Pen Pals Pt. 2
Characters/Pairing: Mohinder/Gabriel
Rating: PG13
Words: 15477 (total)
Summary: When they are ten and eleven years old, respectively, Gabriel and Mohinder’s parents sign them up to have a pen pal. They keep it up much longer than anyone would have expected---through childhood, their teens, and into adulthood.
Part 1
At seventeen years old, Mohinder was short for his age and desperately awaiting the growth spurt that, given the height of all of his relatives on both sides, he felt genetically assured was coming. He overcompensated for his short stature by employing a constant brusqueness of manner and a quick temper that often flared. Luckily though, other than sometimes coming across as a prig, Mohinder’s manner rarely ever caused any actual trouble. His main form of rebellion lay in not cutting his hair, and the fact that he had no mother to cluck over him nine months out of the year made this possible. It hung, in luxurious rock star curls, around his too-pretty face and too-chiseled jaw (the one feature that countered his height to make it clear that he was no longer a little boy), framing skin that while unblemished by acne, had turned sallow after months in England.
Mohinder was on the train back from a weekend spent with friends in London. He, Mitchell, and George had descended upon Mitchell’s parents, eating an army’s worth of food, and enjoying a trip to the theatre with Mitchell’s mother before going out to a pub and feeling very grown-up, indeed. Mitchell had successfully chatted up a pretty girl, which had made them all very proud, but it was quickly ruined when George became sickeningly intoxicated and needed to be taken home. Until that point, Mohinder had sat in the corner, smiling back at the many girls who smiled at him, but feeling too awkward to approach anyone.
“You’re a pansy, Suresh,” Mitchell was teasing.
“How?” he retorted.
“You don’t know how to close,” George agreed. “If I had your face…”
“I’m glad you don’t have my face. That saves it from being stuck into filthy toilets,” Mohinder quipped.
Mitchell laughed. “Good one.”
They went on like this for a few more minutes. Mohinder loved these train rides, loved these weekends with his friends. With a pang, realized that chances like this were slipping through his fingers. It was already December; after this, they would only have one semester left before of school. He was mostly assured of going to either Oxford or Cambridge, but it wouldn’t be the same.
That first year had been rough, but by the second he’d warmed up (even though the weather hadn’t), and Mohinder had allowed a few people to get past his hedgehog exterior to find the quick grins and hyper-caring person hidden within. By now, his fifth year, he had gotten used to it, stopped being lonely, and even slowly learned to love Harrow---just like all the House Masters that first awful week, so long ago now as he joked with his pals, had told them.
But now there were preparations to leave. The stress of university applications was taking over the year, and this was the first weekend in months that he’d taken off instead of working. Pressure came not just from the school and from his parents, but also from himself.
“What are you doing for the holidays, Mohinder?” Mitchell asked.
“I’m going on a research trip with Jenkinson to Madagascar to study the biology of the frogs there. I’m stoked.” Jenkinson was the headmaster and had personally selected Mohinder for this honor.
There was a pause.
“Stoked?” Mitchell asked.
“You know, Suresh, if I didn’t know better, sometimes I would take you for a Yank,” George joked. “You come out with the strangest expressions sometimes.”
Mohinder smiled disingenuously, thinking of the letter he secretly carried in his backpack. He’d picked up the day’s mail on the way to the train but hadn’t yet had a moment alone to immerse himself in this edition of what he liked to call ‘the decoding of Gabriel’.
In the early years, Mohinder had taken most of what Gabriel said at face value, but as he’d gotten older, he’d learned to peer into the cracks, the holes, the imperfections that Gabriel so desperately tried to cover up. Mohinder was not only scientifically-minded, he was also an excellent student, and the fact that his entire relationship with Gabriel existed on paper made it much easier for him to study and understand this one person than it was for him to understand anyone else.
It was also the one true extra-curricular activity Mohinder had. At boarding school, ‘extra-curriculars’ like sports and community service and clubs were basically part of the regimen. From morning until bedtime, Mohinder did what was assigned. Much as Gabriel had expressed envy of Mohinder’s supposed independence, Mohinder longed to be able to separate his life in some way into the things that were required and the things that were just for him. Writing Gabriel and calling his parents were the only things that he had to hold onto to remember who he as a person separate from his school. But unlike the calls to his parents, this was a secret.
He knew there was nothing shameful about it, but he instinctively knew that most boys did not continue writing to their childhood pen pals at his age, if they ever did at all. Between his short height, his overly-pretty face, his studiousness, and his foreignness, there was already more than enough material for the other boys to tease him about, and he wasn’t about to give them even more fodder. And, irrational as it was, Mohinder didn’t want the barbs of the other boys tainting the one thing that had remained constant from his old life in India, so long ago and far away now, through high school, and which seemed like it would remain all the way into college.
Something that had recently started to bother him, however, was the way Gabriel had wholly ceased to talk about his father. He had no basis for his conclusion, but he simply couldn’t believe that Gabriel would omit to tell him if he had actually died, and so he ascertained that something else must have happened, something that Gabriel was too proud to admit.
****************************************************
Dear Gabriel,
This will be very quick. Can you believe that I have tried three times to write you in the past two weeks, but each time, either I have absent-mindedly mislaid the piece of paper, or my pen has run out, or someone has interrupted me. I know you are probably waiting to hear from me, because more time than usual has elapsed, so I just wanted to make sure that you know that I am thinking of you and intend you write you something very juicy and long as soon as I have a moment. This entire semester has been one long sleepless night. The pressure to get into Oxbridge is fierce. I’m sure you’ll understand it next year when you go through it. What if I fail, Gabriel? What if I don’t make it in? I know the probablility is low, but I can’t help but worry. I could never go home again having failed. I could never show my face around school either. I would belong nowhere…
Anyway, I meant to write simply to let you know that I am alright, not to begin an entire essay.
More soon, I promise, as soon as I have a moment (I hope I get a moment to put this in the post),
Yours,
Mohinder
****************************************************
College was perhaps the most disappointing thing that had yet happened to Gabriel. Money was tight at home, and although he’d gotten pretty good scholarships to a bunch of schools around the country, Gabriel’s mother had used all her tried and true guilt-tripping methods to make sure that he went to college in the city and continued to live at home. He was trying to be a good student, but now in his third year, Gabriel realized that it had been the worst decision he’d ever made. The sameness of his existence was starting to eat away at him. He came home to the same apartment he’d lived in his whole life. He ate the same snack. He listened to his mother’s same rants. Getting a degree was all well and good, but it wasn’t granting him the new life that television and the brochures had promised.
Well, there were some changes, but they weren’t necessarily all they were cracked up to be either.
For example, the ‘date’ he was currently on. She was some chick from his sociology class, and she’d asked him to go for coffee with him at the Starbucks closest to the Hunter campus. He didn’t really understand why, but if he didn’t come home with a story about having been out with a girl soon, his mother was going to nag him to death.
Ellen was completely ordinary, and Gabriel couldn’t have been less interested. She dressed in the same boring jeans and J. Crew sweater uniform that every other girl did. She talked about the same boring nothingness that everyone else talked about, the kind of topics that are forgotten by the next day. She was blandly pretty, with mousy brown hair and brown eyes. Gabriel’s mother would have loved her, he thought grimly to himself.
Still, he wished that he could care. He wished that he could feel compelled to give her the kind of look that she was giving him. But he couldn’t. She left him cold. Almost all girls did. Gabriel didn’t really want to think about what this said about him… but then, almost all men left him cold in that way, too. They were all too quotidian, boring and stupid and ordinary. All the same, he wished he could feel excited about more people, even in a regular way, if not in attracted way. With so few friends, and so little in his life, he felt as though everything was slipping by him. He knew that it was wrong to increasingly want to cut himself off from other people, but these days, all he wanted to do was be by himself.
Against the knowledge of his mother, he’d taken to spending a lot of time in the shop recently. It had remained locked up since his father’s departure, years ago now. They still owned the place, but he and his mother never talked about it. However, one particularly listless day, Gabriel had decided to give into a long-growing desire, and found the key. Everything remained the same as it had been when he’d last visited. The watches on display, the tools, the humming of the worklight. He’d loved it there as a child, and now with his father gone, it was the only place that felt like his own. Nowadays, most of the time that he claimed to be spending at the library was now spent there. Sometimes he’d study, but sometimes he’d work on a delicate Swiss piece that he and his father had used to marvel. It was the only thing these days that made him happy.
The problem with that was that it left him with relatively little conversation. It was a problem, not just on this date, but in other areas, as well… The struggles with insecurity he had long battled was now feeding itself with his new lack of interaction with others. The less time he spent with people, the less qualified he felt to spend with them.
“Isn’t it just great here?” she was asking him. “I mean, I know this is our third year and all, but I’m still so awestruck by the city. It’s like I’ve been waiting to live here all my life, like I’ve always been a New Yorker and never known it.”
“I’ve actually lived here all my life, so I’m kind of over it,” Gabriel responded dully. She was one of those people. Ugh. The kind from god-knows-where who come to New York and act like they own the place. She’d never lived through the hard times, she’d never experienced anything real. She lived in some ridiculously nice little studio that her parents were paying for. She’d probably never been to another borough. She probably didn’t even know what another borough was.
She quite obviously wasn’t special enough for him. Maybe his mother wouldn’t approve after all.
****************************************************
Dear Mohinder,
I’m sorry it’s been awhile since you’ve heard from me, Life has been busy… you know how it is. Congratulations on getting into your graduate program! I’m sure you were a shoe-in, anyway, so it isn’t really a surprise. I guess you’ll still be at Cambridge, right, so it isn’t much of a change.
Not much here has changed either. In fact, I have very little to report. I haven’t been doing much reading outside of schoolwork. School has been very busy.
Anyway, sorry this is so short. I promise I’ll have more to tell you next time.
Sincerely, and congratulations again,
Gabriel
****************************************************
A day job in a glass-plated office building, late nights spent in bars… These were not things to which Mohinder was accustomed. In fact, pretty much everything about the previous two months had been new and different, yet exhilarating. He felt as though he was being bad, for the first time, all the time.
Not that he had never partied, of course. He was 24 years old, for heavens sake. But he had always done it in a very controlled way, with few surprises and very little rushing or bustle. Therefore, it was with extra clumsiness that he navigated this particular night. He and his friends had been running and stumbling down lonely streets for what felt like an age when suddenly Mohinder got one of those flashes of inspiration that come only to the young and drunk. He slowed his pace, trying to allow the others to get ahead of him. They wouldn’t let him, however.
“Come on, Suresh! Vite! There won’t be another bus for an hour!”
Victor and Stacy slowed down as well and tried to pull him bodily down the block as they ran towards the stop, but Mohinder lost his footing, stumbled, and wound up in a heap in the middle of the sidewalk.
“Don’t worry about me! I’ll walk,” he said calmly, waving them away. Mohinder was desperate to be alone now that he’d thought of this brilliant plan. The last thing he wanted was to head back to his sad little dorm room. He’d been heading back to sad little dorm rooms for over half his life. He’d come here to live, not for that. It had been a long evening of sitting, drinking, changing locale, and drinking some more, and Mohinder was feeling tired, too tired to run for a bus.
“It’s too far and you are too drunk,” they retorted. Victor and Stacy looked conflicted as they glanced back and forth between Mohinder and the bus pulling into the stop. Finally, they looked at one another, shrugged, and left him there to run for it.
Mohinder’s new friend Sophie was the only one who came back to try to get him. She was much smaller than he was, and it was only through the surfacing of some still-present gentlemanly instinct that he allowed her to help him to his feet rather than sitting there obstinately, as he could have. She put an arm around his waist and looked adoringly up into his eyes. “We must get you home.”
Feeling crafty, he nodded and walked with her as far as the bus. He and Sophie were the last in line to board. Mohinder queued up behind her as though about to follow her, but once she was safely on, he quickly jumped down the steps and out of the bus.
“What are you doing?” she called from inside.
“Vous venez, ou quoi?” the driver demanded with irritation. Mohinder shook his head firmly in the negative and stood his ground.
Looking at Sophie and their other friends through the window, he shouted, “I have something I need to do. I am not that drunk, I swear. I’ll take a taxi home.”
“What could you possible have to do at this hour? It’s almost three!” Marc-Antoine yelled, but the driver slammed the door shut before Mohinder had a chance to respond. He waved at his friends as the bus pulled away from the stop. Smiling, he watched it drive away, ignoring the almost immediate ringing of his phone; Mohinder wasn’t in the mood for explanations. When the bus was out of sight, he looked around him to see what his options were.
With the crowd from the night bus gone, the dark and dirty street was now deserted, save for a couple of drunken stragglers cursing and shaking their fists in frustration. With a wide and private smile, Mohinder turned on his heels and started heading for the crêpe stand that he knew was only a couple of blocks away.
***************************************************************
Dear Gabriel,
I haven’t heard from you in quite some time, and decided tonight to check in. I hope everything is alright. It’s odd to know that almost anything could have happened to you and I would have no idea. You are literally the only person with whom I carry on a paper corespod correspondence. I used to sometimes wonder if we should have switched over to email along with the rest of the century, but I like things as they are now. How do you feel about it?
You might be interested to know that instead of a dorm room or my bedroom back in Chennai (it’s still strange to call it by its new name), I am writing you from a beach bench on the oldest bridge in Paris. There is a light over me, and people making their way home after a long night. It’s 3am right now, and I’ve just finished a crepe. You can probably see the nutella stain on the bottom of the page.
I’m fairly certain I told you that I was applying to be here for this summer and for the next semester, but it has been so many months that I can’t be sure. Either way, as you can probably tell, I was accepted and am now here. I started an internship at a pharmaceutical company a few weeks ago, and it will last until the end of September. The pay is incredible, much more than I would will would make as an academic. I have also signed up for a lot of classes in subjects I’ve never taken before---entrepreneurship and patents. I don’t know what has come over me. I spent all my life wanting to follow in my father’s footsteps and never considred anything else. What if I can help people in some other way? I should try. My father says that pharmaceuticals is probably a good fit for me, that being a cog in a wheel is all I’m cut out for. I’ll show him.
What has happened to me, you may ask? I’ve asked the same thing of myself. My girlfriend back in England says that I’m going through a quarter life crisis. She says that’s a term you Americans have coined for this.
I have a girlfriend. Did I tell you that? Her name is Mira. We were set up last summer when I went home to visit my parents. She is studying at Oxford, which is why I didn’t know her. She is getting a PhD in biology. She is very good-looking and from a good family and smart. All the things I should want.
However, enough about me. The reason I decided to write to you right now is because while I found myself thinking about you quite a lot today. I was out with some of my ‘friends’ here, but it didn’t feel right. It has been so many years since I have immersed myself in a place where I don’t know a healthy number of people that I find myself having a hard time feeling at home with these new acquaintances. I was reminded of how I felt back when I first started Harrow and how writing you made me feel less lost. Perhaps writing you will do the same again now.
I was also thinking of you because I am almost certain you would hate it here. There is so little sense of order here. Prices are often invented and everything is run with the least efficiency possible. I’ve stepped in dog shit almost every day since my arrival. I myself can’t quite tell whether or not I love it or am frustrated. It’s probably a little of both. I don’t know if I love Paris or if I’m invi intrigued by the relatively normal, working adult life I’m experimenting with.
Please write back soon! Tell me anything you’ve been doing or thinking about. Have you read anything interesting since you last wrote? You know I love hearing your ideas about books, and it’s been awhile since you’ve given me a recommendation. I suppose I’ve gotten used to hearing from you regularly over the years, and the lapse has been bothering me, which is why I had to write tonight. Or you could even send me an email. I’ll write my address below. It would be a strange but welcome treat to see your name pop up in my inbox one day. I was just thinking how odd it is that after all these years, I still have no idea what you look like. Do you ever think about that? Don’t most pen pals send pictures? We never did. I would send you one, but there is nowhere to procure it right now. If you send me one in your next letter (or maybe a digital picture, how modern!) I will send you one in return.
Yours,
Mohinder
PS-I’ll let you in on a little secret, Gabriel. It’s 3am and I’m completely pissed right now. My apologies if I sound rather crazy. I intend to mail this tonight before I sober up and regret anything I have written here.
****************************************************
It wasn’t really that late, but with Daylight Savings Time not yet adopted, the sun had already set before Gabriel had gotten up to turn on more lights in the shop. With nothing else to do and no one to go home to, he had decided to stay awhile longer and work on his 1917 Swiss piece. It had been a busy day, actually, full of people walking in to get things repaired or to admire the antiques placed strategically around the room. Therefore, his reaction when yet another customer entered the shop was more than usually blasé. Gabriel’s attention went immediately to the man’s watch, hoping to get this over with quickly so that he could get back to his personal task. It was so simple as to hardly be a job at all, as distracting as a fly. Gabriel’s father had long ago taught him that eschewing payment for this kind of thing built the kind of karma with the neighborhood that was good for business, so Gabriel waved away offers of compensation.
However, there was something in the man’s reaction that wasn’t like all the others. He took his glasses off in order to finally actually see the kindly-looking older Indian gentleman.
“I came to find you,” the man said when Gabriel called him out on not having come for the watch. “My name is Chandra Suresh. I’m a geneticist.”
Gabriel only barely heard the rest of the man’s short and vague introduction. Something about a theory about humanity and how Gabriel might be a part of it. He registered it, of course---the fact that someone, anyone had come looking specially for him would always be exciting---but he was stuck on ‘Suresh the geneticist’.
Having handed Gabriel a book and a card, the man bade a still reeling Gabriel farewell and headed for the door. It took Gabriel a second to come out of his daze, but once he did, he scrambled from his desk and got to the door just as it had shut behind Chandra.
“Dr. Suresh!” he cried into the street, for the first time in years not caring whether or not he was making a scene.
The man turned around and started walking back towards the shop with a kindly smile. “Yes, Gabriel?” he asked, re-entering the lamp-lit space.
“Do you have any children?” he blurted out.
Chandra stiffened and shook a little, visibly pained. Resting his hand against the door, his voice became brittle and cautious as he finally answered, “I have only a son. Why do you ask?”
Gabriel had no logical reason to lie. In fact, it would have made more sense to tell the truth. But in a flash, he remembered what Mohinder had said between the lines about his father. Chandra’s reaction and stilted answer to what should have been a straight-forward question was another signal to play this close to the chest.
“I just… I don’t know. Before I read your book, I wanted to feel like I knew you somehow. Knew something about you other than science. I often look up facts about writers before I read, even for novels,” Gabriel lied smoothly with a disingenuous shrug. He’d never really done this before and he was amazed at how easily wearing a mask could be. “It’s just a habit of mine.”
It seemed to work. Chandra’s body language softened. “I see. That’s a very nice idea, actually.” Gabriel could tell that Chandra didn’t actually care about his habit, that he was just buttering him up by any means necessary so that he could come back and talk about whatever it was that the book was about. “Yes, I have a son. He’s about your age, or perhaps just a couple of years older. His name is Mohinder.”
Gabriel stifled a gasp. “I’m sure he looks up to you. Maybe became a scientist himself?” he dangled encouragingly, just to be sure.
“How on earth did you guess that?” Chandra asked, and when Gabriel shrugged innocently, he relaxed and added, “I don’t know about looking up to me, but he did become a scientist. He’s a professor. An assistant professor,” Chandra said, and the word couldn’t have dripped with more derision, although what higher level Chandra expected from a 27-year-old, Gabriel didn’t know, “of biology at Chennai University. He could have and should have stayed and taught at Cambridge where he did his studies, but for some wild reason, he wanted to come home and teach in India. I’ve never understood his decision.”
“I’m sure he had a good reason,” Gabriel offered, trying his best to keep the elation out of his face and tone. “Thank you for sharing that with me. Now I feel as though…” He cast around for the right phrase. “As though I have a personal angle to hold onto as I read your book.”
Chandra laughed. “Well, there’s definitely nothing about Mohinder in there. Not by a long shot,” he said bitterly, and Gabriel had a feeling that there was something else going on entirely, something that had nothing to do with him or the book or Mohinder, something that Chandra was hiding. But without knowing what sort of thing it was, there was no way Gabriel could get it out of him.
“It doesn’t matter. Thanks again. Goodnight!” he said firmly, ready to be rid of the man now that he’d gotten what he wanted out of him.
“Goodnight, Gabriel.” Chandra exited the shop for the second time in five minutes and Gabriel staggered back to his workspace. He looked at the back of the book Chandra had given him. Apparently, the book was about the possibility that there were people with special, magical abilities out there, that such things were merely part of human evolution?
Did Chandra really think that Gabriel was one of these people? It would seem so, given what he’d said. A surge of power and belonging and fulfillment overtook Gabriel as he opened the back flap and studied the black and white photo of the face he had just finished looking at. He wondered if Mohinder looked like his father. Chandra was nothing to write home about---one of the ‘funny-looking” Indian men that as a child Gabriel had noticed. But one never knew. Perhaps he had a beautiful wife whom Mohinder resembled.
Enough pointless speculation, Gabriel finally decided. Destiny had played into Gabriel’s hands. What were the odds of Mohinder’s father coming to him like this, telling him that he might be special in some way? That couldn’t be coincidence. He’d always known that something extraordinary would and should happen to him, that he deserved chances that other people didn’t have. And here it was. Gabriel hadn’t felt the need to grab something by the horns like this in his entire life.
The only stop he made on his way home was in a corner store to purchase a ten-dollar telephone card. Then it was up to his apartment to turn his old, slow, dial-up computer on. Gabriel paced around the living room as it booted, whirrs and clicks and whooshes matching the expectant and inarticulate noises in his head.
It barely occurred to him that Mohinder might be over it, over wanting to talk to him. But how could he, Gabriel reasoned, when Gabriel was still so excited about him? Plus, even lapsed interest had to be rekindled in the face of such a series of unlikely events. Something powerful had thrown them together, kept them together even as they tried to drift apart.
The computer finally finished its waking rituals, and Gabriel sat down in front of it. As Mohinder had once told him long ago, both his surname and first name were quite common, but there was only one assistant professor of biology at Chennai University. After an hour’s frustrating effort, he found a webpage with the numbers for the biology department, and saw Mohinder’s name listed among the other professors. After writing down the number listed next to his name, Gabriel turned off the computer and scratched out the pin number on the back of the phone card with fingernails that twitched almost too feverishly to complete the task.
Gabriel stood up, too nervous and excited to sit. He knew he was being connected when he heard the phone ringing that odd single-tone ring that always happened when he called other countries. He ground the heel of his palm into the table to channel the fidgetiness out of his voice and focus it somewhere Mohinder couldn’t notice.
“Hello?” Mumbled, and with a slight tinge of irritation, there wasn’t much to tell from just a hello. It could have been a receptionist, for all Gabriel knew.
“May I speak with Mohinder, please?” Gabriel asked.
“This is Dr. Suresh speaking. How may I help you?” the surprisingly generically British voice all but snapped. All Gabriel’s childhood studying of Indian accents had failed to prepare him for the clipped, upper-crust inflection that came to him through the phone.
Clutching the phone like a vise, the words came tumbling out faster than he could control them. “Mohinder, this is Gabriel. Gabriel Gray. You---”
Gabriel heard a wooden chair slide sharply across a wooden floor with a nasty squeak, and he knew that now Mohinder was standing, too. “Gabriel Gray!” Gone were the irritation and tired-sounding mumble. Gabriel thought his name had never sounded quite that good. “I can’t believe it. Is it really you? It’s been years…”
Ever precise, Gabriel interrupted, “Three.”
Mohinder barely registered his addition. “How… this is wonderful, and wonderfully unexpected. How… how did you find me? How are you?”
“I’m okay, I guess.” Gabriel realized that after their ecstatic beginning, he was at a loss of conversation. He hated to admit it, but this was starting to feel like a conversation with any old stranger; he and Mohinder had never spoken before---only monologued at one another, really. Lacklusterly, he added, “How are you?”
“Eh. Same as ever.” He could hear that Mohinder, too, was feeling flustered and lost.
“That can’t be true. You’re a professor now. That’s a big change from the last time we were in touch.”
Mohinder laughed. It was a glorious sound. “That’s true. I am. How did you find me?”
“Google. I guess I could have done it before, but... you know.” Gabriel winced as he remembered that last letter Mohinder had written months after Gabriel had made the painful decision to let the correspondence end. He’d been so ashamed of his lot, and somehow too lonely to continue reaching out to Mohinder in that way. He’d felt that they’d reached a point where either they should intensify the relationship---with emails and phone calls---or else drop it. Gabriel hadn’t felt comfortable enough with himself to do the former, so he let it drop rather than face possible humiliation. Plus, it was clear that his confused imaginary feelings for his faceless friend were probably unhealthy, so it was best to stop. The last letter he’d gotten from Mohinder had been that drunkenly affectionate one from Paris. As usual, Mohinder was out and about, a world traveler, while Gabriel was stuck in the shop, going nowhere. Gabriel had put the letter away in a drawer and never answered it, but he still read it sometimes.
“I know,” Mohinder replied, and he sounded just as wistful as Gabriel had felt all this time.
Gabriel felt them about to lapse into an awkward moment, but then remembered what had provoked this call. He cleared his throat. “So the reason I’m calling today… The most incredible thing happened.”
“And what is that?” Mohinder asked, half in a chuckle.
While Gabriel could almost hear Mohinder relaxing into the conversation, Gabriel was gearing up for maximum drama. With ironic nonchalance, he tossed out, “I met your dad.”
“What?” All the camaraderie of the past minute---of the past fifteen years---disappeared in an instant to be replaced by hesitation and suspicion. “Where? How?”
“He came to my shop. I took over my father’s shop. Did you know that?” Gabriel was so rattled now, both by the exhilaration of actually speaking to Mohinder, and also by Mohinder’s reaction, that he now couldn’t remember what he had and hadn’t told the man. That was old news, however. The real news was that Gabriel was on the cusp of greatness, about to be someone special and interesting.
“No, but I assumed you had,” Mohinder rattled off matter-of-factly. “What did my father say?”
Gabriel described the brief meeting, how he had put two and two together to feel sure that Mohinder must be this man’s son, how Chandra had left Gabriel with a book---
“Oh shoot. I forgot the book at work.” Gabriel interrupted the end of his own tale to look around him in dismay. He’d meant to read it that night, to start right away, but in his excitement about Mohinder, he’d left it on his work table.
There was a pause. “You did? That doesn’t sound like---” Mohinder stopped himself.
“Like what?” Gabriel asked, smiling, because he knew at least a handful of answers that it ought to be. ‘Like you’ or ‘like something I thought you’d do’. Mohinder apparently knew him as well as he thought he knew Mohinder.
“Did you tell him about me? That you know me… or, well, at least sort of know me?” Mohinder was guarded, and Gabriel imagined him piecing together the information.
“No, I didn’t. But it’s no big deal. I figure I can just tell him when I see him again, pretend that I wanted to make certain before bringing it up.”
“No, don’t,” Mohinder exclaimed. Then, even more desperately, “Gabriel, I don’t like this. I don’t want you becoming my father’s lab rat. I don’t want you talking to him. Please, promise me you won’t.”
For the first time since the night little boy Gabriel had received Mohinder’s first letter, Gabriel felt annoyed with him. “Why the hell not? What if he’s right? What if I am special? Who are you to tell me to throw this chance away? Just because he isn’t interested in you…” Gabriel stopped himself before saying anything too unkind. His eagerness to reconnect with Mohinder had until this moment clouded his first joy. Chandra’s arrival had fulfilled a lot of dreams that he’d long held. He was giving him a chance to be someone. It was also a chance to get to Mohinder. Gabriel hadn’t realized that the two would conflict.
Without acknowledging what Gabriel had been about to say, Mohinder huffed before moving on. “Have you exhibited any extra-normal abilities? Some of the examples in my father’s book are flight or cellular regeneration. Things like that.” When Mohinder spoke of them, he sounded not incredulous, but also not like a true believer---something in the middle, something more objective, but still excited. Gabriel knew that the approach it sounded like Mohinder took was more reliable than Chandra’s wide-eyed fervor, but he wanted to believe, didn’t want to be dissuaded.
“No,” he pouted, “but that doesn’t mean I should be discounted. He said I was on a list he has of people with the genetic marker. Maybe whatever it is just hasn’t kicked in yet. Or maybe it’s even better than the examples he’s already thought of.”
“Maybe,” Mohinder mused. He took a deep breath before continuing, “Gabriel, I know it’s been a long time, but I’ve thought a lot about you since we were last in touch. My father’s research aside, this is… you have no idea how ecstatic I am to hear from you, to actually hear your voice for the first time. This… this is already becoming an important day for me, and it’s only 9am.”
“I know. I checked the time difference before I called,” Gabriel grinned.
“Of course you did,” Mohinder replied with a laugh.
He sounded sincere, genuine, everything that was encouraging. Gabriel picked that moment to apologize. “I’m sorry it’s been so long. I wrote you, you know, last year, but it came back months after I sent it. I guess you’d left the university and gone back to India by then.”
“It isn’t your fault. I should have written, too. But yes, I finished in June, and then my mother fell ill and so I took a lot of time off to take care of her before I started teaching.”
It had been so long since he’d been in touch with Mohinder, and even when they had been, this was the sort of everyday real life thing that they didn’t usually write about,, and so Gabriel was hesitant and awkward as he replied, “I’m sorry. Is she ok now?”
But Mohinder was thinking of other things, it turned out. “Yes, yes, everything is fine now,” he rushed. “Listen, I have a proposition for you.”
“Yeah?”
“Would you consent to becoming my lab rat instead of my father’s? That way we can see if he's right without involving him. I know almost as much about his theories as he does. And given that you and I already have a relationship…”
“Do we?” Gabriel gulped. The irrational feelings he had spent so many years repressing flooded back at the possible meaning those words could have.
“Unless you’re a different Gabriel Gray than the one I spent most of my life writing to,” Mohinder quipped, not seeming to even have noticed how what he’d said could be otherwise interpreted.
Gabriel was noting that Mohinder was less earnest and more sarcastic in person than in writing.
“Well…” Gabriel was caught between two battling desires, one to pursue this path with Chandra, whom instinct told him must have more knowledge about Gabriel’s potential ability than his son.
“I could come to see you in New York,” Mohinder continued to argue. “I could… I could be there this week, if you are also free.”
“Don’t you have to teach?” Gabriel asked. This was all happening very fast and all of the old insecurities were returning. What if Mohinder would come and look down on him? What if they wouldn’t actually get along, despite the relative ease of this phone conversation?
“It’s May. My classes have finished. I’m only in the office because it’s where I get research done. There are no official duties keeping me here for the rest of the summer.” There was something desperate in Mohinder’s voice, but Gabriel couldn’t figure out exactly what about. It didn’t make any sense.
“Why? Why would you do this? Why would you want to steal his research for his theory? I mean, didn’t you go into genetics to make your dad proud of you? Wouldn’t doing this defeat the purpose?” Mohinder had never actually said it in so many words, but Gabriel had always known it to be true.
There was a pause, and Gabriel wondered if he had struck uncomfortably too close to home.
“I went into this field to try to make a difference. Keeping you from my father is one way to do that. I promise that I will help you discover all there is to know if indeed you are one of the people in my father’s book. He’s a hard man, Gabriel. Read the book, and if you’re still interested, send me an email, and I can be in New York within a few days. It’s up to you… and we could actually meet, after all this time.”
Gabriel could hear Mohinder pleading, struggling to hold back his pride, and therefore he couldn’t say no. What if he was special? No matter how shabby and unworthy he might feel about his life in comparison to Mohinder’s, that would make up for it. “Alright,” he agreed. “What’s your email address?”
************************************************************
Dear Gabriel,
I’ve been waiting impatiently for your email and your decision. It felt like old times again. I have managed to get a ticket and am leaving this evening, but since it’s last minute and I did it with FF miles, it’s a bit roundabout. My final leg from London should get me in at around 5 in the afternoon tomorrow, your time. I’ll give you a call as soon as I have checked into my hotel.
I can hardly believe that I am about to close this email by saying:
See you soon,
Mohinder
*****************************************************
A strange woman had to help Mohinder get his enormous suitcase off the baggage carousel. Mohinder sheepishly thanked her, feeling like an idiot for needing assistance. But after almost sixteen hours spent traveling---none of them spent sleeping for nerves---Mohinder wasn’t at his strongest. He was slightly delirious as he passed through the final security and baggage check and walked through the hallway that led to the arrivals area where people were picked up. It was a delirium not caused solely by tiredness and jet lag.
He held his head high, looking past the throngs for the sign for the Airtrain that would connect him with the rest of the public transportation to take him into Manhattan, but he stopped at the sight of his name---not his own name, but Gabriel Gray’s name---written in big marker letters on a piece of white paper. Mohinder looked above the paper to see the face of the person holding it. He was very tall, and pale, and wearing huge black glasses that obscured what looked like a nice face… a very nice face, actually. At first glance, he seemed quiet, humble, intelligent, the opposite of superficial---everything Mohinder had always liked about him in theory. Despite the fact that he was alone in a strange country with no one but this in some ways stranger he was about to meet (his father didn’t count, as he had no intention of letting him know that he was in town, stealing his subjects), Mohinder’s nerves were now all replaced by excitement. There was something about Gabriel that made Mohinder even gladder that he had come. There was something about him that needed protecting, somehow; it had come through over the phone, and it was even more apparent in person.
They made eye contact. Mohinder had connected first in Frankfurt and then in Paris (getting a flight at the last minute had not left him much choice), and he knew that although Gabriel initially blended into the crowd, he must have immediately spotted Mohinder, who was the only Indian man of the right age on his flight. His chapped lips slowly spread into a smile as Gabriel’s eyebrows raised in a questioning sign of recognition and his jaw slackened.
No one would have known it for calm and smiling exterior he presented, but Mohinder’s heart was pounding as he approached. Here, after all these years, was the mysterious Gabriel.
“Nice sign,” he said in a sarcastic but still friendly greeting. “Usually, you know, people put up the names of the people they’re waiting to meet, not their own name.” Mohinder immediately regretted saying this, for Gabriel blushed bright red and looked even shier than he had a moment ago.
“Oh. I didn’t realize. Well, anyway, you spotted me, so it worked, didn’t it?”
Mohinder grinned. “Yes, it did.” Then he stopped and stood stiffly, not sure what to do now or what level of intimacy might expect. He held out his hand and said, “Well, I’m Mohinder. It’s nice to meet you.”
Gabriel looked hurt at the coldness, but stuck his hand out as well. “I fig---” he began, but then Mohinder thought better of it and interrupted him by clasping him in a bear hug.
“This is wonderful!” he exclaimed, with an effort at energy. “I’m sorry if I’m acting strange. I’m terribly exhausted and not feeling quite myself. And I have to admit, I’ve been nervous the entire way about meeting not just a potential evolved human, but you.”
Gabriel beamed. “Me, too. Hey, let me help you with your bag. What do you have in here, rocks?” he asked as he tried to pull one of them behind him towards the direction of the Air Train.
“Books. I brought everything I thought I might need for this study,” Mohinder replied. “How did you know where to meet me? I didn’t send you my flight itinerary or even what airport I was coming into. I was going to try to brave this on my own and then call you once I’d checked in and made myself decent. I’m afraid you’ve caught me at my worst.”
Gabriel was giving him that look again, the one Mohinder didn’t quite know what to make of. “Yeah, but I thought it would be more hospitable to come meet you. I figured out what flights left Chennai last night and how they might connect to get you here from London around now. There was nothing coming into Newark, so it had to be here.”
Mohinder was impressed. “Good sleuthing.”
“Eh, I’m good at stuff like that,” Gabriel said with a modest shrug. “You could stay with me, you know. You didn’t have to have booked a hotel.”
Mohinder gave him a piercing look. For someone who for so many years had obviously hid so much, Gabriel was being surprisingly open right now. Mohinder wasn’t suspicious, as such---he was a trusting person in general, and he would have been hard-pressed to start entertaining suspicions about someone he’d known basically since childhood---but the sudden change was intriguing. He had no idea what might have sparked it. “You’re very kind, but I didn’t think it would have been polite to impose. You know me, but you don’t really know what I’m like day-to-day, or how you might like me as a houseguest. I’ve gotten feedback that I’m generally a pain in the ass. Messy, disorganized, the whole lot. You’ve always struck me as a very orderly person. I might drive you mad.”
Gabriel gazed at him even more intensely. “I’m willing to take the risk.”
Mohinder clasped Gabriel’s arm. It was actually more muscular than he would have expected from one so lanky and wearing such characteristically nerdy clothes. “Let’s give it a couple of days and then reassess. What do you say?”
“Sure.”
They walked the rest of the way to the Airtrain in silence. Mohinder sneaked glances at his companion, and caught him sneaking glances of his own. All those intermittently confused feelings he’d during his childhood came rushing back. Gabriel, the faceless enigma, now had a face… and it was actually rather a handsome one (although Mohinder longed to reach out his index finger and pull those hideous glasses off by the nose bridge). He was simultaneously different and yet exactly like what Mohinder had imagined all this time. Different in terms of the wardrobe, awkwardness, and height (in his vague little fantasies about meeting the man, Mohinder hadn’t felt this short), but similar in terms of the intensity and air of pride and insecurity that hung around him.
Gabriel’s next set of leading questions may have---Mohinder couldn’t be quite sure, of course---demonstrated that Gabriel was thinking along the same lines. “So, how are you doing this? I mean, being here without your dad knowing? Didn’t you have to tell your mom you were leaving town? And your girlfriend, too…”
Mohinder stared straight ahead to spare Gabriel the embarrassment of knowing that his blush had been observed. Luckily, the train was pulling into the station and he could pretend to be paying attention to dragging the bags into the car. The two men collapsed into neighboring seats, and Mohinder finally answered, “I told my mother that I was going on a research trip to far-flung locales. I have a hard time telling outright lies to her. I’m sure you feel the same way.”
“Uhhh,” Gabriel hesitated. He didn’t really know. It was true, although he wasn’t sure how Mohinder had figured that out, but Gabriel dealt with it by simple cutting himself off from his old home.
“And,” Mohinder continued, “I don’t have a girlfriend anymore. We were going to get married, but… it didn’t work out.”
“Sorry to hear that,” Gabriel mumbled. But he didn’t sound sorry at all. And that’s when a wave of relief and understanding washed over Mohinder. Gabriel had the same confused feelings, too.
This was not going to be his usual research trip, if it had ever been.
“It’s fine. It was one of a few things I was dealing with last year… I could have used you, you know. You just disappeared. Why?” he challenged.
“I don’t know. You probably do. I’m sorry. For what it’s worth, I could have used you, too.”
“I had a feeling. Well, I’m here now. Here to help you, with whatever you want help with.” It occurred to Mohinder that he hadn’t yet once remembered the less personal aspect of this visit. “So… have you read the book? What do you think of what my father had to say? Do you think you have exhibited any of the symptoms?”
“No, not yet, but I’m sure I could or will. I feel it.”
Gabriel sounded so pained, so desperate, that Mohinder hoped it was true, for Gabriel’s sake, not for the theory’s. “We’ll figure it out, I promise. And in the meanwhile…” He smiled and let the sentence dangle suggestively, watching in anticipation as Gabriel got that look again.
THE END
Rating: PG13
Words: 15477 (total)
Summary: When they are ten and eleven years old, respectively, Gabriel and Mohinder’s parents sign them up to have a pen pal. They keep it up much longer than anyone would have expected---through childhood, their teens, and into adulthood.
Part 1
At seventeen years old, Mohinder was short for his age and desperately awaiting the growth spurt that, given the height of all of his relatives on both sides, he felt genetically assured was coming. He overcompensated for his short stature by employing a constant brusqueness of manner and a quick temper that often flared. Luckily though, other than sometimes coming across as a prig, Mohinder’s manner rarely ever caused any actual trouble. His main form of rebellion lay in not cutting his hair, and the fact that he had no mother to cluck over him nine months out of the year made this possible. It hung, in luxurious rock star curls, around his too-pretty face and too-chiseled jaw (the one feature that countered his height to make it clear that he was no longer a little boy), framing skin that while unblemished by acne, had turned sallow after months in England.
Mohinder was on the train back from a weekend spent with friends in London. He, Mitchell, and George had descended upon Mitchell’s parents, eating an army’s worth of food, and enjoying a trip to the theatre with Mitchell’s mother before going out to a pub and feeling very grown-up, indeed. Mitchell had successfully chatted up a pretty girl, which had made them all very proud, but it was quickly ruined when George became sickeningly intoxicated and needed to be taken home. Until that point, Mohinder had sat in the corner, smiling back at the many girls who smiled at him, but feeling too awkward to approach anyone.
“You’re a pansy, Suresh,” Mitchell was teasing.
“How?” he retorted.
“You don’t know how to close,” George agreed. “If I had your face…”
“I’m glad you don’t have my face. That saves it from being stuck into filthy toilets,” Mohinder quipped.
Mitchell laughed. “Good one.”
They went on like this for a few more minutes. Mohinder loved these train rides, loved these weekends with his friends. With a pang, realized that chances like this were slipping through his fingers. It was already December; after this, they would only have one semester left before of school. He was mostly assured of going to either Oxford or Cambridge, but it wouldn’t be the same.
That first year had been rough, but by the second he’d warmed up (even though the weather hadn’t), and Mohinder had allowed a few people to get past his hedgehog exterior to find the quick grins and hyper-caring person hidden within. By now, his fifth year, he had gotten used to it, stopped being lonely, and even slowly learned to love Harrow---just like all the House Masters that first awful week, so long ago now as he joked with his pals, had told them.
But now there were preparations to leave. The stress of university applications was taking over the year, and this was the first weekend in months that he’d taken off instead of working. Pressure came not just from the school and from his parents, but also from himself.
“What are you doing for the holidays, Mohinder?” Mitchell asked.
“I’m going on a research trip with Jenkinson to Madagascar to study the biology of the frogs there. I’m stoked.” Jenkinson was the headmaster and had personally selected Mohinder for this honor.
There was a pause.
“Stoked?” Mitchell asked.
“You know, Suresh, if I didn’t know better, sometimes I would take you for a Yank,” George joked. “You come out with the strangest expressions sometimes.”
Mohinder smiled disingenuously, thinking of the letter he secretly carried in his backpack. He’d picked up the day’s mail on the way to the train but hadn’t yet had a moment alone to immerse himself in this edition of what he liked to call ‘the decoding of Gabriel’.
In the early years, Mohinder had taken most of what Gabriel said at face value, but as he’d gotten older, he’d learned to peer into the cracks, the holes, the imperfections that Gabriel so desperately tried to cover up. Mohinder was not only scientifically-minded, he was also an excellent student, and the fact that his entire relationship with Gabriel existed on paper made it much easier for him to study and understand this one person than it was for him to understand anyone else.
It was also the one true extra-curricular activity Mohinder had. At boarding school, ‘extra-curriculars’ like sports and community service and clubs were basically part of the regimen. From morning until bedtime, Mohinder did what was assigned. Much as Gabriel had expressed envy of Mohinder’s supposed independence, Mohinder longed to be able to separate his life in some way into the things that were required and the things that were just for him. Writing Gabriel and calling his parents were the only things that he had to hold onto to remember who he as a person separate from his school. But unlike the calls to his parents, this was a secret.
He knew there was nothing shameful about it, but he instinctively knew that most boys did not continue writing to their childhood pen pals at his age, if they ever did at all. Between his short height, his overly-pretty face, his studiousness, and his foreignness, there was already more than enough material for the other boys to tease him about, and he wasn’t about to give them even more fodder. And, irrational as it was, Mohinder didn’t want the barbs of the other boys tainting the one thing that had remained constant from his old life in India, so long ago and far away now, through high school, and which seemed like it would remain all the way into college.
Something that had recently started to bother him, however, was the way Gabriel had wholly ceased to talk about his father. He had no basis for his conclusion, but he simply couldn’t believe that Gabriel would omit to tell him if he had actually died, and so he ascertained that something else must have happened, something that Gabriel was too proud to admit.
****************************************************
Dear Gabriel,
This will be very quick. Can you believe that I have tried three times to write you in the past two weeks, but each time, either I have absent-mindedly mislaid the piece of paper, or my pen has run out, or someone has interrupted me. I know you are probably waiting to hear from me, because more time than usual has elapsed, so I just wanted to make sure that you know that I am thinking of you and intend you write you something very juicy and long as soon as I have a moment. This entire semester has been one long sleepless night. The pressure to get into Oxbridge is fierce. I’m sure you’ll understand it next year when you go through it. What if I fail, Gabriel? What if I don’t make it in? I know the probablility is low, but I can’t help but worry. I could never go home again having failed. I could never show my face around school either. I would belong nowhere…
Anyway, I meant to write simply to let you know that I am alright, not to begin an entire essay.
More soon, I promise, as soon as I have a moment (I hope I get a moment to put this in the post),
Yours,
Mohinder
****************************************************
College was perhaps the most disappointing thing that had yet happened to Gabriel. Money was tight at home, and although he’d gotten pretty good scholarships to a bunch of schools around the country, Gabriel’s mother had used all her tried and true guilt-tripping methods to make sure that he went to college in the city and continued to live at home. He was trying to be a good student, but now in his third year, Gabriel realized that it had been the worst decision he’d ever made. The sameness of his existence was starting to eat away at him. He came home to the same apartment he’d lived in his whole life. He ate the same snack. He listened to his mother’s same rants. Getting a degree was all well and good, but it wasn’t granting him the new life that television and the brochures had promised.
Well, there were some changes, but they weren’t necessarily all they were cracked up to be either.
For example, the ‘date’ he was currently on. She was some chick from his sociology class, and she’d asked him to go for coffee with him at the Starbucks closest to the Hunter campus. He didn’t really understand why, but if he didn’t come home with a story about having been out with a girl soon, his mother was going to nag him to death.
Ellen was completely ordinary, and Gabriel couldn’t have been less interested. She dressed in the same boring jeans and J. Crew sweater uniform that every other girl did. She talked about the same boring nothingness that everyone else talked about, the kind of topics that are forgotten by the next day. She was blandly pretty, with mousy brown hair and brown eyes. Gabriel’s mother would have loved her, he thought grimly to himself.
Still, he wished that he could care. He wished that he could feel compelled to give her the kind of look that she was giving him. But he couldn’t. She left him cold. Almost all girls did. Gabriel didn’t really want to think about what this said about him… but then, almost all men left him cold in that way, too. They were all too quotidian, boring and stupid and ordinary. All the same, he wished he could feel excited about more people, even in a regular way, if not in attracted way. With so few friends, and so little in his life, he felt as though everything was slipping by him. He knew that it was wrong to increasingly want to cut himself off from other people, but these days, all he wanted to do was be by himself.
Against the knowledge of his mother, he’d taken to spending a lot of time in the shop recently. It had remained locked up since his father’s departure, years ago now. They still owned the place, but he and his mother never talked about it. However, one particularly listless day, Gabriel had decided to give into a long-growing desire, and found the key. Everything remained the same as it had been when he’d last visited. The watches on display, the tools, the humming of the worklight. He’d loved it there as a child, and now with his father gone, it was the only place that felt like his own. Nowadays, most of the time that he claimed to be spending at the library was now spent there. Sometimes he’d study, but sometimes he’d work on a delicate Swiss piece that he and his father had used to marvel. It was the only thing these days that made him happy.
The problem with that was that it left him with relatively little conversation. It was a problem, not just on this date, but in other areas, as well… The struggles with insecurity he had long battled was now feeding itself with his new lack of interaction with others. The less time he spent with people, the less qualified he felt to spend with them.
“Isn’t it just great here?” she was asking him. “I mean, I know this is our third year and all, but I’m still so awestruck by the city. It’s like I’ve been waiting to live here all my life, like I’ve always been a New Yorker and never known it.”
“I’ve actually lived here all my life, so I’m kind of over it,” Gabriel responded dully. She was one of those people. Ugh. The kind from god-knows-where who come to New York and act like they own the place. She’d never lived through the hard times, she’d never experienced anything real. She lived in some ridiculously nice little studio that her parents were paying for. She’d probably never been to another borough. She probably didn’t even know what another borough was.
She quite obviously wasn’t special enough for him. Maybe his mother wouldn’t approve after all.
****************************************************
Dear Mohinder,
I’m sorry it’s been awhile since you’ve heard from me, Life has been busy… you know how it is. Congratulations on getting into your graduate program! I’m sure you were a shoe-in, anyway, so it isn’t really a surprise. I guess you’ll still be at Cambridge, right, so it isn’t much of a change.
Not much here has changed either. In fact, I have very little to report. I haven’t been doing much reading outside of schoolwork. School has been very busy.
Anyway, sorry this is so short. I promise I’ll have more to tell you next time.
Sincerely, and congratulations again,
Gabriel
****************************************************
A day job in a glass-plated office building, late nights spent in bars… These were not things to which Mohinder was accustomed. In fact, pretty much everything about the previous two months had been new and different, yet exhilarating. He felt as though he was being bad, for the first time, all the time.
Not that he had never partied, of course. He was 24 years old, for heavens sake. But he had always done it in a very controlled way, with few surprises and very little rushing or bustle. Therefore, it was with extra clumsiness that he navigated this particular night. He and his friends had been running and stumbling down lonely streets for what felt like an age when suddenly Mohinder got one of those flashes of inspiration that come only to the young and drunk. He slowed his pace, trying to allow the others to get ahead of him. They wouldn’t let him, however.
“Come on, Suresh! Vite! There won’t be another bus for an hour!”
Victor and Stacy slowed down as well and tried to pull him bodily down the block as they ran towards the stop, but Mohinder lost his footing, stumbled, and wound up in a heap in the middle of the sidewalk.
“Don’t worry about me! I’ll walk,” he said calmly, waving them away. Mohinder was desperate to be alone now that he’d thought of this brilliant plan. The last thing he wanted was to head back to his sad little dorm room. He’d been heading back to sad little dorm rooms for over half his life. He’d come here to live, not for that. It had been a long evening of sitting, drinking, changing locale, and drinking some more, and Mohinder was feeling tired, too tired to run for a bus.
“It’s too far and you are too drunk,” they retorted. Victor and Stacy looked conflicted as they glanced back and forth between Mohinder and the bus pulling into the stop. Finally, they looked at one another, shrugged, and left him there to run for it.
Mohinder’s new friend Sophie was the only one who came back to try to get him. She was much smaller than he was, and it was only through the surfacing of some still-present gentlemanly instinct that he allowed her to help him to his feet rather than sitting there obstinately, as he could have. She put an arm around his waist and looked adoringly up into his eyes. “We must get you home.”
Feeling crafty, he nodded and walked with her as far as the bus. He and Sophie were the last in line to board. Mohinder queued up behind her as though about to follow her, but once she was safely on, he quickly jumped down the steps and out of the bus.
“What are you doing?” she called from inside.
“Vous venez, ou quoi?” the driver demanded with irritation. Mohinder shook his head firmly in the negative and stood his ground.
Looking at Sophie and their other friends through the window, he shouted, “I have something I need to do. I am not that drunk, I swear. I’ll take a taxi home.”
“What could you possible have to do at this hour? It’s almost three!” Marc-Antoine yelled, but the driver slammed the door shut before Mohinder had a chance to respond. He waved at his friends as the bus pulled away from the stop. Smiling, he watched it drive away, ignoring the almost immediate ringing of his phone; Mohinder wasn’t in the mood for explanations. When the bus was out of sight, he looked around him to see what his options were.
With the crowd from the night bus gone, the dark and dirty street was now deserted, save for a couple of drunken stragglers cursing and shaking their fists in frustration. With a wide and private smile, Mohinder turned on his heels and started heading for the crêpe stand that he knew was only a couple of blocks away.
***************************************************************
Dear Gabriel,
I haven’t heard from you in quite some time, and decided tonight to check in. I hope everything is alright. It’s odd to know that almost anything could have happened to you and I would have no idea. You are literally the only person with whom I carry on a paper corespod correspondence. I used to sometimes wonder if we should have switched over to email along with the rest of the century, but I like things as they are now. How do you feel about it?
You might be interested to know that instead of a dorm room or my bedroom back in Chennai (it’s still strange to call it by its new name), I am writing you from a beach bench on the oldest bridge in Paris. There is a light over me, and people making their way home after a long night. It’s 3am right now, and I’ve just finished a crepe. You can probably see the nutella stain on the bottom of the page.
I’m fairly certain I told you that I was applying to be here for this summer and for the next semester, but it has been so many months that I can’t be sure. Either way, as you can probably tell, I was accepted and am now here. I started an internship at a pharmaceutical company a few weeks ago, and it will last until the end of September. The pay is incredible, much more than I would will would make as an academic. I have also signed up for a lot of classes in subjects I’ve never taken before---entrepreneurship and patents. I don’t know what has come over me. I spent all my life wanting to follow in my father’s footsteps and never considred anything else. What if I can help people in some other way? I should try. My father says that pharmaceuticals is probably a good fit for me, that being a cog in a wheel is all I’m cut out for. I’ll show him.
What has happened to me, you may ask? I’ve asked the same thing of myself. My girlfriend back in England says that I’m going through a quarter life crisis. She says that’s a term you Americans have coined for this.
I have a girlfriend. Did I tell you that? Her name is Mira. We were set up last summer when I went home to visit my parents. She is studying at Oxford, which is why I didn’t know her. She is getting a PhD in biology. She is very good-looking and from a good family and smart. All the things I should want.
However, enough about me. The reason I decided to write to you right now is because while I found myself thinking about you quite a lot today. I was out with some of my ‘friends’ here, but it didn’t feel right. It has been so many years since I have immersed myself in a place where I don’t know a healthy number of people that I find myself having a hard time feeling at home with these new acquaintances. I was reminded of how I felt back when I first started Harrow and how writing you made me feel less lost. Perhaps writing you will do the same again now.
I was also thinking of you because I am almost certain you would hate it here. There is so little sense of order here. Prices are often invented and everything is run with the least efficiency possible. I’ve stepped in dog shit almost every day since my arrival. I myself can’t quite tell whether or not I love it or am frustrated. It’s probably a little of both. I don’t know if I love Paris or if I’m invi intrigued by the relatively normal, working adult life I’m experimenting with.
Please write back soon! Tell me anything you’ve been doing or thinking about. Have you read anything interesting since you last wrote? You know I love hearing your ideas about books, and it’s been awhile since you’ve given me a recommendation. I suppose I’ve gotten used to hearing from you regularly over the years, and the lapse has been bothering me, which is why I had to write tonight. Or you could even send me an email. I’ll write my address below. It would be a strange but welcome treat to see your name pop up in my inbox one day. I was just thinking how odd it is that after all these years, I still have no idea what you look like. Do you ever think about that? Don’t most pen pals send pictures? We never did. I would send you one, but there is nowhere to procure it right now. If you send me one in your next letter (or maybe a digital picture, how modern!) I will send you one in return.
Yours,
Mohinder
PS-I’ll let you in on a little secret, Gabriel. It’s 3am and I’m completely pissed right now. My apologies if I sound rather crazy. I intend to mail this tonight before I sober up and regret anything I have written here.
****************************************************
It wasn’t really that late, but with Daylight Savings Time not yet adopted, the sun had already set before Gabriel had gotten up to turn on more lights in the shop. With nothing else to do and no one to go home to, he had decided to stay awhile longer and work on his 1917 Swiss piece. It had been a busy day, actually, full of people walking in to get things repaired or to admire the antiques placed strategically around the room. Therefore, his reaction when yet another customer entered the shop was more than usually blasé. Gabriel’s attention went immediately to the man’s watch, hoping to get this over with quickly so that he could get back to his personal task. It was so simple as to hardly be a job at all, as distracting as a fly. Gabriel’s father had long ago taught him that eschewing payment for this kind of thing built the kind of karma with the neighborhood that was good for business, so Gabriel waved away offers of compensation.
However, there was something in the man’s reaction that wasn’t like all the others. He took his glasses off in order to finally actually see the kindly-looking older Indian gentleman.
“I came to find you,” the man said when Gabriel called him out on not having come for the watch. “My name is Chandra Suresh. I’m a geneticist.”
Gabriel only barely heard the rest of the man’s short and vague introduction. Something about a theory about humanity and how Gabriel might be a part of it. He registered it, of course---the fact that someone, anyone had come looking specially for him would always be exciting---but he was stuck on ‘Suresh the geneticist’.
Having handed Gabriel a book and a card, the man bade a still reeling Gabriel farewell and headed for the door. It took Gabriel a second to come out of his daze, but once he did, he scrambled from his desk and got to the door just as it had shut behind Chandra.
“Dr. Suresh!” he cried into the street, for the first time in years not caring whether or not he was making a scene.
The man turned around and started walking back towards the shop with a kindly smile. “Yes, Gabriel?” he asked, re-entering the lamp-lit space.
“Do you have any children?” he blurted out.
Chandra stiffened and shook a little, visibly pained. Resting his hand against the door, his voice became brittle and cautious as he finally answered, “I have only a son. Why do you ask?”
Gabriel had no logical reason to lie. In fact, it would have made more sense to tell the truth. But in a flash, he remembered what Mohinder had said between the lines about his father. Chandra’s reaction and stilted answer to what should have been a straight-forward question was another signal to play this close to the chest.
“I just… I don’t know. Before I read your book, I wanted to feel like I knew you somehow. Knew something about you other than science. I often look up facts about writers before I read, even for novels,” Gabriel lied smoothly with a disingenuous shrug. He’d never really done this before and he was amazed at how easily wearing a mask could be. “It’s just a habit of mine.”
It seemed to work. Chandra’s body language softened. “I see. That’s a very nice idea, actually.” Gabriel could tell that Chandra didn’t actually care about his habit, that he was just buttering him up by any means necessary so that he could come back and talk about whatever it was that the book was about. “Yes, I have a son. He’s about your age, or perhaps just a couple of years older. His name is Mohinder.”
Gabriel stifled a gasp. “I’m sure he looks up to you. Maybe became a scientist himself?” he dangled encouragingly, just to be sure.
“How on earth did you guess that?” Chandra asked, and when Gabriel shrugged innocently, he relaxed and added, “I don’t know about looking up to me, but he did become a scientist. He’s a professor. An assistant professor,” Chandra said, and the word couldn’t have dripped with more derision, although what higher level Chandra expected from a 27-year-old, Gabriel didn’t know, “of biology at Chennai University. He could have and should have stayed and taught at Cambridge where he did his studies, but for some wild reason, he wanted to come home and teach in India. I’ve never understood his decision.”
“I’m sure he had a good reason,” Gabriel offered, trying his best to keep the elation out of his face and tone. “Thank you for sharing that with me. Now I feel as though…” He cast around for the right phrase. “As though I have a personal angle to hold onto as I read your book.”
Chandra laughed. “Well, there’s definitely nothing about Mohinder in there. Not by a long shot,” he said bitterly, and Gabriel had a feeling that there was something else going on entirely, something that had nothing to do with him or the book or Mohinder, something that Chandra was hiding. But without knowing what sort of thing it was, there was no way Gabriel could get it out of him.
“It doesn’t matter. Thanks again. Goodnight!” he said firmly, ready to be rid of the man now that he’d gotten what he wanted out of him.
“Goodnight, Gabriel.” Chandra exited the shop for the second time in five minutes and Gabriel staggered back to his workspace. He looked at the back of the book Chandra had given him. Apparently, the book was about the possibility that there were people with special, magical abilities out there, that such things were merely part of human evolution?
Did Chandra really think that Gabriel was one of these people? It would seem so, given what he’d said. A surge of power and belonging and fulfillment overtook Gabriel as he opened the back flap and studied the black and white photo of the face he had just finished looking at. He wondered if Mohinder looked like his father. Chandra was nothing to write home about---one of the ‘funny-looking” Indian men that as a child Gabriel had noticed. But one never knew. Perhaps he had a beautiful wife whom Mohinder resembled.
Enough pointless speculation, Gabriel finally decided. Destiny had played into Gabriel’s hands. What were the odds of Mohinder’s father coming to him like this, telling him that he might be special in some way? That couldn’t be coincidence. He’d always known that something extraordinary would and should happen to him, that he deserved chances that other people didn’t have. And here it was. Gabriel hadn’t felt the need to grab something by the horns like this in his entire life.
The only stop he made on his way home was in a corner store to purchase a ten-dollar telephone card. Then it was up to his apartment to turn his old, slow, dial-up computer on. Gabriel paced around the living room as it booted, whirrs and clicks and whooshes matching the expectant and inarticulate noises in his head.
It barely occurred to him that Mohinder might be over it, over wanting to talk to him. But how could he, Gabriel reasoned, when Gabriel was still so excited about him? Plus, even lapsed interest had to be rekindled in the face of such a series of unlikely events. Something powerful had thrown them together, kept them together even as they tried to drift apart.
The computer finally finished its waking rituals, and Gabriel sat down in front of it. As Mohinder had once told him long ago, both his surname and first name were quite common, but there was only one assistant professor of biology at Chennai University. After an hour’s frustrating effort, he found a webpage with the numbers for the biology department, and saw Mohinder’s name listed among the other professors. After writing down the number listed next to his name, Gabriel turned off the computer and scratched out the pin number on the back of the phone card with fingernails that twitched almost too feverishly to complete the task.
Gabriel stood up, too nervous and excited to sit. He knew he was being connected when he heard the phone ringing that odd single-tone ring that always happened when he called other countries. He ground the heel of his palm into the table to channel the fidgetiness out of his voice and focus it somewhere Mohinder couldn’t notice.
“Hello?” Mumbled, and with a slight tinge of irritation, there wasn’t much to tell from just a hello. It could have been a receptionist, for all Gabriel knew.
“May I speak with Mohinder, please?” Gabriel asked.
“This is Dr. Suresh speaking. How may I help you?” the surprisingly generically British voice all but snapped. All Gabriel’s childhood studying of Indian accents had failed to prepare him for the clipped, upper-crust inflection that came to him through the phone.
Clutching the phone like a vise, the words came tumbling out faster than he could control them. “Mohinder, this is Gabriel. Gabriel Gray. You---”
Gabriel heard a wooden chair slide sharply across a wooden floor with a nasty squeak, and he knew that now Mohinder was standing, too. “Gabriel Gray!” Gone were the irritation and tired-sounding mumble. Gabriel thought his name had never sounded quite that good. “I can’t believe it. Is it really you? It’s been years…”
Ever precise, Gabriel interrupted, “Three.”
Mohinder barely registered his addition. “How… this is wonderful, and wonderfully unexpected. How… how did you find me? How are you?”
“I’m okay, I guess.” Gabriel realized that after their ecstatic beginning, he was at a loss of conversation. He hated to admit it, but this was starting to feel like a conversation with any old stranger; he and Mohinder had never spoken before---only monologued at one another, really. Lacklusterly, he added, “How are you?”
“Eh. Same as ever.” He could hear that Mohinder, too, was feeling flustered and lost.
“That can’t be true. You’re a professor now. That’s a big change from the last time we were in touch.”
Mohinder laughed. It was a glorious sound. “That’s true. I am. How did you find me?”
“Google. I guess I could have done it before, but... you know.” Gabriel winced as he remembered that last letter Mohinder had written months after Gabriel had made the painful decision to let the correspondence end. He’d been so ashamed of his lot, and somehow too lonely to continue reaching out to Mohinder in that way. He’d felt that they’d reached a point where either they should intensify the relationship---with emails and phone calls---or else drop it. Gabriel hadn’t felt comfortable enough with himself to do the former, so he let it drop rather than face possible humiliation. Plus, it was clear that his confused imaginary feelings for his faceless friend were probably unhealthy, so it was best to stop. The last letter he’d gotten from Mohinder had been that drunkenly affectionate one from Paris. As usual, Mohinder was out and about, a world traveler, while Gabriel was stuck in the shop, going nowhere. Gabriel had put the letter away in a drawer and never answered it, but he still read it sometimes.
“I know,” Mohinder replied, and he sounded just as wistful as Gabriel had felt all this time.
Gabriel felt them about to lapse into an awkward moment, but then remembered what had provoked this call. He cleared his throat. “So the reason I’m calling today… The most incredible thing happened.”
“And what is that?” Mohinder asked, half in a chuckle.
While Gabriel could almost hear Mohinder relaxing into the conversation, Gabriel was gearing up for maximum drama. With ironic nonchalance, he tossed out, “I met your dad.”
“What?” All the camaraderie of the past minute---of the past fifteen years---disappeared in an instant to be replaced by hesitation and suspicion. “Where? How?”
“He came to my shop. I took over my father’s shop. Did you know that?” Gabriel was so rattled now, both by the exhilaration of actually speaking to Mohinder, and also by Mohinder’s reaction, that he now couldn’t remember what he had and hadn’t told the man. That was old news, however. The real news was that Gabriel was on the cusp of greatness, about to be someone special and interesting.
“No, but I assumed you had,” Mohinder rattled off matter-of-factly. “What did my father say?”
Gabriel described the brief meeting, how he had put two and two together to feel sure that Mohinder must be this man’s son, how Chandra had left Gabriel with a book---
“Oh shoot. I forgot the book at work.” Gabriel interrupted the end of his own tale to look around him in dismay. He’d meant to read it that night, to start right away, but in his excitement about Mohinder, he’d left it on his work table.
There was a pause. “You did? That doesn’t sound like---” Mohinder stopped himself.
“Like what?” Gabriel asked, smiling, because he knew at least a handful of answers that it ought to be. ‘Like you’ or ‘like something I thought you’d do’. Mohinder apparently knew him as well as he thought he knew Mohinder.
“Did you tell him about me? That you know me… or, well, at least sort of know me?” Mohinder was guarded, and Gabriel imagined him piecing together the information.
“No, I didn’t. But it’s no big deal. I figure I can just tell him when I see him again, pretend that I wanted to make certain before bringing it up.”
“No, don’t,” Mohinder exclaimed. Then, even more desperately, “Gabriel, I don’t like this. I don’t want you becoming my father’s lab rat. I don’t want you talking to him. Please, promise me you won’t.”
For the first time since the night little boy Gabriel had received Mohinder’s first letter, Gabriel felt annoyed with him. “Why the hell not? What if he’s right? What if I am special? Who are you to tell me to throw this chance away? Just because he isn’t interested in you…” Gabriel stopped himself before saying anything too unkind. His eagerness to reconnect with Mohinder had until this moment clouded his first joy. Chandra’s arrival had fulfilled a lot of dreams that he’d long held. He was giving him a chance to be someone. It was also a chance to get to Mohinder. Gabriel hadn’t realized that the two would conflict.
Without acknowledging what Gabriel had been about to say, Mohinder huffed before moving on. “Have you exhibited any extra-normal abilities? Some of the examples in my father’s book are flight or cellular regeneration. Things like that.” When Mohinder spoke of them, he sounded not incredulous, but also not like a true believer---something in the middle, something more objective, but still excited. Gabriel knew that the approach it sounded like Mohinder took was more reliable than Chandra’s wide-eyed fervor, but he wanted to believe, didn’t want to be dissuaded.
“No,” he pouted, “but that doesn’t mean I should be discounted. He said I was on a list he has of people with the genetic marker. Maybe whatever it is just hasn’t kicked in yet. Or maybe it’s even better than the examples he’s already thought of.”
“Maybe,” Mohinder mused. He took a deep breath before continuing, “Gabriel, I know it’s been a long time, but I’ve thought a lot about you since we were last in touch. My father’s research aside, this is… you have no idea how ecstatic I am to hear from you, to actually hear your voice for the first time. This… this is already becoming an important day for me, and it’s only 9am.”
“I know. I checked the time difference before I called,” Gabriel grinned.
“Of course you did,” Mohinder replied with a laugh.
He sounded sincere, genuine, everything that was encouraging. Gabriel picked that moment to apologize. “I’m sorry it’s been so long. I wrote you, you know, last year, but it came back months after I sent it. I guess you’d left the university and gone back to India by then.”
“It isn’t your fault. I should have written, too. But yes, I finished in June, and then my mother fell ill and so I took a lot of time off to take care of her before I started teaching.”
It had been so long since he’d been in touch with Mohinder, and even when they had been, this was the sort of everyday real life thing that they didn’t usually write about,, and so Gabriel was hesitant and awkward as he replied, “I’m sorry. Is she ok now?”
But Mohinder was thinking of other things, it turned out. “Yes, yes, everything is fine now,” he rushed. “Listen, I have a proposition for you.”
“Yeah?”
“Would you consent to becoming my lab rat instead of my father’s? That way we can see if he's right without involving him. I know almost as much about his theories as he does. And given that you and I already have a relationship…”
“Do we?” Gabriel gulped. The irrational feelings he had spent so many years repressing flooded back at the possible meaning those words could have.
“Unless you’re a different Gabriel Gray than the one I spent most of my life writing to,” Mohinder quipped, not seeming to even have noticed how what he’d said could be otherwise interpreted.
Gabriel was noting that Mohinder was less earnest and more sarcastic in person than in writing.
“Well…” Gabriel was caught between two battling desires, one to pursue this path with Chandra, whom instinct told him must have more knowledge about Gabriel’s potential ability than his son.
“I could come to see you in New York,” Mohinder continued to argue. “I could… I could be there this week, if you are also free.”
“Don’t you have to teach?” Gabriel asked. This was all happening very fast and all of the old insecurities were returning. What if Mohinder would come and look down on him? What if they wouldn’t actually get along, despite the relative ease of this phone conversation?
“It’s May. My classes have finished. I’m only in the office because it’s where I get research done. There are no official duties keeping me here for the rest of the summer.” There was something desperate in Mohinder’s voice, but Gabriel couldn’t figure out exactly what about. It didn’t make any sense.
“Why? Why would you do this? Why would you want to steal his research for his theory? I mean, didn’t you go into genetics to make your dad proud of you? Wouldn’t doing this defeat the purpose?” Mohinder had never actually said it in so many words, but Gabriel had always known it to be true.
There was a pause, and Gabriel wondered if he had struck uncomfortably too close to home.
“I went into this field to try to make a difference. Keeping you from my father is one way to do that. I promise that I will help you discover all there is to know if indeed you are one of the people in my father’s book. He’s a hard man, Gabriel. Read the book, and if you’re still interested, send me an email, and I can be in New York within a few days. It’s up to you… and we could actually meet, after all this time.”
Gabriel could hear Mohinder pleading, struggling to hold back his pride, and therefore he couldn’t say no. What if he was special? No matter how shabby and unworthy he might feel about his life in comparison to Mohinder’s, that would make up for it. “Alright,” he agreed. “What’s your email address?”
************************************************************
Dear Gabriel,
I’ve been waiting impatiently for your email and your decision. It felt like old times again. I have managed to get a ticket and am leaving this evening, but since it’s last minute and I did it with FF miles, it’s a bit roundabout. My final leg from London should get me in at around 5 in the afternoon tomorrow, your time. I’ll give you a call as soon as I have checked into my hotel.
I can hardly believe that I am about to close this email by saying:
See you soon,
Mohinder
*****************************************************
A strange woman had to help Mohinder get his enormous suitcase off the baggage carousel. Mohinder sheepishly thanked her, feeling like an idiot for needing assistance. But after almost sixteen hours spent traveling---none of them spent sleeping for nerves---Mohinder wasn’t at his strongest. He was slightly delirious as he passed through the final security and baggage check and walked through the hallway that led to the arrivals area where people were picked up. It was a delirium not caused solely by tiredness and jet lag.
He held his head high, looking past the throngs for the sign for the Airtrain that would connect him with the rest of the public transportation to take him into Manhattan, but he stopped at the sight of his name---not his own name, but Gabriel Gray’s name---written in big marker letters on a piece of white paper. Mohinder looked above the paper to see the face of the person holding it. He was very tall, and pale, and wearing huge black glasses that obscured what looked like a nice face… a very nice face, actually. At first glance, he seemed quiet, humble, intelligent, the opposite of superficial---everything Mohinder had always liked about him in theory. Despite the fact that he was alone in a strange country with no one but this in some ways stranger he was about to meet (his father didn’t count, as he had no intention of letting him know that he was in town, stealing his subjects), Mohinder’s nerves were now all replaced by excitement. There was something about Gabriel that made Mohinder even gladder that he had come. There was something about him that needed protecting, somehow; it had come through over the phone, and it was even more apparent in person.
They made eye contact. Mohinder had connected first in Frankfurt and then in Paris (getting a flight at the last minute had not left him much choice), and he knew that although Gabriel initially blended into the crowd, he must have immediately spotted Mohinder, who was the only Indian man of the right age on his flight. His chapped lips slowly spread into a smile as Gabriel’s eyebrows raised in a questioning sign of recognition and his jaw slackened.
No one would have known it for calm and smiling exterior he presented, but Mohinder’s heart was pounding as he approached. Here, after all these years, was the mysterious Gabriel.
“Nice sign,” he said in a sarcastic but still friendly greeting. “Usually, you know, people put up the names of the people they’re waiting to meet, not their own name.” Mohinder immediately regretted saying this, for Gabriel blushed bright red and looked even shier than he had a moment ago.
“Oh. I didn’t realize. Well, anyway, you spotted me, so it worked, didn’t it?”
Mohinder grinned. “Yes, it did.” Then he stopped and stood stiffly, not sure what to do now or what level of intimacy might expect. He held out his hand and said, “Well, I’m Mohinder. It’s nice to meet you.”
Gabriel looked hurt at the coldness, but stuck his hand out as well. “I fig---” he began, but then Mohinder thought better of it and interrupted him by clasping him in a bear hug.
“This is wonderful!” he exclaimed, with an effort at energy. “I’m sorry if I’m acting strange. I’m terribly exhausted and not feeling quite myself. And I have to admit, I’ve been nervous the entire way about meeting not just a potential evolved human, but you.”
Gabriel beamed. “Me, too. Hey, let me help you with your bag. What do you have in here, rocks?” he asked as he tried to pull one of them behind him towards the direction of the Air Train.
“Books. I brought everything I thought I might need for this study,” Mohinder replied. “How did you know where to meet me? I didn’t send you my flight itinerary or even what airport I was coming into. I was going to try to brave this on my own and then call you once I’d checked in and made myself decent. I’m afraid you’ve caught me at my worst.”
Gabriel was giving him that look again, the one Mohinder didn’t quite know what to make of. “Yeah, but I thought it would be more hospitable to come meet you. I figured out what flights left Chennai last night and how they might connect to get you here from London around now. There was nothing coming into Newark, so it had to be here.”
Mohinder was impressed. “Good sleuthing.”
“Eh, I’m good at stuff like that,” Gabriel said with a modest shrug. “You could stay with me, you know. You didn’t have to have booked a hotel.”
Mohinder gave him a piercing look. For someone who for so many years had obviously hid so much, Gabriel was being surprisingly open right now. Mohinder wasn’t suspicious, as such---he was a trusting person in general, and he would have been hard-pressed to start entertaining suspicions about someone he’d known basically since childhood---but the sudden change was intriguing. He had no idea what might have sparked it. “You’re very kind, but I didn’t think it would have been polite to impose. You know me, but you don’t really know what I’m like day-to-day, or how you might like me as a houseguest. I’ve gotten feedback that I’m generally a pain in the ass. Messy, disorganized, the whole lot. You’ve always struck me as a very orderly person. I might drive you mad.”
Gabriel gazed at him even more intensely. “I’m willing to take the risk.”
Mohinder clasped Gabriel’s arm. It was actually more muscular than he would have expected from one so lanky and wearing such characteristically nerdy clothes. “Let’s give it a couple of days and then reassess. What do you say?”
“Sure.”
They walked the rest of the way to the Airtrain in silence. Mohinder sneaked glances at his companion, and caught him sneaking glances of his own. All those intermittently confused feelings he’d during his childhood came rushing back. Gabriel, the faceless enigma, now had a face… and it was actually rather a handsome one (although Mohinder longed to reach out his index finger and pull those hideous glasses off by the nose bridge). He was simultaneously different and yet exactly like what Mohinder had imagined all this time. Different in terms of the wardrobe, awkwardness, and height (in his vague little fantasies about meeting the man, Mohinder hadn’t felt this short), but similar in terms of the intensity and air of pride and insecurity that hung around him.
Gabriel’s next set of leading questions may have---Mohinder couldn’t be quite sure, of course---demonstrated that Gabriel was thinking along the same lines. “So, how are you doing this? I mean, being here without your dad knowing? Didn’t you have to tell your mom you were leaving town? And your girlfriend, too…”
Mohinder stared straight ahead to spare Gabriel the embarrassment of knowing that his blush had been observed. Luckily, the train was pulling into the station and he could pretend to be paying attention to dragging the bags into the car. The two men collapsed into neighboring seats, and Mohinder finally answered, “I told my mother that I was going on a research trip to far-flung locales. I have a hard time telling outright lies to her. I’m sure you feel the same way.”
“Uhhh,” Gabriel hesitated. He didn’t really know. It was true, although he wasn’t sure how Mohinder had figured that out, but Gabriel dealt with it by simple cutting himself off from his old home.
“And,” Mohinder continued, “I don’t have a girlfriend anymore. We were going to get married, but… it didn’t work out.”
“Sorry to hear that,” Gabriel mumbled. But he didn’t sound sorry at all. And that’s when a wave of relief and understanding washed over Mohinder. Gabriel had the same confused feelings, too.
This was not going to be his usual research trip, if it had ever been.
“It’s fine. It was one of a few things I was dealing with last year… I could have used you, you know. You just disappeared. Why?” he challenged.
“I don’t know. You probably do. I’m sorry. For what it’s worth, I could have used you, too.”
“I had a feeling. Well, I’m here now. Here to help you, with whatever you want help with.” It occurred to Mohinder that he hadn’t yet once remembered the less personal aspect of this visit. “So… have you read the book? What do you think of what my father had to say? Do you think you have exhibited any of the symptoms?”
“No, not yet, but I’m sure I could or will. I feel it.”
Gabriel sounded so pained, so desperate, that Mohinder hoped it was true, for Gabriel’s sake, not for the theory’s. “We’ll figure it out, I promise. And in the meanwhile…” He smiled and let the sentence dangle suggestively, watching in anticipation as Gabriel got that look again.
THE END