cait read the second thing

[skymning]

It was a conversation they’d needed to have a long time ago. This wasn’t lost on Mohinder and was in fact something he thought about as he carefully unlocked the door and stepped inside. Tentative, tense. Cautious. He was just as aware of the fact that everything that had happened since he’d last seen Matt was his own fault, and so he shrank back from the grim way Matt was looking at him when he came in. He was right there, already staring him down. He must have heard him coming.

Mohinder wasn’t sure what he’d expected. But being met by anger didn’t seem all that bad, really. He’d spent a lot of time angry with himself lately.

“Matt? –Oh.” A young woman had come up to look between them and her eyes too settled on Mohinder with a look that carried no small amount of criticism. She crossed her arms, stating simply, “You.”

“Daph, could you-?”

Matt’s voice was tight but Daphne seemed to understand when she touched his arm – and then she was a blur, a gust of wind, rushing right past Mohinder and out the still open door behind him, and that’s when he remembered her.

She’d come from Pinehearst. She’d seen him at his lab – had seen Nathan and Tracy – and that meant that Matt probably knew about that as well and the thought made something threaten to crawl up Mohinder’s throat.

Thankfully, that didn’t happen. What did was the door slamming shut behind him and then Matt was right there, all imposing presence and grit teeth and dark eyes when he hissed, “Where the hell have you been?”

Mohinder needed only a moment of staring back into those eyes before he decided to take a step back from the older man and another few backwards into the apartment, trying to regain some space. “Trust me”, he said, “you don’t want to know and I don’t want to talk about it. I just came to –”

“Oh, I want to know”, Matt interrupted him and pushed away from the door to follow Mohinder into the room. “I haven’t seen you for two weeks. I haven’t seen Molly. Who do you think you are, Mohinder? Did you really think I wouldn’t care what happened to her?”

That stung almost as bad as the scales. Mohinder ran a hand over one forearm and found only his own skin, but the reminder of what had been breaking it open only a few days prior had him avoiding Matt’s gaze. Still, he knew he had to deal with this. He’d come to – to what? To try to salvage something, maybe, but if Matt’s dangerous tone was any indication there was very little left of their friendship.

“Of course I didn’t! Matt, that’s absurd-”

“Yeah, sure.” There was a sound almost like a snort. “I’d have an easier time believing that if you’d actually bothered to return any of my calls.”

“… I lost my phone.”

It was true. It was probably in Central Park, dropped in the grass after Mohinder had attacked a random drug dealer for a reason that had seemed necessary at the time but nothing but foolish in hindsight.

“And you never thought to get a new one?”

“I’m sorry, Matt”, Mohinder finally snapped, raising his voice and meeting the sharp gaze fixed on him, “I was a little tied up at the time, trying to keep myself and other people from dying!”

Matt took another step towards him. “By kidnapping people? Experimenting on them? Is that how you did it?” Mohinder’s eyes widened slightly, something that brought out a shadow of a bitter smile in Matt. “Yeah, I heard all about that one, doc.”

”I made a mistake”, he said shortly. He felt tense and unhappy, but it was clear that Matt didn’t care about that right now, just as little as he cared about his personal space – he was too close. Mohinder went past him again, towards the desk that he’d used before his … well, disappearance, he supposed. It was strange how easily he’d abandoned this apartment – his home – for the lab, but maybe a part of that was shame. It was eating at him still.

But if he knew Matt right, all his papers would still be there. The ones he felt obligated to collect before he left. He had no desire to move back in. Leave it to Matt and the woman … Daphne. He didn’t really want to face anyone right now, least of all someone who could look at him with that much contempt.

“No kidding! And now what, Mohinder? Are you-”

“Molly’s safe”, Mohinder said without looking at Matt, pulling out drawers and gathering the documents from them. “She’s in India with my mother. I couldn’t let her stay. Sylar -”

“Sylar?”

Mohinder looked up. Reluctantly, really, but he knew he owed Matt an explanation since he clearly hadn’t known that Sylar was alive. He was giving Mohinder a hard, guarded look that he knew well; it was the one that showed whenever his distrust spiked.

“He’s alive. He came here, he threatened Molly -”

“What?!”

“- to get to me, Matt, he forced me to help him. He’s still out there, I – I had to protect her.”

There was a pause.

Mohinder knew when his mind was being read, mostly from that particular focus that came into Matt’s eyes whenever he listened to what others couldn’t hear. So he stood passively for a moment, letting Matt find whatever he wanted, whatever he needed to know about Molly. She was as much his daughter as Mohinder’s, after all. And Mohinder didn’t think he had the energy to verbally go through the details.

After a moment that was entirely too tense, Matt ran a hand through his hair, considering whatever he’d learned from Mohinder’s thoughts and Mohinder found that he was waiting, was watching him. He knew that gesture well. It usually meant either uncertainty or agitation and he could see both those things in Matt at the moment.

“Sylar”, Matt growled eventually. “And you still didn’t think I should know about that?”

“I’m telling you now”, Mohinder shot back, feeling free to move again now when he knew Matt was going to stick with being angry a while longer. Fine, he could be angry; Mohinder deserved that much. But he’d hoped they could have discussed this with a little less hostility.

He picked up the stack of papers and put them in his messenger bag, swiftly opening another drawer. The gun was there, he realized, feeling both tired and a little sick when he touched it. The gun the Company had given him, the gun he’d effectively used to kill Bennet.

“What, you think better late than never is gonna cut it with this?”

Mohinder closed his eyes. Just for a moment. “No. I don’t. Are you done yelling at me, Matt?” He slammed the drawer shut – he didn’t want the gun. Didn’t want to remember it existed, any of it. He walked around the desk and once again had to make it past Matt who seemed to want nothing more than to physically corner him. “Because if you are, I’ll be happy to leave you alone.”

“Wait- what? You’re leaving?” Matt caught him by the shoulder to turn him around to face him – Mohinder shook him off but did meet his eyes.

He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to – Matt caught it loud and clear in his mind, all the shame and guilt and self-loathing, all the reasons he hadn’t expected to be welcome there anymore and the reasons he didn’t even want to be.

Matt looked … surprised at what he found, or at least something close to it, which in turn surprised Mohinder, and then Matt was gripping his arm, very much in an attempt to keep him in place.

“No. No, you can’t just disappear again. Okay? That’s not how this works.”

“I hardly think the normal rules for social conventions apply after everything we’ve been through”, Mohinder said tersely when Matt let him go just as suddenly as he’d touched him. Matt shot him a dirty look over his shoulder; he went into the kitchen, grabbed a piece of paper from the counter. A pen.

“Our friendship might not mean shit to you, but it still does to me”, Matt said with a lot more bite than he probably intended as he scribbled something on the torn sheet. Mohinder wasn’t sure how to answer that. He wasn’t sure what he was feeling, how to merge the aggression in the words with what they actually meant and draw meaning from it.

Matt came back to him and held out the note to him. It had a number scrawled on it and Mohinder took it carefully, feeling strangely dazed.

“That’s my new number”, Matt said, crossing his arms. “I don’t care where you go, but if you don’t get a new cell phone and give me a call, I’m going to hunt you down. Alright?”

Mohinder knew he wouldn’t, not really. He also knew that he likely wouldn’t make that call. But he knew what the scrap piece of paper really was – an offer. And there was something comforting about that, in knowing that there was still something between them of value regardless of what Mohinder had initially assumed, even if it was strained and brittle at the moment. So he folded the paper carefully and put it with the others before he looked at Matt again. It was a moment that seemed surprisingly long, but then he ended it with a small nod.

“Alright. Goodbye, Matt”, he said, and went for the door.

He heard Matt sigh, but he didn’t look back at him as he stepped out of the apartment. “Bye, Mohinder.”