Mohinder isn’t asleep, despite the lateness of the hour; he can hear that before he even enters the building, listening ahead as he always does, making sure there’s no reason for him to stay away. But the sounds of Mohinder’s heartbeat, his breathing, are coming from the bedroom, and that’s where Sylar finds him, splayed out on the bed.
He’s been quiet, making his way through the apartment, and for a moment he can enjoy the luxury of remaining unnoticed, of standing there in the doorway, simply watching.
Over the past week, while Sylar’s been absent, the temperature has climbed well into the nineties, and even in this dead of night, heat seems to radiate from every surface of the city, stone and glass and asphalt still saturated with the oppressive warmth left behind by the sun. It doesn’t surprise him that Mohinder is naked in the bed, covers kicked down to tangle at his feet, sheets rumpled as though he’s been tossing and turning, unable to get comfortable. It doesn’t surprise him, but the image overwhelms him, all the same.
The long, lean shape of Mohinder’s body is dark against white cotton, lying face down on the mattress, one knee pulled up just enough for shadows to gather, deep and tantalizing, between his parted legs. In the faint light spilling through the window, sweat glistens in the groove along his spine, highlights the low relief of muscles over his shoulder blades, pools shimmering at the small of his back, just below the rising curve of his ass. It makes Sylar’s pulse beat louder, the pure beauty of this man, the savagery and tenderness of ownership a sudden burst of iron on his tongue, blood-bright and heady. He reaches his mind out, brushes a lock of hair back from where it clings, damp, to Mohinder’s forehead.
Mohinder opens his eyes.
It takes him a moment to focus them on Sylar, but there’s no surprise in the responses of his body, nothing startled about his voice when he speaks.
"You’re back," he says, levering himself up on one elbow. "How did it go?"
"I got what you asked for," Sylar says, though right now he couldn’t care less about the hard-won research material he’s left sitting on Mohinder’s desk. It’s been over a week since he had Mohinder under his hands, and though he never doubts the connection between them, his need to inscribe it on Mohinder’s body is sharp in moments like this. Destiny has marked them for each other, and he wants Mohinder to feel it, as he does, the knowledge throbbing like a firebrand beneath the skin, certainty flaring up like bruises everywhere they touch. "But we’ve got all the time we need to talk about that later," he adds, and uses a thought to shove Mohinder back down to the mattress, holding him there, pinned by his will.
The shift in the sounds of Mohinder’s body is immediate, his heart accelerating in a wave of lust, pounding with an undercurrent of fear. They may be working together, they may be sharing this fate, but Mohinder never forgets for an instant who Sylar is, what Sylar could do if he wanted to.
What they have is so much better for it.
There’s annoyance in Mohinder’s tone, though, a fatigue that contradicts the unmistakable rush of blood to his loins. As though the clear edges of his voice have been smeared by the heat.
"Sylar," he says, pointedly relaxed in Sylar’s grip in a way that should signal submission, but is only a calculated lack of struggle. "It’s too hot in here to sleep. Whatever else you may have in mind, I’ve no doubt it’s too hot for that as well."
"Hmm," Sylar says, taking the few steps across to the bed, trailing his fingers along the edge of the mattress as he moves slowly up towards the headboard. "I guess I’ll have to do something about that."
The rumpled sheet turns cool under his fingertips.
Mohinder bites his lip around a breathless sigh, his eyes falling shut as his entire body grinds down, seeking the chill. The perfect, instinctive abandon of the response makes hunger twist in the pit of Sylar’s stomach, makes him reach out and touch.
"God," Mohinder says, pressing up into Sylar’s hand in his hair. "I hope for your sake you don’t intend to stop at that."
Sylar grins, combing his fingers through the lush mess of curls, stroking it away from the nape of Mohinder’s neck, the shell of his ear.
"Sure it’s not too hot for you?"
"Positive," Mohinder says. "Now go on."
It’s ridiculous, of course - the crisp arrogance, the tone of command - laughable, in the shadow of Sylar’s power, in light of the fear threaded into Mohinder’s pulse. And yet it is there, sharp as a needle, as the pure A of a tuning fork struck, and it amuses him, but it never makes him laugh. Sometimes, it makes him crave Mohinder as though he’s never wanted the world.
He runs the tip of his index finger along the strip of sensitive skin behind Mohinder’s ear, a whisper of cold. Mohinder purrs, shivers, arcs his neck in a silent demand for more. Sylar sits down beside him on the mattress and does it again.
Fingertips just barely touching skin, tracing the long curve of Mohinder’s neck with gentle cool, like the soothing caresses of an ocean breeze.
"Yes," Mohinder says, "like that," and Sylar shifts, feels his rising cock press against the seams of his jeans as he brings one knee up on the mattress to lean closer, brushing his palms over Mohinder’s shoulders, down the sides of his back. Sketching cold onto the canvas of Mohinder’s body.
When his hands slide low to cup Mohinder’s hips, thumbs stroking the firm flesh of his ass, Mohinder spreads his legs wider, invitation and request. Sylar keeps his hands where they are, stills his movements to feel Mohinder strain into his grip, muscles flexing as he seeks the contact he wants. Sylar bends down, presses his lips to the center of Mohinder’s back.
There is the soft heat of human skin, the taste of salt and sunlight tingling on the tip of his tongue. Through thin layers of skin he can hear the blood flow, so loud up close like this that he can feel the sound, the pounding baseline of Mohinder’s being reverberating through him from the point where they touch. He thinks a single, precise thought, and cold spreads from beneath his mouth, not gentle now but biting, a sudden subzero chill, sharp and unrelenting. The sheen of sweat on Mohinder’s back turns to ice.
Mohinder cries out, a wordless yelp of shock as he tries to flinch away, but Sylar clamps down with his mind, keeping him still, immobilized, holding him in place with nothing to do about the solid sheet of cold clinging to his skin but to take it, ride out the pain.
There is a moment, two, of struggle, a beautiful cacophony of sound as Mohinder’s body plays out all the impulses of fight and flight, futile and exhilarating. It makes Sylar’s mouth water, makes him ache to drag his thoughts like a knife across Mohinder’s skin, but it’s the stillness afterwards that draws him in, draws him up to touch his lips to the delicate rim of Mohinder’s ear: the way Mohinder forces himself to relax, to endure and accept. Breath ragged, shivering beneath the ice beginning to melt into the warmth of his flesh, but calm, so calm at the center. Hardened, deep inside, and Sylar cuts people open, loves to watch them tear, but every time he shakes Mohinder, it’s to see the core of him not break.
"Cold enough yet?" he whispers, a tease in Mohinder’s ear.
"Bastard," Mohinder grinds out, and then, steady and aloof as though his heart isn’t throbbing too fast, as though he doesn’t know full well that Sylar can hear it: "If you’re quite done demonstrating my helplessness, you can go ahead and touch me now."
"Funny," Sylar says, flippant, as detached as Mohinder. "Here I thought I was demonstrating how much you enjoy your helplessness." But he strokes his hand up the inside of Mohinder’s thigh, lets his fingers dip into the cleft of his ass, touching him the way he’s been waiting for.
Mohinder shudders, head to toe, and if he had a scathing retort, it’s lost in the drawn-out moan he breathes into his pillow.
There is a drop of melted ice sliding over the curved edge of his shoulder, down the side of his neck, and Sylar licks it away; cold and briny, like the waters of a frozen ocean. He relaxes his hold, just a little, and Mohinder stirs, beautiful and sinuous, arching into the touch against his opening, pressing down into the mattress for relief, a wave melting into motion. Sylar strokes his thumb over the fever-hot skin just behind his balls, soothes it with the barest hint of cold. Mohinder moans louder, says Sylar’s name like a curse, rough and soaked in need. Sylar lets the cool spread, rubs it with careful fingers across the tight entrance to Mohinder’s body.
"You know," Mohinder says, panting, "I’ve thought about this. I…" His teeth dig into his bottom lip for a second, as Sylar circles his opening, just so. "Fuck. I bought something that… In the nightstand."
Sylar sits back, intrigued, pulls the nightstand drawer open with his mind and brings it over, floating in air for him to look into. There are a few things in there he is familiar with, intimately so, and more that are trivial, uninteresting. But he knows immediately what object Mohinder is referring to.
A long, smooth butt-plug he hasn’t seen before: a rounded obelisk, narrow at the tip, but widening into a base perhaps as thick as Sylar’s cock.
It’s made of clear glass.
Mohinder has thought about this. Mohinder has turned this particular application of Sylar’s powers over in the intricate clockwork of his mind, and determined that he wants to explore it, what instruments to use to optimize his test results.
Sylar picks the plug out of the drawer, strokes his fingers along the length of it. The rush of his own blood is suddenly the loudest sound in the room.
Mohinder’s eyes follow his movements, observing.
"I can make you scream with this," Sylar says, tilting his head, and his voice is soft. "But you know that. You want that. Because the simply human, that was never enough. You realize that now, don’t you, Mohinder?" He stretches his thoughts over Mohinder, feather-light, lets them ripple over every inch of naked skin, caress like a silk-sheet sliding down his body, stroking everywhere at once. Mohinder’s breath hitches, a raw sound deep in his lungs. "You want to be touched by the extraordinary, feel the impossible; you want to understand what no one else has dared imagine, what their minds are too small to grasp. You were waiting for me long before you knew I existed."
"What I’m waiting for," Mohinder says, "is for you to stop talking and get on with it."
It’s an order again, cold and clipped and giving nothing away.
Sylar smiles. He doesn’t need Mohinder to admit his feelings. Not when he knows, when he’s always known.
Not when he can see Mohinder’s eyes, watching him.
"If you insist," he says, and flips Mohinder over.
No more than a thought, and the mattress bucks up under him as Mohinder lands on his back, arms splayed wide, grabbing on to the sheets as if seeking purchase, as if he could anchor himself against any of this. Sylar pushes his knees up, parting them, and Mohinder’s head drops back, his neck a perfect arc of anticipation.
Sylar reaches for the bottle of lube in the drawer before sending it back to its place, puts the toy down and squeezes the slippery liquid onto his fingers. Mohinder gasps at the first slick touch, trembles as Sylar works him open. His insides are bright hot, burning, a pulsing heat like the red glare behind your eyelids when you blink against the sun. Sylar brushes his prostate, just once, to hear Mohinder’s body sing with the pleasure, feel his muscles contract around his fingers. Then he pulls out, and picks up the plug again.
The glass is hard and smooth in his hands as he slicks it up, elegant and obscene in equal measure. Mohinder is studying him, eyes piercing despite dilated pupils, and Sylar kneels between his legs, lays one hand on his inner thigh as he lines the plug up with the other, pushes in. It’s easy, almost frictionless, about two thirds of the way. Then the resistance kicks in and Sylar has to put strength into it, has to make Mohinder’s body yield to him. He hears himself make a noise, a growl both hungry and pleased.
"Yes," Mohinder says, "yes, yes, come on," and Sylar squeezes his thigh, nails digging in, and leans into the push. The plug slides home, the wide end swallowed up by Mohinder’s ass, Sylar’s palm pressed flat against the rectangular base that keeps the whole thing from disappearing into him. He can feel the heat of Mohinder’s body even through the glass.
"God," Mohinder breathes - still for a second, so still, as if frozen - and then, smiling, rolling his hips around the object inside him, "God, yes."
There is a gleam of moisture at his neck, a drop of sweat cupped in the dark hollow of his throat, and Sylar bends toward it, stretches out above him, one hand braced on the mattress, to kiss it away. His other hand trails upward, until it closes around the shaft of Mohinder’s cock. Hard and so much warmer than the too-hot air around them, and Mohinder strains up against him, shoving into his grip. His legs fold in to wrap around Sylar’s waist, bare feet dragging across the denim of his jeans, but his hands stay where they are, fisted in the sheets.
Sylar bites at the side of his neck, drags sharp teeth across his jugular, and reaches with his mind for the plug inside him. Shifts it, rolls it in a slow, firm circle around the inner walls of Mohinder’s body, pressing outwards. Mohinder gives a soft, shaky sound and thrusts into his fist and Sylar has to kiss him, lips against lips, and this time it’s all right, this time Mohinder kisses back, willing to accept, willing to see what Sylar sees, even if tomorrow he will choose to act ignorant. Sylar grinds the plug against his prostate as reward, as incentive, and Mohinder gasps into his mouth, wilful and beautiful and his.
It strikes him that the plug is made of glass, that glass has a breaking point. If he wrapped his mind around it tight enough, if he kept squeezing, there would be a moment when it shattered, when it fractured into shards and every shard tore outwards through flesh and Mohinder would scream beneath him, radiant with all that pain.
It’s there if Sylar wants to give it.
He strokes Mohinder’s tongue with his, strokes the head of his cock with his thumb, and makes the glass go cold.
Not a slow drop in temperature, but instant frost, cold enough to burn, and this, too, makes Mohinder scream, makes him thrash like a wild animal, tearing at the sheets, but his cock in Sylar’s hand stays hard, stays hot.
Sylar strokes him - gently, gently - trails kisses down the edge of his jaw. Rubs his cheek against Mohinder’s as he whispers in his ear.
"There, there. That’s right. Just what you wanted, isn’t it? Just what you asked for. Don’t fight it, Mohinder, don’t make yourself fight it. You’re not fooling anyone. You’ve never fooled me."
Slow, steady movement of the plug inside, cold and pressure against all the right spots, and when he sends its temperature falling just a little more, Mohinder’s cock jerks in the confines of his fist and Mohinder’s hand comes up to tangle in the collar of his shirt. Shuddering, trembling as he rides the sensation, breath lost in shallow, rapid pants, quiet moans that seem beyond speech.
But then he turns his lips to Sylar’s ear, words and heat and moisture:
"You should…you should fuck me. You should really fuck me now."
He should. The knowledge that he should is like a sudden jolt to his system, almost painful in its rightness. His hand is unfastening his jeans before he’s finished forming the thought that pulls the plug from Mohinder’s ass, his cock pushing in while Mohinder still shakes with the loss of it.
He hasn’t slicked himself up, and even though Mohinder’s been stretched wide by the plug and carefully oiled, the friction is deafening. Still, it’s drowned out almost entirely by the shift in temperature.
The inside of Mohinder’s body has been iced, delicate tissue chilled, and the cold lingers, the tight muscle that closes around Sylar nowhere near body temperature, the contrast sharp and savage against his heated cock. He can’t help the groan that escapes him as he thrusts deep, unable to hold back.
Mohinder’s fingers dig into his shoulder hard enough to hurt, to leave bruises, and of course, the contrast must be just as overpowering from the other side, a sudden experience of searing heat as near unbearable as the cold that came before. He can hear the shock of it, loud in every cell of Mohinder’s body, and he knows, knows a second before it happens that this is all it’s going to take, that this is what Mohinder needed.
Mohinder is already coming, focused and wild, when Sylar slams in again, reaching his mind down between them to hold Mohinder’s cock, stroke every last wave of pleasure from it. Sylar keeps fucking him, all the way through, hands braced on the mattress, face buried in the crook of Mohinder’s neck. Even when his climax hits, shooting through him from that place deep inside Mohinder, he doesn’t stop, doesn’t pull out, doesn’t let himself slide from the tightness encircling him.
It’s minutes later when he falls still, Mohinder’s hand no longer clinging to him but loosely clasped around the back of his neck, Mohinder’s legs no longer wrapped around him but half stretched out to tangle with his own, and realizes that everywhere they touch, the temperature is the same, no part of Mohinder, inside or out, too hot or too cold against his skin. Perhaps his sharp awareness of it is down to the extremes they’ve just shared, but he feels balanced, poised on a perfect point, held up by Mohinder as Mohinder is held up by him, the two of them never falling as long as they’re entangled, as long as they’re pitted against each other.
He presses a kiss to the soft skin of Mohinder’s shoulder, a brush stroke of destiny.
"Hmmm," Mohinder says, arching boneless beneath him, and the physical experience must be shared, because he adds, half post-orgasmic enjoyment, half scientist taking notes, "Thermal equanimity. Interesting." His thumb traces Sylar’s hairline, smearing a droplet of sweat before it slips away across his skin. "Now if you could just make the room temperature a bit more bearable, perhaps we could sleep, after all."
