Got my fingers laced together&I made a little prison {Liz&Mi

[Mihai C. Eliade]

The first thing that hit him was the smell. It was stale and rank, like the stench of some place that had seen a living being (or a dead one) for far too long without any fresh air. It smelled of imprisonment, of rot.

Blearily, Mihai opened his eyes and stared at the familiar sight of his blank ceiling, barely illuminated by what dim light made it past the curtains. He felt nothing. No headaches, no soreness, nothing that implied he'd fallen asleep in a particularly uncomfortable position after injecting an entire syringe of morphine into his arm, just beneath the elbow. Then again, maybe it hadn't been sleep. He felt too well for it to have merely been sleep–not that it mattered. It wouldn't be the first time, nor was it a particularly bad way to go. In the aftermath, he always felt at peace, like he was coming down from a high in a much more forgiving way than usual. It was the silence in his head, probably. It always took awhile for his mind to start working again, and before it did, he was blissfully blank, a clean slate without shape or identity or history.

He usually tried to stay in that state for as long as possible, staring at the ceiling that was as nondescript as he was. There was one thing soothing about it that had more to do with the way light shone through his thin, blue curtains, casting a soft glow onto a surface that would otherwise be boringly, clinically white. Eventually, the gears would start spinning again, but that was not now. He focused on simply being, being a consciousness in this stale room, taking breaths in time to his heartbeat.

He lay like that until the light had all but gone, and he was left staring at the darkness. His stomach was starting to ache. It was the first thing he felt. How long since he'd eaten? Finally, he moved. He rolled over and switched on the lamp, illuminating a small pile of discarded vials by the foot of the bed. His eyes moved over them, registering them but not thinking much about them, except maybe that he should kick them under the bed at some point, at least until he could even begin to work up the energy to discard them permanently. He tore the bandage off his arm and crowned the pile with it.

Sitting up, he opened up the window to the cold air of Russian winter and lit up a cigarette before he thought about food again. Despite his body's protests, he didn't feel like eating, didn't feel like scrounging up what change he had left to buy something. He was about to sit back down on his bed when his gaze landed on a styrofoam box, half-wrapped in a plastic bag, sitting on the table. Take-out. He didn't remember who had brought it–probably Ky, since it certainly couldn't have been himself–but food was food. It took barely two steps to reach the table, then he opened the box and sniffed at the rice. It didn't smell off, so he must not have been out too long. He pulled the cigarette from his lips, and stabbed at the food with a fork from the bottom of the bag, managing a few mechanical bites.

The more he moved around, the more he had to control his actions, the more the rusted, rested gears in his head began to turn. He could never keep them still for long. The thoughts were coming back, in rapid bursts of motion and emotion: the rough press of gravel on his hands, blood (not his, for once, but he wasn't sure if that made it any better), and the thundering beat of his own heart in his ears. He recoiled from them, the thoughts–he and they had never really been good friends he was closer with the feel of rounded plastic in his palm, the slight pain of a pricking needle.

Swallowing the last bit of rice past the lump in his throat, he reached out for the last drawer of his bedside table. He needed to stave off the thoughts, the memories, but God did not give him that grace. The drawer was empty. He looked under his bed, then beneath a loose floorboard, the hiding spaces growing from more to less obvious, but they were all empty. His eyes moved over to the vials that littered the floor, counting. Complete. How long had it been since he'd been locked up in this room, with nothing but his own self-inflicted amnesia for company? He didn't remember the last time he'd stepped outside since that day, except for one "assignment" that had ended quicker than usual, by which his masters seemed to be disappointed. After that, he didn't have any clear memories until–well–now.

He felt a slight panic starting to build, and he grasped his cigarette into his palm to try to stave off the mounting tumult, but the pain didn't help. No–not now, not yet. He wasn't ready to deal with it, to face it yet. After that day, after they had done what they needed to do, he'd lay in his bed feeling like his entire existence was being torn out of his core, that he was pouring his eyes and skin and bone onto the spotless white sheets underneath him, and that was how they would find him, nothing but a pile of gore that just couldn't take what they had to offer. Of course, they did not, though he supposed that after weeks (months?) of self-imposed captivity in his room, he had come close to becoming nothing but a piece of meat. But that fate would be kind, compared to what had happened that day, the sort of despair he'd felt, and he wasn't ready to feel it again, wouldn't ever be ready.

He fell back onto the bed, dropping his face into his knees as he tried to regulate his breathing, but once the dam was opened, the river came all at once. Arthur. How was he? What had they done to him, after? He knew the extent of Archadia's cruelty–intimately, and then some–but he hoped Arthur hadn't come to face it. And his wound? That was the type of wound that couldn't be left to heal on its own; it would leave a permanent mark. How long had it been? And he hadn't even been down to see him, hadn't even tried to find out if he was down there. It was for the best, probably, that he was too much of a coward to face it, any part of it, even if part of it was Arthur. Maybe then, Arthur wouldn't come for him anymore. Maybe then, if such a thing ever happened again, Arthur would do what he should have done: run. Run and never looked back. Arthur should never have come back for him. He was good for nothing anyway; he couldn't do anything then, and he couldn't do anything now. He was just some sad wretch who'd locked himself in his room instead of doing anything useful, like making sure Arthur was okay, like somehow making up for the fact that this was all his fault. If he had run, if he hadn't hesitated, if he had said something about the cameras, if he had warned him, if he hadn't tried his key, if he had been able to act faster, if he had just said 'yes' if if if if if

if he had protested his own innocence. If he had saying something at the investigation. Hell, he had been useless even in the aftermath. Half the things they said he'd done were wrong, but he hadn't cared–all he'd wanted was to go home so that he could lose sobriety and reason and memory as quickly as possible, and he'd lost his chance at ruining Vash Zwingli.

He almost laughed. After that stint with Ludwig, he would have done anything to see Zwingli fall. He supposed "anything" just didn't quite encompass what had happened that day.

Everything was messed up. Arthur was god-knows-where with a hole through his knee, and that Zwingli would continue on as he always had, and they were all the more miserable for it. Maybe it didn't even matter now. The worst had already happened (well, not exactly the worst–his imagination was both creative and kind enough to provide him with ideas about what could be worse), and it wasn't like trying to piece together all the parts of the puzzle would fix that. He wasn't even sure what the picture might amount to, or if it might even be something he could use against Zwingli. Christ–all he knew was that the official story–Zwingli's story–didn't line up, based on the bits he could remember, which came to him more like camera flashes than an actual narrative, and the pieces that didn't fit, well, there was only one irregularity in all this, wasn't there? And that irregularity was Zwingli himself. He'd turned this over and over in his head–he wasn't sure when, nor how sober he was when those contemplations struck him, but they'd made sense then, and they made sense now–and there was nothing that explained it more perfectly, was there?

But even if that was it, if that was the truth, so what?

What good would it do? He always came back to this, in the end. What good would it do? Arthur was still hurt, he still wouldn't have done anything to stop it, and it was still all his fault. Perhaps, before that day, he might have derived some sense of satisfaction from revenge, but now he couldn't guarantee even that.

He fell onto his side on the mattress, trying to block out the thoughts that circulated in his head–round and round. Guilt and fear and indecision, accompanied by two names, one that he loved and one that he hated. There was no decision to be made here, no puzzle to piece together, just a tangled web of emotion which he saw neither beginning nor end. How was he supposed to try to make it out of this mess if he didn't know where to start, nor if there was a solution at all? What could he do to make this better, to not hurt, to go back to a time when his own helplessness hadn't been utterly proven to him? Of his inability to do anything for Arthur, much less protect him? What good would revenge do if he couldn't manage that?

The thoughts just wouldn't stop.

He didn't know how much time he spent like that, letting the river wash over him, trying to make it flow around him. It still chipped away at the bliss of forgetfulness he'd developed over the past of however long. Everything he hadn't wanted to face was facing him now, and he could do nothing about it, not with his supply dried up, used up, discarded. Even as the currents slowed, and his breathing steadied, no answer washed up for him to grasp. There was just one thing that slowly crystallized in his mind.

Perhaps–just perhaps–if his hunch was right, if there was something wrong with Zwingli, and maybe it wouldn't change anything, and maybe it wouldn't even give him any sense of satisfaction, but, hell, Zwingli would deserve it. If he was right, Zwingli would deserve every bit of what was coming to him.

That was something, he supposed. A conviction. It answered nothing which he needed answered most, but it gave him an objective to focus on, and for that he was glad.

He thought on it for days. He thought about it in snippets, between sleeping, cleaning, tentatively poking around for his next hit, and just as tentatively rediscovering what had happened the last couple of months. He thought about the puzzle pieces that were spread out before him, about arranging them in different ways, and about only ever ending up with one picture that made sense. He thought about who to tell this to. He thought about the consequences of being wrong, the worst-case scenarios that could bring hell down on his head. He thought about what Zwingli would reap if he was right. He thought about all of these things and he did his best not to think about Arthur, and when he finally made a decision, he was overcome by a feeling as cold as ice that he did not know whether was resolution or dread.

Once the decision was made, the plan set, he didn't allow himself to think twice about it. He approached the nearest guard for the mutant compound, in the evening, when most people should be getting off work. He took a deep breath; then with leaden heart and leaden limbs, he requested to speak with Elizaveta Hédérváry.

---

Elizaveta Héderváry : sorry most of this is introspective. let me know if you need more to work with!!!

[Elizaveta Héderváry]

lost and insecure

“you found me”

Mihai C. Eliade

Elizaveta needed a break.

Really, the longer and harder she thought about it, the more she wanted to take a leave of absence. It had been a rough few months, after the Underground prison crisis. She'd had more than enough of paperwork, of criticism, of whatever the hell this was. There were probably people who were calling for her resignation, whispered only because of her mother's ruling.

Elizaveta was tempted to give into those demands. It would be much easier, to retire from the public spotlight. Elizaveta had always prided herself in being the sort of person that held her ground, but even so, Elizaveta was ready to give up.

Did she really care about the Underground? She had only come to piss off her mother. Had only stayed so that she could rebel, could remain away and away and away from her mother's grasp. Yet here she was, in one of the most politically treacherous climates that Russia had ever seen, locked in the middle of the greatest scandal that the Underground had seen since its very creation.

Elizaveta groaned as she leaned back in her chair. She wanted to be the kind of person who could run away and make it out alive, or the kind of person who could finish this job and wrap up this nightmare of a breakout with elegance. But the truth of the matter was, Elizaveta was not that kind of person. She was the kind of person who liked to ride out on horseback and practice her archery, or take hot baths, or simply, well, simply be.

Perhaps she was more like her father than she had intended to be. But there was nothing wrong with that, was there? Just because she wasn't ambitious in the same way her mother was didn't mean there was something wrong with her. Elizaveta could be ambitious, if she put her heart into her work. But Elizaveta's heart wasn't in the Underground. Especially not now.

She wanted more. More of what, Elizaveta was unsure, but more of something. Not the same kind of more her mother wanted. Not more power or more money or more land. Elizaveta would be satisfied, in the countryside of Hungary, living a normal life. She wanted more of that. More of happiness. More of freedom. More of her own life, far from politics or being a guard. She wanted to ride bareback and just be a girl again. That was something she had never been granted.

The thought to resign was tempting, so very, very tempting. Her mother would probably be relieved, really. Would probably at this point rather have Elizaveta in Hungary for a while. Maybe she could even serve as ambassador. Elizaveta snorted at the thought. Elizaveta could put on airs, certainly, but she really had no inclination to go into politics of any variety. She'd seen plenty of that.

A family would be lovely. Elizaveta had never thought much of it, had always thought of herself as an independent woman who could stand on her own, but a family would be nice. Someone to dote on, who loved her completely and unconditionally. Friends who actually cared...

It was a pipe dream, of course, which was why Elizaveta never really let herself think of it. But it was relaxing, that sort of daydream, that kind of escape. For a moment, Elizaveta could forget about reality.

She was rudely awakened from her thoughts by the buzzing on the telecom. Elizaveta sighed and straightened in her chair, already falling back into a well-practiced routine.

“What is it?” Elizaveta asked as she pressed the speaker button.

“Mihai Eliade has requested to speak with you.”

Mihai...

Elizaveta cared very little for Mihai Eliade. He was devious, certainly. Really, Elizaveta thought of him as too cunning and unreliable for any hint of trust. His powers made Elizaveta uneasy as well. She knew that the government found a very specific niche for him, and his usefulness was undoubtedly his best attribute. But there was something about him that made Elizaveta reluctant to believe he was the obedient mutant he presented himself as.

“Send him in.”

Mihai, Elizaveta recalled, had been caught with an escaped mutant a while back. He'd been punished severely for it (though, Elizaveta recalled grudgingly, she hadn't been the one to oversee that since her mother had decided things had gotten out of hand and asked someone to step in temporarily to manage the escaped mutants). Reeducation, Elizaveta believed, had been tasked with Mihai's punishment. Elizaveta hadn't looked into it in depth; Reeducation made Elizaveta somewhat uncomfortable (at least the Underground was up front about its methods) and she had been swamped with many other mutant cases at the time.

It had been a while since that had happened though, and Elizaveta wondered why he came to see her now.

The door to Elizaveta's office slid open and Mihai entered, trailed by two guards. He looked...terrible, to say the least. Eyes hollow with dark circles surrounding them, a dullness to his skin. But there was a determination there too, and Elizaveta was certain that this determination was what had brought him here.

Elizaveta dismissed the guards and waved her hand across the table at Mihai. “Have a seat."

Elizaveta waited for a moment before continuing. “So.” Elizaveta laced her fingers together on her desk. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”

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