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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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?"

Because Matt's telepathy was often one way, being told to 'stop that' didn't exactly come with context. Mohinder simply quieted. He'd been talking, after all, perhaps thinking of fleeing. His lips pressed shut in a straight line and his hand fell from the knob. The last thing he wanted to do was hurt Matt. They could not afford screaming matches here, not like they use to have when Molly was in bed or in her room with the music on.

Mohinder struggled to keep his natural need to sass out of the equation too. He swallowed. Tried to man up. His jaw remained set.

"I tried," he responded, but only after a moment of watching Matt step even closer and being asked, specifically. "I've spoken to you, tried to talk it out." Until Matt seemed to stop being willing to deal with it. They struggled. Mohinder tried to find his happiness again. Matt mostly rambled on. Without Molly as their glue -- she was always off with Simon these days -- it seemed that they had nothing in common again. Not even a cause to fight for, or against, or live through. "I'm tried, Matt. Don't pretend I haven't. What have you done? Drank some beer, watched some sports, sat around?"

Frustration was making him angry and upset.

He's lost interest more than you have--

"You haven't even tried to touch me in over two weeks!"

"Because you're never even here!" Matt hissed back. "You're always with Peter and- oh, I guess I know why now, don't I?"

He was glaring. He was probably unfair to try to lobby the blame back onto Mohinder, but he didn't think about it that way. It was justified. Mohinder had kissed Peter, had spent all that time with him, had probably wanted to do it, and that was on him, not on Matt.

Matt wanted Mohinder. That was all. If he wasn't enough for Mohinder, then -- well.

Honestly, he'd expected that, too. Mohinder was way out of his league, he'd said that before, had been thinking it, but ... he hadn't expected Mohinder to betray him. Mohinder knew him better than anyone else and he trusted him.

He did come clean, he reminded himself, but something crushed that thought before it was fully formed.

"Do you even want me to touch you anymore? Or is it Peter you want? Huh?"

"Peter doesn't even look at me," Mohinder hissed, which was utterly the wrong thing to say, no matter what the soft, inner monologue of his internal voice said. It was calming. Reassuring. Peter was the better match. The better choice. He was alone and hurting. Matt had been with a woman for years, longer than Mohinder had been in school. What did it matter if he wanted a little spice now and again? It wore off, whatever magic you had. He'd been so disgusted at first and you know it. Stockholm Syndrome might have set it. He loves you now because there's no one else.

The consolation prize? Mohinder's face fell in defeat through nothing Matt said at all. His mind was bunched up, almost like it was getting ready to pull itself to tatters with one good yank.

"I want to be useful to someone," Mohinder said, showing his own insecurities. "I want to do something with my life. I thought that life should include you but-- Obviously you're content enough with the status quo and a reprise of your loveless, sexless marriage."

Again, nothing he ought to have said.

He doesn't love you. Just the idea of you.

"Maybe if you took a second to notice me, to see me as I am, you'd understand. You're telepathic, Matt. You can't tell me that you don't know what I want by now!"

Matt could read minds now without any particular effort, but he still tilted his head slightly in that familiar way that meant he was listening. Maybe he wanted Mohinder to see that he was taking him up on that, whether it was a challenge or an offer. Mohinder wouldn't be able to argue about anything Matt found there, after all. Not when they were his own thoughts.

He looked Mohinder in the eyes. Something about telepathy always came easier with eye contact, but it was partially because he wanted to look at him. Wanted to see how he'd react.

Because he was still carried by the momentum of his anger, and that meant he was aggressive. He didn't raise his voice but every word was a jab.

"How the hell would I know when you have no idea? All you can think about is what you don't want. You don't- don't want this, don't want- Jesus, is there anything you want other than making an exit right now?"

Aggressive, yes. Aggressive was a good word for it. Mohinder had never actually tried to fight Matt off before, never tried to close doors, but he felt himself under a terrible attack. Felt his hurt and anger rising to meet Matt halfway and in a sort of pathetic fit to 'show' Matt, he locked and chained down his mind with dental floss and good intentions.

Of course, Matt Parkman could barge right through, though he'd certainly not tried to hurt Mohinder. The Indian's struggle did it for him and blood trickled across Mohinder's lips as he stared, unblinking, up into eyes he'd once orgasmed to.

Angrily, Mohinder wiped the blood from his lips, smearing crimson across his fingertips, without looking down at it.

"I want to be considered," Mohinder spat out, his hands shaking now as the voices in his head died away. He had no idea that they were hiding, unwilling to let Matt see them as they were. "I want my life back. I miss the man I was before all of this!"

Truth, yes.

Still, something that didn't have to be said.

He stopped the mental struggle because it hurt too much and Mohinder's thoughts and mind were spread out and bare and bleeding for Matt to run through all he'd like.

That's where Matt should have stopped. Where he should have - and did - flash back to the harm he'd done Angela, to all the harm he'd caused in New York, at one point bodies laid out around him, all of them pacified with the simple command to stop and sleep and then they were gone for long enough for him and Peter to get to the supplies and get out of there ...

Maybe Mohinder was right to be scared of him. Especially when something else was brushing his anger like kindling, keeping it alive.

He didn't realize. His own judgment was clouded.

He found a memory. Sylar. Zane. He dug it up and brought it to the forefront of Mohinder's mind.

"What man? The guy everybody used?"

He found another. A boyfriend. Experiments. He found Bennet and Bob, each of them pulling Mohinder in different directions to suit their own needs.

"You really want to be that guy?"

It was cruel. It was unfair. Mohinder was bleeding and Matt was blind.

"I never used you", he said, dropping his voice. "I never did. And you want to throw that away because you're scared."

It happened too fast for Mohinder to even flinch. He watched and listened and was forced to remember his life with such a great ease that it was impossible to fight it. Even if he thought himself able. He was too tired. Memories moved like flash cards, flicked against his forehead to see and then be dashed away again.

"Scared?" Yes, you're scared. Only stupid men would not be scared of this monster. Mohinder ignored that. Matt was not a monster. No matter what that thought might have tried to get him to believe. He threw it away as if it was nothing. The rest, however, they were piling up like mud against a wall. Mohinder had no armour against these attacks.

He was powerless.

"Bored," he spat out, tasting his own blood. His hands trembled as they made another go of it, wiping away the sticky fluid before he could taste more. "Tired of working for what you obviously do not care about."

This isn't love. He doesn't love you!

And finally, Mohinder came to believe it. Tears stung his eyes and he let himself slump back. He couldn't keep up with the blood. He was not Angela Petrelli. He wasn't strong. Not like this.

"Please, Matt, stop," he said. It was not a beg. Not yet.

Matt was trembling with energy, with the potential of it all - and he didn't think the words but it was dug up in his head still, the memory, the it becomes so much more - there was so much he could do here. He could do anything.

But why would he? Why would he want to? He didn't want to hurt Mohinder. He was bleeding and crying and he wasn't standing up for himself anymore, not even physically, and that energy that Matt was holding onto fractured when he suddenly took that in.

It turned into small fragments of mental power. Small glass shards of thoughts that Matt had to keep in his own head or he'd hurt someone. Mohinder. Would hurt him even worse.

He didn't want to.

He wanted to.

He didn't, not for anything in the world. But the anger was still there, even as he backed away finally, pushed away and let go and instead pulled both his hands through his hair.

"I care!" he said after a moment, an urgency in his voice. "You have no idea what you mean to me, Mohinder, no idea. I can't just ..."

Trailed off. What was he saying? Something anguished. His mind felt confused. Big, endless. And conflicted. What was he doing?

Just a bully.

Mohinder didn't realise he'd been dropped to the floor, his knees betraying him. He'd given up, that much was true. Given up and left go. He'd sunk. The hardwood floor by the door was cool in the early August evening. Not that long ago, he and Matt had packed Molly up to the beach. They'd played in the sand and lost their family by breakfast the next morning.

"You care." Just a whisper. How could he care? "I have no idea what I mean to you." He lifted his hands, palms smeared with his own blood.

Mohinder knew.

He could feel it between his lips and his teeth. He could taste it and it was like metal. Unsavory. Wicked.

You did this. The rancid words were turned immediately back on him and Mohinder swallowed it down as he struggled to his knees so that Matt could see the proof of his caring. You deserve this. He's right. There's something wrong with you.

"Is this proof?" His head ached.

More blood.

His first boyfriend caused him to bleed. Bob Bishop and Noah Bennet made him bleed too. Zane. Sylar. Oh, he'd bled so much for Sylar, hadn't he? And now Matt, he was bleeding for him now. Faggot.

The hands of men did this.

You deserve worse.

He did. He was nothing.

Matt struggled a moment longer with what was happening to him and then when he ... when he gathered himself, he finally truly saw what was happening to Mohinder. And the anger melted from him thickly and slowly while he stood and stared, but it did, and it had stained him deeply and he knew he'd crossed some kind of threshold, but now he could only try to deal with what was there.

He swallowed. He cautiously approached Mohinder again but made himself smaller. Tried to, anyway.

"I - Mohinder ..."

His voice was quiet and regretful when he leaned to offer Mohinder a hand, but when Mohinder seemed to shy away from even that, looked scared - felt scared, it was loud in his head - Matt felt it like another punch.

Well. He'd earned that one.

He hesitated and then sank to his knees in front of Mohinder and reached for his shoulders.

"I'm sorry", he whispered, looking at the blood. "Sorry, I didn't ... never again." Thickly. But they both knew he couldn't promise that.

It had been good, that power.

It had been scary.

Maury subtly tightened some strings.

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