A Single Moment, by Rainne
Title: A Single Moment
Author: Rainne
Characters: Hiro, Ando
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1,157
Disclaimer: Me? Not a person who owns Heroes.
A/N: This was kind of tough to write, I hate being mean to Hiro. It's pretty much the closest thing to kicking a puppy you can do without actually kicking a puppy. For the Lockdown challenge, set a few weeks after "How to Stop an Exploding Man."
Summary: If the bomb and Ando's death don't happen, how does Hiro become the badass Future!Hiro that warns Peter on the subway?
Hiro’s legs give out, dumping him unceremoniously on the ground. He clutches his aching head, frustration burning inside. It’s no good- no matter how hard he tries, he still can’t unfreeze time.
***
He wasn’t paying attention when he did it. He was meditating, not deeply, just performing an evening ritual adopted to calm him down after a long day. Then he slowly became aware of a change in the atmosphere, that special stillness. He smiled crookedly, a little embarrassed at his loss of control, even if he was alone. He tried to start time’s flow again, a process as simple as releasing a firm grip. Similar as well, if keeping time still is compared to holding onto something, like a taut rope. Right away, Hiro knew something was wrong. If he hadn’t consciously gripped it, there was nothing to let go of. How do you release something you’re not holding? It’s a question weighing heavily on Hiro’s mind.
***
After the initial panic wore off, Hiro tried to return to his meditation, hoping to regain whatever state it was that had allowed him to stop time without intent. Already he had been in this moment longer than any other. He soon found himself distracted by the silence, of all things. It was so absolute, not even the sound of dust motes brushing against air made themselves heard. It magnified the sound of his movements to an unbelievable degree. With a sigh as loud as an airplane ten feet above his head, Hiro kept trying. Even now, he hasn’t stopped trying.
***
He kept going even when hunger set in, buried it next to his growing anxiety. He became so focused on time, the rope he wasn’t holding, he almost didn’t hear his first gasping breaths. Acting on instinct, he lunged dizzily out of the door, taking in gulping drafts of air from the living room where Ando sat watching television. He turned back to look warily once his head had stopped spinning. His room didn’t look any different, but he knew- he had breathed in all of the oxygen while meditating. Maybe some molecules remained frozen in the corners near the ceiling, but the new carbon dioxide molecules outnumbered them by far. This discovery is what drives Hiro to keep moving, although he misses seeing Ando, frozen as he is.
***
Hiro wandered, taking a few hours to meditate here and there, careful not to deplete the area of oxygen again. It got cold when he stopped moving- some half-remembered lesson drifted back to him about how heat is just molecules in motion. He tried to warm the air around him by waving his hands, hoping to push the molecules around. It didn’t work, just cleared out the air faster. Hiro found a heavy black coat and boots to wear. He doesn’t think of what he does as stealing anymore, it’s just survival in a single moment.
***
At least it’s a pretty sunset, he thinks, pushing his hair out of his eyes. He had been working his way up to the top of the Empire State Building for… some amount of time. At the beginning of his wandering, he had found he couldn’t teleport within this single moment, much to his irritation. It was difficult going past all of the floors, with all of the frozen people at work. Their cubicles reminded him of Yamagato. Never in his life did he think he would really, truly miss that place, but even that awful mix of stress and boredom the office provided seems heady with life to him now.
***
Hiro is sitting where his legs have dropped him, on the sidewalk of a New York suburb. He hunches up, gripping handfuls of hair while he waits for the scream of frustration to boil out of him. When it does, he is nearly deafened by it. He lies back on the cement and stares at clouds whose positions he has memorized, finds the shapes. There’s some solace in the fact that his horoscope sign, the boar, is just overhead in this neighborhood.
He climbs to his feet. The pain in his head throbs briefly, but it’s on the decline, the exhaustion, always present now, is worse. Hiro starts walking without bothering to pick a destination, hasn’t bothered for… some amount of time. When he gets hungry he smashes a kitchen window and snags an apple. There are windows scattered throughout the city that weren’t broken a moment ago.
Eventually, Hiro looks up to find himself staring at the apartment building. He sighs wearily as he looks at the window five floors up and two in- his room a moment ago. This isn’t the first time he’s come back here, or the second time. He lost count somewhere around the sixtieth. His one hope left is that there will still be air to breathe in the apartment when he visits. When it gets bad, sometimes his hope is that he’ll come back and there will be no air. He wonders once again if time would restart if he died.
He trudges up the stairs, thinking he might as well get it over with. Takes out the key, shiny as the day his father gave it to him last week, and opens the door.
Ando cranes his neck on the couch to see who is at the door, “Hiro?” He squints, “Wait… Future-Hiro? What are you doing here?” Hiro finds himself unable to answer while Ando talks, and moves, and breathes, “You can’t be here- we stopped the bomb! There’s no bad future now. Unless… Did something happen? The explosion- is Sylar back?” Ando goes to open the door to Hiro’s bedroom.
“No!” Hiro cries. Ando stops and turns to him, worry scrawled all over his face. “Don’t open that door! It’s all carbon dioxide in there.”
“What’re you talking about? Hiro’s in there.” He opens the door, calling for Hiro. He pauses when he realizes the room is empty, “That’s weird. He just went to bed.” Ando now looks puzzled as he peers at Hiro.
“Ando…” Hiro has to swallow a lump in his throat to continue, “I’m not from the future. Something went wrong…”
Ando moves quickly to help a trembling Hiro into a chair. The story slowly spills from him, it isn’t very long. By the end, though, Hiro has two tight grips on Ando’s arm, as if he’s afraid the man will freeze at any second. For all Ando knows, he could. He covers one of Hiro’s hands with his own as much for his own comfort as that of his friend. “The worst part is,” Hiro concludes, “I still don’t know how it happened, or how it stopped. I can’t let it happen again. I can’t go back to that. The whole world was a prison.”
“It’s okay, Hiro. We’ll work it out.”
And they do, though Hiro is never quite the same.
Author: Rainne
Characters: Hiro, Ando
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1,157
Disclaimer: Me? Not a person who owns Heroes.
A/N: This was kind of tough to write, I hate being mean to Hiro. It's pretty much the closest thing to kicking a puppy you can do without actually kicking a puppy. For the Lockdown challenge, set a few weeks after "How to Stop an Exploding Man."
Summary: If the bomb and Ando's death don't happen, how does Hiro become the badass Future!Hiro that warns Peter on the subway?
Hiro’s legs give out, dumping him unceremoniously on the ground. He clutches his aching head, frustration burning inside. It’s no good- no matter how hard he tries, he still can’t unfreeze time.
***
He wasn’t paying attention when he did it. He was meditating, not deeply, just performing an evening ritual adopted to calm him down after a long day. Then he slowly became aware of a change in the atmosphere, that special stillness. He smiled crookedly, a little embarrassed at his loss of control, even if he was alone. He tried to start time’s flow again, a process as simple as releasing a firm grip. Similar as well, if keeping time still is compared to holding onto something, like a taut rope. Right away, Hiro knew something was wrong. If he hadn’t consciously gripped it, there was nothing to let go of. How do you release something you’re not holding? It’s a question weighing heavily on Hiro’s mind.
***
After the initial panic wore off, Hiro tried to return to his meditation, hoping to regain whatever state it was that had allowed him to stop time without intent. Already he had been in this moment longer than any other. He soon found himself distracted by the silence, of all things. It was so absolute, not even the sound of dust motes brushing against air made themselves heard. It magnified the sound of his movements to an unbelievable degree. With a sigh as loud as an airplane ten feet above his head, Hiro kept trying. Even now, he hasn’t stopped trying.
***
He kept going even when hunger set in, buried it next to his growing anxiety. He became so focused on time, the rope he wasn’t holding, he almost didn’t hear his first gasping breaths. Acting on instinct, he lunged dizzily out of the door, taking in gulping drafts of air from the living room where Ando sat watching television. He turned back to look warily once his head had stopped spinning. His room didn’t look any different, but he knew- he had breathed in all of the oxygen while meditating. Maybe some molecules remained frozen in the corners near the ceiling, but the new carbon dioxide molecules outnumbered them by far. This discovery is what drives Hiro to keep moving, although he misses seeing Ando, frozen as he is.
***
Hiro wandered, taking a few hours to meditate here and there, careful not to deplete the area of oxygen again. It got cold when he stopped moving- some half-remembered lesson drifted back to him about how heat is just molecules in motion. He tried to warm the air around him by waving his hands, hoping to push the molecules around. It didn’t work, just cleared out the air faster. Hiro found a heavy black coat and boots to wear. He doesn’t think of what he does as stealing anymore, it’s just survival in a single moment.
***
At least it’s a pretty sunset, he thinks, pushing his hair out of his eyes. He had been working his way up to the top of the Empire State Building for… some amount of time. At the beginning of his wandering, he had found he couldn’t teleport within this single moment, much to his irritation. It was difficult going past all of the floors, with all of the frozen people at work. Their cubicles reminded him of Yamagato. Never in his life did he think he would really, truly miss that place, but even that awful mix of stress and boredom the office provided seems heady with life to him now.
***
Hiro is sitting where his legs have dropped him, on the sidewalk of a New York suburb. He hunches up, gripping handfuls of hair while he waits for the scream of frustration to boil out of him. When it does, he is nearly deafened by it. He lies back on the cement and stares at clouds whose positions he has memorized, finds the shapes. There’s some solace in the fact that his horoscope sign, the boar, is just overhead in this neighborhood.
He climbs to his feet. The pain in his head throbs briefly, but it’s on the decline, the exhaustion, always present now, is worse. Hiro starts walking without bothering to pick a destination, hasn’t bothered for… some amount of time. When he gets hungry he smashes a kitchen window and snags an apple. There are windows scattered throughout the city that weren’t broken a moment ago.
Eventually, Hiro looks up to find himself staring at the apartment building. He sighs wearily as he looks at the window five floors up and two in- his room a moment ago. This isn’t the first time he’s come back here, or the second time. He lost count somewhere around the sixtieth. His one hope left is that there will still be air to breathe in the apartment when he visits. When it gets bad, sometimes his hope is that he’ll come back and there will be no air. He wonders once again if time would restart if he died.
He trudges up the stairs, thinking he might as well get it over with. Takes out the key, shiny as the day his father gave it to him last week, and opens the door.
Ando cranes his neck on the couch to see who is at the door, “Hiro?” He squints, “Wait… Future-Hiro? What are you doing here?” Hiro finds himself unable to answer while Ando talks, and moves, and breathes, “You can’t be here- we stopped the bomb! There’s no bad future now. Unless… Did something happen? The explosion- is Sylar back?” Ando goes to open the door to Hiro’s bedroom.
“No!” Hiro cries. Ando stops and turns to him, worry scrawled all over his face. “Don’t open that door! It’s all carbon dioxide in there.”
“What’re you talking about? Hiro’s in there.” He opens the door, calling for Hiro. He pauses when he realizes the room is empty, “That’s weird. He just went to bed.” Ando now looks puzzled as he peers at Hiro.
“Ando…” Hiro has to swallow a lump in his throat to continue, “I’m not from the future. Something went wrong…”
Ando moves quickly to help a trembling Hiro into a chair. The story slowly spills from him, it isn’t very long. By the end, though, Hiro has two tight grips on Ando’s arm, as if he’s afraid the man will freeze at any second. For all Ando knows, he could. He covers one of Hiro’s hands with his own as much for his own comfort as that of his friend. “The worst part is,” Hiro concludes, “I still don’t know how it happened, or how it stopped. I can’t let it happen again. I can’t go back to that. The whole world was a prison.”
“It’s okay, Hiro. We’ll work it out.”
And they do, though Hiro is never quite the same.