(Okay yeah I know I said the EGOS! Venom AU would be next but I had to get this out of my system)
“Chase, oh, Chase,” Anti was a jeering lull in the back of his head, a dull throb in his chest. His grip on the revolver tightened. “When are you going to wake up?”
“Tell me where they are.”
A stream of uninterrupted giggling, then more silence. Typical cryptic bullshit. Chase turned the corner, shoulders tensed. Nothing. The path seemed to go on forever, unusually bright fluorescents feeling more and more like spotlights the longer he trudged on.
“I know you have them,” he tried. “And they- they know I'm here. They know I'm going to save them.”
“Do they?”
The hair on the back of his neck shot up and a bang rang out in the silence of the corridor, tiny pings of metal on metal pricking at Chase's already strained ears. The silhouette in static stared down in distaste at the broken fluorescent on the floor, then at the small hole in its chest. It lifted a finger and Chase stepped back, reaching for the trigger again, but it merely nudged at the miniscule circle until it disappeared into the TV noise. The finger pulled something out with an unnatural squelch that made Chase flinch, partly out of its suddenness, mostly out of disgust.
“Gotta be careful with that. You could kill someone.”
The hand reached for him, slipping the bullet into his shirt pocket. Color spread from where the monochromatic bars connected with him, details clearing like a video loading graphics. Chase kept the gun up, brows furrowed, as the silhouette mirrored his shirt, his hair, his face. The blue of his doppelganger's eyes gave a flash, and Anti's electric green glowed menacingly in the darkness.
“Hiya, Brody.”
His- his?- hand was still on his chest. Chase smacked it off, taking several steps back. Anti looked almost offended.
“Where are they?”
“We've been over this, ‘Rad Dad’.” The words still echoed eerily in his head, though Anti, thankfully, made no move to close any distance between them. He pressed further.
“Stacy, then. It was a weekend when you took Connor and Samantha, so she had to have been home.”
“Really? How'd you know she wasn't frolicking around with Office Man Dan?”
Chase swallowed, hands clenching into fists around the revolver. Anti's face was split in a largely amused grin, the sick bastard.
“Her babysitter doesn't work on weekends. She was home,” the words came out strangled, and Chase tried his hardest not to look fazed when Anti's grin widened.
“Aw. So you are an attentive father. Stacy might actually take you back,” Anti shot him a wink, shoving his hands deep into his pockets. “Emphasis on might, of course.”
He- he couldn't have- Chase found himself moving forward before the thought even registered, curled his fist in Anti's shirt, pushing them back into the wall.
“Where. Is. She.” He pressed the barrel of the gun into Anti's cheek. Anti looked as though he was about to burst out in laughter. He moved his hand from his shirt to his neck. Blood spurted from the uncovered wound a little, running over his fingers. “What did you do?”
“I didn't do anything. Haven't hurt a hair on her airy, little head, not an inch of her pretty, pretty skin.” Anti singsonged the last bit, snickering under his breath, and Chase saw red. The gun came down and Anti fell to the floor, coughing.
“Tell me where they are. Now.” Anti didn't answer, giggling from the floor. The laughing expression looked much, much more innocent than it should. Chase felt sick. The barrel of the gun pressed harder into Anti's skull. “Now!”
“Ch-hehe-ase-” Clawed fingers curled around the weapon, easing it off his head. Chase stepped back as Anti stood, brushing himself off. The glitching effect around his guise was faint, steady, solidifying. Within seconds there weren't any at all, and Chase felt his heart hammer against his chest as the corrupted eye flashed a calm blue before returning to its natural green.
“Chase.” His name rolled easily off of Anti's tongue, smooth as butter, and a tremor ran up his spine even as he aimed for his head.
“Lead me to them, or I'm blowing your holographic meatsuit open.”
“Chase, where are we right now?”
Chase balked, gun lowering a little, but kept his eye trained on him. “Where- what do you mean? You're the one who put us both here in the first place!”
Anti had the fucking nerve to fingergun him. “See, I know where we are. What I'm asking is, do you?”
Chase knit his brows together. He looked around in brief moments, taking in empty gray lockers, wide tiles, faded posters- “It looks like my old high school. Or any public high school really. Does it matter?”
Anti nodded sagely. “Did your highschool take three months to navigate?”
Three-? “What are you talking about?”
“Alright, uh, how many miles do your hallways stretch? You've been on this one for- fifteen now, rounded up.”
Fifteen. “No. No, I haven't. That's impossible.”
“How'd you know?”
Fuck. It was an annoyingly good point, given that the hallway didn't have windows or any indication of being connected to society, but you'd think he'd notice via starvation or something.
“Get to the point.”
“If Con-man and Sammy were here, don't you think you'd have found them by now?”
Chase froze. Anti stepped closer.
“Surely Stacy'd be calling for help right around now.” Another step forward from Anti, and Chase felt granite on his back. “It's not that hard, finding a grown woman and two kids in a long, rank hallway.”
Chase couldn't breathe. The hand on the gun quivered as Anti pressed forward, the muzzle digging into his chest. “Let me ask you again. When are you going to wake up?”
A bang, and Anti was gone, save the almost weary sigh in his subconscious. Chase let his hands fall as he leant back, eyes shut in relief, and wiped the cold sweat off his brow. Fuck. What the fuck.
“Who's there?”
Chase's eyes shot open at the voice, distinctly feminine, a heartachingly distinct lilt to her ‘r's. “Stace? Stacy, is that you?”
“Chase? Oh my God, Chase- where are you?”
There it was again. Chase pushed forward, into the near-blinding light of the next fluorescents when his eyes had adjusted to the darkness. “I'm here! Follow my voice!”
“Daddy!” Little Sam- “Dad! Dad, you're here!” Connor, oh God-
The voices were nearer now, and the metal of the gun was nowhere to be found, but it didn't matter, they were close, they had to be-
“I'm here! I'm coming!”
“Dad!”
“Chase!”
“I'm here!”
Chase felt weightless, adrenaline pumping through his bloodstream. His kids were here, Stacy was here, and Anti had been wrong, had lied, just like he had so many times before.
“Am I close?”
“Dad, keep going!”
“Daddy, Daddy!”
“I'm here, I'm here-”
The lights were burning into his eyes. Half the hall looked like a blur of white and gold, tiles like rubber under his sneakers.
“Dad, where are you?”
“Connor- Sam-”
“Daddy, hurry!”
Somewhere in the swirling hall, at the very back, something red. Rectangular, a glass window smack dab in the middle. Chase trudged on, head whirling, as his vision cleared to show a tiny little girl in blue overalls, smiling, a silver doorknob-
His palm hit the door and he wrenched it open.
Faded tiles, gray lockers, littered boxes. Too-bright fluorescents. In the distance, more tiles, more lockers.
No.
“Give them back!” He hurled the nearest box down the endless hallway, eyes welling up in frustration. “Give them back!”
Back? To you?
“Yes! Back! Back to me, give them back to me, please, please-” he choked the words out, unrestrained tears streaming down his face. Chase didn't realize he'd fallen until he felt paper under his hands. An old photo, depicting a happy family participating in a school festival. Connor's fifth grade triathlon. But-
Oh, Chase.
The mother was smiling, her red hair pulled back into the same bun Stacy had when she tried baking. The older boy in red carried the laughing little girl in blue overalls on his back. He turned to the father. He was tall. Built. Blonde.
Not him.
When did they ever belong to you?
“No,” he blinked the shock away, threw the photo away. “No, that's not real, you're just in my head, you're messing me up again-”
“Bit hurtful, Brody. I haven't been this truthful in a while.” Hands crept up his shoulders from behind and Chase pushed him off, scooting away from his doppelganger.
“No. They're my kids. That is my life.”
“So why can't you find them, Chase? If you're such a good dad, why can't you reach them?”
Anti crept towards him, and Chase absolutely hated how cornered he felt in that moment.
“If you've searched every nook, every cranny, where could they be? If they're not even here, in the deepest corners of your subconscious, what does that leave you?
Chase looked deep, deep into the darkened pits of Anti's eyes, and the realization washed over him like a splash of cold water to the face.
Like he'd just woken up.
Anti noticed. “He finally got it.”
He shook his head frantically. “No- Shut up, I don't believe you-”
“No? Maybe you'll listen to Stacy then.” Chase watched in horror, as his face morphed, as his body shrank, as red curls fell around the familiar face, until he stared in disbelief into the electric green eyes of his former sweetheart.
“You- you're not-”
“Hi, sweetie,” It was the same voice, the same warmth, the same pattern of freckles across her nose. There was nothing out of place, and it terrified the fuck out of him. ‘Stacy''s hand reached up to caress his face, and Chase hated how comforting it felt, how familiar, how much he'd missed it.
‘Stacy’ moved closer and Chase couldn't look away. “I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner, baby,” Chase felt arms wrap around him and he shut his eyes as he tried, tried so hard not to melt into them. “I'm sorry you had to find out this way.”
“Stop it-”
“Dad, come on, open your eyes.”
Chase forced his eyes open, looked up at his eldest. Connor stared down at him, arms still around his shoulders.
“You're still proud of me, right, Dad?”
“You're not- not my son-”
Connor shrank, remolding into a tiny, wide-eyed child, ginger pigtails bouncing, bottom lip quivering- “Daddy, dun’ go, dun’ go pwease-”
“STOP IT!”
The scream echoed off the walls, and the arms around him pulled away as Anti knelt back. Chase's breath came out as short, panicked gasps, choked sobs filling the silence. The hands clutching at him were his own now, as if trying to grab at some semblance of truth.
“They're real. They have to be. Some of it has to be.” If not, then what was? Was anything? Was Anti? Was he?
“I want to go home.”
"You are home."
Chase felt the tiled floor slip under him like a rug, felt it replaced with warm softness. He looked up to find himself back in Sean's room, curled up on the bed. Hands slid around his waist and shoulders, a contented whirring of white noise around his neck pulling him to a restless sleep.
“I am home.”