A Study of Superhumans

occupymymind @ 2009-01-12T15:13:00

2009-01-12T04:44:27Z

Getting out of the cab, Mohinder looked up at the club with a sense of slight trepidation now that they were here. He didn't feel his age, but he did feel older than the young and mostly buzzing drunk crowd.

He also didn't share Sylar's total confidence that there was no way that they'd be turned away because they were too good looking a pair to be knocked back. But he just looked to the other man, nodded and smiled slightly.

museimagination: 5 times toys got in trouble (naughty or nice)

2009-01-01T02:28:53Z

1. I considered it a toy. It was 1981, and I was too young to appreciate that the microscope was expensive and not a toy. I was playing at being a scientist and was adjusting the focus upwards exactly how you should never do. I broke the slide, and the lens and my father’s trust to let me play in his office.

2. When I was eleven, my cousin broke his birthday present. Knowing his mother would be furious after he was told to be careful, he blamed me. I took the punishment, my cousin got a new present. He came clean about it two days later however.

3. I was eighteen and I had to buy a present for a young cousin back in India. Apparently, there is a world of difference between different types of Barbie. For the life of me, I can’t work out what though, the outfits never last more than ten minutes on the doll and once their hair is dyed bright green and cut short, one Barbie is much like another.

4. She didn’t appreciate that I had been looking at locking leather cuffs and was insulted that I wanted to tie her down. I was never brave enough or silly enough to tell her I didn’t want her tied down.

5. For a definition of trouble and toy... My gun has caused me a world of trouble of many types.

Any Other World [Narrative]

2009-01-01T00:53:38Z

They walked to the cafe hand in hand, Mohinder’s fingers stroking Gabriel’s hand and reassuring him softly that everything would be fine.

At the doorway, they kissed softly and Mohinder stepped inside, fingers stroking his rings as he looked around.

“Mohinder!”

He turned to the call and paused, found himself caught in a time warp.

Jonathan had changed. They both had, they’d grown up, but he still recognised him, tall and thin, rather than lanky now, hair still faded corn yellow. His eyes were still brilliant blue and sharply intelligent when he looked to Mohinder and grinned.

A hand shake became a tight hug. Mohinder could smell cloying cologne that once would’ve seemed nice but now just reminded him of who it wasn’t. He stepped back again and smiled. “You’ve barely changed.”

“You have,” Jonathan said. “You’re more beautiful than I remember.”

“Flatterer.” He pushed Jonathan back to the table and sat down. “Tell me everything. Tell me about your little girl and what you’re doing here.”

Jonathan told Mohinder about his life, that the job in France led to a position with a private firm, and that now he was working for a makeup company in market research and public relations. He had an ex-wife in London, a string of ex girlfriends since then and his little girl wanted to be an Olympic runner.

Mohinder told Jonathan that he had worked in the university, eventually in his father’s seat. That he moved out here to collect his father’s remains and picked up his work, but didn’t go into what it entailed. With prompting he told Jonathan about Molly, that she lived with her foster father now.

And then casually slipped in, “I live with my partner now, Gabriel.”

Jonathan’s eyebrows went up. “Gabriel?”

“Yes. He’s a- he’s a mechanic, specialising in clockwork. He made the rings I’m wearing. He’s very skilled.”

Which led to Jonathan asking Mohinder to tell him about Gabriel. So he did, about how intelligent he was, his smile, the way he looked over his glasses when he was surprised from his work, the fact he could construct blue prints from memory and barely managed to cook toast without starting a fire. They met through his work, nothing more than that, just that Mohinder’s work led him to meeting Gabriel, and they’d been together for a year and just moved in together. They had two cats and a lizard and no, Molly and Gabriel didn’t really meet much, Molly lived interstate.

And eventually, Mohinder’s phone beeped, telling him he had to get going. He let Jonathan get the bill and they headed towards the door.

“Mohinder?”

“Yes, Jonathan?”

“I’m sorry. About what happened. You deserved better. I should have asked.”

Mohinder paused, taking a slow breath. “I did. But thank you.”

“You sound really happy now.”

“I am.” He could say it honestly. “I miss my little girl, but I wouldn’t change what I have. He makes me happy.”

“But if anything ever-”

Mohinder turned and pushed his fingertips to Jonathan’s mouth. He knew what was coming. “He won’t. You don’t need to be protective. And if anything ever happened to him, gods forbid, I would be content to stay alone. He’s my soul mate.”

Jonathan just nodded. Mohinder smiled and hugged him. “It was good to see you again, Jonathan, but I really need to get going. Gabriel will be waiting.”

And they parted ways, Mohinder stepping out onto the street and back to his lover.

Blast from the Past [for eternityticking]

2008-12-26T04:34:31Z

It was Boxing Day. They had enough food that neither of them had to cook or order take out for another three days, they hadn't actually put on real clothes in over twenty four hours and life was, all in all, completely relaxed and lazy.

Which ended when Mohinder's phone rang. He didn't recognise the number listed, so it was with a very cautious glance around that he picked up the phone and softly said, "Hello?"

"Mohinder? Is that you?"

Something dimly rang in Mohinder's mind. he knew this voice. "Who is this?"

"It's Jonathan. Jonathan Price."

Mohinder was stunned silent. "Jon- Jonathan?"

"I'm sorry for just calling, I was coming to New York and I knew you had been lecturing there so I called your old home number and your mother gave me your mobile number. I'm sorry to hear about your father."

Mohinder stood up, picking up a coat and sliding it on over his draw string pants and tee. "It, yes, thank you. It was a shock. I can't believe it's you. It's been... fifteen years?" He stepped into shoes and stepped out onto the balcony to not disturb the dvd watching.

"Yeah. Fifteen years. I heard you earned your doctorate in genetics, like your father."

"Yes. And you? What have you been up to?" He leaned on the balcony railing.

"Married, divorced, have a little girl. She's ten now." He paused. "Actually... I'm in New York. Until the fifteenth of January. I was wondering if you wanted to catch up?"

Mohinder's heart skipped a beat. "Catch, up?"

"I know your English isn't that bad anymore. It's been fifteen years, Mohinder. I was a jerk, and it cost me my boyfriend and my best friend in the same motion. I've grown up, and I've missed you. You were my best friend before anything else. Can we meet for coffee?"

He didn't know what to say. He knew Jonathan, if he said it was just coffee, he meant it. There was no way after fifteen years he was carrying a flame for a boy he had once known, and they had been close. Losing Jonathan had been losing his dearest friend at the same moment.

"Mohinder?"

"Yes."

"Yes?"

"I'm free on the twenty ninth, I think. Where are you staying?"

"East Village."

That was a shock. He was just a short drive away and had no idea. He thought about it. "There's a cafe near you. Café Orlin. I can meet you there at eleven?"

"Okay. Sounds good."

"How- will I recognise you? It's been a long time, Jonathan."

"I'll recognise you. Don't worry about that. I'll see you then. Thanks, Mohinder."

"... you're welcome, Jonathan. Goodbye."

He disconnected the phone and paused for a moment before adding the number to his contacts list and stepping back into the apartment.

occupymymind @ 2008-12-18T16:33:00

2008-12-18T06:05:56Z

Christmas. It was still something... new. Strange. Uncomfortable, in a sense, because it wasn't his traditions and was something he had always avoided by returning to the safety of India when the holiday reared its head.

It was familiar. But being a part of it still felt strange. Even now, sitting on the couch, kitten on the arm of the chair rumbling, lizard perched up behind him, glass of eggnog in his hand and watching the tree with the lights off and candles lit on the coffee table.

Christmas. Well, the eve thereof. Molly's presents had been sent to her, with a card for Matt and a letter for Molly. Another apology for another holiday it wasn't safe for him to share with her.

He took a slow sip.

He had told the other two to work out how they wanted to handle Christmas. Together, one in the evening, one the next day, splitting up the day itself, he expected they'd be able to at least agree on that.

He took another sip, fingers stroking through the kitten's fur.

occupymymind @ 2008-12-02T10:59:00

2008-12-02T00:33:38Z

Mohinder had learned to bypass the entire problem of keeping hands from wandering in the shower by going to shower in the other bathroom still, preferably while his lover was still asleep.

He was dressed and wandering through the house by seven thirty, absently drying his hair while he got breakfast for the animals and then started for himself and whoever chose to join him at the table.

museimagination: Hiding from the Light

2008-11-26T07:15:34Z

Hiding from the light

Crouched at the bottom of the air conditioning shaft, Mohinder shivered in the darkness, tentatively shifting his weight to edge away from the sunlight peeking through the entrance to his hiding spot.

Had he been Sylar, he could have been able to hear what was going on, would have known if he was safe yet or if he had to hide in the darkness longer, waiting for someone to appear to help him out and fearing that it might not be the person he needed.

The tip off had come from the doorman. Queries about them from a tall, broad detective with an LA accent and the habit of tipping his head and looking at you like he could see what you were thinking just by willing it hard enough. Gabriel had panicked, grabbing hold of Mohinder’s slender shoulders and leaving bruising marks as he just stared.

Then Sylar had brushed his hair back, told him to get to the roof and hide and wait for him. He’d come for him.

So he was waiting. Waiting. And hoping, and trying not to look upwards, lest the whites of his eyes give him away to anyone looking down. The only person who should be able to find where he was hiding was the one he wanted to find him.

There had been noise before. Crashing. Thumping. A dull sound that had reminded him of an explosion. He hoped the animals were safe, Sylar had been locking them in the back room when he had run for the stairs to roof. He would never forgive them if they hurt the pets. They were innocents.

A silhouette appeared. He shrank back further, trying to be silent, deathly scared that it wasn’t the right person.

Hands curled around his ribs and lifted. Instinct told him to go limp and just let himself be moved or he could be hurt. He was guided up, wincing against the bright light as hands grabbed him, actual hands, big hands, heavy and familiar but not right.

He swung out, tried to wrench away. “No! Let me go! Don’t touch me!”

“Shh, it’s okay, Mohinder, it’s me, it’s Peter, you don’t have to be scared.”

Not Peter. No, not Peter and Matthew. Because that meant-

“You’re safe now.”

Sylar had lost.

He sank to his knees and sobbed.

No muses mentioned are used with permission or written with any journal in mind. Based on rp with eternityticking but AU thereof.

For eternityticking

2008-11-24T01:36:29Z

Mohinder sat on the couch, shortlisting beds between loading genomes and emailing Mira, trying to convince her to give him access to her database, just for a few hours.

He leaned back, cracking his neck and pushing his glasses up on top of his head to look for Gabriel. "Love... Have you ever thought about putting a mark on me?"

museimagination: Black Dress

2008-11-22T06:37:39Z

By the time that Sylar arrived, it was all already over.

The clean up teams were moving in cautiously on the lab. Bennet stood by the doorway, looking inside with an inscrutable expression on his face. Sylar came up next to him, not wanting to look in and see what he already knew was there.

He lay in a pool of blood, his purple hoodie splattered with dark red blood. There was no visible sign of the mutations that had been wracking him; he looked not shocked or horrified but just vaguely disappointed.

“You were meant to take him alive.”

“He didn’t want to go alive.” Bennet was unapologetic. “He killed the team that arrived before us, they tried to cuff him and he went berserk, broke both their necks.”

“Why did you kill him? I could have taken him alive. You should have waited for me!” He stepped in, past his partner and down the stairs towards the limp form.

He lay sprawled over the painting of Manhattan going nuclear. The irony wasn’t lost on Sylar, another man dead on this painting, his blood coagulating in the deep holes left months ago by paintbrushes. Sylar imagined the last man to die here would have found the entire thing amusing. That Sylar would lose something so precious on this very spot that he claimed another power.

He crouched down, brushing back the hood to let the light fall on the ashen face. There was the first tiny signs of the breakdown on his neck, lesions erupting and something alien glimmering underneath. But his face, that beautiful face was untouched.

“He looks… disappointed.”

“He asked for you.”

He was surprised. Looking to Bennet, the older man just shrugged. “He did?”

“He asked if you were with me. I said no, he looked disappointed.” He didn’t know what showed on his face, but it compelled Bennet to keep explaining, must have revealed his need to hear it. “He said he thought it should always come down to you and him. It was meant to be you.

“Then he picked up the test tube and said it was the virus. Strain omega, he called it. The strain that would target the unevolved. And if I didn’t shoot him, he would open it. I couldn’t take the risk.”

Sylar looked back to the fallen man.

He had wanted Bennet to shoot him. He wanted to die. “Why didn’t he wait for me to arrive?”

“He said he didn’t want Clair and Lyle to lose their father again. That he would slip and kill me and then release it.” Bennet seemed unmoved. Sylar wanted to pop his head open.

“You should have waited for me.”

“You should have been here already. You were too busy playing at happy families.”

Bennet was right. Without much thought, he picked up the body in his arms.

“What are you doing?”

“Taking him back to the Company and calling his mother. She lost her husband. She deserves to know she’s lost her son.”

Bennet nodded and stepped aside, letting him pass by with the body. The teams ignored him, he walked down to the van and glared at the techs until they fled. He lay him down, strapping him into the stretcher, lingering on the painful wounds in his skin.

He sat with him for a while and pretended he was asleep, not dead.

Then he got in the front and drove the van off.

Bennet was right.

He had been busy playing happy families with the Petrellis and because of that, Mohinder had died.

He’d get it right this time.

He glanced back to the transfusion equipment in the back and smiled to himself.

He’d get it right this time.

For Gabriel

2008-11-10T02:13:04Z

When the alarm went off at ten, Mohinder had extricated himself from Sylar and made his way inside to turn it off. He came back to make sure the other man was still asleep, tucking him in and rewarded himself for getting up by going to have a nice, long shower.

The shower did help with the aches (some of them) so he made an early lunch and came outside to eat it, stirring Sylar to eat some before sending him in for a shower and giving Gabriel a bit of time since he himself had had a thorough monopoly on the last twenty four hours.

They had news to share with Gabriel.

museimagination: "You can't kill the boogeyman."

2008-11-06T10:05:36Z

Mohinder waited in the main room, adjusting the collar of the uniform he’d been coerced into getting for Halloween. Molly had declared it the funniest thing ever to have Mohinder dress as a cop for Halloween, with the plan to have Matt as a doctor had work not needed extra men on the ground tonight.

“Are you nearly ready, girls?” He picked up the handcuffs and snapped them onto his belt. They’d make an effective threat for children wandering off on their own.

“Nearly!” Molly had also convinced Mohinder that he should let her have Alicia over to help each other get ready. Alicia, from the next apartment building, was a year older than Molly but didn’t seem to mind the younger company.

He had seen The bags being ushered into the room and then he’d been locked out and told to stay out until they were ready. Which, from the amount of giggling, had to be soon.

“Girls!”

“We’re done!”

Alicia burst out first, dressed as a witch with hook nose, green skin and stick on warts.

Mohinder barely saw her.

Molly was clearly going as a zombie. But her old, ripped, black tee and dark blue jeans that he was sure he had told her to throw out a month ago went unnoticed.

Her eyes were black rimmed, skin pale. And blood ran down her forehead, a long line across it.

“Mohinder?” She ran over, pausing when he didn’t bend to scoop her into his arms. “It’s the scariest thing I can think of.” She gave him a concerned look. “You’re all pale, Mohinder. Did I scare you?”

He nodded mutely and scooped her up into his arms. “Yes, sweetheart. You scared me.”

Word count: 300
Binding on no muses named.

museimagination: "Mother is God in the eyes of a child." - Silent Hill

2008-11-05T02:51:24Z

I would never tell Gabriel I had come here, when the snows were falling and the stones stood like ancient monuments among winding paths swept clean by the feet that walked them.

She stood among the rows, afforded nothing but what her estate could buy her, remembrance from her church and a stone that would last beyond the memories of people around her. I had brought no flower with me, it seemed unfitting to bring a decapitated plant to the mother of a man who made decapitation his signature.

I crouched down and swept the snow away, to have something to speak to if not a face. “We never met.”

I paused, knelt down on the edge of the stone that bordered her plot. “We never met, Missus Gray. My name is Mohinder, I’m the son of the scientist who took your child away.

“I suppose you probably wouldn’t have approved of me. From what I’ve heard of you, scant that it is, I don’t imagine I’m what you would have wanted for him. I’m a quite older man, an atheist raised Hindu, a non-American who dislikes your country’s politics and religious fanaticism that saturates it.

“We fight. We argue, I make him cry, though I never mean to and he makes me want to bang my head against a hard surface. Sometimes, I’m so keenly aware of how much you would have disapproved of me, and I feel guilty for being glad that there was never a chance for a choice to have to be made, because while he loves me, it would have gutted him to have to walk away from you.”

I looked up to the sky, when fresh snow was starting to dance down on the wind.

“You broke him, you hurt him, but you were his mother, and for that, I want to thank you. He wouldn’t be who he is without you, a frenetically involved God in his world, ever demanding but I never doubt completely loving.

“I’ll look after him, Virginia. I love him. Maybe that would have been enough for you to accept us.”

I stood up and brushed off my knees.

I would never return again. I had said my piece and and reply that would come could come from him, not soundless stones.

Word count: 390.

Usual warnings apply.

2008-10-25T07:08:18Z

It had taken an awful lot of thinking and time alone pondering to reach the conclusions that he had.

Mohinder was tired. Mentally, he was exhausted, staying strong and in control for Gabriel and keeping the leach tight on Sylar over the last few days while he had calmed down off the high of what he had done... and the week and a half before that while they prepared.

He set an alarm on his mobile and took it with him to Sylar's room, knocking briefly before walking in. "Sylar?"

museimagination: Murder Ballads, Song of Joy

2008-10-21T09:29:48Z

True to his word, Sylar was gone in the morning when Mohinder got up.

Mohinder spent a few minutes doing normal morning things, like it was any normal day. Except when he fed the animals, he locked them in Gabriel’s room, calming them before shutting them in and leaving them in there.

He didn’t look up the reports, though he couldn’t miss it on the news sites. Body found mutilated on Manhattan, twenty one years old, male - he stopped himself going any further and when the emotions surged up he didn’t stop them.

Anger. Hate. Fear. Revulsion. How dare he be a killer, his beautiful, sweet, intelligent and fierce lover, how dare he kill and butcher and crave it like a junkie needing a fix? How dare he find life so worthless, how dare he be so perfect and so inherently, fundamentally flawed when he was meant to be perfect?

Which was when the memories hit. That first lingering look through a security screen, so much sweet wonder at what he could do, his own excitement and overwhelming happiness at his new companion and their road trip and then-

Dale’s body. Head ripped open, ipod dragged through the blood, brain gone and the contorted scream on her face-

Now, like then, he turned away as though to stop it from being true, but he remembered the stench of death and blood and gore and he was hitting the tiles on his knees, and it was still not what he wanted, needed and he could remember every last detail of her face, of the blood but he still just felt cold and empty, thinking of her, thinking of Zane Taylor, lying in the kitchen dead while he sat and had tea with his killer, of Peter - God, Peter, hitting the floor, eyes glassy and body slack in his arms and the look of shock on his face-

His face hadn’t been shocked. He’d been terrified, agonised, but not surprised. He had clawed to get away and not bee able to free himself from the fingers gripping the back of his head and smashing his head into the glass, the glass that had refused to break under his hands because he hadn’t been there, but it had happened just like that.

Hands pressed to the glass as his neck snapped and his body collapsed like a sack of discarded meat.

He was sick until his stomach was empty and cramping and he was choking on his gasped breaths as he cried, not just cried but screamed with impotent fury and grief, that the man had made a monster of an innocent, that he had died horribly alone, they’d still been fighting, that that monster was the only person he couldn’t imagine living without and he sobbed until he was dry heaving again because it didn’t matter what he’d done and how dreadful he was, how cold and dismissive and distant...

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry I wasn’t her, I’m sorry, I love him, I’m sorry but I love him, I loved you but I love him so much, I’m so sorry, papa.”

He cried until he had no more tears, no more anger that life was so cruel to him as to have him love his father’s killer, his father’s own monster and no more grief for his father, for what he hadn’t stopped and what he had permitted to happen.

He dragged himself back to the locked bedroom, collapsing back in the bed that smelt of his lover and went back to sleep, wrung out and finally feeling, for the first time, that he could live with it, not despite it.

Hunting as a bonding activity.

2008-10-16T03:25:30Z

Mohinder didn’t have superpowers. He couldn’t walk through walls, or move things with his mind, or teleport through time and space.

Mohinder was, however, highly intelligent, well educated and an obsessive man when he set his mind to a task, like he was at the moment.

He had called two newspapers, pretending to be an academic researching rape statistics. He called the police under the same pretense, all from a phone that he bought just for the purpose, one he took the sim out afterwards, casually dropping it into a barrel he knew would be alight that night.

He went to each of the crime scenes that he could, snapping a few photographs in the parks before moving on. Then he went home and told the boys he needed some time to think, they could have the other half of the house for the night.

With a whiteboard marker, he took over the massive glass windows and sliding doors that dominated the living room. Notes, mind maps, random connections that were probably nothing, but he took whatever his brain saw fit to point out to him and made a note of it in case, just in case, it was important later.

He was someone who was a loner by habit, a wallflower. He was shy, and resented it. He decided the world was laughing at him. Maybe it had. He would look alone and awkward. His power reflected a man who was unnoticed and too cowardly to directly confront anything.

All of the girls were from different schools, but not too far apart. They were popular and fashionable. Rape was never about sex, it was power.

“I can give you some details. Enough that you might be able to paint the exact spot where this will happen. I can tell you he’ll have to attack in the next five days, and she’ll probably be from the North East. He’s already watching her.”

For Sylar

2008-10-06T07:34:41Z

The headline sickened him. Manhattan Rapist Strikes Again.

He browsed the article, train wreck syndrome, he had to know the details. Another girl, just sixteen, snatched walking home from school. Hit shocked him much detail American papers would go in to, a drama craving society demanding every detail of horror to satisfy their voyeuristic needs.

He didn't what made him angrier, the violation and violence inflicted on the poor girl or the way the media seized on it to whip public hysteria and interest.

"It's sickening," he commented to his room mate. "This is the fifth girl."

[Locked to Gabriel]

2008-10-02T01:16:48Z

Gabriel?

I have a question for you. Do you mind?

Adult, violence, sex, all the usual

2008-09-21T00:52:03Z

Mohinder sat up in bed.

Sylar slumbered on peacefully, worn out from the things Mohinder had insisted needing doing around the apartment that he hadn't been able to do. It had been a double edged sword, he did want it all done, but he really just wanted to wear his lover out so he would sleep peacefully, but not like the dead.

He slipped from bed and wandered back to his own room, sorting through items and plucking out choices ones before returning to bed again. A few moments were spent settling Sylar back to sleep, humming softly and stroking along his chest until he stopped stirring once again.

Then he slowly pushed his arms up, tying his wrists together with the silk rope and then up and around the headboard, leaving enough slack that he could move his lover around. He put his kit aside, half under a pillow and straddled Sylar's stomach with a small, wicked smile.

"Sylar..." He purred his name, leaning down to whisper it near his ear. "Sylar..."

Click, as the safety was snapped off while the gun was trailed down his face.

Drabble: Unforgivable

2008-09-15T08:53:51Z

I'm trying to get back to what I first made this journal for, the writing, so I'm making an effort to post the things I write even if they're not part of a writing comm.

Unforgivable.

His body lay limp on the floor, dark eyes hooded and dull in death. His lips lay parted, like he had seen so many times in anticipation of a kiss, but now they were just slack.

Most ominously, there was a stark silence to the apartment. A total silence that nothing seemed to break. There was no familiar lub-dub of a heartbeat, the overriding and deep thump of his heart that held the outside world at bay.

But everything was silent despite the absence. Too silent.

"Suresh?"

He still didn't move, head laying at a strange angle where he had fallen.

"Mohinder?" He knelt down next to him, gently cradling his head with his hands. It rolled limply in his grip, like he was just asleep, or unconscious from being smacked in the face, but his face was virtually unmarked, just a single tear streaking his cheek from when he had fallen. "Mohinder?"

The silence pressed deeper. He knew he was saying the man's name, but he couldn't hear his own voice speaking it. All he could hear was the fact that there was response, no softly sighed breath, no chuckle or sob or barely voiced whisper of his name.

There was no thump of his heart to set as backdrop to that rich voice.

He pulled his lover into his arms, limbs limply hanging until he carefully tucked them in, cradling the slack face against his shoulder and rocking him gently. He liked that, being possessively held and rocked after he had been hurt.

But he still didn't move. He didn't cling back. He didn't flinch or snuggle. He didn't tuck his head to fit under his chin so the sweet smelling curls tickled his jaw and throat and his breath brushed his skin.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I didn't mean to."

But this time he wasn't forgiven.

RP Narrative [Sylar]

2008-08-27T08:30:04Z

While it may not have been clear to anyone else, it was very clear to Mohinder. Sylar was reaching the end of his rope and it was now a matter of when he was going to snap, not if.

He didn't blame him. He had managed to get this far without giving in, and he had held on admirably well, trying to channel and focus and let himself be distracted from it, but it was in his gaze, in the way he leant over the balcony and watched a person too closely and the way he tuned into Mohinder for a moment and seemed to drift away again.

But Sylar was going to snap soon. And it was just going to be a matter of when and on whom.

Mohinder wasn't going to let that guilt wrack Gabriel or the manhunt for Sylar spark up again.

He had spent a long time trying to work out the right way to spark of that possessive, obsessive anger without getting someone killed. Flirting was a death sentence for someone else, anyone shown giving him direct attention that was returned would be killed unless Mohinder talked his lover down. Which negated the entire point of this.

He could have just denied every agreeing he was Sylar's, but that would gut the younger man. He wanted to piss him off without deliberately hurting him.

So when there was a burst water pipe down the road and Sylar wanted to go and watch in person - because he had done it, Mohinder suspected - he agreed and tried not to be obvious about putting food down for the pets in the spare room before they went out.

In truth.... he felt slightly ridiculous about his plan, but he had nothing else to try, and it was to convenient when the girl dropped her doll to duck into the blasting hard spray, rescue the toy and return it to the grateful child.

He was careful not to be overt, not to turn his attention to any of the people who watched for too long. A coy glance to a young mother watching, a slow push of fingers through sodden curls while pretending not to realise how his soaked, white shirt clung to him and the tan pants draped while wet, a shy smile and chuckle at someone riding past on a bike who whistled.

He made a show... without seeming like he was trying to make a show. He was generally modest, but he knew how people reacted to him and he knew what would drive Sylar crazy and thus drive him mad if others got to share.

He didn't touch Sylar when he said he was going home to dry off, flashing a last smile to the child drying off her doll and stepping off back towards the apartment.

Sylar would follow, hungry and fuming.

WM 47.5.D

2008-08-03T14:15:54Z

Prompt picture.

“Papa! Papa!”

She looked up to see her son standing down on the shoreline, the water lapping at his feet, splashing across his clothes to darken them. “Papa!”

“Would it kill you to respond, love?”

“I don’t have time. My research-”

“Will be there in ten minutes. You’re missing his childhood, he’ll be at school before you know it and your research will be able to have all your time.”

“Papa! Look! Papa!”

Her husband pulled his glasses off his nose and looked out the window down to the beach. “It’s just shells again. It’s always shells.”

“He likes shells. He just wants some attention. He’s still a baby.”

“So go down and play with him. I can’t concentrate with him yelling.”

“PAPA!”

“For gods’ sake, Chandra, he doesn’t want me. Listen to him, he wants you. He wants some time with his father. It’s not about the shells. It’s about you.”

Chandra looked between his son and his wife.

“Ten minutes, love. He only wants some time. He loves you.”

She smiled as he stood up and took off his sandals, and walked out the gate, down to the beach. Her son looked up at him with a brilliant smile, pointing down. “Look, papa, they’re hell-ix-eses.”

“Helixes,” she heard Chandra correct, crouching down next to him. “They are, aren’t they. Just like helixes.”

Writers Muses #45: Condemn

2008-07-19T09:27:15Z

The two cannot compare.

I moved to America to the apartment my father had before me. The walls shifted at night, drafts crept through unseen gaps to chill the air and seep into my bones until I thought I would forget what warm was. My bedroom was within arm's reach of my office, within arm's reach of my bathroom, which stubbornly refused to relinquish hot water in the morning until moment's before I stepped out trembling when it would explode with choked, white, scalding water.

The kitchen ominously rattled with the old oven, pipes and connections sighing and threatening with every movement to finally deliver the promised pain and injury or the tranquil, peaceful blackness that was the electrics of my apartment dying once more as the ancient contraptions battled and lost against the fuses.

Every meal cooked was a precarious balance, a guessing game of odds and prayers offered to pagan, kitchen deities in the form of curses and muttered promises that could never be fulfilled.

At night, I would listen to the scuttling of animals I dared not name in the walls, the ceiling, I suspected in my living room. I tried not to listen, to just curl up and not freeze in my bed while the wildlife enjoyed what comfort it could from my home.

My view was the broken down block I lived in, from the rusty fire escape that tenaciously clung to the side of the building.

My front door had a single aging lock that refused to open when the weather grew too warm and refused to lock when it was too cold.

I came and went at whim, finding comfort in the city, in my work, in my dreams, in anything but the place that was nothing more than a base of operations.

And now.

Now, I live in a penthouse apartment in a city and place I cannot disclose. I look out onto sweeping views from a private balcony. The living room alone could fit most of my old apartment inside of it, the wide glass windows streaming in sunlight to a perfectly climate controlled set of rooms in which I do not tremble with cold despite the blankets of find myself uncomfortably overheated even with cold water.

My bedroom is comfortably open while still intimate. My bed is sturdy and inviting, and my desk fits in the room without having to climb over it in the morning to get out of bed. My door locks for my privacy but I have no fear of being interrupted, no strangers or random visitors disturb the peace.

The kitchen is welcoming, a cook's dream given solid form. The appliances work at first touch and without prayer or threats and the electricity has never threatened to abandon me at the push of the buttons or the flick of a switch. Meals are just a thought of hunger and a combination of quantities, not a delicate juggle of odds and luck.

The bathroom gives me hot water on demand, and I can shave and shower at luxury, heat sinking into muscles that never quite unknot any more and relax the scars that mar my skin, pale, tense lines against my body.

The only animals I share rooms with are those I spend my days with willingly, domesticated and well fed by my hand. No scratches at night startle me from my sleep, the only thing to break my rest is my own mind.

The front door has ten locks, each has a different key. The elevator requires a code or an override from an apartment and the doorman checks every movement to and from the exquisitely beautiful apartments where no neighbour knows another's name.

The two cannot compare.

Word Count: 622

occupymymind @ 2008-07-15T12:00:00

2008-07-15T02:32:53Z

Mohinder was enjoying a day to himself.

Sylar had gone out, leaving just a note that he'd be back. For anyone else, it have provoked worry, but Mohinder was completely relaxed and trusting that Sylar going out was no more dangerous to the evolved populace than himself going out. He trusted the man to behave.

He took the chance to prepare dinner, ready to go in the oven later, feed the pets, get some work done and then completely indulge himself by taking over the master bathroom and running himself a bath, which was where he had been ever since, soaking in hot water and enjoying his book.

If he dozed off for a while, being watched from the counter by two pairs of wide eyes and with the lizard safely clinging to his curls, it didn't matter. Because today, he was just enjoying.

11.1 - 13 reasons you have to get out of bed.

2008-07-06T01:02:45Z

1. The cats are hungry.
2. The phone is ringing.
3. Something in the kitchen just made an exploding noise.
4. A mirror was just smashed.
5. To go to the bathroom.
6. To find painkillers.
7. To save the cats.
8. To save the lizard.
9. To save Gabriel.
10. [locked]Gabriel and Sylar are fighting.
11. [locked]Sylar has decided I'm not getting anymore sleep.
12. I've had more nightmares.
13. It's past midday.

occupymymind @ 2008-07-02T15:30:00

2008-07-02T06:01:19Z

Mohinder tried to do a convincing job for most of the day that he'd forgotten, but realistically probably came off like the reality... he was hiding something.

Something was turning up where Gabriel was sometime around four and hugging him from behind. "Love?"