"Hope is great, what we need is caffeine."
There is a trademark racing to his heart. He can hear it himself, so the man behind him must be hear the accelerated beating like a marching band playing in unison to the thump of Mohinder Suresh's cardiac muscle.
He choses two light green tea cups, and finds the tin of Chai his father left. He takes a long breath to try to relax, masking it with the sound of the pouring of the boiling water.
It's weird, he thinks, how much of a chameleon this Sylar man is. Seemingly kind and compassionate, really a gruesome serial killer. It made him shiver.
He had his suspicions at first meeting, but wrote it off as Zane Taylor being a combination of strange in general and shaken by the onset of his powers. The death of Dale reignited these thoughts, strengthening them, made him realize exactly how little he knew about the man he was traveling with. The article was the last straw of course, and in some sense he'd gone looking for it. He had opened his laptop late at night in some roadside motel somewhere in the center of the country, and found himself looking through Virginia Beach area news.
The murder of Zane Taylor was on the front page of the first newspaper he checked.
He hasn't slept in the days since, partly out of fear, partly out of determination.
It is time to execute the plan.
He makes a mental note of which cup is which before heading back to his desk, to the alleged Sylar.
One look at the finished program on the computer, and then he hands over the drugged tea.
"To new friends." Sylar says, raising the cup slightly.
You sick bastard. Suresh smiles weakly and mimics the movement.
Sylar takes a swig.
A few more seconds. Stay calm.
"This is good." The serial killer says. "What is it?"
"Chai." Suresh replies, the stability in his voice surprising himself. "It's a special blend my father brought over from India."
"So who are we going to call next?" Another sip. Nothing is happening, and Mohinder can feel cold sweat on his back.
He pauses. Wait...there is something. He's swaying, just barely.
"No one. I already have you, Mr. Sylar."
Not a second later, Sylar falls backward, passed out before he hits the floor. The tea cup hits the floor and shatters.
Good timing. Suresh thinks, somewhat victoriously, and then with some regret, Should've used different cups.
He steps over the porcelain shards, grabbing Sylar's feet and dragging him towards the living room.
He's not sure if he's passed the hard part or if that's still ahead.
m m m
He's finishing with the IV when Sylar's eyelids begin to flicker.
He takes an involuntary step back toward his desk, despite the paralytic that he knows will be working.
I should shoot him now, he thinks. But he doesn't, settling for some verbal abuse and a lumbar puncture without any kind of pain killer. The true revenge will have to wait until the test is finished.
"You're a parasite." He says. "You killed my father and fed off his work. And there's only one thing to do with a parasite. Kill it before it kills again."
Sylar is mentally ill. Mohinder doesn't care.
Then comes the inevitable moment, when he must fulfill his duty as a son and kill the man who killed his father. He never gets a chance to feel relief in finally pulling the trigger.
The bullet spins in mid air for a moment, then drops to the ground. He's missed his window, god dammit.
"I wasn't begging for my life."
Another involuntary step back, though this time it's warranted.
"I was offering you yours."
Suresh's mind goes blank. It had been going so well. He was almost there.
And now he is going to die.
There's that tense moment of silence, where they both stare at eachother, as if waiting for the other to move.
As it happened, they move at the same time.
Suresh reaches for the wall, pushing himself off it and toward the door at the exact moment Sylar orders all the furniture to shoot to the ceiling with a flick of his wrist.
Mohinder trips on a chair leg as it ascends, and hits the floor with a heavy thunk. The same chair and the edge of his desk hit him as they come back down again.
The breath leaves his body, and he lies in a pile of splintered wood and broken glass.
There is the crunching of sneakered feet on rubbish as Sylar approaches, not concerned with time in the slightest. His face appearing six feet above Suresh's brings him to his feet, again aiming for the door.
He didn't really expect to make it, but he doesn't give up.
Sylar grabs him around the neck with severe strength, but Suresh punches a hard fist into his right kidney, scrambling out of the loosened grip. Sylar has blocked the door, so he sprints toward the bedroom and fire escape. Sylar doesn't follow, but simply raises a slow hand, pinning Suresh to the ceiling with violent force.
"Game over." Says Sylar, leaving the room. Suresh remains in place, unable to move, but still breathing hard. Blood trickles down his forehead.
He reappears with a chair, and sits down in the other corner of the room. "I'm not going to do you any favors by ending it quickly."
He looks around for a moment, and finding a Scientific American crumpled on the carpet, settles in to let Mohinder Suresh's fear fester.
m m m
He's keeping alert by remembering the satisfaction of plunging a needle into the neck of his father's killer. He's only a little disturbed by the fact that that brings him some kind of solace. If he's going crazy, then he's not any crazier than the serial killer reading a magazine across the room.
Maybe hanging on the ceiling for three hours will drive anyone crazy.
Actually he has no idea how long it's been. It may or may not have been twenty minutes, or an hour, or two, or four.
He has an aching headache. He's finding it hard to think clearly.
There are footsteps in the hallway. He contemplates screaming, but finds that his jaw isn't granted enough freedom to do anything more than whisper. Either way, Sylar would just kill him before the person could even think to find help.
To his disbelief, though, the door opens.
"Suresh?"
He wants to yell at him, whoever he is, to get the hell out, run for his life. Sylar has disappeared, but he's not gone. He's just hiding, waiting for the right moment to strike.
"Suresh? It's Peter Petrelli."
His footsteps echo around the silent apartment, but all Suresh can hear is his own labored breathing.
"Mohinder?"
He can see the top of Peter's head, feel the blood, running down the side of his neck before finally falling toward the ground, or rather, onto Peter's forehead.
Peter looks up.
Mohinder can only manage one word.
"Sylar."
Things go badly after that. Again. The good news is Suresh gets to come down from the ceiling.
Peter turns invisible, a new trick, as Sylar summons broken glass from the ruins of the apartment, sending the shards out in all direction. Only one finds Peter, and he falls to the ground.
Sylar moves toward the door, but Suresh has finally gotten hold of his limbs again and rams the cork board into his back. The board splinters, but Sylar ends up out cold on the ground. Suresh lands near him, immediately crawling toward Petrelli.
He has no pulse, and the back of his head is covered in blood.
No, he thinks. This can't be happening. Not to Peter. He came here for help.
He looks on in horror at the body. I did this.
The address in his wallet is unfamiliar, and not nearby. And he can't exactly ride the subway with a dead body.
He gets to his feet to go flag down a cab, but the simple motion brings tears of pain and exhaustion and grief to his eyes. He finds a wall to steady himself.
He successfully bribes the cab driver, and then runs back upstairs to carefully lift Peter's body from the floor.
This is not something he ever thought he'd be doing.
m m m
The woman at the door tells him to go away. He can't blame her.
"It's my fault. Everything got out of hand..."
"Please, just leave."
He nods once, and then turns toward the door, sparing only one look backwards.
Back in Suresh's apartment, Sylar is gone.