Title: Illusions and Delusions
Pairing: One sideded Sylar/Mohinder
Rating: PG-13 for mildly suggestive language

--Sylar/Mohinder drabble. I'm actually a Peter/Sylar shipper but I saw the prompt for this and was just too drawn in to ignore it.--

Kids with powers were far more commonplace in this generation and the next few than the ones before it. And 'special' people were beignning to flock towards eachother. There was that pesky carnival for instance and this club. The bouncer at the door could sense 'special' people, and as long as you kept civil indoors the owners didn't care if you were a humanitarian or a mass murderer. Convenient for me really. It's easy to slip into the crowd here and slip into the shadows for a show. Gabriel Gray would never step foot in a place like this.

But Sylar, Sylar likes to come out and play with the world. And in recent weeks I've found the best kind of playmate, one who can be anyone. He's a pretty little thing all on his own, but he's not really my type. He's too sweet looking, too 'blushing virgin'. But his ability makes up for his innocence. Once a week I slip him a twenty and order two drinks.

And for the rest of the night I sit with Mohinder. I don't ask the kid to dance like a stripper, I don't ask for sweet nothings, and I don't let his hands anywhere near my pants.

His illusions are good, the most believeable I've seen. But he's not really Mohinder. Mohinder would twirl his hips like a whore to impress me, he wouldn't drape himself across my shoulders and whisper dirty things in my ear. And Dr. Mohinder Suresh wouldn't get caught dead doing something as inapropriate as giving handjobs in public.

He's smart and compassionate. He's thoughful and just on the side of trusting and naive. This kid isn't like Mohinder at all really, but twenty dollars is a small price to see his beautiful face so close to mine, so casual.

The smell is never quite right, not enough spice breaking through the smoke and beer. And the mannerisms are all wrong. Mohinder wouldn't do ithat/i with his drink, no matter the circumstance. But the eyes are right. Wide, soft doe eyes. This kid must really be innocent under all his bravado.

He finishes his drink faster tonight than usual and I think he wants me to buy him another. But I won't. Mohinder wouldn't drink so much so quickly. He opens his mouth, like a fish, and that wouldn't be attractive on him but as Mohinder he can just pull it off. But in the end he doesn't say anything. I tell him not to, not since the first night. It had come out far too American and it just seemed tragic to waste such a beautiful voice on such frivolous words.

I watch him fidget for a while, then he stops. He must know by know that I don't appreciate that. But then he'll start again, but he's just a kid and once I was just Gabriel Gray so I don't mention it. And by the time I finish my drink he's ready to walk away and dance and drink and spend his twenty on something stupid.

"Why do you ask me to show you that man if you don't do anything with the fantasy?"

"Because someday it'll be real and I don't want their to be any confusion or regret." And it's true. Someday Mohinder will be mine. And when he is we'll have drinks like we use to when I was Zane and he'll smile at me like I'm Gabriel, and when we go to bed he'll surrender himself and scream only for Sylar.