plane between: chapter ten
Fandoms: Stuff ZQ was in
Summary: ZQ's characters are unwillingly cast into adventures that could, with some work and positive thinking, be fun and merry; if not for Sylar's adamant refusal to stay dead. Sequel to Quinto Formaggi.
Words: 5,450
Quinto Formaggi Plane Between: Chapter 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9
X: 'til death do we part.
"What do we do now?" Peter asks.
Adam doesn't budge from his place at the windowsill. "We wait."
The others start filtering out of the room. Leo hangs back, as does Zach; Leo notices him, and moves out as well, looking uncomfortable. He finds a bookshelf in the main room. There's a script called 'Shadow 19' by Jon Spaihts, and he takes it out to read on the couch.
"WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT?" Smudge yells suddenly, and Leo looks up to see him angrily facing down one of the new guys.
"I-"
"YOU WERE STARING AT HIM, WEREN'T YOU?"
"Smudge-" Sasan starts.
"He was in front of me," Louis says plaintively. "What do you expect me to do, turn my head every time he-"
Smudge glares at Louis and possessively grabs Sasan by the elbow. "He's taken," he states, and Sasan tries to look apologetic as Smudge drags him away.
Mitchell goes towards the water jug. Leo watches.
"…What?" Mitchell asks, and Leo goes back to reading the script as Mitchell takes a drink.
In one of the rooms, Peter shuts and locks the door and turns to Jason. "…We have to tell them," he says weakly.
Jason has since sit down on a bed, head in his hands. "I know," he says. "But we can't."
"They're going to starve."
"I know."
"Could we watch them die?"
"I don't know." Pause. "People… die all the time. It shouldn't be different."
Peter sits down on the bed next to him. Jason raises his head and looks over. It's different. There's a tension between them: a subtle metaphysical bond, or something working on some subconscious biological level; creating the unnerving sense of a complete lack of personal boundaries…
Peter feels it too. He gets up, paces.
"It's not going to make a difference," Jason says. "They're doomed either way."
Peter pauses by the window, gazing out at the fog. "…Yeah," he agrees softly. "I guess so."
Silence. Then he hears the guilty rustle of plastic as Jason pulls the loaf of sliced bread out from under the bed.
"Here," Jason says, getting up and handing him a slice. His eyes are scared, yet determined, yet yearning for reassurance…"
Peter hesitates. He casts a futile look to the locked door, then takes the offered bread.
"To survival," Jason says quietly.
Peter nods, and they eat.
*
Zach joins Adam at the window. Adam tenses up slightly but says nothing; and as time goes by without a word, Zach starts to seem like anyone else of them; and Adam lets down his guard and relaxes a little. He kind of wants Zach to say something; and then he doesn't.
They watch the fog for signs of the returning exploration party.
"Is that a-" Zach says suddenly, and Adam sees it too.
It's a huge, red tentacle rising up in the distance from the fog.
He looks at Zach, and for a moment the automatic barrier between actor and character seems temporarily dissolved, and they're just two guys who just saw a freaky tentacle.
"…What is that?" Adam asks.
"I don't know. I hope they don't…" Zach peers out the window, looking worried. "They were unarmed," he says.
Adam almost wants to make a comment asking why Zach cared. Adam had known Tony for a bit, and felt some of that automatic kinship with Jay, but Zach wasn't one of them. He didn't know them. Maybe in an objective top-down omniscient co-creator way, sure. But not in the way they knew each other, and cared about each other, and risked their lives for each other…
And that thought suddenly made him feel safe. Zach meant nothing to him. He was an outsider. He hadn't gone through what they had. He knew nothing.
"They'll survive," Adam says instead, and he wonders if Zach wonders at the sharp hostility that leaks into his reply.
*
"Nice day for a walk," Tony comments, after several moments of unchanging scenery in the fog.
Jay gives him a look.
"I… hope we're walking in a straight line," Tony adds, glancing back. "Otherwise we'd be stuck here forever. How long's it been?"
Jay checks his watch. "Four minutes," he says, and then adds, in a sudden bout of dark conversation: "the others might be dead by the time we get back."
"What… all of them?"
"Wanna bet?"
"Uh… those are my friends."
"Technically we share the same relationship to them."
"No we don't. They're my friends. I've known them for a while. You haven't."
"Not all of them."
"Well, yeah... not those guys. I don't know them."
Silence. Tony thinks he sees something move in the fog, but by the time he looks, it's gone.
"Do you get used to it?" Jay asks. "Being around all of them."
Tony hesitates. "Not… completely, but… we're all different people. After a while it's obvious; and then other people seem strange. Like a different species, you know?"
"That can't be healthy."
"Not if we're stuck together for the rest of our lives."
"You think that'll happen?"
Tony shrugs. He slows to a stop, and then Jay sees the same thing and does too.
There's a shack up ahead, emerging from the fog. Barred windows, but one wall has been violently torn away.
"What the hell happened here?" Jay asks.
They go up to it, stepping over the loose pieces of wood and stone on the ground.
"Shotguns," Tony says, picking one up from the ground. He hefts it; raises it experimentally towards the fog, and fires-
He stumbles back from the recoil; and then they hear a loud, alien moan of pain.
Jay looks at him. "…What did you-"
Tony screams, and Jay barely has time to react before something long whips him off the ground; somewhere in his mind he registers the word tentacles and it burns, the tightly wrapped tentacle around his body, and he feels it secreting some substance that's dissolving his clothes and cutting into his flesh and he gasps out in pain, then screams-
Tony is freaking out on the ground. Shaking hands fire off another shot, and the tentacle flinches, flinging Jay dizzily back through the air. He retches. Red welts have started bubbling up on his skin where the tentacle touched him and in the places on his hands where he tried to push it loose-
Another shot; another rumbling moan of pain… and then the grip loosens, and Jay is flying through the air onto the ground far below-
-he lands, and the ground bends slightly down to accommodate him before returning to level. He throws up out the side of his mouth and is still.
The shotgun clicks. Tony casts it aside and grabs another one as he backs towards Jay, firing off more shots. The tentacles retreat back into the fog, the moans of pain growing more distant.
"Jay!" Tony drops by his side, wide-eyed and short of breath. He takes in the burns. "Oh shit… we have to get back. Can you walk? Can you-"
Jay painfully opens his eyes. "…Leave me," he manages, struggling to speak.
"No, no… c'mon, they can heal you, they've got that healing potion thing…"
Tony slings the shotgun around his neck and helps Jay off the ground, grabbing hold of him under his arm from the back, letting go briefly with a short shout as the skin of his hands reacts fiercely with the residue on Jay's clothes; then bracing himself and holding on tight, teeth clenched against the pain as they start back.
"We're gonna make it, okay?" he says. "Four minutes, right?"
Jay manages a nod.
"Yeah. That's not long."
Jay stumbles, and Tony grabs on tighter. He looks with worried eyes to the stripe of inflamed skin on Jay's neck; the aggravated redness is still spreading, slowly, working its way deeper into his skin… He looks up at the familiar face and remembers Smudge in that underwater cave.
I've been saving an awful lot of lives, he thinks.
"I can't go on," Jay says.
"Yeah, well, you're going to," Tony retorts. "Or else we'd die here and no one gets to warn the others about the tentacle monsters. And they'll come out after us because no one ever listens to me, and they'd all get killed too, and if anyone ever finds us they'd have a hell of a tough time identifying the bodies. Think of those people."
"I can't… breathe…"
Tony tries to pick up speed, pulling Jay along with him.
It's another few minutes before they see the wall of the house, the window still open, and Tony finally lets Jay down on the grass as he runs the remaining distance to the window and sticks his head in and yells for help.
And Jay distantly sees people rushing towards him - Tony's friends - and the healing cordial is soothing his burns and turning his skin whole as the alien acid battles against its powers… but already a darkness is descending on his mind, and then it lands, and does not leave.
"…He's dead," Leo says, feeling the pulse stop. "We were too late."
Inside the house, the number on the wall turns to 11.
The flask is almost empty, and Tony almost doesn't want to ask for some to heal his hands; but Sasan notices anyway and offers it, and with that, the last drops are used up.
*
"We're digging to China," Jason replies offhandedly from the doorway when Mitchell asks why he and Peter keep locking themselves in that room. He shuts the door and locks it.
Sasan has several ideas about what two men might be doing in a locked bedroom, but decides that Mitchell probably doesn't want to hear them.
"They can't dig to China," Smudge points out. "We're not on Earth."
"We don't know that," Sasan says.
"Sas, there are tentacle monsters outside," Smudge explains patiently. "On Earth, they only hide under your bed."
Inside the room, Peter stands by the window gazing idly out. "People can take weeks to die of starvation," he says.
"It's water that's important," Jason agrees.
"Yeah, and we're almost out of that."
"We… might have to resort to urine."
Peter doesn't look excited about it. "Even if we do, we can't.. there aren't any cups or-"
"We could pee into each other's-"
"Okay, I get it. Stop."
The wry smile eventually fades from Jason' face.
Silence, as they try to rid themselves of the mental images.
"It's not as though we won't suffer along," Jason says. "One loaf of bread isn't much of an upper hand."
"It's still one," Peter says. "Everything else remaining equal…"
Jason rolls over on the bed onto his stomach and starts punching the carpet.
"What are you doing?"
"If we're pretending to dig to China we should try and sound like it."
"…no one fell for that."
Jason stops. "Yeah, I know. All right then, when we get out, try and look as though you've just had amazing sex."
Peter stares at him. "I'm straight," he states. "And you're not my type."
"You don't have to tell them that," Jason says, looking rejected.
That's when they hear the banging on the closet door as Sylar regains consciousness and decides he wants out.
*
"We need to kill him," Smudge says, tugging at the table that was in the way. "He has no powers now. He'll die."
The banging has stopped, presumably after Sylar realised who was on the other side.
"He'd also die if we left him in there," Adam says. "If we let him out, it could be a trap."
"But I want to kill him myself!"
"What if you lose?" Sasan asks.
"I won't."
"Yeah," Louis says. "It could be dangerous."
Smudge glares at him. "Did I ask for your opinion?"
Louis shuts up.
Leo remains engrossed in Shadow 19 and wishes they would all stop making noise.
"All right, just take him out and throw him out," Adam says tiredly. "Let the tentacle monsters get him."
"What if he gets them on his side?" Tony asks.
"THAT'S WHY WE NEED TO KILL HIM FIRST!"
"Stop shouting, Smudge," Leo murmurs inaudibly from the couch.
Sasan places a hand on Smudge's shoulder and tries to calm him down. "Okay," he says, eyeing the others for any objection. "We'll let him out. Just be careful."
One of the room doors open. Peter and Jason stand there trying to figure out what's going on. Zach glances over at them. Jason looks as though he's just had amazing sex. Zach wonders who with.
They pull the table away, exposing the closet door.
Sasan wishes he could be hiding under a bed if not out of an obligation to be near Smudge…
Leo looks up from the script.
Sylar is grinning up at them when the closet door opens. "Missed me?" he asks.
Smudge kicks him in the face. He flinches, winded, and when he turns his head back around there's blood on his mouth, and he's marginally pissed off. He hops to his feet, surveying the small crowd that has drawn back away from Smudge, and-
"YOU DON'T HAVE POWERS NOW!" Smudge yells, drawing his fist back for a punch; but Sylar catches it and twists his arm and Smudge screams - Sasan gives a start - as Sylar wrenches him close and hisses in his ear: "You still can't beat me, you bisexual-"
Adam rushes forward to help, but Smudge elbows Sylar in the eye with his free arm, satisfied at the howl of pain. "YOU KILLED PEOPLE!"
Smudge blinks the red away from his eyes, his head throbbing with the release of anger held back for way too long. Adam hovers at his side, not knowing what to do…
"Just you?" Sylar asks. He glances over at the others. "Looks like your friends have more civility." He smirks at the hesitant crowd and raises a bloodied eyebrow at Smudge. "They're still scared. Look at your boyfriend cowering behind the-"
Smudge grabs Sylar by the head and slams him against the closet door, kicking him in the knees until he collapses to the ground; Smudge climbs onto him, his knee jabbing into Sylar's chest, one hand pulling his head back by his hair-
"You don't. Talk. About Sas. That way," he gasps, and pounds his fist into Sylar's face. "I'm going to kill you," he states.
Adam steps forward. "Smudge, that's enough-"
"I'm going to-"
Sylar smiles. A moment later, Adam grabs Smudge and pulls him off, Smudge screaming to be put down.
Adam puts him down, forcing Smudge around to grab his shoulder. "We're better than that," he says. "We're not going to stoop to his level."
Sylar laughs, weakly, wiping blood off his face with the back of his hand. "Noble." He spots Zach amongst the others and blinks. "…Quinto? Seriously?" He laughs again. "This is too good. Do they know who you are?"
"SHUT UP!" Smudge hollers, just for the sake of shouting something.
"Do they… do they know this is all your fault?" Sylar continues, unperturbed.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Zach says matter-of-factly. Mitchell casts a wary glance his way.
"Why are you all here?" Sylar continues in an amused drawl. "Just to kill me? Is that it? You know it won't work. I'll always find a way back. And I'm guessing that's your fault too," he adds, grinning at Zach. "Did you-"
BANG.
Sylar collapses against the closet, dead.
Tony lowers the shotgun. He tries to look casual about it. Everyone stares at him.
"…guess some good came of that expedition," he says.
On the wall, the number has changed to a 10.
Zach points it out to them.
"So it goes down every time one of us dies?" Adam asks.
"Yeah."
"Why?" Smudge asks.
"It might trigger something," Peter says. "When it reaches a certain number, something might happen…"
"All we have to do is survive," Mitchell quotes. "That implies something good happens if we do."
"It didn't say for how long," Peter says. "I don't think it's measured in time, and if that counter is any indicator, our survival is measured in lives."
"So who are going to sacrifice themselves for the rest of us?" Louis asks.
Everyone looks at him.
"It's just a suggestion," Louis says uncomfortably. "It would be so much better if we could have some control over our escape. We just feed the system however many lives it takes to get the rest of us out, instead of waiting until we're all starving and dehydrated and equally close to death, such that those of us who get out won't even be guaranteed to live. So let's decide on who can most afford to die and-"
"Louis, shut up," Zach says.
"Okay, see, that's really annoying," Louis interjects, looking pained. "I have as much right to share my opinion as anyone else. You don't control me-"
The others are walking off.
*
"Peter-"
The other throws up into the toilet, again, and Jason throws a worried glance at the bathroom door.
"Look, you need help-"
"No…" Peter says from where he's kneeling, feverish and trembling. "They'll… they'll ask why and then-"
"You drank the water, that's all. The sign said not to. It's not the jam-"
"It might have been."
"We don't have to tell them that," Jason says. "And we don't know for certain; I mean, we're not supposed to drink the water for a reason-"
"…okay." Peter weakly reaches out a hand and flushes the toilet, telltale bits of recent food going down.
"…You look really bad."
Peter sinks down onto the bathroom floor and drops his head back against the wall. Jason watches him, nervous…
Peter jerks; opens his eyes, turns back to the toilet and violently coughs up blood.
Jason hurriedly steps back. "I'm getting someone," he says, and runs out of the bathroom.
*
There is no doctor amongst them, but all converge on the bathroom door, as much out of curiosity as concern. Peter is on the floor, hunched over the toilet bowl, intermittently retching up blood.
"What happened?" Adam asks, as the others behind him try to see what's going on.
"He drank the tap water," Jason says.
Zach comes forward - Leo and Adam move aside to let him through into the small bathroom - and Jason warily watches as Zach crouches down by Peter's side and places a comforting hand on his shoulder. "Peter."
Peter turns to look at him, breathing ragged, and something about Zach suddenly renders everything else irrelevant. There's a warmth and understanding in his eyes that seems far too deep for a stranger; and he suddenly gets the feeling that he could, and should, tell him everything…
Peter turns his head and coughs up in the toilet again. And now it's not just blood, but strange chunks whose origins he tries not to think about, sensing the burning pain in his chest.
Zach's hand squeezes his shoulder. Peter blinks away tears. Who are you? Why do I feel like you know me?
"How much did you drink?" Zach asks softly.
"I don't know," Peter says. There was no way to measure, remembering his head bent over the bathroom sink, frantically gulping water from his cupped hands, anything to wash the terrible, terrible taste of tocberry jam out of his mouth and out from wherever the burning sensation had spread through his body…
Was it the water or the jam? What if the water was drinkable and he was denying them that source…
No, he reminds himself. The sign said not to drink the water.
…the sign was above the kitchen sink; there wasn't one in the bathroom. But it should be the same water. That's how plumbing worked, Peter reasons, then realises that in a strange building in the midst of tentacle-monster-land with jam that tried to kill you, plumbing could work any way it wanted to. The water could have been safe. It could save lives… but someone would need to test it, risk his own life for the rest…
He's shivering violently, the sick feeling still rising up from the pit of his stomach and radiating out everywhere. He sniffs, and his head falls weakly to rest against Zach's shoulder. Zach feels safe, somehow. He doesn't push him away. Peter feels a hand on the side of his head.
Tell him, he thinks. Tell him about the food…
"We had food," he finally whispers, just loud enough for Zach to hear, his eyes closed against Zach's neck.
"…What?"
"Jason and I… we… found it. Bread. We've been hiding it." Peter swallows. "Sorry."
He feels Zach move his head to look at Jason, standing beside them and suddenly overcome with guilt as Zach's eyes meet his, but Zach says nothing.
"Thanks for telling me," Zach murmurs to Peter, and Peter wants to sink into him and sleep forever.
"I'm sorry," he says again, and he doesn't know why he's apologising to Zach alone. It seems enough, that Zach knows.
"It's okay," Zach says, and Peter feels forgiven.
The number on the wall outside drops down to a 9.
*
They tear hungrily into the bread, one slice each. Jason forgoes his share and sits alone, head bowed in shame, as he mourns the loss of the closest thing he had to a friend in this place.
Outside, darkness falls. The white grows grey and slides through blue, deepening into indigo and then to black with suggestions of sleep. It's night for some of them; afternoon for others, but the darkness quietens them all.
In the last rays of light, they huddle outside and bury their dead. The soil moves easily beneath the twitching grass, else they might not have spent the effort. They kick the last lumps of soil over the hole and the grass creeps back over with a whooshing murmur. Jay, Sylar, Peter.
The wind starts to howl, and alien sounds stir the night. They climb back through the window and return indoors.
The water jug is empty now. Nobody talks much. Adam casts occasional glances at Zach, waiting for answers he never gets, sensing a different turmoil going on. He's not one of them.
Smudge plops himself down on the couch. Sasan joins him soon after. Smudge leans into him.
Adam retires to a room and lies on a bed, flat on his back and gazing up at the ceiling. He wills it to go away. It doesn't.
Leo slips through the door with the Shadow 19 script and hops onto the other bed to read. He glances at Adam, lost in thought. He opens the script and flips through to where he last left off.
"How many more must die?" Adam asks hollowly from the bed.
Leo pauses in his page-flipping.
"That guy… he was right," Adam continues. "All the casualties so far have been the new people."
"That's just coincidence," Leo says.
Adam blinks. "I don't know."
"One of them was Sylar."
"…how did we even split into two groups-"
"It was there from the start," Leo says. "That's just how things were."
"We should be doing this together," Adam says. "Not split up by whatever petty rivalries…"
"It could be worse otherwise," Leo says softly. "If you or Smudge or Sasan died, or Tony…" He hesitates. "It's cruel," he says, and then in a near whisper: "But if all of us get too close, it'll hurt more."
*
[Trigger warning: dub-con]
The hunger wrenches him apart and Louis curls up on the bed, trying to stop the growing pain and nausea creeping through his throat. It's not even a day, he tells himself; it's just one meal he's missed out on, but the dizzy lightness fills his mind and cries out to be fed. He swallows, dryly, to no effect, and thinks about the empty jug; and in its place he sees his kettle back at home filled up with water waiting to be poured to slake his burning thirst.
Home.
Break them up, Louis.
He drags an arm across his face and lets out a tortured breath. No…
Do you want to go home.
He sees Sasan in his mind's eye, perfect as always, and something tugs sharp at his heart. Smudge doesn't deserve him; he doesn't appreciate what he has, he drags him around as though he owns him and never sees the subtleties that cross Sasan's expressions; but Louis does, he sees the worry, the occasional flinch at Smudge's violence, the unstated desire to do something else and be his own person instead of half a couple, the…
Deny it all you want, Louis, but at the end all you care about is you.
But why not, he wonders suddenly, angrily. Perhaps it's a solipsist world and his the only mind there is, and everyone else is nothing but a figment of his wandering mind, put there to test him, teach him, hurt him, push him to his farthest limits and leave him broken all alone beneath the weight of countless sins and suffer in a void where no one knows and no one cares.
What happens to them… it doesn't matter. He wouldn't see it, he wouldn't be there, it might as well just not exist…
He grimaces into his pillow. He needs food, and water, and can't bear to think of spending the rest of his life in this impossible hell… when the sun came out it would be the same again, another day, another eternity, no food, no water, and they'd die off one by one until the system had enough and the last few escaped by the skin of their teeth and sheer inches from death; why wait, when he could get out now. Smudge and Sasan… one or both might die quite soon, and whatever relationship they had could have but mere days more to last, or hours, and if he could get home before that and grab his cup and splash out water into it and drink each precious, precious drop until his mind would cease to rage and settle, tranquil, once again, and tear open packs of biscuits and snacks to calm the torment in his gut and maybe cook himself a meal and sit down at his table, and eat, and be full, and then perhaps to sleep and never ever think again of these poor souls left stranded here.
Louis sits up on the bed, and hates himself. He gets to his feet and over to the door, and pushes it quietly open.
The two are sleeping on the couch and do not stir as he pads softly over. Smudge on the inside, snoring slightly, and Sasan on the outside, an arm around him.
He has no plan, but he crouches down beside the couch and gazes at their sleeping faces. Some instinct moves him; he reaches out a hand and runs his fingers tenderly through Sasan's hair. He brings his hand up to his own: the texture is the same, and somehow different: his own revolts him, as does the rest of him, and he's almost loath to contaminate the other with his touch.
But he's started something he has yet to fully understand; and when he lightly trails a line along the contours of Sasan's cheek, the eyes blink open, and Louis takes his hand away, and watches, trying to slow his breaths.
Painfully slowly, Sasan lifts his arm off Smudge and turns his head to look at Louis. His eyes are startled, frightened, shining in the glint of light streaming through the window through the open door of Louis' room. He's perfect.
The eyes soften slightly; Louis isn't Sylar, and Sasan glances back at Smudge before looking back at Louis.
"Hey," Louis greets in a whisper, unable to tear his eyes away.
"What are you doing here?"
Louis shrugs. "I'm hungry, I'm thirsty, I can't fall asleep…"
Sasan brings a hand to his face, feeling the fading tingle of a touch.
"…What's it like?" Louis says, his eyes unsteady, yet with a grim determination behind them.
"What's… what like?"
"Him," Louis says, nodding towards Smudge. "You two. You know."
Sasan just looks at him, then slowly sits up on the couch.
"What's it feel like, kissing him?" Louis asks, edging closer, moving from his crouch up onto a knee such that the two of them are at eye level, and a wild, tingling strangeness flows through him as they make eye contact.
Sasan gives him a nervous smile. "Uh… why are you ask-"
Louis kisses him; a hand moving forward to the back of Sasan's neck and into his hair, pulling him into the kiss and the strangeness as Sasan tenses beneath him and suddenly jerks away, stumbling off from the couch, backing into the wall as he stares at Louis in shock, wiping a hand across his lips and he's so fucking beautiful-
Louis comes after him, his body shaking with unknown fears and emotions and self-hate.
Sasan raises a trembling hand to hold him off. "Why… why did you… why…"
"You don't belong with him," Louis says, his voice coming out steadier than he felt, a confidence entering his steps as he approaches. "Smudge doesn't appreciate you. He only cares about himself and what he wants you to be. Has he ever let you do anything on your own?"
"…Look, we're happy together and-"
"No," Louis says, the words just coming now, and Sasan feels his breath against his chin. "No. You deserve better. You deserve respect. You're not his toy, and you know that's how he's been treating you. …I've seen it."
Louis grabs hold of Sasan's hips, feeling them there beneath his clothes and getting that odd jolt in his brain as he realises that's how his own body feels like to another; sees Sasan's eyes trail down towards his hands, whereupon he lifts one and cups Sasan's face upwards to meet his gaze.
"You could do so much better," Louis says.
Sasan's eyes shine brightly back through a film of tears, a maelstrom of fright and confusion and yet, somewhere inside, a spark of longing.
Smudge, Sasan thinks. Smudge, wake up… wake up… He just needs to make a noise, just shout, push Louis away, and…
"He doesn't control you," Louis says. "He can't begrudge you one moment of freedom."
Sasan swallows. Louis' fingers brush against his crotch. His breath hitches.
"You know you want this," Louis whispers, a desperate edge to his voice.
Sasan blinks at him, pushing down the panic as he realises that he doesn't know who Louis is, at all. Not that he's usually averse to hot strangers who randomly hit on him, but this is different, and there's something almost deceptive in the familiarity of Louis' body.
But there's something in Louis' eyes that stills his panic a little; fear, Sasan sees fear, and uncertainty, and pain, and doesn't know why, and along with that a pleading desperation for acceptance that reminds him too strongly of Smudge.
"Don't you?" Louis asks, and this time Sasan catches the faint tremble in his voice. How different are they, after all? Him, Louis, Smudge…
Smudge, he thinks again, but the thought fades away.
"No one ever has to know," Louis says into his ear, his voice still unsteady. "It'll be quick. I just… I need…"
Smudge… never has to know.
Sasan swallows.
"Please," Louis begs.
Sasan takes a breath. A spurt of dark forbidden passion bursts in him, a twisted curiosity taking over the fear…
"Sas-"
He kisses Louis.
It's different this time, wanting it through the guilt, and it's not like Smudge; he doesn't know Louis, doesn't know him as a separate person, and Sasan finds it suddenly easier if he forgets and just imagines that he's making out with himself-
Narcissistic lust sends jolts of fervour through his body. Hands run with desperate longing along Louis' face as they kiss, fingers kneading through his hair-
The other matches his movements with eager desire; Sasan caressing his neck, letting his hands trail down his shoulders as Louis slips his hands up under his shirt, the weird-strange-familiar touch of his fingers and palms moving against his skin… Sasan clutches them, feeling the identical contour of the fingers beneath the fabric of his clothes, rising and falling with every breath…
"Take off your pants," Louis gasps, removing his hands from Sasan's waist and fumbling at the buttons.
Sasan duly assists, all thoughts of Smudge suddenly gone, and he doesn't quite know what he's doing but he suddenly doesn't quite seem to care.
Next to them, on the couch, his boyfriend sleeps obliviously on.
*
CHAPTER ELEVEN >>
and happy belated Valentine's Day.
Summary: ZQ's characters are unwillingly cast into adventures that could, with some work and positive thinking, be fun and merry; if not for Sylar's adamant refusal to stay dead. Sequel to Quinto Formaggi.
Words: 5,450
Quinto Formaggi Plane Between: Chapter 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9
X: 'til death do we part.
"What do we do now?" Peter asks.
Adam doesn't budge from his place at the windowsill. "We wait."
The others start filtering out of the room. Leo hangs back, as does Zach; Leo notices him, and moves out as well, looking uncomfortable. He finds a bookshelf in the main room. There's a script called 'Shadow 19' by Jon Spaihts, and he takes it out to read on the couch.
"WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT?" Smudge yells suddenly, and Leo looks up to see him angrily facing down one of the new guys.
"I-"
"YOU WERE STARING AT HIM, WEREN'T YOU?"
"Smudge-" Sasan starts.
"He was in front of me," Louis says plaintively. "What do you expect me to do, turn my head every time he-"
Smudge glares at Louis and possessively grabs Sasan by the elbow. "He's taken," he states, and Sasan tries to look apologetic as Smudge drags him away.
Mitchell goes towards the water jug. Leo watches.
"…What?" Mitchell asks, and Leo goes back to reading the script as Mitchell takes a drink.
In one of the rooms, Peter shuts and locks the door and turns to Jason. "…We have to tell them," he says weakly.
Jason has since sit down on a bed, head in his hands. "I know," he says. "But we can't."
"They're going to starve."
"I know."
"Could we watch them die?"
"I don't know." Pause. "People… die all the time. It shouldn't be different."
Peter sits down on the bed next to him. Jason raises his head and looks over. It's different. There's a tension between them: a subtle metaphysical bond, or something working on some subconscious biological level; creating the unnerving sense of a complete lack of personal boundaries…
Peter feels it too. He gets up, paces.
"It's not going to make a difference," Jason says. "They're doomed either way."
Peter pauses by the window, gazing out at the fog. "…Yeah," he agrees softly. "I guess so."
Silence. Then he hears the guilty rustle of plastic as Jason pulls the loaf of sliced bread out from under the bed.
"Here," Jason says, getting up and handing him a slice. His eyes are scared, yet determined, yet yearning for reassurance…"
Peter hesitates. He casts a futile look to the locked door, then takes the offered bread.
"To survival," Jason says quietly.
Peter nods, and they eat.
*
Zach joins Adam at the window. Adam tenses up slightly but says nothing; and as time goes by without a word, Zach starts to seem like anyone else of them; and Adam lets down his guard and relaxes a little. He kind of wants Zach to say something; and then he doesn't.
They watch the fog for signs of the returning exploration party.
"Is that a-" Zach says suddenly, and Adam sees it too.
It's a huge, red tentacle rising up in the distance from the fog.
He looks at Zach, and for a moment the automatic barrier between actor and character seems temporarily dissolved, and they're just two guys who just saw a freaky tentacle.
"…What is that?" Adam asks.
"I don't know. I hope they don't…" Zach peers out the window, looking worried. "They were unarmed," he says.
Adam almost wants to make a comment asking why Zach cared. Adam had known Tony for a bit, and felt some of that automatic kinship with Jay, but Zach wasn't one of them. He didn't know them. Maybe in an objective top-down omniscient co-creator way, sure. But not in the way they knew each other, and cared about each other, and risked their lives for each other…
And that thought suddenly made him feel safe. Zach meant nothing to him. He was an outsider. He hadn't gone through what they had. He knew nothing.
"They'll survive," Adam says instead, and he wonders if Zach wonders at the sharp hostility that leaks into his reply.
*
"Nice day for a walk," Tony comments, after several moments of unchanging scenery in the fog.
Jay gives him a look.
"I… hope we're walking in a straight line," Tony adds, glancing back. "Otherwise we'd be stuck here forever. How long's it been?"
Jay checks his watch. "Four minutes," he says, and then adds, in a sudden bout of dark conversation: "the others might be dead by the time we get back."
"What… all of them?"
"Wanna bet?"
"Uh… those are my friends."
"Technically we share the same relationship to them."
"No we don't. They're my friends. I've known them for a while. You haven't."
"Not all of them."
"Well, yeah... not those guys. I don't know them."
Silence. Tony thinks he sees something move in the fog, but by the time he looks, it's gone.
"Do you get used to it?" Jay asks. "Being around all of them."
Tony hesitates. "Not… completely, but… we're all different people. After a while it's obvious; and then other people seem strange. Like a different species, you know?"
"That can't be healthy."
"Not if we're stuck together for the rest of our lives."
"You think that'll happen?"
Tony shrugs. He slows to a stop, and then Jay sees the same thing and does too.
There's a shack up ahead, emerging from the fog. Barred windows, but one wall has been violently torn away.
"What the hell happened here?" Jay asks.
They go up to it, stepping over the loose pieces of wood and stone on the ground.
"Shotguns," Tony says, picking one up from the ground. He hefts it; raises it experimentally towards the fog, and fires-
He stumbles back from the recoil; and then they hear a loud, alien moan of pain.
Jay looks at him. "…What did you-"
Tony screams, and Jay barely has time to react before something long whips him off the ground; somewhere in his mind he registers the word tentacles and it burns, the tightly wrapped tentacle around his body, and he feels it secreting some substance that's dissolving his clothes and cutting into his flesh and he gasps out in pain, then screams-
Tony is freaking out on the ground. Shaking hands fire off another shot, and the tentacle flinches, flinging Jay dizzily back through the air. He retches. Red welts have started bubbling up on his skin where the tentacle touched him and in the places on his hands where he tried to push it loose-
Another shot; another rumbling moan of pain… and then the grip loosens, and Jay is flying through the air onto the ground far below-
-he lands, and the ground bends slightly down to accommodate him before returning to level. He throws up out the side of his mouth and is still.
The shotgun clicks. Tony casts it aside and grabs another one as he backs towards Jay, firing off more shots. The tentacles retreat back into the fog, the moans of pain growing more distant.
"Jay!" Tony drops by his side, wide-eyed and short of breath. He takes in the burns. "Oh shit… we have to get back. Can you walk? Can you-"
Jay painfully opens his eyes. "…Leave me," he manages, struggling to speak.
"No, no… c'mon, they can heal you, they've got that healing potion thing…"
Tony slings the shotgun around his neck and helps Jay off the ground, grabbing hold of him under his arm from the back, letting go briefly with a short shout as the skin of his hands reacts fiercely with the residue on Jay's clothes; then bracing himself and holding on tight, teeth clenched against the pain as they start back.
"We're gonna make it, okay?" he says. "Four minutes, right?"
Jay manages a nod.
"Yeah. That's not long."
Jay stumbles, and Tony grabs on tighter. He looks with worried eyes to the stripe of inflamed skin on Jay's neck; the aggravated redness is still spreading, slowly, working its way deeper into his skin… He looks up at the familiar face and remembers Smudge in that underwater cave.
I've been saving an awful lot of lives, he thinks.
"I can't go on," Jay says.
"Yeah, well, you're going to," Tony retorts. "Or else we'd die here and no one gets to warn the others about the tentacle monsters. And they'll come out after us because no one ever listens to me, and they'd all get killed too, and if anyone ever finds us they'd have a hell of a tough time identifying the bodies. Think of those people."
"I can't… breathe…"
Tony tries to pick up speed, pulling Jay along with him.
It's another few minutes before they see the wall of the house, the window still open, and Tony finally lets Jay down on the grass as he runs the remaining distance to the window and sticks his head in and yells for help.
And Jay distantly sees people rushing towards him - Tony's friends - and the healing cordial is soothing his burns and turning his skin whole as the alien acid battles against its powers… but already a darkness is descending on his mind, and then it lands, and does not leave.
"…He's dead," Leo says, feeling the pulse stop. "We were too late."
Inside the house, the number on the wall turns to 11.
The flask is almost empty, and Tony almost doesn't want to ask for some to heal his hands; but Sasan notices anyway and offers it, and with that, the last drops are used up.
*
"We're digging to China," Jason replies offhandedly from the doorway when Mitchell asks why he and Peter keep locking themselves in that room. He shuts the door and locks it.
Sasan has several ideas about what two men might be doing in a locked bedroom, but decides that Mitchell probably doesn't want to hear them.
"They can't dig to China," Smudge points out. "We're not on Earth."
"We don't know that," Sasan says.
"Sas, there are tentacle monsters outside," Smudge explains patiently. "On Earth, they only hide under your bed."
Inside the room, Peter stands by the window gazing idly out. "People can take weeks to die of starvation," he says.
"It's water that's important," Jason agrees.
"Yeah, and we're almost out of that."
"We… might have to resort to urine."
Peter doesn't look excited about it. "Even if we do, we can't.. there aren't any cups or-"
"We could pee into each other's-"
"Okay, I get it. Stop."
The wry smile eventually fades from Jason' face.
Silence, as they try to rid themselves of the mental images.
"It's not as though we won't suffer along," Jason says. "One loaf of bread isn't much of an upper hand."
"It's still one," Peter says. "Everything else remaining equal…"
Jason rolls over on the bed onto his stomach and starts punching the carpet.
"What are you doing?"
"If we're pretending to dig to China we should try and sound like it."
"…no one fell for that."
Jason stops. "Yeah, I know. All right then, when we get out, try and look as though you've just had amazing sex."
Peter stares at him. "I'm straight," he states. "And you're not my type."
"You don't have to tell them that," Jason says, looking rejected.
That's when they hear the banging on the closet door as Sylar regains consciousness and decides he wants out.
*
"We need to kill him," Smudge says, tugging at the table that was in the way. "He has no powers now. He'll die."
The banging has stopped, presumably after Sylar realised who was on the other side.
"He'd also die if we left him in there," Adam says. "If we let him out, it could be a trap."
"But I want to kill him myself!"
"What if you lose?" Sasan asks.
"I won't."
"Yeah," Louis says. "It could be dangerous."
Smudge glares at him. "Did I ask for your opinion?"
Louis shuts up.
Leo remains engrossed in Shadow 19 and wishes they would all stop making noise.
"All right, just take him out and throw him out," Adam says tiredly. "Let the tentacle monsters get him."
"What if he gets them on his side?" Tony asks.
"THAT'S WHY WE NEED TO KILL HIM FIRST!"
"Stop shouting, Smudge," Leo murmurs inaudibly from the couch.
Sasan places a hand on Smudge's shoulder and tries to calm him down. "Okay," he says, eyeing the others for any objection. "We'll let him out. Just be careful."
One of the room doors open. Peter and Jason stand there trying to figure out what's going on. Zach glances over at them. Jason looks as though he's just had amazing sex. Zach wonders who with.
They pull the table away, exposing the closet door.
Sasan wishes he could be hiding under a bed if not out of an obligation to be near Smudge…
Leo looks up from the script.
Sylar is grinning up at them when the closet door opens. "Missed me?" he asks.
Smudge kicks him in the face. He flinches, winded, and when he turns his head back around there's blood on his mouth, and he's marginally pissed off. He hops to his feet, surveying the small crowd that has drawn back away from Smudge, and-
"YOU DON'T HAVE POWERS NOW!" Smudge yells, drawing his fist back for a punch; but Sylar catches it and twists his arm and Smudge screams - Sasan gives a start - as Sylar wrenches him close and hisses in his ear: "You still can't beat me, you bisexual-"
Adam rushes forward to help, but Smudge elbows Sylar in the eye with his free arm, satisfied at the howl of pain. "YOU KILLED PEOPLE!"
Smudge blinks the red away from his eyes, his head throbbing with the release of anger held back for way too long. Adam hovers at his side, not knowing what to do…
"Just you?" Sylar asks. He glances over at the others. "Looks like your friends have more civility." He smirks at the hesitant crowd and raises a bloodied eyebrow at Smudge. "They're still scared. Look at your boyfriend cowering behind the-"
Smudge grabs Sylar by the head and slams him against the closet door, kicking him in the knees until he collapses to the ground; Smudge climbs onto him, his knee jabbing into Sylar's chest, one hand pulling his head back by his hair-
"You don't. Talk. About Sas. That way," he gasps, and pounds his fist into Sylar's face. "I'm going to kill you," he states.
Adam steps forward. "Smudge, that's enough-"
"I'm going to-"
Sylar smiles. A moment later, Adam grabs Smudge and pulls him off, Smudge screaming to be put down.
Adam puts him down, forcing Smudge around to grab his shoulder. "We're better than that," he says. "We're not going to stoop to his level."
Sylar laughs, weakly, wiping blood off his face with the back of his hand. "Noble." He spots Zach amongst the others and blinks. "…Quinto? Seriously?" He laughs again. "This is too good. Do they know who you are?"
"SHUT UP!" Smudge hollers, just for the sake of shouting something.
"Do they… do they know this is all your fault?" Sylar continues, unperturbed.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Zach says matter-of-factly. Mitchell casts a wary glance his way.
"Why are you all here?" Sylar continues in an amused drawl. "Just to kill me? Is that it? You know it won't work. I'll always find a way back. And I'm guessing that's your fault too," he adds, grinning at Zach. "Did you-"
BANG.
Sylar collapses against the closet, dead.
Tony lowers the shotgun. He tries to look casual about it. Everyone stares at him.
"…guess some good came of that expedition," he says.
On the wall, the number has changed to a 10.
Zach points it out to them.
"So it goes down every time one of us dies?" Adam asks.
"Yeah."
"Why?" Smudge asks.
"It might trigger something," Peter says. "When it reaches a certain number, something might happen…"
"All we have to do is survive," Mitchell quotes. "That implies something good happens if we do."
"It didn't say for how long," Peter says. "I don't think it's measured in time, and if that counter is any indicator, our survival is measured in lives."
"So who are going to sacrifice themselves for the rest of us?" Louis asks.
Everyone looks at him.
"It's just a suggestion," Louis says uncomfortably. "It would be so much better if we could have some control over our escape. We just feed the system however many lives it takes to get the rest of us out, instead of waiting until we're all starving and dehydrated and equally close to death, such that those of us who get out won't even be guaranteed to live. So let's decide on who can most afford to die and-"
"Louis, shut up," Zach says.
"Okay, see, that's really annoying," Louis interjects, looking pained. "I have as much right to share my opinion as anyone else. You don't control me-"
The others are walking off.
*
"Peter-"
The other throws up into the toilet, again, and Jason throws a worried glance at the bathroom door.
"Look, you need help-"
"No…" Peter says from where he's kneeling, feverish and trembling. "They'll… they'll ask why and then-"
"You drank the water, that's all. The sign said not to. It's not the jam-"
"It might have been."
"We don't have to tell them that," Jason says. "And we don't know for certain; I mean, we're not supposed to drink the water for a reason-"
"…okay." Peter weakly reaches out a hand and flushes the toilet, telltale bits of recent food going down.
"…You look really bad."
Peter sinks down onto the bathroom floor and drops his head back against the wall. Jason watches him, nervous…
Peter jerks; opens his eyes, turns back to the toilet and violently coughs up blood.
Jason hurriedly steps back. "I'm getting someone," he says, and runs out of the bathroom.
*
There is no doctor amongst them, but all converge on the bathroom door, as much out of curiosity as concern. Peter is on the floor, hunched over the toilet bowl, intermittently retching up blood.
"What happened?" Adam asks, as the others behind him try to see what's going on.
"He drank the tap water," Jason says.
Zach comes forward - Leo and Adam move aside to let him through into the small bathroom - and Jason warily watches as Zach crouches down by Peter's side and places a comforting hand on his shoulder. "Peter."
Peter turns to look at him, breathing ragged, and something about Zach suddenly renders everything else irrelevant. There's a warmth and understanding in his eyes that seems far too deep for a stranger; and he suddenly gets the feeling that he could, and should, tell him everything…
Peter turns his head and coughs up in the toilet again. And now it's not just blood, but strange chunks whose origins he tries not to think about, sensing the burning pain in his chest.
Zach's hand squeezes his shoulder. Peter blinks away tears. Who are you? Why do I feel like you know me?
"How much did you drink?" Zach asks softly.
"I don't know," Peter says. There was no way to measure, remembering his head bent over the bathroom sink, frantically gulping water from his cupped hands, anything to wash the terrible, terrible taste of tocberry jam out of his mouth and out from wherever the burning sensation had spread through his body…
Was it the water or the jam? What if the water was drinkable and he was denying them that source…
No, he reminds himself. The sign said not to drink the water.
…the sign was above the kitchen sink; there wasn't one in the bathroom. But it should be the same water. That's how plumbing worked, Peter reasons, then realises that in a strange building in the midst of tentacle-monster-land with jam that tried to kill you, plumbing could work any way it wanted to. The water could have been safe. It could save lives… but someone would need to test it, risk his own life for the rest…
He's shivering violently, the sick feeling still rising up from the pit of his stomach and radiating out everywhere. He sniffs, and his head falls weakly to rest against Zach's shoulder. Zach feels safe, somehow. He doesn't push him away. Peter feels a hand on the side of his head.
Tell him, he thinks. Tell him about the food…
"We had food," he finally whispers, just loud enough for Zach to hear, his eyes closed against Zach's neck.
"…What?"
"Jason and I… we… found it. Bread. We've been hiding it." Peter swallows. "Sorry."
He feels Zach move his head to look at Jason, standing beside them and suddenly overcome with guilt as Zach's eyes meet his, but Zach says nothing.
"Thanks for telling me," Zach murmurs to Peter, and Peter wants to sink into him and sleep forever.
"I'm sorry," he says again, and he doesn't know why he's apologising to Zach alone. It seems enough, that Zach knows.
"It's okay," Zach says, and Peter feels forgiven.
The number on the wall outside drops down to a 9.
*
They tear hungrily into the bread, one slice each. Jason forgoes his share and sits alone, head bowed in shame, as he mourns the loss of the closest thing he had to a friend in this place.
Outside, darkness falls. The white grows grey and slides through blue, deepening into indigo and then to black with suggestions of sleep. It's night for some of them; afternoon for others, but the darkness quietens them all.
In the last rays of light, they huddle outside and bury their dead. The soil moves easily beneath the twitching grass, else they might not have spent the effort. They kick the last lumps of soil over the hole and the grass creeps back over with a whooshing murmur. Jay, Sylar, Peter.
The wind starts to howl, and alien sounds stir the night. They climb back through the window and return indoors.
The water jug is empty now. Nobody talks much. Adam casts occasional glances at Zach, waiting for answers he never gets, sensing a different turmoil going on. He's not one of them.
Smudge plops himself down on the couch. Sasan joins him soon after. Smudge leans into him.
Adam retires to a room and lies on a bed, flat on his back and gazing up at the ceiling. He wills it to go away. It doesn't.
Leo slips through the door with the Shadow 19 script and hops onto the other bed to read. He glances at Adam, lost in thought. He opens the script and flips through to where he last left off.
"How many more must die?" Adam asks hollowly from the bed.
Leo pauses in his page-flipping.
"That guy… he was right," Adam continues. "All the casualties so far have been the new people."
"That's just coincidence," Leo says.
Adam blinks. "I don't know."
"One of them was Sylar."
"…how did we even split into two groups-"
"It was there from the start," Leo says. "That's just how things were."
"We should be doing this together," Adam says. "Not split up by whatever petty rivalries…"
"It could be worse otherwise," Leo says softly. "If you or Smudge or Sasan died, or Tony…" He hesitates. "It's cruel," he says, and then in a near whisper: "But if all of us get too close, it'll hurt more."
*
[Trigger warning: dub-con]
The hunger wrenches him apart and Louis curls up on the bed, trying to stop the growing pain and nausea creeping through his throat. It's not even a day, he tells himself; it's just one meal he's missed out on, but the dizzy lightness fills his mind and cries out to be fed. He swallows, dryly, to no effect, and thinks about the empty jug; and in its place he sees his kettle back at home filled up with water waiting to be poured to slake his burning thirst.
Home.
Break them up, Louis.
He drags an arm across his face and lets out a tortured breath. No…
Do you want to go home.
He sees Sasan in his mind's eye, perfect as always, and something tugs sharp at his heart. Smudge doesn't deserve him; he doesn't appreciate what he has, he drags him around as though he owns him and never sees the subtleties that cross Sasan's expressions; but Louis does, he sees the worry, the occasional flinch at Smudge's violence, the unstated desire to do something else and be his own person instead of half a couple, the…
Deny it all you want, Louis, but at the end all you care about is you.
But why not, he wonders suddenly, angrily. Perhaps it's a solipsist world and his the only mind there is, and everyone else is nothing but a figment of his wandering mind, put there to test him, teach him, hurt him, push him to his farthest limits and leave him broken all alone beneath the weight of countless sins and suffer in a void where no one knows and no one cares.
What happens to them… it doesn't matter. He wouldn't see it, he wouldn't be there, it might as well just not exist…
He grimaces into his pillow. He needs food, and water, and can't bear to think of spending the rest of his life in this impossible hell… when the sun came out it would be the same again, another day, another eternity, no food, no water, and they'd die off one by one until the system had enough and the last few escaped by the skin of their teeth and sheer inches from death; why wait, when he could get out now. Smudge and Sasan… one or both might die quite soon, and whatever relationship they had could have but mere days more to last, or hours, and if he could get home before that and grab his cup and splash out water into it and drink each precious, precious drop until his mind would cease to rage and settle, tranquil, once again, and tear open packs of biscuits and snacks to calm the torment in his gut and maybe cook himself a meal and sit down at his table, and eat, and be full, and then perhaps to sleep and never ever think again of these poor souls left stranded here.
Louis sits up on the bed, and hates himself. He gets to his feet and over to the door, and pushes it quietly open.
The two are sleeping on the couch and do not stir as he pads softly over. Smudge on the inside, snoring slightly, and Sasan on the outside, an arm around him.
He has no plan, but he crouches down beside the couch and gazes at their sleeping faces. Some instinct moves him; he reaches out a hand and runs his fingers tenderly through Sasan's hair. He brings his hand up to his own: the texture is the same, and somehow different: his own revolts him, as does the rest of him, and he's almost loath to contaminate the other with his touch.
But he's started something he has yet to fully understand; and when he lightly trails a line along the contours of Sasan's cheek, the eyes blink open, and Louis takes his hand away, and watches, trying to slow his breaths.
Painfully slowly, Sasan lifts his arm off Smudge and turns his head to look at Louis. His eyes are startled, frightened, shining in the glint of light streaming through the window through the open door of Louis' room. He's perfect.
The eyes soften slightly; Louis isn't Sylar, and Sasan glances back at Smudge before looking back at Louis.
"Hey," Louis greets in a whisper, unable to tear his eyes away.
"What are you doing here?"
Louis shrugs. "I'm hungry, I'm thirsty, I can't fall asleep…"
Sasan brings a hand to his face, feeling the fading tingle of a touch.
"…What's it like?" Louis says, his eyes unsteady, yet with a grim determination behind them.
"What's… what like?"
"Him," Louis says, nodding towards Smudge. "You two. You know."
Sasan just looks at him, then slowly sits up on the couch.
"What's it feel like, kissing him?" Louis asks, edging closer, moving from his crouch up onto a knee such that the two of them are at eye level, and a wild, tingling strangeness flows through him as they make eye contact.
Sasan gives him a nervous smile. "Uh… why are you ask-"
Louis kisses him; a hand moving forward to the back of Sasan's neck and into his hair, pulling him into the kiss and the strangeness as Sasan tenses beneath him and suddenly jerks away, stumbling off from the couch, backing into the wall as he stares at Louis in shock, wiping a hand across his lips and he's so fucking beautiful-
Louis comes after him, his body shaking with unknown fears and emotions and self-hate.
Sasan raises a trembling hand to hold him off. "Why… why did you… why…"
"You don't belong with him," Louis says, his voice coming out steadier than he felt, a confidence entering his steps as he approaches. "Smudge doesn't appreciate you. He only cares about himself and what he wants you to be. Has he ever let you do anything on your own?"
"…Look, we're happy together and-"
"No," Louis says, the words just coming now, and Sasan feels his breath against his chin. "No. You deserve better. You deserve respect. You're not his toy, and you know that's how he's been treating you. …I've seen it."
Louis grabs hold of Sasan's hips, feeling them there beneath his clothes and getting that odd jolt in his brain as he realises that's how his own body feels like to another; sees Sasan's eyes trail down towards his hands, whereupon he lifts one and cups Sasan's face upwards to meet his gaze.
"You could do so much better," Louis says.
Sasan's eyes shine brightly back through a film of tears, a maelstrom of fright and confusion and yet, somewhere inside, a spark of longing.
Smudge, Sasan thinks. Smudge, wake up… wake up… He just needs to make a noise, just shout, push Louis away, and…
"He doesn't control you," Louis says. "He can't begrudge you one moment of freedom."
Sasan swallows. Louis' fingers brush against his crotch. His breath hitches.
"You know you want this," Louis whispers, a desperate edge to his voice.
Sasan blinks at him, pushing down the panic as he realises that he doesn't know who Louis is, at all. Not that he's usually averse to hot strangers who randomly hit on him, but this is different, and there's something almost deceptive in the familiarity of Louis' body.
But there's something in Louis' eyes that stills his panic a little; fear, Sasan sees fear, and uncertainty, and pain, and doesn't know why, and along with that a pleading desperation for acceptance that reminds him too strongly of Smudge.
"Don't you?" Louis asks, and this time Sasan catches the faint tremble in his voice. How different are they, after all? Him, Louis, Smudge…
Smudge, he thinks again, but the thought fades away.
"No one ever has to know," Louis says into his ear, his voice still unsteady. "It'll be quick. I just… I need…"
Smudge… never has to know.
Sasan swallows.
"Please," Louis begs.
Sasan takes a breath. A spurt of dark forbidden passion bursts in him, a twisted curiosity taking over the fear…
"Sas-"
He kisses Louis.
It's different this time, wanting it through the guilt, and it's not like Smudge; he doesn't know Louis, doesn't know him as a separate person, and Sasan finds it suddenly easier if he forgets and just imagines that he's making out with himself-
Narcissistic lust sends jolts of fervour through his body. Hands run with desperate longing along Louis' face as they kiss, fingers kneading through his hair-
The other matches his movements with eager desire; Sasan caressing his neck, letting his hands trail down his shoulders as Louis slips his hands up under his shirt, the weird-strange-familiar touch of his fingers and palms moving against his skin… Sasan clutches them, feeling the identical contour of the fingers beneath the fabric of his clothes, rising and falling with every breath…
"Take off your pants," Louis gasps, removing his hands from Sasan's waist and fumbling at the buttons.
Sasan duly assists, all thoughts of Smudge suddenly gone, and he doesn't quite know what he's doing but he suddenly doesn't quite seem to care.
Next to them, on the couch, his boyfriend sleeps obliviously on.
*
CHAPTER ELEVEN >>
and happy belated Valentine's Day.