Don't Be Bashful, I Don't Bite

[splice_of_life]

"Don't Be Bashful, I Don't Bite"
Who: Mohinder, Sylar, etc


He's nervous, sitting in the car for almost half an hour..  The man on the phone had been the only one, so far, that would talk to him.  Well, besides Nathan Petrelli's brother, of course.  Not that the boy had anything to really go on.  Zane Taylor might very well be the key that he needs to find so that his research makes sense again.  So that he can carry on with his father's work.

Pulling up his jacket, though it's not really that cold at all in Virginia, Mohinder raps lightly on the door and waits.  He can hear movement in there and it causes him to rock forward on his toes, teeth indenting the inside of his lower lip.

Comments

[heroslayer]

"I can do more than you've ever dreamed possible, Mohinder. And for more than half of them I didn't hurt anyone." What happened to the last universe's version of him doesn't count. He's pretty sure he can't be blamed for murdering himself. "And where I'm from, I didn't have to take anything. You ... "

He trails off, shaking his head, and huffs out another sigh. As much as he has no desire to tell the story again, he's going to have to and he's going to have to start at the beginning, or nothing he says is going to make the least bit of sense. Wonderful.

He drops his hand away from his chest, his skin running riot as it shifts to push Mohinder's ring on its chain out from under it. He lifts it up, once his flesh settles, letting the Indian see what it is, and then curls his fingers around it protectively, lest he try to take it from him as the last Mohinder did. "I'm from a few years into your future. You knew who I was, what I was, and we were together."

[splice-of-life.livejournal.com]

He's seen these films and doesn't quite care for them. And still, and still he's blushing. Luckily, there's no need to worry about it being seen, though his sudden bow of his head is a precursor to the thoughts going through it.

He knew where to touch. How to kiss. How to compliment. All spot all. All perfectly.

A mad man and a murderer is with him in his future.

"Were? What happened to me then?"

[heroslayer]

"There was a fire. You ended up dead." He's explained this twice now, and it's yet to hurt any less. He looks away, fidgeting with the ring, the thing obviously some sort of security blanket for him. "I can do so much, so many amazing things, but I couldn't save you. I couldn't bring you back.

"I tried going back to right before it happened, but I screwed it up. I ended up going back about a year rather than a few hours." And by then and even without his influence, things had already changed. His younger self never showed up to keep Mohinder from using the formula. And so on and so forth.

[splice-of-life.livejournal.com]

"And did... I die again?" No. Mohinder'd rejected Sylar. Not purposefully. But he will never know the whole story. He ends up backing up to the door. "Is this how it goes? You keep coming back--" For him. It's flattering, it is. And twisted at the same time. "What do you want?"

[heroslayer]

"No. It just -- didn't work out. Things were different that I remember when I got there. It's more than just different timelines, it's different realities. String theory or whatever." He shrugs and lets the ring go, and it sinks back under his skin over his heart along with the chain. "I didn't want to antagonize you, so I let you go."

A few years ago, he would have killed him for that, like, he killed Chandra, but not anymore. People really do change.

"And honestly, I don't know. I want you -- us, but I think I screwed that up by telling you the truth. It's why I waited so long." He offers him another thin smile, still not looking at him. "But I didn't want us to sleep together and then tell you and hurt you more. I just ... I don't know."

[splice-of-life.livejournal.com]

"It didn't work out...so you decided to try again?" This honesty thing? It's just not working for Sylar. "And if this does not 'work out' you'll go again?" That's no way to have a relationship, let alone start one!

[heroslayer]

He looks up at him from under his eyebrows, anger creeping into his eyes and onto his face. "I didn't just show up and expect him to be madly in love with me, Suresh. I was there for months. I saved his Goddamn life. I loved him, even when he ended up an even bigger monster than even me, and I never once asked for anything in return. Anything he wanted, I would have given it to him. And the second he got his humanity back, he wanted nothing to do with me. He turned on me."

The plants had shown him that much -- him outing Gabriella to Parkman, getting him to arm himself, the cop wanting to make a stand. Mohinder betrayed him because he couldn't give him the benefit of the doubt and trust him, and barring that one incident when he'd first arrived, he'd done nothing to make the Indian question him. He saved his life, he didn't kill anyone Mohinder didn't ask him to, he even left his best friend's girlfriend with her powers intact. He did nothing wrong and Mohinder --

He takes a deep breath, killing that train of thought abruptly, lest he get any angrier and take it out on this Mohinder, and lets it out a heavy sigh. He deflates as he exhales, looking away again. "He broke my heart, just like your father. Seems like you have a knack for that. And rather than doing anything about it, I let him walk away. He was happier without me, apparently. I didn't have the heart to take that away from him."

[splice-of-life.livejournal.com]

"Shall I fetch you a gold star?" Sarcasm is a mechanism to protect one's self but Mohinder's caught between wanting to laugh and to cry. This conversation is deteriorating rapidly and he can already feel how down hill it's going. Just ten minutes ago, he'd been so happy. The soft kissing and touching had blissed him out. "Listen," he says very carefully. "I'm sorry you've lost someone you love, but... But it's just not possi--"

There is the smell of ozone a moment later and a very touselled looking Peter Petrelli hits the bed and tumbles off.

"P-Peter?"

[heroslayer]

He opens his mouth to cut in, getting to his feet even before Mohinder finishes. Peter landing on the bed gives him pause, however, whatever he was going to say or do -- chances are, he was going to storm out, burned another time by a Mohinder who won't even give him a chance -- evaporating. He moves to Peter's side without thinking, instead, and puts a hand to his arm to help him back up onto the bed.

"Peter?" Has this Peter seen his face yet? He can't remember, but he doesn't think so. He still had that ridiculous hat when they met at Union Wells, after all.

[chimeramimic.livejournal.com]

"Rusty," Peter says as Sylar picks him up off of the floor and frowns at him before pulling his arm back. "You're almost an impossible man to find." It's been sixteen years for Peter since he last saw Sylar, since the man had his own brother kill him, but he knows which one he's dealing with just the same. He's come from a string of emotionally traumatized Mohinders. Their times do not always meet correctly after all. "All this time and I can't stick the landing."

He glances at the door and it opens. His eyes narrow at Mohinder.

"You should leave now."

[heroslayer]

"Go, Suresh," Sylar agrees, glancing over his shoulder at him. This is his Peter, that much is obvious, and he gets the feeling he's not entirely happy with him. Understandable, considering how they parted ways, and while he feels he can explain, he's also pretty sure Peter's going to knock him around a little -- or try to -- before he gets the chance to, and he doesn't want Mohinder to get caught up in the middle. With all their power, there's no way he'd survive.

He turns back to Peter. "How long has it been?"

[chimeramimic.livejournal.com]

Mohinder's not leaving, but Peter doesn't notice, or, if he does, he doesn't much care. "Two months from sixteen years," Peter says, grinning a bit stupidly. "It took me awhile to figure out that you were killing yourself each time. That's one way to make sure you can stay."

[heroslayer]

"It's more than just that," he corrects, frowning. Eliminating the competition is nice, true, and he'd be lying if he said it wasn't his main motivation, but he's also not lying when he says that's not his only reason for murdering himself. "He's -- I'm -- I was dangerous. By killing him, I'm saving lives. Zane Taylor. Dale Smither. Isaac Mendez. They'll live here because I got rid of him. Parkman, Elle, all of them."

He throws another glance back at Mohinder when he finishes, still able to feel his presence, and brushes his mind against his. Mohinder, go. Please.

[chimeramimic.livejournal.com]

Mohinder doesn't really know all of these names. Still, he backs up, but he won't leave, not unless Sylar orders it. But he'll have no choice then. It's different from this small suggestion. He's a bit fixated on Peter popping up out of no where. About how all of this fits together. And why Sylar's back to--

Well, being Zane at the moment.

Peter scratches through his hair and sighs. "You're also sort of ruining a lot of stuff too. Time's there for a reason. You're crashing through it, affecting everything. I've seen some crazy stuff lately!"

[heroslayer]

"Ruining how?" He understands cause and effect better than most. He realizes that by changing one thing, he's changing so many others, all of their lives tied together however loosely, but he's also been trying to compensate for the things he's changed. He made sure the last Mohinder he visited didn't stay sick or powered, after all, because that wasn't the natural order of things. He was planning on going to Kirby Plaza in this reality to make sure Peter didn't destroy New York. He's been trying to be careful. "What did you see?"

[chimeramimic.livejournal.com]

Peter opens his mouth to speak, but there's Mohinder, staring to innocently up at him. Peter shoves him lightly through the door, shuts it and locks it. All with his mind. He's picked up quite the arsenal. "For one, a lot of dead Mohinder Sureshes. Lately, a lot of suicided ones."

[heroslayer]

Sylar stares at him as if he's just been punched in the gut. Why? Why would Mohinder do that? Even with people living who shouldn't or him not being around, that shouldn't be enough to push him to that. If anything, he should be happier, his life and the world around him less ruined by all the terrible things he did or would have done or whatever.

" ... why?"

[chimeramimic.livejournal.com]

Peter shakes his head. "Things working themselves out? Ones you've given up on. I don't know. I've jumped at least a hundred times. Following you. You've got to stop, Sylar. You're trying to find someone that doesn't exist anymore. They look like him, a lot of them come to love you... I know that last one did before he put a bullet in his brain."

He stopped trying to save them some time ago.

[heroslayer]

He sinks down next to him on the bed, his knees threatening to buckle, and shakes his head. "I don't -- he has to be out there somewhere. He has to be. I told him I'd find him again after he got old and died. He has to be somewhere. I need him. I wasn't supposed to lose him."

He doesn't want to keep killing countless alternate versions of the Indian, but he has to find him. The thought of it, of being happy again, is the only thing keeping him from finding a nice stretch of train tracks and laying his head down on it or teleporting himself to the bottom of the ocean along with his previous selves. He's obsessed and broken, madder now than he was when he started killing, albeit in different ways, and he doesn't realize it.

[splice-of-life.livejournal.com]

The door's thin and Mohinder can hear it all. He's never affected anyone before, though he knows it's not really him that Sylar wants, but a version of him that seems impossible to have any more. He doesn't know the whole story though, but it's enough to make him ache.

And Peter aches too, putting a hand to Sylar's shoulder. "For awhile, I kept trying to save Nathan. Or my dad. Or mom. Or even you. You can't always change things."

[heroslayer]

Sylar doesn't pull away from the touch, but he doesn't really respond to it, either. He just sits there, staring at the wall, his grief and longing likely tangible to someone as attuned to it as his brother is. He doesn't cry, though -- he's long since run out of tears. The last Mohinder got them all.

"I need him," he repeats softly. "For the first time in my entire, miserable life, I was happy. I don't know what to do without him. I can't go back to killing. I can't go home. I have ... nothing."

[chimeramimic.livejournal.com]

Peter shakes his head. "Things usually happen when you stop looking for them to," he says, quoting a Starbucks holder or Snapple lid or something equally pathetic. "I can't stop you if you want to do this... I've seen you do it to dozens of them. Maybe you should...try...when they don't know you at all and let it happen organically?"

He's giving bad advice, Peter is, but he feels like he has no choice.

"You know I love you, Gabriel." Well, he can't be sure. Their times cross haphazardly.

[heroslayer]

He doesn't react to the use of his real name, either, but that might be a good sign. He's still not sure he's Gabriel, but he's not Sylar anymore, either. He knows that, he even agreed with the last Mohinder on that point -- the only reason he introduced himself as Sylar here was because he had no other name to use.

"Before Chandra, you mean." Because he didn't really know Mohinder here, either -- not really. He was just a name, the name of his father's murderer, but nothing more, and it's not turning out the way he hoped, still. "He said the same thing last time, you know. That maybe I should go back and stop Gabriel Gray from becoming Sylar. That maybe it'd help somehow."

He's not sure if it will or not, or if he wants to give Mohinder away, even if it's to himself. He needs him. Not Gabriel. Him.

He doesn't point that out, though, he just sits there for a moment, fingers pressed to his chest, before taking a deep breath, and then changes the subject for the time being. Mostly because there's something he's wanted to say to his brother for a long time now, and no matter what happens or what he does, this may be the only chance he has to say it. Time, after all, has a fondness for taking the things he cares about from him.

"I'm sorry, by the way. For what happened back home after ... " After Mohinder died. "It hurt -- I couldn't ... I was just -- just planning on going back a few hours and stopping it from happening. None of that would have mattered. None of it would have ever happened."

[chimeramimic.livejournal.com]

Peter smiles somewhat kindly and shakes his head. "I got over that a few years ago. I know you just-- I know how he meant to you. I wish I could have stopped our brother from killing him."

Mohinder's beyond confused. He leaves the doorway and heads back to his car. He doesn't turn on the ignition.

It's wrong. It's romantic. And he wants it for himself.

[heroslayer]

"I wish you could have, too."

He closes his eyes, jaw working as if to say something further on the matter, and stops when he can still hear Mohinder's heartbeat. He pointedly keeps himself from looking opening his eyes to look out the window to see if the car's still there, even though he knows it is. He doesn't want to be tempted to go to him, even if he already is.

"He's still out there," he says after a moment, his eyes still closed. "I don't want him to ... " To kill himself after all of this if he just leaves to follow Peter's advice. " ... but I don't think I'd survive him turning me away again."