[fanfic] 30 First Kisses - Kiss #16
Title: 30 First Kisses - Kiss #16
Author: tiptoe39
Rating: PG-13 for violence.
Summary: Yes, I have gone ahead and written the end of the fall season, just in case I don't like what they do with it. SPOILERS up to 2x10. This fic is muuuuch less romantic than the rest. It's also my first crack at writing Sylar, so EEP dun kill me.
This is the 16th of 30 possible ways Matt and Mohinder could share their first kiss, written for 30_kisses. The prompt/theme was "invincible" (muteki). Previous kisses are here.
The bastard is waiting for him when he gets there. Sitting at his desk. Reading his old newspapers. Even wearing his spare pair of glasses. "Welcome home, Dr. Suresh," he says, spinning around in his chair to smile genially.
"Where is Molly?" Three words. Because two aren't enough to make the point and four are too many. He is not interested in engaging this man in conversation.
Sylar hooks a thumb over his shoulder, points toward the bedroom. "She wasn't so happy to see me, so I gave her a little something to help her sleep. An over-the-counter, nothing fatal. It didn't even say 'keep out of reach of children.' See? I'm a good stepfather."
Mohinder does not like the connotations of that last word. "What do you want?"
He gets up, walks over, puts a hand on Mohinder's shoulder, looks plaintively into his eyes. "Honestly, Doctor? I want myself back. I want to be able to do the things I used to do."
"Like kill people and take their abilities?"
"Among other things." He shrugs as though it's just one in a long list, starts to pace around the room like he still lives here. His familiarity in the surroundings makes Mohinder very uneasy. "Do you have any idea just how frustrating it is to wake up and not be able to do anything you used to do? And just for laughs, you kill a woman and realize you can't take her power? Oh, it just ruined my day. Have you ever had your day ruined, Mohinder? Say, someone gives you a phone call and it just all goes to hell from there?"
His smile was infuriating. "And why would I want to help you?"
"Besides the fact that your little munchkin is probably dreaming about her boogeyman right now? I'm sure she'd be calling out to you if it weren't for that little duct-tape-on-the-mouth problem. Don't worry, she can breathe," he adds at Mohinder's sudden exclamation. "For now, at least. I'm still torn between letting you watch me kill her and killing you both at the same time. Decisions, decisions... Oh, but wait, Mohinder, I'd meant to ask. Who's been staying in my old room?"
Matt.
His last chance. His only hope.
Matt! Mohinder thinks as loud and as hard as he can.
"Well, I suppose it doesn't really matter," Sylar says, and then the worst thing happens, Sylar has put his arms around him and is whispering in his ear. "I know nobody will ever replace me." Mohinder wants to push him back and shout at him that he was never welcome in his life to begin with, that he was an unwanted interloper, and that anything that might have happened between them was annulled the minute he realized he wasn't Zane Taylor after all. Even before he realized he was a psychopathic mass murderer who was responsible for the death of his father and so many others. The first lie was enough. The rest were just details.
But Mohinder stays stock still because now he knows who this man is, and he's dangerous, too dangerous to try to surprise. He just keeps yelling inside his head. MATT! Are you anywhere near? We need you. Molly needs you! Sylar is here...
Murderer fingers on his cheek. "Mohinder, you look so serious. What are you thinking about? Don't tell me..."
What if Matt was already dead and Sylar had learned to read minds? But no, Sylar doesn't have his power... he'd just said so.
Sylar has drawn back and is staring at him critically. "Why, Mohinder! You can help me, can't you? I can see it in your face. You know how I can get my power back." He sits back down on the desk chair, rocking back and forth like a child who's had too much sugar. "I knew you would! Oh, tell me everything."
Matt Parkman, you have got to be on your way home by now, where are you? Mohinder can only think of one thing, and that's to stall until the man with the gun gets here. "I have a serum. It's an infusion of my blood with the blood of a girl named Claire Bennet."
"The invincible cheerleader?" Sylar leans forward. "I remember her. How is she doing, I wonder? Good to know she's still not dead. I'll have to look her up."
Mohinder is suddenly struck by the idea of an invincible Sylar. Not that anyone has managed to kill him so far, but the idea that he would be unkillable is frightening beyond belief. He regrets mentioning Claire.
"I believe she is on the run," Mohinder declares, still shouting in his mind. "There were some happenings and she lost her father, and..."
"You're stalling!" intones Sylar, grinning, almost leering up at him. "Yes, yes, I get it. So where is this serum of yours? It's not in that briefcase, is it?"
"N-no," Mohinder says, although his hand clenches around the case at his side.
"Oh, come on, Mohinder. Give it-- here!" With the last word, Sylar lunges for the case, and he's pushed Mohinder to the floor and they are grappling. Sylar is strong, the sort of strength that comes with being too insane to know you're weak. The floorboards are creaking underneath them, but Mohinder will not let go of the case.
Matt, get in here, shoot me if you must but shoot him...
His thoughts are interrupted by the sudden appearance behind Sylar's shoulders of a young woman with skin tinted bronze and a horrified look in her eyes. "Gabriel, what are you doing?" Her voice is bell-like and heavily accented, and she pronounces Sylar's birth name with an accent on the last syllable. She reaches forward to pull him off Mohinder. "'Who is this man? Is he an..." She struggles for the English word. "Intruder?"
"This is my apartment!" Mohinder barks, pushing with all his might, and between his push and her pull Sylar comes off him and goes toppling backward. Mohinder scrambles to his feet.
"But you are not Doctor Suresh! The man in the book is..."
"My father." Mohinder has finished that sentence so many times in the past several months, he's beginning to think nobody knows him for him anymore. Not that it terribly much matters during a situation like this. He straightens up and kicks Sylar in the jaw, making him curse and roll over. "You'd better get out of here. This man is dangerous."
"I am not leaving," she says. "I need to find this Dr. Suresh. Where is he?"
"Mohinder, meet Maya," says Sylar on the floor with his hand to his jaw. "You two can talk for a minute. I'll just be over here." He still thinks he's a comedian, Mohinder notes with disgust.
"My father is dead," Mohinder says darkly. His eyes dart toward Molly's bedroom. If he can only get her out of here!
"Dead? No..." Her eyes go hollow and blank. "Then there is no hope..."
Her expression tugs at Mohinder's heartstrings. "Hope for what? Why were you looking for my father?"
"I needed him to help me..." She is beginning to cry now, huge translucent tears that splash to the ground. Her mouth is turned down into the look of a grotesque gargoyle. "I need him to make me normal again."
He shouldn't be feeling it, not now, but that quickening of the pulse begins in Mohinder. "You have an ability, then?" She nods. But as her chin dips down her eyes widen slightly, and Mohinder follows them down. Sylar's hand is outstretched, grabbing at his leg. Mohinder raises his foot and brings it down on his wrist, making him scream.
"What are you doing?" Now it's Maya who lunges at him, and Mohinder is fighting off her hands. "He just wanted to see your father, just like me!"
"He killed my father!" thunders Mohinder, and she jumps back, horrified.
She shakes her head. "No es posible... why... why? First Alejandro, and then you... why does nobody understand?"
She begins to hyperventilate and all of a sudden there is a look of panic on Sylar's face. "Maya, calm down," he shouts. "Control it. I know you can." Mohinder stares down at him in disbelief. Panic? Fear? He didn't know Sylar could feel those things. But then he's panicking himself, because it's suddenly hard to breathe, and he feels as though his eyes are bleeding, and it's all he can do to keep his heel on Sylar's wrist.
But Maya coughs, wheezes, and falls still. The air becomes breathable again, and Mohinder thinks he must have imagined the whole thing, because Sylar is grinning and doesn't look the slightest bit panicked. "Good girl. I knew you could," he says, and turns to Mohinder. "Isn't she darling?" he croons. "All that power and she is still such an idealist. It's hard to imagine what someone else would do if, every time they got a little upset, they killed everyone in the room. So I wouldn't go on about me killing your father, because she's very, very fragile right now."
Mohinder stares at him. "Killed people... you mean she...?"
"Please," Maya begs. The tone that he'd thought was like a bell has slowed down and she sounds like a tape running a third too slow. "I don't mean to."
He has to calm her. "I'm sure you don't," he assures her, mind racing. If she kills when she's upset, how can he persuade her to do anything? "Just let me take Molly somewhere else," he begs. "Then I'll do whatever you want." He looks down at Sylar, but he's lunged forward with his other hand and there is a lot of pain and a sick thud and Mohinder realizes he is on the floor and his leg is bent in a direction it's not supposed to bend. And Sylar has the case with the serum in it and is opening it. No, thinks Mohinder desperately. No.
He's scrambling to drain the serum into the syringe and Mohinder can hear a million years of Sylar's laugh in his head, Sylar becoming immortal, invincible. "Wait," he cries desperately, "there's a virus, it will kill everyone, it will kill you too, if I can't work on the vaccine, I need it..."
Sylar is spurting the excess air out of the syringe with a bright spray of red liquid; when did he become an expert on needles? "This is how much I care," he grins, pressing the needle to his arm.
But then Mohinder's ears are blown into deafness by gunshots and there is a scream, and Sylar is on the floor with blood leaking from his shoulder and he's clutching his arm, the syringe on the floor unused next to him, and Mohinder looks up and promptly for half a second believes in God again. Because Matt's in the doorway, his gun trained on Sylar, a look of absolute rage on his face. "Give me one reason I shouldn't blow you away," he growls.
"Gabriel, no!" Maya flings herself between Matt's gun and Sylar. Mohinder tries to get up, despite the sick feeling in his leg. He has got to get to Molly. It doesn't work. He falls back to the ground, propping himself up with his hands.
"I won't let you hurt him." The girl is like a feral animal now somehow; she's moaning and crying and roaring all at once.
"Look," Matt says, in full cop mode. "I don't know who you are or why you're here, but that man is not what you think. Just walk out of here, right now, or I can't promise you won't get hurt."
"I am not leaving him. Gabriel!" Sylar is acting as though he has been mortally wounded. He's shuddering and convulsing, a thousand melodramatic expressions of pain and regret crossing his snakelike face.
"He's... right, you know," he gasps to her. "I did... kill his father."
"Gabriel, what are you saying, don't talk, stay still." Her words are tumbling out.
"He had... something I wanted. I killed him to get it."
"You have a lot of death to answer for," Matt says. "The parents of that little girl, for one."
This hits Maya between the eyes. "No!"
Matt's advancing on him, the gun shaking in his hands. "Isaac Mendez..." His eyes go a little red. "Ted--"
"Stop! It's not true!" Maya screams, covering her ears.
"It's all true." Sylar's fingers closing around the syringe as he speaks. "And one more you don't know about, Maya."
"Don't let him." Pain is turning Mohinder green. He's still struggling to get up. "He'll get all his power back--"
"Do you... remember... our first kiss?" Mohinder is glad Matt doesn't seem to hear him gasp. But Sylar is talking to Maya. "It was... so special... first time I've ever had a woman kiss me... over her brother's corpse...."
Maya becomes very still.
"Sorry, Mohinder," Sylar is saying. "Maybe I should have told you I'd met someone else."
Matt turns. "Mohinder--?"
"Looks like you've moved on, too--"
Then Sylar is in pain and the world is spinning for Matt and Mohinder too because Maya is breathing heavily, wheezing, crying hysterical dark tears. Her eyes have become almost reptilian, and their eyes are burning too, spitting, bleeding. Mohinder can only think, This is it, we're going to die, we've upset her and now she'll kill us all. Just please let her kill us all. As long as that madman dies and our little girl is safe--
He looks up at Matt and sees the black tears on his face, sees his hand clutching his chest. "I'm sorry," he whispers, "I never got to tell you how I..."
And just before he blacks out completely, he sees Matt steel himself and lean forward--
And then, just like that, it's all gone, the pain and the stinging and the bleeding. It's gone, and the tears on their faces are the color of tears again. Mohinder tries to rise to his feet, feels his leg give, leans on a chair instead. Maya is sitting on the floor with a small, absent smile on her face, her eyes unfocused, humming to herself. Matt is looking at her with pity. "I'm sorry," he says, wiping his red eyes, and looks down at Mohinder. "Where's Molly?"
"He said she was in her room... He drugged her. What did you do?"
Matt sighs heavily. "What I swore up and down I wouldn't do. I sent her to a place where she'll be calm. I think I can still go in and get her out, but... I still wish..." His reverie ends there. "And he's next."
Mohinder stares at Matt. There is pain in that face, yes, but also power. As Matt leans in toward Sylar, Mohinder gets a unique thrill. He's never considered Matt's ability to be one of the most powerful or useful he's come across, but in this moment, he thinks Matt might very well be invincible.
"You broke my new toy!"
Sylar is on his feet and rushing toward Matt, and Mohinder sees with horror that there is a needle jammed into his arm and that the shoulder wound is healing at a remarkable rate. And now there's ice freezing and flame burning Sylar's palm by turns. Matt gives Sylar the purposeful stare he gave Maya, but Sylar only blanks for a moment. "Your Jedi mind tricks don't work on me!" he giggles gleefully. And Matt howls in pain as blood begins to drip from his forehead.
And then bang! bang! bang!
Mohinder somehow has the Company gun in his hands and has fired into Sylar's skull. The first one missed, he blocked the second, but the third is in the middle of his forehead, and Sylar falls backward a dead man.
"And I swore I wouldn't do that again..." The words barely touch air before Mohinder crumples.
Matt runs to him, holds him. Mohinder howls, a desperate cry of exhaustion and relief and sorrow. Matt squeezes his trembling shoulders tight.
"Molly--" Mohinder says breathily. Matt nods and kisses him on the forehead like he used to when Molly had a bad night. It's an expression of trust, an I will be right back and you're not alone kiss.
He goes to the hallway and returns shortly. "She's fine. He had taped her mouth. I took it off. Looked into her mind, but there's nothing. He must have drugged her pretty heavily."
"He's had the serum too recently," Mohinder gasps. "Might regenerate, even from that..."
Matt nods again, grabs his cuffs from around his belt, and shackles the dead man. It won't stop him, but it will slow him down, Mohinder knows as he watches Matt work. How can he be so economical and efficient about all this? He feels like Lois Lane watching Superman. What an odd situation. Superman, a corpse, and a happily humming girl in her own private wonderland.
Matt kneels next to her next. "Don't," says Mohinder. "I'm not sure she won't kill us all when she comes out of it."
"What should we do, then?" Matt asks.
"I'll call the Company." Mohinder fumbles for his cell phone. "They'll have facilities equipped for holding them both." He begins to dial a number. His fingers are shaking from the pain and the trauma.
"Mohinder," Matt says suddenly, "when Sylar said he'd met someone else..."
Ah, here he is now, petty, everyday, weird, fixating Matt. Better late than never. Mohinder flips the phone shut with a loud snap. "I didn't know who he was. It's ancient history. I'm calling now." He opens the phone and begins to dial again.
"When he said you'd moved on, too..."
Snap. "There are two killers in our apartment and I'd like them to not be there. Do you mind, or are you too jealous?" Hopefully that will keep him occupied. The phone opens again. Beep, beep, beep...
"Yeah, I am!" He sounds petulant.
This time there's a moment before the snap. Mohinder scowls at him purposefully. "Well, don't be, because I've been in love with you ever since the first time I met you, but I need to go to the emergency room because I think my leg is broken and our daughter has been drugged, so please allow me to make this phone call!"
Matt puts his hands up innocently and backs away. But he grins a little despite himself, and when Mohinder says "I understand" and snaps the phone shut a final time, he sprints back across the room and wraps his arms around Mohinder's shoulders and kisses him fiercely.
"Do you have any idea how long I've been trying to get you to say that out loud?" he growls.
"Shut up and get Molly," Mohinder mutters, but he's flushed. "Bob told us to go ahead to the hospital, that it is best if we aren't here when they come to clean up."
Matt nods and goes into the hallway, and it suddenly hits Mohinder just how much he has survived. He's still here after nearly being at the epicenter of a nuclear explosion. He's still here after crossing the country with a murderer who could slice him open with his mind. He's still here after infiltrating a company with a specialty in biological warfare. And he's actually better off than he was before. He's gained a daughter. A family. The love of a good man.
Mohinder looks down at himself. His hands are shaking. His nose is still bruised. His leg is broken. But he thinks, all the same, he might be invincible.
:end:
Author: tiptoe39
Rating: PG-13 for violence.
Summary: Yes, I have gone ahead and written the end of the fall season, just in case I don't like what they do with it. SPOILERS up to 2x10. This fic is muuuuch less romantic than the rest. It's also my first crack at writing Sylar, so EEP dun kill me.
This is the 16th of 30 possible ways Matt and Mohinder could share their first kiss, written for 30_kisses. The prompt/theme was "invincible" (muteki). Previous kisses are here.
The bastard is waiting for him when he gets there. Sitting at his desk. Reading his old newspapers. Even wearing his spare pair of glasses. "Welcome home, Dr. Suresh," he says, spinning around in his chair to smile genially.
"Where is Molly?" Three words. Because two aren't enough to make the point and four are too many. He is not interested in engaging this man in conversation.
Sylar hooks a thumb over his shoulder, points toward the bedroom. "She wasn't so happy to see me, so I gave her a little something to help her sleep. An over-the-counter, nothing fatal. It didn't even say 'keep out of reach of children.' See? I'm a good stepfather."
Mohinder does not like the connotations of that last word. "What do you want?"
He gets up, walks over, puts a hand on Mohinder's shoulder, looks plaintively into his eyes. "Honestly, Doctor? I want myself back. I want to be able to do the things I used to do."
"Like kill people and take their abilities?"
"Among other things." He shrugs as though it's just one in a long list, starts to pace around the room like he still lives here. His familiarity in the surroundings makes Mohinder very uneasy. "Do you have any idea just how frustrating it is to wake up and not be able to do anything you used to do? And just for laughs, you kill a woman and realize you can't take her power? Oh, it just ruined my day. Have you ever had your day ruined, Mohinder? Say, someone gives you a phone call and it just all goes to hell from there?"
His smile was infuriating. "And why would I want to help you?"
"Besides the fact that your little munchkin is probably dreaming about her boogeyman right now? I'm sure she'd be calling out to you if it weren't for that little duct-tape-on-the-mouth problem. Don't worry, she can breathe," he adds at Mohinder's sudden exclamation. "For now, at least. I'm still torn between letting you watch me kill her and killing you both at the same time. Decisions, decisions... Oh, but wait, Mohinder, I'd meant to ask. Who's been staying in my old room?"
Matt.
His last chance. His only hope.
Matt! Mohinder thinks as loud and as hard as he can.
"Well, I suppose it doesn't really matter," Sylar says, and then the worst thing happens, Sylar has put his arms around him and is whispering in his ear. "I know nobody will ever replace me." Mohinder wants to push him back and shout at him that he was never welcome in his life to begin with, that he was an unwanted interloper, and that anything that might have happened between them was annulled the minute he realized he wasn't Zane Taylor after all. Even before he realized he was a psychopathic mass murderer who was responsible for the death of his father and so many others. The first lie was enough. The rest were just details.
But Mohinder stays stock still because now he knows who this man is, and he's dangerous, too dangerous to try to surprise. He just keeps yelling inside his head. MATT! Are you anywhere near? We need you. Molly needs you! Sylar is here...
Murderer fingers on his cheek. "Mohinder, you look so serious. What are you thinking about? Don't tell me..."
What if Matt was already dead and Sylar had learned to read minds? But no, Sylar doesn't have his power... he'd just said so.
Sylar has drawn back and is staring at him critically. "Why, Mohinder! You can help me, can't you? I can see it in your face. You know how I can get my power back." He sits back down on the desk chair, rocking back and forth like a child who's had too much sugar. "I knew you would! Oh, tell me everything."
Matt Parkman, you have got to be on your way home by now, where are you? Mohinder can only think of one thing, and that's to stall until the man with the gun gets here. "I have a serum. It's an infusion of my blood with the blood of a girl named Claire Bennet."
"The invincible cheerleader?" Sylar leans forward. "I remember her. How is she doing, I wonder? Good to know she's still not dead. I'll have to look her up."
Mohinder is suddenly struck by the idea of an invincible Sylar. Not that anyone has managed to kill him so far, but the idea that he would be unkillable is frightening beyond belief. He regrets mentioning Claire.
"I believe she is on the run," Mohinder declares, still shouting in his mind. "There were some happenings and she lost her father, and..."
"You're stalling!" intones Sylar, grinning, almost leering up at him. "Yes, yes, I get it. So where is this serum of yours? It's not in that briefcase, is it?"
"N-no," Mohinder says, although his hand clenches around the case at his side.
"Oh, come on, Mohinder. Give it-- here!" With the last word, Sylar lunges for the case, and he's pushed Mohinder to the floor and they are grappling. Sylar is strong, the sort of strength that comes with being too insane to know you're weak. The floorboards are creaking underneath them, but Mohinder will not let go of the case.
Matt, get in here, shoot me if you must but shoot him...
His thoughts are interrupted by the sudden appearance behind Sylar's shoulders of a young woman with skin tinted bronze and a horrified look in her eyes. "Gabriel, what are you doing?" Her voice is bell-like and heavily accented, and she pronounces Sylar's birth name with an accent on the last syllable. She reaches forward to pull him off Mohinder. "'Who is this man? Is he an..." She struggles for the English word. "Intruder?"
"This is my apartment!" Mohinder barks, pushing with all his might, and between his push and her pull Sylar comes off him and goes toppling backward. Mohinder scrambles to his feet.
"But you are not Doctor Suresh! The man in the book is..."
"My father." Mohinder has finished that sentence so many times in the past several months, he's beginning to think nobody knows him for him anymore. Not that it terribly much matters during a situation like this. He straightens up and kicks Sylar in the jaw, making him curse and roll over. "You'd better get out of here. This man is dangerous."
"I am not leaving," she says. "I need to find this Dr. Suresh. Where is he?"
"Mohinder, meet Maya," says Sylar on the floor with his hand to his jaw. "You two can talk for a minute. I'll just be over here." He still thinks he's a comedian, Mohinder notes with disgust.
"My father is dead," Mohinder says darkly. His eyes dart toward Molly's bedroom. If he can only get her out of here!
"Dead? No..." Her eyes go hollow and blank. "Then there is no hope..."
Her expression tugs at Mohinder's heartstrings. "Hope for what? Why were you looking for my father?"
"I needed him to help me..." She is beginning to cry now, huge translucent tears that splash to the ground. Her mouth is turned down into the look of a grotesque gargoyle. "I need him to make me normal again."
He shouldn't be feeling it, not now, but that quickening of the pulse begins in Mohinder. "You have an ability, then?" She nods. But as her chin dips down her eyes widen slightly, and Mohinder follows them down. Sylar's hand is outstretched, grabbing at his leg. Mohinder raises his foot and brings it down on his wrist, making him scream.
"What are you doing?" Now it's Maya who lunges at him, and Mohinder is fighting off her hands. "He just wanted to see your father, just like me!"
"He killed my father!" thunders Mohinder, and she jumps back, horrified.
She shakes her head. "No es posible... why... why? First Alejandro, and then you... why does nobody understand?"
She begins to hyperventilate and all of a sudden there is a look of panic on Sylar's face. "Maya, calm down," he shouts. "Control it. I know you can." Mohinder stares down at him in disbelief. Panic? Fear? He didn't know Sylar could feel those things. But then he's panicking himself, because it's suddenly hard to breathe, and he feels as though his eyes are bleeding, and it's all he can do to keep his heel on Sylar's wrist.
But Maya coughs, wheezes, and falls still. The air becomes breathable again, and Mohinder thinks he must have imagined the whole thing, because Sylar is grinning and doesn't look the slightest bit panicked. "Good girl. I knew you could," he says, and turns to Mohinder. "Isn't she darling?" he croons. "All that power and she is still such an idealist. It's hard to imagine what someone else would do if, every time they got a little upset, they killed everyone in the room. So I wouldn't go on about me killing your father, because she's very, very fragile right now."
Mohinder stares at him. "Killed people... you mean she...?"
"Please," Maya begs. The tone that he'd thought was like a bell has slowed down and she sounds like a tape running a third too slow. "I don't mean to."
He has to calm her. "I'm sure you don't," he assures her, mind racing. If she kills when she's upset, how can he persuade her to do anything? "Just let me take Molly somewhere else," he begs. "Then I'll do whatever you want." He looks down at Sylar, but he's lunged forward with his other hand and there is a lot of pain and a sick thud and Mohinder realizes he is on the floor and his leg is bent in a direction it's not supposed to bend. And Sylar has the case with the serum in it and is opening it. No, thinks Mohinder desperately. No.
He's scrambling to drain the serum into the syringe and Mohinder can hear a million years of Sylar's laugh in his head, Sylar becoming immortal, invincible. "Wait," he cries desperately, "there's a virus, it will kill everyone, it will kill you too, if I can't work on the vaccine, I need it..."
Sylar is spurting the excess air out of the syringe with a bright spray of red liquid; when did he become an expert on needles? "This is how much I care," he grins, pressing the needle to his arm.
But then Mohinder's ears are blown into deafness by gunshots and there is a scream, and Sylar is on the floor with blood leaking from his shoulder and he's clutching his arm, the syringe on the floor unused next to him, and Mohinder looks up and promptly for half a second believes in God again. Because Matt's in the doorway, his gun trained on Sylar, a look of absolute rage on his face. "Give me one reason I shouldn't blow you away," he growls.
"Gabriel, no!" Maya flings herself between Matt's gun and Sylar. Mohinder tries to get up, despite the sick feeling in his leg. He has got to get to Molly. It doesn't work. He falls back to the ground, propping himself up with his hands.
"I won't let you hurt him." The girl is like a feral animal now somehow; she's moaning and crying and roaring all at once.
"Look," Matt says, in full cop mode. "I don't know who you are or why you're here, but that man is not what you think. Just walk out of here, right now, or I can't promise you won't get hurt."
"I am not leaving him. Gabriel!" Sylar is acting as though he has been mortally wounded. He's shuddering and convulsing, a thousand melodramatic expressions of pain and regret crossing his snakelike face.
"He's... right, you know," he gasps to her. "I did... kill his father."
"Gabriel, what are you saying, don't talk, stay still." Her words are tumbling out.
"He had... something I wanted. I killed him to get it."
"You have a lot of death to answer for," Matt says. "The parents of that little girl, for one."
This hits Maya between the eyes. "No!"
Matt's advancing on him, the gun shaking in his hands. "Isaac Mendez..." His eyes go a little red. "Ted--"
"Stop! It's not true!" Maya screams, covering her ears.
"It's all true." Sylar's fingers closing around the syringe as he speaks. "And one more you don't know about, Maya."
"Don't let him." Pain is turning Mohinder green. He's still struggling to get up. "He'll get all his power back--"
"Do you... remember... our first kiss?" Mohinder is glad Matt doesn't seem to hear him gasp. But Sylar is talking to Maya. "It was... so special... first time I've ever had a woman kiss me... over her brother's corpse...."
Maya becomes very still.
"Sorry, Mohinder," Sylar is saying. "Maybe I should have told you I'd met someone else."
Matt turns. "Mohinder--?"
"Looks like you've moved on, too--"
Then Sylar is in pain and the world is spinning for Matt and Mohinder too because Maya is breathing heavily, wheezing, crying hysterical dark tears. Her eyes have become almost reptilian, and their eyes are burning too, spitting, bleeding. Mohinder can only think, This is it, we're going to die, we've upset her and now she'll kill us all. Just please let her kill us all. As long as that madman dies and our little girl is safe--
He looks up at Matt and sees the black tears on his face, sees his hand clutching his chest. "I'm sorry," he whispers, "I never got to tell you how I..."
And just before he blacks out completely, he sees Matt steel himself and lean forward--
And then, just like that, it's all gone, the pain and the stinging and the bleeding. It's gone, and the tears on their faces are the color of tears again. Mohinder tries to rise to his feet, feels his leg give, leans on a chair instead. Maya is sitting on the floor with a small, absent smile on her face, her eyes unfocused, humming to herself. Matt is looking at her with pity. "I'm sorry," he says, wiping his red eyes, and looks down at Mohinder. "Where's Molly?"
"He said she was in her room... He drugged her. What did you do?"
Matt sighs heavily. "What I swore up and down I wouldn't do. I sent her to a place where she'll be calm. I think I can still go in and get her out, but... I still wish..." His reverie ends there. "And he's next."
Mohinder stares at Matt. There is pain in that face, yes, but also power. As Matt leans in toward Sylar, Mohinder gets a unique thrill. He's never considered Matt's ability to be one of the most powerful or useful he's come across, but in this moment, he thinks Matt might very well be invincible.
"You broke my new toy!"
Sylar is on his feet and rushing toward Matt, and Mohinder sees with horror that there is a needle jammed into his arm and that the shoulder wound is healing at a remarkable rate. And now there's ice freezing and flame burning Sylar's palm by turns. Matt gives Sylar the purposeful stare he gave Maya, but Sylar only blanks for a moment. "Your Jedi mind tricks don't work on me!" he giggles gleefully. And Matt howls in pain as blood begins to drip from his forehead.
And then bang! bang! bang!
Mohinder somehow has the Company gun in his hands and has fired into Sylar's skull. The first one missed, he blocked the second, but the third is in the middle of his forehead, and Sylar falls backward a dead man.
"And I swore I wouldn't do that again..." The words barely touch air before Mohinder crumples.
Matt runs to him, holds him. Mohinder howls, a desperate cry of exhaustion and relief and sorrow. Matt squeezes his trembling shoulders tight.
"Molly--" Mohinder says breathily. Matt nods and kisses him on the forehead like he used to when Molly had a bad night. It's an expression of trust, an I will be right back and you're not alone kiss.
He goes to the hallway and returns shortly. "She's fine. He had taped her mouth. I took it off. Looked into her mind, but there's nothing. He must have drugged her pretty heavily."
"He's had the serum too recently," Mohinder gasps. "Might regenerate, even from that..."
Matt nods again, grabs his cuffs from around his belt, and shackles the dead man. It won't stop him, but it will slow him down, Mohinder knows as he watches Matt work. How can he be so economical and efficient about all this? He feels like Lois Lane watching Superman. What an odd situation. Superman, a corpse, and a happily humming girl in her own private wonderland.
Matt kneels next to her next. "Don't," says Mohinder. "I'm not sure she won't kill us all when she comes out of it."
"What should we do, then?" Matt asks.
"I'll call the Company." Mohinder fumbles for his cell phone. "They'll have facilities equipped for holding them both." He begins to dial a number. His fingers are shaking from the pain and the trauma.
"Mohinder," Matt says suddenly, "when Sylar said he'd met someone else..."
Ah, here he is now, petty, everyday, weird, fixating Matt. Better late than never. Mohinder flips the phone shut with a loud snap. "I didn't know who he was. It's ancient history. I'm calling now." He opens the phone and begins to dial again.
"When he said you'd moved on, too..."
Snap. "There are two killers in our apartment and I'd like them to not be there. Do you mind, or are you too jealous?" Hopefully that will keep him occupied. The phone opens again. Beep, beep, beep...
"Yeah, I am!" He sounds petulant.
This time there's a moment before the snap. Mohinder scowls at him purposefully. "Well, don't be, because I've been in love with you ever since the first time I met you, but I need to go to the emergency room because I think my leg is broken and our daughter has been drugged, so please allow me to make this phone call!"
Matt puts his hands up innocently and backs away. But he grins a little despite himself, and when Mohinder says "I understand" and snaps the phone shut a final time, he sprints back across the room and wraps his arms around Mohinder's shoulders and kisses him fiercely.
"Do you have any idea how long I've been trying to get you to say that out loud?" he growls.
"Shut up and get Molly," Mohinder mutters, but he's flushed. "Bob told us to go ahead to the hospital, that it is best if we aren't here when they come to clean up."
Matt nods and goes into the hallway, and it suddenly hits Mohinder just how much he has survived. He's still here after nearly being at the epicenter of a nuclear explosion. He's still here after crossing the country with a murderer who could slice him open with his mind. He's still here after infiltrating a company with a specialty in biological warfare. And he's actually better off than he was before. He's gained a daughter. A family. The love of a good man.
Mohinder looks down at himself. His hands are shaking. His nose is still bruised. His leg is broken. But he thinks, all the same, he might be invincible.
:end: