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Complications

by Isagel

Characters/Pairings: Mohinder/Sylar
Summary: Another motel, another late night moment on the doorstep.
Rating: NC-17
Category: Character Study, First Times, Plot What Plot, Slash
Disclaimer: Heroes and its characters are the property of NBC Universal Television. This story was written for entertainment purposes only and no money has exchanged hands. No copyright infringement is intended. The original characters, situations, and story are the property of the author(s).
Story Notes: Set somewhere between "Unexpected" and "Parasite".

A watch is an everyday item, commonplace and unremarkable. Something to be glanced at a hundred times a day but never really seen. If you open it up, though, if you split apart the casing and study the movement, the clockwork inside, what you find is one of the most intricate pieces of technology in existence.

There is no such thing as a simple watch.

*


Another motel, another late night moment on the doorstep. There is snow fresh beneath their feet, the color of pulverized bone, and in the sky above, the moon is slowly turning - a bone-white, snow-white gear in the movement of the solar system.

If there is a music of the spheres, a ticking of the universe, he still can't hear it. But he can hear Mohinder's heart, beating.

Steady, strong, and they've already said goodnight but he's lingering. He wants to keep listening. Wants suddenly to learn the rhythm, the shifting paces, what would make this mechanism slow down or speed up. What would stop it dead.

"Zane?" Mohinder says, and he realizes that he's reached out his hand, that he's cupping his companion's neck in his palm. The dark eyes are wide, confused, but the heavier beat he hears is not fear, he's almost certain.

"Mohinder," he says, in the soft, humble voice that is Zane, but he doesn't say any more. Zane can't hear the contraction of Mohinder's heart, the clenching of expectation, of trepidation, but Sylar can.

He steps closer, and bends his head into a kiss.

It surprises him a little that Mohinder doesn't try to move away, but then their lips are touching, and surprise seems irrelevant. Instead, there is softness and warmth, Mohinder's tongue brushing the winter air from his mouth, hot as spilling blood. He doesn't need superhuman hearing to catch the moan Mohinder makes when Sylar's hands tighten in his hair, but following the echo of it as it reverberates down to the bottom of his lungs is dizzying. He wants to hear, feel, know more, and though the object is unusual, the craving is not. He can't remember what it felt like not to need.

He should breathe, though, and when he breaks the kiss, Mohinder steps back. For a second, he thinks he'll have to take this, use his powers to claim it like everything else, and the calculation starts spinning in his head: this moment weighed against his long-term plans. But then Mohinder smiles, breathless, the flash of his teeth a perfect match for the moon.

"Do you want to come in?" he says.

There is a craving in his eyes, too.

*


The main components of a watch are made of metal, but metal is not a dead material. Its qualities change with the climate around it, so that it expands in heat and contracts in cold. When the shape and size of the parts are not constant, however, exact time-keeping becomes an impossibility.

The solution to this problem is the self-regulating balance wheel. This wheel is not cut from one material, but from a bi-metallic strip - two layers of different metals fused together. Due to the difference in heat-sensitivity between the metals, the wheel does not expand outwards when the temperature rises. Instead it bends, and, in apparent defiance of the laws of physics, becomes de facto smaller, compensating for the increased size and elasticity of the balance spring connected to it. This influence of the two metals in the balance wheel upon each other is what keeps the watch ticking steadily through a changing world.

*


There is the click of the door closing, followed by the dull thumps of their bags being dropped to the floor. Then they are standing there, looking at each other.

He knows this moment, from when he was Gabriel Gray - the nervousness, the awkwardness before two people dare take the step towards what they both want. But Sylar is neither nervous nor awkward, and he dares everything. Gently, he takes Mohinder's face in his hands, brushes the pads of his thumbs along the delicate lines of his cheekbones.

Mohinder is brilliant and beautiful, but so very lonely, and this simple human contact is making him ache from the inside out. Sylar can hearithearithearit in the thrumming of his pulse; a breathtaking, desperate sound, not unlike hope.

Oh, and he can feel it, now that he knows what to look for, sense it with the power that was always his own - the loneliness like a broken spring inside this perfect clockwork. A swell of pride rises up in him at the thought, an exhilaration almost like the rush before a kill. Because this is his work, Mohinder so irresistibly out of joint because of what he has done, the people he has ripped away. And now he gets to fix it. Gets to strip apart and reassemble, and together with him, Mohinder will be right.

"Zane," Mohinder says again, and his lips part as if to say more. But words are so unnecessary, now that there will be no more loneliness for either of them.

"Ssh," Sylar breathes across his face, stroking his lips with his thumb. "Just let me."

It's destiny, just like he said.

*


No watch is simple, but some have complications. Such timepieces can tell not only time of day, but date and year. Some will show the phases of the moon, while others calculate the equation of time or chime the hours passed. With each added complication, the intricacy of the movement increases, and, with it, the skill demanded of the watchmaker. If a timepiece is complex enough, it is known as a grande complication.

*


The only light in the room comes from the neon sign in the courtyard outside, but he doesn't need to see, hasn't needed sight to guide him for some time now. What he wants is the slide of skin under his hands, the sound of Mohinder's longing filling his senses.

In the near dark he begins to undress them both, guides them towards the bed. His hands are steady, as ever.

There is a ripple of laughter as Mohinder stumbles backwards onto the mattress, grabbing his collar to pull him down, too. He chases it with his tongue inside Mohinder's mouth, with his hands beneath his open shirt. Feels the rise and fall of chest and stomach, so much life and lust and nearly, nearly...joy. It's been a long time since anyone made a sound like that for him, and the sudden staccato flutter of his own heart is almost painfully loud in his ears.

If he thought God cared, he would offer thanks that Mohinder's name isn't on his father's list. But then again, if there is a higher power present here, it is hardly the God you meet in Sunday school.

Mohinder's hands on his body urge him on, and, no, he doesn't need to think so much. Needs only to act, as he always does.

Gabriel was the one who brooded. Sylar follows his heart.

He coaxes the shirt off Mohinder's shoulders, kissing his way down his neck, across rough stubble towards silken skin. There is the taste of sweat on his tongue, of heat and salt and hunger. Closing his eyes, lapping at the jugular, he can imagine the harsh iron of the blood inside. When he bites down, hard enough to leave marks, Mohinder arcs beneath him and digs his nails into his back. Even with his mouth full of flesh, he can hear himself moaning.

Still too many clothes, and he sits back on his haunches, reaching for the buckle on Mohinder's belt. Mohinder seems reluctant to let go of him, and his hand comes to rest on Sylar's leg, long fingers stroking the inside of his thigh through his khakis. So surprisingly willing, raising his hips with smooth, unconscious grace to let Sylar peel away designer jeans and cotton underwear, giving himself up with eagerness. It would feel like too much, except that he knows it was meant to be. Knows that all this startling beauty has been waiting for him, just like the abilities Mohinder will help him find; another extraordinary thing, there for him to claim.

Ever so lightly, he runs his fingertips up the dark shaft of Mohinder's erection, watching him shiver and bite his lip. Does it again, teasingly, before closing his hand around the hardness, pumping slowly. It fits just right inside his fist.

He is, when he wants to be, a patient man, and he could sit here for hours, watching Mohinder ride the pleasure he gives him, listening to the rushing sounds of his writhing body, learning the responses brought on by each new shift in pressure, each new twist of his hand. But Mohinder wants more.

He takes Sylar's hand in his own, gently loosens the fingers curled around his cock. Then he spreads his legs and guides Sylar down between them, pressing his fingers to his opening.

The offer is unmistakable, but Sylar's eyes still fly to Mohinder's face. He must look surprised, or questioning, because Mohinder's lips quirk, amused and gentle. A moon-white, skull-white flash of teeth in the darkness.

"Yes," he says. "Fuck me."

The words are incongruous, too dirty for that cultured voice, but they make Sylar's body scream with wanting, the need of each separate molecule louder than the clamour of his pulse. He rubs his fingers along the cleft of Mohinder's ass, shudders as they slide over the place where his body yields.

"In my bag," Mohinder says. "There should be something you can use."

The bag starts moving before he remembers he can't use telekinesis, but the room is dark and Mohinder's eyes are half closed. He bends down for a kiss, slow and promising, before he gets up and steps across the floor. No harm done, but he needs to be careful, careful, every second of the day and night.

"Inner pocket," Mohinder says, guiding him as he squats down and feels through the bag. The twist of self-conscious embarrassment in his voice is echoed by a stutter of his heart. The combination makes Sylar's mouth water.

Among old pens, a few crumpled pieces of paper and a magazine in what he assumes is Hindi, he finds a pack of condoms and a bottle of lube. The label on the bottle has started to peel at the edges, as though it's been rolling around in the bag for a long time, but the contents seem more or less unused. Loneliness and hope, he thinks, Mohinder in a way as pathetic as Gabriel Gray used to be, alone with his watches. It's all right, though, for both of them, because that time is ending.

There is nothing pathetic about what they're going to become.

*


The most complex mechanical watch ever created is said to be the Patek Philippe Calibre 89. Available in only four handcrafted copies, it boasts 33 complications, made up of 1,728 parts. It has a leap year indicator, a split second hand and a thermometer, and its two dials display the time of sunset, the time of sunrise and the date of Easter. On its star chart, you can see the celestial bodies shift in the palm of your hand as they do in the sky above your head. It is the mysteries of time and space, compressed inside a gold case no more than 1.6 inches thick. The power of the universe harnessed by the watchmaker in a single piece of flawless machinery.

*


He stands at the foot of the bed, stripping his clothes off, feeling Mohinder's eyes on him as he pulls the Ramones t-shirt over his head, shedding the skin of Zane Taylor. For a moment he wishes, so hard it makes his stomach turn, that he could show himself completely. That he could take this man with everything he is. But Mohinder isn't ready yet, he knows that. And he can wait.

One day, not long from now, Mohinder will understand, and they will share everything.

For now, there is this. Mohinder kneeling up, naked in the shadows, moving towards him. Eyes gleaming, heart determined, mouth smiling with intent. Hands, lips, teeth tracing his chest, patterns of hunger and thirst rising under every touch.

It's as close to enough as anything`s ever been.

When Mohinder pops the button on his fly and slides the zipper down, Sylar fists his hand in his hair, grabs hold of the thick, black curls and yanks his head back. It hurts, he knows it does, but Mohinder's body purrs in his grip, and then there are fingers stroking his bare cock. He could snap Mohinder's neck like this, pull his head back harder until the vertebrae parted with a crack like thunder, but all he does is bend to kiss him. Mohinder lets him, moaning around the tongue thrust into his mouth. His fingers on Sylar's cock never stop moving.

With his free hand, he manages to get his pants down, and then he's pushing Mohinder back onto the bed, the joined curve of their bodies slowly falling through the dark until the bed rises up to meet them. Mohinder's legs part, inviting him.

There is friction like a language of pleasure, on his skin and in his ears, the music of their naked bodies sliding together underscoring everything. His cock rubs against Mohinder's with a sound like silk and yearning, and he knows they are both panting, groaning, but it's the vibrations he hears, the rhythms of hearts and lungs and vocal cords, not the noises leaving their mouths. He has no idea how many times Mohinder has said Zane's name before he feels his hand on his cheek, centering him, before he's looking into those wide eyes, black with arousal.

"Zane," Mohinder says. "Please..."

But Sylar has heard a lot of people beg, and this is nothing like it. There is too much pride in Mohinder, as unconscious as the elegant straightness of his spine, breathing class and privilege and the expectation that asking politely will get you what you want. How much pain would it take to pull that out of him? he wonders. How many broken limbs, how many pieces of flesh peeled slowly from the bone? It's tempting to find out, and he knows it would be beautiful, but there's something so right about that pride.

Anything less would be unworthy.

And so he smiles, and nods in understanding, and feels Mohinder tremble beneath him as he runs his hand up the inside of his thigh. Until his fingers brush the place where they are so clearly wanted, and Mohinder goes perfectly still, a spring wound so tight that there is no more room for movement, only for release. All he wants, in this moment, is to make that spring uncoil.

He pulls back and reaches for the lube on the mattress beside them, coats his fingers with the cool gel and begins to sink them slowly into Mohinder's body, one by one. There is resistance, tightness, but he has a delicate touch and he's known all his life how to be careful with fragile things. Mohinder pushes back around him, moaning as he is stretched wider, stroked deeper. The heat inside him is dizzying, almost like reaching into the depth of an open wound, and Sylar's cock twitches, aching, needing.

He knows the condom will blunt the sensations, and there's something too common about using it, too petty and human for what they are. Still, he's building trust, making this man feel safe around him, and taking precautions in bed will help with that. Soon enough, they will leave caution behind for good.

He can't make himself pull out of Mohinder's body, though, not when every motion of his fingers is causing reactions more breathtaking than he'd thought to imagine. Telekinesis helps him get a condom out of the box one-handed, a few pushes and twists of his mind too small for anyone to notice, and then he's slitting the wrapper open with his teeth. He is so hard that sliding the rubber on is almost painful, but then, finally, he can stop holding himself back, if only for the briefest time. He slips his fingers out, lines himself up, and pushes all the way home in one long, smooth thrust.

The sound Mohinder makes is loud enough to be a scream, but it's not one of horror. When Sylar pins his wrists to the bed and begins to fuck him in earnest, the word his mouth forms, over and over again like a mantra, is 'yes'.

*


All things in this world are subject to the forces of the universe. Everything exists in relation to the objects around it, and even the movement of the most finely crafted watch knows the pull of gravity. If it is kept too long in the same position, the gears and springs inside a watch will shift downwards, and though the displacement is slight, it is enough to make the clockwork tick out of time.

To counter this effect, the tourbillon, or "whirlwind", was invented. By mounting the vital parts of the movement inside this rotating frame, which revolves regularly at a pace of once a minute, it is possible for the truly skilled watchmaker to fool gravity. By spinning the mechanism around, it is kept steady.

The tourbillon is often named as a complication. Strictly speaking, it is not.

*


Based on Mr. Suresh's descriptions, on his own first impressions, he used to think Mohinder weak. A pretty-boy bookworm with little to put against the violent forces of the real world. But there is nothing weak about the creature straining beneath him now. Vulnerable, yes - so easy to break it could make him laugh - but wild, feral, in a way he's only glimpsed before. This is the animal beneath the soft-spoken surface, and holding it down doesn't make it docile. There is no submission here, only struggle, Mohinder arching against him, writhing in his grip, pushing, fighting for closeness, as though it isn't enough that Sylar is moving inside him. As though he needs to feel, more than anything, needs to somehow grasp that they are both alive, that their blood is still pumping in their veins and not spread in a darkening lake on the floor of an oil-stained workshop.

And they are, they are alive, and if Sylar can't tell him why, at least he can mark it on his body, make sure he does feel it, that he will feel it for days to come. He can hear the sound of tissue tearing, of blood seeping out just beneath the skin, and he knows there are bruises forming at Mohinder's wrists, blooming deep inside him where Sylar's cock pounds against the soft walls of his rectum. Survival of the fittest, that's the principle that drives the world, and evolution has singled Sylar out, has given him the ability to rule and conquer. Nothing is going to hurt him, and if Mohinder remains unharmed, it's only because he wants it so. He could paint this fragile body inside and out with patterns of pleasure and pain just to remind himself of that, every scratch mark and love bite another thrilling testimony to what he could have done, but chose not to. One day Mohinder will appreciate the meaning of that to the full.

He can feel, hear, Mohinder's cock, slapping against his belly every time he slams home, smearing them both as it's pressed between them. The liquid essence of Mohinder's body rubbed onto their skin, heat and life and DNA more intimate than blood, and he reaches down to wrap his hand around the swollen shaft, sliding his thumb through the wetness leaking from its tip. When he squeezes, Mohinder's muscles clench around his own cock - cause and effect, wheel and spring, in perfect synchronization. The two of them like separate parts in the same movement, flawlessly tuned.

When at last Mohinder comes, back arching off the bed, cock pulsing in Sylar's grip, it's only a matter of fact that their hearts are beating at the same pace.

It seems to last a long time, the rush of Mohinder's orgasm, and Sylar clings to it, embraces it, almost forgets his own need for completion in his hunger to absorb it all. Mohinder throwing his head back, biting his lip, his free hand tearing at the bedspread, his breath hitching somewhere deep inside his chest with every new twist of Sylar's hand on his softening cock. It's a whirlwind of beauty unleashed, its impact on his heightened senses almost more than he can take, but he wants to know this moment, make it his, before the storm fades into stillness. Though the stillness isn't here yet.

There is a brief second when Mohinder lies shivering beneath him, catching his breath, but then they are shifting, rolling, Mohinder grabbing his shoulder and pushing him onto his back. Taken by surprise, he lets it happen, goes with the motion until he's lying there with Mohinder above him, astride his lap, his cock still hard, still buried inside that lean body. He reaches out, and Mohinder pulls him to him, pulls him up, so that in the end they are sitting wrapped around each other, eye to eye and mouth to mouth, lips not quite touching, sharing breath as Mohinder rides him, slow and hard and unrelenting.

"Yes," Mohinder mumbles, "yes," a whisper of encouragement moist across his face, and the eyes looking into his are still wide, but bright now, shining with released endorphins, with too much emotion and something sharper, diamond-edged and cold, as insistent as the hands fisted in his hair. Desperate and determined as the rushrushrush of his own pulse, the ache in his balls. The blaze of it enfolding him is what pushes him over, Mohinder grinding himself down onto his cock, holding him close as though he never intends to let go. Cradling him as the world falls apart around him, the sounds of his own climaxing body shattering reality from the inside out.

For a moment, everything is black. Then he slips back to the surface, to the feel of Mohinder's hands in his hair, on his face, mapping his features with quick, reassuring caresses, gentle and frantic.

"Zane," Mohinder says, and the conviction in his voice is like an oath sworn in blood. "I won't let him hurt you, too."

His lips, as he bends Sylar's head back to kiss him, are full of tenderness, but the sound in his heart is rage.

*


Every mechanism needs energy to keep moving, but not every mechanical watch needs to be wound. Some are self-winding. Inside such a watch, a fan-shaped rotor pivots from side to side each time the wearer moves his arm, thus winding the main-spring that drives the clockwork. As long as it is worn, an automatic timepiece of this type will never stop ticking, forever translating human motion into mechanical force. If it is made by Rolex, a movement with this complication is called Perpetual.

*


Sleep is one more thing he doesn't quite need these days, and it's getting rarer for him to pursue it. There is too much to think about in the quiet hours of the night, too many perfect moments to re-examine, too many achievements to look forward to. It's true, what he told Mohinder - he can feel them, out there, so many vulnerable people, with extraordinary abilities ripe for the taking. And now, with the list, with Mohinder at his side...

The sense of eagerness is like an itch along his nerves.

The moon is dipping low, its light reaching through the window, brushing pale streaks across the dark skin of the man lying beside him. He can't hear the planets shift in their orbits or the earth turn beneath him, but he can hear Mohinder dreaming. The ticktickticking of a speeding heart, the creak of muscles clenching, breath that comes too quick for rest. It's the sound of nightmares, the sound of fear and terror, and already he would know it anywhere.

Softly, he runs his knuckles over Mohinder's cheek, strokes a lock of hair back from his forehead. It's the smallest of touches, but, ever so slightly, the sleeping body relaxes. In the bone-tinged darkness, Sylar can't help but smile to himself.

Mohinder may be angry now, but he will come to understand. He will know better than to fight destiny.

After all, they're dreaming of the same thing.
Archived on: 07/25/08
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