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

[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."

[splice-of-life.livejournal.com]

Mohinder's nervously chewing on his thumb nail, not sure what he's meant to do now.

Peter can't really answer the inner questions for either man, and he knows the price of trying to. Even so: "How long have you been with him this time? He's confused. He still hates you." Ah, telepathy. Gift and curse. "I think...well. I think he'll be all right. The other me is going to need him."

[heroslayer]

"A few weeks. He thought I was Zane Taylor. I told him the truth just before you showed up. We were getting close, and I didn't want to hurt him if he found out who I was after." He shrugs, pawing at his chest again. "You think I should go, then?"

[splice-of-life.livejournal.com]

Peter shakes his head and glances back at Mohinder's car. "If it's your job to find him, it's my job to clean up after you."

And besides, the last time he'd seen Sylar, there were two rings on that necklace. This Sylar's younger than Peter then and it's not for him to try and ruin his destiny other than:

"I think you'll find him again. But I don't think that's him out there in that car.

[heroslayer]

He seems vaguely buoyed by that and he allows him the faintest of smiles. "I guess I should go, then."

The smile fades as quickly as it came -- he feels guilty about leaving this Mohinder, but he needs his. He wonders if he should tell this one he loves him before he goes, that much true regardless of whether he's his or not and then decides against it. Better to not cause any more damage to either of them and it's not as though it'd change anything, anyway. It didn't for the last Mohinder.

"I need to get some things out of my room before I leave." His plants. Always his plants. He gets to his feet slowly, not able to look at Peter or the car outside. "Will I see you again?"

[chimeramimic.livejournal.com]

Peter stands too, pulling Sylar into a hug. "Yeah. A lot more times. We've got forever, don't we?"

[splice-of-life.livejournal.com]

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