Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Rumors are a dangerous, yet valuable, currency among the Bureau staff. Those more inclined to drama and conspiracy (which… is a large amount, considering the office politics that come with working a Government job inside a living cement building) know the best places to meet to get the newest information passing between desks and radios. The rumor network can get you promotions from valuable allies working underneath everyone’s noses… or get you fired and ostracized with the wrong move.

In Central Executive, as workers begin resetting the office that had once been the holding cell for Dylan during the Hiss crisis, a new rumor finds its wings.

“Haven’t you heard?” the clerk whispers, rolling a squeaky office chair toward the corner for privacy. “They still have him in a cell. He’s too dangerous. They’ve moved him off site, to somewhere more secure. We can’t risk having him here, but the Director didn’t want anyone to know. I don’t blame her. He was her brother, after all.”

Rumors are often incredibly false, markedly hilarious, or downright malicious. But they reveal truths nonetheless— either by finding their roots and basis in a truth to start, or by revealing the intent of the person that started the gossip. It’s a glimpse into the collective conscious of a workplace. A world. A culture. And the atmosphere among the FBC is ripe with spiraling rumors.

Dylan wakes up before he opens his eyes. He squeezes them shut even tighter as the dregs of sleep release him. The bitterness settles in the bottom of his stomach and churns.

He won’t give them the satisfaction of getting up yet. With his eyes shut, faking sleep, all the scientists can do is be as bored as he is. Maybe he’ll wake up and observe back. Maybe he’ll just lay here until another day. If he can even tell when that is. Is it day? Is it night? Does it matter? 

No clocks, no calendars. No privacy. No blanket to hide under. He listens for the sound of a meal tray smacking the cold table. At least he’ll know if they’re bringing breakfast or lunch. Maybe he’ll make them throw it all out. Maybe he’ll let it all rot like they’ve let him rot. Maybe he’ll lay here and rot to spite them. To spite himself.

He tries to lie as still as he can, but can’t help but shift, pulling his knees toward himself. His fingers tighten around the blanket in bubbling anger that searches desperately for a target. It never reaches one, fizzling out and dissolving into confusion as he grips the blanket tighter.

A blanket.

He’s not in his P6 clothes. It’s something loose and baggy on his frame. Short sleeves. Soft baggy shorts.

His eyes open, and the dim light of his room fills his field of vision.

The bitterness melts away.

He pulls his sheets up closer to his nose and breathes in deep. The heaviness of sleep settles on his eyes and across his layers of blankets. Comfortable. Comfortable.

He’s not in the Bureau anymore. Not a prisoner anymore.

He’s home.

After all these years. Home.

He lives with his sister in a nice apartment on the third floor.

People tell him it's nice. He’s pretty sure anything that’s outside of the Bureau qualifies as nice. He’d take a cardboard box in the park if it meant freedom. Plus his only basis of comparison is their old, out of code, rickety two story (that hardly counted as a two story) home in Ordinary. A thin strip of hallway up top that led to the three tiny rooms for their family, wedged above the minuscule kitchen, bathroom, living room, and garage entryway that doubled as the laundry room (when they finally found a working washer).

This apartment has a fully fitted kitchen with countertops and bar stools that opens to the living room (apparently the realtor called it an ‘open floor plan’ and said it was ‘trendy’). He has his own room, across from Jesse’s, with a window that has a decent view of the street and the sky. They even have a guest room (for reasons he can’t quite fathom), two bathrooms, and a flatscreen tv.

That seems nice to him. Does it get nicer than that?

He’s pretty sure his ‘nice’ is not other people’s ‘nice’.

He blinks slowly, still settling in from the shock of realizing he’s in his own bed. A mattress, with sheets, and a headboard. Two pillows. Real pillows. Not Bureau bulk-ordered pillows that smell stale and clinical at the same time. Sheets and blankets. The sheets, new, the blanket a gift from Arish when he heard Dylan was trying to furnish his new room. Another old scratchy blanket collected from Ordinary sits folded neatly at the foot of the bed. He wiggles his foot slowly, watching it shift the blanket around.

His eyes drift to the windowsill, covered by the blinds, downward slats letting in slivers of light. On the other side of the blinds there’s a potted plant that Emily Pope had given him. He thinks she just did it to be nice. He tried ignoring it to see if it would wither. But he watched it shift its leaves toward the sun and the budding green sprouts of new growth. And decided maybe he would keep it. Even if it's from the Head of Research.

His room is rather bare, otherwise. But it’s his. Not a place to hold him. His. That he chose.  

Well. He chose because Jesse bothered him to make a decision. They looked at a lot of apartments. In person or in photos. He shuffled around them all, poking open doors and peering out windows and trying to picture living there. He told Jesse to pick. She told him to pick instead.

He said he didn’t care, really. He just wanted to live somewhere. She said the same thing.

They argued until they both picked one together almost out of spite.

Just the right distance from the Oldest House. Looming on the horizon, a skyscraper only they can see. It feels wrong to stray too far from it. He thought he’d want it out of his life forever. But he can’t help but feel a sort of dread at the thought of it not being there, a constant against the skyline. Does Jesse feel the same way?

It’s close enough for them to walk to work comfortably in the morning. It's the reasoning they both verbally give.

The apartment is on the third floor. Far away enough from the noisy streets that he feels like he has some privacy, but close enough that he can spy on everyone else.

When is it supposed to feel like home? When it’s familiar? The cell was familiar.

He breathes in deep again. His sheets smell like the laundry soap the other people from the Bureau gifted them. Langston had hauled up a whole box of essentials. Groceries, toiletries. He set up their internet.

It’s not dial-up anymore.

And TVs are flat. And phones. With touchscreens.

How, he wonders, is ‘science fiction phone’ more uncomfortable and confusing to him than ‘phone connected to the Astral Plane’, or ‘safe that bleeds and oozes to protect the thing inside it’? 

He can understand the safe. And the Astral Plane. It’s familiar. Would it kill the city to shift some concrete around or send an Astral entity down the hallway sometime? He can cope with that. Unlike... whatever popular culture is now. Wherever the world took off to without him.

Online shopping feels like some sort of fantasy. Like everyone’s in on the rules and he’s not. Like he’s in some long-running pretend game. He keeps waiting for the paranatural to manifest and reveal itself. Shifting and multiplying and twisting and oozing like things do. 

But it turns out everyone just has cell phones with built in cameras and music, and that laptops are lighter than some books, and you can have pizza and your movie delivered to your door in under a day.

A door in the hallway slams shut, and he hears his sister curse under her breath. It takes a few seconds for her to start moving through the hall again, socks shuffling across carpet. She must’ve been listening to see if she woke him up. He huffs out a breath that’s just shy of a laugh.

Jesse must have the day off, if she’s getting up this late. He squints across at the alarm clock on his side table. 9:24 AM. Something in the back of his mind idly considers how the alarm clock is one of the only things he owns. And the lamp next to it. And the table it’s on. The framed photo he and Jesse took the night they were officially moved in. He didn’t smile, but she got it printed anyway. He likes it.

His stuff. That he owns. A blank slate of a room he can decorate how he wants, whenever he wants. A door he can lock and leave closed or leave opened. A sister who knocks first before coming in. Usually.

At first he felt the idle nag that this room would just be another cell. But it isn’t. It might be empty, but... it’s his empty.

It's hard to fill, anyway. Where would he even start? What goes in a room? He has a bed, and blinds, a locking door, and a light. ‘Bookshelves’, Jesse suggested. Arish said a TV, or more plants. Emily asked what he liked. What he liked to do, what he liked to decorate with.

He doesn’t really have answers. He has answers for 10 year old Dylan Faden. Old posters still hung up in his dusty room back home on top of now-ancient wallpaper. Boxes of off-brand LEGO and Christmas catalogues with old books and spy playsets and Bionicles circled in pen. Stuffed animals and notebooks and marble racing sets.

What does he want now? Adults want different stuff for their rooms. Mostly. He thinks.

They don’t do mail catalogues anymore. Arish showed him all the online stores. Everything is on there, apparently, which is the problem. There’s nowhere to start, and Dylan doesn’t know where to look. He doesn’t know what he likes or wants. He’s oversaturated. He asks Jesse to pick for him, and she says that sort of defeats the purpose of him picking what he wants. Maybe he’ll just trash the room. It is his, after all.

The world has changed. Has he changed, he wonders? Of course, and not at all. He’s trying to introduce himself to the new world. Slowly. Introduce himself to himself. Crawl out from behind the poster. Acclimate to the environment. If it doesn't reject him first.

He starts with old favorites. A copy of his favorite Hardy Boys he always checked out from the school library. It even has the old cover he liked. The one that he’d stare at in class and daydream entering, playing around on the painted landscape. Some of his old favorite movies are online, too. It's all online. Just like the House isn’t. He and Jesse marathon a lot, even just for background noise. Just to exist together. They rewatch the same one some nights, like when they were kids, replaying movies till the tape wore out or tangled in their old angry VHS player.

Emily and Arish have tried helping, suggesting shows and movies and books and podcasts (which are just on-demand radio shows, he learns). Most suggestions have been duds. But it’s at least a smaller pool of things to choose from. Somewhere to start. Things to narrow down. No, yes, somewhat. This sucks. A game of 20 questions about his personality. Who are you, Dylan Faden, and what do you like?

He has found a new book he likes. A podcast, too, free of pop culture references that fly over his head and hosts that feel like their peppiness is only for a paycheck. He’s also discovered the joy of setting the audio playback to 2x speed.

He’s started figuring out how to order things online all on his own, too, after Jesse promised him that yes, that bank account was his, and nobody was going to get mad at him for ordering stuff (within reason, of course). He orders things they both want, for the rest of the apartment. It gets delivered right to the door. He doesn’t even have to tell anyone. Just spends the money. Which sometimes feels terrifying, like he’s breaking the rules, and sometimes feels delightful, like he’s breaking the rules.

A metal pot clatters onto the tile floor in the kitchen. His sister swears again and groans as someone below them thumps the ceiling angrily. Jesse stomps defiantly back. Dylan snorts. So much for being quiet.

It does feel nice. To wake up in a place where he has autonomy. He could just lay here all day under his blankets. He could open his blinds and dump water into the potted plant and finish his book. He could get up and join his sister in whatever cooking disaster she’s attempting in the kitchen. He could go outside and get on a subway or in a car and just leave, if he wanted. Leave everyone and everything and start completely over. A brand new world outside the poster.

Maybe home doesn’t have to feel familiar. Maybe you don't have to be settled in to be home. Sometimes familiar is sickening and bitter and monotonous and hangs on you like disease. Sometimes familiar is a well-worn path that just wants to rot you away.

The TV in their living room hums with the tune of some cartoon they used to watch as kids. Jesse apparently gave up on trying to cook, because he can hear a bowl hit the fake marble counter and the sound of cereal clattering into it. Like waking up at home on a Saturday morning.

Maybe all familiars aren’t the same. Even if this familiar feels… off. Too good to be true. Like he’s dreaming. Feeling like he doesn’t deserve it. Like he’ll wake up on that cot in the glass box.

He’s thankful. He never says it. Maybe he should.

It’s heavy. And hard. It makes his chest tight. It does sort of feel like it might kill him to say it. Like he might choke on the words. Like he’s afraid he’ll regret it, like it’ll burn him.

And he knows if he just keeps laying here he’ll loop himself into introspection oblivion. Time to stop thinking and leave it behind in his room and see what’s on new-TV instead.

He throws his sheets off and leaves his bed a mess on purpose, pushing his bedroom door open slowly. His feet cross the threshold into the hall, and a final question pushes back to the forefront of his mind.

When is it supposed to feel like home?

He shuts the door behind him. His own room that he can leave, but always come back to.

That’s good enough for now.

Chapter Text

“You know,” the Containment guard whispers, leaning over the copier. “Jillian said he can read minds. I kinda agree with her.”

The clerk at the copy machine glances up over the frames of his glasses, doubtful.

“C’mon. You draw the line at reading minds? Think about it.” He whispers over the sound of the machine beeping and the mechanisms sending papers out with a rhythmic ka-chunk.

“Jillian also thinks the moon landing was faked. Even though we work with NASA. And have an entity from a moon landing.”

“Okay, sure, but that doesn’t mean she’s wrong about everything, ” the guard sighs, shoulders sinking. “Think about it! How often have you heard him barge into conversations with information he has no right to know?”

The clerk pauses, eyes drifting toward the ceiling.

The guard scoops out the finished copies from the tray and hands it to him.

“Maybe he just… has the confidential access.”

“No way,” the guard scoffs. “I mean, old stuff, maybe, but I’m talking about personal details.”

“He eavesdrops.”

“On things nobody’s mentioned inside the Bureau? Names of family members, pets?”

“That’s not hard to figure out,” the clerk interjects, unconvinced. But not entirely.

“I’m just saying. It wouldn’t be the farthest stretch. Watch what you think around him. Don’t want him to… you know. Freak out on you or something.”

“I’m sure HR would love to hear that language.”

“Alright, alright,” the guard holds up his hands, heading for the door. “I’m done with my break anyway. And you can’t tell me it doesn’t make just a little sense.”

Dylan finds himself, technically, employed by the FBC.

Employed is a loose term— he comes in when he wants and stays home when he wants. The Bureau ended up paying him for his years of imprisonment. It’s the least the Bureau could do, really.

Sometimes he helps gather paperwork or explain old terminology or declassify things. Sometimes he waters plants. Sometimes he talks to them, if no one’s around to hear. Sometimes he goes out of his way to bother Jesse. His newest method is, as HR put it, is “improper use of the pneumatic mail system to transport food to the Director.” 

Sometimes there’s... incidents. 

It’s not easy to come to work at your prison. 

It’s not easy to have coworkers who suspect you’re out to get them, or who suspect you’re no longer human.

It’s not easy when you loathe them with every inch of your being.

(It’s not easy on the days where you’re inclined to agree with them.)

Some days are better than others.

Cement rooms and corridors refract sound very well, it turns out. Which means one of Dylan’s pastimes has become “spy on Bureau staff”. He’s also mastered the art of not being noticed, when he wants to. “He’s inhumanly quiet,” they say, and he tries not to smirk at the fact that he’s mostly just silent in his socks (and breaking dress code he’s never cared to follow). 

It helps as well that he spent a lot of the lockdown, once awake, exploring every unknown nook and cranny of the House. Yes, it was prone to change, but he still found every improbable, high-reaching hideyhole he could. Sometimes he wondered if the House opened them just for him— places for him to retreat on his own accord, places where he can’t be found if he wishes. That’s the integral part. Can’t be found if he wishes. He’ll be an unavoidable factor or workplace phantom as he pleases.

Sometimes he wonders if the House is trying to isolate him again.

He’s not sure if the House can decide like that. Think like that. Does it think? He’s positive it’s alive.

The House gives him ample opportunity to simply listen. And to escape.

There’s some irony in the idea that he’s “escaping” by retreating deeper into the House, and he knows it. But the contemplative silence he chooses is much less overwhelming than the chatter of employees and beeping of machines and leylines full of information. To say nothing of the unknown “normal” city outside. There is too much noise to process. 

Hiss had gnawed at him inside and out, but now there’s just… too much to parse out. It might not be Hiss, but Hiss was one loud single chorus. This is too many inputs on top of each other, all at once. Heels on the tile. Card readers. Doors with squeaky hinges. A cacophony of keyboards. People laughing and talking. Someone chews chips too loud.

He finds a secluded place and plants himself there to do as he pleases. Which mostly amounts to either sitting down to zone out, or getting into approximately everything he can and asking forgiveness later. If he gets caught.

The best part is when people assume they’re alone and start to talk. It’s wild, really, how much people are willing to reveal when they think no one is listening— about work, about themselves, about coworkers. About confidential matters.

Confidential and coworker both start with C.

It’s the security officer from Containment that gets under his skin. Dylan’s sitting in a dark office on the floor, back pressed against a desk, watching reflections in the glass walls that section this office off from the open floor of identical desks. The officer is escorting some para-whatever-scientist from the sealed clock threshold back to “safety”. They’re not even making any effort to be quiet, passing through the still abandoned offices as the researcher explains whatever data they’re collecting on House Shifts to give to Pope. The officer clearly doesn’t care, but it doesn’t stop the researcher from rambling on. Dylan thinks all research types are like that.

He’s just about to tune them out when his ears prick at the sound of his name. He only catches the end of the researcher’s sentence—

“—Pope wants to ask Faden— Dylan, not the Director, though I suppose she probably knows too, about House behavior.”

Dylan focuses in, leaning forward, listening. The officer scoffs.

“Dylan?” That’s about the tone he expects to hear. Something between disbelief and disgust.

“He knows a lot about the Bureau, you know! I heard that— oh, am I allowed to tell you?” the researcher frets. The officer just shrugs. “Well. It can’t hurt. I heard that he was basically schooled here. Raised on the Bureau policies and information.”

“All the more reason to keep him on that leash Faden has him on.”

“L… leash? I… don’t follow—”

“Keeping him here at the Bureau. Keeping him occupied. If he’s still Hiss—”

“He never was. Pope says—”

“Whatever. He was infected by all that stuff. Willingly, I heard, but the point is even now he’s a danger. A liability. That’s why he never goes anywhere without Director Faden. He’s like… like an Altered Item on loan.”

“That’s— that’s a terrible thing to say!” the researcher protests.

“Is it wrong? Think about all the research he’s destroyed. Who knows what really happens to people who survive being… Hissed, or whatever you want to call it. We know it slowly infected Trench. How can we say—”

“We know he’s not infected. Don’t forget that all of us were when the HRAs failed! Look, we were talking about House shifts. You don’t need to escort me back any further. I know the way back.”

Dylan hears boots on tile getting further and further away. Eventually, he hears a second set head the opposite way, accompanied with soft grumbling the whole time.

He stays glued to his spot for a while.

It’s a lot to digest.

A leash? A liability?

How many enemies does he have here and not know?

Was that researcher… defending him? Or was that just loyalty to Emily Pope and her set of rules and requirements?

He picks at the stubbled carpet, rolling the conversation around in his mind.

It’s all good to know. It’s ammunition. It’s a safety net. Who tolerates him, who’s out to get him, who’s poised to bite back like a cornered animal. It lets him fill in a lot of blanks about things he was never told, things withheld from him. Most of all, it gives him leverage. Pointless social games; who likes who, who said what, all the drama. 

You can cause a lot of chaos by throwing details like that into conversations. He’s pretty sure he has enough dirt on staff to start a war in Executive, if he wanted to.

Nobody’s quite sure what to make of him, and he prefers it that way. He perpetuates rumors as much as possible. There’s no reason for these people to truly understand him, to know him, to see him as he is. Let the contradictions and rumor mill run wild. He’ll help. But this one… if they fear him being free, then free he’ll be.

Sometimes he’s not sure where he gets his information from. Names of staff spouses, of pets, childhood homes. Misdemeanors and infractions. Old roles and posts.

He must’ve heard it somewhere. Or read it. People talk about so much. It’s hard to keep track. He knows it, somehow.

Somehow.

Is the House letting him listen, he wonders? Does it want him to hear these things? Why now? Why not before? Is this repayment, of some kind? For what happened to him? Why not act sooner?

Is the House on a side? Does the House understand? Can it understand, can it feel? Does it pick sides? Does it understand humanity as individuals? Does it recognize Dylan? Or are they on different frequencies all together? 

Did his own tune change, his own frequency? Does he resonate on a different level now? Not Polaris, not Hiss, not default, not House. 

Probably not.

But the anxiety eats at him anyway.

It’s on a day when Jesse’s spending her usual accidental overtime back in the Bureau, chasing down whatever regulation or oddity has cropped up and demanded her attention. Dylan has the house to himself, which is usually freeing. He’ll wander around and talk to himself and listen to music or eat however much food he wants and find some new, bizarre show that barely makes sense to him to watch or delve into another book. Or just stare out onto the street, watching the lives of the civilians below, blissfully unaware of what life is really like.

But he’s getting restless. Pacing from the kitchen, to the window, to his room, and back. There’s nothing to hold his attention, nothing to land on. He almost feels trapped. Again. He watches the hapless people wandering outside. 

Yes, he has freedom, but he only ever goes to the apartment or the House. He ventures into the city with Jesse or Arish, but he can’t just wait all day for them and hope they want to go too. He wants to go on his own. The independence. To prove it. That he can do it. For them, maybe. So they won’t worry so much. To himself, maybe. So he won’t worry so much. Out of spite. I can do it. It feels so stupid. Of course he can do it. He can do whatever he wants.

It's tantalizing, the idea of heading off on his own without telling anyone. It makes him uncomfortable to consider it, but the freedom is intoxicating. Like it will prove something. Like he needs to try it, just once.

Stupid. This is stupid. Over leaving the apartment? Jesse and I played in an actual dump for hours on end. Alone. We knew the whole town by heart. I’ve explored the Astral, the House. Why am I making such a big deal out of this? Why does anyone make such a big deal out of this? I should just go out. It’s not a big deal.

He pockets his key and heads out the apartment door, leaving his phone behind. He has no real plan. Maybe he’ll go get pizza. Maybe he’ll go wander the stores. Maybe he’ll stand in the park. He can do whatever he wants. He’ll decide when he gets there. Wherever there is.

And he’ll get back… when he gets back. Jesse can deal with that. He can deal with it.

The closest subway station isn’t very crowded. He thumps down the steps into the winding corridor that opens out to the platform, all tiles and columns and advertisements. He’s stopped by the turnstiles. A card. Right. He almost forgot. He needs his card.

See? Just like the House. Not so different.

Apparently he’s been standing there a millisecond too long, because a man approaches him, already prattling on about ‘swipes’ and ‘jammed machines’, but he backs off when Dylan’s eyes snap up to him. By the time he’s fished his card out of his back pocket (thankfully he’s never taken it out), the scammer’s already cornered another tourist by the stairs. The turnstile pushes forward with a clunk, and he’s in the station, standing away from the people with shopping bags and suitcases and glued to their phones or in the middle of phone calls.

There's a lot of people here. The whole station is swimming with people, individuals, thoughts and speech and noise and a bubbling collective conscious of social rules and pop culture and underlying assumptions.

Some of the crowd files onto the subway cars that just pulled in. It looks… too full. Dylan waits back by the wall. He’ll catch the next one. Wherever it’s headed.

He watches the crowd flow together, moving as an entity, spilling toward the exits, pushing through gates that say “DO NOT OPEN" on them.

Do any of them realize these tunnels connect to the Oldest House? Have any of them peeked behind the poster? Do they know? Or is it just another blip of information slipping past them?

Is he just another face in the crowd like them? Or does he stick out? Do they know?

The next train pulls up, and the car is relatively empty. He slinks on and picks a seat near the end, and watches the station vanish as they pull away into the dark subway system.

The rails are loud, screeching through the tunnel despite the relatively smooth ride. The seats are all a garish yellow and orange. It looks like the Oldest House’s interior. Except the man across from him has a big stereo and a phone and both are playing music he doesn’t recognize. Some voice comes on over the PA system and says something he can’t make out. An advertisement strip at the top tells him to visit a website to get insurance for a car he doesn’t own. The lights flicker.

He counts everyone in the car. 8 people, excluding him. An old man holding a brown bag loosely, paperback book folded back in his other hand. A woman in workout clothes, headphones blaring tinny noise that he can hear from here. A group of three kids in school uniforms whispering and giggling. A form stretched out asleep on three seats. Two people at the other end of the car, bickering. One shoves away and comes to the end of the car Dylan’s at. He glares at them. They don’t even look.

The rails whine and the people lean with the car as it banks another turn. The old man coughs abruptly, and the sound makes Dylan flinch. The group of kids erupt in laughter. The woman’s music gets louder. He can make out lyrics. Really, he can’t help but make out the words with how loud it is. When is the next stop, he wonders? Where will he go? When will he go back? The kids laugh again. He sinks further into his seat, running a thumb over the close-shaved side of his hair. He can get back. Should he go back? Isn’t that quitting, proving them right? 

Who’s them?

The subway car smells like cigarette smoke. All of New York City smells like cigarette smoke. Not like the Bureau brand. Like the kind workers at the fairgrounds smoke. Like being on top of the slide at the Fall Festival. He remembers. Standing in the cold air with a burlap sack and under the night sky, amid all the neon and bells and yelling, and the exhausted worker tapping her cigarette against the bars telling you to slide down.

Dylan remembers Ordinary didn’t have a fall festival. 

Something tells him the memory he’s pulling isn’t his own. Someone else’s. Blurring and flowing in the waves of resonance.

Something in him uncoils and sinks the bottom of his stomach. 

He tries to breathe. Stay here, he tells himself, stay here. Don’t let it drag you away. He curls his fingers into a fist, then relaxes them. He repeats it with his mantra. Stay here. Don’t let it. Stay here. Don’t let it drag you away. After the song time— no, no, no. Walk. Move. Stay here. Don’t. Don’t go there. Don’t go there. Focus.

He’s in another station. He must’ve gotten off at the first stop. The crowd is pushing past him. He’s standing in the middle, a blockade. Someone’s shoulder knocks him, and he starts moving. The world is very loud, but far away. Like he’s in his head, not his body— zoomed out, a viewer, a pilot. Move, he tells himself. It takes a few seconds for his legs to go. A man is playing guitar. People clap. Time for applause. He feels his stomach lurch, and he pushes out and up the stairs, into the cacophony, where the sun is bright and the lights are bright and the buildings loom and the people are all staring at him, ignoring him, glaring at him, looking at him, because he’s wrong, this is wrong, he feels sick, he needs to get somewhere, anywhere else, they know, they all know, he needs to get away, he needs to hide, it can’t get him, it can’t.

His feet take him dutifully forward, and he flows with the crowd, pushing across a street, eyes flicking up to the sky, to the buildings, the signs, the lights, back to the people, who are ignoring him, staring at him, glaring at him. They know. They can tell. I don’t belong. This is wrong. Liability. Hissed. Wrong, wrong, wrong. There’s too much noise out there. There’s too much noise inside, too. He watches faces past— does he recognize them? A Bureau worker? A car horn starts to blare. He hurries around the corner with the crowd. Does the flow ever stop? Where are they headed? Why is his head so full, why does he know so much and nothing at all, why can’t he think, it’s too loud, too full, no more input, nothing else fits, but he can’t even begin to sort it and clear it to let in more. His chest tightens. He’s trying to breathe.

His eyes land on a side street, small, full of dumpsters and back doors. He turns instantly, breaking out of the crowd, off on his own.

Disaster. This is a disaster. He has no idea where he is. Somebody’s going to call his bluff. He doesn’t belong in this current, in these waves. They’re going to cut him out and toss him aside.

Were they right? Is he still trapped? Why can he still hear everyone? Why is it so loud?

He presses his back against the wall and sinks down, folded up, and pushes his head into his hands.

This is stupid. This is stupid. Did he do this to himself? Is it their fault? Why can’t he think? Why is it like this? Why is it so loud? Why does the air burn his lungs? Can he pull himself back together? Were they right? What’s going on? Can it all just shut off, just for a second, so he can— so he can rest, so he can think— this shouldn’t happen—

“Dylan! Oh, thank—” he jerks his head up at the sound of his sister’s voice. She’s at the end of the alley, in her usual clothes— leather jacket and fading jeans and boots. Not work clothes. He blinks, trying to bring her into focus and ground himself. She’s at his side on her knees. How long has it been?

She looks like a mess.

“What happened, where… did you leave? Why didn’t you tell me?” she asks. Something in him bristles.

“No, I didn’t leave,” he spits, and her brows knit together.

“I’m not— I didn’t mean— I just got home and you were gone. You didn’t leave a note, nobody knew where you—”

“So I have to tell you every little thing I do?” he digs his nails into his pant legs, knees still pulled close to his chest. Something flashes across Jesse’s face, but he can’t make the emotion out.

“No, Dylan, I just— I was worried about you. Are you okay? How long have you been out?”

Good question. He feels like… like death. Like he’s been drowning. A permeating exhaustion.

But the light hasn’t changed much. The sky is still blue. Maybe it hasn’t been long at all.

He doesn’t answer.

“Are you alright?” she repeats, reaching a hand out to his shoulder.

“I’m fine,” he lies. It sounds like a lie. It sounds quiet and weak and exhausted. “...how did you find me?” She tightens her grip on his shoulder reassuringly.

“Polaris guided me. I didn’t know what happened so—” something flashes in Dylan’s eyes.

“She showed you? Now she shows you?” He finds his words. It’s bitter and stronger, like venom burning on his tongue.

“What?” Jesse asks, taken aback. She leaves her hand on his shoulder. He can’t find it in him to push it off. He wants her there. He doesn’t.

“When I’m trapped and need you she just taunts me, but when I want to be left alone she shows you where I am?”

“What? Dylan, that’s not—”

“What if I don’t want to leave? She just wants you to drag me back? I beg her to get me out and she does nothing, but now she leads you to me without even asking?”

“That’s— you don’t have to—”

“Did you never wish hard enough to find me?” Drive in the knife. “Or never really cared? Unlike when you just wished away mom and dad,” Twist it.

Jesse pulls her hand back like he’s burned her. Something breaks across her face. She’s dead silent.

Oh. It hit like he wanted it to. But he never thought it would go that deep.

He’s ruined it. Of course he’s ruined it. Every time.

He glues his eyes back down to the cement. The venom is gone.

He’s just waiting for it to fall apart now.

“How… how did you know that?” Jesse asks quietly, voice nearly a whisper. “I never… I never told you that.” 

It rattles Dylan. How did I know that? Why did I say that? Is that true? 

How did I know that?

“I…” a tiny voice tells him to apologize. He quells it. “I don’t know. I… I don’t know.”

The silence between them is thick. The city thrums around them. The sound of cars, the chatter of people. Dylan feels like he can breathe again.

“Let’s go home,” Jesse finally breaks the silence. Her voice sounds even. He can’t bring himself to look at her face.

But she holds out a hand to help him to his feet. He takes it. She starts to walk, making sure he’s following. His feet carry him forward, following after her, like a guiding star, or a beacon, an anchor. Back to familiarity.

Chained. A leash. A liability. Why would I hurt her like that?

He can’t make sense of it. Just like he can’t make sense of the world out here. Not yet. The only place that seems to make sense is the House, but it’s full of rot and infection that seeps into the concrete, and the world, and him. He’s positive the Board hates him. Doesn’t forgive him. 

He doesn’t care about the Board. 

The Bureau questions him. He still kind of wishes it would burn. That it would melt and bubble and vanish into oblivion and he and his sister could live life, undisturbed and ordinary. But she’s leading it. Leading the Bureau. The head. And it encompasses his every aspect of life, and the concrete building stands like a monolith on the horizon that he can see from home, and the echo of the Hiss squeezes his head with pressure like an unwanted pirated signal.

He’s stateless.

Jesse guides him home.

It’s quiet in the apartment. He’s sat on the couch. At some point, Jesse asks how well he slept. He shrugs. He doesn’t really remember sleeping. Or getting home. He just feels like time passed. Like he skipped ahead.

He stays in for a few days after that.

He should probably apologize, he thinks. He hopes Jesse just knows. Trying to find the time, the right words, whether he should even say it… it’s… it’s… he hopes she just knows.

How did he know?

But she smiles at him, like things are normal. They eat breakfast together in silence. He hopes she forgets everything he said. That it’s not haunting her and gnawing at her like it is him. That it can go back to normal. Maybe it already is. Hopefully it’s not worse.

I love you, she tells him, before leaving for work, and she means it. He can’t say it back yet. He hopes she gets it. The same wavelength as him. Resonating.

She gets it.

Hopefully.

He stays home. Where it’s not so loud. Maybe he rushed ahead. Maybe he dove in too deep. Maybe he’s buying into lies again. Maybe he needs to take it a day at a time.

Some days are better than others.

He dreams.

He only ever seems to have the words for these things as he’s falling asleep or as he’s waking up. He claws at them so desperately until he wakes up and leaves them in the dark, afraid of what they might look like in the light. Twisted and red and hauntingly familiar.

The next time he’s in the House, Emily says something about the theories of dreams, the Astral Plane, collective unconscious, and how some people might connect and communicate. Resonate, even. How maybe the Hiss connected people. Maybe they all flowed together as one in the Hiss. Tapped into one another. Or the Hiss tapped into them, and they were just spectators to it all. Minds all connected, for a short time.

Dylan doesn’t want to think about it.

Chapter Text

Plummer drops his hard hat at the entrance of the security room as he enters, letting it clatter onto a chair. His coworkers, Finch and Hampton, are already sitting around the table with the cards dealt for their weekly official-unofficial NSC maintenance Blackjack game.

Official, because they’ve been doing it every week for years. Unofficial because they usually go over break time, they’re the only participants, and gambling is probably against some long-winded rule HR has.

“So good of you to join us on time, Plummer,” Hampton quips, dealing out a hand for him as he pulls up a seat. “Finch and I were just discussing the absence of Arish’s favorite buddy.”

“What, the Faden kid? I think he ran away, honestly,” Plummer leans forward and pulls his cards to the edge of the table.

“No way,” Hampton replies, arranging the dealer’s cards carefully in front of him. “After coming back in here day after day? They have to have a way to keep track of him. Ankle monitor. Or like, that— what is it. Polaris, or whatever. He can’t get too far.”

“But it’s been a month since anyone’s seen him,” the man pushes a pack of cigarettes into the betting pool. Finch eyes him carefully before dropping in a twenty dollar bill.

“Yeah.” Hampton leans back in his seat and stares across the table as the game unfolds. “You think they’re just gonna let us know? A casual announcement, some paperwork to go out that says ‘oh hey, by the way, that high-security prisoner ‘ex-Hiss’ we had? Been missing. Keep an eye out for him.’”

Plummer stares back.

“Actually, don’t answer that,” Hampton squirms in his seat, then flips the cards over to reveal them. Finch grins and shows her winning hand.

“It could happen, you know. A message like that,” Hampton says, ignoring his loss. “Here? It could happen. And it probably did! They wouldn’t tell us, you're right, but this could explain why there’s been so much more Ranger activity lately. Director’s quietly spending resources to track him down so nobody panics.”

“Or they killed him,” Finch states, pulling the winning pot onto their side.

“The Director? Really. Her own brother?”

“You said it yourself. Ex-Hiss. Runaway. High security prisoner. It’s what Marshall would’ve done. He’s a danger to the whole operation.”

“Mmmm. No.” Hampton and shakes his head. “To everything you said. I can’t see it.”

“Wait and see,” she nods as the cards are dealt again. “Everyone will quietly forget about him. They’ll wonder where he went and then he’ll just be another Bureau tall tale. He’s not coming back.”

Jesse can’t tell if Dylan’s more red from blushing, or from the sunburn.

Regardless, he’s pretty exclusively just the color pink.

And no matter how hard she tries to stifle her laughter, she can’t keep it from escaping. And the scowl that Dylan thinks is oh-so-intimidating is not helping the situation.

“What did you think would happen?” she asks, baffled, still standing in the entrance of the apartment. Dylan sinks lower into his seat on the couch, glowering. Despite a look that could wilt plants, the only answer he can muster is a whined stop, and he sounds so offended that Jesse cannot keep it together. He groans and hangs his head as his sister leans over on the counter for support.

“How am I supposed to know that sitting in the window would get me burned? You don’t need sunscreen indoors!”

“Did you fall asleep or something?” she asks, dumping her keys and wiping her eyes.

“I was indoors!” he protests again.

“Of course you burnt! You’re like… the color of snow,” Jesse pulls herself together, grin notwithstanding, and crosses the room to him. “Or. You were, at least.” He snaps his head back up and leans against the top of the headrest, eyes glued to the ceiling.

“This is stupid.”

“Does it hurt?” she asks, plopping down onto the coffee table.

“What do you think?” he lets his head lull forward and glares. “I feel completely fine. I’m just the color of a tomato for fun, Jesse. ”

“Okay, okay. What even happened? You just… sat at the window for too long?”

“I just… it didn’t seem like that long.” The venom in his voice melts away into introspection almost instantly. The quick change still gives her whiplash after all this time. “It’s really easy to… I was just watching… it’s just. Really nice. In the sunlight. Watching everything. And I fell asleep.”

In truth, it's some of the most peaceful sleep he ever gets. He never plans it, though he can basically expect it every time he takes a seat at the edge of the sill. It's the only place where dreams never touch him. No nightmares, no muddled images and restless thoughts. Just sleep. Heavy lids drooping in the warmth of the sun, breathing the clean air from the open window in deep.

It’s not clean, really. It’s full of smoke and exhaust and gasoline and whatever filters up from the manhole covers and streets and into the sky. But he breathes it like it’s never enough to fill his lungs. Like he has to save it up and ration it before his next plunge into the concrete abyss of the Oldest House. The taste of freedom.

It's the closest thing he can get to solitude in the city, once Jesse steps out for the day. It feels less like he’s the experiment under a microscope slide and more like he’s the scientist or observer, peering out the glass to the streets below.

The sensory overload can’t touch him here. He’s in control. His rules, his thoughts, his games. He counts how many people get ticketed for not being able to read the parking signs. He watches birds swoop between rooftops and wires and branches. He digs out the fieldbook he bought at a gas station on the way back to Ordinary with his sister and tries to identify them. He recognizes some from the book he had as a kid. Chickadees, crows, doves. He slides the window open to listen to the mourning doves and feels his body relax at the sounds he’d nearly forgotten, now flooding back to him in a wave of genuine joy. The defenses he’s built falter, the bitterness struggles to keep root. It’ll be back by the time the sun dips below the skyline, but for now it can’t win out against the breaths of fresh air.

The world through the window is big, interesting, and equal parts completely mundane and entirely wacky. He already knows he’s more comfortable diving into most paranatural depths than he is trying to navigate the subway stations or bodegas and delis. It’s a lot easier to collect information and watch how people work and move with the safe barrier of glass keeping him apart from that world. He’s not ready for it yet. He needs to… acclimate. He needs to figure out how to mimic how the world works. How to passably fit in, despite feeling out of place. For now, he hovers on the threshold of natural and paranatural.

Some days he hates it. Some days it feels like a cage. Like he’s stuck. Like he’s been exiled.

But in the warmth of the sun, people watching and bird watching, he feels…

Not safe. Not comfortable. What is it?

In control.

He can go out there if he wants. He can go back to the world of horror and awe.

But here, neither can touch him. And he can watch to his heart’s content, instead of being watched. The scientist, for once, and not the experiment. He chooses to be here.

None of it ever beats the rest he gets. Sleep is not something he finds rest in. Night is full of haze and confusion and nightmares, if he sleeps at all. Night is the reminder that life isn’t as bright as it seems. Night is the bitter taunt that makes him question if he’s just lying to himself. If Jesse is lying. If Emily and Arish are lying. That he’s not getting better. That he’s not improving. That it’s all just pity and lies. 

But the sun rises again. And at the window, the horror relinquishes its grip. Something about basking in the daylight pushes all the horror and dread far from his mind. His mind grows quiet and calm. The sharp edges round out. Thoughts fade into gentle repose instead of a torturing haze. The world just becomes ambience, deep breaths of fresh air, and the glowing warmth of the light as he shuts his eyes.

“Dylan,” Jesse says quietly, leaning forward, and Dylan’s eyes snap up from the floor to her, refocusing. “You alright? You zoned out again.”

“I just… fell asleep,” he says.

“Right now?” her eyebrows knit together.

“At the window.”

“Oh. Right. You told me that already.”

“So… what now?” he asks. It’s been nearly twenty years since he ever even had to think about sunburns. He’d forgotten how much they could hurt.

“You need aloe vera and to not pass out in direct sunlight again,” Jesse chuckles, standing up and disappearing down the hall. Dylan rolls around the idea of no longer getting restful sleep. “Or you need to get a tan, I guess,” Jesse calls from the other room.

She rounds the corner again and underhands a bottle toward him. He just watches it fly, letting it hit his shoulder and clatter to the ground.

“Nice catch.”

“Yeah.”

“I can’t believe we had some. But there it is.”

He leaves it on the ground, turning toward the window again. In the evening light he can make his reflection out easily.

“Wow,” he says flatly.

“You are really pink,” Jesse adds, mentally noting that while his blushing from his wounded pride didn’t help, it is mostly just burn. Is that what no sunlight does to you? Some weird cocktail of humor, nostalgia, ache, guilt, and sympathy twinges through her chest.

“I’m not going back to the House like this,” he says, the tone of his voice edged, as if it’s a threat.

“You can do whatever you want, Dylan. You don’t have to. Though Arish would get a kick out of this.”

Dylan scoffs.

“... are you planning to? Go back to the House, I mean,” she hesitates, nerves getting the better of her. “When it heals up. I just— I wasn’t sure what to expect, since you’ve been staying home, which is fine, I’m just… curious. Emily and Arish have both been asking about you.”

He blinks, staring past his reflection. He doesn’t have enough brainpower to tell if his sister is lying or not. His mind is too sunbaked.

Go back to the House again. It seems counterintuitive. He’s been holed up in the apartment for two weeks, trying to pull all the scattered pieces of himself back together, at least somewhat. Shake off the uneasy feeling that had been haunting him. Sort out the looming thought of the knowledge he has that he shouldn’t.

But… he does want to. Somewhere inside. It’s not a desire he can easily dissect. Does he like it there? Does he miss his prison? Does he like being a spanner in the works? Does he like unsettling everyone? Is he chasing answers, chasing reasons, chasing affirmations of every biting thought and fear and insecurity and raging injustice festering deep inside of him?

Does he just… crave it? The paranatural? The familiar unfamiliar?

“Yeah,” he says slowly, then shrugs. “I guess. Probably.”

“After you’re not sunburnt,” Jesse says with a wry smile. Dylan bends down and picks the bottle up off the floor.

“At least I can’t get burnt in there,” he mumbles.

“With how close you sit to the furnace, I don’t really believe that.”

She gets a scoff out of him for that, and after two weeks of despondence and sulking from him, she counts it as a victory.

Chapter Text

“He doesn’t eat,” Agent Price whispers above the din of the cafeteria, tilting his head toward his partner, Knox, in the line.

“What?” the researcher on his other side asks, despite not being part of the conversation at all. “Who?” She leans into Price, knocking him against his partner and jostling their trays. 

“Hi Yates. And we’re talking about the Faden brother,” Knox clarifies, ignoring Price’s obvious disdain toward her presence..

“Something ate him?” Yates gasps, pushing her tray across the counter.

“No! Neither of you listen. I swear to— no, look,” Price sighs, silently wondering how so many people in the House lack basic listening skills. “He’s inhuman. He’s still infectious, too. With the Hiss. It changed him fundamentally.” He slides down the line, skipping past the salad selection. Knox follows after him, dubious.

“And this has to do with food… how?” she questions.

“The proof is in the pudding—” he groans, squeezing his eyes shut. “Pun not intended. I just… I mean that you know something’s different because he doesn’t eat. Ever.”

Knox stares at her partner. Yates’ eyebrows shoot up into her hairline. Their silence is the loudest doubt he’s ever heard.

“I mean. Have you seen him eat? Honestly. Think about it for a second.”

“I saw him at the vending machine earlier,” Knox says. “I think he eats. Like any human.”

“Oh! It’s because he’s looking for the Altered one. That got left in Investigations!” Yates grins at her revelation, feeling she’s won whatever gossip-based social game is at play here.

“I thought we recaptured that?” Knox tilts her head.

“Yes. I mean. No! Ugh,” Price leans back, regretting even bringing it up. “No, it’s not because he’s looking for the altered one. You’ve only seen him because he shoves snacks in the pneumatics.”

“I should do that…” Yales says absentmindedly.

“He’s only doing that because he wants us to think he eats,” Price grabs a pre-wrapped sandwich from the buffet. “But he doesn’t.”

“Okay, but why,” Knox asks, leaning her elbows on the counter and picking cherry tomatoes out of her bowl. “Bring me to your thesis statement here. Why does the Faden kid not eat?”

“Because the Hiss changed him,” he says casually, like it’s a given answer. “You know. Gave him powers in exchange for part of himself. Like the old stories. Collective unconscious, and what have you.”

“You mean like… his soul?” Yales whispers with an awed reverence. “Man… Jillian was telling me how she thought the Director traded his soul to get rid of the Hiss. Maybe she wasn’t far off.”

“You’re all cracked.” Knox sighs, slipping out of line to go around them both. They follow after her toward the tables.

“Not his soul, but something like that,” Price continues, unperturbed. “His humanity.”

“Human no more, huh? That’s a bit sad.” Yales sighs wistfully, like she’s just heard someone didn’t get a promotion, and not rumors of inhuman transformation.

“You’re both wrong. Not to jinx myself when it comes to the paranatural, but that’s all absurd,” Knox picks her salad up off her tray, avoiding the tables altogether. “I’m gonna go ask Arish. He’ll know.” She slides the tray toward Price, and it hits his food with a clatter, sending silverware onto the floor.

“Good luck!” Price calls after her as she vanishes up the stairs toward the sector elevator. “After seeing all he’s done, I think we’ve got proof enough.”

Recovery from being comatose was not something Dylan had ever factored into his life as a possibility he’d have to deal with. But neither were slide projectors that opened portals or living resonances, so who could blame him? He’d always felt at least a little like he might get kidnapped by some shady agency. Like what happened in books and movies.

Recovering from a coma is not like it is in the books or movies. Where people simply woke up and went home, like it had simply been an extended sleepover in the hospital.

He didn’t really have a home to wake up and go to. And waking up took so long. His voice had been so strained from lack of use (or… maybe from so much use. Repeat the word. The name of the sound ). It wasn’t like waking up in the morning and crawling out of bed. It was like… remembering how to move again. Reteaching his body how to listen to his brain. Doctors told him he progressed faster than any other patient would, but that’s all doctor’s have ever said. Researchers. Teachers. All of them. You’re so much better than others.

You’ve always been the new you. You want this to be true.

It meant feeling exhausted despite the extremely long power nap. It meant fearing falling asleep, if only just because of the nightmares that awaited.

It meant regaining strength in muscles that hadn’t seen use in so long. Like… learning to walk again. Feeling nauseated at the idea of food, like being sick. It was all IVs and liquid diets and weird concoctions doctors handed him that he didn’t dare ask about. He tried not to let the fact that he was bed bound in a glass box where doctors brought him meals and asked him questions get to him.

He tried, he tried.

It wasn’t all bad. Considering the circumstances. Considering the Hiss still festering inside him then, when he was still holding onto it like a tether, fearing that there’d be nothing to catch him if he let go. Even when the tether threatened to burn him alive.

It wasn’t all that bad, considering. When he really thinks back to it.

Because… it started getting better. Marginally. Jesse was there. The ‘Old Guard’, as Jesse called them, were gone. He met Arish. It was a start. It was… not being comatose, at least.

He assumed Arish’s presence was purely tactical. A way to keep an eye on the prisoner without making him feel like a prisoner. By sending someone the Bureau thought could get close enough to get more information while his guard was down. Simple deceit. Old tactics. Of course the Bureau was stupid enough to assume Dylan would fall for it.

So he figured he’d play along and use it against them. Let Arish think he was getting close to lull them into a false sense of security. Make him think he’s learning about him. Give him junk information to report back to whatever researcher or officer dreamt this up. He wasn’t about to be some experiment again— some paranatural petri dish waiting to be studied and observed. And if they thought they could trick him into sharing information… he could trick Arish into leaking all sorts of useful things.

And yet.

Arish was just so genuine. Like the only sane person in the whole building. Who seemed to either miss the memo that Dylan was their Hiss-riddled prisoner, or just didn’t really care. What he did care about was whether Dylan had ‘the better kind of ice chips from the ice machine in maintenance’ and if he knew how to play Texas Hold ‘Em or B.S.

It should’ve raised every red flag Dylan had in the defenses and walls he had built over the years. But. He let it happen. Convincing himself he’d beat the FBC at their own game.

It wasn’t until much later that Dylan realized he’d mostly just played himself. Arish really is just... like this. He keeps waiting for the reveal— the dramatic twist, the eventual show of his real character, the aha moment where he realizes Arish has been using him all along. But it never comes. It’s always just. Genuine moments. Selfless acts.

It really doesn’t add up at all.

But he’s not complaining.

Confused. Suspicious. Maybe still somewhat defensive. But not complaining.

Arish did more than any other Bureau employee ever had by just… staying with him. Even when they realized the Hiss was still in him. It felt almost comical, coming down from a lapse into the incantation to find him patiently fiddling with something else, waiting for Dylan to come back down to Earth. It was his most vulnerable moments. One’s where it would be easiest for Arish to leave, or collect data on the Bureau’s latest capture, or frame him for something, or just… end him.

But he would wait. And watch to make sure if he was alright. Ask him if he needed anything. Change the subject if Dylan bristled and put up defenses.

It was sort of infuriating. Could Arish just slip up and confirm his suspicions already? Make life a lot easier by proving that every person in the Bureau is twisted and out to get him so he can just blame the FBC for everything?

Dylan can’t really deny it anymore. Not after all this time. Either Arish is playing the longest con in the world, or he’s his friend.

Some days he’s still not convinced. But Arish still hangs around anyway.

It’s one of those days. 

It’s worse than one of those days.

It’s a day where he’s not even sure where he is in the House anymore, lost in his own head, vision darkened, mind wandering, detached.

It’s days like these that make him miss dreamwalking. Those rare times, comatose and lost, when he could bend things his way— change the landscape and create a place to hide from the resonance reverberating off of every surface. He wishes he could command the cement maw of the House to open and swallow him up and encase him, protect him. He wishes his prison didn’t feel like safety. He wishes the echo would just end. He wishes he still had the power the Hiss gave him. He wishes he didn’t feel like that at all.

It’s the House’s fault, anyway. It never helped him sooner. The Bureau’s fault that he’s like this at all, that he’s stuck here at all. They could’ve let him go. They could’ve grabbed Jesse too. She could’ve stopped them.

It’s Jesse’ fault that she never came to find him sooner. Her fault for even trying to push the Hiss out. She just twisted the knife, burrowed it in between his ribs, as if she understood, as if she understands. As if Polaris gives her understanding.

It’s Polaris’ fault.

She never brought Jesse here. She knew, and she did nothing. She could’ve helped him, and she did nothing. Could’ve warned him. Could’ve empowered him. She never helped him before. And she’s… she’s hurt him. Rend him in two. Ripped the Hiss out while it was still attached.

I pushed the Hiss out. I did this. I did this to myself.

Trench did this. He let them in.

Darling did this. Darling let it happen.

The Hiss. The Hiss did this. It’s still tearing me apart even though it’s gone. It shouldn’t work like this. It’s not fair.

He can feel the imagined heat of the oil-slick mirage radiate off of him with every breath, and he wills and hopes that it keeps everyone away from him. They already stay away. Let this push away the brave and stupid and cruel ones. Let it burn and melt anyone still stupid enough to try. Learn why he was locked away in high security. Learn why others whisper and shrink away. Learn why he let the Hiss in. Test it. Try it. See what happens.

He flinches at the sound of a card reader buzzing in approval as the door unlocks and swings open.

See what happens.

“Hey! There you are, I’ve been looking for—”

“Maybe I want to be alone,” Dylan barks, eyes snapping up toward the door, the haze of his mind dissipating. Arish is standing halfway in the room, with the door closed on his shoulder. Something flashes across his face briefly, and Dylan can’t get a clear read of what. He holds the stare, doubling down. He wishes the room would turn red.

“Sorry,” Arish dips his head slightly with a ghost of an apologetic smile. “I’ll uh, leave you alone, if that’s what you want. Just wanted to make sure you were alright.”

“I don’t need your help for everything,” he answers, voice low. “Why do you care?” He lets his eyes glance the room, and he slowly remembers where he is. Maintenance. An office by the Quarry.

“I care about you,” Arish answers, and it’s such a casual response. It’s so genuine it makes Dylan’s stomach twist. It’s… poisoning everything. Arish is ruining it.

“No one else thinks you should. How long before you catch up? Before your stupid little game falls apart?” It’s taunting, bitter, and almost playful. Bitter playground taunts. Try it, see what happens. Take the bait. Prove me right.

Arish doesn’t say anything. He seems so calm. So infuriatingly calm. His eyebrows knit together as he hesitantly pushes the door back and forth, one hand still on the push bar.

“I know you don’t care,” Dylan continues. Take the bait. Get out of here or answer me.

Arish stares at him, then past him. 

Dylan can feel the anger and violence in him like a fire, flames licking up and threatening to ignite it all. He keeps it at bay, barely, for now. Vents it off. Lashes out.

“I’m not your pet project. I’m not going to magically replace any of your friends.” That’s the button he wants to press. Answer me. Take the bait. I know you don’t really care. Let me prove it, right now.

Dylan waits for him to storm off or call him out for crossing the line. He readies to push it even further.

“Have you eaten today?” Arish asks casually, tilting his head to one side.

Dylan blinks, losing his train of thought, anger vanishing in the jarring confusion.

“What?” is all he can manage.

“Have you eaten today,” Arish repeats, more of a chiding statement than a question. Dylan tries to muster up the anger and frustration that had been sitting like bile on the back of his tongue, but can’t find it.

Why ask? What’s the point here?

“Why?” he squints, defenses up. Offenses ready. Are they any different anymore?  

“Because you don’t seem like your usual self right now. If you’ll let me say it, you’re kind of being an asshole,” Arish makes a face somewhere between amusement and annoyance. A far too subdued reaction compared to what Dylan expected. “And the whole previously mentioned ‘I care about you’ thing. You kind of have to eat, you know.”

This… it… this isn’t…

When did he eat last?

“ ...fine,” he grumbles, realizing he sounds more pitiful than intimidating as he stands to his feet. Arish holds the door open for him, standing out of the way. He nods again as Dylan pushes past, avoiding eye contact, already starting down the hall.

“I’ll leave you alone then. I’m by the coolant pumps today if you’re looking for me.”

Dylan mutters something with a dying venom and bites his cheek to keep the rest from spilling out. His feet carry him down the hall and around the corner, away from… whatever that was.

Is he really mad that he isn’t mad? How stupid. This is all so stupid. Arish is—

As if on cue, his stomach growls. 

He curses himself and the House for being so painfully stereotypical.

Arish is right. He hasn’t eaten. He hasn’t since… the night before, maybe. When he perched in their apartment kitchen, avoiding sleep again, trying to ignore the ambient anxiety at the thought of returning to the House— the good anxiety, like the eager unknown of a school trip awaiting you the next day— and the kind of anxiety that wears your nerves down into nothing but a sickness in your stomach.

Did he even eat at all then?

Whatever.

There’s vending machines here somewhere.

He sets his hand lightly on one of the pipes running along the wall, dragging it across the metal surface as he walks. It’s been hard to keep track of things like that. When he eats. When things are. Whether it was a dream, or the day before, or weeks before. Sometimes he reaches for a memory and comes back empty, with nothing but fog in his vision.

It had been like that, sometimes, in the cell. But he could keep track of days and times. There was a consistent schedule. Shift changes, meals brought, weekly questions, monthly check ups. Sedations.

Time in the Oldest House is… well, check documentation, years of research, and look for the official answers, and everything will say the same thing: time here progresses the same as it does anywhere else.

But ask off the record? Prod maintenance workers, speak to those still on leave from Ranger duty, get your hands on files about the true nature of this building?

Time works differently here. The clocks are always right, no one’s age seems to slip away from them, but…

Walking through a living cement pillar, in between the bones and muscle structure of the place, where sun never reaches and the world seems distant, time does not much care to stay with you. Outside the House is the “normal” world. Inside the House… it’s like hitting pause.

For Dylan, it was like hitting fast forward. Like stepping into an entirely new world. Like it both trudged along and sped ahead without him.

Even now, this is… different. Time is… fast and slow. His memory is slippery. Zoning out is different, sometimes. Not bad. Not good, either. It sort of just… is.

Emily wants to know what the cause is. If it’s tied to the Hiss, or the coma, or his trauma with the Bureau.

He’s pretty sure he knows the answer to that last one.

Jesse said it’s a sign he’s moving forward. That he’s still adjusting, after the coma. Still adjusting to the world back outside. The ‘real’ world. Or the world not behind the curtain. The world not made of concrete and blackrock and conspiracies and rituals. The world where the sun shines and you have bills to pay and can walk to a cafe and order a coffee and sandwich.

That she doesn’t get it, but she gets it.

She apologizes for not making any sense. Dylan says he gets it.

Even when they’re at odds with each other, even after all this time and distance, even with the huge rift painted by loyalties and hurts and obligations, there’s an unbreakable cord tying the two of them together. He just understands his sister. She just understands him. Even when he feels like she can’t. He knows, somehow, that she at least can glean some of how he feels, how he is.

The realization hit him square in the chest for the first time after the lockdown lifts, when he was sitting on a hotel bed with a warm burger in his hands.

They sat in silence together, across from each other, in the middle of New York, in a hotel room paid for by the government, because they had no home to head back to. The sunlight and noise outside would’ve awed him if he hadn’t been so exhausted. The cheap burger and salty fries tasted like the finest food he’s ever had.

He could tell Jesse felt the same.

Because of different circumstances, of course. But he could still feel it.

He should’ve been a bundle of anxiety and nerves and panic. No home to go to, out in the world, free, with no cage, no leash, no monitoring. Passing as a functional adult by mimicking everyone around him. But in the shared exhausted silence with his sister, all he felt was calm. 

She’s here. I’m here. It’s okay. We’re okay.

And the burger was the best meal he’d ever had in his life.

Jesse picked a random place with a phone number off a list Arish had given them. He got to his apartment before their rooming situation got sorted, and told them at least they didn’t have to deal with lapses payments or fridges full of rotten, oozing, near-AWE-level food. He offered to help them find a good place to live when they were ready, and gave them a list of places to eat in the meantime. It was huge— he’d been compiling it ever since the end of the lockdown came into clear, tangible view.

Each place had a few notes and suggestions written under it, and the places within walking distance or that delivered were highlighted. He said it was his gift until he could invite them over proper. After everyone had finally adjusted back to regular life.

Dylan tried not to laugh humorlessly at the comment then, and it still pricks a bitter laugh out of him now. ‘Adjust back to regular life.’

Regular life would be going back into prison with every moment of your day scheduled with pure monotony.

Regular life would mean not feeling purely alien.

Regular life before that would mean going back to grade school and 9pm bedtimes that stretch to 10pm and racing in old snow boots with worn soles to try and get to the Sled Hill before his sister.

Regular life would mean… food not being so… weird.

The first burger was the greatest meal he’d ever had. Every meal after it was… wrong.

He’d been used to scheduled meals, before, that were made and ready for him, if and when he wanted to eat it. Bland cafeteria food masquerading as something appealing. Then it had been bland ‘hospital’ food, courtesy of the House’s medical stockpiles, brought at the reminder of researchers feigning concern and interest.

Without the schedule, it’s easy to forget. It’s not intentional. It’s just… there’s so much. So much happening. And nothing happening. He used to sit on the hotel bed and think, and listen, and delve into himself to figure out how the Hiss weathered and rearranged him. Jesse reminds him, when she can, when she remembers, trying to juggle finance and paychecks and paperwork and Directorship.

A lot of their paychecks go toward food. But unlike when they were kids, delivery is always the option, and not a special, once-every-two-month treat. Jesse can’t cook, which he never hesitates to tease her about. But it works out well. Delivery doesn’t go bad and leftovers are ready to go out of the fridge. No prep, no steps, no energy expended. Jesse never hesitates to poke fun at how he’s bound to make restaurants run out of food with how much he orders, but he always fires back that she eats just as much.

Chalk it up to genetics, or being parautilitarians, or too much time on government rations, or all three, but the Fadens could easily eat anyone out of house and home.

It’s not something he noticed until she pointed it out, but he looks… ‘more like himself’, she had said, now that he’d left the House after nearly twenty years. He’s not sure ‘more like himself’ is a fair assessment for someone in his situation, but the meaning isn’t lost.

He had been gaunt and thin despite his broad shoulders and paranatural strength. The clinical P6 sweater hid it, even before he fell comatose and his muscle mass dwindled. His refusal to take certain meals in the old Panopticon cell meant he was undernourished. All that energy he spent possessed by the Hiss, swimming in the flow, against the current, with the current, deeper, deeper, meant his body worked overtime.

If anything is proof of the healing everyone insists he’s doing, he supposes it’s that. It was difficult at first, beyond the adjustment to eating meals whenever he wanted. Some food he thought he loved and dreamed of tasted… awful. He could barely stomach it. Literally.

But now?

Food is free game. There’s so much to try. He sees no reason to ask for food, now that he’s a free man. Including food on other people’s plates, or left unlabeled (or labeled) in break room fridges. There are no apologies. Only shrugs and rolled eyes.

But he eats pizza. And buys Pop-Tarts. Helps stock the shelves of their new apartment with the grocery list he always secretly wished he could have as an adult. And very, very, very slowly tries foods he’s never heard of, or worries won’t be as good as he remembers. At least he always has the old standbys.

“Dylan?” Emily Pope sets a hand on his shoulder, and he nearly jumps as he drags himself back to reality again. He blinks against the fluorescent lighting pouring out of the vending machine in front of him and tries not to question when or how he got there.

His eyes flick nervously over to Emily, who had her hand back by her side before he even had a chance to process it. He rolls his neck and turns back to the machine, trying to mask his confusion as he reorients himself.

“Can’t pick a snack?” she tries to joke. His eyes quickly roam the selection of plain white bags and he punches in a number. “Would you be available to talk? Right now, or later, but my office is available if you have the time, I—”

“For what?” he cuts her off, tilting his head to watch the machine drop his snack toward the slot.

“Well, we haven’t had a chance to talk since you—”

“I know,” he cuts in again, unwilling to hear whatever term she has to describe whatever happened to him in the streets of New York. Jesse told him it was a panic attack. The Bureau would probably want to call it an episode. He just doesn’t want to rehash it.

“If the Hiss is somehow still bothering you, I want to help. Or, maybe I can’t help exactly, but I want to help you find answers. Try and understand it. If you remember things from being connected to the Hiss consciousness, to— to us, when Hedron fell— I… on top of everything else… I can’t imagine it— if you want to talk about it—”

The sudden blunt kindness mingled with all the aspects of the various horrors haunting him make his veins go cold. Everything he was hoping to ignore is now at the forefront of his mind. And Emily wants to pick it apart. He snatches his bag of trail mix out of the slot and turns on his heel, making a beeline for Jesse’s office.

“I don’t,” he answers as he leaves Emily behind him, unwilling and unready to face everything she’s so eager to delve into. He doesn’t want to see her, let alone talk about any of that.

He doesn’t want to see anyone.

Arish invites both Fadens over for dinner. 

Jesse says yes.

There goes not seeing anyone.

Jesse says that Arish said they’re free to come over whenever, leave whenever, or not come over at all. Even if only one of them wants to hang out, it’s all fair game.

Something about the idea of not being there rubs Dylan the wrong way, despite the anxiety still eating him from the inside out. He’d rather just curl up in bed and let the night envelop him. But if he doesn’t go, the agony of having missed it will start to eat at him too. What if he ruins it? What if he makes the wrong choice? What if it’s a trick, something to get him to give over information? He should just stay home. But he’d hate it if he did.

Is it always going to be like this? Looking through the glass? Metaphorically. Like his glass box in Central Executive. Separated from everyone else by blackrock and glass and Hiss. It still feels like that now. Like he’s behind the glass.

Like he’s in the corner of the room, watching Dylan agonize over everything, still lost, and he can’t do a thing.

He watches Jesse pace their apartment as she double checks everything for the fifth time. She finally makes the call to leave, looking at the time on her phone. Dylan feels his stomach lurch as he makes his choice, standing to his feet and wordlessly following her out the door.

He hates this. How every normal thing feels so foreign. How every familiar thing feels dangerous or wrong. What if it really is just needing a change? Why not just leave? Why not really get on a subway car, really get on a train, and figure it all out somewhere where he can clear his head, where he doesn’t have to worry about the House and the people and his sister and his friends.

His friends.

Because he feels like he could never come back. It would be worse, really. Instead of feeling slightly overwhelming, it would be extremely overwhelming. Jesse would worry over him and ask where he went and things would be weird and different. Would Arish do the same? Would Emily?

He already knows, he already knows how if he did run away, he’d agonize over coming back, like how he’s agonizing over visiting another apartment, and he’d put off returning, with each added day making it loom more and more.

He wishes he could just… pause things. Make everything go on hold and wait for him to figure it all out, then pick up where he left off.  

Was the coma a pause?

Maybe he doesn’t want a pause.

By the time they make it to Arish’s door, he’s already run the train of thought into the ground from 7 different angles. He glances over to his sister, tapping her fingers against her thigh, shifting her weight, bouncing on a foot. She seems just as anxious as he does. Dylan tries to find some kind of encouragement in that.

She relaxes suddenly, taking a deep breath. He starts to wonder how she managed that, then spots Polaris in the light, spinning around her head like a halo. An ever-present comfort.

Jesse knocks on the door with one knuckle. Dylan feels his anxiety twist into something even more tangled in his chest.

The blue-flecked halo of resonance reaches across the distance, and he can feel the flecks of her presence on the edge of his consciousness. He allows it. Despite his rising annoyance, he can’t deny that she’s a comfort. If only because she isn’t Hiss.

There’s a distant sound of Arish yelling one second, and the sound of feet moving across the floor, and then the doorknob starts to turn.

He lets Polaris in a bit further. For… security reasons. To prepare for whatever crisis awaits tonight. After all the thoughts and emotions he still can’t sort, he’s just waiting for it to blow up in his face. Tonight would be the night, right? Self sabotage is always waiting in the wings. Maybe he’ll be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Arish is grinning and talking before the door is even open. Jesse laughs as he swings the door open all the way, and Dylan follows her over the threshold, trying to steel himself for whatever happens.

It's awkward, at first. The way going to anyone’s house for the first time is awkward. Dylan follows in Jesse’s shadow, operating on autopilot, trying to take the place in. Arish isn’t in his security uniform. Of course he isn’t. But it makes him look so…

Not Bureau? 

Normal?

Jesse relaxes quickly. Dylan does not. But the white-knuckle grip he has on his anger and fear loosens as the night carries on. It's… casual. And… nice. To just hang out. Nothing bad happens. Nobody snaps at him or accuses him of… whatever he worried would happen. There’s no tension here like in the House. In fact, here, it’s kind of easy to forget the paranatural and the Bureau and work exist at all. Maybe that’s just how Arish is.

Dylan butts into the conversation finally, ratting out Jesse for how much she worried about tonight, ignoring the irony. He tells Arish how many times she checked the address and subway stations and the time, despite her protests the whole time. Jesse denies it all, mock-offended. He knocks her down a peg again at dinner, when they both realize how good of a cook Arish is, and Dylan throws her under the bus for her cooking ability that lets her even burn cereal. Jesse doesn’t take that one lying down, and tells Arish all about how many times Dylan’s tried her coffee in the morning and acted like he’s just been poisoned.

It doesn’t take long to become a game of ‘what does Dylan like’ as the night goes on. Arish makes a pot of coffee, just to double check that Jesse’s cooking skills don’t extend to brewing. He makes a cup of tea, too, and even offers Dylan a beer when they all collectively realize he’s never had one (unless you count dad offering him a curious sip when he was a kid and laughing at the face he pulled).

It’s fun. He thinks they’re both insane. It’s all disgusting, and they’re definitely both lying about how much they like coffee, and especially beer. He rips into them for it, without malice, and they laugh with him. And a smile glances across his face. And the looming taunts of unrest and sickening nightmares vanishes into their laughter that night.

Headed home, the cool of the late night air reaches him on the empty subway car next to his sister, and he breathes it in deep. He finds it easier to keep his head up and his eyes open. He finds it easier to just… think.

Things feel better. After tonight. After just… feeling human again. More than a prisoner, more than a subject to be studied.

All the agony and anxiety seem miles away. Like they happened in another lifetime. How could he ever imagine things would go wrong? He tries to follow the old train of thought and finds the track has switched.

There’s a light at the end of the tunnel now. 

How did he ever lose sight of it? 

They trudge back to their apartment, into their separate rooms, and he crawls into bed, still processing the night, and how… not awful, it feels.

Polaris gently shimmers behind his eyes, tingeing the darkness a beautiful shade of blue.

“Grow brighter, right?” he says out loud. “I hate how fake that sounds. Don’t make me say it again. I don’t want platitudes when I’m still sort of burning. Couldn’t you have picked a better phrase?” he mutters into his pillow as he flips over in his bed.

Polaris spins slowly, idle.

He lets himself wonder if things aren’t so glum after all. 

A piece of him believes it.

(He realizes, next to the part of him that stomps its feet and claws the walls and screeches that it will never get better, sits a quieter, patient, stalwart hope; that knows, somehow, that it will.)

Chapter Text

It passes in whispers through the House. A sneakernet. A gossiped game of telephone. The employee's version of the Hotline. An important message to be heeded or ignored.

Dylan Faden can see the future, the rumor claims.

It makes sense, doesn’t it? How he knows what he knows. Why he acts the way he does.

Personal stories touted as evidence get tacked to the rumor as it gets passed. It all piles up. All points to the mounting theory.

He knows their fates. The Bureau’s, the House’s. Our own. The Hiss opened him to it all.

And he holds a grudge against the Bureau, against us, for what it did to him. For making him lose. For locking him away.

He plans to let our demise unfold and just watch.

The whispers pass over folders and desks with hushed looks and knowing glares.

He must know.

He’s a seer. A psychic. A dreamwalker.

The rumor snakes through the hallways and veins of the house to every listening ear, chorus of whispers growing.

He knows, he knows.

The confusion permeates Dylan like a dull pain, muddying his thoughts and draining his energy. Each memory feels foggy and confused— no way to aptly sort the timeline, the dreamt moments, the imagined, the identical, the Hissed, the Astral, the comatose.

Sleep is no escape. No rest.

The line between waking and dreaming bleed together. How can he tell the Astral from the imagined? How can he tell the Hiss from himself? It all flows without his permission. It prods and unearths and it exposes and haunts.

His ears bleed. Too many times he’s woken up and scratched away the dried blood before Jesse questions it. Before he can think about it for too long.

His mouth is dry, his body heavy as the waves pull him down with each passing idea, each movement of the dream, each thought impossible to wade through. He fights for lucidity as the lines blur further, confusing realities that slip from his grip with each passing second, throat tight, mind aching.

How much of the Hiss dreamscapes were real? How many planes did he walk while comatose? How many of these memories did he invent? How many are not his own? 

He watches the lives of Bureau members trickle through, points of view he never lived, things he should never know. 

He can see himself in the Bureau, standing behind the glass, as he— as Jesse runs around, hapless intern, trying to complete the work. It’s through her eyes. Through the Hissed lenses.

Is this just his dream?

Did he imagine this? Did it happen? Was he there?

Is he now?

Is it all a lie? Is he still dreaming?

What would they say if they knew? What would happen to him if he shared what he saw, what little he comprehended? How much he knew, but shouldn’t have any reason to?

What if they already know? What if they can tell? How can he tell himself? Powerless. He’s powerless. He wants to be safe. To be strong.

It’s overwhelming. Sickening. The need. The hunger.

The siren call to feel that power again. To feel that safety again, no matter how false it is, no matter how destructive it really is. It feels so good even if it rots him inside out, shelling him out of himself and rattling him into dust.

What did all that time in the House do to him? Growing up there, never leaving? How did it shape him, change him? Are humans meant to adapt and grow in those spaces? Are children meant to mature so quickly? Why does he still feel like he’s ten, like he’s abandoned, like he’s babied, like he’s ignored?

What did all that time lost to the Hiss do to his body? How did it change him, rearrange him?

What has he done to himself? 

Did he let it do this? Did he want this?

How many people did the Hiss kill? Each disjointed life flashing through his thoughts, fractured memories he’s never had, things he’s never seen— did each of these belong to someone? Is this the House? Is it the Bureau?

Is it all invented, all just to taunt him, captivate him?

Did he see their faces, hear their echoes in the resonance, feel their screams in the waves? Did he cherish it? Did the Hiss? How many people did the Hiss kill? How many people did he—

Dylan gasps, ripping himself out of the waters of the night, flinging his comforter and blankets off the bed. His feet hit carpet and carry him to the bathroom, barely making it as he retches, knees slamming into the floor.

Sickening.

His vision fluctuates in the dark, head thrumming an uneven rhythm, shivering and sweating. He slumps over slowly, carefully, each movement delicate and deliberate, until his forehead rests against the cool relief of the tile.

The room spins around him, stomach still lurching. He disconnects himself, trying to distance from the nausea and shadowy feeling overwhelming him. His breaths are labored and frantic, and it takes him a few minutes to realize the occasional rack through his body is an exhausted sob.

His thoughts race like a current, so fast he can hardly keep up with the flow. Memories he cannot claim flood into view, making him a spectator to things he never wanted to know. An unwanted and unknown audience to feelings and thoughts that are not his own. It’s scattered and random; all fluctuating emotions tainted with Hiss and confusion. The red of anger, death, and blood, caused by them/it/him. They would study him. Pin him down under the glass and dissect him. It would. They would. He would. It blurs. Who wants who to burn? Which feelings can he call his own?

He presses up against the floor and melts into the sensation of the cold title. Release it. Breathe.

Each breath is focused. He turns all his attention toward keeping himself together. Keeping the nausea at bay. Breathe in, breathe out. Shiver in the freezing cold, breathe against the wave of heat. Focus on each new breath. Nothing else. Listen to the rattling, ragged breaths get even. Collect yourself. 

Breathe.

He has no concept of how much time has passed once he peels himself up off the floor, hauling himself up with the edge of the sink.

Eyes now adjusted to the dark, he sees himself dimly in the mirror and blinks in surprise.

He’s pale and sullen. He looks like a ghost haunting the room in the dark. Form shadowed, clothes soaked through with sweat. But they’re his clothes. He gingerly reaches a hand up to his head, raking fingers through the hair he still hasn’t grown used to. He’s himself.

Of course he is. Of course. But he had almost expected to see…

What had he expected to see?

P6? he thinks absently, afraid of the implication he’s making. He tilts his head, watching a trail of warm blood drip from his nose. It pulls him back into the now, and he realizes he can feel the metal tang slide down the back of his throat and trickle over his upper lip.

He leaves the lights off and cleans himself up, ditching the sweat stained shirt, trying to bring his body temperature down.

He feels the apartment creak and sway under his feet and strains to hear if his sister is up, awakened by the… event.

In the silence, Polaris tries to greet him. She’s concerned, worried, doting. His stomach churns.

Too late, he thinks, then tests his voice, finding it quiet, broken, and cracked. “You’re too late. I know you’re disgusted by me. I know you’re disappointed in me.” He’s hoarse and sounds unconvincing, knowing that she is not who those words are meant for. (A projection, something projectional.) You never help. You never have. If he could bury a knife in her, he would. Bare his teeth and snarl and warp and scream and burn until she gets the message again. Back off. He bristles and grips the sink tighter.

He would never want to hurt her.

No. How could he? He does want to hurt her, yes, but what would he do if he did? What would he do with himself? He wants to, he wants to. Just drive her away, drive a knife into her, vanish her entirely. But he knows he’d regret it.

He doesn’t mean it.

He means it so much.

There's her worried comfort just within reach, just on the edge of his conscience. Waiting for him to take action, waiting for some kind of forgiveness, aching to help. She aches to help in a way that he wants and yearns for and loathes.

It’s sickening, sickening.

He pushes away from the sink and presses his back into the door frame. He feels her presence, worried, pulsing.

She wants to try and help. To try and ease things. 

He does not let Polaris in. 

Do I want to? Do I want her?

I hate her. I hate it. I want it. It’s too much. She wouldn’t help. She just wants the problem gone.

He wants to sort it out alone, but can’t bear the thought of solitude. He wants the Hiss' comfort and hates the thought. He wants Polaris' comfort and hates the thought.

A door out in the outer apartment halls slams. Dylan pulls himself back together, running a hand over his face, taking a deep breath, biting his cheek.

He won’t tell anyone about this. None of them can know. He tells her not to say a word. As if she’ll listen. As if this is some sort of deal. As if he wields some sort of power. He rips his eyes up from the floor and back to the mirror, making eye contact with himself. He grinds his teeth together, then rolls his neck and pops his jaw, trying to wake his body up leave the sick feeling behind. Willing it to stay here and leave him. To stay in this hour, in this room, in the pipes and the darkness and shadows. 

Most of it is gone. Shaken off and left in the night. But something clings to him anyway in the tears that won’t fall, blurring his vision.

He drags himself back to his bed, Polaris wordlessly hovering across the hall, static. He shuts her out and pulls the door shut. In the cool dark of his room he collapses into the tangled mound of blankets, burrowing into them until he’s enveloped. He closes his eyes and tries not to think at all, until he falls back into a dreamless sleep.

Chapter Text

“Is it true?” the researcher whispers, clutching her mug in both hands as she leans across the desk. Her eyes are frantic, darting up constantly as if someone will come by and overhear. “That he knew this would happen? And he knows the Bureau is ending?”

The open floor office is surprisingly sparse, with most of the other researchers down in the cafeteria or chasing down work assignments. A large unlabelled clock ticks unceremoniously above them, hung on the matte yellow walls. The girl is hunched nervously in a chair dragged hastily into place in her rush, trying to have this meeting without anyone noticing she’s not at lunch or in her usual sector.

Jillian sits at the desk with her back straight, wrists resting on the edge of the fragile brown particle board. She meets the researcher’s eyes over the rim of her glasses, pausing her incessant typing, before leaning in. The researcher copies her, leaning so that the desk digs into her ribs and her loose hair dips dangerously close to her mug.

“How much have you heard?” Jillian starts. “I’ve been verifying what I can. Some of our information has been updated since before.”

“Oh. Is it safe? To talk about here?”

“You’re among friends here,” Jillian smiles, patting the girl’s hand. She talks as if she’s the leader of HR, or a therapist, or head of a department, and not just a Luck and Probability researcher who manipulated her promotion out of Communications to here.

The younger researcher taps her nails on the mug. 

“Okay. Well. Someone told me… I don’t want to say who.”

“That’s alright.”

“Someone told me he can read minds. And that he isn’t… he isn’t human like you or me. And that our Director isn't either. But the Director is the good kind, and he’s… he’s…” she twists the mug in her hands. “It sounds stupid.”

“It’s not, I promise,” Jillian smiles reassuredly. “Did Price tell you that the kid is soulless? ” The girl looks almost relieved that Jillian said it and not her.

“Yes! And that the Bureau is monitoring him, because the Director banished the Hiss by… by giving up part of her brother. And now he can… he knows things. About all of us. And the Bureau. I’ve… I’ve seen him wandering around. I can… I know that we have unusual items and things here in the Bureau, and those I can handle, but he… he’s real. I can’t… I don’t feel like I can predict—”

“It’s alright. Take your time,” Jillian comforts. “If it reassures you any, I’ve done my research, and I think the soul theory is bunk.” The girl visibly relaxes, shoulders drooping. “However, I’m starting to think that he’s the reason our lockdown got lifted.”

“What? How? Didn’t the Director—”

“She helped us clear out and cleanse the Hiss, correct. But all that behavior you described to me… don’t you find that weird?” Jillian smiles humorlessly. The junior researcher nods.

“I’ve talked to some of the people who consider him a friend— discreetly, of course. I’ve even managed to use clearance to peek into some files. And all those appointments he has in medical and with Pope…”

“He has appointments?” the girl frowns. Jillian nods solemnly.

“I’ve put in a few anonymous requests to HR to try and suss out more information, but… all the Hiss just disappearing like that… do you think the Director cleansed it, or simply found a place to store it, like she did with Hedron?”

“Is he… are you saying the Hiss is still in him?

Jillian’s smile turns into one of tight-lipped sympathy.

“What… what do we do about that? Is he… is the Bureau doing everything they can? Watching him? I heard he’s still technically considered a prisoner, but shouldn’t… don’t we have a right to know all this? He… he knows all these things about us and they just let him wander around, he has higher clearance than me, I—” the girl stops to breathe, the words catching in her throat.

“I think it may be more than that,” Jillian’s expression falls stoic. “I’m beginning to think he is Hiss. Become an avatar of the resonance, just like the director and the Hedron resonances.”

“Can’t we do something? This can’t be safe! The Director, is she…”

Jillian glances nervously at the clock, watching as the second hand signals the end of lunch hours.

“We can talk more about this later. I promise it’ll be okay. But I have people looking into it. We’ll make sure something happens. We’ve all survived this much, right?”

“Okay,” the young employee tries to smile, standing to leave. “Okay. Let me know if I can help.”

“We will. We need all the trusted allies we can get,” Jillian smiles.

Somewhere, in the Bureau, with his head buried in his arms, tapping his feet against the floor as he listens to the tinny radio in the empty Director’s office, waiting impatiently for the others to arrive, Dylan is struck with an unbidden and sudden thought.

I’m beginning to think he is Hiss.

Hiss, and not human.

Wouldn’t that just be his luck?

Dylan finds himself in another meeting. Jesse says it’s just a casual chat, but they’re meeting. It’s a government bureaucracy. It’s the Head of Research, the Director, and the on-probation problem child having a private, classified conversation. What else would it be but a meeting?

Conversation sways to Dylan, as it always almost does. The boring questions. How are you feeling, how are you doing, do you need anything. The taboo ones. Is the Hiss still bothering you?

Sometimes. Not like it did.

Emily calls them echoes. Says the Hiss is a resonance, and it is simply still ringing through him until it finally grows still. That it will fade and stop haunting him, eventually.

Always. Always with the stipulations. Waiting. Unknown amounts of time. For unknown outcomes. Eventually. 

Eventually, the Hiss will fade. Eventually, the incantation will stop sinking into your skull and tightening around your head. Eventually, you will no longer fear sudden shifts in the light. Eventually, fear will not grip your heart and twist your stomach at sickeningly familiar words. Eventually, you will no longer crave the sickness. 

Never any solid answers.

Eventually, eventually, eventually.

Some days eventually is hope. Other days it feels like a curse.

He tunes out the boring questions, analyzing the ceiling, which just forces them to take the meeting right to the point (his sister and Emily are not the types for small talk, which he is at least a little thankful for. He wouldn’t mind some time to think to himself, though).

Jesse brings the topic up, and Emily provides backup, filling in the gaps that Jesse leaves out. HR apparently has a… suggestion about Dylan, considering all the reports and requests they’ve received involving him.

Dylan is very aware that “suggestion” is HR-ese for “complaint” or “fix this, we’re getting annoyed ,” and almost smirks when he says so. Almost.

The actual suggestion itself makes him pause for thought.

HR wants Jesse, or Jesse and Dylan, or whoever is most appropriate, to find Dylan a job.

“A job.” Dylan states, eyebrows raised.

“Or a consistent set of tasks, or a role you fill here at the Bureau, or even an opportunity outside the building,” Emily explains. She’s not beaming like she usually is, but he can still hear the smile in her voice. She’s trying not to be overbearing, but trying to be encouraging at the same time. Dylan can tell. He always can. 

“You don’t have to, of course,” Jesse adds. “I just wanted to let you know what they said. And to see what you thought.”

He takes a deep breath and sighs.

“So… the Bureau wants me to stop haunting the halls, is what they mean. No more walking around and unnerving the staff by wandering around. Making them face what happened just by existing.” They’d like the resident wraith to settle down and stop upsetting the locals, as it’s getting too hard to field all the complaints and requests.

“Dylan,” Jesse chides, but it’s more out of habit as she suppresses a laugh. “Just… give it some thought.”

“Anywhere you think you might want to work, or something you’d like to do,” Emily nods.

Dylan looks between the two of them from his seat, pressing his back into the chair, trying to analyze them. They both wait for his response.

It almost feels like another Bureau interview. Like he’s talking to the Director, and not his sister.

He finally tears his eyes away, giving a noncommittal shrug as he gets up to leave.

“I’ll see you after work, okay?” Jesse adds. She sounds more like the sister he remembers when she says it. Concerned. Protective. A leader, but not the government type. Not the business type.

“Yeah,” he says, veering off toward the doors to the Hotline. Less foot traffic there. Fewer employees to upset simply by existing.

He can hear Emily call “Goodbye, Dylan!” as he vanishes out of the office.

Think about it. Where would you like to work? What do you like to do?

Questions. Always with these questions. The Bureau and their questions.

He finds himself craving the sky and sunlight again, and lets his feet carry him aimlessly through the House, hoping to wander toward Research or the Quarry eventually, for the closest knockoff of ‘normal’ he can get in this forsaken place.

‘Get a job’, he thinks, adjusting his jaw. No more haunting the halls. They can’t stand me making them uncomfortable.

He is a wraith. Still walking the twisting halls and paths of the prison he inhabited for more than half his life. Some days, being here feels more neutral. Other days it feels like all the old bad memories. (Eventually, eventually.)

His eyes trace methodical patterns through the carpet's designs as he walks. Twist, turn, spiral. It's still just as ugly as it was when he first arrived. .

His sister is Director, like they hoped he would be. Dreamed, predicted, prophesied. He was raised on archetypes and rituals and hypotheses and practice only to be tossed to the curb without a second thought.

He hates the idea of being Director. 

And yet, he wishes it could’ve been him.

He’s glad Jesse is here. And things are changing, in good ways. But for her to waltz in and become Director with no experience or preparation is salt in the wound. In a perfect world he wouldn’t care, but he can’t help but feel an angry bitterness that’s clung to him since he first realized he was the Bureau’s pet project. (Since he first realized they didn’t really care about him, just the program. Since he realized Trench never cared. And Darling lied. Since he realized Polaris didn’t want to help. Even if they all say she did.)

A cage. Over an accident. No second chances. 

Nobody listened. Nobody even tried to.

A program. That was all. P6.

That’s all he ever was.

And they thought it was his fault that he got locked away. His fault that he failed. That he ruined their perfect little Director program. Like he wanted to contort that man. Hear his bones snap and sinew twist and skin stretch and body convulse suddenly and then never again at all.

Nobody talked to him about it. They were all scared of him. Nobody cried with him. Nobody comforted him. What day is it today? In one word, describe the world around you.

How was he supposed to react? How did they want him to behave? They said it was his fault when they provoked him, over and over and over. What day is it today?  

He was supposed to be the bigger person? They stuck him here. Even before the glass box. Even before the criminal treatment. He was a ten year old with an unknown, brand new resonance, missing parents, a runaway sister, and nothing but the cold cement of a paranatural bureaucracy to grow up in. It seemed so magical at first. So new. Like he was destined for this. They even told him he was. The stupid puppet videos, the eager expectations, the praise, the encouragement. Don’t mess it up. Become Director of everything around you. Do you realize the weight and responsibility?  

Is he their Director? Can he have a choice?

And he was supposed to be their bigger person? Keep submitting to their little games and tests and hypotheses? When all they ever did was wrong. When they never cared. When they shouldered him with every piece of blame and convinced him he was wrong to ever doubt that he was anything more than a danger. A monster, even. Locked up with all the other volatile items nobody understood. Something to be studied. Inhuman.

He was just supposed to take it? Just let it happen, and things would’ve been different? He was supposed to be the bigger person? Appalling. To even suggest it. To even think that he should’ve just rolled over.  

This is why he never made the cut for Director. It's why they shut the program down because of him. It’s why he fought back so hard after Roberts.

“Poor Roberts. No, he earned it. What am I saying? What am I saying. I’m talking out loud again. I’m talking… I’m talking out loud. I’m talking to myself.”

With some distant awareness he catches himself mouthing each thought, his voice wavering in and out on his breaths, getting louder as he mumbles and mutters until he finally realizes what he’s doing.

He does this sometimes. He’s never tried to dissect why. It makes some of the Bureau staff uncomfortable.

Good.

Still, he comes to a full stop, straining to listen and see if anyone is around to hear. He cares less about them seeing him talk to himself, and more about whether they'd actually heard him, unsure how much he's actually said out loud. He’s tired of people psychoanalyzing him. Nobody needs to have that information.

Satisfied that he is alone, he takes stock of where he is, beyond the carpet patterns.

This is not Executive anymore. (He never got into an elevator. He tries not to think too hard about that. The House never abides by typical logic, and he feels no need to decipher the why when he already knows how much the place shifts.)

This is Research, he’s sure of it. It’s a big open room, closed at the end, with no hallway to follow. There’s too many plants and scribbled whiteboards scattered around to be anywhere but Research. It has the ‘mad scientist’ organization vibe.

It is utterly, entirely, completely empty. Devoid of people. Of office chatter and ambiance. Copiers running, keyboards clicking, whiteboard markers squeaking as someone frantically jots down notes.

There are no people here. He does not recognize this part of the sector.

Really, it could be anything— if there really was a House shift, the people may have already evacuated before he noticed. And there are plenty of hidden offices he’s never seen in his time here, even since he’s taken to exploring the place.

Empty desk after empty desk. Half-finished, abandoned notes. Dusty file cabinets. Lights that feel sickly and fluorescent, despite no obvious source. And the silence.

It’s enough to make his hair stand on end.

It’s not simply silent in the halls, either. It takes a moment for him to realize, but the distant, constant fingerprint of the Hiss and Polaris in his mind is missing. Not quiet, not distant. Gone.

Alone with his thoughts.

It’s comforting. And horrifying.

Where has he brought himself? Where has the House taken him?

He pads tentatively forward, leaning and twisting to read the notes left loose on the desks around him. They’re typed and printed on some ancient printer, all sharing the same font— and all dated. What day is it today? These are all… old. Forgotten. Mentions of Ash, and ley lines, and control points. Early research and hypothesis. Outdated information. Some of it is even before his time.

Where is this? he wonders, self-conscious of speaking out loud again in the empty silence. Did something bring me here? He almost laughs at himself, unable to shake the Bureau-ingrained need to ask and know why.

He scans the whole room again, eyes sharp, hoping to pick up any sign of life, no matter how old. 

The silence sinks into him further, absorbed by the carpet around him. The whiteboards catch his attention, covered in diagrams and graphs detailing the ley lines in the building. None of the graphics seem accurate anymore— again, the shifts— but this was clearly some early attempt at understanding the purpose and power between the living concrete’s veins.

His gaze drifts back to the carpet, tracing the pattern to an unnatural end, bisected by a line of black matte tape. This seems newer. He crouches down and drags his finger along it, feeling the edges against the close-cut carpet. It’s still taut, and feels new— not worn by time or light or entropy. Like someone was working on marking out a control point.

He can almost feel the energy pulling him, surging beneath the tape, through a ley line to a center node. It follows down the tape, down the carpet, down the dead-end hall. A pulsing, deep sound thrums through it, lying muffled beneath the silence. An ambient deep background noise. The white noise of the House. Its lifeblood. Its resonance.

Because investigating unknowns has always gone so good before, he thinks to himself, rolling his eyes, but continuing anyway, following the tape to the end of the room, where it forms an incomplete and broken circle. He almost feels a pull toward it. Whether it’s simply his need to know what strangeness he’s found or part of the strangeness itself, he isn’t sure.

An incomplete control point is half-taped out on the floor. There is no equipment here. There are masking tape spikes and Xs marking where the equipment should be, but nothing else surrounds the jagged, wide, imperfect circle.

He tilts his head, assessing it, measuring it, adjusting his view and angle. He strains, trying to listen, making sure he is still alone and unbothered.

Get a job, right? This is my job. I’m figuring this out.

He edges into the taped circle, lifting his gaze back up to the room again, glancing at the whiteboards. Some of the diagrams match the tape path, cataloguing the ley line. 

Has it been here this long? But why is the tape so new?

He positions himself in the middle of the circle, taking a deep breath, still straining to listen. Listen, listen.

Why listen? Why does he feel such a strong urge to listen? He’s alone here, isn’t he? Is it because the well-worn canals of Hiss incantation have finally found an end in his head? Is it the full, total absence of Hedron and Polaris here?

What is this? Why is it like this?

He listens.

Carefully, slowly, he turns in the middle of the circle, inclining his head.

And then he hears it.

There are voices. Beyond Hiss. Beyond Polaris. He can hear them, whispering away. Unfamiliar signals. Brainwaves and soundwaves he’s never claimed or owned. Soft and distant. Like when they drove under thick canopied pines in dad’s old truck and the radio would fizzle in and out. Dad’s truck was so rickety. The seats smelled like oiled leather. The stick shift was so loud. The vents never worked.

The sounds are getting closer. Or... he’s able to distinguish them more clearly.

The insatiable childhood curiosity of what if has never left him, despite it all. It drives him forward a step. And then another, and another. He follows the taped lines on the floor, edging closer.

And then the cacophony starts.

It drives into his head like a spike, suddenly without warning, crippling him, sending him to his knees. A cry dies in his throat as his vision goes white, information quickly overwhelming his thoughts, sharp and screaming, burrowing into his head and into his spine. He can taste metal in his mouth and knows nothing but the white world around him.

He can no longer feel the tape under his feet, forming a near-perfect circle around him. He is an antenna in the center of a ley line hub— a node looking for the perfect link, carrying the loose information drifting through and around the House like wind.

He is standing in the perfect place to receive, and has no way to stop or filter the barrage of information. There are so many individuals, so many thoughts, so many feelings all flooding in at once, slipping past him before he can process any of them. It feels as if it might shatter him, like resonance vibrating crystal.

He draws in on himself, folding up his knees and backing against a wall, as if it won’t be able to reach him if he makes himself small enough. His fingers rake through his hair and try to shield his mind, but the information slips through anyway.

The feeling prickles across his skin like static, leaving his face with a distant numbness. His jaw begins to quiver from the sheer sensation and anxiety, so he clamps his mouth shut, grinding his teeth, willing it all to stop, just stop. 

Too late. This is too much.

The ley lines are connecting him to channels he should never know, channels he should have left to the haze of the comatose world. His waking mind handles it worse than his sleeping mind, unable to detach his consciousness into the dream logic and let his subconscious catch the brunt of the force. 

How different are the consciousnesses , anyway? Am I even here, or is this another plane, or many planes, layered and stacked and shifting, am I falling, falling with them, and what if it takes me away again, takes over again, what if it was just, just waiting, waiting for this, waiting for the moment, what if this is all I’ve ever been and ever will be, please somebody help, disconnect it already, change the channel, please, please, I can’t. I can’t… the static is too loud. You can almost hear our words but you forget. This happens more and more now.

How does the Hiss change physiology?

Emily says Jesse is a conduit for Polaris. Or Hedron. Or whatever it is. Polaris. That’s how he knows her. The name Jesse chose. 

Jesse named the Hiss, too. Powerful, dangerous, naming things after archetypes. Or are they given on gut instinct? Monikers earned out of prior traits, needing the titles? Or did the titles influence the powers?

He chased the Hiss out. A full eviction. He had Polaris remove it, cleanse it, purify it.

But it was different for him. He isn’t like Jesse.

Is he the Hiss’s conduit? Can he have a choice? 

Does he want to know what he’d choose?

Dissonance and Harmony.

Together, it’s just noise.

So many whispers he can hear. So many individuals, groups, thoughts, feelings, hunches, interpolations, archetypes. He feels everything. 

He feels as if his chest might explode. It all rushes past him, threatening to sweep him away. He sticks a hand out into the current to try and ground himself, grasping at thoughts.

Former, Board, House, resonances, radio waves, channels— spin the dial very quickly before the tones envelop you— you interference. You Threshold Kid. Don’t scream much. A Threshold, a door, the Door, the Portal, the Slide, Behind-The-Poster— a conduit, an amplifier, a transmitter, a House, Home, help.

He digs his nails in until he can feel the unbidden tears streak down his face, and latches onto the sensation like an anchor.

It’s distant, but it is enough. He scrambles to gain any ground he can, pulling his thoughts back into order, trying to find the clarity of mind to perceive.

The feeling still hasn’t passed. It’s like he’s planted his feet in the river and can still feel it rushing past and around him. It’s like he’s scanning a radio, fragments of signals feeding through before vanishing again.

How can he escape his thoughts? They always spiral out of control. Twist, turn, spiral.

White and empty or is it < $%@ pirate %!& phreaking? !*# > such eerie harmonies dream like haze did you get a copy of the reports a switchboard < Hang up now, please > want these waves to drag you away just a role a character think he’ll find a role < $!# connection !%* > one constant to be bowman converters at ninety-two point seven you’ve always been brighter we’re alike in a lot of ways but < $*@ alien? !#% > in the shadows he wanders inverted is made right < Operator/closed line/enough > no interruptions!

It is ringing. Ringing around him, through him, in him. Ringing like a phone or a bell or a chime or a hiss or a scream and his fingernails dig into his scalp and he screws his eyes shut as tight as possible and holds his breath and wills for it all to be—

Silent.

Utter, total silence.

Not a silence. This is not an absence of noise.

He can hear… a humming? A resonance? It is not loud, nor overwhelming, and somehow familiar, but nothing he can name. It is not welcoming to him, but it isn’t hostile. It simply is. And it does not seem to mind that he is listening.

The room is no longer spinning, the river of information no longer flowing. He is grounded, rooted, to where he stands. It is calm, and cool, and solid.

She isn’t here either, he realizes. Polaris.

Not that she’s distant, like he keeps her. But she isn’t here. At all. This is somewhere she is not. Not Earth.

It’s not Astral, either.

It isn’t even the haze of shifting dreamlands. No slides slotting quickly between worlds, rocketing him between all their frequencies.

This is… quiet. And strong.

It takes him far too long to realize his eyes are not open. He doesn’t dare try, in fear of breaking the spell.

What am I? He asks, annoyed with how pretentious he sounds.

A receiver, he thinks.

Tune in.

What am I tuned in to?

The sound continues to reverberate. With each looping rhythmic hum, it grows louder, filling up the air around him, threatening to compress him. His hands drift from his hair to his ears, clamping down hard over them, afraid they might bleed. His head aches, pulsing with the beat of the sound, trying to somehow seal him away from the sound. It permeates him.

He knows what this sound is. He’s heard it before, distantly, ambiently. The creak of a shifting, settling building. Living, growing.

This is the House itself.

This is ancient. This is power.

What can he even do?

He sinks down, tucking his head against his knees.

The House thrums. The House is.

He loses his thoughts to the sound, to the fog.

He cannot hear anything else. Not even himself. Somewhere, vaguely, he feels his elbows hit his ribs as he pulls his hands tighter over his ears. His mouth ghosts out silent words. He can taste metal and electricity. The sensation dances across his skin.

Please stop. Stop, stop, stop. I didn’t mean to. I can’t control it yet.

The House does not understand. The sound thrums.

Tears prick at the edges of his eyes as he thinks he can hear it waver, but his ears ring with the tone. It must be wishful thinking, at this point. To think he hears it fading. To think he hears respite. Imagining places he used to hide. Imagining what little escape he can, trapped here. Are those… ocean waves?

“Hei,” a voice cuts through the din. Dylan reflexively pulls his knees closer, trying to disappear. Then he bristles, the sound still ringing in his ears and mind. Whatever this is, he’ll kill it. He’ll end it, right now. If he goes, it does too. “Boy. No games. Get up now,” the voice continues. It’s stern, but lacks the weight of anger and disappointment Dylan was expecting.

He knows that voice.

“Yes, yes,” the voice chuckles. “Your wits are still about you. Up, before I drag you. Voi helvetti. Up.”

Dylan’s fingers slowly uncurl. His palms lift ever so slightly. 

Beyond the continued ringing, the overwhelming everything is gone. He hears… wind. And breathing. His own, and the figure near him. He hears his clothes shift as he unfurls himself.

“Are your eyes broken?”

Dylan swallows. I hope not.

The voice sighs. Dylan can picture him pinching the bridge of his nose.

“No," the voice sounds tired, but comforting. "They are not.”

He cracks open one eye, squinting in the sudden sunlight. Real sunlight. The rest comes to view quickly as he raises his head, groggy and labored. Wood planks, rough hewn doorways, windows, sky, trees…

“Ahti?” his voice comes out cracked and weak.

“So you are still there. Good. No time to contemplate origins. Your head may explode,” Ahti laughs. Dylan turns his gaze upward, slowly unfurling himself. The janitor is stood above him in an old, ratty, blue bathrobe. His hair is unkempt and expression carefully neutral. Dylan blinks.

He turns to look at the rest of the room. Sunlight is streaming in through the glass panes, filtered past pine needles and catching dust in the light. There’s kitchen cabinets and a table nearby, and ancient creaking wood planks beneath him. The roof arches, stained a deeper brown than the wood it's made of, a support beam running through the middle.

“No, it is not the House. Quick witted, hm?” Ahti hums, punctuating it with a grunt as he tilts his head. “You managed to pull quite the trick. Not one I was expecting, either. Interrupting a vacation before it was even over. A surprise visit.” He spreads one hand open, gesturing around the cabin, then scoffs, letting it drop as he turns away toward the kitchen.

If he didn’t know any better, Dylan would guess he was in trouble. He feels like he just… inconvenienced Ahti somehow. Not to mention…

He turns slowly, taking in the cabin again. The sudden shift feels like it should be disorienting, but he feels… safe. Comforted, even. Despite the confusion. This confusion feels safe. Not as unknown.

Ahti pulls a dishrag off of a cabinet handle with a practiced thwap before turning to the sink. The faucet pipes groan and struggle for a few seconds before the water begins to flow.

What happened to me? Dylan thinks. Ahti does not answer.

His ears are still ringing. He can still taste metal in his mouth. He swallows, blinking again. A cabin. Ahti. I was in the Bureau before, right? How did I get here? He digs the heels of his hands into his eyes, as if that’ll clear his vision and mind.

He remembers getting a concussion once, when he banged his head on a branch on his way down out of a tree. He was 8 at the time, and spent the rest of the day trying to review the moments before the ultimate fall in his head, the exact memory shrouded in fog.

It’s similar enough to this feeling, whatever this feeling is, he supposes. Like he’s waking up. Shaking off the dregs.

What happened to me? What was that? The ley line?

A pine branch outside shifts, sending a beam of light through the glass in front of his eyes. He flinches back, blinking heavily. It’s warm in here. Comfortable.

And utterly, beautifully quiet. Not silent, and not full of a resonance like before. This is peace. Familiar. 

He can hear birdsong. Wind. Distant water flow, outside somewhere, through the open windows. The rattle of the pipes in the wall. The floorboards shifting under his weight. The creak of a well-worn home. Ahti’s home.

“Vacation home,” Ahti calls from the sink, over the running faucet.

How does he do that? Dylan thinks. The janitor chuckles, a mischievous smile cracking across his face.

Dylan feels like every fiber of his being shouldn’t trust Ahti for that. For knowing. For having the power to take him here, from wherever he was. But… 

He does trust him. He thinks. Dylan is aware on some level that what he considers trust is not par for the course with most people’s definition. But Ahti is not par for the course with… anything, really. And yet Dylan can’t picture him being anything except the way he is. There is some fascinating, unnerving depth to Ahti. Not in a fearful way, like a deep dark never-ending hole you cannot see the bottom of, but like an ocean teeming with unknown creatures and ancient ruins and lost knowledge.

Awe inspiring. Inviting. Not hostile, but not necessarily safe. But good. And caring. Why does the ocean seem to fit so well? Is this the whole tuning in thing? Does Ahti have a frequency?

(Does everything?)

He slowly brings himself to his feet, running his hands over the rough woodgrain of the floor, letting the sun-warmed heat soak through his palms. He rolls his neck and shoulders, letting his head lull, stretching back out. At full height, he takes stock again, glancing around the room, reflexively noting the stairwell and doors. Ahti snorts.

“Here already and now you want to leave?”

What would even await him outside those doors? What would be in that forest?

It feels much safer to be here, anyway.

Dylan learned a long time ago that questions like ‘ is this real?’ are unhelpful and inaccurate, so he simply accepts the cabin as tangible and happening. He can ask about the planar nature of the place later. First order of business is the strange janitor he’s only met once. Besides in dreams. 

(Perhaps now, even, their meetings are still in dreams. But it doesn’t make it any less real. Not every dream is a planewalk, but there are plenty of planes lying within the mental and mental-adjacent. He should know. Hiss addled and comatose. Seeping paranatural power like heat waves or an oil spill. It’s a lot to wield.)

All that noise, all that information. The House. The ley lines. Knowing things about Bureau workers he has no genuine way of really knowing. Gut feelings about the paranatural. A gifted child.

Something warm spills down over his lip and chin, dripping onto his shirt. He instinctively swipes his hand across his face, and it comes back blood red.

Huh.

It’s a lot to wield. And apparently the psychic load took its toll.

He checks again, gently touching his upper lip, and finds the blood still flowing, dark and viscous, from both sides of his nose.

Kind of annoying. His brow furrows as he pulls his flannel sleeve over his palm and wipes it across his face, unintentionally dragging blood across his lips and cheek. He hasn’t had a nosebleed this bad in ages. I’m sure that’s real good for my health.

He reflexively licks his lips and regrets it, before putting some of the pieces of his hazy experience together. The metal taste he felt during the barrage of information. A psychic link, an overload. The nosebleed must’ve started then.

He tips his head back, pinching the bridge of his nose, trying to curb the source. He nearly jumps when Ahti appears next to him, handing him a dish towel.

“Stop leaning your head back. You will feel sick. Stop swallowing it. Same problem.” Ahti grumbles and swears, placing a hand on the center of Dylan’s back, pushing him toward the counter. “Here. The sink. Perkele, bleeding in my sink. Interrupting my vacation time. It is a sacred time, and work still worms in.” Ahti turns the sink back on, water gushing forth. Dylan almost finds his frustration amusing, in the haziness of it all.

(And, for the first time in months, he feels no unease at the mention of worms .)

“I’m work?” Dylan asks, glancing sideways. It’s not accusatory or offended. Just a query. He wipes his mouth with the rag, sopping up the blood flow. Ahti lets out an indeterminate grunt as he shuffles away.

“No. Yes. You are my worker. You have brought me work,” his voice grows louder and carries through the building as he vanishes into a hallway. “And you are work. But,” he reappears again, letting the pause hang in the air, bringing a wet washcloth with him. “I still like you. You are Janitor’s Assistant for a reason. Even with interruptions and questions.”

“And that… that, ” Dylan says, taking the washcloth. “Whatever that was. What I heard. Was that… the Board? And the House? And…” The water sops everywhere, turning pink and running down the drain and across his face.

“Using that brain of yours, are you? Yes. You pulled quite the stunt.”

“...so what—”

“No more questions,” Ahti states, waving his hand dismissively. “No more interruptions and questions on my vacation. Answers will come when the time is right. And you have moved fast. Impatient, are you?” Ahti chuckles at his joke. Dylan doesn’t quite understand. “But some questions. How will you use this, yes? Your new tool. Tools do not follow rules, but you…” Ahti nods his head, cinching the blue bathrobe tighter. “We will see, together, then. But first, you must get back to the House. Clean up. Then meet me over here.”

And with that, he vanishes down the hallway.

Dylan blinks.

I still don’t even know what happened to me, and he’s spouting life lessons?

There’s still blood everywhere. He takes care of that first. Start with the easiest task.

Looking up, he can see out the window and through the trees. Sun-warmed dirt drifts through the air. There’s a carpet of fallen needles, with manzanita and pine cropping up in dense pockets. There are mountains in the distance.

Whatever this is, it can’t be too bad.

He finally reaches a point where his face feels dry and the water runs clean, so he wrings out the washcloth and rubs his hands across his face again, like he’s just woken up for the day. Parts of him feel a tug to explore the cabin— to rush out the door and into the woods, into freedom, or up the stairs, poking through the rooms. But most of him wants to get home and rest. And he can hear Ahti humming and half-singing around the corner, clearly waiting for him.

“You’re ready!” the janitor says suddenly. “Now stop taking up all my time.” Dylan shuffles down the hall, almost ducking through the threshold. He rounds the corner to see Ahti holding open a closet door. A familiar light switch cord dangles down from the sloped ceiling.

“A ticket home. You should know how to use it.” He pats Dylan on the shoulder three times as he gets close. “And I will see you again. When the time is right. And I finish my damn vacation.”

Dylan wraps his fingers gently around the pull cord, nails catching on each link in the chain.

If planewalking had been like this instead of a comatose dream hellscape, he might not have minded it. Maybe with this new… whatever this is… he’ll get to do more of this.

He turns to Ahti, trying to decide how to say goodbye, or thank you, or sorry, or something, but the janitor has already shuffled off again. He turns back to the cord.

I’m sure he knows.

He tugs the cord down, bathing the cabin in yellow light. Another tug loses him a swath of blue light. The final pull swings the cord up out of his hands, vanishing entirely, as he blinks, taking in the sudden change of location.

The Oceanview smells musty. It’s quiet like an empty home. Eerie, almost, like finding the inhabitants gone when they shouldn’t be. There’s a radio on the front desk scanning through channels.

Real cute.

He taps the counter bell with his index finger, waiting for a door to swing open. In the meantime, in the silence, he tries to digest the sudden whiplash he’s gone through. HR demands, ley lines, resonances, janitors on vacation. New powers. Or old ones, maybe. Something. Who knows?

He pushes into the first motel room, scanning the desk and window sill. There’s a radio sitting on the sill, powered off and silent. He flicks it on, letting it scan the airwaves, jumping between broadcasts. On to the next room.

All that time, fearing the Hiss. Wondering how it’s affected him, and who he is. How Polaris affected him, pushing the Hiss out. How he might’ve changed. What he might’ve become.

The dread around it all is gone.

He enters the next room and has to search for the radio, finding it tucked in a side table drawer. He props it up in front of the lamp and flicks it on.

Things have happened to Dylan, but he is still himself. Not Hiss, not Polaris, not Bureau brand. He knew that before, but it feels like he’s finally seeing it now. Like he really believes it.

What is he? Can I have a choice?

A question he’s had to answer since he woke up. Who am I? Reintroduce himself to himself. Who are you, Dylan Faden?

What are you going to do?

It’s not frightening. The question no longer scares him. The question… it’s… dare he say it, hopeful. Not a dread-inducing unknown. But an option. A fresh chance.

The final radio is waiting for him on a desk. He flicks it on, and listens to all four of them filter through different stations, picking out phrases and songs and words.

I can do this. I can practice. I can get better.

He rings the bell again, reentering the first room. An old faux-bronze key is on the table, a plastic inverted pyramid attached to the ring.

Time to go home.

The pyramid door unlocks to reveal a portrait on the wall of him standing in… another closet. It’s littered with mops and brooms and buckets and toilet paper and reams of office supplies. Brush strokes capture the interwoven pattern of his flannel, back turned to the observer. Some idle part of himself notices that his hair looks nice from the back.

He pokes the light cord chain and lets it swing, taking a few deep breaths. He catches it on its way back, before giving it a pull.

Yellow, blue, closet.

It’s just like the painting hung in the motel. But now it’s missing the titular light switch cord. 

Probably for the best. Nobody needs to know where I’ve been.

He has no idea what closet this even is, or where in the House he’ll be spat out when he crosses the threshold of the door. He pushes it open confidently, like he’d always meant to be there, and strides out into a white-tiled hallway.

He can hear the clatter of dishes echoing up the cement columns. He can see the edges of redwoods poking into view.

Central Research. That’s easy enough. 

One of the upper levels, near the elevator, he thinks, glancing down one way, toward the wall of televisions.

It takes a moment for him to register the distinct, paranoid feeling of being watched.

He turns the other way and meets the eyes of a horrified researcher. Her mouth hangs open wide, shock and fear etched into her face. Dylan tilts his head in confusion, and she pulls her armful of documents closer to her stomach.

He just came out of a room. Why the big reaction? Does he know her?

His eyes flit down to her employee ID. He leans forward some, trying to read it. She stammers something incoherent, shuffling back a half step.

Jillian? I don’t…

He catches her gaze again, following her line of sight down to his shirt.

He can’t suppress the laugh that bubbles out of him.

The white shirt is now blood stained, smattered in diluted pinks and dried browns and reds near the collar. It looks like an absolute bloodbath. He looks back up at her with a grin.

“Oh, God…” she manages.

Dylan nods and smiles. Might as well be a menace about it.

“Don’t tell anyone,” he whispers with a lopsided grin. “Not like they’d believe you.”

She gasps and turns on her heel, dropping most of her papers in the process, running for the stairs.

Distantly, Dylan swears he can hear Ahti laugh.

One of her papers slides over to his feet, and he bends down to scoop it up, almost surprised to see it features his name on the front. Almost. He gathers up the others, stacking them up and leafing through as he walks. Information on the Hiss, on Dylan, on his treatment… how does she have any of this? He doesn’t recognize her. Isn’t some of this… what did the Bureau always call it… privileged information?

It’s nice to have secrets the Bureau doesn’t know.

He starts toward the elevator, tucking the pile of papers in half and into his back pocket.

A tiny part of him urges him to confide in his sister. To tell her he saw Ahti, and that he heard… that he heard everything. Or to tell Emily, even. She’s always trying to help him make sense of his mind.

Privileged information.

It’s nice to have secrets. Privacy. To be unknown to others but known to himself, instead of the other way around.

Let them wonder. Let them be lost in the unanswered unknowns. It’s his right to keep his life private.

He’ll figure this out on his own. For now, at least.

Content.

Equalized.

He follows the House’s ugly carpet.