Inception/Mysterious Skin - Every Me and Every You (24/30)
Title: Every Me and Every You (24/30)
Author: osaki_nana_707
Fandom: Inception/Mysterious Skin fusion
Word count: 3,224
Pairing: Neil/Eames
Rating: R
Warnings: language, allusions to rape,child molestation, and prostitution
Summary: Neil McCormick is fraying at the seams. Then he meets Eames, professional dreamer.
Neil couldn't go back to their apartment. There were too many things of Wendy's still there, and he just couldn't bear to look at them.
He instead rented the first apartment he could find, a shittier one than the one they'd been staying in when they first started out, and even though he could have sold the apartment he and Wendy had bought in the upscale part of town, he decided to keep paying the rent on it while bunkering down in the terrible, rat infested one. Maybe there was some stupid part of him waiting to wake up and find that Wendy was still alive, a part of him that knew she'd be pissed if she came back to New York to find her awesome apartment up for sale again and all of her things given to other people. Neil wanted to preserve the place just as it was. He could still see her unmade bed with the clothes she'd decided not to pack strewn across the end of it, could still picture her cluttered make-up table with pictures and ticket stubs shoved into the sides of the vanity mirror. He could even see the poster for the Pixies over her bed.
He chose not to think about it if he could help it, and when he couldn't help it he'd usually use a fake ID at the liquor store to buy something that would royally fuck him up to the point of forgetting.
He felt like he was drunk all the time now.
It was starting to get warm out. The trees in the parks were budding with life and the sky was blue more often than it was gray. Neil was sure that Wendy's funeral had already happened by now back in Hutchinson, and some nights when he was wasted and staggering back towards home, he'd picture it in his mind. She was all beautiful and done up and laying in a glass casket like Snow White, and it was surrounded by flowers. All of Wendy's friends and family were there, dressed in black. Eric would lean against Neil's mother and whisper, "Where's Neil?" and she would just shake her head. Eames would be standing at the back, and he'd be next to Brian who probably just came to support Eric because that was what real friends did.
Neil had let Wendy die, and then he'd abandoned her. He was the shittiest friend alive…
…but he hoped he could make it up to her this way, the way that he was living. Being out of the dreamshare would save his subconscious from ruining any more jobs, and therefore it would prevent more deaths. Neil should have known better than to think he was cut out for anything more than being a slut.
That word made him drink too, but the drink just didn't have the kick that he needed all the time. Sometimes he'd slip into the gay clubs and take whatever drug was offered to him. He didn't remember much about those experiences other than the colored lights and hot, sweaty bodies whirling around him. He liked the dizziness.
His coat got stolen during one of those hazy, spinning nights, but he didn't really care. He woke from a drug-induced fever dream to find himself pressed against a bathroom wall and getting fucked, and he didn't really care about that either. He jolted awake to discover he was lying in the street in what he assumed was his own vomit with a police officer shouting at him, and he spent a night in jail, and he just didn't give a damn.
None of it mattered, so all of it was fine.
…but then he started dreaming naturally again.
The neighbors in his apartment complex started to complain, and he wasn't sure why until he was told that he was screaming in his sleep. He would fall out of bed most nights or even wake up to find he'd wandered into different rooms. One morning he even awoke to find himself shivering in the stairway.
This, this did matter, but he wasn't really sure what to do about it except not sleep.
So Neil did just that, and if he stayed awake long enough, usually when he collapsed out of exhaustion his body was too tired to dream. It was better than nothing, he supposed.
He'd been playing the Not-Sleeping Game for about three and a half weeks, running on only a few hours of rest every few days and smoking or drinking or drugging his way through most nights. It made him feel like absolute hell, but it was better than the alternative.
It was the afternoon, and he was parked on the stoop of his shitty apartment while some of the tenants kids played on the sidewalk. He had a bottle of something alcoholic wrapped in a paper bag at his foot, a cigarette dangling from his fingers, and his head pressed up against the concrete railing of the stoop's stairs. He was wearing the same clothes he had worn for the past three days, even though there was a stain from some unknown source on the front of his t-shirt. He only had the clothes he'd packed to go to France with, after all, since he wouldn't step foot back into his and Wendy's place.
He closed his eyes against the sunlight, taking a long drag off of his cigarette. The squeals and screams of the playing children were not helping his hangover.
When he opened his eyes again, there was a new person in his sights, a man with a large yellow duffel bag slung over his back standing across the street and staring at him. Neil pushed his scraggly hair out of his eyes and squinted a bit and nearly snorted. The man looked like Eames, but that was impossible. Neil decided he must have been hallucinating or that maybe he was still coming down off of a drug he'd had last night. He took a swig from the bottle and put out his cigarette on the step.
When he looked up, the man was crossing the street and coming over.
Neil didn't care.
"Good God," he said to Neil, and he sounded like Eames too. Neil wondered if he reached out and touched his trousers if he'd be able to feel the fabric.
Neil looked over at the children and realized that they had stopped playing and were watching him. He looked back at Eames, slowly taking in his pale blue button-down with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, his gray trousers, his polished and worn shoes… and he realized that Eames was quite real.
Neil scrambled to get to his feet and run, but he was running on about three hours sleep in as many days and still sluggish from the alcohol. Eames managed to grab him before he even got off the steps, but he still struggled to free himself until he managed it. He only managed to run a few feet before Eames caught him again though and Neil found himself slammed up against the brick wall closest to him.
"Stop! Stop running!" Eames shouted, and he sounded more pissed off than Neil had ever heard him. "Stop it right now! Fuck!"
Neil did stop, only giving his arm one final jerk as if to be sure Eames wasn't going to let him go, and then he stared back at the man before him, breathing raggedly. "How did you find me?" Neil managed to ask once he got his breath under him.
"You've been using my credit cards for your booze and you expected I wouldn't pinpoint your location? Jesus Christ."
There was a moment of silence between them. Neil couldn't help but stare at Eames, his chest aching at the very sight of his face. He looked so beautiful that he still didn't seem real, and Neil sort of wanted to cry.
"You look good," Neil said instead, quirking the corner of his mouth up in a weak half-smile. "I didn't expect you to come chasing me down. I figured you didn't care, since you didn't cancel your credit cards."
Eames sighed, looking tired, though not nearly as tired as Neil felt. "Of course I didn't cancel the cards. I was trying to keep track of your movements. It still took a hell of a lot longer to find you than I'd hoped it would. God, look at yourself. You're a mess."
Neil did snort that time. "What did you expect? Did you think you'd just show up here, find me doing just fine and then let me fall into your arms?"
"I didn't expect you to be this bad off," Eames said. "Fuck, Neil, when's the last time you slept? Ate?"
Neil shrugged because he didn't remember exactly. "It's your fault," he said lightly. "You're the one who said I'd stop dreaming, but I'm dreaming again. You lied."
"I never-" Eames paused to inhale and exhale slowly so that he didn't blow the lid on his anger. "I never said that. When you use the somnacin it does keep you from dreaming naturally, but if you don't use it, over time it starts to come back."
"Whatever," Neil shrugged and started to try and move away from Eames. It didn't seem like Eames had any intent of letting him go. Neil frowned and glared at him. "What do you want?"
"What do you think?" Eames asked.
Neil raised his eyebrows. "Do you want me to suck your cock?" he asked flatly, just to be an asshole, and he got a sick satisfaction out of the way Eames repressed the urge to hit him.
He didn't like the following hurt expression Eames gave him though.
"This is incredible, you're incredible," Eames said, shaking his head, a bitter smile on his lips. "I can't bloody believe this."
Neil could tell that Eames was simmering under the surface, ready to explode if Neil gave him the chance. He briefly fantasized over what Eames would do, finding it strangely similar to the thought he'd had on the night they'd met. He could imagine himself bleeding to death in an alleyway and found a welling up of hysterical joy at the thought of it.
"So, this is how it's going to be, hm?" Eames asked, voice clipped. "You're just going to ah… to do this? You're just going to spiral into the abyss and not care about the people left standing on the edge."
Neil dug a cigarette out of his pocket and put it to his lips, but Eames immediately snatched it away. A muscle jumped in Neil's jaw, but he stayed silent.
"I have been looking everywhere for you," Eames said, and he was starting to tremble a little bit with everything he was holding in. "I have been worried sick about you. When I woke up and found that you were gone, I was terrified that you'd… that…" He clamped his mouth shut, and Neil thought he saw tears in his eyes. "Tell me why you left."
Neil shrugged, looking away, but Eames jostled him a bit and forced him to turn his gaze back. "Tell me why you left, Neil," he said sternly.
"I… I don't know," Neil said softly. "I just… I didn't want to be there anymore… I didn't really see the point."
"Is this what you think Wendy would have wanted? For you to be drinking yourself to death?" Eames asked.
"Yeah, well… I'd ask her, but she's dead," Neil said, and it literally felt like the words had splintered his throat.
Eames's expression started to lean more towards concerned than angry (though the anger was still most definitely there). "Neil… you can't blame yourself for what happened to her. It was a stray bullet. It could have hit anyone."
"It would have buried itself into the fucking wall if I hadn't brought her along," Neil replied. "You told me not to bring her with us, but I did anyway, so you tell me why it's not my fault."
Eames fell silent.
"That's what I thought," Neil said, and he shoved Eames out of the way. Eames didn't fight him this time, but he did fall into step behind him.
"Neil, please," Eames said. "Just talk to me. I know you're hurting, and I know that's why you're self-destructing. Trust me, I know what it feels like to lose someone you love."
Neil rounded on Eames, shoving a finger into his face. "No. No, you don't," he growled. "You lost that guy you liked, but you never had a soul mate like I did. It wasn't your fault that he fucking died. Don't pretend like you have even an inkling as to how I feel right now."
Eames sagged a little, expression now more somber than anything. "Neil… she wouldn't want to see you this way. She wouldn't want you to give up on your life and your plans because of her. She wouldn't want you to suffer."
"Yeah? Well, I am," Neil said, voice shaking and cracking traitorously. "I'm suffering, and even if she wouldn't want me to, I deserve it. Wendy died, and now I'm alone. I'm alone and it's all my fault… If my subconscious had been normal-if I had been normal, the job would have gone off without a hitch, but I ruined it, and that's why it happened."
Neil's vision blurred as his eyes welled with tears, but he stubbornly tried to hold back on them. He still had at least some dignity… Well, no, the truth was that he didn't want the flood of hurt to be let out from behind the wall he'd built. He'd lost all of his dignity the night he'd woken up in his own sick, he figured.
"Fine," Eames said, took a deep breath, and then grabbed Neil's shoulders. "Then blame it on me. It's my fault… If we're going to talk about what ifs, then the fact of the matter is that if I had never brought you back to mine on the night we met, then this never would have happened. I'll take the responsibility… Just don't keep doing this to yourself. I can't stand it."
Neil looked at his feet, and when he blinked he saw a teardrop splat on the ground. Then he found himself being tugged into Eames's arms, and he couldn't fight it even if he wanted to. He just leaned against the man, face buried into his shoulder, and he cried.
"I just want Wendy back," he whimpered. "She was my best friend… and she was always the one telling me to be safe… I should have kept her safe… I should have been the one to die… She's worth so much more than I ever was… I'm just a body… but she had a heart."
He could tell by the way Eames squeezed him that he didn't believe Neil's words, but he was thankful that he didn't try to reassure him at the moment. He doubted it would have done anything to help.
"Please talk to me, Neil," Eames said softly. "Please."
Neil shook his head. "No… you wouldn't understand…"
"Neil…" Eames said, petting his hair. "I would, I promise."
"No… you wouldn't…"
There was a moment of hesitation, and then Eames said, "I know about Brian."
That definitely got Neil's attention. He stepped back from Eames, staring at him with wide, wet eyes. "Wh… what? What do you mean?"
"The night before… it happened," Eames said, looking progressively more guilty as he spoke, "she… Wendy told me… I mean, she didn't give me all the details, but…" He pursed his lips, sniffed. "She told me about him and… your baseball coach."
"She… she promised not to tell anyone about that," Neil said hoarsely. He wasn't even angry so much as just shocked.
"She thought that I could help you," Eames said, and this time he was the one who broke eye contact. "She wanted me to know what I was dealing with. I think she was testing me to see if I was… worth it. Maybe she thought that I wouldn't stick around if I knew the truth, but… I don't care about that. Well, no, that's not the way to put it because I do care… but I'm not disgusted by you. I can't say I completely understand it, but… I'm not giving up on you. I promised that I wouldn't, and I still want to help… I just… I feel like I owe it to her."
"Well, you don't," Neil said. "There's nothing to be done for a dead woman."
"Yes," Eames agreed solemnly, "but you're still alive, so I feel like there is something to be done for you… because you are more than just a body. If you didn't have love in your heart, you wouldn't feel the need to destroy yourself. You wouldn't be able to feel this guilt and sadness and suffering. I don't know if there's anything I can do, but I'd like to try."
Neil sniffed and wiped his nose on the back of his hand. "What exactly do you want to do?" he asked.
"Now that I know what I'm looking for, I want to go into your subconscious and try to repair it."
"And how, pray tell, do you intend to do that?"
"By having you face it head on."
Neil cringed at even the idea of it. "No," he said immediately.
"It's the only way, Neil. It could help you."
"Or destroy me," Neil replied, horrified.
Eames didn't deny it. "That's true," he said, "but you're already doing a pretty fine job of destroying yourself in reality, so what's one more nail in your coffin?"
Neil swallowed hard around the knot in his throat and said nothing.
Eames shrugged. "This is an opportunity, and I'm only asking if you'll take it. If you refuse me, I won't fight you on it. I'll leave you alone if that's what you prefer… but I really hope that you don't tell me to go."
Neil looked up at the sky and then around himself at his current conditions. He looked down at his rumpled, smelly, dirty clothes and his shaking hands and the black crescents under his jagged, chewed-on fingernails. He thought about the nights spent in the clubs, the panic he'd experienced when he'd become lucid enough to feel a stranger ramming into him but not lucid enough to get him to stop. He thought about waking up in the street, seeing this look of contempt on the police officer's face and how Neil couldn't think about anything other than the fact that his mustache had reminded him of Coach's.
He thought about Brian and the way he had cried in his lap that night, the way Brian was shutting himself down and shutting people out. He thought of how Eric had worried and worried about Brian the way Eames was worrying about Neil now.
There was hope for Brian.
…and Neil thought that, just maybe, there was hope for him too.
It would be stupid not to try, at least. He knew that if he refused Eames, Wendy would come back from wherever she was just to kick his ass.
Besides, what else did he have to lose?
"Okay," Neil said softly. "We can… try."
Author: osaki_nana_707
Fandom: Inception/Mysterious Skin fusion
Word count: 3,224
Pairing: Neil/Eames
Rating: R
Warnings: language, allusions to rape,child molestation, and prostitution
Summary: Neil McCormick is fraying at the seams. Then he meets Eames, professional dreamer.
Neil couldn't go back to their apartment. There were too many things of Wendy's still there, and he just couldn't bear to look at them.
He instead rented the first apartment he could find, a shittier one than the one they'd been staying in when they first started out, and even though he could have sold the apartment he and Wendy had bought in the upscale part of town, he decided to keep paying the rent on it while bunkering down in the terrible, rat infested one. Maybe there was some stupid part of him waiting to wake up and find that Wendy was still alive, a part of him that knew she'd be pissed if she came back to New York to find her awesome apartment up for sale again and all of her things given to other people. Neil wanted to preserve the place just as it was. He could still see her unmade bed with the clothes she'd decided not to pack strewn across the end of it, could still picture her cluttered make-up table with pictures and ticket stubs shoved into the sides of the vanity mirror. He could even see the poster for the Pixies over her bed.
He chose not to think about it if he could help it, and when he couldn't help it he'd usually use a fake ID at the liquor store to buy something that would royally fuck him up to the point of forgetting.
He felt like he was drunk all the time now.
It was starting to get warm out. The trees in the parks were budding with life and the sky was blue more often than it was gray. Neil was sure that Wendy's funeral had already happened by now back in Hutchinson, and some nights when he was wasted and staggering back towards home, he'd picture it in his mind. She was all beautiful and done up and laying in a glass casket like Snow White, and it was surrounded by flowers. All of Wendy's friends and family were there, dressed in black. Eric would lean against Neil's mother and whisper, "Where's Neil?" and she would just shake her head. Eames would be standing at the back, and he'd be next to Brian who probably just came to support Eric because that was what real friends did.
Neil had let Wendy die, and then he'd abandoned her. He was the shittiest friend alive…
…but he hoped he could make it up to her this way, the way that he was living. Being out of the dreamshare would save his subconscious from ruining any more jobs, and therefore it would prevent more deaths. Neil should have known better than to think he was cut out for anything more than being a slut.
That word made him drink too, but the drink just didn't have the kick that he needed all the time. Sometimes he'd slip into the gay clubs and take whatever drug was offered to him. He didn't remember much about those experiences other than the colored lights and hot, sweaty bodies whirling around him. He liked the dizziness.
His coat got stolen during one of those hazy, spinning nights, but he didn't really care. He woke from a drug-induced fever dream to find himself pressed against a bathroom wall and getting fucked, and he didn't really care about that either. He jolted awake to discover he was lying in the street in what he assumed was his own vomit with a police officer shouting at him, and he spent a night in jail, and he just didn't give a damn.
None of it mattered, so all of it was fine.
…but then he started dreaming naturally again.
The neighbors in his apartment complex started to complain, and he wasn't sure why until he was told that he was screaming in his sleep. He would fall out of bed most nights or even wake up to find he'd wandered into different rooms. One morning he even awoke to find himself shivering in the stairway.
This, this did matter, but he wasn't really sure what to do about it except not sleep.
So Neil did just that, and if he stayed awake long enough, usually when he collapsed out of exhaustion his body was too tired to dream. It was better than nothing, he supposed.
He'd been playing the Not-Sleeping Game for about three and a half weeks, running on only a few hours of rest every few days and smoking or drinking or drugging his way through most nights. It made him feel like absolute hell, but it was better than the alternative.
It was the afternoon, and he was parked on the stoop of his shitty apartment while some of the tenants kids played on the sidewalk. He had a bottle of something alcoholic wrapped in a paper bag at his foot, a cigarette dangling from his fingers, and his head pressed up against the concrete railing of the stoop's stairs. He was wearing the same clothes he had worn for the past three days, even though there was a stain from some unknown source on the front of his t-shirt. He only had the clothes he'd packed to go to France with, after all, since he wouldn't step foot back into his and Wendy's place.
He closed his eyes against the sunlight, taking a long drag off of his cigarette. The squeals and screams of the playing children were not helping his hangover.
When he opened his eyes again, there was a new person in his sights, a man with a large yellow duffel bag slung over his back standing across the street and staring at him. Neil pushed his scraggly hair out of his eyes and squinted a bit and nearly snorted. The man looked like Eames, but that was impossible. Neil decided he must have been hallucinating or that maybe he was still coming down off of a drug he'd had last night. He took a swig from the bottle and put out his cigarette on the step.
When he looked up, the man was crossing the street and coming over.
Neil didn't care.
"Good God," he said to Neil, and he sounded like Eames too. Neil wondered if he reached out and touched his trousers if he'd be able to feel the fabric.
Neil looked over at the children and realized that they had stopped playing and were watching him. He looked back at Eames, slowly taking in his pale blue button-down with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, his gray trousers, his polished and worn shoes… and he realized that Eames was quite real.
Neil scrambled to get to his feet and run, but he was running on about three hours sleep in as many days and still sluggish from the alcohol. Eames managed to grab him before he even got off the steps, but he still struggled to free himself until he managed it. He only managed to run a few feet before Eames caught him again though and Neil found himself slammed up against the brick wall closest to him.
"Stop! Stop running!" Eames shouted, and he sounded more pissed off than Neil had ever heard him. "Stop it right now! Fuck!"
Neil did stop, only giving his arm one final jerk as if to be sure Eames wasn't going to let him go, and then he stared back at the man before him, breathing raggedly. "How did you find me?" Neil managed to ask once he got his breath under him.
"You've been using my credit cards for your booze and you expected I wouldn't pinpoint your location? Jesus Christ."
There was a moment of silence between them. Neil couldn't help but stare at Eames, his chest aching at the very sight of his face. He looked so beautiful that he still didn't seem real, and Neil sort of wanted to cry.
"You look good," Neil said instead, quirking the corner of his mouth up in a weak half-smile. "I didn't expect you to come chasing me down. I figured you didn't care, since you didn't cancel your credit cards."
Eames sighed, looking tired, though not nearly as tired as Neil felt. "Of course I didn't cancel the cards. I was trying to keep track of your movements. It still took a hell of a lot longer to find you than I'd hoped it would. God, look at yourself. You're a mess."
Neil did snort that time. "What did you expect? Did you think you'd just show up here, find me doing just fine and then let me fall into your arms?"
"I didn't expect you to be this bad off," Eames said. "Fuck, Neil, when's the last time you slept? Ate?"
Neil shrugged because he didn't remember exactly. "It's your fault," he said lightly. "You're the one who said I'd stop dreaming, but I'm dreaming again. You lied."
"I never-" Eames paused to inhale and exhale slowly so that he didn't blow the lid on his anger. "I never said that. When you use the somnacin it does keep you from dreaming naturally, but if you don't use it, over time it starts to come back."
"Whatever," Neil shrugged and started to try and move away from Eames. It didn't seem like Eames had any intent of letting him go. Neil frowned and glared at him. "What do you want?"
"What do you think?" Eames asked.
Neil raised his eyebrows. "Do you want me to suck your cock?" he asked flatly, just to be an asshole, and he got a sick satisfaction out of the way Eames repressed the urge to hit him.
He didn't like the following hurt expression Eames gave him though.
"This is incredible, you're incredible," Eames said, shaking his head, a bitter smile on his lips. "I can't bloody believe this."
Neil could tell that Eames was simmering under the surface, ready to explode if Neil gave him the chance. He briefly fantasized over what Eames would do, finding it strangely similar to the thought he'd had on the night they'd met. He could imagine himself bleeding to death in an alleyway and found a welling up of hysterical joy at the thought of it.
"So, this is how it's going to be, hm?" Eames asked, voice clipped. "You're just going to ah… to do this? You're just going to spiral into the abyss and not care about the people left standing on the edge."
Neil dug a cigarette out of his pocket and put it to his lips, but Eames immediately snatched it away. A muscle jumped in Neil's jaw, but he stayed silent.
"I have been looking everywhere for you," Eames said, and he was starting to tremble a little bit with everything he was holding in. "I have been worried sick about you. When I woke up and found that you were gone, I was terrified that you'd… that…" He clamped his mouth shut, and Neil thought he saw tears in his eyes. "Tell me why you left."
Neil shrugged, looking away, but Eames jostled him a bit and forced him to turn his gaze back. "Tell me why you left, Neil," he said sternly.
"I… I don't know," Neil said softly. "I just… I didn't want to be there anymore… I didn't really see the point."
"Is this what you think Wendy would have wanted? For you to be drinking yourself to death?" Eames asked.
"Yeah, well… I'd ask her, but she's dead," Neil said, and it literally felt like the words had splintered his throat.
Eames's expression started to lean more towards concerned than angry (though the anger was still most definitely there). "Neil… you can't blame yourself for what happened to her. It was a stray bullet. It could have hit anyone."
"It would have buried itself into the fucking wall if I hadn't brought her along," Neil replied. "You told me not to bring her with us, but I did anyway, so you tell me why it's not my fault."
Eames fell silent.
"That's what I thought," Neil said, and he shoved Eames out of the way. Eames didn't fight him this time, but he did fall into step behind him.
"Neil, please," Eames said. "Just talk to me. I know you're hurting, and I know that's why you're self-destructing. Trust me, I know what it feels like to lose someone you love."
Neil rounded on Eames, shoving a finger into his face. "No. No, you don't," he growled. "You lost that guy you liked, but you never had a soul mate like I did. It wasn't your fault that he fucking died. Don't pretend like you have even an inkling as to how I feel right now."
Eames sagged a little, expression now more somber than anything. "Neil… she wouldn't want to see you this way. She wouldn't want you to give up on your life and your plans because of her. She wouldn't want you to suffer."
"Yeah? Well, I am," Neil said, voice shaking and cracking traitorously. "I'm suffering, and even if she wouldn't want me to, I deserve it. Wendy died, and now I'm alone. I'm alone and it's all my fault… If my subconscious had been normal-if I had been normal, the job would have gone off without a hitch, but I ruined it, and that's why it happened."
Neil's vision blurred as his eyes welled with tears, but he stubbornly tried to hold back on them. He still had at least some dignity… Well, no, the truth was that he didn't want the flood of hurt to be let out from behind the wall he'd built. He'd lost all of his dignity the night he'd woken up in his own sick, he figured.
"Fine," Eames said, took a deep breath, and then grabbed Neil's shoulders. "Then blame it on me. It's my fault… If we're going to talk about what ifs, then the fact of the matter is that if I had never brought you back to mine on the night we met, then this never would have happened. I'll take the responsibility… Just don't keep doing this to yourself. I can't stand it."
Neil looked at his feet, and when he blinked he saw a teardrop splat on the ground. Then he found himself being tugged into Eames's arms, and he couldn't fight it even if he wanted to. He just leaned against the man, face buried into his shoulder, and he cried.
"I just want Wendy back," he whimpered. "She was my best friend… and she was always the one telling me to be safe… I should have kept her safe… I should have been the one to die… She's worth so much more than I ever was… I'm just a body… but she had a heart."
He could tell by the way Eames squeezed him that he didn't believe Neil's words, but he was thankful that he didn't try to reassure him at the moment. He doubted it would have done anything to help.
"Please talk to me, Neil," Eames said softly. "Please."
Neil shook his head. "No… you wouldn't understand…"
"Neil…" Eames said, petting his hair. "I would, I promise."
"No… you wouldn't…"
There was a moment of hesitation, and then Eames said, "I know about Brian."
That definitely got Neil's attention. He stepped back from Eames, staring at him with wide, wet eyes. "Wh… what? What do you mean?"
"The night before… it happened," Eames said, looking progressively more guilty as he spoke, "she… Wendy told me… I mean, she didn't give me all the details, but…" He pursed his lips, sniffed. "She told me about him and… your baseball coach."
"She… she promised not to tell anyone about that," Neil said hoarsely. He wasn't even angry so much as just shocked.
"She thought that I could help you," Eames said, and this time he was the one who broke eye contact. "She wanted me to know what I was dealing with. I think she was testing me to see if I was… worth it. Maybe she thought that I wouldn't stick around if I knew the truth, but… I don't care about that. Well, no, that's not the way to put it because I do care… but I'm not disgusted by you. I can't say I completely understand it, but… I'm not giving up on you. I promised that I wouldn't, and I still want to help… I just… I feel like I owe it to her."
"Well, you don't," Neil said. "There's nothing to be done for a dead woman."
"Yes," Eames agreed solemnly, "but you're still alive, so I feel like there is something to be done for you… because you are more than just a body. If you didn't have love in your heart, you wouldn't feel the need to destroy yourself. You wouldn't be able to feel this guilt and sadness and suffering. I don't know if there's anything I can do, but I'd like to try."
Neil sniffed and wiped his nose on the back of his hand. "What exactly do you want to do?" he asked.
"Now that I know what I'm looking for, I want to go into your subconscious and try to repair it."
"And how, pray tell, do you intend to do that?"
"By having you face it head on."
Neil cringed at even the idea of it. "No," he said immediately.
"It's the only way, Neil. It could help you."
"Or destroy me," Neil replied, horrified.
Eames didn't deny it. "That's true," he said, "but you're already doing a pretty fine job of destroying yourself in reality, so what's one more nail in your coffin?"
Neil swallowed hard around the knot in his throat and said nothing.
Eames shrugged. "This is an opportunity, and I'm only asking if you'll take it. If you refuse me, I won't fight you on it. I'll leave you alone if that's what you prefer… but I really hope that you don't tell me to go."
Neil looked up at the sky and then around himself at his current conditions. He looked down at his rumpled, smelly, dirty clothes and his shaking hands and the black crescents under his jagged, chewed-on fingernails. He thought about the nights spent in the clubs, the panic he'd experienced when he'd become lucid enough to feel a stranger ramming into him but not lucid enough to get him to stop. He thought about waking up in the street, seeing this look of contempt on the police officer's face and how Neil couldn't think about anything other than the fact that his mustache had reminded him of Coach's.
He thought about Brian and the way he had cried in his lap that night, the way Brian was shutting himself down and shutting people out. He thought of how Eric had worried and worried about Brian the way Eames was worrying about Neil now.
There was hope for Brian.
…and Neil thought that, just maybe, there was hope for him too.
It would be stupid not to try, at least. He knew that if he refused Eames, Wendy would come back from wherever she was just to kick his ass.
Besides, what else did he have to lose?
"Okay," Neil said softly. "We can… try."