seekevolution | Summer

Summer

Though Mohinder didn't buy into the saying that there could be such a thing as love at first sight, the way that Simon Petrelli looked at Molly when they were first introduced made him reconsider and then immediately close his thoughts so Matt wouldn't worry. Mohinder gently pulled her long hair back from her shoulder so his hand could rest upon it, Molly in a bright red and yellow sundress,and said shoulder covered by a small yellow half jacket. They'd both been pleased to find it at Walmart on the drive up from Fort Lee to Maine, taking the long, scenic route even though Peter had offered them a chance to teleport.

Why teleport when they could have more time together and see the country? Molly needed a little break away from enclosed spaces and the forests along their mountain roads in New York and at the southern border of Canada was just the ticket.

Of course, there had been blighted areas, places where the virus had broken out, or worse, where communities had closed their doors and grown violent. They had just guided their black SUV around the problem areas and stuck to rural hotels on the interstate.

Now, standing in the foyer of what looked like another hotel and yet, knowing it was a family summer retreat, Mohinder could feel Molly yearning to go explore...and the eldest of Peter's nephews more than willing to guide her.

They were both the same age. They'd both been without playmates (what nearly twelve year old counts their brother as a playmate?) for a long while. Mrs. Petrelli, gracious despite her furtive glances at Matt, finally gave them the go head. "Show Molly to her room. Gently, Simon. She's not one of your trucks." Molly glanced back up at Mohinder and he nodded.

"I'll come find you shortly."

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Matt gave Mohinder a look that went very quickly from surprise to defensive anger. Of course he'd read her mind. Mohinder did science, Molly found people, and Matt read minds. This had been a problem initially but both of them had gotten used to having just as many conversations with him out loud as in their heads, and Matt made an effort to not listen in on anything personal and he fully respected any attempts to block him out and they all knew this.

Why Mohinder would pick now to yell at him for it made no sense at all, and his jaw set as he shot him a glare.

"Not without her fucking permission, Mohinder, who the hell do you think I am? I keep an ear out. For both of you. That's never been a problem before!"

Perhaps realising how crazy that had sounded, Mohinder dropped his eyes and backed down. He couldn't find a switch to flick to make it all right again but he could calm himself down about it. "You're right," he tried, as calmly as possible, reaching out to set his hand on Matt's chest as he'd done for months now. "You're right. It seems...like an invasion. She doesn't care to speak with us, I'd rather not cause her to dislike us too."

Mohinder looked deflated and kept his gaze more or less lowered even as he dropped his hand. He didn't apologise, however. It wasn't that he was incapable, but he has a vaguely superior way about him these days that amounted to quite a lot of shredding between whatever bond they'd forged of need and lust and want of a family.

"This could all just be moody teenager talking. We're both a bit young to deal with a girl her age. It will take some getting use to."

Matt deflected that hand, however reassuring it tried to be, by raising his own in front of his chest in the unspoken signal of 'don't' before he turned around to pace the room. He didn't mind Mohinder touching him. Hell, he liked very much when Mohinder touched him, but suggesting he used his abilities in any morally deprived way was a sore spot. That, and in a moment of clarity that touch served to emphasize that they'd been touching less frequently the past few weeks.

"We've been getting used to this for almost a year", he pointed out. "Can't just be that. It's never that simple. Oh no, our lives don't get to be that easy."

Which might have been sort of funny if it wasn't so damn aggravating and scary.

"Can you think of a single time things actually had a totally normal explanation? For anything we've been through? Just one instance. Any one."

Nothing could be as hurtful as being denied Matt. Mohinder kept his mouth shut when his touch was denied and pressed his lips together in a full, straight line. He would not vocalise his discomfort now, but later, alone with Peter, he would talk about how disconnected he felt.

From Matt. From Molly. From everything. He didn't feel like the man he'd been a year ago. In fact, he wasn't the same man he'd been before the outbreak. Or who he'd been when he and Molly found Matt in New York after a month apart.

Now that scared him and the fear was palpable.

"There's simply no such thing as normal for people like us. Perhaps, once upon a time, yes. But if we were still normal, you'd be with Janice, welcoming a child. I'd be in India, lecturing people that don't care what I'm teaching." And perhaps we'd be happy.

Matt stopped in his tracks and turned to Mohinder with a very wary expression. He tried not to make a habit of reading minds in situations like these. Tense ones, argumentative ones - it gave him an unfair advantage and the chance to throw around a lot more accusations than anyone else. But Mohinder had made it clear so many times that he was fine with the mental communication. The awareness. That meant Matt wasn't consciously monitoring himself as well as he probably should or could have.

So when that thought broke away from the rest, stood out just by virtue of being English amid everything that wasn't, Matt had to pause. Had to consider that. But he didn't know what to say about it so instead he found himself sitting heavily on the edge of the bed, head in his hands.

"Great", he said gruffly, not really offering any context. But Mohinder would probably piece it together that he'd heard. The implication was what was a punch in the gut - the way it really said, I'm not happy.

Mohinder wasn't happy. Was that it?

Was Matt happy?

Of course he was. He had no reason not to be. Right?

He moved his hands, blocking out the world by rubbing the heels of them over his eyes.

"I can't- I don't ... I get that we're not normal", he said, voice muffled for a moment. "I get that. Especially me, right? But I still want this. Even if it's insane."

The underlying plea being, please don't be unhappy. Please.

Though he'd wanted to hold his ground, to be allowed to remain angry, seeing Matt like this, hearing the break in the back of his throat, and puzzling out the words caused Mohinder to drop the pretense. He couldn't just hurt someone because he'd been hurt. That wasn't just unfair, it was outright cruel.

He moved to stand in front of Matt and when the larger man didn't so much as glance up at him, he knelt to be sure that dark eyes would meet his own. And if they didn't, lips would surely touch lips. Even if it was ever so gently.

"I didn't... Matt, what I said, I didn't entirely mean that." He'd acted out of anger. It happened so often lately.

Mohinder slipped his hands into Matt's and sighed.

"I don't know how, but lack of stress seems to be making me feel even more stressed."

Matt allowed his hands to be taken and allowed the very brief, not actually all that reassuring but still somewhat soothing kiss. When Mohinder caught his eyes he held that gaze. It was important that they be honest with each other, he knew that. But he wasn't sure how to articulate what it was that had him feeling on edge.

What he didn't say was that it wasn't so much about what Mohinder had said but what he'd been thinking. And that was unfair, because there were reasons people didn't say what they were thinking out loud and thoughts often were impulsive and fleeting but the thing was that in Matt's experience, they were always true. Even if just for a short second and never again, they were true in that moment.

And that was already eating at him.

So maybe he wouldn't get all that far with the honesty thing right then.

He sort of smiled though as Mohinder tried to explain. Shook his head, squeezed his boyfriend's hands. "What, you need drama?" he asked in a way that made it sound like a legitimate question and not mockery. He knew the kind, had met a few of them, knew about them especially. Some people thrived in those situations. Matt knew he could handle them but he usually wasn't one of them. He only endured drama if he had to for the sake of something else. He didn't like it or need it to be happy. But that wasn't an inconsolable difference, was it?

"Maybe you should work again, then. Like ... maybe this is all cabin fever. For all of us."

Maybe they should get away from the Petrellis for a while.

"I ought to find some work," Mohinder admitted, though he had more money now than he knew what to do with thanks to Pinehearst. It wasn't the pay he required, though. His mind was inactive. The Petrellis did not have a great library to read from and even if they did, they weren't his sorts of books. He dropped his cheek to Matt's knee in a supplicating gesture and closed his eyes. "Something out here...perhaps teaching in a high school."

The man that found a way to nullify the great plague working in a high school? That seemed horrible.

Out here, however, there was little other opportunity. Even so, it was safe. Safety in exchange for a little boredom had to be something to trade for.

Mohinder was willing to do it to a degree.

"I just don't think I'm cut out for holiday."

Matt released one of Mohinder's hands in order to gently push his fingers through his hair. Mohinder often was like a big cat and Matt didn't mind petting him like one most of the time, but there was something a little more distant and mechanical about the action than there usually was right then.

Looking out the window, Matt listened, but he wasn't sure if he was paying the right kind of attention. Because he wasn't sure what they were even talking about. It was clear in the words, but there was ... something about the two of them too. Of course. But there was something buried about it. It got lost in the logic of the rest.

"Yeah, maybe not", he agreed quietly. Then he surprised himself by saying, "You could go back to Pinehearst, right? Or, I don't know. The university. I'm sure they have lots of work for you. I mean, you kinda ... went into hiding. We could move", he added lamely, unsure of what he was really saying. Realizing he was stumbling a little, rambling.

Rambling didn't exactly make Mohinder feel better. He'd gotten use to relying on Matt to protect them but maybe he needed to rely on himself this time around. Mohinder had known for awhile now that they were drifting. With the world a safer place to be, it was as if all of the reasons that brought them together no longer existed.

He didn't like to think about it, but his mind's filter didn't seem to be working at all. Mohinder sighed, lifting a hand up to gently push a bit of Matt's lengthening fringe out of his eyes.

"We can't move," he said softly. "Not on Molly, not again. I'm sure there's a position I could find here." But Pinehearst-- He was still a young man, still chasing glory. Pinehearst had given him that. He wanted--

He wanted to go back there. He wanted to make a difference. But you sacrifice your happiness for your family, right?

Right. That's what you did, or at least in Matt's experience. His parents had been unhappy and so had he by virtue of sticking around ... his mother had been unhappier than she'd thought she was, and then she died. Janice and him, they'd been happy until they weren't, but he'd stuck around until she didn't want him to. And here he was again, in the same situation with Mohider. It tore at him very deeply. But at the same time it was almost something expected.

He sighed when Mohinder touched him, withdrawing himself from listening to Mohinder's thoughts before he'd hear something else he wouldn't want to hear. But his fingers remained in Mohinder's hair, allowing the mutual link. It looked intimate and close but they both knew it wasn't quite, not anymore.

"Here?" he echoed, bowing his head slightly. "You mean the high school?"

There was one not too far out - the university was a lot closer to where they'd come from. If he meant to pursue there, he might as well go back to Pinehearst.

Matt didn't like Pinehearst. But he couldn't exactly decide why, so he didn't say anything; but he didn't like that he'd brought it up.

"I think I could manage high school students." A man of Mohinder's scientific genius sorting to becoming a high school teacher sounded almost sad. Something even nagged at him about it, that giving up his potential could leave him miserable, unfulfilled--

And yet, he'd been more than willing to take a job like that before, more than willing to drive his cab around. He'd done what he could to keep Matt and Molly...so what had changed?

Surely, he was immune to hubris, was he not?

Mohinder let his hand drop and eventually, Matt put him to bed. It didn't seem possible for their relation to strain further than it was, but as summer came to an end and Mohinder didn't hear back from any job offers he'd applied to, the Indian just sank into depression.

He and Matt hadn't been physical in awhile. They stayed up too late with Molly when she was occasionally sick and otherwise stayed more or less apart. Mohinder was distraught about it. "It was... No, it was never perfect, Peter," he whined at his friend, wrapped in a sweatshirt as the wind blew through trees that would soon start turning orange or red. "But it was to me. He barely even speaks to me any more."

Peter considered this carefully. He'd noticed, of course, it was really difficult not to - the playful banter and affections between his two friends had died down considerably into something that made him feel kind of sad.

Matt had gotten withdrawn from almost all of them. Mohinder had kept coming to him, and Peter just watched the two of them as they kept almost avoiding each other. It was ... almost disappointing, but not because of either of them. More in the knowledge that maybe love doesn't last, after all. Not that that was something Peter would believe easily - that was the reason for the words he chose when he answered, after chewing lightly on the inside of his cheek.

"Well ... do you speak to him?" he said with a careful, gentle inflection, leaning forward slightly on the table as he looked at the scientist. "I mean, he barely speaks to me anymore, either. But maybe it's cause he figures we won't talk back."

You have nothing in common.

"We don't really have much in common. Molly, unfortunately, might be the only thing." For a man who, not so long ago, had been so very afraid of losing Matt, he seemed almost resigned to it now. Weeks of whispers and constantly being unable to get a good night's sleep had left Mohinder more than just irritable.

He scratched behind his ear, eyes sunken in, and shook his head.

"I don't even know where to start. We try to talk, but it fizzles. Maybe... Maybe it was all because I wanted something. And he needed someone to protect."

There's someone else far better suited for you.

But Mohinder didn't know if that was true. He loved Matt. You don't just give that up unless--

He glanced up then and blinked at Peter. He'd never quite seen him as anything more than a friend (with a good body perhaps). But now-- It felt so dirty to even think about it. Mohinder found himself swallowing.

You don't work.

"We don't work."

Peter wasn't going to argue. You couldn't argue someone's feelings and he'd never wanted to try. He brushed his hair behind one ear, in the process uncrossing his arms from the position he'd been leaning onto them, and then instead of returning to that position reached his hand out to Mohinder in a silent bid for contact and companionship. An offer of solidarity.

It was very Peter. Maybe a little Maury. No one would have a way of knowing.

"Are you sure?" Again the soft tone. "I think you worked really well. But if you are, then ... you gotta talk to him, Mohinder. Actually, I think that's something you have to do anyway."

He smiled a little in a way that was part encouraging, part reassuring and part just who he was. Smiles were bridges.

"I think after New York... New York changed us." Mohinder shook his head because he was resisting the idea. Breaking it off with Matt seemed wrong, especially because he knew how he felt. There might be a time for you to leave someone you love, but now couldn't be it, right?

They certainly had their issues, but they could work through them--

Look at Peter. Why would you want Matt when you could have him?

Mohinder had noticed Peter before, but the easy touching, the way the younger man leaned in, the way he smiled-- He was so exceptionally caring. Understanding.

You want that for yourself, don't you?

He did.

Mohinder didn't know what possessed him to touch Peter's cheek and lean in for a kiss, but after he'd gotten it into his mind, he couldn't dispel it. Matt didn't understand him. Peter could.

Peter hadn't expected that. At all. Or okay, to some degree - there'd been a gnawing feeling of noticing, because Mohinder had lately started to look at him slightly differently, smile at him differently, had started spending time with him differently - and Peter had figured that it was friendly, and he enjoyed their friendship because while they'd known each other before they'd never really been friends until now. So whatever thought he'd had that maybe Mohinder was looking at him a certain way had been pushed aside. Because of course he wouldn't be. He was with Matt.

Peter really did believe that, so he was caught off guard. Completely. Maybe that was why he allowed a moment of contact, a moment for the kiss to last. Maybe it was partially because nobody liked being rejected, and he didn't want to just pull away and hurt Mohinder's feelings.

But in the end he still withdrew - how could he not? - and looked at Mohinder in a way that was ... not reproachful. Not angry or anything like that, but with eyes a little wide.

"Hey, whoa- okay, um." He reached up to move Mohinder's hand from his face, not sure what to do here. Not initially, anyway. But distance seemed a good way to go, just for the time being. "Look, Mohinder, I really think you should talk to Matt. Okay?" He looked like maybe he wanted to leave, but then his expression shifted slightly when he added, "maybe then we can talk about ... that. What just happened."

So embarrassed. So embarrassed. Mohinder's hand pulled out of Peter's just as he stood up, breath catching in his throat. He felt almost panicked. There had been no reason to do that. He'd never cheated on anyone before and-- There was no call for it. "I'm sorry," he said immediately and headed out of the room, stomach churning with shame.

Peter was adorable, sweet, a good listener and he might even understand Mohinder but they were friends. They'd been through some hard times together but--

Mohinder's fingers pressed through his curls and against his scalp as he paused just through the doorway. He could hear Peter sighing, shuffling, but not coming after him. The rest of the house was likely asleep but all that Mohinder could do was try to keep himself together.

Matt was awake when Mohinder eventually tried to wind down and get some sleep. Or at least rest. It wasn't that Matt had trouble sleeping ... or okay, maybe some, because he was growing increasingly restless and fidgety and unhappy, but part of it was that he wanted to keep an eye (a thought?) on Molly.

Her dreams weren't bad, but they were uneasy. Squirming. And maybe they were fever dreams or something, but her own mental voice was becoming ... thinner, somehow. Less clear, not as easily picked up. And it worried him.

That was something Matt had started noticing lately. Each mind had its own touch, its own feeling. Like fingerprints.

And when he heard Mohinder's mind approach he shifted his head slightly to listen closer. Not to the thoughts themselves - he didn't want to hear them right now, not after the recent ones - but there was something wrong. Something very wrong, very different.

He waited until Mohinder had closed the door to sit up and lean on one arm, looking at him. Warily, really.

"What's wrong?" he asked, but scared to have any real concern in his voice. "Your mind's going crazy."

He knows.

That didn't need to be a planted thought because Mohinder would have come to the same conclusion too. He leaned back against the door, hand still on the brass knob, and thought for several seconds about just leaving. He should have showered. Brushed his teeth. Matt was being coy with him, but you couldn't hide anything from a telepath. Not one like Matt who could go so far as to change the way you thought, not just listen in.

All of the coloured drained from Mohinder in less than a breath and he pressed his lips together. It had nothing to do with keeping himself from answering and everything to do with holding back the tears.

He didn't want to hurt his lover.

But he deserves it. He's lazy. Pathetic. Why should you give your life up for someone like that?

The thought chilled him and he looked down.

"Maybe I am crazy," Mohinder said softly, not looking at Matt. "I wish it was just a matter of restlessness but..." He was stalling now. He had no reason not to come clean. "I kissed Peter. I'd like to say it was an accident but...I'm not so sure."

Matt felt the sting. He felt it very, very clearly, because it settled right behind his sternum like a punch, but he absorbed that shock and turned it into a dull anger.

He'd seen it coming, he thought as he stood and looked towards the ceiling for a moment to collect himself. He'd seen this coming. And it made him mad. With Mohinder, sure, because they were together, he should've been able to trust him - god, he was sick to death of people going behind his back, of people he couldn't trust - but also with Peter, because he was supposed to be his friend.

Friends didn't allow their friend's partners to kiss them. But Mohinder's wording had still very clearly made Mohinder responsible.

He grit his teeth and tore his eyes down to look at Mohinder again and he approached him in that way he had in the past. Playing on intimidation. He didn't even realize it. But he kept a distance, still. And he kept his voice mostly even.

"Yeah? What else?"

He wanted to know. He had a right to know.

There had been plenty of times that Matt cornered him to get his point across and many more times that he'd tried to act the bear and stare him down before. Their fights have never been that sort of physical, Matt never touched him violently, but he could certainly scare Mohinder. He was doing so even now.

You don't love him any more.

That thought struck Mohinder as strange and he tested it ought before rejecting him. He did love Matt. He felt it even now, the tingle in his belly that went against everything he'd been doing over the last two weeks. Tears threatened to hit him but he rejected them, clinging onto his notion that he'd not been understood. That Matt had been neglecting him.

He'd reached out to someone that might not make him feel so worthless--

Mohinder stared at his feet.

"What else?" He's calling you a whore. "I didn't sleep with him, if that's what you're asking." His jaw lifted and he gritted his teeth. "What are you implying?"

There had been even more times when Matt had cornered Mohinder just to press against him, to trap him so he wouldn't escape when he'd dip his head down to kiss his neck and sneak his hands under his shirt. Originally, when Matt had loomed over him like this, it had been about the intimidation. Then it hadn't been. It was like they'd finally gone full circle.

"Wh- no, not that", Matt said quickly in response. He hadn't thought about it like that, that hadn't been what he' meant - but now he was thinking about it. Not that it might've happened, but that it could, and it twisted the pain and the anger around even more. "I mean- what else to do you want to say?"

There had to be more than that. There had to be something. He found himself closer still, looking down at Mohinder but not quite within touching distance yet. His voice felt tight.

"Might as well say all of it now, right?"

Oh, he didn't mean to be bitter, but his tone definitely was. How else was he supposed to react?

Mohinder had kissed Peter. Peter. He'd kissed him when Matt should've been able to trust him, when Matt had believed that they could be happy.

And it hurt so deeply because Matt loved Mohinder, too. He did. And the slight movement in his mind that wasn't his own that insisted that he didn't was mostly brushed aside. He didn't register it. He was too caught up in the look in Mohinder's eyes.

"What else?" So it was just going to be now then? Tell him everything. Every slight, every disgust. He asked. Mohinder could just push the door behind him and escape. He could turn the knob and be knocked back into the hallway. He could run. You saw him hurt people before. One thought--

Mohinder's eyes widened. Matt was beyond dangerous. He nearly killed a man-- He could hurt Peter for this-- Hurt him. Mohinder tried his best to be stronger than he knew he was and gritted perfect, white teeth together.

"I thought I could do this." He wasn't specific enough and Matt's mind could easily supply Mohinder's uneasiness with himself and with nothing to do to be indicative of unhappiness in his relationship. And that wouldn't be wrong. "I don't know what happened, exactly, but I'm not handling it well. I'm unhappy."

He'd said as much before. Maury could easily fill in the blanks. Though Mohinder was talking about himself, Matt's father hardly had to push that the Indian was being disparaging towards their relationship.

"This isn't working."

Matt had this pained smile when he threw his hands up. Humor had always been a bit of a coping mechanism for him - or if not humor, then at least self-depricating sarcasm, because if he took a jab at himself before the world did, it'd hurt less. So he threw his hands up and said "Yeah, clearly", and made to turn away, except he couldn't do that.

Because this was Mohinder. He couldn't possibly walk away from him, let this be unresolved. He turned back to him with an urgency that brought him even closer and here was a moment of tension and silence between them.

That's when the thoughts hit him, as something in his own mind gave way to the loud rush of Mohinder's. There was fear there. Mohinder was scared of him.

Well. That hurt even more. Mohinder had said once that he wasn't afraid of him, but he was. And scared for Peter, too. Matt felt suddenly very frustrated because he wasn't like that, he wasn't, he knew he could be and he knew how easy it'd be to just undo all of this or change it to his liking but he wasn't like that ...

"Stop that", he said, or it was more like a bark, because the hurt was just as bad as his anger. He had a hand on the opposite wall, bringing him closer to Mohinder but still not touching him. "Stop."

Insisting.

"What, so- so isn't this working, or is it that you don't want it to?"

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