The staring has not been lost on Mohinder, though he hasn't been able to take his eyes off the road for very long at a stretch. He just doesn't know why Zane keeps doing it. It's not the usual kind of lingering gaze Mohinder is accustomed to; it's less like Zane finds him attractive and more like the man wants to see straight through him like a clear plastic anatomical dummy.
But Mohinder is a scientist through and through, no matter what his father may have thought, and he can get on board with that kind of interest. It doesn't occur to him that Zane might be unduly interested in what he says about his father--he doesn't link the staring to his commentary about Chandra's death at all. Why would it interest Zane, or anyone? He hasn't said anything at all about the gory details that might inspire more intrigue; for all his passenger knows, Chandra might have had cancer, or keeled over from a heart attack. Things happen.
He understands self-deprecation, has it down to a fine art, but he doesn't want to hear it now either. Not when Zane's the first person here whose ability he's actually gotten to see. Not when he has the kind of genetic profile--special, unique, of worth--that Mohinder could only dream of having himself. And not when there is an infinite number of potential uses for that ability, and Mohinder can probably think of some fascinatingly gross and gory ones on his own if Sylar's been told he's too fragile to hear such things.
"First of all, I don't know what kind of parties you're going to, but just the demonstrations you've given me so far are incredibly impressive. Anyone would agree. It's only for safety reasons that you should be keeping a low profile with them right now. Secondly--" He pauses to take an exit, gathering his thoughts and sorting through the sheer number of questions he has.
"Even if the molecular dissolution only works on certain materials, which is already an 'if,' who says there's a limit to the scale of it? You've had less than a week of practice and you can already melt something the size of a fairly large lamp. In time, who's to say you couldn't demolish a building?"
Surely no harm could ever come of encouraging something like that.
"Honestly, though, I'm more excited to see if you can learn to extend it to other materials. When we stop for the night, if you don't mind, I'd love to play around with it."
How is it that he is once again taken in by a Suresh? The last had hurt him so badly when all he had tried to do was please him. This one is much more earnest, so much more vibrant, and all Zane can focus on is how sad it will be when Mohinder’s light goes out. It makes his throat feel like it’s filling with saw dust and he tells himself that he needs to be more mindful. He killed Chandra before he’d gotten everything he needed. Mohinder’s his last hope.
The joke is surprising, though Zane thinks it shouldn’t be. Mohinder is close to his age, maybe a touch older, and academia has not yet fully jaded him to life. He has a spark in him that makes Zane smile, and so Zane allows himself to feel it, to really absorb it.
It primes him for the words that follow. Mohinder says he’s impressive. He says he can grow his power. He is encouraging him to perhaps branch out into what can only be called as destructive possibilities.
He likes it. He really likes it.
“There’s—“ Zane shifts the seatbelt over his chest so he can turn, long legs bending. “We aren’t on any specific schedule right?” He’s fed the hunger. The constant ticking is lower than usual. It will come back, the need to rip apart and to learn and to absorb, but for now it’s a whisper and not a demand. “And honestly, we didn’t really plan too well for this. Did you have lunch? We could stop for lunch.” Especially if lunch meant he could try dissolving the silverware after.
Damn. If only he could show Mohinder how much more of him there is!
Edited (That’s what I get for being fancy on a phone tag. ) 2023-01-09 02:05 (UTC)
It's nice of Zane to frame this whole strange and impulsive situation as something they'd failed to plan well, together, even if it's true. Mohinder had left Brooklyn at dawn with three days' worth of his warmest clothing stuffed into a bag, a few kits for DNA swabbing, and pretty much nothing else except his laptop. And here they are on their way to fucking Montana. The only thing in his stomach right now is a bowl of cereal, a tall scorched medium roast from a drive-thru Starbucks, and Zane's watery cup of Earl Grey.
And still, he's hungrier for scientific advancement right now than he is for actual food.
"There's no reason we can't take a break, no." He scans the signs along the road for anything that looks like a promising turn-off, but really, he'll eat almost anything if it gives them an excuse to park so that he can get a better look at all of this. Besides which, he wants to be able to look Zane in the eye while they talk. The conversation feels like it deserves better now than to be conducted while Mohinder is busy staring at someone else's tacky bumper stickers.
It feels absurd to feel proud in any way of a man he's literally just met, but when he remembers how shaky and frightened Zane had sounded on the phone, and compares it to how calm he'd sounded as he described his epiphany, and how eager he sounds now, Mohinder doesn't know how to feel anything but a sense of admiration. If he feels any unease or curiosity about why Zane's voice sounds different in person, he chalks it up to the phone connection and his own faulty perception. "Probably best if we avoid the Cracker Barrel, but otherwise--"
Whatever this next rest stop has, he'll take it. He turns off, heartbeat thrilling with anticipation.
Though Cracker Barrel is the kind of place he thinks Zane likes, Sylar is pleased when they pull off of the highway and into the lot of a family owned diner with its red and white striped awning and sheet metal exterior. This feels much better. It’s familiar, the true marking of a road trip. He starts all of his stalking at a greasy spoon with a piece of homemade pie and a strong cup of coffee and so this just feels fitting.
Zane holds the door for Mohinder as they step out of the cold. A waitress directs them to seat themselves and Zane hits up the table by the window. He sits so that the sun shines behind him, casting shadows on his face that not even the fluorescent lighting overhead can completely dash away. The green vinyl seats are worn. His chair is a little off balance. The frosted glass brick partitions are chipped.
It’s perfect.
Zane shrugs off his coat as the waitress comes over to take their orders. He already knows what he wants before even glancing at the menu. “Do you have cherry pie? Or peach? And might as well bring over a pot of coffee. It just smells so good.”
Tone it down, he tells himself.
A sheepish look covers his eyes. “I…. Doctor Suresh, I just want to apologize. And thank you. For bringing me. I wouldn’t normally do this. I just feel like, together, we can do anything. And—“ he pulls at the long sleeve shirt’s cuffs he’s wearing, allowing all of his awkwardness to express itself in a gush of sincerity. “I’m just so happy to make a difference.”
Mohinder has only ever seen diners like this on television before. It's not the sort of place he ever finds himself in back in New York, where his solitary routine involves takeout food and bodega groceries. It's not somewhere he would think to eat by himself, without company, but--now, for once, he has company, and that makes all the difference.
Zane's overenthusiasm when ordering--overconfidence, even--doesn't register as odd. It feels of a piece with the cheery sunlit atmosphere, the promise hanging in the air. But Mohinder does find himself ever so slightly distracted by Zane's backlit features, surprised by their sudden angularity. He hadn't seemed this...sharp, in the car. They haven't known each other long enough for there to be such a thing as familiar or unfamiliar, and yet the difference is noticeable.
But only for a moment, until that awkward sleeve-tugging brings Mohinder back to what he's come to expect. He feels almost guilty about his inclination to be exasperated with Zane's overwrought gratitude, but what is he supposed to say? He's glad to be of help, glad Zane appreciates this, glad they can be of benefit to each other, but Mohinder has had too many lessons on stoicism drilled into him over the course of his life to be comfortable with displays this open. He smiles, a bit thinly, and glances aside.
"I don't know what you think you have to apologize for," he says, when he can make his tone sound kind and friendly again. "And please, Zane, it's perfectly fine to just call me Mohinder. I can't spend days in a car with someone calling me 'Doctor' the whole time."
Though being all over the place is a benchmark for someone with manic depression, that is not the sort of person another can feel at ease being around. It’s much too jarring and while Mohinder believes he needs him, all it will take it one slip up for Zane to be dumped and for his new prize to find another. He can not let that happen.
Zane Taylor can not be a babbling fool. He can not occasionally allow Gabriel to seep in. He has to camouflage Sylar. It’s a lot, even for him, when he’s so new at the persona game.
There needs to be rules. A style guide. So, for instance, Zane Taylor can get a little strange when he’s nervous and excited. Layer it. He is otherwise shy, but wanting so badly to connect to people. More. He’s recently come to terms with the fact that he can do remarkable things and he wants to help other people like him.
And now, to cover up any lingering awkwardness, he has to make this personal for Mohinder so that he can wriggle his way in and manipulate the man as he needs to.
So Zane rubs the back of his neck, and hunches his shoulders forward, eyes lifting towards Mohinder’s face. He’s easy to look. All attractive people are. Zane Taylor could find him to be so in more than just the general sense of the word, which would add that personal twist to explain why his behavior is extra awkward and erratic around him. The attention given to him by Mohinder has him a little on edge, because the one giving it to him has such beautiful eyes and an accent you could swim in.
There. Parameters set. Now Zane needs to just play inside the sandbox he’s generated for him.
“Mohinder— I”m— Oh. Was about to apologize again.” He laughs, and then leans back when the waitress arrives with the coffee and a slice of pie. Mohinder’s meal will take longer to prepare. “I eat a lot of pie when I’m nervous,” he confides in the geneticist. “You make me a little nervous. I mean, you can’t help it. You’re….” He trails off purposefully. “And all of this is out of my comfort zone. There’s so many out there feeling like I did. And still do. The responsibility to take care of that…. It’s a lot.”
He pours them both some coffee and then commands himself to shut up, eyes looking expectantly at his traveling companion like a gobsmacked puppy.
All right. This, at least, is more familiar ground for Mohinder. He might look like a disgruntled deer in headlights when someone--anyone--is waxing poetic about his moral or professional virtue, because he has so little experience with that kind of praise even if he did think he deserved it--but it's not quite so mystifying to realize that Zane just thinks he's handsome. Even the waitress had found an excuse to brush her hand against his shoulder while clarifying a slightly unnecessary number of things about his turkey club order. Mohinder can work with this.
(As if he hasn't been pushing appreciative thoughts out of the back of his mind for hours about Zane's startlingly long limbs, the way Mohinder has to tilt his head back to talk to him every time they're outside of the car. As if the black-hole intensity of Zane's eyes isn't as intriguing as it is unnerving.)
It makes him feel all the more like an asshole for his impatience, but he'd like to think--or hope, at least--that he hadn't been as obvious about that as he actually was. And he can make up for it, if he tries. More visibly relaxed already, he reaches across the table to give Zane's wrist a firm, friendly squeeze. The shift in atmosphere isn't exactly calculated, not deliberate manipulation, but there's something second-nature to Mohinder about leaning into someone's interest and letting his gaze seem a little more conspiratorial, his smile more teasing, his voice lower and warmer. Hell, it works on Nirand.
"It is," he says. "It is a lot. But you said it yourself, Zane, and you were right. Who better than you to show these people they're not alone, and give them hope? We've got this."
Zane's presence does lend Mohinder much-needed extra credibility, for as long as he wants to keep providing it. And Zane himself had said it--they're not on any particular schedule. They can take as long with this as they please.
There it is, Zane thinks with pleasure, the payoff of setting his character is already apparent. He resists the urge to slowly tilt his head in amusement as he sees Mohinder relax. It is very difficult for the corners of his lips not to turn up when the other man’s personable reflexes kick in. There’s a dangerous twinge of delight in the back of his head from his own cleverness. He uses it to let his eyes drop to Mohinder’s hand over his sleeve and he follows it up with a clearing of his throat.
Unlike Mohinder, Zane’s knowledge base on how to flirt comes from television and movies. He’s never held interest in relationships and has never once pursued one. It had not been important to the goals his mother had set for him and any mention of a woman in his life, even if she had been just a customer, led to jealousy and the cold shoulder from her.
Luckily, his strange translation of flirting with an attractive person whose praise he does genuinely enjoy just rolls into the Awkward Zane Taylor act. He does not try to touch Mohinder in return, and simply waits until his hand is free to dig into the pie.
Once his plate is clear, Zane pushes it towards the edge of the table and sets the fork down on the vinyl seat cushion of the chair between them. It is, for the most part, out of sight, but there’s still a rather heady feeling of doing something naughty in public about the gesture. “You said you were curious about what this could be. I’ve melted half of things. Particular parts of things. Did you want me to try something else?”
Despite Mohinder’s hand no longer resting on his wrist, Zane still feels the tingle of it. That’s… strange. Almost concerning.
Mohinder doesn't let the touch linger, because they are still barely acquaintances, and because this is still about science more than anything else, and because they are in public in Nowheresville, Virginia. And he does not, as he would if he were being more deliberately flirtatious, request or steal a bite of Zane's pie. But his mood still seems distinctly improved.
Noticing the surreptitious fork theft, he glances quickly around to make sure nobody else saw it, but when he's satisfied of that, his smile shares that scandalized-but-wicked little thrill. He ought to feel guilty, honestly, but--it's just a fork. And it's For Science.
"Very much so," he says, "but not in the middle of a restaurant. I only wish we could take some things with us besides that fork. If we could somehow get our hands on something made of glass, and something ceramic--I should think those might be the easiest materials to move on to from what you can already do, but it's just a hypothesis."
The plates are ceramic, and the windows are glass even if the cups they're drinking from are plastic, but there's no way Mohinder can think of to spirit any of those out of the diner without getting caught.
"Maybe," he muses, "if one of us 'accidentally' breaks a plate, we can keep the shards and just offer to pay for it. But we can't exactly do the same with the window."
The tingle has turned to an itch, and now Zane has determined that it came not from Mohinder’s hand as it has from the need to show Mohinder what else he could do. Melting is fine and dandy for a weekday afternoon but shattering or freezing could be so much more fun. And telekinesis…
When is the last time he stretched that muscle? He’d been using it since the day he’d acquired it, but in the hours that have passed since he’d met Mohinder Suresh in person, he’d not once been able to tap into that ability. The more he thinks about it, the more he wants to use it. Mohinder’s gleefulness at some petty thievery turns the itch into a ticking against the inside of his skull.
He isn’t sure what the doctor is suggesting as the noise drowns him all. All he sees is his mouth moving.
And that’s when the waitress returns to plunk down Mohinder’s sandwich and to clear away some plates. “Can I get you another slice, hun,” she asks, as if she wasn’t younger than both men.
Food always draw s Sylar back to himself and he slips back into Zane like a glove. His smile returns. “Would it be too much trouble? Cherry this time?”
“Cherry? You got it,” she says with a laugh and leaves the men alone again while she dishes up more sugar and whipped cream.
Zane turns back to Mohinder and lets his smile fall. “We could stop at a gift shop. There’s got to be shot glasses or mugs,” he suggests. Stealing feels too Sylar to him. And Sylar needs to sleep or this could all end far too abruptly.
"Oh--one for me too, please," he asks, before the waitress can depart, because he's definitely feeling ravenous enough by now to keep up with Zane in the pie department. Sylar's distraction, as before, goes over his head--it's easy to assume Zane's just preoccupied with trying to work out logistics too.
And the solution he proposes is a hell of a lot simpler than whatever Mohinder was trying to finagle. (The quick disappearance of that smile makes something twinge very faintly in the back of his mind, a tiny little that's odd flag, but it's gone as soon as it came.)
"A gift shop? Like an airport gift shop? Do you have those just...lining the motorways here?"
Maybe he'd been more right than he realized when he'd told Nirand what a weird country America was.
Pulling on Zane’s smile is easier this time. Wearing this personality is easier the more he does it and Sylar settles back into watching and waiting in the background.
Zane gives Mohinder an amusing, half confused face. “Sort of…?” he trails off into a question, picking at the hem of his sleeves. “There’s always lots of trinket stores along highways. So when people stop because they need to use the bathroom, there’s little things for them to buy too. Usually there’s coffee and snacks and things that have the state or the milepost written on them for collectors. It’s capitalism at work.”
The pie comes over, two extra large slices for the cute men at the waitress’ table, and as there is a new fork tucked into the side of the filling of each, Zane doesn’t retrieve the fork he’d left on the seat.
“Couldn’t we do that? Pick up shot glasses or postcards at every place we stop. You know. To remember the trip by.” Sylar usually comes away with his own souvenirs, of course. He’s never been one for trinkets. His own collections have always been so carefully curated and steered clear of clutter and useless baubles.
It makes sense, put that way, when the whole idea of a road trip seems to be such a quintessentially American thing. Mohinder's still been thinking of it as a combination of business and research, even as he lets himself be tentatively excited at the idea of company, even friendship, to break up the monotonous loneliness that most of his tenure in America has been.
(He imagines, for a moment, doing this with Eden: the wry little jokes she'd have made, the things she would have made him break out of his comfort zone and try, the way she'd have listened to him even if he'd rambled. He doesn't know what's quicker to drop the smile off his face now--the reminder that she's dead, or the certainty that this imagined road trip would have been nothing like what he's picturing, because nothing he thought he knew about her was real anyway. But it's all still recent enough for the what-could-have-been ache to feel raw, and it hurts that he'll never actually know. Is it really worth developing yet another relationship for Sylar to come along and take from him, if the bastard wants to?)
"Seems like a bit of a waste, if you're going to melt them." It's harder to keep his tone upbeat now, but he forces himself to do it anyway, because none of this is Zane's fault. Zane doesn't deserve to be made to feel as if he's done anything wrong. "But that might actually make them a better souvenir than if they were intact. We'd have to find another way to label them." There, now he's capable of teasing again. The sandwich is helping.
If Zane notices, and he does not because pie is life and he’s trying not to equate cherry red with another sort of red, there is no overcast look on his face. Mohinder has been coming off as the stoic and academic sort, with his brief moments of joy at seeing his theories come to task. There is likely a great deal that goes on beneath that mop of curls and Zane, interested as he is, has decided not to press. Mohinder responds to him better as the nervous and excitable sidekick. Not the intellectual companion.
And fair. There are things Mohinder can do and understands that Zane simply does not have the education to. No amount of picking through Mohinder’s brain will give him the knowledge he would need. Perhaps someone out there has that particular gift though.
The thought is enough to make him salivate.
“I can make Christmas ornaments and we can have them engraved!” he says, leaning maybe a bit too hard into the Zane As Excitable Sidekick. At least he doesn’t state that he can do the engraving himself, though.
As the check is settled up (he insists on paying as he is well aware that Mohinder may not have a form of income and likely has no familial wealth), Zane settles his elbow on the table and rests his chin on it. His other hand reaches beneath the plasticy tablecloth, towards Mohinder. He holds the scientist’s eyes, but his fingers never reach the slimmer man. They’ve stopped on the fork still settled on the seat between them. There’s a mischievous smirk on his plump lips and his eyelashes flutter slightly.
The fork has turned into a puddle, no longer resting on the center of green vinyl seat cushion, but dripping down the sides.
Mohinder takes the Christmas ornament idea as a joke, and it makes him laugh, just a little. He's got his wallet halfway out before Zane jumps on the check, and he doesn't protest. Nirand might complain about having to shepherd Mohinder's sheltered upper-middle-class rear through Chennai's seedier neighborhoods so he doesn't get mugged, but he's still paying New York City rent on an associate professor's savings and a cab driver's salary, and he's probably going to have to beg Yelena to let him keep the latter once he gets back.
He doesn't understand, at first, what Zane's getting at with that held gaze--thinks, initially, that it might be some more forward flirtation, and okay, yeah, he can get on board with that, but--
Only when there doesn't seem to be any kind of physical contact forthcoming does he look under the table, and then he understands, instantly, before the fork even has time to dissolve. Something about doing this in public, where anyone could see it, where the look on Zane's face could give the wrong impression just in and of itself, where the evidence will be left pooling on the floor after they're safely back on the road, feels almost obscene.
This time, Mohinder's laugh is almost breathless.
"We'd better."
He leaves an extra ten dollars behind on the table as an apology to the owner whose upholstery they've ruined, a last little gasp of conscience, because the way he clasps Zane's shoulder on the way back to the car makes it clear that he has no problem at all with what just transpired.
Mohinder could blind someone with that smile, Zane thinks, holding onto the gurgle in his stomach to explore later. Gabriel is almost desperate to feel it again, which, no. No, Gabriel is dead or on his way to be dead so doesn’t get to feel a fucking thing. This war on himself is almost enough to ruin the euphoria he feels at being bad in the open, but the hand on his shoulder brings Zane back to the childish moment of bliss. He nearly races Mohinder back to the car and climbs inside the passenger seat. They should have used the restroom before they left but there will be another eventually. And they’ll have to stop anyway for their future Christmas ornaments.
Sitting back in the seat, Zane clicks the seatbelt back into place, his smile large as he plays back Mohinder’s laugh. He likes the thought of having a friend to share these sorts of hijinks with. Showing off for someone just makes having abilities so much more worthwhile.
Yes, there are all sorts of people hunting him, but he’s escaped them all. He feels invincible. The sophomoric parts of his brain are all lit up and while they will betray him in the end, he doesn’t fight it.
By the time the coffee and pie and whatever it was Mohinder called a sandwich had finished their jobs of nourishing them, Zane spots a travel center. He points at the sign enthusiastically. “Let’s get some gas, hit the head, and get some pieces of Americana to melt tonight.”
It feels like his good mood will never end. It’s a dangerous way to be.
Mohinder likes this version of Zane, warmed up and in his element and confident. Maybe all it takes is a little time and encouragement, or maybe it is the influence of his ability, the certain knowledge that he's special, the control he's already developing over what had so unnerved him earlier this week.
Mohinder finds himself wondering, idly, what Zane is like onstage. This confidence must be a part of him that comes out in other circumstances, after all, for him to have sought a performance-related career, even if he's not a frontman. Maybe he can look up some videos of Zane's band once they've got wi-fi again--though where they're going, that might be a tall order. It's hardly as relevant right now as Zane's power is, in any case. Who needs grainy YouTube videos when he can just ask Zane to melt something and watch him grin like that in person?
He's more than glad to stop by the time Zane finds one of these weird kitsch bazaars, for all of those reasons, and he pulls in without hesitation. "All right. You go scout out anything you feel like you can work with, and I'll meet you inside once I'm done filling up. Be creative. You know your ability better than I do, but it can't hurt to push yourself a little."
With no thought at all that Zane Taylor might have a digital footprint and that Mohinder might fancy himself a sleuth, Zane gives the Indian a stupid little wave and heads inside. After a trip to the bathroom that feels like a speed bump to the fun he’s about to have, Zane grabs a basket to visit the expansive collection of items this pit stop happens to sell. There are all the things one might need for a road trip like automotive gear, neck pillows, contact lens solution, microwaveable burritos and bottles of water. But there’s a fair amount of strangely synthetic feeling clothes, inappropriate tee shirts, and beach balls.
Mohinder will find Zane frowning at a mannequin wearing a gilly suit, the red and black shopping basket in his hand filed with all sorts of things.
He looks up as Mohinder approaches and then shrugs, eyebrows lifting in amusement. “Hmmm,” he says, lifting up his basket. “So I got something ceramic, some glass, fabric, and some snacks.” Zane might have just housed two slices of pie and numerous cups of coffee but he still feels hungry. It’s worse when he’s using his abilities more, but his metabolism has gone through the roof since he discovered what he can do.
“Do you want anything special, Mohinder? There’s a whole wall of crazy flavored sodas and… I don’t know. Anything else I can demonstrate with?”
It will be a few hours more driving before they settle somewhere for the night but Zane is excited and flustered like it’s prom night and not just a cheap hotel room he can melt things in for a handsome researcher.
Mohinder, too, is eager enough to wish he could speed everything about this along until they get somewhere to do their experimentation, but the gas tank takes a lot of excruciatingly slow filling--enough to prompt a low growl of frustration, drawing a wary look from the woman at the pump next to him--and he can't put off the restroom either when he hasn't gone since Brooklyn and Zane's been plying him with tea and coffee all day.
Zane, at least, is well ahead of him by the time Mohinder wanders into the gift shop, side-eyeing a 'Virginia Is For Lovers' sweatshirt along the way and peering with great interest at the contents of the shopping basket.
"Yes, fantastic. I was thinking about something fabric too, but I'd have been willing to sacrifice an undershirt to the cause if I had to. Still might, if we want to save the money. You're still hungry?" The smile that punctuates this is just teasing, closer and friendlier to accompany a question he'd find just a shade too rude to ask someone he wasn't beginning to think of as a friend.
"Honestly, how do you stay in shape?" He looks Zane up and down--no lingering, not here and not like this, but visualizing nonetheless. It's a second before his scientific mind catches up and takes over.
"No, of course, it makes sense. There was a chapter about it my father's book; he was hypothesizing about a potential increase in caloric intake being necessary to fuel anything with a physical component to it. We ought to stock up for your sake, at least, but...I'm not even familiar with half this stuff. What even is a pork rind?"
Zane wants to feel flustered and so he allows it to show in his face and mannerisms when Mohinder compliments him. “Truthfully, it wasn’t like this before. I feel healthier. My eyesight’s gotten better and I always want to snack. I guess your dad was right. After I…you know…” He can’t help but play the idiot and lean in to conspiratorially whisper: “melt things” into Mohinder’s space. “I always want some sugar. But not pork rinds. Those are… You know what, you already have an abysmal view of American life so how about I don’t explain some of these things.”
He will grab several bags of chips though, topping off the basket. He could go for some ice cream, but Mohinder has complained twice now about the cold and they will only be moving into colder weather still as they reach Montana.
“Don’t worry about the money, Doc. And don’t ruin your clothes on my account. There should be towels and sheets to mess with.”
It’s becoming easy now to be this man with Mohinder. Zane had never been fortunate enough in his first life and maybe by portraying him, Sylar is honoring him somehow. Melting isn’t his favorite ability by far, but it will always be special for bringing Mohinder to him.
Despite not wanting to, Zane doesn’t complain too badly as they drive straight into the darkness. Going slow is fine, but they should actually be going somewhere on their road trip. The little motel waiting for them off of the main highway system is bright, it looks clean, and there are plenty of cars in the lot. “I’ll run in and get us two rooms,” he says, bringing two empty bags of chips with him to toss out.
Mohinder, with that box of Trix on his kitchen counter, is hardly one to judge Zane for a sweet tooth. Or, given his own cryptic warnings to the guy, for keeping his voice down when talking about his powers. Some of these side effects Zane mentions are ones Chandra has postulated, others--improved eyesight?--are novel and unexpected, and Mohinder raises his eyebrows with fascinated surprise.
"If you don't stop giving me new things to test, I'm going to get us pulled over for speeding."
But with some effort, he manages not to, even once they depart from the highway and find themselves winding through complicated built-up shopping centers and Mohinder has to stop chattering about Activating Evolution, Chapter 17 in order to focus on the printed-out directions. The motel they settle at could honestly be owned by Norman Bates for all he really cares right now, but it does look quite nice, and Zane's been generous enough with the food tab that Mohinder doesn't worry about being able to swing it.
His introverted side wins out over both his frugal and his scientific facets, and he doesn't suggest sharing a room. He'll insist on paying Zane back at some point, or maybe jump on the bill for the next set of rooms tomorrow, but it's been a long and head-spinning day and he'll want some solitude to think it all over at the end of it.
But not just yet. He gathers up what little luggage they've both brought along, their packing done in such haste and so spartanly that nobody walking past him would even assume he's carrying enough for two, and meets Zane by their neighboring doors.
"I think it's my turn to thank you," he says, reaching out for his room key. "For everything you've done so far today. For even returning my phone call in the first place. I don't know where I'd be if you hadn't." His fingers, still gloved, brush against Zane's as he takes the little envelope.
Though Sylar is not out to be a savior, he can appreciate Mohinder equating him, even briefly, to one. The geneticist will be beyond useful to him once he finds a way to find the others, and a willing participant is easier to manage than a terrified and hateful one. He thinks that it may one day come to that, as Mohinder will eventually notice that each of their finds becomes Sylar’s lunch, but he makes up his mind, stood here in the dark, that he will do his best to put off the inevitable.
In a bold move, Zane quickly wraps long, bare fingers around Mohinder’s gloved ones. “Honestly, I’ve been saying the same thing all day. I don’t know where I’d be if you hadn’t called me first. I was scared. And I was alone.”
He can feel Gabriel’s coldness at the way he taps into the feeling of the man on the verge of ending his life.
“Maybe we can just say that we saved each other in a way. We make a good team.” He lets Mohinder’s hand go and clears his throat, shifting as if uncomfortable. “Give me an hour to get a shower and then we can start your experiments?”
He wants to play with his other abilities too. He needs to stretch them. But Mohinder can’t be around for that.
The little intake of breath as Zane's surprisingly deft fingers close around his hand gives more away than Mohinder wants it to, but there's nothing to be done about that. He looks slightly taken-aback that Zane doesn't want to get started right away, but it has been a very long day in a car that's more uncomfortable for someone Zane's height than Mohinder's, and an hour isn't so much longer to wait.
"Oh--sure, yeah, of course." Quickly, and a bit awkwardly, he disentangles Zane's bags from his own and sets them down. "Take all the time you need. You know where to find me."
Inside, finally, he has space to gather his scattered thoughts. A shower does sound really nice, a good long hot one to warm up, but before Mohinder lets himself indulge, he sets everything out that they could need for these experiments. A series of plastic grocery bags across the floor and the bed, bearing the logo of the gift shop; a shot glass with a picture of Mount Vernon on it; a little ceramic fridge magnet in the shape of a peanut; the pocket from one of his own thin cotton undershirts, snipped off with nail scissors in lieu of ruining any of the hotel's linen just yet. He'll cut the rest of it up if need be, or wear it with holes in it. It's a small price to pay if it helps develop an ability like this, or even just shows them concretely what the boundaries of it are.
It's easy enough after that to lose track of time in the shower, absorbed in thought. How many more stops can they make, after this Dale Smither? How is that even going to go? Better, he's sure, with Zane at his side than if he were alone, but his track record so far is still disheartening.
Better to focus on the positive, for now. Focus on what he has found, already beyond what he'd let himself dream of. Surely, surely Father would have to be pleased if he knew now what Mohinder had made of his work. Surely, if he were here, he would set the discouraging hostility aside, realize that his son didn't need protecting, be proud of him again like he'd been at Mohinder's dissertation defense.
--This is not focusing on the positive.
Not that it isn't its own kind of danger to focus on that, to think of the way Zane's eyelashes had fluttered and lips parted as he'd melted that fork to the diner seat. Perhaps that train of thought is best left alone as well, at least right now.
It is so good to tuck Zane away once the curtains to his room are closed and he’s dropped a bag of clothing that he knows won’t fit him right on the bed. Sylar stretches his arms out and everything under twenty pounds in the room lifts from where it sat. The lamp casts eerie shadows on the wall as it floats as far as its cord will let it. The remote control and coffee maker join it. Pillows and a ratty cushion on the chair by the door follow.
Sylar exhales through his nose and turns slowly to see each item. They all bring him such delight.
Normally, he’d destroy it all, letting them crash to the ground or pulverizing them with a flick of his fingers, but Mohinder is next door and he so desperately needs that man to keep his blood inside of his body for now.
When everything is back in place, Sylar sheds his clothing and enters the bathroom. He stares at himself long and hard in the mirror as he uses telekinesis to start the water running.
He’s attracted to you. Partially circumstances. Partially the melting. He must see something he likes though… The mirror fogs over before he comes up with an answer to that.
The hour is not yet up when a knock comes to Mohinder’s door. Zane’s hair is still wet, pieces hanging in front of his face. He’s wearing some sweat pants that thankfully are long enough to hit the ankle and a long sleeve shirt that barely covers the waistband. “Hey,” he says, big brown eyes directly on Mohinder’s face as soon as it comes into view. “Ready to get sta—“ He pauses mid word and looks over Mohinder’s shoulder before smiling in delight. “Great!”
The water is loud enough, and his train of thought preoccupying enough, that Mohinder might not have noticed if Sylar had opted to engage in some bolder telekinetic mayhem. He does, however, hear the knock at the door, and he is not shameless enough to answer it in a towel, so Zane is left waiting for a minute while he hastily dries off and yanks his undershirt and jeans back on. It doesn't feel like it's been an hour yet, but that can only be a good thing.
"Hi," he says, opening the door while still scrunching his hair dry with a hand towel, and that smile is shameless even if his level of undress is not. Sometimes the flirting happens on autopilot. And it is appealing, yes, looking him up and down, to see Zane even softer and more informal and relaxed like this. Mohinder quite likes this whole vibe. But there's work to be done.
"Yes, I took the liberty of getting us all set up. Come on." In his eagerness about...a lot of things about this situation, Mohinder takes Zane by the elbow and leads him over to the makeshift dropcloths.
"Now don't strain yourself, and don't get frustrated if something doesn't seem to be responding. There's likely to be at least one of these materials that simply can't be affected. We just don't know. I don't want you to be discouraged if that's the case."
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But Mohinder is a scientist through and through, no matter what his father may have thought, and he can get on board with that kind of interest. It doesn't occur to him that Zane might be unduly interested in what he says about his father--he doesn't link the staring to his commentary about Chandra's death at all. Why would it interest Zane, or anyone? He hasn't said anything at all about the gory details that might inspire more intrigue; for all his passenger knows, Chandra might have had cancer, or keeled over from a heart attack. Things happen.
He understands self-deprecation, has it down to a fine art, but he doesn't want to hear it now either. Not when Zane's the first person here whose ability he's actually gotten to see. Not when he has the kind of genetic profile--special, unique, of worth--that Mohinder could only dream of having himself. And not when there is an infinite number of potential uses for that ability, and Mohinder can probably think of some fascinatingly gross and gory ones on his own if Sylar's been told he's too fragile to hear such things.
"First of all, I don't know what kind of parties you're going to, but just the demonstrations you've given me so far are incredibly impressive. Anyone would agree. It's only for safety reasons that you should be keeping a low profile with them right now. Secondly--" He pauses to take an exit, gathering his thoughts and sorting through the sheer number of questions he has.
"Even if the molecular dissolution only works on certain materials, which is already an 'if,' who says there's a limit to the scale of it? You've had less than a week of practice and you can already melt something the size of a fairly large lamp. In time, who's to say you couldn't demolish a building?"
Surely no harm could ever come of encouraging something like that.
"Honestly, though, I'm more excited to see if you can learn to extend it to other materials. When we stop for the night, if you don't mind, I'd love to play around with it."
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The joke is surprising, though Zane thinks it shouldn’t be. Mohinder is close to his age, maybe a touch older, and academia has not yet fully jaded him to life. He has a spark in him that makes Zane smile, and so Zane allows himself to feel it, to really absorb it.
It primes him for the words that follow. Mohinder says he’s impressive. He says he can grow his power. He is encouraging him to perhaps branch out into what can only be called as destructive possibilities.
He likes it. He really likes it.
“There’s—“ Zane shifts the seatbelt over his chest so he can turn, long legs bending. “We aren’t on any specific schedule right?” He’s fed the hunger. The constant ticking is lower than usual. It will come back, the need to rip apart and to learn and to absorb, but for now it’s a whisper and not a demand. “And honestly, we didn’t really plan too well for this. Did you have lunch? We could stop for lunch.” Especially if lunch meant he could try dissolving the silverware after.
Damn. If only he could show Mohinder how much more of him there is!
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It's nice of Zane to frame this whole strange and impulsive situation as something they'd failed to plan well, together, even if it's true. Mohinder had left Brooklyn at dawn with three days' worth of his warmest clothing stuffed into a bag, a few kits for DNA swabbing, and pretty much nothing else except his laptop. And here they are on their way to fucking Montana. The only thing in his stomach right now is a bowl of cereal, a tall scorched medium roast from a drive-thru Starbucks, and Zane's watery cup of Earl Grey.
And still, he's hungrier for scientific advancement right now than he is for actual food.
"There's no reason we can't take a break, no." He scans the signs along the road for anything that looks like a promising turn-off, but really, he'll eat almost anything if it gives them an excuse to park so that he can get a better look at all of this. Besides which, he wants to be able to look Zane in the eye while they talk. The conversation feels like it deserves better now than to be conducted while Mohinder is busy staring at someone else's tacky bumper stickers.
It feels absurd to feel proud in any way of a man he's literally just met, but when he remembers how shaky and frightened Zane had sounded on the phone, and compares it to how calm he'd sounded as he described his epiphany, and how eager he sounds now, Mohinder doesn't know how to feel anything but a sense of admiration. If he feels any unease or curiosity about why Zane's voice sounds different in person, he chalks it up to the phone connection and his own faulty perception. "Probably best if we avoid the Cracker Barrel, but otherwise--"
Whatever this next rest stop has, he'll take it. He turns off, heartbeat thrilling with anticipation.
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Zane holds the door for Mohinder as they step out of the cold. A waitress directs them to seat themselves and Zane hits up the table by the window. He sits so that the sun shines behind him, casting shadows on his face that not even the fluorescent lighting overhead can completely dash away. The green vinyl seats are worn. His chair is a little off balance. The frosted glass brick partitions are chipped.
It’s perfect.
Zane shrugs off his coat as the waitress comes over to take their orders. He already knows what he wants before even glancing at the menu. “Do you have cherry pie? Or peach? And might as well bring over a pot of coffee. It just smells so good.”
Tone it down, he tells himself.
A sheepish look covers his eyes. “I…. Doctor Suresh, I just want to apologize. And thank you. For bringing me. I wouldn’t normally do this. I just feel like, together, we can do anything. And—“ he pulls at the long sleeve shirt’s cuffs he’s wearing, allowing all of his awkwardness to express itself in a gush of sincerity. “I’m just so happy to make a difference.”
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Zane's overenthusiasm when ordering--overconfidence, even--doesn't register as odd. It feels of a piece with the cheery sunlit atmosphere, the promise hanging in the air. But Mohinder does find himself ever so slightly distracted by Zane's backlit features, surprised by their sudden angularity. He hadn't seemed this...sharp, in the car. They haven't known each other long enough for there to be such a thing as familiar or unfamiliar, and yet the difference is noticeable.
But only for a moment, until that awkward sleeve-tugging brings Mohinder back to what he's come to expect. He feels almost guilty about his inclination to be exasperated with Zane's overwrought gratitude, but what is he supposed to say? He's glad to be of help, glad Zane appreciates this, glad they can be of benefit to each other, but Mohinder has had too many lessons on stoicism drilled into him over the course of his life to be comfortable with displays this open. He smiles, a bit thinly, and glances aside.
"I don't know what you think you have to apologize for," he says, when he can make his tone sound kind and friendly again. "And please, Zane, it's perfectly fine to just call me Mohinder. I can't spend days in a car with someone calling me 'Doctor' the whole time."
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Zane Taylor can not be a babbling fool. He can not occasionally allow Gabriel to seep in. He has to camouflage Sylar. It’s a lot, even for him, when he’s so new at the persona game.
There needs to be rules. A style guide. So, for instance, Zane Taylor can get a little strange when he’s nervous and excited. Layer it. He is otherwise shy, but wanting so badly to connect to people. More. He’s recently come to terms with the fact that he can do remarkable things and he wants to help other people like him.
And now, to cover up any lingering awkwardness, he has to make this personal for Mohinder so that he can wriggle his way in and manipulate the man as he needs to.
So Zane rubs the back of his neck, and hunches his shoulders forward, eyes lifting towards Mohinder’s face. He’s easy to look. All attractive people are. Zane Taylor could find him to be so in more than just the general sense of the word, which would add that personal twist to explain why his behavior is extra awkward and erratic around him. The attention given to him by Mohinder has him a little on edge, because the one giving it to him has such beautiful eyes and an accent you could swim in.
There. Parameters set. Now Zane needs to just play inside the sandbox he’s generated for him.
“Mohinder— I”m— Oh. Was about to apologize again.” He laughs, and then leans back when the waitress arrives with the coffee and a slice of pie. Mohinder’s meal will take longer to prepare. “I eat a lot of pie when I’m nervous,” he confides in the geneticist. “You make me a little nervous. I mean, you can’t help it. You’re….” He trails off purposefully. “And all of this is out of my comfort zone. There’s so many out there feeling like I did. And still do. The responsibility to take care of that…. It’s a lot.”
He pours them both some coffee and then commands himself to shut up, eyes looking expectantly at his traveling companion like a gobsmacked puppy.
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All right. This, at least, is more familiar ground for Mohinder. He might look like a disgruntled deer in headlights when someone--anyone--is waxing poetic about his moral or professional virtue, because he has so little experience with that kind of praise even if he did think he deserved it--but it's not quite so mystifying to realize that Zane just thinks he's handsome. Even the waitress had found an excuse to brush her hand against his shoulder while clarifying a slightly unnecessary number of things about his turkey club order. Mohinder can work with this.
(As if he hasn't been pushing appreciative thoughts out of the back of his mind for hours about Zane's startlingly long limbs, the way Mohinder has to tilt his head back to talk to him every time they're outside of the car. As if the black-hole intensity of Zane's eyes isn't as intriguing as it is unnerving.)
It makes him feel all the more like an asshole for his impatience, but he'd like to think--or hope, at least--that he hadn't been as obvious about that as he actually was. And he can make up for it, if he tries. More visibly relaxed already, he reaches across the table to give Zane's wrist a firm, friendly squeeze. The shift in atmosphere isn't exactly calculated, not deliberate manipulation, but there's something second-nature to Mohinder about leaning into someone's interest and letting his gaze seem a little more conspiratorial, his smile more teasing, his voice lower and warmer. Hell, it works on Nirand.
"It is," he says. "It is a lot. But you said it yourself, Zane, and you were right. Who better than you to show these people they're not alone, and give them hope? We've got this."
Zane's presence does lend Mohinder much-needed extra credibility, for as long as he wants to keep providing it. And Zane himself had said it--they're not on any particular schedule. They can take as long with this as they please.
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Unlike Mohinder, Zane’s knowledge base on how to flirt comes from television and movies. He’s never held interest in relationships and has never once pursued one. It had not been important to the goals his mother had set for him and any mention of a woman in his life, even if she had been just a customer, led to jealousy and the cold shoulder from her.
Luckily, his strange translation of flirting with an attractive person whose praise he does genuinely enjoy just rolls into the Awkward Zane Taylor act. He does not try to touch Mohinder in return, and simply waits until his hand is free to dig into the pie.
Once his plate is clear, Zane pushes it towards the edge of the table and sets the fork down on the vinyl seat cushion of the chair between them. It is, for the most part, out of sight, but there’s still a rather heady feeling of doing something naughty in public about the gesture. “You said you were curious about what this could be. I’ve melted half of things. Particular parts of things. Did you want me to try something else?”
Despite Mohinder’s hand no longer resting on his wrist, Zane still feels the tingle of it. That’s… strange. Almost concerning.
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Noticing the surreptitious fork theft, he glances quickly around to make sure nobody else saw it, but when he's satisfied of that, his smile shares that scandalized-but-wicked little thrill. He ought to feel guilty, honestly, but--it's just a fork. And it's For Science.
"Very much so," he says, "but not in the middle of a restaurant. I only wish we could take some things with us besides that fork. If we could somehow get our hands on something made of glass, and something ceramic--I should think those might be the easiest materials to move on to from what you can already do, but it's just a hypothesis."
The plates are ceramic, and the windows are glass even if the cups they're drinking from are plastic, but there's no way Mohinder can think of to spirit any of those out of the diner without getting caught.
"Maybe," he muses, "if one of us 'accidentally' breaks a plate, we can keep the shards and just offer to pay for it. But we can't exactly do the same with the window."
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When is the last time he stretched that muscle? He’d been using it since the day he’d acquired it, but in the hours that have passed since he’d met Mohinder Suresh in person, he’d not once been able to tap into that ability. The more he thinks about it, the more he wants to use it. Mohinder’s gleefulness at some petty thievery turns the itch into a ticking against the inside of his skull.
He isn’t sure what the doctor is suggesting as the noise drowns him all. All he sees is his mouth moving.
And that’s when the waitress returns to plunk down Mohinder’s sandwich and to clear away some plates. “Can I get you another slice, hun,” she asks, as if she wasn’t younger than both men.
Food always draw s Sylar back to himself and he slips back into Zane like a glove. His smile returns. “Would it be too much trouble? Cherry this time?”
“Cherry? You got it,” she says with a laugh and leaves the men alone again while she dishes up more sugar and whipped cream.
Zane turns back to Mohinder and lets his smile fall. “We could stop at a gift shop. There’s got to be shot glasses or mugs,” he suggests. Stealing feels too Sylar to him. And Sylar needs to sleep or this could all end far too abruptly.
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And the solution he proposes is a hell of a lot simpler than whatever Mohinder was trying to finagle. (The quick disappearance of that smile makes something twinge very faintly in the back of his mind, a tiny little that's odd flag, but it's gone as soon as it came.)
"A gift shop? Like an airport gift shop? Do you have those just...lining the motorways here?"
Maybe he'd been more right than he realized when he'd told Nirand what a weird country America was.
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Zane gives Mohinder an amusing, half confused face. “Sort of…?” he trails off into a question, picking at the hem of his sleeves. “There’s always lots of trinket stores along highways. So when people stop because they need to use the bathroom, there’s little things for them to buy too. Usually there’s coffee and snacks and things that have the state or the milepost written on them for collectors. It’s capitalism at work.”
The pie comes over, two extra large slices for the cute men at the waitress’ table, and as there is a new fork tucked into the side of the filling of each, Zane doesn’t retrieve the fork he’d left on the seat.
“Couldn’t we do that? Pick up shot glasses or postcards at every place we stop. You know. To remember the trip by.” Sylar usually comes away with his own souvenirs, of course. He’s never been one for trinkets. His own collections have always been so carefully curated and steered clear of clutter and useless baubles.
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(He imagines, for a moment, doing this with Eden: the wry little jokes she'd have made, the things she would have made him break out of his comfort zone and try, the way she'd have listened to him even if he'd rambled. He doesn't know what's quicker to drop the smile off his face now--the reminder that she's dead, or the certainty that this imagined road trip would have been nothing like what he's picturing, because nothing he thought he knew about her was real anyway. But it's all still recent enough for the what-could-have-been ache to feel raw, and it hurts that he'll never actually know. Is it really worth developing yet another relationship for Sylar to come along and take from him, if the bastard wants to?)
"Seems like a bit of a waste, if you're going to melt them." It's harder to keep his tone upbeat now, but he forces himself to do it anyway, because none of this is Zane's fault. Zane doesn't deserve to be made to feel as if he's done anything wrong. "But that might actually make them a better souvenir than if they were intact. We'd have to find another way to label them." There, now he's capable of teasing again. The sandwich is helping.
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And fair. There are things Mohinder can do and understands that Zane simply does not have the education to. No amount of picking through Mohinder’s brain will give him the knowledge he would need. Perhaps someone out there has that particular gift though.
The thought is enough to make him salivate.
“I can make Christmas ornaments and we can have them engraved!” he says, leaning maybe a bit too hard into the Zane As Excitable Sidekick. At least he doesn’t state that he can do the engraving himself, though.
As the check is settled up (he insists on paying as he is well aware that Mohinder may not have a form of income and likely has no familial wealth), Zane settles his elbow on the table and rests his chin on it. His other hand reaches beneath the plasticy tablecloth, towards Mohinder. He holds the scientist’s eyes, but his fingers never reach the slimmer man. They’ve stopped on the fork still settled on the seat between them. There’s a mischievous smirk on his plump lips and his eyelashes flutter slightly.
The fork has turned into a puddle, no longer resting on the center of green vinyl seat cushion, but dripping down the sides.
“Shall we?”
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He doesn't understand, at first, what Zane's getting at with that held gaze--thinks, initially, that it might be some more forward flirtation, and okay, yeah, he can get on board with that, but--
Only when there doesn't seem to be any kind of physical contact forthcoming does he look under the table, and then he understands, instantly, before the fork even has time to dissolve. Something about doing this in public, where anyone could see it, where the look on Zane's face could give the wrong impression just in and of itself, where the evidence will be left pooling on the floor after they're safely back on the road, feels almost obscene.
This time, Mohinder's laugh is almost breathless.
"We'd better."
He leaves an extra ten dollars behind on the table as an apology to the owner whose upholstery they've ruined, a last little gasp of conscience, because the way he clasps Zane's shoulder on the way back to the car makes it clear that he has no problem at all with what just transpired.
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Sitting back in the seat, Zane clicks the seatbelt back into place, his smile large as he plays back Mohinder’s laugh. He likes the thought of having a friend to share these sorts of hijinks with. Showing off for someone just makes having abilities so much more worthwhile.
Yes, there are all sorts of people hunting him, but he’s escaped them all. He feels invincible. The sophomoric parts of his brain are all lit up and while they will betray him in the end, he doesn’t fight it.
By the time the coffee and pie and whatever it was Mohinder called a sandwich had finished their jobs of nourishing them, Zane spots a travel center. He points at the sign enthusiastically. “Let’s get some gas, hit the head, and get some pieces of Americana to melt tonight.”
It feels like his good mood will never end. It’s a dangerous way to be.
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Mohinder finds himself wondering, idly, what Zane is like onstage. This confidence must be a part of him that comes out in other circumstances, after all, for him to have sought a performance-related career, even if he's not a frontman. Maybe he can look up some videos of Zane's band once they've got wi-fi again--though where they're going, that might be a tall order. It's hardly as relevant right now as Zane's power is, in any case. Who needs grainy YouTube videos when he can just ask Zane to melt something and watch him grin like that in person?
He's more than glad to stop by the time Zane finds one of these weird kitsch bazaars, for all of those reasons, and he pulls in without hesitation. "All right. You go scout out anything you feel like you can work with, and I'll meet you inside once I'm done filling up. Be creative. You know your ability better than I do, but it can't hurt to push yourself a little."
He doesn't think he needs to tell Zane that.
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After a trip to the bathroom that feels like a speed bump to the fun he’s about to have, Zane grabs a basket to visit the expansive collection of items this pit stop happens to sell. There are all the things one might need for a road trip like automotive gear, neck pillows, contact lens solution, microwaveable burritos and bottles of water. But there’s a fair amount of strangely synthetic feeling clothes, inappropriate tee shirts, and beach balls.
Mohinder will find Zane frowning at a mannequin wearing a gilly suit, the red and black shopping basket in his hand filed with all sorts of things.
He looks up as Mohinder approaches and then shrugs, eyebrows lifting in amusement. “Hmmm,” he says, lifting up his basket. “So I got something ceramic, some glass, fabric, and some snacks.” Zane might have just housed two slices of pie and numerous cups of coffee but he still feels hungry. It’s worse when he’s using his abilities more, but his metabolism has gone through the roof since he discovered what he can do.
“Do you want anything special, Mohinder? There’s a whole wall of crazy flavored sodas and… I don’t know. Anything else I can demonstrate with?”
It will be a few hours more driving before they settle somewhere for the night but Zane is excited and flustered like it’s prom night and not just a cheap hotel room he can melt things in for a handsome researcher.
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Zane, at least, is well ahead of him by the time Mohinder wanders into the gift shop, side-eyeing a 'Virginia Is For Lovers' sweatshirt along the way and peering with great interest at the contents of the shopping basket.
"Yes, fantastic. I was thinking about something fabric too, but I'd have been willing to sacrifice an undershirt to the cause if I had to. Still might, if we want to save the money. You're still hungry?" The smile that punctuates this is just teasing, closer and friendlier to accompany a question he'd find just a shade too rude to ask someone he wasn't beginning to think of as a friend.
"Honestly, how do you stay in shape?" He looks Zane up and down--no lingering, not here and not like this, but visualizing nonetheless. It's a second before his scientific mind catches up and takes over.
"No, of course, it makes sense. There was a chapter about it my father's book; he was hypothesizing about a potential increase in caloric intake being necessary to fuel anything with a physical component to it. We ought to stock up for your sake, at least, but...I'm not even familiar with half this stuff. What even is a pork rind?"
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He will grab several bags of chips though, topping off the basket. He could go for some ice cream, but Mohinder has complained twice now about the cold and they will only be moving into colder weather still as they reach Montana.
“Don’t worry about the money, Doc. And don’t ruin your clothes on my account. There should be towels and sheets to mess with.”
It’s becoming easy now to be this man with Mohinder. Zane had never been fortunate enough in his first life and maybe by portraying him, Sylar is honoring him somehow. Melting isn’t his favorite ability by far, but it will always be special for bringing Mohinder to him.
Despite not wanting to, Zane doesn’t complain too badly as they drive straight into the darkness. Going slow is fine, but they should actually be going somewhere on their road trip. The little motel waiting for them off of the main highway system is bright, it looks clean, and there are plenty of cars in the lot. “I’ll run in and get us two rooms,” he says, bringing two empty bags of chips with him to toss out.
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"If you don't stop giving me new things to test, I'm going to get us pulled over for speeding."
But with some effort, he manages not to, even once they depart from the highway and find themselves winding through complicated built-up shopping centers and Mohinder has to stop chattering about Activating Evolution, Chapter 17 in order to focus on the printed-out directions. The motel they settle at could honestly be owned by Norman Bates for all he really cares right now, but it does look quite nice, and Zane's been generous enough with the food tab that Mohinder doesn't worry about being able to swing it.
His introverted side wins out over both his frugal and his scientific facets, and he doesn't suggest sharing a room. He'll insist on paying Zane back at some point, or maybe jump on the bill for the next set of rooms tomorrow, but it's been a long and head-spinning day and he'll want some solitude to think it all over at the end of it.
But not just yet. He gathers up what little luggage they've both brought along, their packing done in such haste and so spartanly that nobody walking past him would even assume he's carrying enough for two, and meets Zane by their neighboring doors.
"I think it's my turn to thank you," he says, reaching out for his room key. "For everything you've done so far today. For even returning my phone call in the first place. I don't know where I'd be if you hadn't." His fingers, still gloved, brush against Zane's as he takes the little envelope.
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In a bold move, Zane quickly wraps long, bare fingers around Mohinder’s gloved ones. “Honestly, I’ve been saying the same thing all day. I don’t know where I’d be if you hadn’t called me first. I was scared. And I was alone.”
He can feel Gabriel’s coldness at the way he taps into the feeling of the man on the verge of ending his life.
“Maybe we can just say that we saved each other in a way. We make a good team.” He lets Mohinder’s hand go and clears his throat, shifting as if uncomfortable. “Give me an hour to get a shower and then we can start your experiments?”
He wants to play with his other abilities too. He needs to stretch them. But Mohinder can’t be around for that.
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"Oh--sure, yeah, of course." Quickly, and a bit awkwardly, he disentangles Zane's bags from his own and sets them down. "Take all the time you need. You know where to find me."
Inside, finally, he has space to gather his scattered thoughts. A shower does sound really nice, a good long hot one to warm up, but before Mohinder lets himself indulge, he sets everything out that they could need for these experiments. A series of plastic grocery bags across the floor and the bed, bearing the logo of the gift shop; a shot glass with a picture of Mount Vernon on it; a little ceramic fridge magnet in the shape of a peanut; the pocket from one of his own thin cotton undershirts, snipped off with nail scissors in lieu of ruining any of the hotel's linen just yet. He'll cut the rest of it up if need be, or wear it with holes in it. It's a small price to pay if it helps develop an ability like this, or even just shows them concretely what the boundaries of it are.
It's easy enough after that to lose track of time in the shower, absorbed in thought. How many more stops can they make, after this Dale Smither? How is that even going to go? Better, he's sure, with Zane at his side than if he were alone, but his track record so far is still disheartening.
Better to focus on the positive, for now. Focus on what he has found, already beyond what he'd let himself dream of. Surely, surely Father would have to be pleased if he knew now what Mohinder had made of his work. Surely, if he were here, he would set the discouraging hostility aside, realize that his son didn't need protecting, be proud of him again like he'd been at Mohinder's dissertation defense.
--This is not focusing on the positive.
Not that it isn't its own kind of danger to focus on that, to think of the way Zane's eyelashes had fluttered and lips parted as he'd melted that fork to the diner seat. Perhaps that train of thought is best left alone as well, at least right now.
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Sylar exhales through his nose and turns slowly to see each item. They all bring him such delight.
Normally, he’d destroy it all, letting them crash to the ground or pulverizing them with a flick of his fingers, but Mohinder is next door and he so desperately needs that man to keep his blood inside of his body for now.
When everything is back in place, Sylar sheds his clothing and enters the bathroom. He stares at himself long and hard in the mirror as he uses telekinesis to start the water running.
He’s attracted to you. Partially circumstances. Partially the melting. He must see something he likes though… The mirror fogs over before he comes up with an answer to that.
The hour is not yet up when a knock comes to Mohinder’s door. Zane’s hair is still wet, pieces hanging in front of his face. He’s wearing some sweat pants that thankfully are long enough to hit the ankle and a long sleeve shirt that barely covers the waistband. “Hey,” he says, big brown eyes directly on Mohinder’s face as soon as it comes into view. “Ready to get sta—“ He pauses mid word and looks over Mohinder’s shoulder before smiling in delight. “Great!”
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"Hi," he says, opening the door while still scrunching his hair dry with a hand towel, and that smile is shameless even if his level of undress is not. Sometimes the flirting happens on autopilot. And it is appealing, yes, looking him up and down, to see Zane even softer and more informal and relaxed like this. Mohinder quite likes this whole vibe. But there's work to be done.
"Yes, I took the liberty of getting us all set up. Come on." In his eagerness about...a lot of things about this situation, Mohinder takes Zane by the elbow and leads him over to the makeshift dropcloths.
"Now don't strain yourself, and don't get frustrated if something doesn't seem to be responding. There's likely to be at least one of these materials that simply can't be affected. We just don't know. I don't want you to be discouraged if that's the case."
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