The sun's just risen and the light is coming through the curtains in small slivers; the room is mostly dark and the strips of sunlight on the opposing wall are annoyingly bright, but Mohinder doesn't seem to notice any of it.
He'd been awake for a couple of hours now, lying on the wrong side of his bed, feeling empty.
It was never going to work, no, not really.
Mohinder keeps telling himself that he'd made the right decision; it was the right thing to do.
I made the right choice, I made the right choice, I made the right choice…
The mantra isn't helping; time is so slow it hurts – he doesn't want the world to stop, not now, not now, because he simply cannot be lost in a timeless dimension all alone. The clock's ticking – no, the clock's mocking him – hurry up, hurry up, hurry up, you stupid thing.
Stop looking at me with that face, hurry up with your annoying ticking, it's driving me mad, why do I even have a clock in my room, it just reminds me of him, better throw that out, I don't need it.
Wanting to get through life as fast as possible isn't a solution; the fact that he's even thinking about it makes him want to laugh – he does. Fingers gripping the blanket, he tears his gaze away from the clock – nothing special about that clock you have, but it's in perfect condition, I can hear the gears, it's working fine - and stares at the bare side of the bed, laughing dryly, bitterly, hoarsely, only stopping abruptly when the corner of his lip is wet and the tip of his tongue tastes salt. Blinking in surprise (or was it a reflex, he didn't know, couldn't tell), his warm cheeks felt slightly cooled, a little sticky, as tears drips off his chin and onto his hands.
Fingers relaxing, the blanket left alone, he gets out of bed, shaking his head.
I did the right thing, damn, I need to remember that I did the right thing, conscience, shut up, because you don't exist and you're just a figment of my overactive imagination, and I did the right thing, so I shouldn't even be crying, god, I'm going nuts.
He walks across the room with a little difficulty – his head's spinning and he hadn't walked for the past 24 hours; he'd just been sleeping and waking up and sleeping and wishing so hard that he would just die in his sleep because he knows that he could never kill himself no matter how much he wanted to - perhaps I should just have my skull sliced open, oh stop rambling to yourself because your time isn't up, you know that.
Picking up a dusty snow globe from his bookshelf, Mohinder jumped a little, as it'd been holding up the weight of a couple of old books and they'd just fallen with a loud SLAM onto the shelf.
-
Mohinder watched as Sylar picks up a snow globe and shakes it, his face brightening a little as the little flakes swirl around the glass ball.
It was cute, that little smile of his. The corners of his eyes were crinkling, and the corner of his lips were upturned, oh – if only he could –
Sylar turned away, hands reaching into his pocket for his wallet.
They left the New York souvenir shop, Sylar with his new snow globe in a brown bag – Mohinder just couldn't keep his eyes off Sylar, especially after seeing that sweet smile.
-
He gave it a little shake, fingers running over the surface of the almost-forgotten snow globe, wiping away the dust.
Back then, he wasn't even Sylar. He was just a guy who had a thing for rap and snow globes and could melt metal things and went by the name of Zane Taylor. He had an adorable smile that melted his heart – great, now he'd just come up with something cheesy, that damned liar really did have a hold over him, didn't he?
But he'd fallen hard – hard enough to still want to kiss the lips of a murderer.
Honestly, he was better off without him.
Mohinder just wasn't sure who was better off without whom.
-
Dust-stained fingers thrust under running water, Mohinder looked into the mirror absent-mindedly, seeing his own face for the first time in days.
I'm doing the right thing, I don't need him, bloody hell, and of course I don't need him. Never have, never will.
How long has it been since he'd last shaved?
-
The snow globe lay in his wastepaper basket; the crushed list being the only thing that cushioned its fall.