plane between: chapter seven
Fandoms: Stuff ZQ was in
Summary: What happened after Quinto Formaggi. Sylar refuses to stay dead, everyone wishes he would, and a pseudo-omnipotent being named Q really isn't helping at all.
Words: 2,650
Quinto Formaggi Plane Between: Chapter 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6
VII: the needs of the many.
9, Adam thinks, and can think no further. The number burns itself into his mind and overtakes all thought; numb, he stares at the wall and the message on it, the words losing meaning with each mental repetition.
You Have 9 Minutes to Save Them
You Have 9 Minutes to-
"Adam."
-Save Them -
"Adam!" Sasan grabs his shoulders from the front with uncharacteristic roughness born out of fear. "Snap out of it. We don't have time."
Adam blinks, tries to force his brain back into motion. Peripherally, he's once again aware of the others in the cells. There are six. Individual humans only when he concentrates; otherwise an indistinctive mass of homogenous people that he on some level knows he's a part of and yet not…
The voices have started again, a panicked mass of questions and curses and terrified, confused cries rising from behind the bars-
"What the fuck is going on here?"
"I'm no one important… why am I locked up, what is this place-"
From the back: "HEY! Can you let us out of here?"
Leo is at the first cell, desperately but uselessly running his hands down the bars; there is no lock that he can see, although there is a hinge for the gate to swing open and a line where it meets the rest of the cell.
He looks up, rushed. "There's no lock-"
Smudge has hobbled his way to over to another, grabbing the bars for support. "Tony?"
Wry smile. "Hey, Smudge. Your turn to save my life, huh?"
"You… you know each other?" someone babbles from the next cell.
"Yeah," Tony says nonchalantly.
"How? Did you… did you meet before, did this happen before? How did you get out that time? Why am I here now-"
"Shut up, Louis. No one knows anything."
"But you know each other-"
On the other side of the corridor, Sasan pushes Adam against the stretch of wall between two cells. His head falls back; looking up, Adam sees the descending spikes. He just keeps staring.
"This is not a good time to blank out on us," Sasan is saying. "Adam! Look at me. Snap out of it. Now."
"We can't do anything," Adam hears himself say listlessly. "It's all part of the game. They're going to die."
"No. No, they're not. We have nine minutes, and we're going to use them. There has to be a way. And if you stop being all shell-shocked then maybe we can figure it out."
"There'll just be something else," Adam says. "It could go on forever. They're just playing with us. We're as good as dead. Like everyone else in here-"
Another flurry of shouting. Adam winces; wishes they would stop; wishes he could shut it all out-
"Eight minutes," Leo says, coming over. "Look, maybe if we all grab one gate and pull-"
Adam slides down against the wall, his face in his hands.
"Adam!" Sasan yells.
Smudge tugs on the gate to Tony's cell. Leo comes over and grabs on, Sasan joining him.
"On three," Leo says. "One, two, three-"
They pull, but the gate doesn't budge.
On the ground, Adam shakes with quiet sobs.
*
You can't leave yourself.
Mike trembles on his bed, trying to quiet his breathing; for the sound of his irregular gasps for air makes him think that that's the exact same thing that Sylar hears when, out of breath from a chase, he corners his victim and delivers the final strike. And when he swallows, the movement at the back of his throat feels the same; as does the resonance of his voice inside his head when he speaks.
Mike tightens his clutch on the pillow. Some part of his mind wants to comfort him and lay him to rest in a different world, cleansing him and assuring him that he is good and his existence hurts no one. But then come the memories of Kenselton Hotel and the knowing, sly hostility from behind horn-rimmed glasses, and the overt hate from strangers he's never met, and the three men forcing blood from his body with each blow as they shout, egged on by his screams and pleads to stop, because they see he's just like him-
Mike's legs knot up the comforter on his bed.
-because, on some level, he is. There's an unwanted kinship forever there, born of physicality and the shared lived experience of a virtually-identical body. They've seen through the same eyes, heard through the same ears, navigated the world with the same overly-long legs and explored similar nasal cavities with wandering fingers. Physically, the same things hurt. The same things feel good. The same tongue runs over the same teeth and counts them just as well, or badly. And that deepest, private intimacy is something they would always share and Mike would never be able to stop feeling violated by-
The others. The others get it too. You're not alone.
You're one of them.
Mike opens one eye, the other left shut against his pillow. He makes out his forearm and the downy hair running across its surface, not yet fully grown. Beyond that: his bedroom door.
The door. That's a good thing to concentrate on, a safe thing, and Mike slips his mind into a forced tranquillity.
Nothing else matters. Just the door. And what it signifies: home. He's home. He doesn't need to think about the other things. He doesn't need to think about Sylar. He doesn't exist here. He never did. He has no place here. He doesn't exist…
Mike closes his eyes again.
He doesn't exist.
*
"All right," Dem says. "What's this."
"Waffles," Sylar explains dangerously, which - much like frowning at a cupcake or looking sadly at a sandwich - is not an easy feat.
"There's no time for lunch," Dem says. "Go find your friends and torment them. Go!"
"But I'm hungry."
"You're also," Dem says, squeezing a bit of maple syrup into a convenient container he takes out from a pocket, "immortal. Missing one meal isn't going to kill you."
"What would I gain from going after them? They're weak. There's no challenge. Give me back the maple syrup."
Dem gives him back the maple syrup.
"Thank you."
"How are the waffles?" Dem asks Sylar.
Sylar raises an eyebrow.
"Not that that's relevant," Dem says. "You're going."
And before Sylar can protest, Dem grabs him and teleports.
*
Zach forces himself to be civil and tries to ignore the fact that Michael Paul David makes him extremely uncomfortable. For a moment, he finds himself wishing Sylar were there instead. Then he remembers that he likes being alive and doesn't like having his hats made fun of, and so he changes his mind.
He wonders if it should be a good thing that Michael appears equally uncomfortable with him.
Some customer comes in. Zach moves unasked to the back room and sits among the boxes feeling awkward, hearing bits of conversation through the door.
He wishes he had his iPhone with him. Then he realises that it probably wouldn't be able to connect to his universe's internet even if he had.
He composes hypothetical Twitter messages to pass the time.
strange places. familiar faces. all a dream. or is it?
*
"I don't think brute force is going to work," Sasan says. "There has to be another way-"
He lets go of the bars and steps back, eyes sweeping the ceiling and the cells, and then the back wall with its message; and below that-
There's a circle drawn on the wall.
"What's that?" he asks, sprinting over, turning to add a quick: "Smudge, stay there." Leo follows after.
The wall is white, the circle drawn on in thin black. Sasan touches it; and his finger goes through.
Something brushes against his finger and he yanks it out with a cry as he feels a sharp nip of pain.
"SAS!"
"Stay there, Smudge!" Sasan shouts, as he sees him about to hurtle over. He grimaces, grabbing his finger with his free hand. A bead of blood is forming on the tip. He wipes it off; there's a tiny gash there, and he presses it against his thumb to stop the bleeding. "I'm okay," he tells Smudge, who looks about ready to permanently murder whatever it was that dared to hurt his beloved Sasan. "It's just a cut. Just stay there. Don't walk."
"What's going on?" Smudge calls out.
"Stay there."
Smudge stubbornly limps forward.
"Smudge-"
"Hey, the bisexual guy asked a question," a greasy-looking fellow says. "What's going on?"
Smudge stops. "WHO TOLD YOU I'M BISEXUAL?"
"…You're kidding me, right?" Louis asks. "You came in and everyone's bi-dar exploded-"
Smudge glares at him and continues on.
Leo looks uncertainly at Sasan. "What was that?" he asks quietly.
"There's… something in there," Sasan says. He swallows. "Something alive. Smudge! I told you to-"
"I'm not leaving you," Smudge says fiercely.
Sasan gives in. They stare at the circle.
"It won't be here for no reason," Leo says.
"I think… one of us has to stick a hand in," Sasan says. "There might be a button or lever or-"
"Sacrifice," Leo says, looking at Sasan's finger. "Maybe it's a flesh-eating carnivore."
Silence.
"Uh, guys," Peter says. "Seven minutes…"
"Maybe Adam's right," Leo continues, ignoring Smudge. "We're all going to die anyway."
"We don't have a choice, do we?" Sasan asks Leo, his face pale. "I guess I… could…"
"Could what?" Smudge demands.
They look at him.
"What if you stick your hand in and it eats it up, huh?" Smudge asks, looking Sasan straight in the eye with overprotective concern. "Then what?"
Leo silently steps forward, pulls off his sweater and wraps it around his hand. He regards the circle, takes a breath, and-
"I'll do it."
He turns. Adam stands there, holding out his hand.
Leo hesitates, then unravels the sweater from his hand and passes it over. Adam wraps his hand up.
"It's all right, you don't have to-"
"It's a game," Adam replies shortly. "We have to play it."
He looks at the circle, steels himself, and plunges his hand in.
And screams.
Shouts of concern from the cells. Adam falls to his knees, Leo grabbing him-
Inside the wall, bleeding fingers stretch out and find a lever. And pull.
A ka-chunk resonates through the corridor as the cell doors swing open-
Adam yanks his arm out, covered in tattered cloth and tattered flesh, gasping for breath through tears of pain;
He falls to the ground; through the descending fog in his brain he is aware of the others rushing over; the message vanishing from the wall; a doorway opening up; and the unnaturally-long legs of concerned strangers looming over them-
"Teeth," Adam gasps out. "So many… eating…"
"Don't look at it," someone named Jason says, crouching over him. "That'll just make it worse-"
Adam looks, nonetheless. He makes out the dull white of bone amidst the shredded flesh and muscle and skin, and squeezes his eyes shut against sobs. The voices rise and fall over him, near indistinguishable from one another:
Louis: "Should we amputate?"
Peter: "Are you a doctor?"
Louis: "No, but-"
Peter: "We've got to stop the bleeding… just put pressure on the wound…"
Mitchell: "Which one?"
Jason: "Oh god there's so much blood-"
Jay: "If you do a tourniquet it'll stop but he probably lose his arm-"
Sasan: "He works with computers, and I really don't think he'll want to compromise his ability to use the keyboard."
Adam feels hands grasping along his arm, and hopes whoever it is knows what they are doing and has fingers that are relatively clean.
Jason: "I think if you don't he could lose his life. That's kind of an awful way of repaying him after he essentially saved us-"
Peter: "No tourniquets. That's a last resort."
Leo: "Adam, you still there?"
Smudge: "It looks like he's still breathing-"
Peter: "Look, can everyone stop crowding around?"
"…We're his friends," Leo says shortly. "Who are you?"
Brief silence.
"…You've got to stop the bleeding at least; I mean that's how people kill themselves, they slit their wrists, and this is definitely way more than-"
"Louis, shut up. You talk too much."
"Go stand in a corner and think about your life."
A grin.
"Tony."
"Jay."
Handshake.
More talking. Adam feels someone wrapping his arm tight in a shirt and someone else pressing firmly down in the middle of his upper arm. The voices merge together into one, and then he blacks out into cool oblivion.
"Keep his arm up. Above heart level; it'll reduce blood loss."
"I'm not touching th-"
Leo takes it.
"Hey guys, there's a room here," Louis says, having come back from exploring the doorway after realising his presence was unappreciated. "And, uh, I think the door's closing. We'd better move."
The door is closing; descending slowly from the ceiling to shut off the doorway, and soon a couple of them have scooted through in panic, acting in accordance to the unexamined rule that if a door is closing, it probably means you should get in there quick.
"What if we're meant to stay here?" Smudge asks.
"I don't think there's anywhere else to go," Sasan says, looking as though he'd be on the other side right now if not for not wanting to leave Leo to deal with Adam.
"Run out and check," Leo says, and Sasan duly dashes out.
He's back in the maze, though it's not much of one. And as the doors close behind him and leave him in the moonlit darkness with a single streetlamp in sight, he's suddenly afraid. Sasan looks back into the lighted building, tells himself out loud to stop being a coward, and forces his legs on.
He stops, and turns back, deciding to see if that way is truly blocked. It is; the building takes up the width of the path. Sasan peers hesitantly at the hedges, but can't see anything past them. Maybe if they climb over…
There's no time.
He runs, backtracking their path, playing perky Iranian songs in his head to distract him from the darkness. Past another streetlamp, turning the corner… dead end.
Sasan stands there for a while, and then as the thought strikes him, takes out his ITDT.
It's lighted up again.
And on the screen:
Home. :)
And a countdown. 10. 9. 8. 7…
Sasan stares numbly at it.
6. 5.
Smudge, he suddenly thinks. You can't just leave him and go home.
Sasan forces the ITDT back into his pockets and dashes back.
Leo meets him halfway, yelling at him to hurry.
"The door's closing. Any other way out?"
"There's nothing," Sasan says, and they run back to the building.
Smudge is standing in the corridor, looking jittery, his face lighting up with relief as he sees Sasan, and Leo yells at him to move, why is he still standing there, and Smudge starts limping towards the door which is almost closed, anxious faces peering through from the other side, and Leo and Sasan half-carry Smudge over and push him through the door, and Sasan rolls in and Leo follows after-
-and the door shuts with a clunk.
On the floor, Smudge hugs Sasan. "…I thought you weren't coming back."
Sasan kisses his neck. "I'll always come back."
Some of the others are staring, uncomfortably.
"Are they…" Peter starts.
"Yeah," Leo says, getting off the floor to see if Adam is still alive.
"…that's just wrong," Peter says.
"Yeah," Jason adds nervously. "It's not the gay thing, it's the… other thing…"
Smudge pulls away from Sasan and glares at them. "What other thing?"
Awkward silence.
"SO!" Tony says too-loudly from the other end of the relatively tiny room, which for some reason says 'AIRLOCK' in painted letters on the wall. "What's on the other side of this airlock?"
*
CHAPTER EIGHT >>
Notes:
1) I'll be leaving tomorrow for the US, where I'll be studying in the University of Oregon for six months. Before term starts I'll be busy with my parents on an extremely short trip to San Francisco and general settling in and dealing with administration stuff, and I'm not sure when I'd next be able to have access to the Internet. If all goes well, I should be back online by 2nd January when I move into the dorms, though I don't know if I'd have the next chapter up by then. Although 15 hours on a plane is a really long time and fic occasionally happens, though this might depend on who is sitting next to me and if they are prone to suspicious staring...
2) mount_seleya wrote this absolutely amazing comment fic about the naming of Smudge that you need to read. :D
3) For those of you who celebrate it, Merry Christmas. :)
Summary: What happened after Quinto Formaggi. Sylar refuses to stay dead, everyone wishes he would, and a pseudo-omnipotent being named Q really isn't helping at all.
Words: 2,650
Quinto Formaggi Plane Between: Chapter 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6
VII: the needs of the many.
9, Adam thinks, and can think no further. The number burns itself into his mind and overtakes all thought; numb, he stares at the wall and the message on it, the words losing meaning with each mental repetition.
You Have 9 Minutes to Save Them
You Have 9 Minutes to-
"Adam."
-Save Them -
"Adam!" Sasan grabs his shoulders from the front with uncharacteristic roughness born out of fear. "Snap out of it. We don't have time."
Adam blinks, tries to force his brain back into motion. Peripherally, he's once again aware of the others in the cells. There are six. Individual humans only when he concentrates; otherwise an indistinctive mass of homogenous people that he on some level knows he's a part of and yet not…
The voices have started again, a panicked mass of questions and curses and terrified, confused cries rising from behind the bars-
"What the fuck is going on here?"
"I'm no one important… why am I locked up, what is this place-"
From the back: "HEY! Can you let us out of here?"
Leo is at the first cell, desperately but uselessly running his hands down the bars; there is no lock that he can see, although there is a hinge for the gate to swing open and a line where it meets the rest of the cell.
He looks up, rushed. "There's no lock-"
Smudge has hobbled his way to over to another, grabbing the bars for support. "Tony?"
Wry smile. "Hey, Smudge. Your turn to save my life, huh?"
"You… you know each other?" someone babbles from the next cell.
"Yeah," Tony says nonchalantly.
"How? Did you… did you meet before, did this happen before? How did you get out that time? Why am I here now-"
"Shut up, Louis. No one knows anything."
"But you know each other-"
On the other side of the corridor, Sasan pushes Adam against the stretch of wall between two cells. His head falls back; looking up, Adam sees the descending spikes. He just keeps staring.
"This is not a good time to blank out on us," Sasan is saying. "Adam! Look at me. Snap out of it. Now."
"We can't do anything," Adam hears himself say listlessly. "It's all part of the game. They're going to die."
"No. No, they're not. We have nine minutes, and we're going to use them. There has to be a way. And if you stop being all shell-shocked then maybe we can figure it out."
"There'll just be something else," Adam says. "It could go on forever. They're just playing with us. We're as good as dead. Like everyone else in here-"
Another flurry of shouting. Adam winces; wishes they would stop; wishes he could shut it all out-
"Eight minutes," Leo says, coming over. "Look, maybe if we all grab one gate and pull-"
Adam slides down against the wall, his face in his hands.
"Adam!" Sasan yells.
Smudge tugs on the gate to Tony's cell. Leo comes over and grabs on, Sasan joining him.
"On three," Leo says. "One, two, three-"
They pull, but the gate doesn't budge.
On the ground, Adam shakes with quiet sobs.
*
You can't leave yourself.
Mike trembles on his bed, trying to quiet his breathing; for the sound of his irregular gasps for air makes him think that that's the exact same thing that Sylar hears when, out of breath from a chase, he corners his victim and delivers the final strike. And when he swallows, the movement at the back of his throat feels the same; as does the resonance of his voice inside his head when he speaks.
Mike tightens his clutch on the pillow. Some part of his mind wants to comfort him and lay him to rest in a different world, cleansing him and assuring him that he is good and his existence hurts no one. But then come the memories of Kenselton Hotel and the knowing, sly hostility from behind horn-rimmed glasses, and the overt hate from strangers he's never met, and the three men forcing blood from his body with each blow as they shout, egged on by his screams and pleads to stop, because they see he's just like him-
Mike's legs knot up the comforter on his bed.
-because, on some level, he is. There's an unwanted kinship forever there, born of physicality and the shared lived experience of a virtually-identical body. They've seen through the same eyes, heard through the same ears, navigated the world with the same overly-long legs and explored similar nasal cavities with wandering fingers. Physically, the same things hurt. The same things feel good. The same tongue runs over the same teeth and counts them just as well, or badly. And that deepest, private intimacy is something they would always share and Mike would never be able to stop feeling violated by-
The others. The others get it too. You're not alone.
You're one of them.
Mike opens one eye, the other left shut against his pillow. He makes out his forearm and the downy hair running across its surface, not yet fully grown. Beyond that: his bedroom door.
The door. That's a good thing to concentrate on, a safe thing, and Mike slips his mind into a forced tranquillity.
Nothing else matters. Just the door. And what it signifies: home. He's home. He doesn't need to think about the other things. He doesn't need to think about Sylar. He doesn't exist here. He never did. He has no place here. He doesn't exist…
Mike closes his eyes again.
He doesn't exist.
*
"All right," Dem says. "What's this."
"Waffles," Sylar explains dangerously, which - much like frowning at a cupcake or looking sadly at a sandwich - is not an easy feat.
"There's no time for lunch," Dem says. "Go find your friends and torment them. Go!"
"But I'm hungry."
"You're also," Dem says, squeezing a bit of maple syrup into a convenient container he takes out from a pocket, "immortal. Missing one meal isn't going to kill you."
"What would I gain from going after them? They're weak. There's no challenge. Give me back the maple syrup."
Dem gives him back the maple syrup.
"Thank you."
"How are the waffles?" Dem asks Sylar.
Sylar raises an eyebrow.
"Not that that's relevant," Dem says. "You're going."
And before Sylar can protest, Dem grabs him and teleports.
*
Zach forces himself to be civil and tries to ignore the fact that Michael Paul David makes him extremely uncomfortable. For a moment, he finds himself wishing Sylar were there instead. Then he remembers that he likes being alive and doesn't like having his hats made fun of, and so he changes his mind.
He wonders if it should be a good thing that Michael appears equally uncomfortable with him.
Some customer comes in. Zach moves unasked to the back room and sits among the boxes feeling awkward, hearing bits of conversation through the door.
He wishes he had his iPhone with him. Then he realises that it probably wouldn't be able to connect to his universe's internet even if he had.
He composes hypothetical Twitter messages to pass the time.
strange places. familiar faces. all a dream. or is it?
*
"I don't think brute force is going to work," Sasan says. "There has to be another way-"
He lets go of the bars and steps back, eyes sweeping the ceiling and the cells, and then the back wall with its message; and below that-
There's a circle drawn on the wall.
"What's that?" he asks, sprinting over, turning to add a quick: "Smudge, stay there." Leo follows after.
The wall is white, the circle drawn on in thin black. Sasan touches it; and his finger goes through.
Something brushes against his finger and he yanks it out with a cry as he feels a sharp nip of pain.
"SAS!"
"Stay there, Smudge!" Sasan shouts, as he sees him about to hurtle over. He grimaces, grabbing his finger with his free hand. A bead of blood is forming on the tip. He wipes it off; there's a tiny gash there, and he presses it against his thumb to stop the bleeding. "I'm okay," he tells Smudge, who looks about ready to permanently murder whatever it was that dared to hurt his beloved Sasan. "It's just a cut. Just stay there. Don't walk."
"What's going on?" Smudge calls out.
"Stay there."
Smudge stubbornly limps forward.
"Smudge-"
"Hey, the bisexual guy asked a question," a greasy-looking fellow says. "What's going on?"
Smudge stops. "WHO TOLD YOU I'M BISEXUAL?"
"…You're kidding me, right?" Louis asks. "You came in and everyone's bi-dar exploded-"
Smudge glares at him and continues on.
Leo looks uncertainly at Sasan. "What was that?" he asks quietly.
"There's… something in there," Sasan says. He swallows. "Something alive. Smudge! I told you to-"
"I'm not leaving you," Smudge says fiercely.
Sasan gives in. They stare at the circle.
"It won't be here for no reason," Leo says.
"I think… one of us has to stick a hand in," Sasan says. "There might be a button or lever or-"
"Sacrifice," Leo says, looking at Sasan's finger. "Maybe it's a flesh-eating carnivore."
Silence.
"Uh, guys," Peter says. "Seven minutes…"
"Maybe Adam's right," Leo continues, ignoring Smudge. "We're all going to die anyway."
"We don't have a choice, do we?" Sasan asks Leo, his face pale. "I guess I… could…"
"Could what?" Smudge demands.
They look at him.
"What if you stick your hand in and it eats it up, huh?" Smudge asks, looking Sasan straight in the eye with overprotective concern. "Then what?"
Leo silently steps forward, pulls off his sweater and wraps it around his hand. He regards the circle, takes a breath, and-
"I'll do it."
He turns. Adam stands there, holding out his hand.
Leo hesitates, then unravels the sweater from his hand and passes it over. Adam wraps his hand up.
"It's all right, you don't have to-"
"It's a game," Adam replies shortly. "We have to play it."
He looks at the circle, steels himself, and plunges his hand in.
And screams.
Shouts of concern from the cells. Adam falls to his knees, Leo grabbing him-
Inside the wall, bleeding fingers stretch out and find a lever. And pull.
A ka-chunk resonates through the corridor as the cell doors swing open-
Adam yanks his arm out, covered in tattered cloth and tattered flesh, gasping for breath through tears of pain;
He falls to the ground; through the descending fog in his brain he is aware of the others rushing over; the message vanishing from the wall; a doorway opening up; and the unnaturally-long legs of concerned strangers looming over them-
"Teeth," Adam gasps out. "So many… eating…"
"Don't look at it," someone named Jason says, crouching over him. "That'll just make it worse-"
Adam looks, nonetheless. He makes out the dull white of bone amidst the shredded flesh and muscle and skin, and squeezes his eyes shut against sobs. The voices rise and fall over him, near indistinguishable from one another:
Louis: "Should we amputate?"
Peter: "Are you a doctor?"
Louis: "No, but-"
Peter: "We've got to stop the bleeding… just put pressure on the wound…"
Mitchell: "Which one?"
Jason: "Oh god there's so much blood-"
Jay: "If you do a tourniquet it'll stop but he probably lose his arm-"
Sasan: "He works with computers, and I really don't think he'll want to compromise his ability to use the keyboard."
Adam feels hands grasping along his arm, and hopes whoever it is knows what they are doing and has fingers that are relatively clean.
Jason: "I think if you don't he could lose his life. That's kind of an awful way of repaying him after he essentially saved us-"
Peter: "No tourniquets. That's a last resort."
Leo: "Adam, you still there?"
Smudge: "It looks like he's still breathing-"
Peter: "Look, can everyone stop crowding around?"
"…We're his friends," Leo says shortly. "Who are you?"
Brief silence.
"…You've got to stop the bleeding at least; I mean that's how people kill themselves, they slit their wrists, and this is definitely way more than-"
"Louis, shut up. You talk too much."
"Go stand in a corner and think about your life."
A grin.
"Tony."
"Jay."
Handshake.
More talking. Adam feels someone wrapping his arm tight in a shirt and someone else pressing firmly down in the middle of his upper arm. The voices merge together into one, and then he blacks out into cool oblivion.
"Keep his arm up. Above heart level; it'll reduce blood loss."
"I'm not touching th-"
Leo takes it.
"Hey guys, there's a room here," Louis says, having come back from exploring the doorway after realising his presence was unappreciated. "And, uh, I think the door's closing. We'd better move."
The door is closing; descending slowly from the ceiling to shut off the doorway, and soon a couple of them have scooted through in panic, acting in accordance to the unexamined rule that if a door is closing, it probably means you should get in there quick.
"What if we're meant to stay here?" Smudge asks.
"I don't think there's anywhere else to go," Sasan says, looking as though he'd be on the other side right now if not for not wanting to leave Leo to deal with Adam.
"Run out and check," Leo says, and Sasan duly dashes out.
He's back in the maze, though it's not much of one. And as the doors close behind him and leave him in the moonlit darkness with a single streetlamp in sight, he's suddenly afraid. Sasan looks back into the lighted building, tells himself out loud to stop being a coward, and forces his legs on.
He stops, and turns back, deciding to see if that way is truly blocked. It is; the building takes up the width of the path. Sasan peers hesitantly at the hedges, but can't see anything past them. Maybe if they climb over…
There's no time.
He runs, backtracking their path, playing perky Iranian songs in his head to distract him from the darkness. Past another streetlamp, turning the corner… dead end.
Sasan stands there for a while, and then as the thought strikes him, takes out his ITDT.
It's lighted up again.
And on the screen:
Home. :)
And a countdown. 10. 9. 8. 7…
Sasan stares numbly at it.
6. 5.
Smudge, he suddenly thinks. You can't just leave him and go home.
Sasan forces the ITDT back into his pockets and dashes back.
Leo meets him halfway, yelling at him to hurry.
"The door's closing. Any other way out?"
"There's nothing," Sasan says, and they run back to the building.
Smudge is standing in the corridor, looking jittery, his face lighting up with relief as he sees Sasan, and Leo yells at him to move, why is he still standing there, and Smudge starts limping towards the door which is almost closed, anxious faces peering through from the other side, and Leo and Sasan half-carry Smudge over and push him through the door, and Sasan rolls in and Leo follows after-
-and the door shuts with a clunk.
On the floor, Smudge hugs Sasan. "…I thought you weren't coming back."
Sasan kisses his neck. "I'll always come back."
Some of the others are staring, uncomfortably.
"Are they…" Peter starts.
"Yeah," Leo says, getting off the floor to see if Adam is still alive.
"…that's just wrong," Peter says.
"Yeah," Jason adds nervously. "It's not the gay thing, it's the… other thing…"
Smudge pulls away from Sasan and glares at them. "What other thing?"
Awkward silence.
"SO!" Tony says too-loudly from the other end of the relatively tiny room, which for some reason says 'AIRLOCK' in painted letters on the wall. "What's on the other side of this airlock?"
*
CHAPTER EIGHT >>
Notes:
1) I'll be leaving tomorrow for the US, where I'll be studying in the University of Oregon for six months. Before term starts I'll be busy with my parents on an extremely short trip to San Francisco and general settling in and dealing with administration stuff, and I'm not sure when I'd next be able to have access to the Internet. If all goes well, I should be back online by 2nd January when I move into the dorms, though I don't know if I'd have the next chapter up by then. Although 15 hours on a plane is a really long time and fic occasionally happens, though this might depend on who is sitting next to me and if they are prone to suspicious staring...
2) mount_seleya wrote this absolutely amazing comment fic about the naming of Smudge that you need to read. :D
3) For those of you who celebrate it, Merry Christmas. :)