if someone betrays me, i won't be a victim (rp for witnessof_fate

[heroslayer]

He couldn't quite say what had caused the shift this time, his awareness of what Nathan did becoming less and less absolute as the lines between them blurred, but he could say that it had been both fast and sudden. One minute, Nathan had been on hold with Yagamoto Industries, trying to get in touch with Hiro as Mohinder had suggested, and the next, he was on the floor, the shift of skin and bone already slowing by the time his face connected with the carpet. He'd noted dimly that the change had to be some kind of record -- faster even than when he was in control of whose face he was wearing at any given moment -- and then the thought was gone as he tried to catch his breath.

He'd barely managed to get a handle on himself and the twitchiness that came in the wake of awareness when a voice, distant but still familiar, started yammering from -- somewhere.

Pushing himself up out of the carpet, careful to stifle a groan, his eyes fell to the ground as he searched for the source of the disturbance. It didn't take too long before he noted Nathan's cell phone, slightly worse for the wear from where he'd crumpled on top of it. It took even less time to connect things enough that he could place who, exactly, was shouting at him from the other end of the line and why.

Rage as sharp as the change back had been rose in his chest, choking the breath he'd just gotten back out of him again, and he reached out, fingers curling around the phone viciously. For a brief instant, he considered telling Nakamura that he was back -- hell, maybe he'd go for the whole truth just to put some kind of black mark on Bennet and Parkman's records -- and then he thought better of it. Instead, he simply tightened his grip on the phone, allowing himself a brief moment of satisfaction as it came apart in pieces in his hand.

Uncurling his fingers, he let the remains of the device clatter to the floor unceremoniously, and got to his feet, moving towards the door immediately. He needed to find Mohinder. Someone needed to suffer both for letting Nathan somehow manifest his abilities and for talking the politician into trying to make himself into an weapon of justice. Someone needed to pay for using him again, just as the Petrellis had, and leaving him with no voice to argue the choice. And considering Mohinder had been responsible for at least two of those slights -- a fact which he was keenly aware of now, when he hadn't quite been when he'd first come to -- it was only fair.

That in mind, he let himself into the garden where he could vaguely recall Mohinder telling Nathan he'd be when he got off the phone, and sunk into the shadows along its edges, not wanting to be seen before he could make the other man out in the dying daylight.

Comments

[capableof-both.livejournal.com]

Mohinder let himself be dragged. His mind was racing, trying to see a way out of this. He didn't want to die. Maybe he deserved it, maybe it was only fair, but he didn't want to die. But he'd promised not to run. He didn't know if she'd be safe after, anyway, but he hoped, prayed, that she would be.

But he didn't want to die.

The sight of the alley made his stomach twist in fear and he didn't think he could take that step, freezing at the mouth of it. He'd promised not to run, but he couldn't move inside either like a cattle to the slaughter.

"I can't..."

[heroslayer]

Casting a glance over his shoulder, he couldn't help but roll his eyes. He'd half-expected this, of course, self-preservation a powerful thing -- enough to win out in spite of Mohinder's apparent death wish -- but that didn't make him any happier. Nor did it stop him from digging his nails into his palm, invisible grip tightening in the other man's shirt or from making a gesture that seemed to suggest that he was throwing a baseball, pitching Suresh over his shoulder and into the alley without mercy.

[capableof-both.livejournal.com]

Mohinder felt himself fly forward against all the resistance he'd put up, none of his strength helping him now as he fell to his knees, palms scraping across the gravel as he tried to catch himself and failed. He looked up, judging the distance, fight or flight kicking in, but flight wasn't an option, and even fight wasn't much of an option.

He didn't know what would push Sylar into going after Molly, and so the only thing he could think to do would be to talk his way out of this somehow. Rolling a bit until he was sitting, he watched the shadow in the alleyway that somehow managed to encompass love and hate and fear and faith all in one, and didn't know how anyone could carry so much conflict about another inside them.

"So this is it, then? I made a mistake, trying to find a way to keep this all together and you hidden from them, and it's the last one I'll make? Then what? You haven't got control back, Sylar. Nathan's too strong...what are you going to do when he goes home, freaked out about what's happened to me, with no one to explain to him, and goes straight to Angela and Bennet?"

[heroslayer]

"You don't listen," Sylar snapped, fanning his fingers out to shove Mohinder back into the wall behind him with enough force to hopefully break something. "I lose either way, Suresh. Bennet or my own brain deciding I'm the wrong half of this -- this hell. It doesn't matter. At least if I kill you, it's because I decided to. Rather than having you betray who and what I am again and again, behind my back."

Perhaps he'd let too much slip in admitting to Mohinder that he was starting to feel like his body and mind were trying to get rid of him rather than the other way around, but at this point, he didn't care. It didn't matter how blurred the lines were or what fleeting hope he may have given him. Suresh would be dead in a few minutes, Sylar not staying this hand this time. He wouldn't get the chance to try anything stupid, whatever that entailed.

"This is my choice. Not yours. Not Nathan's. Not Angela's. This is how I want to go down. Swinging rather than just fading away."

[capableof-both.livejournal.com]

Mohinder cried out a bit at the force with which he hit the wall, feeling a sharp pain in his back and side as he hit, and it was suddenly hard to breathe again. He wondered if he'd broken his back, but then reasoned if he had it wouldn't hurt this fucking much. Rib then, maybe, or scapula. Something. He'd heard a snap, he was sure, and breathing around the pain became necessary, even as he tried to figure out how to reason his way around it.

"So you'd rather kill me for trying to find a way to save you than work with me to find a way you can live with?" he asked, wheezing a bit, curling over in pain. "You've given up? Just going to go out in a flash of tantrum, causing as much pain as you can, and call it your choice rather than doing whatever it takes to survive? I never figured you for a quitter."

[heroslayer]

He made another gesture, this time intentionally snapping another rib in hopes that it would get Mohinder to shut up.

"You haven't tried. You stopped playing the game." That much was fact, far from the rage-fueled accusations of earlier. He'd given Mohinder weeks -- month. He'd threatened the things he cared about, demanding answers, as was part and parcel of how they worked. And what had Mohinder done? Nothing. He'd kept Nathan in the dark. He called him out whenever he felt like changing up who he was fucking. No actual progress had been made. "So excuse me if I don't trust you not to keep sitting on your ass until even you can't call me out again."

[capableof-both.livejournal.com]

Mohinder cried out again, shuddering in pain. It was blinding, turning the world white and then dark in a way he couldn't fathom, couldn't deal with for a moment. Sylar's words were just noise, something in the background of the waves of pain washing through him and he couldn't breathe. At that moment, he just wished he'd kill him to stop the pain.

"I don't know how to reverse it," Mohinder finally said, gasping around the nausea from the pain. "It's not science, what they did...what Matt did...science can't undo it...you have to find somehow...something to hold on to...I was trying...trying to give you that..." Give them both that, but whatever. He could have let Sylar go the time he tried to, not called him out again.

[heroslayer]

He shifted a bit, frowning but not looking away, his posture suggesting that he planned on letting up. Or at least planned on not breaking another rib for that he deemed a wrong answer.

"I wish it could be you," he muttered, frown turning to a scowl. "It should be you. But it's not. Nothing's working. Hell, he wandered back into your father's office again, a few days ago, and I couldn't get out."

That had been before the lines had thinned, of course, but still. That alone terrified him, since Chandra was as much a part of him as Mohinder was if not more so. Chandra had shaped him into the living weapon he was and to be denied that trigger? He shook his head a bit, even if he never put words to that fear.

[capableof-both.livejournal.com]

"But you're here now," Mohinder pointed out, still shaking a bit and not breathing right from the broken ribs. He was fighting through the pain to try and be clear--at least he had some practice at it.

"You're here now...you haven't lost, but you have to want to hold on. A few weeks ago...you were ready to give up all together, and you're doing it again--one last hurrah before you give up and let yourself disappear..." He didn't even know what he was trying to do, really, just words through the haze of red the pain had turned into. He coughed, and it hurt even more, a little blood coming up that made him wonder about the damage to his lungs.

"What happens when I'm gone?"

[heroslayer]

He made a sound that could have passed for a laugh, were there any real humor in it. "I'm not letting myself do anything, Suresh. It's just happening. My body seems to think I'm the wrong half of things here, and it's shaking me off like a bad case of fleas. And the only reason I'm here now is because I scratched at the Goddamn door for long enough, like -- like some kind of animal left outside in the cold. Do you have any idea what that's like? I'm tired. And between that and you trying to screw me over? It's too much. I can't keep going like this."

He didn't bother to grace that last question with a response. He didn't know and he didn't think it mattered much when he lost either way.

[capableof-both.livejournal.com]

"I wasn't trying to screw you over," Mohinder protested, heedless of Sylar's interpretation. He'd already said this. "I was trying to protect you..." Another cough hit as he tried to breathe and he curled over in pain, adding bitterly, when he could, "God knows why."

He struggled to catch his breath, shaking with the effort. "But if you're tired and done, then fine. Finish it for both of us. You did manage to retake control. You can do it if you try hard enough, but just...end it, let yourself go, and let me go, too. I probably deserve it for something, if not this." He wasn't sure if he was goading or bluffing or simply not caring anymore, but the world was narrowing in little spots of pain and he was hoping, at least, that he'd pass out and miss whatever came next. At least it wouldn't hurt anymore.

[heroslayer]

"Same reason I trusted you, I guess."

Seems they both had made mistakes, but he didn't put that out there, instead asking, "Would you even let me come back after this, Mohinder? If I let you live?" Not that he wasn't still exhausted, wasn't still tired of being Mohinder's whore, but morbid curiosity compelled him to ask. "Give me a reason, and maybe both of us can walk away from this."

[capableof-both.livejournal.com]

It would be stupid to let him come back after this, but, really--he'd let him come back after he'd tossed him around before (though he'd never injured him so badly), and after he'd threatened Molly, after Mohinder had killed him, at least temporarily and had to fear that, and after learning he'd killed Nathan, and everything was a lie.

What was one more fight, if he got out of it alive?

"Yes," he said, though it was soft enough Sylar might have missed it save for his hearing. "I don't want to lose you..." Why else hadn't he called Angela?

[heroslayer]

"You're not lying." For some reason that hurt. Why couldn't Mohinder just just take the easy way out and release them both from this hell?

Sighing, he shifted, putting his back opposite the wall he'd ground Mohinder into so that he could slide down it. "You might, anyway. Maybe -- I don't know. I'm tired. I just want this to be over, and if I let go -- let you go ... "

He was dimly aware he was back to not making all that much sense, but it was out of exhaustion now rather than anger. He wanted so badly to give up, even if he couldn't destroy him in the process like he wanted to. He was tired of fighting, tired of living in fear of his own demise. Why not just give into it and never have to worry about anything else again? Why not just accept his punishment, no matter how unfair?

[capableof-both.livejournal.com]

Coming up with coherent arguments was getting more and more difficult, but the shift from anger to exhaustion in Sylar's voice seemed to indicate that maybe he wouldn't have to. Maybe, somehow, he'd managed to survive this, even when he'd been prepared to die. Not that the other man mightn't get set off again, easily, Mohinder thought hazily, closing his eyes and trying to draw in a breath, only managing a shallow one, but at least he was getting oxygen in. That seemed to indicate that maybe his lung wasn't completely punctured, at least.

"It's your body...you've a right to it," he murmured, and that seemed right, at least, even if he didn't want to lose what was left of Nathan, either.

[heroslayer]

He closed his eyes, huffing out a heavy sigh, and muttered, "Wish someone had told them that." A pause, and then, "Goodbye, Mohinder."

[capableof-both.livejournal.com]

The goodbye pulled his drifting consciousness back into sharp focus, and he opened his eyes to see him through the gloom of the alley. "Don't..." he started to say, but it hurt on too many levels, physical and emotional, but what if he didn't come back? "Goodbye..." he whispered, even though he didn't want to say it.

[heroslayer]

Resting his elbows against his knees, hoping that would be enough to keep Nathan from taking a swan dive into the ground, he took a deep breath and held it, pinning down one of the other man's memories. It didn't take much effort -- frighteningly little, in fact, when before he'd needed something solid, something he could pull memory from, to get Nathan to return -- and he shuddered. The change took him less than seconds later, the other man filling him out swiftly, painfully, killer gone to politician just as fast as he'd come.

Nathan came to near-immediately, not aware of his surroundings but not unconscious as had been the case time and time again, before. Seems Sylar really was on the losing half of things.

[capableof-both.livejournal.com]

Mohinder watched the change start, then closed his eyes again, too tired and hurting too much to fight it anymore. He was alive, and right now he didn't know if that was a victory or not. He'd have to say something, explain something, and he had no idea anymore what to say. There wasn't much he could say. He was pretty sure he'd hit his head on the wall, knew he had at least one rib broken, probably more. He couldn't move his right arm, and breathing was getting more and more difficult. And he was cold. So very, very cold, starting to shiver, which just hurt like nobody's business, though he tried to hold back the moan.

Maybe they'd both end up gone, after all, just more slowly than Sylar had intended. There was a nice darkness around the edges of his consciousness he wanted desperately to sink into, to get away from the pain, but each breath kept pulling him back.

[heroslayer]

Taking a slow, shuddering breath, Nathan opened his eyes slowly and immediately wished he hadn't.

"Mohinder?" He looked somewhere between horrified and bewildered, scrambling across the alley on his hands and knees over to him. He looked rather undignified -- not that he stopped to think about that. Nor did it quite sink in just yet that he had been the one that had held the proverbial gun to Mohinder's head, his finger on the trigger. "Christ, what -- we need to get you to a hospital."

[capableof-both.livejournal.com]

Nathan's voice. Even though he'd seen him change, it still hit Mohinder as almost a little surreal through the pain. He kept his eyes closed and contemplated what he'd said. A hospital was probably a very good idea. However, that required moving and remembering where the nearest one was, because god knew Nathan didn't have the slightest idea where he was.

"I don't think I can move." Not without help. His arm was useless to push him up and though he didn't think his legs were hurt, he still couldn't breathe right.

[heroslayer]

"I'll carry you," Nathan answered automatically, reaching to put an arm around his waist gingerly. He didn't want to hurt him, but he needed to get him to his feet, and to do that he needed leverage. "We'll get you inside, and I'll call 911."

[capableof-both.livejournal.com]

Mohinder bit back a whimper at the shift he had to make to accommodate Nathan's arm, but he knew he couldn't stay in the alleyway if he was going to survive. He tried to help with his left arm, as most of the damage seemed to be on the right, but every movement of his torso was hell.

"Not 911," he murmured, a little lightheaded. "108. Don't...don't let Molly see me..." Bad enough after they got him cleaned and patched up, but like this...he couldn't imagine how bad he looked.

[heroslayer]

"Yeah." Truthfully, right now Nathan didn't care who saw them; Mohinder needed help, and he'd do whatever he needed to to make sure that happened. "C'mmon."

Carefully, and possessing a strength he wasn't aware he was capable of, he got to his feet, guiding Mohinder up with him. "Just -- just stay awake, okay?"

[capableof-both.livejournal.com]

Mohinder didn't cry out as they stood, but he did have to fight back a wave of nausea at the pain and almost passed out again, clinging to Nathan with the one hand he had. Standing helped him breathe a little better, at least, though he still couldn't take a deep one.

"Right. Staying awake. I don't...things are broken...ribs, at the least...maybe my shoulder...in case I pass out."