Look Alive, Sunshine

Tuesday, July 4th.
Seventeen days after.

The theater is more dull than he expected it to be.

He only vaguely remembers a conversation from yesterday, tucked away in the car. Before everything went to shit, that is. Tarquin had only spoken a few sentences about it. Something about the Opera House, and a loose back window. 

He had said it was nice.

Icarus, both literally and figuratively, has no idea what’s gone wrong with his perception of reality.

The window is still loose when he wanders off in the dead of night. The bare light bulb in the back dressing room is still buzzing away. He had run into the chain accidentally. Out here he hadn’t even bothered to turn on any of the lights. Maybe that’s why it didn’t seem so impressive. It was colorful, he could tell, but he didn’t care.

Maybe it would be nice if anything mattered.

His phone died three hours ago. Not that he was using it. It’s got to be close to dawn, by now. He doesn’t know if anyone else slept, but he didn’t even try. His eyes, at this point, are glued open, the horror imprinted on them so he has to see it even when he tries not to. That’s all he’s been doing since he crawled through the window and made a home in one of the audience’s red velvet seats. Just tried not to think.

For a while it had worked as it was meant to. Dissociation above all else was easy.

The images came back gradually, like he was uncovering old photographs. Icarus thought the best part would be not remembering. His brain can only recall that sick sensation, the lingering dread. He had thought, in his few last steps towards Soran, that he might collapse, or even die. Something deserving and dramatic enough for only him.

What had actually happened, he had no idea. Tarquin had said something else too, but that had been after they got back. Something about a scream. He had no idea who it had come from, even, but that was what had spurred him into action.

Somehow, without having any recollection at all, Icarus knew the noise hadn’t come from him. With knowing that came the harsh reality of it being Soran. No matter how desperately he tried to produce the noise in his head his brain refused to cooperate. It was saving him from something. That wasn’t something you unheard.

It was him, his hands, whatever he had unleashed… all of it combined had done that to him.

Icarus had nearly killed him.

The begging and pleading of yesterday already seems distant as well. For all he knows, he’s been in here for days. It hadn’t been Soran’s voice that had answered him yesterday but the spirits, all the way in the back of his head. They said he would be okay. Icarus had chosen to believe them when he turned around and sped in the direction of the hotel.

But if it’s been hours, days, even, then Soran may be dead. The others are just biding their time, waiting to tell him. If they’re smart, they’ll have just left.

That’s what he deserves, now.

Icarus hadn’t even seen him since they had got back yesterday. Mostly Emmi’s doing, from what he recalls, and likely for the best. Wherever the verge had been from totally normal, useless human being to untrustworthy creature, he wasn’t sure, but the gap had been crossed. He had practically tumbled head-first to the other side.

In a span of one day he had become the worst thing here by a long-shot.

From what he could tell so far it was a fluke, too. He had been here forever, now, and couldn’t make his hands do it again. No matter how many times he tried, clenched his hands into fists, tried to feel any sort of power thrumming just beneath the surface, nothing had happened.

He hadn’t been trying yesterday, either. He had only been afforded the quickest glance at them in the second Tarquin had finally tore him off of Soran, a white-hot glow that appeared to be trapped underneath his skin, and then all at once it had dissipated like it had never been there.

His hands, still, were unmarred. He could still see how mangled Soran was just from a few seconds of it, and yet he was unmarked? It was inside him. It didn’t make any sense.

Thinking about it has yet to help, and it surely won’t start now.

With some amount of difficulty, piece of piece he unloads his brain and wills it to empty. It’ll be better that way - for everyone. He sags back in the chair, fixates solely on the lone, larger one up on stage.

That’s it. Just the chair. Nothing else exists.

It’s some time before anything else interrupts him, and it comes in the form of a flicker to the right of the stage. Icarus chooses to ignore it until it steps directly in his line of vision. 

There goes the chair.

“Hey,” Tarquin says.

They’re liars. He knew it. Icarus knew it all along.

“He’s dead, isn’t he?”

“What?” Tarquin asks, clearly alarmed. “No, he… he’s fine.”

“Fine,” Icarus echoes.

“Relatively speaking,” Tarquin answers. He takes a few steps down the center aisle, placing a wrapped sandwich and a water bottle on the precarious edge of the chair just in front of him. Icarus hasn’t put anything in his body in nearly twenty-four hours but hardly feels it anymore.

“The healing is going well,” he continues. “At least from what we can tell. His breathing is a lot better.”

“Awake?”

“Not yet. Hopefully soon.”

It doesn’t get any better when he wakes up. The silence from the spirit end of things confirms that. He thought they were staying quiet because they had lost him, but it’s just because of the pain. Soran’s in turmoil, an in-between state, and they’ve followed. He’s done that to them all.

Tarquin reaches forward and places the bottle in his lap. A silent request. He has to drink something, even if he is going to participate in a hunger strike.

He uncaps it and takes a slow, careful sip while Tarquin clambers over the seats in front of him and then takes a seat beside him, sinking just as low into it until their shoulders are nearly touching. A bad move, he thinks, or a very dumb one. Anyone near him right now is asking for it unless the smallest sip of water in the universe can quell whatever hellfire is growing inside of him.

He treasures the silence that stretches between them while he stares at the chair again. This is all the space he’s being given before things pick back up.

Icarus’ time is running out.

“I don’t know what happened,” he says quietly.

“That makes all of us.”

“It felt like I was falling,” he supplies. “Falling, and then I saw him… and then you were pulling me off of him."

Nothing more than even breathing continues off to his right. Of them all Tarquin looks the least affected. Ria won't come near him even today, he's sure, and Emmi's horrified anger has been bordering on wrath-like, at least when he last saw it. Tarquin and his unrestrained panic in the park have somehow morphed into this.

Slowly, he turns his arm over, exposing an angry, blistered patch of red just below his elbow. Icarus stares.

Tarquin, however, has yet to break contact from the front of the room. "It was just a millisecond after I got a hold of your left arm. You didn't even grab onto me."

"And I…"

"It's fine," he continues quickly. "It doesn't even hurt that bad. But it was a result of your hand just barely brushing against my arm. That's all it took."

Not just a surface wound, either. There's visible, lasting damage.

"That's how I know you don't remember doing it," Tarquin says. "One, you wouldn't hurt him any other way. Two, you're not some unfeeling robot that wouldn't feel bad about hurting me just because you hurt him worse. You would have asked."

"You seem really sure about that."

"Tell me I'm wrong, then." Tarquin shrugs. He can only wish that he was on that level of uncaring. It's enviable.

"I'm not sure it matters what you think," Icarus says, swallowing away the lump in his throat. "I still nearly killed him. Nothing changes that."

"Big difference between you doing it intentionally or not."

That fact will be proven or not once Soran wakes up. When he does. Icarus can see it coming already - he's not going to care. Soran has been inches away from death for too many years now. This isn't any different to him, but to Icarus, who nearly took the life out of him with his bare hands…

Well, it's all the difference in the world.

"Emmi won't let me near him."

"She knows you didn't mean it."

"Does she?" he asks, resenting the bitterness in his own voice.

"She came to terms with it the same way I did. We know, okay. Whatever's going on, we'll figure it out. We're all exhausted and freaked out but we'll get there."

Icarus is so exhausted he could cry and has been for days. If only he wasn't cried out, living with his eyes permanently wide-open.

He doesn't deserve to exist any other way right now. That doesn't mean the others have to live in the same state.

"You should go to sleep," he suggests.

"Someone has to stay with him. Emmi's just as tired, and you know… you know leaving Ria with him isn't going to end well."

He was dreading this moment.

"I'll do it," he offers. "Both of you can go to sleep."

"You don't have to."

"You're disproving the whole trust theory even though it just came out of your mouth," Icarus points out. Not that it's unjustified. Icarus doesn't trust himself either at the moment.

"That's not what I meant and you know it. Self-deprecation isn't a good look on you."

Oh, how the mighty have fallen. There's his lesson in daring to think he belonged in such a category in the first place.

He leans back in the chair, this time as low as he can get. "I'll do it," he repeats.

"You won't hurt him again."

No, he won't. Not today at least. He doesn't feel weakened or energized either way - just hollowed out. He's the open wound here, now, and there's no way to hurt anyone but himself when he feels like that.

"You're sure?" Tarquin asks.

"Go to sleep."

"I might just sit in here for a bit longer. Or take a walk. Clear my head, you know. And then I will."

He nods. His knees pop when he stands, legs creaking as if they could snap in two at any moment. There's no telling if he can even keep food down, but he takes the sandwich, a hopeful promise for later, and the water too.

Tarquin rests his head on the chair-back. "I told you it was nice in here."

He sighs. "I hate it."

A huffed, low little laugh. "Figured."

He's not in much of an appreciative mood. Maybe another day, another time…

Icarus is glad it's nice, even if it isn't for him.

"This has never happened before, right?" Tarquin asks after him. "Not any of the other times you've been alive?"

"No."

"Got it."

"Why?"

"If I can't sleep, I'll think about it some more," he murmurs. "Like I said, we'll figure it out."

Icarus can only hope. Or does he? If the answer is going to be worse, he doesn't think he wants it. He'd rather leave while he still can, before he does something they can't come back from. He fought so hard to stay, for a chance at an actual life, but that may not be possible anymore.

If it's better for them, he might just not get that.

They're worth that, he knows. If it means his hands have no more blood on them, it's worth giving up himself.

It's a feeling he knows has never existed in him before. Everything is changing and shifting.

He's a different person now.

There's no going back from that.

―

Emmi tries her best not to move.

She hardly has for the better part of eight or nine hours now. Pins and needles are not even close to what she feels in her legs anymore

Tarquin having left her leaves little choice in the matter. She's sure he'll find Icarus eventually unless he's wandered off blindly into the desert, but his absence means her presence is all the more important. Someone has to watch him. With everyone else gone the responsibility rests solely on her shoulders.

As awful as it sounds she doesn't even want to look at him again. She has to, checking to make sure that he's still breathing, but she hasn't been anywhere close to him in nearly two hours. At that point the mangled melted tear in his throat had been clearly sealed as muscle and skin began to knit back together.

The last real look she had at him was when they got him back here in the first place. An entire process, from what she remembers of the frantic blur it had been. Sending Ria ahead into the hall to make sure no one was lurking about, keeping Icarus away from him, still. Just trying to stitch everything back into something that had resembled what they had the day before.

Her attempt was no good. Not even close.

It has to be over soon. Emmi isn't sure she can handle much more of it.

He's okay for now, though. Still and silent but he's alive, which is more than can be said for a lot of people. A practical miracle if she's being honest. Nobody is meant to survive what he has.

They're the same in that respect. Unwilling creatures on the run from their own demise.

He'll be okay for a few minutes, though. She just needs some fucking air. There's nothing wrong with the kind in here - it doesn't reek of something just shy of death anymore, but outside would be better.

There's no feeling free for her, but outside right now is the closest she'll come.

Besides, if she's going to cave, Emmi is going all or nothing. Totally, wholly, without reservation.

She takes her phone and locks the door behind her.

Everything will be okay for a few minutes.

Emmi is already dialing the phone number before she’s even outside. The sunlight at this time of morning is still weak behind the clouds, not yet burned away. It’s too early for anyone in their right mind to answer, but this is a special exception. She takes a seat in one of the ancient metal chairs along the front patio and waits patiently.

Emmi is not a very patient person, however, and has already gnawed her lip bloody by the time the line picks up on the other end. She forces herself to stay quiet, as still as silent as she knows Soran still is, and listens to the soft sounds of her breathing on the other end of the line.

She pulls the phone away at thirty-seven seconds, having convinced herself she was hearing things. The line is still active.

“Happy fourth,” she says evenly. What an awful way to start things.

And not in the least bit something that Arwen deserves.

“Is this really how we’re going to do this?” Arwen asks.

She swallows. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t play stupid.”

“I miss you,” she admits. The longing has gotten so much worse in the midst of all this shit. “Is that such a crime?”

“Then come home.”

If she could, if Emmi could pick up and leave without repercussions or without feeling bad, she just might. She would drag Ria back by the collar if that’s what it took and slip back into the city as if she had never left at all. This was never her mission.

“I can’t,” she says softly. 

“Emmi―”

“I’m not in the city anymore,” she tells her.

“Really appreciate the lies.”

“I’m serious.” She’s trying to be more and more often these days. “We… I got out. Later that night.”

There’s a lengthy pause. Arwen’s breath is no longer sleep-addled or slow. Emmi’s fault. Turns out she’s getting better at ruining things in this day and age, even more-so than she was way back when.

“You said we,” Arwen notices.

“Sure did.”

“The five of you…”

“Yeah,” she says quietly. She’s gotten even worse at explanations than she thought. Bad openings and even more terrible middles. Emmi can’t even begin to imagine how disastrous the end is going to be if this is what she’s come up with so far.

“It’s a lot to explain,” she continues. And there’s no way I have the energy for it, she doesn’t add. Best not to relay the horrors of the past day. “I just wanted to let you know that I was okay. And to know that you were okay, too.”

“I’m fine.”

She expects more. Doesn’t deserve it, and doesn’t get it either.

“And everyone else?” Emmi asks.

“They’re fine too.”

It’s been only a few days, she reminds herself. With the two of them that holds an immense amount of weight. She hadn’t gone more than two days without seeing Arwen’s face since the day she met her, and now she’s possibly gone for good.

And she wants to go back. Damn it all to hell, she wants to go back.

“What about everyone else with you?” Arwen questions. Her voice is carefully detached.

Emmi leans over her knees, pressing her forehead down into them. Her stomach aches like never before and she’s not going to allow herself to cry, no way in hell. She hasn’t let herself shed real tears in ages and isn’t about to start now.

Besides, she doesn’t even know why she wants to cry now. Everything is going to be okay.

She hopes, anyway.

“Em,”she prompts, voice softer. She misses that voice. She was the only one ever on the receiving end of it.

“It’s not great,” she reveals, blinking frantically. “But we’ll figure it out.”

“Just come home.”

“Not yet.”

“But you’re going to?”

The purpose of this phone call was to make her feel better and yet it’s having the opposite effect. She sits up at the sound of footsteps scraping their way through the parking lot towards her. Icarus is standing there when she finally does, just watching.

“I can’t promise you I am,” she says. But she wants to. God, does she want to.

“Emmi,” she says again, voice a broken record. The worst part is, it just sounds sad now. How badly does she want to return home, crawl back into bed with her, and never leave. Her chest is starting to ache with the image alone.

Four days. That’s all it took for her to want to return.

“I love you,” Emmi says, and hangs up, dropping the phone in her lap. She wanted a response there, but the idea of not getting one was too worrying. Best to cut it short while the power still rests in her hands.

Looking forward again she finds Icarus, staring at the ground between his dusty shoes, all of the previously off-white color now a smudged, pale brown. He turns without looking, shuffling his way to the doors she had just come out of not long ago.

“What are you doing?” she asks. He pauses.

A long, painfully awkward staring match ensues. She keeps her gaze resolutely forward, right on his, until he crumbles and looks away.

One point to her. She needs all that she can get at the moment.

“Tarquin said you both needed a break,” he says. If he looks wrecked upon first glance, he sounds even worse. It’s good to know that Tarquin found him at least. He’s not wrong.

“So… you’re going to watch him?” she deduces.

“Are you gonna stop me?”

“I don’t know, Human Torch, are you going to try and murder him again?”

His face twists. Emmi, in a rare twist, feels bad almost instantly. “Too soon?” she asks. She just has to keep reminding herself that even though he’s out of control, one wrong move and he kills her, this time. No one’s around to stop him.

“I don’t need this right now,” he says, a sudden layer of anger to his voice. “Or any of this, as a matter of fact.”

His hand, locked around the door handle, is trembling like a leaf in the wind.

“I’m sorry, okay?” she says quickly.

“Why are you apologizing to me?”

“Because I’m not helping.” She really is falling apart today. Who is she, exactly, admitting all of her faults out in the open like this? No one recognizable, that’s who.

He has yet to move again, so Emmi kicks out at the matching chair next to her until the metal scrapes obnoxiously over the pavement.

He stares at it. She watches him.

Icarus sits down so suddenly, so dramatically, that he nearly tips the chair over with him in it right into the wall.

She might have laughed. She definitely would have felt bad about it.

She only wishes that her eyes could be as vacant as his. The horror has escaped him and been replaced with a carefully measured amount of blankness where nothing bad can hurt him, or Soran, or any of them.

A place where they’re all still okay.

Emmi waits until his breathing has evened out once again, until the harsh lines of his face have somewhat faded. “You should sit with him,” she says eventually.

Outside of Arwen, she has yet to place this much trust in anybody. At least not permanently. Icarus doesn’t suddenly deserve it, either, but the situation is certainly calling for it. Yesterday was one thing, but she can’t watch him like a hawk forever.

“I will,” he murmurs. “Just… give me a few minutes.”

She nods, settling back in her chair. Reaches over and squeezes his arm, quickly, just because she can and because he’s not going to hurt her.

A few minutes just to breathe. Don’t they all need that right about now?

If only it was really going to solve anything.

―

The shadows are encroaching yet again.

Each one is an individual strand, darker than before. Like ink, or a black hole, or the desert sky when you dared to stand in the middle of nowhere for too long.

The memory of this place as it was last time is already faint. It could disappear into the wind, if it wanted to, except there’s none here. There are open windows, broken glass on their sills, and yet there is no movement.

He has no idea how we got here. He didn’t want to come back here, either. Bad things are easily detected when you know what to look for, and this place is full of them. Spirits and awful memories and things that should have been more thoroughly boarded up. A prohibited sign on a door was not going to be enough to keep people out.

It wasn’t strong enough to keep everything in, either.

This time, it seemed different. A fog had descended on everything he was looking at. The mist was so thin it made everything look fake. He could sink right through the floor. Walk through any wall he wanted.

Only his brain, whatever part is still in operation, is whispering to him the actual truth. And none of this is.

He feels… asleep, almost. Is he asleep?

The truth is something Soran has never had an easy time living with.

He’s upright, though. Through that same prohibited door into the deserted hallway, having made it no further than he did last time. It’s colder now, though. The temperature has plunged into a territory considered dangerously low.

It can’t be real, then. It would never be that cold in here.

His other options have yet to present themselves, so he tries to wait. He could be hallucinating. That doesn’t usually happen unless there's a good reason for it, though. There had been agony, before, but it had faded off somewhat. The amount of pain he’s in now wouldn’t be enough to produce such a vision, not on it’s own.

So he’s awake, then. Or vividly dreaming. Regardless, what he’s seeing is most definitely real.

If it wasn’t, that would make things so much easier.

These halls are holding secrets better left undiscovered. Things crawling in-between the walls and darkness that lingers too long to be incorporeal. Whatever things reside out here in the desert have taken up proper homes in these abandoned rooms, where, until now, almost everyone leaves them well alone.

Until now. If he’s dreaming, he doesn’t know why. If he’s really here…

No, he can’t be. It’s not logical. Not that he’s known to be a logical person, but there are a certain number of realities he’s choosing to keep close. He was in pain before. Vaguely now, too, but it would have to be stronger to compare to that. Was it yesterday? Several days? He's clearly not awake enough to tell.

Walking as well doesn't seem like something that could feasibly occur, not without incredible risk. The last time he awoke he could barely move, let alone consider getting to his feet. Any and all moving on his part had been accomplished by someone else.

Last, but certainly not least lies the problem of the hotel itself. They were in the car before. He had seen glimpses of it when he opened his eyes before the pain had overcome him.

How did they get back? The last real thing he remembers was standing just below the crater's edge.

The energy swirling around him now is not aiding his quest to remember. It's taking every semblance of thought away the second he begins to come up with an idea. There was a falling sensation, searing pain, something truly awful happening above him. That's where the void was in his head. He had nothing after that until he woke up briefly in the car and more nothingness after that too.

The shadows come ever closer, threatening where he stands. At any moment it feels like they could become something solid. Their malevolent, intangible presence was bad enough.

Instead of bringing him any information about his current situation, the darkness is giving him memories. Like snapshots, ones that he wasn't fortunate enough to forget. Blood all over the bathroom floor - that's happened more than once. Myra is there in this one, her panic so very unlike how she usually is. He had laughed. Her concern was so wildly warranted, a lesson she should learn soon enough.

He would not die even if he wanted to.

You don't want to. 

He has no voice. He didn't before, either, or maybe it's the dream. Nightmare. Whatever it is.

Even if Soran had a voice, that doesn't mean he has the words to answer.

You want to live. You're just scared to. And death is so much easier than life.

It's been a year and a half since then. Since he scarred himself yet again. That's longer than he's made it in recent history. They're right - death would be the easy way out. After everything he's been through that is all he could dare to ask for.

And he can't even get it.

He needs to wake up. He wants to. Wake up and dismantle something that could tear him open and bleed him out for good.

No you don't.

Shut up, he thinks. Just shut up. They don't know everything. They can't or else they would tell him. Even this is not something they can save him from. The hallways are getting darker by the second. It matters little what is happening outside these walls. Whatever lies in here is far more powerful.

Fight back against it, then.

Fight back… he didn't before. Against whatever happened. The pain had been too much but something else had held him back too.

Something more.

There's only one way to win against what he's going through now. The simple act of opening his eyes can end this. Pain will be his reward - it always is.

Soran opens his eyes for real and the world around him does not change.

If anything, it grows sharper. More real. He's actually here in the dilapidated halls, feet  lost amidst broken glass. The air is thick and suffocating. Every single breath hurts so bad it's almost enough to bring him to his knees.

For the first time in a long time, something around him is so vehemently wrong that he can't even place it.

He doesn't remember getting here, or what has happened in his last hours. Nothing of what transpired before either. But he's here, alive and awake, certainly, but so wildly unsafe he can feel it as if it's a tangible thing.

Go.

He can't move.

Now.

That doesn't help, surprisingly.

It's a vicious circle. The shadows encroach. They always will.

This time he may just go down with them.

―

Tarquin's walk does not last very long.

Unfortunately for him.

His intentions were clear enough. Find Icarus, because Emmi certainly wasn’t making any moves to do so. Ask him a massive, potentially very worrying favor. After that it became unclear. Tarquin would then wander until his eyes grew too heavy and his feet struggled to lift out of the dirt. Only then would he fall asleep, free from nightmares.

He doesn’t quite make it that far.

Emmi fiddling about with her phone for the better part of the night had inspired him, or at least he had allowed himself to believe it. He doesn’t realize he’s foolishly left his phone in the hotel room until he’s sitting alone in the Opera House with nothing better to do. The notifications have been turned off for some time, now, but one message wouldn’t hurt. One call out into the universe just to let them know he was okay.

Noelani would be upset, but she would get over it. Given what she had found out about him so far, she could handle just about anything. That’s all Tarquin had any desire for now. Just a little bit of understanding.

He skirts the whole building back to the lobby and spends far too long staring at the ancient phone perched on-top the desk. There’s no one watching it, as there never seems to be.

As terrible as it sounds, it’s a more tempting option than going to retrieve his phone.

His attempt is quickly thwarted by the appearance of a housekeeper, the first of her kind. So early in the morning her presence does just enough to wake him and send him skittering back, all the way down the hall.

It’s obvious from very far away that something is wrong. The door at the end of the hall is open - it never has been before. He knows what prohibited means. It looks like a careless action, like someone wandered in and couldn’t be bothered to conceal what’s inside.

He passes both doors where people should hopefully be sleeping, his feet sinking into the carpet. Just before the door it turns into unforgiving concrete, harsh underfoot.

Despite how oddly still it feels there is air seeping out from the foot of space the open door is left, dank and almost rotting. The temperature has dropped a near impossible amount of degrees in seconds.

Before he even pushes the door in further something is creaking ominously. There’s nothing more than a whisper of a threat, but that’s all it takes.

Someone is in there. The silhouette is dark and harsh against the tattered walls, back facing. For a long moment, with the odd wavering light in the hall, it doesn’t even look like a person.

He was trying to deny it from the get-go, but Tarquin knows who it is.

“Soran,” he says, trying to quell some of the alarm in his voice. It looks like he twitches, a wordless response to Tarquin’s inquiry. Initially it’s a relief to see him up on his feet, but he’s not all there. There’s no way it’s possible. He has yet to actually move, looking firmly ahead.

Tarquin resists the urge. Whatever resides further down the hallway does not want them here. He’s not about to invite it in.

He stretches forward, broken glass crunching underfoot, and wraps a gentle hand around his arm. “Hey,” he says. “You with me?”

He is. Tarquin watches him glance down at his hand, almost twist over his shoulder to look at him before his throat protests. It still needs more time. He needs more time. He’s shaking just enough to be perceptible from the strain of being upright in such a state. That, or there’s another force is at work here, trying to wreak havoc.

It is, he’s sure, but it hasn’t gotten to them yet.

Not that it explains anything going on, but they’re both still standing, breathing. Soran shouldn’t be out here in the first place. Whoever was watching him… how did they let him go like this? How did he make it this far when he’s hardly moving now?

“Can you walk?” he asks. He could, clearly, but Tarquin doesn't trust his legs anymore.

No answer. So he’s still not talking, either.

Tarquin chances a glance down the hall. The shadows are still gathering, but a breeze rustles in when he clenches his hand and scatters some of them.

“If you can, just back up to me,” he says. “Don’t turn around.”

Soran’s legs hold when he shuffles back but there’s no telling how long it will last. He waits until they’re together to ease around him, a barrier in front of whatever nightmares lurk down the hall beyond where they can see.

He allows his hand to slip off Soran’s arm. “Keep going. I’ll be right behind you.”

He cannot look away from this. You look away, that’s when it comes after you. It feels like a rule even though it’s something he’s never heard before. Intuition is the only thing Tarquin has left to cling to.

The balance between keeping his eyes forward and listening for the slow footsteps behind is one he puts effort into like nothing before. The shadows have depleted somewhat since the initial blast of wind he sent down there, and eventually he hears nothing else behind him. Tarquin doesn’t hesitate - he back-pedals as quickly as he can until the carpeted hallway is beneath his feet once again, and then reaches for the door. It shakes when he slams it shut and then continues to shake even after, as if someone is beating against it from the other.

It’s rare that he’s so eager to get away from something, but he is now, and he nearly backs up into Soran. He’s already halfway to the ground, trying and failing to clutch onto the doorway to bring himself back up.

He slips an arm under him, bringing him back up to something resembling his full height. “What the hell were you doing?”

“I don’t… I don’t remember getting there.”

Tarquin didn’t expect an answer back. He just needed to say it. The sound of Soran’s voice makes him wince. It’s hoarse, each word so pained that it looks like he’s working around thorns.

And well, that’s not good. And that’s also an underestimation. He wandered off on his own and also doesn’t remember doing it.

He expected it, but something akin to anger rises in him when he opens the door to room twenty-four and finds no one there waiting. No one in their right mind would have let him wander off on his own, delirious and out of his mind. Everything is worse because of it. Whoever was in here just left - it doesn’t matter if it was Emmi or Icarus. They shouldn’t have.

Soran seems already half-asleep again by the time he sets him down on the edge of the bed, and he’s properly out within seconds. Tarquin still waits until the last signs of stirring fade off before he, appropriately storms off, aware of how hypocritical it is immediately.

He finds both of them outside in identical chairs, clinging to the last of the shade as the sun begins to rise. Icarus turns to him, clearly confused, but Emmi doesn’t even give him the honor.

“What the fuck?” he asks flatly.

Only then does Emmi look up at him with the audacity of an eye-roll. “Is the sleep deprivation getting to you?”

“You fucking left him alone?”

“He’s fine.”

“He’s not― Jesus Christ, Em, he just wandered off when someone left him alone for longer than five minutes and didn’t even remember doing it. You can’t leave him alone.”

Icarus has already risen to his feet - had when he wasn’t even halfway through his sentence. His eyes are very wide, clearly concerned. Tarquin had thought nothing of letting him go because he knew what Icarus was going to do.

Or so he thought. It definitely didn’t involve sitting out here.

“Is he―”

“Asleep, again,” he interrupts. “I don’t care at this point if I have to watch him twenty-four-seven, but for the love of God, if that’s the case, let me know. And I’ll do it.”

“No,” Icarus says quickly. “No, I should have―”

“Yeah, you should have,” Tarquin says. Aware that he’s being too harsh, but he doesn’t care. There’s an entire list forming in his head of what could have happened. Something’s wrong in that abandoned hall, something that could hurt people. Soran could have blacked out in there and never came out.

Icarus, predictably, bolts. All the way around Tarquin and back into the hotel.

Tarquin takes a deep breath, clenching his fists. All he has to do is trust it.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

“You don’t have to apologize,” Emmi insists. “I shouldn’t have left him.”

There’s the apologetic regret he expected from the get-go. Admittedly, it’s nice to see. That’s all he wanted, really.

“I’m just―”

“We’re all two seconds from snapping,” Emmi says. “It hasn’t even been a week.”

He was thinking much the same thing. How much longer can they go like this before one of them falls apart for good?

Tarquin’s not sure he wants that answer.

“Is he actually okay?” Emmi asks. Tarquin nods, rubbing a hand over his face. He is, by some miracle, and for now they’re all the same, but nothing lasts forever. And if this continues the way it does, he thinks that Soran might be the most intact of them all, soon.

He wasn’t ready to fall apart.

None of them were.

―

For hours, now, Ria has been searching for air that doesn’t stink of burned flesh.

She discovered soon enough that the smell wasn’t around her, anymore, but inside her. It was stuck in her nose and the back of her throat, clinging stubbornly.

She had slept, scrubbed herself clean in the shower, and wandered all the grounds of the hotel to no avail, wondering if it would ever leave. It wasn’t until the sun dipped below the horizon that night that Ria smelled it again.

Clean air.

She would have to sleep, eventually, but for now her spot of choice was the lone picnic table that laid in the dusty scrubland between the parking lot and the road itself. A tree to its right would cast shade over her, normally, but with the disappearing light there was no need.

Now there was just dust caught in her throat, gritty on her lips, but it was better than before.

Everyone else had spent so much time  inside today, eyes watchful or the opposite - asleep. She had yet to work up the courage to go and sit inside herself. She was doing nothing good outside, it seems, but there was something purposeful behind it. In the back of Ria’s mind she couldn’t shake Muelara’s far-away figure, watching as they all left.

She was scared yesterday, but that was one threat, and as it goes away another rises in its place.

Every car that passes by catches her attention, every moving shape possibly a person creeping up on her from the surrounding desert.

Every danger that she wanted to avoid, and Ria believes they’re coming for her anyway.

Not just her, but the other four too. They were out of commission for now, and she couldn’t allow anything to happen while that was the case.

Ria would stay up all night if she had to. She just had to ensure they were okay here.

A twist of fate that is rapidly becoming more common brings someone else to her over time. She hears the footsteps first as they pick through the loose gravel, and then Emmi clambers up to sit on the table beside her, planting her feet firmly on the bench below.

She looks beyond wrung out. Despite Ria’s feelings on the matter, she at least managed some rest. No relaxation, but she’s not going to be picky about it.

She doesn’t think Emmi has slept since. What is that, just about thirty-six hours?

Human beings, or at least things adjacent to them, need as much sleep as they can get.

Emmi leans back, laying down until her hair is fanned out across the table, knees awkwardly jutting up towards the sky. Ria waits a moment until she follows suit and her toes no longer touch the bench.

The sky is beautiful out here. It looked lost in the city. Every star imaginable is in view when she looks at it now.

“Can I tell you something?” she asks, keeping her voice low. “If you promise not to get mad.”

Emmi turns towards her, eyes tired. “Don’t have the energy. Go for it.”

Ria takes a deep breath and folds her fingers together over her stomach. The heart is nowhere close, but she can still feel her pulse jumping through her skin at the mere thought of admitting it. “I saw Muelara,” she says. “Before we left the city.

Emmi blinks. “What do you mean?”

“You had all gotten off the bridge. I was behind, still, and when I turned around she was there on the other side of the shield. Watching us.”

Emmi lets out a breath between her teeth, but her face is still formed into that same tired, yet composed mask. She has no idea what this means. None of them do. Only Ria has seen first-hand what Muelara can bring down on others if she so chooses to.

“She knows I left of my own volition,” Ria continues. “She knows I left with others, which means I chose not to go back to her, or anybody else.”

“She doesn’t know why you left though.”

“She’s not stupid. If she didn’t realize it then she put it together not long after.”

“Fuck,” Emmi says under her breath. “Shit.”

She lays her hand over her face, scratching incessantly at her hairline. Her fingers are clumsy - from lack of sleep, or food, or sanity. Likely all three.

Finally, she drops her hand. “You don’t think she’s here, do you?”

“If I know her, and I think I do at least a little, she’ll have taken everyone that’s left and split them to go to all three places we think it could be.”

“Cover more ground,” Emmi mutters. “Smart.”

It is. Muelara being smart was never something Ria doubted. They all got it naturally, but she nurtured their brains better than she had ever nurtured just them.  To her, that was what was most important. They came second. Even if it’s what has kept her going this far, Ria can’t thank her for that.

She sees love here. Real, genuine love, and caring, and emotions whose existence had seemed almost fictitious. 

And they were real.

“So what you’re telling me, essentially, is that we need to find this thing, and we need to find it fast,” Emmi emphasizes, punctuated by a long sigh.

“They might have already found it.”

“No. No, don’t think like that,” Emmi says quickly. “They have as much of a clue to where it is as we do. We can find it first. And we’re going to.”

She sounds so confident, her voice calm and sure. It’s enviable. Even exhausted to her core Emmi is still leagues above anything Ria could ever hope to be. This is what Muelara wanted for them all - a life that they could live safe and assuredly. The one they always deserved.

“We’re sort of stuck at the moment, though,” Ria says. Even if she believes they can find it, and she’s not so sure about that, they certainly aren’t finding it now.

“You’re only stuck if you let yourself be,” Emmi responds, sitting up ramrod straight. She feels so silly lying down like this all of a sudden, as if Emmi didn’t spur on the action in the first place. “We’re not stuck.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.” She pats Ria’s arm. It would feel condescending coming from almost anyone else, but there’s an odd amount of comfort attached to it. “Get some sleep. We’re going to find it.”

“What about you?”

Emmi blinks, her only exhaustion already forgotten. A part of her seems to sag at Ria’s words.

“You’re right,” she admits. Ria has never been right like this before. “I’ll sleep too.”

“And then what?”

She gives Ria a tight smile. “Figure that out when I wake up.”

She hops off into the dirt, waiting expectantly until Ria follows. Sleep does sound good. It’s early, too early for anyone to be going to sleep normally, but they’ve had a troublesome time so far. An early night won’t hurt anyone.

And maybe when she next opens her eyes, whatever’s in store is something she can handle.