Chapter Text
Asirel was hunched over, the hard metal of the chair digging into his skin. He could feel its coldness seeping into his bones, traveling to his chest where it warred with the oppressive heat spreading through his body. Cold sweat clung to him, and he shivered despite the stale warmth of the air.
One of the white tiles in front of him was cracked. He stared at it, the spreading cold leaving behind a numbness that made his heart ache. His tie was squeezing his neck, uncomfortably tight in its chokehold. He couldn’t breathe.
His ears were ringing, static drowning out the world around him. It had all faded to nothing as the nurse’s words hit him. Her sleek blonde hair was pulled into a ponytail that made her eyes look sharp. They studied him closely, waiting for his reaction as her eyebrows knit together in well-practiced sympathy.
She had delivered the news he had traveled here to get. No matter how completely he tried to convince himself it was not so — as he got into the car, barking orders at his driver to go, go, go — he knew he would be too late. He knew he would get there only to receive the words he wanted to will away. He was prepared to hear them, or so he told himself, but that did not make them hurt any less.
‘Sir, I am very sorry,’ she had said, fiddling with the crumpled edge of the paper on her clipboard as her eyes remained on him, strangely looking through him as if fixing on the word ‘son’ that must have been written in his eyes. ‘Your father—’
Memento mori, he supposed. Remember that you must die.
It was a philosophy his father had instilled in him more than anyone else, the stoic’s life of purpose and control a perfect tether to the world when he was drowning in his power. You must die. It was a humbling thought, briefly reflecting on this inevitability as he stepped into a meeting, knowing every day might be his last. Remembering to make it count so as not to waste his time and fulfill the purpose he placed upon himself.
In the end, he knew he needed to reconcile the idea of having the world at his fingertips with the raw vulnerability of being merely human. He could change the world. He wanted to when the time was right, but there were things outside his control that would drive him to madness if he could not let them go, unused to the feeling of sheer helplessness in the face of these unshakable certainties.
Death was one such thing. Death he had to accept. Death he could not escape — neither his own nor that of those around him.
No matter how prepared for it he thought himself, being aware of the fact of death — its inevitability, its absolute certainty — it still came unexpected, leaving him rattled in a way he knew he should not allow himself to be. No matter how much he thought it was unable to surprise him, Asirel still wound up collapsed in one of these uncomfortable hospital chairs.
So much for his stoicism. Memento mori. He should have chased away the feeling of being untouchable while he still had his father to guide him, reflect on the briefness of time a little more, and stave off his complex ideas for the shape of the world for later.
Now he was here. Later was now. What would he do?
He could already feel the air growing thinner. The grief in his chest brought forth a feeling of inadequacy. His new responsibilities were crushing him already, the fall of his father raising him to incomprehensible heights he did not know how to breathe in. He was weightless, high above the clouds, but crushed nearly into nonexistence, buried deeper than they would lower his father.
He thought he would have more time to prepare for this. He was not ready yet to roam in these heights, not when the fall was so steep and he could hardly see the tightrope keeping him afloat. What would he do now?
The world spun around him as he raised his head, searching for answers the cracked tile could not give him. He saw his mother through the open door, standing at the foot of the bed with one arm wrapped around herself to self-soothe, wiping away silent tears with the tissue she clutched in her shaking hand.
The black suit she wore fit the occasion in a way she could not have foreseen when she put it on this morning. Her soft brown locks were straightened to go out, knowing her husband’s lips would curl into a smile once he saw her in the evening, pulling her into his chest to play with the smooth strands he loved to feel between his fingers.
Now she was here instead, standing in front of the cooling corpse and trying to ignore how the hair falling into her face felt like gentle caresses as her body shook with suppressed sobs.
His sister stood beside her, expression deadly blank as she nodded to what the nurse was saying. She was listening closely, filing away the information because she knew her mother was not listening — could not listen over the sound of her heart breaking and the burning silence of her husband’s stillness — so she could tell her later, fill her in on what the hospital had told her and gently guide her through the details as she clutched a pillow.
And him.
Asirel felt wretched watching her neutrality, hearing the faint sound of her voice as if from underwater as she opened her mouth to ask a clarifying question. It should be him instead, standing beside his mother, taking care of things while his little sister was allowed to sob, give way to her grief, and feel the extent of her loss fully because she knew he would be there to take care of things.
It was his job. It should be him keeping his composure, keeping a tight hold on his mind and spiraling emotions so they didn’t have to.
But he couldn’t pull himself together. The world kept spinning. His vision was flat. Everything felt so very far away andhe could not help feeling that he would keel over any moment, crumble to the ground like a marionette with its strings cut. He could not make up a single word in the nurse’s constant stream of sounds, knowing she was talking but he just couldn’t understand. He had no strength to concentrate, lead weighing down his limbs so much it took all his effort to tighten his hold on the chair to keep him from toppling over.
He knew he should find his way back to the world around him, knew he should catch himself in this downward spiral, but every time he tried to hold onto an appearing ledge, it disappeared under his grasp and he just slipped deeper.
His little sister was bearing the brunt of this crushing weight, but he could not stop himself from falling, slipping deeper and deeper into a void of pure panic and pain and grief until the drop was all he knew, all he could feel through the cycle of numbness and too much as the tar of the darkness around him constricted, swallowing him whole.
He gasped, moving his hand to loosen his tie with clumsy fingers. They were trembling, barely obeying as the fabric slipped between them, feeling muted and unreal. It was the striped black and gold tie his father had gifted him, along with a deputy position — which he had earned — and a mountain of responsibilities when he had turned twenty-five.
That mountain had just tripled. It was shaking. He was being crushed by an avalanche.
No, this felt like a bad nightmare. One of those from which he awoke with a silent scream on his lips, drenched in sweat and shaking in fear as he heaved down gulps of breath, clutching the comforter to ground himself against the tide of his mind, trying to drag him into the ocean to drown.
No, no. This could not be real. It did not feel real. Any moment now he would wake up, heave a sigh of relief through the sob building up in his throat, and throw open the window, taking calming breaths of the cool night air as he realized that he still had time. Time, time.
He squeezed his eyes shut. The startling pull of waking never came. He was not dragged upwards. Instead, he continued to drop, sinking deeper into this new reality of bleak, black, crushing walls, granite grappling in his chest and tearing him apart from the inside.
He felt hollow. Color drained from the world, leaving only a flat gray as the hospital walls and the tiles and the fucking chairs on the other end of the corridor twisted before him. His mother’s black suit morphed into a mass of darkness. His sister’s bright, white-dyed hair turned to nothing but a speck of light in the distance, one of many dancing in his vision.
He needed to get out. He needed a breath of fresh air.
Waking evaded him, and with every moment he continued to fall, drop, sink in this new reality, the thought solidified itself that this was, in fact, reality.
This was his life now.
This was the changed status quo he should have been preparing himself for, instead of clinging to the foolish certainty that he was above such things as death and grief when he should have known better, told himself that he knew better.
Memento mori — except he forgot to remember. Truly remember, past the grim assurances he made himself that death was an inevitable part of life. Internalizing this sentiment was a whole other issue he had glossed over, and it was leaving him in shambles now when he should be keeping it together — for his family’s sake at least.
But he could not even do that.
Asirel gripped the armrest, heaving himself up on unsteady feet. The world dipped , and he squeezed his eyes shut, listening to the door of the ward fall shut loudly and wondering if he was coming up from the depths of his mind, or if his senses were merely heightened before the inevitable crash.
He would not faint. He would not.
Cold sweat coated his forehead, making him feel stuffy and wet in his suit jacket as his white dress shirt clung to him. He took a step forward carefully, willing himself to let go of the armrest. He trailed a hand along the washed-out white wall, just in case his wobbly legs threatened to give out. He was only vaguely conscious about where he was going, the wall beside him giving him enough direction that he felt less like floating through the empty corridor.
The entire ward was empty, a safety precaution his father had installed long ago. No doctors and nurses were rushing about. No patients were being transported from one room to another. No body bag was being wheeled down the clean, white tiles yet.
The image made his stomach turn. He clasped a hand over his mouth to swallow the nausea, listening to the ring of silence beyond the rushing and whistling in his ears. He was dead, yes.
His father was dead. This was his reality.
The air in the hospital ward, stale and laced with the smell of linoleum and hand sanitizer, turned suffocating. Every breath he took felt like a lungful of dust in his chest, making his head spin until he could no longer tell if he was upright at all. Light flashed in his vision, little stars of sparkling white letting him know that he was done for. Any moment he would tumble to the ground, crushed under the weight of his mind and dragged down by his heavy heart. Any moment. He was burning, falling, suffocating.
The drop was imminent, and it would leave his insides spilling across the floor, damaged beyond repair as the cold, thin air of his newfound power vanished in his grasp, replaced with this stifling, warm nothingness.
His hand caught on something, a ledge that did not recede. He pushed against it, stumbling over the threshold and nearly falling into the cold gust of wind that met him.
He was on the terrace, the hospital’s smoking area. Why such a thing existed was beyond him, but he did not care as he listened to the wind, taking deep breaths of the blessedly cold air that felt like a blam to his burning insides.
The terrace was simple, the night perhaps hiding things that would have turned the brutalist structure less dull. It was clean and decisive, entirely practical. Its dark stone furnishings were gray in the darkness, benches made of stone blocks adorning the space where visitors could sit down and breathe. Asirel paid the architecture no mind, walking past it all to lean over the edge instead, resting his arms against the thick stone that made up the railing.
The specks of light in his vision were replaced with the glinting city lights, sparkling right before him. A mixture of yellow, white, and blue (from the approaching ambulance). The colors twisted together until he blinked his tears away, and saw them clearly once more. They were a reminder that the world was still there, very much still turning despite the tragedy playing out in room two hundred-seventeen.
He took a deep breath, closing his eyes to block out the lights he knew he had to return to soon enough. Reality. His reality. He allowed the fresh air to soothe his nerves and lessen the sharp ache in his chest. There was no escaping this. His father was dead, and responsibility fell on him.
The image of his sister returned to his mind, nodding along to the nurse, a blankness in her eyes that made his blood turncold. He hung his head in shame — responsibility fell on him — and fought to get it together again. The thought alone of stepping back inside was overwhelming, threatening him with another spiral of panic that would suck him into the void depths of his pain. His mouth was dry.
The city lights twinkled on, and he tensed, raising his head instinctively in alarm as he heard the door to the terrace fall shut.
He was not alone.
“Penny for your thoughts?” you asked, voice filtering through the oppressiveness of the night. Your tone was light but carried a certain edge that made him weary. The gentle question seemed wrapped in concern, hesitation at its core he could not quite grasp because you hid it well, slicing through your uncertainty with a well-practiced flick of a knife.
Asirel did not turn, frozen in place as his mind ran in circles, trying to understand if you were a friend or foe. The line was often blurry, most people changing sides frequently to further their own interests. He kept his eyes fixed straight ahead, waiting for your next move, and suppressing the fear cursing through him at having his back turned to someone whom he did not trust.
If you wanted to hurt him, you could. He was in no state to defend himself. The security posted further down the corridor had no chance of reaching him in time. If you wanted, you could kill him.
It would put an end to his troubles at the very least.
Your footsteps drew nearer, measured and steady like waves crashing on the shore. Unstoppable and relentless. You walked up beside him, leaning against the banister.
He risked a glance, expecting to find himself staring down the barrel of a gun. He looked at your profile instead, your head turned to gaze at the city spreading out before you.
Somehow, as you kept your gaze locked on it and the lights reflected in your eyes, it looked less like the world was weighing you down — less like it was happening to you, and you simply had to endure — and more like you were appraising it, eyes glancing over the lights as if checking if they were working as they should, making sure the design of reality aligned with your expectations of it.
You looked ethereal, striking with your arms loosely crossed, resting on the gray stone. He glanced at the paper cup in your hand, remembering the water dispenser near the end of the corridor, eyeing the clear liquid in it. The long black coat you wore fluttered in the breeze, but your rapt attention was unwavering, focusing on the city as you looked at it with an unreadable expression.
Asirel was intrigued, enraptured by the air around you and your very essence. There was something about you that radiated power — vice-like control he could not help but envy — while you looked out of place against the mundane simplicity of the hospital. You seemed larger than life, a taste of the importance his father always carried creeping up on his tongue as he stared at you. The choking sorrow of death felt beneath you, the shining tiles not polished enough to catch your attention and the time not passing by sufficiently quickly as you wasted yours in here.
He wondered briefly how you had gotten past the security posted at every entrance with strict orders to repel everyone. The question was quickly answered as he caught a glimpse of the ring on your finger, cold silver shining on the right hand holding the cup.
A sudden pang of familiarity hit him. He had the strange impression that he had seen you before, in a picture his father showed him or from a brief encounter in the hallway of his mansion. The furrow in your brow looked familiar, and as you turned your head to look at him, he got the feeling that he had experienced the intensity of your piercing gaze once before.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” you noted politely, expression somber as your lips narrowed in a thin line. You were appraising him, he knew, shrinking a little under your gaze and balling his hands into fists to hide their shaking.
Vulnerability was a weakness, and he could not allow himself to slip so soon on his uphill climb to power. And you looked like a powerful enemy to make. You were here for a reason, and on the off chance you would be working together from now on, he did not want to give you fodder to grind him under your heel.
You held out the paper cup for him to take. It looked more like an olive branch in the low light. “Perhaps you remember me? I thought I made a lasting impression in Switzerland from the way your eyes shone.”
The memory flooded his mind, clicking his perception into place. The deep, rich browns of the Hotel Bellevue Palace. The sparkling chandeliers and floors polished to a shine. The rich smell of tobacco from the cigar his father smoked — a rare indulgence — and the sweet taste of the vanilla whiskey on his tongue as the caramel tones of the bar materialized in his mind’s eye.
It was a chance encounter, a meeting that felt like it had been an eternity ago although it could not have been more than two years.
What his father had done in Switzerland he had never revealed. Asirel had accompanied him for business of his own in Bern. You had been there, sitting by the counter of the hotel bar next to the lobby, the gold and brown shimmering around you. His father had stopped — and how he had spotted you Asirel never understood because you fit into the surroundings perfectly, adorning them like thorns did a rose.
You had looked at the mountain scenery outside, absentmindedly nibbling on a gourmet pastry as you waited for your drink. When you noticed them, you had looked at his father for a long moment, barely concealing the glint of contentment in your eyes. He introduced you to Asirel, your sharp gaze making him shiver unnoticed as he held your gaze.
You had taken a sip of your drink after both of them had declined your invitation to join them, pulling out a diamond ring and pressing it into his father’s hands with the simple words ‘greetings from the eminence.’
His father had never explained. It felt unnecessary to ask now. Whatever had happened before was lifetimes away.
Asirel took the offered cup — friend or foe? He trusted his father’s instincts — and sipped the water. Immediate relief hit him. The water was cool, grounding as it cleared his mind. The ringing in his ears subsided, the world stopped twisting as he drank some more, and the feeling of suffocation had nearly vanished by the time he emptied the cup.
“Why are you here?” he asked, no bite to his words. The subtle gratitude in his tone did not evade you, and you smiled faintly as you rubbed your hands together, warming them against the chill.
You took a moment to answer, letting the silence linger. “I have worked closely with your father,” you said, choosing your words carefully. “I would go so far as to call him a friend.”
That did not answer his question. Asirel crumpled the empty cup. “I doubt you are here out of sentimentality,” he said, pressing for an answer. A part of him was glad that you stalled, dreading the idea of returning inside, fixing his eyes on the lifeless shell that had once been a man he admired above everyone.
“Sentimentality,” you echoed, chuckling faintly. The sound felt pained as if you were amused at a cosmic joke that he was not in on, its underlying tragedy something that could only be born with lightheartedness. “What makes you think I cannot be sentimental about death? But I concede, I have ulterior motives. I am here on business, so to speak. His death is business, as much as I wish it could be entirely sentimental.”
There is was — proof that the world kept spinning. You were the very fact incorporated, shielding your emotions to be five paces ahead, shying away from the mundane to revel in the extraordinary. Looking at a corpse in a hospital bed did not further you in any way, and Asirel was not naive enough to think that you would waste your precious time to look at the empty shell of his father.
No, you were busy guarding his legacy.
His father was dead, and although Asirel could break down and cry at this bitter injustice, tear out his heart, and claw at the ground in a fruitless attempt to stop reality from sinking its teeth into him, the world had already moved on.
You had already moved on. He just hoped he could keep up with the pace.
“Well?” he asked, keeping his voice neutral. He could guess what you had come here to do, assure yourself that the position his father had left vacant would be filled immediately. Make sure he would return to the room and retrieve the silver ring on his finger, commanding it to be adjusted to his size.
“I would like to propose an alliance,” you said instead, watching as his eyes widened in disbelief. “If you would be amenable, I propose your loyalty for my knowledge. Nothing untoward, of course. Only your support when I need it and the certainty that I can count on you. I offer guidance in these— these wuthering heights,” you finished, hiding a smile at the reference.
Asirel blinked, failing to make out the details of your expression in the darkness. “My loyalty for guidance,” he surmised, gaze falling to the ground beneath.
The thirty-storey drop made a shiver run down his spine. He feared the fall, of course he did. That was as good a reason as any. If his father's endless hours and trice heightened security were any indication, people plummeted into the depths all the time.
“Who are you? Mephistopheles?”
You chuckled, feeling the first bridge built between you. “I understand you need time to ponder this Faustian Bargain, as you view it.” The humor at the requited literary reference was gone in a blink as you sobered, reminding yourself of the gravity of the situation. “It is a tough world, and it is made tougher by wanting to tackle everything on your own. Allies are never superfluous, Asirel. Your father taught me that. Think about this carefully.”
The body had not even gone cold yet, and here you were, already snatching up his replacement. The world was sickeningly fast-paced. But he supposed in this line of work — in yours, in his — there was no minute to waste.
He had wasted enough time already. Reality could only be avoided for so long, and he had overindulged.
“We are colleagues now, I believe,” he said, holding out a hand for you to shake. If you were amused, you did not show it, taking it instantly. “A pleasure to meet you properly this time.”
“The pleasure is all mine,” you said, squeezing firmly.
He eyed the ring on your finger, the drawing of the pentagon on it a physical symbol of the responsibility he now carried, a pillar of the structure that kept the world in order.
“Welcome to the Collective, Mr. Cain. And a special welcome to the inner circle. We look forward to working with you.”
“Thank you,” he bit out, ignoring the bile rising in his throat.
He could only ignore reality for so long.