Last Call
Characters: Mohinder Suresh and Daniel Faraday
Rating: PG
Words: 1269
Summary: On their last night together at Oxford, two best friends with crazy theories go for one last pint.
A/N: Originally written for comment_fic, but you know by now how that usually ends up with me...
“One day we’ll show ‘em,” Daniel slurred.
“They’ll give us fucking Nobel Prizes,” Mohinder agreed, a little too loudly, while nodding sloppily into his pint glass.
It was more than the end of a term. It was the end of an era.
Mohinder had just been granted his PhD in Genetics, and Daniel had finally been handed his pink slip from Queen’s College. However, the one’s graduation and the other’s firing were not the polar opposite events that one might have assumed. They were both being gotten rid of, in different ways.
Mohinder, a graduate student, was easily disposed of by giving him his degree. His advisors had told him, yet another time, how worthless and nonsensical they found his pet research focus, and that they were graduating him solely in order to get him off campus and away from Oxford. Whatever insanity he may go on to commit in his academic career, they said, Oxford would never associate itself with him further.
Daniel, on the other hand, was more difficult to make disappear. Firing professors was a big job, but after almost eight years, his department had had enough. They’d tried making things so unpleasant for him that he would choose to leave. They’d stuck him in the basement, given him nothing interesting to teach, declined grant proposal after grant proposal, refused to send him any graduate students to advise. But Daniel had held on, worked doggedly on his theories until finally the school could no longer justify his salary.
The only difference between their paths was that Mohinder was doing it all for his father’s approval while Daniel was doing it for his mother’s.
Not that they’d ever admitted it out loud.
And so, the two best friends took their final drink together at their favorite pub. Both were scheduled to leave the next day, Daniel for America and Mohinder for India, and this was their last hurrah. For so many years, they had done everything together. They’d gone to the library together. They’d volunteered for one another’s experiments when no one else would. They’d proofread one another’s papers. They’d attended one another’s panel discussions and asked pre-planned questions designed to give the other a chance to share his theories despite the rest of the panel trying to shut him up. Mohinder knew more about physics than any geneticist had right to, and vice versa. If anything, the outside knowledge had only helped their endeavours, worthless as they seemed to anyone else.
Mohinder had supported Daniel through years of pining for that cute but elusive anthropology student he was so single-mindedly obsessed with. Mohinder never really understood it---she struck him as a standoff-ish bitch who was too stupid to see all the worth Daniel had to offer---but good friends help instead of nag, so he held his tongue… some of the time, at least. He’d once advised Daniel to give it up and instead try going out with that nice medievalist who sometimes eyed him shyly in the library, but Daniel had simply scoffed.
Daniel had had a harder time helping Mohinder with his love life. It was infuriating, because Daniel couldn’t help but feel that if he only looked like that, like something that stepped out of some artist’s imagination, Charlotte Lewis would be his. So why was it that Mohinder seemed to alienate almost as many women as Daniel did? They so often started off swooning, but almost inevitably ended up throwing things, much to Mohinder’s eternal confusion. It was his mouth; Mohinder was always putting his foot in it. Once, Daniel had advised Mohinder to just shut up and look pretty---for Mohinder’s own good, not to be rude. It hadn’t gone well.
But despite these little hiccups, Daniel and Mohinder were possibly the only people they each had never gotten into a fight with. Each tried hard to be strong and manly and reticent and not talk about their upcoming separation, but inside, each of them felt as though something was dying.
And so, they drank. The final drink had turned into a final dozen, and both scientists, never the most adept at holding their liquor, were completely drunk.
“So, you’re going to teach with your dad?” Daniel asked after a lengthy silence that had been filled only with burps and unspoken sadness.
Looking at the floor and rocking his body absently, Mohinder bopped his head up and down, for far too long. “Yes. It isn’t Oxford, but it’s a good job.”
“Oxford, schmoxford. You’re going somewhere where they appreciate your genius.” Daniel waved his hand about in an effusion of disapproval that accidentally knocked someone’s glass over. The awkwardness of his apologies and efforts to help wipe the mess actually knocked three more glasses over. Finally, Mohinder pulled him away and over to another table where his squirrelly flailing and bows could cause no more damage, and apologized to the annoyed patrons from over his shoulder. It was naturally unconscious act on Mohinder’s part, brought about by years of dealing with this sort of thing. With a pang, he realized that this was the last time for an undefined amount of time that he’d be able to save Daniel from his own awkward self.
When they had settled themselves at their new table in the corner, Mohinder leaned in towards Daniel and looked him seriously and pleadingly in the eye. “Will you come visit?” he whispered.
“Sure. It isn’t like I’ll have anything to do.”
“You have to do your research,” Mohinder urged, ever the driven task-master. “Even if it isn’t funded right now, you have to keep going. You’re doing something extraordinary here.”
Daniel shrugged. He’d reached the tipping point that he sometimes did when the drunkenness took the form of depression and self-loathing. “I dunno. Sometimes I wonder if it’s even my research anyway. Maybe I’ve never really gotten past those equations my mom showed me once.”
“Stop it. That is wholly untrue.” Mohinder lowered his voice and continued, “I’ve seen it. I’ve seen your experiments. It works. You made it happen. How can you doubt yourself?”
Daniel took a deep breath and shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “I keep getting this feeling. Like I didn’t really discover it myself. Like there’s something I’m missing. Like someone told me the answer but I don’t remember it.”
“I don’t understand,” was Mohinder’s baffled reply.
“Me, neither.”
“Hm.”
They were quiet for awhile after that. Then Daniel leaned in again and whispered, “Do you think you’ll ever find them?”
“I don’t know. I know my father has been trying. I’m going to try, too.”
“It makes sense, you know. It’s completely possible. Don’t let them tell you otherwise,” Daniel urged.
Mohinder took another drink. “I’ll call you if I ever start to question myself.”
“Good. And you know, I’ll be on the look-out. If I ever see anything abnormal… you’ll hear it first.”
“Thanks, Daniel. Oh! I’ve been meaning to tell you. I found an article for you about pockets of electromagnetism around the world. It was just a newspaper article, nothing scientific, but it reminded me of you. It detailed special spots around the world. I’ll email you when I get home. Maybe you can go visit some and run experiments.”
“Yeah, maybe. That sounds interesting. Thanks.”
“They’re going to believe us one day. They will. We’ll make them.” Mohinder had always been the more optimistic of the two, and it would be interesting to see how positive Daniel would remain without his own personal cheerleader.
“I hope, so.” Already, Daniel’s confidence was sapping.
“I’ll miss you.”
“You, too.”
Rating: PG
Words: 1269
Summary: On their last night together at Oxford, two best friends with crazy theories go for one last pint.
A/N: Originally written for comment_fic, but you know by now how that usually ends up with me...
“One day we’ll show ‘em,” Daniel slurred.
“They’ll give us fucking Nobel Prizes,” Mohinder agreed, a little too loudly, while nodding sloppily into his pint glass.
It was more than the end of a term. It was the end of an era.
Mohinder had just been granted his PhD in Genetics, and Daniel had finally been handed his pink slip from Queen’s College. However, the one’s graduation and the other’s firing were not the polar opposite events that one might have assumed. They were both being gotten rid of, in different ways.
Mohinder, a graduate student, was easily disposed of by giving him his degree. His advisors had told him, yet another time, how worthless and nonsensical they found his pet research focus, and that they were graduating him solely in order to get him off campus and away from Oxford. Whatever insanity he may go on to commit in his academic career, they said, Oxford would never associate itself with him further.
Daniel, on the other hand, was more difficult to make disappear. Firing professors was a big job, but after almost eight years, his department had had enough. They’d tried making things so unpleasant for him that he would choose to leave. They’d stuck him in the basement, given him nothing interesting to teach, declined grant proposal after grant proposal, refused to send him any graduate students to advise. But Daniel had held on, worked doggedly on his theories until finally the school could no longer justify his salary.
The only difference between their paths was that Mohinder was doing it all for his father’s approval while Daniel was doing it for his mother’s.
Not that they’d ever admitted it out loud.
And so, the two best friends took their final drink together at their favorite pub. Both were scheduled to leave the next day, Daniel for America and Mohinder for India, and this was their last hurrah. For so many years, they had done everything together. They’d gone to the library together. They’d volunteered for one another’s experiments when no one else would. They’d proofread one another’s papers. They’d attended one another’s panel discussions and asked pre-planned questions designed to give the other a chance to share his theories despite the rest of the panel trying to shut him up. Mohinder knew more about physics than any geneticist had right to, and vice versa. If anything, the outside knowledge had only helped their endeavours, worthless as they seemed to anyone else.
Mohinder had supported Daniel through years of pining for that cute but elusive anthropology student he was so single-mindedly obsessed with. Mohinder never really understood it---she struck him as a standoff-ish bitch who was too stupid to see all the worth Daniel had to offer---but good friends help instead of nag, so he held his tongue… some of the time, at least. He’d once advised Daniel to give it up and instead try going out with that nice medievalist who sometimes eyed him shyly in the library, but Daniel had simply scoffed.
Daniel had had a harder time helping Mohinder with his love life. It was infuriating, because Daniel couldn’t help but feel that if he only looked like that, like something that stepped out of some artist’s imagination, Charlotte Lewis would be his. So why was it that Mohinder seemed to alienate almost as many women as Daniel did? They so often started off swooning, but almost inevitably ended up throwing things, much to Mohinder’s eternal confusion. It was his mouth; Mohinder was always putting his foot in it. Once, Daniel had advised Mohinder to just shut up and look pretty---for Mohinder’s own good, not to be rude. It hadn’t gone well.
But despite these little hiccups, Daniel and Mohinder were possibly the only people they each had never gotten into a fight with. Each tried hard to be strong and manly and reticent and not talk about their upcoming separation, but inside, each of them felt as though something was dying.
And so, they drank. The final drink had turned into a final dozen, and both scientists, never the most adept at holding their liquor, were completely drunk.
“So, you’re going to teach with your dad?” Daniel asked after a lengthy silence that had been filled only with burps and unspoken sadness.
Looking at the floor and rocking his body absently, Mohinder bopped his head up and down, for far too long. “Yes. It isn’t Oxford, but it’s a good job.”
“Oxford, schmoxford. You’re going somewhere where they appreciate your genius.” Daniel waved his hand about in an effusion of disapproval that accidentally knocked someone’s glass over. The awkwardness of his apologies and efforts to help wipe the mess actually knocked three more glasses over. Finally, Mohinder pulled him away and over to another table where his squirrelly flailing and bows could cause no more damage, and apologized to the annoyed patrons from over his shoulder. It was naturally unconscious act on Mohinder’s part, brought about by years of dealing with this sort of thing. With a pang, he realized that this was the last time for an undefined amount of time that he’d be able to save Daniel from his own awkward self.
When they had settled themselves at their new table in the corner, Mohinder leaned in towards Daniel and looked him seriously and pleadingly in the eye. “Will you come visit?” he whispered.
“Sure. It isn’t like I’ll have anything to do.”
“You have to do your research,” Mohinder urged, ever the driven task-master. “Even if it isn’t funded right now, you have to keep going. You’re doing something extraordinary here.”
Daniel shrugged. He’d reached the tipping point that he sometimes did when the drunkenness took the form of depression and self-loathing. “I dunno. Sometimes I wonder if it’s even my research anyway. Maybe I’ve never really gotten past those equations my mom showed me once.”
“Stop it. That is wholly untrue.” Mohinder lowered his voice and continued, “I’ve seen it. I’ve seen your experiments. It works. You made it happen. How can you doubt yourself?”
Daniel took a deep breath and shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “I keep getting this feeling. Like I didn’t really discover it myself. Like there’s something I’m missing. Like someone told me the answer but I don’t remember it.”
“I don’t understand,” was Mohinder’s baffled reply.
“Me, neither.”
“Hm.”
They were quiet for awhile after that. Then Daniel leaned in again and whispered, “Do you think you’ll ever find them?”
“I don’t know. I know my father has been trying. I’m going to try, too.”
“It makes sense, you know. It’s completely possible. Don’t let them tell you otherwise,” Daniel urged.
Mohinder took another drink. “I’ll call you if I ever start to question myself.”
“Good. And you know, I’ll be on the look-out. If I ever see anything abnormal… you’ll hear it first.”
“Thanks, Daniel. Oh! I’ve been meaning to tell you. I found an article for you about pockets of electromagnetism around the world. It was just a newspaper article, nothing scientific, but it reminded me of you. It detailed special spots around the world. I’ll email you when I get home. Maybe you can go visit some and run experiments.”
“Yeah, maybe. That sounds interesting. Thanks.”
“They’re going to believe us one day. They will. We’ll make them.” Mohinder had always been the more optimistic of the two, and it would be interesting to see how positive Daniel would remain without his own personal cheerleader.
“I hope, so.” Already, Daniel’s confidence was sapping.
“I’ll miss you.”
“You, too.”