***ALEX***
Subway tunnels. Nothing bad happens in there, right? Especially when you're traveling with strangers who are linked to the next enemy who wants your heart roasted on a spit. That must taste lovely, am I right? But I wouldn't know. Ask Daenerys for her opinion, though. There's plenty of GIFs for proof that she knows, but I won't link you to them, especially if you don't watch Game of Thrones. Those GIFs are pretty gross, even for me as a fan.
As the train takes off away from San Castiel station, Josh fixes me with his warm brown gaze. "Is there...uh, is there anything you'd like to know? We got time to talk."
I look around at the car we're occupying. There are only five of us, and room for maybe sixty passengers in all, but since it's a rainy Saturday, we're all alone in here. Alone with the harsh fluorescent lights (they haven't upgraded to LEDs yet?) as they contrast sharply with the pitch darkness visible through the windows.
"Where do I begin?" I feel like I've been saying that a lot more often lately. Starting, for instance, in the first of what turned out to be many mandatory Saturday counseling meetings with Jasmine Holly after the Black Mirror incident. "I mean, I know next to nothing about...well, any of you guys." I look between Josh, Firdaus, and Ahmad. And over to AK for a split second too - I can't help that. I do feel like I know him better, because he's my blood relative, and I've technically known him longer than any of the others, but that's not saying much when I only just met him yesterday as opposed to today.
I shouldn't be here. I really should be watching that movie with AK. Hell, I could simply have stayed home and not agreed to meet him. As much as I hate staying home all day (even though I do that most of the time when I'm on vacation anyway - it doesn't help that I've got tons of homework, which I'm neglecting, of course), I think today would've been a good day to be lazy. Play some video games, though that's a lot less fun when it's just me. Binge Sherlock, armed with a giant bowl of popcorn and consuming pretty much the entire supply in the house - or, even better, taking the DVD into Gabe's old room and working out while watching it, though that wouldn't last as long as me eating all the popcorn. Looking up boxing gyms to join in either Spellman or Bearville - blame Justine Larbalestier because I just finished reading My Sister Rosa. Or maybe just napping if I'm feeling particularly out of it, but that's not likely. I've heard of seasonal affective disorder, but if I've got that (not that I've been diagnosed with it, or any other mental illness, but Jasmine's been trying for months), I've got it in reverse, because summer gives me the blues more often than winter. Or maybe I'm just using last summer as an example because it came right on the heels of Gabe's death, and I spent more days than I'd care to admit sleeping in, alone with Gabe's childhood Psyduck plushie because I'd snuck it into my room and hidden it under my pillow-
"Whoa." Josh interrupts the current of my thoughts, regarding me with the same kind of concern I so often see on Jasmine's face. "You okay, Alex? Your thoughts are looking a little stormy."
I avert my eyes for a moment, but find them drawn back to his very quickly. It's funny, I'm so bad with eye contact, but Josh, he's got a certain magnetism to those big brown eyes. "Sorry...I'm a little flustered here."
"I get it. Riding the subterranean rails with perfect strangers, it's not something most people would choose to spend the day doing, am I right?" He folds his hands in his lap. "Maybe...maybe intros are in order, huh? Firdaus, why don't you go first?"
She raises her eyebrows, as if to criticize him for even a moment of "ladies first." But she goes on to follow his suggestion. "So, uh, I'm Firdaus Sayid, and I'm a human. Which you probably noticed 'cause you couldn't hear our thoughts-"
"We can," says AK. "It's just that they're really quiet, 'cause you don't, uh, broadcast."
She twirls an end of her hair around her fingers. "Just testing you." But she then shoots another raised eyebrow at Josh. You liar!
"I heard that." I vaguely point my finger at her head.
"I never said you were immune to telepathy!" Josh throws his hands in the air as both Firdaus and Ahmad cross their arms and glare at him. "I only said most people would overlook you! But...but there are those who have stronger telepathy than others."
I nudge AK. "Must run in our family."
"Yeah, maybe." I clear my throat. "So, uh, you two..." I look between Firdaus and Ahmad. "Are you brother and sister?"
"If we are," Firdaus laughs, "we'd be like Barry and Iris. Adopted siblings."
"But not together," Ahmad hastily throws in.
Firdaus grimaces at the thought.
Haha, and they like The Flash too - or, at least, they know it well enough to bring up the one thing I dislike the most about that show.
"Just 'cause we're both brown doesn't mean we're related," Ahmad adds. "But I shouldn't have to explain to you that Pakistanis aren't Middle Eastern, right?"
"No," AK and I both say, but not quite simultaneously. He starts later than I do, and drags the word out a bit longer.
"Yeah, cool," Ahmad says. "I'm the Pakistani one between us, in case you were wondering."
"And I'm from Qatar." Firdaus says that last word with a slight Arabic accent, but otherwise speaks with the same American accent as the rest of us. Also, she reminds me, again, that the first Transformers movie pronounces it wrong.
"Not to sound like the cops interrogating you all over again," I say, "but how'd you get to Heaven?"
"Josh found us." Ahmad rolls up his sleeves a bit to reveal more of those Zayn-like tattoos. "He's one of my top customers. And Firdaus, well-"
"We met at Comic-Con," she says. "I didn't get to meet Chris Wood or Jensen Ackles" - she says their names with shy smiles - "but it was still a pretty life-changing day."
"I wouldn't say that-" Josh has a similar look on his face now, very bashful.
"Don't be modest," she laughs. "Thanks to you, I'm on an adventure I never would've dreamed possible!" Her smile slips a notch or three. "Although getting my rental car totaled, I didn't wanna have to put up with that."
"Couldn't be helped, I guess." Josh stops smiling too at the thought of it.
"That was your car?" I ask. "Well, one of them, anyway. I think I saw maybe three or four get blown up when that truck hit-"
"One of them." Firdaus nods. "And it was such a good car too."
Ahmad, who by now has covered his ink again (mostly), glowers at her. "Why do you sound like you're crapping all over my rental car?"
"I wouldn't!" Firdaus insists. "But...but it's no Alfa Romeo Giulia."
"Not a Quadrifoglio?" I ask.
Firdaus sighs wistfully. "I'd have picked one if they gave me that option. But good thing I didn't, otherwise Scoville would've blown up some damn good machinery."
"Like the base model isn't quote-unquote 'damn good machinery,'" Ahmad scoffs. "Not with that turbo engine, it's not."
"Could you stop making me feel guiltier about this?"
"Yeah," Josh chimes in. "I've seen enough guilt in my lifetime to know it's all too good at fucking you up." He looks over to me and AK. "You both Catholic? I know Alex is-"
"Of course you do-"
"I am," says AK. "I don't, uh, go to church much, but I'm still Catholic."
"That's usually how it works, isn't it?" Josh rolls his eyes. "Religion, it can be really great, but it causes a lot of pain too. Is it worth it in the end? Jury's still out." He twiddles his thumbs, keeping his hands in his lap. "Okay, so I guess we've got all the intros done...except for you, man." He nods at AK. "You're kinda new to the party yourself. What's your story?"
AK shrugs. "Not much. I'm just an Oregon guy who moved down to California, but I'm still waiting to start my first semester of college." He looks out the window and watches as the train slows down on arrival at South City Station. Like at San Castiel, the platform is nearly deserted, and the two people waiting there take seats in other cars, not this one, keeping us alone. "If I'd moved down here earlier, I'd have been able to register for fall semester, but at least Joey's had another opening. And I got to meet Gideon - he's gonna be my unofficial guide when I start at Sunset."
"Gideon's an awesome guy," I say, nodding fiercely along with AK.
"He's the boisterous one you were having dinner with last night, right?" Firdaus asks. "I like him."
"He's a real ball of sunshine," says Ahmad.
Josh taps his fingers on the back of his seat in a silent "three, two, one." Then the train doors close and seal up and we start moving on. "Let me tell you guys, I'm glad we're underground and not getting much cell reception. I'd rather not look at the news on my phone right now."
"Hate to break it to you," says Ahmad, "but we still got onboard Wi-Fi here."
"Goddammit." Josh buries his head in his hands. "Okay, if anyone sees me take my phone out, slap my wrist, huh?"
I shake my head. "One thing I've learned from Gideon - hurting your wrist isn't a very effective deterrent."
"What, you're not talking about slashing your wrists, are you?" AK looks worried, as if he expects me to say Gideon's done that before. He hasn't - I know for a fact he's never self-harmed. I think Gabe and I might be the only ones in our circle who have. I hope AK isn't assuming that just because Gideon's trans, he's resorted to self-harm to cope with his dysphoria.
"No, no, no..." I shake my head and laugh. "Gid told me once that he tried wearing a rubber band on his wrist and snapping it every time he had a sex thought. It didn't work."
AK smiles appreciatively. "Note to self - ask Gideon if he's read Alex Sanchez too."
"Nah, we're more Adam Silvera fans, me and my friends."
Josh gives us a small smile. "I met Adam Silvera once at a book signing. Great guy."
"Hashtag #MadJelly," I laugh.
"Careful, they say that's one of the Seven Deadly Sins," Josh deadpans.
"Wouldn't that be two?" asks Ahmad.
"Yeah, not only envy, but wrath," AK points out.
Josh looks frozen for a moment, then he bursts out laughing, pounding his fists on the dirty upholstery and everything. "You got me, guys. You...you got me hella good!"
"I mean, it wasn't that funny..." Ahmad twitches, looking like he's hoping to have another cigarette. The train, of course, is a strict no-smoking zone. Most places in the Bay Area are - you might as well just stay home all the time if you're a pack-a-day smoker, because they won't let you in most public settings.
"I thought it was," says Firdaus.
"I agree," I say. "A little Biblical humor, right?"
"Kind of..." Josh's voice trails off for a moment. "But the Seven Deadly Sins aren't in the Bible. Not in the form we know, that is."
"He's right," AK says. "Unless it's in a part I haven't read."
"Which I'm sure there's plenty of." When AK blushes, Josh further adds, "No, I'm not trying to knock you for it. I can't understand half the shit in the Bible either. Personally, if I were to pick a book to serve as a holy text, I'd go with-"
"Divergent?" I ask. Everyone does a fist-pump of approval. "Whew, and I thought I was the last of the great Divergent fans."
"May that fanbase never go extinct," AK says fervently.
Cool. I've managed to get everyone talking about pop culture, as I usually do because it's one of the few subjects on which I can hold an extended convo. But someone, more likely than not me, is going to have to ask the hard questions sooner or later. Might as well be sooner.
"Josh, what does Scoville want with me?" I ask. "Or...do they even want me? Who wants to hurt me now?"
"Scoville, he's only part of this conspiracy." He sits up, spine straight. "You've already dealt with the Peppermint Corporation, right?"
I think about Penner and Alicia. "Agents of them, yeah. But you knew that - the Black Mirror was their toy that my friends took."
"Mm-hmm. You never dealt with anyone higher up, though. And now, we are. Scoville runs his business here in Heaven under his own name, but he's secretly the co-founder of the Peppermint Corporation. Scoville Tech is just their Prime 'Verse arm."
I nod, already feeling icy dread settling in my stomach. "Yeah, I think I sorta remember someone saying Peppermint wasn't in the Prime 'Verse. Guess they were wrong."
"They must not have known. Scoville covers his tracks well." Josh looks up at the ceiling, where the lights continue to flicker ever so slightly. "Not well enough, though. Not with these two on our side." He bobs his head in the direction of Ahmad and Firdaus.
"I'm not much of a computer type," says Firdaus. "Unless you're talking about graphic design. Ahmad's more of a coder - that's more easily weaponizable." She looks out the window for a second. "I thought there were supposed to be billboards on the walls? Billboards designed to be seen at high speed?"
"No, they took those down a few years ago," I say. "They kept giving people seizures, I think."
"Really?" She shrugs. "I don't blame them. I sometimes give myself headaches with my own designs. But they're beautiful designs, though."
I clear my throat. "Okay, so Scoville, or Peppermint, or whatever they are...they're working with someone else?" I turn back to Josh. "Y-Your dad, you said?"
Ahmad chuckles before Josh can answer. "Man, I'm sorry, but your dad's an asshole. Has anyone ever told you that?"
"Besides myself, and my brother? No. Not to my face, anyway." He shakes his head and looks out the window as we come into the next station. "Contrary to popular belief, you can't make the sign of the cross and directly talk to me. I'm sorry, it just doesn't work like..." He realizes AK and I are staring at him in surprise. "What?"
"You just said you were..." I can't finish my sentence.
"Are you God?" asks AK.
"Nuh-uh. Think younger."
"I actually thought he was Lucifer at first," says Ahmad. "He's beautiful enough, am I right?" Firdaus and AK, especially, both nod appreciatively.
"Lucifer's blond, actually," Josh says. "Like my brother Michael - you remember him, right, Alex? I know you've met him."
It finally dawns on me who he is - and even though I'm so lapsed in my faith, I believe him, no question. "Jesus."
"H. Christ," he finishes for me. (Should I capitalize that "He" now that I know the truth? Somehow, though, I doubt he minds.) "A better name than 'Graziadei.' Shit, that's a mouthful." He waits until the doors close - nobody comes into this car, once again - before he adds, "But yeah, you know your Biblical linguistics, don't you? My name was Joshua, originally. The Greeks turned it into Ἰησοῦς,' and then the Romans made it into 'Iesus,' and from there, 'Jesus.' But I prefer to go by 'Josh' these days."
I start to laugh, thinking about how Gabe or Gideon would react to this. Especially Gideon, being the more devout atheist of the two. Hell, how would Luca or anyone else in his family react? Each Scagliotti has more religion in their pinky toe than I have in my whole body.
"See, I always thought a lot of so-called 'Christians' worshipped wrong," says Ahmad. "This guy just proves it."
"I think it's more the toxic influence of my dad," says Josh.
I look up sharply. "You got a bad dad too? Bio dad, I mean. I'm not...we're not talking about Joseph here, are we?"
"Nope. The one you call God." Josh shuffles a little further from the window as the train takes us out of the subway and back up to ground level, where rain starts battering us loudly again. "Let's face it, if you found out your dad conceived you by bedding down with a teenage virgin, you'd feel hella dirty about it all the time, wouldn't you?" He laughs to himself, because nobody else thinks this is remotely funny - but like the rest of us, I guess he has to make his own dark stand-up-type observations to stay sane. "Makes me glad to be ace."
My brain is playing catch-up at this point, and now that I'm really taking the time to process the implications of this whole conversation, I lose all the breath from my body. For a long, terrifying minute, I open my mouth but nothing comes out. No words, no air. I'd even take vomit at this point, although I don't relish the thought of projectile-puking all over the guy who's supposed to be sculpted in gold on the crucifix under my shirt.
(The sculpture is inaccurate, of course. It depicts Jesus the way your typical stained-glass church window does - white with long dirty-blond hair and beard. Not brown with short, coarse black hair and scratchy stubble on his jaw. Not at all like the real, flesh-and-blood Josh in this BART train with us. I mean, sure, it'd make much more sense-)
"Are you okay?" Josh gets up from his seat and sits next to me, with AK clumsily crossing the space in front of us to make room for him - and to take the seat Josh just vacated. "It's a lot to take in, I know. What about you, AK? You all right?"
"I...I think so."
"Good, good..."
I turn to Josh and see him leaning towards me, looking like he wants to get closer, but he's hitting a wall. Like how Bennet was talking about me having "psychic blocks." It's funny, I've managed to train myself over the years to not put up such an industrial-strength bubble of personal space. Occasionally, though, all my old sensory-overload instincts resurge. I want to run screaming, the way I used to do when kids in grade school got too close to me - and I'm not talking too close like they were cutting me off in the hallway, I mean like they were sort of on my periphery, maybe three feet away, and they made the mistake of reaching out and I interpreted it as an attack.
It's really confusing because I'm looking at a guy who's supposed to love me, because that's what they always say in church. I mean, sure, he looks and sounds nothing like how I expected, and we've got a surprising amount of much in common. Should I let him in?
"Can I hug you?" He's got his arms spread out for a split second, and I bristle at the sight, but make myself relax. "You just look like you could do with one."
I don't look at him, but I incline my head.
Two seconds later, he slides through that imaginary bubble and draws me into a warm embrace. I don't move for an eternity, but then, I find myself returning his hug, my own arms tightening around his broad shoulders. I mean, really broad - I only wish I had lats like his. Do you even lift, bro?
Another thing I notice from hugging Josh - he has no wings. You can always feel them stirring when you hug an angel, or even a demon, and I feel none under his hoodie. Mine are right now, for instance, though they'd stir more for, say, Fionna or Kelly or Gabe or Gideon. Hell, let's throw Luca's name in there too. Brotherly love, man.
I don't feel that way for Josh so much. Even knowing his true identity, it doesn't help. I've been so lapsed in the last couple of years, so distant from religion, from the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. And, if Josh is to be believed (and why not?), the Father in that Trinity wants me rubbed out.
Talk about turning your life upside bloody down. How to flip it back up, I wonder...?
"Hey, don't worry." Josh crosses the space between my seat and AK's. "I'm not gonna leave you out. Don't you know my hugs are magical?"
"He's not wrong," Ahmad says as AK accepts a hug himself. By now, however, he and Firdaus are busy poring over the laptop he's been carrying around since leaving the police station.
"So why are we going into the city?" I ask when Josh comes back to sit next to me again. "Wouldn't...wouldn't Mr. Grazzadi...Mr. Grazia..." Dammit, how am I forgetting his name? I'm not Italian, but I'm close enough to it that I think I should have a certain genetic facility with the sounds of that language. Even Luca, who tends to not understand a word of spoken Italian when he hears it (unless it's the Triestine dialect of his dad's side of the family), can read book passages and song lyrics in Italian with ease.
"Graziadei," Josh reminds me. "Like I said, though, it's a mouthful. And...I mean, seriously, anytime you say his name, you're literally saying 'Thanks be to God.'"
"Narcissistic much?" AK scoffs. "Him, not you, I mean."
"Oh, you'd be surprised." Looking up as we arrive at another station - it's been almost twenty minutes now since we left San Cas - Josh reaches for his pocket, then forces himself to keep his hand still. "But I can tell you this much - he may want to kill you eventually, but he's not gonna do it until he thinks the time is right. He plans everything so meticulously and..."
His voice trails off. AK and I follow his gaze, and we see that, for the first time, we've got someone else joining us in our train car. He looks a lot like Josh, with his brown skin, black hair, and sharply sculpted face - although, in his case, he's clean-shaven.
"Here to kill me now? Huh?" I jump out of my seat, ice already forming around my hands and feet. Yes, even through my boots, I'm making ice.
"Why would I...?" Even his voice and his laugh sound like Josh, but lower because he's taller and older. "What nonsense is he filling your head with?"
Josh gets behind me. Like Satan, now I think about it. "The truth."
"'The truth,' he says. I'll give these kids the truth. It's my job, after all." He holds out his hand. "Elliot Graziadei. Nice to meet you, boys."
The doors close with a squelch, and the train moves on, finally entering the city.