Fic: Surviving
Title: Surviving
Author:
squills
Genre: Angst, angst, and more angst
Rating: PG-13, I suppose (hints of sex, suicidal thoughts)
Summary: After Sylar disappears down the sewer, Mohinder desperately looks for any sign that the man still thinks of him.
Word Count: 727
Notes: You know,
mylar_fic has turned out to have the same effect on me as the Heroes Hoyay forum at TWoP: I come in intending to just look around a bit, and next thing I know, it's completely taken over my brain. Read the other angst week fics. Thought of this. Wrote it in an hour. Now I'm sad. NOTE: this was originally posted on 02-Jul-2007 at my other lj. The original comments can be read there, though it's a friends-only post.
Mohinder stood on the bridge and stared down into the murky depths of the river without actually seeing anything.
It had been 36 days since his world ended. 36 mornings of waking up, groggily staring at the daylight streaming in through the blinds, and...remembering.
He closed his eyes and swayed for a moment. Sometimes he had to fight the urge to jump. Sometimes he didn’t think he could live with this hollowness and loss. Sometimes he didn’t think he could live with the disgust he felt for himself for aching this way.
The sewer drained down to the river, didn’t it?
No, thought Mohinder, stepping back. If he were really dead, I would feel it. Wouldn’t I?
His mind wandered back to that phone call, the last time that voice had been addressed to him-so quiet and numb. Sylar had asked for help, had shown he still had trust in Mohinder despite everything, and Mohinder had panicked. Things might have turned out so differently for all of them, if only...
He tried to make himself feel outrage, tried to think of Sylar standing gruesomely over the corpse of the artist he’d murdered just before that phone call, but all that he could see were brown eyes, huge, soft, pleading, lovely, gazing up at him from a pillow in a hotel room.
He had no right to feel this way. This man had murdered his father. This man had murdered so many. The blood on his hands-but Mohinder didn't shudder until he remembered the trail of blood on the paving stones. He’d been unable to stop himself from kneeling and dragging fingers through it. It was still wet, and was sticky on his hand. Sylar’s life-blood, poured out on the ground, from that body that was burned into his memory...the man himself gone, alone, hurt. Dead? Mohinder’s stomach turned at the thought. He was glad the others were too wrapped up in their own concerns to see his face.
When he got home hours later, his jacket cuff was stained as if with rust. He’d stared at it until he could no longer take the pain.
He opened his eyes but Sylar’s face was still there. That moment in his father’s apartment, when his obligation for revenge had become clear...for just a fleeting second, he thought maybe anguish had passed across Sylar’s face. That despite the lies and manipulation, Sylar had still felt something genuine for him, and had been struck to the bone when Mohinder turned on him. That maybe his actions later had been motivated by a desperate need to strike back at the lover who was abandoning him, instead of by simple cruelty.
Or was Mohinder only seeing what he hoped to see? He couldn't bear to face the possibility that he’d been nothing but a momentary convenience to Sylar, another anonymous face in the line of victims, discarded and forgotten about as soon as he ceased to be either a useful tool or a danger.
You called me. You called me for help. Does that mean you still feel something? Or did I squander my only chance to redeem myself in your eyes?
In Kirby Plaza, he’d waited for Sylar to turn to him. He’d wanted it, wanted to feel those burning eyes upon him. Any acknowledgment of his existence-even obliteration would have been better than living under this crippling need. It would have been proof that he’d somehow touched something inside Sylar, had affected the man as much as the man affected him. He’d stared at the tall thin figure, drank in the almost visible aura of power emanating from him as he loomed over Peter, willed him to look Mohinder’s way. I’m sorry...I’m so, so sorry. Please don’t do this. Please let me help you. Please, come to me. Would Sylar have stared back with the same hunger and emptiness? Would he have raised a hand to deal out more punishment? Or would he have just given Mohinder a look of bored contempt and turned back to a pursuit he truly cared about?
Mohinder had jerked awake every one of the past 36 nights, thinking he’d felt something in his sleep, a caress upon his cheek, or maybe a hand vengefully gripping his throat. He always woke up alone.
If Sylar were alive, he’d come for Mohinder.
Wouldn’t he?
also posted at
mylar_fic
Author:
squills
Genre: Angst, angst, and more angst
Rating: PG-13, I suppose (hints of sex, suicidal thoughts)
Summary: After Sylar disappears down the sewer, Mohinder desperately looks for any sign that the man still thinks of him.
Word Count: 727
Notes: You know,
mylar_fic has turned out to have the same effect on me as the Heroes Hoyay forum at TWoP: I come in intending to just look around a bit, and next thing I know, it's completely taken over my brain. Read the other angst week fics. Thought of this. Wrote it in an hour. Now I'm sad. NOTE: this was originally posted on 02-Jul-2007 at my other lj. The original comments can be read there, though it's a friends-only post.
Mohinder stood on the bridge and stared down into the murky depths of the river without actually seeing anything.
It had been 36 days since his world ended. 36 mornings of waking up, groggily staring at the daylight streaming in through the blinds, and...remembering.
He closed his eyes and swayed for a moment. Sometimes he had to fight the urge to jump. Sometimes he didn’t think he could live with this hollowness and loss. Sometimes he didn’t think he could live with the disgust he felt for himself for aching this way.
The sewer drained down to the river, didn’t it?
No, thought Mohinder, stepping back. If he were really dead, I would feel it. Wouldn’t I?
His mind wandered back to that phone call, the last time that voice had been addressed to him-so quiet and numb. Sylar had asked for help, had shown he still had trust in Mohinder despite everything, and Mohinder had panicked. Things might have turned out so differently for all of them, if only...
He tried to make himself feel outrage, tried to think of Sylar standing gruesomely over the corpse of the artist he’d murdered just before that phone call, but all that he could see were brown eyes, huge, soft, pleading, lovely, gazing up at him from a pillow in a hotel room.
He had no right to feel this way. This man had murdered his father. This man had murdered so many. The blood on his hands-but Mohinder didn't shudder until he remembered the trail of blood on the paving stones. He’d been unable to stop himself from kneeling and dragging fingers through it. It was still wet, and was sticky on his hand. Sylar’s life-blood, poured out on the ground, from that body that was burned into his memory...the man himself gone, alone, hurt. Dead? Mohinder’s stomach turned at the thought. He was glad the others were too wrapped up in their own concerns to see his face.
When he got home hours later, his jacket cuff was stained as if with rust. He’d stared at it until he could no longer take the pain.
He opened his eyes but Sylar’s face was still there. That moment in his father’s apartment, when his obligation for revenge had become clear...for just a fleeting second, he thought maybe anguish had passed across Sylar’s face. That despite the lies and manipulation, Sylar had still felt something genuine for him, and had been struck to the bone when Mohinder turned on him. That maybe his actions later had been motivated by a desperate need to strike back at the lover who was abandoning him, instead of by simple cruelty.
Or was Mohinder only seeing what he hoped to see? He couldn't bear to face the possibility that he’d been nothing but a momentary convenience to Sylar, another anonymous face in the line of victims, discarded and forgotten about as soon as he ceased to be either a useful tool or a danger.
You called me. You called me for help. Does that mean you still feel something? Or did I squander my only chance to redeem myself in your eyes?
In Kirby Plaza, he’d waited for Sylar to turn to him. He’d wanted it, wanted to feel those burning eyes upon him. Any acknowledgment of his existence-even obliteration would have been better than living under this crippling need. It would have been proof that he’d somehow touched something inside Sylar, had affected the man as much as the man affected him. He’d stared at the tall thin figure, drank in the almost visible aura of power emanating from him as he loomed over Peter, willed him to look Mohinder’s way. I’m sorry...I’m so, so sorry. Please don’t do this. Please let me help you. Please, come to me. Would Sylar have stared back with the same hunger and emptiness? Would he have raised a hand to deal out more punishment? Or would he have just given Mohinder a look of bored contempt and turned back to a pursuit he truly cared about?
Mohinder had jerked awake every one of the past 36 nights, thinking he’d felt something in his sleep, a caress upon his cheek, or maybe a hand vengefully gripping his throat. He always woke up alone.
If Sylar were alive, he’d come for Mohinder.
Wouldn’t he?
also posted at
mylar_fic