His Father's Son.
A/N: God, I should have published this ages ago...This is set between .07 and the Hard Part, with most of the action in flashbacks, this is pretty much Sylarcentric reflecting on the events of 1x18, with some - and by some I mean a LOT of - Mylar. Beware of le angst.
o
The future, as of late, was complicated. Good thing Sylar had the ability to paint it. He reflected on this as he mixed the palette of paints and strode to the easel, stepping carefully over the corpse of Isaac Mendez, which he had not yet bothered to relocate from its crucifx position on the floor of the loft.
However, there were some things to this power he had yet to understand despite his intuitive aptitude, such as the significance of the man represented in his first painting. Hunched and brooding like a troll, Sylar had no idea who this man was, or what he was meant to represent. With a curling of his fingers, the painting floated up and bobbed to a drying rack. Holding the painting in place with an outstretched hand, Sylar flicked the index finger of his free hand. Two clothespins whizzed through the air and embedded themselves in the upper corners of the canvas. Sylar surveyed this with a smug grin. Satisfied, he turned his back on the painting and stared at the unoccupied easel.
As of now, it was of no use to him. The painter's ability was going to take time to harness. But Sylar would do it. He shot a sudden glare at the needle and injection kit scattered on the floor near where their user's cadaver lay. With a contemptuous snort, he sent the needle skittering under a cabinet. Sylar would master this ability, and he wouldn't need the aid of hindering opiates to achieve this. After all, he was the peak of evolution. A natural progression of the species…
What you're doing is murder.
Sylar gritted his teeth. The events of that morning still grated in the back of his mind, making him furious enough to clench his fists and get a feverish desire to smash something.
He did.
One of the paintings, illustrated by the former resident of the loft, was hurled against a far wall and splintered into a million pieces, creating a satisfying crunch, followed by the sprinkling patter of canvas shrapnel. Sylar didn't care to see what it portrayed. He got the feeling it was irrelevant now.
Another blank canvas floated across the room and gently nestled itself in the grip of the easel. Sylar exhaled and lifted a paintbrush, focusing on keeping his fingers relaxed to avoid splintering the wooden handle. The fury and frustration was not alleviated in the least by the violent outburst. How many times had he had that irritating little professor right where he wanted him, the opportune moment to take him out and steal the list? Then, just as Sylar would hesitate to plot just what the method of execution would be, the phone would ring, the kettle would screech or some other coincidence would intervene, the moment lost.
Mohinder. That was his name. The son of Chandra Suresh, who helped Gabriel Gray flourish and bloom into Sylar. He saw the Brooklyn watchmaker for what he was and what he could become – a monster - and helped nurture the beast, let evolution take its hold and now-
-Sylar was trapped by it.
And then, the blithely bumbling Mohinder washed up on his doorstep – literally, Zane Taylor's - and Sylar had to wonder – could it really be this easy? For the most part, it was. Acquiring a new ability from the revolting and coarse Dale Smithers was practically effortless. The aftermath, however, wasn't.
The road back to New York was miserable. Sylar would cry out in agony at the slightest noise, and Mohinder was absolutely oblivious as to why. He shot 'Zane' odd looks at times, but complied with his friend's requests, buying him aspirin at gas stations and speaking in a pronounced whisper. Sylar smiled ironically, remembering the concern on Mohinder's face, his eyes gleaming with sorrow that he could not help 'Zane' in his strange condition.
Sylar wondered now, was that when Mohinder began to suspect?
Or was it when, back in the professor's apartment, throwing their bags on the floor and sighing in relief as they stretched their legs, that Sylar hovered for a bit too long passing Mohinder hunched over his laptop, names scrolling across the screen too quickly for Sylar to read and for the eidetic memory to capture them.
No, Sylar reasoned, the turmoil of his mind soothed by the rhythmic strokes of the brush, it was the coincidences and circumstantial evidence, the carnage in their wake, Zane's unsettling interest in Mohinder's mission and the circumstances of his father's death that alerted the professor's intuition that his nemesis was closer than he feared.
Nemesis, Sylar almost chuckled, but couldn't; all non-essential bodily functions were shut down, the precognitive trance absorbing every available spark of energy required to complete its task. He was so deep descended into the black wells of unhappy memories that Sylar forgot that he was painting, and fell back into brooding on the past days.
o
Mohinder Suresh was a genetics professor, a field that required determination and knowledge. Thus far, the Indian scientist had yet to display his intelligence to Sylar, and therefore caught the killer off-guard. With a subtle ingenuity Sylar had not yet noted, Mohinder had drugged his companion, hooking him up to an IV of curare, effectively paralyzing his brain. Clever, this young Suresh was. Taking into account that Sylar had killed a woman with enhanced hearing, the geneticist had tortured Sylar with a tuning fork, wanting to hear an admission of his prisoner's identity.
Sylar. How easily one's own name can be turned against oneself.
Ears still ringing, Sylar lashed out with vocal assaults rather than physical ones. The taunting worked well enough, getting Suresh agitated enough to pull out a gun and shout in reply that No, Sylar knew nothing about Chandra, he could not possibly have been more of a son than Mohinder to the very man he killed.
And so Sylar did the one thing that was sure to take the fight out of any potential murderer with misled intentions: He leaned forward, straining against his bonds, and offered himself to the vengeful son, his forehead pressed hard enough against the cold metal of the barrel to leave a temporary indent in his skin. For a moment, Sylar found himself hoping in vain that Mohinder would not be discouraged, praying for this prolonged misery that was life to be alleviated with one bullet to the head.
He was disappointed, but not surprised. Half a minute and one spinal tap later, Sylar was wishing that Mohinder had pulled the trigger after all. Thankfully, he was ignored for an hour while Mohinder used the DNA sample in an effort to complete his list. He took advantage of this and mustered the little mental strength he had left to telekinetically twist the knob on the IV. Biting his cheek to hold back a triumphant shout, Sylar allowed himself a small grin, confident that Mohinder wouldn't notice, absorbed as he was in the flashing figures on his computer screen.
Finally, Mohinder cried something different from the usual muttered curse or strings of genetic jargon, something that caught Sylar's attention. "I can create a new list, find them, save them!"
This was his cue, practically handed to him. "Don't I deserve saving? Aren't I just…a victim, too? I didn't ask for this," he whimpered. The smug bastard sitting across the room, convinced that he was perfectly safe, asked sarcastically just how Sylar wished to be saved. He had no idea that his prisoner was
Sylar stood, aware of the five inches he had on the man shaking where he stood. With a patronizing smile, Sylar flicked his hand casually, the telekinesis taking its effect. Mohinder hurtled back, feet flying skyward and floor-bound, knocking over his chair and sending papers on his desk flying. He came to a stop with a whump! against the wall, the air knocked from his lungs.
The smile still faint on his lips, Sylar approached the man squirming on the wall and gasping for breath. The closer he came, the slower his pace. Tension was a lovely thing in times like this, and Sylar liked to build up as much of it as he could.
With their faces inches apart, he noted many details in Mohinder's visage he hadn't bothered to look for: the slight tuck in his brow above the bony bridge of his nose, the almost pouty curve of his lower lip, the prominent jawbones giving his stubbled face an angular appearance. This sudden intake of these minute yet monumental finds disarmed Sylar, and he found himself longing to use Mohinder in another way, one that had seemed inconceivable when he wasn't intoxicated with the adrenaline and hormones his body instinctively projected into his bloodstream. He could hear Mohinder's labored breath and thunderous heartbeat, matching Sylar's own.
Without thinking about it, for if he stopped to think then surely the opportunity would be lost, Sylar lunged forward and kissed Mohinder.
The initial sensation was taste. Mohinder tasted like spices, like the drugged chai tea, like humid summer air. He tasted, if something so intangible can have a taste, like discovery, strange and almost orgasmic in its implications and uncertainties. At the thought of orgasms, he persevered, his hands pressing Mohinder's shoulders to the wall and straying to the Indian man's jaw, biting his lips in eagerness to prolong this thrill of newfound wonder.
By this point, in the throes of lust, Sylar almost didn't notice that Mohinder, who should have been terrified and on the verge of pissing himself, was hesitantly kissing him back and slowly encircling his arms around Sylar's chest. But once he realized this, Mohinder's tea-stained lips lost their taste.
"You realize that I'm the man who murdered your father, right?" Sylar murmured, his voice thick with saliva and passion. Mohinder closed his eyes and the corners of his lips lifted, in that familiar expression of thoughtfulness that Sylar had come to adore. The professor exhaled into the taller man's mouth and whispered, "I'm trying not to think about it."
"And once we're done here, I'm going to kill you?" Sylar responded, arching his eyebrows mournfully, his fingers digging into Mohinder's narrow shoulders. Of course, then he could not possibly know that the only match for him - Peter Petrelli – would arrive in time to save Mohinder, who would return the favor by reverting to his normal, sensible, non-impulsive self and knocking Sylar unconscious with his world map. Sylar couldn't possibly know this, but neither could the man pinned to the wall in front of him.
Again, Mohinder pondered the threat before he dismissed it. He leaned his head against the wall, baring his luscious neck, and sighed, "Is this an attempt to pull out now before it's too late?" The unintended challenge spurred Sylar on, and he flashed a wicked grin that Mohinder could not see.
"Now why would I want to do that?" he wondered aloud before sinking his lips upon Mohinder's flesh.
o
With a deep breath, as if emerging from the black depths of an ancient lake, Sylar awoke from the trance. He glanced down at his paint-splattered clothes and hands, stained by brown paint. Sylar looked up, bemused by his warped vision and trying to focus on the image depicted in the still-drying paint to no avail. All he could make out was blurs superimposed on blurs, and few recognizable forms. The world seemed shadowy and narrow, as though he was looking through a pane of frosted glass.
Resigned, he stumbled around the loft in search of a suitable sleeping surface. In a back room, there was an unkempt bed, probably host to the man slowly rotting on the floor. It would have to do. Sylar meandered towards it, weaving like a drunk, and collapsed on the bed, asleep before his head hit the pillow.
o
Waking after a night spent in the precognitive trance felt a lot like waking up with a hangover. Sylar winced at the creaking springs in the bed as he rolled off his stomach and sat up slowly, leaning against the headboard. He rubbed at his eyes with his wrists and flexed his fingers, feeling the dried paint crack on his skin.
Brushing himself off and vainly trying to smooth the creases out of his shirt, Sylar stood and walked unsteadily to the easel, his knees still weak from last night's exertions. He rubbed at his eyes again, not sure if he was really seeing the image before his eyes or if he was still floating through a dream.
The prominent color of the painting was black. The background was painted over several times to give the illusion of complete blackness, with a few vague shapes and shadows giving it an ominous, uncertain air. But there was nothing uncertain about the subject of the illustration, and that maybe was what really spooked Sylar. Most of Sylar's paintings had an almost blurred look to them, the outlines and edges not clearly defined, like looking at the world through a thick pane of glass. This, however, more closely resembled the angular finesse of the Mendez paintings, but still could be identified as one of Sylar's works of art.
The dark-haired man had a prominent, strong nose, alluding to an Asian heritage, as did his swarthy skin, dark and gleaming like the healthy pelt of a deer. Unkempt black curls spilled across his forehead, the same tint as the stubble shadowing his strong jaw. Sylar felt a frighteningly intense desire to caress the cheek of the man portrayed, but kept his hand clenched at his side for fearing of smudging the still-wet paint.
And the eyes. Unfathomable and deep, dark as an unholy and starless night, yet glistening like morning dew. Sylar's own eyes widened as he realized the sum of these parts.
Mohinder Suresh. A man Sylar hunted, tried to kill, and maybe loved. On the side of the good and the compassionate, yet haunted by the evanescent promise of revenge.
He was his father's son. And for that, Sylar loved him and hated him all the more.
Fin.