Deja Fucking Deja Vu
Pairings: Eames/Arthur, Nash/Arthur
Summary: Nash is this, Nash is that, but it's far more likely that Nash is just something in between.
Notes: Alphabetically I did put the Eames/Arthur first, but... Eames is hardly in this at all, haha :( Mostly it is about Nash, which really means, mostly it is about everyone but Eames.
The curtains are drawn against the Guyanese sun. It filters through in a haze of dust motes, warming the room anyway, and you're choking in the baking-oven heat of it. Of course the fan is broken.
There's not much in your life that works anymore. You stare down the door, locked and bolted, and your eyes are probably bloodshot because it stings to keep them focused. It's hot as all fuck and they're taking their sweet fucking time. You've been waiting for them a long while now, two years maybe. You knew this would happen the moment you hit the ground running.
You pour yourself a mouthful of brandy from the bottle. Brandy is a cold man's drink, you think, and it's two hundred fucking degrees inside but you're cold and the brandy helps a little bit. Your hands are shaking and a splatter of alcohol ends up on your shirt, a long stain like piss across your front. It sticks to the skin beneath.
It feels fucking disgusting, but hey. Listen. It's going to get uglier before it's over.
+
You're the best employee that the dream rental has, because you'll work from seven to two the next morning straight, and you know better than to ask any questions. You've even got a list of regulars; that makes it feel like some classy whore shit, but the tips turn everything all right.
One day you're hosting a lunch break dream for one of these regulars, some sweaty rich bastard that works uptown. He strolls through his favorite Japanese garden, the one he's made you dream for him so many times that you don't even have to check the blueprints anymore to call it up. He does his meditative breathing exercises, jerks off into a grove of bamboo trees, whatever it is he comes to this dream for. You sit at a pavilion and wish that the tea came with a waitress you could fuck.
When the five minutes are over and the two of you wake up, he stands there fiddling with his cuffs instead of leaving. It makes you uneasy.
"What do you want," you ask him.
"Nash," he says, "how would you like a job?"
"I've got a job," you say.
"A real one," he says. "With the amount of practice you've had dreaming, you could be out there making serious money. I think you've got the talent. I could talk to some people I know, if you're interested, have them come over sometime next week."
+
That's how you end up sitting across the pavilion from a pair of dicks in suits called Cobb and Arthur. Your customer is at your back, like he's having you judged, like he's selling you off.
"It's crisp enough," says Arthur, not looking around. "But much too boring. Much too dull."
"Oh, that's because--" starts the customer, flustered, "this is according to my specifications, you shouldn't-- I'm sure Nash could add some details to your liking, if you hired him. This is the way I prefer it, that's all."
Arthur's lip curls in contempt. You find yourself staring at his mouth.
"What do you think of mazes?" asks Cobb.
"Mazes?" you ask. "I don't think anything of mazes. They're fucking mazes. Why would anyone have an opinion on mazes?"
"Let's drop this," says Arthur. "Obviously he's an idiot."
"My god," you say, delighted, "you're an asshole, aren't you?"
You mean for it to be a compliment, but Arthur's jaw tightens and he moves like he's going to jump on you. Cobb puts a quick hand on his arm, and he leans back against the railing, defeated.
"Tell me," says Cobb, "what sorts of customers do you get here?"
"In the morning before work," you say, "people want courage. They ask for dreams about beating shit up, hunting, winning races. During the lunch hour, people like to take a few minutes off and rest. Beaches are popular. After work is for the sad shit; that's when you get asked for the dreams about ex-wives and flying."
"What about at night?" asks Cobb.
"Around midnight, they start asking for the whores," you say.
"Wonderful," says Arthur. "We're about to hire a dream rental pimp to be our architect."
"Hold on, Arthur," says Cobb. "How long does it take you to set up a rented dream?"
"Ten minutes, if I have to read the blueprint from scratch," you say. "Around two, otherwise."
"How many blueprints would you say you're familiar with?" asks Cobb.
"All the popular ones," you say. "Five hundred, maybe."
"And you work nineteen hours a day?" he asks.
"With the time difference," you say, "it's a lot longer than that."
Cobb looks at Arthur, a silent How about that? Arthur shrugs, shoulders jerking, like he's trying to shake off an insect. You think you could grow to like him.
"What do you know," says Cobb, "about extraction?"
+
You know fuck all about extraction, but they try to explain it to you. Mostly you understand what they're rattling on about. But what's important to you is that this is the first really illegal thing you've ever done, and the prospect of becoming an outlaw prickles under your skin, until you feel ready to combust with the promise of glamor.
"How much do you make?" you ask them. "For every job, I mean?"
"It's not about the money," says Arthur, sharp. You think you like him already.
"Then what do you do it for?" you ask. "Cobb? Hey?"
"He needs the money," says Arthur, before Cobb can answer.
"Look, boy scout," you say, "we all need the money. That's the point of money. You're supposed to want it."
"That's not what I'm in it for," says Arthur.
"You noble little shit," you say, but it doesn't sound as fond as it did inside your head.
When you've all done enough for the day and you're packing up, Arthur tells Cobb to go on ahead. Cobb frowns, and you wonder if you're going to get the fucking daylights beat out of you. You look down at Arthur's hands, at the stretch of fine skin over his knuckles, and you decide that you wouldn't put it past him.
Arthur doesn't punch you. Only clears his throat and fixes his eyes on something far past you.
"We don't usually work with inexperienced dreamers," he says. "And we never take advice from our clients."
"But you know I'm good enough," you say. "You hired me."
"Nash, I don't know how to put this to you," says Arthur, "but there is a real shortage in manpower right now in the dreamshare community. A decent architect is hard to come by, and in the absence of anyone with real building skills or creativity, we were desperate enough to look for someone with a repertoire."
"Just hold the fuck on," you say. "I can do this job."
"You're going to have to," he says. "Anyway, if it falls through, the client only has his own recommendation of you to blame."
"So what's this talk about?" you ask.
"I don't like you," says Arthur. "But it doesn't have to be a problem."
You feel your heat rise at that, and you think you're going to punch him, pulverize his fucking cheekbone to shattered little pieces. You'd much rather see blood on his face than anything as closed as that quiet disapproval. Your nails dig into your palms and you open your mouth, about to tell him to go fuck himself, but that's not what ends up coming out.
"What?" you ask instead. "What did I do wrong?"
Arthur does you both the courtesy of refusing to answer.
+
They have you build an office building for the job. You're good with office buildings, because every other moron wants to dream about setting fire to one, holding their breath in glee as HR goes up in a rush of flames. Cobb and Arthur want it to be seventy stories high, which is maybe a little taller than what you're used to, but it's nothing you can't handle.
The client wants the attendees list for some bigshot conference that's coming up, and according to Cobb, the mark is going to want to store the info in the locked cabinets on the seventieth floor. There's some kind of fucked-up logic behind it that you don't really give a damn about. But you're in one of your practice runs where you're walking around in that glittering monolith you've imagined for yourself, and Jesus, but you feel fucking badass.
"Try changing the landscape," says Arthur.
"Like how?" you ask, looking down at the sidewalk miles below you. "Should I green it up? Plant some trees?"
A row of little shrubs sprouts up to line the roads, and a car swerves out of the way, honking.
"Keep going," says Arthur. "Change something bigger. I want to show you something."
"Sure," you say, and you consider the bank across the street.
It's your dream, all of it, and there's nothing to stop you. You're good as fucking God in this world. So you picture mushrooming explosions, bright against the cityscape, and the bank goes up in smoke before your eyes. There's screaming, people spilling out of the wreckage. The rubble shudders and crashes to the ground. There's the spidery wail of sirens in the distance, and you look back at Arthur, to see if he likes the mess you've made.
"That should do it," he says.
"What are you showing me?" you ask, as the door crashes open.
Arthur swings out of the way, and the projections see you first, straight in their line of vision against the window. It's a mob of soft, fleshy office workers, in their glasses and their bad cologne, but they look like they'll tear you to pieces. The one in the front is holding a knife. They are going to tear you to pieces.
Shit, you think, shit, because what the fuck is going on? Your dream isn't supposed to turn on you like this. You pound against the window, willing it to give and melt out of the way, but you can't concentrate hard enough to change anything. You never should have listened, never should have left the dream rental. That bitch is holding a knife, fuck, that bitch is holding a knife she's holding a fucking knife--
You wake up screaming, drenched in sweat, hands clutching at your chest. That fucking bitch tore it right open, and the pain echoes inside your body like a cave.
"Fuck," you're shouting, "fuck, you fucking assholes--"
"Nash," says Arthur, "Nash, listen. You're awake."
"I'm fucking dead," you spit, trying to claw inside your shirt. "She stabbed me!"
"When you die in a dream," says Arthur, "you wake up."
"Oh, well, that's great, that's just great," you say when the words manage to make sense to you, "can't you just tell me how that works? I just got stabbed with a fucking knife, Jesus fucking Christ--"
"I thought you should experience it first in a controlled environment, just in case," says Arthur. "Wouldn't want you to panic on the job."
"Am I going to die on every goddamn job?" you yell. "Do I just get killed over and over again?"
"No," says Arthur, and he catches you by your wild stuttering hands. "I'm the one that makes sure you don't."
He puts his fingers to your wrist, steady on your pulse. Slowly you calm enough to feel his touch. And though you know it's your own heartbeat pounding through your head, you wish it were the thrum of Arthur's blood instead, some sign of life beneath the clockwork monster that he is. God, his skin is cool as marble.
+
The job goes fucking beautifully. For something that apparently nobody wants to do, the paycheck is fucking awesome, and you cash all of it as soon as you get your hands on it. You sit in your underwear on a pile of hundred-dollar bills, and you hold one up to the lighter until it catches fire and crumples in your grasp. You burn money, one bank note after the other, until your eyes water from the smoke and you stumble outside to the balcony, where you thrust your hands out into the air and watch the ashes dance away.
Jesus fuck, you think, I'm a fucking criminal.
I'm an outlaw, you whisper into another handful of ashes, and you touch that dry bitter heap with the tip of your tongue. You eat your own money and you fall asleep to some shit piece of porn you're too wired to watch.
+
Where you think it falls apart is on the Cobol job. Apparently your mark isn't actually your mark, and you have to take on another job to make up for your failure on the current job, or apparently there's going to be some big fucking trouble. It's fucking chaos. But you're just the architect, you don't make the deals, so you figure there's an out for you even if the shit really hits the fan.
Arthur's in a foul mood, though. He storms off to his hotel room, door snicking politely closed behind him, and you give him two whole hours before you knock with a bottle of brandy in your hand.
"So what do we do now?" you ask.
"Now we extract from Saito," says Arthur. "Because that's what our damn job is."
"Christ, calm down," you say. "What's the matter with you? I'm the one that got the axe in my back, what the fuck."
"You think this is a joke," snaps Arthur. "You think you're on some kind of crazy adventure, where you get to play at breaking the law and being on the run."
"Is this about that sweet piece of ass in the red shirt?" you ask. "Did you see her tits, though? And she was giving me eyes, too, before she got a hold of that axe."
"You're a fucking idiot," says Arthur.
"It doesn't hurt to have a sense of humor," you say.
Arthur's down to his undershirt and his slacks, and he's sitting at the coffee table cleaning his gun. You don't know shit about guns but it's something long and smooth and black, and it's just like him, all polished and fucking ruthless. You think if you had to carry a weapon, though, it ought to be something bigger. Something that blows shit up.
You watch the shift of his shoulders, and you wonder how he made it out of the dream. If they shot him, and if he bled. You wonder if he bleeds.
"I'm sure you have a sense of humor," you tell him.
"Fuck you, Nash," he says.
"I'm curious," you say, "does your blood run hot? Are you even alive?"
"Not everyone is as excitable as you," he says.
He puts his gun back together again, fingers light across metal. Your throat is parched from the brandy so you knock back another mouthful.
"I think you're a dead man already," you say.
+
Where it really falls apart is on the Saito job. Fucking Saito with his fucking carpet, that psycho son of a bitch. You know that the chopper's supposed to be there for you on the roof, but fuck, you know that asshole is going to find you. You think of him laughing, pressing his face into the carpet, and you think he'll probably kill you with his own bare hands.
Oh, you're fucked. You're so fucked. You try to imagine what it would feel like to die, but you keep coming up short. There has to be something past the axes and the knives and the bullets, something there instead of breaking free into the waking world, relief seeping into you like sunlight. There has to be something-- or maybe there's nothing, absolutely nothing, not even static, not even darkness, just nothing.
You pace the floor of your hotel room, and you don't know how long you have. Saito's going to shoot that fucking chopper right out of the sky. Crazy fucking asshole. And you're going to drop like a fucking bird, all your limbs on fire, your head on the pavement like a watermelon cracking open-- and then nothing, and nothing, and nothing, fuck.
Fuck. You just made a fucking bank account. Chicks smell the money on you, and if that doesn't work out, there's always hookers. It's not that you want to fuck someone. It's that you want to live. So maybe your mother's dead, your father's dead, your sister's dead -- actually, your sister's alive -- but it's not your sister that matters, it's you. You don't want to live so that you can wire her your paycheck at the end of every fucking month, you suppose you love her but she can go fuck herself, what you want is, you don't want to die. You really don't want to die.
That's really all there is. You want to live, you need to live, because you don't know what the alternative is. This dying business, you're not so sure you'd be very good at it.
Arthur, now Arthur, he'd be very fucking good at it. He's as good as dead already. You think of him spread out on the floor in one of his damn suits, pale and unsmiling, and what's the difference, then? Isn't that how he always is?
Only maybe, there might be a puddle of blood beneath him, the only patch of color in the room. Warm to the touch, Arthur's blood. The only living thing about him.
You think, if someone slit your throat, you'd flop around like a fish drowning in the open air.
You have Saito's number.
+
Saito's a fucking nut case. You babble yourself dry in front of him and he laps it all up, and then he decides he's too honorable to consider you anything but scum. That's a good fucking deal he's got himself there. Doesn't even need to thank you for your betrayal. Though what makes it betrayal, anyway-- what makes Cobb and Arthur your responsibility?
So Saito, who steals people's wives, who won't trust his chief engineer enough to share his expansion plans, who gambles with street rats in his off time, that Saito thinks he's too fucking high and mighty for your bullshit. He leaves you for the vultures.
They drag you away, your heels skidding against concrete. Arthur looks disappointed, but of course he looks disappointed. You're not worth his anger.
What you mean to do is rail at him, tell him he can go shove his notions up his fucking ass, see how long Cobb will care. They're only loyal in the sense that floating cadavers are loyal to the river. They just don't know how to swim against the current, because they don't know how to live.
But you open your mouth and you know, what you'll end up doing is apologizing. God, what the fuck is the matter with you. So you shut your fucking mouth. Arthur grows smaller and smaller in the distance, and he doesn't stop frowning your way.
What? you want to ask. What did I do wrong?
+
Cobol finds you, just like Saito said they would. Woodruff finds you. A personal fucking touch.
"If it isn't our little rat friend," he says. "Hello, Nash."
"Two whole days to track me down," you say. "Aren't you off your game?"
"Don't pretend you've got a mouth on you," he says. "I know you're about to shit yourself."
Someone cracks you across the jaw with the butt of a gun, agony rattling through your skull. You know the role an action hero is supposed to play. You should hack up a glob of spit right in Woodruff's face, kick him in the balls, and go down in a blaze of glory at the very least.
Well, but it's too late for that. You're already his little rat friend, and besides, Saito betrayed you first. And you want to live, you want to live, oh god.
"We found his mistress," you mumble, because the corner of your lip is split. "I can take you to her."
"I'm not interested in his private life," says Woodruff.
"No, you don't understand," you say. "She's married. She's-- her husband is a government official."
"You think her husband can bring down Saito?" asks Woodruff. "Who the fuck is she married to?"
"It's not her husband," Jesus fuck, try to remember what Cobb said, "it's Saito's petroleum interests in Venezuela-- he's sneaking around because he has a business stake in his governmental contacts, so he-- he can't afford to cross--"
"Petroleum," repeats Woodruff.
Your head is fucking killing you.
+
You take them to Sonia, and you sit outside the hotel room as you listen to her cry. You pushed her around once, stole her purse. You didn't really mean any harm. She's still sobbing when the door opens again, and Woodruff and a bunch of other assholes leave her in the room.
"What now?" you ask Woodruff. "What do I do now?"
"Whatever you want," he says. "It's none of my business."
"No," you say, "that's not our agreement, you said--"
"Nash," he says, "you fucking idiot."
They nail you in the stomach hard enough to pin you to the wall, and wheezing for breath, your ribs probably cracked, you crawl inside the room where Sonia screams and throws a lamp at you.
"Sonia, hi," you gasp, "would you like something to drink?"
"Who the hell are you?" she asks.
"I'm one of the good guys," you say.
+
You make it almost a week in Caracas before some other company catches up with you. They have a name, sure, but what the fuck does it matter. What matters is that they string you up on a meat hook, are they fucking serious, a meat hook, and they want to know why the fuck Proclus Global is withdrawing from Venezuela.
"Because the CEO can't keep his fucking dick in his pants," you shout. "What the fuck do you want me to do about that?"
You don't even mean to hold out, because there's no sense in fighting, but you're bruised and bleeding by the time you realize what they want. You tell them about Fischer Morrow's plans for the oil pipeline up the east coast of Africa. When they let you down, the gashes down your arms run through your track marks. You've never gone this long without dreaming before.
They put you on a plane to Cambodia.
"Can't I go somewhere cooler, for once?" you ask.
"Don't be clever," they say, "because you're not."
In Cambodia, Cobol finds you again. Shouldn't have run your damn mouth about the oil pipeline deal. They break two of your fingers before you tell them about that other company's share in an intermodal transportation and construction conglomerate. A few days later, in an English newspaper, you read that the head of the off-road trucking division has been found dead in his apartment.
You've got your fingers in splints but someone breaks another one before you tell them what you told Cobol.
"Fuck," you scream, "are you going to break my whole fucking hand--"
That's what Proclus Global does when they catch you in Kigali. You nearly bite your tongue off, and you have to write with your left hand what they want to know -- Cobol's involvement in the death of the transportations man -- as your blood dribbles out the side of your mouth.
You learn to talk faster. In Burkina Faso, you don't bleed at all. At some point, the Venezuelan government becomes involved. You ditch their tail in Mumbai but get caught by some other assholes instead. They say they're employed by Cobol's archenemy. You laugh before they slam your forehead into a desk, and then you tell them that Fischer Morrow may renege on the whole oil pipeline deal.
That last one is a lucky guess, because all you really know about it is that Old Fischer is dead and that Young Fischer is a fucking pussy. You don't expect the whole goddamn company to break up.
Four separate parties start looking for you, demanding how you knew about the split. I didn't, you want to shout, I didn't know, but instead you huddle into a ship headed for Manila. You only exist in transit; as soon as you arrive, you disappear until they find you again. Your tongue heals in neat flecks of scar tissue.
You're running out of intel. In Santo Domingo you panic and promise some really absurd shit.
"I know it was mindheist," you grit out, "I can find out who did it. I can ask around."
You don't really know that extraction has anything to do with Fischer Morrow. But it's clear that Proclus Global is set to benefit immensely from Young Fischer's fuck-up, and Saito has ties to mindheist. Maybe there's something there.
When you ask your employers to locate someone for you, though, you're not really thinking about the signs. You're thinking about him. Like fuck he would help you, but you just need to see him again. You need to touch something clockwork. Something perfect.
+
"Well?" says Arthur. "Aren't you going to shoot me?"
"Oh," you say. "I hadn't thought about that."
Arthur crosses his arms and waits for you to just fucking do something already. You're not sure what your options are. Your contacts have told you that Arthur is just coming off of a job, wrapping up some paper trails before moving on, but right now he's in a hotel room you've broken into and he's sitting at the coffee table, tapping a finger against his elbow.
"Were you going to clean your gun?" you ask.
"Nash," he says, "who are you working for?"
"I don't know," you say. "I can't remember."
"What are you doing here?" he asks.
"I just needed something to lean on," you say, and you realize it's the truth. "You're the steadiest thing I know."
"What makes you think that I won't shoot you?" he asks.
Oh, god, he's carved from solid ice, clear and cold and brittle. You can't even meet his eyes.
"Please," you say, "can I touch you?"
Arthur looks at you for a long while, taking you apart, measuring you, as he finds you wanting in every way. But then he sighs and unfolds his arms, and he doesn't move away when you take a step forward.
"Look at you," he says, and the ringing in your ears makes his voice sound softer than it really is. "You look like shit."
And he's letting you, god, he's letting you. The bare curve of his forearms hanging by his side. Look at you-- look at him. He's so fucking perfect. You think, in that moment, that touching him will solve everything. Clockwork Arthur would never let anything around him break down, and just touching him should be enough to turn you invincible. All you want to do is live.
But like the moron you are, you've got your back to the door. As you reach out, there's a knock. It swings open behind you.
"Arthur, your door's--" says a voice, then startled, "who's this?"
You'd turn around, but right then, Arthur looks up past you.
"Eames," he says.
And you watch as something comes loose in Arthur, as he cracks apart like something hatching, something unlocking, and light floods him through and through -- so bright it's blinding -- and you watch, helpless, as clockwork Arthur sees Eames and calls his name and turns human before your eyes, turns mortal, turns fucking beautiful.
+
You don't remember arriving in Warsaw. You know you bought the ticket with your own money, because there's a heavy wad of bills in your pocket, and it was already there when you agreed to take the coke off of your new friend's hands in exchange for being allowed to hole yourself up in his basement.
So you've got a little plastic bag full of lady and you're already jet-lag high, but you do two lines before you stumble outside. Someone calls a cell phone you didn't know you had.
"Do you have the information on the Fischer extraction?" they ask.
"No," you say. "Fuck you. Fucking assholes-- I'm done."
You throw the phone into the street like a tantrum will make you feel better, and you stop until you watch it get run over twice. The next time you look up, you're sitting at a bar with the bartender in your face.
"Beer," you tell him. "Get me beer."
He gets you whatever. Your head is buzzing and you down the entire thing. It tastes fucking awful.
"This is good beer," you say. Your voice is a little too loud but the bartender doesn't seem to mind.
You look sidelong at the rest of the bar and there are these three girls perched on the far end, so you scoot a couple seats closer because they're fucking hot. They're tall and bony, blonde hair tucked up high. Models, maybe, or ballet dancers.
"You having a good time?" you ask them.
They titter and one of them says something you don't understand.
"I don't speak fucking French," you say. "Use English."
"Polish," she says. "We are in Poland."
"I don't give a shit," you say. "So what do you do?"
The bartender comes to fill your gigantic tankard.
"We are models," she says.
"I thought so," you say.
"What do you do?" she asks. Her breasts press up small and firm against the front of her shirt, the outline of her bra dark through threadbare cotton.
"Baby," you say, "I'm a fucking rock star."
Something salty hits your upper lip and your first thought is that you're crying, but then she looks at you and gasps, and you swipe your mouth with the back of your hand and it comes away wet with blood. The beer churns inside you and you're nauseous, excuse me, and you barely make it outside before you're throwing up all over your shoes.
That's the way it goes, you think, as the bile burns your throat and you wince at the smell of it. That's the way it goes. On the edges of every beautiful love story is some coked-up asshole with a nosebleed vomiting into a gutter in Poland.
You gulp in the night air when you've managed to empty yourself. There's nothing left for you to do. You've burned money, crashed cars, dodged bullets, hit on supermodels. And your clockwork monster is just a boy in love after all.
Aren't we all, you think. Just boys in love.
+
You don't remember leaving Warsaw. But you're in new shoes when you step off the plane, and you don't get arrested for smuggling Class A narcotics, so you suppose you must have left the cocaine behind.
Your pockets are empty. You think of-- well, you think of many things.
Welcome to Guyana, says a sign. Have a Great Stay!!
Be here till the day I die, you think.
+
That leaves you in Guyana with the curtains drawn, brandy on your shirt and sweat running down your neck. You're cold. Poland was too cold for you.
You know they're close. They'd have to be. You've made no effort to hide where you were headed, and you've been in Georgetown for nearly a week now. But you're fucking finished with this bullshit and hey, you did what you could. You'd have nothing to tell them even if you wanted to talk.
You hope they bring guns. Death by knifing-- there's a furtive ignominy in that. It's fucking pathetic is what it is. Makes you look like you got into a fight with your wife about the china. What you hope is they'll bring enough guns to paint the walls with your insides, and then they'll burn the building down and you'd see the flames from outer space.
You never bought into this totem business because you thought you were too big for that weak-time shit. But right now you wish you had something to check, something to soothe you, It's okay, you're only dreaming.
But look, what if it's a dream, what then? What is there left for you to do when you wake up? Maybe it's better like this, better that it's real. This is the way it goes, you think.
And oh, there it is, the sound of the mob coming to tear you apart. Footsteps, shouting. Like smoking out a fox. Your hand knocks over the bottle and the brandy goes sloshing to the floor. If they don't come soon, the heat will stifle you first. Or you'll freeze to death.
Remember those projections in the first dream you ever built? That bitch with her knife, and the feel of your chest opening up to the air. It's like that, only you won't wake up. Nothing, nothing, nothing. None of Arthur's fingers on your wrist.
That's the crash of the front door being forced in. That's the hallway they're marching through.
"Fucking rat asshole," someone says, "he's here."
You're here, you're here. You ought to invite them in. The door shudders and the chain jumps. You close your eyes to wait.
But then the window next to you explodes into a burst of confetti, like precious stones in the sunlight flooding the room, and you fling your arms up to shield yourself and you throw yourself to the ground. The door slams open, and there's too much light everywhere, the midday sun and the bright flare of gunfire and the glint off of thousands of shards of glass littering the floor around you. And when you see the bodies hit the floor, you don't know what's going on, but that you don't feel like you've been shot.
And then suddenly everything is quiet, and you look up.
"Nash," shouts Arthur, "goddammit!"
There's a heap of bodies by the doorway. Arthur's holding a gun, and you don't know shit about guns, but it's something pretty fucking big. Maybe it's what they call a machine gun, submachine gun, what's the difference, but really it's a flaming fucking sword. The sun streams in behind him, hazy around his head, a halo.
You stumble to your feet. There are grains of glass all over him, in the folds of his shirt, in his hair. His sleeves are cut up and the blood seeps through the fabric, and there's a long rip on his upper arm where a bullet must have grazed him, and he's bleeding. Arthur is--
You reach out a hand and dip your finger in that smudge of blood, and you bring it to your scarred tongue to taste it.
"You fucking idiot," says Arthur, gun dropping to the floor.
It tastes like blood, like your own blood. Arthur is just looking at you, his shoulders heaving for breath, bits of glass and warm blood all over him. There are a thousand things you could say, but when you open your mouth, none of it ends up coming out.
"What?" you ask instead. "What did I do wrong?"
Summary: Nash is this, Nash is that, but it's far more likely that Nash is just something in between.
Notes: Alphabetically I did put the Eames/Arthur first, but... Eames is hardly in this at all, haha :( Mostly it is about Nash, which really means, mostly it is about everyone but Eames.
The curtains are drawn against the Guyanese sun. It filters through in a haze of dust motes, warming the room anyway, and you're choking in the baking-oven heat of it. Of course the fan is broken.
There's not much in your life that works anymore. You stare down the door, locked and bolted, and your eyes are probably bloodshot because it stings to keep them focused. It's hot as all fuck and they're taking their sweet fucking time. You've been waiting for them a long while now, two years maybe. You knew this would happen the moment you hit the ground running.
You pour yourself a mouthful of brandy from the bottle. Brandy is a cold man's drink, you think, and it's two hundred fucking degrees inside but you're cold and the brandy helps a little bit. Your hands are shaking and a splatter of alcohol ends up on your shirt, a long stain like piss across your front. It sticks to the skin beneath.
It feels fucking disgusting, but hey. Listen. It's going to get uglier before it's over.
+
You're the best employee that the dream rental has, because you'll work from seven to two the next morning straight, and you know better than to ask any questions. You've even got a list of regulars; that makes it feel like some classy whore shit, but the tips turn everything all right.
One day you're hosting a lunch break dream for one of these regulars, some sweaty rich bastard that works uptown. He strolls through his favorite Japanese garden, the one he's made you dream for him so many times that you don't even have to check the blueprints anymore to call it up. He does his meditative breathing exercises, jerks off into a grove of bamboo trees, whatever it is he comes to this dream for. You sit at a pavilion and wish that the tea came with a waitress you could fuck.
When the five minutes are over and the two of you wake up, he stands there fiddling with his cuffs instead of leaving. It makes you uneasy.
"What do you want," you ask him.
"Nash," he says, "how would you like a job?"
"I've got a job," you say.
"A real one," he says. "With the amount of practice you've had dreaming, you could be out there making serious money. I think you've got the talent. I could talk to some people I know, if you're interested, have them come over sometime next week."
+
That's how you end up sitting across the pavilion from a pair of dicks in suits called Cobb and Arthur. Your customer is at your back, like he's having you judged, like he's selling you off.
"It's crisp enough," says Arthur, not looking around. "But much too boring. Much too dull."
"Oh, that's because--" starts the customer, flustered, "this is according to my specifications, you shouldn't-- I'm sure Nash could add some details to your liking, if you hired him. This is the way I prefer it, that's all."
Arthur's lip curls in contempt. You find yourself staring at his mouth.
"What do you think of mazes?" asks Cobb.
"Mazes?" you ask. "I don't think anything of mazes. They're fucking mazes. Why would anyone have an opinion on mazes?"
"Let's drop this," says Arthur. "Obviously he's an idiot."
"My god," you say, delighted, "you're an asshole, aren't you?"
You mean for it to be a compliment, but Arthur's jaw tightens and he moves like he's going to jump on you. Cobb puts a quick hand on his arm, and he leans back against the railing, defeated.
"Tell me," says Cobb, "what sorts of customers do you get here?"
"In the morning before work," you say, "people want courage. They ask for dreams about beating shit up, hunting, winning races. During the lunch hour, people like to take a few minutes off and rest. Beaches are popular. After work is for the sad shit; that's when you get asked for the dreams about ex-wives and flying."
"What about at night?" asks Cobb.
"Around midnight, they start asking for the whores," you say.
"Wonderful," says Arthur. "We're about to hire a dream rental pimp to be our architect."
"Hold on, Arthur," says Cobb. "How long does it take you to set up a rented dream?"
"Ten minutes, if I have to read the blueprint from scratch," you say. "Around two, otherwise."
"How many blueprints would you say you're familiar with?" asks Cobb.
"All the popular ones," you say. "Five hundred, maybe."
"And you work nineteen hours a day?" he asks.
"With the time difference," you say, "it's a lot longer than that."
Cobb looks at Arthur, a silent How about that? Arthur shrugs, shoulders jerking, like he's trying to shake off an insect. You think you could grow to like him.
"What do you know," says Cobb, "about extraction?"
+
You know fuck all about extraction, but they try to explain it to you. Mostly you understand what they're rattling on about. But what's important to you is that this is the first really illegal thing you've ever done, and the prospect of becoming an outlaw prickles under your skin, until you feel ready to combust with the promise of glamor.
"How much do you make?" you ask them. "For every job, I mean?"
"It's not about the money," says Arthur, sharp. You think you like him already.
"Then what do you do it for?" you ask. "Cobb? Hey?"
"He needs the money," says Arthur, before Cobb can answer.
"Look, boy scout," you say, "we all need the money. That's the point of money. You're supposed to want it."
"That's not what I'm in it for," says Arthur.
"You noble little shit," you say, but it doesn't sound as fond as it did inside your head.
When you've all done enough for the day and you're packing up, Arthur tells Cobb to go on ahead. Cobb frowns, and you wonder if you're going to get the fucking daylights beat out of you. You look down at Arthur's hands, at the stretch of fine skin over his knuckles, and you decide that you wouldn't put it past him.
Arthur doesn't punch you. Only clears his throat and fixes his eyes on something far past you.
"We don't usually work with inexperienced dreamers," he says. "And we never take advice from our clients."
"But you know I'm good enough," you say. "You hired me."
"Nash, I don't know how to put this to you," says Arthur, "but there is a real shortage in manpower right now in the dreamshare community. A decent architect is hard to come by, and in the absence of anyone with real building skills or creativity, we were desperate enough to look for someone with a repertoire."
"Just hold the fuck on," you say. "I can do this job."
"You're going to have to," he says. "Anyway, if it falls through, the client only has his own recommendation of you to blame."
"So what's this talk about?" you ask.
"I don't like you," says Arthur. "But it doesn't have to be a problem."
You feel your heat rise at that, and you think you're going to punch him, pulverize his fucking cheekbone to shattered little pieces. You'd much rather see blood on his face than anything as closed as that quiet disapproval. Your nails dig into your palms and you open your mouth, about to tell him to go fuck himself, but that's not what ends up coming out.
"What?" you ask instead. "What did I do wrong?"
Arthur does you both the courtesy of refusing to answer.
+
They have you build an office building for the job. You're good with office buildings, because every other moron wants to dream about setting fire to one, holding their breath in glee as HR goes up in a rush of flames. Cobb and Arthur want it to be seventy stories high, which is maybe a little taller than what you're used to, but it's nothing you can't handle.
The client wants the attendees list for some bigshot conference that's coming up, and according to Cobb, the mark is going to want to store the info in the locked cabinets on the seventieth floor. There's some kind of fucked-up logic behind it that you don't really give a damn about. But you're in one of your practice runs where you're walking around in that glittering monolith you've imagined for yourself, and Jesus, but you feel fucking badass.
"Try changing the landscape," says Arthur.
"Like how?" you ask, looking down at the sidewalk miles below you. "Should I green it up? Plant some trees?"
A row of little shrubs sprouts up to line the roads, and a car swerves out of the way, honking.
"Keep going," says Arthur. "Change something bigger. I want to show you something."
"Sure," you say, and you consider the bank across the street.
It's your dream, all of it, and there's nothing to stop you. You're good as fucking God in this world. So you picture mushrooming explosions, bright against the cityscape, and the bank goes up in smoke before your eyes. There's screaming, people spilling out of the wreckage. The rubble shudders and crashes to the ground. There's the spidery wail of sirens in the distance, and you look back at Arthur, to see if he likes the mess you've made.
"That should do it," he says.
"What are you showing me?" you ask, as the door crashes open.
Arthur swings out of the way, and the projections see you first, straight in their line of vision against the window. It's a mob of soft, fleshy office workers, in their glasses and their bad cologne, but they look like they'll tear you to pieces. The one in the front is holding a knife. They are going to tear you to pieces.
Shit, you think, shit, because what the fuck is going on? Your dream isn't supposed to turn on you like this. You pound against the window, willing it to give and melt out of the way, but you can't concentrate hard enough to change anything. You never should have listened, never should have left the dream rental. That bitch is holding a knife, fuck, that bitch is holding a knife she's holding a fucking knife--
You wake up screaming, drenched in sweat, hands clutching at your chest. That fucking bitch tore it right open, and the pain echoes inside your body like a cave.
"Fuck," you're shouting, "fuck, you fucking assholes--"
"Nash," says Arthur, "Nash, listen. You're awake."
"I'm fucking dead," you spit, trying to claw inside your shirt. "She stabbed me!"
"When you die in a dream," says Arthur, "you wake up."
"Oh, well, that's great, that's just great," you say when the words manage to make sense to you, "can't you just tell me how that works? I just got stabbed with a fucking knife, Jesus fucking Christ--"
"I thought you should experience it first in a controlled environment, just in case," says Arthur. "Wouldn't want you to panic on the job."
"Am I going to die on every goddamn job?" you yell. "Do I just get killed over and over again?"
"No," says Arthur, and he catches you by your wild stuttering hands. "I'm the one that makes sure you don't."
He puts his fingers to your wrist, steady on your pulse. Slowly you calm enough to feel his touch. And though you know it's your own heartbeat pounding through your head, you wish it were the thrum of Arthur's blood instead, some sign of life beneath the clockwork monster that he is. God, his skin is cool as marble.
+
The job goes fucking beautifully. For something that apparently nobody wants to do, the paycheck is fucking awesome, and you cash all of it as soon as you get your hands on it. You sit in your underwear on a pile of hundred-dollar bills, and you hold one up to the lighter until it catches fire and crumples in your grasp. You burn money, one bank note after the other, until your eyes water from the smoke and you stumble outside to the balcony, where you thrust your hands out into the air and watch the ashes dance away.
Jesus fuck, you think, I'm a fucking criminal.
I'm an outlaw, you whisper into another handful of ashes, and you touch that dry bitter heap with the tip of your tongue. You eat your own money and you fall asleep to some shit piece of porn you're too wired to watch.
+
Where you think it falls apart is on the Cobol job. Apparently your mark isn't actually your mark, and you have to take on another job to make up for your failure on the current job, or apparently there's going to be some big fucking trouble. It's fucking chaos. But you're just the architect, you don't make the deals, so you figure there's an out for you even if the shit really hits the fan.
Arthur's in a foul mood, though. He storms off to his hotel room, door snicking politely closed behind him, and you give him two whole hours before you knock with a bottle of brandy in your hand.
"So what do we do now?" you ask.
"Now we extract from Saito," says Arthur. "Because that's what our damn job is."
"Christ, calm down," you say. "What's the matter with you? I'm the one that got the axe in my back, what the fuck."
"You think this is a joke," snaps Arthur. "You think you're on some kind of crazy adventure, where you get to play at breaking the law and being on the run."
"Is this about that sweet piece of ass in the red shirt?" you ask. "Did you see her tits, though? And she was giving me eyes, too, before she got a hold of that axe."
"You're a fucking idiot," says Arthur.
"It doesn't hurt to have a sense of humor," you say.
Arthur's down to his undershirt and his slacks, and he's sitting at the coffee table cleaning his gun. You don't know shit about guns but it's something long and smooth and black, and it's just like him, all polished and fucking ruthless. You think if you had to carry a weapon, though, it ought to be something bigger. Something that blows shit up.
You watch the shift of his shoulders, and you wonder how he made it out of the dream. If they shot him, and if he bled. You wonder if he bleeds.
"I'm sure you have a sense of humor," you tell him.
"Fuck you, Nash," he says.
"I'm curious," you say, "does your blood run hot? Are you even alive?"
"Not everyone is as excitable as you," he says.
He puts his gun back together again, fingers light across metal. Your throat is parched from the brandy so you knock back another mouthful.
"I think you're a dead man already," you say.
+
Where it really falls apart is on the Saito job. Fucking Saito with his fucking carpet, that psycho son of a bitch. You know that the chopper's supposed to be there for you on the roof, but fuck, you know that asshole is going to find you. You think of him laughing, pressing his face into the carpet, and you think he'll probably kill you with his own bare hands.
Oh, you're fucked. You're so fucked. You try to imagine what it would feel like to die, but you keep coming up short. There has to be something past the axes and the knives and the bullets, something there instead of breaking free into the waking world, relief seeping into you like sunlight. There has to be something-- or maybe there's nothing, absolutely nothing, not even static, not even darkness, just nothing.
You pace the floor of your hotel room, and you don't know how long you have. Saito's going to shoot that fucking chopper right out of the sky. Crazy fucking asshole. And you're going to drop like a fucking bird, all your limbs on fire, your head on the pavement like a watermelon cracking open-- and then nothing, and nothing, and nothing, fuck.
Fuck. You just made a fucking bank account. Chicks smell the money on you, and if that doesn't work out, there's always hookers. It's not that you want to fuck someone. It's that you want to live. So maybe your mother's dead, your father's dead, your sister's dead -- actually, your sister's alive -- but it's not your sister that matters, it's you. You don't want to live so that you can wire her your paycheck at the end of every fucking month, you suppose you love her but she can go fuck herself, what you want is, you don't want to die. You really don't want to die.
That's really all there is. You want to live, you need to live, because you don't know what the alternative is. This dying business, you're not so sure you'd be very good at it.
Arthur, now Arthur, he'd be very fucking good at it. He's as good as dead already. You think of him spread out on the floor in one of his damn suits, pale and unsmiling, and what's the difference, then? Isn't that how he always is?
Only maybe, there might be a puddle of blood beneath him, the only patch of color in the room. Warm to the touch, Arthur's blood. The only living thing about him.
You think, if someone slit your throat, you'd flop around like a fish drowning in the open air.
You have Saito's number.
+
Saito's a fucking nut case. You babble yourself dry in front of him and he laps it all up, and then he decides he's too honorable to consider you anything but scum. That's a good fucking deal he's got himself there. Doesn't even need to thank you for your betrayal. Though what makes it betrayal, anyway-- what makes Cobb and Arthur your responsibility?
So Saito, who steals people's wives, who won't trust his chief engineer enough to share his expansion plans, who gambles with street rats in his off time, that Saito thinks he's too fucking high and mighty for your bullshit. He leaves you for the vultures.
They drag you away, your heels skidding against concrete. Arthur looks disappointed, but of course he looks disappointed. You're not worth his anger.
What you mean to do is rail at him, tell him he can go shove his notions up his fucking ass, see how long Cobb will care. They're only loyal in the sense that floating cadavers are loyal to the river. They just don't know how to swim against the current, because they don't know how to live.
But you open your mouth and you know, what you'll end up doing is apologizing. God, what the fuck is the matter with you. So you shut your fucking mouth. Arthur grows smaller and smaller in the distance, and he doesn't stop frowning your way.
What? you want to ask. What did I do wrong?
+
Cobol finds you, just like Saito said they would. Woodruff finds you. A personal fucking touch.
"If it isn't our little rat friend," he says. "Hello, Nash."
"Two whole days to track me down," you say. "Aren't you off your game?"
"Don't pretend you've got a mouth on you," he says. "I know you're about to shit yourself."
Someone cracks you across the jaw with the butt of a gun, agony rattling through your skull. You know the role an action hero is supposed to play. You should hack up a glob of spit right in Woodruff's face, kick him in the balls, and go down in a blaze of glory at the very least.
Well, but it's too late for that. You're already his little rat friend, and besides, Saito betrayed you first. And you want to live, you want to live, oh god.
"We found his mistress," you mumble, because the corner of your lip is split. "I can take you to her."
"I'm not interested in his private life," says Woodruff.
"No, you don't understand," you say. "She's married. She's-- her husband is a government official."
"You think her husband can bring down Saito?" asks Woodruff. "Who the fuck is she married to?"
"It's not her husband," Jesus fuck, try to remember what Cobb said, "it's Saito's petroleum interests in Venezuela-- he's sneaking around because he has a business stake in his governmental contacts, so he-- he can't afford to cross--"
"Petroleum," repeats Woodruff.
Your head is fucking killing you.
+
You take them to Sonia, and you sit outside the hotel room as you listen to her cry. You pushed her around once, stole her purse. You didn't really mean any harm. She's still sobbing when the door opens again, and Woodruff and a bunch of other assholes leave her in the room.
"What now?" you ask Woodruff. "What do I do now?"
"Whatever you want," he says. "It's none of my business."
"No," you say, "that's not our agreement, you said--"
"Nash," he says, "you fucking idiot."
They nail you in the stomach hard enough to pin you to the wall, and wheezing for breath, your ribs probably cracked, you crawl inside the room where Sonia screams and throws a lamp at you.
"Sonia, hi," you gasp, "would you like something to drink?"
"Who the hell are you?" she asks.
"I'm one of the good guys," you say.
+
You make it almost a week in Caracas before some other company catches up with you. They have a name, sure, but what the fuck does it matter. What matters is that they string you up on a meat hook, are they fucking serious, a meat hook, and they want to know why the fuck Proclus Global is withdrawing from Venezuela.
"Because the CEO can't keep his fucking dick in his pants," you shout. "What the fuck do you want me to do about that?"
You don't even mean to hold out, because there's no sense in fighting, but you're bruised and bleeding by the time you realize what they want. You tell them about Fischer Morrow's plans for the oil pipeline up the east coast of Africa. When they let you down, the gashes down your arms run through your track marks. You've never gone this long without dreaming before.
They put you on a plane to Cambodia.
"Can't I go somewhere cooler, for once?" you ask.
"Don't be clever," they say, "because you're not."
In Cambodia, Cobol finds you again. Shouldn't have run your damn mouth about the oil pipeline deal. They break two of your fingers before you tell them about that other company's share in an intermodal transportation and construction conglomerate. A few days later, in an English newspaper, you read that the head of the off-road trucking division has been found dead in his apartment.
You've got your fingers in splints but someone breaks another one before you tell them what you told Cobol.
"Fuck," you scream, "are you going to break my whole fucking hand--"
That's what Proclus Global does when they catch you in Kigali. You nearly bite your tongue off, and you have to write with your left hand what they want to know -- Cobol's involvement in the death of the transportations man -- as your blood dribbles out the side of your mouth.
You learn to talk faster. In Burkina Faso, you don't bleed at all. At some point, the Venezuelan government becomes involved. You ditch their tail in Mumbai but get caught by some other assholes instead. They say they're employed by Cobol's archenemy. You laugh before they slam your forehead into a desk, and then you tell them that Fischer Morrow may renege on the whole oil pipeline deal.
That last one is a lucky guess, because all you really know about it is that Old Fischer is dead and that Young Fischer is a fucking pussy. You don't expect the whole goddamn company to break up.
Four separate parties start looking for you, demanding how you knew about the split. I didn't, you want to shout, I didn't know, but instead you huddle into a ship headed for Manila. You only exist in transit; as soon as you arrive, you disappear until they find you again. Your tongue heals in neat flecks of scar tissue.
You're running out of intel. In Santo Domingo you panic and promise some really absurd shit.
"I know it was mindheist," you grit out, "I can find out who did it. I can ask around."
You don't really know that extraction has anything to do with Fischer Morrow. But it's clear that Proclus Global is set to benefit immensely from Young Fischer's fuck-up, and Saito has ties to mindheist. Maybe there's something there.
When you ask your employers to locate someone for you, though, you're not really thinking about the signs. You're thinking about him. Like fuck he would help you, but you just need to see him again. You need to touch something clockwork. Something perfect.
+
"Well?" says Arthur. "Aren't you going to shoot me?"
"Oh," you say. "I hadn't thought about that."
Arthur crosses his arms and waits for you to just fucking do something already. You're not sure what your options are. Your contacts have told you that Arthur is just coming off of a job, wrapping up some paper trails before moving on, but right now he's in a hotel room you've broken into and he's sitting at the coffee table, tapping a finger against his elbow.
"Were you going to clean your gun?" you ask.
"Nash," he says, "who are you working for?"
"I don't know," you say. "I can't remember."
"What are you doing here?" he asks.
"I just needed something to lean on," you say, and you realize it's the truth. "You're the steadiest thing I know."
"What makes you think that I won't shoot you?" he asks.
Oh, god, he's carved from solid ice, clear and cold and brittle. You can't even meet his eyes.
"Please," you say, "can I touch you?"
Arthur looks at you for a long while, taking you apart, measuring you, as he finds you wanting in every way. But then he sighs and unfolds his arms, and he doesn't move away when you take a step forward.
"Look at you," he says, and the ringing in your ears makes his voice sound softer than it really is. "You look like shit."
And he's letting you, god, he's letting you. The bare curve of his forearms hanging by his side. Look at you-- look at him. He's so fucking perfect. You think, in that moment, that touching him will solve everything. Clockwork Arthur would never let anything around him break down, and just touching him should be enough to turn you invincible. All you want to do is live.
But like the moron you are, you've got your back to the door. As you reach out, there's a knock. It swings open behind you.
"Arthur, your door's--" says a voice, then startled, "who's this?"
You'd turn around, but right then, Arthur looks up past you.
"Eames," he says.
And you watch as something comes loose in Arthur, as he cracks apart like something hatching, something unlocking, and light floods him through and through -- so bright it's blinding -- and you watch, helpless, as clockwork Arthur sees Eames and calls his name and turns human before your eyes, turns mortal, turns fucking beautiful.
+
You don't remember arriving in Warsaw. You know you bought the ticket with your own money, because there's a heavy wad of bills in your pocket, and it was already there when you agreed to take the coke off of your new friend's hands in exchange for being allowed to hole yourself up in his basement.
So you've got a little plastic bag full of lady and you're already jet-lag high, but you do two lines before you stumble outside. Someone calls a cell phone you didn't know you had.
"Do you have the information on the Fischer extraction?" they ask.
"No," you say. "Fuck you. Fucking assholes-- I'm done."
You throw the phone into the street like a tantrum will make you feel better, and you stop until you watch it get run over twice. The next time you look up, you're sitting at a bar with the bartender in your face.
"Beer," you tell him. "Get me beer."
He gets you whatever. Your head is buzzing and you down the entire thing. It tastes fucking awful.
"This is good beer," you say. Your voice is a little too loud but the bartender doesn't seem to mind.
You look sidelong at the rest of the bar and there are these three girls perched on the far end, so you scoot a couple seats closer because they're fucking hot. They're tall and bony, blonde hair tucked up high. Models, maybe, or ballet dancers.
"You having a good time?" you ask them.
They titter and one of them says something you don't understand.
"I don't speak fucking French," you say. "Use English."
"Polish," she says. "We are in Poland."
"I don't give a shit," you say. "So what do you do?"
The bartender comes to fill your gigantic tankard.
"We are models," she says.
"I thought so," you say.
"What do you do?" she asks. Her breasts press up small and firm against the front of her shirt, the outline of her bra dark through threadbare cotton.
"Baby," you say, "I'm a fucking rock star."
Something salty hits your upper lip and your first thought is that you're crying, but then she looks at you and gasps, and you swipe your mouth with the back of your hand and it comes away wet with blood. The beer churns inside you and you're nauseous, excuse me, and you barely make it outside before you're throwing up all over your shoes.
That's the way it goes, you think, as the bile burns your throat and you wince at the smell of it. That's the way it goes. On the edges of every beautiful love story is some coked-up asshole with a nosebleed vomiting into a gutter in Poland.
You gulp in the night air when you've managed to empty yourself. There's nothing left for you to do. You've burned money, crashed cars, dodged bullets, hit on supermodels. And your clockwork monster is just a boy in love after all.
Aren't we all, you think. Just boys in love.
+
You don't remember leaving Warsaw. But you're in new shoes when you step off the plane, and you don't get arrested for smuggling Class A narcotics, so you suppose you must have left the cocaine behind.
Your pockets are empty. You think of-- well, you think of many things.
Welcome to Guyana, says a sign. Have a Great Stay!!
Be here till the day I die, you think.
+
That leaves you in Guyana with the curtains drawn, brandy on your shirt and sweat running down your neck. You're cold. Poland was too cold for you.
You know they're close. They'd have to be. You've made no effort to hide where you were headed, and you've been in Georgetown for nearly a week now. But you're fucking finished with this bullshit and hey, you did what you could. You'd have nothing to tell them even if you wanted to talk.
You hope they bring guns. Death by knifing-- there's a furtive ignominy in that. It's fucking pathetic is what it is. Makes you look like you got into a fight with your wife about the china. What you hope is they'll bring enough guns to paint the walls with your insides, and then they'll burn the building down and you'd see the flames from outer space.
You never bought into this totem business because you thought you were too big for that weak-time shit. But right now you wish you had something to check, something to soothe you, It's okay, you're only dreaming.
But look, what if it's a dream, what then? What is there left for you to do when you wake up? Maybe it's better like this, better that it's real. This is the way it goes, you think.
And oh, there it is, the sound of the mob coming to tear you apart. Footsteps, shouting. Like smoking out a fox. Your hand knocks over the bottle and the brandy goes sloshing to the floor. If they don't come soon, the heat will stifle you first. Or you'll freeze to death.
Remember those projections in the first dream you ever built? That bitch with her knife, and the feel of your chest opening up to the air. It's like that, only you won't wake up. Nothing, nothing, nothing. None of Arthur's fingers on your wrist.
That's the crash of the front door being forced in. That's the hallway they're marching through.
"Fucking rat asshole," someone says, "he's here."
You're here, you're here. You ought to invite them in. The door shudders and the chain jumps. You close your eyes to wait.
But then the window next to you explodes into a burst of confetti, like precious stones in the sunlight flooding the room, and you fling your arms up to shield yourself and you throw yourself to the ground. The door slams open, and there's too much light everywhere, the midday sun and the bright flare of gunfire and the glint off of thousands of shards of glass littering the floor around you. And when you see the bodies hit the floor, you don't know what's going on, but that you don't feel like you've been shot.
And then suddenly everything is quiet, and you look up.
"Nash," shouts Arthur, "goddammit!"
There's a heap of bodies by the doorway. Arthur's holding a gun, and you don't know shit about guns, but it's something pretty fucking big. Maybe it's what they call a machine gun, submachine gun, what's the difference, but really it's a flaming fucking sword. The sun streams in behind him, hazy around his head, a halo.
You stumble to your feet. There are grains of glass all over him, in the folds of his shirt, in his hair. His sleeves are cut up and the blood seeps through the fabric, and there's a long rip on his upper arm where a bullet must have grazed him, and he's bleeding. Arthur is--
You reach out a hand and dip your finger in that smudge of blood, and you bring it to your scarred tongue to taste it.
"You fucking idiot," says Arthur, gun dropping to the floor.
It tastes like blood, like your own blood. Arthur is just looking at you, his shoulders heaving for breath, bits of glass and warm blood all over him. There are a thousand things you could say, but when you open your mouth, none of it ends up coming out.
"What?" you ask instead. "What did I do wrong?"