A Little Movie Magic

Matt does see the invitation on his way out, but he doesn’t read it. He has no way of knowing, no warning. No idea that after tonight nothing will be the same.

After all, it takes a guy like Matt some time to actually read something. He has to focus on it. Peripheral vision just ain’t enough, especially on the way out to a sudden call while simultaneously tightening his Damned Bowtie (that’s what he calls it, his Damned Bowtie, that’s its name. DB for short) and promising Sasha that he will indeed give her a twenty dollar bonus for rushing upstairs at this hour of the night for late-night babysitting duties, but he hasn’t been to the ATM yet, he’ll go, he swears. He wishes she wouldn’t give him that look. Has he ever failed to pay her in the past? (Or, when he’s failed to pay her, hasn’t Mohinder always followed up with a check?) Anyway, the point is, he doesn’t read the invitation that explains exactly where Mohinder is tonight. In retrospect, he thinks he saw the word Chennai, which he vaguely remembers from Mohinder’s talks to Molly about India. Not like Mohinder ever talks to him about anything. Why should he? Matt’s just a freeloader, not a friend. Hasn’t got a thing to interest a guy like Mohinder. But enough navel-gazing, he’s gonna be late.

Mohinder, on the other hand, has no idea Matt has had to leave Molly alone. He’s turned his cell phone off out of respect for the host of this affair, an eccentric ex-movie producer whose townhouse (if you can call a mansion like this a townhouse) is bedecked with paraphernalia that really ought to render the place a museum. It was nice to see his old professor again, and it was doubly nice for said professor to extend him an invitation. But Mohinder is standing alone on the staircase after fending off any number of bright young ladies, looking down at the crowd below and feeling supremely uncomfortable in what Matt would undoubtedly call a monkey suit. There again is the name, the personality, the spirit he tries not to think about most of the time. It’s surprisingly easy when he’s actually at home. There are always a thousand distractions. But here at a function like this when everyone has connections on their mind, he feels disconnected. And then his mind can wander to fantasy. And here in this Hollywood-themed party, it is surprisingly easy to fantasize.

He imagines Matt as Sam Spade, a hard-boiled detective in a fedora and trenchcoat, walking rain-soaked streets at night. Mohinder is lurking in an alley, ready to leap out at him, but Spade is too quick and pins him instead against a wall. Strong, callused hands and gleaming eyes in the dark. All he wants are answers. All he knows is justice. With the hat bent over his face, he’s all in shadow. Mohinder has to feel for him, for his shoulders and firm chin and soft lips, and at once the rain is crushing them with its ferocity and they’re clinging together for warmth, hands clutching, seeking out warm skin beneath cold, wet fabric, and Matt’s shoving him up against the wall, lips at his throat, thigh between his legs, and Mohinder’s grinding against him and shouting into the cold rainy night.

It’s too good an image, he’s got to calm down, he imagines Matt as Charlie Chaplin instead, goofy, twitching a mustache and spinning a cane, and the heat turns to warmth as he thinks he can completely see Matt doing that for Molly’s sake, it’s just the kind of man he is, and Mohinder’s too serious and too academic and no good at showing how much he appreciates that Matt is the kind of person who can laugh at himself occasionally, who has somehow learned to forgive himself for all that’s come before whereas Mohinder still can’t. It’s times like this that Mohinder knows he’s in love, and that is the worst feeling of all because even if Matt were partial to the Y chromosome, Mohinder has nothing, nothing he can offer him in the way of happiness or fulfillment. He’s lucky to even be witness to the wonderful father and cop and man that Matt is, to share a roof with him, to share a child with him. It’s almost more than a damned soul like Mohinder is deserving of.

Now even the warmth is too much, and he shuts off and sips his champagne, feeling slightly light-headed. He needs some finger food or something to keep him alive and standing. Why is he even still here? he wonders dimly as he goes in search of a tuxedo carrying a tray. Amid all the tuxedos sans trays, it’s like a house of mirrors, and he very nearly solicits a few senators before finally seeing the edge of a gleaming silver circle behind a black velvety back. “Excuse me,” he calls out, already reaching out for whatever might be on the tray, “might I have…”

The waiter turns, and Mohinder is facing everything he ever wanted in life. Plus baby lamb chops.

They stare at each other a moment. Funnily enough, the first thing Mohinder notices is that he’s almost eating a baby lamb chop. He puts it back on the tray immediately, shocked at himself.

Matt glowers at him and scurries away, offering lamb chops left and right.

Shit Mohinder’s here, he thinks. How could he not have put two and two together? Chennai. Jesus. Fuller had said it was a party for some Indian professor who was taking an honorary degree at Columbia. Why on earth wouldn’t he realize Mohinder would be there? And holy fuck, he’d looked hot. Mohinder in a tuxedo with a champagne glass in hand looking lonely. It was too good. Too easy to imagine things.

Mohinder on a balcony outside a ballroom in a period drama. The tuxedo has become a top hat and coattails. Inside there are festivities, but out here there is only the moon, and that’s the way he likes it. The wind touches his hair and he sighs into it, like the breeze is the only true friend he’s ever had. Matt’s merely the groundskeeper, he’s watering the plants down below and looking up at the nobility he’s admired from afar for so long. And then the young aristocrat is gazing down at him, and a flash of something devilish goes through his eyes and he’s leaping, leaping down from the balcony, and Matt’s running to break his fall, but he’s agile like a cat and is no sooner landed than he is pressing himself against the dirty gardener’s shirt and putting his clean pristine hands on those dirty cheeks and kissing at the stubble and lips and falling onto him like a rainstorm, and they’re in the grass and in the dirt and in paradise as they touch everywhere everywhere. It’s only a short run to the stables, Mohinder whispers, grinning, and they’re off to find passion in hidden places.

But he’s not here to find inspiration, he’s here to set up a bug. Damn McClain for coming down with the flu at the last minute, and damn DB for making it even more difficult to breathe than it would usually be after seeing Mohinder in a tuxedo. He wanders to the back, looking for an opportunity to slip up the back staircase.

Instead he’s grabbed by the collar and shoved into the coat closet. “What the hell are you doing here? You should be at home with Molly!” Mohinder whispers, his eyes blazing even as a far-too-lush fur coat thrusts prickles of mink into his face.

Matt fights with the cigar-stained overcoat that’s trying to strangle him. “Sasha’s with Molly. I had to take this assignment.”

“What do you mean, you had to?” He’s the sort of guy who doesn’t bend, even when he should, and Matt wishes he didn’t admire that so much, because it makes it hard to ever disagree with him. And he’s always disagreeing with him, so he’s always got it hard. (In more ways than one. Hell, it had to be said.)

But he knows the answer to this one. He’s said it before, to a different pair of angry eyes. “Maybe you can take a day off whenever the hell you feel like it, Mohinder, but I work on a team, and when my guys need me I need to be there or I can’t trust them to get my back when I’m in trouble. Molly’s fine, just let me do my job and you go ahead and pretend you don’t know me.”

Mohinder relents a little now, his eyes softening and going to the floor. Matt wants to crush him with kisses, wants to tell him he doesn’t mean to be harsh but he needs to keep his eyes on the prize and Mohinder is just too much of a distraction. Which he is. The closet is small and packed with guests’ coats and Matt feels Mohinder’s every exhalation like a touch on his skin. The dark curls are so touchable and illuminated just so from the cracks of light on the hinges of the folding doors and Matt wants so much he doesn’t even remember who or where he is, other than close to curls and dark beautiful face with downcast eyes. He’s almost reaching for him when Mohinder says, “What job is that, exactly? Perhaps I can help.”

“Uh.” Trying to keep from touching you, he thinks wildly. “I have to set up a wiretap. This guy holding the party? Probably into some unsavory stuff. Nothing very sexy, just the standard smuggling ring. Guns, drugs, the outsides of cute baby animals.” Mohinder nods as though very interested. His eyes are so alive, so alert all the time. It’s unbearable to think he’ll never in a million years be able to catch up to that wildly spinning brain.

Mohinder lags behind as Matt rejoins the party, watches him as he maneuvers his way toward the staircase. There’s a beautiful woman standing toward the top, and Matt smoothly offers her some baby lamb chops and she accepts, giggling at him flirtatiously. He settles into an easy conversation with her, and even though Mohinder can see his eyes dart to the stairway behind her, plotting how to use this opportunity to make good his escape, he’s still jealous.

He downs the rest of his champagne in one gulp. Matt’s too good at this. He can’t stand to see him play the ladies’ man. So cunning, so seemingly good-hearted, indifferent to the destruction in his wake. Mohinder wants to pitch a fit. In his small mind he’s screaming.

He’s the aging star of Sunset Boulevard, having just discovered his paramour has a life outside of his seemingly solitary existence in the cavernous home they share. Dare he allow it to become more? Dare he allow his salvation, his chance at resurrection to wander from the bed Mohinder has selfishly chained him to? He’ll run up the stairs, follow him, demand he throw it all away because Mohinder loves him, because Mohinder should be all he needs. But unlike Sunset Boulevard, Matt does not end up floating in someone’s pool at dawn. He rushes to him, swears that is all he needed to hear. And then they’re kissing, and then they’re on the staircase, Mohinder’s head thrown back against the top step as Matt kisses down his naked body, late and alone in the dark night, thumbs at his thighs pressing him down as he’s stroked and then licked and then swallowed and he cries out, hearing his own voice echo in the empty hallway as he demands more and more and is marking his ownership of that great wide sweet mouth as he flows and pulses into it, and there is no more arguing and no more temper tantrums because Matt is his now, unquestionably, forever.

Matt’s upstairs now, finally. But the upstairs is even bigger than the downstairs. Or at least it seems that way. He’s in some sort of a hall. Again, lined with movie magic. Headless mannequins in dynamic poses, wearing classic costumes. A chandelier on the ceiling, heavy with crystal, looking as though it might fall any moment. A suit of armor. A statue of a small dog in mid-bark. A grand piano. What a collection of nightmares.

He doesn’t know where the man’s study is but he has to find it. In the dark, among the phantasms of films gone by. It’s spooky. He’s almost afraid of seeing ghosts. He keeps a watchful ear out for any thoughts, but the place is still and silent.

And still his mind is on Mohinder. On the anxious, quivering eyes that followed him for a long time after they parted company in the coat closet. Those eyes were more than a little afraid for him. Mohinder does worry, if only for Molly’s sake, about his safety, and that means a lot. It makes it harder for him to give in to the death wish that sometimes seizes him when self-loathing sets in. He wants to come back to his family. He wants to be their hero.

He drags himself the last few feet to the door. He’s bruised, broken in so many places, but he’s home. Back at the cabin of the wonderful man who’d taken him in when he was a lost soul. The murmuring of the brook behind him is like a lullaby, and as he raises his fist to knock, he sees black stars behind his eyelids and collapses from the pain…

When he awakens he’s bandaged, bare from the waist up. There is a fire going, and the warm flames cast orange light on his skin. Mohinder’s there, dipping a cloth in some water, which he drops, scattering dark droplets on the wooden bench, when he sees Matt struggle to get up. Don’t move, he cries, you’re still hurt, but Matt’s acting on instinct, to relieved to be home from the war, back with his friend, his dear heart. He pulls Mohinder to him, feels his head against the thankfully still-beating heart, and Mohinder cries, says he never stopped believing, says he knew Matt would come home to him. And his lips find Matt’s as the firelight illuminates his tears, and later on they’re moving carefully, gingerly, as they make soft and gentle love in the silence of the woods, music of tender and tortured bodies accompanied by only birdsong and their own gasping breaths.

Matt stops. The gasp of breath he heard was not in his fantasy. He’s not alone. He stops, braces himself, is ready for anything.

The figure that comes out of the shadows is almost shivering, he’s trembling so fast. He looks like a ghost. Matt breathes his name, walks through the darkness toward him. He’s scared all of a sudden. He doesn’t know what’s going on behind those eyes. A haze is obscuring Mohinder’s thoughts. Alcohol? Something worse? He doesn’t know.

“You shouldn’t have followed me up here,” he says. “Go back downstairs.”

“I can’t,” Mohinder says, swallowing hard.

“You need to,” Matt insists. “I know you’ve been watching me all night. You need to cut that out.”

The haze in Mohinder’s thoughts brightens to a cacophony. Like a thousand whispers. Matt can only make out the words say it.

Say it, don’t, run away, stay, go, do something, stay still… The words are overlapping in Mohinder’s head and his vision is slightly foggy. Before he knows it, his lips are moving. “I’ve been watching you a lot longer than one night,” he hears. He hopes he didn’t say it out loud, but judging from Matt’s expression, he has.

“Mohinder, are you drunk?” Matt asks incredulously as he realizes the glass rattling in Mohinder’s shaking hand is empty.

He’s said his name. That’s almost enough to set him on fire. Mohinder loves the way Matt says his name. “Liquid courage,” he says, looking at the empty glass and setting it on the dusty grand piano. “Of course, I think that tuxedo is doing just as much for me as the alcohol is.” Matt’s eyes widen as Mohinder sweeps his own eyes down and up, taking in the full length of him in the formal wear. Strong and broad, every line enhanced by the tailored perfection of the jacket. His bowtie is tied too tightly. Mohinder fears he might choke.

“You are drunk. Mohinder, you don’t know what you’re saying.” He grabs his shoulders and it’s too much, the name and the contact, and Mohinder surges forward and grabs his face and kisses him hotly. Almost immediately the strong arms go around him and crush him tightly, and there are twin moans in the big room and the jangling of the piano’s strings as Mohinder pushes him against the curving end of it and arches against him wantonly. God, Matt is kissing him back, he’s kissing him back, he really is…

And that in itself is enough to bring him back to reality, and he stumbles backward and covers his mouth with his hand, blushing, shocked at himself, feeling like a fool. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have, maybe I am drunk, I’m sorry… should I stop?”

Matt regards him for a long, long moment, and then the eyes like flint go hard. “Yes. You need to stop.”

If that massive chandelier came down now it would be a relief, because the weight crushing Mohinder’s heart is a thousand tons of pain. “I see…” he says, all of a sudden unable to face what he couldn’t tear his eyes off of five minutes earlier. “I’m sorry, I’ll go downstairs now… I’m really sorry.” He wanders unevenly back toward the cracked-open door through which he came, back to the comforting chaos of the party. Perhaps he could throw himself down the staircase and crack his head open, that might stop the bleeding in his soul at least. Closer to that inviting shaft of light, feeling as though it holds his salvation. At least downstairs there is more alcohol, forgetfulness, a loss of shame…

And the shaft of light is squelched in one full movement as Mohinder is pinned against the closed doors by big hands and he turns just in time to see Matt’s eyes full of flame before he’s being kissed so hard and hot that he throws his arms up in a gesture of surrender.

“I have to set up the bug,” Matt says with purpose. “So you need to stop for now. Don’t you dare leave.” He stomps away, and Mohinder loses his footing and falls to his knees and clutches the door for balance. The kiss is blazing on his lips like a sign drawn in kerosene, like the calling card of a superhero.

He’s falling, falling from the flames and the smoke, and for a moment it feels like he’s flying but the pavement is coming up fast and hard and he can see Death’s cold, rattling grin a few moments away. He prays for a miracle, for a savior, but he must have died because now he is flying for real, clutched close to a chest, tucked under an arm, carried up toward heaven. But he looks up, and he’s still alive because his heart is in his throat to see him, the mysterious man who’s saved his life and is now taking him up to the top of the city, cradling him like a treasure. Mohinder is afraid and exhilarated and doesn’t even know what he’s doing when he climbs the man’s body and begins kissing his face ardently, kisses that turn heated amidst the cold air and then it’s an aerial ballet of bodies floating in zero-gravity bliss, the only pulling and pushing between them not gravity but the friction of skin on skin, and it doesn’t matter where they are or how it’s happening because every superhero movie needs a little suspension of disbelief.

Matt’s prowling through the maze of back rooms now, looking for the study. He suspects it’s alarmed and he doesn’t particularly want to trip an alarm, but he also knows that the inside of a doorway is easy to reach from outside and he’s no McClain but he knows what he’s doing. So it’s not getting caught that worries him so much as getting lost in this labyrinth and never finding his way out.

All at once a wave of panic hits him and he stumbles. Mohinder kissed him. He kissed Mohinder. It wasn’t a fantasy. It really happened. It was hot and real and against a piano for God’s sake and did he mention real? It’s hard to believe anything is real in this creepy Hollywood house of horrors. How does he know a movie monster hasn’t knocked him senseless and he hasn’t imagined this whole thing? Perhaps it’s all a Transylvanian dream.

His torch is still raised high as the tall, thin man emerges from the darkness. He lowers it slowly, enthralled at the movements like silk whispering on shadow. The edges of the dark cape whip around the man’s boots. With a flick of his wrist, the great hall is illuminated with a thousand tiny candles. Welcome to my castle, hunter, he says with a grin that bares just the slightest glimpse of fangs.

The intrepid vampire hunter has never seen a dark-skinned vampire before, and somehow he looks both bloodless and robust. A contradiction walking, but then again, so are all the living dead. Matt wants to threaten him, to let him know in no uncertain terms that he’s here to kill him, but he feels heat rising through him. The vampire grins as he watches him flush, eyeing his veins and reddened skin hungrily. All at once he’s behind him, holding him tightly and licking at his neck, and Matt is moaning as the vampire caresses his chest and whispers yes, i love to listen to your blood flowing, submit to me, be mine, and I will show you an eternity of pleasure. And the sound that comes from Matt’s throat isn’t a cry or a No, but a Please, and when fangs sink into his neck it’s neither painful nor humiliating but glorious, all of his blood flowing for him, his life draining for him, his eternity opening up to darkness, all, all, all for him.

Mohinder wanders back downstairs, still in a daze. Did that really happen? He can half-believe he kissed Matt. That, after all, has been a scenario he’s been playing in his mind for weeks. Months. Years, even. His whole life. But hyperbole aside, he really has been waiting for a kiss like that for a long time. The kiss of life, like in a fairy tale. What he can’t wrap his brain around is Matt’s response. The way the hands felt on his waist. They’re still there, he feels them. Hot, branding impressions.

Is Matt ready for this? Ready to turn what they’d had, a cool, casual friendship of sorts, into the blinding madness of a love affair? The answer is clear for Mohinder, is pulsing through his hands and feet. Yes. Yes. He wants him. He loves him. But there’s no guarantee Matt feels the same way. He told him to stay, that much is true, but what for? Was he seduced by the moment, the madness, the darkness and the wine? Was he under a spell that will lift at midnight, clouds clearing from his eyes?

Mohinder is afraid of the magic dissipating. He wants to run away, leave a glass slipper for him to find. Let Matt pursue him if he truly wants him. Is he willing to hack through the thicket of real life, all the complications it will inevitably bring, and scale that tower just to be with him? God, he hopes so.

Because the moment he appears at the window, winded and scratched and bruised, Mohinder’s lonely life atop the tower changes forever. To think that a prince from a faraway kingdom had been so entranced by his beauty that he’d fought the beasts of the forest and braved the dizzying height just to reach him! It’s love at first sight, of course, but this tale is not for children, because the prince is ravishing him, laying him upon the carpeted floor of his skybound prison, thrusting into him with quick, stabbing strokes and running his fingers down the pale arms that have never seen the sunlight, lost in the moment where magic happens and they are both transformed.

He chomps down loudly on a celery stick and tries to wave away the image. He’s corrupting every genre with these fantasies of his, and what he needs to worry about is the reality. He begs silently toward the stairs, thinking loudly, Matt, come back, don’t leave me waiting and confused and alone here. Hurry.

When the clock strikes ten (not quite midnight, not quite), he can wait no longer. He works his way upstairs, waits for the familiar figure to emerge.

Not quite midnight. Not quite. But Matt still has to hurry. He’s scoured the second floor and is heading upstairs to the third. He sees an alarm light blinking safe. Thank God. Things might have been awkward otherwise. He almost wishes he’d asked Mohinder to come with him. He’d have a better excuse if he had someone with him. Especially someone who’d been drinking. Here, alone, if he’s caught, he will have to scramble for an excuse. Either that or whip out his badge and show the warrant tucked into his pocket, which will just cause panic downstairs at the party. Luckily, this fellow appears to be as sloppy as he is eccentric. The mind goes when you’re that old and set in your ways. Still, suppose Mohinder had insisted on coming along. It’s just the sort of stupid thing he might do.

It’s a screwball comedy and they’re bickering the whole time.

“You should go.”
“No way, I want to see this too. If my friend’s involved in something…”
“Shh, someone’s coming!”

The security guard is walking the hallway with his flashlight, and Matt has to think fast. He pushes Mohinder down against the staircase and whispers “Play along” before kissing him hotly. Mohinder struggles for a half-second before the words make sense, and his eyes close as his arms snake around Matt. The security guard shines a flashlight on the two men sucking face on the stairwell and sort of ewwws. Matt hears him think, “I’m just going to pretend I didn’t see that,” and they both hear him move on.

“The coast is clear now,” says Matt.
“I don’t care,” says Mohinder, pulling his face down again.

But thank God it’s not a screwball comedy, thank God it’s real life, because he finds the study and the bug goes in without a hitch, and he comes downstairs to the second floor to find Mohinder there waiting for him, his lower lip trembling, his arms rattling.

“I need to know,” he says weakly.

Matt considers talking to him. For a moment. Just a moment. He considers wasting time talking. He’s wasting time considering wasting time talking. That’s a moment he could be in Mohinder’s arms that he wasn’t. He resolves to make sure there are no more such moments.

He tips Mohinder’s head back slightly, kisses him with lips and breath melting into his, and looks across the divide into the eyes just barely a half-inch below his own. It’s a new sensation, being so equal in height, and the first thing he notices is how easy it feels. No craning of the neck, no stooping, no tiptoes. They are on the same level. That’s just so comfortable and right.

And it’s hot. Chest to chest, hip to hip, hands that fall on his waist just so. He knows the surfaces that mirror his own, right down to the twin tuxedos. It’s so much stronger, so much more invigorating, than the swells and hollows of a woman’s body. This is a discovery that must have been waiting years to happen within him. A revolution in the way he sees the world. It feels revolutionary. And it’s as old as time, too.

The two young men spar with knives on the open hillside. In the distance, the white columns of Athens rise up like a toy town, imposing up close but from this distance only a white speckle against the blue sea. Mohinder pauses, grass crunching beneath his feet, and Matt sees his opening. He stabs the corner of the other man’s toga, pinning him to the soil, and Mohinder tries to kick out at his captor but his legs are suddenly trapped between powerful thighs. A grin of victory matches his rueful grin of defeat. And then Mohinder’s eyes shift and see how his companion’s robes are parted and just how he feels about this conquest, and before Matt has a chance to complain Mohinder is arching up against him so he can feel, inch by agonizing inch, how mutual the desire is. And far away from society, they are grabbing each other and moaning their desire to the nymphs and satyrs of the wild hills.

There are no words as they kiss again, drawn in like magnets, and now there are hands on hips and darting tongues licking at lips and when Mohinder catches a breath he moans, “I want…”

The words overlap his, vibrate into his lips. “God, I’ve wanted forever…”

“Me, too…” The sentences never end, they just trail off into longer, hotter kisses, into wandering fingers and blazing looks. Mohinder smiles a little bit, moves closer, can feel heat radiating from every inch of the body next to his. Touching his, just barely, black jackets and white starchy shirts brushing against each other.

“How– how did we miss this?” Matt asks, looking a little dazed. Mohinder, too, can barely breathe. “How did we not do this before?”

He can’t stand looking at that painfully tight bowtie one more minute. “Questions later,” he breathes, his hands flying to Matt’s throat. Matt jerks a little when the fingers reach into the knot to loosen it, but then he strains his neck to assist him, veins going taut. He exhales loudly when the Damned Bowtie meets its demise, and he’s gathering Mohinder close again, unable to keep from drinking him in, feeling the body mold against his like it belongs there.

Mohinder’s done, he’s out of fantasies. There’s no movie that can compare with this moment, with the tentative weight of Matt’s lips on his, with his hand starting to travel south from his lower back and clutch him close by the curve of him. There’s no action sequence as heated as the heat of Matt’s erection against his hip, no suspense as torturous as the painful straining of his own against its confines. When Matt’s lips travel to his hear and he hears the fevered whispering of half-syllables that are almost, but not quite, “God–” and “want–” and “hot–,” he is sure he’s never heard such a thrilling soundtrack in all his life.

“Love you in that tuxedo,” he breathes into the line of his neck. “Man of my dreams.”

Matt has to laugh. He’s never been the man of anyone’s dreams, never been the object of anyone’s fantasies. He’s always been the one they settled for because the dream wasn’t available. “You’re the dream,” he says as his fingers flutter on buttons. “You are so perfect, and I’m this schlub, and–”

He’s cut off with a kiss. “Shh,” Mohinder’s voice glides into him like whispered music. “Don’t. Don’t. I can’t–” A moment of panic as he lowers his head onto Matt’s shoulder, slides his hands over his hips and thighs, memorizing the shape of him. Matt quivers under his touch, aware where he wants those hands, aware where he wants more than hands. His mind is full of images from the sorts of movies that don’t have memorabilia, the sorts of movies that don’t get discussed at black-tie dress parties.

Mohinder beneath him on the kitchen floor moaning. Mohinder shoved up against a wall. Mohinder handcuffed to the bed. Mohinder naked on the beach. Mohinder naked anywhere. Why is Mohinder still wearing his Damned Bowtie? Matt’s hands can’t move fast enough. And Mohinder is moaning and sliding against him and it’s really hard to negotiate that many buttons while he’s doing that.

There are hands on the sides of his neck now sort of caressing his jaw and Mohinder is walking him backward toward the wall and saying “Let me, let me, please… I’ve got to…” and the sounds of the party are below them and Matt’s heart is a gigantic Mothra-sized butterfly in his throat and he’s panicking panicking panicking like something awful is about to happen, and he wants so badly right now to have a fantasy about frantic lovemaking in the shadow of imminent destruction or at least a giant monster attack. Fantasies are safe and he wants to fantasize and trap this whole encounter in the frame of a movie screen, but he can’t, because this is real, despite the trappings of cinematic legends gone by, Real and wildly unsafe and full of uncertainty. Mohinder’s pulling his jacket off and tossing it to the floor and those are really his hands between the buttons and sliding against his skin and doesn’t it scare the hell out of Mohinder hearing his heart jump around like that?

And then the thought hits him like a runaway train at a thousand miles per hour and it flattens him completely, renders him incapable of all thought. Mohinder just thought I love you at him. Which is insane. Which is not even possible. Which is “oh, God– Mohinder– don’t stop need you please–” with his cummerbund undone and his shirt hanging open now and his pants down to his knees and Mohinder turning him around and licking his finger and starting to touch him and probe at him and enter him. Which should freak him out. Except he can’t think. Because Mohinder loves him.

And he’s hanging against the wall and feeling Mohinder stretch at him and fill him finally, finally, it’s something he never knew he wanted until just now but dear God he wants it, panting and scratching the wall as sensation explodes and Mohinder is grabbing his cock and tugging hard, nipping and biting at his bare shoulder, and while it’s true this shouldn’t be happening, it shouldn’t be the first time in a stranger’s mansion, what really shouldn’t be happening is, they shouldn’t have waited so long. Because this is going by way too fast, they want it way too much, it’s a breakneck car chase of a sexual encounter and it’s going to end in a fiery explosion way too soon.

But it’s too late. They’re over the edge already, months and lifetimes of want spilling over into right now, and Matt howls and bites his own hand to keep from screaming as he comes into the warm hand closed around his erection, nearly collapses but for Mohinder inside him still ramrod straight and smashing him against the wall. Thrusts are quick and shallow and too good, Matt’s nerves are on fire, and he can’t help pushing against the invasion, can’t help clenching, and Mohinder’s grunting and coming at the feeling of it. Matt hears his cry of pleasure in his head and in the room and thinks the world has just shifted irrevocably on its axis. Mohinder falls onto him and he falls onto the wall and they’re like toppled dominoes. Nothing will ever be the same. Nothing.

Mohinder kisses the back of his neck. “Thank you,” he whispers. “Thank you so much.” It feels intimate and like something a lover would do, and Matt doesn’t really know or understand much except for he’s got to go back to the station before he heads home and it’s nearly midnight now for sure. He doesn’t want to be here when this coach turns into a pumpkin. He doesn’t want to see Mohinder’s eyes darken with the realization of what they’ve done. He staggers away, finds an upstairs bathroom and cleans up, hurries downstairs via the back staircase and runs away, leaving Mohinder alone in the dark.

Of course he ran away, Mohinder thinks wildly, shame crushing him. That wasn’t how it should have happened. That was nothing near what Matt deserved. He’s a family man with family ties and he needs things that are solid, stable, real, traditional. Not frenzied sex up against the wall in a house of tinsel fantasy. Mohinder’s just had his one chance and he blew it. Completely blew it. He crashes against the wall alone and stays curled up there until nearly midnight. When he goes home, he changes into sweats, checks on Molly, brushes his teeth, goes to bed, and doesn’t sleep.

It’s two in the morning when Matt comes in.

He’s in sweats too, rumpled and ruffled and once again everything Mohinder’s ever dreamed of or wanted. He doesn’t say a word, just sits down on the bed next to Mohinder and looks at him searchingly in the darkness.

The tuxedo is gone now, the costumes are gone and the makeup is gone and the cameras have been rolled away, and they’re in the sawdust after the movie set has been dismantled. There are no lights to illuminate them. No soundtrack welling up behind them. Nothing but two men trying to come to grips with what’s happening between them.

Matt’s not Sam Spade, Mohinder thinks. He’s not Joe Gillis or Superman or Prince Charming. He won’t conform to my fantasies. I am going to have to deal with him as he is. He’s Matt Parkman, and nothing about him fits neatly into a category.

“Is that enough?” Matt asks in a choked voice. They’re the first words they’ve shared in hours. “I mean– can I be enough for you?”

The question takes Mohinder’s breath away. Matt can hear him cogitating frantically and while he wants to say the right thing, he gets the feeling that he needs to just keep talking until the right thing comes out. “I– I really want. Um. What we did. I, I am, that is… I do love you and it’s not a dream, sure, but it’s all I can give you. Cause I, I think I might explode if I keep all this to myself. I can’t… I’m…” He’s incoherent is what he is, and he’s so far away from those screen icons Mohinder had compared him with that he is sure he’s about to die from embarrassment.

Mohinder’s lips part. He’s going to speak. Matt loses all breath.

“Is this real?” he asks. “Is this… are you a dream?”

Matt gazes at him, sees fear in his eyes. “I’m real,” he says. “I hope… I hope that’s not disappointing.”

Mohinder shakes his head slowly, and his arm comes up to touch the side of Matt’s neck, draw him in. “I need to know for sure,” he whispers, his eyes blazing firelight. He kisses him, tenderly, slowly, rising up to his knees on the bed. Matt winds his arms around him, holds him up, holds him tight.

“More,” Mohinder whispers. “I need to know more.” His fingers are slipping beneath the sweatshirt Matt’s wearing, and they’re searching, learning, memorizing. They touch everywhere and Matt’s blazing hard again, so beyond ready for this. He tears off the shirt and tears off Mohinder’s shirt and they are lying side by side on the small bed kissing and touching and sort of smiling into each other’s eyes.

They make love slowly, quietly. Matt wraps his hand around Mohinder and has his first lesson in how to please him, what hurts and what helps. They talk a lot. Mohinder says “there” and “not so tight” and “a little faster now, yes, please, that’s good.” Matt asks him dumb questions and is thankful when Mohinder has some answers, not to mention something there for him to use besides spit. He is absolutely awed at the feeling of sliding into him, the contrast of tight heat and cool wetness all at once. He keeps his eyes open the whole time, watches Mohinder convulse and lean back against him and tip his head back. Orgasm is slow in coming and gentle when it arrives, less like a crashing wave and more like a blossoming flower, multiplying into a field of brilliant blooms for a shining moment in the sun. He can’t help it, he has to say I love you, because it’s true.

Mohinder turns back toward him, sweaty and glowing with exertion and emotion, and says, “I love you, too.”

It’s not the movies. There’s no fade to black. They talk afterwards about whether it was good and what to do better next time. And they talk about the implications of becoming a couple. And they talk about what to expect, and what not to expect. But by now it’s three a.m., so they’ll talk more tomorrow.

Sign number one it’s reality: Matt snores. So long after he’s fallen asleep, Mohinder looks at him, thinking he sounds like an unhappy chainsaw.

But he looks like Superman. Just a little.

He doesn’t need Superman, after all. Or Sam Spade, or anyone but Matt. Still, a little movie magic never hurt. Mohinder smiles as he falls asleep, and his dreams are full of hope.