Written for Mabetini in the Sylar Ficathon with the following prompt: NC-17 or R for rating (smutty), Dominant Zane!Sylar, with some Dominant season 2 Sylar.
I hope it didn't get too far away from what she originally envisioned with that prompt.
"Tell me you love me, Mohinder."
Sylar leaned his forehead against the window of the doctor's Brooklyn apartment, watching as children played on the sidewalk down below. It wasn't so long ago that he was one of those ordinary kids, running in the sunlight with his whole future in front of him. He could barely remember that life now.
They'd been at this game for hours now, ever since Mohinder walked through the door of his apartment to find Sylar waiting patiently for the good doctor to return home. Even without his powers, Sylar was stronger and faster. The fight was quick, over before it really began and now Mohinder sat tied to one of the kitchen chairs, battered and bloodied.
His resolve was nevertheless still strong as he wriggled in his bindings. Mohinder was strong enough not to give up in the face of impossible odds; he was much like his father that way. "You're a monster. How could I ever care about you? How could anyone?"
Sylar tightened his hand around the only thing that gave him power these days: a 10mm semi-auto pistol stolen out of the doctor's own desk. It made him feel strong, like the man Mohinder used to love and not the waste he was without his abilities. "Why won't you just give me this one thing? It's all I want. Three little words."
"After what you've done to me? After what you've done to Molly?" Mohinder's voice ached with a father's pain. His daughter's blood still covered Sylar's shirt, her life snuffed out like so many others before. Much of Mohinder's resolve to fight disappeared after finding his daughter dead in the bedroom. "She was my daughter. And you-- you killed her. Are you even human enough to understand how much that hurts?"
He did his best to ignore the pain in his ex-lover's words. The world was not kind to them; the roles they were cast into were not their choice. Villain. Hero. Victim. Who got to decide these things? Every time Sylar tried to take the high road and choose a different path, he found he could only take two steps back to his lost humanity before sliding further down the road to darkness.
There was no redemption for him, but he sought it anyway.
He never wanted this life. He only wanted to be special.
"I am human, Mohinder. And I can love." Sylar rubbed his forehead, trying to make sense of how things went so wrong in his life. He waved his hand that held the gun in it, feeling out of place but needing to speak the truth anyway. "I love you."
"Is this love to you?" Mohinder tugged at his bindings, scrapping the chair against the floor slightly as he busied himself with the process of escaping. "You killed my father. You tortured me when I found out your real identity. You attempted to kill me on too many occasions to count. You killed my daughter and I have no doubt you will have killed me by the end of today. How is that love?"
Sylar placed his hands on the kitchen counter and took a deep breath. He always used to understand how things worked but this was different. He couldn't explain the need to hurt this man and comfort him at the same time. There were too many emotions running around his head, leaving no room for rational thought.
It was Maya's fault he was here in the first place, that he was brought back to the very place where these feelings sprung from. She wanted to get a cure for her unfortunate problem so they came to see the wizard. Sylar never told her that Mohinder was just a sad, little man behind the curtains. He wasn't great and powerful. He couldn't save anyone; he couldn't even save himself.
What was she doing looking for salvation from this man?
Why was he?
"Just tell me you love me and all this will be over." Sylar looked up from the counter and promised. He would have sworn on the life of his mother that Mohinder would be safe if he just said those magic words. She was dead though, so many people were and he couldn't bring any of them back. "Tell me it can be the way it was.. you loved me when you first met me. I know you did."
If there was anyone out there who ever dared to look beyond his facade and find the man beneath, Mohinder was that person. They traveled together, they knew each other intimately and found ways to push each other's buttons to get exactly the right response out of each other. If that wasn't love, Sylar didn't know what it could have been.
"The man I loved doesn't exist." Mohinder spat back and turned his eyes away. It was there though, the faintest hint that he once cared about him. It was enough to work on. Sylar just needed to push a bit deeper and find ways to coerced him until he could say those words with no regrets. "He was a lie."
Sylar jumped from his place in the kitchen, new energy in each step. "But you cared about him.. right? You cared about me? Tell me that there was a time when you wanted me the way I want you now."
Sylar paced the room like a caged animal, sidestepping around Maya's body. Her eyes were so lifeless, cold and empty. They starred up from where her corpse lay, already setting into rigor mortise in a puddle of her own dried blood. Sylar wanted to love her. He wanted to believe that she would find his inner Gabriel and drag him out into the world so he could start again.
Once she found out who he was under all the lies, she quickly grew to hate him. He wasn't her angel, he wasn't a hero or a man to follow. He was only himself, a murderer who betrayed and killed and pulled strings to get what he needed. After she found out the truth, he had to kill her after that just to get away from the disappointed look in her eyes. In the end, they were always disappointed in him. The man he was under all the stories and manipulations was never enough for any of them.
"I could lie to you. It would be easy." Mohinder starred right into Sylar's eyes, without any falseness the need for self-preservation would have brought. "But what would that do? You and I both know those would be empty words. And that's not what you really want to hear, is it?"
There he was again, getting right down to the root of Sylar's desires and motivations. The doctor knew how things worked too. He was good at judging Sylar's character, at least once he got past believing the story about Zane. Once the smoke and mirrors that trick provided them were over, Mohinder never again let his guard down and was never surprised at Sylar's next step.
"What is it you really want?"
Sylar exploded with an anger he rarely showed. "I don't know!"
He didn't. He couldn't explain why he was still here or why he tied Mohinder up instead of killing him outright. It would have been easier that way. He wouldn't be standing here, feeling like the walls were closing in on him and his heart lay bare on the table for the good doctor to examine.
"You killed my daughter and you don't even know why you're here?" Mohinder's laugh broke into a million pieces as what was left of his sanity seemed to cave in on itself. "You don't know who you are do you? You're so lost. You can fix anything but not yourself."
"Shut up!"
"Make me." Mohinder dared him, egging him on so when Sylar fired the gun at the man's kneecap, neither was very surprised. The scream of pain that issued from his mouth as blood spurted from the ruined leg was enough to spread startling pain through Sylar's eardrum.
He fell to his knees, clutching his hands to his ears and waited for the screaming to drown out into hoarse cries. He didn't mean to do that. He never wanted to hurt the man he loved, he just wanted him to shut up and love him. It was all he asked for and all he needed to find his way home again.
Crawling across the floor, Sylar came to a stop in front of Mohinder and placed his head on his lap. "You used to love me. You wanted me to tie you up at night and have my way with you. I remember that and you can't wish those feelings away, Mohinder."
"I never wanted it this way." He grit his teeth against the pain and jumped as Sylar placed his finger into the wound, scrapping against the cut with his finger to make it hurt more. "Zane would have never.. he would have never hurt me."
"How can you say that when you never even knew him?" Sylar asked and then began unzipping his victim's pants. "You kissed him once but that wasn't enough for you, was it? You always wanted more, you wanted me inside of you."
"No. Not like this."
"If we sleep together, would you like me better? Would that be enough for you to love me?" Sylar reached his hand into his pants, causing Mohinder to moan with both disgust and anticipation. "I just want to hear those words and I'll let you go. You can go on with your life and I'll get on with mine."
"I have no life anymore. You've killed everything I cared about, destroyed everything you've ever touched." He glanced towards the bedroom, where his daughter lay dead inside. He wasn't paying attention to Sylar's advances or to the pain of the bullet wound. He would never give Sylar what he needed and there was little that could be done to convince him if these tactics wouldn't work. "What do you want with me? Why are you doing this?"
"I need.." Sylar whispered and lay his head against Mohinder's chest, listening to the heart beating inside. The man didn't know how lucky he was to still have a heart, to feel it working inside of him instead of having some dried up useless thing that brought Sylar more pain than warmth. "I need you to love me. I need someone to.." He let go of a few involuntary tears. "I need someone to care."
He brought his lips to Mohinder's mouth, kissing him the way Zane used to and hoping that when they were done he might feel the same again. He lashed at Mohinder's tongue angrily, sucking him in and using his best tricks on him. When he broke away, he was afraid to ask if anything changed with that one act but his mouth still found the words. "Tell me you do, Mohinder. Offer me the salvation I asked for so many months ago. Please. Tell me you care."
"About you? Why should I? Why should anyone? You've brought nothing but grief to this world and when you are gone no one will mourn you." Mohinder shut up at the gun was pressed up against his forehead in a sad mockery of another day, when Sylar was bound to that same chair. The roles were reversed, the dominant one became the subordinate in more than one way. Sylar didn't appreciate the power play that was going on here and Mohinder could only laugh to himself again. "Shoot me. What do I care?"
"No. You do. Say you do!" Sylar brushed angry tears away, holding the gun in his shaking hand. He was losing control and they both knew it, he was begging now and that was a depth he'd never sunk to before. "Say it or I'll pull the trigger!"
"Go to hell."
Sylar shook and his jaw hurt from holding it to tense. He sucked in a trembling breath through his nose and bent his head. There was no salvation to be found here in this apartment. He walked back to the window, stood in the sun one last time, put the gun to his head and pulled the trigger.
-The End-