{ you got a hole in you i never saw }
Just a bit of exploration in the same timeline as Follow You Through at tracker_lucifer's request...the morning after the morning after from Peter's point of view.
Title: In the Morning
Rating: NC17
Pairing: Mohinder/Peter
Summary: He’s going to go now, he tells himself. To shrug on his clothes and head out the door. That’s what he should do, because it shouldn’t be this hard to leave, to try to do anything but stand here, wet and cold and kissing him.
Author's Notes: An immediate sequel to Follow You Through. I think you could probably figure out what's going on without reading it first but it helps...
--
He wakes sometime before eight o’clock, to the feel of sunlight coming through the half-drawn blinds.
The bedroom is like a kaleidoscope of white light and royal blue wallpaper, reflected dizzily off the mirrors and glass partition windows. With a half-voiced groan Peter blinks the sleep from his eyes and shifts in skin-warmed sheets. He’s alone, he realizes in distraction; in the next room pipes moan within the walls and he rubs his face with a sigh at the sound of water running in the shower.
It’s been three days since he sat on the wet shore and stared at the sun like it had an answer to his problem. They had bled together in a bleary-eyed smudge of airports and planes packed and unpacked again, and the feel of weight in the bed and breath in his hair when he fell asleep at night. What he’d thought to be a temporary convenience had turned into a night spent sweating in sheets in a motel in Virginia, and something he couldn’t quite place when he found himself leaning absent-mindedly against a sagging shoulder, in the backseat of a cab between the airport and Manhattan.
Peter felt his face heat at the time, muttering politely when their hands brushed as he pulled away. When he angled his head to look beside him through lowered lashes Mohinder was smiling, however bashfully, and Peter knew that he probably looked the same way. It seemed appropriate, somehow, in the face of things.
The apartment was still when he came back. Cold and stale when he pulled the key from the lock and stepped inside, walking into a silence over four months old. His things were all still there, untouched save a transparent layer of dust on his counters and kitchen table, utilities in full service as Mohinder carried his bags in behind them.
Leave it to mom, Peter thought vacantly at the sight of the food stocked in the working fridge. For a moment he thought he must’ve done so too loudly, somehow, because there was a touch at his arm and a breath on his cheek.
“You don’t have to stay here,” Mohinder said, concern edging into his eyes. It made Peter a little nervous that he already knew what the other man looked like when he worried, but he decided it couldn’t be a bad thing. “We can make other arrangements if you feel uncomfortable with this.”
To that he nodded and smiled a little, despite himself, at the fondness of the touch and the depth of the concern that lined his face. It was…endearing, he thought, in an awkward sort of way.
The city was older, colder now than he remembers it being when he was last here, the world a little grayer in this headspace. It’d been four months; Peter knew that well before he stepped off the plane but it didn’t sink in until he was watching the city edge along outside the window of the cab that the world had gone on without him.
He’d come back because there was nowhere else left to go, to the city, to his old apartment. He wouldn’t go back to his mother’s home, at least not without a fight; Mohinder didn’t quite understand why but he didn’t press it either, and Peter was grateful for that.
At first Mohinder had sat in the cab on the curb outside, and seemed to hesitate before following Peter upstairs. He didn’t want to intrude, he said before he left, saying that it was late and he would call him in the morning. And maybe he was just being polite, but Peter couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed by it as he watched him go for the front door.
“I’ll call you tomorrow,” he parroted back, and didn’t dare do anything more than that. Certainly didn’t kiss him or touch him or tell him goodbye, or anything that could be mistaken for something more than it was.
He spent the first night in the city alone, lying awake in cold sheets, watching the ceiling turn colors from twilight to dawn. The next morning he went to see Nathan, to let him know he was alive at least and not to be pissed off that the plan had changed, because he knew he would be. And like he knew he would too, Peter lied and said it wasn’t Mohinder’s fault, and that he decided to come back with him on his own; he made no mention of the details, because there was no reason to explain that to him.
When Nathan said Mohinder’s name - his name name, not “Suresh” or “the doctor” - Peter still felt a little stupid for the flutter of panic in his stomach at the sound, his brother’s relief sighing on the heels of that controlled disdain. And to his own lack of surprise, he wasn’t even a block from his brother’s office before he was reaching into his jacket pocket, finding his cell phone and dialing the number.
Mohinder came over at eight o’clock. Like they’d agreed in terse words over the telephone, Peter’s anticipation masked by the static of the connection, for which he was silently grateful. At his kitchen table they sat and talked, about everything but mostly just nothing; it was just easier that way, sitting over coffee and tea and feeling less like strangers. Not talking about explosions or worlds that need saving or men in dark suits that linger at doorways, and most certainly not talking about sex.
The irony of it wasn’t lost on Peter at the time, to sit and look on shyly from across the table like acquaintances at best, when he already knew the way Mohinder’s mouth tasted and his skin smelled and his hands felt bracketing his hips. And it was harder than it looked, to just talk about nothing when he wanted to lean across the table and lick his mouth open and tease his eyes shut again.
When he finally does it hardly surprised him, but when hands come to frame his face and Mohinder kissed him until he was nearly panting, he felt a little lost to it. Or very lost, rather, as the other stood to lead him quietly off to bed with a polite restraint that quickly dissolved into hands in his hair and beneath his clothes and stroking the line of his throat with a fondness that made Peter melt as Mohinder rocked into him from behind.
It’s ten minutes before Peter feels compelled to stir from the sheets. He’ll make coffee, get dressed and leave; maybe pin a note to the fridge or something to tell Mohinder where’s he gone to, if he’s not out of the shower by then. He has to meet with his brother in an hour, uptown. There are things to discuss; things he isn’t up to talking about right now but he knows he’ll go and he knows he’ll stay, because he has to.
He’d already done all the hiding he could bring himself to do, really, sitting out on the beach in the middle of nowhere, waiting for the sky to snatch him up.
Slipping from the sheets it seems like it can wait, just a little while longer. Peter decides it’s going to have to as he pulls on a discarded pair of jeans (his, he assumes), padding towards the bathroom door. The tile beneath his bare feet is warmed by steam billowing from beneath the curtain at the edge of the shower stall and inside Mohinder is oblivious as he slips inside the cramped bathroom, pushing the door closed behind him silently.
Absently he chews the edge of his lip and reaches out to draw the curtain back. It’s a remarkably artless moment when he finds himself smiling slightly as Mohinder turns to face him, skin wet and hair wet and just looking pleasantly awkward with his hair sticking to his face like that.
It’s almost…cute.
Yeah, this was definitely more complicated than he thought.
“Hey.” His voice is a little meek on the sound. Peter figures it’s probably because there’s a man he still barely knows in his shower, which to his credit doesn’t happen very often, and definitely not in a while. With that comes the recall of the night before like a warm wave, on knees and elbows in tangled sheets, and the sound Mohinder makes when he comes inside him, tight and throaty. Peter bites his lip a little harder.
“Good morning,” Mohinder says, and pushes damp hair from his face. When he smiles it’s far too cheerful for this time of day; it seems unfair that he should be coherent so early in the morning, when Peter’s still half-asleep and thinking about sex. “Sorry, I hadn’t meant to wake you. I thought about telling you I was going to leave but I didn’t want to disturb you…”
Mohinder has work today. Peter knows this; they talked about it last night, samples to be taken down to the lab for analysis. That still doesn’t stop him from asking “Mind if I join you?” like neither of them have anywhere to be. Or rather it wouldn’t have if he’d bothered to ask, instead of stripping out of what little he was wearing and slipping inside the shower behind him.
Smile widening into a smirk, Mohinder doesn’t seem to mind.
Rearranging in the cramped stall they make themselves fit into a position close to comfortable beneath the showerhead, making muttered apologies over bumping elbows until they’re sandwiched between the warm spray and the wall. It turns out taking a shower with another person isn’t as sexy as one is often led to believe. All odd angles and cold tiles, but as Mohinder comes to stand behind him and sighs a tickling breath against the nape of his neck, Peter can’t complain.
Water runs through his hair and over his face and shoulders, and inside the tiny space it’s hot; at his back Mohinder’s chest fits against the curve of his spine and it’s a nice feeling. A normal sort of feeling, Peter finds, and he hasn’t had any of those in a very long time.
With an angle of his neck and shoulder Mohinder reaches around Peter to retrieve the discarded washcloth from the faucet handle, sliding it over his shoulders and down the length of his ribcage. The motion is gentle at first; he works warm soapy patterns into Peter’s cooler skin until his mouth slackens in an inaudible sigh at the contact, leaning back against him. To that Mohinder smiles, softly, making a contented sort of sound in the back of his throat. It’s a soothing gesture, Peter’s body finds with an involuntarily shiver, and Mohinder’s other hand free it settles on Peter’s arm before sliding down, slowly, to his side, over his hip and along his thigh.
Lips close over his pulse and Peter closes his eyes at the feel of teeth and tongue against the hollow of his throat. He bites the corner of his mouth over a half-stifled moan, reedy and thin, and feels a little like he’s getting away with something as he reaches behind him to coil his fingers into a mop of wet curls.
“When do you have to be there?” he asks simply, no intent beyond the simple curiosity. At least that’s what he tells himself. He still has to get dressed and put the coffee on, after all…
“An hour,” Mohinder answers between kisses, murmuring the words into his skin. “And you?”
“Soon. Really soon, actually.” Peter can’t help but chuckle, slightly, knowing full well the lecture he’ll get when he turns up late. It wasn’t as though fooling around in the shower with that Suresh guy was the answer Nathan wanted to hear.
“Can it wait?” There is no urgency in Mohinder’s voice; just the bland sort of expectation that comes with wanting something and being used to not getting it. It’s kind of sad, when Peter thinks about it, so he chooses not to.
“I dunno. Not really, I guess.” A vague shrug of shoulder. “My brother wants me to meet him later to talk...”
“What about?”
“Just…stuff.” It’s a terrible lie. Peter knows that before it even leaves his mouth. He also knows what Nathan will say though. That they need to distance themselves from all this; Claire’s gone back to her adopted family, and he shouldn’t try to contact her again. That he needs to be watched, studied, controlled somehow for his own good so something like this doesn’t happen again. Because he may still be unstable and Nathan lost him once and it won’t happen again.
And Mohinder knows it’s a lie too - he has to - but he doesn’t press that either. For that Peter’s grateful too, and maybe just a little bit guilty, as he angles his head back against Mohinder’s shoulder, exposing his throat to his inquisitive mouth.
The hand on his thigh comes up slowly, fingertips tickling against bare skin as they trail along his leg to his hip and stomach, flattening over his belly. The washcloth comes forward and the hips behind him shift pointedly, stealing a breath as the rag slides down his chest, over his ribs and hipbone in slow careful circles until grazing the wiry thatch of hair at the base of his groin. He could feel his cock between his thighs, resting there inquiringly, slowly rousing against him and he definitely feels like he’s getting away with something.
It’s like the feeling of feeding that stray dog your mother swore up and down you weren’t keeping, except this time he’s the dog Peter thinks as the washcloth is exchanged for the root of his shaft. And maybe it’s okay to be kept for a little while longer, he decides, especially if Mohinder’s the one doing the keeping, with his clever mouth and hands.
A hand comes up reflexively to cover the one on his belly and Peter moans at the curl of fingers around his cock, sliding down and then up again in a slow and steady turn of wrist. Hips angle forward to the touch and he twists his lip between his teeth and closes his eyes, and wonders just how somebody like Mohinder could be so good at doing things like this. He certainly doesn’t look like he would be, but doing things that make Peter shiver seems to be a skill, or at least a hobby he picked up sometime in Virginia, as finger and thumb play slowly over the loose skin at the head of his cock.
The callused pad of a clever digit traces over the slitted tip, the edge of a blunt nail outlining the mouth and Peter mewls aloud, “Mohinder.” Behind him the head of Mohinder’s broad cock pressed between the cheeks of his ass, hard and urging with a sharp angle of his hips, and Peter’s knees feeling more like rubber than bone beneath his weight.
And it’s good, god it’s good, but he just can’t. Not this morning.
Turning in his hold Peter faces Mohinder with a kiss, opening to the ply of his tongue with a shared sigh, soft and open-mouthed. He bites along Mohinder’s chin, his jaw and his throat, fingers curling into wet hair as the erection trapped between them curved up into his hip, insistent but ignored. Sighing against his lips Peter wants to take it in hand, or go to his knees for it; just bury his nose in wiry hairs, swallow him down into his throat or lave at him slowly from root to tip. Stroke and touch and suck until Mohinder makes that little choked sound, with a furrowed brow and slackened mouth the way he does when they’re having sex, because he looks great like that.
Like there’s nothing beyond them and the bed, and stroking and kissing and making Peter whimper. Like every stupid, randomly cruel thing they’ve said or done to one another in the past doesn’t matter, or the half-truths or the explosion, or anything else that came with it.
Breathing in the spaces where their lips don’t quite meet Peter finds himself saying, “I have to go,” even though he doesn’t want to. Not I want you, I need you, or any other of the hungry words involving Mohinder’s hands and his mouth and his cock now circling Peter’s thoughts and drawing his breath into thin pants.
“I know,” Mohinder murmurs simply, and takes Peter’s face into his hands, licking and kissing his mouth regardless. He sounds a little more disappointed than he should but he tries to hide it. And Peter’s seen a lot of that lately, been the cause of it, and it stings a little more than it should to hear it too.
Peter means to pull away because he already know he’s going to be late, but instead of stays and kisses him a moment longer, brushing stray curls from his forehead and worrying his bottom lip with the edges of his teeth. When he does draw away he pulls back the shower curtain and reaches for a towel from the adjacent rack and Mohinder follows, turning the faucet off and stepping outside. Peter sets to gathering up his discarded clothes from the floor but Mohinder stops him with a kiss, soft and slow.
“I’ll call you later,” Mohinder says, like it’s a promise, and that stings a little too as Peter swallows and nods.
He’s going to go now, he tells himself. To shrug on his clothes and head out the door. That’s what he should do, because it shouldn’t be this hard to leave, to try to do anything but stand here, wet and cold and kissing him. Because Mohinder’s not making this impossible; because it’s not three breaths before hands are holding his face and his back, and another before he’s licking his lips and sighing into his mouth and urging him towards the bedroom.
He’s going to be so late Peter decides as Mohinder’s hair and skin dampens the tousled sheets, wet and shining beneath bands of sunlight coming through the curtains. Clever hands frame his hips and beneath him Mohinder is panting, sharp and ragged and somehow still controlled, mouth a little swollen and eyes closed, and Peter knows he’s definitely not leaving after that. Prior arrangements and pissed off brothers be damned, because in his bed like this the other man looks amazing.
Lean thighs fit easily around the slink of darker hips, hands sliding over ribs and knees finding purchases in dampened cotton sheets with a squeak of mattress springs. Lowering himself down onto his cock, Mohinder hisses something appraising and incoherent at the contact of their hips, and with a shiver Peter bites his lip and whines out a thinning, “Fuck,” the fingers on his hipbones making ruddy marks in still-slippery skin.
It hurts a little, at first. More from the eagerness than the angle until he found a rhythm that worked and brought himself up before coming back down again, still squirming with the stretch and fill of it. In a moment he’s moaning, his hips rocking over Mohinder’s of their own mind as Peter rode up and down, and hard enough to make the other’s face flush and brow beaded with something other than water. Mohinder watched from the mattress with lidded eyes, heavy and black, hands fighting to hold him and his mouth slackened on panting breath, stroking tensing thighs and clutching Peter’s hip and arching up into each tight slide and shuddering moan.
Beneath him Mohinder’s hips bucked gently with a groan and controlled restraint. Wanting to give in, Peter could tell, and just roll him over and take him the way he’d done twice before. Because he could hear the thoughts bubbling behind his eyes, words like “need” and “come” and “incredible” and “now.”
And he didn’t mind the suggestion in the least; he’d be lying if he said he didn’t like to see it, the lapse of control in the other man, that loss of face. He looks so sexy like that, Peter thinks, and with an angle of his hip milks a groan from him, low and throaty and purring, grinning crookedly at the sound.
Maybe he shouldn’t be so smug about it, but Peter figures it out a few second later when fingers coil around his since neglected erection again. A few sure strokes and it wipes the grin from his face with a shameless groan, eyes shut and panting, fist pumping in counterpoint to each downward connection of body to body. Orgasm unfurls steadily in his rolling hips and it’s only a few hungry thrusts before he’s biting his lip around a cry and striping Mohinder’s knuckles and stomach hotly.
Panting, his thighs tremble from the strain as the thrill edges over his still-wet skin with a shiver and a whimper. Peter barely has time to catch is breath before Mohinder sits up to his level again to capture his mouth in a kiss, quick and sloppy and open. Hands tighten over his hips to hold him in place as the other man turns them both over, keeping himself pressed inside as Mohinder rolled him over onto his back.
The room gives a lopsided turn and the sheets at his back are warm with skin and sweat. Peter’s limbs are a little like slack twine as their bodies align again, positions now reversed and Mohinder pushing back home above him with blackened eyes and a ragged breath and a hand curving fondly over the base of his throat. It’s only a few dizzying moments like that, the high of orgasm still ebbing from him before he knows Mohinder’s finishing himself as well, with fevered thrusts and nipping bites at his neck and chin until he’s groaning into his ear.
The sound is a feral one, low and hard. He’ll never get used to that, Peter decides, panting against his temple and watching Mohinder shiver at the feel of his breath in his hair; that he can seem so proper and educated and still fuck him like…this. It just doesn’t seem fair.
Mohinder kisses him just once more, slow and deep, before he finally draws away, rolling over to lie beside him. Peter lets slip an unintended whimper when he feels Mohinder pull out, leaving him feeling empty and vaguely sore at the loss, and turning over on his side he hopes this isn’t going to be a thing with him. It doesn’t seem fair that he should make him feel like that, either. They’re not even dating yet, for god’s sake; no matter how good he is in bed.
Quiet moments pass, punctuated by slowing breath and the hum of his blood racing in his ears. Mohinder motions to get out of bed, but Peter stops him with a hand on his chest.
“I have to get ready,” Mohinder reasons, voice still ragged, “and you’re going to be late.”
“I want you to come back tonight,” Peter says, and means it. The look he gets is a little incredulous, and he rolls his eyes. “Don’t flatter yourself, okay. I just want to talk.”
To that Mohinder smirks. “I haven’t even left yet.” Flushed and sweating, it makes the gesture look far more debauched than it really is. “Don’t tell me you’ll miss me that much?”
He will, Peter knows, even though he probably shouldn’t. “Just, tell me you’ll come back later,” he asks, “okay?”
Humor fades from his expression, replaced by a gentle recognition and the sort of fondness that seems entirely too good to be true these days. Mohinder looks like he’s going to kiss him again, or say something profound, but he doesn’t. Just traces the line of Peter’s bottom lip with the ball of his thumb, slow and sweet and promising so much more.
“Okay,” he says softly, before stealing away from the bed, towards the bathroom to gather his things and dress.
Inwardly Peter feels a little silly for half-expecting the other thing, the romantic thing, but he doesn’t want to think about that. Instead he props himself up on an elbow and peers through the open door to watch the other man get ready in the next room, slipping into loose-fitting jeans and toweling dry wayward curls. And it feels a little normal like that, too.
“Don’t you have somewhere to be?” Mohinder calls. Smiling again, half-smirking this time from beneath the cover of the towel, and, well, that was almost cute, too. “I’m sure your brother would be thrilled to know you’re ogling me in the bathroom instead of keeping your appointment…”
Peter shrugs a little, and smiles. “It can wait.”
And it does.
Title: In the Morning
Rating: NC17
Pairing: Mohinder/Peter
Summary: He’s going to go now, he tells himself. To shrug on his clothes and head out the door. That’s what he should do, because it shouldn’t be this hard to leave, to try to do anything but stand here, wet and cold and kissing him.
Author's Notes: An immediate sequel to Follow You Through. I think you could probably figure out what's going on without reading it first but it helps...
--
He wakes sometime before eight o’clock, to the feel of sunlight coming through the half-drawn blinds.
The bedroom is like a kaleidoscope of white light and royal blue wallpaper, reflected dizzily off the mirrors and glass partition windows. With a half-voiced groan Peter blinks the sleep from his eyes and shifts in skin-warmed sheets. He’s alone, he realizes in distraction; in the next room pipes moan within the walls and he rubs his face with a sigh at the sound of water running in the shower.
It’s been three days since he sat on the wet shore and stared at the sun like it had an answer to his problem. They had bled together in a bleary-eyed smudge of airports and planes packed and unpacked again, and the feel of weight in the bed and breath in his hair when he fell asleep at night. What he’d thought to be a temporary convenience had turned into a night spent sweating in sheets in a motel in Virginia, and something he couldn’t quite place when he found himself leaning absent-mindedly against a sagging shoulder, in the backseat of a cab between the airport and Manhattan.
Peter felt his face heat at the time, muttering politely when their hands brushed as he pulled away. When he angled his head to look beside him through lowered lashes Mohinder was smiling, however bashfully, and Peter knew that he probably looked the same way. It seemed appropriate, somehow, in the face of things.
The apartment was still when he came back. Cold and stale when he pulled the key from the lock and stepped inside, walking into a silence over four months old. His things were all still there, untouched save a transparent layer of dust on his counters and kitchen table, utilities in full service as Mohinder carried his bags in behind them.
Leave it to mom, Peter thought vacantly at the sight of the food stocked in the working fridge. For a moment he thought he must’ve done so too loudly, somehow, because there was a touch at his arm and a breath on his cheek.
“You don’t have to stay here,” Mohinder said, concern edging into his eyes. It made Peter a little nervous that he already knew what the other man looked like when he worried, but he decided it couldn’t be a bad thing. “We can make other arrangements if you feel uncomfortable with this.”
To that he nodded and smiled a little, despite himself, at the fondness of the touch and the depth of the concern that lined his face. It was…endearing, he thought, in an awkward sort of way.
The city was older, colder now than he remembers it being when he was last here, the world a little grayer in this headspace. It’d been four months; Peter knew that well before he stepped off the plane but it didn’t sink in until he was watching the city edge along outside the window of the cab that the world had gone on without him.
He’d come back because there was nowhere else left to go, to the city, to his old apartment. He wouldn’t go back to his mother’s home, at least not without a fight; Mohinder didn’t quite understand why but he didn’t press it either, and Peter was grateful for that.
At first Mohinder had sat in the cab on the curb outside, and seemed to hesitate before following Peter upstairs. He didn’t want to intrude, he said before he left, saying that it was late and he would call him in the morning. And maybe he was just being polite, but Peter couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed by it as he watched him go for the front door.
“I’ll call you tomorrow,” he parroted back, and didn’t dare do anything more than that. Certainly didn’t kiss him or touch him or tell him goodbye, or anything that could be mistaken for something more than it was.
He spent the first night in the city alone, lying awake in cold sheets, watching the ceiling turn colors from twilight to dawn. The next morning he went to see Nathan, to let him know he was alive at least and not to be pissed off that the plan had changed, because he knew he would be. And like he knew he would too, Peter lied and said it wasn’t Mohinder’s fault, and that he decided to come back with him on his own; he made no mention of the details, because there was no reason to explain that to him.
When Nathan said Mohinder’s name - his name name, not “Suresh” or “the doctor” - Peter still felt a little stupid for the flutter of panic in his stomach at the sound, his brother’s relief sighing on the heels of that controlled disdain. And to his own lack of surprise, he wasn’t even a block from his brother’s office before he was reaching into his jacket pocket, finding his cell phone and dialing the number.
Mohinder came over at eight o’clock. Like they’d agreed in terse words over the telephone, Peter’s anticipation masked by the static of the connection, for which he was silently grateful. At his kitchen table they sat and talked, about everything but mostly just nothing; it was just easier that way, sitting over coffee and tea and feeling less like strangers. Not talking about explosions or worlds that need saving or men in dark suits that linger at doorways, and most certainly not talking about sex.
The irony of it wasn’t lost on Peter at the time, to sit and look on shyly from across the table like acquaintances at best, when he already knew the way Mohinder’s mouth tasted and his skin smelled and his hands felt bracketing his hips. And it was harder than it looked, to just talk about nothing when he wanted to lean across the table and lick his mouth open and tease his eyes shut again.
When he finally does it hardly surprised him, but when hands come to frame his face and Mohinder kissed him until he was nearly panting, he felt a little lost to it. Or very lost, rather, as the other stood to lead him quietly off to bed with a polite restraint that quickly dissolved into hands in his hair and beneath his clothes and stroking the line of his throat with a fondness that made Peter melt as Mohinder rocked into him from behind.
It’s ten minutes before Peter feels compelled to stir from the sheets. He’ll make coffee, get dressed and leave; maybe pin a note to the fridge or something to tell Mohinder where’s he gone to, if he’s not out of the shower by then. He has to meet with his brother in an hour, uptown. There are things to discuss; things he isn’t up to talking about right now but he knows he’ll go and he knows he’ll stay, because he has to.
He’d already done all the hiding he could bring himself to do, really, sitting out on the beach in the middle of nowhere, waiting for the sky to snatch him up.
Slipping from the sheets it seems like it can wait, just a little while longer. Peter decides it’s going to have to as he pulls on a discarded pair of jeans (his, he assumes), padding towards the bathroom door. The tile beneath his bare feet is warmed by steam billowing from beneath the curtain at the edge of the shower stall and inside Mohinder is oblivious as he slips inside the cramped bathroom, pushing the door closed behind him silently.
Absently he chews the edge of his lip and reaches out to draw the curtain back. It’s a remarkably artless moment when he finds himself smiling slightly as Mohinder turns to face him, skin wet and hair wet and just looking pleasantly awkward with his hair sticking to his face like that.
It’s almost…cute.
Yeah, this was definitely more complicated than he thought.
“Hey.” His voice is a little meek on the sound. Peter figures it’s probably because there’s a man he still barely knows in his shower, which to his credit doesn’t happen very often, and definitely not in a while. With that comes the recall of the night before like a warm wave, on knees and elbows in tangled sheets, and the sound Mohinder makes when he comes inside him, tight and throaty. Peter bites his lip a little harder.
“Good morning,” Mohinder says, and pushes damp hair from his face. When he smiles it’s far too cheerful for this time of day; it seems unfair that he should be coherent so early in the morning, when Peter’s still half-asleep and thinking about sex. “Sorry, I hadn’t meant to wake you. I thought about telling you I was going to leave but I didn’t want to disturb you…”
Mohinder has work today. Peter knows this; they talked about it last night, samples to be taken down to the lab for analysis. That still doesn’t stop him from asking “Mind if I join you?” like neither of them have anywhere to be. Or rather it wouldn’t have if he’d bothered to ask, instead of stripping out of what little he was wearing and slipping inside the shower behind him.
Smile widening into a smirk, Mohinder doesn’t seem to mind.
Rearranging in the cramped stall they make themselves fit into a position close to comfortable beneath the showerhead, making muttered apologies over bumping elbows until they’re sandwiched between the warm spray and the wall. It turns out taking a shower with another person isn’t as sexy as one is often led to believe. All odd angles and cold tiles, but as Mohinder comes to stand behind him and sighs a tickling breath against the nape of his neck, Peter can’t complain.
Water runs through his hair and over his face and shoulders, and inside the tiny space it’s hot; at his back Mohinder’s chest fits against the curve of his spine and it’s a nice feeling. A normal sort of feeling, Peter finds, and he hasn’t had any of those in a very long time.
With an angle of his neck and shoulder Mohinder reaches around Peter to retrieve the discarded washcloth from the faucet handle, sliding it over his shoulders and down the length of his ribcage. The motion is gentle at first; he works warm soapy patterns into Peter’s cooler skin until his mouth slackens in an inaudible sigh at the contact, leaning back against him. To that Mohinder smiles, softly, making a contented sort of sound in the back of his throat. It’s a soothing gesture, Peter’s body finds with an involuntarily shiver, and Mohinder’s other hand free it settles on Peter’s arm before sliding down, slowly, to his side, over his hip and along his thigh.
Lips close over his pulse and Peter closes his eyes at the feel of teeth and tongue against the hollow of his throat. He bites the corner of his mouth over a half-stifled moan, reedy and thin, and feels a little like he’s getting away with something as he reaches behind him to coil his fingers into a mop of wet curls.
“When do you have to be there?” he asks simply, no intent beyond the simple curiosity. At least that’s what he tells himself. He still has to get dressed and put the coffee on, after all…
“An hour,” Mohinder answers between kisses, murmuring the words into his skin. “And you?”
“Soon. Really soon, actually.” Peter can’t help but chuckle, slightly, knowing full well the lecture he’ll get when he turns up late. It wasn’t as though fooling around in the shower with that Suresh guy was the answer Nathan wanted to hear.
“Can it wait?” There is no urgency in Mohinder’s voice; just the bland sort of expectation that comes with wanting something and being used to not getting it. It’s kind of sad, when Peter thinks about it, so he chooses not to.
“I dunno. Not really, I guess.” A vague shrug of shoulder. “My brother wants me to meet him later to talk...”
“What about?”
“Just…stuff.” It’s a terrible lie. Peter knows that before it even leaves his mouth. He also knows what Nathan will say though. That they need to distance themselves from all this; Claire’s gone back to her adopted family, and he shouldn’t try to contact her again. That he needs to be watched, studied, controlled somehow for his own good so something like this doesn’t happen again. Because he may still be unstable and Nathan lost him once and it won’t happen again.
And Mohinder knows it’s a lie too - he has to - but he doesn’t press that either. For that Peter’s grateful too, and maybe just a little bit guilty, as he angles his head back against Mohinder’s shoulder, exposing his throat to his inquisitive mouth.
The hand on his thigh comes up slowly, fingertips tickling against bare skin as they trail along his leg to his hip and stomach, flattening over his belly. The washcloth comes forward and the hips behind him shift pointedly, stealing a breath as the rag slides down his chest, over his ribs and hipbone in slow careful circles until grazing the wiry thatch of hair at the base of his groin. He could feel his cock between his thighs, resting there inquiringly, slowly rousing against him and he definitely feels like he’s getting away with something.
It’s like the feeling of feeding that stray dog your mother swore up and down you weren’t keeping, except this time he’s the dog Peter thinks as the washcloth is exchanged for the root of his shaft. And maybe it’s okay to be kept for a little while longer, he decides, especially if Mohinder’s the one doing the keeping, with his clever mouth and hands.
A hand comes up reflexively to cover the one on his belly and Peter moans at the curl of fingers around his cock, sliding down and then up again in a slow and steady turn of wrist. Hips angle forward to the touch and he twists his lip between his teeth and closes his eyes, and wonders just how somebody like Mohinder could be so good at doing things like this. He certainly doesn’t look like he would be, but doing things that make Peter shiver seems to be a skill, or at least a hobby he picked up sometime in Virginia, as finger and thumb play slowly over the loose skin at the head of his cock.
The callused pad of a clever digit traces over the slitted tip, the edge of a blunt nail outlining the mouth and Peter mewls aloud, “Mohinder.” Behind him the head of Mohinder’s broad cock pressed between the cheeks of his ass, hard and urging with a sharp angle of his hips, and Peter’s knees feeling more like rubber than bone beneath his weight.
And it’s good, god it’s good, but he just can’t. Not this morning.
Turning in his hold Peter faces Mohinder with a kiss, opening to the ply of his tongue with a shared sigh, soft and open-mouthed. He bites along Mohinder’s chin, his jaw and his throat, fingers curling into wet hair as the erection trapped between them curved up into his hip, insistent but ignored. Sighing against his lips Peter wants to take it in hand, or go to his knees for it; just bury his nose in wiry hairs, swallow him down into his throat or lave at him slowly from root to tip. Stroke and touch and suck until Mohinder makes that little choked sound, with a furrowed brow and slackened mouth the way he does when they’re having sex, because he looks great like that.
Like there’s nothing beyond them and the bed, and stroking and kissing and making Peter whimper. Like every stupid, randomly cruel thing they’ve said or done to one another in the past doesn’t matter, or the half-truths or the explosion, or anything else that came with it.
Breathing in the spaces where their lips don’t quite meet Peter finds himself saying, “I have to go,” even though he doesn’t want to. Not I want you, I need you, or any other of the hungry words involving Mohinder’s hands and his mouth and his cock now circling Peter’s thoughts and drawing his breath into thin pants.
“I know,” Mohinder murmurs simply, and takes Peter’s face into his hands, licking and kissing his mouth regardless. He sounds a little more disappointed than he should but he tries to hide it. And Peter’s seen a lot of that lately, been the cause of it, and it stings a little more than it should to hear it too.
Peter means to pull away because he already know he’s going to be late, but instead of stays and kisses him a moment longer, brushing stray curls from his forehead and worrying his bottom lip with the edges of his teeth. When he does draw away he pulls back the shower curtain and reaches for a towel from the adjacent rack and Mohinder follows, turning the faucet off and stepping outside. Peter sets to gathering up his discarded clothes from the floor but Mohinder stops him with a kiss, soft and slow.
“I’ll call you later,” Mohinder says, like it’s a promise, and that stings a little too as Peter swallows and nods.
He’s going to go now, he tells himself. To shrug on his clothes and head out the door. That’s what he should do, because it shouldn’t be this hard to leave, to try to do anything but stand here, wet and cold and kissing him. Because Mohinder’s not making this impossible; because it’s not three breaths before hands are holding his face and his back, and another before he’s licking his lips and sighing into his mouth and urging him towards the bedroom.
He’s going to be so late Peter decides as Mohinder’s hair and skin dampens the tousled sheets, wet and shining beneath bands of sunlight coming through the curtains. Clever hands frame his hips and beneath him Mohinder is panting, sharp and ragged and somehow still controlled, mouth a little swollen and eyes closed, and Peter knows he’s definitely not leaving after that. Prior arrangements and pissed off brothers be damned, because in his bed like this the other man looks amazing.
Lean thighs fit easily around the slink of darker hips, hands sliding over ribs and knees finding purchases in dampened cotton sheets with a squeak of mattress springs. Lowering himself down onto his cock, Mohinder hisses something appraising and incoherent at the contact of their hips, and with a shiver Peter bites his lip and whines out a thinning, “Fuck,” the fingers on his hipbones making ruddy marks in still-slippery skin.
It hurts a little, at first. More from the eagerness than the angle until he found a rhythm that worked and brought himself up before coming back down again, still squirming with the stretch and fill of it. In a moment he’s moaning, his hips rocking over Mohinder’s of their own mind as Peter rode up and down, and hard enough to make the other’s face flush and brow beaded with something other than water. Mohinder watched from the mattress with lidded eyes, heavy and black, hands fighting to hold him and his mouth slackened on panting breath, stroking tensing thighs and clutching Peter’s hip and arching up into each tight slide and shuddering moan.
Beneath him Mohinder’s hips bucked gently with a groan and controlled restraint. Wanting to give in, Peter could tell, and just roll him over and take him the way he’d done twice before. Because he could hear the thoughts bubbling behind his eyes, words like “need” and “come” and “incredible” and “now.”
And he didn’t mind the suggestion in the least; he’d be lying if he said he didn’t like to see it, the lapse of control in the other man, that loss of face. He looks so sexy like that, Peter thinks, and with an angle of his hip milks a groan from him, low and throaty and purring, grinning crookedly at the sound.
Maybe he shouldn’t be so smug about it, but Peter figures it out a few second later when fingers coil around his since neglected erection again. A few sure strokes and it wipes the grin from his face with a shameless groan, eyes shut and panting, fist pumping in counterpoint to each downward connection of body to body. Orgasm unfurls steadily in his rolling hips and it’s only a few hungry thrusts before he’s biting his lip around a cry and striping Mohinder’s knuckles and stomach hotly.
Panting, his thighs tremble from the strain as the thrill edges over his still-wet skin with a shiver and a whimper. Peter barely has time to catch is breath before Mohinder sits up to his level again to capture his mouth in a kiss, quick and sloppy and open. Hands tighten over his hips to hold him in place as the other man turns them both over, keeping himself pressed inside as Mohinder rolled him over onto his back.
The room gives a lopsided turn and the sheets at his back are warm with skin and sweat. Peter’s limbs are a little like slack twine as their bodies align again, positions now reversed and Mohinder pushing back home above him with blackened eyes and a ragged breath and a hand curving fondly over the base of his throat. It’s only a few dizzying moments like that, the high of orgasm still ebbing from him before he knows Mohinder’s finishing himself as well, with fevered thrusts and nipping bites at his neck and chin until he’s groaning into his ear.
The sound is a feral one, low and hard. He’ll never get used to that, Peter decides, panting against his temple and watching Mohinder shiver at the feel of his breath in his hair; that he can seem so proper and educated and still fuck him like…this. It just doesn’t seem fair.
Mohinder kisses him just once more, slow and deep, before he finally draws away, rolling over to lie beside him. Peter lets slip an unintended whimper when he feels Mohinder pull out, leaving him feeling empty and vaguely sore at the loss, and turning over on his side he hopes this isn’t going to be a thing with him. It doesn’t seem fair that he should make him feel like that, either. They’re not even dating yet, for god’s sake; no matter how good he is in bed.
Quiet moments pass, punctuated by slowing breath and the hum of his blood racing in his ears. Mohinder motions to get out of bed, but Peter stops him with a hand on his chest.
“I have to get ready,” Mohinder reasons, voice still ragged, “and you’re going to be late.”
“I want you to come back tonight,” Peter says, and means it. The look he gets is a little incredulous, and he rolls his eyes. “Don’t flatter yourself, okay. I just want to talk.”
To that Mohinder smirks. “I haven’t even left yet.” Flushed and sweating, it makes the gesture look far more debauched than it really is. “Don’t tell me you’ll miss me that much?”
He will, Peter knows, even though he probably shouldn’t. “Just, tell me you’ll come back later,” he asks, “okay?”
Humor fades from his expression, replaced by a gentle recognition and the sort of fondness that seems entirely too good to be true these days. Mohinder looks like he’s going to kiss him again, or say something profound, but he doesn’t. Just traces the line of Peter’s bottom lip with the ball of his thumb, slow and sweet and promising so much more.
“Okay,” he says softly, before stealing away from the bed, towards the bathroom to gather his things and dress.
Inwardly Peter feels a little silly for half-expecting the other thing, the romantic thing, but he doesn’t want to think about that. Instead he props himself up on an elbow and peers through the open door to watch the other man get ready in the next room, slipping into loose-fitting jeans and toweling dry wayward curls. And it feels a little normal like that, too.
“Don’t you have somewhere to be?” Mohinder calls. Smiling again, half-smirking this time from beneath the cover of the towel, and, well, that was almost cute, too. “I’m sure your brother would be thrilled to know you’re ogling me in the bathroom instead of keeping your appointment…”
Peter shrugs a little, and smiles. “It can wait.”
And it does.