[repost] the story everyone knows || heroes/sandman; r; gen

[thoracopagus]

the story everyone knows
A Heroes/ Sandman crossover by Megan
cover by
notsostrange

~x~

“And he ate her.”
-Gilbert; The Doll’s House

---
The mockingbird, capable of imitating up to thirty known sounds-birdsong, raw animal noise, cold-hot machines clawing in the night-

He’s seven and in his head, under bone and hair and skin, his mom’s in the kitchen with him when it happens. Someone’s making tea and the coil is freshly heated, glowing fiercely in the slant of afternoon light. He tips up on his toes to watch it cool, the metal ticks and he feels it in his bones. He tips up and over and closes his eyes, heat blossoms against his face. Someone grabs his neck and tugs him backward. He gets a bruise on his back from the table and in reality, that’s when Angela shows up-after he’s burst into tears and made it sound as bad as it could have been. Nathan’s grounded for shoving him and takes it with a grim stare. Peter doesn’t know how to tell her what really happened. It all comes together at once, like a dream. Nothing but heat and fear and Nathan’s hand on the back of his neck, violent, without thought.

Nathan’s face is older, but the stare remains. He’s sure of himself, he has the facts straight-he’s ignoring them. He rests his hands on Peter’s shoulders and doesn’t flinch when the metal coils in Peter’s bones start to burn. Peter wants to crush their bodies together with that instinctive urgency, but he can’t move, can’t breathe-

the light
slants , eclipses,

Nathan’s mouth opens-

white, red, black, then grey.

She came for you in your sleep-nothing new to her, perhaps not new to you-she leaned over your bed and drew her hand over your arm. She is fond of your folk, though she is fond of all folk, and her fondness grants no favor. But in this act, she can extend mercy. She would not burden you with her name, though you knew her, as they all do. As they always will.

Then white again, a face looming, tilting, offering the unchanging outline of an eye. Peter blinks until his vision clears and puts up a hand to keep them from getting too close. The hand comes up out of his solid body and through it he can still see that eye, kohl-rimmed and staring. He swallows and everything in him tightens, or would if it still could. When he tries to back away from the face, he scoots through the bed and falls awkwardly onto the floor with an undignified squawk. The face opens a mouth and laughs, then a hand joins it out of the shadows and covers the mouth. “I’m sorry, really-I shouldn’t laugh,” it says. “Here.” The hand reaches down to him, almost glowing against the blue-dark of the room, long black nails gleaming at the fingertips. Peter gingerly slides his own hand over it and is pulled to his feet. Another hand appears and covers the mouth again, and the eye winks shut as more laughter is stifled.

“What,” he snaps, irritation slicing his confusion into manageable amounts.

“Your little gown,” it answers, pointing to where the hospital gown has bunched up at his hip. He pushes it down with harsh swipes of his hand, choking on his embarrassment. The hand brushes dust from his shoulder. “There, all in order.” The face smiles, and from what he can see it is a she. “Now, you walk behind me so I can keep a straight face!”

He crosses his arms, leaning away from her. “I’m not going anywhere, I just-I don’t even know how I got here.” He looks around the room, avoiding the bed with his gaze. He’s still in it, he can feel it against his back. Machines beep faintly in the background and he checks off their functions in his mind. They’re something he understands. It shouldn’t calm him to watch fluid trail through tubes, in and out of his body, but he knows their purpose and trusts them to keep him alive. If he even needs them, he thinks. Light, heat, gravity, weight, impact-his blood on the ground and his skin, but no indication of where it came from.

“I’ll tell you on the way, come on.” She offers him her hand again, still smiling. His eyes adjust to the dark room and he finds her edges-a mane of dark hair obscuring her face, slim build, loose, casual clothing. He feels like he’s seen her before. Her hand edges closer, and he feels calmer, lighter. The sensation of the bed against his back becomes faint, he doesn’t even know if he’s breathing anymore, and the feeling doesn’t bother him. She’s smiling at him like his teacher on the first day of kindergarten, hoping to win him away from his mother’s skirt. Peter sighs and takes her hand. In the hall, he relaxes further-he’s always liked hospitals. They’re exactly what they seem to be.

He links his fingers with the girl’s as he would on a date in the park. She squeezes them and leads him to the stairs. “So, is this a dream,” he asks. The silence was comfortable, almost comfortable enough to leave intact, but he wants an explanation.

She winks, “That’s where we’re headed, Peter.” He purses his lips. “What?”

“I knew I’d seen you before-I just don’t remember telling you my name.” He’s whispering. He has no idea why. The closer they get to the end the hall, the softer his voice sounds.

“You wouldn’t-you’d just been born. Right in this very hospital, in fact.” She trails off when he stops walking, looking back and laughing again, but it’s not the same. She seems distracted. “Okay, this isn’t my normal gig, so it’d be great if you could keep following me and freak out at the same time.”

“I’m not freaking out,” he mutters, picking up the pace again. “What is it you do, then?”

“Classified,” she snaps, preceding a lapse of giggles. “Sorry, I just like saying that sometimes. It’s not really something you need to know yet, Peter. This is a favor I’m doing-my little brother doesn’t know how to grab you himself. He’s learning though. Cute as a button, you’ll love him.” Her small frame says nothing of her stride, and soon they’ve reached the stairwell. The steps and rails are metal, painted the same light blue as the walls. He thinks he can see stars all the way up, but that’s ridiculous. “Nothing’s ridiculous,” she says, poking him in the side with one of her long nails.

“Hn, you too?” She tilts her head away, toward the steps. “In Texas, I think someone tried to read my mind.”

She smiles, putting a hand in the small of his back and nudging him toward the stairs. “Well, I’ll tell him not to bother trying too hard-nothing very interesting in there.” When she laughs this time, he can’t help but join in. “Someone’ll meet you on the other side, Peter. Good luck.” It feels like she really means it, and the smile drops from her face a bit until he smiles himself.

“Thanks, I guess.” He settles a hand on the rail and it doesn’t push through. As he climbs the stairs, the air becomes colder, darker, until he isn’t aware of temperature or light at all. He stares up at the stars and barely sees them until the last step, when he’s tumbling up into the sky.

He was like you, once-a powerful man, a hero. It smashed through hair and flesh and bone and picked at your mind like a bird after worms. You’re not a hero because you saved anybody-you’re not a hero, you’re not a hero because you didn’t die for anything. You just got lucky.

Peter wakes up in a pile of bones. A spine digs into his spine and large, sun-bleached ribs curl around him, striping him with shadows. The sun itself is a blurry, bloody red, rolling over the horizon. He sits up and coughs until he pukes. Something black and solid lands in the puddle and swims in his vision before settling. It looks like a tooth, or a claw. He ought to pick it up, says a vestigial bone, sending shivers up along his back. Pick it up and hold it at the base, where his finger would hook perfectly around, then slink off into the wilderness of white and sand and red skies. There are lizards here, basking, ripening in the sun, squirmy lizards with tough hides but under the scales is tender meat-

Something rubs against his leg and he starts, tensing up so hard it fixes the pain his in neck. A kitten paws at his leg and stares up at him, in turns defiant and needy. He lifts it from the ground and folds it into the crook of his arm. Its small claws hook into his hospital gown and prick against his skin. It scents him and rumbles quietly. He wants to take it with him, carry it gently in his teeth and teach it to peel open a lizard’s skin with those claws. Sink them in at the joint of the neck and pull. It nuzzles his chest and chirrups in agreement.

“Hey! Hey! No piggy-backing!” A harsh, cawing voice splits the air and startles the kitten from his hold. It cleaves from the flesh and fabric on his chest as it pushes away, landing in a litter of bones, sending them skittering down a hill with a sound like sea on sand. Peter looks up and sees a dark bird swooping overhead. “Oh, it’s you-was wondering when you’d turn up.” It banks left and turns the other way, away from the rising gloom of the sun. “Well, come on,” it screeches, wheeling back to set the direction again. “This is no place for you.”

Frustration gives Peter the push he needs to lift off, bare feet finding no difference between the temperature of the bones and the air. It unsettles him, and he shivers as if cold. “Why am I here then?”

The bird twists its head to look over its wing at him. “Well, there’s always a sacrifice when Death gets involved.” If he didn’t know better, he’d think it was rolling its eyes at him.

“Death? You mean, that girl, she-“ The primal instincts hiss beneath his skin, as if he’d only spit up part of the animal inside. Another series of shudders as he wrestles his mind back from an edge, far deadlier than a thirty-storey drop. Now he understands what she meant about freaking out. He swallows his voice before it can pitch into hysterics, and concentrates on flying steadily. He is, after all, flying. The rest of this shouldn’t be such a shock. “So does she always laugh at guys in hospital gowns, or am I just lucky?”

“You’re lucky to be here,” it grumbles.

Once upon a time there were two brothers, and two fathers, but only one that mattered and it would never be enough. You don’t, you can’t understand, the responsibility of being older, the strange debt owed between parent and firstborn.

Once upon a time, there were two brothers, and the first always found a way to murder the second, whether he meant to or not. This is his only responsibility that matters.

His new escort introduces himself as Abel, a hint of a stutter in his voice that Peter politely ignores. “D’o you, ah, would you like some-some tea?” Peter nods warily and twists his hands in his lap, waiting on the couch. The man’s voice wavers through the house as he moves through the rooms. “Don’t, don’t you mind Matthew, he’s just not quite alright yet. But he will be, he will be. Do you take sugar or milk?” Peter’s thrown by the question and takes a moment to answer that he doesn’t want Abel to bother himself with either. “My-m-my brother likes it that way too,” he says, before disappearing again. Peter wishes his own brother was here-he’d know how to chat and charm and hold his cup properly. Alone, he feels unfinished and unclothed-the back of his gown shifts open and exposes his skin to the couch, roughing his face as he tucks it back in place.

“Um. How is he? Your brother,” he asks, not knowing what else to do.

“Oh he’s fine, just, fine. He lives next door, I could, well, I suppose I could invite him i-if you l-like.” Abel’s face wobbles for a moment, and Peter knows better than to take him up on the offer.

“That’s alright, he’s probably busy.” Abel nods and smiles at him. It’s sudden and strange and Peter hates to think he’s taking advantage of it, much of him unchanged underneath and wanting to put the man at ease. “Can you tell me anything about why I’m here?” He’d asked the bird-Matthew-on the way, but had only been told Death sent you here, so here you are. He doesn’t feel dead, but he doesn’t feel much of anything else either.

Abel looks down at his cup, the kettle in his other hand, as if he’s forgotten that he has to pour the tea. “I’m not. I’m not sure Cain would like if I told you.” Peter stares at him expectantly. “My brother, I mean-oh!” He fills the cups and takes the kettle back into the kitchen. “Sorry, so sorry, I just-“

“Hey, hey, it’s okay. Relax.” Peter holds out both hands until Abel sits down across from him. “Are you sure? I mean, I just flew here with a talking bird and I don’t even know where here is. Can you just tell me that, at least?” His head tilts until his mouth and nose conform to a straight line, then dips forward, widening his eyes, hair falling around his face to soften it. He knows how to do this much on his own, how to persuade people harmlessly.

Steam rises between them from the table, and Abel lifts the cup to feel it against his face. A deep breath calms him somewhat, and his dark eyes flick up from their swollen sockets to meet Peter’s. “Oh, well, that’s not a secret-you’re in the Dreaming.”

Second son, the moon said, shining softly over your untidy grave. Second son, do not hold this against him, for it is burden enough that he must hold you so dear he cannot let you live. And in the tree of knowledge a checkered bird spoke in your brother’s voice, a checkered bird said, I’m not leaving you, and you closed your eyes and slept until wet with mud and dew.

Peter sits forward, elbows on his knees and chin against his hands. Abel’s trousers don’t fit him very well, but they’re better than the hospital gown. “If this is a dream, how come I can’t dream up a belt,” he asks, prompting a nervous chortle from his host. Charming boy, pretty boy, something slices the back of his neck with a grin and the hairs rise, gooseflesh breaking out over his exposed back and arms.

“Oh, oh, well. It doesn’t really work that way, not quite. Well. Maybe now it would, things being so new.” Abel’s voice shrinks and drops into his cup, mumbling to himself about the possibilities. Peter chews his lip and waits for the man to finish. “It’s just a little too conscious, is all.”

“Oh,” Peter says, as if it all makes perfect sense. “Well, you don’t happen to have a belt, do you?” Abel laughs again, louder this time, and, ridiculous as it makes him feel, Peter’s glad of it. The man’s nerves are setting him on edge-they both jump when another voice enters the house.

“I’ve got one.” Abel’s mouth opens and closes, fish-gasping, soundless. The man in the doorway is tall and bespectacled, with a cruel slice of a body. His hair slicks back and fans out from his head, much like Abel’s, but giving Peter the impression of a vulture, wings crooked out as it descends upon a carcass. And indeed, a belt hangs from one of his large, bony hands. “Brother, I’m insulted.” He crosses his arms over his chest and lets the belt drag through the air. “You should know better than to keep secrets from me.” When he smiles, Peter and Abel stand at once, arms curved at their sides in loose defense.

Cain moves steadily into the room, eyes narrowed to peer through the glasses perched at the end of his nose. Perfect circles, flashing as they catch and throw the light with his steps. “C-c-c-ain! Cain, please, don’t-I have to watch him, I have to-“

“You have to stop keeping things from me. Abel, Abel.” His voice softens to a hiss. One of his hands slides over Abel’s cheek and settles against his neck. Peter can both recognize the gesture and predict its purpose, and it makes his stomach turn. “It hurts me,” Cain whispers, “when you won’t tell me things. Aren’t we brothers? Shouldn’t we be honest with each other? You know what it does to me, Abel.” He licks his teeth, he steadies his arm and lines it up at the wrist-

“Stop it.” Peter fits a hand around Cain’s shoulder, feels the muscle cleaved tightly to bone, feels it burn hot with anger before he’s shoved away and told to mind his own business. Stumbling, heels slipping on lacquered wood and the rug slides when he steps on it. Cain slips the belt around Abel’s throat and begins to tug; Peter hits the wall and falls into a pile of metal, fire-poker breaking skin and bone and the black of it fills everything.

Another black, his blood coughed onto the dirt as he wakes. The fence winds faintly around the yard and definitions of objects follow, outlines, shapes. “Comes in handy, doesn’t it,” Abel whispers, voice steady in the dark. Cain leans on a shovel next to a shallow grave, where Abel twitches and pushes a hand through the loose earth to find its edge. Wide-eyed and choking, Peter rolls away and runs for the fence, holding the hem of Abel’s trousers as he jumps it and cuts across another yard. Cain’s voice chases him, a harsh crowing that skitters over his skin like a swooping hawk missing its target.

“Hey kid, wait! Don’t you want the belt?”

The wolf breathed deep, deep enough that you could see the divots between his ribs underneath all the fur, practically standing on end. Bristled and hungry and blistering your skin with its stink. When he breathed out, his breath smelled like motel-soap, new plastic, and burnt leaves.

Straw stirs in the wind and tickles his face. From the outside, he’d seen a cave and run for it, no telling how near or far it was from the houses. The yards had seemed small compared to the sweeping expanses of field and forest, but it took as much time to clear both fences as it did to make his way through grass and trees. In Cain’s presence he’d pushed Nathan as far from his mind as possible, leaving him earthbound and alone. The inside of the cave is more like a barn, with a ladder at the back leading up into a loft. The walls are carved of rock and the floor a layer of warm sand, grey and mixed with dark lines of ash. Dried grasses line the entrance, he pushes himself up and dusts them from skin and trousers. Looking down at them, he remembers Abel and feels a stab of guilt-he shouldn’t have left him like that.

“Let a mother worry for her own children,” says the soft light above the ladder. Peter breathes sharply through his teeth and trails barefoot through the sand, cutting lines in it with his steps. Outside it’s started to rain, and a chill pervades the entrance, leading him forward. “Come up, if you please,” his hands already on the ladder. The light softens out its edges at the top, and he climbs up from the grey room into a furnished loft, wood floor and papered walls set in the back of the cave, supported by solid rock. In one wall is a fissure, a circle carved out of its widest part to let heat escape from some volcanic vent. A stove sits next to it, pipes disappearing into the same wall. There is a bed, a rug, and three chairs. “Sit down, dear.” A woman points to the seat across from her own, a comfortable arm-chair. Peter seats himself near the stove, a smaller chair carved from dark wood and cushioned in red velvet. “I trust you’ve had tea already?” He nods, feeling small and subdued in her presence. “Abel has always been a good host.” When she smiles, she appears slightly younger. Her face is smooth, but lined around the eyes and mouth. Dark hair frames her face and falls over her shoulders.

Peter can’t bring himself to speak. Her shadow splits in the lamplight and is thrown thrice against the wall, flickering and blurring against it. He feels like it’s covering him-not unpleasantly, but still overwhelming, still making him feel inexplicably shy. He’s afraid that if he tries to speak, he’ll blurt something inappropriate, or start babbling about what happened to Abel. What if Cain hurts him again, what if she doesn’t know? Yet, the warmth of the room presses against his skin and shushes him, puts a cool finger against his forehead and lips. He inhales shaky, exhales steady, and tries to meet her eyes. They’re fierce and maternal, earthy green ringed with glinting yellow from her lamp. “Would you like to hear a story,” she asks, tilting her head to the side. Her hair shifts away from her shoulder and glows copper and brown at the edges. He swallows, and nods. He remembers when he was young enough to be read to, and Nathan read him the law in its own language. It wasn’t like a story, though. It was like a book of magic: names, dates, instructions, and consequences.

“This is the first story man has ever known,” she begins, smoothing her hands over a thick skirt. Dark, rich blue over creamy linens, wrinkling under pale, naked fingers. “Not quite at the beginning, there was a young sun, escorted through the universe by nine planets. The third, beneath its layer of clouds, was made to dream.” When he closes his eyes he can see it, eight dead spheres in the vacuum of space, their scattering moons, a single planet coming alive in the filtered sunlight.

“Life began after the first eclipse. The moon cast its shadow on the earth, making it night for a full cycle, and the earth dreamed of water, land, plant, animal-right down to microscopic bacteria. These were the first weeks, and they were spent in darkness, and nightmares walked the land. The moon began to shift, and a sliver of the burning sun reached the earth. A garden grew in that sliver of light, and the nightmares retreated from it into the sea. In the final week, when man was created, he named the garden Eden.”

Peter nods, because he knows this part, he thinks-Adam and Eve, the serpent, the apple. The details are hazy to him now, but he doesn’t try to recover them. Somehow they don’t seem worth it, like they’d been watered down over time and he’s finally getting the truth, 100% proof and sharp enough to blind him.

“The eclipse ended, having served its purpose. Many cycles later it would halt again, shading the earth and letting her dream new changes into place. Flood, famine, migration, all spiraling from the land that first felt the sun. It was there that man created God, so he might communicate with the spirit of earth. God was made in man’s own image, with all the power man wanted for himself but wasn’t aware he could have. And man’s God named him Adam, and Adam’s God was put in charge of his species. Other Gods would join him in this task, but at first there was only God, impersonal, all encompassing, masculine. In return for his guidance, God asked only that Adam name the animals, whom he had no power over, and that he not eat from the tree of knowledge, of good and evil. God was young, and did not know his own power-he believed that Adam would not need him if he ate of the tree.

“As a man, Adam was glad to have a purpose-but as the story goes, this was not enough. He desired a companion, someone with whom to populate the earth as the animals had already done. He let this desire be known to his God, and his mother earth heard him. From the rock of a burning mountain she carved the first woman, dark of skin and hair, yellow of eye. The first woman went to Adam and he named her Lilith, after the owls that had nested above him while he slept, waiting for her. She was not touched by the sentiment, and cared little of Adam’s loneliness. When they made love she was rough, bestial, mocking. When he prayed to his God she laughed, knowing Adam’s God for what he was-the dream of a dream, even less than herself. Adam’s God grew angry, afraid, and persuaded the wolves to chase her from the garden.

“Adam despaired again, and the earth created another woman, one who might populate her lands without displeasing Adam’s God. She could not speak, nor lust, nor question. Adam did not name her, and indeed barely touched her from the moment of her creation to the moment she disappeared. Some say Lilith turned the wolves back into Adam’s garden, and they dragged the unnamed virgin into the wilderness.” What big teeth you have, Peter remembers, and the woman smiles, nods. She clasps her hands and rests them on her knees. “The earth had been overtly cautious-if the girl had been able to speak, she might have called out for help.

“Another eclipse occurred. The world and all things upon it went to sleep, and they dreamed. The earth stole one of Adam’s ribs and swallowed it for inspiration. This woman would be of man, and of the earth. She would be everything of the first two and more, and she would be of her own power, not subject to Adam or Adam’s God. When the sun rose the next day, it struck me in the face, and I opened my eyes, and I called myself Eve.”

The heat presses in and makes his head ache; he has to close his eyes again and the pain moves along his spine, to his gut. “So that,” he gasps, “So that’s how it really happened?” He leans forward, tumbling from the chair, hands locked around his stomach as he lands on the floor.

“It’s one version,” Eve answers calmly. Peter coughs and his blood sprinkles over the floor. He wants desperately to apologize, but his throat is full of something long, hard, and wet. Everything stretches for a moment, even the moment itself-and a rib slides into his mouth, dangles between his teeth, then falls onto the rug. He stares at it, then clutches his chest again. He can feel the space where it was, where it’s growing back into place. Eve leans over and picks the bone up from the floor. “Ah, so you’d like the rest?” Despite the pain, Peter finds himself nodding.

“That was, perhaps, the earth’s story. My own, from what I lived of it, is simpler-closer to what you’ve heard. I became Adam’s wife and learned the rules of his God. This is the part people forget most often-sin, in the Christian frame of mind, existed long before the earth did, and it would continue to exist whether man defined it or not. The serpent-an aspect of Lucifer, perhaps, or merely a serpent, told me to eat of the tree.” He listens from the floor, doubled over, back to the hot stove and front burning as it regenerates. He clenches his teeth, trying not to make a sound.

“But temptation had little to do with it. I did not need to eat the fruit of the tree-I had been made of the earth, and I knew plenty. I knew my own nakedness, I knew the great and smallness of God’s power. I knew of my two sisters, living and dying at the edges of my home. I did not want to eat of the tree, to complicate the life I had just been given, but the serpent smiled at me, and I knew that if I didn’t, it had two other sisters to lead to the tree. It had Adam, it had all the animals of the garden. If I did not eat of the tree, someone would, someone in whom its knowledge might be dangerous. Thus I ate, thus I bid Adam to eat, thus his God banished us from the garden.”

Now you know what it’s like, Peter hears, like catching someone’s thoughts, but it’s a new voice. Darker, deeper, softer. Like an owl. Eve stares at her hands, at his rib. “I miss him, sometimes.” Hoping he isn’t too forward, Peter puts a hand on her knee, feels the thinness of it, the delicate body under her clothes. She settles her own hand atop his, dry and warm, squeezing his fingers. The other runs through his hair, lifting it away from his face. “I’m alright, dear.

“People come and go, same as feelings.”

The mockingbird perched on the spine of a book-Grimm’s fairytales, gilded, illustrated text on faded paper that whispered against your hands. And when you looked at the words they stayed in place on the page, they made perfect sense-these are stories everyone knows. These are all the stories he never read to you, but somehow you learned them just the same.

“Take it,” she’d said, pushing the thick bundle at him. “It’s just an idea.” He didn’t know how to thank her, could barely speak between his raw throat and the cloying air of her person. Eve had only smiled, and tapped his rib against her bottom lip.

Peter flies along a series of stepping-stones, following their path through the air above a deep, dark ravine, stars visible above and below. The red cloak she’d pressed into his arms is warm and long, its edges trailing over the stones even as his feet fail to touch them. One hand keeps Abel’s pants from slipping down while the other holds the edges of the cloak closed over his body.

-Well met, said the wolf, nuzzling aside the cloth and taking a deep breath of human, hospital stink. Then rolled with an intoxicated glaze to chew at its leg, to pull out fur with the urgency of a junkie tapping out a vein. Thick lashes fell over yellow eyes, can’t look away, my what big teeth you have-

Little slut, the cat hissed, and sudden tears, but I didn’t know, but she did. Take off your dress you won’t be needing it any more. An awful story, and it’s true, it’s-

He falls onto the ground at the other side, tangled in the cloak and shivering. The shock passes; he pulls his head free and sits up to look around. Spit-foam in the corner of his mouth, he thumbs it away. A hind leaps onto the path and stares, then the braying of dogs chases it into the trees. A cat follows, blue-white in the night, bottle-green eyes flashing. Peter wonders if it is the predator or if something greater chases both. The better to see you with, said the wolf; Peter shivers again and is quick to find his feet, to keep moving along the path-away from that voice. Ne-ver have I e-ver, run with the de-vil, it singsongs. Three sharp smiles against the back of Peter’s neck, breaking him into a run.

You’re not very good at this game, it says.

Fire, fire! The mockingbird cried, the high, broken call of a woman with bubbles popping in her throat. You closed your eyes and smothered your ears until they’re red with cracking veins because you live in the city and you know what fire really is. It got inside anyway and you burned because no one did anything to stop him, I can’t control it, and the fire consumed.

Twenty, his throat burned and his vision blurred against the grey and yellow night. A sleek pursuer slinking up beside him, a peripheral spot of clarity that nearly broke him into a run, but at the corner he was cut off and the door opened. Maybe it was raining, maybe it was actually day. The only thing he remembers clearly is Nathan’s hands, everywhere, and Nathan’s voice, equally dispersed, “I don’t care what you do but I will never receive that phone call again, do you understand?” And he nodded, perhaps, and it began the time of hidden disasters.

A hoof nudges Peter’s head to the side and he stares up into a horse’s mouth. Spluttering, he rolls away. Three creatures regard him from their places around a tall gate, elegant with rust. The horse tilts its head toward him and flutters its wings. Peter knows better than to question them, by now. Behind it, a lion is seated on a rock, paws crossed over the front. An eagle’s head rises from the feline chest, and its own wings are tucked close to its body. Higher up on the rocks, a dragon steadies itself with leather appendages that look too small for flight, curving its neck over the gate to see along the path. He swallows, and looks behind him, wondering if he’s been chased into a trap.

“Have you business with the king,” whickers the horse. The edges of its wings flick at the air like a cat’s tail, and it stretches at the neck to sniff his hair. Dark eyes narrow at him, but it doesn’t voice the reason. Peter imagines that it’s as confused by his appearance as it is by theirs. Thoughtlessly, he raises a hand and strokes the soft nose with the flat of his palm.

“Your business,” snaps the eagle-lion. The horse dips its head as if nodding and steps away from Peter’s touch. He curls his empty hand in the edge of the cloak in its place. He addresses the dragon’s unwavering gaze, a mute middle-ground between the other two.

“The woman in the cave sent me,” she offered me an apple and I did not refuse, his eyes downcast and hidden by hood and hair. Behind the dull brown is a dull light, the muddy insights moving in and out and he’s just a filter. Burning at the edges while the universe takes a drag. Lashes bat away pinpoints and he raises his head, feels something grip his jaw and coax the words from his throat with pale fingers. “It is the king’s business, not mine, and he will not share it with you.” Paint in his throat, drying and flaking, Peter swallows and eyes the gatekeepers warily. A circle of hesitation, broken by the dragon’s voice.

“Then enter, child.” Condescension like a trade, a sullen, sulfur glow to green scales that arch and click with the movements of the creature’s neck. Peter gives the serrated head a wide berth as he passes. His hand divides the folds indelicately and grips the back of his neck.

There’s little ground to cover between the gate and the castle. The forefront looms, a juxtaposition of mathematic symmetry and organic shapes, ordered chaos pulling together nightmarish eyes, phalluses, and gargoyles into an understated beauty. In contrast, the structures beyond are sharp, crystalline; translucent with their own light. Peter’s heart beats dully against flesh and bone, blood pulsing a beat through his hollow spaces. The sound is like a heat-haze in the air, and the castle appears to beat with the same rhythm. He swallows his breath and holds it in his throat.

A sound like the rasp of feathers draws his attention from the castle. A tall, angular man blows his nose into a handkerchief before folding it and settling it neatly in his breast pocket. Though well dressed, he appears disheveled-sleeves rolled, shirt wrinkled and threadbare, trousers worn at the edges, hair pulled back like the crest of a strange bird. He tips his large glasses forward and stares over them at Peter when he catches him staring. “Mr. Petrelli, I presume?” He leans a rake against the courtyard wall and dusts his hands on his thighs. “I wasn’t able to find you with Abel, I would have escorted you otherwise.”

Peter nods, glancing sidelong at the man. He wonders if he saw Abel’s body in the shallow grave, or if Cain had buried him by then. He wonders if he ought to say something about it. “That’s uh, that’s alright. Eve gave me directions.” Now it’s the man’s turn to look at him sideways, walking up beside him and continuing, prompting him to follow. He reaches up and smoothes one of his long crests of hair, then rakes his hand down the middle. The hand rests on the back of his neck and rubs the skin there, then double back and thumbs the stubble along his jaw.

“She’s doing well, then,” the man asks.

“I guess. She seemed okay.” Peter doesn’t know her well enough to elaborate-doesn’t know enough about anything here to comment on it. “She took one of my ribs,” yet, he fingers the cloak as he says it, not quite complaining.

“That’s good. Lucky, even.” The man inspects something on the inside of the door, though Peter can’t see anything on the flat, green surface. Animals and eyes adorn the wall around it, a pair of horses leaping into a dragon’s wings. He runs a hand through his hair and forgets the man’s distracted half of the conversation as he mutters it. His voice fades in and out until he introduces himself, as if the name makes him more real. “I’m Lucien, I take care of the castle,” he explains, pausing to pull out a small black book and write something down. With a final glance at the door, he pockets the book and walks on. “Pardon the detour, but I must check the library. You’ve been missing for a bit and I have to juggle the schedule.”

Peter shrugs, pulling the hood down. He remembers his mother’s voice, thin with propriety, telling him not to wear his hats indoors, until he gave up on wearing them entirely. “What have I been scheduled for?”

“You said yourself, that’s the king’s business, isn’t it?” Lucien enters a long, blue room with a pool spanning most of the floor. A slim walkway stretches across it, but he edges along the sides and pulls a large ring of keys from an inner pocket of his coat. Fitting it into the wall, he opens a dark panel and steps inside. Following, Peter slips through the wall, into the largest room he’s ever seen. Shelves the height and breadth of skyscrapers rise from the hardwood floors, every space filled with books. Along the wall they entered through is a fenced in stretch of space, filled with paperbacks in neat piles. “There’ve been so many changes…. Those should be romance and thriller novels,” Lucien says with a nod. “Daydreams, mostly. Almost impossible to keep them all shelved-people leave them lying around like they aren’t worth the trouble. I have to keep them in bins, like rubbish.” He frowns, and pauses to adjust a row of books on the top of a pile. “They’re perfectly entertaining,” he huffs.

“I think I dated a girl like you in college,” Peter says, stepping back into himself now that he’s indoors, something like safe and not coughing body parts onto the floor. “She worked in the school’s library and didn’t like the lack of modern fiction.” What, you think we need a wall of Grisham and Steel novels?, the words chase each other in a circle

Lucien coughs. “Well, it’s just a character. Everyone’s dated a librarian in some capacity. Melanie Howard, for example-“ he picks up a book from another bin and taps the cover. The Bibliophile, by M. Howard. Peter bites his lip to hold in a smile. “Yet, she married a used car salesman and seems perfectly happy.”

“What about you?”

“Pardon?”

“Do you like being a librarian? Taking care of the castle, and all that?” Peter allows a hand to settle on the edges of the book-bins, running it along the smooth wood. Something about the place relaxes him-a library in its quintessential state, nothing but books and archives and artwork in the room. Even the lights, neither flame nor bulb, are soft without being dim. He nearly tenses again with curiosity, unable to put his finger on the matter. The only sounds are their footsteps, the rasp of his hand over wood, the creaking of wooden shelves. There is the nagging absence of a disconcerting sound. Something familiar and instinctively wrong.

“Well, I’ve never really thought about it. I do have a choice, and I do like to keep busy.” He shrugs, pausing to switch a several books around, shelved out of order. “Family,” Lucien mutters. “Have to go by first names instead of just throwing them all together. K before L, N before P.”

Electricity, Peter realizes. The hum of light bulbs and stinging buzz of wires in the walls. A natural silence.

“I don’t think it matters if I like it,” Lucien returns to the subject as they return to their path. “Someone took care of it before me, someone would take care of it if I didn’t. The castle is more important than what I like.

“Besides-what is a librarian without a library?” Lucien smoothes down a wrinkle on his shirt and trails a hand fondly along the shelves.

The hand on the back of your neck replaced with teeth, tugging you into the air, throwing you back to the ground and furred thighs lock around your hips, claws rooted to the ground and you could taste the earth turning coppery with your blood.

“Wait, don’t-“ Peter’s hand slaps uselessly against the door when Lucien closes it, leaving him in the hall with a tall, pale man. Keeping his body close to the wall, he turns his head to glare over his shoulder. The man smiles with his teeth and pulls off a pair of sunglasses. He smiles with both eyes, their teeth as even and white as the set in his mouth. “You’re the wolf, aren’t you?” His jaw tightens, fear churning hot in his belly.

The man laughs. “The wolf is more of a cheap imitation,” but the corner of one eye twitches like a wink. “Come on, I’ll take you the rest of the way.” He extends a hand in invitation, but Peter doesn’t take it, moving in a wary circle to the empty side of the hall. The man shakes his head with a chuckle, crossing both arms behind his back before leading Peter deeper into the castle.

“Nice cape,” he says after a while, conversational tone dissolving into a snicker when Peter rolls his eyes.

They are soon divided by a set of rails, turning sharply into the large hall and running through the center. Lush carpet springs up between the tracks, and while the lights slowly dim to nothing but a faint, yellow glow, the shining metal reveals the path. In the dark, the skin beneath the man’s eyes resembles the curve of a lower lip. One lip shifts and presses against a brow, and a muted, buzzing melody sifts quietly through the dark. “Vivaldi’s Four Seasons,” the man says, his eye still humming. “Winter’s always been my favorite.” The other eye closes and hums as well, filling in the gaps in the tune. Peter bites his lip and holds his breath, afraid to open his mouth lest something else find its way out of his stomach. “Don’t you think it’s a nice song?” He nods, though he knows he’s being teased.

A large door rises from the floor, blocking their path. The man stops humming, and lays an arm against it. “Boy,” he says, leaning his head on the door as well. “I’m not really on your side,” thrice smiling and turning to press his back to the shadows, “But I think you deserve a few warnings.

“There’s more than one wolf, boy, and they’re masters of disguise. You’ll look them in the eye and not know it.”

He sounds proud. “So you’re with them, then,” Peter remarks, crossing his arms beneath the cloak, body tensing in defense.

“I make them, I watch them. But I know better than to help them. Your kind keeps them in check, and I’ve learned the importance of that role. You think your kind is unnatural-but it’s still subject to natural law. Be careful with your family, Peter Petrelli, and have them be careful with you.”

Knee-jerk into a clenching gut; Peter narrows his eyes. “You leave them out of this-“

The man smiles, and smiles, and smiles, face stretching across hard bone.

“The king would like to see you now.”

She slipped through the door, naked and shivering in the twilight. Holding a finger to her lips, she took a loop of string and tied it to your finger. “Lend me your cloak,” she said. “You won’t be needing it anymore.”

As the moon rose sure and smooth into the sky, she disappeared into the forest, and a rough voice pulled you into the house.

Peter expects people in the king’s chambers; instead, he finds himself face to face with the carvings of a stone base, supporting a trio of figures, arches rising from their hands. In the center arch is a portrait of a masked man in stained glass, the moon at the tip set perfectly against the moon in the sky beyond, its light shining between the dark lines. Shallow steps lead in and out of shallow pools, onto slight rises set with potted plants and furniture. The floor is covered in large blue tiles-they look like marble until inspected closely, when the faint lines and swirls become a mosaic of sand. Peter trails a finger over it and the pattern changes; he stands quickly and hopes no one notices.

“It’s meant to do that,” a chuckling voice informs him. Peter squares his shoulders and takes a step back when he identifies the source. A pale stretch of a man reclines against the stone flank of a sphinx, one hand resting idly on the head. Bound and robed in white, he gives the impression of an Arabian prince and warrior, shifting like the stars that glitter in the shadows of his vestments.

“Are you the king, then?” He asks, arms folding, hair hanging into his face.

The stars shift and roll into a single, vast light, leaving spots to dance at the edges of his vision. “You may call me Dream,” and the spots clear when the king smiles, revealing a change, something modern and casual that flickers in the light. The name feels strange on his tongue, like a favor. He’s half a foot taller than Peter, though he knows that is only so in the moment-on a whim, perhaps, he could fit in Dream’s hand. The thought is comforting and terrifying, like the soft sway of a hammock over a narrow canyon. Dream descends, still looming slightly, and raises a hand to tuck Peter’s bangs behind his ears. “I see you’ve met several obstacles on your way. I trust they were enlightening.”

“Yeah,” Peter says, tilting his head away from the touch. “If enlightenment’s supposed to give you more questions.”

“It is,” Dream answers shortly. He laughs again, a strange sound that echoes through the hall without touching anything, possessing more substance within Peter’s mind than through his ears. The back of his neck itches with raised hairs, but he keeps his arms crossed and fists his hands in the cloak. Dream tilts his head, as if hurt by Peter’s lack of amusement. “I suppose I should apologize for the journey. It’s very hard to pull someone out of a dream like the one you were in. Perhaps Death was not the best one for the task.”

Peter tugs at the cloth in his grip like a child twisting a blanket. “Did you kill me?” He thinks about Eve and her children, about the wolves and volcanic ash. For a moment, Hell settles on the horizon of his vision and he swallows around a lump in his throat. Gagging, he tilts forward as if bowing his head in prayer, and coughs a wet ball of hair into Dream’s hand. Holding his stomach, he takes a long, thin breath.

“Ah, there’s the last of it,” Dream says encouragingly, patting him on the shoulder. “You are not dead, Peter, merely asleep. You are still in the hospital, heart beating regularly, dreaming up possibilities.” Peter can feel it again, the weight of his body against the thin mattress. The way the frame presses against him from beneath it. Not quite solid, but sturdy. Strange, slim hope for a tried and tired mind. “I am sure you‘ve more questions,” Dream adds, settling a hand around Peter’s elbow. “Come, sit for awhile, and we shall talk. The wolves can’t find you here.” If he didn’t know better-and he doesn’t-Peter would assume the man was teasing. Mocking or sincere, the words put him at ease, as if he’d been waiting for someone to say them since his arrival. Since he leapt from the edge of that stadium and woke up alone, a puddle of his own blood and a young girl retreating.

Dream leads him to the edge of a pool and bids him to rest his feet on its steps. “Seems kind of funny,” he remarks, voice reaching out again, a hand that has been grasping and finally finds its hold, a child that finally finds the right skirt and shoes in a crowd.

“Yes?”

“Being tired in a dream.” The water is cool and clear, cutting a sharp line against his ankles, light filtering blue and electric over his skin.

Dream smiles and crosses his arms against his knees. “Well, it is certainly possible-it’s why I brought you here, really. They’ve been exhausting you with that vision.” Another question bubbles under the surface of Peter’s skin, soft and predictable. “The Carrion Kind,” Dream answers. “A sacrifice was performed to free you of them for a while.” He gestures with the ball of hair, then opens his other hand to reveal the claw from the desert. “I believe your kind would call them scavengers. They tread slightly out of time, and they seem to be filtering it through your dreams.”

“So I’m seeing the future. And the others-the explosion is still going to happen?” Peter wonders if he should go back, hide in the forest between the desert and castle, remain asleep until the election has passed. What harm could he do in a hospital bed? But the king shakes his head, and lays a hand on Peter’s shoulder.

“It is only a dream, Peter. It is only an idea of the future-and you can neither stop it, nor bring it to fruition while you remain here. You are dreaming, but time does not stop.” Peter arches a brow. “Ah, you think you’ve seen it happen? Misinterpretation, Peter. Time does not stop, it does not slow down. It is a constant, and you would do well to keep that in mind. Your friend is treading on the grounds of the Carrion Kind, and they are beasts.”

Nodding, Peter curls his toes against the thin edge of the step, watching slight ripples move and die on the water’s surface. “What do they want with me, then? Do they want the explosion to happen?”

“They want you to believe the explosion will happen. For what gain, I could only guess. You are dreaming of deaths-what do you think a scavenger feeds upon?” Peter focuses his gaze beyond Dream, studying the design of a large urn. Cats stalk a hunter through his own territory, between twirling, twining knots of ink. A soft tug pulls him back, white hand releasing red cloth. “My predecessor knew them better than I; but he wouldn’t have bothered with you.” A smile flits across Dream’s mouth, the barest hint of white teeth behind white lips. He purses them a moment later, then dips a bound foot into the pool, tracing disturbances that migrate to its edges. “Perhaps I am wrong to do so in his place.”

Teeth on the back of his neck, scraping over raised hairs, roughing the skin to pink and peel. Peter shakes his head against the intrusion, and Dream nods. “Perhaps not.”

He stretches his legs out over the water, the soles of his feet skimming the surface. “Your life is very small, and your people subject to all manner of forces. The Carrion Kind, time, your own gods. I was one of you, briefly. I often forget, as I should. But there’s something my predecessor learned, before he died-it is wrong to toy with your kind, wrong to use you for any gain. These forces exist for your kind, for each other. We serve a purpose, as do you, and to deviate from it is to break the only law from which there is no pardon.” Dream lifts head and hand, watching Peter’s face as he links their fingers, nails digging into knuckle, half-moons that shine pale and green.

“Now I will tell you what to do, Peter Petrelli.” The claw is sharp against his palm, the hair sticks and bristles like a brush. “I went to great lengths to grant you this mercy. Perhaps from a lingering memory of my stay on your planet. I was human, for a time; I like to think my predecessor was a star-dying, reforming. Both can dream, both can shape reality. Everything that dreams has power, and everything that dreams is connected. You are connected to the Carrion Kind, but they are the scavengers, and their power is weak among the living.

“Return to your dreams, Peter, and make of them what you will.”

Peter tilts his head back, eyes narrowed skeptically. “But won’t someone else blow it all up, if I don’t? Isn’t that what everyone’s been saying?”

“You haven’t control over anyone else. You have control of yourself and you have the responsibility to act accordingly.” Dream opens his arms and motions for Peter to step forward with slim fingers. “It is true that things are accomplished without our interference, but we should never use it as an excuse to not try.”

Somewhat cowed, Peter shuffles near, and raises his head to watch the dream king’s face, as wary as he is relaxed. When he smiles, his teeth are as bright and otherworldly as the eyes of the wolf-maker, and his face is like an empty canvas, waiting for an artist to paint the rest of the expression. The stars in his eyes flash green and white, setting hair and claw ablaze, lime-scented flames licking across Peter’s skin. He wants to thank him, but his voice is hot and thin in his throat, a wheeze of hazy air that sticks his bangs to his forehead. The cloak catches quickly, consuming him in a sudden blaze.

“Don’t worry.” The voice is thick, disembodied, echoing against his skull. “You won’t be needing it anymore.”

The fire popped, crackled, threw black ash on the blackened walls. You laid down with the wolves.

Once upon a time Nathan was a boxer. He fought his fellow man and sometimes won, if he wanted it enough. The ship swayed beneath them and he moved with it, giving in to vertigo when it let him dodge the next blow. Once upon a time, it didn’t, and hard knuckles tore open chin and lip, and he tasted his own blood.

In New York Peter spat out his steak. It tasted absolutely raw.

He sits up with the same taste in his mouth, spits his brother’s blood and saliva on the street, and moves. Jerked and half-strung as a puppet-free hand in his pocket and bleeding all over a claw. Run it over the cars and scratch his name into their sides, melt the metal and paint the town silver. He’s had enough of red. Shadows gather in the traffic and dance between, ride the steam under the streets, skip along the sun like stones on a pond. Sudden eclipse; the world dreams as it turns, and life goes on in the dark.

Both hands in a crack of light, pulling it open, his body splitting in half to release the fire in his middle. Edges like teeth lashing out at the world and the world lashes back-Nathan marching as if into battle, straight and grim like a defiant blade of dune grass standing against a hurricane. Lit in greys.

I can’t control it-

The fire conforms to the wind in a bushed tail of light, clouds blushing as they pass. Peter watches the line of Nathan’s jaw, head tucked against his shoulder, Nathan’s fingers digging hard into his neck. Light, he thinks. Nothing but light. Cold air on their faces, under their clothes, and Nathan’s flesh unmarked, cleaved to bone, so long as he wills it. A future he can believe in.

Little slut, the mockingbird hissed.

The wolf turned over, said, what big teeth you have-

And you ate him.