(no subject)
Title: Memories and Dust (3/?)
Fandom: Heroes (Future, AU-ish)
Characters: Matt, Mohinder, Jacob McHenry (OC)
Rating: PG-13 for language
Disclaimer: If I owned Heroes, I would not be working in a crap bookstore with a leaky roof.
Summary: “Man. This is so Days of Our Lives, I can’t even believe it.”"
Previous Chapters: Prologue | One | Two
Chapter 3: Conversations
April 20, 2021
Brooklyn, NY
Mohinder was still seething when Matt came home.
“Honey, I’m home!”
Mohinder rolled his eyes.
“No, that will never get old,” Matt answered, coming into the kitchen, where Mohinder was at the table. “I talked to the lawyer, she showed me this…” He broke off, looking sharply at the other man. “Whoa. You’re in a bad mood. What happened?”
“I got a visit today,” Mohinder said, pronouncing his words carefully. “From Hiro Nakamura.”
Matt raised an eyebrow at Mohinder’s tone. “The current one? Or…”
“Future,” Mohinder said, unable to keep the irritation out of his voice. “He looked about forty. And he had a beard.”
Matt made a face at the other man’s tone. “Not a pleasant visit, then?”
Mohinder set down the book he’d been attempting to read for the last half hour. “Tell me you didn’t put him up to it.”
Matt sat down across from him, brow furrowed in concern. “Up to what?”
“He told me we have to adopt Jacob! And that doing so would somehow save the world from a great catastrophe that he, as usual, refused to talk about in depth,”
“Whoa, whoa. I haven’t talked to Hiro in at least a week. Whatever he said, I didn’t ask him to do it.” Matt’s brow furrowed further. “At least not in this time period. I mean, I could have in the future, but that’s not something you can really blame on me now, and… I’m going to get a headache if I think about it much more. I didn’t ask Hiro to talk to you, is my point.”
Mohinder slouched down in his chair. “I hate this. I like Hiro now, but every time I meet his future self, I can’t help but wonder what’s going to happen to turn him into such an insufferable ass. Apparently, it never occurs to him that maybe the best way to change the future, would be to tell people exactly what happens so they can avoid it now.”
Matt smiled, and moved his chair around so he could start kneading Mohinder’s shoulders. “Blasphemy. You do that, and the universe would explode from the paradox or something.”
“The paradox?” Mohinder said, in a huff of disbelief. “Matt, we’re an interracial gay couple, half of whom possesses extraordinary powers, about to adopt the illegitimate love child of your ex-wife and ex-partner. Who is recently orphaned. And probably going through puberty. If the universe doesn’t explode from that, it must be a bit more flexible than previously assumed.”
Matt smiled. “Agreed. So future-Hiro is an ass. Nothing new there. And who knows, he could be wrong. It’s happened before.” He placed a kiss on the back of Mohinder’s neck.
Mohinder sighed, and leaned back against Matt’s chest. “Or he could be right. It’s impossible to know. Matt-”
“Hold on,” Matt said, squeezing Mohinder’s shoulder. “There’s something else you need to know. Two somethings, actually.”
Mohinder groaned. “What now?”
Matt took an envelope out of his bag, looking at it before he handed it over. “It’s a letter from Janice. She wrote it a couple of years before she died. Her lawyer sent it over with the other paperwork.”
Mohinder took the envelope and drew out its contents. He grabbed his reading glasses from the table and unfolded the letter, glancing over it. Matt watched him as he read it, knee bouncing up and down nervously.
Halfway through, Mohinder looked back up at him. “Jacob has an ability?”
“I guess so.”
“And he’s your son?”
Matt leaned back. “I’m… not going to go there. I’ve got enough to think about.” He stood up and grabbed a glass from the cabinet, filling it with water. “Besides, she only said he might be. He might not. And I guess that’s not really any more or less than I knew before.”
“Matt, you told me that the child wasn’t yours.” And he’d sounded pretty damn sure of it at the time, as Mohinder recalled.
Matt set the glass down on the counter. Without facing Mohinder, he said, “That’s what she told me. I was in the hospital, you remember. I was kind of fucked up already, with the pain and drugs and just, you know, everything. Hearing that just broke me. I didn’t even think to try and read her mind, find out if she was lying.”
Mohinder stood and went to him, putting a hand on his back. “Matt-”
The other man laughed suddenly, a jagged sound in the quiet apartment. “Man. This is so Days of Our Lives, I can’t even believe it.”
Mohinder smiled a little, rubbing the other man’s back. “We could do a paternity test. I’ll have to test him for the genetic marker anyway-”
“No. Absolutely not.”
Mohinder stared at Matt, eyes running up and down his profile. They’d lived together for thirteen years, and Mohinder could count on one hand the number of times they’d talked about Janice and her son in more than passing conversation.
He knew it was a sore spot with Matt, a wound that had festered for a long time before healing. And maybe it hadn’t healed as much as he’d previously assumed.
“I’m fine, Mohinder,” Matt said. “You don’t need to worry about me.”
Mohinder glared at him, sending a few choice insults his way for reading his mind without permission.
Matt snorted, turning to face him. “Even if I wasn’t telepathic, I’d have known what you were thinking.”
“Oh, so I’m just that predictable?” Mohinder said.
Matt smiled, nodding. Then he grew serious. “This isn’t about me and Janice. I just don’t want Jacob going through any more weird and traumatizing stuff. Finding out I’m his dad instead of McHenry would definitely qualify.”
“You wouldn’t have to tell him the results.”
Matt went tense. “So I should lie to him?”
Mohinder frowned at him. “It’s not lying, just omitting-”
“Same difference.”
This was an old argument, one that had spanned nearly the length of their relationship. Mohinder had no wish to go back into it.
“All right,” he said. “No paternity test. I’d still like to test him for the genetic marker, if that’s all right.”
Matt nodded absent-mindedly, rubbing his forehead. “Does this mean…”
“What?”
“That you’re agreeing to this? To Jacob coming here, living with us?”
Mohinder sighed, and nodded. “Apparently, the fate of the world rests on us taking him in. That’s a pretty strong incentive.”
April 20, 2021
Santa Monica, CA
Close to midnight, Jacob McHenry threw off the covers in his borrowed bed, and sat up. He listened carefully for the sound of any movement in the Morrison’s house, but everyone was asleep.
He got dressed in jeans, a t-shirt, and his socks, and then silently made his way downstairs. He grabbed his shoes and slipped outside, shutting the door softly behind him.
The nice thing about staying with the Morrisons, the only nice thing actually, was that their house lay an easy walk to an undeveloped place, a tiny grove of cottonwoods and sycamores set far away from the houses. It was a good place to hide for a while, as Jacob had found out.
The trunks of the sycamores seemed to glow at night. It was kind of creepy, but Jacob didn’t mind. He sat back against one of the trunks and stared up at the stars for a while.
“Hi, Mom,” he said. He felt kind of stupid, saying it out loud. He’d never tried praying before, but he knew you were supposed to do it silently. This was different, though. He wanted to be heard.
“Mr. Burke called again, and apparently your gay ex-husband is going to take me in.”
That was how Dad had always referred to him. Mom just called him Matt, when she talked about him at all. Jacob hadn’t ever had to call him anything, and he resented the hell out of the fact that he soon would.
“I wish you…” Jacob trailed off, unsure how to finish the sentence. He had a list of wishes and wants, and more than a few accusations that he’d liked to make. I wish you had found someone I knew to take care of me. Or I wish you had at least found somebody in LA. I wish I got some kind of say in this.
I wish you hadn’t decided to fucking die on me.
But Jacob was definitely not thinking about that.
“I’ll be glad to get out of the Morrison’s house,” he said instead. “I don’t know why you liked them. Mrs. Morrison is totally weird. She keeps telling me that you and Dad are in Heaven with Jesus or something, and it’s kind of pissing me off. And she keeps, like, petting me. Like I’m a lost puppy. It’s really annoying.”
He poked at the ground for a while, letting the dirt and crumbled leaves sift through his fingers.
“None of them have seen what I can do. I’ve gotten better about not doing it without meaning to. I haven’t had an accident since…”
Since you died. But Jacob was very decidedly not thinking about that. He instead gathered a handful of dirt and leaf litter in his palm and closed his fingers around it.
“I wanted to show you a new trick. Ready?”
He concentrated on the dirt in his hand, brow furrowing in concentration. His pulse and breathing sped up, and he narrowed his eyes. His hands grew warmer, almost burning him. The air around him grew charged, smelling of ash and ozone.
Finally, he opened his hand. A small, sooty, misshapen crystal was in his palm.
“Cool, huh?” he asked, breathlessly. “I was going to show you on your… on your birthday-”
He dropped the crystal as a wave of grief engulfed him. Tears fell scalding on his cheeks. Jacob rocked back and forth, a sort of keening growl coming out of his throat. He grabbed his head in his hands, pushing his knuckles against the sudden ache in his temples. He felt a scream trying to rip its way out of his lungs, and with an effort of will, pushed it back down. He bit down on his lip until he could taste blood.
He didn’t know how long he stayed like that. Eventually, the feeling passed enough for him to pick himself up off the ground. He put the crystal, formed out of dirt and his own willpower, in the pocket of his jeans, and walked slowly back to the dark house.
Next Chapter: Orphans
Fandom: Heroes (Future, AU-ish)
Characters: Matt, Mohinder, Jacob McHenry (OC)
Rating: PG-13 for language
Disclaimer: If I owned Heroes, I would not be working in a crap bookstore with a leaky roof.
Summary: “Man. This is so Days of Our Lives, I can’t even believe it.”"
Previous Chapters: Prologue | One | Two
Chapter 3: Conversations
April 20, 2021
Brooklyn, NY
Mohinder was still seething when Matt came home.
“Honey, I’m home!”
Mohinder rolled his eyes.
“No, that will never get old,” Matt answered, coming into the kitchen, where Mohinder was at the table. “I talked to the lawyer, she showed me this…” He broke off, looking sharply at the other man. “Whoa. You’re in a bad mood. What happened?”
“I got a visit today,” Mohinder said, pronouncing his words carefully. “From Hiro Nakamura.”
Matt raised an eyebrow at Mohinder’s tone. “The current one? Or…”
“Future,” Mohinder said, unable to keep the irritation out of his voice. “He looked about forty. And he had a beard.”
Matt made a face at the other man’s tone. “Not a pleasant visit, then?”
Mohinder set down the book he’d been attempting to read for the last half hour. “Tell me you didn’t put him up to it.”
Matt sat down across from him, brow furrowed in concern. “Up to what?”
“He told me we have to adopt Jacob! And that doing so would somehow save the world from a great catastrophe that he, as usual, refused to talk about in depth,”
“Whoa, whoa. I haven’t talked to Hiro in at least a week. Whatever he said, I didn’t ask him to do it.” Matt’s brow furrowed further. “At least not in this time period. I mean, I could have in the future, but that’s not something you can really blame on me now, and… I’m going to get a headache if I think about it much more. I didn’t ask Hiro to talk to you, is my point.”
Mohinder slouched down in his chair. “I hate this. I like Hiro now, but every time I meet his future self, I can’t help but wonder what’s going to happen to turn him into such an insufferable ass. Apparently, it never occurs to him that maybe the best way to change the future, would be to tell people exactly what happens so they can avoid it now.”
Matt smiled, and moved his chair around so he could start kneading Mohinder’s shoulders. “Blasphemy. You do that, and the universe would explode from the paradox or something.”
“The paradox?” Mohinder said, in a huff of disbelief. “Matt, we’re an interracial gay couple, half of whom possesses extraordinary powers, about to adopt the illegitimate love child of your ex-wife and ex-partner. Who is recently orphaned. And probably going through puberty. If the universe doesn’t explode from that, it must be a bit more flexible than previously assumed.”
Matt smiled. “Agreed. So future-Hiro is an ass. Nothing new there. And who knows, he could be wrong. It’s happened before.” He placed a kiss on the back of Mohinder’s neck.
Mohinder sighed, and leaned back against Matt’s chest. “Or he could be right. It’s impossible to know. Matt-”
“Hold on,” Matt said, squeezing Mohinder’s shoulder. “There’s something else you need to know. Two somethings, actually.”
Mohinder groaned. “What now?”
Matt took an envelope out of his bag, looking at it before he handed it over. “It’s a letter from Janice. She wrote it a couple of years before she died. Her lawyer sent it over with the other paperwork.”
Mohinder took the envelope and drew out its contents. He grabbed his reading glasses from the table and unfolded the letter, glancing over it. Matt watched him as he read it, knee bouncing up and down nervously.
Halfway through, Mohinder looked back up at him. “Jacob has an ability?”
“I guess so.”
“And he’s your son?”
Matt leaned back. “I’m… not going to go there. I’ve got enough to think about.” He stood up and grabbed a glass from the cabinet, filling it with water. “Besides, she only said he might be. He might not. And I guess that’s not really any more or less than I knew before.”
“Matt, you told me that the child wasn’t yours.” And he’d sounded pretty damn sure of it at the time, as Mohinder recalled.
Matt set the glass down on the counter. Without facing Mohinder, he said, “That’s what she told me. I was in the hospital, you remember. I was kind of fucked up already, with the pain and drugs and just, you know, everything. Hearing that just broke me. I didn’t even think to try and read her mind, find out if she was lying.”
Mohinder stood and went to him, putting a hand on his back. “Matt-”
The other man laughed suddenly, a jagged sound in the quiet apartment. “Man. This is so Days of Our Lives, I can’t even believe it.”
Mohinder smiled a little, rubbing the other man’s back. “We could do a paternity test. I’ll have to test him for the genetic marker anyway-”
“No. Absolutely not.”
Mohinder stared at Matt, eyes running up and down his profile. They’d lived together for thirteen years, and Mohinder could count on one hand the number of times they’d talked about Janice and her son in more than passing conversation.
He knew it was a sore spot with Matt, a wound that had festered for a long time before healing. And maybe it hadn’t healed as much as he’d previously assumed.
“I’m fine, Mohinder,” Matt said. “You don’t need to worry about me.”
Mohinder glared at him, sending a few choice insults his way for reading his mind without permission.
Matt snorted, turning to face him. “Even if I wasn’t telepathic, I’d have known what you were thinking.”
“Oh, so I’m just that predictable?” Mohinder said.
Matt smiled, nodding. Then he grew serious. “This isn’t about me and Janice. I just don’t want Jacob going through any more weird and traumatizing stuff. Finding out I’m his dad instead of McHenry would definitely qualify.”
“You wouldn’t have to tell him the results.”
Matt went tense. “So I should lie to him?”
Mohinder frowned at him. “It’s not lying, just omitting-”
“Same difference.”
This was an old argument, one that had spanned nearly the length of their relationship. Mohinder had no wish to go back into it.
“All right,” he said. “No paternity test. I’d still like to test him for the genetic marker, if that’s all right.”
Matt nodded absent-mindedly, rubbing his forehead. “Does this mean…”
“What?”
“That you’re agreeing to this? To Jacob coming here, living with us?”
Mohinder sighed, and nodded. “Apparently, the fate of the world rests on us taking him in. That’s a pretty strong incentive.”
April 20, 2021
Santa Monica, CA
Close to midnight, Jacob McHenry threw off the covers in his borrowed bed, and sat up. He listened carefully for the sound of any movement in the Morrison’s house, but everyone was asleep.
He got dressed in jeans, a t-shirt, and his socks, and then silently made his way downstairs. He grabbed his shoes and slipped outside, shutting the door softly behind him.
The nice thing about staying with the Morrisons, the only nice thing actually, was that their house lay an easy walk to an undeveloped place, a tiny grove of cottonwoods and sycamores set far away from the houses. It was a good place to hide for a while, as Jacob had found out.
The trunks of the sycamores seemed to glow at night. It was kind of creepy, but Jacob didn’t mind. He sat back against one of the trunks and stared up at the stars for a while.
“Hi, Mom,” he said. He felt kind of stupid, saying it out loud. He’d never tried praying before, but he knew you were supposed to do it silently. This was different, though. He wanted to be heard.
“Mr. Burke called again, and apparently your gay ex-husband is going to take me in.”
That was how Dad had always referred to him. Mom just called him Matt, when she talked about him at all. Jacob hadn’t ever had to call him anything, and he resented the hell out of the fact that he soon would.
“I wish you…” Jacob trailed off, unsure how to finish the sentence. He had a list of wishes and wants, and more than a few accusations that he’d liked to make. I wish you had found someone I knew to take care of me. Or I wish you had at least found somebody in LA. I wish I got some kind of say in this.
I wish you hadn’t decided to fucking die on me.
But Jacob was definitely not thinking about that.
“I’ll be glad to get out of the Morrison’s house,” he said instead. “I don’t know why you liked them. Mrs. Morrison is totally weird. She keeps telling me that you and Dad are in Heaven with Jesus or something, and it’s kind of pissing me off. And she keeps, like, petting me. Like I’m a lost puppy. It’s really annoying.”
He poked at the ground for a while, letting the dirt and crumbled leaves sift through his fingers.
“None of them have seen what I can do. I’ve gotten better about not doing it without meaning to. I haven’t had an accident since…”
Since you died. But Jacob was very decidedly not thinking about that. He instead gathered a handful of dirt and leaf litter in his palm and closed his fingers around it.
“I wanted to show you a new trick. Ready?”
He concentrated on the dirt in his hand, brow furrowing in concentration. His pulse and breathing sped up, and he narrowed his eyes. His hands grew warmer, almost burning him. The air around him grew charged, smelling of ash and ozone.
Finally, he opened his hand. A small, sooty, misshapen crystal was in his palm.
“Cool, huh?” he asked, breathlessly. “I was going to show you on your… on your birthday-”
He dropped the crystal as a wave of grief engulfed him. Tears fell scalding on his cheeks. Jacob rocked back and forth, a sort of keening growl coming out of his throat. He grabbed his head in his hands, pushing his knuckles against the sudden ache in his temples. He felt a scream trying to rip its way out of his lungs, and with an effort of will, pushed it back down. He bit down on his lip until he could taste blood.
He didn’t know how long he stayed like that. Eventually, the feeling passed enough for him to pick himself up off the ground. He put the crystal, formed out of dirt and his own willpower, in the pocket of his jeans, and walked slowly back to the dark house.
Next Chapter: Orphans