Fic: Changes For The Better (Mohinder, Mira, PG-13)

[squills]

Title: Changes For The Better
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Mohinder Suresh, Mira Shenoy
Words: 1900
Warnings: Angst and tension. References to an off-screen character death.
Spoilers: Through season 2.
Disclaimer: Not my characters, not writing this for profit.
A/N: This was written for the table I claimed at

Comments

[squills]

For a potentially girl!hating type of prompt that would normally make me cringe and not want to read at all, this absolutely a fantastic rendering of the prompt.

Thank you! :0) Because the prompt included the word "bitch", I couldn't help but feel that it needed to be a female antagonist, and then Mira became the obvious choice, since we know that they've already quarreled over his father's work. And I've always felt that Mira still had feelings for him - there could be people out there who could offer a job to their ex and work platonically and effectively with them, but I have yet to meet any of them. (I can't blame people for not commenting, though; I had a hard time thinking of places to pimp this, and I figured a lot of people would look at the prompt and assume I'd written some kind of nasty catfighting breakup scene.)

I hadn't thought much about the reversal of expected gender roles, but you're right, it's there. I was mostly thinking of it in comparison to his first-season feelings about his father (though I ended up not spelling that out in the fic). Nirand brings up to Mohinder that his father abandoned his family in order to chase, and Mohinder initially brushes that aside, but then brings it up to his mother when he's back in India. (I actually almost had him quote his mother's answer here, but I've something else in the works that I decided to save that for). I think because he's the only son, he's still in a position where most people would expect him to take up a respectable job and marry well and produce grandchildren...but that sense of duty and doing what's right, on top of his desire to see his father's work through, makes that less and less important to him.

This part especially made me go :O because, well, damn if that ain't a lovely meta-type poke at Sylar.
I know I have a Mylar bias, but I did have the same thought after writing that. :0) And Mohinder's reply to Mira has a Sylar-ish flavor to it: he sidesteps the question of whether any changes to his personality are good or bad, and just accuses her of being sour because he's not behaving the way she wants him to.

(I'm not sure you'd want to eat my brain, though. Sometimes it's very uncooperative. I'm trying to get it to write some quietly angsty stuff, and it keeps wanting to think about zombies. ZOMBIES, for Pete's sake...)

Thanks so much for the lovely comment - I'm glad this came across to you the way I was hoping it would!