Strange Growths

by Cakes Blargh

Patrick Gordon. Accountant, divorcee, and attentive father. His bowling league think he's a little weird, but a nice guy. He's not what his mother wanted him to be... but when his 'brother' comes calling, he might have to embrace his family legacy after all. Sometimes a Pariah just can't run far enough away.

4. Running

AN: Coin beta'd these chapters (from prologue to doge chapter). Even then there were so many atrocious mistakes. I'm sorry for the pain but currently going through all of them and rewriting/editing some bits.

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Chapter Three: Running

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"You're sure her samples are clean?" Patrick asked the doctor, reading the medical reports and charts.

"We scanned her properly," Ragland reported.

"Did you cut her open and take swabs?"

Ragland stopped and pulled his face from the microscope. He turned and looked at the dark blonde man. He might have imagined it but there was a hidden edge in that question.

"You've never introduced yourself properly," the doctor said.

Green eyes looked up and focused on him. "You don't need to know."

Mercer called him Pariah earlier. That should've been enough of a hint that it was a codename like Zeus. The fact he strolled in here without an eyebrow raising was another as this was a staff only lab area.

Alex had explained enough to get the job done and made it clear where he stood now, as well who and what he was as well. A creature simply wearing a human visage, specifically the terrorist behind Manhattan. That, he didn't need to be told. Ragland knew the moment Alex showed he was asymptomatic… he wasn't human. He was something else, in a technical sense. It did peak his intrigue at how a creature like him could exist.

How different he was to other infected.

"We took samples, yes," Ragland said, recalling many operations Jan Doe went through.

X-rays were the beginning, but it led to surgeries considering her organs and her body were infested with many types of diseases.

All Redlight. The virus was mutating in her, as well as changing her body.

Mercer had been very agitated at the thought of cutting his sister's body. Ragland had to remind him it was imperative to know what Redlight was doing in her. What strains were there and what each was doing.

It was actually a hopeless case, if he had to be honest.

A virus that could mutate that much and that fast was a nightmare. What they throw at it would just encourage it to mutate and adapt.

Most of the cells, including the mutated bacteria and the virus were harmless. Faulty. Cancer cells that never ended up replicating, and just sat there.

Few though. Few were enough to correct that mistake.

"What did you find?"

"The future," Ragland answered.

"Really?"

"If a virus like Redlight exists, the only way a human can survive being infected is that either it dies off due to its excessive mutation leading to its demise, and what little immune system finishes it off." But that wasn't true. Ragland knew Redlight always aimed at the body's defenses first and used them against the body itself.

Even if the virus led itself into a corner, which Redlight never did until all of a sudden, the body would still have a hard time churning out its defensive mechanism, especially if the body was too mutated and damaged.

"Or the body has to adapt," Ragland added. The other path where mutation would've led, an infected. But being an infected didn't mean the end of the infection's progression.

Death, or mindless infected, those were the paths when it came to Redlight.

"Like a carrier?"

Ragland paused.

"Something like that, but carriers are different. The disease agent is not violently active or spread out throughout their body."

"You expect something like Zeus' body that can handle living with diseases like Redlight."

"Yes." Ragland had saw the sample of Alex's biomass. Cancer cells. He was made of 'cancer' cells. And for him to be living… the virus would have to redesign the DNA constantly.

"You do know that would be sacrificing all the human cells."

Ragland grimaced. "Yes."

"Quick question doctor, if a clone has its original's memory, does that make it the same person?"

Ragland quirked an eyebrow at that question. "No, it would make it a copy."

"If a person's body mutated so much, biologically changed so much even the brain, hence mentally as well but still has its memory as clear as yesterday, is it the same person?"

"Depends. Is the change instantaneous?" Ragland answered. "You might as well ask the question, is the person the same ten years back?"

"I don't mean in mental growth," the green eyes replied, chiding slightly at the change of subject.

"I know. But I could say right now I'm not the man I was ten years ago, but would that make me the same person?"

"Your DNA is constant, as with your biology even if it went through development, fundamentally you're still the same even though the atoms that made you had been exchanged. You also have the memories of who you were. Who you were made what you are today," the green eyes retorted. "It does not equal the person you were being dead. Just different from who you are now."

"Can I ask why are you asking these questions?" Ragland said, pulling out his glasses and blinking his strained eyes before he started to clean the lenses.

"Curiosity. I like to understand," the older man replied curtly. "You've never answered my question, Ragland."

"The proper question that should be asked, does it matter? These kinds of questions prop up whenever one imagines a future where our bodies are machines with the only organic organ being the brain," Ragland humored him. "Do we stop being what we are, who we are when taken away all our bodily function that has defined us from the beginning?"

The green eyes hummed in amusement at that.

"Another question. How much of her body was affected?"

"You're just going to continue interrogating me, are you?" Ragland said drily, putting his glasses back on.

"Well, doctor?" The green eyes smiled.

Ragland stared then he looked away. "The infection managed to spread all over her body."

"And now?"

The doctor looked up sharply. "The scans show fine."

"Is it the same DNA?"

He paused. "No, but when Redlight mutated, samples of her cells showed something different." Especially after the cure version of Blacklight was applied. He had doubts of course, when evidence showed Redlight mixed with Blacklight, results were never pretty.

How the girl survived that long… was miraculous.

"A human's ones?"

"Fundamentally, yes," Ragland said.

"Now?"

"She still has human cells. There are some that are hers."

But there were some cells that were different, human's with oddities in them. Looks could be deceiving especially when viral elements were within those cells have become part of its genetics. After all, Blacklight existed to complicate such matter. She wasn't like Walkers whose body would bloat with undying resilient cells, stretching and ripping through the skin, but the changes both went through were similar.

Assimilation.

Hers though were slower, subtler.

"You found traces of the virus?"

"No." Which was frustrating him. The infection just couldn't rewind its progress like that. It had been a struggle to get a proper sample of Redlight, and when he did it was by luck, when the girl's body was truly infested by the virus.

It also didn't explain the recent scans, marks of cancer, of active infection concentrated on a part of her body disappearing all of a sudden.

"Another question, do you think Dana still human?"

After what she went through… no. The other infected were proof of that. He suspected Dana's body had gone past that line, and yesterday evening proved that.

"I don't know." He sighed and rubbed his forehead in frustration.

He had a lot to cover if he wanted to keep Jan Doe's report out of Blackwatch's hands. One of the many reasons why he came, knew more about the virus than any other doctors he worked with. He was needed, required, demanded.

It would be a long time until he could return back to New York again.

"Hand a report that she's dead."

"What?" Ragland looked up sharply.

"Hand the report that the girl is dead. Trade her place with someone else, make a mix-up."

"Everyone knows-"

"She survived and had a miraculous recovery? I'll make them think she didn't," he said, patting his shoulder. "Just do as I say, Ragland. It'll make your life easier."

---

For the next week, Ragland was inquired about his patient and her relatives. The Jan Doe that had yet to be investigated over her identity, like many identity-less patients that records had yet to go over with which of the many thousands that died. Unfortunately, all patients of Redlight that did not survive were cremated.

There'd been an issue given by the government that any sample of biological weapon were to be destroyed or contained by the authority, including the patients that went past the last infection stage. Funeral homes and hospitals were monitored to do their job as with the transfers between the hospital and cremations. The world did not want another apocalypse walking.

It was another reason of why there were protests, such issue would go against some beliefs and rights as well inquiring why the government wished to destroy… and not study. A go for study on biological weapon for defense, or a setback, a ban, against it. Two crowds.

Ragland remembered his patient as well of his acquaintance, but his thought always slipped when trying to recall that stranger's appearance. Or even remember that there was a stranger at all.

---

She wanted her brother back. The one who held her when she was a girl. Who played with her. Who watched TV with her, told her stories. The one who cared, made childhood a less miserable place.

She did not remember the misery for some reason. Perhaps because her mind blocked out those memories to save her from the mental scarring.

Perhaps it was why she was… hopeful, still believing in people. In her brother… even though he left, and she became cynical minded.

He ran far, far away.

He was pursuing his dream, she defended. He managed to free himself from the squalor that was once their life. She looked up to him because of that. He succeeded in his life despite his past. If Alex could walk away from the miserable life they had, so could she and she had worked hard like he did.

She did not want to be a burden like the little girl she imagined she was to him.

Free, Dana cast her eyes down on the white lilies in her hand. More like forgot. Alex rather forget, to move on! He had said to her over the phone.

She preferred to remember so that she could learn something, to be a better person, to know and compare herself now and then. That naive child she hated that did nothing, didn't stop the scars inflicted on her brother.

Growing up in that crazy place, a part of her had wonder was this her future. Stuck in that hellhole, resenting and piling the miseries on top of others. She didn't want that, she didn't want to end up like their mother. Their mother was pathetic pitiful creature.

How their mother came to be abusive, neglectful, alcoholic… was tragic. It was what led her to be an investigative journalist, wanting to understand why such cruelty existed, how it led people into doing such things.

She wanted her brother back.

To learn he became this… selfish fuckhead like their mother was. Bringing the world down because he didn't get what he wanted. Just like her. Their mother's life wasn't bright, but at least she had a roof and benefits, but she wasted it, piling in the misery and letting it out at them. Simply because her life was shit, didn't get enough of what she wanted despite whatever they went through for her.

Their mother never had appreciated her efforts in that. She was mostly ignored, neglected. Just like what he did when he left despite all his promises.

Oh Alex, how you have fallen.

So similar to mom.

Never wanted to be like that hag, well look how you ended up.

Dana had silently wept at that, during her rumination. How could he let himself be so selfish like the monster that ruled their life once? He hated that hag.

She wanted to believe it was all a lie. That he wasn't that selfish, that he wasn't so bitter to do such a thing.

But then that awful nagging voice, that always spoke and reminded her the things her brother had done when she was a girl, not all of them were right.

Alex hadn't changed from that boy. But at least that boy that glared back at the world, gets jaded easily, cared for her. A little empathy, a little humanity. This one forgot.

Her brother gone. Dead. She had lost him a long time ago. She should have fought more, she should have yelled at him, been persistent, been stubborn in keeping contact, been the one to do the calling.

Not wait for him. That soft girl she was waited for him, because she was scared she was bothering him when he had important things to do. He needed all he could get so she kept silent, kept cheering, kept smiling, not wanting him to be burdened. She kept silent and waited instead when he had time for her, because she knew he was already doing all he could for her, for them.

She did not want to be a burden, so she excused all his faults, because he was already doing so much. So much for someone.

So when he was clearly breaking his promise, she still kept quiet. She made excuses that he deserved to do whatever he wants with his time. God knows he deserved to be independent, to be free since all his youth he had to take on the responsibility of an adult, never had true freedom. She felt like it was her own fault he had to grow up so fast.

But if she had kept contact, if she hadn't let his attitude goaded her to slam the phone shut at their last spat, he wouldn't have become a bitter man. He wouldn't have been driven to become-

"Dana," a soft-spoken voice brought her out.

She sat on the edge of her hospital bed, wearing new winter clothes given by Patrick Gordon, at least that was his card says. She looked up and was met with the eerie blue eyes watching her beneath the low hood, concerned in his gaze. Funny, how… a being that she feared and wasn't a human cared more, done more than he should have. In his arms he held a cardboard box with something inside.

"I heard you're going to Houston," he said.

She exhaled. "Yeah… yeah, I am. Are you going to stop me?" she asked and watched him carefully.

"No." He shook his head, his eyes downcast. "I thought you would want your stuff at least. The laptop is in there." He put the box down on a chair before he paused. "Just… do you trust him?"

She sniffed. "To be honest, no," she said.

He quickly looked up and stared, for a moment he opened his mouth but stopped himself with a grimace.

"I have no one now," she told him and looked back at the white lilies that rested on her table. "But I don't mind you being there."

"Why? I'm not…"

"I know," she murmured. "You're you. And him… he's gone." Anger and sadness, tears began to spill uncontrollably down her cheeks.

She should have… She should have… She should have been there more, because maybe, maybe…

"Fucking hell, I can't believe I'm still crying for that man," she muttered, wiping her cheeks before clenching her jaws. "I… I'm not asking you to be him or replace him." There was no way he was that boy.

Alex was distant, or maybe she didn't really understand her brother at all, but she loved him nonetheless. Gruff, antagonistic, quiet as a stone, unreadable at times. But him… he was like an open book and showed more humane expression than the neutral look her brother kept.

Her brother was fearless, but - she stared at him, he was not. For one, she could not believe she was seeing the expression of guilt, remorse on Alex's face, something that painted him so different than who Alex was. And here he was, waiting for his sentence. No emotions such as those ever touched her brother's face. It was strange to see them.

"What do you want?" he cut her thoughts quietly. He could not stand the wait or her staring.

Awkward rigidness, that was what she would describe him. Like he didn't belong in the picture and he knew it.

What did she want from him? She didn't know. All she wanted, all she wished was for her brother. But he was gone. She had lost him.

"I don't know," she answered him truthfully with a shrug. "But I'm going to Houston and I don't mind you following."

She was selfish… she had told that repeatedly when she thought about it. But then that thought had encouraged the distance between them, had let him go, believing he deserved his own space, and let him down a path of self-destruction.

She was selfish to ask that to a… person who barely knew her, to be burdened with her. She wondered why he didn't leave, still wondered even now. No one could care that much for her, not since that boy, that brother before he left. They were completely strangers, really.

Alexander James Mercer cared for her because they were in hell together, because they lived together in a household with an abusive mother. He never had a sense of justice, to stop bad things from happening, only when something wrong happened to him that was when he acted. In fact, her brother was the type to enjoy kicking a hornet's nest if it meant others being screwed. He was willing to face the physical side of abusement if it was to bring trouble to their mother.

So why did he care? It was certainly not because of an abusive household this time, or maybe Manhattan being on the landslide to an apocalyptic reality was a factor. No one would want to face such reality alone and would rather escape it.

Had tried to escape it. Even fucking unleashed it.

She had lost that anger when she had cried over the past. Now she felt more lost than condemning.

But she had no one now. No one.

She didn't want to be bitter. Alone. She had never comprehended that. As a little girl, it was an unbearable thought. No Alex there to hold her, catch her, there for her. Never was.

She outgrew that clingy trait, but it didn't stop the discomforting fact there was truly no one there for her, who understood the demons she faced.

She had hoped that wasn't the case when she came to New York, because it was nice to know there was someone at least when things get too unbearable. An illusion she comforted herself with.

A white lie she made for herself. She always lied to herself about certain things that she didn't want to see and admit in Alex. Denial, some godawful weak justification. She was still that small girl, Dana thought wryly.

"I want you to know I'm not doing this out of guilty conscience," she said to him. No, she was not doing this to prove she was a good sister. "And not because I owe you," she denied that voice again.

Maybe it was all. Maybe… she was deluding, she had deluded herself for too long with her wishes.

"Actually, I'm not even sure why," she said truthfully, wiped and rubbed her cheeks off tears, smiling wryly at herself. Look at her, crying in front of a stranger. Some ways she hasn't grown from that little girl she was. Like that time in front of the social worker, struggling to keep silent while bursting with the urge to scream and cry, knock things over because Alex told her to.

She was not going to lie to herself anymore.

But she wasn't going to stop hoping. She was not going to go bitter. Cause look what the closest people in her life done to the lives around them.

"You're the only one I've got, Dana." A hesitating hand reached out but stopped, closing into a tight-clenched fist.

Entirely unlike the Alex she knew. Unassured. She could imagine it now, the excuses she would build, if she hadn't known the truth. He was amnesiac, a different person. Alex never received assurance. Who never needed, wanted, nor sought after one… but then it could be her young self not noticing the sign of licking wounds.

He was the one that had been giving assurance, entirely neglecting his own need for one. Giving, giving, and her young self took, took. It was what ate her up all those years of silence between them, because maybe she was the one who was wrong to ask of him… more excuses for his absence.

"I don't even know why I care," he confessed quietly. "I'm not… doing this to prove something to you, or because you're my… his sister," he added the last part quickly, faltering a bit.

Because I'm clearly not, she smiled wryly at the silent thought.

Then why do you care?

"You don't know how much family means to us. Without family, we're kinda meaningless, just… monsters."

No, it was more than that. More than just nature.

"But I still thought of you as one," he told her, smiling wryly, copying the same look on her face before it fell back to something uneased. "And I don't need a clear reason why," he murmured, a quiet determination.

No reason if he was feeling this way for her. If this was what he felt, then he should accept it.

Like her, she didn't even know why.

So unlike Alex she knew. Those words would have never passed his mouth.

Was it wrong to be comforted by that fact? Dana thought silently.

"Thank you," she told him when she stared into his blue eyes.

She had no one. New life, clean slate, and that meant moving on from the past, leave behind old friends and old memories. A life of running and hiding, there wasn't really a difference when she recalled those days of owing money. She sighed at the thought.

"Why keep his face?" Dana suddenly asked. "Why his name?"

If she wanted to be honest with herself, it was strange to utter her brother's name on her lips. She barely talked about him in the years they were apart, even to her friends. She had uttered that yes, she had a sibling, a brother in New York. But rarely his name passed her lips during those five years.

She barely talked about her family, because she didn't want pity. Pity was all she got when she was a child.

He looked away to stare at the window. She saw flash of more emotions, too fast to read. "That man and his actions had defined me more way than not," he answered tightly before he rested his gaze back onto her. "Does it bother you?" he asked when he looked at her.

He was like that too… when he was asking for help, concerning, but too intent now when comparing to the softness and uncertainty of this one staring in front of her. It was as if he did not know how to express.

"No, it's… suitable," she murmured. "What my brother did has impacted lives, and I can't ignore that."

"As a reminder," he told her.

A reminder.

She could respect that.

---

Couldn't protect her right. Couldn't save her right. Couldn't cure her right. He would just continue fucking up her life.

He wanted to leave, for him to stay was parasitic of him. She was at lost and in confusion, him staying would just mean he was taking advantage. Whether she said it otherwise, he could not help but get the feeling that he was filling a spot, a spot that he liked.

It would paint him alike to the original Mercer... to use his own family for his own fucked up desires. Who was he to kid. He had not right to care for Dana, he thought bitterly.

He could not help but questioned his actions. It was unhealthy for her, in mind, for him to stay. It was selfish of him since didn't he like the idea? Didn't he find comfort in… family? Still did despite knowing the truth. The comfort in knowing there at least something or someone despite all the chaos, all the shittiness, the truth, what he is; dependency in the currents of uncertainty.

This was trust. Why was he clenching so tightly on this… bond that had never existed in the first place? That was never his.

He wondered why he stayed at her side when his thoughts slapped him. It was wiser to leave. Blackwatch, whether they believed him dead or not, would always be on a look out, and him being near her was a bright beacon for them.

Selfish of him, really.

To keep watch on her, he reminded. She needed someone now, he could not leave her. Because of him, her life was shit and she had no one now. But it was not out of guilt he was doing this, but out of want. A want he could not understand but knew it was what made him care for Dana.

Second, because of what she potentially could be.

Third, because of Pariah. No way in hell he was going to leave her alone in his range.

Despite that he warned her what Pariah might be, Dana had spoken her words.

Alex grimaced. "Dana, are you sure—"

"I made my decision. I'm going to Houston," she said adamantly. "Alex," she began. "Look at it this way. Does he do what…" She searched for the words. "Runners do. Infecting?"

He stared back at her for a long time before looking away. "No," the answer came reluctantly out of his mouth. Not in the way his mother did it though, he frowned at the added thought.

"Do you?"

He looked away from her gaze. He may not, and that was the case, he may not. Alex could not deny he does feel inclination towards… infecting, but that could be the hunger of consuming. "…No," he told her again slowly.

Dana gave him a tired look. "I don't exactly understand your prejudice against him, but it's obvious he's more like you than whatever you see him as."

Like Greene. And that was what confused him. He wasn't following his mother. Why?

"Besides, he can control… the infection," Dana added, grimacing about her current situation as a carrier.

"Dana. That's why he's dangerous. He can do things—"

"He hasn't done anything to me besides doing what you have asked him to do, Alex," she interrupted him again. "He hasn't done anything what… Runners do for his entire life," Dana added, recalling the conversation she had with him.

"Like I said, he's more like you than not." Then she grimaced. "Alex, he's the only one, the only one capable of stopping the process of whatever the hell I went through again, keeping him on hand is the smartest thing if," she stressed, "something happened. And I don't ever want to become a... mindless monster." There, she said it.

Monster. He winced. A reminder, of the thoughts of what he is, of the what-if she wasn't cured and became what Greene planned her to be. It pained him to think of smashing her skull into the ground, it pained him to imagine of destroying her. But he did imagine and planned even. What kind of sick twisted fuck would do that? She wasn't just an infected. She was his sister. His sister.

He could not let that go for some reason. Even when facts said otherwise.

But there was something else in her words, that tiny grip of fear. Fear of what? What could possibly make her scared when he was there?

Alex sat there as he felt Dana resting her head against his shoulder, sleeping as they drove towards Houston. His lips thinned at that last bit. The same scan that was used to catch him and clear Dana was now integrated into the airport's security system. He was glad he didn't need to take a plane ride. But long travel wasn't what Dana needed right now.

Still he didn't give a single fuck he was the reason for it, especially when Pariah described his manifesting active virus and what it was doing as a kid figuring out a Rubik's cube. Unlocking genetic codes to be the ultimate lifeform became equivalent to solving Rubik's cube.

The need to have diverse genetic code, the closer to what Blacklight aimed, the easier to manipulate to unlock and grow into whatever it wanted to be. It was burning up the chromosome's integrity, killing his cells in manipulating the genetic, evolving in a slow rate… It was the urge to consume despite how full he was. The virus version of growing up.

Alex sat in the center back seat, legs stretched out, one resting atop another as he rested them in the gap between the front seats. Space he much appreciated, space that came with riding a rented SUV.

He knew not all was lax between him and Dana. Right now, the uncomfortable silence amongst them seemed to remind each other that they were practically… strangers. Strangers reacquainting each other. He noticed she had yet to be comfortable with him in her space, had yet to give the familiar touch of siblings happy in each other's company. Yet right now, she was resting her head against his shoulder, body leaning against his arm. He did not want to move away.

It was strange, he usually disliked contact. For every touch, his body would react as if it was claws or bullets about to puncture into him, immediately bristling and burst into black-red tendrils. If it weren't one of those, it was flesh it wished to tuck itself into. To consume. This body could easily eat his sister resting on his shoulder right now, and he wanted to move away at this moment. Yet tendrils in him were tensed and tightly coiled in his anxiety, his body stayed rigid easily. Not laxed, but stiff, unwilling to unclench its form to do what it yearned to do.

Trying to keep his mind off the close presence resting against him, he looked up and uttered the questions that's been nagging at him.

"Why didn't you come for your mother?" Alex asked. Greene probably had faced countless of experiments, so many that he was sure someone who was close to her would have come. Pariah had the hivemind and everything to hear his own mother's pains from the beginning.

So why didn't he save her?

If that happened the world would've become a viral nightmare, wouldn't it? He had every reason to. The Outbreak as well, and from his experience, Blackwatch wasn't capable of keeping something like him in captivity, Greene was proof of that. It begged the question why had she waited that long? Why didn't he help his mother?

Perhaps he was much colder than he appeared to be. Perhaps Blackwatch made him into an agent of some sort, succeeded in their project Crusade. Perhaps… perhaps… maybe… the questions kept on going.

Green eyes glanced into the rear-view mirror before falling back onto the road.

"I would have. Ages ago. But she told me to wait," Pariah answered softly. "To be honest, I could see why she asked me of that. I wasn't… in a good headspace. There was a time I was too angry to understand her." His eyes lowered briefly in recollection. "You expect me to infect the world for whatever her reasons were. Well, you're wrong, I would have infected the world to make it scream in pain. The opposite of what my mother wanted." He saw the lips curled upward in a smirk.

Sadistic, psychotic, Blackwatch had noted that trait of his.

The green eyes in the mirror crinkled in amusement.

Psychopathic, he reminded.

Good to know he had reasons to keep watch on him. Alex narrowed his eyes. But what was keeping him back now?

"Are you glad?" Pariah asked with that smile on his face.

As if, he scoffed.

"What's stopping you now?"

"My mother's wish," Pariah answered quietly. "She does not approve what I would've done to the world. To… her children."

"She's dead now."

"She lives through her children. She's not gone as you like to think she is."

Alex was inclined to disagree on that, but sometimes, sometimes he felt a heavy familiar presence brushing but it was gone like imagination. It was the same presence he had felt when he first met her…

I am your mother. The voices, they had echoed just as she finished uttering what she was to him.

A mother. The source of life that animate those Walkers and fleshes. What should've been dead from excessive mutation just kept on walking.

Then she willingly fell through the hole she made, and he had reached out for her unconsciously, in yearning. Unaware he had lost his sense of self within the voices… the hive. Then whatever temporary connection between him and her that came when she made contact, was snapped. As if a part of him rejected such connection.

"How did you…" Alex struggled for the words, "deny her voice?" His first time connecting to the hive was unpleasant, to say the least. Their will, voices… almost undeniable. Death, so much death. He felt the death of New Yorkers as they were consumed by the infection, became one with Redlight, one with the hive.

One.

"Blackwatch," Pariah answered bitterly.

Alex gazed at the green eyes glowering as they recalled the past. Years of captivity did mark him, but he hardly thought that was what Blackwatch intended, making an… accountant and a family man out of a doomsday bringer.

"You hate the world, don't you?" Wanting the world to scream in pain says much, it fit an escaped lab rat of Blackwatch.

"I resent, and I hate them," Pariah murmured. "Hating is tiring. It's unhealthy, Zeus, especially when they have no relevance in our lives now." He breathed in deeply as his eyes glowered at the road. "Still, a bit too much unhealthy hate considering the urge to make that part scream is very undeniable as mother's voice," he confessed. "Runners exist to make family, Zeus. Not destroy. That's what weapons do."

That's what they do. They. Blackwatch. Fucking Nazis… motherfuckers, child killers, monsters... Alex shook his head from those thoughts and narrowed his eyes.

"You call what Greene has done to New York as making family," he growled. Those people became insane. Hell crawling in their body. That was hardly the ideal image concerning family. Does he see a Hunter mauling a screaming man as family loving one another?

Maybe he has his mother's craziness in there if he does.

"Humans are children to her. Children needed to be taught, needed to be punished, needed to be blessed, guided, loved," he said quietly and Alex grimaced, feeling a fleeting whispering presence. A familiar one. "They're family, Zeus. A mess of a family, but family nonetheless," Pariah muttered and sighed.

"She'd rather let the virus run free, breeding chaos and follow the course of where her nature calls her to. But I'd rather control." Green eyes narrowed on the road.

And in a way, he could be as worse as a god-playing scientist. He could be nature's kill switch. The keyword is could be. If Redlight fucked up, Pariah would be there to revert it back to stage one, and life would restart over again until it gets it right. Alex could certainly imagine the virus serving that purpose. It was what he was basically doing in terms of why Blacklight was manipulating his cell's DNA.

A refined process of trial and error.

Change life on earth, was this what McMullen and his scientists meant? The Reason? Alex furrowed his eyebrows. A future where diseases run rampant. Would Redlight lead the coming outbreaks? From what Elizabeth Greene had spoken, had shown, he definitely could believe that. But the only leaders were him, Pariah… and could be Dana. They all carried the strains of Redlight.

But there could be others, the other Redlight Runner at Two Bluff existed despite Greene being in containment, despite Hope having no survivors. It was why Blackwatch still existed if Runners like these popped up out of nowhere. Were they other failed experiments? Surely Blackwatch had learned not to fuck up at least. But it could also be carriers, he thought, remembering the conversation he had with Ragland.

How soon will the future come? Would that future come? Alex couldn't help but feel dread for the answers it would give. Which one of them would fall first? Where and when will the others come?

Blackwatch hung in the horizon, as well as the Reason. Both could aim at Dana.

Let it not be Dana… Alex looked down at his sleeping sister resting her head on his shoulder with his jacket covering her curled up legs.

He rather it be him if it meant saving her from such fate.

---

"Here, here, and here." He shoved him the list of contacts, an annotated map, and keys as well as the SUV's. "Welcome to Houston, and try to lay low," he told him before slamming the rented SUV's door shut. "Just return the car in a good condition," he added tiredly.

Alex just gave a short growl through the opened window as he sat in the driver seat. A nudge jabbed him; Dana looked crossly at him when he glanced at her direction.

"Thank you, y'know for letting us use your safehouse." She leaned over a bit, towards the window where she could see him properly. Alex stilled at the close contact.

"It's just an old apartment. Mind the dust though, I haven't been there for a while," Gordon said. "Free of rent and everything, just pay the bills. You can even own it if you don't want to give the keys back."

"You don't care?"

"I care very much, but I've been planning for years to rid that hidey hole," he said tiredly.

A horn blasted behind them an irritated look crossed his face with Alex's turning into a menacing half-snarl. Dana shifted uncomfortably, internally wincing at that look he was giving, never fully realized a human face could make that kind of a face.

"Apparently, you can't park here," Gordon added with exasperation over his face. "Best you two get going. I'll check on both of you in a few days," he said turning around. "Call if anything happens," he added over his shoulder before walking off.

The horn blasted again, and she heard Alex muttering a fuck you for that.

"Guy is blind if he can't see the signal," he growled as he changed gear.

"Maybe his eyes are going," she said, moving back into her seat.

"Then he shouldn't be driving," he snipped as they went back out into the road.

She sighed and silence fell, silence that have yet to grow used to with each other, let alone be comforted enough with just silence.

"What do you think of him?" Dana asked quietly.

He remained quiet until a curt, "I don't trust him," came expectantly.

She frowned, couldn't understand his apprehension. Patrick hadn't done anything to earn these paranoias. "Why?"

"Because," he grated. "Because he can threaten you." And he couldn't do a single thing about it, not unless he learned fast.

"But he's not and he hasn't. He's helping us out."

"It's implied. The chance exists, and that's good enough for me."

"Maybe you're reading into it too much," she said, her tone turned exasperated.

"Dana, the guy is a fucking psycho!" he stammered.

"In what way?" she shot back.

Alex narrowed his blue eyes… a much silvery pair of blue eyes. A noted difference from the eyes of a brother she once knew. He opened his mouth and shut it again.

"He's not human."

"You're not as well," she added. She did not mean it as an offence, but a mere statement.

The crease deepened between his brows. "Even I don't trust myself much," he said with bitter admittance.

"Jesus, you got a problem then."

He made a flat look at that and his mouth just clamped shut tightly. She regretted saying that, but it didn't change the facts.

This was going to be a frustrating working relationship.

---

What he thought was an enemy had invited him to his home territory. Within distance of those he holds close to him. Helping them. Gave them the keys to his old apartment. What was Pariah playing at? If this was to ease him of his paranoia on Dana being under the knife… well it was shaking them.

So reckless, too trusting to let him in. He was a killer. You don't invite a killer into your home.

Except he did. Pariah must be very confident in his ability to hold his own and his family. Either he was careless and overconfident, or he had every right to feel he had an edge over him despite being disadvantage.

Two Runners, two predators. He was not within his city, he was in another's hospitality. This place was not his, under a different predator. Did not belong to him like how Manhattan did.

In a way, he missed New York. The tall forest of buildings he could quickly cut corners to lose his pursuit's sight on him, the deserted quarantine zone he could freely practice and learn what he could do. Not to mention, plenty of beings he could consume right in the open amongst the chaos. No one could track him through his victims, not when death was common.

Unlike here, this city felt like it was under another's control… under another's thumb, since the damn illusion was damn convincing his instinct. Pariah must have eyes and ears everywhere in this city, and Alex could feel it every time those eyes grazed. Over the top paranoia maybe, but with Pariah he couldn't be too paranoid.

Somehow whatever he did in this city, his actions would be observed, and under another's approval lest he was waking a sleeping dragon. This was the offness that had triggered him to investigate Houston thoroughly in his hunting for Pariah.

Greene's eldest child did not invite a trojan horse into his fort, he invited a trojan horse into a predator's den that could maul any covert army.

It did not help his rising edge when every time Pariah was in the vicinity. The voices in his head always started to behave strangely. He felt silence. Calmness. One. Him. Alone. In the vast silence, he was but a drop in a calm still surface of a lake. No screams, no whispers. Just him against a stirring movement.

And it made him very self-conscious.

Alex gritted his teeth and scowled at the feeling.

Nothing was so simple. Pariah had declared that his family knew nothing of what he is, or his past. Even the truth about the Outbreak.

To them he was simply Patrick Gordon, an accountant who managed a firm, whose community went to for favors. He gave one simple rule. Don't talk about it. Not one bit. Don't even research or dig up anymore. Lay low.

Dana was not fine with that mandate as her fingers itched to tap on a laptop's keyboard. She was determined to fall back into a world of conspiracy.

"What is this?" Patrick pointed at the open laptop, a clear confidential report of one of Gentek's many illegal projects in full view.

"It's a little digging," Dana said curtly. "One of… my brother's," she lied.

Alex glanced from the window and saw the lips thinning.

"Someone gave it to you." Pariah narrowed his eyes. "You know they could track you."

"I know!" Dana snapped as she sat back down in front of her new laptop. "I know the methods the military use, not the exact details," she added curtly. "but I do take precaution against them."

Pariah shook his head and looked up to stare at him. "Aren't you worried at all at what she's doing?"

Alex growled at the silent accusation. "I am."

"Hey, leave him out of this," Dana cut in.

"You need to stop digging," Pariah snapped. "You're attracting their eyes the more you do this."

"You need to trust her more," Alex replied back curtly before Dana could spring into a yelling match. "She knows what she's doing."

"Does she know she's extremely lucky, because any who knows the truth or tries to dig up more will get shot in the head before next Tuesday," Pariah told him sharply.

"They can try." Alex narrowed his eyes as he stepped forward and made his way to her side.

"You… and your damn war with them," Pariah said quietly. "I was willing to bring you two if it meant you both staying out of there, not give opportunities to bring yourself back in!"

Dana exhaled with frustration. "Look, I get your worry. But I can't just simply forget," she said stubbornly.

"You need to," Pariah said. "No one leaves Blackwatch's shadow. No one. And you want to walk right back beneath it." He looked down on her. "Is this what you really want, a life where you always have to look over your shoulder?"

Alex snorted at this and rolled his eyes. It wasn't like they didn't prepare and expected such future before, but he paused when he saw the faltering look on his sister's face.

Her breathing sharp and deep, her hands enclosing into fists and a quiet anger stilled her voice when she opened her mouth. "Then what are we supposed to do? Do nothing and just let them get away with everything they had done?"

"The whole US is on edge," Pariah replied grimly, glancing at him. "There are protests in every major city. In the worst-case scenario, mobs will bring chaos if given fuel. Maybe the whole government thrown into disarray with this… web of lies," he added drily at the last bit.

"But Blackwatch ain't going to disappear that easily. Lives would be upset but would it be worth it?" Pariah asked challengingly.

"Lives are already upset," she hissed.

He glared at them with clear distaste on his face. "This is a war Blackwatch is very familiar with and have been fighting long before you were born. What makes you think it would be different this time?"

For one, she had him. The walking nightmare of any covert organization.

"If Dana wants to make war with them, then I'm willing to fight in it," Alex cut in quietly.

She didn't have claws, she didn't have a durable body, she was no killer nor a weapon of war. But that was alright, because he was and he will fight this war for her once the guns and explosions come out.

"Do you even hear yourself, Zeus?" He looked at him in disbelief. "I thought you of all people would know what's at stake here. Her life, our lives for something that won't guarantee the end of it all," he said coldly back.

"Many people have died in Manhattan. Millions," Dana said softly but her stern glare unfaltering as she sat by his side. "And you're asking me to look away from that?"

"You hold truth, truth that could incite more bloodshed, a fight that goes nowhere," he told her, raising his hands into the air in exasperation. "Even then, what makes you think truth would be enough? Those mobs out there, they have no power. Our current politics is incapable of dealing with this, let alone the whole debacle of Manhattan's outbreak!" he pointed.

"They are the ones who let it happen!" Dana shouted. "Someone has to pay for them."

"Even if it's your own life, Queen Bee?" Pariah said.

Mercer narrowed his eyes at the nickname.

His sister blinked and focused.

It was them against the whole world. Truth against the media hellbent to ignore, rip apart, mock conspiracy, serving as a mouthpiece of peace, justice, and order. The loudest voice in the serenade of painting the picture of this tragedy that was the Outbreak.

Who would be willing to believe an anonymous voice from the internet? Who would willingly listen to the sister of the terrorist that was behind the atrocity of Manhattan?

And what if people did believe the truth, especially now when people were still hurt and angry over the outbreak? Things could easily go wrong, and it wouldn't be the first time that happened, the thought popped up cynically.

Was this what she was willing to fight for, her entire life for those strangers that speaks the words of violence and hate in the face of injustice. Dana was no martyr, she couldn't imagine herself dying for this kind of cause.

She looked away and grimaced.

For a long time, Pariah stared at her. He opened his mouth but stopped short and shook his head instead. He instead turned around and quietly left, his face glowering darkly when he did.

Alex kept his silence before looked at his sister, her face covered, breathing heavily through her hands. She suddenly slammed the desk the laptop was on, cracking the wood and stayed there, hunch and silent as she rested her head against the open palm of her hand.

With brief hesitance, Alex rested his hand on her shoulder.

He heard her sniff when she looked up.

"I'm not a selfish bastard," Dana muttered as her eyes grew distant. "What if he's right?" she asked softly.

"You can't blame yourself if people die because of knowing the truth, Dana," Alex answered gently. "Many people will die anyway," he added albeit coldly.

"There will be a price," Dana muttered. "I'd be a bitch if I didn't care what I'll be doing to those mobs, to us. It could get violent for all I know," she said quietly. "But I can't just forget," she added then turned to look at him.

"Then don't," Alex said simply. "Keep the files, and if you changed your mind you can send it." He shrugged. "You're not exactly doing nothing when you're taking things into account."

Dana smiled at the technicality. "You don't exactly want to stop knowing about them, do you?" she said.

Yeah. He looked away. "No," he answered. He didn't really care if people knew the truth.

It never crossed his mind that they should know about it. If they wanted to know, it was fine by him, but what they do with it he didn't care. It had little effect on him besides a wide manhunt. Albeit he would be very annoyed at the unnecessary bloodshed after Manhattan bled so much already. People should learn better from experience, shouldn't they? Unless they were aggravating bloodlust creatures of Greene… that is, he scoffed.

"I still want you to be careful. He's… right in some way," Alex gritted that out when he told her.

"At least you trust me," Dana snorted. "He doesn't." She sniffed but her gaze softened when she grimaced. "I guess I would be jeopardizing his own life as well," she muttered, shutting the laptop gently.

"Well…" Alex called out to her.

"I'll keep the files," she answered. "I won't dig up more, well a bit once in a while." Stretching her arm, doing her brief exercise that her physiotherapist told her to do, she stopped when she turned to look at him. "I have enough to set things rolling. And I'm happy with that. But... now what?"

Alex frowned. "Why are you looking at me?" he asked, confused when she stared at him expectantly.

"I thought you would want to do something."

He blinked. "Like what?"

"Beats me." Dana shrugged. "I mean we're in a new city. We might as well look around."

He already had, from high up while Dana was still recovering at… the safehouse, this apartment, Pariah's old home. She could barely walk, yet she was after months comatose. And he barely could stand staying here. For some reason, Alex despised staying inside this place. It stank of Pariah, however years old the scent was.

Perhaps to others it was just background smell. Hardly pervasive. And it was subtle. Even to an inhumanly sharp nose like his.

He could have easily ignored the scent, as he had easily done for all the powerful fume blood gives from burnt corpses of the barrages.

Except he couldn't. And all amount to one simple thing. In a lion's den.

He didn't need a roof over his head anyway, a home was not a necessity for him. He was only here because she wanted him, and a part of him couldn't help but be glad at that. The fact he was even welcomed back into her life made him question if he even deserved this small amount of happiness she unknowingly gave to him.

"Well, I'm going shopping," Dana announced from the other side of the room.

"Again?" Alex looked up from his thought.

"Well, more like browsing," Dana added and she glanced into the fridge. "Don't you think this place needs some… sprucing?" she said, hands motioning the lack of ornament on walls and table surface.

"You're planning to stay here?" he asked. You want to stay here… Here… with another predator in vicinity. He was not happy at that future, sticking here with him close by. Especially after she spoken the words that was to bring hellfire upon their livelihood. When she had willingly weight her life, their lives for the sake of truth, threatening everything Pariah held and built in his.

"We don't even have a can opener, Alex," she replied.

"What happened if-"

"I'm twenty-one years old, Alex," Dana said quietly. "And I went through an apocalypse, almost died in it, got infected by it and could have turned into something worst. I'm a tough girl." She turned and smiled.

It did put things into perspective, but it was ignoring a lot of facts. Alex huffed but relented. She didn't fight the same war he did on the streets, but he could not deny she had been with him during the worst time of many people's lives. She didn't break down and lost herself, nor left him when others had, instead kept on going and focused for his sake, to the very end even after learning his nature.

And after Manhattan, after everything that had happened, they still had each other. Whatever future was going to throw at them, he felt like they could face it together. "Money won't last, Dana," he gave one last protest.

"I know. I'm not going on a shop thrift, Alex," she replied back wryly. "I just want a look around."

---

Threads that arrayed her, incisions that marked the war she went through, the dots that told tales of how many samples of blood taken, her back, the veins at her elbows, her wrists, her feet… gone. All gone.

No mark, no scars, just plain pale flawless skin.

But she started losing her hair… by tufts. No longer she could pull her hair into a ponytail, so she had cut it pixie style. But like her hair, her eyebrows went, so with her body's.

He blamed the dye she used to make her blonde. Then he blamed the virus, then he immediately blamed Pariah.

Course she had to be sarcastic about it, saying she needn't have to waste time plucking and pampering.

But she called for him… and told not to panic.

Behave.

Except he couldn't, except he saw the growth of red hair amongst the clinging dark brown.

And when he came through the door, he had lunged at him and slammed man into the wall despite Dana screaming. He was nice, he was being nice, considering he didn't crack the wall when he slammed him.

"YOU TOLD ME SHE WAS CURED!" he roared.

Those eerie green eyes swirled into amber yellow, a look flashed past only to be replaced back to the emotionless facade. He snatched the hands that held him aloft by the neck, fingers stabbed into them and black veins immediately sprouted from beneath the pale-corpse skin, traveling up the sleeves of the owner.

Not again.

Like a flytrap forcefully pulled opened to let its victim out, his fingers unclenched without his will and the man slid down, eyes coolly looked back at him as he glared, baring a full snarl.

"Zeus, your behavior is not helping her stress," Pariah said to him as he stood just a foot from being wrangled and slammed repeatedly into the floor.

"Alex, please," Dana pleaded behind him, her voice a whisper, hoarse from yelling.

He relented, his shoulder slumping from its rigidness but he noted Pariah did not command his virus out of him.

"May I?" Pariah glanced at him in his way then at Dana on the couch.

Alex just eyed him distrustfully as he stepped aside. Pariah walked past him, shoulder brushing by before he offered his hand to Dana.

He wanted to protest at the contact then saw his sister glared at him sharply. Clenching his teeth, he reluctantly waited as the older man's eyes grew distant in his probing.

"What did I tell you about stress?" he murmured, his tone still cold and flat. There was guardedness in his expression, the lingers of their argument still hasn't quite left him.

"That I should take it easy," Dana drawled. "And I have." She rolled her eyes.

Pariah exhaled then glared at Alex. "She had how many major surgeries. Believe it or not, hair loss is normal," he told them.

"But at this scale?" Alex growled, pointing Dana's bare face.

"Yes. Heard of Telogen Effluvium? It affects body hair as well. The worst case is… everywhere," Pariah looked at his sister critically, eyes flicked the area below her waist before glancing elsewhere. "Been shaving?"

"No." She crossed her arms, rubbing them in her discomfort. "But gone as well."

"Your hair will grow back," Pariah assured.

"Except I'm bald everywhere," Dana mumbled. "Naked as a baby," she said brushing her scalp beneath the hood she had pulled up earlier.

"I'm quite surprised you didn't lose your hair when you had mother's virus running rampant in you," Pariah mused.

"Dana, show him," Alex snapped suddenly at his sister and she glared.

"I was about to get there," she growled back before pulling her hood back, breathing the word asshole.

Barely seen but enough fuzz of orange… red hair growing out. It was but a patch on her bald front scalp, slightly to the side towards her left ear.

"Well." He blinked at this. "I was sure I reversed every modification."

"I'm not... I'm not changing into-" Dana began.

"My mother?" he cut in, and for once actually smiled in amusement. "Not if I can't help it." He chuckled.

"It's not a laughing matter!" Alex snarled.

At his reaction, Dana closed her eyes and breathed deeply, hands enclosed into tight fists.

"I could see why you're not taking it easy lately," Pariah commented calmly.

"He means well," Dana replied. "But he takes it too far sometimes," she gritted out.

Fucking hell, now he felt like the villain here. Alex grimaced at himself and started pacing.

"Is there anything else you want to tell me?" Pariah continued despite a certain murderous virus on two-legs muttering and snarling swear words in the background.

"No," Dana answered. "But the red hair?"

"I can remove it if you want? It won't be unpleasant," he told her. "Your body is normal… but what you went through did leave a mark."

Red hair… that was how close Dana was. So close to the line. Until he stopped her progress. That was how close he was to losing her, Alex clenched his teeth as the tendrils in him tangled up in a knot inside him.

"I'd rather let it grow since your body is still adjusting," he added. "But it also means losing your hair again… and making your body adjust again."

The journalist pursed. "You can't change it now?"

"I can… but instantaneous shapeshifting is probably not the answer you're looking for." He smiled. "Besides, it's only a patch that has the red hair. The rest of your head is your natural hair color."

"So I'll be having two hair colors?" she noted with a wrinkled frown between her brows.

"A small part, so yes, chimeric hybrid," he said.

"Besides the hair, the scars had disappeared." She pulled her sleeves to show her wrist. The brown dots of injection mark and the inkblot blue of bruising in blood vessels were no longer there. Just the pale blue veins against her white skin.

"The ones on her torso as well are gone," Alex snapped from the living's room background.

"Regeneration, hmm." Pariah frowned. "I don't sense anything growing in you. Nor has the virus been active. Your strength?" He looked up from his thoughts.

"I… did crack the table," she said quietly. "When I was angry."

"When was this?"

"When you snooped my laptop," she snipped.

And the awkward silence fell between them, the frigidness was back on his shoulder.

"And this is the only thing?" he said. Alex stared at him, there was an odd lack of change in his tone as if he hasn't heard the words she had spoken.

"Wait," Alex said. "You're not going to fix this?" He gestured at Dana and she looked unhappily at that.

"There's nothing to fix. Is just her body going through some changes, adjusting," he echoed his earlier words. "Unless, of course, you want me to infect her."

Fuck him. Alex grumbled between grinding teeth.

"Besides, wait and see what else prop up," he told them, standing up.

Dana looked up, frowning at his sudden leaving. "My hair will grow back, right?"

"We'll... see on that."

---

"It's…always like that," Dana said quietly as Patrick shut his eyes, fingers on her nerves. "He just shuts up tight and won't talk to me about the subject. Even when I ask what's bothering him, he just grunts back at me."

She had hoped Gordon would know, the answers that Alex kept to himself, and understood those he'd told her. She'd seen footages, she remembered the blurry pixelated footages. Enough to tell her what he'd done, but it wasn't helping her in trying to understand. It only shook her. It did not fit the being who asked how she's been doing, or had that sullen expression on.

It did not fit the being who, without thought, without brief pause took lives with that cold face… sometimes gleeful, sometimes raging.

A human face she'd never knew that could actually make those expressions of a predator.

She'd seen him kill before, in front of her, and he had that… crazy look. Panic, fury, intent, she didn't know. She was too caught up the fact Alex showed up and there was a motherfucker in her apartment that was strangling her. But compared to that, that was normal.

Disbelief, in denial - a bad habit that she always fell to. She had no one but Alex to talk to about those shaking images. She tried talking to him, only received more cryptic, vague words and a shut mouth that frustrated her. Shaken and confused, she hoped Gordon would set her at ease. Even when there was lingering anger from their previous heated argument and disagreement, the older man still came for each checkup as he promised, remaining calm, and unfaltering.

Who else but him since he was what Alex is, the only one she could freely speak to, besides him. Who could understand him, maybe more than her, she hoped so. Gordon definitely had better social skills and was clear about things. Not once had the man stammered or struggled, nor even back down against a challenging question.

"You sure you are not reading into it too much?" he echoed her words and she stared flatly back at him.

Snarky… but she wasn't sure if he was making fun of her or not. He was a persistent figure in her life for now, she wasn't entirely sure how long he will be part of it nor was she sure if she like the thought.

He moved his fingers around her shoulder, then commented, "I don't sense any mutation." His head tilted at that.

"How are you doing this?"

"I have magical jazz hands." He shook his hands and grinned lopsidedly.

Dana just stared back at him in not amused expression. "That better not have been an innuendo."

Now it was his turn to stare back flatly. Patrick sighed. "Comes with being what I am and that comes with extra senses." He noticed her look. "Can't particularly describe it." He scratched the back of his head. "Considering it's like describing the color red to a blind person."

"Weren't the scans enough?"

"Reports from the university are nice." It was something that came with Patrick, he seemed to have his hand on the academic and doctors at the cancer center. For some reason, they completely ignored the fact her hair's growth showed her genetic oddity. Patrick's handling.

"Mind control," Alex had viciously muttered.

"A mere nudge. I'm more an influence than an over controlling megalomaniac," Patrick had drawled back.

Okay, she had that going with her dealing with Patrick. It was still disconcerting to think about. She grimaced.

"But a little double check from a different means won't do any harm." He pulled back then looked down on her toes. "Can you stand?"

"Yes."

"You get tired easily?"

"Actually, no," Dana answered with a frown. These days she found herself… not energetic per say, but not spent as well. She expected recovery to be hard, like heavy limbs, short stamina, and muscles to grow back. Coma patients, after all, shouldn't even be standing so quick. She wiggled her toes at that thought.

"You've been hearing anything, seeing? How about peculiar dreams?" he continued to ask. Watching his expression, she took note of his neutral stare. "Sleep walking?"

"None of that," she answered and saw no change on his face besides the slight narrow from his eyes.

"Your senses, have they gone more sensitive and sharper?"

She shook her head.

"Your hair growth?"

She brushed her front bang in answer, where locks of red hair near the left side streaked over her natural brown. Her hair growth had been unnatural, growing too fast then they conveniently stopped… just like the regeneration thing. Something like regeneration would only cause cancer in a human's body considering the report on those Walkers said everything she needed to know.

Except it didn't.

Not to mention… from the neck down, her body hasn't recovered any hair growth, only thin light ones, the short fine hair seen on children and babies. Hardly visible until put under a glaring light. Smooth like a baby, she thought drily.

"My body is still bare," she told all of this quietly.

Patrick frowned deeply. "My mother loves children," his tone soft. "She probably never realized the changes she's done," he murmured then looked at her sharply. "Your eyes? Has he noted them changing colors?"

"No, but Alex hasn't been saying much lately," she said quietly.

"Your menstrual cycle fine?"

"Yes," she drawled. "You're sounding like my doctor," Dana grumbled. "Shouldn't you have the reports on that?"

"Just wondering," he replied. "Confirmation would be nice, and it's polite to ask."

"You would snoop anyway," she exasperated.

"Aren't you worried that you aren't fertile?" Pariah asked.

That brought her down. "Yeah, saw some of those reports on the survivors," she said quietly. "I'm fine, right?"

"You are. You can have lots of babies in the future," he told her brightly.

She frowned at that, her anxiety did not go away when she tangled her fingers together.

"Healthy, normal ones, right? I saw those… Hope's report on the children infected when in the womb," she murmured.

"Most likely yours would be healthy," he answered.

"That wasn't a proper yes."

"It's most likely but I'm not one to cross out risks. The chance may be little, but it exists all the matter. And even then," he paused in thought. "Don't expect the same results like Hope's children. They had Redlight… you, you have three strains," he told her, looking up.

"What would that imply?"

"There won't be… failure in the virus part."

Dana looked at him sharply. "Failure?"

"Redlight was trying to make something, those were the results, but it succeeded in one case," he told her tiredly. "Me."

"So there's a chance I'll be giving birth to… something like you."

"Not exactly," he answered back. "But a Runner definitely, I think." He hesitated and glanced at her, wondering how much she knew of the mothers that died at childbirth. How hardly normal their pregnancy were as they all showed symptoms, a clue the child would be anything but human. Or the fact if she had been a Runner, she would've probably gone through the same process his mother went through to make him.

With or without a father, the virus was going to make use on that womb. The ability to bear life was why there were more female Runners, or another way to say... female being more favored, compatible for the virus.

Dana was breathing in deeply at that. So the same problems she has been worrying about Alex would occur for her own children. Might… might be, she reminded, and if she had any children at all.

Alex would go berserk if he heard this. She was glad he wasn't here at this moment.

"There's also a chance you won't suffer aging or age very very slowly," he pointed out quietly. "Which is nice, so you've got that going," he added cheerfully.

"W-wait, I won't age." Dana sat up straight and blinked rapidly at that, trying to comprehend. "W-what do you mean I won't age?"

"Small chance, but time will tell," he replied calmly.

Great, and this was why she was not looking forward dealing with people. There will come a time when they will start wondering. She could imagine the question and the first and foremost, was it infectious? How, when, what happened? She would be treated like an HIV victim. Fucking A.

Jesus, if she was amongst her friends they would be egging her why she wasn't going out, why she wasn't dating, why…

Why she didn't call them.

At least the virus wasn't contagious, enough to say she could even donate her blood since the virus was contained and couldn't be transfused. The same reason why they couldn't get a sample of the virus no matter how many times they tried, as Patrick had told her then went off saying don't all of a sudden. Something about not wanting a sample of her blood in the record.

"What else?" Dana asked him sharply, "Anything else I should know."

"You might be highly resistant to drugs, and that means pills won't work on you. Don't be surprised if it takes more alcohol than usual to get yourself drunk."

"The pills, would that include birth control and pain relievers?"

"Yes. And then there's the fact you'll never, ever be sick. That's a definite. Look at it this way, you can't get sick, nothing can give you cancer, and your organs and joints probably won't fail with age. Mighty chance of not suffering from atrophy. Comes with no aging thing," he told her, cheerful or trying to be even though he looked strain with that shaky grin.

Dana frowned, trying to get her head wrapped up on all of this. It sounded nice if it weren't for the fact it was one of the reasons she had to lay low, and it being a troublesome implication in the future.

"Any difference in strengths?" he went on.

"I find opening jars of jam easy," she said drily, still uneased at the revelation.

He hummed at that. "Could be your brain withholding all your muscles' potential," he commented before grabbing a cup off the coffee table and suddenly tossed it at her. She snatched it and looked at him crossly.

"What the fuck was that?" she demanded.

"Checking your reaction. Quite fast," he commented.

"People use rulers to measure reaction time," she added, snippy, putting the cup down on the table.

"Too expecting," he replied then stood up, made his way to the kitchen. "Any blank out moments? Or any moments at all that you feel the urge to go out in the world and touch people invasively to turn them into your personal minion?"

"No," she said again exasperatedly, tired of these questions as he examined the pantry in distaste.

"Processed food," he muttered in distaste before rummaging the fridge.

"What are you doing?" Dana said crossly.

"I'm going to cook."

"You could've asked," she snapped, Gordon getting more on her nerves by the minute. "And it's polite to ask," she repeated his words.

Another invasive asshole, considering the fact she had to deal with this from Alex when it comes to seeing people. He just happened to be there, eavesdropping or standing there to scare off curious neighbors and visitors. Godammit, she did not want a watchdog.

Alex always appeared out of nowhere, in the middle of the street too, even with people around. And casually, he would ask, "Who were those people?" While she freaked out at his sudden close presence beside her.

How he does that baffled her.

Patrick paused in his rummaging. "What would you like to eat?" he asked her snidely before bringing vegetables up that… has yet to be eaten.

Yeah, yeah, she didn't like her veggies. She didn't know what to do with them.

She crossed her arms and leaned back into the couch from across the room, she then answered, "Omelet rice." Dana gave a small triumphant smile when the man paused in the kitchen.

He raised an eyebrow in challenge, before he turned around, setting himself busy in the kitchen, getting utensils and stuff.

Food, cooking… she frowned, recalling how Alex had not once eaten. She had asked why of course, and then they happened to walk back into that clamping mouth shut territory, only for him to tell her with cryptic words when he avoided her gaze. "I consume… people."

"As in… like… how those monsters do. Eat?"

"N-no! It's not…"

"Like that?" she finished for him.

"Dana. To survive, I have to..." he struggled again.

"Consume?"

"Yes."

"Does it have to be people?"

"...yes. Animals aren't good enough. Human beings though have the right mass… and genes."

"Genes?"

"When I consume, I infect. Blacklight is flexible enough to jump species, but human beings… it's what it was meant for."

Blacklight, a virus that came from a being who was a human, created by her brother and reanimated his corpse. Great to know that he had to have the zombie's diet, people.

Dana grimaced, groping her forehead at an incoming headache.

He did not just kill. When he meant they were in him… not just mentally, they were literally in him. Consuming might as well be eating for him. Why bother with the technicality? She inquired silently. Granted, she'd never seen him consume but she'd seen images, videos. That was enough.

A body crushed by a foot-stomping down, unforming immediately into tendrils and become one… amongst the many that was him.

Is that how he eats? It was so violent, so ruthless… so thoroughly inhuman.

Back then, before her abduction, this being that prowled Manhattan did not click the current image of her brother. She knew some shitty fucked up thing happened, hence Manhattan being shit and him able to punch through her captor… but a virulent swirl of tentacles? More a monstrous infected than a superpowered being.

But the more she scrounged up, the more it connected. She kept denying, and avoiding, it would distract her from digging up the skeletons. But it was in her thoughts with the fact Manhattan was going down a hellhole, but she kept it from the forefront of her mind. Panic was not something she needed, was not something Alex needed. He was taking the apocalypse pill well, albeit angrily, so was she but not as malevolently pissed off about it… more like worried.

Until he confessed, then it all came crashing down. There was no avoiding after that. The black blur, the distant swirl of black-red tendrils, and beneath the flickers, she could barely see the familiar forms of her brother. A pair of piercing blue eyes glowering from beneath the signature hood.

Monster of Manhattan. Her brother.

That was one of the most popular searches on Google. All the links always get wiped off in the end, but sometimes it just took a cryptic and totally unrelatable search to get a video about him. Some that happened to be keywords that would bait children into seeing gore. There was a sick fuck out there who would do that.

But that was the least disturbing thought. She vaguely remembered her coma dreams, but one thing that was drilled into her head was what… she saw him as. What Greene saw.

Son.

From the mother's eyes, he lacked a face. Beneath the hood was a swirling mass that spoke with numerous voices. That hiss, snarl, scream and… whisper. And she was so proud of him.

She had come to accept him because… she believed that he was wronged, that he didn't become like this because he wanted to, didn't want to be like this. That they made him this way, they made him into a monster and it would explain his need for revenge, for answers.

That he couldn't help it, didn't know how to deal with it – even she didn't know how. If she abandoned him, did nothing about that problem of his, he would continue knowing no better. It would be wrong to leave him. Of course, before she could do anything to address that issue of his, before she could fully understand what they were both dealing with, she was taken away.

If it weren't for the fact he showed being at lost, remorseful and angry at what he's become. What he is. She wouldn't have accepted him then and now. Ruefully she had noted, it had never crossed her thought that something became her brother instead of the other way. Especially when knowing, had saw those tendrils reweaving itself into another form.

It became her brother, a clueless being who knew nothing and seemly assumed in its first awareness that this form, her brother's identity was his. She should have seen the signs, the fact he could change his form at will should be the first. Primal and predatory, his pacing, his cold fury that threatened to burst into a raging one was far from her more collected brother's snappish snarls. It was so obvious in retrospect, but then it wasn't something her real brother wouldn't do, especially if he was amnesiac.

What then, if she didn't tell him the words of a family?

What would've happened?

It was what worried her about Alex. What was that thin line he holds? What was stopping him? She couldn't be the only reason why he didn't become what his nature deemed him to be. Really, she was scared of him… she was scared for him.

Her face paled when remembering then she glanced at Gordon who was heating the pan. "Do you need to," she faltered. "You live off food, don't you?" she asked weakly.

"Food?" Gordon didn't turn his head. "As in normal human food, yes," he answered.

"Not people?"

"Depends how much I exert myself. But I'm still a big eater by human standards," he said, cutting the food methodically. "It's about him, isn't it?"

"Yeah," she said quietly, walking over to the kitchen and plopping down at the counter's seat. "I'm worried," she admitted.

"Do you know what he really is?" he asked her without turning.

"Some kind of an infected, a Runner," she mumbled, recalling the conversations from hospital.

"Well yes, even then we differ a lot from the norms. Remember, he was made. He's a synthetic virus, manually mutated so a lot of things go a bit differently than the natural way," he said. "As far as I know, I'm the only who was born a Runner. But despite that, we're both virus-based lifeform."

"I don't see him as just a viral thing. I see him more than just that," Dana interjected crossly. It was like saying human being was just another animal when they had proven to be more than just that, mentally and in action…

Alex had proved that with each passing effort to make her happy… however overbearing he was.

"But it would fundamentally ignore what his nature and his instincts are," he replied then sighed, looking up at the ceiling. "Virus infect, Redlight assimilates, Blacklight is just better at it," he told her.

"Going somewhere with this?"

He glanced back at her, the eerie amber-green eyes of his mother gazing. Dana held back an internal shudder. She did not want to admit it; her dreams were still haunted by those eyes.

It would've been nice if Alex was there. The fact he would be there watching out for her if she screwed up in her judgment on Patrick… was comforting, even when it was disturbing. But the fact he did not trust her judgment or didn't take a single dime from her thoughts wasn't helping her thoughts on him.

She was willing to cope being alone with Patrick if it meant getting her answers… despite the heebie-jeebies.

"Ever wonder why the virus decided to take up a human face or even have a humanoid body at all instead of just a lump of cancer cell?" he asked.

The journalist frowned. "It's the assimilating thing, right? Redlight was a virus capable of genetic engineering," she recalled. "For humans," she added.

He hummed. "Yes. The human genome was the basis for it to build something out of it. Those genetic had to come from somewhere. It's why we inherited some human traits. Having biological sex for one, the urge to live, survive another. It is a universal trait for all lifeforms to survive and reproduce, live. But for a virus, it only exists and replicate, kill." He rummaged through the drawer, opening the barely used spices and mixing them into the pan.

Dana leaned her cheek into her hand, eyebrows creasing together. "A bit paradoxal, isn't it?"

"True. Viruses don't live or die since it's not alive or a lifeform. It is only biological machinery with a set program to persist in existence. You could say the same with cells as well, the difference is what their primary function and how. But here we are," he told her, gesturing at himself. "Defined by virus. The urge to infect, to exist, to replicate becomes a blur to human traits: to live, survive, reproduce... Hives wouldn't exist if it weren't for the virus combining and kept some prescribed nature in its host."

"Wouldn't Alex exist in some way then?" she muttered, almost too quiet if it weren't for his sharp hearing. Assimilation. If… those people were in him, wouldn't it mean her- Dana grimaced, resting her forehead in her hands.

"The people I've killed. They're in me. I can hear them, see the things they have…"

Ghosts, like ghosts living on, haunting… in her thoughts… in Alex. It seemed like it when she had noted when Alex gazed too long into space, he would flinch at nothing. Trauma? Something was bothering him… and she could not understand why, even afraid to ask. She was afraid of the answers he would give, because lately, not all were pleasant to swallow.

"I'm supposed to do these things."

She was afraid.

Dana squeezed her fists together, squirming worm of anxiety settling down in the pit of her stomach.

Patrick paused and glanced at her as the pan hissed. "Your real brother?" he asked, jolted her from her thoughts. "Don't know on that. Blacklight could've just used his DNA for genetic material only," he told her. "Even if he does, I suspect it would be in fragments, the rest was the virus filling in the blanks..."

She had gone quiet and distant when she stared into her hands.

"You wish for him to come back?"

"In some way I do, but then it's not Alex I'm asking… just those good times." She looked up, giving a bittersweet smile.

"You know you are an anchor for him."

"I know," Dana murmured. Two on the same boat. A sister in his eyes. But he knew nothing about her. "I still don't understand why he stayed," she said, shaking her head softly, her smile wry.

She only did what a sister was supposed to do. Be understanding, be there… smile if she can… as she always had for him.

He looked at her before he lowered his gaze, and when he spoke again, he sounded hollow than usual, lacking emotion. "If you ignore technicality, he has the needs and wants of a virus." She looked at him with knitted brows.

"He needs to infect, is that what you mean?" She then narrowed her eyes on him in realization. "You wanted us here because it's easier for you to stop him."

She recalled Runner's sole purpose, and what Alex needed to do to survive. What he knew, felt he should do, infecting. Runner in instinct. She exhaled at that and pushed away from the counter as she glared accusingly. She had hoped Patrick was there to make sure Alex… wouldn't become what he is, but not in that way.

She expected him to help him.

"Stop him from what?"

"From doing what your mother did to Manhattan," she snapped. "Cut the bullshit and stop acting dumb. You wanted me to know." Here she thought it was herself that was the threat. "Alex is not going to become another… crazy ch-" she caught herself quickly and sputtered. Chick? "Infected," she snapped. "Like your mother was."

Patrick did not look offended at all. A mere raise of an eyebrow was his reaction.

She could see why Alex hated his gut from the beginning.

Was she a burden or was she a rope that held him back from becoming his nature, an anchor. An object, a means to an end. She was property, she held the property of Blackwatch. A hostage. A bargain.

He didn't want them to get their hands on the virus, she thought quietly as she watched him.

It was quite unfair he received all his end of the deal, and they didn't. He could learn everything about them and still kept them in hand's reach, under easy observation. They barely learn anything about him besides his public backgrounds. Alex had said he was psychotic lab rat, control freak, she added, but here the neutral being in front of her was not fitting that image of the fatherly doting tone he puts on in his phone call.

No one could be that nice, yet she was still surprised despite her suspecting him having hidden angles.

"You always knew, but you just thought different on him as if he was an exception," he replied calmly, backs facing her. "And that's not what I meant, besides the whole needs to infect, his current biology cannot support on only human food."

"But yours can," she pointed out, remembering his previous statements, cooling down a bit as the steam rises from the pan.

Besides her own personal investigation on the Outbreak, and keeping tabs on Blackwatch, Patrick was another bundle of puzzle that she needed to go through. He was a lab rat. He had an alias, a codename, PARIAH. His mother was the psychotic hippy nineteen-year-old chick in her fifties, who almost took Manhattan and was the source of monsters and the virus that manifested the streets. Mother of monsters she was.

Patrick was definitely far from that in appearance. Likewise, the sin of the parent was not the sin of the child.

"I learn to change, force my body to adapt, but it never goes away," he told her as he stirred. "Occasionally, if I exert too much and needed a quick boost, I consume," he told her. "You do know the process of consuming, right?"

"It involves infecting," she recalled snappishly. Common theme, really. Virus-based lifeform.

He nodded. "It's basically converting the victim's cells," she winced at his word choice, "into his own through infection and mutation."

"You don't have to, right?"

"I don't. But he has to. He was born in a war, from the moment he opened his eyes, he had to survive and that meant he had to always stay on his prime. He is conditioned to consume, always, with how much energy he uses."

Dana stared at him, couldn't help letting out a disappointment. "So it's a psychological problem as well."

Patrick nodded.

She suspected as much. Alex made her worried. It did not help every time she made physical contact, he would flinch and tense. Was this what family members felt when received a scarred soldier, a survivor in place of their loved one?

"You can help, right?" She looked up. Might as well take advantage on his close presence. He didn't exactly refuse… just pointed what he planned to do if Alex did.

But not against the circumstance that would lead Alex to… become what he is. God, she couldn't believe she was trusting a guy who had just admitted he would end Alex's life.

She was grasping straws. But she was desperate. She was scared, really scared for Alex. Because not all was alright… she knew it, could see it. The difference between him and her real brother was simple, Alex tried to keep distant with his demeanor and came off stiff, reluctant. Her real brother was distant, unreadable.

And it made her worried. She knew she shouldn't compare…

"Help?" Patrick echoed as if it was an alien word.

"I mean, since you don't have to, you can teach him how," Dana continued.

"It'll be up to him if he wants to change," he said neutrally. "Queen Bee-"

"Dana," she insisted, couldn't get the nickname he plastered on her.

"I don't like the look on your face," he commented at the determination flashing in her eyes. "You seem to forget, he doesn't like me. Also, he doesn't like humans in general."

Pessimistic outlook, yes, she knew. She was reminded every time when she wanted to go outside with him always grating out the dangers. If he had his way, he would have wrapped her with bubble wrap and stuff her in a box that only he could sit on. He was like a mother hen that had her feathers ruffled up too many damned times.

"He doesn't like anyone or anything in general," she added flatly. "And I can take care of that, besides… Alex is little bit too quiet."

"Don't drag me into your social plan."

"C'mon, help me here, please," Dana pleaded, ever the swindling student who weaseled money and owing people.

Alex was handy to say the least, he was always constantly there. Though she did not mind being watched out, she could not help but feel she was losing something in return. Her choice was always restricted and her going about always dogged, and she was getting pretty tired and irritated at this territorial attitude of his, however caring his worries seemed.

"I mean, you're proof that he can actually live a normal life." If it meant getting breathing space from Alex as well, then why not?

She may not know much about Patrick, but he was the only one she could think of in terms of helping Alex in being normal. Despite his former life as Blackwatch's lab rat, he managed to become a doting father and could get through whatever they had thrown at him.

Maybe Alex could find out what he needed. Not just for information gathering in the case of know your enemy, but for his own sake.

The older man stared flatly at her. "It's not up to me," he said stiffly. "I've got my children to take care as well."

She slumped in her seat.

"You brought us here to watch us. And that, in case we've become what… your mother wanted, you would end our lives. You weren't joking at the hospital."

"No, I wasn't."

"So you're just gonna watch and observe? When you could do something about it." She glared at him, accusing. The old argument stirring and the unanswered questions burned in her mind.

"I've already done my part. And demanding help won't get you anywhere."

"So does doing nothing," she echoed quietly, jaws clenching tightly. "I thought you were sincere, Patrick."

At her last words, she heard a tired exhale from him. "I'll do what I can, but it's not up to me."

---

An opportunity to be normal as possible. Dana… why does he get the feeling his sister is trying to baby him.

"You talked to my sister, didn't you?" He glared at the older Runner who seemed to be looking around.

"It's her idea, not mine," Pariah clipped back before jumping over the fence.

"What are you doing at a kid's school?" Especially late at night. Curious, and nothing much to do, he followed after him. And he hoped his presence was annoying Pariah, cause there was nothing much for him to do even here. He was being shallow, but he was bored to death.

"Report," Pariah answered cryptically without thought as he made his way to one of the school's window that wasn't in clear view of public street.

Mercer frowned then remembered Pariah was a parent, and like any good parent, they worried about their children's grades. But why the hell was he breaking into a school late at night?

Report… School Report? He recalled the date as well as the general curriculum middle school has.

Middle school was before high school, and that meant tests around this time would act as a prep of entrance examination, if this school was one of those of course. It didn't take much working out that report meant he was here to get an early glimpse on his children's future.

Still, this was strange per say and was making him wondering why he wanted a look. He remembered enough from a call that he had two children at least. One boy, one girl.

"You could just wait for their report card to actually show up. At this point the test's done and there's nothing you can do," he pointed out.

"Hnh." Pariah pressed his hands against the window sill and Alex saw the glint of black biomass seeping slowly into the other side of the window. "Need to find out early in case I need to threaten to kill his teachers to up his grades."

"Seriously?"

"No, of course not," Pariah said crossly before a click could be heard. Alex's blue eyes narrowed as he noted the sight of throbbing black tendrils unlocking the latch. "I just like knowing ahead of time. That way I can act pleasantly surprised when his grades do officially arrive."

"And why not actually be pleasantly surprised for real by not looking the grades up?" Alex stared hard, not understanding the logic.

"Don't be absurd. I'd need to know ahead of time, otherwise I might flub the reaction."

His gaze turned flat, almost borderline to disbelief. "You've been through this enough times to know what the appropriate reaction is, I would think."

"You would think so, wouldn't you? But I'm afraid it's a bit more complex than that," Pariah retorted before lifting the window up then slipped into the classroom, went off unlocking the hallway's door.

From his lack of glancing for cameras, Alex assumed he has done this plenty of time before. Couldn't believe he took this guy seriously, he thought crossly, hearing the sound of more unlocking somewhere off.

He was definitely a far cry of manipulative asshole Blackwatch, panic-blind civs and paranoid scientists. Alex was familiar with distrust, he worked with distrust, he preferred distrust and Pariah was exuding clear apparent lack of it. And that meant he couldn't work him out unlike his usual targets. It was quite frustrating, hardly refreshing.

Overthinking, control freak, hidden psychopath, absurdly goofy-wearing bastard. He was wearing a bowtie for God's sake, even now.

He gave him a headache.

"You're an annoying fuck, did you know that?"

"Thank you for your unwanted opinion. But I appreciate you tagging along," Patrick said cheerfully as they walked along the hallways. He looked back at him surprisingly. "A partner to practice with makes things a lot easier and better since I get too theatrical and loud."

He immediately turned around at the mention of that. "Y'know what, I'm leaving."

"Attaboy…"

That's it, he was going to deal with that pretentious attitude.

"No! Zeus, put that darn locker dow-"

---

"How did it go?" Dana asked.

"He's odd."

"Is that improvement, I hear?" she said slyly to her grouchy brother, arm-crossed over his chest and hood low over his brow in sulking.

"Quit it, Dana."

---

"Darn poopheads!"

Another peculiarity, he never swore. Fuck, cock, dick, asshole, bastard never ever passed his lips. Instead it would be fiddlestick, fudge cakes, even fucking bananas! God dammit sometimes become dang nabbit. Shit would be Shih Tzu on a stick. The fuck. He stared ridiculously at the words that spouts out of Pariah's mouth.

Alex didn't know what to say as he stared at Pariah throwing a tantrum in the middle of the suburban street. Throwing a beer bottle just because of football.

"Is it so hard to tackle through those meat heads!" he heard the sound of careless denting and metal groaning in the alleyway.

Why was he here? Oh yeah, Dana told him to socialize more. Be normal. It was either people which he didn't know much in his list of contacts to socialize with or him. He preferred him, because Pariah seemed to take his silence as acceptable as the business look he always wore.

Compared to him, he looked like a slouch or a thug with his hoody get up and untucked shirt.

But the annoying thing was, as he learned more about his enemy, Pariah seemed more human than he ever was. Pariah was married. He had kids, normal kids and not virulent mutated monsters. Got divorced. The whole drama of living a human life. Maybe it was the sheer amount of control Pariah has over his strength and virus. Would explain why he was such a control freak, Alex mused when the older Runner seemed to strangle the air while he listened into the earphone connected to his phone.

"I should have infected them all," he heard the dark mutter from the older man. "Oh yeah, I'm considering that right now!"

Alex bristled at that then the incredulity sunk in.

"You're planning the apocalypse because your favorite team lost?" He stared at the epitome of doomsday-bringer wrestling his earphone cord.

Well, he expected a better reason than a football team losing at world championship. Like the internet perhaps. The sheer garbage and molesting imagination of mankind was enough to lose hope on humanity and just skip to annihilation on them.

"Just... up their strength, durability and speed a little, you know?" Pariah gestured with his finger pinching the air at little. "Just enough to get to the playoffs."

"You'd risk the virus going out of control to make your team win."

"They haven't won since the eighties! They need every break they can get!"

"And if it went out of control?" Alex grated, not quitting this pressing issue. Pariah just snorted, brushing off his paranoia.

"You don't get it," the flat reply came.

There it was again. You don't get it. Alex glared at the older man. Every time Pariah said that it was as if he was implying he was just a kid who didn't understand the big wide world. For fuck's sake, he had memories of how many human's lifespan in him. That should count as something.

"So what? It's just football," Alex said as the older man scrounged through the dark blonde hair in frustration.

"Hey! It isn't JUST football!" He was even surprised at the football fanatic in the viral abomination when he suddenly spouted about the glory of football and its history.

All of it went through his head. Perhaps living in Houston has affected Pariah to become one with the mass of football fans. Possessed. That thought kind of freaked Alex out. Something that virulent that it even affected a viral abomination was certainly something to be reckoned with.

"You're not even listening, are you?" Pariah narrowed his eyes on him before shaking his head in disgust.

"I... was preoccupied," Alex said slowly.

"And what is so much more important in that head of yours," Pariah began flatly when he stopped his predatory pacing. "Than football?" Menace leaked harshly between those gritted teeth… and all because of football.

Jesus Christ...

Ah, just fuck it. "Diet," Alex blurted the first thought that came to his mind. Wryly, he blamed the human Jane Ashling for getting into his thought for that. And also, Dana nagging about his… choice of food, not like there was much choice in it. Or the pain that comes with the everlasting internal screaming.

"Diet?" Pariah stared hard, not amused. "Strangely enough," he murmured. "Your sister and I have been discussing on that few days ago."

Alex stiffened at that. "What you've been telling her?"

"What we are, nature, instinct, needs. She wanted to know, understand that is. She's worried," Greene's son clipped as his amber-green eyes glinted a gold hue.

Alex sighed, it was what he got for keeping his nature out of the conversation. He did not want to worry her but did the opposite instead.

Everything he fucks up.

"Have you found an alternative?" the older Runner inquired carefully.

And why was he being curious about this? What does he get in knowing? "What other alternatives are there?" Alex snapped. Other than making sure that he killed quick and painlessly, a snap at the neck was his most used method, cause he-his victim would not recall the pain.

And they would never realize they were dead. It was but a quick, intense, burning sensation at then the end just came.

"Not much, if you continue what you are doing," Pariah answered then sighed. "Your body works like a factory, it's able to support the constant infection from the virus. All you need to do is find a way to… turn off."

It did not help the fact that last bit sounded wrong in his ears.

"Make your virus inactive, incubating," he added flatly when he noticed his baffled accusing expression. "Course, shapeshift yourself beforehand, and lose some weight else you crush your legs." He chuckled. "Without your virus' constant intervention, your regeneration ability would cause cancers and tumors, as with most cells," Pariah informed, recalling a reason why Blackwatch couldn't clone him… why Hope children died.

"That would limit me." Alex glared back suspiciously. Weakened was the word. He knew enough, figured how Pariah kept hidden in the hive as well showed no symptoms in the infected visions. He wouldn't be able to use his abilities and strength, however overpowered they are.

"Yes, adapting causes sacrifice, how do you think fish deep in the abyss lost their sight?" Pariah snipped, rolling his eyes. "Even when you are… not manifesting the virus, as human as we-" Alex clenched his jaw tighter. "...can be, you still would be far much stronger, same goes with your senses."

"But the point is, your body would be shifted into a mode that's able to support itself with human food only. If you shapeshift yourself right, that is," he added the last bit.

"Would it get rid the urges?"

Pariah looked at him sharply. He had his back facing him, face hidden beneath the hood as he paced around. A touchy subject for him it seemed.

"The infecting?"

"Something like that," Alex answered quietly.

"Human hunger because they need energy," Pariah said. "It's almost the same as us but," he exhaled. "I suspect it's more than just that. As long the virus is part of what makes us… us, infecting will blur the lines of surviving, considering our body depends on it."

"Even yours?" Alex looked at him.

"Well, maybe not depend." Pariah made a face. "I've been living thirty years without it being heavily active, but I can't deny every inch of my body doesn't have it. Still, it doesn't mean we can't change it to… something less of a hassle."

Mercer frowned, he suspected as much. Once he thought a cure would somehow help, that whatever he had would progress just like those victims of Redlight who turned mindless, bloated and into monsters. Blackwatch, after all, kept saying the streets were infected with Blacklight. That was until he realized what the virus really is, and what a cure would do to him.

"Since you don't want to limit yourself," Pariah backtracked to the original topic, sounding patronizing at his reluctance on the matter. "Why don't you break down the brain when consuming… as in don't infect it, take advantage of the other processes in your body."

That was how he skipped the head entirely. Alex's expression froze. Make the cells cannibalize each other… he knew his own body make use of every compound that enters it. Simple, common metabolism except far more advance and too different, and one that's capable of breaking synthetic objects down at a small discomforting expense. Metabolism might not be the process that made him capable of that.

It was... he struggled, trying to find why he was balking at the image of it. Kind of revulsing since it was invoking the same uncomfortable feeling. Organic material was no trouble for him and he could enjoy taste, but it was hardly like the instant rush that came from consuming.

Not to mention, who eats brains?

Pariah wasn't so human after all. "You're disgusting."

"I was trying to be helpful here!" Pariah snapped.

---

"So what did you guys talked about?" she asked though noted him staring at her food with intensity.

"Football. Football and eating people."

Dana almost dropped her spoon when her eyes widened at him. "...what?!"

---

Pariah: One does not simply dismiss football.

Though the image of Pariah annoying Alex like Niko Bellic's cousin from GTA III amuses me more.