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Title: Crimson Sunset
Pairing: Adam/Hiro, Adam/Ando, Hiro/Ando
Rating: PG-13
Description: This is the last part of what turned out to be a series. The order goes: Screaming into the Wind,
Discovery,
Meeting.
First part: here
Second part: here
Third part: here
Summary: “In all fiction, each time that a man is faced with multiple alternatives, he opts for one and eliminates the others. In Ts’ui Pen’s, he opts, simultaneously, for all of them. This way, he creates diverse futures, diverse times that also proliferate and fork.”
Jorge Luis Borges, “The Garden of the Forking Paths”
Disclaimer: I own nothing but my own words.
“A stroke of luck or a gift from God?
The hand of fate or devil’s claws?
From below or saints above?
You come to me now.”
Garbage, “A Stroke of Luck”
The blade slices into him as easily as a whisper. His face is all shock and pain. He grabs clumsily at the sword sticking in his gut, his head falling forward. He cries out as I remove the blade, swaying for a moment before sliding sideways on the wall. I catch him and lower him to the floor. His blood pumps against my body, soaking me to the skin. His eyes close as his lungs struggle to keep breathing. I watch his life ebb away as I have done with countless men, but I can't think of him as one of the many. That would never do. I focus on this moment, engraving every detail in my memory. He's curled up on his right side, his left hand scratching weakly at the crimson pool spreading out from his body like an overflowing river. Skeletal shadows form under his fingers. His lips move, trying to form a word, but the sound is lost in the silence as his breath stops. His hand stills, fingers curled into his palm. I brush his hair from his forehead and feel the last traces of warmth fade from his body.
I pick him up and lay him down on the bed. If it weren't for the blood, one might say that he's simply sleeping. Maybe he is. Maybe we're both waiting for you to come to the rescue as he was so certain you would. I hope you do. I want to see you so badly, carp. It's the only wish I have left.
Beside him, I put my letter and a picture I took from your father's files. It's of the two of us back in the days when we could smile at the camera without harboring vengeful designs on the other. I've written you a little note on the back side to make sure you know where to find me. I'll be waiting for you, just like I always have.
|||||||
I once dreamed that I stabbed a dark blade into my chest and ripped out my heart. It was a pitiful thing, marked by burns and scars so deep that the muscles looked ready to fall apart. You stood in front of me, but your face wasn’t a face. It was ash and bone and an iron stare cutting through me from a flaming darkness. Trembling, I held out my heart to you, a paltry offering not even worthy of your touch, but you took it, scrutinizing it from every angle. You seemed pleased with what you saw, because you lifted it up high between us. My blood dripped down your arm, crimson cascades splashing in the water flowing around our feet. I didn’t dare speak; I couldn’t even open my mouth. You turned toward me and I could feel you looking through me, ripping through everything that is me until you found my naked, shivering soul and I was nothing kneeling before you. I was no one. You saw everything. A sudden tightness clenched in my ribs. You’re clutching my heart in your hand, your nails digging in from all sides, squeezing the life out of me and a scream tears my soul wide open. I can’t see. My vision is swimming in the dark closing in around me. I try to speak, but breath escapes me from the gash gaping in my stomach. My heart struggles in your grasp, veins bulging out, beats frantic, but I can’t reach it. It’s too far. I fall and all I can see is you looming above me like a statue made of stone. My last breath is no more than a hollow gasp against the river shore.
||||||
I step through the front door of Primatech Paper and whatever explanation I was giving Peter dries in my mouth. I hardly catch a glimpse of your face before you grab me by the shoulder and the factory doesn’t melt as much as pops out of existence and suddenly my back is against the wall of an empty, dark room with nothing but one dusty light bulb swinging overhead for lighting, and you’re here, holding my sword to my throat, your face so close that I taste your furious breath on my neck. My heart is screaming, every inch of me frozen by the shock of feeling your presence after 336 years of emptiness. You're burning with anger, pure grief shining in your bloodshot eyes. I've never seen you like this. So many years imagining what I’d do when I finally saw you and now here you are and I can't breathe.
"You murdered them."
Your voice sounds like a stone scraping over gravel. I can't even make sense of the words at first, my brain doesn't want to work.
"You murdered them both," you repeat and now my brain cells finally start cooperating with me.
"I did," I say with the small amount of air that makes it past my throat.
The most profound sadness floods your eyes and I feel it burning in my heart.
"Why?" you ask. "Why did you kill them?"
I respond with one of the few things that I know to be true.
"Because I can't kill you."
The expression in your eyes is one I’d never seen in my dreams.
"I don't understand." The blade shivers against my throat. "I don't understand any of this."
Now how many times have I said that to myself year after eternal year?
"I can't explain it more than I already have, carp."
"Don't!" you shout, stepping back. You keep the sword at my neck, a barrier between us.. "Don't say it. It's a lie."
You're trembling, every part of you. Before you backed away, I felt your heart beating strongly enough to shatter. Just like mine.
"It's the truth, Hiro."
"That can't be the truth."
"Why not?
"If you really did," you pause, grimacing. Oh God, you can't even say the word. "You wouldn't have done this."
"Would you rather that I say that I hate you? Would that make it better? I have, you know. I've hated you and loved you in the same breath for longer than a man should live. You are everything to me. Every emotion, every thought. For you, it's only been, what? A day, two days at most. For me it's been centuries. More than enough time to feel every emotion that it's possible for one man to feel. And I've felt them all for you."
You don’t speak. There are so many emotions crashing in your face that I can hardly tell the shock from the disgust. I take a step forward and the sword brushes against my neck. It's cold, like the firmness of your hand as you hold it. I clasp the blade, pushing the sharp edge into my palm.
"You know that won't hurt me," I say.
You look so frightened. What are you afraid of? Me, you, the blood slithering down my fingers onto my neck? I tug at it, testing the waters, but you tighten your hold, a quick resolution entering your eyes. I move closer, sliding my hand down the blade. A long line cuts into my flesh, but I stopped feeling that pain a long time ago.
"How will this end, Hiro? Did you even know before you came here? No, I don't think you did. Your heart was too blinded by rage and grief. That's what it does to you. It keeps you from thinking, from reasoning. All you can do is feel it screaming inside you, clawing at everything that you are until you wish you couldn't feel anymore. But you can't stop feeling, ever, even when you think that you've numbed yourself to the point where you're no longer human."
Now it's me who has you backed against the wall. My hand is at the hilt of the sword, the one thing that still stands between us. I look down into your eyes and they’re mirrors reflecting my own soul.
"You were my friend." Your voice is small, shivering on the edge of a forlorn hope. "I don't know what you are anymore."
"I am what you made me."
"I didn't make you this. I wanted you to be a hero."
"I was. For you. And you were mine. My Hiro."
I've always loved how your name and the word hero have practically the same sound. You must have thought of it yourself, probably thinking that it was quite fitting when you began your quest to save the world, but you're not smiling now. Quite the opposite.
"I'm not your anything," you say, your voice as hard as flint.
It's a spit on the face. You've changed, carp. None of your "I have faith in you" or "I know there's still good inside you" speeches. I've truly murdered your image of me, haven't I? You're finally seeing what I want you to see, not what your idealist mind superimposes on my person. Yet why do you still hesitate?
“Do you want to kill me?"
An unidentifiable emotion flickers in your eyes.
"You wanted to when you came here,” I continue. “I saw it in your eyes. It was the strength in your hand as you pressed the sword against my throat. You can lie to yourself about it, but we both know that you felt it, here, in your heart, the anger, the need to make the other person pay for what he did to you.”
You’re shaking your head. It's such a desperate little motion. "I'm not a murderer. I'm not like you."
The similarity between those words and Ando’s strikes me.
"But you have murdered. You killed that man in Kirby Plaza. Sylar."
Your eyes widen. "How did you know that?"
"Peter told me. I learned many interesting things as I sat waiting in that little cell your father put me in. You stabbed him with this very sword. And he bled." I raise my left hand and show you the blood the blade has left on my skin. "Just like me."
You stare at my hand, but your sight is somewhere else, far from here.
"He killed many people," you say softly. "He would have killed many more. I had to do it."
"Then you really should kill me."
Fire flares in your eyes again. "Why are you pushing me like this? What do you want from me"
"Maybe I want you to do it." I step back, giving you room to move if you wish. "Come on, I'll give you a free shot. I've never had my head cut off before. Maybe that will work."
You should see your face. It's the same one people get on television before they tell the other character that he's lost his mind. Maybe I have.
"I won't kill you."
That doesn't surprise me. What does is the hand you place on my shoulder. You close your eyes and I know what’s coming before I feel the air ripple around me and I'm suddenly somewhere else. An else I know. I certainly wasn‘t expecting to be back here. There's the blood all clotted on the floor and his body pale and stiff on the bed.
"Why have you brought me here?"
If you were going to save him, you would have gone directly into the past and snatched him away before I killed him, you wouldn't bring me here now. So why… Then I know. I see you take a plastic sealed syringe from your pocket and I know. But you can’t possibly expect me to…
"I want you to bring him back." There's that determination again, but your face isn’t hard, it’s soft, softer than I’ve ever seen it. “I read your file at the Company. Your blood can heal anything, even... even bring back the dead. Please. Give him back to me."
"And why would I do that? I'm the one who killed him."
"Because I'm asking you to. I could freeze time and take some of your blood that way. You can't stop me. But I'm asking you. If there's still a little of the man I knew inside you, please, do this."
You're begging. With your whole body and soul you're begging. I don't want to look in those eyes. I thought I did but I don't. It hurts. I could never put into words how much this hurts. There's too much truth and I don't want the truth, not if it's this. I snatch the syringe from your hand, rip off the plastic and stick it in my arm. I pull back the plunger, filling the clear cylinder with the cursed blood that's allowed me to live to see this moment. I draw back the sheet that I placed on Ando what, a day ago maybe. We went back in time, he wouldn't be this well preserved if we hadn't. I don't look at his face as I inject him, just like I don't look at yours. I can't look at you. The deed done, I step back from the bed and put the syringe in my pocket. I can't be leaving my blood lying around. I have to think, be practical. I have to... stop feeling. I thought I'd learned how to kill that emotion inside me, I though I'd numbed myself to the point where I could handle it, but I look at you now rushing toward the bed, kneeling beside him, taking his hand in yours, your fingers twining and I can't breathe. I stumble back. My foot slips on something on the floor. It's my letter, my fucking, stupid letter. I pick it up and smooth out the creases and glance at the first few words, but my vision is blurry. I can't focus. It's all pointless, anyway. None of it matters, nothing ever fucking matters. I crush the letter in my hand, ripping it in half, then I rip it again and again and again until there's nothing but scraps floating around me, scattering like a blizzard. You call my name. I hear it but I can't, I just can't. I need to get away from you. 300 years searching for your shadow and now I'm fleeing to the bathroom, slamming the door behind me just to shut you out. The floor is shaking, the air stifling. The world is supposed to end in an earthquake. Is this it? My world collapsing, screaming, burning, fire that burns my skin, makes it melt off my bones, never growing back again. I see my face reflected in the mirror two feet away. My eternal face. I punch it, hard. The glass shatters. I hit it again, slamming my fist into the screeching metal until bones snap and I scream. I cradle my hand as the bones realign, blood vessels knitting themselves, same routine. Blood covers perfect skin. I punch the mirror again. Pain. The bones haven't healed completely before I do it again. And again. Tears pour down my cheeks.
This is it. The end of the line. There's nothing more after this. Where do I go from this place? There's nowhere. All my life, I thought I was wandering through the world like a rambling nomad, but that wasn't it. I was running, my lungs burning and my heart beating so hard that I couldn't see. I though I wanted to get away from you, but all I've ever really wanted is to be with you. You were the goal that kept me focused, the target that always lay just a little bit further over the horizon, hidden by the curve of the Earth. Now I can finally see you, and I wish I couldn't. You have been my purpose for so long that I don't know what to do now. My plan isn't viable anymore. I'm sure that by now Peter's destroyed the virus. I can't bring myself to care much. I'm still here, as are you, but I can't touch you. I ran out of that apartment like a sodding teenager, unable to even look you in the face. I can't bear it. I'm a fool. I want you to be mine. But you never will be, ever.
I don't think I'm infallible, you know? I've just been around longer. I know things that are impossible for a regular person to know, and sometimes I wish I didn't. Like now. I wish that I didn't know that if I throw myself off this building, I won't die. Well, I will die, but only for a moment. It won't do anything to quell the ache in my chest. The deep rumble of an airplane engine thrums through the air. I watch it slide along the runway and take off. It's destination is fixed, certain, the people locked in its metal frame knowing exactly where they're going. I used to know my destination; now it's all blown to dust. Will you tell me where to go? You might as well, since you're standing right behind me.
"Did Peter tell you where to find me?"
Did that startle you? I don't know. You're a blur in the corner of my eye. I don't want to turn around and look at you. It's more than I can handle right now.
"He's got this handy ability, one of the many. He can find people anywhere they are just by thinking of them. That would explain how you came here, but not why."
Silence. You hesitate to speak. Interesting. I'm sure that has some significance, but I doubt that it'd be in my favor.
"I need to make sure that you won't hurt anyone."
There's something strange in the tone of your voice, like you're trying too hard to keep it even.
"You mean kill every last person on the planet? I assume that Peter‘s already taken care of that. Unless the Company left another pandemic inducing virus lying around, I don't think you have to worry about that. I suppose I'll just wait around and wait for humanity to destroy itself through those nuclear weapons they keep accumulating."
Another pause. At least I'm not the only one intensely uncomfortable here. I risk a glance to the side. You're standing so far away, nearly two meters to my right. Are you afraid of me? You don't have to worry. My anger is spent. You won’t look at me, either. You stare at your shoes, at the runway in front of us, at the hands you bury in your jacket pockets as if you were trying to hide inside yourself. But not at me. Your eyes shun me as if I was a harsh wind were striking your face.
"How's Ando?" I ask.
I think you look up at me, but I've already turned away.
"He's fine. He's really... he's doing just fine."
It's nice hearing happiness in your voice again. But it’s not the only emotion in your voice. You stumble, unsure of yourself. There’s something that you won’t say though the words are probably perched on the tip of your tongue. I think I know what it is.
"He enjoyed himself," I say, peeking at you from the corner of my eye. The discomfort twisting in your face tells me that I was right. "I didn't force him. I don't go for sex that's not fully consensual."
"Why did you do it?" I'm surprised to hear more confusion than anger in your voice. "Was it just... Did you want to mess with his mind or mine or both of us?"
"Neither. I was just interested in him. I've been for a long time. And when I saw him... I wanted to get close to him. To know the man you love."
"You weren't supposed to read those letters. I just couldn't think of any other way to communicate with him. I should never have left them in that sword. I should have known that you'd find them. But I didn't know. I didn't know."
The roar of an airplane engine cuts through the last word, scattering it in the wind. making it scream in the cold wind.
"I tried not loving you,” I say. “I really did. But you're inside me, like a second pulse beating in my heart."
"I wish you'd told me before."
"Would it have made a difference?"
"I don't know." You sound so lost. "We wouldn't be this."
What a mess we are. I turn toward you and see you looking at me. In your eyes, I see a possibility thrown away in the mud. Even if I were to pick it up,, I'd never be able to get all the dirt off. It'd remain soiled, and I'm fully aware that it's my doing.
"I'm sorry I kissed her.” There’s genuine contrition in your voice. “I didn't really love her. You were right.”
I'm surprised. I didn't expect you to make the first apology.
"Is that what you told Ando?"
"Basically." You flash me a hard glance. "And right afterwards he apologized for sleeping with you."
I'd say sorry about that, but I don't really mean it. But there’s one that I do.
"I'm sorry I killed him. And your father." You stare at me in shock. I can't blame you. "I wanted you to feel the same pain that I suffered. I was a fool. I’m really sorry.”
You're silent. You look away at the planes spread out below us, but you don't really see them. Your chest rises and falls with the sudden quickness of your breathing. After a long minute, you nod stiffly. I'll take that.
Ending 2
Pairing: Adam/Hiro, Adam/Ando, Hiro/Ando
Rating: PG-13
Description: This is the last part of what turned out to be a series. The order goes: Screaming into the Wind,
Discovery,
Meeting.
First part: here
Second part: here
Third part: here
Summary: “In all fiction, each time that a man is faced with multiple alternatives, he opts for one and eliminates the others. In Ts’ui Pen’s, he opts, simultaneously, for all of them. This way, he creates diverse futures, diverse times that also proliferate and fork.”
Jorge Luis Borges, “The Garden of the Forking Paths”
Disclaimer: I own nothing but my own words.
“A stroke of luck or a gift from God?
The hand of fate or devil’s claws?
From below or saints above?
You come to me now.”
Garbage, “A Stroke of Luck”
The blade slices into him as easily as a whisper. His face is all shock and pain. He grabs clumsily at the sword sticking in his gut, his head falling forward. He cries out as I remove the blade, swaying for a moment before sliding sideways on the wall. I catch him and lower him to the floor. His blood pumps against my body, soaking me to the skin. His eyes close as his lungs struggle to keep breathing. I watch his life ebb away as I have done with countless men, but I can't think of him as one of the many. That would never do. I focus on this moment, engraving every detail in my memory. He's curled up on his right side, his left hand scratching weakly at the crimson pool spreading out from his body like an overflowing river. Skeletal shadows form under his fingers. His lips move, trying to form a word, but the sound is lost in the silence as his breath stops. His hand stills, fingers curled into his palm. I brush his hair from his forehead and feel the last traces of warmth fade from his body.
I pick him up and lay him down on the bed. If it weren't for the blood, one might say that he's simply sleeping. Maybe he is. Maybe we're both waiting for you to come to the rescue as he was so certain you would. I hope you do. I want to see you so badly, carp. It's the only wish I have left.
Beside him, I put my letter and a picture I took from your father's files. It's of the two of us back in the days when we could smile at the camera without harboring vengeful designs on the other. I've written you a little note on the back side to make sure you know where to find me. I'll be waiting for you, just like I always have.
|||||||
I once dreamed that I stabbed a dark blade into my chest and ripped out my heart. It was a pitiful thing, marked by burns and scars so deep that the muscles looked ready to fall apart. You stood in front of me, but your face wasn’t a face. It was ash and bone and an iron stare cutting through me from a flaming darkness. Trembling, I held out my heart to you, a paltry offering not even worthy of your touch, but you took it, scrutinizing it from every angle. You seemed pleased with what you saw, because you lifted it up high between us. My blood dripped down your arm, crimson cascades splashing in the water flowing around our feet. I didn’t dare speak; I couldn’t even open my mouth. You turned toward me and I could feel you looking through me, ripping through everything that is me until you found my naked, shivering soul and I was nothing kneeling before you. I was no one. You saw everything. A sudden tightness clenched in my ribs. You’re clutching my heart in your hand, your nails digging in from all sides, squeezing the life out of me and a scream tears my soul wide open. I can’t see. My vision is swimming in the dark closing in around me. I try to speak, but breath escapes me from the gash gaping in my stomach. My heart struggles in your grasp, veins bulging out, beats frantic, but I can’t reach it. It’s too far. I fall and all I can see is you looming above me like a statue made of stone. My last breath is no more than a hollow gasp against the river shore.
||||||
I step through the front door of Primatech Paper and whatever explanation I was giving Peter dries in my mouth. I hardly catch a glimpse of your face before you grab me by the shoulder and the factory doesn’t melt as much as pops out of existence and suddenly my back is against the wall of an empty, dark room with nothing but one dusty light bulb swinging overhead for lighting, and you’re here, holding my sword to my throat, your face so close that I taste your furious breath on my neck. My heart is screaming, every inch of me frozen by the shock of feeling your presence after 336 years of emptiness. You're burning with anger, pure grief shining in your bloodshot eyes. I've never seen you like this. So many years imagining what I’d do when I finally saw you and now here you are and I can't breathe.
"You murdered them."
Your voice sounds like a stone scraping over gravel. I can't even make sense of the words at first, my brain doesn't want to work.
"You murdered them both," you repeat and now my brain cells finally start cooperating with me.
"I did," I say with the small amount of air that makes it past my throat.
The most profound sadness floods your eyes and I feel it burning in my heart.
"Why?" you ask. "Why did you kill them?"
I respond with one of the few things that I know to be true.
"Because I can't kill you."
The expression in your eyes is one I’d never seen in my dreams.
"I don't understand." The blade shivers against my throat. "I don't understand any of this."
Now how many times have I said that to myself year after eternal year?
"I can't explain it more than I already have, carp."
"Don't!" you shout, stepping back. You keep the sword at my neck, a barrier between us.. "Don't say it. It's a lie."
You're trembling, every part of you. Before you backed away, I felt your heart beating strongly enough to shatter. Just like mine.
"It's the truth, Hiro."
"That can't be the truth."
"Why not?
"If you really did," you pause, grimacing. Oh God, you can't even say the word. "You wouldn't have done this."
"Would you rather that I say that I hate you? Would that make it better? I have, you know. I've hated you and loved you in the same breath for longer than a man should live. You are everything to me. Every emotion, every thought. For you, it's only been, what? A day, two days at most. For me it's been centuries. More than enough time to feel every emotion that it's possible for one man to feel. And I've felt them all for you."
You don’t speak. There are so many emotions crashing in your face that I can hardly tell the shock from the disgust. I take a step forward and the sword brushes against my neck. It's cold, like the firmness of your hand as you hold it. I clasp the blade, pushing the sharp edge into my palm.
"You know that won't hurt me," I say.
You look so frightened. What are you afraid of? Me, you, the blood slithering down my fingers onto my neck? I tug at it, testing the waters, but you tighten your hold, a quick resolution entering your eyes. I move closer, sliding my hand down the blade. A long line cuts into my flesh, but I stopped feeling that pain a long time ago.
"How will this end, Hiro? Did you even know before you came here? No, I don't think you did. Your heart was too blinded by rage and grief. That's what it does to you. It keeps you from thinking, from reasoning. All you can do is feel it screaming inside you, clawing at everything that you are until you wish you couldn't feel anymore. But you can't stop feeling, ever, even when you think that you've numbed yourself to the point where you're no longer human."
Now it's me who has you backed against the wall. My hand is at the hilt of the sword, the one thing that still stands between us. I look down into your eyes and they’re mirrors reflecting my own soul.
"You were my friend." Your voice is small, shivering on the edge of a forlorn hope. "I don't know what you are anymore."
"I am what you made me."
"I didn't make you this. I wanted you to be a hero."
"I was. For you. And you were mine. My Hiro."
I've always loved how your name and the word hero have practically the same sound. You must have thought of it yourself, probably thinking that it was quite fitting when you began your quest to save the world, but you're not smiling now. Quite the opposite.
"I'm not your anything," you say, your voice as hard as flint.
It's a spit on the face. You've changed, carp. None of your "I have faith in you" or "I know there's still good inside you" speeches. I've truly murdered your image of me, haven't I? You're finally seeing what I want you to see, not what your idealist mind superimposes on my person. Yet why do you still hesitate?
“Do you want to kill me?"
An unidentifiable emotion flickers in your eyes.
"You wanted to when you came here,” I continue. “I saw it in your eyes. It was the strength in your hand as you pressed the sword against my throat. You can lie to yourself about it, but we both know that you felt it, here, in your heart, the anger, the need to make the other person pay for what he did to you.”
You’re shaking your head. It's such a desperate little motion. "I'm not a murderer. I'm not like you."
The similarity between those words and Ando’s strikes me.
"But you have murdered. You killed that man in Kirby Plaza. Sylar."
Your eyes widen. "How did you know that?"
"Peter told me. I learned many interesting things as I sat waiting in that little cell your father put me in. You stabbed him with this very sword. And he bled." I raise my left hand and show you the blood the blade has left on my skin. "Just like me."
You stare at my hand, but your sight is somewhere else, far from here.
"He killed many people," you say softly. "He would have killed many more. I had to do it."
"Then you really should kill me."
Fire flares in your eyes again. "Why are you pushing me like this? What do you want from me"
"Maybe I want you to do it." I step back, giving you room to move if you wish. "Come on, I'll give you a free shot. I've never had my head cut off before. Maybe that will work."
You should see your face. It's the same one people get on television before they tell the other character that he's lost his mind. Maybe I have.
"I won't kill you."
That doesn't surprise me. What does is the hand you place on my shoulder. You close your eyes and I know what’s coming before I feel the air ripple around me and I'm suddenly somewhere else. An else I know. I certainly wasn‘t expecting to be back here. There's the blood all clotted on the floor and his body pale and stiff on the bed.
"Why have you brought me here?"
If you were going to save him, you would have gone directly into the past and snatched him away before I killed him, you wouldn't bring me here now. So why… Then I know. I see you take a plastic sealed syringe from your pocket and I know. But you can’t possibly expect me to…
"I want you to bring him back." There's that determination again, but your face isn’t hard, it’s soft, softer than I’ve ever seen it. “I read your file at the Company. Your blood can heal anything, even... even bring back the dead. Please. Give him back to me."
"And why would I do that? I'm the one who killed him."
"Because I'm asking you to. I could freeze time and take some of your blood that way. You can't stop me. But I'm asking you. If there's still a little of the man I knew inside you, please, do this."
You're begging. With your whole body and soul you're begging. I don't want to look in those eyes. I thought I did but I don't. It hurts. I could never put into words how much this hurts. There's too much truth and I don't want the truth, not if it's this. I snatch the syringe from your hand, rip off the plastic and stick it in my arm. I pull back the plunger, filling the clear cylinder with the cursed blood that's allowed me to live to see this moment. I draw back the sheet that I placed on Ando what, a day ago maybe. We went back in time, he wouldn't be this well preserved if we hadn't. I don't look at his face as I inject him, just like I don't look at yours. I can't look at you. The deed done, I step back from the bed and put the syringe in my pocket. I can't be leaving my blood lying around. I have to think, be practical. I have to... stop feeling. I thought I'd learned how to kill that emotion inside me, I though I'd numbed myself to the point where I could handle it, but I look at you now rushing toward the bed, kneeling beside him, taking his hand in yours, your fingers twining and I can't breathe. I stumble back. My foot slips on something on the floor. It's my letter, my fucking, stupid letter. I pick it up and smooth out the creases and glance at the first few words, but my vision is blurry. I can't focus. It's all pointless, anyway. None of it matters, nothing ever fucking matters. I crush the letter in my hand, ripping it in half, then I rip it again and again and again until there's nothing but scraps floating around me, scattering like a blizzard. You call my name. I hear it but I can't, I just can't. I need to get away from you. 300 years searching for your shadow and now I'm fleeing to the bathroom, slamming the door behind me just to shut you out. The floor is shaking, the air stifling. The world is supposed to end in an earthquake. Is this it? My world collapsing, screaming, burning, fire that burns my skin, makes it melt off my bones, never growing back again. I see my face reflected in the mirror two feet away. My eternal face. I punch it, hard. The glass shatters. I hit it again, slamming my fist into the screeching metal until bones snap and I scream. I cradle my hand as the bones realign, blood vessels knitting themselves, same routine. Blood covers perfect skin. I punch the mirror again. Pain. The bones haven't healed completely before I do it again. And again. Tears pour down my cheeks.
This is it. The end of the line. There's nothing more after this. Where do I go from this place? There's nowhere. All my life, I thought I was wandering through the world like a rambling nomad, but that wasn't it. I was running, my lungs burning and my heart beating so hard that I couldn't see. I though I wanted to get away from you, but all I've ever really wanted is to be with you. You were the goal that kept me focused, the target that always lay just a little bit further over the horizon, hidden by the curve of the Earth. Now I can finally see you, and I wish I couldn't. You have been my purpose for so long that I don't know what to do now. My plan isn't viable anymore. I'm sure that by now Peter's destroyed the virus. I can't bring myself to care much. I'm still here, as are you, but I can't touch you. I ran out of that apartment like a sodding teenager, unable to even look you in the face. I can't bear it. I'm a fool. I want you to be mine. But you never will be, ever.
I don't think I'm infallible, you know? I've just been around longer. I know things that are impossible for a regular person to know, and sometimes I wish I didn't. Like now. I wish that I didn't know that if I throw myself off this building, I won't die. Well, I will die, but only for a moment. It won't do anything to quell the ache in my chest. The deep rumble of an airplane engine thrums through the air. I watch it slide along the runway and take off. It's destination is fixed, certain, the people locked in its metal frame knowing exactly where they're going. I used to know my destination; now it's all blown to dust. Will you tell me where to go? You might as well, since you're standing right behind me.
"Did Peter tell you where to find me?"
Did that startle you? I don't know. You're a blur in the corner of my eye. I don't want to turn around and look at you. It's more than I can handle right now.
"He's got this handy ability, one of the many. He can find people anywhere they are just by thinking of them. That would explain how you came here, but not why."
Silence. You hesitate to speak. Interesting. I'm sure that has some significance, but I doubt that it'd be in my favor.
"I need to make sure that you won't hurt anyone."
There's something strange in the tone of your voice, like you're trying too hard to keep it even.
"You mean kill every last person on the planet? I assume that Peter‘s already taken care of that. Unless the Company left another pandemic inducing virus lying around, I don't think you have to worry about that. I suppose I'll just wait around and wait for humanity to destroy itself through those nuclear weapons they keep accumulating."
Another pause. At least I'm not the only one intensely uncomfortable here. I risk a glance to the side. You're standing so far away, nearly two meters to my right. Are you afraid of me? You don't have to worry. My anger is spent. You won’t look at me, either. You stare at your shoes, at the runway in front of us, at the hands you bury in your jacket pockets as if you were trying to hide inside yourself. But not at me. Your eyes shun me as if I was a harsh wind were striking your face.
"How's Ando?" I ask.
I think you look up at me, but I've already turned away.
"He's fine. He's really... he's doing just fine."
It's nice hearing happiness in your voice again. But it’s not the only emotion in your voice. You stumble, unsure of yourself. There’s something that you won’t say though the words are probably perched on the tip of your tongue. I think I know what it is.
"He enjoyed himself," I say, peeking at you from the corner of my eye. The discomfort twisting in your face tells me that I was right. "I didn't force him. I don't go for sex that's not fully consensual."
"Why did you do it?" I'm surprised to hear more confusion than anger in your voice. "Was it just... Did you want to mess with his mind or mine or both of us?"
"Neither. I was just interested in him. I've been for a long time. And when I saw him... I wanted to get close to him. To know the man you love."
"You weren't supposed to read those letters. I just couldn't think of any other way to communicate with him. I should never have left them in that sword. I should have known that you'd find them. But I didn't know. I didn't know."
The roar of an airplane engine cuts through the last word, scattering it in the wind. making it scream in the cold wind.
"I tried not loving you,” I say. “I really did. But you're inside me, like a second pulse beating in my heart."
"I wish you'd told me before."
"Would it have made a difference?"
"I don't know." You sound so lost. "We wouldn't be this."
What a mess we are. I turn toward you and see you looking at me. In your eyes, I see a possibility thrown away in the mud. Even if I were to pick it up,, I'd never be able to get all the dirt off. It'd remain soiled, and I'm fully aware that it's my doing.
"I'm sorry I kissed her.” There’s genuine contrition in your voice. “I didn't really love her. You were right.”
I'm surprised. I didn't expect you to make the first apology.
"Is that what you told Ando?"
"Basically." You flash me a hard glance. "And right afterwards he apologized for sleeping with you."
I'd say sorry about that, but I don't really mean it. But there’s one that I do.
"I'm sorry I killed him. And your father." You stare at me in shock. I can't blame you. "I wanted you to feel the same pain that I suffered. I was a fool. I’m really sorry.”
You're silent. You look away at the planes spread out below us, but you don't really see them. Your chest rises and falls with the sudden quickness of your breathing. After a long minute, you nod stiffly. I'll take that.
Ending 2