Chapter Text
Begin Act 1
Miles Upshur is a dick and you hate him.
And yet, you can’t escape him. He’ll be there when you wake up, he’ll be wandering around the house until you fall asleep. You can’t stand it. You are tired of this - of the running, of him, of the loneliness you still feel even though he’s there, always there.
You and Upshur are going to die.
Sort of.
You are going to fake-die and, therefore, be written off the long list of Murkoff’s targets - all while the FBI back home fights tooth and nail to bring the corporation down. You are to stay low in Europe while your deaths in America are falsified so carefully that even Murkoff themselves will be paying their respects.
The plan is foolproof. You’ve done your part. Let the adults do the rest.
But when you were told you would both be commencing under witness protection in Ravello, you didn’t think they’d meant you’d be living together.
You never got a straight answer when you’d asked the agents why? They just gave you a mess of different excuses in response: because you were too mentally ill to live alone. Because Upshur was too mentally ill to live alone. Because it was simply easier to lump both protected witnesses into the same house. Because your limited knowledge of the Italian language was still immensely more than his. Because fuck you, that’s why.
You doubt you are any safer being forced to cohabit with a snarky ex-journalist when you’ve been alone for a year and never run into any trouble - not counting, of course: the night terrors, the panic attacks, the lack of sleep, the terrible diet, the constant longing for death, the loneliness - that damned loneliness…
You believe being alone was still better than living with him will be.
**
Nobody was meant to survive what had happened over a year ago. Murkoff had made that intention very clear. And, Agent Ford had told the two of you solemnly, they weren’t too happy with the fact that there had been not one, but two whole survivors.
You and Miles Upshur had made it out of the asylum. The only reason you hadn’t been cut down already was the fact that nobody knew.
You weren’t sure how to take this news. Not the fact you could be a target - you’d known that for ages; why else would you have crossed the border? Why else would you refuse to even watch your footage, let alone upload it? You’d spent your days looking over your shoulder. Terrified that you would see Blaire, Gluskin, the man in the black mist…
You weren’t sure how to take the news that Upshur had been there too.
Your entire ordeal and the entire year that followed you’d believed that you had been completely alone. And to think, that the whole time you were being chased, hunted, beaten, tortured… Somebody else had been there. Somebody with more than a shred of sanity left, somebody hopeful to escape, somebody like you…
You’d believed it would have made things just a little easier. Hope was the only weapon you’d had.
Miles hadn’t seemed to be in the same boat.
(“If i’d known you were there at the same time as me I would have come and kicked your fucking ass in, Park,” he’d told you, unblinking.)
The FBI didn’t care that you hated each other. They didn’t care that Upshur had been hunting you down for a whole year to drag you back into finishing what you’d started. They only cared that both of you had enough evidence to bring Murkoff to its knees, but neither of you had done a God-damn thing about it yet.
Upshur just hadn’t found the right time.
You just hadn’t wanted your organs ripped out and fed to you.
In other words, you both were afraid of the outcome.
Then came the solution: death.
You’d both gotten what you needed to bring Murkoff down. All you had to do was hit the upload button. Hit the upload button and run, because the instant you go viral you will bear the weight of a flashing neon bullseye painted directly to your back.
You couldn’t think of anything worse than people seeing what had happened to you.
**
You haven’t said a word to each other since before you arrived in your provided housing. You didn’t talk on the plane, on the drive here. You both act like the other isn’t there. You hope it stays that way.
How much longer do you have to run?
If only Upshur had never found you, sitting alone - always alone - in that tiny bar only a few blocks from your motel.
You used to haunt it on the daily with the faint hope that either Lisa would join you or that God would turn up and take you out.
Neither of these ever happened, though, as Lisa and God had long since abandoned you.
That didn’t stop your heart from pounding when you felt a hand on your shoulder.
You had turned in your seat quickly, so eagerly, only to come face to face with someone who definitely wasn’t Lisa. Nor was he the good Lord.
“Are you Waylon Park?” The man standing before you had asked right away. He seemed very out of breath and maybe a little younger than you, with thick dark hair and deep set brown eyes. Handsome, in a kind of gaunt way.
He had struck you instantly as familiar, and this was a very bad sign. You didn’t know anybody in Canada. You didn’t want to know anybody. That was how you’d stayed hidden.
You had wondered if this man was part of Murkoff. But judging by the fact you weren’t dead by now, you doubted it.
So you hissed, “J-Jesus, keep your voice down!” Then, quieter, almost inaudible over the buzzing of the lights above, “Do I know you?”
He had immediately hauled you off your stool by the lapels of your jacket, shouting, “Give me my jeep back, asshole!”
This, apparently, was a yes.
His name was Miles Upshur, as you soon found out. A twenty-seven year old ex-journalist - freelance, of course - who specialised in real journalism and digging up dirt on massive corporations. Corporations like Murkoff. The man knew a lot about the breach of human rights and a lot about Mount Massive, maybe more than you. A triple threat of dark hair, dark eyes, dark past.
Something about him set your teeth on edge - and it wasn’t just the fact that he’d been stupid enough to try fight you in public.
Once the two of you had been dragged off one another, you were escorted to FBI headquarters for a stern talking to. He’d turned to you in the car and told you that some strange circumstances had led him to even being inside the asylum in the first place.
“That’s why I’m here now, Park. You got what you fuckin’ wanted out of me, now return the favour. Let’s burn this shit to the ground.”
“W-wh-whhat the h-h….hell are you talking about?” you’d hissed at him.
You recall your hands trembling. Heart pounding. Your stutter playing up more than it had in a year. You knew Miles Upshur, why did you know Miles Upshur…?
“I think you get what I’m talking about,” he’d said with a curled lip. “Forgotten me so soon, have you? Never forgotten you, Waylon Park. Thirty-one years old, married with two kids, ex-software engineer for Murkoff Corporation. Whistleblower.”
And then you had recognised him. Recognised his name, his face, his job. Your mouth had fallen open.
“O-oh my God,” you’d said. “It’s you. You came. You a-actually came.”
He’d held both of his hands up, showing you the missing fingers, the exposed bone, and the world had felt like it was crumbling around you.
“I’m sss-so sorry,” you’d said, voice breaking. “Upshur, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”
He made it quite clear you weren’t forgiven. Not for being the reason he’d ended up like this, not for keeping your footage to yourself, and definitely not for losing his jeep.
Until you helped him bring down Murkoff, that is. You owed him now.
You are familiar with the idea that the universe provides warning signs before a disaster. You are familiar with animals fleeing in vast numbers to higher ground, with an ocean retreating from the shore, with worms surging to the earth’s surface. Indications that something was coming.
Had you missed something that night when you met Upshur? A premonition in the hum of the lights, in his grey-tinged skin, in those eyes that were just a bit too dark?
There’s something off about him that makes you think you did.
**
Watching him unpack all of his things in the main room of your provided house, you let out a breath. This is just how it’s going to be for the next…whatever amount of time. Murkoff will think you’re dead. Everyone will think you’re dead. And Ravello, Italy, is where you need to stay until it’s safe to come back to life.
The area is lovely. The people seem friendly. The house is a two-bedroom terrace only a small distance from the Tyrrhenian Sea. It’s beautiful, genuinely. A wonderful place to be when you’re dead.
You’re afraid. Still so fucking afraid.
You take yourself into the bathroom and sit down in the empty bathtub, fully clothed, head in your hands, waiting for God to smite you down.