Chapter Text
The door was no different than any other door. Just as nondescript as the rest. Like so many of the other doors no one had ever thought to open it. There were just too many doors to know what was really behind all of them. There was something to a rhyme and reason, though the untrained mind would never be able to follow the pattern of do’s and don’ts that created fractals of similarities spanning across floors and hallways. If someone sat down and did the math, maybe then, after a few differential equations, someone would come to the conclusion that this particular door was at some point in time a broom closet.
It wasn’t always a broom closet. That was another tricky thing about doors, as it was impossible to tell what was behind them until they were open. And when doors were closed who knew what was happening behind them. Once again, someone could sit down and do the math. That sometimes this was a broom closet, sometimes it was a bathroom, sometimes it was a patio, sometimes it was a beach house.
Another funny thing about doors is that they go both ways. And if you stood on the other side of the door sometimes it was all of those things, and sometimes it was a hallway that led to nowhere but also everywhere. Lined with doors that all looked nearly the same. This door had not made up its mind yet on where it truly wanted to lead. And most of the time that was no issue. A quantum hiccup of sorts. They happen from time to time, no one really knows why, maybe someone somewhere drank water that was a little too cold a little too fast.
Regardless of the reason, the universe still hiccuped, and on one side of the door was the winding corridor of the mansion, or very large house, and on the other side was the pad, or very small house. It had happened before, that those doors were one in the same, the universe would eventually stop hiccupping and they would both change, but for right now it was a law of the universe that those two houses, alike in dignity, were in the same scene.
It was not abnormal for random people to be seen in the house. Really no one knew where they came from. Well, maybe Helen did, but she just said they also lived there. The boys had the space for it. It helped keep their lives interesting. Manford did his best to keep track of what personalities dwelled where. It helped manage whatever less than enjoyable situations the boys found themselves in. If he could at least be one step ahead.
It was so hard for him to keep one step ahead. Far too often his head felt filled with scambled eggs and he tried desperately to hold onto reality. He would find himself in a part of the mansion that almost felt like it had a draft. And he would be filled with that mind-numbing dread. Like a magnet to a tape. Static and nausea filling his senses as everything seemed to fall in on himself.
He marked those parts of the house. For the boys sakes and his own. To keep them from having to suffer through that awful, destroying feeling. To keep them from that pain. And to keep himself from losing all his hard work.
He was walking the perimeter hallway when he found himself doing a doubletake. Some man who almost looked recognizable out of the corner of his eye. Blonde hair, carefree, a smile to warm anyone’s heart. Seeing him wander struck fear into him. Manford did his best to follow him, chase him down, see where he was going. He nearly scruffed the man like a cat before he was able to walk through some nondescript door.
“You.” Manford pointed a finger into his face. “What are you doing here?”
Much like a cat being scruffed, Peter froze in place. Eyes wide and starting to fill with fear. “Fruit?” He said quietly. His arms filled with apples and oranges and other things he had gathered from the diner.
“I do not want to see your face in here again young man, do you hear me?” Manford was looking over his shoulder, trying to see if there was anyone else around, witnesses or strays. Manford did not know what would have been worse.
“Hey, leave Peter alone!” It was the worst voice that Manford could have heard. Stern but still a mousy quality to it. He looked over and saw a man, hat and all, marching towards him. “Peter did nothing wrong, he said he had a place to get fruit, not his fault- what the…” Mike stopped talking as he looked down both halls. “Peter, I thought you had a fruit basket in here, why do you have a hallway in our broom closet?”
“No no no, you need to go,” Manford was trying his best to push both men through the door. “Off you go good bye.”
“Now hold on a minute,” Before Mike could continue Micky and Davy were coming up behind him.
“Woah, since when do we have a new hallway?” And Micky was off, down the corridor at full speed. Like a jack russell terrier given a double espresso and taken off the leash. Manford tried to grab him but he only had two hands, and both were already occupied with Peter and Mike.
“If everyone is having a patio party I want in,” Davy was now poking his head through. Eyes also wide as he looked around. “What is this place?”
“It’s Peter’s fruit cabinet.” Mike said simply.
“You must be joking. Peter, is this where you have been getting the fruit from?” Davy asked.
Peter nodded with a smile, handing some of the fruit in his arms over to Davy. All the fruit was getting stuffed into jacket pockets leaving their hands mostly free.
“I am not doing this, all of you back, shoo, back to your own, what do you call it, Pad?” But as Manford spoke, as if fate, the wind blew from the Pad-Side of the door. Slamming it in their faces. “Well don’t just stand there, open it!” Manford kept looking over his shoulder, hoping no one was watching.
“Now hold on just a minute,” Mike repeated. “What about Micky?”
“I will go catch your little drummer boy and return him to you unscathed.” Manford still trying to urge them forward.
“Don’t trust him, Mike. He yelled at me for taking fruit even though the sign in front of the bowl said ‘Free Fruit,’” Peter said as he held onto Mike’s arm.
“Come on, just let us come with you to go get Micky, we just want to make sure he gets back safe.” Davy tried to plead.
“No,” Manford continued to shove them towards the door, “It is bad enough I already had one of you wandering around here, even worse I have another one to catch, the last thing I need is the whole lot of you running a muck in this house!” Then there was a cracking noise. A crack through the door. And Manford stopped pushing. “Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no.” He was backing away. “Whatever you do, do not open that door.”
“Can you make up your mind, go through the door, don’t go through the door, I can’t keep up.” And like an idiot Mike opened the door. Opened it to nothing. A dark black void that had a very uneasy feeling about it. At moments it seemed to twitch and glitch and groan. Bubble and ooze like a festering wound. The longer Mike looked at it the more sick he felt. What he saw was nothing, what he felt like he saw was slow and painful. Wrapping around his mind and chest like ivy tearing down a house. Invasive. Growing through his veins and replacing all that he was with something he very much was not. He felt himself morph into something he did not recognize. Not anything specific. But the abstract concept being burned into him as a fact. It would happen. This all was going to end horribly. By the end of this it was going to hurt.
It was Davy who had to close the door. Mike stumbled back against the opposite wall, taking a few moments to blink away the feeling. It took a while to dissipate, but eventually it did, but it left a strange gnawing hole in his chest. He hoped that would go away too in time. “Mike, are you okay?” Peter was offering him an orange, and Mike started to chew on it. Rind and all.
“Oh, to quote you boys, today just doesn’t seem to be my day.” Manford tapped his foot, trying to think, occasionally looking over his shoulder. “Now, for reasons that I cannot get into, you boys do need to follow me.”
Davy and Peter looked at each other. An entire conversation happening in their stare. The pros, the cons, what other possible options they had, the severity of Mike’s state, how Micky played into it all, all communicated in one look. “Alright, but only if it has some place Mike can lay down.”
Manford gave a huff. “Yes, it will have a place for Wool Hat to lay down.”
Peter looped his arm around Mike’s and helped lead him down the hall. His other free hand holding onto Davy’s as to not get separated. At a few moments Davy tried to ask questions but Manford just shushed him. Looking down the corridors to make sure no one was coming.
He didn’t know how long they walked for. It felt like ages. All the doors looking nearly the same. It gave Davy the chills. To see the same thing over and over and over again. It felt like the kind of place he could go mad in.
“Here.” Manford opened up a door and switched on a light. “You should be safe in here.”
The room was filled with pillows and blankets and forts of some kind. “What is this? Some kind of institution?” Davy was hesitant to going into the room.
“You wanted a place for your friend to rest, and I need you in a place where you are safe. This room covers both.” Manford once again was trying to urge them into the room.
“You have to tell us a little bit more than that, we might be dumb but we aren’t stupid.” Davy was keeping Peter from going into the room.
Manford huffed, walking into the room first. “See? No tricks! Now if you walk in here I will explain as much as I can.” There was another glance shared between Peter and Davy. One that was far more communication than any glance had any business having. But they both came to the same conclusion, to walk into the room. “Thank you,” Manford walked behind them and closed the door. “Now, this house is very dangerous. There are dangerous people. And the security here would not be happy to see you. This room has no security cameras. I promise that I would not do anything to put you into harm's way.” Manford put his hand in the air as if swearing an oath. “Englishman to Englishman.”
Davy laughed, “Englishman? Your accent is all over the place.”
“Well so am I.” And there was a sincerity in Manford's voice. A sincerity that Davy would have doubted more if he did not already see Mike and Peter seated on the ground. Peter pulling the orange from Mike like a teething toy from a toddler.
“Just make sure that Micky comes back in one piece.” Davy said with a nod.
And in a moment it was just the three of them in the room. Soft lighting and pillows and mats and blankets and sheets. An entire room for pillow forts. With anything and everything one might need.
Davy joined Peter and Mike on the floor. “I swear, you do not need to worry about me.” Mike’s voice shook as he spoke, but he was trying hard to be convincing as possible.
“The orange tells me otherwise.” Peter said as he turned over the orange in his hands. Most of it intact except for one single corner, or whatever that could be considered on a sphere, where Mike had gnawed through the peel and had gotten a few decent bites in.
“I got it out of my system.” Mike smiled, smiled in a way that made both Peter and Davy feel uneasy, but they were going to trust him. “Where are we anyway?” Mike said finally getting a proper look at the room, his mind occasionally drifting back to distant thoughts, distant thoughts that he could not quite place, but felt like he could not look away from.
“Some sort of pillow room.” Davy said, also looking around. “Aparently the guards here don’t like us and that guy with the questionable accent said that this place was safe.”
“You know Davy, it isn’t very kind to judge people based on their accents.” Mike said it almost like clockwork.
“It was a questionable English accent, as in he was not very good at doing one.” Davy still looked around the room, as if he was looking for something that would make everything make more sense.
Peter kept his attention on Mike, “Are you sure something didn’t happen when you looked at whatever was on the other side of that door?” Something about the way Mike seemed to look off into nothing didn’t sit right with him. A lot of this didn’t sit right with him, he just had not figured out how it actually sat yet.
It took Mike a moment to answer. “No, no, nothing happened. Just got a little spooked, is all.” And Mike smiled, desperate and pleading. Begging Peter to believe him. Or to at least pretend he did.