Chapter Text
Mark turns the gun in his hand over and over again. The once cold metal is now warm with the heat emanating from his palm. The pistol is loaded. The safety is off. Yet Mark sits on his bed, dazed and fiddling with his gun. He changes the grip he has on it often. Sometimes his index finger finds the trigger and he lets it rest there before sliding it out and wrapping his fingers around the barrel.
He isn't debating whether to use it or not. He won't pull the trigger. He just needs something to fiddle with. Mark's eyes wander to his open door. The hallway outside is alarmingly dark and obscures most of what should normally be seen. Mark doesn't know if it's a side effect or if he's truly gone insane.
The flip of a page from the other side of the room catches his attention. His eyes flit toward the sound.
Under normal circumstances, this would be normal. The two of them in this room together, sometimes talking, sometimes not. But this isn't under normal circumstances. Mark has a gun in his hand. His door is open.
No matter how natural and familiar this is, nothing can distract him from the fact that whatever is sitting in his chair, absentmindedly flipping through his bible, is not Cesar.
“You like this? This is so boring,” Cesar complains. It's not Cesar but Mark is still going to call him by that name.
Mark sighs, a little annoyance evident in the noise. “Stop reading it then, it's not supposed to be entertainment.”
Cesar doesn't respond.
This must be the psychological warfare they were talking about. It has to be.
Mark didn't expect to see Cesar standing so calmly outside his door after he opened it. However Mark isn't stupid. He knows Cesar is dead. He just didn't expect the alternate who took his form to act like this. He couldn't bring himself to pull the trigger.
Three days in his room without any food or water and Mark can't bring himself to get off his bed and go to the kitchen to eat something. He won't look at Cesar but he's painfully aware of his presence. He doesn't know what the alternate will do.
Mark flinches as Cesar closes the book. But he doesn't do much other than shift through his belongings. Mark doesn't know if he should be stopping Cesar from invading his privacy. It's not like it really matters at this point. However he freezes when Cesar finds a specific stack of papers he hid in one of his lower drawers. He doesn't even think before springing off his bed towards Cesar.
“Don't read that!” Mark tries to rip the paper Cesar chose to read first out of his hands but Cesar pulls away from him quickly.
“Too late,” Cesar grins as he uses one arm to fend off Mark and the other to hold the paper up to read. However he quickly grows irritated at Mark's relentlessness and decides to hook his arm around his neck and press Mark against himself, smothering him. At this, Mark stops struggling immediately. Cesar doesn't seem to find this strange as he starts to read whatever Mark wrote on the paper.
“Your handwriting is atrocious,” he comments. Mark only slightly processes what he said, too distracted by the position they're in right now. Being this close to an alternate is probably against every protocol that ever exists. Yet Cesar isn't making any more moves on Mark, he seems engrossed in the paper in fact. But Mark can't help but feel the icy fear crawling through his veins that seem to heighten with each passing second.
“Damn, you're quite religious, you know this stuff is useless, right?” Cesar says. Mark blinks. He tries to shuffle out of Cesar's hold but Cesar seems to think it's another act of defiance and tightens his grip. Mark should open his mouth, tell Cesar to let him go because he won't fight back anymore. But no sound can come out of his throat. Why is this stupid alternate so curious about him anyway?
Cesar puts the paper down without any further comments and doesn't reach for the other papers.
“Mar-”
“Can you let go of me?”
Cesar stares at him in slight surprise. Shit. He didn't mean to cut him off. He blurted out the words before he could process anything. Cesar doesn't let him go. Mark doesn't know if he's stronger than the alternate. If they have some secret super strength or something. He doesn't care to find out, not moving even when Cesar isn't holding him down tightly.
He left the gun on the bed. He can't go grab it.
Cesar smirks and finally lets him go. Mark shoots up and stumbles backwards, landing back on his bed. It's only now that he realizes that he's out of breath. He grips the fabric of his hoodie in front of his chest as he calms down his own breathing. Cesar watches him patiently the entire time until Mark starts breathing somewhat normally.
“Mark,” Mark looks at Cesar, “Are you scared of me?”
“Well no fucking shit,” Mark spits out. Of course he is. There are things terrorizing Mandela County, so much so that there are broadcasts and protocols enforced upon everyone within the damn place. Entities picking off and killing humans, driving them to madness, to death. And one of them is sitting in front of Mark in the form of his neighbor.
Cesar looks at him like he's amusing.
“But you aren't as scared as you were when I was outside your door.” Mark looks at the door and looks back at Cesar. It's true. But that's because…
“It's because I look like him, right?” Mark swallows. He's been desperately avoiding thinking about it the entire time but to hear the alternate say it out loud like that is quite chilling. The fact that he can stay calm and almost act normal because it's taken the form of Cesar. Even still calling it Cesar to cling onto his sanity.
“It's good that,” Mark says quietly, “You look exactly like him.”
Cesar laughs. They both know what he means by that. Just like Cesar. No mistakes. No differences. No biological impossibilities.
Cesar goes back to shuffling through Mark's things. Mark doesn't care anymore. He falls backwards onto his bed. He flinches when his back hits the gun. He forgot about it. The entire situation is ridiculous.
Looking back towards Cesar, Mark sees he's going through a different stack of papers he doesn't really care about. Probably some old school assignments. The papers Cesar was reading earlier are stacked neatly and placed in the corner of the table.
“You can read?” Mark asks. Mostly out of the fact that he found it interesting that alternates can read and not because he wasn't sure. Still, Cesar turns to him looking almost offended. It's so familiar that Mark almost forgets the situation he's in.
Cesar doesn't deign Mark's question with a response. That's a core difference between the alternate and Cesar. The alternate doesn't seem to be too keen on talking unlike Cesar. Mark suspects it's because he's afraid of making mistakes. Mark remembers the amount of times he's told Cesar to quit his yapping. What he wouldn't do to hear him go off about something completely random one more time.
“Why did you use a different voice earlier?” Mark asks. His curiosity outweighs his fear. “When you were outside my door.”
Cesar looks back towards Mark like he's a bit annoyed at having to talk so much but relents. “I thought hearing Cesar's mom's voice would put you more at ease.”
It really didn't.
“Are you able to do it again?”
“Of course I can.” Cesar looks confused as if Mark is doubting his abilities.
“No I mean like-” Mark fiddles with his gun again. “I want you to do it again because I'm curious.”
“Really? Okay.”
What Mark didn't expect was for Cesar to stand up and move closer to him.
“What- Why are you-”
Cesar puts his left hand on Mark's right shoulder and leans forward to Mark's left. It's not like Mark hasn't been this close to Cesar before. They've hugged before. Yeah. This is a hug, this is Cesar hugging Mark and not an alternate invading his personal spa-
“Let me in, Mark. I have a gift for you.”
Mark shoves Cesar off of him and he probably would have apologized if Cesar didn't seem completely unbothered.
“Nevermind, hearing that voice come from your face is weird.”
“I thought so, aren't humans supposed to go insane when we do that?” Cesar shrugs from on the ground.
Mark wonders how much of the body language Cesar shows is genuine and how much is an act. Is any of it genuine?
“I think I am going insane,” Mark says.
Cesar stares at him. It's unnerving. Mark chalks it up to maybe the alternate doesn't know how to respond and is trying to come up with what to say. However staring at him without moving or showing any type of emotion while doing so makes him squirm.
“Why are you doing that?” Cesar says.
“Doing what.”
“You're scared again. I didn't even say or do anything.”
Mark huffs out a laugh of exasperation, covering his face with his hands. “This is what makes you an alternate.”
The constant reminder kills him every time.
“Then…” Cesar hesitates. Mark raises his head out of his hands to look at him. “Teach me how to be human.”
Mark blinks. A sort of dawning revelation and creeping dread slowly seeps into his mind.
It's not like Cesar seems keen on hurting Mark. The past 30 minutes seem like a fever dream but Mark isn't hurt anywhere except maybe his mental state. The conversations they had were pretty normal, omitting the slight hiccups. Mark can work with this.
If he teaches this alternate how to be human, how to blend in, how to act like Cesar, then maybe nothing needs to change.
“Okay,” Mark says, “Stay with me. I'll teach you how to be like Cesar.”
The alternate smiles at him. Cesar smiles at him.
“Okay.”
“This means you won't kill me, right?”
Cesar's eyes dart to the gun in Mark's hand for a split second.
“No.”
Mark smiles too. He himself doesn't even know if it's genuine. Sliding down from his bed to crouch in front of Cesar, Mark extends his hand to him.
“Deal?”
“Yes?” Cesar looks at Mark's hand, not knowing what to do. Mark sighs.
“We have to shake hands. It's how to agree on a deal. This is your first lesson.” Mark grabs Cesar's hand from his side and shakes it.
“Oh, okay.”
There's a few beats of silence.
“Um, I'll be right back,” Mark says. He shoots out of the room and towards the kitchen. Cesar doesn't follow him.