Dark and Permanent- Flicker
Author: Doctor Betty Caduceus
Title: Flicker
Characters/Pairings: Mylar, the Haitian, Bennet
Category: Angsty fluff? Fluffy angst?
Warnings: Possible OOCness and Sap, unbetaed so likely fraught with typos.
Rating: PG- Just a bit of kissing and slight violence.
Disclaimers: I don't own Heroes or the location mentioned in this fic. Which means we're safe for another day, I guess.
I hope you can forgive me, Doctor," the Haitian said quietly.
"Oh for-" Bennet muttered. "Just clean him out."
"He did save my life, Noah."
"He saved mine too. Of course, he was the one who took it in the first place."
When the Haitian made no reply, Bennet sighed.
"If you insist on being sentimental, you're saving his life. They'll kill him if you don't make him a blank slate."
"I know," the Haitian answered. "It's the only reason I can bring myself to do it."
He reached out, reluctantly pushing his index finger and thumb under the curls at Suresh's temples, and began to pull, plucking out memory after memory, leaving behind a brilliant man who didn't know so much as his own name. Friends, family, history, secrets, all flickered out like birthday candles.
Suddenly, just like a candle flame, his fingers burned, the heat running up his arm like a fast burning fuse and knocking him back onto the floor.
"That's new," Bennet said impassively. "You all right?"
"Sylar…" Suresh moaned as the Haitian pushed himself up off the floor.
"That isn't new, but it sure is interesting. What's going on in there?" Bennet asked, leaning closer to Suresh's face. The Haitian reached out to his temples again and proceeded more cautiously. Memories are flickering things, moving and shifting bright spots of the light of life in amongst the blur of things not worth remembering, all but the most significant fading within days or weeks, whereas what the Haitian found himself observing was steady, unmoving. He touched it lightly with his mind, wincing and drawing back as it burned him again, the color and quality of a hot iron skillet.
"It's not a memory," the Haitian said, rising and regarding Suresh carefully.
"What do you mean?"
"It's everywhere in his mind. I cannot move it."
"What is it?" Bennet asked, crouching next to Suresh and forcing one of his eyes open, peering at his pupil. The doctor twitched, smacking Bennet's hand away from his face before his arm fell away limp.
"Something permanent," the Haitian replied, reaching out to Suresh's arm and lifting it gently back to the arm rest, running soothing fingers over the skin of his wrist, feeling for his pulse. "It's not bright like a thought or a memory. It's dark, pitch black. Thorns of iron in his brain. I can't pull it out."
"What's your name?" Bennet asked. Suresh's made no reply, eyes half shut. Bennet snapped his fingers in his face. "Focus. What's your name."
"I don't know."
"What's my name?"
"I don't know."
"What do you remember?" Bennet pursued insistently. He got his answer when the door to the cell came open.
"He looks familiar," Suresh said. Bennet whirled to see Sylar step through the door, gun in hand.
"Step away from the good doctor, Bennet," he said, smiling and drawing back the hammer.
"Hello Gabriel," Bennet grumbled, standing and taking one step away from Suresh. Sylar ignored him.
"You remember me?" he asked the doctor. Suresh cocked his head to the side.
"I do," he said. "I recall something distinctly about not trusting you… fear, pain. And…" Suresh trailed off, eyes fluttering closed. "And I think I missed you very badly."
"Good, Mohinder," Sylar praised softly. "Now get up, it's time we were going."
"You'll never get out of here, Gabriel," Bennet said.
Suresh rose and moved towards Sylar, who guided him behind him with his free arm, then smiled benevolently and then shot Bennet in the shin. Suresh jumped slightly. Bennet let out a sharp grunt, but maintained his composure. Sylar leveled his gaze and the gun at the Haitian.
"As for you, I'm afraid I'm going to need all my little tricks to make sure we get out of here without any of the good Mister Bennet's minions getting in the way. Turn around."
The Haitian supposed this was God sending a devil to punish him for betraying Suresh. The butt of a gun crashing into the back of his skull was just a reminder from the Almighty to appreciate His favors.
Suresh struggled to keep up with Sylar, his wrist held tightly in the other man's hand as he swept opponents aside, dragging him out of a building he couldn't remember having entered. He found himself tossed into the passenger side of a car and sped away.
"Where are we going?" he asked after about a half an hour.
"I haven't decided yet," Sylar answered. "Any suggestions?"
"I don't remember," Suresh said. "I don't even know where we are now."
"We're on 127 heading away from Hartsdale. I'll find a place for us to hide for a while…. I have an idea."
When Suresh didn't reply, Sylar looked over at him.
"Are you all right?"
"I have no idea," Suresh said. "I don't know what I feel like when I'm all right. I can't recall anything."
"Except me," Sylar said, joy in that particular flattery tingling in his voice.
"They took everything," Suresh whispered, voice cracking.
"You have me," Sylar said harshly, reaching out and touching Suresh's hair, his face, his shoulder, his chest. "They can't take me away from you."
"And why is that?"
"Destiny," Sylar answered, letting his hand drop off Suresh's shoulder and taking his hand, holding on tight, fondling the ring on his thumb. Suresh twined his fingers with Sylar's.
Eventually, the car was parked by a outside concrete walls and fountains, the skeletal architecture of a roller coaster arching white against the night sky.
"Where are we?"
"Rye Playland. It's no Coney Island, but it's close to a lot of interstates; Bennet will have no idea where we've gone from here."
"It looks closed," Suresh said. Sylar smiled and got out of the car, walking around to open the door on the other side.
"Closed is relative. Come on."
The lock gave way easily under the flick of a telekinetic hand, and the two men walked into the silent amusement park, ghostly and still in the late night air.
"You know who I am," Suresh said, staring at their joined hands as their steps echoed dully on the boardwalk.
"I do. I know you better than anyone."
"Even me," Suresh replied with a dry smile. "What's my name?"
"Doctor Mohinder Suresh. I don't know if you have a middle name. You have a mother in India, Chennai. You're a geneticist."
Sylar turned as they stopped walking, guiding Suresh to a bench overlooking the water. Hazy, thready clouds were blown by the breeze across the face of a gibbous moon reflected in the surface of Long Island Sound. His voice grew hoarse as he took Suresh's face in his hands.
"You have god awful taste in clothes. You sing in the shower. You don't put anything in your hair but your curls do that anyway. Your feet and the backs of your knees are ticklish, but you love it when I rub your ankles. You hate coffee, you love tea, you sleep on your side when you're under stress and on your stomach when you're happy. You hate eggplant. You order sandalwood soap from a company in Calcutta and you always smell like it and it makes me crazy every time I smell it. My memory is perfect, Mohinder, and I'll give you back every piece of yourself one by one, just stay with me. What I don't know, I'll find out."
Sylar tugged Suresh into his arms, clutching desperately.
"Just stay with me."
Sylar drew in a sharp breath as he felt tentative lips on his neck, kissing up slowly, fearfully, but increasingly eagerly as he approached the hinge of Sylar's jaw.
"All I remember is you," Suresh gasped, his hands finding Sylar's face and kissing him deeply. "Are we in love?"
"Since the day we met," Sylar murmured into his throat. "Nothing can take it from you. You're my destiny."
Sylar and Suresh wound around each other on that bench in the cool saltwater humidity of the evening, like black iron thorns, permanently twined with each other, tangled inseparably. They'd start driving again in the morning.