Caught:

"I haven't come to hurt you."

Mohinder froze even as his mind raced over the words, checking for deceit, eyes wide and fixed on the oddly still serial killer stood across from him.

"We've been doing this for so long now Mohinder, I… I'm tired. Tired of running, tired of hiding… I'm tired of it, all of it."

The geneticist let his lip curl up over his perfect white teeth, aware of just how startling his sneer was in contrast to his otherwise open and engaging face.

"Well, I'm glad you felt able to drop by with this little update Sylar – now get the hell out of my apartment and my life before I do what I should have done a long time ago and put a bullet in you!"

Sylar dropped his head, seemingly penitent, his hands shoved deep into low settling jeans, his face still masked in the half shadows that had cloaked him since Mohinder had stumbled home at dawn, overworked and stressed from his hours in the lab, never expecting to find the killer sat still and simply waiting for him.

"Mohinder," Sylar spoke, his usual stridently arrogant tones softened by something sounding like regret, or perhaps resignation, "… before I go, and I will once you tell me, I'd like…"

"Go. I think I told you once already but apparently you weren't paying attention so here it is again. GO. Get out of my flat, out of my life whichever is faster but Go."

Sylar's eyes flashed upwards, his teeth showing briefly, grit behind lips tainted blue in the early light. "I meant I'll leave once you tell me after I've said what I've come here to say."

Mohinder found his feet planted firmly, his heels and shoulder blades each nudging the cold wall behind him, snarling as he found his limbs stiffened with Sylar's will to be heard, the killer framing him then, a hand at either side of Mohinder's dark curls, eyes heavy lidded and fathomless black, apparently oblivious to his captives fury as he said simply, softly, "Aren't you tired?"

"Of you? Yes. Absolutely." Mohinder spat, as angry with the taller man for the seeming lack of his usual venom and easily abhorred arrogance, as he was with himself for being trapped by him yet again.

"Tired of it all, Mohinder of… this, the never ending pursuit, each of us peering round corners, into shadows, never resting, never stopping long enough to actually stop and see who's chasing who anymore…?"

Long, inexplicably soft fingertips slid into the soft hinge at Mohinder's jaw, tilting his head up so that he was forced to meet Sylar's pointed and somehow honest gaze.

Mohinder swallowed, the usual trembling that occurred in Sylar's presence setting his teeth chattering ever so slightly against the large palm still almost cradling his jaw.

"What is it that you want me to tell you, Sylar?" He whispered it low, voice heavy with ill suppressed bitterness, "That I'm tired of always worrying you're out there killing someone I've inadvertently led you to? Or worse, that while I'm away attempting to warn people, that you'll terrorise or kill the people I care about? That I'm tired of living a life of trying to stay one step ahead of you… is that what you think I'm tired of?"

The killer's face, usually a carefully constructed mask of suave insanity and simmering homicidal urges, seemed now devoid of anything but the almost tentative fascination gleaming in the all too dark eyes trained on Mohinder's face.

"So… you do see it as a pursuit then? I did too, although it always seemed to me that you were the one always just that step behind me, ready to expose me…" he chuckled, the noise too rich, too warm to come from a mouth that smiled as it killed, "I confess I even left you a few clues a couple of times, but then I think I enjoyed the chase just a little bit too much…" the laughter faded as quickly as it came, the dark eyes softening into something like regret. "And now here we are, Mohinder, with neither of us sure who was ever chasing who and sick of running."

He dipped then, his entire body crowding close to Mohinder's, stilling the breath in his chest as he froze within Sylar's telekinetic confines, trembling all the harder as hot, moist breath poured over his ear as the killer whispered gently "Did you ever wonder what would happen if we ever caught each other, Mohinder?"

Metal, smooth and warm from where it had apparently been concealed on the taller mans body, was pressed tight then, into an abruptly free and open palm as Sylar lifted both his telekinetic hold and Mohinder's arm, stepping back just enough to press the muzzle of the gun into his chest, his hand wrapped about Mohinder's at the trigger.

He cupped the darker man's face in his spare hand, arching his body so that the gun barrel pressed tighter into his chest even as he brushed his mouth against Mohinder's.

"Now's our chance to find out…" Sylar whispered, soft and absurdly sweet against Mohinder's lips, and the doctor sobbed once, deep and low in his throat as he let the killer plunder his mouth, groaning as he in turn kissed and bit back at him.

Mohinder's fingers twisted into the material of Sylar's shirt, hauling him yet closer, shuddering as his clenched knuckles brushed the taller mans bared stomach, and kissing him as deep and hard as he could, he trembled and pulled the trigger twice.

Sylar almost seemed to not register the initial shot, his body simply tensed, but as the second bullet ripped through him he jerked back, only their lips parting as his eyes screwed shut and he gasped, a little blood spraying with his breath onto Mohinder's face as he leant their foreheads together, shuddering and still in place.

"...M…Mohinder…" he whispered and it seemed more of a sigh than a plea and so Mohinder tilted his mouth back, slipping his tongue inside and tasting the blood flecks across Sylar's own tongue and teeth, inhaling him and whimpering softly as he squeezed the trigger two more times.

Sylar jerked, the bullets tearing through his chest and straight out his back, his breath a wet rasp as blood poured up into his mouth, hot copper and desperation flavouring the kiss, the killer now sagging hard against Mohinder's slighter frame, the hand cradling his jaw now falling free to hang limply at their sides.

Mohinder felt the rattle build its way up through Sylar's knees, shaking its way into his shattered chest and up to rasp against the doctor's lips as he freed the last two bullets from their chamber, tightening his grip even as Sylar's body tried to fly back from him, pressing their mouths together harder still.

Sylar shook, now cold from head to toe but for the blood now cascading down his ruined form and face, gravity at last winning out against his will to maintain the kiss and so, with a long exhalation thickened with blood and longing, he fell from Mohinder's hold and crumpled to the floor at his feet.

Mohinder kept his eyes closed, breathing hard.

One hand still held the gun, pointing outwards as though Sylar's heart still stood before it, waiting to be shattered, his other falling limply to his side as his head tried to catch up to the reality of what had just occurred.

Sylar is dead. The thought ran over and over itself in his mind, even as his breath still stuttered in his chest and burned from where'd he'd taken in the dying mans last breath, his blood still colouring Mohinder's lips. Sylar is dead.

He was free. He could rest now - there was nothing more to do. His Fathers death had finally been avenged.

He let his other hand drop to his side, still clenched tight on the trigger and waited for the rush of triumph to flood through.

He waited a moment longer and noted that he was still trembling before opening his eyes, hoping to see the sight he'd craved for many a year.

But instead all he saw was the bloodied and broken shelllying at his feet.

Sylar was dead and the words screamed themselves over and over in his head then something like a laugh that broke, jagged and sharp halfway out, spilt from his throat and he brought both hands up to cover his face and the noise issuing therein as more of the sound poured from him, painful and raw, the gun pressed tight and empty into his cheek as he sobbed and gasped and screwed his eyes tight shut against the sight.

He was alone, and the thought drilled itself into his brain over and over 'til the dreadful cold of it seemed enough to numb the horror of the noise still spilling from him and he wished for just one more bullet and that made him cry yet harder, hiccoughing blood and tears against his palm even as a strange sound seeped through, forcing him to open his eyes once more.

Sylar's body lay on its side and coughed, once and then twice, expelling twisted lumps of flattened, bloody metal out of its mouth as the colour rushed back into its skin, taking a new, fresh breath into itself and even as it jerked and quivered with the effort of knitting itself alive once more, Sylar turned dark eyes up to fix on Mohinder's face.

Mohinder whimpered gently, blinking wet eyes he didn't believe even as a voice inside him screamed to know who had died for this (Peter? Claire? Who? WHO?) and numb fingers let the gun fall from his grip as he held the other out to the man now leaning up on shaking elbows to regard him steadily, expectantly.

"Mohinder?" He said, voice thick with blood and meaning and, almost tenderly, Sylar reached up a now warm hand to clasp Mohinder's and the darker man sobbed once more, hard, seeming to ricochet through him, his knees shaking beneath him as he tumbled down into Sylar's waiting arms.

Burrowing into him, he pressed his lips tight to any part of the killers face and throat he could connect with, hot tears streaking into quickly clotting blood as Sylar crooned and breathed warmly into his ear.

"I've got you, I have you now, Mohinder… its ok, I've got you…"

And, as he twisted to crush his lips hard against the monsters, Mohinder's tears turned to relief and he pressed himself further into his arms, heart free and fluttering against his ribs, content to finally let himself be caught.

Fin.