forthedog | There's a point to all this dreaming

Entry tags:

darrow,
neil

There's a point to all this dreaming

The metal clangs under his feet--he realizes after a few seconds of it that the floor isn't solid, it's grated, and under it there are hundreds of massive, turning gears.

They're standing over a giant meat grinder.

The little things with their long knives are swarming at them. He's firing, firing, emptying rounds into the room, but they keep coming, cutting at his legs, knocking him down. He hears a scream, high and wordless and terrified, and he sees Neil's twisted face in the dimness, sees them take him and lift him up, blood running over the metal grating as they carry him away. He's trying to crawl, dragging himself across the floor as beneath him that massive infernal machine grinds and grinds, and he sees another quick, moon-like flash of Neil's face as the knives go to work and Neil is screaming--

He's screaming. Sitting up in bed, the sheets soaked with sweat. Alone.

Quiet.

The window by the bed is open and breeze moves across his bare skin. For a few moments he just sits there in darkness mottled by city lights, trying to breathe normally again. And all he can think, with what little coherence he has at some ungodly hour of the fucking night, is that on a long enough timeframe all dreams might come true.

It takes him another five minutes to come to a decision.

He drags himself out of bed and pulls on a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt, splashes some water on his face and spares himself a look in the bathroom mirror. He looks pale, hollow-eyed. He looks like what he is, which is a man who hasn't been sleeping well the last two nights. And that, coupled with the city's change before, means that he hasn't gotten decent sleep in about a week.

Fuck this.

He could just go, he thinks. Just head out the door. But that feels a little too much like a month ago, a little too much like something dark and crashing, so instead he heads back into the bedroom, sinks down onto the bed, picks up the cell phone and dials Neil's number.

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I take the fastest fucking shower known to man, refusing to linger on it... refusing to think about him like I really want to. There's a part of me that doesn't want to wash him away. The lingering smell of him on my skin, on my clothes, in my hair. If I let myself linger on it, I'll lose my fucking mind.

More than I have already.

I'm still damp when I pull on my clothes, hair messy around my face and dripping wet and when he walks back in, I'm barefoot in front of the fridge. I'm still learning this kitchen. Nothing feels quite right. All these packaged foods and factory-made appliances.

I look over my shoulder at him, hyper aware of every fucking movement he makes, and I say, "There's coffee in the pot."

"Thanks," he murmurs, moving over to it and finding a mug by memory--hip bumping Neil's as he does.

Okay.

He pours the coffee and sips it black, leaning back against the counter and watching Neil move, his hands, the way the light is hitting the side of his face. Little things. God, you idiot. If I died on the fucking beach I would've dragged my carcass home to this regardless.

And then he thinks of the girls and fights back a wave of guilt. Because they should matter more. They should feel more real.

"Well." He smiles faintly over the rim of his mug. "Isn't this fucking domestic."

"You been married for a fuckin' year, you get kinda used to it," I admit with a cough of laughter, but even if this is something I'm used to, I can't claim that it doesn't feel strange. It's been so long, and there are so many things that aren't the way their supposed to be.

Bending down to grab a mixing bowl, I wonder if I ought to be embarrassed that I've outfitted my kitchen with things like pots and pans and mixing bowls, flour and milk and eggs, like I'll be cooking for a family, instead of just me.

I don't know if I'll ever be able to explain to him how empty this apartment feels and how much I hate the quiet.

"Think this is kinda way the fuck outside both our experience," he says softly, gaze not leaving Neil. Last night is feeling more and more dreamlike. Now he doesn't know what to make of this.

Besides being in it and seeing where it takes him.

He nods down at the bowl. "Can I do anything?"

"I think I got it," I admit, flashing him a faint grin as I scoop out the flour, a fine dust of it rising into the air when it hits the bottom of the bowl with a plop.

"Tom was always better at this than me."

"He was better than both of us at a lotta stuff," he says, returning the smile--even fainter--and looking down at his mug like it might have some insight to share with him.

"When I came from--in the Realm--he was in some deep shit. I was worried he wouldn't get out of it this time." His smile turns more wry. "I mean, now I fucking remember how he got out of it. How we got out of it together. I think. But I still wish I could be sure."

"I know," I murmur, cracking an egg into the bowl and trying not to think about how in conflict something so domestic seems, when he's talking about Tom being in danger.

"I don't like thinkin' 'bout him still bein' there."

"I know." He's silent for another few minutes, watching Neil, turning inward, thinking about Tom's face lit by a dying fire and tense with rapt concentration as his pen scratch-scratch-scratched its way across paper.

He'd hurled things at Tom to stop that noise.

"I was thinking," he says, still quiet. "Say it's true, and we're together now because we're fucking meant to be or whatever. That we were fated to be here because we're supposed to see each other again." It's almost mocking, the way he says it, and he feels briefly guilty but he still can't quite help it. He almost can't believe he'd promise such a thing. Such an impossible fucking thing.

And then delivered on it. The sheer audacity.

"Why isn't he here too?"

"I don't know," I whisper, something clinching in my gut, all sharp, brittle edges and self-pity. The two of them are supposed to be together. I'm just the one that managed to wedge myself between them for a little while. It's fucking pathetic, but there's a part of me that can't help but feel that way.

"Maybe he will be," I shrug, only half paying attention while I stir the batter, the pan on the stove and heating up.

"Yeah," he says, looking down into his mug again. He takes a swallow and barely tastes it, but the heat against the back of his throat makes him feel slightly more awake. More real.

"I can't decide if I want him here or not," he says after another minute or so. This time he doesn't look up. "That's fucking awful, right? I mean, I do. But if he didn't remember..." He does look up then, and smiles, hard and crooked. "Think you got enough to deal with, with just me around."

"I want him here," I murmur, scooping batter out onto the pan. Usually, there's something comforting in that sizzle, the warm smell of the batter cooking, but now, all it's doing is making me miss things I'll probably never have again.

"Even if he didn't remember."

"Yeah, well." For a moment something surges up in his throat and it's a little hard to breathe--it blindsides him. All of it. The fact that he's standing in this fucking kitchen.

That he got to be with Tom at all.

He sets his mug down on the counter, reaches out and lays a hand over Neil's shoulderblade. "You always were stronger than me."

His hand's warm, burning through the fabric of my t-shirt and I let out a shuddering breath, eyes welling up with tears, blurring my view of the stove.

"'s got nothin' to do with that," I say, voice hoarse to the point that it hardly sounds like mine.

"You know it does," he says, dropping his hand away again. Every second here feels a little like being skinned alive. It's just a question of degrees. "You could face it. I couldn't. You could face me. I couldn't fucking handle you. Still can't."

He pushes away from the counter and moves over to the single small window, pushing aside the shades. Outside it looks like more heat and haze.

"You trust me. You forgave me. I can't fucking do either for myself." He shoots Neil a faint smile over his shoulder. "And I'm such a great conversationalist."

"I'm pretty sure that's just me bein' fuckin' stupid," I admit with a snort of laughter, feeling suddenly colder when he moves away.

Dashing the back of my wrist across my eyes, I flip the pancakes over, clearing my throat and nodding toward the cabinet closest to him. "You mind grabbing me some plates?"

"Guess we'll see," he says softly, stepping away from the window again and clearing his throat. This is edging into the morbid.

Today--he's not sure he could honestly be happy. But maybe he could edge in that direction.

"Sure." He moves over to the counter and pulls out plates. "Same ones as me." Of course.

Coughing out a laugh, I reach out to take one of the plates from him, scooping up a stack of pancakes onto it to make room on the pan for more batter.

Handing him the bottle of syrup, real maple which was always rare on the island, I say, "They kinda look like a set we had at the bar." Not handmade like those, but the same colors.

He looks more closely at the plates as he takes the syrup from Neil and turns to set it on the kitchen table--they do, he supposes, from the vague flashes he can remember. Memories of the bar are full of odd little scraps of detail. The shine of the wood grain. The hum of a crowd of regulars. Sitting on the deck and smelling afternoon rain.

Fucking Neil in the kitchen, flour and palm oil on his hands. He grits his teeth.

"Be nice to have a place like that here. Have something to fucking do.

"Go ahead, man. Those are gonna get cold," I say to him, watching the pan on the stove so I don't have to look at him.

All I want is to fucking kiss him. It's stupid, but it's true. The fact that I can't seem to do that is driving me fucking crazy.

"Yeah, it would be. Wouldn't be the same, though. Maybe I'll just... do somethin' different. I dunno."

He glances back at Neil again, shrugs and finds forks and knives in one of the drawers, pulls out a chair and sinks down into it. In this close proximity to food, his stomach twists and he realizes just how fucking hungry he is.

When did he last even eat much of anything good? He's not sure. For the last few weeks eating has been just another thing he does to keep moving.

"Nothing's the same. Doesn't mean you couldn't still do it." Look at us.

"Yeah, but... I dunno. I kinda want to do somethin' different," I admit, my back to him but acutely aware of every single move he makes.

"Just don't got a fuckin' clue what."

"Tell you one thing you need to do," he says around a mouthful of pancakes. And then he has to pause and close his eyes, because... Jesus. It's not the best meal he's ever had, but it's real food, and fresh and hot--and it's fucking pathetic, but he can't pretend that its source makes no difference.

"You need to start fighting."

"The fuck are you talkin' 'bout?" I laugh, flipping the next batch over and glancing over my shoulder at him with a grin, forgetting for a moment how fucking hard it is just to look at him.

"You're good with the gun," he says. He's not grinning. It's harder saying this than he'd expected it to be. "But you could be better. And I'd feel better if I knew you could do some damage without it."

He sets the fork down and picks up his coffee again, looking at Neil over the rim of the mug. "This time won't be the last time shit goes to hell around here."

"So, what? Are you gonna teach me?" I ask, my grin falling but only by a fraction. Regardless, I'm not sure I'd turn it down. He's probably right, anyway.

This place isn't safe. I'm not sure the island was, either, we were just better at saying in denial.

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