Trigger warning for a panic attack and lots of symptoms of anxiety.


Four days after his dad was shot, Arashk wakes up in the gloom before dawn feeling colder than death.

He's immediately pissed that his simple dream of watching her brush her teeth and comb her golden hair was interrupted, but the annoyance quickly drops out of prominence when it registers with him that his body is shivering involuntarily. His hands tremble against the sheets and his teeth chatter, and he's pretty fuzzy on the exact date and even the month but he knows that spring started a long time ago.

Strange, unintelligible whispers start to fade into focus, caressing his mind in both a physical and mental way that leaves him with jumbled thoughts and something akin to a brain freeze, and he amends his previous evaluation of the feeling. This isn't colder than death.

This is exactly as cold as death.

He squeezes his eyes shut and pulls the covers over his head, partially in an attempt to warm up physically, and partially in a desperate hope that whatever ghosts have stumbled in here will give up and go away if he refuses to engage them.

Some of the cobwebs fall from his barely conscious brain, and he realizes rather abruptly that this is without precedence, and outside the range of normal ghostly behavior. They don't just stumble in anywhere. And he wouldn't be feeling the ripple of death they broadcast so keenly if they weren't here with a purpose.

He sits upright, and the blanket slides off his head, but he doesn't open his eyes just yet. He just quiets himself, sitting as still as possible—which for him is not an impressive level, but it'll have to do. The temperature remains steady, but he finds himself quickly acclimatizing to it. The cold slides into him and settles down inside his bones, and gradually, shapes begin to take form in his mind.

They're not at all clearly defined. He can't tell a thing about them, not their ages or genders, how long they've been dead, nothing. He just knows there are three of them, and they have something to say to him.

A feeling like a spike of ice being driven through his stomach takes hold of him, and he clutches at the area with one hand, barely managing to conceal a cry. His hand lands on the book tucked into the elastic of his pants.

His eyes finally open. By all appearances, he is still alone in his room.

Two words, very faint but slow and clear, sound in his mind: "Return it."

He's out of bed, his feet slid into his strange slipper shoes, before he gives himself time to think. He grabs his room key and pauses just before touching his doorknob to look back at the digital clock by his bed. It's 5:08. Livia won't be happy about this.

The chill overtaking his entire body intensifies, and he's out the door in the dark of morning.

The ground is flat but it somehow feels like he's running downhill. He trips and very nearly falls flat on his face halfway to Livia's apartment, and before he knows it, he's at her door, knocking at a volume and speed that he hopes is just soft enough not to wake her neighbors but incessant enough to wake her.

Three full minutes go by. He swears the temperature drops another five degrees at least, and he wraps his free arm around his knocking one and whispers, "Cut it out, I'm growing icicles."

He's fallen into a rhythm and his hand knocks twice more even after Livia opens the door, clad in her PJs and fuzzy blue slippers, hair in total disarray, looking supremely annoyed but trying to be patient. "Arashk, do you know what time it is?"

He yanks the book out of his pants, his fingertips absorbing the peaceful sensation of sleep, and shoves it into her arms. There's not time to register her reaction before the voices are back.

"Put another one in its place."

Without missing a beat, not sure where this urgency is coming from, he asks, voice low so as not to wake anyone, "May I come in?"

She draws her eyebrows together, but she doesn't budge. "Why? Is something wrong?"

"One of similar dimensions."

"One of similar dimensions," he repeats unthinkingly, and immediately winces.

Now she looks almost alarmed. "Arashk, are you okay?"

"I'm fine," he says automatically. Yeah, that's sure something she's likely to believe. "I just… would like to borrow another book, if that's okay with you."

She stands there blinking, and he has half a mind to just slide past her and start for her bookshelf, but he couldn't manage that without brushing against her, and the idea of that makes him want to shrink into himself.

"Livia!" he says in a fierce whisper when a few seconds have gone by with no response.

She jumps a bit, but finally steps aside, and he strides past her. There's no temperature change at all as he enters the apartment. He can almost feel the ghosts taking the same steps he is.

He stops at her bookshelf and starts scanning the outward-facing spines for smallish leather-bound books. Automatically after a few seconds he looks behind him for the book he already gave to Livia, seeking a comparison, and sees her pulling the door shut and starting in his direction.

"I need something as physically similar as possible to that one," he says, voice still quiet, when she's close enough.

"Why?" she asks, stern and unhesitating.

The two options that spring most immediately to his mind are "I don't know" and "I can't tell you." Both true, neither encouraging.

What leaves his lips instead is "I'll tell you soon." Provided I can figure it out.

She sighs, but her expression softens, just a touch. It turns thoughtful as she begins surveying her books, and she says, "I don't think I have any that are really similar to that one…"

He doesn't know why, but his heart plummets.

"Wait, hang on—"

He grasps at his chest, not sure how much more of this he can take.

And she pulls out a small book bound in brown leather that sends Arashk's heart pounding like crazy, so he keeps his hand over it as he grabs at the book with his other one. "Daily Meditations" is printed on the cover in flowing script. It looks barely used—as did Loriss' book, though that was because he's taken very good care of it over the years. This is because Livia's barely opened it. He sees the time she bought it in a bookstore a couple years ago, on a day when she'd broken down crying, and the times she read it almost daily for a few weeks afterwards, until she gave up hope that it would be useful and nearly forgot that she owned it.

Arashk holds the book of meditations up to the one that Livia still holds for comparison, and this new one is only slightly smaller and thicker than the one that's spent the last week or so in his vest. The cold air around him somehow emanates approval, and he breathes out a soft sigh of relief, though he still doesn't understand one bit of what's just happened.

"That one will work, then?" Livia asks, watching him through tired eyes.

He nods vigorously, and almost shoves it into the elastic of his pants where the book of Kipling's works just was, but given that Livia is standing right in front of him, thinks better of it.

"But you're still not going to tell me what's going on?"

He freezes, staring into her blue-grey eyes, in which he can already read disappointment before he's figured out how to answer. Something pangs inside him at the thought of what she must be going through because of his inability to explain anything to her, her slowly deteriorating confidence in him as he continues to enlist her for covert activities without offering any explanation or payoff. This can't go on forever. He's running out of favors to ask.

Only a few seconds have passed, and he opens his mouth, not sure what's going to come out of it. Before he can find out, Livia says, "Whatever. If that's all, I'm going to see if I can get a little more sleep."

He blinks, mouth still slightly open, and she says with no patience in her voice, "Goodbye, Arashk."

He compliantly heads for the door, thinking better than to argue, and she follows him closely to shut it behind him without even giving him time to say thank you.

"Go back to bed," the voices whisper to him, and he tucks the newly acquired book into his pants to rub his arms. Somehow the urgency is still alive and well in their commands. Advice. Whatever the hell it is. But he imagines his work will be done after he obeys this one. He's not sure what could possibly come after going back to bed. Unless there's more waiting when he wakes up again. If he can get back to sleep.

He starts walking, and not a few steps later he feels something at his back, but when he turns, there's nothing there. He keeps heading forward, picking up the pace, and mutters, "I'm moving, get off my back."

It's not until he's actually lying in bed that the temperature around him normalizes. He feels his cheeks flushing with the sudden warmth, and the tingle in the back of his brain dissipates. And just like that, the three ethereal presences that have been dogging his steps are gone without a trace.

He realizes that he's been operating on borrowed, or even forced, emotions and motivations for the last twenty or so minutes. And he still doesn't have an explanation.

He just surrendered his only connection to Loriss. Why? Because the spirits told him to and for absolutely no other reason.

"Oh my God," he whispers to himself, eyes wide even as they take in very little in the darkness of early morning. "I've actually lost my mind."


Strangely enough, Arashk sleeps like a baby.

He gets up as late as he can, giving himself just enough time to get dressed and make it to his tent before he's supposed to open it. Vague memories of witnessing the Head Detective perform some stretches with his injured arm and his wife help him along flit haphazardly through his mind in his spare moments between readings, of which there is a considerable amount today. Sometimes he goes to slip his hand into his vest, just by force of habit, and is quickly reminded that spying on Loriss is no longer in the cards. At that point, he usually takes out the book and flips through it until his next client enters.

He's as unsure as ever why he has this book of meditations on him. In the lull between his first two clients, he tries asking out loud, "So what was that about?" He's not sure whether or not he imagines the brief cool breeze in response and he just feels like an idiot talking to the empty air. All he can do is hope some answers come soon.

He gets his two meals, per the norm, and forces himself to have a respectable lunch, but come dinnertime he's just not hungry enough to even finish his hot dog. He is sure of this so early on in the meal that he decides there's enough time to wash off his face paint so he can go sit among the crowd, and reapply it when the time comes to return to the tent.

He's done this once or twice before. He's heard that generally it's allowed, as long as you're not in costume, or overtly recognizable. This is the third or fourth time he's done it just by removing his makeup (normally he'd also leave his robe or vest behind in the tent, but this time he holds something of admittedly questionable but still significant enough importance in his vest) and nobody's ever questioned him.

Livia is in the middle of her trapeze act when he takes a seat on a bench. Almost every carnival-goer in sight is watching her, with a few exceptions buying and eating food and whatnot.

That's good, he supposes. Relative to the usual din of the crowd, this is fairly quiet, and he needs to think. Of course, the best place to do that would be his closed tent, but he can't bring himself to spend any more time than necessary in there. He'll go stir crazy.

All right. Things he needs to think about.

Loriss. Sebastian. The connection between him and Livia.

He idly trails the acrobat with his eyes as she's flipped to and fro by her partner. Whatever it is they have in common, he hopes it's not something deeply personal that she would never want to talk about. Really, she doesn't talk much about her past or her home life. What little he knows is from that one time he touched her hand without asking.

Let's see. The Master singled her out specifically and asked her to be in the show. Presumably for the same reason he kidnapped Arashk. They joined or otherwise became part of the show at least a couple years apart and probably never had anything to do with each other before they met here. Which means the Master chose them for a specific purpose.

Well… Livia is clearly crazy talented in the field of acrobatics, and Arashk was all over the news for his alleged psychic abilities. Both are relevant and useful skills for someone in the Master's line of work, and that's even the reason he directly gave Arashk for his abduction—though of course he never went so far as to call it that. "I only want your cooperation as a psychic," he said.

Arashk doesn't know whether to ignore it as a misdirect or treat it as a clue.

An especially impressive gasp rises from the crowd, shaking Arashk out of his thus far unproductive thinking session. He looks to see why, and finds the reaction understandable—she's balancing on the tightrope on one hand, a feat that Arashk would never have believed practically possible before meeting her.

But then, he spent half an hour before the sun rose this morning unquestioningly following the commands of ghosts whispering in his ears, and that's not something he'd ever have seen as a possibility either.

His brain, his amazing ghost-sensing future-seeing never-stopping psychic brain, grinds to a full halt.

That can't be it.

Because if it were, he'd be faced with the impossible task of finding an excuse to explain why it hasn't occurred to him before.

Suddenly all his inhibitions about being seen as even crazier than he actually is vanish completely, and he's wishing with all the zeal he can muster that he'd questioned Livia more closely on the extent and origins of her abilities. He knew something was off, he knew that some of the things she could do didn't make sense. And he allowed the danger his family and friends were in to distract him from trying to get answers, in the same way he was distracted from trying to work out why he could suddenly hear the dead, see the past, and feel other people's emotions.

They might have something to do with each other.

They might have everything to do with each other.

His expression has frozen into one of intense thought, an enormous knot between his brows and his eyes as wide as they can get as they unconsciously follow Livia around the tightrope. He forces himself to smooth it over, reminding himself that he's gotta do whatever it takes to appear as lost and confused as possible at all times.

It's become a lot less work lately. He doesn't let himself consider why this might be.

Are they freaking superheroes? Did the Master gather them together because he knew they were about to grow into their powers? Is he a supervillain? Are there more besides him and Livia? What about Loriss? Is he—

The flood of questions suddenly becomes a typhoon of disorientation as something yanks Arashk out of his reverie. For a long moment he's not sure what, as he just tries to pick up the debris in his mind, and then somebody sits on the other end of the bench.

His heart starts thudding with all the power of an automatic weapon. He's turned slightly away from the newcomer, but he can feel the wood beneath him strain slightly with the added weight, and though he'd love to be able to convince himself that it could be anyone, he knows who it is.

He holds as still as possible. The smallest movement feels dangerous, in the same way a child burrowed under the covers with his closet door wide open might feel afraid to move. He realizes he's stopped breathing, and forces himself to resume. The book nestled against his chest feels like it's burning a hole straight through to his heart.

"It's been too long, Mr. Ronaldo."

Immediately he's cursing himself for letting the other man speak first. But even now all responses flee from his head. So instead of speaking, he slowly turns back around, easing his body into a normal position facing forward on the bench. He doesn't make eye contact with the man, doesn't even look at him.

"It's a gorgeous day, isn't it?" A small sigh of pleasure. "I love the sunlight. Little to no cloud cover. It's days like this we see the largest crowds."

Arashk says nothing.

"You know, Mr. Ronaldo, your clients seem to have become more and more impressed as time has passed. It really seems you've gotten the hang of these readings, despite your initial concerns."

You're freaking welcome, you son of a bitch.

"It's really quite incredible how far you've come. You certainly look the part; I am very pleased with your tattoo selections as well."

With every word Arashk swears his heartrate increases. He knows what's coming. Last time it was a surprise. He's not really sure he'd say he prefers having prior warning; it's like waiting to see his dad get shot all over again.

There's a long pause, and his body is slowly tensing up even further. He notices it several seconds into the lull but can do nothing to stop it, until he feels like a stiff board of frayed nerves, and the guy still hasn't said anything. What the hell is he waiting for?

Gathering his courage, Arashk finally manages to sneak a glance to the side.

The Master is sitting with his hands on his knees and his eyes closed. His dark hair is slicked back, as always, leaving just a few loose strands to tremble in the slight breeze. He's dressed as casually as he's been every other time Arashk has seen him, with sandals, cargo shorts, and sunglasses tucked into the front of his gray T-shirt. The movement of his shoulders indicates deep and purposeful breathing, and a serene smile plays at his lips.

He's in no rush.

Arashk has half a mind to tell him his break is over and he needs to get going. Well, maybe like, twenty-two percent of a mind. He constructs the sentence in his head—Well, I need to get back to my oh-so-important readings, so if you wouldn't mind… But this guy probably knows he still has more than twenty minutes left and his tent is just around the corner. No, there's no way out of this.

He wants to at least prompt him to speak, but those words die on his lips as well.

Finally, the Master's voice comes from beside him. But the words are not what he expected. Instead, spoken with all the softness and icy calm of a trained killer, comes the question, "Mr. Ronaldo, what's that you've got in your shirt?"

His heart stops beating. He swears it does. For something like two seconds it just hangs in his chest trying to remember how to function. A strange and suffocating mixture of crushing relief and intense dread fill his brain, leaving that out of commission, too. He doesn't move a muscle. He's forgotten how. His vision is going a bit black around the edges.

In the lull, he detects movement to his side, and realizes that the Master is patting the middle of the bench, indicating that Arashk should place the contents of his vest there. Knowing he has no choice, hands shaking like the dickens, he finally finds the strength to reach into his vest, pull out the book of meditations he's had in his possession for something like twelve hours, and move it towards the space where he's meant to put it down. He drops it about two inches above the wood, his muscles forsaking him, and withdraws his hand as fast as he can. For a long moment, the only thought his brain can produce is that he hopes the Master gives the book back; he's not big on meditation, but it sure seems like something he could use right now.

Waves of confusion emanate from his right. He's not sure if that's good or bad. The soft sound of pages being turned reaches him, and so do the words "Doesn't this belong to Miss Istok?"

He would know, that creepy bastard. Arashk gives a tiny nod.

"Why do you have it with you? How long have you had it with you?"

Arashk wets his lips, scrambling to remind himself how to speak. Finally he manages to push out the raspy words, "A few days. A week. I don't know."

The Master pauses. There's something about it that seems very deliberate to Arashk, but he doesn't have enough functioning brain cells at the moment to begin to puzzle through exactly what that might be. Then, again, "Why?"

Why, indeed? What has he been doing with the last twelve hours that didn't involve coming up with a believable story in case of this exact sort of situation? There's no time. Go basic. Truth is simple. Did his heart ever start beating again?

"I didn't want it taken away," he finally whispers.

Silence.

He doesn't believe him. Of course he doesn't. But what can he do?

"Mr. Ronaldo," the Master says, voice low, "you would do well to be honest with me."

Arashk counts to one Mississippi. He can't answer too quickly, or this all comes crashing down. "I swear," he says, voice gaining an iota of strength.

Another long, calculating pause. It's only like seventy degrees out here, and his shirt is thin, but Arashk is burning up. He's not sure whether his heart is beating so fast he just can't feel it or said organ—muscle, a familiar voice corrects in his mind—has actually been completely still for the last several minutes and this bench is his personal purgatory.

Suddenly he realizes what he said a minute ago. That he's had the book for a matter of days, rather than as of just this morning. God almighty, why did he say that? What if the Master checks Livia's room as regularly as he does his? What if he knows the book was in there just yesterday? What if he's turning that information over in his head right now and realizing that something doesn't add up?

Finally, the Master speaks, and when he does, Arashk finds himself unable to understand any of the words. Spots dance before his eyes. His heart pounds in his ears. Sweat runs down his forehead. Air is entering and exiting his lungs too fast, nothing his brain is pretending to process is coming out coherent, and it feels like anything could happen—though a lot of the scenarios that he can't help but consider involve his heart giving out, something in his brain rupturing, or the sheer weight of reality crushing him. He knows what death feels like, and this is different, but a quiet yet powerful voice inside him is saying it's not different enough. He is seeing too much, hearing too much, feeling too much, and it all comes in in a jumbled mess, and he can't handle it.

Faces swim before him and he both recognizes them and doesn't at once. Something that feels like a hand on his shoulder sends him flinching away, only there's nowhere to go, and his shoulder connects forcefully with the back of the bench. Bench. He's sitting on a bench. At a carnival. He's at a carnival. The carnival. The one he works at. Lives at. Against his will. The Master. The Master is one of the faces. He's Arashk Ronaldo. But he's not. He's a psychic. But he's not. He's about to die.

But he's not.

A ragged gasp tears out of him, probably one of many, but at least this time he was aware of it. There are two people kneeling in front of him—the Master, who is being careful not to touch him, and a crew member, one of the friendlier people on setup, a woman in her late thirties with an infectious smile that is decidedly not present at this time. Her mouth is moving, her words floating up and around like bubbles for Arashk to catch. Finally he manages to process a few, but they're so predictable: "Arashk, can you hear me?"

At least she's not asking dumbass questions like "Are you all right?"

Another sentence makes it through, one from the Master: "He said he's been having very intense visions today."

Arashk feels like crying. Hell, he might already be doing that; he's not sure.

"Breathe, Arashk," the woman says. He's so glad her hand isn't brushing against his cheek and his shoulder is decidedly covered by his shirt. "Do you know where you are?"

"Show," he gets out. "Bench."

"That's right. You've had some kind of an attack, Arashk. You're fine."

Is he fine? He sure doesn't feel like it, and he's not sure he can trust someone whose diagnosis was "some kind of an attack" on the matter.

"Can you stand?" she asks then, and Arashk kind of doesn't think he can, but he'd rather try and fail and fall on his face than have somebody touch him to help and add visions to the mix. So he nods, they step back to give him a bit of space, and he just sits there, coming to terms with how badly he's trembling, trying to figure out how this started, and ergo, how to stop it. But the worry rippling from the woman and the subtle threatening glower from the Master are making it through the processing center of his brain now, and once again it's all too much, so he just braces his hands against the arm of the bench and pushes himself to his feet.

His knees wobble, and their hands go out to catch him, but he manages to stay upright. His head is actually beginning to clear. For the first time he registers the sheer number of concerned faces passing by in the background, and a couple other crew members standing behind the two people closest to him.

"Should I call a doctor?" the Master asks, voice dripping with concern, and maybe Arashk can only hear the warning note in his tone because he's got senses other people don't, but the overtly menacing expression on his face, which no one else is currently looking at, seals the deal.

"A doctor wouldn't be able to do anything," he says, voice wobbling but gaining strength. "This has happened before. I'm fine."

All lies, except maybe the first thing. Maybe.

Arashk honestly wouldn't mind testing it out, but if the Master continues to get his way, he doubts that will ever even become an option.


He's excused from returning to work that day, thank God.

The Master sends the woman and one other crew member to spot him on the way back to his apartment, disappearing to who knows where. They stay for a couple of minutes to get him some water and ask ten times if he's sure he doesn't need anything else, and he proceeds to spend the next hour lying on his bed, staring at the ceiling, trying his hardest not to think. He's tired of thinking. Feeling too.

He's been having a pretty successful time of it when the sound of a key turning in his lock pierces the relative quiet of the room.

He sits upright quickly but not urgently, and watches as the Master steps inside, looking completely unruffled after their last encounter, and calmly locks the door behind him. For an instant Arashk wonders how he got in, but he reasons he probably has access to backup keys for all the apartments. Or… a Master key. Hah. Hahah.

He doesn't let himself think about how goddamned thrilled the man must have been to see the fruits of his labors manifest the way they did.

He's got a manila folder tucked underneath his arm. Arashk knows what's inside. "Mr. Ronaldo," he begins, "I won't keep you long. There is one more thing that I wanted to talk about before our conversation was… cut off. And at the risk of sparking another such reaction…"

He won't. Arashk is never going to feel like that again if he can help it. Which he's painfully aware he can't, but.

"…I am here to address it. First, however," and he pulls something from behind the folder, approaching Arashk's bedside and setting it on his nightstand, "I think you've offered sufficient proof of your need for this."

Arashk blinks at the book of meditations sitting beside him. Not really important; he'll think about it later. He returns his attention to his visitor.

The Master places the folder next to him and takes a step backwards, watching him expectantly. Arashk looks at it and back and him, and he so desperately wants to say something snarky, but even ignoring the fact that his snark setting has lost its edge, and as satisfying at that would be, it certainly wouldn't be wise. So he silently and compliantly takes the folder into his hands and opens it.

Four photos rest on top of an article. He wants to read the article first, but the first photo is of his father being loaded into an ambulance on a gurney, and after he sees that, all his attention is drawn to it. It's one of the few moments of the incident that he hasn't actually seen already. He examines it closely, but there's not much to see other than the only hint of red on his shirt that's visible given the photo's angle. The next picture is of the detective who dove after him, standing on the ocean shore surrounded by paramedics, dripping wet, standing funny, and clutching his elbow, face contorted with pain and fear.

The other two are of the aftermath: a shot of his father full of tubes in his hospital bed, and one of the detective in the parking lot at the precinct. His arm is bent awkwardly, and Arashk can read the limp in his step.

He's impressed with how calm he's managed to remain so far. He moves on to the article and scans it for new information, but there doesn't seem to be any. Unknown shooter, investigation continues, a statement from the detective, and all the names have been removed, with one exception: "the father of Arashk Ronaldo, the psychic detective who disappeared last year."

Last year. He disappeared last year.

It makes the event sound so… remote. So distant. How long has he really been here?

Too long.

"Now, Mr. Ronaldo," the Master says, "I am no fool. I know the overwhelming likelihood that you have already seen this, that you know what happened. But on the off chance you haven't, I will narrate for you. When—"

"No, I know what happened."

God, maybe that was a bad idea but man does it feel good. The Master's disgruntled expression at being interrupted alone is worth it, not to mention his lack of enthusiasm for the idea of listening to this guy, of all people, tell him what happened to his dad when he already knows.

After a few seconds the Master smooths his expression over, replacing the displeasure with his typical tranquil look. "Do you also know why?" he asks.

'Cause you're an evil bastard? For a moment he contemplates whether it's actually a good idea to answer this, since there's a possibility that it's not what he thinks, and he doesn't want to give this lunatic more ammunition. But no, he's sure. He's sure in the new way, the way he doesn't have to doubt. And he's reasonably certain, based on the Master's expression, that answering is not optional. "I imagine it has something to do with my venture in the storage area," he says, a little meeker this time.

"Very good. You probably also won't be surprised to hear that I'd like to know what you were doing there instead of 'sleepwalking'?"

…This is bad. And something he should have anticipated. He can't mention Livia, he can't. What would be a reasonable story? The Master isn't likely to buy an innocuous explanation like "I was meditating" or some crap like that. But what else can he say? "I was plotting your downfall but it's not working out so well so you don't have to worry hahahah"?

"Be truthful, and promise me it will stop, and you have nothing to fear," the Master says softly.

Yeah, that's likely. Okay, if he removes Livia from the scenario, is there still a story to be told? Not really. The Master is watching him carefully; he feels like he's taking a polygraph test, and maybe that's how he should be acting. Tell the truth, just not all of it, and piece it together in whatever way suits his needs. Okay. What did he and Liv talk about?

…They talked about their names, they talked about Loriss, they talked about any number of things Arashk can't repeat. He's still waiting for an answer. The pause has gone on too long.

Arashk sighs, and starts, "I could sense that nobody would be coming in there for a while…" So far so good. That's completely true. But he doesn't have the second half of the sentence prepared and the Master is waiting and nothing is coming to mind—

So Arashk does what he does best.

He just makes something up.

"I've been trying to come up with a way to spark visions completely free of any relevant stimulus and I wanted to practice. I couldn't use my apartment because it requires total quiet and the guy next door was playing loud music. The storage unit was far away from most people and really dark, which is also helpful. I was…" He swallows, doing his best to appear genuinely nervous—more than that, doing his best to be genuinely nervous—and goes on, "I was trying to figure out something about you. Your past, your plans, anything at all." He pauses, as if unsure whether to go on, and also actually unsure whether to go on.

"I want full disclosure," the Master prompts. "You will not be punished for it. Nor will anyone else."

This is a bad idea. This is a very, very bad idea.

But if he says he was completely unsuccessful, he doubts he will be believed. And if he makes something up, he definitely won't be believed.

There's no way out and no time to think. So he screws his eyes shut, rubs a hand down his face, opens them, and says, "I didn't get much, but I did see a face."

"Describe it," the Master deadpans.

Arashk rubs the back of his head. "He looked a lot like you. My first thought was an older brother, or I guess father or uncle, depending on what time the image was from. Um…" He squints, straining to recall details. "His nose was a bit longer and he had a couple creases on his face… His hairstyle was definitely different…"

The Master looks at him thoughtfully. His poker face is incredible.

"It wasn't very clear," Arashk explains, "and I didn't get any context. Just a face."

His face doesn't change. Not the slightest twitch disturbs his expression. Something tickles at the back of Arashk's mind, but he pays it no heed. He is telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and he knows it. And he has to keep knowing it.

Finally, the man smiles, and his teeth practically glow. "Thank you for telling me, Mr. Ronaldo."

More than dismayed at having lost some of the lead he had before, but also relieved for reasons he can't let himself consider just yet, Arashk nods, shoulders sagging.

"You are, of course, forbidden from attempting this again."

Whatever you say, man. He gives another compliant nod.

The guy hasn't taken his eyes off him, and Arashk doesn't like the look he has, like he's seeing straight into him, perfectly aware that his apparent submission is total crap. Or at least near-total crap.

"If I could make a request," he says tentatively, "might you stop looking at me like that?"

The Master, still standing above him, chuckles softly. Arashk watches the way the oft-practiced smile sits naturally on his face, but more than anything else he resembles a shark. With a lot of people, creases explode over their faces every time they laugh, conveying true joy. There's nothing of the kind here. This man has no smile lines.

"Next time you step out of line," the Master says, voice perfectly even and soft as silk, "one of them dies."

He was doing so well. He thought that he had control over his body, that in the end he'd come out of the day largely unscathed, and it would just be a "close call." But the words hit Arashk like a literal punch to the gut. Or rather a stab. A dagger has just torn open one of his lungs and he can't breathe, can't feel, can't think.

He should have seen this coming. He did see this coming. But… but like always, he managed to fool himself into believing that his actions had no consequence.

He's an idiot.

No, worse. He's actually very intelligent. And yet he acted idiotically. He's… he's not sure there are words for what he is.

At least he has the presence of mind to realize that the Master has made his way to the door. He reaches for the knob, but stops with his fingers resting delicately on it, and turns back towards Arashk. "Make no mistake, Mr. Ronaldo," he says quietly. "You belong to me. You can't hide anything from me. And you are not going anywhere."

And just before shutting the door behind him, one last time, he smiles.