Inception/Mysterious Skin - Every Me and Every You (2/30)
Title: Every Me and Every You (2/30)
Author: osaki_nana_707
Fandom: Inception/Mysterious Skin fusion
Word count: 3,216
Pairing: Neil/Eames
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: language, allusions to rape,child molestation, and prostitution
Summary: Neil McCormick is fraying at the seams. Then he meets Eames, professional dreamer.
When Neil woke up, it was sometime in the early morning, and he was engulfed in a safe, warm embrace. At first he figured it must be Wendy because it usually was, but it didn't take long for his brain to come online and register that it was not Wendy wrapped around him. This person was bulkier, taller, definitely a man.
Neil had never been in the habit of staying through the night with his johns, and even if they asked him to stay, he never really cuddled like this… but…
He didn't even remember having sex last night. He didn't…
Oh.
Oh, right.
Eames.
Neil had nearly forgotten that disaster of an evening, but now it flooded back and he bit down on a moan of embarrassment. He had no idea what had come over him last night causing him to do one stupid, crazy thing after another, but here he was, sleeping in a bed with a man he knew the name of, a man he hadn't fucked, and they were wrapped around each other like lovers.
A flutter of panic settled in Neil's chest like a moth trying to escape, but he still managed to untangle himself from Eames without waking him up. Neil clambered off the bed, feet meeting the soft carpet (Eames must have removed his shoes and socks-and his jacket too, now that he thought about it), and for a minute he just stared at the lump in the bed.
Eames still had clothes on, which was another weird thing for Neil. It was just a pair of boxer shorts and a t-shirt, but it was still less clothing on his bedmates than he was used to. His hair had been mussed into ridiculous cowlicks from sleeping with it wet, and his face was half buried into the pillow, expression peaceful, soft snores escaping through his parted lips. Neil looked at the his face, his eyelashes and arched eyebrows, his long and straight nose, those same lips from the night before that seemed even less possible in the daytime…
Neil had kissed those lips.
He'd kissed those lips but done nothing more.
He turned his gaze to the plane of Eames's back, to slide down the one arm he could see. There were hints of tattoos here and there, though Neil couldn't see a single one in full. It made him wonder what they looked like.
He bit his lip, the hint of sting against the scabbed over places bringing him back to reality. He leaned over and pulled the comforter back over Eames and started hunting down his things. He found his jacket folded up on the table next to the weird sci-fi suitcase and his shoes underneath it with his socks tucked into them. Eames seemed to have taken at least some sort of care with them, even though the socks had holes and the jacket and tennis shoes were both falling apart.
He slid into his socks and was just getting on his second shoe when the lump in the bed stirred. Neil paused, looking up at the mattress, hands pausing over the laces. He could hear his own breathing, not sure why he was suddenly so tense. Perhaps it was just that he'd hoped to make a clean getaway, maybe steal the money out of Eames's wallet and his nice coat, but now he couldn't. Now he just sat there, frozen.
Eames sat up, scrubbing his hands over his face and yawning, and then he dropped his hands, and he saw Neil. "Leaving already then?" he asked, stretching his arms above his head.
"Um," Neil replied.
Eames crawled out of the bed and rolled his shoulders. "I can go get breakfast first if you like. You look half-starved. Let me call you a cab, yeah?"
"I didn't mean to fall asleep here," Neil said. "You should've just woken me up."
"I couldn't do that," Eames laughed, sliding into a pair of gray trousers he pulled out of his suitcase (how had Neil not even thought to look through his suitcase?). "You looked bloody knackered, and I figured since you came here with the intentions of sharing my bed, it wouldn't bother you too much."
Neil finished tying his shoe and got to his feet, but from that point he really wasn't sure what to do. Leave? Go to breakfast with Eames? Wait on the cab?
So he asked, "Why… why did you kiss me?"
Eames raised an eyebrow. "Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I recall you kissing me first."
"No! I mean-"
"Why is kissing all we did?"
"Ah-yeah…"
Neil had never felt so out of his element before. Normally he talked more smoothly than this. Normally he'd be the one calling the shots here… but Eames was something entirely new, and even worse, Neil felt like Eames had eons more knowledge than him even though they were close in age. There was some sort of weird wisdom behind his eyes, like he'd seen the world in slower time than Neil had and had thus been able to take more in. Maybe it was just because he was from another country, but… it didn't feel like that was why. It was a curious thing.
"Well… you fell asleep," Eames said as if it was obvious, humor in his voice.
Oh. Duh. Neil wanted to open his mouth and insert his foot, but instead he just kept standing there, jacket in his fist, waiting.
"So, I can call a cab if you like. There's a complimentary breakfast downstairs if you want some of that or some coffee maybe. Um," Eames said, and with that 'um' Neil realized that Eames was feeling as awkward about this as he himself was. He just seemed to be handling it better.
"Yeah, uh… yeah," Neil said, looking at pretty much everything but Eames. "Yeah, I guess… I uh…" he paused, chewing on his bottom lip again and then ventured another glance at Eames.
Eames shrugged. "You can use my hairbrush and toothbrush I suppose."
"Oh. Um. Yeah, no, don't worry about it. Just uh… I'll take the subway home. I can't exactly afford cab fare, so…"
Then Eames was pulling out his wallet and sliding out some bills to hand over to Neil. The man was careful not to show him just how much was inside, but Neil could tell that it was a lot, especially because he handed him two hundred dollar bills. "Here," Eames said. "Take this and get you a cab, and use the rest to buy yourself a decent coat. Take care of yourself, yeah?"
"I didn't even do anything," Neil said, staring at the money in his hand as if he'd dreamed it there. "Do you… I can give you a blow job."
"Not necessary. You're buying yourself a proper coat for my conscience's sake."
Neil looked up at him, feeling this weird mixture of rejection and appreciation at the same time. "Okay…" was all he managed to say, and before he realized it, he was sitting in a taxi on the way back to Wendy.
"Where the fuck have you been?" was the first thing out of Wendy's mouth when Neil pushed his way inside. It wasn't as though he hadn't expected the rage, but all the same he still wasn't entirely sure what to tell her.
So, he lied. "The storm got too bad," he said. "I couldn't make it home."
"Where'd you stay then?" she asked, crossing her arms, jingling with the movement of her jewelry. "Did you go home with someone?"
Neil shrugged, neither confirming nor denying. "If you're asking if I fucked anyone last night, the answer is no."
She sighed out through her nose in frustration, but for the moment seemed satisfied. "Well, at least you're all right," she said, pulling him into her arms. He was glad to have Wendy's familiar scent in his nose, that smell of hair dye, coffee, and laundry detergent. She hummed, rubbing his back before pulling away. She shook her head and said, "I can't believe you went out in that flimsy ass jacket. I'm surprised you don't have limbs falling off." She smiled, and so did he, and they settled in for a breakfast of bologna sandwiches while watching old copies of their favorite horror movies.
Still, Neil was a bit bowled over by the realization that he couldn't stop thinking about Eames. Maybe it was because he'd been given money and hadn't done anything more than kiss the man, or perhaps it was because he wanted to know why he'd been thrown off balance so grandly just from being in his presence. Maybe it was both. Either way, he still kept picturing his face in his mind whenever he closed his eyes, and while frankly that was a welcome relief from the previous faces he'd been seeing it was no less bizarre. Neil could almost venture forth into the possibility that he wanted to fuck this guy, this Eames who was around his age and not his type at all.
That wasn't a guaranteed truth at least, but he did know he wanted to see Eames again before he left. Maybe then he would feel like something hadn't been left unfinished.
That night he dreamed he was standing on the edge of a cliff, looking down into the mist below and overwhelmed with the urge to jump off, knowing somehow that there was something new waiting for him at the bottom. He woke up just as the sound of a showerhead spray started making its way into his thoughts.
Neil went out after Wendy headed off to work, glad to see that the snow had petered off enough to make travel possible. He had plenty of money left from what Eames had given him, so he went into a store much nicer than he was accustomed to in search of a new coat. The woman behind the register gave him the stink eye the entire time, obviously not trusting him not to steal anything, but he didn't really care. He found a leather coat with wool lining and a hood for a steal at one-hundred and fifty bucks and walked out in a better mood than he'd walked in with and a great deal warmer too.
He hadn't expected to finish shopping so quickly, so he found himself with an afternoon free before Wendy would get home, so he started walking, hands crammed into his pockets, cigarette dangling from his lips. Not for the first time in the last couple of days he wondered what Eames was up to and if he was still in town. He squinted up towards the street sign in the bright gray afternoon, trying to remember just where Eames's hotel had actually been while simultaneously telling himself not to go back.
Neil had never been much for doing things he was supposed to do, but he figured this was probably the least dangerous thing he could really do these days. If Eames had wanted to attack Neil, he'd had more than ample opportunity, and Neil was pretty sure the man wouldn't do anything if he came by to see if he was still around. After all, he had to show off his new coat… for Eames's conscience's sake.
He found his way to the hotel after backtracking to the right subway train and wandering up and down the street a few times (things looked remarkably different in the daylight after all), and again he was thankful for the coat because it made him look nice enough that when he strolled by the front desk to the elevator, no one asked any questions.
Eames's room was on the fourteenth floor, and while Neil didn't remember the number of the room right away, he was pretty sure he'd figured it out on the third try. No one answered, however, when he knocked, and when he leaned his ear against the door he could hear a strange hissing noise from inside.
"Weird," he mumbled and tested the knob. Locked, of course, but nothing Neil couldn't handle. It was an older hotel after all, and they hadn't installed key card locks, so all he had to do was pick the lock. He hadn't done it in a while, so it took a little longer than usual, but the familiar click was all he needed to hear before he stepped inside.
…only to freeze where he was standing because Eames was lying on the bed, appearing to be unconscious, and he was… plugged up to the sci-fi briefcase machine. Neil's mouth fell open as he slowly shut the door behind him, and he quickly scanned the room for anyone who might have done this.
They were alone… which meant either the person who'd hooked Eames up to the machine had already left or that Eames had done it to himself. Neil leaned over it, discovering a digital red clock in the middle counting backwards from ten minutes and then followed the tubing over towards Eames's arm where he'd inserted a needle connected to it. His breathing was soft and even, and Neil realized that the man was asleep rather than unconscious.
Was it some kind of drug dispenser? He'd never heard of anything like that, even around the drug circles, so probably not… was Eames some sort of alien and this his life force?
He wasn't going to let that thought go any further because it reminded him too much of someone else.
He pulled his coat off and sat down on the edge of the bed, slowly running his fingers over the machine, trying to figure out how exactly it worked. He didn't see any sort of instruction manual inside, so really there wasn't any way to figure out just what it did.
Well, there was one way.
It was probably really, really, really all kinds of stupid, but Eames seemed to be okay, and there were more tubes and needles available, so maybe it was for multiple use. Besides, his curiosity was absolutely piqued, and he wasn't sure he'd be able to walk out of the room without testing it first.
It took a moment or two but he found a vein and slipped the cannula into his arm, then reached over and depressed the plunger in the middle of the machine… and suddenly he became overwhelmingly tired, falling flat onto the bed with his legs still hanging off the side. It was the last thing he remembered.
The next thing Neil knew, he was walking down the street and smoking a cigarette. It was late in the afternoon so he figured he should probably get back home before Wendy did, but he wasn't quite sure about where he was. Sure, it definitely looked like New York, but it wasn't a street he recognized. All of the buildings had mirror faces, and the people walking up and down the street seemed to move almost like ghosts. As soon as Neil looked away from one, it was hard to remember their face.
Neil started to think that maybe he'd taken a really good drug and was just now coming off of it, but he wasn't sure what would cause these effects. He walked slowly, searching for a street sign or something so that he could get his bearings, but the street seemed to go on forever.
He realized something else too.
It wasn't cold. In fact, it felt normal, as though he was standing inside rather than out, and the sky was blank and blue rather than cloudy. The storm clearing up made sense. The lack of a chill in the air didn't… and New York streets weren't typically paved with setts… and everyone was driving on the wrong side of the road.
"What the fuck is going on?" he asked the air, removing the cigarette from his lips and dropping it on the ground. He turned to go into the closest building to ask for directions but found that it didn't seem to have a door on it. He grabbed hold of one of the people on the street, finding that even though he was staring right at the man, somehow his features smudged a little in his memory. "Hey, tell me where I am! This isn't New York. How did I get here?"
The man stared back at him, and Neil felt a shiver run through him as he realized everyone was staring at him. He let go of the man's arm and stepped back, feeling a bit ill as he saw just how surrounded he really was.
No one moved, including himself.
How did I get here? Neil thought, desperately trying to remember so he could get away from these fucking lunatics. He'd gone into Eames's hotel room and found the weird machine and…
…and he'd fallen asleep. He didn't remember waking up and leaving. He just remembered being here.
A woman appeared through the crowd, raven haired and brown-eyed, dressed in a low cut suit that hugged her body just the right way, and Neil wondered why he could see her so much more clearly than the others. She walked straight up to him, smiling, and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Come, come on, now," she said lightly and started leading him away. The crowd resumed walking as if they'd never stopped, continuing towards their unknown destinations.
"Who are you?" Neil asked. "What is this fucking weird ass place?"
"What the fuck are you doing here?" the woman hissed, her voice taking on an oddly familiar accent. European. Sort of James Bond-y, except on a girl. Neil turned his head to look at his reflection in the nearest building because for some reason his peripheral kept putting him off. He understood why when he looked because in the reflection was not the woman but Eames.
"Jesus fuck!" Neil shouted, looking from the reflection to the woman, mortified.
"Don't panic," the woman said, and he looked in the reflection to find the woman, turning back to find Eames. "Don't let them know of your location," he said in his own voice, and Neil couldn't help but shake from where Eames was holding him by the elbows, gaping like a fish as he tried to figure out just what had happened to him.
Was this some sort of magic trick or was Neil just tripping his balls off? Had he finally gone off the deep end and went plunging into the pits of insanity? He thought the worst part was that he couldn't remember at all, couldn't remember a damned thing before plugging himself into that weird alien machine and then being suddenly dizzy and tired.
All of this was so unreal, so absolutely absurd and inconceivable that it felt almost like-
Like…
Wait…
If he'd fallen asleep, then maybe…
"Am I dreaming right now?" he asked, and a swell of classical music filled the air, like he was in a movie or something, and then all the buildings shattered, shards of mirrored glass falling upon him.
He didn't even have time to scream, letting Eames pull him close as they were stabbed through and killed instantly.
And then he woke up.
Author: osaki_nana_707
Fandom: Inception/Mysterious Skin fusion
Word count: 3,216
Pairing: Neil/Eames
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: language, allusions to rape,child molestation, and prostitution
Summary: Neil McCormick is fraying at the seams. Then he meets Eames, professional dreamer.
When Neil woke up, it was sometime in the early morning, and he was engulfed in a safe, warm embrace. At first he figured it must be Wendy because it usually was, but it didn't take long for his brain to come online and register that it was not Wendy wrapped around him. This person was bulkier, taller, definitely a man.
Neil had never been in the habit of staying through the night with his johns, and even if they asked him to stay, he never really cuddled like this… but…
He didn't even remember having sex last night. He didn't…
Oh.
Oh, right.
Eames.
Neil had nearly forgotten that disaster of an evening, but now it flooded back and he bit down on a moan of embarrassment. He had no idea what had come over him last night causing him to do one stupid, crazy thing after another, but here he was, sleeping in a bed with a man he knew the name of, a man he hadn't fucked, and they were wrapped around each other like lovers.
A flutter of panic settled in Neil's chest like a moth trying to escape, but he still managed to untangle himself from Eames without waking him up. Neil clambered off the bed, feet meeting the soft carpet (Eames must have removed his shoes and socks-and his jacket too, now that he thought about it), and for a minute he just stared at the lump in the bed.
Eames still had clothes on, which was another weird thing for Neil. It was just a pair of boxer shorts and a t-shirt, but it was still less clothing on his bedmates than he was used to. His hair had been mussed into ridiculous cowlicks from sleeping with it wet, and his face was half buried into the pillow, expression peaceful, soft snores escaping through his parted lips. Neil looked at the his face, his eyelashes and arched eyebrows, his long and straight nose, those same lips from the night before that seemed even less possible in the daytime…
Neil had kissed those lips.
He'd kissed those lips but done nothing more.
He turned his gaze to the plane of Eames's back, to slide down the one arm he could see. There were hints of tattoos here and there, though Neil couldn't see a single one in full. It made him wonder what they looked like.
He bit his lip, the hint of sting against the scabbed over places bringing him back to reality. He leaned over and pulled the comforter back over Eames and started hunting down his things. He found his jacket folded up on the table next to the weird sci-fi suitcase and his shoes underneath it with his socks tucked into them. Eames seemed to have taken at least some sort of care with them, even though the socks had holes and the jacket and tennis shoes were both falling apart.
He slid into his socks and was just getting on his second shoe when the lump in the bed stirred. Neil paused, looking up at the mattress, hands pausing over the laces. He could hear his own breathing, not sure why he was suddenly so tense. Perhaps it was just that he'd hoped to make a clean getaway, maybe steal the money out of Eames's wallet and his nice coat, but now he couldn't. Now he just sat there, frozen.
Eames sat up, scrubbing his hands over his face and yawning, and then he dropped his hands, and he saw Neil. "Leaving already then?" he asked, stretching his arms above his head.
"Um," Neil replied.
Eames crawled out of the bed and rolled his shoulders. "I can go get breakfast first if you like. You look half-starved. Let me call you a cab, yeah?"
"I didn't mean to fall asleep here," Neil said. "You should've just woken me up."
"I couldn't do that," Eames laughed, sliding into a pair of gray trousers he pulled out of his suitcase (how had Neil not even thought to look through his suitcase?). "You looked bloody knackered, and I figured since you came here with the intentions of sharing my bed, it wouldn't bother you too much."
Neil finished tying his shoe and got to his feet, but from that point he really wasn't sure what to do. Leave? Go to breakfast with Eames? Wait on the cab?
So he asked, "Why… why did you kiss me?"
Eames raised an eyebrow. "Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I recall you kissing me first."
"No! I mean-"
"Why is kissing all we did?"
"Ah-yeah…"
Neil had never felt so out of his element before. Normally he talked more smoothly than this. Normally he'd be the one calling the shots here… but Eames was something entirely new, and even worse, Neil felt like Eames had eons more knowledge than him even though they were close in age. There was some sort of weird wisdom behind his eyes, like he'd seen the world in slower time than Neil had and had thus been able to take more in. Maybe it was just because he was from another country, but… it didn't feel like that was why. It was a curious thing.
"Well… you fell asleep," Eames said as if it was obvious, humor in his voice.
Oh. Duh. Neil wanted to open his mouth and insert his foot, but instead he just kept standing there, jacket in his fist, waiting.
"So, I can call a cab if you like. There's a complimentary breakfast downstairs if you want some of that or some coffee maybe. Um," Eames said, and with that 'um' Neil realized that Eames was feeling as awkward about this as he himself was. He just seemed to be handling it better.
"Yeah, uh… yeah," Neil said, looking at pretty much everything but Eames. "Yeah, I guess… I uh…" he paused, chewing on his bottom lip again and then ventured another glance at Eames.
Eames shrugged. "You can use my hairbrush and toothbrush I suppose."
"Oh. Um. Yeah, no, don't worry about it. Just uh… I'll take the subway home. I can't exactly afford cab fare, so…"
Then Eames was pulling out his wallet and sliding out some bills to hand over to Neil. The man was careful not to show him just how much was inside, but Neil could tell that it was a lot, especially because he handed him two hundred dollar bills. "Here," Eames said. "Take this and get you a cab, and use the rest to buy yourself a decent coat. Take care of yourself, yeah?"
"I didn't even do anything," Neil said, staring at the money in his hand as if he'd dreamed it there. "Do you… I can give you a blow job."
"Not necessary. You're buying yourself a proper coat for my conscience's sake."
Neil looked up at him, feeling this weird mixture of rejection and appreciation at the same time. "Okay…" was all he managed to say, and before he realized it, he was sitting in a taxi on the way back to Wendy.
"Where the fuck have you been?" was the first thing out of Wendy's mouth when Neil pushed his way inside. It wasn't as though he hadn't expected the rage, but all the same he still wasn't entirely sure what to tell her.
So, he lied. "The storm got too bad," he said. "I couldn't make it home."
"Where'd you stay then?" she asked, crossing her arms, jingling with the movement of her jewelry. "Did you go home with someone?"
Neil shrugged, neither confirming nor denying. "If you're asking if I fucked anyone last night, the answer is no."
She sighed out through her nose in frustration, but for the moment seemed satisfied. "Well, at least you're all right," she said, pulling him into her arms. He was glad to have Wendy's familiar scent in his nose, that smell of hair dye, coffee, and laundry detergent. She hummed, rubbing his back before pulling away. She shook her head and said, "I can't believe you went out in that flimsy ass jacket. I'm surprised you don't have limbs falling off." She smiled, and so did he, and they settled in for a breakfast of bologna sandwiches while watching old copies of their favorite horror movies.
Still, Neil was a bit bowled over by the realization that he couldn't stop thinking about Eames. Maybe it was because he'd been given money and hadn't done anything more than kiss the man, or perhaps it was because he wanted to know why he'd been thrown off balance so grandly just from being in his presence. Maybe it was both. Either way, he still kept picturing his face in his mind whenever he closed his eyes, and while frankly that was a welcome relief from the previous faces he'd been seeing it was no less bizarre. Neil could almost venture forth into the possibility that he wanted to fuck this guy, this Eames who was around his age and not his type at all.
That wasn't a guaranteed truth at least, but he did know he wanted to see Eames again before he left. Maybe then he would feel like something hadn't been left unfinished.
That night he dreamed he was standing on the edge of a cliff, looking down into the mist below and overwhelmed with the urge to jump off, knowing somehow that there was something new waiting for him at the bottom. He woke up just as the sound of a showerhead spray started making its way into his thoughts.
Neil went out after Wendy headed off to work, glad to see that the snow had petered off enough to make travel possible. He had plenty of money left from what Eames had given him, so he went into a store much nicer than he was accustomed to in search of a new coat. The woman behind the register gave him the stink eye the entire time, obviously not trusting him not to steal anything, but he didn't really care. He found a leather coat with wool lining and a hood for a steal at one-hundred and fifty bucks and walked out in a better mood than he'd walked in with and a great deal warmer too.
He hadn't expected to finish shopping so quickly, so he found himself with an afternoon free before Wendy would get home, so he started walking, hands crammed into his pockets, cigarette dangling from his lips. Not for the first time in the last couple of days he wondered what Eames was up to and if he was still in town. He squinted up towards the street sign in the bright gray afternoon, trying to remember just where Eames's hotel had actually been while simultaneously telling himself not to go back.
Neil had never been much for doing things he was supposed to do, but he figured this was probably the least dangerous thing he could really do these days. If Eames had wanted to attack Neil, he'd had more than ample opportunity, and Neil was pretty sure the man wouldn't do anything if he came by to see if he was still around. After all, he had to show off his new coat… for Eames's conscience's sake.
He found his way to the hotel after backtracking to the right subway train and wandering up and down the street a few times (things looked remarkably different in the daylight after all), and again he was thankful for the coat because it made him look nice enough that when he strolled by the front desk to the elevator, no one asked any questions.
Eames's room was on the fourteenth floor, and while Neil didn't remember the number of the room right away, he was pretty sure he'd figured it out on the third try. No one answered, however, when he knocked, and when he leaned his ear against the door he could hear a strange hissing noise from inside.
"Weird," he mumbled and tested the knob. Locked, of course, but nothing Neil couldn't handle. It was an older hotel after all, and they hadn't installed key card locks, so all he had to do was pick the lock. He hadn't done it in a while, so it took a little longer than usual, but the familiar click was all he needed to hear before he stepped inside.
…only to freeze where he was standing because Eames was lying on the bed, appearing to be unconscious, and he was… plugged up to the sci-fi briefcase machine. Neil's mouth fell open as he slowly shut the door behind him, and he quickly scanned the room for anyone who might have done this.
They were alone… which meant either the person who'd hooked Eames up to the machine had already left or that Eames had done it to himself. Neil leaned over it, discovering a digital red clock in the middle counting backwards from ten minutes and then followed the tubing over towards Eames's arm where he'd inserted a needle connected to it. His breathing was soft and even, and Neil realized that the man was asleep rather than unconscious.
Was it some kind of drug dispenser? He'd never heard of anything like that, even around the drug circles, so probably not… was Eames some sort of alien and this his life force?
He wasn't going to let that thought go any further because it reminded him too much of someone else.
He pulled his coat off and sat down on the edge of the bed, slowly running his fingers over the machine, trying to figure out how exactly it worked. He didn't see any sort of instruction manual inside, so really there wasn't any way to figure out just what it did.
Well, there was one way.
It was probably really, really, really all kinds of stupid, but Eames seemed to be okay, and there were more tubes and needles available, so maybe it was for multiple use. Besides, his curiosity was absolutely piqued, and he wasn't sure he'd be able to walk out of the room without testing it first.
It took a moment or two but he found a vein and slipped the cannula into his arm, then reached over and depressed the plunger in the middle of the machine… and suddenly he became overwhelmingly tired, falling flat onto the bed with his legs still hanging off the side. It was the last thing he remembered.
The next thing Neil knew, he was walking down the street and smoking a cigarette. It was late in the afternoon so he figured he should probably get back home before Wendy did, but he wasn't quite sure about where he was. Sure, it definitely looked like New York, but it wasn't a street he recognized. All of the buildings had mirror faces, and the people walking up and down the street seemed to move almost like ghosts. As soon as Neil looked away from one, it was hard to remember their face.
Neil started to think that maybe he'd taken a really good drug and was just now coming off of it, but he wasn't sure what would cause these effects. He walked slowly, searching for a street sign or something so that he could get his bearings, but the street seemed to go on forever.
He realized something else too.
It wasn't cold. In fact, it felt normal, as though he was standing inside rather than out, and the sky was blank and blue rather than cloudy. The storm clearing up made sense. The lack of a chill in the air didn't… and New York streets weren't typically paved with setts… and everyone was driving on the wrong side of the road.
"What the fuck is going on?" he asked the air, removing the cigarette from his lips and dropping it on the ground. He turned to go into the closest building to ask for directions but found that it didn't seem to have a door on it. He grabbed hold of one of the people on the street, finding that even though he was staring right at the man, somehow his features smudged a little in his memory. "Hey, tell me where I am! This isn't New York. How did I get here?"
The man stared back at him, and Neil felt a shiver run through him as he realized everyone was staring at him. He let go of the man's arm and stepped back, feeling a bit ill as he saw just how surrounded he really was.
No one moved, including himself.
How did I get here? Neil thought, desperately trying to remember so he could get away from these fucking lunatics. He'd gone into Eames's hotel room and found the weird machine and…
…and he'd fallen asleep. He didn't remember waking up and leaving. He just remembered being here.
A woman appeared through the crowd, raven haired and brown-eyed, dressed in a low cut suit that hugged her body just the right way, and Neil wondered why he could see her so much more clearly than the others. She walked straight up to him, smiling, and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Come, come on, now," she said lightly and started leading him away. The crowd resumed walking as if they'd never stopped, continuing towards their unknown destinations.
"Who are you?" Neil asked. "What is this fucking weird ass place?"
"What the fuck are you doing here?" the woman hissed, her voice taking on an oddly familiar accent. European. Sort of James Bond-y, except on a girl. Neil turned his head to look at his reflection in the nearest building because for some reason his peripheral kept putting him off. He understood why when he looked because in the reflection was not the woman but Eames.
"Jesus fuck!" Neil shouted, looking from the reflection to the woman, mortified.
"Don't panic," the woman said, and he looked in the reflection to find the woman, turning back to find Eames. "Don't let them know of your location," he said in his own voice, and Neil couldn't help but shake from where Eames was holding him by the elbows, gaping like a fish as he tried to figure out just what had happened to him.
Was this some sort of magic trick or was Neil just tripping his balls off? Had he finally gone off the deep end and went plunging into the pits of insanity? He thought the worst part was that he couldn't remember at all, couldn't remember a damned thing before plugging himself into that weird alien machine and then being suddenly dizzy and tired.
All of this was so unreal, so absolutely absurd and inconceivable that it felt almost like-
Like…
Wait…
If he'd fallen asleep, then maybe…
"Am I dreaming right now?" he asked, and a swell of classical music filled the air, like he was in a movie or something, and then all the buildings shattered, shards of mirrored glass falling upon him.
He didn't even have time to scream, letting Eames pull him close as they were stabbed through and killed instantly.
And then he woke up.