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The end comes different than they all expect. There's no huge fight for the good of the world, no explosions and no heroics - just one well-placed katana through Sylar's back.
In a way, they can't believe it - the man who kept them terrified and on their toes, killed more by chance than anything else.
But then they celebrate, and if Hiro's eyes have turned blank and his face an expressionless mask, it's no fault of theirs - he'll recover.
But Mohinder can't celebrate.
He'll never have the satisfaction of having killed his father's murderer, will never remember the feel of Sylar's blood on his hands while that monster breathed his last. Instead he will always remember that one last pleading look in his direction, no more cocky arrogance from that mass murderer.
So while the feast is slowly winding down and everyone's more than a little drunk, Mohinder slips from the room. He can't take their joyous faces anymore, and he doesn't trust himself around the alcohol... he might just end up punching Nathan or Peter in the face when they give yet another toast to Hiro's "heroic deed" (can't they see it wasn't?).
The corpse was of no importance to them, so they just tossed him into the morgue and left him there, the black body bag barely long enough to cover Sylar. Mohinder remembered how he'd towered over him, that one endless moment before he descended onto him, violated his body and mind. He remembers the nauseating crunching sounds of his own bones breaking, remembers the sick rush of blood to the head when Sylar noticed Peter coming up to his apartment.
He remembers the fight, remembers dragging Peter's corpse to the Petrelli's home. He remembers all the things afterwards, all the deaths he couldn't prevent, all the blood spilled for Sylar's egotistical purposes; he remembers all those women and men, mothers and fathers, daughters and sons, sisters and brothers, their faces screwed up in pain and horror, beyond any coroner's ability to fix.
All the burials were closed casket cases, every single one of them.
It seems downright unfair that Sylar's body should be nearly unmarked, apart from that single hole in his chest.
Mohinder eyes the body bag, fully expecting it to move, expecting Sylar to rip out of it like a cocoon, fully anticipating to finally die here, after everything was supposed to be over.
In some way, he craves it.
But nothing happens, nothing at all; the black plastic does not suddenly break apart and spill out a newly empowered Sylar, there's no twitch, no sudden breeze... just him in the basement, facing a veiled corpse.
Mohinder steps forward, needing one last look to make sure, wanting to reassure himself that yes, it's finally over, he can finally rest and just be a normal person again, leading an unremarkable life, maybe teaching at one university or another.
The zipper only slowly gives way, and Mohinder can't decide whether it's because of the shaking of his hands or not.
Slowly, so slowly, the bag opens. When Mohinder finally gets himself together enough to throw the flap back, he stares into a slack face, a face missing all animation.
In a way, it's logical, but Mohinder still expected Sylar to be intense, to not have lost his frightening charisma, even in death.
He still expected to be overwhelmed, to be incapable of fleeing, rooted to the spot, stricken still by his eyes.
But Sylar's body is slack, there's nothing left, no spark, nothing whatsoever.
It's just a pile of meat.
And suddenly, Mohinder is angry. Angry at Sylar for having killed all these people, angry at the Petrellis congratulating themselves for his death, and angry at Hiro for being there first, for being able to do what he strove to do.
But mostly he's angry with himself. He's been denied the one single chance to take revenge, the one single chance to honour his father.
The one single chance to be a hero.
He grabs the body by the shoulders and shakes it, in hopeless rage. But this isn't enough, so he pulls with all his might until the body tumbles to the floor, several bones breaking audibly as though they were so much as twigs.
He turns away, disgusted with himself. He's not much better than Sylar... defiling a corpse for his own egoistic purposes. But still... Mohinder turns back to the corpse, eyeing this length of flabby meat. He wonders whether rigor mortis already set in... it should have. Sylar may have died quietly, but he fought before.
At first it's just a simple touch - checking Sylar's ribcage for the bones he heard snap, checking for the first signs of actual rigor mortis.
But before he can stop himself, the rage is back and Mohinder is driving his fists into semi-soft flesh, breaking, pulverizing bones with every hit. They shouldn't break so easily... it's as though death has left Sylar brittle, as made of glass. Mohinder would laugh, but he's too far gone to care for simple irony. The whole focus of his existence is beating this body into a pulp... and he doesn't even know why.
Soon he's breathing hard and sweating; he's not as trained as Peter or as lithe as Niki, he's just a simple scientist, rarely forced to exert himself in those past few years.
Maybe he's getting old, prematurely, the years stolen from him by that which inhabited the mess in front of him.
Soon Sylar's ribcage gives in, and Mohinder starts hitting his face, in a parody of a playground fight; he's too tired to swing right, but his hits still connect, even though they do next to no damage now.
Eventually, he has to stop, black spots dancing in his vision, his breathing going so fast he's getting light-headed. He braces himself on the gurney, listening to his own ragged breathing, his heartbeat - impossibly fast, like a hummingbird's - nearly droning out the sounds, his vision reduced to a narrow tunnel filled with colourful lights.
Maybe he will die here as well. It wouldn't be surprising if he were so out of shape he'd develop a massive coronary right here, collapsing to the floor dead as a doornail... maybe even dropping over Sylar's ruined body, for others to find and draw their own conclusions about how little of his own sanity remained after these years of chasing a madman... and he's sure he's more than a little mad himself.
But there's no sudden blinding pain in his chest, and soon his breathing returns to normal. Mohinder can't help but feel more than a little disappointed in his own body. His death would've at least solved the problem of what to do with himself now.
And quite as suddenly as it came the anger is gone, and Mohinder just feels empty and exhausted. He sinks to his knees, right next to the cadaver, and hides his face in his hands, all his thoughts running dry.
What is he to do from now? He never even permitted himself the thought of a future after Sylar... he always assumed he'd die fighting, following in his father's footsteps one last time.
He doesn't even know how to get employed anymore; the years went by for him based on the Petrellis' fortune. He didn't need much... it wasn't much of a life, after all. Research and experiments, regret and empathy... or maybe just apathy. Trying to numb himself to the horrible things he had to witness, to the sheer endless string of mutilated corpses he had to dissect. And what good did it do him? He's sitting here, next to a corpse, in the middle of the night, unable to let go while nearly everyone else is about to start their new lives free of this last responsibility.
They are free now. But is he?
He sighs and rubs his face. No use sitting here, he should be upstairs, celebrating. Despite everything, he should be there; and if only to remind Hiro that what he did, what they all eventually did, was necessary. But there's still resentment in him: Hiro stole his revenge. Not only is there no more life to him, no way to ever possibly return to his old life, he didn't even finish his... mission, for lack of a better word. He's all gloomy past, Hiro's a numb present - they're the bright future. They both will be left behind; it's inevitable.
Or maybe he's just too exhausted (too delusional?) for his thoughts to make any sense.
And again he turns back to the body, more to assess the damage than to admire his work. There'll be questions, after all, if they find his body mutilated, and he needs to think of a reason, an excuse.
Not that anyone would care on Sylar's behalf, but Mohinder at least feels the urge to protect himself against their curiosity, their stares... their pity. He knows there'll be pity when they've finally come down from their high. After all, they all know of what Sylar did to him. He'd never tried to keep it a secret, despite his embarrassment. And even if he'd tried to keep this secret... where Petrelli money was involved, nothing stayed hidden for long.
Nathan learned from the best, after all.
Sylar's body still looks nearly unblemished, the damage done to his ribcage only emphasizing the spotless perfection of the rest of his body. It's downright uncanny, eerie – worrying, reviving Mohinder's suspicions.
He inches closer, peering into the empty face, suspicious of Sylar's death all over again. He again expects him to spontaneously regenerate, to jump up and smash him into a wall, to start their dance all over again – for him to wake up days or even weeks later in a hospital, hooked up to a myriad of machines.
But of course the corpse doesn't move, and Mohinder's not sure whether to feel disappointed or reassured, all over again. Maybe he's destined to be perpetually confused in anything involving Sylar...
It happens suddenly, nearly without his participation, as though his body was moving by itself. Suddenly he's kissing those slack lips, pushes his tongue between them and shoves it into the cold, dry mouth.
There's no taste. None whatsoever. One would think that there'd be something – one last stray piece of meat (or worse) between his teeth, or maybe a fleeting remnant of toothpaste... Mohinder'd even be glad for a hint of rot. But there's no taste. It's like licking a piece of glass on a winter morning, terrifyingly neutral, incredibly cold.
It's an entirely new sensation, and Mohinder is too far caught up in the moment to even contemplate what exactly he's doing here... and what he shouldn't be doing in a room with the door open.
But even if, he wouldn't care.
His hands braced on either side of the corpse, he lets himself sink down and melt against the cold.
It's like stumbling into a snow bank, only it's deliberate. And Mohinder revels in the frigidness, cooling him down even through his clothes.
He takes away his hands and listens to the crunching noises escaping from Sylar's hull where his full weight presses against it. And whereas he would've thought the noise revolting earlier, now it's just a proof that he's here, that he's alive, that he's special – that he can leave an imprint in this world.
How long he's just lying there, with his tongue pressed deep into Sylar's mouth and his hips grinding against Sylar's slack cock, he doesn't know. He comes to his senses rather abruptly, feeling hot and constricted in his clothing... full with an urgency he doesn't remember ever having felt, his head feeling too small for its contents. Mohinder disengages himself, but immediately feels a pull back, like an invisible bungee cord stretching between him and Sylar.
He feels too hot, sweaty and overheated in this cool room. If he had any shred of sanity or common sense left, he'd wonder whether he had a fever... but even as he realizes this, he's fumbling the buttons of his shirt, trying to open them, but having his fingers slip, having no strength in himself.
Mohinder closes his eyes, trying to breathe deeply and evenly, to calm himself... but the urgency he's feeling is only increasing, like a shaggy beast deep inside himself, gnawing on his bones and still demanding more. But even so, the breathing seems to help, and he starts pulling off his shirt, his hands trembling no more... far steadier than he feels inside.
The cool air feels like a sledgehammer to his burning body... and he still he strips further, feeling the need to expose himself entirely. And only when he's naked he realizes how aroused he is... and only then does he draw the single logical conclusion and acts on it.
It's cool. Not cold, not yet, but cool enough to alert Mohinder to the reality of what exactly he's doing here.
He's fucking his father's murderer's corpse.
He should be bothered. He shouldn't be doing this, not only because of the ethical (and health) implications, although they alone should be enough to stop him in his tracks.
He suddenly can't remember when corpses start to decompose. Is it before or after rigor mortis? Is he fucking a compost?
But he doesn't stop; he can't. The flesh is soft and yielding and while his partner doesn't move at all (unlike him; he always did struggle), he could just pretend he was... asleep. If he only chose to.
But in a very perverse way, he doesn't want to. He knows what he's doing – or at least he knows what he's committing.
Mohinder closes his eyes and loses himself in the thrusting, concentrating only on pulling his hips back and propelling them forward again, only single unconnected words tumbling through his head. Cold. Slack. Unresponsive. And soon it feels as though there was never anything different, as if he's been at this for days, months... years and centuries. As if there was never anything else to his life but fucking this corpse, driving his cock into this unfeeling heap of meat.
And that's when it occurs to him, while buried to the hilt and dripping sweat onto Sylar's ribcage: He should be special. He's got every right to be.
Not those people upstairs, so incompetent at using their gifts. They should all be his... he should be the one. And if he'd have to gnaw through skin, flesh, sinew, bone... he'd do it. Mohinder's got every right to.
Maybe he should go and do just that. He knows exactly how Sylar worked, after all. He had ample opportunity to watch him close up, to study him.
It would be the right payment for all the years he wasted for the Petrellis, wouldn't it be? They should be forced to realize that money doesn't buy everything, and if only this once.
He feels the heat rising behind his ribcage, like a fireball, and soon he feels the climax of this bargain. And what gushes forward feels like the last vestiges of his sanity leaving him in a hurry.
He doesn't feel as if he's losing anything of substance.
And suddenly, there's only one thought in his head, clear as a bell. A new mission for him, to replace this concluded one. A mission to unify them all. His true chance of being a hero, not chasing after his father, but a hero in his own right, with his own merit.
They're not worthy of their gifts... but he is. He's been working with them all for years; he knows their gifts inside and out, often knows them better than they themselves do. He's so much better at controlling their effects... shouldn't this qualify him? Shouldn't it be his mission to collect all these gifts, to give them to someone who'd actually be able to use them for good, and not for their own advantage?
So this is it.
And then he withdraws and cleans himself up lazily, disregarding the corpse – there's no worth to it anymore – he's gotten what he's come for. Catharsis. Orientation. Direction.
He straightens his clothes and leaves the morgue.
There's a lot of work left to do. A whole list of people to work through, after all.