Drabble dump - Mattmo, M3 (post 3)
Sep. 6th, 1998 10:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tiptoe391. Pick a character, pairing, or fandom you like.
2. Turn on your music player and put it on random/shuffle.
3. Write a drabble related to each song that plays. You only have the time frame of the song to finish the drabble; you start when the song starts, and stop when it’s over. No lingering afterwards!
4. Do ten of these, then post them.
1) On the Run - Cowboy Bebop
It's dark inside the mind. An endless jumble of words and neural networks and aimless thoughts,each one headed in its own direction. It's easy to get lost.
Mohinder's brain, especially, is like outer space. Empty and vast, but full of sparkling, blazing lights. It's overwhelming in there. I feel awe. This is the extent of the capabilities of the human mind. This is what I could be. What we all could be. And then I come to that part that thinks the same about my mind, and I'm moved nearly to tears.
2) My Happy Day - Iizuka Mayumi
Molly began the day jumping on the bed.
"Up, up, up!" she chanted.
"Your kid," Mohinder grumbled.
Matt made a low noise, then roared up like a lion. "Who disturbs my slumber?" he demanded grabbing her. Dissolving into giggles, she squealed and tried to get away.
A few bagels later and they were strolling along the sidewalk like a real family. Molly was sucking down the remains of a frappucino and chattering. A dog sniffed her. She giggled. Matt and Mohinder looked at each other. Somewhere along the way they'd started to hold hands.
3) Hoshizora wa Mysterious - Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon (this track is about 30 seconds long)
Late at night. He's exhausted. I want to touch his face until I melt into it.
4) Someday - Iizuka Mayumi
Driving along. Windows down. Partner alongside me. It's spring. I kinda want to fly away like a big, ridiculous-looking bird.
I'm happy. How mad is that? I'm happy.
There's a guy at home who looks at me like I'm thirty-one flavors of stupid and a girl who can see right through me and makes me wonder who's the parent here, and I wouldn't trade them for all the diamonds in the world.
"Parkman," my partner's saying. "You're smiling."
"So what?" I turn. "It's a beautiful day. Why shouldn't I smile?"
"No reason," she shrugs, her eyes sliding to the side as though she's got a different idea of where that smile is coming from. Whatever she says. It's a beautiful day.
5) Yoake no Octave - Sakamoto Maaya
Molly likes playing with words. Some days she makes up poems. Today she's singing, "There is Mohinder, making my dinder." Yesterday morning it was, "Matt, Matt, his head is flat. He gets mad and looks like a cat."
Well, don't mind me. I've got a dinder to make.
6) Seiryuu God Unsealing - Fushigi Yuugi
My mother's funeral is on a rainy day. We march like dutiful mourners behind her casket as she's taken to the sad brick building where she will become dust. Matt squeezes my hand. I feel a little bit like I'm going to break into a thousand pieces.
It's ridiculous, these rituals of grief. What do they offer? They simply provide a way for us to formalize our pain so we can move on afterwards. But grief never dies, pain never leaves, and we never move on. I'm still touched by the loss of everyone I ever loved.
I should accept mortality. I should be stronger than this.
7) We Believe You - Shinohara Emi/Sailor Jupiter
We're in a hallway. We've both got guns. We're in deep, deep trouble.
He looks at me and I see a flicker of doubt in his face.
"It's all right," I mouth to him, and he nods.
Then there's gunfire and the crackle of electricity and I don't know how we manage to move as fast as we do.
How has it come to this? When did I become a vigilante? When did he become a warrior? And when did we start working together? When did we start being able to communicate without words?
I'm not even talking about any power. Just-- knowing him. Just being with him, and I know what he's thinking, how he feels.
Then a blaze of lightning catches him in the shoulder. He howls. I scream and run forward. Push Elle back. Grab him.
Well, of course.
Now I know. Don't go limp, don't give in--
Stay here. So I can tell you.
8) Unknown track - Rurouni Kenshin
It's Sylar outside. Matt can hear his thoughts.
He tries to repel him with his mind, and at once they're facing off in a landscape of the mind, wrestling like angry teenagers.
All this and he's just standing there, brow furrowed in concentration. Stock still, as they look on and wonder.
9) Journey - Rurouni Kenshin
It rained last night. The grass smells good. He sort of wants to bury his nose in it and get all dirty and wet. Rolling over and over in the grass like a dog. Maybe the coldness and the dampness will cancel out the warmth of the other man's embrace, but he doubts that. There's too much of it.
In the warmth and coolness he would be rejuvenated, reborn. That is what he wants more than anything. To have his sins purged and his life restarted-- to be granted a second chance. He swears, if his feelings are ever returned, he'd spend the rest of his life making his devotion, his gratitude known. For now, he just inhales the scent of the grass and tries to keep his fists still and by his sides.
9.5) Fox's Victory - Super Smash Brothers Melee This track was 7 seconds long so I skipped it
10) A Path for Winds - Time When Seasons Change -- Battle Athletes
He smells like sea breezes and sounds like the yawning of tugboats against the sky. Matt wants to sail into his horizons, explore the endless ocean of his experience. But every time he's almost lost, everything stops, he's thrown back into reality. And he begins to drift again, ever so slowly, into the mindless current of want that threatens to take him away.
The end of Matt's words drifted into the night along with a final puff of smoke. Mohinder could smell the faint acid tint of nicotine on his breath. The last ashes of the cigar were dying in the sand beneath him. A wind raked through the fire, making the sparks fly up. Mohinder shivered and shifted in the sand, trying to find warmth.
And then there was warmth, there was a warm hand and hot breath on his face, and then he could taste the nicotine. Nicotine and dry lips, and warmth became heat, and heat became unbearable.
"That wasn't the price you gave Eden," Mohinder complained.
"Eden brings in a lot more business for me," Matt drawled. "In the end, Mohinder, you have, how do I call this? A niche market. Until you can find yourself a corner outside a nest of gay guys, you're going to have to pay me the difference."
Mohinder moved forward, brought his shoulders flush against Matt's. A dark hand drifted to the larger man's belt.
"Perhaps I should stand outside your apartment, then," Mohinder said. "Maybe I could get some business from you or that Nathan fellow you're shacking up with."
Matt smiled. His eyes were on Mohinder's lips. "Nathan's old news," he growled, arching forward against him. "I suppose I could see about a, what do you call it when you get money back later?"
"A rebate?" Mohinder smiled, jerking Matt forward with surprising strength.
"Right, a rebate," whispered Matt in a husky voice before their lips met.
Matt liked faces. He'd loved Janice's pout. Had been drawn to the loneliness in Ted's eyes. But he's never had a craving to touch someone's body like he does for Mohinder. And it's ridiculous, because Mohinder's got the prettiest face he's ever seen. But it's the slim arms, the solid hips, the dark legs that entice him, taunt him. He wants to feel it with his own. Wants to crush it into submission, wants to hold it up on a pedestal. He wants Mohinder's everything. Wants that body to be his to touch from toes to fingertips to yes, even that beautiful face. The need is slowly killing him. Control of his own body is slipping away.
1. Pick a character, pairing, or fandom you like.
2. Turn on your music player and put it on random/shuffle.
3. Write a drabble titled the same thing as the song playing.
4. The number of words in the drabble should the songs length.
*Example - Drive My Car is 2 minutes & 33 seconds. So the drabble should have 233 words.*
5. Do five (more if you wish) of these, then post them.
1. Nobody But You (BoA) - 3:45
That was the day Mohinder caught Matt looking at a pretty girl.
Not just looking, mind you, staring. Ogling, if you will. And all of a sudden everything they had built, the life that had seemed so solid a moment ago, seemed like it was standing on a tenuous foundation of shifting sands. Mohinder thought he might come apart like a house of cards. He could actually see himself wavering, coming to pieces, falling into a stack of unshuffled nonsense.
What right did he have to be this jealous? He always knew he was no good for him. He always knew eventually Matt would realize that Mohinder could offer nothing but a lifetime of subterfuge and prejudice, a life that could be ended any minute by a thousand rogues who wanted a piece of one or more of both of them.
Truly, he had no right to be anybody’s family, anybody’s ally. There were too many dangers in the life he faced day in and day out. Too much he could get someone unwittingly involved in. Like he had Eden. Like he had Molly. Like he had Bennet. There were too many lives he’d touched in a way he’d never thought could go wrong… until it did.
He felt woozy with the sensation, with the utter unworthiness of his poor defeated self. It was pathetic, really. One glance, one stupid lustful glance by a man he knew well had some very strong instincts (he’d taken advantage of them as well), and now he was deconstructing his own sense of self? What a fool he was. He had plenty of better reasons to feel worthless. Why should this be the last straw?
He was so trapped in cycles of self-questioning and self-deconstruction that it took him a moment to register that he was being held upright by a strong pair of arms.
“You shouldn’t doubt yourself with a mind-reader around,” Matt said into his neck, his low voice vibrating through Mohinder’s skin. “Relax. Relax. I was just looking. There’s nobody else I want. Nobody but you.”
2. Dreaming Cells (Shoujo Kakumei Utena) - 2:27
They slid in and out of his field of view, dancing like tiny bubbles beneath the microscope. Minuscule ballerinas, in pairs, in threes and fours and large pulsing circles. It was so odd to watch them at this magnification. To the naked eye, blood and skin and tissue was all a mass of immutable, solid flesh. But here on the slide, they had a life of their own.
To his surprise, he’d found himself early in his career imagining each individual cell had a personality. Some pushed others aside with the brazenness of a bully; some huddled in corners and feared the endless pull and push of the fluid around their walls. Cells had conversations in his head, they glanced at each other and picked fights and interacted. They were alive. They were creatures with hopes and dreams just like the humans around him.
He wondered, sometimes, whether he was just a part of a larger organism himself. Perhaps he, and the man who shared his bed, and the girl they’d come to love as their own… perhaps they were under somebody’s microscope as well. Living, breathing, dreaming cells, some stronger than others and some weaker, each working in its own individual way and yet part of something far bigger, some purpose it had not yet discovered.
Sometimes that thought inspired him. Sometimes, though, it frightened him.
3) A Prayer to the Night Sky (Iizuka Mayumi) - 5:00
Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight. Well, I think you’re a star, but it’s kind of hard to see stars from where I am. Oh well, anyway. I wish I may, I wish I might have the wish I wish tonight.
Stars and night sky and moon and Mom and Dad in heaven, I hope you are all having a good night. I have a stupid question. Do you think it’s OK for me to be happy? Because I really miss you guys, really I do, but sometimes I think I’m so happy here, and I’m afraid I might forget you or miss you less, and then you might get mad, and I never liked it when you were mad. I tried to be a good girl. So if you give me some sign that I should not be happy I will try really hard to always think of you but... but I don’t know if I can. So I hope that’s OK.
Also, I have another stupid question. Is it OK for two dads to like each other the way a dad and a mom do? Because today I thought I saw Matt and Mohinder look at each other the way you used to look at each other sometimes when you were really proud of me, or we were all having fun. And I used to love those looks, did you know? So I don’t know why but I keep looking at them and thinking maybe, just maybe, they are starting to like each other in that way. Which is really kinda funny because they didn’t like each other at all when they first met. I liked them both, though. Which is good. Because now I have them both.
I’m kind of lucky, huh? Well, I’m unlucky and I’m lucky, I think. Because you’re not here now, which is very sad. And I got sick, which is very sad, too. And then there are other things but I don’t want to talk about them. But then I got Matt and Mohinder and they are both really great, and so that makes me think I’m lucky. And really, when I think about it, maybe I got to have two sets of good parents to live with. But that makes it sound like I’m happy the first pair is gone and then I feel like a terrible girl. Which kind of girl am I? Good or terrible? It’s so confusing!
I guess I’m back to my first question, in that case. Is it OK for me to be happy?
Because if I can be happy with them and they can be happy with each other, I think we all might be really happy together.
If it’s OK for me to have that, I kind of want to wish for it. So please, please, please, if it’s OK, first star and Mom and Dad and moon and sky... can we be happy as a family? I wish we can.
4. Haunted (Evanescence) - 3:31
Her face as she listened in horror as the truth spilled from her defenseless lips, after, nose bleeding and eyes defiant, she had tried for minutes to deter him from taking this dark, dangerous path he’d been on.
His body, crumpled to the ground, red spilling from those once-formidable eyes. So soon after the shoe had been on the other foot and he had been the one pointing the gun, warning that he would fight destiny to the end.
The family huddling together as they watched their house erupt in flames, as helplessly they watched his friend self-destruct, able to do nothing to stop him, when he’d only agreed to their foolish plan by thinking he was the only one who would be able to do just that.
His voice turning chilling and deadly as, with a glance, all his muscles were frozen and he realized he had been played for a fool. The IV’s drip, drip, drip gone. The awful instant of realization before the world turned on its ear.
Her eyes, wet and dark with despair, as she feared for the future of her child and wondered if it would ever be all right again between them. Her betrayal and his foolhardiness, fun-house mirrors of each other.
His screams as the man inside the taxicab with him slowly and methodically sliced across his forehead, laughing... and the boy giving him the vision doing nothing, allowing him to do nothing to stop it. A vision he will never be able to shake.
They are haunted, each, by the tragedies they have created, by the unexpected endings to their vain attempts to seek truth and find the right path.
They seek nothing but someone who understands, who has been there, who knows that even a man trying with all his might to be a hero can end up the villain, through bad choices, bad timing, bad luck or bad influences.
They have found each other.
How can that not be fate?
5. Tiara Action (Sailor Moon soundtrack) - 0:44
oh, sporfle!
“Really, I think you need more bobby pins.”
“I don’t need more, you’re just putting them in all wrong! Oh, never mind! I’ll do it myself!”
“Mohinder! Help! She’s attacking me with her tiara!”
“Leave me alone or I’ll make you wear it instead!”
WHITE'S STATEMENT:
Don't lose heart...
Matt was ecstatic. Hopeful, for the first time in days. He was headed home to see his little girl after being so far away from her for so long. Even with all the tragedy he'd seen, how close he'd come to annihilation, she was still safe at home and waiting for him.
Owen's Commentary on White's Statement:
... they might want to cut it out...
One step in the door and he knew he'd been wrong.
The utter failure was crushing. What was even worse was, he wanted desperately to run away. It was all he wanted. To not be under the same roof as a girl he'd betrayed and a man who was (rightly) livid with him. But then he'd be just like his dad, and he couldn't stand that. So he sat on the couch, hunched over, suffering.
Byrd's Addition to Owen's Commentary on White's Statement:
... and they want to avoid a lengthy search.
A hand came down onto his shoulder.
"For what it's worth," Mohinder said, "the fact that you're punishing yourself this much says more to me about what kind of a father you are than the fact you went away. I'd much rather share her with a man with a broken heart than no heart whatsoever."
ILES' LAW:
There is always an easier way to do it.
"Well, custody has been officially remanded to you, Officer," Mohinder said, slapping the papers down on the foot of the hospital bed. The pale face burst into a rosy grin. "The judge was quite sympathetic to the story of a police officer betrayed by his wife and finding a new life in a young orphan girl he'd rescued, only to have that life nearly ripped away. Myself, I've seen it and I still have a little trouble believing it's true."
"So do I."
"But we still have a problem, which is that Molly requires periodic infusions of my blood still, as she is still recovering from the virus that very nearly took her life."
"And?"
"And, your place of residence is listed as California on these papers." He poked a finger at the court documents, making the papers rattle and Matt wince.
"Ow... yeah, that is a problem."
Corollaries:
1. When looking directly at the easier way, especially for long periods, you will not see it.
"We could work out some sort of joint custody arrangement."
"No way. She's mine, I'm keeping her with me."
"Very well. You could fly her in to New York for the infusions."
"Can't you ship the stuff out to a hospital in L.A. or something?"
"And tell them what? That she's affected by a previously undisclosed virus that only affect those with rare abilities such as clairvoyance? It has to be me."
"Then what do we do?"
2. Neither will Iles.
"You two are such big dorks."
Red hair and raised eyebrows in the doorway. They both stared.
Molly shrugged. "If you're getting a divorce then just come live with us already!"
CHISHOLM'S SECOND LAW:
When things are going well, something will go wrong.
"Well, I have to admit, I am impressed," Mohinder said, dabbing at the corners of his mouth with the napkin. "You certainly did pull out all the stops with this meal. And here I thought you were hopelessly clumsy."
"I'm glad to hear it," said Matt. "Told you I was worth a damn."
Molly lurched from the table. "I totally ate too much," she said, clutching her stomach.
"You little drama queen," Matt said, flicking his towel at her and breaking into a grin.
The towel caught on the edge of the crystal vase on the counter and it flew from its perch and landed in a torrent of daisy petals and broken glass on the floor.
"Oops," Matt said.
Corollaries:
1. When things just can't get any worse, they will.
Matt was on his hands and knees with a dustpan, a broom, and a lecture his only companions.
"...you're going to be a father to the girl at least accept some responsibility for your actions," Mohinder was ranting. "If you would clean the kitchen area once in a while of all these papers and unpaid bills and generalized madness, this sort of thing wouldn't happen..."
How was he to know the vase was an heirloom from Mohinder's mother's house? How was he to know his towel was going to snap back like that? Matt said a little prayer to the heavens: I get it already, so would you please lay OFF?
His respite from the cleaning came in the form of the unmistakable sound of Molly throwing up.
2. Anytime things appear to be going better, you have overlooked something.
After they'd cleaned her up and put her to bed and scrubbed the carpet and sprayed air freshener so copiously it smelled like a nursing home, Matt and Mohinder collapsed onto the couch.
"God, what next?" Matt said.
"Thank goodness you were there," Mohinder said quietly. When Matt stared at him as though he'd grown a third eye, he shrugged and attempted to explain. "I have to admit to some panic," he said. "For a moment I thought, as much as I may be a doctor, what qualifications do I have to be a parent? I still feel sick at the smell of vomit, and all I really wanted to do was run away and let you handle it."
"You were fine," Matt said. "I was kind of feeling the same way. I have a feeling it's normal."
Mohinder smiled. He put a hand on Matt's. "I'm a terrible nag, I know, but I'm glad you're here."
For a moment they sat in silence. Matt could feel his pulse in his throat. He had an inexplicable urge to touch the rough stubble on the man's dark chin. To feel the smoothness of his cheek against the sandpaper abrasion. And Mohinder's face was turned up toward his, and his eyes were glowing, and Mohinder's hand was...
Mohinder's hand was on his mouth all of a sudden. "It just occurred to me," he said with a sour expression. "If Molly got food poisoning, and we ate the same thing..."
Matt's stomach sank. And then it lurched.
They both went running for the bathroom.
CHISHOLM'S THIRD LAW:
"M'inder."
He was squashed by a sleeping giant. Surely men had died more humiliating deaths, but Mohinder couldn't think of one. He struggled in vain to dislodge himself from beneath his roommate. They'd passed out on the same bed after a late-night talk, and now Matt was dreaming about him and hugging him and as much as that might have really made Mohinder's day usually, he couldn't feel the entire left side of his body.
"Matt. Move," he hissed, pushing with his still-barely-working right hand.
"Kay." Oh God... oh, God, Matt was humping his leg. OK, well, at least he was moving. That was good. That meant he was prone to suggestion in sleep.
Then Matt started to grind a little harder, and Mohinder snapped, "Matt! Would you please get off!?"
Never had a man so regretted his choice of words.
Proposals, as understood by the proposer, will be judged otherwise by others." (Bloch 13)
"No, seriously, that's what it says." Sendhil laughed. "'Someone's grouchy when they don't get their sleep.'"
"And like you'd know." Greg ruffled the pages of his script. "Do we even know why they're living together?"
"Because they're in love," Hayden shot as she ran by, disappearing behind a bank of cameras.
"Oh, God, it's true," Greg said, muttering something to himself. "Look at this scene."
"What's that one?"
"Fourth episode. Look." He read aloud. "'MOHINDER sings quietly in Tamil to MOLLY, who begins to calm down. Cut to MATT in the doorway, watching the two of them earnestly.' Earnestly!? Why not just say 'MATT undresses MOHINDER with his eyes' if they're gonna do that?"
Sendhil leaned forward, grinning. "We should do it."
"Do what?"
"Play them as lovers. Just to see who catches on."
"I think you just want to play lovers with everyone." Greg pouted.
"I can't help it if Zach and I have chemistry on set, for God's sake. You're just jealous."
"Well, how would you feel if you were stuck playing the oh-so-serious boy scout who never gets any and meanwhile your friend gets to put on the English accent and turn into the sex symbol of the show?"
"I'm not the sex symbol, Milo's the..." Sendhil shook himself. "Anyway. It doesn't matter. Let's do it. Come on. Then Matt Parkman can finally get some."
"In a manner of speaking." Greg cleared his throat. "Wait till I tell your wife you propositioned me. After all, you did kiss me back at Comic-Con."
"And you went on about sexual tension in the commentary..."
"Your wife IS going to get suspicious, you know."
Sendhil's eyes brightened. "Does that mean you'll do it?"
"Until Tim tells us to cut it out, sure, why not?" And Greg gave him the kind of smile that one only ever gives to a true partner in crime.
"Tea is not a morning drink," Matt comments to nobody in particular as he sees Mohinder dunking a teabag into the small navy mug.
"I don't know what you're talking about." Mohinder turns up his nose.
"Tea." Matt scowls at him. "You don't drink it in the morning."
"Perhaps you don't drink it in the morning." He's doing his snooty British thing and it's annoying as hell. Matt stomps to the refrigerator and pulls out the paper carton of orange juice. This time it's Mohinder's turn to make an editorial comment: "Oh, dear God, no."
"Welcome to the USA." Matt's dour grimace is almost comical. "We drink orange juice. Come on. It tastes like sunshine."
"It tastes like a punch in the jaw," Mohinder says, sipping his tea daintily. He even points his little finger below the mug's handle... not because he makes a habit out of it, but because it drives Matt up the wall.
Matt chugs from the carton. "Right," he says, giving a little burp-sigh as his lips clear the soggy paper and drawing his arm across his mouth to wipe off the wetness.
"Now I'm never drinking from that," Mohinder mutters.
"Suit yourself," Matt says, and he reaches around and kisses Mohinder soundly on the mouth. Mohinder gives a little roar of surprise and then goes limp, because Matt's mouth is sweet with the taste of orange juice. It's a taste that's bright like love, and tart like desire, and Mohinder doesn't have it in him to fight all that flavor. It tastes like a punch in the jaw, all right, but one that feels like sunshine.
"The problem is this: we're incompatible. We're both male and we both love Molly. That is about where the similarities end for me and you."
"You and me, you mean."
"That's just what I'm talking about. We can't even decide on the right order of three words. Much less the state the apartment should be in."
"Hygienic would be a good start."
"What is wrong with leaving my work shoes in the hallway?"
"Ask the houseplant that wilted three rooms over."
"I hate to tell you this, but three rooms over means you just suck at keeping plants alive. It's got nothing to do with my shoes."
"At least I understand that a child needs to eat green things once in a while. I'm fairly sure Domino's is Number One on your speed dial."
"Hey. First of all, it's number 6, and second of all, that is patently unfair. At least I don't drown my food in weird brown sauce."
"That's because the vast majority of your food is grown in laboratories and will likely survive the next nuclear holocaust."
"But it doesn't make the garbage stink."
"Garbage is supposed to stink. Organic matter decomposes."
"You're always such a scientist. Do you ever stop talking like a dictionary? And thinking like one, too, for that matter."
"Well, forgive me, I'm not used to having a detective analyzing my every thought for average reading level."
"And I'm not used to living with someone who would like to hold me down and..."
"Matt!!"
"...take a blood sample, Jesus, what did you think I was going to say? Never mind, I don't want to know. There are some things you think that I really don't want to hear."
"Oh, is that where you were going with that? I wasn't sure... Anyway. What were we discussing?"
"How incompatible we are."
"Right."
"And we are, you know."
"Well, it's good to see you come to a firm decision over something."
"What does that mean?"
"What do you think? Not that I'd prefer to see you reckless, since you make such spectacularly bad decisions when you are."
"Bad decisions like teaming up with Noah Bennet to take down the Company?"
"As I recall, you preceded me where that is concerned."
"But I didn't turn on a dime and end up shooting him."
"It's nice to know not shooting Noah Bennet is your idea of successful decision-making. It sets such a high standard for Molly to look up to."
"No, do you know what would have been successful decision-making? Changing the locks after you realized Sylar had lived in your apartment."
"Sylar's a telekinetic. What good would locks have done? Especially since you were gone at the time."
"Saving the world, and you're welcome, by the way."
"Of course, forgive me, it was the height of selflessness that took you away from a lonely, frightened child for days at a time."
"Says Mister Singapore-Cairo-Haiti."
"All right. You know what? This isn't helpful. We both weren't there for her when we should have been. And I should never have taken her to the Company."
"No. I should never have pushed myself back into her life."
"Don't say that. She needed you."
"You saved her life. She needs you."
"Not anymore. You're her father now."
"No. I could never be. All I can be is..."
"A surrogate... a foster parent. Yes."
"What does that make you?"
"Quite frankly, Someone who depends on you."
"Mohinder... I depend on you, too."
"Even if we're incompatible?"
"Maybe I depend on that, too."
he lies awake at night
wondering what to do.
a valentine
valentine's day
with this man
there aren't chocolates in the world
or flowers to begin to honor him
his redemption
his partner
his true love
dreaming in five languages
there are so many layers and
dimensions to him
like a candy sampler
long legs that burn up his dreams
a whirlwind mind he's constantly running to keep up with
the gentle touch of a father
the laughing eyes of a friend.
and he himself is just flat and fortuneless
a plain old boring old man.
Matt had a date to shoot hoops with the guys, and Molly wanted to go to the park to find wildflowers for her flower-pressing project. So they headed out as a family, and Molly and Mohinder wound down one of the curving paths as she picked out buttercups and dandelions and violets from the lush grass. It was a pleasant enough walk, tame and a lovely way to spend a Sunday afternoon, and oh dear LORD Matt's shirt was off.
Molly waved, but Matt didn't notice. He was too into the game, his dark eyes darting back and forth, shoulders coated with a thin sheen of sweat as they rounded forward, as he shifted his weight left and right and spread his arms wide in a guarding stance. His hand batted forth to get under the quickly bouncing ball as his opponent looked for an opening. Mohinder recognized the flash of understanding that went across Matt's face-- he could hear the other guy planning. And then there was an infinite moment of sudden movements-- jerking arms up to pass, jumping toward that side, hand reaching out, thick sound as connection was made, and then Matt was moving so fast, his arms taut and his shorts dripping with sweat. He zigzagged among the others and looked at the basket the way he looked at a target he was trying to shoot. Mohinder held his breath as the steel columns of legs launched him into the air and the ball went soaring, hanging, suspended, catching the sunlight, before the cool swish and the shouts, before the motion all started again.
"Dribbling," said Molly next to him.
"Uh, yes, right now they are," Mohinder said dumbly.
Molly pointed to the drool on the corner of his mouth. "No, I mean you."
"Hey, Mohinder?"
Mohinder took off his glasses, tapped his keyboard impatiently, and watched his train of thought derail for the fifth time that day. "Yes?"
"Do we have anything in the house?" Big hot-air-balloon of a voice from the kitchen.
The scientist stood. "A table, a handful of chairs, a man screaming at the top of his lungs..." he rattled off.
Matt appeared in the doorway. "I mean food!"
"Undoubtedly." You're the one in the kitchen, he thought with a tinge of irritation.
Matt grumbled. "You know what I mean."
"No, I don't."
He got a scowl for his efforts as Matt wandered off into the kitchen again, shouting back at him. "Like, fruit. Or something. Or popcorn. Or... gah! What else is Core? Can't remember what's on the list..."
Mohinder ignored him. Sat back down, slipped his glasses back on, and began to tap on the keys again.
"Hey, Mohinder!"
Glasses off, keyboard silent, train of thought crashing spectacularly with multiple casualties and great property damage.
"Do we have a computer?"
Matt very nearly found out through intimate physical contact between said piece of equipment and his skull.
"All right, so sit down. Here, I made character sheets for both of you. Matt, you're playing Tragar, the dwarf. You have an ax and full plate armor."
"Wait, I'm a dwarf? What does that mean, I'm a dwarf?"
"It means you're a dwarf. And you're playing a human cleric, Rainier."
"What's a cleric?"
"It means you can heal him."
"I don't need healing. Mohinder, tell her I don't need healing. Don't give me that look, young lady."
"We haven't started, so you obviously don't need healing yet."
"Yes, obviously."
"Stop laughing at me!"
"OK. So you were both asked to go into the hills to find the dragon's cave. It's the middle of the day and you've just left the city with everything you'll need. You're heading into the hills."
"And?"
"And, this is the part where you have to talk to each other a little. So I get an idea of your characters."
"You created our characters."
"Just do it!"
"Um, hello there, what's your name again?"
"Rainier."
"Rainier, yeah. Uh-huh."
"Uh, good afternoon, uh, Tragar. You're looking short today."
"Can I attack him with my ax?"
"No, he's your friend. Mohinder, behave. You're a man of God, remember?"
"This truly is fantasy."
"OK. Well, you see a couple of kobolds lurking around."
"Bold what?"
"Kobolds. They're monsters."
"Then why didn't you just say monsters?"
"I just did. What do you do?"
"If we ignore them, will they go away?"
"Not likely. It says here they like to set traps."
"Where? What are you reading? Give me that."
"So what are you going to do?"
"I'll shoot them."
"You don't have a gun, you're a dwarf!"
"Do I have a gun?"
"Mohinder!"
"Do you ever wonder," drawled Matt, licking the knife, "why it's called peanut butter?"
"I wonder why you eat it at all," said Mohinder without cracking a smile.
"No, I mean, think about it. It's not a pea, and it's not a nut, so why's it a peanut?" He spread a thick layer of the stuff on another piece of bread and wolfed it down in two bites. "'N'... why butt'r?" Mohinder watched, half-fascinated and half-disgusted, as Matt worked his jaw a few times to loosen the hold the sticky stuff had on the roof of his mouth. "Sounds to me like..." He swallowed. "Butter? I hardly know'er."
"I'm sure there is some very complex linguistic reasoning behind the classification," Mohinder said, openly rolling his eyes now. "As for the word butter, I believe it refers to where all that saturated fat ends up on you."
"Hey!" Matt grabbed him and swatted his rear lightly. "Last time I checked, you kind of liked that part of me."
And Mohinder grinned. "Did I say it was an insult?" he offered evasively.
Matt responded by pulling his face up to kiss him deeply. Mohinder had trouble getting away, as the sticky peanut butter-coated tongue that slipped into his mouth made him shiver with its taste and made sure he was equally sticky.
Then again, why bother getting away?
"This was so much simpler when I was married," Matt said as the third egg in a row was crushed beneath his paws.
"I fail to see how that affects the equation," Mohinder said, handing him another and scowling slightly at the mess of yolk and shell now lying in the bottom of the dpyrex measuring cup.
"It affects the equation, scowled Matt, trying for the fourth time to hit that subtle vein that would enable a perfectly halved eggshell, "because when your wife's an attorney you order in. Aha!" The egg plopped into the paper cup, and Matt held it aloft as if it were the Holy Grail.
Mohinder laughed approvingly. "See, you can crack an egg. You are not completely hopeless after all."
"Haven't seen me burn water yet," Matt muttered, leaning over to toss out the shell.
Mohinder was sitting on the steps when Matt arrived, fists propping up his chin. His lower lip was out a half-mile, and he was staring determinedly at his knees.
Matt burst into laughter.
Mohinder stiffened, drew himself up to full height, and adjusted his shoulders hastily. "I didn't see you coming," he said.
"Did you get it?" Matt asked.
"What?"
"The X-ray vision. You were staring so hard I thought you were trying to see through the floor."
"I'm sorry. Lost in thought." His attempt at a smile was truly pathetic.
Matt fixed an inquisitive eye on him. "About what?"
This smile was genuine, and it came with a guilty shrug. "Ways to break into one's own apartment."
A snorty, stifled laugh burst from Matt's mouth and nose. "You're the absent-minded professor sometimes, you know that?"
"And very much not double-oh-seven, yes, I know." Mohinder rolled his eyes. "Could you let me in, please, Officer Parkman?" he asked with the dryness of a man only half-kidding.
Matt looked at the keys at his belt and grinned slightly, strumming his fingers through their bulk and producing a chorus of clanks. "I don't know," he said importantly. "Seems to me there ought to be compensation for that kind of a favor."
"Matt!" Foot tapping impatiently.
"No, I'm dead serious." Matt leaned forward and trapped Mohinder against the wall, frowning at him. "You can't expect something for nothing, you know. I think maybe I'll decide when I'm ready to let you in."
Mohinder's gaze darted from the darkening eyes to the broad shoulders trapping him in and the steel columns of arms completing his cage. The heaviness in his heart seemed to lift away, and he smiled. A true, genuine smile. "All right, then," he said, pulling at Matt's shirt to bring him closer in. "I suppose we can find some way to pass the time until you change your mind."
I actually did this one as a comic book so it's kind of sparse. I didn't take this one very seriously so don't you, either. Hee.
It was late. By all rights I should have been home by now. But it was a full moon, and something pulled me out of my car and onto the street. Something restless and frightening. Something I couldn't resist. The allure of noir, maybe, you could call it.
Was it a sixth sense or the sound of someone's thoughts that turned my head? I don't know.
But I was heading into that alleyway, gun out and raised, not because I could see what was going on but because I couldn't. Because it was an indistinct black mass and a rushed jumble of meaningless thought noise.
God, I wish it had stayed that way.
The thing was on me before I could move. I squeezed the trigger of my gun, but the shots flew way up and into the nondescript brick wall that towered endlessly above us.
I struggled. I clawed. It didn't help.
Its fangs sank into my shoulder. It hurt, but what really hurt wasn't the wound, but the feeling like fire and ice spreading through my blood. I could feel it in every cell in my body.
Like poison. Like some sort of serum. Mutating me. Changing me.
I woke up in that alleyway with torn clothes and a ridiculous craving for hamburgers.
Two weeks later...
"Mohinder! Do we have any meat?"
"You know very well we've got no meat, you great lardass." He squeezed by me in the small space between the refrigerator and the counter. His ass looked fantastic. Maybe I'd just take a bite out of that.
He spun around to glare at me critically. "That's the third time you've mentioned meat in the past two weeks. Have you completely forgotten the six months prior to that?"
"I haven't forgotten how good you taste," I said, grabbing him by the hips and spinning him back around so I could slide my hands over his stomach and lean into his back.
"Matt!" His voice sounded that familiar note of warning. "Molly's in the other room. What in the hell are you thinking?"
"Thinking she couldn't see me nailing you behind the counter." I bumped us up against it.
Now he turned again, hard. And that's when it hit me that he was honestly shocked. "What in the world is wrong with you? You've been acting like a wild animal! Ever since you came home with that awful bite, you've barely been yourself."
M3 - a day in the life. I feel sorry for Molly in this one!
6:50 A.M. The alarm goes off. Matt slams his hand down and hits Mohinder's face. Mohinder hits back. They have a ten-minute unconscious slapfight. Meanwhile, the alarm wakes up Molly in the other room. She walks by, sees them smacking each other in their sleep, rolls her eyes, and goes to get her own breakfast.
7:13 A.M. Matt is in the shower. Mohinder comes in, still too zonked to see straight. He reaches in to turn on the shower and grabs Matt by the... well, he makes Matt yelp, at any rate. Now they're both shocked awake. Matt slams the shower curtain closed. Mohinder pulls it open and grabs him again, this time on purpose. What ensues makes the earlier slapfight look perfectly civilized. Molly washes her own dish.
7:18 A.M. Still laughing and fighting, Matt and Mohinder come out of the bathroom together to find Molly watching TV.
"Molly! Did you get dres---"
She stands up, long enough to show her favorite pair of overalls, and sits back down without turning around.
"How about your back--"
She holds up the overstuffed backpack in one hand.
"Your lun--"
And a paper bag in the other.
"OK, well, don't miss your b--"
"Get dressed!" Molly scolds loudly. "You'll be late for work!"
They scamper away like a pair of bunnies.