This Place Is Where I'm Meant to Be

Written by Anakin McFly

Short story spin-off sequels to Quinto Formaggi and Plane Between.

« Collection I
« Collection II

14. intrusion. | Sylar + Adam + Sasan + Jason
15. them. | Mitchell
16. saturday morning. | The usual gang
17. twitter. | Adam + Sasan Smudge
18. the first time they fought. | Adam + Sasan + Leo + Smudge

XIV.

It has been haunting him ever since that day he saw Leo vanish into the apartment.

He has to know what that portal was, how it worked. Where did Leo go? How many of them are involved? What do they know that he doesn't; what secret world are they privy to that he isn't...

He could have done something, so many things: telekinetically grabbed Leo, or held the door open, or gotten up and physically chased him down and through the door. But he had been too stunned to act; and by the time the shock had waned, the door had closed and the wall was whole again, leaving Sylar to bitterly resent the actions he did not take.

Sometimes he bashes the wall and yells in frustration. They're doing something. He knows they are. And they're not telling him about it, even though he wants – he needs – to know. He remembers with aggravating clarity the sight of Leo's eyebrow raise before disappearing into a door that shouldn't have been there, and the subtle defiance in the act makes him seethe at the impudence of it all.

People don't raise eyebrows at him. They just don't, especially not with eyebrows practically identical (but slightly better groomed) to his.

They might be there, in some place behind that mysterious door, talking about him, perhaps mocking him, laughing at him, out of his reach, thinking he doesn't know. Sylar glares at the wall, hate boiling inside him.

He doesn't like the thought either of there being a door into his apartment that any of them might enter through at any time. It puts him on edge. He doesn't like that. It implies weakness, and fear, and he should have neither – none of them are any match for him, even together. But when he's asleep and vulnerable…

He needs to know more. He needs to get to them, and solve this problem once and for all.

But the answers never come.

#

It's a couple more days before he's officially unemployed, and Adam is slowly learning to relax. This afternoon finds him standing by the control panel in the apartment: intently working its keyboard in the enjoyable geeky activity of going through its past location logs and naming everything currently unnamed, clearing out redundant entries, and listing all the potential destinations alphabetically in a standardised description format.

He programs his key with the next unnamed location on the list, and opens the door to his lobby; stepping through, he opens the next door and peeks out. It's an alleyway, fairly deserted. He steps out further, pocketing the key and shutting the door, trying to get a better idea of where this is. It's not his world, that much he knows. He reaches the main street, glances around, sees someone reading the newspaper and checks out the date – the year is 2007, so it's somewhere in either Sasan or Leo's world.

Adam raises the camera slung around his neck and snaps a photo, then trudges back to the alley and opens a new portal to get back to the apartment. He'll get them to identify it later.

Back inside, he carefully scribbles down the numbered coordinates for that location along with its photo ID, deletes the repeat entry he just created, and moves on to the next one.

It's someone's bedroom. Adam frowns slightly. He doesn't recognise the place, and then figures it might belong to Jason or Mitchell or one of the others whose homes he's not been to; or someone might have been visiting at someone else's home and decided to leave through unconventional means.

He could ask the others. Pushing aside the ethical implications of photographing someone's home without their knowledge, Adam raises the camera-

-and suddenly he's thrown across the room and slammed against the wall, the camera dropping from his hands in shock and his eyes growing wide in recognition and fear as Sylar steps out from around the corner, hand outstretched to hold Adam there, a look of vicious satisfaction on his face.

Adam lets out a tiny whimper. He struggles frantically against the invisible grip, fingers grabbing wildly at the air around his neck. He glances at the still-open door, leading to the apartment, and panic pierces his heart.

Sylar follows his gaze to the door, and lifts an eyebrow. "I was wondering when I'd see that again."

"I've waited a long... long time for this," he adds with barely-hidden hunger, moving slowly towards where Adam hangs helpless and trembling on the wall, the camera strap cutting into the back of his neck, fists clenching and unclenching in shaking terror. How is Sylar even alive... they killed him... they buried him...

Adam mouths something. He wants to ask to be let go, but knows it's useless, and the words die on his lips.

Sylar grins. "Where does that door lead?" he asks, gesturing towards it with a casualness that belies his aching need to know.

Adam doesn't speak, the sound of his heart thudding in his ears, hoping fervently that none of the others have entered the apartment since.

"I asked you a question," Sylar repeats, and suddenly he's not smiling anymore, and Adam screams as Sylar sends telekinetic jolts of pain sparking across his body.

"It's… it's a place," Adam says, trying to return the penetrating gaze with his own, shoring it up with as much defiance as he can muster. It comes so easy when dealing with almost any other person, but there's something about Sylar that strips Adam of his nerve.

"A place," comes the sneering echo, and Sylar slashes his face.

Adam cries out. Blood spurts out the wound in his cheek and he gulps back tears of pain – he's not breaking down in front of Sylar, not for an injury this trivial when he's had so much worse – but he can feel the wet blood coursing down his face, and cringes as Sylar slides a finger along the cut. Germs, Adam thinks feverishly, superficially, through the smarting, if he touches it it'll get infected and then-

"That hurts, doesn't it?" Sylar asks, breath hot against Adam's face, and Adam tries to shrink back against the wall, away from the overwhelming presence of Sylar's disturbingly-familiar body. "Do you know what I could do to you, Adam?" Sylar asks. "I could break every... bone... in your body... until you talk" – Adam jerks involuntarily as an intrusive telekinetic touch rushes over his skin, Sylar's threat carried in the faint pressure that pauses, with a menacing playfulness, at his fingers, and he finds himself feverishly thinking no, not my fingers, please don't touch my hands, break my legs if you have to, but not my hands, I need to type, please, please-

Adam bites back a 'no', but Sylar can see it in his eyes. With a look of disgust, he wipes the blood off on Adam's shirt and gives a thin smile. "But today's your lucky day. I'll just... see for myself where that door goes."

Adam chokes out: "No-"

Sylar raises an eyebrow. "No? I don't think you have any choice in the matter, Adam. It's Adam, isn't it?" He laughs, condescendingly. "I can't believe I actually remember your names."

He dispassionately drops Adam to the floor, throwing in a telekinetic punch to wind him further and strides off towards the door.

Adam scrambles to his feet, hand coming up to his injured cheek, scared at the amount of blood that covers his hand. Face lacerations bleed a lot, he knows, and it isn't anything serious especially compared to the time half his arm was almost gnawed off in some alien world. But already he's slightly lightheaded from the blood loss, and it's all he can do to stay upright and lunge fruitlessly at Sylar – who rolls his eyes and flicks Adam off, sending him halfway across the room to crash painfully against the wall, his head throbbing with pain.

For a moment Adam wants to give up fighting and just lie there in aching resignation; but something stirs in him at the sight of Sylar going through the door and into the lobby – his lobby – and he bites back the pain and gets back up, stumbling forward with a half-sob. "Don't-"

Sylar ignores him. He places a finger on the fingerprint reader, and the door slides open to reveal the apartment.

Adam notices with a flash of relief that there's no one there – at least, not that he can see. The others are safe for now... he just needs to get rid of Sylar before they come back, or else... or else he doesn't want to think of what might happen-

"Fascinating," Sylar says in a low voice, regarding the apartment with impressed awe, and steps in.

Adam hurtles in wildly after him, no plan in mind, just that he has to get Sylar out of there, because he's not supposed to be there; it's their apartment, theirs, and Sylar can't... he can't ruin it, he can't be there-

"Get out!" Adam yells. "This... this place isn't for you-"

"The door opened for me," Sylar murmurs disinterestedly, running a hand along the kitchen countertop. "I'd say it disagrees with you, Adam. How many of you come here?"

He turns his head, bemusedly looking to Adam for an answer, watching him where he stands, trembling and bleeding and barely able to stand up from pain and fear.

"Leave," Adam states, trying to look fierce through the blood, but his voice shakes.

"Nope," Sylar says, and wanders into the kitchen to peek into the fridge. He appraises its contents, then takes out an apple and bites into it. He nudges the fridge door shut with his foot. "You guys have this place all to yourselves and you never invited me? That's... not very polite of you," he says, sitting on the counter to eat his apple and watch Adam. "It's polite to share, you know," Sylar adds. "Look, I'll show you how it's done." He holds out the apple. "Here, have a bite."

Adam grits his teeth. "Get. Out."

Sylar sighs. "I'll take that as a no. Your loss." He shrugs, takes another bite himself, then hops off the counter and saunters over to Adam's corner of the apartment, and a chill washes down Adam's spine.

No, he thinks, frozen in horror, his gaze shooting towards his laptop. No, no, no, no, no-

"'Adam's Stuff: Do not touch'," Sylar reads off the sign. He chuckles. "Really."

No, no, NO, NO, NO-

Sylar runs a hand over the laptop.

There's a strangled sound from behind him, and then a thud as Adam collapses to the ground in a faint.

Sylar looks up in surprise. Adam's lying there, unconscious on the carpet.

Sylar stares at him for a while, then disgustedly levitates him and dumps him roughly in front of the couch, out of view of the front door, and goes to see what's up the stairs.

#

Sasan steps into the apartment, and has the sudden feeling that something is wrong.

He pauses in the doorway for a moment and gazes uncertainly around. He can't see anything out of place. There's no one here, as far as he can tell; and so he reassures himself that it's all just in his head. There's no danger in this place, after all. The apartment is safe. It's always been safe.

Yet Sasan can't quite let his guard down. He can't even bring himself to laugh to try and break the tension, and there's a forced jauntiness in his steps as he heads up the stairs to the bathroom for a shower.

He pushes the trapdoor open and climbs out-

-and sees Sylar sitting on the bed.

Sasan freezes where he stands, half-in and half-out of the trapdoor, one hand clutching its handle and the other on the floor, paralysed in shock.

It can't be him, Sasan thinks desperately. It can't...

Sylar is perched on the edge of the comforter, an almost-finished apple in one hand, absently thumbing through Sasan's organiser with the other. He glances up, and grins at the look of stunned horror on Sasan's face.

"Welcome home, Sas," Sylar says. He tosses the organiser onto the bed and hops off to stand up, then in one swift move bends down and grabs Sasan's hand in a mock-friendly manner. Sylar's smile grows a little wider at the tiny eep that escapes the other man upon contact.

"Why don't you come on up?" Sylar asks softly.

Sasan's mind blanks out with fear as he's pulled out onto the floor. His fingers are trembling stiff against Sylar's grasp, and he nearly falls over when set down upon legs wanting desperately to give way; but they hold, somehow, with Sasan unable to tear his gaze away from the twinkling menace in Sylar's eyes. The thought he's supposed to be dead flashes for a moment in his mind, before dying in the face of too much evidence to the contrary.

For a brief, wild second, Sasan dares to hope that it's not him. Perhaps it's just one of the others playing a cruel trick...

But no. It's him.

He knows.

Sasan swallows dryly, his eyes turning slowly to look at Sylar's continued grip on his hand as he makes a feeble effort to pull away. Some complex emotion stirs deep within him as he takes in the too-familiar fingers clasped tight against his own; and how they lead up to the back of a hand he knows literally like the back of his own...

Then Sylar's grip loosens and lets go, and Sasan stumbles back against the wall on barely-working legs, not even bothering to hide the abject fear on his face.

"Where's your boyfriend?" Sylar asks conversationally, telekinetically flicking the trapdoor shut.

Sasan mouths indistinctly, unable to get his tongue to speak, and he's aware of his body trembling with each beat of his heart, and wishing with all of his being that Smudge would stay safe.

"Nice place you've got here," Sylar continues, gesturing around with a grin, and taking a bite from his apple. "You could have invited me, you know. That's what I told Adam. You didn't see him downstairs, by any chance?"

Sasan's heart plunges, his mind reeling with a new horror. He hadn't... he hadn't seen anyone, but Adam... he couldn't be... he couldn't be dead...

He lets out a stifled gasp, a tear slipping down his cheek.

"I've missed you guys," Sylar says, his face impassive and unreadable, and then cracking into another sudden smile that sends chills down Sasan's spine. He twitches a finger and lifts Sasan bodily into the air: lazily floating him over, rotating him horizontally face-down to the ground, hungrily watching Sasan break into frantic struggling as survival instincts override the paralysis of fear.

Sylar watches him for a moment with a deep scientific interest, reminiscent of a kid burning ants with a magnifying glass. He jerks Sasan up into the air, enjoys the full-on scream he draws out, and laughs.

Sylar opens his palm and drops him.

Sasan's limbs flail out in panic to break his fall; he hits ground and instantly curls up into himself, tears now flowing freely in desperate sobs, his entire body shaking, and finally finding his tongue and the will to cry out- "Please... please go, please... please..."

Sylar levitates his apple core into the air, twirls it around with a bored look on his face, then tosses it at Sasan. It hits his leg and rolls to a stop on the carpet. Sylar hops down by its side, breathing down on Sasan's face. He trails his finger along the curve of Sasan's ear – Sasan flinches violently at the touch – and whispers into it.

"Have you missed me?"

#

Jason enters the apartment, cautious as usual, but there doesn't seem to be anyone around today. He notes with some heart-warming satisfaction that the pink umbrella he donated to the place looks well-used. It's a start: working his way slowly into acceptance, driven partly by remorse and partly by the yearning desire to be welcomed in this place. Perhaps he should let them know that the umbrella is his-

A sudden whimpering sound arrests his step. It sounds like a person.

The wistful smile leaves Jason's face. Pulse racking up a little, he hurries over to the couch where the sound had come from, and goes around it-

His eyes grow wide. "Oh my God-"

Jason drops down by the barely-conscious body, his mouth falling open in shock at the bloodied face and pained expression; even then, it doesn't stop him from reaching out to grasp the person's shoulder, feeling the trembling beneath his fingers.

He hazards a guess. "Adam? What happened, what..."

Jason looks up and glances wildly around: as though hoping for some answer, something to help, to let him know what he should do, because he can't just leave Adam here, and what if whatever hurt him was still around...

He licks dry lips and turns concerned eyes back to Adam, who's looking at him in a dazed sort of way. "Look, I... I need to get you help-"

"Sylar," Adam croaks out, his voice barely audible. It's the bruises that hurt most. Being so roughly slammed against the wall those few times, the shock of impact rattling every bone in a body unused to such physical assault after all its comfortable days hunched behind a computer...

"What?"

"He's... he's here. He..."

Jason releases his grip on Adam's shoulder, newly fearful. "The... serial killer? I thought we killed him-"

"He's back," Adam says, and tries to raise himself off the ground. "He... he got in..." He manages to sit up. He leans against the couch, eyes closing shut again, swallowing back tears of pain and fear. He doesn't want to move; he just wants to sit there, and have everything magically be all right, but he can't; he did this, he got Sylar in, he has to get him out...

"Adam, if you need a hospital, I could-"

Adam shakes his head no. He brings a hand to his face, winces at the twinge of pain from his cheek and the blood still sticky around the area, and figures that it probably explains why Jason is staring at him as though expecting him to drop dead at any moment.

"...Adam?"

Adam opens his eyes and gazes hollowly at Jason.

"Seriously, you don't look okay, you can't just stay here..."

Jason peters off at a noise from above. He glances towards the staircase, but the trapdoor on the ceiling is still shut, and he can't see what's happening on the other side. But he's suddenly afraid that they are not alone, and it compels him to crouch down a little lower, more out of sight of anyone who might come down from there.

"It's him," Adam whispers. "He's still there."

"Is there... is there anyone else here?"

Adam feels a pang of despair, and hopes not, but the noises coming from above indicate that Sylar has company.

#

Sasan swallows back his tears and tries to regain his composure, but still can't bring himself to look up at Sylar, who abandons his investigations of Sasan's ear and turns his attention further down, his interest caught by a glint of metal.

"Why are you here," Sasan chokes out. "Why are you here?"

"Same reason you are," Sylar murmurs, reaching out a finger to telekinetically slide Sasan's apartment key out of his watch pocket. He takes it in his hand and looks it over. "Do you all have one of these?" he asks, and his gaze turns suddenly sharp. "Why didn't I get one?"

This is why, Sasan thinks, but dares not say so.

Sylar scoffs. He pockets the key and stands up. "Well, I'll be taking that, then," he says. He grins, levitating the trapdoor open. "See you. Hey, maybe your boyfriend will be around the next time. But don't worry; I'll only kill him if he tries to hurt me-"

Emotion burns through Sasan at the thought of Smudge dead, because he would try to attack Sylar, and both of them know it; and with a sudden pained desperation he yells and swipes his hand at Sylar, wanting to hurt him before he could hurt them-

His fingers miss by several metres. But suddenly Sylar is thrown violently against the wall, crumpling to the ground with a look of utter shock on his face matched only by that on Sasan's; and for a moment both of them just stare at each other.

"What did you..."

Sasan's pulse is racing. Not quite knowing what he's doing, or how, he tries his luck a second time and without touching him flings Sylar back up into the air.

The apartment learns.

Sasan staggers to his feet, still holding Sylar up telekinetically, impossibly, and suddenly their positions are the reverse of what it was a moment ago.

"How... how are you doing this," Sylar asks, and Sasan notes that his voice is trembling.

So is his. "I... I don't know," Sasan says, his eyes wild. "I don't know. Get out. Get out, and... and don't ever come back, and you don't touch Smudge-"

Sasan takes a breath. "Accio key!" he yells, and the key vanishes from Sylar's pocket and materialises in Sasan's hand.

Sylar's eyes grow wide. Sasan sticks his key firmly back into his pocket.

He doesn't dare release his grip – he has no idea how much longer this would last, or if it would work again, or why it was even working. And so he telekinetically manoeuvres Sylar through the trapdoor and down the stairs, floating him clumsily along, following after-

Sylar gets over the shock and lurches out with his own powers. Sasan stumbles; he loses his grip, and Sylar falls, rolling down the last few steps to the floor.

Sasan grabs the bannisters to steady himself, hands white-knuckled with fear as he stares at Sylar temporarily winded on the ground struggling to get up. With effort, Sasan manages to move fear-stricken feet to walk down towards him, his heart in his mouth, wanting desperately to and yet not quite daring to run. He'll have to step over Sylar to get out, and that's... that's too close-

Sylar's eyes flash upwards. He flicks his hand, but Sasan notices and leaps aside, off the last two steps. He counters with a telekinetic grab and smashes Sylar against the wall, holding him there the way Sylar often did to them.

Sasan goes forward, arm outstretched, on legs still weak with fright. But they're almost at eye level now, and through his ragged breathing he's more aware than he's ever been of just how alike the two of them are. Especially now, when for the first time he's in control, and seeing up close the faint stubble on his jaw, the curve of his cheekbones, the familiar contour of that neck slipping beneath the collar of Sylar's shirt; taking in every facial feature, including the maddening smile that still, even now, lingers on Sylar's lips.

"Having fun?" Sylar whispers. He shoves back with his mind. Sasan stumbles backwards, losing his grip, hands flying over his head to protect it from Sylar's telekinetic grasp before he remembers, once more, that he can do that too, and mentally rebuffs Sylar's next effort before it can slash his skin-

On the ground behind the couch, Jason watches, completely stunned. He's lowered himself down next to Adam, as far out of sight as he can manage, his initial fear giving way to curious wonder: he glances backwards at the coffee table, tentatively reaches out a hand, and levitates a pen off its surface. A strangled moan escapes the back of his throat, not loud enough for anyone to hear.

And Adam watches. He remembers appliances in the apartment that worked without being plugged in until the habit of doing so stripped them of that power; he remembers sharing his theory that the apartment was always adapting, always learning; he sees Sasan and Sylar fighting it out, the still-extant terror on Sasan's face belying the fact that they are almost equals for once, and Adam understands.

"Hey!" he calls out through the pain. Jason drops the pen in shock. Sasan and Sylar pause mid-duel and see them.

"Adam," Sasan says, his face still white with shock, but there's now a tinge of relief.

"...You," Sylar spits, and makes to come forward, when Adam lashes out with his mind and slams him against the floor.

Everyone ignores Jason.

"Hold him," Adam tells Sasan, his voice weak but confident, his own hand reaching out to better channel the telekinetic force as he struggles to his feet, then gives up and collapses back onto the ground.

With a concerned glance at Adam, Jason hops out from behind the couch in what he hopes is a heroic manner and adds his telekinetic power to the fray, stepping slowly towards Sylar in a way that would have been a lot more intimidating if not for the mixture of outright terror and apologetic confusion on his face.

Sylar finally notices him, and his eyes narrow. "Who are you?"

"J... Jason."

But Sasan is also standing by his side, and against the triple force, Sylar can't push them back or get an attack through to injure their still-mortal bodies. He's outnumbered. He knows it. He laughs, the broken, sardonic sound escaping his mouth inches from the floor. He doesn't know what happened, how this is happening. It has to be the place, he thinks. Beaten by a place.

"Any power you use, we'll get," Adam says, finally managing to stand up, clutching onto the couch for support. "You can't hurt us in here anymore."

"You think you've won, don't you?" Sylar asks, and Adam is infuriated to note the tone of amusement in his voice.

"Yeah? You don't look like you have," Adam spits back.

Sylar smirks. "I made all of you just like me. I'd say that's... an accomplishment."

"We're not like you!" Sasan shouts. "We... are nothing... like you."

"Whatever," Sylar says. He rolls his eyes and tries to sit up. Adam telekinetically shoves him back down.

"You stay away from us," Adam says. "You won't be able to get back in here once we throw you out, so don't even try."

"How far does this magic extend, Adam?" Sylar asks him with soft menace, eyes cold and unblinking. "Just within this space? Outside of this... are you still the powerless weaklings you truly are?"

Adam thinks so, but doesn't say. "Stay away from us," he reiterates.

"Don't you want to find out?" Sylar asks, another grin creeping across his face.

Adam throws a telekinetic punch to Sylar's face. A part of him still can't get over the insane, impossible joy of it.

"Walk," Adam commands, loosening his hold and telekinetically yanking Sylar to his feet, the others taking the cue to release him. Adam points towards the door. Sylar laughs again, mostly just to piss them off; but he can see that he's lost this particular battle, and genially starts moving in the pointed direction.

Adam limps over to the control panel, turns his key in it, and the door slides open to his lobby. He waves open the second door and sees Sylar's apartment beyond, still spotted with Adam's blood.

"I'm sure we'll meet again," Sylar says conversationally, going through. "It was nice seeing you. Hey, Sas... give my regards to Smudge-"

Sasan flicks a finger and slams the door in his face.

The main door slides shut. Adam breaks the portal connection, and for a while they just stand there, not knowing what to say.

"Thanks," Adam says quietly to the others.

"I... guess we can handle Sylar the next time he comes back, huh?" Jason asks.

"He won't come back," Adam says. "I'll... I'll delete that location from the controls, and he doesn't have a key, so he can't-"

"No," Sasan says suddenly, as much to his own surprise as anyone else. "No, I mean he can't... he can't really hurt us anymore, unless he manages to get into our own worlds, and..." Sasan doesn't know what he wants to say. He still fears Sylar – a little less now than before, but he still does – and he doesn't ever want to see him again, especially not when Smudge is around. But there's something too final about deleting him completely from their lives, despite all... because of all... the terror he has wrought on them through multiple deaths and resurrections. It would almost feel as though they'd be losing a part of themselves. Sylar is, after all, still one of them.

"...for memory's sake," Sasan finishes, weakly. "Just... just be sure to label it, so we'll know it's his place and to stay away."

Adam nods. He gets it. "Okay."

Perhaps they might even need him, one day.

#

Belatedly, Adam thinks that they should have hurt Sylar more and let the apartment learn how the healing worked. But it's too late now, and they're not reopening that door just for that. Jason leaves – he feels awkward and out of place now that the show is over, and in the dying of the excitement, Adam's injuries firmly remind him of their existence. Sasan steers him over to the couch before he falls over.

Adam mildly protests. Not much, because at the moment he'd like nothing more than to collapse on a bed somewhere and just lie there for a long time, and most of his protestations are little more than wanting to uphold tradition.

Sasan gives him a thoroughly exasperated look, as befitting tradition. "Adam, why don't you hobble on to the bathroom and take a look at your face, and then get back to the couch and lie there. I'll get the first-aid kit."

"He attacked you too," Adam points out.

In most other circumstances Sasan would find that enough reason to complain, and milk it for all it was worth. But perhaps the apartment – or just life – has made him more mature. Or perhaps he just can't do that now, not when Adam looks like he's been through a train wreck while Sasan still looks more or less his flawless self, just roughed up a bit. "He dropped me once," Sasan counters. "I'll be back. Sit."

Adam is still standing when Sasan leaves. He hobbles on to the downstairs bathroom to take a look at his face, where he stares at his reflection in stupefied horror for a while at how the entire side of his face is covered in drying blood that's dripped past onto his neck, with a dark bruise forming at his left temple from one of the points where his head hit the wall. He takes a breath, then turns on the tap and rinses the blood off his hands. He briefly considers doing the same with his face, and then gives up as the rest of his Sylar-assaulted body screams for rest. He hobbles back to the couch, somewhat resentfully, and lies down, shutting his eyes with a resigned sigh.

Sasan comes back into the apartment with the first-aid kit and a small basin and cloth, engaged in trying to gently dismiss Smudge's loud concerns and infuriated exclamations of violent acts he wished to do to Sylar as revenge.

Smudge catches sight of Adam and falls into temporary quiet: his empathy tempered slightly by how Adam isn't usually very nice to him, and then he hugs Sasan tighter in gratefulness that at least Sas looks to be in better condition.

Sasan sets the first-aid kit down on the table and heads towards the bathroom to fill the basin with warm water, Smudge tagging along. Adam sees Sasan say something to Smudge, then gesture at the kitchen counter and levitate an empty cup off the tray.

Smudge stares. "Cooool."

Sasan gives him a smile, then goes on into the bathroom as Smudge tries out his newfound ability with various kitchen items, a look of rapt wonder on his face.

Adam grimaces as Smudge drops the pepper shaker. He briefly considers going off back home, but walking seems too daunting a prospect at the moment, and he has the feeling that Sasan won't let him go. He glares mutinously at the ceiling.

A while later, Sasan is sitting at the edge of the couch, firmly wiping blood off a mildly annoyed Adam's face and neck with a damp cloth and rinsing it off in the basin. Adam makes occasional whimpering noises when Sasan presses too hard or gets too close to the open wound, but the warmth of the cloth is soothing; as is the simple presence of Sasan and Smudge chatting about the telekinesis and how far they think its reach extends, and if it's like the Force from Star Wars, and if it only works in the apartment, and what other powers Sylar might have inadvertently transferred over.

Sasan normally wouldn't do this for anyone else. He's not too fond of blood, at all, and his medical knowledge is negligible. But he would make an exception for Smudge, and he will make an exception for Adam. He often finds it impressive that Adam has managed to make it this far in life without killing himself from bad life choices. And he continues to hold firm to the opinion that Adam seriously needs to get someone to look after him, before he does kill himself from doing stupid things: like staying awake for days solely on the power of caffeine when there's a work deadline looming.

Sasan frequently thinks that getting a girlfriend would be very good for Adam. But then he realises with compassion that it wouldn't be very fun for that hypothetical girlfriend.

Adam cries out as Sasan smears antiseptic cream over the slash in his cheek, breaking into quiet sobs at the smarting as Sasan firmly pushes Adam's hands away from his face.

"No, you're not touching that," Sasan murmurs. "Look, it'll kill the germs and the Sylar cooties. You don't want an infection from that."

Adam shouts something angry and incoherent at the ceiling, which has always been a good ceiling and really doesn't deserve this treatment.

"Where else did he hurt you?" Sasan asks calmly, rinsing the cloth out.

The smarting has finally subsided. Adam swallows. "It doesn't matter," he says. "I don't think anything's broken."

Leo chooses that moment to come in, humming something that sounds suspiciously like the theme from the latest Star Trek, then breaks off as he sees them. "...What happened?" he asks.

#

Adam limps into work the next morning trying to pretend that everything is normal.

Chloe blinks and narrows her eyes at him. "Adam?"

He glares. "What."

Chloe has since become immune to Adam-glares in the course of working with him. "What happened to you?"

Adam turns back to his computer screen. "I had a run in with a serial killer," he says, and refuses to elaborate further.

#

Tony can't get over having missed the excitement on account of having to go for classes, of all things. Leo is likewise a little disappointed, but he's less expressive about that. He doubts it was that fun while it had lasted, realises he might have been killed if he had been there, and so contents himself with the quiet, wild joy of moving and levitating things around with his newfound telekinesis.

The telekinesis only works in the apartment. In his own world, Tony tries to levitate the remote control over, and it adamantly refuses to budge.

Adam gets better. By the time the week is out, the worst of the bruising has died down and he’s mostly functional again, apart from sporadic pains in his limbs which he tries to ignore and hopes will go away in time. There’s a scar on his right cheek from where Sylar slashed his face, but there’s little other permanent damage. At least, he thinks so, and ignores Sasan’s continued pleas to him to get himself properly looked at by a doctor.

“How am I going to explain what happened?” he asks.

“Adam, you worked at the Counter Terrorist Unit. I’m sure any doctor would find that a good reason.”

“Uh. I’m the tech analyst. I sit at a computer. And I don’t even work there anymore.”

“You don’t have to tell them that!”

But usually by that point, Adam has stopped listening, and then Sasan gets upset at himself for thinking that maybe it would be a good thing if there were some serious internal damage, just to teach Adam a lesson.

Jason gets braver. He comes by more often, and while still largely ignored at first, he finds a friendlier lilt in the atmosphere. One day he owns up during another casually-asked question regarding the original owner of the pink umbrella. "Ohhh," Smudge says, but it's not long before they all forget again, left with nothing but the vague sense that there’s something to be thankful to Jason about, other than the whole helping to defeat Sylar thing.

They joke morbidly about dragging Sylar back in, injuring him and letting him teach the apartment how to heal their wounds. But they're just jokes, although the fact that they can be even that... that already is something new. As long as they're in this apartment, Sylar is their equal. The playing ground has been levelled, and they find that, with powers out of the equation, he's not much different from the rest of them. He's not superior, he's not special; he's just a cruel asshole who kills people, like the recalcitrant black sheep of their family who needs to be kept in check and hopefully given a life sentence in jail.

And they joke about inviting him to dinner if he promises to behave.

Except that they doubt that he ever will.

XV.

Once there was a guy named Mitchell Sullivan. He was 23, and worked as a car mechanic fixing other people’s cars for way too little pay. He lived in a small rented apartment with his roommate John, who had a bit of a problem with alcohol and smoking and being mean to cats.

But John was often out, so Mitchell got the place mostly to himself; which would have been good if he had been free to enjoy it. Or if there were anything to enjoy about that place. Because it was small, and cramped, and piled up with dirty dishes and dirty laundry, and Mitchell found it freeing to be out of the place.

He would work on other people’s cars, fixing them, and sometimes steal moments of fantasising about what it would be like if he owned those cars, and could live the kind of life their owners did.

Sometimes he would look at his reflection in the grimy, water-scarred bathroom mirror and imagine himself better-groomed, better-dressed, and perhaps with that haunted look in his eyes replaced by a lighter cheerfulness.

And he remembers Those People, and buries the bitterness beneath resentful pride.

XVI.

Saturday afternoon. Sasan is supposed to be in Iran with his parents, visiting family, and he'll go back there to join them in a while; but for now he's in the apartment and lounging on the couch with Smudge, threading lazy fingers through Smudge's hair as they watch Adam and Leo make their way through the co-op levels of Portal 2.

He's not really paying attention to the images on the screen, or how an edge creeps into Adam's voice whenever carefully-planned manoeuvres fail (again). He's not really thinking of anything, in fact, just enjoying the moment, savouring this quantum of solace, and feeling that it would be okay if this never ends.

The sunlight is clear and cool through the window panes. Tendrils of frost have gathered in corners on the other side, in that unreachable exterior, but inside the apartment the temperature is as comfortable as ever.

Adam lets out a muttered curse and Leo follows that quickly with an apology that Adam silently acknowledges, his friendship with Leo feeling strained. Video games are serious business.

And that's when Sasan's phone goes off.

Smudge jerks up from Sasan's lap in surprise. Adam hits the pause button on the game, and everyone stares at Sasan, who looks equally flabbergasted. Phones don't work in the apartment. There's no reception.

Gingerly, Sasan slides his cell phone out from his pocket, presses the answer button, and holds it to his ear.

"Hello?"

The stunned expression leaves his face, replaced by a sort of relieved exasperation as he fires off some reply in rapid Persian, Smudge looking on bemusedly. Eventually, Sasan ends the call and stands up.

"My mom wants me back," he explains. He glances at his phone. "Apparently auto roaming gives you reception in this place. Who would have thought?"

They have yet to fully understand how wireless communication works in the apartment, knowing only that cell phones register no service, the television picks up strange otherworldly channels, and internet access is inconsistent and weird enough for Adam to usually do internet-based work in his own home rather than here; sometimes the connection survives the universe transition, at other times it doesn't, and at other times his laptop's wireless radio picks up wi-fi networks with names like 'Sub-Etha Net #42' or, one highly surreal time, 'fuckyeahzachquinto'.

Sasan gives Smudge a quick peck on the cheek. "I'll come get you for dinner," he says, heading for the door.

"Can we come?" Leo asks, because it's not every day you get to step out a door and into a whole other country, for free.

"I think it'll look too suspicious," Sasan says. "Another time, maybe. We've got the place logged in, so we can visit any time we want. Hey, next time you guys visit another country, drop by here. We can start a whole database of countries."

"I'm not sure that's legal," says Adam, who sometimes forgets that he's no longer a CTU agent.

"I'm sure there's no law against exploiting multiverse portals for international travel," Sasan says.

"Now we're thinking with portals," Leo says, mostly to himself, and a hint of a smile appears briefly on his face. But then Adam’s attention returns, he unpauses the game, and they’re back at it again.

Smudge mopes around the place, sometimes watching them play, sometimes providing unasked-for game advice that gets Adam gritting his teeth in silent disagreement, sometimes gazing hopefully at the door in anticipation of Sasan’s return. But Sas won't be back till dinner, and Smudge eventually gives that up.

He drops onto the couch and sighs.

“NO DON’T-“ Adam yells. Leo winces. Adam swears under his breath, and glares at the screen as they start over from the previous checkpoint.

“Smudge... you want to take over?” Leo asks in the tones of slighted video gamers everywhere after spending too long playing cooperative games with a partner who takes things way too seriously.

Adam stops playing for a moment and gives Leo a look of incredulous hurt betrayal, which Leo chooses to ignore for the moment as minor revenge for the yelling.

Adam drops it. He’s not playing with Smudge. Smudge can out-yell all of them, and he’s bisexual. “Yeah...” he says grudgingly. “I should get back to work.” He saves the game and quits it.

Leo blinks at him. “You’ve got a job?”

“No. It’s just my own stuff. I’ve been writing programs.” Adam absently scratches the back of his neck, then gets up to keep the game controllers. Leo turns the television set off.

Adam trudges over to his computer and is lost to the world. Smudge is just lying on the couch and staring at the ceiling.

Leo stands around a bit, glances at the bulletin board, is reminded of a particular ongoing conversation on it, and heads off to the downstairs bathroom to see if he can do something about the clogged sink.

It turns out that unclogging things is a lot easier when you have telekinesis, although soggy stuff blocking the pipes is not any nicer to touch telekinetically than physically, and hard to get a grip on, but it works.

He hasn’t touched a thing, but Leo washes his hands anyway.

“Okay, I fixed the sink,” he says, walking out and pointing vaguely in the direction of the bathroom.

Adam makes some noncommittal noise, his eyes glued to the computer screen and his fingers typing away. Just because he’s currently unemployed doesn’t mean he’s going to stop working. Leo wonders if anything would ever make him stop working. Sasan has tried to tackle that particular challenge, but nothing ever worked.

Leo takes a pen off Adam’s desk and goes over to the bulletin board to write a note, letting anyone reading know that he’s unclogged the sink. He returns the pen to the desk, where Adam – still staring at the computer – takes a single hand off the keyboard, aligns the pen perfectly parallel to the edge of the desk, and returns that hand to the keyboard.

Smudge has fallen asleep on the couch.

Leo feels kind of bored. He glances at the bookshelf. Nothing captures his attention. He walks up to it, because maybe he might notice something interesting if he were closer. There are a lot of interesting things on the bookshelf, not limited to movies and magazines from alternate universes, but after a while of seeing them there, they’ve become kind of passé.

Leo’s gaze hovers momentarily over the box set for the third season of 24, and wonders how long Adam would take to notice if he actually tried watching that.

But it feels too mean. There’s some unspoken agreement among them that they aren’t going to watch any of the creepy alternate universe media featuring each other, making an exception for Star Trek because it’s Star Trek and Spock rarely comes around anyway. And for Heroes, because they’d already started, back in that strange hotel in that other world, and it’s always a good thing to know your enemy. But it’s been a while since they last saw an episode, and they’re reluctant to have anything more to do with Sylar than absolutely necessary.

Leo wanders away from the shelf. He could go home, he supposes, but that feels like too much effort for now; plus, if he went home, he’d have less of a reason to bum around doing nothing.

He wanders over to the kitchenette and pulls open the fridge. There’s nothing very interesting in there either. He contemplates an egg. He decides it’s not worth the trouble. He closes the fridge. He stands there. He runs a hand through his hair. He scratches his elbow.

Leo moves a little, taps out a vague rhythm on the kitchen counter with his fingers, ponders Henry the potted plant, gives a small smile to Sandwich the goldfish (who has no idea why this human is smiling at him), and wanders over to the staircase – climbing it is something to do, at least. But then that too feels like too much effort, and so he sinks down to sit on the bottom step and stare at the carpet.

He’s in a magic apartment located outside his universe, capable of localised telekinesis, in the presence of two doppelgangers, with what is most likely an alien planet outside the window, and he’s bored.

Dem notices these things.

XVII.

SixthAnomaly: There is no spoon.
akaufman77: @sixthanomaly true. this is so profound

SixthAnomaly: Just had breakfast.
akaufman77: @sixthanomaly breakfast of champions! :-)

"...Adam, what are you doing? " Sasan asks, staring at the screen in a mix of incomprehension and mild disgust.

Adam jumps and hurriedly closes the browser tab. He scowls. "Mind your own business."

"Oh, honey. Did you really just type a smiley face with a nose in it? I thought you were good with the internet."

Adam glares at him.

Sasan has been building up his immunity to Adam-glares. "Who were you talking to?"

"No one you'd care about," Adam says, roughly pulling in his swivel chair and opening up some complicated looking code.

Sasan rests his arms on the back of Adam's chair, looking interestedly at the screen and noting how he understands none of it. "Try me. I have to know who this mysterious person is who manages to get a smile from you."

"Get off my chair," Adam states, with an expression that is as far removed from a smile as possible.

"Not until you tell me who it is," Sasan replies.

Adam angrily closes his laptop, takes it, and stalks out of the apartment.

Sasan raises an eyebrow. "Someone's mad," he comments.

"Maybe he found a girlfriend," Smudge suggests, from where he's sitting at the kitchen table eating peanut butter off a spoon.

Sasan sighs. "Poor girl."

XVIII.

The first time they fought-

Leo doesn’t know what started it. Probably something trivial happening at a bad time, as these things tend to be. When he enters the apartment that day, it’s already in full swing: Adam and Sasan shouting furiously at each other, yelling insults; Sasan halfway down the stairs clutching the bannister, and Adam at the foot of it with his face red and fists clenched, more in anger than anything.

Leo only manages to catch a spiteful dig at Sasan’s religion and sexual orientation before Sasan releases the bannister and storms down the steps until he’s facing Adam eye to eye. There’s a darkly triumphant look on Adam’s face.

Sasan firmly points a finger at the door. “Out,” he says. “GET OUT!”

Adam turns without a word, stalking off, grabbing his laptop off his desk (Sasan can’t yet compose himself enough to remind Adam that he paid for that) and picking up a few other things with deliberate movements. Adam hits in the coordinates for home, is irritated at how the door slides open, strides promptly through the next door, and slams that.

The main door slides shut.

Sasan stalks up the stairs and vanishes into the upper bedroom. The trapdoor bangs shut.

Leo is left standing there, lost and with a bad feeling about this. The apartment is quiet; but a tension hangs in the air. It unsettles him. It’s the first time for him that this place hasn’t felt like the peaceful sanctuary it usually is.

He glances up the stairs, but there’s no sign of Sasan. He takes a few tentative steps up, pausing before the trapdoor to listen. He hears the banging of things being moved around, frustrated swearing in Persian as something falls, and then, after a moment’s silence, what sounds like crying.

Leo walks back down, filled with growing dread.

Smudge would be back eventually. And he knows – they all do – what Smudge is like to people who dare hurt Sasan in any way.

Leo doesn’t want to take sides.

He looks at the empty apartment on the main floor, and wishes they would just make up already. Yet at the same time he thinks that this had been coming for a while: there were too many unexamined frustrations between Sasan and Adam that they had usually managed to brush aside for the sake of friendship, but it had been bound to erupt at some point.

There’s the unspoken knowledge between all of them that, in normal circumstances from which this apartment is entirely divorced, the two of them would have never become friends; enemies, more likely. They have barely anything in common, but the few things they do share – physical appearance, and memories of adventures in other worlds – are enough to bridge that initial gap, at least, and foster a degree of acceptance where there would otherwise be none. Humans through the ages have always been inclined to like and trust people who look like them, giving rise to the evils of racism and thinking that Sylar is a good guy, among other ills.

Leo sits down on the couch and buries his face in his hands.

It doesn’t feel right for him to stay on here. Sasan needs his privacy, and he doesn’t really want to be around when Smudge gets back. He wonders for a moment about going to check on Adam, but it doesn’t seem a particularly appealing idea, either, because he’ll probably be made to listen to his griping, and Adam could be mean when he wanted to.

Leo’s gaze lingers on the game controllers by the television set. He grimaces. Just a day ago, he and Adam had been making their way through the last parts of Portal 2’s co-op. He wonders when they’d next be able to continue. If they would. He wonders if Adam would ever be coming back. Eventually, perhaps – he still has a lot of his belongings here, some of which look important – but Leo doesn’t know how long it would take, and whether it would just be to get his things and go. Because he has the feeling that Adam wouldn’t be welcome back until he apologises, regardless of whoever started it; and Adam is not the apologising sort.

It’s at least a good thing that Leo got to see the end of that fight. If he’d come in at another time, wondering over the course of a few days why the atmosphere feels different and Adam never seems to be around, it might have been worse to try and find out.

Leo doesn’t even know if he should come back, for a while. It might be better to wait for things to cool down. But he likes this place, and harbours a moment of annoyance at how Adam (because Leo has the nagging suspicion that it was his fault) had to ruin things. Adam had been a little more temperamental than usual ever since losing his job, oscillating between joyful freedom and insecure despair.

Leo dearly hopes that Smudge doesn’t take the fight to Adam’s world and at least allows him some peace.

Leo goes to the control panel and is about to make his way home when he hesitates, and with a resigned sigh decides that he can’t just leave things just like this and hope that it’ll all blow over on its own eventually. He brings up Adam’s apartment on the last-visited entry in the destination log, and goes through.

Adam is at his desk, glaring furiously at his computer screen. His brow furrows further as Leo comes in, but he gives no other indication that he knows he’s there.

Leo lets the door close behind him. It fades back into the wall it came from, and he just stands there for a while, waiting.

Adam continues typing. Leo watches him; hearing the sound of the keyboard keys getting more frustrated with each growing moment, until at last Adam stops, bangs his fists down on the desk and glares up at Leo. “What?” he demands.

“What happened back there?” Leo asks.

Adam doesn’t reply. He makes to go back to whatever he was doing, but his concentration has been broken, and he can’t keep his thoughts straight long enough to parse the code on his screen that he’s been busy debugging. His eyes follow the same line of code over and over again, trying to make it make sense, but he can feel Leo’s gaze on him, and it’s distracting him. Adam grits his teeth.

“I’m not sure it’s safe for you to be here,” Leo says. “Smudge might be coming. You know him.”

“I don’t care.”

Leo holds his tongue before he manages to point out that Sasan seemed pretty upset, because it’s not as though Adam doesn’t. He puts his hands in his pockets. “So what... you’re never going back there?”

Silence. Adam is still staring at the screen. “They don’t want me there,” he says, his voice tight.

“You know that’s not true. The apartment is for all of us.” Not to mention that if they were kicking anyone out, it would be Tony for being a freeloader, and yet he's still welcome there.

Adam gives a snort. He wants to tell Leo to get out of his home, but he can’t bring himself to do it. Some part of him is grudgingly grateful for his presence, or at least doesn’t think things would be any better if Leo were to leave; not to mention that he’d then be alone to handle the wrath of Smudge, if he did come. And the more he thinks about that, the more he thinks that maybe he should be afraid. He remembers Smudge bashing someone to near-death with a chair.

“Look, whatever it is... just make it up with Sasan, all right? This isn’t any good for either of you.”

“You just came here to preach at me?” Adam asks dangerously, and the momentary likeness to Sylar makes Leo take a step back.

Leo doesn’t actually know what he came here for. “No,” he says anyway, because it seems like a safer thing to say.

“Then maybe you should tell Sasan to mind his own business and stop interfering with my life.” Adam gets up from his computer and goes off into his kitchenette to get a glass of water.

“He cares about you, you know.”

Adam gulps down the water and forcefully rinses the glass off in the sink. “You mean he cares about controlling my life like I’m some kind of adorable pet.” He puts the glass back down and returns to the computer. He still can’t concentrate any better; his head is still throbbing with adrenaline, and he has the nasty suspicion that it’s going to turn into a headache eventually.

Leo can’t really think up a retort to that. There’s some truth in Adam’s accusation, just with better intentions than he attributes to Sasan. Leo changes tack. “The apartment won’t be the same without you around,” he says truthfully.

“You could always come here,” Adam says. “You’re doing that right now. I’ve got a TV. You could bring the Xbox over and we’ll finish the game.”

Leo has the sudden fearful vision of the group splitting up. Adam leaving them forever, save for occasional visits to his home, and just Sasan and Smudge back there, Leo and the others dropping by sometimes; the apartment tainted forever with that lingering tension in the air from unresolved conflict, no one daring to bring up Adam’s name, pretending with a faux good humour that everything is all right.

He doesn’t want that. He wants the group together. He also prefers the apartment to Adam’s own. This place is a bit too oppressively neat, much like its owner, and there’s not enough natural light. And the view outside is just buildings and roads with cars on them, not the glimpse of alien forest that’s since become comforting.

“If you were just having a bad day...” Leo tries.

Adam glares at him. Leo starts to think that maybe this was a bad idea after all.

And then the door opens again, and Smudge strides in. Leo is frozen for a moment in fear. Do something, he tells himself frantically as Smudge narrows the distance between him and Adam, his face set, but Leo’s body refuses to move.

Adam’s eyes have gone wide. “Smudge-“

And then Smudge grabs him in a hug. Adam’s mouth falls open. Leo blinks.

Smudge breaks the hug. “That’s for you,” he says. And then he slaps Adam hard on the face. “And that’s for Sas!” he yells.

Smudge turns, and storms back out without a word. The door slams shut.

Adam gazes blankly after Smudge, a hand raised to his stinging face.

“Wow,” Leo says.

Adam is speechless.

“...I think that means you’re forgiven,” Leo says. “Or Smudge would have killed you.” It certainly wasn’t for lack of chairs, that much is certain. There’s one right by Adam’s desk that would have been pretty deadly.

Adam opens his mouth to point out that what’s important is that he hasn’t forgiven Sasan. But the words won’t come out, his mind still reeling from the hug and... wanting another.

Leo thinks it’s probably time for him to go. He can’t do much more good in here, now. He gives a nod of farewell. “I hope to see you back there,” he says, and returns through the same door that Smudge just left from, leaving Adam to work out things on his own.

Leo finds them by the kitchen counter, Sasan holding Smudge tight in an embrace, sharing quiet whispers. Sasan glances up briefly at Leo, gives a faint smile, then returns his attention to Smudge.

Leo catches snippets of the conversation:

“You didn’t hurt him?” Sasan says.

“Just a little,” Smudge admits. “But not too much.”

“Thanks.” A light kiss on Smudge’s cheek. “I hope he comes back.”

Sasan looks back up at Leo, who isn’t sure if this is a cue for him to leave and stop eavesdropping, or if Sasan thought he might be able to share some information on the Adam-coming-back front.

“I think he would,” Leo says anyway.

“I didn’t... I didn’t mean it when I told him to leave. I mean... just then, maybe. But not for good...”

Leo nods.

#

Adam does go back, eventually, three days later. Sasan is reading a magazine on the couch; he looks up at the sound of the door, sees Adam step in, and for a while, neither of them says anything. Then Sasan puts down the magazine and stands up, and walks hesitantly over to Adam.

“Hi,” Adam says quietly.

“I’m glad you’re back,” Sasan says. Then he holds out his hand for a handshake – his left hand, because that’s just one of the things they do here, among themselves.

Adam shakes it. Sasan grasps his hand tight.

“I’m sorry,” Sasan says.

Adam nods. “Yeah,” he says, sounding apologetic, because that’s the closest he’ll ever get to an apology. “Um. Me too,” he eventually adds, deciding to take that extra effort for once. Then he internally winces.

Tony is sitting at the table with a peanut butter sandwich halfway to his mouth, enjoying the awkwardness. Because now Adam and Sasan are just standing there being awkward.

“Hey,” Sasan says in a lighter tone, trying to change the subject. “I was looking through the door’s control panel... program thing... I found a few presets. Did you ever see those?”

“Huh? Oh. Yeah. Yeah, I’ve been to one of those... it was some kind of motel in the middle of nowhere.” Adam doesn’t add that he met Neo there, let alone that that was who he had been tweeting to that time Sasan caught him. There are some things that Adam doesn’t ever want Sasan – or anyone else – to know.

He misses Neo. That access to his Twitter account appeared to be a one-off thing, that time the available wireless networks in the apartment had included one from Neo’s world. It was a miracle it had happened at all.

“I might check that out one of these days,” Sasan says.

“Sure.”

They fall into awkward silence again.

Tony takes a slow bite from his sandwich, not wanting to miss anything.

“...So,” Adam says. “Uh...”

Sasan hugs him.

“We missed you,” Sasan says.

Adam lets out a tiny noise, and hugs him back.

And Adam doesn’t say that he missed them too; but Sasan knows, by that noise, that he means it.

#

Things are a little different over the next few days: there’s a halted politeness between Sasan and Adam, as though each is afraid of potentially ruining whatever truce they’ve since established.

There are five preset destinations loaded into the control panel by the door.

“Let’s go,” says Tony one day, munching on a pear and peering over Leo’s shoulder. “I’m bored.”

He actually has an exam the next day, but he thinks that studying is overrated.

“What if it’s not safe?” Sasan asks.

“That’s the whole point of adventures,” Tony counters, because he read a lot of Enid Blyton while young. “And Adam said he’s been to one of them. He’s still alive, so it couldn’t have been that bad.”

“We don’t know about the others,” Leo says.

“Well, we could always ask Sylar to come along for our protection,” Sasan says.

Leo looks at him.

Sasan looks innocent and scratches his ear.

“Or Spock,” Tony says. “Exploring strange new worlds is... practically his job description.”

“I thought he’s the Science Officer,” Jason says. Everyone ignores him.

“We could get, like, the entire Enterprise crew,” Tony continues. “The main guys. We could get them to send out a landing party...“

“It can’t be that dangerous,” Jason cuts in, because his inner Trekkie is getting overexcited and he needs this conversation to stop before he embarrasses himself. “If it’s in the presets, we’re apparently supposed to check it out eventually, right?”

Sasan looks doubtful about that.

“Yeah,” Leo admits. “Dem likes playing around with us. He can’t do that if we’re dead.”

Tony waits for any protest, finds none, then selects the first preset option and turns his key in the keyhole. The main door slides open. The four of them stare at the second door on the other side of the lobby.

No one does anything.

“There’s... nothing barging through that door to attack us,” Tony observes.

Sasan still doesn’t look at all inclined to go through to check out the place, even though the whole thing was his idea to begin with. “Maybe we should wait for Smudge...” he says. Because they might get eaten or something on the other side, or something might crop up that makes them unable to return, and Sasan doesn’t want Smudge wondering about where they’d got to.

Leo steps forward, reassuring himself that Dem wouldn’t endanger their lives like that, again. This isn’t very comforting, mostly because he doesn’t really believe that. But he can see that Tony is about to volunteer, and Leo isn’t going to be beaten to it by some teenage freeloader eating a pear. “I’ll just open the door,” he says.

So he does that. The door opens out into lighted darkness: they’re in some corridor, concrete on the floor, and beyond it there’s a balcony looking out into the night. It’s quiet. But a peaceful quiet; Leo thinks he can hear crickets somewhere in the distance. He takes a further step out, and looks around.

A row of doors run off to his right and his left, adjacent to the door they’d just created and opened. There are numbers on the doors. It looks like a motel, and he relaxes a little; this was probably the one that Adam mentioned.

“It looks safe,” Leo says, trying not to think of the kind of horror movies that take place in motels. Serial killings and stuff. He suddenly thinks that maybe it would be a good idea to bring Sylar with them, because there would be no better protection against serial killers than having their own personal serial killer. Then he wonders who he’s kidding. They’d be dead if they tried that. Or maybe not. Like Dem, Sylar has way too much fun playing with them to want to kill them. Not that he hasn’t tried, and the relatively-fresh wounds on Adam’s body for one are testament to that.

Jason cautiously steps out beside him.

Sasan peers out from behind them. “There’s no one around,” he says.

Tony rolls his eyes and makes his way out past the others, further into the corridor. There are steps in the distance, leading down. “Come on,” he calls back.

Sasan has a brief moment of panic at Tony’s shout. He thinks that maybe they shouldn’t shout in this place. They don’t want to draw attention to themselves.

“There’s a light on down here,” Tony yells back, and that gets Sasan upset. He has sudden visions of huge tentacle monsters creeping out in the dark to get them, drawn by the noise. He tries to ignore his imagination, tentatively shutting the door, and then hurrying to join the others, Leo and Jason having gone on before him. He doesn’t like being alone here, and he keeps casting glances into the shadows, suddenly really wanting Smudge by his side. He feels safer when Smudge is there.

“If it’s a motel, why isn’t there anyone around?” Sasan asks, as they start descending the steps. But there is indeed a light on down there on the first floor, in what appears to be some kind of office.

Tony shrugs. “Wrong season, maybe.”

The door to the office is open, and as they approach they see a man sitting inside, casually flipping through a book entitled ‘Zen and the Art of Multiverse Maintenance’ and with his legs propped up on the desk. “It’s a hundred-fifty PH for a night,” he says as they go in.

“What?” Leo asks.

The man raises his face from the book and eyes them. “That’s the price of a room,” he says. “150 past hours. You guys new here, huh?”

“Yeah, we are,” Jason admits.

“I think I gave one of your friends a room before.” He recognises the eyebrows.

So it is the world that Adam found, Leo thinks, and which Adam apparently found safe enough to stay a while.

“This world is an offshoot from the Nexus,” the man continues. “Time is currency here, same as over there.” He sits up in his chair, leans forward, and taps a device on the counter. It looks like some kind of electronic card reader, big enough for someone to place their palm on.

“So if we pay with time, does that mean we’d... get younger?” Sasan asks.

“That would happen, yes.”

Sasan’s face lights up with delight. He has the feeling that he’s just stumbled upon an amazing marketing opportunity, and suddenly he’s forgotten all his fears about this creepy dark place. It doesn’t even seem that creepy any more.

“It’s not always a good thing, mind you,” says the man, putting his feet back up on the desk, because when you’re the sole person running a motel in a small pocket universe, you can afford to forgo certain rules of social politeness, “paying for your life with your life. The streets of the big Nexan cities are filled with beggar children who aren’t really children in the usual sense of the word. They’re just broke, and every day without money they get a little younger.”

Sasan finds the idea a little troubling, but is still thinking about the opportunities here. People back home used regular money as currency and wouldn’t have to be concerned about chronologically wasting away; but if he can get hold of some device from this place that took people’s time away, he’ll probably have no trouble finding people paying him to make them young, and then he’ll be rich both there and by the standards of the Nexus... whatever that was.

Leo is gazing back out at the row of motel rooms sitting silently in the dark. “How often do you get people staying here?” he asks.

“Now and then,” the man replies. “It’s a bit out of the way, but people know about this place, and they come here when they want somewhere quiet to get away to for a little while. We get some big groups sometimes... they book a few rooms, stay a night or so...”

“What about right now?” Leo asks.

“Yeah, we got a couple rooms booked up. Not sure if they’re around, though. There’s not much to do here. It’s just the motel, and I guess you could explore the bit of forest back there if you like. But that’s it. It’s a small world. You guys want a room?”

“No,” Leo says. “We’re just looking around.”

Sasan is still staring at the time-to-cash converter.

“What’s in the forest?” Jason asks.

The man shrugs. “Beats me. Never been there.”

This gets Sasan’s attention, mostly by reminding him of the potential for scary tentacled monsters. He pales.

“Should we go exp-“ Jason starts.

“Nope,” Sasan says.

Jason doesn’t really see the point of entering new worlds if you aren’t actually going to explore them. He supposes he could always do it on his own, but his level of adventurousness doesn’t extend that far. He’s intrigued by the idea of a tiny universe. Maybe it would be safe, given its size; if there were terrifying creatures out there in the forest, he thinks that they would have at some point emerged far out enough to be seen or heard. Unless they kept to themselves there.

“Wise choice,” the man says off Sasan’s refusal. “You have no idea what might be in there.” It looks like they aren’t going to get a room, so he returns to his book.

They troop out. They fall into silence as they leave the lighted office. There’s a broken beer bottle lying against the wall, remnant of some party a while ago.

They go back to the apartment.

#

“Oh,” Adam says, looking wary and strangely guilty, when Sasan tells him that they visited the motel he mentioned. “Was... was there anyone there?”

He’s trying very hard not to think of Neo.

“I don’t think so,” Sasan says. “We just saw this guy who was running the place.”

Adam relaxes. Neo can keep being his secret. For now.

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