour had gone from them in the reflection. He looks like one of them. "How long have my eyes been like this, Sylar?"
Sylar gives a vague shrug. "An hour or so, I guess. Does it matter?"
"Yes, it matters. It…" He's going to die either way, isn't he? "You didn't tell me."
"I knew you'd react like this."
"Like what?"
Sylar shakes his head and doesn't answer: it seems that he's developed more tact than Mohinder had realised. "I didn't want you to have to deal with it. Not yet."
"So you just-" He sat there and acted as if everything was normal. He sat with Mohinder and watched those eyes that indicated that he was turning into a monster and he didn't say a goddamn thing. "You are unbelievable, Sylar."
Sylar laughs dryly, a disturbingly hollow sound. He doesn't apologise. He would never do that.
"So what now?" Sylar asks, his voice raw. "What do we…"
He doesn't like having to ask, Mohinder can see that. He doesn't like not having the answers.
Mohinder can't say that he likes it too much either.
"I'm not sure," he has to say. "I suppose I'll be feeling the effects soon."
"You'll be in pain, right?" Sylar looks towards their boarded windows. "You'll… It'll hurt?"
"Yes," Mohinder answers. "A lot, I imagine."
Sylar nods. "Shit."
Mohinder moves to sit down on the couch, taking a seat beside Sylar. He places his hands firmly over his knees, holding on tightly so that they won't tremble. He doesn't want to appear afraid; he doesn't want to be afraid.
"Should I…" Sylar's thought trails away.
They sit there, neither of them looking at each other. Reality presses and strains to break in and crush them with its weight. Mohinder breathes. Slowly. Deeply. He listens to the pounding of his heart, each thump telling him that he's still alive.
"When it- starts…" Sylar says awkwardly. "Do you still want me to…"
Mohinder nods tensely, barely able to make his head move. "Please," he says.
God, he doesn't want this to happen. He doesn't want to die, not really, not like this, but - It's inevitable, he tells himself as he breathes out slowly. It was always going to end like this. They were never going to escape; he was never going to fix things; the world was never going to be set right. Pretending otherwise is-
Sylar's hand closes over his. His palm is clammy and his grip is too tight. Bruises might be left behind if Mohinder lived long enough to see them. "It'll be okay," Sylar promises. "I'll make it quick."
"Thank you," Mohinder says. He wants to laugh - endlessly, loudly, like he had on the first day that Sylar had found him - when Sylar's arm moves around his shoulders and he doesn't flinch away. He folds weakly against Sylar instead, seeking comfort from a monster who shouldn't be able to offer him any.
"Mohinder," Sylar says, irritation - with him, with the world, with their fate - laced through his voice as he looks into Mohinder's pitch-black eyes. "Will this-"
"I don't think I can infect you," Mohinder answers before Sylar has to ask. "Not yet. Not like this."
When he turns - how much time do I have left? A few more hours? - his skin will be too dangerous for Sylar to touch: he can only hope that he's dead long before it reaches that stage. Sylar won't allow him to become a monster.
Sylar's arm around his shoulders is holding onto him more tightly than Mohinder is comfortable with, and when Sylar seems as if he is about to try to kiss him Mohinder looks away sharply. He rests his head against the man he's struggled to live with for so long and closes his eyes. "Let's sit here for a while," he says, unwilling to look at the disappointment that he knows will take hold of Sylar's face. "Let's just… sit."
"Sit," Sylar confirms, shuffling down until they're both comfortable.
Mohinder stares blankly at the far wall of the room, going over the ideas and theories that he's flirted with ever since Maya's death in the beginning. There must be something there, he hopes. Something. Anything. Once he's gone… Sylar can't do this. Sylar may be a lot of things, but he isn't a scientist - and, damn it, he isn't responsible for this mess. Mohinder got the world into this mess. He feels certain that he should be the one that can get them out of it again, if only he can think hard enough and fast enough.
Sylar doesn't speak as time rushes away. He sits like a statue, frozen in this moment. Glad not to be interrupted, Mohinder doesn't ask him what he's thinking: he doesn't want to know and he certainly doesn't have to face it.
When the clock begins to climb past five, the first stabbing wave of pain hits him deep within his gut. Burning. Erasing. Remoulding. Mohinder's eyes screw shut and his mouth opens in wordless pain: he doesn't make a sound but Sylar shifts, looking down. "Mohinder?"
Mohinder shakes his head. His hand moves to cover his stomach as if he can hold this back physically: one hand against all the might of death itself. "I can feel it."
His body moving, shifting, dying as it prepares for what comes next - he can feel it starting. Even watching what had happened to Bob years ago hasn't prepared him for it: it feels like an unskilled surgeon has turned his scalpel on him without anaesthetic.
"It's okay," Sylar soothes mindlessly. His hand rubs circles on Mohinder's back as if that will help. "It's okay, Mohinder, I promise."
"Shut up," Mohinder snaps. "God, just shut up."
He wishes that he could scream at his body to do the same thing, to start behaving, to come under his control again. Heavily, he stands from the couch - but there is nowhere to escape to. Nowhere to run. Nowhere left to go.
His hand still rests on his stomach as he turns blindly, ignoring Sylar as he yells at him to sit back down. The pain is too much to handle, pushing at him from inside his body. It's not something that Sylar can understand or protect him from. When it comes to this, Mohinder has to take it on alone.
Part Ten