plane between: chapter twelve
sorry for lateness. In the past few weeks, I've started Spring term, got distracted by RP-ing, and rediscovered the wonder that is Neopets. ...do not judge me. :|
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: 4,188
Quinto Formaggi Plane Between: Chapter 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11
XII: supererogation
Eventually they break the embrace, Sasan sliding one arm away from Smudge but leaving the other there in a comforting hold.
Smudge blinks, not meeting his gaze; for a moment trembling with raw vulnerability until his defences kick in again, gradually, and the fear fades from view in a few deep breaths. He brushes a hand almost absently across his face to wipe off the rogue lingering tears.
"What's on the other end of this hallway?" he asks, and some of his brash bravado is back. Not all the way; not when he's with Sasan, although Sasan remembers a time when Smudge was even more unguarded around him. Some of that unfailing trust is gone.
"I don't know," Sasan says, a perfunctory reply to a rhetorical question, but seeing it as a good sign that Smudge doesn't seem to mind his hand on his shoulder as they start walking slowly down the hallway.
It gets darker the further in they go, and Sasan tries to ignore the first pricks of panic as the light from the stairway grows fainter. There's something about the velvet darkness that feels like it's smothering him; and the carpet seems to be getting softer beneath his feet, sucking him in...
His hand tightens around Smudge's shoulder, more for his own comfort than anything else.
"Do you… really think we should go this way?" he finally manages to articulate, hoping he doesn't sound as nervous as he feels.
Smudge slows to a halt and looks at him; and Sasan has no idea what he's thinking, no matter how deep or searchingly he gazes into his eyes, now with a strange faraway look to them.
Then Smudge gives a half-shrug. "I was just curious, that's all. You don't need to come with me if you don't want to."
Sasan wonders if this is supposed to be some test, here in the increasingly suffocating darkness (is the hallway narrower than before? he wonders) and a gnawing sense of foreboding creeping at the edges of his mind; but he knows that there is no way he's going to leave Smudge here on his own to face whatever unknown horrors this place might hold.
"I'm not leaving you," he says, and hopes his conviction carries through. "I just… this place…" He takes a breath and gives a weak smile. "It's a bit scary, don't you think?"
Silence.
"…but if you want to go on, I'll go with you-"
"Nah," Smudge says quietly, gazing distantly down the hall. "It's okay then."
"Smudge."
When he doesn't respond, Sasan reaches out his other hand and gently cups Smudge's face towards him. "We're… all right, right?" he asks.
Smudge's eyes dip down. Another shrug. "I guess." Half-hearted. "I just don't know if I still know you anymore."
"Smudge-"
"I want to," Smudge says, and looks straight at him. "It's just not the same anymore, okay?"
The faraway look is gone, for the moment, and it's just Smudge again, like he was moments ago when he cried into Sasan's arms and begged him never to do that again, and his eyes are scared and pleading…
"I love you," Sasan says, and he means it.
Silence. The words hang in the air.
Sasan hesitantly reaches out a hand and trails it lightly through Smudge's hair.
Smudge catches his hand, holds it, looks at it, tries to use it to fill that void in his heart; tries to make himself believe that nothing ever happened with Louis, and things were as they'd always been between them; hating himself for ever having trusted Sasan that much, and yet yearning for that same unbounded faith, too afraid now to make that leap…
It could never be the same again. The ache cuts deep into him, into an ancient loneliness he'd thought he'd never feel again.
You never deserved Sas in the first place, Smudge tells himself fiercely. You never deserved anyone. If you didn't look like him he wouldn't even have given you a second glance.
His other hand clenches into a fist.
…It might have been better if he'd stayed dead.
But that thought chokes his heart and he gasps out a tear.
"Smudge, talk to me…"
Sasan's hand leaves his shoulder and cradles Smudge's face, desperate for some hint at what was going on in his head, yearning to see beyond the eyes that have since glazed over again. His thumb brushes the tear away.
You're alone again, Smudge thinks. You're always going to be alone. No one can ever truly love you.
Sasan hugs him tightly, whispering his name. Smudge trembles in his hold.
And you can never trust anyone again.
"It's going to be okay," Sasan murmurs into his ear. There's a tightness in his voice, choked with suppressed tears and cutting guilt. "We're… We're going to be okay."
*
It's like some kind of awkward family reunion. Like Christmas dinner with relatives you'd prefer you never saw: a few loudly dominating the conversation with updates on what's been going on in everyone's life, crude jokes, awkward laughter, lips silently pursing, kids running around the place…
Well, so it isn't completely like that. It's quieter, for starters; each of the five of them seated at the table are too hungry to talk. But the awkwardness is there, at least, and Jason wonders if he's the only one who feels it so strongly. It's possible. Adam and his friends seem to have long ago attained a level of easy comfort around each other, as though there's nothing particularly strange about being surrounded by people who look almost exactly like you. Since they'd first met, Jason hasn't seen another face.
It unnerves him when he thinks too much about it. So he just eats quietly and tries not to be too conspicuous; lest people remember that he was the one who'd tried to hide food from them. And it unnerves him when he thinks about Peter and his death and realises how, after the initial shock, it hasn't seemed to impact him that much. They didn't exactly know each other that well. They'd met for barely hours. Jason doesn't expect to have particularly strong feelings for the death of any passing acquaintance, but what disturbs him is the way that he's losing his hold on who Peter was; like he was just another face, another one of them, his personality and essence blurring against the rest of them into something insubstantial, indistinguishable…
He wonders if he seems the same way to everyone else here.
Everyone else. It's almost a cruel joke. Sometimes he gets the sense that they're all the same person, spread thin over several incarnations, fighting itself, cooperating with itself, and that at any moment the illusion of individuality is going to shatter and they - he? - would be all alone. Trapped. With no one else who knows that he's here.
Jason tries to keep his calm exterior as he reaches out for more broccoli. The food is quickly going. He wonders where the excess food ends up, if they're all really one person. Or if it's just him, and the others all figments of his imagination…
Adam is staring at nothing as he chews.
"How long before the next thing happens?" Tony asks, a bit too enthusiastically, as he scoops out more unidentifiable but extremely delicious mushy purplish food onto his plate. It was the best thing he had ever tasted, ever.
"Nothing happens," Adam predicts darkly, still staring at nothing, his mind half elsewhere. "We're trapped here, like in the last place. And then we die. After another series of unfortunate events."
Adam finally lowers his eyes back to his plate, and stabs at a piece of potato. "They're picking us off one by one."
"Giving up, huh?" Mitchell asks.
Adam gives him a look.
"It's just a sucky attitude, that's all."
Adam goes back to his food. He briefly looks over to where Zach and Louis are, then decides that nothing interesting is going on there. He prefers Zach being far over there, anyway. Zach disturbs him every time Adam remembers who he is.
"The question is… why do you care, Adam?"
He looks up from his plate, and Dem is perched on the table munching on a cinnamon stick, the rest of them frozen in time-
-no, not all of them. Leo is there with him, just the two of them and Dem active in their little bubble of time.
Adam grits his teeth. "Here to gloat?"
"Oh, I could do that whenever I want," Dem says, dismissing his question with a wave of the cinnamon stick. "The thing is… people die all the time in senseless, pointless ways. You and your friends aren't so special. Is your human worldview so narrow and self-centred that you're only affected when you're forced to face it? Why aren't all of you in a constant state of agony over all the suffering that's going on all the time? Oppression, discrimination, hate crimes, children starving, people wasting away, gruesome murders, natural disasters, diseases, torture…"
"There's a limit to how much we can acknowledge in order to function," Leo says, and Adam is suddenly grateful for his presence.
"In that case," Dem says, "why not ignore all of it? You'd be so much happier then. How is acknowledging a comfortable amount of suffering any less selfish?"
"Is there a point to your questions?" Adam asks testily.
Dem shrugs and chews on his cinnamon stick.
"We do what we can," Leo says. "So maybe it's selfish. But no one's perfect. And, yeah, maybe personal interests get in the way, but we're just human-"
Dem jabs his cinnamon stick in Leo's face. "Aha," he says. Leo flinches. "But what do you consider personal interests? A bunch of strangers getting skewered isn't exactly that personal, is it?"
"It is when we're the ones supposed to stop it," Leo says.
Dem bends in close. "But think of all the many other horrors you could stop if only you tried. By selling all you have and giving it to the poor… by hunting down criminals in your spare time… by speaking up every time someone does something that isn't very nice… Or do you only do good when there's a huge sign explicitly telling you that you have ten minutes to save a bunch of guys who happen to look exactly like you?"
"We'd have done the same no matter what they looked like," Adam says irritably.
Dem stops staring Leo down and turns his attention to Adam. "Really?" he asks. "Well, maybe. But I'm guessing you wouldn't have felt as bad about it if they had died. History has shown time and again that humans favour people they perceive to be like them. Whom they sense a connection with. Newspapers reporting on disasters in other countries always pay special attention to any of their own citizens who happened to be caught. Maybe just one or two of them, but hey, they get the spotlight amidst the thousands of faceless natives. How many parents do you think would willingly let their child die if it meant five strangers would be saved?"
Dem twirls the cinnamon stick. "You know it yourself, Adam. I know that Smudge and Sasan and Tony annoy the hell out of you, and yet you still care about them. Because of that bond. Without it I doubt any of you would have become this close. You're all strangers, you know that. You don't know any more about each other than a random collection of people on the street. Or do you forget that, and just assume? Filling in the blanks with your own assumptions of what the others are? Why did you trust Sylar the first time you met him? Would you have done the same if he had looked different? Would you have been more on alert?"
"Do you keep seeking out humans to blame us for being human?" Adam asks.
"I'm just trying to help you rise above it." Dem lifts the cinnamon stick into the air to demonstrate.
"…" says Adam, suddenly wanting that cinnamon stick.
"…which you're evidently not very good at," Dem says, putting the cinnamon stick back into his mouth. "There are lessons to be learnt among these people. If you can see them as family, there's no reason why you can't do the same for anyone else. Appearances are deceiving. Neighbours, beggars, politicians, annoying co-workers…" - Dem gave Adam a look - "…if they were like the people here, would you be kinder? If you assumed that they too were like you and felt the same, hurt the same way, saw the world through eyes not that different from yours… would you care more? Would you be more willing to understand?"
"You're a bit of a hypocrite, aren't you?" Adam says. "Talking about kindness while you torture us."
"I'm not human," Dem says lightly. "I don't count. And it's called tough love. Sometimes death is involved," he admits. "But it's for your own good. I think."
"Why us?" Adam retorts. "Jealous of our eyebrows or something?"
Dem looks momentarily sad, as if Adam has touched a nerve. Then that expression fades. "You're a completely random group of people," he says. "All strangers, remember? Look past the surface, Adam. You've all got nothing in common. Some of you aren't even the same race. You and Louis are Jewish, Sasan is Iranian, Smudge is bisexual…"
Leo puts his hand to his forehead in a subtle facepalm.
"…the odd thing is," Dem continues, "If I were to get enough of you together - say a hundred - the differences are going to become even clearer. Humans always find a way to oppress others. If you can't discriminate on the basis of phenotypical appearance, there's always religion, class status, age, sexual orientation… you'd be a nice little society in no time, full of the privileged oppressing the unprivileged as they fight for their right to exist." Dem shrugs. "You could start a city. Quintopolis."
Leo's other hand joins his first in a second subtle facepalm.
"You know I'm right," Dem says, with a surreptitious look of envy at Adam's eyebrows.
"So what's next?" Adam asks. "It's not very useful learning things if we're all going to die, is it?"
"Oh, I don't know," Dem says. "I'm not in charge of this game. That's up to Q to decide. I'm just here to enjoy the show and subject you to monologues about the human condition. Cheers. Do you want this cinnamon stick?"
"…No," Adam lies.
"All right then." Dem promptly vanishes.
Jason gives them a double take when time starts going again.
"What?" Adam asks, seeing him staring.
"You… moved," Jason says, looking uncomfortable. He'd seen the same thing earlier before when they'd carried Louis in.
"…Yeah. I'm not dead."
"It's not… it's like you… Never mind." Jason meekly returns to his food.
Adam is about to press further, when Leo picks up a piece of card from the table that hasn't been there before.
"What's that?" Tony asks, leaning over for a better look.
It's a detailed plan of the house: several floors worth, a red dot cheerily marked 'You Are Here!'; and, at the end of a maze of hallways, an arrow marked 'Exit'.
"…It's a map," Adam says.
*
Smudge untangles himself from the embrace, slipping away like air beneath Sasan's hold and turning away, pushing absently at one of the doors in the hallway and following its path as it opens up into a room, Sasan trailing behind, helpless, devoted, sunk in regret and wanting him back.
Smudge half-turns, meets his gaze, and there's still some of that old connection there that Sasan clings on to… but then Smudge turns back and continues walking into the gloom of the strange large room they've found themselves in. It's half-furnished, as though someone had been moving in and gave up unpacking. Boxes lie scattered on the grey concrete floor, shoved up against unpainted walls or lying in the way. There's a vague outline of a kitchen counter on one side; an unremarkable door near it; scraps of peeling half-done wallpaper. Ceiling high metal-frame windows line the opposite wall. Sunlight shines in: a dead, whitish glow that flows mutely through the glass. An ornate iron staircase winds its way up the centre, its structure tinged with the dull green of oxidisation.
The door shuts behind them. Smudge meanders around the boxes in childlike absentmindedness, thoughts elsewhere, and Sasan can do nothing but follow after.
Smudge slows down by the window, gazing silently out.
"I don't think this is part of the house," he says, and Sasan is just glad to hear him speak. He goes forward to join him, placing a hesitant arm around his shoulder - becoming less hesitant when Smudge does not resist - and looks out with him.
He makes out some semblance of foliage. Green, but with an ancient, crumbly quality… tired plants, left too long to live.
"Perhaps there's a way out," Sasan suggests.
Smudge shrugs. "Maybe."
Sasan looks at him, and with hesitant affection tousles Smudge's hair and brings his head close.
Smudge leans against him, but doesn't say anything.
"I'll always be here," Sasan murmurs. "I'll always be here."
*
Louis is in no state to walk, and no one knows where Smudge and Sasan have run off to, so Zach agrees to stay there while the others check out whatever that map claims the exit is and report back.
"It could be a trap," Mitchell says as the five of them start making their way down one of the plush hallways, Adam leading the way.
"I don't think we have a choice," Leo says. "If that's the exit, I doubt there'd be any other way out."
"…What if we can't get back?" Jason asks.
"Does it matter?" Adam asks curtly, not looking at him.
"We can't leave them-"
"You barely know them," Adam continues tersely, forging on ahead. "We're probably all going to die anyway."
Jason wishes he wouldn't say that.
Leo steps up to Adam's side in silent support as they walk. Adam swallows; relaxing his shoulders a little.
Leo holds out his hand for the map. "I could take over-"
"It's ok."
Leo puts his hand back down.
Bringing up the rear, Tony munches on an apple he took from the dining table. Adam likes how this means he's too busy chewing to talk.
Jason glances with passing interest at the doors as they go by, and wonders for the moment about breaking away and going into one of those rooms… through the occasional open door he sees more doors, or stairways, or hallways, and wonders how huge this place is; and if some of those doors lead to other worlds, perhaps his own, or just an infinite series of other places that one can spend forever exploring in an unending architectural journey through scenes since deserted by whoever once lived there.
Adam leads them through one of those doors. This room is tiny, clean and square, its smooth walls reflecting a pastel orange from some omnipresent light. It opens up in a corner into a similar corridor, just wide enough for single-file, and they go through.
They pass through more interior vistas: some are recognisably of human origin, some definitely furnished by IKEA, others strange and alien with eerie walls knitting up towards impossibly high ceilings; and, always, there are no people, although sometimes the rooms seem to hold echoes of previous lives.
After ten or fifteen minutes of eternity, they emerge in a wide wooden panelled corridor that grows narrower and lower towards the end. It terminates in a simple, functional wooden door.
Adam draws slowly to a halt before it.
"We're here," he states simply.
Tony steps forward and places a hand on the door handle. He glances at them for guidance; seeing no objection, he pushes it down and opens it.
It looks like a perfectly normal alleyway in some city or other. Concrete walls, dirty ground, bits of junk tossed here and there, the sound of traffic. Cars pass by in whooshing blurs of colour in the distance. Strains of conversation in the distance. People.
The familiarity is reassuring.
"Whose world is this?" Leo asks, as they step out.
"What do you think 'exit' meant?" Mitchell counters. "Did you think we'd all magically end up back in our own homes?"
Tony kicks absently at a can. It bounces off the wall and falls back down. He tosses his apple core aside to join the rest of the junk.
None of them particularly care when the door shuts behind them. None of them notice when it vanishes into the wall.
"We can't all go out at once," Jason ventures. "It might attract too much attention-"
Adam has gone on ahead, Leo a short distance behind, and the others are about to ignore Jason and follow him; when Adam suddenly comes to an abrupt halt.
"What-"
Then Leo sees the same thing, and falls silent.
Adam finally turns around, his face completely ashen. "...We… we've gotta go back," he says. He pulls at Leo, who has gone semi-paralysed in shock. "Leo. Go back."
"Uh, the door is gone," Tony points out helpfully, wandering towards them. "What's going on? Nuclear apocalypse? Zombie apocalypse?"
Jason is staring at where the door used to be. There's a message there now, scratched on in chalk.
YOU HAVE 30 MINUTES BEFORE YOUR EXIT CLOSES.
CORNER OF WELLS AND LAKE
DOOR TO ROOM #29-64
P.S. DO NOT FALL INTO THE LAKE.
He has a bad feeling about this.
*
Frightened eyes meet on the floor, sharing a moment's solidarity, lips moving wordlessly in silent sentiments amidst their trembling breaths. Jay cautiously extends his arm across the grey concrete of the floor; finds Peter's hand, grasps hold of it-
- and then loses his grip as Peter is swept off the ground and into the air, Sylar's telekinetic grasp firm around his neck.
Sylar approaches and circles his prey, slow, deliberate steps across the floor.
"What's your name?" he asks, an amused lilt to his voice.
"Peter," he gasps out, and wonders at the grin that spreads across Sylar's face.
"I knew a Peter," Sylar says, his ominously quiet voice carrying throughout the room. "We… didn't get along very well."
He breaks the grip, and Peter collapses to the floor, left hand rising reflexively to massage his neck.
"Lick my shoes," Sylar says casually.
Peter looks up, aghast. "…What?"
Sylar tilts his head at him. "Which part of that sentence did you not understand?"
Jay gets slowly to his feet, then shouts and crashes backwards into a glass case as Sylar absently flicks a hand at him.
"I gave you an order, Peter."
"…No-"
Peter gets back to his feet, trying to contain his shaking, and feeling a little more assured when he's standing up at full height, meeting Sylar's gaze with his own, realising that they're the same size, and there shouldn't be any reason to be afr-
Peter screams as a burst of pain erupts in his head; he falls to his knees, only dimly aware of Sylar's crooked finger drawing out the pain.
Jay extracts himself from the broken glass. "Stop it-"
Sylar turns his head to him and raises an eyebrow. "You don't give the orders around here," he says. "This is my world."
Peter has sunk even lower to the ground, curled up in foetal position, hands clutching his head in agony, mouth open in silent cry.
"And it's always nice to have hostages," Sylar continues. He straightens his finger. Peter lets out a gasp of relief, uncurling slightly, hands slipping down his face to lie weakly on the floor, eyes wild and staring blankly at nothing.
"Why would you need hostages?" Jay asks.
Sylar grins, and changes the scene.
It's a room they've never seen before, but the people…
Sylar struts over to the man sitting in a chair, a plate of food balanced in his lap, attention drawn by some heated conversation going on by the couch-
Sylar bends down towards his ear. "Hello, Quinto," he whispers, invisible and unheard, although Zach suddenly thinks he feels a strange stirring in his mind. Sylar grins, casting a brief glance back at Peter and Jay. "Missed me?"
And then he slides in, and Zach is no longer Zach.
*
"I meant that Quintopolis thing as a joke," Dem says.
Q shrugs, casually examining an apple. "Infinite multiverse. The place exists. Why let it go to waste."
"My rhetorical tools aren't going to work as well if you're going to make them literal. Give me that apple."
"I got it first." Q takes a bite from the apple and chews. "It's not actually called Quintopolis," he adds. "It's a perfectly respectable, normal universe in millions of ways. That was new york I put them in. He spreads his arms wide and smiles. "You know it's going to be fun. Want to make bets on who cracks first?"
*
CHAPTER THIRTEEN >>
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: 4,188
Quinto Formaggi Plane Between: Chapter 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11
XII: supererogation
Eventually they break the embrace, Sasan sliding one arm away from Smudge but leaving the other there in a comforting hold.
Smudge blinks, not meeting his gaze; for a moment trembling with raw vulnerability until his defences kick in again, gradually, and the fear fades from view in a few deep breaths. He brushes a hand almost absently across his face to wipe off the rogue lingering tears.
"What's on the other end of this hallway?" he asks, and some of his brash bravado is back. Not all the way; not when he's with Sasan, although Sasan remembers a time when Smudge was even more unguarded around him. Some of that unfailing trust is gone.
"I don't know," Sasan says, a perfunctory reply to a rhetorical question, but seeing it as a good sign that Smudge doesn't seem to mind his hand on his shoulder as they start walking slowly down the hallway.
It gets darker the further in they go, and Sasan tries to ignore the first pricks of panic as the light from the stairway grows fainter. There's something about the velvet darkness that feels like it's smothering him; and the carpet seems to be getting softer beneath his feet, sucking him in...
His hand tightens around Smudge's shoulder, more for his own comfort than anything else.
"Do you… really think we should go this way?" he finally manages to articulate, hoping he doesn't sound as nervous as he feels.
Smudge slows to a halt and looks at him; and Sasan has no idea what he's thinking, no matter how deep or searchingly he gazes into his eyes, now with a strange faraway look to them.
Then Smudge gives a half-shrug. "I was just curious, that's all. You don't need to come with me if you don't want to."
Sasan wonders if this is supposed to be some test, here in the increasingly suffocating darkness (is the hallway narrower than before? he wonders) and a gnawing sense of foreboding creeping at the edges of his mind; but he knows that there is no way he's going to leave Smudge here on his own to face whatever unknown horrors this place might hold.
"I'm not leaving you," he says, and hopes his conviction carries through. "I just… this place…" He takes a breath and gives a weak smile. "It's a bit scary, don't you think?"
Silence.
"…but if you want to go on, I'll go with you-"
"Nah," Smudge says quietly, gazing distantly down the hall. "It's okay then."
"Smudge."
When he doesn't respond, Sasan reaches out his other hand and gently cups Smudge's face towards him. "We're… all right, right?" he asks.
Smudge's eyes dip down. Another shrug. "I guess." Half-hearted. "I just don't know if I still know you anymore."
"Smudge-"
"I want to," Smudge says, and looks straight at him. "It's just not the same anymore, okay?"
The faraway look is gone, for the moment, and it's just Smudge again, like he was moments ago when he cried into Sasan's arms and begged him never to do that again, and his eyes are scared and pleading…
"I love you," Sasan says, and he means it.
Silence. The words hang in the air.
Sasan hesitantly reaches out a hand and trails it lightly through Smudge's hair.
Smudge catches his hand, holds it, looks at it, tries to use it to fill that void in his heart; tries to make himself believe that nothing ever happened with Louis, and things were as they'd always been between them; hating himself for ever having trusted Sasan that much, and yet yearning for that same unbounded faith, too afraid now to make that leap…
It could never be the same again. The ache cuts deep into him, into an ancient loneliness he'd thought he'd never feel again.
You never deserved Sas in the first place, Smudge tells himself fiercely. You never deserved anyone. If you didn't look like him he wouldn't even have given you a second glance.
His other hand clenches into a fist.
…It might have been better if he'd stayed dead.
But that thought chokes his heart and he gasps out a tear.
"Smudge, talk to me…"
Sasan's hand leaves his shoulder and cradles Smudge's face, desperate for some hint at what was going on in his head, yearning to see beyond the eyes that have since glazed over again. His thumb brushes the tear away.
You're alone again, Smudge thinks. You're always going to be alone. No one can ever truly love you.
Sasan hugs him tightly, whispering his name. Smudge trembles in his hold.
And you can never trust anyone again.
"It's going to be okay," Sasan murmurs into his ear. There's a tightness in his voice, choked with suppressed tears and cutting guilt. "We're… We're going to be okay."
*
It's like some kind of awkward family reunion. Like Christmas dinner with relatives you'd prefer you never saw: a few loudly dominating the conversation with updates on what's been going on in everyone's life, crude jokes, awkward laughter, lips silently pursing, kids running around the place…
Well, so it isn't completely like that. It's quieter, for starters; each of the five of them seated at the table are too hungry to talk. But the awkwardness is there, at least, and Jason wonders if he's the only one who feels it so strongly. It's possible. Adam and his friends seem to have long ago attained a level of easy comfort around each other, as though there's nothing particularly strange about being surrounded by people who look almost exactly like you. Since they'd first met, Jason hasn't seen another face.
It unnerves him when he thinks too much about it. So he just eats quietly and tries not to be too conspicuous; lest people remember that he was the one who'd tried to hide food from them. And it unnerves him when he thinks about Peter and his death and realises how, after the initial shock, it hasn't seemed to impact him that much. They didn't exactly know each other that well. They'd met for barely hours. Jason doesn't expect to have particularly strong feelings for the death of any passing acquaintance, but what disturbs him is the way that he's losing his hold on who Peter was; like he was just another face, another one of them, his personality and essence blurring against the rest of them into something insubstantial, indistinguishable…
He wonders if he seems the same way to everyone else here.
Everyone else. It's almost a cruel joke. Sometimes he gets the sense that they're all the same person, spread thin over several incarnations, fighting itself, cooperating with itself, and that at any moment the illusion of individuality is going to shatter and they - he? - would be all alone. Trapped. With no one else who knows that he's here.
Jason tries to keep his calm exterior as he reaches out for more broccoli. The food is quickly going. He wonders where the excess food ends up, if they're all really one person. Or if it's just him, and the others all figments of his imagination…
Adam is staring at nothing as he chews.
"How long before the next thing happens?" Tony asks, a bit too enthusiastically, as he scoops out more unidentifiable but extremely delicious mushy purplish food onto his plate. It was the best thing he had ever tasted, ever.
"Nothing happens," Adam predicts darkly, still staring at nothing, his mind half elsewhere. "We're trapped here, like in the last place. And then we die. After another series of unfortunate events."
Adam finally lowers his eyes back to his plate, and stabs at a piece of potato. "They're picking us off one by one."
"Giving up, huh?" Mitchell asks.
Adam gives him a look.
"It's just a sucky attitude, that's all."
Adam goes back to his food. He briefly looks over to where Zach and Louis are, then decides that nothing interesting is going on there. He prefers Zach being far over there, anyway. Zach disturbs him every time Adam remembers who he is.
"The question is… why do you care, Adam?"
He looks up from his plate, and Dem is perched on the table munching on a cinnamon stick, the rest of them frozen in time-
-no, not all of them. Leo is there with him, just the two of them and Dem active in their little bubble of time.
Adam grits his teeth. "Here to gloat?"
"Oh, I could do that whenever I want," Dem says, dismissing his question with a wave of the cinnamon stick. "The thing is… people die all the time in senseless, pointless ways. You and your friends aren't so special. Is your human worldview so narrow and self-centred that you're only affected when you're forced to face it? Why aren't all of you in a constant state of agony over all the suffering that's going on all the time? Oppression, discrimination, hate crimes, children starving, people wasting away, gruesome murders, natural disasters, diseases, torture…"
"There's a limit to how much we can acknowledge in order to function," Leo says, and Adam is suddenly grateful for his presence.
"In that case," Dem says, "why not ignore all of it? You'd be so much happier then. How is acknowledging a comfortable amount of suffering any less selfish?"
"Is there a point to your questions?" Adam asks testily.
Dem shrugs and chews on his cinnamon stick.
"We do what we can," Leo says. "So maybe it's selfish. But no one's perfect. And, yeah, maybe personal interests get in the way, but we're just human-"
Dem jabs his cinnamon stick in Leo's face. "Aha," he says. Leo flinches. "But what do you consider personal interests? A bunch of strangers getting skewered isn't exactly that personal, is it?"
"It is when we're the ones supposed to stop it," Leo says.
Dem bends in close. "But think of all the many other horrors you could stop if only you tried. By selling all you have and giving it to the poor… by hunting down criminals in your spare time… by speaking up every time someone does something that isn't very nice… Or do you only do good when there's a huge sign explicitly telling you that you have ten minutes to save a bunch of guys who happen to look exactly like you?"
"We'd have done the same no matter what they looked like," Adam says irritably.
Dem stops staring Leo down and turns his attention to Adam. "Really?" he asks. "Well, maybe. But I'm guessing you wouldn't have felt as bad about it if they had died. History has shown time and again that humans favour people they perceive to be like them. Whom they sense a connection with. Newspapers reporting on disasters in other countries always pay special attention to any of their own citizens who happened to be caught. Maybe just one or two of them, but hey, they get the spotlight amidst the thousands of faceless natives. How many parents do you think would willingly let their child die if it meant five strangers would be saved?"
Dem twirls the cinnamon stick. "You know it yourself, Adam. I know that Smudge and Sasan and Tony annoy the hell out of you, and yet you still care about them. Because of that bond. Without it I doubt any of you would have become this close. You're all strangers, you know that. You don't know any more about each other than a random collection of people on the street. Or do you forget that, and just assume? Filling in the blanks with your own assumptions of what the others are? Why did you trust Sylar the first time you met him? Would you have done the same if he had looked different? Would you have been more on alert?"
"Do you keep seeking out humans to blame us for being human?" Adam asks.
"I'm just trying to help you rise above it." Dem lifts the cinnamon stick into the air to demonstrate.
"…" says Adam, suddenly wanting that cinnamon stick.
"…which you're evidently not very good at," Dem says, putting the cinnamon stick back into his mouth. "There are lessons to be learnt among these people. If you can see them as family, there's no reason why you can't do the same for anyone else. Appearances are deceiving. Neighbours, beggars, politicians, annoying co-workers…" - Dem gave Adam a look - "…if they were like the people here, would you be kinder? If you assumed that they too were like you and felt the same, hurt the same way, saw the world through eyes not that different from yours… would you care more? Would you be more willing to understand?"
"You're a bit of a hypocrite, aren't you?" Adam says. "Talking about kindness while you torture us."
"I'm not human," Dem says lightly. "I don't count. And it's called tough love. Sometimes death is involved," he admits. "But it's for your own good. I think."
"Why us?" Adam retorts. "Jealous of our eyebrows or something?"
Dem looks momentarily sad, as if Adam has touched a nerve. Then that expression fades. "You're a completely random group of people," he says. "All strangers, remember? Look past the surface, Adam. You've all got nothing in common. Some of you aren't even the same race. You and Louis are Jewish, Sasan is Iranian, Smudge is bisexual…"
Leo puts his hand to his forehead in a subtle facepalm.
"…the odd thing is," Dem continues, "If I were to get enough of you together - say a hundred - the differences are going to become even clearer. Humans always find a way to oppress others. If you can't discriminate on the basis of phenotypical appearance, there's always religion, class status, age, sexual orientation… you'd be a nice little society in no time, full of the privileged oppressing the unprivileged as they fight for their right to exist." Dem shrugs. "You could start a city. Quintopolis."
Leo's other hand joins his first in a second subtle facepalm.
"You know I'm right," Dem says, with a surreptitious look of envy at Adam's eyebrows.
"So what's next?" Adam asks. "It's not very useful learning things if we're all going to die, is it?"
"Oh, I don't know," Dem says. "I'm not in charge of this game. That's up to Q to decide. I'm just here to enjoy the show and subject you to monologues about the human condition. Cheers. Do you want this cinnamon stick?"
"…No," Adam lies.
"All right then." Dem promptly vanishes.
Jason gives them a double take when time starts going again.
"What?" Adam asks, seeing him staring.
"You… moved," Jason says, looking uncomfortable. He'd seen the same thing earlier before when they'd carried Louis in.
"…Yeah. I'm not dead."
"It's not… it's like you… Never mind." Jason meekly returns to his food.
Adam is about to press further, when Leo picks up a piece of card from the table that hasn't been there before.
"What's that?" Tony asks, leaning over for a better look.
It's a detailed plan of the house: several floors worth, a red dot cheerily marked 'You Are Here!'; and, at the end of a maze of hallways, an arrow marked 'Exit'.
"…It's a map," Adam says.
*
Smudge untangles himself from the embrace, slipping away like air beneath Sasan's hold and turning away, pushing absently at one of the doors in the hallway and following its path as it opens up into a room, Sasan trailing behind, helpless, devoted, sunk in regret and wanting him back.
Smudge half-turns, meets his gaze, and there's still some of that old connection there that Sasan clings on to… but then Smudge turns back and continues walking into the gloom of the strange large room they've found themselves in. It's half-furnished, as though someone had been moving in and gave up unpacking. Boxes lie scattered on the grey concrete floor, shoved up against unpainted walls or lying in the way. There's a vague outline of a kitchen counter on one side; an unremarkable door near it; scraps of peeling half-done wallpaper. Ceiling high metal-frame windows line the opposite wall. Sunlight shines in: a dead, whitish glow that flows mutely through the glass. An ornate iron staircase winds its way up the centre, its structure tinged with the dull green of oxidisation.
The door shuts behind them. Smudge meanders around the boxes in childlike absentmindedness, thoughts elsewhere, and Sasan can do nothing but follow after.
Smudge slows down by the window, gazing silently out.
"I don't think this is part of the house," he says, and Sasan is just glad to hear him speak. He goes forward to join him, placing a hesitant arm around his shoulder - becoming less hesitant when Smudge does not resist - and looks out with him.
He makes out some semblance of foliage. Green, but with an ancient, crumbly quality… tired plants, left too long to live.
"Perhaps there's a way out," Sasan suggests.
Smudge shrugs. "Maybe."
Sasan looks at him, and with hesitant affection tousles Smudge's hair and brings his head close.
Smudge leans against him, but doesn't say anything.
"I'll always be here," Sasan murmurs. "I'll always be here."
*
Louis is in no state to walk, and no one knows where Smudge and Sasan have run off to, so Zach agrees to stay there while the others check out whatever that map claims the exit is and report back.
"It could be a trap," Mitchell says as the five of them start making their way down one of the plush hallways, Adam leading the way.
"I don't think we have a choice," Leo says. "If that's the exit, I doubt there'd be any other way out."
"…What if we can't get back?" Jason asks.
"Does it matter?" Adam asks curtly, not looking at him.
"We can't leave them-"
"You barely know them," Adam continues tersely, forging on ahead. "We're probably all going to die anyway."
Jason wishes he wouldn't say that.
Leo steps up to Adam's side in silent support as they walk. Adam swallows; relaxing his shoulders a little.
Leo holds out his hand for the map. "I could take over-"
"It's ok."
Leo puts his hand back down.
Bringing up the rear, Tony munches on an apple he took from the dining table. Adam likes how this means he's too busy chewing to talk.
Jason glances with passing interest at the doors as they go by, and wonders for the moment about breaking away and going into one of those rooms… through the occasional open door he sees more doors, or stairways, or hallways, and wonders how huge this place is; and if some of those doors lead to other worlds, perhaps his own, or just an infinite series of other places that one can spend forever exploring in an unending architectural journey through scenes since deserted by whoever once lived there.
Adam leads them through one of those doors. This room is tiny, clean and square, its smooth walls reflecting a pastel orange from some omnipresent light. It opens up in a corner into a similar corridor, just wide enough for single-file, and they go through.
They pass through more interior vistas: some are recognisably of human origin, some definitely furnished by IKEA, others strange and alien with eerie walls knitting up towards impossibly high ceilings; and, always, there are no people, although sometimes the rooms seem to hold echoes of previous lives.
After ten or fifteen minutes of eternity, they emerge in a wide wooden panelled corridor that grows narrower and lower towards the end. It terminates in a simple, functional wooden door.
Adam draws slowly to a halt before it.
"We're here," he states simply.
Tony steps forward and places a hand on the door handle. He glances at them for guidance; seeing no objection, he pushes it down and opens it.
It looks like a perfectly normal alleyway in some city or other. Concrete walls, dirty ground, bits of junk tossed here and there, the sound of traffic. Cars pass by in whooshing blurs of colour in the distance. Strains of conversation in the distance. People.
The familiarity is reassuring.
"Whose world is this?" Leo asks, as they step out.
"What do you think 'exit' meant?" Mitchell counters. "Did you think we'd all magically end up back in our own homes?"
Tony kicks absently at a can. It bounces off the wall and falls back down. He tosses his apple core aside to join the rest of the junk.
None of them particularly care when the door shuts behind them. None of them notice when it vanishes into the wall.
"We can't all go out at once," Jason ventures. "It might attract too much attention-"
Adam has gone on ahead, Leo a short distance behind, and the others are about to ignore Jason and follow him; when Adam suddenly comes to an abrupt halt.
"What-"
Then Leo sees the same thing, and falls silent.
Adam finally turns around, his face completely ashen. "...We… we've gotta go back," he says. He pulls at Leo, who has gone semi-paralysed in shock. "Leo. Go back."
"Uh, the door is gone," Tony points out helpfully, wandering towards them. "What's going on? Nuclear apocalypse? Zombie apocalypse?"
Jason is staring at where the door used to be. There's a message there now, scratched on in chalk.
YOU HAVE 30 MINUTES BEFORE YOUR EXIT CLOSES.
CORNER OF WELLS AND LAKE
DOOR TO ROOM #29-64
P.S. DO NOT FALL INTO THE LAKE.
He has a bad feeling about this.
*
Frightened eyes meet on the floor, sharing a moment's solidarity, lips moving wordlessly in silent sentiments amidst their trembling breaths. Jay cautiously extends his arm across the grey concrete of the floor; finds Peter's hand, grasps hold of it-
- and then loses his grip as Peter is swept off the ground and into the air, Sylar's telekinetic grasp firm around his neck.
Sylar approaches and circles his prey, slow, deliberate steps across the floor.
"What's your name?" he asks, an amused lilt to his voice.
"Peter," he gasps out, and wonders at the grin that spreads across Sylar's face.
"I knew a Peter," Sylar says, his ominously quiet voice carrying throughout the room. "We… didn't get along very well."
He breaks the grip, and Peter collapses to the floor, left hand rising reflexively to massage his neck.
"Lick my shoes," Sylar says casually.
Peter looks up, aghast. "…What?"
Sylar tilts his head at him. "Which part of that sentence did you not understand?"
Jay gets slowly to his feet, then shouts and crashes backwards into a glass case as Sylar absently flicks a hand at him.
"I gave you an order, Peter."
"…No-"
Peter gets back to his feet, trying to contain his shaking, and feeling a little more assured when he's standing up at full height, meeting Sylar's gaze with his own, realising that they're the same size, and there shouldn't be any reason to be afr-
Peter screams as a burst of pain erupts in his head; he falls to his knees, only dimly aware of Sylar's crooked finger drawing out the pain.
Jay extracts himself from the broken glass. "Stop it-"
Sylar turns his head to him and raises an eyebrow. "You don't give the orders around here," he says. "This is my world."
Peter has sunk even lower to the ground, curled up in foetal position, hands clutching his head in agony, mouth open in silent cry.
"And it's always nice to have hostages," Sylar continues. He straightens his finger. Peter lets out a gasp of relief, uncurling slightly, hands slipping down his face to lie weakly on the floor, eyes wild and staring blankly at nothing.
"Why would you need hostages?" Jay asks.
Sylar grins, and changes the scene.
It's a room they've never seen before, but the people…
Sylar struts over to the man sitting in a chair, a plate of food balanced in his lap, attention drawn by some heated conversation going on by the couch-
Sylar bends down towards his ear. "Hello, Quinto," he whispers, invisible and unheard, although Zach suddenly thinks he feels a strange stirring in his mind. Sylar grins, casting a brief glance back at Peter and Jay. "Missed me?"
And then he slides in, and Zach is no longer Zach.
*
"I meant that Quintopolis thing as a joke," Dem says.
Q shrugs, casually examining an apple. "Infinite multiverse. The place exists. Why let it go to waste."
"My rhetorical tools aren't going to work as well if you're going to make them literal. Give me that apple."
"I got it first." Q takes a bite from the apple and chews. "It's not actually called Quintopolis," he adds. "It's a perfectly respectable, normal universe in millions of ways. That was new york I put them in. He spreads his arms wide and smiles. "You know it's going to be fun. Want to make bets on who cracks first?"
*
CHAPTER THIRTEEN >>