Worship Our Gods Forever

And I Embraced Where Lovers Rot

Next to him, Mohinder feels utterly inadequate, mortal, breakable. Perhaps it’s the underlying power, masked by a now clean-shaven face. Or perhaps it’s the hardness of Sylar’s body, firm muscles beneath skin that is smooth in places and scattered with roughness in others, scars that tell stories engraved onto his skin. But regardless of this, Mohinder likes to smooth his hands over Sylar’s body, marvel at the scars and at the story they tell... mesmerised.

Pupils dilate... lips part languidly and his tongue flicks out to moisten too dry lips, held down, helpless, a child with his wide-eyed wonder and the flutter of heartbeat deep inside him, audible to Sylar, who taps out its quickening beat onto the stainless metal of the relentless worktop beside him. Mohinder fancies that he can see into his lovers’ thoughts, glimpse the cogs and wheels turn slowly in his mind as he schemes... and Sylar’s eyes darken with something akin to lust, and a strange kind of love that trembles and runs its staggering course through those corded muscles in his arms.

Yes, and it’s the darkness there that is so very attractive, alluring, allows that large muscle that beats in Mohinder to beat all the faster, aroused, even as the searing touch of that weightless, invisible object draws a line through his flesh, cuts from sternum to naval and oh... why? Crimson spills from such a vicious wound, and such an act is so very erotic, as if he wants to bathe in his darling lovers’ blood...

...to crawl inside his skin... his flesh... elusive yet safe and warm. Dissect, yes, take Mohinder apart piece by piece and savour each muffled scream, which, to Mohinder, seem distant and distorted like television static. His flesh burns hot and feverish, moisture in the air and warm hands spread that blood around -- a painting, Rembrandt and Monet and Van Gogh -- with a soft and sinister chuckle, beautiful, or so Suresh thinks. His teeth are clenched violently against it all, the swoon, but ultimately savours the memory.

And a tiny part of him thinks that it’s glorious to have Sylar holding his heart in his hands, cradling the organ with a strange tenderness that through the haze of startling agony merely proves to astound and gratify him.

“I want to touch you everywhere... Inside, as well as out.” Husky, soft, pleasurable to the senses and the sparking pain is nothing compared to that one simple fact, as those masterful hands touch everywhere inside, holding every vulnerable organ, smoothing over every bone, ivory-white and gleaming.

“You’re beautiful, like this.”

Awe-struck, glimpsing into Mohinder in a way that no person ever has and oh he’s so very careful, tucking each organ delicately back into place, pressing warm lips to the wound, gentle and smearing them with the dark, sticky fluid, filled with life and breathe.

Mohinder’s vision begins to blur at the edges, dreamy, letting it wash over him like a wave, pressed down in the heat of the moment until that heat becomes too much to bear, hissing and licking and burning... the stench of cooked flesh in the air. Gone. Rest and sleep and utterly unconscious, lost to the pain and the wonder and the emotion, spread eagled upon that same concrete floor, chill against fevered skin and scattered with droplets of scentless sweat and delicious crimson.

And like this, Sylar thinks he’s the most beautiful he’s ever been.