FIC: Disconnect, 1/1, Heroes, Slash, Matt/Mohinder, R.
After they leave the Company, Matt can’t remember his dreams. He mentions this two mornings after, as they clean up the breakfast dishes. It’s likely stress, overworking his mind and turning himself inside out to lock his father away in a self-made prison.
Molly doesn’t have any nightmares at all, and Mohinder finds himself waking in the middle of the night for no reason, obsessively checking on them both and returning to his own bed. He falls asleep again with the uneasy feeling that he forgot to do something. That something is unfinished.
When Mohinder sleeps, he dreams in fragments that dissipate by the time he leaves his room. When Matt and Molly smile at him and chorus ‘Good Morning,’ something warms in the pit of his stomach, and he stops trying to chase the errant dreams into waking coherence. He focuses on Molly telling them about her new favorite book, which is apparently a retelling of Sleeping Beauty. This makes Matt frown a little until she explains that everyone but the heroine falls asleep, and she saves the day.
It’s like a cascade of smiles, Molly’s bright and unshadowed, tripping Matt’s smaller grin that dimples his cheeks, and Mohinder feels his own creep across his face before he registers the rightness of the moment.
Then he remembers what he has to do today. After a long and heated argument, Bob gave him permission to work on a cure for the modified Shanti virus. He had one week, and tomorrow is the last day, before their agreement runs its course and Mohinder has to go after the Bennet girl. One week’s stay of execution before he has to walk that grey and shrouded path.
But it’s kept him here, close to home, and he wants to savor every honest moment before he has to face that decision. He does not know which path is adharma, but the fate of the world may still depend on his damning himself. The last five days have felt like pre-emptive redemption and purgatory all in one, concepts that he’d never quite understood until now.
The Company, solicitous as ever, pulled some strings to smooth things over: the precinct thinks that Matt’s on special detail with the feds again, and Molly’s just had her tonsils out (they’ve actually been gone for a while, but date-swapping on medical records is surprisingly easy). Mohinder has spent every morning with them, worked until sunset, and come home in time to share dinner and a good-night story.
He’s savored every moment, until he has to go back to the lab, where an increasingly pale and wilting Niki waits, eyes staring in desperate hope when she’s conscious. Less frequently of late, of course, and it breaks Mohinder apart every time he sees her wasted body huddled beneath the blankets that never seem to keep her warm. She apologizes to him every time she wakes, for the bandage still crossing his face, and it makes everything worse, somehow.
Matt’s elbow jostles him, and shakes him from his reverie. It sets off an echo, the other man’s voice murmuring, … hate when he’s upset, wish he’d talk to me, wish I knew what to do… It’s jumbled, and Matt is too busy talking to Molly about their Plan to catch her up on schoolwork to realize he’s bumped Mohinder.
He must have projected his thoughts, but it had sounded like a mental dialogue, not a deliberate communication. Was this what Matt felt like when he had first overheard other people’s thoughts?
Perhaps he’s grown stronger than he can wholly control. Perhaps he can transmit thoughts more strongly, unconsciously, through touch…
It’s an interesting hypothesis, and one for which Mohinder hasn’t the time. He gets up, careful not to brush Matt as he moves to the kitchen with his plates, the eggs on it a cold mass of rubbery yellow.
Their conversation drifts in and out of his hearing as Mohinder goes to the hall closet, collects jacket and scarf, picks up his briefcase from his room. He finds Matt swinging Molly up from her chair, into the air. She’s giggling, and Matt tucks his face into her hair, growling low.
Matt’s the bear from the Molly’s book, large, protective, fierce, and seemingly, distractingly soft around the edges. Mohinder goes over to them to wish them goodbye, hugging Molly with one arm and a distracted smile. His other falls onto Matt’s elbow, briefly.
A quiet undercurrent of I love you I love you I love you from Matt, and Molly’s fainter-second-hand, I know I know I heard I love you too, and Mohinder jerks his hand away as if burned. A closed loop he’s intruded upon, and he leaves them so they can enjoy their day.
***
Longer than usual at the lab today, hearing time tick away as he works and feeling a pre-emptive loss waiting for him at home. Maybe if he saves Niki it will make up for not being the one to save Molly. Torn between leaving at the usual time to see Molly and Matt (because in the back of his head, the clock’s ticking on that time, too) and staying later so he can find the solution, curing Niki and avoiding the necessity of leaving town to track down the Bennets.
Each extra hour he stays, he finds himself less productive, and he pushes himself harder to make up for it. It’s a vicious cycle, and he hasn’t eaten since his half-abandoned breakfast.
Bob kicks him out around ten o’clock, all too aware of Mohinder’s progress. Mohinder’s stomach growls, punctuating his boss’ point. He reminds Mohinder about the time limit, and Mohinder suppresses the urge to throw something.
Mira always said he had a messy temper. He wasn’t violent, simply prone to wreck expensive or fragile equipment and furniture when pushed past his breaking point.
Nowadays, the line feels closer, though he knows he’s just been under such protracted, continuous stress that the feeling is deceptive.
The apartment is dark when he gets home, the silence evidence that the others are already asleep. Mohinder doesn’t know whether to be disappointed or relieved, coming home as he is with no progress to report. The TV is flickering, the ubiquitous Mythbusters multi-episode run playing silently on the screen.
Matt is asleep on the couch, of course. It’s been months since Mohinder cleared out the study so that Matt can have his own space, but he still manages to drift off on the couch every few nights, exhausted by Molly or his job (often both). Mohinder puts a hand on Mat’s shoulder to wake him up, and -
- they’re in bed, and it’s Sunday morning. Neither of them have to go to work, and so they just bask in the warmth of the covers and Matt buries his face in Mohinder’s neck to avoid the sliver of light that’s snuck past the tiny gap in the curtains. Molly has the cartoons turned up in the living room, loud enough to let them know she’s awake and quiet enough that it doesn’t really wake them. She’s a remarkably considerate girl, but then again, she’s learned that rousing Matt after a thirty-six hour Saturday night shift is not a good way to start anyone’s day.
Mohinder drifts, half-asleep and content, one arm buried under Matt’s pillow and the other curled limply beneath the hem of Matt’s shirt. The feeling of body warmth that is not his, slow deep breaths against his neck, make him hard in a half-hearted, drowsy way and spark a distant sense of confusion that he dismisses before it intrudes.
After a few minutes, or hours, Matt wakes, and lifts his head to smile sleepily at Mohinder in such a way that he has to smile back, move his hand to mold against Matt’s skin at the waist, pull him closer, and they kiss languidly and unhurriedly, letting the comfort-warmth build slowly into a familiar heat -
Mohinder pulls his hand away, stares down at the other man, his mind a deliberate blank. There are about sixteen lines of thought clamoring for attention, and he studiously ignores them in favor of watching Matt sleep, his face intermittently illuminated by the television.
Then he kneels beside the couch, frames Matt’s face in his hands, and carefully, slowly, kisses him.
The room fragments around them, flickering from midnight to morning, light to dark, warm and lazy to cold and awkward. Mohinder ignores all the visuals alternating across his closed eyes and waits for Matt to wake up completely.
He can pinpoint the exact moment Matt is conscious when he stills beneath him, and the room settles into darkness. He pulls away, settling onto his heels and tries to speak. Fails.
“Mohinder-?” Matt’s voice is hoarse with sleep and surprise.
“You were dreaming.” Mohinder looks down at his hands, the glare of the television making the bandage across his nose a bright obstruction to his vision. “I touched you and I saw - I was in your dream.”
“Oh.” Matt moves, away from Mohinder, sitting up against the far arm of the couch. “I’m sorry I dragged you into that…” He takes a deep breath and expels it in a rush of words, “I lied to you, I’ve been dreaming, I remember all my dreams, and I just didn’t want to tell you…” Mohinder reaches up to put his hand on Matt’s ankle, and the other man falls silent, but through the touch, he can hear I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable, I know you’re under a lot of pressure already, and I didn’t want to ruin anything…
The thoughts stop when Mohinder smooths his palm up Matt’s bare calf, cups it around the kneecap. Mohinder still can’t look at him, but he forces himself to speak. “I - I want. What I saw. Everything.” He lifts his eyes to meet Matt’s stunned gaze. His voice feels broken. “Please.”
Matt surges forward, and his hands are on Mohinder’s shoulders, his face against Mohinder’s neck, and he’s exuding so much safety and comfort and rightness that Mohinder can’t breathe for a long set of heartbeats. Yes, something is saying inside Mohinder, and he can’t tell anymore if it’s his own thoughts or Matt’s, yesyesyes. It doesn’t matter.
Come to bed, Matt thinks.
Yes.