Work Text:
The two are standing in the room where Mother resides, walls of muscle and eyes, of hands and faces. Perhaps the room is Mother, but she can’t really bring herself to care. She is motionless as always, just as Charles remembered her. Only flesh and organs move around them, pulsing and twitching. Above them hang hundreds of herself, asleep and ready to be born into the cycle of fiction. It’s unnerving, watching them sleep in silence. Or, well, it was somewhat quiet. Ambient noise penetrated the air; warbled cries, the beat of a heart, and Q84’s own memory of breaking glass. It was quiet between them. Herself and the god of this world. But it isn't long until Charles breaks the silence.
“You know, miss Wiltshire?”
Q84 brings her eyes to him, rather than to the mass before them. He clutches the invention of Felix Honniker in his hand. He’s shaking, despite the calm smile on his face. “What is it, Charles?”
The smile stays as he speaks. “During my lifetime in the True Realm, I always wanted to be liked by others. Yet somehow, it never seemed to work out. No matter what I did, I was either a ghost or a burden. A kid no one wants to sit with, no matter how good my grades got,” Oh, another monologue. It’s a blip of a thought in the back of her head. She stays quiet, but shifts closer to him, trying to show that she’s listening. That she cares. Because she does, despite the appearances she puts up. Q84 has always cared a little too much; it’s why she shoves everyone away with harsh words, with laughter and a sneer. “Never expressing my opinion aloud, always going along with the flow, constantly shape-shifting, adapting my personality traits to match others, saying what others want to hear just so that they would want to be around me.”
There’s a bitter taste in her mouth. Q84 understands all too well.
“I wanted to connect with others, yet pushed them away as soon as we got close. Repulsed by physical closeness, I drifted away from human contact further and further. Yet, somehow, through art and writing…” He tilts his head, brings his hand to his chest. “I was able to connect with others in a way that didn't feel repulsive. Miss Warhol, Vincent…” He chuckles sadly, and she remembers the view of the mangled body from the rooftop. She remembers the scattered medication and hands on Charles’ collar, shaking him. Tears of a friend falling on his face. “I would've never been able to open up to them if it wasn't for my work, however small and insignificant it was. After all, all my life I defined myself with things I could put on paper.”
Her hand reaches to intertwine with his, squeezing in comfort. It’s been a hard day for both of them. No one is here to watch their precious princess drag the pad of her thumb over her Father’s gloved hand. He takes a deep breath, a long pause. He’s thinking, mouth still formed into that quiet smile. “So even here, this world subconsciously ended up relying on it, on my art and the connections I made. Without fiction, without an appealing protagonist, no one would bother staying in the House. That's how I must've felt.”
The House. Something that must have felt like a burden, at this point. Taking comfort in burying the body of his false god, of watching the lives of his creation. A side character in the world he made. Q84 wasn’t a very empathetic person, not anymore. Not since she began to think of herself as Q84 instead of Charlotte, prying and reaching for an identity, a break from the cycle. But she knows the burden of the House too well. Something she can never leave, will never be free from.
Just as Charles has never been free.
She would have escaped from the house if she could, she often thinks, but the care and love and ties she has for Charles, Aiden, the other residents… perhaps she would have stayed. For them, even if a majority of the other residents were simply following the fiction created by the House for her. She gives another light squeeze to his hand.
“If it was you, miss Wiltshire, you surely would've made the ending spectacular, wouldn't you?” He turns his head to her, brings a hand to her shoulder. No, she thinks bitterly. I could never have the strength you have. “But with me, the most I can do is come to terms with the loss of my loved ones..” He looks almost wistful. As much as one can, here. “Losing Scarlett to Father's decision, Mother to her mental illness, Vincent to my own delusions, and Anri to the distance…” Tears glisten in his eyes. “There doesn’t seem to be an end to my regrets, hm?” He drops her hand to wipe his eyes before he steps forward, bringing the hand that holds Felix’s invention up, and closer to himself.
“Now then, back to the purpose of the visit to this room.”
Charles is no longer speaking to her. He is speaking to himself. Q84 stands in the background, and she knows now. What is in the syringe.
This is it, isn’t it? Is what she thinks as he speaks to Mother, comforting her. Q84 thinks she can make out the mass of organs say something about being tired. Charles’ smile stays, and she feels like she is intruding on a moment. This is the end.
“You can rest now.” The final words he mutters to Mother, a gentle hand on one of her many bodies. The injection is quick, but the screaming is long. It is full of agony. Mother is writhing now. Screams rise from other mouths scattered about the room. Crystals begin to sprout from the flesh around them. Charles is turning towards her, reaching out a kind hand.
“Charles, you…” You’re strong. You’re a good person. You’re not what you think you are. You are someone who did not deserve how the world treated them. You’re ending this? Thoughts swarm in her head, and words rise in her throat. Half of them are half-baked comforts, others are questions and speculations. She can’t get out everything she wants to say in a few sentences. Not to mention she probably wouldn’t be heard among the cries anyway.
“You will be the last of your kind, Q84.” Her ID; the name she has adopted. Usually, it’s ‘Miss Wiltshire,’ or ‘Charlotte.’ Never the name she has chosen for herself. The pure-white girl forces her face into one of quiet and ease. “There’ll be no more stories, no more dreams,” His eyes are closed now. His closed-mouth smile stretches wider across his face as he speaks. He almost looks happy. “No more control. At last, we will be free of everything. No more restrictions! No more fate! No more endings!” His arms rise, wide. His palms are lifted towards the crystallizing Charlottes. “Wonderful, isn’t it? Mother… will no longer…”
A particularly loud scream pierces the air. Charles’ face is falling. His arms drop back to his sides. She can only watch as he curls upon himself, crying into his hands. The boy drops to his knees and ink surrounds him, nearly swallowing him whole. He is sobbing, almost louder than Mother. Not even the first time I’ve seen him break down, the girl muses. And yet…
She doesn’t care for the ink that soaks into her skirt as she kneels by him, bringing her arms around his back. She rests her head on his. He quivers and shakes with his sobs. The crystals surround them, now. Mother’s cries are quieting. And soon, all she can hear is him.
“It’s okay,” her voice is quiet. A whisper. “It’s okay, Father. Your world met its end a long time ago, but a new one will surely begin from scratch. Humanity as you knew it has ceased to exist, only to make room for a new generation.” She can feel the House collapsing around them. “As long as there are believers, their gods will be reborn, and churches will be rebuilt as their sanctuaries.” The end is approaching now, and she cannot think of a better way to end, her usually-violent hands one of comfort. She feels at peace. “A new day will come, and your time will start moving again.”
He is still crying, just as loud, but he is leaning into her touch. The true comfort of a person he never had. The world around them is crashing and fading.
“There is nothing to be sad about.”