plane between: 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: 4,561
Quinto Formaggi Plane Between: Chapter 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12
XIII: the best imitation of myself
"Adam."
He's hyperventilating, staring out mutely at the passing pedestrians, that shell-shocked look back on his face the way it was when they were at the cells. A hand grips loosely at Leo's arm, the pleas to go back having died into whispers and then silence, the population of this city - this world - having once more stolen his attention.
The men, women, children, and everything in between: they pass by in varying shapes, sizes and occasionally colours, but all are, unmistakeably, them. Voices vary only along age, sex, accent and cadence. The women look almost like his late sister-
Sara.
Cold grips Adam's heart.
"Adam…"
Adam swallows, still transfixed. Leo frees his arm from Adam's grip and guides him back into the alley, meeting little resistance.
Adam lets his head fall back against the wall. A gasping sob forces out a tear.
"…Do we want to know what's out there?" Mitchell asks warily.
"See for yourself," Leo murmurs, as Tony strolls ahead to do just that.
Jason hangs around uncertainly, thinking that everyone should probably know about the message on the wall; but it doesn't seem like a good time to interrupt whatever was going on.
"…I'm not going out there," Adam whispers, eyes squeezed shut, trembling against Leo's hand on his shoulder. "I'm not… it's wrong, it's just… wrong… we've… gotta go back… please…"
"Um, I don't think we can," Jason says, deciding that this might be a good time to say so. "The door disappeared and there's… a message…"
Leo looks over. "What?"
Jason points, looking apologetic.
"Hey," Tony calls out. "Why're you all hanging back there?" He hops back over. "…We've survived each other. What's a few thousand more?"
*
"Maybe there are dinosaurs out there," Smudge says after a while, a softly distant, almost dreamy quality to his voice. "We could go out and look. Maybe… maybe one might see us and chase us. But then we could come back in here…"
"…Where it's safe," Sasan continues, tentatively. Smudge still isn't looking at him.
"Yeah. And we could close the doors so they can't get at us…"
"…and crawl into the bed together."
Silence.
"There's no bed here," Smudge says. "Just that couch."
"There could be a bed," Sasan counters, taking it and winging it, looking around the drab room, in his head refurbishing and refurnishing… "Smudge, we could live here. Together. We'd make this place good, we'd… tear down that horrible wallpaper and get some paint on. Build in beech cupboards for the kitchen. And one of those shiny things to hang pots on, right next to the stove-"
"A fridge with food in it," Smudge adds wistfully.
"Yes. Yes, food. Good food. With the freezer stocked with as many flavours of ice-cream that you can imagine-"
"Raspberry?"
"It's there."
"Peanut butter."
"Definitely."
"Bacon."
Sasan raises an eyebrow, carefully, not daring to do anything that might spoil the stolen moment. "That sounds absolutely disgusting."
"We'd put in a carpet," Smudge says, gazing at the dusty concrete.
"Good idea. Colour?"
"Olive," Smudge decides. "But not all the way. This part near the windows will just be wood, and we could stand here and look out at the trees like it's our garden-"
"Like we're doing now."
"…Yeah. And a bookshelf over there," Smudge continues. "Full of books. I hate reading, but they'd look nice-"
Sasan gives him a wry smile. "…and then I'd make you like reading because you're missing out on so much."
"You could read to me."
"I could," Sasan murmurs. "If you promise not to fall asleep."
"I won't if it's good."
"What; my voice isn't alluring enough for you?"
Smudge looks at him, his expression unreadable. Sasan reaches out a gentle hand to Smudge's head, sifting his hair through his fingers.
"…my mom used to read to me," Smudge says softly, dropping his gaze downward. "Long ago."
"Really? Do you miss her?"
Smudge shrugs. "I don't know," he says. "I haven't seen her in ten years since they kicked me out for being bisexual." He scuffs his shoes against the floor.
Sasan cups Smudge's face upwards. "Your parents kicked you out at thirteen?" he asks, gazing at him in concern.
"Yeah," Smudge replies flatly. "But it's okay. I didn't have to go to school, so that was good. And I had a cardboard box to sleep in and talk to. I named him Eric."
"Smudge…"
Smudge forcefully brushes a tear aside. "…and we could move the couch over there," he says, pointing, changing the subject. "Next to the TV…"
He makes to go over to illustrate, but Sasan holds him back.
Smudge looks up at him. "…Sas?" he asks carefully.
Sasan slowly pulls him into a hug. "I'm so sorry," he whispers. "I'm so sorry…"
Smudge shifts slightly in his arms.
Sasan eventually raises his face to look at Smudge with an impossible tenderness, wondering how he could have ever done anything to hurt him, wondering how many unstated past hurts Smudge had gone through in his life, wondering just what impact this last one had had, and how he had been responsible for it…
Smudge returns his gaze, his face clear, the subtle defences back up.
"…We could snuggle on the couch next to the TV," Sasan finally says. "We could… fall asleep in front of it while… some perky newscaster goes on about the end of the world…"
Sasan peters off, waiting, wanting…
"-the end of all worlds," Smudge finally says. "Forever."
"Forever," Sasan agrees. "Except for this place."
Smudge buries his face in Sasan's neck, his eyes staring emptily at nothing.
"Because we're here," Sasan continues softly, holding Smudge tight, treasuring every moment of their closeness and never wanting to let go. "For… for as long as we want," he says.
"Together," Smudge adds distantly.
"Yes," Sasan whispers. "Because I love you."
*
A part of him is still waiting to wake up.
Zach has spent the last few hours in a daze; not quite living, just existing, letting the flow of events just carry him along; observing the others and trying to make sense of them, trying to reconcile the paradoxical notions of knowing everything and nothing about them, having them at once be a part of him (and he of them) and yet autonomous strangers with their own minds and thoughts he is not privy to.
It's curiously frightening to realise how little he knows about them. Some of their lives he shared for mere minutes or hours of screen time, everything else a vague mystery. He doesn't know what they are thinking. It feels strange to try and guess. But from the way some of them look at him - that almost-guilty, self-conscious look - he wonders if they think he does. And when he meets their gaze there is that flash of kinship, a familiarity, triggering memories of a time spent as them, in their skins, sharing their clothes and mannerisms and expressions and names; but then the moment passes, or they look away, and they become strangers again.
And it takes a while for him to understand - fully understand - that they are people, and any power he may have over them is negligible; that there are parts of their lives that he knows absolutely nothing about, experiences and memories, families and friends: whole lives whose fullness is hinted at in snatches of conversation, or in little quirks that did not originate with him. He wasn't there when they grew up, or went to school, or graduated. He wasn't there when Adam's sister died. He wasn't there for the first meal Leo had when reunited with his biological parents. He wasn't there when Smudge and Sasan fell in love.
But that odd sense of familiarity still lingers, and when Sylar takes over his body again, there's a part of him that recognises it and remembers years spent on the set of Heroes feeling the exact same way.
Only now Zach tries and fails to snap out of character as his hands put his plate of food down and his legs push him up from his chair, walking casually past Louis' petulant stare and down a hallway, into a room as his hands shut the door beyond his control and his face spreads in a grin.
"Missed me, Quinto?" his voice asks in a low whisper.
And Zach's mind struggles to regain its control, but Sylar won't let him. He plonks down in an arm chair, head falling back against it.
His eyes close, relishing the moment.
"It feels so good to be back," Sylar murmurs with his voice. "Of course, it would be better if I had my own body instead of your feeble mortal one, but it will do."
Sylar grins again. "You can't get rid of me. You know that, don't you? I'll always find a way back." He shrugs, opening his eyes, lightly running his left hand down his right forearm as though investigating it. "Of course, that assumes that this… is me. I might not really be here. Maybe this is all in your head. What d'you think about that, Quinto? The famous Hollywood actor slowly… goes… crazy…"
Sylar twirls a finger in circles in front of his ear, then drops his hand down onto the armrest.
"What's it feel like?" Sylar asks, smirking. "You can't do anything unless I let you." He laughs. "Nice role reversal, isn't it? It's almost… poetic justice. I control you now, Quinto. I could go out there, pretend to be you… play with them a little…"
Zach tries to move his hand, wrest it out of Sylar's mental grip, but nothing happens.
"…or," Sylar adds, pondering, "I could give you back control of this pathetic body and have you do exactly as I want. And you can stop trying to move your hand. I'm not letting you."
Sylar strokes an armrest with his thumb. Zach feels the rough material against his skin.
"You're… the wildcard," Sylar says. "You could be anybody here. That's got to be useful." He gives up on the armrest and picks absentmindedly at Zach's plaid shirt. "What could we do with that?"
…Maybe this is all in his head, Zach thinks again, desperately. He doesn't feel possessed. He feels like he's acting. But he can't stop it.
"We could pick a target," Sylar suggests. "That bisexual guy, maybe. Hey… let's see how many of his friends you can kill off and replace before he realises that it's all… just… you. And maybe he is you as well. You're the only person in this place, Quinto. The rest of us aren't real. Right?"
Zach thinks he would be more inclined to agree if he could move even an eyebrow at will, although Sylar does him the honours and raises one.
Sylar sits up in the chair, clasping his hands together, fingers intertwining as he seemingly addresses the air.
"You could be anyone. Anyone. That has to be useful. You can get them to do anything you want. …Anything I want. What do you think about that?"
And Zach gets a tiny bit of control back, enough to gasp out in relief, his expression turning in a second from evil to fear.
"…What makes you think I'll do that?" he asks. "You… you can't act as them. Only I can. Which means you won't be in control-"
Sylar takes over his tongue, cutting him off.
"That's what my hostages are for," he says simply. "I believe you've… been acquainted with the recently departed Peter and Jay. So far they've not been enjoying their afterlife very much." Sylar smiles. "I could make it even worse."
*
It's almost a blessing in disguise, Leo thinks. In any other place, there would probably be no way for the five of them to get anywhere without attracting a whole lot of unwanted attention. As it is, the only stares they get seem to have more to do with how they stand clustered together looking varying degrees of terrified and giving off tourist vibes, making Mitchell mutter about how they could at least try to look natural, whereupon Tony breaks out in a spout of nonchalant whistling that draws at least one definite stare.
"We should find a map," Jason suggest tentatively, more curious passersby casting them looks the longer they stand indecisively at the alleyway opening. Tony stops whistling.
"So what… we just walk down the street until we find one?" Mitchell asks.
"Or we could ask for directions," Tony points out.
A young couple pulls their screaming kid past them, the mother yelling something about no more new toys if she tries eating Rover's food again.
Adam's eyes have glazed over when Leo looks at him, withdrawn into the relative safety of his head, unable to deal with the weirdness, unable to process the multitudes of people - visible and hinted at - existing and living with his face.
He had enough presence of mind to set his watch to countdown the amount of time they had to get out, chopping off a couple of minutes to account for the time spent before discovering the message; and it is perhaps only the possibility of being trapped here, forever, that made him move.
"…You guys suck," Tony mutters. "I'm going to ask someone." He leaves their group and heads towards a hotdog stand at the street corner some distance away.
What disturbs Leo most is the normalcy of the place. Overly-homogenous population aside, it could be any contemporary urban city. Skyscrapers, traffic, people, a fountain across the street… It's New York, apparently, or perhaps new york, if the battered page of the new york times flapping against a trashcan is any indicator. Leo doesn't let himself examine it further. He doesn't want to see the photos.
Up ahead, Tony relishes the invisibility and suppresses the urge to strip naked and streak down the street. He walks up to the hotdog stand.
"Hi…" he greets.
The teenager manning the stand looks up from his Biology textbook, lost in studying for an exam as he waits for customers. Hair pokes out from beneath a baseball cap.
"Yeah?"
"Do you… know the way to Wells and Lake?"
The teenager shrugs. "I don't know, man. I think a bus might go there. Or catch a cab or something. Wanna buy a hotdog?"
Tony almost says yes, his stomach having forgotten the meal he'd had not that long ago, but then he catches sight of the cash lying in the till and realises he doesn't have any local currency.
"Nah," he says. "I just ate. Tried selling one to him?" Tony gestures towards a scruffy-looking man sitting on a bench across the street, clad in a blazer and T-shirt and gazing sadly at a half-eaten sandwich in his hand. A pigeon trots past.
"Yeah, I've tried. I guess he likes his sandwich."
The two of them gaze at the sad sandwich guy for a while, watching as he takes a slow, pondering bite and then goes back to looking at it.
"That is so not how you eat a sandwich."
Tony agrees.
They watch him chew and take another bite. Tony glances briefly over the hotdog stand, taking in the hotdogs, bread, cash till and Biology textbook.
"You… run this thing yourself?" he asks.
"Huh? …Oh. Not really; it's just… a part-time job. Trying to save up for college. And then maybe one day I can graduate and get stuck in some dead-end job somewhere." He sighs. "But that's life, right?"
Tony appraises him, remembering a similar time, and makes a decision. He leans in, secretively. "Want an adventure?"
"Hell yeah. Where can I get one?"
"What's your name?"
The teenager hesitates, then decides that Tony looks harmless. "Stanley."
"I'm Tony. And… I'm from another world."
Stanley raises an eyebrow. "Sure you don't want to buy a hotdog?"
"…Hey. I'm serious." A thought strikes him. "Okay, look at this…" Tony pulls his wallet out of his jeans pocket and yanks out a dollar bill. He holds it up to Stanley-
"It's a dollar-fifty for one-"
"Look at it."
And Stanley looks, and his mouth falls open. He picks the bill out from Tony's hand, staring at the illustration of George Washington. "Where'd you get this?" he asks in fascination, investigating the rest of the bill. "It's really well made."
"It's real," Tony says. "That's legal tender cash right there. Or at least it is where I come from."
Stanley hands it back. "Okay, this thing is awesome, but it takes more than a dollar bill with an alien on it to make me believe you're from another planet or something."
"Not another planet," Tony says. "Another world. Another universe. Where the people look different from each other."
"…So what do they look like?" Stanley asks, humouring him, having decided that Tony is more interesting than the cellular workings of bacterium. "Not-human?"
"No, they're all human. Just… different. Like this," he says, pointing at the dollar bill.
"…Yeah, that's so not human," Stanley points out.
"Look," Tony says. "Someone comes up to you saying they're from another world, there are only three possibilities. They're crazy, or they're trying to sell you something, or they're telling the truth. Do I look crazy to you?"
Stanley shrugs. "Maybe."
"Yeah, well, I'm not. And you don't look rich enough to rip off. Which means I'm probably telling the truth, and if you turn me down now, you're going to spend the rest of your life sitting in an office cubicle regretting it."
Stanley stares at him. "…Now you're getting scary."
"A bunch of friends and I are stranded," Tony continues. "We've got less than half an hour to get out, and we could really do with a local guide."
"I don't know this place very w-"
"You know this world," Tony says. "You were born here. You grew up here. We weren't."
Stanley knows all about not going off with dodgy strangers and agreeing to be their tour guide; but Stanley had never been one to listen to the alarm bells that go off in his head, and there was something curiously persistent and earnest in Tony's eyes.
It almost made him believe.
"…Okay," he finally says, slowly. "Just let me lock up the stand."
*
[Trigger warning: sexual harrassment]
"You hurt him," the voice says, quietly, and it takes a while before Sasan realises that time has stopped, the floating dust particles hanging suspended in the rays of light, and Smudge warm but unmoving in his embrace. Sasan doesn't move his head, recognising the voice and swallowing back fear as Q casually saunters into his field of vision, a look of mock-concern on his face.
"How could you do that?" Q asks. "How heartless did you have to be to break his heart?"
Sasan doesn't say anything, but he tightens his hold on the time-frozen Smudge.
"You're the first person who ever reciprocated his love," Q continues. "You're the first person who ever made him feel he was worth something." Q bends in close. "And then you blew it." The hint of a smirk tugs at the corner of his otherwise impassionate face, but then it fades into a mildly questing eyebrow.
Sasan closes his eyes, breathing in the low musky scent of Smudge's hair.
"Don't make promises you can't keep," Q says. "Playing the committed soul mate… when you've never managed to keep a steady boyfriend for more than a week. What makes you think this will be different? Or are you so… callous… not to care what it'll do to him, the day you have to admit that you've found someone else?"
"Smudge is different," Sasan says in a trembling murmur.
Q raises his eyebrows . "I'm not sure you'll think the same if there were more… variety in potential partners here. Although it looked like you were having fun with Louis."
"I didn't want to," Sasan says tightly.
"Really?" Q asks, and with a thin smile his image shifts and morphs until Sasan is staring in shock at himself, clad in his own clothes rather than ones borrowed from Adam, regarding him with a slightly patronising smile.
"Or is this what you were thinking of?" Q asks in his voice. "A bit of a narcissist, aren't you, Sas?"
A surge of heat and embarrassment rushes through Sasan's body as he tries to keep his eyes from checking himself out, grasping desperately on to the unmoving Smudge as Q approaches and runs a hand - Sasan's hand - along his face.
Sasan swallows. "Stop it," he says, his face flushed, trying to look away from the gold-brown of his own eyes, his body crying out in want.
Q lifts his hand off Sasan and slides it under his own shirt, a grin playing on the borrowed features of his face.
And Sasan wants to stop watching but can't bring himself to close his eyes, hot with mortification and forbidden desire, digging his fingers into his palm to try and distract himself as Q slips his hands out and slowly unbuttons his own shirt, that taunting look still shining out from eyes he did not have a moment ago.
"Do you want this?" Q asks in a low voice, and it takes most of Sasan's willpower not to give in.
"No," he forces out as Q's shirt - Sasan's shirt, he owns that shirt - flaps open, the last button undone.
Q raises a perfectly groomed eyebrow. "What makes Smudge so special?" he asks. "What makes him so different from all the other guys you've ever had? What do you really want?" Q leans in towards Sasan's ear, noting his half-hearted flinch as he whispers: "Who do you really want?"
A not-completely-unpleasant shiver runs down Sasan's back.
Close your eyes, Sasan tells himself, but his eyes still want to look, moving his gaze hungrily over the perfect copy before him, taking in every contour just out of reach of his subtly twitching fingers.
"Look at you," Q says, thinly-disguised contempt in his voice. He runs fingers back through Sasan's hair, Sasan tensing at his touch, breathing fast, a sob caught in the back of his throat.
"If you love him as much as you claim," Q continues, "you'd let him go. He deserves someone better. Someone who'll love him for him."
"No…" Sasan breathes out.
"That's a little selfish, don't you think?"
Sasan opens his mouth to speak, but no words come out.
He remembers quiet nights cuddled on the couch in each other's presence; running around Kenselton Hotel joking and laughing and falling on each other; the grasp of his hand the time Sasan died, Smudge's eyes filled with love and desperation and the unspoken plea for him to live; Smudge's ever-present desire to protect him from all harm, his nonchalant oblivion to the world's accepted logic, the way his eyes sometimes glaze over when he's thinking, the way he looks at him and holds him and calls him Sas… the kid who was thrown out of his home at thirteen…
"I love him," Sasan finally says, and speaking it gives him some confidence. He hugs Smudge tighter, and finally finds the will to close his eyes and shut out Q's mocking impersonation. "Smudge. I love him. I do..."
Smudge moves in his arms. "You do what?" he asks, and when Sasan opens his eyes, Q has gone, and time has started again.
Sasan strokes a thumb across Smudge's lips, swallowing back tears. "This," he says, and he leans in to kiss him; and Smudge does not resist.
*
Jay reaches out a finger to touch Zach, stumbling back as Sylar's mind forcefully rebuffs him, shielding Zach's body from additional possession. He glances at Peter, the both of them near colourless and insubstantial in their half-life state, and he wonders if this is what being a ghost is like. He doesn't even know what he is, but when he puts his hands on the armchair, they go right through. The floor seems solid enough, though; at least, until he thinks about it, whereupon his feet sink through and he jumps back up, landing on once-again solidity.
Peter cautiously joins Jay by his side, staring at Zach's body with mild trepidation.
"He played us," Peter says.
Jay is silent, still trying to register this piece of knowledge.
"If… Sylar could take control of him, then we could too, couldn't we?" Peter asks. "I mean, if it's just acting…"
"I'm not 'just acting'," Jay says quietly. "And I don't think Sylar wants to share."
"There are two of us and only one of him," Peter points out.
"He's powerful," Jay says. "Whatever he is."
Silence.
Peter tries to touch Zach, only to encounter the same blocking.
And then, in a burst of will to escape, Jay catches him and pushes him back. "Go for it," he says with sudden fierceness. "Just keep trying."
Peter grasps Zach's arm, feeling Sylar's mind trying to throw him off, when Jay clamps his own hand on top of his, adding mental and physical strength-
Peter's other hand joins his first, his eyes closing as Jay turns him around and pushes him back, falling towards Zach in the chair, Jay suddenly doing a jump and lunging towards him in a huge shove-
Peter jerks up in a suddenly-solid armchair, physical heart thumping, his gaze darting around in shock.
"…Jay?" he breathes out, but the world is now in full colour and he feels everything, and the body he inhabits has a strange familiarity to it.
He brings his hands up in front of his eyes, still hyperventilating, then drops them, looking down at and picking at the plaid shirt he's suddenly wearing.
Peter stumbles out of the chair. Somewhere in his mind he feels a suppressed consciousness. He swallows.
"…Zach," he says, just in case. "It's… it's Peter, I… I don't know what's going on… I'm sorry… I don't know how… how to control this…"
He thinks he hears a scream, but it's coming from somewhere inside his head… and he stumbles against the wall as he feels a violent lunge attempt to tear his mind out of the borrowed body, and Peter struggles to stay in it, wringing his hands together, feeling through the fingers, trying to emphasise every sensation…
Get out of this room, he thinks, and runs out the door. Find others. Let them know…
He winces violently and staggers back as Sylar makes another attempt to regain control. The attack breaks off halfway, and Peter hopes that Jay is okay, wherever he is - for he can no longer see him; and whatever he's doing to try and keep Sylar at bay will last long enough-
He doesn't know this place, the pattern of corridors alien to him. Peter runs a hand through his hair and swears.
"Zach?" he asks, feeling as though he's speaking to himself.
But Zach doesn't have any better idea where to go. He doubts that Louis would be any help, and he has no idea where Smudge and Sasan have run off to. All he can do is try to keep Peter there against the continued attacks, preferring him to the alternatives of either having Sylar in there, or waiting in trepidation for Sylar to return.
He's grateful for the company.
*
CHAPTER FOURTEEN >>
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: 4,561
Quinto Formaggi Plane Between: Chapter 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12
XIII: the best imitation of myself
"Adam."
He's hyperventilating, staring out mutely at the passing pedestrians, that shell-shocked look back on his face the way it was when they were at the cells. A hand grips loosely at Leo's arm, the pleas to go back having died into whispers and then silence, the population of this city - this world - having once more stolen his attention.
The men, women, children, and everything in between: they pass by in varying shapes, sizes and occasionally colours, but all are, unmistakeably, them. Voices vary only along age, sex, accent and cadence. The women look almost like his late sister-
Sara.
Cold grips Adam's heart.
"Adam…"
Adam swallows, still transfixed. Leo frees his arm from Adam's grip and guides him back into the alley, meeting little resistance.
Adam lets his head fall back against the wall. A gasping sob forces out a tear.
"…Do we want to know what's out there?" Mitchell asks warily.
"See for yourself," Leo murmurs, as Tony strolls ahead to do just that.
Jason hangs around uncertainly, thinking that everyone should probably know about the message on the wall; but it doesn't seem like a good time to interrupt whatever was going on.
"…I'm not going out there," Adam whispers, eyes squeezed shut, trembling against Leo's hand on his shoulder. "I'm not… it's wrong, it's just… wrong… we've… gotta go back… please…"
"Um, I don't think we can," Jason says, deciding that this might be a good time to say so. "The door disappeared and there's… a message…"
Leo looks over. "What?"
Jason points, looking apologetic.
"Hey," Tony calls out. "Why're you all hanging back there?" He hops back over. "…We've survived each other. What's a few thousand more?"
*
"Maybe there are dinosaurs out there," Smudge says after a while, a softly distant, almost dreamy quality to his voice. "We could go out and look. Maybe… maybe one might see us and chase us. But then we could come back in here…"
"…Where it's safe," Sasan continues, tentatively. Smudge still isn't looking at him.
"Yeah. And we could close the doors so they can't get at us…"
"…and crawl into the bed together."
Silence.
"There's no bed here," Smudge says. "Just that couch."
"There could be a bed," Sasan counters, taking it and winging it, looking around the drab room, in his head refurbishing and refurnishing… "Smudge, we could live here. Together. We'd make this place good, we'd… tear down that horrible wallpaper and get some paint on. Build in beech cupboards for the kitchen. And one of those shiny things to hang pots on, right next to the stove-"
"A fridge with food in it," Smudge adds wistfully.
"Yes. Yes, food. Good food. With the freezer stocked with as many flavours of ice-cream that you can imagine-"
"Raspberry?"
"It's there."
"Peanut butter."
"Definitely."
"Bacon."
Sasan raises an eyebrow, carefully, not daring to do anything that might spoil the stolen moment. "That sounds absolutely disgusting."
"We'd put in a carpet," Smudge says, gazing at the dusty concrete.
"Good idea. Colour?"
"Olive," Smudge decides. "But not all the way. This part near the windows will just be wood, and we could stand here and look out at the trees like it's our garden-"
"Like we're doing now."
"…Yeah. And a bookshelf over there," Smudge continues. "Full of books. I hate reading, but they'd look nice-"
Sasan gives him a wry smile. "…and then I'd make you like reading because you're missing out on so much."
"You could read to me."
"I could," Sasan murmurs. "If you promise not to fall asleep."
"I won't if it's good."
"What; my voice isn't alluring enough for you?"
Smudge looks at him, his expression unreadable. Sasan reaches out a gentle hand to Smudge's head, sifting his hair through his fingers.
"…my mom used to read to me," Smudge says softly, dropping his gaze downward. "Long ago."
"Really? Do you miss her?"
Smudge shrugs. "I don't know," he says. "I haven't seen her in ten years since they kicked me out for being bisexual." He scuffs his shoes against the floor.
Sasan cups Smudge's face upwards. "Your parents kicked you out at thirteen?" he asks, gazing at him in concern.
"Yeah," Smudge replies flatly. "But it's okay. I didn't have to go to school, so that was good. And I had a cardboard box to sleep in and talk to. I named him Eric."
"Smudge…"
Smudge forcefully brushes a tear aside. "…and we could move the couch over there," he says, pointing, changing the subject. "Next to the TV…"
He makes to go over to illustrate, but Sasan holds him back.
Smudge looks up at him. "…Sas?" he asks carefully.
Sasan slowly pulls him into a hug. "I'm so sorry," he whispers. "I'm so sorry…"
Smudge shifts slightly in his arms.
Sasan eventually raises his face to look at Smudge with an impossible tenderness, wondering how he could have ever done anything to hurt him, wondering how many unstated past hurts Smudge had gone through in his life, wondering just what impact this last one had had, and how he had been responsible for it…
Smudge returns his gaze, his face clear, the subtle defences back up.
"…We could snuggle on the couch next to the TV," Sasan finally says. "We could… fall asleep in front of it while… some perky newscaster goes on about the end of the world…"
Sasan peters off, waiting, wanting…
"-the end of all worlds," Smudge finally says. "Forever."
"Forever," Sasan agrees. "Except for this place."
Smudge buries his face in Sasan's neck, his eyes staring emptily at nothing.
"Because we're here," Sasan continues softly, holding Smudge tight, treasuring every moment of their closeness and never wanting to let go. "For… for as long as we want," he says.
"Together," Smudge adds distantly.
"Yes," Sasan whispers. "Because I love you."
*
A part of him is still waiting to wake up.
Zach has spent the last few hours in a daze; not quite living, just existing, letting the flow of events just carry him along; observing the others and trying to make sense of them, trying to reconcile the paradoxical notions of knowing everything and nothing about them, having them at once be a part of him (and he of them) and yet autonomous strangers with their own minds and thoughts he is not privy to.
It's curiously frightening to realise how little he knows about them. Some of their lives he shared for mere minutes or hours of screen time, everything else a vague mystery. He doesn't know what they are thinking. It feels strange to try and guess. But from the way some of them look at him - that almost-guilty, self-conscious look - he wonders if they think he does. And when he meets their gaze there is that flash of kinship, a familiarity, triggering memories of a time spent as them, in their skins, sharing their clothes and mannerisms and expressions and names; but then the moment passes, or they look away, and they become strangers again.
And it takes a while for him to understand - fully understand - that they are people, and any power he may have over them is negligible; that there are parts of their lives that he knows absolutely nothing about, experiences and memories, families and friends: whole lives whose fullness is hinted at in snatches of conversation, or in little quirks that did not originate with him. He wasn't there when they grew up, or went to school, or graduated. He wasn't there when Adam's sister died. He wasn't there for the first meal Leo had when reunited with his biological parents. He wasn't there when Smudge and Sasan fell in love.
But that odd sense of familiarity still lingers, and when Sylar takes over his body again, there's a part of him that recognises it and remembers years spent on the set of Heroes feeling the exact same way.
Only now Zach tries and fails to snap out of character as his hands put his plate of food down and his legs push him up from his chair, walking casually past Louis' petulant stare and down a hallway, into a room as his hands shut the door beyond his control and his face spreads in a grin.
"Missed me, Quinto?" his voice asks in a low whisper.
And Zach's mind struggles to regain its control, but Sylar won't let him. He plonks down in an arm chair, head falling back against it.
His eyes close, relishing the moment.
"It feels so good to be back," Sylar murmurs with his voice. "Of course, it would be better if I had my own body instead of your feeble mortal one, but it will do."
Sylar grins again. "You can't get rid of me. You know that, don't you? I'll always find a way back." He shrugs, opening his eyes, lightly running his left hand down his right forearm as though investigating it. "Of course, that assumes that this… is me. I might not really be here. Maybe this is all in your head. What d'you think about that, Quinto? The famous Hollywood actor slowly… goes… crazy…"
Sylar twirls a finger in circles in front of his ear, then drops his hand down onto the armrest.
"What's it feel like?" Sylar asks, smirking. "You can't do anything unless I let you." He laughs. "Nice role reversal, isn't it? It's almost… poetic justice. I control you now, Quinto. I could go out there, pretend to be you… play with them a little…"
Zach tries to move his hand, wrest it out of Sylar's mental grip, but nothing happens.
"…or," Sylar adds, pondering, "I could give you back control of this pathetic body and have you do exactly as I want. And you can stop trying to move your hand. I'm not letting you."
Sylar strokes an armrest with his thumb. Zach feels the rough material against his skin.
"You're… the wildcard," Sylar says. "You could be anybody here. That's got to be useful." He gives up on the armrest and picks absentmindedly at Zach's plaid shirt. "What could we do with that?"
…Maybe this is all in his head, Zach thinks again, desperately. He doesn't feel possessed. He feels like he's acting. But he can't stop it.
"We could pick a target," Sylar suggests. "That bisexual guy, maybe. Hey… let's see how many of his friends you can kill off and replace before he realises that it's all… just… you. And maybe he is you as well. You're the only person in this place, Quinto. The rest of us aren't real. Right?"
Zach thinks he would be more inclined to agree if he could move even an eyebrow at will, although Sylar does him the honours and raises one.
Sylar sits up in the chair, clasping his hands together, fingers intertwining as he seemingly addresses the air.
"You could be anyone. Anyone. That has to be useful. You can get them to do anything you want. …Anything I want. What do you think about that?"
And Zach gets a tiny bit of control back, enough to gasp out in relief, his expression turning in a second from evil to fear.
"…What makes you think I'll do that?" he asks. "You… you can't act as them. Only I can. Which means you won't be in control-"
Sylar takes over his tongue, cutting him off.
"That's what my hostages are for," he says simply. "I believe you've… been acquainted with the recently departed Peter and Jay. So far they've not been enjoying their afterlife very much." Sylar smiles. "I could make it even worse."
*
It's almost a blessing in disguise, Leo thinks. In any other place, there would probably be no way for the five of them to get anywhere without attracting a whole lot of unwanted attention. As it is, the only stares they get seem to have more to do with how they stand clustered together looking varying degrees of terrified and giving off tourist vibes, making Mitchell mutter about how they could at least try to look natural, whereupon Tony breaks out in a spout of nonchalant whistling that draws at least one definite stare.
"We should find a map," Jason suggest tentatively, more curious passersby casting them looks the longer they stand indecisively at the alleyway opening. Tony stops whistling.
"So what… we just walk down the street until we find one?" Mitchell asks.
"Or we could ask for directions," Tony points out.
A young couple pulls their screaming kid past them, the mother yelling something about no more new toys if she tries eating Rover's food again.
Adam's eyes have glazed over when Leo looks at him, withdrawn into the relative safety of his head, unable to deal with the weirdness, unable to process the multitudes of people - visible and hinted at - existing and living with his face.
He had enough presence of mind to set his watch to countdown the amount of time they had to get out, chopping off a couple of minutes to account for the time spent before discovering the message; and it is perhaps only the possibility of being trapped here, forever, that made him move.
"…You guys suck," Tony mutters. "I'm going to ask someone." He leaves their group and heads towards a hotdog stand at the street corner some distance away.
What disturbs Leo most is the normalcy of the place. Overly-homogenous population aside, it could be any contemporary urban city. Skyscrapers, traffic, people, a fountain across the street… It's New York, apparently, or perhaps new york, if the battered page of the new york times flapping against a trashcan is any indicator. Leo doesn't let himself examine it further. He doesn't want to see the photos.
Up ahead, Tony relishes the invisibility and suppresses the urge to strip naked and streak down the street. He walks up to the hotdog stand.
"Hi…" he greets.
The teenager manning the stand looks up from his Biology textbook, lost in studying for an exam as he waits for customers. Hair pokes out from beneath a baseball cap.
"Yeah?"
"Do you… know the way to Wells and Lake?"
The teenager shrugs. "I don't know, man. I think a bus might go there. Or catch a cab or something. Wanna buy a hotdog?"
Tony almost says yes, his stomach having forgotten the meal he'd had not that long ago, but then he catches sight of the cash lying in the till and realises he doesn't have any local currency.
"Nah," he says. "I just ate. Tried selling one to him?" Tony gestures towards a scruffy-looking man sitting on a bench across the street, clad in a blazer and T-shirt and gazing sadly at a half-eaten sandwich in his hand. A pigeon trots past.
"Yeah, I've tried. I guess he likes his sandwich."
The two of them gaze at the sad sandwich guy for a while, watching as he takes a slow, pondering bite and then goes back to looking at it.
"That is so not how you eat a sandwich."
Tony agrees.
They watch him chew and take another bite. Tony glances briefly over the hotdog stand, taking in the hotdogs, bread, cash till and Biology textbook.
"You… run this thing yourself?" he asks.
"Huh? …Oh. Not really; it's just… a part-time job. Trying to save up for college. And then maybe one day I can graduate and get stuck in some dead-end job somewhere." He sighs. "But that's life, right?"
Tony appraises him, remembering a similar time, and makes a decision. He leans in, secretively. "Want an adventure?"
"Hell yeah. Where can I get one?"
"What's your name?"
The teenager hesitates, then decides that Tony looks harmless. "Stanley."
"I'm Tony. And… I'm from another world."
Stanley raises an eyebrow. "Sure you don't want to buy a hotdog?"
"…Hey. I'm serious." A thought strikes him. "Okay, look at this…" Tony pulls his wallet out of his jeans pocket and yanks out a dollar bill. He holds it up to Stanley-
"It's a dollar-fifty for one-"
"Look at it."
And Stanley looks, and his mouth falls open. He picks the bill out from Tony's hand, staring at the illustration of George Washington. "Where'd you get this?" he asks in fascination, investigating the rest of the bill. "It's really well made."
"It's real," Tony says. "That's legal tender cash right there. Or at least it is where I come from."
Stanley hands it back. "Okay, this thing is awesome, but it takes more than a dollar bill with an alien on it to make me believe you're from another planet or something."
"Not another planet," Tony says. "Another world. Another universe. Where the people look different from each other."
"…So what do they look like?" Stanley asks, humouring him, having decided that Tony is more interesting than the cellular workings of bacterium. "Not-human?"
"No, they're all human. Just… different. Like this," he says, pointing at the dollar bill.
"…Yeah, that's so not human," Stanley points out.
"Look," Tony says. "Someone comes up to you saying they're from another world, there are only three possibilities. They're crazy, or they're trying to sell you something, or they're telling the truth. Do I look crazy to you?"
Stanley shrugs. "Maybe."
"Yeah, well, I'm not. And you don't look rich enough to rip off. Which means I'm probably telling the truth, and if you turn me down now, you're going to spend the rest of your life sitting in an office cubicle regretting it."
Stanley stares at him. "…Now you're getting scary."
"A bunch of friends and I are stranded," Tony continues. "We've got less than half an hour to get out, and we could really do with a local guide."
"I don't know this place very w-"
"You know this world," Tony says. "You were born here. You grew up here. We weren't."
Stanley knows all about not going off with dodgy strangers and agreeing to be their tour guide; but Stanley had never been one to listen to the alarm bells that go off in his head, and there was something curiously persistent and earnest in Tony's eyes.
It almost made him believe.
"…Okay," he finally says, slowly. "Just let me lock up the stand."
*
[Trigger warning: sexual harrassment]
"You hurt him," the voice says, quietly, and it takes a while before Sasan realises that time has stopped, the floating dust particles hanging suspended in the rays of light, and Smudge warm but unmoving in his embrace. Sasan doesn't move his head, recognising the voice and swallowing back fear as Q casually saunters into his field of vision, a look of mock-concern on his face.
"How could you do that?" Q asks. "How heartless did you have to be to break his heart?"
Sasan doesn't say anything, but he tightens his hold on the time-frozen Smudge.
"You're the first person who ever reciprocated his love," Q continues. "You're the first person who ever made him feel he was worth something." Q bends in close. "And then you blew it." The hint of a smirk tugs at the corner of his otherwise impassionate face, but then it fades into a mildly questing eyebrow.
Sasan closes his eyes, breathing in the low musky scent of Smudge's hair.
"Don't make promises you can't keep," Q says. "Playing the committed soul mate… when you've never managed to keep a steady boyfriend for more than a week. What makes you think this will be different? Or are you so… callous… not to care what it'll do to him, the day you have to admit that you've found someone else?"
"Smudge is different," Sasan says in a trembling murmur.
Q raises his eyebrows . "I'm not sure you'll think the same if there were more… variety in potential partners here. Although it looked like you were having fun with Louis."
"I didn't want to," Sasan says tightly.
"Really?" Q asks, and with a thin smile his image shifts and morphs until Sasan is staring in shock at himself, clad in his own clothes rather than ones borrowed from Adam, regarding him with a slightly patronising smile.
"Or is this what you were thinking of?" Q asks in his voice. "A bit of a narcissist, aren't you, Sas?"
A surge of heat and embarrassment rushes through Sasan's body as he tries to keep his eyes from checking himself out, grasping desperately on to the unmoving Smudge as Q approaches and runs a hand - Sasan's hand - along his face.
Sasan swallows. "Stop it," he says, his face flushed, trying to look away from the gold-brown of his own eyes, his body crying out in want.
Q lifts his hand off Sasan and slides it under his own shirt, a grin playing on the borrowed features of his face.
And Sasan wants to stop watching but can't bring himself to close his eyes, hot with mortification and forbidden desire, digging his fingers into his palm to try and distract himself as Q slips his hands out and slowly unbuttons his own shirt, that taunting look still shining out from eyes he did not have a moment ago.
"Do you want this?" Q asks in a low voice, and it takes most of Sasan's willpower not to give in.
"No," he forces out as Q's shirt - Sasan's shirt, he owns that shirt - flaps open, the last button undone.
Q raises a perfectly groomed eyebrow. "What makes Smudge so special?" he asks. "What makes him so different from all the other guys you've ever had? What do you really want?" Q leans in towards Sasan's ear, noting his half-hearted flinch as he whispers: "Who do you really want?"
A not-completely-unpleasant shiver runs down Sasan's back.
Close your eyes, Sasan tells himself, but his eyes still want to look, moving his gaze hungrily over the perfect copy before him, taking in every contour just out of reach of his subtly twitching fingers.
"Look at you," Q says, thinly-disguised contempt in his voice. He runs fingers back through Sasan's hair, Sasan tensing at his touch, breathing fast, a sob caught in the back of his throat.
"If you love him as much as you claim," Q continues, "you'd let him go. He deserves someone better. Someone who'll love him for him."
"No…" Sasan breathes out.
"That's a little selfish, don't you think?"
Sasan opens his mouth to speak, but no words come out.
He remembers quiet nights cuddled on the couch in each other's presence; running around Kenselton Hotel joking and laughing and falling on each other; the grasp of his hand the time Sasan died, Smudge's eyes filled with love and desperation and the unspoken plea for him to live; Smudge's ever-present desire to protect him from all harm, his nonchalant oblivion to the world's accepted logic, the way his eyes sometimes glaze over when he's thinking, the way he looks at him and holds him and calls him Sas… the kid who was thrown out of his home at thirteen…
"I love him," Sasan finally says, and speaking it gives him some confidence. He hugs Smudge tighter, and finally finds the will to close his eyes and shut out Q's mocking impersonation. "Smudge. I love him. I do..."
Smudge moves in his arms. "You do what?" he asks, and when Sasan opens his eyes, Q has gone, and time has started again.
Sasan strokes a thumb across Smudge's lips, swallowing back tears. "This," he says, and he leans in to kiss him; and Smudge does not resist.
*
Jay reaches out a finger to touch Zach, stumbling back as Sylar's mind forcefully rebuffs him, shielding Zach's body from additional possession. He glances at Peter, the both of them near colourless and insubstantial in their half-life state, and he wonders if this is what being a ghost is like. He doesn't even know what he is, but when he puts his hands on the armchair, they go right through. The floor seems solid enough, though; at least, until he thinks about it, whereupon his feet sink through and he jumps back up, landing on once-again solidity.
Peter cautiously joins Jay by his side, staring at Zach's body with mild trepidation.
"He played us," Peter says.
Jay is silent, still trying to register this piece of knowledge.
"If… Sylar could take control of him, then we could too, couldn't we?" Peter asks. "I mean, if it's just acting…"
"I'm not 'just acting'," Jay says quietly. "And I don't think Sylar wants to share."
"There are two of us and only one of him," Peter points out.
"He's powerful," Jay says. "Whatever he is."
Silence.
Peter tries to touch Zach, only to encounter the same blocking.
And then, in a burst of will to escape, Jay catches him and pushes him back. "Go for it," he says with sudden fierceness. "Just keep trying."
Peter grasps Zach's arm, feeling Sylar's mind trying to throw him off, when Jay clamps his own hand on top of his, adding mental and physical strength-
Peter's other hand joins his first, his eyes closing as Jay turns him around and pushes him back, falling towards Zach in the chair, Jay suddenly doing a jump and lunging towards him in a huge shove-
Peter jerks up in a suddenly-solid armchair, physical heart thumping, his gaze darting around in shock.
"…Jay?" he breathes out, but the world is now in full colour and he feels everything, and the body he inhabits has a strange familiarity to it.
He brings his hands up in front of his eyes, still hyperventilating, then drops them, looking down at and picking at the plaid shirt he's suddenly wearing.
Peter stumbles out of the chair. Somewhere in his mind he feels a suppressed consciousness. He swallows.
"…Zach," he says, just in case. "It's… it's Peter, I… I don't know what's going on… I'm sorry… I don't know how… how to control this…"
He thinks he hears a scream, but it's coming from somewhere inside his head… and he stumbles against the wall as he feels a violent lunge attempt to tear his mind out of the borrowed body, and Peter struggles to stay in it, wringing his hands together, feeling through the fingers, trying to emphasise every sensation…
Get out of this room, he thinks, and runs out the door. Find others. Let them know…
He winces violently and staggers back as Sylar makes another attempt to regain control. The attack breaks off halfway, and Peter hopes that Jay is okay, wherever he is - for he can no longer see him; and whatever he's doing to try and keep Sylar at bay will last long enough-
He doesn't know this place, the pattern of corridors alien to him. Peter runs a hand through his hair and swears.
"Zach?" he asks, feeling as though he's speaking to himself.
But Zach doesn't have any better idea where to go. He doubts that Louis would be any help, and he has no idea where Smudge and Sasan have run off to. All he can do is try to keep Peter there against the continued attacks, preferring him to the alternatives of either having Sylar in there, or waiting in trepidation for Sylar to return.
He's grateful for the company.
*
CHAPTER FOURTEEN >>